Pluralistic: A fascist paradigm (12 May 2026)

May. 12th, 2026 07:22 am
[syndicated profile] doctorow_feed

Posted by Cory Doctorow

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/12/donella-meadows/

https://pluralistic.net/?p=12798


Today's links


A king on a sumptuous, much elaborated throne; in one hand he holds a sceptre of office, in the other, the leashes for two fierce stone dogs that guard the throne. The king's head has been replaced with a character who was used as the basis for MAD Magazine's Alfred E Neumann. The new head sports a conical dunce cap. Behind the king is a UK Reform Party rosette. The background is an Egyptian temple, ganked from a Dore Old Testament engraving. The floor has been carpeted in sumptuous tabriz from the Ottoman court.

A fascist paradigm (permalink)

Yesterday, I attended a workshop on systems thinking and political change, which included a presentation on the work of Donella Meadows, whose Thinking in Systems is a canonical work on the subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_In_Systems:_A_Primer

"Systems thinking" is an analytical framework that treats the world as a mesh of interconnected, nonlinear components and relationships that can't be easily understood or steered. A complex system isn't merely "complicated." A mechanical watch is complicated, in that it has many parts that work together in ways that require training and specialized knowledge to understand. But it isn't "complex" because each part has a specific function that can be understood and adjusted.

In a complex system – say, an ecosystem – the parts are meshed in a web of unobvious relationships that make it difficult to predict what effect will follow from a given perturbation. When a blight kills off a plant species, the soil stability declines, resulting in landslides during the rainy season, changing the mineral content of nearby waterways, which creates microbial blooms or fish die-offs in a distant, downstream lake.

A slide showing a lever weighted down on one end by a circle labeled 'System' next to a fulcrum; the points along the lever are labeled with different potential interventions that can move the system, taken from the work of Donella Meadows.

But systems thinking isn't a counsel of despair that insists that you shouldn't do anything because you can never predict what will come of your actions. In Thinking in Systems, Meadows presents a hierarchy of leverage points for changing a system, ranked from least effective ("Constants, numbers, parameters") to most ("The power to shift paradigms to deal with new challenges"):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/55264856861/

In all, Meadows theorizes 12 different "places to intervene in a system." The least effective of these – constants like taxes and standards, negative and positive feedback loops – are the sites of most of our political fights, and rightly so. They are the fine-tuning knobs of the system that adjust its margins. Once you have the rule of law ("the rules of the system"), you can drive change by amending, repealing or passing a law:

https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/

But when you're confronted with a system that is significantly, persistently dysfunctional, you will likely have to work at sites that are further up the hierarchy, such as "the distribution of power over the rules of the system" or "the goals of the system"; or the most profound of all, "the paradigm out of which the system — its goals, power structure, rules, its culture — arises."

Thinking about paradigms is a form of "meta-cognition," which is to say, "thinking about how you think." Your paradigm encompasses all your assumptions, including your assumptions about how to proceed from your other assumptions: "if x, then y" is a paradigm.

The workshop where we were discussing all of this is part of a group whose goal is reversing the antidemocratic movement in our society and the climate emergency that is its backdrop. But as I listened to the speaker and the ensuing discussion, it occurred to me that Meadows' theoretical work was a very good way of describing the successes of the fascist movement in the UK and around the world.

Fascists like Farage and Trump are, at their root, anti-democratic. Their pitch is that the people are incapable of self-determination (as Peter Thiel puts it, "democracy is incompatible with freedom"). They want us to think that all our neighbors are irrational and foolish, and that we, too, are irrational and foolish, and that our safety and prosperity can only be safeguarded if we seek out those few people who are born to rule and liberate them from the petty niceties and regulations that democracy and the rule of law demand.

In other words, the paradigm of democracy is that all of us are capable of both wise self-governance and self-rationalized misgovernance, and each of us has a useful perspective to contribute. The fascist paradigm is that we can't be trusted to rule ourselves, and only the people who are born with "good blood" are capable of directing our lives:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/20/big-cornflakes-energy/#caliper-pilled

This is the theory behind "race realism" and "human diversity" and all the other polite names the modern fascist uses to obscure the fact that they're reviving eugenics. It explains the panic over DEI, a panic driven by the belief that lesser people are being elevated to positions of rule and authority that they are genetically incapable of carrying out.

