Cheryl B. Klein

Just imagine if instead of spending billions on undeclared wars we spent it on children and seniors and infrastructure and housing and education and medical care instead

This is extremely satisfying to read.

Seconded

Nobody Dies in the Spring Nobody dies in the spring on the Upper West Side: nobody dies. On the Upper West Side we're holding hands with strangers on the Number 5 bus, and we're singing the sweet graffiti on the subway, and kids are skipping patterns through the bright haze of incinerators, and beagles and poodles are making a happy ruin of the sidewalks, and hot-dog men are racing their pushcarts down Riverside Drive, and Con Ed is tearing up Broadway from Times Square to the Bronx, and the world is a morning miracle of sirens and horns and jackhammers and Baskin- Robbins' 31 kinds of litter and sausages at Zabar's floating overhead like blimps--oh, it is no place for dying, not on the Upper West Side, in springtime.

There will be a time for the smell of burning leaves at Barnard, for milkweed winging silky over Grant's Tomb, for apples falling to grass in Needle Park; but not in all this fresh new golden smog: now there is something breaking loose in people's chests, something that makes butchers and bus boys and our neighborhood nares and muggers go whistling in the streets--now there is something with goat feet out there, not waiting for the WALK light, piping life into West End window-boxes, pollinating weeds around condemned residential hotels, and prancing along at the head of every elbowing crowd on the West Side, singing: Follow me-- it's spring--and nobody dies.

Days like today in NYC always make me think of this glorious poem, “Nobody Dies in the Spring” by Philip Appleman:

On the Upper West Side /
we're holding hands with strangers / on the Number 5 bus, / and we're singing the sweet / graffiti on the subway, …

Co-sign! Their coverage is so artfully done. Anodyne tone that interweaves the horrible facts with entertainment for people who may not be engaged.

Please help me share the post below. I don’t have a huge following, but this nomination is a bit under the radar and deserves more attention. His committee vote is this Thursday.

Bright yellow background with book cover THE KIDS IN MRS. Z'S CLASS: SEBASTIAN METZGER SOLVES A STICKY SITUATION by Kyle Lukoff & illustrated by Kat Fajardo. Cover art shows a third grade boy in a school library, holding a book with an octopus on the cover and looking anxious.

Bright yellow background with book cover THE KIDS IN MRS. Z'S CLASS: FIA HOSEIN FINDS HER BEAT by Tracey Baptiste illustrated by Kat Fajardo. Cover art shows a third grade girl with brown skin and black braids playing a steel drum as two other students play recorders behind her.

Blue and yellow background with a graphic showing twelve bright but tiny books in THE KIDS IN MRS. Z'S CLASS series - all with third graders on the covers.

There are two new kids on the block today! Check out these funny, heartfelt titles in THE KIDS IN MRS. Z'S CLASS from @kylelukoff.bsky.social & @traceybaptiste.bsky.social - both illustrated by Kat Fajardo & published by @littlebrownyr.bsky.social!

Transphobia is a cancer of the heart and mind.

It is a useless fear, based on ignorance and cruelty.

Trans people are not responsible for a single one of the problems we face.

Do the world a favor and grow the fuck up.

I do not! But hi Kelly!

I think this isn't very complicated: when misogynists need to make an argument that women are sub-human half persons, they argue that any kind of sexual attraction to women is a weakness, because otherwise all the heterosexual men might have to worry about what those sub-humans think

There needs to be like 5 "too nice to work" holidays controlled by each state. Like a snow day, you don't get any advance notice. The stations and alerts just put out the message that the next day is too nice to work and everyone is off.

Screenshot from NY Mag feature on how much people make in NYC: "Bronx Day-Care Worker $31,000 $16,600 from day-care profits $14,400 from trainings and consulting Last year, I lost a lot of kids. I live in the Bronx, and a bunch of families in my neighborhood lost their child-care vouchers. We're talking about people who make as much as I do; most of the moms I work with are home health aides. They can't afford full-time child care. If I have 16 kids, I can pay myself for 40 hours of work. But last year, I didn't, and obviously I'm still doing the same amount of work. I've been running the day care out of my home for more than seven years. It's a profession I entered out of necessity and have stayed in out of passion. I pay for everything - food, cleaning supplies, toys - and we have to meet the same requirements as a large company in terms of paying for liability insurance, which can feel pointless in this industry. I mean, if something happens to one of my children, I lose my license. End of story."

