Singing, Dancing, Reading, Chili Fest, Fairy Fest and No Kings

On the last weekend in February, I was in downtown Ithaca on The Commons. It was sunny, 50 degrees. A generally a nice day to be outside. I did my usual lunch/check-in with Ben, dropped off library books, then joined the honk-and-wave protest on Seneca Street.

The two signs strung up across the street from Saturday’s honk-and-wave.

Ithaca’s Singing Resistance

A few minutes later, I met some friends; one, a well-known musician who told me about Singing Resistance, which I’d never heard of. Singing Resistance was started in January 2026. This is its description from Axios:

. . . a group called Singing Resistance has grown from a few hundred Minnesotans singing in streets to a rapidly expanding nationwide movement attracting thousands wanting to start their own group. . . Singing Resistance gathers outdoors or in church sanctuaries to peacefully perform songs with lyrics about hope, resisting against authoritarianism and opposing ICE.

One of their protest songs, which encourages ICE to quit their jobs -- “It’s Okay To Change Your Mind” went viral. Minnesota – specifically Minneapolis – has become the blueprint for resistance. Understand that before Trump’s second reign there were about 80 ICE agents in Minnesota; during Operation Metro Surge that number rose fifty times that to 4,000. Here’s more:

On January 23, 2026, in temperatures that dropped to twenty below zero, over fifty thousand people marched through downtown. (This was a week after Nicole Good was murdered, one day before Alex Pretti was murdered.) Seven hundred businesses closed in solidarity. Unions, faith leaders, community organizations, and ordinary people who had simply had enough created the first general strike in the United States in nearly 80 years. Solidarity actions spread to at least 300 cities.

The continuing protests, the death of American citizens and demands by Governor Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey resulted in a reduction of ICE agents to a mere 400. I’ve heard some people say protests aren’t meaningful and don’t lead to change. I’m not convinced.

Are there ICE agents in Ithaca? One man was arrested here over a year ago, and six men in nearby Newfield. So far that’s the known extent of ICE’s activities. If ICE is here, they’re in hiding. We don’t have the population that Minneapolis has (428,000 vs. 32,000) so we’re not a lucrative target. Still about fifty or so people showed up in Ithaca to sing together and say, This is where we stand.

The leaders of Ithaca’s Singing Resistance prepped us with the lyrics, and we sang, “It’s Okay to Change Your Mind,” and then we walked from West Seneca Street to The Commons’ center. More people joined in. A woman playing a flat drum strapped to her body kept the beat. We sang “We Get There Together” (Joshua Blaine) and “Sing Out/March On” (Joshuah Campbell) and other songs whose titles I didn’t catch.

Dancing, Book Banning, Lascivious Dancing and Chili Consumption

While no one has yet banned Singing Resistance (or called it a terrorist group) there is a book banning bill on the docket. Ron Charles, esteemed book critic (fired along with 300 other journalists during Jeff Bezos’ evisceration of The Washington Post) wrote in his substack:

Election denier Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) has introduced legislation to strip federal funds from public classrooms and school libraries that have books depicting or discussing “gender dysphoria or transgenderism.”. . . But beyond pursuing MAGA’s rabid obsession with transgender people, the legislation hopes to ban “sexually oriented material.” That would include literature that exposes people under 18 to “nude adults, individuals who are stripping, or lewd or lascivious dancing.”

Lascivious dancing. That would be dancing “filled with or showing sexual desire.” I’ve always thought of dancing as an expression of freedom, sometimes the freedom to show sexual desire. So who decides if dancing is lascivious, or an expression of happiness? An expression of love, or gratitude? The culture is ripe with dancing (movies, TV shows, videos) and it’s not all lascivious dancing. Some of it is. But isn’t it preferable for adolescents to talk about sex and lascivious dancing, rather than to pretend it doesn’t exist? Or pretend that humans exist only as two genders?

The legislation is called “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act.” H.R. 7661. You can look it up.

If you’ve never read about gay/lesbian/transgender/etc. people, or never came across them in your daily life, I expect they would not be real to you.

Maybe we should invite Mary, the bill’s author to Ithaca’s Chili Fest. Mike and I went, and as Mike tilted his head and examined the crowd (20,000 people attended!), he said, “Ithaca. All genders represented. All eleven.” Actually eleven is on the short side; a quick google search suggested that anywhere from 2 to 107 genders exist. Who knows? There might be more.

Everyone was getting along and having a good time. Everyone cared about the weather and chili. Gender was not an issue. Believe me.

This year the chili booths filled The Commons on March 7^th, another balmy Saturday, this one 65 degrees and also sunny. The double layers of clothes and thick coats? Gone! Two men with mics and a sound system were singing Journey’s “Separate Ways” at one end of The Commons.

Two men singing and having a blast at the Chili Fest.

The long lines in front of the chili booths were made up of students and locals, some couped up since December. They ventured out to feel the sun on their bare skin and rate the local chili. Forty ‘pots’ were represented. The winner was Bickering Twins whose chili was described as Beef and pork chili with cilantro, onion, and Mexican crema. So now you know where to go for a meaty chili next time you visit.

Book critic Ron Charles also pointed out that representative Mary Miller:

Speaking at a rally outside the Capitol in 2021, she observed, “Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’

Wow. Quoting Hitler. You have to wonder, so what kinds of books are on her shelf? But there’s more about H.R. 7661.

H.R. 7661 already has 17 Republican co-sponsors, including Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.), who has been accused of associating with White nationalists and once posted an anime video depicting himself killing a character with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s face.

