Diana

It calls it a “clunky phrase”!

Oh, do romance readers read too much? Of the wrong kind of books, you say? In the wrong kind of language, you say? Are they too easy, too sexy, too fun, too silly? And we’re pretending this is not The argument that people have made against romance since (checks library) 1785?

I feel like "Why is this man" is also a complete sentence and needs to be asked more.

Wait what? I just got done reeling over people saying they never read first-person. Bottom line for me is, I think none of this is new, people have always had weird takes, we’re just seeing more of them bc of the internet.

Yes but you do have to be a bit careful! I would use it in an inexpensive pen just to be safe.

I love the Iroshizuku ink color tsuki-yo, moonlit night. It's a gorgeous smoky blue! I didn't know there were stationery companies on the bad list, but for the good list, Atlas Stationers is a great pen & ink shop, run by the nicest people, very inclusive & super patient with my pen-mad kiddo.

He talks like he has AI psychosis. He talks like a ChatGPT bot bigging someone up before telling them to kill themselves.

We're one of those "busy families" they want to win back. It was real work for me to cut Target out of my shopping routine. It was not easy finding new stores and making new habits. Now they think after a year shopping elsewhere they can get us back without acknowledging why we left? Goodbye.

I took this photo of one of my building’s gorgeous roof brackets recently. This is from my neighbor’s balcony, I don’t get to look at them up close very often. I think they’re terra cotta?

I will celebrate but I’m still mad that illegally passing on trade information was the thing they finally couldn’t ignore. It’s like getting Al Capone on tax evasion, but like if the previous strategy had been pretending not to notice the bootlegging and murder.

I have an agreement with myself that if it’s 50 degrees or above outside, I might as well just suggest wearing shorts. “Embrace the cold tolerance” is my parenting philosophy now.

I’ve been transcribing a daily diary that runs from the 1820s to the 1880s. I’ve learned that as soon as a day mentions fever or emetics, I’m about to read 6 lines of escalating treatment that ends “Owen died 7 AM aged 2 yrs 3 mos 3 days.” They’ve lost 3 kids so far and that wasn’t unusual.

There’s a check box at the top of the reviews to show only reviews with explanations. That gets rid of reviews that are just checkboxes.

As someone without a Goodreads account, it prompts you to log in, but if you dismiss the box it lets you continue just fine. I read reviews there a lot!

“He wrote horrible posts dismissing rape in the military” and that’s okay with you, you’re “chalking it up” to him being a member of the group (military men) doing the raping? Where’s his loyalty to military women? Sounds like his problem isn’t being too military, it’s being a rape apologist.

I have a similar piece that I found as a kid in Door County. How nice to learn more about it!

Soon-Yi Previn was literally in the Epstein files saying that about the 15-year-old girl Anthony Weiner was caught sexting with. Just chatting to this prolific sexual abuser, making sure he knows she's on his side & the girls had it coming.

Scammers love the phrase “six figures.” They all claim to “make 6 figures” doing something, but the real source of their income is signing up suckers to learn their methods. Trump U was literally this scam.

From a Comrade 19h. C One of the nuts things about organizing in the Twin Cities right now is that even the most long term organizers who've been here for decades can't keep track of all the resistance that is going on. There are so many self-organized crews just doing work that in any conversation with someone from another neighborhood you might stumble over a whole collective of people resisting in ways you didn't think of. There's a crew of carpenters just going around fixing kicked-in doors. There are tow truck drivers taking cars of detained people away for free. People delivering food to families in hiding. So many local rapid response groups that the number is uncertain but somewhere between 80 and the low hundreds- especially when one considers that several immigrant communities have their own non-English rapid response networks usually uncounted in the main English-language directories. People standing watch outside daycares and schools. This whole resistance has so many poles of initiative and leadership, so many layers of self-organization, that it's extraordinarily difficult for the state to repress or for opportunists be they Democrats or movement-riding parties) to co-opt and control. Of course, that's built up through many years and decades of organization, and not only through explicitiv political campaigns or formations built during times of crisis and rupture like 2020. It is also built through day-to-day mutual aid, culture building, workplace and tenant organizing, and simple, basic relationship building among neighbors and coworkers here.

