Cartoon, wide layout, six panels, three on top, three below. =TOP ROW= * LEFT PANEL Wide shot: Mysterious robed figures carrying lanterns atop staves come to a lonely house in the middle of the night. A female figure stands in the home's open doorway. ROBED FIGURE We have come for the child. * CENTER PANEL Close now on the mother and her visitors. MOTHER So soon? ROBED FIGURE It is time. * RIGHT PANEL MOTHER We should never have got him a library card! ROBED FIGURE What is done cannot be undone. =LOWER ROW= *LEFT PANEL MOTHER We couldn’t see the harm! We only wanted him to enjoy reading! ROBED FIGURE For most, it ends there. * CENTER PANEL A young boy walks out of the house and follows the departing robed figures. MOTHER Oh, Lord! What have I done? SON Do not cry, mother. * RIGHT PANEL Back to the wide shot, as the boy and robed figures get farther from the house, and the mother watches from the open doorway. SON I am a writer now.

By Tom Gauld. So painfully true....

That wonderful feeling when, as you’re packing for an overseas trip, you check the place where you always keep your passport, only to discover it’s not there. Yippee! (Thankfully, it was in the second place I looked, in my other, American-sized carry-on bag.)

Trump really is the absolute worst at negotiating. He knows nothing but sticks, with no sense of carrots. He wants Iran to meet with a US delegation in Pakistan, so he threatens them and seizes their ships. What reason does Iran have to agree just to be so disrespected? Iran holds the cards here.

Jaime Gama on Instagram: "“There’s a conversation you probably haven’t had with your partner: What actually makes you feel loved?” Not the category. Not the label. Not “physical touch” or “quality t... 1,436 likes, 26 comments - thepolykink.therapist on April 18, 2026: "“There’s a conversation you probably haven’t had with your partner: What actually makes you feel loved?” Not the category. Not th...

This guy has provided so many insights and things to think about for me, but this question feels vital, and not really something we’re taught to consider. I’m going to have to sit with this for a while. 🤔

www.instagram.com/reel/DXSIZu2...

So incredibly WEIRD!

Just a guess, but I think the lower right thing is a preformed hamburger patty, and to the left, a boiled leather shoe sole?

Same

“…the victims or whatever…” perfectly encapsulates how he feels about those who were sexually assaulted and raped. “Whatever”. Utterly contemptible.

Picture of a local-to-me Chevron gas station pricing sign. Regular $5.999 Plus $6.199 Supreme $6.379 Diesel $7.699

Gas prices at my local station. Ouch!

Throwing the signal up to my #ttrpg friends, some of whom I've already contacted about this -- anyone got a contact for Sean Preston, who ran the rpg game company Reality Blurs? Did some great Savage Worlds settings and the amazing Tremulus horror game. Last thing I can find is a 2020 blog post.

The Fable of the Alpha Male The scientific misunderstanding that changed the way we see masculinity

I found this a worthy read:

open.substack.com/pub/themicha...

Finishing a first draft? That seems awfully pretentious by my previous achievements.

I’ve been using unsalted roasted in-shell peanuts, tossing them to the street or grassy areas when out for my walks. The last few times, I was successful in coaxing crows to check out what I was tossing. I guess I made an impression on one of them.

What’s even more wild is the last time I did my walk, where I tried befriending them, was two weeks ago. If they’re remembering me, I’m happily impressed!

Why is the story framed this way? After seven years, they are still out of compliance with 75% of the court order. That’s the story.

I remember that they would typically hold up teenaged women of color as examples, and now they’re concerned that white teen women aren’t having as many babies, and I can’t help but catch a whiff of racism in their crisis.

I’m happily stunned, honestly. I was afraid I was misreading the crow’s behavior. It flew up to the roof when I came out to my car and just stared at me. Then it waited for me to grab some peanuts from inside the house, and went right to them when I gave them appropriate space. It was wild!

A crow just asked me for a peanut. Operation “befriend a crow” might have actually succeeded!

I have a possibly strange compulsion to take better care of other people’s stuff that I’m using than I do my own. I think this is why the thought of renting a furnished apartment (common in Spain) makes me feel so anxious. 🤔

It’s infuriating when a woman comes forward about a man raping her in his hotel room after drinking and the response is “Why would she go to his room?” “Why would she drink with him?” This is Mike Pence logic. Women should be allowed to hang out with men without expecting they will be raped.

Orban is OUT!!!

Did Trump Fabricate an Iran War Off-ramp? The proposal Trump called “workable” on Tuesday was the same he rejected as “not good enough” on Monday. Then things got really weird.

Jay Kuo examines the timeline of Trump’s ceasefire deal and exposes the horse and pony show behind the scenes. This wasn’t a negotiated deal; it was Trump desperately looking for an off-ramp from the war he blundered into.
open.substack.com/pub/statusku...

BREAKING: Trump announces two week window for Congress to remove him from office

Living in the United States at this time principally involves being an involuntary participant in a weekly pump and dump market manipulation scheme enacted by the child predator president and his cabal of bloodthirsty freaks. The entire apparatus of the state is focused on fixing the price of oil

"The President is eager to put genocide in the Middle East on-hold in order to return his attention to the important work of racial and ethnic cleansing here at home."

TACO Trump apparently has TACO’d again, thankfully

@alex-padilla4ca.bsky.social Where’s your voice calling out the President’s genocide threat this morning? Your silence is deafening.

@liccardo.house.gov Where’s your voice calling out the President’s genocide threat this morning? Your silence is deafening.

Text Image: To the people leaving MAGA who want to be treated with kindness and grace: I appreciate that you've put down the gas can and matches. I do. But my house is still on fire. People I love are still being burned. Pick up a fire extinguisher and help us put out the fire. After the ashes have cooled, the burns have been tended, and the structures rebuilt... THEN we can maybe talk about grace. Don't you dare ask for anything while the fire you set is still blazing.

(Author unknown to me, sorry)