Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

670 followers 1.2K following 130 posts

Social Epidemiologist, Medical Sociologist, Quantitative Methodoloigst | Associate Professor Sociology @uoregon |
Views are my own | Repost =/= endorse |
Intersectional MAIHDA, health inequities researcher

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Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

On the stakes of Trump v. Illinois—

From Timothy Snyder’s book “On Tyranny”

#NoKings

Black text on cream-white background, a photo of a page from Timothy Snyder’s book: “On Tyranny: twenty lessons from the twentieth century.” This is lesson 18. The text reads:

18
Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.
Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.

October 21, 2025 at 1:30 AM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

📣 For the thousandth time, PLEASE remember that masks are only effective if you cover the nose and mouth.

Thank you for your attention. 🤦‍♀️

- a weary epidemiologist

#EpiSky #NoKings #AcademicChatter

Screenshot from the video Trump posted of himself wearing a crown in a fighter jet dumping human excrement all over protestors. There are so many things one could say about this but the one small detail that really gets me is that his breathing mask is only sitting on his chin and part of his mouth. That can’t be effective, right? I know it’s AI but seriously we are five years into a pandemic and …. Ok… I’m going to go take a break now.

October 20, 2025 at 6:56 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

#NoKings Eugene, Oregon

Three protestors hold a sign that says “The only KING in my life is my Spoiled Cat” followed by a drawing of a handsome cat wearing a crown

A crowd gathers at the Eugene federal courthouse

A crowd gathers in Eugene. One visible sign reads “RESIST TRUMP’s AGENDA! IMPEACH TRUMP!”

A crowd gathers in Eugene. A sign says “The Only Monarchs We Need Are Butterflies”. Behind the sign, someone else holds up a large monarch butterfly puppet.

October 18, 2025 at 7:02 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

In lighter news, my timeline did a funny

Two bluesky posts appear in a timeline. The first is posted by Artologica aka Michel and says “Look at the attitude of this bird. Bird DGAF.” Two pictures of a yellow bird with a bright orange beak follow the text.
The second post is by Adrian C. Jackson and says “Every once in a while, the internet will remind you what it was made for.” A screengrab of a video edit from Sesame Street shows Bert, a yellow muppet with a bright orange nose looking a great deal like the Bird who DGAF.

October 17, 2025 at 3:28 AM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

I think he will make an excellent Toothless

The same black kitten sits on the white windowsill wearing his costume black bat wings. He looks at the camera with golden eyes and licks his lips after eating some treats he definitely earned for being so obliging and adorable.

Screenshot of Toothless the dragon from How To Train Your Dragon. He is sticking out his tongue.

September 12, 2025 at 9:02 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

Please allow me to interrupt your doomscrolling to report:

Kitten’s Halloween costume wings fit perfectly 🐈‍⬛🦇🎃

A black kitten sits on a wide white windowsill wearing black felt bat wings. He gazes at some treats placed before him as compensation for the photoshoot.

September 12, 2025 at 9:02 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

This feels like an important reminder today.

Black text on a cream colored page, taken from Timothy Snyder’s book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century”. This is the opening page of lesson 18. Text reads:

18
Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.

Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.

September 11, 2025 at 2:26 AM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

How my brain read the headline —

Somehow it fits.
Of course “Florida Man” would do this. 🤦‍♀️😭

An article headline screenshot with black text on white background reads “Florida Moves to Eliminate Vaccine Mandates, Sparking Fierce Warnings of Outbreaks.” A blue tilda and additional word has been added so the headline now begins “Florida Man Moves to Eliminate Vaccine Mandates…”

September 4, 2025 at 8:13 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

Mid-wrestle action shot for #Caturday

Big guy is being so patient with his adopted baby brother 🥰

Two black cats play wrestle on a wood floor under a table. The big black cat has a paw on the younger one and looks like his patience is being tested. The younger one is a hyper 4 month old and is flailing around on his back, mid lunge upwards, with his ears back.

August 30, 2025 at 11:32 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

An excellent example of turkey group gobbles in trees — though I intentionally kicked this one off (please enjoy my attempt at a turkey sound 😉)

August 20, 2025 at 8:13 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

I’m always low grade irritated by the walls of sponsored products on Pinterest —

BUT I confess when I searched for “cottagecore aesthetic interiors” today I was unprepared for (and delighted by) the Demonic Screaming Cottagecore Goat
🤣

Screenshot of a Pinterest search for “cottagecore aesthetic interior”. The first entry is about 21 Dream Cottagecore Interiors to Inspire Your Cozy Retreat— but your attention is immediately drawn to a Temu sponsored product selling printed pillows or hats, and the image is of a zoomed in embroidered tapestry-like image of a screaming goat face with fangs and bulging eyes. It’s somewhere between hilarious and horrifying— you kind of go back and forth as you stare at it.

