Joan Colbert
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joanc.bsky.social
Joan Colbert
@joanc.bsky.social
artist • reader • gardener • progressive
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"Do not accept brutality and cruelty as normal even if it is sanctioned. Protect the vulnerable and encourage the afraid. If you are brave, stand up for others. If you cannot be brave – and it is often hard to be brave – be kind." Sarah Kendzior
Reposted by Joan Colbert
digestive system: stopping at the bathroom brb
Happy There Is A Circulatory System Walking Through The Kitchen Day to all who celebrate.
November 10, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
Lots going on but from outside it seems that at least part of the calculus was that flight disruption for middle class and up travelers matters more than life disruption for untold numbers who’ll be deprived of health care.
November 10, 2025 at 9:34 AM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
SNAP benefits are currently being held hostage by the Trump administration and their fate now lies with the Supreme Court.

Beneath the legal arguments are real people who simply need food—a former federal worker, a single mother of 4, a disabled man. I spoke to them. Here are their stories:
The voices of SNAP
Recipients have become political pawns. They explained, in their own words, what Trump withholding funds has been like.
www.thehandbasket.co
November 8, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
Dr Amy Acton not only very much should but very much could beat Vivek Ramaswamy in the race for the office of governor of Ohio. Please consider supporting her if you can with a monthly donation.
actonforgovernor.com
Dr. Amy Acton for Governor
Join our campaign to bring power back to the people of Ohio.
actonforgovernor.com
November 7, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Deco
2-color linocut, hand embellished

Created for the Summit Artspace Still Serving Artists Campaign, Deco was inspired by one of the subtle, yet lovely details from the building’s art deco facade.
#printmaking #linocut #art #artdeco
November 5, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
I wrote about tonight's amazing news!
"We should celebrate the election results. They have the potential to bring a sea change. We can look to these races for strategies in the next year and beyond. But it’s worth remembering that what happened today is just the wave. *We* are the water."
Just a wave, not the water
Hooray! Still, winning elections is only the first step.
degenerateart.beehiiv.com
November 5, 2025 at 4:43 AM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
I wrote about Nazism in a small Michigan town, and in a large North American country; about the uses of and limits of shame; and on the importance of holding shared standards. www.the-reframe.com/the-death-of...
The Death of Shame
Modern Nazis, careless people, and the offensive necessity of caring in a shameful age.
www.the-reframe.com
November 3, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
All Souls' Day, and in the blue dusk light, carrying a lantern, Old Fox walked down to the churchyard. A barn owl called down from the tower, and was answered somewhere in the trees.
November 2, 2025 at 6:54 AM
Trick. . . or treat? Though it appears to be a Shaggy Parasol Mushroom, Chlorophyllum rhacodes, in the garden, some deception might be afoot. C. molybdites, the False Parasol, is a look alike. AKA the Vomiter Mushroom - not fatal, but victims can expect to feel like death.
Happy Halloween! 🌱🍄‍🟫💀
October 31, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
Dutch libraries have invented an AI chatbot that can recommend books to you

You know what else can recommend books to you

~a fucking librarian~
October 27, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
Friday post is up! Includes links to this week's podcast episode covering No Kings. I also wrote about Kara Walker's "Unmanned Drone" and what makes art art.
"Walker reanimates the corpse of a slave-owning traitor riding into battle on his horse as a death-dealing zombie crossing scorched earth."
October 24 Friday roundup
Links to the podcast! Plus, Kara Walker and the resurrection of a monster as art.
degenerateart.beehiiv.com
October 24, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
NEW — I'm suing DC Metro Police for the full body cam footage from the DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace back in March.

The public deserves to know why MPD chose to sell out the people they’re tasked with protecting in order to bend to Trump's will. I'm repped pro bono by @rcfp.org.

Details:
I'm suing DC Metro Police for body cam footage of US Institute of Peace raid
The Handbasket is represented pro bono by lawyers from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
www.thehandbasket.co
October 22, 2025 at 12:56 AM
Always worth reading. . .
October 11, 2025 at 2:21 PM
RIP John Lodge 💔
Moody Blues singer and bassist John Lodge dies aged 82

#JohnLodge #moodyblues #ClassicRock
October 10, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Many thanks for your essential voice.
“To say we’re living through a time of great upheaval seems like a failure of words. . . Being a journalist right now has never felt more scary, while never feeling more essential.” Marisa Kabas
New — I was fortunate to speak in front of students and faculty at Grinnell College in Iowa tonight about the business of independent journalism, the current state of media under Trump 2.0, and billionaire control.

I published my full speech because I thought it might resonate beyond campus:
Truth, morality and independence in journalism under the second Trump regime
My full remarks to students and faculty at Grennell College.
www.thehandbasket.co
October 9, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
"There just isn’t enough time. There’s only what we manage to make of it—what we build, what we protect, what we remember to carry to the car. The gas mask. The snacks. The question we forgot to ask. The name of the person taken." My latest.
The Emergency Is the Atmosphere
“It’s meant to exhaust us. It’s meant to destroy us."
organizingmythoughts.org
October 8, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
James Baldwin to Angela Davis in 1970, discussing white Americans:
October 5, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
I can’t believe I’m watching interviews of city mayors talking about how they are coordinating with other mayors to discuss how to protect their residents FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

I know we are “used to it” but it is absolutely insane
October 1, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
Think back to our lives a year ago. How would we have reacted to something like this? Every time the regime tries an illegal un-American un-Constitutional move, view it in the light of America in 2024 or 2010. 47's actions are extreme, brutal, and in direct opposition to who we are as a nation.
New Tr*mp EO is a desperate attempt to make you afraid to exercise your 1st amendment rights. It's also an attempt to attack + freeze funds from any org opposed to the authoritarian actions of the regime. It's a direct assault on our basic freedoms as Americans.

Do not hand over your rights.
September 27, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
NEW: ICE agents violently arrested a man in a busy Hyattsville, MD intersection this week, at one point brandishing guns and pointing them at bystanders.

I spoke to multiple witnesses—including a local priest whose church is a sanctuary for undocumented people: www.thehandbasket.co/p/ice-agents...
September 26, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Joan Colbert
Commentary: It takes an astonishing lack of awareness about the volatile present tense, amid rising political violence in a country awash in firearms, to propose legislation that would let politicians carry concealed guns into the Ohio Statehouse ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/09/23/a...
Amid horrific gun violence, Ohio politicians are proposing more guns at the Statehouse and City Hall • Ohio Capital Journal
It takes an astonishing lack of awareness about the volatile present tense, amid rising political violence in a country awash in firearms, to propose legislation that would let politicians carry…
ohiocapitaljournal.com
September 23, 2025 at 11:30 PM