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The Weekly Readlines December 9
The Weekly Readlines (rhymes with headlines!) is a feature at LGBTSr.com, offering news you can use every week.
Quote for the Week“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” – Mark Twain
BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S TOP STORIESFirst the good news: Georgia Senator Rafael Warnock WON! The Respect for Marriage Act heads to Biden’s desk. Brittney Griner was freed from Russian captivity. And that’s just the last 48 hours. What a week!
The manufactured case of graphic designer Lorie Smith, wannabe victim and Evangelical tool, afforded SCOTUS the chance to display its comedy chops, with Samuel Alito scoring big with a joke about Black kids in KKK costumes. Can an HBO special be far behind?
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The Twist Podcast #206: Warnock Wallops, Marriage Miracle, Top Tiny Gift Ideas, and the Week in Headlines
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose for a super busy news week: Senator Warnock locks it down for another six years, the Respect for Marriage Act heads to President Biden’s desk, Brittney Griner gets freed from Russian captivity, and so much more!
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Podcast Pick: Queer We Are, with Host Brad Shreve
Many of you will know Brad Shreve from his recently retired podcast Queer Writers of Crime, in with he interviewed a long and stellar list of authors specializing in LGBTQ+ mysteries and thrillers. Brad has launched a new podcasting venture and it’s a good one: Queer We Are. Brad has in-depth conversations with guests ranging from drag icon Miss Coco Peru, to author John Berendt, whose Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was a sensation as a book and as a movie.
Each week on Queer We Are, Brad Shreve hosts LGBTQ performers, athletes, politicians, activists, and even people you never heard of making a difference in their neighborhood. Guests share motivational, yet entertaining stories about their successes, challenges, and what they learned along the way.
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On Dreamshaping: Treating Ourselves to Illness
Mark McNease
I recently spent several weeks with a cold—or a flu, or a sinus infection, or some dreadful combination of them all. A cough still lingers, the voice still gives out if I talk for more than a few minutes. This kind of seasonal illness has been with me for most of my life. It brings discomfort and frustration, dread at what awaits me in my elder years, and the perfect excuse to start reaching for those comfort foods and behaviors I believe I’m entitled to under the circumstances because I deserve this. It’s a way to quickly short-circuit any deeper or prolonged analysis of what’s really happening: I’m in a sate of discomfort, and I want something to make me comfortable that doesn’t require more effort than getting it from an ice cream container into my mouth.
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The Twist Podcast #205: Stocking Stuffers, Christmas Carcinogens, Holiday Listicles, and the Week in Headlines
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as we welcome December and the end of 2022. What a year! We’ve got disgusting food trends, naughty stocking stuffers, our very own Bad Boys and Good Girls list, and the week in headlines.
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Kapok Aging and Caregiver Resources: Ways to Reduce Caregiver Holiday Stress and Enjoy the Season
By Angelica Herrera Venson, DrPH, MPH
The following excerpt is reprinted with permission from Kapok Aging and Caregiver Resources.
It’s surprisingly easy to push caregiver holiday stress aside. Some of us have the idea that the holidays are stressful for everyone, so we have no right to complain.
But, that’s simply not true.
The holidays are harder for caregivers than for many other people, as you have so much on your shoulders. Some caregivers even forgo family holiday activities entirely, as the person they’re supporting can’t participate.
Despite this, humans are resilient. Caregivers even more so. We know how to find out feet again, to get back up and keep going. We’ve learned, too, how to celebrate the good things. How to look for the bright small moments that make all the hard work easier.
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Savvy Senior: How to Buy Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids
By Jim Miller
Dear Savvy Senior,
I’m interested in getting some of the new over-the-counter hearing aids that just became available a few month ago. Can you offer any tips to help me with this?
Straining to Hear
Dear Straining,
The new FDA approved over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids that started rolling out this fall are a real game changer for the roughly 48 million Americans with hearing loss. Adults with impaired hearing can now walk in and buy hearing aids at a pharmacy, big box chain, consumer electronics store or online, without a prescription and without consulting an audiologist.
