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When Robert Godden joined us in 2018 for Episode 235, we read tea leaves to predict Steven Marshall’s election victory. Today, Robert returns with his tea expertise as we sit down with two Senate hopefuls – Dianah Walter and Dr. Rod Pearce AM – who are campaigning together under the “SA Matters” banner. While sipping tea, we explore how these candidates plan to navigate Canberra’s corridors while maintaining their commitment to South Australian priorities. In a refreshing departure from party politics, Dianah and Rod share their journey from collaboration on women’s health initiatives to forming an unendorsed Senate ticket focused squarely on local issues. With Dianah’s background in regional advocacy and Rod’s decades of experience as a respected GP shaping national health policy, they present a compelling case for representation that transcends party loyalty. There is no SA Drink Of The Week, this week. And in the Musical Pilgrimage, we close the show with Swap Meet’s dreamy indie folk-rock track “Ceiling Fan” – an apt choice given the band’s own journey of rebranding from Sour Sob and striking out with a new identity, just as Dianah is doing with her political realignment. You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve! The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards. And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it. And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concisepage. Running Sheet: SA Matters This Election 00:00:00 Intro Introduction 00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week No South Australian Drink Of The Week, this week. 00:02:30 SA Matters: Behind the Independent Campaign In a political landscape where party loyalty often overshadows regional advocacy, Dianah Walter and Dr. Rod Pearce have emerged as “SA Matters” – an unendorsed Senate ticket with a decidedly local focus. Dianah, fresh from her departure from the Legalised Cannabis Party, and Rod, a respected GP whose voice has shaped national health policy, have joined forces at a time when social media giants face increasing scrutiny for their influence on political discourse. “South Australia does matter” isn’t just their campaign slogan – it’s the philosophy that brought them together through a shared history of advocacy that includes women’s health initiatives. Their promise is straightforward: representation that puts our state first, regardless of partisan pressure. “Our loyalty is to the work we’ve done together in the past and to basically being an advocate for South Australia,” Rod explains, citing specific examples of how party senators might face conflicts between state interests and party priorities. This unwavering focus on South Australian priorities forms the cornerstone of their campaign. Dianah’s recent encounter with caregivers of a disabled woman reveals their grassroots approach: “What can we do to help you?” she asked after a lengthy discussion. Their response was telling: “In all of the last two years they’ve been coming to that place, not once had anyone stopped to talk to them.” This approach reflects the StoryBrand framework where the voter is the hero and candidates are guides – something Dianah intuitively grasped at their campaign launch: “You are not here because of me… I believe you’re actually here because you’re here for you.” For Rod, this connection to community has been central to his 40-year career as a GP: “You need to have that 15-minute, one-on-one conversation, which I have with 20 or 30 people every day… but that’s gotta translate into effective advocacy.” Robert highlights how traditional media creates lasting trust: “I’ve been an avid listener to ABC radio since I was 18… I’ve just heard your voice so many times,” he tells Rod. “We don’t necessarily believe what we read on Facebook, but we certainly believe what we hear on the radio.” Dianah shares radio’s crucial role during emergencies: “We recently lost power for nearly 24 hours on the YP. I’m a Country Fire Service volunteer… our mobile phone towers went down and we had no connection as emergency services volunteers. But I got me little transistor out that dad gave me, and I tuned into ABC and I knew what was going on.” The darker side of modern media becomes apparent when Dianah describes setting up her campaign Facebook page: “Three seconds in my feed, I had Trump, Elon Musk, lots of right wing extremists in my feed!'” Robert, a self-described “below the line voter, like 10% of the population,” offers perspective: “Australian democracy is based on the person who the least people have a problem with gets in… it’s not about who’s the best, it’s about who’s the least worst.” This conversation reveals the complexity facing independent candidates – they must define themselves by values rather than party policies, building trust through personal connection rather than political shorthand. 01:03:30 Musical Pilgrimage In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature Murray Bridge’s own Swapmeet with Ceiling Fan. Swapmeet began life as Sour Sob before a legal threat forced them to change their name. This journey of rebranding while maintaining artistic integrity mirrors our Senate hopefuls’ commitment to authentic representation. The name “Swapmeet” carries special significance for lead singer Venus O’Broin, who got her current guitar at a swap meet – a grassroots connection that echoes our candidates’ approach to building their campaign from the ground up. Swapmeet’s debut EP “Oxalis” (cheekily named after the genus of the sour sob plant) features today’s track “Ceiling Fan,” which captures the dreamy indie folk rock sound that earned them Best Song at last year’s SA Music Awards. Like our guests today, Swapmeet proved that sometimes starting fresh can be liberating while staying true to your roots.Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Send us a textA Thrilling Underground Adventure – Exploring the Tu Lan Cave System with OxalisIf you've ever wondered what it's like to swim through ancient caves, trek through dense jungle terrain, and uncover one of Vietnam's most pristine underground worlds, this episode is your backstage pass.In this episode of What About Vietnam, I sit down with my husband, Andrew Newsome, who is still riding the adrenaline rush from his once-in-a-lifetime expedition through the Tu Lan Cave system in Phong Nha, Vietnam. Led by the elite Oxalis Adventure team, this four-day trek pushed him to his limits, but he loved every minute. While he says it is both physically and mentally challenging— judge for yourself if you think your fitness and skills are up for it.What to Expect in This Episode:What makes Tu Lan different from its famous cousin, Son DoongThe fitness factor – Who is this expedition really for? Can a regular traveler take on the challenge?Would you consider this kind of outdoor experience in Vietnam?– Jungle treks, river crossings, and nights under the starsWhat does the experience of swimming through caves feel like?– Flawless organization – How Oxalis delivers world-class safety, guidance, and an unforgettable experienceFood in the wild – Yes, even in the middle of the jungle, the meals were next levelThis is not just another travel story. This is an adventure that redefines what's possible in Vietnam's breathtaking landscapes. In all our years of visiting this country, rarely has anything impressed my husband this much—and that says a lot.If you're an adventure seeker, nature lover, or someone looking for an epic bucket-list experience, this episode will leave you lacing up your trekking boots to start training, and itching to book your own Tu Lan expedition.Tune in now, and let's dive into the adventure of a lifetime. [00:04:28] Caving expedition motivation.[00:07:41] Fitness levels for jungle trekking.[00:10:15] Expedition planning and organization.[00:16:30] Hiking through jungle terrain.[00:21:07] Organised adventure in Vietnam.[00:22:51] Delicious Vietnamese jungle food.[00:27:15] The beauty of the caves.To book tour Andrew did is here.Find out more from Howard Limbert who inspired Andrew to go. The best way to connect with me is not via text, it is through the website www.whataboutvietnam.com website and email.Thank you for listening. Do not send TEXT as I am unable to respond directly. Please email whataboutvietnam@gmail.com Keep abreast of news on our social pages on FB, IG,LinkedIn and TikTokWe'd love a review on your podcast channel.Let me design your #customised #private tour of Vietnam - See our Travel ServicesDo you need a #Dental Procedure? Why not find out what's possible through our Dental and #Cosmetic Medical partner Worldwide Beauty Hospital. Mention #whataboutvietnam to receive 5% discount at Worldwide Beauty Hospital
Derek Wilson is an actor who can currently be seen recurring on both GEN V and THE BOYS as fan favorite “Tek Knight.” He starred opposite Josh Hutcherson and Eliza Coupe for 3 seasons of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's Hulu comedy, FUTURE MAN. Other television credits include a series regular on AMC's PREACHER, recurring roles on BILLIONS, THE GOOD WIFE, and RECTIFY, and guest stars on PERSON OF INTEREST and AQUARIUS. Features include THE LAST GIRL and the upcoming OXALIS. Derek holds a MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He started his career on stage appearing in such productions as ANNA CHRISTIE as well as 22 of Shakespeare's plays including Henry IV, Richard III and the Broadway revival of MACBETH. We chat about doing over 20 Shakespeare plays, Future Man, going to acting school at 29, previously being a ‘serious actor' guy, human messiness, perfection, anxiety, David Koechner, his life changing call after Preacher, his soul dog, plus plenty more! The video footage of this entire chat is now out as well (one day after release)! So check them out on YouTube under Michael Kahan Check Derek out on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_derekwilson ------------------------------------------- Follow @Funny in Failure on Instagram and Facebook https://www.instagram.com/funnyinfailure/ https://www.facebook.com/funnyinfailure/ and @Michael_Kahan on Insta & Twitter to keep up to date with the latest info. https://www.instagram.com/michael_kahan/ https://twitter.com/Michael_Kahan
Max's LA cocktail spots, lots of Somni 2.0 talk, BTS of the Air Jordan soundtrack, best new restaurants of the year, top croissants, more candy talk, more Hector talk, more sharing handrolls, the Oxalis breakfast burrito, Koo Koo Roo is coming, Kushiba is no more, clown influencers, the ideal wedding, sending food back to the kitchen, splitting a wine pairing, Thanksgiving plans, Max's advice for finding true love, and more LA vs. NY nonsense.
Show Notes:https://www.oxalisadvisors.com/
Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan talk through the news for the week ending 18th October 2024 including: Off The Grid has gone into early access and gotten everyone talking about it. [0:30] There's been 6 million wallets created on its Gunz testnet. [3:10] Twitch stats are down at lot from weekend peak of 160,000 viewers/hour. [4:05] Should we view Off The Grid as triple-A console shooter or a gaming blockchain platform? [8:35] Azra Games announced its $42.7 million Series A funding. [10:05] Faraway Games has announced its own Avalanche-based L1 gaming chain called FCHAIN. [18:21] Avalanche is gaining momentum - Off The Grid, Shrapnel, DeFi Kingdoms, MapleStory etc. [22:04] Talking to Sky Mavis' Jeff Zirlin about the rise of Ronin. [23:40] Dragginz is launching its early access on ICP in November. [29:14] Oxalis has raised $2 million for launching farming sim Moonfrost. [32:50] Investment into blockchain gaming in Q3 2024 was $128 million, down 57% from Q2. [35:59] ends
Jordan and Max talk the recently announced California Michelin guide, all the stars, and how Los Angeles fared. Plus, Oxalis may not be back, but Max is cooking again, and he shares a few recipes his lucky lady has been enjoying; and where many of the ingredients are coming from, which happens to be a market where Jordan loves the parking, but needs to learn what Tutti Frutti is. Then, it's another trip to the Fontainebleau for grateful Jordan, where the steakhouse almost ruined a night at The Sphere, Bagelmania was experienced, eating regrets were had, and of course the waters were celestial.
Sab and Tets cover exterminating weeds, bugs, fungus and Daleks. 02:14 Sab shares her story of how she came to work at the ABC.05:40 (and 14:55) How to keep your lawn looking perfect with vinegar in weed season. 12:02 Thinking about digging up your Birds of Paradise? Here's how to move it.Subscribe to the podcast through the ABC Listen App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.
Jordan reviews a recent trip to Las Vegas, where he found the hotel, spa, and peking duck of his desert dreams at the Fontainebleau. Plus, Max sampled a $500k bottle of wine while Jordan doesn't understand a $400 bottle of wine, new dishes at Dunsmoor, the return of Oxalis meal planning is spiraling out of control, and Angler is kinda back with Leopardo, where the fellas give a first look of the pizza, meats, cocktails, and all the Angler feels that are most definitely not at the Beverly Center.
Začít krátce po pádu komunistického režimu prodávat v Česku sypaný čaj z celého světa nezní zrovna jako dobrý byznys plán. Češi byli tehdy zvyklí rozeznávat maximálně černý, zelený či bylinný čaj a většina z nich vůbec netušila, co to sypaný čaj je. Navzdory počátečním komplikacím se Petru Zelíkovi a jeho firmě Oxalis podařilo uspět. Dnes Petr Zelík provozuje největší síť obchodů se sypaným čajem v Česku a jeho firma loni oslavila třicet let existence. Jak těžké bylo naučit Čechy pít ty nejkvalitnější světové čaje, jak se měnily jejich chuťové preference a kolik čaje se v Česku vlastně vypije? O tom všem i mnohém dalším jsme si povídali v dalším dílu našeho podcastu Na vlně podnikání.A co se ještě dozvíte?Jak se pozná kvalitní čaj?Jaký nejlepší a nejhorší čaj Petr Zelík pil?Jaké čaje Češi pijí nejraději?Jak Oxalis přežil covid, válku na Ukrajině, inflaci a energetickou krizi? A jaké má plány do budoucnosti?Tento díl podcastu Na vlně podnikání moderuje Petr Kain, šéfredaktor týdeníku Ekonom.
Začít krátce po pádu komunistického režimu prodávat v Česku sypaný čaj z celého světa nezní zrovna jako dobrý byznys plán. Češi byli tehdy zvyklí rozeznávat maximálně černý, zelený či bylinný čaj a většina z nich vůbec netušila, co to sypaný čaj je. Navzdory počátečním komplikacím se Petru Zelíkovi a jeho firmě Oxalis podařilo uspět. Dnes Petr Zelík provozuje největší síť obchodů se sypaným čajem v Česku a jeho firma loni oslavila třicet let existence. Jak těžké bylo naučit Čechy pít ty nejkvalitnější světové čaje, jak se měnily jejich chuťové preference a kolik čaje se v Česku vlastně vypije? O tom všem i mnohém dalším jsme si povídali v dalším dílu našeho podcastu Na vlně podnikání. A co se ještě dozvíte? Jak se pozná kvalitní čaj? Jaký nejlepší a nejhorší čaj Petr Zelík pil? Jaké čaje Češi pijí nejraději? Jak Oxalis přežil covid, válku na Ukrajině, inflaci a energetickou krizi? A jaké má plány do budoucnosti? Tento díl podcastu Na vlně podnikání moderuje Petr Kain, šéfredaktor týdeníku Ekonom.
In this episode of GardenDC: The Podcast about Mid-Atlantic Gardening, we talk with Resh Gala about planning your vegetable garden. The plant profile is on Oxalis and we share what's going on in the garden as well as some upcoming local gardening events and this week's garden tasks in the What's New segment. We close out with the Last Word on My Failing Peach Tree by Christy Page of Green Prints. If you liked this episode, you may also enjoy listening to: ~ GardenDC Podcast Episode 124: Raised Bed Gardening https://washingtongardener.blogspot.com/2022/10/gardendc-podcast-episode-124-raised-bed.html ~ GardenDC Podcast Episode 68: Summer Vegetables https://washingtongardener.blogspot.com/2021/07/gardendc-podcast-episode-68-summer.html SHOW NOTES will be posted around 3-19-2024. BTW, YOU can become a listener supporter for as little as $0.99 per month! See how at: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gardendc/support. We welcome your questions and comments! You can leave a voice mail message for us at: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gardendc/message Note that we may use these messages on a future episode. And be sure to leave us a 5-star review on your favorite podcast platform plus share us on social media with #GardenDC, so other gardeners can find us too! Episode Credits: Host and Producer: Kathy JentzI nterview Edit and Show Notes: Hannah Zozobrado Recorded on 3-16-2024. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gardendc/support
Better Lawns and Gardens Hour 1 – Coming to you from the Summit Responsible Solutions Studios. Faith and Begonia! Shamrocks or Oxalis? Friend or Foe? Brooke Moffis, UF/IFAS explains the difference, varieties, and care, and how to get rid of Oxalis in your turf. Garden questions and topics include Nun's Orchids, Queen's Wreath, propagating ornamental sweet potato, varieties of okra, pollen season, and more. https://bit.ly/3c1f5x7 Photo and graphic credit: Teresa Watkins Listen every Saturdays from 7am - 9am EST on WFLA- Orlando. Call in with your garden questions and text messages on 1-888.455.2867 and 23680, Miss the live broadcast? Listen on Audioboom podcast 24/7. https://bit.ly/3c1f5x7 #WFLF #WFLA #FNN #WNDB #BetterLawns #gardening #Florida #planting #gardeninglife #radio #southflorida #northflorida #centralflorida #Deland #SHE #Orlando #Sarasota #Miami #FortLauderdale #BLGradio #WRLN #WiOD #gardening #SummitResponsibleSolutions #QualityGreenSpecialists #BlackKow
Le travail occupe une place considérable dans nos vies : 40 ans, en moyenne ! Soit à peu près 9 000 jours, 62 480 heures ! Nous fréquentons bien davantage nos collègues que nos familles et amis ! Lorsqu'on se présente, même dans la sphère privée, la question posée est bien plus souvent « qu'est-ce que tu fais dans la vie ? » que « qui es-tu ? ».Et pourtant, les conditions relationnelles et organisationnelles dans lesquelles nous passons tout ce temps restent, la plupart du temps, un non-sujet sur nos lieux de travail malgré le lot de malaises, tensions, burn out, … qui y sont vécus. La croyance qu'il n'y a rien à faire pour améliorer ça domine !Et pourtant … Charlotte Emery et Florent Guitard, co-créateur.trice de Terract, accompagnateur.trice des entreprises dans l'amélioration de la qualité de la vie et des conditions de travail, témoignent dans ce nouvel épisode que si l'on n'apprend nulle part comment travailler ensemble, comment monter un projet, comment interagir, comment animer une réunion … comment construire, cultiver, réparer nos relations au travail, cela peut devenir un vrai sujet de coréflexion et d'amélioration dans et entre les équipes ! On peut en développer les compétences collectivement, en créant des espaces pour aborder ce sujet grâce aux pratiques d'intelligence collective qui, à elles seules, apportent la sécurité, l'équité, la liberté et la responsabilité nécessaires à des relations saines et épanouissantes. Vous rêvez de passer de la réalisation de tâches propres à votre poste à contribuer à un projet qui vous dépasse tout en vous nourrissant (dans tous les sens du terme), c'est par ici !Belle écoute à vous ! Et merci de partager, si le coeur vous en dit !Merci, aussi, si vous aimez ce podcast, de contribuer au financement participatif sur la plateforme KissKissBankBank qui nous permettra de produire une 3e saison.Nous avons jusqu'au 20 mars pour rassembler un minimum de 6000 euros qui couvriraient 4 épisodes. Au-delà de cette date, si nous n'atteignons pas ce montant, les contributions seront remboursées par la plateforme. Voici le lien vers le financement participatif : https://www.kisskissbankbank.com/fr/projects/podcast-tout-tourne-rond-sur-cette-terre. Un immense merci à vous !Le texte lu en introduction de cet épisode est issu de l'ouvrage de Frederika Van Ingen, Ce que les peuples racines ont à nous dire, éd. Les Liens qui Libèrent, 2020Pour aller plus loin : 1. Tisser ensemble une nouvelle culture qui soutienne la vieLe site de Terract co-fondé par Charlotte et FlorentAteliers Tout tourne rond sur cette Terre Je propose des Ateliers de 3 jours Tout tourne rond sur cette Terre. 3 jours pour prendre la mesure de notre culture et de ses effets. 3 jours pour en changer en s'inspirant du Vivant. Le suivant aura lieu les 5, 6, 7 avril 2024, en Belgique. Infos & inscriptions ici 2. A explorer : État du lieu de travail mondial : rapport 2023, rapport GallupLe site de l'Agence nationale pour l'amélioration des conditions de travail - ANACT Les sites des Coopératives d'entrepreneur.e.s Oxalis et Solstice3..A écouter : L' épisode S2 14 du podcast Tout tourne rond sur cette Terre qui parle des pratiques d'intelligence collectiveEt si vous souhaitez découvrir mon travail, mes propositions d'accompagnement et de formation aux pratiques d'intelligence collective et gouvernance participative, rendez-vous sur mon site : adn-intelligencecollective.com
• Seed Starting Tips, including how to read seed packet instructions : 00:24• The Hori Hori Knife; Oxalis and bittercress weed control tips: 19:06• Want to Leave Us a Question? Here's How: 32:39Previous episodes, show notes, links, product information, and transcripts at the home site for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, GardenBasics.net. Transcripts and episode chapters also available at BuzzsproutPictured: Young tomato plants, hardening off.Links: Subscribe to the free, Beyond the Garden Basics Newsletter https://gardenbasics.substack.com Smart Pots https://smartpots.com/fred/ Dave Wilson Nursery https://www.davewilson.com/home-garden/seed propagation matsseed starting suppliesseed starting light systemsRenee's Garden SeedsFarmer Fred Veg Planting Calendar for USDA Zone 9Garden Kneeler and SeatHori-Hori KnifeHairy Bittercress Weed control tipsOxalis weed control tipsGot a garden question? • Leave an audio question without making a phone call via Speakpipe, at https://www.speakpipe.com/gardenbasics• Call or text us the question: 916-292-8964. • Fill out the contact box at GardenBasics.net• E-mail: fred@farmerfred.com All About Farmer Fred: The GardenBasics.net websiteThe Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter, Beyond the Basics https://gardenbasics.substack.comFarmer Fred website: http://farmerfred.comThe Farmer Fred Rant! Blog http://farmerfredrant.blogspot.comFacebook: "Get Growing with Farmer Fred" Instagram: farmerfredhoffman https://www.instagram.com/farmerfredhoffman/Twitter: @farmerfredFarmer Fred Garden Minute Videos on YouTube As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases from possible links mentioned here.Thank you for listening, subscribing and commenting on the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast and the Beyond the Garden Basics Newsletter.
Time for Part Two of our latest apperance by Talking Dirty favourite Dan Cooper AKA The Furstrated Gardener. This week he continues with some of the plants adding colour to his shady containers, from Coleus to Oxalis. Plus a few special Christmas decorations from Dan Cooper Garden!PLANT LISTOxalis 'Plum Crazy'Oxalis spiralis vulcanicola 'Sunset Velvet'Coleus 'Lord Falmouth' Coleus 'Burgundy Wedding Train' Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Wisley Tapestry'Dahlia 'Edith Jones'Dahlia 'Dilys Ayling'Dahlia 'Hollyhill Serenity'Dahlia 'Blyton Softer Gleam'Dahlia 'Frost Nip' Dahlia imperialisDahlia 'Rococo'Dahlia campanulataSolanum wendlandiiIochroma fuchsioidesFuchsia bolivianaPseudogynoxys chenopodioides (syn. Senecio confusus)Tithonia rotundifolia
Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Inmn is rejoined by Wōen and Roxanne from the Woven Ends Collective to talk about death, dying, and the work of death doulas. Host Info Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. 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 Live Like the World is Dying: Woven Ends on Death & Dying pt. II Inmn 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 again Inmn Neruin and I use they/them pronouns. We're back again this week to finish up our chat with Wōen and Roxy from the Woven Ends Collective to talk about death and dying. I'm not sure exactly where the episode got cut in half, but today we're probably going to hear a lot more about caring for people who are dying and the work of a death doula. Like last week, we're talking about some heavy stuff but in the spirit of building more resilient communities that can prepare for the end times together in all ways. And again, we hope that conversations like this can help shift how people talk about death and dying. And, we don't want to bring this stuff up to either romanticize death or to incite fear of death. It's just going to happen. And I know I would like for my circles to have all the resources that they need when I die. And oh please, god, don't embalm me. I really, really, really want to rot. Does this count as a power of attorney? As we learned last week, no, it does not. Content warning again. At some point we talked about the idea of choosing to die from the perspective of being terminally ill. But before we go into it, we are a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts and here's a jingle from another show on that network. Doo doo doo doo doo [Singing the words like a melody] Molotov Now 01:48 Yeah, welcome to Molotov Now, a podcast about taking action. Molotov Now 01:59 In Molotov Now, we analyze and discuss news articles and stories of resistance from around the globe and connect them to our struggles here at home in Aberdeen, Washington. Molotov Now 02:09 In the spirit of building solidarity between the rural and the urban, we hope to inspire direct action in the face of oppression and to light a fire to find each other in the darkness. Inmn 02:29 So what is kind of the pathway from like, say that I die tomorrow--I die in a hospital--like what is the pathway between like, I die in a hospital and my friends bury me in our home cemetery? Like, how does the possession of my remains work? Like, in Little Miss Sunshine, are people gonna have to pay to get my corpse? Like, can they get my corpse? Like, how does that work? Wōen 03:04 Yeah, so you don't...you know, whoever is the designated person, so either the next of kin legally or the legally designated healthcare power of attorney who was also your power of attorney over your disposition, they will have the rights to your body, and you do not have to...If you die at a hospital, you're not going to have to pay to have the body released to you. What normally happens is the hospital will give a family a list of funeral homes, and then from there you'd call the funeral home, then the funeral home will do all the transportation. And then, you often won't even see that exchange from the hospital to the funeral home. You'd go to the funeral home and make arrangements and go from there. But, as the person with the rights, you can do all of that yourself. You can go pick them up and drive them to where they need to be. It's--and this is where like educating around things like bodily care and home funerals is really important--because there are logistical things you need to think about with transportation and caring for the body at home. And so, it can be a little daunting to do on your own, but, you know, if there's a lot of people supporting you, it's actually not very hard. Like, the intimidation factor is the hardest part. And, you know, having a vehicle that can get you home and a space where you can do the burial, those are really the next parts. And we all kind of know inherently how to do these rituals. Like once you enter into that space, it's really beautiful like how people just like fall into these different roles that they feel really confident in. And, yeah. So I would say, you know, if you're not going on that normal mode from hospital to funeral home to cemetery, like having a lot of people involved to care for the process is...Yeah, it's very doable and beautiful. Inmn 05:52 Cool. Will--this is a weird logistical question, but I feel like this is kind of, you know, what we're here for--like, say, if I die, and I die in a hospital and like, say my family, chosen family, support network, which, you know, whoever it is, and we're trying to do like a home burial and they're not ready to, you know, take possession of my body, like will the hospital hold on to it for a little while? In like a refrigerator? Like, what if they're not ready for it? What if they like...you know, obviously, I just died. Maybe they need a week to deal with it. But, they don't want me embalmed and want to take possession of my remains. Wōen 06:54 I can't say the exact timeline, I think it's probably a different state by state, but there is a limit on how long a person can stay at a hospital morgue. So that's a good thing to know where you are. But, another good thing to know is that often you can work with funeral homes to just do transportation or cold storage to give you time. And so I think that would be the best pathway is like, "Okay, we're not ready. Let's call a funeral home and just get them to pick our person up and put them in cold storage. And that will give us time to breathe and figure out what we need to do. And then from there, like you can ask them to, you know, transport them to where they need to go or you can pick them up from the funeral home. You can chip away at what the funeral home is offering. And some, you know, sometimes it'll be met with a little resistance. But like, you can have people tasked with advocating, and having more people to negotiate with different parts of the process is really helpful. Inmn 08:18 Yeah, cool. That is good to know. So I feel like we keep going back to this power of attorney. If I get a medical power of attorney, does that extend to my remains? Like does who has my medical power of attorney also have the rights to the...to my disposition, or? Wōen 08:50 Yeah, the answer is yes. And, it's important to get a good Advanced Directive. Some Advanced Directives don't have a section for disposition and it's important to get one that does. Because if it doesn't, then that is a situation where there could be like...Yeah, where if it's contested on who has rights, the advance directive could fall short. So, knowing that your Advanced Directive has that part, that section, in it is really important. Not all do and it sucks. So, figuring out that you have the right kind of Advanced Directive, and a lot of them do, but some of the popular ones--like the Five Wishes, which is really popular--it doesn't have that section in there. You can write it in yourself. But, if you're doing it and don't have guidance and have never done it before, that part can be missed. And then yeah. And then you could lose that right if it gets contested or there's a situation. Yeah. Inmn 10:18 It's so weird that I think that this is like so--and maybe this is part of it is that in my head all of these decisions are these weird legal red tape or I'm like...I'm surprised to hear and, you know, grateful to hear that my friends could just get my body and do whatever...like, do what--not whatever they want with it...Like, hopefully do what I want them to do. [Everyone laughing] But, it's dispelling this myth that I have died and the State owns me, that the State owns my body and the State determines what happens to it. Like, I had this question for y'all where I was like, "Okay, but how do I get my...like...How do I get the name that I go by, and that people know me in the world by, on my tombstone instead of my legal name?" And it's like...it's...because in my head the Social Security Administration is who sends the form to the stone carver to make that and I'm like, "Why do I have these these weird myths in my head about, like, who owns my body?" Wōen 11:40 I mean, because we live in...Like, when we're, you know, quote unquote, "healthy," we're dealing with that every day. Like people owning our time. You know, the Capitalist...Yeah, the Capitalist greed has infected all parts of our body. Yeah, it's really easy to assume that it will affect us after death too. Yeah. And on your note about your stone, like a headstone, yeah, you can put whatever you want on it, honestly. Like, it's up to you and the stone carver and the cemetery. There's no law or regulation around that. It's whoever has the rights of disposition. Inmn 12:35 Yeah, yeah. And I know, Wōen, that you have to go in a second, so I just have this one last question. And, you know, maybe this is more of a Roxy question or...I don't know. So, I can have a home burial. Can I? Can I die at home? Are there complications to me--like legal complications for my friends--to like...Say, I'm having some kind of medical emergency, and my friends know in my power of attorney that I don't want anything done, that there are interventions that are...like that I've like excluded, like CPR or anything, and I'm in a situation where I need CPR. If they watch me die, is that legally complicated for them? Roxanne 13:30 No, actually. Well, I mean, it could be in the way that there would have to be a lot of proving different things. But it's not illegal to die at home. It's also not illegal to choose death. So maybe slight content warning, you know, it's not illegal to choose to die. And, you don't put other people at risk for any kind of weird legal things for being present when, for example, if someone chose to die and you were there, that's not a legal issue. Wōen 14:20 Yeah, yeah. Just to, you know, be mindful that if there isn't a doctor involved or, you know, ongoing palliative care, like hospice, it's considered to be unexpected in a way. So, whenever, like, say you die at home, whoever finds you or that's there, they need to call emergency services, EMS, and usually, you know, you can tell them to come quietly with their lights off, but they'll need to come. And if there isn't a clear, you know, reason or like you can't, you know...Often the medical examiner, or always the medical examiner, will need to be there if there isn't a doctor involved. And then that often means that police can be there too. So it's, you know, if you have the choice to plan on that, just everyone involved, you know, in planning, like create a complete safety plan around that. Because, that will be the response that EMS will need to come and sometimes the police too. Roxanne 15:53 And the situation really varies. Like in Washington State, I volunteer doing medical aid and dying support. So I go and sit with people who have a terminal diagnosis that have been given six or less months left to live and they ingest a medication that ends their life. So like in those situations, you know, doctors have signed off on it. People know. But, folks are absolutely dying at home. And, we have loose terms around what "home" is in that case. But yeah, and in those situations, for example, maybe a patient did have hospice, we'll call hospice. Otherwise, you know, we'll call the medical examiners or you like...You have to notify someone. But yeah, dying at home--and honestly, I know that this can also be like an issue of resources, and this could be a complicating statement--but I feel like if it is possible, and you feel safe to die at home, and the people that are in your home feel safe with you dying at home, that to me, that is a really ideal scenario and is a really comfortable and safe and nice place to no longer have to exist in. Inmn 17:32 Yeah, yeah. Do you have to go, Wōen? Wōen 17:35 I do. Thank you so much. Inmn 17:38 Yeah. If there's any kind of last things that you want to say before you go or like anything you want to plug...But also, we didn't really get into this as much and I would love to have you back on to talk about this, but would love to at some point have you back on to talk more about grief and like mourning. If that's something that you want to talk about. Not now but at a later situation. Wōen 18:09 Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think we both would have a really awesome perspective on that. Probably different. It's all different. So. Yeah, that'd be sweet. Inmn 18:27 Yeah. Great. Great. Well, thanks so much for coming on. Roxanne 18:31 Yeah, yeah. Hope you have a beautiful day and that it's not too hot. See you. Inmn 18:41 So I wanted to kind of double back on this question that came up before and it's...Yeah, I guess that it's a little unrelated to this, but we keep going back to the medical power of attorney. I feel like this is like the golden point of the episode is get a power of attorney. Inmn 19:08 And does my hospital debt also pass on to my power of attorney or does that? How does hospital debt work? Like, if I die and there are unpaid hospital bills like what happens? Where does that go? Roxanne 19:08 Yes. Roxanne 19:44 Yeah, that's a great question. I don't fully have the answer to that. It wouldn't just go to someone because they're your power of attorney. That would be more like the person who has control of your assets. So, yeah, in those scenarios, the person who has financial control would be the one that would then, you know, is supposed to settle up. But I, honestly, that's not my powerhouse. So I'm not totally sure. Yeah. Yeah, I don't have the answer to that. I'm so sorry. Oh, Inmn 20:46 No worries. You know, I'm here to...I love bringing up questions even if it, even if there's no clear answers to them Inmn 20:55 I was thinking of the situation where, you know, I do love my family. I don't think I want them controlling my remains, which is...I don't think my family listens to the show. So, hopefully, they didn't hear that. But, let's say I, you know, if I, you know, if I hated my family, then, I'm imagining this situation where I've given my medical power of attorney and the rights to my disposition to, you know, my chosen family. And then...but, financially that my assets are still tied to my next of kin. So, I could give all the good parts to my friends and then shirk that debt off on my piece of shit family. Which, you know, that's a hypothetical. I love my family. All my families. Roxanne 20:55 Totally. Roxanne 21:57 Yeah, that's a spicy...That's a spicy suggestion/question. I like it. Inmn 22:05 Yeah. Or, I don't know. It makes me think about like, I had a friend who--this was years and years ago--and I think we were all 22 or something, and they were like, "Oh, I have to go sign these weird documents today." And I was like, "Oh, why?" And they're like, "Oh, my friend is making me the trustee for their life insurance policy." And I was like, "Oh, a 22 year old is getting a life insurance policy?" And they're like, "Yeah, So, if this person accidentally dies, like, I will get a million dollars." And I was like, "Yeah, that is...Okay. Yeah. How do we,"--not how do we scam death because that's not what's going on--but like, I'm wondering, thinking about how do we set people up for if something does happen to us, that instead of inheriting debt, they're getting money or something? I don't know. Roxanne 23:09 Definitely. And there are people thinking of that. And I think it's so cool. And yeah, I think that that could be a really great way to resource a community also, you know? Being like, okay, death is inevitable. Some of us are going to die younger than others. As many of us as we possibly can, like, maybe we should be all throwing together and have kind of like a big mass life insurance thing pool where everyone...You know, to make sure everyone can get a policy. And within that you can, you know, ask that those funds go into whatever community project or, you know, or to people that, you know, that could really benefit from that resource. Yeah, I think that that's really smart. And the cool thing, too, is, you know, obviously, depending on state and depending on the policy, it covers all different kinds of death, including chosen death. And that's not always true. But, there are many cases in which that is true. You just have to have the policy for a certain amount of years or, you know, there's circumstances in which that's also the case, which I think is good to remember. Inmn 24:41 Yeah. Which it's like, obviously, I would...I'm gonna put all of, as many resources as I can, into people in my community not dying. But... Roxanne 24:52 Yes. Inmn 24:53 But, we are, you know, like you said, we are all going to die and unfortunately we do live in a rapidly changing world, and a world that has always been, you know, very dangerous for queer people, for trans people, for people of color, for disabled people, for, you know, all of these different kinds of people. And I...It's like, I never...I just never want...I never want to see a mutual aid or crowdfunding request for extreme funeral expenses, you know? And, because it's like that...it's obviously important to be able to mourn someone and celebrate someone in the ways that they want it or in not rushed ways or in ways that aren't financially ripping people's lives apart. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, just some things to think about. Roxanne 26:05 Totally. Yeah, definitely. Inmn 26:09 To switch gears a little bit, you have spent a lot of time hanging out with people while they're dying, and I'm wondering if you wanted to talk about that a little bit. I feel like I don't have any super specific questions around that. But, it's something that I'm...something that I'm very unfamiliar with and wish I--I mean, I don't wish that people that I was close to were dying--but, you know, I always want tools for navigating those experiences when they do happen. Roxanne 26:49 Yeah. So I feel like getting to spend time with people in their last few moments is such a special and specific form of intimacy that can't really be recreated. You know, I feel like death workers tend to--and I've also been guilty of this myself--just talk about, like, how beautiful the, you know, this process is and what a gift it is to get to be in the space. And, I believe and agree with all of that. And, I also know that for grieving people, it doesn't always feel beautiful to watch your loved one...You know, maybe their body looks different than you're used to. Or, you know, like to watch someone go through this, sort of change, this metamorphosis. doesn't always feel special and beautiful to people when they're grieving. So I don't...I don't want to negate the heaviness of it. But, I think, you know, in a way, it is really beautiful and it is really special. And, you know, they say that hearing is the last thing to go, so something that I always urge family members, when they're in the room with someone who seems like, you know, like they can't interact with you, they're just breathing and, you know, you can't really like have much interaction with them, is just to talk to them and tell them the things that either, you know, last words that you wish that you could tell them or I think oftentimes dying people want permission, want permission to die. And, you know, if people can, I really encourage them in those last moments, those last bits, to just like, you know, to release someone from this, from this Earthly existence. And I don't, you know, I have...I am not going to speak to whether or not we just die, whether or not there's an afterlife, or, you know, that's not my wheelhouse, but I do know that it feels so nice to know that someone is letting you know that it's okay to go. You know? And, that, you know, people are going to be okay. Like what a relief and what a gift that can be to someone. Yeah. And the whole point of all of this, including, you know, the Advanced Directives and having your disposition stuff figured out, all of this is just to set us up to be able to provide the people that we love more time and space to grieve in ways that feel appropriate for them. You know, the more decisions we make for them about how to deal with the fact that we've died. That's just offering up so much space. And then, people get to really be in their process if, you know, if they can. Sometimes it takes people years to grieve. But, you know, as much as we can set them up for success, I think that's the best case scenario. Inmn 31:07 Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I know the answer to this, but just to vocalize that as a question, like, is it important for a death doula to be close to the person that they are providing end of life care for? And...Or how would, how would you phrase those words, What terms? What terms would you use? Roxanne 31:34 I guess I want to make sure that I understand the question. Like, do you mean physically close? Or do you mean, is it important that the death doula be in relation and community with that person? Inmn 31:50 The latter. Yeah. Roxanne 31:51 Yeah, definitely not. I think that that is a wonderful scenario. And when that can happen, like, what a beautiful gift and the depths that you can go to together in like figuring out this process is just like, even better. But I think, you know, sometimes people really want someone who's kind of removed. Because, some of this, sadly, is our transactional decisions. And sometimes it feels a little too close to home or someone can't be fully honest with someone that they know really well and they want sort of...kind of like a stranger buffer, kind of like why some of us choose therapists, you know? Like, you want this kind of like outside resource that you can reflect and say things that you might not want to say to someone that you really love, you know? I think that it can be a similar thing. So, you know, I think it's great when it can happen, that it be someone that you're close to. And I also understand why some people want it to be a stranger. There's benefits to both. Inmn 33:25 Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's...I feel weird to bring this component into it. And I don't really remember these books. And I've also heard that the author is questionable, like a lot of people in the world. But, there was this concept that, you know, I'm half remembering from a book. Have you ever read "Speaker for the Dead?" [Roxanne makes a sound of negation] It's this book by Orson Scott Card, who...Yeah, I don't know, maybe there's questionable things, I don't know. But it proposed this, you know, this concept of this person who was this speaker for the dead and this person's role was to go around and facilitate these rituals or these processes around people who had died and, you know, they're pointedly like, not even necessarily part of that community. And, you know, they've maybe never...they've probably never interacted with even like the living person. And I, you know, I found that concept super interesting and alluring when I was 12 and reading these books, which is ultimately not really what that book was about, but the concept of a "speaker for the dead" or like...that's maybe not even necessarily like what a death doula is...It was just super interesting and intriguing to me. Roxanne 35:09 Yeah. Yeah, that sounds really cool. The thing that I thought of when you said that was just thinking about like feeling cautious around some of that, like as a white person, making sure that you are not walking into communities of color and trying to tell them how to grieve and what a funerary process can look like and things like that. So yeah, I think it's interesting to think about, like, the outsider piece. And also, yeah. Sounds like that's not what the book was saying. But that's what it brought up for me. Just thinking about...Yeah, I know, I keep mentioning how death work and birth work are so similar, but I think both things have historically been, you know, really white washed, and have been given to more privileged communities, you know? Like, many good forms of care are saved for extreme privilege. But, hopefully we're changing that. Inmn 36:44 Yeah, yeah, totally. Um, one kind of like, I guess, you know, post-life death mourning celebratory experience--flailing for words--Turns out our culture doesn't have a lot of words for talking about these things. Maybe that's part of the problem. Yeah. But like, one thing that I've heard about--I've never experienced one--that I was always like...that sounds amazing. And, you know, I'm not part of this culture. So, you know, I'm not gonna have one or anything. I just think it's beautiful, is the idea of second lines, which are a thing in New Orleans. I don't know if they're specific to New Orleans. Do you know much about second lines? I feel like I'm bringing up a concept... Roxanne 37:34 They're so beautiful. Yeah. I don't feel like it would be appropriate for me to really explain it, because it's also not my culture, but I think that it's such a--I have seen second lines--and I think that it's such a beautiful and, you know, joyous way for community to come together and mourn and grieve together and dance and scream. And yeah, it's such a beautiful ritual. That is what I can say about it, is that it's absolutely such a beautiful ritual. Yeah, and I hope that, you know, we can think of and create more and more beautiful rituals as we go along on ways to both celebrate and grieve at the same time, because those two things really, you know, joy and grief really love each other. We often treat them as opposites, but they are...Because of one, we have the other. And, it's such a beautiful blend. Inmn 37:35 Yeah, yeah. I feel like this is getting into a territory that I absolutely want to talk about more, but I also really want to have y'all back on at some point to talk about mourning and grieving and kind of like post-death experiences. Roxanne 39:12 Would love to do that. Inmn 39:14 Wonderful. So yeah, I don't want to get into it too much. But um...Yeah, are there any other kinds of things about kind of like death doulaing...death--being a death doula, that you want to bring into this into this conversation? I'm sorry, I don't have any...I'm super intrigued by it, but I don't have any super specific questions. Roxanne 39:39 Yeah, totally. You know, the thing that I think I would talk more about but I don't exactly know how to really get it going is to talk about "Death with Dignity," sort of. Like, "Right to Die," stuff, because it is really changing in this country right now. And, it's really exciting. And, there are definitely aspects of it that are contentious. But, I feel really privileged to be someone that has gotten to experience this pretty extreme form of autonomy and self-direction that I find really inspiring and intense and brave. And, I don't really know...You know, it's like my role and capacity as someone who sits with people making these choices isn't as a death doula. It's just as a volunteer, a member of a community, who deeply believes and advocates for the fact that people shouldn't have to die alone. And I think because of this specialization thing that we've touched on a few times, people don't feel confident dying or sitting with people while they die, or, you know, all...pretty much all of the things that we've been talking about in this episode. And I think the more that we're educating each other, the more that we're talking about these things as a community, asking questions, the more confident we will be in approaching these situations and making autonomous, and educated, and self-directed decisions for ourselves. And, that's really the point here is autonomy and self-determination. And as a queer, as an anarchist, you know, like, all of the things that that feels like such an important place, that we're not just trying to figure out the things in our life, but that we're also figuring out those things in our death. Inmn 42:22 Do you--God, this is a weird question--but do you have any tips for people who are...who are sitting with people who are dying, or holding space or like caring for people who are dying, who, you know...people who aren't death doulas? Like say, that person's friends and loved ones. Roxanne 42:46 Totally. Like someone sitting with their grandmother, for just an example or something like that, you know, ask questions, if at all possible. If verbal communication is a possibility, I would ask questions. Touch. Touch each other. I feel like that's such a powerful gift and tool that we can use. You know, I think because we lack the confidence in death and dying, you know, it's almost like, "Oh, somebody just died, Like, I'm not allowed to touch them," like it becomes a crime scene or something. And that's not the case. When my father died, I absolutely climbed into bed and just laid next to him for a long time. And, that felt like such an important part of my healing process. And that might not be true for other people, but yeah, I really encourage people to really, as much as they feel comfortable, to be hands on, ask questions, and if it seems like, you know, if this is a consenting situation. You know, I recorded my dad breathing a lot. Just so that way I could have something when I felt like I really needed that, that I could go back to and listen. And yeah, I think...Yeah, asking questions, inviting vulnerability where you have capacity for, and asking for help. If you need help, that's okay. And I feel like sometimes, you know, sometimes we feel like, "I'm the only one that can handle this." I feel like so often in grief, we really feel like we're the only ones that have been through a situation. And there might be specifics to what we're going through that are specific to our individual situation. But, the more and more people you talk to about this, you know, like, most people have lost someone, have been through some kind of stage of grief. And even if we feel alone, we're not actually alone. And when we find the capacity to open up and let other people into that space of grief with us, you'll find that there are so many people that can share similar experiences with you. But you know, that's all when people are ready. Inmn 45:27 Yeah. Yeah, totally. I like...I'm gonna have a weird moment of vulnerability and honesty with...the world. But, you know, like, I, when I've had people who I have been close to die, like, I have noticed that I like...I shut down a little bit. And it's hard for me to understand how to interact with someone, I think, you know, because of this, like this weird divide that we have around death, this thing where it's like, "Do we do we talk about it? Do we talk about this person dying? Like, you know, with that person?" And I think this thing that I always wonder is I'm like, "What do people want?" Like that...What have you found people want when they're dying? When they're sick? When they have terminal conditions that everyone is aware about? Like? Yeah, what? What do people want? What I imagine they don't want are these awkward conversations where no one's really talking about it or people are hyper focusing on it. And like, I get caught in the...Like, where's the middle ground between those things? And like, personally, I'm like, I don't know, I can be--not like blunt--but just like super willing to talk about awkward things that are in the room. Yeah, I don't know. That's a weird, broad question. But yeah, what do people want when they're sick? Or? Roxanne 47:08 Yeah, I think that's a great question. And obviously, it's gonna depend person to person. And because of that, I think really just, you know, use your active listening skills and follow their lead. It's absolutely okay to ask questions. I feel like, in some instances, people really want to talk about what's going on with them, or the things that they're scared of, or resolving some aspects of conflict. And sometimes, people want to act like it's not happening at all, you know? And sometimes...And a part of that is people holding out, you know, some form of hope that at the, you know, at the 11th hour, something's gonna come in and change their situation. And there's a lot of different reasons for how engaged people do or don't want to be. But, I think it's always okay--You know, people are so worried about saying the wrong thing. And I don't really think that that's...I don't really think that that's possible. I think that as long as you're approaching someone with love, and compassion, and you're not pushing anything, if you get the impression, or someone says that they don't want to talk about something, let them be the guide and don't push it. But, I think oftentimes, you know, people might not want to, you know, constantly be harboring on, you know, the terminal cancer that they have or something. So, you can ask them about aspects of their day that brought them joy, you know? It doesn't have to be--just because someone's dying, that's not the end of their life, until they die. So, you know, there's still a lot of room for joy, and connection, and intimacy that has nothing to do with the inevitability of their situation. And, you know, I think that's true for for grieving people too, which maybe we'll touch on in the future, but I feel like when someone has someone close to them that dies, you know, people might not--oftentimes people don't talk to them about that because they're worried about, you know, bringing up something that feels hard or, you know, they just don't--people are scared of not having the right thing to say. And I think that, you know, asking questions and allowing people space to communicate their needs and desires. And, you know, for me, when I'm sitting with patients' families after they die, one of my favorite questions is to ask them about a story or like to ask them to tell me something that they really loved about that person. And that's, that can be like a really special moment because people, you know, we all like to brag on our people and bring that softness into the room and give people the opportunity to just really express gratitude and joy around the thing that they're, that they're gonna miss. Yeah. Inmn 50:43 Yeah, yeah. It feels like this isn't, you know, too much of a surprise, but from everything that you've just described, it seems like the best way to interact with people is to continue treating them like a person and having these humble and inhuman interactions in ways that you, you know, in the ways that we hope that we're interacting with or treating loved ones in all parts of our life already. Roxanne 51:18 Exactly. Inmn 51:20 But, it's like when death is suddenly a factor, when sickness is suddenly a factor, it's like something changes. And I don't know, does that, does that feel true? Or, I guess, that's something I experience, so I guess it's true. But like, yeah, what do you have to say about that? Roxanne 51:46 Yeah, I think it can change. And I think that keeping our eyes on how those things are changing, you know, is important. Like, maybe you have a close friend who's dying. So, obviously it feels like something is changing. But again, like, as we just said, like treating those people like people, asking about their day, you know, the more kind of mundane things, and yeah, I guess, like...I guess what I was thinking is like, questioning, like, you know, potential for internalized ableism around how things are changing, or why they're changing, and making sure that we aren't projecting that change on to someone unnecessarily. Because things are changing, all the time, every day, in every situation, for all of us. Whether we're facing an imminent life ending situation or not. Yeah, maybe that's not exactly the question that you were asking, but... Inmn 53:09 Oh, no. Yeah, I think that definitely covers it. I thought of this other thing while you were talking about that that was, I feel like, it's like, maybe the thing that changes sometimes is like, when someone, when we know that someone is sick or going to die, or likely going to die, or it's a question in the room, it's like a--this is not the word that I want to use, but I don't know what other word to use--It's suddenly like they are like...God, I really don't want to use this word. Really gonna try to think of another one. Not like a pariah, but like, it's like they're like...It's like a--I can't think of another word to use, so I'm just going to use it--and obviously this word has like different contexts--but it's like almost like an othering experience where like, this person is suddenly just something else. And--or like an alien. That's also not the word but like... Roxanne 54:24 Fragile? Is it fragile? Inmn 54:26 Yeah, maybe fragile? Roxanne 54:28 Yeah, I think, you know, giving space for the potential of fragility makes sense. But, I think it's also really important to not treat people like they're fragile just because they're dying or just because they're extremely sick, unless they have signified to you that that is a way that they want be interacted with. You know? I think I've definitely heard that a lot, especially from, you know, I was an oncology nurse for a long time. And I feel like I heard that a lot of my oncology patients were just being like, "Yes, I have cancer. Yes, I'm fucking dying. No, I don't want to be treated like I'm, you know, suddenly incapable of making decisions for myself or like everything is gonna hurt me or..." you know? Like, yeah, they're the--I think that it is really, you bring up a really good point about the othering aspect, and I think that that's like, from my understanding, a lot of what disability justice stuff is working on, is trying to shift the narrative of that othering. And, because... Inmn 56:02 Yeah, because that's like, that's a big thing for disability communities in our society is that they kind of get othered in this way or like... Inmn 56:15 I don't know, is that...We don't have a ton of time, but I would love to, if you have anything to say about bringing kind of that lens into this conversation of death, dying, and the conjunction with disability. It could be a larger conversation...Yeah, it could be an entire... Roxanne 56:15 Yeah. Roxanne 56:36 It could be its own...That is a very very large conversation. But, I think as far as how we treat each other, just yeah, really following people's lead and believing them when they say how they do or don't want to be treated. And that's true for all forms of living. That's true for all forms of dying, you know? Just making sure that we're checking ourselves, not projecting our own sense of urgency on each other, and just letting those people--meaning in this situation, people that are dying--you know, direct how things go. And yeah, there's really so much that can be said on that topic. And I'm so happy that you touched on it. Inmn 57:35 Yeah, I feel bad just touching on it. But it's kind of like where the conversation ended up flowing. But, which...Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I guess what I would just love to say about in this more brief context is that it seems like a lot of things that are applicable to the world of death and dying are things that disabled people have been talking about for a very long time already and like doing a lot of work around. Obviously, they're not the same things, but they're, seems like there's similar things that come up in both of these situations. And yeah, we should do a different other episode about that whole conversation. Roxanne 58:34 Yeah, there's so much to be said. And this is a really important thing to talk about. So yeah. Mhmm. Inmn 58:43 Yeah. Um, with that, we are kind of coming up on the end of our time for this, what turned into a two-parter episode, as much as I would love to make it a three parter episode, I probably can't talk for another hour. But yeah, obviously, I would love to have you and Wōen, and or like other people from Woven Ends to come back on and like talk about grief and mourning and celebration even. Yeah, and I just want to mention this because it's a piece--obviously, we could do a whole episode about this too. There's so many things to talk about. But, so you used to do a workshop about death and dying. And, that's actually what got me interested in doing this episode is that I went to one of these workshops, you know, years and years and years ago. And, as we've been doing this podcast, it's been this constant question in my mind, is like, "How do we prepare for death as a community?" And you know, maybe we can do an episode in the future that's just about that. But, there's this little piece from it that I just want to bring into this conversation that I, you know, probably could have gone in a different spot of the talk. But, obviously, we need to...The important thing is to have conversations as a community about death, about dying, about preparing to die, or preparing to get sick, or preparing to have some large life changing thing happen. And one of the things that that brought up for me was this idea that like, you know, a lot of people, especially queer and trans people, have some amount of separation between their lives and their biological family or the family that raised them, and these worlds can look very different. Like, a lot of us can build these separate worlds where we're these two different people depending on how out we are to our biological families or families that raised us. And, it brought up this big thing for me where I was like, "Oh, one big conversation that I need to have with my friends and my chosen family is how to talk to the people that raised me and my biological family, like two groups of people that I love, but two groups of people that I have very different and separate relationships with. And, you know, for other people, thinking about things like, does your...if your chosen family and your biological family, if they have to interact, does your biological family or the people that raised you, like, do they know what name you go by? Do they know that you're queer? Do they know that you're trans? Do they know that...Like, what gaps in information are there and having conversations with your friends now about like things that they might have to deal with if you get sick or die, in having those conversations with people who might--Like it might be great and civil and wonderful and everything goes really, really well and it's really joyous. Or, it might be incredibly conflictual and difficult. And, yeah, not really a question. Just a piece that I really wanted to bring it into the conversation. Roxanne 1:02:43 Yeah, definitely. And like, yeah. I think as much information as you can give your chosen family about how you want those interactions to go, you know. Some people are, you know, out to their community, but aren't out to their family and would like to remain not out to their family. And, that's okay. And, I think as a form of respect, you know, people need to use names and pronouns that are consistent with what someone is asking for in those situations. And, again, that is one of the many reasons why these conversations are so important. And again, just to keep plugging Advanced Directives, is why Advanced Directives are so important. And, you know, if we can write down even--if for some reason you don't feel like you can have those conversations with your family or your community, you know, you can write it down and, and give someone a sealed envelope that's like, "In case I die, please read this. This is how I want things...This is how I want to be talked about. This is how..." you know, because I believe and really trust at the end of the day that people want to honor you in the ways that you want to be honored and do really want to respect you and make decisions that are good and safe for the individual as well as the community. Inmn 1:04:33 Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, do you have any other last last things to say, anything that we didn't talk about, any questions that I should have asked you that I didn't? Roxanne 1:04:46 I don't think so. I just want to thank you so much for opening the space. I know that it is really a hard thing for people to talk about. You know, when we talk about death, generally, it's hard not to think about death, specifically, in our own circumstances. And, dealing with the fact that other people die means that we have to deal with the fact that we're going to die. And yeah, it just feels really special to be in communication with you about this. And yeah, I just, I feel really grateful that y'all were willing to open the space and this dialogue. And yeah, I just, I really feel like it's important. And, yeah, special. And I feel so grateful. Thank you so much for this. Inmn 1:05:46 Yeah, totally. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. I love talking about these things. And I'm so glad that there's people doing so much really amazing work around opening up these spaces and maintaining these spaces. And yeah, yeah. I don't know. Obviously, the work that you've already done to do that has made it so that I want to bring these conversations into this space of community preparedness. So yeah, thank you. Roxanne 1:06:22 Yay. Inmn 1:06:23 Is there anywhere on the internet that you would like to be found or that Woven Ends would like to be found? The answer can be, "No. Don't find me." Roxanne 1:06:39 Currently, no for Woven ends, and honestly, no, for me too, I do have an old death doula Instagram account that I used to refer people to, but I don't really use it. It's not a good resource tool. So, no. Inmn 1:06:59 I love it. I love when people can't be found and shouldn't be found on the internet. Roxanne 1:07:05 But if people have dire questions--Gosh, we really should have some kind of email or something. Maybe I can send that to you? Inmn 1:07:18 Yeah. Yeah, we can put some stuff in the show notes. Roxanne 1:07:21 Some sort of way for people. Yeah. Because I don't. Yeah. If people want to, I don't have a quick like, "Here's my Twitter handle." Inmn 1:07:35 Thank God. Yeah. Got it. Yeah, if you have anything, send it to us. We'll throw it in the show notes. The episode is not going to come out for a couple weeks, probably. Yeah. Cool. Thank you so much for coming on. And we will see you and Wōen back, hopefully soon, to talk more about this. Roxanne 1:07:58 Definitely. Thank you. Have a good day. Inmn 1:08:07 Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please live like you will die. Because we all will. But more importantly, talk to your community, your families, your friends, your ancestors, about death because having these conversations doesn't have to be scary and having them now can really make a difference in other's lives and for our end of lives. You should also tell people about the show, you can support this podcast by telling people about it. 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Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Inmn is joined by Wōen and Roxanne from the Woven Ends Collective to talk about death, dying, death work, and everything from how to determine who gets to make decisions about your end of life, to how to have your remains dealt with in the manor that you would like, to how to bring community collaboration into death. Next week, they continue the conversation, focusing mostly on the work of death doulas. Host Info Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. 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 **Live Like the World is Dying: Woven Ends on Death & Dying Part I ** **Inmn ** 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 for today Inmn Neruin and I use they/them pronouns. Today we're talking about something that we sort of reference all the time on the show, and that is death, a thing that we should all live like is going to happen someday. Because it is. I wanted to have Wōen and Roxy on to talk about this because I found myself thinking about it more and more as things change evermore rapidly in our world. And, I think it's cool to talk about because it's just another form of community preparedness that we can all engage in to make our end of lives easier for ourselves and for the people that we care about, and in general, just demystify the topic as we figure out how to leave this world, whether that pertains to navigating funerary industries, medical industries, legal logistics, medical interventions, the choice to die at home, how to have home burials, how to care for the dying, and how to have these conversations as a community. A content warning, obviously, we're going to be talking about some heavy stuff, and we approach it with some amount of levity, but we do talk at some point about the idea of choosing to die from the perspective of terminal illness. But before we get into it, we are a proud member of Channel Zero network of anarchists podcasts, and here's a jingle from another show on that network. Doo doo doo doo doo. [saying these sounds like a song melody] Wōen **Inmn ** 02:43 And we're back. Thanks, y'all so much for coming on the show with us today, especially to talk about a subject that I feel like is like a little bit more grim than we usually talk about. Or, I guess we kind of always always talk about it, but we never actually talk about it. So yeah, would you like to introduce yourselves with your names, pronouns, and kind of like what you do in the world? **Wōen ** 03:17 My name is Wōen. I use he/him pronouns. I work in grave care, so burial, and generally any rot-honoring practice that I can help with. **Roxanne ** 03:41 And my name is Roxanne. I am a nurse and have been doing end of life, and death doula sort of work outside of that, for maybe 15 years or so. Yeah. **Inmn ** 04:01 Cool. And y'all are part of a collective that kind of specializes in this kind of work. Would y'all want to introduce that now or we could talk about it later? **Wōen ** 04:17 Yeah, no, we can introduce it now. Our collective is called Woven Ends. We're more recently becoming more outward facing. We're a collection of death care practitioners and community members who are interested in helping the community. We are focused on combating the domination and alienation in our world through making our death rites and the care for the dying more autonomous and a lot more intimate. **Roxanne ** 05:08 And accessible. **Inmn ** 05:12 Cool. Um yeah, it's weird how much the State is like intertwined in death. And that's like not...I feel like that's not something I ever realized until I realized it and then I was like, "Oh, like can you die without the State being involved?" **Wōen ** 05:35 Like the bureaucratic storm is also guided by the industry and a lot of the rituals that we have now and the way that death operates is it's a contrived effort, the funeral industry, to deal with all aspects after death. So, it's a really troubling, difficult thing that families and loved ones navigate. **Roxanne ** 05:35 No. **Roxanne ** 06:14 Yeah, it's pretty devastating. It's like Capital will take hold and commodify any and every aspect of our life possible and not even our life but our afterlife as well. Like yeah, it's hard to believe in true freedom sometimes, but that's why we're here fighting for it. **Inmn ** 06:38 Yeah, I feel like...Whatever, I'm gonna take like a pretty like light hearted and like whimsical tone today because we're talking about something grim, but I feel like we have these ideas that like, "You know, the State's got me in life, but at least when I die I'll be free," and it's like maybe? I mean, your body won't be. **Roxanne ** 07:14 Sadly, no. Eventually Yes but initially, no. **Inmn ** 07:22 Yeah, I feel like that is a literal nightmare of mine. Could y'all kind of break down like what is death work? Like what is a death doula? What is the Woven Ends collective kind of like do in like a material or emotional way? **Roxanne ** 07:50 Well, I can speak towards death doula work. What a death doula is, is a little undefined. And there are powers that be that are trying to make it more defined and kind of like more commodified. But basically, a death doula is someone who helps a family or a loved one sort of like go through the process. So that could look like, before someone dies, helping come up with some like legacy project, some things that people want to leave behind, or how someone wants to be remembered. So, that could be like, you know, if a 40 year old who has three kids dies, kind of legacy work you could do with someone in that situation is like, you know, help them record videos for their kids' future birthdays, you know, stuff like that so that way when their kids get older, like hit those milestones, they can have this video from their parent that has been gone for a while. So yeah, just kind of like, you know, one aspect is focusing on legacy work. Another aspect is just kind of like emotionally helping people with the grieving process, whether that be the person who's actually passing away or the family sort of like talking through the process of all of that with them. And then, you know, other aspects could be more helping set up funerary services, trying to help work on community aspects of disposition. Yeah, death doula is...It's sort of that the individual does different things. And I think if someone's interested in having a death doula, I would really ask questions about what specific services they provide. **Wōen ** 09:59 Yeah, And I can speak more to like our collective. We definitely, we try to connect the right people to help different community members. So, that could be a death doula or even a grave digger. So, a lot of what we do is like guidance around the whole process. And we definitely want to like expand our scope completely to be able to care for the whole process. But most of what we've been doing in the past, and currently, is helping folks with finding burial options that are accessible and hopefully free. And we've been able to create a network of free home burial grounds where we live. And it's been really awesome to be able to provide this for free. And it usually is in tandem with a lot more care going on with death doulas and generally the radial support that happens when you're trying to create a more autonomous situation. **Roxanne ** 11:28 I would also say that a part of the sort of intentional death work thing is to really help communities and individuals kind of like shift narratives towards death. We live in a really deathphobic society. And it is a thing that I think...you know, like, even in our introduction, we're like, "Okay, so this is a really grim topic," but it's interesting, because it's one of, you know, aside from being alive, it's the only other thing that everyone is going to experience, like the one thing that even if you have nothing in common with somebody else, the fact that you're going to die is a thing that you have in common. And so I feel like there's a lot of room for connection there. And, a part of the sort of work is to try to like, you know, find connection, find community, and sort of shift the narrative around this very natural and inevitable thing that's going to happen, and open up room and space for there to be beauty and transition in that instead of just fear. Because I think oftentimes, people don't actually...They're not scared to die. They're scared of being in pain. And those are very different things. So I think, yeah, just like...death workers offer a space for us to really intentionally look at that and say, like, "Okay, you're feeling scared? What is it that you're scared of?" You know? And really helping shift that narrative and also hopefully providing a space where nobody has to die alone. You know, sometimes that's just going to happen, but if at all possible, making sure that we can provide space--unless someone wants to--but they don't have to die alone. **Inmn ** 13:32 Yeah, we do live in a really deathphobic society. And I...you know, obviously it's a sad and hard and difficult thing, but I feel like I have always wished that there...that we as a culture did have different attitudes or different ways that we deal with it, or grieve, or like mourn, or whatever. I don't know, I've just had a couple kind of funny funerary experiences, where I was like, "Are we celebrating this person's life? Or are we mad at them because they didn't tell anyone how sick they were?" And that just like...Yeah, just like a lot of funny experiences like that. Whereas, I wish that we were, I wish we had, that we had a different attitude towards this right now because I'm not sure if this attitude is like helping anyone. **Roxanne ** 14:43 Yeah, definitely. And I think you bring up a good point too, where because of deathphobia but also because of our obsession with what we consider health, sometimes people are so scared to admit that they're sick because there's so little support and resource around that. And people don't want to be, you know, a burden to each other. And instead of being angry at our friends because they wouldn't tell us how sick they are, it's a great time to, you know, take a moment and be like, "Okay, why do we live in a world in which someone that I loved very much could not tell me how sick they were? And like, how do I fight that world instead of my friend?" **Inmn ** 15:37 Yeah, yeah, totally. You mentioned earlier--I just want to like hit on this before we get too far away from it--but there being some effort to make being a death doula more of a defined thing? And I'm--I know, this is subjective--but is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Is that a complicated thing? **Roxanne ** 16:01 I mean, in my personal opinion, I'm not for that. I feel like the way...like I understand and respect people wanting to figure out how to do this work and still...Like, it makes sense to me that people want to do this work in a permanent way in this world that we live in, this society of capitalism, like people need to get paid for their time in order to survive. Like that makes sense to me. But, I think that there can be a kind of predatory nature to it. And these...It's like the commodification of the death, dying, death doula world is really similar to what happened in the birth community. And I think that's kind of interesting that the link between the two, because people have been doulaing each other since people were...were born about how to do these things. And, if we lived in communities where we were interacting with birth and death in more tangible ways then we wouldn't need sort of outsiders to tell us how to do these things. But yeah, I think that the certification process doesn't make sense. I think it's just another platform of institutionalization and commodification that isn't necessary, you know? It's like, okay, a lot of these certification organizations are offering education, which is amazing, yes. Like, education is so important. But the real education--and I feel like I learned this in nursing school, too--like, you can learn all the ins-and-outs of things, but where you're actually going to learn is through experience. So like, you want to learn how to be a death, doula? Go volunteer for hospice. Like, go watch people die and you will learn so much just from having that experience or like, you know--and not just hospice. You know, there's a lot of ways that people can sit with people at the end of their life. But, you know, like you don't need to pay someone to teach you how to be an active listener. **Wōen ** 18:37 Yeah, and I think...Like in the realm that I work in--which is what they call green or natural burial--like it's all the same pattern of pushing towards professionalization and specialization, and it's being co-opted by the Capitalist system. Even though a lot of these cemeteries that are providing this like really beautiful practice, they didn't intend on that and they structured themselves as a nonprofit. So they just continued to fall into the trappings of what happens when you professionalize something. And now there's overarching regulatory institutions and it's just...It makes it really hard to get into the process and start a cemetery and...Yeah, and they're walking hand-in-hand with the rest of the funeral industry, so, like annually increasing prices for these rituals that were supposed to be a lot more accessible and ecological, but they're not. They're not accessible. **Roxanne ** 20:07 Totally. And I feel like this...Yeah, this focus on specialization really, you know, negates and alienates the fact that we have inherent wisdom as to how to handle these situations. And then when we can't accept or like don't have--courage isn't the word that I'm looking for--confidence in our own, you know, kind of inherent wisdom, then we feel like we need a specialist to tell us what to do, but it's all right there inside of us in information that we can pass down with each other through, you know, actually having a relationship with death, and dying, and disposition, and all the things. So I feel like, yeah, the more we can be connected and like with death, honestly, the better we can be with life also. **Wōen ** 21:11 Yeah, and when we say, "disposition," we mean burial, cremation, you know, being eaten by birds, everything. It's a general term. **Inmn ** 21:27 Yeah, yeah. I feel like...it's fun to use this as the thing to compare it to, but, you know, I think it's important for us to like have, you know, guides through hard times or like people to...people who are very familiar with or versed in leading these experiences or facilitating these experiences, and it's...like, what you were just describing of kind of like what the Death industry is, it reminds me of a like boutique coffee shop or something. Yeah, like turning death and ritual into a boutique coffee experience that is just another strange industry that maybe people feel better about, but, yeah, I don't know. I don't know how much actual connection or like community building that is doing? **Roxanne ** 22:36 Totally. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's a similar thing. Yeah. And again, they did that with the birthing community too. It's, yeah, it's sad. **Wōen ** 22:50 Yeah, and, you know, like with organic foods. **Inmn ** 22:57 Yeah. To kind of switch gears a little bit, why is it important to think about this stuff now? Like, why is it important to think about dying? Why should we be having these conversations as a community? **Wōen ** 23:16 Yeah, I mean, I think it's always been important when you want a culture that renews itself, and especially now when we're facing intense upheaval, developing a deeper intimacy with death, it helps us claim a place, and claim ancestors, and develop a deeper resilience to the chaos in our world. Like when thinking about movements and how under the regime of alienation, and the lack of intergenerational connection, and especially like connection to our ancestors, like, things can really be thwarted without those connections to place or to the people that came before. Yeah, and so being able to be with the unexplainable and unknowable aspect of like... **Roxanne ** 24:47 I think now, as Wōen was just saying, it's so important because we are living in pretty devastating times. It's pretty obvious, I think, to most people with what's going on with the climate, you know, with ecological destruction getting worse very viscerally year by year and not just in one place but all across the world where people are really...You know, you live in Arizona...Wait, maybe I shouldn't say that... **Inmn ** 25:33 I've said it multiple times. **Roxanne ** 25:38 Yeah, well, for example, you live in a place that in the summer if someone accidentally tripped and fell, they would burn themselves on the ground and potentially have to go to the burn ICU. Like, that wasn't true five years ago and it's just only going to become more true for more places across the world. And I think, yeah, just really taking inventory of the trajectory that the world is on right now means that we're...When you're living on a dying planet, you're gonna have to deal with the fact that we are a part of that planet and not separate from that. And I think also, you know, the question of "Why now?" is, like, both a societal question and then also kind of an individual question because I think...You know, I am 39 years old. I think most people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, even 50s aren't really thinking, and hopefully, you know...People even younger than that obviously, need to be thinking about this stuff, too. But I think that, you know, often the more like normative stance--which is also partially a bliss--is just to be like, "Oh, you know, if I have a fine bill of health then why should I be concerned about these things?" And we all know people die unexpectedly. We all know our relationship to health, and all the different forms that that can look like, can change at any moment. We all know that life isn't just inevitable. And so I think really thinking about these things and really starting to prepare for these things is one of the best things we can do to help not just, you know, those around us when we die, but also to help inform how we live our lives. No matter what age you are, I think it's important to be thinking about and talking about. I've been having conversations, for example, with my mom about the fact that she was gonna die since I was like five years old. And then at some point, I was like, "Oh, wait, if you're dying, that means I'm dying too. Shit, I'm gonna have to think about this." **Inmn ** 28:23 Yeah, what does? You know, this is the fun moment where we get to say the name of the podcast in a question, but how does one live like they're dying? Like, what does that mean? **Wōen ** 28:40 I mean, I think it's understanding that ecologically and spiritually the dead make the world. Our ancestors are not just like our [uninterpretable. "In our dirt?"]. They're what came before use. They're everything we eat, and breathe, and even conceive of, and dream of. So, it's fully opening our minds to understanding the deep cycle of life. **Roxanne ** 29:17 Yeah. And, you know, some intentionality, recognizing that the things that we do and how we treat ourselves and each other do matter, you know? Like they do matter because we are people experiencing each other. Or, they don't matter in the way that we are tiny pieces of sand floating around on this huge rock in this ginormous atmosphere. You know? It's like it's both. Both things are happening at the same time. We are a multitude it turns out? Both how we are and who we are matters and also doesn't at all. But I think just like really honoring the fact that it's a limited resource, that life is actually a limited resource, and that the time that we spend together is also limited, and trying to really love people while you can, to be brave enough to really love the people in your life while you can. **Inmn ** 30:32 Yeah, I feel like we have such a...our culture has such a focus on the concept of "later" and the future that like...And you know, this is maybe obvious because a lot of the society that we live in is founded on this idea of...or like founded by people who are informed by a religion that embraces an afterlife that...and something I've really appreciated about--I'm not necessarily an atheist--but like something I've always appreciated about atheism is that it is weirdly pro life and pro living in this way where it's like, "Yeah, there's nothing after this so you gotta do what you want to do now, not later. **Wōen ** 31:32 Yeah that's kind of...I mean, I think the Christian worldview is inherently disassociating from your body? Yeah. Not a good place to start. **Inmn ** 31:53 Yeah, just to switch gears a little bit, I want to talk a little bit more about the logistics of death. So, something that I think about a lot is like, if, you know, if I get sick tomorrow, if I get in an accident tomorrow and like my condition suddenly changes like rapidly, and I have feelings about how I want...like what interventions I want taken or how I want...Let's start with interventions. And then we'll move on to other bits, but how do I prepare for that? How do I prepare for getting the...having the interventions that I want taken or not taken? Or, how do I get to choose who gets to make those decisions when I'm no longer able to? **Wōen ** 32:59 So, the simplest answer to that would be to complete an Advanced Directive that's legally binding. And so this designates the person who will be your advocate legally, to make choices at the end of life and after death. Yeah, and this ends up...Yeah, this supersedes the legal next of kin, which without designating the power of attorney, will be your biological family. So this is really important if you don't want them to be in charge of what you want to happen to you at the end of life or after your death. **Inmn ** 34:00 Do you have something to add to that Roxy? **Roxanne ** 34:02 I do. I think that I just wanted to add that making choices around your health care power of attorney, like who that person should or could be, I think sometimes there can be a lot of pressure from people that are close to you that just because you're close with someone that they should be the one to help make those medical decisions for you. But, I would like to argue that maybe that's not always the best person. What you want in these situations is someone who will follow the directive that you lay out, because just because you have this document stating how you would like for things to go, at the end of the day, the healthcare power of attorney actually gets to make the final call. So maybe you say, you know, "CPR is okay. But I don't want to be intubated." At the end of the day, if your healthcare power of attorney decides, "I want them to be intubated," despite what your paperwork says, they can intubate you. So you really want to pick someone who can...who you think will follow what you've asked for and also someone who, even if they don't have the information themselves, will educate themselves or ask the right questions to make decisions that they think you will want. And it's also I think good to think about, you know, if, for example, you think your partner is going to be so worried and like so in a process of grief, that maybe they're not the one to choose because maybe it's better for them to just to get to be in the grief process and not having to make these big decisions. I've seen so many times in the hospital where the family feels like if they choose to, quote unquote, "Pull the plug," that they're the ones that killed their loved one, not whatever, you know, situation their person was in or just that the bodies can only handle so much. And I think that, yeah, giving someone healthcare power of attorney is--I'm not going to say it's a burden--but there is definitely the potential for weight behind that and it is a serious question. It's not...it's not a popularity contest. It's not about who you like the most. It's about who you really think can help make the decisions when they need to be made or who's going to be brave enough to call it when it needs to be called. **Inmn ** 37:24 Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. **Wōen ** 37:27 Yeah, I think that just kind of reveals the need for, you know, models of anarchist mutual aid where we all support each other. And it's like, being able to have these conversations and support each other outside of these really normative pathways of the nuclear family. And yeah, breaking that prescription on... **Roxanne ** 38:04 I guess I just wanted to add that, for sure, if you want to make sure, as as close as is possible...If you wanted to make sure as much as what's in your capability that your wishes are going to be met with interventions, having an Advanced Directive is the only real way to do that legally. So, if you don't feel like, as Wōen was saying earlier, if you don't feel like you fully trust your family to do the things that you would want to do, you have to have that written down. You have to have it notarized. You really have to go through that process. It's really important. **Inmn ** 38:45 Yeah, and then it seems what is kind of equally as important is having those conversations with your community and with whoever you're designating as your power of attorney, so that like...Yeah, it's like, I'm imagining in this situation that you've built where like, your partner might not be the best person, so you make this Advanced Directive and you designate someone, who's maybe not your partner, as the power of attorney, and then it seems like you have to then have conversations with that person, or with your community as a whole, about what you want. And then...Like, I'm imagining this situation where you do that and then it's like--so it's not entirely falling on one person--maybe one person has to legally make those decisions, but like other people can support them or like it can be a little like network of support that like kind of helps hold people to like what your best wishes were? Does that kind of make sense? **Wōen ** 39:53 Absolutely. And it's like…an Advanced Directive is not all encompassing. Like, being able to guide the types of rituals you want and...Yeah, like, every little detail that you want, you should be able to have, but you have to have those conversations and they have to be on going with as many of your loved ones as possible. So, the Advanced Directive is kind of a way to safeguard against the powers that be from taking control of your life and your death. But, it [hard to tell, but probably "lasts"] like a lot of other guidance that relies on being able to talk about it. **Inmn ** 40:42 So, this is something that I was kind of thinking about with this is like if...So, say maybe that in this hypothetical that I don't have like the best relationship with my parents, or say I have a fine relationship with my parents who are still alive, but I don't think they would make the best decisions, so I designate someone from, you know, my chosen family network to be my power of attorney. But then, you know, I get sick. I get into an accident. And suddenly, my family, my biological family and my chosen family, are in the same room. Is there? I imagine those situations can get pretty contentious, especially for my biological family to find out that they do not have the power of attorney. Like, I guess, obviously, you should maybe have those conversations with your family, but like I...You know, I would rather...I would rather not have that conversation with my family where I'm like, "Hi, I have taken away your medical power of attorney over me." But I also don't want to like necessarily entirely pass that off to my friends to deal with. Like...I don't know, have you like seen situations like that that were contentious, went well, or like, do you have any tips for navigating that? **Wōen ** 42:24 Well, I mean, in different forms I've seen it. I think it's important to say, once you have your power of attorney designated the family no longer have...like, they don't have control. The power of attorney does. And so like in a situation like you're describing, I think, the idea of communal care comes in, where you can have...Like, maybe the person who is your health care advocate isn't necessarily the one who is negotiating with the family or mediating. Just having more people involved to take care of the situation, I think is the best advice I can give. **Roxanne ** 43:20 Yeah, I would say, you know, I always push towards tending towards collaboration when possible. So if someone's family is just absolutely unwilling to work with, you know, the chosen family or the person who has power of attorney then honestly that situation actually just hurts them more. So, I think as much as people can collaborate, the better. And recognizing and appreciating the fact that everyone in a situation is going through some kind of fear and grief, and we don't always behave our best in those situations. So, trying to be generous with each other and give each other time and space to--you know, I'm not saying you have to deal with someone using abusive language towards you or anything like that--but just, you know, recognizing that this can be a real space of grief and that collaboration might not seem possible at first and then it is. I've had situations where collaboration seemed really possible. And then the friend's family member flipped out and tried to get us all kicked out of the hospital. This is before I was a nurse and was just a really kind of traumatic situation for everyone but ended up--like this is actually the situation that really got me on the tip of like, "Oh, we have to have Advanced Directives. This is like imperative." But yeah, I think, as Wōen already said, as much as people can work with each other and collaborate, even if you've been told stories throughout your whole friendship with someone about, you know, what a monster their parent is, or whatever, just like focus on the task at hand, which is helping your friend get safe, and accessible, and good care for as long as they can. And if you need the family to be a part of that, great. And if a family has to go--because sometimes the family's gotta go--you get to make that call. And it's like, if they gotta go, they gotta go. But hopefully that won't be the case. I think it's just...like from a harm reductionist standpoint. **Inmn ** 46:02 Yeah, yeah. Does a family have any legal recourse against a power of attorney? Like, I can imagine a family believing that they have some kind of legal recourse, but like could they sue people? Could they challenge it? **Wōen ** 46:22 I mean, I'm gonna say, no. I know that that happens like a lot of legal challenges happen. But in the moment, I think, what should guide is that health care and funeral services will honor the healthcare power of attorney. So yeah, I think that that is a risk in a really contentious situation, but it is not likely that the healthcare system or the funeral professionals will dishonor the Advanced Directive. **Roxanne ** 47:12 And it might be a situation, like in a hospital sort of setting, it might be a thing where they kind of set up a mediation with an ethics board sort of thing. But at the end of the day, the legal document is the legal document. Yeah. **Inmn ** 47:30 Yeah. And, I'm imagining that the answer to this is along a similar lines, but like, in the reverse situation, if I don't have a power of attorney designated or an Advanced Directive, but I have, you know, my friends that I've had these conversations with about this or I have a journal entry or something about this, I'm guessing that doesn't have...like, at the end of the day, it's the the family or the next of kin, whoever has been legally designated has all of that power to make those decisions? **Wōen ** 48:07 Yeah, and again, that's where a united community who can help, you know, maybe approach the family to be able to negotiate or collaborate. Yeah, that would be the right place to start. But also, if that's not possible, knowing that you can still hold space for your grief as a community even if you're separated from the actual process of dying and death, and that you can enact the depths of meaning that you need and connection with each other. Yeah. **Roxanne ** 48:07 Yeah. **Inmn ** 49:02 Um, to kind of switch gears a little bit, this is a weird question. God. How much does it cost to die? Like obviously, you know, if you do die then that expense is not going to be your responsibility, but I'm imagining this situation like from--I don't know if y'all have seen that movie Little Miss Sunshine. [Roxanne makes an affirmative noise] But like, the grandpa dies, and they're like, "It'll cost this much money to get the body," and they're like, "We don't have that." So, they steal the body. Yeah, how much does it cost to die and have your remains something or anothered? I don't know what...I don't know what a good word is. **Wōen ** 49:55 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can definitely speak to after death. I think the national average has risen, but like a few years ago it was around $8,000 to do a really normal funeral service like burial. More and more people are choosing cremation because it is cheaper, even though it is getting more expensive. And the average cremation cost is anywhere from $1000 to $3000 based on what type of package you buy from the funeral home. There's a lot of ways that funeral homes can be predatory. Not all funeral homes are predatory, but the vast majority are. And every year it gets more expensive. So yeah, it just depends on your form of disposition. So like, if you're doing cremation it's gonna be a lot cheaper. But often people choose that because it's cheaper, not because of thoughts of that's exactly what they wanted, you know? They're thinking about the financial situation of the family, and yeah, it shouldn't be that way. They should have the type of ritual and disposition that they want. Yeah, it's a pretty horrifying situation. Yeah. **Inmn ** 51:28 And, like, what happens to...You know, normally when you go to the hospital there's a bill, but if you die, like who has to pay for the care that you received? **Roxanne ** 51:44 Yeah, your family will get that debt as far as I understand. They're a next of kin kind of situation. **Inmn ** 52:00 So, when I think about my own wishes around my remains, you know, one of those fantasies or ideas is that I would love to, you know, not be embalmed. I would love to have my body rot in the ground. Is that possible? **Wōen ** 52:16 Absolutely. To start, the only federal law around death is that you don't have to be embalmed. It's a strange, actually good law as kind of a response to an exploding funeral industry I think around--I don't exactly remember--decades ago. And so a lot of advocates pushed for that to happen. Yeah, so you definitely don't have to be embalmed even if you go to a funeral home. And if they say like, "This is the only way," they're lying. But luckily that's happening less and less because natural burial, or what they call green burial, is getting a lot more popular. And it's, I think in all states now in this country you can find a place at least within like 100 miles. But, I would advocate that if you have access to land in any way, you should do a home burial, even if that means you have to go through some bureaucracy and like create an official cemetery. You should do that because you've now created a burial ground that others can be buried at in the type of way that you want, to honor rot, to honor the ecosystem. Yeah, so definitely what you want is very possible. **Inmn ** 54:15 Cool. Um, yeah, can--I'm sure it's complicated state by state--but like, can you if you own land, or you know someone that owns land, they can just designate part of it as a cemetery and then people can get buried there? Is that like? What is that process like? **Wōen ** 54:39 It really is county by county. Yeah, county by county. Yeah, it's really...I would say where we, where I am in the southeast, as a general statement, in any rural area it is widely practiced still and it's very easy to do home burial. And as another general statement, you just...you can't do this within city limits. And I think that, for good reason, because, you know, they are hubs of capitalism with land turning over and...Like, from where we're sitting even, you know, half a mile down the road, they're desecrating a Black cemetery that they just unearthed that had been paved over at least twice. So it's...I think, like, yeah. So, being able to be outside of the city limits is the best option and most accessible. I know some states are more difficult. And there's more...like there's more red tape. I would say to research where you live. Yeah. And really think about doing this for your community. **Roxanne ** 55:59 What a gift. We live in a time where land and space is becoming--I mean, has been, is becoming--such an intense battlefield for resources. It's just like a really, really intense thing to have is land and space. So being able to provide that for people for free, even just to put their body in is such an incredible resource. **Wōen ** 56:34 Yeah, I know there's...I know there's a lot of kind of...I've heard of some wild ways to have your remains dealt with that...Maybe just to add a little bit of fun levity to the situation. But uh, I've heard you can get turned into diamonds now? **Roxanne ** 56:58 Yeah. **Inmn ** 57:00 Cool. **Wōen ** 57:00 You can get turned into a bowling ball. **Inmn ** 57:03 You can get turned into a bowling ball? I feel like this is a plot to a movie from the 90s. **Wōen ** 57:10 Yeah, I mean, it's...Yeah, you can do a lot with cremated remains. Pretty cool. **Roxanne ** 57:18 Mushroom soup. **Wōen ** 57:19 Uh-huh **Roxanne ** 57:20 I'm really into the soup, personally. **Inmn ** 57:22 The mushroom soup? **Roxanne ** 57:24 Yeah. **Inmn ** 57:25 What is the mushroom soup? **Wōen ** 57:27 What the mushrooms do. I would say it is a little...there needs to be more research on this mushroom soup. But, fungus is a late stage decomposer and this mushroom soup is something you're supposed to be buried in. That's what they're proposing. But often initial decomposition is way too hot and will eat up fungus. And so, it's a little bit not completely thought out. Yeah, so I wouldn't advocate for the mushroom soup, but I would advocate for, you know, creating an aerobic environment to be buried in so you rot really well. And you don't have to worry, the fungus will be there. They will be there to eat up your bones and all your desiccated tissue. Yeah. **Roxanne ** 58:30 I'm picturing like ground lasagna, you know, where there's like dirt, and worms, and things, and then like a layer of mycelial...input. **Wōen ** 58:47 Yeah, that makes the world go round. **Inmn ** 58:51 Yeah. And you can, like on a similar vein, I've heard in Oregon you can get composted? **Wōen ** 59:03 Yeah, I think now it's legal in eight states. It started in Seattle. They call it human composting or natural organic reduction is another term they use. But basically, they're accelerating the decomposition of your soft tissues. I think it's a really awesome thing, especially for folks who don't have access to land because you become soil really fast. And I think a lot of them partner with forest areas where they'll spread your soil. Yeah, I think it's awesome. And I really hope that they make it accessible, you know, like the rest of the Green Death movement. It remains to be seen. But, I hope that that happens. **Inmn ** 1:00:14 Thanks so much for listening. This turned into a much longer episode than we thought it would, which is great that there's just so much to talk about around this topic. So, that's the end of part one. If you enjoyed the show, please go talk to your community about death and tell us about it. And, think about filing an Advanced Medical Directive and power of attorney. We will be back next week with the second half of this episode where me and Roxy will talk a lot more about what it means to be a death doula. I know these topics can be hard and scary, but I think talking about them helps us to not worry about them as much and offers a lot of hope to our communal resilience. If you enjoyed the show, please go tell people about it. You can support this podcast by telling people about it. You can support it by talking about it on social media, rating, and reviewing, or doing whatever the nameless algorithm calls for, as much as I don't want that to be something that's true. You can also support us in a financial way by following us on Patreon at patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Our Patreon helps pay for things like transcriptions or our lovely audio editor, Bursts, as well as going to support our publisher, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. We put out a few more podcasts including my other podcast Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, a monthly podcast of anarchist literature, and the Anarcho Geek Power Hour, which is the podcast for people who love movies and hate cops. And we would like to shout out some of our patrons in particular. Thank you Carson, Lord Harken, Trixter, Princess Miranda, BenBen, anonymous, Funder, Jans, Oxalis. 