thinks and links

[tielan]

Went to bed developing a sore throat last night. Full blown sore throat this morning. RAT test: negative. Still feeling not-great.

I've said it before, but I really miss the PCR testing sites. I wouldn't even mind paying a subsidised price for it now, just to know that I wasn't spreading virus everywhere.

We'll see how I feel tomorrow when hockey game time rolls around.

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Anyway, a bunch of links - old and new.

Women-Only Housing

This is an interesting article to me because I match many of the demographic markers, but none of the economic ones: I am a single woman and childless, but also in the fortunate financial position to have a roof over my head.

In Jane Austen language (because my brain is kind of in Regency mode): I am an Emma Woodhouse, rather than a Harriet Smith or even a Miss Bates (well, I might be Miss Bates so far as a willingness to chatter goes, but if so nobody has yet set me down Emma-style).

It's a UK Guardian article, so it talks about class which the Americans will think is a foreign term, but the journalist talks about it in the article: if your choices are limited because of economically-straitened situations, then you are essentially 'in service' to someone else no less than the maids of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th century were.

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How little has changed about my id in 14 years: my id, let me show you it

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AI: we need to talk about how AI is basically destroying the planet. I know this one is preaching to the choir: fandom is well aware of the problems with AI - we're the 'class' of people it's stealing from. But fandom may not be aware of the ecological destruction that AI is causing.

We need to talk about Trader Joe's: apparently the well-known and much-loved chain is in the 'business' of copycatting small indie foodstuff producers by pretending they'll sell the indie's product in their stores and then just coming out with their own brand version of it.

It's Obviously The Phones. Why are people having less sex? (Other than that random men are obviously less reliable than bears, I mean) It's the phones, stupid! No, actually, it's certainly a significant factor. It's not the reason and the whole of the reason, but it doesn't have to be. A better world is not going to be built by increasing our screen time.

One More Day: drugs, overdoses, and what I see as the power of a redemption narrative, even if that narrative doesn't provide a workable solution.

Pastor's Wedding Night Advice To Women Opens A Conversation On Harmful Evangelica Teaching On Sex

And from the same publication, We're On A Mission From God: Christians, the Church, and Christian Nationalism.

Comments

[senmut]

Southern USians, in my opinion, seem far more willing to talk class before they talk race. The 'yankees' and the western part of the country -- excepting the Natives -- go for color first. It's actually a mix, in our case, but black poor -> poor white trash -> middle class (either color) -> politicians & business people are the class distinctions I grew up with. It's not the cultural stratification of the UK, but it is here, it's what I knew.

And yes. If you are born into a certain social class, you spend your life serving others. With rare exceptions, and those should never be the moral of the story. I despise bootstrap mentality, and would love for society as a whole to actually begin uplifting their brethren in worse cases.

[wpadmirer]

All of my friends who are well-known writers are on the list of authors whose work was fed to AI. What an awful thing that is. Fortunately, AI still writes like a machine.

I'll see where I am housing wise once our Landlord dies. Right now our rent is artificially low because he really likes us. But once he's gone, Lord only knows what his family will do with our rent. We could end up not being able to afford to live here.

We've never made enough money to pay the median rate in this town, so we've always had to find little oddball places. This one we've been in for 30 years.

[timespirt]

"HUGS"

Feel better hon. Get some rest.