Terrorism time!

This week's Humanist Book Club reflects on the part of KSR's The Ministry for the Future that had everyone talking when it first came out: the eco-terrorism!

So much of it!
In so many forms!

Is it necessary?
Was Robinson suggesting that there'd be no other way?

Or does this book illustrate what happens when society reaches certain breaking points... as a warning for us not to let things get so dire in the first place?

#GlobalHumanism
#ClimateCrisis
https://onlysky.media/mclark/how-to-spare-billionaires-from-terrorist-attack/

Not everyone's a runner, and that's okay. If you made it up today, well done.

A merry little early morning #MooCow crew to you, too! #Nature

Mood:

When your bipolar I family member blows up your phone with their latest manic pipe dream of a solution to your biggest problem, and your bipolar 2 brain agonizes anew over the problem itself (which the wild idea cannot solve, alack), while simultaneously fantasizing about all the good you could do if it *were* resolved.

Silly brains.

🙃 But there's a moral to the story:

Don't rattle the bars in the middle of the night! If you agitate one monkey in the monkey house, you set them all off.

I meant to post this under #HumansArentEvenInTheTop1000Species last week.

It's a screencap from the bad place, alas, where there are still a few good accounts waiting to rehome themselves.

But what a ridiculous/adorable floof, no?

Who vetoed humans having floof?!

And... one last one. (I take my ongoing Spanish self-study time seriously! Crosswords and news!) #Colombia

Remember how I mentioned that it's already Christmas in Colombia once we hit September?

On walkabout I passed tons of stores with Christmas swag out, and here's an article writing about all the early commercial presence. Is Medellín a bit nuts about Navidad? Heck yes. But it's all part of the culture of thankfulness and fiestas.

Two of the most important parts of healthy living, right?

Another key lesson from Colombia, where there's going to be a passport shortage due to bad contracting / scandals.

All our institutions run on arbitrary rules shaped by money and political whim. The rules for who gets to go where, whose passport is most powerful... all run along paths shaped by ancient tribalism and ongoing corruption.

It's up to us to remember that we are *not* the states we inhabit - even though our fortunes are shaped by them.

Todos somos humanos.
Todos somos iguales. 🇺🇳🕊

This news in yesterday's paper is from Venezuela, but you can bet your bippy folks here are familiar with someone turning a so-called prison into a resort. 🙃 He's escaped with an unknown number of accomplices, too.

Sometimes I really, really wonder about the absurdity of it all.

#ColombianNews #Colombia

🤣 There's definitely an audience that would be flattered by this appeal to elitism, but I just burst into laughter at this notification. (And no, I'm not humouring it. Notifications are now turned off.)

We are all smart *and* S-M-R-T in our own ways - but anyone who thinks that someone is "smarter" for reading stuff on Substack is the S-M-R-T-est of them all.

(That said, I'll have a free-to-read Substack up tonight. No pressure, smarty-pantses!)

👀 What are *you* reading, friends?

Y'know... between news like this & actions like Colombia's program to pay guerrillas *not* to kidnap people...

I'm starting to wonder if it'll be the threat of outright violence that finally shifts the US & other Western nations into supporting UBI.

Because at the core of a great deal of the world's criminal activity is simply the failure of legal systems to provide a path to security for all.

We're at "baby formula locked up in US stores" panic now.

How much worse does it need to get first?

Okay, lovely critters! 💫

Back to business.

Today for #OnlySky, I had some *catch-up* to do on world news.

But you know I don't do quickie news briefs if I can help it.

So here's a piece tying the Canada-India crisis, Poland and Ukraine's tensions, and recent UN's absenteeism together.

What do they share?

A struggle to keep the myth of international relationships alive in a way that serves human thriving well.

What are we willing to believe in?

#GlobalHumanism
https://onlysky.media/mclark/breaking-points-canada-india-poland-ukraine-and-the-un/

Oh CoSo boy...

