Sunsquatchboy - Untitled

1. When one door closes and another door opens, you are probably in prison. 2. To me, “drink responsibly” means don’t spill it. 3. Age 60 might be the new 40, but 9:00 pm is the new midnight. 4. It’s the start of a brand new day, and I’m off like a herd of turtles. 5. The older I get, the earlier it gets late. 6. When I say, “The other day,” I could be referring to any time between yesterday and 15 years ago. 7. I remember being able to get up without making sound effects. 8. I had my patience tested. I’m negative. 9. Remember, if you lose a sock in the dryer, it comes back as a Tupperware lid that doesn’t fit any of your containers. 10. If you’re sitting in public and a stranger takes the seat next to you, just stare straight ahead and say, “Did you bring the money?” 11. When you ask me what I am doing today, and I say “nothing,” it does not mean I am free. It means I am doing nothing. 12. I finally got eight hours of sleep. It took me three days, but whatever. 13. I run like the winded. 14. I hate when a couple argues in public, and I missed the beginning and don’t know whose side I’m on. 15. When someone asks what I did over the weekend, I squint and ask, “Why, what did you hear?” 16. When you do squats, are your knees supposed to sound like a goat chewing on an aluminum can stuffed with celery? 17. I don’t mean to interrupt people. I just randomly remember things and get really excited. 18. When I ask for directions, please don’t use words like “east.” 19. Don’t bother walking a mile in my shoes. That would be boring. Spend 30 seconds in my head. That’ll freak you right out. 20. Sometimes, someone unexpected comes into your life out of nowhere, makes your heart race, and changes you forever. We call those people cops. 21. My luck is like a bald guy who just won a comb.

Old Lighters 🤔

How to Stay Cool Without A/C

A lot of Northerners were very kind during the freeze in Texas this winter with tips on how to stay warm for people who had lost heat. This is an attempt to repay that favor for people in the Pacific Northwest and other northerly locations who are facing dangerous heatwaves without built-in A/C. My qualifications to give this advice are that I was a summer camp attendee and counselor with no A/C for many summers in humid-ass central Texas with highs over 100F basically every day. Hopefully some of it will be of use to somebody who isn’t used to the heat.

1) PUT ICE WATER IN YOUR BODY. Ice water is your best friend and the #1 way to drop your body temp. Drink more than you think you need (like, at least a half-gallon a day and closer to a gallon or more if you have to be outside doing manual work all day) to cool your insides down and stay hydrated. Have some bananas, trail mix, or a sports drink to help replace the electrolytes you’re sweating out and keep you from getting cramps, but try to have most of your fluid intake be water. I used to take a giant water bottle, fill it part way with water, and freeze it on its side so the ice would slowly melt over the course of the day and my water would stay cold longer.

2) PUT ICE WATER ON YOUR BODY. Cold water, ice, or a damp rag on your head and neck, the backs of your knees, the insides of your elbows, and under your armpits will help you cool down the best, because your blood runs close to the surface in those places. Cold packs designed for injuries or lunchboxes, bags of frozen vegetables, etc. can substitute for ice water as well. Even room-temp water will pull heat away from your body better than body-temp sweat will, especially if it’s humid, so if you don’t have enough ice, the sink, bathtub, or hose will do fine. Dipping your feet into cool water helps a ton as well if you have to sit and work and don’t want your clothes to be wet.

3) WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO GET SO MUCH ICE?  To make sure you have enough ice to last you the weekend, especially through a potential power failure, I recommend getting a cooler (even one of the cheap styrofoam ones is fine in a pinch) and ~10lbs of ice from the big coolers at most gas stations, drug stores, or grocery stores. Try to do this now, before anybody loses power, and store as much in your freezer as you have space for to keep it from melting. You can use it for drinking or to keep your food cold in a power failure. You can use it for a party later if you don’t end up needing it during the heat wave, but you will probably be very happy you had it.

4) AIR FLOW. Being inside a room with the windows closed is the worst possible place to be if you don’t have A/C, because glass windows create a greenhouse effect and the hot air can’t escape. If at all possible, find a shaded place outside where you can catch any possible breeze. If not, open all your windows and, if it’s safe, doors so you can get a cross-breeze. Hopefully you have window screens to keep pets and kids in and bugs out. If not, you’re gonna have to do your own risk assessment. Fans of all sizes and descriptions are your friend; ceiling fans should be set to spin counterclockwise in summer. Even if you have A/C, finding or making a handheld fan will be worthwhile for when you have to venture outside. If you aren’t in a situation where you need to conserve ice, blowing air over a cooler full of ice will give you a makeshift A/C. 

5) SHADE. You will probably immediately notice that direct sunlight is a miserable place to be when it’s super hot. Find or make a shaded location, and don’t be afraid to move around to avoid the sun as the day goes on. Stay on the shady side of the sidewalk whenever you walk someplace. Try to shade your windows as best you can without obstructing airflow using blinds, curtains, shutters, etc. especially if they’re directly in the path of the sun. Do not be a jerk to your neighbors if their shade solutions are ugly. If you can get a shade for your car windshield, I highly recommend it, as the steering wheel, dashboard, seatbelts, and even seats can quickly become too hot to touch in a sealed car and will hold that heat for a long time.

