Nice Stuff 8

Announcing: my Garden Report column for Catskill Crew!! 🌱

Sandy Allen
August 05, 2025

Welcome to What’s Helping Today, a newsletter about the everyday work of staying alive on earth, written by author and journalist Sandy Ernest Allen.

Hi all,

Lots from me lately, I know. Listen the Brown events of last week and my resulting pieces … were very unanticipated, suffice to say. What I’m sharing with you today is less so.

I’m truly excited to announce I’ve got a new column in the Catskill Crew newsletter, a monthly Garden Report. If you’re a local you may already know the Catskill Crew, which I’ve recommended here before. It’s a newsletter I’ve followed from its earliest days and find quite useful, living here. Here’s today’s edition, with my first Garden Report:

Catskill Crew #068: Idaho Road Trip Adventures Unfold

Roadtrip adventures unfold as Catskill Crew hits the road, exploring Devils Tower and Cody's rodeo while navigating unexpected car troubles with humor and resilience.

catskillcrew.com/p/garden-report

A few other

Nice Things …

Well, the situation’s shitty but this cover is at least great:

Neat piece about death …

The Dearly Departed Are Getting Creative with Death | The Walrus

Goodbye, cremation and caskets; hello, human composting and aquamation

thewalrus.ca/death-disrupted

(For me, my will has me down to become potting soil, no joke. Could I be more on brand?)

Cool piece about a Two-Spirit Powwow:

A Visit to a Two-Spirit Powwow | The Tyee

‘It’s not only about us who are joining the circle today. It’s also about our ancestors.’

thetyee.ca/Culture/2025/07/18/Visit-Two-Spirit-Powwow/

Appreciated seeing this Marshall Project feature on the trans woman behind a famous (amongst lawyers) case:

In Prison, She Changed Constitutional Law. Meet the Trans Woman Behind the Case.

Farmer v. Brennan is one of the most cited Supreme Court cases of all time. Few people know just how revolutionary Dee Farmer was.

www.themarshallproject.org/2025/07/17/farmer-brennan-transgender-prisoner-supreme-court

And this story about an effort to save a Texas prairie:

The guerrilla campaign to save a Texas prairie from 'silent extinction'

"This is a war between us and the developers, and nobody’s calling uncle or throwing up white flags."

grist.org/solutions/the-guerilla-campaign-to-save-a-texas-prairie-from-silent-extinction

Also liked seeing this piece, about California’s native bees:

For farms struggling with commercial bee loss, California native plants and bees could be key

Research is showing that California native plants growing next to, say, avocado groves is good for the orchard and for all kinds of pollinators.

laist.com/news/climate-environment/california-native-plants-and-bees-farming

A good sort of story re: trans people and sports …

Trans fighters wrestle to take down discrimination in mainstream martial arts

As trans women are attacked for competing, advocates are working to build new spaces by and for trans people in the martial arts community

prismreports.org/2025/07/22/trans-fighters-take-down-discrimination-in-mainstream-martial-arts

Love to see this:

Zohran Mamdani Won, and 10,000 People Signed Up to Run for Office

Run for Something’s Amanda Litman says the mayoral hopeful is changing politics outside the city.

nymag.com/intelligencer/article/mamdani-won-and-10-000-people-signed-up-to-run-for-office.html

Love to see queer folks (in red states) helping one another out:

Queer Kentucky launches harm reduction lockers across the Bluegrass State - Queer Kentucky

Queer Kentucky is placing harm reduction lockers in businesses across the Bluegrass State.

queerkentucky.com/harm-reduction

Now, there’s a headline:

Helsinki goes a full year without a traffic death

A city traffic engineer credits the success to lower speed limits and smarter design.

yle.fi/a/74-20174831

New York City folks, here’s an awesome book drive you can support:

Our co-founder @prisonculture.bsky.social is also running a summer book drive to help support Bluestockings in keeping their doors open. 📚 Drop off or mail new or gently used social justice focused books! More details in the flyer.
— Interrupting Criminalization (@interruptcrim.bsky.social)2025-07-18T20:34:18.967Z

If you can, consider supporting an NPR station somewhere in need:

Adopt A Station - Rescue Public Media

Help preserve independent journalism and community programming across America by adopting a public media station. Congress has voted to rescind public media's funding.

adoptastation.org

Alright. Short one.

Here again is my first-ever Garden Report for the Catskill Crew. (Locals, consider subscribing, if you don’t already.) What’s Helping Today: I’m genuinely grateful to be writing this column and for this audience. Looking forward to finding out what this grows into …

Also helping today: Presently baking some bread for the first time in too long … Here’s a selfie I took yesterday, while I was mixing.

🌧️☀️🌱,
Sandy

p.s. ICYMI, here again were my latest: Yesterday’s op-ed for the Boston Globe about this Brown debacle and my personal essay about my time as a closeted student there, published over the weekend by Assigned Media. Thanks to everybody who’s read and shared these pieces. And thanks to all who’ve expressed support.

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