Digital Manticore

Two Weeks in the Life: September 20, 2026

Posted on September 20, 2026 by Lindsey Halsell / 0 Comment

Hello, friends and enemies. Yesterday I came out of my accidental retirement from being a roller derby announcer and went to comment on some wheely shoe games in real life! Some people asked me if I’m “back,” and to that I say I didn’t really mean to leave, I was just busy and worried about covid (I’m still worried about covid if I’m being honest, but I am being as safe as I can be). That said, I am not planning to arrange my whole schedule around the derby calendar! I did have a lot of fun talking about derby, even if it was hard to dredge up some of the derby knowledge from my mind palace’s long-term storage. Still, I think by the end of the second game, most of it had come back to me. Everyone was very nice and complimented my outfit and my announcing. I even had some new people introduce themselves and tell me I should be announcing at every game. To that I say: thank you. And: pay me (lol kidding … but?).

me, smiling at the camera, with the announcer table and derby track behind me — greetings from roller derby

a heron standing on a log in the creek at the Davis arboretum — heron!

Last weekend, my beloved friend Lito and his boyfriend Scott came for a visit and it was great! I want to hang out with my friends every day! Whoever arranged the world in a way where it’s impossible to hang out with friends deserves to be tried in the Hague. We had such a good time that I didn’t really take any pictures other than this heron we saw at the Davis Arboretum. We mostly just hung out, watched Drag Race, and ate good food. I don’t have a lot to say about it, you kinda had to be there.

Current Events

Remember when I used to say things like “This isn’t a news blog, but …”? Simpler times. Now I am the news.

City Council Madness

I had to go again to a city council meeting to tell them they are wrong about automated license plate readers (ALPRs) like Flock. At the last meeting, the city scheduled a presentation from the police about ALPRs and why they’re great actually (citation needed). Of course, we couldn’t let that go unchecked, so DeFlock Elk Grove coordinated to do some pre-bunking of things we thought the police might say during the meeting’s open comment period then debunk after the presentation to try to set the record straight. It’s very hard to say all that needs to be said in three-minute chunks, especially when the city and the police can (and do) talk as long as they want. I believe this may be a strategy to make us all go insane listening to them.

In my comment before the presentation, I essentially gave an opening argument for why we can’t trust what the police are going to tell us about ALPRs. Here’s what I said, or you can watch the video (and see the mayor get mad at me after my comment) here.

Hello, my name is Lindsey Halsell and I am an Elk Grove resident and a member of DeFlock Elk Grove, a citizen-led advocacy group dedicated to getting automated license plate readers (also called ALPRs) like Flock and Axon out of our city.

On August 3rd, we published an audit of the city’s use of Flock based on information obtained from public records act requests. Since then, we have repeatedly attempted to meet with city officials and asked the city to hold a town hall to discuss the findings. However, the mayor and city council have not accepted our invitations. We have additionally submitted requests to the California State Auditor and the Attorney General to investigate how Elk Grove’s use of ALPRs may have violated state laws.

Tonight the police will give a presentation on its use of Flock and ALPRs. They will likely focus on their most emotional success stories, like getting a ten-year-old child home safe, solving a mosque burglary, and holding a driver accountable for a fatality. They might even mention that Sheriff Jim Cooper said yesterday that Flock helped them capture someone who “executed” a woman.

We are always glad when crimes are solved and people make it home safe. No one disputes that. But we have to ask: how much of this success is really due to ALPRs?

The Elk Grove police have stated that they credit these wins to coordination with the real-time information center, information from fixed traffic cameras, and follow-up investigations, in addition to Flock. In the case of the crime Sheriff Cooper mentioned, there were witnesses on the scene and someone had identified the suspect’s license plate. Those aren’t Flock’s successes. The police were able to find the suspect quickly because people were on the scene and saw the crime. Flock helped the police make an arrest faster. That’s it. Even with ALPRs, the police still needed to talk to people, identify suspects, and investigate the crime. If ALPRs are such strong tools, then the police should be able to tell us exactly how many cases were cleared because of Flock. If all they do is share emotional anecdotes, we don’t know if the system is as important as they claim it is, but we will know that they are trying to manipulate us into supporting them.

We also know from reporting out of the Atlanta metro, which has over 5,000 Flock cameras, that crime clearance rates have not improved since the cameras were installed. If ALPRs were that essential to solving crimes, we would expect to see much higher clearance rates, especially in Flock’s hometown.

Flock has published materials to help law enforcement convince cities that Flock is worth the risk. They advise police departments to provide a “carefully scripted presentation” and control the narrative. All the police will do tonight is attempt to win the war for the narrative. This is not a meaningful effort to hear our concerns. This is damage control after 21 people came to the last city council meeting to say we don’t want ALPRs in Elk Grove.

Flock’s materials advise police not to “avoid the concept of mass surveillance because you’re not going to convince opponents that it’s not.” Flock never claims it’s not conducting mass surveillance and they can’t truthfully claim that, which is why they have to focus on encouraging police to make emotional pleas, rather than stick to the facts. This is mass surveillance, and we don’t want it here.

The police presentation was very trying. They claimed that ALPRs do “not conduct facial recognition.” This might technically be true, but it’s a distinction without a difference. Wired and 404 Media recently reported on Flock’s code, which absolutely does track people, though I can believe it may not use facial recognition. I think the fact that the police used that specific term may be obscuring that Flock’s system can do in regards to identifying people since “facial recognition” is a specific technology.

Some of the information in the presentation apparently corroborates what DeFlock Elk Grove found in its community audit. For example, Elk Grove Police said that they removed access to Flock’s national lookup tool, which would include Elk Grove data on the Flock database for people to search, in 2024. The thing is, sharing ALPR data outside of California has been illegal per SB 34 since 2016. So, are they indirectly admitting that they broke the law for years before they stopped? This information was presented as if it’s meant to reassure us, but all I got from it was that Elk Grove Police Department was illegally sharing data with other states and federal agencies until 2024.

After the presentation, the city invited the Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper to speak. He spent at least twenty minutes being very emotional and telling us that we’re terrible people for not wanting to use this technology. I was glad that I had referenced an interview Cooper had done earlier in the week, about a woman being shot and the police claiming they were able to make a quick arrest thanks to ALPRs, beforehand. While he credits ALPRs for the quick arrest, he also says that there were witnesses on the scene who saw the suspect’s license plate. What really offend me about this story though—and I didn’t know this until after the meeting—is that the woman who was killed had a restraining order against her killer. This story isn’t about the success of ALPRs, it’s about the absolute failure of the police to protect a woman who had already followed proper channels to try to keep herself safe. Police are letting women be killed in broad daylight then claiming we need a fucking panopticon to keep us safe. Once again: ALPRs can only be used reactively. They do not prevent crime; they may observe crime. What do the cops need to keep someone with an active restraining order from being killed by her stalker? Maybe we should focus on that instead of buying more cameras.

Here’s my comment after the presentation, which you can watch here.

Hello. Thank you to the police for that presentation and I wish I had as much time to speak as the sheriff did, but I suppose I will make do.

First of all, I want to reiterate that no one who’s against ALRPs is pro-crime and against victims. We want crimes to be solved. We don’t want there to be crime in the first place! But this is not the answer.

Today in the presentation, the police mentioned that they retain ALPR data for 30 days and that’s also something they’ve mentioned previously this year in another ALPR presentation. However, this does contradict the city’s ALPR Overview and Facts page, section 462.4 Data Collection and Retention states that “All ALPR data downloaded to the server should be stored for a minimum of one year” So, even though the police are giving this presentation, we’re getting conflicting information from the city and from the police about what happens to the data.

Regardless of how long the Elk Grove police think they are storing ALPR data, the reality is they have much less control than they believe. We know Flock retains data indefinitely because their own representative recently said so a few week ago in a city council meeting in Marietta, Oklahoma.

The police chief said, “We want this technology, but we want it to be done responsibly,” and we want that too. We want responsible ownership of this data, and unfortunately, Flock’s making it very clear that that’s not possible. Flock goes out of its way to gather data, whether local governments know about it or not. In Sheboygan, Wisconsin, city officials were not informed that their Flock cameras would track driving speeds and movement patterns, but after recently attempting to cancel their Flock contract, sales representatives contacted the mayor offering to sell the city five years of this very data. Flock was gathering more information than the city knew about or consented to.

Elk Grove police say they don’t have people search enabled in the Flock system. However, that doesn’t mean that Flock isn’t collecting that data. It means that search function is turned off for you. They may still be collecting the data just like we saw in this Wisconsin example. We also saw Grass Valley recently informed Flock that they were canceling their contract and had the police remove the cameras. yet Flock came out to conduct “maintenance” and reinstall the cameras.

Flock does not see individual police departments as customers. Although you are paying for Flock’s ALPRs and access to its network, the real customer is whoever buys the data. Your job is to farm information. In February, Flock updated its terms and conditions to remove the statement “Flock does not own and shall not sell Customer Data.” They state that Flock has a “perpetual, worldwide license to use and disclose customer data … and use customer data to support and improve Flock’s products and services.” These are the terms a company would have if it were using you to collect data and then selling that data behind your back.

It is at best naive for the city and the police department to assume that they have control over data collected through Flock and ALPRs.

We got a smattering of news coverage after the meeting:

DeFlock Elk Grove increases pressure on Mayor Singh-Allen over ALPR cameras
Elk Grove Police, Sheriff and DA defend ALPR surveillance: First of two-part story
Part 2: Elk Grove residents challenge police defense of ALPR surveillance
Folsom is dropping its Flock license plate cameras, two council members say (this one isn’t about Elk Grove but they quoted me!)

I also have been taking some more media requests so there will be more Flock news in the near future.

What’s really going on between Flock and the City of Elk Grove?

I keep bringing this up when I talk to reporters but I have yet to see anyone investigate. The City of Elk Grove is adamant about how great Flock is and they keep voting unanimously to keep it and expand it, while many other cities have caved under the weight of their citizen’s disapproval. I would love to know if the City of Elk Grove has some kind of financial relationship with Flock (beyond the obvious one where the City pays Flock for its services). Like, are they getting a discount? I’m asking because Elk Grove is all over Flock’s fucking website and appears in training materials.

From October 17, 2025: Flock Aerodome Software Updates: Fall 2025. Elk Grove/Sacramento’s Real Time Information Center (a big police coordination dispatch center) is featured and there is a person clearly wearing an “Elk Grove Police Department” patch in the video a little over one minute in.
From May 12, 2025: A Connected Future: How Elk Grove PD is Redefining Public Safety with Drone Technology
From June 20, 2023: Customer Story | Elk Grove Police Department
From a webinar that Flock corporate gave to police departments teaching them “how they could surveil the No Kings protests and ‘small parades’ using a mix of Flock’s technology and law enforcement’s own databases,” as reported by 404 Media: One of the slides clearly reads “ELK GROVE POLICE: 09/12/2021 Joint Car Meet/Sideshow Operation”

No one is showing up in someone else’s promotional materials free of charge. That’s a paid gig. Why is Elk Grove specifically one of Flock’s poster children? How is this affecting our city government’s decisions about the use of ALPRs? Reporters, please, I am begging you to investigate!

Books and Other Words

hardcover book: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — The Eye of Bedlam Bride

The Eye of the Bedlam Bride is the sixth book in Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series. This book felt like a typical mid-series book to me. There was a lot going on that seems like it will pay off in the next book (the big “faction wars” that they have been building up to, in which real people enter the dungeon to battle the crawlers), and that’s fine and normal, but this is an 800-page book. One of the game mechanics in this part of the dungeon was that the crawlers were playing a Pokemon-like game, so we had to hear a lot about cards and rules and whatnot, which is not especially my jam. I still enjoyed the book overall but I don’t think it’s the strongest in the series!

Meanwhile, on the internet:

headline: The FDA has announced a recall of salted caramel ice cream due to possible contamination with "small stones and other hard objects." The comment: Dear Americans, this week's compromised type of FOOD is *spins the wheel* ICE CREAM that has been contaminated with *spins the wheel* STONES — just spinning that wheel

You’re Not Hallucinating: The Amount of Recalled Food Is Skyrocketing via The New Republic. I would like to take a moment to remind everyone that the current food safety hellscape was completely predictable given that the FDA was “making plans to end its routine safety inspections” in April 2025. And now we can’t even have salted caramel ice cream.
USPS whistleblower describes new plans for voting by mail hidden from the public via CNN. More fuckery to prevent as many people as possible from casting their vote because the administration knows they will lose a fair fight. Be very careful with getting your vote in this November!
Flock Offers Employees Buyouts as Customers Flee via Wired. Lol. Lmao even.

Jeopardy! hid a deep-cut Bluesky joke about “the slut gnomes of false Berlin” in today’s episode via AV Club. As a Chronically Online (TM) person, I found this quite funny. Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings got the writers to reference an insane Jeopardy parody post on the show this week.

Doctors Hate Her! One Weird Trick for Sleeping Well

Last time I said I got a new CPAP and it took me a few days to sort it out and sleep correctly. Well. It actually took two weeks because things did go downhill. This CPAP has a little display that tells you how many “events” per hour you experienced during the night (an event is when you stop breathing). I was putting up very high numbers for someone wearing a CPAP and Kirk said I had been snoring (exactly what using a CPAP should address). I was also waking up with a sore throat. After a night of something like eight events per hour, I decided I had to call the medical equipment company and ask them to increase the air pressure because my throat was feeling trashed and I was exhausted. I was informed that my machine was set for my prescribed air pressure and I had to talk to my doctor if I had a problem. I was not willing to wait for this shit to work through six to eight more people to be resolved.

Did you know you can find user guides online for just about any product? I got my hot little hands on the ResMed AirSense 11 guide to see how to open up the clinical options. It’s easy enough—just press two fingers on the screen and wait a moment. I discovered that yes, my air pressure was set to 11. However, CPAPs are able to adjust and give you different amounts of air throughout the night and my new CPAP was set to give me one consistent amount of air all night, no matter what. So I enabled the “Autoset” mode and set the air pressure range to cover everything (hacking!). Wouldn’t you know it? I slept so much better that night. I only had 0.4 events per hour. So, here’s a hearty “you are bad at your job and you should feel bad” to whoever set this CPAP up for me because you made me sleep horribly for two entire weeks of my life.

Moving It

camera view inside a bag of all-red gummy bears — pre-workout gummy bears

Last week I didn’t manage to work out at all, and this week isn’t quite over yet so I don’t have stickers to show you. In lieu of this, I will share with you my secret pre-workout snack for increased performance: all-red gummy bears.

Kitchen Witchery

There’s been too much going on for me to cook anything of interest, so please enjoy this photo of a burrito I made. I make the chicken in the slow cooker (throw an onion and jalapño and salt in there), use the arroz rojo recipe from Mi Cocina, and I make beans based on vibes alone.

a fat burrito on the plate with rice and cheese spilling out the top — a burrito

Cat Therapy

Fritz has been behaving a little better. We recently discovered that if we dig a hole in the litter box so that the bottom of the box is visible, he is more likely to pee there. Yes, this is diva behavior, but we are doing it because the alternative is pee on the floor. We also bought a spray that is supposed to deter cats from peeing in places (Nature’s Miracle No Spraying, I think it’s called) and that seems to help but only sort of. Fritz did see the vet last week. Apparently he is physically fine. We secured a Prozac prescription for him and he’ll be starting that soon. Let’s hope it helps him.

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. As a special treat, Kirk has granted permission to show you two pictures of him with Fritz.

Fritz the cat in the windowstill. The sun is shining through his fur creating a halo effect — serving

Fritz the cat pouting in the door to my office — serving

weekly update

Two Weeks in the Life: September 6, 2026

Posted on September 6, 2026 by Lindsey Halsell

Hello, friends and enemies. You know I love a little internet game and my new favorite is Outlier! The point of the game is to find the “rarest” words out of a set of 25 letters that changes daily. There’s a bit of meta-game guesswork in finding words and considering how rare they may be. I thought “scrying” wouldn’t be that rare, but it got me a good amount of points yesterday. My rarest words so far (from various days) have been balkanize, khalifate, and vomitoria. As usual for a word game, I find that pulling loan words and obscure declensions of historical terms gets me where I’m trying to go. I hope you all come play with me. You can connect with me on Outlier here!

Find me on Outlier!

