Tag: Peace

What’s Everybody Reading?

I’m still working on “The Forsytes,” and eagerly anticipating beginning my niece’s book, “Reven Across Golden Skies”, but today I bought a book called “When Women Were Dragons,” and I’m really looking forward to that one, too. I might have to start a second book before finishing “The Forsytes” … Anyway, if you’re looking for something, the Smart Ones have a list for June:

June 2026 Queer Romances

by Dahlia Adler · Jun 5, 2026 at 4:00 am · View all 8 comments

Happy Pride Month, one and all! As usual, June is packed to the gills with queer romance, so selecting just five titles felt a nigh impossible task. While I’ve done it, I definitely encourage you to seek out the many more excellent-looking books gracing shelves this month and support as many queer creators as possible!

For the Bride

For the Bride by Becca Grischow

Author: Becca Grischow
Released: June 2, 2026 by Penguin Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance

From the author of I’ll Get Back To You, a sapphic enemies-to-lovers romance that follows a Type-A maid of honor setting out to do the most and a Type-B bridesmaid with her life only just put-together, who must put aside their animosity to plan the wedding of the summer

On the surface, Alice has her life together. She’s got a job in music she loves; she’s firmly sober; and she’s grateful to be back in the good graces of her ex-girlfriend-once-best-friend-now-literal-only-friend Gin. Just in time, too, because Gin’s getting married this summer! And Alice gets to be a bridesmaid.

If only the maid-of-honor wasn’t Renee Type-A, the opposite of her in every way, and a long-time Alice-hater who’s clung to her animosity like a leech. Every second Alice spends around Renee makes her feel like who she used to be, rather than the person she’s spent years trying to make herself into—and she doesn’t want to be reminded of her younger self any more than she wants to be thinking, more constantly than she wants to admit, about her hair, her lips, her wit…. No, Alice has her own stuff to figure out. She still loves music, but her career feels directionless. She’s grieving the loss of her father just a year ago, to alcohol. And then she finds out that her mother’s started to date her father’s ex-bandmate, which sends her reeling…and with the wedding just around the corner, she doesn’t want to bother Gin about any of it.

It’s pure chance that Renee runs into Alice, just when she needs someone the most—and suddenly, everything shifts. Neither of them are what they assumed the other to be. Over the days and nights they’re spending helping Gin throw a DIY summer wedding of epic proportions, Alice and Renee discover that though they have nothing in common—that might be precisely what each of them need. Heartfelt and hopeful, For the Bride is a banter-filled sapphic romance with deep emotional resonance about found family, second chances, and finding love in the unexpected.

Grischow’s sophomore romance revolves around bridal party hijinks, which is already one of my all-time favorite tropes, but this one gave me alllll the feels. Protagonist Alice is still grieving not just the loss of her father but his seeming unwillingness to even try to live for her, and while she herself has reformed from her hard-partying ways, she’s grappling with the visions and memories of her other people can’t seem to shake. It’s a really lovely coming-of-age story alongside a chemistry-filled opposites attract romance, and one of my favorite romantic reads of the year so far. (snip-ordering info on the page)

The Open Era

The Open Era by Edward Schmit

Author: Edward Schmit
Released: June 2, 2026 by Berkley
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance

Love evens the score between two tennis players in this stunning debut romance.

Recently-turned-pro tennis player Austin Hardy has been out since high school and it’s never been a big deal. That is, until he becomes the first openly gay man to compete in a Grand Slam tournament. Suddenly, being gay is a huge deal, with headlines to prove it.

Unprepared for this new spotlight, Austin’s anxiety disorder hits a breaking point, and he trips and falls at practice. Right next to the very attractive, very talented, and probably straight Diego Cruz, ranked second in the world.

The two professional rivals start a friendship off the court. But between their flirty banter, mixed signals, and looming showdown, Austin is thrown further off his game by Diego.

With the eyes of the world on Austin, the weight of history on his shoulders, and Diego across the net, he must decide whether love means nothing or if it means everything as he battles for the trophy during an electric two weeks at the US Open.

