Tootfinder

Trump files emergency appeal to keep National Guard in D.C. after shooting (Julianna Bragg/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/11/27/dc-national-guard-shooting-trump-emergency-court-filing
http://www.memeorandum.com/251126/p121#a251126p121

Historic #LickObservatory closes to public following significant wind damage: https://news.ucsc.edu/2025/12/historic-lick-observatory-closes-to-public-following-significant-wind-damage/ - early on Thursday, Dec. 25, severe winds gusting up to 183 km/h tore loose half of the shutter on the 140-year old 36-inch Great Refractor dome; no one was injured.

UpScrolled, a platform for sharing photos, videos, and text that claims political impartiality, says user growth has surged since TikTok's US takeover (Emma Roth/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/867958/tiktok-upscrolled-app-us-takeover

TikTokers are heading to UpScrolled following US takeover
Just days after Oracle and a group of investors took over TikTok’s US operations, many users have announced they are switching to UpScrolled, an alternative social platform that promises not to shadowban or censor content.

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

The Classic Film Club
We love the classic films. But which ones hold up and which ones should be avoided...
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: https://www.greataustralianpods.com/the-classic-film-club/

Channeling Revenant Feelings (Eagle Creek, Oregon, 2017)
(Hoping my friends in the US are doing everything in their power to help protect these sacred wilderness places from the onslaught of out of control greed...)
#FootpathFriday #ForestFriday

Society should learn to celebrate and capitalise on its
“massive cohort of healthy, active, older, creative adults”,
a leading population expert has said.
While pundits and pressure groups have raised concerns over falling fertility rates, highlighting the challenges for the economy and healthcare,
others are more upbeat, arguing the rise of the “silver economy” brings new opportunities for growth.
Prof Sarah Harper, director of the Oxford Institute of Populatio…

Times Analysis Finds Errors in Trump's Supreme Court Filing That Calls for National Guard in Chicago (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/us/trump-supreme-court-national-guard-chicago-errors.html?unlocked_article_code=1.308.n8CY.c0U1-AqypG86&smid=url-share
http://www.memeorandum.com/251125/p105#a251125p105

Blues with a Feeling - The Official Podcast
With a dedicated following both locally and internationally as a radio show of 27 years, Shaun Bindley is now working on producing Blues with a Feeling as a Podcast...
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: https://www.greataustralianpods.com/blues-

Exclusive: U.S. eyes additional Coast Guard assets to seize fleeing tanker, sources say (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-eyes-additional-coast-guard-assets-seize-fleeing-tanker-sources-say-2025-12-24/
http://www.memeorandum.com/251223/p110#a251223p110