Sharing this excerpt from my foreword to Alaa Abd el-Fattah's extraordinary collection of prison writings, "You Have Not Yet Been Defeated." Stay tuned... lithub.com/naomi-klein-...

the neighborhood’s second best kudzu vista

“Both the private sector and the public sector need to put their money where their mouth is. They use the arts and culture in Durham to attract talent, companies, investment and wealth .... but the people who are creating that work are struggling to stay here.”

Per crime bill draft obtained by @theassemblync.bsky.social, NC lawmakers will seek to restrict cashless bail, speed up executions, and let judges and magistrates hold any defendant in jail without a hearing for up to three days for a mental health eval. #ncpol www.theassemblync.com/politics/cha...

During his first year as adviser to the Riverside High School newspaper, Bryan Christopher oversaw perhaps the biggest story the publication had ever covered: the arrest and months-long detention of a Honduran student, Wildin Acosta, who faced deportation to the country he’d fled at 16.

“The interdisciplinary places in life are where all the good stuff lives," says Tift Merritt.

It's a journalist's job to ask questions of government officials, no matter which party is in power. That often means respectfully knocking on doors to get answers people deserve to know. Tips and evidence are essential to our nonpartisan work: www.propublica.org/tips/

Pretty clear illustration of "you may as well stand up for what you believe in, they're coming for you anyway."

I recommended a few shows to go see this fall - five of many exciting ones on the horizon! (Thoreau’s Flowers especially cool) for @indyweek.bsky.social

“Cultivating Creativity charts this path forward, ensuring every resident can access meaningful cultural experiences in their own community, while positioning Wake County as a leader of artistic innovation and creative excellence,” the plan states. Arts leaders say the need is dire—and immediate.

Dallis has been an engaged member of the Durham arts and tarot scenes (among others) for decades, and this collection fulfills a promise to herself: to sell or publish a book by the end of her 40th year.

up now online, and in print tomorrow, a beautiful piece by @cultureshockart.bsky.social in @indyweek.bsky.social reflecting on two local exhibitions that tie together memory, home, kinship, and meals through photographs and multimedia work.

picked backyard flowers for my friends courthouse bouquet, i love love

Durham writer Nathan Dixon’s short story collection debut, “Radical Red,” imagines Tea Party conservatives who find their ideological contradictions collapsing in on them. It couldn’t be more timely.

New from 404 Media: airlines are selling *5 billion* ticketing records to the government for warrantless searching, per new docs we obtained. ARC is a data broker owned by United, American, Delta, etc. Then sells peoples' travel info to ICE, Secret Service, FBI etc www.404media.co/airlines-sel...

“I’m a blue-collar craftsman who went to art school,” Giampino says. “I’ve been in art shows, but I don’t consider myself an artist. My brushes are my wrenches.”

"Whatever nuance is needed for its interception, resisting AI’s further creep into intellectual labor will also require blunt-force militancy. The steps are simple. Don’t publish AI bullshit. Don’t even publish mealymouthed essays about the temptation to produce AI bullshit."

“We were barefoot and muddy and tired, but, we confirmed, alive, alive, alive, alive.” —In a 2008 essay, published online for the first time, @jesmimi.bsky.social recalls her family’s survival during Hurricane Katrina. 🔗: https://shorturl.at/wkOT6

“Women drown in their own blood, sweat, or tears, wake up as holograms, and no one reads the audit or autopsy.” —Harmony Holiday considers the public scope of a musician's career through Abbey Lincoln’s performance at Yoshi’s jazz venue in California. 🔗: https://shorturl.at/fSyGE

"I was suddenly ashamed; the joy of my shirt, poof, gone. Now it strikes me that what makes a child’s innocence so burningly real, so heart-pricking, is the way in which it’s rarely “pure,” and is more often a misinterpretation." (I loved this essay)

I have a new cool guy thing I do which is, when I see a driver weaving across lanes of highway traffic, I say "whoa check out Anni Albers over there."

Legacy media and cable news reduced Trump's aggression against Chicago to a question of whether troops would be sent immediately. When he said he was taking his fascist military spectacle elsewhere, those media players declared the situation over—while waves of federal agents attack our neighbors.

