For breast cancer awareness month, I wrote about cancer, friendship, and finding belonging again with the @oaklandballers.bsky.social. Thanks @joebhorton.bsky.social for editorial support! dispatchesfromraimondi.com/stories/bs-t...

What the B’s Mean to Me: Kaya Oakes — Dispatches from Raimondi

Cancer wanted to isolate me; the B’s brought me back by Kaya Oakes

dispatchesfromraimondi.com

The real heroes today? Student journalists. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/n...

Students at Cornell Daily Sun Pursued Sexual Assault Case for Two Years

The student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, covered the allegations of rape at a fraternity party since they were first made in 2024 and led the reporting on the case.

nytimes.com

Okay, the AI book club email nonsense has officially gone too far.

For my fellow breast cancer patients and for anyone with a direct relative with BC, Rutgers is conducting a large study on cancer genetics and you can contribute via a spit test. Fast and easy. Tell a friend. join.rugcc.org/r?M3.ctkyzd

In a pivot 0% of people who've read anything I've written expected, I'm now the Love Island correspondent for the @oaklandballers.bsky.social. No, really. At least this one time. dispatchesfromraimondi.com/stories/summ...

Summer Loving — Dispatches from Raimondi

What Love Island and the Ballers Have to Teach Us About Romance by Kaya Oakes

dispatchesfromraimondi.com

Gosh I just went to Pride Night at the Oakland Ballers and absolutely not one player did this and they even had drag queen story hour during the game and I got a free backpack! P.S. Trade these guys to the Texas Rangers or something. www.sfgate.com/giants/artic...

Multiple SF Giants pitchers appear to be protesting team's Pride Night

Multiple MLB players have begun protesting Pride Night celebrations on their hats.

sfgate.com

There is an escape room located right across from the Oakland city jail and honestly, that’s some genius level marketing.

Berkeley gonna Berkeley

Since November I've visited a dozen or so churches of varying denominations, trying to find one that doesn't smother newcomers but doesn't completely ignore us either. This... has not happened. substack.com/home/post/p-...

A pilgrim and a stranger

On trying to find a church

substack.com

Honestly I'm more insulted being called "prof" than being called dumb or dangerous. I'm a senior lecturer!

A question i've been thinking about a lot lately, and couldn't think of a better person than kaya to tackle it: what would repentance look like for trump supporters?

Kaya Oakes@kayaoakes.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Thanks @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social and @sojo.net for asking me to write about how the MAGA movement might learn something about repentance during Lent. sojo.net/articles/opi...

The only thing more Oakland than Alyssa Liu mouthing "that's what I'm fucking talking about" at the camera would be skating a routine to Mac Dre and ghostriding the whip in the Olympic Village parking lot.

Thanks @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social and @sojo.net for asking me to write about how the MAGA movement might learn something about repentance during Lent. sojo.net/articles/opi...

What Lent Asks of Christians Rethinking Trump

Christians shouldn't shame people trying to leave Trump. But in the spirit of Lent, they should call them to repent.

sojo.net

This essay from last year seemed to be helpful to quite a few people, so, here it is again. kayaoakes.substack.com/p/against-am...

"The age of gilded journalism was mostly smoke and mirrors, a magic show with no one behind the curtain." @kayaoakes.bsky.social recommends books on the ghosts of media past: www.commonwealmagazine.org/ghosts-media...

The Ghosts of Media Past

Three new books on the rise and fall of glossy magazines, alt weeklies, and gilded journalism.

commonwealmagazine.org

Thanks to the editors at @commonweal.bsky.social for asking me to be part of this year's Christmas Critics edition. This essay wound up being a Gen X anthem about the death of the gilded age of journalism. www.commonwealmagazine.org/ghosts-media...

The Ghosts of Media Past

Three new books on the rise and fall of glossy magazines, alt weeklies, and gilded journalism.

commonwealmagazine.org

UC Berkeley has its 71st Nobel Laureate, this year in Physics. But did you know we have Nobel Laureate bicycle parking, and that David Card, 2021 Nobel in Economics, apparently actually uses it? news.berkeley.edu/2016/06/16/n...

New Berkeley parking spot — for bikes — honors Nobel Peace Prize work - Berkeley News

Covet those Nobel Laureate parking spaces? You can park in Berkeley's newest one, a tribute to faculty whose research contributed to the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. And it's open to all cyclists.

news.berkeley.edu

For @ncronline.bsky.social, I reviewed @philipchristman.bsky.social's new book, which gave me the opportunity to dunk. "When you choose a politics, you can choose one that covets power or one that sees power as something to be shared. It really is that simple." www.ncronline.org/culture/new-...

New book calls for a politics that mirrors Jesus' Beatitudes

In Why Christians Should Be Leftists, Phil Christman argues that Jesus' teachings "[lay] out an ethic that would make it next to impossible for any human being to successfully hang onto power forever....

ncronline.org

💚 💛 Ballers fam, @MayorBarbaraLee just announced that we're going to keep the party going! 🎉 See you there! 🍾

OAKLAND WE DID IT!!!! 🏆

If you've been thinking of reading Elizabeth Gilbert's new memoir, please read this first, by @kayaoakes.bsky.social. And even if you don't care one bit about Gilbert, this is an excellent, helpful read about cancer, love, ego, and so much else. open.substack.com/pub/kayaoake...

Not your inspiration porn

Elizabeth Gilbert and the problem of cancer

open.substack.com

What does a writer “who lives every day with cancer looming in the background like one of those giant Halloween skeletons” think about what’s she’s seen of the latest Elizabeth Gilbert memoir and the discourse around it? You should really read @kayaoakes.bsky.social, and not just to find that out.

Not your inspiration porn

Elizabeth Gilbert and the problem of cancer

kayaoakes.substack.com

This piece by @kayaoakes.bsky.social is really good. I recommend reading it. kayaoakes.substack.com/p/not-your-i...?

Not your inspiration porn

Elizabeth Gilbert and the problem of cancer

kayaoakes.substack.com

UC Berkeley asks us to provide headshots for the department website and I hate the way I look in photos, so this year I uploaded this instead.

It's true: my post cancer treatment, mid career shift that absolutely nobody predicted is that I decided to write about sports. Once, anyway! Go Ballers.

Jason Palmer@jpalmerdubs.bsky.social · last yr.

Do you like baseball? Here is an essay about baseball by my friend @kayaoakes.bsky.social:

Still alive! Still writing! I have an essay in this month's issue of @commonweal.bsky.social as part of a symposium on Christian Smith's new book and religious obsolescence. Thanks to the editors for asking me to pitch in.

Commonweal@commonwealmagazine.org · last yr.

The June issue is here! Feat. - 'Remembering Pope Francis': reflections on the late pontiff - The Editors on Leo XIV - Bishop Mark Seitz on immigration & the Church - A symposium on American religious 'obsolescence' and more! www.commonwealmagazine.org/issues/2025-...

Someone somewhere referred to Bluesky as "Rachel Maddow's comment section" and, well, that is very accurate.

really good piece about Lazarus from Kaya Oakes open.substack.com/pub/kayaoake...

Lazarus

When Easter is really about not knowing what's next

open.substack.com

I'm back -- maybe just temporarily? -- because @sojo.net asked me to write about Pope Francis, and I wanted to share it with you. sojo.net/articles/opi...

Francis: The Legacy of a Stalled Reformer

He welcomed the marginalized and reimagined the Church’s tone, but his vision was often interrupted in the corridors of power.

sojo.net