Marcin Wichary's beautifully visual and interactive history of a 135-year-old typeface that's somehow everywhere and largely unknown at once #

As an adult, there are very few foods I do not like. I can count them on one hand: arugula, licorice, papayas, and... arugula. OK, so there are three foods I do not like.

Growing up, that list was quite a bit longer. I didn't care for okra, I wasn't crazy about mango, and I couldn't stand papayas. I also went off of pineapples on one childhood trip to Sri Lanka. Being a tropical country, pineapples were practically falling out of trees. (Pineapples don't grow on trees.) It seemed like every aunty's house we went to, they served pineapple for dessert. Even at restaurants... after a nice meal, here came the pineapple! I got so sick of pineapple that I started telling people I was allergic, to the point that my parents would give me puzzled looks. How could they not know that their daughter was (deathly) allergic to pineapple?

Nowadays, I love okra, and can finally appreciate pineapple - especially if freshly cut. As for mangoes and papayas, my mother once told me that as a toddler, I could eat an entire papaya by myself. Several years ago, it was a white lady of German descent who finally got me to appreciate mango. She served me a bowl of fresh sliced mango as a treat. My first thought was: ohh no... how am I ever going to tell her I detest mango? I forced a smile and ate a piece hoping a dog would come by and I could feed them mango beneath the table, or she'd step out of the room and I could slide them into the compost bin. It turned out, however (to my complete surprise) that I really did like mango! What I apparently didn't like was: overripe fruit. Show me a banana with brown spots like freckles and I will positively gag. Fruit that smelled sickly sweet made me sick with disgust. So, that mango, slightly crunchy, nice and sweet but not overly-so was a treat after all.

When the kids were small, our dinner-time rule was that you had to try one bite of whatever was served. They wouldn't be forced to eat anything, but recognizing that taste-buds change with time, they simply had to test whether their taste-buds had caught up yet. Now, we have two adult kids who are open-minded and even adventurous about food. Our Rachel manages to eat peas (especially in front of her kids) and loves olives; our josh has begun to appreciate foods resembling soup. 

Last year, josh asked me if the reason why we didn't eat arugula when he was growing up was because I didn't like it. I reminded him that the leafy green wasn't even a thing until the mid-'90s - the trendy baby-salad-staple simply hadn't shown up on American shores yet. 

It is a mystery, even to me, why I don't like the taste of arugula. Too spicy? Not a chance! Too bitter? Nope, I love mustard greens, which are the definition of bitter. Too pungent - like cilantro? Not to me, though I know some who can't. There's just something about the twisted mossy sharp flavor that hits me wrong. I've tried - and can manage to choke down the odd leaf in a mixed salad, but arugula by choice? Never.

Some people say that textures do them in - as in, say, mushrooms or cottage cheese. Others simply don't like certain flavors, such as Greek yogurt or anchovies. And some don't like squishy surprises like cherry tomatoes or peas. Still others blame the sharp tang of Brussels sprouts and beets. (It is hard for me even to write this because I love all these foods!) I believe that the association with these foods are what people often find off-putting. They can't seem to get over that initial aversion and take those periodic "one bites" to see if their taste buds have caught up. 

In the meantime, I luxuriate over those foreign textures, the sharp flavor notes, and the oddest of edibles. Funky blue cheese... salty, fishy anchovies... briny, spicy capers... spongy, lardy marrow... 

But that arugula... still no.

In our fight for sexual liberation, we must not forget about sex workers

Prior to the ascension of Donald Trump, rappers and America’s political right wing were not friends. They enjoyed — and often profited from — a mutual enmity.

For nearly 30 years, from the perch of his eponymous and often top-rated Fox News show, commentator Bill O’Reilly consistently used hip-hop to gin up white conservative fear of Black people by conflating the genre with two things: violent anti-Americanism and wanton misogyny. The culture, however, has shifted noticeably since Trump took over the right, prompting an orgy of MAGA fever that has swept through Washington and the nation in the wake of his second inauguration. Among those riding that wave? A host of rappers, including Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, Nelly, and Soulja Boy, who, just weeks ago, journeyed to Washington for Trump’s inaugural celebrations.

Which made it all the more notable that when Kendrick Lamar headlined this year’s Super Bowl halftime show in New Orleans, he did so as the first sitting president to attend the NFL’s championship game reportedly left the arena. Hip-hop’s Pulitzer-winning lyricist defined his Americanness on his own terms, and, with trollish glee, continued the execution of a cultural shift articulated on his hit diss track: predators and misogynists are “not like us.” Lamar’s much-anticipated performance came as a wide swath of men have found common ground with Trump and his movement’s adoption of a reactionary, hegemonic masculinity of domination and aggression that disregards women’s equality and agency.

