#including critical care transport

[anshambulance]

Ansh Air Ambulance Services in Chennai: Bridging Distances, Saving Lives

In the fast-paced realm of emergency healthcare, Ansh Air Ambulance Services in Chennai emerges as a crucial link, connecting patients to life-saving medical care with speed and efficiency. Ansh Air Ambulance Services sheds light on how their dedicated services bridge geographical distances and play a pivotal role in saving lives.

Swift and Strategic Deployment: Ansh Air Ambulance Services in Chennai understands the urgency of medical crises. With strategically located teams and a fleet of well-equipped aircraft, they ensure swift deployment, minimizing response times. This commitment to rapid action ensures that patients in Chennai can access specialized medical care promptly, regardless of their location.

Cutting-Edge Medical Technology Onboard: The fleet of Ansh Air Ambulances is equipped with state-of-the-art medical technology, essentially transforming them into flying hospitals. Advanced life support systems guarantee that patients receive the highest standard of medical attention during transit. Ansh's dedication to cutting-edge equipment underscores their commitment to providing a level of care comparable to that of a hospital, even at high altitudes.

Versatile Medical Services: Ansh Air Ambulance Services caters to a diverse array of medical needs, including critical care transport, organ transplants, and emergency evacuations. This versatility ensures that patients in Chennai and neighboring areas have access to a reliable and comprehensive air medical transportation solution tailored to the specific nature of their medical condition.

Highly Skilled and Compassionate Medical Teams: At the core of Ansh Air Ambulance Services lies the proficiency and compassion of its medical teams. Comprising experienced doctors, nurses, and paramedics, these professionals not only possess the expertise required for diverse medical scenarios but also exhibit a compassionate approach. This combination ensures that patients receive not just transportation but genuine care and support throughout their journey.

Efficient Coordination with Ground Services: Seamless coordination with ground services is vital for successful air medical transportation. Ansh Air Ambulance Services in Chennai prioritizes effective collaboration with ground ambulance services and healthcare facilities. This integrated approach ensures a smooth transition from the point of origin to the final destination, minimizing disruptions and optimizing patient care during the transfer.

Ansh Air Ambulance Services in Coimbatore with Best Medical Setup

Ansh Air Ambulance Services in Coimbatore and Chennai serves as a lifeline, bridging geographical distances and providing critical care in moments of medical emergencies. Their swift deployment, cutting-edge medical technology, versatile services, highly skilled medical teams, and efficient coordination with ground services collectively highlight their commitment to saving lives. In times of crisis, Ansh Air Ambulance Services in Coimbatore and Chennai stands as a testament to the power of timely and efficient healthcare, ensuring that patients receive the specialized care they need, irrespective of the obstacles posed by distance.

[fedao]

🍉 Help my family 🍉

Hello, I am Fidaa and I am reaching out to you with a heavy heart on behalf of my family, a family of five people trapped in the devastating situation in Gaza. We are urgently seeking evacuation to Egypt after enduring more than 282 days of displacement and hardship. I am seeking to help us urgently and provide us with the minimum requirements. I never imagined that my loved ones would be caught in the crossfire of a conflict they were not part of. My husband had only one dream – to teach and take care of our children . The idea that their innocence has been marred by the horrors of war is too heavy a burden to bear. We face the harsh reality of conflict. The trauma inflicted on my children tears at my heart, and I am haunted by fear for their safety and well-being. To give you a glimpse into their daily struggle, they wake up to a relentless battle for survival after surviving deadly nights. For more than 200 days, we have been cooking on firewood due to the scarcity of cooking gas. The entire region lacks fuel for cars, making transportation almost impossible. Basic necessities, including medicines, are scarce, even for those with the means to purchase them. Humanitarian aid has barely reached areas in Khan Yunis that have not yet reached us. But I find myself in a very embarrassing situation. I have to go back and ask for help and rescue. You are my only hope. My family is struggling with genocide. I promised myself that I would do my best to convey their suffering and save them, even if it cost me death. My beloved family is the most precious thing in my existence, and I am very sad that we are still in the Gaza Strip, where we see all kinds of death I'm ashamed to ask you to help me save our lives. It was my wise way to save my children If someone donates $5 it will make a difference for us and help us because we need more. I don't want to lose my family, you are my only hope I love you because you were the source of my trust. I love you because you are truly wonderful. You are our hope always and forever. You also helped me save my family, the most precious thing in existence. I feel so embarrassed but I have rubbed salt in my wound and I have no one to save it but you

Your generosity will directly help save my family from death and rebuild our lives. Every donation, no matter the size, makes a big difference. Lend your hand and make a meaningful impact for us because we need you Donate on GoFundMe Every contribution, whether big or small, will directly help save my family's life ✓ Share this post and spread the word ⩥ Please share this campaign with your friends, family and colleagues to help us achieve our goal and evacuate my family safely . Your support means everything to me, and I am so grateful for any help you can provide during this difficult time. Your help means everything to us. For more details or questions, please contact me freely. Your kindness is a beacon of hope for our family. We thank you for your support and hope that better days will come.

[extinctionstories]

On April 19th, 1987, a bird known as Adult Condor 9 was captured in the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge, near Bakersfield, California. After decades ravaged by the threats of lead-poisoning and pesticide exposure, and intense debate over the ethics of captivity, it had been determined that captive breeding was the final hope to save a species. As his designation might suggest, AC-9 was the ninth condor to be captured for the new program; he was also the last.

As the biology team transported the seven-year-old male to the safety of the San Diego Wild Animal Park, his species, the California Condor, North America's largest bird, became extinct in its native range. It was Easter Sunday—a fitting day for the start of a resurrection.

At the time of AC-9's capture, the total world population of California condors constituted just twenty-seven birds. The majority of them represented ongoing conservation attempts: immature birds, taken from the wild as nestlings and eggs to be captive-reared in safety, with the intention of re-release into the wild. Now, efforts turned fully towards the hope of captive breeding.

Captive breeding is never a sure-fire bet, especially for sensitive, slow-reproducing species like the condor. Animals can and do go extinct even when all individuals are successfully shielded from peril and provided with ideal breeding conditions. Persistence in captivity is not the solution to habitat destruction and extirpation—but it can buy valuable time for a species that needs it.

Thankfully, for the California condor, it paid off.

The birds defied expectations, with an egg successfully hatched at the San Diego Zoo the very next year. Unlike many other birds of prey, which may produce clutches of up to 5 hatchlings, the California condor raises a single chick per breeding season, providing care for the first full year of its life, and, as a consequence, often not nesting at all in the year following the birth of a chick. This, combined with the bird's slow maturation (taking six to eight years to start breeding), presented a significant challenge. However, biologists were able to exploit another quirk of the bird's breeding cycle: its ability to double-clutch.

Raising a single offspring per year is a massive risk in a world full of threats, and the California condor's biology has provided it with a back-up plan: in years when a chick or egg has been lost, condors will often re-nest with a second egg. To take advantage of this tendency, eggs were selectively removed from birds in the captive breeding program, which would then lay a replacement, greatly increasing their reproduction rate.

