When will we ever learn?

A reminder at this point that #Biden proposed the almost exact same deal a year ago. #Hamas accepted it. #Netanyahu rejected it at the behest of #Trump who wanted it postponed until he was back in The White House.

Reading for pleasure has fallen by 40 percent since 2000. This is not progress. You should read because it's good for your brain, your soul. You should read because our freedoms will not long endure in a post-literate world. Most of all, you should read because it's fun.

Inversions are special things. They turn ordinary hills into superstars.

"The Seven Ravens" (Grimm) A king thoughtlessly curses his sons, turning them into ravens. Years later, their own little sister journeys to the sun, the moon, the morning star, and a smooth Glass Mountain, to reclaim them #FairyTaleTuesday 🎨 1. Oskar Herrfurth 2. Erich Schütz

"Beauty and the Beast" JM LePrince de Beaumont, 1756 "Beauty was sadly terrified at his horrid form, but took courage as well as she could, and the monster having asked her if she came willingly; "ye -- e -- es," said she, trembling" #FairyTaleTuesday https://t.co/8yLmUHND3q

#book #illustration by Otto Kubel (1868-1951, German) for H. C. Andersen's 'The Wild Swans' #FairyTaleTuesday A sorceress weds a widower king. To be rid of his children she sends Elise to live in a hovel with peasants, and transforms the sons into swans https://t.co/eAmWsUEB8T

#illustration of Bottom and Titania from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", by Charles Augustus Buchel (1872-1950, German > British) #FairyTaleTuesday #FairyTaleFlash

An illustration from The Puffin Book of Magic Verse, by Barbara Swiderska. #fairytaletuesday

The Baobhan Sith is a faery vampire of the Scottish Highlands. She appears as a beautiful woman in a long green dress that hides her hooves, immediately after a male hunter expresses a yearning desire for female companionship. She seduces then attacks her prey. #FairyTaleTuesday

For those anxious to keep vampires at bay this #Halloween - the rosehip should do the trick. Its thorns when placed around a vampire’s grave can trap it therein, whilst the hips, when thrown, can stop an out & about vampire in their tracks. #FairyTaleTuesday #LegendaryWednesday

Wolfsbane, or monkshood (Aconitum napellus), is a deadly flower tied to werewolf lore. In medieval Europe it was said to repel or cure lycanthropy, the power or curse of turning into a wolf. Some tales claim witches used wolfsbane ointments to change shape. #FairytaleTuesday

#FairyTaleTuesday Dearg-due, “red bloodsucker” is a vampire in Irish myth. She fell in love with a man beneath her class but was forced into an arranged marriage that was unhappy, driving her to suicide. She avenges herself by rising from the dead to seduce & kill unwitting men.

#FairyTaleTuesday Wirral lore tells of a boy born illegitimately to the Bidston Hill miller & his married lover. When his mother dies and neglected by his father, he grows up left to his own devices, surviving off the land like a wild animal, assuming wolf form every full moon.

In Eastern Europe, the first vampires were not elegant but bloated, red-faced corpses rising from graves. They brought disease and drought, not seduction. Only later did literature teach them to whisper. #FairyTaleTuesday Art: Munch

#FairyTaleTuesday Lamia was a female monster or spirit who belonged to the world of Greek popular religion. In later sources, in addition to stealing & devouring babies, she would also seduce and destroy attractive young men, like a vampire or succubus. https://t.co/8poTU3Ur1A

#FairyTaleTuesday “Left to herself, the serpent now began To change; her elfin blood in madness ran.” ~John Keats, Lamia. In Greek mythology Lamia is a child-eating serpent, a beautiful Libyan queen who had an affair with Zeus and is driven mad by Hera who steals her children.

"Yorkshire Water starts borehole testing in East Ness." Yet again the environment pays the price for political incompetence, regulatory failure and corporate greed. Not got enough water, historically not invested enough in your water infrastructure, got no Plan B? Not to worry

Raw and brutal as Michael Ancher's depictions of fishermen battling against the elements in Jutland or Skagen can be, he painted their harsh, gritty outdoor life with a rugged dignity. This work from 1888 shows a group on a summer's evening discussing a day's catch.

Germanic Monday #WorldLanguagesInASongOrMovie

#PeanutsInThe21stCentury are now doing Indie films.