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Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Inmn is joined by author and activist, Michael Novick. They talk about just how horrible fascism really is. Thankfully, there's a simple solution, antifascism. Michael talks about their work with Anti-Racist Action Network, the Turning The Tide newspaper, and his newest book with Oso Blanco, The Blue Agave Revolution. Host Info Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. Guest Info Michael (he/they) and The Blue Agave Revolution can be found at www.antiracist.org If you want to take over the Turning The Tide newspaper, find Michael at antiracistaction_ la@yahoo.com 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 Live Like the World is Dying: Michael Novick on Antifascism Inmn 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 Inmn Neruin and I use they/them pronouns. This week we are talking about something that is very scary and, in terms of things we think about being prepared for, something that is far more likely to impact our lives than say, a zombie apocalypse. Or I mean, we're already being impacted by this. It is actively killing us. But, if I had to choose between preparing for this and preparing for living in a bunker for 10 years, I would choose this. Oh, golly, I really hope preparing for this doesn't involve living in a bunker for 10 years, though. But the monster of this week is fascism. However, there's a really great solution to fascism...antifascism. And we have a guest today who has spent a lot of their life thinking about and participating in antifascism. But first, we are a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts. And so here's a jingle from another show on that network. Doo doo doo doo doo. [Singing the words like a cheesy melody] Inmn 02:00 And we're back. And I have with me today writer and organizer Michael Novick, co founder of the John Brown Anti Klan Committee, People Against Racist Terror, Anti-racist Action Network, the TORCH Antifa network and White People For Black Lives. Michael, would you like to introduce yourself with your name, pronouns and kind of...I guess like your history in anti-racist, antifascist struggles and a little bit about what you want to tell us about today? Michael 02:34 Sure. Thanks, Inmn. So yeah, Michael Novick. Pronouns he or they. I've been doing anti-racist and antifascist organizing and educating and work for many many decades at this point. I'm in my 70s. I got involved in political activism in kind of anti-war, civil rights, student rights work in the 60s. I was an SDS at Brooklyn College. And I've been doing that work from an anti white supremacist, anticapitalist, anti-imperialist perspective. And I think that particularly trying to understand fascism in the US context, you have to look at questions of settler colonialism. And, you know, people sometimes use the term racial capitalism. I think that land theft, genocide, enslavement of people of African descent, especially is central to understanding the social formation of this country. I was struck by the name of the podcast in terms of "live like the world is ending," because for a long time, I had an analysis that said that the fear of the end of the world had to do with the projection of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie feels that its rule is coming to an end and therefore thinks the world is coming to an end, but the world will get on fire without the bourgeoisie and the rulers and the imperialists. Except that because of the lease on life that this empire has gotten repeatedly by the setbacks caused by white and male supremacy and the way it undermines people's movements, the bourgeoisie is actually in a position to bring the world to an end. I think that's what we're facing is a global crisis of the Earth's system based on imperialism, based on settler colonialism, and exploitation of the Earth itself. And so I think it's not just preparing for individual survival in those circumstances. We have to think about really how we can put an end to a system that's destroying the basis for life on the planet. And so I think that those are critical understandings. And the turn towards fascism that we're seeing across the...you know, Anti-Racist Action's analysis has always been that fascism is built from above and below and that there are forces within society. I think particularly because settler colonialism is a mass base for fascism in this country, as well as an elite preference for it under the kind of circumstances that we're looking at, in which, you know, as I said the basis for life itself has been damaged by imperialism, capitalism, and its manifestations. And so the need for extreme repressive measures, and for genocidal approaches, and exterminationist approaches are at hand. So, I think that, again, I think that the question of preparation is preparation for those kinds of circumstances. I think we're living in a kind of low intensity civil war situation already, in which you see the use of violence by the State, obviously, but also by non state forces that people have to deal with. So I think that that's the overall approach that I think we need to think about. And that comes out of, as I said, decades of doing work. I think that there are a few key things that we have to understand about this system, which is that it's not just issues that we face, but there is an enemy, there is a system that is trying to propagate and sustain itself that is inimical to life and inimical to freedom. And that if we want to protect our lives and the lives of other species and if we want to protect people's freedom going forward, we have to recognize that there's an irreconcilable contradiction between those things and between the system that we live in. So that's kind of a sobering perspective. But, I think it's an important one. Inmn 06:20 Yeah, yeah, no, it is. And it's funny, something that you said, kind of made a gear turn in my head. So, you know, normally, yeah, we do talk about in preparing to live like the world is dying, we do usually come at it from this context of that being a bad thing that we need to prepare for bad things to happen. But, the way you were talking about like fascism and empire and stuff, I suddenly thought, "Wait, maybe we should live like that world is dying and like there is something better ahead." Because, you know, we do like to approach the show from...I feel like we like to talk about the bad things that are happening and could happen but also the hopefulness and like the brighter futures that we can imagine. Michael 07:15 I think that's right. And I think it's really important to have both of those understandings. I think that, you know, people do not actually get well organized out of despair. I think they do, you know, you want to have...You know, there used to be a group called Love and Rage. And you have to have both those aspects. You have to have the rage against the machine and the rage against the system that's destroying people, but you have to have the love, you have to have that sense of solidarity and the idea of a culture of not just resistance but a culture of liberation and a culture of solidarity. And I think that, you know, there's a dialectic between the power of the State and the power of these oppressive forces and the power of the people and to the extent that the people can exert their power and to the extent that we can free ourselves from the, you know, the chains of mental slavery is...[Sings a sort of tune] you hear in reggae, you know, that actually weakens the power of the State and the power of the corporations. And they [the State] understand that sometimes better than we do. So there is, you know, there's some lessons I feel like I've learned and one of them is that every time there is a liberatory movement based out of people's experiences and the contradictions that are experienced in their lives, whether it's the gay liberation movement, women's liberation movement, or Black liberation and freedom struggle, there's always an attempt by the rulers to take that over and to reintegrate it into, you know, bourgeois ways of thinking. And, you know, people talk about hegemony and the idea that ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class, and I think that, you know, I've seen it happen over and over again with different movements. And so, you know, I was involved with the Bay Area gay liberation in the 80s and, you know, one of the things that happened there is that you saw very quickly a different language coming up and different issues coming up. And so suddenly the question of gays in the military was put forward, or we have to be concerned about the fact that gay people have to hide when they're in the military, and the question of normalizing gay relationships in the contract form of marriage came forward. And those were basically efforts to circumscribe and contain the struggle for gay liberation and to break down gender binaries and stuff within the confines of bourgeois conceptions of rights and bourgeois integration into militarism and contractual economic relationships. And you saw that over and over again in terms of the Women's Liberation Movement, and then all of a sudden you've got bourgeois feminism and white white feminism. And I think that that's really important to understand because it means that there's a struggle inside every movement to grasp the contradiction that...and to maintain a kind of self determined analysis and strategy for how that movement is going to carry itself forward in opposition to what the rulers of this society--who rely heavily on, as I say, white supremacy, male supremacy, settler colonialism, and its manifestations--to try to contain and suppress insurrectionary...And you see the same thing within the preparedness movement. There's the dominant politics of the preparedness movement I think that I've seen over many years are actually white supremacist. They're maintaining the homestead of settler colonial land theft. So you have to understand that that's a contradiction in that movement that has to be faced and overcome and struggled with. I think having an understanding is critical to really trying to chart a path forward that will kind of break...create wedge issues on our side of the of the ledger, so to speak, and begin to break people away from identification with the Empire, identification with whiteness, identification with privilege. And, you know, one of the issues I've had over a long time, for example, what I struggle for is people's understanding about the question of privilege. You know, I come out of the...as I said, there were struggles in the 60s and early 70s about what we called white skin privilege. And I think that it's critical to understand that privilege functions throughout the system all the time. It's not a burden of guilt, it's a mechanism of social control. And anything you have as privilege can be taken away. Privilege is a mechanism of actually obtaining consent and adherence to...You know, parents use privileges with their kids to try to get their kids to do what they want. Teachers use privilege with students to get the students to do what they want, Prison guards use privileges with prisoners to get the prisoners to follow the rules and stay incarcerated. And so, you know, that's a mechanism of Imperial domination, of settler colonialism, and certainly within that context. So, it's not an illness or a...It's not something to be guilty about. It's something to contend with and deal with and understand that if there are things you have as privileges that you think are used by right or by merit, you're deluding yourself and you can't actually function facing reality. So when you understand that they are privileges, you understand that they're there to obtain your consent and your adherence, and your compliance, your complicity, your complacency, and then you have to actually resist those privileges or turn those privileges into weapons that you can use to actually weaken the powers that be. And I think that that approach is important to understand that, you know...I used to do a lot of work with people in the Philippines struggle, and they talked about the fact that, you know, on some of the...outside the US Army bases that were imposed in the Philippines, there was a rank order of privilege, like where people could dig in the garbage dumps of the US military to get better quality stuff that was being thrown out by the military. And so that kind of hierarchy and sense of organizing people by by hierarchy, by privilege, is how the system functions at every level. In the workplace they find different privileges that people have to try to divide workers from each other and get people to struggle for privilege as opposed to actually struggle for solidarity and resistance and a different world. And I think that having that understanding begins to free people. Steven Biko was the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa that really helped propel it moving forward. One of the things he said is that, "The greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the minds of the oppressed." And, you know, I think to the extent that we can start to free our minds of these structures, we can actually begin to weaken the oppressor and strengthen the struggling and creative powers and energies of people to really build a different world. Inmn 14:00 Yeah, yeah. Sorry, this is gonna seem like a silly question because it feels very basic. But, I love to kind of break things down into their base levels. But, what is fascism? Michael 14:11 Yeah, good question. I think that an important analysis of fascism that I came across is from Cesare Amè. And what he said is that, "Fascism is the application in the metropole (of the colonizing power) of the methods of rule that have been used in the colonies." I think that that has a critical understanding because, as I said, the US is a separate colonial system, so elements of fascism have always been present within the political, economic, and social structure of the United States because they're internally colonized people and stolen land. So, if you're looking at elements of fascism, there's hyper masculinity, there's hyper nationalism, there's obviously slave labor, there's incorporation of a mass base into kind of a visceral identification with a leader. And all of those things really have manifest themselves in US history before we used the term, "fascism." And so, the US is based on land theft, on genocide, on exterminationist policies towards the indigenous people, the enslavement of African people, and also on the incorporation of a mass base based on settler colonialism and the offering of privileges to a sector of the population to say, "Okay, you know, we're going to participate along with the rulers in this system." And so I think that it's important to get that understanding because people often think that fascism is an aberration or it's a particularly extreme form of dictatorial rule or something like that. But I think that it's really a way of trying to reorganize people's personalities around their role within an empire and within, you know, it's trying to control the way people think, and control the way people see themselves in relation to other people. And so, you know, that's why I think that idea that fascism is built from above and below is important because we do see fascist elements that have some contradictions with the state. And we've seen, for example, in January 6th. You know, the government has gone after certain of these elements because they have moved too quickly. Or, the same way that there were premature antifascists during the World War II period and they went after the people in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Sometimes there are sort of premature proto-fascist in this society that have contradictions with the State, and they're operating somewhat independently. So, you know, I think that it's important to understand that and that there are elements in the State and within the different sections of the State that have their own operative plan. So, you know, when you look at the question of police abuse and police brutality, there's one approach to it that certain elements in the State take, which is about command and control. They want to make sure that they control the police forces and that individual officers are not acting independently but are carrying out cohesive state strategies. At the same time, there are elements within law enforcement that are trying to organize individual cops for organized white supremacy. And, it's the same thing in the military. And so there are contradictions there that we have to be aware of, but at the same time, they're operating within a framework of settler colonialism, of organized white supremacy, So, one of the things that's come up recently, for example, is this idea that there...how can there be non-white white supremacists? And, you know, I think it has to do with the fact that it's not just your identity, or your racial identity that's there but who do you...What's your identification? Are you identifying with the Empire? Are you identifying with the bourgeois? Are you identifying with the settler colonial project that has shaped, really, the whole globe over the course of half a millennium? Or, are you identifying with the indigenous? Are you identifying with the struggling people? And it's less a...It's not a question of your particular skin color but which side of the line are you on? Inmn 18:12 How does attempts by the State or by society to kind of like assimilate various oppressed people into the Empire? Like, how does that kind of factor factor into this? Michael 18:24 Well, if you look at the history of, let's say, Central America is one case in point, that there were fascist forces in Central America and their base was not really within their own society. Their base was within the Empire. And so, you had death squads operating, you had mercenaries operating, you had contras [counter revolutionaries] operating in Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, carrying out genocidal policies, in many cases, against indigenous people and people of African descent within their own societies. And so, you know, that's not exactly fascism in the same way, but it certainly is aspects of police state and death squad activity that has to be resisted. So I think that, you know, when you see Enrique Tarrio and some of these people that are, quote unquote, "Hispanic," operating as proto-fascists with the Proud Boys or these other formations in the United States that's a manifestation of the same thing, that there are people who have identified themselves with a system of white supremacy and a system of domination, a system of exploitation, and they're trying to make their own individual piece with it and they have collective mechanisms that reinforce that. And they see...So, you know, I think that the fascism has presented itself at times as a decolonizing element in Latin America and Asia and other places where...For example, when the Japanese Empire was trying to strengthen itself and formed an alliance with Italian fascism and German Nazism, they also presented themselves in Asia as liberators of Asia from European colonialism. And, you know, then they carried out atrocities of their own in China, Indochina, and Korea. So, I think that nobody is exempt from this. It's not a genetic factor. It is what ideology...What's the organizing principle that people are operating under to form their society and generate their power? If that's militaristic, if it's hierarchical, if it's exploitative, then regardless of what the skin tone of somebody carrying that out is, it can be fascistic in its nature. Inmn 20:44 Yeah, I like something that you said earlier, which I think is an interesting frame. So, I feel like people in the United States, you might hear people like, talk about the rise of fascism, or the like, emergence of fascism, as if it's this new thing, you know? And I like how you read it, in the formation of the United States as a nationalistic identity with this idea that fascism has always been here, fascism has always been a part of the settler colonial project of the United States. Michael 21:27 Well, I was gonna follow up that is if you look at the countries in which fascism came to power in Europe, they were mainly countries where they felt they were not adequate empires in their own right. In other words, Spain, even Portugal, France, England, you know, had empires. Germany came late to imperialism. And even to the formation of a German state, the German bourgeoisie was not able to really unify all the Germans into a single nation. Same thing with Italy. Italy was, you know, a bunch of kind of mini states and city states and came late to the formation of a national sense of Italy. And so I think that fascism presented itself as a overarching ideology that could galvanize a nation and launch it into an imperial mode where it could compete with other empires. So the US context is a little different because, as I say, from the very beginning it had that element of settler colonialism and cross-class alliance in which not only the bourgeoisie but even working people could be induced to participate in that project of land theft and genocide. There's a famous book called "How the Irish Became White" by Noel Ignatiev who talked about, you know, how white supremacy affected Irish workers. And what he didn't really look at was that there was some Irish involved right from the very beginning and trying to overturn the land relationships between settlers. They wanted, you know, there was a land theft and a land hunger that they had, and so, for example, even before the question of relation between Irish workers and Black workers came up, there were Irish in the United States that wanted to overturn the agreements that had been reached in Pennsylvania between the Quakers and the indigenous people in Pennsylvania. The Irish wanted land and they wanted to participate in taking that land from the native people. And then that had repercussions back in Ireland itself because that the US Empire and those land thefts then affected the consciousness of the Irish within Ireland itself and weaken the Irish struggle for independence from British colonialism because there was a safety valve of the US Empire. And so I think that it's critical to look at these things because it gives us a sense of what is at stake at different times and what's at issue. And I think that looking at the question of decolonization, looking at the question of solidarity and unity, is the flip sides to this. If we only look at the power of the bourgeois, if we look at the power of the fascists, it can be intimidating or overwhelming or depressing. And I think that that's the...You know, when you talk about preparedness and some of these things, you're talking about what are the generative powers of the people themselves because Imperialism and Capitalism are based on a kind of parasitical relationship. They're extracting wealth from the Earth itself and from the labor of people and turning it into a power over the Earth and over the people. And I think that understanding that actually all that wealth that the system has, all the power that the system has is actually coming out of the people who are oppressed and exploited in the land gives us a sense of what our own powers are and what our own capacity to be creative and generative are. To the extent we exercise those, it weakens them. And I think that that's a critical understanding. Inmn 25:16 Yeah. Are there ways that fascism is currently manifesting that feel different from say, I don't know, like 40 years ago? Michael 25:29 Well, I think the whole phenomenon of social media and the way in which they very effectively organized these Neofascist forces through the gaming...hypermasculine gaming stuff and, you know, I think...We talked a little bit about the..I think the reason that people approached me to do this podcast had to do with my essay in "¡No Pasarán!: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis." And so that's a piece where I talked about, you know, some of this history of different struggles and how they...what lessons to extract from them. But the other book I've been working on and put out recently, is called "The Blue Agave Revolution: Poetry of the Blind Rebel." This was a book...I was approached by Oso Blanco, an indigenous political prisoner here in the United States who was involved with actually robbing banks to support the Zapatistas in Mexico, and he was getting "Turning the Tide," the newspaper I've been working on for many years that we send free to prisoners, and he approached me. He wanted to work on a book and he said he wanted me to work on the book with him. And he had..."The Poetry of the Blind Rebel" is a story arc and poetry arc of his work that is a story about the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century, the 1910s-1920. It's kind of magical realism. But, he asked me to write some fiction. And so I wrote kind of a short story cycle of a three way fight between vampires, zombies, and humans. And the vampires are basically--I mean, it's Dracula--but, you know, there's one point where there's a woman who has been trying to grapple with this and she forms a cross with two wooden tent stakes and he kind of laughs and says, "Oh, you bought that old wive's tale. We totally integrated into the church and into the State," you know. Basically, the vampires represent the bourgeoisie because they [the bourgeoisie] are vampiric and parasitic and they have powers. The zombies in this story are a group of incels that have captured a vampire and they think that they can create a potion from vampire blood that will give them power over women and make them...you know...And instead, they turn themselves into zombies. And so then there's a sort of three way fight between the bourgeoisie on the one hand, these vampires, the fascists from below, these sort of incel zombies that have to eat brains, and then the humans who are trying to deal with both of them. And I think that that's an important understanding that, you know, there are contradictions between the vampires and zombies but they're both our enemy. And so, I think that that's an approach that we have to understand that they're....You know, it's not a simple linear equation that's going on. There's a lot of things happening. I think that the fascists from below have contradictions with the fascists above, and we can take advantage of that. And then...but, we have to understand that their, you know, it's not...I think there are weaknesses...[Trails off] Let me go back to this. You know, historically, people have talked about antifascism and anti-imperialism, and there's been an element in both of those of class collaboration. A lot of people in the anti-imperialist movement think, "Oh, well, there's a sort of a national bourgeoisie that also doesn't like the Empire and wants to exert itself. And we have to ally with them. And a lot of people in antifascist movements have thought, "Oh, well, there's, you know, bourgeois Democrats who also hate fascism," and I think that those have been weaknesses historically. And also the contradiction between people who concentrate mostly antifascism, the people who concentrate mostly on anti-imperialism has weakened people's movements. I think having a kind of overarching understanding that fascism is rooted in Empire, particularly in settler colonialism, and that there isn't a contradiction. We have to find the forces of popular resistance that will overturn both fascism and imperialism...and capitalism. And, that we have to, you know, have a self determined struggle for decolonization and recognize people's self determination in their own struggles and their own capacity to live in a different way and to begin to create, you know, the solidarity forever, we say, you know, "Build a new world from the ashes of the old." And, I think that in terms of my own work, I've tried to--although, you might think I'm aging out at this point, but I've been involved at every point that there's an upsurge in struggle. I've tried to participate in that as part of Occupy LA. And more recently, I've been involved with some of the dual power organizing that's going on. And I don't know how much your people are familiar with that, but it is a conception related to, let's say, Cooperation Jackson, in Mississippi, where they're trying to figure out ways of organizing themselves economically and also resisting the power of the State. And so I was at the Dual Power Gathering that took place in Indiana last summer and there's one on the West Coast that's coming up in the Portland area. Inmn 31:06 Yeah, could you explain what--for our listeners--what is dual power? Michael 31:11 Yeah, so dual power is the concept that we have a power and we can exercise that power, and within the framework of this contemporary society, which is so destructive, we can begin to generate and exercise that power, and that there's, as I said, a kind of dialectic between the power of the people and the power of the State, and the corporations, and the power of the fascist, and that the different prefigurative elements of the kind of society we want to live in in the future can be created now. And, that as we exercise that power, it weakens the power of the State. It weakens the power of the bourgeoisie and the power of the imperialists. I went to that Dual Power Gathering in Indiana--I mean, it's not my bio region, but I did used to live in Chicago--and I felt some affinities with it. You know, they were...To talk about the idea of, you know, what's the relationship between dual power and our three-way fight, with a different conception with what the three-way fight is, that we are having to contend with two different enemies, you know, these fascists from below and the fascist from above, the State, and corporate power, and then also right-wing elements. And I think that in terms of both of those, we have to understand what are the powers that we have to organize ourselves to, as they say, to apply the generative and regenerative powers to...So that people have a sense of what they're fighting for. It's not just anti-this and anti-that. So for example, the newspaper I've worked in for many years, "Turning the Tide," originally, we called it the "Journal of Anti-Racist Action," or "Anti-Racist Action Edcuation & Research," and then we changed the subtitle a few years ago to, "The Journal of Intercommunal Solidarity," in the sense that you have to say what you're fighting for? What are we trying to build? What are we trying to create? What are we creating? And how does that give us the capacity to continue to resist and continue to shape the future, not just react always to what they're doing but actually have a proactive, generative stance. And so, you know, people's creative cultural expressions, people's capacity to do permaculture in urban environments or many other things like that, that say, that we want to restore the biological diversity, you know. We want to restore the capacity of the soil. We want to restore the clarity of the water and the air in the process of struggling for our own liberation. And that, you know, those are things that can happen and must happen now. We can't wait for some revolution that will happen in the future in which you know, we'll create a better world. We have to start in the context and the interstices of the system in the place that people are being pulverized. And so, you know, in Los Angeles, people are involved in various kinds of mutual aid work and working with the homeless, working with people being evicted to take over homes and restore them. And I think all those manifestations, that's the question of dual power there. We're looking at the incapacity of the people ruling this society to actually meet basic human needs and we're trying to figure out how to meet them. So, I think that's where it coincides with this question of preparedness is that I think that is a sense that people have to rely on their own resources, their own energies, and understanding that there's a contradiction between the system, the way it functions, and its implications and impact on us. And it's incapacity, its powerlessness, to really protect people from the kinds of calamities it's creating, whether it's flooding, or firestorms, or, you know, all the other manifestations of this global crisis of the Earth's system that is growing out of Capitalism. We have to deal with that now. We can't wait, you know, till sometime in the future when we have, you know, "power," quote unquote, you know? We have the power to start to deal with it. Inmn 35:17 Yeah, and, I feel like there have been different ways that people have tried to do exactly that in the past. And I don't know, like, I'm thinking of a lot of the stuff that the Black Panthers were doing, like creating communities that they...like, declaring that they had power and that they had the power to build the communities that they wanted and to preserve those communities. And then they faced an incredible amount of repression, like, as much for arming themselves as for giving kids lunch and breakfast. And I'm wondering, in what ways does the State try to like...or in what ways has the State tried to destabilize dual power movements in the past? And what can we kind of expect them to do now? Or what are they doing now? Does that make sense? Michael 36:35 Yeah, I think there's always a two-pronged approach by the state. And, sometimes it's referred to as, "The carrot and the stick." You know, it's co-optation ad coercion. And so they always attempt both to control as they modify people's thinking and try to create bourgeois alternatives to liberatory thinking and liberatory organizing. And then simultaneously, they have the repressive aspects, the criminalization of those efforts. And so in relation to the Black Panther Party, for example, they were simultaneously pushing what they called Black Capitalism, and saying, "Oh, yes, you know, we'll give you, you know, we'll find the sector of Black community that can integrate into the system." And then, along with that, they were carrying out COINTELPRO, which was a war strategy of creating contradictions inside Black Liberation organizations, setting one against the other, trying to execute and/or incarcerate people who were not willing to compromise their principles. So I think we have to be aware that you're seeing the same thing go on around policing issues. You know, they constantly want to put forward different reforms and accountability measures and ways that people can participate in civilian oversight mechanisms that really don't do anything. And at the same time, they're, you know, attacking people who are doing Copwatch or groups like the Stop LAPD Spying Network, which has exposed a lot of stuff about this constantly being targeted. So, I think that those, that the two-pronged approach by the State is something we have to be very aware of. It's not only coercion and criminalization and repression, but it's also co-optation and, you know, giving people individual solutions and mechanisms that are...they call it the nonprofit industrial complex, you know, this whole mechanism of structures that are set up to get people involved in grant writing and looking to philanthropists to somehow support them in their work. And I think that trying..You know, one of the things the Black Panther Party did was it had its own self generated funding by going to the base community they were trying to organize in, talking to small shopkeepers, and talking to churches, and trying to integrate that into these Liberatory efforts. So, I think that, you know, looking at that model, when I started doing, for example, People Against Racist Terror, there were a lot of small anti-racist groups around the country and a lot of them ended up going the route of looking for grants and looking for nonprofit organizations that they could fold themselves into, and I think that that kind of denatured them. They became, you know...As opposed to being grassroots, they became board and staff organizations, and individuals would create careers out of it. And I think that that mechanism of transforming popular movements into nonprofit organizations or nongovernmental organizations that accommodate themselves to existing power structures, existing economic realities, is one of the things that we need to try to avoid happening in this current period. Inmn 40:18 That makes that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's, it's funny, because I feel like I'm seeing a lot of groups involved in mutual aid, who are, I think, taking that lesson of the nonprofit industrial complex but are also trying to access larger swaths of money than the communities that they're part of can provide, like this model of, it's important to involve your community base in those things and to generate those things ourselves, but there is this problem sometimes of like, you're passing the hat and the same 20 people are kicking into the bail fund. And I don't know, I think maybe this is just me being hopeful, but I'm seeing a lot of mutual aid groups kind of dip into grant writing or dip into utilizing nonprofit statuses more so than structures in order to access funding and things like that. But what I'm seeing is people coming at it from like, hopefully, what is a different perspective of taking these lessons of the past and being like, "Well, we don't want to become some horrifying, large nonprofit, but we do want the State to give us 10 grand so that we can build infrastructure. Like I guess my question is, are there ways to responsibly interact with that? Or is this a trap? Michael 41:57 I guess I'd have hear more details. I think it's imperative that it has to come from below and from the grassroots. I think that, you know, I've been involved with the opposite, for example, Pacifica Radio, and Pacifica is listener sponsored radio and is a constant struggle about how much can we accept cooperation of broadcasting funding. They cut us off some years ago and we're trying to get it back Or, there's struggles about trying to get some underwriting. It depends who you're accountable to for the money that you're getting. Are you accountable primarily to the funder? Are you accountable primarily to the people who are using that money and the people who are self organizing for community power and community sustainability, and, you know, some of the things we're talking about of self determined strategies. And, you know, I do think that what happened to a lot of the 60s movements is that there was an ebb in the mass movement. And then people made their separate peace. People were like flotsam and jetsam as the tide of people's power movements were negatively impacted because of white supremacy, male supremacy, COINTELPRO, and an inadequate response to deal with it. Then, you know, people ended up in labor unions where they were doing some good work, but basically they became part of a labor bureaucracy where they ended up in government social services/ They were doing some good work, but they became part of that mechanism. So, I think the critical thing is trying to keep control of what's going on in the hands of the people who are actually organizing themselves and their communities. Inmn 43:55 Yeah. No, that makes sense. What are strategies that we should be embracing for countering this current current escalation in fascist tendencies? Michael 44:10 Well, you know, I've done a lot of work over the years, and as I say, "Turning the Tide" is a newspaper, we send a couple of thousand copies almost every issue into the prisons and we're in touch with a lot of stuff that's going on in the prisons. And I think that that's a critical place to look for some understanding about how to deal with this because we do see under what are essentially very naked fascist conditions of domination inside the prisons, which are very hierarchical. There's a lot of negative activity within the prisons themselves. There's the power of the guards and the wardens in the system and yet you find struggles going on against racism, against sexism, for solidarity against the solitary confinement of people who have been victims of torture are organizing themselves. And I think that understanding of that capacity and looking at that, those are some of the leading struggles in the United States. There have been hunger strikes, there have been labor strikes, the Alabama Prisoners Movement [Free Alabama Movement] here in California and elsewhere. And I think that sense that people under the most severe repression are actually capable of making human connections among themselves and beginning to actually, in a self critical way, look at how they incorporated toxic masculinity and racism into their own approach to reality, and by beginning to purge themselves of those things, they can begin to create multiracial solidarity among all prisoners to actually resist the conditions of incarceration and resist enslavement. So I think that that's very important to look at. I think that here in Los Angeles, there are, as they say, organizations like LACAN, that are working among homeless people and with homeless people to organize themselves to have street watches. They have a community garden on the roof of a building. They have cultural expression. They have theatrical groups...coral...You know, it's like all those things connect people's love and rage, as I say, people's ability to generate creative cultural expression and to use that to strengthen their solidarity and their unity and their ability to resist the coercive power of the State or the police sweeps or to expose what's going on and begin to put out a challenge to the way that society is organized. So I think that those are some critical things. I think that having the capacity to defend ourselves, both physically and also legally is very very important. I think that if you look at stuff like the Stop Cop City struggle that the escalation of repression and the use of charges of terrorism on people that are obviously not terrorists is indicates that the State sees this as a very, very serious threat and is trying to eradicate it and is trying to intimidate people. And I think to the extent that we can turn that around and use it to say to people, you know, "Is this the kind of State you want to live in? Is this the kind of society you want to have?" is a way to begin to change minds and hearts of people who have been going along with the system. I lived through a whole period where we freed many many political prisoners. We freed Bobby. We freed Huey. We freed Angela. And, you know, even the Panther 21 in New York, you know, it's like the jury met for about 30 minutes and acquitted them all because the power of those organized forces affected the consciousness of the jurors. And I think that understanding that we actually have the power to begin to shape not just own consciousness, to ways that struggle with people, to, "Which side are you on?" and to give people a sense that there is a side that they can identify with and become part of, and transform their own lives, and transform society in the process of doing that. So, I think, you know, for example, the stuff around preparedness is vital that, you know, we're living in a world in which there are incredibly destructive wildfires, floods, tornadoes, and it's very clear that the state is incapable of even dealing with it after the fact, let alone preventing it. And so I think that gives us an opening to talk to very wide sectors of the population in cities and in rural areas as well. I think that, you know, for example, Anti-Racist Action Network in its heyday had hundreds of chapters around the country in small towns because young people were, in their own high schools and music scenes, were suddenly faced with this threat of fascism and said, "Hey, we have to get organized." And so I think that, you know, we need to see these things as opportunities to really very massively begin to engage with people and begin to offer an alternative way of thinking about the world that gives some hope and some prospect of dealing not just with the crises and the repression but a way forward for people. Inmn 49:48 Yeah, yeah. And that kind of ties into--I love that you use this phrase. We've had this phrase come up lot with Cindy Milstein, who we've interviewed on the podcast before and who we've published their newest book last year, "Try Anarchism For Life," and they talk a lot about prefigurative organizing and prefigurative spaces. And I think this kind of ties into what you're talking about, but I was wondering if you could kind of give us your take on the importance of building prefigurative spaces? Michael 50:31 Yeah, I think that we have to find ways to bring people together and to give people a sense, as I say, of our own power and our own creative and generative capacity. So I think that that says that whether it's free schools, or it's breakfast for children, or any of the things that the Black Panther Party did and that many other people of color movements did in a certain period are here at our disposal. I know that, for example, there's a crisis in childcare and child rearing that's going on and so organizing people into childcare collectives and people jointly taking responsibility for each other's children and creating trust relationships that make people feel comfortable with that would be one example of that. In food deserts, organizing people to break up some sidewalks and grow some food and I think they're...One of the things that I've come to understand from doing this work for a long time is we live in a kind of fractal or holographic world in which the same contradictions are shot all the way through the system. It's at any level of magnification in fractals. If you look at the coast of Norway, something in the fjords, you know, it's the same pattern is reproduced at every level. And, you know, in a holographic image, any piece of the hologram has the whole hologram in it. So, I think that any area that people want to choose to struggle in, I think as long as they understand that they're struggling against the entirety of the system in that area and that there's an enmity built into that relationship between the system and we see what they're trying to do, I think that's the critical understanding. So if people are engaged in, you know, community gardens, as long as they understand that that's a piece of a larger struggle to create a world in which nature has, has space to reassert itself, and that people can eat different food and better food. And any area that you know, whether it's the struggle over transgender, nonbinary, or anything else, once people see that it's the same system throughout that they're struggling with, it lays a basis for solidarity, for unity, and for a struggle on many fronts simultaneously that says, you know, sort of the "War of the Flea," [A book on guerrilla warfare] the system is vulnerable in a million places because the system is in all those places simultaneously and, you know, they have a lot of money, a lot of power to deal with that, and they're organized in these systems of command and control and artificial intelligence and all the rest of it to keep track of everything, but we're in all those places simultaneously as well because we're everywhere. And trying to coordinate those things, I think, is very important. Inmn 53:51 This is a little bit of a backup that I remembered that I wanted to ask you about it. So, like, we're currently seeing like a pretty horrific and intense wave of legislation against against trans people and against queer people, and nonbinary people. And, yeah, I'm wondering what your take on that is as a kind of indicator, if we have to imagine like fascism as a spectrum of where we could be going, like what is that kind of legislation and repression an indicator of? Michael 54:38 Yeah, you know, I think that obviously fascism always tries to target the people they think are the most vulnerable. And also, as I say, I think they want to create what they see as wedge issues that they can use to divide people and segment people off. And so I think, to the extent that we can reverse that and we can try to unite people around a different conception. You know, one of the things that struck me is that you saw that they sort of had this victory with controlling the courts and overturning Roe v. Wade, for example. And, what that revealed was actually how narrow that really was, the forces that were pushing for that. Because then, you know, Nebraska and Kansas and these various states suddenly had electoral reinforcement of abortion rights happening. And I think the same thing can happen here. I think that there's so many families that they're concerned about their own kids or...and the parental rights. It reveals that these fault lines go through the whole system. That's what I'm trying to say is all of their power is based on repression and exploitation, and to the extent that people begin to see that and how it impacts on them, it opens up the vistas of possibility to say, you know, if you're concerned about your child's right to get the medical assistance they need, why is the State coming in to prevent you from doing that? And what are the interests that are trying to pick this as a threat to the stability of society? Inmn 56:46 And, yeah. Michael 56:48 So, you know, I think that since every crisis is an opportunity, I think the other thing I did want to talk about a little bit was the whole Covid pandemic, you know, going back to the prepper thing. I think you saw, again, you know, a lot of right-wing exploitation of that issue. And I think that the extent that we can get out ahead of that and look at...Okay, for example, in a society like Cuba, which had a completely different relationship to this because they're organized in a different way and, you know, they actually have a public health system and they actually created their own vaccines, not the ones from big pharma here in this country, and begin to get people to think about that and why Cuba is stigmatized by this society? Why are they embargoing Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, all these countries? You know, the connection to a global sense of what are the possibilities in the world? What are the prefigurative formations that are happening inside imperialism by countries that are actually resisting it? And so, if you look at, you know, the medical care system in Cuba, for example, you know, they have...Every neighborhood has a doctor that lives in the neighborhood--and nursing staff and other people--and [the doctor] works door to door with the people in that neighborhood to be concerned about their health and their well being not just, you know, responding to a particular medical crisis, and they have that systematized and they...So in that context, they were able to vaccinate people, not through coercive measures but through trusted people that were part of their community that could reassure them about the fact that they developed the vaccines themselves and that the Cuban pharmaceutical industry came out of their effort to deal with chemical and biological warfare by the United States. The US was like putting in swine fever as a way to destroy pigs that every family in Cuba had their own little pig to raise and, you know, supplement their food. And so they developed animal vaccines first to protect those animals and then they work their way up from there. So I think that that sense of, you know...I had a good friend recently who passed away from complications of diabetes and the Cubans have developed treatments for diabetes and to prevent amputation of limbs and other stuff. And all of that is unavailable to us because of the US imperialist embargo on Cuba and blockade. And giving people a sense that, you know, there actually are people living in the world in much better conditions. The United States is number one in incarceration, number one in many social ills, number one in overdose deaths, and, you know, on and on and on...number one in evictions. And we can begin to, you know, really give a sense to people that this system has nothing to offer them but destruction and that we have the capacity to create something different. Inmn 1:00:13 Yeah. Thanks. I have only to say that...yes. Yes to all of that. We are nearing the end...of the recording, not of the world. [Said as a dry joke] And, yeah, is there any any kind of last things that you want to say before--I'll ask you to plug anything that you want to plug at the end--I mean, that was such a beautiful wrap up, I feel like. But, if there's anything else you want to talk about, that we haven't talked about? Michael 1:00:45 Well, you know, years ago, I was part of a group in Berkeley that took over the California College of Arts and Crafts to create an anti-war poster making facility during the Vietnam War. And out of that group, there was a singing group called the Red Star Singers, and they had a song called "The Power of the People's the Force of Life." And I think we really have to have that sense. It's, you know, it is a dialectic. That's what I think the main thing I want to try to convey is that, you know, to the extent that we can build the people's power, it actually weakens that system. And, you know, just that sense that all the power that they have is actually derived from their exploitation and oppression of people. And that's our power, you know, manifest that against us. And if we take our power back, it actually does weaken them and increases our possibilities of struggling to for a different world. So, I will do the plugs. I, for 35 years, I've been working and I actually wanted to sort of break the story here. I'm looking for a collective that will take over "Turning the Tide." I've been putting it out for a long, long time. Volume 35 # 2 is just about to come out. It's up on antiracist.org. You can reach me at antiracistaction_ la@yahoo.com. But, you know, like I say, I'm 76. I'm currently the interim general manager of KPFK radio in Los Angeles and it's a huge time commitment. And I want I want to see the paper, you know, become, in some way or shape, institutionalized, to continue to meet, you know, send out the 1700-1800 copies to prisoners. And so, if anybody's interested in taking over that project and fulfilling that commitment, I'd love to hear from them. And then, as I say, I have a chapter in "¡No Pasarán!: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis" edited by Shane Burley from AK Press. And I contributed a lot of material archival stuff and was interviewed extensively for "We Go Where They Go: The Story of Anti-Racist Action" from PM press. Two really, really important books and well worth reading. And then I did, self published and co-authored "The Blue Agave Revolution: The Poetry of the Blind Rebel" with Oso Blanco, Byron Shane Chubbuck. And you can get that again from Anti-Racist Action. So it's PO Box 1055, Culver City, California 90232. And online, just Antiracist.org. Inmn 1:03:27 Wonderful, in "The Blue Agave Revolution," is that Is that where we can find your short story about the three-way fight between vampires, zombies and humans? Michael 1:03:37 It's a kind of a novella. There's about seven chapters of a longer thing. And there's also a shorter one about a group of teenage mutants called Black Bloc, that they have these kind of minor powers. One of them can, you know, it's Jackpot and Crackpot. Crackpot can kind of break out of anything and Jackpot can just affect the odds slightly in their favor and a bunch of other young people, nonbinary and so on. But they're also some different essays of mine in there and a lot of poetry and, yeah...Just the mathematics of the enormity of social economic inequality. People don't understand exactly what it is, but essentially, about 45% of the US population has the equivalent of 50 cents in assets. You know, people don't understand exactly what the class divide and the contradictions inside the society are, you know. We're we're duped into thinking that this is the richest country on the face of the Earth and the most powerful, you know. There's an enormous, hidden social cost and pain behind that and we have to figure out how to galvanize that into the power that actually those people possess and the creativity that they have. Inmn 1:05:03 Yeah. Great. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah, of course. And I'll we'll drop links to all the things that you mentioned in the show notes for people to find. And yeah, thank you. Michael 1:05:23 Okay. Take care. Have a great day. Inmn 1:05:25 You too. Inmn 1:05:26 Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, then go out and live like the Empire is dying. And then tell us about it. And if you'd like to support this podcast, you can do so by telling people about it. 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Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Shane comes on to teach Margaret about distillation and all of the things that one could produce through distillation, like distilled water, hand sanitizer, fuel alcohol, essential oils, and alcohol for drinking. They talk through the science and dispel some myths around the process. 