# modern life (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 7 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover modern life. Page: Feed: --- ## [Random Objects in the Creative Writing Classroom](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/random-objects-in-creative-writing.html) _2026-08-22 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ I've written before about using objects as writing prompts (see this blog post for explanation and pictures). Usually I spread objects out on a table and have students pick one. We do a variety of types of writing: description, writing in the voice of the object, free associating to access memories based on the object. It works well across writing classes. In my Creative Writing class, half the… ## [Endorsed!](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/endorsed.html) _2026-08-21 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ I thought about making a Facebook post that said "Endorsed!" But most people wouldn't know what I meant--they'd rightly ask, "Endorsed by whom?" On Wednesday, I met for an Endorsement panel for Candidacy in the Southeastern Synod for the ELCA, the more inclusive expression of the Lutheran church in the U.S. I had already written a 39 page Endorsement essay, which was really 7 writing prompts,… ## [A Good Stretch of Poetry Days](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/a-good-stretch-of-poetry-days.html) _2026-08-20 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ The past few days have been a good poetry days, in a more well-rounded sense--by which I mean, I've been doing more than just writing down a line or two. Let me capture what a good stretch of poetry days looks like: --A few months ago, I had an idea for a poem, Jesus buying a fixer-upper of a house. I didn't do anything with this idea since I first had it (in late April, as evidenced by this blog… ## [Wednesday Fragments: Zoom Sessions and Wrong Pronged Plugs](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/wednesday-fragments-zoom-sessions-and.html) _2026-08-19 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ I feel a bit frazzled today. Let me record some snapshots: --I meet with my Candidacy Committee today for an Endorsement Panel. I have completed the huge writing project, and the people involved know me on some level. I'm not nervous, exactly, but I'm taking it seriously. During my upcoming walk, I'll try to anticipate questions. --The meeting is a Zoom session, but I've still given a lot of… ## [Post-Imperial Doctrine: Restructuring the Department of Defense Can Save American Social Democracy](https://solitarymind.bearblog.dev/post-imperial-doctrine-restructuring-the-department-of-defense-can-save-american-social-democracy/) _2026-08-18 · solitarymind · After the Distortion Field_ "When military strategy is decoupled from financial extraction, power ceases to be a mechanism of global domination and becomes what it was always meant to be: the calm, unshakable guardian of a free society." For nearly a century, the United States has operated under a tragic, self-defeating illusion: that domestic prosperity requires an ever-expanding global military footprint, and that security… ## [Signs and Signifiers and Keeping a Record](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/signs-and-signifiers-and-keeping-record.html) _2026-08-18 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ It's been a strange beginning to the work week. Let me record, so I don't forget. --I've been in that liminal space where it's time to settle into the semester, yet I could still delay doing that for another few days. My office hour time has been consumed by meetings and Convocation, so I have yet to get my Brightspace course shells set up. At this point, it doesn't matter, because the classes… ## [A Week-end in Books and Sermons](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/a-week-end-in-books-and-sermons.html) _2026-08-17 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ It was a good week-end, full of bread baking and writing (sermon and a poem), a good Sunday at church, and some piece work (by which I mean sewing together small scraps). We watched a lot of Hot Bench , a court TV show that is slightly smarter than all the rest, but only slightly, with the cases which are more small claims court, not life threatening types of situations. Saturday was an easier day… ## [WHAT ABOUT THE BUILDING?](https://www.witoldrybczynski.com/architecture/what-about-the-building/) _2026-08-16 · elementor · Witold Rybczynski_ The other day I was delighted to discover an Australian journal article about a country house that Romaldo Giurgola designed for himself in 2004, when he was eighty-five. As far as I know this was the first home he had designed for himself and I hoped to learn something about the house. Unfortunately the article was written by two history-theory docs. It had no proper plan, and little explanation… ## [Crazy Quilts and Not So Crazy Inspirations](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/crazy-quilts-and-not-so-crazy.html) _2026-08-16 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ I did not go back to the Asheville Quilt show yesterday, so I was so happy this morning that a quilting friend of mine made a Facebook post that included this picture of the quilt that captured my imagination, but I neglected to get a picture. photo by Theresa Blaylock Durden She also took a picture of the quilter's explanation that tells that the quilt contains ribbons and other ephemera from 4… ## [Kristin (and Jesus) at the Quilt Show](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/kristin-and-jesus-at-quilt-show.html) _2026-08-15 