@NiveusLepus, how are you doing?

I feel as though this has been a quiet time for you, Bun - and if you're recuperating from adventur-ating, that makes perfect sense.

Just want to send love your way!

Hope you're doing well and taking care of yourself in abundance, too. 💜

Beautiful rainy Friday morning.

Much to do, but what a lovely background soundtrack from nature.

Happy near-weekend, CoSo.

@th3j35t3r

There once was a Jester whose name
rose with time and great deeds to acclaim--
every tosser who crossed 'im
would end up as flotsam
while he stayed at the top of his game. 👌

Real bday or not, here's to another year at the top o' the heap, J! 🎉

🙃 One of my students always has the weirdest excuses for cancellations or delays.

She's the one who, a few months back, was in the middle of a full-on in-home massage that she'd scheduled to overlap with our class.

Now she's cancelled a class for tomorrow morning because she has nose surgery coming up & needs to consult with the anesthesiologist.

Which--fair! Health first!

But rich people have the funniest / most bizarre lives to drop in on.

(More recording time tomorrow morning for me!)

Much ❤️ to everyone making a sweet-ass day for themselves.

Way to make s'mores on the bonfire of the world. 👌

Off to teach for a few. Have a beautiful evening, all.

I always lose my head if I spend too much time in the online world, with all the infowar games that are played in news media and politics around suffering.

It wears me down to be surrounded by a lot of frivolous action in publishing, too - but across the board, so much time & care is easily misapplied to the wrong crises.

The world is full of need.

In my 'hood & yours, there are ways to make our societies better just by doing our part around us.

I'm super thankful to everyone who pitches in.

#Colombia

Oof. Poverty classes released this year, from 2022 data, are pretty rough:

In a country of 52 million...

36.6% make $351.480COP or less ($85.72USD) per month.

30.7% make between that and $781.120COP ($190.50USD).

29.9% make between that and $4.206.033COP ($1,025.78USD): they're "middle class".

And...

2.8% make above that much: the upper class.

That's why Colombia's Gini index is so high, and why when I talk about abject need on the streets... it's real.

https://www.infobae.com/colombia/2024/07/03/esto-es-lo-que-debe-ganar-un-colombiano-para-ser-considerado-pobre-clase-media-o-alta-en-2024-segun-el-dane/

Today's Thorough Thursday is free to read, but I'm not sure many folks are going to want to.

I was going to talk about lost opportunities with tech, but Smotrich's latest actions are surprisingly big in Western news today, and warranted a piece about why it's still so hard for folks to talk frankly about Israeli state politics. Even when the US is terrified of losing democracy at home, folk still struggle with Jingoist wounds when addressing the far right among allies.

https://mlclark.substack.com/p/the-agony-of-living-through-jingoism

Heading out for a walk/run in the rain, but #Zine team:

I'm going to be doing initial layout for Issue #1 this weekend, so get your work in if you haven't already!

@corlin: Do I have to work with primary colours for the second colour, or can we use, say, purple or green for the black offset? (And what's everyone feeling, for the second colour for the print?)

Happy election day to the UK!

Happy "they haven't beaten you yet" day to anyone sane enough to be struggling with the symbolism of today in the US!

Happy Thursday to us all. ☕️👌🏻

A'ight. Didn't get my day off, but I'm feeling deeply grateful not to be alone in this nutso timeline.

If we can all stagger our mental breakdowns over the next few months, I'm sure we'll do just fine. 👌

Good night & good grief, Charlie Brown! (See ya around!)

@elbutterfield

Canuck here, but our day is fraught with bad history, too.

I like to think about the young people taught to aspire to the best of their cultures, and about the people doing their best to try to improve one and the same.

Independence days aren't about the worst of us. They're about remembering the language of a shared dream of something better.

I'm sure you know plenty in your circles trying to uphold that better dream. Tomorrow should be about what's in their hearts, & yours.

Also, inquiring Canucks on the lam want to know:

How're my estadounidenses 🇺🇸 feeling about tomorrow?

Do you have something nice planned for yourselves?

Shut off the internet, enjoy a nice BBQ, toggle the on/off switch for the ol' US of A to see if it'll reboot into safe mode on its own?

🫂

Just a friendly reminder that you're doing the best you can to stay sane in hard times.

Go easy on yourselves, eh?

Have a good one with loved ones &/or in nature tomorrow, however you choose to spend it.

As ever, I use that CW because I try not to trigger anyone's eating disorders when I talk about fasting. I didn't use it for my Ramadan experiment (dry fasting is SO WEIRD THOUGH), because I didn't think anyone would mistake that for a "diet".

I just came across this meme while prepping for a nice long fast to rebuild energy. IYKYK.

I'm still easily fatigued with a lingering deep cough after that flu, so we'll see if a few days' rest from digestion helps get me back to 100%. 🤞

*precedent

Silly typos.

Haven't been out today - plans got bungled, and I still have other work to catch up on tonight - but at least I'm not hyperventilating over a silly slip of the keyboard. #BabySteps!

Today for Rewind Wednesday, we're talking about the last SCOTUS decision in an important historical context: the hard truth that US "rule of law" has never really been equally applied.

This isn't a "gotcha", though; this is about fortifying ourselves against despair. The US has always been fighting over an equal application of rule of law. Monday's awful SCOTUS decision finds precedence in many hard challenges the country's faced before.

#Politics #History #BlackHistory
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/the-uss-forever-war-around-rule-of