Art builds community and solidarity, especially in the face of tyranny. Yes, those signs and stickers seem like silly indirect action but rarely do we enter the Cities and not see folks on a overpass letting folks know they aren’t being passive. It helps.
Category Archives: Arts & Literature
‘Ice Out for Good’: Art and censorship in the Minnesota snow
Too many cowards are gatekeeping and allowing horrible acts by institutions but muting reactions by the public.
Benjamin Percy’s Horrifying News
I have been following Ben Percy’s work for awhile, even got to meet him at a book release (and got some Wolverine issues signed). Seems like a cool cat.
Now he’s working on a thing with Stephen King himself and it is using regional resources to put it into play.
Yes, I have already subscribed…even got one for my brother (shh, don’t tell him).
It’s happening here: when book bans hit home
Never…EVER…side with the book burners and banners and censors. They do not have your best interests at heart and are using group ignorance to lie, steal, and eventually kill you. And there are here in Minnesota as well.
U.S. limits Canadian access to iconic Stanstead, Que., border-straddling library
Evil cosplayer Kristi Noem loves hurting people. In this instance, she has ordered shutting down Canadian access to a shared public library. I mean, you *can* access it still, you just have to go through the hoops of dealing with border security now.
In short, hurt a community in order to look tough, while really showing your weakness.
I first heard this on As it Happens the other night, which unfortunately does not separate stories as often as they should but it is the first story on this episode. Give it a listen.
Variety of Ojibwe-translated children’s books are headed to immersion classrooms
One of the enjoyable things about living up here is that, on occasion, we try to respect the cultures of those who live here…and those who have been here a long time.
It isn’t perfect, of course. We’ve got our share of red-hatted racists like everywhere else. We just try not to put them in positions of power. Even St. Cloud is getting better at that. Kind of.
In any case, part of getting it right is sharing our languages, and cultures, and stories. This is a good start.
Texas county sidelines librarians, reclassifies book on abuse of Native Americans as “fiction”
In Texas, Native Americans were never abused or harmed, despite what history and librarians have to say about it.
Yeah, dark days folks.
Debunking the Myth of the National Dish
I finished this a couple months ago. Pretty good read. Give it a try during one of those lovely winter storms we are about to start getting.
The power and prescience of Octavia Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower’
After this week, more relevant than ever. She even got the years mostly right it seems.
Banned Books Week: Effort to document and highlight support of the freedom to read
Also on NPR this morning, they realized that the book banners and burners might be a serious threat to literacy and free speech and thought in this country.
Have these folks been in a selective coma for the past decade? Three decades? More?