Patricia Williams

Proud mom! Love you Anthony! cbc.ca/radio/podcastp…

“You’re So Vain” singer Carly Simon has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and was recently treated for skin cancer, the singer shared in a statement provided to The Associated Press. apnews.com/article/carly-…

Good morning. UNC parent @FlemFile helped us fact-check the mythology of Bill Belichick’s consigliere at North Carolina: “three-time” Super Bowl champion Michael Lombardi — the highest-paid GM in college football. Things… did not quite add up. youtu.be/AIqYl9sLK-g?si…

Trans people have been marginalised, demonised and attacked. Britain now has one of the worst records on trans rights in Europe. But they have so many allies who will never give up on them.

A call to action from the Evangelical Lutheran pastor in Ramallah about the growing, violent settler attacks on Palestinian villages which continue with impunity. ‘I do not want to share statistics, he says, ‘I am tired of numbers. We're not numbers. We're not headlines. We're talking about mothers, fathers, children, grandparents — with names, with stories, with futures that are being cut short’

Thomas Eakins (b. 25 July 1844) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. Pioneering a deeply rigorous, unsentimental approach to capturing contemporary life, he is now recognized by art historians as one of America’s most important and profound artists. Living and working almost entirely in Philadelphia, Eakins brought portraiture out of the traditional drawing room, capturing his subjects within the active environments of modern life. The Gross Clinic (1875) is widely considered his masterpiece. This monumental painting depicts the prominent surgeon Dr. Samuel Gross conducting a surgical operation before a gallery of medical students. It initially shocked audiences and was rejected from the 1876 Centennial Exhibition due to its unflinching, bloody realism. The Agnew Clinic (1889), painted fourteen years later, depicts another surgical operation, charting medical progress via its representation of artificial lighting, sterilized white gowns, and professional nursing. Other notable works relying on precise mathematical perspective and measurements to render the anatomy of human exertion include Max Schmitt in a Single Scull (1871), The Biglin Brothers Racing (1872), Salutat (1898), and Wrestlers (1899). Becoming the director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in 1882, he implemented a revolutionary curriculum centered around exhaustive anatomical dissection and drawing from live, nude models. However, his uncompromising beliefs frequently collided with Victorian societal norms. In 1886, he sparked a massive public scandal by abruptly stripping the loincloth from a male model during an anatomy lecture attended by both male and female students. The resulting backlash forced his resignation from the Academy. Despite being ostracized by polite society, many of his students deeply respected his devotion to artistic truth and continued to seek his guidance. Later in his career, Eakins transitioned toward bust portraits of friends, family, and intellectuals, including his famous depiction of poet Walt Whitman (1887). Rather than flattering his subjects, he captured their true characters, etching the wear and tear of their lives directly onto their faces. Whether Eakins was gay remains a subject of ongoing historical debate. Analyzed through a gay lens, evidence supporting his homosexuality includes the homoerotic subtext of many of his works, most famously The Swimming Hole (1885) which prominently featured muscular, nude men. Eakins and his male students also frequently took photographs of each other posing nude, which was highly controversial at the time and contributed to his firing from PAFA. Eakins never publicly identified as gay. He was married to Susan MacDowell, a former student of his, for 32 years. They married when he was 39, she was 32, had no children, and their partnership appeared to have been less about romance than mutual respect and artistic collaboration. On the other hand, one of his most enduring and emotionally significant relationships was with Samuel Murray, 25 years his junior and also a former student who became his closest friend, studio assistant, and confidant. Murray often accompanied Eakins on his numerous trips to New Jersey to visit Walt Whitman – widely believed to have been gay – with whom Eakins had a notably close, admiring friendship. Remaining fiercely loyal to Eakins through his years of institutional criticism, Sam was present at his bedside when Eakins died of heart failure on June 25, 1916, at age 71 in Philadelphia. 🏳️‍🌈

Many of you have seen The Odyssey or are about to watch The Odyssey, and if you’re familiar with the tale, you know Penelope’s weaving - and her unweaving - of a burial shroud are key parts of the story. I’ve known this epic since I was a child, and I’ve always wondered...

Austin Clarke (26 Jul 1934 – 26 Jun 2016), #Barbadian novelist, essayist, short story writer, born 92 years ago today, in St. James, #Barbados. #Caribbean en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Cl…

In the coming decades, writes Helen Epstein, toxic fallout in Gaza could lead to “an epidemic of cancer, lung disease, and brain damage” that might “rival in lethality the war’s bombs and bullets.” go.nybooks.com/3RTWmM3

The Israeli occupation army published footage showing soldiers taking measurements in preparation for the demolition of the home of slain Palestinian Farouq Ramadan's family in the town of Tell, southwest of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Ramadan was shot dead along with his brother and two cousins by Israeli forces and settlers last Friday during an attack on the town.

