Babs [she/her] @ Babs @hexbear.net

Posts

4

Comments

780

Joined

2 yr. ago

Inshallah, children!

Hey for anyone looking for the sources, I checked these podcasts. They are anonymous, first-name-only sources, of course.

The best part is the monthly service projects. I mostly taught little kids how to read, but once a month the whole team would get together and we would do some cool community service stuff. I once helped build a playground, and I got to use a jackhammer to help break down pavement.

I did two years, working in elementary schools. The pay is super low, we would always joke that we were "AmeriPoor". The work was very "scabby". Like, I'm pretty sure a lot of what I did probably should have been done by a unionized paraeducator, but idk. The big benefits for me were paying off a chunk of my student loans, and meeting cool people from all over the country. It gave me an excuse to move to the midwest for a year. I spent both years in large programs, with people who moved from all over to do it. We were all a bunch of 20-somethings far away from home, often in big houses with a bunch of our coworkers, so it was a pretty fun post-college environment. Lots of parties and hooking up and all sorts of drama I'm too old for now.

There were a couple older people in my programs too. I wonder what their experience was.

I wasn't politically aware when he was president, but he has been very outspoken since the SMO, and very hardline about it. He's the guy drawing the funny maps where Ukraine doesn't exist/is the size of Rhode Island.

Do they think Putin's replacement would be a chill guy? Last time someone other than Putin was president, it was fucking Medvedev.

Dmitry Medvedev drew a funny map.

I don't think people should be allowed to sell or advertise drugs to children.

Sure, but right now we got people driving these unregulated tools right off a cliff.

There's a local corner store here that had a big banner advertising that they sold this stuff. Had to look up what it was.

Then last time I drove by they changed it from "We sell Galaxy Gas!" to "We sell 7-Hydroxymitragynine!"

I looked that up and apparently it's some super concentrated kratom extract and a bunch of the google results were warning that it was basically just morphine. Which sounds pretty fucked up.

But also it's extremely easy to get fentanyl here, so maybe it's harm reduction in a sense? But selling it so openly, where anyone who drives along this major road will know you are dealing...

Just like, I remember when I was younger buying weird drugs from corner stores, they at least had to wink wink nudge nudge pretend that they weren't just drug dealers.

Running a World of Darkness one shot for my Pathfinder group tonight since some of them are gonna be out.

I am white as hell and also violently allergic to dairy.

So now

If you can get your basics down, Hellotalk is a great way to chat with Chinese people who are learning English. There's often kind of an expectation that you'll be helping each other, but the translation tools are good and I've had some great conversations.

Also yeah Duolingo fucking sucks. Try HelloChinese if you want an app. Much better.

Just answering the question. I don't think they should be penalized for having needs.

Yeah so the show rebooted in 2016 and 2017 on abc, then moved to discovery for several more seasons. They just keep getting better. The show is on hiatus right now without a deal, so they've been doing a sort of side show on youtube with lower production values to try and get a new season.

Stance Stance Revolution I think competed in Motorama? There's probably some fights up on youtube or somewhere.

Nah, still a regular here.

An actual mutual aid network isn't just charity, like we'd ideally be organizing so that some frequent posters would be hooked into real programs that meet their actual needs - except we're anonymous too lol. Like it's a mess.

If this was how the comm worked, I know about hella resources for people experiencing homelessness in Portland, but I've been hesitant to reach out in these posts because it might be "meta" to offer something other than money.

I've still done so and I'm down to help anyone navigate these systems, but idk if anyone has followed up on any of it.

Here's a dumb but honest question: what even is mutual aid, and how is it different from charity? Cause rn it looks like we are running a very disorganized charity for both regular community contributors, as well as people who use this site almost exclusively for the comm. Is the difference that the money goes straight to the recipient without any accountability or organization or records? Just wondering how this system is supposed to work.