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Meryl Ann Butler is an artist, author, educator and OpedNews Managing Editor who has been actively engaged in utilizing the arts as stepping-stones toward joy-filled wellbeing since she was a hippie. She began writing for OpEdNews in Feb, 2004. She became a Senior Editor in August 2012 and Managing Editor in January, 2013. In June, 2015, the combined views on her articles, diaries and quick link contributions topped one million. She was particularly happy that her article about Bree Newsome removing the Confederate flag was the one that put her past the million mark. Her art in a wide variety of media can be seen on her YouTube video, "Visionary Artist Meryl Ann Butler on Creativity and Joy" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcGs2r_66QE A NYC native, her response to 9-11 was to pen an invitation to healing through creativity, entitled, "90-Minute Quilts: 15+ Projects You Can Stitch in an Afternoon" (Krause 2006), which is a bestseller in the craft field. The sequel, MORE 90-Minute Quilts: 20+ Quick and Easy Projects With Triangles and Squares was released in April, 2011. Her popular video, How to Stitch a Quilt in 90 Minutes with Meryl Ann Butler can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrShGOQaJQ8 She has been active in a number of international, arts-related projects as a citizen diplomat, and was arts advisor to Baltimore's CIUSSR (Center for Improving US-Soviet Relations), 1987-89. She made two trips to the former USSR in 1987 and 1988 to speak to artists, craftpeople and fashion designers on the topic of utilizing the arts as a tool for global wellbeing. She created the historical "First US-Soviet Children's Peace Quilt Exchange Project" in 1987-88, which was the first time a reciprocal quilt was given to the US from the former USSR. Her artwork is in collections across the globe. Meryl Ann is a founding member of The Labyrinth Society and has been building labyrinths since 1992. She publishes an annual article about the topic on OpEdNews on World Labyrinth Day, the first Saturday in May. OpEdNews Senior Editor Joan Brunwasser interviewed Meryl Ann in "Beyond Surviving: How to Thrive in Challenging Times" at https://www.opednews.com/articles/Beyond-Surviving--How-to-by-Joan-Brunwasser-Anxiety_Appreciation_Coronavirus_Creativity-200318-988.html Find out more about Meryl Ann's artistic life in "OEN Managing Ed, Meryl Ann Butler, Featured on the Other Side of the Byline" at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/OEN-Managing-Ed-Meryl-Ann-in-Life_Arts-Artistic_Artists_Quilt-170917-615.html On Feb 11, 2017, Senior Editor Joan Brunwasser interviewed Meryl Ann in Pink Power: Sister March, Norfolk, VA at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Pink-Power-Sister-March--by-Joan-Brunwasser-p*ssy-Hats-170212-681.html "Creativity and Healing: The Work of Meryl Ann Butler" by Burl Hall is at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Creativity-and-Healing--T-by-Burl-Hall-130414-18.html Burl and Merry Hall interviewed Meryl Ann on their BlogTalk radio show, "Envision This," at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/envision-this/2013/04/11/meryl-ann-butler-art-as-a-medicine-for-the-soul Archived articles www.opednews.com/author/author1820.html Older archived articles, from before May 2005 are here. OpEd News Member for 984 week(s) and 3 day(s) 970 Articles, 2389 Quick Links, 7052 Comments, 8 Diaries, 105 Series, 0 Polls
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Thursday, April 10, 2025
Japanese American National Museum Stands Up for DEI SHARE 
The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) made headlines last week after the board chairman Bill Fujioka told the Los Angeles Times that JANM would continue to embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the face of widespread federal funding cuts and pressures. “Our community is based on diversity, equity is guaranteed to us in the Constitution, and inclusion is what we believe in, Fujioka told the LA Times. The museum received notice on Friday that its $190,000 NEH grant to hold workshops on the history of the Little Tokyo neighborhood had been terminated “due to a change in the administration funding priorities." The institution said it would continue to embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion in the face of widespread government funding cuts and pressures. An anonymous donor has since contributed enough to replace costs for the workshop.
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
The No-BS Protest Art of the Anti-Trump Marches SHARE
In nationwide demonstrations on April 5, protesters opted for cheekier and more artistically inclined messaging than the previous "Dump Trump" campaign of 2016.
It was a massive show of anti-Trump, anti-Musk, anti-fascist mobilization filled with art and signage that was critical, cheeky, and decidedly no-bullshit.