The Super Bowl halftime performance is one of the most widely-viewed and mediated stages upon which Americans parse and negotiate cultural power — who holds it, who’s lost it, who’s up, who’s down. Given its place within the nation’s annual pageant of capitalism, the halftime show is almost guaranteed to leave viewers seeking overt displays of radicalism and subversion bereft. 

This was a reality Lamar confronted implicitly from the start of the show, framing his performance with a Greek chorus of one, played by Samuel L. Jackson. Dressed in custom Bode, Jackson played the voice of American capitalism while embodying its most recognizable avatar of patriotic—and often colonialist—propaganda: Uncle Sam.

“Salutations! It’s your Uncle Sam, and this is the great American game,” he announced, as the camera panned out to reveal a set piece shaped like a PlayStation controller. Every element of the show’s art direction, from set design to blocking to costuming, served to illustrate the friction between Lamar’s artistic identity as an inveterate truth teller, and the capitalistic demand for marketable, anodyne content. The game may be rigged, but in the Superdome that night, it was Lamar and the larger ensemble who were pushing the buttons.

What followed was a concise theatrical narrative, employing Lamar’s widely publicized feud with Drake to tickle the senses while expounding on larger themes of censorship and racial capitalism, perhaps most memorably illustrated when the dancers, all of them Black men clad in red, white, and blue, stood in a formation resembling an American flag. Lamar stood at the center of a divided Old Glory, rapping the lyrics to “Humble” after facing admonishment from Uncle Sam for “Squabble Up” as the dancers chain-gang marched into formation. 

“Nooooooooo! Too reckless! Too ghetto,” cried Uncle Sam, echoing those who habitually characterize Black critics of American empire as ungrateful, arrogant, and uppity. Lamar cleverly anticipated MAGA objections and, unafraid, incorporated them on his own terms. 

“Have you ever brought your enemy down with a poker face,” he rapped, sporting an enormous, disarming grin while directly addressing the camera. 

Lamar’s white, right-wing critics, particularly those who amassed their clout as online trolls, were noticeably irked that he appeared to be beating them at their own game. Conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec raged at the “DEI halftime show” while the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, apparently not a fan of subtext, called the show “trash,” huffing that “nobody can even understand what he’s saying.” 

And all that took place before Lamar reached the most anticipated number, his performance of “Not Like Us,” a lyrical screed aimed at Drake, the Canadian former child star, and his entourage. (For his part, Drake has denied any impropriety and has sued UMG, the company that owns both their labels, alleging defamation). As Drake has sought to break out of the boundaries set by his own success, he has leaned into the same toxic masculinist impulses he once avoided (at least publicly) in order to cultivate his broad fan base. Lamar lambastes those same impulses — which now predominate the MAGAverse — on “Not Like Us,” the crown jewel of his polemical suite of diss tracks. The song and its music video swept every Grammy category in which it was nominated, netting Lamar another five trophies. 

At 37, Lamar is a diminutive, accomplished wordsmith and semiotician. His disdain for Drake is marked by contempt for what he sees as his rival’s vacuity, his years spent racking up hits, cultural cachet, and wealth as a culture vulture who steered hip-hop squarely into easily digestible loverboy pop.

Using its infectious four-note refrain as a tease, Lamar then introduced the show’s female background dancers, briefly easing to the sweetly romantic, unifying motifs of “Luther” and “All The Stars.” 

Lamar then oscillated back to the improprieties of “Not Like Us,” flooding the stage with dancers for a deliciously petty coup de grâce. Tennis champion Serena Williams, whose husband, Alexis Ohanian, caught strays in Drake’s lyrics, crip-walked in a triumphant callback to a controversy she weathered in 2012. Williams, now retired and the holder of a record-tying 23 Grand Slam singles titles, was castigated then in the press for doing a celebratory crip walk at Wimbledon after defeating Maria Sharapova in the Olympics. The whole thing became a ridiculous scandal because of white reaction to Williams being her Compton-raised Black self in a place and a sport still defined by rather hoary, WASPy notions of what constitutes civility. 

To dismiss Lamar’s performance as the squandering of a global platform in service of nursing a petty grievance is to miss the significance of exactly what Lamar is excoriating, perhaps because he took such obvious delight in it. As the right was beginning to feel confident basking in the spoils of a culture war détente smoothed over by a common hatred of women, the Bard of Hip-Hop orchestrated a subtle, under-appreciated pivot.

