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| User | ridgwayrecord.com - Happy Kids Dental Expands Specialist Tongue Tie Centr |
| Posted on Friday, March 13 @ 00:01:09 PDT (9 reads) | |
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Award-winning paediatric dental practice offers advanced co? And diode laser tongue tie treatment at its chelsea clinic alongside specialist children’s orthodontics in chelsea, marylebone, hammersmith and wimbledon.
london - 12 march, 2026 - happy kids dental, one of london’s leading specialist children’s dental practices, has announced the expansion of its dedicated tongue tie centre at its chelsea clinic and specialist orthodontic services across its four london locations. The practice, which operates from chelsea, marylebone, hammersmith and wimbledon, offers advanced laser frenectomy procedures for tongue tie and lip tie at chelsea alongside early interceptive orthodontic treatment for children from age seven at all four clinics.
london’s specialist tongue tie centre in chelsea: laser frenectomy for babies and children
happy kids dental’s tongue tie centre, based at its chelsea clinic in london, provides comprehensive assessment and laser frenectomy treatment for newborns, infants and older children experiencing tongue tie (ankyloglossia) or lip tie . The centre is led by dr suraj vatish, recognised as one of europe’s leading providers of tongue and lip tie releases, who has performed thousands of successful procedures. Dr vatish is affiliated with the zaghi institute, a global leader in airway and functional dentistry education, and lectures to clinicians across the uk and europe on advanced frenectomy techniques.
the practice utilises three types of surgical laser for tongue tie and lip tie treatment: the biolase epic™ x diode laser, which is recognised worldwide as one of the best methods for frenectomy; the waterlase erbium laser, used specifically for revision cases where patients have been unsuccessfully treated elsewhere; and a co? Laser, considered the gold standard in oral surgery for delivering dependable results with minimal risk of reattachment. The laser frenectomy procedure typically takes less than 30 minutes, requires no stitches, produces almost no bleeding, and carries minimal infection risk due to the sterilising properties of laser energy.
supporting the surgical team is dr julia fozard, an experienced paediatrician with full gmc registration and extensive training at leading uk paediatric centres. Dr fozard provides comprehensive assessments for babies and children presenting with feeding difficulties, reflux, recurrent infections, allergies, constipation and sleep issues that may be related to tongue or lip tie restrictions.
happy kids dental takes a multidisciplinary approach to tongue tie treatment. Following consultation, dr vatish may refer patients to partner therapists for myofunctional therapy, osteopathy or other preparatory care before the procedure. The practice’s myofunctional therapy programme, available at its chelsea clinic, uses personalised exercises to strengthen and retrain the muscles of the tongue, lips, cheeks and face, promoting proper tongue posture, nasal breathing and optimal oral development.
specialist children’s orthodontist services across london
happy kids dental’s orthodontic team provides early interceptive orthodontic treatment in london for children from age seven at its marylebone, chelsea, hammersmith and wimbledon clinics . In line with the british dental association’s recommendation that children have their first orthodontic consultation by age seven, the practice focuses on intercepting developmental abnormalities in the teeth and bite while children still have a mixture of primary and permanent teeth.
the orthodontic team includes six specialist and consultant orthodontists, all holding world-class qualifications from leading european and uk universities. Dr priti acharya is a consultant orthodontist at the royal national ent and eastman dental hospitals (uclh), having graduated with honours from guy’s, king’s & st thomas’ dental institute (king’s college london) and been awarded fellowship in orthodontics in 2012 — a distinction held by fewer than 300 practitioners in the uk. Dr ash kalra is a gdc-registered specialist orthodontist with a master’s degree in orthodontics from king’s college london, international clinical experience across new york, edinburgh, sydney and melbourne, and membership of the royal college of surgeons, the american association of orthodontists and the world federation of orthodontists.
the team also includes dr tatyana heleiwa ferioli, dr eslam mansour, dr david raickovic and dr maï-linh tran, all of whom are gdc-registered specialists. The orthodontists offer a full range of treatments including invisalign, metal and ceramic braces, and myobrace, with a non-extraction philosophy when it is in the best interest of the patient. Monthly payment plans start from £150 with no deposit required.
early orthodontic intervention at happy kids dental aims to reduce or eliminate the need for braces in adolescence. Treatment during the growth phase is more effective, involves shorter treatment times, carries lower risk of complications such as root damage, and in some cases avoids the need to extract permanent teeth.
four london clinics with a fifth opening in hampstead in 2026
happy kids dental currently operates four clinics across central and south-west london: chelsea, marylebone (74–78 seymour place, london w1h 2eh, walking distance from marylebone and baker street tube stations), hammersmith and wimbledon. A fifth clinic in hampstead is scheduled to open in 2026. All clinics are equipped with state-of-the-art facilities including intraoral cameras, intraoral scanners and low-dose digital x-ray equipment, and are staffed by paediatric dentists experienced in working with children with special educational needs.
the practice accepts both direct bookings and referrals from dental professionals. Tongue tie consultations and treatment take place at the chelsea clinic, where same-day treatment may be available for newborns under one year of age. For children aged four and above, a comprehensive assessment including myofunctional evaluation is followed by a planned treatment appointment. Virtual consultations are also available.
about happy kids dental
happy kids dental is an award-winning specialist children’s dental practice based in london, offering paediatric dentistry, specialist orthodontics, sedation dentistry and myofunctional therapy across four clinic locations in chelsea, marylebone, hammersmith and wimbledon, with a dedicated tongue tie and lip tie centre at its chelsea clinic. The practice’s team includes paediatric dentists, consultant and specialist orthodontists, a paediatrician, and dedicated tongue tie surgeons.
happy kids dental is committed to providing safe, gentle and stress-free dental care for children of all ages, including those with special educational needs and dental anxiety.
contact: press@happykidsdental.Co.Uk
media contact
company name: happy kids dental
email: send email
country: united kingdom
website: https://happykidsdental.Co.Uk/ |
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| Young Actresses Who Retired Suddenly and Vanished From Hollywood |
| Posted on Friday, March 13 @ 00:01:09 PDT (6 reads) | |
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Young actresses who retired suddenly and vanished from hollywood
many actresses find fame at a young age only to walk away from the spotlight at the height of their careers. These women decided that the pressures of hollywood were not worth the personal cost or they simply found new passions elsewhere. While some left due to the intense scrutiny of the media, others chose to pursue education or alternative career paths. Their sudden departures often left fans wondering what happened to the stars they once saw on screen every day. This list explores the talented actresses who chose a life of privacy over the glitz and glamour of show business.
mary-kate olsen
the former child star gained international fame sharing a role on the sitcom ‘full house’ with her twin sister. After appearing in numerous films and direct to video projects, she transitioned into the world of high fashion. She officially retired from acting in her early twenties to focus on her luxury brand named the row. She has maintained an intensely private life since leaving the screen behind. Her departure marked the end of an era for a generation that grew up watching her projects.
ashley olsen
like her sister, this actress began her career as an infant and became a household name through television and film. She starred in her final feature film ‘new york minute’ before deciding to step away from the industry permanently. She dedicated her professional life to the fashion industry and has become a respected designer. She rarely makes public appearances and avoids the media attention that defined her youth. Her retirement was a deliberate move to gain autonomy and build a business empire outside of hollywood.
amanda bynes
this actress rose to prominence on ‘all that’ and ‘the amanda show’ before transitioning into successful film roles. She announced her retirement from acting on social media at the age of twenty four. She stated that she no longer loved acting and wanted to explore other interests such as fashion design. Her sudden exit from the industry was followed by a period of significant personal challenges that kept her in the headlines. She has since focused on her education and remains away from professional acting.
jennette mccurdy
known for her role on the hit series ‘icarly’, this actress spent years as a prominent figure on children’s television. She walked away from her acting career in her early twenties after the conclusion of the series ‘between’. She later revealed in her memoir that she never enjoyed acting and felt pressured into the industry by her mother. She has since transitioned into writing and directing her own creative projects. Her story has become a high profile example of the difficulties faced by child performers.
mara wilson
this actress became a global star after appearing in the film ‘mrs. Doubtfire’ and the lead role in ‘matilda’. She decided to leave the professional acting world in her early teens to focus on her education and writing. She expressed that she did not enjoy the loss of privacy or the repetitive nature of the film industry. She is now a successful author and playwright who occasionally provides voice work for specialized projects. Her transition away from hollywood allowed her to reclaim her identity away from her childhood roles.
ariana richards
the young star became famous for her portrayal of lex murphy in the blockbuster film ‘jurassic park’. Although she appeared in several more projects throughout the nineties, she gradually moved away from the camera. She pursued a career in the fine arts and became an award winning painter. She lives a quiet life away from the entertainment industry and focuses on her gallery work. Her retirement was not fueled by scandal but by a desire to follow a different creative path.
leelee sobieski
this actress was a rising star in the late nineties with roles in ‘eyes wide shut’ and ‘deep impact’. She surprised the industry by retiring from acting at the age of twenty nine to focus on her family. She has since reinvented herself as a professional artist and goes by a different name in the art world. She mentioned in interviews that she found the industry to be physically and emotionally draining. She now spends her time creating paintings and sculptures in her private studio.
taylor momsen
she first gained attention as cindy lou who in ‘how the grinch stole christmas’ and later starred in ‘gossip girl’. She famously quit the hit television series to focus entirely on her rock band called the pretty reckless. She stated that acting was never her true passion and that music provided the creative outlet she craved. She has not returned to a scripted acting role since her departure from television in two thousand eleven. Her transformation from a child star to a touring musician was a swift and permanent change.
lisa jakub
this actress is best remembered for her roles in ‘mrs. Doubtfire’ and ‘independence day’. She decided to retire from hollywood at the age of twenty two after feeling disillusioned with the industry. She moved to a rural area to focus on her mental health and began a new career as a writer. She has published multiple books about her experiences as a child star and her journey toward finding peace. She also teaches yoga and leads workshops to help others manage anxiety.
bridget fonda
a member of a famous acting dynasty, she was a major star in the nineties with roles in ‘single white female’ and ‘jackie brown’. She walked away from the industry in the early two thousands after her final role in the television movie ‘snow queen’. She chose to retire to focus on raising her son and maintaining a private family life. She has not made a public appearance or filmed a project in over two decades. Her exit was sudden given her status as one of the most sought after actresses of her generation.
phoebe cates
she was an iconic figure of the eighties with memorable performances in ‘fast times at ridgemont high’ and ‘gremlins’. She chose to step away from the limelight in her early thirties to raise her children with her husband kevin kline. She made a brief return for a single film in two thousand one but has otherwise remained retired. She now runs a boutique gift shop in new york city called blue tree. Her decision to prioritize family life over fame made her one of the most talked about retirements in hollywood history.
mia sara
this actress became an overnight sensation as sloane peterson in the classic film ‘ferris bueller’s day off’. She continued to work through the eighties and nineties before her appearances became increasingly rare. She eventually decided to focus on her family and her passion for writing poetry. She is now an award winning poet and lives a quiet life away from the california film scene. Her departure from the screen was a gradual move toward a more personal and literary lifestyle.
