We read to know that we are not alone.

@deaderrose already said this in the replies, but it looks like red-on-blue/pseudo-cinnamon (just like the little kitten below!)

Your regular reminder that any actually crocheted items you see in stores like Target are 100% being made for terrible wages even taking into consideration average incomes in the countries where these things are made. This bag is 14 rows of plain double crochet, 22 (I think) rows of double crochet, ch 1, double crochet, 2 more rows of double crochet at the top, then a strap that Target calls "braided" but looks to me like double crochet and slip stitches.

Absolutely 0% of this bag can be made on a machine. So, this was hours of work of someone only using their own hands and body to make a bag. This was NOT someone being able to set the rules on a machine and let it run with minimal physical work on their part.

So, $30 is a fucking travesty.

BUT WAIT. THERE'S MORE!

WHAT'S THIS?!

I've never heard of Nest. Let's go to their website! Oooh, what a pretty non-profit website about helping handcrafters make real wages! What criteria must a company meet to get the pretty sticker???

OH! THERE'S A VALIDATION PROCESS!

Who's doing the validating?

"...validators independently conduct validation of their production process and receive confirmation of handcrafted."

So....the companies seeking to claim their products aren't produced in horrendous conditions for sub-par wages are validating their own products are totally handmade and that their employees are totally not being exploited?

And this bag that would take several hours (I stitch faster than you; it takes several hours) still only costs $30???? REALLY?!

Oh, but here's a whole explanation of how Nest identifies handcrafted items, including lists of tools that may be used.

Let's see what they say about knitting/crochet:

Oh, wow! A whole list of supposed crochet machines! That could, if real, benefit crocheters by allowing them to create crochet with the use of a machine that would take some of the stress of the artform off of their bodies! That's neat! Let's duckduckgo these, shall we??

The Crochet Galloon Machine patent info. Which does not describe crochet. Nothing described here is crochet. It's just using hooks to pull yarn where it wants. That doesn't make it crochet. This is a knitting machine creating knit warp (or warp knit? I'm not sure on the lingo, I admit).

Okay, let's try this "Multi-Needle Crochet Machine." First link is an amazon listing for "crochet machine":

The crochet hooks ARE for crochet, but everything else is a knitting machine. So, NOPE!

For the Raschel Crochet Machine? How about this blog debunking that it crochets at all. Whoopsie, doodle. An excerpt:

"Here’s the short answer: there is still no commercially deployed, fully automated machine that makes hand-crochet stitches the way a human does, stitch by stitch, with one active loop and a single hook. The fabrics you see marketed as “machine crochet” are almost always warp-knitted on Raschel or crochet-galloon machines, or they’re other kinds of needlework (like chainstitch embroidery) that visually imitate crochet. They are not hand crochet, and the stitch geometry (the topology of the loops and their interlacing) is different."

This is important because the point is that to get ACTUAL HAND-CROCHETED ITEMS LIKE THE BAG AT THE TOP, YOU CANNOT REPRODUCE THE LOOK WITH A MACHINE.

So, again, $30 for a supposedly ethically sourced tote that takes hours of work to make with ONLY YOUR BODY.

Moving, on the embrodiery-crochet combination machine?

None of these crochet. And, if you go back to the previous link about the Raschel machine, that post includes an explanation of how embroidery machines can make stitches look crochet-ish but aren't actually crochet at all.

We all know how this is gonna end, but let's see what lace crochet machine brings up:

Knitting. Knitting. Lace maker that is NOT duplicating crochet lace. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Lastly, let's look at what Nest considers to be non-handcrafted crochet items:

::seventeen minute sigh::

Let's just start with if you use a knitting machine, then it's not crochet, so that takes bullet point 1 and 3 off the list.

And now let's remember none of these so-called crochet machines Nest has listed actually crochet or even come close. So, that's 2 and 4 removed as well.

So, in short, Nest knows nothing about crochet and appears to be making bank allowing companies to greenwash their terrible labor practices by letting them or their suppliers be their own validators on whether or not their work is 1) handcrafted and 2) done in a way that does not abuse the skilled laborers who are making them.

600+ bags bought, if you look at that first photo again. Each bag crafted by hand by a person who cannot use a machine to lessen the amount of work/effort/stress on the body to create it. For 30 fucking dollars.

Then I wean myself off, find that I don't have hardly any energy after work, and wonder what's wrong with me. Then I notice that literally all my full time coworkers are on stimulants of one kind or another, and often pretty high doses. Three energy drinks a day + nicotine at every break, for a real life example.

So I need to remember that while I feel that life shouldn't require regular, daily doses of stimulants, this society sure does. And if I want to have energy for life outside of work, I'm going to need to pick a stimulant.

(Yes, this cycle has happened multiple times.)

A local paper had some great photographs, all taken by Nicole Hester:

The day before, Rep. Justin Pearson tries to attend a Senate Committee meeting and is barred access by the Sergeant at Arms.

Lawmakers and protesters link arms as the descend the capitol steps.

Once inside the chamber, Democratic representatives continued to stand together with arms linked.

They continued standing together with arms linked as votes were cast.

Democratic representatives take a group photo protesting the redistricting.

Rep. Justin Jones burns a photo of the Confederate flag with the words, We will not go back.

And stomps the ashes.

KeShaun Pearson being escorted from the building by the Staties.

KeShaun Pearson (left) being taken into custody. Rep. Justin Pearson (right) showing his support of his brother.

Additional information: State lawmakers have been gunning for Pearson and Jones nearly their entire terms. Most notably, in 2023, the House expelled them for participating in a protest at the Capitol. Their districts had to have special elections to have them reinstated.

