Prasanta Verma, MPH MBA

Zohran Mamdani announces all-female transition team as he prepares for New York mayoralty Team includes Lina Khan, the FTC commissioner under Biden, and other Democratic former city officials

"Immigrants. We get the job done."
-Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton

And so do women.

Immigrants and women. They get the job done.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

My car windshield does this when it starts getting cooler.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of humanity.
– Martin Luther King, Jr

We think we will have more time to say those words, to see that friend or family member, or have another chance to make memories together. More often than not, though, we don’t know when that “last moment” will be. That is why we can’t keep putting off time spent with others. Now is the right time.

"The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart." ~ Maya Angelou

‘We have all known the long loneliness and have found that the only solution is love, and love is found in community." —Dorothy Day

Rachel E. Hicks: Accumulated Lessons in Displacement Rachel E. Hicks’s poetry has appeared in Little Patuxent Review, Relief, St. Katherine Review, Gulf Stream, and other journals. She won the 2019 Briar Cliff Review annual fiction contest, and her…

A stunning poem titled "Accumulated Lessons in Displacement" by Rachel E. Hicks in the Baltimore Review. baltimorereview.org/maryland_wri...

Substack LIVE tomorrow, plus Book Award News! and more - read the latest issue here - and please join us LIVE on Substack, Sunday, April 27 at 1pm CT!
open.substack.com/pub/prasanta...

As we are currently witnessing a painful shrinking in the infrastructure of public health, the loss of jobs, and funding, I think this is actually going to create a need for even greater public health infrastructure & growth in the future (when all this is over). This will all need to be rebuilt.

The daffodils bloomed today.

I stepped outdoors and was greeted by these little surprises - the first blooms of spring. 🌷

I was traveling this past week and happened to come across this great mural.

Tim Haugh’s Firing Is a Red Alert for the Nation—and Your Privacy Ignore this story at your own risk.

“…our individual freedoms—our privacy—are hanging in the balance. Once we go even further down this slippery slope, it will become harder and harder to recover.
This is your red alert. Pay attention. Ask the hard questions.”

www.livingitwitholiviatroye.com/p/tim-haughs...

Same to you! ✨

Bleezer’s Ice Cream I am Ebenezer Bleezer,

Bethany, these photos are gorgeous! Here's a fun poem that made me laugh this week: poets.org/poem/bleezer...

I'm continually seeking things that are beautiful to see and read. Pondering what is good and beautiful amidst all kinds of challenges and uncertain times keeps me sane and grounded. Art, poetry, and nature are three of those things.

Incredible. Protests all over the U.S. and Europe.

“Great democracies don’t die from external threats. They die from internal corruption.”
@booker.senate.gov

April was just beginning, and after the warm spring day it turned cooler, slightly frosty, and a breath of spring could be felt in the soft, cold air…And everyone was silent, deep in thought, everything around was welcoming, young, so near...
― Anton Chekhov, Short Stories

I visited DC just over a week ago, and sadly it was a bit too soon for the full cherry blossoms, but I had a wonderful time visiting family & friends, seeing a few sights (Jefferson Memorial, Washington National Cathedral, Planet Word Museum/Lexicon Lane) & eating delicious food.

I've been a subscriber of the Atlantic for the past couple of years. Highly recommend. Very appreciative of the journalistic integrity on display especially in the past few days.
@theatlantic.com

“I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.”
― Seamus Heaney

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

“Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.”

“Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.”

“Absolute power demoralizes.”

- Lord Acton

ALA statement on White House assault on the Institute of Museum and Library Services An executive order issued by the Trump administration on Friday night, March 14, calls for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the nation’s only federal agency for America...

Our libraries. Libraries are essential.
www.ala.org/news/2025/03...

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book. –Samuel Johnson

I am honored to share that 𝑩𝒆𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒅 𝑬𝒕𝒉𝒏𝒊𝒄 𝑳𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 has been named a finalist in the 2024 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑 INDIES Book of the Year Awards!!
More information about the award and a list of other finalists can be found here: www.forewordreviews.com/awards/final...

"no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark

you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running...

i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark..."

Excerpted from Home, by Warsan Shire

POLITICO on X: "No more town halls, NRCC chief tells House Republicans https://t.co/ij8C353mfk" / X No more town halls, NRCC chief tells House Republicans https://t.co/ij8C353mfk

Lawmakers are elected by the people and are answerable to their constituents. They are public servants.

x.com/politico/sta...