kay panabaker
this disney channel star was a regular fixture on television and in films like ‘fame’. She decided to leave the industry in her early twenties after realizing she no longer enjoyed the lifestyle. She went back to school to study zoology and eventually landed a job as a zookeeper. She has expressed great satisfaction with her new career path and has no desire to return to acting. Her story is a unique example of a young star finding happiness in a completely different professional field.
amber scott
she is best known for playing maggie banning in the steven spielberg film ‘hook’. Despite the massive success of the movie, she did not pursue a long term career in the entertainment industry. She chose to attend college and lived a life away from public scrutiny after her childhood fame. She has not appeared in any professional productions as an adult. Her sudden disappearance from the screen remains a point of curiosity for fans of the nineties classic.
carrie henn
she gave a legendary performance as newt in the science fiction masterpiece ‘aliens’. Despite receiving critical acclaim and numerous offers, she decided that one film was enough for her. She never acted in another movie and instead chose to become a schoolteacher. She has spent her life in the education system and enjoys the stability of a normal career. She occasionally appears at fan conventions to celebrate the legacy of the film that made her famous.
hallie eisenberg
the actress became a recognizable face as the girl in the popular pepsi commercials during the late nineties. She also starred in films such as ‘paulie’ and ‘bicentennial man’ before reaching her teenage years. She stepped away from the cameras after her final film role in two thousand ten. She chose to attend college and has largely stayed out of the public eye ever since. Her transition to a private life followed a very successful run as a child performer.
alisan porter
she was the star of the hit film ‘curly sue’ and appeared in several television shows as a child. She left the acting world to focus on her education and eventually developed a passion for music. She struggled with personal issues before making a major comeback as a singer on the television competition ‘the voice’. While she returned to the spotlight as a musician, she has not returned to professional acting. She now focuses on her recording career and her life as a mother.
brittany ashton holmes
this child actress played the role of darla in the nineteen ninety four version of ‘the little rascals’. She became an instant favorite among audiences but only appeared in a few more projects before retiring. She left the industry while she was still a young child and lived a normal life in school. She has expressed no interest in returning to the screen and values her privacy as an adult. Her single iconic role remains her primary legacy in the world of entertainment.
tiffany brissette
she played the robotic daughter vici on the popular eighties sitcom ‘small wonder’. After the show ended, she appeared in a few guest roles before deciding to leave acting behind. She moved away from hollywood to pursue a degree in psychology and eventually became a registered nurse. She has spent her adult life working in the medical field and helping others. Her career change was a permanent move that took her far away from her robotic television persona.
maureen flannigan
she rose to fame as the lead character in the television series ‘out of this world’. She continued to work in guest roles through the nineties and early two thousands before her career slowed down. She eventually moved away from the spotlight to focus on personal interests and family. She has not held a major acting role in many years and lives a quiet life away from the media. Her sudden disappearance from mainstream television was a quiet exit for the former teen star.
andrea elson
this actress is best known for her role as lynn tanner on the hit series ‘alf’. She faced significant pressure regarding her appearance while working on the show and developed an eating disorder. After the series concluded, she married a crew member and eventually decided to leave the acting profession. She became a certified yoga instructor and now focuses on wellness and her family. She has stayed away from the entertainment industry for decades to maintain her personal health.
lark voorhies
she became a teen icon playing lisa turtle on the long running series ‘saved by the bell’. While she continued to act for a period after the show ended, she eventually faced health challenges that affected her career. She became less active in the industry and focused on writing books and her private life. She has made only a few brief appearances in recent years and does not work regularly in hollywood. Her departure was a gradual process as she prioritized her well being over fame.
heather donahue
she was the lead in the revolutionary horror film ‘the blair witch project’. Despite the massive success of the movie, she found the fame to be overwhelming and difficult to manage. She eventually decided to retire from acting and moved to a small town to grow medical marijuana. She wrote a book about her career change and the shift in her life goals. She no longer seeks roles in hollywood and enjoys a much quieter existence.
summer phoenix
she comes from a family of famous actors and appeared in films like ‘the believer’ and ‘esther kahn’. She decided to step away from the screen in the mid two thousands to focus on her family and fashion design. She co owned a clothing boutique for several years and remained active in social causes. She has mostly avoided the spotlight that follows her siblings and former husband. Her retirement allowed her to find a creative outlet that was not centered on performing.
leanna creel
she played the role of tori scott on the final season of ‘saved by the bell’. She decided to move behind the camera after her stint on the show and pursued a career in production. She eventually started her own photography and film production company. She has not appeared in front of the camera as an actress in many years. Her transition allowed her to remain in the creative arts while avoiding the pressures of being a performer.
alison lohman
this actress delivered powerful performances in films such as ‘white oleander’ and ‘drag me to hell’. She was considered one of the most talented stars of her generation before she suddenly stepped away. She retired from acting in two thousand nine to focus on her marriage and raising her children. She has only appeared in a single project since then and remains dedicated to her family life. Her departure was a surprise to many who expected her to become a major awards contender.
shirley temple
she was the most famous child star in history and helped lead the film industry during the great depression. She decided to retire from acting at the age of twenty two after feeling that her career as an adult actress was not fulfilling. She transitioned into a successful career as a diplomat and served as a united states ambassador. She proved that a child star could find massive success in a completely different field. Her legacy remains one of the most successful career pivots in the history of hollywood.
grace kelly
she was a legendary leading lady who won an academy award for her performance in ‘the country girl’. She shocked the world when she retired from acting at the age of twenty six to marry prince rainier iii of monaco. She left her film career behind to fulfill her duties as a royal princess. She never returned to the screen despite many offers from famous directors like alfred hitchcock. Her sudden exit at the peak of her fame remains one of the most romantic stories in cinema history.
claudia wells
she played the role of jennifer parker in the original ‘back to the future’ film. She was forced to drop out of the sequels to care for her mother who had been diagnosed with cancer. This family emergency led to her leaving the acting world for a significant period. She eventually opened a luxury clothing boutique and found success as a small business owner. While she has made minor appearances recently, she largely vanished from the mainstream for decades.
karyn parsons
she became a household name playing hilary banks on ‘the fresh prince of bel air’. After the show ended, she appeared in a few more projects before deciding to shift her focus. She founded a non profit organization called sweet blackberry which produces animated films about black history. She also became an author of children’s literature and historical fiction. Her career as a performer gave way to a life of education and community service.
erika eleniak
she was a major star in the nineties with roles in ‘baywatch’ and the film ‘under siege’. She gradually moved away from big budget hollywood productions and appeared in smaller independent films. She eventually decided to step back from the industry to focus on her personal life and motherhood. She now lives away from the major film hubs and rarely makes public appearances. Her departure was a quiet transition from being a global sex symbol to a private citizen.
monica keena
this actress was a series regular on ‘dawson’s creek’ and starred in the horror film ‘freddy vs. Jason’. She worked steadily for several years before her presence in mainstream media began to fade. She took on fewer roles and eventually stepped away from the spotlight almost entirely. She has not had a high profile role in the industry for quite some time. Her career trajectory shifted from rising star to a more reclusive life away from the cameras.
dominique swain
she gained critical acclaim at a young age for her performance in the film ‘lolita’. She appeared in several other notable movies like ‘face off’ before moving into the world of independent cinema. Over time she became less active in the industry and her appearances became infrequent. She has largely stayed out of the mainstream entertainment news and leads a private life. Her early promise as a leading lady did not lead to a long term career in the hollywood system.
shannyn sossamon
she became a star with her role in ‘a knight’s tale’ and was frequently cast in major films during the early two thousands. She decided to take a step back from the industry after the birth of her children to focus on motherhood. She has mentioned in interviews that the sudden fame was uncomfortable for her and she preferred a smaller life. She occasionally appears in independent projects but no longer seeks the blockbuster fame she once had. Her move away from the spotlight was a conscious choice to find balance in her life.
maia brewton
she is best remembered for her role as sara anderson in ‘adventures in babysitting’. She also starred in the television series ‘parker lewis can’t lose’ as the protagonist’s younger sister. She chose to leave the acting world in her early twenties to pursue a career in the legal field. She successfully became a lawyer and has practiced law for many years. Her childhood fame is now a distant memory as she focuses on her professional legal career.
nicholle tom
she played the oldest daughter maggie sheffield on the long running sitcom ‘the nanny’. She also provided the voice for supergirl in various animated projects during the nineties. As she got older she appeared in fewer roles and eventually transitioned away from regular acting work. She has maintained a relatively low profile since her time on television ended. Her retirement was not formally announced but occurred as she sought life outside of the studio system.
kellie shanygne williams
she spent nine years playing laura winslow on the popular family sitcom ‘family matters’. Once the show concluded she took on a few guest roles before deciding to focus on her family. She started a program for young people interested in the arts but mostly stayed away from professional acting herself. She is now focused on her life as a mother and her community work. Her time as a television star remains her most significant contribution to the entertainment world.
which of these former stars do you miss seeing on the big screen the most? Share your thoughts in the comments. |
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| Bipartisan Reforms to Higher Education Persist in the Face of Attacks on Institu |
| Posted on Friday, March 13 @ 00:01:09 PDT (5 reads) | |
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Giving compass take:
- jon marcus reports on ongoing bipartisan reforms to higher education to protect consumers and lower costs despite conservative attacks on universities funding.
