I host my blog on Micro.blog. It is in many ways a lovely service but I do not recommend it to others because tech support is lackadaisical. I’m low-key keeping my eyes open for alternatives, but there aren’t many and the ones that exist seem to be susceptible to the same problems as Micro.blog.
Elephants at the San Diego Zoo form an “alert circle” to protect a young elephant and each other during yesterday’s 5.2-magnitude earthquake — YouTube
The group stayed tightly together for about four minutes. A zoo spokesperson said the behavior is called an “alert circle” and said it is “intended to protect the young — and the entire herd — from threats.”
Walking with Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens was an inveterate walker, going for hours every day at a brisk pace, usually alone. “He did so because walking time was thinking time, or perhaps more accurately dreaming time.,” writes Luke McKernan.
Dickens walked in the day and in the night. He once got up at two in the morning and walked 30 miles to breakfast.
Today, McKernan lives in “the heart of Dickens territory,” Rochester and the Medway towns in England.
The high street businesses alone bear witness to the Dickensian connection: they include Tiny Tim’s Tearooms, Fezziwig’s, Mr Tope’s, Ebenezer’s, Pips of Rochester, Sweet Expectations, and the inspired A Taste of Two Cities. In days past we have had Hard Times the antique shop, and – believe it or not – the Havisham Wedding Centre, which perhaps not surprisingly went out of business.
Richard Kind Is Glad He’s Not That Famous — Fresh Air. An interview with a brilliant comic character actor whose face and voice you recognize even if you don’t know his name. He is a treasure.
“So the president of the United States proposes, on camera, to deport Americans to foreign concentration camps.” — Timothy Snyder
Unions need to be ready to strike. It’s the source of their power. “When radical things happen, only fools do not become more radical.” — Hamilton Nolan
The unbearable lightness of Korean cute — Chris Arnade walkingtheworld.substack.com
“ICE is making arrests wearing masks, not showing ID and grabbing people off the street into unmarked vans. Straight up Gestapo shit…. I can’t even count the number of actions Trump has taken which should lead to impeachment.” ianwelsh.net
Blue Cross of Louisiana doesn’t give a shit about breast cancer: The insurer pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars in payments for breast reconstructive procedures that it previously approved, on the Orwellian rationale that just because they approved it doesn’t mean they agreed to pay it. pluralistic.net
