A Ronkle in Time

I love when my phone updates and everything is slightly uglier and worse

With sorrow, we announce the passing of FOBAZI M. ETTARH 1989 - 2026. Fobazi changed so many lives with her friendship, love, and brilliance. She was so loved, and leaves behind a powerful legacy. We thank Fobazi's community for their support over the last several months of her illness. A private burial will be held for family. We will be in touch with further information about a future Celebration of Life event, as well as ways to support Fobazi's family and legacy.

I also may or may not have called out SCOTUS for its bullshit reasoning in U.S. v. Skrmetti and thrown shade at the Roberts Court for failing to learn the proper lessons from Dred Scott and Fred Korematsu. Cannot confirm or deny. Who can say, really.

Happy to signal boost this. I left my comments over the weekend drawing from personal experiences. Something I emphasized in my comments is that these regulations are fundamentally unfair because they make exemptions for cis folks like me to receive hormone therapy with a doctor's approval.

‘The Librarians’ To Premiere On PBS ‘Independent Lens’ As Political Backlash Mounts Against Book Banning 'The Librarians,' directed by Kim A. Snyder, will debut on PBS amid a backlash to book banning campaigns across the country.

“There are book challenges; that is not new. What is happening now is brazen breaking of protocol on a scope that has never been seen like this.” @thelibrariansfilm.bsky.social @la-cac.org @oif.bsky.social @uabookbans.bsky.social

deadline.com/2026/02/the-...

I really enjoyed reading my copy from the second printing! I read the title essay in grad school and deeply appreciated seeing how you deepened & expanded these ideas in the revisited version & the other essays in the book. Happy to spread the word!

THIRD PRINTING ALERT: This is my first book and @wehere.bsky.social's first book. The response has been overwhelming (two small printing selling out in a matter of days), but also has meant a bit of lead time in-between. If you've read and enjoyed, please share this out so more folks can explore!

AND I want to see the rest of us show up to support these independent ventures! Read your local indie paper if it exists and let advertisers know you saw their ads in the paper. Donate to your local independent radio station. Buy books directly from the publisher’s website. Just throwing out ideas.

AND—more importantly—I want to see more independent distributors, paper mills, and other industries seizing the means of production—by which I mean saying “enough!” to the current business structure, refusing to do business with bad companies, and just doing things for themselves.

What I really want to see is a resurgence of independent presses, both for news organizations and creative works. I want more small, scrappy indie presses doing killer journalism on a shoestring budget (who can still pay their staff a livable wage, because this is a dream not a business plan).

One major difference I see between then and now is in production and the marketplace. Most metropolitan areas—and even some small towns—had multiple newspapers. If you didn’t agree with the viewpoints of one paper, you’d subscribe to another.

To “Yes, and” this thread, even in the heyday of the independent press,wealthy white men had an outsize influence on what was reported in American papers. See also: media barons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer (or Citizen Kane if you prefer).

I taught a class on “hope” last year and the few theorists who’ve written on it all point out that hope is the harder choice - that despair is easy and too often fashionable

2) I worked my butt off to get advanced review copies (ARCs) of every single book I stewarded in front of the right people at the right time. It was always frustrating to see ARCs returned to sender, which happened more and more every year. The WaPo cuts are a highly visible example of a long trend.

Clarifying for character limits:

1) I’m not willing to give up hope on journalism/journalists, arts & culture, or even the institutions that make room for them in public life. I believe culture can & will adapt & evolve & continue if we collectively make/create/cultivate space for it.

I am not yet willing to give up hope, but I also am feeling frustrated & sad by the WaPo cuts.

When I worked as a book publicist, it was already hard to find newspapers who printed consistent Books/A&E coverage to pitch new books. Since then it’s only gotten harder. This is a significant loss.

a cartoon of homer simpson is holding a newspaper that says old man yells at cloud Alt: A cartoon of a Simpsons character holding a newspaper with a photo of Grampa Simpson yelling and shaking his fist with a headline that says “old man yells at cloud.”

I do not want an AI summary of these documents, ProQuest. I want to read the actual theses and articles my friends and colleagues wrote, because they worked hard on them!

Also, I don’t need AI summaries on the articles I’m reading for actual research. That’s why abstracts were invented.

Gallery of dust jacket art for the first four Nancy Drew Mystery Stories books, published in 1930.

Volunteer #librarians from around the world joined forces to build the Nancy Drew collection on Open Library—volunteering their time to organize series, verify editions, untangle authorship, and clean up metadata so anyone can discover these books.

Learn more ➡️ blog.openlibrary.org/2026/01/30/a...

Il est très bon ! Je l'aime !

An ancient Egyptian figurine of a hedgehog blue in colour with dark blue or black bumps to represent the spikes

Happy #NationalHedgehogDay 🥺

This little Egyptian faience model of a hedgehog is from a tomb at Abydos, and was made around 1,500–1,300 BCE.

Hedgehogs had a favourable reputation in ancient Egypt, and were often seen as a symbol of rebirth and renewal of life.

Sliced onions in a metal pot being stirred by a wooden spoon.

French onion soup. It is delicious.

How it started: How it's going:

The Ecological Havens Flourishing Beneath Power Lines Initiatives to foster native wildflowers, grasses and shrubs are turning utility corridors into wildlife corridors.

A nice story here about the folks who are creating meadows full of native grasses and wildflowers in the unused land below power lines. Such a great use of available space. ❤️

Sending my condolences, Benito. Thank you for sharing photos of this wonderful noble.

I reread A WRINKLE IN TIME, I don't think I fully appreciated the core lesson of "your parents will fail you, but you know who will always love you? Those weird lesbians down the street" when was 10.

Though, clearly it has stuck with me.

I mean, in my case there was also a healthy dose of conversation with my parents, lessons from my teachers who were very intentional about preparing kids to fight for a better world, and subconsciously absorbing the ethical teachings of at least 2 religions, but yeah. This.

won't you celebrate with me By Lucille Clifton won't you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand; come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.

“Between starshine and clay” tattooed on Chanea’s arm

Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me” is the poem I reach for the most as I move through the world finding joy and breaking generational curses.

I remind myself that “i made it up” when I stumble building a life I’ve never seen.

28 poems for Black History Month day 1

Happy First Day of Black History Month!!!

At least the hardest month to spell is also the shortest.

a woman in a pink sweater is sitting in a kitchen Alt: Bea Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak in Golden Girls. She is wearing a decidedly 1980s pink sweater and is sitting in a kitchen. Her facial expression is the visual expression of someone sarcastically saying "Thanks for that" in a monotone expression.

Maybe for the essay, but it might not be worth the expense. My parents had me do a sleep study when I was a teen (and I was on their insurance, which was better in the Before Times). The only result the doctor shared with me the next morning was, and I quote: "You have a hard time falling asleep."

Yes. Very few students come to my classes with experience reading long poems (or with Middle English, for that matter) but guess what? With scaffolding and support, they figure it out