Category: Do Something

Athenae, Do Something, Immoral Values1 Comment

Signal This Virtue

Allison Hantschel

Of all the dismissals of protest and outrage that we’ve heard from conservatives over the past two years I think the one that makes me the craziest is the accusation of “virtue signaling.”  Expressions of moral outrage are playing a prominent role in contemporary debates about issues like sexual assault, immigration and police brutality. In response, there have been criticisms of expressions of outrage as mere “virtue signaling” — feigned righteousness intended to make the speaker appear superior by condemning others. Clearly, feigned righteousness exists. We can all think of cases where people simulated or exaggerated feelings of outrage because … Continue reading Signal This Virtue

Athenae, Big Damn Heroes, Do Something, Education5 Comments

LET’S MAIL SOME LEGOS TO ALASKA

Allison Hantschel

I dunno if anybody else is struggling right now but I AM. Holy balls, am I ever.

The world is a dark miserable shitass place and being on Twitter is losing its goddamn charm as all I ever see is people attacking each other over who’s really a Bernie bro and who humped their cat and who has the WORST ideas for revamping local news and who I used to love yesterday who now has to be cancelled because he has revenge or rape or race-war fantasies.

And I do not have a hot take on any of it. I’m just annoyed by everything. Once upon a time I would have enjoyed laughing at Cat Humper Twitter as much as I did David Cameron Dead Pig Humper Twitter, but lately my overarching reaction is just to be really, really tired by everyone’s antics. Which is not productive. Or helpful.

You know what is?

MAILING LEGOS TO ALASKA. 

Continue reading “LET’S MAIL SOME LEGOS TO ALASKA”

Athenae, Big Damn Heroes, Do Something, Epic Blogger Win

Lookit What You Did!

Allison Hantschel

Thanks to your generosity, First Drafters, you paid for Christmas gifts for 85 KIDS. The money you raised for the St. Hyacinth Food Pantry bought gift cards, toys, games, mittens and other necessary stuff for the children whose parents shop there each month. I’m heading up tomorrow to help them sort through some more donated things, but this is the nicest part: They’ll all get something new and nice for the holidays, thanks to you! They’ll be able to go get a snack or a treat or something frivolous with their friends without having to worry about it for once. … Continue reading Lookit What You Did!

Athenae, Do Something

DO SOMETHING Merry Edition

Allison Hantschel

UPDATE WE DID IT HOLY CRAP GUYS! $750 raised for the St. Hyacinth Food Pantry! You did it again! So many kids are going to have a wonderful holiday because of you all. Our Internet is the best Internet. OH HAI remember the food pantry we raised money for after the 2016 election? Remember how many families you helped to feed? IT WAS 300 FAMILIES. The pantry’s been working hard and serving even more families in the past 2 years, and now they have a new project. Every year at the holidays they put together a bunch of gift packages … Continue reading DO SOMETHING Merry Edition

Athenae, Big Damn Heroes, Do Something

Do Something Right Now

Allison Hantschel

Well, who DOESN’T feel helpless this morning? Friend of Blog Jude points us to this fundraiser being held in Madison, Wis. for the Trans Law Help Center, a volunteer legal aid clinic helping people dealing with the Trump administration’s ever-erupting volcano of bullshit. If you can’t attend, I’ll match the first $100 in donations to the center, run through Community Justice Inc, just link to a pic of your receipt in the comments. Fuck the fascists. A. Continue reading Do Something Right Now

Athenae, Do Something

Not Everything Sucks: Help the Teachers Edition

Allison Hantschel

If you’re looking for a way to help those affected by Hurricane Florence and the attendant flooding/water damage issues, Donors Choose is on it: The fine folks at @DonorsChoose have a special fund set up for teachers whose classrooms were impacted in NC and beyond. As a former high school teacher and a former NC elementary school volunteer, I’m a big fan of this idea. https://t.co/cuqp3wk5QS — Sara Benincasa (@SaraJBenincasa) September 19, 2018 You’ll recall we used that site to help classrooms targeted by the NRA’s goons and those with underfunded journalism programs. Let’s see if we can do it … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks: Help the Teachers Edition

