Three good collages in one week! I haven`t had a nice streak like that in a while. Many of you know that rare experience in making something where everything just goes right into place. All the choices could work but one does especially well. Enchanted is the feeling and it is intoxicating. Unexpected too at this pivotal point in our [US] history. Not since the Vietnam era have things seemed so volatile. God bless the people of Minnesota!
Nurses are sacred, they are the helpers. That is what Alex Pretti was doing when he was murdered. Assisting a woman who had been gassed. This will not stand.
There is enough unity to decisively say this is not the country we want. Often we know what is unacceptable before arriving at a neutral civil place. Everyone is on edge but it`s clear to me, immigration enforcement will have to change tactics. Their Proud Boy dreams are not going to fly. If the Republican party wasn`t so cowardly at its core they could rein in this deranged president. Democrats bounced their sitting president when it was finally revealed how unstable he was. Democrats, despite their feeble opposition now, actually do care about the constitution. The one they swore their loyalty to. What a bitter fact that the only people who can actually do something about his terrible political moment are Republicans! So patriots will resist until the mid terms, then there will be a reckoning. So sorry world. Our government is messing up EVERYTHING.
If you haven`t seen it, this response by the wise young Amanda Gordon can help your heart;
Have you been watching Kilauea? OMG such non stop beauty! I saw a video shot during a rainstorm that was beyond imagining. Smoke, mist, swirling air borne cinders, engulfing clouds then red embers in a blue sky. The eruptions are numbered and the last one I observed was 41. Take a look, it is dazzling and happening in real time in the 50th state.
Bandon has the best beach for kids in Oregon. So many caves and hiding places.
I love this guy, what an original.
She is new to me and I was quickly taken by these poetic abstractions. The three here are from a series called 'Longing and Sweet Sadness'. The painting were created in response to a particular piece of land and transitions in her family. Here is what she has written about them;
This body of work has the theme of 'Longing and Sweet Sadness'. The focus began in 2021 but really galvanised and gathered momentum after the death of my father at the end of 2022. I drew and painted in the woods at the back of my parents house. This is where I played as a child, making camps and exploring. It is where I made huge paintings for my degree show after the hurricane of 1987, when I was in my early twenties. It is the place where my children played, camped and went on bluebell walks every year when they were small. It is where I walk now when I visit my mother.
A Corner of the Park acrylic on Yupo 20x20 inches
by Garry Winogrand
This photo says so much about children and also New Mexico.
I was 22 when I moved there and it was like shifting into a dream. A common experience for most newcomers.
Someone I love has begun transitioning. As open as I thought I was, there was so much more to learn. This post by the BBC explains things well.
If broadcasters say they want clarity on sex and gender, then clarity has to include biology in full, not selectively.
Being trans is not an ideology. It is not a belief system. It is not a trend. It is a recognised biological outcome of human development.
Sex differentiation in humans is not a single switch flipped at birth. It is a multi-stage biological process involving chromosomes, gene expression, hormone exposure, receptor sensitivity, and brain development, all occurring at different points in fetal growth. Those processes do not always align in the same direction.
Every human embryo begins on a shared developmental pathway. Later in gestation, hormones and gene activation guide the development of reproductive anatomy. Brain development related to identity, self-perception, and body mapping occurs on a different timeline. When those processes diverge, a person may be born with anatomy that does not align with how their brain understands their sexed self. That is what we call being trans.
This is not controversial biology. It is documented in endocrinology, neurobiology, and developmental science.
Neuroimaging studies have shown that many trans people exhibit brain structures and neural response patterns that more closely align with their lived sex than with the sex recorded at birth. Intersex variations such as androgen insensitivity syndrome and congenital adrenal hyperplasia further demonstrate that sex itself is not a simple binary. These are natural variations of the same biological system that produces everyone else.
When media coverage reduces trans people to slogans or treats identity as a purely social preference, it erases that biological reality. When it repeatedly frames trans existence as “contested” without explaining the science, it invites suspicion rather than understanding.
If journalists are going to say audiences find terms like “trans woman” or “trans man” confusing, then the responsible response is not to strip people of accurate language. It is to explain why those terms exist in the first place.
Clarity does not come from flattening complexity. It comes from explaining it.
There is a difference between saying sex is observed at birth and pretending biology ends there. It does not. Biology is a lifelong process shaped by development, hormones, and the brain. Ignoring that does not make reporting neutral. It makes it incomplete.
Trans women experience misogyny because they are perceived and treated as women. Trans men experience gender policing because they are perceived and treated as men who violate expectations. Gender-diverse people experience both because rigid systems struggle with anyone who exposes their limits.
That harm is not theoretical. It shows up in healthcare access, safety, employment, and mental health outcomes.
If public broadcasters want to be clear, then clarity must include this truth: trans people exist because biology allows for them. They are not an exception to nature. They are part of it.
Reporting that fails to say this risks reinforcing fear rather than informing the public. And when fear is left unchallenged, it does not remain neutral. It becomes harmful.
Accuracy is not just about legal definitions. It is about telling the whole biological story.
Anything less is not clarity. It is omission.
Daniel Lismore
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