Melissa 💚☮️

Teaching, writing, problem solving

[Melissa 💚☮️ @mslissawrites]

👀👀👀

[Parachute @parachute]

7/20/26

[Dave Matt @davematt88]

NPR did learn that there's a trick if you are applying in person in Washington and do not want a passport with Trump's image: Choose extra pages. The State Department says the 250th commemorative passport is only available in the standard, 28-page book

[Brad Meltzer @bradmeltzer]

Like and share this post and I’ll pick five of you to get free copies of I AM TEDDY ROOSEVELT, which you should now buy here: https://t.co/4oT6HaYXI4. Art by bully @chriseliopoulos.
#teddyroosevelt #america250 #july4 #books #bookstagram

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

EVERYONE IN NYC IS SINGING EMPIRE STATE OF MIND

[Melissa 💚☮️ @mslissawrites]

They're getting married at halftime #tmz

[Yahoo Sports @YahooSports]

Taylor Swift will be in attendance for Game 4 of the NBA Finals, per @PageSix.

The Garden is also reportedly the venue where she and Travis Kelce will tie the knot 👰🤵‍♂️

[Melissa 💚☮️ @mslissawrites]

The only thing worse than having this man as a president is having this man as your father

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

Trump has just announced he will not attend Don Jr's wedding this weekend, due to "circumstances pertaining to Government."

Trump's official schedule shows he will be spending the weekend at his golf resort in New Jersey.

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

Trump has just announced he will not attend Don Jr's wedding this weekend, due to "circumstances pertaining to Government."

Trump's official schedule shows he will be spending the weekend at his golf resort in New Jersey.

[Melissa 💚☮️ @mslissawrites]

This is actually Mrs. Rachel Lynde

[Secular Talk ([email protected]) @KyleKulinski]

Bro lookin like Mrs. Doubtfire in hospice care

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

In 1935, two American doctors examined seven women's ovaries and saw small lumps. They called them cysts and named the disease after them. They were wrong. It took 91 years to fix.

What we called PCOS is now Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS), announced today in The Lancet by an international panel of doctors and patients. The renaming followed more than a decade of consensus work and 22,000 patient and clinician survey responses.

The lumps Stein and Leventhal saw were never cysts. Modern imaging shows they were follicles, the tiny sacs inside the ovary that grow and release an egg each month, frozen partway through by a hormonal imbalance. PMOS is a multi-system disorder centered in the endocrine system, the body's network of glands that produces hormones like insulin (controls blood sugar), cortisol (the stress hormone), and thyroid hormones (set the body's metabolism). The ovary trouble flows downstream from there.

The naming choice is not academic. When doctors hear "ovary" in a diagnosis, they look at the ovary. "Metabolic" and "endocrine" send them to the whole body.

PMOS affects roughly 1 in 8 women worldwide, more than 170 million people. The WHO estimates 70% have never been diagnosed. Among those who do, 1 in 3 wait more than 2 years, and nearly half see 3 or more doctors first. The CDC reports more than half of women with PMOS develop type 2 diabetes by age 40, a risk 5 to 10 times higher than women without the condition. Around 37% have clinically significant depression, compared with 14% in women without it. Anxiety runs at 42% versus 8.5%.

A label born from a 1935 look at seven ovaries is finally going away. The new diagnostic guidelines roll out fully in 2028. By then, a woman walking into a clinic with these symptoms should hear questions about her blood sugar and her mood alongside her cycle. Those are the parts of the disease the old name hid for 91 years.

[James Martin, SJ @JamesMartinSJ]

Yes, he really said that.

Yesterday Vice President JD Vance criticized Pope Leo XIV for not knowing enough theology: "I think it's very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology ... If you’re going to opine on matters of theology, you’ve got to be careful, you’ve got to make sure it’s anchored in the truth," he said, at a Turning Point conference.

One of the many, many, ironies about that statement is that it came in response to Pope Leo's comments about war and peace and, specifically, the concept of "just war," which originated with St. Augustine. As many have already noted, when the Vice President was making his comments, Pope Leo XIV, a member of the Augustinian Order, and twice Prior General of the Augustinians before his election as Pope, was visiting the hometown of St. Augustine, then called "Hippo," now in Annaba, a town in modern-day Algeria. For good measure, Pope Leo XIV, the man critiqued for insufficient theological education, earned not only a master's degree in divinity, but also licentiate and a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

JD Vance's recent conversion to Catholicism is beside the point, because many converts are of course not only highly intelligent (and learned in theology) but faithful and energetic Catholics. We rejoice over everyone entering the church.

What most of us do not rejoice over, however, is a deadly combination of inaccuracy and hubris. Pace, Vice President Vance, but the current war in Iran is not a just war under Catholic doctrine. You can hear that from church leaders from across the theological spectrum, from Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the head of the military vicariate and former head of the @USCCB, to Cardinal Robert McElroy, Archbishop of Washington who holds doctorates in both theology and political science. You can look all that up online. Suffice to say, the Vice President doesn't seem to understand the tenets of just war.

