Even If You Mailed In Your Ballot, Contact Your City Clerk Or Talk With A Poll Worker. You May Be Able

The one and only time I used a voting machine (I don’t remember what brand), it didn’t actually display the votes it registered so that I could confirm them.  I think the instructions said that you should be able to see your vote, but that area was blank.  Ever since then, I’ve stuck with the paper forms -- at least that way I know that there was a physical record of my vote at some point, and I can confirm that the right spots are marked before I submit the ballot.

Hey there US friends! If you’re voting using these machines (Hart eSlate) or similar ones right now or in the near future, make sure that the machine has NOT changed your ballot before casting it, ‘k? It’s apparently an already known problem, and has been for years, but has never been fixed.

Additional Source: https://abc13.com/politics/straight-party-voters-reporting-their-votes-were-changed/4556377/

Well, crap.  Raven is a great comic with lots of action, drama, and humor.  I would be very sad to see it end.  If you can’t or don’t want to buy it yourself, check it out from your local library!  If they don’t already have it, please recommend it.

Raven the Pirate Princess is Sinking

I despise doing posts where I ask for help, but here we are.

About two years ago I started a new creator owned project.  It began as a spin-off of Princeless, but the reality is this - Raven The Pirate Princess is its own thing altogether.  I knew this from the first issue and if you’ve been reading, so have you.

Sure, the first few issues of Raven: Pirate Princess had that heroic lady feminist banter for which Princeless has become known both among its fans and detractors.  I mean, Raven had this scene:

and issue 1 had this scene:

But perhaps much more importantly, the first issue of Raven had this:

but that wasn’t where that ended.  This is a book about a community of diverse queer women actively claiming their place in the world and taking what’s theirs.  It’s about Raven, who is desperately in love with her childhood best friend Ximena

It’s about Ximena, a girl who was held captive for years by a pirate king who pretended to be her liberator.  Who fell in love with the pirate’s daughter, only to be left behind by that father when she outlived her value.

About Sunshine, the thief that chose the wrong target and ended up falling in love with a woman already hopelessly in love with somebody else.

It’s about Katie, the bisexual second in command who’s motivated by honor…and occasionally beating the snot out of a dude or two

Oh and in case I forgot to mention, Katie is also incredibly muscular:

And Jayla, the asexual science genius who’s tired of being treated like a little sister

and Cid, the deaf engineer who quietly keeps the ship running

and of course, these two:

The socially awkward poet and the angry sword fighter who couldn’t stand her who have somehow become these two:

But here’s the thing: this comic is failing.  It has a very dedicated and exuberant but at this point SMALL fanbase.  Today I had a hard conversation with Action Lab about the reality of the numbers on this book versus what it costs to produce this book and, suffice it to say, Action Lab isn’t ready to cancel the book, but they aren’t ready to greenlight year 3 either.  After Year 2 #13, Raven is set to go on the shelf until numbers can support continuing it.

This is where I need your help

If you care about this book full of queer pirate ladies and you want it to continue, we need to find a way to spread the word about it.  We don’t need to sell single issues (it would be nice) but ultimately we need the trades sales that back up the continuation of this big YA Pirate/Revenge/Adventure/Romance thing.

Digital copies can be bought instantly right on Comixology: https://www.comixology.com/Princeless-Raven-The-Pirate-Princess/comics-series/46971

You can buy the physical volumes on amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B01BF7U91Q

In fact, if you’ve already purchased volumes 1-4, volume 5 is available for preorder there right now! 

Maybe you’ve bought all the issues already.  Thank you!  If you still want to support Raven, you can review the books on Amazon or other retailers, you can share, reblog or retweet this post.  You can tell a friend about the book! 

If you have a comics review site or, say, a blog where you talk about LGBT media, contact me for review links or interviews.  Please, help us save our ship.

This is one of many reasons why it is very useful to be friends with someone who is a little more extroverted or has less social anxiety than you.  If that isn’t an option, many places now allow online ordering so you have less human interaction!

wait… if you have social anxiety… and i have social anxiety…

then who’s going to order the food?

You gave me a gold coin that comes with a bonus dragon, and you think I’m going to spend it?  Are you insane?!  I’m going home to see how well it gets along with the cats.

The world’s tiniest dragon must defend his hoard, a single gold coin, from those who would steal it.

It breaks my heart that this is necessary.

If you publicly and unreservedly condemn the actions of Nazis in Charlottesville and elsewhere, including everything from quiet hate speech to vehicular terrorism, can you please reblog this post.

I think a few friends, a few followers, every Jew who happens across this post and my own heart could do with knowing that there are more of you out there than there are of them

Just in case anyone needed a reason.

