Links – Branch and Root

 

Work

Amenda Clinic – see main page

Philosophy & Ethics

• An intro to Relational-Cultural Theory (an ethical/counseling orientation about Mutuality)
• High Conflict Institute – “We help professionals and individuals understand high conflict personalities in work and life, and we teach what works when ordinary skills and strategies break down.”
  • their podcast It’s All Your Fault – “Each week, Bill Eddy and Megan Hunter will be exploring the five types of people who can ruin your life — people with high conflict personalities — and how they weave themselves into our lives in romance, at work, next door, at school, places of worship, and just about everywhere, causing chaos, exhaustion, and dread for everyone else.”
  • and their books and posters, such as the book Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing [edit: or breaking up with] Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder 2nd edition (2021) or It’s All Your Fault! 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything (2009; I recommend the podcast for updated info)
• Resma Menakem – Embodied Anti-Racism
  • His books:
    • My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (2018)
    • The Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation’s Upheaval and Racial Reckoning (2022)
• ASDAH – Association for Size Diversity and Health
• Center for Body Trust – I am working my way through their “certification” (=curated good content, with community and feedback) for medical/mental health providers to be able to counter fat oppression and bias, and move in alignment with Fat Liberation, in the fields of medicine and therapy. They also have content and programs/guided explorations for people addressing their own experience with fat phobia and fat oppression.
• Nalgona Positivity Pride: great content, great merch! See Gloria Lucas speak if there is an opportunity!!!
• The Nap Ministry – follow them and give them money, and consider dismantling the productivity culture of white supremacist capitalism in your own life.
• The 1619 Project – we can only move towards our aspirations if we know where we actually are and where we actually came from
• Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle (note: because of editing and publishing and unconscious bias, this book is oriented towards White cis women even though it would like to be inclusive, and it focuses on stress/burnout/the moral injury of being raised femme in Western WASP culture, and doesn’t address trauma-response which is deeper than burnout and requires different strategies – which the authors acknowledge in their podcast)
  • and their limited run podcast companion to and expansion on the book Feminist Survival Project 2020
  • and their interview with Brené Brown if you like her
  • Fun fact: at the end of their podcast, and shortly afterwards, Amelia and then Emily discovered and received confirmation that they are autistic.

Pop Culture – Mostly Podcasts

Note: I try very hard to only listen to or watch media that is hosted by and/or features guests who are not ONLY hosted by US American cis hetero white male presenting. E.G. Black, Indigenous, People of Color, Queer people, Women and femme people…

Militant Decency, Relentless Compassion, Deep Well of Curiosity:

• Maintenance Phase – debunking “Wellness” and Diet Culture myths
• You’re Wrong About – debunking events in recent or further-back history that are profoundly misrepresented even though the evidence was right there in front of us the whole time; special focus on ’90s Women who were wronged, Moral Panics and Corporate Malfeasance
• You Are Good – A Feelings Podcast about Movies
• Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness – the podcast
• Ologies – “a comedic science show” where the host Alie Ward is excitedly curious about a broad range of science (but skip the Russel Barkley one; not great)
• By The Book Podcast… and, no joke, their facebook community! What?! I know! How do they manage to be this grounded and supportive in our modern age? And, do I only love them so much because they’ve actually quoted me a few times on their show? Nay, I say. I loved them before then.
  • PS they wrote a book: How To Be Fine: What We Learned from Living by the Rules of 50 Self-Help Books
  • and So You Want to Start a Podcast Finding Your Voice, Telling Your Story, and Building a Community That Will Listen

Psychology, Medicine, and maybe some acupuncture someday

• Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
• Where should we begin? with Esther Perel – sit in on relationship counseling with many diverse issues and no set “success”
• An Arm and a Leg – journalist dive into the US healthcare insurance system and how to survive it; has a mailing list called First Aid Kit; “A show about the cost of health care that’s more entertaining, empowering, and occasionally useful than enraging, and terrifying and depressing.”
• Period Power – which is about significantly more than menstruation: life coaching, autism, chronic illness/disability, parenting, and a whole bunch of other things.
• Just discovered The Neurodiversity Podcast with Emily Kircher-Morris and I like what I’m hearing so far.

