Category Archives: READ UP

Trick, No Treat: An Urgent Warning for Cat-Lovers, Writers, and…Everyone Else

We have caused this one. I am talking about plastics in our environment. And I am talking about their insidious effect on the thyroid – HUMAN and animal. This post is about an emerging health crisis facing cats in particular and everything and everyone else in addition, and we have caused it …This is not […]

Poetry Reviews: J Matthew Waters, AshiAkira, Laura Grace Weldon

“I believe the role of the poet is to reflect on human experience and the world we live in and to articulate it for oneself and others…. I think that the poet can write forcefully, using a different approach from a journalist, about subjects such as climate change, violence, abuse and mental illness and that […]

What Climate Organizers Can Learn From Two Centuries of Indigenous Resistance | in-digit-ous | Why ICWA still matters | poets I love

Q: Could you explain what you mean by the title phrase of your book, “our history is the future”? I look at the Ghost Dance prophecy, which was an anticolonial uprising among particularly Lakota and Dakota people on the northern Plains in the late 19th century, but also a widespread spiritual movement that went up […]

“It’s a Miracle We’ve Survived This Far”

Originally posted on The Most Revolutionary Act:
Mental Midgets/Musqonocihte By Trace Hentz Blue Hand Books (2018) Book Review This exquisite little book is actually two books in one – both thoughtful compilations of original poems, prose snapshots, memes, photos and “creative nonfiction,” all beautifully laid out on the page. Mental Midgets contains a moving tribute…

District of Despair: Montana Reservation Schools | Alone | Loot | Bansky | Zinke gone

Just half of Wolf Point’s Native students graduate from high school, compared with about three-quarters of their white peers. In June 2017, the Tribal Executive Board of Fort Peck filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights requesting a federal investigation into its contention that the Wolf Point […]

Day of Mourning in Plymouth | Migrant Mother | Malaga | Mental Midgets

Indigenous people and supporters gathered despite sub-zero wind chills for the 49th National Day of Mourning at Plymouth, Mass.  The undaunted crowd included Indigenous peoples whom the pilgrims menaced and murdered — Nipmuc; Mashpee, Aquinnah and other bands of the Wampanoag; Narragansett; Massachusett; Pequot and other Indigenous nations… BIG READ: Day of Mourning honored at […]

LEFTOVER | Hospice of Failed Utopias | About War | Exposición Luis Camnitzer

Hospice of Failed Utopias Madrid – At the Museo Reina Sofía, the artist Luis Camnitzer has piled up a grid of 80 blocks, approximately 12 by 12 inches each, and wrapped them in brown gauze.  Imprinted with the word “LEFTOVER,” followed by a Roman number, each block appears to have been shot, dripping fake, plastic […]

“We’ve never had justice”: How the Supreme Court rigged land deals against native people

That was the official legal ruling for the United States government: that native people did not actually own the land they’d lived on for thousands of years. Part One Listen By Dustin Dwyer • Part Two The boundary lines for multiple land treaties cross the state of Michigan. The boundary lines for multiple land treaties […]

Here I am! Healing!

What a whirlwind. Who knew that one doctor appointment could turn into several and then a major surgery and cancer diagnosis? I will be getting a second opinion on that diagnosis (Stage 1A grade 3 uterine cancer) on June 26th in Boston. One can never be too careful. (Radiation was suggested as one follow-up option.) […]

Newly Digitized Collection of Early 20th-Century Lakota Drawings Tells a Curious History

The collection has been digitized by the Newberry Library, as part of its new open access policy. In 1922, the Newberry Library acquired this collection of 160 drawings, attributed to “Sioux Indians” living in Fort Yates, which serves as headquarters of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The three boxes of art were sold by one […]

Museums Art on Slavery | Transformation Mask | Ahasteen Comics 2018 | All White All Male History and more

  EXCERPT: Removing a person’s name was a means of erasing their identity and imposing a “social death” that transformed enslaved persons into property rather than living individuals. Both historians and museum professionals have begun to realize the need for revising the way we frame and label the past, and to support this movement within […]

167 billboards | No Joke! | Be The Good

Something interesting in going on in Canada’s parks in 02018: Mohawk curator and scholar Lee-Ann Martin has participated in all of these modes of support in the past. But this summer, she is taking a very different approach—namely, putting the art of 50 Indigenous women artists on 167 billboards from coast to coast to coast. […]

02018 | The Long Now | Bloom | Stickiness: Killing Our Attention Span #NEVERAGAIN

The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide a counterpoint to today’s accelerating culture and help make long-term thinking more common. The Clock and Library Projects Below is […]