And what of the eggs that were taken? The tendency of hatchlings to imprint is well-known, and the intention from the very beginning was for the birds to one day return to the wild—an impossibility for animals acclimated to humans. And so, puppets were made in the realistic likeness of adult condors, and used by members of the conservation team to feed and nurture the young birds, mitigating the risk of imprintation on the wrong species.

By 1992, the captive population had more than doubled, to 64 birds. That year, after an absence of five years, the first two captive-bred condors were released into their ancestral home. Many other releases followed, including the return of AC-9 himself in 2002. Thanks to the efforts of zoos and conservationists, as of 2024 there are 561 living California condors, over half of which fly free in the wilds of the American West.

The fight to save the California condor is far from over. The species is still listed as critically endangered. Lead poisoning (from ingesting shot/bullets from abandoned carcasses) remains the primary source of mortality for the species, with tagged birds tested and treated whenever possible. Baby condors are fed bone chips by their parents, likely as a calcium supplement—but, to a condor, bits of bone and bits of plastic can be indistinguishable, and dead nestlings have been found with stomachs full of trash.

There's hope, though. There are things we can change, things we can counteract and stop from happening in the future. It was a human hand that created this problem, and it will take a human hand to fix it. Hope is only gone when the last animal breathes its last breath—and the California condor is still here.

-

This painting is titled Puppet Rearing (California Condor), and is part of my series Conservation Pieces, which focuses on the efforts and techniques used to save critically endangered birds from extinction. It is traditional gouache, on 22x30" paper.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #21

May 31-June 7 2024

As part of President Biden's goal to bring the number of traffic deaths to zero, the Department of Transportation has sent $480 million in safety grants to all 50 states, DC, and all the US territories. The grants will focus on trucks, buses and other large vehicles. Thanks to DoT safety actions deaths involving heavy vehicles dropped by 8% from 2022 to 2023 and the department wants to keep pushing till the number is 0.

The Departments of Interior and Agriculture announced $2.8 billion plan to protect public land and support local government Conservation Efforts. $1.9 billion will be used to repair and restore national parks and public land, restoring historic sites, as well as Bureau of Indian Education-funded schools. $900 million will go to conservation funding, allowing the government to buy land to protect it. Half the funds will go to the federal government half to state and local governments and for the first time ever a tribal Conservation Land Acquisition program has been set up to allow tribal governments to buy land to protect nature.

The Department of Transportation announced that it had managed to get customers nearly $1 Billion dollars worth of flight reimbursements. The DoT reached an agreement with 3 airlines, Lufthansa, KLM, and South African Airways to pay between them $900 million to passengers effected by Covid related cancellations and delays. This adds to the $4 billion dollars of refunds and reimbursements to airline passengers under the Biden Administration.

The Department of Interior announced $725 million to clean up legacy coal pollution. This is the 3rd pay out from the $11.3 billion dollars President Biden signed into law in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to clean up coal pollution and invest in communities that used to rely on the coal industry. The money will be spent across 22 states and the Navajo Nation. Closing dangerous mine shafts, reclaim unstable slopes, improve water quality by treating acid mine drainage, and restore water supplies damaged by mining.

HUD launches the first of its kind investment program in manufactured homes. Manufactured homes represent a major market for affordable housing and the Biden Administration is the first to offer support to people trying to buy. HUD hopes the program will help 5,000 families and individuals buy their own home over the next 5 years.

The Department of the Interior announced $700 million for long-term water conservation projects across the Lower Colorado River Basin. The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million people, electric power to 7 US States and is a critical crucial resource for 30 Tribal nations and two Mexican states. The project hopes to save more than 700,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Mead. In the face of climate change causing a historic 23-year drought, there is record low water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The Biden Administration has moved aggressively to try to protect the Colorado River and make sure there's enough water in the West.

HUD makes $123 million for fighting Youth Homelessness available. This represents the 8th round of investment in Youth Homelessness since 2021 for a total of $440 million so far. The Biden Administration is focusing on innovative answers, like host homes, and kinship care models, with emphasis on creating equitable strategies to assist youth who are most vulnerable, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and youth with disabilities. This is part of the Biden Administration goal of cutting homelessness by 25% by the end of 2025

The Department of Agriculture announced a series of actions to strength Tribal food sovereignty. The USDA will grant tribes in Maine, Alaska, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington $42 million through the Indigenous Animals Harvesting and Meat Processing Grants to support native animal harvesting. $18 million for projects under the Tribal Forest Protection Act. As well as $2.3 million to support the service of Indigenous foods in school meal programs. The USDA also plans its first ever class of interns specifically focused on Tribal agriculture and food sovereignty. The USDA also plans to host a first ever international trade mission focused on Tribal Nation and Native Hawaiian Community businesses.

Bonus: President Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, and Secretaries of Defense Lloyd Austin and State Antony Blinken traveled to Normandy France to mark the 80th Anniversary of D-Day. They were joined by a handful of surviving veterans of the landings many over 100 years old.

[villain-crown]

regret | @jegulus-microfic | words: 1,255

critical care, part 4 (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9)

a Jegulus nurse!AU

Despite his conviction, James did not end up mustering the courage to ask Regulus out that day. He almost managed to get there a few times, but then Sirius would just pop out of nowhere with some meaningless side quest for him to work on. Each time James had finished doing what was asked of him, Regulus had moved on to busy himself with something else.

The next morning, James finally accepted that he had been left with no choice.

He would have to physically visit the “dungeons” himself.

Standing in front of the doors to the Slytherin cardiovascular intensive care unit two floors below Gryffindor, James took a few slow, steadying breaths. It was his lunch break and he was determined to finally speak with Regulus without Sirius running constant interference.

Do you want to go out sometime? he rehearsed in his head, swiping his badge to gain admission through the doors. No… more assertive. Let's go out sometime. Yeah, yeah that’s good—

“Who the hell are you?”

James pulled his gaze to find a Slytherin with platinum blond hair looking him over from behind the nurses’ station counter. She was perfectly put together in designer forest-green scrubs with a matching stethoscope clipped to her waist and her badge was decorated with multiple pins outlining her various professional awards and accomplishments.

James rolled his eyes upon recognizing her. “Oh come on Narcissa, we’ve worked together for five years!”

“Fine. What do you want, Potter?”

“To talk to Regulus,” he declared bravely.

Narcissa lifted a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “He’s busy.”

“I know,” James replied quickly. “I just need like thirty seconds to—“

“Did they finish up the chest tube?” Narcissa interrupted him to address her sister, Andromeda, who had just exited the patient room right behind him.

“Yeah, Slughorn’s fellow finally gave up on the resident and just shoved it in himself. This whole river of nasty yellow pus shot out of her left lung. It was wild. Hey, James. What are you doing here?”

James blinked as the conversation suddenly twisted back around to include him. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Narcissa cut him off.

“He’s here for Regulus, apparently.”

Suddenly, both of them were sizing him up. Their critical gaze made him wish he’d thought to iron his burgundy scrubs or something. “Have you told him what happened to the last guy who was ‘here for Regulus?’”

