Things you can do that the same time… Substitute celebrity/pop culture/literature/media thing of your choice. Yes, we can be concerned about more than one thing at a time! (click to embiggen)Several of these were things I had bookmarked and thought that I included when I finalized this week’s Friday link round up on Thursday night. But, once again, because of several long and mentally draining work days in a row, I was apparently more braindead than I realized on that night. A few of these are about the Not My President and related stuff, but I’m going to put them behind a “Read More” link, so you will only see them if you click that.
Famed science fiction writer (and have I mentioned she’s a taoist and did her own translation of the Tao Te Chi and released it as both a paper book and an audio book that I have found myself listening to a lot lately in an attempt to find some calm?) wrote a letter to the editor that I hope you will find amusing. Be sure to stay out of the comments! Ursula Le Guin on fiction vs. ‘alternative facts’: Letter to the editor.
Two different friends shared this scholarly take on the relationship of the Church of England, specifically, and sexual moralities. Except it’s more than that, and doesn’t just apply to that church. Good stuff that requires a bit more thinking than the usual news links, but worth it: Sexuality, gender and disrespect for scripture.
It’s been another week of dreading to look at anything each morning for fear of what new horror will be reported. I really am trying to read other news, and I’m trying to limit how many links about the troompa loompa I collect. It’s still a crazy amount!
Anyway, here are the links I found interesting this week, sorted into categories.
It’s time to admit Apple Watch is a success. 25 million sales is nothing to sneeze at. Or, as John Gruder also observed: “In September, Apple claimed watch revenues second only to Rolex. How can it not be considered a hit at this point?”
Six Colors: Apple’s record quarter by the numbers. What always amazes me about Six Colors is they start posted the awesome graphs while the analyst call is still in progress. And the graphs are just cool!
A Clarifying Moment in American History. There should be nothing surprising about what Donald Trump has done in his first week—but he has underestimated the resilience of Americans and their institutions.
Max Canada Lynx – I’m a Big Baby
Max Lynx, the educational animal ambassador takes a moment to get some good scratchin’ before he sits down for his meal. He was born at a zoo in May 2011. He’s not completely domesticated but not wild either. He educates the public on the endangered Canada Lynx in hopes that people will be driven to conserve our environment and protect our wildlife. He is NOT declawed. During the winter he weighs 40 pounds and summer about 34. He has about 4 inches of fur in this video which makes him look fat….I mean fluffy! This video is not taken in my house. Max has his own indoor and outdoor housing.:
The famous hat toss from the title sequence of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.There will be a longer weekend update in a few minutes, but I wanted to get all of these (some of which were meant to go into Friday Links) out there without all my nostalgic commentary:
Well, it’s Friday. The first Friday since a white-supremacist appointing authoritarian ignoramous was sworn in as the (illegitimate) president of the United States, and the number of assaults on my rights has been rather overwhelming.
Anyway, here are the links I found interesting this week, sorted into categories.
Links of the Week
The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2017. Scroll down to 86 and see how you ought to handle describing a movie made by a director who is also a convicted child molester…
The Trojan Horse of Pop. “Pop music, for me, became intellectual foreplay, the only current I heard on a daily basis running counter to the message from the pulpit.”
Impeach the Mofo Already. Raise money for ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the International Refugee Assistance Project by buying buttons, hats, t-shirts that spread the message.
American carnage: Donald Trump becomes America’s 45th president, delivers bleak inaugural address. “But there was nothing for those hoping to see a more pragmatic, moderate President Trump take office, or to hear him admit that the world is complex and less pliable than he pretended on the campaign trail. All populists are at heart conspiracy theorists, who pretend that easy solutions exist to society’s woes and have only not been tried to date because elites are wicked and deaf to the sturdy common-sense of decent, ordinary folk. That was the Trump approach.”
ON THE INAUGURATION OF DONALD TRUMP: PRESERVE, PROTECT, AND DEFEND. “…while we go on waiting for such miracles of personal and intellectual evolution, there is every reason to be on guard against a President whose attachment to constitutional norms seems episodic at best.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin (Beck Bennett) and Olya Povlatsky (Kate McKinnon) assure Americans that everything will be fine under President Donald Trump.:
Edited to Add: I had bookmarked links to obituaries for Mary Tyler Moore and Mike Connors but somehow left them out of the original post. Check out the Supplemental Links.
I’m already exhausted, and the corrupt reality TV star hasn’t even been sworn in, yet! I’ve decided to separate my usually Friday Links into two posts: a regular Friday Links posts with most of the usual topics, and a second Resistance Report post where I’ll put most of the links related to the corrupt one.
I don’t think I’ll do this every week, because assembling the Friday Links post is already a lot of work. But at least for now, below you will find many of the links I found interesting this week, with less outrage-inducing news.
Links of the Week
Millions in his firing squad. The Chicago Daily News published this column April 5, 1968, after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The criminal neglect of detective fiction. I’m a bit skeptical when a review of academic papers looks at nothing published more recently than 40 years ago and claims to make conclusions about how academic look at the genre now.
