The case for rereading:

Reread a book enough times, or often enough…and it will eventually root itself in your mind. It becomes both a reference point and a connector, a means of gathering your knowledge and experience…It becomes the material through which you engage with the world.

I appreciate what Bluesky is aiming for here:

If social platforms can’t be neutral, then they need to be interchangeable. That’s the only way this doesn’t spin out into a propagandic nightmare…the killer app of a neutral protocol is an opinionated but interchangeable platform.

Hope it succeeds.

Regardless of what the empire decides to call this day, it’s always a good day to be Indigenous.

My friends at OHF Weekly republished my essay, “The Almost NDN: On life as an urban NDN struggling to be more ‘Indianer’ than you," in honor of Indigenous People’s Day. Check out the work they do.

I like this definition of charity that preserves relationship amid diverse beliefs:

Charity literally means love; to be charitable, therefore, is not to move to the middle, to become a mushy moderate or “squish.” It’s to treat your neighbor with respect, whatever you think of her beliefs.

This Plough article about liberating your wealth, holding all things in common, giving freely to all, also has a persistent notification telling me my free article limit is about done, but subscribing will give me full access, though only if I pay them, and, therefore, liberate my wealth further.

I’m still going to watch Tron:Ares when it streams, and I’m going to like it. Regardless, I thought this review was great, Tron: Ares Is a Bad Movie, but a Great Nine Inch Nails Music Video :

Here, the NIN score is the only thing that keeps the movie going. Lending the band’s name to film feels like an act of generosity; you can charitably treat this as a series of whiz-bang sci-fi visuals made to accompany a pretty good Nine Inch Nails album.

“So I pine for the old days of the internet, when the digital world was smaller and we all just shared what was going on in our little lives, and we were content. We could simply exist in this new space, and what we did was often of little consequence…” — Matt Baer on a fading love for the internet.

Tribal colleges and universities aren’t well known, but are a crucial steppingstone for Native students

TCUs enroll approximately 30,000 students each year, including some non-Native students. The median annual tuition at TCUs is US$3,572, making them more affordable than most other public universities.

By far, one of the best things about TCU’s is that they are, historically, heavily subsidized by the federal government and the tribe’s themselves. Things may change, though, forcing tribes to foot most or all of the bill. Education costs in America are ridiculous and getting worse, but small colleges like TCU’s and even local community colleges help reverse the trend with quality education at a much cheaper rate.

But I’ve never been a fan of siloing oneself from other people, which is a common argument for TCU’s and is found in this article:

These students and their families also feared that higher education could force them to assimilate into Western and white culture, and erase their own Native traditions and languages.

There’s a place for both to co-exist, and, yes, it is difficult but not impossible. Assimilation worries aside (not counting all of the ways that Native youth are already assimilated into American or “white” culture), the general nature of interaction with others who are very dissimilar to you breeds plenty of opportunities for growth and understanding, something that is lost in never leaving the comfort of your reservation. Sure, bad experiences also happen, however, those experiences also develop us in good ways.

I’m a fan of TCU’s as a starting point to a great education and life. I’m also a fan of exploring the world and taking chances in experiencing the good and bad of humanity.

“Shapeshifter,” a Joy Harjo Poem:

The white deer appeared on the road to his sister As she returned from looking for him. We look for signs everywhere. There was the wrecked car. A lost shoe. And mystery.

The Guts and Glory of “Indian Rodeo”

Not everything a photographer brings before us requires approval or annotation—the stolen kiss, the questionable animal welfare, the sombrero, the carcinogens—and in a picture like “Rosebud Rodeo,” there’s neither sneering nor romanticism, just a stocky horse with a stocky rider nosing their way out of the shot while somewhere around two hundred horsepower of engine sits idle in a Buick, longhorns mounted on the hood, lucky dice dangling from the rear-view mirror.

The worst thing about the rise of Substack, Ghost, and similar newsletter subscription platforms is that everyone thinks their opinions are worth at least $50 a year.

“We’re committed to creating a women’s professional league, and a men’s professional flag league.” I’m excited for this flag football push by the NFL, especially to get women involved in football. I wonder if flag football will be the main expression of the sport in the future.

