We the people are the David to this Goliath. Our resistance can be all the more powerful if we understand who will actually be taking our demands for democracy to the courts. We must hear from the lawyers and judges who will argue and decide in courts of justice.

The most often used word by the Founders was not liberty. It was not freedom. The word used the most, the word that guided the formation of a government to create liberty, freedom, and democracy, was a word filled with the awe experience of dread and terror. That word is demagogue.

The Declaration of Independence is a perfect example of the Life-centered patriotism we need now. We, the Unalienable Patriots.

Looking at the contrast between 1776 and 2025, and, despite all odds, the perseverance of hope from those first years and every single year since, to this moment, gives perspective on the power of hope.

It’s time to raise more of a ruckus. gotcupofsugar.substack.com/p/noticings-...

The connection I made between my orb kill and precarity was so spontaneous that I sat down to register what had just happened in my head. Jung wrote about pausing. Akomolafe spoke about holding. The goal is not to eliminate one side or the other, or to compromise.

Am I out of my mind connecting Tom Paine’s anguish about his child’s future in 1776 and this child, now a teenager in the 21st century? Are not the situations of Paine’s American crisis and our present American crisis close parallels?

During the Alaskan Summit, an American citizen drew the Ukrainian flag on the sidewalk in front of the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC. The Russians contacted the Secret Service and lied about what was happening. The lies were quickly disproved.

Bingo. My subject appears. I care about the hungry, famished, wasting, starving children being used as political weapons. I went to bed. Around four o’clock in the morning, I was awakened by an image. An open spigot gushing hate. A torrent of furious words describing them. The Perpetrators.

Civil rights through the lens of ... Ed Sullivan. What a story. Not told until now. Bravisimo to director Sacha Jenkins! Once again, he puts a pin in our understanding of how we all be here. Did you see his doc about Louis Armstrong? RIP Sacha. Rest in power. www.netflix.com/title/82048609

And snap! A threesome appears! Big guys overtaking children! Trump/Epstein. Measles. Starvation in Gaza and America. —Image detail from Cosme Viardel rotated 90 degrees. 1676.

‪@klonick.bsky.social‬ As Ben Wittes introduces MARA recalls your introducing Ada Palmer on In Lieu of Fun . Don't you think the amazing Ada Palmer's new work suggests an interesting lens to view Trump's America?

Fifteen years into learning how to plant and grow, I am now having ideas about stuff that has nothing to do with planting and growing but are informed by planting and growing. Like this peek-a-boo experience of clustered blueberries under a leaf. First, you see nothing.

Beautiful American Fireworks open.substack.com/pub/mimistok...

Drink it in. One imagines Trump and his government, ICE, and MAGA experiencing via VR what they do. I want them to understand. Know what I mean? open.substack.com/pub/gotcupof...

Hakeem Jeffries Speaks for Six Hours as He Delays Trump Budget newrepublic.com/post/197573/... via @newrepublic.com

What now? I can’t stay for long with despair. My nature turns, like a rabbit fleeing hell, to doing something. I want us on the freedom side of the chain-link fence. The one that the SCOTUS 6 has enabled this president to do whatever he wants. Like a king. I listen to Leonard Cohen.

Maybe this is a good time to step back. Take a breath. Wash a window. Go for a walk. Get a tattoo. Or not. Put away the groceries. Fold worn-out t-shirts and make a decision: keep or make rags. Inhale the scent of a rose. Humans have been here before.

Every GOP vote today is a Kristallnacht, a coordinated, deliberate effort to destroy and hold power over 340 million Americans. As I witness this calibrated horror, I’m reminded — hold space. Hold space for the unknowns. Hold space for lives broken. Hold space for all lives filled with trepidation.

A couple of months ago, I happened upon a YouTube video of a lecture given by Dr. Iain McGilchrist. His subject is the brain. McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher, and literary scholar. He’s broken new ground and has come to understand how the two hemispheres function.

Activist. Am I an activist? Yes. What kind of activist? Let’s talk about it in a minute. But first, a little history. Not all activists do dissent in the same way. open.substack.com/pub/gotcupof...

In one way, they’re making it harder. Whatever you call today’s SCOTUS rulings—misery for most, like 99%, and total power for some—the red line drawn is inescapably visible. Every mortal sense will be felt. Not just in the head, but in our bodies, too. In one way, they’re making it easier.

In the next few days, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, H.R.1, is up for a vote. I say “so-called” because it’s much harder to kid people about what’s beautiful. Beauty speaks directly to us. But truth can be undermined, and it has in our time, as it has with the name of this bill.

The bill’s proposed cuts to social programs and moving even more money into the coffers of ICE prove its hideous intent. This is what’s happening before our eyes: a brutal round-up of our neighbors, throwing them into ICE holding tanks. The prisons are privately owned—more profit for some.

The upcoming Reconciliation Bill 2025 is on a fast track for the President’s signature on July 4. If passed in its current form, the results will devastate people’s lives and our natural resources. In the next 13 days, what more can we do to compel TACO man to make some changes to the Bill? Read on:

The reports of ICE enforcements, disappearances, and ICE pretenders—ICE refuses to identify themselves, or whether actions on the street are ICE employees or ICE impersonators hit us daily. That is one proof that the government’s calculated intent is to silence us and cause us to cower.

I’m addressing the need to be seen, as well as the consequences of when that need is met and when it is not. The cost of not being seen is evident in Trump’s executive orders. Our need to be seen is evident in the huge number of citizens across the country who attended the No Kings protests.

Let’s make a parallel polis community. Invite your friends to join us! gotcupofsugar.substack.com/p/noticings-...

We follow the subplots. We create our own subplots. Historical actions prove the power of the powerless to overcome powerlessness when we come together with a purpose. Read more: gotcupofsugar.substack.com/p/noticings-...

Join me on Substack! Walking the balance beam of powerlessness, government power, and finding our footing in our own power at home, online, and on the street. open.substack.com/pub/gotcupof...

"The US dropped around 15 tonnes of explosives per square kilometre of Vietnam [making it the most bombed place on earth], while Israel has dropped 275 tonnes per square kilometre of Gaza - a figure that is higher by a factor of 18." www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/isra...

The past is present. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCI6...

The War Trump Chooses open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

Under this American government, a Third Way is a 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘭 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘴 to nourish and fortify the powerless. With our Adjacent Sevens, we can resist and we can benefit from awe, absorbing its calm and goodness. Collaboration takes fear out of the driver’s seat.

For NOTICINGS, please visit: gotcupofsugar.substack.com

How about you and I —citizens all—come together in groups of seven and use the starlings' murmurations as an inspiration for taking care of our nearest neighbors?

For all individual citizens to be safe, we need to change direction together... Awe will help us break this spell of doing the same thing over and over with the expectation of different results. When in trouble, change direction. Together.

@hcrichardson.bsky.social Please recommend sources about the Declaration of Independence: I want to deeply understand it in the context of 1776 and how it's been applied from 1776 to the present. Thank you!

When doubt slams in, as it always does, we could look to murmurations in the skies and be encouraged by what coherence looks like. Any community can produce a force and reckoning. open.substack.com/pub/citizenc...

open.substack.com/pub/citizenc... New NOTICING post. Let me know your thoughts.