WHOZAWHATSIT

Nervously, I pull from the tarot deck. It's the Nine of Clocks. My fate is revealed to me: It's my bedtime, and I gotta go to sleeps

THIS is the real culture of death.

This makes me livid.

I'm not going to assume this family wasn't knowledgeable or doing their utmost. I'm assuming they were doing everything they could.

But I need you to know.

This is not how it has to be, and there are things you can do to prevent this. Please do them so that you aren't stuck hoping to die or hoping your loved one will die.

If you or a loved one has a lot of medical debt or you know they will incur it, check laws in your state. Know your rights. We should not have to do this, but WE DO.

A person's will and how it is laid out has an effect on how and in what order debts are deducted from the estate, which can sometimes affect how much money beneficiaries get. If you have beneficiaries, get your wills in order! Get things set up to benefit debtors as little as possible. There are things that might be able to be done. If someone involved is disabled, find an estate lawyer experienced in their specific form of disability benefits (company, government/SSI/SSDI, etc.).

Spouses are NOT necessarily responsible for their partner's medical debt. The estate of the deceased IS, but individual debt collectors from clinics or care facilities are severely limited in what they are allowed to collect on from the actual survivors. DO NOT TRUST THEM IF THEY SAY THEY CAN. There are laws about them not being allowed to lie to you but they will still try. My ex worked in the industry for YEARS and was extremely aware of the predatory shit shady companies or even just shitty individual agents would pull. Never trust a debt collector. Ever. Know your rights, understand debt collection, record all calls.

In some cases, especially involving state funding of end of life care, and situations involving disabled folks (deceased or beneficiaries), the state may not legally be able to evict a survivor to collect that debt from the liquidated estate (i.e. selling the house after kicking you out).

Children are almost NEVER liable for ANY FORM OF parental debt.

Never ever ever pay a single penny on a debt you did not cosign or take on yourself. Do not even verbally acknowledge the debt on the phone. Claim to be unaware of it and state that it is not yours until they show proof. In general, unless it's trivial, and you do intend to pay right away or make arrangements right away, don't acknowledge even debts that are yours, not even verbally, until they have proven to you that you owe them, and force collectors to communicate leaving a paper trail and send you documentation of everything. Record calls using Talker ACR and Talker ACR Helper. If they say you have 90 days to dispute, wait 89 days and then dispute it, even if it is accurate and you know it. If the collector isn't the original place that owned the debt, insist the collection company show proof they own the debt. Contact the original place and see if you can still settle the debt there for less. Delay, deny, defend yourself. Draw things out as long as you can by their rules and seek legal advice. Fight. ACT LIKE THEY DO. BE A HORRIBLE PIECE OF OBSTRUCTIVE NITPICKING SHIT.

If you marry, get a pre-nup that lays out your debt arrangements, do it in a way that keeps your finances and debt as separate as possible. Pre-nups are not just for people who don't trust each other. They are a powerful tool to protect yourselves from predatory practices outside the marriage as well.

YOU CAN PROTECT YOURSELF AND YOUR LOVED ONES. YOU CAN PROTECT YOUR ASSETS. DO NOT LET THIS HORRIBLE SHIT HAPPEN UNOPPOSED, AND NEVER ASSUME THAT THE SYSTEM IS TOTALLY UNSTOPPABLE.

YOU PROBABLY CAN'T KEEP EVERYTHING BUT THEY DEFINITELY CAN'T TAKE EVERYTHING EITHER.

FUCKING FIGHT.

THIS is the real culture of death.

This makes me livid.

I'm not going to assume this family wasn't knowledgeable or doing their utmost. I'm assuming they were doing everything they could.

But I need you to know.

This is not how it has to be, and there are things you can do to prevent this. Please do them so that you aren't stuck hoping to die or hoping your loved one will die.

If you or a loved one has a lot of medical debt or you know they will incur it, check laws in your state. Know your rights. We should not have to do this, but WE DO.

