Books!

“Perhaps there's another, much larger story behind the printed one, a story that changes just as our own world does. And the letters on the page tell us only as much as we'd see peering through a keyhole. Perhaps the story in the book is just the lid on a pan: It always stays the same, but underneath there's a whole world that goes on - developing and changing like our own world.” ― Cornelia Funke, Inkheart 2016 Reading Challenge Alyx has read 12 books toward a goal of 45 books. hide 12 of 45 (26%) view books

[burins]

FDA will limit Covid vaccines to people over 65 or at high risk of serious illness, leaders say

The FDA announced it will limit access to Covid-19 vaccines going forward to people 65 and older and others at high risk of serious illness

hey! we thought this might be coming and here it is. and it sucks! mass vaccination is one of our best tools at preventing the spread of COVID. public comment is open until 11:59 PM EDT on the 23rd of May.

you can leave a comment here:

you can leave an anonymous comment, but usually non-anonymous ones do carry more weight.

[artielu]

Do you want your healthcare workers and first responders to be able to get covid vaccines so they don't give you covid when you see them and so they're not themselves sick and needing sick days to recover, leaving healthcare and public services facilities short staffed? I want a fully staffed hospital, fire station, police station, etc.

Do you want public servants like utility workers and agency staff and park rangers to be able to get vaccinated against covid so they're not sick instead of fixing our roads and bridges and sewers and power grid and giving us access to public resources like public benefits and public parks? I want those fully staffed too.

Do you want teachers and childcare workers to be able to get covid vaccines so they don't get such e and need sick days and so they don't get sick from all the kids they see? I want a fully staffed school and fully staffed daycare.

Do you want families with little kids who weren't old enough to get a covid vaccine to access boosters for the older kids and the parents to help keep the little kids safe? I don't want to give my baby cousin covid at his birthday party.

Do you have any immune compromised people in your extended family? Cancer patients? Dialysis patients? Organ transplant recipients? I don't want to kill them.

This is a big fucking problem. Tell the FDA that this will negatively affect you. Public comments, whether under your name or anonymously, must be considered by the FDA. Get your comments in by May 23 at 11:59pm Eastern.

And call your Congressional representatives at

5 Calls

Spend 5 minutes. Make 5 calls. Make your voice heard.

[tranquil-slaughterhouse]

Well shit, the Republicans brought a certain anti-online porn bill back to the table.

The Interstate Obscenity Definition Act.

This should alarm you guys.

[tranquil-slaughterhouse]

Tell your rep to reject Interstate Obscenities Definition Act

Find Your Members in the U.S. Congress

Find your members of Congress by typing in your address on Congress.gov.

[mottsfiddle]

Here's a script from @/dieselbrain on Bluesky, use it to call your representatives

Source:

https://bsky.app/profile/dieselbrain.bsky.social/post/3lor4hs3ruc24

[alpaca-clouds]

This.

Look, always remember. Any sort of porn ban will be used to:

ban a variety of queer content (both trans and just other queer stuff)

ban certain health education content (especially on women's health)

create a precedent to charge minorities for any sort of content that will be argued to be then "pornographic"

will also very certainly create precedent to go against platforms like tumblr and AO3 and whereever you consume your favorite fanwork

will definitely also charge any depiction of "female presenting nipples"

Even if you think all porn is bad (you are wrong by the way), this stuff is never just about porn. Heck, chances are they would use such a law to in some roundabout way also prevent simple sex ed!

[naamahdarling]

There is no "chances are." The original Comstock Act was used to deliberately and specifically do that. Like, as a primary goal.

Their intention has very little to do with "porn", actually.

It is about silencing things most people wouldn't consider porn by labeling them corrupting to morality and therefore pornographic.

They get people on board by talking about pornography most people WOULD agree is pornography, and then don't define it, because "everyone knows" what porn is.

Yeah, sure, I guess probably there is that extreme end of the bell curve 99.9% of people would agree is porn. They want you focused on that. Not on the other side of the curve, which they are leaving themselves free to move wherever they like.

So yeah, when we have been saying that anti-porn lefties/liberals/Dems are literally enabling their own oppression, this is what we mean.

The fight to ban porn is NOT a fight about human rights or child safety. It's an excuse to prosecute basically anyone they want.

Don't fucking fall for this.

[lakecountylibrary]

🔥 The beacons are lit; the library calls for aid

The Trump administration has issued an executive order aimed at dismantling the Institute of Museum and Library Services - the ONLY federal agency for America's libraries.