- what can the philanthropic sector do to oppose prospective restrictions on freedom of speech at colleges and universities?
search for a nonprofitfocused on education.- Access more nonprofit data, advanced filters, and comparison tools when you
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it’s rare in an era of partisan division to hear a veteran of the clinton and obama presidencies agreeing with a right-leaning economist who worked for george w. Bush. Yet these prominent voices from opposite ends of the political spectrum teamed up to mostly praise a law passed by the republican congress and signed by president donald trump. The purpose of the law, representing a bipartisan reform to higher education: to protect college students from borrowing federal money to enroll in programs that give them little or no financial payoff when they graduate.
this new rule is “the greatest step forward in increased accountability” for colleges since the creation more than a decade ago of the federal college scorecard website, which discloses graduates’ earnings by institution. That was the conclusion of bob shireman, a senior fellow at the progressive century foundation, and beth akers, who holds the same title at the conservative american enterprise institute, or aei.
the new accountability rule is among a series of measures that the left-leaning advocacy group edtrust calls the most dramatic changes to higher education policy in nearly two decades. Many were part of the one big beautiful bill act, or obbba, and will become effective this year. And several could improve protections and lower costs for families and students, demonstrating the ongoing bipartisan reforms to higher education.
it may seem a surprise to hear bipartisan acclaim for laws affecting higher education passed by this white house and its congressional allies. After all, such reforms come against the backdrop of bans on diversity policies, restrictions on international students, cuts to research funding, huge fines on elite universities and trump’s relentless rhetorical attacks on “radical,” “woke” campuses.
but “there are definitely some positive steps that have been taken,” too, said catherine brown, senior director for policy and advocacy at the national college attainment network, or ncan, who particularly likes an “earnings indicator” added to the fafsa, or free application for federal student aid. That tool warns college applicants if graduates from a particular school with the majors they’re considering have historically earned no more than people with only high school diplomas.
read the full article about bipartisan reforms to higher education by jon marcus at the hechinger report. |
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| Why one diocese radically changed its approach to Confirmation |
| Posted on Friday, March 13 @ 00:01:09 PDT (5 reads) | |
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On a cold tuesday night in december, in the early days of the advent season, at the church of st. John in westminster, md., An experiment is underway. It is shortly after 5 p.M. And the pews in the large, modern church are starting to fill with families. The priests and pastoral staff are on the altar preparing for the liturgy. In the nave, bishop adam parker, fully vested and leaning on his crozier, greets visitors as they enter the church.
so far, so normal: just another confirmation ceremony, one of dozens that take place in the archdiocese of baltimore every year.
but there is something different about this class of confirmandi. It is a large group, over 100 people, from two parishes. There are teenagers and preteens, as you might expect, but also a group of young children, just 9 years old, who can be easily spotted when they stand before bishop parker and prepare to receive the sacrament. For that is when the bishop must, as he recites the sacred words, reach down to anoint their foreheads.
in 2025 the archdiocese of baltimore decided to change the confirmation age from between 14 and 16 to the age of 9. It will take a few years for all the parishes in the archdiocese to make the shift, but st. John’s is one of the first. The decision has provoked some anxiety. Are 9-year-olds ready? Will they take part in catholic life once they have received the sacraments? But archbishop william e. Lori, after consulting the signs of the times and speaking with diocesan leaders, decided it was time for a change.
“in reaching this pastoral decision, i asked the question, “when is the most fruitful moment in the life of a young person to receive the fullness of the holy spirit in confirmation?” Archbishop lori explained in a video announcing the decision. “And how can this grace of the spirit help us reverse the troubling trend of young people disaffiliating from the church at earlier and earlier ages?”
indeed, if there is one piece of data driving this decision, it is the fact that many young people begin the process of leaving the church at roughly the same age at which they receive confirmation: 13. Bishop parker spoke about the move to lower the age on the america podcast “preach.”
“we felt that if the age of disaffiliation is more in the middle school years, then let’s do a couple of things by lowering the age of confirmation to age 9,” he said. “Let’s get the family more involved. Let’s get the parents more involved in that preparation. And let’s get the grace of the sacrament to these young folks at an even earlier age, and that allows that grace to build within them.”
for the last seven years i have taught confirmation preparation in my home parish in westchester county, in new york. In the archdiocese of new york, as in many dioceses, the age of confirmation roughly coincides with middle school years: we begin in fall of seventh grade and the students are confirmed in the middle of eighth grade. I traveled to maryland to see how another diocese is approaching the sacrament. What i discovered on my visit and in subsequent conversations with theologians and pastoral leaders was a lively debate touching on many of the most critical issues facing the church today.
the archdiocese of baltimore, the oldest diocese in the country, does not claim to have found a silver-bullet solution to the problem of keeping young people engaged in the faith. But they are following the data and trying something different. In a church that moves slowly and tends to do things the way they have always been done, that is a reason enough for a closer look.
not a graduation
if you want to start an argument with a sacramental theologian, describe confirmation as a “graduation sacrament.” It is, they will strenuously insist, not that: it is a sacrament of initiation, just like baptism and the eucharist. That is why new catholics normally receive all three sacraments together during the easter vigil liturgy.
in the early church, confirmation was part of the baptismal rite, but it was pushed later as the church grew so that bishops might connect with new christians. Over time, the age for first communion was also moved later, to what was described as the “age of discretion.” The exact age varied but often drifted to as late as 14, while confirmation was celebrated around 12. Then, in 1910, pope pius x moved the age for holy communion to 7, leaving confirmation on its own.
the next century saw a variety of approaches to the sacrament. And as timothy gabrielli writes in his 2013 book, confirmation: how a sacrament of god’s grace became all about us, the arguments around confirmation often reflected the tenor of the times. “Confirmation, unlike any other sacrament, has served as a cipher for catholics’ place in the wider american context and as a location for working out that identity,” he writes.
the key moment, in retrospect, came in the 1970s, when pastoral leaders looked to theology and the sciences to help determine the best age for confirmation. They landed on adolescence as a critical moment in a young person’s development and thus an appropriate moment for the graces of the sacrament. In his book confirmation: the baby in solomon’s court, father paul turner describes these developments:
teens who reflected on their personal experience deepened their personal involvement with faith. This they ritualized in a sacrament. Many theologians believe this put more teeth into the sacramental experience, removing its magical tendencies for those who celebrated the sacraments without much interior renewal. And educators reflecting on their experience with teens discerned that this was a new spirit-filled occasion in the church.
but in the long history of the church, confirming teens—an experience most of us who have grown up in the last 50 years share—is actually an anomaly.
“in the end, the catholic church has never taught that it is a sacrament for a teenage commitment,” father turner tells me in a conversation from his home base in kansas city, mo. “And in fact, any time the vatican has been pressed…you get the impression they’d like it younger than older.”
timothy gabrielli points to another factor at play: the influence of protestant culture, in which individuals make a public commitment to the faith through adult baptism.
“there’s this consistent anxiety, among catholics, particularly in the u.S., About infant baptism,” professor gabrielli tells me. “So…we’re surrounded by evangelical populations who don’t buy that—infant baptism—and [there is] this kind of sense that we got to have something that is a replacement for believers’ baptism. And so maybe confirmation is that thing.”
but there were risks to this approach, which became evident as the decades passed. If confirmation is presented as a moment of commitment, and most of religious education builds to that moment, then what happens next?
“[it] had this totally unintended effect,” professor gabrielli says. The hope was that “if we get them committed, then they’ll be in. Instead, it was, ‘no, i’ve made my choice. I’ve got my sacraments. I’m done.’”
confirmation became graduation.
the gifts of the spirit
kenn demoll is the director of “formation and innovation” at st. John’s church and an enthusiastic booster for lowering the age of confirmation. When archbishop lori began considering the move a few years ago, mr. Demoll sent him a 30-page letter making his case for the move. For a year he worked in a diocese in montana where the confirmation age was also lower.
in a country as large as the united states, there has been room for different approaches to confirmation, often depending on the personal preferences of the local bishop. (Efforts to get the u.S. Conference of catholic bishops to agree on a national practice, going back to the introduction of the adult catechumenate in the 1980s, have failed.) That is why the age can range widely, from 7 to 16. Some dioceses have opted for what is known as the “restored order” approach—meaning that confirmation is given before first communion, in keeping with ancient church tradition and with the goal of restoring the eucharist to its pride of place.
it is still early, but mr. Demoll is encouraged by the rollout of the new program. He is particularly excited about the involvement of families. One major reason for the move was to shift away from a “drop off” approach to religious education, where parents had little involvement with sacramental preparation, to one built on family faith formation.
working closely with families has helped him to see the challenges they face. “I don’t think anybody starts out being like, ‘i’m just not going to be all that into my faith,’ right?” He tells me. He says many people feel: “we live very busy lives. We’re very stretched. We’re pulled in 1,000 different directions.”
“and so i think a lot of times, parents operate from the sense of, ok, ‘i’ve got all these fires. How do i control it? How do i manage things?’”
to address these challenges, st. John’s has tried to reduce the number of requirements for confirmation. The idea is to make sacramental preparation a positive experience, one that brings a sense of peace and connection, rather than another item on a long to-do list. If the experience is a positive one, perhaps families will be more likely to stay involved after they have received the sacraments.
this represents a shift from traditional confirmation preparation programs. When i was confirmed, i was required to complete a certain number of service hours and to write a report on the saint i chose for my confirmation name. But these requirements were not a church-wide mandate. The guidelines issued by the u.S.C.C.B. For sacramental catechesis are more elementary. A candidate, among other requirements, must be able to recognize the role of the bishop and identify the signs and symbols of the sacrament.
in mr. Demoll’s view, 9-year-olds can “100 percent” meet the standards set by the u.S. Bishops. But he is aware that some parents and religious educators are skeptical. Introducing them to a new approach will take time.
one consequence of moving confirmation to teenage years is that it is sometimes seen as a sacrament of maturity. But mr. Demoll warns against that.
“i think it robs and takes away the spiritual experiences kids can and do have,” he says. “I think there’s a reason jesus said, ‘let the little children come unto me.’… As we get older, our hearts tend to solidify. I think we kind of get a bit narrower in our thinking.”
“i think the best time to give them those gifts of the spirit is when they’re younger,” he adds, “so they can take full effect in people’s lives.”
toward a deeper communion
larry fraher has been involved in youth ministry in the diocese of phoenix for decades. He was there 20 years ago, when bishop thomas olmsted made the move to confirm young people in third grade rather than at age 16, in keeping with the “restored order” approach to the sacraments of initiation. It was a big jump, but mr. Fraher confirms mr. Demoll’s instincts: 8- or 9-year-olds can comprehend the basic facts about confirmation.
“it depends on how we teach,” he tells me. “How do we portray this idea that the spirit is coming to animate you, animate your baptism, bring you into a deeper communion with the church?”
but mr. Fraher also has more sobering observations to share. “The problem that i’m finding—and i’m just gonna go ahead and say it—is that the parents don’t understand that this isn’t graduation,” he says. “This is the big fight i have on a regular basis.”
“how do we reintegrate a catholic worldview in the family as opposed to just a supply-demand mentality about the sacraments?” He wonders. How do you fight the sentiment that “i go, i get my sacrament, i’m good until i get married”?
here is where confirmation preparation runs against a hard reality of the need for evangelization. Religious practice has plummeted in recent decades. And it seems that these trends are affecting even those parents who are sending their children for the sacraments. They may be willing to make certain commitments to their children’s faith, but for other reasons—which can vary from the demands of youth sports to their own questions about the integrity of religious institutions—they are choosing not to go beyond “what’s required.”
another wrinkle: many parents feel insecure talking about faith themselves. So even if their child has a strong experience in religious education—perhaps on a retreat or on a service trip—that experience may not develop roots at home.
“mom and dad may not have had a very solid experience of retreat, or maybe they haven’t had a really solid experience of jesus,” says mr. Demoll. The goal then becomes finding models of ministry that allows families to find a shared spiritual framework.
understanding that there may be no single solution to these challenges, the archdiocese of baltimore is allowing pastoral leaders to experiment with different programs. At st. Elizabeth ann seton parish in crofton, md., Confirmation preparation happens mostly in the home, with two in-person sessions with pastoral staff as well as a half-day retreat. This helps young people and their parents learn to talk about their faith together, with guidance from the parish.
but confirmation preparation is just one part of youth ministry at st. Elizabeth’s—and perhaps not the most important. Middle school ministry is particularly critical.