Current Events

The DeFlock/anti-ALPR (automated license plate reader) campaign here in Elk Grove is continuing. After all the press for the community audit (discussed in my last post), we showed up at the city council meeting to let them know they’re doing a bad job and we don’t want this surveillance garbage in our city. We had 21 comments and collectively spent 45 minutes telling the city council to get its shit together. You can see my comment online here. I was very satisfied to hit the three-minute time limit exactly and end right on the buzzer. We got some good coverage from Elk Grove News, which summarized all the comments and then reported on the campaign more broadly.

If you don’t want to watch a video (I usually don’t), here’s the full text of my comment:

I am once again asking that the City end its contract with Flock Safety and that Elk Grove end its use of Automated License Plate Readers entirely, not seeking an alternative vendor after canceling Flock.

Putting everyone under constant surveillance is an inversion of how our justice system is meant to work: innocent until proven guilty. Identify a suspect, get a warrant, conduct an investigation. Using AI cameras to track everyone’s movements is the opposite of this process. There is no probable cause to surveil everyone all the time, but that’s what using ALPRs like Flock amounts to. By continuing to use these systems, the city is letting us know that we’re all in a state of perpetual guilt, just waiting for the police to decide on our crimes, which Flock’s AI system can generate using pre-written prompts provided by Flock itself.

In April, the mayor said she was open to an audit of the city’s Flock data. Several weeks ago, DeFlock Elk Grove published a community audit based on data obtained from public records act requests. The data indicate that the City of Elk Grove has violated state law by sharing our data with other states and federal agencies. The city has claimed our data are secure and not shared on Flock’s national network. Do the mayor, city counselors, and chief of police not understand how Flock works? Or are they lying about what happens to the data collected from constant surveillance

While the city and the police department have stated that our data are secure, it is clear they have no way to enforce that themselves or even confirm its truth. Two weeks ago, Flock announced updates to its privacy safeguards, recommending a seven-day retention period unless there is an active investigation. Yet a week later, a Flock representative let slip in a public meeting in Marietta, Oklahoma that they retain data indefinitely. Flock’s terms and conditions state that, even if the Elk Grove Police Department owns the data, Flock has the right to “non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide license to (a) use and disclose Customer Data to provide the Flock Services; and (b) use Customer Data to support and improve Flock’s products and services.” While the City may claim it can keep our data safe, these terms make it clear that the City does not have the power or authority to do any such thing. There is no responsible, secure way to maintain an active contract with Flock and there is no reason to believe that a company that makes its money from spying on everyone is telling the truth about what it does with the information it collects.

We deserve better than living in a city where we are constantly treated as suspects of crimes not yet committed. We should not have to be observed by a system that makes it not only possible, but trivially easy, for police officers to stalk and harass women, for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to monitor activists, or for the federal government to observe the movements of political opponents. Whether the city believes it’s aiding and abetting the surveillance state is irrelevant; the purpose of this system is objectively to make it easier for those with power to maintain it by collecting an inordinate amount of data on all of us. The only responsible thing for the City of Elk Grove to do is end its relationship with Flock immediately and start treating us as citizens, rather than suspects.

After the meeting, I approached a Telemundo reporter who was on the scene and I did an interview! In Spanish! I do wish I had come across a little more fluidly but considering I went in with no preparation, I’m not mad. The next one will be better, I’m certain. You can watch it online here.

To everyone’s great annoyance, the city has been ignoring our group’s requests to meet and discuss the community audit. Instead, they have an item on next week’s city council meeting agenda for a “presentation of the Elk Grove Police Department’s Automated License Plate Reader technology.” I have to assume this will be a bunch of Flock corporate propaganda, especially given recent reporting from 404 Media about a leaked guide from Flock about how police can “own the narrative.” My favorite quotation from the guide is “Don’t avoid the concept of mass surveillance because you’re not going to convince opponents that it’s not” (page 4 per document numbering, page 7 per DocumentCloud numbering). I’m not sure what they think it is if it’s not mass surveillance, but it’s telling that the guide doesn’t go as far as to say “Flock is not mass surveillance.” Presumably, their legal team cut that part. The fact that the police department is doing this after DeFlock Elk Grove has repeatedly provided information about ALPRs, requested meetings, and demonstrated that this technology cannot be trusted suggests to me that the cops are, instead of facing the issues, initiating a narrative war. I have often said that, if I were evil, I would have gone into marketing because I think I’m very good at framing a narrative. Perhaps this is my time to shine in a non-evil capacity. Although I guess from a certain perspective, I’m being evil right now. Welcome to my Joker era?

Quote from the Flock "How to speak to City councils about public safety technology" guide reading "Don't avoid the concept of mass surveillance because you're not going to convince opponents that it's not." — Flock: It’s not NOT surveillance

Screenshot of the "Mass Surviellance" wikipedia article reading "Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substational fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often done via the use of technologies that collect data on a large mass of individuals." — Flock: It’s not NOT surveillance

DeFlock Elk Grove is asking for everyone to come out and comment at the city council meeting this Wednesday, September 9. You can comment during the open comment period at the beginning of the meeting AND after the police presentation. Of course, it’s much harder to prepare remarks for a presentation that we haven’t seen yet, but if you love the challenge of speaking extemporaneously, this is your moment. For full details, check out the post on the DeFlock Elk Grove website.

Flyer asking people to show up at the city council meeting in Elk Grove on September 9 to speak out against Flock and ALPRs — Join us on September 9th at the city council meeting

Books and Other Words

The Nameless Land by Kate Elliott is the follow-up to The Witch Roads, which I talked about in my last post. The magical entity that possessed the obnoxious prince in the first book returns in this book (obviously), but in a more consensual way (love that for him) and manifests through another character, which means the reader gets to know the obnoxious prince and how having someone else’s perspective forced upon him has made him into a little less of a prat. It also means that protagonist Elen gets to spend half of the book crushing on the magical entity in a sapphic way (love that for her). I will refrain from trying to explain this story any more than that, but I did really like this book and found the ending satisfying.

Book cover for Radiant Star on Kobo ereader — Radiant Star

Radiant Star is the latest in Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch series, which began with Ancillary Justice in 2013 (and which I wrote a review about when this blog was new and I thought it was going to be a book review blog! How far we have come). Although it wasn’t my most favorite of the series, it was still very good, as all Leckie’s books are, and gave me plenty to metaphorically gnaw on. I like that now, having established the terms of the Radchaai empire, Leckie is taking us outside of the empire to see how other groups view these so-called “civilized” people. She is talented at fleshing out all these little nooks in her universe and I, personally, will read every book she publishes without hesitation.

Media

I fancy myself as the kind of person who will listen to any music and I am endlessly delighted by memes on instagram to the tune of “playing my Walmart dubstep mix for the friend who ‘listens to anything.'” I know I won’t really listen to anything because I am no great fan of country or death metal or emo music, but I am finding increasingly off-the-wall things to listen to that I want to share. Two YouTube music channels I have been appreciating lately are L’atelier de Musique, which as far as I can tell is broadcasting from an alternate universe where the USSR is still going strong, and The Lounge Club, which is gathering music from many alternate universes. I listened to a set on L’atelier recently that was done on grammaphones of all things. It was great and I would like to see more of this because it’s ridiculous but also just fucking good. I also really enjoyed The Lounge Club’s cosmic grooves of the space balkans mix. So, like, Balkan music, but from the future where they’ve gone to space. Obviously. I am not sure how this DJ’s mind is working but I am enjoying the results and I invite you to join me.

Spanish

Book cover for Los comatientes on kobo ereader — Los combatientes

My quest for giving myself a masters’ degree in Spanish is well and truly begun now that I have read my first selection from my very long reading list: Los Combatientes, a novela by Cristina Morales. The story focuses on the University of Granada theater troupe and their particular brand of theater of the absurd (Waiting for Godot being referenced told me all I needed to know). Seething through the novel is a commentary on the shit that Spanish youth are going through, i.e., a massive lack of economic opportunities. The story is narrated through the troupe’s performance, which is absurd, includes a lot of sex, and involves singing songs by Franz Ferdinand and Plastic Bertrand. You know, basic theater kid stuff. If you find theater antics charming, you will probably enjoy this book. However, theater antics are insufferable to many. Potential readers, you have been forewarned. One of the lines I highlighted that exemplifies the author’s ethos (and my own) was, “De verdad que es injusto el mundo, caballero, pero tenemos la posibilidad y la obligación de cambiarlo.” (The truth is that the world is unjust, sir, but we have the possibility of and the obligation to change it.)

Corporeal Form

I had to get a new CPAP and it was a trial. I really resent that the health care system kind of just treats everyone like a criminal. Sorry, I am trying to get a machine that helps me breathe while I sleep so I don’t inadvertently stop breathing and die. I am aware this is very inconvenient for everyone involved. The latch on the humidifier of my old CPAP wore out to the point that it was popping open under the pressure (you know because CPAP is continuous positive airway pressure) and I was holding it closed at night with duct tape. I do not recommend this. My original plan was to simply get a new humidifier (since that model of CPAP has the humidifier as a separate attachment), but I learned that, for some reason, it’s no longer available in the U.S. It took me multiple phone calls to get approved for a new CPAP. Despite sending me CPAP equipment regularly, the medical equipment company claimed they did not have a prescription on file and my doctor would have to supply a new one. When I emailed my doctor, she very helpfully said “Call the sleep clinic” and nothing else. I also had to take half a day off work to schlep to the medical equipment office to get the new CPAP. An ordeal! It took a couple of nights to get dialed in with all the settings, but I am sleeping well again now, thankfully. I hope I don’t have to do this again any time soon.

Tip: if you are American, try to avoid disabilities at any cost.

Moving It

The last two weeks were rough because we did not have water aerobics and many things were happening, but this week went better. I am starting to see some more definition in my arms after prioritizing my upper body and that’s pretty cool. Here are my stickers including two weeks of a shameful single sticker each (the stickers themselves aren’t shameful of course. They rule).

a very sparkly unicorn sticker in my planner — Sticker for week of August 17

a pink and orange stegosaurus sticker in my planner — Sticker for week of August 17

Kitchen Witchery

I made a few good meals recently. We had some kung pao tofu (from Bean by Bean) and the sauce came out with a satisfyingly glossy finish. On Friday, I made tri tip along with mashed potatoes, green beans, and cornbread. Finally, because I realized I’d gone nearly the whole summer with nary a rice krispie treat, I made a batch of those, which we have been enjoying.

a bowl of tofu and green beans in a glossy sauce on top of rice — kung pao tofu

a plate of tri tip, green beans, mashed potatoes, and cornbread — kung pao tofu

Cat Therapy

Fritz has been on a crime spree of escalating severity. He simply won’t stop peeing on the floor. Yes, he has a vet appointment this week. No, he is not marking. This has been going on for a while but over the last month he’s really ramped up and, I gotta tell you, we’re fucking losing it over here. We have tried many things. Fritz will often go pee in the box if I go with him to the bathroom, but just as often he will purposely wait until he is not being observed then race off to pee on the floor. We are willing to try any potential solution. Kirk just bought some cat litter made out of tofu (please do not ask me for information because I have none) and I bought a fake grass pad that people use for potty training dogs. We also tried just leaving an empty litter box out in case he is having sensory issues with cat litter on the whole (my autistic son) and he has peed in there but is still using the floor as an all-purpose toilet. Everyone needs to send cosmic emanations of support because we cannot continue like this.

Finally, here are some photos of a cat that is getting on my nerves (alas I still love him unconditionally).

Fritz the cat seen from above. He is lying very flat and long on the bed — long boi

Fritz the cat in a window, the photo is taken behind a curtain so we can see him. He is giving an intense look towards the camera — long boi

weekly update

Three Weeks in the Life: August 23, 2026

Posted on August 23, 2026 by Lindsey Halsell

Hello, friends and enemies. I told myself I was going to write a post last week even though my sister was here for the weekend, but that clearly didn’t work out! So enjoy this rare “three weeks in the life” post instead. My sister Mia is currently waiting to start a new job so I suggested she come see me for a little bit. We spent last weekend chilling and it was nice! She wanted to pet Fritz a lot and he kept letting her come in for some pets and then, halfway through, would realize she is not me and panic, which was amusing.

I almost forgot to take a photo of us together. We only got this one right before I took her back to the airport. Photographic evidence: check.

My sister and I smiling at the camera — Mia and I

Current Events

I have been very busy this month on the DeFlock beat! I’ve been doing a lot of work with my local group, DeFlock Elk Grove, since April when I went to tell the city council not to expand its Flock contract (they did not listen to me). In case anyone is new here: Flock is a company that provides automated license plate readers (ALPRs) and an AI-powered service that law enforcement agencies can use to track people (there are other companies that do this, but Flock is the most prominent right now). It’s all very ugly. This week, Wired published an article about the code Flock uses and the kind of things users can ask it to do, including things like counting “how often other plates appear at the same cameras within a two-minute window of the target by default.” Police use this system without levying charges at anyone or getting a warrant.

me, smiling at the camera. I am wearing makeup, which I rarely do — glammed up for the news

Using data from a public records request, we released a community audit that showed what kind of searches Elk Grove’s data were appearing in. My job this month has been to communicate with the press and I have been extremely surprised at the response! I emailed our press release to a bunch of local media contacts and basically thought, we’ll that’s the end of that. Incorrect! Our local paper, Elk Grove News covered our audit in detail, then I did an interview with the Sacramento Bee about the audit, which was cool. Next, I did an on-camera news interview, which I think is even cooler! Here’s the video and here’s an accompanying article.

From there, I guess word got out to local reporters that I am willing to chat with them. I’m also connected to some of the other regional DeFlock groups and sometimes they ask if anyone is available to talk to a reporter. I always say yes because I want to make sure someone is out there saying “this sucks and we hate it” on the record. To that end, I commented on a local story from Galt in which the cops seemed to be posting sponsored content for Flock about how they used the system to catch a suspect quickly. I talked to ABC about Flock’s new “safeguards,” but barely got any airtime. (By the way, these safeguards are trash and perhaps fake given that a Flock spokesperson this week let slip that the company retains data indefinitely). I also provided a basic comment for a recent Sacramento News & Review article. This last week, I’ve been talking to reporters a lot for pieces about vandalism of Flock cameras (which, by the way, are not full of copper, gold, or other valuable metals. If you cut one down, it’s gotta be for the love of the game [I am not publicly endorsing said game!]). I did two Zoom interviews, but for one I didn’t make the cut (my views are too nuanced!) and for the other, the reporter said he had to move to a different story for that day but he was hoping to use my comments later. Just yesterday I talked to the Sacramento Bee about ALPR vandalism in Folsom, and those comments did make the edit.

crude line drawing of the panopticon with a stick figure wearing headphones and working a DJ setup in the center with the caption "DJ set at the panopticon would go crazy" — Unfortunately, I can’t stop thinking about this meme

I think the camera vandalism is particularly interesting. I thought having these cameras all over the place was supposed to “prevent crime” (lol). Of course, cameras don’t prevent crime, merely record what they see. It seems really easy for news agencies to latch on to these vandalism stories because it’s something tangible. Minor property damage! What a horror! Meanwhile, California law SB 34 stipulates that California agencies cannot share ALPR data with anyone outside of the state. Yet, based on the DeFlock Elk Grove audit, that seems to be what is happening here. I would argue that the whole Flock system is built to enable out-of-state sharing and anyone claiming otherwise is making shit up to close the deal. It’s the old the purpose of a system is what it does. If Flock isn’t supposed to violate our laws and our privacy rights, why is it constantly doing exactly that as if it were designed for this express purpose? It’s much harder for reporters to make that story legible to readers in 800 or fewer words because you can’t see the data moving from place to place. You have to think about spreadsheets and user interfaces and most people check out.

This stuff is so worrying and, as fired up as people are getting, I am not convinced it’s enough yet. 404 Media recently reported that the government is monitoring anti-Flock social media accounts. Are they using Flock to track the movements of people who oppose mass surveillance? When we’re already dealing with ICE detaining people (or just fucking executing them!) for nothing at all and an administration that sees no problem with punishing political opponents, the absolute worst thing to do is buy into the panopticon. I’m tired of people arguing that mass surveillance makes us “safer” when we have ample evidence that it’s making people less safe every day. Cops are using this to stalk women, and there are at least 50 cases of this that we know of. I simply cannot imagine how the alleged benefits of the system that watches everyone come and go, gathers identifying data about our cars, their drivers, and even the devices inside, and makes it trivially easy for men to stalk women is a net good on safety. Not in this benighted society.

If you’re local, please try to come out and comment at the city council meeting this Wednesday, August 26. We’re using the open comment period to let the city council know that this has to stop. Spread the word!

A flyer asking people to comment at the August 26 Elk Grove City Council meeting against Flock and ALPRs — Come speak out against ALPRs at the city council meeting this week!

