Thank you very much for working on this. What a gift, for humanity as a whole. But particularly in contrast to the death dealing, destruction, and waste, fraud and abuse by the current regime, this stands in unbelievably stark contrast!
These are wonderful! And a great reminder of what we are in mortal danger of losing - indeed, I would argue that we are already in that process - if we don't organize and vote to oust this despicable regime.
In 1981 I was a student taking an infectious disease elective at the Washington Hospital Center and I remember how puzzled my attendings were when the first cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma and pneumocystis carinii presented, all rare at the time and usually seen in immunocompromised individuals. First called GRIDS ( gay related immunodeficient syndrome) and then AIDS. Reagan ignored the epidemic, never saying the name of the syndrome. Gallo and Fauci are true heroes in providing the necessary means for a treatment. By 1987 the Quilt was displayed on the mall ( even Reagan couldn’t stop it) and it was the most profound and moving exhibit I had ever seen. The love showed for those who had passed was not only a dedication to their friends and family but I’m convinced the Quilt changed the mood and attitude towards AIDS.
Oh yeah, I remember how the Reagan people were just gloating about this new disease that was striking down gay men. I was afraid at the time it was a deadly form of bacterial hepatitis that would be persistent in groundwater. In any case, the government response was less than nothing until it got into the general population. My mother got it from a transfusion of blood sold out of Haiti (that was a thing back then, especially in Florida).
There was a hemophiliac child in FL who contracted AIDS from one of those cut-rate transfusions, like 7 or 8 YO. His case broke the narrative about God's punishment for homosexuality. The hospitals were getting cheap blood and plasma from a fly-by-night outfit that was operating paid "donation" centers in Port-au-Prince. This during the early stages of the epidemic when the disease spread among gay men/hustlers in Haiti.
Such original, imaginative themes, ideas, speakers.
I was part of the first AIDS Vigil in San Francisco in 1985, when so many were falling. In 1984, virtually everyone I knew at the beginning of that year was dead by December. In 1996, I was privileged to be one of the “unfurler” volunteers who helped bring the complete Quilt to the National Mall in Washington. It was a humbling, poignant, but profoundly healing exercise in service. The best of America in thousands and thousands of creative ways, displayed from Congress to the Washington Monument showcasing sorrow right next to love.
Today, Trump has brought out the very worst of America to showcase greed and criminality. It is important to remember a time when that was not the case, so that we may one day very soon return to it.
It was sad and heartbreaking times for sure. I worked as a nurse in a doctor’s office in Santa Cruz, CA from 1987-1992. We witnessed countless of beautiful young men and some women perish before our eyes. It was deeply heartbreaking and I will never forget any of them especially my one patient and friend Larry, who always was kind and funny and often rubbed my pregnant belly as he was getting sicker and sicker, trying all the research medications back then. When my daughter finally arrived, I took my infant to see him. He was able to hold her for a few precious moments as he lay dying in the hospital. I can still see that memory very clearly in my mind. He was so thrilled and happy holding her. 😌Larry died soon after. I was honored to sign his quilt when his family brought to us. It went on to DC. His daughter went on to educate people all over the US as a speaker to end the stigma that HIV and AIDS brought on. I will never forget. 😌💔 I am a Nurse Practitioner now and always think of all those that died and how they would have benefited from PrEP and ART combination meds that we have today. 😔
Yesterday, after a federal judge ordered that Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Trump declared that he had no further interest in supporting the Kennedy Center, declaring “Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of, much as I have done, in many cases, throughout my life.”
Well, let’s take a look at what Trump has done for the arts throughout his life.
Yes, he and the Trump Foundation have made donations to such organizations as the Met Opera and the Kravis Center, but the pattern was often consistent with his attendance at events—buying a table, ticket, or seat—rather than sustained large-scale arts philanthropy.
There were also controversial “art” transactions through the Trump Foundation. The Washington Post found that this foundation’s money was used to buy portraits of Trump himself, including a $20,000 portrait purchased at a Mar-a-Lago charity auction. That is not arts patronage in the usual civic sense; it was criticized as possible self-dealing and became part of the broader controversy over the foundation.
