Shared posts

20 Feb 15:58

A blue tit displays structural colors

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

Pretty


Photo cropped for size from the original at the BBC, where the article discusses the fortuitous circumstances that allowed the photographer to capture these non-pigment colors on a normal blue tit.
08 Jan 01:11

Rainbow aurora above an Icelandic waterfall

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)

And capped off by the central band of the Milky Way.  Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day.
23 Dec 17:43

A chilling new acronym: WCNSF

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

There really are no words

 The [Gaza] conflict has filled hospital wards with patients classified by the abbreviation “WCNSF” – “wounded child, no surviving family.”

10 Dec 03:12

A visual reminder of the enormous size of "David"

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

Wow. He is far bigger than I ever thought


What is particularly interesting to me is that Michelangelo created a small notch on the upper aspect of each pupil to simulate the reflection of sunlight off a moist surface.

Source for photo lost; I believe it was a screencap from this brief video of the every-two-month cleaning process.
28 Nov 14:49

Snowflakes

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)

Who gets offended by products such as these?  Or perhaps "who pretends to be offended in order to stoke controversy for their viewership base?"
05 Oct 15:52

What's wrong with people these days???

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

I hate people.


I have fond memories of walking along Hadrian's Wall when I was a younger man.  This wasn't a whimsical folly; it was planned vandalism requiring heavy power tools or a two-man crosscut saw.  Whoever did this should be castrated.  Publicly, IMHO.

The embedded photo is a screencap from a brief video homage at the BBC.
28 Jun 08:58

With apologies to Jane Austen

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that an American billionaire, in possession of sufficient fortune, must be in want of a Supreme Court justice. Nothing seems to bring billionaires so much simple joy as having a personal justice to accompany them on yacht and fishing trips, flights on their private planes and jaunts to rustic lodges where the wine was certainly not $1,000 a bottle (in Justice Samuel A. Alito’s opinion). Instead of getting upset (which is unproductive and irritates the people who decide whether we can vote and control our bodies), we need to acknowledge that people who want their own Supreme Court justices are going to get them — if they are wealthy enough. Instead of pretending that a code of ethics can prevent this, let’s find a better system so we can end all this sneaking around."
The essay continues at the Washington Post, proposing that Supreme Court justices could be sponsored, using all that blank space on their robes.  Even the hoi polloi could pool their lesser resources using Go Fund Me to sponsor one of the judges.
11 Jun 09:47

Dolly Parton for President

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

Actual angel Dolly Parton


Seriously.  Dolly Parton is the only person who can unite the brutally divided partisan voters of this country.  She is eminently qualified to represent the values this country claims to hold dear.

Allow me to anticipate the potential objections:

"She wouldn't have the right qualifications for being president of the country"
Constitutional requirements for the president:  a natural-born citizen at least 35 years old and a resident of the country for at least 14 years.  Box checked.  Moving on.

Duties and responsibilities of the President, as defined at the U.S. Senate site:
As chief executive, the president presides over the cabinet and has responsibility for the management of the executive branch. With the advice and consent of the Senate, the president also has the power to make treaties and to appoint ambassadors, U.S. officers, and judges to federal courts. He is also the commander in chief of the armed forces. The president signs laws and can veto bills that have passed Congress.
Details at the link.  We all know that every previous President has delegated those duties or fulfilled them based on recommendations from advisory committees (although Eisenhower may have been a real-life commander-in-chief).  No problems there.
"She has no political experience"
Exactly.  An asset, not a deficiency.  Dolly is the antithesis of a politician.  

"She is not part of a political party"
Exactly.  She has carefully avoided aligning herself with either the Democratic or Republican party.  She turned down the Presidential Medal of Freedom offer from Trump (twice) and from Biden; she felt that if she accepted it she "would be doing politics."

Here's a discussion of her recent "World on Fire" song lyrics:
“Don't get me started on politics, Now how are we to live in a world like this, Greedy politicians, present and past, They wouldn't know the truth if it bit 'em in the ass.”
These are the words read back to Dolly [by a host on the Today Show], who laughs as a response. She’s then asked which politicians she’s talking about.

All of them. any of them.” She replies, plainly.

She then adds, “I don’t think any of them are trying hard enough… They worry more about their party than they do about the people.”

Dolly added the better approach would be “If we just do what we felt was the right thing rather than who’s going to lose or who’s going to win this, or who’s going to look better if they do this.”
Absofuckinlutely right.  Here's the video of that conversation. And most Americans will agree with her.

This comment about her own politics, as cited in Woman and Home:
As for her own political views, she knows what they are and that’s good enough for her. “I’ve got as many Republican friends as I’ve got Democrat friends and I just don’t like voicing my opinion on things,” she says.

“I’ve seen things before, like the Dixie Chicks. You can ruin a career for speaking out. I respect my audience too much for that, I respect myself too much for that. Of course, I have my own opinions, but that don’t mean I got to throw them out there because you’re going to piss off half the people.”
Here's the full video of her performance of "World on Fire" at the American Country Music Awards.  Listen.


She gets a standing ovation from a room full of cowboy hats after performing what can reasonably be described as a climate change anthem.

"Liar, liar the world’s on fire

Whatcha gonna do when it all burns down?

Fire, fire burning higher

Still got time to turn it all around."

It’s difficult to say whether Dolly explicitly intended “World on Fire” as a climate song, though people are hearing it as such. But that’s how many of Dolly’s more “political” statements and artistic work come across — they tap into the zeitgeist without making any explicit political statements. Dolly is an expert at this.
Note also that the performance is a crossover of country music and rock and roll.  Dolly bridged that gap like no performer in history, recently accepting induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after a lifetime of country music and Grand Old Opry.


Her new album, due out later this year, will include a cover of Prince's Purple Rain and duets with Sting, Steven Tyler, and Elton John, as well as a combined performance of "Let It Be" with McCartney and Ringo (see video above).  This from the most acclaimed "country music" artist of all time, because she believes in music and the lyrics of music, not in the politics of country vs. rock

This was Dolly Parton's comment regarding the Trump/Clinton presidential debates many years ago:

Let’s talk about what we really need — taking care of us. I think people just want to have a feeling of security. It’s just like political terrorism right now, they got us all scared to death about everything,’ Parton said.
----------------------------------------
A pause in this nomination post.  Anyone who has ever written anything knows that it is easier to write the long version rather than a concise version.  I'm going to take the easy way out for the moment because I have so much to present, by inserting extended extracts from a variety of sources I've bookmarked over the years.  Later I'll need to come back to weed, summarize, correlate etc.  So here we go with some of the source material...

She is beloved across so many demographic groups because she really transcends politics,” said Lance Kinney, an advertising and public-relations professor at the University of Alabama. “And her magic lies on being a cipher onto which you can graft whatever political agenda you prefer.”

The allure that rings from honky-tonks in the rural South to gay bars in large coastal cities has everything to do with the persona Parton has meticulously cultivated since the 1950s, Kinney said. On the one hand, there’s the conservative-appealing story of Parton’s origins — or how she managed to pull herself up by her bootstraps after growing up poor in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee. On the other, there’s the glitz and glamour of her towering wigs and acrylic nails, and the feminist anthem she created with “9 to 5,” an iconic song about workplace discrimination.

In recent years, Parton has turned the Imagination Library, her literacy-focused nonprofit, into a 2 million-book-a-month international operation and also helped fund Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine. She has supported the LGBTQ+ community and endorsed the Black Lives Matter movement — breaking with “the guardrail in country music of not talking about racial injustice in the present,” said Joel Schwindt, a music history assistant professor at Berklee College of Music.

“Dolly Parton, much like country music, is a paradox,” Schwindt said. “But I think she can get away with it because of her authenticity and also because she’s reached founders’ status in country.”
Regarding controversial issues, per Gizmodo:
She’s acknowledged, for instance, the role of the LGBT community in inspiring her stage persona. Yet when Tennessee banned public drag performances, she kept quiet. She publicly attested her support for Black Lives Matter with a spate of other country musicians as artists reckoned with the genre’s long silence on racial justice. Her speaking up came two years after she changed the name of her long-running dinner show from Dixie Stampede to Dolly’s Stampede after much criticism of its Confederate nostalgia. Parton insisted the original name was chosen out of “innocent ignorance.” (This move did divide some fans.)

In interviews, Dolly has certainly expressed support for environmental causes, in her down-home oratory style. “We’re just mistreating Mother Nature,” she told National Geographic last year.“That’s like being ugly to your mama.” ...

But Wilkerson feels that Dolly, and her companies, don’t own up to their part in damaging the region’s climate resilience or contributing to environmental catastrophe through the cumulative impact of all those cars and private jets. “It’s been the ruination of the Smoky Mountains,” Wilkerson said bluntly. 

From Vox in 2021:
But Parton knew what she was talking about when she suggested to the New York Times last fall that people were starting to get sick of her. She has now achieved the sort of hysterical and highly trendy adoration that can shade into overexposure in the blink of an eye — even for a legend with a reputation as durable as Dolly Parton’s. The pressure on Dolly Parton to be the single person who can unite a fractured America is so high, there is a slow and uneasy creep of incipient backlash all around her...

But in recent decades, everything that makes Dolly Dolly has swung back into trend. “One reason Parton’s approval rating is so high, though” Lindsay Zoladz posited in the New York Times in 2019, “is that all the attributes that used to set her up for criticism — the outrageous, hyper-femme style; the unapologetic business savvy needed to pull off her late-70s pop crossover; even the so-what acknowledgment of her own cosmetic surgery — are no longer taboo.”

Dolly Parton often explains that she modeled her look after the town tramp, who as a small child she thought was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen, and that she knows straight men don’t find it attractive and doesn’t care. “If I was trying to really impress men or be totally sexy, then I would dress differently,” she told Playboy in 1978. But why bother? “I’m already married and he don’t mind how I look.”..

