George Yancy: Frederick Douglass’s Words Ring True: “Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand”
The draconian measures of the Trump administration must be challenged by way of the mass movements that extend beyond the pale of electoral politics.
Christopher B. Daly: The New Yorker turns 100 − how a poker game pipe dream became a publishing powerhouse
A big part of the magazine’s eventual success was Ross’ genius for spotting talent and encouraging them to develop their own voices.
Maya Sen: Why federal courts are unlikely to save democracy from Trump’s and Musk’s attacks
The Trump administration is moving much faster than courts do, or even can.
Robinson Jeffers: Love the Wild Swan
I hate my verses, every line, every word.
Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try
One grass-blade’s curve, or the throat of one bird
That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: You Belong
It’s not true our hearts are our own—
they’re symbiotic as meadows in spring.
The heart exists for who grows in it.
W.H. Auden: Lullaby
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children
William Shakespeare: Sonnets 18 & 19
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws
And make the Earth devour her own sweet brood
George Yancy: Remember What Audre Lorde Told Us — The Oppressor Doesn’t Determine What’s True
To navigate these terrible times, we need Audre’s Lorde’s audacity: Protect the public sphere. Refuse to be silenced.
Rebecca Gordon: King Donald
Facing the Rise of Fascism Like Fools for Freedom
Jane McCafferty: In the Winter of 2025
Who is making time for you/ who knows/ time is clay/can be shaped/ into bowls/ placed on wooden tables/ under sky/ that is impossible/ to love/
Charles Davidson: Resistance
The time has come for massive nonviolent resistance.
Juan Garrido Salgado: Poem of Night and the Wind | Poema de la Noche y el Viento
The word is wind, silence is wind, night is wind.
Clouds that imprison the moon.
Light that is no longer light but darkness of clouds and sky.
In the distance the sleeping mountains wake with the leaves of the wind.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar and Kurt Brown: “Just as this island belongs to the gulls” by Herman de Coninck
Just as this island belongs to the gulls
and the gulls to their cry
and their cry to the wind
and the wind to no one
Julia Conley: Loyal Dem Voters Fed Up With Party’s Inaction as Trump 2.0 Takes Hold
Leaders of the grassroots group Indivisible said voters are eager to beat the Trump agenda, and called on Democratic leaders to act as a true opposition party.