Game over, indeed.

Soraya Nadia McDonald is a critic and journalist who was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism and a winner of the George Jean Nathan award for dramatic criticism.

The post Kendrick Lamar’s Multilayered Halftime Show Was About Far More Than Just a Rap Beef appeared first on Capital B News.

I wrote up a post for my friend Maleah Jackson, the Principal and Managing Consultant of Makari Consulting, to share with her clients. She was kind enough to let me cross-post it here. No matter where you work, our fascist white supremacist government is threatening the ways you work. Read on to learn more about this one specific executive order in what feels like an avalanche of them.

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Since Inauguration Day, President Trump has issued a flurry of Executive Orders (EO). These haven't all been proclamations like renaming the Gulf of Mexico. Trump's orders attack efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across the country. We know these policies and programs are essential—while they may be at risk, we are not powerless.

Last week, the Council on Foundations and others hosted an online seminar to share what we know about the EO known as Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity. They invited Emily Cuneo DeSmedt of Morgan Lewis to explain it to participants. DeSmedt is a litigator who handles employment issues, DEI, and discrimination cases. She also told us about two other EOs that were not the subject of this webinar.

The first bans DEI programs and terminates DEI employees working in the federal government. The second states that the federal government will recognize only two sexes. These orders, while important, were not the subject of this call.

DeSmedt shared her thoughts on this EO, addressed potential consequences, and gave recommendations on how to reduce risk. Here's what we learned.

What the Executive Order says

First, it cancels several executive orders, including one that dates to 1965. It also issues directives to federal agencies, contractors, and subcontractors.

Federal contractors and subcontractors must:

• End all DEI and DEIA-related "mandates, requirements, programs, or activities"
• End all acts of "affirmative action"
• Not consider protected classes (race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin) when making hiring decisions
• Certify that their DEI programs, if any, do not violate anti-discrimination laws

The heads of every federal agency must:

• Stop promoting "diversity"
• Remove all references to DEI and DEIA across the agency
• Work with the Attorney General and the Office of Management and Budget to create a report within 120 days

The report has the biggest potential for impact on the private sector. The report must:

• Identify organizations that operate "discriminatory" DEI practices
• Name key sectors or industries of concern within each agency's authority
• Name the most “egregious discriminatory DEI practitioners” in each sector
• Identify strategies to encourage the private sector to end “illegal DEI discrimination”
• Identify potential opportunities to litigate or take regulatory action against companies with such policies
• Identify 9 companies, per agency, that could face potential civil compliance investigations

Investigations or even civil action could occur against the following entities:

• Large nonprofit corporations or associations
• Foundations with over $500M in assets
• State and local bar and medical associations
• Institutions of higher education with endowments over $1B

The executive order applies to any federal agency that handles anti-discrimination laws. DeSmedt notes that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is the most obvious agency. For example, any organization that employs people could be at risk for review. But many agencies have non-discrimination laws within their purview. Examples include the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Affordable Care Act, or the Fair Housing Act. Any organization whose work touches one of these laws could be at risk of investigation.

Changes and potential consequences

What does this Executive Order change? DeSmedt notes that the EO doesn't change any laws. It only expands on what has already been happening. In 2023, an anti-DEI group filed suit against the Fearless Fund, a private venture capital fund. Fearless Fund ran a contest to fund businesses owned by at least one woman of color. This group claimed Fearless Fund violated Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act. Fearless Fund ultimately settled out of court and canceled the grant contest.

What might happen if the government launches a civil compliance investigation? One example DeSmedt gave was if the EEOC charged a company with violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. That company would then be subject to investigation. The investigation could request all communications about your practices, programs, policies, and data. Once reviewed, they could file a lawsuit against that company.

What you can do

DeSmedt offered recommendations that organizations can take to limit their risk. This isn't legal advice, of course, and you should bring your questions and plans to a lawyer you trust.

Don't panic. The Executive Order by design wants us to panic," DeSmedt said. "They want to influence our behavior before any investigation launches." We can't predict what will happen with this or other EOs, but we can prepare ourselves.

Read the Executive Order. These aren't as lengthy or complex as legislation tends to be. Reading the text and understanding it will go a long way to defending against it.

Review your communications, documents, and practices. What would happen if you turned them over in an investigation? What if you had to defend them in litigation? In the past, anyone with an agenda to restrict DEI could review public information. Think websites, mission statements, and similar materials. Under this EO, federal agencies could also investigate your internal communications and documents.

