Erin Langner

“Enough with the paintings of ships. Enough with the Romantic American landscapes. Enough with the proto-charcuterie board still lifes. We have plenty. And for the love of god, please stop adding portraits of random aristocrats with weird noses.”

The March Sadness 90s Edition First Round Game Schedule (brackets due by end of day 2/28):

marchxness.com/schedule

We’ve got this, #lambs. Mariah’s parallel status as Queen of Sadness shall go unrecognized no more.

Trump’s Attack on Philanthropy | Aryeh Neier, Gara LaMarche Universities, law firms, and news media have already been targeted by the administration. As the Justice Department pushes to investigate the Open Society Foundations, it seems that philanthropies tha...

“If at times such foundations seem to loom large, it is because in the United States, government support for health care, education, and the arts is far more limited than in nearly every other democratic nation.” —Aryeh Neier and Gara LaMarche on private philanthropy

Across Georgia, thousands of students are making the same calculation. From Lakeside High to Kennesaw State, they’re deciding that a suspension is a small price to pay to draw attention to the actions of ICE and the recent tragic deaths in Minneapolis.

I grew up with Alex Pretti The kind-hearted ICU nurse shot by ICE agents was my childhood best friend.

I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com

I wrote the speech I *wish* Chuck Schumer would give tonight - as an actual opposition leader. Here it is:

"My fellow Americans: At this hour, an unrestrained force of militarized and violent federal officers is carrying out a project of ethnic cleansing in the streets of American cities."

1/14

Sign the Petition Save the Wilbur J. Cohen Building — the “Sistine Chapel of the New Deal”

A petition to save the WPA murals inside the Wilbur J. Cohen Building in DC (which the GSA has put up for sale) now has almost 7,000 signatures.

Murals are by Ben Shahn, Philip Guston, Seymour Fogel, Richmond Barthé, Ethel and Jenne Magafan, among others.

www.change.org/p/save-the-w...

An Elegy for My Neighbor, Renee Nicole Good Fellow poet Danez Smith memorializes the Minneapolis mother's call to witness

‘Your children, motherless, and the president says, “Good.”’ —Danez Smith

Trump’s assault on the Smithsonian: ‘The goal is to reframe the entire culture of the US’ The long read: The president has vowed to kill off ‘woke’ in his second term in office, and the venerable cultural institution a few blocks from the White House is in his sights

This article says it all. The preemptive censorship. The country’s largest museum body cowering instead of leading. And the head of the Smithsonian deciding which hill he’ll choose to die on.

"So if the violence of the deportations, and the crackdowns, and the cuts, and the raids, and the air strikes, haven’t been enough for you, let something so simple and evil as the daytime execution of a poet move you to action." Thank you, @literaryhub.bsky.social 💥

This review by Erin is a delight -- insightful literary analysis without loss of context. (In addition, I am a huge fan of thinking while riding the bus, which this review also has)

REVIEW: Analog Days by Damion Searls Damion Searls's new novella shows us that the surrounding noise, innocuous as it might seem at times, is valuable; that the foreground and background are both essential to meaning.

I reviewed Damion Searls’s great novella on navigating the present + making nostalgia meaningful for Zona Motel open.substack.com/pub/zonamote...

'The Bean' artist, Chicago nonprofit respond to Border Patrol photo op: report

In the official photo provided by Bongino, the faces are blurred out.

That's ... not how any of this works.

Artists Plan Nationwide Protests Against ‘Authoritarian Forces’

“Dozens of prominent artists and cultural organizations will participate in a series of artistic demonstrations to protest what authoritarian overreach by the Trump administration.

The protests, known as Fall of Freedom, will take place on the weekend of Nov. 21...”

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/a...

My review of Taylor’s new album is that when Beyoncé turned 35 she made LEMONADE.

Gray background with black text. Large text at the top is "Jack Straw Writers X New Works". Text below is a list of four Jack Straw Writers and their works. Each writer has a headshot next to their name.

Jack Straw Writers Alumni Reading

Friday, October 10, 7pm
Jack Straw Cultural Center, 4261 Roosevelt Way NE
FREE

#JackStrawWriters #RecordingStudio #Seattle

Let's reminder that Disney arguably started this wave of media capitulation by settling Trump's lawsuit against ABC last December. And now here we are...

Warning of a Chilling Effect on the Free Press After Journalists Fired or Suspended in Wake of Charlie Kirk Shooting PEN America: “The firing and suspension of multiple journalists after the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk should alarm anyone who cares about free speech and a free press. Taken together, these measure...

"...weakening public discourse at a moment when open debate is urgently needed. Journalists should not have to fear losing their jobs simply for offering analysis or asking tough questions on matters of public concern." pen.org/press-releas...

