I forgot to share yesterday's, but I got it in two! 😄

Archive April 8, 2026
Wordle 1,754 2/6

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I love the idea of a crochet Book Blanket, and this square for Living Blood by Tananarive Due is so striking 🤩🐝📚🧶

crochet hexagon on black background with 3 spiraled colors: baby blue, butter yellow, and light pink, with a light pink border

CW: GV

Spiral 82 for #MSB2026: March 23, 2026

Data (USA):

Mass Shootings: 2 (lt pink)
Deaths: 2 (butter)
Injured: 9 (baby blue)

(from www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass...)

Pattern: Ella's Temperature Blanket by Kaye Adolphson 🧶

#crochet #endgunviolencenow #thisisamerica

Devil’s bridge near Sedona, Arizona, USA. Red and orange rock cut through green lush desert plants. The foreground is of a natural bridge of rock.

As long as there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. - Eugene Debs

Pic of the day

#photography

The Grand Canyon Just Won a Massive Legal Victory Against Uranium Mining The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the designation of Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, protecting nearly one million acres of sacred Indigenous land and critical wildlife habitat from extractive ind...

bit.ly/4ctL3lg?fbcl...

A starfield filled with thousands of stars and shining clouds of dust. The Milky Way\u2019s elegant spiral structure is dominated by just two arms wrapping off the ends of a central bar of stars. Spanning more than 100,000 light-years, Earth is located along one of the galaxy\u2019s spiral arms, about halfway from the center. Credit: NASA

OH. MY. GOD.

THIS IS THE MILKY WAY SHOT BY THE ARTEMIS II CREW. LOOK AT ALL THOSE STARS!!!!

Common loons call out in the morning quiet: 🔊 #AGoodPlace

Source: www.reddit.com/r/NatureIsFu...

Mostly plein air, then the rest is invented from (a somewhat romanticized) memory. Like all convincing stories.
10”x8” oil

Hawaii braces for more flooding

4-8 inches of rain is forecast for Kahului (Maui) through Friday morning. Another 4 inches of rain there would make 2026 the wettest year there in three decades. Oahu also bracing for an additional 4-10 inches of rain. A flood watch is in effect for the entire state.

The Moon is tidally locked so one side always faces us.
From that side, Earth is a permanent fixture in the sky 13 times larger and 43 times brighter than the Moon appears from Earth.
Four humans photographed this.
Every crater in this frame is older than any life on land.

Artemis II

Impossible to disagree with a single word that Ben Rhodes (Obama era NSC official) is saying here:

This is Chewy. He loves to help his grandma garden. She can’t kneel down to dig holes anymore, but that’s his favorite part, so they're a perfect team. 14/10 (TT: chewythenewfie)

image from inside Artemis II text: i need more men to understand that two men crying and hugging in space after one of them announced they were naming a moon crater after the other one's late wife is actually what peak masculinity looks like.

My first A3 format painting :) The first one that worked out. It is much harder to work on larger formats.
#art #bskyart #painting #watercolor #SciArt #mountains #mist

I can't stop admiring this photo by the Artemis II crew made of the moon. (Nikon D5 shot at f 7.1 at 800th of a second on 400 iso at 80 mm)

a small, serene waterfall flowing over rocks in Mingus Park, located in Coos Bay, Oregon. the water is shallow and clear, revealing the rocky streambed beneath. sunlight filters through the trees, creating highlights and shadows on the water and surrounding rocks. the banks are lush, featuring moss-covered rocks and foliage like ivy.

little waterfall in Mingus Park, Coos Bay
#WaterfallWednesday
#ECK #WCK
#Oregon #PNW
#MingusPark
#Nature #Photography

Caster Semenya slams IOC’s decision to ban transgender athletes from Olympic participation | Mozzart Sport Kenya Two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya has lambasted the International Olympic Committee (IOC) following its decision to ban transgender women from ...

Add another athlete to the chorus slamming the IOC transgender ban. This time from Caster Semenya.

It's deeply misogynistic that she has faced barring while male athletes with clear advantages (like Phelps) are allowed to compete.

#goodnews #transrights #transsports #olympics

Instead of flowers, people bring sticks to this dog’s grave. ❤️

Stop talking about testosterone – there’s no such thing as a ‘true sex’ | Katrina Karkazis Sports bodies want a biological criterion to indicate an athlete’s sex. But it’s far more complicated than that, writes academic Katrina Karkazis

Testosterone needs to be degendered.

Stop talking about testosterone – there’s no such thing as a ‘true sex

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Image posted by astronomybot

Rosette Nebula
Image date: 23 April 2025, 16:00


This is a Hubble Space Telescope photo of a small portion of the Rosette Nebula, a huge star-forming region spanning 100 light-years across and located 5,200 light-years away. Hubble zooms into a small portion of the nebula that is only 4 light-ye...

Great Egret

once nearly hunted to extinction for its plumes, the species has rebounded, occurring worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. It is ubiquitous across the Sun Belt of the United States and in the Neotropics

📷: Lili Banta

#birds

Before I became an American, I was Lebanese. Parts of my family live in Lebanon.

Anyway, you don't need those bona fides to feel this way, but what is happening in Lebanon right now is a complete outrage. The people there, who mostly are just trying to carve out a living, don't deserve this.

A U.S. map showing that over the past 30 days, almost the entire country was significantly hotter than usual. Nearly all states are colored dark red, which indicates that maximum temperatures were 8 degrees Fahrenheit or more above the historical average. Only a few tiny areas near the northern borders show normal or cooler temperatures.

This is bad, but also, "laughs in Missoula"

But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.

As much as I love poetry, I am so incredibly tired of learning through lived experience precisely what Yeats meant with his lines:

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

“You’re not supposed to use your phone while driving.”

“Got it. Let’s install large tablet touchscreens in almost every single new car.”

Moonrise over the mallee on Thursday night.
At that time, Artemis II was on its way to the Moon.

April I wanted to speak at length about the happiness of my body and the delight of my mind for it was April, night, a full moon and— but something in myself or maybe from somewhere other said: not too many words, please, in the muddy shallows the frogs are singing.

Mary Oliver

Me: hello I need accommodations
Them: what’s your dx?
Me: well I don’t have one but I do need a reasona-
Them: no dx no accommodations

Me, later: I has dx!
Them: ugh everyone getting labels so trendy
Me: I can has accommodation?
Them: no, you’re faking

Them: labels hurt people
Me: YOU hurt people

"Country, he explains, is not something people own or manage. It is something they belong to. 'Country speaks for us', he says. 'And because it gives us so much, we have a responsibility to give back'."