A poetry offering from my then-first-grader:
I like Canada
It's so big.
I love it so because it's so big.
And Canada is the one I like.
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Happy birthday to Olivia DeHavilland. She is 99. Not only was she one of the loveliest stars of the 1930s and 40s, she played good characters with fire and backbone rather than as meek mice. Bad girl roles never interested her. She won the landmark DeHavilland vs Warner case, which gave actors a great deal more freedom in their contracts, since the studios could now only contract for actual calendar year, not days worked as applied to the term of a contract.
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Girl Scouts return $100,000 gift, when it comes with strings. A donor gave $100K to the Queen Anne offices of the Girl Scouts of Washington, with the stipulation it not be used to help transgirls. The council gave it back, and has raised three times that amount.
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Slurs: Who can say them, when and why is some of the best writing I've read on the subject.
White guys like Rush Limbaugh treat slurs as if they were taboos — words we’re not supposed to say just because we’re not supposed to say them, like shit or fuck. There’s no reason for it, it’s just a rule. Worse, it’s a rule that’s not applied fairly: Only white guys get called to account when they break it.
...
What’s wrong with that attitude is that society’s distaste for slurs is not a meaningless taboo. There are at least two good reasons for it:
1) In any disagreement or discussion, using a slur is cheating: You’re hitting your opponent with a club they can’t use to hit you back.
2) Every time you use a slur, you perpetuate the stereotypes it invokes.
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From our "Real Life is supposed to be less evil than my Dystopias" department:
This is the scary stuff. Not just the TPP, the TTIP but the TiSA. It eventually privatizes everything. Welcome your corporate overlords and wait for the arcologies...
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Money corner:
How to price your crafts. Those scarves I sell for $20 should be going for $37 based on this.
List of discounts for people over 50. Not there yet, but Mudd only has 8 months.
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Writer's Corner:
JulNoWriMo kicks off today
There are two days left on the Supernova Hot section of the Science Fiction Romance Brigade Summer Cafe. Swing by the Inkblot for a tasty summer treat, and the recipe isn't bad either. Also, enter the giveaway.
The list of Gaylactic Spectrum Award Nominees is up, and Inkstained Succubus' own BR Sanders is up for it! We're excited.
Types of Fantasy, useful for writers.
In the same vein, Poul Anderson's On Thud and Blunder should be required reading for fantasy writers.
And Niven's Laws are required reading for every writer, hells, everybody!
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10 dirty sex jokes from the 1700s Some are funny, some are just dumb
Human pelts. Note: Contains photos of preserved human skin with tattoos. I can see some of my characters taking up art collecting.
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Your song of the day:
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