Around the Corner: April 10, 2023
Happy Monday!
Welcome back to this weeks Around the Corner, which is all about updates on this platform, recent articles, personal interests, and my own life.
I was very pleased at the positive reaction to last weeks posts…thank you! Welcome to over a dozen new subscribers: feeling very fortunate to have you reading along. Please drop me a line if something catches your eye.
Something like (thanks to the half a dozen of you that sent me this)…
Mifepristone Rulings Rapid Response Rally by Planned Parenthood today, April 10
Conflicting court rulings over the legality of the widely-used abortion medication mifepristone have caused uncertainty around access to this method of abortion across the U.S.
Two federal judges in Texas and Washington issued separate rulings, leaving the drug, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000, in a state of limbo.
The initial decision by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, appointed by former President Trump, overruled decades of scientific approval and put a hold on federal approval of mifepristone.
However, at the same time, U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an Obama appointee, ordered U.S. authorities not to restrict access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats had sued to protect its availability. The drug remains available for now, but a lot of uncertainty remains.
Planned Parenthood is holding a series of rallies today, Monday, April 10, from 5-6:00pm.
Fairbanks: at the intersection of Geist Rd. and University Ave. (RSVP here).
Anchorage: Location info coming soon (RSVP here).
Twitter Blocks Substack Links
Kuba’s Corner is hosted on a platform called Substack. It’s been great!
Unfortunately, it seems that Twitter started limiting the promotion and visibility of tweets containing links to Substack posts last Thursday night. While new tweets linking directly to Substack.com domains can still be created, trying to retweet or like these tweets results in an error message that says, "Some actions on this Tweet have been disabled by Twitter."
Substack founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Seth provided the following statement to The Verge in response:
We’re disappointed that Twitter has chosen to restrict writers’ ability to share their work. Writers deserve the freedom to share links to Substack or anywhere else. This abrupt change is a reminder of why writers deserve a model that puts them in charge, that rewards great work with money, and that protects the free press and free speech. Their livelihoods should not be tied to platforms where they don’t own their relationship with their audience, and where the rules can change on a whim.
Well said, I say. Some solace might be found in custom domains or other workarounds… I'll probably be trying those out soon.
Posts from Last Week
We had three posts from last week.
The very first Around the Corner talked about plans for the new 3-times-a-week posting schedule that we’re on now, plans for a new logo, and hinted at a future, completely voluntary, paid subscription option.
For last Wednesdays post, I asked AI What It Saw as the Biggest Issues Facing Alaska in the Next 100 Years, and wondered why we weren’t tackling those issues more aggressively.
And I was particularly proud of the new weekly This Week in Fairbanks format, which summarizes happenings around the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB) each Friday. The first one was focused on the Mayors new proposed borough budget.
Happy Easter Weekend!
It was a fun weekend for me!
An awesome First Friday experience by Black Alaskan Art Matters at Venue, the new DnD movie, the (newly resurrected) Fabulous Feminist Fundraiser, Easter brunch, and a potluck/DnD party to wrap Sunday up…
Not bad! Now, if only it would stop snowing…
Hope you all have a great start to your week.