your works of nature are unnatural

Last night I participated in an interesting local event called Common Ground, which invites people from across the political spectrum to discuss issues with the intent to illuminate and find commonalities, rather than persuade. The organizers (who themselves are two liberals and two conservatives) very carefully balance the attendance list to ensure an equal number on both sides. The meeting started with brief introductions, and then we split up into tables of 4, 2 liberals and 2 conservatives (our nametags were coded by color) to discuss a question. After a set time, we mixed up and sat at tables with different people, and discussed a second question, and then all got together to share insights.

The first question was about identifying the core beliefs of liberals and of conservatives (and spoiler alert, we all agreed on pretty similar beliefs), and the second was about the relevance of the Constitution today, and if it should be followed strictly, modified, or scrapped. To my surprise both of the conservatives at my second table said they don't trust the current president to lead any revision of the constitution, and when we discussed things as a group it was clear that nobody is a fan of the current administration. Which, I guess should not have been a surprise, because part of the ground rules were, as alluded to, respect for other points of view and no attempting to argue your point, and as a result those who attended were pretty much normie Republicans, unaffiliated leaners, and mainstream Democrats, with no Trumpers (we have those here) or leftie anarchists (we have those, too).

Anyway, it was interesting and enjoyable, and it definitely made the point that "the other side are people too." I'll probably try to attend again - they put these on every few months.

What I've recently finished reading:

Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley, the second Checquy Files book. This one goes a little harder on the body horror than the first (for plot reasons) but it's still leavened with enough humor that it didn't hit my ick button. The humor mostly comes from the extremely silly powers some people have, as well as from the dry observations by Myfanwy and others. As in the first book, there is a very shippable f/f pair (as well as Shantay from book 1 showing up at the end, yay, and not doing anything to shatter my Myfanwy/Shantay inclinations!) though again it's all just subtext.

Also, I'm reading the collection Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie, and so far I have read:

"Lake of Souls" - this is the title story, and I liked it a lot, mostly because I am a sucker for stories with multiple POVs in which each character is a different alien with a different culture and thus each has a very very different perspective. But I also liked the aww-factor of the outcome.

"Footprints" - horror, I guess? I think I missed the point.

"Hesperia and Glory" - this is fun and harks back to Golden Age Sci-Fi. Is Mr. Atkins mad, or a Martian?

"The Endangered Camp" - this made me think of Tom Toner's The Promise of the Child in which, also, the dinosaurs escaped the extinction event in a spaceship. Not bad, not my favorite.

Speaking of short story collections, I DNF'ed The Age of Calamities by Senaa Ahmad, which I learned about from a review of The Beheading Game by Rebecca Lehmann (which I reviewed here) as the reviewer felt that the story "Let's Play Dead" was a better take on a mysteriously alive post-beheading Anne Boleyn. Unfortunately, stylistically it very much did not work for me (literary, dense, weird); I started and abandoned two other stories in the collection and then decided to give up on the collection entirely.