Athenae, Big Damn Heroes, Do Something

Not Everything Sucks

Allison Hantschel

Those of you moaning that nothing will ever change? Read this before you tape your pieholes shut:  Love is a lawyer tirelessly devoted to an immigrant sector most in need of legal aid: the rural one. In 2014, she launched the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, which serves immigrant families where there is traditionally no legal aid. Love and her team of three other lawyers go out to the people—via a roaming RV office, community center, and church pop-ups, and by organizing community leaders. The whole thing is amazing. We are saving one another every single day, and always will. Donate … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

Athenae, Do Something2 Comments

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor Candidates

Allison Hantschel

Gimme your people nobody’s paying any attention to right now who deserve more attention, lest they shock the New York Times and actually, you know, get elected to represent their districts/people. Jude will start, with Arvina Martin, who’s running to become Wisconsin’s first Native American Secretary of State.   You can donate to her here. Post yours in the comments and peruse, those of you with means, so as to give your dollars to races not already swimming in money. A. Continue reading Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor Candidates

Athenae, Do Something3 Comments

Cages

Allison Hantschel

They’re trying to make us fight about the place we keep the children we steal from their parents, the children we lock up: This just in from @davidbegnaud: Border Patrol has reached out to @cbsthismorning and said they are “very uncomfortable” with the use of the word cages. They say it’s not inaccurate and added that they may be cages but people are not being treated like animals. pic.twitter.com/0zSDqJszgK — CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) June 18, 2018 And it’s too easy to reach for the Ursula K. LeGuin, today: In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of … Continue reading Cages

Athenae, Big Damn Heroes, Do Something2 Comments

WHAT ARE THE DEMOCRATS DOING?!!?

Allison Hantschel

I’ve been seeing variations on this theme all week, like the party that isn’t in power right now should somehow magically gain power and stop family separation. Well, they’re sitting in. They’re marching. They’re giving speeches. They’re fighting with the only fight they have. If you want them to be able to mount real opposition, we need more of them.  Could one of them filibuster? Sure. Stand on the floor all night telling refugee stories. Could one of them start a hunger strike, mount civil disobedience over and above what’s going on already, could they find a creative way to … Continue reading WHAT ARE THE DEMOCRATS DOING?!!?

Athenae, Big Damn Heroes, Do Something, Guns, Kids Today3 Comments

Rise Up

Allison Hantschel

We forget, all the time, what we’re capable of. An emotional Emma González (@Emma4Change) concluded the #MarchForOurLives by standing in silence for 6 minutes and 20 seconds, the amount of time it took a gunman to kill 17 of her classmates at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. https://t.co/ZmVma1l4WI — Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) March 24, 2018 How often, how many times a day, do we tell ourselves won’t, can’t, doesn’t? How many times do we say inevitable, impossible, never? And then a girl stands in front of the whole world and she shakes their windows and she rattles their walls. Do … Continue reading Rise Up

Current Affairs, Do Something, Doc, Education, Law/Justice, Uncategorized3 Comments

Parsing the Medill #MeToo Debacle

docphd

Yes, even at the Jesus H. Christ School of Journalism Gods, people can be total dipshits: Ten women released an open letter on Wednesday accusing Northwestern University Professor Alec Klein of persistent sexual harassment and bullying since he has been at the helm of the school’s “crown jewel” investigative journalism program. Calling it the storied journalism school’s “#MeToo Moment,” the eight former students and two former staffers of the Medill Justice Project wrote that Klein’s “controlling, discriminatory, emotionally and verbally abusive behavior has to end.” Klein, who has been at Northwestern for a decade and in charge of the Justice … Continue reading Parsing the Medill #MeToo Debacle

Athenae, Do Something, Economy, Geek Cred1 Comment

On #GivingTuesday, Consider The Media

Allison Hantschel

I mean us, of course. Remember this? Yeah, it’s real. Today I’m gonna write about our fundraiser because we’ve been doing this Internet thing for 17 years now and sometimes it feels like no time but sometimes I feel like Internet Grandma talking about the good old days when if you knew what HTML was you were like some kind of magic genius and people threw money at you. Well, not really, but it did seem back in 2004 when we merrily threw ourselves into fighting the Bush administration’s bullshit that there was gonna be some kind of knocking down … Continue reading On #GivingTuesday, Consider The Media

