#free recycling program

[geezerwench]

VTech® & LeapFrog® Toys Free Recycling Program

VTech & LeapFrog have partnered with TerraCycle to provide an easy way to recycle VTech's electronic learning toys. Teach children about recycling through the VTech® & LeapFrog® Free Recycling Program, the easy way to keep these items out of landfills and earn cash for charities and schools.*

E-learning toys are not accepted curbside but contain valuable metals and plastics that can be turned into something new. If you or your network have any well-loved, nondonatable VTech® & LeapFrog® electronic learning devices and toys, sign up now to recycle these items for free instead of throwing them in the trash!

You can become a public drop-off point—a community hub where people can drop off their devices and toys at your location—or recycle as an individual or household. Either way you earn points redeemable for cash for your favorite charity or child’s school.

[lasshoe]

i’m cleaning out my wardrobe and all of my followers are invited over to take all the clothes they want!!!!!

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - January 1-7

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles!

1. Homes built with clay, grass, plastic and glass: How a Caribbean island is shying away from concrete

“[… Clay] traps moisture which then evaporates and pulls heat from the surface as it goes. […] The roof is covered in old recycled advertising banners and piece of a water tank, the other half of which is used to house some of Rahaman-Noronha's fish [… and] multi-coloured glass bottles inset into walls provide an avenue for streams of light and colour.”

2. To Combat Phoenix’s Extreme Heat, a New Program Provides Sustainable Shade

“The neighborhood workshops allow residents to get a shade plan tailored to their community’s needs and identify the locations where officials can plant trees. Meanwhile, the workforce-development side of the program creates the jobs needed to keep the trees alive for generations[….]”

3. Conservation corridors provide hope for Latin America’s felines

“[… S]cience has shown that to maintain healthy populations there needs to be connection between individuals. [… A] protected area that is close to another has more species and more potential for their survival.”

4. Social program cuts tuberculosis cases among Brazil's poorest by more than half

“The decrease [“in TB cases and deaths”] was over 50% in extremely poor people and more than 60% among the Indigenous populations. […] "We know that the program improves access to food [… and healthcare…] and strengthens people's immune defenses as a result.””

5. Geothermal has vast potential to meet the world’s power needs

“New geothermal systems could technically provide as much as 600 terawatts of carbon-free power capacity by 2050[…. C]ountries could cost-effectively deploy over 800 GW of geothermal power capacity using technology that’s in development today[….]”

6. New D.C. Catholic archbishop is pro-LGBTQ+ and anti-Trump

“In 2018, he objected to the blaming of gay priests for the clergy sexual abuse crisis, “saying that such abuse was a matter of power, not sexual orientation[….]” “We must disrupt those who portray refugees as enemies [… and] seek to rob our medical care, especially from the poor.””

7. Chesapeake Bay Will Gain New Wildlife Refuge

“The Chesapeake Bay area will have a new wildlife refuge for the first time in a quarter century. […] “This new refuge offers an opportunity to halt and even reverse biodiversity loss in this important place, and in a way that fully integrates and respects the leadership and rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.””

8. Inside Svalbard seed vault’s critical mission to stop our favourite fruit and veg from going extinct

“[… T]he world’s largest secure seed storage […] sits proudly in a massive former coal mine[….] Right now, there are over 1,331,458 samples of 6,297 crop species. […] “During 2024, 61 seed genebanks deposited 64,331 seed samples, including 21 from institutes that deposited seeds for the first time this year[….]””

9. Medical debt will be erased from credit reports for all Americans under new federal rule

“The rule will affect more than 15 million Americans, raising their credit scores by an estimated average of 20 points. [… S]tates and localities have already utilized American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds to support the elimination of over $1 billion in medical debt for more than 700,000 Americans[….]”

10. 'Forgotten' water harvesting system transforms 'barren wasteland' into thriving farmland

“"The process started with the community-based participatory planning[….]” 10% to 15% of the water will actually soak into the ground to replenish the water table, creating a more sustainable agricultural process.”

December 22-28 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[h0neyfreak]

helping “The Environment” as an individual is such a nebulous and ever changing concept and seems to be very much in the Discourse™️ at the moment so I just want to take a minute to shout into the void with some reminders I gave my enviro students when they got to the “oh dear god we’re all gonna die” phase of the class:

“Individual choices don’t matter” is like. true(?) for climate change (unless you’re a kardashian or CEO or something) but that just means you can’t reusable tote bag your way out of a private jet society. NOT that you can’t have any impact through community initiatives and activism. Advocate for municipal composting and public transit!! Get involved locally!!!!! Write weekly to your representatives! Do whatever you can to get unstuck and scrape together some modicum of hope.

Also on individual choices. There are some that “matter” but be very wary of outsized benefits promised for seemingly small choices (e.g. the straw debacle). An app is not the thing to save us from a hundred years of industry. Going out and collecting litter DOES have an impact even if that impact is just “this area of the world no longer has trash in it.” It’s not solving the issue of microplastics or whatever but it is helping local birds. And it’s helping YOU feel more connected to your local environment and getting you involved with the world and your community.

Finally, the best thing you can be is well informed, persistent, and kind. Be willing and able to help if you bump into someone who is open to the idea of not letting Shell and SHEIN pour toxic sludge directly into every river. It’s more people than you think. But most people only know how to buy things that are “better.” (Electric cars, reusable bags, expensive neutral clothing made of flax). They want to do SOMETHING but we’re all just kind of vibrating balls of anxiety all the time. Know what sort of things are going on around you and invite them! My go to’s are composting initiatives, textile recycling programs, and pollinator friendly/grass free gardens.

Again, it would be great if we were all willing to drag the Shell and Nestle CEOs out to account for their crimes but being paralyzed by fear is not gonna help. Neither is another ethical clothing brand selling $400 linen underwear (probably). I’ve found time and time again that people who have any amount of tangible connection to the world outside have a much more visceral reaction to billionaire super yachts than defeatist suburbanites who drive EVs and have a kitchen full of dubious organic snacks.

