Israel has damaged more buildings in two weeks than in a year of fighting with Hezbollah. / BBC News

A brief history of Hezbollah, Israel, and Lebanon. / Vox

China cracks down on "uncivilized" puns that people use to get around censorship controls. / The Guardian

One of the foremost American experts on fascism comes around to applying "this most toxic of labels" to Trumpism. / The New York Times Magazine [+]

An argument for making an "emotional hedge bet" on the presidential election—among 27 observations from a political insider. / Matt's Five Points

For Millennials, "wealth may have gone up, but if that's mostly housing wealth, then that's not actually making people better off." / The Washington post

Housing prisoners in "containment cages" for days—standing-room only, with no toilet or sink—is a widespread and unchecked practice in Texas. / Slate

In the past 40 years, the number of catastrophic injuries sustained by cheerleaders is greater than those sustained by female athletes playing all other high school and college sports combined. / The New York Times Magazine [+]

As of 2022, only about six percent of the nation's doctors identified as Black and only seven percent as Hispanic. / The Atlantic

What is the trendy recreational drug "pink cocaine?" A grab bag of different drugs dyed pink that often doesn't include cocaine. / The Associated Press

A "fruit detective" studies old paintings for produce we no longer eat. / Smithsonian Magazine

Photographs by Lars Tunbjörk of corporate worklife in the 1990s. / Lars Tunbjörk

"I don't have to tell you that posting on the internet is a weird thing to do." Lessons learned from a 90-day course taught by a TikTok influencer. / Defector

Watch: A carpenter fires his nail gun in time to a band performing next door. / Kottke

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"Donald Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden last night that was so racist it got the New York Times to dust off the actual word 'racist' and use it in a headline." / Welcome to Hell World

A look at the billionaires and businesses getting in line for Trump, who's vowed to punish dissenters. / The Washington Post [+]

Why a longtime LA Times editorial writer resigned after the spiked Harris endorsement: A non-endorsement on Harris's home turf is an un-endorsement. / The Hollywood Reporter

Bird flu tracking among humans couldn't be timed worse, with researchers trying to discern whether someone's "flu-like symptoms" are a cold, Covid, influenza, or actually bird flu. / STAT

The 18th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, a stalwart of editorial citation, has a hell of a job, landing amid an era of digital misinformation and disinformation. / Los Angeles Review of Books

A video of someone destroying ballots marked for Trump in Bucks County, Pa., is a fake planted by Russia, according to US officials. / NPR

See also: Maricopa County officials are contacting around 20 voters whose mail-in ballots were damaged after someone set a mailbox on fire (but not for political reasons). / The Gazette

In a review of BBQ joints in a small Texas town, a restaurant loses a recommendation over its owner's use of racist language. / Texas Monthly

A USGS model of more than 1,200 groundwater samples shows millions of people in California, Florida, and Massachusetts may be drinking forever chemicals. / Gizmodo

See also: Tesla's engineering headquarters in Palo Alto released some kind of lime-green liquid—purportedly a nonhazardous coolant—into a storm drain. / SFGATE

The US Copyright Office ends a longstanding frustration for fast-food restaurants, granting them the right to repair the soft-serve machines at their locations. / Ars Technica

Related: From 2021, hacking McDonald's always-broken soft-serve machines so restaurants could repair them. / WIRED

When Google Street View data is incorrect, either by accident or intention, hardware store interiors can appear in the middle of the Atlantic. / Futurism

Thirteen years later, a scandal-laden development of Disney-style palaces in Turkey remains unfinished and deteriorating. / The Guardian

Before buying a domain name, check to see if it's haunted—in other words, whether something terrible happened there in the past. / Bryan Braun

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An Evangelical Protestant rock festival that serves as a hotbed for Eastern Orthodoxy? That’s exactly what Bobby Maddex found last July at the Cornerstone Music Festival in Bushnell, Illinois. In this audio documentary, exclusive to Ancient Faith Radio, Bobby explores the uniqueness of Cornerstone—what it is about those who attend and play at the festival that makes them so receptive to Orthodox Christianity.

Fr. Pat gave this sermon in Waynesburg, PA, at the funeral of beloved friend Nancy (Katherine) Thompson who fell asleep in the Lord on August 2, 2011.

Fr. Pat discusses the quotation of the prophecy of Isaiah in Matthew 4.

Fr. Pat discusses the patterns of thought that make man so resistant to the cross.

Fr. Pat discusses three approaches to death.

Fr. Pat discusses the meaning of Christian discipleship.

Human beings are complex; grace is time insensitive; and we are coworkers with God.

Fr. Pat explains what the story of the Myrrh-Bearers can teach us about the mission of the Church.

Fr. Pat reflects on the story of the man born blind.

1 Corinthians 15 is arguable among the most important passages of the Bible. Fr. Pat examines this passage from today's reading.

Fr. Pat reflects upon the healing of the blind man of Jericho as recounted in Luke Chapter 18.

By giving Paul so dominant a place in the sacred Canon, the Fathers surely intended us to learn from his example how to examine the circumstances of our lives in order to attain wisdom in Christ.

At the foot of the mount of transfiguration, we find out what we’re made of.

Second Corinthians has been summarized as “strength made perfect through weakness.” Preaching from 2 Corinthians 4:6-15, Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon looks at three examples from the Old Testament of God’s strength being made perfect through the weakness of His servants.

Fr. Pat considers with us the Icon of the invisible God from three perspectives that Christ Himself gave to us when He declared "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

None of us has been given everything, but each of us has been given something, and been given an allotted amount of time in which to do it. In this homily based on the three parables in Matthew 24:36-25:30, Fr. Pat encourages us to be sensible rather than foolish.

The Christian life is one of effort. Faith in Christ is not something that simply can be attached to a secular lifestyle. In this homily preached in 2008, Fr. Pat reflects upon Ephesians 4:1-6.

Fr. Pat looks at three stages and three sources of Josiah's moral instruction.

On the second Sunday of Lent Fr. Pat looks at our Lord’s passion, the power of His blood, and the authority of the Church.

The bishops at the Seventh Ecumenical Council reasoned that the legitimacy, indeed, the necessity of icons in the church was an organic inference from the thesis that God became visible in the Man Jesus of Nazareth. Fr. Pat gave this homily on The Sunday of Orthodoxy, 2020.

The Cross is the key to unlocking God’s will for us in every stage of our lives. But at every stage, we may find ourselves resistant to the word of the Cross. And just when we imagine we have grasped what it means to be a Christian, we discover, perhaps with shock, that we’ve hardly begun.

In this homily from Pentecost Sunday, Fr. Pat reflects with us on three points about the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church and in our lives.

Fr. Pat preaches from Numbers 32:1-27.

Preaching on the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), Fr. Pat urges us to always maintain a proper perspective.

Fr. Pat considers the case for iconoclasm, for the veneration of icons, and the settling of the issue.

Putting on the panoply, the full armor of God.

Fr. Pat preaches on the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness as told in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 4.

Fr. Pat preaches on the story of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15.

On the Sunday of the Paralytic, Fr. Pat reflects upon a most pernicious kind of paralysis—the spiritual kind.

There is no easy way to eternal life. We are made to know God, to love God, to serve God, and that is hard. Fr. Pat offers reflections on this via three theses.

n 1 Corinthian 4:9-16, the Apostle Paul gives a portrayal of a style of life very much in contrast with the style of life preferred by the Corinthians. In this homily from 2009, Fr. Pat looks at the contrasts enumerated by St. Paul.

Fr. Pat gave this brief meditation at approximately midnight on January 1, 2014.

On the occasion of the third night of Hanukkah, Fr. Pat talks about the divisions God built into creation, about the consecration and desecration of sacred space, and about dedication of God's temple and of ourselves.

We're answering another viewer question. Why is the Sacrament of Confession so important?

People have a lot of ideas about sin. What does the Orthodox Church say?

The Truth can be hard to see. What are we doing to help people see it better?

Parishes across the country will host their annual festivals and offer great food, music, and dancing to their neighbors. We also have something even more amazing to offer: Christ and the Good News of salvation.

Living Orthodoxy is about love. Here are six ways you can deepen your love for Christ. Are you ready to start?

This week we're responding to another viewer question. Does a love of theology and academic study somehow contradict the mysticism of the Faith? We approach God as complete human persons, and that includes our minds. Reading and studying theology can be a great thing, but it should also be a part of our larger life in Christ. God is more than an idea we think about: He's a person we encounter.

As we learn more about the Faith, we learn about right and wrong. And sin. If we're not careful, that knowledge can lead us to judge others rather than repent of our own faults. How do we stay focused on our sins? And what's the best way to approach people about their faults? Watch to find out!

Do you want to pray more, but aren't sure where to start? Draw some inspiration from the life of Symeon, a pious man profiled in the book "Ascetics in the World." His life shows how even a simple prayer rule can open our lives to God's grace.