Just a little (link) love: doggy paddle edition
August 13, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,713.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
KassandraDasent on what the Black Tax really is at FemmeFrugality‘s blog.
K. Wright on money five months into the pandemic.
I struggled for years to get adequate care for my chronic pain so reading about the decades-long and systemic dismissal of Black women’s pain and illness by the medical establishment is absolutely infuriating. We all deserve better than this.
Immunology Is Where Intuition Goes to Die
The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in the Pandemic: “One of us (Aronson), who was a protégé of Festinger in the mid-’50s, advanced cognitive-dissonance theory by demonstrating the powerful, yet nonobvious, role it plays when the concept of self is involved. Dissonance is most painful when evidence strikes at the heart of how we see ourselves—when it threatens our belief that we are kind, ethical, competent, or smart. The minute we make any decision—I’ll buy this car; I will vote for this candidate; I think COVID-19 is serious; no, I’m sure it is a hoax—we will begin to justify the wisdom of our choice and find reasons to dismiss the alternative. Before long, any ambivalence we might have felt at the time of the original decision will have morphed into certainty. As people justify each step taken after the original decision, they will find it harder to admit they were wrong at the outset. Especially when the end result proves self-defeating, wrongheaded, or harmful.”
Winter is coming: Why America’s window of opportunity to beat back Covid-19 is closing: “Unless Americans use the dwindling weeks between now and the onset of “indoor weather” to tamp down transmission in the country, this winter could be Dickensianly bleak, public health experts warn.”
I’m looking around and I think it’s pretty clear Americans are going to completely squander what’s left of our opportunity to get this thing under control. Americans continue to amaze me in all the wrong and terrible ways.
I needed some good stuff:
What a lovely affirmation! The video is worth watching, I just had to take a screencap for folks who don’t click through links: https://twitter.com/pearlsnappea/status/1291878131880665095?s=19
This thread led me to this designer’s collection which is absolutely gorgeous. I’ve never seen a collection of dresses where I loved almost every single one of the creations. Just some really lovely eye candy.
I fell in love with this adorable stamp shop.
A 2-year old profile of Seanan McGuire. I adore every Incryptid story she’s ever written even though some make me sad because they’re too short. I can’t handle the Wayward Children books right now but that’s mostly because of where I am in life and also pandemic. Middlegame was spooky good and spooky and good.
This is how I dog paddle
Normal dogs: *Doggy paddle*
My dog: pic.twitter.com/0EpUFf3DTD
— Dong Copter (@AdamantAnarchy) July 16, 2020
I’m not saying that Rudy would do that instead of dog paddle, but I did catch him taking multiple steps on his hind legs in an attempt to get Baguette’s hot dog off of the counter.
Excellent balance! XD
“Because if you say that’s what you want to do, there’s someone going, oh, so you’ve got a diversity checklist, huh? Because my existence is a diversity checklist.” I LOVE this quote from the Seanan article!
When I used to write stories (loooong ago, haha), this was the reaction I always got…whereas now, I tell myself, if you’ve thought of it, somewhere, somewhere, that person exists.
Case in point – I was thinking of writing a biracial character who is has black African and Eastern European ancestry and someone said “That’s a real flight of fancy there, isn’t it?” and I was like “Orcs, hobbits, wizards and all that are normal, but my friend F’s life in print is the thing that’s extraordinary….riiiiiiight. Okay.”
I don’t know if any of her works are available here but I’m going to have a dig and find out!
It just really makes no sense to me that people think that diversity in humans is solely limited to those they have met or known.
I hope you can find some of Seanan’s stories, and that they are the ones that are to your liking!