A person's will and how it is laid out has an effect on how and in what order debts are deducted from the estate, which can sometimes affect how much money beneficiaries get. If you have beneficiaries, get your wills in order! Get things set up to benefit debtors as little as possible. There are things that might be able to be done. If someone involved is disabled, find an estate lawyer experienced in their specific form of disability benefits (company, government/SSI/SSDI, etc.).

Spouses are NOT necessarily responsible for their partner's medical debt. The estate of the deceased IS, but individual debt collectors from clinics or care facilities are severely limited in what they are allowed to collect on from the actual survivors. DO NOT TRUST THEM IF THEY SAY THEY CAN. There are laws about them not being allowed to lie to you but they will still try. My ex worked in the industry for YEARS and was extremely aware of the predatory shit shady companies or even just shitty individual agents would pull. Never trust a debt collector. Ever. Know your rights, understand debt collection, record all calls.

In some cases, especially involving state funding of end of life care, and situations involving disabled folks (deceased or beneficiaries), the state may not legally be able to evict a survivor to collect that debt from the liquidated estate (i.e. selling the house after kicking you out).

Children are almost NEVER liable for ANY FORM OF parental debt.

Never ever ever pay a single penny on a debt you did not cosign or take on yourself. Do not even verbally acknowledge the debt on the phone. Claim to be unaware of it and state that it is not yours until they show proof. In general, unless it's trivial, and you do intend to pay right away or make arrangements right away, don't acknowledge even debts that are yours, not even verbally, until they have proven to you that you owe them, and force collectors to communicate leaving a paper trail and send you documentation of everything. Record calls using Talker ACR and Talker ACR Helper. If they say you have 90 days to dispute, wait 89 days and then dispute it, even if it is accurate and you know it. If the collector isn't the original place that owned the debt, insist the collection company show proof they own the debt. Contact the original place and see if you can still settle the debt there for less. Delay, deny, defend yourself. Draw things out as long as you can by their rules and seek legal advice. Fight. ACT LIKE THEY DO. BE A HORRIBLE PIECE OF OBSTRUCTIVE NITPICKING SHIT.

If you marry, get a pre-nup that lays out your debt arrangements, do it in a way that keeps your finances and debt as separate as possible. Pre-nups are not just for people who don't trust each other. They are a powerful tool to protect yourselves from predatory practices outside the marriage as well.

YOU CAN PROTECT YOURSELF AND YOUR LOVED ONES. YOU CAN PROTECT YOUR ASSETS. DO NOT LET THIS HORRIBLE SHIT HAPPEN UNOPPOSED, AND NEVER ASSUME THAT THE SYSTEM IS TOTALLY UNSTOPPABLE.

YOU PROBABLY CAN'T KEEP EVERYTHING BUT THEY DEFINITELY CAN'T TAKE EVERYTHING EITHER.

FUCKING FIGHT.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/12/29/the-japanese-micro-forest-method-is-transforming-cities

The Japanese ‘micro-forest’ method is transforming cities

"More than 420 million hectares of forest have been lost to other uses since 1990, according to the UN’s 2020 State of the World’s Forests Report.

With more than 85 per cent of the global population living in urban areas, micro-forests in cities offer an essential opportunity to combat deforestation. 

The Miyawaki Forest Technique, invented by Japanese botanist and plant ecology expert Professor Akira Miyawaki in the 1970s, is the inspiration for micro-forests worldwide. 

These diverse, organic small forests can be created on sites as small as nine square metres, and only use native species that would otherwise grow naturally in the planting area. They grow up to 10 times faster than monoculture forests, in just two to three decades. 

Since Miyawaki’s work began, more than 280 micro-forests have been planted."

...

"In polluted urban areas, micro-forests can help to restore soil, water and air quality, according to the Woodland Trust. 

Their small size allows plantation in relatively limited urban space, often taking advantage of unused spaces such as school playgrounds, cemeteries, and near metro stations. They can also help to reduce the impact of heavy rainfall, and to keep towns and cities cooler. 