“C’mon guys, I just want to talk to him.”

“Talk to him or sleep with him?”

James jumped as Bellatrix, the third Black sister, appeared from fucking thin air right at his elbow.

“Bloody hell, Bellatrix, where did you even come from!?”

“Excuse you, you’re the one barging onto my unit trying to filch our baby cousin.”

“You just snuck—“

“Potter,” Narcissa interrupted impatiently, tapping her wristwatch. “We have a fresh heart coming in. You’ve got till then to convince us we won’t regret this.”

“Lunch,” James replied quickly, straightening up. “I just want to take him to lunch, I swear.”

“Are you single?”

James flinched. “W-what?”

Bellatrix snapped her fingers in his face. “You’ve got sixty seconds. Don’t waste our time. Are. You. Single?”

“Yes!”

“You like our little cousin?”

“Yes… ma’am.”

“Are you fucking anyone at the moment?”

“Bella!”

“Are you?”

“No!”

Bellatrix’s dark navy eyes bored into him like she wanted to crawl into his head and take a good long look around. “Hm. To the cafeteria and back only—and keep your hands to yourself or I’ll snap them off and use them to hold pressure on room 18’s hematoma. You’d better buy his lunch.”

James had just enough time to gape at the Black sisters before the double doors to the unit opened and a procession of operating room staff came inching through, a heavily sedated heart transplant patient transported among them.

Seizing the distraction, James backed away quickly to locate Regulus, who he found resetting his workspace after a procedure, preparing an incredibly unstable older man for the next rocky hour of hanging onto life. Partially-clotted blood stained the floor, hastily covered by surgical towels from when they’d inserted an emergency dialysis line in the patient’s neck. A machine to filter his blood had been set up near the ventilator.

Regulus looked very cute in his Slytherin-green jogger scrubs and soft fleece zip-up. The loose coal curls atop his head shifted with each turn of his neck and his slight frame just made James want to scoop him up and put him on his lap.

“What, Potter?” Regulus finally asked when he’d hovered in the hallway for over a minute, depositing the last of the capped needles into the sharps container.

Let's go out sometime, he coached himself. C’mon, Potter, you’ve got this! Let’s go out some—

“Lunch!” he blurted out. “Er, Bellatrix said you can take your lunch now.”

“What?” Regulus frowned, glancing at the clock. “It’s barely noon.”

“We should go,” James said quickly. “At the same time, I mean. Together.”

Regulus quirked a dark brow, his silver eyes sizing James up in the bright hospital lighting as he paused in changing his dialysis machine’s filter. “Together?”

“To the same place.”

“I’m not a bloody idiot. I know what ‘together’ means.”

“Great! Let’s go!”

Regulus tilted his head in amusement. “Listen, Potter… you’re a bit of an idiot so I’m going to spell this out for you.”

Oh please spell out “take me, I’m yours.”

“I don’t get any nicer than this and some of my needs aren’t easily met.”

James felt his heart rate pick up. Fuuuck, he was in trouble. Sirius was going to kill him. Bellatrix was going to throw him off the roof of the critical care tower. He really did just mean to ask Regulus to lunch; maybe get to know each other a bit, make plans for the weekend.

But the mouth on him!

“I’m very good at meeting needs.”

Regulus didn’t seem to buy that. “Really?” he drawled, looking James up and down with obvious doubt, making the Gryffindor bristle.

“What makes you think I can’t?”

“You strike me as a bit too… sweet; people please-y. You’re aware that my stupid brother has forbidden everyone in this hospital from making anything resembling a pass at me?”

“It’s just lunch.”

“Is it?”

“Do you want it to be?”

Regulus smirked, taking the three slow steps necessary to close the distance between them, pushing himself up on his toes to breathe in James’s ear.

“The things I like might be a bit much for you.”

“I think you’re really underestimating the things we’ve already done in my head.”

Coming back down on his heels, Regulus ran his tongue over his teeth before biting down on his lower lip. “Hm. I’m intrigued. Fine, I’ll get Snape to cover my patients. You’d better have more to offer than that dazed look on your face, Potter.”

With that, Regulus walked away.

…Holy shit.

HOLY SHIT!

He had a lunch date with Regulus Black!

Left alone with his raging thoughts and a sedated patient, James fumbled with his phone to send a frantic text.

To ‼️📣Marlene📣‼️:

If he meets my parents on Friday, I can propose on Saturday, and spend all of Sunday absolutely railing him.

Looks like I have weekend plans ❤️❤️❤️

From ‼️📣Marlene📣‼️:

There’s no saving you anymore, Potter. You have a death wish, and at this point, you frankly deserve it.

RIP when Sirius finds out what you’re doing ☠️

[alishaaxo]

List of All Elia Martell-centric fics I enjoy:

Elia Martell And The Crown She Didn’t Want: AU where she marries Baelor Hightower yet Rhaegar is longing for her, which is unreciprocated.

Two Father’s, One Son: Everyone Lives AU where Jon Snow dies unexpectedly and Elia comes back to KL, married to Baelor Hightower.

The Isle Of Faces Does Not Welcome: Elia and Rhaegar have a third child, and Elia confronts Lyanna. No bashing of her, from Lyanna’s POV.

Clean AU: Elia and children are missing, assumed dead for 15 years, until a mystery knight returns to KL, claiming the blue roses his mother deserves.

The Queen And Her Bastard: Everyone Lives AU. Legitimised bastard Jon with sympathetic Lyanna slowly turned more cunning against Elia. Jon-Aegon have positive relationship, in spite of their mother’s ambitions.

The Brightest Sun: Elia and kids transported to Harry Potter Epilogue era. Train and arrive to Westeros during GOT. 200K words.

Poetry is what he thought, but did not say: Erik Kilmonger as Rhaegar. Ruthless Elia with ruthless Rhaegar who has a controversial temperament and bad reputation. Interesting dynamic with Barristan, Arthur and Aerys.

Dragons spin and spin: Spiders weave and weave: Mainly Elia Martell AU oneshot collection, with other characters included.

A tigress, not a woman: Elia Martell scorned by Rhaegar, wants for a annulment. Elia beloved by the Smallfolk.

Poison is a Woman’s Weapon: Queen Regent Elia watches on as Aegon gets crowned, reminiscing on the past.

An unexpected news item: Elia Martell gets shocking news. Very exaggerated bashing of Lyanna.

With Careful Hands and A Strong Chin: Doran died as a babe, Elia is the heir to Dorne. Arthur-Elia.

With Duty In Mind: Elia and Rhaella clean up Rhaegar’s messes.

Gone Girl: Elia dies only to wake up before her wedding. She runs away, with Rhaegar following suit in her trail in regret.

In The Chaos Of A World: Rhaegar dies while Lyanna and Elia live to see Robert ascend. Robert-Elia not in a romantic light, but political.

Caged Beasts And Cloudy Skies: Braime-centric, yet Elia-focused as they wish to crown her after the scorn from R+L, and bring her to rest at her homeland.

