We have now reached the fifth and final Friday in September. The most blesséd month is drawing to a close.
This week was weird. I had such a good week at work last week. And then a lot of fun celebrating my birthday, until we got the next set of news about the selling of our building. So we spent a lot of this week doing a lot of cleaning and sorting and hauling. My feet are still sore.
Anyway, here are links to some of the interesting things I read on the web this week, sorted into various topic areas.
Links of the Week
My Son, the Prince of Fashion. This story isn’t about fashion. It’s about a boy, his father, family, and finding your people…
Zen and Hoshi are both rescue dogs who become friends when they found a forever home together. When Hoshi lost his eyesight, Zen become his seeing-eye dog.It’s already the fourth Friday in September! You know what that means? Well, this year it means I’m on vacation. I’m taking a couple of vacation days because it’s my birthday this weekend. A company I used to work for gave each employee their birthday off as a paid holiday, and I liked it, so when I’ve got the vacation time to spare, I’ve kept doing it.
This week was extremely productive at my day job. Which meant my brain was pretty worn out at the end of each day. Add that I was still recovering from being sick the week before, and I think I managed to write two small scenes the entire week. *sigh* Oh, well, I’m hoping to get my mental batteries recharged here and maybe, now that another couple of impossible deadlines have been met, I can have a more reasonable workload in the day time.
Keep your fingers crossed for me!
And remember, September babies are superior!
Anyway, here are links to some of the interesting things I read on the web this week, sorted into various topic areas.
Toronto Star report, Daniel Dale, has been posting a daily list of the lies Donald Trump tells that day. Something U.S. journalists are somehow unable to do. (click to embiggen)Why facts don’t matter to Trump’s supporters.
This photo of a kid single-handedly trying to keep 11,000 antigay protesters from marching went viral this week.It’s already the third Friday in September?! How did that happen? Oh, well! Don’t forget: September babies are superior!
This week has not been a productive week. We both came down sick. Each of us missed a day of work (but not the same day). And I’m not feeling rested and recovered yet. We also got news last week which almost certainly means that we’ll have to move next spring when our lease is up or shortly thereafter. I’ve been living here for 21 years, and I’m not looking forward to the hunting, the packing, or the moving.
Anyway, here are links to some of the interesting things I read on the web this week, sorted into various topic areas.
“What would happen if a for-profit construction company bulldozed a Christian cemetery?…” (Click to embiggen)It’s already the second Friday in September?! How did that happen? Oh, well! Don’t forget: September babies are superior!
I’ve done very little writing and a lot of revising this week.
Anyway, here are links to some of the interesting things I read on the web this week, sorted into various topic areas.
The Women Who Challenged Sweet Cakes on the Cost of Their Battle. “We’re not political people, never wanted this attention, and only filed a claim with Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries after six months of relentless media attention and harassment. Meanwhile, the Kleins quickly became media darlings of the right wing. Conservative groups flew them out to appear at events, Ted Cruz featured them in a campaign video, and their fundraising page raised over $600,000. In contrast, we became the target of hateful, violent threats and a daily onslaught of negative calls and emails from around the world. Over the past three years, we have received several thousand Facebook messages calling us fat, evil, and dumb — some with threats so violent that we have sincerely feared for our lives, moved houses, and lived in hiding in hopes of protecting our family.”
Hitting all the right notes. “I want to see children do better in school. I want to see children have better lives. But I don’t want to belittle that I’m also seeking the joy of music for everybody.”
Miss Cora M. Strayer’s Private Detective Agency. It started out when someone posted a vintage newspaper ad, sending the writer on a search that unearthed a truly kickass woman who ran a successful detective agency from 1902-1938, taking a break to form the First Volunteer Women’s Calvary Regiment to take up arms and join the fight in the Border War with Mexico in 1814…
Maybe 2016 Will Be the Year Voters Elect an Openly Gay Republican to Congress. I know the author thinks this is good news, but racist self-loathing gays aren’t really an improvement over the run-of-the-mill anti-gay Republican. And being willing to vote for a token guy who shares all their other bigoted views doesn’t prove the Republican base is becoming more enlightened.
How do you become “white” in America? “As the history of the Poles in America shows, whiteness has always been a malleable category, used for political exploitation.”
Astronaut Stan Love accepted the John W. Campbell Award on behalf of Andy Weir last weekend. Love even wore the traditional Campbell Tiara while he read Andy’s remarks.It’s Friday! The fifth Friday in August and things are… well, the weather is too hot for me. I’ve been sleeping at weird times and feeling as if I’m unstuck in time.
I’ve done very little writing and a lot of revising this week.
