I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake By A Horse Hello. I am a horse. I work very hard at my job of being a horse. When humans say move the heavy thing, I move the heavy thing. When humans sit on top of me and pull on my head, I carry them where they want to go. The main food the humans give me is hay and oats. But I am thinking it would be nice to have a different food. I am thinking I would like to try cake. Yes, yes. Cake. I know all about it. When humans eat cake, it is in glad times. It is the food for a celebration, such as when a woman becomes 47. I have seen cake on the Fourth of July. When humans have a cake, they stand around it and clap hands and smile and say happy birthday at each other. Sometimes there are beautiful markings on a cake, such as balloons or a pink shape. Sometimes the top of a cake is on fire and a boy must blow on the fire with mouth wind. This is the scariest cake. I do not want this kind. But I will eat any other cake. Any cake that is not the fire cake that tries to kill the boy. Please understand: I do not get money for doing work. I do not get to go inside the house. All I am either doing my horse job or standing in my pen or eating food off the floor. I always do these things. But I have never once gotten cake and I would like it very much. I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children. I am more helpful to the farm. Children do not move the heavy things like me or let anyone ride on them. And yet they get cake. Maybe the humans will realize this. Maybe they will say, "You know who deserves cake? That horse. That horse whose back we are always on." Every day I dream about what it will be like if I get to eat cake. Here is what will happen. First, I will walk to the cake and putt my nose at it like hrrfff to make and stomping my hooves to make sure it is not a snake. Then I will trot in a circle to show that I am a horse and I am large. After that, I will nuzzle the cake to …

The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me.

It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."

“Slow Pay, Low Pay or No Pay”: Trial Reveals How Insurers Try to Wield Power Over Doctors Blue Cross authorized mastectomies and breast reconstructions for women with cancer but refused to pay the full doctors’ bills. A jury called it fraud and awarded the practice $421 million.

The breast cancer center appealed thousands of Blue Cross reimbursements for being too low.

At trial, the insurer revealed that it had never considered any of the appeals — and that they were pointless:

“An appeal is not available to review an underpayment.”

(Published April 2025)

every amazon brand is called PZZAFARTZ and disappears from the earth 6 weeks after you buy the thing

I have a bookish friend whose daughter works at the bookstore where your event was last night. I'm sorry the event didn't go how you hoped ❤️ I just requested that my library in Austin order your book, so hopefully that will help in a small way!

Me: *doing free labor*

The internet: you have a typo. 💀

Oh no it's 4 o'clock. That's practically dinner time, which is nearly bedtime, which means the weekend is over and we failed to accomplish all of our tasks

Jason Reynolds on What Fires the Imagination of Young Readers The best-selling author on why "inappropriate" topics may be exactly what teen readers need, and the importance of raising the hair on the backs of readers' necks in the first 50 pages.

On a very hot day in June, I took a risk. I made a beeline to the front of the room at ISTE so I could shake hands w/ Jason Reynolds.

Nervously, I blurted out, "I know you have to leave, but my editor would never forgive me if I didn't ask to interview you."

My latest for @edutopia.org:

Just put this on hold at my library! 🤩

[DONOTREPLY] THERE'S A SECURE MESSAGE FROM YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER. LOGIN TO VIEW MESSAGES. CLICK TO RESET PASSWORD. CONFIRM LAST FOUR DIGITS TO RESET PASSWORD. LOGIN TO VIEW MESSAGES. MSG: 5 easy-sneazy tips for allergy season 🤧🌸

Celebrate your favorite pastime by baking a dozen cakelets shaped like the iconic Le Creuset Dutch oven. It's simple with this cleverly designed two-piece pan, which re-creates the famous silhouette, handles and detailed lid. The heavy-gauge carbon steel heats quickly for even baking and consistent results while the nonstick silicone finish ensures easy release and fast cleanup. Use the pan to make everything from mini cornbreads and muffins to petite cakes and yeast loaves. Pan includes base and lid. Makes 12 cakelets. Durable, heavy-gauge carbon-steel pan distributes heat quickly and evenly to promote consistent rising and uniform baking with no hot spots. Nonstick silicone finish promotes easy release with details intact and quick cleanup. Wide rims with heat-resistant silicone grips make it easy to transport pan – even while wearing oven mitts.

it is essential that I have this pan

A Black-capped Chickadee showcasing winter fashion by donning a snowflake accessory.

This Little-Known Appeal Could Force Your Insurer to Pay for Lifesaving Care. Here’s How to File It. When a health insurer refuses to pay for your treatment, you may have the right to have the denial reviewed — and potentially overturned — by an independent provider. Here are six steps experts sugges...

Few patients appeal a health insurance denial, but a little-known process that requires insurers and plans to seek an independent opinion can force insurers to pay for what can be lifesaving treatment.

Here’s what experts say you need to know.

@lutzfernandez.bsky.social I thought you might be interested in this ❤️

This App Warns You if Someone Is Wearing Smart Glasses Nearby The creator of Nearby Glasses made the app after reading 404 Media's coverage of how people are using Meta's Ray-Bans smartglasses to film people without their knowledge or consent. “I consider it to ...

This is cool as hell: An app designed to ping people about nearby smartglasses.

Also cool: The creator was inspired by @404media.co coverage, a great illustration of why their journalism is so essential. This kind of work is funded by paid subscribers so become one of those if you can.

my local park is full of hundreds of snow sculptures and someone has been adding museum labels

@heymrsbond.com I thought you or folks you know might be interested ❤️

Why do I have to pretend that I'm going to print something in order to save it as a PDF. Why do I have to engage in a little ruse.

I haven’t heard of this one before! Just put on hold at my library 🥰

You don’t want hands free driving, you want trains. You want trains you want trains you want TRAINS

Writing is thinking.

It's not some marginal boring task you can skip. It's the heart of it.

The best refutation to grind culture mentality is a gold medal.

This is fantastic! The world needs more bookish joy like this 🥰

Fun idea for school librarians. For the past couple years I've offered book bundles over winter, spring, & summer break for students and faculty/staff. They fill out a quick, easy Reader's Advisory form & I pull 3 books for them. I check out to their accounts then wrap the books and hand deliver. 1/

StoryGraph to be read page, showing the option to switch away from infinite scroll

Here’s the setting…

I think they fixed this recently and added pagination instead of infinite scroll on that page 👏

Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.

Jennifer @JenYetAgain@beige.party in 2017 a popular twitter game was to type a partial phrase then see what your phone auto-completes it with. this proved so popular that it is now the only business model in the US. Feb 9, 2026 at 4:35:18PM Boosted by 968: Favourited by 1324:

mom they’re roasting the US economy on mastodon again

Didn't want this to get buried because it's important: You really can request a proclamation for basically anything you can imagine. Elected officials LOVE doing this shit and a wise and stealthy prankster could, I am just saying, probably trick an office into proclaiming something subversive.

1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.

Hundreds of kids are still detained.

We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵

I have so many things I need to do, but all I really want to do is stay in bed. A memoir.