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Yesterday I drove home from teaching, changed clothes, and went to the Asheville Quilt Show with one of my best retreat friends. I wasn't sure what to expect. I've gone to many quilt shows, and each one is different in subtle ways. Yesterday's show was very navigable, with wide spaces in front of each quilt, so I didn't feel too crowded. People who wanted to linger wouldn't be in the way. People… ## [Transcript-Driven Stock Discovery (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/fl1J5o56HWTB) _2026-08-15 · **Sponsored**_ Ranked, evidence-backed watchlists from indexed executive transcripts for 1–2 quarter horizons ## [First Week of School: The More Things Change](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/first-week-of-school-more-things-change.html) _2026-08-14 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ It's an interesting moment in time to be teaching first year students. I mean that in a broad sense, but I also mean it in a "teaching the first week of classes during this particular week in August of 2026." Let me unpack that statement a bit: --Tuesday March 11 was our first day of classes. It was also my first day as an Associate Professor on the tenure track at Spartanburg Methodist College,… ## [Thirty-Eight Years Married](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/thirty-eight-years-married.html) _2026-08-13 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Today we celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary--38 years! It feels like just a blip. Here is one of my favorite pictures of us, a picture taken at the March 2026 wedding of our nephew, who was born in 1993: This morning in 1988, we'd have been in Greenwood, South Carolina. I'd have slept in the house that used to be a parsonage where my grandfather served a congregation for many years. Thirty… ## [Second Day of Fall Semester](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/second-day-of-fall-semester.html) _2026-08-12 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Yesterday was a good first day of class at Spartanburg Methodist College, and not just for me. Everyone I talked to yesterday mentioned the good energy on campus. Of course, the first day of a semester is usually wonderful--and fall semester is best. Yesterday was no exception. My heavy duty teaching days are Mondays and Wednesdays, so today will be a bit more structured. Yesterday I went to my… ## [Why Trimming the IT Budget is the Dumbest Move in Corporate History](https://solitarymind.bearblog.dev/why-trimming-the-it-budget-is-the-dumbest-move-in-corporate-history/) _2026-08-11 · solitarymind · After the Distortion Field_ "If the sales team stops working for a day, the company misses a target. If the IT department stops working for an hour, the enterprise literally ceases to exist... Without IT, you don't have a business." There is a quiet, low-frequency insanity at the heart of the modern corporate machine. You can spot it in any glass-walled office tower, usually around budget season. A C-suite executive—wearing… ## [First Day as Associate Professor](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/first-day-as-associate-professor.html) _2026-08-11 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ On my first day of class every year, I'm always tempted to post a picture, the way that parents post pictures of their kids as they head off to school. This year, the temptation is especially strong, as today begins a slightly different direction in my teaching life. Today is the first day that I am teaching as an Associate Professor on a tenure track. In some ways, not much will change. I'm at… ## [Balancing Work](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/balancing-work.html) _2026-08-10 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ We had a really good day at church yesterday at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee. I say this with some sense of wonder because I arrived in a grumpy mood: we left ten minutes later than I had requested, which meant I felt frazzled. I prayed for my grumpy frazzled mood to lift as I waited for my spouse to come downstairs and open the door, and happily it did with the first hymn. My sermon went… ## [Shifts for Those with Sense to See](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/shifts-for-those-with-sense-to-see.html) _2026-08-09 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ I am always intrigued by how we can see seasons shifting, long before the calendar would tell us to expect these changes. We have to learn to see with new eyes, eyes that focus on what's there, not what we're expecting to see. It's more of a shift of imagination than with our literal eyes, our literal sense: It's similar to how we can see God at work in the world--but it might mean we need to… ## [Friday Fragments: Positive Student Evaluations and Poem Creating](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/friday-fragments-positive-student.html) _2026-08-08 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Yesterday was much easier than Thursday--but that's not a surprise. Yesterday we only had one meeting, so my committed time was only one hour. Thursday was very scheduled, from 8 a.m. until 3. Let me capture yesterday: --Here's the one cool thing that stands out. We had our Humanities division meeting, and we entered the classroom door that had colored pieces of 8 x 11 paper posted around the door… ## [Trading on Suffering: The Profit Architecture of the American Prison