Lisa

Writer, Editor, Advocate

[Lisa @YakTalk]

How I keep people from grabbing my luggage by mistake. Very effective. #UseTheForce @HamillHimself

[Lisa @YakTalk]

“New Jersey’s Labor Department may have been interpreting and applying the ABC Test in ways the Legislature never imagined, understood or intended.”

[Kim Kavin @thekimkavin]

New from me:

You don't need to be a policy expert to understand what New Jersey is doing to independent contractors.

You just have to know about mashed potatoes.

https://t.co/kxrjqTUgwq

[Lisa @YakTalk]

Classy move by RCR. ❤️

[RCR @RCRracing]

Richard Childress Racing has elected to suspend use of the No. 8 and will run the No. 33 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and beyond. Kyle Busch was instrumental in the design of RCR’s stylized No. 8 and it has become synonymous with Kyle and an important symbol for his fans and the NASCAR industry. No one can carry it forward to the level that he did. The No. 8 is reserved and ready for Brexton Busch when he is ready to go NASCAR racing.

[Kim Kavin @thekimkavin]

These two sentences from the new @mercatus report about unions are EXACTLY why New Jersey ended up with our new independent-contractor rule that faced 99% public opposition, and why our Legislature must step in now to protect us all from this insanity

"When leadership is focused on feeding a political machine, workers aren't the priority. They're the funding source."

https://t.co/jSkDJSxpop

[Lisa @YakTalk]

Devastating. 💔

[NASCAR @NASCAR]

We are saddened and heartbroken to share the news of the passing of Kyle Busch, a two-time Cup champion and one of our sport's greatest and fiercest drivers. He was 41 years old.

We extend our deepest condolences to the Busch family, Richard Childress Racing and the entire motorsports community.

[Lisa @YakTalk]

@NASCAR This is unfathomable. Praying for his family. 💔

[Lisa @YakTalk]

@jeff_gluck this is devastating.

[Lisa @YakTalk]

@sunniettv Happy Birthday! <3

[Harrison Ford @HarrisonFordLA]

May the fourth be with you

[The Husky @Mr_Husky1]

In 1984, Ruth Coker Burks was 25 years old, visiting a friend at a hospital in Little Rock, when she noticed nurses drawing straws outside a patient's room. Someone had to go in. She didn't wait for the straws. She opened the door herself. What she found inside would define the next decade of her life. 🕯️**

Inside was a young man reduced to bones — maybe 80 pounds, dying alone, terrified. He kept whispering one word.

*"Mama."*

Ruth told the nurses to call his mother.

They laughed.

*"Honey, we've called. He's been here six weeks. Nobody's coming."*

Ruth made them give her the number. She tried one last time.

The mother's answer was cold and final: her son was sinful, already dead to her, and she would not be coming.

So Ruth went back into that room. She took his hand. She stayed.

For 13 hours, she held the hand of a dying stranger, promising him he wouldn't leave this world alone.

When he died, his family refused to claim the body.

Ruth decided she would bury him herself.

She owned plots in her family cemetery in Hot Springs — where her father and grandparents rested. The nearest funeral home willing to handle an AIDS death was 70 miles away. Ruth paid from her own pocket. A local potter gave her a chipped cookie jar for an urn.

She used posthole diggers to dig the grave herself.

She spoke kind words over the earth because no minister would come to pray over a man who died of AIDS.

Ruth thought that would be the end.

It was the beginning.

Word traveled through the quiet networks of fear and desperation across Arkansas.

*There's a woman in Hot Springs who isn't afraid. There's a woman who will sit with you. There's a woman who will make sure you're buried with dignity when your own family won't claim you.*

They started arriving. Dying young men from rural hospitals across the state, abandoned by the people who were supposed to love them most.

Over the next decade, Ruth Coker Burks cared for more than 1,000 people dying of AIDS.

She personally buried 40 of them in Files Cemetery — digging the graves herself, with her young daughter beside her carrying a small spade, holding their own funerals because no one else would speak over these graves.

Of those 1,000 people, only a handful of families didn't abandon their dying children.

Ruth called parents. Begged them to come say goodbye. To claim their child's body.

Most refused.

*"Who knew,"* she said, *"there'd come a time when parents didn't want to bury their own children?"*

But she also witnessed something else — something that stayed with her.

She watched gay men care for dying partners with a devotion that shattered every stereotype. She watched a terrified community take care of its own — and take care of her.

*"They would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here'd come the money. That's how we bought medicine. That's how we paid rent. If it hadn't been for the drag queens, I don't know what we would have done."*

By the mid-1990s, new treatments emerged. The crisis began to shift.

And then, like so many heroes of the AIDS crisis, Ruth Coker Burks faded from public memory.

She wrote a memoir in 2019 called *All the Young Men* because she needed people to understand what happened in Arkansas. What happened across America. What happens when fear convinces people to abandon their own children.

And what happens when one person refuses to walk past a door everyone else fears.

She didn't have medical training. She didn't have institutional backing. She didn't have money.

She had compassion. Courage. Posthole diggers. And a family cemetery.

That was enough to make sure 1,000 people didn't die believing they were worthless.

The next time someone says one person can't change anything —

Remember the red bag on the door.

Remember the 13 hours she stayed with a stranger.

Remember the 40 graves she dug with her own hands.

She walked through that door in 1984. And 1,000 lives were forever changed because of it.

[Lurkin' Mom @LurkAtHomeMom]

There are too many emails. Too many texts. Too many accounts. Too many logins. Too many apps. Too many rewards programs. Too many fundraisers. Too many appointments. Too many virtual meetings. Too many newsletters. Too many forms. Too many social media platforms. My brain hurts.

[Lisa @YakTalk]

@sunniettv @michmalllow Switch to cashew milk. It's very easy to make your own and tastes better than oat milk or almond milk.

[Terrence T. McDonald @terrencemcd]

"Parts of New York Penn Station — the busiest transportation hub in North America — will be closed to everyone but World Cup ticket-holders for four hours before the start of eight World Cup matches held in New Jersey this June and July" via @katesobko + @Colleenallreds

[Lisa @YakTalk]

@RonDuguay10 I had that very same poster on my wall for years!

[Kim Kavin @thekimkavin]

The @IWF has created a campaign for people to comment about the USDOL's proposed independent contractor rule

Deadline to have your comment added is April 28

https://t.co/cU7k18dyMI

[Lisa @YakTalk]

@katiebrennan_32 You're the first prime sponsor on the bill, which means you're the one who has "ownership" of it. Implying that he is singling you out for any reason other than that is detrimental to the rest of your argument. You named it F*CKICE. You wanted a reaction and you got one.

[Lisa @YakTalk]

@elonmusk Never.

[Lisa @YakTalk]

@NYXCosmetics 💜

[goma @soigomaa]

Whenever l am slightly disrespected by a man, I remember my favorite Michelle Obama lore. There's a story about them dining at a restaurant when they learned the chef used to be Michelle's high school boyfriend

Barack joked,
lf you were still with him, you could have been the owner of this nice restaurant."

Michelle replied,
"No. If I were still with him, he would have been President of the United States."
And that's the energy every woman should have about her own worth.

[Lisa @YakTalk]

Video of Space X rocket over the skies of Bloomfield NJ 🎥 credit: my son-in-law Dane Martins! @MattDevittWX @JaniceHuff4ny @ABC7 @CBSNews @alroker @elonmusk Very cool!

[Lisa @YakTalk]

There are two kinds of people: those who like beets and those who don’t enjoy the way dirt tastes.