Don't You (Dare) Give Up

planet earth dwellers

forgive us our trespasses

we will right this ship

Marching Forward—Pete Buttigieg at Selma and Protestors Everywhere

Former Transportation Secretary Buttigieg attended Reverend Jesse Jackson’s March 6th homegoing service at Chicago’s House of Hope, and then traveled to Selma, Alabama where he and Jackson once walked over the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. On this 2026 Sunday afternoon, Buttigieg strolled in a huge crowd mixing with singing children and with some, like the then 23-year-old Jackson, who marched in 1965 to protest racial discrimination in voting.  The badly-named bridge crosses the Alabama River in Dallas County where in 1965 African Americans made up 50% of the population and 2% of registered voters.  Buttigieg spoke earlier that Sunday morning at the Martin and Coretta King Unity Breakfast.  He honored the 600 heroes who marched on Bloody Sunday—their bravery then demanding of each of us now: “Don’t you (dare) give up.”  Buttigieg reflected on the brutal attack inflicted on peaceful protestors in 1965, citizens teargassed and savagely beaten by masked Alabama state troopers armed with whips and tubing wrapped in barbed wire.  Bloodlusting onlookers cheered the violence.  A nation horrified by televised images of Bloody Sunday made sure that legislators would pass the Voting Rights Act.  1965’s protestors focused always on the future, never considering a return to an unfixable status quo.  Secretary Pete: “We do not have the right to give up the struggle for voting rights…universal health care, affordable housing for everybody…for high-quality, fully funded public schools….”     

Three weeks after the Selma march, protestors en masse took to the streets in well-over 3,000 small towns and big cities in this country and in many more locations around the world.  No longer alone or online, invigorated by nationwide progressive election victories, millions of believers peacefully celebrated democracy together in the largest protest against authoritarianism since this country’s founding.  As I departed the Saturday festivities, a Bald Eagle and his children swooped in beside me.  “Where did you meet this Eagle?” I asked.  “He’s really my dad,” his daughter grinned, proudly holding a handmade sign reading “Save the Animals.”  Her pinpoint crafting of lion and snake!  Eagle-dad enthused about the threesome’s frequent protest outings, adjusting his wingspan to secure a tall Ukrainian flag.  Shaking his beak merrily, he reported seeing another costumed Eagle today.  “Until next time,” we waved.  Eagles perch on hope’s branch.     

Hozier gets by

“With a Little Help from Friends”

Lake Street Dive, you, me 

Getting the Scoop—Aaron Parnas and Project Salt Box

Gen-Z legal analyst and journalist Aaron Parnas sets a high bar in independent media and his daily posts cover the globe.  He scores first dibs on key interviews and keeps reliable contacts on the ground ready with live reports.  What an excellent verbal and visual one-stop resource for those wisely limiting their news consumption.  Because he understands the damage to democracy caused by weak civics and media literacy education, Parnas savvily uses technology to engage young voters in politics and current events.  Refreshingly, if he makes a mistake, he’s quick to correct it.  From “The Parnas Perspective” on March 22nd: “My family comes from a place where information was tightly controlled, where narratives were shaped by those in power.  When that happens, truth becomes fragile.  It bends.  It disappears….  I am going to use this platform not just to report, but to amplify other independent journalists who are doing strong, honest work.  This cannot be one voice.  It has to be many voices pushing in the same direction….  The press has a responsibility here.  I will call things what they are.  Not based on fear.”  Mercifully, Parnas peppers many of his posts with good news, highlighting positive stories every Sunday.  Try to pick a favorite  from this March 8th gem—and enjoy his slide-in of an opening gotcha.   

Bright yellow wooden boxes, filled with salt used for melting ice on sidewalks and streets, brighten Baltimore’s street corners in the winter.  Baltimore-based Project Salt Box, founded in late 2025, tracks and publicizes the current regime’s conversion of warehouses into “immigration detention centers.”  Co-founder and Airforce veteran Michael Wriston explains the Salt Box goal—melting ICE warehouses to  prevent the caging of human beings: “We have advanced notice, we know it’s coming down the pipeline.  How do we push back and make our voices heard?”  The seven-member Salt Box crew provides evidence-based information to communities, to state and local legislators, and to the media—alerting them about ICE plans for wedging the darker-skinned into packed containers while awaiting their illegal deportation.  Salt Box sleuths uncover where ICE pre-orders food for future inmates or hires contractors for warehouse refashioning.  Most ICE warehouses exist in smaller communities and Wriston’s group inspires communal outrage and unified opposition.  Local infrastructures will be overwhelmed, especially already struggling rural hospitals, and maintaining minimal water and air quality standards will prove impossible.  Gaining traction in red and blue states alike, Project Salt Box repeatedly defeats ICE efforts to whiten, via ethnic cleansing, the United States.      

Dear You, April Birthday—Kesha with Diane Warren and Jonathan Wells

“Dear Me,” you begin, writing a love letter to your younger self.  Smiling Diane Warren plays the piano as Kesha sings Warren’s song.  Dancers spin with timeless assurance that “there’ll be a better day.”  Seal your message to young you with a promise: “Dear me, it’s gonna be alright, alright / Trust me, all the pain is gonna fade.” 

Poet Jonathan Wells checks today’s date.  Despite a chill, this “April Morning” announces springtime.  Could you have imagined that you would live the very life that you dreamed?  You? Crack open the rainswept window.  Your room, indeed, the whole world overflows with “what loves you and this is the day / that you were born.”  Yes, you.       

Harrison Ford earns

Lifetime Achievement Award

best performance yet 

Art for the Heart—“Sinners” and Olivia Dean sing, Mary Oliver laughs

“I grew up in a blues house,” recalls singer and multi-instrumentalist Raphael Saadiq, a boy soaked to the bone in Black gospel and Delta blues.  You’ll be weaving with songwriter Saadiq as he opens this performance of “I Lied to You.”  Star of the movie “Sinners” Miles Caton then takes the lead, the strumming vocalist complemented by film score composer Ludwig Göransson on guitar.  “Somebody take me in your arms tonight.”  Don’t you (dare) stop humming.  “Mm-hm-mm / Oh-oh-oh, mm-hm-mm (hey!).”

Hear ye, Olivia Dean strikes up the band.  “Hugging and squeezing, and kissing and pleasing / Together forever throughever whatever.”  Horns and drums—clapping and dancing.  “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love).”  Party hats and backup singers—twenty and twenty-six.     

Grass nourishes lambs.  Gravity secures rocks.  Love locks fingers.  “Mysteries, Yes,” poet Mary Oliver delights.  “Let me keep company always with those who say / ‘Look!’ and laugh in astonishment.”  Hello, old friends!  Welcome home, stunner tulip magnolia blossoms, you mysterious yesses.      

bowing to beauty

oh-oh-oh, mm-hm-mm (hey!)

April’s a’flaunting