@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk2025-11-30 00:36:52
🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #VarietyMix
HARD FEELINGS:
🎵 Holding on Too Long
#HARDFEELINGS
https://kitchenwizard.bandcamp.com/track/holding-on-too-long-hard-feelings-cover
https://open.spotify.com/track/3vXBieIy5zoQ75z8RIJuSC
@cdarwin@c.im2025-12-31 19:53:23
While the pictures of Trump flanked by underage girls are hard to look at,
it’s disturbing in another way to see how women who want to earn power from him feel they must look now.
In 2025,
💥“Mar-a-Lago face”
entered the lexicon,
a term used to describe the combination of plastered-on makeup and aggressive plastic surgery
that makes women look like inflatable sex dolls,
as Trump’s apparent sexual tastes have morphed MAGA aesthetics into something inh…
@joe@toot.works2025-12-30 01:04:30
I made a point of filling in the heart in the health app which wasn't easy on a day like today in a city like Milwaukee.
It was a little cold and snowy out there.
@kirenida@social.linux.pizza2025-11-30 18:20:24
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2025-12-28 14:01:35
Hard Knocks’ exec dishes on Cowboys' chemistry, Jerry Jones factor https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2025/12/28/hard-knocks-boss-speaks-on-cowboys-chemistry-jerry-jones/8791266300…
@Carwil@mastodon.online2025-10-29 16:42:26
The Trump administration is not attacking the "excesses" of "woke" scholarship. They're at war with the very idea of power analysis, with the feeling of deep empathy with the oppressed, with ethical commitment to make a just world.
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2025-10-27 03:00:46
Day 30: Elizabeth Moon
This last spot (somehow 32 days after my last post, but oh well) was a tough decision, but Moon brings us full circle back to fantasy/sci-fi, and also back to books I enjoyed as a teenager. Her politics don't really match up to Le Guin or Jemisin, but her military experience make for books that are much more interesting than standard fantasy fare in terms of their battles & outcomes (something "A Song of Ice and Fire" achieved by cribbing from history but couldn't extrapolate nearly as well). I liked (and still mostly like) her (unironically) strong female protagonists, even if her (especially more recent) forays into "good king" territory leave something to be desired. Still, in Paksenarion the way we get to see the world from a foot-soldier's perspective before transitioning into something more is pretty special and very rare in fantasy (I love the elven ruins scene as Paks travels over the mountains as an inflection point). Battles are won or lost on tactics, shifting politics, and logistics moreso than some epic magical gimmick, which is a wonderful departure from the fantasy norm.
Her work does come with a content warning for rape, although she addresses it with more nuance and respect than any male SF/F author of her generation. Ex-evangelicals might also find her stuff hard to read, as while she's against conservative Christianity, she's very much still a Christian and that makes its way into her writing. Even if her (not bad but not radical enough) politics lead her writing into less-satisfying places at times, part of my respect for her comes from following her on Twitter for a while, where she was a pretty decent human being...
Overall, Paksenarrion is my favorite of her works, although I've enjoyed some of her sci-fi too and read the follow-up series. While it inherits some of Tolkien's baggage, Moon's ability to deeply humanize her hero and depict a believable balance between magic being real but not the answer to all problems is great.
I've reached 30 at this point, and while I've got more authors on my shortlist, I think I'll end things out tomorrow with a dump of also-rans rather than continuing to write up one per day. I may even include a man or two in that group (probably with at least non-{white cishet} perspective). Honestly, doing this challenge I first thought that sexism might have made it difficult, but here at the end I'm realizing that ironically, the misogyny that holds non-man authors to a higher standard means that (given plenty have still made it through) it's hard to think of male authors who compare with this group.
Looking back on the mostly-male authors of SF/F in my teenage years, for example, I'm now struggling to think of a single one whose work I'd recommend to my kids (having cheated and checked one of my old lists, Pratchett, Jaques, and Asimov qualify but they're outnumbered by those I'm now actively ashamed to admit I enjoyed). If I were given a choice between reading only non-men or non-woman authors for the rest of my life (yes I'm giving myself enby authors as a freebie; they're generally great) I'd very easily choose non-men. I think the only place where (to my knowledge) not enough non-men authors have been allowed through to outshine the fields of male mediocrity yet is in videogames sadly. I have a very long list of beloved games and did include some game designers here, but I'm hard-pressed to think of many other non-man game designers I'd include in the genuinely respect column (I'll include at least two tomorrow but might cheat a bit).
TL;DR: this was fun and you should do it too.
#30AuthorsNoMen
@cdarwin@c.im2025-10-29 17:53:35
A House of Dynamite (Netflix)
is an expertly crafted political thriller about living 18 minutes from nuclear annihilation.
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, it shares thematic DNA with two of her previous films, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty.
The film tightens the tension in the first 18 minutes, releases it just enough to breathe, then resets and winds you up again—and then again.
There is no climax. That frustrates some viewers, but the ending makes the point: …
@cdarwin@c.im2025-11-28 19:01:55
Beckstrom initially did not want to go to the capital because she was concerned about feeling lonely away from home.
“She hated it. She cried about it,” her boyfriend said.
But with time, she came to enjoy the deployment and bonded with other troops.
In her spare time, he said, she visited monuments and museums, taking pictures and soaking up D.C.’s history.
She was especially interested in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
@cdarwin@c.im2025-12-28 21:53:18
A day after part of a missile fired by the United States hit their village, landing just meters from its only medical facility,
the people of Jabo in northwestern Nigeria are in a state of shock and confusion.
Suleiman Kagara, a resident of this quiet and predominantly Muslim farming community in Tambuwal district of Sokoto state, told CNN he heard a loud blast and saw flames as a projectile flew overhead at around 10 p.m. on Thursday.
Soon after, it came crashing down, expl…
