Beth Pickard
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bethsailstheskiff.bsky.social
Beth Pickard
@bethsailstheskiff.bsky.social
Writer, environmental science librarian, lover of between-genre things
Pinned
Diligence Is to Magic as Progress Is to Flight. -Marianne Moore
Reposted by Beth Pickard
You know it’s getting hard to explain the world when Weber is back in The Paper
April 20, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
Products that are expensive to be produced in the United States are getting some the prohibitive Tariffs while high tech products getting the least is incredible

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
April 12, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
!! CALL TO ACTION !! #Booksky

please join me in the fight to save our libraries.

EveryLibrary is working hard to save the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which is the federal agency charged with distributing Congressionally approved funds to state libraries and grant recipients.
April 9, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
#Wisconsin April 1st!
Please elect Judge Susan Crawford. Do NOT sit this out. If we’ve learned anything from 2024, it’s that we need judges with integrity that follow the law!
Elect Susan Crawford to the Wisconsin Supreme Court!
#ResistanceUnited #ProudBlue
March 20, 2025 at 12:48 AM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
Microsoft claiming AI is fixing the power grid while wildly overbuilding data centres is really a lot like handing out raincoats to the community you just flooded to build your hydro plant
March 4, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
Trump remarked that “Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine. They get their money back.” Macron immediately set the record straight, touching Trump’s arm as he explained the truth.
France’s Macron Fact-Checks Trump in Embarrassing Press Conference
French President Emmanuel Macron came all the way to the White House to dispel Trump lies on Ukraine.
newrepublic.com
February 24, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
At least three people linked to Elon Musk’s DOGE task force have access to NIH systems that control budgets, procurement, and more, according to records and internal documents viewed by WIRED.
DOGE Is Inside the National Institutes of Health’s Finance System
At least three people linked to Elon Musk’s DOGE task force have access to NIH systems that control budgets, procurement, and more, according to records and internal documents viewed by WIRED.
buff.ly
February 24, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
Being potentially barred from voting in the future wasn't among the many reasons why I easily dismissed the idea of changing my last name to my husband's, but here we are. www.salon.com/2025/02/21/a...
"Another barrier": GOP "voter fraud" proposal could make it harder for married women to vote
Critics say the SAVE Act could make it hard for women who have changed their name to prove they are eligible voters
www.salon.com
February 21, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
Public Environmental Data Partners archives climate datasets, uploading copies to public repositories and cataloging where and how to find them if they go missing from government websites. Scholars explain: https://buff.ly/3EELhYh

How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see
Several groups are working to preserve webpages, tools and data – some of which have already gone missing from government webpages since the start of the Trump administration.
theconversation.com
February 15, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
Back on Twitter, we used call this “getting ratioed.” 🤡
Consider the possibility that the Trump White House WANTS this fight. Wants journalists to act like opponents instead of observers. If the entire press pool skipped a Trump photo op in solidarity with The AP, wouldn't the White House welcome Breitbart and One America News to take their places?
And, are you or your colleagues boycotting covering the WH as a protest?
February 15, 2025 at 5:44 AM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
“Never take a mean advantage of anyone in any transaction, and never be hard upon people who are in your power.”

On Charles Dickens's birthday, his abiding advice on how to be a decent person, penned in a letter to his youngest son:
How to Be a Decent Person: Charles Dickens’s Letter of Advice to His Youngest Son
“Never take a mean advantage of anyone in any transaction, and never be hard upon people who are in your power.”
www.themarginalian.org
February 7, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
A street artist in DC is putting up these posters all over the city. I’d love to get one.
February 8, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
Could the last principled person leaving the Pentagon install a breathalyzer test to unlock our missile silos?

Please and thank you.
January 26, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Necessary words today

Harm’s Way

How did someone come at last to the word for patience
and know that it was the right word or patience

the sounds had come such a distance from the will to give pain
which that person kept like a word for patience...

www.theparisreview.org/poetry/1270/...
Harm’s Way by W. S. Merwin
How did someone come at last to the word for patienceand know that it was the right word or patience the sounds had come such a distance from the will to give   painwhich that person kept li...
www.theparisreview.org
January 25, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
I’m not actually that upset about Meta’s news here. We’ve known for a long time fact-checking doesn’t actually work in combatting misinformation.

I’m more upset by the news adjacent to this, that they’ve appointed UFC’s Dana White to their board

www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/01/...
Meta scraps fact-checking program, brings back political content
Meta announces intent to "restore free expression" on its platforms
www.cnbc.com
January 7, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
"When America sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with them. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. And some, I assume, are good people."

--Greenland
January 7, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
welp Trump just announced he's going to try and rebrand the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

maybe that's enough for Tuesday
January 7, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
James Bond movies never show the part where the supervillain collects government subsidies to build his death tech.
November 27, 2024 at 5:03 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
If you have a Democratic mayor who isn't doing what Mayor Johnston is doing, here's an idea: organize a group of your city residents to push your mayor to start acting like a real leader.
Quite the statement from Denver Mayor Mike Johnston - that Denver Police and citizens would physically block a mass deportation by federal forces. denverite.com/2024/11/20/d... #copolitics
November 22, 2024 at 1:16 AM
Holy foc
npr.org NPR @npr.org · Nov 18
SpaceX and Amazon are asking the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to find the National Labor Relations Board unconstitutional. The federal agency is tasked with enforcing workers' right to organize.
Accused of violating worker rights, SpaceX and Amazon go after labor board
SpaceX and Amazon are asking the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to find the National Labor Relations Board unconstitutional. The federal agency is tasked with enforcing workers' right to organize.
www.npr.org
November 19, 2024 at 4:59 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
It’s just not true that the “majority” of Americans voted for Trump. 93 million eligible Americans did not vote at all. That number dwarfs the 76.5 million vote total Trump currently holds.
November 18, 2024 at 12:39 PM
“We have poetry / so we do not die of history."
- Meena Alexander

Trust Meena. Poetry helps for real.
November 17, 2024 at 7:12 PM
Reposted by Beth Pickard
BTW, the thing about calling your reps is that sometimes (often) they still don’t do what you want. It’s still important to do anyway. We talk about not complying in advance and about not going quietly. This is a small, low-effort way of not going along that also sometimes changes their votes.
November 17, 2024 at 4:31 PM