Micro-forests can create more habitats for wildlife in cities, such as blackbirds or hedgehogs.  When planted in distinct layers, they can also develop plant communities of smaller shrubs and herbs, which allow the micro-forests to become self-sustaining after just three to five years of growth. 

“Our pocket forests offer a myriad of benefits” says Elise Van Middelem, Founder and CEO of SUGi.

“Perhaps most importantly, they can support the positive well-being of communities. From a psychological perspective, interacting with nature reduces physical stress and can improve symptoms of mental ill health, including anxiety or depression.”

The link provided doesn't really go over the method, so I looked into it a bit more. The key is planting a bunch of native trees close together. Like, 2ft tall trees, 2 ft apart. The overall garden can be just 3ftx3ft, any is fine really. By planting the trees close together, they grow upwards faster (rather than out sideways). Additionally, they make sure to prepare/improve the soil in advance to hold lots of water, and to apply lots of mulch over the top. You water it tons and weed it in the first two years or so, then it goes on by itself without maintenance.

The more diversity in native trees you can plant, the better. I think this @jstor blog post on the jstor website has a nice overview and some info on how the technique is being utilized around the world: https://daily.jstor.org/the-miyawaki-method-a-better-way-to-build-forests/

Hey american tumblruser. Wanna do more about The Moment than harass your representatives (you're harassing your representatives, right?) but for any/all reasons you're not up to leaving your house to do it?

Look up your local organizations, pick your favorites. Get familiar, whatever that means in this context. Read over their website, scroll through their facebook page, watch any volunteer orientations, attend a zoom open house.

Once you are, reach out and ask if they need anyone to handle a mundane administrative task. Pick one you're familiar with, or can get familiar with, either that you can do sustainably or something that's a one-off, like building or cleaning up a website.

(I picked, "reply to emails asking questions that are already answered by your website.")

Lots of political/community orgs are getting a surge of activity right now. Good odds they're run by worn-out retirees. If they get an email saying, "I'm only available 30 minutes a week but do you need any data entry done?" or "Would you like some help line-editing your weekly newsletter?" the odds are very good they might actually physically cry with relief.

It's not glamorous, but it feels real good and it is important work. You won't make history but you'll know where you stood inside it.

To put it very bluntly.

You will always make a better impact helping people who need it than trying to hurt people you think deserve it.

As a former librarian I'm actually required to remind you that many libraries that subscribe to Libby are opted into a program that lets you subscribe and access magazines for free with no wait

And that this is actually a really fun, low cost way to not only access news and larger cultural magazines, but also to get free patterns for many different crafts that you can screenshot if need be and that lower the financial barriers to entry for trying new things

From my experience working in both academic and public libraries, many libraries are use it or lose it funding-- I have to say this because a lot of patrons feel guilty for how much they use the library and how often they're using it funny enough, but the worst thing you can do for libraries is not try out new features and not use what's already given to you as much as possible.

The numbers that come as a result of your patronage are how most libraries justify their continued existence in times of financial hardship, which sucks but, go check out some magazines on Libby!

thank you mister snerpy we salute you good sir

just because I have trouble figuring out which sounds vowels make like this, I have found an audible guide (for the goddess's name):

No, in fact I insist. WRITE IT

You should only write in present tense with extreme caution.

not because it's bad or anything but because if you do it even once you're going to be editing the bits where you shifted tenses out of your writing for the rest of your life

if u write in present tense enough times in a row, you can switch this problem around & get confused when your present-tense narrator is talking abt something that happened in Their past. I recommend this bc it keeps u on ur toes

guys i made my first blackout poetry

^^^

https://twitter.com/coff33detective/status/1271463582312673281

“make yourselves impossible to ignore. 10,000 signatures on twitter is a lot but 10 unique personal emails is enough to derail an entire council session.”

I was in a city council meeting last week about defunding the police and one of the council members mentioned multiple times that she’d been inundated with calls and emails all that day saying to defund the police.

