ScottinSoCal 🇺🇦 🕊 🏳‍🌈 @ScottSoCal@computerfairi.es

@ScottSoCal. I wish I could come up with a witty answer, but only finishing up coffee #1. But yes 🤓. Absolutely.

Please allow me to introduce myself. #Moby-Dick is the novelistic soundtrack of my life. The rest is #Dylan. #Dogs, #coffee, #books (especially #19th-century US lit) make me very happy. I write, think, and talk a lot about dementia, most recently a book with Dr. Bruce Miller of UCSF, Finding the Right Words: A Story of Literature, Grief, and the Brain (Johns Hopkins, 2021).

Some people believe there's no purpose to "liking" something on Mastodon since it doesn't affect any algorithm.

Not the case.

It does something incredibly valuable: it acknowledges people.

Which is incredibly powerful, and is all the more important *because* it's not connected to gaming any algorithm.

By liking something on Mastodon, you are doing it honestly -- without any agenda at play other than that you like it.

So go ahead. Click that like button for its own sake.

“"In Germany, teaching the Holocaust is mandatory. It includes visits to concentration camp, museums, etc. They don’t shy away from their own ugly history. Yet the kids aren’t damaged; they’re strengthened, matured, humbled. US needs to do same re slavery. Not that complicated.”
Siggy Rose.

in america, we no longer say “the french”, but “people with mental illnesses”, and i think that’s beautiful

Are we ready to talk about how police dressing in riot gear and acting, well, like cops, makes crowds more likely to riot? No? OK then. Proceed.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/06/01/why-so-many-police-are-handling-the-protests-wrong

Air alarm. I'm going to pick up Seva from school. The day started like this. Anxiously

@eesger @georgetakei
Let me google that for you:

```The young Federal Republic of Germany adopted the stricter version of Section
175 of the Criminal Code (StGB), as amended by the National Socialists. As a
consequence, many of the homosexual men liberated from concentration camps
after the war were returned to prison in order to serve out the rest of their
sentences. The repression of these men continued unchanged until the former
Section 175 was relaxed in 1969. ```

https://www.antidiskriminierungsstelle.de/SharedDocs/downloads/EN/publikationen/legal_opinion_paragraph_175.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=3

Things aren't always what we first assume!

Years ago, I went out to dinner with a coworker and his very new girlfriend.

We started with edamame as an appetizer for the table and, after about ten minutes, I looked over and noticed that his girlfriend was eating her edamame from what I can only refer to as the "community discard bowl" where you throw the edamame shells after you've sucked out the beans.

It had been far too long and was way too awkward, so I didn't say a word and just watched in horror until she finally decided she’d had enough.

They broke up shortly after and I often wonder if the “edamame incident” had anything to do with it.