Blog

The Texas GOP platform is riveting(ly bad) political reading
I could not tear myself away from it. The Texas GOP’s “Temporary Platform and Resolutions” packs in a huge amount of religious superiority, prejudice, and self-contradiction.

January 6 — and transphobia — make some people feel empowered
They enjoy the illusion that they’re the deciders. Post-2020 Trump supporters believe they have the power to decide how others already voted—and, if they don’t get their way, they’ll force it.

Why the Republicans chose Mike Johnson
He’s been made House Speaker because he’s serving their goals. Their goal is patriarchy, white Christian nationalism, and unfettered environmental destruction. They will make elections obsolete if they can.

Climate change, predicted (three decades ago)
Returning to an environmental classic: ‘The Ages of Gaia’ by James Lovelock. We don’t yet know what it will be like when the forests are gone. But we should live in a way that prevents this outcome. We must support our own survival.

The Industrial Revolution: All of it has to change again
Trains represent where we’ve been & where we‘ll go next. Steel, aluminum, concrete; fossil fuels; electric light; transportation, communication, refrigeration, medicine. Do we know what we have to change?

Tadpoles teach us in Kern’s ‘Real Sugar’
Stories for those who feel ‘fragile about frogs’. We can grieve “all the frogs that aren’t.” Some of our stories going forward, though, have to be about the frogs that are. Which will those be?

How we’re here now: Poems of California
Poems in ‘Rift Zone’ and ‘Last West’. We know in our bones what being is. Because we are. ‘To be’ is to exist in a place, to grow, to break off, to feel how this ties us to past and future.

We know who’s responsible for orange sky
We need to hold them accountable. It’s Exx-smog and Shell-smoke. The big orange cats must be held accountable, and there’s more than one. Each of us has a role to play.

Designing a town people can get around? Repeat this exercise.
Anna Zivarts reminds us how we can take an hour to try harder. Sometimes we lack empathy for each other’s transportation needs and preferences. We have no idea because we haven’t stopped to try.