Laura Norton-Cruz, LMSW, CLC
@lauritadianita.bsky.social
1.4K followers 840 following 2.7K posts
I ✍️ about AK politics, health equity, feminism, advocacy 4 kids, documentary films, 🎨, 🎶, 🥘,🌱 , ADHD, synesthesia. Social worker, public health professional, & lactation counselor raising Alaskan-🇨🇴 kids on Dena’ina ełnena. www.lauranortoncruzconsulting.com
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lauritadianita.bsky.social
So so important for veterans and politicians to be speaking up about this! Thank you, @repgray.bsky.social. This is exactly the message I’ve been hoping would be delivered to enlisted folks.
repgray.bsky.social
“Service members cannot follow unlawful orders (DOD Law of War, 18.22.4). They cannot go to war with their fellow Americans, even for training purposes, no matter who tells them to do it.”

Check out my op-ed on Secy. Hegseth’s speech at Quantico:

www.adn.com/opinions/202...
lauritadianita.bsky.social
Just so beautiful and culturally rich & diverse.
lauritadianita.bsky.social
Thanks! I shared more on IG stories but some on grid. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was, dear god. Here are a few more.
lauritadianita.bsky.social
I was checked out of BlueSky & responding to politics for a while bc I had a beautiful, busy, intense work trip to Kodiak, Alaska. I don’t want to be uninformed or unengaged, but I know the work I do on a local level makes a huge difference too. And my soul is alight, filled w/ Kodiak’s beauty.
A brown cow with horns standing amongat greenish yellowish beach grass in front of slightly browning green alders in front of a rolling hill of alder bushes and a blue sky. This is in Pasagshak Bay, Kodiak, about an hour South of town. Me (middle aged short white woman) wearing black fleece overalls and a smart wool
Shirt and Orange gloves and a teal beanie holding poles and wearing a military backpack with bear spray, standing on top of a mountain, North Sister in the 3 sisters range, in Kodiak. Fall colors everywhere, tall jagged mountains. My colleague,  50-something white woman with gray hair and thin glasses and a green cardigan, laying on a bad of thick moss near salmonberry leaves, with spruce cones and twigs littered about. The sun is on her and the photo is an aerial, taken from directly above her. This is on Near Island, just across a thin strip of water from downtown. The tropical-looking teal waters of Kodiak, bleeding into the blue, near town, photographed from Pillar Mountain, with yellow-brown grass and short spruce trees in the foreground and the Kodiak harbor and other little islands in the background. The teal color is from the fish meal plant.
lauritadianita.bsky.social
For example!!! Why would CNN edit out the most important part of this interview? bsky.app/profile/cweb...
cwebbonline.com
Stephen Miller said the quiet part out loud. Trump has “plenary authority,” then suddenly went silent. Their plan wasn’t to be public yet. Clearly, someone hit the panic button in his earpiece.

It gets weirder: CNN uploaded the interview with the “plenary authority” comment edited out.
1/2
lauritadianita.bsky.social
I’m so glad there are still good ethical local journalists (including, sadly, the ones who had to resign in Homer & Kenai in order to maintain their ethics!), good independent journalists, and powerful non-profit investigative reporting from @propublica.org . We have to be more discerning now.
lauritadianita.bsky.social
People want to have sources of information they can trust & don’t want to have to wade through so many bots & propagandists like we have to on social media in order to get to it; I understand that. But they often don’t get how corporate ownership distorts what newspapers & other media can publish.
lauritadianita.bsky.social
Liberals who eschew social media think they’re shielding themselves from propaganda. But unless they’re subscribing to the newsletters of independent journalists like @karenattiah.bsky.social & @marisakabas.bsky.social, they’re missing news about how legacy media has purged independent thought.
lauritadianita.bsky.social
This is the stuff that I find scariest, the way the delivery of truth is being distorted — not just via social media, but via the forms of media that people assume have ethics. Lately I’ve seen many times that even many progressive ppl aren’t aware of what’s been happening to larger legacy media.
davejorgenson.bsky.social
The Post laid off seemingly the remaining of their liberal-leaning staff members on Opinion last Thursday, when some of them were observing Yom Kippur.

from @oliverdarcy.bsky.social for Status
status.news/p/washington-post-opinion-cuts-adam-oneal
lauritadianita.bsky.social
This is one of the major issues addressed in our 🎞️ about childcare, just screened in Kodiak, AK on Sunday. Economists & policymakers explain how many parents (esp moms) aren’t working the hours they want to. Childcare providers discuss cost of living, moms discuss this precarity tinyurl.com/KPenFilm
The film poster for our documentary “Growing the Kenai: Childcare Licensing.” 