Lex Talionis: SIOC of Elia, takes the war into her own hands. Jaime-Elia centric.

Lady of Stormsend: Annulled Elia-Rhaegar, yet Elia married Robert and jealousy and resentment arises.

From Where Blessings Flow: Robert and Elia marry, yet the Realm is not settled as Aegon and Rhaenys grow. With Rhaenys-Viserys.

Living With Regret Of The Chance Not Taken: Rhaegar and Lyanna are married, while Elia, Aegon and Rhaenys are missing… until they are not. And life turns on it’s head. No bashing, just critical of R+L.

Planetos React: Modern AU react to historical figures Elia, Aegon, Rhaenys and Jaime found within tombs, and go wild on tumblr.

But A Woman Is A Changling (always shifting shape: My fic!! Selfless promo! Elia has a green-dress moment ala Alicent where she shows pride in her heritage and snarks towards Rhaegar and Lyanna.

This is all the Elia-centric fics I know of and enjoy! If you have any, please comment them and I’ll add them to this masterlist!!

[willtheweaver]

A writer’s guide to forests: traveling through the woods

Getting from point A to point B is something that both people in real life and the characters of your story will have to figure out. Whether as a means to get to a plot point, or as a part of the plot itself, travel presents opportunities for the writer.

Hack ‘n slash- Where paths are nonexistent, your characters will literally have to blaze a trail (the ‘blaze’ in this case has nothing to do with fire. Instead it is a trail marker made by carving a mark into a tree. The mark resembles the white patch seen on the forehead of mammals, most often horses.) Being the pioneer is slow going, especially if the undergrowth is thick and requires clearing. Cut bamboo can go through the foot, poison oak and poison ivy can give a nasty rash, and biting insects can make life miserable. And then there is the matter of marking the trail. A character on the run will not want to advertise their location and will do their best to keep their trail hidden. But for others, they will want to mark the trail. Stone cairns, arrows, blaze marks in trees, and even sticks and knotted grass can point out the path to other travelers. This can be helpful to others, but it can also present a danger. Thieves and outlaws can create false trails that lead travelers into a trap or ambush.

Game trails- Animals have their habits. They like to take the same path between places. Over time these develop into trails that crisscross the forest floor. For a character on the run, or those who needs to make haste, these are a tempting choice to follow. But be careful. Some animals are able to traverse terrain too difficult for humans (narrow ledges, near vertical faces, and the gaps underneath fallen trees are not fun places to be). And your characters may encounter more than deer or rabbits. Predator species hang out around game trails as they can be fruitful hunting grounds.

Existing paths and roads- Roads can range from simple dirt paths to paved highways. These will be the most direct routes between the principle settlements in your story. Prosperous areas will have well maintained roads with travelers and patrols using them frequently. Characters may also encounter watchtowers, farms, and inns along the way. Poorer regions, those affected by war, or more remote regions will have less well maintained roads, fewer travelers, and few to no amenities between towns. And if your characters can use the roads, expect hostile armies, outlaws, and highwaymen to use them as well. And where the roads go may be limited to the most populated regions, forcing your characters to leave the path if they want to get to isolated villages, caves, temples, or even a wizard’s tower.

Use the water- Of course, you can have your characters forgo land transportation and use the rivers, lakes, and seas. Rafts, ferry boats, and ocean going ships are all viable options. It should be noted that these are not perfect solutions. Rapids and waterfalls will force characters back onto land until they find gentler waters. Storms can delay or sink vessels, and cold winters will freeze water over. Of course, a frozen river or lake is just an excuse to get out the ice skates. Droughts will dry up streams and small lakes, and recent rains can turn placid waters into unsurvivable whitewater.

Up in the trees- Hate to burst your bubble here, but swinging from vines is something that only exists in fiction. If you try to do this in real life, it will not work out well…provided you can even find sufficient vines or fig roots. Of course, in your story, you are free to do what you want. Nothing is going to stop you…well except maybe for your readers and the critics who will pan you for using what may be considered an overused and unoriginal trope. Other options include bridges, cable cars, or even zip lines.

Taking flight- Of course, the forest will not pose an obstacle if your characters can simply fly. This can be achieved by characters that possess wings of some sort. They could have a winged mount, or they could hitch a ride on a vehicle like a helicopter or ultralight plane.

Underground- If in doubt, take a cue from moles and dwarves. Tunnels can serve the same function as roads, with all the benefits and drawbacks included. Of course your characters will also have to be aware that cave-ins are a real and present danger. These can be natural, or deliberate sabotage. And your characters best hope all the recent tunneling hasn’t awaken any ancient evils from long ago…

[canary-prince]

Ways For US-Americans To Help If You're Abstaining From Voting

Can't vote on moral grounds, but still raring to do something? Stuck in America and unsure of how to meaningfully serve your community? Here are some ideas that I, a social worker serving house-bound citizens, can share out of personal experience. Feel free to add other ideas or links. We are not powerless.

Volunteer (these are just examples/sources of info)

Planned Parenthood needs volunteers for nearly every non-medical department

See if your state has a volunteer stewardship program, where you can help weed out invasive plant species and defend your natural ecosystem

If you have medical skills, become a street medic

Contribute to the preservation of Queer History

Put your labor towards the upkeep or repair of properties in Indigenous communities

Adult literacy is not great right now, and we're harder to lie to if we're literate; volunteer to help your neighbors who were failed by the school system

Resources to help the unhoused constantly need volunteer counselors, cooks, and someone to sort donations

The sick and elderly are very under-served, particularly if they're broke, so reach out to a local hospice to see what skills they need

Give (if you can't physically volunteer but have money to spare)

Donate to an abortion fund; this one is for Native peoples specifically

Donate to a book gifting program or book mobile; this link is for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Donate to preserve the histories of communities of color; this fund is specifically for preserving African American historical sites

Donate to protect the natural environment

Donate to help free those caged in prisons; this link is for the Innocence Project, which aims to challenge wrongful convictions

The arts are for everyone, but wealth gaps interfere; this fund is for art initiatives that contribute to community building, including increasing accessibility

Learn (resources that many communities have but aren't widely educated on)

Community Action Agencies: these are non-profits and private companies that act in service of their communities' human rights and quality of life. Many have utility funds, run food banks, manage emergency shelters, provide education and job skills opportunities, and participate in social activism.

Area Agencies on Aging: Non-profits that serve elders (and non-elderly disabled citizens) in a designated service area. They primarily offer services to prolong independent living (free or low cost in home care, meals on wheels, home safety modifications, and Medicare guidance) or help with transition into assisted living.

Habitat For Humanity: They aren't just in disaster zones or on foreign soil; they have local US chapters that provide critical repairs to families in need. They repair roofs, address barriers to access, and perform electric and plumbing work.

Durable Medical Equipment Loan Closets: Communal sources of vital medical equipment including wheelchairs, walkers, canes, hospital beds, shower chairs, and more. May be able to provide incontinence supplies or diabetes supplies. Rarely but sometimes provide oxygen.