How to submit a written public comment Any member of the public can submit a written public comment to ACIP. The docket, identified by Docket No. CDC-2025-0454 [, will be opened to receive written comments on September 2, 2025. Written comments must be received by September 13, 2025, using the Federal eRulemaking Portal. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. All submissions received must include the agency name and Docket Number. All relevant comments received will be posted without change to https://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided. For access to the docket or to read background documents or comments received, go to https://www.regulations.gov C. How to request to make an oral public comment The September 18-19, 2025 ACIP meeting will be a virtual meeting and will include time for oral public comment for members of the public. All individuals interested in making an oral public comment are strongly encouraged to submit a request starting September 2, 2025, to no later than 11:59 p.m., EDT, September 13, 2025, as there will be no opportunity to register for oral public comment later than September 13. If the number of persons requesting to speak is greater than can be reasonably accommodated during the scheduled time, CDC will conduct a lottery to determine the speakers for the scheduled public comment session. CDC staff will notify individuals regarding their request to speak by email by September 16, 2025. To accommodate the significant interest in participation in the oral public comment session of ACIP meetings, each speaker will be limited to 3 minutes, and each speaker may only speak once per meeting. Requests to make an oral public comment are open.

🚨 Today is the LAST DAY you can leave a public comment for the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, which meets Sep 18.

Reports suggest they may falsely link vaccines to child deaths and restrict vaccines to ages 75 and up.

You can submit a written comment here:
www.regulations.gov/document/CDC...

How Chatbots and AI Are Already Transforming Kids' Classrooms Educators across the country are bringing chatbots into their lesson plans. Will it help kids learn or is it just another doomed ed-tech fad?

Today Melania Trump met with execs in support of AI in education. It's part of a big push by tech companies and the Trump Administration to get AI products into schools fast. If there's an American child you care about, pls read my recent article about what's happening. Let's be informed.

Smithsonian Latino Gallery Quietly Closes for Nine Months As Trump goes after the institution, a temporary space for the National Museum of the American Latino closed ahead of schedule in preparation for America’s 250th programming.

Also, a show about Latino youth movements being replaced with one about salsa music.
hyperallergic.com/1037811/smit...

Trump on TruthSocial: The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE.’ The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. We are not going to allow this to happen, and I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made. This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums.

If Democratic politicians do not fight this because it's a "distraction," it will simply happen. They need to get in front of every mic and say that we will not allow Trump to destroy American history. He wants a culture war? GIVE HIM ONE. There are no distractions. Have every fight.

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Real talk (reel talk?):

BWDR recently lost a partnership that covered nearly half our operating budget, so things are suddenly very tough. If what we do has ever meant something to you, or you’ve ever thought about subscribing, now’s the time—it *truly* makes a difference.

Military "showing force" at the very same site where Japanese Americans were rounded up for incarceration during WWII.

In light of Vanity Fair's recent idiotic decision, WaPo's offering its veteran critic a buyout, the NYT's "reassigning" three arts writers critics, etc., a lot of us are talking about the public's (and thus publications') lack of interest in criticism. It's part of a larger pattern of a war...

RFK Jr. backs down all the time when he gets push back, so if anyone wants to call, here's the HHS number 1-877-696-6775.
I'd also call your senators/reps as well.

Sol LeWitt's famed Loop sculpture goes into hiding It took days of inquiries from the Sun-Times — and the posting of an earlier version of this column — for the federal General Services Administration to reveal its location.

Knew this was coming with the GSA shutdown, but it still shocks.

agrowingculture 3 hours ago 2/5 This morning, Israeli forces raided and demolished the Seed Multiplication Unit of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees' (UAWC) national seed bank in Hebron. Using bulldozers and heavy machinery, the Israeli army destroyed the storage warehouses and infrastructure where essential equipment, seed materials, and tools for indigenous seed reproduction were kept. This is not just an attack on a building-its an attack on Palestinian food sovereignty, biodiversity and cultural memory.

Israel destroyed a Palestinian seed bank today. This is such a specific kind of evil, targeting literal hope for the future. Attempting to further alienate Palestinians from their home and land. So much destroyed just for the sake of destroying. It's awful.

Teen artists portrayed their lives — some adults didn't want to see the full picture "What is it like to be a teen right now?" Young artists explored that question for two different exhibitions of their work this summer. But on the National Mall, their work was deemed too political.

"I don't understand why we are the ones who have to change our behavior because somebody else decided that they were too angry to just walk by something that they didn't agree with," said Pelton.” And the unraveling continues at the Smithsonian.