Easing into 2021 with gorgeous vocals and hope for better days ahead.
The Queen of Soul live and lush.
Has there really ever been a better version of “California Dreamin'” than this?
Curtis Mayfield remains the smoothest to ever do it.
Timeless.
Koko Taylor never fails to blow you away.
2021 is going to require a collective change of consciousness and new ways of operating in the world. That change is possible and it will be hard. Who will be the helpers and the shepherds to share the vision of who we can be and keep the momentum going for better days for all of us? Some of them are already out in the world doing the work. Some of us may be among them. It’s time to look for the helpers, help them, and join them.
“The pandemic will end not with a declaration, but with a long, protracted exhalation. Even if everything goes according to plan, which is a significant if, the horrors of 2020 will leave lasting legacies. A pummeled health-care system will be reeling, short-staffed, and facing new surges of people with long-haul symptoms or mental-health problems. Social gaps that were widened will be further torn apart. Grief will turn into trauma. And a nation that has begun to return to normal will have to decide whether to remember that normal led to this. “We’re trying to get through this with a vaccine without truly exploring our soul,” said Mike Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota.”
Where The Pandemic Will Take America in 2021
“Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don’t yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it’s actually going to be possible.”
— Angela Davis
It’s Friday and the year is almost over. 2020 has been 2020. Find joy and peace where you can. Here are five songs to end your week on a high note.
Grace Jones +Disco = Perfection. Add Iggy Pop, ASAP Rocky, and Tyler, The Creator in a video ad featuring Cerrone and Ms. Jones’, Disco classic “Supernature?” That’s entertainment.
“Because I’m Me” by The Avalanches never fails to make me feel good.
Ravyn Lenae’s “Sticky” is a legendary late night dance party song in the making.
These Power Pop inspired kids from Surfaces are keeping me going with “Sunday Best.”
Just when you’re ready to wind down, John Legend and Cynthia Erivo are right on time with “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys.
“When Georgia turned blue for Mr. Biden this year after record voter turnout, it validated the political vision and advocacy of a group of Black women who have led a decades-long organizing effort to transform the state’s electorate.”
Felicia Davis, Deborah Scott, Helen Butler, and Nse Ufot are some of the organizers who turned the tide in Georgia. Read about their wisdom, the damage done by viewing the South and southerners as a monolith, and the value of praxis over theory in protecting the democratic process.
What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?
Not enough folks know what a great book “Kindred,” by Octavia E. Butler, is. It’s kind of tricky to describe but somehow it all works — it’s about race relations and there’s time travel and romance. It’s powerful.
— Read on www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/books/review/dolly-parton-by-the-book-interview.html
“He had this habit of loitering by the stairs of the garden, almost daring you to walk up or down,” said Maria Hunt, who has lived near the garden for more than a decade and was attacked by Gerald two separate times in 2020. “Gerald was like a winged boogie man, a Cerberus of the rose garden who would have been comical if he hadn’t been so menacing.”
“All we could do was run”: the strange story of Gerald, the turkey who terrorized a city
If I could spend my life taking pictures, especially in the soft bright light of a sunny day in late fall, I would do it.
“Those closest to the pain should be closest to the power.”
-U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley, (D-MA)
A little something from around the internet.
Federally subsidized child care at the equivalent of $7.70 a day? The United States did it during World War II.
Libertarianism apparently doesn’t work in the wild. What black bears, untested political theory and dismantling local government teaches us about the need for fully funded public education.
Undermining the public good has dire consequences in the fight to stop COVID-19.
Milena Marić Einstein was a physicist. So was her husband, Albert. What happened to her?
Black people live everywhere in the United States. Read up on Black life in Appalachia.
Lead Belly “Goodnight Irene”
