• Major Study Finds The US Is An Oligarchy, Business Insider

• Why White School Districts Have So Much More Money, NPR

• Otto Warmbier’s Parents Blame Kim for His Death, Defying Trump, National Review

• Read: Michael Cohen's opening statement to Congress, CNN

• HOW TO HAVE A “FEMINIST PREGNANCY”, Mother Mag

• The More I Learn About Breast Milk, the More Amazed I Am, The Stranger

• The Dark Reality of Being a Brand Influencer, Broadly

• The rise of the nano-influencer: how brands are turning to common people, The Guardian

• Dr. Seuss Books Can Be Racist, But Students Keep Reading Them, NPR

• I Didn’t Kill My Baby, NY Times

• CBD Is Everywhere, but Scientists Still Don’t Know Much About It, NY Times

• The Electoral College Is the Greatest Threat to Our Democracy, NY Times

• WATCH: These Doulas Are Delivering Support For Black Mothers | HuffPost

• New Survey Shows Americans Reject Democratic Radicalism on Abortion, The National Review

• Not ‘All Americans’ Are ‘Proud That We Have More Women in the Work Force Than Ever Before’, National Review

• Abortion Extremism Comes to Rhode Island, National Review

• Carrie Ann Lucas, Disability Rights Activist and Attorney, Dies Following Denial From Insurance Company, Rewire news

• Congress Is Complicit in Trump’s Power Grab, The national Review

• Reparations for Slavery: Just More Symbolism over Substance, National Review

• WATCH: Care of a Woman with an Epidural - 5 Rules for Good Support
  1. keep them moving - from side to side, kneeling over a birth ball
  2. keep them cool - turn on fan, mop brow, ice back - keep parts cool that aren’t numb
  3. keep them company - even if asleep, don’t leave
  4. keep them from pushing too early - wait until feels something, called “laboring down”
  5. skin to skin after birth

• WATCH: Scene From Penny Simkin's Comfort Measures - "The 3 Rs" & Slow Breathing
  3 characteristics in those who cope well: Relaxation: at least between contractions if not during Rhythm: breathing, moaning, swaying, stroking Ritual: repetition of same 1 activity 1 contraction to the other Slow Breathing: take long breath and hold it.
  
  Out breath is your relaxing breath. Release tension on every out breath. Sighing way through contraction – sigh of relief. Partner can count breaths for a minute (avg contraction; those in early labor will be shorter, those in late labor longer) to see how many breaths take when nice and relaxed. 9 breaths – half of avg breathing rate. Partner can mention to relax shoulders, jaw, forehead etc. Start using breathing when you can’t talk through contraction – when labor stops you in your tracks.

• Planned Parenthood to Lose Millions in Funding Under New Federal 'Gag Rule', Colorlines

• Trump Administration Blocks Funds for Planned Parenthood and Others Over Abortion Referrals, NY Times

• Illinois to Pass Laws to Give Women Better Access to Abortions, Colorlines

• She Was a Bag Lady to Most, until She Became the City’s Most Collected Artist, Messy nessy Chic

• Will Christians Get Over Their Opposition to Universal Child Care?, Sojourners

• The Biblical Values of Ocasio-Cortez's Democratic Socialism, Sojourners

• Finding Community During Pregnancy As A Black Non-Binary Femme, The Establishment

• 1,300 works of art create apartment masterpiece, University of Chicago News

• The Crime of Parenting While Poor, The New Republic

• The Democrats Stole the Green Party’s Best Idea, The New Republic

• “FAST FASHION” FURNITURE HAS GIVEN US A WORLD OF CRAPPY COUCHES , The Outline

• By Reconnecting With Soil, We Heal the Planet and Ourselves, Yes! Magazine

• The Dangerous Rise of the IUD as Poverty Cure, NY Times

• 2,000-year-old tattoo needle identified by archaeologists, Nat Geo

• ‘Executing Babies’: Here Are the Facts Behind Trump’s Misleading Abortion Tweet, NY Times

• Nine Takeaways from the Special Election for Public Advocate, City Limits
  

• It’s Not Just the Tampon Tax: Why Periods Are Political, NY Times

• A Republican with a real chance to win an NYC-wide office, NY POst

• A LIFE LESS ORDINARY, Porter

• Who is Nomiki Konst?, Politico

• WATCH: Second New York City Public Advocate Special Election Debate, NY1

• Best Kept Secret For Postpartum Depression? Help At Home, WBUR

• When Kids Realize Their Whole Life Is Already Online, The Atlantic

• A Court Battle Over a Dallas Toddler Could Decide the Future of Native American Law, The Atlantic