Screenshot from NY Mag feature about how much people make in NYC: "Consultant $17,000,000 $9.5 million from consulting fees $7.5 million in stock in companies that went public The big-picture way that I make my money is consulting; that work covers my day-to-day. Separate from that, I had stock in a couple of companies that went public. Because I made money later in life, my tastes and needs are a lot simpler. I don't spend money on things like having multiple homes, or flying private, or watches, or boats. I make enough money that I do what I want and I don't think about it. I also don't believe in leaving my kids a crazy amount of money because everyone I know who has that is fucked up, so why would I do that to them?"

When people in the future ask what America was show them this

(Psst: Wednesday)

Are you a teacher, librarian, caregiver, or citizen of the US? Then you will want this book, which provides a gorgeous, thoughtful introduction to Indigenous history, life, and culture -- a modern heir to the classic THE PEOPLE SHALL CONTINUE. Check it out!

I don’t think Trump and his people are capable of engineering “distractions,” I think the mind-numbing chaos we see every day is straightforwardly the result of giving the dumbest, cruelest, most corrupt, most selfish people of a generation near-unmitigated power

THE KIDS IN MRS. Z'S CLASS

The next two books in the innovative chapter book series created by @katemessner.com are here!

Congrats to @kylelukoff.bsky.social on the release of SEBASTIAN METZGER SOLVES A STICKY SITUATION and @traceybaptiste.bsky.social on the release of FIA HOSEIN FINDS HER BEAT.

I felt like this listening to the new podcast about Stephen Sondheim as a person. Do I WANT to know if he loved reality TV? Can’t some people stay gods?

NO NO NO YOU DON’T

GUYS LET ME PLEASE SPREAD THE GOSPEL OF FREE TAX USA

federal is free, state is $16, handles even my chaotic freelancer taxes just fine, same step-by-step “designed for normies” kind of interface as TurboTax but NOT EVIL

tell everyone you know

www.freetaxusa.com

Really interesting & useful thoughts here

Interesting idea! This is the book’s tenth anniversary….

This #InternationalWomensDay, I'm thinking of the mothers keeping their families together as they flee south Lebanon. I'm thinking of the preteens getting their periods for the first time in Gaza amid blockade. I'm thinking of the 165 Iranian schoolgirls killed in Minab who deserved better from us.

I both love the Looking at Picture Books newsletter because smart people talking about picture books in depth is extremely my jam, & I am annoyed by it because people should not be allowed to be good at that many things

This is WUTHERING HEIGHTS! Narrated by a random guy visiting a lonely house where the housekeeper talks about her employer’s daughter’s love affairs.

One was an accountant and I barely knew him; the other was a children’s literature professor who gave me all his review copies and thus determined the course of my life.

A photograph of some thin green stems in a flowerbed — presumably daffodils or croci — promising spring soon.

Green shoots! Green shoots! After the winter we’ve had here in NYC, just these stems are very heartening.

The asymmetry of the value placed on human life is so striking. Israel has a goal to recover 40-year-old remains; to do so, it invades a sovereign country, and the lives of 26 Lebanese are an afterthought. Their names not even worth printing in the New York Times.

I’m feeling the end of this @theferocity.bsky.social poem on a national level right now. We’re all suffering from white boys being sad once.

That should be EMMA GOLDMAN VS. AMERICA, but I was drinking wine. This feed regrets the error.

A photograph of a hand holding the aforementioned book, with a cover featuring three rows of b&w mugshots of Emma Goldman with various emoji-like graffiti on them.

New book for me: LOUDMOUTH: EMMA GOLDMAN VS. THE UNITED STATES (A LOVE STORY) by @dheiligman.bsky.social. I’ve been fascinated by Emma since seeing RAGTIME in 2024 & teenagers need to know about firebrands like her. Excited to read!

Le editeur, c’est moi

(Pardon my French, literally)