@Blue_Skyesr_here

Yeah, the emergency passport is expensive because they want you to pay for a real replacement passport at the same time. And yet, Colombia's still got a huge problem with its passport manufacturing contract, so the emergency passport will probably be easier to fabricate.

How is the packing going, in the meantime? Here it's super common to put things up for sale to fundraise.

Oct 17 + 21 days = Nov 7 for the earliest vet approval. A tight second-week-of-Nov flight plan?

I haven't been out in days, and I still wasn't up for it this morning. Just not ready to people yet - though I do have a Zoom meeting with a mentee in under two hours, so I have to be "on" for that.

Here's a fine poem by Lisel Mueller, in the hope that a little #Poetry brightens your day. This is from "Monet Refuses the Operation":

"I will not return to a universe
of objects that don’t know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent."

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52577/monet-refuses-the-operation-56d231289e6db

@CinnamonGirlE

That's exactly the feeling, Cinny.

🫂 Hope you're feeling better now. I get these waves a few times a year. I always survive them, but they're awfully sure of themselves when the moods are here.

@Blue_Skyesr_here

🫂 How is that DC trip for documentation looking for you? Did the vaccinations go smoothly?

@AskTheDevil

That said, no shade against your summation! You offered a lovely and straight-forward one, with good intentions. Cheers.

@AskTheDevil

I am aware.

The funny thing is, I debated putting that explanation into my post, then decided against it. I stuck to a simple note meant to reassure anyone who might have found it confusing instead.

But since two people have now tried to explain the meaning to me, I guess I should never leave an opportunity open to be presumed ignorant.

We live and learn!

@Blue_Skyesr_here

Many don't. They're waiting for Vance to take over; T is the battering ram that will get them into office, V will replace him thereafter, and the backend team responsible for Project 2025 and similar will do the rest.

He's a means to an end for a highly motivated, cynical, billionaire-backed, and angry minority with outsize power at the polls. Just an awful state of affairs for us all. No matter what happens in under a month, the consequences of this will be felt for years.

More from the G&M article:

"Conservatives voiced 36-per-cent support for Ms. Harris, compared with 89 per cent of Bloc supporters, 85 per cent of Liberals and 82 per cent of New Democrats.

Meanwhile, 44 per cent of Conservatives support Mr. Trump, compared with 7 per cent of Bloc voters, 8 per cent of Liberals and 6 per cent of New Democrats.

Support for Mr. Trump has increased by 11 percentage points among Conservatives from 2020, but is unchanged among supporters of other parties."

FFS.

Popping on to be upset about #Canada.

"Support for the former president has increased among Canadian men, in particular those between 18 & 34, with 36 per cent of that group preferring a win by Mr. #Trump. That is a significant change from 2020, when younger men preferred Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump by a margin of 2-1 (52 per cent to 24 per cent)."

We have a serious problem with right-wing nationalist radicalization, & it's not going away any time soon.

Happy Turkey Day.

https://archive.ph/0EmwO

I feel like an awful human right now, but it's just a mood, and moods will pass.

While I'm this angry with myself, though, I'm going to be scarce online.

Sorry for having worried folks last week. This low was triggered by doing something necessary but ugly to remedy a difficult situation.

I have many flaws as a person, so I try to keep from situations where they might be exploited - but I don't always succeed, & my failure to "fix" myself then leaves me furious.

It will pass. Take care, all.

#History #CatsOfCoSo

One little smile to share, at least.

"Miss Iris Davis, a nineteen year old from Clapham, London is a volunteer worker of the Dumb Friends Leagues, and spends a great deal of time recovering cats with the aid of a "lassoo" from the debris of bombed house. So far she has rescued six hundred of these feline strays, 8 November 1940."

[Dumb Friends is an animal rescue organization, if the name seems odd. Chapters exist today under that name.]

This is another beautiful little meditation on death, suffering, and the wonder of having lived at all.

"It is Prince Andrei whom I think of as I watch the rabbit's eye flit only occasionally to me and then quickly back up to the blue above.

Oh little creature on my lawn who cannot move your broken body, you are now my problem."

#Essays
https://open.substack.com/pub/erikhoel/p/vigil-fa6

@zenmudprod @TheNewsOwl

Yes. This ties into a recent in-depth NYT review of the US's massive investment in nuclear arms.

Climate change is also caught up in oil imperialism; countries *cannot* afford to move from oil & gas while engaged in war - and there is *always* an argument to be made for war-readiness that will keep a reliance on petroleum strong.

We're killing ourselves in multiple ways for failure to conceive of foreign policy outside Kissinger's realpolitik.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/10/opinion/nuclear-weapons-us-price.html

Just a wee one today. Trying to get back in the groove with a few workflows. Last week, seeing my inbox full of Substacks - so many attempts to explain the world, in its awfulness! - just flipped a switch. There is so much that is terrible around us right now, and no essay is going to fix all that atrocity. We have to keep doing things to keep ourselves human, though - because the alternative is even worse.

#Film #Existentialism #BetterWorldsTheory
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/art-in-a-time-of-personal-and-world

@JakeA

So good!!!

@BosmangBeratna

Still like a garbage human today, but working on it.

Have a great feast day, if you do!

@zenmudprod @TheNewsOwl

Always good to reshare.

I don't know if footage of firefighters being shot at by IDF while they put out a blaze reached you a few days ago, or the mass fire in tents in Al Aqsa Hospital yesterday (more civilians burned alive on video), but more maddening than atrocity after atrocity is all the armchair rationalization: the relentless, selfish fear of "but how's this going to affect the 'side' I'm rooting for?" which keeps people from acting like decent human beings.

@zenmudprod

It's also a little over 100 years since Jabotinsky's infamous Iron Wall essay.

He was a critical theorist and actor in the formation of the type of Zionism that influenced the creation of N's Likud Party - and is celebrated as such to this day.

"Every native population in the world resists colonists ... That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing ... to prevent the translation of the land from 'Palestine' to the 'Land of Israel.'" (1923)

https://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf

@TheNewsOwl

@zenmudprod @TheNewsOwl

Netanyahu left gov't in fury when Sharon withdrew Israel from the Strip.

He's been wanting Gaza back ever since. He expressly funded Hamas to keep the PA weak (common knowledge in Israel, discussed on Oct 8, 2023 in newspapers) because he was *never* for a two-state solution. He boasted about sabotaging the Oslo Accords.

But the West doesn't care, least of all Evangelicals who see this as a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.

We are a morally impoverished civilization.

@LiseL @gemswinc @Novels56 @jenebene

Oof. Rocky return.

Connections
Puzzle #490
🟦🟩🟦🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟪🟦🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪

Strands #224
“Time to get cozy”
🔵🟡🔵🔵
🔵🔵🔵

Keyword | 11 guesses | 0:57
2️⃣1️⃣1️⃣1️⃣1️⃣5️⃣

Hilariously bad. But! Back in the saddle.

Hope the weekend treated you well. 💛