Welcome to the 273rd edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, the official newsletter of the perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal ("NLJ") and its short-form writing sister publication, The Emu Café Social ("ECS"). This newsletter comes to you as always from the administrator, editor, and writer of both publications, Nicholas A. Ferrell.

I had a busy work week, but between NLJ and ECSI still had a decent publishing week.

Leaves from the week that was

I published three new NLJ articles since mailing Newsletter 272.

First, in Introducing N.A. Ferrell’s NLJ Blogroll, I surprisingly introduced my new blogroll. As I explain in the post, the Blogroll is a list of sites that I personally read or follow with links to their home pages and feeds. For each site I share, I will write an article, short post, or section explaining why I am sharing it. For that reason, the Blogroll will be built slowly, even though I could easily dump a large number of sites without adding the context. I will focus on adding sites that have informed my own writing. One day after launching the Blogroll, I made my first non-self-referential edition with an ECS post titled NAF Blogroll Entry: Joel Chrono. I followed that up with Adding Victor V. Gurbo’s YouTube Channel to NLJ Blogroll.

On March 22, I reported on a new "Uncle Susan" graffiti sighting (my first since 2021) in Uncle Susan Graffiti in Carroll Gardens.

Finally, I re-told two stories from my high school days in Axe, Enchanting Musk, and Muskrats. At the time I drafted the article, I had forgotten that I referenced the "enchanting musk" story in a 2021 Justin and Justina dialogue titled On Robin Hood and GameStop, which also included the first reference to BLOB DYLAN on site.

Things were busier on my short-form publishing site, ECS. In order to keep this newsletter from being excessively long, I will break the new posts into categories (excluding the Blogroll additions, which I shared above).

• Daily Pook-Emu Bee Links: March 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27.

• Responding to Wojtek Powiertowski's On AI in Response to: A Positive Technologist Identity: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

• Brooklyn and NYC News: Bossert Hotel Work in Brooklyn Heights (March 2026)

• Writing on the Internet: Internet Reply Posting, Getting to the Point in Blogs, AI Editing vs Editing AI, Re: Improve the RSS experience of your blog readers

• Things I Learned: Sony’s Very Long-Term PS3 Support, Jehovah’s Witnesses Remove WATCHTOWER Sign in Brooklyn (2017)

• AI News: OpenAI’s “Checkout Experiences”

• Misc: Anime News Network’s Confusing Season Ranking, Joke is on the Crunchyroll Hackers, Seadra Pokémon Cosplay Photography

My four-part response to On AI in Response to: A Positive Technologist Identity is actually a response to a response since Wojtek Powiertowski wrote his post in response to my A Positive Technologist Identity, which was in turn a response to his The tool, the craft, and the joy. Consider it of interest if you are interested in questions about using AI in internet writing. They go well with my three posts on online writing and running online writing websites. My most fun ECS post of the week may have been on discovering "Seadra" cosplay photography while running a search for Seadra (a generation one Pokémon) on Marginalia Search. While I still do not understand cosplay, I did find something neat about how the site presents its photography.

Finally, I published one new photo to Pixelfed. Loyal readers will remember it from my The Moon’s Reflection in Downtown Brooklyn, which I published back on March 14, 2025.

Leaves from around the web

I left everyone with a fair amount to read. But there is always more to read. I present 21 links from around the world-wide web with my world-renowned link commentary.

Problem and Solution

Searching For Originality In A Sea Of Slop
David Todd McCarty. March 3, 2026.

I like to think my readers know what they're looking for.

Theranos Fraudster Elizabeth Holmes' Sentence Reduced by 1 Year
Eugene Volokh for The Volokh Conspiracy. March 27, 2026.

This is outrageous. They need to release her now. I want to see her make an AI start-up before the bubble bursts.

Small birds

Adorable owl rescued after taking nosedive onto busy SoCal roadway
Nina Joudeh for the New York Post. March 27, 2026.

Also comes with photos but they are harrowing until the photo showing the California Highway Patrol officers "gently plac[ing] the owl into an open-air box" before putting the owl-in-the-box in the back of their patrol vehicle.

Platypus Hair Shares a Puzzling Feature With Bird Feathers, Adding to the Egg-Laying Mammal's List of Unusual Characteristics
Sarah Kuta for Smithsonian Magazine. March 23, 2026.

Shhhh.

Endangered African penguin chick born at WCS New York Aquarium in Coney Island Brooklyn
ABC7 NY. March 26, 2026.

All I will say is that it comes with video and photos.

Crime in New York City

Is NYC’s Reported Crime Reduction Real?
Sam E. Antar for White Collar Fraud. March 26, 2026.

Well. Who is counting? What is being counted?

Trans migrant gets just 6 months behind bars in rape of 14-year-old boy inside NYC bodega bathroom
Steven Hirsch and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon for the New York Post. March 24, 2026.

Or downgraded with a wink and a nod for overtly political reasons.

I heard your requests and am delivering

An Australian in Mexico
Misha Saul for City Journal. March 22, 2026.

The unique perspective my readers have been waiting for.

It cannot read the human heart
Yan Ge for London Review of Books. February 20, 2026.

The readers have been demanding Chinese literary plagiarism scandal news. I have delivered.

Checking in on the Sunset and the British Empire

Churchill to be replaced by wildlife on banknotes
Daniel Martin and Tom McArdle for The Telegraph. March 11, 2026.

