Weeknotes: 2/16/25-2/22/25

This Week:

• I’m going to start something new this week. In addition to my usual weeknotes of task-work, and events joyful and significant, I’m going to start posting news stories or commentary that I read and that helped me get at the truth of the world. I’m mostly doing this because I’d be reading them anyway, but then they just disappear from my brain, and I want to hold onto my thinking and analysis at this scary and anxious time. I’m going to call it “True Things”.
  • No, Federal Spending and Employment are not out of control
  • Election Results Show a Red Shift Across the U.S. in 2024
  • ICE struggles to boost arrest numbers despite infusion of resources
  • Trails of Tears (which pairs nicely with The Reality of Settler Colonialism)
  • Why Democrats won’t throw a real punch
  • Native Americans say tribal members harassed by immigration agents
• The Museum hosted two big programs this week. The first was “World of Water”, which we co-ran with Hanford Mills Museum. It’s a program based around water and landscape for kids K-6. We also hosted a screening of the wonderfuld documentary “I Am Not Your Negro”, about James Baldwin. It’s a powerful, resonant film, and I’m glad to be screening it as part of Black History Month.
• It was Oneonta schools Winter Break, which meant that Alanna and I traded off kids. It’s fun to spend time with them, but it does make it harder to get work done!
• I finished reading Olufemi Taiwo’s Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over identity Politics (and Everything Else!). I’m still turning it over, and may write a few notes about it when I get a spare moment.
• I also read Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez Locke and Key: The Golden Age which collects some of the prologue issues of Locke and Key. As always, the storytelling, art, and characters are masterfully and thoughtfully rendered.