Pipeline](https://solitarymind.bearblog.dev/trading-on-suffering-the-profit-architecture-of-the-american-prison-pipeline/) _2026-08-07 · solitarymind · After the Distortion Field_ "When incarceration becomes a revenue stream, recidivism becomes a financial asset—transforming the future of marginalized youth into predictable inventory for a corporate ledger." In contemporary America, few institutions illustrate the perversion of public justice quite like the private prison complex. What was once defined as a solemn duty of the state—the administration of justice and public… ## [Workshop Day and My New Bullet Journal](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/workshop-day-and-my-new-bullet-journal.html) _2026-08-07 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Yesterday was a good day overall, but also a bit overwhelming in understanding ways. I went from summer days when I'm around one or two people a day to a day full of humans. I went from the unstructuredness of summer days to a day of a rigid schedule. Happily, I was surrounded by other humans, my colleagues, who are delightful. I went from the free floating thinking of summer to focusing on… ## [From any door to your door (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/qzEdu9IXEeq4) _2026-08-07 · **Sponsored**_ Book rides, errands, deliveries, groceries and home help in one app ## [She Wasn’t a “She”](https://mucyokelly.substack.com/p/she-wasnt-a-she) _2026-08-06 · SPIDERMAN🕸️ · SPIDERMAN🕸️_ A story about the deceptive purple lights of SUD and why you should never trust a vibe in Kimihurura before 2 AM. ## [Back to School, Back to Hiroshima](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/back-to-school-back-to-hiroshima.html) _2026-08-06 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Yesterday was a delightful day. Today will be delightful too, although it's a full day on campus, so it will be a different kind of delightful. And I've been awake since 2, so I do worry about how tired I'll be by late afternoon. My brain started churning at 2, churning with all sorts of worries and plans. I need to sit down with a calendar and old syllabi and make some loose plans--or maybe… ## [INVISIBLE DECOR](https://www.witoldrybczynski.com/architecture/invisible-decor/) _2026-08-06 · elementor · Witold Rybczynski_ Years ago I had an unexpected satori. It occurred in the beachside clubhouse of Windsor, an upscale resort community in Florida. It was a most pleasant room, relaxed, quietly comfortable, a place to relax. I learned later that it was the work of the grande dame of New York decorators (whose name I now can’t recall). Aha, I thought, now I understand—great interior decoration is invisible. It… ## [Premature Erectile Dysfunctions: How Big Food Engineered the American Diet](https://solitarymind.bearblog.dev/premature-erectile-dysfunctions-how-big-food-engineered-the-american-diet/) _2026-08-05 · solitarymind · After the Distortion Field_ "This was not an accidental evolution of consumer preference. It was a calculated campaign that fundamentally reshaped how a nation ate by importing addiction research directly from Big Tobacco." For decades, an extraordinary shift took place across the American dining table. Entire generations were quietly convinced that the nutrient-dense, single-ingredient foods that sustained human health for… ## [Delights Planned for the Last Day of Summer and an A for Paul Class](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/delights-planned-for-last-day-of-summer.html) _2026-08-05 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ In many ways, today is my last day of summer 2026. A year ago, I'd have been going to CPE early and then driving to Williamsburg to help my parents recover from my mom's near death pneumonia hospitalization--I am so grateful that this summer's end is more mundane. Our transition to the school year is a gentle one. Tomorrow we have a very full day of teacher training and meetings. On Friday and… ## [The Confused American: Political Illiteracy in the Modern Republic](https://solitarymind.bearblog.dev/the-confused-american-citizen-political-illiteracy-in-the-modern-republic/) _2026-08-04 · solitarymind · After the Distortion Field_ "Misinformation and bad-faith rhetoric have spread so deeply through the public bloodstream that millions of citizens passionately debate concepts they cannot define, using heavyweight ideological terms with complete confidence and zero accuracy. Nobody truly knows what they are talking about anymore..." In the contemporary American political arena, discourse is increasingly defined not by… ## [What I Was Missing](https://jideehizele.substack.com/p/what-i-was-missing) _2026-08-04 · Jide Ehizele · Southeast London Psalms_ Finding the people who help us become ourselves ## [Wizards: Why Your Odd, Eccentric IT Team Keeps the Enterprise Alive](https://solitarymind.bearblog.dev/wizards-why-your-odd-eccentric-it-team-keeps-the-enterprise-alive/) _2026-08-03 · solitarymind · After the Distortion Field_ "If you cannot identify the responsible party in an outage, the responsible party is usually whoever is on PTO." In the modern corporate enterprise, there exists a quiet, surreal paradox: the smoother a company runs, the less anyone notices the human engine keeping it operational. Behind every seamless single sign-on screen, pristine spreadsheet, and functioning VPN lies an IT department working… ## [Late Summer in One Picture](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/late-summer-in-one-picture.html) _2026-08-03 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ This picture captures certain elements of the last half of summer: I'm thrilled that so many people