6) CLOTHING. Light-colored, loose clothing that is as close to 100% cotton or linen as you can find is your friend. It doesn’t necessarily have to be short as long as it’s breathable. You will sweat through anything you wear, so I personally prefer only wearing machine-washable stuff. Sun hats, sunscreen, sunglasses, aloe gel for sunburns, mosquito repellent, anti-chafing supplies, etc are all worth looking into if you aren’t used to spending time in the heat.

7) TIMING. Try to stay out of the sun and avoid doing anything strenuous in the middle of the day when the heat is the worst. If you have a choice, plan to be more active early in the morning and late at night when the temperature is more bearable, and take a break in the middle of the afternoon.

Here’s a graphic from the CDC about how to recognize heat-related illnesses and what to do about them. I will add to this that if it’s hot and you stop sweating, you are getting to a dangerous level of dehydration and need to drink something BEFORE you start having more serious problems.

At fifty you can no longer bear the constraints. You can't stand the too-tight bra, the forced dinners with the sister-in-law who checks your dust in the corners, high heels and circumcising smiles.

At fifty you have no desire to prove anything. You are what you are: the things you've done and the things you still want to do. If others like it, fine, otherwise, it's the same.

At fifty it doesn't matter if you had children or not. You will be the mother anyway: of your mother, of your father, of an aunt left alone, of your dog or of a stray cat that you picked up from the street. And if all this is not there, you will be your own mother.

Because over the years you will be taught to take care of a body that you finally love, becoming more and more imperfect only in the eyes of others. Who cares if half the closet is the wrong size? The important thing is that your back does not creak too much when you stand up.

At fifty you want freedom. Free to say no, free to stay in your pajamas all Sunday, free to feel beautiful for yourself and not for others. Free to go it alone: those who love you will stay at your pace, those who don't care about others, at theirs. You are free to sing loudly in the car even if people glare at you at traffic lights.

You will have dreams like when you were in your twenties and you will ask every god for time to make them come true again. And now, just when you have eaten half of your life, in the hustle and bustle, you will find the desire to slowly taste the sugar and salt of the days that await you.

-Irene Renei

Today’s reminder that Bradley Manning and Reality Winner were prosecuted and jailed for revealing truths about government wrongdoing that were hidden as official US secrets’.

No actual threat to ‘National Security’ has been articulated.

Edward Snowden is hounded for the same crime of truth-telling.

The US is trying to extradite Julian Assange who is not a US citizen nor in the US when he published- for revealing the truth of US crimes deemed secret because revealing them would jeopardize ‘National Security’.

By contrast the politicians who lied and lied and perjured themselves in open court about non-existent US election fraud are not being tried for their demonstrable insurrectionist threat to ‘National Security’. They are being charged with lesser offenses.

The attorneys who enabled the fraud are being civilly sanctioned; not criminally

Some political and legal liars are being sued in civil courts for the impact of the falsehoods on corporate profits.

Actual January 6th insurrectionist aren’t being charged with insurrection or treason. But for trespassing, assault, vandalism, rioting - Federal offenses solely because they occurred on federal land.

None of those convicted have received a sentence duration that Manning received; few as harsh as Ms. Winners.

None of those in Congress involved in inciting the ‘riot’ or conducting pre-lynching walkthroughs out weak points for entry, or texting the locations of political targets have been inconvenienced by any legal consequences.

None of those in the Administratiion or on the Pentagon who blocked rescue or reinforcements for four hours have been inconvenienced.

Removing the illegally applied veil of secrecy from US government crimes is unequivocally treated as more serious legal concerns than tbe almost successful decapitation of the line of succession and the collapse of Democracy.

Assuming the term ‘democracy’ applies to this oligarchical kleptocracy.

They warned me your childhood would whizz by in a flash

They warned me and I laughed,

because then,

each day felt like a lifetime.

Each sleepless night was a year, each hour of the day was an age.

All my energy was consumed, with keeping you alive, happy, thriving.

Your smiles became my goal, your laughter my reward, your tears my every waking concern.

And here we are my love, you have grown.

I remember all the firsts, but I have no idea when the ‘lasts’ happened...

Where was I?

The last time you snuggled into my lap to read.

The last time I lifted your warm little body to mould into mine, that fit, just right.

The last time you crawled into my safe space, in the dark of the night.

They warned me your childhood would whizz by in a flash,

And I laughed.

But it did, my love,

It did.

And now I watch you grow evermore strong and I vow to drink in every tiny detail,

lest that go by in an instant also.

I may not remember all the ‘lasts’ my little one,

But I am watching for every ‘new’.

Yes,

I am watching.

- Donna Ashworth

Image by KM Bergerren

“We have many times more empty houses and apartments than we do homeless people, but America can’t have laws limiting investments in single-family residences (which are being snapped up as passive investments by foreigners and Wall Street) because the industry owns so many politicians. Investment companies own about a quarter of all American single-family homes: last year, investors bought 22% of all American homes sold and “donated” millions to politicians. Many were purchased specifically to leave them sitting empty, because real estate goes up in value faster than even the stock market. By pulling all these houses out of the housing market, these investors and speculators are driving up — intentionally — the price of housing. And as the price of housing goes up, so does homelessness: there’s a linear relationship between the two when the price of housing in a community exceeds one-third of the community’s median income. So why can’t we regulate that? Why can’t there be at least some disincentive, some penalty, for this destructive form of investing? Citizens United.”

— This Supreme Court decision is destroying America — and no one is talking about it

refseek.com

www.worldcat.org/

link.springer.com

http://bioline.org.br/

repec.org

science.gov

pdfdrive.com