We’ve bombed Iran. And dismantled our joint terrorism task force. And sent a third of the FBI to help ICE. And gutted the National Security Council. And a drunk guy is in charge at the pentagon. And our intelligence allies probably won’t share intel with us. Because people couldn’t vote for a woman.

5 Women Musicians Behind Legendary Protest Songs From Joan Baez to Nina Simone.

The history of protest music is often incorrectly associated with men.

If you care about preserving online resources being scrubbed from federal gov't websites, support the work of the Internet Archive. I've used it for teaching, research, and writing. I donated & hope you will, too.
archive.org

I love to call my Senators' offices three times per week and try to cajole them into doing the most elementary political messaging and strategy. This is what it means to be an engaged citizen: leaving a strenuously polite voicemail for a 74yo on a more regular cadence than I talk to my parents.

This Elvis Costello lyric hits hard these days:

Man goes beyond his own decision
Gets caught up in the mechanism
Of swindlers who act like kings
And brokers who break everything

My latest piece for @teenvogue.com delves into the horrific story of popular skincare ingredient Retin-A.

Before Retin-A was approved by the FDA in 1971, it had been tested on hundreds of incarcerated Black people in Philadelphia, without their informed consent. The survivors still bear the scars.

Monochrome photograph featuring a Black woman, head and shoulders facing right, while singing into a metal microphone with head up, eyes closed and mouth open, all against a dark background

For her performance of "Strange Fruit" a song about lynching African American people, she would silence the crowd, a spotlight on her face. On the final note, all lights went out and she was gone....
Singer Billie Holiday,1947 #WomensArt
(Image by D.Hagerman)

I’m supposed to fly out of Tulsa at 7am Tuesday. Think that will happen?

Happy Valentine’s Day! Take a moment to tell your loved ones ‘I love you’—and bless them by doing it in your Native language.

The Indigenous People of North America have decided to go back to calling the Gulf of Mexico, “Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl”. It is what the Nahuatl People originally called it as it is the domain of the goddess Chalchiuhtlicue, who is assoc w/water bodies, including the Gulf of Mexico.

A Year Without Nex Benedict "We are saying that the rhetoric is just as damaging as the bullet or the blow."

Nex Benedict has been gone a year. What have we learned? ⤵️

You are not powerless, and he is not unstoppable. Look at, and learn from, the funding freeze and how quickly he was forced to surrender.

Being sick as a mom sucks because there’s no one to take care of you. So, I texted my mom for comfort. Im 47. Thank you for humoring me, mama. ❤️

check on people
they are not okay
even the strong ones
I am not okay
I joke a lot
I hide it
but be nice
check on
your peoples

Few material things can provide perspective. This does for me.

Photo of Otto Frank, returning to his family’s hiding place. In 1944, an informant betrayed them and the family was sent to Auschwitz.

His wife (Edith) was murdered, his daughters (Margot & Anne) died of Typhus.

Metal sculpture of Bob Dylan playing guitar at Woody Guthrie's hospital bedside.

A Complete Unknown opening scene, immortalized in metal

This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.

Pete Seeger’s banjo. @woodyguthriecenter.bsky.social

[Photo: Woody Guthrie, NYC, 1943. Photograph by Robin Carson. Courtesy of the Woody Guthrie Archives.]

“Lord knows, I never sing nor play one single word or note that is not for the help of the working classes to know more, feel better, rise up, and to own and control this world that they have built.”

Highly recommend following this page if you haven’t already.

bsky.app/profile/wood...

laws aren’t real. solidarity is.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King

I remember the hope her words brought. I'm still clinging to those words today. Be brave today....I may say that to you, but I am really saying that for myself too. Be brave.

In a world of Kid Rocks and Carrie Underwoods, be a Woody Guthrie.

The World’s Northernmost Coal Mine Closing Is Good News… Right? | Atmos As Norway shutters its last coal mine, locals who remain in Svalbard fear they’re being left helpless against an encroaching Russia.

In August, I spent a week in Longyearbyen, a former Norwegian mining camp that’s now the northernmost settlement in the world, to dig into the region’s coal-fueled past—and its current uncertain position as a geopolitical hotspot. New story for Atmos: atmos.earth/the-worlds-n...

Women, Aliens, and Dangerous Things: Female Bodies in Alien 3 Alien 3, more than any other Alien movie, is aware of Ripley’s existence as a woman, and the unique and universal horrors that come with the territory of inhabiting a woman’s body.

Women, Aliens, and Dangerous Things: Female Bodies in ALIEN 3

Wonderful piece!

Guitar Center Foundation is helping musicians replace instruments that were lost in LA fires guitarcenterfoundation.org/fires/?fbcli...

Beautiful work!

Justice Department says there are 'credible reports' law enforcement took part in 1921 Tulsa massacre Some law enforcement members participated in arson and murders that occurred during the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report released Friday.

WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (Reuters) -
Some law enforcement members participated in arson and murders that occurred during the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report, released Friday. www.reuters.com/world/us/jus...

Still thinking of this beautiful site and how it is gone now, along with hundreds, if not thousands, of buildings. I read they had time to get some artifacts out, which is wonderful. Many didn’t have that chance. I worry for the people and the animals. We saw many wild animals while there.