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Shelly Penton

@plaidsilk.bsky.social
844 followers 665 following 1.6K posts

Religious Studies, ABD. Vanderbilt–>UChicago–>University of Virginia. Skeets my own.

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Reposted by Shelly Penton
southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Yes having our fertilizer shipped from a Russian proxy dictator half the world away is surely a better way to arrange things than getting it from our democratic, once-friendly neighbor here in the North America
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LPE Blog @lpeblog.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
How much autonomy does politics have from the prevailing economic order? And what role does culture play in shaping politics? Today, Jed Purdy reflects on law’s potential role in advancing democratic efforts to shape the terms of common life.
lpeproject.org
Politics, Culture, and Capitalism
How much autonomy does politics have from the prevailing economic order? And what role does culture play in shaping politics? Answers to these questions will help determine law’s potential role in…
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Night of the Abigail @popeguilty.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I was vaguely aware that Ireland had spent the last decade or so welcoming in tax-dodging US tech firms but this is way worse than I'd realized in terms of pure nihilistic capture
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Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
today for the first time one of my parents asked how many followers I have on socials so I was like probably over 100k altogether and then we had the most vintage Parents moment where mom was like well I hope you're making a good impression & dad was like why the hell do 100k ppl care what you think
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It's the time of year again. Get your family their flu and covid vaccines!
health.yahoo.com
Flu And COVID Vaccines This Season — Here’s Who Needs Them, And When
Flu and COVID vaccines were both reformulated for 2026-2027. Here advice from a doctor regarding who should get them and why, and the timing that maximizes protection.
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Brian Eason @brianeason.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
DraftKings used AI to target problem gamblers, and suppressed internal efforts to use the same technology to protect people with addiction By strict financial logic, “the best investment would be a problem gambler.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/19/b...
nytimes.com
How DraftKings Uses A.I. to Target the Gamblers Likeliest to Lose (Gift Article)
Data science helps determine who receives betting incentives, but the company has resisted using similar technology to protect gamblers at risk of addiction.
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Our political culture and bureaucracy functions this way, incredibly uncritically. But our founding ideology and documents assume the opposite and go out of their way to prevent despotism with checks and balances. A strong allergy to authoritarianism is the American ideal.
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It would be nice if tech billionaires and their political mouthpieces read sci-fi and dystopian lit for anything other than role models.
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I can't stress this enough: the number generally is *okay*. The discrepancy in how it falls on certain people makes the economy feel *worse*. I don't think that the OP in this case knows how to take details like that into account. I mean, ffs, women lost 9,000 jobs in July and men *gained.*
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Annie Dillard, Death shaking the claw machine meme, etc.
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Indie Book Spotlight @bookspotlight.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Trust your gut, fam. It’s like when an art slopper has ‘no AI’ in their bio to get commissions but is then pedalling AI bullshit. If you sense AI, screenshot and receipt everything and contact someone knowledgeable for a second opinion. At this point, all we have is each other.
static.klipy.com
Erika Jayne Girardi: Here's The Receipt RHOBH
Alt: Erika Jayne Girardi: Here's The Receipt
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Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It's been a little over six months since the Iran War started. Think about all the times you've needed money for something. Rent, medicine, food, things for the kids, etc. What could you have done with $1,760 in the past six months? www.cnbc.com/2026/09/16/o...
cnbc.com
Consumers hit by one-two punch of oil and rates from Iran war. The estimated bill is $1,700 per household
Rising oil prices and Treasury yields are lifting energy and borrowing costs for U.S. households, pushing consumers to draw more heavily on savings.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Uhhh
Article by Samuel Perry entitled "Cognitive Ability and Christian Nationalism"
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The Dude @jurisdudence.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Ask the right questions in the right sequence and you could get Trump to admit out loud to believing just about anything. I’ve long insisted this was true because of how stupid he is and how severe his narcissism is.
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Kate Holden @darthmongoose.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The original version of this was posted on my FAisDM (felicitousArtisan is Darth Mongoose) Tumblr many years ago. I drew it at about 11pm right before going to bed, trying to express something I felt about art. When I woke up it kinda blew up.
Flowchart drawn by Kate Holden in orange, aliases lines reads:
HOW TO BE ANARTIST.
Make some art.-> Does it look terrible? 1. YEAH 2. NO (both lives lead to thesame conclusion box) -> You are an artist -> Make more art
