Sure, it’s summer, but podcasts are forever! Give a listen to our spotlight episode: #33 -- 1.15.25 -- “Peachey and King: Mix Tape #2” by Borah Pridecast on #SoundCloud
https://t.co/nK2MOqKiS1
So the brain worm serial cheater who decapitated a whale & dumped a dead bear is gonna be in charge of our nation’s health and the chick who shot her dog and her goat and lied about meeting with Kim Jong Un is gonna be in charge of our homeland security.
We are living The Onion.
The freedom to read is under attack — take action!
Join @BannedBooksWeek for #LetFreedomReadDay get ready to vote for the freedom to read or to take at least 1 action to help defend books from censorship + stand up for library staff, educators, writers, publishers + booksellers.
Today at my library job:
*5th grade girl*: “I just finished reading Little Women and I loved it! Do you have any other books like it?!?”
*Me*: “have you read *Anne of Green Gables*?”
*Her*: “no”
*Me*: “girl, I am about to change your life”
I’ve posted about it before, but Barbara Tuchman’s A DISTANT MIRROR is one the best books I’ve ever owned. It’s a history of 14th century Europe, but also something far more than that: a fever dream of an apocalyptic future. You read it thinking, “Could this happen again?”
Celebrating my birthday this afternoon by teaching Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the best short story ever written about being redeemed during a quintuple homicide.
If you really want to understand today's world, instead of reading Hillbilly Elegy you could read Demon Copperhead, a novel that grapples with rural poverty and the despair of the working class but is a million times funnier and angrier and sadder.
According to the NYT, Trump has a nickname for his new opponent: “Laffin’ Kamala Harris.” That’s because she seems to laugh a lot. On the other hand, I’ve never seen Trump laugh. If there’s a video of Trump laughing, please produce it. I’ve been on the lookout for it the past nine years. Kamala laughs a lot. Hence the nickname. Is it sometimes forced? If so, I can’t tell. I think she - get this - enjoys laughing. It’s a human response. When something strikes a person funny. Or, there’s joyous laughter. When something happy happens. There is derisive laughter. If I ever see Trump laugh, which I have not, I would expect a cruel derisive laugh. But I’ll take anything. It just has to be audible.
Admin: You know the saying "Maslow before Bloom"?
The teacher version of that is "PD AFTER room."
It is really tough to focus on any PD, no matter how valuable, when we know there is a mountain of furniture stacked in a corner of our room.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
We are witnessing, in real time, one of the biggest failures of curiosity in the history of journalism.
Katy Tur, squatting in the same building as trump at the RNC, is practicing her best tone of respectful reverence and fangirling as she looks at the mattress-sized gauze on the side of trump's head, and it doesn't occur to her to inquire what he was treated for.
Did he get stitches? If so, how many? Why is the bandage so insanely huge? The photographs didn't appear to show any discernible wound whatsoever.
No, these jackasses are reserving their most harsh interrogations for President Biden, demanding to know if he watched the entire debate from 14 fucking days ago, and who is he listening to, and for the 100th time, is he sure he doesn't want to drop out.
In fact, President Biden has politely attempted to steer the press' focus back to doing their jobs, asking Lester Holt why nobody's asking trump about the 28 lies he told during that debate.
It's outrageous. If you're going to subject one candidate to a body cavity-exam level of scrutiny, subject BOTH candidates to it.
Come on, you can't adequately or honestly "both sides" anything if you're only scrutinizing one side.
Nobody has even asked trump about the discrepancy of denying his involvement with Project 2025 and the fact that he knows many of its planners, and it mentions his name hundreds of times. FAILURE OF CURIOSITY.
Where are the questions about his weird fixation on Hannibal Lecter, or sharks, or any of the other batshit things he gets away with saying at all times?
How about asking him why he admitted to a discussion with Putin BEFORE the Ukraine invasion, or why he said Putin would release hostages to him, and not President Biden?
What about asking him why he was tooling around with the authoritarian leader of Hungary?
It does seem like, even prior to the shooting this weekend, the press has wrapped trump in a protective gauze as ridiculously oversized as his ear mattress.
He's not even the sitting President, but many members of the press have granted him immunity from asking him any fucking questions.
They're even allowing non-doctors to accuse President Biden of having dementia, while saying that trump DOES NOT -- and not an iota of pushback.
Once again, it's a disgraceful display of burying Biden under an avalanche of insipid inquiries and bullshit while extending utmost deference to a would-be dictator who plans to lock many of them up if he wins.
And they are shamelessly helping him.
Don't ever let anyone tell you that being in a small newsroom means small work. So incredibly proud of my team at the Malheur Enterprise (esp. when finalists were Washington Post and Newsday). Excuse me while I do a little celebratory dance. #Localjournalism