You Gave Me A Gold Coin That Comes With A Bonus Dragon, And You Think I’m Going To Spend It?  Are

I just realized that I forgot to post yesterday!  I had it planned out and just ... spaced.

Anyway, now that I'm done beating up myself (with e. e. cumming’s help), I'm ready to take on the world.  If you're sequestered, this may be a good time to add some color to your life!  Yesterday’s poem was I Shall Paint My Nails Red by Carole Satyamurti.

For today's poem, if painting your nails isn't acting out enough, try some Dangerous Coats by Sharon Owens.

If you don’t think this makes a difference, look at what the Minnesota legislature accomplished so far this year:

Set up free breakfast and lunch for all K-12 students

Implemented automatic voter registration and a number of other reforms to increase voter access

Made abortion access and reproductive care a fundamental right

Provided up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave

Banned conversion therapy and made Minnesota a safe state for trans people

Indexed school funding to inflation

And much, much more

Our cities, our states, our country -- they can do this, too!  The Minnesota legislature isn’t filled with perfect people, but it has enough people who are willing to work together to get things accomplished.  

Vote for people who will make progress.  If you don’t have that option, vote for people who won’t push us farther back!

We are not going to let that fuckwad DeSantis gain a foothold in the 2024 election.

You are going to fucking vote for Joe Biden, and you are going to give us a fucking chance to save our country from fascism, and you aren't going to fucking complain about it, because there is literally no other choice.

We will not let another election be a close call. Are you listening?

Vote for Biden. Vote for whatever Democrat is most popular in your local elections. Our system sucks, but this is what we're working with. Just fucking vote.

If you have shared a post with Spanish advice on what to do if ICE agents come to a person’s home, please check the Spanish advice carefully or have someone who can read Spanish check it for you!  Some posts designed to look like ones from the ACLU have bad advice that basically encourages people to give up their rights.  I’m disgusted that people would do this deliberately and heart-broken that others are unwittingly sharing this false information.

Please confirm that information you share is correct!  (English information in the picture on the right in the initial post from vaspider and Spanish translation by funkylittlegoblin)

False memes

Okay, friends, I need some help.

A friend of mine saw a friend who does not speak Spanish circulating these two memes, trying to be helpful. Here’s the problem - the advice in Spanish DOES NOT MATCH the English AT ALL. In Spanish, the people are advised to invite ICE in, be honest and calm, and to instruct all family members to tell the truth. At the end, they are told their cooperation is appreciated. They are not advised of their rights, to request a warrant. The advice amounts to giving themselves up.

If you look closely at the bottom, you’ll see that the English version is from the ACLU. The Spanish version says “ALCU”.

Be aware of the information you share - it may not be helpful!

THAT SAID, the help I request is this:

I do not speak enough Spanish to translate the above into Spanish. I would like to give her the Spanish translation of this message to add to her post. (And this one.)

Help?

Um, yeah, I definitely support asexuals.

Reblog if you genuinely support asexuals

It terrifies me that there’s so much raging passion in the lgbt+ community that insist on marginalizing asexuals and implying that asexuals don’t deserve to have safe spaces. There’s still so much acephobia so I just wanna know which blogs are genuinely supportive and a safe space for asexuals

They’re so cute!

funky lil pride kitties!

planning on making them into holographic stickers ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

My co-isolation sweetie and I ordered dinner from a local restaurant that does very good Middle Eastern food.  It was delicious, and I have enough leftover gyro meat and hummus to have it again later in the week!  I may even have enough to scramble some with eggs for a third meal.  Yummmm.

Let’s take a positivity break!

Reblog and add something you saw or worked on today. It doesn’t have to be big. If you finished a 10,000 word fic, great, but if you remembered to drink some water or watched an awesome sunset, also great.

Life is scary right now, but there’s also still a lot to love, and we could use the reminder.

Also, remember to vote your whole ballot and to vote in non-presidential elections.  The Senate is at least as responsible for two of the last three conservative Supreme Court Justices as Trump.

I am begging you to fucking vote. On November 3rd, early, and in all your local elections to come.

Sad but true.

This is one of my pet peeves, and I’m going to loosen its leash a little.  The way the Big Five publishers handle e-books “sales” to libraries is depressing.  (I put “sales” in quotes because it is frequently more like leasing than buying.)  Libraries pay more, have limitations on the number of check-outs (which can only be used sequentially, no matter how many people are waiting to read the book), and/or have limitations on how long they can “own” an e-book.  Libraries also have to make their patrons jump through numerous hoops in order to access their e-books.

Want some examples?  These are books currently on the New York Times best seller list.

Where the Crawdads Sing -- list price: $26 (hardcover), e-book price on Amazon: $15, e-book price for a library: $55 (for a 24-month lease)

The Art of Racing in the Rain -- list price: $17 (paperback), e-book price on Amazon: $9, e-book price for a library: $17 (for 26 check-outs)

Becoming by Michelle Obama -- list price: $32.50 (hardcover), e-book price on Amazon: $15, e-book price for a library: $55 (for a 24-month lease)

Bitterroots -- list price: $28 (hardcover), e-book price on Amazon: $15, e-book price for a library: $60 (for the earlier of 52 check-outs or 24 months)

Bear in mind, if a library needs more copies of a physical book to fill holds, their vendors have it at a discounted price.  If not, the library can go to any bookstore or even to Amazon to get the book.  For an e-book, libraries can only buy from a small collection of companies because library e-books need extra restrictions to allow patrons to check them out at all.  A library can’t just go to Amazon to get e-books at consumer prices because they wouldn’t be able to loan that copy to people.

Libraries are fighting to preserve your right to borrow e-books

Creating barriers to access to e-books, which is what publishers are doing to resist dominance by Amazon, says Jessamyn West, disrupts the public good libraries were created to serve. Public libraries exist in large part because they are necessary to a functioning democracy, West writes.

As publishers struggle with the continuing shake-up of their business models, and work to find practical approaches to managing digital content in a marketplace overwhelmingly dominated by Amazon, libraries are being portrayed as a problem, not a solution. Libraries agree there’s a problem – but we know it’s not us.