(no subject)

Read a speech that Martin Luther King gave the day before he was assassinated. I was moved by King's spirituality, by his concern for the here and now, and by his humour and humility. *goes to try and find a recording of the speech*

Black characters in The Girl in the Fireplace

Rats! I'm still intrigued by how historically accurate it is for there to be Black men and women at Versailles in The Girl in the Fireplace, and for a moment I thought I'd come up with a super explanation for the chap visible in the panic at the ball - that he might be Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, composer, fencer, and generally pretty amazing guy. Alas! He was born in 1745, and would only have been 13 years old when the clockwork robots arrived. But this does suggest that what we're seeing is not cheerful racial integration, which would be anachronistic, but the presence of a few remarkable individuals. (My other theories: the characters are visiting aristocrats; they are not aristocrats, but servants.)

(I haven't watched the story for a while. The Doctor is so smitten when he sees the grownup Reinette that he talks as though someone's hit him in the head with a shovel.)

ETA: I wonder if Reinette's friend Charlotte was inspired by Charles-André van Loo's Orientalist portrait of Madame de Pompadour?

More on the abortion ban in the US

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' amicus brief is the clearest document on the issue which I've found online. It explains in plain language the safety advantages of the banned procedure(s), which may include prevention of "massive hemorrhaging, serious infection, and subsequent infertility" which can lead to damage to the brain and other organs. The ban allows no exceptions to prevent those outcomes; the woman's health is expendable.

ACOG's press release states: "The Supreme Court's action today, though stunning, in many ways isn't surprising given the current culture in which scientific knowledge frequently takes a back seat to subjective opinion." That should ring a bell with those of us interested in global warming or the teaching of evolution.