Nor does he seem to understand the fundamental position of the church, which is for peace. "War is always a defeat for humanity," as St. John Paul II said. If that authority isn't enough, then turn to Jesus who said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," not "Blessed are the warmongers." And after the Resurrection, the Risen Christ says to the frightened disciples not "Vengeance is mine" but "Peace be with you."

Incidentally, the day before, the Vice President said that the Pope (and the Vatican) should stick to teaching about morality, also seeming to forget that war and peace are profoundly moral issues.

For his part, Pope Leo was focused yesterday on his spiritual father, St. Augustine. After what seemed like an emotional visit to Hippo, he celebrated Mass at the Basilica of St. Augustine in Annaba. During his homily he said, "The primary task of pastors as ministers of the Gospel is therefore to bear witness to God before the world with one heart and one soul, not permitting our concerns to lead us astray through fear, nor trends to undermine us through compromise."

Amen. Let's all continue to pray for the Holy Father as he works for peace.

(Image: Pope Leo XIV prays at the archeological ruins of Hippo, home of St. Augustine, in current-day Algeria. CNS photo).

[Gilbert Dabari @SkyVirginSon]

With all due respect to the Office of the President, this post contains several claims that are factually inaccurate and theologically misguided, and as a Catholic I feel compelled to respond.

1. The Pope was not elected to please any president.

Pope Leo XIV was elected by 133 cardinals from across the world in a sacred conclave, on the fourth ballot, on May 8, 2025. 

The Holy Spirit guides the conclave, not American politics.

To suggest that “if I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican”  is not only historically ignorant but theologically offensive to every Catholic on earth.

2. He was not an unknown outsider.

Pope Leo XIV served as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis, one of the most powerful roles in the Vatican, responsible for selecting bishops for dioceses worldwide. 

He was one of the most qualified candidates in the College of Cardinals.

3. He is deeply rooted in service, not politics.

An Augustinian missionary who worked for decades in Peru, Pope Leo XIV dedicated his life to the poor and the Gospel long before any political figure noticed him. 

His name honors Leo XIII, the Pope who championed workers’ rights and the poor during the Industrial Revolution, a tradition of Catholic Social Teaching that predates any modern political party.

4. The Pope’s role is prophetic, not partisan.

When the Pope speaks on peace, nuclear weapons, immigration, or the dignity of nations, he is fulfilling the mission of Christ, not opposing any government.

His first words as Pope were “Peace be with you all,”  echoing the Risen Christ (John 20:19).

A Pope who is silent on injustice would be failing his divine mandate.

5. Demanding a Pope “get in line” with a president contradicts 2,000 years of Church history.

From St. Peter before Nero, to St. Thomas More before Henry VIII, to John Paul II before Soviet communism, the Church has never existed to validate earthly power.

“We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29)

As Catholics, we pray for all leaders, including President Trump.

But we stand firmly with our Holy Father.

Habemus Papam. And he answers to God alone.

[Melissa 💚☮️ @mslissawrites]

Recycs-able

[kristina v. saint @kristinatastic]

I've been working on this important list for a couple of years now. What am I missing?

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

NEW: The Trump-Netanyahu war has killed a Catholic priest. Father Pierre el-Rahi told his parish three days before his death: "We carry only the weapons of peace."

An Israeli Merkava tank fired twice at the same home in Qlayaa. He ran toward the wounded after the first shell.

The second one killed him. https://t.co/vohGno1wFf

[Melissa 💚☮️ @mslissawrites]

This is the most homoerotic thing I've ever seen and I just watched heated rivalry

[Secretary Kennedy @SecKennedy]

I’ve teamed up with @KidRock to deliver two simple messages to the American people: GET ACTIVE + EAT REAL FOOD.

[Amanda Askell @AmandaAskell]

The Bible really does contain a lot of stories where Jesus's followers are like "That person did a bad thing, should we go mess em up?" and Jesus is like "I don't know why I need to keep telling you guys this but no."

[Melissa 💚☮️ @mslissawrites]

Covid

[Michael Petrilli @MichaelPetrilli]

The cohort of students who scored at record-low levels in 12th grade reading were part of the same generation of kids who scored at record-high levels in 4th grade.

So what happened?

[Rosario Tijeras @whyismariana]

prayers for charlie kirk are being posted by the same people who stay completely silent when mass shootings occur… okay lol

[lauren 🍄 @lolowrenn]

that horrific footage is the same thing that happens to children at school, btw.

[Melissa 💚☮️ @mslissawrites]

This country is being run by Teletubbies

[Chiara Eisner 🎤 @ChiaraEisner]

A state department staffer seems to have left behind 8 pages of info on a hotel printer about the Trump-Putin summit.

We published each of them.

See what they say for yourself: Trump-Putin documents left on hotel printer

https://t.co/qFNNbFy9V5