Tammy Duckworth makes Senate history (again)! The Washington Post reports that:
It’s not every day that a 10-day-old infant makes history. But that’s what happened Thursday when Maile Pearl Bowlsbey, newborn daughter of Sen. Tammy Duckworth, was carried onto the Senate floor.
Maile, born April 9, became the first child permitted on the floor of the Senate under a rules change that allows children up to age 1 to accompany their parents to votes.
Medicinal Cannabis For All! What’s Jeff Sessions got against our veterans getting access to healthcare they need? Full Frontal’s Allana Harkin recruits the #ReeferSanity army to find out. [Read more…]
Vox’s Christophe Haubursin and Eliza Barclay present a fascinatingly documented examination of how border walls impact the natural environment. [Read more…]
As summer approaches, this seems an apt time to consider the dilemma presented by Helen Plumb in one of The Barbican Centre’s series The Art of Change: Feminism // A Prickly Subject. Helen reflects on the question of whether or not, as a woman, to let one’s body hair grow and provides a visual accompaniment to her exploration. [Read more…]
Spoken without words. There is poetry in the deaf community as well. Here is Crom Saunders’ RAINBOW BRIDGE- an ASL poem about the Orlando tragedy. [Read more…]
From the Huffington Post’s Latino Voices:
Acevedo told The Huffington Post that the poem is inspired by the thoughts that run through her head when she hears that yet another black man has been shot and killed by police. “I was cooking black beans the day when the Jordan Davis case went to trial, and I was distracted, thoughtless in some ways, and the pot boiled over and the beans burned,” Acevedo said. “Something about that image really struck home. How the stove smudged, how the beans look when they’re split open, how heavy my heart was over this kid in Florida. But the history of Moros y Cristianos (Moors and Christians) also played into the moment. This is a Caribbean dish of simple ingredients, rice and beans elevating the other. It’s also A dish named after the Moor conquest of Spain. The racial dynamics in all of that: the Caribbean, Spain and North Africa, Jordan Davis, coalesced through that metaphor. It was how I was able to enter the poem by exploring that moment and my stake in it as an Afro-Latina and partner of a black man.”
O.K. I think enough time has elapsed since Despacito burst onto the music scene that I can once again hear that tune and not run screaming from the room. Especially if the tune is sung by a very talented musical chicken. Hmm, wonder if he’s any relation to Foghorn Leghorn … Enjoy! [Read more…]
James Corden and Shaggy put a new parody twist on the classic “It Wasn’t Me”. Given some of the recent developments, we may be getting closer to seeing this played out in real life. I’m becoming more optimistic. The trickier question now might be whether or not we can keep from blowing up the planet in the meanwhile. [Read more…]
Langston Hughes reading his poem “I, too, sing America”. As testament to its enduring impact consider that according to the Poetry Archive, it was written in 1924 and recorded by Folkways in 1955, and that Wikipedia notes: “On September 22, 2016, his poem “I, Too” was printed on a full page of the New York Times in response to the riots of the previous day in Charlotte, North Carolina.” [Read more…]
Hanif Abdurraqib performing “All Of The Ways I’ve Kept Myself Alive” at the LA release show for his debut book, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much. Filmed at Art Share LA. [Read more…]
This Voice of San Diego video by Adriana Heldiz features Southwestern College professor Perry Vasquez introducing us to highlights of an art project that incorporates the controversial border wall prototypes near the U.S.-Mexico border at Otay Mesa. The project was a collaboration among Vasquez’ students and two other local artists: Jill Holslin and Andrew Sturm.
Jill Holslin is also an occasional contributor to the San Diego Free Press and Perry Vasquez is the artist and illustrator for San Diego Free Press columnist Jim Miller’s latest publication: Last Days in Ocean Beach (City Works Press, 2018). [Read more…]
Continuing the National Poetry Month theme, from the 2015 Women of the World Poetry Slam, here’s Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s “My Spanish”. [Read more…]
