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New Wondervox Promo Video
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Fun New Video Promo for LGBTSr!
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So What’s All This About AI?
By Mark McNease
This seems like a good time to address our most recent bogeyman, or should I say bogeyrobot? AI (artificial intelligence) is all the rage these days, with a great deal of misunderstanding and fear around it. Like every new technology – and AI isn’t really new at all – it can be used for nefarious purposes, such as impersonating people, their voices and images in service to someone’s agenda, and it can be used for the good in innumerable ways.
When we ask Alexa or Siri or Google to research something, we are essentially using AI. The technologies in our cars are reliant on forms of AI. It is, frankly, already pervasive in our lives and has been for a long time, and it will only increase. Autocorrect. GPS. Word suggestions when we type. Algorithms everywhere. These are all forms of AI, and we’ve gotten used to them. We will get used to its other, newer, forms too. It’s all about adapting and, for me, embracing these new technologies.
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The Twist Podcast #230: SCOTUS Two for One Sale, Golf Grifting in the Governor’s Mansion, and a Guest Interview with Herbie J Pilato
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as we combine our pennies for the next Supreme Court sale, offer DeSantis a mulligan for his golf payola, and enjoy Rick’s interview with the marvelous Herbie J Pilato.
Enjoy The Twist on Libsyn, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, and TheTwistPodcast.com.
Copyright 2023 MadeMark Publishing
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Mystery Writers Meet-n-Greet in the Garden State!
Finally! I got to meet a dozen of my fellow members of the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) New York chapter. We don’t all live in NY, obviously, and this was the first time they held an event for us Garden Staters. More, please! And let’s get some younguns in the organization. At this rate we’ll all be dead from natural causes soon.
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On the Map: Still Life with Lunch in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
By Mark McNease
We made another of our favorite getaway trips to Strasburg, PA, to visit friends. I’ve always told people we were going to Lancaster, but this was actually the first time we took a several-hour trip to that city just a short drive away. You can read about a previous trip HERE, complete with a slideshow, sites to see, and our recommendation for the wonderful Carriage House hotel. We always stay there, and it just seems to keep getting better. We book the large suite adjacent to the office, providing us a comfortable bedroom and a second room with a couch, second TV, and table perfect for my laptop.
This time we made sure to go to Lancaster proper, and I was nicely surprised. For some reason I’d always assumed it was a small-ish town like Strasburg, but it’s much bigger. It’s a historical city that has both a sense of history, and modernity, and an almost college-town vibe. I have to make special mention of the restaurant where we ate lunch, C’est La Vie. The food was outstanding, and our server, Ben, deserves stars of his own.
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The Weekly Readlines June 21 (Now Every Wednesday!)
The Weekly Readlines (rhymes with headlines!) is a Wednesday roundup of news you can use.
NEWS FLASH! I will now be providing The Weekly Readlines every Wednesday, and sending it to our email subscribers as a stand-alone supplement. All other content will arrive in their virtual mailboxes on Friday as usual. – Mark/the newsroom team
Quote for the Week: “Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will.” – Anonymous
BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S TOP STORIESIn a bit of good news amidst the onslaught of hate, a Federal judge permanently blocked Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
Hunter Biden reached a plea deal on tax-evasions charges and a gun violation, causing right-wing head explosions nationwide.
The most recent one-term president was raked over the coals in an interview with Bret Baier on Fox, essentially admitting to obstructing justice. But will he soon have a jumpsuit to match the spray tan?
LGBTQ NEWS’Just Us’ Documentary Explores The Lives Of LGBTQ People
Colorado Public RadioBuilding Support, Celebrating Contributions Are Key to LGBTQ+ Pharmacists
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The Twist Podcast #229: Back from Spring Break! Indictments, Rainbow Rage, And a New Guest Interview
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose, back in the booth after a short spring break. Listen in as we talk indictments, rainbow rage, the perils of Pride merch, ongoing heinous headlines, and an interview with Rev. Isaiah Shaneequa Brokenleg. Fasten your headphones!
Enjoy The Twist on Libsyn, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, and TheTwistPodcast.com.
If you enjoy what you find here, SUBSCRIBE for regular updates.
