Creature of the New Page

Very cool antique tophat case my mother gave me. Interior is cardboard covered in satin, with an exterior leather shell. Fastening strap with other half of lock hardware sadly missing, but the interior clasp is intact!

1) walkable cities

2) more eco-friendly everything

3) your boss couldn't force you to work weekends

4) teachers would get some fucking respect

5) restorative, rather than punitive, justice system

6) heavy-duty social safety net

7) emphasis on community

8) the abortion argument wouldn't be an argument because abortion isn't some fraught tangled issue in Judaism--it's a matter of health to be determined between a pregnant person, their doctor, and their rabbi, and the rabbi's role is basically to provide moral support

9) vaccines wouldn't be an argument. You're getting them because the science shows they protect people and we respect science and learning in this world. You're getting them because it's not all about you-you-you in this world. You have a duty to your community and that includes the preservation of life and health.

Cnetizens: Why the thousand-year-old stone statues at the Northern Song Mausoleums aren’t covered with glass enclosures.

The director of the Cultural Relics Bureau replies: "They’ve stood here largely intact for over a millennium. Why add extra barriers?"

Visitors worry wind, rain and sunlight in the farmland will wear them down. The director explains:

Glass covers speed up decay—it’s like locking the statues in a sauna. Trapped heat and moisture create sharp temperature shifts. Salt crystals inside the stone expand and crack the carvings far faster than open-air exposure.

These statues blend naturally with the farmland landscape. Glass barriers would destroy the sense of scale and historical atmosphere.

When first built, the mausoleum complex was a restricted royal compound ringed by walls, palaces and pine trees—no farmland at all. After the Song fell, protection systems collapsed. Wars and weather destroyed buildings. Local residents gradually dismantled the abandoned structures, reusing timber and bricks in nearby villages.

By the Ming and Qing dynasties, villagers turned the empty grounds into farmland, leaving stone figures scattered amid crops.

Few people damaged the statues for three reasons: each weighs several tons and is impossible to move; folk belief held that anyone who damaged the guardian statues would be cursed with misfortune; every later dynasty passed laws punishing those who vandalized former imperial mausoleums.

Once an exclusive imperial burial ground, now ordinary farmland—this shift tells the story of history. Glass covers would only be unnecessary. As an old Chinese poem puts it: 旧时王谢堂前燕，飞入寻常百姓家

The swallows that were wont to grace the halls of Wang and Xie, Now seek the humble roofs of common men.

(cr 大鹅呀eyaeyaeya，陈帆fotochen，摄色📸，腾腾兔兔🐰)

The following items are demonstrated in the video and described in the voice-over:

1. Assorted bump dots - Various kinds of stickers with protruding dots on them that can be put onto appliances to make them more tactile.

2. Pocket money brailler - A device that allows you to imprint braille onto paper notes, indicating their value.

3. Liquid level indicator - A device hung on the edge of a container with metal prongs that detect when liquid has reached it.

4. Braille Pop-It - A pop-it with the alphabet in braille on each bubble.

5. Tactile Rubik's cube - A rubik's cube with unique textures for each color.

6. Braille color clothing tags - Tags with braille to indicate what colour a piece of clothing is.

7. Signature guide - A card with a rectangular slit in it to guide the user when writing their signature.

8. Low vision playing cards - Cards with very large and colorful numbers on them.

9. Pop-A-Cell - A plastic card with 6 bubbles you can indent to practice braille characters.

10. Talking keychain clock - A clock that says the time aloud when you press a button.

we urgently need money for gas and food. even $1 here and there helps. a kind word of encouragement from other vanlifers would also be appreciated bc we are feeling very defeated and isolated right now.

we have been deeply impacted by the housing crisis, Medicaid, SNAP & HRT cuts, and even by the shifting climate. direct aid saves lives like ours and we are really needing a miracle rn.

we don't need much more before we can get to the woods and just coast on what we've got for a couple of weeks. we are SO close. it's like 5 more hours of driving.

“there’s a restaurant two miles from my house called—” nope

“today I learned [celeb] went to my high school—” nope nope nope nope nope

these are all real posts I’ve seen on the internet that allowed me to identify a user’s hometown instantly. if it’s a small town, that’s doubly dangerous, because a bad actor could trace you just by a unique first name or selfie you once posted. in an age where doxxing and stalking are some of the worst I’ve ever seen it, you HAVE to think twice about what you’re posting online.

i once saw a 13-year old post an image they noted as being “a few miles from their house.” it had a theater in the shot with a unique enough name to be local. one google maps search, now everyone knew not only what city they lived in, but the possible neighborhoods in that radius too. and they had a HUGE following…who all knew this was a 13-year-old child.

so yeah. not to sound like a 90s internet safety PSA…but I’m gonna be that PSA for a minute.

if you’re posting an image, there is NO need to say that you live there. you could just be traveling. “saw this in Montana” is better than “saw this by my house!”

before you post about a venue, especially a restaurant or small store, check and see if it’s local—CRUCIALLY if it has only one or two locations. people might travel to arenas or convention centers, but they’re far less likely to be traveling to Bartleby’s Fish and Chips. if it’s an anecdote and you still live nearby, you can honestly just leave the name out entirely.

if you’re sharing a news story, it can just be a story you found and wanted to share. you don’t have to clarify “it happened in my town,” because even if you don’t mention your town name, an easily-googled news article will.

if you’re seeing a concert or meeting a celebrity on a tour that’s stopped locally, wait until they’ve hit a few more venues before you post about it, or at the very least wait until you get home. this is honestly a smart move for any event you attend: unless you’re marketing yourself, there’s no need to advertise your location in real time.

check your selfie backgrounds for anything identifying. this includes city names on venues, school names, street signs, and house numbers.

this stuff is flexible if you no longer live in your hometown, or if your city is particularly big, but there’s STILL no reason to tie yourself to your school, your workplace, or your street. you can call it paranoid, but as someone who’s seen my friends get literal death threats over fictional characters before, the last thing I want is someone willing to act on those threats finding out where they live.

Go watch the quest for the rainbow bagel, if it's still on YouTube. The guy has to wait as elevator after elevator after elevator is too full for him. Ultimately, he crawls down the stairs and has his companions carry his wheelchair for him. This is difficult, dangerous, and could break his chair- breaking his legs, essentially.

All because people who can walk were too selfish to let him on.

You can squeeze into a packed elevator. Bulky aid users can't. So get out, encourage others to get out, and let them in. You just have to say, "oh, you definitely can't go down the stairs, but the elevator is too full for you to squeeze in. I'll get out to make room for you and take the next one." It will pressure others to help.

This also applies to bathrooms, by the way. "Oh, you need the accessible stall. I can use any stall. Why don't you go ahead of me so that you can use it when it's available."