That's why, whenever a disaster arises, fascists demand to know the gender, race and sexual orientation of the pilot, the ship's captain, or the official in charge. If the person who crashed the cargo ship into the bridge has brown skin, we can add another line to the ledger of costs associated with the doomed project to put people who were born to be bossed around in the boss's seat (of course, if the pilot turns out to be a white guy, that proves nothing, except that mistakes sometimes happen).

The revival of fascism in this century has been scarily effective, and at times it can feel unstoppable. Meadows' work on systems thinking provides an explanation for that efficacy – and suggests a theory of change for dispatching fascism back to the graveyard of history. Fascists have made changes to things like laws and feedback loops, rules and distribution of power, but this all stems from a more profound alteration to the system, at the level of the paradigm.

Which suggests that the real fight we have is over that paradigm: we have to convince our neighbors that they are smart enough to rule themselves, and so are we, and so is everyone else. We have to convince them that even the smartest and wisest person (including us, including them) is capable of folly and needs to have checks on their (our) authority.

We need to attack the theory of the "unitary executive" and every other autocratic ideology head on. We have to insist that these aren't just unconstitutional, but that they are ideologically catastrophic. "No kings," because even an omnibenevolent king isn't omniscient, and that means that omnipotence is always omnidestructive in the long run.

The fascist revival has been scarily effective and resilient – and systems thinking offers an explanation for both that efficacy and that resiliency.

Hey look at this (permalink)


A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago First aid for the dying dotcom http://modernhumorist.com/mh/0010/dotcom/

#20yrsago OpenStreetMap maps Isle of Wight, Manchester next https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapchester_Mapping_Party_2006

#20yrsago Fueling model rockets with Oreo fillings https://web.archive.org/web/20060616192646/https://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/600152d7d441b010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

#20yrsago Legal guide for podcasters https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Welcome_To_The_Podcasting_Legal_Guide

#20yrsago Collection of 1100+ found grocery lists https://grocerylists.org/

#10yrsago Mayor of Jackson, MS: “I believe we can pray potholes away” https://www.wjtv.com/news/jackson-mayor-tony-yarber-we-can-pray-potholes-away/

#10yrsago What’s the best way to distribute numbers on the faces of a D120? https://web.archive.org/web/20160510182023/https://www.wired.com/2016/05/mathematical-challenge-of-designing-the-worlds-most-complex-120-sided-dice/

#10yrsago Billionaire Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel will be a California Trump delegate https://web.archive.org/web/20160510155226/https://www.wired.com/2016/05/investor-peter-thiel-will-california-delegate-trump/

#10yrsago McClatchy newspapers’ CEO pleased to announce that he’s shipping IT jobs overseas https://web.archive.org/web/20160510102956/https://www.computerworld.com/article/3067304/it-careers/newspaper-chain-sending-it-jobs-overseas.html

#10yrsago Peace in Our Time: how publishers, libraries and writers could work together https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-peace-in-our-time/

#10yrsago Too Like the Lightning: intricate worldbuilding, brilliant speculation, gripping storytelling https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/10/too-like-the-lightning-intricate-worldbuilding-brilliant-speculation-gripping-storytelling/

#5yrsago LA traveling toward free public transit https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/10/comrade-ustr/#get-on-the-bus

#5yrsago Biden's shift on vaccine patents is a Big Deal https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/10/comrade-ustr/#vaccine-diplomacy

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.


A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)


A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)


A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/)

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

  • "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027


Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor.

  • "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

  • "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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ISSN: 3066-764X

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/12/donella-meadows/

https://pluralistic.net/?p=12798

Three Weeks for Dreamwidth: Linguistics

May. 12th, 2026 02:28 am
ysabetwordsmith: Text -- three weeks for dreamwidth, in pink (three weeks for dreamwidth)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This year during Three Weeks for Dreamwidth, I'm writing about reading as a way of becoming an expert in a given subject. Read Part 1: Introduction to Becoming an Expert, Part 2: Architecture, Part 3: Dance, Part 4: Music, Part 5: Painting, Part 6: Poetry, Part 7: Sculpture, Part 8: Conflict Resolution, Part 9: Cooking, Part 10: Coping Skills, Part 11: Gardening, Part 12: Relationship Skills, Part 13: Repairing, Part 14: Survival Skills, Part 15: Archaeology, Part 16: Biology, Part 17: Chemistry.


