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The Israeli Defense Forces announced a short while ago that the Gaza Strip has become a combat zone and a red zone (north and center of the Gaza Strip), which has led to an insane and terrifying increase in the bombing, with a rocket or shell falling every few minutes, with a powerful explosion, killing dozens of people.

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there is a category 9 vibe shift occurring and everybody’s blogging like they don’t feel it

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If you took the time to respond to this, you can spare a moment to read and donate to my friend Zeina @zinaanqar16 . Her situation in Gaza is very precarious, as the IOF has begun occupying the entire city and displacing her and her family, with very little media coverage, while they already suffer from bombings and famine. Please, please donate so they can survive, and so that if they are forced to evacuate, they might have the funds to escape when the border opens. Donate to her Vetted by Gazavetters fundraiser List (No. 213), for the love of humanity.

So close to reach her goal soon, €8,278 left, Please donate whatever you can

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@charl0ttan @omegaversereloaded @ot3 @wolfertinger666 @paper-mario-wiki @3000s @valtsv @sporesgalaxy @yekkes @anarchblr @homunculus-argument @anarchistmemecollective @isuggestforcefem @wayneradiotv @idolomantises @txttletale @rennybu @beybuniki @transgendz @beardedmrbean @batmanisagatewaydrug @afro-elf @redbuddi @beetledrink @grox @hiveswap @mavigator @theinconvenientlifestyle @sacred-portal @punkitt-is-here @strangeauthor @amygdalae @papasmoke @certifiedsexed @sexygaywizard @snowflakeeel @joshpeck @dirhwangdaseul @prisonhannibal @bevsi @idontmindifuforgetme @saberghatz @rickybabyboy @trainwreckgenerator @socalgal @storyweavingspider @northerlyfilms @90-ghost @boycritter

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^^^^character dynamic i need to do more with .EVERYONE SEES YOUR WORTH EXCEPT FOR YOU💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

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This summer hasnt felt like anything at all

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Please read this. It's important. On August 7, Israel's security cabinet approved Netanyahu's plan to occupy the rest of Gaza and forcibly displace the population to the south, where they will be expelled from Palestine into other countries. This is a final push of the genocide.

Yesterday (August 20), Israel's military spokesperson announced mobilization of another 60,000 reservists and stated plainly "We have begin preliminary operations and the first stages of the attack on Gaza City." Al Jazeera reported that the Israeli military killed at least 81 Palestinians yesterday alone.

The cost of displacement is too high for my friend Mahrah and her family to manage, and the infrastructure and resources are already destroyed in the south where they are being forced under threat of death.

If the Israeli military can succeed in its occupation of Gaza, it will mean no shelter or safety for the rest of their lives.

@mahrahpalestine wrote to me, "Many consequences and indescribable feelings come with the risk of displacement and re-displacement. No one can imagine the difficult psychological state we are going through now: anxiety, fear, and tension."

Please, donate anything you can so they can survive. Her family's fundraising has been vetted by 90-ghost and shared by fairuzfan.

You can donate to her family's campaign here:

GoFundMe (hosted by @cannilyuncanny)

Chuffed (hosted by @omegaversereloaded)

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"The Artist’s Bedroom in the Hotel Europa (Palazzo Giustinian), Venice, with the City Beyond", Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1840. Watercolour and gouache on pale buff wove paper.

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Doodling around with my wax pastels. Everytime I build figures from shapes/ “washes” of color (for lack of a better term can you tell I’m a watercolor person) I really like it. And then I forget and get mad when making bodies any other way

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One of my favorite pieces of trans theory I've read is Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton.

The title of this book is a reference to the 1999 Mos Def album, and specifically the track "Mathematics."

The song focuses on how structural racism (particularly antiblackness) functions in the United States through citing different stats and numbers-- how much money is spent on the US military, how many Americans own cell phones being surveilled, how many people have AIDS, three strikes laws, minimum wage, unemployment rates, budget cuts being funneled into more police, rates of incarceration and probation, health & economic outcomes sorted by zip codes, and so on.

The specific lines from "Mathematics" that Snorton references explicitly in Black on Both Sides are:

"Numbers is hardly real and they never have feelings But you push too hard, even numbers got limits"

The book's beating heart is concerned with the necropolitics of Black trans life, and how Black trans people are discussed, known, constructed as death statistics. How many Black trans women are murdered, how many Black trans people kill themselves.

Since reading that book, I've been listening to the song a lot. I've been thinking about how another song I listen to a lot probably took direct inspiration from "Mathematics"-- a song called "Strange Arithmetic" by The Coup.

In "Strange Arithmetic" the lyrics focus on the ways in which public education functions to socially reproduce racial capitalism to ensure submission and funnel people into (acceptance of) powerlessness. It opens with the verse:

"History has taught me some strange arithmetic Using swords, prison bars, and pistol grips. English is the art of bombing towns While assuring that you really only blessed the ground. Science is that honorable, useful study Where you contort the molecules and then you make that money. In mathematics, dead children don't get added But they count the cost of bullets comin' out the automatic."