[ID: Two screenshots of a twitter thread by alex flanigan, anti-fascist @Coff33Detective from June 12, 2020 beginning at 11:25 AM that reads: hi! i work in local government and community management, and i’m here to tell you a secret: it is like, really, really easy to overwhelm the people who work in your local government. especially right now. especially on things they can actionably do or impact.

you may not know this, but i bet your city or town or municipality has a website. i bet that website has some contact forms or email addresses on it. i bet you can use them to put together a message in about 5 minutes! i bet it’s almost as easy as signing a national petition.

which is to say: i’m noticing, like most other people, that the national level discussion on really important and long overdue issues is flagging. but the internet and news cycle is not the only battleground, and you will be pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to—

—fight those battles at home, on your own turf, with much more immediate impact, and they are so, so important.

I am begging you: make my job, and the jobs of people like me, difficult right now. flood us with demands. make yourselves impossible to ignore. 10,000 signatures on twitter is a lot but 10 unique personal emails is enough to derail an entire council session. End ID]

I’ve been a city council observer with the League of Women Voters for nearly a year, and I have witnessed the following:

In my experience, it is incredibly easy to bully local politicians and get some sort of results, especially in small municipalities. If you have something that you want to see happen at the local level, seriously try to contact your local officials and see what you can make happen.

I single-handedly got them to double the number of chickens you are allowed to keep in my former town.

You genuinely don’t even always have to go to a meeting btw. If you have a Facebook, those council members are in your local Facebook groups.Do you know how easy it is to tag your mayor and go “hey what are you gonna do about this?” over everything? Do you know how often that WORKS?

Pay attention to this.

Government From Above looks easy. Command your followers to do shit and they do it, right?

Except when they don’t. Because all of a sudden their neighbors get in their faces.

Then the whole thing comes apart.

It’s easy for people to think Their Boy and their way of thinking has won, beating the Evil Other Side. They think they can then go back to arguing with their HOA and worrying about the price of eggs.

Teach them otherwise!

Turn up at local political meetings and have those people understand that you’re not just going to roll over and let them have their way. Yell at them. (In words bigger than they were equipped to understand, if you feel that’s the way to go.) Give them to understand that they are not right, and you will be back again to get up their ill-prepared noses about this. And again. And again. (Because they’ll never really be ready for opposition. No one’s taught them that. They’re just cannon fodder, poor things. They were never meant to go into battle.)

People hate looking stupid repeatedly in front of other people. You can tire them out. You can make them give up. You can make them feel there’s no point in it.

Don’t talk yourself out of this. The Goddess of Justice must descend from great heights to effect herself into the works of human beings. Don’t talk yourself out of “your turn in the barrel.” (As some humans have been known to call it.) It won’t last that long. Almost none of your opponents have any staying power. (Remember Punched-in-The-Face-Nazi guy? He had a huge online presence. It took one punch to make him dig a hole and crawl in.)

Let the folks you’re opposing understand that you’re going to keep on doing this every time they show up. Let them get the sense that you’re willing to be unreasonable about this. They’ve been thinking they’re the “sane” ones in this discourse. Teach them that they may possibly be incorrect.

Be persistent. Some of them will never have seen persistence in their lives. (As opposed to repeating somebody else’s talking points over and over again, which isn’t the same thing at all.) True persistence requires creativity! Every day, make a new way to come at them. They will never be able to keep up with you.

If enough of us do this… we can take whole legislative structures back: from the bottom up.

Just from being annoying. :)

Listen to me. Listen very carefully:

They are trying to wear you out.

They are trying to wear you out, and they own most major social media now, along with many major media outlets. The disinformation machine is cranking along. You are going to have to slow the fuck down and read things before you help them wear out other people, too.

So you just saw a post about a real scary bill, hunh? Republicans want to make it a capital offense to pet dogs and repeal The Sky Is Blue Act of 1793, declaring the new official color of the sky to be squant? Damn, that sounds scary.

Let's go look up this fictitious "Make The Sky Squant Again Act" on GovTracker* & on the official legislative tracker on congress.gov!