Mike and I have a friend, C. (former colleague from work), nice guy in his 40s, very sweet and intelligent, whose politics deviate 180 degrees from ours. We met him for a beer a few weeks and he gave us his opinion on the Iran war. “The liberals don’t know how to use memes,” he said. “They take everything too seriously.”

Maybe. Still, it’s this administration that isn’t taking the Iran war seriously. According to an article from The Washington Post (some journalists did survive the purge) the administration:

They’re using this really stylized, hyped-up imagery to build up this aesthetic of bloodlust … and turn war and military matters into entertainment,” Stahl said. (Stahl is a professor at the University of Georgia). They’re giving Americans the “empathy-free … Hollywood, video game version of warfare” to distance the public “from the realities of what makes them uncomfortable.” . . . the administration may hope the provocative videos will rally Trump’s political base and obscure the human costs of a war led by the most powerful military on the planet, in which the lives of many soldiers and civilians remain at risk.”

A Beloved Banned Book

Back to H.R. 7661. The first book that I ever loved was The Catcher in the Rye. A banned book. Surprise! (I wrote about this novel before in an earlier substack.) According to an article in Forbes:

For many readers, the book is the epitome of a coming-of-age novel. But for others, it teeters on being inappropriate and subversive.. . . Critics condemned Salinger’s novel for its raw language, lewd references and a protagonist who seemed to glorify rebellion.

I wonder what the supporters of H.R. 7661 would think about this earth-shattering, adolescent find of mine?

J.D. Salinger’s book was published in 1951. Holden Caufield, the novel’s protagonist was 16; I was 17 when I read it. Caufield acknowledged the phoniness of adults, and that aspect of the novel has always stuck with me, and made the novel feel authentic.

I found the book on a rack near the librarian’s desk at Mt. Mercy High School, Buffalo, New York. The book was not shelved. You know you love a book when you remember where and when you first saw it. I don’t know why I selected that book except that it was sitting there in view and begging for someone to open it. After having read a book that actually meant something to me, I searched for others believing others existed. I found them. Even one banned book can make a big difference in a person’s life. My parents did not read much except for the Buffalo Evening News. During her coming-of-age years, my mom was a serial class-skipper. My dad was an engineer who loved growing vegetables and playing golf. Books did not interest them.

Next you know, they’ll be going after Ithaca’s Fairy Fest, which is coming up fast. There will be women in elaborate gowns, some giving out free poems because words are important. Words are sustenance. For many people, life is not all about money. No doubt some fathers will don flowered tiaras, and tiny girls will appear with wings. Maybe boys too, because wings are for everyone.

No flying experience necessary.

No Crowns, No Thrones, No Kings

And now we are in yet another war. This past weekend Trump’s been threatening newspapers (Wall Street Journal, New York Times) and other news services (CNN) who report the war but don’t “operate in the public interests.” He might be referring to the report of the Tomahawk missile that killed 168 school children in Iran. Or maybe this opinion piece by Lydia Polgreen “Trump’s Fantasy Is Crashing Down,” (New York Times) angered him. Here’s what she wrote:

In Donald Trump’s fantasy world, America is invincible and impregnable. . . It is unsettling how often Trump affects astonishing indifference, as though the most powerful man in the world were merely a spectator to events he himself has set in motion – and who in any case has little investment in the outcome. But that curious passivity reveals a darker truth. Trump seems to believe that he, like his fantasy America, exists on a different plane, utterly untouchable by the swirl of global events. The devasting consequences of his actions are not just someone else’s fault. They are someone else’s problem too.

Polgreen ends with:

If war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography, perhaps it will also serve as a lesson to Trump. It should be a simple one: Other places and other people are real, possessing their own agendas and agency – and America’s actions have consequences it cannot control. Anything else is pure fantasy.

There is another No Kings protest on March 28^th. There will be protests all over the country, and in other countries. Go here — No Kings — to find a nearby protest. Go while we still can voice our opinions. Remember Stephen Colbert and CBS? And three hundred journalists being cut from one newspaper is no small thing. Other journalists have been threatened and jailed. This is not to forget that over 245 journalists have been killed in Gaza.

According to the No Kings website:

. . . our history clearly shows that people-powered movements are how we end authoritarianism. . .Each time we show up, we disrupt President Trump’s attempts to rule through repression and remind the country, and the world, that people power is our path to a truly free America.

No experience needed to protest. You don’t have to sing in public or dress up as a fairy. Although I wouldn’t put it pass the Dinosaurs in Ithaca to come out of hibernation.

You don’t have to be a book reader. You don’t even have to carry a sign, you just have to be there because you believe in Democracy and the Constitution. You have to believe no one is above the law. You have to believe that bombing people in Iran is bombing real people there, and it’s costing real people here more than a billion dollars a day.

Mike and I will be in downtown Ithaca on the 28^th. You’ll know it’s us by the frogs with crowns perched on our hats.

Notes

How Minnesota’s Singing Resistance is expanding across the nation - Axios Twin Cities

‘It’s Okay to Change Your Mind’ meaning and lyrics

We Get There Together | Patreon

▶︎ Sing Out/March On | Joshuah Campbell

When is the Singing Resistance nationwide day of song?

ICE in Minnesota: From 4,000 agents to 400 | FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul

Christopher Armitage, The Regime Just Entered Its Most Dangerous Phase Welcome to the Autocratic Flood Zone

ICE Agents Carry Out Arrest in Ithaca - The Cornell Daily Sun

Text - H.R.7661 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Stop the Sexualization of Children Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

(100) Ten books banned for nudity - by Special to Planet Nude

21 Banned Books That Have Sparked Controversy In The U.S.

White House turns Iran strikes into meme war - The Washington Post

Opinion | Trump’s Fantasy Is Crashing Down - The New York Times