Mastodawn

Ellen Gray Apr 13, 2023

Carl T. Bergstrom Apr 13, 2023

Here is a must-read post from children's author Maggie Tokuda-Hall on how Scholastic offered to distribute her book — all she had to do was remove all mention of racism.

Sure, they're banning books in Tennessee and Texas. But it's not just the books that get published and then banned from the library. It's all the books that don't get published in the first place.

Those banning books know publishers like Scholastic pull this cowardly bullshit. It's their game plan.

https://www.prettyokmaggie.com/blog/2023/4/11/scholastic-and-a-faustian-bargain

Scholastic, and a Faustian Bargain — Pretty Ok Maggie

Recently, I got an email with an offer from Scholastic’s Educational Division to license Love in the Library for an AANHPI narratives collection, I was thrilled. If you’ve been in kids’ books for more than ten minutes then you are aware of the staggering reach of Scholastic. And since I’m not publis

Pretty Ok Maggie

Ellen Gray Apr 12, 2023

As much as one might think that NOT being married to Rupert Murdoch was its own reward, it sounds as if Jerry Hall took extraordinary care of the old bastard and deserved better than a breakup via email. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/rupert-murdoch-cover-story

Inside Rupert Murdoch’s Succession Drama

As Rupert Murdoch’s personal life turns chaotic, and the Dominion v. Fox News lawsuit looms, insiders say there may only be more tumult to come.

Vanity Fair

Ellen Gray Feb 10, 2023

David Thiel Feb 7, 2023

The ostensible promise of technology is that it would liberate humanity from the drudgery of menial work, enabling us to engage with more meaningful and creative pursuits.

Instead, we have frenzied development of ML systems to centralize and replace writing, art and other meaningful creative pursuits, giving us more time for menial work.

This seems pretty contrary to any useful definition of progress.

Ellen Gray Feb 6, 2023

“It’s more fun to think that the region’s history was a mesh of idiosyncratic characters and wacky happenings than to remember that less than 40 years before Spanish Springs was constructed, a Black man in the nearby town of Wildwood was arrested for talking to a white woman in a grocery store before being kidnapped from the jail and beaten nearly to death.” This Philip Bump piece on The Villages makes me wonder if this isn’t DeSantis’ goal for Florida. https://apple.news/AZWrXDK_NRvCHOZOzdDc0yg

“Reality Is Submerged in Fantasy”: The Villages Is a Boomer’s Utopia—And Demographic Time Bomb — Vanity Fair

Florida’s Trump-loving retirement community was meticulously created “to make boomers in particular feel comfortable and happy,” as Philip Bump writes in his forthcoming book, Aftermath. But behind its idyllic façade lurks a crisis that the Villages—and the rest of the country—have yet to reckon with.

Show thread

Ellen Gray Feb 3, 2023

To make it clear (which the hed doesn’t), I’m not the writer. The “me” is my former colleague, the Inquirer’s Valerie Russ.

Ellen Gray Feb 3, 2023

How the beating death of Tyre Nichols made me take a second look at a 42-year-old play about internalized racism https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/tyre-nichols-a-soldiers-play-internalized-racism-charles-fuller-20230203.html

How the beating death of Tyre Nichols made me take a second look at a 42-year-old play about internalized racism | Opinion

It was difficult to process "A Soldier’s Play" and its themes of self-hatred without also thinking about the five Black police officers charged in the fatal beating of Nichols.

https://www.inquirer.com

Ellen Gray Feb 2, 2023

Rod Hilton Feb 2, 2023

This is your last chance to use movetodon.org or similar tools and get set up painlessly over on Masto. After the API is shut down, there's a lot more friction to doing it and you're going to wind up doing it anyway once Twitter goes under.

Ellen Gray Feb 2, 2023

Michael Busch Feb 2, 2023

Having read @DGlaucomflecken about United Healthcare and @mattbc about Cigna; this story is horrifying but not surprising.

As always, USA:

It does not have to be this way.
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RT @DrTiffTaft
Please read + share @propublica story on health insurance denials. Chris is my patient, he has severe #IBD & is fighting for change in the system. The story is worse than you could imagine.
https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcar…
https://twitter.com/DrTiffTaft/status/1621122043025698816

Ellen Gray Feb 1, 2023

I’m watching #Stonehouse on #BritBox. Matthew Macfadyen plays a shameless British MP who tried to fake his own death in the 1970s to escape legal and money issues. Unfortunately for Labor PM Harold Wilson, Stonehouse represented his one-vote majority. Gotta think Kevin McCarthy could identify.

Ellen Gray Jan 31, 2023

Minnesota Reformer Jan 31, 2023

Gov. Walz signs bill codifying abortion rights in Minnesota law https://minnesotareformer.com/2023/01/31/gov-walz-signs-bill-codifying-abortion-rights-in-minnesota-law/

Gov. Walz signs bill codifying abortion rights in Minnesota law - Minnesota Reformer

With Gov. Tim Walz’s signature on Tuesday, state Democrats codified the right to abortion and reproductive health care for all residents in Minnesota law. Full stop. No exceptions. “The message that we’re sending Minnesota today is very clear. Your rights are protected in the state. You have the right to make your own decisions about […]

Minnesota Reformer