I am still in love with her.

- André Malraux - Quoted by Mary Gordan - Joan of Arc: A life.

[Twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth century writers] wrote Jesus as a pregnant, laboring, and postpartum mother: lactating, bleeding, meant to be adored and imitated in his long suffering mercy and compassion. The crucifixion and childbirth meet at a strange point of willing love and willing suffering in the service of abundant life.

Thinking of Jesus as a laboring mother powerfully contextualizes Jesus’ suffering. The crucifixion is not suffering for suffering’s sake, as it has sometimes been depicted. Suffering alone is not redemptive, though we often can mistake it as such in our attempts to make sense of the world. Christ’s passion is more similar to childbirth than cancer, wounds received in war, accidental injury, leprosy, COVID-19, or any other bodily affliction. Through his agony Christ encompasses, shares, and knows all other pain, his suffering is profoundly generative, just as in childbirth. He gives birth to us in his passion, his resurrection, and his life of love.

They’re going to roll back time. The world used to be a cleaner, simpler place. It’s all become too complicated and corrupt.

Southern California is on fire

In 2024, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass defunded the LA Fire Department by $17.3 million.

The LA Police Department, however, got a $138 million budget increase.

Among the firefighters, 30% of them are inmate firefighters who are risking their lives for $2 an hour. Only for them to not be able to get a job as a firefighter once they're released.

There are now 4 fires burning across Socal. The one getting the most attention is the Palisades fire which has grown to over 11,000 acres. Alongside it is the Altadena fire (over 10,000 acres), Hurst fire (700 acres), and Lidia fire (50 acres).

Due to the unprecedented Santa Ana winds, which have blown to over 100 mph, firefighters have not been able to make a dent on these fires.

A thousand homes have been destroyed. Two people lost their lives from the Altadena fires.

Instead of showing sympathy for the thousands of victims, right wing conspiracy theorists on twitter are blaming the fires on the LA Fire Chief, who is a lesbian, while Trump is blaming CA Governor Gavin Newsom for not removing water from a delta that would have endangered a native species.

Not climate change. Not the Resnicks, a billionaire couple who took control of California's water supply and now use over 150 billion gallons every year for their companies.

If you're in Southern California, please download the Watch Duty app. It brings up to date information on the fires along with evacuation zones. If officials tell you to evacuate, you do it. Make sure you look up shelters and mutual aid organizations in the area where you'll evacuate to. If you have to abandon your car, please move it to the side or leave your keys in the car so firefighters can move it out of the way.

The consequences of this disaster will be catastrophic. It has become increasingly clear that our government officials will not protect us as they would rather fill their own pockets. Stick together. Protect your community as best as you can.

Please keep Southern California in your thoughts. We're going to need them.

There’s a little rat inside your head.

This rat doesn’t know anything, but it knows that sometimes snacks fall into its cage, and sometimes the floor shocks its feet.  It likes the snacks, and it hates the shocks.  It will tell you to do things that produce snacks, and it will tell you not to do things that produce shocks.

This little rat is not the only power inside your head, and it might not be the strongest, but it’s there and it has influence.

So pay attention to how you’re treating the little rat.

If every time you learn something new, you say to yourself “ugh, I’m so ignorant for not already knowing this,” you’re shocking the rat.  You’re teaching it to be afraid of learning new things, to associate it with embarrassment and self-criticism.

Remember to feed the rat instead.  Tell it “now I know, and that is good,” and let it eat its snack in peace.

If every time you take care of yourself and your home, you say to yourself “ugh, I never do this enough, and I’ll never get it right,” you’re shocking the rat.  You’re teaching the rat that it was safer when you didn’t try to take care of things.

Feed the rat instead.  Praise what you have done, forgive what you haven’t, so the rat can feel safe.

When the rat takes a step in the right direction, even if the step is too small or slow or not in quite the right direction, feed it.  Don’t shock it for being imperfect; it’ll only learn not to take any steps at all.  Feed it, and let it get bolder, and take bigger steps, and give it bigger rewards for those bigger steps.

Be kind to your little rat.

🐀🐀🐀 *pat, pat, pat*

Master Splinter would find that very honorable.

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

Shocking how many people don’t know that hens lay non-fertilized eggs and think the yolk they’re eating is a baby chicken

once tried desperately to make my friend understand that yolks were not, like, a liquified potentiality of chicken, and she looked at me for a while and then said, "but they’re both yellow."

Behold

A chicken

Behold

A Man

"When Canada was fighting wildfires in Alberta, Quebec and British Columbia in 2023, blazes that would go on to eventually burn more than 45 million acres, more than 2,000 American firefighters helped extinguish the flames.

Now, Canada has returned the favor. It is sending air tankers and dozens of its own battle-tested wildland firefighters to Los Angeles, its government said. Air tankers can deliver thousands of gallons of fire retardant or water to wildland firefighters on the ground.

More personnel and equipment from Ontario, Quebec and Alberta are ready to be mobilized, according to government officials. And a team of senior technical staff members from British Columbia will fill specialized roles, the government said.

“We both know that Canada and the United States are more than just neighbours,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on X on Friday. “We’re friends — especially when times get tough. California’s always had our back when we battle wildfires up north. Now, Canada’s got yours.”

Mexico quickly followed, dispatching a crew of firefighters early Saturday to help the huge deployment already underway.

“We are a country of generosity and solidarity,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said on X. Ms. Sheinbaum said that the group was carrying “the courage and heart of Mexico.”

Before departing Mexico City for California, the Mexican firefighters held the flags of California, Mexico and the United States on the runway.

Mexico’s civil protection agency said that “cooperation has no borders” and that the mission reaffirmed “its solidarity with the people of California.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said that he was grateful for the support from both countries."

-via The New York Times, January 11, 2025

How does one learn to cook?

Per request, some of my easiest recipes!

VEGGIE FAJITAS

NOTES:

EASY WHITE WINE SAUCE FOR SPAGHETTI NOODLES

NOTES

HOW TO MAKE BACON:

HOW TO MAKE AN OMELETTE

OVERALL NOTE: I use nonstick pans for basically all my cooking. They are excellent and make all these recipes easier. However, if you have a nonstick pan, 1.) DO NOT WASH IT IN THE DISHWASHER. EVER. And 2.) If you start to notice the cooking surface of the pan is getting really scratched up, ditch it and get a new one. You don't want to be eating Teflon bits.

Here's the cartoon:

According to Telnaes, "The group in the cartoon included Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner."

For those of you too young to know, the Washington Post is the paper that broke the Watergate Scandal.

This is the paper that won a Pulitzer for its coverage of Jan6.

For this paper's owner to refuse to publish a political cartoon (specifically because it makes the owner and the President elect look bad) is a harbinger of deep and absolute facism, where the government controls the press.

↑↑↑

VERY well put, and right on the money. This betrayal to their history and calibre of reporting should have everyone angry, disgusted, and terrified.

cats being capable of understanding accidents and even giving you a little head bonk to let you know you're still cool makes it infinitely funnier that they don't understand when you're trying to help them

cats when you step on their tail: i'll admit that was rather ouchie, but given the lifetime of goodwill and trust between us, one must conclude this booboo is but a fluke.

cats when you try to get their claws unstuck from the couch covering: this nefarious bitch has never had a single honorable intention in their dishonest and shameful life, this must be one of their sinister plots or perhaps even an attempt on my life,

My two yr old is looking through a book about prehistoric art and she saw a picture of those cave painting of hands and she held up her own and said "hand!" And I gotta be honest. That hit

The only YouTube comment keeping me sane about the video on artificial general intelligence rn