PicoBlog

Brave words from a woman whom everyone called a Secretary, but was so much more than that. Who belongs in this special place? We’ll soon find out on this brand new two-gal podcast A Special Place In Hell. Your hosts are Meghan Daum and Sarah Haider, two very different women separated by a generation and also wildly divergent life choices; Sarah lives like a respectable grownup; Meghan eats over the sink.

As a bird lover myself, I think I know a lot about birds. So when I first came across this fun fact - a species of bird that was once collected so they could be boiled alive and harvested for their fat - I was sure it was #fakenews. But lo and behold, this bizarre fun fact is absolutely TRUE! Meet the bird in question: the aptly-named OILBIRD! But why were they harvested for their fat?

On Friday May 14th, various allegations of abusive, manipulative, and predatory behavior were made against Saves the Day singer/songwriter Chris Conley. Those allegations can be viewed in full here on the Your Band Sucks Instagram page, both in the posts and especially the Story Highlight. Later that day, Conley released his own statement/apology (admitting to most of the accusations) in reply on the Saves the Day Instagram page, which can be viewed here.

“That's why they lost. They don't know what they're doing.”  Those words are spoken by Roger Stone, late in the new documentary A Storm Foretold, on the morning of January 6, 2021. Stone, the longtime political adviser to former President Donald Trump, is shown acting in a fit of pique after discovering that he had been omitted from the list of speakers from that day’s rally.  The acknowledgment that “they lost,” from the self-proclaimed founder of the “Stop the Steal” movement — a man who had spent the previous weeks organizing efforts to propagate the notion that the election had been stolen from Trump, some of those efforts turning violent and illegal — would seem to give away the whole game right there.

Hi readers! I’m Tamar Eisen, and I provide research assistance for Jill for her newsletter. I was so excited to have the opportunity to speak with the co-hosts of “Love Commandos,” a special podcast from NPR’s Rough Translation. In this short, gripping series, co-hosts Gregory Warner, Mansi Choksi, and Lauren Frayer take a deep dive into a group that protected Indian couples who faced harassment, violence, and even murder for the crime of being in a love marriage.

Merry Christmas everyone! The year 2023 is fast coming to an end and I thought we could have a bit of fun. If you missed last week’s post on wild headlines you didn’t hear about, go back and read it! You’ll find out why some cats look like they’re wearing socks. Absolutely Wild Headlines You Didn't Read About, End of 2023 Edition· December 14, 2023 Here’s one more nostalgia post and I promise I’ll be off my 90s kick that I’ve dipped into so frequently in past months.

There’s an ear-piercing whistle 34 seconds into the prelude of the 1979 original Broadway production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It’s an unsettling screech I prepared myself for as the lights went down at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. It never came.  I’ve been a revival junkie my whole life. While my brothers were playing hockey in the basement, I was listening to Kiss Me, Kate. I think there’s some particular wiring in the minds of theater people that makes us uniquely suited to detect vocal nuances across multiple interpretations of the same song.

Since the start of the Gaza War, I’ve conducted dozens of interviews with the international media, including NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, and have been dismayed—indeed, sickened—by their use of the word “militants” to describe Hamas terrorists. The word is deeply imbedded in the lexicon of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and even the Wall Street Journal whose latest headline reads, “What Is Hamas? What to Know About the Militant Group Fighting Israel.

In the heart of the West Bank, where the struggles for justice and identity intersect, a vibrant community of Afro-Palestinians adds a unique layer to the complex tapestry of Palestinian life. Often overlooked in mainstream narratives, the Afro-Palestinian experience is a testament to resilience, strength, and the intersectionality that defines their existence. Particularly now, as Palestinians at large face ethnic cleansing on the ground and erasure from history, Afro-Palestinian life is a thread that manifests the eccentricity of a people stereotype as a monolithic bloc.