Author of Sheila Says We're Weird and Defenders of Dirt. Promoting creativity, craft, cooperatives, and communities of care. I believe ideas can inform and inspire positive actions.
This is my seventeenth post here, and I'm officially declaring it the end of the first semester of this 4-year Learn, Imagine, Act project. During my years as a college professor, I felt a lot of institutional pressure to require final exams. But finals never struck me as
It's nearly impossible to keep up. Last week, right after I pushed the "publish" button on my article, "Poison Words: Language, Dehumanization, and Death," I heard about the president's anti-semitic reference to "bad bankers" as "Shylocks." And, of
Yes, this is another post related to eugenics. So many current issues involving the mistreatment of immigrants, people of color, women, and LGBTQIA people are laced with ideas that have carried over from this conceptual base. Victor Klemperer’s quote grew out of his experience of being a Jew in
The aim of this history is not to indict any particular figure, nor is it to undermine the positive discussion of neurodiversity that Asperger's work has inspired. Rather, it is cautionary tale in service of neurodiversity—revealing the extent to which diagnoses can be shaped by social and
"The moment an individual’s fundamental rights are subjected to a simple cost-benefit analysis is the moment the gates of hell open wide." Stephen Unwin, "Life Unworthy of Life: The Lessons of T4" I keep adding to my Learn, Imagine, Act resource list. Current events have
"I know what concentration camps are. I was inside two of them, in America. And yes, we are operating such camps again." George Takei, 2019 Yesterday, I took advantage of some rare seasonal weather, driving through the countryside to relax in a small village. The town is blessed
"The past is never dead. In fact, it isn't even past." William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun This is post #12 in my Finding Throughlines project, and it seems like a good time to reiterate what I'm up to here with my Learn, Imagine,
"While President Donald J. Trump might well have his own reasons for hating a university famous for its brain power, the anti-intellectual impulse behind Trump’s attacks on higher education has a long history in the United States." https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-24-2025 My family made a
"People in different countries, at different times and in different ways, have used needlework to speak when their voices have been silenced, to speak for those they have lost through political upheaval. Women, especially those who are illiterate or living in poverty, have used sewing because it is the
Eleven children were using corrosive chemicals to clean as well as perilous “head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws, neck clippers and other equipment” at a Seaboard Triumph Foods pork processing plant in Sioux City, according to officials. This is the second time federal investigators have found children working at that particular
"It is the goal of oppressive systems to make us feel hopeless, to take away our joy, to steal our imagination." Wanjiku Gatheru, founder of Black Girl Naturalist (qtd in Drawn to Change the World) I felt inspired and refreshed by our two week sojourn looking at craft
“Craft is the greatest tool I’ve ever stumbled upon for building communities and mobilizing them to take actions that will bring about actual social change. In fact, I call myself a community organizer disguised as a fiber artist. I trick people into hanging out together by promising embroidery workshops,