A Nicer List: Ten Things I'd Like to Do

"When I'm Sixty-Four" by the Beatles, from the animated film Yellow Submarine (1968)

Heh, that was a very Pisces "two fish swimming in different directions" post yesterday.

Q: How was your birthday?

A1 [fish swimming one way]: It was great! I had chocolate cake with my dolls, and my friend gave me a spaceship.

A2 [fish swimming other way]: It was great! I read a fascinating list about surviving a Soviet gulag.

And in the evening I looked up how stars work.
I'd thought they were nuclear bombs, but they're not bombs because they don't explode apart (till they run down on fuel).
They are nuclear reactors, where two nuclei slam into each other and make one bigger nucleus--but the whole thing stays together because . . .  Physics.

Crazy beans! It seems more of a process than a thing.
Our sun emitting strong solar flares, from "Star Basics", NASA

I also started a List of Things to Do Before I Die.
(That's overly dramatic! It's just a list of things I'd like to do, coming up, but due to age, I'm aware of the time limit in a new way.)

(I'd listed "Stuff to Do, Get, Be" when I turned 51,
and then wrote a Review of the List when I turned  52, a dozen years ago. I've either done or don't want to do most of the stuff on that list.)

So... here's a new list.
I'd like to add to it, but for today--here are

Ten Things I'd Like to Do

1. Visit the Headwaters of the Mississippi River at Itasca State Park.
It's about 4 hours north. I've never been, and I very much want to. bink said she'd drive with me this year!

"In 1832, Ojibwe leader Ozaawindib led explorer Henry Schoolcraft to Lake Itasca. Schoolcraft renamed the lake Itasca, which means true source in Latin."

2. Go surfing!
I always wanted to learn to surf, but at this age would settle for the easier body surfing (riding the waves lying down).

People surf on Lake Superior, north of Duluth, but I think the best waves are in the cold seasons--they wear wet suits.
Brrrr.  No.

3. More printmaking! 
Not that I wouldn't make more word prints, but I'd like to do more stories like The Moth Burial. My best work.
(I am not motivated to try to sell prints now, but maybe at some point. Too many logistics for this human...)

4. Art the Fence!
From a political-science point of view, organized resistance is the most effective way to combat power, but it's not my way.
I am going for tying things on the fence the city put up to keep people OUT of the pocket park.

Emily and I are going to tie "You are made of stars" prints on the fence today---I want to keep decorating it, and it's a very Emily thing to do too. I imagine tying little toy art pieces on it.

5. Construct more toys!
Alley protectors, things to hang on the fence, and the like... I love to do this but have slacked waaay off.

6. Never eat added sugar again, except when pre-planned, for instance on my birthday.

I'm finding this is doable at this time in my life, which it never was before. Naturally sweet things to eat are proving to be perfectly satisfying--like when I binge-ate an entire butternut squash for comfort the day Trump was  reelected.

7. Photography Projects!
I will continue with Toys Recreate Paintings.
I want to expand to Victorian-style Toy Portraits, which means making a portrait studio, with painted backdrops.

Would also like to make an effort to photograph objects at the store more carefully. Snapping them in the store's fluorescent lights isn't the best. Maybe set up a black box?  Taking them outside works in the warmer weather.

8. Travel to see Paintings the Toys Recreate.
Vienna to see Bruegel would be cool, but I'm thinking closer to home--more comfortable traveling, and more affordable.
And, for instance, I've never been to St. Louis, Missouri!
I would love to go see Henry Caleb Bingham at the St Louis Art Museum.

Also, choose to recreate paintings in places that I'd like to go--like Chicago. Or the local art museums!

9. Walk a day on the Lake Superior Hiking Trail.
I'd be happy doing a day on a section in Duluth. Directions.

10. Paint more pictures in goauche.
I got tired of it a few years ago, but I love many that I did and would like to do more.

As this, one of my favorite things I've ever made––Girlette Spike on the New Mexico goat farm with Marz–– says:
"Nothing for it . . . but to do it."

Chocolate cake! (Um, & spite, indifference, faith)

The city buses started running before noon, so bink and I could meet up at The French Bakery after all. She walked and I bused.
It's a perfect day---snow mounds like meringue, blindingly bright sunshine, gotta wear your sunglasses--temps in the 20s, and the bonhomie that the city feels when residents get snow dumped on them.

