Category: Friday Unrelated Information

1. Wait, Utah did something good?? “Utah families who currently pay reduced prices for school meals will soon get them for free after Gov. Spencer Cox approved a bill Tuesday that eliminates reduced-cost lunches.”

2. This is good info to have in your head: General guidelines on how to help if a wheelchair user falls out of their chair.

3. The first trailer for the Murderbot adaptation on Apple TV is out! I don’t talk about books a lot here these days but the Murderbot series is one of my favorites–I go back to it whenever I’m between other books.

4. Mood:

1. Well, this is accurate:

2. For a distraction, why not look through an archive of illustrated sheet music covers from 1870-1940? I especially liked the theme of “animals as humans.”

3. The amaryllis is blooming!

1. Exactly what it says on the tin: Owls In Towels.

2. Is it very helpful? No, it’s invaluable! Check out Lose The Very if you’re stuck for an adjective.

3. This makes an intriguing point:

4. A noble use of time and technology:

This is truly amazing.

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— Loulan (@loulanwest.bsky.social) March 15, 2025 at 11:28 PM

1. The nation has evolved to its final form: Car dealership

Come on down to the White House Tesla Auto Mall!

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— The Daily Show (@thedailyshow.com) March 12, 2025 at 3:02 PM

2. OK, sorry we had to look at that reality TV clown. Speaking of not looking at the devil’s butthole, I just found a newsletter called Trumplessness, “designed to deliver journalism *without* requiring a dive into the horrors du jour.” Sign me up!

3. Found a picture of me on the internet:

1. I didn’t realize Joann had been the victim of private equity. Once again, private equity ruins everything.

 

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2. A really useful way of looking at things: The Argument Ladder

“… a system I came up with to keep myself from being overwhelmed or underwater when I try and maintain my footing in discussions or arguments. […] it helps me understand why steps that feel like progress in terminology, visibility, or behavior to the left can be so easily labeled and summarily discarded (as “cancel culture”, “woke”, “politically correct”, and so on) by the right.”

3. Truly amazing: Vintage calling cards of Chicago gangs.

1. There will be a “planet parade” at sundown tonight, with Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and possibly Saturn visible to the naked eye. (Uranus and Neptune will be there too but need a telescope.)

2. Words for our times:

3. Speaking of words, I learned what a thyrsus is recently.

4. Something to remember, by Dakota Cates:

1. Wednesday of this week marked the 83rd anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which put 125,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps. The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but America sure derails it a lot.

2. Things are bad (again) but we can laugh at them, I guess: Thanks to Our New Efficiency Czar, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Is Saving More Money Than Ever

3. In better news, I just learned about Medjed, a fairly mysterious Egyptian deity and all-around weird little guy:

1. Ezra Klein has a pep talk about the first few weeks of this “being in a clown car going 250 mph off a cliff” presidency:

1. Well here’s an argument for not posting through it: You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism. This is a great point!

“More recently, researchers have found that the viral outrage disseminated on social media in response to these ridiculous claims actually reduces the effectiveness of collective action. The result is a media environment that keeps us in a state of debilitating fear and anger, endlessly reacting to our oppressors instead of organizing against them.”

2. We can still knit through fascism, though.

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3. “February is the worst month of the year. But it’s an honest month.” But remember, “If you can live through February, you’ll live another year.” (Remember this guy?)