Books and Other Words

book cover for The Witch Roads shown in greyscale on kobo ereader — The Witch Roads

We can always count on Kate Elliott to get us lusting after a man in some kind of weird-ass magical situation and The Witch Roads is no exception. Our protagonist, Deputy Courier Elen, gets caught up in some palace drama when one of the Tranquil Empire’s princes shows up in her backwater town and starts making demands. The prince ends up getting possessed by a magical entity that is supposed to stand guard against the rise of now-mythical sorcerer kings from another age. High jinks ensue? Elen leads the prince and his party through a not very well-known mountain pass and, in the process, gets pretty flirty with the magical entity who has taken over the prince’s corporeal form (however the entity is unwilling to kiss or more while wearing someone else’s body. We all have our limits). Why are we rooting for a guy who doesn’t even have a body? Kate Elliott, you madwoman. This is one of those very rich fantasy stories that’s impossible to describe in under three paragraphs, so you kind of just have to trust me here. I enjoyed this book very much and I’m currently halfway through this duology’s sequel The Nameless Land.

Meanwhile, on the internet:

Anthropic’s Text Watermarking Proves AI Companies Do Not Care at All About Writing via 404 Media. Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI, has made it their official position that words don’t matter. As someone whose whole job can basically be summed up by the idea “words have specific meanings,” I do take offense. As a form of “watermarking” a text, their system will select replace certain words with similar words to indicate that the text came from their LLM. As the article notes, this “shows how little they actually care about writing.” Yep.
College Men’s Propensity for Sexual Aggression and Perceived Justifications for Sexual Aggression Toward a Heterosexual or Bisexual College Woman via the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. So, past research has shown that bisexual women are more likely to report sexual assault than heterosexual women and this new study is looking into one reason why that could be. They found that men seem to be more hostile towards women who they perceive as being more “sexually available” (aka bisexuals). “These findings suggest that particular traits associated with sexual aggression may predispose men to misperceive cues of bisexual women’s sexual disinterest and judge bisexual women as more sexually available relative to heterosexual women.” Gross.
Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting to Look the Same via Lauren’s data Substack. In short: everyone is using algorithms to determine the most likely thing that people will spend money on. Of course, driving everything to “most likely” means we’re living in a world of whimsy-less mediocrity. From the article:

Once prediction shapes the choices in front of us, we lose the ability to tell the difference between what people wanted and what the system made easy to want. If an algorithm feeds me Scandinavian crime dramas for ten years because I once watched two, my viewing history becomes airtight evidence that I love Scandinavian crime dramas. Admittedly, I have watched two Scandinavian crime dramas in my life. Netflix has since decided this is my entire personality. We risk mistaking a world shaped by prediction for a world shaped by preference, and the more these systems decide what survives, the more power moves from the people choosing among options to the systems deciding which options get a chance to be chosen.

Languages

For my fake masters degree in Spanish, this week I started reading Los Combatientes by Cristina Morales. I was working on some Sor Juana, but decided I might be better off starting with some more recent literature and working backwards. To go with the current reading, I translated the author’s Wikipedia page into English. This woman in particular sounds really fucking cool and I wish we could hang out, but I’ll have to settle for reading her work and tending her Wikipedia page. I also translated the page for her best-known work Lectura fácil, which I am now really looking forward to reading because it sounds very interesting too! This book isn’t on any of the reading lists I compiled from various masters in Spanish programs, but the good thing is I am not bound to a university and I can do whatever I want. The whole point of my fake masters degree was to get me inspired and working towards something with the language again, so it seems to be working perfectly.

Moving It

I think I’m missing one of these since this is a “three weeks” post, but it’s too late now! I’ve been doing my best while being busy, getting in my pool time and another workout. This last week, my water aerobics classes were unexpectedly canceled, and there’s no class next week, so hopefully I will find the motivation to do some exercise at home (and it won’t be too hot!)

stickers in my planner featuring a flower on roller skates, an ice cream sandwich, and a unicorn with an ice cream cone — Stickers week of July 26

my planner with stickers of a dolphin, a grumpy cartoon cat with flowers, and a pudding of some sort — Stickers week of July 26

Kitchen Witchery

I guess the recent dinner theme has been “beans and stuff with cheese on top.” There are worse ways to live! We had cheesy gnocchi with corn and pesto. I made this a month or two ago, but this time I added chickpeas and that turned it into a good meal. Kirk said I should make it again, which is one of his high compliments. I did a similar recipe with black beans, corn, and linguica. This is based on something from The Bean Book, but I added the sausage and skipped baking eggs into it, as the recipe suggests, because I am an egg-hater. Finally, I realized I had puff pastry in the freezer and free will, so I rolled up a sheet with a bunch of cheese and baked that in the oven. It was a very nice snack.

a skillet of beans, corn, and sausage baked with a bunch of cheese on top — bean and corn skillet

a bowl of corn, gnocchi, and chickpeas with pesto, topped with melty cheese — bean and corn skillet

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.

Fritz the cat inside a blanket, he is peeking out suspiciously — blanket cave enthusiast

Fritz the cat, eyes very alert, with his side molded into a pile of freshly laundered bedsheets — blanket cave enthusiast

weekly update

Two Weeks in the Life: August 2, 2026

Posted on August 2, 2026 by Lindsey Halsell

Hello, friends and enemies. I hope everyone is surviving the heat. Saturday reached an ungodly temperature like 105 Fahrenheit and unfortunately it’s probably going to be the same thing today. I am staying inside, reading my books, so I can come back next time and tell you about the books I read.

Books and Other Words

cover for Red Smoking Mirror shown on kobo ereader — Red Smoking Mirror

Red Smoking Mirror by Nick Hunt is an alternate history in which representatives of the Caliphate of Córdoba reached North America instead of the Spaniards and Christopher Columbus (indeed, in this version of reality, the Caliphate lasted long enough to send an expedition in the 15th century and didn’t get absorbed into Spain). It’s a fascinating premise and I especially liked it because Andalusian Spain is one of my favorite historical periods. The story focuses on Eli Ben Abram, a Jewish man who is living in Tenochtitlan some 25 or 30 years after leading the expedition to the New Maghrib (that is, the new west). He has married Malinala, who is more commonly known to in our timeline La Malinche, the wife of Hernán Cortés. The story moves slowly, focusing on the atmosphere and painting the picture of these Moors mixing with the various indigenous Mexican peoples. Hunt doesn’t take the position that the Muslims making contact with the West first would result in less bloodshed. In fact, as the novel progresses, we see the scourge of smallpox making itself known. The plot ultimately centers around incursions by another group from Al-Andalus that is less interested in trade than conquest. One aspect of this book I really liked was Hunt’s choices with the language. Instead of using typical English spellings for places and things, he filters concepts through Arabic or keeps indigenous terms. For example, the Yucatan is “Yuqqatan,” and Cuba is “Quba,” while chocolate is the Nahuatl(ish) “xocholotl.” Anyway, this is a book perfectly catered to things I find interesting! Thank you, Nick Hunt.

More Dungeon Crawler Carl

hardcover book: The Gate of the Feral Gods. Cover features Carl and Princess Donut leaping away from an exploding plane — The Gate of the Feral Gods

The Gate of the Feral Gods is the fourth book in Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I listened to the first three books with Kirk in May when we drove to Seattle (see this post), but now I am reading words on the page as I normally do, although I am glad I listened to the first few books because the audiobook narrator imbued everyone with so much personality that I have brought it with me to my own reading. What I enjoyed about the other books I enjoyed about this one: Carl remains committed to getting himself and as many people out of this spectacle of carnage as possible. He also continues building increasingly wild contraptions, although this certainly seems to be encouraged by the game/the game’s AI because Carl keeps receiving objects that can be made into contraptions. I guess we love to watch an engineer work! Something else I’m enjoying about this story is that Carl has access to a secret item called The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, which contains notes from dungeon crawlers from previous seasons. This places him in a lineage of rebels who raged against the machine, and Carl is able to surreptitiously incorporate their observations into his activities as he tries to survive. One thing I am curious about for the next four books in the series (so far) is how Dinniman plans to raise the stakes—they’re already very high. In this episode (spoilers), Carl ends up summoning a god. Like, what more crazy shit can they even get into (I’m sure I’ll be schooled soon).

book: The Butcher's Masquerade. Cover features the cat Princess Donut wearing a tiara, sunglasses, and a wireless mic — The Butcher’s Masquerade

Indeed, I was soon schooled because I continued with the next book in the series, The Butcher’s Masquerade. In this floor of the dungeon, the crawlers are joined by normal people who can pay to enter the dungeon and play the game themselves, so Carl et al. are fighting on multiple fronts. Dinniman maintained his commitment to tomfoolery while continuing to raise the stakes and rail against the the rich people profiting from human misery. Yes, it is bad that they’re fighting for their lives, but it’s also funny that they have to get an allosaurus named Big Tina to do a dance recital. My favorite silly thing was Princess Donut’s crush, a cat she calls Ferdinand (government name: Gravy Boat) being the pet of an elf queen. Everyone was making fun of his hat, but Ferdinand told them it was his “royal hat” and it made him the most handsome boy in the castle. This is probably how Fritz would sound if granted the ability to speak. I’ve got the next two Carl books on hold from the library, but I’m betting it will be another month before I get them in my hands.

Family Abolition

Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care by M. E. O’Brien gave me a lot to think about. You might see that title and be wondering why anyone would want to abolish a family (and to any suspicious parents reading this, it doesn’t mean never talk to your immediate family again). Here’s O’Brien’s definition of the concept:

Family abolition is a commitment to making the care necessary for human flourishing freely available throughout society. Rather than relying on one’s immediate personal relationships, access to care should be built into the social fabric of our collective lives.

Essentially, the concept of the nuclear family, around which Western cultures have organized, limit people’s access to care and puts a ceiling on our ability to organize a classless society. O’Brien starts by discussing some critical issues with family, like the fact that “children are more likely to be traumatically harmed, raped, or killed by a family member in their household than anyone else” and “…55 percent of women murdered in the United States were killed by current or former partners.” Children in particular have highly limited options. If you get born into or marry into a shitty family—however you want to define that—there’s not a lot you can do about it.

Despite their flaws, O’Brien notes that “for most people the family is the closest thing we ever come to experiencing unconditional love and support.” There is no other widespread mechanism in our society for making sure people get love and care. However, family abolition would ensure that “the care we all need abundantly available beyond the family.” This would apply to all stages of life, not just childhood, and would help relieve the burden on romantic partners or children when it comes to, for example, elder care. O’Brien also refutes the queer concept of “chosen family” as a replacement for the nuclear family. Although the chosen family is getting a lot of us through this life, it does require that someone chooses you, which makes survival “bound up with the status and the opinions of others”—exactly the thing family abolition is trying to avoid.

Ultimately, O’Brien concludes that part of abolishing the family would be “overcoming class society.” However, we have no idea what that would look like and this is not something that can be accomplished without totally rebuilding how our society is structured. Still, family abolition is a framework we can use when organizing and agitating for the future we want, providing “a commitment to care for all, an answer to the plea for love.”

Meanwhile, on the internet:

AI Companies Are Buying Antique Books, Ingesting Their Contents to Train Models, and Then Destroying Them at Incredible Scale via Futurism. Call me a degenerate socialist if you must, but I think humanity’s literary output should belong to humanity and not a few random “AI” companies that are stealing all our work and selling it back to us. They couldn’t even be bothered to find a way to do this without destroying the books or at least preserving the text for people to enjoy. Fuck off.
Influencers Are Being Paid to Spread the Mormon Church’s Gospel via Bloomberg. Nothing about this surprises me because I grew up being told that we were all ambassadors for the church and any relationship was a missionary opportunity (gross). Of course they’re using social media influencers to push Mormonism. The whole conceit of social media is you can show yourself in your best light (if you so choose) and Mormons thrive on that shit. While we’re here, did you know they are letting the Mormon girls wear tank tops now? Even at BYU? I didn’t even get to the magic underwear stage of the religion but I was told in no uncertain terms that I couldn’t let my shoulders show because it would lead the boys to sin (no comment on whether I’m causing the girls to “stumble,” but I have my suspicions). I got told I couldn’t eat in the cafeteria at BYU because my shorts were too short and now they just … wear tank tops?
The Gen Alpha Melody via Carl E. Martin. I was fascinated by this video about the “Gen Alpha” melody, a sequence that’s been appearing in a large number of new songs. I am not sure if I’m just getting old and not paying attention to pop music, but I feel like a lot of it sounds the same and this video made me feel validated. It also made me think of the Four Chord Song, which the author also cites as a sort of millenial version of this phenomenon, even though it’s not quite the same concept.

Media

Real Infowars is making me feel sane. No, not that Infowars. The Onion bought Alex Jone’s Infowars in a court-mandated auction to pay damages to “the more than $1 billion in damages he owes the families” of the Sandy Hook massacre. The new Infowars (going by “Real Infowars”) so hilarious and deeply cathartic to watch. These people have clearly studied the right-wing media ecosystem and have figured out a way to satirize it that is actually funny. The weekly broadcast includes an opening song, the “Jim Haggerty Show”, the Alex Jones parody program “Emergency”, and the most unhinged fake advertisements to ever grace the internet. I think it’s been really hard to find a way to communally acknowledge how insane everything is now. I mean, we all feel insane but seeing someone lampooning it so brilliantly feels really good. Tim Heidecker, the mastermind behind Real Infowars, did an interview with Wired where he said that “just acknowledging the insanity is enough to make people feel like there’s a community of sanity … out there.” And YEAH, that’s exactly it. This is why we need art and it’s why we need comedy. So I hope you’ll all start watching with me. How else will you find out about the amazing medical benefits of FISH MILK?

Icelandic

I am proud to announce my latest Wikipedia efforts: articles on próventa in English and Icelandic. I came across this term a few times while translating some articles from Icelandic and the dictionary was not very helpful. Icelandic Wikipedia had a two-sentence article and I said, that sucks, I could do it better. So I did. I read some Icelandic sources on the subject, wrote an article in English, then translated it. I reviewed the translation with my teacher then went back and made sure I had my facts straight in English. And there you have it!

Moving It

The struggle to workout beyond going to water aerobics continues. Two weeks ago I threw up so hard that my diaphragm was sore for several days and that really put a damper on wanting to exercise. Now it’s hot again. I anxiously await the end of summer.

stickers in my planner featuring a bird riding a turtle, pistols, and a fat raccoon — Stickers week of July 13

my planner with stickers of a fat bird, a magical bowl of soup, and a prickly red cat — Stickers week of July 13

Kitchen Witchery

I have not been cooking much that is interesting to share here, but I did revisit the “almost alfredo” broccoli and chickpea recipe. I chose to strip out as much effort as possible to make it for lunch this week; no chopping, just tossing in a bag of frozen broccoli and using powdered garlic and onion instead of their fresh counterparts. I also added a bag of tortellini. Recommended! I checked out Salty Cheesy Herby Crispy Snackable Bakes (what a long-ass title) from the library and tried the salt-and-pepper biscuit recipe to go with some leftover soup. I liked this recipe because it’s a cream biscuit so I didn’t have to deal with working in the butter, which made my life easier. The flavor was good too. Lastly, I present a truly perfect chicken quesadilla. It deserves to be admired.

a bowl of chickpeas, tortellini, and broccoli in creamy sauce — chickpeas, tortellini, and broccoli

a pan of salt and pepper biscuits — chickpeas, tortellini, and broccoli

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.

Fritz the cat on Kirk's desk, shoving his paw down the hole for threading your cables through — Chief Inspector Fritz

Fritz the cat lounging on the dinning table on on his side, catching the bright afternoon sun — Chief Inspector Fritz

weekly update

Two Weeks in the Life: July 19, 2026

Posted on July 19, 2026 by Lindsey Halsell

Hello, friends and enemies. Sometimes I sit down to write my blog and I find myself wondering if I did anything at all in the last 14 days. Clearly I have; the business of being alive alone takes up a lot of my time, but I think the hot weather has had me just lounging around for the most part. I’m have been reading, studying my languages, and things of that nature, but some weeks, there’s just not a lot to say about it all! That said, please enjoy this short post.

