Native people are creating a safe place for LGBTQ & two-spirit kids:  In addition to fellowship and support, members learn about LGBTQ friendly community resources for mental health, counseling and substance abuse needs. Janis invites representatives from various tribal agencies to speak at circle meetings and get to know its members. “We’ve brought in people from the Public Safety Department. We want people to get to know us so our young people aren’t afraid to call police if needed,” Janis said. Family members of LGBTQ people also attend the meetings.“We have mothers bringing their children to meetings; we have lesbian … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

I’m just saying he’s fucking immortal and we owe him a term:  Jimmy Carter sat in his Plains home this week, tired but thankful. Five months after breaking his hip, he had just finished up a tough session with his physical therapist. “She pushes me almost to the limit every time I have physical therapy, which is twice a week,” Carter said. “… I encourage her to give me all I can take.” And he’s somehow managed to avoid that Old Man Thing where he’s threatened by Kids Today and/or thinks they’re useless layabouts who just text all the time: … Continue reading First Draft is the Official Home of #DraftJimmy2020

Elaine Chao might be going down and that’s good bad news for Mr. Elaine Chao, who we know and loathe as Mitch McConnell: The House Oversight Committee sent Ms. Chao 18 different document and information requests related to the two matters, including requests for copies of any communication since January 2017 between Ms. Chao or any employee at the Transportation Department with her father or her sister Angela Chao, who is now the chief executive of Foremost. The committee also asked for copies by the end of this month of all documents related to a trip that Ms. Chao planned … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

If you need some motivation on your way to Crossfit or whatever, look at this blistering badass, Jim “Pee Wee” Martin, who is about to jump into Holland again 75 years after Operation Market Garden. May these bad motherfuckers live forever, as they deserve. A. If you value what you read here, including all our thirst posts about WWII veterans who could still get it anytime, please contribute to our ongoing fundraiser.  Continue reading Not Everything Sucks: WWII Badass Edition

DAME magazine, which occasionally lets me write things for them, is running a GREAT campaign to help get out the vote and sustain their women-run journalism at the same time.  Between now and November 3rd, 20% of DAME’s membership proceeds will go directly to Spread the Vote’s fight to increase access to the polls, remove barriers to voting, and GOTV efforts. Go, read about it, help if you can! A. Continue reading Help Women Spread the Vote

National Farmworkers Week exists:  Now in its third year, the event helps mark National Farmworker Appreciation Day, which takes place Aug. 6 each year. It’s an event that’s dear to Jaime Valero. Valero, workforce consultant at the organization, worked in the fields after school starting in seventh grade. Farmworkers’ contributions to the community extend beyond the field, he said, and the work they do deserves appreciation. “It’s how everybody eats. Onions are a big cash crop here and the workers make money and then use that money in this area,” said Valero. Appreciate the people who make your food possible. … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

Future President Cardi B exists: I love her willingness to talk about things like this with her followers, most of whom seem otherwise pretty disengaged (mercifully so) from the day-to-day nonsense of this administration and the primary crap. She’s not speaking in Beltway-ese but she’s not stupid, plus her very existence pisses off all the right people: Bernie Sanders is using Cardi B to win over young voters. To be clear here, Cardi B: – Is a former stripper – Has admitted on video to drugging men in order to rob them – Is facing felony charges for assault – … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

Let’s unpack Donna Brazile, who like most of Clinton’s staffers has been using her ex-boss’s victory as her entire resumé for years, agreeing to be in a book intended to launch Mark “I Masturbate To My Subordinates” Halperin back in to the mainstream: We condemned it. Stood by the women. He was fired and disgraced. I chose to be interviewed for this project knowing that some of my friends would dislike it. — Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) August 18, 2019 Because there’s something more going on here than just Donna deciding that her friendship with this filth pig is worth more … Continue reading ‘knowing that some of my friends would dislike it’

Muslim women are playing polo and kicking ass: “I want ladies to say: ‘Yes, I started playing polo because Aisha did.’” Aisha Ahmad Suleiman, a polo player from Nigeria, describes how she faced many challenges as a muslim woman when she first started to play the game. pic.twitter.com/28v1F0slSt — BBC News Africa (@BBCAfrica) June 24, 2019 A. Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

In honor of Toni Morrison, who never stopped working, who published a book this year, who kept looking straight at a world that hates and polices black women’s bodies and telling that world what she saw, for God’s sake, do something today to make somebody else free.  “I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a … Continue reading Free Somebody Else

This is so cool:  Mammadbeyova had her first child by the age of 16. Whilst attending Abilov’s Club, an educational resource for women, Mammadbeyova’s friend Zibeyda Ahmadova told her that that a flying club had been established in Baku. Excited, the two young women decided to sign up together. Zibeyda was rejected due to a heart condition, but Mammadbeyova was accepted. It was decided that her attendance should be kept secret, in order to protect her from negative reactions from people who believed that a woman’s place was in the home, not the cockpit. Indeed these sexist attitudes were to … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks: Women’s History Edition

