Podcasts about Hoss

Episode Summary Brooke, Casandra, and Margaret talk about the war in Ukraine and how Russia is not doing great, the train derailment in East Palestine, anti trans bills, Adderall shortages and meth, the return of Big Chicken, long covid as potential auto immune disease, further bans on abortion drugs, drought, floods, earthquakes and the US's top priority: shooting million dollar missiles at balloons. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Casandra is just great and can be found at Strangers doing awesome layouts, and Brooke can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Next Episode A special episode will come out next week on March 17th on Surviving the Justice System. Transcript This Month in the Apocalypse: Feb. 2023 Brooke 00:15 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. This is the February-March installment of our segment, This Month in the Apocalypse and I'm calling it the February-March episode because we're recording in February and we're talking about February but you're going to be listening to it in March, most likely. I'm Brooke Jackson, and with me today, as usual are the quick thinking Casandra and the fast acting Margaret Killjoy. Casandra 00:38 I don't know if that's accurate. Margaret 00:42 Or at least fast talking sometimes, especially when I'm hyper. And today I'm hyper Casandra 00:46 half of what I'm going to talk about today is brain fog and how it impacts me. Brooke 00:51 Nice. Well, before we get into today's episode, we'd like to share a little something something from another one of the swiftly streaming podcasts on the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts. Casandra 01:17 And we're back. Cas, Margaret, how are you feeling today? Casandra 01:51 I just had my first sip of tea. Margaret 01:55 I have been doom scrolling so hard that I didn't sleep last night because of all the anti trans legislation. So I didn't sleep enough and then I ate a protein cookie and pretended like it was food. So I'm great. Casandra 02:07 And you don't do caffeine at all. Not even tea. Margaret 02:09 No, yeah, a bunch of sugar and protein in a cookie form is my equivalent of like making me immediately hyper. Casandra 02:18 Alright. Margaret 02:19 Because I don't fuck with caffeine. I'm straight edge, except for alcohol. Brooke 02:24 Well good, you should take all that energy and tell us some things. Margaret 02:29 Oh, okay, right. I'm first. Okay, February has been a big month for the apocalypse. The Apocalypse is coming in hard with a bunch of mostly really bad shit. I think that the biggest story, or whatever, the earthquake that happened in Turkey and Syria was really fucking bad. Everyone probably already knows this. As of when I'm recording it, the death toll stands at about 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. Those numbers are still expected to go up. And a lot of it has to do with poverty and with buildings that are not built to withstand earthquakes. This is happening in a poor region. And that is absolutely affecting everything. I don't have as much information about that to relay, but I just feel like it's like the single most...like now I'm going to talk about the fucking balloons and I hate the fucking balloons. And I want people to know that like the earthquake is more important. But on February 14th, I think, I don't remember, I wrote on February 14, but you think I'd remember that was Valentine's Day. A surveillance balloon, there's a Chinese balloon and the US shot it down. It was a really actually big balloon and it probably included some surveillance equipment. China was like, "It's civilian." The US is like, "No, it was military." I'm not stressed about it because I expect the US government is surveilling me and I don't really give a shit if some other country...whatever, I don't fucking care. It may have been capturing cell transmissions and shit over the US. But then, of course, this sets off this like massive paranoia, where everyone's like, "Balloons are trying to get us. Those Chinese balloons." And the US like scrambled.... Brooke 04:20 I always knew it was going to be balloons. I've always said it, the balloons are coming for us. Casandra 04:22 Doomsday mechanism. Margaret 04:26 I mean... Brooke 04:27 it's the balloons. Clearly. Margaret 04:30 They are creepy. Actually. This is funny, my my dad is phobic of hot air balloons. I'm sorry to reveal this about you, dad. And because he was always like, "No, they're just there. They're on the horizon. They're creepy." Like he's not afraid of being in that. He's afraid of them like on the horizon. Casandra 04:46 One of my most traumatizing childhood moments was this hot air balloon show was like going over the neighborhood and I was spinning in circles staring upward watching them as one does and forgot that my mom had a whole like row of rose bushes. And then spent the whole afternoon having like rose thorns picked out of my ass. So, that's all to say that I don't think your dad's insane. Margaret 05:10 Yeah, so the US government scrambled a bunch of fighter jets to shoot down a whole bunch of other balloons, all of which, like the government is like, "We do not believe that they are surveillance balloons, but we don't know." And the reason that they're saying we don't know is because, well one they obliterated tiny balloons with missiles. So there's like, not a lot left. There's like like half a million dollar missiles being shot at these fucking things, one of which missed. They missed a fucking balloon over Lake Huron, and then it like, fell into the lake. And they're like, "No one was harmed." And I'm like, great, I feel so fucking good that the government is shooting missiles at the US. That makes sense. And so probably those balloons are like amateur weather balloons, like people like do this, where you're like, I'm gonna get a balloon and like, put a bunch of equipment on it and send it up into the sky. And it's cool, right? And because you can like see the stuff. And so fortunately, the US government is there to protect us against amateur weather and radio fans. Brooke 06:11 You know, you know, our friends over that other podcast have been saying we should nuke the Great Lakes. So I think this was just a trial run to... Margaret 06:20 Fuck, Robert Evans is like actually the one that got them to shoot missiles. Casandra 06:24 Cancel Robert Evans. Margaret 06:25 Yep. All right. Yeah. Or he's a prophet. Brooke 06:32 That's what I was gonna say, Margaret 06:34 Speaking of Prophets, but actually, in both mench versions of that word, there was a massive disaster on February 3, in East Palestine [rhymes with Springsteen], Ohio, because it's not pronounced Palestine [rhymes with Stein], in which a train carrying a bunch of toxic shit had overheated wheel bearings, and derailed. It passed like a bunch of sensors that were like, detect overheated stuff. And then like on the last one, it was like, "Hey, you're overheating," and then it crashed. This overturned 11 Toxic cars at a...a bunch of more cars overturned, but 11 of them were full of toxic chemicals, including vinyl chloride, but also a bunch of other shit. 115,000 gallons of vinyl chloride, were let loose. And then they were like, "Slright, well, we better set the shutter on fire," I'm not actually even going to like talk shit on the fact that they set on fire. It might have been the best thing that they could do in that circumstances. There is a lot of stuff that is implying that the government and you know, Norfolk Southern and all that are like downplaying the degree to this disaster. It is a massive disaster, it is a big fucking deal. And the people involved should be held accountable. And there's like, all kinds of stuff about how a lot of the deregulation and of course, you know, the fact doesn't help that Biden like stopped a railroad strike for better safety conditions, because that's mostly huge part of what people are striking for. And they absolutely are like, the numbers are trending upwards. They're like, "It's not a big deal." And they were like, "Hey, there's a bunch of dead fish." And people were like, "There are 4000 dead fish." And they had a very specific number. It might not have been that number was like 300, 800, 3,850, or something. As of this morning, when I double checked, they're up to 43,000 dead aquatic animals. That's 10 times the previous claim. I understand why people are skeptical of these claims. They're probably not forever chemicals. These are the sorts of chemicals that will break down. However, no one knows the long term effects of the exposure that people have already had to these chemicals. And it's fucked up. Norfolk Southern stock has dropped, but not as precipitously as you would might like. It's not even as low as it was last October, just like took a dip. So buy the dip, everyone go out and buy....don't do this. Don't go out and buy stock. Okay, that's what I know about that. Other people might know more about it. Casandra 08:56 Oh, I was just gonna say that.... Margaret 08:57 Next. Okay go ahead. Casandra 08:58 I was just gonan say that the EPA seemed pretty like, firm with them, which I appreciated. It wasn't the response I expected. Oh, were you wagging your finger at me? Or like...they were like. Brooke 09:12 I was being the EPA. Yeah. Because we're in a point of visual medium here, right with a podcast. So, everyone can see me doing that. Casandra 09:19 I watched the recording and the guy was like, "If y'all don't do this up to our standards, we will do it and then bill you and not just like, you'll get the bill, but we'll bill you a certain number of times the amount that it actually cost us as a penalty." Yeah, it's something I don't know. Margaret 09:37 I mean, that's good. Yeah. Oh and then the other thing, when I when I lead with the transition of Prophets in both sense of the word. About a week before this disaster, I watched the Netflix movie "White Noise" based on the 1980s novel called "White Noise," in which a toxic chemical train spill it In East Palestine, Ohio happens and fucks everything up. And it fucks with my head, just straight up. It fucks with my head that I watched a movie about a natural disaster and then... not a natural disaster, a manmade disaster. And then a week later, it happened in the same town of 5000 Fucking people. Or 4000 people. Casandra 10:20 Maybe, you're not a prophet, maybe actually. Your brain just determines all of reality. Margaret 10:29 Oh, no, I'm not a prophet. No, no, no, no, I don't think this is me. Casandra 10:31 I think that what happens in your head is then what happens in the outside world. That's more plausible. Brooke 10:39 Yeah, that seems right. Casandra 10:40 So, don't think anything.... Margaret 10:42 This is a really good thing to tell someone who lives alone. Brooke 10:46 I mean, it clearly anyone who reaches a certain level of podcasting, fame then develops a power to cause things to happen. Yeah, that's what we're saying here. Margaret 10:57 Good to know. And then everyone lived in a happy anarchist society for all times in which everyone was equal, except Margaret was a little bit more equal and got like twice as much tea in the morning. Casandra 11:06 You don't like tea. We just went over this. Margaret 11:10 Yeah, well, I shouldn't have more of something I want. That would be fucked up. Casandra 11:14 This is the like weirdest Catholic version of anarchist Utopia I've ever heard of. Margaret 11:23 Hi, I'm Margaret Killjoy. Alright, so it's speaking of other bad shit that happened this year, or actually, well, okay. The thing that happened in February is is the one year anniversary of the Ukraine war. As currently stands, it's fallen out of the news, which means that no one is dying anymore, and everything is fine. Except that... Brooke 11:47 PBS still does it. So to just throw a tiny amount of credit over there. But yeah... Margaret 11:54 Yeah, well actually it's funny because people will talk mad shit about mainstream news and for good reason. But like, overall, I think mainstream news is a little bit better of a job than like Twitter at like, staying attached to stories over time, rather than just like chasing the clicks, which is fucking saying something because that is what mainstream news was notoriously bad at. I just think social media is even worse at it. On the other hand, it's not the job of the random Twitter person to....Okay, so, the Ukraine war is largely out of stalemate. As stands Russia holds 17% of Ukraine, an area twice the size of Italy. It's less than they controlled at the beginning of the war by a decent amount, and specifically, almost all their holdings are in the east. And it's been like slowly being chipped away at overall is kind of the general thing. Most foreign fighters left after a few months, it went down, there's 20,000 foreign fighters, mostly like vets of various other countries who are like, "Well fuck an invasion." And a lot of people were like, I think actually a lot of people were like, "Well, I fought in all of these like evil US wars, because they have like worked for the US government. Here's a just war," and people went like chasing a just war, right. It's down from about 20,000 foreign fighters to 2000 foreign fighters as the war drags on. China is calling for peace talks right now. And more might have happened by the time you hear this, like this is like news from yesterday and today, and their position is...like I mean overall they're trying to present themselves as neutral, but like overall they're like, "This is a war of Western aggression." You know? "This is a war of you know a Ukraine shouldn't dress like that if it didn't want to get attacked." They've four times abstained....Thank you for laughing at my off color joke. And yeah, I mean, because that is what it comes down to this idea of like, we had to invade you because you are getting too close to our borders with your power or whatever. Like, you can't fucking justify invading another country for that reason. Casandra 14:03 They're opposing US imperialism, Margaret. Margaret 14:06 Yeah, they do. Casandra 14:07 NATO! Margaret 14:10 Yeah. Yeah. And that's China's position. They're with the US tankies. Or rather US tankies are with them. They have four times abstained from voting in the UN votes to ask Russia to withdraw its troops it's possible also that China's like trying to get in....and this is like everyone. This is the actual imperialism from my point of view about all this is everyone calling for these peace talks a lot of it is that they're like they want in on the economic reconstruction aka they want like their economic interest in the capitalism to to do their thing just to China it's slightly more state capitalism in the US it's slightly more.. Casandra 14:46 China's not capitalist Margaret What are you talking about? Margaret 14:48 Oh, right. Sorry. I Forgot. They want to bring their peoples army... and I Love that It's like the tankies pretending that Russia is fucking commie...anyway. The number of Russian soldiers Ukraine is killing is going up, which, you know, whatever, fuck them. 824 Such Russian soldiers a day are dying in Ukraine in February, which is the highest rate since the invasion started. Between 180,000 and 270,000 Russians have died in the war in the past year. And for comparison, Russia is this huge place. And we think about like how Russia just like, bled people during World War II, you know. Russia is only half the population of the United States. And so this is...so when you think about percentage wise, if you think about, it's like, you know, the equivalent of half a million people dying in one year in a dumb fucking war. About 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died. They claim that 13,000 of their soldiers have died. Vaguely neutral observers from the outside of claims that 100,000 have died, which is like, their, their like, kill rate, oh, God, I'm not even going to pretend to put this in video game terms. That's fucked up. And also another 30,000 or so civilians, Ukrainian civilians have died. Like directly, tons more displace. Everything's fucked up. It's war. I haven't been able to get a recent number for the total number of arrests in Russia. But, it's like worth really understanding how much a lot of Russians do fucking not want this to happen. There were 15,000 people arrested protesting against the war and like the first month of the war alone, and there's thousands more at various other times, but I wasn't able to find a total count. And, you know, in case anyone needs any reminding that nationalism is garbage. between half a million and a million Russians have fled, rather than be conscripted and fight in this stupid fucking bullshit. And 200 or so Russians are actively fighting for Ukraine. There is no out good outside guests. That is a guess from one of these Russian fighters. And they all have different reasons. I am aware of their being Russian anarchists. I was not able to find more information about that. Most of the anarchists that I know from other countries I think are more involved in directing solidarity goods, except for Belarus.. A lot of anarchists fighters in Ukraine. Anyway, of the 200 or so fighters, the the one I was able to find the specific motive for he's is doing as his Christian duty to stop invasions. And let's see, okay, almost done with the Russian war thing. Dutch intelligence reports that Russia is mapping power and gas infrastructure in the North Sea for potential attack. This came out like yesterday. So who knows what will happen with that. And then it's also kind of worth knowing there's like all of these, like anti war rallies happening around the war around the world. And most of them are like about trying to stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine, right? They're like, "Hey, this war is fucked up, aka Russia is fucked up." But in the US, we get a different kind of anti war movement, we get an anti war movement that's a weird collection of tankies and Nazis... Casandra 18:20 Margaret, that never happened! Margaret 18:21 ...coming together like a Molotov-Ribbontrop Pact to say stop the war machine. Casandra 18:28 Stalin is the whole reason..... Margaret 18:34 Yeah, no, I know. Casandra 18:38 The reason the Nazis were defeated soley was because of Stalin, therefore, you know, the Soviet Union never never ever could have allied with the Nazis, even though we have historical records that it did blah, blah. Margaret 18:53 Yeah, like at the beginning, Russia was like, "Hey, allies, can we hang out with you, Germany's looking real weird." And the allies were like, "I'm not sure." And so then Russia was like or USSR was like, "Hey, Nazis, can we hang out with you? We know bad shits about to happen," and they were like, "Yeah, but totally," and the USSR sent them tons of aid, just literal material, tons of aid. And collectively, they mapped out which countries they were going to invade together and they invaded Poland together...It's Poland. Am I getting that right? And then, Germany was like "JK, surprise attack." And then the USSR was like, "Okay, we're against you." And then fucking millions of Russians died to defeat the Nazis and that needs to be understood and respected. But like Stalin was like making them...there's like, reports from survivors...This is totally what this episode is about. There's like reports from survivors who were like forced to charge Nazi tanks bare handed. And so like, the high numbers of Russian dead wasn't because Stalin ruled. The high numbers is because Stalin fucking sucks. Anyway. Casandra 20:08 And there's also the whole like, the line that like the USSR saved with the Jews or whatever, when, which was just like totally. Anyway, we won't talk about how Jews were treated in the USSR. Margaret 20:23 When they signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact....Yeah. Anyway, USSR is not modern Russia, but there's an anti war movement. So that's okay. That's Ukraine. Now, the trans laws, the thing that has me up all night. Yesterday, I believe the Tennessee House passed a bill. And now this was misrepresented. And I accidentally misrepresented this too, because I trusted a Twitterer who trusted a news article from a mainstream source that, okay, a Tennessee House did pass this bill. And by the time you're listening to this, probably their fucking Senate and Governor have signed off on it. But the article was like, "And now it goes up to the governor." It doesn't it goes to the Senate first. And a lot of really shitty laws passed the House, but not the Senate in like, any given place. So there's like, still hope. But I'm not full of fucking hope because a lot of these types of laws are passing right now. The type of law I'm talking about, this is an anti drag law. And these anti drag laws are similar ones proposed around the country and all the details are a little bit different. But the overall idea is that if anyone who is a male or female impersonator, AKA a crossdresser, aka, me living my fucking life, or a drag performer, if they perform, and if it's like, in any way, like...some places it's just like literally if they perform, or exist in public, and another one's the Tennessee laws a little bit like, and they perform in a way that has any kind of like, sexual titillation, or whatever then that has to be the venue that is now a strip club legally, or like, needs to be a like 18+ adult entertainment, cabaret or whatever the fuck Casandra 22:15 Like who's deciding if something's sexual? Margaret 22:19 Uh huh. And it is. First cops, then judges, Two groups I trust to the bottom of my....nothing. Margaret 22:35 Or the parents who call the cops. Brooke 22:41 Don't forget about he mob. Margaret 22:42 Yeah, no, totally. They're the first step in it. So that is the literal criminal criminalization of being trans in public. Casandra 22:45 Yeah, there are nine anti trans laws on the books right now in Oregon. Yeah. Margaret 22:52 Yeah. There's 14 other states with similar anti drag laws in the works, including Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, and Idaho. And I just didn't find the full list, I found people like a couple different places giving like short versions of the list. South Dakota did just pass a law like not just the house or whatever, but like it's fucking signed, that forces trans youth to detransition. And Utah passed a law against trans youth also, very recently, or against allowing trans youth to transition. But, I don't believe it forcibly detransitioned. I believe that this one in South Dakota is the first one to force detransition, which from my point of view, pretty much means that trans...families with trans children who can't afford to move are going to have their trans kids run away or kill themselves. Just like, frankly, I am not recommending. I am recommending if you're a trans youth to in a place that is affected by this to get in touch with community to try and help you and your family get out of that situation. That is what I'm directly recommending. But, the the reason that doctors believe in gender affirming care for trans youth is that it lowers the rates of death substantially. Oklahoma is currently considering a bill to ban gender affirming care to adults, anyone under the age of 26. Brooke 24:22 Fucking Oklahoma. Casandra 24:22 I can't remember which bill i was reading, but I was reading about one that was worded in such a way where gender affirming care also ended up including things like hormones for ciswomen dealing with menopause, like it was so broad sweeping that like, I just don't think people consider the broader implications. You know what I mean? Margaret 24:41 I don't know whether this one was that one, but I...it wouldn't surprise me and I feel like people pass laws like that all the time. And then just like, no one's going to actually stop cis women from accessing hormones from menopause, you know, or like, you know, people dealing with prostate cancer often take hormones and you know, testosterone blockers and things like that, and like...All the shit is overbroad, like crazy, but not in a way where I feel like oh, it's overbroad, and it gets struck down like no, it's gonna get targetedly used against trans people against, the Left. And 5% of US people in the US who are under the age of 25 identify as trans or like nonbinary in some way, compared to point .5% of the rest of the population as a whole. And I would like to...don't make me tap of the sign of the that graph of chart of left handedness as a chart of left handedness. Like once they stopeed. Once they started letting people be left handed, it goes up and caps itself, you know. And every major medical association in America recognizes that gender affirming care for youth saves lives. That is not a...I assume everyone listening to this already knows the shit, but it's like worth fucking knowing. This is not a like, medically contested issue. You know, this is like, and I'm not like, "Man, you know, who I trust immediately, the medical institution, they always have our backs." But, they do in this case, because they're not fucking... Oh, God. That's what I've got to talk about this week. Brooke 26:20 Jon Stewart did a good piece that was on gender affirming care that maybe everyone's already seen, because it was a little while ago, but was, you know, citing those...Just what you're exactly what you're saying, Margaret about every every major medical organization in the US. Margaret 26:38 And honestly has been one of the only cispeople I've seen talking about it in public. The silence from cispeople has been deafening. And if your cis and listening to this, I'm hoping that if you've been silent about it, I'm hoping that the reason you've been silent about it, is because you're afraid of taking up too much of the conversation. Because we do have this way of talking about social issues right now, where people are afraid to talk about issues that don't directly affect them. And I think that that is a misstep. And that it will take cis people talking about this angrily, before anything will change. Because, when it's just trans people, and sometimes their immediate families who are showing up to protest, everyone's going to be like, "Well, fuck those pedo whatever," fuck, whatever. Fucking bullshit, you know. So from my point of view, part of the reason this keeps me up at night is not because the Nazis want to kill me, they've wanted to kill me for a long time, they've sent me letters to this effect, with like, my parents address in it, you know, it's that when I don't feel supported, is when I feel the most lost about all of this stuff, just frankly. And so sometimes like that support is like, like, "Margaret's guide to being supportive to your trans friends," is like, like, sometimes, like random people messaging me to be like, "I see you, you're valid." I'm like, that's great. I don't I don't need that from strangers. What I need from strangers is for people to talk to the people, they're around and say shit about this, you know, I have a, I know I'm valid. I have a supportive family. And I have a supportive network of friends and all of that, you know? Yeah, sorry, this is...I mean, all of these things that we're going to talk about are big deals. But you know, this one affects me very directly. Brooke 28:45 Oh, no, I appreciate you saying more about it, because I was gonna ask follow up questions about like, you know, showing support and good ways to do that. So thanks for talking about that. Margaret 28:55 Be fucking angry. Like, you know, and it's like, and this stuff like, it's also all part of misogyny. Like, because people want to control people's bodies. And so transmen are affected by this because they're, like, leaving womanhood behind and that's bad or whatever. And then of course, transwomen are like, the reason that people don't want us to exist is a weird protect the women thing, right? And so like, when cis women are loudly like, "No, I would rather have this transwoman in the bathroom with me then like I don't know someone who's like peeking under stalls to make sure no one has a penis." Like people being loud about that kind of support. There's this brilliant video of thus person who I believe is a cis woman who's like getting gender policed by a Karen in a bathroom. Casandra 29:47 I saw that Margaret 29:48 And refuses to answer whether or not she has a dick. Yeah, it fucking...that gives me hope. So, I like. Casandra 30:00 That's like reverse Karen. Brooke 30:02 I just bookmarked that so I can watch it after Casandra 30:05 We should start a Nazis know our parents' address club. Margaret 30:17 And then like...it's funny I try not to talk too much about my family on this podcast, I guess, but then again the Nazis already know where they live. Like my dad's fucking ex marine with anger management issue who loves this trans daughter? How's do they think this is gonnna go? Casandra 30:35 I mean, my situation, my parent's would've been like "Whatever." Margaret 30:41 Yeah, okay, fair. I'm sorry. Casandra 30:43 Okay, who's next? Brooke 30:48 Okay. Can we talk about happier things? Margaret 30:54 What podcast are on? Casandra 30:57 I genuinely can't remember who's next. Is it you, Brooke? Brooke 31:03 Allegedly. Although, if it's something you have segues better for, I'm all for it. I had a good segue from the war thing. But then we then we start talking about the trans issue and I don't know where to go from there. Casandra 31:13 I think the world is shit. There are lots of them. They're diverse, shitty things to talk about, you know? Margaret 31:18 Well, and even the war thing, it's like, you know, what, Ukraine is fucking holding on a year later. That is a fucking positive story. It is a terrible, horrible story. But they're still fucking there. You know, like people thought Ukraine wasn't going to be a country by last summer. Brooke 31:36 That's a really good point. Well, speaking of war, wars, the war on drugs. Drugs. Adderall. I did it you're welcome. We did a, I think our August episode or something like that we did a roundup on like shortages, things that were in shortages. And I know we talked about Adderall at one point and being in shortage and why. And that started like last summer sometime I think August or so it was when people started talking about it. The FDA or DEA, I can't remember which one it was that came out with the announcement. I think the the FDA came out like late October and said, "Hey, we have an Adderall shortage." And everyone said, "We fucking know we've been dealing with with this for two or three months now." And it's gotten worse than it's been in the news again, recently, because of just how much worse it has gotten. We talked about it previously, we talked about some of the reasons why the shortage was happening. And part of it is a production issue. It's a very controlled substance. So, it's not like manufacturers can just start pumping out a whole bunch more. And not just like the creation of the Adderall. But the ingredients that go into it are controlled substances as well, so they can only make so much of that. Allegedly, there's enough supply of the base ingredients that we shouldn't have this shortage. So.... Casandra 33:10 Sorry, I'm stupid about Adderall, is it it because meth. Is that the....? Okay, sorry. Brooke 33:18 That's where I'm going with this, but yeah, that's that is that. That is part of the reason it's such a controlled substance, because Amphetamine is, you know, main ingredient, it's it's people often refer to Adderall as being, you know, legal meth, or prescribed meth. Casandra 33:33 I know nothing. Wow. That's wild. Brooke 33:42 So, there have been some reports of folks that haven't been able to get their Adderall and have, in fact, turned to meth in order to get the substance they need, and there's not a good sense of how like widespread this is, versus, you know, a couple of instances that hit the news, you know, there's at least one story of somebody who died in an ER, because of meth. And they said they were taking the math because they couldn't get their Adderall prescription. And, you know, meth, you know, historically causes no problems to the brain and doesn't make people say things that are wacky and untrue. So we can trust that story. But, that's what's happening. But, the fun conspiracy theorh where I'm going with this that's floating around is that the government is purposely restricting the manufacture of Adderall to force people to turn to meth to perpetuate the war on drugs. So there you go. Conspiracy theories are fun. Margaret 34:43 Wait, So this is a new conspiracy. Okay. How the balloons tie in? Casandra 34:48 Yeah. Margaret 34:49 Is that where moving it? They're getting the Adderall out of the country? Casandra 34:52 They're delivering it. If we would have let them come in farther, they would have just released it because everyone wants Adderall. Margaret 34:58 Oh, yeah. That's sort of true...the part where everyone wants Adderal. Casandra 35:03 I do not. Margaret 35:06 Yeah. No, I don't want Adderall. I'm hyper off a cookie. Brooke 35:12 That's part of the issue is that the prescriptions for Adderall increased 27%. From 2019 to 2022. There were like 35 million prescriptions in the US, which is a fuck ton, in 2019. And then it went up to like 45 million by 2021 or 22. And I mean, shocker. Everybody's stuck inside with a pandemic. Like we overprescribed, that are all for sure. And I and that is not to say there's not people who genuinely need it out there. And I don't mean to bash anybody's use of of that prescription. But you know, one of the articles that I was reading they, you know how news reports like to pick a human interest story to tell their story, they were talking about this 16 year old female in Utah, who's like in all of the AP classes, honors classes is getting ready for college and how stressed out she was and obsessed with perfection, and she couldn't get all her stuff done. And then she got an Adderall prescription. And, and now she's able to get all her homework done, and she's acing all their classes, and it's ready for college and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, yeah, I mean, you just gave her gave her amphetamines. Casandra 36:36 I feel like there's a misuse potential. Like, the people I know, who have ADHD and take Adderall, it doesn't impact their system that way, you know. And I also think there's a certain, I see this with autism as well, there's a certain amount of like, like the left handed thing that Margaret brought up, you know? Like, it might seem like, it might seem like an undue spike, but I'm sure a large percentage of that is people who are finally getting care they need. Margaret 37:12 And then also, like, I think about it because I came closer to seeking medication for ADHD than I ever have. And what it was for me is that I built my entire life around the fact that I have ADHD, there's a reason that I'm a freelancer, there's a reason that I, you know, I travel, there's a reason I work for myself. Like, there's all these things that I've done, that have made ADHD not a problem in my life, right. But actually, the beginning of the pandemic, it made it more of a problem. It made it harder for me because like, I had to sit in my cabin and work on a computer in order to eat food, and stuff, you know, and so like, and I don't thrive in certain environments, and so I was like, "Man, if I had something that helped me thrive in this environment." So. Casandra 37:56 Which then makes me wonder, like, how much of that need is attached to Capitalism, you know, lthe ike productivity. So? Yeah. Margaret 38:04 Oh, yeah. No, totally. I mean. Totally. I had a day job for a minute. Casandra 38:10 Sitting in a cabin alone with....That sounds like my dream. Margaret 38:16 I know. Well, I was fine until the day job. Awesome. Margaret 38:24 Okay, so, Brooke 38:25 Again, I don't want to like bash anybody that's taking it. I don't know. I don't want to say that there aren't legitimate reasons that some of those people didn't need it. But, we we do know that it's overprescribed, that you take you know, young people who are high achieving, and we've got them overscheduled and fucking Capitalism. Casandra 38:41 Oh, everyone, I knew in college was....Adderall all the time. Brooke 38:46 Yeah, just give them drugs. So, that's part of the problem. Anyway, the DEA is trying to get you addicted to meth. x Casandra 38:59 I thought it was the FDA. Margaret 39:02 And that's why they're shooting down balloons. Brooke 39:06 No, it's the DEA because that's the Drug Enforcement Agency. They're the ones trying to perpetuate the war on drugs and they have something to do. Casandra 39:14 I hope people know when we are and aren't being sarcastic. Margaret 39:22 I hope so too. But I'm not optimistic. Brooke 39:27 Never take me seriously. That's my answer. I have one other fun conspiracy theory thing. Okay, it actually came up right after the end of our last recording and it was kind of a bummer. We didn't get it in there. But, it's about chicken feed. Casandra 39:46 Big Chicken! Brooke 39:47 And chicken feed conspiracy, that something is....Yep, Big Chicken. Not and not Tyson. Not that evil chicken, but it's actually a big big fooder you may have heard of this brand called Purina? Casandra 40:01 Dog food. Brooke 40:02 Are pretty well known for creating pet food. Yeah. Margaret 40:05 They feed cats. Brooke 40:06 But they also make more industrial feeds like chicken feed and guinea pigs and goats and I don't even know the full extent of their thing, but they make feed for a lot of different kinds of animals. And people started reporting in July last year that their chickens and this is industrial level and you know, household people chicken in the backyard kind of people, crazies like me that their their egg laying productions seem to be going down. And then going through the winter, a lot of a lot of people have talked about their eggs production from their chickens being at or very near zero, which I also have been in this boat for a while my my four girls were not laying any eggs. And it wasn't an old chicken issue, like they're, they're young, and they just started laying this last summer. And yes, production goes down in the winter, that's normal, but doesn't usually just completely drop off. So, people were posting about it on social medias and talking about it and started forming this conspiracy that there's something wrong with chicken feed, Purina mainly because they're one of the biggest suppliers not just under their name brand, but their sub brands as well. And that something is missing in the chicken feed that's causing them not to lay as well. And then lots people saying "I switched to another brand, I started mixing my own," blah, blah, blah. "And suddenly my my chickens are laying again." And as much as I hate conspiracy theories and don't want to feed into it, I have to say that I also was having the same issue of zero egg production. And then I grabbed a protein blend from a different brand and started mixing that into their feed and getting eggs. Margaret 41:49 That doesn't have to be a conspiracy. They could have just fucked up. Casandra 41:51 Honestly, people have reported that they've had their feet tested. They've had their Purina tested and it contains the appropriate amount of protein. So there's like, at this point a month later....I'm sorry, I was the one who brought this up because I was I raise quail. And so I'm on, I don't know, poultry, social media. Yeah. Anyway. But yeah, so apparently people have gotten their feed tested, and it has the appropriate components, so now they're like, "Is there something added to it?" That's the new conspiracy. Margaret 42:27 Well, I know what, I know what the problem is. Brooke 42:29 Morgaret has the answer. Casandra 42:32 Okay, good. Margaret 42:32 Yeah, I watched this....No, it's not gonna be the answer. No, I watched this documentary called All Quiet on the Western Front on Netflix last night. And in it, the Imperial German soldiers, while they're occupied France during World War One, there's they're breaking into farmers yards and stealing the eggs. And so it's actually. It's actually Imperial German soldiers are breaking into everyone's yards and stealing quail eggs and chicken eggs. Brooke 43:10 Oh, okay. Casandra 43:12 Obvious. Brooke 43:12 There are a lot of other factors that genuinely influence chicken, like production, like the amount of light and the temperature. And, you know, our light levels are not particularly off. They're low this time of year, like always, but it definitely has been a little bit colder on average this winter here for us, though. My mother...Hi, Mom, I love you was like you need to put a heating light on your chickens and they'll lay more which I did for a month and it didn't affect anything. Although that was also after one of those snows that we had too. Casandra 43:44 Can I telll you one of the more wingnut versions of this I've heard? Brooke 43:47 Yes, please. Casandra 43:48 And who knows. But, the most like, you know, puppet master version of all of this I've heard is that Purina partnered with some giant egg company that I can't remember the name of right now, who just opened a whole bunch of, starting last fall open several massive like egg production facilities. So, it's in Purina's best interest to add something to the feed so that our chickens can't lay eggs. And that's why egg prices are through the roof. And now you have to buy the eggs and it's just ohhhh. Yeah. Brooke 44:26 Yeah, that's the other thing that's feeding into the conspiracy theories I was gonna wrap this up with. Brooke 44:29 Sorry. I'm taking... Brooke 44:30 No, you're fine. It's perfect. Perfect segue. Excellent. Yeah. Is the prices going up on eggs is all feeding into conspiracy and you know, people not thinking about food prices in general have gone up and we feed chickens food things. And yeah, anyway, what Margaret? Margaret 44:48 Oh, just there's some, I was reading today, that there's some guesses that we might have hit peak food inflation, specifically around eggs and meat. Because basically, no one can get enough money...because you can't sell eggs at a certain...the way cap, the market works, you know, you can't sell it at a certain amount, so fewer sell or whatever. And so wholesale egg prices have started dropping. And as of when the article I read came out this had not yet hit retail egg prices. Because people probably are like, Well, alright, I can buy them for cheap and sell them for just as much Fuck yeah. But wholesale egg prices are starting to drop and meat prices are also starting to drop on a wholesale level, because inflation reduced the profit. Brooke 45:39 Okay. Well, the one upside, so that's sorry..... Casandra 45:48 I think there's something about Purina feed, and we don't know what and that's fine. And that people seem to be switching feeds or making their own and it's fine. I mean, there might be but like, I don't really care personally, I'm like, I just want my quails to lay eggs. Margaret 46:07 And it's just not a conspiracy. They're just fucked up their food. Brooke 46:09 Right. Yeah, there's other complicating factors. It's not maybe not just this one thing. Like, yeah, you know, we hear where Cas and I live have had a colder little bit colder winter than average and that'll slow down production. I don't know for the US as an entirety but you know, just an example. Margaret 46:25 Well, there's there's that saying "Never never attribute to incompetence. What can be understood..." No, wait. I know something isn't...It's Goddamnit "It's not malice. It's incompetence." It's more likely that it is incompetence than malice at any given thing that's happening. Casandra 46:49 I mean, yeah, it's like very experienced people who are having this issue, like there's something, there's something wrong, right? Margaret 47:05 Oh, that's what I mean about...sorry, I don't mean incompetence of the chicken keepers. The chicken lords. Brooke 47:10 That is what we call ourselves, Margaret, chicken lords. Margaret 47:12 I mean, the incompetence of Purina. The...like Purina fucking up the feed is probably because they fucked up the feed, not cause they're like, "hahaha." Brooke 47:25 I mean, it's entirely possible Purina switched to cheaper, lower quality components to create their feeds because of inflation. Casandra 47:31 It's not incompetence if it's a giant company. Yeah. Brooke 47:35 There's something in that. The one upside of.... Casandra 47:40 Root cause. Okay. Yeah. Brooke 47:42 There you go. Nice. Margaret 47:44 Yeah, it might be greed instead of malice. Brooke 47:45 Let me just say the happy thing. Margaret 47:46 What's the happy thing? What's the happy thing? Brooke 47:50 Is that people have turned to other feed sources. So, instead of supporting the big giant mega Corp, they're supporting smaller ones, like I reached out to a local person who's making their own blends. And I'm going to start using some of that. People have learned how to create their own blends and feed their things, which I think it's always great to get away from the industrial manufacturers. So... Casandra 48:11 I don't know how to jump from chickens to this.... Brooke 48:17 Chickens. Avian Flu. Flu. Sickness. Bad. Long COVID. Casandra 48:24 I raised quail because I'm allergic to chicken eggs, cause autoimmune disease. Did you know long COVID is kind of like an autoimmune disease? Brooke 48:32 Nice. Casandra 48:35 Do either of you know anyone with long covid? Brooke 48:37 Yes. Margaret 48:39 Yeah, part of the reason I don't leave the house, not because I have it, but because I'm terrified. I mean, I'm making rational decisions around safety. Brooke 48:48 I'm worried I'm having it. Casandra 48:52 Oh, well, maybe maybe this will be easier. When I when I first heard about it. So, some of the symptoms I've heard include fatigue, brain fog, difficulty breathing, joint pain, chest pain, general like lower quality of life, gut issues. When I hear that list, I'm like, oh, that's, that sounds like my autoimmune disease. And sure enough, they're realizing that long COVID does have a lot in common with an autoimmune disease. I don't think they're classifying it that way. At this point, like the research is ongoing, but it's just really interesting to me. So apparently, something like 11% of people who get COVID-19 will have long COVID, which lets you one study in "Nature," I read said up to 65 million people are suffering from on COVID, which is apparently a 10th of the number of people worldwide who have had COVID. So , 1 in 10 people is kind of a lot. Yeah. And suddenly, you know, folks at the beginning of COVID, who were calling it, a mass disabling event make a lot more sense. Brooke 50:01 Yeah. Casandra 50:05 This is terrible and funny. I read a tweet where someone said "People went on about herd immunity. But now we have heard autoimmunity." Brooke 50:12 Oh, it's funny and awful Casandra 50:17 It is. Sorry, I'm laughing at that because I have an autoimmune disease. I think I should offer that context. So, populations impacted: Apparently 4% of folks with long COVID are under 12. Aside from that about a third are people under 50. Another third are 50 to 60. And then another third are people above 65. So it is impacting people who are our age. Brooke 50:44 You can't have three thirds and four percent. Casandra 50:47 I said, in addition to that. Or after that. Brooke 50:51 Okay, sorry. Math. Just slap me. Casandra 50:53 I read so many studies to cobble this all together. Don't judge my numbers. It's more...I say that to bookkeeper. It's more predominant in transgender folks and women, which is also true of autoimmune diseases. 75% of people with long COVID where never hospitalized. 75% of those people have not sought medical help for long COVID. And there's also an assumption that a lot of these numbers are actually higher, because we all know how reporting has gone down in and how healthcare is expensive. And if people don't have to go to a hospital or a doctor, they won't, you know. Brooke 51:35 Is there anyone out there that still saying long COVID doesn't exist? Not like the you know, extremists but like, mainstream for a while was like long COVID is made up? It's not actually happening. Is that still a common thought? Or is that finally going away? Casandra 51:50 I don't know how common it...so this is all really curious to me because I have an autoimmune disease and because last month, January 2023, two different studies came out about Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which I also have, and how it increases the likelihood of long COVID. And when that study came out, I started to see a bunch of people talking about long COVID and low dose Naltrexone being a useful approach, which is a medication I take, which I cannot get prescribed by a regular doctor. Because they deny that it's a useful immunomodulator. Like remedy. And that's all to say that like, I think I'm hypersensitive to the disbelief around these things. And one of the reasons this if fascinating to me. Yeah, one of the reasons this is fascinating to me, is because it's opening up these conversations about these diseases that patients have been talking about for years, and have not historically been believed. Margaret 52:56 Often as a symptom of misogyny, right? Casandra 53:01 Yeah, Totally. I don't know anyone who has, you know, something in the spectrum of chronic illness who hasn't gone through, like literally years of doctor saying it "Doesn't exist," or "You don't have it." Or "It's not that bad." Like, I had to call my doctor and inform her of what I had, like, based on my labs, because she didn't tell me. And so now there's this like, sped up process around long COVID, right, where like, so many people are getting sick all at once that like, there was the disbelief and other people downplaying it. But like, research is catching up at a faster rate, it seems like, which has implications for the broader community, which could be positive. Even though it sucks that how many, how many millions. 65 million people.... Margaret 53:52 Well, it's like mRNA caccines, like, it's fucking cool, that we're suddenly able to get vaccinated for so many more things than we used to. And it is absolutely fucked that it took this...It took so many people getting this before people were like, "Oh, maybe it's just not like the modern version of hysteria," the whiny woman disease or whatever, you know. Casandra 54:20 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think there's....up until very recently, if you walked into a doctor and were like, even if you had a what's the word I'm looking for, not a prescription when they tell you what your... a diagnosis, from a previous doctor saying "I have chronic fatigue," or whatever. It's highly likely that your new doctor will say that doesn't exist. But now, suddenly, the only word...it's like the only words that they have to describe long COVID are these words like chronic fatigue and autoimmune disease? So, suddenly they have to like view them as legitimate. But studies are coming out in these like, major scientific journals like "Nature." "JANA," what's the other one? I was reading? Whatever, science. So people are taking it seriously. And that's, not exciting because I wish it didn't exist at all, but is good. Brooke 55:27 Yeah, the friend that I have. Casandra 55:28 I have a whole. Oh, go ahead. Brooke 55:30 Oh, just the friend that I have that has long COVID he has faced a lot of that struggle with this belief. I think he got COVID earlier on, or at least not recently. And yeah, definitely has faced a lot of like disbelief and extra hurdles and trying to advocate for himself and get the kind of care that he needs. Casandra 55:54 Yeah. And it's, it's I think maybe people need to understand how severe it can be. Because the umbrella of long COVID, my understanding, like, you know, they're still actively defining this term, but my understanding is that it's people who have at least two symptoms, at least, I think it's two months after the acute infection goes away. But for some people that can be so debilitating that like, they need walkers, or they need you know, it's life altering. Yeah. And I read one study that said that, as many as 4 million people are unemployed, because of long covid, which is a whole other conversation around, like, what counts as a disability in this country? And what doesn't? Like I remember when I was first diagnosed with my autoimmune disease, and was way less functional than I am now. I was like, "Why? Why would I not qualify for disability?" And the answer is that there are a lot of bureaucratic reasons, apparently. But yeah, who knows, maybe that will change too. Brooke 57:04 Part of it's because...part of the bureaucracy is that they can't take away the designation once they've given it. So, they don't want to make it too easy to label you disabled, because then you don't, you don't get to go back from being disabled. Margaret 57:22 Or we could just not means test care. And anyone who needs care, could just have care. Casandra 57:31 We don't think you're sick enough. Do you want to hear some more interesting statistics? Brooke 57:39 Always. Give me numbers. Casandra 57:42 Yeah, I know Brooks excited. So, a study in Germany recently found that people who get COVID have a 30% or had a 30% increase in risk of autoimmune diseases up to a year after their acute infection. So, there's active comorbidity there. And the people who go into COVID having an autoimmune disease, have a 25% increase in their chance of contracting additional autoimmune diseases. But that's all significantly lowered if patients are vaccinated. There's a like crunchy version of autoimmune communities where people are antivax. Margaret 58:26 Oh, that's why you're making angry eyes as soon as you.... Casandra 58:30 Well, so these statistics are particularly important, right? Margaret 58:35 I'm mad that there's been a Lyme vaccine that they just didn't finish studying. I could be wrong about this. I don't remember all the details. I read a pop science article about it. But there's like a...there's been a Lyme disease [vaccine] that they can give to dogs, but they just didn't finish studying it and people. And it's been around for like 20 years. Brooke 58:54 That's infuriating. Casandra 58:55 I don't live in Lyme country. So it's not like as big an issue here. But that's wild. Margaret 59:00 I got Lyme in Oregon. Like, where you live. But, and I and I live in fucking Lyme country and I've never gotten Lyme over here. Brooke 59:11 Wow. Yeah. Got some anyway, family in Idaho that, about 15 years ago, were battling Lyme and one of them had it since he was a teenager. Margaret 59:23 I want to fucking Lyme vaccine. It's like, I think people who play D&D are going to be smarter around risk analysis, because anyone who's played D&D knows that 5% chance of something happens means it's gonna happen. Like... Casandra 59:37 Yeah, eventually. Margaret 59:39 Yeah, exactly. And because you've had that happen over and over again, when you play this, and you also realize that anything that you get, that's like, a plus 5% safer, you always take it, right, like, and the vaccine is like a 90% safer, and people are like, "Ah, people still get sick, so therefore it's bullshit," but Like, if the vaccine made you 5% safer, and you play Dungeons and Dragons, you'll take it. Casandra 1:00:05 It's actually, it's 10%. It's 10% safer. Margaret 1:00:09 Wait, what is? Casandra 1:00:11 If you're vaccinated.... Margaret 1:00:13 Oh, about the autoimmune stuff. Okay. Casandra 1:00:15 Yeah. Margaret 1:00:15 I was thinking about like COVID itself, but yeah. Yeah. Casandra 1:00:21 I just like kind of fantasy of my high school stats class actually being taught through D&D and like, maybe I would have understood math. Margaret 1:00:27 Yeah, it like, it's, yeah, you understand probability a lot better if you like, regularly.... Casandra 1:00:33 You're actively practicing. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what else do you want to know? Margaret 1:00:43 About long COVID? Casandra 1:00:45 Yeah. Margaret 1:00:46 I was hearing that....It...For most people does taper off. Is that being understood? Or is that like, like not to be like, therefore it's fine, but just like, less of a like, "Oh, God, my life is over. This thing has happened," or whatever. Like, I was under the impression that people....not that it should...people should feel like their life is over, even if they get it bad. But like, not that it's... Casandra 1:01:17 It's not debilitating? Brooke 1:01:18 It's not permanent. Margaret 1:01:19 It's not necessarily...it's not necessarily permanently debilitating to everyone who gets it and that it like a lot of people it's about a way slower getting better, but not everyone some people it's about a permanent effect. But that other people are like recovering just very slowly. Is that? Am I completely off? I've no idea. Casandra 1:01:40 I've heard that empirically. But I didn't find a study that like....I found studies acknowledging that for some people after a few months, they get better. Like even if they started out with long COVID, symptoms will get better, but I didn't actually see numbers about...and I think part of that is that it hasn't been long enough. Margaret 1:01:57 Yeah, totally. Casandra 1:01:58 And even if...so, so I keep comparing this to an autoimmune disease, but they haven't actually said like "This is in fact an autoimmune disease," you know, there are people who say it's because of mast cell activation there are people who say it's actually a neurological issue, like they're still figuring it out. But if in fact it it does function like an autoimmune disease you would need years to see how it actually impacts people because people might have a slower recovery and feel better and then you know, their immune system could be triggered by something and they'll get sick again. So yeah, we just don't know. Casandra 1:02:33 That makes sense. Brooke 1:02:36 So I might not be fatigued and coughing forever is what you're saying? Maybe. Casandra 1:02:42 Yeah. Brooke 1:02:45 Okay, that's good. Casandra 1:02:46 But if you are people are researching the efficacy of low dose Naltrexone Brooke 1:02:51 And I'll get my brain back. Maybe. Casandra 1:02:54 I'd say some percentage of it. Margaret 1:02:57 Have you tried yoga? Casandra 1:03:02 You're actually not supposed to do stretching flexibility things with Ehlers Danlos, that's the antithesis of what you're supposed to do. So, no. Margaret 1:03:14 I hope that as we talked about, people not being able to tell when people are being sarcastic, I hope that I manage that tone. Brooke 1:03:22 Okay, but I need yoga for my PTSD. Now I'm lost. Casandra 1:03:27 You could just try the breathing exercises. Brooke 1:03:30 Okay. Meditation that's the one universal good. Casandra 1:03:32 Yeah. Brooke 1:03:33 Maybe. We'll see the sleep disorder. Casandra 1:03:38 I feel I feel like what we're doing right now is like a small encapsulated version of what these like, chronic illness communities do on a larger scale. And at a certain point, I just, like, have to detach myself because I'm like, everything will harm you. Casandra 1:03:52 How about we talk about other headlines. Casandra 1:03:58 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, I found some fun ones. So, I don't remember exactly what she said. I'm sure anyone on Twitter saw, but Marjorie Taylor Greene was basically like "The country should get a divorce." Like, in my mind is civil war. That's a fun one. Margaret 1:04:19 Yeah, and I, I like that one also, because it's like people talk about like, red states, blue states, and people are like, "Oh, well, you know, Oklahoma is banning trans people. Fortunately, no trans people live there." Like, that's not fucking true. And like, and even from a like, Democrat--Republican binary, the difference between a red state and a blue state is usually about 60/40 one way or the other. Yeah, you know, and like, and that's what people aren't acknowledging. Well, there's a million things people aren't acknowledging. Casandra 1:04:50 Sort of what she wanted, she wanted to...part of that comment she made was about proposing that if people move to a red state from a blue state, they should have a period where they can't vote. which would in fact make it so that they were purely red states. Margaret 1:05:05 That's true. As a....I am not a Democrat, but I live in a red state and I am far worse than what they're afraid of with the Democrats. Yeah. Okay, my fun headline. Are we just doing like one headline back and forth for a moment? Casandra 1:05:23 Yeah. Margaret 1:05:25 Massive floods and mudslides in Brazil killed 36 people leaving 800 people homeless, displacing thousands of people, hitting multiple cities. Just massive fuck off disaster that didn't even make it to my social media headlines. Casandra 1:05:41 That makes me want to message Mena. Margaret 1:05:43 Yeah, not a bad idea to check in with her. Friends. I mean, sometimes it's like, Brazil is a very large country, right, and so like, you know, like, if someone something happens in the Pacific Northwest, and someone, my friend from another country is like, "Are you okay?" Then again, I wouldn't actually be sad at someone for checking in, even if something...whatever, anyway. Casandra 1:06:09 Federal Emergency SNAP benefits are ending March 1. Thanks, Biden. Yeah, for some people, that means the difference between like, $270 a month and $20 a month. It's like, a huge amount of money. Brooke 1:06:24 Yeah, for me, it's the difference between like, being able to just buy the foods I need and knowing there's gonna be enough versus like, having to really pay attention and budget of things to make sure I don't run out by the end of the month. Like it's not it's not even a huge amount of difference for me, but it's enough of like the difference between having to pay close attention and just being able to just buy food like normal. Casandra 1:06:49 Yeah. I've seen a few different posts by food pantry volunteers who are like, "It's already like wild in food pantries. And it's not even March 1 yet." Margaret 1:07:01 Floods in New Zealand killed for at least four people and displace 9000 people. All these headlines, it's like things show up in the head in the news when it happens. And then like this one in New Zealand, it's like, killed at least four people and there's 1300 people unaccounted for. And that article is from a while ago and so I didn't find an updated article. The fact that I didn't find it updated article probably means that 1000 More people didn't die, but was really fucking bad. Brooke 1:07:32 And then there's 9000 people that got displaced and you probably don't know what happened to them and where they went. Margaret 1:07:41 Are we still ping-ponging or should I just go with the rest of mine. Casandra 1:07:45 Oh no, I'll go Walgreens recently caved to Conservative pressure and agreed to stop selling Mifo...I get the full names of miso and mife confused but it's one of them. Margaret 1:07:59 One of the main abortion drugs. Casandra 1:08:01 Yeah, in a pro choice state. Margaret 1:08:06 Wow, in a pro choice? I didn't. Casandra 1:08:08 Oh, yes, it's Kansas, which is a pro choice state, and the you know, in case you needed the added kicker, Mifo is also used for completing miscarriages, so people will not be able to access that drug if they have a miscarriage. At least not in Walgreens. So, you know, change pharmacies if you want. Margaret 1:08:31 Legally Walgreens. Brooke 1:08:34 In Minecraft. Margaret 1:08:35 Ah, in Czarist Russia, that's what I'm pushing for is the new 'In Minecraft'. They cracked Minecraft. Now it's all about Czarist Russia. Warming oceans are cutting into the world's widest glacier. They're cutting like big trenches from the bottom into the world's widest glacier, the Thwaites, ultimately these melting glaciers over the next couple 100 years will likely raise global sea level by 10 feet. Brooke 1:09:04 Is that an Antarctic glacier? Margaret 1:09:07 I don't know. Casandra 1:09:12 I'm assured by a friend who's like a right wing researcher, who isn't right wing but does research into right wing hate groups, that this is probably going to be a non issue, but apparently and Idaho hate group on Telegram has been calling for an 'Antisemitic Day of Hate,' this Shabbat and I have friends in the areas where this is happening who have said that their synagogues are canceling services. Margaret 1:09:37 That fucking bums me out. Economic Research firm Moody's looked at US cities most at risk for combined heat, drought and sea level rise over the next 30 years,, basically like what US cities are going to be most impacted by climate change over the next couple of decades. And the losers are the Bay Area, a whole bunch of Florida, N

