Yes: Their Laws Will Never Make Us Safer, from Dean Spade.

Great article from Jessica Valenti, She Who Dies With the Most 'Likes' Wins?: "The truth is that we don’t need everyone to like us, we need a few people to love us. Because what’s better than being roundly liked is being fully known—an impossibility both professionally and personally if you’re so busy being likable that you forget to be yourself."

Image: shot I took today near my office! City life has it's charms....

I'll admit it, I'm behind - tons of articles in the "to read" column right now, among them: What Is a Good Life? by Ronald Dworkin (RIP), everything on this list of 15 essays by female writers that everyone should read; and, the Nation article on Elaine Scarry (who I haven't read since my "Anthro of Political Violence" class in college, but remember liking).

We braved the horrendus weather and went to the ICA about a week ago to see this exhibit (This Will Have Been: Art, Love &  Politics in the 1980s) - good stuff.

I support this! Massachusetts - Radio ON! "Please call your rep now and ask her or him to call Rep. Marty Walsh's office to sign on to co-sponsor HD3506: An Act designating the song “Roadrunner” as the official rock song of the Commonwealth."

We ran the Hyannis Half Marathon yesterday - cold, wet, and full of coughing! But, still, it felt incredible to run 13.1 again, and, of course, sent me signing up for more races as soon as I got home...

"I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions--poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed--which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished. It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity." - Howard Zinn

Watch/listen. Get sad, get angry, get active: The Truth About Angry Feminists: "We're not angry because we're feminists. We're feminists because we are sick and tired and so very frustrated that we have to repeatedly defend our desire for equal rights. Listen to this speech by Jessica Valenti and just try not to get a little bit angry too. At 1:56 find out the annoying question every feminist gets asked, at 7:00 things get emotional in a good way, and at 7:44 you don't want to miss it when she basically "drops the mic" and answers that annoying question with an even better one."

Are you involved in non-profit fundraising? Check out my awesome friend Nikki's new blog, Collaboraisers.

Image: source.

Making War at Fort Hood: Life and Uncertainty in a Military Community by Kenneth T MacLeish: "Making War at Fort Hood offers an illuminating look at war through the daily lives of the people whose job it is to produce it. Kenneth MacLeish conducted a year of intensive fieldwork among soldiers and their families at and around the US Army's Fort Hood in central Texas. He shows how war's reach extends far beyond the battlefield into military communities where violence is as routine, boring, and normal as it is shocking and traumatic. "Making War at Fort Hood" is the first ethnography to examine the everyday lives of the soldiers, families, and communities who personally bear the burden of America's most recent wars."

Reading: the article The Perverse Logic of Immigration Detention: Unraveling the Rationality of Imprisoning Immigrants Based on Markers of Race and Class Otherness by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández

Thank goodness I'm getting back into CrossFit just in time to be sucked in by all the awesome Open/Games videos...

Why Are Conservatives Trying to Destroy the Voting Rights Act?

A Reader's War, by Teju Cole: "Assassinations should never have happened in our name. But now we see that they endanger us physically, endanger our democracy, and endanger our Constitution. I believe that when President Obama personally selects the next name to add to his “kill list,” he does it in the belief that he is protecting the country. I trust that he makes the selections with great seriousness, bringing his rich sense of history, literature, and the lives of others to bear on his decisions. And yet we have been drawn into a war without end, and into cruelties that persist in the psychic atmosphere like ritual pollution."

I don't love all the Notes from the Universe emails, but sometimes they hit home: "For every unexpected bump, turn, or squiggle on the path of life . . . you pretty much have two choices: Accept it as if you yourself had meticulously planned it and as if you're being watched by 10,000 cheering angels who love you so much, you're pretty much all they ever sing about. Or, accept it, kicking and screaming, as if it were some freak accident or random mistake that had befallen you by chance. I know which I would choose."

From the NYRB, Wes Anderson’s Worlds by Michael Chabon

Difficult article to read, difficult topic(s) to discuss, but worth considering. The Science of Sex Abuse: Is it right to imprison people for heinous crimes they have not yet committed?

This looks like a powerful documentary about the incredibly violent homophobia rampant in Jamaica. I'm working on an asylum claim for a young gay Jamaican man right now, and I've been shocked by the news and human rights reports. Please support the film-makers efforts if possible.

Image: source.

Delia*s! Is there any thing more 90's?? I can still remember the dog-eared and highlighted pages of the catalogues - and placing orders over the phone or, gasp, by mail!

Recently added to the "to read" list: All This Talk of Love by Christopher Castellani. I went to a reading from this book (the author is a friend of a friend) and it was just wonderful. I left thinking about the story, and wondering what was going to happen with all the characters. Looking forward to reading it.

I just finished reading If I Never See You Again by Niamh O'Connor, an Irish mystery author. While it was not the most skillfully written book, by the end I was surprised to see that I was actually pretty curious to find out "whodunnit" and also even a bit emotionally involved in the private life of the protagonist. I have the sequel on loan from a friend, and I look forward to hopefully reading it over this upcoming snowy weekend.

From a sermon given by the Rev. Pam Shepherd at my "home church" in Ashland last week: "Fear not. Fear not. I want this sermon to give you courage to live the life God calls you to. It’s because I have come to love you so much, I don’t want you to miss it. You see, I know, from my own life, that when we listen for God’s still, small voice, and at least try to follow God’s strange call, we are given a life so much larger and more alive than the life we would choose on our own.

Fear Not. Keep listening. And ask for God’s help. Not for God to further your plans, but that you might enter God’s plans. And then trust you will be given the life God calls you to. Here’s the simplest way I know to live God’s hope for you. Just ask for it. Just say your prayers, and then get dressed and show up for your life, just as it is now. And assume that whatever happens next is God’s good will for you."