Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

B.S.W. Barootes

@barootes.bsky.social

A query for my DOE and general Early English scholar friends:

Are the Trinity Homilies (Trinity Coll. B.14.52) considered OLD ENGLISH? They're cited in the MED, too.... They're 12th-c, right?

Bit confused here. (I blame Richard Morris, in part.)

November 23, 2025 at 12:04 AM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Senator Paula Simons 🇨🇦

@senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social

I am pretty sure that when Merv Leitch and Peter Lougheed first created the notwithstanding clause, they didn’t mean it to be deployed to bully and oppress literal school children. #ableg #abpoli #TransRightsAreHumanRights #Alberta #notwithstandingclause

Alberta to invoke notwithstanding clause to shield 3 transgender bills from court challenges | CBC News

The Alberta government has tabled legislation that seeks to invoke the notwithstanding clause to shield a suite of bills that affects transgender youth and adults from legal challenges.

www.cbc.ca

November 18, 2025 at 10:16 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Acyn

@acyn.bsky.social

AOC: Should this AI bubble pop, we should not be entertaining a bailout of these corporations while healthcare is being denied to Americans and SNAP is being denied to Americans —

November 18, 2025 at 10:02 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Sonja Drimmer

@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social

Indeed we are!

Yael Rice @yaelrice.bsky.social · 4d

UMass-Amherst is hiring “a specialist in the visual arts, architecture, and/or material culture of the Islamic world” !
careers.umass.edu/amherst/en-u...

Details - Assistant Professor - History of Art & Architecture | Human Resources | UMass Amherst

careers.umass.edu

November 18, 2025 at 11:03 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Chris Turner

@theturner.bsky.social

Let’s be clear on this: Danielle Smith is ripping up the Charter of Rights & Freedoms to take away rights from the most vulnerable people in Alberta. And she’s doing it to protect herself from the militant wing of her own party, nothing more. Hope it’s all she’s ever remembered for in the long run

The Globe and Mail @theglobeandmail.com · 4d

Alberta invokes notwithstanding clause on three bills affecting trans and gender-diverse youth

Legislation limits gender-affirming care and bans trans participation in womens’ and girls’ sports, among other stipulations

www.theglobeandmail.com

November 18, 2025 at 11:40 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Yael Rice

@yaelrice.bsky.social

UMass-Amherst is hiring “a specialist in the visual arts, architecture, and/or material culture of the Islamic world” !
careers.umass.edu/amherst/en-u...

Details - Assistant Professor - History of Art & Architecture | Human Resources | UMass Amherst

careers.umass.edu

November 18, 2025 at 10:48 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Anthony Oliveira

@meakoopa.bsky.social

AI slop now making up saccharine Bible verses that do not exist

HOLY BIBLE
Holy Bible ©
@Holy_Bible1
Follow
Matthew 18:19
MATTHEW 18:19
"He prayed for her, she prayed for him and God smiled knowing that their names are already written next to each other."

July 9, 2025 at 4:59 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Ana Marie Cox

@anamariecox.bsky.social

From this minister's op-ed: "People wanting to experience God are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview, Illinois, ICE facility than we ever were in church...God does not live in our houses of worship, but...with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment."

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 8d

Oh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:

November 14, 2025 at 9:38 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Dale Smith

@journodale.bsky.social

Alberta premier says loss of measles elimination status concerning, urges vigilance
www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

November 14, 2025 at 11:30 PM

B.S.W. Barootes

@barootes.bsky.social

I'm grading (probably) my favourite HEL assignment right now, "The Roots of the Mountain: An Etymological and Lexicographic Assignment," and the words the students have selected are great:

Evil
Discourse
Gross
Travel
Pirate
Film
Girl

and more

November 14, 2025 at 2:37 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Ian Linkletter

@linkletter.org

I have been dreaming of this day for over five years. Proctorio’s lawsuit against me is forever over. I’ve won my life back!

linkletter.org/update-33-th...

