important CIDRAP editorial: "Call it what it is—the US has lost its hold on measles elimination" www.cidrap.umn.edu/measles/cidr...

Wednesday youtu.be/hzotBXcRSx4?...

Ray Harryhausen and Medusa during the filming of CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981) He was BOTD in 1920

NEW BIG PICTURE - "Video Essays Are Starting To Suck?" 👀 ...And What Does It Have To Do With Apu? 🤔 youtu.be/OfLuBSS--qI?...

before you pass this bridge by me, you must answer my questions three! What.. is your name? what.. is your quest?? and what.. is your favorite color???

The Supreme Court will NOT reconsider a grant of qualified immunity to prison guards who pepper sprayed an inmate on a hunger strike then stripped him naked and locked him in a freezing cold cell for 23 hours. The three liberals dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

This was necessary but it also now feels necessary to (probably) finally do a "good things/people on YouTube/online I actually enjoy watching" episode sooner than later as follow up 🙃🤷‍♂️

It’s an old philosophy, one that might be anti-capitalist in nature, but The Tea Dragon Society shows a modern audience of young readers who are stuck hurdling toward a gig economy, that labour can be something humanizing, rather than dehumanizing, and that’s a bold take in the 21st century. 14/14

Each character finds fundamental sources of fulfilment accessed through craftsmanship, through labour. There is, additionally, the broader achievement of serving a community and pursuing self-betterment through education and diligent application. 13/14

Each of these 3 crafts orbits a key relational element. Greta can honor her mother by learning and appreciating her mother’s craft. Hesekiel and Erik bond with each other and form a lifelong relationship through monster-hunting. Greta and Minette learn to appreciate nature through dragon-care. 12/14

Along the way, we also learn that Erik and Hesekiel met through bounty-hunting monsters – a financial partnership that blossomed into a meaningful relationship. Once Erik becomes disabled from injuries, the job is gone, but as Hesekiel informs him: “It was never the adventure that I loved.” 11/14

Hesekiel laments that “People seem to live at a different pace now. Tea Dragon tea is a wonderful thing, but it takes a long time to make. Back when everything took longer to make perhaps that didn’t matter. Sadly, the art is fading.” This is O’Neill’s most direct critique of modernism. 10/14

Greta’s other apprenticeship is to Hesekiel, with whom Greta (and Minette) learn the ancient art of caring for Tea Dragons. When Hesekiel offers her a dragon, he warns her of the responsibility. She replies: “I want to. I want to make good memories with all of you. And with Ginseng too.” 9/14

“…maybe one day, someone’ll think about who gave it to them or where they bought it. Or who they shared it with. Or who owned it long ago. That’s a kind of magic, isn’t it?” Her mother responds “I believe it is.” to close out the chapter. 8/14

In the finale of the story (pre-epilogue), Greta declares the appreciation she’s cultivated for craftmanship: “I don’t want blacksmithing to be forgotten. I want to keep making objects for people to love and give them a story….” 7/14

Our main protagonist, Greta, is an apprentice blacksmith who learns to respect both her craft and the ways it serves her community; that the things she makes are more than objects. They possess both a past legacy (connecting her to her mother) and future use (connecting her to her community). 6/14

Like Veblen, O’Neill presents a world that places emphasis on the journey, rather than any crude financial outputs. We see this in 3 key instances: blacksmiths who love their craft, monster bounty hunters who find love along the trail; and dragon-keepers who find appreciation for life. 5/14

Despite surface appearances, Veblen’s views were staunchly anti-capitalistic. He believed that work could be (and should be) a spiritual experience. O’Neill’s graphic narrative, meanwhile, presents a pastoral fantasy to a modern audience accustomed to viewing work as purely financial. 4/14

“These native proclivities alone make anything worth while, and out of their working emerge not only the purpose and efficiency of life, but its substantial pleasures and pains as well.” Veblen argues that our sense of self comes from our service to the community, including material aspects. 3/14

In The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts, famed economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen argues that craftmanship (or ‘workmanship’ in his terminology) is a fundamental source of humans’ sense of well-being and purpose. 2/14

While our modern world continues to make work into a dehumanizing experience, The Tea Dragon Society envisions a unique (and uniquely charming) philosophy of labour as a potentially soul-enriching (rather than just wallet-enriching) experience. #teadragonsociety 1/14

Our latest for @sequentialscholars.bsky.social continues our coverage of The Tea Dragon Society! #ComicsStudies

In today's EMPOWERED vol.12 webcomic page, the Emp iteration I've informally dubbed "Semi-Meta Emp" weighs in on the problematic issues of her own "mmph-ing" tendencies: www.empoweredcomic.com/comic/volume...

Sen. Chris Murphy: "Right now the biggest threat to this country are not a handful of House candidates in New York, it is the president of the United States who is trying to destroy American democracy."

Okay but we still need to talk about #TheVampireLestat Episode 3: Toronto youtu.be/t_ObzUAv_fk

A single, delicious tear rolls down Rod Dreher's cheek. 🏳️‍🌈

i know im preaching to the choir but please please DO NOT. USE AI APPS. TO ID EDIBLE MUSHROOMS OR PLANTS. DO NOT TRUST THE RESULTS. TO EAT. STUFF. oh they are wrong so OFTEN please no no no.

NEW EPISODE! Event Comics Month 6 continues with Forever Evil! Also: new camera! Please forgive any visual or audio issues as I tweak settings to get things going smoothly since I haven't had to change such things in MANY years. youtu.be/-138zIlkq80

taking a vacation to vice city 🐈🎀🎨 saw people doing this trend and wanted to join in

It sounds like the great American state fair is primarily being attended by journalists covering how sparsely attended it is washingtonian.com/2026/06/26/i...

They’re stripping vulnerable kids of due process, trying to deport them back to the countries they fled before the courts notice, then publicly praising themselves for “rescuing” them. thehill.com/policy/healt...

More Evidence that Harmeet Dhillon's Team Fabricated Their Entire Case against Georgia Fort emptywheel.net/2026/06/26/m...

Can you believe it's Free RPG Day already?! This year, Doctors Without Borders is invited to the game table! Let's show them how good aligned tabletop gamers can be 🤗 tiltify.com/+free-rpg-da...

nebula.tv/videos/linds... new Nebula Original - Romantasy: It Certainly Is.

Jupiter PJ15_36 Crop, Exaggerated Color/Contrast - From Brian Swift (bswift.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/2jAZhd2

However we frame it or name it, there is a downright medicinal quality to The Tea Dragon Society, one that can be approached through complex, transcultural theories of the ways that fiction can provide important wellness interventions. Or we can just sip our tea and enjoy it. 12/12

While this idea of healing fiction has not been heavily theorized by Western readers, there is, of course, no question that there is a longstanding tradition of comfort food reading, even if the Western literary tradition places greater emphasis on conflict at the structural level. 11/12

As Roquet notes, iyashikei comes from “iyashi,” which can be translated as “healing,” “soothing” or “therapy,” and “kei,” meaning “type.” Patricia Thang simply states that iyashikei provides “a feeling of warmth and comfort, like curling up in a big blanket with a cup of tea and fuzzy socks.” 10/11

This lines the series up with the Japanese concept genre of iyashikei, which, according to Japanese Studies scholar Paul Roquet, creates an “aesthetic of calm” designed to heal weary readers and provide much-needed stress relief. 9/12

Mey Rude notes “This book is full of characters with soft voices, soft hearts, and strong character, and the art makes all of that even more clear. This is a world filled with soft leaves, soft fabrics and soft people. It’s a kind world that will soothe you when you’re stressed out.” 8/12

We see this most evidently in the morals that the story advances: companionship and community, harmony with nature, empathy for everyone, respect for life, and the overwhelming need for both self-care and self-cultivation. 7/12

In that sense, the nostalgic visuals, cozy atmosphere, and soothing colours of the story all speak to the challenges of our modern world, if only through contrast. As much as the series looks timeless, it is very much grounded in a historical moment and speaks to it quite directly. 6/12

This cuteness, expressed through creature, character, world, and theme, has a greater currency in our modern world, essentially, and we can see a lot of the narrative orienting around that as a fantasy that presents itself as a tonic to the social and political climate of the late 2010s. 5/12

Everything in the book is cute. In “The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness,” Dale et al. argue that “indulging in and communicating through cuteness provides an important coping strategy for subjects caught up in the precariousness inherent to neoliberal capitalism”. 4/12

In executing this pivot, O’Neill makes the dragons a) adorable and b) very tiny. Though they’re feisty enough to cause minor bites when touched in ways they don’t like, the series places a great deal of emphasis on their vulnerability (as opposed to ferocity). 3/12

Conceptually, O’Neill’s approach is elegantly simple: combine dragons, a subject of dramatic fantasy fascination with tea, a beverage associated almost exclusively with the concept of relaxing, unwinding, and making time for reflection. 2/12

The Tea Dragon Society has been flagged for it’s uniquely cute and cozy atmosphere. While this may seem simple enough, there is an art to cute and a history to cozy that merits some consideration within a book that has quickly become comfort food to a generation of readers. #teadragonsociety 1/12

Our latest for @sequentialscholars.bsky.social introduces The Tea Dragon Society! #ComicsStudies

curiosity sol 316 mastcam L - From 2di7 & titanio44 - https://flic.kr/p/eYcuGM