Talk with your staff. What does DEI mean to us? Define that in a way that's clear. Are we talking about our work in accurate ways? How might a federal agency that wants to shut down DEI misinterpret our work?

Train your teams. Educate the folks who design or run your programs, talk about your work, or talk to grantees. Think specifically about teams, like Human Resources, that make decisions that could violate federal anti-discrimination laws. Make sure they know what's happening at the federal level. Ensure they are mindful and careful about how they talk about the work you do.

Ask your legal counsel for a review. Having your counsel review your materials doesn't have to mean a massive engagement. DeSmedt recommends requesting a privileged conversation to discuss these high-level issues. A lawyer can explain common themes and issues, how to protect yourself, and what to do in the event of an investigation. Even if funds are tight, you can get a lot of information out of short sessions with them.

Limit your risk where you can. It's likely that none of our practices discriminate in the ways that DEI opponents allege. "Even organizations that seek to advance race and gender equity don't hire on that basis." DeSmedt recommends making that clear. Don't leave room for potential investigators to misinterpret you.

Stick to your values. The purpose of these reviews and legal consultation is clear. We don't want to take unnecessary risk, but we should not overcorrect. If your programs align with relevant laws, it shouldn't draw attention from investigators.

Work together. Another speaker reminded listeners that this administration is openly hostile to DEI. They will try to expand the scope of the DEI activities they claim are discriminatory. Continue to partner with others and support their work. The National Council of Nonprofits and others have already sued the Trump administration for freezing federal funds. But this administration will continue its crusade against equity and repair. Stay up to date on—and share with your colleagues—news about the laws and rulings that may affect your work.

the ongoing barrage

I'm writing this part for be the future readers only. Y'all know by now that I love a coda.

It seems almost silly that this entire post is about one of the hundreds of executive orders that Trump has launched in the past two weeks. That's on top of whatever illegal things Elon Musk and his team are doing at every federal agency. I understand that the chaos is the point here. Every action seems to take days of speeches, organizing, and lawsuits before we can even begin to counter. They want to overwhelm us. Threaten tariffs and immigrants, then reverse the tariffs. Suspend mail from China and ban international trans athletes, then resume the mail from China. I know there's a lot going on right now, but our focus needs to be the same.

We need to concentrate our rage on defending groups with the least amount of power and influence. Remember that local Democrats are suppressing public opinion to save cop city. Seattle homeowners make housing impossible for poor renters to ever get a foothold. Seattle Children's Hospital canceled a trans teen's surgery because they feared losing federal funding. Similar stories are happening in red (and blue!) cities across the u.s. The people in these stories are important. Palestinian lives were important last year and they remain important.

If we only go after the easy wins, they'll get away with killing the people who were already kept silent. Then they'll turn on us, too.

In 2019, Amazon tried to buy the city council election. Their bet on right-wing candidates blew up in their faces. Now they are at it again. They just dropped $100,000 into the February special election, along with $35,000 from their puppets at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber. The big corporate donor PAC has already forked out more than half a million dollars so that you will be duped into voting for Proposition 1B. by Ron Davis

Amazon is at it again.

In 2019, Amazon tried to buy the city council election. Their bet on right-wing candidates blew up in their faces. Now they are at it again. They just dropped $100,000 into the February special election, along with $35,000 from their puppets at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber. The big corporate donor PAC has already forked out more than half a million dollars so that you will be duped into voting for Proposition 1B. 

Don’t be duped. Vote YES and vote 1A.

Half a million is a lot of money for the few people who show up for a February election. Of course, it is only a February election because Sara Nelson’s city council brazenly and egregiously violated Article IV, Section 1B of the City Charter when they purposefully delayed it so the electorate would be smaller and easier to purchase with deceptive mailers. 

All this follows an ugly few months for Amazon and its centibillionaire founder. First Bezos brazenly interfered with journalistic independence at the Washington Post, muzzling a Kamala Harris endorsement. This was followed by a censored cartoon that depicted Bezos and his billionaire buddies groveling at Trump’s feet with their bribes. This was of course because they were forking out a million each (two million in Amazon’s case) to curry favor with Trump. Amazon went on to openly drop the biggest known bribe on Trump so far and this time directly to the Trump family. $40 million for the rights to produce a documentary about Melania. 

Why Amazon is Trying to Buy Another Election

What corruption has Amazon cooked up to this time? Trying to kill more funding for affordable housing–in this case, “social housing.” 

