#This is a mass eugenics event

[zoekrystall]

Since a tweet put me in a short rage state here's a reminder if you do not care abt disabled people and just like. Your fellow humans in general. In this still ongoing pandemic then I do not want you near me. Keep masking get the vaccines.

Since our german government absolutely sucks at this and also the usa and various other ones is here a compilation of studies in case you don't know abt them. If being unaware or lies made you stop then my hatred is purely aimed at the ones that made you believe that and not you.

I have such a burning hatred for the govs anyways how likely most already do but this just amplified it for me. I cannot believe I thought germany would handle it better. Hate hate hate living in hell state bavaria.

(could prob write this neater but I am awake since 24h and will pass out now before splatfest focus but needed to get this out. under the cut is just angry talk. I want to keep the tumblr blog positive for the majority but welp)

I am like the only person still masking at the places I have to go to and I genuinely got nothing but hatred left after three fucking years. Am I disabled myself? I wouldn't be suprised if my ed worsened things but would personally still count myself as abled. Albeit less than a normal healthy one around my age. But either way it does not matter.

Why the fuck is it so hard to fucking care about others and not yourself why the fuck is a jab and a mask such a huge problem for some I am genuinely at the point where I want to push a knife through their heart and whatnot. Why the absolute hell should I still be nice to people that talk absolutely heartless about the death of others bc "oh they were already old/disabled/prob had smth anyways". Not a single life is disposable. An ex friend said oh they don't care if they themself die bc depression and like sorry not sorry but while this is an explanation is this absolutely not an excuse. If you get it can you give it to others who did not fucking consent to get roped into your death wish. Maybe I was too mean to him but it got tried nicer for months and it did not work. As if I can still spare any niceness. I want to strangle everyone who goes welp it doesn't concern me the most tho. Next to like all those fucking governments.

I got it once it was "mild" but I either way do not want it ever again or want to ever give it to literally anyone.

How I said yeah sure maybe nicer but I do have to admit I still wear this as some badge of honor.

Ig you don't ever want to talk with me one on one abt this if you don't do anything. Other alters are nicer. That or way too burned out to even start anything anymore. In a pandemic do actions speak louder than words. I also just want to state I did in the end get him to wear a mask at least w me but I highly doubt he did when with others. Literally yanked him to make him stop so he first put his mask on I will absolutely get handsy. Glad he's gone.

[neuroticboyfriend]

the genocide of palestine is a mass disabling event. if you said this about COVID, you need to be saying it now, too. you cannot only care when there are dead. you must care about the living - the suffering and the disabled, too.

this is one of the most grave examples of what disabled activists mean when we say that our suffering does not mean we do not deserve to live. giving voice to suffering and uplifting those speaking on it does not mean disabled people should not exist.

from the river to the sea, palestine will be free. and so will all her disabled people. they will live - even the dead will live on in the survivors. we must do everything in our power for there to be as many survivors as possible.

[verschlimmbesserung]

[liminalweirdo]

i know this is not really what this is about, probably, but it is kind of what this is about.

we got an actual letter from the government that began "Hi ," (space comma)

and then proceeded to tell us our student loan repayment assistance is ending and our payments "will resume in soon.."

so uh, anyways, covid is a neurovascular disease and repeated infections do affect your cognitive function. it can also bypass the blood-brain barrier and has been linked to developing diseases like alzheimer's.

anyway, wear a mask!

not to alarm anyone but is anybody else worried about how everybody is fucking stupid

[frida-kahl-of-the-rocky-horror]

Okay, @sihatn wishes to be so hung up on the particular war crime the Israeli government is using to excessively slaughter innocent Palestinian civilians, so let’s explain the difference between Genocide, Ethnocide, and Ethnic Cleansing:

Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group

Examples: The Armenian Genocide (where the term actually originates), the Shoah/Holocaust, Taíno Genocide, and Rwandan Genocide to name a few.

I have seen some Zionists on this platform and on Instagram argue that Israel cannot be committing Genocide because it is a “very specific instance in history that only includes the Holocaust”. That fact is ardently incorrect. For one, the first event to be called a Genocide and where the term was coined was the Armenian Genocide and countless events have been labeled a Genocide since 1943/1944 when the term was initially coined (including events coined after the fact that had already happened like the aforementioned Taíno Genocide).

Ethnocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of the culture of an ethnic group or nation without deliberately killing large numbers of people within that ethnic group or nation

Think “kill the Indian, save the man”, the American and Canadian policy against American Indian tribes and First Nations that sought to forcibly assimilate them into W.A.S.P. culture. A similar policy occurred in Hawaii during the “Republic of Hawaii” and “Territory of Hawaii” days, and even the destruction of Yiddish Culture by Zionists in Israel who feared it for being “too Middle Eastern”. Most Re-Education camps fall in this category too.

Ethic Cleansing: the mass expulsion or killing of members of an unwanted ethnic or religious group in a society

This term is relatively new and was coined in the aftermath of the collapse of Yugoslavia and Serbia’s treatment of Croats, Bosnians, and other ethnic minorities, as well as the Stalinist movement of ethnic minorities to different SSRs.

