ScottinSoCal 🇺🇦 🕊 🏳‍🌈 @ScottSoCal@computerfairi.es

The ban on #trans women in #chess is hitting me particularly hard.

I'm a chess enthusiast (in keeping with my careful curated rep as an expert strategist).

It's just this wtf moment that pulls the wind right out of my sails.

I know really well that lots of folks don't like us. But ... how are we ever gonna overcome a level of pure unhinged bigotry that says we can't be trusted play chess?

Obviously ALL women should be insulted by this move.

Cat break!

1. It gladdens my heart that a couple of shitheads who sought to avoid the wrong kind of press actually put their names into national headlines by trying to silence this paper

2. I’m quite ignorant of the process required to obtain warrants, but it seems the prosecutor not being informed of this one demonstrates how very, very shady the whole thing was.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/kansas-prosecutor-says-material-seized-in-police-raid-of-marion-county-newspaper-should-be-returned

Try it
#dogsofmastodon #dogs #cartoons #Humor #Cartoons #humour #DogsOfMastodon

Made the CEO laugh today!

He asked where the box cutter was so I showed him… and he politely asked if I was going to need it. I said, “If I need it that bad, call the cops!"

@philip_cardella @mrcompletely This is why they're book banning and trying to take over school boards.

And then there's this guy, making the implicit threat of violence against women explicit (Locke is a pastor in Mt. Juliet pop 39k)

Morning everyone, buenos días a todos, bonjour a tous.

This is a #ThrowbackThursday #TBThursday #Tbt and a #thirsttrapThursday also... From some summers ago at the #nudistbeach down my house. Nowadays you can still go #naked there but it has been invaded by dressed people so it is a bummer.

The previous homeowners had plastic grass in this planter, and I always thought about replacing it with real plants. 10+ years later, I finally did it. Fittonia and sansevieria. The sansevieria are tiny propagated babies right now and I’m looking forward to seeing them grow. #Houseplants

At five years old, I couldn't grasp the concept of a scapegoat; all I understood was that, because of Japan’s aggression that pulled the United States into the war, my family and I had to leave our home at gunpoint, taking with us only what we could carry. As I got older, I understood scapegoating for what it is: a channel for hate, blame, and bigotry.

My lifelong mission has been preventing this from happening again, yet my heart aches as the LGBTQ+ community faces it now. We've fought for our rights to live, love, and be ourselves—a vibrant, misunderstood, and often mistreated rainbow of identities.

I have seen where scapegoating, if left unchallenged, leads. And it is a very dark place. This week, I chose to share my story with you in the hopes that we never repeat the heinous mistakes of the past. https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/takei-scapegoating-lgbtq-japanese-internment

This is Arp 271, a pair of spiral galaxies locked in a gravitational dance. In a few billion years the #MilkyWay and the Andromeda galaxy might look like this!

This is the very last #photo ever taken with the VIMOS instrument at ESO's Very Large #Telescope in #Chile, back in 2018. After I finished the decommissioning procedures that night, I decided to take one last image as a farewell, and this was the result.

➡️ https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1821a/

#astrodon #astronomy #space #astrophotography

As a violinist, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper's cemetery in the Dorset back country.

As I was not familiar with the country lanes, I got lost and, being a typical man, I didn't stop for directions.

I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guys had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch.

I felt bad and apologised to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn't know what else to do, so I started to play.

The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends.

I played like I've never played before for this homeless man.

And as I played 'Amazing Grace,' the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together. When I finished I packed up my violin and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full.

As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, "I never seen nothin' like that before and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty years."