Moment of Silence: Ted Turner
May. 7th, 2026 12:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithCarry on the Work
4 Ways to Become an Environmentalist
How to Become an Activist and Advocate for Worthy Causes
How to Become a Broadcast Journalist (with Pictures)
How to Start a Cartoon Show
Institute for Nonprofit News Startup Guide
Further Le Guin thoughts
May. 7th, 2026 06:02 pmoursinA further trail of thought more or less kicked off by this comment by flemmings on yesterday's post about Ursula as an anthropologist's daughter and the way that inflected her fiction -
- and then I went, hey, wasn't he part of that whole Franz Boas group that I read that book about at the beginning of 2020 (Charles King, The Reinvention of Humanity) and would she not have been aware of Significant Lady Anthropologists and their work (not just her own ma) -
Like, Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict?
(Maybe the forthcoming biography will shine some light there???)
Or was that going on in some entirely different compartment to the requirements of fictional narrative? (thinking of my 1920s gals and the gulf between what they were up to with their affairs and abortions and propagating birth control and what the protags in their novels were permitted to get up to.)
Or was there a whole generational thing going on there, which I sort of touched on in commenting about Mitchison on this post, though I think I could make a larger case about that generation that had had to fight for a lot of rights that were already accepted as given by UKleG's day even if there were still major constraints.
(Seem to recollect that I did not think Julie Phillips in that book on writers and motherhood quite brought out the extent to which she was writing of a very specific generation/time-period. With some exceptions.)
Low Tech
May. 7th, 2026 11:28 amysabetwordsmithUrsa Ag, a small Canadian manufacturer, is assembling tractors powered by 12-valve Cummins engines — the same mechanically injected workhorses that powered combines and pickup trucks decades ago — and selling them for roughly half the price of comparable machines from established brands. The 150-horsepower model starts at $129,900 CAD, about $95,000 USD. The range-topping 260-hp version runs $199,900 CAD, around $146,000.
( Read more... )
a random MSW observation
May. 7th, 2026 12:25 pmsixbeforelunchSaturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Joke
May. 7th, 2026 11:20 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
smbc_comics_feed
Click here to go see the bonus panel!
Hovertext:
Do they still do this? When I was a kid, villains were constantly dangling from buildings and being saved.
Today's News:
Friday Five: Outdoorsy Edition
May. 7th, 2026 10:47 amofearthandstars![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
thefridayfive:
1. Do you like to spend time outdoors?
I am very much an I-would-live-outdoors-if-it-wouldn't-kill-me type of person. I love hiking and even just working around the yard, because there are so many interesting geological formations/plants/moss/grasses/trees/rocks/insects/birds/fungi/animals/etc. that make up our world, and I feel more at home/in awe when I'm among them. I genuinely love hiking any time of year (we just returned from a wonderful trip to Grandfather Mountain.). Unfortunately, I have a lot of outdoor allergies and other overactive immune conditions, so I have to manage my time outdoors carefully.
2. What is your favorite flower?
Hmm, this is tough. I really do adore sunflowers but also lilies, and orchids are a special kind of beautiful - especially the tiny wild ones that are often overlooked.
3. Any favorite warm weather activities?
Hiking, wading in streams, walking riverside, listening to thunderstorms. I do also appreciate occasional trips to the ocean to gaze at the beautiful blue-green Atlantic, feel the sand on my feet, and watch the ghost crabs and shore birds scurry about. I'm really fortunate to live in a place that gives me access to both ocean and mountains, within a few hours drive.
4. Have you ever kept a garden? If so, what did you grow?
We kept a small garden before moving to our current home which is on a heavily wooded lot which nearly full shade. We grew herbs (basil, fennel, dill, lavendar), tomatoes, peppers of all sorts, squash and zucchini. We tried a pumpkin on a whim. I do miss it from time to time and have been thinking about how/where to incorporate a small patch here. I currently have some herbs and small flowers in pots that I move about the yard as the seasons change.
5. Do you know how to swim?
Yes. Growing up my parents invested in one of those aboveground pools that are about 4-5 feet deep and built a deck to go around it. So in summers in middle school and high school I would spend many of my days out there. Not a huge amount of space but it gave me the means to swim and enjoy the water, and I spent a lot of time with my mom there. In college I took more formal swim lessons (was required for graduation, guess they didn't want their graduates to accidentally drown). I really enjoyed those as well as it taught me to better manage my breathing underwater.
Retread Comics
May. 7th, 2026 10:33 amfrith
I can't find any comic books to read. That is, newsstand, paper comic books. There's nothing good. I just read the five-part "The End" 2099 (Marvel) comic and it was a chaotic tag team of Marvel 2099 characters, lead by Spiderman in an all out rumble against a load of alt-universe characters, all because Galactus melded with a Symbiote and wants to eat everything, soul and all. Why is the Spiderman of Spiderman 2099 leading the charge, or at least planning the winning strategy? He's easily the weakest of the bunch. And anyway, I don't really care. I never liked bickering X-Man team comics and this five part "End" comic had just two many cameos of characters I never followed. While there was action, the action looked like mostly opportunities to draw humanoids in mid leap, floating, doing gymnastic moves, or blasting at whatever. Chatting and comparing skills all the while.