Artistically inclined protesters came out in force with hand-made placards, elaborate illustrations, and in-your-face effigies targeting everything from Trump's cruel immigration crackdown to DOGE's attacks on arts and culture funding.
In DC, one marcher held up a painted canvas portraying Luigi Mangione slaying Goliath; in Manhattan, images drew parallels between Trump's ascent and the rise of authoritarianism throughout history.
Here are the cheekiest, most brazen, chef-kiss-meriting signs we saw at this weekend's protests, captured by Hyperallergic and others:
Monday, March 3, 2025
Trump's treatment of Zelensky filled him with 'horror'--Poland's former Pres. Walesa SHARE
Poland's democracy hero, former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Lech Walesa, and dozens of other former political prisoners in Poland have written a letter to Pres. Trump, telling him that his treatment of Ukrain's Pres. Zelinskyy at the Oval Office last week filled them with horror and distaste. Walesa posted the letter on Facebook on along with a photograph of himself with Trump. It was signed by himself and 38 other former democracy activists who were imprisoned by Poland's Moscow-backed communist regime before 1989. We were also terrified by the fact that the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation reminded us of the one we remember well from interrogations by the Security Service and from the courtrooms in communist courts, ey wrote.
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Donald Trump Revives Hitler's "Degenerate Art" SHARE
The presidential obsession with cultural control is evidence of a continued fascist creep and not just another joke exercise in narcissism. For example the National Endowment for the Arts updated grant policies to eliminate funding for anything interpreted as related to Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) while prioritizing propagandistic projects that celebrate the semiquincentennial of the US. Most galling in an unhinged Truth Social rant Trump purged the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts installing himself as the chair while extolling his Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Cultureon the same social media site. He barked: NO MORE DRAG SHOWS OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ONLY THE BEST. RIC WELCOME TO SHOW BUSINESS!
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Art Museum Exhibition Axed by Trump DEI Crackdown SHARE
The Art Museum of the Americas in Wash, DC, has terminated an exhibition of works by Afro-Latino, Caribbean, and African American artists after the Trump administration allegedly withdrew the show's funding amid crackdowns on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. Before The Americas, curated by Cheryl D. Edwards and four years in the making, was slated to open on March 21 and set to include 40 works exploring migration, colonial challenges, and interconnectivity in the African diaspora in the Americas. The Trump administration labeled the exhibition as a DEI program and event and withdrew funding for the show which had been earmarked by the Biden administration.
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Saturday, February 22, 2025
Trump Was Recruited in 1987 by the KGB, Former Soviet Spy Chief Claims SHARE
A former senior Soviet KGB spy chief has claimed that Donald Trump was recruited as a spy by Russian intelligence 38 years ago.
Russia’s KGB was the main security agency of the Soviet Union between 1954 to 1991, responsible for internal security, foreign intelligence, counterintelligence and secret police functions.
In an extraordinary post on Facebook on 20 February, Alnur Mussayev claimed that he was personally aware of Trump’s recruitment by the agency in 1987. “... I served in the 6th Directorate of the KGB of the USSR in Moscow. The most important area of work of the 6th Directorate was the recruitment of businessmen from capitalist countriesâ€, wrote Mussayev in a Russian language post on Facebook. “It was that year that our Office recruited 40-year-old businessman from the U.S., Donald Trump, under the pseudonym ‘Krasnov’â€.
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
No One Knows How This Will End (But I Do Not Think It Will End Well for Them)- Rebecca Solnit SHARE
Rebecca Solnit: I can sum up the Trump/Musk/Vance theory of power in five words: "We have power; you don't."...They seem to believe that nothing is really connected to anything else and nothing should be. This is why they're hacking away at the US government and international alliances and good relationships with everything and everyone from the European Union to Canada and Mexico to a whole lot of the American people....These three horsemen of the MAGA-tech-bro apocalypse are in the position of penthouse dwellers who think their top floor apartment doesn't rest on all the floors underneath. Trump just tweeted a quote from Napoleon, "He who saves his country violates no law,"...but Napoleon didn't end his career as an emperor. He ended it as a prisoner.
Friday, February 14, 2025
'Highway robbery': Trump Seizes FEMA funds Directly Out of NYC Bank Account SHARE
The Trump admin has clawed back $80 million that the federal government paid NYC to provide shelter in hotels for migrants, prompting outrage from local officials who say they may be forced to cut programs to make up for the loss. NYC Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander said the abrupt decision was an illegal diversion by the Musk-led Dept of Govt Efficiency of money used to house asylum-seekers admitted to the U.S. under Pres. Biden. “We can’t recover money we already spent on shelter and services for asylum seekers, so it would require cutting $80 million of some other city expenses,” Lander said. FEMA suspended the payments, which had been appropriated by Congress to the city to house migrants. Four FEMA employees, including the agency’s chief financial officer, were fired Tuesday as part of the new administration’s shakeup of the government.
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Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Censored Quilts: Is female anatomy too "controversial" for the American Quilter's Society? SHARE
The American Quilter’s Society (AQS) refused to show two artworks, claiming they could be controversial, according to the Studio Art Quilt Association (SAQA), the nonprofit that organized the show. One quilt could be interpreted as depicting female anatomy, while the other references abortion access. The juried exhibition, Color in Context: Red, debuted at Houston’s International Quilt Festival in 2023, then toured several venues in Australia. The AQS, which claims to be the “world’s largest quilting membership organization,” signed a contract with SAQA to exhibit Color in Context at quilting shows across the country. But just before SAQA was to ship the works, they were notified that two quilts would be removed: “Origin” (2023) by Yvonne Iten-Scott and “Your Mother. Your Daughter. Your Sister. Your Grandmother. You.” (2022) by Laura Shaw Feit. Admirably, SAQA stood their ground.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Pope Francis rebukes Trump and Vance SHARE
Pope Francis issued a major rebuke to the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations of migrants, warning that the forceful removal of people purely because of their illegal status deprives them of their inherent dignity and “will end badly.” Francis took the remarkable step of addressing the U.S. migrant crackdown in a letter to U.S. bishops in which he appeared to take direct aim at VP JD Vance’s defense of the deportation program on theological grounds. In addition, the Vatican’s main charity Caritas Int'l warned that millions of people could die as a result of the “ruthless” U.S. decision to “recklessly” stop USAID funding and asked governments to urgently call on the Trump administration to reverse course.
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Monday, February 10, 2025
How the "Subversive Genius" of Kendrick Lamar Sent Trump Home a Loser SHARE
The Philadelphia Eagles and Kendrick Lamar’s collective of geniuses made this the Super Bowl we needed. When the hip-hop maestro took center stage he unleashed an artistic inferno rooted in Black culture, Black poetry, and Black resistance. Lamar, who is more an abstract master of symbology than political rabble-rouser, performed something right in Trump’s face that I think people will be decoding for years. It was a textured, deeply layered, colossal middle finger at the worst of US history, Trump, and anyone who would try to obliterate Black culture in this country. The dancers, the choreographers, the costume designers, SZA, and Lamar all created something collective, and we should understand it as cooperative political art. The Eagles won, and the Chiefs lost. But I’ll remember this as the night when Kendrick Lamar sent Donald Trump home a loser.
Thursday, February 6, 2025
DOJ agrees to proposed order to limit DOGE's access to Treasury data SHARE
The DOJ agreed to a proposed order that would largely block the Treasury Department from sharing sensitive financial data with the Department of Government Efficiency. In a filing late Wednesday evening, lawyers with the Justice Department agreed to a proposed order that would largely prohibit the Treasury Department from sharing sensitive financial data with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. The agreement allows two individuals associated with Musk but employed by the Treasury Department – called special government employees – to have “read only” access to the sensitive data. Once approved by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who is overseeing the case, the agreement will stay in place until Feb. 24 when both sides return to court to argue about a long-term preliminary injunction.
Thursday, February 6, 2025
AFL-CIO sues over Elon Musk's DOGE Department of Government Efficiency SHARE
The AFL-CIO and several of its affiliated gov't employee unions sued Wednesday over fears that Elon Musk’s Department of Gov't Efficiency (DOGE) is on the cusp of unlawfully gaining access to the Labor Dept.
Musk’s team has instituted sweeping changes to the executive branch in the first weeks of Pres. Trump’s administration, including moving to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development and to access the Treasury Dept’s payment system. “Today, they will come for the Department of Labor,” the lawsuit states, warning that it could provide Musk with nonpublic information about investigations into his companies.