On her way, bink passed a woman trying to dig her car out from a snow bank. 
She said, "I'm from California, I only have a piece of cardboard!"
Not sufficient. Snow is as heavy as water (being, as it is, water). But the woman was laughing.

I'd decided I can have bakery on my birthday, if it's worthy.
The girlettes insisted that birthday cake should be a slice of round cake:
"It must be round."

And there is was in the bakery case--a slice of chocolate almond cake! bink bought it for me.
Eeble tests the density, below.
"It is correct, this fork will not move."

It was extremely satisfying.

Girlette Kia Sorrento, above in red sweater, is holding a glass mosaic coaster of a spaceship that bink made me. L'astronave, piloted by Red Hair Girl, the girlette who left a few years ago. She's become a space pilot!
____________

I was happy to hear from Marz this morning, calling to wish me a happy birthday. She's doing such interesting work in school--I love to hear about it.
This week is midterms, and she's working on a paper analyzing a Soviet propaganda poster of Stalin.

A specialist on the gulags talked to her Soviet class last week.
He told them that spite was an emotion that helped one survive.
Spite!
Why is this weirdly satisfying to know?
Because it is free of romanticization?

Maybe this sounds contradictory because I run around posting Inspirational Prints, but I despise sentimentality.
"We are made of stars" may sound cute, but it's hard science.
Stars look nice from here, but stars are not nice.
As Neil deGrasse Tyson says,
"Earth wants to kill you. That’s one of the things you need to know."

Ah--here I found the source the gulag expert was referencing:
A list with 46 items,"What I Saw and Learned in the Kolyma Camps", by Varlam Shalamov, a Russian writer and gulag survivor who spent much of 1937–1951 in the most extreme of the forced-labor camps in the Arctic––Kolyma."

16. I learned that one can live on spite alone.
17. I learned that one can live on indifference.

Curiously, also:
8. I saw that the only group that retained a bit of their humanity, despite the starvation and abuse, were the religious, the sectarians, almost all of them — and the majority of the priests.

So--for the sake of survival, take your pick:
 spite, indifference, or faith.

And listen to this! This is for us:
6. I learned that Stalin's "triumphs" were possible because he slew innocent people:
Had there been an organized movement, even one-tenth in number, but organized, it would have swept Stalin away in two days.

The Guardian says, "Kolyma Tales contains some of the greatest writing to emerge from the gulag."
“Shalamov holds himself in severe check as an artist”, wrote Irving Howe, “he is simply intent, with a grey passion, upon exactitude.”

Shalamov's list was written in 1961.
1961! The year of my birth.
So though it is grim, it is oddly bracing, with a strange message:
If our lives are going well, it's probably because we've been lucky.

I've had a lucky life.
A strange but welcome birthday reminder for this strange time we find ourselves in.
_________________

Now I need a nap in my pink chair, to sleep off the cake in the sun.
Lovely!

SNOW DAY!!!

 Oh boy! A BIG snow storm shut schools, and even the city buses aren’t running this morning!!!

On my front stoop:

They’ve been studying the Earth in Space in school all year (their school always has a year-long theme), so they know about star stuff that formed this planet and its lifeforms:

 “Before we were dinosaurs and ferns, we were in stars.”

It’s been a couple years since we’ve had so much snow.  I love it! We have had such a storm on my birthday before. Being in early March, it’s not uncommon to have wild weather on my birthday.

 I have the day off since I can’t get to work. I was looking forward to seeing my coworkers actually. But it’s too heavy and wet to hang water-based ink prints outside anyway. Maybe tomorrow.

Meanwhile, print prep—hole punches and a piece of string to tie them to the fence.

Later, happy hour at the corner tapas joint.

Field of Stars

Once, back when bloggers swapped questionnaires, I got one that asked,

What one thing would you want everyone to know?

That we literally are made of star stuff, I said—not just poetically, but scientifically. 

So that’s what I’m doing tonight, my birthday eve: printing to give away 100 copies of

 YOU ARE MADE OF STARS

I loved learning that in actuality I am /you are a child of the universe, like the leaflet on the refrigerator door said. I think that’s the coolest thing imaginable. 

———

From the Natural History Museum, London, UK, “Are we made of stardust?”, planetary scientist and stardust expert Dr Ashley King explains:

'It is totally 100% true: 

nearly all the elements in the human body were made in a star and many have come through several supernovas.'”

Public Service Frivolity

It's time for a Frivolity Break.

