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

I promised that if folks helped get the Locus Magazine fundraiser to $75k, I would write a holiday story. You did, so I did - "End of the Year PR Missives From Scrooge and Marley" - and it's up at Whatever - with an extra added audio version!

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2022/12/22/a-holiday-gift-for-you-end-of-the-year-pr-missives-from-scrooge-marley/

Over at Whatever I've posted my annual "Best Of" collection of writing on my site. This year it's a grab bag of pieces about writing, politics and popular culture, along with a couple of reviews, a short story or two and, of course, a terrifying burrito.

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2022/12/24/whatever-best-of-2022/

27 December 1924 | A Polish Jew Jakub (Jack) Fogel was born in Turek.

In Auschwitz from 27 August 1943
No. 140964
Transferred to Fürstengrube sub-camp.

In 1945 he was on a death march, ending up on one of the ships in the Lubeck Bay that were mistakenly bombed by the British RAF on 3 May 1945. More than 7,000 prisoners were killed. Jakub survived.

After the war he emigrated to Australia.
Today he turns 98.
Happy birthday.

#Auschwitz #history #ww2 #Holocaust #birthday #otd #Turek #Australia

One of the most influential rap songs of all time (Ether) contained a homophobic slur. The rapper (Nas) took a lot of criticism for this decades later. So he now performs the song without the slur, and re-released the track without it.👍🏿

Lizzo released a track with an ableist slur. She took heat for this on Twitter too. She apologized, and re-cut the song without the slur.👍🏿

Conversations about what a person said, are valid.

You don't get "cancelled" for mis-speaking. It's the doubling down.

Happy Holidays Mastodon! Glory to you, and your house! 🖖
#Christmas #StarTrek #Klingons #Swords #Qapla' #IGotABat'lethForXmas #AGoodDayToDie

I will not entertain a single outrage from the fascist GOP about how much $ we are sending to Ukraine when they bailed out big biz with PPP loans as they laid off workers. We've sent 50ish billion to Ukraine. We bailed out big biz to the tune of $525 billion and they still screwed over workers. Dems should have talked about this. We failed to do so. I did on twitter but no one seemed to care.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/12/02/new-ppp-loan-data-reveals-most-of-the-525-billion-given-out-went-to-larger-businesses-some-with-trump-kushner-ties/?sh=616b1abe5a43

Today is 10 months of my 3 day war. 100,000 dead. 0 victories.

Merry HIAMRS everyone

Another person concerned about “birth rate” is Vladimir Putin who uses Russia’s declining population as a weapon in scapegoating minorities, Jews, and especially LGBTQ+ people in pursuit of his imperial goals — creating a unified “Eurasia” under a theocratic dictatorship with Moscow as the “Third Rome.”
19/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-putin-taxation/our-historic-duty-putin-plans-steps-to-boost-russias-birth-rate-idUSKBN1ZE21Y

Hello! I hope you all had a great time, wether you celebrated Christmas or not!

I actually couldn't get to excited, because soon I'll get my very first surgery. Oh my god. The feelings of mixed excitement and nervousness is kinda overwhelming :D
Anyway, have some more art!

Tags:
#MastoArt #art #drawing #ballpointpenart #ballpointpen #kpop #fanart #nct #nct127 #yuta

The pursuit of knowledge is admitting that you do not know everything. You do not have to prove that you know it already. This is a very human characteristic. An open mind is better. I would never say to a Klingon that I know more about Klingon opera than they do. This would likely end up with them reaching for their bat'leth. Yes I may have seen their opera. Yes I might have read a book. But it is their culture and it is my responsibility to “listen,” not try to prove what I know. 🖖

Today, Seva performed again at the New Year's concert🎄 Small artists were given such gifts)
#Ukraine

There are many people on Mastodon who are good and smart and cool and who genuinely care about marginalized communities. There are also many of those same people who, for whatever reason, don't add #AltText (aka "captions") to the images they post.

Let's change that!

It's easier to do than it seems, and there are tools like @PleaseCaption that will remind you. Plus more people will get to enjoy your posts and some users will only boost image posts that include alt text.

My flight’s about to take off and I’m worried about what would be known as my last words if the plane were to crash because I want to be remembered as intelligent, thoughtful, and well-spoken, so 
YOLO, bitchezzzzzzz!

Pennsylvania Republicans are at it again, ignoring standard democratic protocols and claiming a majority that they failed to win at the ballot box in order to jam through a series of state constitutional amendments in a matter of weeks.

Accepting election results and ensuring a peaceful transfer of power is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy. Republicans in the state House should take heed of their loss, step aside and allow the Democrats to take their rightfully won majority and stop trying to force through the very policies that lost them the election in the first place. That’s how a functioning democracy is supposed to work. #Pennsylvania

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/26/pennsylvania-politics-are-heated-it-soon-could-be-utter-chaos-00075521

Under 10 minutes till showtime! Join us LIVE: https://youtu.be/zvbyM1a7bEA

A murmuration of users fleeing a predatory bird.

(Image: Daniel Biber/SWNS)

Sounds unhealthy, but I'm no doctor.
https://patreon.com/lowqualityfacts

@tristen @ScottSoCal Thank you! Just sent a request to join.