Get yourself to one of these. I’ll be at this one. That’s all. That’s it for today. A. Continue reading Do Something

A thread here. A frequent refrain in the last several months has been that people are just too selfish, stupid, mired in their phones and consumed by their avocado toasts to get up and protest in the streets like “everyone” did back in the day. (The person posting such things, I assume, is doing so from inside the belly of an antifa action, as surely no one would urge mobilization and be immobile, that has never happened.) So it’s useful to see stories about protests that did take place, to know that people are fighting back in whatever ways they … Continue reading Protests You May Have Missed

In the hellhole that is the internet, Swear Trek and Spock’s Dick remain a bright spot:  With apologies to the Great Bird of the Galaxy, here is the first episode of #SpocksDick pic.twitter.com/bCqi6x3uxl — Swear Trek (@swear_trek) October 26, 2017 For all you young’uns who didn’t experience the glory of Web 1.0, this is basically what it was like all the time, along with some cats. A. Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

There’s a new PBS kids’ show (look, we avoid constant harping for toys by refusing to watch anything with commercials, let me have the Wild Kratts, okay?) that focuses on Native Alaskans:  While everyone loves a good mystery, what makes this podcast (and TV series) truly groundbreaking is that all the indigenous characters are voiced by indigenous actors, and Alaska Native voices are featured across the production, including in story development and creative direction. The theme song, which is featured in the PBS KIDS series and podcast, is sung by members of the Yupik Alaska Native band Pamyua, with music from … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

Never is:  The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency reports of the 8,156 Korean War personnel missing in action, only 494 have been identified. Eight thousand. A. Continue reading The War Isn’t Over

Via Nancydrewed, TIMMY THE GOAT! Timmy, 8 months old, and Hanson, a senior at East Valley High School, were both competing for the first time – an experience that wouldn’t be possible if Hanson hadn’t spearheaded the effort to create a class at her high school last year that taught such skills. “I pushed the school board for a long time to start it,” Hanson said. “Once people started to learn about it and what you can do, it caused interest.” The class, called Livestock Production and Development, is the first and only of its kind in the school. It … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks: Livestock Class!

These photographs exist. A. Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

New York is busting raccoons jumping turnstiles. A. Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

I spent Saturday at the tamest possible version of the St. Patrick’s Day festivities: the kids’ room at a local “heritage” festival. Where people were drunk-yelling along with the Dropkick Murphys at 1 p.m. and a dude spilled an entire beer on his 6-ish-year-old’s head while in a wee babby mosh pit during “Michael Finnegan.” I can’t blame him. That’s an absolute banger, all 47 verses. We refer to this weekend as Amateur Night in Chicago for a reason:  5:36PM — “A highly intoxicated white male wearing a large styrofoam sombrero” is lying down in the middle of Grand and … Continue reading My Fellow Honkies Acquitted Ourselves Well Yesterday

Lizzo exists: The junior-high punks might have called her corny, but like most hobbies people mock you for in adolescence, it’s now one of her greatest assets. The flute is earning her Shade Room–blessed viral fame, especially after one particularly notable moment from a performance at the University of Iowa’s homecoming. As she tells it, that video was born out of a direct challenge to her ability to play the flute — or to perform at all. During sound check, a professor threatened to report her to campus police unless she showed permits. “The privilege that you have to have … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

I think about this kind of thing a lot: The President can have dinner with anyone in the world, can go anywhere, can get anyone on the phone, has access to movies before they come out and instead sits alone in his bathrobe every night and live tweets Tucker Carlson while begging for praise. https://t.co/UBxzB5VeAs — Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) January 23, 2019 Like if I was president — and I’m keeping the Diet Coke button on the desk, that’s all I’m keeping from the Trump years, that’s genius — I would just call up Harrison Ford every once in a … Continue reading Make The Job Fun

Love to all of you today. A. Continue reading Merry Merry, Everyone

Read this now. I don’t know how we can start anything new with these aftershocks still going off all around us. Sometimes it’s absolutely staggering. A. Continue reading The War is Never Over

I don’t understand how it became an article of faith on the right that vegetables are for girls, or something:  The Obama administration set rules that sought to make school lunches more healthful with exclusively whole-grain pastas and breads, and with nonfat white milk and less salt. It was reacting to an epidemic of obesity in the United States as well as evidence that excessive salt intake is linked to high blood pressure and other health concerns, and that whole grains are more healthful than refined grains. In 2017, the Trump administration announced it was temporarily easing those rules, and … Continue reading Eating Well is For Pussies!

Kick has approximately 20 pairs of gloves. They’re the cheap kind, that stretch, so she can wear them year after year, and they come in cotton candy colors and I cannot make a pair that match on school mornings for the life of me. She has all these pairs because she loses them, or I lose them, or her father loses them, tosses them on the table at a restaurant or into a grocery cart when she pulls them off and one gets lost down the side of the car seat. She’s a kid, it’s normal, but she has a … Continue reading Mittens

Van closed. Thank you all for being here and I’m sorry the interface was so glitchy. A. Continue reading ELECTION NIGHT CRACK VAN