That owl in a basket would be excellent to embroider. A friend who likes owls has their birthday in January. I wonder if I could finish it in time (if I keep my ADHD in check, I should hopefully finish it in time for their next birthday. This comment was written while working on a crochet cardigan for a friend whose birthday was in May)

Edit: I don’t get much chance to show off my progress, so here is an image. It’s mostly a mesh made of double crochet. Still remaining to do is to finish the sleeves (that’s going to take a while, as I’m doing bell sleeves), attach the side bits to the main body, extend the front panels with a cord type thing so it can tie closed, and add a small border to the front edging. Lots to do, but I’m proud of what I’ve done so far.

This has also inspired me to go find a crochet community to share my progress in, so thank you for being a delightful presence around here. You always make me want to participate more so that I can be a part of making a community rather than just using a platform

Edit 2: I made a long post detailing my process and journey so far. Here it is, for anyone who is interested https://slrpnk.net/post/31304759 (Side question, does anyone know the best way to link posts when sharing in this way? I have no idea how this works for people who aren’t on my instance. If you click on this link, are you able to comment without having to faff and convert that link to be for your own instance? If not, is there a better way to link posts and comments to make it easier for people across different instances to interact? I had a wee Google, but only found old feature requests)

I think about that passage a lot. Like, I don’t disagree with Plato that writing will inevitably degrade certain aspects of our capacity to think. The key question for me is whether it’s worth it — what do we gain from writing, and are those gains worth what we lose? I think about this mostly in the context of other technology besides writing, namely AI.

Going back to writing though, I wonder whether Plato would still hold the same anti-writing views nowadays. Paper and high quality ink is readily available, and even archival quality stuff isn’t hard for a regular person to get. We can trivially make additional copies of important documents through photocopying, scanning and printing, as well as backing things up in different formats. He was also just writing in a completely different culture too, where oratory was far more valued than writing — and much of the extant writings from the time are effectively just notes for giving lectures.

I feel like he’d probably still be grumpy. He strikes me as that sort

Oooh, very cool. Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out

Someone has already replied to you clarifying that the war is in DR Congo, so I’m going to take a different angle in my reply.

It is true that the full names of the countries include the word “the”, for both the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Republic of the Congo. However, this doesn’t mean that including “the” when shortening it is inoffensive. Context is a part of how words carry meaning, and connotations are a part of that.

For many, “the Congo” evokes the period when it was a Belgian colony, where the Congolese faced horrific treatment, even compared to other colonialist regimes of the past. Arguably, it’s still suffering from the effects of colonialism, given that there are many powers extracting the country’s abundant natural resources, leading to ongoing economic exploitation of the Congolese.

To put it simply, “the Congo” has bad vibes attached to it, in a way that “Democratic Republic of Congo” doesn’t. This is just how language works. Taking a phrase and adding new words to it doesn’t just modify the meaning of the existing phrase; it can create an entirely new phrase that is able to exist independently of its starting point (especially if it goes on to be used regularly in a particular context, such as with a country’s official name). Meaning being built up like this also means that shortening a phrase may require more than just straightforwardly chopping it up into parts. It wouldn’t make sense to short the “United Kingdom” to just “Kingdom”, because that’s not one of the accepted shortened names for that country.

I stopped using “the Congo” when a Congolese person told me that just “Congo” was preferred. Obviously they don’t speak for the entirety of their country, but I didn’t see any purpose in digging my heels in against a reasonable preference from the only Congolese person I’ve met— certainly their word weighs more than my habits. Since then, I’ve seen it mentioned a few times “Congo” is the preferred term for the shortened country name. Convention can take a while to solidify when a country is enduring war and various kinds of economic exploitation, so this isn’t universal yet. However, if we’re able to recognise which way the wind is blowing in this respect, then we have the opportunity to be courteous and respect people’s self determination.

Heads up to anyone that might not know, but you shouldn’t say “the Congo”, because referring to it that was is a remnant of colonialism. Instead, just say Congo. E.g. “there’s a war in Congo”.

I realise that I’m being peak buzzkill politically correct leftie here, but I only learned this relatively recently, and I want to help out others like me. It still sounds weird to me to say “Congo” rather than “the Congo”, but that’s part of why it feels important to make the effort to change

I’m cynical, but a Catholic friend argues that the church’s resistance to change is natural if you consider how long it has existed. Big changes take decades, if not longer. She argues that whilst this sucks for many Catholics who are struggling with a disconnect between their faith and the church in the here and now, that slower changes in the church’s stance towards LGBTQ people will make those changes more resilient in the long term.

Effectively, she’s saying that on this path, she believes that in 200 years from now, the church will likely still exist and be pushing for LGBTQ rights, and that by operating on a different timescale to countries’ politics, they will be an especially effective advocate. An example she used was how Trump’s administration has contributed to fickle corporations opting out of pride stuff. For better or for worse, the church is less fickle.

For context, my friend is queer and is in community with trans people (including trans Catholics), but is not trans herself.

This reminds me of a funny bit from Hesiod Work and days 375 that a classicist friend shared with me way back:

“Do not be deceived by a woman who decorates her buttocks, coaxing you with wily words - she is after your granary.”

(“Decorates her buttocks” means dressing to accentuate the rear)

Or to paraphrase it as my friend did:

“Don’t get taken in by a thick girl, even if she has good chat - she’ll dine and dash on your dumb ass.”