Our relationship to our fellow species is deeply unethical and violent. Not just in terms of the animals that are eaten but in the entirety of our relationship to the natural world.
We think ourselves special but, for the most part, we’re just cruel.
Vox asks:
Why do people go vegan? For some, it’s dissent against animal abuse and cruelty.
Zionism on the Brink: The Gaza War Beyond Netanyahu - ZNetwork
A good number of analysts have tried to explain how Israel became a decidedly right-wing society and how young people, in particular, have emerged as the gatekeepers of Israel’s version of suicidal nationalism. The explanation, however, should be straightforward. Israel’s far-right extremism is simply the natural evolution of Zionist ideology which, even in its most “liberal” forms, was always predicated on ethnic hatred, a sense of racial supremacy and predictable violence.
Popped up on the photo widget on my iPad, a pretty bit of lichen and moss photographed 15 years ago. The photos widget is such a great feature.
Windows open, enjoying cool, fresh morning air and an episode of The Computer Chronicles: The Macintosh Computer on the Internet Archive. 1985 and they already had the Apple Laser Writer on the market and IBM already had a color graphical interface. There’s even a pundit segment with a guy irritatingly predicting (correctly) that Apple would struggle getting into the business world. I was surprised that a visual database, FileVision, already existed. Also, a vector drawing app, GEM Draw, was already available on IBM with a much larger, color screen. GEM was a graphical windowing for the Atari ST computers and was IBM PC compatible.
Joan Westenberg explains The Overton Window:
You know how you’ll hear a politician say something and think, “Holy shit, did they really just say that out loud?”
And then a few years later, that batshit crazy idea is suddenly mainstream policy?
It’s called the Overton Window, and once you understand it, you’ll see it everywhere.
More of this should be done in the US:
Aline Sousa: The unsung heroes putting climate solutions into practice | TED Talk
The improper handling of waste is the third largest source of methane emissions in the world, says Aline Sousa, but waste pickers like her help reduce this environmental impact. She dives into the monumental effort of the often-overlooked people making sure recyclables, compostables and trash end up in the right places — and calls for better recognition of these key players on the frontline of fighting climate change.
Tiny Life Journal - Missouri has been spared much of this summers' heat but last week was hot and humid here (90s with humidity at 90%+) so I used the window AC in my tiny house. But this morning at 5am it’s 69°. Had I paid attention to the forecast I would have opened my windows last night. A missed opportunity.
To conserve energy I usually turn the AC off at night and just run fans so it warms up a good bit. It was 80° in here this morning. A bit stuffy but tolerable. I stepped outside to heat some water for coffee and was met by the more humid but much cooler outside air. And of course, the birdsong. There’s nothing quite as cheerful as birds singing in the morning. Good morning birds!And off in the distance the occasional twang of frogs around the lake.
I’ve taken the opportunity to open my windows and turn the window fan on to freshen the air up and cool the cabin down without the AC.
Cool morning air and coffee in the company of bird song and frog conversation is a good morning.
Tiny Life Journal - Out on my morning bike ride and I’m thinking that there’s nothing better in the world than a slow bike ride on a quiet country road. It’s an old paved road, nearly flat with just a few gentle hills that curves several times through a mix of landscapes.
To my right a hayfield mowed just yesterday fills the air with it’s delicious, wholesome scent. The hay is still laying on the ground and in a week or less it’ll be bailed up. On my left there’s a woodland with its own scents and sounds. A mix of hickory, oak, cedar, walnut, and I’d guess quite a few other species in there. The road edges are a mix of shrubs and trees like paw paw and sumac with wildflowers like bee balm and blue lobelia mixed in. In the next half mile the road moves through a more open terrain of fields with cows on one side and a couple of horses on the other. Indigo buntings frequent the wire fencing along the road.
The return trip has me back on a mile-long shared gravel driveway. The neighbor is sitting outside and I stop for a chat.
Neat, Mike Grindle took a bit of inspiration from my MPU post on OBTF and fit it into his own workflow.
Humans of the future will ask why we refused to act and we will rightly be condemned for our failure.
Antarctic temperatures rise 10C above average in near record heatwave | The Guardian
Ground temperatures across great swathes of the ice sheets of Antarctica have soared an average of 10C above normal over the past month, in what has been described as a near record heatwave…
The globe has experienced 12 months of record warmth, with temperatures consistently exceeding the 1.5C rise above preindustrial levels that has been touted as the limit to avoiding the worst of climate breakdown.
A clever trick to cast the perpetrators of violent settler colonialism and apartheid as the noble ally that just wants to live in peace. And sad that so many Americans, including many liberals, buy the lie.
American politicians love saying, “Israel has the right to defend itself” as if it was a sales motto. Because if you actually look at what Israel is doing, it is anything but defending itself. Israel has a policy of invading other countries' territory, occupying their land, and carrying out political assassinations on foreign soil. “Defense” is revisionist propaganda.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists Israel’s war against Gaza is the “deadliest conflict for journalists the organisation has documented in 30 years.”
Al Jazeera journalist, cameraman killed in Israeli attack on Gaza
Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi have been killed in an Israeli air attack on the Gaza Strip.
The reporters were killed when their car was hit on Wednesday in the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, according to initial information…
The Gaza government media office has put the figure at 165 Palestinian journalists killed since the war began.