For decades, this acknowledgment played as tacky or trashy. But in the 2010s, it came to be seen as empowering, even feminist: Dolly dresses for herself, not the male gaze. And Dolly’s self is a celebration of the artificiality of femininity and glamour, a finding of authenticity in what is fake. That’s downright avant-garde...

In 2008, Roger Ebert returned to his 1980 Dolly Parton profile, noting that it had missed something he considered very important: her presence, which he writes “enveloped” him. “This had nothing to do with sex appeal,” he says. “Far from it. It was as if I were being mesmerized by a benevolent power. I left the room in a cloud of good feeling.”

Ebert adds that when he spoke with his writing partner Gene Siskel about Parton the next day, Siskel reported the same feeling: “This will sound crazy,” he said, “but when I was interviewing Dolly Parton, I almost felt like she had healing powers.”
Lots more good information at that Vox article, including insights into the Dollywood Dixie Stampede dropping the term "Dixie" at her request, her refusal to join Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda in disrespecting Donald Trump, and the weaknesses inherent in embracing both sides of an argument.

In 2020 The New York Times offered "The Grit and Glory of Dolly Parton":
Only as an adult did I see how widely and warmly (if sometimes ironically) Parton has been embraced by people with little else in common. Her ability to navigate social and conceptual divides helps explain why this is: She is country without being retrograde; a friend to the outcast whose basic political philosophy, that people should get paid to do what they do best, is uncontroversial. She is beautiful without making beauty look easy; feminine but not fragile; white but not precious; principled but not hardened or fixed...

Most accounts of her life, of which there are many, begin with Parton’s humble origins as the fourth child of 12 born to an industrious sharecropper and a musical mother in the mountains of East Tennessee. Extremely poor, but confident and creative, Parton wrote her first songs at age 5 or 6, got her first guitar at age 8 and appeared on a local radio and television show at age 10. The morning after her high school graduation in 1964, Parton left her small town for Nashville. That day, she met her husband, Carl Dean, to whom she has been married for 54 years...

Parton addresses the wealth she has amassed through these ventures with predictable nonchalance, but she clearly knows the value of money, in a way familiar to those who have grown up without it. She supports several family members (she does not have children), and has donated millions to the Imagination Library, the literacy program she founded in 1990; to East Tennessee residents whose homes were destroyed by a 2016 wildfire; and, this spring, to Nashville’s Vanderbilt Medical Center, for Covid-19 vaccine research...

The word that you’re going to have to use over and over when describing her is ‘work,’” Summers tells me. I admit I have gleaned this from Parton’s description of how she “gets more done than most people do all day” by working every morning from 3 to 7 a.m. on her spiritual practice and any one of several projects she keeps lined up in plastic bins before her workday officially begins. Parton says she “lives on creative and spiritual energy” — and the more she talks about “rising above” her physical self to meet the demands of each day, I see she means this literally: She subsists on energy instead of typical amounts of sleep (she gets no more than six hours a night, and is fine on three)...

Even her gleaming exterior can be seen as a function of her working girl’s pragmatism. “I’m really not that ‘high maintenance,’” she writes in the new book, “I can put on my makeup, costume and wig and be ready for anything in 15 minutes or less.”..

She remains true to country music’s historical role, not as a bastion of conservative patriotism (as it was rebranded when it was aligned with Richard Nixon’s “silent majority” in the 1960s) but as an inclusively populist, working people’s music meant to give outsiders a voice. Hence her decision to write the song “Travelin’ Thru” for the 2005 film “Transamerica,” about a trans woman’s attempts to connect with her son; and, in 2017, to join Miley Cyrus on the pro-gay anthem “Rainbowland.”

The Imagination Library videos on YouTube, where Dolly reads bedtime stories to you (or your children) from the books that she gives away free to children every month in order to promote literacy

Re her childhood poverty and dietary preferences, from Rolling Stone in 2003:
Despite all the modern trappings of her fame and success, Dolly Parton is a living link to what seems like an impossibly remote past. She was born the fourth of twelve children in a log cabin in Sevier County, Tennessee, on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The doctor who brought her into the world was paid with a sack of cornmeal. The Partons didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing, and her dad, a tobacco farmer, supplemented the family’s diet by taking his shotgun and heading off into the woods.

“People hear me talk about eating squirrel and groundhogs, but in the mountains like that, you really didn’t have much of a choice,” says Parton matter-of-factly. “There were twelve of us kids. We never ate possum — I remember Daddy saying, ‘That’s like a damn rat.’ But we ate everything — turtle, frogs. I just remember the big old groundhogs — whistle pigs, they called them — and you’d cook ’em with sweet potatoes, and you’d have different ways of making some of that gamy taste go away.” 
“Look,” she says triumphantly, throwing the cabinet doors open. It’s magnificent: cans of corned-beef hash, tins of Spam, loaves of white bread, a Costco-size brick of Velveeta. “I have to have my Spam,” she says. “And look at this!” It’s a pig-shaped ceramic jar. Inside is a baggie of bacon grease, neatly labeled with a date. “The people who come to clean my house every Thursday have to fry up bacon, so I have bacon grease to cook with. I have to have it in all my houses.” She brightens. “You want some Velveeta?” She saws off an orange hunk and offers it. “You didn’t believe me, did you?” she says. “I grew up with that stuff and I never got over it. Good, ain’t it?”  

She was the first in the history of her family to graduate from high school.  Lots more at the link. [note to self - extract more later,

The first episode of “Dolly Parton’s America” centers partly on the “9 to 5” songwriter’s reluctance to call herself a feminist. Earlier this year, Parton’s own sister, Stella, said she was “ashamed” of Dolly for not speaking out more about the #MeToo movement. In response, Parton told The Guardian: “I don’t feel I have to march, hold up a sign or label myself. I think the way I have conducted my life and my business and myself speaks for itself.”..

Like Cher, another 73-year-old multihyphenate icon, Parton has over the past few years ascended to a rarefied level of intergenerational celebrity: a saucy grandmother of social media...

Both-sides-ism rarely feels as benevolent as it does when coming from Parton, but that’s nothing new. When asked, in 1997, how she was able to maintain fan bases within both the religious right and the gay community, she replied, “It’s two different worlds, and I live in both and I love them both, and I understand and accept both.”..

Parton was born in January 1946, to parents so poor, they paid the doctor who delivered her in cornmeal. Their home at the foot of East Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains had “running water, if you were willing to run and get it” — one of Parton’s many, oft-repeated “Dollyisms” that makes light of her hardscrabble upbringing.

As a child — one of 12 — she had no exposure to movies or television, rarely even magazines, so her earliest ideas of glamour came from two seemingly disparate sources: the glittering kings and queens she heard described in fairytales and Bible verses, and from the “streetwalkers,” and “strumpets and trollops” she’d see when her family went into town. “I was impressed with what they called ‘the trash’ in my hometown,” she later mused. “I don’t know how trashy these women were, but they were said to be trashy because they had blond hair and wore nail polish and tight clothes. I thought they were beautiful.”...

For all the musical legends we’ve lost in the past few years, it’s heartening to see this show pony get her victory lap while she’s still around to bask in the glory. Not that she’s planning on going anywhere. Whenever she’s asked how she’d like to be remembered 100 years from now, Parton trots out one of her best Dollyisms: “I want ’em to say, ‘God, don’t she look good for her age!’”..

[In the WNYC podcast series "Dolly Parton's America,"] Abumrad narrates from his position as a relative outsider to what he calls the Dollyverse, presenting “Dolly Parton’s America” with the aesthetic language of the modern podcast: snippets of interviews, tonally appropriate background music, and the inviting, conversational voice of a man guiding you through his thought process as he travels down various rabbit holes of his own curiosity. Parton granted Abumrad quite a few sit-down interviews, and although seasoned Parton fans will find little of what she tells him to be new information, “Dolly Parton’s America” is a genial, compulsively listenable crash course in Parton’s lasting appeal...
And that will serve as a segue to my earnest suggestion that those wishing to understand Dolly Parton should listed to these podcastsThe full 8-part series of podcasts is here [transcripts are also available for those who want to skim quickly].  In the "Dixie Disappearance" she explains why she modified Dollywood's chief attraction - the "Dixie Stampede" after learning it offended people:
Well, there's several reasons that we changed the name or a few reasons. Maybe I should say a couple of reasons. One being that out of ignorance, people do things you don't know. A lot of my things that I do wrong, just out of pure ignorance really, because you grow up a certain way and you don't know. The Dixie, we always thought way down in the land of Dixie, it's like a Dixieland or Dixieland music, Dixie. You know, I just thought of Dixie as a part of the, part of America. And it was offensive cause like I say out of ignorance, you don't know that you're hurting people, never thought about it being, about slavery or any of that. But when it was brought to our attention, and some woman wrote about it and I thought, well Lord have mercy, I would never want to hurt anybody for any reason. And being a business woman, we didn't really have that many people say anything about it.

But I thought, Lord, if I've offended one person as a business woman, I don't want to do that. So we completely cleared all that out and started over that. But we, I just wanted to fix it cause I don't want to ever hurt or offend anyone. And so I did it as a good faith effort to show that it was never meant to cause anyone any pain.
Back in 2019 after listening to Radiolab's introduction to "Dolly Parton's America," I posted a summary of the podcast, including this: 
JAD: Like, she tore right through all of that noise. Through the general election and beyond. And I kept bumping into people who would describe the experience of being at a Dolly show as, like, standing in an alternate vision of America than what was unfolding on the TV.

JESSIE WILKERSON: I remember just standing out in the lobby and just people watching, because it was the most diverse place I’ve ever been. I was seeing a multi-racial audience. People wearing cowboy hats and boots. I was seeing people in drag. Church ladies. Lesbians holding hands. Little girls who were there with their families.

WAYNE BLEDSOE: You had a whole audience of people who absolutely their philosophies were in opposition to each other co-mingling, and everybody is polite to each other.

