Weekend Reading: The I Rollerbladed When I Should Have Worked Edition

It was so beautiful here today. I wasn't going to go for a rollerblade, because I had to take time out of the day to take my tax info to my accountant, but it was too beautiful of a day not to go out. I will pay for this by having to do my accounting over the weekend. It is the first Friday of the month, which is when I usually do my monthly accounting and I only get it partway done. Plus it is time to send out author royalty statements, and I barely started on that. So instead of doing fun work like writing during my Sunday morning work session, I'll be doing accounting. Bleh. But the rollerblade was worth it.

Anyway, to the links.

Self promo first: I'm running a GoodReads giveaway for the paperback version of Unspotted.

I've also decided to pick a random Annorlunda mailing list subscriber each month to send a promo code for a free ebook. If you want in on that, here's the mailing list sign up page.

Now the politics:

Josh Marshall had an interesting post in which he tried to come up with an innocent explanation for the Russia story that still fits all the known facts.

The leaks coming out of DHS undermine the national security argument for the Muslim travel ban. It has been clear all along that this was coming from the Bannon/Miller wing of the administration, and therefore I've never been inclined to buy the national security argument. The argument about immigrants not assimilating and the risk of replicating the issues seen in places like Brussels ignores some really key differences between the US and Europe, in my opinion. It also ignores evidence that immigrants from these countries have been assimilating just fine here in the US. If you only judge assimilation based on whether or not women wear hijab, you're really not thinking hard enough. There is nothing about being American that requires letting people see your hair. My non-expert opinion is that if you want immigrants to assimilate the main thing you have to do is treat them fairly and give them a chance to succeed. This travel ban does the opposite.

I've mostly stuck to my self-imposed rule that I'm not going to get into Democratic party strategy arguments (either in real life or in what I read online), but I read this story from a long-time labor reporter about the new DNC chair Tom Perez, and it made me feel better. So I'll pass it along for any of you who might also appreciate such a thing.

I could post a bunch of immigration stories, but I think I'll try to write an actual post about the topic sometime soon instead.

Instead, enjoy this interview with Gilda Wabbit, the drag queen who was in the "this is the future liberals want" photo that went viral earlier this week. Here is a quote from her:

"I won’t speak for all liberals, but I’d like to see a future where it isn’t a big deal for a woman in full modesty garb to sit next to a drag queen in NYC. It’s become a bit of a sensation, but her and I were just existing. The freedom to simply be yourself in a sea of people who aren’t like you is a freedom we all deserve."

Sign me up for that future, please.

Here is a less happy subway story (h/t @NeedhiBhalla). The point about there being no good option when you experience discrimination is a really good one.

This short article from an emergency room doctor who has to tell people Trump is president is a good read.

Here is an article about the same news story being spun two different ways by the same company. Basically, this company is profiting off of ratcheting up partisanship. We, as a society, are going to have to figure out how to handle this sort of thing in our internet/social media age. We're taking steps towards that now, but they are baby steps.

If you somehow didn't see the incredible (and incredibly sad) essay in the NY Times today from a woman writing a dating profile for her soon to be widowed husband... go read it. But you will probably cry. In my inbox this morning, I had an email from a friend letting me know that her husband had died. My friend is older than me, and her husband was older than her and quite ill, so it was not a surprise. But still, reading that email and then reading that essay destroyed me.

So I guess I need to find something happy to end on. But I don't really have anything, so....

BUNNY!

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— うさぎ島の写真bot (@rabbit_isle_bot) March 3, 2017

BUNNIES!

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— うさぎ島の写真bot (@rabbit_isle_bot) February 26, 2017

That's all for this week. Happy weekend!