Look, I know everyone’s tired of “If you love Heated Rivalry, check out X,” but hear me out. Sports Romance. Rivals. Secretly getting to know each other and developing a physical attraction. Professional athletes of significant talent facing each other in a major competition. This is a debut that’s earned its comp to the series of the moment while also very much being its own thing, starring an already out tennis player who’s quickly rising in the ranks and being spread out over the considerably shorter time span of the US Open. I was a fan of this one from chapter one, and I’ll definitely be picking up whatever Schmit puts out next. (snip-ordering info on the page, plus More Books!)

A Small Bunch Of Stuff

Life has been happening here with me this couple of weeks, and I have a few things I’ve picked up here and there to post when I’m busy. Most of this is positive, because why not?

Hey-today is World Environment Day! Let’s be proud to care for our home; we all get overheated.

June 5, [since 1972]
World Environment Day was established by the U.N. General Assembly to commemorate the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in Sweden.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) was established as a result of the conference.
The 1972 Stockholm conference 
UNEP’s mission: To provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.
Each year World Environment Day adopts a different theme.

Gregory Natal.

Wouldn’t work on Ollie!

And finally, a story of theft that has worked out well, from the person whose work was stolen!

Now, all the reviews have happened, so you can just relax and enjoy a bit of justice!

Farming While Beige

Farming While Beige 14 hours ago

My book’s nearing the top 1,000 in all books on Amazon… this is nuts. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GBR2ZBCF#…

http://youtube.com/post/Ugkx4ERU1GoB4DsmLI_-MLNRSBtQ5f8EvrQn?si=VdQCJjNjD1X_YoIw

Rest In PRIDE (Redux)

In Honor and Memory

Real But Not Real-

Friend of Playtime Barry, from Another Spectrum, intro’d me to this blog I’m reblogging today. Thanks to both!

How can something seem true, look true, feel true — but still not be quite true?

Clay Jones, Open Windows, & A PRIDE Greeting from We Rate Dogs

Trump is bored with his war

Thousands killed and billions of taxpayer dollars for Trump’s Iran quagmire

Ann Telnaes

Trump also says he “couldn’t care less” if negotiations break down with Iran.

Murder, She Wrote

Scott Pelley said that Bari Weiss is murdering 60 Minutes

Clay Jones

Getting rid of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to appease Donald Trump isn’t the only poke in the eye of CBS by Paramount Skydance.

Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief, appointed by Paramount Skydance CEO and Trump ally David Ellison, has been accused by Scott Pelley of murdering 60 Minutes.

Ellison really wants to be on good terms with regulators in the Trump administration. He was at the inauguration, has attended UFC fights with Trump, and even hosted an invite-only Washington DC party for him.

Tech journalist and filmmaker Nick Bilton is the new executive producer of 60 Minutes, who was appointed last week after the firing of former producer Tanya Simon and her deputy, along with correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Bilton held a morning meeting in Midtown Manhattan, which was a formal introduction to the staff of 60 Minutes, where he was told by Pelley that he had “slender” qualifications for the job and that Beri Weiss was “murdering” 60 Minutes.

A recording of the meeting was obtained by The New York Times. (snip-MORE)


WeRateDogs 1 day ago

This is Bodie. His presence indicates the beginning of Pride Month. May his whimsy and steadfastness bring joy and confidence to all. 14/10 the parade starts right behind him 🌈🐾

Your Josh Day, Next Day-

The Rainbow Flag & Gilbert Baker Day

(Gilbert Baker Day was yesterday, but PRIDE month is all month. I’m not sure I recall ever learning Gilbert Baker’s name before this morning. Also, I’m really gonna miss Gov. Kelly after her term ends, even if we manage to elect another Dem.)

As Pride Month dawns, Kansas governor helps celebrate rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker

Clay Wirestone

Kansas residents and activists gathered with Gov. Laura Kelly last week for her signing of a proclamation honoring rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker. (Photo from Kansas governor’s office)

Happy Gilbert Baker Day!

Thanks to a proclamation from Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly signed Friday, we can celebrate the life and work of Parsons native Baker this June 2. He created a piece of American iconography that has spread across the globe and into the hearts of those who care for their gay neighbors: the rainbow pride flag.