JAD: So that was one thing that caught my attention. That in this very divided moment, Dolly seems to maybe be a kind of unifier. And after doing a little poking around, the data does kind of bear this out. If you look at her global Q Score, this is a measure of how well people think about your brand, globally. What they do is they assemble a very diverse sample of people, they ask them a bunch of questions, and out of all of these different brands that are out there, all these different performers, she is in the top 10 globally in terms of everybody's favorites. But she's almost number one when it comes to lack of negatives, if that makes any sense.
That's what the United States needs right now

-----------------------------------------
O.K.  That's the end of the multi-course dog's breakfast of my archived Dolly Parton links.  Now back to the "presidential nomination" part of this megapost.

First, I would like comments from international readers re what your reaction would be were the United States to nominate or elect Dolly Parton as U.S. president, and how she would play out on the world stage.  Björk had this to say back in 2003:
“Oh, Dolly’s big in Iceland,” says Björk. “Her voice is immaculate, really powerful. Her character is so warm and human, and she has a great sense of humor.” To Björk, Parton transcends her musical genre. “All my friends love Dolly, and most of them are people who would never listen to country music,” she says. 
But that's one talented musician talking about another one for a music-centered Rolling Stone magazine.  How would "regular people," diplomats, and other world leaders react?  Personally I can envision her attending a major international conference in the Hague, walking up to an obscure foreign minister to say "Hi - I'm Dolly," and him responding "Yes, I know.  My people back in Eastern Rumelia just love you."  "I'm so pleased to hear that.  Let's talk about this climate mess."

Second, we need to ponder a vice-presidential running mate.  Many years ago when Donald Trump was running for president, I thought the Democrats should counter with Tom Hanks, but at their convention they disastrously chose Hilary Clinton.  Now I would suspect that Tom Hanks would be too "woke" for this centrist new party.  Readers may have some reasonable suggestions, but in the end likely Dolly could come up with her own pick.  And what to call the party? (again, she can decide.  She built a multimillion-dollar business from scratch; she's good at this stuff).

The biggest problem is not getting her elected, but getting her to accept the nomination.  It would probably only take three degrees of separation for someone reading this post to ask someone they know to ask someone who knows Dolly personally to tell her that she needs to offer herself as a presidential candidate.  She will of course immediately decline.

I have no doubt that the idea of being president has been suggested to her many times in interviews.  The difference would be that this would be a serious appeal, not clickbait for a media video or post.  It needs to be emphasized to her that she needs to do this for the good of her country.  Dolly Parton probably has more true patriotism than all the congressmen combined, and she might well make sacrifices for that goal.  But her reply would probably also be a serious declining of the offer, because I believe her husband is probably in failing health.

Dolly has said that she would continue her music until her death and the only thing that would take her away from that would be if she is needed at home.  She has recently announced that she will no longer be touring - just doing occasional appearances, because she wants to spend more time at home with her husband.

The response to that would be an acknowledgement of her situation and the counteroffer that she can stay at home for the process.  She won't need to do any campaigning.  Just a simple 30 second video inserted during the upcoming Trump-DeSantis flame wars and during the Democratic staged "debates" in which she says "Hi - I'm Dolly, and I am also running for president.  Please write my name in on the primary ballots.  Thank y'all so much" would be sufficient to confirm her viability. 

And as president, she could also spend her time at home (except for those international conferences), Zooming with her cabinet.  This is the way business is done in the modern world.  What else does a president do in real life?  They go to tornado/hurricane/flood sites to hug victims and then get back in their motorcades of black SUVs back to their helicopters.  She could do that much much better.  And do it sincerely.

What can we do in the meantime?  Discuss this with friends and family as a serious matter, and start writing her name in on every online poll.  I've not been able to find her included in any FiveThirtyEight surveys, except for this casual aside: "these days it’s difficult to get 58 percent of Americans to agree on anything except perhaps distaste for airline travel and love of Dolly Parton."  Somebody over there please take notice.

I will offer this for her campaign song/theme video:


TLDR:  An intelligent, hard-working, compassionate businesswoman who puts people above politics is the best available representative for the United States at home and on the world stage.

Photo embedded at the top from the Associated Press, via a Los Angeles Times article on Dolly's receiving of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.
11 Jun 09:37

What Celebrity Sightings Have You Had?

by Joanna Goddard

tina fey Oprah

On this Wednesday afternoon, let’s talk about something fun: celeb sightings! When have you spotted famous people out in the world? Apparently, this week, Timothée Chalamet and Martin Scorsese rode the subway together, and people lost their collective minds.… Read more

The post What Celebrity Sightings Have You Had? appeared first on Cup of Jo.

25 May 06:12

“The library is a safe place.”

by wil@wilwheaton.net (Wil Wheaton)
SpinnyNuNu

Read banned books.

This morning, I gave a keynote at the Southern Kentucky Book Festival. Here are my prepared remarks.

Good morning. My name is Wil Wheaton. I am the New York Times bestselling author of Still Just A Geek. My narration of Ready Player One debuted at number one on the same list. I created, produced, and hosted the series Tabletop on Geek & Sundry, and I currently host The Ready Room, your online hub for all things Star Trek Universe.

I am so proud and grateful for all of that. I have an amazing life doing what I love. I’ve been married for 24 years to my best friend, Anne. We have two amazing kids, a pretty great dog, and a cat who allows us to believe we are in charge. I get to travel all over, talking to audiences like this, about things that are important to me.

I’m going to say it again: I have a fantastic life. 

To get here, I had to survive what most of you probably know me from: my childhood acting career. In 1985, when I was 12, I starred in Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me, which has gone on to become a generational classic. At 14, I was cast as Wesley Crusher, in Star Trek: The Next Generation. 35 years later, I am introduced at science fiction conventions as an elder in the community, representing Legacy Star Trek.

I was really good at it, but I never wanted to be an actor. My mom forced me to do it, and gaslighted me about that truth until I finally had no choice but to end contact with both of my parents, so I could work on healing the CPTSD I have carried for as long as I can remember.

Today, I am a full-time writer and part-time host. I’m as happy and fulfilled as I have ever been, and for the first time in my life, I am doing what I want to do, what is important to me. Today, I want to talk to you about how I got here from there, and the librarian who made it all possible.

The earliest memories of my life are of my grandmother teaching me to read, in the kitchen of the farmhouse she lived in with my great grandparents and my great aunt. I don’t know what urban development is like here, but in the San Fernando Valley which I still proudly call home, what was endless farmland fifty years ago, today mostly belongs to people who cut down all the trees so they could sell you some manufactured shade. But when I lived there in the 70s, it was gorgeous.

I still have the first book I was able to read all the way through on my own, without any help. It’s called Willie and the Whale. The story goes: a boy named Willie goes swimming with a whale and they have fun together. At the end of the book, they agree to do it all again tomorrow. A simple, tight narrative that five year-old me had no trouble following. I loved it. I loved the special time that was just me and my grandmother. I loved that the main character and I had the same name. I loved how reading it made me feel … accomplished. My grandmother and great aunt were effusive with their praise. I once got a standing ovation at the Royal Albert Hall, and it wasn’t as awesome. Close, but not quite.

The next books I can remember reading were those little Power Records books that came with a 45 that I could play while I read along. Anyone here remember those books? Anyone else remember “When R2-D2 says “beep beep boop”, turn the page”? Anyone else get frustrated when the narrator wasn’t reading as fast as you were? Okay, cool. Real quick: all of you who share these memories, if you haven’t had a colonoscopy, it’s time to get that done.

Okay. Come with me to late 1978 or early 1979. The Bee Gees, Toto, and the Village People are tearing up the charts. The Muppet Movie is brand new in theatres. I’m six or seven, and one day, my mom starts taking me out of school to go with her to something she called “interviews” or “auditions”. It was how people got on TV, she told me. She really wanted to be on TV, talked about it all the time. When you were on TV you got lots of money and attention. When you were on TV, you were special and important. When she drove us to these auditions, she talked a lot about how great and fun it was going to be when we did commercials together.

I didn’t care about any of that. I mean, I was seven. I wanted to play with my toys, read my books, and watch cartoons. This is important: nobody asked me if I wanted to be on TV. Not my mom, not my dad, not anyone. My mom told me that I wanted to be on TV. This was so confusing to me. I barely even knew what that meant. I liked watching TV — I was all about Mister Rogers and Sesame Street — but I didn’t understand what making television was. I just knew that I turned it on, sat down with my cereal and my blanket, and hoped that Miss Mary Ann would see me through the Magic Mirror on Romper Room.

But my mother was relentless, drilling into me over and over again that this was all so great and so fun, and wasn’t it cool that we were doing something I wanted to do, spending all this time together? This happened so much, I started to believe it, even though I knew there were four lights. When we booked our first commercial together, she was as excited and happy as one of those people on The Price Is Right, when they won both showcases. She told me that we got to go on an airplane together to a place called Lake Tahoe, where we would film this commercial with a guy who was super famous. I just wanted to bring my Six Million Dollar Man action figure with me.

So in the winter of 1978/79, we flew on an airplane — a very big deal, something only fancy people got to do — to Lake Tahoe, Nevada, to shoot a commercial for for Jell-O Pudding Pops, with Bill Cosby, who was doing shows at one of the casinos there. I don’t have a ton of clear memories from the shoot, but the few which remain are in 4K: the production brought trees up from Los Angeles, because the local trees had dropped all their leaves. They kept the trees in the hallways of the motel where the crew stayed, and I can still smell the dirt and bay leaves.  We filmed on a golf course, which was meant to be a park. Again, because it was the middle of winter, the production covered tons of snow with tons of green dye that came out of a giant hose. Finally, most relevant to this story, the prop department kept the pudding pops in an ice chest with dry ice, so they wouldn’t melt. There was snow everywhere, and we were all cold, even with long underwear on, so keeping them extra-frozen seemed weird to me, but that’s how they did it. Before each take, the prop guy took a pudding pop out of the ice chest, dipped it into warm water, and handed it to Bill Cosby. Then, the cameras rolled, he handed it to me, and I ate it.

