Friday, December 09, 2016

Weekend Reading: The Barely Hanging On Edition

I've been sick most of the week, which sucks. I stayed home Monday feeling sorta sick myself, and to take care of a sick Petunia. When I woke up feeling pretty good on Tuesday, I thought that taking the day to rest had allowed me to dodge the worst of her cold. But then Wednesday I was sluggish and I woke up Thursday feeling terrible. So I stayed home Thursday, too, although I did a little work. I had a rough night last night, but today I've been so-so. I'm still making my way through my to do list, but my energy is fading... so I'm going to post my links post early, under the assumption that I'll be crashed out on the sofa before long.

I had plans to write a post or two this week, but you can see what happened to those plans. Maybe I'll do better next week.

Anyway, to the links.

First some self-promotion:

There is still time to sign up to be an advance reader of Caresaway, the near future sci fi novelette by DJ Cockburn. You can learn more about the book on the Annorlunda page but here is the synopsis:

"If there was a pill that made you successful, would you take it? What if it also made you a psychopath?

Edward Crofte was a dedicated scientist who wanted to cure depression. After years of work and sacrifice, the Caresaway drug he developed seemed to work wonders… but at what cost?

Years later, Edward’s wonder drug has helped people with depression. But has it also helped destroy the world economy? And what has it done to him?"

As you can see, there's a drug discovery angle to this novelette, but I wouldn't have accepted it for publication if it was the standard "all pharma is evil" sort of narrative. It is much more nuanced than that. If you're tempted to read it but not into being an advance reader, I'll have the pre-order page posted soon. That was actually on the to do list for this week but I didn't get to it due to the illness I whinged about at the top of the post.

In other Annorlunda Books news, here is a really nice review of Vanessa Fogg's The Lilies of Dawn and three other short books by Asian women.

In other self-promo news, I can't remember if I linked to the Crappy Things I Made entry for my latest t-shirt design, which is a Christmas T. Rex. Petunia and I both have this shirt, and it is fun to wear. It makes people smile.

OK, on to the regular links.

The Indiana union leader Trump attacked on Twitter isn't backing down, although of course he is getting threats because that's just how a rabid subsection of Trump supporters roll. Such nice people.

Speaking of people getting threats from Trump supporters: this young woman is getting threats a full year after just asking a couple of pointed questions at a Trump rally.

At this point, anyone who speaks up against our President Elect has to assume there is a chance they will be targeted on Twitter, which will launch a bunch of rabid supporters into making threats against them. This is terribly corrosive to our democracy. I hope we can all stay brave, and find ways to support the people who end up targeted. I wish more Congressional Republicans would speak out against this, but apparently they are also afraid of Trump:

"Many are afraid to publicly oppose Trump because of his fondness for retribution and use of Twitter to publicly shame his critics. So now, they’re left crossing their fingers that his rhetoric doesn’t translate into actual policy proposals next year."

Such principled and brave leaders they are.

Here is someone who actually is principled and brave: Asma Khalid wrote about what it was like to be a Muslim reporter covering Trump.

Federal bureaucrats are nervous about serving in the Trump administration. The reports that the Department of Energy has been asked to identify staffers who worked on the Obama administration's climate policies are probably not helping them feel less nervous. I hope the career government employees hold on as long as they can, and only quit when it will help expose a problem. We should all be prepared to have their backs if needed.

I like Matt Yglesias' proposal to move some government agencies out of DC. There is precedent: the CDC is in Atlanta, after all. It would be disruptive, but it is definitely worth thinking about.

Ryan Cooper's piece on the corrosive effect of the failure of accountability is worth your time.

Richard Wolfgramm's post about Moana was going to be the starting point for one of the posts I wanted to write this week. I might still write more about it next week, but for now,  I'll just point you to it as a good thing to read if you want to think about the complexities of representation in art.

I thought this was a good insight:




The now customary closing bunnies:




BUNNIES.




Happy weekend, everyone. I'm going to go collapse on the sofa now.

3 comments:

  1. Oh gosh, so sorry it's been such a bad week, I hope the weekend restores you to better health and you're able to enjoy some part of it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope you avoid (or don't have) the three-week ick that's been going around here.

    ReplyDelete

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