Social housing is common in Europe–mixed income, permanently affordable, publicly owned housing. You may recall that last year Seattle voters passed an initiative that created a public developer dedicated to building this kind of mixed, middle income housing. This means it will serve everyone from those in serious financial straits to home care aides, fast food workers and delivery drivers to firefighters and nurses. Under city law, we had to create the agency first, and now we’re doing the funding part.

Proposition 1A would provide funding through a nickel-on-the-dollar payroll tax on money a person earns over $1M each year, and the first million bucks is free every year. Since our taxes are almost the very worst in the country when it comes to tax rates for working people (very high) compared to rich people (very, very low), this should be a no-brainer. 

But almost the entire Seattle City Council is opposed to the Democratic Party’s State Platform’s demand that we fix our ugly tax code. So they needed to daze and confuse us with something that sounds vaguely pro-affordable housing, but actually doesn’t tax the rich, raise revenue, or really do social housing at all. 

Enter proposition Proposition 1B, the gaslighting option. It is designed to make you think Seattle’s right wing loves affordable housing and taxes! Look, see, they want to provide $10M a year in support and send some nice postcards to tell you about it! 

A closer look shows this is BS. 1B kills the mixed income model. Even worse, in classic supervillain fashion, it takes that $10 million away from other affordable housing for people who are desperately poor. Per usual, the aim is to pit working people against one another.

Even former State Democratic Party Chair Tina Podlowdoski chimed in and slammed it. If a mainstream Dem who can party-build in conservative, rural parts of the state thinks you are right wing–maybe it is time even moderates realize Amazon and the Chamber are playing them for fools. 

What Amazon’s Money Has Bought: Pretty Postcards with Lots of Lies

The postcards they are sending out with all this money are mendacious and deceitful. I quickly debunked almost all of them in this video. 

If you know someone who is wavering from all the propaganda and needs more–I’ve also gone a bit deeper into debunking their claims in a piece with the Urbanist. I had to also hit some of their latest whoopers from the newest mailers in a piece on Rondezvous, my semi-eponymous newsletter. 

The key things to remember when considering their postal propaganda.

1. Social housing advocates were always super clear that we needed money for the agency, and the people sending the postcard know that and are openly lying about it.
   
   

2. The 1B backers don’t support 1B because they support affordable housing–they support it because they hate taxes on rich people. 1B prevents new funding for affordable housing. And existing affordable housing providers oppose 1B and support 1A. (In fact, The Housing Development Consortium (an endorser) represents 200 affordable housing providers in the Puget Sound region–pretty much all of them!). 
   
   

3. The social housing developer proudly plans to provide units for working and middle class Seattle families, and this is a feature, not a bug. The higher rents subsidize the rents of the lower-income families. And when the Amazon mailer claims that 3% of the units are low income, it is openly fraudulent. The current plan is for the majority of the units to meet the federal definition of low income. 
   
   

4. Related - the corporates feign great humanitarian concern for the down and out in their latest mailer (1A provides more housing for people making a bit more than the median income than it provides for people making 30% of median income–OH MY HEAVENS). They fail to mention that 1B prevents a bunch of funding for affordable housing, including people making 30% of the area median income. They also conveniently avoid the fact that most of the social housing is for families making only 60% - 80% of the average local income. That’s the bus drivers and teachers you are screwing over there, Jeff.
   
   

5. The social housing developer has multiple, rigorous layers of accountability built into its governance. Their hysteria about a “lack of accountability” from Proposition 1B’s backers is nothing more than complaints about their inability to defund it through their puppets on the city council, as they recently did with more deeply affordable housing.
   
   

6. If Amazon and the Chamber were honest, their mailer would not say that the social housing developer has never built affordable housing. It would instead say, "The social housing developer is a brand new legal entity. Since it is new, it hasn’t yet produced housing, because we have not yet funded it. But that is completely irrelevant and we are fools for bringing it up. Because that new legal entity has hired an extremely experienced leader who has a long history of building and managing half a billion dollars in housing at other legal entities."

Any remaining doubts? Check out the endorsements:

Every single Democratic Party Legislative District group in the city. The Labor Council (tons of unions) and the Building Trades (more tons of unions). Unions representing teachers, grocery workers, UW researchers, city employees, hotel workers, electricians, and a bunch more individual unions. Environmental organizations, human service providers, mainstream and lefty political groups. Affordable housing providers, businesses, politicians, news organizations.

Vote Yes and Vote 1A and get ten friends to join you.