Robert Reich's piece today is about a childhood protector who grew up to get murdered by the Ku Klux Klan for trying to register Black voters.

This was a potent read and an excellent reminder: that violence has always been with us, that the rights being fought for today had to be fought for every step of the way, and that there will always be some who lose everything, while trying to do right in a world of people ready to protect their own power at any cost.

#Essays
https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/60-years-ago-today-they-murdered

When I conked out, it was for another few hours. Just woke up violently shivering and overheating all at once. Sigh. We're going to try this "working" thing again, but I miss having my full energy, and not always feeling as sweaty as a teenager in their first game of spin the bottle. 🙃

(These hot flashes are great practice for a coming stage of life, though! #SilverLinings)

I'm baffled that there's no easy way to send an immediate thank-you message to a new paid subscriber.

Will work on that later, but in general: thank you so, so much for your support of my work. I'm grateful for the time folks take reading it, thankful that the content proves useful for some, and deeply motivated by the investment some place in it.

I appreciate the high bar you all hold me to.

Ugh. Being upright still isn't working. My body has always done this thing where it sneezes profusely if it's vertical when it wants to be horizontal.

(Super awkward on dates. 😉 jk.)

Drenched in sweat this morning, and still definitely ill, but the funny thing is that I can't even *try* to audio-record the next two chapters of my book because there's a glorious thunderstorm in process. 🙃

So much for trying to set a new routine for Friday publications to Patreon!

And I have so much editing work to do this weekend to catch up on lost time. Blech.

Will record and upload the book tomorrow instead. For now, shower, tea, and a day of trying to catch up on everything else. 👍🏻

Today for Thorough Thursday, we're looking at two very delicate examples of actual national conspiracies (cases of medical sabotage between the US and China) to reflect on the undue power that we inadvertently give to bad actors whenever we entertain more conspiratorial thinking.

The world is filled with incompetence and cruelty. Facing it pragmatically is how we begin to deflate its hold.

#MediaLiteracy #GlobalHumanism #Medicine #Politics #US #China
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/what-two-very-real-national-conspiracies

I'm not entirely sure eating was wise, because now I'm sweating buckets, but! We live and learn.

Haven't eaten in the last day, and I'm not really hungry, but I suppose I should nip out (masked, of course) for something anyway. The nearest tienda is pretty quiet on a weekday night at this hour.

I miss not having a raging fever.

(Oh, but maybe I'll make a hot sauce egg sammie! #Goals)

I came, I saw, I people'd, I'm going back to bed. 👌

#Zine

Oh, and I'm also looking at the musically inclined: would anyone be up for writing "Two Jams" - a wee music rec paired with a jam/jelly recipe (this could use the wildlife I mentioned above). What's a perfect musical pairing for dandelion jam?

A nature-oriented dad joke wouldn't be out of place, either, and we're definitely up for a mantra or prayer related to hopepunk, solarpunk, and general communion with the wonder of the world.

Lots of ideas to choose from! Be playful! It's a Zine!

ALSO.

Just because I'm under the weather doesn't mean I'm not still watching the calendar.

#Zine Team:

We need more submissions for our first issue. Specifically:

At least one photo that would do well in black and whatever offset colour we choose (blue? red? purple?), as per @corlin's printer specs.

Let's also put in a silly list (think: something as whimsical as Ent names).

And a doodle/comic wouldn't be out of place!

If anyone has a wee recipe using wild plants, that would be rad, too.

(@Kaysymmetry, @Graci: I think today we'll be testing the ML [viral] intoxication scale. For science!)

It's honey lemon ginger time!

Zoom meeting in an hour, then I can be dead to the world again. Awful, awful night's "sleep". This flu really likes me, but the feeling ain't mutual.

Funny thought for the day:

Yesterday I learned the expression "to Casper" someone. It means to ghost them, but in a friendly way. 😅 Your texts drift from daily to weekly to monthly, until you're gone.

Immature action? Maybe!

But an inspired phrase, all the same.

Okay: tea time, followed by a one-hour performance of Weekend At Bernie's. 🤞🏻

My plan for this week's Thorough Thursday, after a week of criticizing nationalist fearmongering, was to look at two cases of the US and China *absolutely* trying to sabotage one another - and through medical warfare, of all things - and at how such activities further degrade a sense of shared reality for everyday citizens. But... we'll see how much deep-dive energy I have left in the tank. Going to take my achey lungs to bed now. Thanks for the laughs and kind words through my derailed day. 💛

Rewind Wednesday rounds out a three-day reflection on the context of US tariffs issued last month. Building up a kind of "energy arms race" with China is of a piece with US Cold War history, so why not spend some time with the paranoia and panic of the mid-century "missile gap"?

Simply put: we do ourselves a grave disservice, whenever we act like conflict is a necessary precondition to innovation. We can and should demand better motivations for socioeconomic reform.

https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/the-tenuous-relationship-between

😅 The real danger of trying to revise what was *supposed* to go out this morning is that my silly brain got sidetracked instead into reading at length from a 1970s book source and a 1950s academic journal issue for some of the key facts in my piece.

Now I just have to make sure I didn't derail my argument too much with the minutiae of mid-century US politics and intelligence reports so that I can click "send" in the next hour or two and go back to sleep. 🤞🏻

#WriterProblems #HistoryGeekProblems

So this is definitely a flu. The symptoms came on super fast, and it descended from head pains and upper respiratory symptoms to heavy chest cough and an aching back/lungs area in hours.

I'm upright enough to do some work for the next few hours... with the intention of clearing my slate for the next few days of isolation and recovery.

So much for a day dedicated to immersive editing, eh?

But bodies are great at reminding us of our limits.

That, and they make some funny sounds sometimes, too!

@cmskiera, what's your Ent name! (See above toot for context, if necessary.)

(And if you're getting the sense that "sick ML" is a lot like "drunk ML" you might be right! 😂 Everything that doesn't make me miserable amuses me SO MUCH right now.)