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 Live Like the World is Dying: Shane on Distillation Margaret Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times...and it especially feels like the end times at least as we record this. I don't know when this is gonna come out, but we just had the hottest month on record. Maybe we've just had the hottest month on record when you hear this in October. I don't fucking know. I'm your host. I'm one of your hosts. I'm your only host today, Margaret Killjoy, and this week we're gonna be talking about something that I've wanted to know more about for a long time, although I'm absolutely terrified to have anything to do with it besides on informational and when-the-apocalypse-comes level because this week we are talking about distillation, the thing that should not be anywhere near as illegal as it is...or complicated legally. It's not always illegal. It's complicated legally. And we're gonna be talking about distillation. We're gonna be talking about distillation of alcohol for like...Well I guess all of it's distillation of alcohol, but we're gonna be talking about it from a like medical point of view and like having a good time point of view. And...obviously...don't do any crimes that you can get caught for. And, 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. Ba buh bub bub. [Making noises like a song melody] Margaret Okay, we're back. And if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then just a little bit of your background about what we're gonna be talking about about distillation. Shane My name is Shane, pronouns are he/him. I'm a hobby distiller. I've been doing it not for that long, but I've been doing a ton of research. I've been learning a lot about it, and yeah... Margaret What kind of....what kind of stuff....Let's point out that you live in Canada where the crime is a different one. Which isn't to say...I guess it's like...Well, obviously don't do any of the illegal stuff. But it seems like Canada has a very different attitude about this as the United States does. Wanna talk about that? Shane Yeah. So where I am, it is illegal. It's mostly illegal under our tax laws because they don't want you making it and selling it out of your basement or whatever. It's not really enforced if you...Don't take my word for that. Like, this is always gonna be a risk, but it's not really enforced if you're just doing it for yourself. Margaret Yeah. That makes sense. Is worth pointing out--I'm going to reiterate this way too many times on the show--that the ATF in the United States has a very different attitude about home distillation. And obviously, people still do it. And before we started recording, we looked it up and it looks like it is federally illegal, but not every state has it illegal and like some states that specifically illegal, I believe. Which, just gets into that weird thing in the United States where there's like some things that are federally illegal but are actually fine state to state. Shane Well I believe the ATF is a federal organization. So you know, it's still a risk if you decide to do that. Margaret Yeah, exactly. And I know for my sake, like, I'm literally not going to--usually, I'm like, like...I'm just, I'm not actually going to end up setting up a still. Even though I'm like very curious about the process, just because the cost-benefit analysis isn't going to work for me, but everyone's going to do their own cost-benefit analysis and it's information that I think is very practical and useful for situations in which you don't live under the United State's jurisdiction, whether because you live in a different country or because the United States has a collapse, which is one of the main things that we talk about on the show. So probably no one's gonna be surprised that I think that that's possible. So with that out of the way, what's distillation? Shane Basically, it's taking everything that's not alcohol out of the alcohol and throwing it away. So, you're just usually heating it up, collecting the steam, cooling the steam down before it escapes your system, and turning it into liquid alcohol. Margaret The steam is the liquid alcohol? Or the steam is that not liquid...is the everything else? Shane The steam is the liquid alcohol. You want to...ideally you want to collect that as it comes off your still, run it through some sort of cooling sleeve or condenser of some kind, and then collect what comes out the other end. Margaret Okay. I like...Whenever someone says like, "And then throw the other parts away." I'm like, "Wait, but tell me about the other parts." Is there like? Can you make like? If you make brandy out of wine, can you have like non alcoholic wine at the end too? Or like, is it just gross weird shit? Shane It's kind of gross, weird shit. There is some uses for it. I believe you can--you may want to look this up, if you have animals before you do this--I think you can mix it with your animal feed to add some nutrition or some calories to that. I've heard of some people doing that. I think you can--well, I know one thing you can do with it--there are certain traditions around making rum that actually keep that and put it into the next batch. Sometimes they put it in a pit and let it rot to add flavor. So, be careful with that. [Margaret laughing] But that is something you can do with it. Margaret So much like--this has come up on all the fermentation and brewing episodes--like there's so much stuff that's just weird magic-- [interrupted] Shane Yeah. Margaret --involved in food. Like, "Oh, yeah, you put it in the pit to rot. And that makes it taste better." And like, I remember once I was picking grapes for wine at a--like someone was just like paying me eight bucks an hour to pick grapes for wine or whatever at a vineyard--and they were...I was like, "Do I pick the moldy ones?" And they were like, "Yes, that's part of the flavor." And I'm like...I'm probably still gonna drink wine, but I'm going to think more about it as I do it. Shane There's a lot of weird magic stuff in distilling to, actually. So like this...one thing that your fermentation episode, the the magic spoon thing reminded me--or that was not the bread episode, I can't remember--But... Margaret I don't remember. Shane This is just folklore, but there was a thing in Scotland where when a big distillery would get a new still, they didn't really know how the flavor worked, all the chemistry of it yet. They would get a new still, but they wanted everything that came out to taste like the old one. So, in an effort to coax the spirit out of the old still, they would beat dents into it to make it looks like the old one. Margaret Hell yeah. [Laughing] Shane And it...that...weirdly enough, that does work. It does, like the shape of the still does affect the flavor. They didn't know why. But that's what they told themselves. Margaret It is so...I'm so glad I'm not a perfectionist. If I ever like am home brewing or whatever. I'm not going to be like, "I am going to recreate Guinness." I'm just going to be like, "Hell yeah, I made beer." Shane I'm the same way. Margaret Okay, so like um...what are some of the things...You know, when you when you pitched this episode to me--I was very happy to hear from you because this is something I've wanted to talk to someone about for a while--you talked about how there's a couple different things that one might want to make with a still. I mean, you're making alcohol, right, but for a lot of different purposes. Do you want to talk about what some of those purposes are? Shane Yeah, well, first of all, even if you're not making alcohol--and this is part of the way that stills get sold in the States and why it's still usually state by state legal to own one--you can make essential oils with it. You can make purified water. That's actually a huge survival benefit of having a still is being able to make distilled water. The alcohol can be used to make fuel which I believe is legal in some states. But besides that, like I said, the fuel alcohol, alcohol for tinctures, you can make any spirit you can drink, like vodka, whiskey, rum, etc. You can make hand sanitizer. I know that was a big deal around the start of Covid when hand sanitizer was selling out everywhere. People were, both big distilleries and some moonshiners in some areas, were kind of coming out of the woodwork and saying "Oh, by the way, I have a still. Here's a bunch of free alcohol to sanitize your hands with." Margaret That's cool. That makes me really happy. Like both sides of that. Shane It's actually one of the things that made me want to get a still was the capacity or the capability to be able to do that...And the obvious reason, but...[Trails off] Margaret Yeah, I mean...which is funny because I know that...When I used to, I used to shoot tintypes and one of the stages involves heating the tintype over an alcohol stove. And so in order to buy alcohol for that it had to be denatured, and that's when I learned that...I'm going to get the different types of alcohol mixed up. Ethanol is the drinking one and methanol is the one that you can't or something maybe? Shane And isopropyl alcohol is the other one you can't. Margaret Okay. And so, Denatured alcohol was alcohol that you can use as fuel. But they specifically add poison to it in order to make it so that you can't drink it, so that it can only be used for fuel? Is that...does that match? Shane That's right. So that started around prohibition. You used to build by ethanol by the barrel for almost nothing. But, they started requiring by law that you add methanol to it because people still needed alcohol for industrial purposes, but, you know, they added methanol specifically because it was damn near impossible to separate it out. And it's extremely deadly as well. So... Margaret We're gonna save people from the vice of drinking by murdering them if they drink this alcohol. Shane And it murdered a hell of a lot of people. Margaret God. Thanks, Protestants for prohibition. [Said with dry sarcasm] Shane I think a lot of places are actually moving away from that. So now a lot of alcoholic is denatured with bitterants instead, the same bitterants they put in air dusters. Don't take that as a reason to go buy some industrial alcohol and drink it, [Margaret laughing] because I'm sure many places are still using methanol. But yeah. Also, it's gonna taste bad if you do. So... Margaret Okay, so let's talk about like...I want to talk about the non alcohol...the non drinky stuff first. Like you mentioned fuel alcohol. What what do people...like to sell our preppers on fuel alcohol. What are you fueling with fuel alcohol? Shane Well, the first example--and one of the things I thought of when I was gonna get a still--I do a lot of camping and I currently use one of those isobutane stoves with the big expensive, disposable isobutane tanks. I'm considering--I haven't done it yet--but I'm considering making one of those can [like tin can] stoves, which is just a small alcohol stove that cost nothing, weighs nothing, to replace that. Cooking is one big thing you can do. You did mention using the store bought alcohol stove for tintyping. I believe there are alcohol engines, at least very small ones, but I don't know much about that. I know you can add ethanol to gasoline to make it a little bit more efficient, but I wouldn't recommend doing that with what comes out of a home still. Because I'm sure that whatever comes out of your home still is going to have some water in it. I wouldn't recommend combining that with gasoline. Margaret Oh, yeah, that sounds bad. Okay, so it's not like what you're going to put in your tractor. But, it could be what you're cooking off of. I suspect that there's ways...I suspect that there's like home heaters that can run off of it or ways to use it to heat homes, probably in very sketchy ways and possibly safer ways as well. Shane Actually, one thing I'm thinking of there is alcohol heaters are...You can actually make them with a mason jar. I've heard of some people, making them as like a mutual aid thing and giving them to people who are stuck in tents during the winter. Margaret Oh, yeah, there's the ones that--you're right--where you take the copper tubing and you do a little loop and you...Those are cool. And they're not fake like the...There's this thing where people are like, "Take a tea light and put it under a pot, and now you've heated your tent." People have done a lot of tests about this. It is not more efficient. It is not a very good way of heating and also it's a fire danger because the melting point...the flash point of wax is lower than the amount of heat that the terracotta pot can eventually put out. And so, you can you can start a fire that way. So actually, ironically, this like...Yeah, no, that's right, heater block. I need to have them on at some point talking about how people use these things. Shane They're also fire risk, but I imagine less so than a camp stove going off in your tent. So...People have made chicken wire cages and stuff for them as well. Margaret What is the like raw material that you're going to be using? Well, let's just talk about how you...How do you distill? Let's use fuel alcohol as like the main--because it's like the neutral one, right? It's not about flavor. It's just a, "Let's make ethanol." How do you make ethanol? Shane For making ethanol for fuel, if flavor doesn't matter at all, you basically want to find the cheapest source of sugars you can find. If you're already into home brewing, I imagine grain, malted grain, is probably one of the cheapest sources. If you don't have any equipment for dealing with grain, your best bet is probably buying the cheapest sugar you can find at a grocery store, combining that with some yeast nutrient, and some yeast, and fermenting that. That's what I've...That's what a lot of people will do when they start distilling. If they're trying to make a neutral like vodka or fuel or something, they'll make what's called a sugar wash. Margaret So a sugar wash is basically just fermented sugar with no added flavoring? Shane Yeah. And well...People will add things that are, like I said, nutrient. And one of the more common, more popular ways of doing it, if you're trying to preserve flavor, is using tomato paste as most of the nutrient. Because if you're adding a very little, very small amount of it, then it's not affecting the flavor when it's all said and done. Margaret When you say nutrient, I presume you don't mean nutrient for the end drinker. Is this nutrient for the yeast or something? Shane This is nutrient for the yeast. Margaret So they need more than just sugar to survive. Shane Yes, like us, they can't survive on sugar alone. Margaret But I've tried. Shane Yes. We all have. Margaret It's so cheap. Shane You put that into a bucket, probably the biggest container you can find, with some water. Obviously, don't just try to ferment the sugars alone. And leave that for about a week. If you do have a lot of the home fermenting equipment like hydrometers, and things like that, you can get a little more scientific about it. You probably don't want to go any higher than 1.01 gravity. Which is...Because beyond that, the yeast doesn't really like to be there. If you're trying to preserve flavor, don't go any higher than 1.0...or 1.007. I might be misremembering how to read these. Margaret Wait, but then why when you make beer, you're like, you're going way higher than 1%, right? Shane Not 1%. Sorry, when I say the starting gravity, you're measuring the amount of sugar, that's when you get that little thermometer looking thing and you float it in your ferment. So, you actually want to go to about 10 to 12%. So you can do the math to figure out how you want to get there. Margaret Okay, so the basic...Is the basic idea of distillation...the basic idea is you make a low alcohol thing, like beer, or wine, or just a sugar wash...You make some...alcohol, right? And then you're concentrating it by pulling out everything that isn't alcohol out of it in the still by--I think you already said this--by evaporating--I assume alcohol is a lower evaporation point than everything else is like the reason it works or something--and then you like run it through some cooling and then you end up with alcohol on the other end? That's the high percent alcohol? Okay. Shane So if you want to get a little more into distillation theory, it is a bit more complicated than that. But essentially, yeah, it is just because alcohol boils at 70 degrees instead of 100. The alcohol is gonna boil off first. Margaret Is that Celsius? Shane Yes, sorry. Margaret Great. No, we can use Celsius. Yeah, just wanted to...Yeah. Shane Especially when it comes to anything distillation related, I tend to default to that. Canada is one of the...kind of like the UK where we have a mix of units. But uh... Margaret Yeah, I think Celsius is better for science stuff and Fahrenheit is better for like how cold it is outside stuff, personally. Shane Especially if you're talking about boiling points of liquids. So...It's kinda made exactly for that. Margaret Yeah, that is I guess that is Celsius' main thing, yeah. Okay, so you make your sugar mash. Okay, let's just..To run through it, you've made your sugar wash, not sugar mash, sugar wash. Now, what are we...now what are you doing? Shane Mash is usually...If you're making it with grains, you'll call it a mash. But, after that, you will take all that and put it in your boiler, so the part of your still that's actually supposed to eat. You'll seal everything up, make sure there's no leaks. You obviously want to keep an eye on that. So one quick safety note: The most dangerous thing coming out of your still is vapor alcohol. Ideally, you don't want any vapor coming out at any point. That's why you have the condenser to cool everything. Margaret Oh shit. Yeah, because it's explosive. Shane It's very flammable. It's far more flammable than just a pool of liquid alcohol sitting there. Margaret Oh shit. Shane Unless you are...unless you have terrible terrible luck and you're in a closed system, it's not going to explode. But, it could cause a pretty bad fire. So I keep a fire extinguisher next to my still at all times. Anyway, so like I said, you want to seal everything up, make sure your water is running through your condenser, if using that kind of condenser and turn on the heat... Margaret What's a...just tell me what a condenser is. Shane So a condenser, because you don't want any steam coming out because it's hard to collect, it's kind of...All the steam will go through your condenser. The condenser will cool it all down, condense it back into a liquid, and liquid will come out of the other end. Margaret This is the like...wrapped copper pipe or some...tube? Shane Yeah, so there's a few different kinds. If you're looking at like a moonshine still, you're gonna see a copper tube coiled up through a bucket. I personally, I've had one of those. I hate that style. Because unless you're doing it outside by a river, it's kind of hard to control how much water is going through it and prevent it from overflowing. The kind I'd recommend, if you're going the DIY route, is a Liebig condenser, which is...You can look up easy plans online. So, you have a smaller copper pipe, a larger copper pipe on the outside of that with water running through it. So you'll have two, like an inlet and an outlet, and the hose or something running through that. And that's usually enough to cool down however much steam is coming out the other end. Margaret Okay, so like the big...When people talk about distillation, right, the big things people worry about is the government, obviously, but then also safety, like the food safety level of it, right? How dangerous is it to make ethanol? Are you going to go blind if you drink it? Is it safe to make fuel alcohol, dangerous to make drinking alcohol? Is it all overblown? Are there certain things that people can do? Please, whoever's listening, don't assume that you know how to do things just because you heard about it on a podcast. See this as like an overview and an overall interest. Shane Well, like I said, the main danger is fire safety. It's very flammable. Especially in the olden days, when they would do this on a propane fire or a wood fire or whatever. If you can avoid it, don't run your still over an open flame. I know your great grandfather probably did. But don't, Margaret So don't use the fuel alcohol to make more alcohol. [Laughing], Shane Preferably no. Unless you're outside and you're away from anything flammable. Margaret Okay. Shane But as far as food safety goes, there is a tiny amount of methanol whenever you ferment something. The methanol is the thing that makes you go blind, apparently. But the thing is, you're not getting anything out of your still that wasn't in the wine, or sugar wash, or beer that you put into it. There's not really any risk of methanol poisoning unless you really screwed something up with fermenting, in which case you would also get it from drinking whatever you drank, whatever you made from, whatever you fermented. There is this myth that popped up around prohibition because...So moonshiners would make their moonshine and they will try to increase their yields a little bit by adding industrial alcohol. That is where the myth of going blind and methanol poisoning comes from. It's not from people running their still in competently, it's from people trying to pass off industrial alcohol as safe. Margaret Okay, so like denatured alcohol got it in the mix? Shane Yeah, exactly. And sometimes there was never even a still involved. It's just some unscrupulous guy bought a bunch of industrial alcohol, threw some juniper berries in it, and called a gin. Margaret Okay. I'm half convinced that--I'm not from where I live right now, right--I'm half convinced that the person around here who gave me some moonshine, I'm like, half convinced that they just gave me some like,fucking vodka with food flavoring in it, and were like, "Yeah, that bitch isn't gonna fucking know the difference." But, yeah, I do...I like to think that I that they didn't do that, to me. Shane There's a big trend of you can just buy moonshine in alcohol and liquor stores now. But it's...a lot of people kind of don't consider it real moonshine because it wasn't made in the backwoods in an old copper still. Margaret Yeah, I mean, in my mind, moonshine means illegally manufactured alcohol that's very alcoholic. Shane Sorry, back to the like, the safety thing. There is one note. So, a lot of people will tell you when you're running you're still, that first thing you have to do is take the four shots out. And that's the first ounce or so that comes out of you're still... Margaret What's that called, the four shot? Shane Four shots. So that's a bit outdated. It comes from....So, basically a bunch of people were dying from from methanol poisoning and moonshiners were--the honest ones-- were scratching their heads trying to figure out what they were doing wrong. And so they thought, "Well, the methanol has a lower boiling point. So we can just take off whatever comes out first and throw that away," right? Margaret Okay. Shane Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Methanol and alcohol have very similar boiling points, and they come off throughout the entire run. You're not going to get rid of all the methanol by getting rid of the first shot. But what you...So, you don't really need to take four shots, but when you're distilling for drinking purposes, you're not going to drink the first little bit anyway. So you're going to take your cuts, so your four shots, the first section of cuts, then there's the heads, which has some acetone, some fruity esters, some nasty stuff in it that you don't really want, and you're gonna throw all that away. Margaret Can you use it as fuel alcohol or no? Shane Oh, yeah, you can still use that as fuel alcohol. Margaret Okay. Shane That's right. I shouldn't have even said throw it away. I don't throw mine away, personally. I use it when I start fires. Margaret I'm sure it's the way people talk about it. I just have a weird like, "Throw something away?!" But I'm a hoarder...I mean, uhhh, preparedness. Okay. Yeah. Shane The four shots thing is a bit outdated but that is...some people still do it as sort of a "just in case" or superstition more than anything. But that's the...The main thing is in the heads, there are things that aren't good for you. But like I said before, those things are going to be in your beer or your wine that you're fermenting anyway. The worst thing they're going to do is give you a worse hangover if you drink them. Margaret Oh, okay. That...I've always wondered why different...I've had some homebrew that has caused everyone in the room to blackout. Shane Mhmm. Margaret So, I've had some...I've had some homemade moonshine, also, that caused everyone to blackout. So it was probably heads or just like poorly made or something. Shane There's a another bit of like folklore. So there's another type of distilling you can do--this is a bit of a tangent--called a freeze...fractional freezing, where you take your--this is commonly done with apple cider--you take your cider, you put it in the freezer, you let it freeze, you scoop out all the ice, and what's left is a higher proof, higher strength. Margaret Wow, that's cool. Shane So, that was considered one of the first distilled beverages people would drink because it was called Applejack. And the hangovers from it were so bad that they gave them its own name Applepalsy because you couldn't take cuts when you're doing that. People would get completely sloshed on Applejack and they would...they probably woke up wishing they had methanol poisoning. Margaret So because you've talked about how all the like methanol and acetone and all that stuff is already in your homemade beer, right? Shane Exactly. Margaret But it seems like maybe the distillation process...like Applejack sounds like kind of was giving people a worse time than the apple cider was, is that because it's just a higher concentration, right? It's the literal amount of acetone, but there's like...it's just distilled? Shane It's mostly because people were drinking more of it and they're drinking it faster. So, if you take like a 500 mil, or a standard bottle of cider, and you drink all of that, it's not going to hurt you any less than if you distilled that and then drank everything that came out of it. But, you know, it's easier to get drunker on spirits than it is on cider. Margaret Yeah, that's true. Shane No. I also...the one thing I definitely wouldn't recommend, I wouldn't recommend taking all the heads and just drinking that because then you are getting a higher concentration of the acetone and methanol and... Margaret Right, so most people are getting rid of their heads also, and then only taking--what's the the opposite? Tails? What comes after heads? Shane Wait, why are you watering it down? Wait, I'm a little confused. What does, "take your cuts" mean in this context? Shane Tails is the last bit. You don't really want that either. Hearts is the good stuff in the middle. [Margaret giggles] So when you're taking your...typically, when you're running to still, you'll run it into mason jars, or any other small jar or whatever you can collect a lot of, and you'll just, you'll taste as you go, and you'll just swap out the jars as they fill up. And then the next day, when you got a fresh palate, you'll look at everything, water it down, taste it, and see where you want to make your cuts. Shane Take your cuts is when you figure out where your heads are, like where the nasty acetone, sickly sweet stuff is. And you water it down because you don't want to be like tasting 70%. You're not going to get much out of that. So you're figuring out what's your heads, what's your heart, the good stuff, and what's your tails, which is where it starts smelling a little weird, wet dog ish? Margaret Oh, I see. So it's not like, "The first third is this. The second third is this." Instead, you take all of it, and you keep it like all lined up so you know what's what. And then you're like, "Alright, jar three, it's starting to get a little bit less nasty. Jar five, it's smelling...it taste good. Jar nine, it tastes bad again." Shane Exactly. So unless you have a really well established recipe and you have a very consistent still, you're never gonna base it on how much has come through, or what temperature it's at, or what proof it's at. You're gonna base on taste. So, if you're running an industrial pot still, you're probably running off of an established recipe that your boss made for you. And so you're you're measuring, okay, so the alcohol is at 65%. We're going to start our heads...or our hearts here and separate that out. But if you're running a home still, you're not gonna be able to do that usually. Margaret Okay. Alright, so I have questions. Is there a way to test for methanol? Shane Not at home that I know of. But again, if you are the one who fermented the product, and you're the one who put it in your still, I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's...Like I said, it's going to be in your cider or your beer or whatever. Anyway. It's almost impossible... [Interrupted] Margaret If you're willing to drink your beer, you should be willing to drink your whiskey. Shane Yeah, it's damn near impossible to get a lethal amount, or even a slightly dangerous amount, of methanol and your spirits. Margaret Okay. All right. My other question is, what are the variables? Like you talked about, like people in Scotland were like, denting their stills? Or maybe they're fermenting for beer? I don't remember what they were denting. Shane It was the stills. Yep. Margaret Okay. So it's like, does the taste and all of that change based on how quickly it came to a boil versus how quickly it didn't? Is it? Like, like, what are the...I assume there's just like a million variables and that makes it fun. So I kinda want to hear about them. Shane There's so many variables that this is like an active area of study in like industrial distilling. We don't know all the chemicals that are in like whiskey, for example. I'll use whiskey as an example because that's where flavor matters the most for a lot of people. Like when you're fermenting something, what kind of yeast you use matters a lot, what kind of grain, how much of each grain. And yeast doesn't just produce alcohol. Depending on how--people use the term stress--depending on how stressed out the yeast is, like how perfect the environment is for the yeast is going to produce different chemicals. Margaret How its day at work was and stuff. Shane Yeah, basically. If you ferment at a different temperature, or if you have too much sugar in your wash, that's going to affect the flavor. And if you use a different species of yeast, etc, but...And then, when it's in the still, all those different chemicals that that yeast made, and there's a lot of them, and also putting things that were just in the grain, not even things the yeast had anything to do with, all that comes off at a different temperature, at a different time. Some of it will come off in the heads. Like, I mentioned, acetone. There's also some...fruity tasting compounds that will come off in there that the yeast made or that were in the grain. The variable there is the fermentation, I guess. The next one would probably be...So you've probably noticed that most people make their stills out of copper. Margaret Yeah. I think so. I knew the pipes were but yeah. Margaret That's okay. It seems like we've kind of...fuel alcohol was a good base for now. Shane The reason for that, aside from the fact that that's probably what you can get at a hardware store when you're making moonshine, is there's also some sulfur compounds that kind of give the spirit a weird taste or smell, and copper supposedly does a pretty good job of stripping some of that out. So the more copper contact the vapor has in your still, the better. For flavor, at least. We're kind of getting away from few alcohol here. But that's for... Shane For fuel alcohol, you want to run it as high proof as you can. Ideally, don't put anything more than 40%. in you're still if you're running in your kitchen because for safety reasons. You just want to get as high proof as you can. That's the main thing. You want yield. But, for flavor, the amount of copper contact, the shape of the still matters because of something called reflux or passive reflux. Margaret Oh, I get that...Sorry, that's a joke about heartburn. Anyway... Shane I mean, it's similar in a still, weirdly enough, but like if you want to get more into the difference between the pot still and reflux still later, we can. But basically, a reflux still is something that does this on purpose. A pot still, depending on the shape of it and the temperature around you when you're distilling, some of the...As the vapor is going up, and before it even gets to your condenser, some of it is going to condense and fall back down. And some of it is going to condense and stick to the side of your still. And that's going to interact more with the vapor. That changes what chemicals come through it. Usually the more volatile chemicals will come through when that happens. Margaret So y'all are nerds, I'm guessing. Shane Oh, yeah. Margaret That's cool. I love that hobbies have like weird deep divy shit. So people like care about what percent of their vapor is coming down the sides and stuff because of how it changes the taste and other things? Shane Mhmm. And like I said, people didn't know how this worked before. They would literally just say, "Well, that I know that still makes some really good stuff. Let's just beat up this still so it looks like that one." And it works. So. No, you also don't have to get this nerdy with it. You can just buy a cheap Amazon or even there's.... Shane There's a good company called Still Spirits that makes a home still. You can buy one of those, throw your sugar wash in, mix it with some flavorings, and you got booze. If that's all you want to do. But..I'm a nerd about it. So yeah. Margaret Like a cheap water purifier? Shane Exactly. Margaret No, I mean, it seems like the kind of thing where like...I always go at things at two levels. I like first just like do it. And I like don't want to get nerdy when I first start. I just want to like, "Fuck yeah, I made some..." Well, I don't want to do this because...whatever. But like, I made some rum or whatever, right? I just want to do it and then after that, that's when I want to like do it the same over and over again or like compare the different things. And, so a lot of the variables and stuff aren't going to matter if your goal is to just have rum and you don't care if the rum is consistent because you're not a commercial thing. Margaret And it's more about it being fun to try and create the consistency? Shane You may still want to get nerdy with the cuts, though, because.... Margaret Because you don't want to drink acetone. you're not perceived. Acetone Shane Not for safety reasons. Even if you're just make...even if you just want to get some rum made and try it. If you don't bother taking cuts at all, it's going to taste awful. So at least put it in the jars and taste it and see what's best. So that's as nerdy as you want to get for your first go. That's what I did. That's as nerdy as I got my first run. Margaret What um, what was your first run? What would you recommend if they're different? What do you like making? Shane Honestly for your first run, just do a sugar wash because you're gonna throw that away or use it for fuel anyway because you want to do a cleaning run. If you got your still on Amazon or if you made it yourself, you want to make sure you get anything that could dissolve in alcohol out of there, like any fluff solder or whatever. And also make sure you using plumbing solder not leaded solder, that sort of thing. But...After that, the first thing I did was rum, because it was kind of easy. All I had to do was just figure out a way to ferment molasses. And I live not too far away from a place that makes molasses. So, it was really cheap for me to get a big jug of it. Margaret Hell yeah. Can I get some molasses? Shane But for your first go, you're probably going to do a sugar wash anyway. And I'd recommend turning it into gin because it's not gonna taste great on its own. Margaret Yeah, I was going to ask. Okay, so like...in my head, every hard liquor is like, the distillation of some soft liquor? But why is it called hard liquor? There's no other...All liquors hard liquor? Is that? Wait... Shane If it's distilled, it's hard, I think. I don't know. Different legal definitions. Margaret Yeah. So, like, in my mind, whiskey is like, beer that you take too far. Brandy has wine that you take too far. Not too far. But further...But maybe I like run out because I actually don't know what rum is...It's apparently made from molasses. Is vodka? Shane Anything. Any sugar cane product. Technically a sugar wash, I think, is rum. So, sugar cane...the easiest way for me to get sugar cane concentrate is in molasses from the store. So. Margaret Molasses is just burned sugar, right? Shane Molasses is just concentrated sugar cane juice. So fancy molasses is that Blackstrap stuff. They boil it to get all the sugar out of it and what's left over as Blackstrap molasses. So it's like a byproduct at that point, basically. Margaret That's kind of cool. I like weird byproducts that people have probably figured out by now. Okay, what's vodka? Is it potato liquor? Shane Vodka. A lot of people think it's potato liquor. It's really just neutral grain alcohol. So, it's basically, pretty much anything you make out of a grain...Potatoes are used for a lot of, in a lot of places cause it is what they have a lot of. But it's just anything that you've distilled up to above 95 or as high as you can go and then you water it down to drinkable 40%. So you're trying to get rid of as many impurities as you possibly can and make it as neutral as you can. That's vodka. Margaret Okay. Alright. Then what's whiskey? Shane You're pretty much on the money when you say it's just distilled beer. You wouldn't want to put hops in it because it won't taste very good. And you don't need to preserve it anyway. But it's any anything that's...any distilled, fermented grain. So, whether it's corn, or wheat, barley, whatever. Margaret Is there like a secret distillers only alcohol that you like can't get in the store? I guess moonshine is this. Okay, well, what's moonshine? Shane It depends. A lot of different people have different definitions. Like I read a thing about this on the home distillers forums--there's a whole hobby forum for this--their way of saying is whatever you consider moonshine is moonshine, because it's just any illegal alcohol. Traditionally, I think it's just an unaged corn whiskey. So just fermented corn, basically, and then distilled. Margaret Okay. But like, okay, so, in my mind, there's got to be like, a type of...Like, you know, if you like...People who grow food, often eat different kinds of foods that you can't get in the store, right? Or, like, people are like, "Oh, there's all these fruits that you don't even know exist," you know, because you go to the store and there's like only certain things. Is there like a hidden liquor? Is there like a distillers' liquor that--I mean, I guess moonshine is the closest to this--but like... Shane Well, probably the only one and it's more for because it's cheaper than anything but Sugar Shine. No one...like big companies aren't making sugar sugar washes mostly because, at that scale, grains are cheaper and sugar. But yeah, Sugar Shine is probably the closest thing to a secret distillers only. So it's like I said, that's when you take a sugar wash, you just fill it out. And it can be kind of good. It. It tastes like a sugar bowl smells. Does that make sense? Margaret It seems like it'd make a good mixed. Shane Yeah, oh, yeah. It's basically a vodka at that point. If you're doing it right. Margaret Is there an overlap or like a hatred between the groups of hobby distillers and the people who are really into like mixed drinks? Shane No. Mostly because anything you...Anything that comes out of a home still, you're probably mixing into a mixed drink anyway. Margaret Yeah, okay. Shane It's not...my long term goal is to make something that is good enough to sip neat, like to sip just no ice, just out of a glass. I haven't gotten there yet. Margaret Alright. How...the stuff that you're making, how headachy, hangovery, blackoutty? Are you doing like pretty good on that level. Shane I'm doing pretty....It's no worse than the commercial stuff, for sure. There's a couple things that aren't exactly distillers only, but they're less common for people who aren't alcohol nerds. One of them is absinthe. Margaret Yeah, okay, what's absinthe made out of? I know there's a wormwood in it. That's all I know. Shane So absinthe is...So it's a neutral spirit. You mix some wormwood and anise, usually, some other herbs and stuff in it. And you then you distill it again after it's been soaking in that for a day or so. And then you color it with more wormwood or fennel or something to give it a green color, or you can just leave a white if you want. Margaret Alright. My other question is, how much work is it? Like how much like raw stuff to make a little bit...Like you mentioned that people distill maybe flower essences or some other essential oils. Is that what you said? Shane Yeah. Margaret I know that essential oils are an incredibly like...like, you got to grow a field of lavender in order to make a vial of lavender essential oils, right? Shane Essential oils is a very different process that I haven't gotten super into. But from my understanding of it, you're really just using your still to boil water at that point. You're using the steam to extract the oils. So that you're getting a very little product, I imagine. For alcohol, if you make a standard batch that you would make for like a beer or wine like a 23 liter, or I think 6 gallon, you're probably gonna get two or three bottles, like standard sized bottles out of that. Margaret Oh, well, the standard like... Shane Like 750 milliliter bottles. Margaret Okay. So you can either have 24 beers or 2 bottles of liquor? Shane Yeah, basically. And that also depends on how strict you are when you're taking your cuts and stuff. And whether or not you're taking the cuts...Oh, one thing you can do with the cuts, by the way, I forgot to mention this earlier, if you're doing a pot still, you can take that and put it into the next batch to get a little bit more of the good stuff out of it. So you're gonna increase your yield as you go, basically. Margaret And if you make whiskey...if you make like flavored alcohols, can you still use them as fuel alcohol? Or is it like, not so good? Shane As long as you don't water it down. Yeah, sure. I think you want to keep your alcohol above 75% if you're using it for fuel. But if you're just...if you're drinking it, you probably don't want it to be 75%, in general. Margaret And how do you measure the alcoholness, the gravity? Is it still the same, you still use a hydrometer, or whatever, even though it's like super alcoholly? Shane You have to get a different hydrometer. It is the same thing. But you have to get a hydrometer that's made for measuring proof. And this hydrometer will not work in your beer. You can't proof out your beer using this because there's particulates in the beer that will affect your measurement. But if you're putting it in a spirit, that'll work. Margaret I, every now and then, get really annoyed at living in the United States. And this is one of those moments. I'm like, this sounds fun. It just doesn't sound cost-benefit fun. Shane Yeah, so I do enjoy the cheap alcohol aspect of this. But only if I don't think about how much time I spend on it. Margaret Oh, yeah, no, totally. Shane It takes like an entire day to run the still. It's just like an eight hour day. Margaret To get your like two bottles? Shane Yeah. So, it's not not even worth it from that point. But, it's a hobby, not a not a job. So that's why if they ever come accuse me of selling alcohol, I'll just show them the math. It's not worth it. Margaret Okay, now, is it fuel efficient, right? Like if you...I know that you shouldn't do it over and open flame, but it's the apocalypse and you have to. Do you have to spend...Do you have to burn more fuel alcohol to make...Like, do you get a net gain of fuel alcohol? Or do you get a net loss of fuel alcohol? Shane I've never tried to run it over and open flame, so I don't know. Margaret Yeah, don't do it. I'm just curious. Shane I will say, it does take a fair bit of power. So I don't know if you'd actually get a...like, back in the day, they used to do it over like a wood fire. I imagine probably because they probably don't want to take their moonshine and pour that in a big bucket and light that on fire to use that instead. Margaret Yeah, that makes sense. I guess there's other things that people like to burn more than...okay. I think that like answers most of my questions about distillation. Is there something amazing that I'm missing or anything that you like? Shane Do you want to give people some more practical information on like, where they can...Where or how they can get this stuff if it's legal in the area? Margaret Yeah. Shane I've done a little bit of, I've pulled up a few things on this. So, one of the common things that people will get is a still from Still Spirits called a Turbo 500. It's like a somewhat modular, cheap ish--It's like $550--still. It's kind of an all on one set. You just kind of plug it in and go. For the most part. You gotta have water running through it, but if you're trying to... Margaret Oh, it's electric? Shane Yeah, it's electric. Margaret So you don't have to like put it on a stove. That makes so much sense and it never occurred to me when you were like, "Oh, you don't have to put it over open flame anymore." I was imagining putting it on my like electric stove top. No, great. Okay. Shane Oh, I have done that with my first still. It's a little bit of a pain in the ass. I wouldn't recommend it. It's a bit fiddly on a typical coil stove because you got to balance everything on top of the little coil. Margaret Yeah. Okay, so anyway, so Turbo 500... Shane Yeah, so that's a fairly common model. It's under $1,000. If you live in an apartment and you just want to have the ability to do this, should it ever come up, if you need some sanitizer or just want to make a small amount of vodka, or if you want to use it for its intended advertised purpose and purify water, you can get a air still for under 100 bucks, usually. Margaret What's an air still? Shane So you don't even need water for this. You put...I'll actually describe what you're supposed to do with it. You fill it with water, your tap water. You plug it in, it'll boil that water, and it'll use a fan and an air cooler on the top to condense that back into water. So, it will distill water. And it'll do the exact same thing to alcohol if you let it. Margaret Okay, if you use it against its intended purposes, like if you were to use a bong to smoke weed instead of tobacco... Shane Exactly. So yeah. Now, some people don't like them because there's a lot of plastics in making them and people are iffy about having alcohol vapor touch plastic. Understandably. Yeah, but, you know, if you just want to...if you're making hand sanitizer or fuel, it's a great option to have. Like it fits under your counter. It's the size of a coffee maker. Margaret Okay, and you can put, "For tobacco use only," on it, and then people will... Shane Yeah. And then people will try to put tobacco in your air still and be really confused. [Laughing] Okay, so that's...and then the option that if you're getting really into fermenting, you're probably going to end up getting at some point, an all-in-one grain brewing system is what they're called. So it's...Have you ever seen those like big coffee carafes they have at like churches and like food banks and stuff or soup kitchens and stuff. Like the big cylinder, stainless steel cylinder for coffee? Margaret Yeah. Like it looks like one of those robots from Doctor Who. It looks like a Dalek. Shane Kind of, yeah. Okay. The T-500 is also very similar to that, but it looks like one of those. It comes with like a filter and stuff to filter out your grains from your beer before you turn it into beer. And a lot of the companies that make those will include little clamps on the side so that if you wanted to, you could go buy, whether it's a T-500 condenser, so you could buy the condenser separate or make your own condenser, you can slap it on top of that, clamp it down, and now you have a still. So that's actually...If you're getting really into fermenting, I'd recommend you get one of those anyway, because if you're going to be doing any beer, any grains, you're gonna want to have that. And if you ever decide you want to make a still, you've already got your boiler. Those can be a bit expensive, but I think they're worth it. Especially if you're making a lot of beer. Margaret Yeah. Yeah, I mean, every hobby starts at the $100 level, and then immediately goes to the $3,000 level, once you want to do it well enough, you know, Shane You can get these all grain brewing systems for less than $1000 as well. And also, if you want to make whiskey, you're going to be working with grains anyway. So it's this exact same sort of thing. You're making a beer up until the point where you put hops in. Margaret Okay. Is the Turbo 500, is that what you use? Shane No, I went over the route of getting the grain brewing system. Initially, I went the route of getting the cheapest still Amazon had, hating it, modifying it, throwing all that away, and getting what I just mentioned. Margaret Yeah, that's how I would do it too. Shane I got a couple of neat things out of the stove top still, but I eventually wanted to get something a bit bigger and a bit safer. So yeah, I went that route. Margaret Yeah, imagine. Are the cheap ones just like are they just like pressure cookers with some like copper coming out of the top? Shane They're essentially just pressure cooker stills with a coil and a--like the coil condenser that I mentioned I hate them--so my first modification was getting rid of that and replacing it with the Liebig condenser. So I made my own Liebig and it worked, but it wasn't...I had to tie it to my cupboard to keep it from falling over. Margaret So it's kind of...There's only one real object that people need. I mean, there's like ways to do it modularly, right, but there's not like a lot of different little... Margaret Well, there's also, importantly, two different types of stills. Margaret The reflux and the pot. Shane Yeah, the reflux in the pot. So I've been talking a lot about pot stills. The T-500 is a reflux still, although you can modify it to be a pot still if you want. And you can also get some cheap modular reflux stills, which is what I got to put on top of my grain brewing system. If you want to make vodka, if you want to make something that tastes very neutral, or if you want to make something that's a very high percentage, you need to reflect still. Margaret Oh, interesting. Because it's, kind of re...It's like multi...It's doing like almost like multiple passes of a distillation at once, basically? Shane Exactly, yeah. So, you could sit there all week and just run your product through a pot still 20 times or you can put it in a reflux still, once. Yeah, that sounds better. Okay. It's also safer, because I don't know exactly why this is the case. But the hobby communities rule of thumb is nothing more than 40% in the pot. Okay, so the highest you're gonna get out of that is around 70 or 80%. Which is Margaret Yeah, that sounds better. Okay. Shane It's also safer, because...I don't know exactly why this is the case, but the hobby communities rule of thumb is, "Nothing more than 40% in the pot." So the highest you're gonna get out of that is around 70 or 80%. Margaret Which is higher than I normally imagine wanting alcohol anyway. Like, I'd be watering down anything over 50% anyway, personally, but... Shane But if you want to make gin or absinthe or anything that starts with a neutral, or a vodka, for example, you're going to want to go up as high as you possibly can, which the highest you can go is about 95. Because the higher the higher you go, the less flavor you're getting out of it. Margaret Yeah. Which actually...It's suddenly making me think of Everclear. And like, the reason that I keep Everclear in my house is for like preservation and like herbs and tinctures and stuff, you know, which is something that I hadn't even...We didn't...Maybe you mentioned it in the list of things, but I'm only just now thinking of is like one of the other reasons that it'd be really useful for people to have access to make alcohol. Shane That's actually the reason I got it. Where I am, I actually can't buy Everclear because, you know, to protect us, I guess. Margaret Half the states are the same way. Shane But the thing is, I wanted to make orange liquor, is one of the first reasons, first things I thought of when I got into this. I wanted to make orange liquor, but I couldn't find Everclear Yeah, so I had to make my own. Margaret That's cool. That seems like that would be even more rewarding. Like I feel like trying to like learn how to make like a signature whiskey would be like fun, right? But what seems rewarding is making some 95% proof stuff that you can use as a mixer, or use to preserve things, and make medicine, and make things last a long time. But I'm also obsessed with making things last a long time. Shane And you can make sanitizer and medicine and stuff like that with what comes out of a pot still, but it's gonna be more effective...Well, it's gonna smell less bad on your hands, I guess, if you're making hand sanitizer, but you actually do want to water it down to 70 anyway, so... Margaret Oh, interesting. Yeah, and is making hand sanitizer basically just make 70% alcohol and then you like put that on your hands? Or is it like...are you using like...Do you like gel it up? Like, what do you do? Shane I mean, if you're just trying to get something, get some cheap sanitizer, yeah, you just make 70 or 80% alcohol and put it on your hands. You could mix aloe vera or lotion or something in there to make it, you know, less harsh, but... Margaret Okay. Well, is there any any last thing we're missing? Or a question that I should have asked you? Shane I don't think so. The last detail I wanted to get in there was make sure you don't try to use 100% or 95% alcohol sanitizer, because it doesn't work as well. I think a lot of people learned that around Covid, though. Margaret Okay, and then one weird thing I know about hand sanitizer is that hand sanitizer is very good for certain things. But if you live off grid and you put it in your outhouse or whatever, it doesn't do any good there. Hand sanitizer is effective for...My doctor friend will be mad at me if I don't get this exactly right. It's not good for the fecal oral transmission route. It is good for like stopping colds and stuff. Shane Now, I didn't know that because when I go camping, every outhouse I see has hand sanitizer in it. Margaret Oh, yeah. And you know what? It's great. It stops other stuff that is unrelated to what you just did. A good thing to have. Shane A false sense of security there, I guess. Margaret Yeah, exactly. And you know, and if you have other safety practices in place for your off grid bathroom then you should be good in terms of distance from your kitchen. But more importantly, like, if--this is completely just a PSA--if you're setting up some kind of like outhouse space for a lot of people and your camping or whatever, you're going to want to set up a hand wash station that use soap and water because that is what stops transmission of things along the fecal oral route. And I don't remember what the thing that, the word for what hand sanitizer does is, but I think it's the breathey-iny-type stuff is what hand sanitizer is good for. I hope I got that right. And if not, do your own research. Don't listen to some girl on the internet who's interested in everything and not good at any of it. Shane Also, one last note. The same for this stuff. Don't listen to this podcast and then immediately buy a still. There is a lot of information, like hobby information online. There's the Home Distillers Forum. There's a couple of Youtubers that make content about this. So get your information from more than one place. Margaret Well, is there anything you want to shout out or plug either something that you do or something that you want other people to pay attention to here at the end? Shane Beyond what I just said, No. I don't really want to be found. So, don't have anything to plug. I just wanted to make this information available to people. Margaret Well, I really appreciate it. And thanks so much for reaching out. And thanks for coming on. Margaret Thanks so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode, if you didn't, why did you keep listening? Was it that you set it on in the background and then went about your day and have been like sort of angry the whole time that you've been walking your dog or driving that you're still listening to it and you wish you'd been listening to something else? If so, don't tell me about it. But if you did like listening to it, you should tell other people about it. You should tell people, "Live like the world is dying!" and then people will be like, "What?" And you'll be like, "Sorry, it's the name of a podcast I like. Don't actually do anything different about the fact that the world's ending. Just go about living your life," and then people will be like, "You're exactly the kind of reason that we don't like listening to doom say..." Okay, so if you like this podcast, you can support it by telling people about it. That's the single biggest thing that you can do. You can also support it by supporting us financially on Patreon. Our Patreon is patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness, because this podcast is put out by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which is an anarchist publishing collective that puts out podcasts as well as books, and zines, and a bunch of stuff. And we've been around for almost 20 years. We haven't been doing podcasts that whole time, because there weren't podcasts when we started. Instead, it was mostly zines for a while. But in particular, I want to thank, first and foremost and always, Hoss the Dog. And I want to thank Michaiah, Chris, Sam, Kirk, Eleanor, Jenipher, Staro, Cat J., Chelsea, Dana, David, Nicole, Mikki, Paige, SJ, Shawn, Hunter, theo, Boise Mutual Aid, Milica, Paparouna, Aly, Paige, Janice & Odell, Oxalis, Jans, Funder, Anonymous--names are getting really interesting more recently--BenBen, Princess Miranda, Trixter, and Lord Harken. Sorry, just a silly way to pronounce that. I think. All right. I'll talk to you soon. I'm gonna go eat fucking dinner because I've been recording all day. Jesus. Which was months ago now by the time you're listening to this. Why are you still listening to this? You should hit stop. There's not any like big secrets that I'm going to reveal if you keep listening. I'm just going to tell you what I ate for a snack, which was that I air fried some frozen potatoes and thought to myself, "I wonder if I can make my own frozen potatoes. I wonder if that's what I can do with old potatoes before they go bad, if I don't eat them in time. I wonder if I can cut them up into little shoestring fries and put them in a freezer bag and then put them in the deep freezer and eat them later?" Are you still listening? Bye. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co
Ve Slušovicích už podniká přes třicet let a letos se při příležitosti kulatého výročí odhodlal k mimořádné investici. Zakladatel a majitel dovozce, zpracovatele a distributora sypaných čajů a dnes už i výběrové kávy Oxalis Petr Zelík vstoupil do čajové továrny v Indii. Jaké má Oxalis další plány? Má Petr Zelík i po třiceti letech v byznysu dost podnikatelského elánu? A jaké mají klimatické změny vliv na pěstování čaje i kávy?