Trump just pulled aid to Ukraine?
Oooh, quick now, before the end of the world, let's...
look at OSCARS OUTFITS.
npr.org/sections/the-picture-show/2025/03/02/nx-s1-5307225/oscars-2025-red-carpet-outfits

The men's outfits were, as usual, mostly disappointing.
It's weird to me how men's clothing is absolutely stuck in a STUBBORN standard:
"Men wear trousers and a jacket."
Allowed variation: the lapels are a different color. Oh, boy!

No matter how much you shake that dog, it won't drop the bone.
And when a man does loosen it up, usually he's gay, or they're a nonbinary person.

Hooray for Billy Porter wearing a fabulous tuxedo-styled ball gown at the 2019 Oscars!
Could some other male-stylin' human represent too?

Here we go: hooray for Jeff Goldblum (below, left) for wriggling loose the straight jacket.
(If terms like "straight" even apply in his case? Seems irrelevant for a guy who's a fly.)
His corsage... Would it BITE you? I love it.

Like oregano, you only need a little Goldblum, and there was just the right amount of him as the Wizard of Oz in Wicked. He's one of the reasons I'll bother to see Part 2.

And Michelle Yeoh (above), also in Wicked, stepping out in 100 pounds of fabric like it's nothing... (I made that number up, but really! It looks like it weighs as much as she does.)

Also a WRIST WATCH.

Swoon.
You can't have too much of her elegant strength, like wire work--loved her ever since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), then Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).... Even a stint on Star Trek, etc.

Cynthia Erivo is the main draw of Wicked. Her character is green.
Was her green dress a reference to  the iconic gown Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) and Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) made of velvet curtains in Gone with the Wind? *
(GWTW came out in 1939--the same year as The Wizard of Oz. Also the year WWII broke out.)

Surely that is not the desired association?
Or, hm. It could be. Hollywood of the present talking to Hollywood passed––
"Look who's wearing it now, it isn't the white lady".

Fine, if so, but the dress made Erivo look like a sofa.

Erivo is so lithe, a green sheath would have looked much better.
(Like the to-die-for burgundy gown Rhett makes Scarlett wear to the birthday party Melanie throws Ashley Wilkes. There's a power dress! [article on the restoration of these dresses])

Or at least leave that stupid bow off.
Can you tell I hate that outfit?
_______________

I'd vote for more frivolity in men's clothes and more powerful elegance in women's.

And there it is:
Not only did Selena Gomez (below, left) look like a star, but she has grown up into her own woman. (Well, what do I know, but she carries the look well, anyway.) I was proud of her for it: I remember her primarily from the teenage drama of her relationship with Justin Beiber.

Above right is what I'm talking about:
Omar Apollo (a musician--I had no idea) wearing a fascinator.
For another Bieber connection--it is rumored that Apollo dated hip hop artist Frank Ocean--at any rate, they are musically entwined--and Ocean wrote for Bieber.

This is model Anok Yai, below. (Also, no idea.)
Look at that--her hair looks like her feather boa, her pale nails look like her satin dress... And that lip color...
Oh, my.
I usually do not care about this sort of thing, but this is Visual Artistry at work, and she knows how to carry it.

Slay.

Also, it looks like her team got the memo about the Oscars' Hotel-Lobby Color Palette and turned it to her advantage.

This all moved me to look up Justin Bieber.
I'd heard he and his wife Hailey had a baby boy, Jack Blue Bieber, in August, but I hadn't checked in.
And... Baby, baby, baby, oh!
What a chubby dumpling cutie!

That thing babies do with their toes makes me want to nibble their tiny digits!

I have a small fondness for Justin Bieber.
Marz was into him when I first met her (she was a teenager), or I would barely know who he is. I don't care much about his music--I don't care much about anyone's music--I just kinda relate to the soft lost bewilderment of him...
Marz says it's because we have similar astrological charts!
What a hoot.
I can't remember the details--some Pisces placements.
(I could ask Marz again.)

Boy's a freak, and his style is his own.
Social media comments on  Bieber's hat-over-hoodie ranged from “[I love] the way he’s so comfortable to wear what he wants like random clothes in public”
— to “The bar has never been lower.”

I feel like he could hang with Divine & John Waters.

Sometimes I wish I had more fun with clothes.
Mostly I've never much cared.
Lazy? Yeah, kinda. It's a lot of work.
Body shame? Some of that, when I was younger--and I definitely wanted to avoid being hit on! I never liked that attention.