A more recent private/political contribution was the $650,000 Save America PAC contribution to the Smithsonian/National Portrait Gallery to help fund portraits of Donald and Melania Trump. Yes, it supported an arts institution, but it was directed toward portraits of the Trumps themselves and came from a political PAC, not a personal check.
In Trump’s first presidential term, he repeatedly proposed eliminating federal arts agencies. As President, he repeatedly proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities. His FY2018 budget proposed terminating NEA funding; similar proposals recurred in later budgets.Congress did not accept those eliminations. In fact, NEA appropriations rose during the period: from about $149.8 million in 2017 to $162.25 million in 2020, according to the NEA’s own appropriations history. That means Trump’s proposals were anti-NEA, but the enacted appropriations were preserved or increased by Congress.
In Trump’s second presidential term, there was more direct cultural intervention. In 2025, Trump again proposed eliminating the NEA, NEH, and other cultural institutions in his FY2026 budget. Reports also described grant cancellations and redirection of arts funding priorities toward administration-favored themes such as national heritage, the 250th anniversary, and similar projects. He also targeted the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an agency that supports museums and libraries. His March 2025 executive order directed reductions in federal bureaucracy, and reporting described a major downsizing of IMLS staff and functions; courts later blocked key parts of the effort.
In summary, in Trump’s private capacity, he has made or directed some arts-related donations, but the record does not resemble that of a major sustained arts patron; much of it appears tied to attendance, social standing, institutional naming, or his own image. In his public capacity, his record is far clearer: he has repeatedly sought to eliminate or sharply reduce federal support for the NEA, NEH, IMLS, public broadcasting, and related cultural institutions, while also trying to reshape cultural institutions ideologically, especially the Smithsonian and Kennedy Center. Congress and the courts have often limited those efforts.
The bottom line is that Trump is not a supporter of the arts; he is only a supporter of himself. And unless some pursuit of his promotes his self-image, his pockets, his power, or his glory, he’s not interested. This is why he’ll never make a decision before posing that all important question to himself: “What’s in it for me?”
Without his name dominating over the Kennedy Center, there was no longer anything in it for him.
Trump believes that Galileo got it all wrong. The world does not revolve around the sun. It revolves around Donald Trump
trump represents ALL the people, who live ONLY and ALWAYS by trump's OWN mantra...as you say..
"What's in it for me?"
ALL the very people who live in fear and distrust and therefore.. anger and rage all day long. Frightened people. trump IS a very frightened man.
Many conspiracy theorists live like that, too, and THEY follow trump because they are SO alike.
It's sad, exhausting and overwhelmingly unproductive to live like that. I pity their lives. I don't know what that's like, but it seems to be exhausting..and though I feel sorry for them...I cannot change them. That's their job.
REAL COURAGE is about being afraid of something but doing it anyway.
WE ALL NEED REAL COURAGE NOW MORE THAN EVER BEFORE...
That tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, petty, pissy little whinybitch of a man knows nothing about art, culture, transcendence or culture. I hope to live long enough to see everyone if his ghastly shitcreations blown up on live TV.
The next president is apparently free to alter or eliminate any of the peoples' properties and institutions on a whim by way of an "emergency" inflated no-bid contract and with no oversight.
Heather, your project does something the daily news rarely has room to do: it restores a sense of American agency. The stories of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the Erie Canal, Yellowstone, and the Constitutional Convention are different in scale, but each shows people taking responsibility for the country they inherited.
Not fair. Djt takes responsibility for illegally deporting hispanic Americans and separating parents from children. He deserves something for that. I dont know. Exile to pago pago? He likes Greenland. And orange goes with green.
Thank you for posting a round-up of the videos -- I hadn't seen any of them on what little social media I follow (I generally have video content completely suppressed on Facebook because so much of it is rage-bait or just plain drivel!).