Three Weeks for Dreamwidth Part 18: Linguistics

Linguistics is the science of studying language, with related branches into neuroscience (how the brain processes language), anthropology (language as a medium of culture), literature (storytelling), and so forth. Aspects include famous people, historical linguistics, language acquisition, language revitalization, psycholinguistics, and others. Xenolinguistics is the study of alien and/or invented languages. Here on Dreamwidth, check out [community profile] 1word1day, [community profile] conlang, [community profile] first_nations_freaks, [community profile] language_learning, [community profile] linguaphiles, [community profile] science, [community profile] scienceworld.

( Read more... )
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those who know the least obey the best

NSFW May. 11th, 2026 11:42 pm
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catercorner

May. 12th, 2026 01:00 am
[syndicated profile] merriamwebster_feed

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/catercorner-2026-05-12

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 12, 2026 is:

catercorner • \KAT-ee-kor-ner\  • adverb or adjective

Catercorner is used to describe two things that are located across from each other on opposite corners. It is a less common variant of kitty-corner.

// The store is catercorner from the park, making it the perfect location to grab snacks for our picnic.

See the entry >

Examples:

“Positioned on balconies catercorner from each other, Tom Brady completed a pass across Bourbon Street to Rob Gronkowski, proving they’ve still got it. Gronk promptly spiked the football on the fan-filled street below.” — Rebecca Cohen and Greg Rosenstein, NBC News, 9 Feb. 2025

Did you know?

Catercorner gets its first element from the Middle French noun quatre, meaning “four,” which English speakers modified to cater and applied to the four-dotted side of a die—a side important in several winning combinations in dice games. Perhaps because the four spots on a die can suggest an X, cater eventually came to be used dialectically as a verb meaning “to place, move, or cut across diagonally”; cater was later combined with corner to form catercorner to describe things positioned diagonally from each other. (In one early usage from an 1825 magazine article, the author marvels at an “ancient Roman fresco painting, in which a luxurious table is represented as groaning under (among other choice dishes …) four peacocks, with their tails set, cater-corner!”) Eventually the variants kitty-corner and catty-corner, which are now the more common forms, developed. Despite all appearances, these terms bear no etymological relation to our feline friends.



https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/catercorner-2026-05-12

"in a town where no one locks their doors at night" (terri clark)

May. 11th, 2026 11:38 pm
starandrea: (Default)
[personal profile] starandrea
Saw an indigo bunting for the first time ever! Planted the little blueberries, speedwell, and bunched leaf penstemon in the lower rock garden. (Everything is blue now.) I definitely don't need any more mini roses* but I found another packet of nasturtium seeds at the hardware store, and those won't come amiss. Completed week 1 of my "watch 2 hours of Chinese video a day" challenge.

*My next post will probably be, "So I got some more mini roses."

Called the vet about non-emergency dental work for Daphne; she will call back tomorrow. Is it even possible to safely sedate this dog enough that she can be anesthetized? Someone managed it, because she was spayed after being picked up by animal control. But I am not convinced and would like the professional opinion of someone who has seen how difficult she is to handle, preferably while looking at the medical records from her second shelter intake, which indicate she received four different sedatives and still had to be muzzled.
Tags:

Hadestown (2nd US tour)

May. 11th, 2026 09:06 pm
cahn: (Default)
[personal profile] cahn
I have been really bad this year at getting out to see things, but I saw a couple of things! I'll talk about the first one here: [personal profile] hamsterwoman inspired me and I got to see Hadestown on tour! (The same cast she saw, even, although I didn't realize this until afterwards.) It was only here for two weeknights, clearly as a pit stop in between the two major metropolitan areas we live between. The theater was packed. The only empty spots I saw in the entire house were, hilariously, right in front of us (and must have been people who didn't show up for some reason, as the seats were definitely sold). I didn't buy tickets early enough and they were sold out when I first looked, but fortunately some opened up day of -- I wouldn't normally buy orchestra section for a show I didn't already know I'd love, but that's what I get for not planning ahead. But it turns out I did love it enough that I enjoyed the orchestra section tickets immensely, so it all turned out well.

