At that point (early 60s) cancer would have been less of a worry. Yes, you don’t want to lose one of your very expensively trained guinea pigs, but the flights themselves were only a few hours to a few days. But with so many unknowns astronauts were put through every test imaginable

They did pretty much every test they could on the Mercury 7 guys too, just because they could, and because there was so much they didn’t know.

I was never a big fan of Bill Gates as Microsoft CEO. But just like Jimmy Carter was a great ex-President, Gates is a great ex-zillionaire - because he is doing that!

I wouldn’t have been so incensed at ones that are only social, though that’s bad enough, but the Society of Women Engineers, as well as the Black and Hispanic engineering societies, professional orgs, not just a student ones, and are important learning opportunities for engineers.

Feels rather like a tour of Villainy Through History.

Not sure. If you claim one segment of your population is less worthy than others, you can kill them (Holocaust), legislate to keep them as a permanent and useful though badly treated subclass (Jim Crow) or evict them (as they’re trying to do now). Maybe the Highland Clearances are an apt comparison?

Anti-othering, not anti-gathering!

In historical context, it’s also one of the great anti-gathering novels. Huck has been brought up to literally believe that Jim is property, not a person, and that he, Huck, will go to hell if he helps Jim escape. But he does anyway, because he can only see Jim as a real person.

2% of USAians is a hell of a lot of people. And I get that it’s all more immediate when it’s your own child rather than a random friend or coworker - but I think to have any chance of a future we all have to consider all of them our kids!

My understanding is that most often what is given to 12yos is puberty blockers so they don’t get a body they can’t deal with, before they are old enough for gender affirmation surgery.

Though I agree that keeping kids alive is the most crucial argument anyway.

That is still the in-progress photo because for some reason my photos aren’t syncing. Here’s the final one.

Cotton. I’d rather knit with wool than cotton by a long shot but cotton doesn’t seem to be u comfortable to crochet with and I liked the colors better. I’m with you on the not pinning every motif!

I have got to get better about proofreading on this noneditable platform! Meant to say I will reblock the whole thing after joining.

I did block the pieces, on one of those little blocking boards with pegs, but I wasn’t particularly good about getting them all sized perfectly together. I will just force them into shape as I join them revolving the whole thing.

Hi, Alice! My question was whether it’s really that important to do all the joining at once, as the pattern recommends, rather than doing it in segments (it goes nicely into four big squares and a central cross-shape. Any opinions on that?

No problem, it seems to have kept me following you.

One thing to remember is that a fair number of people died because some of those groups turn on others of those groups.