The hips! The hips are calling!
From bone to bone, and all down the thigh-thick sides.
The big toes are gone, too, to caterwauling.
It's I, it's I must go, to healing bed.

But I'll come back when the big toes are feeling better,
or when the hips have hushed and mellowed.
I'll be here in sunshine then, to tell of cast-off shadows--
Oh CoSonauts, oh CoSonauts, I love you so!

(Entirely possible I have a touch of heat exhaustion, too. Not *quite* like being drunk, but kinda close!)

I do want to call attention to the pigeon in this one, though. When I saw the murals, I came up to snap them, but the pigeon was just staring at the wall, and only turned its head a bit on my approach. I don't *really* think it understood the imagery on the mural, but the idea of a pigeon contemplating animal kin in far-off spaces was ridiculously endearing to me all the same.

And, of course, I have photos.

Easier just to share the album link - but there's lots of #Graffiti here, as well some nature shots, snaps of the hustle and bustle of life in Centro, cemetery shots and Boteros.

Closer to the north, I stopped taking photos, because that enters far less touristy "barrios populares" & I have a standing rule about not taking photos of people living in poverty, or treating their homes as such.

But feel free to ask if you have any questions!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/NxYSbGdR3C95w5ah7

All right. Already late out the door, but hopefully tonight I'll sleep well & wake early again like I used to.

About an hour on the metro to get to the far end of the city, then around 6 hours walking back. I have ~8 CAD on me, sunscreen, water, and a book and pen just in case (#writer). I don't expect trouble but one can't be too careful. The key is never walking like a wide-eyed tourist; always move like you belong.

Will check in tonight.
Have a beautiful day, lovelies.
Keep up your hearts.

🕊️ This week's Humanist Book Club for OnlySky asks questions that KSR's Ministry for the Future couldn't fully anticipate.

The work of near-future SF imagines a world centrally focused on a "War for the Earth", by tackling climate change.

Meanwhile, *our* world is in the throes of another war, via Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Environmentally, we do not have time for this atrocity.

But we need to reckon with climate change amid Putin's war crimes all the same.

https://onlysky.media/mclark/can-we-ever-truly-combat-climate-change-in-a-world-at-war/

Shout-out today to everyone trying to get by without completely giving up.

Lots still to do today re: teaching, editing, writing.

Then tomorrow I'm going on "walkabout" - taking the bus to the far side of the city, & walking back. Around 6 hours.

The fire in my heart is low.

I haven't been firing on all cylinders all summer (save for three weeks when I didn't eat, but that's... not something I can replicate long term!).

But where there's life, there's hope. Time to touch grass again. 👌#Soon

Psychopomp is a lovely new publisher that focuses on stories informed by death. (They'll have a novella call out Jan-April for any interested writers.)

I wrote about the grief work in HBO's Somebody Somewhere for their blog. If you haven't seen this show, & you're moving through loss in many forms... it might be just the gentle reminder you need, that grief can be carried as part of a community - and alongside joy.

Life is hard.
Harder, when we go at it alone.

#CoSoTV
https://psychopomp.com/somebody-somewhere/

I just had the sort of writing session that writers do not like having. Walk away if you start to resemble this character while reading your work! Avoid mass-deleting the whole MS!

#WritingCommunity

Gee, ladies! Would you look at the time? it's traffic hour! Heat, sun, and high concentrations of exhaust fumes! What say we all slip out and nom on some possibly tainted highway grass, ambling our way from green island divider to divider with a sense of impunity to every stinky gas-and-metal beast that dares to stand in our way?

😅 I love these girls. They always know what they're about. They came to graze or chew bubble gum, and they're always out of bubble gum.

#MooCows #Friends #Nature

#InternationalRedPandaDay!

Freaking love these critters.
Right up there with tardigrades, leopard slugs, and pretty much anything Coleoptera and arachnid for me. ❤️

(But don't tell the rest of the animals I'm playing favourites. I Iove pretty much all of them.)