The UK sends Sir Winston back to the wilderness.

“Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be!” Shakespeare’s Birthplace to be “Decolonized”
Jonathan Turley. March 24, 2026.

The way to decolonize Shakespeare is to reinterpret his works through the lens of critical underwater basket weaving studies.

Animal DIY

A Cow Named Veronika Can Scratch Her Back With a Broom. Watch the Video That Scientists Are Calling the First Documented Evidence of Cattle Using Tools
Sarah Hashemi for Smithsonian Magazine. January 20, 2026.

Resourceful bovine.

Caribou Are the Only Deer Species in Which Females Grow Antlers. Scientists Just Figured Out Why
Sarah Kuta for Smithsonian Magazine. February 27, 2026.

Taking self-sufficiency to the next level.

Audio quality

In a blind test, audiophiles couldn't tell the difference between audio signals sent through copper wire, a banana, or wet mud — 'The mud should sound perfectly awful, but it doesn't,' notes the experiment creator
Jowi Morales for Tom's Hardware. February 14, 2026.

I wonder which fruit would work best.

Can I hear a difference between MP3s and uncompressed audio?
Andreas at 82MHz. March 23, 2026.

My take-away is that I was right to buy wired headphones. Sticking with that.

Neocities planning

Neocities founder stuck in chatbot hell after Bing blocked 1.5 million sites
Ashley Belanger for Ars Technica. February 5, 2026.

I feel like I have truly made it now that I learn that web host with 1.5 million sites is having the same experience trying to get through to Bing that I had in 2023.

A Fun Internet is not NeoCities
Matthew at World of Matthew Morgan. March 20, 2026.

I have come across some interesting Neocities websites. One can certainly make a good Neocities website. But granting that, Mr. Morgan's broad critiques are fair.

Probably time-sensitive so let's use them now

The First Rule Of Traveling Is Never Stop Moving
Josh Blackman for The Volokh Conspiracy. March 23, 2026.

Travel tips from a frequent traveler. Not included is a note on how moving through airports can give you article topics.

To Observant Jews, New York Times Cooking Offers a Pre-Passover Insult
Ira Stoll for The Washington Free Beacon. March 27, 2026.

I want to be in the board meeting where they decide to commemorate Passover with Sardinian flatbread inspired non-matzo that they decide to call "not kosher for Passover" matzo.

Sumo: Spring meet champion Kirishima returns to ozeki after 11 meets
The Mainichi. March 25, 2026.

Well deserved. He had a great tournament (you can still watch all the top-level matches on NHK World TV's YouTube channel). He was excited that his young daughter was old enough to celebrate the victory with him.

Here is what happens when I wait too long to use a link

Disney Exits OpenAI Deal After AI Giant Shutters Sora
Alex Wepprin for The Hollywood Reporter. March 24, 2026.

I had Disney lets OpenAI use its characters in AI videos in my link backlog with the caption "I'm starting to think Disney is mailing it in" sitting for about three months.

Most-turned leaves of the newsletter week

I use a privacy-friendly and entirely local tool called Koko Analytics (see my 2025 article) to track page visits. In each issue of the newsletter, I list our five most-visited articles, according to Koko Analytics, for the one-week period beginning with Saturday and ending with Friday. Below, you will find our most-visited articles for the week of March 21-27 with notes on their cumulative ranking statistics going back to 2021.

1. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search
   N.A. Ferrell. April 17, 2025.
   This Year: 13 appearances and 11 top placements.
   Cumulative: 40 appearances and 32 top placements.

2. Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine
   N.A. Ferrell. January 21, 2026.
   10 appearances and 2 top placements.

3. Dragonair Safari in Pokémon Yellow
   N.A. Ferrell. October 5, 2023.
   This Year: 10 appearances.
   Cumulative: 29 appearances.

4. How the Forget-Me-Not Flower Found Its Name
   N.A. Ferrell. March 11, 2021.
   This Year: 5 appearances.
   Cumulative: 15 appearances.

5. Uncle Susan Graffiti in Carroll Gardens
   N.A. Ferrell. March 22, 2026.
   First appearance.

Analysis

Last week's top four returned in the same order. Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine led the ranking through part of Thursday and looked poised to take its third top-placement, but Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search surged in the final two days to make it 11 out of 13 weeks in 2026 at number one. The "notable" this week was my new article Uncle Susan Graffiti in Carroll Gardens, which took advantage of the Newsbreak App to make a debut week-one ranking (it was within shouting distance of third place). While I would not predict that it will be a top-five regular, my original Uncle Susan article has had its moments, including a very unexpected fourth-place finish in the November 2025 ranking.

News leaf journal

I have an unusually high number of unfinished draft articles, so I will work on getting those out. Also waiting in the wings is my Spring 2026 season theme. I decided to transfer my original Spring 2026 idea to Fall, so readers will find that my "new" Spring 2026 season theme is eerily similar to my Winter 2026 theme, but I promise a vernal twist. Having already decided my Summer and Autumn themes, you can expect more "targeted" projects after I am done clearing the decks over the next couple of months.

Taking leaf

Thank you as always for reading The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you enjoyed this issue and have not done so already, you can follow this newsletter by signing up for our weekly email, adding our RSS feed to your favorite feed reader, or checking in on our archive page.

Until April showers,
Cura ut valeas -- Nicholas A. Ferrell.