[kingshovelbug]

im sorry but i need to geek out somewhere and screaming into the void on tumblr is less likely to get me flayed than on twitter, especially if i get terms wrong. plus i can do a read more and yall can click into the tech talk if you want to verse it bombarding your twitter timelines

so idk if i only liked it or if i actually put it in my queue but i saw a post that talked about a few pieces of tech that focus on user repairs and being sustainable (fairphone and frameworks laptop) and after doing some more research into what they have to offer i actually really excited that these products are finely hitting the us market and that people are moving away from the belief that super smooth streamlined glassy = the future. being able to reliably repair and keep what you have alive verse throwing the whole thing away when maybe all you needed to do is add more ram to your current laptop (something that i would do with my laptop to keep using it for a few more years if it wasnt glued shut and i was at risk of cracking the screen) or swap out a fuse.

i know big corporations dont like it but i truly do believe with how much tech we use on a daily basis that the way that we are going to be more environmentally friendly is to move back to tech that we can hang onto for as long as we can and to recycle and then reuse what we cant. like with the frameworks laptop. i saw that they just partnered with coolermaster to create a case specifically so that you can reuse you motherboard, cpu, etc and make a portable workstation. you could dual wield with the laptop you just upgraded if you want to dedicate specific tasks to one or the other. they also specifically mentioned that you could screw it into the back of a monitor and create your own all in one. guys thats cool as shit??? if you had a 3d printer and some time you could even create that yourself

on top of the actual hardware part moving to open source programs when your able. when i update my desktop i plan on running linux. it might have a learning curve compared to windows but in terms of performance??? ive heard that it runs smoother even on older machines, that its more efficient because isnt running stuff in the background that tracks your data and shit. now i understand that not everyone can do that because there are some programs that dont play nice with linux but for my needs at least it does everything i would need it to. and maybe a couple years down the road we do figure out how to run these programs on certain flavors of linux since its open source and people fiddle with it so much. (still looking for alternatives to like word and excel though, i use google docs since its free but i want to move away from them as much as i can too since they laid of their youtube music team (i believe?? it might of been a different branch) for trying to unionize)

if anyone knows of any other smaller companies that actually focus on sustainability and user repairability please let me know. theres certain pieces of tech that i think are now unfortunately behind a software repair paywall, things that used to be just machines and are gaining more bells and whistles like cars and refrigerators if that makes sense. but the more we push for these things to be repairable by us the consumers id hope that would change, or there would at least be options that dont need specific companies to repair them or else they blow up

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Dow promised to turn sneakers into playground surfaces, then dumped them in Indonesia

Dow Chemicals plastered Singapore with ads for its sneaker recycling program, promising to turn old shoes into playground tracks. But the shoes it collected in its “recycling” bins were illegally dumped in Indonesia. This isn’t an aberration: it’s how nearly all plastic recycling has always worked.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/career-criminals/#fool-me-twice-three-times-four-times-a-hundred-times

Plastic recycling’s origin story starts in 1973, when Exxon’s scientists concluded that plastic recycling would never, ever be cost-effective (#ExxonKnew about this, too). Exxon sprang into action: they popularized the recycling circular arrow logo and backed “anti-littering” campaigns that blamed the rising tide of immortal, toxic garbage on peoples’ laziness.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/14/they-knew/#doing-it-again

Remember the campaign where an Italian guy dressed like a Native American shed a single tear as he contemplated plastic litter? Funded by the plastic industry, as a way of shifting blame for plastic waste from the wealthy, powerful corporations who lied about plastics recycling to the individuals who believed their lies:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-indian-crying-environment-ads-pollution-1123-20171113-story.html

When I was a kid in Ontario, we had centralized, regulated, reusable bottle depots — beer and soda bottles came in standard sizes, differentiated by paper labels that could be pressure-washed off. When you were done with your bottle, you returned it for a deposit and it got washed and returned to bottlers to be refilled again and again and again.

After intense lobbying from soda companies, brewers and the plastic industry, that program was replaced with curbside “blue boxes” that promised to recycle our plastic waste. 90% of the plastics created has never been — and will never be — recycled. Today, the plastic industry plans on tripling the amount of single-use plastic in use worldwide:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/26/plastic-fatalistic/#recycled-lies

You know those ads from companies like Bluetriton (formerly “Nestle Waters”) that promise that your single-use plastic bottles are “100% recyclable…and can be used for new bottles and all sorts of new, reusable things?”

Bluetriton is a private equity-backed rollup that has absorbed most of the bottled water companies you’re familiar with, including Poland Spring, Pure Life, Splash, Ozarka, and Arrowhead. When they were sued in DC for making false claims about their “recyclable” water-bottles, their defense was that these were “non-actionable puffery.” According to Bluetriton, when it described itself as “a guardian of sustainable resources” and “a company who, at its core, cares about water,” it was being “vague and hyperbolic.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/26/plastic-fatalistic/#recycled-lies

With this high standard for plastic recycling, Dow’s Singapore scam shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it seems to have surprised the government of Singapore. Writing for Reuters, Joe Brock, Yuddy Cahya Budiman and Joseph Campbell describe how they caught Dow red-handed:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/global-plastic-dow-shoes/

The method is actually pretty straightforward: Reuters hid tracking devices in cavities in the soles of sneakers, dropped them in one of Dow’s collection bins, and then followed them. The shoes were passed onto Dow’s subcontractor, Yok Impex Pte Ltd, who sent them hopping from island to island throughout Indonesia, until they ended up in junk-markets.

Not all the shoes, though — one pair was simply moved from Dow’s collection bin to a donation bin at a Singaporean community center. Of the 11 pairs that Reuters tracked, not one ended up at a recycling facility. So much for Dow’s slogan: “Others see an old shoe. We see the future.”

Dow blamed all this on Yok Impex, but didn’t explain why its “recycling” program involved a company whose sole trade is exporting used clothing. Dow promised to cancel its deal with Yok Impex, but Yok Impex’s accountant told Reuters that the deal would be remain in place until the end of the contract. Yok Impex, meanwhile, shifted the blame to the low-waged women who sort through the clothing donations it takes in from across Singapore.

Indonesia bans bulk imports of used clothes, on the grounds that used clothes are unhygenic, displace the local textiles industry, and shipments contain high volumes of waste that ends up in Indonesian incinerators, landfills and rivers.

In other words, Singaporeans thought they were saving the planet by putting their shoes in Dow bins, but they were really sending those shoes on a long journey to an unlicensed dump. Dow enlisted schoolchildren in used-shoe collection drives, making upbeat videos that featured students like Zhang Youjia boasting that they “contributed 15 pairs of shoes.”

Dow does this all the time. In 2021, Dow’s “breakthrough technology to turn plastic waste into clean fuel” in Idaho was revealed to be a plain old incinerator:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-oil-recycling/

Also in 2021, in India, a Dow program to “use high-tech machinery to transform the [plastic from the Ganges] into clean fuel” was revealed to have ceased operations — but was still collecting plastic and promising that it was all being turned into fuel:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-plastic-insight-idUSKBN29N024

Dow operates a nearly identical “shoe recycling” program in neighboring Malaysia, and did not return Reuters’ requests for comment as to whether the shoes collected for “recycling” in the far more populous nation were also being illegally dumped offshore.

The global business lobby loves the idea of “personal responsibility” and its evil twin, “caveat emptor.” Its pet economists worship the idea of “revealed preferences,” claiming that when we use plastic, we may claim that we don’t want to have our bodies poisoned with immortal, toxic microplastics, that we don’t want our land and waters despoiled — but we actually love it, because otherwise we’d “vote with our wallets” for something else.

The obvious advantage of telling people to vote with their wallets is that the less money you have in your wallet, the fewer votes you get. Companies like Dow have used their access to the capital markets (a fancy phrase for “rich people”) to gobble up their competitors, eliminating “wasteful competition” and piling up massive profits. Those profits are laundered into policy — like replacing Ontario’s zero-waste refillable bottle system with a “recycling” system that sent plastics to the ends of the Earth to be set on fire or buried or dumped in the sea.

The ruling class’s pet economists have a name for this policy laundering: they call it “regulatory capture.” Now, when you hear “regulatory capture,” you might think about companies that get so big that they are able to boss governments around, with the obvious answer that companies need to be regulated before they get too big to jail:

https://doctorow.medium.com/small-government-fd5870a9462e

But that’s not how elite economists talk about regulatory capture: for them, capture starts with the very existence of regulators. For them, any government agency that proposes to protect the public from corporate fraud and murder inevitably becomes an agent of the corporations it is supposed to rein in, so the only answer is to eliminate regulators altogether:

https://doctorow.medium.com/regulatory-capture-59b2013e2526

This nihilism lets rich people blame the rest of us for their sins: “if you didn’t want your children to roast or freeze to death in the climate emergency, you should have sold your car and used the subway (that we bribed your city not to build).”

Nihilism is contagious. Think of the music industry: before Napster, 80% of the music ever recorded was not for sale, banished to the scrapheap of history and the vaults of record companies who paid farcically low sums to their artists.

During the File Sharing Wars, listeners were excoriated for failing to pay for music — much of which wasn’t for sale in the first place. But today, fans overwhelmingly pay for Spotify, a streaming service that notoriously pays musicians infinitesimal sums for their work.

Spotify is a creature of the Big Three labels — Sony, Universal and Warner — who own 70% of all the world’s recorded music copyrights and 65% of all the world’s music publishing. The rock-bottom per-stream prices that Spotify pays were set by the Big Three. Why would the labels want less money from Spotify?

Simple: as co-owners of Spotify, they make more money when Spotify pays less for music. Musicians have a claim on the money they take out of Spotify as royalties — but dividends, buybacks and capital gains from Spotify are the labels’ to use as they see fit. They can share that bounty with some artists, all artists, or no artists.

Not only that, but the Big Three’s deal with Spotify includes a “most favored nation” clause, which means that the independent artists who aren’t under Sony/UMG/Warner’s thumb have to take the rock-bottom rate the Big Three insisted on — likewise the small labels who compete with the Big Three. The difference is that none of these artists and small labels have massive portfolios of Spotify stock, nor do they get free advertising on Spotify, or free inclusion on hot Spotify playlists, or monthly minimum payouts from Spotify.

The idea that we shop at the wrong kind of monopolist in the wrong way is a recipe for absolute despair. It doesn’t matter whether you listen to music with the Big Tech-owned monopoly service (Youtube) or the Big Content-owned monopoly service (Spotify). The money you hand over to these giant companies goes to artists the same way that the sneakers you put in a Dow collection bin goes to a recycling plant.

Think of the billions of human labor hours we all spent washing and sorting our plastics for a recycling program that didn’t exist and will never exist — imagine if we’d spent that time and energy demanding that our politicians hold petrochemical companies to account instead.

At the end of Break ’Em Up, Zephyr Teachout’s outstanding 2020 book on monopolies, Teachout has some choice words for “consumerism” as a theory of change. She writes that if you’re on your way to a protest against a new Amazon warehouse but you never make it because you waste too much time looking for a mom-and-pop stationers to sell you a marker to write your protest sign, Amazon wins:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up

The problem isn’t that you shop the wrong way. Yes, by all means, support the creators and producers you care about in the way that they prefer, but keep your eye on the prize. Structural problems don’t have individual solutions. The problem isn’t that you have chosen single-use plastics — it’s that in our world everything for sale is packaged in single-use plastics. The problem isn’t that you’ve bought a subscription to the wrong music streaming service — it’s that labels have been allowed to buy all their competitors, creators’ unions have been smashed and degraded, and giant accounting scams by big companies generate minuscule fines.

The good news is that after 40 years of despair inducing regulatory nihilism and “vote with your wallet” talk, we’re finally paying attention to systemic problems, with a new generation of trustbusting radicals working around the world to end corporate impunity.

Dow is a repeat offender. A repeat, repeat offender. Chrissakes, they’re the linear descendants of Union Carbide, the company that poisoned Bhopal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

They shouldn’t be trusted to run a lemonade stand, let alone a “recycling” program. The same goes for Big Tech and Big Content company and the markets for creative labor. These companies have repeatedly demonstrated their unfitness, their habitual deception and immorality. These companies have captured their regulators, repeatedly, so we need better regulators — and weaker companies.

The thing I love about Teachout’s book is that it talks about what we should be demanding from our governments — it’s a manifesto for a movement against corporate power, not a movement for “responsible consumerism.” That was the template that Rebecca Giblin and I followed when we wrote Chokepoint Capitalism, our book about the brutal, corrupt creative labor market:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

We have a chapter on Spotify (multiple chapters, in fact!). For our audiobook, we made that chapter a “Spotify Exclusive” — it’s the only part of the book you can get on Spotify, and it’s free:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/#stunt-publishing

Next Thu (Mar 2) I’ll be in Brussels for Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy, along with a who’s-who of European and US trustbusters. It’s livestreamed, and both in-person and virtual attendance are free. On Fri (Mar 3), I’ll be in Graz for the Elevate Festival.

[Image ID: A woman kneeling to tie her running shoe. She stands on a background of plastic waste. In the top right corner is the logo for Dow chemicals. Below it is the Dow slogan, 'Others see an old shoe. We see the future.']

[ghostrockband]

Im actually piloting a new sustainability program where people can return their nearly dead vapes to me and i will vape the rest free of charge until im tasting burnt plastic at which point i will "ship" them to the Recycling Facility in the center console of my Mazda 3

[stardewremixed]

What Each Townie Adds to the Community Center After Complete, Pt. 1

Farmer - a farm-to-table dinner once a month and everyone brings a side dish to share

Caroline - expands her fitness class and moves it to the Center (offers 3-4x's a week)

Evelyn - a baking class once a month (mostly cookies, some cakes too. Haley sometimes helps).

Gus - cooking class once a week (and he would be such a good teacher with a gentle, encouraging voice) AND a near daily breakfast for seniors and vets (because he's that kind of guy)

Sebastian - basic computer classes because these townsfolk need to get outta the dark ages. Jk... but seriously, he would open a computer lab. People could come work on resumes, kids could play games after school and on weekends (Sam included), and folks could pay bills online.

Penny would create a kids club for after school on Wednesdays. Vincent, Jas, and Leo all come for storytime, homework help, snacks, and playtime. Jas would donate some of her old dolls and toys. Vincent would create a bug display. Leo would fix up a treehouse out front with help from Robin.

Robin would offer woodworking classes, and she would co-lead an environmental science club with Demetrius (for the social and moral support).

Willy and Elliott would arrange beach clean-up days, and use the Center to create a place for recycling gathering. (And compost - Leah and the Farmer would add).

Gunther would partner with the Adventurer's Guild to host a series of guest lectures on the 2nd Saturday of the month. Archeologists, botanists, monster hunters, travelers, other experts.

Shane would open an AA chapter and suicide prevention support group (with some encouragement from Harvey). Bad coffee. Stale donuts. Everyone feels welcome though.

Band practice would move out of Sam's bedroom and into the Center. He would also organize an open mic night (Abigail would do most of the work, but his enthusiasm counts). He would support and cheer for everyone equally (no matter how off-key).

Elliott would do poetry readings. Once he was published, he would host his book reveal party at the Center. Over wine for the 21+.

Leah would host art classes - sculpting, painting, etc. She would also organize a tri-athlon with Alex.

Alex would fix up the backyard for a kids gridball team. He would have a sports mentorship program (and kids from surrounding towns would attend). Work hard. Play hard. And learn life skills. With a lot of help from other townies.

Haley would create a dark room for anyone wanting to develop their own photos. And she would gladly have many of her own photos on display.

I feel like George would host movie nights with help from Alex, Sebastian and Maru. Alex would hang the projector, Seb would set up the equipment, and Maru would decorate with lights in the yard for movies under the stars in summertime. And bring strawberries to share, of course. Old timey movies. Black and whites.

Harvey (and Maru) would host health clinics, offering free wellness checkups. Gus would provide healthy lunches. They would team up with Caroline for a fitness class. Emily would call her Swami friend for a yoga and meditation demonstration.

Emily would definitely start a sewing circle. Jodi would join. Maybe Marnie. And Caroline would enjoy cross-stitch.

Em would also do additional projects. The younger ladies like Abigail, Sophia, and Scarlett would definitely be into cosplay and costuming together. Abs would drag Sebastian in every once in awhile and Sam would tag along, just cuz. Seb would rock Puck from A Midsummer's Night Dream. And Elliott would make a fantastic Romeo. Haley would definitely be Juliet.

[mcromwell]

blown away by how people have totally forgotten the ramifications of destroying books. literally every person who intentionally destroyed a book throughout history thought they were justified in doing so. the impulse to destroy books is paternalistic in its assumption that you are the most qualified human being to determine what is and is not appropriate for other adults to read. obviously the impact is lessened in the digital age, but destroying books remains a display that signals a totalitarian impulse to control others' access to information.

I'm not controlling anyone's access to information. This is a free book pile--most of these books are books no one wants or are so outdated they're useless (old computer program books, etc.) I agree that book destruction has historic baggage, but these books were most likely on their way to a recycling plant anyway.

[problematic-polls]

which of these things that are awful for the environment do you continue to do?

- replacing my phone with a new model more than necessary

- letting my cat/s roam free outside

- playing golf

- driving a bigger/more powerful car than my lifestyle warrants

- buying from fast fashion brands like shein and temu

- regularly getting takeaway coffee in disposable cups

- buying/using disposable vapes (unless you have a recycle program in your area)

- buying/using disposable face masks (in a non-medical setting)

- mining cryptocurrency

- using chatgpt and similar AI products

- multiple of these

- none of these

[chronicallycouchbound]

do you have any tips for being unhoused like survival tips or even just stuff that makes life easier

Absolutely!

Before I give my advice I want to start with my most important piece of advice first: I have lots of personal experience with a few different aspects of being unhoused, I have been unhoused in frigid climates, in warmer climates, for many years, with some warning and also very suddenly, as a child with parents, as a child without parents, as an adult, couch surfing, sleeping outside, sleeping in cars, sleeping in bandos, living in a homeless shelter, living in transitional living programs, and then all of those things intersect with my various other marginalized experiences. I say all this because I want to also say that while I have extensive experiences, I don't know everything, and might miss things, or give advice that might not work in your case. So take everything with a grain of salt, including from me, for your own safety. You know your situation best, so do whatever you need to in order to survive.

Some general tips:

Aways bring extra clothes wherever you go: especially socks and underwear, they are small and light and life-savers, and homelessness often puts you in situations where you can suddenly lose everything, especially if something is left somewhere

Public libraries, churches, fast food stores and cafes are great to hang out in when it’s cold out. Unitarian Universalist Churches are (almost always) LGBTQ+ safe and affirming as well.

Shower as often as possible, the YMCA usually has cheap day passes and it’s a place to stay all day.

If you can’t shower: find a public restroom and use the sink to do a "bird bath": rinse/wash your hair, grab some paper towels or use the hand dryer to dry your hair, and use toilet paper or paper towels to rinse and dry your underarms and genitalia areas, especially when it’s hot or you’ve been sweating. Make sure you can dry off, wetness in cold is quickly life threatening, and wetness and heat breeds bacteria (which makes you stinky at best, but can also lead to skin issues)

Take extra plastic utensils, get salt/pepper packets, sauce packets, etc. as often as you can, ONLY if you have someplace to keep them (like a tent/car), small things like that can really make a difference when you're eating ramen over a fire every day, and helped keep me slightly closer to sane.

Only carry with you what you absolutely need, and always carry with you what you absolutely need.

Make friends everywhere you go, but be cautious and careful. You want to be amicable, not naive. You don't have to be trusting to be friendly.

Be friendly and overly kind to people working, they could help you later on. I have had my ass saved by so many random employees. Even if you're having a bad day, they're the people you should be kindest to. (Also be kind to service workers when not homeless, ofc)

Collect change on the streets or panhandle if it is safe and legal for you to. You can also collect bottles/cans to return, or recycle aluminum.

Look up free campsites, pantries and shelters for your area. Shelter App - Homeless Resources is a free app and website that is still kind of new, but I've seen more and more resources being added to them. Most states have a generalized hotline that's usually like a "411" or "211" or similar type phone line.

Try to always have an active phone with service, or at least a charged phone you can call emergency services on in case you need to.

Try to avoid getting into crime, drugs, alcohol/cigarettes, etc. It’s all expensive, gets you in trouble and does you no good.

However, if you are an active user: look up local needle exchanges, suboxone clinics, free narcan/naloxone, PREP and PEP (HIV prevention meds), emergency rooms, and practice harm reduction as much as possible. Try to never use alone, if using in a bathroom, keep the door unlocked. In my experience, even if you're sober or in recovery, harm reduction organizations are often amazing resources to connect you to other resources

Items I didn't realize were so life saving for me until later: blanket scarves, wool socks (natural fiber is the only thing that stays warm even when wet), baby wipes (washing body, tp replacement, etc), hand warmers, clothes that look more bougie like wearing a pea coat (stopped less by cops), carbineer clips, earbuds (for sanity), and my most prized possession to this day; my solar powered/hand crank/rechargable combination flash light, usb charger radio. Any item you need that is made for sports/hiking/etc. is often better, and any items that are multipurpose are wonderful.

And since we're headed into the colder months, here’s my advice for if you don’t have adequate heating, homeless or not:

Make soups or even just keep a pot of water boiling, and bake things if you can. I like to make teas in the morning for this purpose. Eating enough food (if you can) helps dramatically increase your core body temp.

Take a shower BEFORE the coldest parts of the day, or skip the shower til it’s warm enough to. If you absolutely need to, use warm wet washcloth and work in sections of your body so you don’t have to be fully naked and wet all at once. If you can’t be in a warm enough location afterwards— avoid getting your hair wet at all costs especially if you have thick hair. If you’re at higher risk of cold related illnesses like hypothermia and frostbite, such as disabled and chronically ill folks, I would highly recommend avoiding anything that causes you to get wet if you can’t get warm afterwards.

Make a blanket fort or use a tent indoors to spend your time in and sleep in

Drink tea/cocoa/hot beverages, avoid ice or cold drinks. Avoid alcohol specifically if you can because it lowers your body temp while making you feel warm, which can be dangerous.

Cuddle with your pets (even pets that don’t normally cuddle often are cuddly during cold spells as a survival response)

Wear thermals and layers if youre up and moving, but make sure to pre-warm any clothes you change into by tucking them into the blankets with you for a while.

If you have someone to cuddle with as close as possible, do it, also wear less clothes, thinner clothes or shorts when under blankets and cuddling, you share way more body heat that way, whereas thermals and layers will only keep your heat to yourself

If you have cold feet: take off your socks under blankets (and keep socks under blankets before putting back on) and keep a hot pad under blankets near your feet. Thick socks are great for insulation— but if your feet are cold, insulation means it’ll keep that cold in and keep the heat out. You have to add your own heat, and once they’re warm, you can put the socks back on.

Tin foil, trash bags, and blankets on windows if you don’t have plastic.

Keep doors closed and use rolled blankets or towels to stop drafts. Try to stay in one room if your whole home is cold, smaller spaces are easier to keep warm. Keep doors closed. Keep window shades closed (if you have south-facing windows, you can open t hem during the day and close them at night)

If you don’t have a mummy sleeping bag, a hoodie with the strings pulled comfortably tight can be a good substitute especially if paired with another sleeping bag.

Layer blankets for insulation. Closest to your body, have hot pads and heated blankets, then a reflective blanket to direct heat back towards you, use fluffy blankets and comforters next for insulation, and on top, have something heavy to help seal the heat in and push that heat towards you.

Blanket layers: first, heated blanket/hot pad/hot water bottle/etc, then reflective blankets/emergency blankets (there are reusable ones!)/sleeping bag, then fluffy blankets, then your heaviest/thickest blanket on top (quilt, weighted blanket, tarp, etc). If you don’t have one/multiple of these, just layer what you have following this guide as much as possible.

I like to have at least one fluffy blanket wrapped near my head/neck to keep as much warm air in the blankets as possible when I move my arms. Snuggies and blanket scarves work great for this.

If you’re on a thin bed, an air mattress, or don’t have a bed, put something below you for insulation from the cold ground. Any high quality sleeping bags temperature recommendation is always based on having good insulation below you. Cardboard, yoga mats, foam, blankets, coats, etc. all work.

Be vigilant for signs of frostbite and hypothermia, especially in children, disabled, elderly and pregnant folks. Remember to follow frostbite and hypothermia guidelines for re-warming and get medical attention for these whenever possible.

Have an emergency go-bag ready with your medications, chargers, clothes and other essentials in case you need to leave your residence.

Be sure to not accidentally give yourself CO2 poisoning or cause fires or explosions with whatever heating method you use. Anything with gasoline, propane or other fuel sources are generally not safe for indoor/closed space usage.

Don’t let yourself get so warm you sweat, you can lose a lot of heat that way and the wetness will make you cold which is hard to recover from.

When you get out of bed or from blankets, fold the blankets back over where you just laid to retain the heat for when you climb back in. Even if you have to be gone an extended period of time, this keeps the cold out. You can also preheat heated blankets for when you get back into bed (like turning on the heated blanket before you go shower)

Lights have a lot of ambient heat, as do appliances, especially larger appliances. Even having your laptop on your lap and using it can help you warm up.

If you’re able to be up and moving or do light exercise while you have to be out of blankets, thats the best time to do it. Again, be mindful of sweating.

If you’re homeless and unsheltered and don’t have a camp, sleep in the daytime in the warmest parts of the day, and walk around at night to avoid freezing to death. Savor a hot tea or hot coffee at fast food places if you can afford it.

Single use hand warmers can be saved if they still have heat by putting them in an airtight ziplock bag. When you want to use them again, you just open the bag to expose them to air. If you can and have a way to use them, invest in reusable ones (there’s electric ones and also ones you can boil to reset). Hot water bottles are another good option but often come with a higher risk of being burned.

Also, if you have any more specific situations you'd like advice for, I'd be happy to make posts for those as well, it's hard to add/think of everything that helps every situation, and a lot of my advice would change if you stay in a shelter, for example. I really hope this helps, and I hope you find safe, stable, and reliable housing soon.

[catreginae]

Okay, now that I'm home, I can elaborate on the Mecha AU really liked but I don't have time for! As a disclaimer, it's been a long time since I last watched a mecha anime so I don't even know why it's a thought my brain is even entertaining.

Anyway.

Time - the commander/leader of the team. He can pilot a mech and sometimes helps the others but he doesn't go into the field anymore. He really wants to just retire for good but since he's the only one who can pilot the Deity mech, he's kind of stuck there in case the world is ending and he needed to get in the seat.

Twilight - a pilot! His mech can shift between a bipedal mode and a quadrupedal mode. He never planned on piloting but he jumped into one to help his village and he's piloting since. Kind of a natural!

Warriors - another pilot! He's been training a long time to be a pilot so he is really good at it but at the same time, Time keeps an eye on him since a couple of missions have gone horribly wrong and Warriors had to take some mental health breaks.

Legend - semi-retired pilot, works more behind the scenes now as support/a handler. He stays in constant contact with whoever out on missions and makes sure they get everything they need. He likes to say he'll only hop into a mech if the world is ending but he also likes to tinker with mechs so he's sometimes in one to test out new weapons or programs.

Four - the group mechanic. He's either maintaining or repairing the group mechs himself or he directs other teams on what to do. In his down time, he likes making new things for the mechs. He knows all the mechs inside and out except for Deity. I think he once wanted to pilot but he ended up being more interested in the engineering side.

Hyrule - semi-retired pilot, works with Legend with support. He also supports the pilots himself with minor first aid. Unlike Legend, he does want to get back into the field but his mech got infected with a nasty computer virus and Four hasn't finished trouble shooting it (this is my twist on the blood curse). He's happy to help where he can.

Sky - full time pilot! Like Warriors, he trained a long time to be a pilot. His mech is relatively normal but it uses a sword Sky just kind of found and nobody is quite sure how it works, but it does a great job at killing things. Sky's mech is the best at flying.

Wind - the youngest pilot and a lot of people quest if somebody so young should even be a pilot but he's the only who figured out how the pilot the King of Red Lions, which is one of the only mechs that can function in water. He's young and new but shows a lot of potential, so he's on the team.

Wild - a pilot who had to go on medical leave for a long time and he's kind of figuring everything out again. He was severely injured from a previous mission with a different team and suffers from amnesia. Nobody expected him to ever be a pilot again but here he is! His mech was partially made with the recycled parts from his old one.

People are free to run with this if it speaks to you. You're free to change things up too. I don't have time for it but I still think it's kind of fun.

[betterbemeta]

I think something interesting about the star trek world is its combination of both replicator and holodeck technology. I understand these are literal 'plot devices' to explain the availability of food, materials, and the ability to visit locations for sci-fi premises that can't be found on an alien planet. However, they are worth thinking about in terms of how they change the world.

(Let's assume 'ideal' circumstances where we have a stable renewable non-polluting source of lots and lots of energy and aren't rationing it like on Voyager or something)

Replicators can use energy and raw materials to configure items, and presumably dis-configure items. While the potential for '3D printing' basically anything so long as its materials aren't too rare is really cool, it is also a near-perfect recycling machine. Beyond making sure your replicated dishes and cups don't infinitely pile up, that's SO IMPORTANT. Not only does that mean many items are 'temporary' that otherwise would be 'forever', you can instantly refresh the wear on many items without having to replace them and generate trash.

For example, tennis balls. It's currently really hard to recycle tennis balls, and serious players wear them out extremely quickly. Every serve you make after the first will be with a slightly worn, degraded tennis ball until you replace it, which generates trash. The production facilities to make all those tennis balls have to exist, they have to be shipped, the space to store them exists, the space to store their waste exists, the waste must be transported to a tennis ball recycling facility or a landfill...

but with replicators, you could play tennis without owning/paying a club to access a single tennis ball, without wasting a tennis ball.

And then there's the possibility of holodeck sports where you don't even need to make ANY material items. You could program the tennis ball to never run out. As long as you have the power to run it, maybe the most you'd need to 'own' is a tennis outfit. I am not sure if it's consistent that holodecks can 'dress you' or if you always must bring in costumes from the outside. And the costume itself could be replicated and then recycled!

There's a vast amount of stuff that we retain as personal property that just has to do with accessing activities or amenities. It's not really property that has emotional significance to us, but we still have attachments to it as its a facilitator of our active identity. Our dishes and cookware. Sports equipment. Certain kinds of clothing items. Some types of personal care items. Non-heirloom/generic holiday decorations. Stuff that is usually sacrificed first when we become homeless, when losing access to what they enable is more devastating than the items themselves.

If we could basically conjure and dismiss these things at-will, or access them on a temporary basis for free, we wouldn't need to own them or keep them around in our homes. No supply chain would be dedicated to them. Their waste would be completely eliminated. Ideas of 'what stuff I need to have as a person, to have a dignified life' would change completely.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were people in the star trek universe running around on earth with basically nothing we consider permanent physical property. Not because they're homeless and have no place to put them, and not because they're rich and their assets are liquid-- because the only reason to 'keep' mundane items, even something as complex as a communication device or computer, might be because they are emotionally important to you. And not everybody has 'stuff' like that at every time in their lives.

[sunbearsophia]

"It didn't need to be this way, Surge. I would've drowned the world if you'd asked me to. Now? ... I'll just drown you along with it."

___

Been a hot minute since I've used Tumblr for posting, and since I've been focusing on Sonic a lot more lately, figured I'd share a bit about my new Chaosunami AU! Summary and bonus doodles beneath the cut!

Might make it a full fanfiction at some point, but for now, to sum up the AU, Kit ends up absorbing Chaos himself, gaining the near infinite strength and powers that goes with him, while also breaking free of his programming from Dr. Starline, no longer bound to the hypnotism and personality rewrites he'd gone through, and breaking the mental and emotional chains he'd been attached to Surge with.

But with that comes Chaos' emotional instability, and the easy corruption of what was meant to maintain balance. Kit's deeply buried anger and resentment at what had been done to them- done to him- rose to the surface, and seeing clearly for the first time in his rewritten life, he could see how Surge, his only friend in the world, essentially his sister had treated him just as much as a tool as their tormenter Dr. Starline had. Everything he had he gave to her, and everything he did he did for her, all to be useful to her, all to earn back a scrap of the love and devotion he gave to her, and even knowing how little of a choice he had in the matter, Surge took advantage of that, and even with their freedom, never saw him as a friend or even an equal. She certainly never showed it, never more than dangling the possibility of her caring about him in front of his face to use him as a weapon.

Through symbiotically merging with Chaos, Kit is changed, and he is pissed.

From there, it's a race to stop Kit from gathering the Chaos Emeralds for himself, to keep him from flooding and destroying the world that either abused or abandoned him. Sonic, Tails & Knuckles are certainly determined to stop him, as well as save him and Chaos both and see the Master Emerald and Angel Island restored. But in order to reach whatever reason that's left inside of Kit and Chaos both, they'll need help, both from the spirit of Tikal, and Surge.

But Kit's far beyond letting Surge, Starline or anyone dictate his life or make a fool out of him. Him and Chaos are one in the same now, and the past must be paid for. If he has to drown this world and put an end to the cycle that created him in order to finally know peace, he's prepared to do that...

... isn't he?

___

BONUS DOODLES BECAUSE I PROMISED THOSE!

In case it's hard to read!

S: "Kit, what the hell are you doing? This wasn't our plan-!"

K: "There is no our anymore, ma'am. I see now there never was an us. There's no use pretending you ever saw me as an equal."

Part of me wants to make either a whole comic or animatic based on these two in the AU, but for now, just made these doodles to show Kit's done relying on Surge for his strength, now bound to Chaos, and broken free from being programmed to her beck and call, and "Drippy" is no longer going to be Surge's designated punching bag.

Rough concept sketch I did of a Perfect Chaosunami idea, basically what happens if/when Kit gathers all the Emeralds. For context, he doesn't necessarily transform into this, but makes this form out of the ocean he's now in total control of, and pilots it from where Chaos' brain would normally be. Also didn't want to straight up recycle the original Perfect Chaos, and essentially wanted to make a manifestation of Kit's internal agony and sorrow. (The Kaiju from Ultraman Rising was a HUGE inspiration here, and wanted to give it more of an octopus/bird-esque appearance.

[anonymous1233211]

recycled from Cinaede Furi

Damon was walking the streets late at night. He hadn’t come from a party or a club or even a bar. Instead, he was walking home from the lab, having stayed there past midnight trying to see if he could replicate his findings. He couldn’t, but he wondered if he could if he got some sleep and was more refreshed and alert the next morning. As he was walking, two men dressed in all black jumped out of an alleyway and one of them placed a chloroform gag on Damon’s face. The weak nerd was no match for the muscular goons, and soon enough, he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

When he finally woke up, he found himself in a white room, a scarily clean white room. It was like something out of a horror movie. There seemed to be no entrance to the room, which meant Damon was free to move around and do whatever he wanted. What he wanted to do was yell and cry for help. “Where the fuck am I!? Can anyone hear me!? Help, please, help!” To Damon’s surprise, someone did respond, although not in the way he was anticipating.

“Please quiet down. It will begin shortly.” The voice came over a speaker system, although Damon couldn’t see any black speakers in the room or even painted-over speakers.

“It!? What the fuck is ‘it’!?” Damon wasn’t sure if it referred to the bed that was quickly rising from the floor. There wasn’t enough space anywhere for Damon to get on the platform and escape, so he just watched as the bed became level with the floor.

“Please lay on the bed.”

“Can you tell me that the fuck is going on here!? I have rights, you know!” However, Damon knew that his best chance of getting out of here was to follow their instructions, so he made his way over to the bed and laid in it. It was actually surprisingly comfortable, that is, until the metal bonds shot out from the bed and secured him into place. He tried to wriggle around and try to escape, but he was stuck in place. He wasn’t gagged, though, so he could still scream for help. This time, it was one of the walls that slid open and revealed some glass with a scientist sitting behind it and an intercom system right next to him.

“Damon, it’s a pleasure to finally have you here in-person! We’ve been tracking you for quite some time. You’re a perfect candidate for our special program. What you might not know is that the porn industry is very small. Most people in porn are in it for just one, maybe two, videos. But studios and even sites like OnlyFans want porn stars, those in it for the long run. We specialize in transforming jocks and geeks into porn stars. All the changes that we will do to you are pre-approved by a porn star already in the biz and they pick out the changes so that you too can become a porn star!”

Damon watched out of the corner of his eye as gay porn star Topher DiMaggio walked into the room where the scientist was. The speaker was turned off, so Damon couldn’t hear what the two of them were saying. “Help! HELP!” Damon screamed, but it was no use. Neither man in there wanted him to escape, and Topher was actually going over the changes they were going to make to Damon. He finally stopped screaming for help when they started talking through the speaker again.