Mass Homicide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people

The only distinction here is the people are not being killed because of their ethnicity or nation, but for ✨ other reasons ✨

Now here’s the kicker, most Zionists would say they are committing Ethnic Cleansing. They might not say it out right, because the term has a nasty connotation, but they will say they’re doing the definition of ethnic cleansing.

Some propaganda reblogging Zionists might claim that they’re just committing Mass Homicide but here’s the thing, almost every example of mass homicide being committed by one nation to another nation has been an example of one of the first three categories. The only real examples of Mass Homicide actually being Mass Homicide occur within a state (see Mao famines, Pol Pot’s mass killings, or the countless purging of communists or anti communists during the Cold War).

Some (wrong) historians may claim the Bengal Famine and Irish Potato Famine were examples of mass Homicide but here’s the thing, in both cases aid from other nations and governments were barred from entering the effected places because the UK forbid it. Food exports were forced to continue to come from Ireland and Bengal because the UK forced it. The reasons these famines were so severe was because the UK had a eugenics inspired belief that the Irish and Bengalis were “sub human animals” and “less deserving of food than the Brits”.

The Irish Potato Famine and Bengali Famine were Genocides, with famine being the preferred method of killing.

Was it intentional at first? Maybe not. Did it become intentional after the fact? Yes.

But this takes us to the most important point. The difference between Genocide, Ethnocide, and Ethnic Cleansing AND Mass Homicide is the intent.

But the intent isn’t truly known until after the fact, when internal government documents are released and the facts of the situation are holistically known.

The Jews/Poles/Romani/etc knew they were going through a Genocide (or well, they didn’t know the word, but they knew what was happening) but most of the outside world didn’t because the N@zis were secretive about it. Yes some activists and Jewish/Polish/Romani/etc diaspora groups warned other governments, but these other governments (US, UK, USSR, China, France, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Italy even) were skeptical.

We don’t full know intent now, but given Herzl and Jabotinsky’s rhetoric which essentially established modern day Zionism and the Israeli state, and the establishment of Area C for Israeli settlement after conflict in the West Bank, the fact that Israel has threatened a Second Nakba, an event internationally acknowledged as ethnic cleansing, the fact that there are oil reserves underneath Gaza and the forcing of 2 million people into an airport sized camp would allow Israel to open up drilling where the ruins of Gaza city lay, or the fact that Israel is an Ethnonationalist country that relies on the superiority of Israelis over Palestinians and other neighbouring countries in order to exist makes the intent known to those of us familiar with the history of this conflict.

Ok ok ok ok ok here’s where I M. Night Shyamalan this whole thing: Genocide, Ethnocide, and Ethnic Cleansing are all the same crime according to multinational organizations like the United Nations. They are all Genocide.

All Ethnocides are Genocides, but not all Genocides are Ethnocides.

All Ethnic Cleansings are Genocides, but not all Genocides are Ethnic Cleansings.

The Nakba was an Ethnic Cleansing, therefore the Nakba was a Genocide.

The Netanyahu administration claims that their on going attack on Gaza is a “new Nakba”.

Nakba = Ethnic Cleansing = Genocide

The Netanyahu administration claims that their on going attack on Gaza is a “new Genocide”.

Genocide carries with it negative connotations. If the term was as widely used in 1944 as it is today, Hitler would deny genocide allegations, just as the Turkish continue to deny genocide allegations from the Armenian Genocide, why the Japanese continue to deny Genocide Allegations during their rule of Korea, Taiwan, parts of Micronesia, Manchuria, and Nanjing. Why the British refuse to acknowledge the Irish Potato Famine or Bengal Famine as Genocides. Why the conservative right want to ban the teaching of American genocides against countless groups (namely Native Americans, African Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Chicanos). And why Zionists get so offended when you refer to the actions of Israel as a Genocide.

Those who commit Genocide will never acknowledge that they are committing genocide. The fact that the current mainstream Zionist reaction, like @sihatn, is to deny that the ongoing genocide exists just proves that one is happening… if the horrific videos didn’t prove it enough (this one is from an American pro Israel source, but it doesn’t not take long to find ones from individuals in Gaza)

In conclusion, Israel is committing a genocide, and if you say otherwise, you are blinded by Ethnonationalism just like the Germans were in the 30s/40s, the Turks were during the 10s/20s and onward, the Brits were for (well forever), and the American right wing is.

If you don’t acknowledge the fact that Israel is committing a Genocide you are part of the problem shawty, and it’s not a good look 😬

[bonefall]

i saw one design where they gave her what this person described as "a hapsburg jaw, because incest lol" and the way i physically recoiled

I am keeping a personal folder of fucked up shit people have been saying about Moonpaw (with the names of posters removed). Some of the things I've seen and screenshotted include;

A person hoping that Moonpaw "dies of inbreeding complications to make the Erins face the consequences of their actions." As if she's a real person the writing team has no control over?? The ink on the page is going to die of incest???

Open calls and wishes for a "mass extinction event" in ThunderClan because "we need to kill them off" for being too genetically unhealthy

Delight and revelry in the fact that Moonpaw's chimerism probably comes from inbreeding, often paired with conflating chimerism with mosaicism

LOTS of jokes about "ugly, misshapen, deformed" Moonpaw, some saying she would be mentally impaired, even comparing her to unethically bred animals because her parents are "practically siblings."

So forgive me for having a hunch that these people don't actually give a shit about the victims of incestuous abuse. I've got a feeling they just want an acceptable target to make ableist comments about. Something tells me they might not think eugenics isn't all too bad if it's done against populations they think are "actually" undesirable.

These jokes and comments are not fucking funny and the fact that some of these are the very top of the Moonpaw tag makes me sick. I NEVER want to hear these ghouls complain about the tangled family tree ever again if your reason for it being bad isn't because of intense social control or authorial carelessness, but because it might produce ugly and/or disabled people. Wither and rot.

[wanderh3art]

i am too communist for syscourse bullshit.

even if the coexistence of multiple beings in one body ONLY exists as a biological reaction to chronic stress—a colonial imperialist viewpoint—it is counterproductive to gatekeep plurality on that basis

humans bodies are specialized for community and play. human bodies are NOT specialized to do labor for multiple hours every day. human bodies are NOT specialized to live under the "work or die" paradigm.

there is not a being alive on this planet not feeling some of the environmental stress of living in a world undergoing a manmade mass extinction event

and the vast majority of people i know are struggling to make ends meet. pressure is building, it's been building for awhile.

depression is rampant, and still undercounted. given how many people actively lie to therapists i think it's no joke fair to say the vast majority of people in my country, especially same age peers, are dealing with a chronic anxiety disorder and/or mood disorder

and we've all been going through it since we were young, right? how many of us had friends who were and are fully okay? chronic stress, anxiety, and/or depression since childhood are literally traumatizing.

in the united states, children have no rights. the american education system is traumatizing by design. it teaches youth how to be deprived of rights.

"but multiplicity is an extremely rare phenomenon"

Nope, it isn't. It simply isn't. Even by official metrics (which are always undercounts when it comes to stigmatized diagnoses), DID diagnoses are more common than red hair.

Psychistry lied. Psychiatry stigmatized plurality as a part of its colonial agenda to police ideas of self, body, and spirituality that don't fit into the western imperial dogma of One Self One Reason One God But Don't Think About That Last One Too Hard.

so listen. i don't actually give a fuck about scientific research into the "etiology" of my existence as a being, i find that offensive and adjacent to eugenics in mindset.

why am i here? well you see i'm an ex-imaginary shadow siren. i came here through the television while my then 5yo host was playing the thousand year door, i used to be an imaginary friend made out of shadows, i can operate in shared reality and also hold these beliefs about my self concept, it's not impossible.

HOWEVER.

even IF i thought there was a legitimate line of inquiry to be made into the "etiology" of multiple beings existing in one body

where is the untraumatized control group?

first off, you cannot accurately control for trauma or for particular types of trauma in this world. you just can't.

even if you could somehow only survey very honest people, i have had more than one clinician literally ignore me about not having had certain kinds of trauma and tell me that i must have experienced that trauma bc i'm multiple. so how the fuck can we trust these people's data on what causes multiplicity and plurality?

second off, everyone is traumatized. psychiatry and pop psychiatry lied about there being a meaningful divide between weak victims and resilient survivors too. - Vivian 🔥

[fishelfe]

Considering what happened/is happening re: COVID, all those apocalyptic films portay humanity correctly.

hate how all these apocalyptic films show society breaking down the hot minute the grid goes down, with all the survivors banding off into tiny violent gangs that prey on each other.

bitch you are a member of one of the most social species in existence! it is actually insane the extent to which humans have evolved to use cooperation as our main survival tool. humans have been building and then rebuilding societies for as long as disasters have been bringing them down. an apocalypse would be fucking awful, but the survivors would end up building communities and networks and pooling resources and knowledge, because that's what humans do. that's what they DO!!!

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

Looming vs. Natural Reproduction - what on Gallifrey's going on here?

aka What is looming and how does it exist alongside natural reproduction?

As the first of the trending topics, GIL's noticed some confusion about the concept of looming vs. natural reproduction in Gallifreyans. Have no fear; GIL's here to help.

🧬 What is looming?

It's a bit like 3D printing, but for people. These Rassilon-created Genetic Loom Breeding-Engines weave new Gallifreyans from a mix of matter and biodata. Looms produce Gallifreyans of all genders, (though females are loomed slightly less frequently). Each House has its unique Loom, which embeds familial traits into its creations.

❓ Why is looming a thing?

The invention of Looms was Rassilon’s grand solution to a serious problem. Following the catastrophic Curse of Pythia, Gallifrey faced extinction. The Looms became lifelines, ensuring the continuity of Gallifreyan civilisation.

🔮 What is the Curse of Pythia?

The Pythias were a kind of magical matriarchal monarchy, with rulers known as Pythias ruling over ancient Gallifrey in succession. Pythia number 309 (out of 309) was elbowed out by Rassilon. She was, understandably, really hacked off. She condemned Gallifrey to wither and then threw herself into the Crevasse of Memories That Will Be, never to be seen again. This 'withering' is known as the 'Curse of Pythia'. It resulted in mass sterility of Gallifreyans - supposedly instantly killing babies in their mother's wombs, and preventing any Gallifreyan from reproducing naturally from that point forward.

🍷 So Gallifreyans used to reproduce naturally?

Yes. Before the sterility curse, Gallifreyans reproduced just like humans, with a little wine, a candlelit dinner and maybe an album by Barry White.

✨ So does this 'Curse' still exist?

No. The apparent lifting of Pythia's curse was marked by Leela's pregnancy (yes, THAT Leela), which hailed a return to natural reproduction among Gallifreyans. Others besides Leela have also been able to reproduce naturally.

🔄 So what method do they use?

This blend of technological and biological means of reproduction leaves Gallifreyans in a unique position. They could use both methods depending on social, political, or personal factors.

🧐It can't all be that simple, GIL ...

Wow, you've been here before, haven't you?

There are accounts that the supposed 'Curse of Pythia' didn't actually come from Pythia.

Self-inflicted: Some say it was a side-effect of a massive time tech experiment that went awry.

It never existed: Others suggest there never was a curse. Rassilon, seeking absolute control, concocted a narrative to enforce a sterile, controllable society, eradicating the unpredictability of natural birth and driving forward eugenics in his perfect society.

🏫 So ...

Thus, the plot thickens. Were Gallifreyans always capable of natural reproduction but held back by societal constructs and fear? Did Leela's pregnancy unveil a truth long buried or simply reawaken a dormant biological ability? That's up to you.

But of course, GIL denies this version of events, cos how else would we get the funding for all the biscuits in the canteen from the High Council? Praise Rassilon!

Related:

💬|🧶💰How to acquire a Loom?: Practical guide to acquiring a loom, legally or not.

📺|🏡🧬Top 10 list of the most biologically curious Houses of Gallifrey

💬|👤👑Why is Rassilon everywhere?: Who Rassilon is and why you should care.

Hope that helped! 😃

Any purple text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired😴

[pangeen]

The Penrose process:

(also called Penrose mechanism) is theorised by Sir Roger Penrose as a means whereby energy can be extracted from a rotating black hole. The process takes advantage of the ergosphere --- a region of spacetime around the black hole dragged by its rotation faster than the speed of light, meaning that from the point of an outside observer any matter inside is forced to move in the direction of the rotation of the black hole.

In the process, a working body falls into the ergosphere. At its lowest point the body fires a propellant backwards; however, to a faraway observer both seem to continue to move forward due to frame-dragging (albeit at different speeds). The propellant, being slowed, falls to the event horizon of the black hole. And the remains of the body, being sped up, fly away with an excess of energy.

The maximum amount of energy gain possible for a single particle decay via the original (or classical) Penrose process is 20.7% of its mass in the case of an uncharged black hole (assuming the best case of maximal rotation of the black hole). The energy is taken from the rotation of the black hole, so there is a limit on how much energy one can extract by Penrose process and similar strategies (for an uncharged black hole no more than 29% of its original mass; larger efficiencies are possible for charged rotating black holes).

Via Wikipedia

Animation:  © Eugene Pylinsky

Throat singing: The Gyuto Monks of Tibet

[liminalweirdo]

[anarchotahdigism]

I know i say "wear a mask and riot" and "fuck a peaceful protest" but I'd had a nice long post about how digital work and advocacy is praxis (or can be) on my old account. Right now, COVID is spreading and killing thousands of people in the US alone and nearly all """radicals""""" and """""leftists"""" are philosophically no different than the fascists they claim to oppose because they are so thoroughly wedded to eugenics that they refuse to wear and enforce masking. COVID causes long COVID in 10-30% of cases so the so-called US alone may well be a majority disabled nation now due to rampant eugenics forcing the spread of COVID. Long COVID is a rotting death and makes everything an order of magnitude more difficult if you still are able to do the things you were prior. Repeated COVID infections means you're guaranteed to be immunocompromised permanently and disabled in other ways you'll likely find out the hard way. With 40% of cases being asymptomatic and most only showing severe symptoms after 2-3 infections, and many starting to drop dead after 3 to 5 infections, many people accrue damage from and spread COVID without realizing it until it is far, far too late. As a result, it's guaranteed that the ableists have disabled and killed people. They've kept disabled people like me who are high risk out of radical spaces & communities. They've abandoned solidarity for everyone but the abled, ableist middle class while focusing most of their efforts on electoralism, despite the clear and constant failures of such actions. The BLM Rebellion of 2020-2021 had significant---albeit broadly temporary--impacts on electoral politics, society, and communities because it was a constant and ongoing rebellion that was also much more disability inclusive than prior leftist movement moments. For the first time, people recognized the need for remote actions & support because while masking was at the high water mark, more abled people understood that a lot of us disabled could not and would not risk COVID but we had had skills vital to the project. Things disabled people were absolutely critical for during the BLM Rebellion: police scanner observation and transcription, evacuation coordination, event & route planning, translation services, postering, graphics art & design, self defense seminars, radio nets, mutual aid fundraising, mutual aid distribution, bail fund coordination, zine writing, mask & test distributions, contact tracing (remember this??!??!), car brigades, organizing medical supplies, teaching first aid skills, and countless other roles often organized & performed remotely. For every fighter, there are at least a dozen support roles and with some thought and effort, those roles can be aided or done digitally. Posting on its own can be praxis in that it shares information, knowledge, tactics, demonstrates that there are other radicals out there willing to do what they can, normalizes radicalism, and in some cases, regimes pay close attention to internet support.

