About Mary Turck
News Day, written by Mary Turck, analyzes, summarizes, links to, and comments on reports from news media around the world, with particular attention to immigration, education, and journalism. Fragments, also written by Mary Turck, has fiction, poetry and some creative non-fiction.
Mary Turck edited TC Daily Planet, www.tcdailyplanet.net, from 2007-2014, and edited the award-winning Connection to the Americas and AMERICAS.ORG, in its pre-2008 version. She is also a recovering attorney and the author of many books for young people (and a few for adults), mostly focusing on historical and social issues.
February 5, 2017 · 10:07 pm
Yeah, I know – financial regulations make your eyes glaze over. But really, the Turmp roll-backs are important. Here’s how a Facebook friend explained it:
“You know what Obama did? He shut the fox out of the henhouse. That was just stupid, you see, because the fox is actually good for the hens. And they like the fox. Because he’s a great fox, a magnificent fox, and he does great things for those hens. But I know how to fix this. So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do: I’m going to put the fox back in the henhouse, just like that. I’m going to make you hens pay for it, but you’ll thank me, because it’s going to be great having that fox in there, believe me.”
Continue reading →
February 4, 2017 · 12:29 pm
The Bowling Green Massacre has been voted the best lie of the week by near-universal Facebook acclamation. You don’t remember the massacre? Shame on you. On February 2, Kellyanne Conway defended Trump’s refugee ban by referring to the Bowling Green Massacre:
“Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered,” Conway said.
The Bowling Green massacre didn’t get covered because it didn’t happen. There has never been a terrorist attack in Bowling Green, Ky., carried out by Iraqi refugees or anyone else.
Continue reading →
February 4, 2017 · 11:09 am
Across the country, people are marching, calling, emailing, suing, resisting in every possible way. And it is working. Here are three ways to know that all the effort you/we are making DO HAVE AN IMPACT. We will not win easily. We will not win quickly. We will win ground one inch at a time, and the cost will be high, but we will win. So – testimony from Pennsylvania, a list of wins and partial wins, and Winona LaDuke on Native American resistance to pipelines. Continue reading →
February 2, 2017 · 9:28 pm
Eryn Wise, with her niece. Courtesy photo
“We are caretakers,” says Eryn Wise. “We are life givers. We are keepers and protectors of the sacred. I think women more than most people understand the connection to water. Simply because we are born from it and we carry it inside of us to give life to others.”
Women have stood at the center of the Standing Rock water protectors since the beginning. The water protectors began their first encampment, Sacred Stone Camp, on April 1, 2016, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. They insist that the pipeline violates indigenous and treaty rights, as well as endangers the drinking water of people who live on the reservation and millions more downstream. Continue reading →
Filed under gender, organizing, race, refugees
Tagged as #NoDAPL, Eryn Wise, Lakota, Minnesota Women's Press, Native American, organizing, Standing Rock, women
January 31, 2017 · 4:07 pm
On Monday morning, I engaged in one of those meaningless Facebook conversations with someone who had no interest in what I had to offer. She began by asserting as “fact” something that was total fantasy and ended by telling me “I don’t use ‘news’ sources any longer.” Unfortunately, she’s not alone – many people say they don’t trust or don’t follow the news. If you’re tempted to throw up your hands and give up on “the media,” let me begin by telling you that there is no such thing as “the media.” All kinds and stripes and shades of media compete to define and deliver “the news.” As news consumers, we must use tools of media literacy to figure out who and when and how much to believe, rather than just giving up. Continue reading →
January 29, 2017 · 12:21 pm
Sunday morning sermons: My farmer dad used to listen to the radio version of Sunday morning talk shows and then give the politicians a piece of his mind. We affectionately called his responses “Sunday morning sermons.” This blog post follows his example, reflecting on what I will do to resist this presidency, this fascist tendency in America, this awfulness without end. Every minute brings a new plea on social media: go here, protest there, call this Senator, email that legislator. I cannot do it all. No one can. So I try to find a balance: protests, writing, emails, reading and thinking, talking to people. If you are struggling with the same decisions, read on. Continue reading →
January 27, 2017 · 11:04 pm
Anne Frank – by unknown photographer, Collectie Anne Frank Stichting Amsterdam – Website Anne Frank Stichting, Amsterdam, Public Domain
January 27 was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. President Donald Trump marked it with a short statement and a long executive order. He forgot a few things: Continue reading →
January 27, 2017 · 10:12 pm
Photo by Fibonacci Blue. 2017-01-20 This is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
Trump justified today’s anti-refugee, anti-immigrant executive order by saying that he’s protecting and defending U.S. citizens from terrorism. His order targets refugees from anywhere in the world and all immigrants and non-immigrant visitors from the predominantly Muslim countries of Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Does he know that the last time a refugee killed someone in the United States in an act of terrorism was in the 1970s? That terrorist was a Cuban refugee. A Christian Cuban refugee. Continue reading →
January 26, 2017 · 9:33 pm
The numbers show that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, are actually less likely to commit crimes than citizens.I wrote this post on Immigration News back in November – and this week’s rabidly irresponsible Trump proclamations make it even more relevant. Continue reading →
January 26, 2017 · 4:06 pm
Let’s call a spade a spade, and admit that a lie is a lie. And this first week of Trump’s term has been filled with lies. The day after the inauguration, Trump sent his press secretary out to lie about the size of the crowds. The next day, special advisor Kellyanne Conway said those lies were just “alternative facts.” I’m a pretty good fact-checker but I can’t begin to keep up with the flood of presidential prevarications. So I’m offering up three big fat lies from the first week, and asking you, my loyal readers, to vote on your favorite. Heck, ask your friends to vote, too!
My nominees for the three biggest lies are: Continue reading →
Mary Turck