Morning CoSo!

US friends! Here's a friendly routine reminder that legacy media is not on your side.

Legacy media is going to do its darnedest in the next two weeks to make your election feel like a tighter race, if not stump entirely for a man whose funders aren't so ideologically removed from the people who own these news outlets, too.

Stay sharp. Stay sane(ish). Watch your media intake from now through election day! #MediaLiteracy #Democracy

The hardest part of seeing new photos of children blown to bits is that I always think the image will be seared into memory... and some definitely are.

But not all.

You can sit with these photos for as long as you want, & try to remember them all, but the mind doesn't work that way.

There's just more depravity in this world than any of us can recall. One horror nudges the last out of sight, & even as you look at it, you know there'll be another soon to knock it out in turn.

I have half an hour before the zumba class downstairs and the band practice across the street end, and I can hear myself think again so I can get one more writing stint in today.

I've been chewing over the next book I'll write, once I have enough stories in queues again.

It's looking more likely that the next work won't be SFF at all. I have an historical idea that I just can't shake - but hey! Maybe that'll work in today's weird market after all.

SF stories first, though.
Must! Fill! Queues!

@Blue_Skyesr_here, you might enjoy this overview - challenges and all! - of how Colombia is trying to tackle some really tough climate issues through economic and energy reforms.

@Museek, as I mentioned earlier, you might find the Colombian government's latest decree in favour of Indigenous sovereignty to be of note here. There's a particular focus in recent legislation on empowering local leaders to set and enforce regulations that protect natural resources in their regions from further abuse.

Evening, folks!

Today we have some constructive policy for once, care of recent Colombian state-driven climate activism!

And yet, it wouldn't be "Tough Times Tuesday" if I didn't raise these examples without looking at the challenges that come with trying to move away from an extraction-based economy and toward models of greater civic empowerment.

Nothing good and necessary in life comes easily, eh?

#ClimateCrisis #IndigenousRights #Environment #Economics #Colombia

https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/colombias-latest-lessons-in-state

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

#Meme #Humour

#ClimateCrisis #Racism

"The people I spoke with largely said that climate change was real and urgent. In their hands it became a weapon to justify their agendas—or at least a useful tool to expand their movements. ... They believe that water and land are becoming scarcer, forcing them to hoard and defend those resources. And they hold onto a nostalgic view for the way American life was in the 1950s, when there were half as many people, and nearly 90% of them were white."
https://www.propublica.org/article/john-tanton-far-right-extremism-environmentalism-climate-change

Popping on because I just had one of my favourite experiences: when I can leap into a ton of specialized topics with someone here in Spanish, and have a stimulating conversation about, oh, everything.

While working on today's newsletter, this fellow remarked on a newspaper I was using, & we ended talking economic policy, foreign deals, energy futures, artificial intelligence, investment pathways, judicial matters... all requiring specialized vocab that's taken me years to master.

#AGoodFeeling

My mental health is pretty good today, but still--always relevant.

We didn't start the fire, etc.

If you're still here, that's enough. Have a lovely one, eh?

#OfflineFTW #AmWriting

I don't have autumn here, so sometimes I just sit with the leaves that have an autumn feel to them.

Today, I was joined by an itty bitty #BugFriend.

(G'morning, CoSo. Not back to my runs yet, but slowly rebuilding the habit of getting out early, at least!)

#Gaza #Gardening

Do you folks remember the video I shared a few weeks ago, about a farming project in war?

Thamra was cofounded by Yousef Abu Rabee (& Leena) to feed everyday people caught in this nightmare.

Yousef was killed in recent IDF action in Northern Gaza. A reporter working on an agriculture piece shared word today, and Yousef's instagram is filled with grief messages.

Every day the world is left smaller for losses such as these.

Most people are just people.
https://youtu.be/dCh1huJCb8w

Monday Media Review carries forward the work I'd intended to finish last Thursday. Today, we talk about a recent op-ed and its aftermath, as both reflect how difficult it is for many human beings to grasp the moral depravity we're living through.

War derangement diminishes us all--but differently. Do we have what it takes to "call in" the war-deranged humans all around us?

#Humanism #War #HumanBehaviour #Gaza

https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/what-an-op-ed-and-its-aftermath-teaches

Happy birthday to the late Ursula K. Le Guin, and to the still-very-much-here @corlin.

May we leave good imprints on the path of life, as Le Guin did.

And may the wilds of existence reclaim those imprints most tenderly, in due time.

"The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next."

All right, you beautiful louts: Thanks for the great responses!

I'm all hopped up on bad genre tropes, and diving into the night's fiction work. #AmWriting

Be good, but not too good.

Good-ish, with room to improve.

All right. Switching gears to fiction-writing, after some tedious administrivia this afternoon, carried forward from yesterday's ridiculous 3-hour meeting & debrief.

What is your LEAST favourite sci-fi trope? Bonus points if it's something that gets done to death on #StarTrek!

#ScienceFiction #SFF

And now I am going to finish one (1) art and one (1) book review.

In a bipolar downcycle, I reduce myself to the very worst of who I am and the harm in which I've been embroiled over my life.

The lie of the downcycle is that the "worst of you" is the "all of you".

Who we are now, and all the words and actions we put into the world today, might not be the best that we and they could be.

But we can *always* grow from them, so long as we give ourselves permission to stay a little longer here. 🕊️