sanity_is_maddening

I just caught your comment. Sorry for the late reply.

Yeah, looking around as you said brings me nothing but a sense of loss.

I'm 40. And I've been at this for what it feels so long now... what it's about 20 years of this to me probably feels like a blink to you. But anyway, to me it's not the ignorance that upsets me the most, it's the people who know what I do and even share the anxiety of it, and do nothing differently.

I hope wherever you chose to move to, that you found peace of mind and a more tolerable climate.

Thank your for such reply and the link as well. The text you linked shares a lot of inspiration for these trying times.

And oh, how we definitely need it.

Why this level of vitriol and condescension in this exchange?

I'm also going to repeat... Taking your stance to an extreme, and you have yourself a reductionist view of the world with nothing but intolerance or hatred for those who don't share it. Sounds familiar?

I don't know what's going on in your life, you could be going through something and I don't want to add more to the pile of what you're already dealing with. So I'm just gonna leave this here, because I suspect that even my concerning tone right now will read as passive aggressive to you. It isn't. But I can't control that.

So take care.

Yup. The point is always to extort more. It's literally the basis of racketeering. I guess they do really need to check the definition of racketeering. I don't they think they know what's the name of the game they're in now.

I understand your anger. I really do. But may I remind you that the Republicans were the ones who took a stand to abolish slavery and even died for it not that long ago really. And look at where they are now.

It's people like this woman that are fencing any movement from turning corrupt and vile. Unfortunately all too often there's not enough of them to stop it from happening.

She most likely saw the cloth as a way to reach and help people in need. As it is one way of doing it. And given her very advanced age, when she was young, it was probably one of the very few that existed at her disposal. Especially as a woman.

And you shouldn't conflate the identity of individuals with the institutions they're a part of or with their social descriptors. That is precisely what you hate about these groups you brought up. So don't play for the opposite team and act the same way they do.

And by the way, you were downvoted but I wasn't one of the ones who did it. As I do think your anger towards these institutions is absolutely warranted and justified. I feel the same way. Just don't let that keep you from recognising a decent human being when it is very much the case. Otherwise, you allowed them to turn you into what we both hate about what these institutions represent.

This woman is on everyone's side because she's fighting for everyone. Even though I'm not religious, I recognise that I aspire to the same as her.

Oh, thank you so much. I wish I let myself believe that I am what you just described. You do seem to fit the description you assigned me very well from this very brief interaction.

Let us all keep spreading warm and fuzzy feels on and on to as many people as we can.

The world certainly needs an antidote to spread against the vile current that is dragging us all into a hole of despair.

We can't let that happen!

Unfortunately, I often do let myself go in that direction.

So thank you for pulling me the other way.

What a Fucking Legend!!! People such as her should be our icons. Not the plastic ridiculous people that the legacy media and the algorithimc social media keep pushing out like clowns to the circus floor to keep people distracted.

Sue Parfitt. Let's remember her name. In fact I'm gonna save this post.

And while I'm not one to support religion, between her and the reverend that gave that sermon to Trump's face in church, I would say "Lady Priests" (apologies for the reductionism) are having a moment and showing the cloth that apparently only the women in it seem to remember what "their calling" is supposed to be all about.

If anyone knows the name of the woman that gave that sermon, tag it under. Please.

It's not about supporting the church, it's about giving credit where credit is due.

In fact, we should start making a record of the people who are raising to the occasion these days all over the world, and taking the moral stand and give them the space and the limelight, instead of allowing everything to be about the shitty people doing their shitty deeds. That takes so much of the bandwith as it is, and makes us feel alone in the face of it all.

Be it about the atrocities being committed in Gaza, Ukraine, the U.S. or in any place where wrongful actions are occurring, let us make visible the people that raise to face it. Let us put forward the faces and voices of the ones who still truly give the word "humanity" some of its supposed meaning back.

PS: A lot of people here might not be able to read Spanish. But I do and I really liked the article you linked. It was a really nice complement to the one linked in the post. So, thank you for sharing it.

They want everyone's private data to be accessible and actionable. It's not even about avoiding the hassle. It's about you not being able to avoid them.

Now, think about how much they could use this to crush dissidence and prevent assemblies of protests or worse, jail people because they criticise the government.

I got nothing to hide. By today's standards. If it changes, and criticising my country's government becomes a legal offense, then I would be a criminal. So would most people I know.

This is about control. Surveillance is always about control. It's disguised as a necessity through the paranoia that those in power help veiling over us.

There's plenty of crisps and chips out there which might not labeled as vegan, but are still nonetheless made without animal products.

To me, it's salted dry fruits and nuts all the way in the situation you described. I do some farming and salted peanuts and toasted salted cashews are my favourites. Although cashews are quite on the nose more expensive, so I sprinkle them amongst the peanuts.

Pair me that with some lemonade in a thermos and I'm good to keep going.

I used to snack sandwiches, but that just made me feel like going to lie down after munching on them.

But like I said, there are chips too.

It always was. It's only sad that people are only realizing that now.

Politics is everything. It's where you live, what you eat, what music you listen to, what films you enjoy, what books you read, what you do for a living and what you do for fun, what you purchase and what you don't, what you can afford and what you can't, what you love and what you hate... everything. What people perceive politics to be is merely the organizational structure that stems from the true nature of what politics truly are. But that is nothing but the end product and the result of a battle for control that was fought to preserve the interests of a few in creating a resilient status quo that is in agreement with their view of the world, that containing also their interests.

The "Left" seeks to be an impediment of the consolidation of that power and desires to redistribute it, and the "Right" seeks to protect it and stave off anything that can reduce its control. If anyone didn't know this, then I suggest reading up on the French revolution and understand what these concepts really mean from when they emerged in the first place. For example, during the American civil war, the Republicans of the time were the "Left". Now, they're very much not, are they? Party positions might change, but the meaning of this concept doesn't.

As for me, I don't care much for reducing the spectrum of the entirety of societal's complexity to a binary stance. But if I were to use that redundancy, I would say my biggest problem is with the insurgency of the "Center" over time. That is where the most insidious part resides. Because if we truly take the left/right to its logical conclusion, the "Center" can never be occupied by someone dictating what it is. Because it has to be the space where the two ends meet/clash/struggle and unfortunately and stupidly also battle. The "Center" is the most opressive of the three in this silly spectrum. Because, it seeks to tell everyone else what the virtuous middle truly is. And this "Center" is what elites of European and North American countries have been using as a veil for the control of the status quo that benefits them. For quite a while. That illusion has now been shattered. For better or worse, only time will tell.

When war brews, is because an elite lost or is losing control of the status quo alignment to another power that seeks to take it.

The really sad part is that this is 2025 and people are still able to be convinced to go hurt people they don't know in behalf of people they never met. And never will.

I don't know how to find reasonings to excuse this anymore. To be fair I never did. But in a time when we have the capacity to go see the lives of anyone of almost anywhere in the world, it is far more outrageous to have to wittness it, or even worse, to endure it.

Turning on the heating during an heat wave??? What??? Did they throw some hot rocks and water on the floor of that bus and called it a "sauna on wheels service" while they were at it???

Also wow. And I thought that corruption here where I live in Portugal was bad. We do rank amongst the highest on corruption in the EU. And I bet these awful people take pride amongst themselves when looking at that ranking. May I ask what country is this going on? You don't have to answer if you don't feel comfortable doing so.

Definitely. Good isolation is paramount for both harsh winters or summers.