What I liked about Spiderman 2099, back in late last century, was that it was set in a cyberpunk, corporate dystopia New York and that Miguel gave himself an experimental gene alteration in an attempt to escape a chemical addiction. All very plausible. Then, the rest of the story is him trying to reverse the gene modification, avoiding getting trapped and/or found out, and living with freaky strength, sticky polymer excretions and razor sharp talons in his finger tips. The comic was good for a while, then Marvel had a meltdown, the story got more convoluted, never reached a conclusion, crashed and died. There have been a few resurrections of Spiderman 2099 this century and they all lack.
Now Girl Genius, there's a good comic. The authors are going to die before they ever reach a conclusion, which at the present rate of progress won't be until 2050. But it's a wild ride. I frequently reread long sections.
That's One Small Leap For Jen...
May. 7th, 2026 01:00 pmcakewrecks_feedJohn: "What are you working on?"
Jen: "Finding cakes for National Moon Day."
John: "Ok... so what's that, and what does it have to do with Moon Day?"
Jen: [clicking] "Hang on, you'll see."
John: "This still doesn't..."
Jen: "Waaaait for it..."
John: "OH. Moon day, heh. But see, I think you may have mis..."
Jen: "Dude, you totally just said, 'Butt see'.
Both together: "Bwahahaa!"
John: "But seriously, you've got the wrong Moon Day. It's supposed to be the Moon Moon day. The one in the sky.
Jen: [still clicking]
John: "Jen."
"Jen."
"STOP POSTING BUTT PICTURES YOU'VE GOT THE WRONG MOON."
John: "You win. Go back to butts."
Thanks to Brooke B., Adria P., Deborah B., Anony M., Lynne S., Nicole E., & Gorilla for helping me get the drop on John.
*****
P.S. I have the kind of insomnia old-timey bards would write songs about, so let me sing the praises of my amazing sleep headphones - for when you DO want to sleep:
I listen to boring audio books on these every night to keep my brain from spinning out of control, which works wonders. Lately I've been wearing them like a sleep mask - like the model here - and WOW, that's helped even more than when I wore them like a headband! These things have been a life saver: comfy enough for side sleeping, not too loud like some of my old speakers, and they only cost $20 Prime.
Note that they do run on the big side, but that works great if you have a big head like me.
*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:
Revisiting My 2014 Reading List
May. 7th, 2026 08:38 amosprey_archerSusan Fletcher - Journey of the Pale Bear
Adam Gopnik - A Thousand Small Sanities. Didn’t review this one. No longer remember it very well. I keep reading Gopnik because I love Paris to the Moon SO much but none of his other books are the same.
Rosemary Sutcliff - Rudyard Kipling. Not a biography of Kipling so much as an overview of his children’s books. A useful source if you’re interested in Kipling’s influence on Sutcliff.
Francesca Forrest - “Semper Vivens.” A short intense story about a terraforming accident that has created a patch of land where all life is constantly transforming into other life, which recently became the focus for a cult which decided to land there even though it meant death-by-transforming-life; a story of an awe-ful place in the old sense of the word. Hard to get a hold of, which is why I didn’t review it, but so memorable.
Rumer Godden - Premlata and the Festival of Lights
William Dean Howells - Literary Friends and Acquaintances
Barbara Cooney - The American Speller: An Adaptation of Noah Webster's Blue-Backed Speller. A picture book loosely based on Noah Webster’s iconic speller. Like many picture books, I didn’t have enough for a whole post about it, and so it fell through the cracks.
Sarah Orne Jewett - A White Heron
Dorothy Sayers - Lord Peter
Hilary McKay - The Time of Green Magic
Jane Langton - Paper Chains
Rachel Bertsche - The Kids Are in Bed: Finding Time for Yourself in the Chaos of Parenting
Angela Brazil - A Popular Schoolgirl
Annie Fellows Johnston - Cicely, and Other Stories
Zilpha Keatley Snyder - The Treasures of Weatherby
C. S. Lewis - The Great Divorce. Apparently I never reviewed this one? This shocks me. Surely I meant to review it and it just fell by the wayside. Clearly I’ll have to reread and review properly at some point.
Ben Macintyre - Operation Mincemeat
Elizabeth von Arnim - Elizabeth and Her German Garden
La Seduction
May. 7th, 2026 08:25 amlemonlips43 posting in fictional_fansAuthor: Lemonlips43
Fandom: Pokemon-The original series
Rating: Teen
Characters/Pairings: Gary/Ash
Genres: Romance,Humor and angst
Word count: 745 (the first chapter)
Summary:Ash finds himself in love with Misty and decides to ask Gary for lessons on how to win over girls. Gary surprisingly accepts, but are Gary's intentions truly pure? And does Ash really love misty as much as he says?
Aditional tags-Jealousy,Compulsory Heterosexuality,Kantou-chihou | Kanto Region (Pokemon)
I wrote this fanfic i was thinking about writing it a long time now i finally got courage and will to write it!
READ ON AO3
READ ON MY JOURNAL