You can watch it here: 


https://vimeo.com/showcase/11541052/video/1062488179

And all 3 films are available on our Early Childhood in Alaska Vimeo Showcase here: 

https://vimeo.com/showcase/11541052
lauritadianita.bsky.social
I befriended this old kitty on my recent trip to Kodiak, Alaska. His name is Spunky & he’s very affectionate.
A black cat with long hair rubs against me and asks for pets while purring, on a set of wooden stairs. A black cat with long hair looks up from a chair
lauritadianita.bsky.social
Can any wildlife biologists explain why we found thousands of worms all writhing around in the same place 2,000-some feet up a mountain on Kodiak Island in Alaska?
lauritadianita.bsky.social
It’s not a time I wanted to be right! I wanted his faith in the checks & balances in military leadership to be well-founded! But I also knew that Trump & Miller & Vought & Vance planned to usher in fascism, & that they would, if not hardly restrained by Congress. I wish there were more courage.
lauritadianita.bsky.social
I sent this (& lots of news from Tue) to a military friend who, after Trump’s election & inauguration, didn’t believe me that Hegseth would get confirmed or that he could do much damage if confirmed bc of the venerable institutions in the military & its code of justice. Almost a “see I told you so”
lauritadianita.bsky.social
Was waiting to board my flight at Anchorage Airport & an 🚨 went off saying “There’s been an emergency in the building. Everyone must evacuate using stairs.” @alaskaairlines.bsky.social took us down the jetway to the tarmac, & once it was cleared, we walked back up & onto the ✈️. Wonder what it was.
lauritadianita.bsky.social
A lot is wrong in the world, but my boyfriend’s 17-year-old who goes to school in a very conservative school district just asked to borrow a copy of a James Baldwin novel from me for her AP literature class, so I’m going to ride that high for a while. 🥰
lauritadianita.bsky.social
The HPV vaccine is truly amazing and young people are so lucky to not have to get dangerous forms of HPV like previous generations did. But we have to keep fighting for healthcare access & against vaccine misinformation.

Start the 💉 series at age 9, fight for Medicaid & repro health clinics.
kelciemmorris.bsky.social
Cervical cancer has a known path of prevention with the HPV vaccine. But that also means it falls at the intersection of three cultural issues that are facing strong political opposition — broad access to low-cost or free reproductive health care, access to vaccines for children, and sex education.
Cervical cancer could be eradicated, experts say. But not with Medicaid cuts and anti-vax politics.
Third in a five-part series.It had been a decade since Jess Deis’ last women’s wellness exam when Kentucky expanded Medicaid and she finally qualified for the state insurance program.
www.newsfromthestates.com
lauritadianita.bsky.social
Well, did they climb trees while drunk? 😆 Maybe it worked! It did seem to make an impression on my sister, who somehow understood that she didn’t want to be hooked up to machines.

Being raised by medical parents, I was not easily grossed out but I was, I think, appropriately cautioned.
lauritadianita.bsky.social
Terminator 2 was the first action movie I ever saw, and I only managed bc my mom was out of town 😂. I think I was 11, also in the 90’s. Thanks for the other recommendations. I have Netflix for the first time so can check out.
lauritadianita.bsky.social
Uh…why should we agree to that last one, Ted?
lauritadianita.bsky.social
I’ve been wanting to rewatch the Terminator movies for that reason but I don’t think they’re ready for that kind of violence. Jurassic Park was by far the most scary and violent movie they’ve seen so far.
lauritadianita.bsky.social
Yeah!!! I now have something they care about that I can refer back to when my kids get annoyed at me for talking about how bad AI is. Remember Jurassic Park? Well…
lauritadianita.bsky.social
Also, and I know this isn’t the main point, but I’ve seen that guy try to do pull-ups and it’s an ugly site, so what is he even on about himself as the standard for PT? I’m an injured middle aged mom & I could smoke him in pull-ups.
lauritadianita.bsky.social
My kids have seen it but I haven’t yet and really want to. Thanks for the reminder. I don’t really have time to watch movies without kids so we slowly make our way through kid movies while doing chores. Last weekend Jurassic Park. THAT was different to watch as a parent than it was when I was little
lauritadianita.bsky.social
Cocaine prices did! Is that what he meant?