I didn't plan to be online today. I started a mini-Link Log on the Blogspot and came in today partly because I realized I'd failed to post it. Here's the best of yesterday's e-mail, plus a rant suggested by the Twitter-summary in the e-mail (yes, it provoked me to get on there and tweet), and a book link. Categories: Book, Funny Things, Kindness. Phenology, Politics, Writing.
Book Link
This is a book blog. It is an Amazon Affiliate blog. It contains Amazon ads. Someone commented on the fact that, in order to get picture ads onto this site that will anchor links to this site on my Google + page, I've been manually inserting pictures ganked from Amazon. Yes, other people snapped those pictures. And yes, if the links I've attached to those pictures are working properly, Amazon guarantees that clicking on an Amazon book (or other merchandise) image posted here will take you to the page where you can buy whatever it is from the person who photographed it. That's encouraged; that's how Amazon (and I) earn commissions. Buy a new copy, if a book is recent, to encourage the author. I can't imagine any photographers complaining about photos here but, if they do, I'll be happy to remove their pictures from this web site.
Here is the book I was reading on December 27, 2015. I've read it several times before. Dozens of patterns (all sweaters, mostly women's sizes) for things I'd like to knit, things I have actually bought yarn to knit; what's currently on my knitting needles is a sweater made of leftover yarn from three other projects, a version of the "Cropped Stripes" pattern at the end; I updated the body shape and colors, and am making it in cotton yarns, but followed the neck and sleeve shaping in the book. This whole "Best of Vogue Knitting" series (there were four other volumes) is warmly recommended.
Funny Things
Editing out things that suggest vulgarity to a robot censor actually suggests more vulgarity to humans:
Kindness
Does making generous decisions activate a different part of our brains?
Phenology
It feels like summer here. Sunshine on my bare arms, I flipped a gnat away from my face as I walked out this morning. Young grass and dandelions are sprouting. Although I saw children enjoying this weather, I know it's part of a bizarre weather system that wasn't good news everywhere.
Sure enough. (We get rain. On Friday and Saturday it was occasionally heavy rain, and during the week there'd been a thunderstorm, but mostly we had a drizzle that barely made a noise on the roof.)
Politics
Fellow Virginians, another legislative session is just around the corner. Although I try to comment on proposed legislation on its own rights, recognizing that most of our Delegates and Senators have sponsored some good bills and some bad ones, there are some Delegates who've earned more than an equal share of commendations: Bell and Bell, Crockett-Stark and Gilbert, Marshall and Marshall, Kilgore and O'Quinn, Ramadan...If you're a serious fiscal conservative and in this for the long haul, y'might want to Twitter something supportive to @DavidIRamadan ; I noticed nasty, un-Republican, un-Virginian hatespews aimed at him today from the followers of the #BankruptcyBillionnaire (Trump).
The nastiest of it is that, hate apart, for years Delegate Ramadan has been doing what the fiscal conservatives who think they support Trump want a Delegate to do. I don't suppose many Trump supporters bother to hang out at lis.virginia.gov, or would be able to read what's published there if they did.
Do we need a hashtag just for the concept that "Real Americans acknowledge the good work of fellow Americans even if they might have relatives in a country that's hostile to ours"? Can somebody out there come up with a good one? I thought of "WhatKindOfNameWasEisenhower," but that's too long.
Writing
This one's recommended just as literary writing, although if you click around on the home page you might find an interesting contest; thanks to Hope Clark for sharing the link.
Ah, the glamorous life of knowing good grammar...
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