Update #33: The lawsuit is over! | Stand Against Proctorio's SLAPP!

linkletter.org

November 13, 2025 at 11:49 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Victor Ray

@victorerikray.bsky.social

If you have to get permission to teach in your area of expertise from people who are definitionally not qualified to adjudicate your expertise then you are no longer working at a university.

You’re working at a state propaganda factory.

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 9d

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M adopts policy requiring professors to get OK from school president to discuss certain race and gender issues.

November 13, 2025 at 11:48 PM

B.S.W. Barootes

@barootes.bsky.social

A good little crew of excited students here at MUN-Grenfell watching the Kemble Lecture live from Trinity College Dublin

November 13, 2025 at 5:31 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Dale Smith

@journodale.bsky.social

He is incapable of self-reflection. He prides himself on being the exact same person he was at age 17.

National Newswatch @nationalnewswatch.com · 10d

Poilievre says no reflection on his leadership style following floor crossing and resignation www.ctvnews.ca/politics/art...

Poilievre says no reflection on his leadership style following floor crossing and resignation

In his first media availability since two MPs quit his caucus, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he plans to continue leading the party as he has been.

www.ctvnews.ca

November 12, 2025 at 7:40 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Whitney Trettien

@whitneytrettien.bsky.social

Holy shit, just learned about the typewriter art of Montserrat Alberich Escardívol, a Catalan typist. Using an extra wide typewriter and 180 color ribbons, she built up elaborate images from simple characters like 'm' and '.' and ';'. Here is her typewritten painting of the Cathedral of Barcelona.

Full-color image of the Cathedral of Barcelona, composed on a typewriter by Montserrat Alberich Escardívol. Image from WikiMedia.

November 12, 2025 at 4:19 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar.com

AOC: "It is unconscionable that what we are debating right now is legislation that will give 8 senators over $1 million a piece & we're robbing people of their food assistance & healthcare to pay for it. How can we vote to enrich ourselves by stealing from the American people?"

November 12, 2025 at 10:39 PM

B.S.W. Barootes

@barootes.bsky.social

Highly recommend!

My month as a Sassoon Fellow was a highlight of my academic career.

Richard Ovenden @richove.bsky.social · 10d

There is still time to apply for one of our 50+ Visiting Fellowships @bodleian.ox.ac.uk for the 2026-27 academic year! A vibrant interdisciplinary research centre in the heart of one of the world’s great libraries!

Bodleian Libraries @bodleian.ox.ac.uk · 10d

VISITING FELLOWSHIPS: Applications are now open for 2026-27!

The deadline for applications is Friday 28 November 2025.

For more information on how to apply: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/csb/fellowships/bodleian-visiting-fellowships

November 12, 2025 at 4:50 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

John Lingan

@johnlingan.bsky.social

Happy 80th birthday to Neil Young, an Olympian figure and the subject of some of the funniest quotes in BACKBEATS thanks to his tempestuous relationship with Kenny Buttrey.

“Neil hires some of the best musicians in the world and has 'em play as stupid as they possibly can.”

Neil Young was among the folk rockers to follow Dylan's lead to Music City. He was still largely known as a crunchy electric guitarist at that point; he used distortion to signify joy and abandon on
"Cinnamon Girl" and heartbreak on "Ohio." But his recent songs had been written during extensive physical recovery, like Dylan's had been, and were calmer for it. Buttrey, along with Tim Drummond on bass, Jack Nitzsche on piano, and Ben Keith on pedal steel, became Young's Nashville band, which he dubbed the Stray Gators.
Harvest, the record they made together, was Young's biggest in every way. It featured a full orchestra on multiple tracks, two career-defining singles ("Old Man" and "Heart of Gold," his first number 1), guest background vocalists Ronstadt and James Taylor, and some of his best songwriting, particularly the straightforwardly country title track. Buttrey helped Young achieve that, even if their relationship was hardly chummy.
"Neil tells everybody what to play, note for note," Buttrey said later. "If you play somethin' he doesn't like, boy, he'll put a look on you you'll never forget. Neil hires some of the best musicians in the world and has 'em play as stupid as they possibly can."

