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Chore Scorpion: I come from the toughest meanest place you can imagine. I want to be gentle, I want to die gently, but It seems that when life gets hard I have to get harder to match.

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Organizing in my area means you have to consider religion. A little less than 37% "aren't religious"*, but that doesn't always mean they're atheists. West Virginia has one of the largest "unchurched" populations, but plenty of those folks consider themselves God-fearing Christians, they just think that none of their local churches are the right kind of god-fearing. And of the rest, plenty of us were raised Christian and still have Christian beliefs and ideologies that influence us, even when we stop considering ourselves "religious".

Moreover, you have to look at who in the area is already organizing for collective action, and at least 90% of those organizers are religious people. There are the churches and religious non-profit organizations created by churches, and then there's the less obvious non-profits that just have boards that are 100% made up of religious people.

These religious folks aren't uniformly evil. The local anti-war activism group that takes folks to demonstrations and runs a liberal/left radio station is held together by devout Quakers. The house that feeds and clothes anyone who needs it, including the queer homeless kids, is run by Catholic Workers. The Catholic Workers also did some extremely effective organizing this year to expand public transportation.

Of course the Catholic Workers are also vocally anti-abortion.

I'm thinking about religion a lot because I'm in a book club that's reading "Let This Radicalize You", and religion comes up often in our discussions. Pretty much everyone in the group is very new to the ideas presented in it.

The group includes an experienced Quaker migrant justice organizer and a - well I can't think of a better word than "hippie". The hippie has attended a lot of demonstrations but hasn't done any local organizing before, believes in a lot of conspiracy theories, and is very against "organized religion". If she just criticized Christianity I would understand because like I said, that is the one religion that has enormous political power locally. But she often brings up Judaism out of nowhere and we have to shut down the tangent before it strays into what I worry would be outright antisemitism. Sometimes I wonder if we should ask her to leave, but she also seems to be learning a lot from the book. I think our discussions are helping her consider different explanations for the way things are than "a secret evil organization of bankers did it".

Meanwhile the Quaker organizer has this thing where she seems to think motivation or thought is as bad as action. Hating a person who has hurt you or others is immoral. Getting angry (even if you don't act on it or show it) is wrong. Using "violent language" is wrong. Jokes about violence or destruction, about hating someone or something is wrong. And this is clearly coming out of the Quaker culture that she grew up in and still lives within. It seems to cause her a lot of discomfort when it comes to organizing with non-Quakers, but that also seems to be something that she's very interested in. I'd like to help her but I'm not sure how.

Not really any point to this, just lunch-break musings. Now back to work!

* So, during a break I looked up where this number for "No Religion" came from, and it's from the U.S. Religion Census, which asked congregations for "membership" and "adherent" data. So it's really a number of people who aren't in any religious congregation, not a number of people who self-identify as atheist or lacking religion. IMO it's likely that most of these folks consider themselves Christian and just don't go to church. I'd guarantee the number of atheists is much much lower.

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I would like to have a kid but because of reasons (asexual, aromantic, broke, mental illness, rapidly heading toward 40) I am unlikely to. I wonder if this is because the universe knows what I would name a child if I had that responsibility. I have many relatives with fantastic names, so I would 100% pass one of them on to a child.

Leonard/Leo for short

Margaret/Margot for short

Rex

Hazel

Eldora

Kermit (I know, particularly cruel, but it's such a good name...)

I just enjoy them very much.

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Something that I think should be an important part of solarpunk aesthetics is screws.

Look at your smartphone. No screws. You've got to have specialized tools to get inside your phone to repair something. There are certain pieces of tech that are glued in place and glue can't be undone without permanently breaking the bond.

But screws!

You can take apart a broken old radio, repair what's broken, and, if you were careful in taking it apart, you can put it back together and have a fully functioning radio and all you need is a common screwdriver!

It's hard to build screws and other mechanical fasteners because it requires more planning than clamps and glues, but isn't that what solarpunk is all about‽ It's about care and sustainability and and a radio or a computer built carefully with repair in mind is a sustainable computer that stays out of landfills and in use.

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Oh my god. I actually drew today 🤨 some doodles for patches and a tshirt!

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I made this 8-foot-tall puppet out of papier-mache and cardboard for Pride! I've made papier-mache dolls before, but never puppets and definitely none at this scale! But I had a vision of a "Great Rainbow Fairy" inspired by BOTW's Great Fairies and wanted to make it happen.

I think if I'd know how hard this project would be I might not have even started! But since I did get started, I spent all my free time for weeks working on this puppet. The individual parts - head, torso - weren't too hard, but figuring out how to put them together in a way that let them move but didn't fall apart was! And then the paint started to crack and flake off!! I cried from frustration a few times especially towards the end.

But it was all worth it when I took her to my local, small-town pride festival. Of course a few people were creeped out by her but many many people took photos and complimented her. The kids especially loved and were fascinated by her.