The singers were all just extremely, extremely good, both as singers and as dancers (well, I guess Hades and Persephone didn't really dance a ton, but Eurydice in particular had a lot of parts where she had to combine with the ensemble), and really imprinted on me. To the extent where I went back and listened to the Broadway recording and was like "okay, sure, yeah, these are the same songs, but that's not MY cast." They were just really really almost scarily professional -- I really can't believe the Broadway cast is any better -- it was hard to believe that we were getting this kind of quality of cast. SO good.

Nickolaus Colón as Hades was THE standout performance of the night in a cast full of excellence. Seriously it was worth seeing it for him alone. The Persephone, Namisa Mdlalose Bizana, was also an excellent singer whose strength matched Colón's (a weak dancer, but as I said before she didn't have to do that much of it). I thought it was a great choice to have the really strong singers be the "gods" -- it really added something to it.

Eurydice (...I think we must have seen an understudy? The site says Hawa Kamara but I'm pretty sure that's not who we saw) and Orpheus (Jose Contreras) were also good but their voices were more sort of good in the way I expected them to be good, kind of. Orpheus, unfortunately, had the flaw (at least that night) that sometimes his top notes (he has a lot of falsetto notes, which is a bit weird?) were flat, and those were inevitably the notes where the song was supposed to be borderline-magic, and it unfortunately always threw me out of those bits because I'd be like "...but he's flat, augh!" The Fates (Gia Keddy, Miriam Navarrete, Jayna Wescoatt) were quite excellent -- both as singers and as an ensemble of three (as they basically did all their parts together, as one would expect). The Hermes (Rudy Foster) was also excellent. So were the ensemble. They were just all super super good.

The orchestra accompaniment was seated on-stage (it was a rather crowded stage at times) and I need to mention the pianist and the trombonist who both sometimes seemed to be participating in the action -- especially the trombonist, who occasionally got up from his seat and played his trombone mingling with the other actors, which was amazing. (I told D at intermission, "No one told me that the trombonist was the hero of this show!") I was especially watching him because now I have a kiddo who plays trombone, and he was using at least a couple of different mutes to make his trombone make a variety of sounds (A.'s trombone teacher showed us some of these at one point, for fun), and also sometimes he doubled as the xylophone player, which I thought was interesting!

I tend to operate one of two different ways with musicals. Either I go in knowing nothing or I go in having basically memorized the soundtrack. This was the former: I went in not knowing anything except that it was an AU retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice, and I'd picked up from osmosis there were trains, and I'd listened to a few of the songs beforehand to make sure I liked them well enough. The pros are that I get to be continuously surprised by the real thing, and the cons are that there are lots of spots where I just don't catch the words, because I have fairly poor speech processing. This was one where I think it was a good choice to go in knowing nothing, because there are so many parts where the music and the visuals work together so well that I think the effect would have been blunted if I'd known the music really well going in. (Hamilton is one where I think it was better to know the soundtrack ahead of time, as I don't think I'd have been able to make out the vast majority of the words otherwise.)

( Vague spoilers if you're like me and have never watched it before )

I think this is a show that I admire more than that I'm fannish about. It's kind of interesting -- it's almost like it's so polished that there aren't any weird cracks or rough edges to hang a fannish hat on, so to speak. So I didn't feel the desire to see it again the next day (not that I would have, but I've absolutely been to theater events where I was like "okay, I would be very strongly tempted go to see this again tomorrow if I could spare the time") but if the tour comes back next year I'd almost definitely go if Colón were still in it, and even if not I'd strongly consider going.
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Museum day

May. 11th, 2026 11:55 pm
cornerofmadness: (buffy and giles)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness
I stayed an extra day in Louisville because I've never been a tourist here before. I usually just drive through (I'll be driving thru again in just a couple weeks). One of the ones I wanted to do I couldn't because it's only open weekends but there was one I had been planning on since I first decided to come to the con: the Frazier Kentucky History museum. It's downtown Louisville and it's the start of the bourbon trail.

I was originally planning to do the bourbon trail but honestly I have enough bourbon lying around the house as is and I'm rather worn out from the weekend but the museum looked promising. Last year it was voted best museum in KY and I can see why. It's three floors and I managed to hit it just as a docent was giving the Cool KY talk so that was fun. I had no idea some woman had ROWED across the Atlantic Ocean. Her boat is here. I knew about the paralympian Oskana Masters but didn't know she lived here.

