Links to Click: September 15, 2023

Drunk bees and adult literacy.

This week has been the first time in months I have felt alive and there is no way this is not connected to the change in weather. We had a wonderfully rainy day this week, a gorgeously foggy one, and several with brilliant sunlight and a comfortable 75 degree temperature. It’s times like these I remember how much I appreciate a seasonal change. We did not used to get this in central Texas (though admittedly, I miss a mild Texas winter!).

The bees are all drunk on goldenrod this time of year–dozens and dozens of them consume the nectar then pass out on the plant. It’s one of my favorite annual sights.

Links are light, as I have been in the throes of a number of projects. My class for the first half of the semester is almost half-way finished, so the big projects are coming up, too.

My work this week:

If you’re reading this before 11 AM central time, catch me talking about book bans and library bomb threats on WBEZ’s show Reset. You can stream it here, and likely you’ll be able to catch the replay, too.

• California is on track to ban book bans by school boards. One of the school boards who made this forthcoming law necessary has already figured out another way to practice their bigotry though, and that’s by banning any non-US or state flag.

• Over at

  Literary Activism
  , a look at how Brave Books is encouraging people to challenge Scholastic Book Fairs…and replace them with their book fairs. The link roundup is also lengthy.

• Moms For Liberty intentionally cropped a critical editorial cartoon. Their interpretation looks to be encouraging violence while the original condemns that very violence.

• I’m on the All The Backlist podcast sharing two funny horror reads.

What I consumed this week:

• No podcasts this week, since I’ve been listening to Outrage Machine: How Tech Amplifies Discontent, Disrupts Democracy–and What We Can Do About It by Tobias Rose-Stockwell. It’s definitely worthwhile reading. The first few chapters feel pretty obvious, but he does a great job using that as a frame for why social media makes us so angry and it’s the same reasons why book bans, misinformation, and other contemporary right-wing movements are thriving: we have no local media anymore and the media landscape is a mess. Next up on my audiobook list is the just-released Jill Duggar memoir, Counting The Cost.

• This report on adult literacy in the US is concerning, and the reality is, literacy rates are going to continue to decrease as politics determine what can and cannot be taught in schools.

• Something lighter: why we associate mint flavoring with clean teeth.

• Still on the lighter note is this story about the Good Things vending machines. Are these near you at all? I first encountered one in summer 2022 at a restaurant my family went to near St. Louis and then, we visited again this summer. Both times I dropped the $5 for a fun goodie bag and wasn’t sad. It’s not groundbreaking stuff–I got a tiny deck of cards, stickers, socks, and other tiny fun trinkets–but it definitely brought some childhood fun. This kind of thing reminds me of the joy of encountering photo booths in the wild (and this is a fun book if you love photo booths!).

See you on Sunday for a look at a bill that would endanger the lives of young people across the country.