“this formation is what is going to give them the groundwork for high school and college when there’s so many other things that are…pulling at them,” says sarah jarzembowski, the director for marriage and family life at st. Elizabeth’s.
the idea is to give young people a solid foundation in their faith so they are less likely to drift away from the church when they hit their teenage years. This is the trend archbishop lori is trying to reverse, and this is what ms. Jarzembowski and her team are squarely focused on. Their website lists several opportunities for middle school students, from bowling nights to faith sharing and service projects.
“great things are happening, i’m loving it,” says ms. Jarzembowski. “We just need to get this middle school piece…. Because if that piece does not become solid, then we’re just moving the exodus level [the age when young people start to drift away from the church], and that defeats what the archbishop is looking for.”
follow the data
the data tells us a lot about when young people leave the church. It doesn’t say as much about whether moving the confirmation age to a younger age can help reverse this trend. But one study from 2012 contains some interesting findings. In an article in the journal catechumenate, angela darrow flynn looks at dioceses where the “restored order” approach has been implemented and compares them with neighboring dioceses where the confirmation age is later.
in most of the dioceses, before restoring the order of the sacraments, “the number of confirmandi was fewer, sometimes dramatically so, than the number of children receiving first eucharist.” This makes intuitive sense. In my experience, some families, while excited to have their children receive their first communion, do not continue through the five additional years to confirmation. By restoring the order of the sacraments—in most cases, by administering the sacraments in the same grade—it is to be expected more children will be confirmed.
but another finding is also clear from ms. Flynn’s study: “when the sacraments of initiation have been restored to their ancient order in the united states, overall participation in faith formation has usually decreased.” This confirms the fears of some youth ministers: namely, that without the “carrot” of confirmation, many young people will simply choose not to take part in faith formation programs.
yet that is not the end of the story. Ms. Flynn found a few dioceses where the rates of participation stayed the same even after the confirmation age was lowered. In one, the diocese of spokane, the number of young people participating in faith programs increased. No further research into this was done, but the results suggested that these dioceses were doing something right.
in the archdiocese of baltimore, spreadsheets and other technology are being used to track students and gauge their rates of participation. Meanwhile, each parish is looking for creative ways to keep young people involved. On the night i attended confirmation at st. John’s, the printed program for the event encouraged young people to stay committed—“confirmation is just the beginning of your journey as a disciple”—and listed several ways to nurture their faith, including special days of retreat and a free, one-year subscription to hallow, a prayer app. There were also three age levels of youth ministry advertised, with weekly formation and special events.
thomas and felicity serio were both confirmed at st. John’s church in westminster, thomas in 2024 and felicity in 2025. Both were 9 at the time. Thomas was surprised when he learned that the parish would start confirming students at a younger age. “I didn’t even really know much about confirmation to that point, but that’s when i started learning a lot about it,” he told me in a zoom conversation that included his mother, elizabeth serio, and his sister.
thomas, an altar server at st. John’s, chose benedict as his confirmation name. Felicity, who sings in the children’s choir, chose therese, after st. Therese of lisieux. About her confirmation day, she recalls: “i was really excited that my cousins and my aunt were there, and i was also a little nervous about everything. But i was mostly excited and happy and joyful.”
elizabeth serio, like many of her generation, was confirmed as a teenager. But she welcomed the experience of accompanying her children at a younger age. “It was just a joy…to walk through this process with my kids when they were younger,” she tells me. “I find at this age, there’s such a thirst for knowledge, and they’re like sponges, absorbing all of the information around them.”
reviewing my conversation with thomas and felicity, i was reminded of something i read from father jay peterson of the diocese of great falls-billings, mont., Where children are confirmed at a younger age. We all come to a better understanding of the sacraments over time, he said. His advice on confirmation day has stayed with me as a parent, as a religious educator and as a baptized catholic:
“i point to the sponsors and the rest of the assembly, and say that we all have a responsibility to help these children grow into the meaning of the sacrament of confirmation.”
reporting for this story was supported by a grant from lilly endowment inc. |
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| How the Sisters of Mercy are fighting homelessness from coast to coast |
| Posted on Friday, March 13 @ 00:01:09 PDT (6 reads) | |
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At 8 a.M. On a frigid day in december, libby fernandez, r.S.M., Rolls her electric tricycle out of an alley next to her home and heads onto the streets of sacramento, calif. Every block or two, she stops pedaling and rings her bicycle bell, gently rousing people sleeping in doorways, in tents or atop flattened cardboard boxes, before the police arrive to clear them out.
sister libby calls each of them by name, like a mother lovingly nudging her children awake on a school day, except these are grown men and women, some whose hands are covered in grime, some suffering from walking pneumonia. She climbs down from her seat and opens a small wooden cabinet, which an architect friend designed for her, that sits on the back of her trike. Inside are thermoses of coffee and hot chocolate.
“good morning, jerry,” she says cheerily to a 60-year-old man lying atop torn cardboard on the sidewalk of 19th street. Jerry was hit by a car several years ago and still suffers from the trauma, with a bad limp and a damaged eye. His dog, zadie, was recently taken by the city, but a lawyer from loaves & fishes, a local nonprofit program serving unhoused people, is trying to get her back.
“can i get you something hot to drink today?” Asks sister libby. “A cadillac?”
“yes, please,” he says. Sister libby fills a cup half with coffee and half with hot chocolate—known on the local streets as a cadillac—and hands it to him.
“some new socks? Gloves? A granola bar?” She asks brightly.
“sure,” says jerry, smiling. They chat for a while about how much he misses zadie. As sister libby pulls away on her trike, heading to her next stop, jerry yells after her. “Thank you!”
sister libby and a legion of volunteers across the city will hand out scores of granola bars, chocolate, deodorant, hand sanitizer, flashlights and clothing on this 41-degree day to people whom many others will simply ignore, people who have grown more and more invisible in the city despite their rising numbers. In sacramento county alone there are more than 9,000 unhoused, who often gravitate to the area because of the typically mild weather.
sister libby is not alone. From coast to coast, the sisters of mercy lead thousands of fellow sisters, lay volunteers and employees—including some formerly unhoused—to fight a growing homelessness problem, which worsens each year due to rising rental prices and the difficulty for the long-term unemployed of finding jobs. According to the national alliance to end homelessness, the homeless population in the united states increased 18 percent in 2024, to over 770,000.
the mercy sisters, founded by catherine mcauley in 19th-century ireland, believe strongly that their charism calls them to take action and serve god through helping the poor, sick and marginalized. Sheltering the homeless, in particular, is one of the seven corporal works of mercy. In their early years, the sisters of mercy were nicknamed the walking sisters, because of their hands-on work on the streets of dublin.
sister libby began her group, mercy pedalers, eight years ago, when the idea came to her on a solo retreat at crater lake national park in oregon. She grew up as an air force brat, one of seven children. Her family moved to 15 different locations before settling down on the west coast. Before joining the sisters of mercy, she spent seven years in the air force herself. She got her master’s degree in social work, joined the order and went on to lead sacramento loaves & fishes for two decades, where she oversaw 15 programs and a 100-person staff feeding, clothing and offering services to the homeless.
sister libby is now 65, but she is nowhere near retired. She rides her trike about 90 minutes each day on a six-mile loop, visiting several dozen people and recruiting others to help. She solicits and stores donations, and she organizes 200 volunteers in california, which has the biggest homeless population in the country—nearly 25 percent of the total number nationally. The volunteers work from their bikes, trikes and cars, helping the unhoused survive the cold winter and in every season handing out sustenance and clothing, as well as delivering a kind word and a show of respect.
“you have to get to know them and their stories,” explains sister libby of the people she serves, a bike helmet covering her short salt-and-pepper hair. “Then you can build trust and care for them. Everyone has to feel safe. Then the questions become deeper, like ‘how can i help you?’”
on this particular morning, she stops her trike for renee, a 55-year-old woman who has been on the streets for seven years because of alcoholism. Libby compliments renee on her new purple walker. “My other one got stolen,” renee says, exasperated. “I lost everything in it. I fell asleep for too long and somebody just walked off with it.”
while preparing coffee for her, sister libby chats with renee about renee’s cousin, ruben, who is also homeless and whom sister libby is trying to help get an apartment. “I haven’t seen him in a while,” renee says. But moments later, several blocks away, sister libby spots ruben wearing a black hooded sweatshirt.
“when you get your place, i’ll pay for your security deposit,” she tells him. “Don’t forget.”
fellow sister of mercy luz eugenia alvarez, an educator who works as one of sister libby’s pedalers, keeps coats, shoes and granola bars stocked in her car at all times, pulling over when she sees someone in need. The experience has taught her to be grateful for the roof over her own head, but also not to fear people experiencing homelessness—to see them as fellow human beings worthy of god’s love.
“they look you in the eyes, and that expression of gratitude is hard to describe,” she says. “I feel like i meet jesus in those people that i meet on the street every day.”
mercy in philadelphia
both libby and luz served early in their careers in philadelphia, crossing paths with sister mary scullion, who has become legendary in the world of those who assist the unhoused and has created a model for the work many others do.
on a freezing day in the city of brotherly love, sister mary makes the rounds of the housing and community spaces she has created. It seems everyone she passes knows her name, and she theirs. She is known among the people she serves, but also by the woman with the walker named catherine who is making her way to the apartment sister mary helped build, the doorman at the fancy rittenhouse hotel where she sometimes parks her car, and the city’s wealthiest, whom she unflinchingly taps for multimillion-dollar donations.
she has met popes and presidents, has received funding from the rock star jon bon jovi and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by time magazine in 2009. Sister mary has also been arrested several times for protesting and handing out sandwiches in places that don’t want her or the homeless hanging around; she has filed lawsuits against the city when neighborhoods tried to stop her efforts and has been called everything from a saint to an “urban terrorist.”
sister mary, now 72, started in ministry by working in a soup kitchen as a college student in philadelphia, which inspired her to spend a week living with the homeless on the streets of the city in 1978 to better understand the people she was serving. Ten years later, she founded project home with her business partner joan dawson mcconnon. More than 1,000 housing units have been developed by the organization since then, and their staff has now grown to 500 people.
“mary has this gift of engaging with everyone around her,” says ms. Mcconnon, a mother of three and former accountant, whose financial savvy helped make their work possible. “Whether it’s a staff member or a person on the street or john middleton, who owns the philadelphia phillies, mary lets them know that they matter. She’s focused on them in that moment. They see that she’s a person of integrity willing to deliver on her deep moral convictions.”
sister mary and joan handed the reins of their organization over to new leaders to carry on their mission in early 2025. These days, sister mary lives in a small one-bedroom apartment in a residence she founded for young l.G.B.T.Q. People, who often wind up on the streets after they come out to their parents. But her outreach is still wide, and she is still teaching and setting an example for those who are taking up the mantle.
on the morning of my visit in december 2025, sister mary starts her day at the honickman learning center comcast technology labs, one of the ministries of project home. The center provides education and employment opportunities for the community through literacy training and access to technology. It is named for the soft drink distributor harold honickman and his wife, lynn, two of the wealthiest people in philadelphia and friends of sister mary, and is located on judson street, which had one of the worst crime rates in the city in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Sister mary lived here during the crack epidemic, her window once shot through with bullet holes. It’s now a beautiful street that also hosts a row of neat brick houses bearing the metal nameplate project home.
from there, sister mary puts her sneakers to good use, walking quickly to check in with residents at several affordable residential properties, some located in the most expensive parts of the city. She then moves on to the secondhand clothing store—project homespun boutique—which is run by a formerly homeless man named david brown, who sports a red beard, a white kufi on his head and a white kanzu beneath an embroidered black-and-white vest. His house and work keys and id card dangle from a lanyard around his neck.
