How's everyone else doing this morning?

I'm feeling a little prickly with world-grief, but I ticked off a lot of admin tasks after an okay-run, so I'm sure I'll feel better as the day progresses.

I feel like many ladies here would easily be found in a scene like this, if given half a chance. (@Graci might replace the spaghetti with chocolate, but still.) I see you, you free-loving menaces, you! 🧐

#Books #SFF #ScienceFiction

@joycereynoldsward and @QueenOfEverything asked about this yesterday, but I was still too gobsmacked to reply.

I'm reading for a Le Guin shortlist book review, so I'll be covering this one in a different light soon, but...

This story rightfully won the Hugo this year. It is intelligent, engagingly paced, unflinching around difficult themes, and deeply wise in its presentation of an indoctrinated militant realizing she's coveted the wrong things her whole life.

And one more for the flower set: the flor de flamboyán, acacia roja, or arból de fuego - delonix regia. #Nature #Colombia

Coming back from a run and heading toward the dawn, as mediated through a mess of human progress.

Morning, dear fellow rotters!

🙃 I used to have this disease.

Now I have the disease where I try to present appropriate data and POVs, knowing full well that most people are in no emotional position to accept anything that threatens a pre-existing worldview--but also that there are other people despairing over how little facts seem to matter to most; and that they seem to despair a bit less when they know they're not alone.

So, I present arguments for them.

I call it "pragmatic futility", & I'm definitely in a late stage.

Early bird gets to see the sleepy horsies. (And one donkey.)

Too much middle-of-the-night swing time, methinks. #Colombia #Nature

The joy of a blissfully empty park in the pre-dawn. :)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could...

😅 Well my day already took a turn. A dog ran into me on the street, abandoned in the highway (no tags) and play-biting everyone he came across... but because of his breed/energy, I didn't think it was safe to leave him barrelling after everyone on a route kids use for school. I took him with me on my "run" while trying to find help from officials, but none would do a thing. Fortunately, a fellow in the park known to have land nearby was ready to take him. I'll be returning tomorrow to check in.

🤨 Look, I'm not usually one to critique someone's graffiti... but do you *really* want to be known as the tagger whose letters all look like an assortment of 🍆 s with heavy 🍒, or ample butts and 🍑 s?

(I mean... maybe? No fruit shaming here!)

Ho ho! This is going to be a fun one for today's predawn run.

Centrist-liberals have always been so good at "accidentally" supporting authoritarian actors. Sometimes for profit! Sometimes because they've allowed themselves to believe that supporting a public discourse means actively platforming toxic voices "for balance". Sometimes because they think they aren't *actually* R-of-C themselves.

Let's see what angle's taken in this chat around Italian, German, and US media of the 1920s and '30s. 💪🏻

I'm in the mood for a good stew right now.

(No, not the tasty kind. I am already full of rice and beans.)

What's your favourite GIF for a healthily festering foul mood?

This panel write-up (accompanied by the video, if you prefer) is well worth the time for folks interested in political theory. Mark Lilla, William Galston, and David French talk about the rise of "post-liberalism" and the roots of a range of authoritarian thinking in conservative thought today.

Slight CW for some bad presumptions on trans issues near the end, but most of the piece reflects on the struggle to keep liberal constitutional #democracy afloat.
https://open.substack.com/pub/theunpopulist/p/is-there-anything-new-in-the-new

I got to be part of the return of a beautiful Rhodesian Ridgeback to her fur mama today. Martina was way too big to capture from my seat, but I got most of the cute bits. (That ridgeback was fascinating, too!)

#DogsOfCoSo

#History #US #Democracy

104 years ago today, the 19th Amendment was ratified in Tennessee - by one vote, when 24-year-old Harry T. Burn listened to his mother and broke a House impasse.

This amendment gave white women the right to vote. First-gen Asian Americans? 1952. Native women? In states, as late as 1962.

For Black women, a semblance of equality was attained only with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Let us never forget that there was no Golden Era.

We have always been fighting hate.

Some tricked out rides line up as a few lads wait together early in the morning, before rolling as a unit into a car show
in the park today.

(SO much vehicular pride in #Colombia. And if your ride is your cab? No big deal in a land of fewer regulations! Trick it out, too, and chill with your lads for a few hours talking shop. 👌🏻)

And now it's time to...

(And begin anew. Back to work with me!)

Earlier this year I let all the street harassment shake me from my health routines, because it is often super hard to be a feminized person *existing* in a world with tons of lonely people who can't think of any other way to build community for themselves, except by interacting with feminized persons as sex objects. (And the fact that I am very white makes me exotic, too.)

This is why I often feel like a grumpy old man inside, and channel ol' porch-sitting, scowling Clint Eastwood for strength.

Okay, one more writing sprint starting at the half hour, aiming to finish something for a flash contest I came across today.

(Gotta fill up those queues!)

Next CAPTION CONTEST:

What's *actually* happening in this scene?

#StarTrek #Memes #Humour

Getting restless, so I'm going into timed writing sprints for the rest of the evening.

CAPTION CONTEST, for between sprints.

What *should* these two be saying here?

#StarTrek #Memes #Humour