Categories: Obligatory Fundraising Links, Animals, Books, Black History Month (Preview), Cybersecurity, Etiquette, Health News, Malheur, Phenology Links, Politics, Toys.
Obligatory Fundraising Links
Are these getting familiar? Fund the project, or share the links, to make these links go away:
Animals
Terribly cute kitten:
These dogs would probably enjoy a good run even more, but since the man who's fostering them is eighty years old, and dogs like people as well as things...they seem to be having fun in that little train!
Less cuddly, but still lovable animal:
Unlovable animal:
Books
A new blog (and possibly a new writer) for science fiction fans:
Black History Month (Preview)
Fair disclosure: although 1960's activists didn't like to remember it or read about it, there were, in fact, enslaved people who accepted slavery as their "job" and who did focus on earning the little rewards they got by doing good work. Probably they were about as numerous as "good-attitude students" in middle school or "success-oriented" employees in corporations. Like it or not, in the eighteenth century the whole world accepted that slavery existed--under different rules in different places, and on better conditions for some slaves than for others. And in the nineteenth century there were ex-slaves whose published memoirs claimed that they had been more secure and comfortable as slaves in rich households than they were as "freedmen" whose former owners had become poor, and who weren't being offered good jobs by anyone else. When and as slaves realized that freedom was possible, and believed that decent employment and living conditions were available to them, then they naturally wanted freedom...but even in the 1860's there were slaves who didn't dare to believe that.
So, the book that triggered this Huffington Post list doesn't sound unrealistic to me, although I've not read it...but if you want a glossy new storybook about slavery for elementary school children, here's a list of some books by authors who've done their research:
Children's short attention spans and incomplete understanding of some words and ideas may limit their ability to appreciate the "short stories" in these two longer collections of historical documents, but although they are historical documents to which adults can refer, each of these books contains many short selections children can enjoy:
Cybersecurity
Grassfire is launching a free social site...similar to the social page on Freedomworks, or to the "in-house" side of Blogjob, for conservative U.S. political commentary. Does the U.S. really need two sites for politically conservative socializing? I don't know, but I'll post about the Frugal Gracious Living Challenge on every free social medium I find. But not Facebook...even though I've set up an official taxpayer identity as Priscilla King, Online Store, I still think the "price" of publishing U.S. citizens' real names and addresses is too high.
Etiquette
Do you know someone who tells other people that they "should be thankful"? If so, you have an opportunity to do something good for humankind...by telling this person that s/he should be ashamed of herself/himself. Nice people never tell anyone how to "be"!
Health News
This one's not good news, generally...but understanding how chemicals that industry lobbyists insist are "safe" may be making you ill just might be good news, in the long run, after all.
If you eat meat, do you want to know not only what country, but what state, and possibly what farm it came from? I do.
And, should GMOs (if they're allowed at all) be clearly labelled? Ninety percent of Americans agree...
So did President Obama...once. I have some reservations about this administration's reliance on "executive orders" as distinct from the constitutionally mandated order of procedure, but let's all watch our President saying he agreed with nine out of ten Americans about this.
Malheur
Breaking news, with video:
Phenology Links
Did last week's two feet qualify as one of the biggest, baddest snowstorms in Washington (D.C.) history? Not even. I was there in 2003; it took only a little wind drifting for the snow to smooth completely over our three-foot-high back porch. Thanks to Steve Milloy for this link:
Who's afraid of the big bad snow? Hey, if the computer center had opened while the snow just kept falling and falling and falling some more, I would've been here...even while my outer grown-up feels cold air and thinks "Uh-oh, I still have this stupid bronchitis, I'll be coughing tonight," my inner child loves to walk in fresh snow. (Would I have resented this post, rather than plussing it, if Jordan Hulseberg had emphasized that Northern Senators were the ones who trudged in through the snow? I hope not. Sometimes people who think two feet of snow is semi-normal can be dang useful to have around.)
North Carolina reported serious snow. Check this out: 66 inches--the height the average American woman measured when young. Even to Canadian, Russian, Ukrainian and other Arctic readers, this is a Real Snowstorm.
Politics
Jim Geraghty makes some good points. Not only do conservatives (conservative Christians, conservative politicians, et al.) need to show their Conservative Heart
; they need to show their brains
.
; they need to show their brains.
Why Republicans shouldn't support the #BankruptcyBillionnaire :
Should New Yorkers feel insulted by the claim that the #BankruptcyBillionnaire "embodies New York values"? I'd agree that they're entitled to feel insulted--and to refute the claim. What Trump has demonstrated were "New York manners." Sympathetic viewers, like Scott Adams, have been saying that that shouldn't even be considered a reason not to vote for a candidate. But if Trump can be said to "embody" any kind of values, I'd say that would be greedhead values, which are hard-wired into the human id (see Augustine et al. on "original sin") and are independent of any regional culture.
Constitutional convention...Con-Con...sounds like a con game to me. As it does to Publius Huldah:
Toys
Prefab houses in Legoland? Meh. I've linked to this one before, but some (Lego employees?) have been buzzing around it again, so there are lots of new comments as well as images of the toys. My inner child still wants to prod you: Don't buy the prefab walls for the miniature dolls whose stuff is harder for little hands to make. Buy enough of the regular bricks that your daughter can build houses for 12" dolls and fill them with 2" to 1" stuff, or, if you can afford it, even enough for 18" dolls and 3" to 1" stuff.
Virginia Legislature
Should your city, county, and school district budgets (as applicable) be posted on the Internet, so information about where your tax dollars were going would be at your fingertips? Does that sound like appropriate and reasonable accountability? It does to me.
Should parents' religious beliefs (even about homeschooled children) or a doctor's medical opinion be overruled by a greedhead pharmaceutical company's effort to market potentially dangerous vaccines...that a child may not even need? Virginians whose answer is "No" may sign this petition. Kill this bill to save a child.
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