But it’s important info, nauseating though it is. Also, click on through to the story, as everything I copy on their page to paste here turns into the title, with “Read more at:” and the link. So, my apologies, but this is a thing that we need to know.
A British teacher is showing how to speak in Victorian English, and people are loving it.ย โย Photo credit:ย Abram Elenin/Facebook
Itโs hard to believe now, but communicating via the written word used to be a gigantic deal. Long before texting, social media, quick emails, or even short postcards, one of the only ways people could communicate across space and time was by writing long letters.
The 18th century is considered by some to be the peak of the Golden Age of letter writing. It was a key element of education for people wealthy enough to receive one, and it was incredibly important: business was conducted via handwritten letters, love was declared, and new introductions were made.
It was crucial, then, to choose your words extremely carefully. This was especially true in and around the Victorian Era in England, roughly between 1820 and 1914.
Victorian-era translations of everyday sayings
An English teacher from the United Kingdom has been delighting followers with Victorian-era translations of everyday sayings.
Abram Elenin runs Berber English, where he says, โI help professionals master British Englishโฆ and communicate more effectively.โ
He also likes to have a little fun with his work as a linguistics expert and accent coach. In a wildly popular series of Instagram Reels, he performs โtieredโ translations of common phrases, transforming them into increasingly formal variations. Victorian English is usually the final resting point and comedic punchline.
In one popular video, โIโm burnt outโ becomes โIโm entirely depletedโ in formal English, and โI have been worked to the very marrowโ in gentlemanly English.
But Victorian English, the age of beautiful if long-winded novels like Great Expectations and Jane Eyre, takes the cake: โWhere to begin, for my faculties have been exhausted by perpetual toil, and incessant application has so stripped me of vitality that I am scarcely able to summon the strength requisite for the smallest effort.โ
(The Instagram post, below. You don’t have to log in to see/hear.)
In another Reel, โIโm poorโ becomes โI find myself in a precarious financial position,โ and finally:
โIt is with no small measure of affliction that I acknowledge my fortunes to be sadly diminished, my purse exhausted, and my station reduced to one of grievous penury, such that I find myself abandoned to the stern tutelage of want, the harshest master to which mankind is ever subject.โ
It just sounds so much better that way. Canโt you just hear Moira Rose fromย Schittโs Creekย saying that? (snip-a little MORE, with another little video)
Someone whose gender identity differs from the one that was assigned to them at birth.
Many transgender people identify as either male or female, while others may see transgender as an umbrella term and identify as gender nonconforming or queer. How transgender people choose to express their gender is individualistic, as is their transition.
(NOTE: Avoid using transgender as a noun, as in โa transgender,โ or with an extraneous -ed on the end, as in โtransgendered.โ)
โFor me, being transgender is going through a journey to find yourself. Cis people know who they are from the moment they are born but transitioning is a journey to that same point. Like any journey, there are many different ways to get there. Even the outcome might not be the same or it might change. You never stop transitioning as your gender expression will change. I would advice other youth to do this journey how they want. To take how long or short they want. To explore or just go for what they want. Do not let anybody pressure you to take a different path.โ โ Kiki, 14 years old, New Jersey Youth Voices, Class of 2022
Frankie Gonzales-Wolfe is the subject of the documentary, “A Run for More.”ย โย Photo credit:ย A Run for More
When we think about elections, so many of us focus on presidential elections and forget about congressional, statewide or even smaller, local elections. The documentary film, โA Run for More,โ focuses on Frankie Gonzales-Wolfe as she runs for one of those local positionsโcity council member in San Antonio, Texas. Focusing on Gonzales-Wolfe as the first openly transgender woman to run for such office, the film shows how the campaign gave Gonzales-Wolfe a deeper sense of self. I was lucky enough to chat with her and the filmโs director, Ray Whitehouse, about their friendship, the campaign, making the film and Frankieโs future political plans. (snip-MORE)
As Canadaโs womenโs soccer team prepares for its gold medal match against Sweden this week in Tokyo, it also prepares to make history as the first Olympic team to have an openly transgender, non-binary athlete win a medal at the games. Quinn, the 25-year-old midfielder, announced their non-binary identity on social media last September, adoptingโฆ
As Canadaโs womenโs soccer team prepares for its gold medal match against Sweden this week in Tokyo, it also prepares to make history as the first Olympic team to have an openly transgender, non-binary athlete win a medal at the games.
Quinn, the 25-year-old midfielder, announced their non-binary identity on social media last September, adopting they/them pronouns and a singular name. Quinn said theyโd been living openly as a transgender person with their loved ones, but this was their first time coming out publicly.
โI want to be visible to queer folks who donโt see people like them on their feed. I know it saved my life years ago,โ they wrote. โI want to challenge cis folks ( if you donโt know what cis means, thatโs probably you!!!) to be better allies.โ (snip-MORE)
Rev. Barber: We have to start teaching people that when we talk about politics, there is not an aspect of your lifeโfrom your birth to your deathโthat is not impacted.
When we look at theย midterm elections,ย we have to start with the basics. We are electing every member of the United States House of Representatives and one-third of the United States Senate. In most places, we are electing their entire state general assemblies, and many are electing governors, attorney generals, and so forth. We are electing the very people who impact every aspect of our lives. These elections determine whether we will have people in office who want to ensure everyone has health care or who want to take health care away; whether we want people in office who will vote to make sure everyone is paid a living wage versus just giving more money to corporations; whether they will care about poor and low-wage voters and the resources for people to afford a basic life, or whether all they will care about is giving more wealth to the already wealthy. That is whatโs on the line.
