A little late for Halloween (my fault for not being able to read my social media feeds while working), but interesting. "While happily going about my research, I recalled something I’d read not long after I started working for the CREWS Project – a reference to a Mesopotamian family who worked as exorcists. I’d always found this a fun concept and tweeted about it." (Grokked from S.A. Chakraborty)
A podcast for historical fantasy. I haven't listened to it yet, but you might find it handy. (Grokked from Cat Rambo)
"Here Is How You NaNoWriMo, You Ruinous Monster, You." Chuck Wendig on the Writers Season before us. "You are here to ruin a perfectly good empty page. And that isn’t just the purview of this month — but it’s writing any story, on any day."
"The essential question is 'What advice would you give to working-class/poor young people interested in an arts career?' and basically she doesn't really know what to say about it. There are reasons for this. But I have plenty to say!" A tweet storm from Nick Mamatas. Is it possible? looks around, checks pay stub Yes. checks word count on fiction writing these past 8 years No. It comes down to choices, and not the "I left my day job to write full time" choices either. Why haven't I been able to write much fiction? Because I'm the main bread winner of the couple. And I like to be able to take good vacations and buy things when I want them (no, I don't go everywhere everywhen I want, no I don't buy anywhere close to everything I want). But I've been to Alaska, I've been to Yellowstone, and I'll be going to Disney World soon (this is the first time there for my wife and I). To do that and not freak the total fuck out (I still freak out) I work the day job (graphic design), the night job (radiological technologist) and I hustle (freelance and t-shirt design). I was on my way to writing novels. Three months after I went to Viable Paradise I lost my day job (insert long story) and ended up here. I made choices. One of those choices was to develop options so I would have a good chance of remaining gainfully employed until retirement, and to do that I've slighted writing time. I had hoped to be back to it by now, but (insert long story including Nov 8, 2016) that hasn't happened yet. I could choose to give this (waves arms around) blog up to get writing time, but I'd still probably read all the stories I link to anyway, and that's what takes up the time. So can you do it? Yes. It involves sacrifice (including doing "graphic design" instead of "art"). You might not make much money (and the retirement plan sucks). But it is possible. And as Nick says, you have to be better than everyone else in that goddamn building. (Grokked from CC Finlay)
Side note, working in the hospital I've realized that I really should have been a doctor or something more advanced in the medical field. When I started going to college that wasn't even an option (financially and perspective wise). Have some done it? Yes (more claim to have, but when you scratch you find all the help they've been given that they've taken for granted). I wasn't in a place where that was a viable option (to do that, you'd really have to be focused from 6th grade onward, and that was about the time I started saying, "Fuck it"). It's the same thing as poor kids becoming artists. Some do, most who should have, who would have been fantastic at it, don't because it's not a real option for them.
Oh my, what will HBO do now that Game of Thrones is about to end? "The Oscar-nominated 'King Kong' and 'Mulholland Drive' star is the first actor to be attached to a prequel set thousands of years before 'Game of Thrones,' HBO has confirmed." Prequels, of course. Winter was already there.
"Researchers found that, from the age of 40, people at the higher end of the healthy Body Mass Index (BMI) range had the lowest risk of dying from disease… But people at the top and bottom ends of the BMI risked having shorter lives."
"According to brain reconstruction research led by The University of Texas at Austin, the part of the elephant bird brain that processed vision was tiny, a trait that indicates they were nocturnal and possibly blind. The findings were published Oct. 31 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B." The extinct world's giantest bird was mostly likely not all that good at seeing things. Like extinction coming.
"Now, an international team of scientists has studied the Milky Way’s monster using an instrument called GRAVITY to combine the infrared light from four eight-meter telescopes at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. Combining light from multiple telescopes is a technique called interferometry, and can dramatically boost the sensitivity and precision of astronomical observations."
"The DRC's government reports that on average (Ebola) burial teams, health workers and other responders are being threatened like this as often as three or four times a week."
"That sense of mystery was certainly present last week when marine scientists witnessed a sight never before seen by humans: a deep-sea vista of over a thousand octopuses, dotting the ocean floor, curled and wedged among the rocks." I'd like to be under the sea in an octopus' garden in the shade.
"More than 75% of the Italian city of Venice was inundated by high tides and extreme winds on Monday and Tuesday, leaving most of the so-called 'Floating City' with the worst flooding in a decade. After two days of heavy rain across Italy, Venice, known for its iconic waterways, can hopefully begin to recover."
"On Election Day, Utah residents will be going to the polls to vote on whether the state will join 33 others and Washington, D.C., in expanding Medicaid coverage to a lot more low-income adults. Democrat and Republican states have expanded." But mostly Democratically led states.
What does a democratic theocracy look like? "Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday announced the acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Catholic woman who was convicted and sentenced to death in 2010 for blasphemy in a case that has divided the South Asian country and sparked international outrage." I'm sure the Pakistani Muslims now have common cause with American Christians in feeling that their religion is "under attack."
"One year after the #MeToo movement took off, new NPR-Ipsos polls show the nation deeply divided on sexual assault and harassment, with fissures running more along party lines than gender… On the question of whether false accusations of sexual assault are common, the party gap is quadruple the gender gap: 77 percent of Republicans believe false accusations are common, compared to 37 percent of Democrats." So how's that philosophy working out for you, Jacob Wohl?
"Wisconsin is officially the fourth state to condition Medicaid recipients’ health care on work, even as two other states are currently being sued for their requirements… The state estimates more than 5,000 will no longer have Medicaid coverage due to Wednesday’s changes. It’s also the only state of the four that have work requirements but didn’t expand Medicaid eligibility to 138 percent of poverty level."