Athenae, Do Something4 Comments

Fight The Fights You’re Gonna Lose

Allison Hantschel

God almighty, pull it together:  Right now, for example, if you can believe it, the Democratic National Committee seems to be slightly baffled about what to do as regards the race for the open U.S. Senate seat in Alabama. The Democratic candidate is Douglas Jones, the former U.S. Attorney who sent to prison the last of the terrorists who bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963. The Republican candidate is a lawless theocratic nutball named Roy Moore, who lost his job as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court twice because of flagrant judicial misconduct. It would seem to … Continue reading Fight The Fights You’re Gonna Lose

Current Affairs, Do Something, Doc, Guns, Terrorism, Uncategorized2 Comments

What’s in a name and how many lives is it worth?

docphd

When we discuss the idea of “fame” as a newsvalue in my journalism classes, I make a point that famous people can actually be infamous. “How many of you have heard the name Jeffrey Dahmer?” I ask. Every hand goes up, even though he committed his crimes and died in prison before most of them were born. Dahmer is a name that remains as prominent now as it was in the early 1990s. A mass murder with an eating disorder, a TV show once quipped. I thought about the man, the name and the crime this week when I heard … Continue reading What’s in a name and how many lives is it worth?

Athenae, Do Something2 Comments

Our Fate is Your Fate

Allison Hantschel

They’re letting Puerto Rico die:  Four days after a major hurricane battered Puerto Rico, leaving the entire island in a communications and power blackout, regions outside San Juan remained disconnected from the rest of the island — and the world. Juncos, in a mountainous region southeast of the capital that was slammed with Maria’s most powerful winds, remains isolated, alone, afraid. Just like they let New Orleans drown, and California burn, and Houston flood, and the Midwest rust. I’ve been saying it for years. Don’t think you’re immune. Don’t think you’re safe. If they can do this to your neighbor … Continue reading Our Fate is Your Fate

Current Affairs, Diary, Do Something, Doc, Faith, Uncategorized

Memento Mori

docphd

I was sitting in my basement early this week, sorting through the dozens of things I had to do when my wife came down to add one more: “Do you have anything you’re doing this weekend?” she asked. I tried not to flinch as I tried to answer in a vague way that would allow me somehow get out of whatever she was about to ask me to build, fix, move or buy while still not admitting I wanted a free weekend. “I’m not sure right now. Why?” “There’s that benefit at the park for Jacob…” Jacob is a 9-year-old … Continue reading Memento Mori

Big Damn Heroes, Congress, Current Affairs, Do Something, Doc, Hurricane Harvey, Nature is Scary, Uncategorized5 Comments

When people are devastated, we shouldn’t care if Ted Cruz was an asshole

docphd

As the stories of neighbors helping neighbors begin to recede like Harvey’s floodwaters, the rush of stories on which politician is being an asshole is heading full steam toward us. Most of the stories are about the downside of humanity, in which people find ways to remind us that basic, common human decency isn’t common or basic for some people. While some reporters are trying to help people figure out where damage is or where their loved ones are, you have this asshole tweeting a fake shark photo and this ABC reporter ratting out “looters” to the cops and bragging … Continue reading When people are devastated, we shouldn’t care if Ted Cruz was an asshole

Athenae, Do Something, Hurricane Harvey11 Comments

Save Who You Can

Allison Hantschel

Update the final: WE SET A RECORD! Guys, in one week we raised more than $3,000 for the Houston Food Bank. That’s a First Draft record, more than we’ve raised for any cause so far. You all did GREAT! Thank you all for donating and for doing something to help Houston. They’re gonna need every penny. You’re great people and I’m proud to know each and every one of you. Update 4: AND JUST LIKE THAT IT’S $2,300! Can we do $2,500 by the end of the week? You all are rocking the house. Update 3: We’re just shy of … Continue reading Save Who You Can

