Notices by Mx Jay Baker (mediaactivist@todon.eu)

...people just start doing things differently. You have no idea it's happening unless you're part of it, and a lot of it is more world-changing than you ever expect. Like *definitionally* it is changing the operation of the world.

@joyfulcarla @bubblegumrebellion Thanks so much!

Jurors in an eight-week trial of Palestine Action activists who allegedly planned a raid on an Israeli-owned arms factory were discharged on Wednesday. https://www.declassifieduk.org/jury-refuses-to-convict-seven-palestine-action-organisers-for-israel-arms-factory-raid/

For anyone who's interested in antifascist punk POP culture commentary, observations, and retrospectives, I'm also doing something fun called @bubblegumrebellion - with zine to follow (because zines take the MAGA out of magazines).

US Army Corps approves a pipeline project it knows harms Indigenous lands: https://grist.org/energy/us-army-corps-approves-line-5-tunnel-project-harms-indigenous-lands/

@SmartmanApps @TheBrightSide Ahh, thanks!

@syhr Thanks! That's a very similar set-up to mine actually (and you cited many of the same sources!) I'm just trying to avoid news (and videos/podcasts) etc while I'm waking up, so something wholesome would be good.

Can anyone recommend any simple yet wholesome (perhaps nature, scenery, solarpunk?) mobile apps? While waiting for my meds to kick in after waking up and taking them, I far too quickly turn to the usual apps (such as news) while I'm still coming round. Not a good start to the day! Thanks! #AskMastodon #AskFedi #DuckDuckFedi #nature #apps

"Somewhere in a sweltering desert, cockroaches scurry around the cell of Carlitos Ricardo Parias. He holds up a plastic bottle, gazing at the worm-like creatures swimming in his drinking water. His other arm is turning purple from a gunshot wound for which he says he hasn’t received proper medical care. His gulag isn’t in a distant Soviet or banana republic. It’s about an hour and a half from Disneyland, in a small California town called Adelanto." https://theintercept.com/2026/08/16/ricardo-parias-ice-detention-journalist-los-angeles/

I stepped outside and I'm familiar enough now with the difference between smoke, smog, and fog to know... this is smoke.

I go online to check and sure enough, smoke from the inferno that is Washington state has reached me in Chicago...
#climatechange #wildfires

"Much of the mainstream media rhetoric around the tree sit relies on neoliberal understandings of what is possible... On the ground, many people have a simpler outlook. As the banner hanging on the still-standing tree reads, 'BORDERS KILL.' We deny any line that divides us. We oppose any force that prevents people, animals, and water from moving and dwelling where they will. We refuse to believe that this wall will stand forever. We know that with our continued refusal, we can tear it down." https://crimethinc.com/2026/08/12/the-border-is-an-open-wound-a-tree-sit-in-lochiel-arizona-halts-border-wall-construction

For those building their hopes up about #AOC, it always pays to manage expectations and keep the pressure on in party politics, and here one of the absolute best damn journalists of our time, Natasha Lennard, offers further evidence why: https://theintercept.com/2026/08/11/alexandria-ocasio-cortex-woke-one-crazy/

Huge new turbines could let biggest UK wind farm do more with less: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/wind/huge-new-turbines-uk-wind-farm

Bio-designer Lucia Giron has worked with the University of Cambridge's Department of Biochemistry to develop prototypes of an algae-based battery alternative, which harnesses the power of photosynthesis for electricity: https://www.dezeen.com/2026/07/22/photosynthesis-powered-algae-biocells-e-pho/ #solarpunk

Researchers in China have created a textile from living mycelium that is self-cleaning, near self-repairing and can be coloured or made UV protective through "plug-and-play" add-ons of different fungi or yeast. https://www.dezeen.com/2026/08/05/dress-living-mycelium-renew-repair/ #solarpunk

How to fight back against rising tide of hostile media coverage targeting disabled people: https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/how-to-fight-back-against-rising-tide-of-hostile-media-coverage-targeting-disabled-people/

"Nationalism thrives on interclassism, on the idea that we are united in the nation, against 'the others.' Can we conceive of things without a nation? Yes and no. The etymology of 'nation' comes from 'to be born,' so if you are born somewhere on Earth, you belong to that somewhere (whose borders are merely decisions made by states). It would seem that one must pledge allegiance to this somewhere. But the key question is whether you are confined to a communitarian, identity-based, essentialist 'somewhere,' or whether you are open to this somewhere and, indeed, to the world as an Earthling. For example, it’s not the same thing to say that I am 'French,' or 'Breton,' or 'from Finistère,' or 'from the land.' We, anarchists, are 'from the land' before belonging to a local community… We can defend the dignity of a local culture/community while being critical of harmful/naive aspects of that culture/community, even if it is mythical. Because it’s not just one’s birthplace that matters; the social question is paramount." https://freedomnews.org.uk/2026/08/14/nationalism-kills-2/

@joyfulcarla Thank you - and solidarity! <3

Incidentally, last night I learned something I'd always wondered about when I was younger: that the equatorial diameter of the Sun is, in fact, about 400 times the diameter of the Moon, a ratio that then leads to one of astronomy’s most spectacular quirks – because the distance between the Earth and the Sun is almost 400 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon, the Moon and the Sun appear almost exactly the same size in Earth’s sky and therefore when the Moon and the Sun line up perfectly, as seen from Earth, something wonderful happens: a total eclipse of the Sun. How magical is that.

My Disabled partner is particularly suffering in these unprecedented heatwaves here in the UK, and there's sadly only so much I can do to alleviate it. She pointed out last night that, as we had the #PerseidMeteorShower right after the #SolarEclipse, it feels almost like Mother Nature sending a message -- how beautiful it all is, how we ought to value and cherish it all, rather than exacerbate the climate crisis with North Sea oil and gas and an economic system of endless extraction.