We need to work on our legal system. I've heard WAY too many people who simply know better saying things like "well, this is an 'act of god'" about flash flooding. No. It is not. And we need to fix the law to get rid of that ridiculous ancient construct. There are no "acts of god", according to the law, or there shouldn't be. I have freedom of religion. How do I have that if my insurance company can say "act of god" and I'm not allowed to collect on the insurance? When I acknowledge no such entity? Flash floods, wildfires, mudslides, polar vortices, all of this. None of it is an "act of god". They're all acts which are the direct consequence of HUMAN BEHAVIOUR. We have to stop allowing people to say "oh, well, sky daddy did it" and shrugging when it comes to helping people live through climate change. Time we bloody well grew up.

One of the things I often say when I help someone is, "pay it forward when you can." And I want to just open that tin up a little, and have a peek inside, because I think it's more sneaky good than people think it is. So, for those who haven't encountered it before, the idea is that if I help you, but there's nothing I need from you in return, then you feel a debt. Pay it forward says "Your debt is to our shared community." And it means you can pay off that debt whenever you have the means, *even if the original favour came from someone no longer around.* In this way, this behaviour sneaks in community building in a long-term way. Because while I'm only one elder among a few here, doing my best to be a help to as many as need me, the odds that any of these people I'm helping will be in a position to help with something I need is rather slim. For one thing, the odds are good that my remaining best-before time is about 30 years. In the scheme of things, when many of my friends are in their 20s and 30s, this means I may well be gone when they are in a place to help the way I have. And I won't need the help anyway. But if they all remember to pay it forward...then they in turn create a generation that owes them a debt of gratitude. Which makes them want to give back. And slowly, a community grows, that supports one another the way they were supported earlier. So when I say that, I'm not just tossing a slogan at you without thought. I'm telling you my piece of how we make a community for our people. Take that piece, and use it when you build something for our community. And so on. Y'all are my people. Just as I am your people. And if we work together, we can only get stronger as a group, a bouquet of identities, and as a community.

Hey! If you're looking for an absolute firehose of good opinion and analysis, why aren't you following @npub18x75...p6e7? She's wikkid smaht, her politics are awesome, she's comfortably multilingual...and she posts or boosts about 70,000 times a day. I think. I've never tried to count.

Wanna make one thing perfectly clear. Capitalism? NEEDS workers. Without us, they have NOTHING. Without our labour to exploit, they have NOTHING. Without our willingness to work for them, they have NOTHING. No power. Workers? Don't need billionaires. We just don't. Nothing about our lives is made better by there being wealth-hoarders greedily pursuing making Line Go Up. Nothing. All the innovations they pursue are about making their businesses more profitable. None are about making our lives better. Wages don't go up. Benefits don't go up. Nothing for us is going up. But their wealth? That's going up faster than ever. Time to start telling them no. Stop using their products. Stop giving them money. Buy local, where you can anymore. Support small business. Get off Facebook and Insta and Xitter and Bluesky and Threads and all the other money pits they've built to splash in. We need to starve the fuckers out. Get them to retreat to their underground bunkers, and PAVE THEM UNDER.

If you are someone who would go to Pride, and your local Pride celebration included a couple of early hours, in cooler temperatures with minimal environmental noise, maybe called "Quiet Pride", how would you respond? Boosts very welcome, thank you. Answers or comments in not-English also explicitly welcome.

Just a short one this time. If you're tempted to say "this isn't the America I know" about troops in the streets hunting native-born Americans...may I introduce you to the concept of the enslavers' patrols? That'd be yer native-born government violence against yer native-born Americans. Or do you consider people kidnapped and forced to work for nothing, brutalised and killed, not to be worthy enough Americans to count? Just...think a little about history...the history of what white people in government have done to Black people in America...before you pronounce it "so unlike us". You already know this stuff. Just keep it in your mind, huh? (Canadians, don't get up on your high horse either - 1837, we stopped enslaving people. Didn't mean we started treating them better. Look up "Ontario Sundown Town", and think carefully the next time you hear Gordon Lightfoot sing "Sundown".)