During the height of the Jina Amini rebellion in 2022, the Iranian regime tried to cut the internet repeatedly to stifle information out of and into Iran to hinder protest coordination and outrage. It also paid extremely close attention to when the rebellion was trending and refrained from reprisals until the mass attention of the internet citizenry turned away. Posting literally helped save lives by forcing the regime to wait, buying people time to organize, prepare, and act accordingly in Iran and internationally. Personally, I will always remember and be grateful for the Palestinians who turned out across the world, but especially in occupied Palestine, for Iranians. Iran is not the only regime that will wait until posts slacken and attention wanes before massacring people. If you are disabled, if you have arrest risks, if for any reasons you don't want to be involved in a radical riot, but you want to support those who can and do, there is so much you can do year round but especially things kick off!! Any skills, resources, knowledge, or support you can organize or contribute is valuable! eSims for Gaza right now are monumental in ensuring Gazans can coordinate information, requests, record Israeli occupation war crimes & apartheid cruelty, and many disabled graphics designers are offering their services in exchange for esim donations. It's been incredible to see.

The people who are against digital activism are ableist and racist and ignorant as hell beyond that. You can make an impact and even save and change lives while homebound. Begging genociders to stop profitable genocides has never and will never work. Riots & boycotts work because they directly confront and attack power and if those actions are supported by communities, they can continue for quite some time, as we saw with the BLM uprising. Regimes do not fall because people ask regime leaders to please stop committing atrocities; they fall when the people are able to bring to bear the sum of their hopes and wrath and bring the fight to those who have been oppressing them. That requires inclusive community & an outright rejection of the regime and its systems of cooptation & recuperation.

If a revolution or movement isn't inclusive, if it excludes the disabled, the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, it's not a revolution or movement, it's just another genocidal regime change.

[gramaphonejammin]

This drabble exists only because I was compelled by the sheer enjoyment this scenario brought me. I joked on @swifty-fox 's beautiful beautiful Brady art that he is my sweet Catholic boy and if he lived in the modern day would love being involved in the gay community building part of his local church. Hence this short modern AU! Drabble was born. Brady's characterization is largely inspired by "understanding in a plane crash" but he has slightly less issues bc he got access to the socialist Catholics at like age 18. So obv this is dedicated to Swifty-Fox for the brain worms!

(Brief Catholic explanation: the Catholic church is really big globally, in cities each church community is divided up into "parishes" where one or more priests manages that local community. Pastoral councils are volunteer/community groups that advise the parish on certain social issues and run events etc. In the modern day there are growing numbers of LGBTQIA+ groups that seek to create belonging and advocate for change in the church. I'm a part of one and think John would be too. Cue comedy.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A once-white plastic fan that’s been pulled to the end of its cord up to the plastic folding table is the only thing fighting against the oppressive late evening heat. This meeting should have ended an hour ago and John Brady knows it’s at least partially his fault.

John sighs, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, “we are not changing the entrance hymn and I’m not budging on that.”

Thanks to this very pastoral council, their parish has been hosting a bi-monthly LGBTQIA+ affirming Saturday evening mass for years. Working with this fine group of people has been so good for John (or at least that’s what his husband tells him) but sometimes some of them can get on his nerves.

John is not even sure how they got to this topic. The entrance hymn has worked just fine for the past eight years, does it really have to change now? If anything, they should be talking about getting some A/C installed in this church. But this is the discussion they’re having, and John intends on finishing it.

Eugene, a retired older gentleman sitting across from John, is his main opponent. “I just don’t understand why not, it could be good to have a change. Spice things up!”

“It. Sets. The. Tone,” John says. Really, he’s the one who leads the church choir every mass you’d think they’d trust his musical opinions.

John looks around the table for back-up and realizes he’s almost out of luck. With summer vacations in full swing, there’s only five of them at tonight’s post-mass meeting and everyone (other than Eugene and John, of course) seem too tired to put effort into wrapping this argument up.

River, the youngest member of the group, is very clearly on their phone. David, Eugenes husband, is hopeless. (John doesn’t have anything against David, in fact he bakes wonderful shortbread, but he is Eugene’s husband and therefore a coward.)