Copyright 2023 MadeMark Publishing
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CSA, You Say? Healthy Summer Eating with Local Food Co-Ops
Shared from LGBTSr.com
We’ve belonged to a local CSA for several years now, and from late-May through October we enjoy a bountiful harvest of fresh vegetables we choose ourselves on bi-weekly trips to the location just across the river in Pennsylvania. The one we joined is called Tinicum CSA, and everything they offer is grown by the owners. The way our CSA works is that you can by shares – a small share or a big share – and when you go to pick them up you are allowed an assortment of vegetables based on which share you paid for. We get the big share … and it’s a lot! Today we brought home two kinds of cabbage, a bunch of turnips, green onions, chard, arugula, and lettuce. The types of vegetables available depend on what is coming to harvest at that time of year. Later in the summer there will be more tomatoes that you could eat, potatoes, beets, parsnips, okra, you name it. We get so much, in fact, that we give some away to our neighbors. (One of those neighbors trades us eggs from her truly free-range chickens, and when we buy them off-season we pay $3 a dozen! We love getting eggs from chickens whose lives are spent outside who are given love along with their chicken feed).
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The Weekly Readlines June 16
The Weekly Readlines (rhymes with headlines!) is a roundup of news you can use every Friday.
Quote for the Week: “Our thing is this: If you come into this house, love one another. If you’re an a–hole, there are plenty of other places on Lower Broadway to go.” Garth Brooks, on continuing to serve Bud Light at his Nashville bar BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S TOP STORIESDozens of supporters showed up to protest the former president’s arraignment in Miami, in a show of force unequaled since Attila the Hun led his horsemen down the steppes.
A Starbucks union reported that Starbucks pulled its Pride merch nationwide, before a corporate denial the same day. Avoid the controversy, support your local coffee shops!
President Biden showed he had the spine lacking in corporate America to stand up for LGBTQ people by flying the Pride flag at the White House, much to the dismay of the rightwing hate machine.
And the great Glenda Jackson, whose breathtaking portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I on PBS so many years ago, has left this mortal coil.
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Mysteries Are Bursting Out All Over! The Great June Mystery Giveaway
Sometimes the best things in life really are free! Enjoy dozens of great mysteries by top-notch writers at this spectacular Book Funnel promo. My own ‘Open Secrets: A Maggie Dahl Mystery‘ is one of them. The promo runs from June 15 – July 15, so head over and start downloading! You’re guaranteed lots of sleepless nights.
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This Week’s Mark McNease On Topic (Substack)
Click to subscribe to Mark McNease On Topic, a Substack original arriving every Monday
Well, it finally happened. Donald Trump was indicted, and not the kind of ‘nothing’s going to come of this’ indictment many of us thought was handed down in New York. This is some Espionage Act, serious prison time stuff, and it has left me … ambivalent.
As much as I loathe Trump (almost as much as I loathe DeSantis, and that’s more loathing than I can fit into a thousand Substacks), the idea of a former American president sitting in a prison cell still manages to shock my sensibilities. I felt no sense of joy, no thrill of revenge, when it happened. I felt like we were finally coming to the end of a grotesque tragedy America wrote, produced, and starred in for its own entertainment. American exceptionalism is all the rage, and what could be more exceptional than a trial-by-jury of the most catastrophic head of state we have ever had?
The only enjoyment I’m getting from this is knowing how absolutely out of their minds it’s making the right-wing nut-o-sphere. Their cries of weaponized justice and the criminalization of political opponents rings more than hollow, coming from people who chanted “lock her up” at Trump rallies, and who are currently passing vicious, cruel, draconian laws in Republican-run states in a brutal but doomed attempt to eradicate trans and queer people.
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Cover Reveal for ‘I, Warlock’ (The Warlock Wars Book I)
Coming very soon … Frank is reading it now, and I have just about four chapters left to finish it. Julius Tide will wait an eternity if that’s what it takes. His beloved Charlotte was stolen form him by the evil sorcerer Jathan Rubel, and Julius’s only reason for living is to get revenge.
This is Book I in the three-book Warlock Wars series. Arriving later this summer.