I really liked the one interactive map, by county that brought up fun facts about each county and a song for each. I wish more museums had something like that.

FLoor#2 was jam packed with history, much about the enslaved people, KY's less than stellar showing in the Civil War and about the Underground Railroad (including mapping out one family's life for years) KY was definitely sell African families down river sort of state and oddly wasn't segregated because they wanted to keep an eye on enslaved people who were often rooming with freed people.

They had bits on women I've never heard of including an Indigenous warrior chief, another few women doctors and one who is in my talk, Mary Edward Walker (look her up, she is something else) and more than one display about how white people don't get along even with other white people in the former of Bloody Monday when over 100 Irish and German immigrants were murdered. (the one thing that never seems to change is we find new immigrants to blame and hate)

Floor Three- it's all about the bourbon. I love some of the old bottles

Museum store: I have never seen a museum store without books. It had bourbon though. A lot of only find them in KY bottles (glad they were expensive because with my luck I'd like it and have to come back for it). They had replica vintage ones that I would have liked if I had places to display them.

From there I went to the Louisville Mega Caverns It's actually an old limestone quarry and it was oddly creepy. You approach what looks like a service access into the side of the hill and really it is just that. If not for the painted footprints in the tunnel I would have thought I was in the wrong spot and it goes on being all access tunnelly for about 500 yards before opening into a cavern and then you see the visitor center.

I get snagged by a group of elderly women in front of a 'sign this waiver' computer bank 'don't you jump the line!' I wasn't planning it. I get to the bank eventually and realize you had to have BOUGHT the ticket first. How about putting the purchase area before this then? I talk to the young guy about the walking vs tram tour but it turns out it didn't matter.

It's a random monday at 130 in the afternoon and everything is sold out until 6 pm (and they're taking like two dozen at a time) I give it a pass and slink out of the scary tunnel.

I move on to the third planned event cave hill cemetery and arboretum which is about 300 acres of the Victorian style rural cemeteries that are part park and part memorial. I saw many very unusual graves (pictures hopefully tomorrow) but only found two of the celebrity ones because even though the cemetery has its own app, my phone is trash and couldn't find a signal.

I did see Colonel Sanders (yes that Colonel) whose memorial is modest (his daughter made the bust) and Muhammad Ali, who also had a modest memorial. There are many other less modest ones and the places is filled with 500 plant species and a plethora of historic signage. Even found the person who designed the confederate flag (was not expecting or wanting that)

Much cooler I found TWO magicians including Tobin who invented the cabinet of proteus. I was struck immediately with the idea that Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis knew about him and that's where they got Tobin's Spirit Guide in Ghostbusters. Even if I'm wrong, I'm right.

I was there for hours. Came back to the hotel, got lazy and doordashed from an Asian restaurant that was highly recced in a few places District 6 and was trapped between do I get pho or the spicy cauliflower bao (or the spicy cauliflower dish). I should have gone with the big dish or the pho because the bao were small but very tasty. I could have eaten a pound of that cauliflower. Got their ube basque cheesecake too. Not as ube tasting as I would have liked but very good.

Then it was my author's virtual meet up and got some editing and writing done.


It's music monday 30 weeks of music. This week's prompt is # 25 A song from your pre teen years


( Welcome to the 70s )





here's the whole prompt list

( All under here )
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  • Current Music: Midsomer Murder
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Magpie Monday

May. 11th, 2026 11:10 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
[personal profile] dialecticdreamer is hosting Magpie Monday with a theme of "Apologies." Leave prompts, get ficlets!

It’s the usual, 1k words of plot-ish story, per prompt, with the option of adding at least a hundred words to the count for each of the person’s quick signal boost to point new people this way. I’ll keep the prompt call open until Wednesday night because of the chaos around here, which gives people more time to think of something interesting.

