Elen & Basket

I strongly believe that you need to qualify your doomerism with active solutions that you believe will help, otherwise you are simply adding to despair which depresses liberation movements.

Link to the contract award notice: www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/08387...

This is a gorgeous essay.

“So much of politics is taking action but not getting what you want.”

Beautiful. Are the birds for the eider ducks who also helped him stay warm? They're nicknamed Cuddy ducks in Northumberland.

Ooh thank you, didn't know that!

Just bought, thank you. On Kobo, since I'm avoiding Amazon.

Oh my god oh my god oh my goddddd the local aquarium has three new born otters and they CHIRP

Thank you, this is so lovely.

the case for living Sometimes a breeze blows on a sunny day. A pollen-covered bee crawls gracelessly across a poppy, loading up on food to share with all her sisters in the hive. The first tomato of the year is ripe, ready for salt and slices of fresh bread. The juice drips, tart and sweet, down to your wrist before you have the chance to lick it clean. You laugh, undignified and far too loud as you remember what your best friend said when you were young. She's long since passed, of course, but every burst of laughter brings her back. It's not enough, and yet it's all we have, each too-small seed of joy unearthed from soil watered more often by our tears than rain and melting, soft and fragile, in our hands. In lack of hope or some great blessed plan, we hold and kiss and keep them while we can.

In June I finished a poem about being suicidal and the tiniest things one can use as a carrot to keep themselves going, and here at the close of the year I am finally (mostly) ready to share it

one unexpected outlook change from being a dad is taking the self care people 10x more seriously when it comes to dealing with weirdly directed anger and rage (including Online). many angry posts should have been naps or little packets of crackers

Why your AI companion is not your friend First, tech companies usurped the meaning of ‘friends’ and ‘connection’ — now they are coming for ‘companionship’

Marvellous, moving and wise column by @martinsandbu.ft.com:

Sir Terry Pratchett is best understood as one of the most interesting, deeply ethical practical (I would say Pragmatist but I cede to actual experts) philosophers of the late 20th Century who just happened to work in deconstructed fantasy literature as his medium.

Oh thank you for this! I have thought of the devil hiding in the stray holly sprig every year when I take down the decorations, but didn't remember enough other details to try and find the story. How lovely to read it again. This absolutely made my day!

Aragorn: “Legolas! What do your elf eyes see?”

*Distant naked orc cartwheel contest*

Legolas: “Uh, regular Tolkein stuff. Rocks. Clouds. Trees with rich history and whatnot.”

😂

Excluding trans people won’t stop you getting sued | Good Law Project Girl Guiding and the Women’s Institute have announced that they will now exclude trans women and girls after legal threats – but organisations can and should remain inclusive.

There's not much left of the rule of law if organisations can be financially bullied into not asserting their legal rights. goodlaw.social/sb50

This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

Absolutely, and for houses. Moving to the Thames Valley was WTF, it's water, it's not supposed to leave marks on things.

NION logo In the news Pink News logo mobile phone with headline: 60,000 cisgender women write powerful open letter in support of trans community: 'We have had enough'

Over 60K women have signed our letter standing with the trans community. We've had enough of anti-trans rhetoric claiming to speak for us. If you agree...

📰 Read their article here: tinyurl.com/NION-PN-60K
✍ Sign our letter: notinourname.org.uk
📣 Share widely

#StrongerTogether
#TransAwarenessWeek

The BBC was founded to “provide impartial news”. If it's going to be the UK's biggest media organisation, it has to do its job right.

Hold the BBC to account 👇
https://action.goodlawproject.org/tell-the-BBC-to-stop-attacking-trans-people?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=socials

Thank you, this all sounds like good reason to read her so just ordered both of those.

Not exactly a comfort, but perhaps it is progress that now this is in the open and a critical issue. I think if someone had told me 20 years ago that how powerful men abuse children would be world news - with consequences for the abusers! - I would've laughed bitterly & not believed them.

ever since I learned about three-cueing I've developed infinitely more patience for replies on social media. mfers literally do not know how to read. people are walking around conjuring random meanings into words they don't know, and they don't know a lot of words. it's crazy

“When JKR funds legal challenges to trans-inclusive policies…when American organisations fund UK litigation on reproductive rights…when coordinated campaigns use litigation to bypass normal democratic processes, let that be seen clearly rather than operating in shadow”

Read this.Wealth corrupts QED

Also not the case in the UK :( . I suppose at least I'm spared debating whether I could break my Amazon avoidance for the sake of the few days before my Kobo pre-order turns up.

Well the bacon makes absolute sense, far more tempting than an apple.

"I asked ChatGPT" "I asked Grok" ok well I asked Gandalf and he said he has not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless worm

Tell your MP to strip Andrew of his dukedom More than five years after Prince Andrew defended his friendship with the convicted paedophile Jeffery Epstein on national TV, there are still questions over whether he took part in the abuse of young women. The prince has denied allegations in Virginia...

Prince Andrew stepped back from public life after defending his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Now he says he’ll stop calling himself the Duke of York - but it shouldn’t be up to him.

Tell your MP to strip him of his title. It only takes two minutes. ⬇️
https://goodlaw.social/9155af

Reply all won't recall.

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1965: 20-1

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1990: 75-1

CEO-to-worker pay ratio today: 280-to-1

Trickle-down economics was always a sham.

Nothing has ever trickled down.