Well, let's see... GovTracker estimates it has a 1% chance of even getting out of committee and a 0% chance of being enacted, while congress.gov says this bill has 2 cosponsors who have been in the House and combined total of less than a month. The bill doesn't have any actual text, and it was referred to 5 different committees.

That fictitious bill and a hundred others like it are quite literally not worth your time, and more than that, continuing to wring your hands about it and tell other people about the scary scary squant sky bill only does their work for them. It scares people, it makes them spend time and energy on it, and it wears them out. It is a legislative Gish Gallop, meant to throw so many things at people that we can't keep up.

Even calling or messaging your Rep in this case means their staffer has to waste time responding to you and letting you know that Representative Buttzonheads definitely won't support making petting dogs a capital offense, a thing that will never, ever happen regardless.

Staying engaged in this environment is going to require protecting your heart and protecting your energy, yes, but also protecting the energy of others. This is why WWII propaganda posters also included ones taking people to task for spreading panicky rumors and undermining morale.

Do you know why most observant Jews don't eat chicken and dairy together, even though the ban is on red meat and dairy together bc you're not supposed to cook the calf in the milk of its mother?** It's not because we think that chicken might secretly lactate or Just Because. It's because the rabbis decided that if I'm sitting out in public and eating turkey and cheese together, someone might glance at the turkey and mistake it for red meat and think, "oh, well, I know that Spider is a good Jew, there must have been a change, or maybe I can just justify it to myself that if Spider does it, it must be permissible to bend the rules just that much." And I would then be accidentally leading my fellow Jew astray. We are responsible for being even more careful for the sake of others than we are for ourselves.

It's the same principle here. We need to really be careful about the information we are spreading and check things past reading a news site. Is it true? Is it relevant? Is it meaningful? Is the news site one I recognize? Can I find meaningful independent corroboration on another site, which is to say, if I find an article about it on a second site, is it just quoting or rephrasing this site?

Yeah, that is a lot. But that's how we keep them from using us to lead our fellows astray.

*GovTracker is an independent site. They explain their methodology in their About section.

**I cannot say enough how I am not at this time interested in going on a Jewish Side Quest About Dietary Laws on this post. Usually, I love it, but hold off this time, please, y'all. Let's stay on target this once.

I'm pretty sure that's the main reason for most of Trump's Executive Orders on day 1. A lot of them are unenforceable, others are blatantly illegal or even unconstitutional, but people will be distracted in the courts trying to shut them down, and it's splitting everyone's focus away from the few that are genuinely dangerous. Splitting people's focus is the one thing that Trump is genuinely good at, distracting the public while the Republicans are doing more subtle awful things in the background.

Yeah. Though taking those apart in court is more necessary than dealing with these nothingburger bills.

Relatedly, if you want to keep up with everything, because that’s responsible, but it’s crushing because it’s horrific?

Try “What the Fuck Just Happened Today?”

It’s a news digest with sources. You can stay informed without completely losing your mind.

Also, our legacy media have proven to be cowards at best & complicit at worst. As a librarian, while I will consider some articles on some topics from CNN, NYT, WaPo, etc., they’ve sadly shown we cannot trust them. This is the problem with 1. Never paying for news, and 2. Monopolies

So where do you look? (And support!)

1. The Guardian. Independent news that’s not behind a paywall & is in the UK. They’re more trustworthy while still being traditional.

2. ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Their work has won Pulitzer Prizes.

Where else?

1. Seth Abramson is an independent journalist (among other things). He’s done deep dives into both Trump, Musk, and Jan6. Those deep dives were extensive “meta journalism,” pulling on many fragmented sources to get to a full picture.

2. Mother Jones : Another nonprofit news organization. Traditionally a bit leftist for sure, but fact-based. they’ll be the counterbalance to the propaganda we’re facing.

3. Any other non-US news sources that are fairly reputable. Getting perspectives from outside of our country will be hugely beneficial in the coming years.

These are good resources! I also like 404 Media for tech news and Assigned Media & Erin Reed for trans news. Jessica Valenti's "Abortion, Every Day" is a good source for reproductive health care news, too.