But my father was the same about clothes--he wore them to rags, so I don't think it's primarily a sign of social-emotional dysfunction (like it's in vogue to assume everything is (but it isn't), it's more of a personality thing.
They have identified the chromosome that creates a preference for wearing sweaters with holes!

I do have some other preferences too.
Like Justin Bieber, I like pink.

I wish I had a photo of a pink-striped dress I loved when I was in first grade. Here's proof of preference, 24 years apart:
eating carrots with RMcG, below left, at the art college library in 2000, and, right, bowling with Sp'ed last spring--I guess I like the orange accents too, since I chose that bowling ball:

All for now. I am printing 100 prints today, to hang on the fence with Emster tomorrow, my birthday. (JB's was four days ago, March 1. He's thirty-one.)
I'll be that good age from the Beatles song: Sixty-Four!

You all take good care out there. It's slippery!

* Note on Scarlett's green velvet dress in GWTW:

"For the curtain dress, costume designer Walter Plunkett acquired moss-green and chartreuse velvet that he exposed to the sunlight to achieve a faded appearance that would be appropriate for the much-used drapes. 

He then created an ingenious design with the curtain tiebacks made into a belt and a matching velvet cap adorned with chicken feathers. Plunkett also toned down his excellent sewing skills for a dress that looks like it could have been thrown together in one evening."
––via

The enslaved woman known only as Mammy helps Scarlett sew the dress--and the actor who played Mammy, Hattie McDaniel, won best supporting actress but was segregated at the 1940 Oscars: there is interesting social history there, which Erivo's dress evokes, whether consciously or not.

Not the FLOWERS?!

Remember Monty Python's News for Parrots [on youtube]? They'd briefly report some disaster with the reassurance, "No parrots were involved".*

The Girlettes were worried this morning that FLOWERS are being harmed, when Linda Sue posted one of her Orphans rallying for Ukraine. (They are not heartless, they just do not register human foolish behavior.)
"Not the FLOWERS!?!"

It reminded me of my favorite Doonesbury cartoon (by Garry Trudeau), from the Vietnam War.
I must have read it when it came out––October 30, 1972–– and never forgot it.

 

         That's Zonker Harris in the starred ^ helmet, remember?

* Sadly, there are pet parrots in Ukraine... Here's a report of a vet in Poland helping parrot refugees.

Have a good day anyway!

At the bus stop with Moomin mug from bink

Sunday snapshot

The Housewares work area was almost a blank canvas before I started working there in the fall.
No more! Toys are starting to appear.
So far my only playmate there is "Sandr", the coworker who lit the Hannukah candles for us. He put up the carrot car and the rope swing.

Jester in Furniture has also filled his bulletin board with little things. It's funny to me when people DON'T decorate their area,
especially given that we work in a stream of things. I'd expect people to pluck out ones they like.

I guess it's like how some people respond to the Girlettes, and some don't.
When I went for my first Covid vaccine four springs ago, the public health nurse liked Penny Cooper and happily included her.
She even gave Penny a little band-aid and a sticker after her shot:

The Toys are a little wary of Marz. She knows them, but doesn't always want them in her life. Recently she told me she'd put all the toys in her apartment in the closet.

Still, she knows me, and she made me a birthday card with a Bear spirit:

 

Inside it says that I am. . .

"The Most Minor Prophet,
the Prophet of Toys (bears, dolls, etc.)"

Decorating the Fence

Yesterday I hung (with twist ties) the dozen "Don't Be Afraid" prints on the fence next to the thrift store (below). 
Okay, but they looked kinda paltry, and I texted the photo to Emster, saying "I need to make 100 to cover the fence."

(I hate this fence--the city put it up to keep people OUT of the pocket park four years ago, when people were camping there... because they had no homes.)

Em replied, "Let's cover the fence on your birthday!"
Yes, yay! I'll print up a ton, and she'll help hang them after work on Wednesday. She'll make stuff to hang too. (I hope.)

When she worked at the store, we used to do what she called "tschoch drops" together--leaving little apotropaic toy-constructions in the alleys: Alley Protectors.

Reading about the power of Laughtivism from Serbian resistance trainer Popvic, I came across an article I liked that's worth sharing:

"Overcoming Despair and Apathy to Win Democracy", by George Lakey, Ivan Marovic, at The Commons Social Change Library.

__________

Ramadan started yesterday.