The theme is apologies, and while I’ve included a few in stories, I’d love to explore the kinds of apologies that suit each reader, so feel free to be as specific as needful. Some prefer words, some prefer actions, some prefer a quiet, indirect acknowledgement but not an open discussion. Be as specific as one likes for characters, events, and so on, because there are plenty of events in the existing, posted stories which might require either a first apology or a returning one.
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Museum day

May. 11th, 2026 11:29 pm
cornerofmadness: (buffy and giles)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness
I stayed an extra day in Louisville because I've never been a tourist here before. I usually just drive through (I'll be driving thru again in just a couple weeks). One of the ones I wanted to do I couldn't because it's only open weekends but there was one I had been planning on since I first decided to come to the con: the Frazier Kentucky History museum. It's downtown Louisville and it's the start of the bourbon trail.

I was originally planning to do the bourbon trail but honestly I have enough bourbon lying around the house as is and I'm rather worn out from the weekend but the museum looked promising. Last year it was voted best museum in KY and I can see why. It's three floors and I managed to hit it just as a docent was giving the Cool KY talk so that was fun. I had no idea some woman had ROWED across the Atlantic Ocean. Her boat is here. I knew about the paralympian Oskana Masters but didn't know she lived here.

I really liked the one interactive map, by county that brought up fun facts about each county and a song for each. I wish more museums had something like that.

FLoor#2 was jam packed with history, much about the enslaved people, KY's less than stellar showing in the Civil War and about the Underground Railroad (including mapping out one family's life for years) KY was definitely sell African families down river sort of state and oddly wasn't segregated because they wanted to keep an eye on enslaved people who were often rooming with freed people.

They had bits on women I've never heard of including an Indigenous warrior chief, another few women doctors and one who is in my talk, Mary Edward Walker (look her up, she is something else) and more than one display about how white people don't get along even with other white people in the former of Bloody Monday when over 100 Irish and German immigrants were murdered. (the one thing that never seems to change is we find new immigrants to blame and hate)

Floor Three- it's all about the bourbon. I love some of the old bottles

Museum store: I have never seen a museum store without books. It had bourbon though. A lot of only find them in KY bottles (glad they were expensive because with my luck I'd like it and have to come back for it). They had replica vintage ones that I would have liked if I had places to display them.

From there I went to the Louisville Mega Caverns It's actually an old limestone quarry and it was oddly creepy. You approach what looks like a service access into the side of the hill and really it is just that. If not for the painted footprints in the tunnel I would have thought I was in the wrong spot and it goes on being all access tunnelly for about 500 yards before opening into a cavern and then you see the visitor center.

I get snagged by a group of elderly women in front of a 'sign this waiver' computer bank 'don't you jump the line!' I wasn't planning it. I get to the bank eventually and realize you had to have BOUGHT the ticket first. How about putting the purchase area before this then? I talk to the young guy about the walking vs tram tour but it turns out it didn't matter.

It's a random monday at 130 in the afternoon and everything is sold out until 6 pm (and they're taking like two dozen at a time) I give it a pass and slink out of the scary tunnel.

I move on to the third planned event here.


It's music monday 30 weeks of music. This week's prompt is # 25 A song from your pre teen years


( There are so many from the 1980s )





here's the whole prompt list

( All under here )

Music Meme

May. 11th, 2026 11:39 pm
reeby10: pink backgound with multicolored notes on a staff (music)
[personal profile] reeby10
From [personal profile] maevedarcy

Songs
Last song I listened to: Clang Clang by DEXX
Favorite song ever: The Horror of our Love by Ludo
Current song on repeat: Bad Boy No "DO" by CLO'VER
Song that reminds me of my childhood (positive, I actually enjoy getting reminded of this): Uh not sure I have any.
Song that reminds me of my first crush (romantic or platonic): Scars by Papa Roach (purely bc he liked Papa Roach)
Song that reminds me of a person important to me now: Fireflies by Owl City
I love this song I will add it to playlists for no reason: Iris by Goo Goo Dolls bc I'm a basic bitch lol
I love this song and I wish I could listen to it again for the first time: Body by Mother Mother
A playlist about me would start with this song: Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year by Fall Out Boy

( Read more... )
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Today's Adventures

May. 11th, 2026 09:57 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today we went up to Danville to run errands.