The plaintiffs cited at least one Labor Dept employee that was told DOGE plans to visit and “to do whatever they ask, not to push back, not to ask questions.”
Thursday, February 6, 2025
House Dem proposes bill named after Musk ending federal contracts for special govt employees SHARE
Democrats go right for Elon Musk's jugular and introduce a bill to ban special government employees from obtaining federal contracts — directly threatening his lucrative government gravy train. Representative Mark Pocan introduced the legislation which is titled "Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy (ELON MUSK)." "Elon Musk gets more than $20 billion in contracts from the US government and bought his way into a new role in the government where he can direct even more money to himself. Enough," Pocan wrote on X. "My new bill, the ELON MUSK Act, will end this grift!" he added.
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Tuesday, February 4, 2025
Trump Is 'Greatest Threat to World Peace,' in New Poll - Newsweek SHARE
Donald Trump is 'Greatest Threat to World Peace,' ahead of Putin and Kim Jong Un, Germans say in new poll. The poll, commissioned by German news agency DPA, found that 41 percent of Germans feel Trump is the most dangerous of five globally important leaders, a list which included Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Chinese President Xi Jinping. By contrast, the world leader rated most dangerous by the second-largest share of Germans was Kim, who was selected by 17 percent of respondents. Putin and Khamenei earned that designation from 8 percent of respondents, while Xi was only chosen by 7 percent.
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
Trump Disbands President's Committee on Arts and Humanities SHARE
Trump has disbanded the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH).
The announcement comes as the Trump administration dismantles diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives across federal agencies, including museums. According to PCAH’s mission statement, no longer viewable online but provided to Hyperallergic by a committee member who requested anonymity, the group’s work was grounded in “the fundamental belief that creativity, diversity, and democracy are intrinsically bound, and that the arts and the humanities can be a powerful force for social change.”
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Monday, February 3, 2025
Ontario premier is 'ripping up' $100m contract with Musk's Starlink in response to US tariffs SHARE
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, the leader of Canada's most populous province said Monday he's ripping up a contract with Elon Musk's Starlink internet services in response to Trump's sweeping tariffs on Canada. “We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract ... Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy,” noting U.S.-based businesses will lose out on “tens of billions of dollars” in new revenues as a result of Ontario’s response. “They only have President Trump to blame,” he said.
Sunday, February 2, 2025
CANADA: Cut Off U.S. Energy & Resources Now-No Electricity, Oil or Gas SHARE
Bea Bruske, President of the Canadian Labour Congress, issued the following statement today: Donald Trump’s reckless tariffs are an attack on Canadian workers and our economy. With 2.4 million jobs tied directly or indirectly to trade with the U.S., these tariffs put industries, families, and entire communities at risk. But Canada’s unions know how to respond, and have solutions. Canada must take decisive action to protect workers and push back against these harmful policies. The United States must feel immediate pain for their actions aimed at harming the Canadian economy and its workers.
Saturday, February 1, 2025
Hope and Femininity in the Year of the Snake SHARE
The Year of the Snake embodies transformation, femininity, and duality, reflected in cultural myths, and artistic expressions. Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese New Year, is one of the most significant celebrations in many Asian cultures. The holiday, which falls on January 29, 2025, marks the beginning of two weeks of celebration and, more importantly, the lunar calendar. Traditionally, people celebrate by cleaning their homes to sweep away bad luck, preparing festive meals, giving red envelopes (hongbao) filled with money for good fortune, and participating in cultural performances such as dragon and lion dances. The Lunar New Year fosters a sense of cultural identity, strengthens familial bonds, and brings hope for happiness, health, and success in the coming year.
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
GOP Sen. Lisa Merkowski Stands Up to Trump's Colonial Madness SHARE
Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski is absolutely and unequivocally refusing to go along with Trump’s increasingly aggressive maneuvering to make Greenland a part of the US. In fact, she has joined one of Greenland’s most prominent political figures in bluntly pushing back against Trump's scheming to buy—or, perhaps, simply claim—the island that is home to 57,000 people. “Greenland is not for sale,” declared Murkowski and Greenlandic parliamentarian Aaja Chemnitz after consulting this week. “The question has been asked and firmly answered by the government of Greenland.” That was a stark response to what critics have identified as the president’s “Napoleonic tendencies” and “Dreams of a New American Empire.”
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