Using just 0.003% of the federal budget, the IMLS funds services at libraries across the country; services like Braille and talking books for the visually impaired, high-speed internet access, and early literacy programs.

Libraries are known for doing more with less, but even we can't work with nothing.

How You Can Help:

🔥 Call your congressperson!

Use the app of your choice or look 'em up here: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

Pro tip: If your phone anxiety is high, call at night and leave a voicemail. You can even write yourself a script in advance and read it off. Heck, read them this post if you want to.

Phones a total no-go? The American Library Association has a form for you: https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=23577

🔥Tell your friends!

Tell strangers, for that matter. People in line at the check out, your elderly neighbor, the mail carrier - no one is safe from your library advocacy. Libraries are for everyone and we need all the help we can get.

...Wait, why do we need this IMLS thing again?

The ALA says it best in their official statement and lists some ways libraries across the country use IMLS funding:

An executive order issued by the Trump administration on Friday night, March 14, calls for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Li

But if you want a really specific answer, here at LCPL we use IMLS funding to provide our amazing interlibrary loan service. If we can't purchase an item you request (out of print books, for example) this service lets us borrow it from another library and check it out to you.

IMLS also funds the statewide Indiana Digital Library and Evergreen Indiana, which gives patrons of smaller Indiana libraries access to collections just as large and varied as the big libraries' collections.

As usual, cutting this funding will hurt rural communities the most - but every library user will feel it one way or another. Let's let Congress know that's unacceptable.

[vaspider]

Listen to me. Listen very carefully:

They are trying to wear you out.

They are trying to wear you out, and they own most major social media now, along with many major media outlets. The disinformation machine is cranking along. You are going to have to slow the fuck down and read things before you help them wear out other people, too.

So you just saw a post about a real scary bill, hunh? Republicans want to make it a capital offense to pet dogs and repeal The Sky Is Blue Act of 1793, declaring the new official color of the sky to be squant? Damn, that sounds scary.

Let's go look up this fictitious "Make The Sky Squant Again Act" on GovTracker* & on the official legislative tracker on congress.gov!

GovTrack.us

Tracking legislation and votes in the United States Congress.

Congress.gov | Library of Congress

U.S. Congress legislation, Congressional Record debates, Members of Congress, legislative process educational resources presented by the Lib

Well, let's see... GovTracker estimates it has a 1% chance of even getting out of committee and a 0% chance of being enacted, while congress.gov says this bill has 2 cosponsors who have been in the House and combined total of less than a month. The bill doesn't have any actual text, and it was referred to 5 different committees.

That fictitious bill and a hundred others like it are quite literally not worth your time, and more than that, continuing to wring your hands about it and tell other people about the scary scary squant sky bill only does their work for them. It scares people, it makes them spend time and energy on it, and it wears them out. It is a legislative Gish Gallop, meant to throw so many things at people that we can't keep up.

Even calling or messaging your Rep in this case means their staffer has to waste time responding to you and letting you know that Representative Buttzonheads definitely won't support making petting dogs a capital offense, a thing that will never, ever happen regardless.

Staying engaged in this environment is going to require protecting your heart and protecting your energy, yes, but also protecting the energy of others. This is why WWII propaganda posters also included ones taking people to task for spreading panicky rumors and undermining morale.

Do you know why most observant Jews don't eat chicken and dairy together, even though the ban is on red meat and dairy together bc you're not supposed to cook the calf in the milk of its mother?** It's not because we think that chicken might secretly lactate or Just Because. It's because the rabbis decided that if I'm sitting out in public and eating turkey and cheese together, someone might glance at the turkey and mistake it for red meat and think, "oh, well, I know that Spider is a good Jew, there must have been a change, or maybe I can just justify it to myself that if Spider does it, it must be permissible to bend the rules just that much." And I would then be accidentally leading my fellow Jew astray. We are responsible for being even more careful for the sake of others than we are for ourselves.

It's the same principle here. We need to really be careful about the information we are spreading and check things past reading a news site. Is it true? Is it relevant? Is it meaningful? Is the news site one I recognize? Can I find meaningful independent corroboration on another site, which is to say, if I find an article about it on a second site, is it just quoting or rephrasing this site?

Yeah, that is a lot. But that's how we keep them from using us to lead our fellows astray.

*GovTracker is an independent site. They explain their methodology in their About section.

