Michael Helquist

10 Small Things Neurologists Wish You’d Do for Your Brain

Who wants to keep their brain working well? 10 everyday ays to do so. Not an advertisement, from NYTimes. something I'm tracking in my year of better brain health. #health #brain #cognitive
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/w...

Trump Administration Diverted $2 Billion in Pentagon Funds to Target Immigrants, Lawmakers Say The Trump administration is funding its anti-immigrant campaign with money set aside for defense, Democratic lawmakers wrote.

“It’s an insult to our service members that Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem are using the defense budget as a slush fund for political stunts,” @warren.senate.gov, D-Mass., one of the lawmakers who prepared the report, told The Intercept.

Enjoy the last of your 20s; you'll appreciate your 30s even more.

Balancing music work and writing feels like switching brain modes every five minutes, but somehow it keeps me going. If you’re juggling creative stuff too, you’re not alone. Keep at it.

#BookSky #Music #Business

Who is this handsome man with the brush in his hand? I don't know because I mt eyes are locked with his subject's haunting, mystifying, commanding gaze. (So much talent apparent in his work).

Is it still an "AIDS book" if HIV/AIDS isn't the primary theme? As World AIDS Day approaches December 1st, writers present new books where AIDS is a theme but not the primary one. Theodore Kerr reveals why this is good for us #lifewriting #HIV #AIDS #memoir #LGBTQ

www.thebody.com/hiv/literatu...

Wish I were going to be in LA for this> congrats to all the authors. #booksky #authors

Judge Permanently Blocks National Guard Deployments to Portland for ICE Protests

Hello Portland! Not so "war ravaged" after all, according to a federal judge with her permanent ruling against Federal ICE agents in Oregon's major city.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...

Notice:

"Due to the Democrat-led shutdown, updates to information on this website may be limited or delayed. Mission-critical activities of CMS will continue as the Trump Administration works to reopen the government for the American people."

Federal website for Medicare/Medicaid Services.

This Moment Calls for a New Brand of Heroes in HIV—And They’ve Arrived We’re watching a tide of rapidly diversifying HIV leadership. And it’s coming at a time when the stakes have never been higher—and the political situation may have never been more challenging—for the ...

"We are here to be the change that we have always wanted to see," Harold Phillips, MRP, CEO of National Minority AIDS Council. From The Body (Oct 27, 2025) by Ace Robinson, MPH, MHL. New leadership for AIDS organizations holds promise for today's battles for equity.
www.thebody.com/hiv/hiv-new-...

How Politics Is Changing the Way History Is Taught

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/u...

"This spring, as Brown University was under intense pressure from the Trump administration, it shuttered Choices, the university’s 30-year-old high school social studies curriculum, overseen by its history department."
New York Times, October 26, 2025

A 30 yr old curriculum no longer acceptable.

"In a September poll, more than half of the teachers who responded said that political pressure had caused them to modify their curriculums or classroom discussions, a sharp increase from March." NYTimes, 10/26/25

Massive erasure underway in the United States, to our shame.

The more stories like this we get, the better. So few women were encouraged to write in the 18th, 19th, 20th centuries. Our common history is not complete without knowing their lives as well. Especially works that the book burners are after all too successfully. #booksnotbans #womeninnonfiction

never more important but its heartening that more and more organizations on the national and local levels are mobilizing.

'Save Our Stories' Unites Advocates in Celebration & Solidarity PRH’s Save Our Stories Supper kicked off Banned Books Week 2025, uniting authors, advocates, and policymakers in the fight to read freely.

bit.ly/4nfz0tV

South Carolina, take a bow, if you must. This summer the state took the lead among all states for the most book ban operations. The surge in book censorship isn't really about protecting children.

Let Freedom Read Day On October 11, take one action to defend books from censorship and take a stand for library staff, educators, writers, publishers and booksellers!

uniteagainstbookbans.org/let-freedom-...

a GLBTQ History Month hero, perserving our history, countering erasure attempts on our lives.

I'm here. Others will follow (wont they?)

RACE, NATION, TRANSLATION: SOUTH AFRICAN ESSAYS, 1990-2013 by Zoë Wicomb (2018) The most significant nonfiction writings of Zoë Wicomb, a South African author and intellectual, are collected here. This compilation features essays on the works of such prominent South African writers as Bessie Head, Nadine Gordimer, Njabulo Ndebele, and J. M. Coetzee, as well as on a wide range of cultural and political topics, including gender politics, sexuality, 'race', identity, nationalism, and visual art. Also presented here are a reflection on Nelson Mandela and a revealing interview with Wicomb. In these essays, written between 1990 and 2013. Wicomb offers her interpretation into South Africa's history, politics, and people. In a world in which nationalist rhetoric is on the rise and right-wing populist movements are the declared enemies of diversity and pluralism, her essays speak powerfully to a host of current international issues. Zoë Wicomb is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Strathclyde and was an inaugural recipient of the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize. Her acclaimed works include DAVID'S STORY (2000) and PLAYING IN THE LIGHT (2006), and the short-story collections YOU CAN'T GET LOST IN CAPE TOWN (1987) and THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY (2008).

A selection of life-altering books beloved or enjoyed by The Emperor of Solitude across the decades of a long life and in the many incarnations of the #LateImperialLibrary.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📝🗝🚪🌳🌍

📚💙 📚🖋 873

August is #WomensMonth in South Africa to commemorate the Women's March of #9August1956

Jimmy Kimmel’s Show to Return to ABC on Tuesday Night

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/b...

How they do spin the story once it blows up in their faces. Benjamin Carr, your misspeaking and dodging speak for themselves. Too much blowback for you, it seems, after firing Jimmy Kimmel. Seems the public is more effective in protest than you anticipated. #freespeech #JimmyKimmel #Disney #ABC

An update on the slash and burn of AIDS funding in the Global South. Hope remains for salvage.

Whether PEPFAR Lives or Dies, HIV Leaders Seek a New Way Forward Amid the self-destruction of the U.S.’s global AIDS response, we’re seeing signs that nations most impacted by HIV will rise to meet the moment.

www.thebody.com/hiv/pepfar-f...

"...the time is now, and the stakes could not be higher at this moment due to the potential deletion of global HIV funding: “It’s really important to see, in the next two years, that we don’t slip back too far,” she said, “because that would be a wasted 40 years of work.”

Some hope for AIDS/PEPFAR.

Why do you think we need horror writers in the books not bans movement?

Give it up for Oregon, my home state, trying to protect Oregonians from the insidiouis effect of book bans. #oregon #bookbans #libraries #freedomtoread #booksnotbans

The AI Revolution in Book Publishing - The Authors Guild Aside from the ongoing concerns about the impact of AI on authors and the writing profession, the technology is undeniably a major disruptor across the publishing industry itself. Author Thad McIlroy,...

AI is a significant disruptor for authors and the publishing industry as a whole. Author Thad McIlroy will join us to discuss his book THE AI REVOLUTION IN BOOK PUBLISHING and the ever-evolving trends surrounding AI.

Register FREE: authorsguild.org/event/the-ai...

Opinion | A Small but Telling Moment in Kennedy’s Hearing

None of the news from the Senate hearing re: RFK jr. is encouraging. The damage is being done, has been done.
#CDC #RFKjr #vaccines #covid

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/o...