Inside the Little Plastic Castle

Ed Yong is a science journalist who's been deeply reporting COVID since day 1, including long COVID. He won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for his breaking news coverage at the Atlantic, as well as five other journalism prizes. He's listening to experts by experience, like folks with ME/CFS. From Yong's NYTimes op-ed on how journalists can save lives:

In his poem Why Bother? Sean Thomas Dougherty wrote, “Because right now, there is someone/out there with/a wound in the exact shape/of your words.” Those words are ours to provide, those wounds ours to plaster. Contrary to the widespread notion that speaking truth to power means being antagonistic and cold, journalists can, instead, act as a care-taking profession — one that soothes and nurtures. And we are among the only professions that can do so at a scale commensurate with the scope of the crises before us. We can make people who feel invisible feel seen. We can make everyone else look.

https://buttondown.email/edyong209/archive/the-eds-up-a-wound-in-the-shape-of-your-words/

He offers a "gift link" to the op-ed on his site.

He presents excellent advice to young journalists ...and although it exists in a graphical format, he provides the text FIRST.

His monthly newsletter, The Ed's Up, is free, and as well as thoughts on journalism, science writing, general politics (this month it was Gaza) there is awesome bird photography.

He's also published two books, which I look forward to reading when my brain is up to it.

Metafilter mentioned Lil Nas X in full lilac jumpsuit on the cover of the NYTimes Sunday Magazine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/magazine/lil-nas-x.html

Followed the link and I hit the pay wall: "sign in to your account or subscribe.*"

I do pay for local publications. I won’t pay for the NYTimes because then I’d read the NYTimes and my mental health would plummet.

My workarounds in order of use:

1. Try another browser
2. Wayback Machine
3. Find another archive
4. Use my local library’s subscription

( my four workarounds )

I love Mallory Ortberg's writing. I miss The Toast like woe. I subscribe to the Shatner Chatner, I listen to the great advice from Slate's Dear Prudence, I reread old Toast posts via this reddit sub

https://www.reddit.com/r/ToastCrumbs

(since the original site is *sob* down.)

...and due to my news fast, I just learned that today is "I'm Daniel Mallory Ortberg!" day. (Found out at Metafilter, here's some linkspam)

( Autostraddle & The Cut -- links & quotes )

The book is The Merry Spinster

Sounds like a neat new audio-production program for the Mac users among us, "Piezo" from Rogue Amoeba software. I've been using their products for six years. Support is great, docs are good, prices are modest.

Here's a detailed look at Piezo from my #1 Macintosh info source, TidBITS: