Five Thursday Things

Taking a leaf out of kass' book:

1. Cats who love being petted. A friend came by last night, and her cat is an "I will allow you to caress me at arm's length" kitty, while mine are both "Oh, you have a LAP! We are FOREVER FRIENDS!" cats.

2. The realisation that Diana is all of us who want to make the world a better place: fierce anger, fierce sorrow, bitter defeat at the enormity of our failings, and loving hope at our ability to change the world.

3. #Throwback Thursday on Spotify - soundtrack hits. Currently listening to Seal's "Kiss From A Rose" - I have no idea what this song is about, but I love the harmonics of it, and the 'bridges' between chorus and verse.

4. At some point in the last couple of days, I hit 400 subscribers on AO3. That's 400 people who want to be notified when I post any fanfic, because they'll at least give it a chance.

5. Just how many wonderful people and opportunities and gifts I have in my life. Including the friends I've made on the internet. Thanks, ppls.

DC Cinematic Universe exchange - dear author letter - WIP

Dear Author,

Thank you so much for writing for me! I'm so glad you like Diana (you'd kind of have to because she's in all my options) and I hope that you enjoy the process of this exchange!

Please remember that pretty much everything but the Do Not Wants (DNWs) is optional.

( dear author )

Ultimately, I love these characters and these dynamics and would really like to see stories about them, so if you can't do the specific scenarios I've given, then just write them how you see them and we'll be cake by the ocean!

links for Friday

NPR: Why Honeybees Are The Wrong Problem To Solve

From what I understand, the problem is less that 'without bees we won't be able to pollinate anything' and more 'the way we agribusiness is a problem - and the way we use bees in agribusiness is part of that problem'.

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NPR: The Astrobiology Of The Anthropocene (2016)

Basically, like the Jurassic, Triassic, and other '-cene' eras, we're now in the Anthropocene. A new way of looking at things.

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The Establishment: Adoption Is A Feminist Issue (But Not For The Reasons You Think)

Ties in with abortion and childbearing, and (I think) points out the issue that if women weren't crowded into a place where they have no economic choices/advantages, then both adoption and abortion rates would drop.

Which is pretty much what this article I linked to (from a Christian minister in Sydney) points out - that having children economically disadvantages women, and if we as a society (or culture, or community) are not going to help a woman bear the burden of children, then even the ones who eventually want children are going to abort if they become pregnant at an inconvenient time.

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The Atlantic: The Cheapest Generation

What do you do when an entire generation of society largely don't want or can't afford the products you're selling? What does that do to the model of economic growth?

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Sydney Morning Herald: Three Women Who Regret Motherhood

Earlier this week, I asked if there was any socially acceptable way for a woman to indicate she regretted having children. The kick for that question was this article.

I think the most helpful thing I got was havocthecat saying that perhaps there needs to be some kind of 'mourning ceremony' for all the things that are going to be lost in having a child. A baby shower is supposed to be the joyful, hopeful, encouraging thing, but we don't talk about the negative side of changes to a woman's status when she becomes a mother.

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Racked: The Politics of Pockets (2016)

How and why women's clothing has no pockets.

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The New Yorker: China's Mistress Dispellers

The people who are hired to get rid of China's mistresses - chase them off, buy them out - whatever works. And the culture and sociology and reasoning behind the scenes of such a business, as well as an insight into a brief history of Chinese marriage.

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The New Yorker: Power To The People (2015)

An article about solar power and the part that utility companies - and regulation - may have to play in that; to their advantage, but in the face of the old model. (Man, how does that sound familiar.)

There was an interesting article that popped up as a result of this (or which popped this up as a result) about solar power in Africa - that's a 2017 article, about startups in Africa selling cheap power to sub-Saharan Africans, the advantages, disadvantages, and moral questions. I don't know where that article is, though - I thought I saved it, but maybe not.

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Modern Maker's Retreat: A New Perspective on Modern Quilting

The last few years have seen arguments over what defines modern quilting, and this woman has an interesting perspective on it all (and one which I've lightly touched on in quilting blogging). Quilting used to be a thrift task - done because there were scraps that needed to be used rather than wasted. Now, it's a creative work of art - done for the joy of it, and by people who have the resources to spend on function-specific tools and fabric. She thinks that's the difference between 'traditional' and 'modern' quilting for her. I can't entirely agree; I think colour and fabric and style comes into play as well.