Kelly Wall, a board member of PFLAG Lawrence, requested the day after reading about Baker in an authoritative piece by founding Kansas Reflector opinion editor C.J. Janovy. (You can also read Janovy’s work in the new anthology “Kansas Matters: Twenty-First-Century Writers on the Sunflower State.”)

Lauren Shepard of Parsons was on hand at the Statehouse to watch Kelly sign. She had just graduated from Pittsburg State University with a master’s degree. According to her, efforts to honor Baker locally ran into static.

“Ultimately, the town, the city commission ended up tabling the idea, so we pivoted and got together and started a Gilbert Baker Memorial Scholarship through the Parsons High School, where he graduated,” she told me. “So now every year we select a student that’s active in their OAQ, which is like a gay-straight alliance, it’s a student organization there at the high school.”

Wall was out of the state Friday, but a group assembled by her showed up to honor Baker. It included Shepard, several Lawrence activists and state Sen. Marci Francisco. I tagged along and noted that multiple groups had gathered on the second floor of the Statehouse for their own proclamation time with Kelly. One was promoting an “Asteroid Day.”

Inside the governor’s ceremonial office, group members realized that no one had actually brought a rainbow flag — the symbol for Pride Month and LGBTQ+ rights more generally.

No worries, Kelly told them.

She retreated into her actual office and returned bearing a rainbow flag coaster and a copy of Janovy’s book, “No Place Like Home: Lessons in Activism from LGBT Kansas,” which features rainbow stripes on the cover.

Crisis averted, the group took pictures with Kelly, the proclamation and the props. That was that.

No one on hand missed the broader implications. Baker had turned his back on his Kansas background, living in San Francisco and New York City. He had finally agreed to return to Parsons, Janovy writes, for a key to the city and film festival in 2017. A month before the events, Baker died at the too-young age of 65.

“It allows us to recognize one of our own who created an emblem that allows us to recognize all of LGBTQ across the country and across the world,” said Rachel Reed of Lawrence. “And it’s very, very important.”

Janis Guyot serves as president of Lawrence PFLAG and stood in for Wall at the signing. Afterward, she held the proclamation certificate as others in the group swirled around to take a look.

“I’m really happy that there’s something to celebrate for the LGBTQ world right now,” Guyot told me. “It’s tough time for all of them.”

Since Baker’s untimely death, we’ve seen a public push and pull over gay rights. Transgender folks — members of the movement from the beginning, whether they were identified as such or not — have been systematically excluded and discriminated against. The Kansas Legislature has repeatedly passed hateful laws.

Who knows what Baker might say about this recent turmoil. Given that he went by the drag name “Busty Ross,” I imagine he would bring an irreverent sense of humor along with his passion for making the world a better place.

Hopefully, he would say progress hasn’t stopped, and it won’t stop, regardless of small minds and even smaller hearts.

In an oral history from 2008, Baker suggested as much: “I do know that time is on our side and that the young people generation, and more importantly my generation, we have fought hard, and we have — we’ve worked on our parents, we have our own children, and we’re moving society forward. So I think we’re going to be all right. I mean, it may take a little more fight and a little more work than people want, but we’ll get there.”

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

More For Pride:


Jessica Kellgren-Fozard 6 hours ago

Happy Pride Month lovely people! 🌈

https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxzqP2DqFtvQK9iQBY8IblzyZ3IS6B7Kso

There is a great deal of peace & justice history for June 1, that includes Sojourner Truth, the Greenwood massacre, Nazis, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, The Lord’s Prayer in public schools and SCOTUS, and even more; here for PRIDE I’m featuring Henry Gerber. The link for the entire date’s history is beneath.

June 1, 1932
Gay rights organizer Henry Gerber published an article in Modern Thinker magazine attacking the view that homosexuality is a neurosis.

In 1924, Henry Gerber, a postal worker in Chicago, started the Society for Human Rights, America’s first known gay rights organization.
“The Society for Human Rights is formed to promote and protect the interests of people who are abused and hindered in the legal pursuit of happiness which is guaranteed them by the Declaration of Independence, and to combat the public prejudices against them.”
After having created and distributed a newsletter called “Friendship and Freedom,” Gerber was arrested and held for 3 days without a warrant or being charged with any infractions. Upon release he lost his job for “conduct unbecoming a postal worker.”

Following the last of his three trials, in which the charges were ultimately dismissed, Gerber moved to new York City and re-enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving another 17 years. He lived until 1972, passing away at the the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home in Washington, D.C., living long enough to see the Stonewall Rebellion [see June 28, 1969], the beginning of the modern gay rights movement.
 More on Henry Gerber  (2 links; I’m including the 2d one because it’s a National Parks Services page, but it’s “in progress,” as we would expect in light of Exec. Orders…)

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjune.htm#june1

It’s Not A Bird!

It’s a tiny blue octopus:

‘Never seen anything like it.’ Scientists discover brand new species of octopus.

This tiny blue creature is making a big splash.

By Heather Wake

Imagine being a scientist scanning the ocean floor when suddenly a powder blue, golf ball-sized, eight-legged critter that looked like it’s been put through a kawaii filter shows up. Obviously, all professionalism goes out the proverbial window. 

That is exactly what happened for the Charles Darwin Foundation when they unexpectedly discovered a brand new species of (very cute) octopus deep below the water’s surface near the Galapagos Islands. 

A tiny scene-stealer enters the underwater chat

“He’s tiny!” “It’s blue!” These are the remarks that can be heard over the audio of footage captured by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) camera as the cerulean cephalopod made its grand entrance. 

Unsure which species this mysterious and adorable creature belonged to, the team sent octopus expert Janet Voight, who immediately knew “it was something really special.”

“I’d never seen anything like it,” noted Voight, who used X-Ray images from CT scans to make a 3D model of the octopus, revealing its insides, rather than cutting open the one specimen she had. 

A built-in survival superpower that feels like a fashion statement

While its top side features blue, nature’s rarest hue, the new species, dubbed Microeledone galapagensis, has a “very deep purple” underside, which researchers believe is to camouflage itself while eating. 

“We think this color pattern helps keep it safe. If the octopus grabs a prey item that emits light, that light may attract predators that might then eat the octopus. So the octopus puts its dark-colored web over the prey item, keeping itself safe,” explained Voight. 

This little guy showed up where nobody expected it

But unusual coloring aside, what’s also remarkable about this newly discovered octopus is that no other similar species lives anywhere near it. Members of the Megaleledonidae family, distinguished by their single row of suckers, are normally much larger and inhabit cold Antarctic waters…a little ways away from the Galapagos.

The Microeledone galapagensis joins the four new species of octopus that were discovered in Costa Rica in 2024, all of which are part of a 300-ish species of octopus family living throughout all of the world’s oceans.  

The ocean still has plenty of surprises left

The wild thing about ocean exploration is how much remains hidden from us. Scientists estimate that huge portions of the deep sea are still largely unexplored. Entire landscapes, unusual animals, and species no one has documented yet may still be waiting below. (snip-a bit MORE)

My Favorite Sport Has A New Champion

Shrey Parikh wins the Scripps National Spelling Bee, beating Ishaan Gupta in lightning round

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shrey Parikh felt the pressure of arriving at the Scripps National Spelling Bee as a favorite, but his confidence showed every time he got a word he knew. And when it all came down to a lightning-round tiebreaker against Ishaan Gupta, Shrey left no doubt.

Shrey turned a tense, high-quality final into a blowout Thursday night, racing through the 90-second “spell-off” and getting 32 words right to be crowned the best young speller in the English language. Ishaan spelled 25 words correctly in the tiebreaker.

A 14-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga, California, Shrey finished third in 2024 but lost his school bee last year when he was battling a fever. He has dominated the bee circuit since, winning several online competitions against many of the same kids he outlasted this week in the nation’s capital. His winning haul includes a custom trophy and $52,500 in cash.

“Right now I’m probably the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m just so happy and relieved, and just such a flood of emotions,” Shrey said. “At my school bee last year, I was really dejected and just very upset. It didn’t even sink in until the next day. I had a really tough time, but I’m glad I was able to bounce back.”