“before sister mary, i was treated like a statistic,” says mr. Brown, 69, who has been employed and housed by project home for 14 years. “But the sisters of mercy would come and sit and talk to me and make me feel like i was loved and i was wanted.”
now he’s part of their home solution. Mr. Brown says: “we give people the h, which is housing. And then the o, which is opportunity, like they gave me with this job, then the m, which is medical, and then the e, education, which i got at the honickman center. But it’s all about being willing to do for yourself. And they help give you the will to do that, too. ‘None of us are home until all of us are home,’ that’s sister mary’s motto.”
sister mary’s next stop is the hub of hope drop-in center at suburban station across from city hall, beneath the shadow of the william penn statue. The hub, placed underground to attract those living in the subway, offers coffee, washer/dryers, tv and a place to rest away from the cold streets, with van service at the end of the day to a local shelter.
sister mary humbly passes the credit on to those who work with her, particularly joan, who she says is deeply spiritual. “It takes a vast network of people from all walks of life who are all committed to ending homelessness,” says sister mary in her philadelphia accent. “Charism is not only for nuns. It’s alive in our laypeople and donors as well.”
sister sue sanders, president of the institute of the sisters of mercy of the americas, who leads more than 2,200 women religious in north and south america, says that the order has a long history of building housing for the homeless in the united states, starting with the sisters of mercy in omaha, neb., In the early 1980s. But with fewer vocations to replace those retiring, many of the sisters’ organizations have embraced greater collaboration with the local lay community.
“when you don’t have a ton of people coming up behind you,” says sister sue, “you have to find people who are trained, capable leaders to assume elected positions in the congregation. And we have to make sure we maintain the catholic identity. What we have to do is create a runway to the future for these ministries and prepare people to assume them.”
sister mary says that to be successful, her organization also has to listen to those whom they serve. “You learn from the residents what worked, and you continue to tweak it as you go,” she explains, and employing those with “lived experience” is important to their mission.
monique taylor, who lived on the streets for a decade with an opioid addiction, now works as a special initiative outreach worker for project home in the city’s kensington neighborhood, which made national headlines in october when a team of f.B.I. Agents and local police swooped in and arrested 33 drug dealers.
ms. Taylor, 61, a small brunette dressed in ski bibs to protect against the cold, believes law enforcement is not enough to solve the city’s drug problem. She understands how people wind up “using,” back on the streets again and again, without the treatment to deal with the root causes of their problems.
“i know what it’s like to want to go home, but you can’t because this drug don’t let you go nowhere,” says ms. Taylor, who said she has been clean for 11 years. “I know what it’s like to have that guilt. And how everyone thinks, once an addict, always an addict. But that’s a lie. And i’m living proof.”
if she can get one person off the street a day, into a shelter and into treatment, she’s happy. “What a gift to be able to see the power of god’s grace and mercy,” she says, shaking her head, “because without it, i don’t know where i’d be.”
mercy in new york
on a cold winter morning, two cars pull up outside mercy haven food pantry in the hamlet of islip terrace on long island, in new york. Among those unloading dozens of boxes of venison, calamari and dried goods from the hatchbacks is a mother named shanice who spent three years in a homeless shelter and temporarily lost custody of her young daughter.
she now has a job at the pantry and a two-bedroom apartment in supportive housing, which she shares with her daughter, thanks to the staff and the sisters at mercy haven.
mercy haven is a nonprofit started by two more sisters of mercy that is helping unhoused people who struggle with mental illness. By addressing the root causes of homelessness, their team of 109 social workers and staff not only house people but help with medication and health insurance, diagnosis and treatment, education, and employment and job counseling. Programs like breakthrough, their homeless education outreach center, help identify those in need and provide them with housing and services either through their organization or partner organizations.
the project had its beginnings in the mid-1970s when pat griffith, r.S.M., Was working as a schoolteacher at st. Patrick school in bay shore, long island. She and her students would see people with mental illness who were recently released from state hospitals wandering up and down the streets outside the school.
“i didn’t know people with mental illness before that,” explains sister pat, 77, a grey-haired woman with glasses and a thick new york accent. “And so i had the same questions the kids had. Why do they talk to themselves? Why aren’t they friendly? Who were these people and how did they wind up here?”
in response, she opened a hospitality center at st. Patrick parish, which welcomed people off the street and offered them cake, coffee and conversation. This led to the formation of a soup kitchen and eventually to the establishment of mercy haven. In 1985, she asked fellow sister katherine nolan, r.S.M., A foster care social worker from queens, to help her find money to purchase a hotel to provide housing and services for the mentally ill.
the two women religious secured $1.6 million in state grants as well as loans from the mcauley institute and leviticus fund to purchase a hotel in bay shore. But then delays caused by a fire at the site, as well as community and local political opposition to the project, meant it would be four years until the organization could open its first group residence, which served a dozen people. The home still stands, its rooms still full.
“people didn’t want the mentally ill living on their street,” explains sister pat, standing outside the residence on a quiet dead-end block.
“they still don’t,” says sister kathy, 82.
there were bomb threats and warnings from neighbors who told them not to walk on the street alone. Because of the bomb scares, the bay shore house had to be evacuated two times. Despite these threats, the sisters persevered, and mercy haven now owns and operates 38 houses and rents another 40, providing both temporary and permanent shelter for more than 300 people, including families. Their food pantry serves 1,000 people a month.
sister pat is about to retire and pass the day-to-day work on to the next generation as represented by a laywoman named donna donaghy, a mother of five who has worked with mercy haven for four years. Ms. Donaghy has hit the ground running and is already looking for property for a medical respite program that would serve 20 people in need of recuperative care.
“i have big shoes to fill,” says ms. Donaghy, nodding over at sister kathy and sister pat. “I’m also not a nun.”
“it’s never too late, honey,” jokes sister kathy, touching her shoulder and laughing.
like project home, mercy haven employs people with lived experience of mental illness and homelessness to help them stay on track and to minister to other residents. One such employee is 58-year-old lisa, a graphic designer with schizophrenia. She said she went undiagnosed for decades, sleeping only two or three hours a night for 30 years.
“i was a workaholic,” explains lisa, a long island native, “which helped me move through life.” But her yearslong struggle left her suicidal, in and out of seven different mental hospitals and eventually homeless.
at mercy gardens apartment complex in central islip, a mercy haven property that opened in april 2022, lisa has not only found a permanent place to live but also designs flyers for the organization and teaches art to fellow residents as part of their resident empowerment and achievement program, known as reap. “I’m very lucky,” she says. “I realize that god loves me after all. I thought he had it in for me.”
her one-bedroom apartment is the home of an artist. Jazz plays in the living room, purple curtains hang on the window, a drafting table stands in the corner of her bedroom, a disco ball lamp throws circles of light on the ceiling, and a string of red letters over the kitchen cabinets reads love. Downstairs in the communal space are tables for drawing during and after art class and a piano for playing and singing.
“the great thing about mercy haven is that they have something happening all the time,” says lisa. “Isolation is a big part of mental illness, so meeting in that community space with people is really important.”
sometimes, she says, she worries that her new reality is just a dream and that when she wakes up, she’ll find that she never left the mental hospital. “It’s hard to believe sometimes. All of this. But these really are the best years of my life,” she says, her eyes wide, her smile wider as she looks around at her couch, her tea kettle and the big picture window with the light pouring in. “I’m definitely home.”
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reporting for this story was supported by a grant from lilly endowment inc. |
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| The Thunderword - Official Newspaper of Highline College |
| Posted on Friday, March 13 @ 00:01:09 PDT (5 reads) | |
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Evelyn rissell named a finalist in npr student podcast challenge
each year college students across the country are invited to tell powerful stories through sound in npr’s college podcast challenge, which highlights emerging audio journalists and storytellers. This year the excitement of “march (audio) madness” brought together some of the most creative student podcasts in the country.
among the finalists is a familiar voice – someone the thunderword’s newsroom staff is lucky enough to call a co-worker, student, and friend: evelyn rissell.
washington state’s first income tax; “the millionaire’s tax”
after a grueling debate at the washington state legislature, lasting more than 24-hours in the house and a landslide vote in the senate, a proposed income tax bill, colloquially known as the “millionaire’s tax” has passed a major legislative milestone.
the bill aims at instituting the state’s first income tax to fund government services and, potentially, childcare. Most residents in washington state are in support of the tax, but it is expected to drive out some of the wealthiest business owners.
emerald city comic con 2026 continues connecting people through creativity
a staple for local pop culture fans and cosplayers, emerald city comic con (eccc) 2026 drew crowds exceeding 90,000 for the annual four-day event this past weekend. Featuring celebrity panels, local artists, and various activities, there was a place for everybody.
looking beyond the crowds, this event displays deeper value: a community interconnected through art, shaping a space where creativity and self-expression is not only accepted, but encouraged.
“kiss all the time, disco occasionally”: skip never
after much anticipation for his fourth studio album, harry styles released “kiss all the time, disco occasionally,” on mar. 6. His lead single “aperture” set the tone for this new era of embracing dance sounds while still holding on to his signature pop flare.
although this album received mixed reviews, with the overarching theme of these reviews being that this album was spectacularly “okay,” i found this album to be inspired and fun. While his vocals are more muted throughout this album in comparison to previous projects, there are still occasional moments of lyrical impact.
campus
evelyn rissell named a finalist in npr student podcast challenge
each year college students across the country are invited to tell powerful stories through sound in npr’s college podcast challenge, which highlights emerging audio journalists and storytellers. This year the excitement of “march (audio) madness” brought together some of the most creative student podcasts in the country.
among the finalists is a familiar voice – someone the thunderword’s newsroom staff is lucky enough to call a co-worker, student, and friend: evelyn rissell.
social media is affecting confidence at highline college
at highline college, the scroll never really stops. In the classrooms, study rooms, and even between lectures. What can look like harmless downtime is something much bigger. Social media is shaping how students see themselves and not for the better.
social media was created to connect people, yet instead, it has become a comparison machine. For many college students, that comparison is quietly damaging their confidence.
new education law slashes graduate loan access this summer
following president donald trump’s “big beautiful bill” being signed into law, beginning on july 1, 2026, graduate students may lose a critical source of educational funding. For ones enrolled in so-called non-professional graduate degree programs, they will no longer be eligible for fair, interest free, federally distributed loans.
as part of the administration’s new educational restructuring, graduate students are facing blows on two fronts.
community
emerald city comic con 2026 continues connecting people through creativity
a staple for local pop culture fans and cosplayers, emerald city comic con (eccc) 2026 drew crowds exceeding 90,000 for the annual four-day event this past weekend. Featuring celebrity panels, local artists, and various activities, there was a place for everybody.
looking beyond the crowds, this event displays deeper value: a community interconnected through art, shaping a space where creativity and self-expression is not only accepted, but encouraged.
“destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech,” verdict on greenpeace v. Energy transfer partners trial
a north dakota jury has reached the verdict that the environmental group greenpeace has to pay $345 million to energy transfer partners (etp) over actions taken to prevent the construction of the dakota access pipeline in 2016. The advocacy group intends to seek a new trial, and if denied, they will appeal the judgment with the north dakota supreme court.
according to cbs news, trey cox, an attorney for etp, “… accused greenpeace of paying professional protesters, organizing protester training, sharing intelligence of the pipeline route and even sending lockboxes so that demonstrators could attach themselves to equipment.”
u.S./Israeli strikes on iran incite conflicting protests across the globe
on feb. 28, israel and the u.S. Issued strikes on iran, specifically targeting nuclear facilities. This attack resulted in the death of over 200 iranian citizens, and the recently confirmed assassination of supreme leader ali khamenei. These actions caused an eruption of protests around the world.
hundreds of local protesters gathered throughout downtown seattle in direct response, opposing government-issued violence against citizens, highlighting growing concerns regarding the u.S. Government.
federal way’s state of the city: where is the city heading?
mayor of federal way jim ferrell held a state of the city public meeting to discuss the state and future of the city. He went over various topics such as the light rail, tourism, and focusing on making federal way the economic powerhouse of south king county.
the feb. 19 meeting was held at the federal way’s performing arts center. At 6 p.M., The mayor started speaking and introduced himself and his team. He then transitioned into talking about the first subject – the light rail. He said that he was proud of this achievement and that federal way finally has a system connected to the other cities in king county.
sports
alysa liu: the ultimate comeback
alysa liu’s gold-medal winning return to figure skating has served as a global reminder of determination, moderation, and self-care. Liu has spoken openly about her struggles to return following a record-setting run in her early teenage years, but now, at 19, she is redefining an athlete’s relationship with their sport, and inspiring others as she goes.
liu began her figure skating career at five years old, going on to become the youngest female skater to earn gold at the 2016 u.S. Championships, winning by less than a point. She continued to collect medals and reverence, and eventually announced her retirement in 2022 following the world championships and the beijing olympics.
highline hoops comes to an end, for now
the highline men’s and women’s 2025-2026 basketball season has unfortunately come to an end. Both teams worked incredibly hard everyday and it showed throughout the season. Every game, they wanted it even more than the last. Highline continues to show that they are top competitors in the north west athletic conference (nwac).
highline exhibited amazing community and culture, and you see it on the court and in the stands. Both teams showed how highline competes at this level – with great sportsmanship and tenacity. The men ended their season with a 7-7 in conference record, going 14-17 overall. The women’s season tallied a 7-5 in conference record and went 9-15 overall – with the addition of the woman making it to the nwac tournament.
highline basketball ends regular season play; women go off to dominate the nwac tournament
highline men and women’s basketball both had inspired seasons. However, with regular season play concluding, the teams take divergent paths – the men’s season ends falling just short of the postseason, while the women are set to embark on the playoffs this weekend, with eyes set on a championship.
the thunderbird women head to columbia basin college in pasco, wash., To play in the postseason tournament. Their first match, in the sweet 16 round, is slated for this friday, march 6, tipping off at noon.
girona defeat barcelona 2-1 as yamal misses penalty in catalan derby
girona defeated fc barcelona 2-1 at montilivi in a dramatic catalan derby, a result that cost barcelona the top spot in la liga and left them two points behind real madrid. The match was intense from the beginning and full of important moments, missed chances, and controversial decisions that ultimately decided the outcome.
the game started at a high tempo, with girona showing early energy and forcing goalkeeper joan garcía into action within the first minute. Barcelona struggled to control possession at times but still created several dangerous chances. Lamine yamal was heavily involved in the attack and had two close-range opportunities that he failed to convert. In one key moment, he broke through on goal and attempted a chip over goalkeeper paulo gazzaniga, but the keeper reacted quickly and made the save.
arts
“kiss all the time, disco occasionally”: skip never
after much anticipation for his fourth studio album, harry styles released “kiss all the time, disco occasionally,” on mar. 6. His lead single “aperture” set the tone for this new era of embracing dance sounds while still holding on to his signature pop flare.
although this album received mixed reviews, with the overarching theme of these reviews being that this album was spectacularly “okay,” i found this album to be inspired and fun. While his vocals are more muted throughout this album in comparison to previous projects, there are still occasional moments of lyrical impact.
resident evil requiem is here!
“resident evil requiem”, the ninth title in the resident evil series, brings back a couple of familiar faces and introduces a couple of new ones. We play as both the famous leon s. Kennedy and our new protagonist fbi tech and intelligence analyst grace ashcroft, the daughter of a previous protagonist, alyssa ashcroft from “resident evil outbreak”.
the first half of resident evil 9 (re9) takes you from wrenwood hotel to rhodes hill chronic care center where the game is more grounded, and feels similar to the racoon police department from re2/3 or the bakers house from re7. The map is more open world but still linear.
dragon ball z anniversary satisfies fans, but doesnt compare to last year
“dragon ball z: dokkan battle” just had its 11th anniversary with a whole host of new gimmicks, characters, events, and free rewards in celebration. Each year, dokkan battle celebrates its anniversary. Originally released in japan on jan. 30, 2015, it was released globally later that year on july 16. These anniversary releases attract players old and new each year.
part one started off with the new characters: ‘maximum-power battle super saiyan 4 goku’ and ‘earth-shattering climax super saiyan 3 vegeta.’ Both legendary rare, goku falls in the super str type while vegeta is a super teq type.
science & technology
when the moon turns red
a recent blood moon in the pacific northwest attracted 3 million people to bear witness to the total lunar eclipse. Worldwide, nearly 3 billion people were able to see it.
the blood moon began at around midnight on march 3, for us here on the pacific coast. Three hours later, at around 3 a.M. P.S.T., The blood moon reached its totality – its entire surface covered by a deep red. This effect lasted for about an hour.
the moon is shrinking
you read that right. The moon, as we know it, is shrinking. And this isn’t from a “despicable me” movie where gru is shrinking the moon. The moon is shrinking, in real life. It isn’t really anything to be worried about, though.
the moon has only shrunk about 50 meters (164 feet) over the course of several hundred million years. Given that the moon’s diameter is 11,400,048 feet long, (2,159.1 miles), its width has been reduced by approximately 0.00144%.
the moon shrinking does actually cause a few things, though.
the battle for the cavendish banana plants
cavendish banana plants are being assaulted by the fungus fusarium oxysporum f. Sp. Cubense worldwide, causing them to wilt and die. Fortunately, in this time of crisis, scientists may have just found something that could save bananas for generations to come.
“fusarium wilt – also known as panama disease – is a destructive soil-borne disease which impacts farmed cavendish bananas worldwide through its virulent race 4 strains,” said dr. Andrew chen, a researcher at the university of queensland.
news briefs
washington state’s first income tax; “the millionaires tax”
after a grueling debate at the washington state legislature, lasting more than 24-hours in the house and a landslide vote in the senate, a proposed income tax bill, colloquially known as the “millionaire’s tax” has passed a major legislative milestone.
the bill aims at instituting the state’s first income tax to fund government services and, potentially, childcare. Most residents in washington state are in support of the tax, but it is expected to drive out some of the wealthiest business owners.
oscars return march 15 for the 98th academy awards
hollywood’s biggest night returns march 15 as the 98th academy awards take center stage at the dolby theatre in los angeles.
the oscars, formally known as the academy awards, honor the year’s best achievements in film. Presented by the academy of motion picture arts and sciences, the awards recognize excellence in categories such as best picture, best director, best actor, and best actress, along with honors for screenwriting, cinematography, editing, and more.
u.S. Immigration policy compared to european policy
people living in the united states and europe immigrate for a multitude of reasons and always have. They could be fleeing conflict zones, they could be moving for financial reasons, or they could simply be exploring. Immigration is not only something humans have always done but it’s a normal thing for most living creatures to do. Birds migrate constantly for survival purposes and it is no different for us.
here in the united states, immigration is one of the most hotly debated topics in modern politics. People immigrate worldwide all the time because it’s often a human necessity and simply a normal thing to do and yet, especially to the american right wing, it’s up there with the most important issues there is.
trump administration moves to end housing assistance for mixed immigration families
the department of housing and urban development (hud) published a proposal that prevents families with mixed immigration status from receiving federal housing assistance. Current hud regulations dictate that mixed status households (meaning both eligible and ineligible to receive federal housing assistance) can receive assistance based on how many members of the household are eligible.
hud’s proposal would limit the assistance to a temporary 30-day period, effectively barring mixed-status families completely from receiving said assistance.
opinion
“scream 7” - hopefully the end?
in a long list of classics, when you get to horror, the movie that most everyone knows by name is “scream”. Along with that, everyone has their own opinion on how good the movies are, if it is even considered a classic, or if it’s worth your while. So while i can’t tell you if you should go watch the latest film, i can tell you what i thought of it.
as many long-time “scream” fans know, the latest movie in the franchise came out on feb. 27. Supposedly it will be the last movie in the series, but who knows? There was a lot of preemptive guessing of who the directors and writers were going to bring back – the main one being stu macher, one of the original ghostface killers from the first film.
thunderpod
the thunderpods career conversations with art land concluded
with the thunderpod’s final episode of the winter 2026 quarter, join us for the exciting end to the two part interview with art land! The communications extraordinaire expands on his time with media outlets, and how he entered into the world of academia.
this week’s segment also covers the pod’s take on exposition within character development. We dive into when it’s done well, when it’s not, and how you know it.
this is another episode you won’t want to miss! |
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| Paying your way through college by selling weed or doing Only Fans or whatever i |
| Posted on Friday, March 13 @ 00:01:09 PDT (5 reads) | |
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Paying your way through college by selling weed or doing only fans or whatever is infinitely more honorable than joining the military to get an education. Never forget community college is an option and you do not have to contribute to american imperialism to attend. I knew a girl who had scholarships but sold her dirty socks and underwear to pervs online for living expenses and she is stronger than any us marine for that.
atomic dog!
i’m algernon (he/him), i’m 25 and i’m a pretentious commie.
if you like my posts, please consider donating to my ko-fi.