Mike Hoss, the voice of the Saints, joined Mike and Charlie to discuss New Orleans' offseason moves. Hoss shared his thoughts on the Derek Carr signing. He said the Saints need to address the interior of their defensive and offensive lines in free agency and the NFL Draft. He also talked about Juwan Johnson and Kaden Elliss. He praised Carr's durability throughout his career and previewed the Falcons' pursuit of New Orleans defensive players.

Mike and Charlie congratulated the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns for winning the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. The guys broke down the latest moves in the NFL ahead of the franchise tag deadline. Mike Hoss, the voice of the Saints, joined the show to discuss New Orleans' offseason moves. Hoss shared his thoughts on the Derek Carr signing. He said the Saints need to address the interior of their defensive and offensive lines in free agency and the NFL Draft. He also talked about Juwan Johnson and Kaden Elliss. He praised Carr's durability throughout his career and previewed the Falcons' pursuit of New Orleans defensive players. 

Mike Hoss, the voice of the Saints, joined Mike and Charlie to discuss New Orleans' offseason moves. Hoss shared his thoughts on the Derek Carr signing. He said the Saints need to address the interior of their defensive and offensive lines in free agency and the NFL Draft. He also talked about Juwan Johnson and Kaden Elliss. He praised Carr's durability throughout his career and previewed the Falcons' pursuit of New Orleans defensive players.

Why do we LOVE squash at HOSS? Squash is a super popular and diverse vegetable to grown in the garden. Did you know that there are three different major species of squash?

It's a miracle! The show is only 4 days late! Check out more from Intellectual Dark Wave: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJQvmb2cqZlrgAFsAq1_P4w Bandcamp: https://intellectualdarkwave.bandcamp.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Intellectualdarkwave Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0fS66u3uDh3qvtS3FfYdpd?si=aHyq2AkdRHmuS1MZkiLK3Q&nd=1 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intellectualdarkwave/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/IntellectualDa8 And my crap: Visit www.hoss.fun for all your Hoss needs™ I have a unique YouTube address now: YouTube.com/hossbossman Follow Hoss on Twitter and Instagram and Twitch and TikTok @hoss_bossman Twitter: @hoss_bossman https://twitter.com/hoss_bossman Instagram: @hoss_bossman https://instagram.com/hoss_bossman Twitch: hoss_bossman https://twitch.tv/hoss_bossman TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@hoss_bossman Support Hoss AND get original music at https://hossbossman.bandcamp.com Visit https://www.hoss.fun for ALL YOUR HOSS NEEDS Check out Hoss's YouTube channel: YouTube.com/hossbossman Go to https://bit.ly/callhoss to leave me a message and I'll probably play it on the show, as long as it isn't racist! ~Other Links~ Email: HossBossman48@gmail.com Follow me on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/hossbossman/ "Like" me on Facebook: https://facebook.com/hossbossmanrules/ Follow me on Tumblr: https://hossbossman.tumblr.com Hear my solo instrumental music on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/hossbossman/oksetgdns/the-boss-of-hosses Find Breadsheet on your podcast app of choice at https://bit.ly/breadsheet Email me w/ questions, comments, appearance/guest/collaboration requests, commissions for original music, or whatever your heart desires at hossbossman48@gmail.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/hossbossman/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/hossbossman/support

Have you ever launched a service, program, product, or course and felt… massively disappointed at the end of all that hoopla?   You work hard for WEEKS to make sure your offer is as strong as it can be.   You host the webinars.   You do the challenges.   You show up day after day.   And the results are…kinda underwhelming?   And you're totally freaking exhausted by the end of it?   And you cannot even IMAGINE launching again anytime soon?   Today's guest, Aline Hoss, is a Kajabi expert and launch specialist who can say with certainty:   When you create and follow the gold-standard launch strategy, it's hard NOT to create the results you want.   Aline is the mastermind who helped me create and launch Hell Yes Guest (my podcast guesting course that sold out in its debut launch), and I can't wait for you to hear what went into co-creating this successful launch together, plus tons of incredible guidance Aline's learned from supporting 50+ launches across industries.   You'll learn:   Why launching can actually be the most fun, effective, and engaging way to sell your offers What most people are getting wrong about launches What kind of content to create before your launch to make sure your audience is excited and ready to work with you The secret to ensuring you won't hear crickets when your cart opens How to pinpoint the tiny window of time when your audience is ready to buy - BEFORE they lose interest The one thing I did that made for a seamless second launch Which components of your launch you'll want to consider outsourcing How to maintain high energy, high engagement, and a “hell yes” mindset throughout a launch   You need this episode if:     You're thinking about launching a course or a new program in the next 2 years You've had so-so success with launching in the past You've “sworn off” launching, but are struggling to make evergreen sales  You can't imagine launching without feeling exhausted at the end You never want to feel like the juice wasn't worth the squeeze again after a launch You're ready to fill your next launch with excited, engaged buyers who can't wait for those doors to open!   Connect with Aline for your next launch:   Check out her website: https://www.alinehoss.com/ Message her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alinehoss/

Episode Summary Brooke and Carla talk about parenting as radicals and youth autonomy, but more importantly, they talk about adult supremacy, the history of it, the ways it influences all of our lives and strategies for confronting it as parents and non parents. They breakdown childism, and talk about how the most important thing you can do is listen to the youth and how community is once again the answer to many societal woes. Guest Info Carla Joy Bergman (She/they) is a writer, producer, podcaster, schemer and causer of trouble. Their book Trust Kids! is out from AK Press and can be ordered here. You can find Grounded Futures at GroundedFutures.com or @GroundedFutures on Twitter and Instagram. You can find Listening House Media here. She also cohosts the Grounded Futures podcast with their son Uilliam. Host Info Brooke can be found at Strangers helping up keep our finances intact and on Twitter and Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Transcript Carla on Adult Supremacy Brooke 00:15 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm Brooke Jackson, your host for this episode. Today we have the honor of talking with author Carla Bergman. We're going to discuss parenting here in the end times. But first, we'd like to honor our membership and the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts by playing a little jingle from one of the other podcasts on the network. Jingle jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle jingle here. And we're back. Carla, thank you for joining us today to talk about parenting. Would you please introduce yourself? Let us know what you do, your pronouns, share where you're from if you're comfortable disclosing that. Carla 01:58 Great. Hi, Brooke. Thanks for having me here. I love this podcast. It's a real honor. Yeah, I'm Carla Joy Bergman. I use she/her, they/them pronouns. I'm calling in from Musqueam. Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh lands, also known as Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest, across the border in Canada. Yeah, I, well, I do a lot of things. I'm a bit of a autonomous scholar, writer, producer, a podcaster or schemer, causer of trouble. I don't know, that's always hard to put yourself on there. Like what do you do? Yeah, I'm a mom, friend. I'm a white settler with Irish and Welsh ancestry. Yeah. Brooke 03:03 Yeah, well, we're really glad that you are here and taking the time to talk about this topic with us today. I know that you just released a book back in November called "Trust Kids", which looks like you can get from AK Press. And they have print ebook and audiobook available. There's probably other sources to get it as well. So I'd love to talk about your book a little bit. And then you know, if that leads into some broader conversations about parenting in general, and especially, you know, parenting here in the end times and how we support each other as leftists, you know, I think that would be great to talk about too. But let's, let's start with your book. I'm curious why you wanted to write the book, like what inspired you to write it? Carla 03:50 It's like, intergenerational? It's a project that comes across many, many timelines. Yeah, so it's called "Trust Kids Confronting Adult Supremacy" and while stories on youth autonomy and confronting adult supremacy, oh, boy, it's really hard to pinpoint a moment. It's so it's so cool to have the privilege to reflect back in your past and you get to evoke where you are today on the past. Brooke 04:20 Yeah, feel free to talk about all of the things that inspired you in the process. Carla 04:24 Thanks. Yeah, I mean, I've always had a problem with hierarchy and with authority, which goes way back to when I was a little kid. I was definitely the kid who stood up to teachers who bullied kids and other parents or other adults who bullied kids, including my own, and obviously, it was meant with not always a lot of kindness, and often a lot of violence. So it's something that's always been kind of in me to be aware of adult supremacy. But really, it wasn't until I had my own child, that I had to really put the practice of youth autonomy and thinking through adult supremacy in the everyday and every night. Brooke 05:11 I'm curious if you feel comfortable sharing the age of your child or children? Carla 05:16 Yeah. So my oldest is 28. And my youngest is 18, the oldest is Zach, and the youngest is Uilliam, and Uilliam and I do a podcast, that's part of the Channels Zero network as well called Grounded Futures. And yeah, and Zach. Both of them wrote for the book, Uilliam did it their own chapter, their own section, and then Zach and I co wrote a piece together. Yeah, so.. Brooke 05:43 Man, that's great. Carla 05:45 Yeah. So, you know, Zack, and I got....and my partner, we got involved in alternative education and youth liberation kind of worlds. We were like, really fortunate because we were working class family and, and I got diagnosed with lupus, like there was all these things that were making it like, well, how am I going to not send my kid to regular school. But I was fortunate to live in a city where there's a dem... that was...it was like, almost 48 years, it ran...ademocratic preschool that was publicly funded. So that meant it was free to attend, as well as a free school, and there was parent participatory, and it was, you know, it went through all different kinds of renditions, and tried all different kinds of models, and but really, at the center was and at the center was this idea of youth liberation and children, self directed sort of education styles, I, you know, through that, at the core of all my work is this notion of solidarity, like how to think about this conversation of youth autonomy and undoing adult supremacy, amidst and alongside all the other horrors of, of empire, whether it be ableism, racism, classism, and whatnot. And I really noticed that a lot of kids, you know, they don't a lot of families can opt out of school, and they can't actually do this. So, I really wanted to move the conversation away from 'school or not school,' because it just marginalizes the, the work and because it becomes siloed. And really, adult supremacy is in it's always in the room. It's, it's it is like at the core, it's at the center of all other oppressions. You know, we just keep replicating this horrible system by raising kids with internalized adults supremacy. And so yeah. Brooke 07:41 That part of the subtitle really stuck out to me, the adult supremacy part, which, you know, sorry to interrupt you, please keep going. But I definitely want to dive more into adult supremacy discussion. But... Carla 07:54 I mean, I think that this conversation, so I'm just gonna really get really to the heart of it. So about 12=13 years ago, I was co director of a youth run arts and activism space in Vancouver that was at the center was youth autonomy and radical politics and this intersectional praxis of working alongside other struggles and being in solidarity with them. And I was really noticing from other radicals that you know, youth liberation, youth autonomy, children's rights, all that stuff was almost always left off of the the oppression chart or pie. And so I would bring it up, and it would be like an afterthought. And they'd be like, oh, yeah, right, of course. And slowly, you know, we've seen that grow. However, what I noticed was I faced a lot of vitriol from a lot of radicals that I was privileged, that I was privileging kids and like that, all this stuff, and I was like, "Wait a minute, like, you know who's privileged is like the middle class family who moves across town to the rich neighborhood to put their kid in the better school like," no, no, no, like that's nuanced this a little bit like. So I came up with the phrase "Solidarity begins at home," which was really the orientation of this book to begin with. And if you follow it on AK Press, they often post about it calling it, "Solidarity Begins at Home," because I was really noticing that anti authority, anti authority folks particularly were like, "Except for with my children, I'm an authority." Or, you know, "Oh, Carla and her weirdness being friends with our kids," or whatever, like it just was just marginalizing the conversation, when really the issue is adult supremacy and, and, you know, I'm just a curious person. So I'm like, "Why doesn't that resonate?" Like it's something we've all experienced at different degrees. Absolutely. This is a really uneven white supremacist, colonial, racist, ableist world. But we've all experiencedi it. It's actually a place where we could connect and have a more generative conversation. And yet it just keeps getting marginalized. And so I just really had to think about how to center it more. And so, on the one hand, I'm saying "Solidarity Begins at Home." But I'm also decentering parenting in the conversation, because I think like this is just so much bigger and beyond like, parenting. It's everywhere that a young person encounters an adult, the adult supremacy world, and it's everywhere, like Malika Radway, who wrote for the book, like, and she does, "Raising Rebels" podcasts with our kids. Like they said, you know, "Adult supremacy is in every single room you're in," you can't...it's just like whiteness, you can't, right? So yeah, so I didn't feel ready to write it. I always had a kind of what's the word like, I guess it's about consent, like, I really needed it to have my kids full consent to talk about our life. And to talk about this in a way that I wanted to, especially that framing of 'solidarity begins at home.' So that's, that's the reason why I held off until I had their, you know, really, they're full consent. And, you know, different people, different adults, different parents, different radical parents write about their kids in different ways. This isn't a judgment, this was just my own ethos with my kids, right? So that's why it took 12 years. I just actually found a new Google Doc from 2012. That said, new book "Solidarity begins at home. "Listen, Adults," or something I was going to call it. Brooke 11:41 Yeah, it sounds like you not only have their consent, but kind of their enthusiastic consent. And they both, you know, wrote for it and participated in that which, you know, what a joy to be able to do that with them. Carla 11:54 Yeah. And my son, the oldest one did the audio book, which is really special Brooke 11:59 Oh, wow, that's really cool. I, my daughter is 11. And we're firmly in that tween phase right now where there's both the child and the budding teenager that, that show up in her and it's a interesting age, for sure. And I just have the one. But I want to rewind slightly back to adult supremacy, to get us on the same page here. And we, you know, what does that phrase mean to you? How do you define that? How do you see that in the world? Carla 12:35 Right? I mean, it's really, it's always evolving and changing, the more I like, learn, and like, explore and research and talk to people who are real nerds and researchers. Two of the folks who wrote for the book, Toby Rollo and Stacy Patton, really do a deep, deep look at the history, the roots of adult supremacy. And so it's, it's hard for me not to start there, because it's like, my mind is just kind of blown. You know, it really goes back to early colonization in the....in Europe. You know, we hear this from indigenous folks on, you know, on the lands we're both on that, you know, this is not how people do kinship. This is not like the...kind of like patriarchal, heteronormative hierarchical family. It's not, you know, and that, that that's not how it is. And so, way, like it goes way back, this kind of I don't even, I can't even pinpoint it, but it definitely predates capitalism, although like it, you know, it got more entrenched during capitalism to have the house set up the way that the patriarchal family, the way it was set up, like kids had to be subjugated from their parents and the patriarchal parent was being subjugated by, you know, the whole system of capitalism, right, yeah. But it actually predates all that in it. And it goes back to early colonization. And it was by design. It was to sow seeds of control, distrust, and this idea that, I think Toby calls it protocitizenship, that children aren't fully human. They don't have any rights. You know, there's 13 states that still have paddles that can, people can still paddle in schools in the US, I don't know if you know, that and spent, you know, like, you, you will you get fined and go to jail if you beat your dog, but you won't if you beat your kid, as long as they can't see any bruises. You know, so this is like, it's ongoing, this idea that childhood is just a phase, you know, this kind of just creation of this thing that's like less than, was by design. And it's become, you know, it got more entrenched through psychology, the whole, you know, we don't even need to go into that. But even eugenics, like early eugenics was practiced on children...kind of way where children who were street involved and didn't have parents or were, you know, out of care kind of kids. They were sterilized first. Stacy Patton is a doing a book right now on the history of lynching children in the south. she had to actually go to Europe to get to the root of it. And it was practiced first on children there. So... Brooke 15:31 Emotionally, I don't think I could handle that kind of research. Carla 15:34 Yeah, me neither. I just want to get...this is what I said, like, I didn't have all this information like a couple of years ago. And so this isn't where I would have started the conversation. However, I used to say like that this is a Western...Euro Western colonial way of being in the world, and like the hatred of children, they have childhood and, and the violence against children is a construct within colonization. I did know that, but I didn't realize how severe it was. And so alongside the other horrific systems within colonization, I like to call it Empire because it's like a hydra, all of it, capitalism, ableism, ageism. We're still we're fighting all those battles still in use. The problem with adult supremacy is that it just keeps reenscribing itself because, yes, yeah, yes, you can see how it just, it's not that's why I'm not really I'm not a proponent of youth liberation as such. And why I talk about autonomy instead is because it's it needs to be intersectional, it needs to be intergenerational, it needs to be...we have to undo adult supremacy, we can't just focus on doing youth liberation siloed over here, because they grow into adults, and then they become adults supremacists. Right. And like, do you know what I mean? it's kind of like...it is one of...it has mobility, in terms of getting out of being the oppressed to becoming the oppressor. Not unlike class... Brooke 17:13 So if I'm understanding it, then adult supremacy.... Carla 17:20 I could give you a definition. Brooke 17:24 Well, let's see if, well let's see if I picked it up from that. It's the idea that adults are all and always supreme to children, who are just going through a phase and to some degree, it's acceptable to enforce that adult supremacy through violence? That's kind of from all those things. Brooke 17:54 Yeah. And so, if I get it correctly, parental supremacy is like within the bigger circle of adult supremacy, right? Like... Carla 17:54 Yeah, and psychological violence, physical...like all kinds of...it is a violent act. It's a colonizing of the mind and soul and body. And yeah, like, you know, the whole, the whole idea is to prepare your kid for adulthood, which is just ridiculous. Like, they are a full human already, that things need to be discovered. And they, you know, like, all of us, guidance is important. mentorships are important skill sharing is important. Presence is important. Love is important, and ultimately care, right? Yeah, but they....and they are fully human already. They are no less, no more, you know, some maybe, you know, whatever, it's, you know, it's relational. But, the idea adult supremacy is children are under developed, they're not fully human, they need to prepare for ultimate adulthood. And that is the supreme holding of what it means to be fully human, is to be an adult. Carla 18:46 Yeah, I mean, I've always liked Bell Hooks' thing she called, she called it the patriarchal family, like, it didn't matter what gender you were, or how you configurated your family, where if there's adults, taking care of children it was a patriarchal family. And I really liked that phrasing, because I think that's a way to maybe push back against some of the what happens with some of the feminists ideas around parenting that, you know, like a woman, you know, like, I'm talking more like, I'm probably aging myself, but I'm doing more like this second, third wave of feminism where it was, you know more about their rights than it was their children's because they were so oppressed under the patriarch of the family or whatever. And yes, and you know, Bell Hooks came along and was like, you're a patriarch too within that adult supremacy. Yeah, yeah. Brooke 20:02 So, um, we talked about the, you know, physical psychological abuse factor of that adult supremacy. I'm curious what other ways you would point out that it manifests itself in society...families and, you know, adults in general, and maybe there's some, you know, insidious ways that we don't even think of, you know, that wouldn't immediately come to mind that you could teach us about here. Carla 20:28 I mean, it's everywhere. You know, I, I'm not on the socials at all. I left fully back in the spring, but when I was, I was constantly asking my fellow podcasters, and journalists and thinkers and opinionerrs, to please stop calling the most vile human beings on this earth childish, and children and toddlers. It's right there. You know, that is where it's at. Can you... and people would be like, "What do you mean?" And I would be like "Change 'child' to any other group. Woman..." and then their eyes, they're like, "Oh, my God, I'd be canceled. If I called Trump a whiny woman," or whatever. Put any group in there. Right. I don't really want to go down that road. But, you see what I mean. So that's a one that I have to...We just actually, Grounded Futures, just re-released it because it's not stopping. Right? Because so, that's a really, really huge way. It's all those biases, right, those social biases. So, like I mentioned earlier, I was the co director of a youth run arts and activism space, that was free to use, it had a lot of anarchist kind of ethos running around it. It was co founded. It was founded by six youth and Matt Hearn, back in 2001. And my son was on the collective and we did a whole lot of cool stuff. But it was incredible how many adult organizers would email me and ask if they could come in and give a workshop on how to run a space. Or how to run a collective. I'd be like, I think you all could come down and learn something from this youth collective, but that's pretty like a bias, right? Like, I was like, this is the most functional club I've ever worked with, like I've, you know, been in a lot of collectives like, I don't think age has anything to do with it. It's about like some other things going on around power. You know, like, I...Yeah, so there's this idea that they were...it was flaky, and that they didn't know what they were doing. And so that was just another bias, an ageist....it's, it's just terrible. Yeah, I watched it just go down all the time. Another storieas an anecdote...I'm sure you have many....My kid when they were really, my youngest, when they were really little, and we'd go grocery shopping. And they were really good at picking out avocados and fruit. And one of the people working in the store, like slapped their hand and said, "No, you're not allowed to touch fruit." I was like, first of all, don't ever touch my kid. Second of all, they're better at it than me. You know, like I just, you know, like, it's that kind of that kind of like, they just....the person couldn't even...it was just so reflexive. Like, they couldn't even imagine that this five year old knew what they were doing. Stuff like that. It's just constant. It's just everywhere. And I'm sure you you can, you know....and I do it myself. And I want to say, because I know I when I talk about this, it can come off like I have it figured out. I confront my adult supremacy and particularly my power every single day in my relationship with my youngest, like, every single day it comes up in subtle and overt ways because of maybe I'm tired or and the more we get, the more we uncover it, the more we see. The more we get into the like, the nuance of power, like the nuance of like persuasion that you know, like that I hold, the more I'm like, "Dang it!" Yeah, yeah. Brooke 24:19 There's another example I just thought of, too, that I think often crops up around this time of year with people visiting family so often. The hugging example. You know, not making your kid go hug somebody because he's "Oh, you know, hug me." Even if it's you, the parent, like "Hug me goodbye." You know, don't make don't make your kids have that physical interaction with another human being. Carla 24:46 Thanks for bringing that up. It's like it's so true. Like kids live...like especially little kids...live a extremely nonconsensual life. From bedtime, to food, to like touch right, and every thing in between. And parents, you know, there's a lot of nuance in that conversation around parents and parenting, and but it's real. All right. And, you know, people are always trying to do workshops on teaching consent, and I'm always like, just gonna fail if you're not living with your kids. Brooke 25:18 Yeah. Carla 25:19 It's just gonna fail. Like it's so embodied, like, children just live such a nonconsensual life in lots and lots of ways because of this, because of adult supremacy. So yeah, thanks for bringing up...getting right to the right to the point. And, you know, it's interesting because thinking of parenting like my...sorry, my, my youngest is Uilliam, but we often call him Liam, that I do the podcast with, so he does a lot of the social media for Grounded Futures. And he often feels a bit gaslit by like, kind of the algorithm that comes through that one around like radical parenting and anarchists and stuff around, like on so called holidays on how cool it's going with their kids in that and because then they go on theirs where it's very much mostly trans and LGBTQ+ youth, ranging from 16 to like 25. And all his friends and all his mutual's are in trauma on that day because of nonconsensual hugs, from having to mask, from having from being misgendered, from not being believed that they're trans or I can even be, are non binary, or whatever, the whole gamut, right? And, and I hadn't even really thought about, like how algorithms work. And I was like, well, that's really hard. And he's saying, "I'm not saying that those radical things aren't happening that I'm seeing on Grounded Futures. It's just like, you can get in your bubble and think everything's better. And then you go to this other thing, and you're like, "Ah, the youth are actually not doing well, right now. Overall." Yeah. Brooke 27:02 Yeah, I've often been told as a parent that I have raised a very rude child, because, and I'm not going to try and pretend that I've been some sort of perfect, you know, no supremacy, children autonomy kind of thing. I'm human. I'm not, I'm still working on it. But, that was something that I noticed and chose to do differently early on in her life about not making her hug people or touch people kissing people goodbye. And even, you know, not necessarily forcing her to say goodbye to somebody. You know, I did a lot of giving her the option, you know, "We're going to leave now, would you like to say goodbye to Grandma?" or what have you. And so as she's gotten older, you know, some of those things that I didn't force her to do, she kind of didn't learn, and now she's old enough to where she understands politeness. You know, and I can suggest, you know, it's more polite in this situation, to say goodbye to this person, you know, and she can still choose then how she wants to do it. She can understand the social dynamic of why she's making that choice. Carla 28:11 That's beautiful. Brooke 28:12 You get accused of being a bad parent, or a rude parent or, or whatever it is, because you don't force your kids do these social things. Carla 28:20 I can't believe how many adults came through the Thistle that would say, "Oh, the Thistle youth are rude. And I was like, "You really have a hard time with like sharing your power, hey?" Like, I just would call it what I saw. Like, actually, what I saw was like, you actually want to come in and have kids, like, passively listen to you. And be polite, so called, you know, nice. But, they're like, they're not buying what you're selling. And they're like, "I don't want to do this." And you're thinking they're rude and entitled. I was like, This is what youth autonomy looks like. This is what sharing power looks like. This is what getting out of young people's way looks like. Yeah, I have a really similar thing with my kids. And I, my youngest, like really cared about relationships to the point where like, we've been unpacking this, where it was all overt, but they they took the social niceties on really young, but they had it all figured out. They're like, "At so and so's house, I have to like say 'please,' and 'thank you.' At so and so's house, I get to eat whatever I want, but I'm not allowed to swear. And I just listen because I want to have these friendships." I was like, wow, that's really cool. And also please don't mask. [emotions] Brooke 29:33 Isn't that so challenging? Carla 29:35 Yeah, it's a hard one. Brooke 29:37 Yeah, and mine lives in two households that are you know, very extreme opposites. Carla 29:42 Right. Brooke 29:42 So, the things she's allowed to say and do in this household are much more, you know, open and she's got a lot more autonomy and authority to do things and then she has to, you know, in that house, in order to fit in and not you know, not make waves, she feels like she has to you know, dial it back and behave in certain ways. And that's hard to see. Carla 30:05 It's also practice for life. I mean, you know, until we deal with this, I mean, you know? It's a hard one. Brooke 30:12 Yeah. Yeah. At Least for the world that we currently live in. Carla 30:15 Yeah. Yeah. Brooke 30:17 But yeah, while we're talking about like the liberation of children, I am curious if you would like vision with me, what would relationships look like between parents and children, or society and children if we were treating them in ways that were autonomous, and, you know, honoring them as the human beings that they are? Carla 30:38 Oh, I'd be dreaming. And here's why. Because everything would slow the F down, like so much, like, first and foremost, because there'd have to be a lot more or listening, a lot of questions. And that...I used to, I used to call it the friendship bar, how I trained myself, like, supported myself in my learning and making mistakes with my youngest was like, and I think, John Holt, this a John Holt quote, like never, you know, "Never say to a young person, what you wouldn't say to the person you hold in highest regard." It's a really good bar, it really, it really is. I can't...you know, it seems, you know, a lot of people throw quotes and people go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," but I can't express it enough how much it has helped a lot of other fellow co conspirators who want to undo adult supremacy when I share this with them, and they're like, "Right!" You know, and I think we can do this with some of our closest friends too. Or some of our, you know, maybe if we have some hard times with a partner, like we can be a little bit more snarky with them than we would with somebody we hold in high regard. So like, I mean, I think it's just a good practice across the board to like, figure out what is the most generative, you know, responsible, trusting way to come into relationship with anybody? And yeah, and one of the things we really strive for in our house is this notion of solidarity. My oldest said this on a talk about the book the other night, I hadn't really...it was really nice to hear the feedback, but he's like, you know, "it was always really transparent, that this was the goal at our house, that we were in solidarity with each other." And this is why I use the term solidarity because and, you know, this changes based on their age because they can, you know, they're littler bodies, they have littler nervous systems and stuff, right? But like, it's not...I'm not a child centered home, either. I think that's when we can get into some weird reinscribing individualism. We're very much a relationship centered home no matter what the configuration is, even when we've had roommates and whatnot. And like, it's like, just everything's transparent and slows down. Like, you know, like, food, all the conversations, bedtime, sleeping, care. I had, I had a chronic illness for the big chunk of my children's lives, that's pretty much healed, but that that involved a lot of solidarity and a lot of care going in all directions, right. Like I I used to joke that I parented from bed. Ha ha ha But it was true, right? So yeah, I would like to hear some of your dreams, but like, I just right away, there'd be a lot of listening, a lot of curiosity, a lot of play, a lot of tantrums. But we'd got to have them too. You know? Brooke 33:28 Yeah. Yeah, the thing that stands out to me the most, there is the thing about slowing down, because that is definitely such a huge difference I notice, you know, between the way I would sometimes do things, and my friends with children of the same age, or what I see, you know, now when I'm looking around at different parents and what they're doing that, yeah,you have to engage more with the child. It's not....there's the the jacket debate, right, That you have with little kids, because they never want to put on a frickin jacket. And you have some parents that are like, "Well, they need this jacket, and I'm just going to shove their little bodies into it." And, you know, they have the debate once and they're like, "I'm not gonna fight with a three year old about this jacket." And then they just force it onto their kid every time. Whereas, I mean, you can sit down and talk about that more, you know, "I think you should put on the jacket because this" or you know, "Let's step outside and feel the cold outside and see if you change your mind," and, and then ultimately, also having to honor what they land on, you know? The kid says, "No, I'm not gonna put on a jacket." That's, you know, it's a slower process and then at the end, letting go of that final bit of, you know, authority or autonomy. Like maybe you still take the jacket to school with them, you know, they have to carry it perhaps, but you don't force them to put it on, but it is slower. So your life has to allow for time for that. And you know, of course under capitalism, the the empires you say that we are in, it makes it so hard to do that and then especially if you have multiple children that are maybe all small at the same time, you know, you've got three of them arguing with you about maybe three different things all at once. It's tough. Carla 35:11 Yeah. I mean, and this is why like "Trust Kids", I just want to go on the record isn't a parenting handbook at all. Like if...the essays are stories on youth autonomy, people...youths have written for it. Adults have written about their experience growing up in youth liberation environment, to more theoretical pieces, but and then a lot about confronting adult supremacy. So, it's a book for adults, for sure, and about us doing this work together. But it's not a parenting handbook, because at the core for me, Liam always says this on the podcast, like he's like, you know, "People often ask my mom for advice. And she's always like, "I can't give you advice, because I don't know your child, and they don't know what they need. Like, if you asked them? Like, it's just like, you know, that's my advice. Ask your kid."" I love the coat example. Because it's so you know, like, you're late, you have to pick up your, you know, you have to do the thing, you got to do all the things. And my kids are like the opposite. My oldest, always over dresses, and I used to always have to carry his coat halfway, and then the other ones the other way. So, I just, you know, it's back to like, I think what my Zack said the other night on that call, or that show, the episode, or whatever we did, the public, the book launch at Firestorm was that it was always just really transparent. Like, he never felt like, confused, but what was happening, so I was just always really real, I'd be like, "Dude, you always are hot within 10 minutes, like, can you not wear like 50 coats, oh my God, and because I don't...physically can't carry it, like, I don't have enough strength. So we need to like figure," but that took time, like that kind of negotiating conversation and being in solidarity with my physical body and not being able to carry the coat in 10 minutes in the walk. And him like wanting to like pile on the three sweaters and the coat. He's still like that. You know, like, it was like, yeah... Brooke 37:04 Yeah, as you just pointed out, there are times when, like, you're running late, so you don't necessarily have the time to take to do that. And then, you know, you need to know for yourself as a parent, you know, what, what you want to do in that situation. How you want to handle that. Do you want to be later and take the time to do it? You know, if you want to honor your principles to never shove this child into the jacket, you know, it's it's again, it's not it's not easy. It takes some practice and some forethought. Carla 37:33 Or let them go without a jacket, you know, let them experience it. Brooke 37:36 Right. That's what I did. Carla 37:39 Yeah, exactly. Brooke 37:40 She got cold sometimes. Carla 37:41 I mean, yeah. And even me as a kid like, my you know, so called autonomy was also known as that word 'neglect,' you know, so like, no one around ever, so I was like, I often in the winter would have like no socks on and I'd be running around and like a tank top and..because I early years and northern Alberta, and then down here in the Pacific Northwest, I had like thought it was like balmy, warm you know, and so when my youngest was like, "I don't like wearing like, big coats, and like, as a kid, he would run into the ocean at five in December. And I was like, right, I was like that, you know, also, it's back to that, believing that when they tell you, you know. That's what trust really is, is believing people's experience and perspective. And when they say "I don't...I get hot, I get really hot." And you're like looking at the temperature like, I feel like you're gonna get cold, but you just gotta let go. Brooke 38:39 Yeah, that's a really difficult component. I'm curious, you know, how you would respond to somebody who, you know, maybe wants to point out that, well, you know, kids, they aren't good at looking that far ahead, right? Because their prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed. They are going to be good at seeing that they are going to need this jacket down the line or, you know, whatever the the thing is, that they, you know, maybe haven't developed the capacity to comprehend. And that would mean maybe their argument for why you 'have to' have to in air quotes force them into the jacket. Carla 39:13 I mean, again, just Yeah, I mean, again, just being I mean, it's, I like this, I like this example, because it's not life and death. But, you know, like, you know, the compromises is that I need you to like, throw an extra coat in your backpack, or I'm going to carry one. Well, I you know, this is what care looks like. I'm going you know, we're going to be together so I'm going to throw an extra coat in the in the car. You don't have to wear it, or whatever. Like I just think just being real like. Back to what I said earlier about, like, how would I...How would I talk to my partner about this? Who was, who's being ridiculous, in my opinion, and like, it'd be like, "What are you doing? Like it's like snowing and super cold and you are wearing just like a hoodie," um, Yeah, we would just have a real conversation about maybe some...infuse it with some humor. But yeah, when they're really, really little like, I mean, you know, I definitely when you have like two kids, like, I would have to pick up my oldest from wherever he was, you know, at 11 years old across town and then the youngest at 2 doesn't want to like, leave where...they didn't like transitions, so didn't want to leave the park and whatever. It's like this....Yeah, there's a there's a, there's a lot of tears. And it's just like, what I got good at was realizing that, oh, he needs like, really clear messaging, like 10 minutes before, eight minutes before, five minutes before, and then they stopped like the the tears he...like he just...I had to like, cipher, it decipher it, you know, it could be like, "Oh, okay. Right." Because, you know, he was just so in the moment, so present, which is also what I think the world would be like if we had less adult supremacy, or none. Would be, we'd all be way more present with each other. And maybe wouldn't worry so much about wearing an extra coat because life wouldn't be so serious. Brooke 39:15 Yeah, that makes sense. Another thing I was curious about is, you know, we're in the end times now, sort of, you know, we're seeing the the collapse of capitalism, a rerise of fascism, you know, societal crumbles, there's kind of a lot going on. And, do you feel like, I mean, this topic of adult supremacy is, is probably always important. But is it more important now that we're in these, you know, sort of end times? Does it? Do we need that even more as society collapses? Or? I'm just curious what you... you see them saying? Carla 42:05 Yeah, no, no, I think like, I think I would pivot just a little slight pivot. Because what I'm...I mean the book, people who have read the book, really do notice that the book has an intergenerational scope throughout it, is that yeah, we need like, we need to recover, reimagine, and grow what it means to be in family and kinship together, like we need larger family, like, we wouldn't be...even like the story about the coat and that would be so much more manageable if we lived in a more multi generational, larger community, right, in the way we're meant to live, so and that is connected to adult supremacy because the nuclear family, it's all connected around, like controlling, subjugating majority of the population so that people could profit more, right, that or have more land whether, you know, predates really does predate capitalism. So, yes, I think that, you know, to quote Donna Haraway, "Making kin is the single most important thing we need to be doing right now." But we need to think about that cross species, across bloodline, beyond bloodlines, and way beyond borders. And for it's like it, we need it for our survival, and ultimately, to thrive more. I thrive way more when there's way more other humans around all ages sharing the load of whatever it is, like nerding out together, doing a puzzle playing, cooking, cleaning, doing work, making income, you know, sharing, sharing the load sharing the joys, I think it's really connected to the end times that it's more urgent than ever, but it's a reclaiming, you know, it's a recovery. It's not a...we don't have to imagine it, we know how to do it. You know, it's connected to mutual aid and webs of care and all that good stuff. But it's, you know, like, I live in a city so I don't have to prep prep, you know, I don't have...I don't live off in the boonies, you know, I don't have to worry about having a generator and stuff and I think like it was, you know, I'd like to think of myself more like mycelium like if a disaster strikes, I'm going to be like mycelium, I'm just gonna go and offer support and care and there's going to be plenty and people are going to show up because we know that in disasters, right? But if we had more, just more multi generational, multi species kin and families, that would even be better. I don't know If that answered your question, but, yes, you know, I want I want to abolish adults supremacy. From day one, I think it's always been a terrible thing. It's definitely had times when it was worse for some kids more than others still is worse for some kids more than others. But yes, it's connected to webs... Brooke 42:13 Yeah, how that ties into what we need with the collapse of society here, the collectivism in the broader webs of kinship are unimportant. And eliminating muddled supremacy is going to be happy to be part of that. I really liked the way you frame that there that it's, we're not building this new thing, we're going back to, you know, what we used to do. And really, I think, fundamentally, how we're wired as well, you know, the research indicates we are very wired for community and kinship and connection and all of that. So it's getting back to our truer selves to be to be together in those ways. And then that does lead me into kind of the last broad topic that I wanted to consider with you, which is, you know, you and I are both parents, so we can talk about our experiences and what we need and so forth. But for people who aren't parents, don't have kids of their own that want to support their friends who are parents and, you know, help, you know, revolutionize parenting here in this adult supremacy and build the kinship, what, you know, what kind of things would you say to them? That would be? What can they do to help? What can they do to to learn more? And to help build that as the non parent? Carla 46:31 Yeah, I think if you feel...well, first of all, do your own work on undoing your adult supremacy and like really go deep into like, all the places like you're probably really...every adult out there has dealt with it. And so you will probably have some internalized adult supremacy and some trauma and hurt around it and different degrees varying degrees. So first and foremost, like, just look at it, look at it. Notice how you show up for young people if if you are in young people's lives. And you know, listen more, just listen more, listen way, way more to young people. I think like, you know, when parents write about this topic, there's this like paradox of centering ourselves. It's like, you know, but this is, this is one of the reasons why I didn't want to do the book for a long time. But I was up for it. I was up for it, because it's important. And I intentionally invited in a lot of lot of people who aren't parents to write for the book, because I think it's really crucial. We cannot do this alone as the parents, like we just can't, like we need everybody, we need everybody on this, to undo this like massive, massive like bias. It is still one of the largest ones that's ignored. I am really rare. We are really rare. I'm not talking about radical parenting. I'm talking about people who notice adult supremacy, and like point it out. Like, it's a small, isolating community. I often feel really alone, I feel really gaslit. I have a crew of people we talk, live globally think, unfortunately. But it's just how it is. Like I'm talking about this nuance of like noticing adult supremacy. I have a lot of people who do radical parenting. I know a lot of people who are into revolutionary mothering. I know a lot of people who are into like school abolition and radical education and pedagogy stuff and use liberation, but not all of them connect to this larger systemic piece. Brooke 48:27 Yeah, it's kind of a Venn diagram that some of those overlap into it, but they're not fully... Carla 48:33 Yeah. And so, I just ask more people to really tune into it. Notice it. Call it out when you see it. It's all the frickin time. Like, you know, the other you know, disability justice activists and organizers and their allies have done a such a great job of changing the use of those words in media to describe the horrors and the vile people. But, there's two that still really are used constantly and one is saneism. Like so calling someone like Trump insane is just an insult to anybody who has madness. Brooke 49:16 Yeah. Carla 49:17 And because like, I don't know about you, but the mad folks in my life are nothing like Trump. And the like, yeah, some pathos going on for sure. But, like, you know. And then the other one is, you know, the childish toddler and just call it you know, just call up ask people to stop, to not do it. And comedians are the worst and you know, the other one is, I guess, you know, I mean, it's still okay for comedians to make...to not be so great about body politics, especially fat politics, like fat body stuff shaming, like that one still can pass a little bit, but it's it's also getting more people are you know, due to organizers and activists and those of us who push back against that, but the children one is the big one. Sanism and childism and are the two. So, if you're a fellow adult out there, a person who is not a young person and you're on the socials and you have a platform, join, join, join, join us in inviting folks to stop doing that. Because, you know, my kid, like, he was like, four...I don't know what it was, like 15 or something when Trump was first on the presidency stuff, and he was noticing it all the time. He's like those...every adult who calls him a child in front of their kids, their kids must like internalize some hatred. Like they must look at Trump. Look at their parent. Look at Trump. Look at the parent and go "Wow, my parents claim this really awful evil person that they clearly hate a child. They must hate me too." Yeah, I was like, Thank you for saying that. Like, my, my brain went, "Right?" Like that is like, oh, like I cried. It was so hard to hear that, like, you know, he was 14 at the time. And he that's what he saw, or 12 or something. And I was like, "Right. You're right." Yeah. I don't think it's intentional. I don't think the parent doing that is thinking they're doing that. Brooke 51:25 Oh, of course. Of course. Yeah. If someone were to replace it with a word like immature, do you think that still has the same connotation and problem? Carla 51:35 Yeah, I have a list. I have, I can share I we we put it up. I was telling you, we put it up. I used to....I have it's called "Trying to find a way to describe a billionaire, a politician, a fascist: Here's a list of words to use instead of calling them a child toddler or childish." And because we really worked on not using sanist language as well. So, careless, mean, rash, hot headed, imput. I have a speech impediment. So sometimes I can't say words. Manipulative. I have speech apraxia. Manipulative, entitled, jerk, foolish, impulsive, irresponsible, imprudent, ill advised, greedy, violent, liar, asshole, shitbag, racist, fascist, reckless, ridiculous. And there's so many more. You know, like, Just say what you mean? What do you know, I had friends go, "But you know, I don't know what to say." I'm like, "Well, what are you trying to get at?" "Like, oh, I'm trying to say that they're like a jerk." I'm like, "Just call them a jerk." Brooke 52:36 Yeah, that's a good one. Shitbag is a pretty good one. Carla 52:39 Yeah, it's my favorite. Yeah, it's like, it's a good one. Let's try that. Brooke 52:45 You know, there's an activist here in town where I live that is very conscious of ableist language, and including, like mental health things. So like the word 'sane' or 'insane,' for instance, but also, some of the ones that go along with that, like 'crazy,' I think maybe 'foolish' might be in there. And I was in a, I think, a Facebook group with them. And if someone would use one of those words, they would, they had kind of a little template that they would say is, you know, you know, "Here's this word that you chose to use. Here's a little bit of like, where it comes from, or like, what, you know, the, the sort of negative history of it. And then here's a list of like, antonyms that are not, you know, ableist or sexist, or, you know, body shaming, or et cetera, et cetera, that you could use instead of that word." Yeah. Carla 53:32 Did they also point out childism? Brooke 53:36 Yeah, and I don't I don't remember that one. But this, what you were just saying that, like, I hadn't thought about childish as being one of those words. I don't think I use it a lot in general. But, you know, I'm gonna add that to my vocabulary. Carla 53:50 Yeah, like so or they're like, "the sniffling little baby?" Like they do that a lot, right? Like, comedians and sort of YouTubers and stuff that are talking about, you know, the ruling class. So they, you know... Brooke 54:06 You can call them whiny without having to say, 'whiny baby,' you can just like so they're like whiny. Carla 54:10 They're punching up and punching down at the exact same time with that, you know, definitely go after those who are horrible, fascist and racist, you know, but stop calling them 'children' and 'toddlers' and yeah, yeah. Brooke 54:29 No, I really like that, you know. The fellow that, you know, did all the work. Does all the work to point out the ableist language, you know, definitely had got me thinking in the last couple of years about other words that you know, maybe tie back to something like that and so I'm glad that you shared you know, this additional language that then I can work on and be aware of and improve. Carla 54:53 Yeah, it's, it's always we're always working on it and learning and you know, like I the ableist language off, you know, I remember, it really came into the fore around 2009--2010. Like it really, you know, in radical communities like we were really aware of first, the more physical ableist the stuff and then it moved into body mind, but I still saw the sanism stuff like, you know, it still was okay to call someone like Trump insane. Like, maybe not 'crazy,' but you could call him insane. So I've been also being loud about that one as well. Brooke 55:31 Interesting. Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of where my question came from about, you know, well could I just call them immature instead? I figured that was going to be a 'no,' but I'm really glad you have that list to share. And I might see, maybe, could email that list and I can see if we can get that posted up. Carla 55:46 Sure and it's at on Grounded Futures. We're on both Twitter and Instagram, just at Grounded Futures. It's a platform, multi art platform created by youth and women and gender nonconforming folks. Brooke 56:03 Cool. Well, while you're plugging things, are there other things that you want to plug, obviously your book, you got to replug that for us. Carla 56:11 Yeah, you can get "Trust Kids" over at AK Press or wherever you buy books. There's an audio book and a Kindle or whatever it is. And I also have a project called Listening House Media, where we do we do mostly audiobooks, but we also publish political pamphlets called Lowercase. You can check that out listeninghousemedia.com. I'm doing the audio book for my other book called "Joyful Militancy" right now, which is really exciting. I just want to put that out there. Because I know people wanted it to be an audio book, since it came out five years ago. And so that's really exciting. Brooke 56:49 Is that also available from AK? Carla 56:51 Yeah, it won't probably be out until like, January or February. But yeah, and then GoundedFutures.com is where you can find a lot of my other works. Yeah. Brooke 57:02 Great, well, Carla, I really appreciate you being on the pod today and talking with us about parenting and ending adult supremacy. To our listeners, thanks so much for listening. If you enjoy our podcast, please give it a like, drop a comment or a review. Subscribe to us if you haven't already. These things make the algorithms that rule our world offer our show to more people. This podcast is produced by the anarchist publishing collective Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. You can connect with us on Twitter @TangledWild and also on Instagram. If you check out our website tangledwilderness.org you'll discover we have a new book available for preorder. It's called "Escape from Incel Island" written by the one and only Margaret Killjoy. If you preorder it nowj, you get a color poster with your copy when they ship in February. The work of Strangers is made entirely possible by our Patreon supporters. Honestly, we couldn't do any of it without your help. 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Hoss Holding is BACK and the 61 Year old Rassler has a lot to say about:- Winning the King Of Sports Championship Wrestling Heavyweight Title- Continuing to be a Champion in Dogg Pound Championship Wrestling- Love & Appreciation for his Trainers Rodney Mack and Jazz- Charities that he's doing work withAnd so much more!Plus #DukeLovesRasslin sounds off on #BlackHistoryMonth, #WWE #Wrestlemania, #AEW and more! *All views expressed on #DukeLovesRasslin are that of those expressing it. If you love it too bad. If you hate it too bad. #PullUpYourSkinnyJeans *Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/dukelovesrasslin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This comin' Monday (Feb 27 2023), I'll be dropping a full interview episode of BREADSHEET with Musician and Songwriter and YouTuber Intellectual Dark Wave, and I love his music so much, I thought I'd do a dumb thing and make a little radio show. See you in a week for the full episode / interview! You know what? I'm counting this as a full episode. Enjoy episode 42 of Breadsheet. 41? It's not a bonus, I mean. Check out more from Intellectual Dark Wave: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJQvmb2cqZlrgAFsAq1_P4w Bandcamp: https://intellectualdarkwave.bandcamp.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Intellectualdarkwave Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0fS66u3uDh3qvtS3FfYdpd?si=aHyq2AkdRHmuS1MZkiLK3Q&nd=1 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intellectualdarkwave/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/IntellectualDa8 And my crap: Visit www.hoss.fun for all your Hoss needs™ I have a unique YouTube address now: YouTube.com/hossbossman Follow Hoss on Twitter and Instagram and Twitch and TikTok @hoss_bossman Twitter: @hoss_bossman https://twitter.com/hoss_bossman Instagram: @hoss_bossman https://instagram.com/hoss_bossman Twitch: hoss_bossman https://twitch.tv/hoss_bossman TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@hoss_bossman Support Hoss AND get original music at https://hossbossman.bandcamp.com Visit https://www.hoss.fun for ALL YOUR HOSS NEEDS Check out Hoss's YouTube channel: YouTube.com/hossbossman --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/hossbossman/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/hossbossman/support

My guest for this episode is Hoss Hauksson, and he practices a form of viticulture in Switzerland that integrates elements of vitiforestry or a silvoculture polyculture, using a biodynamic approach, with the world's smallest sheep and technologies like drone spraying and UV robots. His wine takes the idea of terroir literally, incorporating medicinal and aromatic herbs and trees as infusions in both the vineyard ecosystem and in his pinot noir. In other words, I think I discovered my long lost soul twin. Hoss is one of the only, if not the one and only, Icelandic winemakers on earth, (which means he's probably related to Steve Matthiasson) and he tells us about his journey from wanting to be “the hero winemaker” to a focus on just becoming a good farmer. Hoss's holistic, ecological view of fostering a healthy farm ecosystem from which the best, most interesting wine can be made, leads us from some really important discussion about the soil microbiome through to expressing terroir by making a pet-nat infused with wormwood, hyssop, and yarrow. Along the way we find out the importance of promoting a fungal-dominant soil that recreates the forest floor from which vines evolved, how he uses different trees and herbs for different purposes in and around the vines, and how his adorable miniature sheep are vital to the entire ecosystem. Fertile nuggets of information, rich with wisdom, are scattered everywhere through this interview like sheep poop in a vineyorchard. You're in for a treat. Hauksson Wine https://www.centralaswine.com/ Sponsor: https://www.catavinotours.com/owp Contact Oom & Use referral code OWP Support this podcast via Patreon.

Tim Obermueller joins us today to talk about Hoss: Compatible with the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/timobermuellergames/hoss-compatible-with-the-mothership-sci-fi-horror-rpg Find Tim Obermueller at: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TimObermueller itch: https://timogames.itch.io/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wobbliesandwizards/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wobbliesandwizards/support

Steve and Jeff spoke to a WWL listener about Jameis Winston. Mike Hoss, the voice of the Saints, joined the show to share his thoughts on Las Vegas quarterback Derek Carr. Hoss said this season's free-agent quarterback class doesn't excite him. He discussed New Orleans' recent staff additions and renovations to The Caesar's Superdome. He also gave his Super Bowl LVII pick. The guys previewed LSU women's basketball's upcoming showdown in South Carolina.

Episode Summary Brooke, Casandra, and Margaret talk about some laws that the ATF just imposed and how you might soon be a felon, some bizarre tax proposals that have been in the works for the last quarter of a century, and check in our old friend, the Colorado River in This Month in the Apocalypse. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Casandra is just great and can be found at Strangers doing awesome layouts, and Brooke can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Next Episode Hopefully will come out Friday, Feb. 24th Transcript This Month in the Apocalypse: Jan. 2023 Margaret 00:14 Hello and welcome to Live like the world is dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm one of your today's hosts, Margaret killjoy, and with me are also Brooke and Casandra. How are you too? Brooke 00:25 Hello. Casandra 00:26 Good. Margaret 00:28 Joining me in the background, hopefully that we can't hear, is my dog, Rintrah, scratching at the carpet. So, this is one of the This Month in the Apocalypse episodes, as you probably noticed based on the title of it, which was This Month in the Apocalypse, and it is for January 2020-- whatever year it is now. Three? Are we at three. It's 2020; It's part three. And this show is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the podcast brought up about Jingle 01:03 what's up y'all I'm Pearson host of coffee with comrades. Coffee with comrades is rooted in militant joy. Our hope is to cultivate a warm and inviting atmosphere like walking into your favorite coffee shop to sit down with some of your close friends and share a heart to heart conversation. New episodes premiere every Tuesday, so be sure to smash that subscribe button wherever you get your podcast so that you never miss an episode. We are proud to be a part of the Channel Zero network. Margaret 01:56 And this show is a proud member of the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, sort of network, publisher thing. Here's a jingle for another show on this network or publisher. Boop boop boop boop, boop. Casandra 02:13 Since I don't have this yet, are you just gonna make one up right now? Margaret 02:19 You know, I think we might have jingles, but I'll make one up anyway. Do you like nerd shit? Are you a fucking loser? Do you spend more of your time thinking about the way that character classes in Dungeons and Dragons relate to the current meta of whatever game system you play? Do you know more about what I'm talking about than me right now? Then, you might like an Anarcho Geek Power Hour, which is a new show from Strangers in the Tangled Wilderness where we talk about nerd shit. The first episode is up already and there might be more, I don't know how, I'm not the one making them. First episodes is talking about all about that show Andor and there's gonna be a bunch of other shows that talk about other shows. If you're a fucking nerd and know what the word THACO means. Casandra 03:11 Wait, I'm a nerd and I don't know what that means. Margaret 03:13 I know it's a second edition Dungeon & Dragons thing. It's actually an are you an older millennial or Gen Xer, I think is the actual gatekeeping I just did there by accident. Really just ruining everything. It means "To hit armor class zero." What I Casandra 03:28 I started playing with third edition. Brooke 03:33 I have another new podcast idea to pitch to y'all. But we don't have to do it during This Month. Margaret 03:38 Okay, well, now this is an actual jingle. This...it actually exists. Okay. And that's the end of the jingle ba bop, bop, bop bop. Margaret 03:53 And we're back. Thanks, to the regular show called Live Like the World is Dying. I do too many podcasts. I'm gonna fuck this up at some point. Welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. Today, the cool person we're talking about is at the end of the world. Brooke 04:14 This is what I get for declining to do the intro, isn't it? This is my reward? Margaret 04:19 Yeah. Brooke was like, "I'm tired." And I was like, I'm not. I'm wired on fake energy. Which, isn't even caffeine. I don't even drink caffeine. So what we're going to talk about today is we're talking about a bunch of different stuff. The main topic that I have to talk about today. Have y'all ever heard of this agency that thinks is in charge of us? It's called the government. Brooke 04:44 Vaguely vaguely familar with it. Yeah. Margaret 04:47 I think different geographical locations have different gangs that have gotten together and declared themselves in charge. And they all use the word government once they get bigger than the word gang. The United States federal government, which is the name of the largest gang operating in the territory of central North America has a has a subgroup and they are committed to, you'd think that they'd be really cool, because their name is Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. So, it sounds like fun, right? I mean, actually, these things don't go well together and the middle one mostly just murders you. Actually, all three of them are...Okay, I see why there's a regulating body that people set up. But the ATF are notorious for being kind of...I don't know a government body that comes after you, if you like, do things that they decide that they don't like. And they like to be very mercurial about that. And on January 13th, they announced a new rule that will turn millions of Americans into felons in 120 days, so. Rintrah is really concerned about everyone's gun rights. So, I have a very complicated relationship with guns. I, you know, as people know, I use them sometimes, and I carry them and have ever since I got doxxed, by the far right. And I believe that community defense is very important. I'm also however, very critical of a lot of things about guns. So, I just want to like preface. Before I talk about guns for a whole fucking chunk of this episode, I want to say that I believe very strongly that if your firearm is not on you, at any given moment, it needs to be locked up. And this is something that used to be more abstract for me and is not abstract anymore. And and I'm going to be on about this for a long ass time. That is the safe way, if you are carrying a firearm, you're probably doing so because you want you or your community to be safer and or better fed. And if you don't lock your guns up, when you're not holding on to them, you are not making your community safer, you're making your community less safe. And that is the kind of balance that everyone needs to have at all times if they choose to carry firearms, and if it fucking matters. So, that has nothing to do with the ATF. Because.... Casandra 07:25 I was preparing myself for it to be a rule about keeping guns locked up. Margaret 07:28 No, it has nothing to do with guns locked up. So y'all ever heard of the NFA? Or tax stamps? This is like, gun law bullshit? Brooke 07:41 Well, nope. Margaret 07:42 The National Firearms Act was passed in....And I'll cut to the chase, and then I'll go back and tell you the history. So there's this thing, where you can take a firearm, an AR style firearm is the most common gun by a substantial margin in the United States, as far as I understand at least rifle, and you can, if you have a shorter barrel on it, there's two different classifications, there's a short barreled rifle, which is illegal without specific and ATF approval, which I'll get to why that's actually bullshit shortly. And second, or you can have it be a pistol. And instead of putting a stock on it, you can put something called a pistol brace, which is originally designed so that people who have like, less mobility or missing a limb or things like that can successfully use this style of firearm. And these are fairly new objects, you have something called AR pistols, and they're very common. They're very popular. The ATF estimates that three to 7 million pistol braces have sold in the past 10 years since pistol braces came on the market in 2013. And when they first came on the market, it's okay, it's some loophole bullshit. Mostly, I mean, you can use it as is intended. Well, you could use it as is marketed, which is for being able to fire with one hand in a more stabilized way. Or you can use it as people tend to use it, which is to be able to shoulder a pistol, and so fire more accurately with something that is classified legally differently. Brooke 09:19 Makes sense. Margaret 09:20 Yeah. But before they like went ahead and like marketed this thing, they went and checked in 2013. They were like, "Hey, is this chill, ATF? Can we make this thing and sell it?" And the ATF was like, "Yeah," and then they went back and forth a couple times. By 2017, not only could you sell it, but it was also legal for people to shoulder a pistol in this way. And that that would not make you a felon by shooting this gun that you own legally. Casandra 09:48 What are the concerns like why? Why wouldn't it be a good idea or legal? Margaret 09:54 There's literally...there's fundamentally none, but we'll get...Okay. So I'll get to the where short barreled rifles come from as a classification. Okay, so and then on January 13, the ATF ruled that this is not true that this is not a pistol. If you have a pistol brace on an AR pistol, it is now a short barreled rifle. And this is on some level a reasonable thing, right? Because they are short barreled rifles, that's what they are. You, you shoulder them, you shoot them. Whatever, I don't, someone's gonna get really mad at me about this. But, we were all like, wink, wink, nudge nudge, I never fucking came anywhere near one of these things, because I was like this is gonna get...this is gonna go badly. So I never got one, right? Because it was perfectly legal. But now everyone has 120 days to either register the item with the government, destroy it, or turn it into the ATF, or put a longer barrel on the gun. And the thing that's really messy about this, is that they told people that this was fine. This was good. And everyone tried to cross their t's and dot their i's, which isn't what you're supposed to do. But that's what they tried to do. And and now basically, they like, you have to turn them in or you're in a lot of trouble. It's a 10 year. If you break the NFA it's a ten year felony. It's a 10 year felony. And if you're a felon, you can never use firearms, again legally in the United States. Which if you're the kind of person to collect firearms is a fairly major impact, besides of course, the 10 years that you might lose off your life. Casandra 11:28 Wait, so sorry. I'm not familiar with any of this. So short barreled rifles are disallowed? Margaret 11:36 Correct. Casandra 11:36 And they reclassified this other thing as a short barrelled rifle? Margaret 11:41 Yeah. And it's just this incredibly popular thing. And it's mostly.... Casandra 11:47 I didn't catch that short barraled rifles were disallowed, and was like it's just a classification, what matters? Brooke 11:51 Yeah, no, it's confusing. Margaret 11:55 So, the reason that short barreled rifles are disallowed is leftover nonsense. In 1934, the federal government was like, we want people to not really have guns in the US anymore, if at all possible. There's an amendment in the Constitution that prevents that from happening. So they were like, alright, well, we'll make it really hard. So, they passed this thing were called the the NFA, the National Firearms Act, where you have, you have to pay a $200 tax, you have to get buy a tax stamp. it's just a thing that says I paid $200, which was about $4,000 at the time. Equivalently. They didn't actually write into the law that this would escalate with inflation. So it's still $200 if you want an NFA iteam. And they specifically they were like, we want all the stuff that's used for crime by evil gangsters. So, they wanted to get rid of machine guns, which is honestly,reasonable. They wanted to get rid of pistols. And like all handguns, were going to be illegal. And then they were like, well, if we make our handguns illegal, then people are just going to chop chop down their their little rifle or shotgun, and they're going to suddenly have a pistol, right? So, we'll make short barreled rifles and short barreled shotguns also illegal, or things that you have to register with the government and pay a hefty tax stamp for. Then some people were like, but we have this thing called the Second Amendment. You can't outlaw these guns. So pistols got knocked off of it, but they didn't knock off short barreled rifles. Casandra 13:33 Why? Margaret 13:34 Because they didn't bother. Casandra 13:37 Interesting. Margaret 13:38 So a short barreled rifle is a like contraband item unless you go and you register it and you jump through all these hoops. The other thing is you have to fill out all this paperwork, and then wait like sometimes years in order to get this and the other thing they made illegal at this time was suppressors and suppressors, I will go to my grave believing should never have been. They are an element of gun safety. The ability to suppress the sound of a firearm makes it safer for everyone. It is a better object. It does not make the gun more dangerous. It also doesn't make it quiet. Everyone's like oh yeah, you can like run around James Bond style. It's just like not true if you shoot a suppressed gun. I mean, there's like a few tiny exceptions where if you like really work with subsonic, ammo and .22 And all this shit you can like, make it quiet. But like a suppressed gun just sounds like a gun. It's loud. It goes bang, you can hear from a long ways off. It just doesn't permanently destroy your hearing and give you tinnitus as much. Most of them you still have to wear ear protection for. It's just a fucking...anyway, whatever. That's not what we're talking about today. So, yeah, so that's why they made it....short barreled rifles illegal or much harder to come by. And it makes no sense. It never made any sense. Go ahead. Casandra 14:57 What is it? I know it doesn't make sense. Like it sounds I was like, someone who does paperwork was like let's reclassify this thing. But like, what is their justification? Like, why are they saying it makes sense? Margaret 15:10 Why are they reclassifying AR pistol to a short barreled rifle? Or why do they defend that short barreled rifles are illegal? Casandra 15:17 I think I understand the former. Maybe the latter. Margaret 15:21 So at the time, it literally was just it's closer to a pistol. That was the justification, they wanted to get rid of pistols, so that therefore they got rid of short barrel rifles. The argument being concealability. Casandra 15:36 But at this point in history, there isn't really a justification? Margaret 15:39 There's no justification. It's you can have a full length rifle and you can have a small handgun and you can't have in between. It is. Well, that's. So that's what I think that...there are a lot of cases to be made against guns and gun ownership. And I am like not trying to eventually become some like a gun nut talking head. But like, this is something that people whose primary concern or like one of their concerns is as firearms and firearm law. This is something that I think they wish people understood. The law is incredibly Kafka esque, and nonsensical, and labyrinth and like, just bizarre. And so whenever they're like, "Oh, we're gonna pass this new gun control law," everyone's sitting there being like, "Oh, God, it's going to be some other weird, crazy loophole, where if you don't do all of the following things, you're a felon." And what they've done now is they've gone back and made everyone felons in reverse. And I think it's fucked up. Casandra 16:43 That's wild that that's possible to retroactively make that many people felons. Brooke 16:50 It just it sounds like these these ATF peoples aren't very good at the F part of their ATF. Margaret 17:03 Like they're drinking and smoking, but they forgot to go shoot guns? Brooke 17:07 Yeah, like, I don't know about the A and the T shit that they do. But they sound like they're really fucking up the F part. Margaret 17:12 I mean, like, and this is like, the ATF is like all of the gun people's like boogeyman, right? Like, because they like, they keep track of people for potentially breaking specific laws, like, right, for example, like straw sales are illegal, I can't go to the store and buy a gun with the intention of turning around and selling it. Even though, in many states, and I think this is reasonable, that's fine. It's a way to skirt the law. In most, in many states, you can privately sell a firearm from one person to another. But if you go to a store in order to buy a gun in order to turn around and sell it, at this point, you're an arms dealer, and you like should have and so the people buying it from you should have to go through background checks and shit like that, right? At least from a legal point of view. So what the ATF sometimes does is they keep track of anyone who buys a whole bunch of guns at once, or a whole bunch of guns over some period of time. And they just like show up on that at your house and be like, "Hey, Where's all your guns? We wanna see them. And we want to prove you didn't sell any of them." Even though, if you buy a bunch of guns, for your own sake, and then turn around and sell some of them because you don't want them anymore, that is usually legal. And so there's kind of some like thought police stuff that has to go in because they have to prove intent and all this like weird shit. So the ATF is this like boogeyman that everyone's like weird about anyway. And then the other new thing that I'm a little bit less confident about, I've seen some stuff about this, that also has people up in arms is that with these NFA items, previously, NFA items being the short barreled rifle or a fully automatic weapon, right? It is legal as a as a citizen to own fully automatic weapons in certain contexts, right, if you fill out certain paperwork, you know, use them in certain environments, things like that. It's usually basically rich people have them because you have to buy ones that are from like before a ban and they so they there's like only a certain number of them that are available in the civilian market. So they just become more more expensive, which is always what the NFA was, of course was a tax on...so it was like poor people can have guns. Rich people get to have guns. And so there was this thing that the ATF...no go ahead. Casandra 19:26 I just think about how the justification originally was like, "We don't want mobsters to have access to these things," when when they were probably the only ones who could afford them at that point. Margaret 19:35 That's so true. Fuck. Casandra 19:38 We only want monsters to have these things. Margaret 19:41 Yeah. Yeah, if your shotgun cost $5,000....Yeah, only a certain class of people would have shotguns. No, that's such a good point. Okay, so one of the other things the NFA says that you can use...if I own...I do not On any NFA items, but if a hypothetical person were to own a short barreled rifle, if they are supervising, other people can shoot it. Because they're there. They're present, whatever. It's my short barreled rifle. And so you have this whole market of people who are like, "Yo, you want to go shoot a machine gun, like come to my range, you get to shoot a machine gun," which like sounds like fun. And these are very controlled environments, and it's perfectly fucking...Well, it's the safest shooting guns ever is. And now the NFA has like quietly changed in it's frequently asked questions of sorry, the ATF has changed on its frequently asked questions on its website, to just say, "No, only the only the person who has registered the item can be in possession of it. Can can use it." And so... Casandra 20:47 Weird. Margaret 20:48 Yeah. So like, if I have a suppressed rifle, which I don't, but I want one, I want to I want to go through the tax stamp paperwork in order to get one. Not only would it be illegal for me to let someone else use it, it would be illegal for me to store it in a way in which anyone else can access it. Like if I live somewhere and my husband has access to my gun safe, then that would be now a crime. This is more hypothetical. The other thing is very specific. And they released a fucking 300 page document about how they're going to turn everyone into felons. And everyone has 120 days. Casandra 21:26 They put so much thought into it. Margaret 21:27 Oh, yeah, they've been working on this for 10 years. And like fairly literally. This other thing is like a weird....And so the reason I want to talk about this is because like, this is a thing that is mostly being talked about in gun spaces, and is therefore mostly being talked about in center, right of center spaces. I don't want to just say right wing spaces, I think there's a lot of center and center right groups that are not like aggressively racist or something like that and are just like rural people who are into guns or whatever. And so people were really upset about it. And sometimes when we see certain types of people get really upset, we're like, "Haha, fuck you." But like, I think it is a completely legitimate thing for people to be upset about. I think this is fucked up. I think this is overreach. I think that this is like...the the sort of hope that people have is that at the very least, they'll just get rid of short barreled rifles off of the NFA list because it's nonsense. They shouldn't be there...in as much as....in as much as there's going to be a society I can imagine that society being like "There's a level of weapon we don't really want around here," right? Like I'm not like nukes for everyone kind of girl. And if I'm not a nukes for everyone kind of girl. Am I a machine guns for one kind of girl? I'm kind of not? I kind of just don't care. You know, like people would come at me, whatever. Like maybe it's hypocritical ofmyself, of me as an anarchist. I don't fucking know. Whatever but like, but I don't know. Whatever. That's my fucking weird gun rant. I've watched like so many like YouTube people rant about it. What's up? Casandra 23:02 That was a pristine conclusion. Margaret 23:07 It's so funny, because I'm like more anti gun this month than I am most months Brooke 23:14 Is it that you're anti gun? Or is it that you're anti ATF? Margaret 23:17 Yeah, I'm definitely anti ATF. Unless you're listening ATF, in which case I fucking love you. Don't come over, though. God that sounds sketchy than I meant it. I just....whatever. Anyway, that's the main thing I had that I had to talk about about January. This not the most important thing happening, but it is a big thing but you have some other stuff that you want to talk about, right? Brooke 23:42 I do and I like don't even know where to go to there from here. Oh, man. Well, I guess we can talk about.... Margaret 23:50 Well, speaking of tax stamps and tax.... Brooke 23:54 Yeah, well done. I was gonna go for like, ridiculous government nonsense. Margaret 23:59 Oh, that's actually better and more accurate. Casandra 24:01 That's taxes. Brooke 24:02 Yeah, there you go. Yeah. So there's this act has been proposed in Congress called the Fair Tax Act. And it's ridiculous and far fetched and is not going to go anywhere. But it has come up like three different times in my own life in the last week from from different people asking me about it and asking me what's up with it and I even had to kind of walked my mom through what was going on with this too, cuz she was talking about it. Hi, mom, if you're listening. Margaret 24:39 Hi, mom. Hi, Brooke's mom. Brooke 24:44 Nice. So this tax act is a Republican act. And the succinct version of it is that they want to abolish the IRS in its entirety and institute a 30% national Sales Tax. Margaret 25:01 See, I was with them for the start of that sentence. Brooke 25:04 First half is great. Stop there. We're good. Yeah, so that would get rid of income tax, and payroll tax, estate tax, gift tax. I mean, the whole stupid, ridiculous tax system that we have would go away. Casandra 25:16 I thought it was in addition to state taxes? Brooke 25:20 No. Casandra 25:21 Oh, interesting. Brooke 25:21 Well, I guess, I guess I don't know if they can regulate state income taxes and all of that. Margaret 25:26 Not without a war. Brooke 25:28 Yeah. So. Margaret 25:30 Anyway. Brooke 25:33 Anyway, and if so...so it's a 30% national sales tax on all goods and services purchased, which, interestingly, some of the Republicant's have tried to call it a 23% Tax. Because, they're playing with the way the math is presented. Alright, quick math lesson. Margaret 25:54 Oh, is it the which direction? Okay, yeah. Give us the math lesson. Casandra 25:57 Numbers. Numbers are arbitrary. Is that the lesson? Brooke 26:02 You can use math to lie. That's the lesson. Margaret 26:05 Yay! Brooke 26:06 Yeah. Yeah. So if you have to buy something that's $100. Let's say just for a nice round number, and there's a 30% tax on it, you're gonna pay $130 for that item. And most of us look at that and go, that's a 30% tax. Margaret 26:22 Right. Casandra 26:22 Cause it is. Brooke 26:24 Right. But... Margaret 26:26 If you reversed it. Brooke 26:27 Yeah, exactly. Casandra 26:29 What? Brooke 26:29 $30 is 23% of $130. Margaret 26:35 Heh, heh heh. Brooke 26:39 So if you just pretend that the item costs $130 Then you can claim that you're only charging a 23% tax. Margaret 26:46 Because 23% of that is tax Brooke 26:50 Of that $130. Casandra 26:53 I want to know how I missed the like stereotypical autistic person thing of understanding math. Brooke 27:03 Yeah, the thing that that was that some people were like, "Well, it's only 23%," but they're just lying with...they're just using math to lie. Casandra 27:13 23%? Was that only? Margaret 27:15 I know exactly. Like, that's a lot of my money. Casandra 27:19 Still doesn't make sense. I mean, there's been Brooke 27:21 130% I guess. Margaret 27:23 I mean, as a freelancer I pay some fuck off high percentage of my income in taxes. I don't even remember. Casandra 27:29 As an Oregonian, I don't pay sales tax. Brooke 27:32 Yeah, so any sale's tax is like "Fuck you you, world." Margaret 27:40 This is the real tyranny. So why do right wing people want this? Like, is it because it helps the rich because they're not paying a state tax or whatever and it's like... Casandra 27:49 And why is it repeatedly brought up? Brooke 27:51 Yeah, so it's...it would be a flat rate tax on like a current system, which is it's called a progressive tax system. And please don't confuse progressive with like the liberal sense of the word progressive, but progressive as in like graduated taxes we have now. Poor people pay less, richer people pay more. You pay tax as you progress in income. Casandra 28:13 So, this is a fuck poor people? Brooke 28:20 Well, the flat rate tax would be simpler than the progressive system. And allegedly, under the current proposal, low income individuals could apply once a month for a rebate on some of the tax that they spent. Margaret 28:34 Oh yeah, with all of that free time that poor people have. Brooke 28:37 Yeah, exactly. Casandra 28:38 What if I mean, if it were actually to pass, how much do you want to bet that the rebate would just be on like yachts? Brooke 28:48 Yeah, yeah. Under the system, everyone ends up paying more in tax except for the wealthiest 5% of Americans who actually end up paying less in taxes overall. But yeah, as you just alluded to Casandra, this is like not the first time this idea has come up. In fact, it has been introduced in Congress every single year since 1999. Casandra 29:12 Really? Brooke 29:14 Yep. Casandra 29:14 Why? Why. Margaret 29:15 Is it just some guy? Casandra 29:19 No, why are people making such a big deal out of it this time? Brooke 29:22 Yeah, solid question. Casandra 29:24 Because it's so Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Brooke 29:28 Hypotheses are welcome. It has no more chance of passing right now than it has the last 24 times it has been introduced. But there's a larger contingent of right wing extremists who are behind it like 30ish people this year. Margaret 29:43 Uuuuhm, 23..... Brooke 29:52 Okay, so it's, you know, there's enough support for it that it is garnering more attention. It's not just one or two people throwing it out there. And it anytime there's been kind of this larger contingent of more extreme right wing people in Congress it has gotten attention in the news media. So, like when the Tea Party folks came into Congress, it got proposed that year as it has every single year, and it made the news a little bit more than because they were more supportive than usual. Casandra 30:26 So is it just like Margaret said, is it just some guy is it? Is it the far right just like fucking with our understanding of normalcy, like the Overton window? Brooke 30:38 Yeah, probably. That's part of it. I mean, it made news in '99, when it was first introduced. And I couldn't tell you exactly how many times it made any kind of major news between then and now, except for when the Tea Party folks came into power. Casandra 30:54 Do youever look back and think like, we used to just have a Tea Party, you know? Brooke 30:59 Yes, do. Yeah, okay. So I couldn't...go ahead. Margaret 31:06 I, it's so hard, because it's like, there is a part of me, like, I hate how complicated our tax system is, right? So I could understand this appealing if you don't think it through, right? Because then you're like, well, it's just based on how much you actually spend, and not what you make at work or whatever, you know. Because like, I fucking hate turning around and giving some percent of my tax that I can never keep track of, to the government. Basically, just every April, I'm like, there goes all my money. And now every quarter there goes all my money. And like, so I get the appeal of it. And it's so frustrating, because I feel like they're tapping into something that's like real, which is people's frustration with the tax system in this country, like you explained to other....I am under the impression I have seen on the internet, that people from other countries are like, What the fuck is wrong with you? What do you mean the government just like? Because it's like, you go to a restaurant and you order food. And then they're like,"Alright, pay me now." And you're like, "How much is the food?" And they're like, "Yeah, I mean, you can figure that out. And if you get it wrong, you go to prison." That sucks. I'm never going to that restaurant again. Like, if the government and I know the government can can give me a bill with a number because sometimes I underpay and they send me a bill with a number. And sometimes I overpay and they send me money back. They know the number. Just fucking tell it to me and I will pay I will. I would begrudge taxes so much less if it wasn't just this weird dance of fucking death with the goddamn government. Anyway. Brooke 32:42 You're totally fair. I have spent countless hours getting tax stuff done. Now, I spent 10 hours yesterday doing tax stuff for various things. That's just what I'm going to do for the next few months is spend a whole lot of time with taxes. Margaret 32:58 Can we call it the Illuminati tax because the number 23? Or is that bad because anything related....anyway...conspiracies. Brooke 33:06 We can call the buddy tax. Because the fella whose turn it was to introduce it this year is Earl Leroy Carter, whose nickname is Buddy from Georgia. Casandra 33:17 Leroy. Leroy is such a good name. Margaret 33:21 But, Buddy is the name of someone who's too old to be in government. Brooke 33:25 Right! Like I had to look at a picture of the dude and he's exactly what you think he looks like. Margaret 33:30 If your nickname is Dick, you are too old to be in the government. If your nickname is Buddy, you're too old to be in government. Maybe. Okay, wait, wait I want to say older people deserve representation too. The entire government should not be run by people who are all of one generation that is much older. That's how I'm going to walk back from ageism. Yeah, totally anger issues Yeah. Brooke 34:03 Oh, I just it was Buddy's turn to draw the short straw I guess because he hasn't....It hasn't been him every year. it's been different folks in different years. He's only been in the US Congress for five or six years or something like that. So, I don't know if they just start off the governmenting season with a you know, drawing straws or... Casandra 34:30 It's some sort of hazing ritual. To be part of the crew you have to like propose this ridiculous thing and everyone will hate you for it. Margaret 34:43 Like I don't even want this. It's just literally their hazing. Brooke 34:50 Alright, whose turn is it to bring out the old Unfair Tax Act law and abolish the IRS this year. Margaret 34:58 Which is funny because it's like I mean, I just went on this rant about how we should abolish the ATF. Brooke 35:06 Anyway, yeah, Margaret 35:08 I get so frustrated by the..... Casandra 35:11 Like you're almost there. You almost reached to the point.. Margaret 35:15 Yeah, and they go on down this wild side path where they're like and and then they wander off into the fucking.... Brooke 35:24 The other part of it is that 30% probably is not quite enough of a tax to replace the income that they currently get from the tax system. So, it would probably actually have to be higher than that to work. Casandra 35:39 It's just while to be thinking about...whatever...how the fuck much we all pay in taxes and what happens with that money and what doesn't happen with money. And who doesn't pay taxes. Margaret 35:51 All of you listening who are anti gun, but pay taxes I have. I have bad news for you. You buy so many more guns than any like than anyone who lives in any other country. Because half of your money is just guns. Brooke 36:07 Fucking US military. Hey, speaking of government brutality. The second topic I have, is that there's some news that's gonna drop tonight. The night of the stay that we are sitting here recording this episode. It hasn't been released yet. Margaret 36:26 So it'd be like last week or the week before for you all? Brooke 36:28 Yeah, exactly. And it has the potential to spark some George Floyd esque levels of protests. It's the body cam video footage from early January of the traffic stop and the brutal arrest of Tyre Nichols, a 29 year old Tennessee man who died as a result of the brutality he experienced that day. The descriptions of the videos that have come out from those who have seen it in advance have likened it to the 1991 video of Rodney King being beaten by the Los Angeles Police and Tyre's mother, excuse me, who hasn't seen and is not going to watch the video said that her son was beaten to a pulp by the arresting officers, of whom they were five. He was pepper sprayed, struck by a stun gun, restrained, kicked and more. And the family's attorney described the beating by saying the Tyre was used as a human pinata. So, some caution in watching those videos. Of course, if you're listening to this, it's the week after the they've been released. So either they have sparked intense rounds of protests, or they've quietly flamed out and gone down as just another act of extreme police brutality. Casandra 37:43 I was reading this morning that they were like closing parts of Memphis. Margaret 37:47 Yeah, they brought in the National Guard, right? Brooke 37:50 Yeah, the governor declared a state of emergency in preparation for the protest that will follow the release of the videos. Yeah. Yeah. Casandra 38:02 I hate that it takes the release of a video, you know? Brooke 38:07 Yeah, yeah. The five arresting officers have all been fired, and they're facing a barrage of charges, including second degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression, which I didn't know official oppression was the thing that you could get charged with. But I think we can just go ahead and slap that on a whole bunch of government stuff while we're while we're using that one. Margaret 38:31 Yeah, that's what I say about them usually. It's like the inverse. There's a New York City law Criminal anarchy. Anyway, there you go. Casandra 38:44 I've already seen some like right wing commentary. Just people pointing out the fact that like, this is different. This isn't race based because the officers were also black. Yeah. Because systemic oppression apparently means nothing. Brooke 39:03 Yeah, and I've, you know, given in no position to speak to the race relations in this matter, and any of that, but you know, certainly is yet another example of police brutality and the indiscriminant violence that they visit upon us, Margaret 39:21 And still part of racist policing. I think that it is still fair to say that it's part of racist policing in this country, I feel like that's been laid out. This isn't like my idea. This coming from Black liberation movements for a long time that black police are capable of enacting racist violence or being part of a racist, racistly violence system. But of course, they'll use that to distract and they'll use the fact that they threw the cops under the bus, which I like wonder whether they would have thrown the cops under the bus if the cops were white. Casandra 39:54 Yep. Margaret 39:54 Yeah. And, you know, and either way they threw the cops under the bus because of trying to minimize...It's not because they don't feel good about this stuff happening because the police do. But because they like, want people to not riot. And sometimes, they'll, you know, that's how afraid they are. I feel like you can you can see how afraid the system is based on how it handles the cops who enact violence. It's almost they're afraid this time. Which is good. They should be. Brooke 40:32 Yeah, it sounds like it's going to be some real ugly video, and I am planning to watch it. But, a trigger warning on myself. Margaret 40:43 Yeah. Brooke 40:46 Well, I've got one more topic. It's kind of following up on on an old friend of ours, the Colorado River. Margaret 40:53 Oh, yeah. Brooke 40:53 Just because it was in the news a bit recently. Margaret 40:56 How he doing? He doing good? Brooke 40:58 Yeah, everything's great with with Old Colorado. He's feeding the seven states and, you know, everything's fine. So that's my update. Margaret 41:11 Great.Tell me the bad news. Brooke 41:13 Yeah. So, Lake Mead, which we've talked about, in at least a couple of episodes, it provides water to, and electricity to Arizona, Nevada, and just a little old area called Southern California. And currently, right now, it's at its lowest point that it has been since 1935. And it has been at its lowest point since 1935, for about two years now. And it keeps getting lower, which is the decline of the lake is consistent with the overall decline of the water levels in the whole river, which is a significant source of water, also for Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. And the reason that it's extra in the news at the moment is that these seven states that all depend on the Colorado River, have collectively worked together for, I guess, more than 100 years to kind of manage the water and it's resources and decide how to allocate it. And the federal government has tasked them a couple of times in the last year, to come up with a plan for reducing their water usage and for, you know, kind of this emergency scenario, because it's getting so very low. And for the second time, in the last year, the states have failed to come up with a plan together despite their, you know, century of working together. So the Interior Department of the federal government is probably going to have to step in and impose water usage cuts on the states in order to prevent...well, I mean, it's still gonna be pretty devastating, but in order to, you know, mitigate, who's getting how much of the devastation. Margaret 42:52 Well I bet that will go smoothly. Brooke 42:54 Yeah, they're not already having, you know, legal challenges and, you know, threatens of sue, and lots of lawyers and private organizations and stuff involved. Margaret 43:05 And if there's one thing I mean, what's that saying? Thirsty people don't fight over water. Casandra 43:12 Exactly how it goes. Brooke 43:16 It'll be fine. Margaret 43:17 Yeah. Casandra 43:17 Meanwhile, in other parts of California there's like massive flooding. And they're already predicting a produce shortages for the rest of the year. Yeah. Brooke 43:27 Yeah, great. Need. So too much water in the north, too little water in the South? Crops? Fucked. Margaret 43:37 Yay! Brooke 43:38 Excellent. Yeah. Now the thing that people like to to raise the the alarm about, especially with Lake Mead is that it feeds the Hoover Dam. And if the water level gets too low in the lake, you're not gonna be able to power the dam. But it's not actually really looking like it's, that's going to happen soon. They're still probably a few years before it would get that low. And this is based on like me pulling all of the data and looking at the worst case scenarios of the water levels. And that's, you know, I'm not a climatologist. So I can't tell you about other things that might happen. But just in terms of the trends of the decline in the water. Now, of course, that means I'll have two years to ignore it, and then still freak out and panic and fuck everything up at the last minute. Margaret 44:29 No, no, they'll like, get it together. That's why we have governments that are really good at doing stuff in a timely fashion and addressing the big the big issues. Casandra 44:40 Governments make everything more efficient. Margaret 44:42 Yeah. Yeah. Without it it'd be total anarchy, Brooke 44:47 Lies, damn lies from governments. All right, what's happening in the world, Margaret? What's happening outside our little bubble? Margaret 44:58 It's about California. My first one. Alright, so California.... Casandra 45:04 None of us live in California, for the record. Margaret 45:09 So okay, what is it? There's a bill, Assembly Bill 92 in California. I have no idea whether this is likely to pass. This the thing. I think that I actually fall into this too. Whenever we see like, "Oh, there's this new bill, and it's fucked up." Everyone's like, "Oh, fuck, they're gonna," you know, there'd be a bill that's like, "Murder every seventh child," and people be like, "Oh, fuck," you know, and like, and then usually those bills don't pass. And so we feel a little bit like wolf cry'ey when we're like....like all the anti trans bills that are happening right now. Right? Like Virginia actually just shut one down. And I wish, I should have. I should focus more on some of the positive news for these things. Virginia, just shut one down. Like it didn't even go to vote. People were like, "Nah, we're good." And but, I don't even think it was a statewide one. I don't know, whatever. It's like, these things do get defeated all the time. But people propose all this wild shit, like, the 23 people tax. Well, I know. But if you start with the 30 people who propose it, and then you say, we'll pass the tax, if we get to execute seven of you. ...You know, I'd be willing to like give it a shot for a little while. Brooke 46:18 A shot. Margaret 46:21 Which, they'd be in trouble if they lived in California if this bill passes, because California is trying to pass a bill, or some people in California trying to pass a bill banning civilian possession of armor. Casandra 46:34 Body armor? Margaret 46:35 And I think that... Casandra 46:36 Which i'm just like, wow. Why? I always wonder how....like, they must have to have some sort of justification for proposing bills like this. And I just like, what is it? Margaret 46:47 So, there's justification for proposing this is that several other mass shooters have worn body armor in the past couple of mass shootings. This, to me is like, the crystal clear distillation of like, doing law wrong, you know, is like being like, well, you can't protect yourself from bullets beecause some people who want to kill people might protect themselves from bullets. Casandra 47:14 But if we pass a law about it, those people who want to kill people will definitely follow the law. Margaret 47:18 Yeah. That's the best thing about law is that the only people who follow it are criminals, and everyone else is free. Actually, what's really funny is in a weird way, because of selective enforcement, as it's like, you know, it's like, if you're breaking some other laws it's the only time you get in trouble for certain laws. But, yeah, so they're trying to pass a bill outlawing body armor, and I think it is fucked up. That's.... Casandra 47:44 That's wild. Most of the mass shooters are men. We could just outlaw them. Margaret 47:50 You know, I see no counter argument that can be made. Brooke 47:57 Let's put them in cages. Breeding stock only. Margaret 48:04 The 1960s called they want their science fiction back. But they can't have it because it's funny. So, there's that. There's a diabetes med that's in shortage called ozempic. And it's in shortage because a version of it got popular for weight loss. The same drug is used is produced by the same manufacturer at a higher dosage called wegovy. I don't know, the dumbest names in the world are the names of prescription drugs. Casandra 48:37 Yeah. That's someone's job Margaret 48:40 I know, I'm so jealous of whoever's job that is. Like, I write fantasy characters for a living, I could do that job. No, that's not true. Because like, fantasy authors always go for like, Alright, we're gonna take a normal name like John and we're gonna, like spell it weird. Or add an 'e' in the middle or something. And like, this isn't called like, 'insaloon.' You know, it's not just 'insulin' with a different pronunciation. It's fucking orginal. Ozempic? Wegovy? it doesn't even look like it's some other language. It just looks like...you look at that, and you're like, that's a prescription drug. Casandra 49:19 That means we need to hire a sci fi author to do the job. Margaret 49:23 Yeah, okay. All right. Well, since I'm out of that job. People at the World Economic Forum in Davos are predicting major cyber attacks in 2023 and or 2024, DDoS attacks, denial of service attacks, like where they flood an IP to shut it down. Those increased 79% last year. Brooke 49:44 Wow. Margaret 49:45 And something like 49% of like major economic things that do all the manufacturing etc. are like vulnerable or like, particularly not hardened to cyber attacks. You know, we had the thing couple years ago where like, you couldn't get couldn't get gas in part of the Mid Atlantic because of a cyber attack. Brooke 50:03 Oh, yeah. Margaret 50:04 So anyway, so there's that to look forward to. In the most depressing news that no one ever wants to admit or think about, Germany's Minister of Health says that all signs point towards COVID putting people at risk for incurable immune deficiencies. The studies are not final. But there's just more and more mounting evidence coming in from all different corners about how we should be taking COVID Seriously. And again, not to put that impetus on like, as much the individuals, but like, wouldn't it be cool if some of our tax money paid for i dunno, HVAC systems for schools? Brooke 50:43 Weird. Margaret 50:44 Wouldn't that be just like...Oh, yes. And the other thing that happened, I didn't write this in my notes. But one of the main things that I saw this fucking month is at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the windows were open, there was HEPA filters in every room, everyone tested at the door. The people in the audience wore masks, because the world leaders know that it's fucking real. Casandra 51:03 Yep. Brooke 51:05 But, but, but didn't we just decided it ended it here in the US? Didn't we just declare that? Margaret 51:10 Oh, no, we extended it till April. Brooke 51:13 Okay. Margaret 51:13 It's over in April. Yeah. Brooke 51:16 Except not the SNAP benefits. Margaret 51:18 No, the SNAP benefits. That is the next thing I had on my list. That's very good. The SNAP benefits, which I still in my head to call food stamps, but maybe you're not supposed to. But in case you're don't know what SNAP means the extended benefits that people got during the COVID pandemic are going to expire in March. So, February is the last month of the extended benefits. Sorry, sucks to be poor. Hope you don't die of the...this is me and my government voice not me and my voice....Hope you don't just...well, actually, we do want you to just go back to work and die for the economy. Speaking of people willing to die for the economy, Bolsonaro's right wing idiots stormed the Capitol after he lost an election. I don't have nearly as much as Brazil. I don't have nearly as much information about that as I wish I did prepared because...I...because this is the speed round. Speed Round. There should be like a little sound effect. Too too, zoo zoo. On the other hand, I like other people when they storm government institutions, and left wing people in Peru are doing are like also uprising. And I think that's good. Because I hate that we let....the when people are like "The insurrectionists and the seditioutionists," and I'm like "Hey, now. That's some of my best friends." What else? Oh, and Pakistan has been having massive, after their fucking floods that we talked about last year, they've been having massive blackouts. There was like to 220 million people without power for a while. And it's basically old fucked up infrastructure that is fucking them up. And that...either of you have Lightning Rounds? Brooke 53:05 No, I don't pay attention to the news. I'm doing taxes. Margaret 53:10 Oh, yeah. Okay, well, that's the end of our lightning round. Brooke 53:15 Pew pew peeew. Margaret 53:23 And that is This Month in the Apocalypse. And if there's something we missed, there isn't. And if you think something happened that was bad, it didn't happen. Or we would have covered it.I see no flaw in that logic and I think you all are gonna have to learn to understand that that's just the way it is. So, but if you want to hear us tell you everything that's happening and....whatever, if you want to support this podcast, you should do so by supporting us on Patreon. Our Patreon is patreon.com/.... not Live like the world is dying...shit. We are Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. That's right Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness because this is published by Strangers in Tangled Wilderness. And if you support us on Patreon, we'll mail you a zine every month if you support is a certain level. Otherwise, you'll get like discounts on all our stuff including my new book that's probably out by the time y'all hear this called Escape from Incel Island, which is about people doing what it says on the cover. I tend to be fairly literal with some of my naming conventions, with amazing cover art by Jonas Goonface. And you can go get that from Tangledwilderness.org or wherever you buy books. I mean, eventually you can get from wherever you buy books. Right now you can...well I don't know book distribution's weird? So you should support us at Patreon: patreon.com/Strangersintangledwilderness and also in particular, we would like to thank some of our patrons we would like to thank Aly and Paparouna, Milica, Boise Mutual Aid, Theo, Hunter, Sean, SJ, Paige, Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Cat J, Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Kirk, Sam, Chris, Micaiah, Hoss the dog, and Hans, maybe Jan's, I usually write the pronunciation ahead of time. And I'm very sorry and it's especially embarrassing because you're new to the list and I really appreciate you in particular, Hans Vergennes for supporting us. And that's it. I'm gonna....done and I hope you all are doing great. Bye bye Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co

Mike Hoss, the voice of the Saints, joined Steve and Jeff to share his thoughts on Las Vegas quarterback Derek Carr. Hoss said this season's free-agent quarterback class doesn't excite him. He discussed New Orleans' recent staff additions and renovations to The Caesar's Superdome. He also gave his Super Bowl LVII pick. 

Mike Hoss, the voice of the Saints, joined Steve and Jeff to share his thoughts on Las Vegas quarterback Derek Carr. Hoss said this season's free-agent quarterback class doesn't excite him. He discussed New Orleans' recent staff additions and renovations to The Caesar's Superdome. He also gave his Super Bowl LVII pick. 

TGIT, Baby! The Buttonista Show is BACK...for at least one more week until hosting duties are taken over by Chat GPT. This week, the winter blues are kicking in but it's all fine and good over here, Hoss. Listen to the latest episode and make sure you SUBSCRIBE and REVIEW the show on whichever service you prefer to use to stream.EPISODE NOTES:Nobody Asked Me, But... (1:28)Get your groomsmen in order at Mr. Formal Wear in Clifton Park (4:27)Saying "Yes Chef" to The Bear on FX and stepping it up in the kitchen (9:09)A whole chicken is a WHOLE vibe (19:09)Get to Empire Wine before Super Bowl...and Empire Too, too (22:44)The Penis Pig (25:00)Disturbed by denim jeggings (36:03)Update on the 90-day dry spell and what they told me at Lia Infiniti re: returning to Hoffman for a wash (42:58)Check yourself, and your news consumption (39:27)

The conversation continues. Should the day after the Super Bowl be a holiday? Rhett Bryan talks Senior Bowl prospects, and the guys discuss the Titans letting go of an institution in the building.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mike Hoss, the voice of the Saints, joined Mike and Bobby to talk about Tom Brady and Sean Payton. Bobby said Brady's retirement opens up the NFC South for 2023. Hoss shared his thoughts on Payton's fit with Russell Wilson in Denver. He said the Broncos should contend for the AFC West Division under coach Payton. Hoss also talked about building depth through the NFL Draft. 

Looking to unlock your full potential as a real estate agent and take your business to the next level? Welcome back to another episode of LIGHT IT UP! Today we are joined by Hoss Pratt, real estate coach and author of Listing Boss, and he is here to talk to us about unlocking your FULL potential as a real estate agent! Today we are joined by real estate coach, Hoss Pratt as he shares his tips for success in the industry. In this video, Hoss emphasizes the importance of speaking with confidence and authenticity, and not being afraid of the phone (Cold calling). He also provides practical advice on how to grow your craft and boost your confidence through self-coaching and visualization. Hoss believes that real estate agents who pick up the phone and tune their craft will thrive in 2023. He encourages agents to never be comfortable and to keep growing, reminding them of the importance of having a growth mindset and a desire to become the best at what they do. Listen to the full podcast and see what you can start doing to unlock your potential in 2023!

Mike Hoss, the voice of the Saints, joined Mike and Bobby to talk about Tom Brady and Sean Payton. Bobby said Brady's retirement opens up the NFC South for 2023. Hoss shared his thoughts on Payton's fit with Russell Wilson in Denver. He said the Broncos should contend for the AFC West Division under coach Payton. Hoss also talked about building depth through the NFL Draft. 

Bobby and Mike discussed the different eras of superstar quarterbacks following the retirement of Tom Brady. Mike said Brady's strength in his football career was his longevity. Mike Hoss, the voice of the Saints, joined the show to talk about Tom Brady and Sean Payton. Bobby said Brady's retirement opens up the NFC South for 2023. Hoss shared his thoughts on Payton's fit with Russell Wilson in Denver. He said the Broncos should contend for the AFC West Division under coach Payton. Hoss also talked about building depth through the NFL Draft. 

Did you know oral hygiene is linked to gestational diabetes, cardiovascular risk, cancer risk, and arthritis? Dr. Kami Hoss explores the depths of dental care and oral hygiene as it affects different aspects of the body. Dr. Hoss describes the knock-on effects of poor oral health on fertility, birthing consequences, respiratory issues, bone health, confidence, and stress. Furthermore, he describes the process of cavity formation, whether it has a genetic influence, and explains why brushing your teeth after breakfast is not harmful. He runs through a step-by-step oral morning and night oral hygiene procedure, as well as how to select a good and effective mouthwash. Then, he discusses the controversy around fluoride, presenting when it is used most beneficially as well as an alternative for pregnant women and children. Finally, Dr. Hoss dives into pregnancy Gingivitis and tongue ties. Grab your notebook and gain insight into how your oral health affects every aspect of your body. Increase your foot proprioception and sense of environment with NABOSO, brought to you by a functional podiatrist, Dr. Emily Splichal. Stimulate your foot's sensory nerves and create safety within the body to ease pain and symptoms. Go check out their foot recovery socks with our 15% off coupon using code 'OPTIMAL'. What You Will Learn In This Interview with Dr. Kami Hoss 4:08 - How does oral health impact our overall health 7:45 - Signs and indications of the state of your oral hygiene 11:08 - Why people don't pay enough attention to oral health 13:20 - How to care for your mouth on your daily 17:27 - How to select a good mouthwash 23:46 - Is fluoride good or bad for you? 28:30 - Alternatives for fluoride 34:01 - Pregnancy Gingivitis - swollen gums and bleeding 39:48 - Where to go if your child has tongue ties? 45:18 - Are cavities genetic and can you reverse them? 52:23 - How you can learn more with Dr Hoss. To learn more about Dr. Kami Hoss and view full show notes, please visit the full website here: https://www.docjenfit.com/podcast/episode281/ Thank you so much for checking out this episode of The Optimal Body Podcast. If you haven't done so already, please take a minute to subscribe and leave a quick rating and review of the show! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/tobpodcast/message

Saints Play-by-Play man Mike Hoss on broadcasting life first after Drew Brees and second after Sean Payton left New Orleans. And what to expect for the Saints in 2023. Also in Hour 2 FOX NFL Rules Guru Mike Pereira joins the boys to explain some of the criticisms from Championship weekend, and the outlooks from a rules standpoint for the upcoming USLF season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the Ether we have the MUN Blockchain AMA hosted by Cosmos HOSS. You'll hear from Crypto Guru, Kingwealthjr, and more! Recorded on January 30th 2023. If you enjoy the music at the end of the episodes, you can find the albums streaming on Spotify, and the rest of your favorite streaming platforms. Check out Project Survival, Virus Diaries, and Plan B wherever you get your music. Thank you to everyone in the community who supports TerraSpaces.

Episode Summary Margaret and Nadia talk about harm reduction, what it is, how it relates to community preparedness, strategies for including harm reduction in your preparedness routines, and a little bit of history and legality as relates to different kinds of drug use. Guest Info Nadia works with Next Distro and can be found at https://nextdistro.org/ Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Transcript LLWD: Nadia on Harm Reduction Margaret 00:15 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host today, Margaret killjoy. And today, I am really excited about this episode, I think you'll all get a lot out of it. I guess I say that every time but I wouldn't record these episodes, if I didn't think you would get a lot out of them. Today, we are talking about harm reduction. And we were talking about preparedness that includes drug users. Because, if you think you don't know any drug users, you just don't know anyone who is willing to tell you that they're a drug user. And we will talk about that and a lot more. But first, this podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Margaret 01:01 Okay, we're back. And if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns. And then kind of a little bit about your background about the kind of stuff that we're gonna be talking about today. Nadia 01:52 Yeah, sure, hey, Margaret. My name is Nadia, I use they or she pronouns. And I am a harm reductionist, a drug user. And I have both worked at in-person syringe service programs, and currently work for an online meal based program, where we ship safer drinking supplies to folks all over the country. Margaret 02:16 That's cool. So we talked about having you on, because we wanted to talk about preparedness that includes the drug users in your community, whether the person listening to this as drug user, or whether they care about drug users in their community. And I know it's a big open question, but I kind of wanted to ask you that. How prepare that? Nadia 02:45 Well, you know, I think that when we talk about prepping, disaster prepping and harm reduction, they're really similar, because it's really boils down to a risk assessment and thinking critically, right? The world isn't black and white, it's not really an easy question to answer, for example, should I evacuate or not in a disaster? Similarly, how do I protect myself as a drug user, in a world that isn't concerned about my health or safety? And you know, for people who historically lack access to resources, and healthcare, I think talking about how to prepare or what readiness looks like, is especially important. Margaret 03:28 So, I guess I kind of want to start with some of the practical questions. It's like, what are the things that one should do that are different from what one would otherwise do? Like I'm like thinking about like, even for my own sake, right. Like, I'm like, like people say, like, carry Narcan, for example, like, how does one access that? What is the shelf life on that? Is that a thing that if community like mutual aid groups or individuals who have like large stashes of things or whatever? Is it like worth having a bunch of. Is it depend on community access? Is it better to just like, specifically coordinate with existing harm reduction and like needle exchange groups in your area? Like, it seems to me that like, like, one of the prepper mindset things is like, "Oh, there's a thing I need, I should go out and get a bunch of it". Right? And my instinct here is that maybe that rather than run out and get a bunch of say, Narcan, it would be more about like, be aware of how people can access that and which groups do distribute that and then maybe have like enough for me to carry around? I don't know. Yeah, like, I guess let's start with Narcan. What's What's the Narcan? Nadia 04:40 Sure. Um, so for folks that are listening that don't know, Narcan or naloxone is a medication that will reverse an opioid overdose. And you know, it, it should be kept in a relatively temperature stable area, but there's there's been a lot of studies on it. And they have shown that it maintains its efficacy, much past expiration dates and the kind of temperature parameters. So you don't want to keep it somewhere freezing or super hot, but it is more resilient than you think. And having some naloxone is better than having none. And you mentioned, you know, going out and sort of stocking up. And I think that this is a broader conversation about prepping too, the difference between being ready and hoarding, right, yeah, and sometimes that line definitely gets blurry. Do you really need 100 pounds of rice? Are you going to go through it before it gets bad? Do you have a proper place to store it? I mean, you can talk about naloxone in the same way. And you know, just like you can keep Narcan in your bag. If you're going to a show going to a bar, you can also keep some in your gobag, if you have one, to evacuate, for example. Margaret 06:06 What's the....you know, I usually present myself as sort of the the person who pretends like she doesn't know what she's asking in these episodes, but I actually don't know as much about this as I would like. Alot of my friends are way more knowledgeable about this stuff. Like what is the difference between Narcan and naloxone? And how would I go about getting some to carry around with me? Nadia 06:29 Sure. So Narcan is really just a brand name, that's the the nasal spray. Naloxone is the actual medication. You can pick it up from certain service programs in your area. If you don't have a needle exchange in your area, you can go just Google Next Distro. We mail Naloxone to folks, so just check the website, see if you live in a state or an area where we do that. But we do try to encourage people to sort of seek out resources where they live. But yeah, there's there's a lot of different organizations, everything from sort of anarchist collectives, running needle exchanges to health departments that are, you know, offering trainings and providing Narcan. Margaret 07:19 What's the legality of it? Nadia 07:21 So, as far as you know, carrying it with you, there is what is called a standing order. It's basically a sort of blanket prescription. You can go to the pharmacy, purchase Naloxone, it can be prohibitively expensive, especially if you don't have insurance, which is why I kind of mentioned, you know, needle exchanges and health departments first. But I think, you know, as far as having it on your person, it's not going to be a situation where it's illegal. However, we know that cops like to fuck with people. So if you do happen to have Naloxone, and you have syringes on you, I'm not going to say you'll be fine. However, the law is on your side in that regard. And another piece of that, too, is different states have different Good Samaritan laws. So if you are with someone that is experiencing an overdose, in many states, not all, you can call 911, without the fear or threat of potentially being arrested for small possession, or things like that. They are very narrow in a lot of places. But that's something that you're going to want to look into for your state. Margaret 08:37 So it's like, this makes sense, like so probably, if I have some drugs on me and my friend has some drugs on me and my friend overdoses. There's a fear of involving the medical establishment because there's a fear of me or the person who's overdosing getting arrested for what we have on them. Is that what you're saying that this law protects? Like, yeah, in some states protects people about? Nadia 09:00 So you know, there's, there's a lot of stigma, right? And you know, just the the illegality piece. And at the end of the day there, there is an overdose crisis in the United States, in many places. And so these laws are designed to sort of take some of that fear away. And if you are responding to someone who's experiencing an overdose, you don't have to tell 911 when you call that this person is on drugs or that they are overdosing. You can just merely describe the symptoms and what is happening to them. For example, this person is not breathing, they're turning blue. I can't hear a heartbeat, whatever it might be. And you know, if you do have to leave and you have given them Naloxone, you can just leave the vials or or the package next to the person that way when EMS does arrive, they do know "Okay, this person has been given Narcan, "and they can kind of go from there, Margaret 09:59 Right. Okay, so like if you have reasons that you don't want to interact with emergency personnel and need to leave the scene, okay. Nadia 10:07 Yeah, and you have options. And that's kind of the whole thing about harm reduction, right? It's a pragmatic approach to drug use and a realistic one. And so, you know, that's why there, there are no hard and fast rules of do this, or don't do this, but, you know, sort of a continuum of human behavior. And, you know, acknowledging the risks at any point of it. Margaret 10:30 I want to come back to that in a little bit, because I want to have this whole conversation about what harm reduction...like why the work that y'all do is so like, philosophically important, to like disaster preparedness, and probably life in general. But first, I want to, I want to keep talking about some of this stuff, like with, like, you're talking about the, you know, there's an overdose crisis in the United States, I feel like everyone, on some level knows that. And one of the things that's so interesting to me, I would think I was thinking about before we did this episode is that it's like, you know, this is all about like, disaster preparedness, right? The whole show. And it feels like a lot of communities and certainly including drug communities. I don't know the way phrase that..... Nadia 11:18 You can say, "people who use drugs." Margaret 11:20 Okay. But so there is a disaster happening right now. Like, there is a crisis. Like there's a reason we call it crisis, you know, it's like a really fucking bad thing. And I'm wondering if, without necessarily going into it, like, too great, but I'm curious, like, what is happening? Like, what is what's happening right now? Why is everyone OD'ing? , Nadia 11:44 Well, you know, there's a lot of different facets to the overdose crisis and a lot of different solutions. Some of them sort of more triage, you know, we were just talking about Naloxone, and, and it's a great medication, it saves lives. But ultimately, what we really need is a safe supply of drugs. If people are aware and knowledgeable of what they're taking, how potent it is, if there are any adulterants in it, you know, that's where we would like to go. Obviously, drugs are illegal. Most drugs are illegal in most places in the United States. And, you know, there there has been pushes for access to safe supply in places like Canada in, you know, I believe Oregon has, has I think, legalized some drugs, right? You can purchase I think mushrooms now. Don't quote me on that. I'm not actually familiar with Oregon law. Margaret 12:46 Anyone listening this, you can go out and buy mushrooms legally. And if the police stop you, you can say "it''s okay. It's not a crime." Don't do that. Okay. Anyway. Yeah. Nadia 12:57 I mean, you know, philosophically, it's not a crime. It's not a crime to do drugs. And, you know, the, the idea that some of these drugs are illegal, and some of them aren't, really, is sort of goes back to like this puritanical history of our country. You know, why is alcohol legal when we know that drunk driving rates are through the roof, and you know, it can cause incredible damage to your body over time. But then, you know, smoking marijuana is, is still illegal in a lot of places. where I live, for sure, especially in the south. So, you know, I think that there's there's that moral component Margaret 13:38 So we should bring back prohibition? Nadia 13:40 Yeah, exactly. And so I think, you know, as far as having access to drugs that are safe, drugs, that that you know, what you're getting, you know, I think that we don't want to short....when I say 'we,' I mean people who use drugs, I mean, people in the harm reduction community. We don't want to shortchange ourselves. I don't want to say, "Oh, well, the overdose crisis would be so much better if everyone had not Narcan." Yes, that's true. But that's a temporary fix, Margaret 14:11 Right. It's...no, that's such a good point. Because I feel like that's like the...I know I owe came out the gate with like that as the first thing that was on my mind. And I, and I'm, like, kind of embarrassed about that because it's such the like, it's the band aid we always keep getting presented. And it's like a real good band aid. It's more like the tourniquet we keep getting presented. But, it does seem like yeah, what you're talking about decriminalization, it's almost like when you make things illegal, it doesn't make the problem go away. Nadia 14:40 Yeah, and you know, I think about it in terms of living under capitalism for so long our entire lives, right. And you get to a point where it's hard to think about solutions outside of the current system. We're so focused on kind of again, that that triage, right, how do we make things better within this oppressive state that we live in? But really, ultimately, the goal should be moving past that and moving beyond it, right? Margaret 15:11 Yeah. Yeah. So to go back with preparedness, I know that you do a little bit of preparedness yourself. We talked before we started recording about, you know, canned vegetables and things like that. How does it impact your preparedness, both that you are a drug user, and also that you, like, care about and take drug users into consideration in your preparedness? Nadia 15:40 Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is planning, right? I'm gonna use the example of of evacuating, I lived in the Gulf South for a very long time. Hurricanes were a yearly occurrence. And so I had to think about it a lot. But, you know, just in terms of what your risk is, and making a decision based on that, for example, if you are evacuating, do you bring drugs with you and sort of chance getting pulled over? Or do you try and score in a new place? And you have to decide what the bigger risk is for you. For example, if I'm driving with five of my friends in an unregistered van with acab stickers all over it, I might not want to be riding dirty, I might not want to have drugs on me. Versus, you know, if I am going somewhere completely unfamiliar to me, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to score when I get there. It might be worth the risk, right? And so thinking of those things in advance is really important. And the longer you wait in an emergency situation, the longer it's going to take you to get out of that cone of impact, right? If you wait to the last minute, there's going to be you know, traffic on the road, it's harder to to get out, it's harder to find a hotel room, for example. So really, that thinking of it in advance, you know, I think can save you a lot of critical time when you need to act. Margaret 17:10 Yeah. Yeah, like, I don't envy a lot of my friends who live in the Gulf South, are like, "What do I need?" And I'm like, I don't know, a house in the mountains somewhere. And then I'm like, No, that doesn't. That doesn't help. You know, I can't just tell people that. Nadia 17:26 Well, and I mean, you know, we're talking about preparedness, we're talking about disaster prep. And, you know, a lot of places that haven't had to deal with disasters, like hurricanes or flooding, or wildfires are seeing more and more of that now. And there's a greater impact on bipoc, queer and trans folks, disabled people, you know, marginalized groups whose access to resources is already more limited. And, you know, I think we really need to look towards communities that have been repeatedly harmed, especially by structural and environmental racism, I think they're best informed as to how to survive and how to support each other. And I don't want to say just in the Gulf south, but I'm talking about Flint, Michigan, I'm talking about, you know, Jackson, Mississippi, there's a lot of places where, you know, people are painfully aware that no one is coming to save you. It could be weeks or months for FEMA to arrive. In many places, local governments rely on mutual aid networks and charity groups to provide support. And so that kind of vacuum speaks to the importance of building dual power. Because it leaves the field open, I think for kind of any group that wants to become entrenched or inevitability, to sort of step up, right, whether that's a homophobic church group, right wing militias, especially in rural or remote areas, because, people remember who took care of them. You know, that's one of the reasons why the Black Panthers were such a threat with free breakfast programs and community care, is why Food Not Bombs is illegal in some places. There's just there's a lot of power in community sufficiency. Margaret 19:23 Yeah. I mean, and so you, you mentioned that there's like lessons that you draw from these specific places, especially bipoc. communities that are under like constant threat. What are some of the lessons that you feel like you draw from that? I mean, besides the one that you just pointed out, maybe that's the answer to the question, what you point out that like, building mutual aid networks and stuff like that, but.... Nadia 19:45 Yeah, absolutely, figuring out who is in your support network. Also in a disaster or crisis situation, how will you communicate with that network is really important. You know, do folks know where you're staying and vice versa? Yeah. Also, you know, we're talking right now and 2022, almost 2023, the COVID pandemic isn't over. So figuring out how you can shelter places safely, you know, do you have masks on hand? That sort of thing. And then going back to prepping for people who use drugs, stocking up on drugs, you know, you might be thinking, "Oh, well, after the fact, I can just XYZ," whatever your plan is, but what if your dealer evacuated? You know? And, you know, the, as far as staying with other people, how do they feel about drug use? Does everyone know where the naloxone is and how to use it, you know, disasters are stressful, you might be dealing with extreme temperatures, hunkering down with people and their different temperaments, and, you know, for most of us to, stress impacts drug use, and it's important to keep that in mind. If you're, you know, for example, trying to cut back or regulate your use. I think all of these things, you know, are useful for people who use drugs, but ultimately, I think they're all skills or at least, you know, aspects of preparing that are beneficial for anyone. Margaret 21:14 Yeah. Well, so interesting, because it you know, normally we think of like, okay, if you can get more of a medication that you need ahead of time, right? That's great. And, you know, there's this limitation, it's actually very similar limitation, the limitation is legality. In this case of like, you know, it's, it's sometimes very hard for people who even have a prescription to get more than, you know, a month's worth of supply or whatever, at a time of any given prescription. And it's, it's something that people run up against a lot. And then obviously, with, I don't know, whether the way to phrase it as street drugs or not, or like drugs that are not being bought through the pharmaceutical networks or whatever, you know, there's an accessibility that is hit and miss. And then there's also an increased danger of stockpiling, because it seems like the the level of risk that you're carrying for getting busted changes a lot based on how much of any given drug you have on you. Nadia 22:11 Yeah, definitely. And I do want to kind of speak to one of the pieces you talked about, as far as having medications, you know, if you're on prescription medications, you know, you can check in with your provider, see, if you can get a larger refill than normal say, you know, instead of 30 days, can you get a 60 day supply, especially for people who use drugs, who might be on, you know, medication assisted treatment, they might be taking methadone, naltrexone, and, you know, these are highly effective in terms of either regulating your use, or perhaps, you know, not using it all. But they can be difficult to access. And in some places, it's harder to pick up the prescription for Vivitrol or suboxone because of stigma, because pharmacists, you know, have this idea of, of drug users, or they just might not know the the regulations and laws in their area. And you might not know them either, because you're new. So, I think that checking in, like I said, with providers ahead of time, if that's possible, and you know, doing what you can in terms of stocking up, but this, that whole plan needs the assistance of people in the medical field. And even they have, you know, that kind of stigma, unfortunately, Margaret 23:33 Yeah, yeah. To self insert this, I got refused a COVID shot because I was wearing a harm reduction shirt once. Nadia 23:41 Wait, why what was the excuse that they gave you? Margaret 23:45 I went in, I was like this dirty punk wearing a Steady Collective shirt, which is the harm reduction group in Asheville, North Carolina. And I, it's funny, I feel like it's like Stolen Valor that I wear this shirt. Because people like when I wore in Asheville people were like, I love what you do. And "I'm like, thanks. What I do is I designed the logo." And the reason I wear the shirt is because I designed the logo for it. So I'm very proud of...and it's just crossed hypodermic needles. And Nadia 24:13 It's a cool logo. Margaret 24:14 Thanks. Thanks. And I was in like, rural fucking right wing California. And I wanted a COVID booster. And so I went into the pharmacy. I found out ahead of time that this particular pharmacy did walk ins. And I walked in, and the the pharmacist at the counter was talking to a doctor who was in line in front of me. And they were both just complaining about drug users. And they were just both sitting there being like, "Oh, these damned, you know, junkies," or whatever. I don't remember how they phrased it, but it wasn't polite. And then like the person finally leaves and I walk up and I'm like, Yall take walk ins? and she's like, "No." And I'm like, "Can I make an appointment? And she's like, "Not for today." Nadia 24:59 That is wild. I mean, also you have a lot of people in the medical community that don't really believe that COVID is a thing or that vaccines are effective. I mean, you can have an anti Vaxxer pharmacist, which is, yeah, I mean, Margaret 25:16 And, like, this is such a, like, I face stigma once....I so it's like, it's really easy for me to imagine after that, that like, of course, people face stigma coming in and picking up their fucking medications, if they're like, the kinds of medications that are, like methadone and stuff like that. That's fucked up. I don't know, that sucks. Nadia 25:40 Yeah, and I mean, you know, we're talking about COVID. And I think harm reduction is a huge piece of you know, how we can kind of move through the world right now. People are continuing to die and be disabled by COVID. And, you know, we were talking a little bit before, before we started about, you know, kind of the beginning of COVID. And I was really optimistic at first kind of seeing mutual aid networks spring up and more people coming to the realization that the government will kill us for the sake of the economy. But you know, now I think even in radical spaces, that sort of care and community level protection has given way to the more mainstream sentiment or desire to return to normalcy. And that's just something that isn't possible. And it's not desirable to many, many people for whom normalcy was oppressive and a danger. Yeah, you know, I think that, especially as anarchists or folks that consider themselves radical, preppers, as well, we know that we keep us safe, right? That's kind of the tagline. But, that should also apply to immunocompromised people as well, and disabled folks. And, you know, now, I think it's a really great time to take stock of your existing protocols, and safety measures and sort of ask if those things that you're doing or not doing are still in line with what our current risk is. And right now, going into winter, you know, nationally, over 10% of tests are coming back positive. And we know that we're severely under testing, and we know that COVID reinfections, wear down your immunity. That increases your risk for long COVID or kind of lingering COVID symptoms, and, you know, makes people more susceptible to things like the flu, RSV, or Strep A, all three of which we're seeing a surge of in this winter. Margaret 27:43 Yay. Yeah. I think about it, like the fact that...I don't know how to put this. Like, I wear a mask for the same reason I carry a gun. And it...and not that I want everyone to carry guns, that is a very personal decision based on the legality and the threat models that you're facing. Bu,t I carry a gun, so that it is harder for someone to murder me and it is harder for someone to murder the people I care about who are near me, right? I wear a mask, so that I am less likely to die, and other people around me are less likely to die. This seems like such a, like the idea that there's people who are like preppers or prepper adjacent, who are anti mask, and then anti vaccine is just so nonsensical to me. And I mean, I do think that like protocols do like, they do need to shift, we do need to realize it as we realize that this is endemic, and you know, we can't...like we probably can't just say no more live music in the course of human history. Right? Nadia 28:58 I would hope not. Margaret 29:00 But I especially like, when I walk into the grocery store, there is literally no cost to me to wear a mask. There is just, there's only positive effects of me wearing a mask minus social stigma. Nadia 29:17 You know, I think that we need, if we're going to survive, care, kindness, and a lot of grace. Which requires us to acknowledge that there's a huge cognitive dissonance people are dealing with right now. We're three years into a global pandemic that's killed six and a half million people around the world, the rise of fascism, I mean, there's a lot and people's responses are going to vary wildly. Kind of the metaphor I like to use is, it sort of feels like a house fire. And we've all just gone through this traumatic experience, and we've run out of the house in the middle of the night, and everyone is sort of behaving in a trauma informed way, some people are trying to run back into the house, some people are claiming that there was never a fire. And, you know, it's, it's trying to take care of each other, and hold ourselves accountable to being, you know, I think responsible for our communities, but while also acknowledging, you know, this is a weird fucking time. You know, I think too, this kind of goes back a little bit to our Naloxone conversation. You know, when we talk about masks, when we talk about boosters, these are sort of individual steps we can take, right? But ultimately, that's, that's only a piece of it, right? We need a societal shift. We need proper air filtration in schools, we need access to rapid testing, we need the working class to have the money and ability to take time off of work when they're sick. I mean, all of these things are sort of interconnected to this larger struggle. And one way that capitalism and our sort of overlords here and Imperial core, are able to shift blame is by you know, kind of making everything this individual choice and individual responsibility when it's not at all. Margaret 31:33 No, that's such a good point. And there's it, it shows that there's even like, some of those things are small scale community, things can be done as well, like, it would be a shame for a small scale community to have to suddenly like come up with the resources to provide rapid testing to everyone constantly or whatever, right. But like, I don't know, like, helping your local venues get real good air filtration systems, you know, or like, expanding outside infrastructure in climates that allow it, and like, there are the steps that we can take that are sort of medium. They're not....And I think that's actually where anarchists and radicals actually do best is not at the individual level. And frankly, if I if I'm being honest, not necessarily at the systemic level, but like this sort of in between level, this community based this community size level of like, how do we? Yeah, I mean, we can't....the punks or the anarchists, or whatever is can't pass a mask mandate, but like, we can create, like, cultures where, when there's no reason not to, we wear masks, and we work on our air filtration. And this is really just me thinking about COVID instead of the whole point of this conversation was drug use stuff, but... Nadia 32:54 Well I mean, they're, I think they're interrelated. You know, if you are putting on a punk show, is it accessible, right? Does that mean, you know, for folks in wheelchairs, folks with, you know, mobility aids, as well as immunocompromised people, and ensuring that you know, this is a place that they have access to? Or if it's not, saying that. I at least want you to say, "Hey, this is a dangerous place for you. And, making it accessible is not our priority or isn't possible in this situation. Therefore, you can make your own decision about whether or not you want to attend." Margaret 33:36 I've been in like, an now I can't remember if it was France or Montreal, somewhere where people spoke French. I've been in places where like any anarchist event will put on the fliers the accessibility or lack of accessibility for wheelchair access. And that's such an interesting, good point, right? Because if you have to flag on it, "This is not wheelchair accessible." It means you have to think about it when you do it, right. And like, Which isn't to say you shouldn't...I don't know one way or the other about what I'm about to say, which doesn't mean like you can't put on an event if you can't find it, accessible space, but you should have to own it, and you should have to be working on making the space more accessible. Is that, uh??? I'm really talking about my ass here. I haven't I haven't been part of these conversations. But. Nadia 34:21 I mean, as someone who is struggling with long COVID still a year in, you know, I am also new to the disability conversation. And I definitely feel grateful for the folks who have been activists and have been organizing around these issues for you know, forever, honestly. And it really was shocking to me, even though I'm fairly realistic about how our society treats folks they deem unworthy or undesirable, but it was really shocking the level to which you become invisible. All. And you know, I think, to sort of shoehorn a little segue back to our orginal conversation, people who use drugs also live in that sort of liminal space, right? There's so much that is invisible about drug use. But also, this kind of caricature of drug users is sort of trotted out anytime people want to talk about society's ills, right? When people are talking about folks without homes, inevitably drug use comes up as if people aren't sitting in their houses doing drugs. They just have walls and you can't see them. Margaret 35:38 Yeah, well, and then one of the things that I really appreciate about this conversation with you is that you're talking about the implication, or the the inference that I'm picking up on, is that basically saying, It's okay, if people use drugs, that is their choice, it seems to be like, like a lot of the conversation that I've feel like I'm exposed to is this, like, we should have pity for these poor drug users, and everyone is trying to stop using drugs. Whereas, it seems like you're trying to present an alternate case where people can choose whether or not they want to engage with drugs in different ways? Nadia 36:17 Yeah, I mean, you know, harm reduction is the sort of set of principles or tenants that allows for autonomy and allows for people to make informed decisions about what they do. You know, abstinence doesn't necessarily work or isn't feasible for everyone. And so, you know, giving people the space and acknowledging that there's always going to be some risk in the things that we do, you know, helps us kind of approach it with clear eyes. But the I think the moral question around using drugs really does us a disservice. Doing drugs is fun, and cool. And that is, I think, an important message to have out there because, you know, so often, we're just inundated with all of the terrible things that can happen to you. And again, this is normal human behavior. This is normal behavior in other other species, you've got monkeys eating, you know, fruit that's gone, gone bad and getting drunk, you've got bears eating psychedelic honey. We do this because it's enjoyable. And to deny it that, I think, sort of leaves us on our back foot in terms of "Okay, well, how do we do this safely?" Margaret 37:41 Yeah, presenting as this is a bad thing that someone shouldn't have done and now we have to deal with the bad parts, as compared to being like, every animal on the planet wants to do this, we should figure out ways that people can have freedom to do it as safely as they want or to not do it, if they don't want. Nadia 38:07 Right, and you know, both are fine. It's also cool to not do drugs. I do want to put that out there. But as a drug user, you know, this touches on our conversation about safe supply, right? When you're buying and you don't know the quality or if there's cross contamination, obviously, a lot of folks are very concerned about things like fentanyl right now. There's also you know, other sort of fillers or things people can use. Xylazine is something that is sort of making the rounds right now that can have potential, like negative health impacts. So yeah, I think this, this goes back to sort of those bigger picture solutions as opposed to the band aids. Margaret 38:55 Okay. And then, how useful is it? You know, like, as you pointed out earlier, right....Again, before, we had a long pre conversation. We knew each other back in the day for, now, people can know that about us, I guess. You know, pointing out because like, I mostly don't do drugs, but I do drink sometimes, right, and that is a drug and alcohol is absolutely a drug. It's a very dangerous drug. And it's one that I engage with very rarely, but I do engage with, and it does seem like a fairly useful comparison for talking about other drugs. Like cause there's this drug that is socially acceptable while also being massively destructive, right? And it seems like that actually maps fairly well to most of the other drugs that are like, problems for people. I don't know is that too simplistic? Nadia 39:51 No, I don't think so. You know, and that's also not to say that people don't struggle with their drug use that people you You know, might be really unhappy with their relationship to drugs. And, you know, the more openly we can talk about it and the more access to different options people have, that sort of allows them to, you know, find the most comfortable place for them. Right, there is this, you know, kind of individual piece to it, even though we're talking a lot about sort of community care, Margaret 40:24 Right. No, that's what I mean, that, in some ways, is part of why alcohol feels like such a good comparison. It's not even a comparison, it's literally a drug. It's a drug that is somehow held into a different class than the others, is that I think we all know people who....for whom alcohol is a problem. And we all know people for whom alcohol is not a problem. And then we all know, people who completely abstain from alcohol, who are in one of those two camps, if they weren't abstaining, you know? Hmm. I don't know, I'm having this like, epiphany, that should have been obvious a long time ago, I think about this. Nadia 41:02 Well, and, you know, thinking in terms of alcohol, and using that as an example of how constrained we are in terms of our choices, you know, if if you are someone that struggles with drinking, really the the options that are given to you are abstinence, right? 12 steps, complete sobriety, and the message that that is the only way that you will be able to, you know, become a functioning member of society. And the fact is that that's simply not true.You know, abstinence really doesn't work for many, many people. You know, I think most of us can remember the "Just Say No," campaigns of the 90s, or maybe the 80s, depending on how old you are. And we know those didn't work. It don't work for children, it doesn't work for adults. And, you know, I think I don't want to get too far down the rabbit hole. But I think it would be important for folks to sort of think about, "Well, why is alcohol illegal? And all these other drugs aren't?"And I think it all goes back to capitalism. It goes back to money. It goes back to social control. Margaret 42:22 Yeah. Well, ironically, one of the reasons that alcohol is legal, is that a bunch of people fought the KKK to the death to make alcohol legal. I only learned as kind of more recently when I did a bunch of....one of my other podcasts is a history podcast. And I didn't realize that the second incarnation of the KKK was like, one of their main things is that they were the foot soldiers of prohibition. They were like the Proud Boys of the prohibition era. And it was this whole thing where it was like Protestants versus everyone else, including reasonable Protestants. It was white Protestants against Irish Catholics, Italians, all of the people who were, you know, bootlegging, and all of that other stuff. And there were these like massive violent street fights. And I mean, mostly, it was massive violence, street fights about fuck you, you're the KKK, we want to...you can't run our town. But, what they wanted to do was run the town on a prohibition model. And there's this like, really interesting tie between white supremacy and prohibition. And it? I don't know, I mean, like, I know, I know how to immediately draw the same thing between the outline of weed and anti blackness. And I'm suspecting that if I dug very hard, I would find similar things with like, drugs, period. I don't know. I just got really excited about people beating up the KKK and that's why we're allowed to drink. Nadia 43:59 Yeah, that's always a win, both of those things. Margaret 44:06 But, what anyway, sorry, I got lost in rabbit hole thinking about that. Okay, so you've brought up this topic a couple times: harm reduction. And I suspect most people have at least an idea of what harm reduction is, but I'm wondering if you could kind of introduce it because, one, it feels very relevant to this specific conversation. But it also feels very relevant to conversations around disaster preparedness in general, because it seems to be implying that there is no perfect and that in some ways perfect is the enemy of good. And that we should just like, figure out what can go wrong and do the best we can rather than expect to succeed in everything. Maybe that's a misunderstanding. Nadia 44:51 That's, that is I think, a really core piece of it, you know, and I don't want to belie the the history behind harm reduction too, you know, this was a movement that was created in platformed by people who use drugs, by sex workers, especially during the HIV AIDS crisis. And again, you know, from groups of marginalized people that realize that they are the only ones looking out for each other. And you know, that many behaviors carry some form of risk. And so talking about that honestly, and figuring out how to mitigate that risk is far more helpful than shaming people and that is connected, you know, directly to the criminalization of HIV and AIDS too, you know, there's the sort of moralizing, right, when folks become sick. There's this idea, I think, that is rooted in very, like old school, Brimstone Christianity, that, you know, it's some form of punishment. And I think that the way our society looks at people who use drugs, and the potential risks are viewed as appropriate punishment for the behavior, which is wrong and fucked up. Margaret 46:06 Yeah. Okay, so. So what is harm reduction? Nadia 46:12 So, you know, I think that if we're specifically talking about drug use, that can be, you know, practical tips, anything from making sure that you're using sterile supplies, making sure that you have syringes, and you don't have to share them, to prevent the transmission of diseases, you know, that can be, you know, figuring out different routes of administration. So for example, if you're someone that likes to snort a lot of drugs, maybe you want to give your nostrils a break, and, you know, smoke or boof. There are a lot of things that you can kind of adjust, right? You don't even have to necessarily be adhering to this strict set of rules as far as your drug use, but really being sort of flexible based on your own needs. Margaret 47:09 Okay. And then, what are some of the ways that harm reduction either applies to other things besides drug use, or like has been successfully applied, or like some of the ways that like harm reduction, as jargon, has been, like, kind of co-opted by other things? Nadia 47:32 Yeah, I mean, I feel like especially after 2016, the the idea that voting is harm reduction really picked up speed. And I personally disagree. Margaret 47:47 Okay. Nadia 47:48 For the most part, because harm reduction is something that you know, you can use for yourself, for your drug use, and so when we say voting is harm reduction, my question is, "Whose harm is being lessened?" You know, we currently have a Democratic president, and there's still concentration camps on our southern border, you still have Democratic mayors and city council's introducing regressive anti homelessness laws, throwing more money at more cops. And so I just think the notion that we can affect the kind of change necessary to liberate us by voting is....it's short sighted. And I think it can be an excuse for people to not have to invest so much in their allyship. Yeah, I think at its very base, most like literal definition, voting potentially reduces harm, but most of that is going to be in the immediate or short term. Margaret 48:50 Well, so that's really interesting to me, right? Because I think that I had a kind of misunderstanding of harm reduction in some ways, because from my point of view, I mean...voting as harm reduction just seemed to be the rephrasing of vote for the lesser evil. Because in my mind, voting for the lesser evil is acknowledging an evil, right, it is acknowledging like Like, like, Biden is an evil, the Democratic Party is an evil, that does evil things in the world. And so for me, there's a there's a sensibility to the argument of thinking that voting is how we make systemic change is terrible. And I actually thought that the kind of concept of, but they always lose their meaning, right, in the 80s. and 90s It was vote for the lesser evil and people were like, yeah, that's how we make things better. It's like, no, it's clearly not how to make things better. It's how you make things evil. You're just controlling the amount of evil. And then with harm reduction argument, the reason I bought it at first was because it was like, "Oh, yes, because it's, it's saying there is going to be harm, but we want to do less of it." But, with what you're talking about, about how drug use or sex as two of the spaces that we talk about harm reduction a lot, right? Like those things can rule, right? Like sex and drugs, there's a reason that people talk about them positively. They're very dangerous activities sometimes, right. And people should go into them as clear headed as...well, maybe not clear headed depending on their preferences, but you know, people should should be aware of the risks, but then go and have all the sex and drugs and rock and roll or whatever that they want, as compared to... and so this is where the metaphor to the political system seems to fall apart to me is because like, well, the existing political system that we have is just doing bad. And it's really about what tiny little bits of mitigation or picking, something's going to kill. It's the trolley problem, right? You're still killing people. And that's not fun and cool. That's not sex, drugs and rock and roll. I don't know. That's what I got. Nadia 51:01 Yeah. And, you know, I think that you really laid it out very well there. You know, yes, I can reduce the harm to myself if I am using drugs or having sex, but I can't get these politicians that I voted in to reduce the harm that they are causing. Because, you know, if you're voting for one of the two dominant political parties in the United States, I think you're just asking yourself, if you want to get to fascism, the short way or the long way, because I think, you know, voting in Democrats does make a material difference when it comes to some social services, and some environmental protections. But ultimately, both of these parties work at the behest of the ruling class. And capitalism requires ceaseless consumption and growth. And neither of those are sustainable. And they require the subjugation of working class people. So I think, you know, if, you know, it's, it's a question of capacity, if you and the people in your community that you organize with have the time and resources to engage in electoral politics, while simultaneously building dual power, and fighting encroaching fascism, like, go with God. There's space for a lot of tactics, and you gotta find where your skill set is and where your comfort lies. And I do just want to say this one last piece, too, when we talk about voting as harm reduction in the United States, that often I think tends to overlook the international implications of maintaining the current political system here, Margaret 52:36 Right, which is, that's where it becomes even more of the same as like, yeah, it's never...the solutions don't lie in the ballot box, and like, Oh, whatever. I'm just like, speaking cliches or whatever. But it's like, even if we can make things like slightly better, like, because like, literally, if someone was like, "Well, do you want fascism tomorrow? Do you want fascism in five years," I'd be like, "Five years, please, that gives me a little bit more time to try to fight it." But of course, the problem, obviously, we're way off topic, but the problem is, of course, then people think that like, oh, that's the solution. The solution is engaging with this political system that has no fucking reason for existing besides driving us closer to Ecocide and fascism. Nadia 53:21 Right. That's, that's the band aid. That's the triage. You know, there are so many different things that I think harm reduction principles can be applied to whether that's sex work, you know, mental health issues, eating disorders, tobacco use, I think there's a really natural evolution of the harm reduction philosophy to extend it to other health risk behaviors and to a broader audience in that way. I just, I think that, again, using harm reduction to sort of Pantious Pilate wash your hands of a lot of things and just say,"I voted and that's enough," is it's not going to work. It's not. Margaret 54:00 Okay. No, and now I'm thinking, I'm like, Oh, shit, is my like, I just carry around naloxone. Is that my, like, wash my hands of addressing the larger systemic things and like, well, it doesn't affect me, it clearly affects me because it affects people I care about and it like, I don't know, is the takeaways. Okay, wait, I'm gonna try and some of the takeaways I've gotten from you, is that carry Naloxone, but it's a band aid. And it is a useful one, but the larger systemic problems have to do with criminalization and they have to do with access to safe supply. And so working on the kind of pressure involved to fight for that is good having mutual aid networks....Oh, okay. One of the questions that kind of had actually is, in your experience existing mutual aid networks, how well do they get along with existing harm reduction networks? Does it tend to be the same players and everyone's excited, or do you run across some mutual aid networks do they kind of like to step up their game about actually care about, you know, drug users? Or like, How's that look right now, Nadia 55:09 In my personal experience, and I can't really speak to, you know, places I haven't lived or, you know, different communities that I'm not a part of. But there is a great deal of overlap. You know, a lot of folks that are working in harm reduction, people who use drugs and sex workers are sort of use to you know, fending for ourselves, we're used to creating these these networks of care that exist outside of the current system. And, you know, that's not to say that, when disaster strikes, it can sort of hit some folks harder than others. If the needle exchange in your town closes down, because there was a disaster. You know, there, there might be some time before they opened back up. And that's not going to stop people from using drugs. It will just create a situation where people have to use drugs more dangerously. And so, you know, yes, I think that there's a lot of overlap. But also, it shouldn't be this sort of jerry rigged, you know, last line of defense, the folks that have just experienced a disaster now having to turn around and all care for each other. Because again, no one is coming to save you. Margaret 56:28 Yeah. Yay. That's Nadia 56:32 that's the real point of it. Yes. Margaret 56:35 But I mean it's really liberating. I think that like, I'm not super into political nihilism, personally, a lot of my friends are and I don't mean to slight it. But, the thing that reminds me of what like my like nihilist friends get out of like hopelessness, not hopeless, whatever, out of nihilism is comparable to the like, I find something joyous and liberating about the realization that no one's coming to save us. Because it's this like concept, one of my favorite cliches from like, when I was a baby anarchist was just like, "We are the ones we've been waiting for." Because it's less about, no one is coming to save us, we're doomed. And it's more about like, it is up to us to build the power and capacity necessary to bring about the changes that we need to see in this world. And there's a lot of us, and there's a lot more of us all the time, and the problems we're facing, seem to be getting bigger and bigger, depending on the position you're coming from, right, the problems facing me have gotten bigger and bigger as all the anti trans stuff comes through, or whatever, you know, but there's also more of us. Even to just continue the trans thing as a metaphor. It's like, the reason there's all this anti trans shit is that we all came out of the fucking closet. Like, there's a ton of us. And like, there always were a ton of us, but we were all fucking scared. And like, and what they want to do is make us afraid and get back in the closet. And so I get a lot out of, 'no one is coming to save us.' Because of the flip side being. We're going to save us. Nadia 58:16 Yeah, I mean, I think it's really liberatory. That's something that I love about anarchism, too, you know, yes, that means that, you know, the system isn't here for us, because it's never been here for us. But ultimately, we have to take responsibility for our lives, for our communities, and for the future that we want, as opposed to sort of being handed these these goals and expectations, the rules that were supposed to have, the lives were supposed to lead. And you know, it can be scary to not have that safety net, but I think through, you know, both political discourse, but also just, you know, having lived a life, you quickly become aware that that safety net never actually existed in the first place. Margaret 59:05 Yeah. Well, are there any last words on preparedness that you want to, you want to shout out? Everyone should fill their basement with needles? I don't know. Nadia 59:22 Well, I mean, don't do that. Or if you do that, make sure that they are, you know, safely kept somwhere that only you have access to, or the folks that need them. You know, I know I've kind of hammered this home a lot. But, it really, when I say 'it,' I mean harm reduction. And I think what we're trying to do for ourselves really comes down to community and it comes down to having these bigger goals and not taking, 'no,' for an answer or taking, you know, half measures for an answer. The overdose crisis is very real. And there are pharmaceutical companies and families that have directly caused a lot of pain and death, and they should be held accountable. And that is slowly happening over time. But, I just want to keep clear, you know, who are the folks in our community who are doing the work? And who are maybe the people that are sort of preventing us from living our best lives? Margaret 1:00:34 Yeah. All right. Well, is there anything you want to shout out here at the end of like, what people...I don't know it was anything you want to draw attention to any projects? Any of your work? 1:00:47 You know, support your local needle exchange, support your local sex workers. You know, if there is a call to fight back against fascists, or show up at your local library, because people are doing some fuck shit against trans people, you should be there. That's my shout out. Yeah. Margaret 1:01:05 That's a good shout out. Well, thanks for being on...it's funny as like, every now and then I do these episodes where I'm like, it like challenges my own like weird....I don't want to say puritanical upbringing, I didn't have a puritanical upbringing. I was around a lot of people, you know, all my friends did a lot of drugs when I was in....whatever. And it's just like, interesting to every now and I'd have these episodes like, it's like the first couple times I did firearms episodes. I was like, It's not that I was like, Oh, I'm being so edgy. It was just being like, Oh, right. Information is dangerous because I and then I'm like, that's true about everything. I don't know where I'm going with this. Basically, thanks for coming on to talk about something that I feel like doesn't get talked about because people are afraid to acknowledge it, because we all walk around with this, like, 'drugs are bad,' and then we just secretly all do drugs. And so it's just better to just actually be like, drugs are complicated. Nadia 1:02:03 Yeah, and people are complicated. Margaret 1:02:05 What? Not me. I'm a paladin. I adhere to my moral code. That doesn't sound great. Okay. Yep. All right. Well, thank you for coming on this episode. Nadia 1:02:15 Thanks for having me. Margaret 1:02:17 All right. Bye. Margaret 1:02:25 Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please tell people about it by whatever means that you prefer to tell people about things, like skywriting, please sky write Live Like the World is Dying above a beach. Ooh, get one of those banners that goes behind the like little plane that flies by the beach and usually advertises auto insurance. And instead it should just say, "Live Like the World is Dying." Don't tell people it's a podcast. Just tell people to live like the world is dying and become a cool, no future punk or a only a future if we imagine it....Okay, I'm off track. So, yeah, you can tell people about it. You can also support us. This podcast is published by pa...not by Patreon, it's supported by Patreon. It's published by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which is a publishing collective that I'm part of along with a bunch of other people. We put out books we recently put out Cindy, Barukh's Milstein's "Try Anarchism for Life" and soon possibly, actually, I don't know when this episode is gonna be released. February 1st, 2023, we are releasing my book, "Escape from Incel Island." If you're listening to this before February 1st, 2023, you can pre order it at tangledwilderness.org. If you're listening to it after February 1st, 2023, you can buy it wherever books are sold, or go to the library, or steal a copy from Barnes and Noble. I don't care. And but, don't steal it from an info shop. That's just, it's just mean. Why would you do that? Get a library to carry it and then get it, or steal it from a big corporate place. Whatever. You can support us on patreon at patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness and your donations, go to pay the transcriptionist and pay the audio editor to keep all of this stuff happening. And in particular, I want to thank Aly, and Paparouna, and Milica, and Boise Mutual Aid, Theo, Hunter, Shawn, SJ, Paige, Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana Chelsea, Kat J, Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Kirk, Sam, Michaiah, Chris, and Hoss the dog. I really appreciate all of you and I really appreciate that there's enough of you that I read your names fast and maybe that's like really rude. But, I just like I don't know, I'm kind of like humbled by the support that Strangers gets and I hope that you who are listening well I only hope you support us if you can afford it. If you can't afford it, just continue to get our shit for free. And that's the whole point of supporting, is it helps other people get our shit for free. Anyway I'll talk to you all soon be as well as you can Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co

Little Jerry and Hoss begin the discussion of "deconstruction." Live from Faith Baptist in Greenfield!

Today on the Ether we journey Into the Interchain with Shade Protocol and Cosmos HOSS. You'll hear from Dalts_ShadeProtocol, Fisco, Red_eyed_Bear, and more! Recorded on January 25th 2023. If you enjoy the music at the end of the episodes, you can find the albums streaming on Spotify, and the rest of your favorite streaming platforms. Check out Project Survival, Virus Diaries, and Plan B wherever you get your music. Thank you to everyone in the community who supports TerraSpaces.

Today on the Ether we have Cosmos HOSS hosting an AMA with Miguel at Pulsar Finance. Recorded on January 19th 2023. If you enjoy the music at the end of the episodes, you can find the albums streaming on Spotify, and the rest of your favorite streaming platforms. Check out Project Survival, Virus Diaries, and Plan B wherever you get your music. Thank you to everyone in the community who supports TerraSpaces.

Today on the Ether we have Cosmos HOSS hosting an Oraichain AMA with T.M. Robinson and Landslide Network. Recorded on January 18th 2023. If you enjoy the music at the end of the episodes, you can find the albums streaming on Spotify, and the rest of your favorite streaming platforms. Check out Project Survival, Virus Diaries, and Plan B wherever you get your music. Thank you to everyone in the community who supports TerraSpaces.

Hoss and Little Jerry have on Alex Otto, founder of Remnant's Seed podcast.

Episode Summary Brooke and Margaret recap the passed year of horrifying events, from climate collapse, to inflation economics, to developments with Covid, mass shooting, why the police continue to suck, culture wars, bodily autonomy, why capitalism ruins everything, as well as a glimpse of what could be coming this next year both hopeful and dreadful in This Year in the Apocalypse. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Brooke is just great and can be found at Strangers helping up keep our finances intact and on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Next Episode Hopefully will come out Friday, Jan. 31st. Transcript This Year in the Apocalypse 2022 Brooke 00:15 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm Brooke Jackson, your co-host for this episode, along with the indomitable Margaret killjoy. Margaret 00:27 Hiiii Brooke 00:28 We have something extra special for you. Hi, Margaret. You might be familiar with the monthly segment we started in 2022: This Month in the Apocalypse, and today we will take that into a sub segment: This Year in the Apocalypse. But, first we have to shout out to another member of the Channel Zero network of anarchists podcasts, but playing a little jingle from one of our comrades, Boo doo doo doo, doo doo. Brooke 01:18 And we're back. So, before I tell people about this extra special episode, I want to officially say "Hello," to my co host, Margaret. Hi, Margaret. Margaret 01:36 Hello, how are you? Brooke 01:38 I'm doing okay. How are you doing? Margaret 01:42 I'm doing terrible, and I'm not going to talk about it. Brooke 01:45 Okay, that's fair. That sounds like me most of the time. Okay, well, speaking of terrible, how did the last year treat you now that we've flipped the calendar? Is there anything you would like to say to the year 2022? Margaret 01:59 You know, it's fine. It's just the year 2020 part three. As far as the other parts of the year 2020, it's been...it was chiller, then parts one and two. Not from a climate point of view, but from a fascism point of view. Brooke 02:21 Oh, okay. That's a good point. Well, I feel like 2022 as with most years....Sorry. What, Margaret? Margaret 02:30 Everything's fine. Nothing bad happened. That's the end of the episode. Brooke 02:33 Always. Margaret 02:34 Everything's good. Brooke 02:35 Okay, cool. Well, this has been a fun recording. Yeah. Well, as with most years, in the last decade, I say, "Fuck you to 2022," and would like to burn it all down. So, we have that going for us. Margaret 02:51 Alright, fuck you, 2022. I do that when I leave a state. Brooke 02:58 You say, "Fuck you," to the State behind you? Margaret 02:59 Yeah, yeah. Brooke 03:01 Even even Oregon, even when you came to visit us out here? Margaret 03:05 Why would I? Why would Oregon be any different? Brooke 03:08 Because some of the people you love are in Oregon. Margaret 03:16 Whatever, fuck you too....I mean, many of the people I love were also in the year 2022. Brooke 03:21 Okay, all right. You got me. Margaret 03:24 Okay. Brooke 03:24 One point: Margaret , zero points: Brooke. Margaret 03:26 Yep, that's what I was saying. Brooke 03:27 Yeah. So. So, I was thinking about how we do this extra fun, special episode of This Year in the Apocalypse. And being typical Brooke, I was like, let's come up with a very orderly fashion in which to do this. I shall take all of the months and pick one thing per month, and we shall be organized. And spoiler alert for the audience. Margaret and I came up with separate lists. We haven't seen each other's lists. We don't know what each other shittiest things are. Margaret 03:53 Wait, I didn't pick the shittiest things. I just picked stuff. Brooke 03:56 Oh, damn, I pick the shitty stuff. Margaret 04:00 Okay, well, I tried to go with a little bit of, there's not a lot of hope in here. There's a little bit of hope in here. Brooke 04:08 It's funny, because when I was thinking about this, I was like, oh, Margaret should do the happy stuff, because Margaret does Cool People. And I can be the the Roberts Evans, everything's bastards side of the simulation. Margaret 04:20 Okay, well, it's a good thing we're figuring this out right now, on air. Brooke 04:23 Right? Margaret 04:24 Okay. So, we'll start with your month by month and then I'll interject? Margaret 04:28 That's fine. Brooke 04:28 Super fun. Yeah. And like a disclaimer on the month by month is that not all months were created equal. So, it's like, whatever the shittiest thing in one month, maybe, you know, way shittier than next month. That's annoying to like, try and compare them in that way. It was a silly way for me to do it, but.. here we are. Brooke 04:30 All right. flashing back 12 months to January, 2022: America hit a million COVID cases with Omicron surging, so Good job America. COVID ongoing and bad. Margaret 05:04 We're number one. Brooke 05:06 Yeah. The other the other real shitty, horrible thing in January was inflation, which technically was pretty crappy in 2021, as well. But we started feeling it more in January like that's when it started hitting and then was kind of ongoing throughout this year as businesses responded to the inflation, had to start raising prices and stuff. Well, had to...some had to, some chose to because they could get away with it. Margaret 05:34 Should I? I wrote down all the inflation numbers for the end of the year. Brooke 05:39 Yeah, baby. Margaret 05:41 The OECD, which stands for something something something, it's a group of 38 countries that sit around and talk about how great they are, or whatever economic something, something. You think I would have written it down. They do. They calculate inflation for their member countries, based on the Consumer Price index. It averaged. This is as of October, the report in December, talks about it as of October, it averaged about 10.7% overall inflation across these 38 countries in the last year. Food averaged at...I wrote down 6.1%. But, I actually think it was slightly higher than that. I think I typo-ed that. Brooke 06:22 In the US was closer to 8%. Margaret 06:26 Yeah, and then, okay. More developed nations saw this all a little bit lower the G7, which is the Group of Seven, it's the seven countries who have the elite cool kids club, and try and tell everyone what to do. Their overall inflation was 7.8%, as compared to the 10.7%. Inflation in the US actually tapered off most than most other countries, probably because we fuck everyone else over, but I couldn't specifically tell you. Inflation is a bit of a black box that even the people who know what inflation is don't really understand. And, energy inflation in general was the most brutal. Italy saw 70% energy inflation in the last year. It was 58%. In the UK, it was 17% in the US. So energy, inflation is actually outpacing even food inflation. And most of the food inflation, as we've talked about, at different times on this is caused by rising costs of fertilizer and like diesel and things like that. Yeah, that's what I got about inflation. There was a lot of it. It's technically tapering off a little bit in the United States. Just this moment. Brooke 07:41 Yeah, I was actually listening to a economics report about that yesterday about how it's tapering off a little bit. The extra shitty thing that happened in February, which added to the drastically increasing fuel prices and food prices, was that fucking Russia invaded Ukraine,and started bombing shit there. Margaret 08:04 Boo. Brooke 08:06 And that that might win as...if we're taking a poll here of all of the worst things that happened in the last year, I kind of feel like that, you know, that's got to be one of the top three. Margaret 08:16 It's, it's up there. Yeah. Even in terms of its effects on the rest of the world, even like, if you're like, on a, well, what do I care about what two European countries are doing? Because, but it affects the shit out of the global south. Ukraine in particular, and also Russia providing a very large percentage of the grain and wheat that goes to, especially Africa. So, yeah, a lot of the energy inflation in the rest of Europe is also a direct result of Russian imperialism. Brooke 08:47 Yeah, it's pretty...it's fucked up a lot of stuff. There was another shitty thing that happened before that happened in February, which is what the Olympics began. And you know, Boo the Olympics. Yeah. So then we then we moved into March and there was this thing called COVID. And then there was this bad inflation happening and then this war over in Ukraine, but then we also, in Florida decided to pass a bill, the nicknamed 'Don't Say Gay' bill. Margaret 09:18 Yeah. I can't believe that was less than a year ago. That was like eight culture wars ago. Brooke 09:26 I know, because I got some of the other ones coming up here. And it was like, oh, fuck, that's still a thing. And then moving into April, so, there was like this war going on, and inflation was bad, and people were dying of this pandemic that we were living in, and then also, the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard trial began. And that might not seem like one of the shittiest things, but for like anyone who's been a survivor of domestic violence, and the way that trial it seemed like you know, every social media platform like you were getting like ads for it. Right? I know, other people talked about this, like everyone was seeing all these ads for news reports on it. It was like way at the top of the list. And, you know, again, domestic abuse survivor, like, I don't, I don't need to be reminded about, you know, this awful ongoing domestic abuse trial. Margaret 10:19 Yeah, yeah, that was, um, I like try to avoid everything that has to do with celebrities, but realizing how much that that like, ties into, I don't know, how we all talk about all of this shit. I have nothing really clever to say besides like, oh, my God, it's so fucked up. And I don't trust mainstream discourse around any of it. Yeah, Brooke 10:39 For sure. We also saw because of climate issues, Lake Mead was dropping to dangerously low levels, starting all the way in April. And I feel like we could have done this whole episode on climate catastrophes that happened in the last year, like This Year in the Apocalypse could have just been climate change. It was a lot. Margaret 11:00 Yes, well, fortunately that will start overriding everything else over the next couple of years. So, you know....One or the other just to Lake thing on my note, Lake Powell, which provides power to 4.5 million people could reach minimum power pool status by July [2023]. So that's a that's an upcoming thing to look forward to. Brooke 11:29 Yay, for the year ahead. Yeah, I don't even know what the status of Lake Mead is right now. I'm sure it's not doing great. And we'll probably start hearing about it again in the spring as it's at dangerously low levels, find more bodies and boats and whatever else. Margaret 11:46 And they're both. Both are on the Colorado River. Yeah, they're both on the Colorado River. Brooke 11:51 Yeah. And if you're not familiar with why Lake Mead matters, John Oliver actually did a really good piece on it on his show that talks about the water rights and stuff. I think it was John Oliver. Maybe it was John Stewart. Margaret 12:07 And if you want to read a terrible...a very good, although misogynist dystopia about what's coming in terms of water rights, there's a book called "The Water Knife" by Paulo [Bacigalupi], whose name last name I don't know how to pronounce. It's an Italian name. I think yeah, Brooke 12:21 I actually have that on my to-read-shelf. Margaret 12:23 Yeah, it's, um, that man should not be allowed to write sex worker characters ever again. Brooke 12:29 Thank you for the notice there on what to expect on that aspect. Margaret 12:34 But other than that, other than that, it's very interesting book. Brooke 12:40 Okay. May brought us a couple of big bad shootings, which is, you know, not again, not to diminish any other school shootings or shootings that happened or the fact that they're going on, you know, all the time in schools, but they were the ones that like, hit the news, really big. There was the Buffalo, New York supermarket shooting that happened. And then the towards the end of the month was that just God awful Robb Elementary School shooting in Texas, that I don't know how everyone else experienced it. But I, as a parent, you know, whose child who's only slightly older than that. It was absolutely horrifying for me and enraging, and I had a lot of feelings about it. And you know, school shootings are always hard to see, but that one in particular... Margaret 13:29 This is the coward cops one, where they kept parents out who were the parents who were trying to like save kids? Brooke 13:33 Yeah, for like 72 minutes or something like that, more than that they were outside the door where the guy was actively shooting on children. Margaret 13:41 This is...the character of American law enforcement was laid bare on that day, is how I feel. I mean, I have many feelings on all of it, but... Brooke 13:53 And that was in Uvalde, Texas, where they have two separate police systems. There is a police system just for the schools there in addition to the town's police. Margaret 14:07 There was that, uh, there was that lawsuit 10,15,20 years ago, something, where a man who was like, I think it was someone who's like stabbing people on the train, you know, just like, just just doing that thing. And, and a man stopped him, stopped the stabby guy while the cops cowered in behind, like they went into, like the driver's compartment of the train, and they just hid from the stabby guy. And the the guy stopped the stabby guy sued...I might have the details of this wrong. Sued and was like, the police have a duty to protect people. And it came back, the judge is like, "Actually they don't, it is literally not the jobs. The police's job is not to protect you. That is not their job." And, the sooner we all realize that the safer we'll be, because the more people will realize that safety is something that we're going to have to build without the infrastructure that pretends to offer a safety, but absolutely does not. And legally is not required to. Brooke 14:21 Yeah, I didn't know all the backstory of that. But, I know that that one went to the Supreme Court. And that became, you know, the national standard, because I remember reading about that part of it that, yeah, they don't, they don't have they don't have a duty to protect. Margaret 15:27 I think it was the stabby guy on the train. But I, you know, I'm not like a classic thing rememberer, it's not like my skill set. I didn't put my points in character creation in memory. Brooke 15:41 Well important thing there is was the the outcome of that. The other big bad shooting I remember making the news pretty loudly this year was also the Highland Park Parade shooting that actually happened in July. So that was a couple of months later. But yeah, good times. Guns. Margaret 15:58 Hurray. [sadly] Brooke 15:59 All right. So, we moved into June. And a couple of things are going on, on the global stage. Flooding began in Pakistan. And that flooding continued for a couple of months. We talked about this on one of our This Month, episodes, and even to right now, there is still flooding. And that flooding that did occur, you know, has displaced 1000s, if not millions of people. And it's really, really fucked things up and continues to fuck things up in Pakistan. Margaret 16:25 And I would say that flooding in general, is one of the things that we're seeing more and more of all over the world. And it's one of the things that like...I think a lot of people and maybe I'm just projecting, but you know, I grew up thinking of floods as sort of a distant thing. And then actually where I lived, most recently, we all had to leave because of constant flooding as climate changed. And I think that floods need to be something....It's the opposite of quicksand. When you're a kid you think about quicksand is like this thing to like, worry about, and then you grow up and realize that like quicksand is like not...don't worry about quicksand. That's not part of your threat modeling. And, so I think that flooding is something that whether or not it was on something that you were really worried about, wherever you live, it is something that you should pay attention to. It's not like, a run out and worry, right. But, it's a thing to be like more aware of, you know, there was recent...New Years in San Francisco and Oakland, there was really bad flooding. And then again, a couple of days later, might still be going on by the time people listen to this, but I'm not actually sure. And you know, there's the footage of people running out with like boogie boards or surfboards or whatever into the streets and, and playing in the flood. And, I'm not actually going to sit here on my high horse and tell people to never go into floodwater, you shouldn't, it is not a thing you should do, but it is a thing that people do. But I think people don't recognize fast moving currents, how dangerous they are, just how dangerous floods are, no matter how they look. And, if there's more than a foot of water, don't drive through it. Brooke 17:58 Yeah, if you're not experienced with floods, those are things you wouldn't know. So I have, you know, you said, that wasn't a big thing in your childhood, but because of where I live, it you know, I don't know if this is true of all the Pacific Northwest, but certainly, in my town, flooding is a big concern, we''re right on a river, and when there was bad rainstorms back in 96', like most of downtown got flooded. I mean, I was I was a kid then. I was I was a youth. And that experience, you know, kind of informed some of my youth, you know, we had a lot of lessons learned about how to manage flooding, what you do and don't do inflooding. So that's something that's been in the forefront of my mind. And yeah, as I see other people dealing with flooding for the first time in the news, it's like, oh, no, no, you don't. No. That's bad. Don't do that. Don't go in those waters. But it's their first time. They wouldn't know. Margaret 18:53 Yeah. Unless you were like, directly saving something or someone, especially someone, and then even then you have to know what you're doing. You know, they're a bigger deal, even smaller ones are a bigger deal than you realize, I guess is the thing to say about floods. Anyway, so Okay, so where are we at? Brooke 19:10 We're still in June, because there was, you know, in addition to the inflation, and the flooding, and the heat waves, and the war going on, and people dying of a pandemic, this little thing happened in the US where the Supreme Court's overturned a little a little old law called Roe v. Wade. Margaret 19:29 That was about two different ways of interacting with water? [joking] Brooke 19:33 Yes, exactly. Ties, ties, right and flooding there. Yeah. It was just a minor... Margaret 19:39 Yeah, that's my joke about people losing their capacity to control their own bodies. Just a little light hearted joke. Very appropriate. Brooke 19:48 As a person with a uterus, I genuinely can't...i can't joke about that one. Like, it's just too close to home. Margaret 19:54 Yeah, fair enough. I'm sorry. Brooke 19:57 No, it's I'm glad that you are, because it is good to laugh about these things that are actually very upsetting. It's how, it's part of our, you know, grieving process, how we deal with it as being able to laugh a little bit. Margaret 20:08 Yeah. Yeah, although and then, you know, okay, so we've had this like, fight, you know, America's polarizing really hard about a lot of very specific issues: people's ability to control the reproductive systems being a very major, one people's ability to control their hormonal systems and the way they present being another one, I'm sure I'll talk about that more. And, you know, the, the weirdly positive thing that happened this week that I started writing notes about, but didn't finish, is about how there's now...they're changing the laws about how the accessibility of abortion pills and so that they're going to be available in more types of stores for more people in the near future. This will not affect people who are in abortion ban states. So it's this polarization, it's becoming easier to access reproductive health and control in some states, and it's becoming harder and illegal to access it in other states. My other like, positive...It's not even a positive spin. It's the glint of light in the darkness is that abortion was illegal for a very long time in the United States, and people did it, and had access to it and not as well, and it is better when it is legal. Absolutely. But underground clinics existed. And people did a lot of work to maintain reproductive health. And now we have access to such better and safer tools for reproductive health, whether you know, it's access to abortion pills, or just everything about reproductive health has...we know a lot more about it as a society than at least medical and Western, you know, methods of abortion. We know a lot more about than we did a couple decades ago. And then, the other big thing that I keep thinking about...so there was the Jane Collective, right, in the US is I'm just like moving into history mode. Is that annoying? Brooke 22:06 Go for it. Margaret 22:07 Teah. It's my other fucking podcast, all history and so like there's the Jane Collective in the US. And they were really fucking cool. And they provided all these abortions to people in Chicago, and they actually pioneered a lot of methods of abortion and pushed forward a lot of important shit, right? In the 1920s, in Germany, anarchists ran more than 200 abortion clinics. Basically, if you wanted an abortion in 1920s, Germany, you went to the syndicalists, you went to the anarcho syndicalists. And because they sat there, and they were like, "Oh, a large amount of crime needs to be done on an organized fashion. And what is anarcho syndicalism? But a way to organize crime?" In this case, usually it's like class war against bosses and illegal strikes and stuff. But, "How do we organize that on a large scale?" And the anarchists were the ones who had the answer answers to, 'How do you organize crime on a large scale,' and I want to know more about that information. I haven't found that much about it in English yet. But, that kind of thing gives me hope. It gives me hope that we can, it's better when it is legal, I'm not being like, this is great, you know, it's fucked up, but we can do this. And, you know, on this very podcast, if you listen to one of the Three Thieves, Four Thieves? Some Number of Thieves Vinegar Collective, Margaret, famous remember of details, they they talk about their work, developing reverse engineering or making accessible, different abortion drugs and how to basically like, create them, and get them to where they need to be, regardless of the legality of those things. But, you might have more to say about this, too. I just wanted to go into history mode. Brooke 23:50 No, I I liked that. And yeah, you did those episodes in a few different ways about it that are super important. I mean, I don't think I need to rehash why Roe is so important. We we know that, you know, and it's not just about reproductive rights for people with uteruses, either. It's about the trends towards you know, bodily autonomy and regulation of bodies. And you know, what that signals as well, it's an issue for everybody. Margaret 24:17 Yeah. And remember, like at the very beginning, some people were like, they might be coming for birth control next, and everyone's like, Nah, they're not coming for birth control. And now you can see the same, the same right wing people who are like, "We should probably just kill the gay people." They like say it and city council meetings. They're also being like, "And birth control on my right, like, fuck that thing?" Brooke 24:36 Yeah. Frustrating. Margaret 24:39 Yeah. Get it out of someone's cold dead hands. Brooke 24:45 Yeah, this is one of those things where the months don't necessarily compare. Yeah. Margaret 24:49 There's that meme....Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, go. Brooke 24:52 We...you know there were historic heat waves going on. Continued flooding and droughts. And all kinds of climate nastiness. And then in, in Tariff Island, we saw a whole bunch of British officials resign, and then Boris Johnson resigning, which, you know, fuck the government and all of those kinds of things, and fuck that guy. But, it did also lead into this, what has been kind of a lot of turmoil in the UK as they've gone through now a couple of different prime ministers and just like, you know, just the the, the sign of the crumbles of how just overwhelmingly corrupt political leaders are, you know, at this point in so called, you know, democratic and stable democracies, that, you know, they're falling apart too. Margaret 25:39 Now, that's a good point. Um, what year did that lady I didn't like die? What day? What month? Queen? Brooke 25:48 I didn't put down the month because that's a happy thing that happened, not a shitty thing. Margaret 25:51 I know. Remember positive things about 2022. And like, stadiums full of like, Irish folks being like, "Lizzie's in a box. Lizzie's in a box." There's like some positive things. Brooke 26:08 I might rewatch some of those after this, just for a little pick me up. Margaret 26:11 Yeah. The people dancing in front of the palace, anyway. Yeah. I don't like colonialism or monarchy. I don't know if anyone knew this about me. Brooke 26:20 Yeah. No, same. I've been trying to explain to my kid about why Queen Elizabeth was bad. And she's having a hard time. Because, you know, children and fantasies and stories and kings and queens, and blah, blah, blah. Margaret 26:32 Yeah. Which is the fucking problem. Brooke 26:34 Yeah, a similar kind of thing happened in August in terms of like, you know, unstable, so supposedly stable governments, in that the the FBI had to raid Mar-a-Lago and Trump which, again, fuck Trump and the FBI and the federal government and all of that, but as a sign of, you know, our democracies actually not being very sound, and how just grossly corrupt politicians are and stuff, the only way they could get back a bunch of confidential documents and like, nuclear related stuff was to fucking invade a former president. Yeah. Also in August Yeah. monkeypox started hitting the news, which of course, speaking of culture was, right, that led into a whole bunch of stuff about, you know, a bunch of anti-gay stuff and reminders of what the AIDS epidemic was like, and just a whole bunch of fucking nonsense up in the news because of that. Margaret 27:32 God, I barely remember that. Brooke 27:34 Right, I think we did it on an episode, a This Month episode. Margaret 27:38 I mean, I remember it now. It's just there's so much. There's so much. Yeah. Yeah. Brooke 27:44 So September brought us protests starting to erupt in Iran. Finally. There was a woman, Masha Amini, who was arrested, you know, they had been doing caravans, were doing these crackdowns and the morality police and stuff. And so that was the start of a bunch of turmoil there that went on for at least three months. It's finally settled down some last month. But that was going on, and then also towards the end of the month hurricane Ian hit in Florida. So, not to make it all about the climate. But again, historic hurricanes and flooding and stuff. Margaret 28:19 Yeah. And these things are related to each other. I mean, like, as you have global insecurity caused by climate, it's going to show all of the cracks in the systems and like, it's hard, because it's like, overall, you know, I see the the attempted revolution, the uprising in Iran is an incredibly positive thing and like reminder of the beauty of the human spirit. And also, like, what happened, the end result of that, that, I don't even want to say, 'end result,' though, right? Because like, every social struggle is going to ebb and flow. And, our action is going to cause reaction. And you know, and whenever people have uprisings, they remember power. They also remember fear, right? And the system is hoping that people remember fear. And the people are hoping that they remember power, you know, and, and it seems impossible to predict which uprisings will lead to fear and which ones will lead to power in terms of even when they're crushed, right? Whether that is the fertile soil for the next rising or whether it you know, has salted the earth to try and keep my metaphor consistent. Brooke 29:43 Nah, mixed metaphors the best. Okay, yeah, it's not a bad thing that people were protesting against what was going on there. It's it's awful that they had to get to that point that the morality police were so bad that they had to start protesting and ongoing conflict and unrest in the Middle East, never ending. Margaret 30:06 And I want to know more. I haven't done enough research on this yet, but another like hopeful thing about, you know, sort of global feminist, radical politics, there's been a recent movement of men in Afghanistan, who are walking out of exams and walking out of different positions that only men are allowed to hold, you know, in schools and things like that, in protest of the fact that of women's disinclusion. Brooke 30:33 Okay, I hadn't heard anything about that. So that's, yeah, We'll have to add that to a This Month, because I want to know more about that too. That sounds really positive. Margaret 30:40 Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know whether it's, you know, happened three times, and it's caught headlines each time or I don't know enough about it to talk about it as a movement. But it matters. That kind of stuff matters. And yeah, it's hopeful. Brooke 30:57 Well, we moved into October and the fall season, and y'all might remember this little one, some South African asshole named Elon Musk, Mosh, Mosk, whatever that guy's name is, Margaret 31:10 He's named after the rodent, the muskrat. Brooke 31:13 Okay, that'll be easy to remember. That guy officially took over at the only social media platform that I don't mostly hate, which is Twitter. A lot of his fucked-up-ness...Nah, he did some of that the first week, that was still in October. And then definitely more came after that. But, he's destroying the microblogging site that we all love so much. Margaret 31:36 Yeah, I will say, my favorite meme that come out of that was basically like, you know what, I've decided that I am okay with Elon Musk being in charge of the exodus of all the rich people to Mars. [Laughs] Brooke 31:50 Yes, winning. Do that quickly. Margaret 31:53 Yeah. He'll fuck it up. Like he fucks everything up. You've seen Glass Onion? Brooke 31:58 Yes, I did. Margaret 32:00 I don't want to like spoil it for people. But, I'll just say that movie did a really good job of pointing out that Elon Musk is just a fucking...is not an intelligent person, is not doing genius things. And it was pointed out really well. Brooke 32:15 Can I point out something embarrassing? Margaret 32:17 Absolutely, it's just you and I here. Brooke 32:21 No one will ever know. I didn't realize when I watched it that that guy was supposed to be a parody of like Elon Musk specifically. I thought it was just like generic, you know, rich people are terrible. And then it wasn't till like after I watched it, and everyone else started watching it and commenting that it was Musk and I was like, "Oh, damn, obviously it is." Margaret 32:42 Yeah, it's the like, the car thing and the space thing are the main nods. I mean, it's at the same time. It could be Bezos it could be any fucking, like tech billionaire asshole. But I think it was, I think it was intentionally Musk. Brooke 32:56 Yeah, I've got to rewatch it with that in mind. I was too busy going, "Oh, it's that guy. It's that actor or actress. Someone I know that person. Enjoy the characters. Yeah. That was a thing that happened in December, but we haven't done November, so November, Powerball made some poor asshole into a billionaire. So I feel bad for that guy. Yeah. So the Powerball, nobody had won it for like three months, and the pot got up to like $2 billion. And a single a single person had the winning ticket when it was finally pulled. Which, if they take the cash payout, which I think most people do, it's actually only $1 billion. And then, probably the government takes that. So you're only half a billionaire, probably by the time all is said and done. But still, that's, you know, what a way to fuck up the rest of your existence by suddenly having that much money. Margaret 33:51 I'm like, I'd take a shot. Brooke 33:56 I like to think, you know, I have this list of all these nice things that I would do and people I would support and love, but the evidence bears out that anyone who's ever won something like that doesn't make all the great choices. Margaret 34:09 No, no. Okay. Yeah, I think you need to have a council of people who direct...I think that any anarchist who's like, possibly going to end up rich, like, whether through inheritance or becoming the next Stephen King or whatever needs to, like, seriously consider how the dealing with that money should be a collective effort and not an individual effort. Anyway. Brooke 34:35 I agree. Yeah. Margaret 34:36 I went through this when, at one point, I did not get...I did not become a millionaire. But, at one point, Hollywood was interested in one of my my books, and we had long conversations about it. I had conversations with the Hollywood director around it, about whether or not they would adapt a certain book of mine into a TV show. And it didn't work out in the end. But, I like sat there and mathed it out and was like, oh, if they make it TV show out of my book, I will become a millionaire. And like, what would that mean? And, and so that's when I started having these, like, which just totally the same as winning the Powerball and having a billion dollars, and also not just not my weird...I don't know, whatever. Now everyone knows this. Brooke 35:16 I don't think that's a unique thing. Yeah, so that happened in November. And that sucks. And it didn't make the news the way it should have. So I just wanted to highlight that horribleness. And then, also that orange clown douchebag potato that lives in Florida, said that he's going to run for president again. So, we have that to look forward to. But, then the third thing that happened, which isn't just isolated to November, but the World Cup started, and I have nothing against football, love football, the World Cup as a concept. Fine, but there are so many problems, much like the Olympics, with the way they do it. And what happens around all that. Margaret 36:00 Yeah, yeah, I love...I love that I should be able to like a lot of things. And then the way that they're done by our society precludes me from really deeply enjoying them. Brooke 36:10 Why do you have to take such a nice thing and ruing it. Margaret 36:13 All things. All things. You could name anything, and we could talk about how capitalism and fucking imperialism ruined it. Brooke 36:20 Yeah, pretty much. Down with those systems. Alright, so now we're finally getting into the end. You'll remember this one, because it was only like a month ago that there were some targeted attacks in North Carolina on power stations. 40,000 people without power for several days, in fact, it wasn't like a quick fix thing. They really fucked some shit up there. One that I didn't hear about, but that has some pretty big implications is that the country of Indonesia banned sex outside of marriage, even for foreigners living in their country, and stuff. Brooke 36:54 Yeah. So, I don't know if the ramifications for that are. I didn't dig deeper into like, what is the consequence of you doing that. But you know, Indonesia's massive. I mean, that populations huge. Margaret 36:54 I had no idea. Margaret 37:05 Yeah, Lousiana just banned, as of I think January 1, you're not allowed to access porn on the internet from Louisiana without showing a government ID to the website. Which, means that now everyone, basically they passed a law saying you have to install a VPN in order to access porn in Louisiana. Brooke 37:27 That's madness. Margaret 37:29 Yeah, and it fucks up sex workers, right? Like any of this stuff, any of this bullshit, it always just fucks sex workers. Brooke 37:39 Yeah, they become the victims of the law, even though they're not, they're not the bad guys here. And in porn, they're never the bad guys, Pro sex workers. My last horrible thing that happened in December was that China decided to just completely give up on all of its COVID protocols that it spent the whole year continuing to be super restrictive, and have lock downs and all of that. And then all of a sudden, it's just like, "No, we're not gonna do any of that anymore." Oh, just a great way to change policy is just to stop completely all of a sudden. Yeah. Margaret 38:15 I just think it's really funny, because it's like, what? Sometimes people like really talk about how they want like a multipolar world where there's like, it's like what people use to defend the USSR, right, is that they're like, well, at least, there was someone competing with the US or whatever. But, when I think about COVID response, there was always like the US response, which was absolute dogshit. And then there was the Chinese response, which was like, too authoritarian and caused a lot of suffering and all of these things, but, was not a non response. And now, that one has fallen as well. And there's just like, I mean, there's more countries than the US and China. I'm reasonably sure. I couldn't promise. So, hurray, we're in it. We're just in it. That's...this is just COVID world now. It's COVID's world. We just live in it. Brooke 39:13 Yeah, exactly. So I think you had some, like bigger overarching trends of things that happened in 2022. Margaret 39:21 A lot of the stuff I have is a little bit like what we have to look forward to. Brooke 39:26 Oh, nice. Margaret 39:27 Just some like nice, light stuff. The National Farmers Union in the UK says that the UK is on the verge of a food crisis. Brooke 39:35 Great. Margaret 39:36 Yields of tomatoes and other crops, especially energy intensive ones like cucumbers and pears are at record lows. And there's already an egg shortage in the UK, and a lot of places where there were stores are rationing sales of eggs, you can only buy so many eggs at any given time. And, it's not because there's no chickens. It's that rising costs of production have convinced more and more farmers...it's a capitalism thing in this like really brutal way. It's the markets logic, right? If it costs too much to produce a thing, don't produce it. But, when the thing you do is produce food, there's some problems here. Brooke 40:13 Are there? Margaret 40:14 And I mean, I'm a vegan. And I got to admit, when I hear things like, they're cutting back beef production, because it costs too much. I'm like, that's good. That is good for animals. And that is good for the climate. However, that's not being replaced with more of other types of foods. So it's not necessarily good. Brooke 40:33 And if Casandra were here, and she has very restrictive things on what she can eat, because of her health, she would be jumping in to say, "But protein!" because she needs to be able to have access to that. Margaret 40:45 No, totally. And I'm not trying to, I'm not like specifically pushing for a vegan world. And I recognize that everyone's bodies are different, and have different needs around a lot of things. But, I do think that data shows fairly clearly that the level of animal agriculture that we do, especially in centralized ways, across the world is a major driver of climate change. And, it is a major driving of a lot of really bad stuff. It's just a very inefficient way to produce food for a large number of people. This is different at different scales. And I am not, I'm not specifically trying to advocate for...Yeah, I don't think a vegan world is a good or just idea. I think it is perfectly natural for people to eat animals. However, I think that there's both needless suffering that can be cut back and as well as like, just specifically from a climate change point of view. So... Brooke 41:39 I hear you. Margaret 41:39 That said, UK, dealing with egg shortage. Basically, farmers might stop selling milk because of production...that it cost so much to produce the milk. Not like, I'm sure there's still farmers who are going to produce milk. But, more and more farmers are stopping. Beet farmers are considering the same. There's also just literally about 7000 fewer registered food production companies in the UK than three years ago. Brooke 42:04 Wow. Margaret 42:05 Because at least in the UK, fertilizer costs have tripled since 2019. And diesel costs are up at about...both feed and diesel costs are up about 75% from what they were before. Shortages. The infant formula shortage might last until Spring according to one major formula producer. We very narrowly avoided a major disruption as a result of a diesel shortage in the United States recently. Basically, they like brought more diesel plants...I don't know the word here, refineries? Refineries, like online kind of at the last minute, like because there was going to be like really major disruptions in the way that we move food and other things around the United States because of diesel shortages. Let's see what else... Brooke 43:00 Have...I'm super curious here, have food shortages in the UK ever caused problems of any kind? It seems like that's not a big deal. Like they're...they can deal with that. Right? That hasn't killed anyone, right? Margaret 43:10 Ireland's not part of the United Kingdom. [laughs] Yeah, yeah. No, it's okay. I mean, it's interesting, because like, modern farming has really changed the face of famine. Famine used to be a very common part of...I can actually only speak to this in a very limited context, it's like something that came up in my history research, like Napoleon, the middle one, or whatever. I can't remember. Probably the second, maybe the third I'm not sure. The Napoleon who like took over and like 1840...8? Someone is mad at me right now. In France, who modernized Paris and made it like, impossible to build barricades and shit. Brooke 43:52 We can FaceTime, Robert, real quick and find out. Margaret 43:55 Yeah, yeah, totally. And, but one of the things that he did, or rather, that happened under his reign as a part of 19th century development, is that famine had been a very major common regular part of French life. And it ceased to be, and famine is something that the modern world, developed parts of the modern world, have been better at minimizing as compared to like, some historical stuff. Obviously, a lot of this just gets pushed out into the developing world. And you know, famine is a very major part of a great number of other countries' existence. But, I think that people get really used to the idea that famine doesn't really happen. And it does, and it can again, and it's similar what you're talking about, like we have this like, kind of unshakable faith in our democracies. But, they are shakable they, they they shake. Brooke 43:56 They've been shooked. Margaret 44:48 Yeah, they're They are not stirred. They're shaken. Okay. Okay, so other stuff: Pfizer's currently working on an RSV vaccine. I consider that positive news. My news here is about a month old. It's been given the like, go ahead for further studies and shit and, and that's very promising because we're in the middle of a triple-demic or whatever. But there's actually been as a weird positive thing. I mean, obviously, we've learned that society does not know how to cope with pandemics. But, one thing is we have learned a lot more about a lot of health stuff as a result of this, you know, and the types of new vaccines that people are able to come up with now are very, they're very promising. And a fun news, as relates to the climate change thing that's happening, more and more Americans are moving to climate at risk areas. Specifically, people are leaving the Midwest. And they're moving to the Pacific Northwest and Florida. And these are two of the least climatically stable from a disaster point of view areas in the United States. Brooke 46:04 Okay. Margaret 46:05 Specifically, specifically because of wildfire in the Pacific Northwest, and hurricanes in Florida. Also earthquakes on the West Coast and things like that, but specifically wildfire. And also within those areas, a thing that causes...humans have been encroaching into less developed areas at a greater rate. And this is part of what causes, obviously the fires are getting worse out west as a result of climate change, but it's also the way in which new communities are developed out west that is causing some of the worst damages from fires. So yeah, everyone's moving to those places. That's not a good idea in mass. I'm not telling individuals who live in those places to leave. And there's actually, you know, the Pacific Northwest has some like stuff going on about fairly stable temperature wise, and for most climate models, but this is part of why disasters are impacting more and more Americans as people are leaving the places to move to places where it's greater risk. Yeah, there's this map, just showing where people are leaving and where people are going to. And it's actually, there are other places that people are going to that would have surprised me like, Georgia, North Carolina, parts of Tennessee, like kind of like Southern Appalachian kind of areas, like more and more people are moving towards, and more and more people are leaving upstate New York, which really surprised me. But, and more people are leaving North Texas and moving to Southeast Texas, or like the general eastern part of Texas is growing very rapidly. Okay, what else have I got? Taiwan has set up a set group called the Doomsday Preppers Association, which is just sick, because it's called the Doomsday Preppers Association. And it's like, not a wing nut thing. And they have a wing nut name which rules, I'm all for it. There's about 10,000 people or so who are organizing together to prepare for natural disasters, and also to prepare for the potential invasion from China. Which, China's back to threatening to, to do that. And it's but, it's like people just like getting together to like, build networks, learn radios, and just like, be preppers, but in a, like, normalized way, and it's fucking cool. And, I'd love to see it here. Okay. What else? I don't have too many notes left. Florida, is expected to have major wildfires starting in 2023 according to the National Interagency Fire Center report, as well as Georgia, New Mexico and Texas. I'm willing to bet that New Mexico and Texas in particular, and probably Georgia, that's probably...those are very big states with very different bio regions within them. And, so I couldn't point you, if you live in one of those places, you might want to look for the National Interagency Fire Center Report, and read more about it. Brooke 48:56 Speaking of moving, it's a great time to get the fuck out of Florida. With like, I could have done almost every month something just atrocious happened in Florida. Margaret 49:06 Yeah. And one of the things that, you know, we talked a little bit about the culture war stuff. One of the things that's happened in 2023, overall, is that we've started to see more political refugees from within the United States to the United States. We have seen a lot of trans families, or families of trans children, have had to leave states where their providing medical care for their children has become criminal. Obviously also with the end of Roe v. Wade, a lot of people have had to change which state they live in. Although, I don't like doing this like comparison thing, because it's just fucked for everyone, but you can you can vacation your way out of pregnancy. You know? Brooke 49:50 I don't know that I've heard it described that way, but... Margaret 49:54 But if you want to be a 13 year old on hormone blockers, or whatever that you need in order to stay safe, a lot of people are moving, and a lot of people can't move. And there's really complicated questions that we all have to ask ourselves right now about like, stay and go. And like, like stay and fight, versus get the fuck out. And everyone's gonna have to make those questions differently. Okay, another positive thing a weird, like positive tech thing... Brooke 50:20 Yay positive. Margaret 50:22 So like I own, and I recommend it to people who spend a lot of time off grid or out outside the range of cell service. I own like a Garmin satellite communicator, it's a little tiny device, it looks like a tiny walkie talkie. And it can talk to satellites. And I can like text from anywhere in the world, I can see the sky, whether or not I have cell service. And more importantly than that, I can send an SOS. And these are fairly expensive things, they cost a couple hundred dollars. And then you have to sign up for service. And they make sense for people who are like backpacking a lot or driving in areas where there's no, you know, service or whatever, right? New new phones, specifically the iPhone 14, I hate to be like, I'm not telling everyone to run out get new phone, but as a trend is very positive, that some new phones have this already built in. So you won't need to have a separate device. And I think that is a very positive thing from a prepper point of view, to have access to a way to communicate when cell service is not there. Yeah, that is really important. And I have one final thing and it's very positive. Brooke 51:29 Okay, I'm ready. Margaret 51:30 It's actually a double edged sword. On January 5, I'm cheating. This was in 2023. On January 5, 2023, this current year, like last week, yesterday, as we record this, two assholes in Bakersfield, California tried to set an Immigration Services Center on fire, like it was a center that like, um, I mean, ironically, it helped undocumented folks or like immigrant folks pay income taxes, and like helped people navigate the paperwork of being immigrants, you know, because there's actually something that people don't know, all these like, right wing pieces of shit, is that like, undocumented people, like, many of them pay taxes. I don't know. Whereas a lot of the people who like to talk all kinds of shit about undocumented people, don't pay taxes. Anyway, whatever. What were you gonna say? Sorry. Brooke 52:16 Oh, just this, that as an economist, as a group, undocumented people pay more into the system than they as a group take out of the system. Margaret 52:25 That makes a lot of sense. So, there's an Immigration Services Center. Two assholes, tried to set it on fire. They set themselves on fire, fled the scene on fire and left their cell phone at the scene. The reason it's double edged is, because one it sucks that people attack this and they actually did do damage to the center as well, mostly to some equipment used by someone who ran I believe a carwash out of that shared some space or whatever. But yeah, they like poured accelerant everywhere. And then a guy just like, knelt down over the pool of accelerant and like, lit it. And then just like, his, like, his leg was on fire. So, his friend ran over to help and like got caught on fire too. And then, they just both like, ran out of range of, because it's all caught on camera, you know? And fuck them. And I hope that their fucking wounds are horrible. And by the time you listen to this, they were probably caught because they left their fucking phone there. And fuck them. That's my light news. Brooke 53:36 I'll take it. Margaret 53:37 Okay, what are you excited for, looking forward? Go ahead. Sorry. Brooke 53:40 Well, hopefully more fascists are gonna light themselves on fire and other types of right wing assholes. I mean, I would be very happy about that happening in 2023 Margaret 53:48 Yeah. May this be the year of Nazis on fire. Brooke 53:54 Yes. Agreed. That would be lovely. I don't know about...I don't know if I have a lot of global stuff that I thought about being positive. I have. I have like personal stuff, like I am going to be doing...hosting more these podcast episodes. I've got one coming up. Maybe this month, we're releasing it? But I did it all by myself. Yeah, more lined up to come out in the next couple of months and some really cool topics and people that I get to chat with. So I'm stoked about that. Margaret 54:21 That is also something I'm excited about for 2023 is that this podcast is increasingly regular and it is because of the hard work of me...No, everyone else. Is the hard work of everyone else who works on this show are like really kind of taking the reins more and more and it is no longer, it's no longer the Margaret Killjoy Show and I'm very grateful and I believe you all will too. And if you're not grateful yet, you will be, because there'll be actual other voices, like ways of looking at things and and more of it because, you know, one person can only do so much. So I'm really grateful for that. Brooke 55:03 I'm excited about this book that's coming out next month, that... Margaret 55:06 Oh, yeah? Brooke 55:07 Some lady I know, wrote it. And, and I got to do some editing work on it. And, it's hilarious and the cover is gorgeous. Margaret 55:17 Is it called "Escape from Incel Island"? Brooke 55:19 Yeah, that one. Margaret 55:22 Is this my plugs moment? Brooke 55:24 Did you know If you preorder it right now, you can get a poster of that gorgeous cover that comes comes with the preordered one? Margaret 55:31 And, did you know that if you preorder it, I get a cut of the royalties when the book is released for all the preorders, which means that I can eat food. Brooke 55:43 Oh, we like it when you get food. Margaret 55:44 And I like having food. Yeah. So, if you go to tangledwilderness.org, you can preorder "Escape from Incel Island" and get a poster. And it's a fun adventure book. You can literally read it in a couple hours. It's very short. It's a novella. It's, to be frank, it's at the short end of novella. But that makes it good for short attention spans like mine. Brooke 56:08 Yeah, that's dope. I'm looking forward to that. And there'll be some other books coming out from that Strangers Collective one, one that I just started editing, that I don't know how much we're talking about it yet or not. Margaret 56:20 It's really cool. Brooke 56:20 So, I won't give too much away here, but just sucked me right in as I was editing, and it's cool. I'm so excited to read the rest of it. And then for us to release it. Margaret 56:29 Yeah. All right. Well, that's our Year in the Apocalypse, 2022 edition. And I know...wait, you're doing the closing part. Brooke 56:40 Yeah, sure. Margaret 56:41 I'm just the guest. Brooke 56:43 No, you're my co host. Margaret 56:45 Oh, I'm just the co host. Okay. Brooke 56:47 Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious what other people think the worst things are that happened in 2022, if it's something that was on one of our lists, or something else that you know of, and reach out to us like on Twitter at tangledwild or Instagram, or you can reach out to me personally on Mastodon @ogemakwebrooke, if you can find me there. And the Collectiva Social, I think is my whatever, I don't remember how it works. But I'm yeah, I'm curious what other people would have to say is the worst which thing they want to vote for, if they have their own. So hit us up? Let us know. Margaret 57:22 Yeah, do it. Brooke 57:29 So, our listeners, we thank, we appreciate you listening. And if you enjoy this podcast, we would love it if you could give it a like or drop a comment or review or subscribe to us if you haven't already, because these things make the algorithms that rule our world offer our show to more people. The podcast is produced by the anarchist publishing collective Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. Like I said, you can connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, or me personally on Mastodon, or through our website tangledwilderness.org. The work of Strangers is made possible by our Patreon supporters. Honestly, we couldn't do any of it without your help. If you want to become a supporter, check us out patreon.com/strangersInatangledwilderness. There are cool benefits for different support tiers. 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