He’s actually been committing a lot of serious crimes

If they don’t use passive language, omit the perpetrator or dilute the description, they resort to “Palestinians say, reducing an important story from a documented event to an allegation and muddying the waters. Anything but reporting accurately.

Hart Crane (b. 21 July 1899) was an American poet who forged a highly stylized, dense, and visionary body of work during his short life. While contemporaries like T. S. Eliot viewed the modern world through a lens of pessimism, Crane infused his work with an intense optimism rooted in the American landscape. Crane was an only child, born in Garrettsville, Ohio, to Grace Edna Hart and Clarence Crane. His father invented Life Savers candy but sold the patent for only $2,900 before accumulating a fortune with chocolate bars. His parents’ rocky marriage (they divorced in 1917), and the unceasing conflict in their home, left Hart’s childhood deeply scarred, but he found refuge in his grandmother's extensive library in Cleveland. Lured by tales of the exciting possibilities in America’s largest metropolis, in 1916 he moved to New York City to get away from his warring parents and immerse himself in its lively literary scene. Being only 17, he had to promise Clarence and Grace that he would prepare for admission to Columbia University, but he used his time enjoying his new-found freedom while taking occasional copywriting jobs to supplement his allowance. For the next few years, he shifted back and forth between Manhattan and Ohio, where he was “obligated” to do menial labor at his father’s candy factory. Crane lived openly as a gay man during a deeply unsympathetic era in American history, and his life was continually disrupted by bouts of alcoholism, volatile relationships, and financial strain. He had recognized his sexual identity during his youth. When he eventually came out to his mother in 1928, her response was openly hostile, and he surreptitiously departed her house in the middle of the night. He never saw her again. Throughout his life, he had numerous anonymous sexual encounters, but he also experienced several intense emotional partnerships. His most significant relationship was with a Danish ship’s purser named Emil Opffer, whom he met in 1924. They lived together in Brooklyn Heights in a room that overlooked the Bridge—a setting that directly inspired much of Crane’s best poetry. Despite his personal struggles, Hart achieved a remarkable poetic voice. White Buildings (1926), his debut collection, solidified his standing in the literary world. It featured masterpieces like "Voyages"—inspired by his passionate love affair with a sailor—and "At Melville's Tomb". His most ambitious work, The Bridge (1930), was a book-length epic inspired by the structure visible from his windows. He utilized it as a metaphor connecting America’s arcadian past with its technological future. While his writing slowed and his work faced mixed reviews, he continued to struggle with his internal demons. In 1931, Crane received a Guggenheim Fellowship and traveled to Mexico to seek new inspiration. But unsuccessful in his efforts, on April 27, 1932, while returning to New York aboard the steamship Orizaba, drunk and recovering from an assault he had endured after making sexual advances to a male crew member, the 32-year-old poet jumped overboard into the Gulf of Mexico. His body was never recovered. Though his life was cut short, Crane is widely remembered as a tragic, prophetic figure in American letters. Writers like Tennessee Williams, Robert Lowell, William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings, and Harold Bloom praised his distinct genius, and prominent literary scholars have positioned him as an equal to gay visionaries like Walt Whitman and the French poet, Arthur Rimbaud. 🏳️‍🌈

but how will i know what to put in my suitcase or my grocery cart without claude? i've never done it before and i need all the help i can get.

Today marks six months since federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti. Since then, Trump’s immigration thugs have shot and killed two more people, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero. There’s no reforming this. Abolish ICE.

I think graphic t-shirts can be great and don't think dress needs to be defined by your age. Much depends on how you style something and whether your aesthetic resonates with your persona.

Big AI corporations like OpenAI, Google, and Meta are giving millions to state Attorneys General on both sides of the aisle to block efforts to regulate and investigate the industry. Call this what it is: legalized bribery. readsludge.com/2026/07/17/ai-…

News outlets that covered the US-Saudi nuclear deal without mentioning that Jared Kushner, Trump’s top foreign policy advisor, is getting paid by the Saudi government: WSJ NYT AP Reuters CNN NBC ABC CBS The Guardian The Hill Semafor Washington Post Fox News New York Post BBC Newsweek MS NOW The Telegraph