**I cannot say enough how I am not at this time interested in going on a Jewish Side Quest About Dietary Laws on this post. Usually, I love it, but hold off this time, please, y'all. Let's stay on target this once.

[darker-than-disco]

I'm pretty sure that's the main reason for most of Trump's Executive Orders on day 1. A lot of them are unenforceable, others are blatantly illegal or even unconstitutional, but people will be distracted in the courts trying to shut them down, and it's splitting everyone's focus away from the few that are genuinely dangerous. Splitting people's focus is the one thing that Trump is genuinely good at, distracting the public while the Republicans are doing more subtle awful things in the background.

[vaspider]

Yeah. Though taking those apart in court is more necessary than dealing with these nothingburger bills.

[belovedbright]

Relatedly, if you want to keep up with everything, because that’s responsible, but it’s crushing because it’s horrific?

Try “What the Fuck Just Happened Today?”

Political News for Normal People.

Your essential guide to the shock and awe in national politics. A sane, once-a-day newsletter helping normal people make sense of the news.

It’s a news digest with sources. You can stay informed without completely losing your mind.

Also, our legacy media have proven to be cowards at best & complicit at worst. As a librarian, while I will consider some articles on some topics from CNN, NYT, WaPo, etc., they’ve sadly shown we cannot trust them. This is the problem with 1. Never paying for news, and 2. Monopolies

So where do you look? (And support!)

1. The Guardian. Independent news that’s not behind a paywall & is in the UK. They’re more trustworthy while still being traditional.

2. ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Their work has won Pulitzer Prizes.

Where else?

1. Seth Abramson is an independent journalist (among other things). He’s done deep dives into both Trump, Musk, and Jan6. Those deep dives were extensive “meta journalism,” pulling on many fragmented sources to get to a full picture.

2. Mother Jones : Another nonprofit news organization. Traditionally a bit leftist for sure, but fact-based. they’ll be the counterbalance to the propaganda we’re facing.

3. Any other non-US news sources that are fairly reputable. Getting perspectives from outside of our country will be hugely beneficial in the coming years.

[vaspider]

These are good resources! I also like 404 Media for tech news and Assigned Media & Erin Reed for trans news. Jessica Valenti's "Abortion, Every Day" is a good source for reproductive health care news, too.

[nihilisticvaginas]

I really love the Citations Needed podcast! They're a completely ad free leftist media analysis podcast. They tend to take what's in the news currently or broad political trends and contextualize it in historical precedent. They're asking things like "Where have we seen this type scaremongering before and who perpetuated it against who? What has this type of rhetoric this newspaper is promoting led to in the past? Who is this ultimately harming and befitting?" LOTS of really helpful insights, and they always bring experts on to discuss the topics more in depth.

[vaspider]

Good deal! I'm gonna include the rest of the links from above bc Tumblr stripped them out, annoyingly.

404 Media

404 Media is a new independent media company founded by technology journalists Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox

Assigned

Founded by Evan Urquhart, Assigned Media is a news site dedicated to daily coverage of anti-trans propaganda and its effects.

Erin In The Morning | Erin Reed | Substack

News and discussion on trans legislation and life. Click to read Erin In The Morning, by Erin Reed, a Substack publication with tens of thou

[joytri]

Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times? As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells... and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there too.. a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower... both strange and familiar.

- Cornelia Funke, The Inkheart

[bookofmirth]

I’m a simple being. I see a book, I want to read it.

[ameliaadriannabooks]

I buy the book. I do not read it.

[the-wrote-n-the-writ]

The Black Dagger Brotherhood

Immense Spoilers Below I know a lot of people would tell me that this is just a romance series and that the plot doesn't matter, but I disagree. One of the things that got me hooked in the first place( besides vampires, obviously) was the fact that this series had some sort of real plot to it. The Lessening Society, the war, the Omega, all of these things were captivating and provided more reasons for the Brothers and their mates to be and live. And I like that! But I've just finished The Sinner and I really think the series as a whole has jumped the rails. I know the books are formulaic about their romance, its very easy to see the stepping stones of conflict to resolution and even simpler to know that it will all be solved by the end. But this one was a disappointment, not only on the romance front, but also on the thread of the war. Everything felt rushed into the last 50 pages, and I was so VERY confused when the Brothers were like TONIGHT is the end of the war one way or the other, after just having suffered the loss of thousands, if not millions, of lesser trophies collected over the millennia. They were damned and determined to go out swinging without knowing how their enemy had found them, or what it meant. And it was only a stroke of luck, a very weird deus ex machina, of another deus as it happened. Just throwing Devina into the mix for some reason, as a "little sister" of the Omega, as she put it. It felt strikingly awful. The fact that it seemed the war was just over in a manner of 2 paragraphs, left me reeling mentally. And I know as a seasoned reader its because the foreshadowing of something worse is coming happened. but we don't know anything about Devina. How am I supposed to know shes worse? I haven't read Ward's other series, and while she is presented as scary. Its nothing we haven't seen the Scribe Virgin and the Omega do before. And then the fact that Jo's change and Syn's ejaculate problem were solved in 2 pages, all at once. The culmination of 100's of pages just slapped together haphazardly, and all we get is a small chapter about how happy they are. UGH. It feels like this series is running out of juice and it makes me sad.