Non Emergency Medical Transportation/Alternatives to Mass Transit: Transportation for elderly, disabled, cognitively impaired, and low income citizens to help them reach medical providers, dental care, physical therapy, and eye exam appointments. Can also provide transit to shopping centers, the grocery store, religious events, cultural events, and polling stations. Offer door to door services for the housebound. IF YOU HAVE MEDICAID, YOU SHOULD NOT EVER BE PAYING FOR THIS. MEDICAID IS OBLIGATED TO MAKE SURE YOU REACH ANY AND ALL MEDICAL APPOINTMENTS.

Legal Aid Clinics: Sources of pro-bono or sliding scale legal advice and representation.

[dailyadventureprompts]

DM Tip: The Trouble With Treasure/ An Alternate Wealth System

If you’re a player or dungeonmaster who’s at all interested in game design you might’ve noticed D&D’s treasure and economy systems suck. You also might have noticed even if you’re not interested in game design, because the longer you play d&d the more it becomes glaringly obvious that the game doesn’t actually HAVE a treasure and economy system despite pretending otherwise.  This is a major problem given that seeking riches is one of the default adventuring motivations, and largely stems from the fact that back in ye-olden days gold was directly related to experience points, so wealth accrued exponentially in line with the increasing cost of levelling up. This is why magic items cost to damn much despite being not only a staple of the genre but absolutely necessary to the long-term viability of certain classes (as I discuss here in my post about gear as class features).  

After being cut lose however, nothing was really DONE with gold in d&d from a gameplay perspective: Treasure generation largely fell to dm discretion or random tables, and the useful things a party could buy steadily shrunk to the point where characters could be stuck with their starting equipment for an entire campaign.  “Too much gold and nothing to spend it on” became one of the major criticisms of d&d 5e, but only touched on the problem that without something worthwhile to spend treasure on the party has less and less reason to venture into the dangerous unknown, take dodgy contracts, or perform any of a half dozen other plot beats that make up traditional adventuring.

 The system likewise breaks down once you pass a certain threshold of wealth, or once you try to model larger economic activities: divvying up a lockbox full of dungeon plunder to reequip your heroes before launching out on the next mission works great for the first couple of levels, but completely falls apart when you're dealing common enough story tropes such as running a business, transporting cargo as merchants, or caring for the estates around a castle.

What I propose is splitting d&d’s economy into two halves: Wealth, which represents the piles of GP and other coins the party carries with them, and Resources, more abstract points which chart how plugged in the party is to local systems of production, trade, and patronage.

If you’d like an explanation of how these systems work, and how they can improve your game like they improved mine, I’ll explain both of these mechanics in detail below the cut, as well as subsystems that let your party open businesses, operate estates, build castles, and make a living as merchants.

Wealth:  I wanted to limit the amount of money my players kept with them without instituting an encumbrance system that might drag things down. Instead I wanted to rely on a more “common sense” method of tracking wealth, and get them thinking about their stores of gold as a physical object rather than a nebulous point pool they can dip into.

Conveniently, every character starts play with a coin pouch, which can hold up to 300gp (about 6 pounds). I use this as a “soft cap” for how much money a character can be expected to be carrying around with them, not including jewellery or small valuables like gems.

Theoretically a person could have more than one coin pouch, carry their wealth around with them in a chest (15,000gp) or a cartoon sack with a dollar sign on it (1500gp), but this becomes increasingly cumbersome and provides a greater and greater chance that the party will be targeted by thieves. I don’t need to add any more mechanical crunch to this factor, I just inform the party “ hey, you look like you’re carrying a lot of money, better be careful going forward” and plan my encounters accordingly.

Instituting this cap likewise prevents gold from losing all meaning once the party is high enough level to have found their second or third treasure hoard. Sure, they might be living it up in an aristocratic lifestyle back home, but when it comes to set out into the wilderness they suddenly have to think of GP as a resource along with spellslots and hitdie. Getting robbed, forced to give bribes, or simply losing their coin pouch suddenly becomes an actual threat to them regardless of level.

Resources:  The party has a pool refereed to as resources, representing their holdings, relationships with patrons, and personal enterprise. The party’s total resources are pooled, and are represented on a scale from 1-50.

Every week, provided they have contract with their economic network, each member of the party party receives earnings equal to 12.5 gp x (the party’s total resources) representing them drawing a living from the connections they’ve already made (working a trade, doing odd jobs, getting payouts from investments) 

In order to obtain a new level of wealth, the party must either invest 500gp per point of wealth they which to obtain into a new or ongoing business project (either their own, or that of a trusted contact).  Alternatively, the party can get their resource pool boosted by forming agreements with tradesfolk or wealthy patrons, who may grant the party such agreements out of friendship or as part of a reward for doing quests. Resources are recorded with a number beside them, representing how much of the party’s total resource pool they represent. This is so that if something happens to jeopardize that resource, the party knows exactly how much of their earnings are up in the air.

For example, a party that saves a merchant captain from pirates early on in their adventures might be rewarded with a share of her ship’s takings, gaining 1 point of resources. In the future, they may pour some of their adventuring loot into her business, increasing their total amount of holdings with her to 6, and their weekly payout to 75gp. If that captain and her ship were then lost in a storm, those resources would be frozen, halting the party’s payouts and encouraging them to discover just what it was happened to their friend as the base of a new adventurehook. 

Buying against Resources:  D&D is weird in that it prices magic items, ships and castles like they can be bought off the rack, when in any pre-industrial society most “new” things would have to be constructed from scratch with labours and artisans paid a steady amount over months or years until the thing was complete and then delivering it directly into the hands of the one who commissioned them. Sure a weaponsmith or apothecary would likely have a storeroom full of items to sell to clients walking in off the street, but shipyards aren't spending years churning out galleys to leave them waiting for a buyer like a used car lot.

Because plenty of games involve at least a section where a party might establish a fortress,  fix up a ruined estate, or commission a magical artifact, it helps to have a guideline:  Find the base price of the item, chop it in half if the party or one of their business contacts can source the resources (or if they’re fixing something that’s broken) Next they need to pay for labour, “reserving” points out of their own resource pool to hire on workers and supplementary materials, divide the item’s price by (500x the number of resource points the party is willing to spend) to find how many months it’ll take for the item to be finished. Note that during this time, the party’s effective resource score is reduced by the amount they’ve reserved. This makes it possible for a mid level party to start refurbishing their dream castle early, rather than having it simply poof into existence once they’re too high level to really get use out of it.

Ongoing Services: Rather than worry about keeping track of hirelings, or a number of other factors, I let my party reserve points off their resource pool indefinitly to retain the services of NPCs. Each “holding” the party has (buisness, ship, estate) likewise requires one resource kept in reservation for general maintenance, unless the party want to take a month off and maintain it themselves.

A party that owned a tavern then might reserve one resource to maintain their establishment , another to pay for the staff, and begin to think about hiring on some guards for a third as something is causing fights to break out more frequently.

Another party which owned a pirate ship, they’d reserve one resource to maintain the ship, another to pay the crew, and a third to bribe the harbormaster who looks the other way when they bring unsanctioned goods into harbor. After hearing about their big score however, their corrupt contact asks for yet another resource worth of bribes, potentially stretching the party’s resources a bit thin.

