This is what I tweeted the Friday before Thanksgiving. Had I known then that the back of my head was going to make national news, I would have packed a hairbrush along with my coffee and knitting to take to the Wisconsin Center. Two days prior, the Trump Campaign had wired $3 million to recount the vote … Continue reading Confessions of an Election Worker: ‘I spent it on sock yarn’ Part 2
Category: education
Once upon a time in Cincinnati, I got to hang out on a witness stand for 10 minutes getting cross-examined by an attorney. He was trying to undermine the credibility of someone on whose behalf I was testifying. The attorney wondered whether this person, a student at Large Midwestern Technical College, where I was an … Continue reading Confessions of an Election Worker: ‘I didn’t steal anything. I counted votes.’ Part 1
What a ride! Collective whiplash is everywhere and trying to slow it down only does so much. We careen along, shedding whatever we can to lighten our emotional loads as we’re continously hit more and harder. It’s exhausting. The police shoot a man in the back seven times in front of his children, which becomes … Continue reading Civilization on the endangered list: a brief meditation
Last night, I had two different sets of anxiety dreams. These days, you don’t even have to be asleep to have anxiety dreams. Between COVID-19, a critical mass of people finally starting to think about what it really means to come to terms with the US’s legacy of institutionalized racism, despite very real pushback from … Continue reading Art for an anxious moment: remembering a childhood ‘friend’
For Wisconsin voters, shit didn’t just get real this past week. It rolled downhill, thanks to the cabal of legislators and judges who insisted the April 7 election run in business-as-usual fashion - in the midst of a pandemic. That meant registered voters who hadn’t receieved absentee ballots in time to return them postmarked by … Continue reading Anger tinged with hope: a WI election story from the bottom of the hill
On Tuesday, Election Day here in Wisconsin, I’m going spend the day counting ballots. Last week, the call went out for volunteers, and I figured it was something I could do. We’re going to be working in an 80,000 square-foot space; social distancing will be enforced. Masks and gloves will be provided. Today, the front page … Continue reading Voter suppression & COVID-19: too good an opportunity for WI legislators to pass up
What a couple of weeks it’s been. Fifty people, including members of the Macy-Huffman and Mossimo-Loughlin families were charged with screwing deserving college applicants out of admission to schools where they may have thrived. It would have been the talk of Sunday shows in the US, but for the white male horror show at a … Continue reading Neighborhood readers talk books, eat cake: ‘Resistance Women’ Part II
It’s been one of those weeks where there’s much to write about that it’s hard to know where to start. Sometimes when it's all too much, you want to curl up and take a nice nap. Michael Cohen paid a visit to Congress and refused to promise not to profit from a book or movie … Continue reading If Willy Wonka’s factory churned out Mind Candy: a Dispatch from the Department of Healing Truths
I first heard of Josephine Baker in the 1980s, when my sister wrote a story about her in the New Haven Courier Register. Debby was a feature writer there, and her story mostly focused on the 12 children Baker had adopted from countries around the world. Josephine Baker and 10 of her 12 children on … Continue reading ‘Josephine Baker’s Last Dance’ tells an important story at the right moment
Update (January 24): I wrote this post on January 20th shortly after the first two videos were released. Rereading the post after all the other information occurred, I was pleasantly surprised to see how much I'd gotten right. I'm leaving the post as is and adding a couple of thoughts: The teen I named "Smirkboy" … Continue reading Covington students latest link in long, depressing chain: a post with images & an update
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