• MOM TALK: I DON’T HAVE KIDS, BUT I WILL LOVE YOURS, Mother Mag
  So lovely

• How to Talk to People, According to Terry Gross, NY Times

• Family Leave? It’s Looking Better Than Ever, NY Times

• Do You Want to Be Pregnant? It’s Not Always a Yes-or-No Answer, NY Times

• Among the Vitamin K ‘Anti-Vaxxers’, NY Review of Books

• Why the UK’s largest body of pediatricians will no longer take money from baby-formula companies, Quartz

• Sometimes, Parenting Is Boring, NY Times

• Teens Are Going Around Their Anti-Vaxxer Parents by Doing Their Own Research Online, GQ

• This 2-Year-Old Has a Better Art Career Than Most MFAs, The Cut

• New York Millionaires Tell Albany: Tax Us, Please, NY Times

• WHAT BRETT KAVANAUGH’S DISHONEST ANTI-ABORTION DISSENT REVEALS ABOUT HIS SUPREME COURT AGENDA, The Intercept

• Kindara: My First UX Case Study, Medium

I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.
- Paul Dirac

haven’t been reading so much lately because I’ve been concentrating on a full website and business plan for my birthwork.

• We Owe Everything to the Weird Early Web, AIGA Eye on Design

• Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Headquarters, NY Times

• Trump Plans National Emergency to Build Border Wall as Senate Passes Spending Bill, NY Times

• 4 Women on Their Abortions After 20 Weeks, The Cut

• Let Children Get Bored Again, NY Times

• The Bad News About Helicopter Parenting: It Works, NY Times

• This Controversial Company Wants To Disrupt The Birth World, Buzzfeed News

• Young People Really, Really Want a Green New Deal, The Nation

• Sandusky, Ohio, Makes Election Day A Paid Holiday — By Swapping Out Columbus Day, NPR

• I Served in Congress Longer Than Anyone. Here’s How to Fix It., The Atlantic

• Transcript: Trump’s State of the Union, Annotated, NY Times

• How Democrats Are Using Guests to Send Messages at the State of the Union, NY Times

• Transportation Emerges as Crucial to Escaping Poverty, NY Times

• Cuddle Cot gives parents of stillborn babies more time to grieve, Sacramento Bee

• London’s Surprisingly Rich History of Transit Textile Design, City Lab

• ASKING FOR A FRIEND: WHAT IF THE KIDS WALK IN DURING SEX?, Mother Mag

• How to Be More Empathetic, NY Times

• Raising Children Without the Concept of Sin, NY Times

• Cities Aren’t Built for Parents, The Atlantic

• NYC's Inaccessible Subway System Is a Reproductive Rights Issue, Broadly

• FAVORITES AT 25 MONTHS - ART SUPPLIES, the kavanaugh report

• LISTEN: The Room of Requirement, This American Life

• What Happened When a Trump Supporter Challenged Me About the Wall, Medium

• The Upper East Side Gets a Rap Tribute on SNL Thanks to Leslie Jones, NY Mag

• Period-Tracking Apps Are Monetizing Women’s Extremely Personal Data, Bloomberg

• New York passes Child Victims Act, allowing child sex abuse survivors to sue their abusers, CNN

• I Tried on 'Genderless' Clothes and Was Extremely Disappointed, Broadly

• A Priceless Archive of American Architecture Publishing, City Lab

• The ‘Marie Kondo Effect’ Comes at a Weird Time for Thrift Stores, City Lab

• A Bohemian’s Guide to Greenwich Village, New York, a Century Ago, Messy Nessy Chic

• These Macabre Guillotine Earrings Were All the Rage During France’s “Reign of Terror”, Cult of Weird

• New York’s Secret Caribbean Kingdom (and its Queen), Messy nessy Chic

• Haunting Remnants of a Former NYC Orphanage Revealed at Upper East Side Construction Site, Untapped Cities

• The Tiny Blond Bible Teacher Taking on the Evangelical Political Machine, The Atlantic

• The agony of ending a wanted late-term pregnancy: three women speak out, The Guardian

• All We Did Was Survive, Desiring God
  I feel down a rabbit hole

• AFTER BEING MISIDENTIFIED IN 'VOGUE,' MUSLIM JOURNALIST, ACTIVIST AND SPEAKER NOOR TAGOURI HAS A MESSAGE, Fashionista

• Anti-Abortion Movement Rebrands as 'Pro-Science,' Despite Existing Science, Broadly

• Has the Women's March Served Its Purpose?, Broadly

• I Failed the Covington Catholic Test, The Atlantic