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Constitutional Amendment XXVIII :
Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.
👀👀
A traditional Catholic calendar and diagram of the Summa Theologica by Aquinas are my two largest projects.
My favorite thing about art is connecting with people when they give my work as gifts. See both projects in this thread, or here in my shop:
📦 owen-cyclops.myshopify.com
EJ Preston retweeted
Not only do people believe it, they’ve died for it
yes, to be contrarian. but obviously no one, even a "devout Catholic," which is what O'Connor called herself, seriously believes that the communion wafer isn't a wafer.
if you even believed that the wafer was soaked in someone's actual DNA, you would not want to take it into your mouth & let it melt on your tongue.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Flannery O'Connor did not believe the Eucharist was merely "symbolic" or "metaphorical," contrary to Oates' claim. O'Connor repeatedly stated the Catholic belief that although the wafer has the physical qualities ("accidents") of bread, its true substance is Jesus Christ.
eucharisticcongress.org/post/american-…
usccb.org/resources/The_…
This confirms my personal experience as a prayer lead at my parish
Pew finds the only cohorts where men pray daily at a higher rate than women are the two youngest cohorts. That number is also much higher for the youngest men than men born in the 80s and 90s. pewresearch.org/religion/202…
Happy All Saints! 🙏
Who’s your patron saint? Technically I landed on Maximus the Confessor for confirmation, but ol’ Francis is very dear to my heart ❤️
EJ Preston retweeted
We were honestly dying laughing at the CLT office when this Atlantic article dropped. We knew the Johns Hopkins Study was coming the next day, a study that empirically proved the new SAT is a total joke. Notice they critique our math without even mentioning we are the only test that doesn’t allow for a calculator. It is so dishonest. Everyone with basic knowledge of the three tests knows CLT is the hardest, this is not a debate. Talk to students, 100% of them will tell you the same thing.
This article was about Tuesday’s election and following the Hopkins study it has now done unimaginable damage to The Atlantic’s reputation. This article proves why outlets like the Free Press are experiencing massive growth while The Atlantic is struggling for subscribers.
The Classic Learning Test is trying to replace the SAT and ACT, @rosehorowitch writes. She reports on why red states are adopting the CLT at an astonishing rate—and why the test may be lowering standards for students: theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1…
EJ Preston retweeted
Tell Sam Altman that I use my 64GB of RAM to run print("Hello, World!"). I want him to know it's me.
EJ Preston retweeted
One fun thing about aging is that you get to see your memories described as impossible fantasy.
I definitely had to read a book/ week as an English major.
We really did roam the neighborhood without adults.
These are not nostalgic fantasies. They were normal life.
EJ Preston retweeted
To all the close reading gurus out there - a conundrum :
For the better part of a year now I’ve been immersed in multiple close reading discussion groups. We’ve covered a variety of texts, mostly philosophic but because of their antiquity they’re often simultaneously what we would today call science, AKA natural philosophy.
I’m also immersed in what is, for the most part thus far, a more so classical model for my formal education - history, the author’s personal experience, prevailing thought of the era, etc. are all considered when analyzing texts and asking questions. Context is often king.
I’ve come to find that both approaches have their merits!
However I’ve also noticed a potentially severe issue - the close reading approach doesn’t seem equipped to answer one of the most critical questions we can ask an important text : why?
Why did the author write the text?
Why did the author come to their point of view?
Why do we still study said author and text?
Why did the era in which the author lived lead them to their views?
There’s significantly more questions one could ask in this regard, ones that could start with a “what” even, and it seems like countless of these types of questions simply cannot be answered with a close reading approach that eschews context, history, and the reader’s existing prior knowledge.
What’s the close reading response to these types of questions? Surely it’s not “they don’t matter”, because A) that’s preposterous and B) understanding how our environment shapes our ideas is of critical value.
Close reading advocates, help a brother out! ❤️
To all the close reading gurus out there - a conundrum :
For the better part of a year now I’ve been immersed in multiple close reading discussion groups. We’ve covered a variety of texts, mostly philosophic but because of their antiquity they’re often simultaneously what we would today call science, AKA natural philosophy.
I’m also immersed in what is, for the most part thus far, a more so classical model for my formal education - history, the author’s personal experience, prevailing thought of the era, etc. are all considered when analyzing texts and asking questions. Context is often king.
I’ve come to find that both approaches have their merits!
However I’ve also noticed a potentially severe issue - the close reading approach doesn’t seem equipped to answer one of the most critical questions we can ask an important text : why?
Why did the author write the text?
Why did the author come to their point of view?
Why do we still study said author and text?
Why did the era in which the author lived lead them to their views?
There’s significantly more questions one could ask in this regard, ones that could start with a “what” even, and it seems like countless of these types of questions simply cannot be answered with a close reading approach that eschews context, history, and the reader’s existing prior knowledge.
What’s the close reading response to these types of questions? Surely it’s not “they don’t matter”, because A) that’s preposterous and B) understanding how our environment shapes our ideas is of critical value.
Close reading advocates, help a brother out! ❤️
EJ Preston retweeted
This isn’t new! Ancient philosophers like Socrates and Epictetus wrote NOTHING. It is only thanks to their dedicated students like Plato and Arrian that we can read anything they taught today!
No, it’s not “reading”. It actually harkens back to something much older than reading: oral teaching and storytelling.
Oral storytelling in particular is a noble part of every culture in the world. It’s how most people bonded with friends and family as children, especially in times of limited literacy.
Much older than reading!
