I've had Lucy Wan floating in my head for a while.

It's not my favorite ballad - if I wanted to sing The Murdered Brother I would and often do. Floaters are a thing, sure, but I still think it's cheating to basically steal 90% of the verses from one song and tack on a different framing story.

But it does have one advantage over The Murdered Brother, and that's that the framing story makes sense. I can see how you might chop your sister up after you've knocked her up. I mean, I wouldn't do it, but I wouldn't do half the things people do in ballads. If I had no moral compass, though, then I might well look at murder as the solution to everyday social problems like an inconvenient pregnancy. Even in a ballad, though, killing your brother because he cut down a withy wand that might've been a tree is just strange.

(And their mother doesn't give a damn, it seems, no matter who killed whom and why. There's some seriously messed up family dynamics here. Sometimes you really have to wonder about the people who wrote these things.)

************

Silver Composition in Coins Confirms the Story of the Rise of Rome

How Edmond Halley Kicked Off the Golden Age of Eclipse Mapping

Probiotic Bacteria Could Protect Newborns From Deadly Infection

Nobody Knows What Lies Beneath New York City

Pretty sure I've seen this exact premise in, like, a thousand Harry Potter fics. Because how else are you gonna get Draco and Hermione to hook up?

Female Inmates In Federal Prisons Will Now Have More Access To Tampons & Pads

The next time somebody tells me that they or anybody else can't be a bigot because they have one $GROUP friend, I'm going to point them to this article about Eduard Bloch, who was personally exempted from anti-Semitic persecution by... Adolf Hitler. Yes, really. Yes, my jaw dropped too.

Solving a Murder Mystery With Ancestry Websites

Justice Department at odds with DEA on marijuana research, MS-13

Severe Housing Needs May Return to Foreclosure-Crisis Levels

This Is Why Taking Fish Medicine Is Truly a Bad Idea (This may be a sign that things in this country are really, really bad.)

They Got Hurt At Work — Then They Got Deported

White nationalists are flocking to genetic ancestry tests — but many don't like their results

Steve Bannon once said Breitbart was the platform for the alt-right. Its current editors disagree. Is the incendiary media company at the nerve center of Donald Trump’s America simply provocative — or dangerous?

Psychologists surveyed hundreds of alt-right supporters. The results are unsettling.

Trump Knows Exactly What He’s Doing

In Ukraine, a Malware Expert Who Could Blow the Whistle on Russian Hacking

Philippine police kill 32 in bloodiest night of Duterte’s war on drugs

My goodness!

Somebody really has made a recipe for Time City's butter pie!

Upon re-read, I realize that there is a small problem with the timeline in the book. Not in the usual time travel sense, which would be more or less okay, but in the educational calendar.

Vivian arrives in Time City during their half term, which I understand to be a short vacation in the middle of the semester - like midwinter recess in NYC. She attends school for two or three days, maybe as long as five - and then the whole city shuts down for two days of ceremonies! (And also the dramatic conclusion, but nobody knew that yet while the ceremonies happen every year.)

If they know, as they must know, that the kids will all have two days off, why not schedule their break a few days later so as to encompass the holiday? Instead of this on-again, off-again nonsense, which can't be good for their learning.

(Of course, I'm saying this from a city which only a few years ago started school on a Wednesday and then immediately took the next two days off for the Jewish New Year. Which, okay, it's an important holiday, but still. Start the year on a different day then!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Never Buy Drawing Paper Again With This Endlessly Reusable Art Notebook

Why Northern Long-Eared Bats Love Nantucket

Robot, heal thyself (I'll confess - I love headlines the most when they make a pithy reference. I don't care if it's a sophisticated reference or a very low-brow one, I love them, and I love being able to say I got the joke, no matter how obvious it was. Also, this is a cool article. It's not just the headline. But I love the headline.)

You’ll Never Be as Radical as This 18th-Century Quaker Dwarf

The Story of the DuckTales Theme, History’s Catchiest Single Minute of Music

Tougher than steel: Japan looks to wood pulp to make lighter auto parts

Why NASA is sending bacteria into the sky on balloons during the eclipse

How America's First Self-Made Female Millionaire Built Her Fortune

Glass may not seem an obvious material for a bone replacement. But UK surgeons are finding that bioglass not only is stronger than bone: it can bend, bounce and even fight infection.

American evangelicals’ antigay gospel forced him to flee Uganda. Then Christians in California offered him a home. A refugee’s story in words and pictures.

I’ll get my goat: Kazakhstan's ancient sport for modern times

The Moral History of Air-Conditioning

Labor-short Japan more at home with automation than US

The Repercussions of the Black Teacher Shortage

They were partners in fighting crime. The only problem: Neither was a cop. But when one friend turned on the other, things got real.

Same-sex couples do not influence their adoptive children's gender identity

The Wealthy Activist Who Helped Turn “Bleeding Kansas” Free

“Barack Obama is to blame”: 13 Alabama conservatives on Charlottesville

Confederate statues removed across southern US states – in pictures

Eight Confederate leaders are honored with sculptures in the halls of Congress.

Historians Question Trump’s Comments on Confederate Monuments

What Trump gets wrong about Confederate statues, in one chart

How Baltimore Removed Its Confederate Monuments Overnight

When Silicon Valley Took Over Journalism

What possessed a family man from Ohio to smuggle a Bible into North Korea?

Young Afghans see opportunities dwindle as security worsens

How a Conservative TV Giant Is Ridding Itself of Regulation

The nation’s current post-truth moment is the ultimate expression of mind-sets that have made America exceptional throughout its history.

Indonesia clinic gives relief to Muslims with tattoo regrets

It took decades to unravel Nixon’s sabotage of Vietnam peace talks. Now, the full story can be told.

Popular Pesticides Keep Bumblebees From Laying Eggs

70 years later, survivors recall the horrors of India-Pakistan partition

Squeezed by an India-China Standoff, Bhutan Holds Its Breath

US teen drug overdose deaths inch up after years of decline

Sentenced To Adulthood: Direct File Laws Bypass Juvenile Justice System

Sometimes it feels like I never get to read anything new

This is factually untrue - I just finished a new book yesterday - but it does feel that way.

Recommend something to me! Especially nonfiction - I really don't read much of that, so I can promise that I'll never have read whatever you recommend! (Whereas if you recommend anything kidlit or YA there's better than even odds that I've read it.)

Later I'll post up my own list of random recommendations for everybody, but right now I really must dash.