Young told Buttrey not to play cymbals, and to hit his hi-hats with his nondominant left hand. Everything about Neil Young was defiant— his overdriven guitar tones, his nasal high tenor, the mix of unaffected directness and inscrutable poeticism in his lyrics. And that extended to his sense of rhythm. The prehistoric stomp of his work with Crazy Horse, like his distinctive hammer-on acoustic guitar style, was all about riding a groove, and the ambitious productions of Harvest didn't get in the way of that goal. "Out on the Weekend" and especially "Harvest" have a methodical, subdued gait that comes directly from Young's strumming, not the drums, as Buttrey acknowledged. The strings of Young's guitar fill the spaces where cymbals would otherwise go.
"It's just ultra-, ultra-simple, a laidback kinda thing nobody but Neil does, and if you're right with him it sounds great, and it sounds awful if you're not," Buttrey explained. "If I can't see Neil's right hand when he's playin' guitar, then I'm not playing. His rhythm playing is just perfect—it'll feel like he's slowing down, but it's just the Neil Young feel. No drummer should ever hold Neil to a certain tempo, because if you put a metronome on it, you kill the Neil Young feel."

After the success of Harvest, Young brought the Stray Gators on a 1973 tour, the first time Buttrey had allowed himself to be lured out of the studio and on the road. Supposedly the drummer requested an exorbitant payment of $100,000 to offset his lost record-making wages, which prompted the other musicians to ask the same. The anger never abated between Buttrey and Young, who was also reeling from the recent overdose death of his friend and Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten.
Increasingly reliant on tequila to calm his nerves, playing in bigger venues than ever before, and bereft of his harder-rocking backing group, Young was at his wits end through this tour and took it out on Buttrey.
"Neil would just jump all over me," Buttrey said. Young kept hectoring him to hit the bass drum harder and get bigger sticks, and Buttrey kept buying thicker and thicker ones until a music store

clerk told him, "Son, anything bigger than this is gonna have bark on it." Young once got so angry he punctured Buttrey's snare with a drumstick during a sound check.
"I was playin' ten times louder than I had ever played in my life," the drummer recalled. "I was tryin' thicker heads, bigger sticks. It was drivin' me crazy. I looked down at the snare drums one night and saw somethin' splatter. My hand would bleed, it was drippin' down the stick and formed a big puddle on the snare. And when I hit the drum, blood would fly through the air.. It was the roughest time of my life." He quit midway through the tour, and the other musicians, Young included, plowed ahead in wretched shape from overdrinking.
Incredibly, Young released a live album from this tour, Time Fades Away, though he chose performances from the leg that featured Jefferson Airplane drummer Johnny Barbata as Buttrey's replacement.
It also contained only raw and rowdy new songs, recorded sparely, not the recent melodic hits that made his fame. In the longer context of his career, especially the chilling records that followed in Young's
"ditch trilogy," it remains an exhilarating album, with songs that aren't found elsewhere in his catalog and a bleary, brown sound to match its cover. Yet Young basically disowned it, and let it fall out of print for nearly fifty years.

November 12, 2025 at 4:18 PM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

🇨🇦 Bernice Hillier 🇨🇦

@bernicecb.bsky.social

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians teaching and studying at Memorial University's Harlow campus say axing the institution is the wrong move for a school looking to increase student recruitment and retention. #nlpoli www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Closing Harlow campus would rob learners of international experiences, students say | CBC News

Newfoundlanders teaching and studying at Memorial University's Harlow campus say axing the institution is the wrong move looking to increase student recruitment and retention.

www.cbc.ca

November 12, 2025 at 11:12 AM

Reposted by B.S.W. Barootes

Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦

@kfduggan.bsky.social

For those who don’t want to click the link, the movies are:
1) Troop Beverly Hills
2) Rookie of the Year
3) The Devil Wears Prada, and
4) 300.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 11d

Pope Leo has shared his four favorite movies of all time, as the Vatican prepares to host dozens of actors and directors in a “World of Cinema” gathering on Saturday at his official residence. See which films made the pope's list. nyti.ms/4p3exK9