Scoop: A brand new nonprofit endorsing Durham candidates hasn’t disclosed its leadership—but initially listed an endorsed candidate’s husband’s property as its address, and mirrors her campaign messaging

Between the festival’s vestigial modern-day existence and the natural passage of time, it would be hard today to convey to a new Durhamite just how important, impressive, and esteemed the Art of Cool once was.

"Seinfeld’s remarks came as part of an introduction of Shem Tov and the event’s moderator, state Sen. Sophia Chitlik, a Durham Democrat, the Chronicle reported."

Totally bizarre for the WP to treat this as a plausibly contested fact. There's a multi-decade conspiracy to plant this forged document in the book? Consider the totality of the evidence. Come ON.

IDF sniper from Chicago who says he killed Gazan teenager just for trying to retrieve his brother's corpse: “They’re thinking, ‘Oh I don’t think [I’ll get shot] because I’m wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon' and all that, but they were wrong. That’s what you have snipers for.”

beautiful photos from a Durham solidarity gathering protesting Israel's blockade of aid into Gaza

The role is an impactful one, overseeing Duke Arts and the general direction of arts at the university during a fraught time for higher education. But hiring Rutter, who has decades of experience in the arts, is high-profile in other ways.

“We’re seeing with our own eyes, an entire population just starve and die in front of us. So it’s really the least we could do to fast in solidarity and try to get attention on the issue,” says Lauren Khayr, a lead organizer.

"The goal is to get local businesses to commit to informing their staff of what the Fourth Amendment is—protection against unreasonable searches and seizures—and having a game plan in the event that federal agents show up to conduct workplace raids." @writingthings.bsky.social @indyweek.bsky.social

It’s absolutely wild that the U.S. government straight up murdered a boat of people who presented no threat and were charged with no crime in international waters yesterday and the national media doesn’t seem to be up in arms about that.

Today marks 34 years since a fire swept through an Imperial Foods chicken processing plant in Hamlet, NC, killing 25 workers locked inside. From the archives: An interview with writer Howard L. Craft on "Orange Light," his play about the tragedy.

As many as 3% of long-haul truckers are trans, drawn to the autonomy and stability the job can offer—though the environment is becoming more difficult. A forthcoming documentary follows one trucker on a holiday route. A Sep 6 event at The Fruit is fundraising for the film, which has Durham ties.

The corporate adoption of AI has been linked to a 13% decline in jobs for young people in the U.S., according to a Stanford study. www.wired.com/story/stanfo...

This is the most entertaining thing I’ve read in some time, and extremely insightful about the coroprate bland-ification of American life.

#OtD 2 Sep 2005 after hurricane Katrina, New Orleans police shot in the back and killed Henry Glover, an unarmed African-American. Police physically attacked people trying to help Glover. Another officer drove Glover away, then set the car on fire stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9239...

Introducing the Arts & Culture Issue! The Fall 2025 Issue will think expansively about the arts and culture that define and disturb our ideas of the South and Southerness. Pre-order now for August delivery and find it on newsstands on September 2nd. www.oxfordamericangoods.org/products/iss...

“It was a quiet personal victory to have someone want to celebrate my work and then to look back and find these things,” Merritt says. “And my intentions, really, were intact the whole time. No matter what I went through and what bruises I got.”

Both releases are out today.

“We think that the most vulnerable workplaces are going to be less likely to be targeted if there are high-profile, high foot traffic businesses saying the Fourth Amendment is important,” Willis Garcés says.

In the last couple of years, as it has beefed up its lineup post-pandemic, Hopscotch has reclaimed some of the experimental frontiers that were once visible on its club stages.

Beautifully written @indyweek.bsky.social piece on Tift Merritt by @eddysarah.bsky.social and beautiful photos from Matt Ramey!

NEW: Last week, oil literally rained down on a Black town in rural Louisiana where 60% of folks live in poverty. The company isn’t taking responsibility & the federal + state governments are saying residents have to clean it up themselves. capitalbnews.org/louisiana-oi...

on the eve of a special two-part release – a 20th anniversary issue of "Tambourine" and "Time and Patience," a compilation of acoustic demos and unreleased songs - I profiled the magnetic Tift Merritt (for @indyweek.bsky.social)

on the eve of a special two-part release – a 20th anniversary issue of "Tambourine" and "Time and Patience," a compilation of acoustic demos and unreleased songs - I profiled the magnetic Tift Merritt (for @indyweek.bsky.social)

some rare good news!! for @indyweek.bsky.social