John turns to his last hope sitting beside him and stares at her imploringly until she speaks without looking up from the rosary she’s thumbing, “we should listen to little John, he is usually right.” A Filipino grandmother to a transgender son, Mary Evangeline is the one voice of reason that John can always count on.

“Well, that’s two voices against one and—” before Eugene can interrupt him, John’s phone begins to buzz in his pocket. It’s his husband, “hold that thought, Eugene, I have to take this.” John rushes into the hallway and answers.

DeMarco’s smooth voice comes across clear and bright through the speaker. “There a battle going on down there?”

John laughs and silently sends a thank you to The Lord for gifting him this wonderful man. Benny knows him better than he knows himself. “And what makes you say that?”

“Could there be another reason why you’re late?”

“You know I don’t mean to fight I just—”

“Don’t like being wrong. I know.” John can hear the smug smile in his tone.

“I’m not wrong, that’s the thing.”

“You never are, dear. But it is getting late and I was expecting to spend my Saturday evening on the couch with you.”

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Father George shuffling down the hallways towards him.

“Sorry, love, I have to go. I’ll be home soon, I love you.”

“I love you, too. Play nice now!”

John hangs up just as Father George sidles up to his side, out of breath from the walk, “hello dear Bernard, are you all still here? It’s nearly 9!”

Pleasantly plump with tiny wisps of white hair and small rectangle metal glasses, Father George is the oldest priest in their parish and no matter how many times he earnestly gets his parishioners names mixed up no one has the heart to correct him. John, like everyone else in the parish, knows that that Father George has a weakness for treats and likely came by the meeting hall looking for any leftovers he could nibble on before going to bed.

“Yes, Father. But we are just wrapping up and will head home soon. There’s still some carrot cake that David baked left that you’re very welcome to, Father.”

“Now that, my child, is an offer I cannot refuse.”

Father George walks into the meeting hall alongside John to a chorus of hello Father. The Father walks over to the slices of carrot cake with intent and John watches aghast as Eugene turns to speak to Father George. That sneaky rat.

“Father George, you know that we’ve had ‘All Are Welcome’ as our entrance hymn for song long now and I was thinking that it would be great if—”

“Oh! I just love that hymn. What a joy it is to hear it!” Using the plastic fork he’s just grabbed as a mock-baton he starts singing in his nice but age-roughened voice, “let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live…all are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place!” Father George chuckles at the soft clapping he gets from River for his impromptu performance. “Now what were you saying about our entrance hymn, my son?”

Eugene looks defeated, “nothing Father,” he says. John smiles. Victory.

Time to get home to Benny.

[i-amusemyself]

I feel like I'm gonna rattle a few cages here but can we please talk about how much it sucks as a young person still trying to avoid Covid seeing all your previous role models not give a fuck anymore.

Like yes I'm talking somewhat about teachers and people in the community who you look up to as a kid. Who you used to think were all knowing and kind and considerate. Maybe they were even the people who taught you about basic biology or critical thinking or historical periods of eugenics.

But mostly I'm talking about the music artists and youtubers and other influencer-type people. The ones who built careers off of telling teenagers that "everything seems doomed now but you can get through this" and "fuck the people who think you're weird, you're infinitely valuable." The ones who told us we weren't alone and who we clung to through waves of utter hopelessness and self hatred and suicidal ideation.

Now where are they? At best, they're ignoring the ongoing pandemic. Not bothering to use their huge platforms to speak out about the continued mass death and disablement. Never putting a penny towards Long Covid research. More often than not, they're hosting sell out tour shows and meet and greets in places around the world. In simple terms: superspreader events. And not a single thought about or mention of mitigation.

Like. Okay, even if we work on the assumption that Covid is only dangerous for already sick/disabled people (it's not). That's bullshit. Everyone matters right? We're all important and our mental health is important. But fuck us if we want to be included right? Fuck us if we want to see the people who dragged us kicking and screaming through adolescence with the promise itll get better. They don't give a fuck if their shows lead to permanent disablement or death, so long as there's money in their pockets.

I mean sometimes, sometimes these people seem to care about other causes. They post about Palestine. They talk about gay rights. Gotta keep up the good image. But as soon as they have to look beyond the surface level atrocity- to see that disease is part of the gazan genocide or that systemic inequalities still mean LGBT people are at higher risk of Long Covid- they squeeze their eyes shut.

So yeah, in conclusion, fuck these people. They're hypocrites, and seeing the way their behaviour has evolved has created its own layer of pandemic grief.

[mariacallous]

For the apotheosis of his entire “poisoning of the blood” campaign, Donald Trump has planned a spectacular extravaganza in Madison Square Garden on 27 October, a week before the election. When JD Vance sings Trump’s fulsome praises to introduce him, his ominous tribute will not inspire comparison to the night in the Garden of 19 May 1962, when Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday, Mr President to John F Kennedy.

Trump’s climactic rally will not be in the spirit of any past presidential event ever held there. His gathering for the great racist replacement theory will be the culmination of his spiraling descent since the Charlottesville rally in 2017 when neo-Nazis chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” “Fine people on both sides,” Trump said then. Now, at his night at the Garden, Trump will revive the memory of the infamous American Nazi mass rally held there on 20 February 1939 through his reflected Hitlerian rhetoric.