Books and Other Words

book cover for They Feywild Job — The Feywild Job

The Feywild Job is ostensibly a Dungeons and Dragons novel, and I don’t totally know what that means except it seemed to have some bearing on the setting and the characters have fanciful last names related to their abilities like “Charmhand” or “Redsong.” That said, I have loved everything I’ve read from C.L. Polk (see Witchmark and The Midnight Bargain) and I do love books about magical gay people, so I figured this would probably worth reading even without having much interest in D&D. In this story, the protagonist Saeldian Charmhand is a con artist who gets drawn into a heist job with the ex-boyfriend they haven’t spoken to in a decade, Kell Redsong. Saelidan has spent years perfecting their illusion magic, granted to them by a fairy patron, who they encounter in the second part of the heist when they have to go into the fairylands. I am not going to try to describe this book because every word I put down sounds wackier than the last but I did love it and it was very sweet and fun to read. I recommend it!

Meanwhile, on the internet:

The end of the working writer via Is It Supposed to Look Like That? This article gut punched me with this observation: “Sometimes, I think we as writers overestimate how much people care about the quality of writing outside of specific venues like fiction, criticism, and narrative journalism. But the balance of written words produced in the world are not valued for their quality, but rather for their existence.” My job is to care about words and my hobbies also involve caring about words, but unfortunately, many people don’t care very much and just having some text, even if it is, to my eyes, bad, is fine. That’s a part of why LLMs are getting so much traction.
Air Force Engineer Accused of Cutting Down 13 Police Cameras Says They’re Unconstitutional via Military.com. Good for him.
I can’t imagine this being exciting news for any of my readers, but I was very excited about this. My Icelandic teacher Robert showed me Morgunstund.net, which has an Icelandic copycat of NYT’s Connections game (here: Tengingar) and another word-based guessing game. I love a word game so this is going to be fun and educational for me.

Moving It

I am very proud to report that my bar hang is improving. I held on for about five to ten seconds on a lighter band. I’ve been doing one hang on the medium band and then one on the light band for the last week or so. Being able to hang independently from the bar is finally starting to feel possible instead of just something I’m going to be working on forever.

Me hanging from the bar, my back to the camera. I am partially supported by a relatively thin resistance band — light support for the bar hang!

Here are the recent stickers. Four workouts in a week is seeming like the limit, but I am trying to convince myself to at least do a little stationary bike time on a fifth day. However, this may not be possible for me until the summer is over.

Stickers in my planner featuring an angry cartoon cat, a seal reading a book, a gameboy stylized with bunny ears, and a cat holding a book — Stickers week of June 29

stickers in my planner featuring an ice cream sundae, a magical book pile, sparkly moons, and a glittery little bird — Stickers week of June 29

Kitchen Witchery

At my last trip to the farmers market, I bought a bunch of corn, green beans, and a merely reasonable (instead of excessive) quantity amount of squash. I had some potatoes to use too so I made a shepherd’s pie but with beans, since I had some in the freezer. I mixed the beans with some frozen corn, peas, and carrots, and a bit of green beans, then mixed that with seasonings and a packet of brown gravy. Et voila. We had corn and asparagus pasta with ricotta, which is a summer favorite, along with some chicken for which I used the marinade from this kebab recipe (but obviously did not make kebabs) and it was quite good. I made everyone’s favorite corn soup from Decolonize Your Diet. The only change I make to this recipe is to blend the whole thing because I have learned that I do not enjoy chunks of a lot of types of vegetables.

As far as treats are concerned, I made the carrot cake muffin from 100 Morning Treats, but I have never met a muffin recipe that I didn’t want to tamper with so I added cinnamon bits. I skipped the frosting the recipe calls for (I love frosting but I didn’t want frosted muffins aka … cake?) and added a little streusel instead. I also made this zucchini cake which was very easy and successful. Cake is such a great way to eat more vegetables.

a bowl of beans and vegetables in brown gravy, topped with mashed potatoes and cheese — shepherd’s pie but beans

a plate of datilini pasta mixed with corn and asparagus and topped with a big dollop of ricotta. There's some chicken on the side — shepherd’s pie but beans

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.

Fritz the cat in the windowsill. It is mostly dark and the camera has imbued him with glowing demonic eyes — demon mode

Fritz the cat turned away from the camera. He is inside his carrier, which is under an end table. The table is in a corner and blankets cover one side — demon mode

weekly update

Two Weeks in the Life: July 5, 2026

Posted on July 5, 2026 by Lindsey Halsell

Hello, friends and enemies. I’ve been continuing my experiment of blocking (almost) every account that advertises to me on instagram. I was truly unprepared for how quickly the ads would get completely insane.

a collage of bonkers instagram ads I've gotten recently, including multiple bible apps, a dashcam company, a porch goose, tallow, sugar, GLP-1 medication, and a porch goose — What is happening

I can’t emphasize enough how much I hate advertisements. I am trying to live but I am constantly subject to the cacophony of ads and it takes up my limited mental and sensory energy. We are all being psychically assaulted. This little experiment has really made me think about how much of a waste social media can be. These ads are so jarring that it’s now uncomfortable to browse my feed.

After I got through all the influencer ladies selling me clothes from Walmart (actually some of those are still popping up. They are legion), instagram I guess assumed I should get ads they normally send to straight men about sports betting and dash cams. Once I dispatched those, the Christianity began. I’ve gotten a ton of ads for Christian products, Bible apps, and simply Israel (a primarily Jewish nation but, of course, the site of a lot of Christian belief). I was particularly puzzled by an ad for an app that says “You have 47 Bible apps on your phone. They don’t have one verse in their language.” The “them” is two African men in some form of traditional dress. Is that a problem that keeps coming up? That you might meet someone and not have the Bible ready in their language? Do you think what these guys really need is The Bible? Then started receiving a lot of ads for semaglutide medication (like Ozempic), which pisses me off in particular because I know that, at least at one point, Instagram had a setting to disable any ads related to weight loss and I did have that turned on. I’m not sure if they retired the setting or I broke it. Finally, I’ve landed in some weird conservative “wellness” space. It’s showing me ads for tallow-based beauty products and—bizarre by even these standards—some ad asking “what would happen if you put castor oil in your belly button for 30 nights?” I don’t know, girl, I would probably feel greasy?? Another ad that made me be like “I just have to log off” is one that reads “I don’t have all the answers. But I think more boys raised shirtless outdoors with guns would help.” Help WHAT exactly???

I’m not going to complain about my personal instagram ad apocalypse again (probably), but I do think it’s worth considering how much stuff we don’t even want to see that we’re beaming into our brains. Not even just stuff we disagree with or from other perspectives but true fucking garbage. There’s no way the lady asking what might happen if we apply castor oil to our navels has anything worthwhile to offer us. It’s a garbage heap, but we all go hang out at the dump every day because it’s somehow the best place to find fun and interesting things to share with our friends and we can always find a spot to hang up our best photos amid the detritus of human civilization. It’s a drag that the internet has so many cool things and has such potential to connect us, but we’re drowning in the stupidest advertisements that humanity can conceive of just because a few people decided that the internet’s whole scaffolding would be made of ad money and propelled by whatever can grab a viewer’s attention, worthwhile or not. The twenty-first century sucks so far.

Books and Other Words

ebook cover of The Telling — The Telling

I wrapped up Le Guin-fest 2026 (for now?) with the last book in the Hainish Cycle, The Telling. This story focuses on Sutty, a woman from Earth who has traveled to another planet, Aka, to be an “observer,” a person who gets to know the local culture and report back to the Eukmen (a loose confederation of planets). Sutty’s Earth is under the thumb of a totalitarian, patriarchal regime, so she joins the diplomatic corps as a means of escape. Unfortunately, by the time she arrives on Aka (decades later thanks to the time it takes to travel through space), they too have suffered a takeover but in the form of an obsessively corporatized society in which nothing works right and all of the old ways have been banned. For the first part of the story, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to read about a woman dealing with living in an authoritarian, capitalist system (haven’t we seen enough?), but as the story progresses, Sutty gets an opportunity to go to the countryside and observe people who covertly maintain their old ways, a system of being called The Telling. This story doesn’t culminate in a big moment of standing up to the oppressor; it’s a much quieter story. The book itself even tangentially mentions that one might expect something grander. Later in the story, when Sutty is traveling to a giant, hidden library in mountains not unlike our Himalayas, she expects to find some kind of temple adorned with colorful flags, but instead finds a cave system where visitors pitch their tents and read as much of the literature of The Telling as they can before the season changes and they have to make their way back down the mountains. It is, as I’m realizing Le Guin’s work is in general, a tale to get us reflecting on our relationship to truth and how we form and perpetuate the stories about who we are.

book: The Elusive Body — The Elusive Body

The Elusive Body: Patients, Doctors, and the Diagnosis Crisis by Alexandra Sifferlin was genuinely irritating me by the end. The book’s premise is an interesting one: why can’t doctors diagnosis people more accurately? It’s a question that’s certainly on my mind. The book opens with an unusual medical case and talks about the NIH’s Undiagnosed Disease Program, which is genuinely cool. Unfortunately, the book never really settles on a coherent narrative. Sifferlin is a reporter for The New York Times and her newspaper experience is evident in the way she writes. Most of the book seems like it comes in article-length chunks that don’t always connect. Sifferlin repeatedly writes compelling hooks, introduces new characters, then kinda forgets about them when she finishes making the point, in contrast to what we might expect from narrative non-fiction, in which the author uses one or several real-life cases to help the reader relate to the information as we move through the work.

I didn’t really notice things going off the rails until the chapter on overdiagnosis. My hackles were up as soon as Sifferlin brought up autism because why only bring it up during a chapter on people (allegedly) getting diagnosed too much? She references a 2011 study from South Korea in which “researchers found that 2.6 percent of the population met the criteria for a diagnosis despite not having one,” noting that this “suggests that many people in other populations, though undiagnosed, would still meet the American criteria for an autism diagnosis.” Now, I’m not a doctor, but I think if people are meeting the diagnostic criteria for something and are not diagnosed, that actually means we are underdiagnosing something, not overdiagnosing. But what do I know. The next chapter was almost exclusively about AI and, had I not been so near the end of the book, I would have stopped right then and there. I know I have a (deserved) reputation as an AI hater, but I can admit there are legitimate uses for specific AI in medicine. However, Sifferlin spent the whole chapter focused on only Chat-GPT, a large language model that puts words together by predicting their most likely sequence. It has no relationship to actual sources or information, so telling us that this might “one day” be the future of diagnosis neither comforts nor cheers me. The chapter uses a lot of conditional language, talking about what “could” or “might” happen, which means Sifferlin has spent over ten percent of this book (and this is the book’s longest chapter!) on technology that is not yet delivering on its promises. After spending the rest of the book talking about factors that make accurate diagnosis difficult—doctors’ communication skills and biases, training and testing, the pressures of the insurance system—it seems like a waste to end with what appears to be an infomercial for a technology that is going to do a worse job than doctors, despite their flaws.

ebook cover for Platform Decay — Platform Decay

Martha Wells’ Platform Decay is the eighth installment in the Murderbot series, which follows a sec unit (a human/robot hybrid that a company owns and leases to protect human clients) who managed to hack its programming and liberate itself. Though Sec Unit (as most people call it; “Murderbot,” as it calls itself) didn’t really do anything with its freedom for years except privately watch TV and keep doing its job, until it met its current group of humans, of whom it is fiercely protective. In Platform Decay, Murderbot and fellow liberated bot, Three, go to a huge space station to rescue their favorite human’s family members. Chaos ensues. One of the funniest details of this book is that Three is off-screen passing the code for bot liberation to everyone it meets, which we know because one of these liberated bots then runs into Murderbot and tries to share the code, but Murderbot tells it to fuck off and make better fashion decisions. I wish we had a story from Three’s perspective too because the memes people have been making about Three’s possible adventures are very funny.

ebook cover for El vampiro de la colonia Roma — El vampiro de la colonia Roma

Finally, I finished a book in Spanish that I’ve been reading on and off for a while: El vampiro de la colonia Roma by Luis Zapata. This book was originally published in 1979 and I added it to my list after I learned of it when translating the Wikipedia article about LGBTQ literature in Mexico. Vampiro was one of the first Mexican books to openly discuss homosexuality. Although “vampire” is in the title (English: The Vampire of colonia Roma [colonia Roma is an area of Mexico City]), it’s not a book about the supernatural. The story follows a young male prostitute, nicknamed Adonis, going about his misadventures and trying to make a living. Please do not ask me for details because it’s kind of a blur. The story is written as if it’s transcribed from Adonis making a tape recording, telling the story of his life. There is literally zero punctuation in this thing and there’s a lot of slang or shortened words to represent the way someone actually talks. Once I got used to it, it wasn’t so bad but there was a steep learning curve. Something that made me laugh from this book was a scene where the protagonist was in a bathroom making little holes (literally. The Spanish is “agujeritos”) in bathroom walls and I said, hey, wait a minute … did I just learn the word for “glory hole” on context alone? When I started learning Spanish in high school, I never imagined this is where I would end up. Being alive is really something.

Meanwhile, on the internet:

Left in the dungeon: Are rumors of a leftist LitRPG genre more than fantasy? via the Oakland Review of Books. I was gratified to see this review of the Dungeon Carl Crawler series draw the same conclusions that I have about the series: it’s charming because it’s rooted in a form of collective solidarity. I also appreciated the discussion about the history of the genre and how it’s normally very libertarian, so Carl is an interesting departure.
The Tokenpocalypse Is Here: Companies Are Scrambling To Stop Spending So Much on AI via 404 Media. Predictable but still hilarious to see it happen. From the article, “Consulting giant Accenture is trying to figure out how to stop non-technical workers from blowing through companies’ AI token budget on trivial tasks like converting PDFs to presentation slides, according to leaked audio obtained by 404 Media.” lol. lmao even.
Reasonable Concerns via The Present Age. Parker Molloy summarizes a decade of increasing conservatism on gender expression, culminating in this week’s Supreme Court ruling that “state can decide who gets to play on a girls’ team based on what [Kavanaugh] called ‘biological sex,'” as a road paved with “reasonable concerns.” She notes, plenty of people with these “reasonable” concerns about trans people “treated those concerns as a reason to stay quiet while the restrictions piled up, on the assumption that this would all stop somewhere sensible.” Well, it hasn’t stopped anywhere sensible and is probably going to keep getting worse. I have stupidly not been as outspoken in favor of trans rights as I ought to have been in the past, and did briefly get taken in by the “reasonable concern” crowd in the mid-2010s. I will be clear now: Trans people aren’t bothering anyone. They are just people trying to get through this stupid life like the rest of us. Our government’s treatment of trans people is terrible and embarrassing, and they are using trans people as a stepping stone for greater oppression of women, girls, and the broader queer population. This shit is trash. Everyone who cares about human rights needs to oppose this.

Rampant Consumerism

a glass jar of roasted edamame, honey roasted peanuts, cheese crackers, and spiced pecans — the “just give me something to eat now” snack mix

Sometime before my instagram ad apocalypse, I was getting a bunch of ads for nuts.com and their custom trail mix. I do love snacks and customizing things so, unfortunately, that did work on me after sufficient exposures. It turned out I didn’t like their custom trail mix options, but I bout some pre-made mixes and I was inspired to simply buy some stuff and make my own mix. My current snack mix is honey roasted peanuts, roasted edamame, Annie’s cheddar bunnies (those are from the grocery store; I bought a cheese cracker snack from nuts dot com but didn’t love it in my mix), and sweet/spicy pecans. Alas, the pecans are a little too spicy for me so I am going to do something else in the next batch. I was also inspired by an instagram video I recently saw that said something like “I’m ADHD and put all the snacks I like in one jar so when I don’t know what to eat, I eat that.” Honestly, she’s a genius for that. I have been leaving this snack jar on the counter in sight so when I’m like “hungry!!!!” I can just go “oh good, a snack” and it helps a lot. Highly recommend for all my neurodivergent homies.

Languages

I mentioned last time that I have been feeling uninspired about my Spanish studies and I was trying to figure out what to do next. I do yearn for grad school, but only in a theoretical sense. I realized that grad school is probably 80 percent reading (the remaining 20 percent is writing and crying) and reading is free. Why not do a solo run of a masters in Spanish? I found a bunch of reading lists for Spanish masters programs online and I’m in the process of combining them into one big list and noting which books are the most recommended. I think what I want to do is take it one author at a time, read up on them, get into their work, translate or update any relevant Wikipedia articles about them, and of course write my opinions or findings on the blog. I’m starting with Sor Juana Inés because that’s as good a place to start as any. I am accepting that this will be a slow process. When I got my masters in library and information science, I did that shit in under two years but of course now I have many things going on and I want to take time to really engage with this stuff and not just check off a list that I read the books. I will report back.

