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

Not sure who needs to hear this but if you used any amount of public power or a large platform to sell dumb people a provably false narrative that made a lot of them sick or dead, it's entirely ok and appropriate that people make fun of you when you get sick and/or die.
https://news.yahoo.com/gop-ex-sen-inhofe-retired-184534096.html

Just finished Tales From the Loop. Highly recommended 👍

OK. Internet storytime.

Years ago my husband had an urban planning blog we ran the server ourselves and mostly it was pretty tame. But he started getting comments from these two weird libertarian trolls. Some of it was passably "debate" some was just rude and nasty. I considered blocking their IP addresses since they were always the same. But then thought better of it and decided to look up the IPs. What turned up blew my mind!🧵

Now, you have to understand these were the days of blogs, and people were less savvy about IPs and VPNs. This probably wouldn't happen today... but the IPs were both from the Department of Defense in DC!

These guys were hate blogging urban planners on company time. Sending them an email seemed too direct.

They had their own blog and would link it and I figured they were tracking back clicks when soon after mentioning them and linking to them on another blog they showed up. I hatched a plan.

I went to another planner's blog and left a comment mentioning them again and linking so they'd track the link back. Then arranged for my husband to respond with something like "who are these guys?"

I responded with "They're from DC, department of defense, everyone knows they keep a trashy blog and don't do much at work but surf the net."

They never commented again. A year later the blog was gone.

It was fun and my husband said "I feel like a hacker."

Good times.

Today I discovered my dad has been going to bookshops every day, buying two copies of my book Letters From Brenda on each visit, and then giving them to strangers in the street. That’s one of the most Dad things ever. God bless him.

Mister Dugg Dogg went to the spa earlier this week and the groomer gave him a tie instead of a bandana. He is very dapper, don’t you think? #dogsofmastodon #dapperdog

Last night, my son across the country was locked down in a hotel in Hood River, OR due to a police standoff. He had to stay hidden for hours and listen to gunfire and hope for the best, there wasn't a damn thing I could do but call him.
I've never felt so helpless and scared. I hate this country.
#USA
#ItsTheGuns
#GunViolence
#AmericaSucks

Ok I’m going to wade into somewhat uncomfortable personal space here because I keep seeing this “ousting people is carceral!!” idea and I’m over it.

I grew up in a community that shunned people. Like full on you’re dead to us, no contact, shunned. It happened all the time. It was horrible to see the way it tore people and families apart. But that was largely because of *why* people were being ousted. Abusers were safe. Those who stayed in line were safe. Those who spoke out and had the audacity to think or speak for themselves were kicked out.

That experience, in an awful way, taught me a very clear lesson: isolating people who disagree with you is abuse. Removing people from your own life, or spaces where they have been able to cause harm, is care.

Duggar family on abortion:
•2013: Abortion is “Baby Holocaust”
•2015: Rally against abortion!
•2020: March for Life!
•2023: “Due to complications we had a procedure to remove the baby & pretend it isn’t abortion.”

Healthcare for me but not for thee. This is the right wing movement in a nutshell. Revolting hypocrisy, which apparently is the point.

https://people.com/parents/jessa-duggar-reveals-she-suffered-a-miscarriage/

#GOPLies
#WokeAintWhatTheyThink

PSA

Thoughts & tasks are like buzzing bees inside my head.

I can either remember what tasks I have to do or have the focus/desire to do those tasks, but almost certainly not both at the same time.

I call this principle Heisenberg's uncertainty bees 🐝

#AuDHD #neurodivergent #spoonie

THEY’RE FUCKING DEAD

THEY’RE FUCKING DEAD

THEY’RE FUCKING DEAD

THEY’RE FUCKING DEAD

THEY’RE FUCKING DEAD

THEY’RE FUCKING DEAD

Just gonna leave this here.

Everyone on Mastodon: I cannot believe how much Twitter is trying to charge for API requests.

Me, pretending to know what an API is: This will be the final nail in Twitter's coffin.

I’ve become old enough to realize Walter Peck from the EPA was 100% right to try to regulate the Ghostbusters’ storage containment unit.

By @JuliusGoat: “At a certain point, it seems to me that we have to conclude that what such people are actually advocating for is not to use sunlight to expose and disinfect our society of bigotry, but simply to have a society in which bigotry is free to dance in the sun.”

https://armoxon.substack.com/p/the-case-for-shunning

Growing up fundy can prime us to feel at home in situations that seek to usurp our autonomy.
SHARED ELEMENTS OF CULTS:
1. Authoritarian control
2. Extremist beliefs
3. Isolation from society
4. Veneration of an individual.
CULT CATEGORIES: Doomsday, Political, Religious, & Sex. An additional group bordering on cult territory is LGATs (Large Group Awareness Trainings), which typically fall under "human potential" or "self-awareness," such as the infamous NXIVM cult. #criticalthinking #cults

This is the first thing I ever painted for my wife, an oil on canvas of her greenwing macaw Jasper. When we met I had a greenwing, as well - just one of the many ties that bound us together. She was pretty blown away by this 💕 #parrots #BirdArt #artist #ArtistsOfMastodon