Banging on the walls chanting "OPEN ENROLLMENT FOR ACA THRU JAN 15" like some deranged town crier. Election results aside, you have options to access healthcare as a RIGHT through the ACA. NO one can dismantle the Affordable Care Act in less than 4 years, so SIGN UP! GET YOUR CARE! USE THE SYSTEM!

You have options RIGHT NOW that will be stable thru the next year, the one after that, and I'd be shocked to see them shrink even the year after that. That means RIGHT NOW you can get signed up for next year to gain 100% covered preventative care (your annual check ups, pap smears, dental cleaning, vision check). You have the option to get checked and screened as you need, do NOT be dissuaded from exploring ACA choices. They are SOLID, LEGISLATED, and WORK BEST WHEN PEOPLE USE THEM.

I can't change most things around me, BUT I CAN tell everyone I know that THEY CAN GET LIFE SAVING CARE. THEY CAN GET PRESCRIPTIONS. THEY CAN GET PREGNANCY CARE. THEY CAN GET CANCER CARE. AND THEY WILL GET THAT CARE!!!!!!

SIGN UP BY DECEMBER 15, 2024 FOR COVERAGE TO BEGIN ON JANUARY 1, 2025. ENROLLMENT AFTER 12/15/24 WILL HAVE COVERAGE BEGINNING FEBRUARY 1, 2025.

My fellow Americans

Take advantage of what our civil servants have built for you and spread the word.

Like I said before, being injured in Gaza is now synonymous with being killed.

On top of that, having a chronic illness or a disability can also be a death sentence now in Gaza. The healthcare system has collapsed, and some hospitals don't even have bandages left, let alone the fact that Israel tightened its siege that not even pain medications are allowed in and patients are not allowed to leave the strip for treatment.

I recall a report by the Gaza ministry of health from back in August where it stated that the number of deaths "by natural causes" had increased 6 times than it was before October 7 2023.

I think of mothers like @noor-yashour whose son, Muhammad, suffered from hypoxia at birth and needs treatments as a result. These treatments have been interrupted by the genocide and have now stopped altogether.

She has made multiple appeals to help get her son the treatment he needs but with the ongoing suffocating siege, she now needs to be able to provide adequate nutrition and clothing for him for the immediate term.

Here's her campaign if you'd like to help her out by donating/sharing. They're barely at 11% from the goal.

Senators are going to vote on whether or not we should continue to send aid to Israel on Wednesday, November 13th. Call them, bombard their phone lines with calls. Every fucking day. We have a chance of doing something about this.

yall

Part 1/? of How to Deal With the Next Four(ish) Years

Learn how to tell the difference between "their policies/rhetoric actively target me/a marginalized group" and "they have not been as successful as I hoped in protecting me/a marginalized group." I saw the rhetoric a fair amount pre-election that the Democratic Party and its policies were transphobic, that Biden failed queer people, etc. as a reason not to vote for Harris or for Democrats, and the reality is that the Democratic Party and Joe Biden have actually been pretty steadily implementing laws and policies to support and protect queer (including trans) people, and Republicans want queer/trans people to die.

If you want to protect marginalized groups, whether they're ones you're part of or not, you really need to start actively working on distinguishing between the two. And if you keep hearing that the Democrats are just as bad about a marginalized group in the US as the Republicans, actually look into that. What is the evidence? What laws have been introduced or passed by one party versus the other? What rhetoric do they use? What policies and regulations are being put in place?

And is the problem that the Democratic Party is "just as bad" or that they have not managed to stop Republican laws in red states?

None of this is to say that the Democratic Party is perfect, but in most cases only one party is actively working to harm or kill marginalized people, and it's not the Dems.

Understand the government structure that directly impacts you. Not every state or locality operates the same way, and you may have more or fewer layers of government over you with different levels of power. Do you have a town/city government and a county government, or just one or the other? How many officials are elected in your state versus appointed?

Part of that is also understanding what is controlled at the local, state, and federal level. If you're mad about a law or policy and want it to change, whose law or policy is it? Chances are, if it's about how things work for you, it's a state or local law rather than a federal one. Once you understand that, you can target any organizing efforts in the right direction.