Rev. Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor Peopleโs Campaign speaks at the Poor Peopleโs Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival Rally at the US Supreme Court on October 27, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Repairers Of The Breach)
What is at stake is whether or not you have a Congress that will demand that the President, whoever that President is, cannot just act unilaterally, but must get congressional approval for war; whether or not we have a budget; whether or not TSA agents are paid; whether or not government employees are paid; whether or not we have a Congress that will stand up and not just be a rubber stamp to what an authoritarian President wants to do or will just โgo along to get along.โ
We have to start teaching people that when we talk about politics, there is not an aspect of your lifeโfrom your birth to your deathโthat is not impacted. Youโre not officially recognized without a birth certificate, which is the result of a political decision. You canโt guarantee your Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security without political decisions. Even as you die, people must understand that politics is not just about personality; itโs about people being put in place and the kinds of policies and vision they will enact.
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, is a Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy and Founding Director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. He serves as President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, Co-Chair of the Poor Peopleโs Campaign
Mason Whiteside of Carrollton poses for a photo in front of the Oak Lawn United Methodist Church, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Dallas.Chitose Suzuki / Staff Photographer
It was already dark when Mason Whiteside finished his workday at a Deep Ellum brewery. By the time he was done cleaning and closing up, it was nearing midnight, but there was another job to do.
Whiteside, 25, called a Waymo to take him to Oak Lawn, where heโd lugged a backpack full of chalk and spray paint: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.
โDoes anyone want to color with me?โ Whiteside asked as people walked by.
No one stopped. He didnโt need them to.
Over the course of three and a half hours, Whiteside alone repainted more than a dozen crosswalks, what he considered a vibrant act of defiance less than 24 hours after the city began stripping the roads of their color. Dallas is among several Texas cities complying with a state directive to remove โpolitical ideologiesโ from public roadways.
โI wasnโt hurting anybody,โ Whiteside, who is queer, toldย The Dallas Morning Newsย Tuesday. โI didnโt damage anything. I literally just put back the same things that had been there.โ (snip-a bit MORE; click the title)
Off the coast of Sierra Leone, the actor and model are fighting against tourists traps with their own vision: a tropical โeco-cityโ of the future.
Sherbro Island, a tropical outpost of farmers and fishermen nestled in the crook of Sierra Leoneโs arcing Atlantic coastline, is about the size of Chicago, but its population of 40,000 wouldnโt even fill Wrigley Field. Electrical power and wireless internet are scarce. Fishermen canโt refrigerate their catches long enough to sell them on the mainland, and farmers often lack the expertise and equipment to harvest much more than they need to survive. But Sherbro Island has some enviable resources, including miles of unblemished beaches and lagoons, as well as an abundance of replenishable fresh water.
One other invaluable asset: the support of Golden Globeโwinning British actor Idris Elba and his wife, Canadian model Sabrina Elba. The couple see an opportunity there to marry ecological sustainability with economic growth in a way they hope can be a template for development projects across Africaโand perhaps help rewrite a whole continentโs narrative. Idrisโs father is from Sierra Leone, Sabrinaโs mother is from Somalia, and growing up, Sabrina says, โthere were particular stigmas attached with being African.โ She remembers seeing ads that seemed to show abject people waiting for a handout. โWe wanted to see Africa represented the way that we knew it to be,โ she says. โWe wanted to change the storytelling.โ
Her husbandโknown for the baritone potency he brings to prestige TV dramas like Luther and The Wire, along with films like last yearโs critically acclaimed thriller A House of Dynamiteโfirst heard about Sherbro Island years ago. A close family friend had tried to convince him it could become a world-class holiday destination. โAt that juncture, I was just like, Oh, OK, that sounds interesting,โ says Idris, 53, who co-owns a wine bar in Londonโs Kingโs Cross neighborhood. โLike, maybe Iโll build a nightclub, maybe build some tourism.โ He made a mental note to visit someday.
He got the opportunity in 2019, while he and Sabrina, now 37, were inย Sierra Leoneย touring small family farms as part of their ambassadorial roles with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). It was during that trip, Idris says, that he had something of an epiphany. Heโd been venturing into philanthropy as his celebrity grew: supporting childhood education and hunger-relief programs in Africa, as well as campaigning on behalf of at-risk youths in the United Kingdom (work for which he was recently knighted). But on that trip, the Elbas saw an opportunity to build something more enduring and meaningful than a fancy vacation spotโand โto reframe the conversation,โ Sabrina says, โ[from] one of aid to one of investment.โ (snip-a little more on the page; click through on the title, please)
(Clay Jones writes commentary with his comics; click through on the title to read this one)
(My ophthalmologist referred me to this site one time, because I always have a dog. It’s a hoot most of the time on its own, but recalling that an ophthalmologist subscribes makes it kinda funnier!)
Tuesday’s execution in Florida WILL NOT take place as scheduled but the warrant remains open until noon on April 7.
Our Twitter post:ย WHAT IF WE GOT IT WRONG? Florida’s own DNA expert says further DNA testing is warranted. #JamesDuckett’s 3/31 execution by #Florida is stayed BUT he may still be killed by April 7. He has always claimed innocence.
Scottie's Playtime 