quick bright things

1). 21,868 notes - 03 March 20180

Middle-grade author responds to queer-themed book controversy

2). 4,518 notes - 19 April 2018

I was a baby butch who had never heard the word and so didn’t know what to call myself until I first heard that word out loud in…

Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote 

3). 1,055 notes - 11 January 2018

Lesbian Poetry: Because It Didn’t End with Sappho

4). 1,054 notes - 06 June 2018

Lesbrary Link Round Up: May 24 - June 6

5). 956 notes - 22 October 2018

NW Iowa religious activist burns LGBTQ library books in protest of OC Pride

6). 865 notes - 11 July 2018

21 Novels With Lesbian Characters That You Need To Read, According To Reddit

7). 810 notes - 19 February 2018

The Queer, Disabled, and Women of Color Suffragettes History Forgot

8). 756 notes - 14 April 2018

Sapphic Books: Bi & Lesbian Faves, Part 2: YA, SFF & Horror

9). 704 notes - 23 May 2018

21 Queer Women of Color Books You Have To Read!

10). 672 notes - 13 May 2018

Nancy Drew Gets the Intersectional, Queer Makeover We’ve Been Waiting For

The Wanderer (translated from the Old English).

See that word ‘corpse-hungry’ in the second stanza?  The Anglo-Saxon is wælgifru. Wæl can mean wound or slaughter or carnage; but it can also refer to the bodies of those who’ve been slain - the corpses. Ġīfre means covetous or greedy, so wæpen wælgifru conjures this image of a sword greedy for slaughter; that eats life and keeps consuming even after the victim is dead. (Half of the magic of Old English poetry lies in the fact that every object has an animus; is a kind of sentience and life. There are gods and monsters hiding in plain sight). 

What most translations also can’t capture is the consonantal alliteration that glints and glitters through each line: weal wundrum heah; wyrmlicum fah. Speaking it aloud feels incantatory; you can just see the high-roofed halls and the lords and the feasts and the poets, smell it, dancing with the light over your eyelids before you open them - and then it’s gone.

The U.S. has bombed a Syrian airbase by launching dozens of Tomahawk missiles. This comes after Trump and the administration had previously announced that getting Assad out is not a priority, and that the U.S. will keep out of conflicts that don’t directly deal with the United States’ security interests. This change comes after a gas attack that killed at least 85 people and wounded hundreds. Currently there is an unknown number of casualties after today’s U.S. attack. (source)

Speaking from the Mar-a-Lago resort, here’s Trump’s official statement on the missile attacks.

Steve Bannon has been removed from the National Security Council. However, Bannon will still retain his security clearance and continue to serve in the White House as Trump’s chief strategist. (source)

Citing no evidence, Trump said that former national security adviser, Susan Rice, committed a crime by seeking to learn the identities of Trump associates swept up in surveillance of foreign officials by United States spy agencies. Intelligence officials from both parties have stated that Rice’s actions were no unlawful or unusual. However, Trump is saying that this will be “one of the biggest stories of our time.” (source)

Trump reflected on his first weeks in office by telling reporters “I think we’ve had one of the most successful 13 weeks in the history of the presidency.“ It’s only been 11 weeks. (source)

Republicans in the Senate deployed their “nuclear option” to allow Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to go forward. They changed the Senate rules and fundamentally altered the way the Senate operates. This change will likely lead to ideologically extreme judges to easily pass confirmation since only a majority is required for confirmation now. (source)

Rep. Devin Nunes announced that he will step aside from the Trump-Russia probe. This comes after ethics complaints came flooding in and he became personally investigated for “unauthorized disclosures of classified information in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct.” (source)

It’s been revealed that Ivanka Trump quietly reached out to Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, not long after Trump’s inauguration. Her purpose was to seek common ground on the issue of abortion and to fully understand what the organization does. However, Ivanka has continued to remain silent on matter regarding abortion, family planning, and Planned Parenthood as the Trump administrations seeks to attack it further. (source)

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to slash funding for programs that protect children from dangerous lead exposure. The EPA’s proposed cuts were revealed in a budget memo which showed funding cuts for two lead-based paint programs totaling more than $16 million and the elimination of six dozen full-time employees. This move will hit Black neighborhoods the hardest. (source)

Republicans are still working on amending the failed health care bill to try to bring it back to the floor. However, they are going home on break for the next couple weeks. (source)

Twitter has filed a federal lawsuit to block an order by the government that is demanding it reveal who is behind an anti-Trump account. The account claims to be a federal immigration employee and has been openly opposed to Trump’s immigration policies. (source)

In response to the accusations of nepotism, Trump’s son, Eric, has responded that it’s just a part of life. “Nepotism is kind of a factor of life. We might be here because of nepotism, but we’re not still here because of nepotism. You know, if we didn’t do a good job, if we weren’t competent, believe me, we wouldn’t be in this spot.” Sure, bud. (source)

Trump came to the defense of Fox News host, Bill O'Reilly after reports of sexual assault lawsuits were exposed. Reports showed that O'Reilly had payed off five women who accused him of sexual assault. Over 20 advertisers have pulled from O’Reilly’s show but Trump backed him up by saying “I think he’s a person I know well, he is a good person. I think he shouldn’t have settled; personally I think he shouldn’t have settled, because you should have taken it all the way. I don’t think Bill did anything wrong.” O’Reilly’s rating have gone up after this, btw. (source)

According to documents, supreme court nominee Neil Gorsuch copied authors work in his book and an academic article he published and didn’t cite the source material. (source)

Conservative groups have released a study showing what states will be hurt the hardest by Trump’s proposed border tax. The report predicts harm to Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas - all states Trump won in the 2016 presidential election. California, New Jersey, and Illinois will also be hit hard. The conservative group that released this did so because they are against Trump’s proposed plan. (source)