This isn't technically good news, but I wanted to highlight it, because it underscores a DEEPLY important thing to understand about the news and social media in their current forms: They are warping people's perception of reality. Bad news gets shared more, gets reported more, and gets highlighted more. People think that means there IS more bad news than good news, and that is simply not true. There are lots of good resources for finding good news, and you should seek it out for yourself to get a more accurate understanding of the world we all live in.

So… I got a notification from the State Department at like 8 PM Pacific that my passport was approved, and I was quietly thankful and stunned bc my legal gender in Oregon is listed as X, or undeclared, and that's what's on my passport. I'm pretty sure someone(s) worked late to get the X passports done today.

I was already really grateful to whoever in the Seattle Passport Office worked late to get these things processed on the last Friday before That Man gets back into office... and then I got a notification that my passport shipped at fucking midnight Pacific and whoever got that shit out the door so it couldn't be picked up on Monday and like, denied and shredded?

They're my fucking hero.

So... I heard from a friend of 20+ years who works for the State Department who confirmed to me in so many words that they can assure me, without specifics, that "all of the suppositions you have made here are true."

So... yep. Passport folx at the State Department really did work incredibly long hours this week just... shoveling every passport out the door (and prioritizing the ones that might be A Problem come Monday) and yes, they did On Purpose make sure that all of them weren't just DONE but MAILED and out the door and in the hands of the USPS so that they can't be told to pull those passports back and deny/destroy them.

This also means they got the OK for the mountains of overtime from the Biden administration to get that done.

This is what I mean when I say that the Good Work is often not glamorous and that we have to prioritize things which actively and immediately better the lives of our siblings. The State Department worker who was still in the office last night at midnight Pacific time stuffing my passport into an Express Mail envelope and making sure that it was in the hands of USPS has done more liberatory work for the trans movement than 100 people endlessly auditing the language others use to describe their lives ever will.

These next years are gonna be real hard. Find something tangible to do for yourself and others, however small, and do it as hard as you can.

Hot take but I really do think that some of y’all need to consider how/why/when/how often you’re making fun of straight people for being straight

I do it too, I’m not going to pretend I don’t make jokes about the hets, or the down with cis bus, or whatever

But I recently befriended a cis, straight dude and I have watched him be dismissed, degraded, and unambiguously insulted for the perceived “crime” of being straight — all in queer environments where he is allegedly “completely welcome” and surrounded by “friends”

This guy is not a toxic person! But I have seen him be made to feel so small and like his comfort and safety in those spaces are conditional on his silence and acceptance of being treated like a human dunk zone, and I think that some of y’all have had so much shit from straight/cis people that the second you feel like you’ve got an inch, you want to luxuriate in the perceived catharsis of bullying someone who— actually —doesn’t deserve it

And until he very, very carefully mentioned to me in private that it makes him feel bad, I didn’t even clock that I was involved in doing that, that it had become so instinctive for me to make casual jokes like that, and that— well meaning or otherwise —I had been contributing to an environment that made someone I really really like feel like shit

So, I dunno, I think maybe some of y’all should think about that too

Coming back to say that while a lot of the responses to this post have been mainly positive, some folks have an attitude that it should be something that my friend— or any cis, straight man —should just be able to get over, because fuck ‘em, that’s why, because they’re in a queer space and they should shut up and accept it, because you suffer as a queer person and they should have to suffer too— regardless of whether or not this specific person has done anything to wrong you

I’m gonna say this point blank— you’re a tar pit if you think this way

Your suffering does not make you special, you are not granted brand new permissions to be belligerent and cruel because you have been treated poorly, straight people aren’t an oppressed class, no, but they’re people who are entitled to the same amount of basic decency that you, yourself, are entitled to

It feels good when you’ve been treated like shit to then go forward and treat other people like shit. That’s what you’re admitting. Does it make you feel good to do harm? Are you proud of that? Are you comfortable with being that kind of person? Because I dunno about the rest of you— but I realized I wasn’t, and it turns out it’s pretty fucking easy to change