History / “true crime” / Journalism deeper-dives:

• Now & Then – a throughline / historical context podcast hosted by Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman, history professors who link the events from the American Revolution and post-Civil War Reconstruction and the 70s-80s shift to Movement Conservatism (think: Reagan) to what is happening today, or “How can the past help inform today’s most pressing challenges? Every Tuesday, award-winning historians Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman use their encyclopedic knowledge of US history to bring the past to life. Together, they make sense of the week in news by discussing the people, ideas, and events that got us here today”
  Heather Cox Richardson writes a daily news + historical context newsletter: Letters from an American which I highly recommend and try to read daily.
  
• Throughline Podcast by NPR – extremely thoughtful and a rich soundscape to experience history
  “The past is never past. Every headline has a history. Join us every week as we go back in time to understand the present. These are stories you can feel and sounds you can see from the moments that shaped our world.”
• History is US with Eddie Glaude Jr. for a realistic look and also a hopeful future. “There will always be something distinct about our present day, yet history haunts. American democracy is at a crossroads, and we have to decide who we really are as a nation. This moment begs us all to look to our past to help understand our present, and to imagine a better future. In the aftermath of the carnage of the Civil War, the nation struggled to give shape to a country drenched in blood. In many ways, we are still fighting old battles and still trapped in assumptions that blocked the way to imagining a new America. Written and narrated by award-winning author and Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, Dr. Eddie S. Glaude, “History is US” is a 6-part audio documentary produced and developed by C13Originals that asks questions about who we are as a nation, and what race might reveal about our current crisis. Through the voices of distinguished historians and scholars, this limited series gives listeners the background and education to understand how we got here and how we can all use history to clarify the choices before us.
• American Hysteria – True Crime adjacent? a satellite to the You’re Wrong About • Maintenance Phase • You Are Good cinematic universe. So many different topics.
  
• This Is Love • This Is Criminal – each episode isn’t what you’d think, but is more human and more complex and more intriguing
• This is Critical with Virginia Heffernan as she is curious and enthusiastic about their topics. E.G. I enjoyed The Deeply Weird Mind of Elizabeth Holmes… and if you follow my interests above, you’ll probably get why (hint: HCP / Empathy-Challenged Non-Collaborative folks)

Supreme Court & Con Law analysis

• Strict Scrutiny (CW: Crooked Media ads are full of diet culture) – a podcast hosted by three women who are law professors and professionals
• 5-4 (Five to Four) – A podcast about how the Supreme Court Sucks, for when you really need a very snarky way to understand our political, social and civil rights… or what remains of them….
  
• What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law – Professor Elizabeth Joh (teaches Con Law) helps an anxious Roman Mars make sense of the maelstrom of news by teaching us all Constitutional Law. Intermittently released but is an excellent resource and I recommend for something to binge.
  

• Radiolab’s More Perfect – A series about how the Supreme Court got so supreme (and also the Constitution and Amendments)
• Allow Me To Retort – book by Elie Mystal (the legal consultant for More Perfect) book published March 2022
• This Land (again, CW: Crooked Media ads are full of diet culture) – Host Rebecca Nagle reports on how the far right is using Native children to attack American Indian tribes and advance a conservative agenda.

Economics and Politics

• The Purpose of Power – How We Come Together When We Fall Apart book by Alicia Garza – how to do Community Organization over the long haul, by one of the three founders of the Black Lives Matter movement.
  “In 2013, Alicia Garza wrote what she called “a love letter to Black people” on Facebook, in the aftermath of the acquittal of the man who murdered seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin. Garza wrote: Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter. With the speed and networking capacities of social media, #BlackLivesMatter became the hashtag heard ’round the world. But Garza knew even then that hashtags don’t start movements—people do. Long before #BlackLivesMatter became a rallying cry for this generation, Garza had spent the better part of two decades learning and unlearning some hard lessons about organizing. The lessons she offers are different from the “rules for radicals” that animated earlier generations of activists, and diverge from the charismatic, patriarchal model of the American civil rights movement. [emphasis Electra’s] She reflects instead on how making room amongst the woke for those who are still awakening can inspire and activate more people to fight for the world we all deserve. This is the story of one woman’s lessons through years of bringing people together to create change. Most of all, it is a new paradigm for change for a new generation of changemakers, from the mind and heart behind one of the most important movements of our time.
• Planet Money and The Indicator on NPR
• Marketplace for daily context, frequently featuring guest hosts
• This is Uncomfortable – Money and how it messes with us
• The NPR Politics Podcast especially Friday’s Round Table of Can’t Let Go
• Brian Lehrer Politics Podcast – the 20 min excerpt from his daily show; thoughtful conversation about the latest news and politics
• Think Out Loud – Oregon & Southern Washington context, for if you miss it broadcast on the radio or want to find segments to refer to later.
  