Using Resources to be a merchant:  If pirates come up often in this post it’s because I drove myself half mad several years ago trying to run a skyship campaign, and the logistics of hullspace v supplies v the staggering price of trade goods v market demand drove me up the wall. I lacked a simple system that would let my party FEEL like they were high-risk traders without having to slow the game down with accounting. Here’s my Alternative: there’s a special type of resource called “goods” connected to caravans and trade vessels, which can be expanded like any other. At the end of every month who’s ever in charge of that venture (Player or npc) makes a mercantilism roll ( possibly charisma, possibly wisdom, + some relevant proficiency) for each of those goods based against a DC set by the dm regarding how good trade is doing in that region.  If it’s a success, the markets are flowing, and the goods rating goes up by 1. If it’s a failure, they go nowhere, as no profit is made. If they fail by 10 or more, those goods loose one point due to bad investment, and if they succeed by 10 or more, the goods double. When the party receives their payment, they can chose to cash out for 500gp per point of good, possibly then reinvesting in the venture.

[autisticadvocacy]

Today, we are celebrating the first ever Disability Reproductive Equity Day. In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This decision has disproportionately impacted disabled people, who faced many barriers to abortion access even before Dobbs, including provider bias and lack of training on provision of care to disabled people, inaccessible facilities and medical equipment, inaccessible public and private transportation, and the Hyde Amendment. Abortion justice is disability justice, and for the first ever Disability Reproductive Equity Day today, we are advocating for disabled people to be able to access safe and affordable abortions. Legislation like the Reproductive Health Care Accessibility Act, the EACH Act, and the Women’s Health Protection Act would play a critical role in this access. #DisCoRepro

[utilitycaster]

Level-up post: Bells Hells L13

girl help usually I draft these well in advance but I forgot about this one so it's going to be a little shorter and probably less pithy. Anyway as always: corrections on errors appreciated, but if I didn't list every single possible spell or feat someone could take then that's because I don't care. And, because we do the level-ups like this rather than at the end of a session, this will include L14 speculation. Without further ado:

Everyone's proficiency bonus goes up to +5, and the non-multiclassed full spellcasters (Imogen and FCG) get access to 7th level spells.

Chetney: Chetney took another level in Blood Hunter, granting him an ASI/Feat. On the one hand, his wisdom score is odd and so an ASI to that makes sense. On the other hand fuck WIS forever and ever amen; CON, STR, and INT are all way more important for him and for this party. Orym can perceive enough for everyone. L13 Blood Hunter is a nice one that grants him an additional use of blood maledict, as well as the Brand of Tethering which is both thematically appropriate for the campaign and could REALLY ruin Ludinus's day.

Laudna: Another sorcerer level, which grants her more metamagic, and Marisha said in the video she'd be taking Empowered Spell. She also learns another spell up to 5th level, and another cantrip. Frankly I have no idea for cantrips since between two casting classes with cantrips, her subclasses, and spell sniper, she is Cantrips Georg, but Seeming and Teleportation Circle are both pragmatic options that would help the party; Creation and Insect Plague are both aesthetically apt; and Dominate Person, while coming from her sorcery, does have that touch of Delilah. Looking forward I must admit that warlock is infinitely more useful and interesting but it's probably wiser to get 6th level spells.

FCG: FCG's main improvement here is access to 7th level spells; these are pretty great for clerics. I am personally a fan of Divine Word, and Plane Shift seems likely quite useful, but Regenerate and Resurrection are good to have available. L14 for clerics is quiet and simply improves their ability to destroy undead, as is 15, which grants them 8th level spells.

Fearne: Fearne took a 10th level in Druid, granting her another cantrip and another 5th level spell. She gets Cauterizing Flames, which is a little like Wither and Bloom or some of the Circle of the Shepherd features: when a small or larger creature dies within 30 feet of her or Little Mister, she can use a reaction to either heal a creature within 30 feet of the dead creature, or deal fire damage to it. This may become immediately useful if we're fighting Liliana or Otohan. I am hoping she levels up to 11 in Druid at the next level up, which would give her Transport via Plants and Wind Walk access, making the party a little less reliant on Keyleth. As for her cantrip, I'm thinking Druidcraft would be fun since she doesn't have it and it's been so useful on Ruidus.

Imogen: Imogen gets 7th level spells, of which Teleport is a clear winner, particularly since FCG can take Plane Shift, but there are some of my favorite damage/fuckery spells in there (Prismatic Spray, Reverse Gravity, and Delayed Blast Fireball). Level 14 gives her Revelation in Flesh. I must admit I'd be more psyched about this if she'd leaned into the slime aspects of the subclass, but I am interested in seeing how it gets modified because I don't think she should get the swim speed if she won't grow weird cilia and gills; the other features can stay though.

Orym: In addition to having the stupidest passive perception score on the moon, he also gains another use of indomitable. Level 14 gives him an ASI/Feat and really he can't go wrong here; because he got feats from his pact I'm thinking an ASI to CON to make him even more of a tank would be fun, but fighters get so many feats that he can really go nuts.

Ashton: Base barbarian ability of Brutal Critical goes up to 2 dice from 1, giving them the ability to do more damage when they crit. Eyes peeled for his next level-up, when he gets his final Path of Fundamental Chaos feature!

[she-is-ovarit]

Ashli Streeter said Stevens Transport did not hire her because it had no women to train her. Credit...Montinique Monroe for The New York Times

The trucking industry has complained for years that there is a dire shortage of workers willing to drive big rigs. But some women say many trucking companies have made it effectively impossible for them to get those jobs. Trucking companies often refuse to hire women if the businesses do not have women available to train them. And because fewer than 5 percent of truck drivers in the United States are women, there are few female trainers to go around. The same-sex training policies are common across the industry, truckers and legal experts say, even though a federal judge ruled in 2014 that it was unlawful for a trucking company to require that female job candidates be paired only with female trainers. Ashli Streeter of Killeen, Texas, said she had borrowed $7,000 to attend a truck driving school and earn her commercial driving license in hopes of landing a job that would pay more than the warehouse work she had done. But she said Stevens Transport, a Dallas-based company, had told her that she couldn’t be hired because the business had no women to train her. Other trucking companies turned her down for the same reason. “I got licensed, and I clearly could drive,” Ms. Streeter said. “It was disheartening.” Ms. Streeter and two other women filed a complaint against Stevens Transport with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Thursday, contending that the company’s same-sex training policy unfairly denied them driving jobs. The commission investigates allegations made against employers, and, if it determines a violation has occurred, it may bring its own lawsuit. The commission had brought the lawsuit that resulted in the 2014 federal court decision against similar policies at another trucking company, Prime. Critics of the industry said the persistence of same-sex training nearly a decade after that ruling, which did not set national legal precedent, was evidence that trucking companies had not done enough to hire women who could help solve their labor woes. “It’s frustrating to see that we have not evolved at all,” said Desiree Wood, a trucker who is the president and founder of Real Women in Trucking, a nonprofit. Ms. Wood’s group is joining the three women in their E.E.O.C. complaint against Stevens, which was filed by Peter Romer-Friedman, a labor lawyer in Washington, and the National Women’s Law Center. Companies that insist on using women to train female applicants generally do so because they want to avoid claims of sexual harassment. Trainers typically spend weeks alone with trainees on the road, where the two often have to sleep in the same cab. Critics of same-sex training acknowledge that sexual harassment is a problem, but they say trucking companies should address it with better vetting and anti-harassment programs. Employers could reduce the risk of harassment by paying for trainees to sleep in a hotel room, which some companies already do. Women made up 4.8 percent of the 1.37 million truck drivers in the United States in 2021, according to the most recent government statistics, up from 4 percent a decade earlier. Long-haul truck driving can be a demanding job. Drivers are away from home for days. Yet some women say they are attracted to it because it can pay around $50,000 a year, with experienced drivers making a lot more. Truck driving generally pays more than many other jobs that don’t require a college degree, including those in retail stores, warehouses or child care centers.