Episode Summary On This Month in the Apocalypse, Brooke, Margaret, and Inmn talk about a lot of really bad things that happened in July, from the intensifying heat, to floods, to medicine shortages, to Antarctica's ice melting, to grain shortages, to terrifying new laws. But also, there are some hopeful things that happened, and as always the group finds ways to stay positive and for communities to prepare for what's to come. Host Info Brooke can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke. Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. 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 This Month in the Apocalypse: July, 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 Margaret. Now one of you says, "Hi." Brooke 00:22 Hi, Margaret. Margaret 00:26 No, you say "Hi," like you say who you are. Brooke 00:29 Oh, hi, who I am. Brooke. Inmn 00:32 And I'm Inmn. Brooke 00:34 Did I do good? Was that good? Alright, Margaret 00:37 Y'all did great. I'm joined by Brooke and Inmn today for another episode of This Month in the Apocalypse. And this is an extra special extra apocalypsey month that we're going to be talking about because we're talking about July, 2023, the hottest month in the history of humans being alive. Unless you're listening to this in August, in which case maybe you're like, "July that was some fucking amateur hour shit." But for now, hear us at the end of July, hottest month ever. And you know what else is hot is the Channel Zero Network, the network of anarchists podcasts. There's nothing wrong with this comparison. We are a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcast and here's a jingle from another show on the network. Da da da da duh daa [Humming a melody] Inmn 02:12 And we're back. And to start off today, we're going to talk a little bit about global temperatures and the heatwave that we are in the middle of experiencing right now. So this July was quite possibly the hottest--or I mean, definitely the hottest month on record in, you know, a recorded historical way--and possibly one of the hottest months on the planet in a very long time. So I live in Arizona, and in Phoenix, the ground temperature...There were daily record breaks in the in the heat where the hottest day on record was...it was 117 degrees. And then the next day it was 118 degrees. And then the next day, it was 119 degrees. Margaret 03:09 They won't even make it to that 20. Like come on. Just give us the round number. Brooke 03:15 No, no, don't. Stay less. Margaret 03:19 Oh, interesting. Okay. [dryly sarcastic] Inmn 03:21 There is I learned, a really horrifying thing that happens at 120 degrees. So I really hope that it doesn't get to 120 degrees. Do y'all know what happens when the ground temperature reaches 120 degrees in the sun? Margaret 03:35 Does Mothra break out of the cracked Earth and fight Godzilla? Inmn 03:41 Sort of. Propane tanks spontaneously combust. Margaret 03:49 That's bad. Brooke 03:51 Oh my gosh, Inmn 03:53 It's really bad. So in actuality, the temperature did reach 120 degrees because an enormous propane tank near the Sky Harbor International Airport exploded along with a bunch of like five gallon ones and it caused this huge fire. A bunch of cars were destroyed. And yeah, which you know, is by itself not like some huge world ending thing. But if you live anywhere where it might be 120 degrees on the ground, possibly in Arizona, take your propane tanks out of the sun because they might explode. Margaret 04:35 Normally, I would say don't put them inside because in general that's a really bad idea. But, it's probably better than like popcorn kernels in your yard. Inmn 04:46 Yeah, yeah. And I say this for people who like, you know, if you have a grill outside that just has the propane tank attached to it and it's not in the shade or anything. Um then, yeah, it could just explode and destroy your house. Brooke 05:06 But only if it's 120 degrees. If you're at 119, you're perfectly safe. Leave those propane tanks just right out there in the middle of the sun on the asphalt, right? [sarcastically] Inmn 05:16 No, don't do that. [laughing] Margaret 05:18 Place them near the following people who run the following companies. Brooke 05:29 Do you want to know about the the average overall temperatures in the month of July in Phoenix while we're talking about Phoenix? Margaret 05:36 I mean, no, but tell us anyway. Brooke 05:39 Okay, for the month of July, in Phoenix, the average high temperature, daily high temperature, was 114 degrees. And here's the really fun one, the average low temperature like the coldest it got was 90 degrees. Margaret 05:56 There was also a new low warm record. There was a night in Phoenix where it didn't get below 97 degrees. Inmn 06:04 Oh, golly. Margaret 06:06 Which is too hot. Inmn 06:08 It is too hot. Margaret 06:09 And, I didn't write this number down because I forgot. Massive..Like there was also a record for the most electricity the city of Phoenix has ever drawn because everyone was running their air conditioners, for good reasons. This is not a "Don't run your air conditioners," this is more of a, "There is a limit to what the grid can handle." Inmn 06:31 Yeah. And just to, since we're hyper focusing on Phoenix, in the last, I think--I don't think this was last month-- but in the last couple of months, the governor did halt a lot of new housing developments that were getting built due to concerns over the future of water in Phoenix. Margaret 06:57 And it seems like there's two ways to read that. There is the like...I am notably on the record of feeling like people who are...That Arizona is in trouble. I am on the record for that. And I don't want to get into specifics. But the more kind way to read the lack of expansion is that it was less like these places are out of water and more that, I believe in Arizona, or in the Phoenix metro area or something, you have to be able to prove that there will be water access for the next 100 years in order to build. And so it is a little bit less like these places are out of water and more like, "We cannot guarantee this water." I think that's the kinder way...No, not the kinder...That is one way to read that. The other is that Arizona is in fucking trouble. Inmn 07:55 Yeah, and you know, it stems from these like larger issues of the Colorado River having these like all time lows in water flow, and just due to Phoenix being this like huge, sprawling place that is like under constant development. Like I think it's where...Outside of Phoenix is where Bill Gates is trying to build some like new smart future city. Which is really confusing. Margaret 08:27 Has fucking Elon Musk gotten into him or something? Inmn 08:29 Yeah, like it's supposed to be this like huge self contained smart city that's outside of...it's in the larger Phoenix area, but like is separated from Phoenix. And my first thing that I thought was like, "Why? There's no...Where are you going to get water from?" Which I guess if you're really...If you're Bill Gates, you maybe have to worry less about where your water's coming from. But... Margaret 08:57 I mean, eventually. Other heat stuff from this month, let's see, we had...I was looking at a bunch of maps of where all of this heatwave stuff hit right, and overall, the hardest hit places were the coastal south, the southwest, of course--Phoenix gets a lot of the attention and for good reason--the coastal South got an awful lot, and then actually in terms of it being way hotter than usual, it also affected the lower and middle Midwest. The Pacific Northwest and central Appalachia--aka the two best places in the country based on the general disbursement of the three people on this call--were the least affected. And last weekend--sorry last week--thousands of people across the US went to the hospital for heat related illnesses. Only six states have laws protecting workers that say things like "You actually can't make people work when it's too hot out or they'll die." Only six states actually have laws that are like, "You have to provide like shade, and rest, and water for people working outside." I read a heartbreaking story about a young man who died laying cable trying to send money to his mother and work his way through school and all that shit. The federal government is working on a law about, "Maybe you shouldn't let people work where it kills them in the heat." That law has not..They've been working on it for years and nothing has happened. Yep. Got any more heat heat or move on to wildfire? Brooke 10:41 Capitalism is so ridiculous. The fact that we have to come along and legislate like, "Hey, maybe don't work people to death in the heat." Like that shouldn't have to be a law that anyone has to have because we are fucking human beings. And yeah, we should treat each other better. Yeah, yeah, sorry. It's upsetting. So, the United States is not the only place that's super hot. Europe's going through another massive heatwave like they did last summer. And last summer's heatwave, you may recall from the news, was breaking record temperatures and was quite severe. And one report I read said something like 60,000 Europeans died last year due to the heatwave. Their average temperatures are currently much higher than they were last summer even...or are getting to high temperatures earlier in the summer than they did last year. That's what I really mean to say. And it's affecting lots of things. For instance, Greece is experiencing wildfires on a massive scale, which I guess they're somewhat prone to wildfires already like the Pacific Northwest. But, the amount of acreage burning right now is two and a half times the average that they've experienced this time of year. Particularly the island of Rhodes, which is a Greece Island. Greek. Greek island. [The island] has had to evacuate tens of thousands of people off the island due to the wildfires. There's something like 90,000 acres of wildfires currently burning in Greece, which is a really significant size of wildfire. And it's weird how much perspective shifts on this, especially being from somewhere like the Pacific Northwest where we're kind of prone to wildfires. And if we get one that's like 10,000-20,000 acres, I'm like, "Meh [disapprovingly]." I mean, that's huge. But at the same time, in the last few years, we've had ones that are at 90,000-100,000 acres. So, you know, perspective shifts on what a severe wildfire is, but 90,000 acres is just massive. So yeah. Greece is...Greece is not having a good time with the fires right now. Margaret 13:03 And then, right before we hit record [on the episode], I was reading about how today, there's a third 300,000 person city in Sicily, whose name I forgot to write down, that is largely without water or electricity today because the 46 degree Celsius which I want to say is like 118 [Fahrenheit], or something like that, melted asphalt and fucked up all the infrastructure underneath. So no more electricity and water in a town of 300,000, that is also like experiencing a ton of wildfire. Apparently like the city is also surrounded by wildfire, but maybe that was a different city nearby. Brooke 13:45 You know when you say that, Margaret, it does...I distinctly remember us talking last summer about the heatwave and how a lot of European towns, countries, aren't built for the high heats and things were melting like that. Like the asphalt and stuff. Margaret 13:59 And then, yeah, I remember. And you had England, you had like the tarmac, which is the British word for asphalt, I think. I don't know. They don't do anything. Right. And then, speaking of places that Europe hasn't done right, Northern Africa is also completely fucked by the current heatwave. And in particular, wildfires. Algerian wildfires are fucking everything up. Like, as I'm...Like, as we're recording, unfortunately, they'll probably get worse by the time this comes out. Algerian wildfires, so far, have killed at least 38 people, including at least 10 soldiers who were doing wildland fire duty. More than 1,500 people have been evacuated from 97 fires around that country. Tunisia is also having some fucking times because, actually, it turns out that national borders are nonsense. And Algiers, the city of Algiers, had a fun 120 degree day. This I believe last week. And two years ago, Algerian wildfires killed 65 people in one week, including, a lot of those people are the people who are like, bravely fighting those wildfires. And I don't know, those people are fucking heroes and martyrs to climate change. Brooke 15:17 Is the heat causing other kinds of problems in the world, Margaret? Margaret 15:21 You mean the Antarctic ice that isn't there? Well hear me out. It's actually a solution because we're all going to move to Antarctica, which will be green. And there won't be any Lovecraftian temples with strange writing...in the mountains of madness. Someone's gonna yell at me about Lovecraft. Anyway. Antarctica is like having some real interesting times. I don't know if people have seen the news this week. Every now and then like climate change people like post the deviation from norms charts, where the like waves go up and down and stuff. And this year's, they're just not. Usually they're like, "Check it out. This wave is a little bit different. It's pushing the envelope. It's got some new records." There's no Antarctic ice. That's an exaggeration. That's hyperbole. Antarctic ice is lower than it's possible for people to easily conceptualize right now. It's winter in Antarctica right now. It's...When we talk about the hottest year on record, and we're like, "Oh, well, it's summer. Of course, it's hot, right?" Where I'm at, the hottest year in the fucking world, half of the world is in winter right now. Right? But, sea temperatures are rising, which actually are going to...Fuck I forgot to write this down..I was reading about right beforehand. There's a new study saying that the Gulf Stream, the thing that like cycles the fucking goddamn waters of the world, will likely stop somewhere between 2025 and 2100, with the average guess being about 2050 but as soon as two years from now. Which will have all kinds of changes. Ironically, one of them is that Europe might get colder. It's that movie, The Day After Tomorrow, is based on this concept of the Gulf streams disappearing. Brooke 17:10 Oh, that movie. Margaret 17:11 Yeah. That beautiful, wonderful movie. I barely remember it. We snuck into the theater. And I was like too paranoid the whole time. I was like afraid we'd get caught because we were like, really obviously dirty punks. And it was just like, so obvious. But, we didn't get caught. And I don't really remember much about that movie besides it's cold, and that people are willing to walk a very long way for their family, which is very sweet. So this event is, this is a historic low of ice following the previous all time lows of 2016, 2017, and 2022. But this is a five to six sigma event. Five to six--not like cool guys who'd go their own way--but five to six standard deviations away from a normal event, which is a meaningless thing. I had to spend like 20 minutes reading about what the fuck that means to try and explain it to people because you're just like, "Oh, it's a lot, right?" It's a lot, a lot. Statistically, a four sigma event, four standards of probability standard deviation thing, is now you're talking about something that is functionally 100%. Right? This is now so far...Basically, it's like imagine stuff is on a bell curve. The far edges of it are the sigma, are the standard deviations away from the norm, the norm is the center. When you get to the...When you get to like four, you're at functionally 100% of things don't don't fall into this, right? Or something that happens functionally 0% of the time, it's not actually 0% of the time. So it is...but it's often seen as statistically insignificant. For example, if you were to flip a coin 100 times, the odds of that coming up heads all 100 times is one in 3.5 million. That is a five sigma event. Right? The standard deviation, this the amount of Antarctic ice that isn't there this winter when it's supposed to be coming back, is more than that. It is about twice that. It is a one in 7.5 million year event, which isn't to say this happened 7.5 million years ago. It didn't. That's the odds of it happening randomly any given year. So it's really funny because scientists have to be very exact, which is part of what causes a lot of like climate change confusion, because if you ask a scientist like, "Is this man made?" a scientist has to be like, "We cannot to 100% certainty, certain that," right? Because they're like, because they're not certain, and science is based on an uncertainty. And so like a lot of the articles they're like, "Look, technically we're not sure. It's just really, really unlikely that it isn't." And I remember--one time I asked one of my science minded doctor friends--I was like, "What are the odds I am going to have the following health problem that is too personal for me to explain on-air?" He was like, "Look, that is possible. That is a possible risk vector. It's about as likely as you getting eaten by a shark, today, in Asheville, North Carolina." Which is to say, it was possible but not worth fucking worrying about. And this is the opposite of that. This is worth fucking worrying about. And ice decrease, of course, obviously, it makes the water get bigger, right, because it's not in ice form. But also, ice reflects back an awful lot of sunlight. There is a chance that the ice will be back next year. There is a chance that it won't. I was not able to find...I was able to find scientists being like, "We don't fucking know." I was not able to find scientists giving statistics. This is...I think..So I'm gonna go on a rant. I warned everyone--not you all the listeners--but I warned my co-host that I'm gonna go on a little bit of a rant today. Brooke 20:58 And that was it. Margaret 20:59 No, no, we're just getting started. Sorry. Brooke 21:05 Let me buckle in for this. We buckle in for this. Okay, yeah, ready to go. Margaret 21:07 Alright. So I think...I try really hard to not be like, the-sky-is-falling girl, right? I talk about preparedness and possible bad futures. Semi professional--actually, I don't get paid for this--but like, I do it a lot. It's like one of the main things. It's like, what I do with my time. And I try really hard to be like, "Look, we don't know. Don't put all your eggs into your savings for the when-you're-80 basket. But also don't put none of them in, right? Because the future is unknowable. And that is true. I think that this month marks a turning point where we can no longer in good conscience, talk about climate change as a possibility or even as like a certainty that's a little bit away. And we don't know how bad it's going to be. I think we have to talk about things from the point of view that this is happening. And this is really bad. And this is going to stay bad no matter what we do. That is not to say we can't do anything. And that's not to say we can't mitigate it. But I think that we need to just like...I know I will at least have to stop hedging some of what I say. And I think that this month is the most clear that we are in a really bad time--I don't wanna say "apocalypse," because it's a sort of a meaningless word--since we've been having the show, with the possible exception of March, 2020. And so I just like really quickly--and we'll get back to our regularly scheduled talking about some stuff--I want to talk about some of the stuff we can do really quickly and like what I think is really useful. And overall, what I believe is useful, is that we need to start working together in communities to build bottom-up solutions, not necessarily just to climate change--although that's true--but to preparing for and weathering the impacts of climate change. I don't believe that top-down solutions are coming. Prove me wrong government handler assigned to listen to this show. Prove me fucking wrong. I will turn in my anarchy card if you fucking stop global warming. Maybe. I might thank you and then still try to end you. But... Brooke 23:25 Weather. Weathering climate change. Margaret 23:31 I believe that working to create small, medium, and large scale communities that work from the bottom-up, that are horizontally organized, that work in federation with other groups to organize on as large of scale as is necessary, is our best bet going forward for how we can mitigate the worst effects of this, both in terms of our survivability, and in terms of having a culture that directly confronts fossil fuel infrastructure, that directly confronts, you know, the people who are doing this, right? There's that old, I think Utah Phillips quote, "The Earth isn't dying, it's being killed. And the people who are doing the killing have names and addresses." Brooke 24:22 I'm gonna put that on my wall. Margaret 24:24 I believe that we can build the kind of resilient communities that can allow more of us to live as long and healthy lives as is possible, considering what's happening. And I believe that the time to start thinking about that and doing that is now. I think that it is time for people to talk to their neighbors. It is time for people to work at like whatever your local community center is that is most aligned to your values. If you don't have one, fucking start one, and start having skill shares. Start prioritizing this. I think that people should make their decisions about where they want to live based on climate right now, and not just move away from the bad--obviously, that's going to happen--but also like where you want to live when/if the structures that currently provide for us are no longer able to do so. Like for myself, I didn't pick "I'm moving to where I think is going to be the least impacted by climate change." I moved to where my family is. Because that is a priority that I will make above my own personal safety every time, you know. But everyone's going to make those decisions differently. And then the other final thing is that I think that we have this problem where Al Gore government type people are like, "This is your fault because you didn't use fluorescent light bulbs, you used incandescent light bulbs," right? [Brooke laughs] To date myself to like 20 years ago when that was like a way that we were trying to get blamed as individuals, like, "If you don't recycle then like the world's gonna end." And it's like, "Oh, the world's ending. It's clearly because I didn't recycle enough." Like one, recycling is mostly fake. Although it shouldn't be. And I think it's still good practice for people to think about their waste, right? But, and so individual like so...[tails of and start over] So there's this problem where corporations are like, "Ah, individuals, that's the solution. We don't have to change anything," right. But we can accidentally fall on the other side of that. And we can say like, "Oh, well, since this isn't my fault. And my individual choices don't necessarily change things. I'm off the hook." And we the way we talk about the hook is wrong. There is a difference between fault and responsibility. It is not your fault, dear listener, that this is happening. Right? It is not your fault that you once got drunk and threw a car battery in the ocean. I have no idea why everyone uses throwing car batteries into the ocean as the example of horrible pollution that individuals can do. But it like comes up all the time. So, if you...[interrupted] Brooke 26:58 I have ever heard that example before. Margaret 27:00 Then you have different DMs than me. When you wanna talk about climate change, people are like, "I'm gonna throw my car battery into the ocean." I don't get it. If someone wants to explain it to me, you can send it to me by my DMs and I won't look. And but there is a difference between the fault and the responsibility. It is not your fault, right? But it is our--not your--our responsibility because no one else is going to fucking do it. Rather, the people whose fault it is, are not going to fucking do it. And we need to figure out how to do this because we're running out of time. And I think that...It's essentially liberalism in a bad sense. It is both liberalism to blame the individual, right? But it's also liberalism to be like, "Well, it's not my fault. So I don't have to do anything about it," because like, when you're being oppressed, right, like...For example, I, to use myself as an example as like a trans person, right? It is like not my fault that people hate trans people. But like, I don't want to be oppressed. So, I need to look at doing that. I need to look at solving my problems even though it isn't my fault. And it is a delicate balance to walk when we talk about this because we need to not blame victims. But we need, as collectively the billions of victims of climate change, to figure out our own power and work our way out of this. I think that's the end of my rant. Brooke 28:31 Actually, I really appreciate that, Margaret, especially the end part there, just because like I, in my own personal life, have been struggling with a little bit of that lately, especially with the heat this summer, and that feeling like, you know, there's nothing I can do, this isn't my fault, so fuck it, I want to turn down my AC some more or something like that. And I haven't, but that like the mentality that I'm struggling with sometimes right now. So I really appreciate you saying that. Margaret 28:59 Yeah, and like use your AC. Like, I mean when there's like...Sometimes you get these like warnings--there are individual structures that are currently top-down that I don't think are bad--like when they send out a text being like, "Look, if everyone could kind of lay off the power a little bit so we don't all have brownouts, that would be really good." Like you know, that's when we can all like pitch in. It sucks that we're all expected to pitch in while they still fucking clear cut, and drill, and burn everything in the goddamn world. Inmn 29:29 Yeah, it's like the...Like this came up in Texas. Was it last year or like the year before with like the huge power outages in Texas? They were due to...There was like a huge heat wave. And the thing, one of the things that the grid collapsing was blamed on was people cranking their ACs because it was like 115 degrees outside. And which, you know, probably probably the ACs are not actually what caused the grid to collapse. It's like, the normal strain of the grid is supporting so many unnecessary and ridiculous things. But like, people were asked to turn off their air conditioners, right, during a heatwave so that the grid wouldn't collapse because the grid is not managed well and it's owned by private companies and they don't manage it well. And so the grid collapsed. And then people were like...People were getting heat sick. People were dying. And it's like, we can rely on things like ACs to cool ourselves. But we actually can't because of the mismanagement of utilities and stuff like that could be what causes grids to collapse, not because it is the individual's like fault, but that there's all this other mismanagement and strain from Capitalism, etc. Margaret 30:57 Totally. And like, I think it's a good example too where, at the same time, it is not the people who want to turn up their AC's fault, right? But I want to be alive more than I want to not be at fault, right? So it's like, if I...[interrupted] Inmn 31:15 Just because it's not our fault, it still might cause it. Margaret 31:20 It's our problem. You know, someone else caused a problem. Like, the person who's hitting me with a stick, it is their fault that they are hitting me with a stick, but they're clearly not going to stop. And the AC example is like, if I get a text that's like, "Turn down your AC or everyone's power is going to go out. I'm going to turn down my AC because I don't want everyone's power to go out." And it's not because I'm like--I mean, it is a good like, we're all pitching in together to not die thing, right--but it's also like...It's hard, because it then becomes easy to blame people to be like, "Oh, you didn't turn down your AC. So it's your fault." It's like, "No, it's the people who fucking..." I mean, Texas is that brilliant example, where it's like cut off from the rest of America's grid because it's like, "We got to be Texas." And that's like, why it's so--and that and all the privatization--is why it's so precarious. And so we just build resiliency. It's like, I don't want to be pure fault. I want to be alive. And so like, I want to say like, "Okay, what will I do to keep cool if my AC goes out?" You know? Anyway. Brooke 32:29 Can I point out that it's weird how we talk about AC because we talk about turning down the AC, which makes me think like turning down power. But actually, what we mean is turning down temperature. Yeah. And then I say, when I say like, turn up the AC, that means make it, I'm making it hot--in my mind, in my mind--if I turn up the AC. Anyway. Yeah, it's difficult. Yeah. Floods! Margaret 32:54 All right. Margaret 32:56 That would be really bad if there's more than one disaster at once. Can't wildfires be enough? Or have there been floods? Inmn 33:02 There have also been floods. And I'm going to focus in on a couple of kind of specific floods that have happened this month in the United States. But there is this...It points to this larger problem and some of the things that I learned after digging into the floods in Vermont, kind of highlight some key issues that I think are worth exploring. So, the flood in Vermont that happened on like July 10th or 11th or something, where essentially two whole months of rain fell in two days. There was like nine inches of rain, which, I was curious how much water that is because, you know, we hear like, "Oh, one inch of rain, nine inches of rain." Like what does that mean? And nine inches of rain over like, over 20,000 square miles--which I don't actually know how big Vermont is, but this is the statistic that I looked up--is like two and a half not trillion but the next number, the next magnitude. Quadrillion? Margaret 34:24 I don't really know what's above a trillion off the top my head. Inmn 34:26 Yeah, it's like two and a half quadrillion gallons of water, you know. It's so...I hope I don't get at'd about this math, but... Margaret 34:35 No, it is quadrillion. That is the...Well, you at least got the word right. I looked at that. Inmn 34:41 Great, great, great. Yeah, it's like...It's that much water. So like when we think about like, "Oh, one inch of rain is falling." Like one inch of rain falling in one day as a lot. You know, like where I used to live flooded over an inch and a half of rain, you know? And so to put that in perspective, nine inches of rain fell in Vermont over a two day period. And in the first 24 hours, the river--and I am not going to pronounce this right--the Winooski River, it rose 19 feet in 24 hours. And then on the next day, in a couple hours, it rose to 40 feet. And they're measuring this on a 170 foot dam. And are there any guesses as to how high the water rose on that dam? Brooke 35:41 70 foot damn. Water had nine inches.... Margaret 35:47 I'm just gonna be wrong. Seven feet. Brooke 35:50 Oh, I was gonna guess like 50 feet. Margaret 35:51 Yeah, I just figured I'd be wrong. Inmn 35:54 It rose 169 feet. Margaret 35:58 Nice. I mean... Inmn 36:02 It came within one foot of the dam breaching, which it like, this dam sits over Montpelier, which is like one of the only cities in Vermont, and so the dam came within inches of breaching and... Margaret 36:16 Oh, jeez, it would have flooded the city. Inmn 36:19 Yes, it would have. Like, this already huge catastrophe would have turned into something several magnitudes higher if the dam had been breached. Brooke 36:31 As an indigenous woman. I'm like, "Fuck you, dams." But at the same time, like I don't want them to break like that and kill a bunch of people. Inmn 36:40 Yeah, and yeah. And so the dam did not breach. There was only one recorded death in the incident. Margaret 36:50 A lot better than Pennsylvania did this month for floods in terms of deaths. Brooke 36:55 But, wait, what happened Pennsylvania? Inmn 36:56 Wait, wait, sorry. I got more. I got more. So, one of the other big concerns, and I think this ties in well to kind of preparedness, is locally, there were a lot of people worried about a rather large houseless population that was turned out of COVID housing, like a COVID housing program that ended in June, and so in July, there were like, a lot more houseless people kicking around areas--and houseless people, as some may know, love to congregate around like rivers and stuff because those are usually pretty chill places to hang out and like access resources and stuff. And so like, one thing that's noted is that like a lot of people experiencing housing insecurity tend to congregate in the most flood prone areas because those are the areas available to people to congregate. And so one cool thing that did happen is there was this shelter network, that when they heard about the severe storms, they immediately went and started doing outreach to people living by the river. And actually, they were able to do in evacuation of people on a bus. The bus actually ended up getting caught in floodwaters and was destroyed. But the people on it were not harmed. And people were able to like evacuate by other means. But yeah, just as like a wonderful thing you can do if you think your area might experience a flood is doing outreach to like houseless communities who might not know about the danger and might not have the resources to escape it themselves. Yeah. One of the other big things was that in Vermont--this isn't quite as true as in a lot of other places, but it's something specific to areas like Vermont, or like West Virginia, or like other mountainous areas--like they have that phrase like, "Well, it's only three miles as the crow flies, but it's going to take an hour and a half to get there on the windy mountainous roads." Well, Vermont has a lot of windy mountainous roads, and almost all of those roads became completely undriveable because of roads washing out, mudslides, and these like huge floodwaters. And so the populations of Vermont were largely left trapped in their homes unable to escape if things had gotten worse. Like people described being completely cut off on these little, you know, mini islands in floodwaters. And yeah, just things to think about if you live in these, if you live in mountainous areas, is like having these kind of early warnings to leave places because as much as you might be able to fortify your house as like a bunker for preparedness, if you get trapped in it and it floods then it didn't save your life. Brooke 40:14 That goes back to what you [Margaret] were saying about community building earlier. Margaret 40:20 As someone who often lives in the mountains, and currently lives in the mountains, and this is like...Mountains flash flood really bad. And a lot of mountainous areas, like in the mountains, people often build in the hollers in the lower areas between, you know, in the valleys between different pieces of the mountain and stuff. But...And usually it's like the town actually floods sometimes more than some of the rural houses outside of town. Not necessarily, right. But it's like, because you put all...If you have a bunch of houses, you put them in the low lying area. But, if you've got like two houses, you can put them up on the ridge. And there's like unfortunately...If you're randomly being like, "Man, I want to move to the mountains," you should think about buying one of the houses and that's up on a hill instead of down in the valley for that reason. And then the other weird random thing that I was like reading about is that apparently in a lot of flood prone places--this isn't like...this isn't gonna save everyone--but people put an axe in their attic because one of the ways that a lot of people die in floods is that they go higher and higher in their house. And so then, as it gets up to their second floor, or whatever the fuck, they then go into their attic. But if you go into your attic, you can't get out in a flood. And so some people keep an axe in their attic. I don't know whether that's...I'm reading about it in a book, but in a fiction book, you know? Inmn 41:43 Yeah. Yeah, that is...that is weirdly relatable. Like me and Margaret used to live somewhere that was prone to flooding. And I remember the first time that we got a really bad flood, like this was when our eight foot wide stream turned into like a 70 foot wide moving current of water that was up to your chest... Margaret 42:10 And bringing all kinds of shit down from... Inmn 42:14 Yeah, and yeah, there's like trees floating by. And there's all these, you know, tiny houses and structures and stuff, and nobody there was all that concerned about it I think, except for me. Like, we were running around trying to save tools, and equipment, and like stuff like that, and make sure the cars were up on the highest ground possible. And I was like, "We have to leave because we might not be able to if we wait too long." And like, thankfully, I was wrong. But like it worried me how unworried people were about the flood in this like mountainous area that we could have easily become trapped in. Margaret 42:59 I was a little bit like, "My house was on the hill." So I went down to help. Why don't we put our houses on the hill, which is not very community minded of me. Inmn 43:12 No, that's fine. But sorry, just to speak to one other thing real quick. So another thing to think about with flooding is that--and I've never thought about this until I was reading about it to prepare for this--but if you grow food, either in a garden or on a farm water, like when there's these huge floods--especially when the wastewater management facility gets like flooded out like it did in Vermont--all of the water that is in this flood water is very dirty. It's filled with like...It's filled with raw sewage, like a stupid amount of raw sewage. It's filled with like oil, and like contaminants, and like chemicals, and like anything that was swept up in the floodwaters. And so, if you grow food and your garden gets flooded out, you can't eat any of that food, even if it's like root vegetables Like pretty much like all fruit and vegetables that get contaminated by floodwater are like completely inedible and like unsafe to eat. So, it's something that, you know, in a local area where a flood happens, it can cause a lot of problems for people and then like globally, it can also cause huge problems with food insecurity. Yeah. And, talking about another food insecurity thing that's connected to floods, so, in Ukraine this past month, a dam, like one of the largest water reservoirs in Europe, was blown up. And you know, a lot of people are like, "Oh, the Russians did it because they're in control of it." And the Russians are like, "We didn't do it, but the dam did mysteriously blow up". And it... Margaret 45:10 Derek Jensen was running...Someone in a raccoon sweater was seen running from the crime, screaming about how trans people are bad. Inmn 45:17 Yeah. And so like this...the water in Kherson rose 20 feet, and it destroyed all of these like irrigation systems. And it is expected to affect 600,000 hectares of farmland that produce over 4 million tons of grain and a huge amount of the world's vegetable oil. Margaret 45:48 Okay, I was reading about how there's a vegetable oil shortage is expected. But I didn't get to the why. That explains that. Inmn 45:55 Because a dam exploded in Ukraine. Margaret 45:59 Because of the war that is currently localized but will eventually spread. Inmn 46:04 Brooke, are there other things going on with food insecurity? Brooke 46:07 Never. But maybe. I don't think I have anything on food insecurity. Inmn 46:14 Oh, oh, sorry, I read the notes wrong. Margaret 46:16 I made these notes ahead of time for everyone. And I put them in the chat. But then they lost all their--just so everyone knows behind the scenes and all the cool insider information--I put in the chat an agenda of what we're going to talk about, but it lost all of the formatting when I pasted it in. So, it's basically incomprehensible. But, I will tell you about medication insecurity. Ehh? That will make everyone happy. Because that's not one of the...Okay, just to be clear, like medication is obviously one of the things that people will get the most concerned about when it comes to preparedness and stuff, right? Because of the way that medication is gate kept--sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons--It is not necessarily available to people to do anything sort of like stockpiling and things like that, right? And we rely on a lot of medications for very good reasons in our society. Tornado Alley. You're like, "Oh, obviously it's related to tornadoes." Tornado Alley is the alley...It's the the part of the US where tornadoes are sort of expected and normal, as if they're not fucking terrifying. Jesus Christ. There's very few natural disasters I'm more like... Because I feel like a tornado could just be behind your back and you wouldn't know. It's like a horror movie. You're driving down the road, and then everything turns green, and then all of a sudden there's this death machine just like, "Baaaah!" [makes a 'scaring someone noise] and it's coming at you--and it makes exactly that noises and sticks his tongue out. And people are like, not excited about tornadoes. At least I'm not. Brooke 46:19 And they're green and have tongues. Margaret 47:35 Yeah, well, the sky does turn green sometimes before a tornado. Anyway, so Tornado Alley is expanding thanks to climate change is the point of this. And there's been more and more bad tornadoes further east than there used to be. A tornado in Rocky Mount North Carolina, which is outside of previous Tornado Alley, at least according to the article I read. I've been in North Carolina when there have been tornadoes, but they weren't like, "This is totally normal." It was like kind of a bad thing. Well, do you know that there was one 1.4 million square foot Pfizer a manufacturing plant that was responsible for 25% of all of Pfizer's medications that it sends out to hospitals? Brooke 48:24 Nope. Margaret 48:27 Did you know that one tornado destroyed the entire fucking thing this month? A tornado of 150 mile per hour wind speeds--I wrote down the like classification, but then I deleted it because I didn't feel like looking at all the classifications and trying to explain it...A tornado. It was a bad tornado. And it fucked this thing up. It destroyed 50,000 pallets of medication. And more specifically than that, it stopped the ability for this plant to produce the medication. It was an injectable sterile medication place, so, a lot of anesthetics, so things that make you unconscious, and I think also some antibiotics, and other stuff that goes into like IVs, and stuff was destroyed and the capacity for Pfizer to make more of it was destroyed. The one silver lining is that the article used to have it wrong and say, "25% of the US's injectable medication." That was only Pfizer's percent, which is probably a lot still. Pfizer's a really fucking big name in medication. So medication shortages were already, before this, the worst that they've been in 10 years. In 2014 there were medication shortages about as bad as now. At the end of June, again before the tornado, there were 309 specific like named drug shortages in the United States. A lot of them are related to like chemotherapy and all kinds of stuff. So that's bad. Brooke 49:52 I didn't realize the medication shortage was worse now than it was like during the height of the pandemic and the end of it because I feel like you don't hear about it. Margaret 50:02 Yeah, I mean, well the pandemics over. So no one has to worry about anything anymore. [said sarcastically] I feel like this is the kind of thing where it's like, it's so hard because it's like...Well, it's like, as we talked with...Like, This Month in the Apocalypse is just a fuck ton of bad shit, right? Like and we're talking about or like some posi like little silver lining, like I saw cute monkey, kind of style stories, you know. Like, he's on roller skates. And, and it's like, it's hard to spin fucking this shit. It's hard to spin. Too much of our...I don't even want to tell them they're making drugs wrong. I don't know how to fucking make insulin, you know. But, obviously, there's some problems with centralization when there's tornadoes around, which I guess was like my Mothra-Godzilla thing I was talking about earlier. And I don't know, I mean...but it's the kind of thing that I wish we stayed more aware of. And I think it's the kind of thing that people mostly don't want to think about because we like to imagine that even if we'd go into debt to do so, if bad things happen, the existing system will be there for us. And, I don't want to knock the people who work really goddamn hard to make the existing system work, and the nurses, and doctors, and all the rest of the staff who work endlessly to make this shit happen. And so Pfizer is trying to move that manufacturing to other plants. But they haven't been able to yet. And they're basically like, "Look, it's not actually easy. You would be talking about moving..." None of the employees were hurt is the one upside of all of it. There's 2000 employees at that plant. And that's all I got. Besides...Are we ready for headlines like do do do [makes type write noise] headline time? Inmn 51:49 I think Brooke has something about a murder wall. Brooke 51:52 I know, but I don't want to talk about it anymore. Because it's so depressing. I want to talk about happy headlines. Margaret 51:59 Should we just shout out that there's a fucking murder wall and it's bad. Brooke 52:04 The great state of Texas. Yeah, that wonderful place, and it's a dictator du jour, Greg Abbott, decided to roll out some new measures in order to try and stop immigration across the border. So they got a whole bunch of buoys. Buoys are things that float in the water that are like wrecking ball size, which I actually don't know how big a wrecking ball is, but I assume they're massive, Margaret 52:31 Bigger than a breadbox. Brooke 52:38 Like the size of a car maybe? I actually don't know. Somebody, somebody comment and tell us how big wrecking balls are. I don't know big. Anyway, they got a shit ton of them and floated them out into the Rio Grande River and anchored them to the riverbed to basically create a floating wall in the middle of the river that's currently about 1000 feet long and make it longer. And then they also went through...As part of that project, there's lots of little islands that are on the Rio, and they tend to have grasses, and shrub brushes, and stuff like that. And they had the the Texas military go in and basically bulldoze everything off the top of the islands. So, they're just like dirt mounds in the middle of the river, and also, Margaret 53:25 Some World War I shit is what's happening. Brooke 53:27 Yeah, yeah, they bulldozed down the riverbanks on the United States side so that they could put up barbed wire along sections of the river there to, which you know, the river is at its low part right now because we're in summer, so I'm sure that taking away all of the vegetation and root systems won't have any problems with the waters rise later in the year. [Sarcastically] Inmn 53:53 None at all. [Also sarcastically] Margaret 53:54 Well, you know, it's just worth the trade off to economically destroy....Even if even if I was a fucking capitalist, I would be against the border wall. Like what the fuck? Like? Brooke 54:04 Yeah, it's...There's several things that are wrong with it besides just the really obvious, you know, ethical wrongness of the whole fucking thing. Margaret 54:14 The murderness. Brooke 54:14 And, you know, as an indigenous person, I have really complicated feelings about that because borders and migration anyway, but like it was the state of Texas that did it. They didn't talk to the local cities and municipalities about the work that they were doing. So they just, you know, rolled up destroying this shit. And then it's also technically international waters because it's a border between two countries and they didn't talk to Mexico about it either or the federal government for that matter. So you know, Mexico is threatening to to take action against Texas, and the federal government has sued the state of Texas, and local governments are super pissed off. So fun on so many levels. Margaret 54:59 I'm glad people are pissed off about it. So that's the one...I'm glad that murder wall has been a step too far for even some governments. Inmn 55:09 Yeah, I mean, it's like, Arizona did a similar thing last year before the governor...Like when the governor realized that he was not going to get reelected, He started building this giant shipping container wall along the border. And he was actually ordered by the federal government to stop doing it. And he just didn't. And there were...But there were all these like interesting things that happened where there were local sheriffs and stuff who were enforcing that law against the governor, like the people building the wall. And then there were all these wild disputes about it, where it became very like a the US government versus the US government like situation. Margaret 55:57 I don't hate that. I've played enough Risk. I know that when my enemies are fighting, it's time to sit back. Inmn 56:04 Yeah, but a really cool thing that was able to happen was that a lot of people were, because it was not a legal thing, were able to stage some pretty large scale defense against the area by going and occupying the area to stop construction, but no one was going to arrest them because it wasn't legal for them to be building it. Brooke 56:25 Oh, this river section also hosts a large annual kayak race that now can't happen because the buoys are in the way, so like a Republican kayaker guy who's like, you know, super into anti-immigration, is like, "But now that, you know, we can't do our kayak race here, I'm super pissed off about it." So like, even more reasons that people are angry about this that are ridiculous, but hey, let's, you know, let's be angry. Margaret 56:55 Yeah. Inmn 56:56 Yeah, golly. Is it time for headlines? Margaret 57:00 It's time for headlines. Is that our wait, we got to come up with....[Brooke makes type write noise] Yeah, there we go. Alright. What I got. Okay, you know how there's this thing that like COVID and the flu and shit were all hitting and then there was also RSV, which like mostly comes up for kids, and adults...In adults who aren't old. I don't know how to phrase this. Without, okay, whatever. In some people, it just manifests as a cold and other people it is really bad, right? RSV I don't even know what it stands for. I didn't write down enough. This is my supposed to be my headlines. And now I'm contextualizing...They have an injectable antibody that the FDA just approved called Beyfortus. And it's the first time that there has been a good specific thing that is like a preventative for RSV that has become available. And so that's promising. I'm curious to see how that goes. Because I know RSV was like fucking over a lot of people I know. Apparently, cement is one of the biggest causes of climate change and damage. It is the 12th biggest cause of climate change. It beats out air travel, apparently. And it...And cement overall puts out more carbon than the entire country of India does. One company is working on a carbon negative cement that is just like manufactured very different from Portland cement. Portland cement is like the main way that people make cement, which both involves a lot of burning of carbon in order to create it because you need kilns. And also then it is slowly off gassing carbon for like, a very long time with the concrete. And so they're working on, and they've proven it to be like structurally sound, and who knows whether this will act...[interrupts self] I know that it won't see widespread adoption because there's no incentive for it because capitalism is the economic system that runs the world. But someone has invented a concrete that actually absorbs carbon. It just sort of passively brings it on instead of putting it out. Brooke 59:15 I don't know if this is the same project, but I worked for a nonprofit a couple of years ago, or right before the start of the pandemic, that was doing research into this very thing. And they were putting really tiny amounts of wood fiber, cellulose, into cement and they were...They weren't doing it. They were funding, because it was a charity organization, they were funding the testing of this. And I wonder if this is maybe the next stage of that or even the same company. Margaret 59:41 This company is called Brimstone, which is funny. They might be evil. They might not be. But, they're named Brimstone and we don't live in a boring world. And then my final little posi note is that some agricultural workers have been like...Well, some agricultural workers have been dying in the heat. And so another agricultural woman, agricultural worker woman, developed a cooling vest and has just been doing a lot of studies about like, just specific ways about like, how people who are working outside and are stuck working outside beat the heat with these hot new ideas. But it's like...It's one of those things where it's like, well, what if people just didn't have to do this fun work outside in the goddamn heat? But, it's still good for us to develop these systems. And I love that it is coming from people who do this work themselves. So, I think it's like kind of a swamp cooler style vest. It's like...And they just did a lot of studies about like, if a worker drinks water, versus a worker drinks electrolytes, the person who drinks electrolytes is going to have a substantially lower risk of hospitalization and heatstroke. And then even like, wearing a wet bandanna makes a huge difference. Obviously, like anything that relies on swamp cooling is going to be different based on your humidity levels. If you're in the southeast, it's going to be way harder to use passive cooling from water than if you live in the southwest. But that's what I got. Anyone else? De de deet deet, de de deet deet [making typewriter noises] Hot off the Wire. Inmn 1:01:22 I have a bunch of headlines. They're not good. One is interesting. Margaret 1:01:30 You're fired. I'm not actually capable of doing that. Okay. Inmn 1:01:36 In the great state of Florida this month, it was declared by Rick DeSantis that middle schoolers will be taught about the personal benefits that slavery had for individuals as part of DeSantis' "War on Wokeness." He also was quoted as saying that he was really upset about the ways that--and he meant this in how Democrats are doing it--are criminalizing political differences, which is interesting because he's like the forefront of criminalizing political differences. Margaret 1:02:16 So, it's almost like it's illegal to advocate the eradication of people based on their race. Inmn 1:02:21 Yeah. And he passed some wild laws in Florida this month. This one, this one is...Like by itself, you might hear it and you're like, "Lack of sympathy," but like contextualizing it with other stuff that Rick DeSantis is doing is important. So, he passed a law that allowed for the death penalty in child rape convictions despite the Supreme Court having ruled otherwise. Which, you know, when I hear that I'm like, this is another Roe v. Wade situation of states like trying to get laws passed in the hopes that when federal rulings are overturned that they have these laws on the books. Margaret 1:03:03 Yeah, I mean, this is so that he can kill gay people and trans people. Inmn 1:03:06 Yeah, so then interestingly, in Texas last month, a lesbian couple was arrested for kissing at a mini golf course. And they were charged with "sexual harassment of a minor." So like, if we contextualize these things together and DeSantis' like war on trans people, we can sort of see where this is going is that he does probably want to make it legal to enforce the death penalty against trans people. He also signed a bill to end unanimous jury requirements in death penalty sentences. Margaret 1:03:46 Sick. Inmn 1:03:48 Now you just need an 8-4 in favor, which is a huge, huge spread. You know? Yeah, this is gonna go great. He was also involved in a car accident this morning in Tennessee and he was...not hurt. Margaret 1:04:08 Dammit. That's fucked up. Inmn 1:04:10 Right. In some other fun headlines, Robert Kennedy claimed at a press conference that COVID may have been ethnically targeted to spare the Jews in a absolutely absurd brand of conspiracy theories against Jewish people. Student debt forgiveness: people will be expected to pay back their refunded payments according to the student debt forgiveness being repealed. Margaret 1:04:47 Have they met the blood and the stone? The ability to withdraw one from the other... Inmn 1:04:57 Supreme Court ruling was like kind of...Not like overturned but an old ruling was over...like, not used in a case right now around stalking, where it's going to be a lot easier for people who are stalking people, especially on the internet, to not get in trouble for it. And it kind of boils down to this idea there that the more deluded the stalker, the more protected the stalking will be. Margaret 1:05:31 It's like pleading insanity, kind of? Inmn 1:05:34 Yeah. Being like, "This person was unaware of the impacts that it could have had on this person." Margaret 1:05:40 Classic thing that should inform the law. Inmn 1:05:48 It's weirdly situated like that to protect people like at protests, who might scream like, like, "I'm gonna fucking kill so-and-so," you know, in like a heightened state, and then that being weighed against that that person probably didn't mean that. But, it being used like that to protect people threatening to kill people on the internet while stalking them is, you know, clearly, clearly these things aren't the same thing. Brooke 1:06:25 Laws are bad. Inmn 1:06:26 Puberty blockers in England were disallowed on a large scale outside of exceptional cases. So like, trans kids in Europe will no longer be allowed to access puberty blockers. Margaret 1:06:43 You mean, the UK. Technically no longer Europe, thanks to their right wing move to separate themselves. Yes, does not make it any better for the UK kids. I'm sorry. I'm being a pedant. I apologize. Brooke 1:06:54 Yay, terf Island. Inmn 1:06:59 Putin signed new legislation on like this past Monday, I think, which marked the final step in outlawing gender affirming procedures. So basically, you can't get any gender affirming, like surgical procedures in Russia any more. And the bill was unanimously approved by the Russian Parliament, which bans any medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person as well as changing any one's gender marker on their documents. The only exception will be for medical intervention to treat congenital anomalies, which I think probably refers to like, assigning intersex people genders. It also annuls marriages in which one person has changed their gender and bars, transgender people from becoming foster or adoptive parents. And yeah, so Russia is even more terrifying. Margaret 1:08:03 Starting to not like Russia. Brooke 1:08:07 Starting to? Margaret 1:08:08 I don't know. Putin starting to seem like kind of a...I'm starting to develop a negative impression. [sarcastically] Inmn 1:08:17 Yeah. And, you know, just to give people in the United States an idea of where we're headed, this was all in the name of "Upholding traditional family values." That was the main cause for this legislation. Brooke 1:08:31 TFV. TFV. Inmn 1:08:34 And my last little headlines, which I wanted to connect to talking about heat wave stuff earlier, a nine year old migrant died after having seizures due to heat related illness in Arizona. This past month, there were at least 10 recorded migrant deaths in southern Arizona due to heat related complications. But, Border Patrol claims to have rescued 45 people from the scorching heat of the desert. But interestingly, in Ajo, Arizona, which is like western Arizona, there was a...It was like 114 degrees outside and border patrol had 50 migrants in custody who they were keeping in an outdoor chain-link pen with like, no shade or anything. So, they have the people that they rescued then put in life threatening conditions, Margaret 1:09:40 Starting to not like the United States Government either. Yeah, starting to feel on par with Russian governments. I know you're supposed to pick one or the other party. Yeah, it's bad. Everything's bad. Inmn 1:09:56 Really bad. And I want to get more into the southwest and border patrol and this issue another time. But...Stuff's really bad right now. So yeah, that's my headlines. Brooke 1:10:11 Margaret, you're the optimistic one today. What do we do? What do we do in this terrible world, Margaret 1:10:17 We build resilient communities, network them together, teach each other things, try to limit the amount of gatekeeping we do within those communities. We value conflict resolution as high as we can. We value survival skills and more traditional forms of preparedness, and we support a diversity of actions against all of the negative things that are happening in the world, whether or not we believe those actions are strategic. We support any action that falls within our bounds of ethics, including people who are like annoying church liberals, or people who are like taking things too far with the gasoline and the timers made out of kitchen timers. We support the wide range of it and we try to live our lives as best we can. We recognize that winning is not a condition. It's not like a win state, right? There's not a state in which we win. But instead, there's a reason we say, "Winning at life." We don't say, "Won at life." We say that we are in the process of winning. And when we fight, and when we build, and when we love one another we win. We live the best lives that we can despite everything that's happening and we work really hard to help other people live the best lives that they can. Was that a rhetorical question? I'm not sure. Brooke 1:11:34 No, I do feel a little bit...No, honestly, I feel a little bit better now. I really do. Love wins. We win with love. Love and care. And the thing that goes on if me being me as a nurturing, loving person. Inmn 1:11:50 In living like we're preparing for the world to die, should we also live like the Empire could be dying? Margaret 1:12:02 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like, capitalism has proved a sturdy beast, but it can certainly be slain. And if anything can slay it, it is the nightmare that is coming that we will all figure out how to come together to handle. Yay. Good. That a good end note? Anyone got more headlines? Brooke 1:12:34 No? Well, no. I'm too sad. Margaret 1:12:42 Well, if you enjoyed this podcast, you can tell your friends about it. And you can more than that, get together with your friends and talk about what the fuck we're gonna do, right? Because it is a good idea for us to get together and talk about what we're going to do because you're talking heads on the radio podcast land can't tell you what to do. You. You and your friends decide what risks are appropriate based on what's happening, and what you all want to do with the time that is available to you. But, one of the things you can do with the time that's available too, is support this podcast by supporting us on Patreon at patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. We put out new features every month. And we have multiple podcasts, including one called Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness and one called Anarcho Geek Power Hour, and one called Live Like the World is Dying, which you probably know is the one that you're listening to right now if you made it this far. And if you become one of ou
Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Inmn is joined by Carrie and Korin from the Glia project to talk about some of their projects and specifically to talk about why 3D-printed medical devices are really cool and how they help get medical devices to places where they are not otherwise easily accessible. They talk about Glia's work on 3D-printed tourniquets, stethoscopes, otoscopes, and dialysis machines. Also, please give them $5 million. You won't regret it. Host Info Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. Guest Info Glia can be found at www.glia.org or on Twitter @Glia_Intl 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 Glia on 3D Printing Medical Devices Inmn 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 Inmn Neruin. And this week we're going to be talking with Glia, a rad organization that designs 3D printed medical devices so that no matter where you are, you can access basic and quality medical devices. 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. Doo doo doo doo doo. [Singing a simple melody] Inmn 01:17 And we're back. Thanks so much, y'all, for coming on the podcast today. Would y'all like to introduce yourselves with your name, pronouns, nd what you what you're here to talk about or what your role is in Glia. Carrie 01:45 Okay, I'll go first. My name is Carrie Wakem and she/her and my role at Glia is executive director. It sounds very flashy. It's not. We're all team players here at Glia. Korin 02:00 My name is Korin, my pronouns are she and they. I'm a volunteer with the Glia project, particularly focused on the tourniquets, and specifically with regards to manufacturing instructions and quality control documentation. Inmn 02:13 Cool. And would you want to kind of introduce what Glia is? Carrie 02:20 Absolutely. So Glia is a medical device manufacturing company. We do lots of research and we build and research devices that are considered high quality, open source, and at cost. And that's sort of the stuff that we do. Inmn 02:42 How did Glia come to get started? Also, does Glia stand for anything? Is it an acronym? Or is it just a fun word? Carrie 02:50 Everybody asks that question about the acronym and how we became Glia or where the name came from and really there's no interesting story behind it. I think the original team on the Glia project just basically said, "What should we call this?" Somebody throw it the name Glia. And then it stuck as far as I know. But that was before my time. I can absolutely speak to a bit of the history of Glia and how it came to be. So, our founder Tarek Loubani is in emergency medicine physician in London, Ontario in Canada. And he works frequently in the Gaza Strip. And quite a few years ago he was there during the war and he was responding to a large amount of casualties. And he was in a room with a whole bunch of patients that needed to be seen. And when he looked around, he saw that there were only two stethoscopes being used in that room and one of them was around his own neck. And literally people had blood on their ears because they were putting their ear to the chest of patients to hear if there were heartbeats. And it occurred to him that some other places in the world don't have access to even basic medical tools like stethoscopes. And then after that trip, he was home and he was playing with one of his nephews and he was using the little toy plastic stethoscope doctor kit--I think Fisher Price used to make one when I was a kid. Anyway, that's who made one. I'm sure there's a lot of knock offs now. But, they have a little toy stethoscope. And he put it to his ears and he was listening and he was like, "This thing actually works. You can actually hear a heartbeat through this plastic toy." And he just had an interest in 3D printing at the time and he thought to himself, "I wonder if I could create a stethoscope using a 3d printer that would be more accessible, lower cost, and hopefully as high a quality as the Littmann cardiology iii, which is what our stethoscope now compares to. So Glia does have a 3D printed stethoscope today. It was our first product that was developed and it's based off of that experience of our founder. Inmn 05:00 Cool. Is that is that...[incoherent starting and stopping and stuttering] That makes sense how that would prompt an organization like Glia. But it is...That's really grim that that is how these organizations start. Carrie 05:15 Yeah. Unfortunately. Though, those are the stories that probably motivate people to do something about these scenarios, right? So, you see a problem and you want to solve it Inmn 05:27 Is Glia, like, I guess....So from there, this person started 3D printing stethoscopes and then how did the larger structure of Glia kind of start from there? Was it like people just being like, "Oh, that's really cool. Could we also make this other thing?" or? Carrie 05:43 Um, yeah, so a lot of what we've done...There's parts of it that's have been strategic and parts of our projects that have been organic. The first stethoscope, I believe, was developed in 2014. I didn't come into the project full time myself until 2017. So this is a little bit before my time. Stethoscopes were the thing that we were sort of working on, at the moment that I joined Glia myself. And we started with the stethoscope specifically because it's an iconic device, right? Like everybody recognizes it. So, there was some strategy into picking a device to get started on the topic of "How can an open source stethoscope really changed the world? How can that provide better access to quality health care?" It's a talking point and it still is to this day. From there, though, it was the experiences of the people that were working or associated with the project--collaborators, we've had a lot of collaborators, a lot of volunteers over the years--that sort of drove the direction of some of these projects. And the one that Korin mentioned at the beginning when she introduced herself was the tourniquet project. And that was actually originally developed by the engineers that were working for Glia back in 2017, a group there. And they saw a need for tourniquets in the Gaza Strip. They just couldn't access this type of device. And as we know in Gaza, there's constantly the threat of war. So, they needed to be able to come up with something that they could get access to. And so they designed this tourniquet--and we can probably get into that a little bit later--but that was something that organically happened from our remote office. Other projects like our otoscope. We have a 3d printed otoscope. This project was literally designed by a guy that was attending audiology school. So a gentleman that was in his early 20s had a fondness again for 3D printing and he was sitting in class going, "Why does an otoscope cost $400. I'm a student. I'm on a student budget. I can't access this general piece of equipment." And, and we're not talking about the Welch Allyn otoscopes that are attached in your doctor's office. We're talking about just you know, a plain handhold regular tool to look into somebody's ear. And so this guy, his name's Frankie Talarico, he actually sought us out and he was like, "I want to make this otoscope. And I want to just design it quickly on some software. And I want to make it open source so that anyone else can access that source code and copy it from anywhere else in the world." And he looked out to see who else was doing things like him. And it just so happened, we were in the same exact city, literally like a 10 minute drive from each other. And he reached out and he said, "I have this device that I've been working on. I want it perfected. You guys seem to be a little bit more ahead of of the game in terms of open source medical devices. How can we help each other?" And so he brought this idea, this concept, this design. We had it, you know, sort of perfected in a couple of different versions. And now what you see on our website is working a portable otoscope for...It's $100 for that device and we're hoping to improve our manufacturing process in the next year when we have people like Korin involved to help those processes get a little bit more efficient, we can lower the price even further. So its cost right now is 1/4 of what it does for the comparable gold standard model on the market. Inmn 09:35 Wow. Yeah, that is...I mean, that's a significant difference. If someone downloaded it and printed it themselves, would it be cheaper for them to print it themselves then? Carrie 09:49 Yeah, so yeah, in a sense it would be. So there's...So what Glia does is we take our designs that we make--all of our medical devices are located in our public repository on GitHub--and people can access those files and make them themselves. So there's no, you know, limit to what people can do with these things. They can redevelop them and make them better. That's what we really love is when people come into our feedback cycles and we see improvements for devices. That's one benefit of having it open source. But people certainly can take the device and make it. And in fact, if somebody copies what we're doing, that is a success to us. That's what we want to happen here, which is probably much different from many of the other medical device companies you think you might know. We measure our success based on how much it's replicated. And so somebody can take that device, they can make it on their printer. It really does cost cents to print with the plastic that we're using. There's a few electronic components and batteries. There's a lens that you need to source. So that might be you know...You could get that somewhere between $5 and $20 USD, to get a lens that goes into this. Not very expensive pieces. And then it's your time of putting it together. But I must say, the one caveat in all of this being, is that if you are building and replicating medical devices and using them on patients, you have to have proper compliance in your area. So Glia holds a Medical Device Establishment license, which is a Health Canada license that we have to make sure that all of our devices that are going out are safe to use on patients. And we would encourage anyone else to do the same thing if they were really making these things to use on patients, to sell to others to use on patients, etc. Inmn 11:47 Yeah, I was gonna ask, not in like a skeptical way or anything, but like in a....How do the devices that y'all make compare to professional medical devices that are produced in factories? Which I mean, this is just...Yeah, it doesn't seem all that different, just a different means of manufacturing.... Carrie 12:10 Great question. I love this question. So what Glia is trying to do is to make our devices as close in functionality to the gold standard devices that you would see. So we don't compare ourselves to cheap plastic shit that's built elsewhere, or knock offs, or crap that you can find all over Amazon, you know. We want to make sure that we are building high quality devices. So we do real research backed by real institutions on that. And then we publish real papers in reputable journals about the research that we do. So, the idea here is to make something in a different way that lowers the cost, increases the access, but does not touch the standard of quality. So quality is number one for us. And then alongside quality is safety. So that's where the question of compliance sort of comes in. We encourage anyone that's producing medical devices to make sure they understand proper compliance in their area. And really in the world right now there are four main places to get compliance. One is Health Canada, which is where we...our home offices is in Canada. There's also the FDA. There is one--and I'm not sure of the exact name--but there's one for the European Union that qualifies. And then I believe there's one in Australia as well. So for the countries that don't have these types of governing bodies, where often these devices are needed most, they would follow compliance from one of those other countries that provide that service. And if they are then you could trust that you're being safe with what you're doing. Inmn 14:03 Cool. Cool. Yeah. So in contrast, y'all are producing these medical devices for very little money, but it is without the sacrifice of quality and so it's...like, is that kind of...[starts over] Does that offer a good alternative to if people are like, "Oh, I need cheap medical supplies. I will go buy them on Amazon." Carrie 14:33 Yeah, I wouldn't recommend doing that specifically, but it doesn't mean there aren't good quality medical devices on Amazon. Okay, so I can just say that for sure. The difference...So the point of this all is to make a sustainable business model where people get paid fair wages to build build high quality devices. And the point here is not to gouge people that need these devices to improve their health. What Glia is trying to do, and say, and change in the culture of the way our health system operates today is that nobody should be making money on the backs of people's health care. And so we should charge what it costs to produce these devices. That's what the customer should pay at the end, not that price plus investments--like paying off investors--paying off people so that they can have their Lamborghinis and their yachts and go out and do all these things, right? Like, this is not the place for that. If you want to make a designer t-shirt and sell that to someone and they want to pay, you know, $500 for a t-shirt, that's up to them. That's not something they need. But people need access to health care and there's a lot of inequity in our world today with accessing even these simple devices as I said in my very first example of how the company came to be. Like why is it in 20--I believe that happened in 2012--why was it in 2012 that stethoscopes weren't available in a place in this world? Like quality stethoscopes. And that just doesn't make any sense. And the three of us, we may have had enough privilege to be able to understand what a stethoscope was from the minute we could walk or talk--thanks to Fisher Price too--but also, you know, like it's not an issue for us to really get some simple tools, but that's not everywhere in the world. Inmn 16:54 How then do devices make it from y'all to places like Gaza? Or anywhere where people who need to be able to access them? Yeah, how does that that flow path work? Carrie 17:11 This can happen in a couple of different ways. Our preferred method is for people to adopt what we're doing and do it themselves. You know, this is...I was talking a little bit about the measurement of success for Glia and one of those things is getting people to replicate what we're doing. And so if they decide, "I need access to a particular device, anywhere in the world," it really, for our devices right now, the way they stand, it's mostly about having access to a quality desktop printer, and having the source code, having a little bit of expertise, proper compliance, and you've got the recipe to start building your own devices. So whether that be 100 devices or 100,000 devices, you can really do that based on this model. It is scalable. I mean, but it's not meant to be massively scalable, right? It's about keeping the decentralized manufacturing model alive and only filling the need in communities as they need things, not over producing. You know, like, we don't want to throw a whole bunch of crap into the landfill. That's not one of our objectives. Our objective is to fill the needs of the people who need what they need. Now Glia...That doesn't mean that Glia doesn't ship things. You know, like we will...Some people can't, or don't have interest, or don't want to, or it's not feasible. An example of that is sending tourniquets over to Ukraine for some response there. There are...We also had an initiative--we're working on it again this year--but a couple of years ago we sent out 200 stethoscopes to medical students graduating from their class. So fourth year medical students still did not have access in Kenya and Zambia to a simple stethoscope. So, we worked with a group over there called Myka Medic--or sorry, they're in the UK--and we collaborated with them to send these stethoscopes over. They weren't necessarily interested in that moment in starting their own lab, getting proper compliance, you know, getting all those tools. But getting that conversation started by sending over a couple of hundred units means that we can talk about those things in the future. Now we have these stethoscopes And now, when something happens to one of these stethoscopes, how do we repair it? Right? And that's what's beautiful about the model if you actually do, you know, invest in a $1,400 (Canadian) printer and teach somebody a little bit about what we're doing, give them the access to be able to build it themselves, and then they can go ahead and make more, repair what they have, you know? It just makes it just makes sense. Korin 18:29 You mentioned a little bit about Gaza, specifically. Those are produced in Gaza. And the reason for that was because there was a dire need for them. And attempting to get medical supplies through that blockade is very difficult without paying exorbitant fees. They would cost...To get a CAT tourniquet here in the US cost about $30 and to get it into Gaza would be about $40 USD even if you're buying in massive bulk quantities. Carrie 20:23 For a single tourniquet? Korin 20:37 Yeah, about $40 each. Inmn 20:52 Oh, my God, Carrie 20:53 Yeah, that's, a lot of money in Gaza to pay for medical devices. And not only that, but there's another huge issue we can bring in, if it's time to do that, which is talking a little bit about donation culture and how a place like Gaza, especially, deals...I mean, I've learned a lot about this, especially in the last year, but the health system in Gaza right now is reliant on donations so much so that it's hard for them to steer out of any other path. And they can't even, you know, fathom the idea sometimes about being empowered to build their own stuff because they're so used to receiving basically other people's secondhand items. But what this does is it creates this dumping culture where devices will get dumped into an area because another place doesn't need it. So they'll say, "Oh, who wants this? We don't want to throw it away. So let's go put it somewhere where people can't have access." So there's a whole bunch of problems with that system, especially in Gaza. One of the things is they get a lot of stuff they don't need or don't want. They can't store it. They have inventory crisis constantly because of all of this dumping that happens of things they don't need or don't want. And then they become reliant on something. So for example, one of the ideas that Glia has down the pipeline is creating a dialysis machine. And we don't really want to reinvent dialysis. What we want to do is to take an existing type of dialysis machine and build an adapter to fit on that existing machine that will speak to any one of the disposables that may be used for the purpose of dialysis. So right now, those things are manufactured in a way that if XYZ company makes it, you have to get XYZ disposables to be compatible with that machine in order to use it. So, what's happening in Gaza is that there is literally a gymnasium full of dialysis machines that are unusable and another gymnasium full of disposables that are unusable because those two units are not compatible. So Glia's idea for a device--now this is going to be a $5 million project and you know, if any of your listeners have access to that type of cash, we would absolutely love to begin this project--but, you know, we want to build an adapter that will speak to those two pieces so that people can actually use the stuff that is donated to them, that is given to them, because it...And you can imagine, so now they have storage issues and they become reliant on these people that are feeding them the donations, right? So it's just there's so many problems with that. Now, if you look at what Glia is trying to do, we have an office in Gaza. We have an office with several printers running. We build our own turkeys locally there. So we build our own medical devices there. So they're already there, you know, and people can purchase or use what they need. They don't need to rely on somebody else's handouts to get them in there. And there's a lot more that we could do there as well. But it's difficult. It's difficult to even negotiate with those governing bodies that make those decisions in Gaza because they're so used to dealing with these donations and that's kind of the system they're relying on right now. Inmn 24:33 Yeah. I cannot imagine being a medical practitioner in Gaza and being, "Well, we need dialysis machines," and having an entire gymnasium full of dialysis machines that you can't use that. Wow, I hope that y'all get to start that one soon. Carrie 24:52 And like Korin was saying, it's extremely difficult to get things in. I worked on a project in 2016 I want to say--yes 2016-- where I moved 10 dialysis machines from Northern Ontario. So for your US listeners, Ontario is in central Canada and northern Ontario is somewhat remote. Okay. And this is going to fill all the stereotypes that people think of Canada right now what I'm going to say. Where I moved these, I work with a nephrologist and he wanted me to take--he did some work in Gaza--and he saw that there were some machines that were at this northern Ontario hospital that were compatible with some of the disposables that were already in Gaza. And they weren't being used by us. So he said, "Let's pay to get these 10 machines that are basically obsolete for Canadians." Okay, "Let's move them to Gaza." This project took me nearly 12 months to get these in. They had to come from this hospital via Ice River, onto a train, onto another train, onto a plane, and then perhaps a ship--I can't remember, it was a while ago--I don't know if we had it on a ship to get across. But then of course, it had to wait. To get this in through the blockade was terribly difficult. But we were able to get the Ministry of Health in Gaza on board and, you know, they let them in eventually. It also cost us $10,000 Canadian in shipping. So, what are we doing here, folks? This makes no sense. And all just because "Oh, somebody donated some disposables and they don't talk to any of the machines we have here. So let's dig out these ones out of the basement of northern Ontario and move those over." You know, it's just so frustrating because think about how far $10,000 would have gone in terms of buying any type of medical device if they had the market to do so in Gaza. It would be...It's just there's nothing that can can really be said about that. It's... Inmn 27:15 Yeah, that is maddening. I know that...I mean, not to relate things back to things in the United States, but I remember when, you know, early, early COVID times, there was a serious lack of ventilators and all the car companies were going on strike to have the car company factories make ventilators instead. And I don't really know where I'm going with this, but just maybe for people in the United States to think about a comparable or semi-comparable situation of like absurdity that we have all these means of production and we're using them to make cars or we're using them to make stuff that people don't need instead of getting basic medical...having basic medical supplies be accessible to people who need basic medical supplies. I don't know, it just it hurts my brain a lot. Korin 28:30 Not to, again, not to directly compare these two things because they are different, but even here in the US, you know, glucometers, the things that are used to measure your blood sugar, the the strip and I think the lancet and the unit itself, same kind of razor and blades model where one does not work with every other type of glucometer. So, it's exactly like manufacturers just love to do the whole razor and blades thing with people's health because at the end of the day, if it make some money, they will do it. Inmn 29:07 Yeah, yeah. And that is the wild thing too when I think about it, is that all these medical industries, they exist to make people money not to necessarily get people medical supplies. Carrie 29:23 Yeah, yeah. It's sadly true. And so...So I guess the question is then what can you do about that to change that culture? And to start thinking about this in a way that's more about sharing what you know versus holding it tight to your vest to serve yourself? How do you really serve other people with the information that you have? And so that's what Glia is really trying to do is just to show that there are...there's a different business model for this, folks. It doesn't mean that people need to be making no money or that it needs to be charitable. There's a system that could be in place where people just get paid to build stuff fairly. Maybe even just add a little bit to that so it's a nice cushy job, you know, like, give them extra vacation time, or give them just a couple of extra bonuses per year for just being great people. And you can do all of that and not gouge people at the end for all that that upfront R&D (Research and Development) that's done at the beginning. Because that's kind of, you know, fluffy, in and of itself, all of the R&D. We really don't need to redo R&D every time we do it if we just share the information we learned the last time we did it. Right? So why are we reinventing the wheel? Like really why did Glia have to come in and take a device like the stethoscope--that has seen no improvements since the 1970s in terms of its functionality, or design, or anything--and say we have to start from scratch and build this? Because, you know, like we took something that was off patent and looked at that design and replicated it. But why are we hiding behind patents here? You know, like it doesn't...it doesn't really make much sense when people need health care. Okay, I have an example. I will share a personal example. I talk about this sometimes when I give presentations. So, my personal experience isn't actually about medical devices, it's about pharmaceuticals. And I think the thing is, is that people in the US and Canada...There's a difference between the relation for a lay person in the US and in North America, especially, probably other places in the world, too, but I know here. I know our neighbors here. And everybody in North America has a relationship with pharmaceuticals, whereas not everybody in North America has a direct relationship with medical devices. Medical practitioners do. Medical administrators do or people that are making decisions on purchases, or people that are building these things. But not necessarily. Like my mother doesn't have any personal connection to a stethoscope, even though I'm sure her physician uses it on her every time she goes and sees her. But I think the thing about pharmaceuticals is that everybody's accessing this. So we all know about how much of an upcharge there is on certain medicines. And so for example, I have a sister who has a very serious heart condition, and she needs to take medicine in Canada that it costs $40,000 a year for her lung health. And without that she wouldn't be here. So because of where we live in the world, she's able to access that through a community, like through the Trillium program that's in Canada that supports people who, who can't afford it. And she can't, you know, she's on disability here in Canada because she can't work because of her condition. It's quite severe. And without this life saving medication. But $40,000 a year? How on earth would anyone without a health care system like we have in Canada be able to live? You would die. You would die, right? So what are we doing when we don't have working dialysis machines, you know, that are not talking to each other. People need dialysis or they die. A lot of people need dialysis. And so the thing is is that the technology exists, the manufacturing of these things can exist. This is not like brand new science. This is stuff that people can do now. We're not talking about building a dialysis machine on Mars. We're talking about just building it here on Earth. And then the problem here is that, you know, but this one has to be compatible with that one. Anyway. It's it's just a mess. Inmn 34:18 I know that a big project that y'all have currently is tourniquets. And corn, I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that project. Korin 34:28 Yeah, the Glia tourniquet, I believe, started in Gaza as well. And that was due to necessity. This happens very frequently, where Israel will start waging war on on the Gaza Strip and that causes a lot of casualties. And due to the blockade, it's very difficult to get like commercially manufactured tourniquets in and so the solution that came up--and this was before I joined the project--but the solution that happened there was to make this tourniquet that can be 3D printed and sewn together with locally available materials. And that's...It works. Yeah. Inmn 35:10 That's awesome. And I know you're saying the price comparison of like If you wanted to buy one, it's like $30-40 bucks and then like to get it into Gaza, it would be a lot more? Korin 35:24 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, getting it in there, from what I've heard from Tarek, it's about $40 US if you have a bulk order to get it into Gaza and the time that that would take is variable. Depends on a number of factors. Here in the United States, you can get them for about $30 give or take. Some models are more expensive, but that's about what you're looking for. The Glia tourniquet, I think we've run the numbers a little bit. Depending on where you source your materials, how you do it, in theory, you could manufacture it for about $7.50. But that is before any compliance or overhead. That's just materials and assuming you have the equipment ready to make it. Inmn 35:24 Yeah, cool. I guess beyond the obvious of like putting the means into people's hands to produce their medical supplies, like why is tourniquets a big deal? Korin 35:43 So just in general, what they're used for, I guess, for folks who don't know, it's basically a big strap that gets tightened around a limb and it occludes all blood flow to that. So in the event of like a massive hemorrhage, a massive amount of bleeding, these can save lives. These have been gaining popularity over the last, I want to say about 20 years, I think it's largely due to the forever wars, unfortunately. That's where a lot of trauma medicine winds up coming out of. And so there's been a huge resurgence of interest in them. And at this point, they are now very popular and they're very much used to stop massive hemorrhage. For non military applications, there's any number of them here in the US. We have to contend with a large number of mass shootings. So aside from mass shootings, there's a number of other situations where you might need a tourniquet. You can have accidents with cooking, accidents with knives, or power tools, lawnmowers, chainsaws, things of that nature, natural disasters, which are unfortunately becoming more common. Those are all situations where folks might need tourniquets, Carrie 37:25 I would also add to that industrial accidents and a lot of back country activities. So things like your friends in the north doing a lot of snowmobiling, those types of people, a lot of those types of sports have been reaching out to us with interest in the tourniquet as well. So it's becoming an item that really should be in every first-aid kit. And one of Glia's goals in the next, let's say year to two years, is to start diving in a little bit more into the US market with these items and making sure they're in every public space. So for example, every school needs one of these tourniquets in the US. Every mall. But even in Canada, where we don't have as many mass shootings, these things are useful for all those other reasons. If you work in a facility--lots of people still work online, so you know, machines are doing stuff for us, but there's a lot of people doing factory work--tourniquets need to exist there. Inmn 38:27 Yeah, yeah. I remember seeing this kind of shift. As you know, in 2020, when there was a lot of gun violence happening at large protests and stuff, and just like seeing people...everyone had tourniquets strapped to their belts and stuff, but I also remember talking to people who were like, "Oh, I'm maybe not going to go to the thing because I don't have a tourniquet and spending that much money on a tourniquet right now sounds overwhelming. Carrie 39:08 That's so interesting. Yeah, so it's becoming way more commonplace I think, with tourniquets, and it's becoming something that your regular EMS isn't just carrying because the other big issue with tourniquets and why the hill is so steep for Glia is not just all of the R&D, and the manufacturing, and the governing body approval--which I think we might get into a bit--but you know, all the certifications and things that you might need for these types of devices, or what you would assume you may need, aside from all of those tricky things, the steepest hill for us is that lay people don't know how to apply tourniquets properly. So, unless you're a trained person in the use of tourniquets, then it's hard to just put a tourniquet in a public space and know how to use it. So, part of Glia's endeavor is never just to make a device and be like, "Oh, we made our device. That's it. Here you go." No, no, no, we have to do the full package. So likely, you know, we might seek out educational companies that are interested in open source as well and provide educational material to people so that you can become fluent in using a device like this. Inmn 40:28 Cool. Korin, I know we were talking a little off-air about this, but you mentioned that--I guess maybe the right word is compliance--for civilian grade tourniquets doesn't really exist or something? Korin 40:49 There is no standard for a tourniquet. So the way I actually got into the project was Tarek Loubani did an interview on It Could Happen Here, where he talked about 3D printed tourniquets. And I said, "Well, that's very interesting." And so I go, when I look through the GitHub and look through all the resources and couldn't find like, 'What standard does this meet? How is this being tested?" And after some further back and forth and discussion, it turns out, there isn't a standard for tourniquets. That does not exist. ASTM, which is a standards making body, is I think, working on one, but it's not released yet. And it's extremely new, if that ever does come out. There literally just is no standard that you can say, "Well, I've done this. And so therefore, it's a good tourniquet." Yeah. And, the way you kind of determine whether or not your tourniquet works is, I think, largely by comparison. And there is some testing that's done, but it's by comparison to what's being used currently. And does it work as well as that? Carrie 41:56 Yeah, I was just gonna add to that again, like Glia doesn't just stop at like, "Oh, let's take a medical device and reproduce it or build it again." We have to do...we have to go to all the lengths to make sure that this thing can get out there and people can use it safely. So one of the things we needed to do was to partner with somebody that was willing to design a tester for the type of tourniquets that we were making. And that's been a massive project. And actually, it was designed by the Free Appropriate Sustainable Technology Research Group at Western University. And they just published the tester that they developed to test not only the Glia tourniquet, but any tourniquet that works in the way that the Glia tourniquet works. So now we can start developing some sort of standard because when you make a device like this and then you realize that the only thing that really gave it any clout was some panel that decided that these particular tourniquets were the one we were going to use and then because of mass production built a reputation, even though, you know, the CAT tourniquet, actually, in the field is only something like 55% effective when it's applied. And it's the most well known gold standard tourniquet out there today on the market that people trust the most. But you know, half the time you're going to put that on, it's going to fail. So you, Glia dives into, like, why does it fail? What is the test being done on that? Is it actually the education of the user? Does the user know how to apply the tourniquet? You know, we don't we don't just stop at, "Oh, here's the device now for the market. You can buy it. Do what you will with it," you know, like all those other checkboxes are applicable. Inmn 43:47 Yeah. Yeah. Is like...I guess, because...Is the CAT VII, is that the tourniquet that like the military uses, or do they? Korin 43:58 I think this is maybe a good time to explain what COTCCC is if that? Korin 44:03 Yeah, okay, there is this panel called COTCC, Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care. It's a military panel. And I'm actually gonna quote from their website, it says, "The Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care is the pre hospital arm of the joint trauma system for the Department of Defense." So what it is, is it's about 40 something folks who are various types of medical professionals, or some doctors, surgeons, nurses, combat medics, special operations medics, things like that. And these folks, at some point, some years ago--I don't have the exact article here in front of me--they evaluated some number of tourniquets, and they said, "Okay, here's, based on what we've been using in combat, and based on our examination of them, we recommend the following tourniquets," and they had the Combat Application Tourniquet generations Six and Seven by North American Rescue, that's the CAT by NAR. There was also the SOF-T-Wide by TacMed Solutions. And there was a third one that's a pneumatic tourniquet that we don't need to talk about. And so for the longest time, just those two tourniquets were the only ones that this this panel said you should buy. Now, that makes plenty of sense. They're a military panel. They are interested in serving the military. They're interested in military procurement systems. So, they want to go to a company who can produce an enormous quantity of them and certify that they are good and will work and supply them in bulk. That's what they're interested in. They are not so much interested in civilian applications. That's not their concern because they serve the Department of Defense, right? So, that's their concern. That's why they had only those, like those three tourniquets because that's all they needed. Now, more recently, they released another journal article in which they--which when I say more recently, I mean, it's still several years ago at this point--where they expanded that list of recommended tourniquets substantially. But they don't evaluate every single tourniquet on the market. A lot of their recommendations are based on combat experience. So, if the tourniquet hasn't seen combat, they're not necessarily going to recommend it. And there's no other things like that. At the end of the day, they are still a military panel interested in making decisions for and about the military. Inmn 44:03 Oh, yeah. Inmn 46:37 Yeah, yeah. So Glia is kind of offering like a much better alternative for civilian use tourniquets than currently exists? Korin 46:49 Yeah. And that's actually one of the design criteria in the Glia tourniquet was that it works better on children. From the experience of folks, medical professionals in Gaza, they found that the CAT tourniquet didn't necessarily work as well on people who had very small limbs. So young children in general. One of the design criteria that then came out of that was that it works better on children. So some of the design decisions on the Glia tourniquet, particularly the separation of the backplate and the clip, came as a result of wanting to make the tourniquet work better for children. Inmn 47:29 Can I ask you all a kind of, I guess, maybe a little bit funny, like kind of a theoretical question? Carrie 47:35 Course. Inmn 47:36 Cool. Or just some things that are going through my head when I think about, like Glia's project and open source pharmaceuticals and open source medical equipment in general is that if we start seeing more parts of society, kind of like collapse or breakdown or like infrastructure breakdown more, is this open source medical equipment something that is going to be useful for people like in, I don't know, in 10 years--God, I hope it's more than 10 years--when the North American governments collapse and we're in some kind of hellish civil war and people are like, "Oh, medical...like the military has stuff. And that's it." Carrie 48:27 Yeah, I mean, I think the nice thing about the model that Glia is developing is that it's really adaptable by many different types of scenarios. So it's as relevant for what you've just said, and what you're just talking about now, as it is for some refined medical school somewhere in the world where they just want to do some good, and they want to lower costs, and they want to build their own medical devices and send them out to all their students for the incoming class that year. You know, we can set a lab up here in London, Ontario at our medical school that exists here and have those students build their own medical devices and have proper--as long as they have proper compliance. I'm not going to stop saying that--as long as they have proper compliance, then they can build their own devices. And the thing that's beneficial about that is that then you get up-and-coming medical practitioners thinking about their medical devices in a different way than they currently do today. They can make...they can see that they can customize, make modifications, be innovative, have a say, so they do not get into vendor lock-in with any of the products that they purchase. So I think that's one applicable scenario. And then you can go to some war-torn country, someplace that's desolate, and all they need is solar energy--which by the way, our Gaza office completely powers all of their printers with solar energy--and you can use a solar power energy in the middle of the desert and if you just are able to tent in that unit and get proper humidity under control then you can start building your own medical devices wherever you need them. And I mean, we're talking about stethoscopes, tourniquets, otoscopes...Glia also has a pulse oximeter coming down the road. We have a portable electrocardiogram that's coming out very soon. It's just entering clinical trials this summer. So there's lots of different types of devices that could be in these scenarios that you may need, like in something that's somewhat remote. And so it doesn't matter how remote the community or how vast and vibrant the community is, these devices can be used anywhere, and the process is applicable in all of the communities. Like really we should be making all our devices like this everywhere. Like why are we transporting shit halfway across the world anymore? It makes no sense. It makes no sense. Inmn 51:19 No, no, it truly does not. Korin 51:20 You asked in the context of societal collapse and there's a lot of areas even today where we can see that, for example, the wildfire smoke that's blanketing areas of Canada and even in the US. And I know that Margaret Killjoy, along with Robert Evans over at It Could Happen Here talked a bit about this and building Corsi-Rosenthal boxes, which are basically air filters made out of box fans and furnace filters. And so those boxes are a very good example of devices medically--we can call them medical supplies--that people right now may want to come together and make. Those are also a particular kind of device that lends itself to this kind of ad hoc, in the moment, production, where if everyone doesn't stick around and everyone kind of breaks off and goes and does their own thing later, that's completely fine. There's some medical devices, which are a little bit more critical, that have to be approached with a little bit more intention. But there's a number of things all across the spectrum that you could do right now, to things that maybe you should only do in an emergency, to things that we should start building the infrastructure for now so that we can use that later. Inmn 51:22 Yeah, yeah. And y'all have talked a lot about this, about compliance. And, I guess I'm just wondering, if you could explain for listeners, like what is involved in compliance? Like is it like testing it, the device, to make sure that it works? To make sure it works properly? Like, what goes on for compliance? Carrie 53:01 So proper compliance. Yes, we've mentioned it a whole bunch of times. It's very important. What that looks like in Canada is four different class levels. And it depends on what types of devices you're manufacturing as to which type of class level you fall into. So currently, Glia is only manufacturing devices that fall into class one. It's a fairly simple license for class one and it's very similar with the FDA, their class, one license looks a lot alike. It's a little bit more expensive to get a class one license from the FDA than it is in Canada. It's actually about double the price. But if you're selling multiple devices, or you have some pool of money to draw on from to get this. Usually these licenses last for a year, so you have lots of time to set up a manufacturer, learn what you need to do. The process is fairly straightforward. You often tend to learn things in North America after the fact. So you know, we set up our license, we got our approval, Health Canada said, "We trust you," and then they came knocking on our door and said, "Hey, by the way, we have an audit for you." And that's very common, you know, and especially for people that are doing stuff in their home basement labs, which at the time, that's what we're doing. So, you know, the point being that it's fairly straightforward. The most important thing to remember about compliance is that it's for the patient's safety. And you have to make sure that if for some reason there's a problem with what you've created, that you can issue a recall. And so, you know, recalls aren't just, "Oh, somebody was poisoned because they ate this bad bag of kale." It's also with medical devices. If there's a problem in that manufacturing process, we may distinguish that there's an issue and we need to take back those devices and inspect them. And it's important that you have a process to do that as swiftly as possible. So you know, sometimes depending on how dangerous the situation could be, you may have to initiate a recall within 48 hours of discovering the problem, and trying to retrieve those devices very quickly. So, it's about knowing those processes really well and protecting the patients, they're health and safety and life. Korin 55:28 And kind of going back to a little bit about what I said about there are some things where we might want to stand up the infrastructure now so we can use it later. If we're talking about a situation in which we think the government is going to break down or not function at all, some kind of collapse or a civil war or what have you, the FDA may not exist. And so in that case, if I'm making tourniquets, for example, then how do you know that these are actually well made and that they're going to work? And so having proper quality assurance processes in place is extremely important. And that's something you don't need a license to develop, I'm not recommending you go make these devices and distribute them without one. But when it comes to other things, you could do a trial run with Corsi-Rosenthal boxes and try and serialize every single one and send them out if you wanted. And that gives you some practice with with doing this because it is, as Carrie mentioned, extraordinarily important. You determine later, "Oh, oops, we sewed these tourniquets together with the wrong thread. Oh, we used the wrong plastic." I've seen these things happen in commercial environments, for not medical devices but for other things. That is absolutely critical that you have this relationship established with everybody that you might be giving these tourniquets to, or passing them along to, that you can contact them and they know you and you know them. And we're not just making a bunch of medical supplies, dumping them into a community and then disappearing and then hoping that no one gets hurt because that's just reckless. Carrie 57:13 Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing is, is people shouldn't be afraid of proper compliance. You know, it's not something to run from. Like any system, and especially as large as some of these systems we're talking about in terms of where to obtain proper compliance from, they're all going to have their pros and cons. But at the end of the day, this really is about making sure that companies are doing things in a safe manner. What I see a lot is that there's a lot of engineers out there that want to engineer things, right. So they want to build stuff. People love building. People love designing. People love adding their little flair to whatever it is they're doing. They want to contribute in that way. And then when it comes time for the paperwork, they get super bored. And so that's why they don't pursue these things. But, I can tell you from experience, I came into this job, I knew nothing about compliance, and I am now probably the expert on compliance in our group. And I had to figure it all out just on my own while doing a whole bunch of other things for the project at the same time. So, it's not impossible to figure out these systems. But also in addition, remember, I spoke earlier about how Glia doesn't just put the device code out there and say, "Here's the device world do what you will with it." We do the whole package. So you may not find all of our compliance records on our GitHub right this minute, it may not be there today, but it is our intention to make those things public so that people don't have to have that uphill struggle and figuring out how to do these systems because that's part of the issue, right, is that these systems are made to be somewhat convoluted and difficult to discern. And if you have a bit of an example of somebody else that did this for a tourniquet, and you want to go out and build some other type of device and innovate that and then get the compliance so you're doing it, you can come to Glia and say, "Oh, how did they do it with this device? Oh, this is what they did. Here's the roadmap for doing that. Okay, now I just have to put in my company name, copy these systems exactly. And off we go. I'm doing everything safe," you know, and they're not going to give you a license unless they think you're doing it safe. So you have that back to follow on. But why do you have to start from square one even with compliance? It's not just about building and innovating the device, it's the whole entire system that comes along with getting those devices from materials to actually treating patients. Inmn 59:50 Yeah, yeah. It's almost like y'all trying to build like a large community of people who are invested in each other's well being regardless of profit or something, which is really cool. Carrie 1:00:05 Yeah. And in terms of the societal breakdown scenario too and having compliance not really exist in that moment in the way that we see it today, I mean, that's already happening in the world, right? Like a lot of really amazing places and countries don't have these governing systems. And they have to go and borrow the roadmaps for that type of compliance from somewhere else. But there's likely no one in their own countries even governing that. So then, so then what are they doing? Are they being safe? Are they not being safe? You know, so making these processes as clear and transparent and accessible as possible makes sense because at the end of the day, we want to save people not kill people, right? Like, that's the plan here. Yeah. Inmn 1:00:57 Yeah. And I'm just going to retrospectively change the question that I asked, which is, yeah, what do we do when the compliance for these organizations don't exist or are not accessible? And I'm gonna pretend I asked y'all that and that we just got those lovely answers. Cool. Well, that about brings us to time. Is there anything else that y'all would like to say before we wrap things that we didn't talk about? Carrie 1:01:32 Well, I'm pretty sure I want to mention a call to action. So often when we meet people and people come to Glia...So Glia., first of all, I probably didn't explain this earlier on, but Glia has a very small staff. But in my time, in the last six years of being in this position, I've seen about 300 volunteers from all over the world get involved in many different ways. And our volunteers are really what fuels our company and what pushes things forward. Korin is a perfect example of somebody who comes in and becomes quite dedicated to the work that we're doing. And often, when we're talking to volunteers or people that are interested in Glia, they want to know how they can get involved and what they can do. So if you don't mind then I'm just gonna share those points. Inmn 1:02:30 Please. Plug. Plug the things. Carrie 1:02:31 Yes, yes, we have to plug Glia. That's something I can't go through this whole interview without. Inmn 1:02:39 Yeah, the end is always for plugs. Carrie 1:02:41 That's right. So of course, visit our website at Glia.org You're gonna find out about all of the projects that we're working on, and it doesn't stop with device work. We do education in 3D printing, we do other things, we'll come and we'll do a seminar for you, we'll talk to people about any of the topics that we cover. Of course, this project cannot run without funding, which is always kind of the thing that hurts me the most to have to say, but cash is king. And if you are willing to make a donation, you can do that through our website at Glia.org Inmn 1:03:20 Especially if you have $5 million to give them so that there can be dialysis machines. Carrie 1:03:23 Yes, absolutely. If you have access to $5 million, I promise you, we will make it work and really Glia is the most frugal project I've ever seen, you know. People are really good at wasting lots of money. We are very good at having the lowest budgets possible and making the most happen. So I mean, please trust me, I will make all of your dollars go as far as I possibly can stretch them. We always do that. We want to see our work continue into the future. Inmn 1:03:54 Cool. And are there ways for folks to get involved with? Like, I don't know, like, if they have, if there's listeners who are in places where people might have a hard time accessing medical supplies and they have 3D printers, is there other ways for those people to connect to y'all? 1:04:17 Yeah, we have a GitHub page. That's GliaX on GitHub. But all of that can be found through the website as well. So, glia.org, click on the products that you're interested in, and you will find the links to take you to all the information to get all of the roadmaps to be building these things yourself. And certainly if you cannot find those answers there, just reach out to us. We'll help you along the way for sure. 1:04:43 I also want to mention OpenSourceMedicalSupplies.org, all one word, all spelled out, opensourcemedicalsupplies.org. There's a number of plans and a lot of information about, as you would expect, open source medical supplies there. So that that may be helpful. Carrie 1:05:00 Yeah, absolutely. Inmn 1:05:03 Wonderful. Well, thanks you all so much for coming on today. And someone out there, please give them $5 million. Please. Carrie 1:05:14 Thanks so much for having us. Thank you. Inmn 1:05:16 Thanks so much for listening. 