A note on A Chicken Was There: in spite of the title there is more cultural sensitivity in how it’s written than it would seem The chickens often make note of humans and how they mistreat people but it’s all very surface level…because chicken logic 😅
An example of how these pure-hearted birds think:

…it’s delightful! It actually prompted me look into a couple of historical figures I was unfamiliar with — like Mary Fields aka “Stagecoach Mary” and Justice Esther Hobart Morris 5/5

…it’s an unquestionably silly book of stories from the perspective of different chickens in different historical settings in the U.S. If you can suspend your disbelief… 4/5

I definitely recommend the first three - very informative. All of them should be required reading if you live in the U.S. right now.

As for the fourth… 3/5

• A Chicken Was There: Tales of the Pioneer Chickens Who Helped Settle the Great American West by A.A. Davenport
…because sometimes you need a mental break from reading about fascism, tyranny, disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda 😅 2/5

Universities rely enough on grants that they might eliminate positions — perhaps tenured faculty — if the financial situation becomes dire enough. But in the meantime, grad students, postdocs, and “soft money” researchers typically are paid ENTIRELY on federal grant funding. No grant = no salary.

Ditto for people with Italian ancestry 😑
For Italian Americans, most of our ancestors only had to show up in the U.S. to be “legal.” In fact, the influx of Italians was a large part of the reason for a harsh 1924 immigration law that created the visa system

www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1924...

I’m truly impressed by the work Sen. Warren and her staffers put into crafting this letter. Any chance you could use a fully remote staffer in California who has a Masters in Library and Information Science to assist with research @warren.senate.gov? 😉