Pearson is one of the plaintiffs of a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the redistricting.

There's been no clear successor to Television Without Pity to serve as a central hub. There's no clear path of breadcrumbs leading fandoms from livejournal to Tumblr, Twitter to Bluesky, and the format is very different at all the different social media playforms. Not to mention with each new generation of fans discovering fandom, the way we use the tools at our disposal changes in quantum leaps and sea changes.

but the best part about fandom is that it is cyclical and it is eternal. there will always be someone discovering King Arthur or Ovid's Metamorphoses or VC Andrews or Farscape for the first time, Who did something that was made a decade before they were born streaming on a random app and embrace it with the fervent passion of the newly converted. And those who are inclined to do so will search far and wide to find their tribe. The pace has become incredibly accelerated and there's such a massive amount of narrative fiction in every possible medium compared to back in the day's of only three broadcast networks, especially in countries where you needed to pay your tv license.

But people don't change. Even Sherlock Holmes waxes and wanes. Even King Arthur is stripped mind and told and retold over and over again every decade. Even James T Kirk and the lens we see him through changes for each new generation from 1966 to 2026.

And sure there are sad, desperate fake fans griping about Academy chancellors who wear eyeglasses as if they've never seen Wrath Of Khan and understood what eyeglasses symbolize for those characters. or who claim they are nostalgic for simple one-dimensiobal rollicking pulpy science fiction adventures as if they were never a vehicle for allegory to address every aspect of modern life from very first moment Gene Roddenberry first conceived of Robert April and Number One aboard the USS Yorktown.

We don't sit around campfires spinning tails, or rushed to the marketplace to hear the bards with new songs. We don't gather around physical water coolers on Monday morning to talk about Mulder and Scully the way we used to. We have Reddit for that now, and TikTok, and YouTube, and Instagram, and all of these algorithms cherry picking what we see and hear in those different places that are now islands with no bridges because Google no longer actually googles correctly and it's harder and harder to find your tribe.

But by and large, fans have always been predisposed to putting time and effort into creating communities. Fans build bridges and maintain them and rebuild them over and over again.

Tree boss explained it to me once that the older trees have a black mold problem because they just kinda planted them. Because of this, they're root bound. Root bound trees get mold and rot. Sure enough- a big storm happened this summer and one of those trees that looked healthy on the outside came down, hit the roof of city hall, and you could see the decay inside.

There is a way to plant trees near streets and businesses so that the roots run under the structures and I think that he called it a 'root shelf.' But the people who planted those trees didn't have that knowledge, so we try to replace them with proper techniques when we have the opportunity.

But unfortunately, in order to do it properly for the health of the trees and the structures, we have to plant a sapling instead of an adult tree.

A lot of the time, I hear people talking about 'old growth trees' and how they can't stand to see us cutting them down. But the majority of these trees aren't old growth- they're maybe 50-75 years old and weren't planted with the future in mind. So sometimes we cut down an older tree that looks 'fine' from the outside, but the soil sucks or there's an infestation or the storm damage is worse than it looks from the outside.

I once saw Tree Boss just... push an adult tree down by leaning on it and the inside was fuckin' paper.

And then I realized two days later that this hits a lot (way, way too many) of the same points that I'm running into with the current state of K-12 science education curriculum in the US.

Also, if anyone doesn't recognize the name, Kate Davies is a great knitting pattern designer, most known for those cabled owls patterns. Personally, I recommend the Carbeth:

The key feature I keep seeing from gen AI evangelists is that they just cannot believe that experts exist. They often do agree that AI isn't all that great at one or two fields they know a lot about, but it can totally do at least the low-level work in others.

But it can't. It regurgitates common prejudices and tropes. It writes samey, boring essays that say nothing. The art it makes might occasionally get the hands right if we tweak it enough...

Those of you who notice such things will know that in a little less than two weeks, it's going to be a year since @petermorwood departed this plane of existence.

As the date's been getting closer, I'm becoming increasingly clear (due to mood swings and sleep disturbances and other such stuff) that it would be a really good thing for me if I don't have to live through this first anniversary of his loss anywhere near the house where he breathed his last.

For that day, and ideally a couple/few days on either side of it, I really need to get away from here.

So that's my plan, if I can get all this to come together (with everybody's help). ...It's not like any brief escape will get the pain to stop, you know? That's years away... if ever. But at least this move will prevent a short-term crisis, and allow me (after the really painful day has passed) to start getting back to what around here now passes for "standard operating procedure"—meaning writing, and doing other work, and getting on with the rest of the current form of life—as quickly as possible.

What I have in mind is to spend the days on either side of May 9th—and the day itself—as far away from the cottage as physical issues will allow me to travel. Let's think of it as a long weekend, an hour or two's flight away. To manage that, though, I need to boost sales at the Ebooks Direct store over the days to come. If the necessary funds manifest themselves over the course of this week, I'll have time to make the necessary arrangements.

So can I get those of you who see this post to reblog it, and bring the Ebooks Direct store to people's notice as widely as possible? ...As numerous ebook bundles are available at discount prices. (There are more than show in the slide below: that's just a snapshot of how the front-page carousel looks.)

...And if none of these appeal (or if you've got them already and want to give them to somebody else): hey, there are gift cards! (I finally managed to get these things organized correctly...) 😅 They come in per-bundle versions, or in a number of cash values to suit your preference.

Finally: if you've already got too many ebooks, or otherwise just prefer to drop a little something into the kitty to help me escape for a few-ish days, here's my Ko-Fi.

...So let's see if this can be pulled off. And for all your past help, and assistance to come: thanks, friends. I appreciate you so much... as your voices, heard daily, are pretty much all that makes the local silence bearable.