From a Comrade 19h. C One of the nuts things about organizing in the Twin Cities right now is that even the most long term organizers who've been here for decades can't keep track of all the resistance that is going on. There are so many self-organized crews just doing work that in any conversation with someone from another neighborhood you might stumble over a whole collective of people resisting in ways you didn't think of. There's a crew of carpenters just going around fixing kicked-in doors. There are tow truck drivers taking cars of detained people away for free. People delivering food to families in hiding. So many local rapid response groups that the number is uncertain but somewhere between 80 and the low hundreds- especially when one considers that several immigrant communities have their own non-English rapid response networks usually uncounted in the main English-language directories. People standing watch outside daycares and schools. This whole resistance has so many poles of initiative and leadership, so many layers of self-organization, that it's extraordinarily difficult for the state to repress or for opportunists be they Democrats or movement-riding parties) to co-opt and control. Of course, that's built up through many years and decades of organization, and not only through explicitiv political campaigns or formations built during times of crisis and rupture like 2020. It is also built through day-to-day mutual aid, culture building, workplace and tenant organizing, and simple, basic relationship building among neighbors and coworkers here.

message from MN

A comic in black/white/blue. Lucy rolls her bike through an alley, by a crew building a fence. Narration: My neighbors hired a crew to rebuild their fence. Crew member: "Do you need us to move our stuff out of the way?" Lucy: "Oh! No, you're all good, thanks!" Lucy: "Have a good one!" Crew member: "You, too!"

Narration: I was teaching when my phone started lighting up with alerts from the rapid response network and neighbor chat. Lucy's back is to us as she shows a group of enthusiastic children something on a notebook. Behind her, her phone in her bag is buzzing. Narration: By the time the lesson was over, they were already gone. Lucy is reading messages on her phone. Messages: Alert: black SUV Sighting: be on alert for... Confirmed abductionL alley between ----- and ----. SUV plates... We tried to get them inside, but it was too... ...Contacting an I.R. lawyer. Heading to Broadview later today.

Lucy is riding her bike home. Narration: On the ride home, I kept thinking "If I'd been there, could I have warned them? Would my ICIRR* training have helped?" *Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Get trained and know your rights at ICIRR.org. Narration: I'd taken the training after Halloween, when the violent ICE raids had locked down our schools and driven our neighbors indoors. (Image of a halloween bucket in the shape of a jack-o-lantern) Narration: Halloween is fun here-- The community filling the streets and opening our doors to one another. But this year's was tense, frightened and subdued. Haunted.

Lucy is standing in the alley, staring at the newly built fence. Narration: When I got home, it was all done. The other two guys who had gotten inside in time stayed and finished the build. The new fence is superimposed with the brief exchange from earlier in the comic ("Have a good one" You, too") Narration: I see it every day and think about how those guys built this in the spot where strangers in masks took their friend. Narration: How many other places in our communities are similarly haunted? (Drawings of sidewalks, buildings, streets and windows)

"Haunted"
#IceOut #IceOutComics

"The agents open the door, which unlocked automatically when she put the gearshift in park"

People need to disable this feature of their cars! Women have been saying for years that it's dangerous (you park, all your doors immediately unlock and whoever is there has immediate access to you from every door) but many people don't know they can turn it off.

Awesome, I'll keep an eye out for the update!

How exciting! Is it something people can buy? I’d love more info.

This one goes out to the family and friends of Alex Pretti - a son of the watershed. Words can not express the horror of what ICE did on Saturday. May his memory guide all in changing the US federal government to be truthful, transparent & for the people
#MinnesotaStrong
🌊🌊

Hah, also true. I wonder if the marketers went with "low stakes"/Legends and Lattes-meets-something because A Marvellous Light has so many murders in it? I don't love feeling like characters might die, so even though I think low stakes is wrong, I might be the audience for that reassurance. 🙃

Exactly! Like okay, there are no murders, but both protagonists are going through really hard things! And the threats to Matti's house are their own mystery plot and Luca gets to play detective, and the guilds and their artistry and traditions are so interesting, and then: FEELINGS. HOTNESS.

Neighbor, you just yanked me right out of lurking because that book is AMAZING! I agree that calling it "low stakes" makes no sense. The worldbuilding is so perfect, the central problems are actually quite intricate, the characters lovable and flawed in such real ways and ALSO smoking hot tension.

I haven’t been wanting to read anything dark or murdery, so my rec is for Swordcrossed by Freya Marske. Not magic but a wonderfully built world of craft guilds and swordplay with loveable, flawed characters & very satisfying conclusion.

a poem titled "for alex jeffrey pretti" by amanda gorman

fear not the those without papers, but those without conscience.

My kiddo picked up The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine there, and a book on outdoor rooms. That little nook contains multitudes.