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| Conservatives failed to strip new SDPB support as lawmakers approved South Dakot |
| Posted on Friday, March 13 @ 00:01:09 PDT (5 reads) | |
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Sioux falls, s.D. (South dakota broadcasters association) - south dakota lawmakers passed the state’s main budget bill thursday after conservatives made south dakota public broadcasting a flashpoint in a broader argument over spending growth and the size of state government.
house bill 1326 passed the house 50-17 and the senate 25-9. Before final senate passage, senators tabled amendment 1326b. The “g-bill,” as it is called, was delivered to gov. Larry rhoden on thursday.
the bill funds state government for fiscal year 2027, which begins july 1. The enrolled bill includes $296,053 in new general fund support for south dakota public broadcasting to replace federal money previously received from the corporation for public broadcasting.
freedom caucus members led the opposition against the budget bill, joined by a few other conservative lawmakers, including sen. Taffy howard, r-rapid city. Budget leaders, democrats, and other republicans said the bill still had to fund schools, health care, corrections, public safety, and other core services.
the sdpb fight also followed last year’s failed effort by then-gov. Kristi noem to cut the network. In this year’s debate, sen. John carley, r-piedmont, said that earlier proposal would have reduced sdpb funding to about $1.9 million.
sdpb became the symbolic fight
“it removes the $296,000 of increased money for south dakota public broadcasting,” sen. John carley, r-piedmont, said. “It does not strip away any of their existing funding.” The senate later tabled his amendment.
carley also said npr and pbs programming carried on sdpb was biased, arguing neither outlet presented “a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events” to taxpayers.
in the house, rep. Dylan jordan, r-clear lake, tried a different route. He sought a separate vote on sdpb funding instead of leaving it inside the larger budget bill. That effort failed, and the bill moved ahead intact.
budget backers said the bill funds core obligations
“this is a balanced budget for the 137th year in a row,” rep. Mike derby, r-rapid city, said. “This is a budget that invests in the people of south dakota where they need it most.”
derby also said the bill includes a 1.4 percent increase for k-12 education and technical colleges, a 1.4 percent increase for community-based providers, and a 1.4 percent increase for state employees.
the enrolled bill also includes support for critical access hospitals and federally qualified health centers, as well as higher corrections appropriations.
in the senate, sen. Mark lapka, r-leola, defended the bill on final passage.
opponents said spending keeps growing
“the state budget has grown from roughly $4.3 billion to about $7.3 billion over the last decade,” rep. Josephine garcia, r-watertown, said. “That level of growth should cause this body to pause.”
“all too often the ending is the same,” sen. Taffy howard, r-rapid city, said. “We leave here today expanding government at taxpayers’ expense.”
democrats backed the bill
“it funds our schools, it strengthens health care, it supports public safety, and it invests in the future of our state,” rep. Erin healy, d-sioux falls, said.
healy also thanked appropriators, including rep. Erik muckey, d-sioux falls, and thanked sdpb for its role in making government more accountable and transparent.
what happens next
hb 1326 now goes to rhoden for his consideration. If he signs it, the measure becomes the state’s operating budget for the fiscal year that starts july 1.
copyright 2026 dakota news now. All rights reserved. |
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| 4/14: Civil War Roundtable - NRVNews |
| Posted on Friday, March 13 @ 00:01:09 PDT (5 reads) | |
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4/14: civil war roundtable
the veteran reserve corps: how the union’s barely remembered “invalid corps” became the most significant civil war force you’ve never heard of
in early 1863, just two years into the civil war, abraham lincoln’s union cause was in deep trouble and so short on manpower the president was forced to implement the nation’s first general military draft. Similarly beset was colonel james b. Fry, the union’s new provost marshal general, who had been placed in charge of the draft but without any troops to carry out the controversial effort. Just as troubled were thousands of individual wounded and injured union combat veterans clogging the north’s many hospitals, who found themselves retained in military service but unable to return to the rigors of front-line service.
in a bold stroke of organizational innovation fry set in motion solving all these problems at once by creating the “invalid corps.” Later renamed the veteran reserve corps (vrc), fry’s force contributed to union victory not just by conducting the union’s drafts, but in myriad other significant ways as well. For example, by freeing healthy men to serve in the field the vrc ensured northern victory and by the war’s close new brigadier general fry had commanded 60,000 men – only general ulysses s. Grant led more troops.
performing important rear-area duties such as guarding government facilities—military stores, bridges, and prisoner of war camps—or working as office clerks and hospital nurses, the vrc’s presence scattered across the north served as a unifying, stabilizing force during the civil war’s darkest days. Yet in some instances these invalid soldiers, intended only for rear area duty, found themselves once again called to combat, wielding skills they had learned in places such as antietam, gettysburg, and spotsylvania. In its most notable such moment vrc men helped hold off confederate general jubal early’s corps during its july 1864 attack on washington, dc, buying time for grant to reinforce and save the nation’s capital.
although the vrc’s many contributions have been largely lost to american history, now you can learn the full story of how these invalid veterans rose to continue serving their nation by making “the penultimate sacrifice.”
to present this intriguing story, on tuesday, april 14, 2026, the roanoke civil war round table—winner of a kegley award for heritage education [see https://roanokepreservation.Org/preservation-awards/]—will host historian and author david a. Welker.
david will discuss his new book “now i’m with the invalids:” the union’s veteran reserve corps in america’s civil war.
david’s previous works include the cornfield: antietam’s bloody turning point, tempest at ox hill: the battle of chantilly and a keystone rebel: the civil war diary of joseph garey, as well as numerous academic journal and commercial magazine and newspaper articles about diverse aspects of the civil war. A professional historian and military analyst for the federal government with 40 years’ experience, he holds a master’s degree in international affairs from american university and a bachelor’s degree in political science and history from westminster college. David’s various published writings and select recorded speaking engagements are available on his website, davidawelker-civilwarhistorian, which can be found at this link: home | david a. Welker – civil war historian.
date, time & location: tuesday, april 14, 2026 (7:00 pm), chapel of the residents’ center at friendship, 397 hershberger road, roanoke, va, 24012. Admission $5.00 for non-round table members (and becoming a round table member is welcome). |
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| [civ:notes] |
| Posted on Friday, March 13 @ 00:01:09 PDT (5 reads) | |
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A repository of evidence that “william shake-speare” was instead the literary arm of francis bacon and his writing practice.
francis bacon (1561–1626)
shakespeare works: anonymous (1591–1598); named (1598–1623)
william shakspur of stratford-upon-avon (1564–1616)
argument one: william shakspur never wrote a thing
the reason there are authorship theories is because the historical evidence linking 38 masterpieces to william shakspur man from stratford-upon-avon is powerfully sparse, and shakespeare’s biographies are unusually contrived.
the missing evidence
biographies are traditionally based on records of existence: private letters, manuscripts, diaries, ownership deeds, administrations, other people’s accounts. In one study, of the 23 next-most-well-known writers in london in the 1590s and 1600s, records exist that describe each of them as writers, plus, handwritten material survived for 15 of them, receipts of payment for writing services exist for 14 of them, private letters exist for 13 of them, and 11 have original manuscripts of their work still intact. Shakespeare has none of these. [1]
for reference, voltaire, a playwright who lived in the same century, left 20,000 private letters upon his death. Even ben jonson, the next most influential writer from the time, cited by historians as shakespeare’s closest friend and eye witness, left hundreds of private letters, receipts of payment of writing, original manuscripts, handwritten material, and miscellaneous records with reference to his profession.
“shakespeare” —- a man intimately familiar with royal courts, law, foreign lands, and classical works — left no papers documenting his travels or education, no personal library, no correspondence with other writers or patrons (including ben jonson, who called “shakespeare” the greatest writer of all time — more on that later), no miscellaneous records relating to him as a poet, dramatist or writer of any sort, and no original manuscript of any play, poem, or other prose composition.
the stratford connection
the bulk of evidence used by shakespeare’s biographers rests on the authority of the title pages of the plays in the first folio, where ben jonson references shakespeare in the prologue and includes his portrait (made posthumously), and because there are no personal records, biographers tie the plays to a man named “shaxpur” or “shakspur” from stratford-upon-avon, who appeared as an actor in two ben jonson plays. For this man, there are six words of handwriting that have survived — six shaky signatures on legal documents that read his name.
if the conventional wisdom is to be believed, the greatest ever playwright’s parents were illiterate, his wife anne was illiterate, and his children were illiterate (unlike the children of every other great writer ever). The actor from stratford never went to college nor had any schooling at all; he was surrounded by illiterate people from birth, never owned a library, and is believed never to have traveled outside england.
according to a vicar in stratford-upon-avon, shakspur is thought to have died in 1616 from an illness after a night of drinking with ben jonson. His death was a non-event even within the town, with no lamenting poems, no eulogies, and no national tears to be heard of (while the deaths of jonson, bacon, raleigh, and marlowe would receive lots of coverage). His will was four pages long and handwritten by an attorney, with no indication it was the will of a great writer, a man who supposedly invented 2,000 words, leaving no scrap of writing for his illiterate family.
what can be said with some certainty is that william shakspur didn’t write the plays attributed to him. Now hold your breath, there’s way more.
argument two: francis bacon wrote shakespeare
the promus
bacon’s “promus” notebook was published with his “northumberland papers” in the late 19th century, two documents that show an evolution of shakespeare unlike anything else. Bacon’s promus contains 1,655 metaphors, aphorisms, and gags written between 1594–1596, and hundreds of niche parallels to extracts of the shakespeare plays written later.
- the notebook includes phrases lifted from virgil, ovid, seneca, horace, terence, and the catholic bible in languages ranging from latin, french, italian, spanish, to english, and at least 600 of bacon’s phrases can be found in his known works, let alone the hundreds that would be found in shakespeare over the following 30 years.
the northumberland papers
this ledger of papers include a collection of works belonging to two authors: bacon and shakespeare, written before they were published, in 1597 (before shakespeare appeared on the title pages of any plays). Within, the phrase “by mr. Ffrauncis william shakespeare” is written with a page of signatures by the same hand, with multiple alternative spellings of the name “shakespeare”, as if bacon is testing out his pen name.
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bacon signs off with the symbol of pallas athena, the “spear-shaker” and muse of all muses, and includes the titles “richard i”, “richard ii”, excerpts from the “rape of lucrece”, and the famous word “honorificabilitudini” from “love labour’s lost”. Unlike other works listed, the plays aren’t immediately attributed to any author, while another work included (the “isle of dogs” by ben jonson) explicitly names the author on the title page. This is the only elizabethan document with both bacon and shakespeare’s names on.
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“richard i & ii” were shakespeare’s most treasonous plays, later used to encourage rebellion by the earl of essex in 1601. It was in the second quarto publication of richard ii in 1598 that the shakespeare name was used in print for the first time (as “william shake-speare”).
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the words “put into type” are written on the back, referencing the writing practice bacon held with his brother anthony to publish writing, an explanation for why no handwritten shakespeare plays have been attributed to him, for they were never circulated before being put into type.
the first folio
the first folio (1623) was published seven years after shakespeare’s date of death, and collated while ben jonson lived in francis bacon’s residence in st albans. Jonson worked as bacon’s secretary and latin interpreter for many years (an enormous deal, given that jonson is the only witness commonly cited by historians to evidence shakespeare existed, and who died without a single letter from shakespeare to his name). It contained 18 plays printed for the first time - half of shakespeare’s catelogue — including new plays like “henry viii” — with nearly 5,000 new lines added to the plays previously released as quartos.
