Really, really loved this episode. Their discussion of "tactical misunderstanding" brought back my early 20s, when folks would weaponize "Well, you're the English major, so you should be impeccable in expressing your needs and concerns". I learned to over-explain to avoid "mistakes" that could be weaponized.

It didn't work, but it took a long time to realize that I couldn't convince folks to engage in good faith. The onus is on me to walk away when only bad faith interpretations are on offer.

Peter: Good lord. Gender Essentialist Cinematic Universe! Just as offputting to me as the Marvel one.

👌🏻 If anyone needs a reprieve from relentlessly rotten news about equal rights and human dignity in the world today, this latest episode of If Books Could Kill, on "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus", has got you covered.

(Or it might just dishearten you with its many reminders of how far we haven't come. 50/50!) #Podcasts

https://pca.st/episode/37f9e08b-8171-4b33-8d0c-7a635663fdea

👌🏻 I've hit the happy spot that comes for many of us when extended water fasting.

Definitely needed it last night, when César was asking for a miracle. His boy's recovering, but he has *just* enough leeway that he's trying to get the apartment purchase to go through ASAP while asking if I can magick money separately for last week's surgery & treatment costs. It's an unfair choice for him (give up future security etc) & a burden for me. Day by day. The fasting is keeping me calm.

👌 Caught up on thank-you messages to folks who donated to César's family. It was a nice walk at the park: lots of folks out enjoying life, family, good company with loved ones... or at least teens necking in every dark corner they could find. 😅 Ah youth.

Now to tackle an overdue book review & one more email. Tomorrow, with a million microtasks finished, I hope to have enough spoons to focus on a longer stint of writing work again.

Sweet dreams, CoSo.
Hold your joy close in this thieving world.

👌🏻 Love how we show up with integrity here. *And* set boundaries when someone else isn't serving up what we're in the mood for.

If folks block me after engaging me on a topic on my threads, good for them for choosing their battles and focusing on what matters most.

May we all have the courage of conviction not to fritter away our precious time alive on "But someone is wrong on the internet!"

🫂 Hug your loved ones.
💪🏻 Nurture your health.
🕊 Be kind as you hold to your truth.

Time for a walk. 👍🏻

@Apocryphiliac

🎶 All we are saying is~
Give Skynet a chaaaance~!

Today for #OnlySky, a news brief that reviews the latest change to the Doomsday Clock. Yes, we're at 90 seconds to midnight for nuclear war. But is anyone surprised? (And is there space under your rock for a friend who can bake?)

How - if at all - will this symbolic act concretely impact the work we're already doing to try to combat multiple global crises at once? ⬇️

#Humanism

https://onlysky.media/mclark/so-this-is-90-seconds-to-midnight/

Okay, so this is kind of neat.

I'm starting to get excited questions from readers about the world I'd built in Then Raise the Dead Man High.

I'm guessing I should do... a BookTube / Patreon piece to answer some of these questions? With maybe an open window for folks to send along further reactions to the work?

(Will figure out the mechanics of this & post to Patreon soon about it. Ah, the joys of not being able to do in-person readings...)

#WritingCommunity #WritersOfCoSo #SFF #Publishing

@ianthealy True. I'm fortunate in that I come from Canada, where religion is *not* supposed to be something you bring into politics as a cheap stunt, and I now live in a generically Catholic country where religious belief is just a backdrop to cultural life.

Tommy Douglas was a Baptist minister who created universal healthcare, among other social welfare programs. He's a Canadian hero. US right-wing politicking for power via faith, & the attendant persecution complexes... that's something else.

My position has always been that most folks who identify as Christian are already far better people than their Christ.

We're all of course working to do better - I know my weaknesses, and I work hard to improve upon them; I don't doubt you do, too.

But I also can't imagine any of the lovely Christians I know calling a desperate mother of a sick child a dog, or calling for the death penalty, or endorsing slavery, etc.

The story inspired many who then surpassed the original. As it should be.

I genuinely wonder - and I say this without glee, just weariness while watching Christofascism's rise in the US - how many folks who draw strength from their idea of an all-loving Christ are now discovering for the first time some of the nastier things his Biblical character says & does.

For instance, I don't think most folks who adore Christ & believe him perfect were aware of the Millstone verses (Matthew 18:6, Luke 17:1-2).

That must be a shock for many. I sorely feel for them at this time.

I will never get over the chipper tone used in economics podcasts when describing the scams that underpin our financial ecosystem. This is a low-tech example, of how a company lied about its user base to get acquired by JPMorgan... which just wanted fresh sales leads.

Our financial system truly is predicated on a reckless set of confidence games wrapped up in technical smokescreens & slick lingo.

...Can we please start building hyperregional democratic systems instead?

https://pca.st/episode/ece6b618-9a1d-42a9-9844-6fcc7bba7c0b

There is genuinely little more heartbreaking than a wee tyke of four using his limited breath & energy to send you a voice message thanking you for saving his life.

It's not a Hallmark feel-good moment.
It's right up there with "2nd grader pays off his schoolmates' lunch debt".

In a just society that little boy wouldn't have to be grateful to anyone for stepping in, because his family wouldn't have been stepped *on* in the first place. Poor little guy. I hope he finally gets to be a kid again.

This bit of afternoon #Poetry, by Kay Gabriel, will I think hit hardest for fellow queer folk here, and especially for those of us who've seen wave upon wave of generational context transform the nature and names of our community's many existential despairs.

(For everyone else, if you enjoyed Ginsberg's "Howl", you might also resonate with the epochal mood-shifts of the work!)

https://www.baestjournal.com/kay-gabriel

You are cordially invited to stop doomscrolling and join me in enjoying this flutterby I found on my walk home from recording. 🦋

#CoSoNature