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Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Burdock and Margaret talk about the overlap between Earth Skills and preparedness as well as going over the basics of how to preserve animal hides, how to process road kill for food, and why you probably don't want to eat roadkill. Trust your nose on that one Guest Info Burdock (she/they) can be found on Instagram @Scagetywocket 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 Live Like the World is Dying: Burdock on Earth Skills and Road Kills Margaret 00:14 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm today's host, Margaret Killjoy. And I'm really excited to be talking about this stuff that we're gonna be talking about today because it's something I've been wanting to talk about since I first started the show. We're going to be talking about the primitive skills scene. And in specific, we're going to talk a bit about roadkill and we're going to talk about tanning hides of animals that have been destroyed by the mechanisms of industrial civilization. And I'm excited to get into that. But first, this podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network da da duh duh da daa. [Singing a melody] Margaret 01:38 Okay, we're back. Okay. So if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns. And then I guess a little bit about how you got into the stuff that we're going to be talking about today? Burdock 01:48 Yes, Hi. I'm Burdock. And I use she/they pronouns interchangeably. No preference. And I got into this stuff about 10-11 years ago, living in a city my whole life and being like, "This is not working for me at all. And I want to live in a completely different way." And I went to crazy intense primitive skills school because that was like, the thing I found that resonated the most with me, and it was really traumatizing. But I also learned a lot. And since then, I've been continuing to explore communities and practice those things on my own largely. Margaret 02:30 Okay. What's primitive skills? To start at the like, super basic, right? This the thing where YouTube influencers get money out of people to fake build things in the woods? [Said with dry sarcasm] Burdock 02:45 [Laughing] Totally. That is definitely one of the things. That is one of the many ways that it manifests in the world. And also, like, a lot of people hate the term "primitive skills." I think it's not great. [Margaret makes an affirmative sound] But it is like, the most known term for this realm I'm talking about. And so I usually use it just so people understand what I'm talking about, that I don't have to be like, "Earth skills, ancestral skills, primitive skills," and I don't know, I think "earth skills," is like, the best in a way. But yeah, acknowledging right now that this whole thing is like rife with cultural appropriation. And there's definitely like conversations happening around that in parts of the primitive skill scene, earth skills scene. Margaret 03:45 No, it's called Earth skills. [Said jokingly, but seriously] Burdock 03:47 Yeah, I'm gonna go with Earth skills from here forward. It feels it feels better. Anyway. So, Earth skills broadly refers to all of the ways that humans lived for most of our time here on Earth. Like pre pretty much pre....I don't know there's even metal smithing included in a lot of like Earth skills gatherings and stuff...So, but like, usually very, still very, like, land-based, like wood forges and stuff, but pre-agriculture, pre industrial revolution. But, there is some agriculture stuff because like, I think it's a bit of a myth that like, agriculture equals industrial society equals capitalism equals bad, right? Margaret 04:38 Yeah, no. Okay. So that is like, kind of my question is like, what skills are included in this kind of place? Like so Earth skills, I assume it's like hunting, gardening--I mean, in my mind, I'm so used to like survival stuff, so I'm like building emergency shelters filtering your water--but I assume it's also like, building more permanent structure and making your own clothes? Like like what? What kind of different stuff are people doing? Burdock 05:07 Yeah, I'd say the standbys are fire by friction, like ways of making fire from only materials you're harvesting from the land, foraging for food and medicine and other useful plant materials, animal processing, so, you know, post post hunting, what do you do with the body of the animal that you killed? Hunting is definitely there. And weapon making as well, making weapons just from what's on the landscape around you, just from what you can find. Shelter building. And I think the theme, the theme that runs throughout all of these is "Just from the land around you and maybe you have a knife." But I teach friction fire with no knife, so that varies a lot. There's pottery with local wild clay and how to process that clay so you can actually make pots with it. Basket making--which is also something I do--with materials you're foraging and how to forage for those materials or how to propagate them, how to process them. Totally different from, you know, the materials being prepared for you and you're just going for it. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure I'm forgetting tons of stuff. Margaret 06:38 Yeah, no, I'm, I'm sure, too. And I...it's been a while since I've been around people who are particularly into this, but I it's been interesting to be around. Okay, I have a bunch of questions about it, though. So one of them is, what role does this have in the modern world? Like, what? And I'm sure that's something that people talk about within this, you know, scene or community and stuff, but like, what...or like, sell me or the listener on getting into this kind of stuff? Like, what's it about? Burdock 07:10 I think it's about different things to different people. And what it's about, to me is resilience and becoming a more resourceful kind of creative person, having more options of ways to live. I get to disengage from a lot of the kind of modern society stuff when I choose to engage in those skills, which for my life has been important because I have like sensory processing stuff. And so being able to, like, escape from the barrage has been really important. And I think different people have different reasons for needing to get away from that. Even just traveling, like it's making my traveling life easier. Even stuff, like being able to pee stealthily or find like spots in the woods to like, have an anxiety attack. Like, all of these skills are really practical in just surviving the modern world the way it is now. Like, even if things stay exactly how they are. And, you know, there is this idea of, "Oh, if stuff gets worse I'm going to be prepared in all these ways. And I can like, share these...I can teach the skills that I know to other people so that they can deal with whatever's happening." And, you know, including just stuff like blackouts that are short or natural disasters. Like that's definitely part of it, too. But a huge part of it for me is just the selfishness needed to protect my senses. Margaret 09:01 That makes a lot of sense to me. And one of the things that's kind of come up more recently on this show as I interview different people is realizing there's all of these different means by which people engage in nature, right? And I know that...I kind of at some point, I don't know if I have the brainwidth to do it, the brain space to do it right now, I want to problematize the idea of nature, problematize the idea that nature is this separate thing that is distinct from humans, and even--if you want to piss off people--it's even a separate thing that it's not separate from industrial society, right? Like anything that humans make. But there's all of these different ways that people interact with nature. And it's like really interesting to see which ones are useful for people now in the world to learn how to disengage and which ones are useful for people in different kinds of collapse scenarios, different disasters and things and so it's like...You know, I haven't had on someone to talk specifically about bushcraft, but It seems like bushcraft is almost the like step more modern than like what you do, right? Like, because like bushcraft would be like, "Well, you have your saw on your axe and you can build your log cabin, right?" Which is in some ways, I think the least sustainable way for modern people to go interact with nature. But maybe I'm only saying that because I haven't interviewed a bushcraft person who's gonna sell me on it really well. And then you have Earth skills, which is like the least--not necessarily the least impactful--but the least, requires the least resources, right? Versus you have the ways that outdoor athletes, like hikers, and skiers, and snowboarders--I don't know, I don't know anything about winter--interact with it, versus the way that like hunters interact with it, right? And there's like all of these different ways that people interact with and I'm really interested about it. So that's like...what you're talking about, like, here's how to go... Like, I don't know how to start a fire by friction. I've seen people do it. I still don't really believe it. It doesn't seem real because I've tried. But it's really, really hard, I think. I don't know, Burdock 11:07 It's really hard because these skills need to be passed down from person to person. And in a lot of cultures it's like cultural information. It's encoded in the songs, and in the stories, and it's encoded in everything. And so even as a child, if no one's showing you how to do it, you know from the stories and the songs maybe what plants on the landscape are useful for that. And you've seen people around you do it. Most people when they're trying to start friction fire they maybe have never even seen people do it before. They just have this concept in their mind of like rubbing sticks together, or like they saw it a little bit in a video, or they even watched a tutorial on how to do it. But, that's not enough because you learn these things through the senses. You have to be able to see and touch and hear. And when you can't do that, it's really hard to learn them. Margaret 12:01 Ya, no. That makes sense. Also, usually I here now make a joke about how everything that I don't understand is fake. But, I actually don't want to here. I do it about fishing usually. Usually my joke is that fishing is fake. But, I've seen people start friction fires and it's cool. So, one of the main reasons to learn this is for the here and now, is like ways to disconnect, and ways to you know, go out and engage in nature, again, the loaded word, "nature." Okay, so one of the things I think that we talked about wanting to talk about now is where earth skills fit within the sort of subset of prepping. Like, I am under the impression that the Earth skills scene, for example, is like kind of a prepping scene in some ways, just not the same as the one that most people know about. Burdock 12:50 Yeah, it's a lot like bushcraft, and it's a lot like even like backpacking, and it's a lot like homesteading, and it's a lot like all these things. And then the core difference is like basically starting from scratch-scratch. Like you're making all the tools that you're using to do all these projects. You're...If you have a backpack, you're like making that backpack and you have to make the material that the backpack is made out of like... Margaret 13:22 You have to make nylon. [Laughing]. Burdock 13:25 Right, you have to make the nylon. You have to go harvest the oil and process it. [Probably said jokingly] Margaret 13:29 [Incredulously] Do people do that? Burdock 13:30 I recently went to a gathering where you had to drive past this like oil well thing that was just like actually actively pumping oil from the Earth. Margaret 13:40 Oh my God. Burdock 13:41 It was actually a great reality check, though. Because it's like, "Oh, we're going to this gathering. We're all pretending that we live in this like beautiful, ideal community where everybody wears natural clothes and stuff." And it's like, yeah, this is...We're all driving here. Like we're all involved in this. Margaret 14:00 Well, and it gets into this--I want to come back to the prepping thing, but I want to follow on this tangent really quick--It gets into this thing that I think about a lot. I've been like camping and hiking more a lot recently--mostly because I realized I can because I work on a computer on my own schedule for living. And like mostly I read history books for a living and I'm like, "I can do that in a hammock in the woods." And so I've been trying to do that. And one of the things that's like been really striking me is this reminder that there like is no outside. And I mean that--like I mean there's like outside the house--but there's like no outside of society, like there's no...Like the closest we have are like wilderness areas, at least in continental US you know is where I hang out, right, but there's like...You're not...Like, we're like choosing to not bring Fritos with us, right? It's not that the Fritos aren't available to us, you know. And like...And at least the way I do it, I'm like driving there and stuff, but also it's like, even when I go find like the free dispersed camping and stuff, there's like tons of other people around, which is actually fine. It helps break--So I kind of wonder whether Earth skills falls into this a little more than it should--it helps break the like frontiersman mentality, the like, "I'm going to go tame nature," and that's like something that's always kind of...Not rubbed me the wrong way about all Earth skills, but like seemed like a danger available to the Earth skills community. But maybe I'm completely off base. I don't know how people handle that or talk about it. Burdock 15:26 No, that's really on point. I think there's a lot of like...There's a lot of bizarre ways...I feel like within the Earth skills community, what I see the most is people having this like reverential, like, "I have this spiritual connection with the Earth and with these plants." And there's this kind of disconnect, in a way, with like..Yeah, I don't know how they're actually living their lives, how they're actually behaving. Like, I feel like people don't acknowledge enough, like, "I regard the world and the earth in this way, but I also am exploiting it in the way that I live, too. And I'm playing a part in..." You know, like, some of these people are rich. Some of the people who do this stuff, they have land and that's why they have enough time to learn how to tan hides, like as a hobby, you know? And there's no acknowledgment there of like, that's contributing to this, like, apocalypse thing that's being foretold in like Tom Brown's--he's a primitive skills teacher guy--prophecy, doomsday stuff, like... Margaret 16:54 No, that makes sense. Because it's like most people...Most people who are making money through Capitalism or whatever like at large scale--not like people who work at Starbucks or whatever because they have to--the people that like own Starbucks. The person who owns Starbucks might be able to have like, a million acres somewhere that they can keep pristine so they can go around and build huts or whatever, but they're doing that by like, destroying the shit out of Central America or whatever, you know? Burdock 17:19 Right! Margaret 17:21 It's interesting. And, okay. I'm actually really interested in Earth skills stuff and so it sounds like I'm talking shit, but I really don't mean it this way. Burdock 17:29 No, you gotta talk shit about it. I talk shit about it because I love it and I want it to be good. Margaret 17:33 Yeah, no, it makes sense. I wonder whether how much--at least again, in the continental US--settler people, like white people in the United States, how much there's like this, like...I kind of hate framing things....I hate publicly framing things this way because I don't know how to do it better. But, like, I feel like there's this curse, where people like want to have a certain type of connection and almost just like can't because it's just cursed to them. Because...Not because of blood or something, but because of being a settler of a culture that has come and destroyed this place. You know? And so it feels like trying to...It's not...It's still worth trying to engage in stuff. But it feels like there's this like insurmountable or very hard to surmount curse that disconnects us. And when I'm using us, I--I actually don't know anything about you--it disconnects me and other white people from connecting in certain ways with this specific land. And I...I don't know how to say it better than that because I'm not trying to make this like...Well, I mean, I believe in the decolonization of the US, like, on a political level, right, I believe that the United States is an empire that should not exist and occupies stolen land that should be, you know, returned. But, I'm still not trying to make a like permanent proclamation about something on a spiritual level. But I just I feel like there's like this thing that has to be overcome. And I don't know whether it's possible. I think I gave you a really easy question there. [Jokingly] Burdock 19:08 I love it, because this is what I think about all the time. And I agree with all of those...like everything you said about this country, basically. Like, I'm on the same page. And it's been something I've been thinking about a lot because when I started doing this 11 years ago, that stuff wasn't on my mind. Like, I was just like, "I'm 19. I don't like living in a city." And as I've...You know, and the school, I went to appropriated a lot. And I've been to gatherings where there's a lot of appropriation and it wasn't on my radar. And then it's been thanks to a lot of the work that indigenous people are doing and black people are doing in that I've like, come into this awareness like...But, it's also been through the plants and the land themselves. Burdock 20:00 It had to come over time. Like when I was at that school 10 years ago, we harvested wild rice. And that...that's like a real...it's the cornerstone of the traditions of all of the people who live where wild rice lives. And then I moved, and I was trying to continue harvesting wild rice and there were a lot of layers about it. Like, it kept not working out for me. And then it was like...I like...It kept not working out until in one way or another I accidentally gave tobacco to the water. And then it would be like, "Oh, now it's working." And so I figured that out. And then after I figured that out, I was really hearing from the land, like, for the first couple of years, it was like, "It's great that someone's here. It's great that someone's like, seeing us and acknowledging us. Like, we're the wild rice and we missed people." And the longer I listened, the more I was like, "Oh, you don't miss like me. You miss "the" people. Like, you miss "your" people and the songs and the stories and the way that those people live and the way that those people live with you. You miss them and I will never be able to be that for you." All I can do is hear that. And that doesn't really answer your question. But, it takes time and a lot of listening and moving at the speed of relationship. Margaret 20:00 No, that makes sense. Margaret 20:02 Okay, that makes sense. And I, you know, and I don't want to like specifically call out this community more than any other community, right? Like, I think that people engaging in a lot of this kind of stuff...Well, I don't know, I'm not in a place to make any kind of judgment about that. I'm not part of either the things that I'm talking about, but to people...Okay, so let's go back a step. We were talking about how Earth skills are a subset of prepping or of the prepping world. And I'm wondering if you want to talk more about that. Like, how does it engage with your own preparedness? How can communities use this kind of knowledge to become more resilient is like one of the big questions I have. Burdock 22:22 Yeah, I think most of the people who engage in Earth's skills aren't thinking very hard about how it actually applies to prepping, but they do believe in some kind of like, apocalyptic future. And that's one of the reasons that they do it. But they're like not thinking about it that hard. They're not thinking about it in real terms. Margaret 22:42 It's just a utopian thing for them. They're like, "Industrial civilization will collapse. And we'll all be free"? Burdock 22:46 There like, yeah there will be a lot of suffering, but like, you know, and then we'll be free and it'll be fine. Well, I'll live in huts in the woods. And nothing will be problematic anymore. Margaret 22:59 Yeah. Because there's...Then you get to have an outside once everyone's dead. That's one of my problems with it. Burdock 23:05 It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. And like, I used to kind of think that way before I really thought about it. And I'm like, I have too much like, compassion for human beings to wish for anything like that. Like some people want this, like doomsday type thing to happen. But yeah, natural disasters happen. Things happen all the time that we want to be prepared for. And, I just feel like me existing and having like this little library of skills in my brain and my body, it makes it so that anywhere that I am, all the people around me have that skill. And so if we're stuck in a situation where like, we don't have matches, we don't have a lighter. All this stuff happens spontaneously. Like, I know of more than one way to start fire without those things. And so yeah, just having any one person knowing any of those skills, it makes you more prepared for things...Like you can only prepare for so many things. Margaret 24:11 Yeah, totally. Burdock 24:12 Like you cannot like, "Oh yeah, I brought matches, but I didn't think about water filtration, or I dropped my water filtration device and it's never to be found again or." And also just like even if you have all those things, if you're in a long term situation, like you're gonna run out of matches. You're gonna run out a lighter fuel. Your clothing is gonna deteriorate. Like you do need to...Even if you even if you like have access to warehouses of this modern stuff, it's important to be passing down these skills person to person. And I think it changes the way that you engage with the world as it is presently, which I think needs to happen. Margaret 24:59 That It makes a lot of sense that. So, teaching these skills and learning these skills both makes you more prepared in the sense that you know how to start a fire if shit goes bad for a couple days and you know how to repair clothes or fix clothes or make clothes from scratch if shit does stays bad, but that also--I'm just saying back what I think what I think you're saying--but also, people learning these skills also teaches people like, nicer ways to engage with the environment that they're in and like more useful ways to...like less destructive ways of being. Is that kind of what you're saying? Burdock 25:35 It's having a different mindset, like... Margaret 25:41 A grind-set kind of deal. Burdock 25:42 I process a lot of roadkill. Margaret 25:43 The road kill grind set. Burdock 25:44 Yes, I process a lot of roadkill deer, the roadkill grind set next, and it's just changed the way I've thought about them a lot. Like, and how I think about all animals but particularly deer, like they're no longer just this, like, being I see in the distance in the land or like a see their dead bodies around, I'm just like, they, each one of them has a unique personality. Each one of them has led a life of like, that we cannot comprehend as humans, you know? And, and each one of them holds in their bodies, like the things that can keep us alive. And I mean that both on this like strictly physical level where it's like, there's bone tools, and there's meat to eat, and fat to eat, and there's connective tissue for bag making. And, like, there's that but it's also...it's also on an emotional level. It's also on a, on a spiritual level, if you're into that. Margaret 26:53 Okay, well, let's talk about roadkill because that's probably what's going to be the title of the episode. Maybe not. Maybe you all are listening to "Earth skills with Burdock," instead of "Roadkill with Burdock." I'm not sure. But yeah, okay, so like, so I see a dead thing. How rough should we start here? Like, cause some of the questions that people have about roadkill. right, one of the main questions is, "Can you eat that? Is that safe?" Right? That's like...And then there's like "How to?" Right? There's the like, "Can you?" and then "How to." And I guess there's two different things, there's the eating and then there's.... Burdock 27:35 Assessment. Margaret 27:36 Oh, okay. Oh, I was gonna say, well, there's the eating the animal and then there's the making stuff with the animal. Burdock 27:44 First there's the assessing of the animal. Margaret 27:47 Okay, so let's hear how to assess. I got really embarrassed once. I was...There was a roadkill deer on my property and my neighbor... Burdock 27:55 Oh, on your property. Margaret 27:56 Yeah. I live rurally. Or, I don't know if you're just taking us a jab at the fact that I'm referring to it as "my property." Burdock 28:02 No, no, I just mean that that happened. Like right there. Margaret 28:06 Oh, yeah. No, I, there's deer all around where I live. And. And, you know, all I know is that there's a dead deer intact on my property. And we're like, I don't know how this thing died. And I was like, "Hey, neighbor, do you want this?" And my neighbor was like, "That's no good." And I'm like, "How do you know?" And they just like, look at me and they're like, "Well, it's just no good." And I'm like, "Oh, you grew up knowing how to assess a deer." Because in my mind, well, it's not it's not rotting. I don't know anything about this besides that it's not rotting, you know? Burdock 28:41 Yeah, well, and I think different people also have different ideas of what is and isn't good, even people who have experience with processing roadkill, with picking up and working with roadkill. Some people think all roadkill is just not good to eat. And there is something in that because the impact does damage the tissues and sometimes even a fresh deer is just...it's just pulverized on the inside in a way that like even if it's not their stomach contents in the meat--that's something people worry about--but like the muscle tissue itself has just kind of exploded interiorly and it does...Injured tissue doesn't taste good. And so if you've assessed the deer and you've said "This deer. I'm going to continue processing this deer. I think there might be food for me inside of this deer," having a framework in your mind for what is and isn't normal tissue is important. And a huge way of how you learn that is just doing it a lot. But, I think the main way that you're going to assess a deer, and the way I assess them, is smell. And, like, if an animal smells really bad, they're rotting and you shouldn't eat them. And if but if you can, like getting them off the road a little farther, so scavengers aren't putting themselves at risk when they're going to eat the deer is nice. It's really nice to do. But yeah, another thing that I do, if I come upon a roadkill deer or other roadkill animal, is you can, super simple test, just pull on the hair of the belly. And if it comes out, just like with no effort at all, that rotting is really set in. And you don't want to use the hide. You don't want to eat the meat. Margaret 30:52 You don't want to use to hide if it's rotten? Burdock 30:54 Yeah, I mean, particularly for first because the fur is all going to slip, but at that point, like if the hair is slipping, there's enough bacteria present in even the hide that it's a health risk to move forward with processing them, especially like you know, bacteria from a rotting hide getting into any kind of open wound on the hand. I get cuts on my hands a lot because I do lots of my hands. People you can get infections and they're really bad. Margaret 31:29 What if I have Earth skilled myself like a nitrile hazmat suit? Burdock 31:35 Then you're fine. Or I mean, even, if you really wanted to tan that deer skin, you could like wear some gloves and get the hide and flush it and get it into like a alkaline solution, like a wood ash solution. And that would actually neutralize things. And from that point forward, the hide would be fine to work with. But you know, until then, you gotta you gotta put on your earth skills latex gloves. Margaret 32:01 Yeah. Well, and it's probably worth pointing out that if you are learning how to do this from a podcast, do not try the expert level thing. Burdock 32:09 No. Even putting a hide in wood ash has just taken me years to figure out, like, "How much water to mix with the wood ash," and "How much...How to assess like when do you even want to do that?" And yeah, yeah, most of the information about that out there is really bad. And the way I learned it was my friend just being like, "Here, this is how it should feel," and me being like, "Oh, okay, it should feel slippery like this. And that, that means it's the right amount of wood ash and the right amount of water" Like dammit, yeah. Margaret 32:41 Yeah, that makes sense. That's the kind of thing that you can't get from YouTube or a podcast, you know? Burdock 32:48 No, you can't. Margaret 32:51 Okay, okay, so, you've done the initial assessment. Burdock 32:54 No, you've done the actual assessment. Margaret 32:56 It's, it smells fine, the hair on the belly doesn't slip, and you've...so then you cut into it. And I'm so grossed out by it, but I'm going to do this for out listeners. I think everyone who listens knows that I'm vegan, but also have no ethical qualms with roadkill or hunting, personally. But, so I'm going to try my best. So then you like cut it up, right? And you're like, "Oh, there's meat in here?" Is that the? Burdock 33:24 Yeah, well,... Margaret 33:26 It's like a video game, right? Burdock 33:28 Usually you have to--unless they die on the road right outside of your house and even then--you need to move their body to where it's safe for you to process them. And so there have been times in Maine where all I've had to do is move the deer off the road because it's wooded and there's not going to be some person coming over and being like, "This is my land. What are you doing here with this dead deer?" But sometimes you have to put the deer in your car. That's a whole thing. But after you're at a place where it's safe to do that process...Yeah, I mean, do you want me to really get into...the details of it? Margaret 34:05 Yeah, I mean, like maybe not like totally blow-by-blow but like...Okay, like how much am I willing to disassociate for this? Maybe don't tell me how to like...You know what, let's let's cut to the...I'm sorry everyone you're gonna need a different teacher...We'll cut to once you've got the meat and the skin and they are separate things. I don't need to know about the organs as much, but maybe there's like big, like, "Don't rupture the such and such." I think there's like some organ that if you rupture, it's like all over. Everything smells awful. Burdock 34:40 It's really, it's not hard to not do that. I think people make a really big deal about the gallbladder. Yeah, I feel like if you're just starting out, like if you're just starting out, if you're picking up a deer, they should smell neutral. Like if they smell a little bit like a horse to you or like like grass, like that's what you want. Sometimes I pick up deer who smell different, but it's because I've had time to figure that out. And you want to just, for roadkill, remove all guts. Just don't deal with that. And then you're dealing with a clean body and a skin. There's lots of skinning videos on YouTube. And there's lots of different ways to do it. You know, like, you know, the different ways to... Margaret 35:29 Not allowed to how a 30 round magazine. Burdock 35:31 Yeah. [Laughing a little confused] Margaret 35:32 YouTube, you're not allowed to do a 30 round magazine, but you can watch some animal get removed from its skin. It's bad. Burdock 35:38 Totally and it's, it's not considered violent or anything. Margaret 35:42 Yeah. I mean, whatever, I'm completely fine with it. But anyway, Burdock 35:45 It's just different standards. But yeah, and I like to just quarter the animals and just what that means is having a back leg, and another back leg, and a front leg, and another front leg, and then the torso and you can break that down however much you want. But you just have these kind of large chunks. And from that point, if it's good, if it's the right weather for it, you can just hang the meat. And the meat is okay just hanging outside. And I have to do that a lot because I often am not living with refrigerators and freezers. Some people, when they get a roadkill deer, they either choose to or they need to process all the meat right then and there and like wrap it in plastic or paper and put it in the freezer and it takes like all day. Yeah, but it's...I think it's more ideal if you just get to hang up some legs and a torso. Margaret 36:48 What's the legality of taking roadkill? Burdock 36:48 It varies from state to state. Margaret 36:49 Okay, great. Burdock 36:50 So, you got to look up what your state says about that. Margaret 37:00 Don't break and then point to us about it. Burdock 37:03 Don't break the law. But also different cops have different feelings about it. Like some of them secretly think that you're really cool for doing that. And so even if they like see you doing it there, they ignore it. Margaret 37:19 Yeah, fair. Okay. Okay, so. And for anyone who's listening, the reason that there's...Like a slight lag. And so that's like, why my dumb interjections aren't always working. Otherwise, they would be incredibly funny and everyone would be laughing all the time. It'd be a laugh track. [Joking] And so, okay, so you've got your drawn and quartered animal where you've tied it between four horses and pulled it all four directions and then...Sorry, wait, that's the medieval torture. So, we've quartered the animal. Alright, so the meat. We don't talk about cooking meat and stuff. Right? That's meat. Alright. So yeah, but you want to talk hide, right? Burdock 37:59 Yeah. Hiiiiides. [Excitedly inflected upwards like singing] I love having the honor and privilege to work with animal skins. And I think that it's a huge thing to do because like with the meat you're eating, it's gonna be back in the earth pretty soon, but with the skin, you're suspending a part of the animal away from the Earth where they normally go when they die for like a long time. And that requires this huge effort. And it takes a long time to learn. And it takes a lot of infrastructure, especially for larger skins like deer skins, if you're making brain tanned leather or bark tanned leather--and we can get into all the different kinds of tanning if we want--but yeah, you need physical infrastructure. And, you can make all that stuff pretty easily. But then that also takes time. So...Uhhh...I've gotten to a place where I can improvise a lot, but there's also...it's, way easier to work with a skin when I just have like, the physical infrastructure already there. Like if I'm traveling and I show up at a friend's place and they have all that stuff ready to go, I don't have to think about it. Like a scraping beam. That's the first thing you need because when you remove the skin from the animal, they usually have some muscle tissue and maybe fat still on the skin, and you need to remove that because that's what's gonna be starting to rot the soonest. And you do that by...I mean there's other ways to do it, but I do it by draping the skin over like a log and pinning the skin between my body--which I have like an apron of some sort on--and the log and I use a metal scraping tool. It's quite dull--you don't want it to be sharp because you don't want to puncture the skin--to push the muscle and fat tissue off of the skin. You got to do that for every skin you're working on. A lot of it...From there, there's a plethora of options, but every skin needs to at least be fleshed, as they call it, just the process of removing muscle and fat tissue. Margaret 40:27 Okay, so where does the skill tree build up from there if you're playing a video game? I don't know. So, you said there's a bunch of different options. So there's like--I'm going to make them up--so there's like rawhide, and there's brain tan--there's natural tannins--and then there's vegetable...Wait no, and then there's mineral tanning, which means chemical tanning. And which means it'll never rot into the Earth and therefore is unholy by the standards that I personally hold. In a similar way as plastic, which I totally use, and so I'm not actually casting judgment here. Okay, those are the only three I know of. Burdock 41:03 I love that you said rawhide first. Margaret 41:07 Well, that seems like the most...It's the one where you do the least...I don't know. Burdock 41:11 Yes, I love rawhide. And I think that people don't give rawhide enough credit. Because you can use rawhide in a lot of ways. And people use tanned skins for a lot of things you can just use rawhide for. Like, please save yourself the effort. Like, it's a great place to start if you want to work with skins. And it's a great place to start. It's just making rawhide and using it. Margaret 41:37 Okay, but what are people using it for that...What are people using a tanned leather that they could be using rawhide for? Burdock 41:43 Like hides that you're going to sleep on, or sit on the ground with, or even put on a chair, like they don't need to be softened the way that hides that you're going to put on your body and wear as clothing needs to be. Margaret 42:02 So it's about softening them not about preserving them? Burdock 42:06 Well, it's also about preservation because...I'll use the example of using a hide to sit on the ground. I prefer rawhide for sitting on the ground,because it takes rawhide a lot longer to absorb moisture from the grounds. At least in the places where I live, the ground has moisture in it. And if you're putting pressure on a hide you're sitting on it's going to be sucking up that moisture. And a tanned hide, like a brain can hide especially, it is more like a towel. It will it will take in moisture faster and more easily. Even on a really humid day, if it's like foggy or it's really humid, a brain tanned buckskin, for example, is just going to pull moisture in from the air and just become wet. Margaret 43:04 This sounds awful. You're describing a nightmare. You are trapped in another creature's moist skin. Burdock 43:09 And that's and that's why like I lament, for a lot of reasons, but with you know, with the genocide of so many people, you lose these, like finer details. Like if people who lived in the territory of the Penobscot, for example, wore buckskins, how did they deal with it when they absorbed moisture from the air? Like what? Yeah, did they? How did they prevent that from happening? Or like, how did they deal with that? Or did they just...was it not a big deal and they dealt with it? I don't know. And it's...it's hard. It's hard to even like mentally process how much of that finer detail, more land specifics information, is if not lost, unmoored and difficult to to find. Yeah. Margaret 44:24 Okay, so the three methods...Am I wrong that it's the three methods? There's rawhide, vegetable tanning, which is brain and bark, any natural tannin--I'm literally making this up--and mineral tanning which is chemical stuff. Burdock 44:41 Yeah, so your your close. Margaret 44:44 Okay. Burdock 44:45 Rawhide. And then I categorize brain tanning and vegetable tanning differently, but I consider those both natural tanning methods. And a lot of people just say naturally tanned, though, and then they don't go into details. And when they can't tell you more information it's usually chemically tanned anyways. Margaret 45:07 Oh, I thought you could tell by like cutting the leather. I was like in the leather working for this brief moment. Like, I wasn't very good at it. I thought you could like tell by like cutting the leather and it was like darker if it was...I'm expecting I'm wrong. I thought was like darker if had been mineral tanned inside. Burdock 45:25 Honestly, I think it's hard for me to tell even now as a tanner, sometimes, like, what, in what manner hide was tanned. It's usually pretty obvious, but sometimes it's a little unclear. Yeah, those are kind of the two natural tannings and then there's alum tanning, which I know nothing about it, but it does seem kind of in between natural and mineral tanning. Or maybe it's...You know, some people would say, "That's a natural method." And some people will say, "That's not natural." But I don't know anything about it so I'm not gonna talk about it. And then yeah, there's all the more industrial methods of tanning where they're constantly using new chemicals to do it because either the old ones got outlawed or they can't find those chemicals anymore. Or, you know, they have to like put everything...they have to put the whole tanning station on a boat and put that boat into waters where there aren't regulations about these things so that they can dump the caustic stuff that they're using, just you know, into the ocean, like it's that...It's that level. So yeah, commercial tanning is is bad, y'all. Margaret 46:40 Well, no. Okay, so this makes me feel better about...the weakest part--I don't really proselytize veganism, people will do whatever they want--but the weakest part of veganism in general is when people are like "Use vegan leather instead," because what they mean is use plastic instead. Right? Yeah. And like using plastic instead of leather is like not actually doing anyone except possibly the factory farmed animal any favors, right? But if the way that commercial leather is treated is also fucking evil then it like moves a point back over. Anyway.... Burdock 47:17 Over to the vegan side. Margaret 47:20 Yeah, I totally... Burdock 47:24 I mean, watch out. Someday they're gonna figure out cactus leather, or mushroom leather, or kombucha scobi leather. Margaret 47:31 They're working on mushroom leather. Burdock 47:35 I don't think that any of those leathers are ever going to be able to do animal-based leather can do. Margaret 47:48 I have no counter argument. Okay, so I'm guessing that you're a proponent of vegetable tanned leather, or naturally tanned leather and not chemically tanned leather. Is that an accurate assessment? Burdock 48:03 Yeah, yeah. But there are...you can get vegetable tanned leather commercially, too. And it's different from the home tanned stuff. It is often still done in pretty shitty and unsustainable ways. But at least there's less like chemicals involved. Some of the barks that are used in the commercial vegetable tanning are like from the Amazon rainforest and they're byproducts or products of like deforestation that shouldn't be happening. So there's that too. I like the home tanned stuff because you know what's going into it? You don't have to ask those questions. "Where did this come from?" "Oh, I found this deer on the road." "Where did the bark come from?" "I found the bark that had just fallen up the street,that just fallen. I took the bark. I boiled the bark, I put the hide in the bark. I waited a long time. I kept changing the water and then I took the hide out and I put oil in it and I softened it while it was drying and now, now it's my shoes." Margaret 49:15 I really liked the speed run of tanning and you just did. Burdock 49:20 Well that but that's just vegetable tanning. Brain tanning is a little different. Margaret 49:24 Okay, so is brain tanning and vegetable tanning both using something called tannin, which is some kind of chemical thingy that naturally occurs in a bunch of different stuff including acorns and some bark and apparently brains to do stuff to the leather? Is that the big idea? Burdock 49:48 Vaguely Yes. So brain tanning involves no tannins. At that point...And pretty much at any point tanning is like a colloquialism. It's a word that we say that doesn't necessarily have an association with tannins anymore. And what people mean when they say tanning is they just mean that the hide has been softened and preserved. Margaret 50:11 Okay. Burdock 50:12 But the only method in which that's happening with tannins is the vegetable tanning method. And vegetable just means plant matter in that context. So it can be leaves, it can be bark. I don't want to get into the acorns thing because I've never successfully like boiled acorns or acorn shells and gotten tannins that I'm happy with. I think it's a myth. But maybe other people have other experiences with that. And if you have, tell me how you do it. Margaret 50:48 Okay, but why would someone pick brain tanning? Because in my mind, I'd be like, "Oh, well, the thing you got comes with the thing you need," like so it seems like brains are gross as shit but like a natural--I mean you're already doing something gross as shit--so whatever. It seems like a natural thing. Like why? Why do you fuck around with leaves and bark when the brains right there? Or like what are the...how do you decide how you're going to tan your shoes? Burdock 51:18 Yeah, different leathers for different purposes. And they behave differently as well. Brain tanning...And it really shouldn't be gross. Like, if there's bad smells going on, something's wrong and you need to figure that out. It shouldn't. It shouldn't smell bad even though the concept of like, "I'm touching a skin. I'm touching a brain," might be...uncomfortable Margaret 51:44 Yeah, yeah. It's not gross because of the smell. It's gross because you're inside something. It's gross. Yeah, but this is my own...I don't like the inside of my own body. Like this is fine. Burdock 51:56 Yeah, yeah, outside it's fine. Margaret 51:59 Yeah, well like half the reason I'm vegans is I'm like, "Well, that's just gross so I just don't fuck with it." I don't know. Anyway, Burdock 52:07 Um, yeah. So I like brain tanned leather for clothing that's going to be against my skin, for example. Margaret 52:19 Makes you smart. Burdock 52:21 Yeah. It's always going to be softer and more supple in general, more flexible. But, it absorbs water, it absorbs moisture the most quickly from out of all of the leathers. So, it's not great for for instance, shoes in a climate where the ground is wet a lot. Right. Even though buckskin moccasins are incredible footwear, it's really nice to be able to feel the Earth while your feet are protected. But, if they got wet, it feels really gross. And it just like it deteriorates quickly. Like if you wear your buckskin moccasins and they get wet and you continue wearing them, they are going to get holes and wear out very soon. You know? Vegetable tanned leather doesn't absorb moisture as quickly. And it's it's generally a little tougher. And I think rawhide doesn't absorb moisture...It takes the longest to absorb moisture. It's the toughest. Okay, yeah, yeah. And what brains do to the hide is it's just it's just a softening agent. It does the same thing. Oil for vegetable tanned leather is also just a softening agent. The preservative agent and brain tanning is smoke. It's the woods smoke. After the softening process, you can stitch the whole hide up like a balloon and fill it with wood smoke by making a super smoky fire and like funneling all the smoke into it. I'm oversimplifying a lot. And you turn it inside out and smoke the other side. And it's the aldehydes in the smoke that are acting as the preserving agent. Margaret 54:20 Okay, that...Yeah, that makes sense. You can smoke meat. So yeah, to preserve it. Okay, okay, I know about meat. [Said skeptically. Then laughs] Burdock 54:35 Yeah, whereas with vegetable tanning, the preservatives, the actual tannins that are in the plants, you're boiling or cold leaching them so that they come into the water and then from the water they go into the hide and they bind with the fibers of the hide. But tannins, the way that you know something is tannin right, is like tasting it. You put in your mouth and it's like, it feels horrible. It has this drying quality. It's more astringent than bitter. It's more about the astringent action. And the astringency, it's like...it's like this drying, puckering thing. And so when you put a hide and tannins, it's stripping it of moisture, it's very drying. And it actually causes the whole hide to kind of pucker up a little bit so it gets a little smaller and it gets thicker. Margaret 55:33 Everyone who's listening, I'm very sad that you didn't get to see Burdock enact what happens to the hide. You're just gonna have to imagine at home. Burdock 55:44 The little dance. Margaret 55:48 Anyway, sorry. Burdock 55:49 I have to get my brain back into science mode. So yeah, once you've...once all the tannins have bound all the fibers in the hide, and it can't absorb any more tannins, you need to replace all of the like glubons and stuff that have been stripped out with oil. If you don't oil a vegetable tanned hide...like if you don't oil a hide that's full of tannins, it's really brittle because of the drying astringent quality of tannins. Margaret 56:24 Are you getting that oil from animal fats? Because, I'm under the impression that oil is like one of the harder things to source in the wild. Burdock 56:31 It can be. It can be any kind of fat. It could even be, yeah, egg yolks or brains. It can be...but it can be like plant fats, you know, olive oil. Some people use olive oil. Some people use Neatsfoot oil, it's like this really specific thing. I still don't really fully understand what it is. You can use coconut oil. You could use...but I use bear fat. That's really abundant in the places I've been living. And a lot of it is discarded every year during bear hunting season. And I try to...I keep in connection with the local game processor. So he gives me the fat and I render the fat and I gift a lot of that fat to the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot and pretty much any local indigenous folks who want it. And then the stuff that's like not quality enough to gift. I keep for myself and use for hide and other stuff. And because that's like the abundant fat of the landscape I've been living on. Margaret 57:43 Yeah, as compared to like something like olive oil, which is basically people being like, here's the thing that I think is cool that applies to a very different climate than... Burdock 57:52 I mean if you dumpster dived that olive oil, you know, good on you. Margaret 57:58 Okay, well, we're almost out of time. But actually, one of the things I find so interesting about this is that like, rather than replicating, like just what was done before civilization or whatever...What was done before civilization was using available resources. And so we have such different available resources now. And so that's why I love the inclusion of something like dumpster diving, or even like roadkill, right? Roadkill is not a very natural process. And again, it's complicated, "natural," but whenever I'm using it. Yeah, you know, like things getting hit by the fact that I drive a giant fucking truck, like, I hate that but whatever. And, and so that's actually one of things that's really interesting to me. I really liked this thing that you're talking about, like, "Okay, we find what is discarded and work with it." That's like the part that really appeals to me the most, besides a preparedness point of view, the idea of working with refuse in a society that throws too much away, has always appealed to me. I no longer subsist off of dumpster diving, but I did for a very long time. And I really liked the idea of like dumpster diving the roads, you know? It's interesting to me. Burdock 59:11 That's some major raccoon energy right there. Margaret 59:14 Yeah, totally. Um, okay, well, what is the...Okay do you have any like final thoughts either about Earth skills, or about tannins, or why tannins are overrated, or anything like that? Burdock 59:31 I love tannins and I love vegetable tanning, but it is definitely the highest effort kind of tanning because you need so much plant matter. So so so so so much. And it takes a lot of physical labor to process all of that. So if you can use rawhide, use rawhide, and if you can't use rawhide, use buckskin, and if you can't...or brain tan, and if you can't use brain tan leather, then vegetable tan leather is is a good option. That's kind of how I tried to approach it. And my other note is just that it takes way, way, way, way, way longer than you think it's gonna take. And that's a good thing. Learning any of these skills and doing any of these things. Margaret 1:00:25 Because one of the things that...I was gonna leave the last word and then I keep thinking about things. I'm sorry. One of things I was thinking about I remember, because there's this whole argument about like, did vikings wear leather. If you want to like fall down a weird rabbit hole, look at the fucking Norweeboos and arguing about that. Burdock 1:00:42 [Squealing] The Viking discourse is so weird. Margaret 1:00:47 Yeah. And when I try and...I really like writing Dark Age fantasy, right? I know [incoherent] Dark Ages, but I don't like high medieval, I like low medieval. So I like writing early Middle Ages fantasy as...That is my sweet spot, right, Because they have the cooler helmets and swords barely exists. Anyway, whatever. Yeah. And arguments about leather and like leather clothing. Right? And. And there's not a lot of historical record of people wearing leather clothing in Norweeboo land. What is that called? Norway, Sweden? And some of my listeners are there. I'm sorry. I'm a terrible person. So and, and so there's all these arguments about it. But then I learned how much work was involved in making a yard of linen. Like to sew into clothes. And you're talking about--I'm gonna get this number wrong because it's been a while since I looked this up--it was like a week's worth of work for someone to make a square yard of linen fabric. And so when I look at that, I'm like, "Yeah, of course they fucking wore leather. What the fuck? Why wouldn't you?" But and then, I mean, you've gone over some reasons why you might not want it for some of your clothing. But, um, yeah. But that is an interesting thing that you're bringing up about it takes way longer than you think. That was my train of thought. Sorry. Burdock 1:02:13 Yeah, I mean, what if I told you that it also takes a week to manufacture a square foot of leather. I mean, that's, that's not necessarily true. For vegetable tanned leather, though, it takes longer than that. And that's why I'm saying that's a way bigger investment. And that's something you don't want to make every single thing out of. But, for like brain tanned leather, yeah. I guess in a week, you could produce six square feet. I mean, depending on who you are. Some people are fast, some people are slow. And if you've been doing it for a longer time, you can do it faster. And the weather conditions. And what the hide is doing. There's so many factors. Margaret 1:02:53 Fine. Back to linen I go. I mean, that's more what I like wearing anyway. But anyway, okay, okay. Well, if people want to...I don't even know whether, I can't remember whether you do like...Should people try to find you on the internet? Would you prefer to not be found? What...Do you have anything that you want to plug here at the end of all things? Burdock 1:03:14 [In a low and ornate voice] I don't want anybody to find me? I just live secluded in the forest. [Switches to normal] No, I have an Instagram. My handle @scragetywocket and it's all one word. Great. But if you can't find me, that means I've changed my instagram handle to @huge_racc. [said like "Huge Rack"] And that's RACC. I did a poll and everybody thinks I should change it to that. So I'm considering it. Which is referencing raccoons by the way. Margaret 1:03:51 Yeah, of course. Totally. Burdock 1:03:58 Okay, yeah. You can cut that out if you want. Margaret 1:04:05 No, no, it's staying in. Alright. Well, thank you so much for coming on. And explaining all of these things that I'm both incredibly interested in and incredibly terrified of learning. So thank you. Burdock 1:04:19 Thank you. It's been great to chat about all this stuff. Thanks for being open to it. Margaret 1:04:23 Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy this episode, then you should go live like a raccoon. That was the one takeaway that you should have had from this. Or, you should tell people about this episode and other episodes of Live Like the World is Dying. And you can also support us, you can support us by telling people about it, which is already covered, and you can support us on Patreon. Our Patreon is patreon.com/liveliketheworldisdying. And no, that's not true. Our Patreon is patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness because I have to give everything long, complicated names. And Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness is an anarchist publishing collective that publishes a ton of stuff, including this podcast and including some other podcasts that you might like. If you back us, we will send you a zine in the mail. If you back us enough. I'll read your name out right now. I want to thank Princess Miranda, BenBen, Anonymous--hell yeah, Anonymous--Funder. Also a good choice. Jans, Oxalis, Janice & O'dell, Paige, Aly, paparouna, Milica, Boise Mutual Aid, theo, Hunter, Shawn, S.J., Paige, Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Cat J., Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Kirk, Sam, Chris, Michaiah, and of course, Hoss the Dog. And that's pretty much it. Everyone should take care as best as they can and don't fall into an apocalyptic cult. 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Episode Summary B and M from Rot Glow Farm teach Inmn about how to farm mushrooms in the forest. They talk about their farm and growing set up, as well as the Lobelia Commons project they work with, and the Earthbound Almanac that they help put out. Host Info Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. Guest Info Rot Glow Farm can be found on Instagram @RotGlowFarm. Lobelia Commons can be contacted at lobeliacommons@protonnmail.com or found on Instagram @LobeliaCommons or on Twitter @LobeliaCommons. The Earthbound Almanac can be found at www.Earthbound.farm or on Emergent Goods at https://www.emergentgoods.com/ Deadline for submissions is July 31st, 2023. 