The true face of Senator McConnellIt’s Friday! The second Friday in a new year. And it’s hard to get excited when so much of the news is so outrageous
We’re having a worse than usual flu epidemic in our area. Several people I know either have pneumonia or had it over the holiday. And my husband and I are still trying to shake off the cold/flu or whatever it is we’ve been fighting for weeks.
Anyway, here are links to stories I found interesting, sorted by category.
The Future Alternative Past: this dystopian hope. Nisi Shawl, an author I greatly admire, is now doing a regular sf/f column for the Seattle Review of Books. Check out this, her third monthly column!
It’s Friday! The first Friday in a new year. Are we supposed to be excited?
So much of the news was either too depressing. I mean, how do I pick among all the outrages that the rightwing is lining up? I know that part of what they’re counting on is making us feel overwhelmed, but there’ just so much they’re already doing! So this is going to be, once again, a shorter links post than usual.
Anyway, here are links to stories I found interesting, sorted by category.
Inferior Beasts. This review of fantastic beasts puts in excellent words what bothered several people I know about it.
Midweek there was a very badly written transphobic (among other things) review of Uncanny Magazine’s latest issue up, and I was trying to decide whether to do anything other than extend my subscription to Uncanny in response to it. Fortunately, Jim C. Hines came to me rescue: SF Crowsnest: For All Your Whiny, Cloud-Pissing Needs.
Lindy West Quits Twitter: “It Is Unusable for Anyone But Trolls, Robots and Dictators”. I love Lindy’s writing; I’m linking to this article before getting to her op-ed, because of the some things this guy says about the way many of us use social media: “Twitter is my connection to what’s happening moment to moment in the world… Twitter is where I find a vast array of things I’m interested in reading—poems, essays, stories, reporting—that I would never find on my own…”
I’ve left Twitter. It is unusable for anyone but trolls, robots and dictators. “The white supremacist, anti-feminist, isolationist, transphobic “alt-right” movement has been beta-testing its propaganda and intimidation machine on marginalised Twitter communities for years now – how much hate speech will bystanders ignore? When will Twitter intervene and start protecting its users? – and discovered, to its leering delight, that the limit did not exist. No one cared. Twitter abuse was a grand-scale normalisation project… ”
Good-bye and good riddance, 2016. Source: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver https://youtu.be/-rSDUsMwakIIt’s Friday! The last Friday in a truly awful year.
I had the whole week off, and though I have not been as miserable as some of my friends who came down with a cold for the holidays, I’ve been run down, achey, stuffed up, and completely unproductive all week long. Which seems extremely appropriate given how this year has gone. And I just want to say to the idiots on line who have been saying that those of us who think this was a bad year have no perspective? We elected a guy who has literally named white supremacists, anti-gay crusaders, anti-science activists, and worse as his choices to head of government agencies. We have put people in power who literally want to take the vote away from citizens based on the color of their skin and their gender. This is not just that we elected a narcissistic idiot, we’ve handing the nuclear codes to a man who can’t stop himself from angry tweeting for hours when a woman happens get quoted criticizing him. We have put in power people who have vowed to pass laws that will literally kill citizens by taking away health care insurance, and that will take away my civil rights.
I’m allowed to say this is a bad year. And I am not the one who doesn’t have any perspective.
Anyway, here are links to stories I found interesting, sorted by category. Because I’ve been run down and out of it all week, this may be the shortest list of Friday Links I’ve ever posted.
George Michael in James Corden’s first Carpool Karaoke for Comic Relief – before Carpool Karaoke was famous, James Corden thought it would be funny to do a skit for the Comic Relief special where he was giving George Michael a ride home from jail; they decided to drop the explicit reference to Michael’s legal trouble and do this instead:
Holiday to-do list (click to embiggen)It’s Friday! It’s the day before the day before the night before Christmas! Or the fourth Friday in December if you don’t observe Christmas. I want to point out that I’m taoist, my husband is pagan, and our Christmas tree theme this year is Up In The Air, featuring all of our Star Trek and Star Wars ornaments, plus many different Santas and flying reindeer, pegasi from My Little Pony, birds of many kinds, Marvin the Martian in various space craft, and a big steampunk-ish zeppelin. So when I say Christmas I mean shiny lights, silly ornaments, presents, and time spend with friends.
Thursday was my last working day of the year. And as sometimes happens during these times, my department was up against a ridiculous deadline, so I worked very late. But I’m free for at least a while!
Anyway, here are links to stories I found interesting, sorted by category.
The Little Drummer Boy – Pink Martini (a friend who used to detest this song told me that this won him over; and it’s a very different and fun version):
How can we tell…? BettyBowers.ComIt’s the third Friday in December. And tomorrow is the third Saturday, which means that we’ll be hosting the annual Holiday Party and Ghost Story Challenge. Yay!
I, along with several co-workers, came down sick this week. I’ve seen on various social media a number of friends and acquaintances have as well. I guess it is that time of year.
Anyway, here are links to stories I found interesting, sorted by category.
The advert for Danish electronics retailer Elgiganten Denmark, titled ‘Let the Gifts Talk’, features a young transgender woman at home with her parents for Christmas:
Font Folly 