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Lisa Schiff @lschiff.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Great piece about the failure of #HigherEducation institutional "leadership" in the face of Trump's attacks. The answer? Organize where each of us are at, but also build connections & coalition. The latter has felt hard, but in my view, it's essential. www.liberalcurrents.com/bending-the-...
liberalcurrents.com
Bending the Knee at Yale
Why is it that Maurie McInnis and her fellow elites crumbled so instantaneously?
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Defence Scheme Enjoyer 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇬🇱🇲🇽🇵🇸 @maxp94.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I have stumbled across the most zoomer coded statement it is possible to imagine. Completely in the wild.
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
These are all good, but the 1920s one is gold.
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Patrick Iber @patrickiber.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I'm fielding requests from prospective Ph.D. students, and maybe you are too. Over the summer, I wrote this guide for students in History: including 1) don't do it; 2) if you must do it, this is how the process works and how to prepare your application patrickiber.org/2026/06/24/a...
patrickiber.org
A guide to preparing a Ph.D. application in History
Applying to graduate school is something that likely only happens once in a lifetime, and so almost no one doing it has experience in the process. The goal of this post is to help demystify the pro…
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Tesla in front of me today with a bumper sticker that read, "We hate him, too."
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 09/09/2026
NEW: Our analysis found that from 2020 to 2025, the rate of deaths involving ectopic pregnancies nearly doubled compared with the previous six-year period. The uptick was steeper in states with abortion bans.
propublica.org
Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths Have Nearly Doubled. It’s Worse in States With Abortion Bans.
With prompt and appropriate medical care, experts say, people shouldn’t die from an ectopic pregnancy. Women in Texas and Oklahoma have sued over delays in care, which, coupled with our new analysis, ...
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 03/09/2026
"I just have other interests, I guess, apart from politics. Did I tell you I’m working with the PTA in the school library to remove any books with objectionable content as I define it?" buff.ly/XpCbDuw
mcsweeneys.net
I’m Your Friend Who Just Doesn’t “Do Politics”
“I just have other interests, I guess, apart from politics. Did I tell you I’m working with the PTA in the school library to remove any books with objectiona...
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
The cavernous gulf of talent between Dolly Parton and JK Rowling is immense and unbridgeable. The moral abyss even moreso.
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Alexander Luckmann @aluckmann.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
#288: Ludwig Albert Johanneskirche, Köln-Brück (1937)
A dark photo of a small sanctuary with movable chairs either side of a central aisle. The choir is large and raised by three steps; there's a large area in front of the altar, hich is set back into what appears to a rectangular apse. A cross hangs above the altar. Photo via Evangelische Kirche Brück-Merheim, https://www.brueck-merheim.de/johanneskirche/A whitewashed stone church behind a small plaza. The church has an irregular gable like that of a hayloft and three small, round-arched windows above a wide round-arched door. To the right is a more recent roof with large window, and on the far right is a perfectly round tower with a flat roof topped by a cross. Photo by Chris06 via Wikimedia CommonsThe rear of the church, showing it in a green setting. Photo by Ingrid Odenthal via Google Images
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
An ICE officer shot a man and then lied about everything in an official investigation. Now Texas Republican officials are shielding him from extradition to stand trial in Minnesota because they believe ICE officers are entitled to absolute immunity for violent crimes against US citizens.
apnews.com
ICE officer charged in Minneapolis shooting released in Texas after immediate extradition rejected
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer charged with shooting a man and lying about it during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis has been released from a Texas jail after a judge refused ...
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Preeti Chhibber @runwithskizzers.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Anyone who AIs Dolly Parton for any reason is going to hell
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
So proud of my brother for having produced this documentary about Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library that made clear the scope of one of Dolly’s many precious gifts to our world.
knoxnews.com
Nick Geidner on producing Imagination Library documentary, "The Library that Dolly Built"
Nick Geidner on the motivation to produce the documentary "The Library that Dolly Built," a documentary on Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.
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Aubrey Gilleran @aubreygilleran.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Dolly Parton showed me what Christians should and could be, and that's one of the reasons I still am one.
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
May her memory sustain us.
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Laura Jedeed @laurajedeed.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Five years ago today, cops and militia types encouraged a 17-year old with a 9th grade education to wander into a riot with an AR-15 A man prematurely released from inpatient care for his 2nd suicide attempt in 2 months chased him into a parking lot The man lunged for the rifle. The kid shot him
I

Childhood in Tennessee - Runs away - New Orleans - Fights - Is shot - To Galveston - Nacogdoches - The Reverend Green - Judge Holden - An affray - Toadvine - Burning of the hotel - Escape.