are so engaged with The Odyssey . I won't go to the movie, probably, for many reasons, but I'm glad people are going. Maybe in a future year, we can get the story of Penelope or maybe Mary Magdalene, women left behind. We haven't had that many days of low humidity and lower heat, so this picture… ## [Part II: The Day I Escorted My Girlfriend Down the Aisle](https://mucyokelly.substack.com/p/part-ii-the-day-i-escorted-my-girlfriend) _2026-08-02 · SPIDERMAN🕸️ · SPIDERMAN🕸️_ Yeah, 'Cause Girls Are Players Too ## [Earn crypto from idle GPUs (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/k7POWA5FKTuy) _2026-08-02 · **Sponsored**_ Run one CLI command, connect your GPU, and start receiving crypto payouts. ## [No Sealey Challenge for Me--But a Different Daily Poetry Challenge?](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/no-sealey-challenge-for-me-but.html) _2026-08-02 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ For one brief moment yesterday morning, I thought about doing the Sealey Challenge: reading 1 volume of poetry each day in August. I've only done it once in the past, so yesterday morning, I went back and read the blog posts that I wrote in 2020; this post talks about the overall experience, and this one talks about photos I used when making my Facebook posts. Some people have posted their daily… ## [The Hinge Festival of Lammas](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-hinge-festival-of-lammas.html) _2026-08-01 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Early August is a hinge point in the calendar. In some ways, it's not as obvious a hinge as the autumnal equinox or the summer solstice; in fact, it's the time directly between those two hinges--we're as far away from the start of summer as we are from the start of autumn. But in some ways, it's just as significant a point of seasonal shift. If we lived in medieval England, we would be celebrating… ## [Moving to the Tenure Track](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/07/moving-to-tenure-track.html) _2026-07-31 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ A week from now, I'll be beginning the next chapter of my teaching life. In some ways, it won't be that different from what I've already done. It's not the drastic change that I experienced going from teaching to administration. A week from now, I'm back on campus as an Associate Professor on the tenure track, not as an adjunct, not as a year-to-year lecturer. My teaching load will be lighter: 4… ## [Adventures in Reading Outside of the House](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/07/adventures-in-reading-outside-of-house.html) _2026-07-30 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ I began the day, the outside of the house part of the day, at the dentist's office yesterday morning for an 8 a.m. appointment. I brought a book, Francine Prose's Five Weeks in the Country . By the end of the visit, after 29 pages, I decided that I was already dreading having to finish the book--the grown up characters in the book are SO odious. I reminded myself--you don't have to read any… ## [Tornado Warning with Biopsy Results (Skin Cancer, Nothing Too Scary)](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/07/tornado-warning-with-biopsy-results.html) _2026-07-29 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ I was keeping an eye on the weather yesterday--but then again, I'm often keeping an eye on the weather. In the late afternoon, the sky got dark, sunset dark, but we were far away from sunset. The thunderstorm watch was upgraded to a warning, and the wind picked up. I plugged in my phone; I wanted to have a full charged phone, just in case we might be about to lose power for while. I saw the… ## [The Day I Escorted My Girlfriend Down the Aisle](https://mucyokelly.substack.com/p/the-day-i-escorted-my-girlfriend) _2026-07-28 · SPIDERMAN🕸️ · SPIDERMAN🕸️_ I need you to sit with me for a minute before I tell you this story. ## [An American Essay: The Man Who Found His Way Back](https://solitarymind.bearblog.dev/an-american-essay-the-man-who-found-his-way-back/) _2026-07-28 · solitarymind · After the Distortion Field_ “This piece is for the men stepping out of youth and into themselves. For those crossing twenty five, thirty, and forty, feeling the old masks loosen and the real self begin to rise. It is a reflection on the quiet turning that happens inside a man, and the long road he walks to finally return to who he truly is.” -Samurais in the Garden There comes a time in a man’s life, somewhere between the… ## [Car Inspections and Jesus Rewiring a Fixer-Upper](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/07/car-inspections-and-jesus-rewiring.html) _2026-07-28 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Yesterday was one of those days when maintenance tasks went more smoothly than anticipated. It's almost August, the time for car safety inspections so that the annual car registration can be paid--in time to do the payments by mail, because the in-person process is a nightmare, only superseded by getting an NC driver's license. I try to do the safety inspections early because both cars are older… ## [The Antithesis: Why Freenet and Serverless Networks Are Reclaiming Digital Sovereignty](https://solitarymind.bearblog.dev/the-antithesis-why-freenet-and-serverless-networks-are-reclaiming-digital-sovereignty/) _2026-07-27 · solitarymind · After the Distortion Field_ "When a platform owns the servers, it owns the user. Turning what was once an open digital frontier into a high-tech panopticon where privacy is surrendered in exchange for convenience." It is a bizarre, daily ritual