I will look forward to this round-up each week now!
These videos are so great. Senator Smith changed the armed forces forever. There are a dozen offshoot stories about women in the military during and after WWII that I hope to spend some time covering/photographing.
look forward to all. A tiny bit of history in my husband’s family, on his mother’s side. Some came the US before it was a country. They go back to the Mayflower Society.
This is great. I am so despondent and do not want to celebrate 250 as retribution to the orange mussolini but realize that is the point. I will celebrate your missives. I moved to Philly in 1987 during the celebration of the anniversary of the signing of the constitution. My luxury renovation apartment was not ready and the treacherous land lord was no help. That constitution event went outwardly unnoticed but boy howdy, there were plenty of people in town to honor the celebration. Needed a hotel, had to go to NJ to some truck driver dive place. Usually people disappear in the potholes in philly but I was largely at risk for disappearing in Joisey. This south GA girl grew up a lot with that move :). F* ‘em. I’m still here enjoying a gorgeous day on the porch - like southerners do!
Thanks for the weekly summary. I don't do any of the usual social media, and didn't realize it was happening elsewhere besides "Letters". I'm subscribed now.
Thank you very much for working on this. What a gift, for humanity as a whole. But particularly in contrast to the death dealing, destruction, and waste, fraud and abuse by the current regime, this stands in unbelievably stark contrast!
These are wonderful! And a great reminder of what we are in mortal danger of losing - indeed, I would argue that we are already in that process - if we don't organize and vote to oust this despicable regime.
Thank you for articulating what I’ve been feeling in my heart.
What an amazing gift. Thank you again and again and then again.
And thanks also to those who wrote the scripts! Not an easy task to say so much in about one minute.
In 1981 I was a student taking an infectious disease elective at the Washington Hospital Center and I remember how puzzled my attendings were when the first cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma and pneumocystis carinii presented, all rare at the time and usually seen in immunocompromised individuals. First called GRIDS ( gay related immunodeficient syndrome) and then AIDS. Reagan ignored the epidemic, never saying the name of the syndrome. Gallo and Fauci are true heroes in providing the necessary means for a treatment. By 1987 the Quilt was displayed on the mall ( even Reagan couldn’t stop it) and it was the most profound and moving exhibit I had ever seen. The love showed for those who had passed was not only a dedication to their friends and family but I’m convinced the Quilt changed the mood and attitude towards AIDS.
Oh yeah, I remember how the Reagan people were just gloating about this new disease that was striking down gay men. I was afraid at the time it was a deadly form of bacterial hepatitis that would be persistent in groundwater. In any case, the government response was less than nothing until it got into the general population. My mother got it from a transfusion of blood sold out of Haiti (that was a thing back then, especially in Florida).
Tennis legend Arthur Ashe came down w/it from a transfusion which helped spur the testing of banked blood.
There was a hemophiliac child in FL who contracted AIDS from one of those cut-rate transfusions, like 7 or 8 YO. His case broke the narrative about God's punishment for homosexuality. The hospitals were getting cheap blood and plasma from a fly-by-night outfit that was operating paid "donation" centers in Port-au-Prince. This during the early stages of the epidemic when the disease spread among gay men/hustlers in Haiti.
Thank you for the round up as I have missed several.
I so enjoy the 250 Project concept and execution. What a wonderful
reminder of all that our country has been and can be.
Such original, imaginative themes, ideas, speakers.
I was part of the first AIDS Vigil in San Francisco in 1985, when so many were falling. In 1984, virtually everyone I knew at the beginning of that year was dead by December. In 1996, I was privileged to be one of the “unfurler” volunteers who helped bring the complete Quilt to the National Mall in Washington. It was a humbling, poignant, but profoundly healing exercise in service. The best of America in thousands and thousands of creative ways, displayed from Congress to the Washington Monument showcasing sorrow right next to love.
Today, Trump has brought out the very worst of America to showcase greed and criminality. It is important to remember a time when that was not the case, so that we may one day very soon return to it.