August 10, 2025 at 6:23 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

Yes!

In honor of emergency caturday, please allow me to share our newly adopted kitten:

A black kitten sits on a white windowsill. Plants are visible outside.

August 8, 2025 at 4:36 AM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

Saturday morning cartoons were right.

The Bad Guys really do just want things like families torn apart, kids dying of preventable illnesses, and no more Big Bird and Elmo.

WTF 🤦‍♀️

Elmo — the one and only, red furry beloved muppet from Sesame Street who has nurtured generations of children into being kinder versions of themselves — stares into the camera meaningfully. You know why.

August 1, 2025 at 9:21 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

Profound respect for these brave NIH signatories of
“The Bethesda Declaration”

Black text on white background from the NYTimes article:

“We dissent to administration policies that undermine the N.I.H. mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe,” they wrote in the four-page letter. “Many have raised these concerns to N.I.H. leadership, yet we remain pressured to implement harmful measures.”

The letter included signatories from across the agency’s 27 institutes and centers. Its organizers called it “The Bethesda Declaration,” a reference both to the home of the agency’s headquarters and to a 2020 missive by Dr. Bhattacharya, the Great Barrington Declaration, opposing Covid lockdowns in 2020. In that letter, he and his co-authors argued for dispensing with the lockdowns in the interest of letting the virus spread among younger, healthier people.

June 10, 2025 at 3:35 AM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

“Since the federal government is opposing a phenomenon it takes to be real, it stands to reason that it should tell us how to recognise that phenomenon…”

Exactly.
Make THEM define these things.
We shouldn’t obey in advance.

Black text on white background. The text reads:

We may reasonably ask if it is only the putatively ‘extremist’ forms of gender ideology that are to be opposed. If so, is there a proposed criterion by which ‘extremist’ gender ideology can be distinguished from the non-extremist kind? Since the federal government is opposing a phenomenon it takes to be real, it stands to reason that it should tell us how to recognise that phenomenon and how to tell the difference between its impermissible and potentially permissible forms. As things stand, any reference to ‘gender’ in the documentation pertaining to government-financed allocations, including university grants, healthcare and civil rights protections, puts those allocations at risk.

March 19, 2025 at 3:03 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

Gif from the tv show Community. Annie, and woman in a bright purple dress, screams and tosses her hair around in rage. The scream goes on for a long time.

March 5, 2025 at 11:33 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

“There are children inside”
is a line from this poem, which pulled me out of a deep depression in the early covid years.

For me, it speaks to more than voting. It means we keep working. There are children still inside this burning house.

Voting as Fire Extinguishter (poem by Kyle Tran Myhre)

When the haunted house catches fire:

a moment of indecision.

The house was, after all, built on bones,

and blood, and bad intentions.

Everyone who enters the house feels

that overwhelming dread, the evil

that perhaps only fire can purge.

It’s tempting to just let it burn.

And then I remember:

there are children inside.

February 27, 2025 at 3:13 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

Five things I did last week.

I’m not a federal employee but flooding the email system is useful.

I took care to craft something.

For your inspiration/enjoyment:

Copy of email sent to hr@opm.gov to flood the zone. Email title is “Five things I did last week.” Full text of the email is spread across three images. Full At text reads:

Hello,

Enclosed are my five accomplishments from last week:

1. I taught two courses on health inequalities and their fundamental social determinants, and raised awareness among the roughly 150 students about the appalling consequences of cutting federal public health workers, defunding the sciences, and smashing all legal norms.

2. I published a peer reviewed paper on intersectional birthweight inequalities, with particular attention to Hispanic population heterogeneity.

3. I advocated for attention on the emerging threat of a H5N1 Bird Flu pandemic.

4. I supported graduate students in passing their dissertation prospectus defenses.

5. I reminded everyone I talked to that here in the USA *we don’t bow to kings, we fight coups, and we kick Nazi shits.*

On that note: Don’t obey in advance!

If you believe in what Elon and Trump are doing, you should be ashamed of yourself. History will judge you.

If you are holding the line and fighting from within, thank you! Know that your resistance is essential, you are more powerful than you know, and you are not alone!

Dr. Clare Evans

February 23, 2025 at 4:34 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

“Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans” and give money to billionaires.

They’re going full Sheriff of Nottingham, I see.

Alan Rickman playing the villanous Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. In a fit of rage, he points his finger and commands that he will “Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans”

February 13, 2025 at 4:53 PM

Clare Evans

@clarerevans.bsky.social

Serious question: can these “instructions” be ignored?

I’m no legal expert, but don’t health agencies draw authority from laws, not executive whims?

My hot take: ignore it until you have no other choice.
Don’t make it easy.
Make them work for it.
Do not obey in advance.

#episki #medski