Anyway, here are links to some of the interesting things I read on the web this week, sorted into various topic areas.
A Feel Bad Story in Disguise: Two Florida Hospitals Won’t Bill Orlando Pulse Shooting Victims. “The news out of Orlando this morning shouldn’t make us feel good. It should make us feel bad. It is an indictment of our society, an indictment of our health care system, an indictment of each and every one of us. Because we don’t care enough about shooting victims to do something about guns and we don’t care enough about shooting victims — or people with cancer, or children with broken bones, or our fellow citizens at the end of their lives — to create an equitable health care system that doesn’t bankrupt and destroy families by design for the crime of getting sick or the crime of getting shot in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and by the wrong maniac.”
Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom To Be Murdered. “Dee Dee Blancharde was a model parent: a tireless single mom taking care of her gravely ill child. But after Dee Dee was killed, it turned out things weren’t as they appeared — and her daughter Gypsy had never been sick at all.”
My WisCon 40 Guest of Honour Speech. “You’d think the shared bond of loving books would diminish the hatred and suspicion of teenagers and the things they like. You’d be wrong.”
The past through tomorrow. ‘“You got the impression that for him, it was still 1937.” You could say much the same thing about the current crop of reactionaries, both in the positions that they take and the means that they use to express them.’
Michi Trota: 2016 Hugo Awards Acceptance Speech from MidAmeriCon II. “Nurturing a community isn’t just about throwing open the gates and expecting others to walk in merrily, especially when there’s been a long history of systemic barriers to entry. It’s essential to both create a space that welcomes and encourages others to come in, and to venture outside your comfort zones to find new people, invite them to share their voices and visions with you, and provide them with support and opportunities.”
This Site Under Construction. Some people are trying to archive the old Geocities sites before the all vanish. This page contains hundreds of the old ‘This site under construction’ animated GIFs that were popular at the time…
New CDC Data: LGB Teens Face Startling Rates of Violence, Bullying and Suicidality. Yes, I posted a story about this study last week. But I have since seen op-ed pieces that keep asking, “What’s the LGBT community going to do about this?” The LGBT community can’t do anything about this. This study is about how queer kids are treated in their homes, in their churches, and in their schools. The LGBT community con’t control homophobic parents, or homophobic churches, or schools. If yet another study showing that children are bullied to the point of suicide makes upsets the straight community, the straight community, which outnumbers us and has some control over these things, needs to step up.
It’s Friday! Already the second in August. Wow! Work has been more chaotic than usual. My usual metaphor is juggling chainsaws, and this week the yanked about six of the 12 chainsaws I was juggling away and tossed in a dozen to replace them. I remain more than completely book for the next many months.
I did more reading this week and not much writing, again. That needs to change.
Anyway, here are links to some of the interesting things I read on the web this week, sorted into various topic areas.
But I need to get back to writing. Especially since I have promised some stories to several people.
Anyway, here are links to some of the interesting things I read on the web this week, sorted into various topic areas.
Links of the Week
I Know Why Poor Whites Chant Trump, Trump, Trump. This is a long read, but it is an excellent article that has almost nothing to do with Trump, and instead talks about a few hundred years of how poor people of all races have been treated and manipulated in North America.
Stockton mayor arrested at youth camp in Amador County. Previously, Mayor Silva has held official town hall meetings at an anti-gay megachurch and once held a taxpayer-funded ceremony to present the key to the city to God (who sadly did not attend).
David Huddleston, Who Played ‘The Big Lebowski,’ Dies at 85. Until I saw his obituary, I never knew Huddleston was in that movie, because I’ve never seen it nor been interested in it. To me, Huddleston was one of the last of the great character actors: he played similar men in supporting roles in hundreds of TV episodes and movies.
Jerry Emmett, the 102-year-old honorary chair of the Arizona Democratic delegation, speaks during the Roll Call of the States.It’s the fifth Friday in July, and I’m glad that Friday is finally here. It was a much better week, for me, at least in the news from the real world sense. I’m feeling a lot more hope for the future this week than I was last week.
Anyway, here are links to some of the interesting things I read on the web this week, sorted into various topic areas.
Ken Ham Isn’t a Big Bad Ogre: Why I Feel Bad About Ark Encounter. But he is still a liar (who posted photos of another event claiming that it was opening day), and a con man (who convinced the state to give him tax money for a religious project, that’s after essentially embezzling from a religious group he used to work for in Australia), and a peddler of lies and pseudo science. But we’re suppose to believe he’s not an ogre. Fine, he’s not an ogre, he’s a parasite.
We have now reached the fifth and final Friday in September. The most blesséd month is drawing to a close. 
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