thoughtportal - Tumblr blog

[thoughtportal]

when the March 1923 issue of Weird Tales hit newsstands, many people didn’t know what to make of this new magazine. But 100 years later, Weird Tales has had a huge influence on modern day sci-fi, fantasy and horror. I talk with authors John Locke and Will Murray, former Weird Tales editor Darrell Schweitzer, current Weird Tales editor Jonathan Maberry, and art collector Steve Korshak about how a scrappy publication often on the verge of bankruptcy inspired a cultural revolution.  

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The thing I think Tumblr understands really well that other social media struggles to remember is the people in your notes overwhelmingly are not talking to you. They’re taking your thing and responding or recontextualizing for their own audience.

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You're gonna call your congressperson or email or whatever, and you're gonna say, Good evening. My name is and I'm a constituent and voter in your district and a registered member of the Democratic Party reaching out regarding my concern over a potential Tik Tok ban. I would like to let you know that if Congress person supports the ban on tick tock, I will spend the next election cycle volunteering and fundraising for your opponent in the primary. The embarrassing display of under education of our elected officials regarding social media and technology in general during this week's congressional hearing, further solidified my stance against the potential tick tock ban. Further, this hearing has not convinced me in any way that tick tock is more of a threat to American data security than any other social media platform. First, data from American Tik Tok users is managed by Oracle on American soil. Oracle also hosts data from dozens of other platforms from meta to Epic and electronic health record data system. If we cannot trust Oracle to protect our tic toc data. Why can we trust it to protect our epic based private health information? Further, it has been made clear that other social media platforms including meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, are actively selling to foreign actors the data they have lobbied Congress to believe is at risk by tick tock. Tick tock has become a community for me. During the pandemic, I became an active member of book talk, which encouraged me to engage in reading for the first time in nearly a decade, I made countless friends gained a small following and felt truly engage with people from across the world over something we loved. Others have learned about political processes learned about individuals who live a different lifestyle than they do learn languages exchanged recipes, created restaurants, reviews, started and supported small businesses and so much more. This is a platform of togetherness. And to up on that over false claims of data privacy issues would be simply unAmerican. The implications for free speech will be far reaching, opening the door for future executive administrations and Congress's to limit what can be said on the internet and how it can be said without proper checks and balances. During the hearing. We consistently heard fear mongering about the Chinese government. And yet we aren't. We are on our own path to government censorship in the same step. I urge Congress person to be openly against any proposed tic tock ban and reiterate that if they choose to vote in favor of it, I will spend the next election cycle volunteering for and donating money to their opponent. I agree with many of the Congress person's political viewpoints and hope that they stay true to their commitment to free speech by voting against any proposed Tik Tok ban. Thank you for your time.

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tactics

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Other countries are watching to see what the US can get away with and will follow.

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National anti-trans bill

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Restrict Act and how to communicate about it

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Five years ago Catholic priest Johannes Schwarz left his parish to "withdraw for a few years" in the Italian Alps (in the shadow of his beloved Monte Viso). He bought an old "rustico" - stone farm building - for 20,000 euros and transformed it into his mountaintop hermitage.

Inspired by the early Christian desert hermits from the "200s and 300s when some people went into the deserts of Egypt and Palestine searching for a more rigorous life", Schwarz found something remote: he has only one full-time neighbor on the entire mountainside and in winter, he often has to snowshoe for a couple hours just to buy food and supplies.

To be as self-sufficient as possible, he makes his own bread and stores plenty of potatoes which he grows using Ruth Stout's "No-Work" gardening method. To grow much of his own fruit and produce, he terraced the steep hillside (using stones from the area) to create micro-climates. "You try to build walls that have southern exposure because they heat up during the day and they give off the warmth and can make a difference of several degrees." (Studies show differences of 27°F/15°C in the ultra-deep Incan terraces). He grows plenty of tomatoes inside his self-built recycled greenhouse.

For heating and cooking, he built a combination rocket stove and masonry heater by creating his own casts and loam coating. His refrigerator, which he transported up the hill on top of his bicycle, is kept in the unheated room, along with his food stores. He uses a tiny 30-year-old 3-kilogram washing machine and built his bathroom out of salvaged materials. To transport the lumber up the hill for his remodel, he got some help from a local farmer.

He divided the old barn into four small rooms on two floors; the living room/kitchen and pantry on the ground floor and a chapel and bedroom upstairs. His bedroom also serves as an editing studio where he creates videos on philosophy and religion.

He created a wooden-arched indoor chapel where he “celebrates the traditional Latin mass” alongside a wall he painted with Byzantine, romanesque and gothic styles in appreciation of "the symbolism of the ancient art."

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FOSTA-SESTA was the start of this

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Chris Ware, known for his New Yorker magazine covers, is hailed as a master of the comic art form. Ware’s complex graphic novels, which tell stories about people in suburban midwestern neighborhoods, poignantly reflect on the role of memory in constructing identity. Stories featuring many of Ware’s protagonists—Quimby the Mouse, Rusty Brown, and Jimmy Corrigan—often first appear in serialized form, in publications such as “The New York Times,” the “Guardian,” or Ware’s own ongoing comic book series “Acme Novelty Library,” before being organized into their own stand-alone books.