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially writing fundraisers for friends in Gaza. Last week, I wrote a post for a teenager named Ahmed. Two weeks ago the Israeli military bombed a sewage line to destroy access to potable water in his area.

I googled "Gaza water news" and I saw articles discussing how often this exact tactic is used. I read analysis by a Palestinian activist, Ahmad Abushawish, titled "In Gaza, water kills too" where he outlines how the Israeli army targets Gaza's water infrastructure, blocks entry of materials for repair, and kills anyone working in the water sector.

I wrote that week about the struggle for water globally, and how control over water systems is so central to settler-colonialism. When I drink water, it is impossible for me to not think about Gaza, and Flint Michigan, and Standing Rock, and the fight over the pipeline expansion in Canada.

After months of starvation, famine in Gaza was officially declared. I read the news. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations says 98.5% of cropland in the Gaza strip is destroyed or inaccessible in militarized zones. The World Health Organization says that 100% of people in Gaza now suffer acute levels of food insecurity.

Israel mobilizes to occupy the remainder of Gaza. Al-Jazeera reports that 86% of the Gaza strip is now either a militarized zone, under forced evacuation, or both at once. This is where Ahmed is living. This is where his family's damaged tent is.

Ahmed messages me. He tells me, "the army is approaching our area, there are sounds of bombing, and we feel hungry."

Everything is statistics. Everything is deeply, viscerally personal. Everyone is a number.

"But you push too hard, even numbers got limits"

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What I was taught growing up: Wild edible plants and animals were just so naturally abundant that the indigenous people of my area, namely western Washington state, didn't have to develop agriculture and could just easily forage/hunt for all their needs.

The first pebble in what would become a landslide: Native peoples practiced intentional fire, which kept the trees from growing over the camas praire.

The next: PNW native peoples intentionally planted and cultivated forest gardens, and we can still see the increase in biodiversity where these gardens were today.

The next: We have an oak prairie savanna ecosystem that was intentionally maintained via intentional fire (which they were banned from doing for like, 100 years and we're just now starting to do again), and this ecosystem is disappearing as Douglas firs spread, invasive species take over, and land is turned into European-style agricultural systems.

The Land Slide: Actually, the native peoples had a complex agricultural and food processing system that allowed them to meet all their needs throughout the year, including storing food for the long, wet, dark winter. They collected a wide variety of plant foods (along with the salmon, deer, and other animals they hunted), from seaweeds to roots to berries, and they also managed these food systems via not only burning, but pruning, weeding, planting, digging/tilling, selectively harvesting root crops so that smaller ones were left behind to grow and the biggest were left to reseed, and careful harvesting at particular times for each species that both ensured their perennial (!) crops would continue thriving and that harvest occurred at the best time for the best quality food. American settlers were willfully ignorant of the complex agricultural system, because being thus allowed them to claim the land wasn't being used. Native peoples were actively managing the ecosystem to produce their food, in a sustainable manner that increased biodiversity, thus benefiting not only themselves but other species as well.

So that's cool. If you want to read more, I suggest "Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America" by Nancy J. Turner

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If you're using gen AI because "you want to make art but don't know how/can't learn/it's easier/whatever"

You don't want to make art.

You want someone to make art for you, but you don't want to pay or exchange anything of equal value for it, and also you want it right now, in whatever style you fancy that moment, and in whatever quantity you want. You're greedy and entitled and it is just that simple. You don't want to make anything.

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Hey y'all -- I'm making this post on behalf of Sami and his family, who are currently suffering from hunger in Gaza. Their fundraiser is currently at 87%. In a world where food is so abundant it's truly terrible for some people to go without. Even by donating something small, you can help someone in buying a bag of flour to make bread for their children.

If you can't donate please circulate Sami's fundraiser -- anything helps! Thank you so, so much for even reading. FUNDRAISER.

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✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #603 )✅️

https://chuffed.org/project/126686-help-muhammad-and-his-family-rebuild-their-lives

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this is, as the kids say, frying me (a glasses wearer)

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I never saw people say stuff like this enough when I was a teenager, so I’m saying it now.

I’m in my mid-thirties and I have never had sex. I’ve thought about it and could have had one or two opportunities if I put in more effort, but I always decided against it because I just wasn’t into it at the time.

I can safely say that I do not feel I have missed out on anything. I was perfectly capable, by myself, of learning about my own body and boundaries without anyone else there to muddy the waters. The immense pressure that was there in my teens/twenties to Have Sex Just Do It is basically gone. I’m vibing. I’ve got my routine by myself in bed that I enjoy, and that’s enough for me.

And in the unlikely event that I ever decide to have sex with someone in the future, I don’t feel at all like I’m lacking some essential Knowledge or Skill that would “make it good” for someone else. I fully expect to ask my partner out loud what they like and to receive an answer clearly communicated and to relax and have fun. And if it’s a disappointing experience, I’m fine with that too. It is what it is.

Sex is just not that big of a deal. I suspected it as a teen, and I’m more sure of it now. It’s fine to have it or not have it. It’s whatever.