It was sad and heartbreaking times for sure. I worked as a nurse in a doctor’s office in Santa Cruz, CA from 1987-1992. We witnessed countless of beautiful young men and some women perish before our eyes. It was deeply heartbreaking and I will never forget any of them especially my one patient and friend Larry, who always was kind and funny and often rubbed my pregnant belly as he was getting sicker and sicker, trying all the research medications back then. When my daughter finally arrived, I took my infant to see him. He was able to hold her for a few precious moments as he lay dying in the hospital. I can still see that memory very clearly in my mind. He was so thrilled and happy holding her. 😌Larry died soon after. I was honored to sign his quilt when his family brought to us. It went on to DC. His daughter went on to educate people all over the US as a speaker to end the stigma that HIV and AIDS brought on. I will never forget. 😌💔 I am a Nurse Practitioner now and always think of all those that died and how they would have benefited from PrEP and ART combination meds that we have today. 😔
I agree - having the roundup ensures I don’t miss any!
Trump Confirms His Mantra: “What’s In It for Me?”
Yesterday, after a federal judge ordered that Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Trump declared that he had no further interest in supporting the Kennedy Center, declaring “Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of, much as I have done, in many cases, throughout my life.”
Well, let’s take a look at what Trump has done for the arts throughout his life.
Yes, he and the Trump Foundation have made donations to such organizations as the Met Opera and the Kravis Center, but the pattern was often consistent with his attendance at events—buying a table, ticket, or seat—rather than sustained large-scale arts philanthropy.
There were also controversial “art” transactions through the Trump Foundation. The Washington Post found that this foundation’s money was used to buy portraits of Trump himself, including a $20,000 portrait purchased at a Mar-a-Lago charity auction. That is not arts patronage in the usual civic sense; it was criticized as possible self-dealing and became part of the broader controversy over the foundation.
A more recent private/political contribution was the $650,000 Save America PAC contribution to the Smithsonian/National Portrait Gallery to help fund portraits of Donald and Melania Trump. Yes, it supported an arts institution, but it was directed toward portraits of the Trumps themselves and came from a political PAC, not a personal check.
In Trump’s first presidential term, he repeatedly proposed eliminating federal arts agencies. As President, he repeatedly proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities. His FY2018 budget proposed terminating NEA funding; similar proposals recurred in later budgets.Congress did not accept those eliminations. In fact, NEA appropriations rose during the period: from about $149.8 million in 2017 to $162.25 million in 2020, according to the NEA’s own appropriations history. That means Trump’s proposals were anti-NEA, but the enacted appropriations were preserved or increased by Congress.
In Trump’s second presidential term, there was more direct cultural intervention. In 2025, Trump again proposed eliminating the NEA, NEH, and other cultural institutions in his FY2026 budget. Reports also described grant cancellations and redirection of arts funding priorities toward administration-favored themes such as national heritage, the 250th anniversary, and similar projects. He also targeted the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an agency that supports museums and libraries. His March 2025 executive order directed reductions in federal bureaucracy, and reporting described a major downsizing of IMLS staff and functions; courts later blocked key parts of the effort.
In summary, in Trump’s private capacity, he has made or directed some arts-related donations, but the record does not resemble that of a major sustained arts patron; much of it appears tied to attendance, social standing, institutional naming, or his own image. In his public capacity, his record is far clearer: he has repeatedly sought to eliminate or sharply reduce federal support for the NEA, NEH, IMLS, public broadcasting, and related cultural institutions, while also trying to reshape cultural institutions ideologically, especially the Smithsonian and Kennedy Center. Congress and the courts have often limited those efforts.
The bottom line is that Trump is not a supporter of the arts; he is only a supporter of himself. And unless some pursuit of his promotes his self-image, his pockets, his power, or his glory, he’s not interested. This is why he’ll never make a decision before posing that all important question to himself: “What’s in it for me?”
Without his name dominating over the Kennedy Center, there was no longer anything in it for him.