The infrastructure act of 2021 required the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to set up an advisory board to support women pursuing trucking careers and identify practices that keep women out of the profession. Robin Hutcheson, the administrator of the agency, said requiring same-sex training would appear to be a barrier to entry. “If that is happening, that would be something that we would want to take a look at,” she said in an interview. Ms. Streeter, a mother of three, said she had applied to Stevens because it hired people straight out of trucking school. She told Stevens representatives that she was willing to be trained by a man, but to no avail. Bruce Dean, general counsel at Stevens, denied the allegations in the suit. “The fundamental premise in the charge — that Stevens Transport Inc. only allows women trainers to train women trainees — is false,” he said in a statement, adding that the company “has had a cross-gender training program, where both men and women trainers train female trainees, for decades.” Some legal experts said that, although same-sex training was ruled unlawful in only one federal court, trucking companies would struggle to defend such policies before other judges. Under federal employment discrimination law, employers can seek special legal exemptions to treat women differently from men, but courts have granted them very rarely. “Basically, what the law says is that a company needs to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” said Deborah Brake, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who specializes in employment and gender law. “They need to be able to give women equal employment opportunities and prevent and remedy sexual harassment.” Ms. Streeter said she had made meager earnings from infrequent truck driving gigs while hoping to get a position at Stevens. Later this month, she will become a driver in the trucking fleet of a large retailer. Kim Howard, one of the other women who filed the E.E.O.C. complaint against Stevens, said she was attracted to truck driving by the prospect of a steady wage after working for decades as an actor in New York. “It was very much a blow,” she said of being rejected because of the training policy. “I honestly don’t know how I financially made it through.” Ms. Howard, who is now employed at another trucking company, said she had worked briefly at a company where she was trained by two men who treated her well. “It’s quite possible for a woman to be trained by a man, and a man to be a professional about what the job is,” she said. Other female drivers said they had been mistreated by male trainers who could be relentlessly dismissive and sometimes refused to teach them important skills, like reversing a truck with a large trailer attached. Rowan Kannard, a truck driver from Wisconsin who is not involved in the complaint against Stevens, said a male trainer had spent little time training her on a run to California in 2019. At a truck stop where she felt unsafe, Ms. Kannard said, the trainer demanded that she leave the cab — and then locked her out. She asked to stop the training and was flown back to Wisconsin. Yet she said she did not believe that same-sex training for women was necessary. “Some of these men that are training, they should probably go through a course.” Click the article to read more. The author is Peter Eavis.

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

"Disabilities create multidimensional impacts, and experts agree that the entire disability community is at greater risk of suffering from the negative impacts of climate change. It’s imperative that disabled people have access to education on disaster response, communicating with emergency responders, and self-care at a level that is least restrictive and appropriate. Every disability and experience creates a unique situation, and even well-trained responders will need a way to communicate with individuals about their specific needs. A disabled person is two to four times more likely to die or be critically injured in a climate-related disaster due to lack of access to information, lack of transportation or accessible emergency shelters, and mobility limitations. "

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week.

January 19-26 2024

The Energy Department announced its pausing all new liquefied natural gas export facilities. This puts a pause on export terminal in Louisiana which would have been the nation's largest to date. The Department will use the pause to study the climate impact of LNG exports. Environmentalists cheer this as a major win they have long pushed for.

The Transportation Department announced 5 billion dollars for new infrastructure projects. The big ticket item is 1 billion dollars to replace the 60 year old Blatnik Bridge between Superior, Wisconsin, and Duluth, Minnesota which has been dangerous failing since 2017. Other projects include $600 million to replace the 1-5 bridge between Vancouver, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, $427 million for the first offshore wind terminal on the West Coast, $372 million to replace the 90 year old Sagamore Bridge that connects Cape Cod to the mainland,$300 million for the Port of New Orleans, and $142 million to fix the I-376 corridor in Pittsburgh.

the White House Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access announced new guidance that requires insurance companies must cover contraceptive medications under the Affordable Care Act. The Biden Administration also took actions to make sure contraceptive medications would be covered under Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and Federal Employee Health Benefits Program. HHS has launched a program to educate all patients about their rights to emergency abortion medical care under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. This week marks 1 year since President Biden signed a Presidential Memorandum seeking to protect medication abortion and all federal agencies have reported on progress implementing it.

A deal between Democrats and Republicans to restore the expand the Child Tax Credit cleared its first step in Congress by being voted out of the House Ways and Means Committee. The Child Tax Credit would affect 16 million kids in the first year and lift 400,000 out of poverty. The Deal also includes an expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit which will lead to 200,000 new low income rental units being built, and also tax relief to people affected by natural disasters

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted for a bill to allow President Biden to seize $5 billion in Russian central bank assets. Biden froze the assets at the beginning of Russia's war against Ukraine, but under this new bill could distribute these funds to Ukraine, Republican Rand Paul was the only vote against.

The Senate passed the "Train More Nurses Act" seeking to address the critical national shortage of nurses. It aims to increase pathways for LPNs to become RNs as well as a review of all nursing programs nationally to see where improvements can be made

3 more Biden Judges were confirmed, bring the total number of Judges appointed by President Biden to 171. For the first time in history the majority of federal judge nominees have not been white men. Biden has also appointed Public Defenders and civil rights attorneys breaking the model of corporate lawyers usually appointed to life time federal judgeships

[prolekult]

Yesterday marked the death of Sylvia Pankhurst - one of the finest revolutionary communists to have ever graced Britain's shores. We have rarely seen such fighters on this earth.

Sylvia was the most tortured suffragette, targetted for her insistence on including working class women within the demands of women's suffrage (much to the disdain of her mother and sister). She did not balk against repeated forced feeding, hunger striking and sleep striking.

She was one of a handful of communists in Britain who opposed the first world war. Her criticism of the war was ceaseless. Practically isolated, she organised relief for working class people in London with cost-price restaurants, free child care for mothers, and more.