• Pod Save America (though I had to quit because the diet culture was pretty extreme, not just on the exceptionally long ad copy) – Three white male hosts, but one is queer, and the guests are usually interesting.

Wonder and Delight, and Humor, always about complexity

• 99% Invisible – look differently at the world around you.
  Or to quote Hannah Gadsby in Douglas, “This [gestures broadly and also specifically] was A DECISION!”
• Hannah Gadsby tours, and Netflix shows Nanette and Douglas. My role model. A master of comedy.
• The Guilty Feminist Podcast / Touring Live Shows – “We’re a supportive forum to discuss our noble goals as 21st century feminists and the hypocrisies and insecurities that undermine them.”
• all of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld canon (more Militant Decency and the ability to see things as they are, tolerate distress and complexity, and respond appropriately) and Good Omens with Neil Gaimon (and the TV show on Amazon Prime)
• YA books by Naomi Novik. Mostly I’ve re-read Spinning Silver at least three times.
• Romance (& a few Gothic and Thriller) Novels
  Note: I personally Cannot Handle (1) toxic masculinity and toxic monogamy (see pretty much all my curated lists above) and (2) horror, gothic, blood and gore; so none of these authors feature those elements unless noted.
  • Courtney Milan – a lovely romp, and a wonderful introduction into romance novels both historical and current. Starts off White British Hetero with a twist of brilliant scientific and savvy and neurodiverse/mentally ill characters, but moves into Black and Asian British/American during Victoriana/Industrial periods; and also has a contemporary (maybe 2015ish) Silicon Valley subseries, with more queer characters. This author has also been leading the way in protest about the lack of inclusion of writers of color in the publishing content.  And got dinosaur emoji added to your phone and computer.
  • Alyssa Cole – Black perspective, queer, neurodiverse, mental illness. Some amazing Royalty novels, fer sher!
  • Rose Lerner – I don’t know how Rose is so masterful about describing living with (or with someone who has) mental illness without ever naming them or turning them into tropes, stereotypes or caricatures… and the focus is also on the Jewish diaspora in Regency, Victoriana, and the US revolutionary war; queer culture; the realities of politics, fat phobia… You will feel Seen and you will see what you’ve never seen! She is moving from romance into gothic, so I may have to read her work sparingly and on special occasions with someone to hug.
    
  • Grace Burrows – very classically modern writer of White British Hetero historical fiction (and some American East Coast/British-Scottish contemporary); but what I like about her writing is that her experience as a farmer and family lawyer has brought forth this commitment to gentle human complexity without any “pure evil” “pure good” aspects. These books are so gentle that the heart-twinging palm-sweating face-fanning romance sneaks up on you. Also her canon is immense and it will take you some years to make your way through all the series.
  • Tessa Dare – just feminist, neurodiverse/weird, hilarious and delightful. Find the one where there’s swearing in Shakespeare. And the whole of Spindle Cove. Again, pretty much entirely White British Hetero Historical; but I myself am White, so what can I say? I wouldn’t blame you if you are kind of done with this genre, but if you can fit a little more in, or want to imagine the characters Not White, these are pretty fun.
  • Alisha Rai – I read these some years ago but remember them being riveting and delightful. Not White!  Contemporary, business/class/cross-racial, etc.
  • KJ Charles queer paranormal, gripping, sometimes a little scary and macabre/gory for me but so creative and intriguing.
  • Beverly Jenkins (although the intense masculinity / fiery femininity was sometimes more than I could get into). CLASSIC! I shamefully haven’t read her whole canon… yet.

More to come!