Trump believes that Galileo got it all wrong. The world does not revolve around the sun. It revolves around Donald Trump
EXCELLENT, L.D. Micheals!
EVERY word of this! 👆👆👆👆👆👆
trump represents ALL the people, who live ONLY and ALWAYS by trump's OWN mantra...as you say..
"What's in it for me?"
ALL the very people who live in fear and distrust and therefore.. anger and rage all day long. Frightened people. trump IS a very frightened man.
Many conspiracy theorists live like that, too, and THEY follow trump because they are SO alike.
It's sad, exhausting and overwhelmingly unproductive to live like that. I pity their lives. I don't know what that's like, but it seems to be exhausting..and though I feel sorry for them...I cannot change them. That's their job.
REAL COURAGE is about being afraid of something but doing it anyway.
WE ALL NEED REAL COURAGE NOW MORE THAN EVER BEFORE...
And so do our politicians!
WE ARE NOT INTIMIDATED!!
WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER!!
Thanks Sky Blue.
That tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, petty, pissy little whinybitch of a man knows nothing about art, culture, transcendence or culture. I hope to live long enough to see everyone if his ghastly shitcreations blown up on live TV.
The precedent for it has been set.
The next president is apparently free to alter or eliminate any of the peoples' properties and institutions on a whim by way of an "emergency" inflated no-bid contract and with no oversight.
So be it. "Make it so."
Thanks for this useful summary.
Thanks James.
Well done! I hope you will repost this across all social media: many Americans still respect facts as an antidote to tRump's lies.
Thanks Jeff. I don't have access to that kind of network but will invite anyone else to do so.
I will share it on bsky. Thank you for posting it here!
Heather, your project does something the daily news rarely has room to do: it restores a sense of American agency. The stories of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the Erie Canal, Yellowstone, and the Constitutional Convention are different in scale, but each shows people taking responsibility for the country they inherited.
And trying to make it better, not just "conserve" it.
Indeed, I should have emphasized that as well
Not fair. Djt takes responsibility for illegally deporting hispanic Americans and separating parents from children. He deserves something for that. I dont know. Exile to pago pago? He likes Greenland. And orange goes with green.
Absolutely wonderful - the whole project, and each individual video!
Sharing all over the place!
Thanks to all involved.
Thank you for posting a round-up of the videos -- I hadn't seen any of them on what little social media I follow (I generally have video content completely suppressed on Facebook because so much of it is rage-bait or just plain drivel!).
I will look forward to this round-up each week now!
This, exactly.
These videos are so great. Senator Smith changed the armed forces forever. There are a dozen offshoot stories about women in the military during and after WWII that I hope to spend some time covering/photographing.
Thank you to Heather and all involved. It’s an amazing project and gift to all of us!
These are awesome. Thanks to you and everyone who participated.
I made on of those blocks for a dear friend who passed and several other friends took it to Washington. I have photos and many memories.
look forward to all. A tiny bit of history in my husband’s family, on his mother’s side. Some came the US before it was a country. They go back to the Mayflower Society.
Thanks for doing these; they are powerful reminders of why we need to continue to value our freedom and support our democracy.
Sort of a reminder that Americans should study history. Not just marketing
This is great. I am so despondent and do not want to celebrate 250 as retribution to the orange mussolini but realize that is the point. I will celebrate your missives. I moved to Philly in 1987 during the celebration of the anniversary of the signing of the constitution. My luxury renovation apartment was not ready and the treacherous land lord was no help. That constitution event went outwardly unnoticed but boy howdy, there were plenty of people in town to honor the celebration. Needed a hotel, had to go to NJ to some truck driver dive place. Usually people disappear in the potholes in philly but I was largely at risk for disappearing in Joisey. This south GA girl grew up a lot with that move :). F* ‘em. I’m still here enjoying a gorgeous day on the porch - like southerners do!
Thanks for the weekly summary. I don't do any of the usual social media, and didn't realize it was happening elsewhere besides "Letters". I'm subscribed now.