I still need my new voter registration to go through so I can get a state identification card so I can get a new bank account…
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I am often asked how to defeat fascists. If I had an easy answer, we wouldn’t be here! The point of my story is that I do have experience dealing with people who enjoy the anguish of others, and I know how fragile those people’s confidence is. When I did a story on a troll harassment campaign against a woman in Montana, I published the audio of the creepy voicemails the trolls had left for her. A couple of my alt-right sources were furious because they felt embarrassed—the voicemails did not sound cool when played to a mass audience. As troll culture has ascended to the highest levels of American governance, it’s worth remembering this simple fact: One way to rebalance the power between a billionaire troll and regular people is to make sure everyone sees who they really are.
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I just found out the American Bar Association has a free online legal clinic. There are actual lawyers answering questions, not AI. And it’s available in 42 states. I didn’t do a deep dive to see what you need to do to qualify, but I assume it’s need based, like in person legal clinics.
ETA: Ok, I checked, and it is need based. So it’s for low income and low savings people. In other words, if you can afford a lawyer, this site is not for you. If you can’t, it is. And also it’s not for criminal law issues. But landlord/tenant and other housing issues, divorce, child custody, torts, etc., it can deal with questions in those areas.
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Love that.
Reminds me to remember:
“People can survive for three weeks without food, three days without water, three hours without shelter, three minutes without oxygen, and three seconds without hope.” -old bushcraft saying
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This is small, and more maintenance than crisis management, but; rinse your mouth with water after eating. Really swish the water and pull it hard between your teeth with 2 or 3 mouthfulls.
My dental hygienist recommended doing this because it not only removes food particles, it helps to quickly de-acidify the mouth, and cuts down on tartar and plaque formation, which helps prevent cavities. I’ve found that cleanings are much less painful since I’ve been doing it, and I’ve had no new cavities.
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Good thing to do after drinking coffee, soda, or anything acidic too! My hygienists usually mention it helps preserve enamel and prevent staining (as well as just drinking my coffee instead of nursing it for a long time).
Oh, and to wait to brush my teeth after anything acidic.
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Yeah, I usually wait about an hour after eating to brush my teeth.
And another thing; don’t brush your teeth right after vomiting! Just rinse with water. Acid, once again.
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Despite my efforts, my kid continues to brush within 20 minutes of breakfast. At least she’s too young for coffee
Brushing before breakfast and coffee and then swishing with water after seems to have helped me avoid a cavities while also reminding me to drink some water in the morning.
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Make anti-wokes bros question their chili!
Survival strategy: Then there’s more beans for the rest of us.
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I would say NTA, dude. Your cousin is an idiot.
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Stuff like this always makes me roll my eyes. Like, how is letting other people decide for you what you can and cannot put in your chili at all not “woke,” in the way he interprets the meaning of that word?
You’re going to let the libs tell you what to eat? Sad.
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If a thought like this comes knocking, as one often does, I try to let it in and sit with it, aware that I am having the thought without getting caught up in it.
“Oh. An anxious thought about the latest Trump order.” See it, name it, let it float away.
“Oh! An angry thought about Musk breaking into government systems.” There’s the thought. There’s the anger. Let it go.
You can even sit with bigger thoughts and feelings without letting them take over. “I feel anxious. I feel tense. I feel afraid.” All to be expected in these times. Address the fact of the feeling. Sit with it and listen.
If you can name and recognize a thought or feeling, that means you are separate from it. It does not control you, because you are observing it, and therefore it can’t completely overwhelm you. It’s in the room, but so are you. And that means there’s room for you as well as your feelings and thoughts, which are separate, distinct and (here’s the thing) ephemeral.
It’s a good reminder of how we can confront the noise and crap being hurled at us. “Oh. Noise and crap. They’re flooding the zone again.” Name it, let it go.
Something very curious happens when you practice this technique over and over. While recognizing and naming the evil, the lies and the corruption, the power these things have to impact your every day diminishes noticeably. Not because you pretended they aren’t happening. Not because you pushed the thoughts and feelings you have about them down.
It’s because you set yourself apart from your initial, understandable reaction, and then let the thoughts and feelings melt away on their own.
This is why I spend so much of time in my writings and posts naming and sorting what is happening. This is illegal. That is corruption. That is gaslighting. This is unprecedented. Seeing things for what they are is the first step toward not letting them have power to overwhelm.
From a personal standpoint, this is also a big deal for my own health. I can still sleep well at night, and I can catch myself when my body is tensing up in reaction to the news. Then I relax, allow the news and the thoughts and those feelings in, sit with them without tumbling into them, take a breath, or a few, and proceed forward.
I don’t know if you find this helpful. But this technique has helped me greatly through these times.
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This is a nice way of elaborating on the sentiment @Kii posted a while ago, thinking of your emotions as fish in the pond and remembering to be the pond, not the fish.
It’s also reminiscent of the tactic for relieving stress in meetings by naming the dynamic you are seeing.
Great advice.
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IIRC it also, generally, describes how to meditate, which is most likely a good idea in any era.
OK, I wasn’t very good at it, for example usually falling asleep in the process (most recently, following the techniques herein).
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Today I was in the shop and I saw that they had national road atlases for sale – good, old fashioned, Rand McNally 11 inch by 15 inch national road atlases. And I found myself seriously contemplating it.
I hemmed and hawed over it a bit. But I thought to myself: what if I need to hit the road and the cell service is out? or if the GPS system is militarized again? Or if I need to travel while staying off of the network?
So I bought it.
I hope it will be long out of date before it ever becomes relevant.
But the thought would not have crossed my mind a few years ago.
Anyway, maybe get a road atlas, just in case.
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Those Rand McNally atlas books got my family across the country twice.
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GPS still is a military system that doesn’t actively obstruct civilian use right now. “Selective Availability” has been switched off since 2000 or so and probably can’t be switched back on just like that; satellites launched from 2099 on are stated not to support selective availability.
As there are several other systems now, reducing GPS’s precision has become somewhat pointless in the context of denying (potential) adversaries the use of your own assets anyway.
However, GPS is a prime target for adversaries in several scenarios. A lot of vital civilian applications use GPS as a highly precise time signal.
GLONASS and BeiDou are predominantly military systems as well. As is NavIC, but in its current implementation it only works in India and ~1.500 km around it.
Galileo is intended to be an EU civilian GNSS that allows all users access to it. The EU’s stance is that Galileo is a neutral technology, available to all countries and everyone. Initially, Galileo was to be designed in a way that would have made it impossible for the US to block the Galileo signals without also interfering with its own GPS signals. But for some reason or other (which honestly has nothing at all to do with American officials hinting at the US’s capability of shooting down any satellites if deemed necessary), Galileo is now using frequencies that allow the blocking or jamming of either GNSS without affecting the other.
Anyway, paper maps work without electricity.
Make sure the map is accurate enough, though. Way back when in the GDR, any maps the public could freely buy were deliberately warped and inaccurate near the borders to make it harder to plan crossing them illegally. Other Eastern Bloc countries had similar schemes in place.
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