“Damon, the procedure is pretty much painless. You will be injected with a number of different substances that have been calibrated to create the porn star of Topher’s dreams. Topher wants a ‘brother’ or even a ‘twin,’ as those are very big in the world of porn right now. To achieve this, you will be injected with a bunch of beta-amylase-” Topher then grabbed the microphone away from the scientist.

“Yeah, it’s going to be so fuckin’ nice, yo, to have another fuckin’ alpha in the fam!”

“What!?” Damon said, still coming to terms with everything that was about to happen to him. “Please let me fuckin’ go!” he pleaded, but it was no use. The only people who could even hear him were in that small room, and Topher was allowed to push the button that would start the transformation process. Both men cackled with glee as a bunch of different arms with needles on the end protruded from the bed and pierced Damon’s skin. His muscles changed first. He had actually been clothed the entire time, but his clothes couldn’t hold up against his much bigger muscles. His biceps swelled up in size, and his pecs ballooned as well.

He had abs now, eight of them, and tree trunks for legs. His ass got nice and juicy as well while also being firm. His cock growth was next, although some might have considered it a muscle as well. Of course, since Damon was going to be turned into a porn star, he needed a porn star-sized cock. Topher actually wanted his “brother” to have a bigger cock than him, which meant Damon now had a monster 10” cock erect! His four inch flaccid cock was certainly nothing to scoff at either.

Then came the change in Damon’s skin, giving it a nice and deep and permanent tan. After that was done, there was some brain rewiring that needed to be done. Damon was actually straight, but that soon changed, as he was turned on by cocks and musk and hairy chests now, amongst other things. Damon had been able to see himself transformed physically the entire time. A mirror had been dropped down from the ceiling, and he was able to watch as his muscles grew and his clothes tore and as his skin darkened.

Since the changes now were mental, Damon couldn’t see them, and put in more effort in trying to get help, even though it was a fruitless endeavor. “Please, change me back!” he whined. “I don’t wanna be a gay porn star! I just wanna be me! Please, help me!” However, he wasn’t going to get any help, and certainly not from Topher. He had read his fair share of transformation stories before, some including him, and had always found them hot. He could have never imagined that he would be able to do this in real life.

Next up was changing Damon’s memories so that his past life as a nerd would be totally forgotten, and he would always be Damon DiMaggio, gay porn star. The final change was making Damon much more horny and dominant than he had been in the past. Damon had had a low libido before the transformation, but now he couldn’t have enough sex with other guys! He also now topped pretty much exclusively, but he would be a power bottom for the right guy. He had memories of being much more vocal in the bedroom and not taking shit from anybody.

There was a small little ding as the changes were finally complete, and it was Damon DiMaggio through and through that was bound on the bed. The scientist released the bonds as Topher walked into the room and hugged his “brother” for the first time. “Let’s go, bro! There’s a thirsty twink waiting for me back at my apartment, and I can’t wait to see the look on their face when I reveal to the world I have a hot twin brother doing porn with me!” Damon was a natural at having dominant gay sex with his “brother” and the submissive twink they double-teamed. Soon enough, Topher and Damon were booking at Men.com, Falcon, and Icon Male and a whole bunch of other gay porn studios.

[scrambledpancakes03]

Before the presidential debate...

I've got some thoughts.

While I know that even the "best" presidential outcome feels like a loss at this point, you do have to vote.

I totally understand not wanting to vote for Joe. There are a lot of reasons for that, some more valid than others. That's not my point rn. There's many genocides happening: read how joe is handling it from verified sources and make your own choices, I trust you'll do what you think is right. I'll just be here full of endless dread no matter what...

But for fucks sake before we all lose hope please remember...

Vote down ballot.

Conservatives win repeatedly all over the country and have been able to make life substantially harder for every individual working person, especially those with marginalized statuses... and it's not primarily due to the shit they've pulled in the Oval Office... it's because they're getting elected to sheriff's offices and school boards and zoning commissions and STATE LEGISLATURES.

Don't let your disillusionment with the president keep you from showing up for candidates you won't hear about from national news... because they are the ones who can save us.

Without progressives, leftists, and even more moderate liberals in local offices, every aspect of life gets substantially harder. Local programs shut down, public services are cut from city budgets, and police keep getting more and more absurd militarized resources. And in that environment, how would we ever stand in solidarity with people suffering around the world? Or even people marginalized here in the US?

Here are some (but not all) elected offices that may be on your ballot in the fall that need your attention in no particular order:

1. Secretary of state: oversees the states record keeping... including voting. Don't let them be fascists.

2. School Board: they decide pretty much everything to do with public school's funding, curriculum, and sometimes even personnel matters or district geography. They decide what your kids learn, where, how, and with whom. Don't let them be bigots.

3. District Attorney/Prosecutor: they decide what crimes have charges brought against them, and in what manner. They're the difference between a teenage kid being tried as an adult or a child for a felony, as well as other matters like that. Don't let them be racist.

4. Sheriff: have insane amounts of power over how criminal investigations are conducted and how a community is policed. FOR FUCKS SAKE STOP ELECTING RACISTS. Also we should just... reconsider the concept and maybe try not having sheriff offices at all. But that's a whole different goal.

5. Planning and zoning commissions: if you are struggling to get housing or stay housed, they are the reason there is little to no affordable housing in your area, because they decide what gets built or maintained in your area. Businesses, parks, houses... yeah. Don't let them be corporate puppets.

6. Public works commission: they control the utilities, the water, the trash, and the recycling. This is one of the main places the environmental movement should be looking to make change. They write regulations that can be used and enforced to reign whole groups of people and corporations in to make real collective change in the way we generate power, consume resources, and manage waste. They are also how we prevent more crisis situations like the one in Flint, MI.

7. City, state, and federal legislators. They write the laws. They appropriate the spending of your tax money. Stop narrowing your focus to the federal executive branch when the left needs to gain momentum writing laws at every level. Don't discount local change, because it adds up.

I know we are all focused on the genocides going on around the world right now. The best way we can continue helping as November comes and goes, is to elect local leaders who will support global liberation by writing laws and regulations that protect our free speech, ensure the quality and equity of our education, and commit to divestment from violence all over the world.

Okay? We all got this?

Can we all just agree to do this part, and we can fight about biden separately, please?

TLDR: Fuck you, vote in all the local races.