Corporeal Form

I feel so stupid just figuring this out but I recently realized that I am fully lactose intolerant (warning: incoming TMI). I haven’t been able to drink milk without getting sick for years so I guess I knew I had some issues, but I have been eating cheese and other things without much trouble (I thought!). After recently eating a fettuccine alfredo that really made my stomach hurt, I said to myself, am I lactose intolerant? I ran a few experiments and, yes I am. Although cheese and stuff isn’t making me immediately throw up like milk might, it is definitely contributing to me having to poop all the damn time (like, four or more times daily). I have started eating less dairy or taking lactaid pills when I do eat dairy and I have been pooping way less, like twice per day. This rules. The only bad thing is now I’m trying to figure out how to reconfigure my diet and it is annoying.

Moving It

I realized I had been making my workouts rather harder than necessary because I thought I should be doing my physical therapy exercises plus whatever other stuff. But no, PT is a whole workout, at least with the exercises I have now. So instead of trying to do everything all the time, I am trying to do PT plus a little extra upper body stuff since I’ve decided I’m committed to making my shoulders swole as hell. It’s very hard to find the balance of doing enough and not overdoing it, especially because I feel a lot of anxiety that my arthritis, especially, will get worse if I don’t work out. I’m hoping this recent realization will help a little.

Here are the stickers I rewarded myself with for working out over the last two weeks!

stickers in my planner featuring a goose sweeping, a loaf of bread, a flower on roller skates, and a bisexual dragon — stickers week of June 15

stickers in my planner featuring a piñata, cat with a flower, a unicorn mermaid, and a magic salt shaker — stickers week of June 15

Kitchen Witchery

I made household favorite matar paneer (peas and cheese) from Classic Indian Cooking and we had that with a simple bean curry, which everyone liked, to round out the meal. I’ve been trying to use the large amount of squash I bought at the farmers market last week, so I roasted a bunch of yellow squash then mixed that with chickpeas, noodles, and feta for lunch over the last week. I still have some extra noodles and squash. I think I might blend the squash with some ricotta to make a little sauce. That sounds like it could be good.

We had a bunch of leftover egg whites because Kirk made lemon bars (no pictures. This isn’t Kirk’s blog!). I didn’t want them to go to waste so I whipped up a batch of meringues. I combined the recipes for chunky hazelnut meringues (for the mix-ins) and Vermont maple meringues (for the method and quantity of egg whites), and that worked really well. They are good! I also made a cinnamon roll focaccia, which was a delight. I like that you get all the essence of a cinnamon roll without having to fuck around rolling out the dough. Kirk said he liked them better than regular cinnamon rolls, but he is only so-so on cinnamon rolls, so it’s not as big of a compliment as it sounds like. Still, it is very good and I will make it again.

unattractive photo of peas and cheese, rice, and bean curry arranged on a plate but kind of mixed up in bad lighting — unattractive photo of peas and cheese, rice, and bean curry

a bowl of roasted yellow squash, chickpeas, feta, and ditalini noodles — unattractive photo of peas and cheese, rice, and bean curry

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.

Fritz the cat cuddling against my shoulder and chest and looking over his shoulder towards the camera — morning hang

Fritz the cat on top of the headboard looking all long and ready to run for it — morning hang

weekly update

Two Weeks in the Life: June 21, 2026

Posted on June 21, 2026 by Lindsey Halsell

Hello, friends and enemies. I have, in a rather short period of time, absolutely destroyed my instagram algorithm. Although, I should specify, I’ve specifically destroyed whatever they’re using to decide how to advertise to me. The regular, suggested posts algorithm (or, as I often like to call it, Al Gore’s Rhythm) seems to be functioning alright.

a collage of instagram ads plus a notice that instagram is disabling a privacy setting. Ads include some weird horse hat, a turnstile, protein sprinkles, and "become a zumba instructor" — make it stop

It started with a few things: a discussion with a friend about how I have hundreds of accounts blocked (I block a lot of corporations and celebrities) and then an ad for a turnstile that I think would be used in a stadium and another for some kind of horse headwear. Both of those ads made me laugh with how insane they were. I showed them to my sister and she said “they don’t know what to do with your ass” and she’s clearly right. I thought, if I block more stuff, my ads can only get funnier. I’ve never been so wrong.

The problem is that if I want to block an account that’s serving me an ad, I have to click over to their profile to do so. Instagram thinks this is an act of endorsement. You wanted to know more! You engaged with that account! More more more! So, I started out blocking a few corporations and influencer-type accounts but that put me on a horrible death spiral culminating in lowest common denominator ad content. Now I’m seeing an absolute shit-ton of AI-generated ads and companies that seem to have like five posts that are all AI and I’m not convinced any of them are selling real products. I’m also getting a lot of weird influencer ladies telling me about great apparel finds at Walmart this season. I keep blocking them but there seems to be an endless well of this crap at the end of the internet. Please find a real hobby, influencer ladies.

I was frustrated with the state of instagram even before this commercial hell of partially my own making. It seems like every third post is an advertisement. Many of the advertisements are made to look just like the things I actually want to see, and often lull me into watching a hated advertisement for much longer than I would like (amount of time I want to spend on ads: zero). In a certain light, getting the AI slopcalypse ads and the ladies with their boring outfits is a blessing. I know that shit isn’t for me. It bears no resemblance to the things I come for the internet for. Lately I’m on instagram to see people in clown outfits, women grandmasters defeating cocky and unsuspecting men at chess, and buff ladies explaining how to work out your arms and shoulders (buff ladies, thank you for your service). Unfortunately, I am constantly reminded that the infrastructure of this current incarnation of the internet does not love us or want us to see weird stuff, but it does want to trap us in the infinite shopping mall and trick us into thinking the mall is populated by people like us and full of products we just need.

One of the tools Meta uses to populate the infinite mall is its (lack of) privacy settings. A pop-up informed me recently that Meta will disable the setting to not be tracked elsewhere. From Meta’s statement on the subject, “we … will no longer offer the ‘Your activity off Meta technologies’ setting that lets you disconnect activity that businesses share with us from your account.” Even though I’m complaining about the crappy ads, I’m not doing so because I want more ads targeted to my interests. I want to look at the internet without constantly being advertised at. I don’t want every piece of information about where I go online to get fed into the big data machine that makes me buy stuff. I’m so sick of this model of the internet. I want to stop using social media altogether but my friends are there and I do really find cool stuff online, but the bullshit to interest ratio is getting way too high. I’m ready for the bottom to fall out on these business models so we can remake the internet in a much cooler way. In the meantime, I am unfortunately opening instagram way more times per day than I intend to in hopes of seeing something fun. Please remind me to log off if you see me.

Books and Other Words

paperback book: The Word for World is Forest. Cover features a dense forest — The Word for World is Forest

Le Guin-fest 2026 continues with The Word for World is Forest. In this installment, a team from Earth travels to a planet that is all forest (and ocean) to chop down trees and ship the wood back to Earth, which has totally depleted its resources (this seems prohibitively expensive but okay). The planet is, however, already inhabited by a forest-dwelling people called the Athsheans who are living in a way that the military and logging contingent from Earth don’t recognize as being sufficiently human, so they enslave the native population to help run their colony and the logging operation. Eventually, the Athsheans, who are not nearly as stupid as the men from Earth believe them to be, fight back and kill the “yumens,” although it is completely against their cultural mores to kill anyone at all. Given the 1972 publication date, I wondered if this story was meant to be an allegory about the Vietnam war and, according to the Wikipedia article (which is referencing books I don’t have immediate access to, otherwise I’d link that instead), it was. The other thing this book had me wondering was whether the Athsheans inspired Star Wars‘ ewoks because they are both small, furry people who live in a forest and we know George Lucas is just out here lifting ideas from anywhere (just ask anyone who’s read Dune lol). We can’t say for sure, but it does seem a little too on-the-nose to be pure coincidence. In any case, this book was good and interesting but didn’t permanently rewire my brain the way The Dispossessed did, but that’s a very high bar.

paperback book: Four Ways to Forgiveness. The cover is very boring and mostly white with a small picture of a crossroads — Four Ways to Forgiveness

I wasn’t sure about Four Ways to Forgiveness, the next book in Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle, at first but it absolutely grew on me as I read on (note: the link to the book is for Five ways to Forgiveness, an updated edition with an extra story). This is a collection of four not-exactly-short but not book-length stories, which was the first thing that put me off. I know short stories are great but it’s too much stopping and starting for me. I want to get into something and stay there. However, these four stories are each tales from people on two sister planets from the same solar system, Werel and Yeowe. The stories crisscross each other to create one powerful image of these worlds’ systems of oppression. On Werel, there is an owner class and an asset (read: slave) class, and some centuries ago, Werelians started shipping male assets to Yeowe to work in the mines. After being worked to death, the owners began to ship female assets too. Eventually, the women fomented a revolution, and owners from Werel went to Yeowe to suppress it, but lost. Once the owners were overthrown, men in Yeowe filled the power vacuum, treating “free” women little better than they were treated as assets. At first glance, this story (from the perspective of the American reader) feels like a condemnation of our nation’s worst behavior (and it is that, sure), but reading on, this is really a collection about the unfinished work of women’s liberation. The book’s final story focuses on a woman named Rakam who was born and lived as a slave on Werel. She is freed as an adult and educates herself, then begins educating others and publishing her opinions, which gets her in trouble with various political factions. She flees to Yeowe only to be enslaved a second time. She earns money, but it’s kept in an account on the plantation and she can’t withdraw any because she’s a woman. She can’t leave without fear of sexual violence. Rakam begins teaching girls to read (just the girls because everyone’s daily life is segregated by sex), only to be told girls don’t need or want to learn to read. Eventually, she begins organizing with other women on the plantation, and they are able to take their money and leave, but only through educating themselves and collaborating are they able to take their freedom back from the men and the owners. It’s a bit of a cliche that writers and readers are deeply invested in stories about the power of words and ideas, but it is because we ourselves have often been so transformed by what we found in books. Something about the way this tale was written, and the way Rakam uses her education to better the world for everyone around her really struck me. The tale does end happily: the women force the government to update their constitution to, among other things, stipulate that men and women both are free people with rights. We in the United States, however, are still waiting for that.

hardcover book Girl Online: A User Manual. Cover is silver with light green text — Girl Online: A User Manual

I thought I would like Girl Online: A User Manual by Joanna Walsh a lot more than I did. It’s in the “cyber feminism” genre and I really enjoyed my last read on the subject, Glitch Feminism. However, there was something about Girl Online that I just couldn’t connect with, which isn’t to say the book is bad, we just didn’t have chemistry. Walsh references Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass throughout this essay collection as I guess an extended metaphor for existing online but I didn’t really get it, perhaps because being online does much not feel like being through the looking glass to me. The only chapter that I was really able to lock into was one in which she used the “and I had to wonder” framework from Sex and the City. I’m not a SATC fan and haven’t really watched it but I am of course familiar with the many memes using this format. What did I learn from this book? Girl, I don’t know.

Meanwhile, on the internet:

The Bounty Economy Is Breaking Reality via User Mag. Last week, Pump dot fun, a platform where you can buy and trade meme coins, launched Pump Fun GO, a new service where you can “pay ANYONE to do ANYTHING,” which has “create[d] a new dystopian market where poor and desperate people debase themselves and others for small sums of money.” Long story short: if you see weird behavior, especially if someone is hollering about a cyptocurrency in the process, it’s probably a stunt that someone is being paid for. Still, between AI warping the internet and now this, I fear our reality is being further fractured.
Stop eating Lady Gaga’s Oreos via Experimental History. Remember the concept of “selling out”? And that it used to be a bad thing? Now everyone yearns to sell out and most of us are happy to participate in it by, as the title suggests, doing things like buying Lady Gaga Oreos (or shilling Walmart apparel on instagram). From the article, “If we want this to stop, the solution is simple: we have to stop eating Lady Gaga’s Oreos. We have to stop pretending that celebrities are just like us, and that their success is our success. We have to redraw the line between art and entertainment, and more importantly, we have to redraw the line between art and advertisement.”
The Guillotine Emoji Proposal via carrozo. This visionary artist submitted a proposal the the Unicode Consortium (the governing body of emojis) requesting the addition of a guillotine emoji, which “would serve as a reminder to states and elites to not take for granted the Hobbesian monopoly on violence they have been entrusted with by their peoples.” Alas, the Unicode Consortium denied this request, but the good news is you can download a pack of guillotine emojis for Signal. I have already put this to good use.
How to interpret medieval marginalia 101 via Weird Medieval Guys. I see lots of funny bits of medieval marginalia online (partly because I follow Medieval Marginalia on Tumblr) and it always seems goofy. However, these images had actual meaning beyond just “haha he’s got a trumpet sticking out of his butt.” An interesting little read, especially if you’re deep in the medieval-inflected internet.
Anthropeum is a very fun game and my new favorite thing online! They show you ten objects from the Met Museum’s collection and you guess where and when they are from. My degree in near eastern languages and civilizations is really coming in clutch for some of these artifacts.

Languages

I realized this week that I am in a bit of a rut with my Spanish studies. I like translating my Wikipedia articles and have no intention of stopping, but since it’s been a while since I’ve done something big like studying for the DELE exam, I’m feeling like I don’t have anything to mark my progress with. I want to keep improving my Spanish, of course, and use the language, but I’m not really sure what form that is going to take. Maybe this is part of a transition from thinking myself as a person learning Spanish to someone who simply knows Spanish. So, as a knower of Spanish (terms and conditions may apply), what now? I’ve been polling friends for ideas and mulling it over. I’ve gotten a number of suggestions to write something (but what?). A part of me thinks that I yearn for grad school, but I know better than to do that to myself. Friends don’t let friends go to grad school. Maybe I should give myself a syllabus. I’m also thinking the answer might be to take a deep dive and become an expert on some random topic of interest. Does anyone have any interesting suggestions? Please share them!

Doing Stuff

When my friends ask me if I want to try something new or do an activity I will almost always say yes, which is how I ended up at woodworking class with Abby a few weekends ago. We made cutting boards! Everyone received eight slats of wood and got to arrange them to their liking then stick them together with wood glue. We came back the next day to cut them, run the boards through the planer, and sand them. I never expected to learn any woodworking, if I’m being honest, but what better way to celebrate pride month (lol).

a cutting board made with eight slats of four colors of wood — my cutting board!

me in the woodshop modeling my new cutting board — my cutting board!

Moving It

Here are my last two weeks’ of stickers. I am having a hard time doing anything after Wednesday, possibly because my Fridays and Saturdays get full and then I am trying to rest on the other days. I can’t even blame the heat this time. Doing things is hard! But I must remember there are stickers for me. Also that long-legged “topaz” cat sticker looks like Fritz.

my planner with stickers of a sassy chicken and an orange cat snoozing on a pile of books — Stickers week of June 8

stickers of an orange cat with long legs, a puffball of a bird, and a celestial whale — Stickers week of June 8

Kitchen Witchery

I put together the most indulgent spread possible as a send-off for a friend before she got weight loss surgery, which took the form of a butter-tasting party. We tried four different compound butters from Buttermonger: prosciutto, saffron and honey, cinnamon sugar, and cheese butter (that’s a one-to-one ratio of Beecher’s cheddar and butter). We had a bread pairing for each and then we had brownies (the “my favorite brownies” from 100 Cookies). My favorite was the saffron-honey butter with crescent rolls. We are just two women who can only eat so much butter so I still have a lot left and had to put some in the freezer for later. I want to let it be known that if any friends are looking at this and thinking “I would like a butter feast,” you do not have to get weight loss surgery to have this. We can just eat butter if you want. You don’t have to do anything drastic.

four small bowls of compound butters: cinnamon sugar, saffron and honey, cheddar cheese, and prosciutto — butter flight

a cutting board with crescent rolls, rosemary bread, zucchini bread, and club crackers next to bowls of compound butter — butter flight

Outside of fancy butter, I made rainbow sprinkle cookies (the recipe is called “confetti cookies” but I feel like that would be something else. They are rainbow sprinkle to me), which were a hit. They’re very good and Kirk said they are “bad,” by which he means “so good that I just keep eating them.” Since the weather has been mild, I made a bread recipe that produces two loaves, so I can save a bread for when it’s too hot for the oven. I tried the oat and wheat sandwich bread from Smitten Kitchen, which I am enjoying for toast. I also made a grilled cheese where I fried the sandwich in the cheese butter and that was a pro move. In unpictured cooking: I tried another variation of homemade granola bars with cashews and white chocolate. They’re good!