Book's Amina is fasting--she is very observant. She showed me her new portable prayer "rug"--just a sheet of plastic, like the material of a disposable raincoat, with a rug pattern on it.
She was showing me how she can't fold up on her knees properly, to pray--injured knee!--by kneeling down partway on plastic rug on the breakroom floor.  This young woman in hijab and long dress and Star Wars hoodie!

If I remember, I say "Ramadan mubarak" to Muslim customers, but sometimes I just say "Happy Ramadan" in my lazy American way.

_______________

ELONIA MUMP

Yesterday I referred to "Mump" in a text to a pal, and she texted me this back:

There's a STORY IDEA: Melania is the true mastermind of the Trump presidencies. 

Would we be surprised?
She is such a cipher, I have no idea what her deal is.

My pal also said there are reports from KGB agents that Trump was turned 40+ years ago.
I thought that was some loony conspiracy theory--though psychologically it would explain a lot.

But The Hill published an opinion piece assessing the allegations, saying they could be credible:

"Three KGB agents, . . .
including former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, Alnur Mussayev, who recently claimed in a Facebook post that Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987, when the 40-year-old real-estate mogul first visited Moscow.

"None of these former KGB operatives has provided evidence, but the fact that three KGB agents located in different places and speaking at different times agree on the story suggests this possibility should not be dismissed out of hand. 

"...Lending credence to the allegations is the fact that kompromat on [Russian control of] Trump would easily, simply and convincingly explain the president’s animus toward NATO, Europe and Ukraine, his admiration of Vladimir Putin and his endorsement of authoritarian rule.

"One could even invoke 'Occam’s razor,' the philosophical principle that claims that simple explanations should be preferred to complex ones."

--thehill.com/opinion/international/5162890-assessing-new-allegations-that-trump-was-recruited-by-the-kgb

This interests me because I've always wondered,
How did an American of the Cold War generation come to fawn on a Russian dictator?

It's especially weird, I think, to my generation of Americans to see Trump so eager to advance Putin's aims. I mean, we born after WWII were programed to distrust Russians, not to bow like spaniels before them.
For millenials, it might be like seeing a US president kowtow to the Taliban.

_________________

bink is coming soon for our Sunday coffee and banana pancakes.
Sugar-free, they're best when the bananas are very overripe--sugary!––and today they are. And I have walnuts and frozen blueberries for them too.

I cook them in MY MOST FAVORITE POSSESSION.
(Toys aren't possessions, so they aren't in the running.)
My MFP is... the nonstick, ceramic-lined (non toxic) Green-brand pan bink gave me for Xmas. It is dreamy to wash--just rinses off.

Ok--take good care of yourselves, now.
Ciao!

How to Be Absurd

What is this, 1939?

An inept leader appeases a bully who claims that
 neighboring countries rightfully belong to his nation.

Said bully invades neighbor in Eastern Europe.

British and European leaders pledge support
for its ally, the invaded country.

Eggs are in short supply.
___________________

Even the eggs? Oh, that's not worrying at all.

I actually take hope that Mump's increasingly bad behavior will snap people out of apathy and complacency.
Displays such as the shameful treatment of President Zelensky of Ukraine yesterday should motivate us to take action.

Don't Go Alone: Take a Toy

But what can toys do in times of trouble? They are only little.

Thumb their noses!

Example:
Toys protested government corruption in Siberia in 2012.
When authorities said the protest was unsanctioned, the toys applied for a permit.

They were denied––for not being Russian citizens.

Helpfully, city spokesman Andrei Lyapunov explained,
"As you understand, toys are not even people."

Penny Cooper says,
"Of course we are not people. Who would want to be people? That doesn't mean we're not real."

theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/15/toys-protest-not-citizens-russia

We are pondering our next step.
bink and I intended to make a zine after the Mumps got started, but couldn't find an angle, right off. 
"Lets' take a humorous approach" we decided yesterday.

Engage in Tauntery

I learned about the Toy Protest on this TED Talk:
"The Power of Laughtivism" (below). 

The speaker is Srdja Popovic, best-known of the Serbian founders of the student movement Otpor! (Resistance! in English) that used irony and mockery to help bring down dictator Slobodan Milošević in 2000.
You might like it:

"Humor reduces fear", says Popovic, and irony and mockery were Otpor's main tools.
Humor shows up the Powers That Be, and it's hard for them to fight without looking ridiculous themselves.