Pick your battles. This is not to say that you shouldn't care about a lot of things, but trying to personally organize around everything will probably just make you ineffective and burn you out. Is it Palestine? Ukraine? Sudan? Environmental justice? Climate change? Immigration? Abortion? Queer rights and protections? Education? Native American rights? Criminal justice reform?

Understanding your own priorities can also help you determine what candidates you support and where you draw your red lines. I care a lot about public schools, but support for charter schools is not a red line for me in a politician. Being pro-life is.

But I'm also pragmatic--if my choice is a pro-life person who also wants all queer people to die and a pro-life person who wants to protect queer people, I will hold my nose vote for the latter rather than risk the former winning.

Start identifying what protections you and your loved ones might need that you can access now. Is it an IUD, a tubal ligation, or a vasectomy? Is it getting your legal name changed now? Is it establishing other legal protections such as power of attorney even if you're married?

Vote in every election. If you are an eligible voter, you should be a registered voter, and you should vote every single time. I think the only election I've missed in the last 5 years is the 2024 Democratic primary, and that's 50% because it was basically an uncontested race and 50% because I forgot when it was.

Primaries are where you get to have a say in who your candidate is--at all levels. Look at the policies of who is running and vote for who you want to win--whether because of policy, temperment, or any other reason.

But state and local elections are incredibly important, because they have a huge impact on your actual quality of life. Show up and vote. Vote on off years. Vote when it's just local. Vote for Board of Education, for water commissioner, for sheriff, for judges.

Voting is cheap, it's easy, and it does make a difference.

IF YOU LIVE IN THE US AND WOULD RATHER NOT DIE FROM BEING HIT BY A CAR

please submit a comment on the NHTSA proposal to implement pedestrian safety test requirements for cars and trucks!!

It would finally make manufacturers design vehicles that are safer for pedestrians and cyclists, instead of the massive wall-of-steel front ends that are excessively deadly for no reason. Europe already has rules like this, but unless we comment in approval, they're not going to do anything to halt the increasing pedestrian deaths in our country.

And please share, even if you don't live in the US!

The deadline to comment on this is November 18, 2024, by the way!

Twilight Menthol - Submitted by amastelaire

#A263E5 #AD93FF #ACB4FF #83FFDB #31FFE8 #00EFFE

For (legally) unrelated to current events reasons, I'm going to stop posting Gaza funds and close my inbox. To all of those that are contemplating...just know that I understand. I'm sorry to all of those that were failed. I'm sorry that it ended up like this. I won't do anything drastic, I'm just...not going to post anything political or political adjacent anymore. No idea if I'll even post at all. This isn't the end of everything, not yet. Take time to grieve and do things that make you feel less miserable, even if they may be the last.

U.S. suicide hotline: call or text 988 (available 24 hours)

Edit: the legally part was a dark joke for a dark time. I don't have legal issues, I just need some time to grieve on my side of the world. I'll probably take the unreblogged posts from my inbox and post them at some point. I'm worried that having this stuff about politics could reach back to me. Is it paranoia? Probably. Does it feel selfish to compare my issues with others that are suffering much worse? Of course. I'm keeping myself alive through pure inertia at this point. Again, sorry.

Me: oh yeah, if you think school photography is hard now, try imagining doing this with film.

The new girl: what's film?

Me: ... film. Like... film that goes in a film camera.

New girl: what's that mean?

Me: ... before cameras were digital.

New girl: how did you do it before digital?

Me:... with film? I haven't had enough coffee for this conversation

New girl: I need you to show me how to format the usb.

Me: format?

New girl: yeah what do I do?

Me: you... put the usb in. Then you make a new folder on it and rename it with (name, date, location)

New girl: but how do I do that?

Me: ... they dont... teach you this anymore, do they?

The lack of computer skills is becoming a problem. Like there was a period of time where the older workers in office jobs had to be brought up to speed on computers, but now a lot of the newer workers have the issue too.

There's a lot of assumed technical literacy because we had a whole generation brought up on desktop computers, but now it's one that was brought up on phones, tablets, and chromebooks. Phones are easier to use, but that means the users have never had to work around the daily problems presented by most desktop environments.