Amazing. Mormons raise $200,000 for family of gunman who attacked their church

“The Epistle of James says that we should care for the widows and orphans,” Butler told The Washington Post. “I wanted to make sure that we were taking care of them, and thousands of people, it turns out, agree with me.”

Joe Hill, Stephen King’s son, on why we love horror stories:

Once you give evil a face and fangs, once you give it agency, it becomes possible to imagine a force opposed against it, a light that can drive out shadow.

Finished reading: The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt 📚

Decided to read this due to everything that’s going on in America. The book’s full of interesting observations about what divides us with little effort given to what unites us. I guess that’s to be expected.

The promise of the book is in answering why good people are divided by politics and religion, with the shortfalls attached to different evolutionary traits explaining why the two sides see things differently. Again, great insight into that but I finished the book feeling like that division then is almost insurmountable.

“Someone who says I am against abortion, but I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life,” — Pope Leo Criticizes ‘Inhuman’ Treatment of Immigrants in U.S.

Great overview of Thrice’s discography and an interview with them in anticipation of their new album. This band always brings some nostalgia for me.

Despite this lengthy effort to establish Thrice’s bona fides, there remains a feeling that the band is overlooked or under-appreciated.

We talk real big about tribal sovereignty, but how sovereign are tribes if a government shutdown handicaps tribal operations?

Government shutdowns affect Indian Country more quickly and more broadly than they do every day Americans because of our direct relationship with the federal government…

😳 Ice Cube Reacts to Bus Being Firebombed:

Initial reports allege that the attack was instigated by protesters who mistakenly identified the vehicle—due to its prominent “ICE” letters—as belonging to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

What is this statistic?

those who read books for about 30 minutes a day were 20 per cent less likely to die over the next 12 years than those who didn’t read at all.

It seems both randomly specific and untrue, focused more on extenuating circumstances than the act itself. But 🙏🏽 for nonreaders.

“We Shouldn’t Torture People”: The Case Against Solitary Confinement

The only reason I was able to turn my life around wasn’t [because of] the prison system and any of the structures that they put in place. It was the outside organizations that were coming into the prison that were solely committed to helping us change our lives.

I’m unsure of totally abolishing the prison system, but there are definite aspects of its current functions that are destroying our brothers and sisters. Solitary confinement used as a punishment creates more problems than it solves and should be abolished.

I haven’t paid much attention to the Lumbee tribe’s ongoing fight for federal recognition, but I’m glad there are those questioning the veracity of their claims:

“We are basically trying to make sure that a tribe is not invented”…“It really devalues the entire history of American Indian policy, because if you let in a tribe that cannot document who its antecedents were, that kind of opens up the field to anybody.”

The Paris Review, Jordan Castro: “The Abysmal Scum!”: On Not Reading Ayn Rand

A few months ago, as a result of the strange, hazy possession that occurs while sitting in front of the laptop screen, I “found myself”—a phrase I’ve disliked ever since I read a tweet by Elisa Gabbert pointing out its imprecision (although in this case it’s appropriate)—staring at Ayn Rand’s marginalia in C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man.

Personal essays remain my favorite form of literature for what they reveal about us and others and life and everything else. This one is short and fun.

An important step in respecting tribal sovereignty. I hope the tribes are ready with the necessary services when their people come for help. Just passing the bill isn’t everything. California bill would provide support services to Native American families, reduce foster care

Currently, tribes and tribal organizations can access foster care, adoption and guardianship services, but most preventive services, such as legal assistance and family counseling, are only available through nontribal organizations that often lack the cultural competence to respect each tribe’s practices and sovereignty.

The Mother Road—and the People Beside It : City Desk ABQ

We can hold both truths at once: the City has a responsibility to keep public spaces safe and welcoming for residents and visitors, and we have a responsibility to see and treat those living outside as human beings, not obstacles. 

Birga Alden writes on caring for those living on the streets in Albuquerque in the midst of city renewal priorities, a tough but necessary balance to seek.