The Main Event, by stacy-marie ishmael

Not everything that is faced can be changed;

Premium post · January 9, 2020

As promised, some riffs on news consumption (and production, dear colleagues) in a time of misinformation. The first thing to remember is that if you think...

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Listen.

January 5, 2020

I remember those long nights in the library as an undergrad, inhaling Red Bull and speed-reading my way through the set texts on asymmetrical warfare and the...

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to dare to have nothing so much to lose

December 31, 2019

On Saturday I went to a wedding over which a Presbyterian minister presided and on Monday I attended a funeral held under Muslim rites. On Sunday I played...

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Does it tell you that your heart is afire?

Premium post · December 22, 2019

There is an intimacy about Trinidad that is difficult to describe; a familiarity, a possessiveness, a jealousy. Here I am and am not myself. I am more myself...

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I do not believe as some / that the vote is an end

December 15, 2019

Housekeeping, ish. I let some* of my domains lapse this year; the tiniest of concessions to the inevitability of how “the desktop web” (and my role in it,...

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Some requests for hiring managers

Premium post · December 15, 2019

As promised, I’m going to experiment a bit more with the $ newsletters. To that end, I’ll be sharing versions of things I’m reading, watching, listening to,...

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Now each of us

Premium post · December 8, 2019

I realize that part of the anxiety that has been stalking my days is related to an upcoming international trip. What if I don’t get back in? What if they...

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No air. Breathe in.

December 2, 2019

It’s World AIDS Day. Get tested. Practice safer sex. Work to end stigma about gender and sexuality and about sex work. Work to end HIV and AIDS shaming and...

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Free people keep afever

Premium post · November 24, 2019

There’s a version of my life that is filled with fresh, local, sustainably-harvested flowers and cloth napkins and just enough of everything I want and need....

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let this be the healing

November 17, 2019

I moved this weekend, though it feels like I have been in geographic limbo for at least six months. Which means I once again confronted with the reality of...

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All of it has always seemed so arbitrary to me,

November 10, 2019

“Very tired” is the only honest answer to the obligatory politesse of “how are you doing?” “Very tired and about three weeks from a quiet, controlled, and...

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No one can stop her.

Premium post · November 3, 2019

I travel frequently, both for work and because of the decisions I’ve made about the architecture of my life. Over the years I’ve developed a few routines and...

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and i become relic

October 27, 2019

It is quite a thing, on the day before the first anniversary of the Tree of Life massacre, to see some of the most powerful people in the world defending...

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To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them:

Premium post · October 20, 2019

There are many ways to respond to stress. You can drown yourself in books and tea; go for a run; practice yoga; add several new piercings to your collection;...

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I love your hair / You always wear such interesting things

October 19, 2019

In Chile the students are marching. In Washington DC, Kirstjen Nielsen is gearing up for the start of her non-apology tour. In two weeks I will walk out of...

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“Put your hands up! Show me your hands!”

Premium post · October 13, 2019

There are things you think about— like what it means when you can be black in your own home minding your business and somehow still be killed by police. When...

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get up and try to do something

October 6, 2019

Botham Jean died, and then Joshua Brown died, and this keeps happening, will keep happening, and we rush to valorize the appearance of forgiveness without...

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Fear is the paralyzing agent,

Premium post · September 29, 2019

What a year this week has been and other such refrains. How does anyone even keep up with everything and other implicit shrugs. I mean what can I even do and...

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In the beginning before the beginning, there were drums, and hymns,

September 22, 2019

Kids marched. Another black trans woman was run off Twitter. Another tech CEO stood up for government agencies charged with detaining and deporting children....

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T.S. Eliot said that humankind cannot bear very much reality.

September 15, 2019

Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Will not stay still. There are very few days when I am not...

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