But our systems are still set up assuming the kids are "digital natives" who just already know this stuff. So no one teaches them. So a new employee walks into the office... and they just don't.

30-something here. And this is frightening for a few reasons.

Much of the back-end architecture will soon be more difficult to maintain, as those with the expertise retire or when the one guy volunteering to update a niche corner of some minute software function that holds up 1/4 of the computer world dies.

While products are made to be “easier to use” now, which has made them more accessible, they aren’t made to last, contributing to tech pollution / e-waste. Many consumers don’t know how to upgrade or repair their own tech…if they are upgradeable.

Which brings me to my next point.

I bought a new low end laptop recently. Not chrome book, but actual Windows PC laptop. I haven’t had a personal computer for a while and with a lot of expectation to “return to the office” because COVID’s over, right? *heavy eye roll*, I wanted something cheap and portable. I found a deal because a lot of low end laptops are being discounted because school children aren’t remote now. I was actually looking for refurbished but found what I wanted cheaper new, sadly.

Finding one that I knew would run the software I needed or that wouldn’t be bogged down just with Windows? A challenge. You’ve got to know what RAM, HDD vs eMMC vs SSD, cores, age of processors, and all those specs mean.

Finding one that wasn’t Windows in “S mode,” a bullshit mode that locks you into the Windows app / store for ALL software (where they take a cut of each purchase)? Even more challenging.

When I booted it up…I imagine most people just click yes through things because why not, just want to get right to it, right?

The amount of privileges I had to decline because of targeted data collection, for ad preferences and other nefarious reasons; the number of easy-to-miss “no thanks” options to decline enrollment in bloatware; the number of things that wanted me to launch the free trial, where they could automatically enroll me into a monthly PAID subscription and could report failure to add a credit card to pay for it to credit agencies (!); many of these presented as the “recommended” or default option… ASTOUNDING.

And then I still had to go into system settings and turn off additional data tracking that they didn’t even present during set-up, along with bloatware bullshit programs they wanted to always run at start-up. Because I knew where to go and find that stuff. Don’t even get me starting on fucking Cortana.

Technology has gotten bad. Even 10 years ago, it was a couple simple agreements not to pirate, using software at your own risk, etc. and that was it.

Now? Waiving rights, arbitration, hidden terms that could leave you owing money if you don’t uninstall it, data collection to link accounts and literally track every move / your exact location / your usage, attempts to personalize ads through your specific searches, inability to block cookies unless you download a Google app!?, four pop ups for every website, as the default?

It is scary how much tech that was designed to increase productivity and make life easier has become yet another way for corporations to track us, sell to us, and sell their data on us, even potentially incriminating us.

Oh, and heaven forbid you know what you’re doing and try to upgrade or repair your equipment yourself. Warranty voiding? Should be illegal, may be illegal in some areas, but they still tell you it’ll void your warranty. Good luck finding the parts. Using non-OEM parts will void the warranty too…by design.

I did not survive Windows Vista era to deal with this bullshit.

I did not survive

Windows Vista era to

deal with this bullshit.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

Anyone have any resources for technology literacy for beginners?

Yes! @aquadraco20

General basic safety

How to avoid ransomware, malware, hacks, and how to maintain good data privacy.

https://www.getsafeonline.org/

^ this has intermediate information (as well as beginner info) that I think people who grew up on the internet benefit most from (so it won't tell you what a phone is, or how to press the power button to turn on a computer). I recommend all sections the personal section under the top drop down (except the one aimed at children).

https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/internetsafety/

Same deal as above, with quizzes and additional topics.

https://www.digitalliteracyassessment.org/

^ this one is mostly video and audio which some people might helpful

HTML

https://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

W3schools is a well known free resource for coding. I recommend HTML because it gives basic website building capabilities, so you can create a neocities website for example or even edit your Tumblr theme. You can also learn CSS (used with HTML to make prettier websites) and Python (used to make programs).

