We had an exciting weekend last week! Miles ate a short length of wool yarn and won a trip to the emergency vet! Luckily, it came out the other end without any problem, but I swear, this kitten has no sense of self-preservation. He also spent an hour locked in the garage last weekend when he ran out there and I didn’t notice. Nominative determinism is apparently a thing–who knew?

I read the new Martha Wells novella, “All Systems Red” over the last few days and it is fantastic. I’m planning on writing a more in-depth review but wanted to mention it now, as I know I am not the only one who is here for an apathetic and awkward android who calls themselves Murderbot. I am quite cross that I’m going to have to wait until next year to read the next installment of Murderbot’s reluctant adventures.

• What ‘Snowflakes’ Get Right About Free Speech: “The idea of freedom of speech does not mean a blanket permission to say anything anybody thinks. It means balancing the inherent value of a given view with the obligation to ensure that other members of a given community can participate in discourse as fully recognized members of that community. Free-speech protections — not only but especially in universities, which aim to educate students in how to belong to various communities — should not mean that someone’s humanity, or their right to participate in political speech as political agents, can be freely attacked, demeaned or questioned.”
• Why I No Longer Watch The Vlogbrothers. This is about the author’s decision to leave the community that has formed around John and Hank Green’s YouTube channel; apparently defending an anti-Semitic troll is more important than the Jewish members of the Green brothers’ community. Good job, boys.
• New York City Transit Reporter in Wonderland: Riding the London Tube. As I read this, I was reminded by an article in The Atlantic that I linked back in November 2015: Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks.
• Nevertheless, He Persisted: Tales of Masculine Perseverance: “Robert Engle, 39, loved the arts. He had a favorite female novelist, a favorite female painter, a favorite female film director, and so on. When someone in his book club asked why he separately categorized art made by women, he didn’t know how to respond. But he persisted in doing so, nevertheless.”
• Facing Facts: American Identity is Based on Alternate History Sarah Gailey makes a pretty convincing case.
• Ijeoma Oluo on The Stigma that Kills–about hepatitis C, the drug that can cure it, and how so many are unable to get approved for it.
• Pretty sure that Ivanka Trump is every bit as crooked and amoral as her father: Ivanka Trump Wrote a Painfully Oblivious Book for Basically No One
• The Brain Eater I am not sure I agree with this. This is the first time I’ve heard the phrase the brain eater used in this particular way–it’s usually used in the context of late Robert A. Heinlein or Jerry Pournelle since God knows when. So I feel like Scalzi could have found a better phrase for the corrosive resentment he describes. And there’s some other stuff in there that’s making me feel squidgy, but I’m having a hard time pinning it down exactly. But there is this assumption that there is a kind of model career that everyone should want–and, maybe not?
• I Worked at Fyre Festival. It Was Always Going to Be a Disaster. Watching this fall apart last week filled me with so much glee.

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