of modern life: logging into an account to perform a basic administrative task, only to be ambushed by a corporate prompt asking to hand over full control of all personal data to an… ## [Last Full Week of Summer](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/07/last-full-week-of-summer.html) _2026-07-27 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ This week is my last full week of summer. Of course, it's not exactly summer in its no-working glory, the way that some might assume. I'm still teaching 2 online classes for Broward College; a week ago, I'd be turning in grades for the 2 online classes I taught at Spartanburg Methodist College. I'm still a part-time minister at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee. I've had academic work to do as… ## [Two Cooks, One Skull](https://allthingsfood.substack.com/p/two-cooks-one-skull) _2026-07-26 · Geetika · Ayurveda in Modern Life_ A Classically Trained Chef Learns Ayurveda. Chaos Ensues — At First. ## [Surviving the Friendship Circle](https://mucyokelly.substack.com/p/surviving-the-friendship-circle) _2026-07-26 · SPIDERMAN🕸️ · SPIDERMAN🕸️_ Let's look at the actual mathematics of a Kigali friend group: it is not a brotherhood. ## [The Feast Day of Saint James](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-feast-day-of-saint-james.html) _2026-07-25 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Today we celebrate the life of James, one of the 12 disciples, the first to be martyred (Acts 12:1 tells us by Herod's sword). He's known as James the Greater (to distinguish him from James the Lesser, James the son of Alphaeus). He's the brother of John. He was one of the first to join Jesus, and Jesus chose him to go up the mountain to witness the Transfiguration. He is the patron saint of… ## [Getting the Band Back Together](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/07/getting-band-back-together.html) _2026-07-24 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Yesterday I spent much of the day shopping and getting ready for our South Florida church friend's arrival for dinner--which is odd since I wasn't buying food for dinner. But it was that time of year when it was time to restock on basic pantry staples and over the counter meds and such. I spent far too much time trying to think about what would be best for dinner. In some ways, I was lucky: my… ## [More Late Summer Gratitudes](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/07/more-late-summer-gratitudes.html) _2026-07-23 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Two weeks from today, I'll be getting ready to drive down to Spartanburg for a day of meetings, faculty workshops, and not just one but two meals. Those of you who have never worked in a place with a day of meetings and faculty "development," but no food or coffee provided may not understand why I am so happy and grateful to be in a place where we get food along with our trainings and meetings.… ## [Poems for the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/07/poems-for-feast-day-of-mary-magdalene.html) _2026-07-22 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Today is the feast day of Mary Magdalene. If you came here hoping for a historical and theological and feminist type blog post, I wrote that type of blog post for my theology blog, which you can read here . This morning, I'm thinking of Mary Magdalene and the way she has appeared in poetry. My favorite is Marie Howe's Magdalene is my favorite, both the book and the individual poem, "Magdalene--The… ## [Sedated: The Wizard of Oz and the Pre-Industrial Surveillance State](https://solitarymind.bearblog.dev/sedated-the-wizard-of-oz-and-the-pre-industrial-surveillance-state/) _2026-07-21 · solitarymind · After the Distortion Field_ "If we fail to recognize who these central systems truly serve, and if we forfeit our capacity to pull back the curtain and think for ourselves, we surrender our freedom to the very mechanisms built to control us." The enduring tale of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is far more than a whimsical children’s fantasy; it is a sharp, deliberate political critique written at the dawn of the 20th century. L.… ## [Last Weeks of Summer](http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2026/07/last-weeks-of-summer.html) _2026-07-21 · Kristin Berkey-Abbott · Kristin Berkey-Abbott_ Three weeks from today, my onground classes start at Spartanburg Methodist College; it will be both similar and different for me. It will be my 3rd year of full-time work at the college, after 1 year of adjunct work, but the beginning of the tenure track for me. I'll write more about that in a few weeks. I wish I could say that our plans to be in our fixer-upper house in Spartanburg are on… ## [iDreams become iNightmares: Early Silicon Valley’s Idealism Begat Our Connected Dystopia](https://solitarymind.bearblog.dev/idreams-become-inightmares-early-silicon-valleys-idealism-begat-our-connected-dystopia/) _2026-07-17 · solitarymind · After the Distortion Field_ "To reclaim our digital lives, we must look past the polished corporate facades and recognize our devices for what they have become under the current regime of data capitalism. Reversing this catastrophe requires us to channel the original, rebellious spirit of early Silicon Valley." Long before the smartphone became an inescapable, hyper-monetized appendage of modern life, a small group of… ## [We Designed a World That Can't Measure Meaning](https://jideehizele.substack.com/p/we-designed-a-world-that-cant-measure) _2026-07-17 · Jide Ehizele · Southeast London Psalms_ How "neutral" systems quietly teach us how to live