Touch typing

Touch typing is using the home row on keyboards. It allows people to type faster than pressing individual keys one at a time, like on a smart phone.

https://www.typingclub.com/

This site has lessons, and honestly looks much nicer than the program I learned to use touch typing with.

https://www.how-to-type.com/touch-typing-lessons/how-to-type-home-keys/

This site has lessons and practice tests and speed tests to measure progress. In middle school I was taking a practice test about three times a week and a speed test once a week for about fifteen minutes each time, if that helps.

---

These three areas are the main things people were taught in computer literacy courses.

I also recommend checking your local library or other educational resources (like local colleges, your current college/highschool/middle school etc, the college you graduated from). These can have in person instructors which can be super helpful. Feel free to send me any questions and stuff, if I don't already know I'll try to find out and share where I found it!

Helpful things I've done with my windows computer to make it safer/more efficient:

I hope this helps :D

For those who don't know what film is:

Paper treated with special chemicals goes inside a camera. The lens of the camera opens, exposing the paper - film - to light, and the chemicals cause the film to darken and change colour based on the light that comes in, making a light-inverted (or colour-inverted) image of whatever the camera is facing. This is called a 'negative'.

The film negatives can be used to create larger, properly lit/coloured copies of the image, as photographs. (Basically negatives of the negatives?) I don't know much about old-school darkroom photo development but I know it involves more specially treated papers and chemical baths, and you have to do it in the dark (hence the name) with special red light to see what you're doing, so the film doesn't end up overexposed.

'Overexposure' is when film absorbs too much light, causing the image chemically imprinted into it to be extremely dark, and the photographs developed from it to be light and blurry. This is why it was a bad idea to open up old film cameras outside of a darkroom.

A video film camera works by taking a bunch of photos in quick succession, multiple photos per second. Even if there is an attached microphone, audio recording is separate from video recording, and the two are synchronized as part of the editing process.

My doctor just gave the excellent advice that the next few days are "airport rules". You do whatever you need to care for you and yours—even if that is having a martini at 10:00—and you make sure you are kind to yourself.

The work does not stop, but we cannot help others and improve the world if we are burned out and despairing.

Remember, above all else, that you will still wake up. You will still have a life. You will eat good food. You will laugh with those you love. You will see the beauty of nature that will outlast us. Things will get harder, but there will undoubtedly be many moments of joy within it.

Feel the pain. Grieve if you need to. Allow yourself to feel whatever it is you are feeling. But do not give up. To succumb to despair here does nobody any service, and only by sticking together and uplifting each other can we try and build a better future.

hey where’s that post about how it’s important to be aware before recommending/calling suicide hotlines that They Will Call The Cops On You. i have it saved somewhere but i can’t find it & i want to reblog it today For No Particular Reason

note that Trans Lifeline doesn’t call the police on actively suicidal people so if you’re trans that can be a good resource! and if you’re Catholic, priests aren’t allowed to break the seal of the confessional for any reason, and things said in confession are exempt from all mandated reporting in most U.S. states (and in the ones where they aren’t exempt, they’re mandated reporters of child abuse but not of suicidality AFAICT—still, worth checking your state laws in more detail first, I don’t know the details for every state). you can also go to confession as a non-Catholic but idk how they’d handle that, I never went before converting

if you’re not trans or Catholic you might be out of luck—most mainstream suicide hotlines (including the Trevor project) allow calling the cops on you if you’re actively suicidal (although the line for when they do this varies from organization to organization and volunteer to volunteer— it’s overall fairly unlikely ime but it’s a risk). followers feel free to add Suicidality Resources That Won’t Call The Cops No Matter What if you have any

also i’m aware this is very America-centric (<- American who mostly knows American resources and laws, writing this bc of the flood of posts aimed at Americans in crisis due to the American election) but if anyone has details on how non-American suicide hotlines work or the level of risk of cop involvement or forced institutionalization for various crisis options in other countries feel free to add that as well

and I haven’t looked into it much but one of my uk followers says samaritans might be good for the UK!

This FB post by Rebecca Solnit is the thing keeping me sane this morning,so I’m sharing it here in case it helps you all, too:

“They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.

