This opening of the 1619 Project has long been the most ringing sentence for me about this country, its founding, and its founding document. Its truth could apply to everyone who sought to broaden and deepen equality and rights.

The occupation continues

substack is not a neutral actor

Again, please share. In every aspect of American history you will run smack dab into the critical contributions of Black people. It’s not Black history. It’s American history. Trying to erase it is a fool’s errand. We live it every day. time.com/5836444/blac...

Love it: the night after he was kicked off of CBS for good, Stephen Colbert hosted a public access show in southeast Michigan.

I am looking forward to this launch!

Minneapolis celebrates spring with a parade of giant handmade socialist puppets and a festival where people row the sun across the lake. This year's Mayday festival was today, and I'm going to try to share some photos and videos (many taken by others) to try to explain it for my non-local friends.

My poem’s in a mixed tape. I’m so cool. www.major7mag.com/post/smoke-o...

Today is day 140 of the ICE occupation of MN. Cases like these are why it feels like every Minnesotan is raising mutual aid rent relief. (You can help at StandWithMinnesota.com)

“Competence porn.”

Eliminating libraries in prisons is a disaster, completely shortsighted. Libraries are a lifeline for incarcerated people who want to learn and grow, and have few other options.

We are all at fault. We wait and hope for a hero to free us from this reign of terror. The Congress, the Supreme Court, the Military, the people of Minnesota, the Youth. What we really need is for every. single. one. of us to step up and be that hero.

@mcsweeneys.net can always be counted on for a timely laugh. Happy Easter! www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...

We need your help. The Trump administration is dismantling the U.S. Forest Service. 193 million acres of public land (bigger than Texas) is being handed over to political operatives and industry insiders.

Well, we crashed the website. Let’s try another route. It’s not as easy and doesn’t go out to as many people, but it will get the message directly to the BLM.

Michael Dennis Browne (1940-2026) (composer Stephen Paulus, poet Michael Dennis Brown) "Tell me, where is the road I can call my own, That I left, that I lost, So long ago? All these years I have wandered, Oh, when will I know There's a way, there's a road That will lead me home?"

I spent many hours and days driving through rural Minnesota in my orchestra musician days, and "the flat-as-a-fucking-pancake part with seven farmers who all hated each other for being the wrong kind of Lutheran" is just a spot-on description of a very specific chunk of the state.

This was the best off-off-off site reading last year. Crushed to make neither AWP nor NAWP this year, but hope the lovely BlueSky poetry folks who cannot go to AWP make connections here.

WE ALREADY HAVE OUR THIRD PARTY. WE ARE IT: “They’re never going to run for office, and those grass-roots leaders brought this administration to their knees this week to do something about it. So there’s other ways to serve, and I’ll find them,” Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic VP nominee.

When we finally have Victory Over Ice Day, Minnesota will be like

Wait—“theater” as in make-believe crisis invented for cinematic effect or “theater” as in war against a US population???

I love how folks outside the state are showing up for Minnesota in so many ways. Thank you. Here’s one more: donate blood. MN supplies are super low right now because we are all a wee bit busy defending democracy. Our elders, our cancer patients, our trauma care centers could use your help.

I love Moon Palace so much. They are a crucial hub of the social justice community. Angela is a Minnesota treasure.

My naturalized, US-citizen husband just got called into work. His office is across the street from the USCIS building in downtown Minneapolis. He took his passport with him and I kissed him and told him I love him as if I might not see him this afternoon. This is Minnesota right now.

“I didn’t run for this job so I could have this job. I ran for this job so I could do this job.” —Gov. Tim Walz

Although this is the first year they'll actively be trying to shoot him down.

CBS paid the president of the United States millions in bribe money and now they censor news reports so it does not annoy him. I don’t know how much plainer we can put this.

Sean Sherman: “Food systems don’t lie. Restaurants are like canaries in a coal mine, and the whistle is blowing. The danger is here and real.” siouxchef.substack.com/p/fck-ice

2025 has been a rough year. What's one piece of art that's brought you absolute joy despite everything?

Very happy to have a poem published by @atriumpoetry.bsky.social today. Thanks so much @hollyannepoet.bsky.social and @clairewalkerpoetry.bsky.social for accepting it and being wonderful editors to work with. atriumpoetry.com/2025/11/18/t...

How do we mobilize to stop this?

5pm on November 1: let’s go for a walk, it’s still light out! 5pm on November 2: an early darkness blankets the land. Fallow fields lay bone-bleached by moonlight. The last memories of summer fade into oblivion. The last echoes of hope lapse into baleful silence.

15 million Americans are going to lose their health care.

Twin Cities: At least it isn’t snow.

ICE Detains Leaves as They Turn Brown: tinyurl.com/37euaejk

holy fuck. Thank you, @assignedmedia.org, for bringing this up. Right on, blue state govs.

CHOMP! CHOMP! CHOMP!!

this is, hands down, the best video I've seen on men's influencer content and it's not close either

Omg, dream job.

E.g. plant all the zinnia seeds and then thin them and trust, because seriously: they will use all that light and space and you’ll thank yourself for your small brutalities. 🌱

Shout out today to St. Paul institution George’s Shoes & Repair. I walked in with a broken biking shoe, hoping to avoid buying a new pair. I walked out 5 minutes later with a fixed shoe, no charge, ready to get back on the road. They are a local treasure and take mail order repair requests.

I think one challenge in living among so much uncertainty and tragedy is the way capitalism has taught us that our quiet, domestic moments don’t count for anything. (1/6)

Worse than that. Read this EO carefully, it says anyone they see as essentially out of their mind OR homeless. It’s repeated under every point they make. This here allows to take anyone they see as a “threat” and put into an institution.

My favorite punctuation claps back!

I carry this feeling with me all day these days, “whatever is likable about our people’s warm patter does not in any way forgive what we have done to the world.” Powerful, brilliant, illuminating essay about an ICE job fair.