I hope to take her to more festivals soon. Only thing I want to make sure I do in the future is to have lots and lots of cold sports drinks and take more and longer breaks from the costume. I got woozy from heat exhaustion by the end of the day. 😅

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https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/

if you're worried about the website finding out where you live. dont worry. it already knows where you are just by you opening the page, this goes for every website btw. As always reblog for higher sample size

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Regarding those "should" questions. ("do I have to be an anarchist" "do I have to be a marxist" etc) I don't think this sort of "asking for permission" or "asking for rules" is something broken in the individual, which I felt like you were saying in the podcast. Like that it's because an individual is trading one religion for another, or that person just likes rules or following for the sake of it. I think it's much more a problem of community, not individual people. Because what happens when people disobey these rules - act outside the norms of whatever subculture they are in, knowingly or not? They get shut down, they get mocked, they get ostracized. So rational individuals take actions to avoid this by seeking out information about what those norms are. That's all I think those "should I? can I?" posts are.

So I really appreciated the conversation that followed about creating communities where it's safer to make these kinds of mistakes.

Great episode and I will definitely keep listening.

This was our very first episode of the podcast, back when Solarpunk Presents was hosted by Solarpunk Futures, a production of @solarpunkmagazine - it's a sort of test-drive, as Christina and I were brand-new to podcasting at the time, so we thought we might have a discussion about issues we'd been seeing as non-fiction editors in slush articles. Turns out, solarpunk non-fiction is difficult! Here's the offish description:

"In this soft-launch of Solarpunk Presents, the companion podcast to Solarpunk Futures, hosts and Solarpunk Magazine nonfiction editors Ariel Kroon and Christina De La Rocha tackle the question of “Must Solarpunk Should”? This is a dilemma that unconsciously or consciously comes through in a lot of the nonfiction submissions that we receive in our slush pile, and we have Thoughts about it. So many thoughts! Possibly controversial one! But one of the best things about solarpunk is the space that it gives us to explore and think through new paradigms, new systems thinking, new ideas – some of which maybe we don’t necessarily love, but that are part of our world regardless of whether we like it or not. We’re learning and growing with every new day as solarpunks - come join us!

PS: The audio is a bit bumpy in parts; please excuse the technical hiccups. We’re still learning!"

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I'm creating a zine funded by Wheeling Heritage about imagining wildly optimistic green futures for Wheeling, West Virginia. Please check it out and share! Artists and writers from the area are prioritized but anyone can submit work.

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KID PIX AT KID SIX TODAY! 6pm est that is! Come hang out and watch me draw on Kid Pix! Seeya then

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My very favorite podcast right now is Game Studies Study Buddies. It's a podcast where the hosts read books from the academic field of game studies and discuss what they read, and even though I don't play games that much anymore I still find it fascinating. The books often touch on many topics outside of games, and once in a while the books they discuss will seem on the surface to have little to do with games (or video/computer games, which is what I tend to think of when I think of games).

Two of my favorite episodes are about gambling - Rebecca Cassidy’s Vicious Games: Capitalism and Gambling and Natasha Dow Schüll’s Addiction By Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas. My state of West Virginia has a whole industry around video gambling "hot spots" and this helped me understand what that type of gambling is doing. They've also discussed books about cricket and rhyming games and those subjects are treated with at least as much gravity as any artsy indie game.

There's even an episode that touches on the Kisekae Set System, the episode about Anne-Marie Schleiner’s The Player’s Power To Change the Game – Ludic Mutation.

My very very favorite episode, though, is on Jacques Ranciere’s The Ignorant Schoolmaster because it's all about how people learn and teach themselves things and the role of the teacher in that process.

I've learned so much and found so many wonderful books through this podcast. I don't have an academic background - I'm a community college drop-out - but still found the discussions both accessible and yet meaty enough to give me the good brain tingles. Highly recommend it.

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This alarmed me, because I live with my sister and she loves feeding birds. So I did some research to present to her, and found some sources, some of them agreeing and some disagreeing with the recommendation: Audubon California says to take down your feeders

Experts: It's OK to leave up bird feeders from the Oregon State University Extension Service says just wash your feeders regularly (like once a week).

All About Birds asked Dr. Julianna Lenoch, who directs the USDA APHIS National Wildlife Disease Program, and she explained in detail that it's more important to keep songbirds from poultry than songbirds from each other. They also "recommend that you follow any recommendations put out by your state government, even in cases where that advice conflicts with ours." So I checked, and our state and our neighboring states don't currently recommend removing bird feeders.

USDA doesn't recommend removing bird feeders unless you also have backyard poultry. It also makes sense to remove them if a neighbor has chickens.

