Helen
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hcandler.bsky.social
Helen
@hcandler.bsky.social
All we can do is try; it's the trying that defines us
Blue voter
Support and Defend Ukraine
MBA+MS Psych+retired consultant+retired rancher
Spare me the gruesome details
Crime/espionage fiction keeping me sane for now
Reposted by Helen
It’s Small Business Saturday! Get out there and shop local today! The snow and rain are moving out and there is plenty of time to shop our many local small businesses that need your support! @wellmanformo #TeamWellman #maplewood #Missouri #smallbusinesssaturday
November 29, 2025 at 10:57 PM
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Just released.... #2.
October 30, 2025 at 11:55 PM
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We made progress this week in our effort to ban stock-trading by Members of Congress.

Representatives shouldn’t be trading stocks — and neither should the Director of the FBI!
November 23, 2025 at 4:07 PM
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This is such an interesting, moving, inspiring interview with @linwoodbarclay.bsky.social

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Outlook - The last resort: Family chaos made me a best-selling author - BBC Sounds
Linwood Barclay turned childhood dysfunction into best-selling books
www.bbc.co.uk
August 17, 2025 at 3:50 PM
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Today’s oligarchs are often cast as 21st-century Gilded Age robber barons. But when considering temperament and skill set, they also bear a strong similarity to southern slaveowners. That came to me while watching this:

youtu.be/lmf4TXeT6qg?...
HOW THE REPUBLICAN PARTY WAS REALLY BORN — The TRUTH They HID From You! HEATHER COX RICHARDSON- 1
YouTube video by HISTORY IN MOTION
youtu.be
November 14, 2025 at 1:32 AM
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My action against authoritarianism today was to add a monthly donation to Wikipedia. (I'm making a separate donation to our local food back because of the Trump administration's choosing to end the SNAP program for now.)
www.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia, created and edited by volunteers around the world and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation.
www.wikipedia.org
October 28, 2025 at 2:32 AM
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The Texas redistricting hearing started on Wednesday in El Paso. Democracy Docket is covering it every day like it is the most important case for free and for elections in the country -- because it is. Legacy media is no where to be found.

Support the DD team to make it possible. hubs.ly/Q03M8rql0
October 4, 2025 at 1:50 PM
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Today Chicago is the frontline in the battle for American freedom. Our resistance is peaceful, but it is not weak. We will not stop until Donald Trump gets his masked battle-armed thugs off our streets.
My latest: open.substack.com/pub/edwineis...
Today Chicago is the frontline in the battle for American freedom
Our resistance is peaceful, but it is not weak. We will not stop until Donald Trump gets his masked battle-armed thugs off our streets.
open.substack.com
October 4, 2025 at 12:51 AM
You first, Sock Boy
October 2, 2025 at 4:43 PM
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Best source out there for tax filings on nonprofits is @propublica.org's Nonprofit Explorer. It tends to have returns that aren't even on the IRS's website.

4/
Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica
Since 2013, the IRS has released data culled from millions of nonprofit tax filings. Use this database to find organizations and see details like their executive compensation, revenue and expenses, as...
projects.propublica.org
September 23, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Reposted by Helen
Proud girls, you gorgons,

gorgeous in your gowns,
rising back unrepentant
out of your loam house,

tiptoe fripperies,
overlook my misreading.

‘Autumn Cyclamen’, a poem by @aestallings.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
A.E. Stallings · Poem: ‘Autumn Cyclamen’
www.lrb.co.uk
September 21, 2025 at 7:21 PM
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The return of once-rare birds: when habitat is restored & protected, when people remove harmful substances from the environment & address harms caused by human infrastructure such as lights at night & reflective windows, some species may return to the places we live.

No pay wall.
The surprising recovery of once-rare birds
It’s not every day that you see a 4-foot-tall bird, but it’s happening more often. Several fascinating species are nesting in and near towns once again.
theconversation.com
September 19, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by Helen
What if one could automatically monitor what politicians promise and enhance the ability to check, at scale, whether they deliver?

Pledgetracker, by @fullfact.org and researchers, tries to retrieve relevant evidence and reduce human verification effort.

Read their preprint here: lnkd.in/ec5gHYV9
LinkedIn
This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn
lnkd.in
September 18, 2025 at 2:46 PM
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Bravo @willbunch.bsky.social

"..the Washington Post has been the newspaper of this career journalist’s dreams...

The Washington Post is dead to me."
September 16, 2025 at 4:13 PM
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One good thing about rewatching films you already know quite well, is it encourages you to concentrate on aspects other than the narrative - in this case, Haskell Wexler's cinematography. [and to enjoy, always, the scenes between Steiger & Poitier].
August 13, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Reposted by Helen
For me, hope is not a feeling of certainty about the future. It is born of the knowledge that we may do everything we can without the assurance that it will be enough. Hope is accepting that the arc of the moral universe may not bend toward justice — even if all of us push with everything we have.
What Gives Me Hope
Read more here.
www.democracydocket.com
August 26, 2025 at 12:48 AM
@nancyterhune.bsky.social
This made me think of you...and of Harry.
August 22, 2025 at 12:06 AM
@johnbharveywriter.bsky.social
Just read your short entry on Peter Temple's The Broken Shore, for Connolly and Burke's Books to Die For: .."they use it as a tool, a tool with which to open up and expose a small area of society for us to examine and understand." Yes, you, too. Thank you.
August 21, 2025 at 5:29 PM
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Full piece:
Sunday Pages: "The Spell of the Yukon"
A poem by Robert Service
gregolear.substack.com
August 17, 2025 at 10:34 AM
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Yes. It’s actually quite instructive to see the simplicity of older tech in solving problems. This goes right back to early Industrial Revolution when the problem solving was quite self-aware and systematic. See The Lunar Men, Jenny Uglow. Fascinating stuff.
Working on carburetors with my brother taught me that all of life is just pieces fit together in a particular way. That lesson also taught me patience and to be observant, not that I was very good at either.
August 7, 2025 at 6:28 PM
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Timeless wisdom. ✨

"Maturity is the ability to do a job whether you're supervised or not; finish a job once it's started; carry money without spending it; and the ability to bear an injustice without wanting to get even."

— Abigail Van Buren, 1918-2013.

🙏🏼🌎🕊️
August 7, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Helen
Gorgeous!
“What makes life livable despite the cruelties of chance…are these little acts of mercy, of tenderness—
the small clear voice rising over the cacophony of the quarrelsome, over the complaint choir of the cynics, to insist again & again that the world is beautiful and full of kindness.”
August 7, 2025 at 3:47 PM
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I think @atrupar.com doesn't get enough credit for watching Trump's nonsense and finding the best clips. I'd have put a gun in my mouth a long time ago if I had to do that.
July 31, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Reposted by Helen
“Hang on to your hope.”

E. B. White in 1973.
July 29, 2025 at 6:07 PM