persistentfeminist.bsky.social

We had a surprise trip to Copenhagen thanks to a blizzard last year, and I concur! I think it gets busy in the summer, but since we were the only people who wanted a tour in English, we got our very own grad student for an hour! It was amazing. Also their ancient chess set has a cameo in Ride or Die

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We also met and paid homage to the keeper of St. John's spring.

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I regret not buying a replica of the queen at the gift shop. Next time, for sure.

There are 1,599 schools in the NYC public system. Thanks to the magic of linear time, many parents have children at more than one school. I am begging the people who write these announcements to say which school they are about.

Here is today's very last minute of sunshine, as seen from a little red canoe in Jamaica Bay.

Hashtag briefly a plane.

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O Brother, Where Art Thou (for Tax Purposes)?

Caitlin Rozakis@caitlinrozakis.bsky.social

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle for Tax Purposes

Driving Miss Daisy for Tax Purposes

Caitlin Rozakis@caitlinrozakis.bsky.social

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle for Tax Purposes

Side hüstle?

Young night heron on Spring Creek, at the north edge of Jamaica Bay. These creeks are so large where they enter the bay, but now only a few blocks long. It must have been tremendous before everything was paved. A few of these guys, a great blue, a great egret and a snowy, a darting kingfisher.

Many people think the Tuskegee Experiments involved infecting Black men with syphilis. But what they did was more like this: they didn't give the men syphilis, they instead withheld treatment despite having effective medicine, just to see what happened. This is unethical and disgusting.

Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH@gavinyamey.bsky.social

A trial is only ethical if there’s equipoise: we do not know which “arm” of the trial is superior The proposed trial by Danes, funded by RFK Jr, lacks equipoise: we know that withholding the birth dose is harmful Now, the Danes might say, “Guinea-Bissau is too poor to buy the birth dose”

persistentfeminist.bsky.social reposted

Granta

@grantamag.bsky.social

We congratulate Anne Carson, winner of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature. Carson is a contributing editor at Granta and a regular writer for the magazine. In celebration, we have lifted the paywall on all her contributions to our pages. granta.com/contributor/...

Yesterday I visited my 12yo's new public but extremely hard to test into middle school in Manhattan. (If a name popped into your head, yes, that one.) This place is justifiably revered for its teaching. People who can afford $70k private schools send their kids here instead if they get in. 1/

PTA money is enormous. (This is the big funding difference among NYC schools.) There is $$$ for whatever the school wants. You know what I didn't see in any classroom? Smart boards. iPads. Computers beyond 1 teacher station. Almost like they know those things don't do the teaching.

Up early because today is the day the kids at my daughter's school stay home and the adults go to class. Very excited about it except for being up this early.

Ranger Rick. I was about 3, lying on my parents' bed holding it above my face. The cover was a tiger, which was a little scary. But whenever the cover was scary, the back side was something nice, like a kitten, so I flipped it over. A COBRA. Right above my FACE. I threw it across the room.

Sleepy Hollow Reviews 🎃🐎@sleepingvillage.bsky.social

In honor of scary media month: what is the first piece of media you remember truly frightening you as a child?

persistentfeminist.bsky.social reposted

Jim Robert

@mollygrub.bsky.social

abc7ny.comMayor Mamdani holds hands with one-time rival Curtis Sliwa to get flu shotAn apparent bromance has continued to blossom for the one-time political rivals.

Two guys who love each other for loving New York. Sigh. 🥰😻

Julia Métraux@juliametraux.bsky.social

"I'm supposed to be a tough guy," Curtis confided. "I can hold your hand," the mayor offered "What happens if I faint?" Sliwa asked. "I've got you," Mamdani assured him, grabbing his hand as Sliwa received his flu shot. abc7ny.com/post/nyc-may...

The version of this that sticks with me is Bernice Johnson Reagon's. She of the songs and the Sweet Honey and the activism. Toshi's mom. If you are in a coalition and you're comfortable, you know it's not a broad enough coalition.

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Settling in with the West Wing for my second colonoscopy prep in 2 months. I did not expect to have a habitual colonoscopy prep comfort watch.

nytimes.comIn Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own? (Gift Article)A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.

This one sure hits close. My older kid is a year younger; we live in walking distance (though a different school district). I felt VERY torn about moving him from our zoned school when it was not serving him. It's hard to justify, given my politics. And yet. 1/

Hakeem Jefferson@hakeemjefferson.bsky.social

Nikole Hannah-Jones w/ a sobering follow-up on her decision yrs ago to enroll her daughter in a poor, majority-Black public school rather than a wealthier, whiter private school. You leave heartbroken for the kids being failed by this grossly unequal system. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/m...