[the-wrote-n-the-writ]

Oh my gods, and I almost forgot. Syn's talhman was like nonexistant. It only really showed up in the one scene, to show Jo how SCAWY! he was, and then he's just like no I can bury it deep because I'm in love and it will never bother us again. Its just so low stakes out here. I want the happy ending and the raunchy sex. But. I mean come on! we've had actual stakes before! V and Doc Jane's book. Wrath's eyesight! It just feels hollow and like its just for the cash grab now.

[the-wrote-n-the-writ]

The Black Dagger Brotherhood

Immense Spoilers Below I know a lot of people would tell me that this is just a romance series and that the plot doesn't matter, but I disagree. One of the things that got me hooked in the first place( besides vampires, obviously) was the fact that this series had some sort of real plot to it. The Lessening Society, the war, the Omega, all of these things were captivating and provided more reasons for the Brothers and their mates to be and live. And I like that! But I've just finished The Sinner and I really think the series as a whole has jumped the rails. I know the books are formulaic about their romance, its very easy to see the stepping stones of conflict to resolution and even simpler to know that it will all be solved by the end. But this one was a disappointment, not only on the romance front, but also on the thread of the war. Everything felt rushed into the last 50 pages, and I was so VERY confused when the Brothers were like TONIGHT is the end of the war one way or the other, after just having suffered the loss of thousands, if not millions, of lesser trophies collected over the millennia. They were damned and determined to go out swinging without knowing how their enemy had found them, or what it meant. And it was only a stroke of luck, a very weird deus ex machina, of another deus as it happened. Just throwing Devina into the mix for some reason, as a "little sister" of the Omega, as she put it. It felt strikingly awful. The fact that it seemed the war was just over in a manner of 2 paragraphs, left me reeling mentally. And I know as a seasoned reader its because the foreshadowing of something worse is coming happened. but we don't know anything about Devina. How am I supposed to know shes worse? I haven't read Ward's other series, and while she is presented as scary. Its nothing we haven't seen the Scribe Virgin and the Omega do before. And then the fact that Jo's change and Syn's ejaculate problem were solved in 2 pages, all at once. The culmination of 100's of pages just slapped together haphazardly, and all we get is a small chapter about how happy they are. UGH. It feels like this series is running out of juice and it makes me sad.

[the-wrote-n-the-writ]

Honestly I would kill for Pamela Dawes.

[mariacallous]

[amaditalks]

The far right justices in question are Clarence Thomas (75) and Samuel Alito (73). The likelihood that both will be able to remain on the bench until 2029, at the earliest, is small, especially with the growing ethics concerns around Thomas’ financial improprieties and his wife’s association with January 6 that may push his retirement even though he is currently (very) resistant. Thomas and Alito are the oldest members of the Court.

Re-electing Biden substantially increases the chances of the loaded 6-3 court shifting to 5-4, moving control away from the far right bloc, by 2029.

But it also has to be considered that Sonia Sotomayor, even though she is only 68, may not be able to remain on the bench through the next presidential term due to health concerns.

The first Trump presidency and Mitch McConnell’s scheming loaded the court with three right wing ideologues who barely qualify to teach law at Regent University, let alone have lifetime appointments to our highest court.

It is crucial to remember that the impact of a presidency on the courts outlasts any other presidential legacy and can change the entire course of American life for decades.

[March 15, 2024 addition: when I say that judicial appointments outlast any other presidential legacy, as of today, there are still 15 judges serving on federal courts who were appointed between 1981-88 by Ronald Reagan. Think about that.]

