The Guardian view on coming-out tales: from A Boy’s Own Story to What It Feels Like for a Girl; The Guardian, June 8, 2025

 Editorial, The Guardian; The Guardian view on coming-out tales: from A Boy’s Own Story to What It Feels Like for a Girl

"Each of these coming-out stories is rooted in a specific time and place. They are about class as well as sex, the salvation of books and music as well as romance. They are about loneliness, desire and a longing for escape – being a teenager, in short. Despite heartbreaking scenes of abuse and pain, they are also bursting with excitement. One of the conditions of youth is that one’s “own story” feels like the only story. This is why the coming-of-age narrative endures.

In our digital age of toxic masculinity and intolerance, these memoirs call for truthfulness and compassion. They are reminders of the fragility of progress. “If gays have gone from invisibility to ubiquity and from self-hatred to self-acceptance,” White wrote in his last book, The Loves of My Life, published in January, “we should recognize we’re still being pushed off cliffs in Yemen – and from the top fronds of Florida palms, for all I know.”"

How Trump sent me to church; The Ink, November 18, 2024

BRIAN MONTOPOLI, The Ink; How Trump sent me to church

"This time, Donald Trump’s triumph cannot be written off as a fluke, or the result of our flawed electoral system. Voters knew exactly who Trump was, and they still awarded him what is poised to be a (narrow) victory in the popular vote. But even if Trump doesn’t have an overpowering mandate, our fellow Americans chose the candidate of division, demonization, and weaponizing the government against his political opponents. Adam Serwer has argued that the cruelty was the point. And we, as a nation, chose the cruelty.

Faced with that hard truth, many may be tempted to write off our neighbors, throw up their hands, and turn inward. We can see evidence of this playing out: Unlike in 2016, people are not pouring into the streets to protest the incoming administration. Instead, they are largely staying in their bubbles, scrolling on their screens, and trying not to think too hard about the potential horrors to come.

But retreating into ourselves will only make things worse.

Which is why, the other night, I decided to go the other way the other day. To go, in fact, to church.

Doing so was my small way of pushing back on trends that are ominous and have the potential to make the next Trump presidency even more dangerous."

Where's the best place to find a robot cat? The library, of course; ZDNet, January 27, 2024

Chris Matyszczyk, , ZDNet; Where's the best place to find a robot cat? The library, of course

"As Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) reported, the library's customers are involved in a festival of adoration when it comes to these three black-and-white robot felines...

Here's Manistee County Library in Michigan with a veritable array of robotic pets. Cats, dogs and even a bird...

Let's now drift to the Hastings Public Library, also in Michigan. There, just beneath Botley the Coding Robot is: "Robotic Cat. Coming January 2024."

Now you might be wondering what the rules are for going to your local public library and taking a robot cat home with you.

Helpfully, the Reading Public Library in Massachusetts offers some guidelines...

It seems, then, that America's libraries have become homes for robot cats. They bring peace and companionship to many. And that's a good thing."