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Another glaring omission is that middle school admissions in NYC do not work like this anymore. It's just lottery number, except for 1 "gifted" MS (Mark Twain) and a few places like NEST+M. My kid who is 1 year younger was in a district w a pilot diversity program that set aside seats... 5/

... for kids in various marginalized group and got rid of interview, test, etc admissions. By the time kid 2 (b. 2014) was applying, the whole city was like that, to greater and lesser degrees. But def lottery, not formal academic sorting. This is a positive change I wish she had mentioned. 6/

Hakeem Jefferson@hakeemjefferson.bsky.social

View full thread

It's clear she advocated for other kids in a general way. But surely one lesson of the CRM and all social justice movements is that both leadership and collective action are needed. Otherwise what is the point? If the only action is individual, might as well put your kid first. 3/

To be clear, I do NOT think NHJ should have become PTA president. Just that some discussion of what other parents in the school valued/needed/want to change would have added context. As is, feels like her kid was an astronaut on a mission alone. 4/

Hakeem Jefferson@hakeemjefferson.bsky.social

@angrystaffer.bsky.social

I'm surprised that in this whole article NHJ never mentions connecting with other parents at the schools, esp the elementary school. I am not a PTA poster child. But surely collective action is necessary -- if she did not work w/ other parents, I'm curious to know why. 2/

persistentfeminist.bsky.social reposted

Angry

17 Sept

OMG 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

15 Sept

I once spent a long period watching a Great Blue try to eat a ?drowned? robin...feet first. Things would be going along, then the wings would splay out, halting progress, and there would be a great flurry of coughing it back up. Rinse, repeat.

EveryHeron 𓅣@everyheron.bsky.social

Q: What do Great Blues eat? A: Anything that dares to move within their wide field of view 🎯 🥢

12 Sept

Inspired by @tkingfisher.com's long wall sticks, I decided to Just Start with one of the pieces of cedar I found in the trash. Now it has a woodpecker and a sun. To be continued.

8 Sept

Briefly, I did wholesale telemarketing of prepackaged vegan donuts. This was a second business scheme/probably MLM for the owner of a clothing store, and I worked alone in the back of the store during its closed hours, cold calling from a stack of lead cards. 1/2

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8 Sept

The donuts were technically vegan but also ultra-processed, and I received far more lectures from health food store owners/employees about why they were not healthy than I sold cases of them. Also they tasted awful. After a few weeks, I quit and went on a road trip with my girlfriend (now wife).

5 Sept

Atlantic Beach Pie is wildly superior to Key Lime Pie. It's high time restaurant menus reflected this objective fact.

persistentfeminist.bsky.social reposted

DC Pierson

@dcpierson.bsky.social

28 Aug

If you liked the Chicago Rat Hole, you’ll LOVE the Brooklyn Potato Chasm

Wadsworth sun, Frank-N-Furter moon, and, somewhat surprisingly, Rooster rising.

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This right here. This is why I call myself queer and not just gay.

Jennie Kermode@jenniekermode.bsky.social

'Rocky Horror' had no truck with any of that. Like Tim - and like dear Dolly Parton, whom the community will also miss - it said 'Go out there, be loud, be proud, be yourself. Be fabulous, be promiscuous (if you want), and never apologise. Don't dream it. Be it.'

They really did turn it on exactly at 9:25.

@adamparkhomenko.bsky.social

And I'm crying all over again.

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persistentfeminist.bsky.social reposted

Kill Tim Faust 💀

@tbone.malware-virus.biz

25 Aug

my wife has a friend who sent Dolly Parton a painting she made & a letter explaining how much Dolly's music meant to her while she was transitioning. Dolly responded to it personally & paid for her top surgery. Sounds like an urban legend but it's real. I think we're going to more stories like this.

persistentfeminist.bsky.social reposted

Adam Parkhomenko

25 Aug

From the Empire State Building Observation Deck: Tonight, the Empire State Building tower lights will turn to a pink sparkle at 9:25 to honor the late Dolly Parton.

persistentfeminist.bsky.social reposted

Library of Congress

@librarycongress.bsky.social

25 Aug

The Library is devastated to learn of the passing of Dolly Parton, a music legend and titan of children's literacy. Her Imagination Library program has earned multiple Library Literacy Awards and, in 2018, she visited us to donate its 100 millionth book to our collection and host a story time. 🦋❤️

17 Aug

Great thread on marriage and deliberately short historical memory. Once again, "traditional" norms means 1950's US/industrialized capitalism. Funny how it always seems to.

Lane Stellmaker@hipcrimevocab.net

For those not in the know, marriage as a legal institution developed solely among the upper classes and had to do with inheritance of stored wealth in sufficiently complex societies. It has fuck-all to do with some postwar notion of a nuclear family.

10 Aug

Smol Frog Sunday

8 Aug

Then I went and made a bunch of cyanotypes at lunch:

persistentfeminist.bsky.social@persistentfeminist.bsky.social

If you see this, post your blue art! 💙

7 Aug

If you see this, post your blue art! 💙

Katie Croonenberghs Art@kamakru.bsky.social

If you see this, post your blue art! 💙

6 Aug

Indeed I showed my daughter this comic the first time she heard the song, ensuring this effect Larry's lasts at least another generation. (Yes, she sings it this way.)

Micah@rincewind.run

Outkast’s Ms Jackson just came on at the gym and I will never in my life be able to hear that song without thinking about this comic

instagram.comDr. Abdul El-Sayed on Instagram: "My family’s roots in mid-Michigan trace back to the early 1800s. I lived with Grandma and Grandpa during my time at the University of Michigan. And they’ve always had...187K likes, 1,328 comments - abdulelsayed on July 14, 2026: "My family’s roots in mid-Michigan trace back to the early 1800s. I lived with Grandma and Grandpa during my time at the University of Michi...

6 Aug

Ok this might be the cutest political ad I have ever seen. I just watched it 4 times in a row. www.instagram.com/reel/DaxwmZM...