When I mentioned in today's piece the disconnect between reading local Israeli news then watching what filters into the West, this is what I mean.

Locally, Israelis know full well that far-right extremists are leveraging this war to expand territory as per holy duty, and that the conflict is with far more than Hamas. Smotrich has more power than your average extremist in US Congress, but there's a lot in common (although do note: he's meeting with some pushback here).

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/smotrich-says-hell-cut-off-transfer-of-pa-funds-after-3-european-nations-set-to-recognize-palestinian-state/

OK, #Zine Team!

I've got a promo ad ready, and layouts for all kinds of material match-ups.

There are only 12 pages here, but that's just because these are templates waiting for juicy juicy content!

At 8.5x5.5, we're going to want 16 or 32 (one page of 8.5x11, folded over, creates four sides of madness).

I've set up an email with an easy-to-remember pw that we can share in meetings. Hope this helps to visualize the dream!

@BosmangBeratna @NiveusLepus @ceorl @corlin @redenigma @LaurelGreen

Also, bonus Mafalda #comic, if only as a reminder to everyone wearied by the news that we're not alone--and never have been.

---

Panel 1: Mafalda listens to the radio with a shattered look as the announcer declares, "...And this has been the World View."

Panel 2: Mom in a towel shouts from the bathroom, "Mafalda! Did you take my creams?"

Panel 3: Mafalda, standing next to a slathered globe, calls back, "Only the ones for beautifying things!"

--

Be the creams you want to see in the world! 😘

Remember, kids... :)

All right. Fantastic workflow plans on this end today. Offline 'til evening.

Hope you're all keeping well.

We've had a lot of major global news this cycle, so it's going to be super hard for some of us to keep our eyes off the feeds, or to keep from venting elsewhere.

But it's all trauma, baby.

We're all so jacked up from weeks/months/years of strife, it's difficult to remember to put the human first in everything we do.

Have grace with others.
Have grace with yourself.
And use the tools. 👌

#Mood 🙂

Off for a run at dawn. Newsletter's all written and ready to go on my return, and then my morning has an exciting editing project in store - because it's work for a CoSonaut. (Woo hoo!)

Happy Monday, all.

My Saturday morning has already involved listening to commodities market news, reading a raunchy 13th-century poem, playing word games in two languages (and learning a new phrase in the process), a wee run, and sending replies to week-old messages from people sharing news from the UK, Las Vegas, and Hong Kong.

Now off to set up shop and write at the mall. Who knows what weird info turns the day might take yet? 👀

All right, back to work.

Stay informed, but take care not to let the act of staying informed leave you feeling powerless or overwhelmed.

We have a lot of problems.

We won't solve any of them by allowing ourselves to feel that, just because they are Big & we are Small, we can't do a dang thing to help.

Take stock of where you can support more people around you: yourself, your families, your neighbours, your 'hoods.

And practise gratitude for the little things.

Take it all one day at a time.

A couple key graphs from that article, to spare folks the clickthrough if they don't have time for it:

#UK #News #Poverty #Economics #Humanism

As you might recall, my internet's been down a lot lately under Claro, one of Colombia's two major monopolies, so I'm always up for looking at other options (IF Medellín-specific Somos isn't using another company's infrastructure - I'll check).

However... I had to share their flyer for a chuckle. They've pulled a common move of putting English into the background to make the outfit seem more worldly...

Without anyone checking the meaning of the words and how they might affect the message! 🙃🚽

I'll probably write on Caxton's Mirror of the World for another Rewind Wednesday, but today, while checking an incidental fact, I had to chuckle at this reminder that humans never change.

This excerpt from the 15th-century text is complaining about a class of people that rushes through the education system to use its formal titles to get rich, not wise. 🙃

(Loosely modernized translation in the post below.)

We never, ever change.

#History #Literature #Humanism

My review of Scavengers Reign went up on Monday at Strange Horizons.

If you only saw the trailers, they will have sorely misrepresented this series. There is horror in this space-bound outing, but there is also wonder, and the reminder that we can and do often live like "aliens" to ourselves and each other. How we heal from that estrangement, and find harmony in our circumstances, is up to us.

This is a one-season gift of a mature viewing experience.

#SFF #CoSoTV
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/scavengers-reign/

Another poem I've been reciting to myself more often lately (the perks of having a few poems in the ol' noggin, to give myself shivers at will or fortify myself in the chaos of the fray).

I am not always a good Man*, but I try.

Goodness knows, I think so many of us do.

---
*See: Ursula K. Le Guin's definition, from "Introducing Myself" (1992).

#Poetry

#Poetry for the afternoon.

I've been coming back to this poem a lot lately. The key word here is "first": its prescience, and the dread in it.

It was published in 1968 - so, still in the throes of modern globalizing media, but a long way off from where we are now.

And yet...

Humans don't change much, do we?

We whip ourselves and others up sometimes just to remember that we all still bleed, and that this *matters*.

What a thing it is, to have the courage to be kind while we've all gone mad.

#AI #News

This is honestly such a great time for CoSo to launch our wee little #Zine dream.

Articles like this one are constructed to sound the alarm. There's nothing more proactive in the delivery than simply suggesting that things are going very, very wrong (which they are)... which is why we need proactive discussion on how to turn the tide toward correcting the mistakes of hyper-centralized digital media.

We can do better, gente.
In some corners, we already are. 💪🏻
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/15/media/google-gemini-ai-search-news-outlet-impact/index.html

#War

Being pro-pluralist democracy isn't easy during war, when everyone wants to flatten groups to single POVs. But it's necessary to defend our full humanity.

Today there was an ultranationalist rally in Israel backed by gov't extremists, calling to resettle Gaza. This is on the back of extremists blocking aid trucks for months.

The US is not the only state in inner turmoil.

This is why we stand for democracy, not hivemind reductions of any given people to solo POVs.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-gvir-calls-to-encourage-emigration-resettle-gaza-at-ultra-nationalist-rally/

Hey Dream #Zine Team!

I did not forget our fantastic conversation the other day.

I've organized our thread notes into a mock-up that is BY NO MEANS SET IN STONE.

It just represents how bad-ass I think this idea is, and how much I hope we can build upon it going forward. (Sometimes having visual cues also help for further brainstorming.) So fling more ideas at it!

All welcome, of course! This is a decidely CoSo production.

@BosmangBeratna @LaurelGreen @corlin @ceorl @redenigma @NiveusLepus

Morning, gang. 🤨

Internet left on all night, huh?

Well, fingers crossed we didn't need that reboot.

The fog of #war is wild, so as much as I dread repeating myself: remember that *all info is a weapon in war*. News cycles don't give a hoot about empowering you. They feed on your shock and outrage.

Right now, there's a "gotcha" being spun around ID & non-ID'd deaths, which is being presented as new because it serves the cycle for everyone to be in a state of shock and distrust. But we've known for weeks now that one or more of five data points aren't available for many bodies.

#MediaLiteracy