During a rehearsal, I ended up with a still-super-frozen pudding prop in my hand, and because the only thing better than free frozen pudding on a stick is forbidden frozen pudding on a stick, I stole a lick. As a little treat. Just for me. And that’s when I figured out why the prop guy was dipping them into the hot water.

You know when Flick sticks his tongue to the flagpole in A Christmas Story? Yeah. That, but for real.

Now, between booking the job and arriving on location, my mom drilled into me that I had to be on my best behavior the whole time we were on the set, and if I wasn’t, if I messed up AT ALL, we’d both get fired and everyone would be mad at me.

Okay. Well. I didn’t want anyone to be mad at me, so I had to get this thing unstuck before anyone noticed. So I gently tugged on the popsicle stick, which gently tugged on my tongue. I tugged a little harder, it tugged a little harder. I looked up and made brief, casual, eye contact with Bill Cosby. There was nothing remotely threatening about him. In fact, he’d been great to me the whole day. Still, a voice in my head shouted, “YOU’RE IN TROUBLE!” My survival instinct jumped into action, put its hand around my wrist, and YANKED. Problem solved!

The Jell-O pudding pop came off of my tongue, taking the entire surface of my tongue with it.

I yelped because it hurt, but when that first flash of pain was over, I saw that the entire crew was looking at me. I looked at my mom. Her expression said it all, and I began to cry, because I knew that everyone was now mad at me and we were going to get fired.

Only I wasn’t in trouble. Nobody was mad. If anything, they were all worried that I was hurt. It was the polar opposite of what my mom made me believe would happen. 

The set medic gave me a warm washcloth which I held on my tongue while Bill Cosby sang a song about healing in one of the Fat Albert voices. My tears turned to laughter, after a short time the pain subsided, and we were able to get back to work. We finished shooting the commercial, he gave us tickets to his show that night, and the next day we flew back home.

Real quick sidebar: Bill Cosby is a monster who hurt people without a second thought for decades. He’s not a good person. He wasn’t a good person. But sometimes bad people do good things, and though it was a single grain of sand in a desert of abuse, in that moment, one of the most famous comedians in the world was kind and compassionate toward little seven year-old Wil, who was hurt and scared, and just wanted to go home. That doesn’t excuse or lessen any of the horrible things he did, but part of my life story is that Bill Cosby showed me more compassion and empathy on that set than either of my parents ever did, at any point in my childhood.

The commercial never aired. The flavor, butterscotch, didn’t test well, they said. That was fine with me. I didn’t care about being on TV, anyway. But my mom was so upset, like she took it personally. Again, if anyone had asked me, I would have been perfectly happy never going on another audition. But I wasn’t given that choice. I was taken out of school more and more for auditions. I started booking lots of jobs, but it was never enough for my mom. After each one I would ask if I could stop, now. And each time, I had to book more. And I had to be the star. When I begged my mom to just let me be a kid, she insisted that I’d always wanted to do it, that I’d made a commitment to be an actor. If you’re around a seven year-old, ask them what a commitment is. Ask them if they want to work more than they want to play. Ask them how the pressure to have a roomful of strangers like them so their mom isn’t upset feels. To save you some time, I’ll go ahead and answer for you: it’s not great. By the time I was eight, and in the third grade, the cracks were beginning to appear.

My dad didn’t want me to go to public school, because too many of “those people” were being bussed in. My mom didn’t want me to go to public school because taking me out of class all the time was becoming an issue with the district. So they put me into a private religious school that didn’t care if I was in class or not. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but looking back on it now, that school treated education as an afterthought. They were much more focused on indoctrination. We spent lots of time learning pledges of allegiance and why we were all so much better than people who didn’t go to the church. They literally put the fear of God into us every day. It was a crucible, and I had been so emotionally beaten up by my parents, I was a soft target for bullies. It was easy to make me cry. It was easy to push me around. It was awful, and I didn’t get any support from any authority figures who could have helped. In fact, my third grade teacher regularly called me “Wil the Pill” in front of the class, because putting a target on a scared kid and giving the green light to bullies was all the rage in 1980.

So I didn’t feel safe at school. I didn’t feel seen or heard at home. I was scared and lonely all the time. I felt sad and trapped. And at the end of every school day, I’d walk with my fellow 3rd graders to the driveway where our parents picked us up. They all got to go home, or to afterschool day care, but I never knew on any given day if I got to go home and be a kid, or if I had to go sit in traffic all afternoon while my mom took me to the auditions I hated. Most kids get excited as the end of the day gets closer. It means they get to go home, ride bikes, play games, watch TV … you know, kid stuff. For me, the end of each day was a mystery box. Would there be a kid inside? Or mom’s actor? 

More than anything, I needed a safe place to just be me. I needed a safe person to see me, not Wil the Pill, or the actor who didn’t want to be an actor, or the easy target for a bully. About halfway through the school year, I found that place and that person, at the public library.

Once a month, our entire class would ride the bus to the public library in Tujunga, California. It was one of those mid-century, post war government buildings, sturdy, but not exactly warm and welcoming. It was pretty much one long, narrow room with a couple dozen stacks and the biggest card catalog I’d ever seen. Near the front, there was a rug with some chairs around it, where we’d gather for a reading from one of the librarians. On one side of the rug, about two dozen books were laid out on a table. Every visit, we got to pick out a book to take home and keep, in addition to the three books we were allowed to borrow.

The first time we went there, our teacher told us we’d go to the table in alphabetical order by last name. The second time, we went in alphabetical order by first name. We alternated like that every month. This didn’t work out so great for your pal Wil Wheaton, who got a lot of books nobody else wanted, but it was a smashing success for Andy Baker, who always got the best book (and who also had impeccable aim in dodgeball, which is why I still flinch when I hear the ping of that type of playground ball). On one of the last field trips of the school year, our teacher announced that we would choose our free book in REVERSE ALPHABETICAL ORDER! Andy Baker would finally know the pain of being Millhouse!

I looked at all those books, and zeroed in on a small paperback all about the science of magnetism … that came with an actual magnet for experiments.

I loved science because it was a series of facts that could be tested and measured. Science didn’t tell gravity that what it really wanted was to be thermodynamics. Science didn’t rewrite itself every few months to accommodate whatever was most important to my mom at any given moment. Science was reliable, predictable. Science felt empowering to me. And I loved learning. Learning new things was fun, understanding that everything, no matter how complex it appeared, could be broken down into several smaller, simpler, things, allowed me at a very young age to wrap my head around the Apollo program, the transformation of an acorn into an oak, and to see how everything in our natural world fits together. For a kid who felt so out of control and invisible, there was tremendous comfort in the immutable laws of science.

But let’s be honest: I didn’t want that book because of science. I just wanted that magnet. It was basically getting a toy for free.

Harry Yang was called on to go first. I pulled my feet underneath me and got ready to leap into action. Harry went straight to the magnetism book and took it off the table so fast there was a small thunderclap behind him. You know that saying about how second place is the first loser?

I’d been so excited to be as close to first as I could get, so excited for that one specific book, I hadn’t looked at any other books on the table, or even considered a second choice. From a long way off, like it was down a tunnel, I heard my name called. I walked in kind of a fog to the table, seeing only the empty space where my book had been. While I scanned the remaining titles, the teacher told Jennifer T that it was her turn. I kind of panicked. There was something on that table that was second best after the magnet book and if I didn’t find it right away, Jenny T was going to get it. With only seconds to make my decision, I grabbed the closest title that looked interesting: something about doing magic tricks. I still have that book, and it’s great. I can still do some of the silly card tricks and that thing with a carrot under a napkin. I’m going to be an awesome grandfather someday in some small part because of the tricks I learned in that book, but in 1980, it represented yet another time I didn’t get what I wanted, and there was nothing I could do to change it.

I returned to my chair and felt sad, while the other kids in my class engaged in a sort of literary feeding frenzy. I stole a glance at Harry, and saw that he was having a great time with my magnet. He wasn’t using it to do magnet things, just sort of flying it around like a spaceship, like you do when you’re in 3rd grade. Oh, I was so envious. He wasn’t even doing experiments, yet, and it was already awesome.

Everyone got their free book, and we were set loose on the rest of the library to find and borrow other books. Normally, I was all about this part of the field trip. I’d go straight to the children’s section and look for authors I recognized. I made my way through the entire series of Ramona Quimby books this way. But on this day, I just wasn’t feeling it. I was tired. I was defeated. I wanted a magnet and all I got were magic tricks. I just sat in my chair and felt my feelings.

After some time had passed, the librarian who read to us and was, in my mind, in charge of things, sat down next to me. I don’t remember her name, but I do remember that she looked like she was in her fifties (so probably like 29), wore epic 1970s polyester pantsuits, huge glasses that hung from a long gold chain around her neck, and had a hairdo that was ten miles high. She was friendly and helpful, and when she reached out to that nerdy little kid, she changed his life.

“What do you have there?” She asked.

I showed her my magic book.

“You really wanted that magnet book, didn’t you?”

How in the world did she know that? It had all happened so fast! I hadn’t said anything. I didn’t cry. How did she know? Was I in trouble?

“I put those books out for every class that comes here, and every student wants that book, because magnets are really neat,” she said, gently.

“Yeah,” I said.

She gestured toward the book in my lap. “Do you like magic?”

I didn’t NOT like magic, but it wasn’t a magnet, you know?

“Yeah, I guess,” I said.

She leaned forward and said, “A little, but not that much. That’s okay. Let’s figure out what you like, together!”

Other than my grandmother and great aunt, no adult had ever taken a genuine interest in me. I couldn’t remember any adult asking me what I cared about, what I liked. All the adults in my life essentially said “do this or else” or “this is what you like.” To be honest: I was a little suspicious, but something about her felt safe.

“Okay,” I said.

She led me to a display of probably five or so shelves with books faced out on each of them. I saw a couple I recognized: Where the Sidewalk Ends, How To Eat Fried Worms, The Westing Game.

We talked about the cartoons I liked, the books I had enjoyed, and, in response to “what movies do you like?” Star Wars. Because Star Wars was, as far as I was concerned, the only movie. 

“I think you would like science fiction,” she said, in a tone that was both reassuring and uplifting. She pulled a book off the shelf called Z for Zachariah. I can still hear her describe it to me: “There is a nuclear war, and a girl who lives in a little valley with her dad and brother is safe from the fallout because of the wind. One day, the two of them leave the valley to search for other survivors, and they never come back. A year later, she sees smoke on the horizon.”

That’s a hell of a pitch! I was captivated. “What happens?” I practically shouted.

“You have to read the book to find out.” She said with a smile.

I took it to the counter and officially borrowed it. I began reading it on the bus when we left the library, and I continued reading it when we all went to a park by school to eat our lunches. The smoke came from a stranger who eventually makes his way into her valley. That afternoon, when mom picked me up and I found out we were driving all the way to West Los Angeles for a callback, I read it in the car, even when I felt motion sick. The main character, a girl named Ann, hides from the man as long as she can, and when she reveals herself to him, it turns out he’s a really bad person.

I kept reading it when I got home. I fell asleep with it. I read it before and during breakfast the following day, and finished it at school that week. It was the fastest I’d ever read any chapter book, and it was my introduction to speculative fiction.

I didn’t talk to my parents about this book or the characters in it. I didn’t want to risk being teased by my dad, who I knew would make fun of me for identifying with a main character who was a girl, and I didn’t want to justify to my mom why I was reading a book instead of practicing whatever audition copy she put in front of me on any given day.

When we went back to the library the next month, I found the same librarian and gushed about how much I loved the book she recommended. What else did she think I would like?

She gave me a book called The White Mountains, and told me it was the first of a trilogy. “So when you like the characters and want to read more about them, you know that there are two more books waiting for you!” This was my introduction to the concept of sequels, just in time for Empire Strikes Back to be released that summer.

The White Mountains is the first book in The Tripods Trilogy, begun in 1967 by British author John Christopher. It is set in a world that’s been invaded and colonized by aliens, called Masters. The Masters exert their control over humanity by capturing children on their 13th birthday and fitting them with a mind control cap that allows the Masters absolute domination of the entire adult population. It’s very much a Cold War metaphor, and unabashedly antifascist, and anti authoritarian. All of the political commentary went over my head, and I read a story about kids who, faced with the reality that nobody was going to save them, came together to fight back and save themselves.

The protagonist is named Will, and even though he spelled his name wrong, with 2 Ls, that was pretty cool. I took every step with him and his allies, on every page, feeling inspired and thrilled that it really was possible to fight back and stand up for what was right, that power wasn’t absolute, that authority seized through power was not the same as authority granted democratically. I obviously didn’t get the complexities of that when I was ten, but I could feel the fundamental message: you can make a difference.

Now, imagine with me that this story was not set in an imaginary world, but was in my real world.

In my real world, every attempt to stand up for myself, to have any kind of autonomy, to simply be recognized as a person with my own ideas and needs, was swatted away by my parents and teachers. Their power and authority was untouchable. It was inevitable and there was nothing I could do about it but survive. If this story had been set in my real world, if the Tripods and the Masters were teachers and parents, I would have dismissed all of it as completely unbelievable. I knew firsthand that adults never listened to kids, that kids had no real agency, or a voice that any adult could not silence. Who I was, what I cared about, just didn’t matter.

But if I lived in the world of the Tripods, with Will and his friends, I could be myself. I didn’t have to be an actor or go on auditions. I could be a regular kid, who was friends with other regular kids. And if the adults in our lives didn’t protect us, we would protect ourselves. We wouldn’t let anyone push us around. We would outsmart all of them. A better life was possible.

This is why speculative fiction is so important, so powerful, and so threatening to capital-A Authority. Because it shows us through allegory and metaphor that a better life is possible, right here in the real world.

I devoured The White Mountains in just a couple of days, even faster than Z for Zachariah, and waited for three excruciating weeks to go back to the library for the next one. When the day finally came, I got both The City of Gold and Lead, and The Pool of Fire. I am just now realizing how lucky I was that these books were accessible to me, which I’m also going to come back to in a moment.

In The City of Gold And Lead, the heroes are captured by Masters. Some of them are enslaved. All of them are abused. Will sort of gets the least worst of it, when he is essentially treated like a pet by his new owner. And if I didn’t have enough in common with Will already, I certainly did now. It feels weird to give a spoiler warning for something that was written in 1967, but if I don’t, someone is going to yell at me. So. Spoiler alert. By the end of the book, Will and only one of his friends just barely escape. They are alive, but they have a long way to go before they defeat the Masters and are safe.

In the final book, the heroes figure out that they can weaken the Masters by getting them drunk, and use that knowledge to defeat them in a global war. Humans learn a number of technological advances, including space travel, from the ruins of their cities. But the ending isn’t exactly happy. Having driven the Tripods off Earth, humanity turns against itself in a fit of nationalism that suggests that maybe we aren’t much better than they were, after all. But there is some hope: in the final pages, Will and his friends stand with the resistance leader, Julius, as they begin the hard work of building a truly free and just society for everyone. John Christopher doesn’t tell us exactly what happens. Instead, he shows us that a better world is possible, but it’s going to take a lot of work to get there.

In order to survive, I disassociated for much of my childhood, but I clearly remember the books. That’s where I found comfort, companionship, inspiration and validation. It’s where the imagination that powers everything I do creatively in my life today was born. And it all started in that library, with that librarian. She was one of the first people I can remember asking me, “What do you like? What’s important to you? What do you want to know more about? How can I help you find it?”

That moment was so special and meaningful, not just then, but for years after. When I got older, I began to learn that so much of what had been presented to me as truth in school wasn’t just false, it was propaganda. I remember the first time I saw a banned books display at a bookstore in the mall when we were on location for Stand By Me. I wanted to read all of them, because I’d figured out that if They didn’t want me to, there must be something pretty great inside.

I read To Kill A Mockingbird, and began thinking about racism and injustice.

I read 1984 and Brave New World, and began thinking about autocrats, and what it meant to be truly free to choose our own destinies.

I read Johnny Got His Gun, and All Quiet on the Western Front, and saw firsthand the horrors of war.

Every one of those books lit a candle, or a torch, or a brazier in the dark room my parents tried to keep me in, and as the light spread, I began to see the cracks and the lies. I began to realize how much I’d been lied to in school, and that made me angry. When I was in my early 20s and read A People’s History of the United States, and Lies My Teacher Told Me, I recalled my fourth and fifth grade teachers passionately lecturing us about the importance of understanding history so we didn’t repeat it, and how betrayed I felt when I discovered that nearly all that history was 22actually myth.

Are there any librarians here today? How about booksellers? I love you. I’m not the only kid who was saved by you and your colleagues, because you saw us, and gave us a safe place. And that brings me to what I really want to talk about today. In January, 2011, I wrote: “Libraries are constantly under attack from people who fear knowledge, politicians who think guns are more important than books, and people who want to ensure that multi-millionaires pocket even more money. As an author, father, and a reader, I beg you: please support your local libraries in any way you can, and if you enjoy reading, take a moment to thank a librarian.”

We are here today in the shadow of Senate Bill 150. A cruel, deliberate effort by people who have nothing to offer but hate, to hurt as many people as they can, including children. It will allow teachers to misgender students. It will ban gender-affirming medical care for trans youths, despite medical experts and their professional associations saying such care is safe and effective treatment for children with gender dysphoria. As always, the authoritarians who are behind it claim they want to protect children, when it’s actually about consolidating and strengthening their own power and control in the face of overwhelming public opposition. That it will actually hurt children and the people who love them is not a bug, it is a feature. The cruelty is the point.

For years, I have known that I live life on the lowest difficulty setting, with the celebrity cheat enabled. I am not trans. I am not gay. I am a cisgender heterosexual white man in America. In fact, the only way I could be more privileged and protected in America is if I were an evangelical Christian.

And yet, I know how it feels to be a terrified child who knew who he was being forced to live a lie. I can relate to feeling like nobody had my back, that everything about me was wrong, was shameful, that I was not enough for anyone, when I wasn’t being too much. I know what it is like to ask for help over and over again, only to be told that I don’t need help. I just need to be fundamentally different and then it’ll all be great.

I know what it feels like to be scared, all the time, that someone is going to hurt me. And I know what it’s like to feel so alone, so invisible, so helpless to do anything about it, on the verge of just giving up so the pain will stop.

A 2022 study found that half of trans and non-binary people in the U.S. have considered suicide over the past year, citing an onslaught of anti-trans legislation and rhetoric spearheaded by right-wing politicians.

If these craven politicians truly cared about children, they’d be doing everything they can to ensure that no child ever has to feel any of those things. But they crave power, and they have nothing to offer but hate. So they are coming, as they always do, for the most vulnerable among us, to distract us from the truth. And to facilitate that, they are coming, as they always do, for schools, for books, and for libraries. Because they know that their lies collapse under any scrutiny, they work tirelessly to replace historical and scientific truth with the same revisionist myths my elementary school pushed on us so successfully, we took them for granted until we made an effort to uncover the truth for ourselves.

And where is the one place anyone can go to find the truth behind the myths? To have access to the knowledge and ideas that these authoritarians are so determined to destroy? The public library. 

Recently, I saw a screen capture of a tweet from 2022 that read, “Today, a woman with developmental disabilities came into the library, and said she was lost. She didn’t know her address, but her phone number was in her pocket on a piece of paper with Elmo on it. She kept saying, “The library is a safe place.” We called and her guardian came right over. Apparently this happens pretty regularly. They even stayed long enough for her to check out some new books and Sesame Street DVDs. The library is a safe place, indeed.“

That hit me so hard, right in my heart. If the library wasn’t there, where would she go? Where would I have gone? Where will kids and teens and marginalized adults go? The people who wrote Senate Bill 150 have ideological partners all over this country, and if they have their way, all the safe places will be taken away, including our public libraries.

“The library is a safe place.”

Why libraries? Because the library is so much more than a building with lots of books, internet access, 3D printers, D&D programs for kids, and all the other things. The library represents and offers equal access for everyone to all of those things. Not just the wealthy. Not just the privileged. Not just the in-group. It is a safe place for everyone to be curious, to find inspiration, to sit in the stacks, as far away from the door and the world as possible, and just quietly exist for a minute. (Don’t you love the way those books smell?) The public library is a safe place for all of us, whether we are a kid who feels invisible, a woman who is lost, or a New York Times bestselling author who has the privilege of sharing their story with you.

And that scares the pants off of the authoritarians. The greatest threat to their fragile grip on power is equal access to education, information, and opportunity. So libraries and librarians scare them to death.

Whenever someone tries to ban a book, they are telling on themselves. They are confessing that they are weak, afraid, and out of control. They are telling us that when we read these books, they will lose whatever control and authority they have. Authoritarians will try to control every aspect of your life, because they feel so out of control in theirs. Ask me how I know.

So.

Read banned books. Challenge book bans. Donate banned books. Take your kids to the library and encourage them to drink in as much knowledge, inspiration, and entertainment as possible. Support and reinforce their desire to learn and expand their world, because we’re all going to be old people in it, and I after the last few years of …. this …. I want  that world to have more books and fewer Fascists in it.

One last thing, before I finish. I want to speak directly to any young people who are here:  As I just said while you were looking at TikTok: This is your world, we’re just borrowing it for a little bit while you decide what to do with it. We’ve left you a real big mess to clean up, and I’m sorry about that. Believe me, a lot of us tried — and are trying — to make it easier for you, but we haven’t done enough.

I talked a bit about how afraid I was as a kid, how I felt like I was constantly on the verge of getting in trouble. One of the things I got yelled at about was doing something “on purpose,” so that’s a pair of words that have always kind of rubbed me the wrong way. For a few years now, I have taken the concept of “on purpose” and made it literal. I want to share with you some things I do “on purpose”, to literally give my life purpose and meaning, to help guide me when the path is unclear.

I’m a reasonably successful person. I don’t mean in my work, or only in my work. I mean in my life. I have great friends, I am so close to my adult children. I am married to my best friend. I get to do cool things, and I’m happy a lot more often than not. A real big part of that is committing to these choices:

Establish and protect your boundaries. You do not owe anyone anything. If someone does not respect your boundaries, it’s all the red flags.

Choose to be honest. I’m 50, and I’ve learned that the only currency that really matters in this world is the truth.

Choose to be honorable. This dovetails with number one. You attract to yourself what you put into the world. Dishonorable people will take everything from you and leave you with nothing. Do your best to be a person they aren’t attracted to.

Choose to work hard. Everything worth doing is hard. Do the hard work that sustains and nourishes relationships, that gets you the most out of your education, that gets you closer to your goals. Sooner or later, you’re going to run into something in your life that’s really hard, and you’ll want to give up, but it’s something you care so much about, you’ll do whatever you can to achieve it. It’s going to be hard, but it’s going to be less hard for someone who has practiced doing the hard things all along, than it is for someone who doesn’t know how to do the hard work because they’ve always chosen the easy path.

Always do your best, and know that your best will vary. Monday’s best may not be close to Tuesday’s best, and Wednesdays best may eclipse them both. Even if you don’t get the result you wanted, doing your best is really all you can ever do. We tell athletes to leave it all on the field. Whatever your version of that is, do it. And if you notice later that maybe you kinda phoned some of it in? Do your best to be gentle with yourself. We’re constantly learning and growing.

The last one is the most important one. If only one thing sticks, I hope this is it. This is the one I hope you’ll share with your peers: Always choose to be kind.

And just to be clear: Nice and Kind are not the same thing. Nice is about manners, and it comes from here. Kind is about empathy, and it comes from here. Cruel people can be nice, but they will never be kind. Please, practice kindness.

Thank you for listening to me. It’s been a privilege to speak to you today.

25 May 05:55

“i just want to be the person i needed when i was her age”

by wil@wilwheaton.net (Wil Wheaton)
SpinnyNuNu

This is so true:

>>>Being cruel is so boring. It’s lazy. Anyone can be cruel. It takes real, hard work to be kind.

I saw this in r/tumblr:

There’s a new girl in my kindergarten class who’s autistic and it’s like she’s barely / not really verbal but like idk she opened up to me a little, I don’t tell people I’m on the spectrum at work because they already treat me horribly because I’m the only poc there but like she’s a little Latina girl who I know exactly how she feels and like I was like “hey Nina, If you don’t wanna talk it’s okay, just thumbs up or thumbs down if you understand the (math) problem? Okay?” So we sorta made like a thumbs up and thumbs down thing between us and today it was the most surreal thing because I like “I know they tell you to make eye contact but I’m gonna tell you a trick, look at their neck, chin, hair, and whatever is behind them, I don’t like eye contact very much either? Thumbs up?” And she said with the smallest voice “Thankyou, for not saying I’m dumb” I wanna be the person I needed when I was her age

I hear other adults who also suffered as kids talk about how we want to be the person we needed when we were young. I hear it all the time, and it’s great. I love how we see and validate each other. I love it when I hear or experience a success story. It’s really wonderful. And it is beginning to dawn on me that on the other side of that choice are the people who needed someone, didn’t have that person, and instead of choosing to be that person when they grew up, they chose to perpetuate the cruelty and selfishness that hurt them.

And they act like they are tough and strong and powerful because they don’t let anything get to them … but that’s all a lie they tell themselves.

The truth is, they’re weak and afraid. And when they can’t sleep at night, they know it. And the scariest thing in their reality, the thing they will run from their entire lives, is that they will be found out and exposed. And that’s really sad. What a terrible way to go through life.

It takes courage and strength, vulnerability and dedication to be the person you needed, because when you are that person for someone else, part of you remembers and relives that you never had that. The people who choose indifference or cruelty aren’t strong or courageous enough to allow themselves to feel that pain all over again, so they just inflict it on others. They know they’re weak, they know that beneath the mask they are afraid. So all they have is cruelty, which is honestly the easiest thing in the world. It’s the path of least resistance for the people of least courage.

Being cruel is so boring. It’s lazy. Anyone can be cruel. It takes real, hard work to be kind.

Make the choice to be the person you needed, and commit to doing the work. Practice it, and break the cycle.

10 Apr 16:48

It's o.k. to be not-for-profit

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

I wish more people understood this.


There is a longstanding and ongoing effort by various members of congress to take the U.S. postal service private because it is "losing money."  Were that to happen, there are enormous profits that could be reaped by the new owners because of the near-monopolistic status of the mail (just as the Russian oligarchs became billionaires by privatizing Soviet industry).  

I'll defer ranting on this subject for now.  There is some salient commentary at the MurderedByWords subreddit where I found the embedded exchange, including opinions that healthcare, education, and public utilities might also be viewed as public services rather than profit centers.
16 Mar 13:07

Today is International Women's Day

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
13 Mar 17:13

Common features of fascism

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)

Excerpted from an article at Open Culture:
Can we use words like “fascism,” for example, with fidelity to the meaning of that word in world history? The term, after all, devolved decades after World War II into the trite expression fascist pig, writes Umberto Eco in his 1995 essay “Ur-Fascism,” “used by American radicals thirty years later to refer to a cop who did not approve of their smoking habits.” ...

"Contrary to common opinion, fascism in Italy had no special philosophy.” It did, however, have style, “a way of dressing—far more influential, with its black shirts, than Armani, Benetton, or Versace would ever be.” The dark humor of the comment indicates a critical consensus about fascism. As a form of extreme nationalism, it ultimately takes on the contours of whatever national culture produces it...

While Eco is firm in claiming “There was only one Nazism,” he says, “the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change.” Eco reduces the qualities of what he calls “Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism” down to 14 “typical” features. “These features,” writes the novelist and semiotician, “cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.”
1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”

2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”

3. The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”

4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”

5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”

6. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”

7. The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”

8. The humiliation by the wealth and force of their enemies. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”

9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”

10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”

11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”

12. Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”

13. Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
More info at the links (as always).  Photo via.
01 Feb 17:06

Israeli Hummus

by Season Liberally
SpinnyNuNu

I love hummus

A very smooth hummus recipe that mixes the beans while hot. It is a wonderful party food, and is very easy to make.
05 Jan 21:48

Wednesday Addams Snood, Vest and 14 more Crochet Patterns

by Shellie Wilson
SpinnyNuNu

I want a Wednesday snood

Calling all Wednesday Addams fans! We’ve got some exciting news for you. Netflix recently announced the upcoming series Wednesday and the crochet patterns to join her on her spooky adventures have been released!

That’s right, you can now make your very own Wednesday Addams vest, snood, and other patterns from the show. The patterns are designed by the talented designers Alice Morell Evans. And whilst she can’t share the exact pattern, there have been lots of spin-off patterns made available for making the vest Wednesday Addams was wearing. These Wednesday patterns are perfect for any fan. Whether you want to recreate Wednesday’s look from the show or turn it into something new, these patterns will let you do it. So grab your hooks and yarn and start stitching; it’s time to get creative with Wednesday Addams! Wednesday Crochet Patterns

Crochet Wednesday’s Way is the perfect way to celebrate the beloved Addams Family character Wednesday Addams! With this fun and unique crochet pattern collection, you can create a variety of Wednesday-inspired crochet accessories like snoods, vests, and more! From beginner-friendly patterns to advanced ones, there’s something for everyone. So, let’s get crocheting and make some Wednesday Addams-inspired projects!

