Gina Kaufmann
@ginak.bsky.social
Journalist-reader-writer-watcher-worrier-joker Future librarian Formerly: Real Humans, Central Standard & Midwesternish @KCUR + freelance for Nieman Reports, PRX, Mass Humanities, WBUR’s Cognoscenti, Boston Globe, Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls
'You'll choke too' - an aerial embroidery landscape inspired by all the wildfires happening right now... I'm upset every time I smell smoke outside and somehow we have people starting them maliciously too! But we all breathe the same air so they'll choke too (1/2 - see thread for close-ups)
During the pandemic, I wrote a weekly column for my public radio station’s website profiling regular people navigating the upheaval. Part of what I was doing was documenting lived realities that I knew would be distorted/forgotten over time, and I wanted to fortify our collective memory. Oh well!!!
“I know social media thrives on dogpiles like this, but why on earth would you want to join one mocking the great Martha Reeves?” Good thread
Jeff Melnick@melnickjeffrey1.bsky.social · 2d agoI'm so bummed at how many people on the socials are laughing at Martha Reeves' unfortunate performance of the national anthem at the WPBL. Like...show some respect people! She is one of our great ones. So...I'm gonna thread about her, ok? 1/
Sooo… bittersweet news. I’m leaving @theworld.org — and journalism? — to go back to school and become a librarian. It’s something I always wondered about but never thought I’d actually do, so this feels a little unreal.
2 things I’m obsessed with after 2 long plane rides: The Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, and Abbott Elementary. Caveat: Conan talks a lot. I do not mind. What it brings out in his guests (when they get a turn! 😂) is different from what you get with a reserved host. I enjoy that.
Starting to head home from a long trip and I see that @theworld.org scored an interview with Arundhati Roy?!? I’ll be adding that to my airplane listening agenda riiiight now. (Everyone I know is asleep so I’m just whispering this into the slumbery night) theworld.org/episodes/202...
Author Arundhati Roy on rise of India's youth-led protests - The World from PRX
India is seeing a new wave of anti-government protests inspired by the satirical Cockroach Janta Party. Award-winning Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy discusses what the movement reveals about...
theworld.org
What an inspiring obituary www.boston.com/news/massach...
Local obituary: Christopher Affleck, mother to Ben and Casey, dies at 83
"Every student, whether just arrived from Haiti or Cambridge upper crust, was a cherished citizen of her classroom republic, equal to each other and to herself."
boston.com
I have a book called Toraneko Bonbon’s Kitchen Almanac, written in Japanese and filled with delightful illustrations of cats eating seasonally and pickling things. I wish I could read it. I suspect the text offers ideas for being more like these cats and I want that very much.
The way I hate this company www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
‘We were at their mercy’: inside the Amazon tactics that hiked prices across the internet
Internal emails revealed in court and interviews with ex-employees describe how Amazon’s practices drove up prices for competitors like Walmart and Target. Amazon denies price-fixing claims and says i...
theguardian.com
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump urges people to come forward with information about Nolan Wells' death "as soon as possible."
Sharing as a reminder to self to track down this book
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 3w agoUp All Night by Imogen Willetts review – a seductive history of going out
“The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,” www.nytimes.com/2026/07/11/b...
Times Journalists Subpoenaed as Trump Escalates Pressure on Media (Gift Article)
The Justice Department is seeking to compel testimony from reporters who wrote about the new Air Force One. The Times called the move a “brazen act.”
nytimes.com
There’s such a tendency for people to say “oh it’s always been that bad” to people who are vastly more informed and are saying things have changed. It’s like pointing to the smoldering ashes of a city and being informed that buildings have always caught fire
I love this book AND I don’t understand it. My son and I read it together, like how you’d watch a movie with another person. It was SO MUCH FUN! Highly recommend for all ages, but being a bit of a weirdo may be required. Like no other book I’ve encountered. www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...
THE FIVE WOLVES | Kirkus Reviews
Five wolves create and discuss art during their adventures in this stream-of-consciousness narrative.
kirkusreviews.com
Right after I fold laundry but right before I put it away, I am briefly barricaded in by piles of soft. It’s a very therapeutic chore
Trump turning America's 250th anniversary into his own vanity project? If this playbook feels familiar, it should. Authoritarian leaders have long understood that controlling the landscape, literally what people see when they look up at a building, is itself a form of power.
Trump is branding America. History has a word for that.
There’s going to be a new “golden fleet” Trump class of Navy warships and a fighter jet named after the 47th president. If this playbook feels familiar, it should.
motherjones.com
“I am but one person. Does any of this make a difference? Actually, yes.”
WBUR@wbur.org · last mo.Conserving electricity at key hours not only reduces strain on the grid -- it's good for your wallet and the planet, too.
How rival colonial powers settled different parts of the U.S., and how the political and cultural values they brought with them have been at odds from the beginning. The huge ideological rifts we see today can be traced back 250 years. @colinwoodard.bsky.social theworld.org/segments/202...
The rival colonial projects that shaped the United States' political fault lines - The World from PRX
The British Empire wasn’t the only colonial power in what is now the United States. Several competing colonization projects led by the Spanish, Dutch, French and others laid the foundations of America...
theworld.org
Birthright citizenship in the US has survived. But in counties across the globe, attempts to restrict access to citizenship are growing more prevalent. Insights into what’s driving that from a professor of public international law at McGill. @joyhackel.bsky.social theworld.org/segments/202...
Who belongs?: The global battle over citizenship - The World from PRX
The US Supreme Court birthright citizenship decision is not an isolated legal event. Increasingly, around the globe, countries are struggling to redefine who belongs within their borders, from anti-im...
theworld.org
Can’t recommend this podcast episode highly enough. I used to be like “seems excessive but what do I know, I’m just a person who has lived all this time without protein potato chips” and now I know what science says www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/epis...
Protein is trending—but do you actually need more?
Are we really falling short on protein—or is the high-protein craze overblown?
scientificamerican.com
ycats@scribblymoth.bsky.social · last mo.Please. Not the Doritos.
"The only way that change has ever happened in this country is through a small, committed group of American citizens working really hard," Dalley said. "What we're doing out here is trying to recruit those people into that citizen army." www.npr.org/2026/06/26/n...
Trump axed a Black history exhibit. Former park rangers are teaching it anyway.
As the U.S. prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, former national park rangers are hosting teach-ins and sharing history that the Trump administration has sought to erase from federal land.
npr.org