"Former Vice President Joe Biden pushed back Wednesday on claims by President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans that the GOP can protect patients with pre-existing conditions better than Democrats, saying Republicans are either lying or 'really stupid.'" Why not both. I'm going with both (or at the very least they're liars and they think the rest of us are really stupid). Mostly this posturing of conservatives who have spent the last 8 years trying to overturn those protections outlined in Obamacare (note how many news organizations have reverted to calling it the ACA) trying to cover their asses this election. Also, they're preparing the field for other attempts to destroy Obamacare ("well, they said they would protect pre-existing conditions, so we should be okay if they get rid of that Obamacare").
Usually a president is welcomed to help heal a community. "Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, urged Trump not to visit Pittsburgh 'while we are burying the dead,' so the attention would remain on the victims and their funerals." It's okay, IIRC, President Obama was also not invited into a community to help them heal.
But then, "President Donald Trump makes a hard turn Wednesday from offering empathy to grief-stricken Pittsburgh to the fear and fury of a midterm election closing argument designed to drive up Republican turnout despite the risk of deepening national divides."
"President Donald Trump went after House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday, saying one of the top Republican leaders in the President's party 'knows nothing about' birthright citizenship and 'should be focusing on holding the Majority' in the House of Representatives 'rather than giving his opinions' on the issue." Because if you disagree with the president, he has to attack you. That's his MO.
"A campaign mailer showing a Jewish candidate for state Senate with a fistful of money is drawing condemnation for what critics say is its blatant anti-Semitic imagery… It was sent out by Republican Ed Charamut and targets Democratic state Rep. Matthew Lesser, his opponent in the race for the 9th Senate District seat, which represents Middletown, Wethersfield, Newington, Cromwell and Rocky Hill." As someone with an art history background, yes, this image is anti-semitic and has ties to anti-semitic propaganda going back to the middle-ages. It's also a direct harkening to Nazi anti-semitic posters.
"(Maureen) Heard, 57, discovered last year that she was among roughly 319,000 voters across the country whose absentee ballots were rejected during the last presidential election. The reasons varied, ranging from missing deadlines to failing to sign their ballot… Heard's ballot was tossed out because the signature did not match the one on file at her local election office." Hell, given the different kinds of signature gathering tech (paper, screen with pen, screen with finger) my signatures vary. "Voters who are notified of a problem can request a new ballot or vote in person, but the law does not provide time after the election to resolve the problems. That potentially affects voters who drop off their ballots on or near Election Day." Note, not all states notify you if they reject your ballot (or registration).
Sometime late is not any different than never. "Nearly a dozen senior law enforcement, homeland security and intelligence officials held a first-of-its-kind meeting at the Justice Department in late September to discuss how to respond if a foreign adversary tried to influence the midterm elections… But they left after 90 minutes without devising a plan or answering key questions, according to a person who attended the previously unreported gathering." Two years later and they're just getting started. (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)
"Federal judges on Wednesday ordered Ohio to allow voters who had been purged for not voting over a six-year period to participate in this year's election."
"The Republican-controlled state legislature began debating this requirement (hard residential addresses, not just PO boxes) just a few months after Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat, won a Senate seat in 2012 with strong support from Native Americans. That race was decided by fewer than 3,000 votes. Ms. Heitkamp is now seeking re-election in one of the nation’s most aggressively contested elections, and she is trailing her Republican opponent, Representative Kevin Cramer, in the polls."? Yes, conservatives are actively trying to disenfranchise everyone they think might vote Democratic and they will use any excuse to do so. People who don't know their street address are supposedly able to call the sheriff and have one assigned. Except the sheriff isn't usually available (also the sheriff doesn't really have jurisdiction on reservation land). And then there's the color of ink used on absentee ballots. "Later, when Ms. Young filled out an absentee ballot (after being turned away because there was no "early voting"), Ms. Hettich told her she had to use blue ink or the ballot would not be counted. But literature on the secretary of state’s website says ballots must be filled out in black ink. Mr. Semans ping-ponged back and forth between Standing Rock and Bismarck, trying to get a guarantee that ballots would not be thrown out because of ink color. On Friday, Lee Ann Oliver in the secretary of state’s office told The Times that both blue and black were acceptable." (Grokked from Laura J Mixon)
"Here's what to do if you're turned away at the polls." (Grokked from Elizabeth Bear)
"President Donald Trump insisted on Wednesday that the Democratic Party does not have the midterm momentum that its leaders have claimed, proclaiming that 'the blue wave is dead.'" Go out and vote.
"In the most racially charged national political ad in 30 years, President Donald Trump and the Republican Party accuse Democrats of plotting to help people they depict as Central American invaders overrun the nation with cop killers… The new web video, tweeted by the President five days before the midterm elections, is the most extreme step yet in the most inflammatory closing argument of any campaign in recent memory." Oh hello, Willie Horton. Why do I call the president and most conservatives Nazis and racists? Because they are. Because Nazis and racists call them that as well.
Like… "On the home page of his campaign website, Rep. Steve Knight of Palmdale has posted a television ad showing a veteran praising the Republican congressman for helping him get a lung transplant… It turns out that veteran, David Brayton of Santa Clarita, has posted dozens of racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim comments on Facebook… Brayton, 64, has also promoted violence against journalists he sees as hostile to President Trump and called on citizen militias to turn their weapons on left-wing protesters." He seems nice. (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)
Tweet of my heart: @drvox One thing we're seeing now is the 2nd generation of Fox conservatives. The first grew up in a normal world & was pulled into Fox world (like my dad). But they *remember* the normal world & can still pass in it; they know what tone & keywords to use. However ... (Grokked from Laura J Mixon)
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