One of Otpor's slogans was,
We want Serbia to be a normal country.
"It was silly because just wanting things to be normal was kind of outrageous," said another Otpor leader,  Ivan Marovic.

Training others was always part of their platform.
Popovic went on to write Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World.

Popovic also cofounded the pro-democracy consulting and training Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS). < link to Wikipedia

https://canvasopedia.org

One Toy Protests

Ideally a nonviolent resistance will coalesce here in my country, but even small, solitary actions have power.
After the toys were denied a permit to protest, the group said it would look for another way.

One possibility, said the activist Sergei Andreev, is a solitary picket,  allowed under Russian law to take place without permission from local authorities.

"We will stand up one [toy] and the rest will sit on a bench not far away."

____________

Don’t go down with the ship!

Music helps us stay afloat.

 
One of my favorite rousing songs, "The Mary Ellen Carter" by Canadian Stan Rogers--about the raising of an abandoned ship.

"And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow,
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go,
Turn to, and put-out all your strength of arm, and heart, and brain,
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again!"

Oh, you think that won’t work?

Anyone who says, “I’m powerless” or “Boycotts won't make any difference” has never met a bulldog.

Passive resistance has power.

These boots were made for walkin' . . .

Tra-la, tra-la... It's a Buy Nothing Day! in the USA.

I love this Economic Blackout for a lot of reasons.
Let us liberate ourselves from whatever is hurting us!

That's a tall order, eh?
But why not?
Let those chains drop like underpants whose elastic is shot.

["Elastic was truly was terrible in the 1940's because of war demands for rubber. Ladies had exit strategies for panties that just decided to fall off."]

You could knit your own. How baggy would those be in a minute?
Below: 1940's WW2 Service Panties and Bloomers Knitting Pattern (digital repro on Etsy)

It shows up how materialistic we are as a culture, if the very idea of going a measly 24 hours without buying something has power.
Like for me until 4 months ago, going 24 hours without sugar felt almost impossible.

One day is easy.
But also, Why not sacrifice a little?
Are we so fragile? Without inner resources?
So enslaved to ease?

Let us not quietly go as grist to the Mump Mill.
(Musk + Trump = Mump)

If you want to participate and do need to (or just want to) buy something today, spend $ cash at small, local businesses.
Say, your local thrift store!
___________

Often enough, we are the ones holding the chain that binds us.

For instance, I hear people say they don't give up Facebook even though they hate Mump because they like to keep in touch with x, y, z.. [cousins in Texas, reading group members, whatever].

Well, duh. OF COURSE. That's what ties you to it.
If you give it up, you make a sacrifice. 
Like, we only do things that are easy and pleasant?

And I hear people say, "Oh, I only check it once a day".

How do they not know this:
social media is like the metaphoric ants that the physical therapist said are working all the time to repair my injured ligament.
No matter what we are doing for 5 minutes a day,
THEY are working all 1,440 minutes, 24/7.

(Also--there's still the post office.)
________________

I was surprised that Tabitha Brown, a Black business-owner, said people shouldn't boycott Target because they carry her products, and those of other Black businesses, and it would hurt them.

Justice should require no sacrifice?
Wouldn't that be nice.
During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Black Americans walked, carpooled, rode bikes for the entire year of 1956 rather than ride the bus.

But also, Ms Brown, do you really think Target is your friend, and that if you call people off them, they will be loyal to you?

Let us identify the inconsistencies in this argument.

How has loyalty to Master worked out for people in history?
________________

The point is LIBERATION.

There must be fifty ways to get yourself free.

Some of them, UPCOMING:

Today's boycott is organized by a new organization, The People's Union USA.
More on them here, in Time magazine.

After the single-day spending pause, People’s Union plans week-long boycotts against specific retailers, including...
Amazon, March 7-14
Nestlé, March 21-28
Walmart, April 7-13.

Unrelated to P.U. and irregardless of Ms Brown, some Black faith leaders are calling for a 40-day “fast” or boycott of Target to protest the corporation dropping it DEI initiatives.
The fast will  start on Ash Wednesday, Mar. 5 and run the 40 days of Lent.
[via Forbes]

"Fasting is not just about what we abstain from—it is about what we embrace."
Supporters of Black and ally-owned brands sold at Target can buy directly from those businesses.

ABOVE: “Do Not Buy Where You Will Not Be Hired”   

From the papers of Floyd McKissick, a Black attorney who worked with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Durham, North Carolina in the early 1960s.
--Via.