As for actual meals, I have been enjoying my squash and corn from the farmers market. I made an herbed summer squash pasta bake, which we enjoyed. I didn’t have fresh herbs as the recipe calls for, but I tossed in some dried parsley and dill and that seemed tasty. We also really liked this recipe for cheesy gnocchi with corn and pesto. Hard to go wrong with a combination of ingredients like that!

a sheet pan of small sugar cookies completely coated in rainbow sprinkles — confetti cookies

two loaves of oat and wheat sandwich bread cooling on a wire rack — confetti cookies

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.

Fritz the cat sitting on the bed and looking intently at me — standing at attention

Fritz on the top of the couch half asleep and just looking blobby and blissed out — standing at attention

weekly update

Two Weeks in the Life: June 7, 2026

Posted on June 7, 2026 by Lindsey Halsell

Hello, friends and enemies. I’ve been noticing a lot of medieval stuff online lately and it got me wondering: what’s going on with that?

a collage of medieval-themed internet ephemera — art thou feeling medieval?

I understand that social media is algorithmic and looking at weird medieval stuff means I will get more weird medieval stuff to look at, but the fact is that many other people are making this stuff. There is something inspiring this and I’m not the first person to reflect on the subject. There’s a post from Zombie Grrrl Zine that explains that the Victorians were also obsessed with the middle ages, noting that “While class consciousness was reaching new heights in the industrial hellscape of Victorian England, an escapist fantasy was taking hold: the medieval period became a time of whimsy and freedom in the eyes of the Victorian lower class.” I think we’re seeing something similar now. People are sick to death of capitalism, of exploitation, of corporations telling them that they can train an LLM to do their job or leave (get fired now or later!). In some ways, it does sound more attractive to work the fields as a serf and potentially have more days off than you do now at the email factory. At least the serfs were doing something useful. Many of us are just out here like “I already answered this question in the previous email. Please see attached :-)” and trying to cling to any semblance of sanity. Why not inject a little whimsy into your day with some bardcore music or maybe by being a silly little jester (the amount of clowning and jestering I’m seeing online is off the charts too).

There’s a kind of class solidarity through time right now. It’s as if people are saying we have more in common with a peasant than a CEO. Income inequality is basically as high as it’s ever been. We’re using terms like “late-stage capitalism” to herald the downfall of the current order, but what comes next? As Ursula K. Le Guin so sagely noted in a 2014 speech, “We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.” The Medieval period was the last time in Western history that we lived without capitalism. Faced with the difficulty of picturing the future without a profit motive, many are embracing the past in an attempt to buck the current system. It’s easier to imagine the past than an unknown future. Medievalism may not be showing us the way forward but it is, perhaps, revealing some truths about where we want to go next.

Books and Other Words

paperback book of Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. The cover features Bobby Fischer apparently thinking deeply about his next chess move — Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been playing chess this year (be my friend on chess.com!), so I decided to read a book about it. Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess by Bobby Fischer, Stuart Margulies, and Don Mosenfelder is certainly not written by Fischer himself despite having his name on the cover, but I don’t think that’s particularly important. Magulies and Mosenfelder use the introduction to explain that this book employs a novel concept of prompting you to complete the puzzles instead of, presumably, just lecturing you about chess. I guess this is a wild idea for 1966, when the book was originally published. After some initial explanations, each page of the book has a puzzle with the answer available when you flip to the next page. This results in the unique formatting choice to have half of the pages flipped upside down, so you go through the book reading all the right-side pages, flip it, and continue through the rest. It’s ingenious but wacky. I do think I learned a lot from working through the puzzles, which focus on a few tactics like back rank checks and drawing out a defender. We shall see if my game improves.

From Bobby Fischer teaches chess. The right page is right-side-up and has an answer for the puzzle on the previous page, then the next puzzle. The left page is upside-down and is the beginning of chapter five. — rare book format choice

paperback book: Worlds of Exile and Illusion — Worlds of Exile and Illusion

I’ve been on an Ursula K. Le Guin bender over the last few weeks. I started with the collection Worlds of Exile and Illusion, which consists of the first three novels of the Hainish Cycle: Rocannon’s World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions (the novels are about 100 pages apiece so they fit in one volume). Each of these works takes place on a different planet that has highly intelligent life forms (HILFs). The Hainish Cycle, so named for the Hain who are the progenitors of most HILFs, is only a loosely connected series (what we might now refer to as the Hainish Extended Universe) with books taking place in the same reality but with no real connection or through-line between them. These first three books all seem to be asking “what is it to be human?” This is a common question in science fiction but I liked the perspective that Le Guin approached it with. Can humans really come from the stars? Would a human look like that, or what if he were the enemy but looked just like a real human (a question of City of Illusions)? I also find it interesting that she plays with how different planets’ movement through space would impact a world’s culture. For example, in Planet of Exile, a “year” lasts about 60 Earth years, which means any society that survives has to have the strength and fortitude to make it through a twenty-year winter. These are all well-written and great works of science fiction, but Le Guin really gets cooking with the next book: The Left Hand of Darkness.

cover for The Left Hand of Darkness shown on kobo ereader — The Left Hand of Darkness

I first read The Left Hand of Darkness ten years ago. I wrote last year that I felt like I’d gotten better at reading, and I sensed that again while revisiting this book. I kind of thought of reading as a skill as something that peaked in college and then just stayed steady, but I suppose practicing any skill will make you better at it, and I have read over 600 books since I last read this one. Still, it feels surprising to re-read something and have such a fundamentally different experience. In any case, in The Left Hand of Darkness, Genly Ai, a representative from a galactic confederation of planets, visits the planet Winter (locally known as Gethen) to invite them to join. Gethen is an icy planet populated by a people who have no fixed sex or gender. Instead of being in a permanent state of man or woman, they go through a phase called kemmer every 26 days and take on sexual characteristics of a man or woman; one person may play either role at different times in their life. This book, originally published in 1969, is thus a meditation on gender relations. What if anyone could get pregnant? Le Guin rightfully posits a much more equal society without one gender being an oppressed class. The result is that “nobody here is quite so free as a free male anywhere else” because “burden and privilege are shared out pretty equally.” What an indictment of the men of Earth.

We see The Left Hand of Darkness play out primarily through Genly’s viewpoint, as a man from a world of men and women. He refers to everyone as a man unless he feels that they have some sort of feminine trait about them, like his “landlady” who he considers womanly due to having a fat ass. He opines, “One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.” The horror! Genly lets his misogyny blind him to the dangers of his situation and, after fleeing one country and being taken in by a certain political faction in another, he gets used as a political pawn and is eventually sent to prison. He is rescued by Therem Harth rem ir Estraven, a politician who Genly though had betrayed him. Genly is forced to reckon with his prejudices on the harrowing trek back to civilization, noting at one point “I had no wanted to give my trust, my friendship to a man who was a woman, a woman who was a man.” If only Genly hadn’t been such a dumbass and had been willing to see anyone other than men as complex human beings, he might not have been in this mess!

paperback book The Dispossessed — The Dispossessed

Technically, the next book in the series is technically The Word for World is Forest, but I accidentally read out of order. That’s okay though because you could really read these in any order. The book I read instead was The Dispossessed, which was my favorite so far. I know this book will stay with me. The story concerns Shevek, a physicist from Anarres, a habitable moon of the planet Urras. Anarres is home to a society of anarcho-communists founded about 150 years before the story begins by a woman named Odo (this made me laugh because I kept thinking of Odo from Deep Space Nine). The strongest insult on Anarres is “profiteer” and anyone behaving badly is implored to “stop egoizing.” The story alternates between past events on Anarres and present events on Urras, where Shevek is the first person from Anarres to visit since the original dissidents left. It’s not until the end of the book that we learn precisely what drove Shevek to leaving his home and family to dwell among these rotten profiteers. In the process, we see what is ugly about both societies. Despite that, this is not a book that suggests that human nature is greedy or evil; quite the contrary. The Dispossessed shows people striving to make society better for everyone. Certainly not everyone is doing their part and there are people at the top of the hierarchy making the people below them miserable (whether the oligarchs on Urras keeping the population poor and at war or the unofficial head of the physics department on Anarres who refuses to distribute Shevek’s work without rewriting it and making it into his work). Le Guin’s power is in helping us imagine other ways of being and The Dispossessed might be her most powerful work of all.

Meanwhile, on the internet:

GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan draws an unusual opponent in Alaska’s primary — and he’s not happy about it via AP. One of the candidates challenging Alaska’s incumbent senator, Republican Dan Sullivan, is also a Republican named Dan Sullivan. Truly hilarious. No notes.
The Surprisingly Radical Roots of the Renaissance Fair via Smithsonian Magazine. The people who gave us the renaissance fair were actors out of work thanks to McCartyhism and the Red Scare. I had no idea!
Attention Spans Aren’t Shrinking via Cognitive Wonderland. It’s a widely held cultural belief at this point that smart phones and social media are making our attention spans shorter, but that’s not what research is finding. There is research to show that, in the short term, we struggle to recover attention when switching tasks (for example, when trying to write an essay then looking at instagram), but that is not the same as having a short attention span. The author here also theorizes that it’s much more obvious that someone isn’t paying attention when they look at their phone compared to just letting their mind wander.
‘Stop! That! Train!’ Director Denies Film’s Speculated AI Use: RuPaul-Led “Movie Is Fully Human Made” via The Hollywood Reporter. There’s a whole drama (dare I say, discourse) arising around RuPaul’s latest theatrical release. People online pointed out some visual inconsistencies in the trailer that are the kind of thing one finds in AI graphics and that AI-forward visual effects companies worked on the film. The director posted a statement reading “It’s come to my attention that there is some on-line speculation that Stop! That! Train! Is full of fully generative AI shots and I’m here to tell you this is patently not true.” What a strange and specific thing to say. Why not just say there’s no AI if they didn’t use AI? It’s disappointing all around.
I Fed the People Building the Metaverse via Titty Boobowitz (inspired blog name haha). This essay is by a woman who worked as a pastry chef at the Meta offices. She writes:

This is what I mean when I say I do not trust the people building AI.

Not because they are uniquely evil geniuses plotting world domination in secret underground bunkers. The real problem is that they are ordinary institutions filled with ordinary failures of character. Ego. Bias. Cowardice. Protectionism. Mediocre men promoting versions of themselves while women quietly keep entire systems functioning underneath them.

And then we act shocked when artificial intelligence reproduces racism, sexism, surveillance, exploitation, and bias at scale.

Who did we think was building it?

Media

It recently came to my attention that Heaven 17 has more than one album. I write this knowing that maybe only three readers (two of which would be my parents) have even heard of Heaven 17. I’ve been listening to Penthouse and Pavement for literal decades after ripping the CD in my dad’s collection. I think we can all agree that Fascist Groove Thing both goes hard and remains relevant in 2026. In any case, I bought two of their other two albums, The Luxury Gap and How Men are and have been appreciating them. I’m not sure why I never looked for more of their albums before but I’m here now.

Rampant Consumerism

I recently bought some hat stands to put on the wall in my office so I could display my fancy hats. I just think they deserve more than being stuffed in the closet. So, behold my hats:

two hat stands in my office, one displaying a green witch hat and another with the double henin from my jester outfit — hats on display

Moving It

I was on a really good run of exercising a lot for the first few months of this year but, as I might have expected, the warmer weather is making my life difficult. I think I am going to have to lower my expectations for the hot weather because it’s not working for me. In any case, enjoy the last two weeks’ stickers.

stickers in my planner featuring a duck with a knife, a cartoon cat sobbing, a fancy cake, and a silvery planet — stickers for the week of May 18

stickers in my planner featuring two different swords, a cartoon bunny with a sword, and a goose wielding a baseball bat — stickers for the week of May 18

Kitchen Witchery

Sometimes I look at my photos from the last fortnight and realize I’ve been cooking more than I thought. I was trying really hard to use everything I bought at the farmers market two weeks ago! It’s probably a good thing that I’m looking for ways to use all the vegetables. We went to the farmers market again yesterday, so I will hopefully find more success here.

I pulled some red beans (a The Bean Book recipe) from the freezer, roasted broccolini and cooked some rice for a recent dinner. I made cornbread to go with it using purple(!) cornmeal. This isn’t like that purple ketchup abomination from the 90s. The cornmeal is purple because it’s made from blue corn.
This broccoli cheddar beans recipe is good, although I did modify it a little (as one must when it comes to NYT recipes). I added shell pasta to make it more of a meal and some seasoning. I also declined to participate in the fuckery of making cheddar croutons. You can just eat regular bread. It’s fine.
I have some buckwheat flour that I have been trying to find more uses for so I tried out this pancake recipe and it was good. I roasted some potatoes to accompany it (also good).
To use some sausage that we had knocking around the fridge and some more broccolini, I adapted the NYT recipe for crisp gnocchi with sausage and peas, swapping the peas for the aforementioned broccolini. We liked this a lot and frankly I think it’s better than the original version.
In an attempt to use some of the large amount of fresh garlic I had, I made this slow-cooker garlic chicken with barley. I did not like it. Kirk declared it “edible” and did, in fact, eat a bowlful. I need to remember to never listen to a recipe that calls for throwing slices of onion into the slow cooker because I never like the results, although that was far from my only objection to this dish.
By request, I made this garlic and herb sun bread (much better use for my quantity of fresh garlic), which we had with pasta e fagioli soup (another one from The Bean Book). I threw in some extra zucchini and that was a welcome addition.
I finally mastered the dark chocolate and sea salt nut bars. The first two times I made them, I just ended up with a blob. It was a tasty blob but I was going for bar. I doubled the quantity of rice krispies because it seemed like I kept ending up with too much honey compared to the stuff it needed to stick to. I also poured the chocolate on top of the bars, cut them once the chocolate had set somewhat, then left them in the fridge overnight. I don’t really know what the people who wrote this recipe are doing to make it all stick like that, but this method worked for me.

a plate of red beans and rice with broccolini and purple cornbread — red beans and rice with broccolini and purple cornbread

a pan of freshly baked cornbread. It's purple (ish)! — red beans and rice with broccolini and purple cornbread

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.

Fritz the cat, lying on top of me, stretched out into a long skinny noodle of a creature. His front legs are stretched across my chest and he's got his chin tucked into his chest — this guy is such a shape

Fritz the cat lounging on top of the couch. He is looking towards the camera. His tail is wound around in front of him so we can see that its tip is white — this guy is such a shape

weekly update

Two Weeks in the Life: May 24, 2026

Posted on May 24, 2026 by Lindsey Halsell

Hello, friends and enemies. I’m officially 40 years old now, which regular readers already know since I posted Every Book I Read in my Thirties: Reading from 2016–2026. I celebrated by spending last week not working; week one of vacation was our trip to Seattle and week two was chilling and doing whatever I want. I highly recommend taking time off to do nothing and I think I may do it again this time next year. Although for now I am in PTO debt. Alas.

THIS is who you’re asking to work 40 hours per week

I got my voter guides posted this week, so please check them out for information about the election. The California election is on June 2! This primary sucks but we still have to get out and vote. Here’s the English guide and here is the Spanish.

Another thing I did last week was go to San Francisco for some appointments. I’m taking part in a study about fatty liver (or formally known as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis) in women. The researchers are looking at the relationship between that PCOS (just this month renamed to PMOS: polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome). I don’t have PCOS/PMOS, so I’m in the control group. They had me do a fibroscan, blood work, body composition test, and an MRI. When they do MRIs of the liver, they give you periodic instructions about holding your breath. Afterwards, the instructions say “you may resume breathing.” Thanks! That cracked me up and I just know the MRI technicians were like “what the hell is she laughing about.” This is a longitudinal study, so I’ll be going back to do it all again once a year for the next three years. It’s not a clinical trial, they just want to see what might be going on! I hope we learn something interesting.

picture taken from the exam room at UCSF, looking out to a foggy view of the city — the award for the best view from a doctor’s office goes to UCSF

Something I did not do this week was go to or watch Eurovision. This time last year I was planning to go to Vienna to see Eurovision live, but alas, we canceled the plans because it didn’t feel morally right to go under the circumstances. Eurovision is getting an awful lot of attention for Israel’s involvement—even The New York Times published an article about Israel’s involvement, other countries boycotting the competition, and Israel’s not-exactly-above-board promotions to get people to vote for them. Fortunately, Bulgaria won this year, although it is suspicious that Israel was, once again, very close to winning. I haven’t listened to their song this year but the last few weren’t particularly good or interesting and I have no reason to believe anything different this year (seems like the news on my internet would have had something to say if Israel showed up to Eurovision with a true banger). I think the European Broadcasting Union will have to deal with this situation before it explodes soon. If Israel had won, they wouldn’t have been able to contain the outrage. Apparently they’re talking about moving Israel to the new Eurovision Asia franchise, which doesn’t really solve the problem so much as delay dealing with it. In any case, I wish everyone would stop being morally bankrupt so I could get back to enjoying my high-camp European music competition. Thanks in advance!