The Wobblies used to say don't mourn, organize, but you can do both at once and you don't have to organize right away in this moment of furious mourning. You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who's upset and check your equipment for going onward.

A lot of us are going to come under direct attack, and a lot of us are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones.

People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it's sunny or raining. Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.”

Planet's Fucked: What Can You Do To Help? (Long Post)

Since nobody is talking about the existential threat to the climate and the environment a second Trump term/Republican government control will cause, which to me supersedes literally every other issue, I wanted to just say my two cents, and some things you can do to help. I am a conservation biologist, whose field was hit substantially by the first Trump presidency. I study wild bees, birds, and plants.

In case anyone forgot what he did last time, he gagged scientists' ability to talk about climate change, he tried zeroing budgets for agencies like the NOAA, he attempted to gut protections in the Endangered Species Act (mainly by redefining 'take' in a way that would allow corporations to destroy habitat of imperiled species with no ramifications), he tried to do the same for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (the law that offers official protection for native non-game birds), he sought to expand oil and coal extraction from federal protected lands, he shrunk the size of multiple national preserves, HE PULLED US OUT OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT, and more.

We are at a crucial tipping point in being able to slow the pace of climate change, where we decide what emissions scenario we will operate at, with existential consequences for both the environment and people. We are also in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction, with the rate of species extinctions far surpassing background rates due completely to human actions. What we do now will determine the fate of the environment for hundreds or thousands of years - from our ability to grow key food crops (goodbye corn belt! I hated you anyway but), to the pressure on coastal communities that will face the brunt of sea level rise and intensifying extreme weather events, to desertification, ocean acidification, wildfires, melting permafrost (yay, outbreaks of deadly frozen viruses!), and a breaking down of ecosystems and ecosystem services due to continued habitat loss and species declines, especially insect declines. The fact that the environment is clearly a low priority issue despite the very real existential threat to so many people, is beyond my ability to understand. I do partly blame the public education system for offering no mandatory environmental science curriculum or any at all in most places. What it means is that it will take the support of everyone who does care to make any amount of difference in this steeply uphill battle.

There are not enough environmental scientists to solve these issues, not if public support is not on our side and the majority of the general public is either uninformed or actively hostile towards climate science (or any conservation science).

So what can you, my fellow Americans, do to help mitigate and minimize the inevitable damage that lay ahead?

FINALLY SOMEONE TALKS ABOUT THIS

A 2nd trump presidency will basically be one of the last nails in our coffins, as the US, one of the biggest polluters, is going to be no longer have no qualms over fucking over the entire planet.

I get people's immediate priority isn't this, so they aren't talking about it, it's their rights and livelyhoods, it is totally understandable.

But talking to one of my professors today really showed me that the scientific community really is panicking and the planet is on its knees.

HOWEVER,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, we cannot lose hope, bc climate doomrism is as bad as climate denial

Take this time, while these issues are fresh on our minds, to educate yourself. Get involved. Share news with others. Call out misinformation. Do everything you can, while we still can.

To add to this, because it is very likely federal epa funding will be cut to nothing, conservationists are going to have to rely on our state governments more and more. Reaching out to state representatives about funding for restoration, education, preservation, etc. projects is possible, and probably more feasible than federal for the next few years.

All that to say, we can still be active and vigilant about communicating threats to the environment in our cities, counties, and states, using social media, petitions, or volunteering. This stupid outcome doesn’t have to be an end-all be-all, where hopefully we can be the kids telling our parents to use their seatbelts, as it were.

Grieve AND organize.

Good article by David Hunter on how to survive the Trump presidency, both on the personal and on the political plane.

This is an excellent article. It talks about the psychology of tyranny, the history of resistance and the paths we have to take to rescue each other and recover.

everyone says join your local mutual aid groups and build community, but uh, what do you do if a lot of them seem to have dissolved and the other ones don't have consistent recurring meetings.

this is real, and it's a thing that a lot of people are going to run into in the fact of calls to "get involved," especially if they're people who haven't been deeply involved in their communities before. so here's what I can share:

TRUMP WILL BE ELECTED FOR PRESIDENT.

He will likely instill a fascist government.

If you live in the US, please watch this video and stay prepared