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mood

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in a parasocial relationship with the sea

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The reason you, Tumblr user with healthy disdain for TikTok, should actually care quite a bit about the TikTok ban is because the legislation with legs isn’t actually a TikTok ban. It’s not focused on companies, it’s focused on countries. The administrative procedures to make this proposed act work don’t really exist yet. If the act passes, until they make up some procedures, the procedure is the person in charge of the scary countries that pose a national security risk list can put other countries on that list and suddenly companies run out of those countries can’t handle US user data. The only approval he would need is the President’s and the decision is unreviewable meaning no one is allowed to even see the evidence for making that decision.

They’re hiding this behind a TikTok ban because Meta ran a successful PR campaign to turn TikTok into the bad guy and it could turn into a massive free speech violation in the name of national security (which is bullshit by the way, if they cared data brokers wouldn’t be allowed to sell our info to foreign governments but they are)

[thoughtportal]

The reason you, Tumblr user with healthy disdain for TikTok, should actually care quite a bit about the TikTok ban is because the legislation with legs isn’t actually a TikTok ban. It’s not focused on companies, it’s focused on countries. The administrative procedures to make this proposed act work don’t really exist yet. If the act passes, until they make up some procedures, the procedure is the person in charge of the scary countries that pose a national security risk list can put other countries on that list and suddenly companies run out of those countries can’t handle US user data. The only approval he would need is the President’s and the decision is unreviewable meaning no one is allowed to even see the evidence for making that decision.

They’re hiding this behind a TikTok ban because Meta ran a successful PR campaign to turn TikTok into the bad guy and it could turn into a massive free speech violation in the name of national security (which is bullshit by the way, if they cared data brokers wouldn’t be allowed to sell our info to foreign governments but they are)

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whenever a client is going to take a plea, the judge goes through a series of questions with the client before they’re willing to accept the plea. two of these questions are “has anyone promised you anything in exchange for this plea?” and “has anyone forced or threatened you to plead guilty today?”. The client has to say “no” to both questions for their plea to be accepted, otherwise the judge rejects the plea and the case continues as though it would go to trial.

every time they say “no,” it’s a lie. a plea deal is built on threats and promises.

the ADA promises to drop the remaining charges against you. the judge promises to give you a specific sentence. often this sentence is below the mandatory minimum they would be required to sentence you to if you were found guilty of the original charges. but there’s other, more subtle, promises as well. you can go home tonight. you can see your kids again. you can go back to work. you don’t have to come to court anymore.

the judge does the majority of the threatening during plea deals. if you are being held and you do not take the plea, you will remain incarcerated until the end of trial and they will do their best to ensure you remain incarcerated the entire duration. if you don’t take this plea today, they say they will not allow you to take one later on. if you go to trial, they will sentence you to the maximum allowed. the ADA says that if you don’t take this plea today, we will hold you to the charge with no chance of reduction. they tell you that they will call the police officer to testify, and he will say you did it (even if you didn’t). if you are not a citizen, they tell you that you will be deported or removed from the country and avenues of relief will be closed to you.

97% of criminal cases end in plea deals for a reason.

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The Texas Democracy Foundation, the nonprofit parent of the Texas Observer, told its staff today that it is laying off employees – including journalists and editors – and ceasing publication on Friday, March 31, 2023.

This Go Fund Me was established so that readers and supporters of the Texas Observer can give a lifeline to staff and journalists who are becoming unemployed. I am James Canup and I have organized this campaign to benefit my former colleagues, having recently resigned from the Observer myself. I have launched this campaign with the knowledge of board and staff members. We ask you to contribute as generously as you can to provide cash assistance to staff who are being laid off. The Observer is not able to provide a sufficient severance package to laid-off staff due to a funding shortfall and disarray. If the board revisits its decision to cease publication and commence layoffs, funds raised here will be donated to the Texas Democracy Foundation to provide staff pay and benefits. Otherwise, funds raised here will be divided equally among the staff who are being laid off.

Those organizing this Go Fund Me campaign are striving to help journalists and staff to have some money as they take time to seek their next jobs, so that they can support their families despite losing their jobs through no fault of their own. You are invited to read some of the Observer’s recent journalism before deciding to contribute.

The impact of this shutdown on the current team is devastating. “Where else can I go to write a column on transgender issues that takes on the New York Times,” asked one writer. Another was in the process of planning paternity leave for his first child. Another was covering Texas’ war on public schools. “That’s not how a progressive magazine should treat its staff,” said one editor.

What does the Texas Observer mean to its journalists and to Texans? Editorial independence and journalistic freedom have been the hallmarks of the Observer since its founding in 1954. The publication has been freer – less encumbered by the demands of business, advertisers and grantmakers – than any other publication of its stature. As such, the institution has been a proving ground for countless journalists over the years and continuing to this day, and a vital watchdog to extremists, corporations and politicians who would harm Texas and Texans.

Will you help save the staff of the Texas Observer by contributing now?