She broke with the Labour Party over this, and never returned despite the enormous pressure put upon her by the British labour movement and, later, the Third Internationale. Her arguments with Lenin remain a key debate in communist and British politics.

Pankhurst stood resolutely with the Bolshevik revolution at its outbreak, and was pivotal in organising the "Hands Off Russia" campaign in Britain - which culminated in dock workers across the country refusing to load any munitions to ships.

Pankhurst was an outspoken opponent of racism. Her newspaper - then the Worker's Dreadnought - was the first newspaper in Britain to hire black journalists. When articles written by the Jamaican journalist, Claude McKay, were viewed as seditious, she went to jail for him.

Her support for Irish independence never wavered. She supported Larkin, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union and United Builders' Labourers Union during the Dublin lock-outs. She stood by the Irish Citizen Army during the Easter Rising.

She was one of the first in Britain to recognise the dangers of fascism, her warnings and agitation beginning as early as 1920. Through this struggle, she became deeply involved in Ethiopian national liberation, where she spent the last years of her life.

All of this is just the tip of the iceberg of the contributions Sylvia made in her life. She did all of this at great cost to herself, enduring her mother and sister denouncing her in the press repeatedly, endless slander, rejection by the mainstream communist movement and worse.

Sylvia also belongs to the great pantheon of disabled revolutionaries, being diagnosed with endometriosis whilst in prison. This, along with the damage done to her organs by forced feeding, left her with often crippling stomach problems.

"I am going to fight capitalism even if it kills me. It is wrong that people like you should be comfortable and well fed while all around you people are starving." She fought until she died, but capitalism didn't kill her. At aged 78, Sylvia passed on.

She was given a state funeral in Ethiopia, and remains the only foreigner buried in the front of Holy Trinity Cathedral. An Ethiopian migrant, cited anonymously in Rachel Holmes' biography of Pankhurst, summed up what she meant to him thus:

"After God, Sylvia Pankhurst".

To learn more about Sylvia, we highly recommend Rachel Holmes' biography, "Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel".

[footprintsinthesxnd]

USAAF Flight Nurses

So as I’m currently collabing with @major-mads on a fic where our two ocs are flight nurses I thought I do a little post about them as they aren’t well know. I’ve also had a passion for ww2 nurses, including flight nurses and so I’ve really enjoyed sharing my flight nurse knowledge with Mads as we have written our fic. These woman were truly amazing, like many woman during ww2, so I thought I do a little factual post about them.

Before World War II, the U.S. military showed little interest in using aircraft and flight nurses to evacuate wounded soldiers to rear areas. However, the global war forced the US to revolutionise military medical care through the development of air evacuation, which was later known as aeromedical evacuation and flight nurses.

With the rapid expansion of USAAF air transport routes around the world it was made possible to fly wounded and sick servicemen quickly to hospitals far from the front lines. This helped save the lives of many wounded men, and the introduction of flight nurses helped make it possible.

Due to a pressing need for this service, the USAAF created medical air evacuation squadrons and started a rush training program for flight surgeons, medics and flight nurses at Bowman Field, near Louisville, Kentucky.

The increasing need for flight nurses became critical after the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942, however many of the nurses at Bowman Field had not finished their training. Nevertheless, the USAAF sent these nurses to North Africa on Christmas Day.

On Feb. 18, 1943, the U.S. Army Nurse Corps' first class of flight nurses formally graduated at Bowman Field.

Due to the C47s used as air evacuation also transported military supplies, they could not display the Red Cross. This meant that without any markings to indicate their non-combat status, these evacuation flights were vulnerable to enemy attacks. For this reason, flight nurses and medical technicians were volunteers.

To prepare for any emergency, flight nurses learned crash procedures, received survival training, and studied the effects of high altitude on various types of patients. They also had to be in top physical condition to care for patients during these rigorous flights.

Eventually, about 500 Army nurses served as members of 31 medical air evacuation transport squadrons operating worldwide. It is a tribute to their skill that of the 1,176,048 patients air evacuated throughout the war, only 46 died en route. Seventeen flight nurses lost their lives during the war.

The Flight Nurses Creed

I will summon every resource to prevent the triumph of death over life. I will stand guard over the medicines and equipment entrusted to my care and ensure their proper use. I will be untiring in the performances of my duties and I will remember that, upon my disposition and spirit, will in large measure depend the morale of my patients. I will be faithful to my training and to the wisdom handed down to me by those who have gone before me.I have taken a nurse's oath, reverent in man's mind because of the spirit and work of its creator, Florence Nightingale. She, I remember, was called the "Lady with the Lamp." It is now my privilege to lift this lamp of hope and faith and courage in my profession to heights not known by her in her time. Together with the help of flight surgeons and surgical technicians, I can set the very skies ablaze with life and promise for the sick, injured, and wounded who are my sacred charges. ...This I will do. I will not falter in war or in peace.

Here are a few of the real flight nurses from ww2 from left upper: Second Lieutenant Elsie S. Ott, upper right: first Lieutenant Suella Bernard.

Elsie S. Ott - As the flight nurse on the first intercontinental air evacuation flight, she demonstrated the potential of air evacuation in January 1943. She was an Army nurse who had never flown in an airplane and had no air evacuation training, she successfully oversaw the movement of five seriously ill patients from India to Washington, D.C. This six-day trip would have normally taken three months by ship and ground transportation. For her actions on this historic flight, Ott received the first Air Medal presented to a woman, and she also received formal flight nurse training.

Suella Bernard - On March 22, 1945, two CG-4A gliders landed in a clearing near the bridgehead at Remagen, Germany, to evacuate 25 severely injured American and German casualties. Once the gliders were loaded, C-47 transports successfully snatched them from their landing site and towed them to a military hospital in France. In the second glider, Suella who had volunteered for the mission, cared for the wounded en route. One of the first two nurses to fly into Normandy after the D-Day invasion, Bernard became the only nurse known to have participated in a glider combat mission during World War II. For this mission, she received the Air Medal.

Upper left: first Lieutenant Aleda E.Lutz Upper right: first Lieutenant Mary L. Hawkins

Aleda E. Lutz - One of the most celebrated flight nurses of World War II, she flew 196 missions and evacuated over 3,500 men. In November 1944, during an evacuation flight from the front lines near Lyon, France, her C-47 crashed killing all aboard. Aleda was awarded the Air Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters, and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Mary L. Hawkins - On Sept. 24, 1944, she was evacuating 24 patients from the fighting at Palau to Guadalcanal when the C-47 ran low on fuel. The pilot made a forced landing in a small clearing on Bellona Island. During the landing, a propeller tore through the fuselage and severed the trachea of one patient. Hawkins made a suction tube from various items including the inflation tube from a "Mae West." With this, she kept the man's throat clear of blood until aid arrived 19 hours later. All of her patients survived. For her actions, Hawkins received the Distinguished Flying Cross.

I hope you’ve all found this interesting and now have a greater understanding of flight nurses. If you’d like to read a fic on flight nurses please check out my fic ‘On a Wing and a Prayer’ and @major-mads fic ‘A Pair of Silver Wings’ a Masters of the Air collab.