In the last week, Trump has pledged to deploy the military against “the enemy within”, domestic opponents he claims are worse than foreign adversaries – those Hitler called “Feind des Volkes”, or “enemy of the people”. Trump has threatened to destroy CBS, ABC and the New York Times. About ABC, after it conducted the debate in which he performed disastrously, he called to “take away their license”. After Kamala Harris’s 60 Minutes interview, having refused his own, he tweeted on 10 October: “TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE.” About the Times, he said on 9 October: “Wait until you see what I’m going to do with them.” He has singled out by name journalists for the Times and the New Yorker as “FAKE OBAMA LOVING ‘JOURNALISTS”. At every rally he denounces the “fake news”, a drumbeat for years, echoing Hitler’s pejorative slur, “die Lügenpresse” – “the lying press”.

Trump traveled on 11 October to Aurora, Colorado, where he claimed a Venezuelan gang had seized control, “scum” and “animals” who have “invaded and conquered” and “infected” the town, a description dismissed as false by its Republican mayor. “We have to clean out our country,” said Trump. His language represented the Nazi idea of “Rassenhygiene” – “race cleansing” that required purification, not an academic interest in genetics but a program of eugenics for designating inferior races to be isolated or eliminated.

As Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “A people that fails to preserve the purity of its racial blood thereby destroys the unity of the soul of the nation in all its manifestations. A disintegrated national character is the inevitable consequence of a process of disintegration in the blood.”

The former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, retired general Mark Milley, according to Bob Woodward in his new book War, told the veteran journalist: “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump. Now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.” Trump had stated that for Milley’s communication with his counterparts in China on January 6 to reassure them that the US military was stable, he deserved “DEATH” – to be executed.

On 14 October, retired general Mike Flynn – Trump’s former national security adviser, whom he pardoned for failing to register as a foreign agent and obstructing justice – was asked at a Christian nationalist rally for Trump whether he would preside over military tribunals in a second Trump term to “not only drain the swamp, but imprison the swamp, and on a few occasions, execute the swamp”. “Believe me,” Flynn replied, “the gates of hell – my hell – will be unleashed.”

Trump has been inevitably drawn to the Garden, in the city that made and unmade him. He is irreversibly entrapped in his endless neurotic syndrome of desperately seeking approval there that he constantly repels and success he inexorably undermines, a cycle of failure, rejection and humiliation. He wants New York to love him unreservedly, but his relationship with the city has been one long unrequited romance. His true love affair has always and only been with himself. When he does not receive the adoration he feels he deserves, he hates New York. Then, he tries to win its love again by performing a disgusting act, which, when he is predictably rejected, triggers his anger once again. And, then, he engages in gestures of infantile defiance, like holding a Nazi-esque rally. Trying to show himself triumphant over the city, he invites its scorn once again, and again, and again. He never comprehends that he is the cause of his continuing narcissistic injuries.

Trump’s rally, through the rhyme of history, will be a rebuke to the greatest campaign speech delivered by Franklin D Roosevelt, which, though given 88 years ago in the Garden on 31 October 1936, rings remarkably contemporary, a speech for “the restoration of American democracy” and its “preservation”.

“We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle,” FDR said. “We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me – and I welcome their hatred.”

Three years after FDR spoke at the Garden, another rally was held there, on 20 February 1939, under the sponsorship of the German American Bund, raising the slogan of “America First”, to advance the great replacement theory that Jews and other “inferior races” were displacing white Aryans. The Nazis claimed the mantle of true Americanism and Christian nationalism. Swastikas framed a gigantic portrait of George Washington as the backdrop to the stage. From the balcony hung a banner: “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America.” “Wake up!” shouted the Führer of the Bund, Fritz Kuhn, “you, Aryan, Nordic and Christians, to demand that our government be returned to the people who founded it!”

Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze, the Bund’s public relations director, declared that white supremacy was the essential basis of the nation. “The spirit which opened the west and built our country is the spirit of the militant white man,” he said, citing racial segregation and immigration quotas as its bulwarks. “It has then always been very much American to protect the Aryan character of this nation.”

In 2019, a seven-minute documentary about the Nazi rally of 1939, A Night at the Garden, was nominated for an Academy Award. To promote it, a 30-second TV ad was produced with the tagline: “It Can Happen Here.” The line was a reference to Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel, It Can’t Happen Here, about a populist demagogue defeating FDR and imposing a fascist regime. Lewis’s wife, the famous journalist Dorothy Thompson, a columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, who had reported on the rise of Hitler, pointedly attended the Nazi rally. “I saw an exact duplicate of it in the Berlin Sports Palast in 1931,” she wrote.

When the film distributor of A Night at the Garden sought to buy time for a spot on Fox News, its CEO, Suzanne Scott, rejected it as “not appropriate for our air”. After the 2020 election, during Trump’s ramping up to the January 6 insurrection, she ordered that Fox News suppress factchecking his lies because it was “bad for business”.

Now, in his announcement of his night at the Garden, Trump advertised a clipped version of the replacement theory, declaring that New York was “reeling” from “Kamala’s reckless open-border policies”, “flooding” the city with criminal “illegal migrants”. For nearly a $1m contribution to attend the event, the top tier, donors are promised an “Ultra MAGA Experience”, details to follow.

Trump’s Maga rally will be the first time since the 1939 Nazi rally that the same themes of the replacement theory will echo in the Garden. But his closing argument is more than Nazi cosplay. He cannot help but reveal his deepest desire to be loved and then to fling the middle finger to the city whose unconditional admiration he has sought since he first crossed the Queensboro Bridge.

Trump’s permanent physical move to Palm Beach after his failed coup in 2020 has not transformed him into a contented Florida Man. To the inveterate New Yorker, the Sunshine state is strictly for snowbirds, God’s waiting room for shuffleboarders. Mar-a-Lago, his winter escape, has become his unnatural embittering palace-in-exile. Florida represents disgrace to Trump.

Trump’s emotional journey back to the White House must travel through New York. He has nothing but contempt and indifference for Washington. He despises policy, flaunts his ignorance and detests anyone who has ever tried to temper him, from four-star generals to Republican congressional leaders. He wants the pomp without the circumstance. January 6 played out Trump’s true view of the capital.

Trump plots his night at the Garden as the climax of his comeback tour. He may have been president, but never top of the heap. Roy Cohn could tell him how to skirt the law and ingratiate himself with the mob, but Cohn was not a Virgil to guide his protege to respectability. Trump’s lowlife publicity antics, tutored by Cohn, made him into one of the revolving cast of characters populating tabloid trash. The larger the headline of the sordid story about himself, the bigger Trump’s delusion that kitsch burnished his class. He was always crestfallen when his frolics did not win his admission into the club.

Trump has only been truly comfortable strutting in his old New York, conning and threatening, greasing the palms of the mafia, stiffing his contractors and workers, while trying to buy his way into society affairs. Time and again, the city spat him out. He was ridiculed and reviled. He went bust six times. He defaulted on the Trump Shuttle. The banks denied him loans. He had to sell his yacht named for his daughter, The Princess. His brutish father, who financed his wild ventures, throwing good money after bad, had to buy chips illegally to momentarily float his sinking Atlantic City casino. He dumped two wives. He allegedly sexually assaulted dozens of women. When he tried to lowball Frank Sinatra, an idol, Ol’ Blue Eyes told him, “Go fuck yourself.”

After Trump had plunged in what seemed to be his final bankruptcy, he was rescued by a TV producer, Mark Burnett, who created the reality TV show The Apprentice, which depicted Trump as a business genius reigning over the Manhattan skyline. The sheer fiction was the veneer that enabled his grubby lucrative product placement side deals. His motive for running for president was a branding scam gone haywire.

Now, he has returned to the city on his road to redemption. Yet, so far, he has been held accountable for his vast crimes only in New York. He has been found liable for defamation and sexual assault and termed an adjudicated rapist by the judge in the E Jean Carroll case, and ordered to pay $83.3m in damages plus continuing interest; found liable of widespread financial fraud and ordered to pay $364m for ill-gotten gains plus continuing interest; and convicted of 34 felony counts of financial fraud for hush-money payments, to a porn star and Playboy model with whom he had affairs, in order to affect the outcome of the 2016 election.

Once again, he intends to prove himself in the city that never sleeps, the city that will give him another shot at murdering someone on Fifth Avenue and getting away with it. A star is reborn.

These little town blues are melting away I’m gonna make a brand-new start of it in old New York And if I can make it there, I’m gonna make it anywhere It’s up to you, New York, New York

Trump now says that if he loses he will blame the unappreciative Jews – he hasn’t been “treated right” by the Jews and their support for Democrats is a “curse”. But Trump, who has picked up a few Yiddish words, uses them unconsciously like a native New Yorker. On 2 January 2021, he displayed his proficiency in his notorious telephone call with the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in which he sought to intimidate him into committing election fraud to switch the state’s voting results.

“So look,” said Trump. “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.”

Raffensperger resisted Trump’s strong-arming, the Georgia outcome stood, and four days later Trump incited the assault on the Capitol in a last-ditch effort to thwart the certification of the election: “Hang Mike Pence!” Trump has since been indicted in Georgia for election fraud, a case in legal purgatory until after the 2024 election.

Twice, during his call with Raffensperger, Trump derided the Republican governor, Brian Kemp, who refused to be complicit in Trump’s scheme, by calling him a “schmuck”. Perhaps the word was lost on Trump’s listeners. According to Leo Rosten’s The Joy of Yiddish, it carries several meanings, including “penis” and “a dope, a jerk, a boob, a clumsy bumbling fellow”. Rosten wrote that “few impolite words express comparable contempt”.

Now, New Yorkers can only wonder, what kind of schmuck holds a Nazi-esque rally in Madison Square Garden?