In between Marske, Wells, and Kingfisher all releasing books

I stopped reading A Power Unbound last week because I don't want it to be over! But I'll probably finish it this weekend. So good!

I have been pretty promiscuous about socials, but it's kind of my job too. But there are some things that work better on phones than desktops that I can't use as much.

(skimmed a bit. OK, a lot)

Yay, flea! Congrats.

There's still war here, and there's still a corrupt government. It all sucks and I'm worried about so many. Also hoping for a general strike to replace this government, but we never had a general strike during a war so I'm not sure how or if it's gonna go.

I did want to give some context to one thing, though, and I do hope this won't sound like hasbara (do I need to say again how much I'm against this government and pro Palestine as long as everyone here gets to live in peace, in as many states it takes?).

The pictures of Palestinian men stripped down to their underpants are awful to watch for me too (unless they are Hamas people who participated in Oct. 7th events and in that case I fear I'm indifferent to their wardrobe situation). But there is a reason behind that that isn't just humiliation. Since the second Intifada suicide bombers would often put an extra set of explosives on them, especially in cases in which they carried only weapons, or if there was another member in distance that could activate the explosives from afar while police/the army shot the first terrorist and then came to check the body. There was also a third tactic of activation of a second set of explosives that I can't remember at the moment. Anyhow, there were several "double" bombings like that over the years so the policy is to strip them to their underpants if they're alive, or sending someone from combat engineering forces/a robot to check the body for explosives first.

That is also why it took days to clear all of the houses in the kibbutzes and towns that were hit. Israeli forces checked to see if Hamas planted bombs first (and in some cases, yes, they did).

Edited for clarity: Not that it makes the war, the situation in parts of Israel or jn Gaza any less terrible or brutal. But this, in itself, makes sense during an arrest. Filming this? Ugh, I don't know. To me it's disgraceful. But apparently others think we can win by humiliating others. And for me, that logic leads to a lose lose situation. We've been losing since Oct. 7th as is. I'd like keep the loses - in lives and in morals - to minimum.

And with that delightful note, I'm gonna have dinner and do my homework in Arabic. Apparently I still believe in a better tomorrow here despite all evidence. Maybe not tomorrow per se, but a tomorrow. These governments (for us and the Palestinians) can't and won't last forever.

Hi, Shir. I appreciate and support your belief in a better tomorrow, whenever that may be.

Flea, congrats! That sounds like a good move for you.

I also have BlueSky codes available. Many of the historians I had been following on the bird site are there but the traffic is still light enough that a few voices dominate my feed most of the time. I still have hopes for Spoutible, but it's similar there. I do miss the critical mass of politics, art, and culture I had curated for my pre-Musk feed but a few months ago I managed to accidentally wipe all of my bookmarks and passwords and took that as my moment to leave Twitter.

Timelies all!

We went to a cat cafe this afternoon. Most of the cats were sleeping, but I got to pet a few. Mr. S had fun dangling toys for some of the more lively kitties. Afterwards, we went to my MIL’s for Hanukkah dinner.

Also, Gary got me the latest Murderbot book for Hanukkah.

Yay, Murderbot! :)

Stay strong, Shir. My mother always says, "This too shall pass away".

flea, have you posted about Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation or any of the adaptations? Wang Yibo plays one of the leads in the live-action version.

I have been increasingly tempted by Tumblr in recent years.

In between Marske, Wells, and Kingfisher all releasing books within, like, a week of each other, I’m overwhelmed with texty goodness.

Right? It’s been glorious! I hadn’t read Marske until now, I’m so glad I didn’t wait any longer!

Yeah, Ursula is definitely at least furry-adjacent; Digger was a full-on anthropomorphic epic webcomic before it was a graphic novel, and she has been wonderfully furry-supportive both at Further Confusion and at BayCon when I've seen her there. And Kevin (her husband) is a real sweetheart with a soft spot for all furry creatures and chickens everywhere.

We have cause for celebration this day as today is Consuela's birthday! I hope you have a delightful day and that the year to come includes an abundance of happiness.

Happy birthday, Consuela!