Right after Easter, the real test arises. Tonight there were a lot of dads and mums out with their kids---all very thin, very hungry, very dirty, and just trying to get by.

But for a few days, at least, the fellow-feeling of Semana Santa will hold. I was joined tonight by a few elder neighbours in distributing stock foodstuffs to a long line of needy.

The challenge is persevering with this sense of solidarity - and cultivating the means for it, pragmatically - all the rest of the year, too. 🕯️

Any day when I get to talk to a campesino is a good day. This one was filled with good energy, and had vallenato blasting from his trusty radio, strung up alongside his mulera, under his giant sombrero vueltiao. He was on his way from tending cows to work at a local farm.

When a farmer here asks my origins, they tend not to give a hoot about urban details. They want to know what Canada produces. "Tell me about the crops! The livestock! What do your people *make*?"

Right to the good stuff. 👌🏻

Eh, it's close enough to noon that I'll hazard a sincere post.

March was rough. I'd known the axe was coming down for a while, but finally having the blade go THUNK, kicking into high gear with my new schedule, and cutting ties along the way brought on a lot of Big Feels.

Still, this was a great and safe place to have them.

Who the heck knows what's going to happen next in our mess of a world?

Couldn't have asked to be on a better lifeboat than CoSo either way. Thank you for persevering too.

Morning CoSo!

Today’s Monday Media Review uses a conservative legal podcast to reflect on the importance not only of exposing oneself to different points of view, but also of advocating for a return to a more measured range of political beliefs.

Right-wing extremism robs our discourse of the benefits we gain from listening to moderate conservative voices, too.

Our democracies are strongest when they're pluralist, not polarized, y'know?

#Podcasts #BetterWorldsTheory
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/on-the-conservative-politics-lost

Today's This American Life is a rerun, but the first two (related) segments are very good reminders that the scammers in our lives aren't always vague AI menaces.

I'm not sharing this to sow discord in relationships! Just to remind us all that we're already extremely vulnerable to human hucksters - and that won't go away in our digital/AI age.

Trust, but verify!

#Podcasts

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/587/the-perils-of-intimacy

Good morning, my fellow biological intelligences! 😊

Apropos of nothing, could you please tell me your mother's maiden name, your first pet, and the street you lived on as a child?

👀 It's for a meme that we 100% biological intelligences will surely like a lot.

Also, if anyone is an expert at identifying traffic lights, DM me? 😅 I only need your help for a few seconds, I promise.

Okay, this might be a record.

I just received an email responding to an email I sent 14 years ago. 🙃 And as if not a moment had passed!

Anyone have me beat?

So did everyone have a good encounter with their rabbits today? 👀

(I'm pretty sure the moral of these manuscript details is "careful what you hunt today, lest you be hunted tomorrow." Either that, or "bring the scribe more beer while they're working, if you don't want them to play out their boredom on the pages of important ecclesiastical documents." 50/50! 🙃)

😂

Okay, Fico - the mayor of Medellín - is a character, but he certainly doesn't hold back when he thinks something is unacceptable.

In a prior term in office, he'd have helicopters go around shouting the names of violent criminals with a reward for information leading to their arrest.

And now he's calling for a hotel to be condemned, not just fined for ten days, after a US tourist was found sexually abusing two minors on its property.

You can see why he's popular with the locals!

#Colombia

This week's going to be a weird one on the newsletter.

Tomorrow I reflect on an example of more lucid conservative media to highlight the normal political spectrum lost to lunacy.

Tuesday I'm torn between grim commodities news or some chaotic geopolitics.

Wednesday I'm torn between a tale of mid-century extremists and how hard it is to talk about history now without it being weaponized.

So... Thursday I'm leaving open, for something nice to come along. There's still nice in the world, right?

Help help.

I fell down a research rabbit hole and I can't get out.

(Seriously, you go looking for *one* detail, and sometimes you trip over a million heartbreakingly complex parts of our messy world, with all its weaponized competing histories. We forget so much to make space for inflicting fresh wounds on one another today.)

I'm not popping down for photos and video of the Easter procession, but watching from my balcony, I'm really happy for that marching band. They worked so hard to prep for today.

This year's procession also has a lot more dancing folks in costume, so everyone seems to be having a grand old time.

I tend to feel very melancholy when watching such events (too much deep history in the noggin), but these are the traditions we use to give our years structure and joy. They mean so much to many of us.

All my love to a special group of wonders today.

Some nonbinary folk also ID as trans, but not all. Gender for me is simply the weird expectations imposed on me based on my junk.

But some beauties in this world feel gender strongly in themselves.

Some of those are lucky: their sense of self matches the cash & prizes they were born with.

Others walk a hard road, made even harder by cruel politics today.

*All of us* deserve peace and safety.

But you knew all that already, no? :)