Karen deVries, PhD

No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear: Toni Morrison on the Artist’s Task in Troubled Times “There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

“There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

Time for Toni Morrison: www.themarginalian.org/2016/11/15/t...

YouTube video by ROBERTO VAHID NAEIMI Radetzky March - New Year's Concert Vienna 2026 with Yannick Nézet-Séguin (The Best Ever)

Best new year’s ritual: watching the annual Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s Day concert eith my mom. Long live the Radetzsky March. youtu.be/JcMxJ4OhJQk?...

I'm a firm believer that this liminal period between the holidays and New Year's is how we're supposed to live. It's peak existence.

May the word "efficiency" die in 2026 and all its horrible relatives "innovating" to solve the perceived problems of rest, joy, creativity, and humanity.

"It was Christmas week: we took to no settled employment, but spent it in a sort of merry domestic dissipation."

--Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

One of the few things I miss about Facebook and Instagram is sharing reading journeys at the end of the year. Feeling good about my reading practice. It grounds me in all kinds of introvert-friendly ways. Good books are important treasures.

SUV marked for Canton (MA) Animal Control parked in a driveway. A large tabby housecat with a collar is hanging on the rear passenger door and peering in suspiciously at the inside of the cabin.

Become ungovernable

Great birding today! American kestrel, Violet green swallow, Mountain bluebird, and California gull. 😂🌲🪶

Baby fish mouth is sweeping the nation 💔

No. It is not surprising.

An article I started writing about a year ago is out. "Thinking with Jonathan Z. Smith and Drudgery Divine on the 35th Anniversary of Its Publication." Rereading it this morning, I'm feeling much gratitude for the web of wonderful scholars holding me and us.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...

Owning our own data is the only way to stop enshittifcation The internet is not what it once was, with so many apps and websites mere shadows of themselves. Thankfully, the inventor of the web Tim Berners-Lee, has a fix that we should adopt

The internet is not what it once was, with so many apps and websites mere shadows of themselves. Thankfully, the inventor of the web Tim Berners-Lee, has a fix that we should adopt

This is a very good sign about his understanding of what good governance involves

h/t @faineg.bsky.social

The growing inadequacy of an open-ended Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale in a warming world | PNAS Global warming increases available sensible and latent heat energy, increasing the thermodynamic potential wind intensity of tropical cyclones (TCs...

Last year, @michaelfwehner.bsky.social and Jim Kossin made the scientific case for a Cat6 cyclone. This week, Hurricane Melissa became the 6th storm in recorded history to smash through that threshold, with max winds of 216mph. And conditions leading to these storms are on the rise.

Read more:

This Wreckage Courtesy of the Enshittification Administration: Notes On Late-State Trumpism In 2022, the tech critic and privacy advocate Cory Doctorow coined the term enshittification to describe what's happened on the Internet to a lot of the most widely used platforms: Google, Amazon, Fac...

Depressingly accurate.

😢

h/t @phillipanderson.bsky.social

Susie Bright (@susiebright) I just made a text and audio update on Jimmy Kimmel’s legal dilemma at the moment, and why he is one helluva bind … you may recognize it! Please share with your fellow free-speech and show-biz collea...

I just made a text and audio update on Jimmy Kimmel’s legal dilemma at the moment, and why he is one helluva bind.

Please share this w/fellow free-speech and show-biz colleagues. The amount of nonsense that’s on SM about this case is absurd. I‘d like to inject some insider reality!

Kafka-land at UC Berkeley The 160 members of the university notified that their names were forwarded to the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights were not informed of any specific allegations against them.

A smart Judith Butler response to @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social
www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Some good news: for the last four years, I have been quietly working on a new book titled *For the Long Haul: How to Stay in the Fight for a Better World*. I have signed a contract with @akpress.org and they will be co-publishing the book with @btlbooks.com. The book will be out next fall!

Wonderful! Congratulations! Looking forward to reading it.

Opinion | We Are Watching a Scientific Superpower Destroy Itself

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/o...

If it’s run for profit, then it’s profiting off of … us.

When I hear that the post office lost money, I think this: Good. We already paid for it. Why on earth should it make even more money from us? Who would keep the money? Would we see it?

I’m doing a MSW at UCCS. Same weirdness.

❤️❤️❤️

Hot air balloons to fill the skies over Colorado Springs for Labor Day Lift Off event Hot air balloons are expected to launch at 7 a.m.  The annual event takes place in Memorial Park

www.cpr.org/2025/08/28/c...

You will be in positions that matter. Positions in which you can decide the nature and quality of other people's lives. Your errors may be irrevocable. So when you enter those places of trust, or power, dream a little before you think, so your thoughts, your solutions, your directions, your choices about who lives and who doesn't, about who flourishes and who doesn't, will be worth the very sacred life you have chosen to live. You are not helpless. You are not heartless. And you have time. Toni Morrison.

Toni Morrison.

Just a heads up. I was able to schedule my COVID vaccine appointment. Online it will ask “do you have a condition that puts you at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19 virus.”

Click yes and it will allow you to schedule an appointment.

No questions asked.

No proof required.

Pass it on.