Chris Rolik

Socialism is what they called public power.

Socialism is what they called social security.

Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.

Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

—Harry Truman, 1952

Why are ICE agents being paid during the shutdown, but not air traffic controllers? 🤨

Andry José Hernández Romero

Andry José Hernández Romero, I remember you, even if I do not know how to articulate my horror, rage, & sorrow at your treatment by my government.

No one has heard from you in 43 days.

As vigil, I’m posting a photo of you every day until you are returned from El Salvador.

Ozymandias I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Ozymandias

OF THE EMPIRE We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

From a poetry collection by Mary Oliver, where after a hundred poems showcasing gentle observations on nature and animals, she hits you with this

Now that English is the official language of the United States, I look forward to everyone understanding the difference between “your” and “you’re,” “their” and “they’re,” and “to,” “two” and “too.”

Get in good trouble, necessary trouble.

You first.

Just going to leave this here should it become useful to anyone…

And it appears that those are two left feet 🦶 🦶

From EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.

from “Parable of the Talents” by Octavia Butler

One of our supporters shared this with us—people are getting creative tonight!

This seems fitting. 😒

Read it slowly and understand it. 😳🥺

Repost 👇🏾 👇🏾

Screenshot from "Letter from our correspondent" in "Papua New Guinea Courier"

The Papua New Guinea Courier is in rare form.

I cannot emphasize enough how stupid it is to publicly threaten DOGE employees with violence.

You might think it's fun to blow off steam, but trust me: the FBI raiding your home at 5am is not fun. A federal criminal case will bankrupt you and ruin your life and career.

The Trump administration has placed two top security chiefs at the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave after they resisted turning over classified material in restricted areas to Elon Musk’s staffers. America, please stand with us—we are fighting to defend this country!

It struck me today that every work of dystopian fiction I've ever read involves a future without books. Maybe that's all it takes.

What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. CARL SAGAN

Copy of book "The Women With Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II," by Katherine Sharp Landdeck, Ph.D.. The cover is a black and white photo of four women walking between two rows of airplanes while wearing dark blue pants and light blue or white shirts, holding parachutes over their shoulders. The letters of the title are bright blue - representing a bold, sunny sky.

A color picture of Katherine Sharp Landdeck, arm and arm with WASP of WWII Mary Regalbutto Jones. They are in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in the summer of 1997 and standing in front of a banner made by WASP Shutsy Reynolds saying Oshkosh 1997, having the symbol of the Women Military Aviators, and filled with signatures of everyone who had entered the WASP tent that week. Kate had interviewed Mary, they had become fast friends, and Kate had promised Mary to tell her story and the story of her fellow WASPs far and wide for the rest of her days.

The USAF has reversed itself "after uproar." We must continue to pay attention. We must continue to preserve & share the stories of the Tuskegee Airmen & the Women Airforce Service Pilots. I promised them I would always tell their stories. You can too. Knowledge is power! www.msn.com/en-us/news/u...

Schools and school libraries in certain states. Also in those states teachers are forbidden to assign those books to their students under threat of being fired.
More reasons to appreciate your local library! 📚

Midwinter Even the will will return again. 

Even the love, the wonder.

Darken. The heart 
can love this.

And the new moon changing in the maples. 

And the grief like black oars in the rafters.

And the branches that have let go 
of everything, saying
wait, just stay
in your changes;
you have hated
your one life
long enough.
Try something wondrous.
Trust it. —Joseph Fasano

If you’re in an institution doing any kind of DEI work, the most important thing to do right now is simply call it something else. Change it to “Community Outreach” & then keep on doing the same important work. When they outlaw Community Outreach rebrand it as “Strategic Partnerships,” rinse/repeat.

This is awesome. This is how to fight them, at every turn, with those who can stepping up.

Thanks to The Skimm.

Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is now America's largest in recorded history Kansas public health officials say the state's ongoing tuberculosis outbreak is the largest since the CDC started reporting TB cases in the 1950s.

Trump has gagged the CDC, but not me. So I'm sharing this. www.cjonline.com/story/news/p...