occasional posts by risa aratyr
thoughts, news, and items of writerly interest
With the exact moment of summer solstice barely an hour gone, my inner eye is on the heavens. A grand time to post my best seasonal wishes . . . and a few celestial thoughts. When times are desperate, astrologers often ring semi-alarmist alarm bells by alluding to the horrible histories that occurred the last … Read more It’s a Mad-Mad-Mad-Mad Midsummer
About six months ago, I stopped blogging. Didn’t see the point. My posts were nothing but anguished cries of horror in the guise of heavy-handed sermons to a converted choir. With gobs of articulate and widely-read pundits making my same arguments with better data and more cachet, applying my particular brand of pessimism to a … Read more Gimme Shelter
An oft repeated lyric in the official GOP Impeachment Talking Points chorus is, “If people don’t like what this Prez is doing, they can take their dissatisfaction to the polls in 2020.” The glaring fallacy here, of course, is that if Despicable D is allowed to continue pressuring foreign powers to dig up dirt on … Read more GOTV
Can’t swear to it, but I believe I woke to the connection between meat and climate change about ten years ago, via the “Meat Free Monday” group on Facebook. While I have hardly been religious about the Monday thing and can’t truly say I’ve been doing my part, no-meat salads are my count-on-it contribution to … Read more Vegging Out
Cultural appropriation is a hot topic these days. And rightly so. Getting woke to cultural appropriation ranks up there with waking up to white society’s systemic racism or male society’s inherent sexism. It’s about time, past due. Unfortunately, many are inclined to take the above balls and run with them right off the nearest politically-correct … Read more A Beginner’s Guide to Cultural Appropriation