Worth sharing every day 😄 The benefits of reading books #infographic http://bit.ly/2ExeRup

Are there any poly people who don’t think there should be more healthy polyamorous representation??

Raise your hand and reblog if you think there should be more healthy polyamorous representation 🙌🏾

This is one of the big reasons why I am a librarian.

As a library worker, there’s something I want to say to you.

You do not have to apologize for the books you choose to read.

At all.  To anyone.  You owe nobody any explanations; you need no excuse or “good reason” to be reading the book.

You do not have to be ashamed for wanting to read “bad” books.  You wanna read Twilight?  We got Twilight.  Need a banal, cookie-cutter-plot mystery or thriller?  Those are always fun.  Our regulars check them out by the towering stack.  Ask Betty for recommendations; she’s read them all.  50 Shades of Oh Fucking No?  We’ve got it, we even got it in large print.  Have fun.  Check out the rest of our porn too.  Oh, and the sex manuals are a MUST if you want to “experiment” yourself.  Don’t be afraid to ask; they’re here for a reason.

Want to read a book written by a huge asshole everyone hates and agree was a monster?  Yeah, we have those.  No, we don’t think you’re an asshole for wanting to know what was actually written in there, or judging things for yourself.

You are not too old for Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Babysitter’s Club, or Captain Underpants.  You are not too young for Sherlock Holmes.  There’s nothing wrong with a boy reading The Princess Academy or Sweet Valley High.  There’s nothing wrong with a girl being into The Hardy Boys or Artemis Fowl instead.

You do not have to pull the shame face and offer me an excuse when you check out your books.  I don’t care if I got so angry at that book I threw it against a wall when I read it: you have the right to read it, and enjoy it if it’s enjoyable for you.  THAT’S WHY THE LIBRARY HAS IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.  If we only stocked pure, unproblematic literature everyone approved of, by authors of unquestionable virtue, we wouldn’t have any books at all.  Or music.  Or movies.  It would be utterly fucking boring.  And it certainly wouldn’t be a library.

This explains the situation of e-books in libraries much better than I did.  It’s incredibly frustrating for librarians, most of whom just want to connect people with books!

It’s been an increasing source of frustration for many library users: waiting weeks, sometimes months to get to the top of the waiting list for a popular eBook or e-Audiobook.

Why does it take so long? After all, it’s not a physical object, it’s a digital file that lives in the “cloud”, why can’t multiple people access it simultaneously instead of only one at a time? Barring that, why doesn’t the library just buy more copies so that the waiting list is shorter? Getting people access to books and information is what libraries are all about, but the struggle for acquiring lendable e-content is very real, and it’s getting harder all the time. Why? What’s the big hairy deal? For that answer, you have to look to the “Big 5” Publishers, who are responsible for close to 80% of trade book sales. 

Publishers have been extremely wary about allowing library users virtual access to their books. After all, digital copies of books never wear out or have to be replaced, and are more vulnerable to unauthorized copying (“pirating”). Publshers were afraid if they allowed libraries access to their books digitally, they would be losing money. Individual publishers came up with their own sets of rules for libraries to access their e-content, and they have been tweaked many times since 2006.

In addition, the prices libraries must pay for ebooks and e-audiobooks is very high. Libraries must pay up to 4X the retail price for digital versions of books (which only one user can have access to at a time).  Meeting the library patron’s needs for downloadable content is a very expensive enterprise, indeed! Take a look at this comparison of the prices for various versions of the same book:

It becomes easy to see that acquiring ebooks for public use is a very expensive endeavor…

Read more on The Cheshire Library Blog.

Vote to queer the narrative. Vote out of spite. Vote like your life depends on it, because that's true for some of us.

Hey, everyone! You want to pull the ultimate prank against the Republican party? I mean this would be EPIC!

On November 5, 2024, all 50 million US citizens between 18 and 30 need to take to the streets and demonstrate against the erosion of civil rights for women, BIPOC, disabled, LBGTIAA+, and transgendered people. Take to the streets...and march right down to your polling station and vote! (Or, you know, early vote.)

This would be the flash mob to beat all flash mobs. The Republicans would never see you coming, because their whole strategy depends on keeping you depressed and disengaged.

Don't like the direction the Democrats are going? Take a page out of the Tea Party's book--they changed the direction of the Republican party by voting for it, and now they own it. Vote Democrat and nudge it leftward this election--then keep nudging it until you can take the wheel. Because the alternative is a hard right turn by the Republicans.

Not only would this be a lifesaver for countless people who are not "White male Christian Conservative Americans", it would also be funny as hell. Want to see Trump have a meltdown on international television? Want to see pollsters and political pundits say "What the fuck?!" Want to see the newspapers suddenly flock to gay nightclubs and college campuses to interview "average voters" instead of rural diners?