It's probably seasonal habit- I have done a roadtrip through the rust belt part of urban midwest every summer for like 7 years, covid inclusive ... but for the past week or so my brain is actively yearning for Detroit or St. Louis or this evening even (lol) Buffalo. We have no such plans because of our unprecedented-with-kids Europe trip and I do not know if I will be ok.
A thing that seems historically demonstrable: this current wave of fascist creep and repression of civil liberties will not last forever
A corresponding historically demonstrable fear: the currently-rising order seems likely to do catastrophic harm to bodies and to communities, and to take a lot (A LOT) of lives between this moment and whenever a widely-shared peace and expanding context of collective well being next takes hold
I am not convinced that people did not resist Hitler early, given what I see these days. I imagine that the (early, non catastrophic) resistance stories simply got lost to time and to the real and widespread catastrophe that followed. It seems very likely that people noticed, spoke out, took risks, said and did what they could.
We assume that everyone was all in because thinking of Germans and then the world as dupes simplifies things vs. assuming there was a struggle, which lost.
I have come to believe that the biggest enemy to meaningful resistance within liberal civil society is the discomfort (and thus the unappealingness) of cognitive dissonance combined with 'peaceful relations' as a personal and collective value.
Most of the US middle and professional classes still hugely underestimate the differential impact of state policy, funding and governance as dependent on where you live
I'm noticing (in recent followers) a pattern of scam accounts that look more 'normal' or 'ordinary' than most but something just feels off and then I notice that a few sentences don't parse correctly, and in ways a native English speaker would not accidentally phrase things. To make things more fun, three of those accounts have posted THIS SAME EXACT MESSAGE
This morning my last surviving grandparent died in Cheyenne. She would have been 91 next month. It's the end of an era for my family and I am definitely feeling some kind of way.
Good morning, my sweet. Thanks for the gift card. I have never been very successful with herbs but have been wanting to try again so need both pots and herbs.
Also wanted to give you a heads up that your grandmother has stopped eating and drinking.
Hope you are enjoying your home time. Love you
@CedarTea Yes. I get this. I am just saying that its' all well and good until you get the one that's like
Hey, these are really interesting tracks. I think they are a badger. Also I've been seeing someone and we got married last weekend. She's 21. Your soup and sandwich pictures looked tasty! Have a good day
@jordinn
I got a phone call years ago (before texting was a thing) from my dad, 8 months after mom died.
Dad: Guess what I just did.
Me: Umm, no idea.
Dad: I got engaged.
Me: Umm, to who?
Dad: A woman I met on a dating site.🤯
Dad was 80-something, we feared it was some 40 year old in leopard-print capri pants. Great. Turned out she was a white-haired widow who we became grateful to for taking him on so we didn’t have to. Long story short, he was an asshole as long as I knew him.
Last week I agreed to interview for a contract ministry gig, during which the interviewer shared 'We're talking with three other people, but we think you're the one. Prove it to us!' Me: lol. lmao.
I asked to be taken off their consideration list (I have already had that kind of job and it's not what I have time for this year) but I'm still marveling, a bit. They are either WAY out of touch or the ministry job market is turning around. As obnoxious as that was, I sincerely hope it's the latter.
@jonobie The people with whom I'm interested in working will understand (collectively, and also individually in terms of who they put forth to be their representative in a search) that we are in an unfamiliar place, sociologically and institutionally, and that they are looking for a thought partner and accomplice in what primarily is their own work. Thus, the conversations will be about their dreams and what ours might be together, and they will use the reference process to check admin creds.
Things I am zero percent convinced anyone accounted for in climate change forecasts: the impacts of war (carbon costs of aerial campaigns, destruction of greenspace, weapons production), Canada's entire boreal forest burning over a 10 year period, AI water and energy usage
Academics, have you ever been accepted to give a talk about something you're not yet sure that you know enough about? (To present your early research thinking, for example?) After having a minor heart attack, what did you do next?
@jordinn I’d say embrace the fact you’re learning about the subject and share what you’re learning, the process, challenges, etc. I’ve always found that sharing while learning both helps you learn better and lets you relate to others who are also on the same journey. I’d go so far as to say that the worst teachers are those who forget what it was like to learn their subject and the best ones are the ones who are always learning. Also, I’m sure you’ll be great, because clearly you care.
Y'all continue to really underestimate how immediately and truly life-threatening it feels to people to cut against their own belonging in extremely visible ways. Even people who DO feel at risk aren't going to mask rn, for the most part, and it's literally because of this. Those of us who are willing to walk into a gathering and put a mask on and be the only one are FEW and my hunch is, we can do this because of constant muscular practice (including of the self-justifications behind it).
Those around you and out in the world aren't stupid (ok, some of them are, but no more than usual) ... they are surviving in bodies that believe that group belonging IS survival. People have done incredibly asinine things FOREVER because of this truth. It might be relationship-preservative to remember it. It's not personal. People are doing what helps them survive, and many (truly, astonishingly many) would do the exact same even knowing and believing their covid risk. They feel stuck.
What this means, in my view: *where you can mask, you are providing meaningful visible solidarity to someone else who has to *at this point, you are protecting YOU, so are you masking in a way that does that? *rules and enforcement at higher levels (all church service attendees, all wedding guests, all choir members, whatever) than individual choice get followed because they provide social cover *all of this also pertains to other things
I really love May. Adore it. Profusions of beauty and interesting things afoot and not yet one thing or the other. Occasionally dangerous. Mostly mild. Raindrops and sunshine. Real local produce. Hope everywhere. I know y'all are like I loooooove October, but I say unto you May May May.
Today I learned that tide pod casings (and similar) COULD be made from biosources, but in actuality are plastic derived from petrochemicals. This plastic is called PVA, and it's nominally water-soluble, but only becomes fully dissolved under very particular circumstances.
Put frankly, it's just more plastic. If it's all the same to you, as it is to most of us, maybe just avoid them.
I learned this with dissolved PVA all over my hands (long story) and am not thrilled about that, either. 😬
my former brother in law is a lab scientist for a large contact lens company you've probably heard of. His grad school work was on osmotic uptake of plastics by human cells and as he put it, 'long chain polymers are bad news.'
I'm going to be in Victoria B.C. for a couple of weeks at the beginning of June. I'll be attending DHSI so not a ton of free time, but some. What should I see and do? And especially where should I eat?
@jordinn The US does have limited moral rights, but the US copyright system is predicated on economic rights, on the theory that promoting the progress of the arts and sciences (as the Constitution contemplates) is best accomplished by creating incentives for wide publication and distribution (vs. far-reaching artistic control). This philosophical difference is a major reason we have fair use and the EU (and Canada) don’t.