( Read more... )
  • Current Mood: busy
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Daily Happiness

May. 11th, 2026 08:06 pm
torachan: karkat from homestuck headdesking (karkat headdesk)
[personal profile] torachan
1. I had a meeting at our central kitchen location, which is across town from the office and I was feeling like I wanted a snack, so I stopped at Shake Shack on the way and got some fries and a shake. They have a new menu that just started and there's a mango shake with passionfruit bobas and it's so good! Then tonight I took Carla to an optometrist appointment at Costco and suggested we get dinner out afterwards since it was kind of late, and she suggested Shake Shack since there's one not that far from Costco, so we went there and got a couple more items from a new menu, which is BBQ themed for summer. Carla got a rib sandwich and I got a crispy chicken sandwich and both were super tasty. Definitely will be going there again while this menu is on.

2. I caught Jasper mid lick lol. You can see how shiny his shoulder fur is...

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My characters meme

May. 11th, 2026 10:03 pm
mxcatmoon: dreamsheep by seleneheart (DWSheep)
[personal profile] mxcatmoon
Snagged from [personal profile] spiralicious


#mycharacters

Rules: make a list of your top 10 favorite characters to think about. Then let people in the comments choose one question for you to answer about them.

My characters:

1. Rico Tubbs (Miami Vice)
2. Ianto Jones (Torchwood)
3. Josef Kostan (Moonlight TV)
4. Alec Hardison (Leverage)
5. Rose Tyler (Doctor Who)
6. Beth Turner (Moonlight TV)
7. Sonny Crockett (Miami Vice)
8. Amanda King (Scarecrow & Mrs. King)
9. Anthony Crowley (Good Omens)
10. Al Calavicci (Quantum Leap)

The questions:
1- What’s the one thing they refuse to admit they want, even to themselves?
2- If they could undo one moment, would they actually do it—or has it become part of who they are?
3- What kind of love do they think they deserve vs. what they actually accept?
4- What’s their “I’m fine” behavior that clearly means they are not fine?
5-What song would absolutely destroy them emotionally if it came on at the wrong moment?
6- In another life, who would they have been if things had gone right?
7- What’s the smallest, most insignificant thing that still reminds them of someone they lost?
8- What's something they desperately want people to know about them but won't tell a single soul?



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Sick Day

May. 11th, 2026 09:14 pm
days_unfolding: (Default)
[personal profile] days_unfolding
Paid my property taxes.

Woke up at 3:30 AM and went back to sleep. Kept on waking up periodically. I made the mistake of rolling onto my back after my alarm went off and the dogs jumped on me.

Emailed in sick and slept. Woke up at 11. My stomach was still upset so I emailed in sick again. Ate lunch. Fed the cats; Oliver whapped Zara on her nose, and then her food was missing, so I think that I dropped it getting Oliver to stop.

Got woken up by someone selling Medicare Advantage. I’m not eligible for Medicare yet, dimwits! Was outside with the dogs and got my new shoes. I now have my outfit for the flight: black yoga pants, a black t-shirt, a summer blazer, and new shoes. I’m feeling shaky, so I’m making some food. Ate. I feel better.

It looks like the trip to my dad’s house is on.

I think that I will lie down for a little while after I check on my packages. Overslept until 7:30. My weed whacker was here. I might not make it to the local grocery store.

Fed the dogs and cats. Now I’m going to shower. No, I’m going to order some food and go to bed.
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Derpy on Bed

May. 11th, 2026 09:56 pm
frith: Realistic My Little Pony CMC via generative software (MLP EZ Make CMC sleeping)
[personal profile] frith posting in [community profile] ponyville_trot
Derpy_on_Bed_via_Nanobanana_by_meta_void
Source: https://tantabus.ai/images/69900
Pastiche machine generator: Nanobanana. Prompter: meta_void.

I went looking for evocative imagery on Tantabus.ai with an eye out for realism. I spent about four hours to settle on five pictures.
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(no subject)

May. 11th, 2026 08:36 pm
skygiants: Beatrice from Much Ado putting up her hand to stop Benedick talking (no more than reason)
[personal profile] skygiants
I don't know that Angela Thirlwell's Rosalind: A Biography of Shakespeare's Immortal Heroine was particularly mind-blowing for me as a text in terms of new knowledge or insights on As You Like It. However, it certainly was satisfying for me to read, in the way it is always satisfying to read a book with someone who passionately agrees with you about a mildly contrarian fannish opinion, like:

Angela Thirlwell: I simply think Rosalind is the absolute top-tier Shakespeare heroine
Me [nodding vigorously]: How true!
Angela Thirlwell: she is so witty and clever and in absolute total narrative control of her text and also doing gender like nobody else in Shakespeare
Me [nodding vigorously]: I think everyone who puts on an As You Like It should read your book!
Angela Thirwell: and As You Like It is a brilliant work that hangs together brilliantly in its entirety
Me [nodding en--pausing]: well I'm not sure I agree entirely with that
Angela Thirlwell: and here's my chapter on Rosalind's Daughters which includes every literary heroine I've ever loved. Elizabeth Bennet is kind of a Rosalind when you think about it.
Me [nodding politely]: I see, I see. Do you have any evidence for that?
Angela Thirlwell: Well, no. But! I believe it in my heart. Because Rosalind is the best!
Me [nodding vigorously]: She's the best!

The part that was probably most interesting for me in terms of actual new thoughts about Rosalind and As You Like It was the contextualization of the play in in terms of when, exactly, it was written, and what other plays it sits alongside in its canonical period, including some that are relatively unfamiliar to me -- I don't actually have a great constant sense in my head of Shakespeare's timeline (other than the obvious TEMPEST IS THE LAST) and the Great Chronological DWJ Project has made me much more interested in tracing the way a train of thought evolves over the course of somebody's work. It's interesting to see Rosalind and Viola as different ways of working out a concept that begins all the way back in Two Gentlemen of Verona; Thirlwell makes much of the fact that Viola is stressed and and serious and poetic whereas Rosalind is almost always speaking in comic prose, and takes charge of her own epilogue. Indeed she never forgets to remind us that Rosalind has the epilogue. You can tell what Thirlwell's favorite bits of the play are because she will quote them at least times in the text in order to prove five different points, blissfully unconcerned with repetition. I personally did not need to return quite so many times to the Bay of Portugal but I guess even the fact that Rosalind speaks the greatest percentage of her play of any Shakespeare heroine [good for her!] does not provide that many Rosalind lines to quote from.

Anyway. Do I think you ought to read this book if not for the pleasure of nodding vigorously along with various enthusiastic statements about Rosalind? Like, do I think it will transform you into a person who nods vigorously along with enthusiastic statements about Rosalind, if you were not one previously? Who could say! Report back if you find out!
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Raising the Roof

May. 11th, 2026 11:58 pm
[syndicated profile] scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/11/raising-the-roof/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60655

In the further adventures of home renovation, the back deck has been laid and now the roofing is being put up, for shade and to keep rain off the deck. It’s looking.. pretty good! There’s more to be done, obviously. But it’s coming along nicely.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/11/raising-the-roof/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60655

Challenge Prompt 544: Trophy

NSFW May. 11th, 2026 08:41 pm
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An oldie and their thoughts on streamers

May. 11th, 2026 05:31 pm
sapphicfairyoracle: ([Marvel] X-men Rouge & Storm)
[personal profile] sapphicfairyoracle
I would watch more Vtubers if it wasn't for the fact that too many have avatars of loli-looking anime girls and talk like little kids. (I feel like many people try to sound like Ironmouse. I will give Ironmouse the benefit of the doubt and assume her voice is real, but I still find it grating to hear for hours on a stream, personally. Now others want to sound like her.) Their fanbase tend to be lolicon or shotacon creeps (liking the fictional youngins, if I have to explain what those terms mean...). There's also that. Not interested in these characters in suggestive situations even if they're adults. It's THE "SHE'S 5000 years old but looks like a 12 year old." vibes that I don't like.

Or the avatars are big boobied anime girls that try to sound deep and be "mommy" vibes. (I block the moment they do that "Ara ara~") So I rarely watch Vtubers and hope people recommend me some normal vtubers who don't make sexual jokes every minute or don't screech for hours.

Well. I can't complain too much as I put on Caseoh and GHCoffee streams. But even those I watch only for a little while because they both holler quite a bit. And coffee spamming his soundboard can be over stimulating at times.

But. It also could be because I'm old and not the audience they are looking for. I just might have to hunt around twitch and youtube more for streamers or V(or PNG)tubers that are more chill when I get the free time. Wish me luck on this search.
  • Current Mood: okay
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#031

NSFW May. 11th, 2026 07:03 pm
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