Introduction to Crochet Wednesday’s Way

Crochet Wednesday’s Way is a collection of crochet patterns inspired by the Wednesday Addams character from The Addams Family. It’s a great way to bring the Addams Family into your home and add a little bit of fun to your wardrobe. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced crocheter, there’s something for everyone in the Crochet Wednesday’s Way collection.

The collection includes a variety of patterns for crocheting Wednesday Addams-inspired snoods, vests, and more. All of the patterns are easy to follow and can be adapted to fit your own style. The collection also includes patterns for beginners and more advanced crocheters alike. So, no matter your skill level, you can join in the fun of Crochet Wednesday’s Way and make your own Wednesday Addams-inspired creations!

Wednesday Addams’ Signature Crochet Snood

One of Wednesday Addams’ signature accessories is her iconic snood. It’s a perfect way to add a bit of Wednesday’s style to your wardrobe. The Crochet Wednesday’s Way collection includes an easy-to-follow pattern for crocheting your own Wednesday Addams-inspired snood.

The pattern calls for basic crochet stitches and materials like yarn and a crochet hook. The pattern is easy to follow and can be adapted to fit your own style. You can use a variety of colors and textures to create the perfect snood for you. You can also use the pattern to create a snood for a friend or family member – they’ll love it!

Wednesday Addams’ Vest Pattern

The Crochet Wednesday’s Way collection also includes a pattern for crocheting Wednesday Addams’ signature vest. It’s a great way to add a bit of Wednesday’s style to any outfit. The pattern calls for basic crochet stitches and materials. It’s easy to follow and can be adapted to fit your own style.

The vest pattern is perfect for any season. You can use a variety of colors and textures to create the perfect vest for you. You can also use the pattern to create a vest for a friend or family member – they’ll love it!

Wednesday Addams vest and this version too 

Enid Snood – Wednesday Addams’ Best Friend’s Crochet Pattern

Just like Wednesday, her best friend Enid has a signature style of her own. The Crochet Wednesday’s Way collection includes a pattern for crocheting Enid’s signature snood. It’s a great way to add a bit of Enid’s style to your wardrobe.

The pattern calls for basic crochet stitches and materials. It’s easy to follow and can be adapted to fit your own style. You can use a variety of colors and textures to create the perfect snood for you. You can also use the pattern to create a snood for a friend or family member – they’ll love it!

Enids Snood crochet Pattern and the free version here. 

Wednesday Addams’ Crochet Patterns for Beginners

The Crochet Wednesday’s Way collection includes a variety of patterns that are perfect for beginners. These patterns are easy to follow and can be adapted to fit your own style. They’re a great way to learn the basics of crochet and create something that you can be proud of.

The collection includes patterns for crocheting a basic snood, a beginner-friendly vest, and more. You can use a variety of colors and textures to create the perfect project for you. You can also use the patterns to create projects for friends or family members – they’ll love it!

Wednesday’s Snood Free Pattern

Wednesday Snood

Advanced Crochet Patterns Inspired by Wednesday Addams

For those who are looking for more of a challenge, the Crochet Wednesday’s Way collection includes advanced patterns inspired by Wednesday Addams. These patterns are perfect for experienced crocheters who are looking to take their skills to the next level.

The collection includes patterns for crocheting a more detailed snood, a more complex vest, and more. You can use a variety of colors and textures to create the perfect project for you. You can also use the patterns to create projects for friends or family members – they’ll love it!

Wednesday Micro Crochet Doll pattern in English 

Wednesday Doll 

Wednesday Addams doll with party dress 

Wednesday Addams Collar and cuffs– Tim Burton and his crew sought to pay respect to the legendary film The Addams Family and the 1960s series by hiding various easter eggs throughout the program, in addition to casting Christina Ricci. Jenna Ortega’s character in the premiere episode wears a traditional black dress with a white collar, an homage to Christina Ricci’s Wednesday’s clothing. Similarly, the plush bear in Principal Weems’ office alludes to the one that sat in the Addams family’s house in the 1964 show. Have you come across any additional Easter eggs in the series?

Creating Your Own Wednesday Addams Crochet Patterns

The Crochet Wednesday’s Way collection also includes tips and tricks for creating your own Wednesday Addams-inspired crochet patterns. With these tips, you can use your own creativity to create unique patterns and projects. You can also use the patterns in the collection as inspiration for your own creations.

The collection includes tips on how to adapt the patterns to fit your own style, how to use a variety of colors and textures, and more. With a bit of creativity, you can create something truly unique and special. So, let your creativity run wild and create something that you can be proud of!

Conclusion

The Crochet Wednesday’s Way collection is a great way to bring the Addams Family into your home and add a bit of fun to your wardrobe. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced crocheter, there’s something for everyone in the collection. From Wednesday Addams’ signature snood to Enid’s snood and more, you can create a variety of Wednesday-inspired projects. So, let’s get crocheting and make some Wednesday Addams-inspired projects!

Thing hands key chain – did you know on the Netflix series – The character Thing is definitely performed by an actor? Actually, Victor Dorobantu is a magician.

Mini Wednesday Addams Doll

Ravelry: Wednesday Addams amigurumi pattern by Leticia Pestana

Ravelry: Wednesday Mercoledì Addams pattern by AmyMamy Creations

Video tutorials for our visual crochet learners

How to Crochet Wednesday Addams Amigurumi || The Addams Family Amigurumi || Wednesday Addams Crochet

WEDNESDAY | PART 1 | HEAD, HAIR CAP | HOW TO CROCHET | AMIGURUMI TUTORIAL | 

WANDINHA ADDAMS amigurumi | Débora Travasso 

Jenna Ortega had a significant preparation period to play such a renowned figure. She studied German, cello, fencing, archery, and canoeing. In addition, the 20-year-old actress placed herself in the shoes of Wednesday in real life to improve her posture and confidence.

04 Jan 13:48

Tesla driver who plunged off cliff with children on Highway 1 arrested for ‘intentional act’

A Tesla driver who was rescued, along with another adult and two children, after their vehicle drove off a cliff on Highway 1 south of San Francisco, has been arrested after investigators determined the crash was an “intentional act,” authorities said.

19 Oct 19:01

Timelapse of nyctinasty

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

It looks like the room is breathing.

"In nyctinasty, some plants are able to assume a position at night that is different from their position during daytime. It is a biological rhythm since this behavior recurs in each circadian day. The sleeping position of these plants are said to be associated with pulvinar movement, circadian clock, and light signal transduction through phytochrome. Pulvinar movement involves pulvinar cells at the base of a plant leaf (or leaflet) or at the apex of the petiole that facilitates nyctinastic and nastic movements in a mechanism similar to stomatal closure."
07 Sep 18:39

Some "white-collar workers" should be worried

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

This is 100% accurate for my husband’s company. When he started, there were 4 engineers in his department. He’s the only one left in the US and the others were replaced with Chinese engineers. It’s been that way for over a decade.

Sobering thoughts:
When offshoring methodically disemboweled the Rust Belt, white-collar Americans thrived, free to enjoy the spoils of globalization safe in the knowledge that their jobs could not be outsourced easily to cheap foreign rivals. Now, some economists say the remote-work revolution may have changed that almost overnight.

If you can do your job from home, be scared. Be very scared,” Richard Baldwin, an economist at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, said in a recent video. “Because somebody in India … or wherever is willing to do it for much less.”

By greatly accelerating the adoption of remote work, the coronavirus pandemic has created a feedback loop that could be the most disruptive force to hit the job market since the blue-collar apocalypse in the 2000s, known among economists as the China shock...

The highest-paying industries, software and internet publishing (including search and social networking), also have the highest share of remote workers. A similar pattern holds throughout the income scale, with the lowest-paying jobs — in places such as gas stations — being least likely to be done remotely...

And while those jobs are concentrated in urban areas, many of them coastal, no industry or region would be untouched. As Zielinski points out, even blue-collar industries such as construction or manufacturing have plenty of white-collar roles that can be outsourced — think marketing, accounting, finance, sales and IT...

Autor, Zandi and other economists say those full-remote jobs could ultimately be a positive for American white-collar workers, liberating them from high-cost urban areas and revitalizing small communities.
This is a complicated scenario, but an important one for young workers to ponder.
20 Jul 20:37

Arizona would "collapse" without cheap prison labor

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

Slavery is still legal.


Sen. David Gowan asked Shinn about the nature of the work the prisoners do at the Florence West prison. In Arizona, all people in state prisons are forced to work 40 hours a week with exceptions for prisoners with health care conditions and other conflicting programming schedules. Some prisoners earn just 10 cents an hour for their work.

“These are low-level worker inmates that work in the communities around the county itself, I would imagine?" Gowan asked.

“Yes. The department does more than just incarcerate folks,” Shinn replied. “There are services that this department provides to city, county, local jurisdictions, that simply can't be quantified at a rate that most jurisdictions could ever afford. If you were to remove these folks from that equation, things would collapse in many of your counties, for your constituents.”..

The state currently contracts with The GEO Group, one of the largest private prison companies, to run Florence West, a minimum security prison that can hold up to 750 people...

Rep. John Kavanagh said to get companies interested in bidding for the contract, it was necessary to provide a profit motive.

You have to guarantee that they're going to have people there, and they're going to have a profit that they make, they're going to have income,” Kavanagh said. “No one's going to enter into a contract when you can't guarantee the income that they expect. That's kind of based on basic business.”..

After more questioning from Butler, Shinn confirmed there were currently more than 5,000 empty beds in the Arizona prison system state-wide...

When Butler asked “Why aren’t we closing more prisons?” her line of questioning was halted by committee leadership for being outside the scope of discussion...

An Arizona Republic investigation found that Arizona lawmakers invested more in private prisons after record-high campaign contributions from the industry in recent years.
The embedded image is from the movie "I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang," via Film Forum.

Related:
Growth industry [prison populations]
11 Jul 02:37

Moral police in action

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)

A colorized photo shows "Women being arrested in Chicago, because their swimsuits were too short, in 1922."