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A Holiday Goodreads Giveaway! ‘Final Audition: A Marshall James Thriller’
2022 is ending with a bang for me! Not only has my latest book, ‘Final Audition: A Marshall James Thriller,’ hit #1 on Amazon’s LGBTQ thriller new releases, but the first book in the series, ‘Murder at the Paisley Parrot,’ climbed to #26 in the best sellers for that category. I’d planned on this being the last book in the series, but fan reaction and sales tells me Marshall may not be ready for retirement quite yet.
And now … a Goodreads giveaway! I’ve been treated well by the Goodreads community and always do a giveaway with a new book. Final Audition is no exception. The giveaway will run from December 1, ending on December 25, just in time for a Christmas freebie!
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Steve Hayes’s Tired Old Queen at the Movies: Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)
From Steve Hayes / Tired Old Queen at the Movies
Charles Laughton, Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, Roland Young and Zasu Pitts are in comic heaven in Leo McCarey’s delightful satire RUGGLES OF RED GAP (1935) written by Harry Leon Wilson. Laughton plays a proper British butler who his employer loses in a poker game to Roland Young. Laughton is forced to go the American west at the turn of the century with his unsophisticated new employers Ruggles and Boland. There, he discovers what rustic America is all about and brings sophistication and class to the community in return. It’s by far Laughton’s greatest comedy and Boland, Young, Ruggles and Pitts are perfection!
Stream RUGGLES OF RED GAP Now! https://amzn.to/3Ve3uPj
RUGGLES OF RED GAP – DVD, Blu-Ray or VHS https://amzn.to/3i3lTjP
RUGGLES OF RED GAP Movie Poster https://amzn.to/3i3bKUg
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Senior Newswire November 28
Senior Newswire is provided by Savvy Senior and offers weekly links to news you can use. SUBSCRIBE HERE.
This week’s tasting sample:
The Perils of Medical Portals
Vitamin D Deficiency and Depression
The No. 1 Thing that Sets ‘Superagers’ Apart
Which to Choose: Medicare or Medicare Advantage?
Is It Ever Too Late to Start Saving for Retirement? -
Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast #47: ‘I, Warlock,’ A Kindle Vella Serial (Chapters 1 – 3)
Welcome back to the Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast! In this episode, I’m narrating the first three chapters of my Kindle Vella serial, ‘I, Warlock.’ I’m uploading new chapters every Wednesday and Saturday, so please be sure to check them out. Follow the story, and give it a thumbs-up when you have a chance. It’s a new platform for me, a new genre, and an exciting adventure in creativity. Happy holidays! – Mark
I’ve started my first Kindle Vella serial. The platform is an Amazon Kindle offering that allows readers to enjoy one chapter at a time of what could be a novel, a novella, or a short story. I’ve been especially creative this year, and I’ve wanted to branch out. This is a good start, and an excellent challenge: I must write at least one chapter a week for this. I’m aiming to get two out each week, same day for consistency and growing some fans, but for now it’s one chapter a week.
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Book Review: A History of the World Through Body Parts, by Kathryn Petras & Ross Petras
“A History of the World Through Body Parts” by Kathryn Petras & Ross Petras
c.2022, Chronicle Books $22.95 255 pagesGive the gentleman a hand.
He did a good job, and he deserves it. Seriously, someone gave him a leg-up, he jumped in with both feet, and shortly after he put his nose to the grindstone, he found himself rubbing elbows with influential people. He shouldered some responsibility, kept his ear to the ground, and look where he’s been – so give him a hand, and read “A History of the World Through Body Parts” by Kathryn Petras & Ross Petras.
It all begins with Cleopatra’s nose.
Mathematician Blase Pascal seemed fascinated by it, not because it stood out (though it did), but because Julius Caesar and Marc Antony were both smitten with it and their obsessions changed the world. That got Petras and Petras thinking how other bodily bits might have affected history. Can “zeroing in on a body part” help make sense of our world?