On X Mohamed Moawad, the managing editor of Aljazeera, shared this post by Ismail Al-Ghoul
Let me tell you, my friend, that I no longer know the taste of sleep. The bodies of children and the screams of the injured and their blood-soaked images never leave my sight. The cries of mothers and the wailing of men who are missing their loved ones never fade from my hearing.
I can no longer bear the sound of children’s voices from beneath the rubble, nor can I forget the energy and power that reverberates at every moment, turning into a nightmare. It is no longer easy for me to stand before the rows of coffins, which are locked and extended, or to see the dead people more than the living who are fighting death beneath their homes, not finding a way out to safety and survival.
I am tired, my friend…
Ismail Al-Ghoul, Al Jazeera Correspondent in Gaza
I volunteered as an escort at a couple of abortion clinics in Memphis during the mid 1990s. Those anti-choice people didn’t like us much.
An excellent podcast described as is a “call to action for movement work and mutual aid efforts around the country.”
Radical Acts of Care: From Underground Abortions to Militant Clinic Defense | Truthout
In this episode, Hume and host Kelly Hayes discuss the work of abortion self-help activists who provided illegal abortions in the 1970s, as well as militant clinic defenders, who repelled right-wing efforts to blockade abortion clinics in the ’80s and ’90s.
Grassroots organizing kicked off a couple weeks ago by Black Women for Harris. There’s a Rural Folks for Harris online event set for 8/6 at 7pm CT.
…we aren’t going to sit around and let the MAGA crowd bully our neighbors and continue to let stereotypes that Trump and JD Vance perpetuate go unanswered or unchecked about our strong rural communities.
Freedom is a value we hold in our rural towns. We like to say what doesn’t bother the cattle doesn’t bother us, meaning mind your own business. We also don’t like big corporations with greedy shareholders who take advantage of our small towns.
Pete Brown shared a post on his blog Exploding Comma, “Individual choices may not change the world, but they still matter” and I’d sent a fairly long reply, longer than his original post (😂), so I’m sharing it here as a proper post. A topic I’ve written about before and will again, I’m sure.
I can’t help but think that these folks who speak against or otherwise demean personal action don’t get basic concepts of math, collective effort and ethics. It’s not about the efforts of one person, it’s about understanding that we all add up to a collective whole. In the US, a nation with one of the worst records on climate, there are 330 million people most of whom make no effort. If the majority of those people made a real effort there would be measurable results.
What we do day-to-day matters. Our life choices matter. The flip side is that some say only systemic changes matter. That only government regulations and programs can drive change. I get, 100%, that those are important. But in the face of those actions being delayed and too little, it falls upon us to make the best choices today, voluntarily without being forced by an outside entity.
It’s convenient to put off action and claiming that we can do nothing. But imagine the emissions reduction if millions of people stopped taking flights for vacations every year. If millions stopped heating/cooling their homes to the maximum level of comfort. If millions stopped consumption of goods that were not needed. If millions switched to a vegetarian diet. If millions reduced driving to the bare minimum. We are in control of our daily lives and many of our choices are continuing the problem. No one forces us to make these choices. Our lives don’t end if we change our diet, cut our consumption, stop taking flights for vacation. WE are responsible.
Most seem not to grasp the magnitude of the problem. That this is the survival of humans and/or civilization that is on the line. As just one example, if we truly grasped what was at stake I think we’d see more of a shift in social media from the trivial pursuits that currently dominate to people discussing climate solutions and choices.
But the solution to our problem is a completely different life. The truth is that people don’t want to give up the way of life they know. The people of the Global North don’t want to give up comfort, consumption and the easy life based on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are the foundation of modern capitalist societies. The continued future of human civilization requires that we make a difficult transition to a very different life.
Joan Westenberg: Make Small Men Feel Small Again - YouTube
We’ve been tiptoeing around the assholes for far too long.
Walking on egg-shells.
Trying not to set them off.
And we’re sick of it. We’re sick of the chest-thumping, hate-spewing, fear-mongering fuckheads who think the ability to remember 14 words in a specific order gives them the right to run the world. The men who are so scared of change they’d rather burn everything down than admit maybe, just maybe, they don’t have all the answers.
Monday, July 29th, 8pm ET White Dudes For Harris Call Sign-Up Form
Over 10,000 white men from all across the country are expected to join the effort this week and will be on hand to welcome Vice President Harris to the presidential race and pledge to help get her elected.
Together, we aren’t going to sit around and let the MAGA crowd bully other white guys into voting for a hateful and divisive ideology because we understand that under MAGA everyone loses.
Trump is totally unhinged.
Trump tells supporters they won’t have to vote in the future: ‘It’ll be fixed!’ | The Guardian. From his rally Friday night:
“Christians, get out and vote! Just this time – you won’t have to do it anymore…
“You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians…
I’m not Christian. I love you. Get out – you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”
Fantastic.
“Vance VP” - Marsh Family parody adaptation of “Dancing Queen” by ABBA, on JD Vance - YouTube
Here’s our less-than-impressed profile of yet another populist politician with highly flexible morality, worrying contempt for democratic process and discourse, but big funding and a big mouth who’s happy to tap into ordinary people’s fears while claiming to be an example of their dreams.