The year is 2014. She has been given a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Awards. Neil Gaiman puts it on her neck in front of a crowd of booksellers who bankrolled the event, and it’s time to make a standard “thank you for this award, insert story here, something about diversity, blah blah blah” speech. She starts off doing just that, thanking her friends and fellow authors. All is well.

Then this old lady from Oregon looks her audience of executives dead in the eye, and says “Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.”

She rails against the reduction of her art to a commodity produced only for profit. She denounces publishers who overcharge libraries for their products and censor writers in favor of something “more profitable”. She specifically denounces Amazon and its business practices, knowing full well that her audience is filled with Amazon employees. And to cap it off, she warns them: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”

Hey did you know there's a tell all book about the behind the scenes of Meta and the author is forbidden from promoting it?

Here it is again. You might want to save it just in case an accident like that happens again

they planted berries, root vegetables, leafy greens, herbs, all sorts. they label each plant and the sign said "free to take, leave some for others to enjoy!"

and people did. they took a bit, but left some for others.

it also fed the homeless people living around there.

bearing in mind this is a tourist town, so i half expected to see the plants gone. but nope, there's always some left.

I was talking to someone about planting food and fruit trees in public spaces and they were like “Why so everyone can steal the food?”

Until recently, a few people in my office had these desk shades to combat the obnoxious fluorescent lights, which is very helpful for people (like me) with migraines or other light-sensitivity issues.

A few days ago, everyone who has them was told to take them down. Different people were given different reasons - It violates fire code (it doesn't) / It blocks line of sight (sort of?). Since this goes against the existing status quo, the union reps (my beloved) jumped on it. Someone jokingly suggested using umbrella hats instead, since hats are allowed in the dress code. Today, the union reps are passing out these ridiculous things in protest: