the way that no one wears a mask at my local LGBTQ clinic, and in fact comments on my mask like it's just this hilarious little idiosyncrasy that I still wear one and not because I'm immunocompromised and we're in the middle of a pandemic ... as if there isn't an airborne virus that literally fucks up your immune system ... as if we didn't lose a generation of queer people to another virus that fucks up your immune system ...
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Source
Capitalism is rotting society
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Ben Jennings
“The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is enough.” —Dr. Wess Stafford
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Four Lessons for the Long Haul - What Long Covid has taught me on resilience
When the paramedics came for me in the sweltering days of May 2020 it didn’t feel real. I had just passed out in the heat and collapsed headfirst into a radiator. I’d seen paramedics attend to friends and relatives, but in my feverish state, it didn’t sink in that they would come for me. My youthful sense of invincibility quickly faded. I found myself unable to lift my limbs or produce full sentences, and interminable headaches left me in despair. The after-effects are still with me today, in the form of Long Covid.
Now that I have regained some energy, I would like to share some of the lessons that illness has taught me about enduring difficulty in the climate and ecological crisis.
Lesson One: We need courage, not hope
Let the pain be your fuel. Let your total rejection of the status quo give you the courage to transform your life, to stand out from the crowd, and demand transformative action.
Margaret Klein Salamon, Facing the Climate Emergency
For the first few months of my illness, I woke up every morning hoping that I would suddenly recover and have “my life back”. Rather than letting go of what I could no longer do, I kept trying to live as before. But this detachment from the reality of my situation only brought me more pain.
Once I had the courage to face the uncertainty of illness, I let go of anxiously awaiting a miraculous recovery, and relaxed into my situation. In facing my pain and isolation I was able to accept them. They are a state of exile and vulnerability that can be a source of strength for navigating our bittersweet world.
The same is true for facing the climate emergency. If we hope that technology will save us or that criminally negligent governments will suddenly act responsibly, we are recklessly gambling our future on very poor odds. This can only bring pain. Once we start to tell ourselves the truth about the situation, we can find pride in our honesty and compassion in our grief. It’s from here that the resolve to take action will emerge.
Lesson Two: Follow your bliss
Joseph Campbell’s saying, “Follow your bliss,” is not an irresponsible phrase that ignores the pain of life but a reminder to receive pleasure and contentment, even in the depths of suffering.
Toko-pa Turner, Belonging
In illness, every day feels like a struggle. When it shows no sign of improving, or worsens, I lose my morale to keep going. It's an exhausting and depressing limbo. In the darkest and weakest hours, I saw my life flash before my eyes and began to dream of people and places I hadn’t seen for a decade. I saw the highs and lows that had shaped me into the man I am today. This gave me some space and perspective to see things from a different angle. From each challenge, there was a learning on how to face hardship. From each joy, an inspiration to live to the full.
Holding on to these feelings helps bring balance to life. In activism, we follow a true passion and through it find our fullest potential. But even this has its limits. Every step along the way we need to find that balance of difficulty and joy for our own wellbeing. Our struggle for climate and ecological action brings many challenges that can lead us to despairing inertia. In my sickness, a joy was as simple as the view from my bedroom window: a falling blossom, a scudding cloud, a wandering snail.
Such joys became my music, my dance, my poetry, my comedy and my sport: ways to relax into whatever challenge chronic pain brought.
Everyday joys can give us the resilience to keep facing what we must face. So as we rebel with all our might against the existential threat posed by the climate and ecological emergency, let’s also cherish what makes our existence so precious. From that reflective space we can find the courage to keep going.
Lesson Three: Words Matter
“The merest schoolgirl, when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.”
Virginia Woolfe, On Being Ill
As I slowly regained my speech, I struggled to find the words to describe what I was going through. It struck me that there is a serious lack of language on both chronic illness and climate chaos. If you are unable to express a feeling, you are unlikely to find any solace for it.
For our society to be able to come to terms with the emergency we need a language to relate to in films, literature and TV. Some of the best I think we have so far are Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, a piercing portrayal of the rise of sexism and racism in an uninhabitable America; The Road by Cormac McCarthy, for its portrayal of the gritty end-point of mass extinction; and early Studio Ghibli films such as Princess Monoke/Nausicaa, whose heroines champion coexistence with the natural world.
However, the vast majority of current work focuses too much on apocalypse scenarios, produced to scare the shit out of us, instead of relatable everyday stories. How about a climate drama set in water scarce Somalia? Or a northern woman’s heroic adventure to save her hometown from flooding? We need more romances that argue over whether having kids is responsible and comedies that mock the insanity of our toxic system like The Yes Men or Simon Amstell’s Carnage.
Stories are key for an emotional connection to the challenges humanity faces. Our stories of rebellion can be cathartic for climate anxiety and stir a generation of heroes ready to speak out for their futures. Let’s start writing them.
Lesson Four: Belonging
“By reviving a community, built around the places in which we live, and by anchoring ourselves, our politics and parts of our economy in the life of this community, we can recover the best aspects of humanity. We can mobilise our remarkable nature for our own good and the good of our neighbours.”
George Monbiot, Out of the Wreckage
Being housebound and unable to hold conversations without paralysing headaches is extremely isolating. Yet even in the depths of my pain I was able to appreciate the love of our community. Rebels gave me cards, voice-notes, medical advice, paintings and - best of all – cakes, cookies and biscuits fresh from the oven. The feeling of belonging to and being supported by a community of kindhearted and extraordinary people gave me strength every step of the way.
Together we are building a community that can hold us through the dark days with pride, friendship and joy. We are showing not only the best aspects of humanity but also the solid foundations of a successful social movement. The climate and ecological emergency will shape the rest of our lives. So take every opportunity you can to nourish and prepare yourself for the long journey ahead. You’ll not only be more resilient, but you’ll find more joy.
--
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this or can think of someone who could benefit from these words please do share it.
If you'd like to read more, subscribe to my blog :)
Peace,
Robin
Photograph: Franck Fife
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Your life isn't a to-do list. You're allowed to exist, to take life as slow as you'd like. The dreams you have won't suddenly disappear. It's okay to stop and smell the roses, or to engage with "childish" things, or to recover, or do what you need to.
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"a dude in Texas legally changed his name to "Literally Anyone Else" and he's attempting to run for President against Biden & Trump" [source]
okay, but putting aside the comedic aspect of this, it is concerning the amount of people who are prompted to vote for candidates just because it's funny. I'm not the biggest fan of how his policy about the boarder sounds [Site], but I do implore anyone who is able to vote in the 2024 US election to please research other candidates.
The media is only going to continue pushing the idea it's inevitably going to be Trump vs Biden 2.0 and we have no other options, that we have to vote for Biden again because of Project 2025. Is that whole thing terrifying?
Yeah, fucking absolutely.
But voting for Biden will not solidify our safety from that. Biden is exactly like the rest of them. He always has been. You can't make the lesser of two evils argument when they're both just plain evil.
You cannot say that Biden is even mildly a better choice than Trump when he is currently directly involved in a genocide. That is not some little fucking thing. That in and of itself disqualifies him as a lesser evil. Biden is just as bad as him and he will not save us because he doesn't fucking care.
Cornel West [Site] is an Independent candidate running for President in the 2024 Election. [Policies]
Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia [Site] are running for President and Vice-President as the candidates of the Party for Socialism and Liberation in the 2024 Election. [Policies]
There are options.
There are people trying to change the corrupt foundation our system is built on, but we have to help amplify them because the mainstream media will not.
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"During the global coronavirus pandemic, China built dozens of makeshift hospitals and state quarantine centers, some out of steel container boxes. They became closely associated with the anxiety of mass testing and the fear of sudden lockdowns.
Now, cities are turning the huge centers into affordable housing units for young workers in an attempt to revive the country's economy post-COVID...
Just over a year ago, these apartments were used very differently: for medical triage and quarantine facilities. Beijing alone built 23 of these makeshift facilities, designed to hold up to 23,000 people at a time.
"It was not very cold yet but they told me to pack my belongings," remembers Hudson Li, a Beijing resident who was quarantined in one of these facilities, called fangcang in Chinese, in October 2022...
Less than two months after Li was quarantined, Beijing lifted most of its COVID restrictions. Li says he still associates the fangcang with a feeling of helplessness and fear: "It has been over a year already, but I definitely have PTSD from the pandemic, from the fear of scarcity and having to stock up on a lot of medicine and food."
Attracting young tenants with low rents
Now the fangcang across the country are undergoing a minor transformation and turned into apartment units for young graduates like Li. The changes are an effort from local authorities, who have been tasked with restarting economic growth and supporting small businesses after nearly three years of ruinous lockdowns.
Populous cities like Beijing are also trying to bridge the housing affordability gap between high real estate prices and low salaries, on average, for young workers. In the northeast corner of the capital city, near its airport, one fangcang with more than 4,900 units has been rebranded the "Jinzhan Colorful Community" — a reference to the bright hues of paint — and now offers amenities like a canteen where residents can grab a cheap meal before or after work.
Another fangcang facility, in the northeastern city of Jinan, has been turned into 650 units for skilled workers inside an industrial park.
"Given that the current overall [COVID] epidemic situation in the country has entered a low level, revitalizing the fangcang for other housing purposes is worth learning and thinking about all over the country," Yan Yuejin, a housing analyst, told Chinese media.
The fangcang, once a symbol of containment, are now supposed to represent dynamism and growth.
"I have complex feelings about this. The facilities were built using public funds and not rented out transparently," Li says. "But I do have to say you will not get anything more affordable than these apartments. They are very price competitive."
A list of rental prices for a Beijing fangcang converted into apartments shows most rooms are Rmb1200 (USD $170) a month, low for Beijing."
-via NPR, December 9, 2023
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Okay, fine, you've finally pissed me off enough that I'm willing to talk politics on tumblr
I can't speak for all leftists, but when THIS leftist says they're having a hard time voting for Biden this time around, it's not because I don't want people to vote or because I genuinely think Trump wouldn't be any worse
It's because this is the administration that made me finally realize, on a deep and profound gut level, that none of these people actually care about us. That electoralism won't save us - HASN'T saved us, not from COVID, or wildfires, or cops, or billionaires, or genocide.
"But Trump will make all those things worse--" Yeah for sure! But things are bad enough right now that we can't, at least I can't, continue on like things are now, even if I felt like I could trust Biden (or any Democrat, let's be honest, this isn't about him at all, we're not even fighting about primaries this time because we aren't being given a choice) to keep them from getting worse.
By all means, we should vote for Biden, because things getting worse more slowly is better than things getting worse faster. But we deserve better than a life that only gets a little bit worse every year, and I'm sick of people telling me I'm being ungrateful for wanting more than that.
Again: THIS ISN'T ABOUT WHO TO VOTE FOR. this is about spending your time on something, anything - union organizing, clean air advocacy, bringing food and shelter to the houseless, physically preventing the movement of weapons and military contractors - that has a better chance of saving lives than any politician.
"The revolution isn't going to come next year -" okay, well, neither is pushing Dems far enough left that they stop supporting Israel or do anything about emissions or anything else that treats human lives as more important than a billionaire's profit margins. The presidential election happens once every four years, WHY are we ceding an entire year to defending a piece of shit because he's slightly less of a piece of shit than the other guy? What if I told you there's a secret third thing, and that thing isn't voting for a third party but making a once-every-four-years vote as unimportant to you as your wants and desires and hopes and dreams are to any of the people you'd vote for and working your ass off on SOMETHING THAT HELPS PEOPLE instead?
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Nathalie Miebach Weaves Data and Anecdotes into Expansive Sculptures to Raise Awareness of the Climate Crisis
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Surviving in 2022
l art: BomboTimmy l title: _figensezgin
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Hello! I have come asking for you to info-dump about the the modern human au. I full of brain rot of them (especially after the last thing you posted about them, damn)
Maybe you can tell us a bit more Sally!!
lucky for you, i've been full of that good ol brainrot As Well! thoughts! feelings! ideas! i got em!
so since we're already on the subject of the Crash Arc, allow me to expand on it for a moment before i get to Sally Thinkings! if you've read the snippet, you may have noticed the extent of Wally's injuries was not listed yet. well! he got messed up with a capital F!
since it's fiction and i'm god in this scenario, i'm veering slightly away from realistic damage, immediate & lasting. bc lets be real. if i stuck to "this is as realistic as i can make it", then Wally would be aaaaaabsolutely fucked. it was a bad crash in a very unsafe vehicle at high speeds.
like - this is what happened. a drunk driver hit Home going 70 down the freeway. swerve, fishtail, tumble down a (small, shallow, really its more like a glorified ditch) ravine with trees and rocks and shit on it. absolute miracle that Wally didn't die in the crash, let alone during the solid half hour (slightly longer) he was trapped in Home before someone noticed the crash site and called emergency personnel. Wally "hanging up" on Barnaby was actually the impact jarring him so he slipped and hit the end call button.
but yeah without going into technicalities and detail, Wally has some lasting damage in his dominant hand. It takes extensive physical therapy for him to be able to paint/draw again at the same level he had been at. the hematoma hadn't done a lot of brain damage that wouldn't resolve itself with time. in my mind, when Wally wakes up in the hospital, for a few days he's very confused and his memory is shot. he'll wake up, interact, then go to sleep, but when he wakes up again its like waking up for the first time again. he just can't retain memories for a bit. he's got some severe brain fog. his mood is also kinda fucked with - he's uncharacteristically irritable with low patience, etc. these are all things that clear up with time, but in my mind Wally has chronic migraines going forward. bad ones! and there are days where it's harder fr him to concentrate. and yk. a teeny bit of chronic pain where his shin bone was pinned back together and where his hand was essentially crushed. but other than that he's fine going forward! good days and bad days!
but enough about that! You Want To Hear About Sally!
i imagine that she becomes quite successful in the theater industry. i'm not too familiar with it myself, so i'm gonna be uh. Vague about it? but she starts her own theater troupe - it's a bit of a commute from home base to the town she works in, where the theater is located in, but she makes it work! of the group, she's probably away more than any of them. working on shows, traveling to work on other ones - i like to think she's been on Broadway! she probably has had opportunities to do tv/movie acting, but idk... i feel like Sally would be like "nah. live shows or nothing". maybe at some point she takes up voice acting gigs, as long as she can do them from home. she probably has her own little room-turned-VA-studio thing. idk how that works either! it seems right! but yes Howdy's store's automated messages and advertisements are in Sally's voice. she's probably picked up a temporarily modeling gig here and there.
so Sally is very very busy. Poppy is supportive. everyone is, and they all love to help out when they can - and reel Sally in when the "stardom" starts to get to her head. they do their best to acclimate to occasionally getting jumpscared by her voice in a grocery store or in. idk. fashion shoots. victoria's secret billboards. that last one was a joke! maybe. i think she would.
i also like to imagine Sally like... getting some sort of award and then spending a solid five minutes naming her friends, thanking them with specificity, and then plugging their own stuff. they probably have a rotation for who accompanies her as her plus one for events and parties she may or may not be invited to. she's not like... a Big celebrity but! she's Known and Liked! she has Connections! i like to imagine her and Wally looking dapper as fuck at a Venue...
so the friend group typically stays together, with Sally going off to do her Things the most. she makes sure to schedule time to be with her friends and girlfriend/wife/Poppy between work and gigs and etc. she somehow finds a balance with Ease. or apparent ease... someone get this girl a vacation...
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ok so. in retrospect, this is something i really should've figured out a lot sooner (like. as in the very first time i picked up literally anything from this era, let alone when i actually read the wholeass arc), but i JUST NOW, after all this time, put two and two together and realized that pre-crisis(ish) connected-to-the-mainland gotham was retconned away and completely replaced with No Man's Land's always-an-island-city gotham
i have gone this entire time thinking that the nml earthquake literally ripped this wholeass city off the map and threw it out to sea as its own brand new little island chain. like shitty new jerseyan atlantis
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Wanna Be My Pandemic Buddy?
By: TalktomeinClexa
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Mentions of Covid
Status: Complete (19/19)
Summary: When Clarke, a graphic designer stuck at home during the lockdown hears about the Dutch Institute for Public Health’s official guidance to find someone to “share physical contact with” to limit the risks, she realizes that this might be her chance to get Lexa, her beautiful neighbor, into her bed.
They start sleeping together and the chemistry is amazing, but will they manage to get over their emotional constipation before the pandemic ends?
***
Day 1: Agreement
Adjusting her mask for the nth time, Clarke took a deep breath to steel her nerves and resolutely knocked on the door of apartment 4B, across the hall from hers.
Luckily for her, the stupid cotton rectangle covering half of her face hid her instinctive smile when the door opened. Even though she hadn’t been out in days and wore sweatpants and a comfortable T-shirt, her neighbor was as gorgeous as always. And the best part was, in her hurry to answer the knock, Lexa hadn’t bothered to put on a mask, leaving Clarke free to admire the pouty lips she had been dreaming of kissing more and more recently.
“Clarke, hi. Is everything all right? Do you need something?”
“Hi, Lexa. How are you?”
A perfectly plucked eyebrow rose at the tentative small talk. Ever since the number of Covid-19 cases exploded, the government had put in place a series of strict measures to contain the pandemic. Closed borders, masks at all times, social distancing, restaurants and gathering places closed for the time being… Telecommuting was the new norm, and companies developed new tools every day to facilitate digital communication.
As a result, the news outlets reported fewer and fewer new cases every day. But with social quasi-nonexistent interactions, people felt lonelier than ever. Knocking on your neighbor’s door to chitchat was highly discouraged, and Lexa hadn’t expected any visitor.
Still, she was nice enough not to close her door in Clarke’s face, and, encouraged by her curiosity, Clarke carried on. “Have you watched or read the news recently?”
“Not really, no. All they talk about is the pandemic; it’s depressing. Why? Did I miss something?”
“Well, the Dutch Institute for Public Health released an official guidance a few days ago that might pique your interest. With the current danger we face every time we meet someone, they recommend single people find a person to have regular contact with. That way, we can enjoy physical contact while limiting the risks of spreading the virus.”
To her credit, Lexa didn’t outright laugh or slam the door in Clarke’s face, and that counted as a small victory. Instead, she looked at her with curiosity and a glint of something mischievous in her viridian eyes. “Just to be clear, we’re talking about sex, right?”
“Yes. Sex.” Clarke nodded, proud of herself for not blushing too hard or stuttering. “Or you know, cuddles are allowed too. Physical contact in general.”
“Hmm. And you want me to be your ‘cuddle’ buddy? Why me?”
Keep reading
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So Ao3 tells me it's been about 7 years since I first started writing Cigarette Smoke & Snark.
It does not seem like 7 years. Time flies.
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