"Keep the boots on until next time..."

A Tuesday-morning open invite in this election countdown week

For the likes of WAPO CEO Jeff Bezos and the LA Times:

Graci Silva, 16, and her mother, Jennifer Bowman, 47, gave Charlotte Observer reporter Julia Coin a pair of boots to ride horses in Western North Carolina. The mud thrown across Appalachia was too deep to use the horses, but Jennifer told Julia to “keep the boots, until next time.” (Julia Coin)

Sure wish those and other tools like them were paying attention to what they’re supposed to be about. A great example is this kind of excellent, literal boots-on-the-ground journalism in remote post-Helene North Carolina. Note the key characters, both deeply MAGA-red & true-blue, in this well-done first-person story.

“Charlotte Observer journalist Julia Coin traveled alongside volunteers as they went into the North Carolina mountains near Spruce Pine to find people who needed help after Helene. Here are stories and photos about the people she encountered.”

‘Dig or donate’: What I found in the NC mountains after Helene wrecked Appalachia

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A more general keep-the-faith note to newShrink readers and friends, please vote as though it still matters.

And, that is all I have for now!.

🦋💙 tish

… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”

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