Even the disagreeing articles often say "it is unlikely that bird feeders will contribute to an outbreak among songbirds", not impossible, so you could say you should remove your bird feeders just out of an abundance of caution. But I wonder if malnourishment could make birds more susceptible to getting the flu, just like it does humans?

just so everyone is aware - one of the best ways for bird flu to spread is by encouraging birds to congregate. while the bird flu epidemic from 2022 continues strong into 2023, you should almost always stop feeding birds. this illness can spread between types of birds - you encouraging birds to feed in your backyard could cause the death of the person down the road’s backyard chickens. the disease RARELY spreads to other animals and humans, but it is zoonotic and CAN infect both pets and people, so be cautious and discourage spread of the disease. if you find a deceased bird do not handle it without protective wear and do not let pets interact with dead wildlife. im not going to launch into an outdoor cat spiel but if you have a cat that catches birds regularly, consider stopping them from doing so while this is going on for their & your safety.

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when i say i’m masculine and feminine at the same time this is the kind of shit i mean:

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The roller derby team invited me to a hockey outing and I love hockey so I immediately agreed! But it was also "Wizards and Wands" night and the hockey team wanted people to wear the colors of their "houses". So I decided to wear a trans flag scarf. And I when I couldn't find one I liked, I decided to knit one. This thing is over six feet long, a foot wide, and uses four different stitches (garter, stockinette, basketweave, and sand stitch). It took me about a week and a half to knit.

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TTRPG FUNDING OPPORTUNITY

In time for Zine Month 2023, the in*die zine microgrant programme is now live for applications! Until the end of January, any TTRPG creator or collective of creators can apply for a microgrant of up to $250 to help with pre-funding activities, such as commissioning art for promotional materials, a general marketing budget, paying an editor for working on your pre-release documents, purchasing software licenses, or buying AV equipment for streaming, podcast, or audiobook versions. Applying is via a simple form at https://bit.ly/indieZineMicrograntApplication and is open to anybody.

Judging is by committee and will be announced or soon after February 1st 2023. All entries will be judged anonymously, with priority for funding given to projects that benefit marginalised people.

Any questions, please post them below or contact me via DM for help with completing the application form. Good luck!

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In TTRPG we have a tool called the "X card". The idea is that if something is bothering you in a game, whether it's introduced by the DM/facilitator or by another player, you can play this card and that element is removed from the game. I've played many many sessions with this tool but haven't seen it used very often, I think exactly because of this effect. People get caught up in the game and they also feel like it's rude to interrupt the game, and then when some subject come up that makes them feel bad, they don't play the X-card to remove it.

There's one game where I've had really good experiences with the X-card, and that's For the Queen. It's a game of card-based story telling prompts and includes it's own X-Card. The reason it works so well is that when I facilitate the game, I always use the X-Card myself to model its use on my very first turn. I flip a card and no matter what it is, I "X" it. I say, "I don't like that that card" and flip over a new one.

And every time the other players (if they haven't played with me before) look so surprised. Like, "you can do that?" And then they start using the "X card" too, for prompts that seem out-of-character or too dark or for whatever reason.

But even that doesn't work for everything. I've also Xed things that other characters introduce, but that seems a lot harder for most players to do even after seeing the facilitator do it. Saying "no" to a card is a lot easier than saying "no" to another person.

this sort of kind of reminds me of this class i had a few years ago where we talked about boundaries, how to keep them, and how to make sure people near you are safe too. probably because i think about it most of the time lol

the instructor was this big tall kind of imposing man who commented on how this exercise was one of the only times he thought that was a good thing. he asked for a volunteer and had them stand a few feet away from the wall on one end of the classroom while he walked over to the one opposite them. it was a big room so he was pretty far away

“i’m going to walk towards you and talk to you about my son,” he explained, in a totally friendly and disarming way. “im just going to talk and maybe gesture a little and walk towards you, just talking! and when i get too close, all you have to do is tell me to stop and i’ll stop. its ok! really! i wont be upset at all and this is just a class, i’ll stop on a dime!”

and then he did exactly what he said he was going to, but very loud and walking kind of fast. the room echoed and everyone was watching. he hadn’t lied at all, but it was just kind of a lot. the volunteer immediately took a step back and looked more guarded but didn’t say anything until he was basically on top of her. 

he stopped, and then he asked her “when did you WANT me to stop?”

she admitted that she was a little uncomfortable about how fast he was moving from the start, but halfway across the room is when she really didnt want him closer.

“yeah, i know! i was paying attention. i saw your nonverbal cues right away, but a lot of people who preface their actions with a speech like mine won’t. by constantly reassuring someone they can tell you to stop, the responsibility falls on YOU instead, in their eyes, and also makes you second guess using that to begin with! because you knew i didnt want to hurt you, or thought you knew that, the idea of telling me to stop, of suggesting i wasn’t safe, made you second guess your gut and worry about my feelings. it’s good to check in like i did, but it doesn’t mean you can stop being perceptive, and you have to keep in mind that just because you give them this tool doesn’t mean they’ll feel comfortable using it. once you understand that, there will be a lot fewer cases of people “blowing up” at you”