Notices by Erin Conroy (chargrille@progressives.social)

@dcdeejay

I think this is a big piece of the solution, yes! Absolutely!

@ProPublica
Also, we need to support the individuals like Kelly HAyes who are doing the work necessary to support anti-fascist coalition-building. The kind of work that strengthens us for future wins.

That includes artists, by the way. How are we going to sustain our values, dreams, & culture? Artists do this work.
https://organizingmythoughts.org/beyond-the-blame-fighting-for-each-other-in-the-face-of-fascism/

But it's only part of the solution.

We still very, very, very much need *vetted* sources of information, & repeat players. This is the function that journalists are *supposed* to perform.

They are not supposed to be oracles. They are not supposed to be the bookies of democracy, setting the odds & influencing how people place their bets. Nate Silver is the antithesis of journalism.

We DESPERATELY NEED nonprofit journalism - & we HAVE it!! SUPPORT IT WITH YOUR $!!

@ProPublica for one

Getting people to do new stuff is hard.

You have to make it cool (interesting), cool (hyped), or fun, or easy, or cheap, or ...

or as many of these as possible.

often it will be hard or lonely or boring or a little dumb in the beginning for the trailblazers - but that can change fast. IMO Mastodon is already interesting, cheap, & easy.

Twitter was boring & dumb in the beginning, imo. Now it's dangerous, with pockets of value (COVID, disability rights). How do we get those people over here?

Of course there are the people who WANT to be disinformed & you can't fix that.

BUT, I worry that we can't fix any of this unless we figure out a way to replace the defective sources of information, with better ones, that people actually use. Mastodon *could* be part of the solution.

I don't have the answers. Obviously the winds of $ are against us but history shows building those networks has happened before.

It's our billionaire-bought, right-wing-infected, (dis)information ecosystems that are the problem.

#H5N1

"And the federal agency [USDA] that was supposed to help thwart the virus instead has allowed for an unspoken “don’t test, don’t tell” policy among dairy farmers."

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/inside-the-bungled-bird-flu-response

70% of Democrats want an #ArmsEmbargoNow.

Please sign this letter asking Harris to pledge an arms embargo to stop the ongoing massacre of Palestinian children.

Lancet's best estimate is that 186,000 Palestinians have been killed by IDF attacks.

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/not-another-bomb-sign-on-letter

"climate change causing home values to literally fall off the cliff"

"I think we just put our head in the sand" - Nantucket attorney Chris Farley (note: who is working with Nantucket homeowners to... help them reduce their property taxes...🤔 ).

Nantucket real estate agent: "They're [rich people] buying [houses that will be soon destroyed by climate change] knowing they're going to lose them."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnIcvIjEqLQ

Israeli commander Major David Portel (Gaza Division), who in Nov. called for "100,000s" of Gazan corpses:

"Everybody is guilty. And we won't know victory unless we annihilate Gaza"

"What does the Bible [Torah?] say? 'Leave none of them remaining.'"

(Recall Bibi priming them w/genocidal Amalek rhetoric before invasion)

"The moral thing is to annihilate them…make [Gaza] a parking lot. Anything less is immoral…a crime"

"I hope that next Sabbath Gaza will be no more."

https://x.com/ryangrim/status/1801351740979102107

Fleas on cats, dogs, mice, etc., transfer the virus to humans.

Mosquito season is here.

All of these vectors are obvious.

Yet Tom Vilsack (Big Ag dairy rep who heads USDA), has taken the "do nothing & wait for it to fix itself" approach, rather than protect citizens against the greed & anti-social behavior of dairy businessmen, who refuse testing.

"3 key factors for transmission [of #H5N1] between farms:

*shared equipment & vehicles,
*shared personnel who may…carry the virus between farms on their clothes or boots, &
*animal movements…such as from Texas to Michigan in the initial weeks of the outbreak"

☠️ "60% of farms continued to move cattle off the facilities after animals showed signs of illness"👀

"Most farms had cats…more than 50% of those had sick or dead cats."

20% of dairy farms had chickens or poultry, & sick or dead birds

@ProPublica

"private property is sacred unless it's owned by poor people instead of rich people"

@popcornreel @lawrence

The voters didn't elect GWB OR Donald Trump. They voted for Kerry & Clinton.

He really should have educated the public that the US Supreme Court gave the Presidency to GWB, & the Electoral College is why we have Trump. Not the voters.

@mekkaokereke

I have the strong impression that the people who are running the Democratic party are committing electoral malpractice on a number of different levels. I began to panic when they decided to dump the entirety of our legislative political capital on infrastructure instead of voting rights.

@inthehands I'm lichen your style.

@inthehands 😂 love it! that's a pun I actually enjoyed! I read the Beastologist series with my kiddo and I feel like he'll get a kick out of this too :) thank you for the wholesome care 💗

@inthehands

Thanks! I...think I'm safe? I do need the equivalent of probiotics for my brain.

Dear Mastodon,

It has been 50 years since my last confession.

I got sucked back into Twitter by peer pressure (aka chat group following Gaza news).

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

There are a lot of people There whose expertise I miss & benefit from; however, the whole place is a horror show & the ratio of people Here vs. There, who give a shit & inform themselves & remain human is astronomically higher & I missed you. Twitter relapse is legit soul crushing.

#YouWereAlwaysOnMyMind

@martinvermeer @igd_news

I recognized the last name for obvious reasons, knew Meir Kahane was from Brooklyn, & simply did a little research. I first matched his photo from today to his LinkedIn page, then did a very little research & found this interview w/family info: https://amimagazine.org/2021/08/18/reuven-kahane/ & matched to Meir Kahane's in this dissertation.https://uh-ir.tdl.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/dc2971c5-cdfd-4b86-b1ab-f13f94fdab66/content