Or is it perhaps a photo of America's future?  And if the Supreme Court can get rid of those pesky science advisory agencies, perhaps we can get back to the skies some of us remember in our youth.
05 Jul 18:17

Modern tinikling

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

I was never this coordinated

"Filipino students of Georgia tech in Atlanta, USA performed a traditional tinikling folk dance but with a modern hiphop twist"
Tinikling is a traditional Philippine folk dance which originated during the Spanish colonial era. The dance involves two people beating, tapping, and sliding bamboo poles on the ground and against each other in coordination with one or more dancers who step over and in between the poles in a dance. It is traditionally danced to rondalla music, a sort of serenade played by an ensemble of stringed instruments which originated in Spain during the Middle Ages. The locomotor movements used in tinikling are hopping, jumping, and turning.

The name tinikling is a reference to birds locally known as tikling, which can be any of a number of rail species, but more specifically refers to the slaty-breasted rail (Gallirallus striatus), the buff-banded rail (Gallirallus philippensis), and the barred rail (Gallirallus torquatus).

It imitates the movement of the tikling birds as they walk between grass stems, run over tree branches, or dodge bamboo traps set by rice farmers." 

Today tinikling is taught throughout the United States. In grades K-12 the dance is used as an aerobic exercise for physical education classes, to help expand physical movements such as hand coordination, foot speed, and also rhythm. Tinikling is commonly performed at schools and on special occasions, such as the Filipino Independence Day, as a celebration of Filipino culture and Filipino pride.
Details about the technique at the Wikipedia link.  You learn something every day.
13 Jun 00:34

This story has a happy ending

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

This picture breaks my heart, but the full story at the link was amazing.

Cassandra Ridder was crushed when her 12-year-old son Brody came home from school last week with only a few signatures in his yearbook — including his own.

“Hope you make some more friends. — Brody Ridder,” the rising seventh-grader wrote in his own yearbook, which was signed by only two classmates, two teachers and himself...
The story at the link will make your day a little brighter.
12 Jun 20:21

Home of the Brave?

by Gabe Kapler
SpinnyNuNu

Reigning MLB Manager of the Year. I love Kap.

But I am not okay with the state of this country. When you’re dissatisfied with your country, you let it be known through protest. The home of the brave should encourage this.
22 May 19:18

13 Popsicle Freezie Holders To Crochet

by Shellie Wilson
SpinnyNuNu

Aren’t cold, sticky fingers part of the fun of Otter Pops?

This roundup is for Popsicle cozies, also known as Freezie holders, Freezepop Cozy, Zopper Dopper holders, Cosies, and covers. But no matter what you call them they all do the same thing, protect little fingers from getting too cold as they hold their frozen treat.

Perfect gift for summertime and great for using up your scraps of yarn. These crochet patterns are all available directly via the links below.  Looking for a fun gift for a BBQ hostess? How about a collection of these holders for the bbq or picnic.

Ravelry: Popsicle Sock pattern 

Mermaid and Shark Popsicle Cozy

Freezie cozy

Popsicle Cozy – Stitch11

Cat icepop Holder

Ice Pop Holder Shark

Ice Pop holder mermaid 

Bee Freezie Holder

Lion Freezie Holder

Sock Monkey Freezie Holder

Frog Freezie holder 

Unicorn Freezie Holder

Light Saber Popsicle Holder 

18 May 21:36

This is stochastic terrorism. It is deliberate. It is by design.

by wil@wilwheaton.net (Wil Wheaton)

It is easier to get a gun and body armor in America than it is to get medical care, and that is by design.

Tucker Carlson can get on TV every night, spout racist lies about a paranoid conspiracy, and inspire his viewers to commit acts of violence against innocent people. There will never be a meaningful consequence for his actions. This is by design.

Republicans have done everything possible to put weapons of mass murder into the hands of paranoid people they have agitated with racist lies and conspiracy theories.

It is not a coincidence that the latest white supremacist mass murderer is 18 and a heavy consumer of Fox News and far right online forums.

Republicans have not just made this possible. They have encouraged it. Oh, they’ll scold any of us who say it out loud, but we all know it’s true. They love it when Black people suffer and die. They love it when the people who killed them get away without any consequence.

This is all by design. Don’t let them wring their hands and offer their thoughts and prayers. This is what they want. This is the plan. This is all working EXACTLY the way they want it to.

Republicans want the rest of us — the majority — to live in constant fear of their violent, heavily-armed, racist followers. From encouraging them to brandish their assault weapons in public to allowing anyone to carry an instrument whose only purpose is to kill people. See that angry dude in the MAGA hat? See him ranting and raving at some innocent BIPOC who just wants to live their life? I’m going to think twice before I jump up to support my fellow human, because that MAGA guy is likely armed and will get away with murdering me, because reasons. Maybe I’m considering volunteering to work an election. But then I remember my neighbor who was doxxed by MAGA terriorists and had to flee for her safety because they were showing up to stand around outside her house with their guns.

This is all deliberate. This is what they want. It’s stochastic terrorism. So when they pretend to be horrified by this, don’t believe them. They’re celebrating in private. They love this.

Tucker Carlson shares responsibility for the mass murder in Buffalo yesterday, as do his producers and the advertisers who have continued to support his show while it has dropped all pretense of not being openly white supremacist. He’ll be back on the air tomorrow night, and somehow this will be Hunter Biden’s fault.

The entire Republican caucus in both houses of congress have even more blood on their hands today. They will experience zero consequences for their role in the racially-motivated murders they inspired and enabled. If they haven’t already, the MAGA fascists will be fundraising off of this by the end of the weekend.

I’d say don’t let them get away with this, but they already have, and they will again. And again. And again. And again. Until somehow the Democrats get their shit together and make ending gun violence a priority the way the Republicans have made controlling women a priority. It’s going to take a long time, and we need to get to work.

13 May 16:35

Lace bug with beautiful wings

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

This would make a fabulous broach.



I think I’m an old lady.


I presume most of those colors are structural rather than pigments.  The colors are neither pigments nor structural, but are caused by "thin film interference", the same process as in soap bubbles and oil puddles (with a tip of the blogging hat to reader Drabkikker for the info).  There are no useful comments at the via.
03 May 18:08

Michigan lawmaker eloquently and vehemently defends herself

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

I’d vote for her.

"McMorrow, a Democratic state senator in Michigan, delivered an epic takedown of a GOP colleague on Tuesday that continues to go viral. It included forceful pushback against Republicans over laws stigmatizing gay and trans children and families, and a searing moral defense of treating them respectfully... It might prod Democrats to rethink their responses to GOP attacks along these lines.

The 35-year-old McMorrow’s ire was triggered by a Republican colleague’s fundraising pitch describing McMorrow as a “groomer.”..

You’ll note that McMorrow didn’t sound defensive or offer mealy-mouthed, hairsplitting fact-checks. She didn’t capitulate to the Republican framing of these matters for a second.

Instead, McMorrow laid bare her deepest convictions and explained how they lead her to her positions on gay and trans rights, and why basic human decency demands them. Importantly, she made this about what Republicans are doing.

Many Democrats do profess outrage about the GOP’s use of the “groomer” slander. But you rarely hear Democrats go beyond casting themselves as mere victims of a vile smear, and instead hammering those pushing it for their rhetorical degeneracy, phony piety about protecting children, profound lack of rectitude, and all around sleazy and debased public conduct.

McMorrow’s description of herself as a White, Christian, suburban mom — one who wants her children to respect and empathize with non-Christian, non-White, gay and trans kids and families — gets at this. It turns the “identity politics” debate on its head.
Lots more commentary and analysis at The Washington Post.
03 Apr 00:01

my poor friend me

by wil@wilwheaton.net (Wil Wheaton)
SpinnyNuNu

I could have written this post (if you replace Wil’s music with 80s hair bands). My internal monologue thinks she’s not more than 20.

I’m getting ready to head out of the house and do my adulting for the day.

I have this mix of Pennywise, Bad Religion, Lagwagon, Social Distortion, and their contemporaries playing way louder than usual, all over the house, as I am the only one home.

I get dressed like I always do. I put on a pair of Volcom pants, a Bauhaus T-shirt, and my Converse.

Then, when it’s time to transform my bedhead into not that, I look up and see this old man looking back at me in the mirror.

And let me tell you, it’s kind of a lot to see and feel that. In my head, all morning, I’ve been a wiser, calmer, more confident and happier version of the person I was in my 20s; just a guy eating cereal, drinking coffee, surrounded by second wave punk.

I got so lost in that place, it was like a bucket of cold water when I saw … myself … almost 50 … just looking back at me. Like, “What’s up dude. I’m you.” Grey all through my beard, lines in my face, bags under my eyes even though I slept perfectly last night.

And I saw this look on my face, real quick, before I knew what was happening. It was this knowing look from me, who is almost 50, reminding me, who forgot he was almost 50, that, yes, you are almost 50, Wil. It’s so weird, this disconnect between my physical, chronological aging, and the way I feel inside of a body that’s probably about halfway through its existence on this planet.

Bad Religion still fucking slams, though.

16 Mar 18:33

Marie Antoinette's diamonds

by noreply@blogger.com (Minnesotastan)
SpinnyNuNu

The bracelets are pretty and all, but I have a question about the portrait.

Why is the skirt of her dress so creased? It looks like it was just unpacked and not properly steamed.


I saw the Christie's press release many months ago -
Geneva - on 9 November 2021 Christie’s will proudly offer THE MARIE ANTOINETTE DIAMONDS as lot 1 of its live Magnificent Jewels Auction to be held at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues. Presented in their current form [a pair of matching bracelets], the 112 diamonds, originally belonged to Queen Marie-Antoinette of France (1755-1793)... 
Architectural Digest offered a followup that "the bracelets sold on November 9 for $9,353,855, far more than their initial $2,000,000-4,000,000 estimate."

This is a portrait of her daughter Marie-Therese wearing the bracelets -


RelatedMarie Antoinette was a blonde.