Current Affairs, Do Something, Doc, Faith, Sports, Uncategorized

One more wedge play for Jerry Kramer

docphd

He had been screamed at by a relentless tyrant in front of his peers. All it did was make his mistakes multiply in hot August sun that burned brightly above the training camp field. The NFL was not a place for the weak back then, and coaches were gods among men, the deities who controlled the future of these mortals. This man in particular, Vince Lombardi, had gained near mythic status as he used a domineering style to reshape the failing Green Bay Packers into a winning machine. The player had jumped off sides during one drill and missed a … Continue reading One more wedge play for Jerry Kramer

Current Affairs, Do Something, Doc, Immoral Values, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Darnold, Uncategorized3 Comments

Fuck You Nation: “No, NEVER!” edition

docphd

  (NO NEVER! Hardly ever? FUCK YOU!) I coined the term “Fuck You Nation” a few years back in looking at how people treat one another in the age of Donald Trump. So many people are less about being able to formulate something they favor, but they’re very clear about the “hey, fuck you” mentality they possess. In other words, people were less “pro” something and more “fuck you” toward people they saw as “the opposition.” At the core of the argument was a general sense of self-righteousness, absolute certainty and an overwhelming sense of anger and bile. This week, … Continue reading Fuck You Nation: “No, NEVER!” edition

Athenae, Do Something

Call. Call Even If Your Senator’s A No. Call Anyway. Thank Them. If Your Senator’s a Maybe? Call Again.

Allison Hantschel

No posts today. Just this. Call your senators. They’ll vote today on a bill that who even the fuck knows, just because. They need to hear from you. They need to hear your voice. There’s nothing I can say that’s more important than that. A. Continue reading Call. Call Even If Your Senator’s A No. Call Anyway. Thank Them. If Your Senator’s a Maybe? Call Again.

Current Affairs, Diary, Do Something, Doc, Education, Uncategorized5 Comments

It’s Blog, It’s Blog! Help me not to suck…

docphd

I’m asking for help from the hivemind, given the wide array of experience you have in writing for blogs, reading blogs and probably eviscerating shitty blogs. I was on the phone with my publisher the other day when she made an obvious statement that had previously had no answer other than, “No shit.” “The problem most of your reviewers had was that by the time the book comes out, the examples you list for the students are dated,” she noted. “That’s a problem with this book that we need to address…” My answer was the more professional version of “No … Continue reading It’s Blog, It’s Blog! Help me not to suck…

Congress, Current Affairs, Do Something, Doc, Immoral Values, Of Interest, Uncategorized

A Deaf Frog

docphd

One of the best jokes about jumping to the wrong conclusion is that of the scientist and the frog. The scientist tells the frog to jump and the frog does so. The scientist then cuts off one of the frog’s legs and repeats the command. The frog continues to jump until the scientist has removed all four legs, at which point, the frog remains still. The scientist then makes this entry in his notes: “After removing all four legs, frog goes deaf.” An equally disgusting and yet not nearly as funny series of answers emerged this week in regard to … Continue reading A Deaf Frog

Athenae, Big Damn Heroes, Bigotry, Current Affairs, Do Something, Immigration, Immoral Values, Terrorism

‘This is someone’s child’

Allison Hantschel

It’s important to know that somebody fought back:  “I was saying, ‘Creator – provide comfort to his family who don’t know you’re here,” she recalled. An officer called out to her: “You did what you could, it’s time to come off the train.” [snip] The next night, Macy met Namkai-Meche’s mother and father at a vigil held by the train stop. She handed his father a purple-painted, heart-shaped rock, her prayer rock.  She said the victim’s parents thanked her for being with their son, telling her that she was “a mamma to our boy in that moment.” Macy, a single … Continue reading ‘This is someone’s child’

Adrastos, Do Something, Music, Nature is Scary, New Orleans

Thanks, Y’all

Peter Adrastos Athas

I’d like to thank everyone who donated to VAYLA’s New Orleans East Tornado Relief fund. They’ve exceeded their original goal and have raised nearly $20K. Here’s another chance to give: What would a post like this be without some musical gratitude? Stanton Moore is a New Orleans musician so I decided to let the exclamation point slide. Continue reading Thanks, Y’all