In 1951, before MLK started marching, before Rosa Parks sat where she wanted to sit on the bus, and before young people sat-in at lunch counters, 16-year-old Barbara Rose organized and led a walkout in Farmville, VA to protest the conditions black kids had to endure at school. The NAACP eventually took her case all the way to the Supreme Court, where it and several other cases were combined with Brown vs. Board of Education, which ultimately led to a ruling outlawing segregation. For her bravery, Barbara's family endured harassment from the KKK that led to a cross burning in her yard. Her family sent her to family in Alabama to finish out high school.

My editor would like me to point out that illegal or not, public schools never really desegregated.

So why don't know we know more about Barbara Rose? She was a kid, and her name got dropped from the headlines when her case was merged with Brown vs. Board of Education. After high school, she graduated from Drexel in Philadelphia, got married, raised a family, and worked as a librarian in Philadelphia until her death in 1991. I like to think she'd be pleased that, in 2025, I learned about her role in history after checking out this book from the library. History has caught up in the last 10 years, with Virginia in particular finding several ways to honor her legacy. Her story is also now part of the 4th grade curriculum in the state.

Also, it's worth pointing out that the book is a kid's book, and you'll be able to read it in 10–15 minutes, and that I learned about it, and about Barbara Rose, when the author ended up in my Mastodon feed. This is a book that the current US government does not want you reading, so it's your moral duty to read it. Also, by checking it out at your library you keep it active, which means it doesn't get removed from circulation.

You know what to do.

The Audubon group was meeting at 6 AM this morning, which meant leaving the house by 5:40 AM. We decided to go solo birding instead and leave at 7:15 AM. We went to Malvern Hill Battlefield, which offers a nice mix of open fields and forests, and is only a few hundred yards from the river, although you can't see it from the battlefield.

We identified 53 species. We spent about 15 minutes watching about 6 Indigo Buntings chase each other around an open area in the forest, while occasionally stopping long enough to hunt for a bug in the grass. It's the longest extended look I've ever gotten at an Indigo Bunting. We also watched 2 Summer Tanagers that appeared to be fighting over a female. We also saw a Bald Eagle soaring in the distance between us and the river, and I also saw a Northern Harrier hunting along the edge of the meadow and forest. It was a very solid morning of birding.

Birding at Malvern Hill is always a little weird. Early in the morning it's peaceful and quiet, with the only noise bird song. Yet, their are replica cannon and placards reminding you of the carnage that occurred in that very spot in 1862. It's one of the better preserved Civil War battlefields, with the grounds mostly unchanged since the battle. But the contrast with the events there in 1862 can be a little unsettling.

Our e-bird list for the morning.

I'm 57 years old. I deactivated my Facebook account 26 days ago and have heard from exactly zero Facebook friends in the last 26 days.

This is not a cry for help. It's a realization. Facebook makes it too easy to believe you have meaningful relationships with people who are, for all practical purposes, strangers. You may have been online friends for 20+ years but it's an online friendship. In most cases it pales in comparison to a friendship IRL. Yes, you can use Facebook to stay in touch with real friends. But it'll be better if you keep in touch outside of Facebook, or any social media.

So now the obvious question. How does a 57 year old dude make friends IRL? I've been married since my mid 20s, and if I'm being honest, I've been coasting since I finished grad school at about age 25 in the friends department. We had the rush of new friends when we all the same age kids, but most of those friendships faded over the years. We moved to Richmond in 2017, and COVID certainly got in the way but I can't blame COVID for the fact that there isn't a single person (other than family) in this city that I can text with a reasonable expectation that they'll want to meet up for a beer. I can blame working from home, but again, nothing was stopping me post COVID from getting out there other than laziness and inertia.

This is not a "I never leave the house thing." My wife and I go out, a lot. We do date night more weekends than not, we eat out some, we go to baseball and soccer games, and we travel a lot in our camper. We do meet up with some friends for camping, but they don't live in RVA. But it's always just the two of us. Which is great, we are best friends as well as spouses, but I would like some dude friends like I had in my 20s and 30s.

Or do I? Is that even a reasonable ask? Do guys my age hang out like we did when we were under 40? I really have no idea.

Radio is underrated. I've recently rediscovered the joy of finding a cool radio station and just letting the humans there pick the next song for me. And no, I'm not talking about the algorithmic crap barfed over the airwaves by Clear Channel or I Heart Radio. I''m talking about community radio and indie stations that are available over streaming anywhere, and sometimes OTA if you live in the right place.

That Station is my current favorite. It's a community station that broadcasts on 95.7 FM in the Raleigh Durham area. It's an amazing mix of indie pop, power pop, classic rock, classic R&B and Blues from way back, Americana, and local bands from the Raleigh Durham area. They have as streaming website, an app, and on Roku you can get to it via the My Tuner channel. And of course, am FM radio in the Raleigh area works too.

Some other I enjoy include:

The Creek from Macon, GA. It's very Americana and roots focused, with a southern slant.

Radio Paradise has several channels available, including a rock mix, a global mix, a mellow mix, and a few others.

American Roots Radio delivers exactly what you expect it might.

SomaFM delivers 30 odd stations, ranging from modern metal to EDM.

There are about 10,000 other options. If you want to listen to Mongolian Folk Music, there will be a streaming station for it. More than one, probably.

So, what I'm saying is that you don't need Spotify.

"The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently."

—David Graeber

Hat tip: Al Wirtes

Hey there,

Coming at you a little late today because I got up at 6 AM this morning to go birding. We had a great morning as I logged 54 species. This afternoon I walked around our local park with my wife and logged 24 species. I'm at 111 species year to date. I logged 154 species last year, but it's going to be slower going from here as it's going to be more difficult to log new species, unless we get away from the Richmond area.

It's been 22 days since I deactivated my Facebook account, and exactly zero people from my Facebook friends list have made any effort to connect with me outside of Facebook. So much for Facebook being a place to build meaningful relationships. Updates as events warrant...

This writer argues that humans are doing a very good job of adapting to climate change instead of mitigating it. And that eventually, we will adapt ourselves to extinction.

There is no moral imperative to compensate free software authors. Obvious point? Or cutting insight? Or wrong?

This 1 hour playlist of New Orleans Jazz is hot.

"Have you ever walked into a supermarket, pharmacy, or department store looking to buy a specific item, only to find the layout confusing? Perhaps you ended up aimlessly strolling around, purchasing other items? This is deliberate, and known as the Gruen Transfer." It's killing the Internet.

Adam Newbold, founder of Omg.lol making the very correct point that not all opinions are equal, and that assholes and fascists do not have any right to join omg.lol or any other Fediverse community. As the saying goes, if you let one Nazi into your bar, you are now the Nazi bar.

Don't be the Nazi bar.

And that is it for this week. Remember, in a world where you can choose to be anything, you can choose to be kind.