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Via Authors Against Book Bans - May 29, 2026

Three federal book ban bills are currently alive in the United States Congress:

HR 7661

Status: Passed out of committee; to be introduced in the House Would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to prohibit federal funds from being used for any material deemed “sexually oriented.” Buried within that definition is language that includes material that “involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism.” While framed as protecting children, the bill opens the door to banning books that include LGBTQ+ characters, defining trans existence as inherently inappropriate, and narrowing literature toward a prescribed, limited canon. In short: Would treat any LGBTQ+ identity as sexual content.

HR 2616

Status: Passed the House; referred to a Senate committee Would withhold ESEA funding from schools that “teach or advance concepts related to gender ideology,” using definitions from Executive Order 14168. It frames itself as protecting children. In practice, it represents another attempt to eliminate not only trans and nonbinary books, but also any acknowledgment of gender non‑conforming people in public education. In short: Would deny the existence of trans and nonbinary people.

HR 8705

Status: Passed out of committee; to be introduced in the House Rather than naming specific books or categories of literature, it blocks federal funding for American History and Civics Education from being used to promote what it calls “discriminatory equity ideology” or “gender ideology,” definitions drawn from a January 29, 2025 executive order. Likely impacts would include fewer books on racism and civil rights, less discussion of sexism and inequality, narrower civics curricula, and publishers pulling back on diverse perspectives. In short: A funding lever that shapes whose version of history gets taught.

HR 7661 and HR 8705 are still in the House, so please call your representative and tell them to oppose both bills. Click here to find the phone number of your representative’s office.

HR 2616 passed the House, and has been introduced to a Senate committee. Please call your senators and tell them to oppose the bill. Click here to find the phone numbers for your senators’ offices.

questcequecestqueca

She played bass on 10,000 songs, including the most-played track of the twentieth century. She was paid $55 per session. Her name never appeared on the albums.

Gold Star Studios, Los Angeles, 1964. A woman in a cardigan walks past the receptionist, a Fender Precision bass in her hand like a briefcase. She doesn’t sign autographs. She signs a timesheet.

Her name is Carol Kaye. In three hours, she will record what will become the most-played track of the twentieth century. She’ll pocket fifty-five dollars and head to another studio, on the other side of town, for the next session.

The record label will never put her name on the album.

Between 1957 and 1973, Carol Kaye took part in roughly 10,000 recording sessions. Not as the featured artist, not as a guest, but as a hired hand. She was part of an anonymous collective nicknamed The Wrecking Crew—elite studio musicians who actually played the instruments on your favorite records while the famous bands posed for promotional photos.

The work was relentless. Three albums before the day was over. Stale coffee in paper cups. No rehearsal. The charts arrived minutes before the tape rolled. If you couldn’t read a chart and nail the take in two tries, you didn’t get called for the next session.

Carol could do it on the first try.

She started playing guitar in grimy bars at fourteen because her family couldn’t pay the electric bill. Music wasn’t a romantic dream for her. It was survival. It was a job—factory work with better acoustics and lower pay.

But she was faster and sharper than almost everyone else. She corrected charts in pencil while the producer was still explaining what he wanted. In one session in 1968, she told a famous producer his arrangement sounded like a dying dog. She chose her own line. They kept her version.

That descending bass line that drives the Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”? Carol Kaye. The propulsive groove of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”? Carol Kaye. The acoustic-guitar intro to “La Bamba”? Carol Kaye. The iconic theme from Mission: Impossible? Carol Kaye.

She invented techniques on the spot, out of sheer necessity. When the bass sound was too muddy for AM radio, she stuck felt under the strings and used a hard pick instead of her fingers. The tone cut through the static like a blade. It became the sonic signature that defined 1960s pop.

Bassists spent years—decades—trying to crack the secret of the Beach Boys’ gear to get that sound. They were studying the wrong people. They should have been studying Carol.

She received no royalties. No residuals. No gold-record ceremony. No credit on the album sleeves. When “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” hit number one, Carol was already back in a studio cutting a soap jingle.

The biggest bands mimed her bass lines on TV variety shows. New York marketing departments decided a mom in classic clothes didn’t fit the rebellious-youth image they were selling. So they simply left her name off the album credits.

For thirty years, almost no one cared. The truth only began to surface in the late 1990s, when music researchers found the same union contract numbers on thousands of hit records. The very documents meant to preserve studio musicians’ anonymity betrayed them.

Think about it. Every time you heard “Good Vibrations,” “River Deep – Mountain High,” the Righteous Brothers, Nancy Sinatra, or Sonny and Cher, you were hearing Carol Kaye. She composed the soundtrack of an entire generation’s youth.

And yet the records still say nothing. She’s now over eighty. She wrote instructional books. She trained countless bassists. She is finally starting to be recognized by music historians who uncovered the truth about The Wrecking Crew.

But she never got what she deserved: her name on those albums. Credit for the music that defined an era. Recognition that those bass lines everyone associates with the “Beach Boys” were, in fact, Carol Kaye’s.

Fifty-five dollars a session. Ten thousand sessions. The most-played track of the twentieth century.

And the world didn’t know her name.

pollution-of-subterranean-waters

I read “Two Of A Kind” and “Horsing Around” and acquired an unstoppable desire to draw madatobi as horses 😆

I reeeeally wanted to make Uchiha Friesians but I couldn’t force myself to make Madara taller them Tobirama even in horse form 😆 Also I really loved the idea in Horsing Around about Madara being a really fluffy pony

pollution-of-subterranean-waters

I spent... so much time on this omg

At first I couldn’t decide what kind of big cat Madara should be. Then I decided to have a big cat vs small cat theme with Senju and Uchiha

pollution-of-subterranean-waters

Nobody told me Madara was fun

bossnori

Excuse me the new official ART of naruto… itachi so pretty…

bossnori

dango time!!

bossnori

🦈🍡push game?

This is so cute so I want to draw them

bossnori

shiuya

I love Genma ok

applelite

this level of freak is not my usual art but NGHHHHH I’m not normal abt him I have nothing appropriate to say abt genma ( thinking of @genmashiranuilover69 rn)

rokudykeme

first fic is up for @kakairu-rocks kakairu valentine's day week 2026

day 1: gifts & surprises/ online dating

rokudykeme

the most attracted iruka’s ever been to kakashi is when he, during his term as hokage, digitizes everything in the village from employee IDs to fortifying security/access to different parts of government buildings to computers in every department and software to help streamline the mission assignment and report process to gps trackers/SOS signals for shinobi in the field, etc

+ kakashi absolutely plays into it

rokudykeme

kakashi: i’ve approved your budget for new computers and tablets for the academy

iruka: [soft gasp]

kakashi, sultrily whispered: and we’re going paperless

iruka:

rokudykeme

i feel like you have definitely noticed but i woke up in a cold sweat in the Bench Scene realizing that kakashi sits on the right side of iruka. letting iruka sit in his blind spot 🤔

ANON. ANONNNNNNN. Okay. Hold On. Hold ONNNN. I Had Not Noticed This. But Now That You Mention It They're Framed Like This A Lot

With The Notable Exceptions Being During And Post The Chuunin Exams Argument AND The Pain Arc......

He trusts him so much. But it's not just his blind spot-- that's the side with the sharingan. kakashi's greatest strength and his greatest weakness. the physical manifestation of the guilt and love and grief he's carried since it was given to him as a kid. the most human and vulnerable part of him. and iruka (nurturer, bleeding heart, will of fire personified) constantly occupying that space except for the times when kakashi feels rejected by him or when iruka's in mortal danger/when the sharingan needs to strictly be a weapon...........................