S ee the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that har- bor yet a few last wolves. His folk are known for hewers of wood and drawers of water but in truth his father has been a schoolmas- ter. He lies in drink, he quotes from poets whose names are now lost. The boy crouches by the fire and watches him.

Night of your birth. Thirty-three. The Leonids they were called. God how the stars did fall. I looked for blackness, holes in the heavens. The Dipper stove.

The mother dead these fourteen years did incubate in her own bosom the creature who would carry her off. The father never speaks her name, the child does not know it. He has a sis- ter in this world that he will not see again. He watches, pale and unwashed. He can neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence. All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man.
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Rivaling the reigning champion Elon Musk for amount of utterly divorced guy energy
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Fact Check: True
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
White evangelical Christians care about what Christ wants you to care about challenge: impossible
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Just show headlines tracking their corruption and end with this
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
It isn’t true that most American Jews tie their entire identities to Israel, and Piker should know that. But also, if he really believes current political discourse makes antisemitism worse, that should be a case for taking it more seriously. For him, it’s an excuse not to take it seriously.
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Andrew @tjsleakyroof.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
nah sorry man you have to meet with at least one local constituent during your time in office before anyone pretends to give a shit about your letters
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Tim Walker @twalk.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
“A gray banker ... has stood up and said that there’s more to life than a little bit of money. The power of that recognition alone, at this moment in history, cannot be overstated. Mr. Trump’s world — a world of transaction and submission — is not the only world we all have to live in.”
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Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 24/08/2026
It's the "Farmers, Vote For Anybody Other Then Republicans" Challenge! Challenge level: impossible.
nytimes.com
Farmers Struggle to Get Basic Services From Depleted Agriculture Dept. (Gift Article)
After the departure of thousands of federal workers, rural communities report problems obtaining loans, grants, technical assistance and support for infrastructure and other services.
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Your fave's fave @actually.roiskinda.cool · 24/08/2026
I think people expect the collapse to look like the Walking Dead and not a US town not having power for two weeks.
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Stoned Feminist 👻 Spooky Version @ladylinds.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Spiderman kicking some nazi ass. The nazis are cowering in the bed of the pickup truck as Spiderman comes from above with his fist cocked back
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Damon Young @damonyoung.com.au · 24/08/2026
I don’t see much good news nowadays, but this discovery has me *grinning*. An Egyptian mummy was found with THE ILIAD on its abdomen. Not some religious scripture, but Homer’s epic poem. It dates from from Egypt’s Roman period, so roughly sixteen centuries ago.
cnn.com
Egyptian mummy unearthed with literary text on abdomen in first ever find | CNN
Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt have unearthed a mummy with a passage from Homer’s “Iliad” stuck to its abdomen, in a first-of-its-kind discovery.
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George Pearkes @peark.es · 24/08/2026
Normal Men absolutely bodied here.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
"Yes, I'm still patronizing the social media site run by the white nationalist billionaire who vocally supports murdering immigrants, but you see, I have to go there for news about this minor league baseball team I like. I have no choice. I'm powerless here."
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Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
“if we don’t stand up for the free speech of racists, it puts everyone’s free speech in danger.” - guy who only ever talks about free speech when it’s racism
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Schooley @schooley.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
One thing Ossoff is showing that you can hold pretty normie Dem positions but still campaign like you can read the room and understand the high stakes of this election. People are incredulous and angry at what’s happening, maybe common ground is a necessity later but nobody wants to hear that now.
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Dave Against The Machine🏴 @johnbrownbread.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
lmao
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed & @AbdulElS... •4h g Natalie, I think he's had a little too much iPad for the week. He needs his rest.
Acyn @ @Acyn.18h
Trump on El-Sayed: He recently campaigned with a communist fanatic who says that America deserved 9/11
cc
Terrible what's going on in Illinois.
But in Michigan, the Democrat
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Mauricio Sellmann Oliveira @mausellmoli.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
The guy was running an academic scam, which would apparently go undetected had he not accused someone else of running an academic scam.
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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
I don't usually like to share things like this, but people need to see it. We are all complicit.
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