[the-wrote-n-the-writ]

Also, the inclusion of the song Channi sung to Vanna while she was dying. The fact that Shiori's mother sang it to her when she was little. Makes me suspect either she is confusing Channi with her mother and this soup is something that Raikama taught her, or the strings of fate bind these two, in more ways than they assume.

[the-wrote-n-the-writ]

Its absolutely fascinating to reread Six Crimson Cranes after having consumed Her Radiant Curse. Seeing Channari go through all of that, and come out the other side even more jaded and angry when everything she wanted was a breath away. I truly wonder what made her make the decisions she did, regarding Shiori. A part of me wants to assume that she is doing this out of love and care for what Shiori could become. especially since through her eyes to have magic is not a blessing, and to have a dragons pearl even less of a boon. But she also fulfills the role of wicked stepmother in this story, so maybe she forgot her promise to Vanna already. All that being said, its been awhile since I read Six Crimson Cranes and although the Six Swans is one of my fav fairy tales, the first go round I wasn't particularly entranced by this retelling. So I remember little.



[the-wrote-n-the-writ]

"At its heart, a dream is a door" pg. 32 The Last Tale of the Flower Bride Roshani Choksi

[blink182times]

RICK JUST ANNOUNCED A NEW PERCY JACKSON BOOK

[mayasaura]

I don't wanna further hijack that poor poll, but the thing about Harrow's schizophrenia is that it's canon. The author has confirmed it, and shared that it's based on her own experience.

It's a pretty obscure bit of canon, so of course there's no shame in not already knowing, but that's why I'm so obnoxiously persistent about letting people know.

Whatever else is up with Harrow, autism or cptsd or any number of likely headcanons, she is also schizophrenic. I feel like that's too important to be handwaved away as a difference of opinion.

[sockdrawerdemon]

It's also in the afterword/author's note of Harrow, iirc. So not explicitly in the story, but in the book at least. Harrow has schizophrenia, but at least on the Ninth, almost no healthcare and absolutely no mental healthcare to provide any kind of language or understanding of her condition.

The 201 ghosts are certainly complicating factors.

[mayasaura]

It sure is heavily implied in the acknowledgements of Harrow the Ninth!

[sarsaparillaswords]

If anyone is looking for the author’s confirmation that Harrow has schizophrenia, specifically, it apparently happened at a panel at Boskone and someone tweeted about it:

https://twitter.com/saltyseaghost/status/1495099655637684224

[mayasaura]

I know of one written interview where she talks about it, too:

Ciara: Something that stands out about your books is how bizarre yet honest and authentic they feel on a very deep level. It doesn’t feel like you write for anyone but yourself while trusting that those who will love it will find it. In a time where it feels like marginalised authors are more tokenised than ever, and often boxed in by expectations of ‘minority stories’ (whether they be about women, lesbians, mental illness or anything else), how do you stay true to yourself and your vision? Tamsyn: It’s very difficult. There are people who talk about Harrow in terms that are fundamentally thoughtless and unsympathetic to mental illness, and the tragic thing is that I know a lot of people who discuss it would probably rather eat their feet than say something hurtful, but because Harrow doesn’t flag itself up as a story about the mentally ill they have no idea what they’re doing. They almost need those flags to remind themselves to be kind. There are other people who have dealt with that particular brand of mental illness and one or two of them have reached out to me and gone ‘This is the first time I’ve seen this, I understood it immediately,’ and it’s wonderful, it will carry me through to the rest of my life. I didn’t intend Harrow to be a compliance test or a gotcha, it’s just interesting to me how some people talk about the book in terms that make me feel tired. But I knew that going in! When I wrote about this topic I had to write a very long letter to my editor coming out of that particular closet, and he and my publisher were wonderful about it but I knew it would happen. I just wishing anticipating it would take away the sting.

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

Also also, you don't even need to look to Word of God or authorial intent or any of that, it is in the text! When Crux thinks Nona is Harrow, he asks her about her mental state, about her delusions and hallucinations, confirming that Harrow's account of her history of schizophrenic symptoms to Ortus in the River bubble aren't a product of her being haunted - it is an actual genuine account of her life up to that point, one that Crux corroborates. Her schizophrenia is textual!

[hypokeimena]

imagine writing a book about how the university as machine and superstructure maintains its ability to extract blood and exact further violence and exploitation by its ability to ... like ... efface that violence in the face of the aesthetics and experiences people long for and value. and then having people go like "wow! nice aesthetics and experiences!"

[books]

Celebrate Pride With These 10 Incredible LGBTQ+ Characters