Before, during, and after last night's storm the Internet connection was peculiar. Somewhere a tower must have been zapped. Sponsors are paying for a wired connection, but the computer was definitely getting a wireless connection, blowing in and out with the cyclone winds. The computer would say it wasn't connected, open tabs only from the "cached" version that's supposed to stay open when you go offline, but more tabs stayed cached longer than if I'd really gone offline. So all night long I had time to look at things I couldn't put into a Link Log until today...
Books
Remember Don Freeman? Plough has just reprinted Come Again Pelican. (How this web site wishes Grandma Bonnie Peters, one of the first to identify the pelican who visited Kingsport's Greenbelt Park, were with us still...she would have bought a copy and found children to read it to.)
Local interest anyone? Our late lamented Queen Cat Mogwai, Serena's great-great-grand-aunt, appears in a collection of animal memoirs from around the world, called The Dog Who Wooed at the World. I've not read all of the stories yet. Some come from people who support the ideas that are driving HSUS's War On Pets; I suspect others have been edited to keep those people from squalling, creating a misleading impression that everybody endorses HSUS's or PETA's errors, but what can you do when the only alternative is becoming as heavy-handed and wrong-headed as they are. I'm certainly not going to scream at people who did sterilize and confine their pets. I think that's the right thing for some animals--unfortunately Mogwai matured into one of them! Anyway, ideology aside, each fact-based, details-blurred story was chosen for being heartwarming and illustrating something about our love of animals. Those who remember The Mog will want to meet other animals who affected editor Laura Lee Cascada's feelings the way Mogwai did ours.
If you want to be certain of getting a link to pre-order it when the pre-order page on Amazon is set up, click here:
This project started with a memorial tribute to Laura Lee Cascada's dog and one to her friend, who "adopted" one of the annoying little beetles Americans call June bugs. (We think they're sort of cute--"June Bug" was a nickname June Carter Cash wore with pride--but when they're in our houses most of us find them annoying. A person who manages to love one would be a generous soul indeed.) LLC invited other people to add their animal memoirs and make it a book. I'd really like to see her recover her investment in sales.
Censorship
From India, where the people have historically tolerated government censorship and censorship has been imposed on TikTok, come thoughts on why even TikTok should have freedom of speech. (Though, arguably, not the freedom to use recognizable images of living people, or identifying information for living people, on the Internet.)
Scott Adams fails to be funny, in this one, but he's right. He goes into a full-blown rant, with profuse, intentionally excessive use of the F-word (not F******k, the other one), illustrating how censorship of "Holocaust-denying" statements feeds real hate of, at least, the Anti-Defamation League. No way is he going to say he hates Jews. I don't believe he does. I don't know that any sane person does, because the group is just too big. But if people pick, as people do, at details of the popular "Holocaust narrative" that are inaccurate--typically either the claim that the Nazis were able to kill exactly six million Jews, or the claim that it's possible to know exactly how many they did kill--and some loud annoying people who are publicly identified as Jews scream that they ought to be censored, or worse, for expressing their view of the facts, then certainly the people being screamed at are likely to find themselves starting to hate some Jews. So, lots of Army language in this video and I don't know if Adams ever even served in the Army, and my father would say I shouldn't have listened to it...but he's right. (And after the rant about the ADL's bad psychology, he then pitches into the anti-Israel protesters.)
Glyphosate Awareness
It's far past time to be closing in for the kill...and I'm not satisfied. The kill, the total ban on glyphosate, should have gone into law by 2018 with any "phase-out" time complete in 2020. Every day of stalling and insolence, every glyphosate reaction every one of us has had since 2018, should be costing Bayer, say, an extra ten thousand dollars. Efforts to censor Glyphosate Awareness in social media should cost Bayer dearly, too. Before this is over Bayer's operatives should be crawling from door to door, begging, "Please Sir, please Ma'am, if anyone in this house had any chronic medical condition that became noticeable or became worse between 2009 and 2020, improved noticeably in late 2020, and then became worse again in 2021, please accept $100,000 as our pathetic little bid for compensation."
Every penny that every chemical corporation took in from glyphosate needs to be returned to the "Spoonies" of the world. And no rubbish about compensatory grants to "the community," meaning pork for someone vaguely identified as a member of a group, either, and no drivel about court costs and legal fees. Those hundreds of thousands need to be counted out in cash for each and every one of us. Court costs, legal fees, and fines to governments should come afterward.
Anyway, for those who want a hard-hitting fact sheet, Team RTK (not to be confused with RFK) has put together a big, state-of-the-science, closing-in-for-the-kill fact sheet. The people we most need to be talking to may throw up mental blocks against reading it; most people in cyberspace should find it readable, with loads of links to scientific journals bristling with numbers. It's awesome. And it's free to use, though as usual the new scientific studies are not. Trumpistas need this document.
Music
Wu Fei composes music for cicadas. If you scroll down there are notes on the cicadas she met and a gorgeous, or gross-out I suppose, close-up cicada photo. Well, they're not the prettiest animals, but they attract flocks of beautiful birds and tourists. I love the echoes of pop music in this original piece.
Politics
Be there, Thursday week (5.16.24):
Zazzle
Zazzle designs playing cards. Does this web site endorse the purchase or use of playing cards? Why not--they're good for all kinds of games and tricks that don't involve gambling. You can transfer any design on Zazzle, or upload a picture and/or message of your own, when you "customize" any product sold there, so feel free to order your Save the Butterflies Playing Cards by "customizing" my design, substituting a picture and the name and address of your store for the butterfly. Zazzle will not allow me to list your store or products as a design for other people to buy, but WILL allow either you or me to "customize" a design with your image and superscription. So, for those who've asked "What about a coffee mug with our cafe?" or "Why not a Christmas card with our Christmas tree on the front?"--Zazzle won't put those designs on my store page, but they'll print and ship as many of them as you want. Whether you order them or I do is all one to Zazzle.
Actually some Zazzlers do order their own products. Not only does this not count against us in any way; the company is currently running a contest for the best photos of people's "collections" in which they have not settled for the computer-generated mock-up, but actually ordered their merchandise and displayed it on a table with other things. With the prices they charge, I don't know whether I'd ever recover the expense of such a project reselling Zazzle merch in Gate City. Customers pay enough if they order Zazzle merchandise directly from the company. But, for local lurkers who don't want to transfer money online, I can customize the product and order it for you. Graduation souvenirs with your school and class on them? Absolutely. Wedding invitations with souvenir photos of the bride and groom, instead of butterflies? Mais naturellement.
Mine:
Not mine:
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