Circle Time // 7.16.26

Lessons from the garden, why we should *melt* ICE and cook off cyclospora, the movie that made me choke cry and laugh, and insights from non *boy-mom* boy moms.

I’ve been sharing my life on the internet publicly for 12 years now, which feels nuts, but as time has gone on and the landscape changed, especially with AI, along with my platforms and content reaching significantly more people, I’ve felt the natural pull to privatize certain areas of my life.

When it comes to my body’s health conditions, the little ins-and-outs of my life, or the subject of my main content these days around current events and sociopolitical commentary, I am an open book. These are not parts that feel like any bit of sacrifice to give away, they are parts I love sharing because I have seen over the years how it can help inform, inspire, and connect people. But when it comes to my inner world, my family, my mental health, and the like, I am decidedly selective about what I share. Especially as outspoken as I am politically, I feel no desire to volunteer up the parts that can remotely affect my circle’s safety.

Alls this to say, I’ve been a bit preoccupied behind the scenes on some family stuff that I’ve been helping orchestrate over the last several years that has finally paid off this week, relieving a huge burden. The emotional and logistical weight lifted is unreal with the impact it will have moving forward, and I’m just so glad for it. Funny how some of the more monumental or significant moments in a person’s life are best savored quietly, rather than splattered everywhere, especially in the age of the overshare.

Anywho, kicking off this week’s packed issue with that freer sense of being!

And some gardening joys / thoughts:

• Found this black swallowtail caterpillar on my dill that I decided to let flower and sacrifice to nature anyway, and I can’t wait to hopefully see it become the beautiful butterfly it evolves into! For my whole life, I’ve had a fear of bugs that I later realized with my AuDHD diagnosis that is largely because of my jumpiness and sensory issues with the prickly feelings of their legs / exoskeletons. I’ve learned so much about beneficial vs destructive and invasive pests because of gardening, and I’m trying via exposure therapy to get more acclimated to the garden crawlers but it’s still…very challenging. Ask J and Benny who occasionally hear a scream from the backyard, every day.

• Kale and sungold salad from the garden this week! I am simultaneously so grateful for having a garden during this cyclospora outbreak, but I also find myself frustrated at the commentary around “just grow your own food!” from some gardeners who are overlooking that gardening isn’t easy or accessible for everyone, nor is it easy to grow enough food to be a primary source for a whole family. That being said, I also appreciate the discourse reminding people that gardening is and should be accessible, at its core, and shouldn’t be reserved for the Instagram-perfect gardeners who can sometimes make it seem like you need a huge area to garden and all this equipment. Even starting with a couple small containers on a balcony, or some herbs indoors, and seed-sharing with local gardening groups all lower that barrier to entry!

• The handful of flowers I harvested this week: black knight / fata morgana / snowmaiden scabiosas, starflowers, lavender, queeny lime zinnias, benary white zinnias, and bachelors buttons.

A lot is happening, and we have a little bit of everything here today— here are some significant stories you don’t want to miss:

• PSA: More than 800 Canadian wildfires (many over native lands) are pushing hazardous smoke and AQI (air quality index) condition into the northeast region of the U.S. Where I am in NJ and in the NYC area, it is still murky yellow outdoors everywhere — key thing to note is if it smells campfire-like, you’re inhaling smoke particles.

  • Stay safe by: keep windows closed, turn recirculating AC on in your car, blast those air purifiers indoors (and change out the filter after the smoke lifts, ideally), and wear KN95 respirators if you have to be outdoors but try to avoid being outside if you can. More tips here.

  • It’s always a great idea to have KN95 masks on hand, for bad AQI days and for airborne viruses— y’all know my favorite daily masks are Kind masks, and you get 25% off with code MINNA25.

• Cyclospora is still on it’s ascent, with nearly 2000 confirmed cases (while reviewing over 5000 other suspected cases) and 141 people hospitalized right now. Michigan health officials are loosely connecting it to lettuce, but there is still no confirmed source of outbreak.

  • If you want to better understand the systematic events in agriculture that enable outbreaks of this scale to happen and continue happening, this is a great explainer. A suspected company, Taylor Farms, also is a massive monopoly on lettuce products with their salad kits that also sell under the label Earthbound Farm, and whitelabel for TJ’s and 365 Whole Foods. So when one company has these issues and this big of a monoply, bad things happen.

  • I covered the need to know basics in last week’s newsletter, and videos on recipes to cook your berries (+safety tips in caption) and why this is a historic outbreak. This is an excellent visual chart of varying risk in foods right now:

• South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham unexpectedly died earlier this week of an aortic dissection.

  • His sister, Darline Graham, a person with zero political experience, was appointed as his replacement for his Senate seat by SC Governor Henry McMaster, and sworn in.

  • What was going to be a nailbiter competition of a Senate race is really a chance to flip a Senate seat, with Annie Andrews— a wonderful Dem candidate, who is a currently practicing physician.

• ICE continues to be out of control and needs to be ab0lished.

  • Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed on the way to his work at a construction site in Houston through his window by ICE during a traffic stop operation, and it was confirmed that ICE was targeting someone else. He was a Mexican citizen and father, having been here for 35 years and very close to obtaining legal status with no criminal record and had a business building houses in Houston with several employees. President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has said she will request criminal charges in the US courts over the killing of three Mexican citizens by ICE thus far. Please watch this video of his son, Ronaldo, speaking about him. Ronaldo recognized that it was his father by not sight but by his voice, crying out for help.

  • Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 26 year old Colombian with legal status, was shot and killed by an ICE officer during a traffic stop. His 3-year-old daughter was in the car, as they handcuffed and removed his deceased body. Security footage and reports show that the car was still moving with his deceased body in the drivers seat, after multiple shots were fired through the car’s body. He worked two jobs to support his wife and his child.

• Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, started his confirmation hearings to become Attorney General (replacing Pam Bondi) yesterday. No one should want this, if they would like the DOJ to be an independent legal power, what it’s supposed to be.

  • Keep in mind that the AG would be a key role in further obstructing the full release of the Epstein files, that was already ordered by law and Congress.

  • via NPR: Blanche was also involved in creating the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund as part of a settlement with Trump to end his lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns— but after pushback, Blanche said part of the settlement that shields Trump, his family and his businesses from IRS audits of past tax returns remains in place.

• E. Jean Carroll has received $5.6 million in her sex abuse and defamation case against Donald Trump, who raped her and who was found to be guilty of it in a court of law. Read it again, that’s the current president!

• Said rapist also opened endangered wild habitats for drilling and mining, removing protections that have been there for decades.

• Congressman Ro Khanna was detained by settlers and IDF in the West Bank for about an hour. Here is his video recapping the experience.

• While asking Congress for more money for security detail, SCOTUS justice Amy Coney Barrett described the threats made against her and her family, saying she had to explain to her children why she was wearing a bulletproof vest. Interesting complaint for a person who voted to strike down limits on concealed carry in public.

• There’s a promising new diagnostic saliva test for endometriosis being trialed- it would test for markers for microRNAs indicating the presence of endo.