Finally, permit me to indulge in my annual circus nostalgia. I think most readers know by now that my hometown has a community circus that I participated in when I was younger. May is when they do their shows so I am always thinking about it at this time of year. This year I suppose I have done a little more than just think about circus since I have been trying to unicycle and juggle again, although only in fits and starts. Perhaps one day I’ll be circusing it up again in some form or another.

Me, six years old, on hands and knees while three other girls lean on me for balance in an arabesque — 1992 circus

Me, as an adult, juggling in formation with three other people — 1992 circus

Books and Other Words

cover for Tangled Up in Blue on Kobo ereader. Cover features some very 80s art of a sexy lady and two guys in jumpsuits with big space guns — Tangled Up in Blue

The fourth and final book of Joan D. Vinge’s Snow Queen Cycle, Tangled up in Blue, was, I felt, not particularly interesting. It’s a prequel that takes place about 15 or 20 years before the events of The Snow Queen, focusing on BZ Gundhalinu and another member of the Hegemonic police force. They get involved in some kind of transfer of a powerful artifact and then the local cartel and the cops start working against them. Anyway it’s not really my kind of tale and I find an end-of-series prequel as a concept to be a little boring. We’re supposed to be excited like “there’s our guy!” but like … I have already seen that guy a bunch. I know him. I am not excited.

book: Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto — Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto

Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto by Legacy Russell comes from a sub-field of gender studies called cyberfeminism that focuses on the intersection of feminism and computers (in contrast to much of the discourse around technology, which centers on men). Russell starts by offering some explanations of the term “glitch” itself, which embodies refusal and embraces malfunction, “travers[es] along edges” and gives us space to claim “our right to complexity.” (She also includes the fun etymological fact that “glitch” comes to us from the yiddish verb to slide or slip.) Glitch Feminism explores the relationship of our off- and online selves, and how the way we play with identity online comes with is when we are “AFK” (away from keyboard), a term Russell uses instead of the more common “IRL” (in real life) because at this point, the internet “is reality”. Being a woman online means, much like in the AFK world, inhabiting a space not meant for us. Despite claims to the contrary that the internet is a radical place (although that was perhaps a dream of a younger internet), “all technology reflects the society that produces it, including its power structures and prejudices.” But being a glitch, a failure, provides the opportunity “to build new worlds” and “expand in every direction.” What a great perspective.

cover for Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes on kobo ereader — Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes

Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary offers a compelling thesis on world history. Here in the United States, and in the “west” generally, we learn very little about the Islamic world (unless, like me, you make it your business to learn and you get a whole bachelor’s degree in Near Eastern languages and civilizations). Ansary explains this through the idea of two “worlds” developing in parallel: the “middle sea” (the Mediterranean and surrounding area) and the “middle world” (“Central Asia, the Iranian highlands, Mesopotamia, and Egypt”), and both groups “had good reason to think of themselves at the center of human history.” Modern sites of conflict between the “west” and the Muslim world lie along the same fault lines established centuries ago, as far back as the Byzantine and Sassanian Empires before Islam surfaced. Ansary writes in the epilogue that 9/11 was one of the first times in modern history that these two stories of civilization (middle world versus Mediterranean) came into open conflict, which is spurred, in part, by a total lack of understanding about what motivates the other group. Heavy geopolitical events aside, I liked this book a lot. There was some information I already knew, but I also learned plenty. One tidbit that’s staying with me is that the word for “horde” actually comes from the turkic word for “military camp.” Yes, the Mongol hordes are outside the gates … they are literally there making camp. I particularly appreciated the history of the most recent centuries. One of the issues in the Muslim community now is the question of, if Muslims won battles in the past because God made the community strong, then what is wrong now that Muslims are losing battles (either literally or losing the battle of colonialism against the Europeans)? It’s a question that, per Ansary, Muslims are still grappling with in a variety of ways, and this, along with the cultural clash at the borders of the Middle World, is why the Middle East appears so tumultuous to us. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking to understand more about this part of the world and the way people there think!

Meanwhile, on the internet:

At last, a pill that can prevent COVID after exposure to infected people via Nature. This is incredible news! This drug sounds like it’s a Plan B for covid: people can take it once they have been exposed to the virus and it significantly lowers the risk of developing the disease. The drug, called ensitrelvir, brought the risk of developing covid down from nine percent to three percent.
Software Developers Say AI Is Rotting Their Brains via 404 Media. If the people with the strongest case for using chatbot software think the chatbots suck, then what is the point? Why do any of this?
The Influencer Industrial Complex is Warping Local Politics via User Mag. Social media influencers are inviting political campaigns to pay them to make content supporting their candidate. Unfortunately, there are no laws or regulations that require influencers to disclose these relationships so you have no way to know if the people you see online are talking about politics for the money.
We Might Have To Get A Little Less Fandom-y via Curmudgeon dot com. This one might not make a lot of sense to people who aren’t frequenting certain internet neighborhoods, but I liked this piece. From the article: “We end up in quite an awkward position here. We have all these expectations about a work that we want to have met, but the way in which those expectations formed mean that we can be blinded by them into not fully appreciating the technical craft behind the work, or, worse, actively protest those aspects of the work which subvert our expectations in interesting ways and push the medium forwards. In this way, fandom can act as something of an enforcement mechanism for the artistic status quo.”
ArXiv to Ban Researchers for a Year if They Submit AI Slop via 404 Media. Great news: “ArXiv, the open-access repository of preprint academic research, will ban authors of papers for a year if they submit obviously AI-generated work.” The whole academic edifice will crumble if people aren’t faithfully checking their work and their citations. Why be an academic if you don’t want to do this shit correctly? At this point, Wikipedia is maintaining higher standards than many academic publications.

Languages

I wanted to share some Wikipedia articles I translated recently. In Spanish, we’ve got the Manx version of Halloween, Hop-tu-Naa. I do enjoy helping to preserve, in some small way, knowledge of minority cultures. I also translated the article about the Icelandic book Makt myrkranna, or The Powers of Darkness (I translated the English article about the Icelandic book into Spanish. I know how to party!). It’s about the Icelandic “translation” of Dracula, which is not a translation at all. It sounds more like a fan fiction of Dracula, but it might have been based on early drafts that Bram Stoker provided to the “translator.” Wacky as hell! Finally, I’m still working on translating articles about Icelandic women into English. Behold the tale of Anna of Stóruborg: She owned her own farm and shacked up with a shepherd who worked for her. Her brother was pissed off about it and she had to hide her man in a nearby cave whenever the brother dropped in. Then a few centuries later, some guy wrote a novel about it. Good for them!

Moving It

I am saddened to report that I’ve officially stopped taking ballet class. I feel like this is a decision that I’ve been putting off all year. I stopped taking my other dance classes after my December recital, but thought I might be okay to keep taking ballet if I was careful. Unfortunately, it’s been hard to have fun with it when I’m constantly trying not to aggravate my knee and be very careful with how I move. Still, lasting a little over five years in a hobby is a good run. I can’t be too upset.

I’m really glad I was able to take dance class for as long as I did. I learned a lot about my body—not just how to move it but how to inhabit it, and we even learned about some disorders along the way (how did I not know about hypermobility!) My last physical hobby, roller derby, taught me a lot about doing hard things and made me strong. Dance helped me figure out how to move more confidently and how to use my whole body to express myself. I’m glad that I was able to have a venue to perform on stage (albeit mostly for an audience consisting of parents of children in the recital, but don’t they, too, deserve a little razzle dazzle in their lives?), which I hadn’t had much chance to do since I was young. I’m really hoping I can find something else that can do this for me, but I don’t have any ideas yet!

Kitchen Witchery

Since I am no longer taking ballet class and my Saturday morning is relatively free, yesterday we took a little jaunt to the Elk Grove farmers market to get some vegetables. I’m excited to pick up what’s in season and then figure out what to do with it. Today’s surprise was the bunch of garlic I bought. It didn’t occur to me that it was fresh and not dried garlic because at the store all the garlic is dried. I had to look it up and I found out that you need to use it in about seven to ten days, so I guess we’re going garlicky this week. I’m thinking about roasting or doing a confit for most of it then I can use it in my own time. I also found this blog that mentions you can use the membranes of fresh garlic to make a little spread. Lots of things to try!

straight from the farmers market: broccoli, potatoes, zucchini, onion, fresh garlic, broccolini, and a jar of honey — farmers market haul

This week I tried a granola bar recipe. It wasn’t too hard and the granola bars are good! They don’t taste exactly like what you buy at the store (that’s probably good) and the recipe has dates in it (also probably good), so there is more date flavor than I’m used to in a granola bar (normal amount of dates: zero). The recipe has a few flavor variations. There’s a cashew version that I think I’m going to make with white chocolate chips. I will report back.

In terms of actual meals, we had some red lentil soup. I pulled this out of the freezer this week, so it’s not really new, but I did toss some leftover spiced nuts and a bit of olive oil on top and I think that was a great innovation. By the way, I highly recommend freezing leftovers in deli containers and using a dry erase marker to note what’s inside. The marker washes right off. This system works well for us because we are just two people and may not want to eat the same soup three or four nights in one week. So, I freeze it and it’s a pleasant meal for the future.

Finally I made frijoles con veneno from Mi Cocina. This was really good. It’s tostadas topped with refried beans (I used king city pink beans) and pork braised in a chili sauce. This had a long cook time but was fairly easy to make.

a batch of granola bars spread out on a sheet pan — homemade granola bars

a bowl of red lentil soup topped with spiced, chopped nuts and a drizzle of olive oil — homemade granola bars

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.

Fritz the cat lounging on top of the couch with his tail hanging down completely straight — long tail champion

Fritz the cat on the sill of an open window. He is looking up and out. His tail is dangling down. — long tail champion

voter guide

Guía para votantes: 2 de junio 2026, elección primaria de California

Posted on May 14, 2026 by Lindsey Halsell

Hola amigos y enemigos. Ya es la temporada de elecciones de nuevo. El día de la elección es el 2 de junio, pero si estás registrado para votar vas a recibir una boleta por correo. La pregunta en la mente de todos es ¿quién va a ser el siguiente gobernador de California? pero no es la única cosa en la boleta. Todas las posiciones más altas del estado están abiertas y tenemos que escoger miembros de la Junta Directiva Estatal de Impuestos Sobre Ventas de California, junto con algunos congresistas.

Looking for the English version? It’s right here.

Recordatorios y recursos para los votantes californianos

¡Todos los californianos que se han inscrito van a recibir una boleta por correo en esta elección! No es necesario ir a un centro de votación.
Inscríbete para votar para el lunes 18 de mayo. Aún puedes inscribirte después del 18 de mayo pero necesitas seguir el proceso para el registro del votante en el mismo día.
Comprueba el estado de tu inscripción y consigue más información en https://voterstatus.sos.ca.gov/ES
Ve a donde puedas votar o entregar tu boleta: https://www.sos.ca.gov/es/elections/polling-place
¡Recuerda firmar el sobre de la boleta!
Guía oficial de información para el votante en español: https://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2026/primary/es/pdf/complete-vig.pdf

Descargo de responsabilidad: No soy experta en la política ni el gobierno. Soy solo una persona quien tiene habilidades para leer y buscar información. Si confías en mí, puedes votar como yo. También puedes usar esta guía como un punto de partida para decidir cómo quieres votar.

Consulta rápida

Este cuadro resume mis votos para la elección. Sigue leyendo para ver mis explicaciones.

Oficina	Mi voto
Gobernador	Betty Yee
Vicegobernador	Alice Stek
Secretario de Estado	Gary Blenner
Contralor	Meghann Adams
Tesorero	Glenn Turner
Procurador general	Rob Bonta
Comisionado de seguros	Jane Kim
Junta directiva estatal de impuestos sobre ventas del distrito 1	Nelson Esparza
Superintendente de instrucción pública	Frank Lara
Representante (Distrito 7 del Congreso)	Mai Vang
Juez de la Oficina Número 15 de la Corte Superior	Heath Langle
Juez de la Oficina Número 21 de la Corte Superior	James Morris
Distrito 8 del Senado	Angelique Ashby
Distrito 10 de la Asamblea	Stephanie Nguyen
Miembro, Junta de Supervisores, Distrito 5	Pat Hume
Tasador	Christina Wynn

Algunos pensamientos generales

Antes de discutir mis opiniones sobre los candidatos en detalle, les quiero recordar a todos que California tiene una elección primaria “abierta” (a veces llamada una primaria “de la selva”) gracias a Dos Candidatos Principales – Ley de Primaria Abierta. Significa que no estás limitado a votar por candidatos del partido al que perteneces. Los dos candidatos con la mayor cantidad de votos (a pesar de su afiliación partidaria) se van a enfrentar en la elección general en noviembre. Podría haber, por ejemplo, dos candidatos republicanos en contención para la posición de gobernador, en cambio de un candidato de cada partido, si dos candidatos republicanos fueran los que hubieran recibido la cantidad mayor de votos en la elección primaria. ¡Que pesadilla sería! Tal vez recuerdes que en la elección de 2024 cuando votamos por Adam Schiff como nuestro senador, él se aprovechó de la estructura de la elección primaria para cerrar el rebote a sus oponentes demócratas porque sabía que vencería a un republicano en la elección general. Normalmente, yo diría que la elección primaria es una oportunidad de votar de corazón, pero necesitamos asegurarnos de que tengamos al menos un candidato demócrata en la boleta, para eso no seamos demasiado extravagante.

También tengo que compartir que los candidatos tienen que pagar $25.00 por palabra para sus declaraciones en la guía oficial de información para votantes, “no superando $6,250.00 (250 palabras)”. Yo pensaba que los candidatos que apenas escribieron algo eran perezosos o descortéses a los votantes, pero ahora me doy cuenta que intentan evitar el gasto de miles de dolares. Sin embargo, la mayoría de candidatos serios, en particular para un cargo como gobernador, tiene apoyo institucional de un partido político, entonces $6,000 para una declaración no es muy grave para ellos. Es probable que los candidatos independientes o de tercer partido tengan declaraciones más cortas porque tienen menos fondos de campaña. Asegúrate de repasar sus sitios web antes de decidir por quien vas a votar.

Para hacer mis selecciones, estoy usando las declaraciones de candidatos, sus sitios web, y noticias en línea. Además, Under the Desk News creó una guía excelente (en inglés) sobre los candidatos destacados para gobernador—los que han recibido al menos uno por ciento en las encuestas.

Cargos estatales

Gobernador

Mi voto: Xavier Becerra

Esta elección es bastante horrible. Tenemos alrededor de 50 personas en la boleta y la mayoría no tiene por qué presentarse como candidato, y mucho menos como candidato para una de las economías más grande del mundo. No debería ser posible presentarse como candidato para gobernador si nunca ha tenido un trabajo público, pero supongo que es un debate para otro día.

Al final he decidido votar por Xavier Becerra, en particular porque tiene un porcentaje más o menos alto en las encuestas, y es un factor importante dado el sistema de dos candidatos principales. Becerra apoya seguro de salud de pagador único, que es genial. Tiene sentido que sería una prioridad alta porque él sirvió como el secretario del Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos en la administración de Biden. También su plataforma dice que apoya el uso de energía renovable. He oído algún chisme en línea que Becerra recibió una donación grande de Chevron, entonces me pregunté si él se comportaba hipócritamente. Parece que sí recibió una donación de $39,000, pero creo que solo es una noticia porque uno de sus oponentes destacados, Tom Steyer, está haciendo tweets en este tema para convertirlo en algo más grave de lo que es (a propósito, ¿por qué sigue alguien usando el sitio anteriormente conocido como Twitter?) ¿Preferiría yo que él no tome dinero de Chevron? Por supuesto, pero trabajo con lo que tengo ahora y la mayoría de estos candidatos son payasos (peyorativo).

