I need to write a HEA, because we need to believe in HEA. We need to believe in love & strength & hope, despite those who would strip those things from us, for greed, for arrogance, for cruelty.
Writing is the way I put hope back out into the world. But God, it's hard today.
God, make me brave for life: oh, braver than this.
Let me straighten after pain, as a tree straightens after the rain,
Shining and lovely again.
God, make me brave for life: much braver than this.
As the blown grass lifts, let me rise from sorrow with quiet eyes,
Knowing Thy way is wise.
God, make me brave, life brings such blinding things.
Help me to keep my sight; help me to see aright
That out of doubt comes light.
-Author unknown, Prayers for Healing, ed. M Oman
This is A) an excellent example of how to speak for a group from outside a group, but also b) possibly the best (simple) summation I’ve ever read of where and why Christians mess up their reading of the Torah, even with good intentions.
Jews aren’t just people of the word, we’re people of wordplay. Even in scripture.
“We have to act, and don’t tell me we can't have an impact on this carnage. As a nation we have to ask, when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?" - President Biden
And of course, the GOP has already (again) dismissed any thought of putting restrictions on the weapons killing our children OR improving mental health care. Because freedom must be watered with the blood of gradeschoolers, apparently.
So, this just happened.
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000180-f719-d5d6-a1d4-ffd924b10000
Short version for those who don't like reading legal briefs:
A US federal appeals court has ruled that the 14th Amendment's bar on insurrectionists holding office may be applied to current/future political candidates, and the the Amnesty Act of 1872 does not apply.
It was specifically in re: Cawthorn, to keep him from running again, but it has, as you can imagine, wider significance.
A reminder that Mastodon and the Fediverse do NOT use cryptocurrency, blockchains, NFTs, tokens, coins, mining, web3 or anything like that.
Masto and the Fedi run on traditional servers and use a sustainable network federation model somewhat similar to e-mail (that's why Fediverse addresses look similar to e-mail addresses).
Also a reminder there are no venture capital firms or other investors either. No one owns the network, each server is independent. Masto and Fedi server running costs are paid by their owners, sometimes with donations from users.
No one is getting rich from the Fediverse, it is all volunteers with some getting donations and a few getting modest grants from foundations. Please remember this when you interact with admins or developers.
(There might be some individual users who post about cryptocurrency/blockchain, but the infrastructure this place runs on doesn't use it at all.)
Tl:dr - Decentralisation does NOT mean cryptocurrency/blockchain
Writer, editor, fan. Nominal head of a multi-species household. Author of The Devil's West series, among others. UNCANNY TIMES, coming October 2022! Yes, I have a Patreon.
http://lauraannegilman.net