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bacon and shakespeare’s combined works create an unbroken timeline of the monarchy across 16 kings from “king john” (1199) to “henry viii” (1547), without overlap. Furthermore, “richard iii” concludes at the battle of bosworth field. Bacon’s “henry vii” commences with the song at the end of the battle.
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letters show bacon was working on a “henry viii” history between 1620 and 1623, though no such work was published under bacon’s name. Plays like “henry viii” contain information bacon had privileged access to between 1618 and 1621 as lord chancellor to james i (particularly lord chancellor thomas wolsey’s materials).
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in “love labour’s lost”, the two councillors of the french king, biron and longueville, appear in the play. This information wasn’t publicly known at the time, but bacon grew up in france’s clergy between 12 and 17, while francis’ brother anthony was present at the court during the years 1585–90, watching these events unfold first-hand.
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ben jonson referred to bacon in his eulogy as “he, who hath fill’d up all numbers; and perform’d that in our tongue, which may be compar’d, or preferr’d, either to insolent greece, or haughty rome”, comparing him to homer and virgil. This is the precise analogy he cast to shakespeare in the first folio, which jonson never recycled in his writing otherwise.
the king james bible
the first folio (1623) and the king james bible (1611) belong to the same pen, and bacon left his mark on both.
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in the first folio, the name of bacon and his closest friend, tobie matthew appear in the margin. Bacon has described tobie as “another myself”, and it reads vertically: “f. Bacon, tobey” and “two alike” on multiple pages. Similarly, bacon included his favourite two numbers (33 and 46), with the 46th word from the beginning and end spelling “shake” and “spear”.
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“the tempest” (1611) shows extensive biblical parallels as shakespeare’s most biblical work, suggesting simultaneous work on both texts. After his fall from power in 1621, bacon wrote a prayer with remarkable similarity in prose to kjv.
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bacon’s printer’s devices appear in both works, identical to works from “venus and adonis” (1592), to “sylva sylvarum” (1623).
personal and biographical evidence
bacon’s hometown of st albans appears more than any other location in shakespeare’s works (stratford does not appear). Bacon’s brother, antony/antonio is the most common character across the 37 plays (after the common name john). Bacon’s lived experience is further aligned with his plays, e.G.:
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in one of the first shakespeare works “the taming of the shrew”, bacon’s family and friends make up the cast: the central character “petruccio” is petruccio ubaldini, bacon’s family calligrapher of forty years. Bacon’s aunt, katherine cooke killigrew, is “katherine”, the other lead, with her sister bianca being bacon’s mother, lady anne bacon. Anthony, bacon’s brother, appears as petruccio’s father “antonio”, and nicholas and nathaniel, bacon’s elder half-brothers, are petruccio’s servants.
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“the merchant of venice” appears to dramatise bacon’s financial crisis. In 1594, after his writing studio failed and he had spent all his money publishing various books, bacon borrowed from a jewish man who subsequently had him sent to a sponging house. Just as in the play, his brother anthony saves his brother, returns from his travels in italy, mortgages his property, and borrows money from friends to clear francis’ debts.
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the earliest shakespeare poem “venus and adonis” is openly dedicated to henry, earl of southampton, with whom bacon was having a love affair throughout the 1590s, living with him at gray’s inn. The authorship of this poem was attributed to bacon at the time by john marston and joseph hall, along with shakespeare’s other poem “the rape of lucrece”, suggesting bacon was using “a swain” as a mask for his authorship.
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“the two gentlemen of verona” features lines lifted verbatim from bacon’s letter to king james, and bacon’s closest friend tobie matthew indicates in his letters to bacon that he is returning the work ”measure for measure” that bacon had sent him. Another time, he alludes that bacon wrote “julius caesar”.
the good pens writing studio
anthony and francis bacon held together a writing studio they called ‘the good pens’ that included at various times many reputable poets and writers including thomas kyd (co-author of “edward iii”) and christopher marlowe (co-author of “henry vi”), along with scribes that would print many of the early works of the english renaissance.
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the practice worked covertly, publishing books under pseudonyms. The first 14 works of shakespeare were published anonymously (before becoming pseudonymous), and “henry vi” has been part attributed to the same writers employed by bacon and anthony in london at the time. ‘The good pens’ organised and directed ‘masques’ for the royal court, performing many shakespeare plays for the first time, including “the comedy of errors” at gray’s inn (bacon’s london residence) in winter 1594, for elizabeth i.
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the “shake-speares sonnets” were signed by the gemini signature. Anthony was known to have written sonnets, but never published them under his own name. The shakespeare monument, erected between 1616 and 1623 implies there were two sides of shakespeare, one being the ‘mortal’ pupil, and the other being the ‘immortal’ teacher. This signature was the sign that francis and anthony bacon used to symbolise their twin partnership under the ‘the good pens’.
now we’ve visited the axioms of history, lets turn our attention to the incentives. Has this really eluded the mainstream for four hundred years long?
the motivation of shakespeare
elizabethan england was a land of brutal censorship. There was little freedom of speech, especially for nobles, who would face a certain social stigma from their peers if they provided honest political commentary. The master of the revels and the dreaded star chamber had the power to imprison and torture any writer, and this happened to many of bacon’s circle:
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the playwright thomas kyd was essentially tortured to death.
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christopher marlowe was facing torture when he was murdered in a brawl.
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playwrights ben jonson, thomas nashe, george chapman, and john marston were all temporarily imprisoned for their writings.
the shakespeare plays were particularly controversial, and weaponised by enemies of queen elizabeth. The earl of essex sponsored a performance of richard ii in a plot to encourage rebellion against queen elizabeth i (and was shortly thereafter arrested and executed).
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bacon was intimately involved in this proceeding and others, given his legal training and relationship with the royal court. Essex may have been bacon’s brother by blood. He had good reason to hide his identity so that the writer could denounce the current regime or certain political enemies without direct backlash.
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in richard ii, the monarch is deposed, imprisoned and murdered. The play was written around 1595 but the ‘abdication scene’ was not printed in early editions, because of the parallels to the protestant queen elizabeth. King richard had relied heavily on politically powerful favourites, as did elizabeth, and she is reputed to have remarked, “i am richard ii, know ye not that?” Upon viewing the play. For these reasons, shakespeare’s commentary was published under a pseudonym until 1598, and no clear link formed to william shakspur until after elizabeth’s reign.
bacon was considered a genius from a young age. He was well exposed to the royal household, growing up in the cecil mansion on strand from age 5 or 6, before a long period serving under the ambassador to france until seventeen.
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deliberately set out to stock his mind with all human learning ancient and modern, starting at a young age where one anecdote proclaimed he had read every book ever published by age 12 (back in 1573). One of his biographers remarked that, “the immensity of his genius has been a sole trial for his biographers.” As a teen, when he was painted by elizabeth’s portrait artist, who inscribed “if only i could paint his mind!” Beneath his image.
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samuel johnson (1709–1784), who wrote the first english dictionary, said he could have written a dictionary from bacon’s works alone. He was said to possesses an exceptional memory, and there are testimonies regarding his power of instant comprehension. Shakespeare has the habit of writing phrases with double and opposite meanings, which relates to bacon’s philosophy of covering the front and back in time.
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goethe said shakespeare “drew a sponge over all human knowledge”, which is apparent in his clinical understanding of all of the arts and sciences. Bacon is famous in his own right for pioneering the baconian method, for formalising knowledge in a structured fashion, a philosophy he developed at a young age.
a more interesting tudor era: the extended theory
theory: bacon and the earl of essex were sons of queen elizabeth i
the story goes: in 1560, elizabeth and robert dudley, earl of leicester, were married in secret. Two years into her reign, elizabeth got pregnant with robert dudley’s child, was housed for six months and gave birth to francis, and the bacon family adopted him as their own. Eight years later, the act of succession was rewritten to allow elizabeth to select who the crown would go to, rather than her heirs.
bacon was raised by elizabeth’s closest advisor, william cecil, who would have been bacon’s uncle, and as a young teenager was sent by the queen to france to study under the french ambassador. At 17, the royal portrait artist nicholas hilliard painted just bacon from his family, and just the earl of essex from his, and he refrained from painting anyone except royals. Nicholas bacon left no money to bacon in his will, unlike his adoptive brother anthony.
at 23, bacon would be made member of parliament for portland, a royal borough, and lived on the royal dime. At 32, bacon would be given twickenham park opposite the queen’s palace at richmond, where he wrote love labour’s lost and many great works. The shakespeare author alludes to this many times. One such time is in henry iv part 1, where he modifies the common phrase “tom, dick, and harry” to “tom, dick, and francis.” This appears in prince henry’s dialogue, potentially linking the name francis to the prince of wales — a position bacon would have held if recognised as elizabeth’s son.
bacon would come to take the position of queen consort, a position made for him, as he rose to significance as elizabeth’s closest advisor. After elizabeth’s death, bacon wrote to james i “i wish that i am the first, so i may be the last of sacrifices in your times,” and was subsequently knighted, given office, and promoted to lord chancellor in short succession, where he wore purple at his coronation — a colour saved specifically for royals.
theory: bacon wrote cervantes’ don quixote
the shakespeare canon presents a remarkable literary map of europe and the ancient world, covering the monarchy from king john through henry viii (if you include bacon’s works), with definitive masterpieces set in various nations:
- macbeth for scotland.
- for denmark, hamlet.
- romeo and juliet is italy’s undying masterpiece.
- germany is captured in measure for measure and the merchant of venice.
- france, england’s ally at the time, was central to love labour’s lost and henry v.
- for rome and greece we have julius caesar and troilus and cressida, while a midsummer night’s dream is set in a mythological athens.
- for egypt there’s antony and cleopatra.
one leading european nation is conspicuous by its absence, perhaps due to their constant attacks against england during elizabeth’s reign. Spain has no great political commentary, no great novel by shakespeare, though perhaps spain’s greatest piece of literature appeared in 1605 — don quixote.
cervantes, the mysterious spanish author, died on the exact same day as shakespeare (according to the difference of ten days between spanish and english calendars), and left no marked grave, no private letters, no manuscripts, no diaries, no will, no payments. He left nothing, and was not recognised for hundreds of years as a genius. The book was printed in madrid, and was outcast for the complexity and style of writing, which reads distinctly shakespearean.
the book also had a highly unusual structure — with its frame narrative, unreliable narrator, and repeated insistence on its own fictional nature — very much a departure from the literary conventions at the time. The hero is not a typical spaniard, but rather a caricature of a spaniard, which led audiences to be offended at the time. Over and over again in don quixote — 33 times in fact (bacon’s favourite number) — we are told that the real author is an arab historian, hamet benengeli. Hamet is one letter short of hamlet; ben is hebrew for son, engeli is an interpolation of england. There are also odd circumstances by which don quixiote was translated into english at a lightning pace.
bibliography
[1]
“one study on 1600 poets and playwrights.”
shakespeare and francis bacon with grok assist |
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