Hablando de Thomas Steyer, el otro candidato presunto demócrata con un porcentaje alto en las encuestas, ¿puedo decir: qué chingados? Steyer es un multimillonario que nunca ha servido en cargo público. Steyer se hizo rico de ser un inversor temprano en la compañía de prisión privada ahora conocida como CoreCivic que construye centros de detención de ICE. Steyer ha vendido todas sus acciones de esta empresa, pero aún es multimillonario. Lo trágico aquí es que en realidad tiene la plataforma más progresiva de los candidatos más destacados. Aunque su plataforma es excelente, me pregunto si podemos confiar en que un multimillonario proponga políticas progresivas. No hay ninguna forma de saber con certeza si Steyer tiene la intención de seguir lo que ha prometido o si piensa que todo lo que diece lo hará ser electo. Las promesas de campaña no son vinculantes. Hasta donde sabemos, él ganaría la elección y después revelar que solo se presentó como candidato para que nos prevenga cobrar impuestos a los multimillonarios. No tenemos ninguna idea que él haría en el cargo porque no tiene ningún historial de servicio público. Dice que es progresista ahora, pero si alguien realmente quisiera expiar sus adquisiciones ilícitas, yo esperaría ver que done dinero. ¿Por qué aún es un multimillonario? ¡Podría escribir un cheque para pagar la deuda médica de muchas personas! ¡Financiar 10,000 campañas de Go Fund Me! ¡Dar bastante dinero a una biblioteca local para que opere confortablemente por 100 años! ¡Sea creativo! ¡No voy a votar por un chingado multimillonario!

Aquí están algunos candidatos por los que no voto y porqué:

Betty Yee: Fue mi selección inicial para gobernadora. Su nombre ya está en la boleta, pero se ha abandonado la campaña oficialmente.
Katie Porter: Me gusta Porter y siempre disfruté los clips de ella usando su pizarra blanca en el Congreso para mostrar a las personas porqué están equivocadas. Hay algún parloteo en línea diciendo que ella es, esencialmente, una perra. Tal vez sí, tal vez no, pero las alegaciones no son peores de lo que algún hombre en la política hace. Mi preocupación a esta inflexión es que demasiadas personas creen que es una vieja insoportable, y no sería posible obtener bastantes votos, aunque es una de mis primeras selecciones para gobernador(a).
Matt Mahan: Alcalde actual de San Jose y ¿parece que odia un poco a las personas sin hogar? Es un antiguo ejecutivo de una compañía de tecnología y parece que esta empapado del mundo de Silicon Valley lo que significa que no es el tipo de persona que quiero como el gobernador.
Chad Bianco: Es un republicano y cree falsamente que la elección de 2020 fue “robada” que recientemente “tomó por la fuerza más de 650,000 boletas de la elección de noviembre pasado para determinar, como él dice, si fueron contadas de modo fraudulento”. Además de alguna manera gana casi $600,000 cada año como el alguacil de Riverside County. No me parece correcto. No debemos votar por un hombre que dice que no se puede confiar en las elecciones. Si fuera la verdad, ¿por qué se presenta como candidato?
Steve Hilton: Es la primera opción según Trump y, según yo, la última.
Butch Ware: Me interesó en cierto modo la campaña de Ware pero no va a estar en la boleta porque “no entregó las declaraciones de ingresos correctas a tiempo para calificar”. Si no puede terminar el papeleo a tiempo para ser un candidato oficial, tal vez no esté listo para ser el gobernador de una de las economías más grandes del mundo.
Eric Swalwell: Aunque su nombre está en la boleta, Swalwell ha abandonado su candidatura después de que se asomaron alegaciones fiables del abuso sexual. ¡No votes por este hombre! No cometer abuso sexual es una vara muy baja. Ninguna persona que ha cometido abuso sexual debe estar en el poder. Si no puede respetar la autonomía de otras personas al nivel mínimo de evitar cometer abuso sexual, no tiene derecho a gobernar. La periodista Lyz Lens tiene algún comentario muy bueno sobre este asunto, escribiendo:

Sé que lo que leíste no es realmente la historia completa. Es lo que los periodistas y el departamento legal pudieron asegurarse suficientemente para evitar retos legales. Sé que es muy probable que los periodistas sepan mucho más, tal vez cosas aún peores, que no pueden contarte porque no pueden probarlas o verificarlas, o porque la gente que podría no va a hablar oficialmente, porque tiene miedo o está cansada, o una demanda legal la silenció. Puedo contarte que si una historia avanza a este punto, no está en duda.

Si no crees en las mujeres cuando hacerlo no es conveniente políticamente, entonces realmente no crees en las mujeres. Solo quieres usar el dolor de las mujeres como una herramienta política para convertir en una arma contra tus enemigos.

Vicegobernador

Mi voto: Alice Stek

La doctora Alice Stek es una candidata bajo la bandera del partido de Peace and Freedom (Paz y libertad), ¡el que es mi partido! Ella es una parte de la Lista de Unidad Izquierda en esta elección. ¡Su plataforma tiene todo con lo que sueño! Hay universidad sin costo y asistencia médica para todos, terminar la deuda médica y escolar, involucrar en programas de seguridad comunitaria, dejar de financiar a Israel, licencia parental garantizada, aún prohibir la privatización de la costa. ¡Estas son las políticas que necesitamos! Me gusta ver plataformas osadas presentando ideas que realmente mejorarían nuestras vidas, en cambio de encerrarnos en un ciclo infinito de la mediocridad neoliberal.

Si no estás listo para permitir que los izquierdistas dirijan, mis segunda y tercera opciones, respectivamente, son Michael Tubbs y Janelle Kellman. Tubbs fue el alcalde de Stockton, dónde lanzó una prueba de un programa de renta básica universal, que ayudó a los ciudadanos tremendamente. Kellman parece una candidata muy fuerte con respecto al clima, lo que necesitamos sin duda ahora.

Secretario de Estado

Mi voto: Gary Blenner

Voto por Gary Blenner del Green Party (Partido Verde) para Secretario de Estado porque él apoya, entre otras cosas, el voto por orden de preferencia. Con este tipo de voto, no sentiríamos que tengamos que votar basados en cuales candidatos parecen “elegibles” porque todos votarían por sus candidatos preferidos. Por ejemplo, si usáramos este sistema ahora, diría que mi primera selección para gobernador es Katie Porter, mi segunda es Xavier Becerra, etcétera, y ¡todos de estos votos contarían! Serían mucho más fácil para elegir a personas que nos gustan porque no tendríamos que preocuparnos por “desperdiciar” votos por candidatos que recibieran solo una porción pequeña de los votos.

Además Blenner apoya el uso de financiación pública para campañas, el cual sería un cambio inmenso en cómo funcionan las elecciones. En vez de estar bombardeados por las personas con la mayor cantidad de dinero, cada candidato recibiría una cantidad igual de fondos para operar su campaña. Sería genial, ¿no?

Contralor

Mi voto: Meghann Adams

Una de las tareas del contralor es dirigir los fondos de capitalización de CalPERS y CalSTRS (los fondos de empleados estatales y maestros californianos, respectivamente). Meghann Adams, mi selección para contralor, dejaría de invertir los fondos en compañías que están involucradas en el genocidio en Gaza, algo muy importante para mí. Ella nota que “CalPERS tiene casi $400 millones en Lockheed Martin, cuyos misiles, aviones de combate, y bombas guiadas por instrumentos de precisión se usan para destruir edificios de apartamentos, escuelas, y hospitales en Gaza. CalSTRS tiene muchos fondos en Elbit Systems y Caterpillar, cuyos productos están siendo usados para bombardear a los civiles y derribar barrios en Gaza.” Nuestra habilidad de jubilarnos no debe depender de que invirtamos en guerra. He escrito anteriormente sobre mis esfuerzos de prevenir que mis cotizaciones sean invertidas en compañías que lidian con guerra. No es fácil pero puedo informar que hay beneficios. Mi 401(k) no ha perdido dinero durante la locura económica reciente. Garantizo que es posible ahorrar bastante dinero para jubilarse sin invertir en genocidio.

Tesorero

Mi voto: Glenn Turner

Glenn Turner es la candidata del Partido Verde y, como su compañera de la Lista de Unidad Izquierda, Meghann Adams, apoya no usar los fondos de CalPERS y CalSTRS para financiar la guerra y los combustibles fósiles. También demanda que se cobre impuestos a los multimillonarios y condone la deuda académica. Son cosas que quiero ver y por ese voto por ella.

Yo no voto por Eleni Kounalakis, nuestra vicegobernadora actual y la candidata demócrata, porque creo que se fija más en su cartera de inmuebles que apoyar californianos comunes. El año pasao, cuando Kounalakis se planeaba presentar como candidata para gobernadora en cambio de tesorera, CalMatters informó que ella “gana millones de dolares anualmente de sus inversiones de propiedades extensivas en la región de Sacramento y afuera”, lo cual sería un conflicto de intereses notable. Personas en línea se preguntan si una parte de la razón que los empleados estatales tuvieron que regresar a la oficina para trabajar durante la pandemia fue que la cartera de inmuebles de Kounalakis incluye edificios de oficinas estatales y otros lugares que se beneficiaran económicamente de empleados estar en el centro. Todos están de acuerdo que los empleados eran tan productivos en casa (si no aún más) que en la oficina, pero el gobernador Newsom insistió que los empleados estatales regresaran a la oficina durante una pandemia activa. ¿Puede ser que Kounalakis influyera en la decisión? En cualquier caso, no tenemos ninguna razón de creer que sus decisiones como tesorera no la beneficiarían económicamente, y no es como funcionaría el servicio público.

Procurador general

Mi voto: Rob Bonta

La guía oficial para votantes que actualmente está en el sitio web del Secretario de Estado (y la versión que recibí por correo) no incluye al candidato demócrata que está de turno, Rob Bonta. Sin embargo, confirmé que es un candidato oficial en la elección primaria. Voto por él porque parece que ha hecho un muy buen trabajo como el procurador general, haciendo cosas como demandar a los crisis pregnancy centers (centros de embarazo de emergencia, las cuales son organizaciones religiosas que engañan a personas para que crean que son proveedores legítimos de salud médica). ¡Quiero que él siga haciendo cosas así!

Comisionado de seguros

Mi voto: Jane Kim

Voto por Jane Kim porque tiene un plan coherente y específico para lo que quiere hacer como comisionanda de seguros y las cosas que quiere hacer realmente ayudarían a la gente común. Quiere establecer una versión de seguro de desastre de pagador único para ayudar a tratar los efectos del cambio climático. Ella propone una opción pública para el seguro de automóvil y terminar la discriminación de precios. Ahora que se menciona, ¿por qué se permiten las compañías practicar la discriminación de precios?

Con respeto a los otros candidatos, Steven Bradford no parece una elección mala, pero me gusta la plataforma de Kim más. Patrick Wolff parece demasiado corporativo y creo que es extraño que menciona en su declaración de candidato que es un gran maestro de ajedrez. No necesariamente es un rasgo de un buen comisionado de seguros, pero estoy segura que tiene el efecto de parecer inteligente. Tampoco voto por el candidato de la Lista de Unidad Izquierda, Eduardo “Lalo” Vargas porque no ha publicado una plataforma específica para el trabajo. ¡Tengo que saber que va a hacer cuando llegue a la posición!

Junta directiva estatal de impuestos sobre ventas del Distrito 1

Mi voto: Nelson Esparza

El Distrito 1 incluye casi todos los condados no costeros, incluso mi hogar el Condado de Sacramento. Solo hay dos candidatos demócratas para este escaño y Esparza es el único con una declaración de candidato coherente. Me gusta que dice que quiere asegurar que “los ricos paguen su porción justa”. ¡Lo quiero también! ¡Que cobre impuestos a los ricos!

Superintendente de instrucción pública

Mi voto: Frank Lara

Frank Lara es otro miembro de la Lista de Unidad Izquierda y tiene una plataforma que me encanta. Él es el único candidato para superintendente de instrucción pública que habla de sacar a ICE y la policía de las escuelas. ¿Cómo pueden los niños aprender cuando están preocupados de ser secuestrados por ICE? No es posible enfocarse en la escuela cuando se está estresado sobre algo tan grave. Lara apoya aumentar la financiación de escuelas, notando que California usa “menos de 3 por ciento del producto bruto estatal para financiar nuestras escuelas”, y se opone a que las escuelas privadas reciban fondos públicos. Me gusta también que quiere mejores servicios de educación especial, cuidado infantil universal y gratis, y extender educación para adultos. ¡California podría tenerlo todo!

Cargos del Condado de Sacramento

Representante de Distrito 7 del Congreso

Mi voto: Mai Vang

Escucha. Nuestra representante actual, Doris Matsui, tiene 81 años. Es DEMASIADO VIEJA para ser congresista. Además está casada con un multimillonario, y basada en una apariencia pública rara, ella está bastante desactualizada.

Voto por Vang porque realmente tiene una visión progresista y ha estado afuera en contacto con la gente. Según el periódico SF Gate, “Vang quiere abolir el Servicio de Control de Inmigración y Aduanas, apoya tan la propuesta de un impuesto federal sobre el patrimonio del representante Ro Khanna como la iniciativa electoral estatal de un impuesto sobre el patrimonio, y apoya la propuesta de seguro de salud de pagador único llamada Medicare for all.” Su plataforma en general es progresiva y llena de cosas que realmente necesitamos como cuidado infantil universal y dejar de financiar la guerra genocida de Israel contra Gaza. Tenerla como nuestra congresista sería genial después de décadas de Matsui aprobando más fondos para el ejército y variados horrores modernos.

Juez de la Oficina Número 15 de la Corte Superior

Mi voto: Heath Langle

Votar por jueces siempre es extraño porque los cargos deben ser no partidarios aunque tenemos que votar por ellos y tenemos poca información disponible. Si no eres un observador ávido de las cortes, es difícil saber si alguien sería el tipo de juez que quieres. Además, los dos de los cargos de juez de la Corte Superior tienen solo un candidato a juez en la boleta, entonces en una forma nuestros votos no importan muchos. Por supuesto, puedes retener tu voto de un candidato que no te gusta o votas escribiendo el nombre de un candidato que no figura en las boletas, pero no creo que tenga mucho efecto.

No hay mucha información sobre Heath Langle en línea. Actualmente es un juez en la Corte Superior de Sacramento y fue el exalumno del año de Lincoln Law School en 2025. ¿Que padre? No encontré nada ofensivo, entonces supongo que recibirá mi voto.

Juez de la Oficina Número 21 de la Corte Superior

Mi voto: James Morris

James Morris tampoco tiene oposición en la boleta y actualmente es un comisionado de la Corte Superior de Sacramento. Sí tiene un sitio web que parece fijarse en quien lo ha respaldado, incluso una lista larga de jueces y la Asociación de Ayudantes del Sheriff del Condado de Sacramento. Desearía que supiera más sobre este hombre pero supongo que voy a votar por él porque es Morris o nadie para este cargo.

Senador estatal de distrito 8

Mi voto: Angelique Ashby

Angelique Ashby es nuestra senadora estatal actual del distrito 8. No me encanta pero parece que ha estado involucrado en algunas leyes buenas y que hace un trabajo decente por lo general. Su página de Wikipedia ni siquiera tiene una sección de “controversias”, entonces debería hacer algo correcto.

Me gustaría votar por la candidata del Partido de Paz y Libertad, Linda Roberts, sin embargo no parece tener un sitio web ni ninguna información en línea sobre lo que representa. Hay un artículo en el sitio web del Partido de Paz y Libertad declarando que se ha presentado como candidata, pero es todo. ¡Tengo que tener más información si voy a votar por alguien!

Miembro de la Asamblea del estado de distrito 10

Mi voto: Stephanie Nguyen

Stephanie Nguyen es nuestra miembro de la asamblea actual y algo que me gusta sobre ella es que siempre hace eventos y actividades dónde puede unirse con la gente en el distrito. Estoy suscrita a su boletín informativo, entonces veo que hace cosas como una reunión mensual para hacer artesanías dónde las personas pueden hablar con ella, u organizar una hora para pasear y platicar con sus votantes. Creo que es una forma muy considerada para conectar con la gente que representa.

Su único oponente, Vanya Singh, quiere “que California vuelva a ser grande” (“make California great again”), entonces no voy a votar por esa mierda.

Miembro, Junta de Supervisores, distrito 5

Mi voto: Pat Hume

Pat Hume es nuestro miembro actual de la Junta de Supervisores y no tiene oposición. Encones … claro.

Tasador

Mi voto: Christina Wynn

Christina Wynn no tiene oposición para el tasador del Condado de Sacramento. Ella es la tasadora de turno y ha servido en este cargo desde 2017. No encontré ningunas noticias malas sobre ella, entonces supongo que voy a votar por ella.

¡Comparte esta guía!

¡Has llegado al final! Te aliento a compartir esta guía si la encontraste útil. Por favor deja un comentario si crees que olvidé algo importante. ¡Gracias por votar!