Radical Middle @RadicalMiddle4

@roddreher At least it was just a film, it could have been a government subsidized building.

@JonahDispatch Jews hog all the positive queer feels, so Muslim countries don’t have enough to let gay cruise ships dock.

PALANTIR CTO: “FOR $10 BILLION, ELON MUSK PUT 300 ROCKETS IN ORBIT.” “FOR $11 BILLION, THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA HAS BUILT 1,600 FEET OF ELEVATED RAIL... WITH NO RAIL.”

@asaadhanna He shouldn’t be allowed to return to the United States.

This is how ruins should be displayed

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This is the oldest surviving icon of Christ, the oldest painted portrait of the face of Jesus that has come down to us. It was made around 1500 years ago, and if you cover one half of the face, then the other, you are looking at two different men... It's called Christ Pantocrator, a Greek title meaning "Ruler of All," and it was painted in the sixth century, around the year 550, most likely in a workshop in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. It was almost certainly sent as an imperial gift to a remote new monastery being built in the Egyptian desert. It has hung there, in the Monastery of Saint Catherine at the foot of Mount Sinai, ever since. For roughly 1,500 years, it has never left. That it survived at all is remarkable. In the eighth and ninth centuries, the Byzantine Empire went through a violent period called Iconoclasm, in which religious images were condemned as idolatry and destroyed by the thousands. Almost every icon of this age in the empire was burned. But Saint Catherine's lay far out in the desert, beyond the reach of the emperors and their decrees, so this one was spared. It is one of the very few images of its kind on earth to come down to us intact. But the truly haunting thing is the face. Look at it, and the two sides do not match. On the side where Christ holds the Gospel, his features are harder, sterner, the brow raised, the eye larger and more severe, the face of a judge who sees everything. On the side where he raises his hand in blessing, the expression softens, calm and merciful, the face of a savior. One half is divine authority. The other is human compassion. Most scholars believe this was entirely deliberate. The icon was painted not long after the Church had formally defined that Christ was at once fully God and fully man, two natures joined in one person. And so the artist, it is thought, built that doctrine directly into the face, splitting it in two so that the same man could be, in a single gaze, both merciful and just, both human and divine... I started my newsletter because our past is extraordinary, and fewer and fewer people are showing us how to truly see it. Every week I try to. If that is something you'd like to be part of, you can join through the link in my bio, and if you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible. Thanks for reading.

In 1948, British led and armed Jordanian troops ethnically cleansed every last Jew from Jerusalem’s Old City — and tried to wipe out every trace of Jewish life. After capturing the Jewish Quarter, Jordanian forces expelled the remaining Jews. As they trudged toward Zion Gate carrying what little they could, Arab civilians swarmed in “like locusts” to loot. One proud Muslim led his family away with Torah scrolls from a synagogue and a carton of matzos balanced on his daughter’s head. Photographer John Phillips captured it all: the vacant stares of exhausted Jewish fighters, a terrified girl running with bared teeth like a trapped animal, and a makeshift hospital where a round loaf of bread sat beside a man who would soon die. By May 29, the Quarter was a charred and burnt-out shell. The Jordanian commander, Abdullah el-Tell, boasted: “For the first time in 1000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews’ return here impossible.” Just like the Romans nearly 2,000 years earlier, they failed. Nineteen years later, in 1967, Jews returned to a reunited Jerusalem. The Jewish Quarter was rebuilt. The ancient synagogues were restored. And the Jewish connection to their holiest city — unbroken for over 3,000 years — endures stronger than ever. Some bonds cannot be erased.

@sfboehner @newstart_2024 That’s my question.

@TPCarney It’s sounds like “vocal fry”, an affectation of White women, but being a male Democrat makes perfect sense.

@rachelbsol18 We must stand against Mamdani’s bigotry.

@HPluckrose You’re not Switzerland about microwaved tea, you must pick a side.

@petersavodnik Italians, the Irish, and Jews are White now.

@Geiger_Capital The guiding theory behind the Democratic Party is to get that winning 51% by cobbling together a coalition of minorities, and convince them that can only vote for DP.

@HPluckrose Just so you understand, most Americans feel about Chicago style pizza the way you feel about microwaved tea.

@SamaHoole Yaks crop the top of plants rather than tearing them up by the roots.

@ArynneWexler Little Guyana, in reality or symbolically, is part of Mamdani’s political coalition Little Italy is not. #Mamdani #NYC #DSA

@stoolpresidente You can’t trust a guy with vocal fry.

@LangmanVince The opposite is true, soccer players have normal athletic builds, basketball and football players are anomalies with whom they can’t compete.

@adam_louis52328 Patronizing superiority was the Obama administration’s signature tone, and Rahm was chief of staff.