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 Live Like the World is Dying: Rot Glow Farm on Forest Farming Mushrooms Inmn 00:16 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host Inmn Neruin, and this week we're going to be talking about something really fun. And that is fungi. Specifically, we're going to be talking about how someone can grow mushrooms for food or medicine. And we're going to be talking with the folks that operate Rot Glow Farm where they grow mushrooms in the forest. But first, this podcast is a proud member of the Channels Zero Network of anarchist podcasts and here's a jingle from another show on the network. Doo do do doo doo doooo. [Making noises that sound like singing a melody] Inmn 01:40 And we're back. Thanks y'all so much for coming on to the podcast today. Would you like to introduce yourselves with your name, pronouns, and the farm that y'all are both part of and just tell us a little bit about about that project? B 01:59 Sure. My name is B. My pronouns are they/them. We a part of Rot Glow Farm and are farmers in Mississippi, pretty close to New Orleans, about an hour and a half away. M 02:16 Yeah, I am M. And he/they. And yeah, we've been farming here in southwestern Mississippi for three years. Inmn 02:26 Cool. Cool. And could y'all tell us a little bit about like, what is Rot Glow Farm and what do y'all do there? M 02:34 So we're primarily a mushroom farm and tree nursery. We grow quite a bit of shiitake mushrooms outdoors on logs, which we take to market and most of the sales from the shiitakes goes into basically subsidizing this tree nursery that we have where we grow thousands of trees and give them away in New Orleans and rurally in Mississippi. Inmn 03:07 Cool, cool. Like how did y'all get involved in doing this? M 03:12 For me, several years ago, I read that book Mushroom At the End of the World, which was kind of a life changing book for me. And that got me really excited about mushrooms generally and fungi. That first manifested by growing shiitakes in New Orleans as part of a backyard gardening practice. And then, when the pandemic happened, some of us had been part of this project in New Orleans called Lobelia Commons, which is this...We define it as like a network for food autonomy and neighborhood survival. In that project, we started a collaborative mushroom group where we kind of learned together how to produce mushrooms, which would fit into a wider network of ways of producing food in the city. So, the way that first manifested was doing oyster mushrooms, workshops to do oyster mushrooms in buckets at a decent scale. And we then also started doing some production on logs. Then wanting to scale that up a bit, we were interested in growing shiitakes in the forest north of New Orleans. So then we started growing out here in Southern Mississippi. And yeah, that's how I got here. Inmn 04:53 B, How did you start to...Like what got you interested in in mushroom farming? B 05:00 Yeah, so where I was living before, I was involved in mutual aid programs and just living in a place for a while and feeling sort of stagnant and feeling like the work that we were doing was great and impactful. But it...I just....I think my heart wasn't in it. It felt more like a job, like going to my mutual aid job. And it felt more like charity than it did like actually connecting with people in a way that felt horizontal. And, I had a big life event and had to leave where I was living at and started to get involved with the Gulf South region through hurricane relief after [Hurricane] Ida. And so I was connecting more with people in this area. And I met M a few years prior and M and I were getting closer as friends and starting to meet more people who were doing this work that, to me, felt more aligned with my interests and my value system and also just something I was really fascinated by. And the mushroom farming was an aspect of that. And like M said prior, it helped us subsidize this thing that we do and the nursery growing that what we do and some of these other projects that were involved in. And, it felt sort of like a natural progression for myself because years prior I used to live in central California and had a fair amount of experience just walking through the woods and foraging mushrooms that were wild and talking with budding mycologists. And where I was living before, it was sort of like a casual culture of mushroom interest that people had. And so there's like a annual fungi fair that happens every year in the area I was living before. And so I guess I had never really considered farming mushrooms. And M was already starting to cultivate that here. And once I was introduced to it, it felt like this really exciting thing, but yeah, it just kind of fell into my lap in this way what was like, "Oh, yeah, of course. That's what I'm doing now." And yeah, like I said before, it's not disconnected from anything else that we do. It feels really interconnected. And that's what also makes it feel regenerative and worthwhile. Does that make sense? Inmn 07:47 Yeah, totally. Totally. And I guess maybe this is silly question, but like, why...why mushrooms as opposed to like any other food or medicine thing that you could grow? M 08:03 Um, so partially, the land that we inhabit here is a successionary forest, very young. Everything around us is pine plantation, mostly Lob lolly pine. We have a lot of like lob lolly here and a lot of young sweet gums, young oaks. And in...like, in some ways, the only way to farm at all here we would have to clear some woods. So, and on the one hand, it's practical, because we also would like to grow large amounts of trees. So, we can't grow trees in the middle of the forest. Well, we could, but it would take a very long time. And it wouldn't be like really effective towards getting them in the hands of people who want to plant trees. So, we cleared some of the forests to have that nursery and small garden and, you know, meeting some local needs. So, with those trees, the sweet gums and the oaks in particular, we turn them into mushroom bolts is what they're called, like blogs, basically. But I think beyond that, I think mushrooms are just like an extremely fascinating subject. They're unlike anything else that you eat. I think they have something that's kind of like indescribable or like uncanny. And I think when you get into conversations with people--especially like we're often at farmers markets--there's a way of finding, especially rurally like who the kinda secret freaks are. And like you know, it's really hard to find each other out here. And mushrooms, I think is like kind of a little like, "wink wink," in some ways, and I think that that's been a big asset for us. We met a few people through farmers markets like that. Inmn 10:27 Like, mushrooms is like, more....Farming mushrooms is more common like, for people that you might feel more like the true freaks or something? Or? M 10:38 I think not even just farming--I mean definitely farming--but I think, like in a good way and a bad way. There's definitely some mushroom farmers who are like, maybe not freaks we'd like to hang out with on a lovely Saturday night. But I think the type of people that are drawn to are like going into the woods, getting down, and like looking at the Earth very close and that these super tiny things or sometimes, like really phallic things. Or, you know, like in all the all the forms...[B interrupts] B 11:17 Yes. Slimy, stinky, like, yeah, voluptuous, like, disgusting. All of the brackets of signifiers. Yeah, and like you said, it takes a certain kind of attention and careful consideration and observation where you're getting down on your hands and knees and just like you're...There's this one particular--I can't remember what it's called--but it's a...there's this one type of mushroom that grows just on Magnolia stuff, just the cones of magnolia trees. And it's really teeny tiny. And you would never think to look for it if you didn't know it was there. And there are just so many species of mushrooms that are hidden. If you just look a little bit closer on the bark of a pine tree, it's this microscopic guy that just exists like in this one area, or, yeah, there's just so many numerous species like that, that are fascinating to look at and to think about and so many species that are being discovered all the time. And then also just the queerness of mushrooms is fascinating and really interesting to think about when we're thinking about the way things are reproducing and sex, of biological sex and how there's like...What's the one that the? [M interrupts to answer] M 12:54 Schizophyllum. B 12:57 Yeah, Schizophyllum. Has how many different sexes? M 13:01 The common name is common split gill, and it has, I think it's like 23,000 different distinct sexes. [Noises of incredulity from Inmn] You'll see it everywhere, it goes pretty much full sun to like deep shade on all kinds of dead wood. B 13:21 And the reason why it grows everywhere, right is because of how promiscuous it is and how adaptive it is. And so that's like, part of its ability to reproduce so successfully is because of the wide diversity of sex that it's able to inhabit. M 13:40 Yeah, I think it's something like any one individual of that fungus can reproduce with like, it's like 96% or 98% of all total of that species, total individuals of that species. Which so cool. B 13:58 Yeah, and that's just, you know, that's just one particular grouping. When you start to go through them, it's...I mean, yeah, it's infinite. Inmn 14:12 Yeah. That's, that's really cool. Um, I've heard that in, like, in the southeast that, old growth gets talked about a little bit differently than, like on the West Coast, for example. Where like, like an old growth forest has like more to do with the amount of fungal interactions that are going on than it has to do with like, the size or the age of the trees necessarily. Is that, is that true? M 14:44 It's, it's, that might be...I might not be totally qualified to answer to that. But my inclination is that that's a glass-half-full way of looking at the situation with southeastern forests, which is unfortunately the southeastern long leaf pine forests, which are, you know, amazing and, unfortunately exist only in fractions of fractions of fractions of its former glory like, you know often gets compared, like the type of biodiversity that gets compared to the Amazon rainforest. And I think a lot of that is in the soil, like particularly the Russulaceae, the Russula laurocerasi is extremely diverse in the southeast. And that's, that's a mycorrhizal mushroom that you'll often see it's like kind of the one that is, has a brittle cap, often red caps, but has quite a diverse array of colors, green, purple, blue, there's even a yellow. But yeah, and that's just the one's that you'll see quite a lot. Inmn 16:09 Cool. Cool. To switch a little bit, it seems like maybe it's like a practical decision since y'all live in a forest, but like, why kind of doing like forest farming? Like as opposed to like...I guess I don't know how people normally grow mushrooms. But like, yeah, is there something that's different about forest farming for y'all than like how a lot of people might go about cultivating mushrooms? B 16:43 So yeah, so, if you're growing mushrooms outdoors, you could probably have a very elaborate way of creating shade and humidity and the kinds of things that you need in order to grow mushrooms on logs. But, it just makes sense because you're as a person who's growing mushrooms on logs, you're...in some ways, you're replicating what would be occurring in the wild, and how those mushrooms would be occurring on decomposing wood or logs in the wild. And so it sort of does the work for you of...I mean, you're already in a forest. So, instead of putting that in an indoor setting, which a lot of people will do this where they'll they'll have, you know, a sterile, often sterile environment indoors, they'll have bags of mushrooms--and I don't know that much about it because I don't do it myself--but from what I've read about it and talked to people about it, you're able to really dial in the exact conditions that these mushrooms would need to produce. Whereas, in an outdoor setting, you're exposed to whatever kinds of temperature increases or decreases and you're exposed to the seasons and, you know, if there's a drought that year, or whatever it is, and so the forest is going to help maintain the environment that you're going to need to be able to grow those mushrooms. Does that sum it up? I don't know, M 18:37 I think I would add, like a question that we get asked a lot by, especially by other farmers whether or not they're mushroom farmers, is that they'll ask what our acreage is. Which doesn't matter. You know, like if you have any amount of space and you have a way to make shade, and you're not just sitting on concrete, you can grow mushrooms outdoors, pretty much. So that one doesn't matter. But they often ask like, "Why don't you...I'm sure you can get a grant. Why don't you put in like an indoor space, or like a warehouse? You know, you've got plenty of space to put in a warehouse." And it's like okay, you have to like just clear cut a bunch of forests where mushrooms are already happening. Fungi are everywhere, you know, raised, you know, in their perfect condition. We already have the perfect condition. It's just like yeah...And I mean, obviously this comes from farmers are very concerned with yields, and productivity, and stuff, which totally makes sense. Like, obviously that's like a capitalist mindset. But, we also have to eat, you know. Like, if the mushrooms don't fruit then we can't go to market. And, we eat a lot of shiitakes. We also just eat less of that stuff. So, I understand where that comes from. But, I think our wager with forest farming has been that we really need to try and try and try new things. Like, the way things have been running for, you know, 300 years in this area hasn't hasn't been working, simply put. So, this is one effort to try something that's different, that's maybe not motivated by capitalist economics and colonial mentality. Yeah. And hopefully it works out. B 20:51 Yeah I mean, I'm right. That's, that's it, we're, I guess, generally...I mean, maybe in the future, we would experiment with doing some indoor space just to try it because I personally, I've never done that before. So it would be interesting to see. And I think for folks who are trying to really scale up, there is some sense in doing something indoors, because you can really dial it in and you can maximize the amount of space that you have for the amount of yield that you're able to get from being able to manipulate your environment in such a way that you're able to get it. You know, like you can calculate exactly how much you're gonna get. And, I guess really, the point is just that we're trying to sort of move away from having this artificial spaces that takes a lot of energy to create, especially where we are. I mean, thinking about climate controlling an indoor space to be able to produce mushrooms in the dead of summer, you know, where it's like, you know, 100 and get gets up to like 115, sometimes, like 110 degrees. It sort of goes against the path that we're trying to go down, which is to take ourselves out of that cycle of constant resource extraction and constant, which is like cultivation, or like artificial cultivation to be able to make as much money as possible in the shortest amount of time. We feel like, yeah, just trying to sort of see it in a different way and show others that it can be done in a different way. And also that like yeah, of course, it's not going to be as profitable, but I feel like the process in figuring it out and trying it is worth the setbacks. Like for example, recently, this last spring, we didn't have as much shiitake yields as we thought we would have. And we're not really totally sure why that is. But, our reishi did really well. And we're still...We're still troubleshooting why that happened. And if we were operating a completely indoor space, I think it would be pretty simple to figure out, okay, well, you know, we didn't have this humidity, or like, our air conditioning unit broke down for this one week or, you know, we tried this one strain that maybe wasn't as viable as like a different strain. But, I think there's something about that, that it forces you to really look at your environment and be forced to be more connected to where you're at and the kinds of species that are growing. And like for example, we're growing on sweet gums and oaks. And so we're starting to think "Okay, well, is it...Do the sweet gums maybe not last as long. Do they maybe last two years or three years rather than four years? Are the oaks better to be growing on rather than sweet gums? And that's all being figured out through trial and error. But, it feels like important long term information to be gathering. Albeit, might be frustrating to be like "What the fuck, why isn't...why aren't they fruiting as much as they were last year?" or whatever it is. Inmn 24:34 Yeah, yeah. It's wild to me that someone would question why you would grow a thing in the place where it naturally grows. [Said sarcastically and then laughing] M 24:47 Yeah, and I mean, to be fair, it's like, you know, shiitakes not from here. Reishi is. But, it [shiitake] does quite well in the in the woods here. B 24:58 But then you know, we're going to markets and there are these other growers that are growing indoors and you have a bunch of mushrooms, and they're selling, you know, they're selling as much as they possibly can get out into the market. And for us, we're like, "Oh, shit, we don't really have that much to offer this Spring," because we're more at the whim of what's going on in the world around us than if we were operating in an indoor space, which like, it makes sense that people would choose that because it's...it's a lot...It's something you can count on. And especially if you're counting on it for your survival or your your livelihood, then like, it does make sense if you have that startup capital that you would decide to do it that way inside. Inmn 25:46 Yeah, yeah. If y'all didn't like...Like, if someone were growing, or cultivating shiitake or like reishi logs in the forest where they lived, what can the yields be like, on that? Like, if someone was just growing mushrooms for their own consumption? Like, what would that be like for someone? M 26:13 So, I think that there's a really good PDF online from Cornell, that--I think he's named Steve Gabriel--put out. He's a professor there with the [undecipherable] there. And it has...Like, if someone is getting involved in growing on logs, specifically, it's kind of like "the book." It's like a 40 page PDF, and it has so much good information. But, I think you'll see there and many other places, a claim that each log per year will produce about a pound of shiitakes. That's just for shiitake. I think we've found that to be fairly accurate. And in some cases, low. But, for instance, reishi, it's going to be much lower. And Reishi, as you grow it in on the ground, it loves...like it wants like 90% humidity, 95% humidity. The longevity of the log is up for question in terms of like, do you get termites. We get termites here. So, the longevity is up for question. But what we've found is, depending on the size of the log, you can get quite large flushes. I'm not sure if we've ever actually weighed them because we don't...we don't take those to market. We mostly just get them out to friends to make medicine with. But, I would say even with one log...Yeah, without being able to quantify it--and partially not really wanting to mediate everything through like a measurement--it's absolutely worth it. Even if you only have one reishi log, you can make quite a lot of tincture or tea with what that would produce for one year. You can probably expect a couple of caps minimum. They might be quite large caps. Yeah, I personally haven't found a rhyme or reason to why they're bigger or smaller. B 28:17 Yeah, it's really fun. Like, even if you're not interested in growing on a bigger scale or like feeding your family or whatever it is and you just want to try it because you're simply interested in it. I think that it's so worth it to invest in the startup costs of getting yourself a drill bit, or something that goes on an angle grinder, and inoculating a couple logs, putting them in the shade and looking at that PDF, and just getting going on it because yeah, it's just it's a really interesting thing to take part in. And it's so fun, and it can be really rewarding. And it might lead you to starting to connect with your local mycological club or connecting with other people that are growing mushrooms. And yeah, it can be really rewarding. So yeah, I just, I'd like to encourage people that maybe they're listening to this, and they're like, "Oh, well, I wouldn't want to do that on like a large scale or maybe it just seems like too complicated." It's pretty simple. M 29:31 Yeah, I would, in terms of like investment, I would definitely say that--and we had the experience in New Orleans, specifically, where this worked very well--would be to team up, you know. There's other people out there, either through a local mycological club. Some regions have like really robust robust ones and might, you know, likely have people who are already growing. So you wouldn't have to buy any kind of drill or drill bit or the like plunger things. And doing it together, it's like a really great social activity. We do kind of like a festival of sorts every year when we do the inoculation time, and people kind of look forward to it, and we're all like working together and not too hard, you know, just like, it's a...it's a really fun time. And I would encourage, especially like, building a culture around that can be really rewarding. And if you are just on your own, listening to the podcast, and really want to grow mushrooms, but you don't know anyone who's interested in it, that's...I mean, that's how I started. Me and my roommate were the only two people I knew that were interested in it. And there's like...they sell inoculated dowel rods online, which, you just basically just drill into logs, and you hammer into the log. So, it doesn't...you don't need like a whole gang of people inoculating, you know? You can absolutely do it on your own as well. Inmn 31:06 Cool. I know there's this book/PDF, that y'all reference that lays out the process probably pretty pretty well, but would you mind kind of just breaking down like what the process is like? Like, how would you set up a like a log for growing mushrooms. Just like the kind of like a breakdown of the steps. M 31:33 So first, you're sourcing your log. So that could look like a lot of different things. You could be felling the tree your yourself, you could be maybe talking to a tree company that sometimes has extra logs. There could be a storm and you just find a log on the side of the road. Any of those are fine. The recommendation is--and we have found this to be true--that you want the tree to be dormant and already healthy. You wouldn't want it to be already infected with some other fungal pathogen. Like if it's living, it already has something some other mycelium running through it. [Interrupted] B 32:18 Because that would out compete what you're trying to inoculate it with. M 32:24 So, you want something healthy. So let's just go with from felling, which is what we do. Fell the tree. Buck it up, so like cut it into like a manageable size. So, for shiitakes, for instance, we find that somewhere between like, four inch and eight inch diameter [log]. I feel like once it gets wider than that it's starts to get cumbersome because you have to move them around if you're forcing them. But, if you're leaving them just in your backyard and not not ever touching them, you don't have to worry about that quite as much. But just you don't want to like, you know, hurt your back when you're working on them. So, you cut them up into what's called bolts. Then you let them sit. This is something that's a kind of debated, some people will tell you that you need to inoculate the next day or as soon as humanly possible from felling. Some people will tell you three to four weeks waiting, to basically let the tree kind of fully die and make it so it's it's not going to challenge your mycelium that you're putting into the log. I tried kind of all of that. And it doesn't seem to matter in our case, dealing with oak and sweet gums. We've inoculated the next day and we've inoculated four weeks later. So long as it's not fully...you're starting to see like other fungal growth on the log, you'll be good. And even if you do have a log that has, like, you know, like we were saying, already has fungal pathogen in it, or you fell it and then you wait too long and you see that like on the edge, often you'll see like where you cut the log start to become black. Even if that's happening, it will probably be fine. You just might not get as long of a yield because basically after you inoculate them, they're competing for space inside the log. So, inoculation looks like you basically either produce or order spawn. Likely if you're listening to this, you're ordering spawn. There's a number of good places to order from. We use Field and Forest, for what it's worth. I don't necessarily endorse them, but what's cool about them is on their website, they have a ton of information about each of their strains and how it performs. And...[interrupted] B 35:07 And like what temperatures it does well in. M 35:11 Yeah. They're like, kind of like...The US shiitake industry was kind of built around what they started in the 70s. But, there's also, if you're in the South, there's Mushroom Mountain, run by Tradd. Cotter. But, so you put the spawn into the log by drilling and then plunging in the spawn and then sealing it in. Inmn 35:42 What is the spawn? M 35:43 The spawn is either sawdust or grain that the company, in this case Field and Forest or Mushroom Mountain, has inoculated with a strain of a fungus. B 35:58 So ,it comes in a bag. And they're plastic bags. And they...they sort of they seal them. But Okay, start that one over. They come in these bags, these plastic bags, and you just...It looks sort of like a brick, like a fuzzy, creamy brick. That's all of the mycelium that's colonized that sawdust or brand or whatever it is. Grain. And so you just open up your bag, and you take a handful of it, and you break it up so that it's sort of mixed up, and then you'll take your plunger, which is just...it's like a handheld...it looks like a short dowel, and you plunge it and it captures the spawn in a compartment that is at the base of the plunger, and then pull it up--It's sort of like the way a syringe works or something--so you pull it up, and then you put it on your hole that you've drilled out of your log, and then you plunge it into the hole. And then once you've plunged it into that hole, it fills up the whole hole. And you'll sort of like tap the top of it to make sure that it's all the way full because sometimes your plunger might not capture all of the amount of space that's like the compartment at the end of the plunger. And so it might be kind of loose at the top. So, you just kind of like tap it to make sure it's all the way full. And then what we do is we heat up golf wax in a crock pot and we use these little foam applicator brushes, you know, like the kids arts and crafts ones. We have found that those are the best to seal plugs because they capture a lot of wax that we're going to be using to seal the hole. And, you can just kind of dab it and then the wax comes out really well. And, you want to make sure the wax that you're using is hot enough. We use golf wax. But, it's hot enough that it's clear when you're applying it to your hole to seal it up. Because if it's not clear, it'll it will be opaque. And it just means that it's not hard enough. And so it sometimes works. But, often what happens is you put it on opaque and it kind of seems like it's done the job, but then you wait a few hours or a couple of days and that whole piece that you sealed up will just kind of crack and pop off. So, you just want to make sure it's hot enough that it penetrates that hole and makes a good seal. And you just kind of dab on your little applicator and then seal it up. Inmn 39:08 Okay, and what is the wax? Like? What is it keeping in? Like what's happening inside that hole? M 39:17 So, it protects the spawn from drying out is probably the primary thing that it's doing. And, it protects from fungal competitors. So, one that we often are concerned with is Trichoderma which is like a blue green mold. And also, it will to some extent protect from getting predated on by birds and rodents. But, I think that they eventually will get through it. The goal is to basically...You're giving your team, you know, your your fungus, the best chance at it digesting the log, or what a lot of people called colonizing the log. Basically, as soon as you put the spawn into the log, it's going to start moving through the wood and digesting wood. And, once it has completely taken up the wood, or, again, fully colonized the wood, that's when it's ready to start fruiting. Inmn 40:27 Okay, so it's like...And, you know--maybe everyone who's listening knows this--but it's like the fruiting body or like the piece that we eat is like very...Like, what is the the body of the fungus? Like, like, what's it like? What's it like inside there? M 40:49 Yes, so it's, it's mycelium. People are probably familiar with this. I think oftentimes people assume that mycelium is just like in the forest floor like the mycorrhizal network. But, it's also the body of the fungus that...In this case, we grow what's called saprobic mushrooms or saprobic fungi. They eat dead stuff. And they also are made up of mycelium. And then you're right, the mushroom is the fruiting body, the sexual organ, and what produces the spores, which will then go on to germinate on whatever surface that species requires. B 41:40 Yeah, and so, when you're getting those bags in the mail, you know, and you're breaking up the spawn to inoculate with your plunger, that's the body. That's...You're breaking up the body, basically, and you're putting it in the log, and then it's doing the same thing that it did to the sawdust or the grain where it's moving through the log. And so, I guess to be able to picture it, you'll see it sort of when you get it. If you get it in that bag form, you can sort of see how it moves through and clumps in that particular strain anyway. Inmn 42:23 That is very weird and freaky. B 42:27 Yeah, you should, if you're interested, I highly recommend trying to, or getting some and, you know, breaking it up with your your fingers is a really interesting sensation. It's sort of like cool and smooth but also has a lot of texture to it. And the way it breaks apart is sort of fibrous, Inmn 42:51 Cool. Yeah, that sounds that sounds like a freaky texture experience. I want to try it. Cool. And so then like once the logs are fully colonized, they start producing these fruiting bodies. What like...What...Or I feel like I always ask funny leading questions because I like vaguely know the answers, but like what kind of conditions do they then need to produce fruiting bodies? Like, I imagine a lot of moisture. Or do you have to water them? Or? B 43:30 Yeah, so it depends on your climate. But you have to keep a certain level of shade and humidity in the fruiting yard. And so for us, we've had to experiment with shade cloth and trying to grow up certain trees to make more shade or less shade. And so that's something that folks who are listening would have to figure out based on where they're at and their particular climate and situation. But, if you want, for us, before we're about to go to a market, about 10 days prior to wanting a fully formed mushroom to take to market, we do what we call force fruiting. Also we call it dunking. So, we have a cattle trough, and we put--we have what we call groups--so every year we'll label group one, group two, group three, and it will help keep organized to know which groups that we've brought in or which ones we haven't. And so let's say we have group one. So, let's say it's 12 logs. And so we put all of our logs that we've stacked in like log cabin style stacks...Is that we you call it? [M makes an affirmative noise] And so that's just to maintain aeration and make it so that they don't get too crowded out. And so we'll take each one of those, put them in our cattle trough that's filled up with water. And then we sort of weigh it down because once the mycelium moves through them, the logs start to get more pithy because the mycelium are eating through that wood. And so the logs will get lighter and lighter weight as you go on. But also wood floats in general, so we just have to weigh those down. And then we keep them in overnight, usually around 24 hours. And they have to be--they don't have to be like totally fully submerged--but generally, yes, like submerge them. And then we take the weight off. And some people will do it and really like cute ways where they have like...What does that guy do where he puts them in some.... [Interrupted] M 45:55 There's a few places where they're like super picturesque, you know. Yeah, they'll put them in a creek and they'll have a little section, roped off or whatever. And it's just like it...which is actually, you know, if you have that, that is the perfect place because if you think about how shiitake evolved, you know, that we're basically mimicking like a cool spring flood or rain, you know, a heavy rain event. Like actually one of the heaviest fruitings we've had was, like, the week after Hurricane Ida because it was such a disturbance event. And that's basically what we're trying to mimic. So, you have these these people that have these gorgeous farms, they put them in the creek or a pond or something sometimes, yeah. B 46:45 But so, we'll take them out 24 hours later. And then we lean them up against sort of a makeshift shelf type thing and make it so that there's enough space between each of them so they're not fruiting into each other. And we just wait about 10 days and sometimes the individual mushrooms will go at different timescales, but generally they'll all fruit around the same time and they'll all be developed around the same time. And then we harvest and go to market and then we put in the next group. Inmn 47:24 Cool that..I mean, that whole process sounds kind of like wacky and ridiculous but in you know, like a really fun way. Like, I could grow them like inside where I live, but I live in a desert so we we...It'd be pretty hard to. Although, we do... So, it's wild. We do have these like during the monsoons, if you go hiking up in like really rocky mountains the like, all of the dried lichen, because there is dried lichen, and it will like flesh out and get like carpet-y and like poofy for like a day or two and then it like dries up again. It's weird. [Everyone goes "Whoa."] B 48:09 Yeah. Also, I was just thinking of your cave...I feel like I've heard of these caves in Tucson. Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah. Inmn 48:30 Cool. So, the other thing that I wanted to have y'all talk about is y'all put out an Almanac, right? M 48:42 Yeah, so we're part of the group Lobelia Commons, which puts out...or, some members of that group put out the Earthbound Farmers Almanac. And we are going into our fourth year doing that. Inmn 48:57 Cool, what like...What kind of Almanac is it? Like, does it have specialized information? Or like what information is in this? M 49:07 So, it's primarily land-based knowledge would be kind of like what it specializes in. It's like not necessarily focused on farming, per se, but more skills and thoughts around being on land and what that means in our current climate. And I think pulling on a urge to build new cultures of being land. Kind of like, obviously there's a legacy of radicals getting back to--of course with the 60s with Back To the Land--but trying to forge something that grapples with the world we're in today. Of course of climate change, trying to sharpen a anticolonial...While also simultaneously trying to build this culture that would sort of fill a void in some ways because there's been so much damage done by genocide and just colonization and settler shit. So, people might not have something like a knowledge base to pull from, whether or not they're indigenous, settler, Black, or what have you, living on Turtle Island. We are, unfortunately fairly dispossessed in a fairly general way from ecological knowledge that is really critical for the world we're entering. Inmn 51:11 Yeah, cool. What would be kind of like a sample of like information that, or like kinds of information that might might be in there? B 51:26 So, something to note is that we're...we just put out our 2023 Almanac. And we can like link in the show notes, where to get that. Emergent Goods is distributing it for us. But we also are putting a call out for submissions for 2024. And, I feel like this is a good moment to sort of list the kinds of submissions that we're looking for. And it also summarizes past editions and the kind of content that is in there. So, anticolonial histories and features, critical agri-ecology, recipes from the land, stories from your neighbors, climate change noticings, traditions to uplift or destroy, farm notes, and just I mean, really whatever you feel like is relevant and close to you in this time and what would ring true for others and inspire and uplift others In the moment that we're in. M 52:40 Oh, yeah, but the entire first three, and for the future, everyone we put out in the feature, can be found at Earthbound.farm. A lovely collected member just made this site today. You can just look at them online and get tons of examples. If people are listening to this because they're interested in mushrooms, particularly, they might be curious to check out the 2021 issue which has some, like a detailed how to grow mushrooms using coffee grounds, growing oyster mushrooms on coffee grounds. And this is something that the person who wrote this, who also is the person who made that lovely website, actually, they were growing quite a lot of oyster mushrooms. She has coffee grounds that they were keeping from their coffee habit. And there's also in that one a nice introduction to foraging to try and kind of abate the general mycophobia that exists in our culture. But there's all kinds of stuff. There's recipes. Like, I think that one has like a recipe for a fig cake, which I've never had but sounds really really good. There's cool like almanac-y information like, you know. For those outside of the Gulf Coast, New Orleans area, some of the almanac information isn't quite as pertinent, but I think it's maybe an inspiration for people to start noticing those types of things in their life on that almanac, those almanac pages, the monthly kind of like phase of the moon, day length, that types of things. Also we include each year, farm notes from a different farm or nursery projects or what have you. The most recent one, I'm a big fan of, it's someone who doesn't have...He doesn't like own land, doesn't have like a cool urban farm, but is really just like in love with the world and loves noticing birds and, you know, goes hunting and so is, you know, following elk and, you know, is trying to grow things and moves all over. It's like a dispossessed person that just rents, you know, where they can. And there's there's a piece in the 2023 Almanac about basically how to develop this type of practice. And it's very witty, and I just really love that piece that came in at like, the 11th hour. And yeah, really appreciate these. Recommend. Inmn 55:44 Cool. Yeah, that sounds great. I'm definitely going to check out the old Earthbound Almanacs. Cool. Well, that brings us about to our time for the day. Is there any anything else you want to plug before we go? Or any last minute thoughts on on things that we didn't cover that you'd love to mention? M 56:09 No, yeah, I think I would just, once again, encourage people, if you're a writer, or like, don't fashion yourself a writer, but might have some thoughts about growing or whatever. Just like really, really, really feel free to send us a pitch. Doesn't have to be very long. Just give us like an idea of what you want to write. You know, worst case we're like can you flesh this out a little bit more and tell us what you're thinking. But you can email us LobeliaCommons@protonmail.com. And if you're not inclined to write or anything like that, but maybe you're a photographer, or illustrator, send us some examples that, you know, we would love to include. We like always need illustrations and photos. And none of the above, but you are really interested in it as project, we send copies of the almanac, like entire boxes, to groups, all over the place. And we just ask that people cover the shipping and the cost of the printing. And then in good faith, we let people sell it for, you know, to benefit, whatever cause that they are like locally interested in supporting. So, this oftentimes is like a local food autonomy project, maybe like a pipeline resistance, the campaign to Stop Cop City. Can be all kinds of stuff. Inmn 57:52 Cool. Great. Well, we will we'll link to all those things in the show notes. And thanks, y'all so much for coming on and teaching us about mushroom farming. B 58:04 Thanks for having us. Inmn 58:05 Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please go grow some mushrooms and then tell us about it. But also tell people about the podcast. You can support this podcast by telling people about it. You can support this podcast by talking about it on social media, by rating and reviewing, doing whatever the nameless algorithm calls for. Feed it like a hungry god. And you can support us on Patreon at patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Our Patreon helps pay for things like transcriptions, or our lovely audio editor, Bursts, as well as going to support our publisher Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. We put out this podcast and a few other podcasts including my other podcast Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, a monthly podcast of anarchist literature, and the Anarcho Geek Power Hour, which is the podcast for people who love movies and hate cops. And we would like to shout out some of those patrons in particular. Thank you Trixter, Princess Miranda, BenBen, Anonymous, Funder, Jans, Oxalis, Janice & O'dell, Paige, Ali, paparouna, Milica, Boise Mutual Aid, theo, Hunter, Sean, S.J., Paige, Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Cat J., Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Kirk, Sam, Chris, Michaiah, and Hoss the Dog. We seriously couldn't do this without y'all. I hope everyone is doing as well as they can with everything that's happening and we'll talk to you soon. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co
Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Sean teaches Margaret about brewing alcohol. They talk about fermentation in general and then walk though how to make beer and cider. Guest Info Sean (he/him) can be found at https://seanvansickel.com/ 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 Live Like the World is Dying: Sean on Brewing Margaret: Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. This week we're talking about fermentation. We're talking about little things that eat things and then poop out alcohol. I actually don't really know because I'm the one who's going to be asking these questions and I record these introductions before I actually do the interview. So, I'm going to be learning more about fermentation and we're gonna be talking about alcohol, but we're also gonna be talking about all kinds of other stuff too. And I think you'll get a lot out of it. And first, we're a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts and here's a jingle from another show on the network. La la la, la la la la [Margaret making musical melody sounds] Margaret: Okay, we're back. And so if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then I guess like a little bit about how you got into fermentation? Sean: So my name is Sean. Pronouns are he/him. Well, I actually started with, with cider and mead because I had a harder time finding commercially available cider and mead that wasn't just kind of like a novelty product or obscenely expensive, you know, imported from like Basque country or whatever. So that's, that was kind of where I got my, my kickoff on fermentation. I worked in commercial fermentation doing sour beer production as well as like conventional clean, you know, canned beer, and then actually worked in sales and distribution with beer for a while. Margaret:Okay, so this is really exciting because I've always kind of wanted to get into this. Well, I've kind of wanted to get into everything, which is the whole reason I started this podcast, so I could ask people about how to do things. But fermentation...so you can format things and it makes them different? What is fermentation? Sean: So fermentation basically is either yeast or bacteria breaking down almost always some form of sugar or carbohydrate. The main thing that is being produced by that is co2. But a nice little side effect that is often produced is alcohol, right, or lactic acid is often produced especially in the presence of bacteria, specifically in the presence of lactic acid producing bacteria. We call them you know, LAB is the abbreviation that's used. So, fermentation is happening generally-when people are referring to it--they're referring to yeast fermentation. So the most common yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, right, beer yeast. It's the same. It's called beer yeast. But that's the same yeast that's used to ferment wine. It's used to ferment like a sour mash, if you're, you know, making whiskey in a legal distillation situation as opposed to you know, the other distillation situation. It is illegal to distill alcohol for home use in the US. So, yeah, you have to be very careful you don't do that. On Accident. Margaret:Yeah, we won't cover that for a while. Sean: Yeah, right. Margaret: Okay, wait, is this the same yeast as like sourdough and all of that? Sean: It's very, very close. So sourdough is--especially if you make like a if you'd like a sourdough starter capture right from the air... I have not done this. It's something I've wanted to do. I've captured wild yeast for brewing from the air but never for baking. But they are a similar blend of airborne yeast, so you'll have wild yeast. You'll have wild Saccharomyces cerevisiae as well as wild other yeasts, Brettanomyces. Yeast strains are very common in air. And then you'll also have lactic acid bacteria in the air. So these are those rod shaped bacteria that are active in the absence of oxygen. They're anaerobic bacteria. So, they will continue to acidify things, even when there is no oxygen present to like kind of fuel or catalyze that reaction in a way that regular beer yeast, or even bread yeast, baking yeast, right, won't necessarily be able to do. Margaret: I'm really not used to the idea of thinking about bacteria as a positive thing. Sean: Right. No. So they are extremely a positive thing, Lactic acid bacteria, because they drop the pH as well. And lower pH means you don't have to worry about like botulism, for example. You know, so that's definitely a benefit. Most spoilage...So one number I'm going to be saying probably a few times is 4.2. 4.2 is like the pH level, below which you have a greater degree of protection because of the acidity, right. Margaret: Okay. Cause botulism doesn't like hanging out in there? Sean: Botulism is...I'm not 100% sure if it's the pH, the alcohol, or both. But botulism does not like low pH, nor does it like high ABV. So these are, these are both good ways of protecting yourself from that. Margaret: So it's that kind of...so fermentation probably comes originally, basically...Well, probably by accident. But originally probably comes from people just basically desperately trying to figure out how to make sure food doesn't go bad. And this is and fermentation is like, one of the many ways that humans have developed to keep food from going bad? Is that a? Sean: My theory is that's why fermentation stuck around. I think it showed up eventually because human... ancient, you know, human beings, proto humans even, you know, proto hominids realized they could get fucked up with it. Margaret:Yeah. That's fair. Sean: I think that's the key point. Like human nature hasn't changed that much. That will always be the driving influence on novelty, I think. Margaret: So, what are some of the things--I'm going to ask you about some of the specifics about how to do this a little bit--but what are some of the things that you can ferment? I know, you can make sauerkraut and you can make pickles? Nope, that's not fermentation. Sean: No, lacto fermented pickles, absolutely. That's frementation. Margaret: Oh, yeah. No, I totally knew that. That's definitely why I said it. Sean: Not like quick pickling with vinegar in the fridge. That's not an active fermentation process. And I do that too, like quick pickled red onions are like...those go well on everything. But no, like actual, like long term pickling. Hot sauces are a big one. You know, I did a batch of...I grew a bunch of jalapeno peppers. And then I went to like a restaurant supply type grocery store and they had like three or four pound bags of jalapenos for like, you know, they were starting to go off, right, I got them for like, under $1. So I fermented about 40 pounds of jalapenos in a five gallon bucket. And you just make a make of salt brine. Right. Like you can you can look up the levels. I think I did a 3.5% or 4%. saline brine in there. Margaret: I'll ask you the more specifics about how to do it in a bit. Sean: But yeah, so peppers you can do. You can do any kind of...anything that has an naturally occurring sugar usually can be fermented and emits....And when you have high levels of naturally occurring sugar, like the classic example is grapes, you usually are, you know, suspending that sugar and solution, water. Right. And you're making a beverage. Like that's the most classic example. That's, you know, wine, that's beer, that's, you know, fruit wines. You know, there's a lot of rural cultures throughout the world. There's, you know, non-grape wines, right, it's very common mead is another one, right, and probably the oldest. You know, we talked about the, you know, anthropological aspects of fermentation earlier. And, yeah, that's almost certainly we've, you know, a lot of evidence suggests mead, Margaret: Okay. So, when you ferment stuff, how long? What kind of shelf life are you able to get on something like hot sauce or sauerkraut or pickles and things like that? The like food stuff. Sean: Yeah. So you've definitely there are two dates at play here, which is the this is going to, you know, this still tastes really good and this is still a safe source of macronutrients and, you know, and things like that. I've had no decline in flavor with fermented hot sauce. And I usually package the fermented hot sauce in beer bottles with like a beer cap over the top or in a, like, sometimes mason jars as well. But in that packaging, I've not really seen any kind of degradation over like a two year time period, as far as flavor is concerned. It's probably foodsafe not indefinitely but probably at least 10 years. But it is going to depend on your process. It's going to depend on how much oxygen is introduced at packaging It's going to depend on the amount of salt that you have, you know, because salt is usually part of, you know, fermented food preservation and salt is a preservative. So, you know, there's going to be a lot of little factors that are going to affect that aspect of that. Margaret: Okay, but if you if you do it right, you can probably make bottles of stuff and leave them in your basement for like 10 years if you need to? Sean: Yeah, absolutely. Margaret: Fuck yeah. Sean: And that applies to especially lactic acid bacteria fermented alcohol. You know, whether that's like a French or Basque style cider or a sour beer. Those things we're talking, you know, probably a 20 year lifespan. Margaret: Oh, interesting. Okay, as compared to so that's the bacterially fermented? Sean: So the food is bacterially fermented as well. Margaret: But I mean, as compared to regular beer, right? Sean:Yeah. Yeah. Margaret How long does regular beer last? Sean Very high alcohol beer can last just as long because alcohol is a preservative just like salt, you know, the effects that some of these bacteria create. Bacteria and wild yeast like Brettanomyces is oxygen scavenging, right. So when you when it referments, if you re-...it's called bottle conditioning, right, it's where you add a small amount of fermentable sugar to a bottle and then cap it and then it referments in the bottle, you get a tiny layer a yeast at the bottom and it carbonates in the bottle. It's not done as often professionally because it produces pretty inconsistent results. But it is going to increase the lifespan of your beverage exponentially because as part of that like reproductive cycle, oxygen is scavenged and where there's less oxygen there's less spoilage. Margaret: So it's like putting the little oxygen absorber in with your like Mylar bag food only it's... Sean: Except it actually works. Yeah. [Laughing] It's far more effective because it literally is pulling every, almost every last, you know, unit of oxygen out of there and using it to fuel, you know, its own cellular reproduction. So it's not just being like absorbed and held--as much as it can be absorbed and held inert--it's like being used. Margaret: That's cool. Alright, so let's say I want to ferment because I kind of do. Let's start with...I think probably the average listener is probably thinking about how they're going to make beer or wine or things like that. Sean: Ciders probably the easiest. Margaret: Okay, so yeah, I want to make cider. What what do I do? Like what what do I need? How do I get started? Sean: You are in like actual apple country. If I understand correctly. So you have some options that most people don't. Where I am like getting getting really quality fresh pressed apple juice, apple cider, unfermented, right, is is a little bit of a challenge. But the easiest way to do it is to just go to a grocery store, you know, any place where you can get like the half gallon or gallon sized jugs of apple juice. You know, get them when they're on sale, get them in bulk. Use frozen apple juice concentrate if you want. It doesn't really matter. You are going to put that in a five gallon bucket, HDPE, high density polyethylene, plastic, right. It's a food-safe bucket. But like in food service, you see, you see these buckets used for pickles, you see them use for frosting at you know bakeries and things like that. If you want to do some dumpster diving, you can find yourself some of these real easy or if you just have a you know, a friend or member of your community that's, you know, involved or, you know, is working in food service they can probably hook you up with these as well. Worst case scenario, you.... Margaret: I'm looking it up, it's number two on the bottom of a? Like, plastic usually has a recycling symbol. Is it number two? Sean: HDPE? Margaret:Yeah. Sean: I don't remember if that's denoted with a number two, but it's HDPE plastic. Margaret: I just looked it up. Sean:Yeah. And it'll usually be specified as food grade or, you know, if it was used to hold food in the sense of the, you know, recycling and reusing from, you know, food service and like commercial kitchens and things like that, obviously, you know, you're taken care of in that respect. Margaret: I'm trying to look up to see whether like the Lowe's buckets are HDPE or not. Sean: There's two different types. Lowe's did have food grade ones. But the like, kind of universal blue bucket one, I believe it is HDPE but it is not certified food grade. So there might be contaminants in there. So, you would be maybe rolling the dice on that one a little bit. In a survival type situation or something like that, I think that would be fine. But, if you have other options, you know, maybe err on the side of caution. Margaret: Okay, that's good to know. I have a lot of these buckets for a lot of different purposes. Sean: Me too. Yeah. They get a lot of use in the garden. Margaret:Yeah, exactly. Now I'm like oh, are they not food safe. Should I not be growing tomatoes in them? And then I'm like, this is probably over thinking it. Sean: Depending you know, some something that like roots are touching not necessarily that food are touching versus something that you have in acidic and micro biologically active thing churning around that you are then going to drink in large quantities, like you know... Margaret: Okay. No, okay, fair enough. And this has been an aside Okay, so I've gone and gotten some apple juice, or if I'm really lucky I press some apples. And I've got a five gallon bucket and I fill the bucket with apple juice I assume? Sean: So, about four gallons of apple juice. Yeah, you gotta leave yourself some head space because you are going to, you know, have some activity in motion with the yeast. Then you're going to be pitching in yeast. For apple juice for cider you can use champagne yeast, right? That's, a very, very common one. It is a like a specialty product that you need to order online or get from like a homebrew store or a brewing supply store, something like that. You can use just regular like baking yeast, like breadmaker's yeast like Fleischmanns or whatever. It will work. You will get a few like...you're more likely to develop some off flavors, maybe some sulfur type, aromas. Things like that. And then you also might have a less healthy fermentation. So the fermentation might take longer and your final gravity right, the amount of residual sugar left by the fermentation will be higher and the amount of alcohol produced will be a little bit lower. Okay, so that's that's using like bread or baking yeast. If you're using a champagne yeast, you know, wine yeast, beer yeast even you are going to get a faster and much more complete fermentation. Less likely that contamination, if there is any present, will will take hold. Right? Margaret: Okay, what about um, like, let's say the supply chains are all fucked, right and I can't go get yeast. My two questions is one...okay well three questions. Can I use wild yeast? Second question, when you've already made this stuff, can you like reuse pieces of it as the yeast? Like in the same way as you like can with like sourdough or something? And then third question is, can you use a sourdough starter? That one so I'm expecting no. Sean: The answer to all of those is yes, actually. Margaret: Oh, interesting. Sean: And I'll go through one at a time. So your first, if there are supply chain issues, you don't have, or you just in general you don't have access, or you don't want to Margaret: Or you're in a jail cell and making it in the toilet or whatever. Sean: Yeah, right. that's gonna that's gonna have its own very special considerations. But yeah, you can absolutely use wild capture yeast. So the...what I would do with with the equipment that I have, I would get a cake pan and I would put...I would fill it maybe between a quarter inch and a half an inch high full of fermentable liquid, in this case apple juice. I put it outside, ideally on a spring or a fall day when there's no danger of a hard frost, right, either before or after, depending on which shoulder season you're in. But fairly close to that date is when you're going to get the best results. You're going to want to have some kind of a mesh over the top, maybe like a window screen or door screen, you know, screen door type mesh. Margaret: Keep bugs out? Sean: Yep, exactly. Keep bugs out. You want the microscopic bugs not the ones that we can see flying around in there, you know? So leave that out overnight on a cool night. If you have fruit trees, especially vines, any grape vines, anything like that, right under there is ideal. If you don't, just anywhere where there is some, you know, greenery growing. In the wild and you kind of have--not in the wild but you know, outside--in a non sterile, you know, non-contained environment, you're gonna have less luck trying to do this inside or, you know, in like a warehouse building or something like that. Yeah, this is actually, once you have that, you know, you've had it left overnight, decant it into maybe a mason jar or something like that with an airlock. I use like an Erlenmeyer flask just because I have them for other fermentation stuff. And you can with an Erlenmeyer flask, you can drop a magnetic bar in there, put it on a stir plate, and you know, knock the whole process out, you know, 10 times as fast. Obviously not necessary. But, it's a fun little shortcut if you want to, you know, drop $40 or $50 on a stir plate. Margaret: Is that just like a basically like, a magnet? Inside the flask that moves because of a magnet on the plate? Sean: Yep, that's it. Exactly. Margaret: That's Brilliant. Sean: Yeah, so you have like a little bar magnet. It's like coated in like a food safe plastic, right, so it's not gonna scratch anything up. And then you just drop that in, you turn on the plate, it usually has a like potentiometer, like little knob that you can control the speed on. Sometimes if you get the speed up too far, it will throw the magnet and then you've got to recenter it and get it all there. But that's great for, you know, doing your own yeast and bacteria captures. It speeds that up. Margaret: So it's speeding it up because you need to stir it. To go back to the I've just done this without a flask. I've put it in a mason jar. Sean: Yeah, just give it a swirl a couple times a day, give it a couple swirls. It is going to be, you know, working the same way just on a slower timeline. Margaret: And this is a sealed jar? Sean: Sealed, but with an airlock because again, anytime you have fermentation you have CO2 production, it you don't have an air lock, you've just made an improvised explosive device sitting on your kitchen counter. So you don't want that Margaret: Right. Usually not. Okay. So that's the little thing that you see sticking out of carboys where it's a little glass thing with some water in it. The thing goes through where the air bubbles go. Sean: Yeah, it's usually plastic. The most common ones are, it's like an S bend, right? The same kind of thing that you've seen, like sink and toilet plumbing to keep the stinky gas away. The function works the same way that gas can pass through in one direction. Margaret: So basically, you've captured some wild yeast and you've put it in a mason jar with an airlock and then it it...you're feeding it...it feeds off of that for a while and that's how you get your starter? Is that? Sean: Yeah, so that is your yeast. That is your inoculant, your starter? Yeah, but you do need to do a couple things to confirm that that is--because you know, wild captured isn't going to work every single time perfectly. It's why we've you know... Margaret: Why you can go buy champange yeast at a store. Sean: Yeah, everyone uses that. So what you need to do is you need to confirm that the pH is below 4.2. Okay, all right. So... Margaret: It's that magic number. Sean: Yeah, that's the big number for...I think that's what Douglas Adams was talking about, actually, he just probably pulled the decimal point. But no, so you need to make sure it's below 4.2 ph. You can do this with pH testing strips. Litmus paper. You can just, you know, put a drop of it on there and you know, see what color it is. I would advise against using the full pH range like the 0 to 14 ones just because since it is such a wide range, it can be kind of like "Is that greenish brown or is that brownish green?" like that's that's a whole point on the pH scale. The pH scale is logarithmic. So the difference between brownish green and greenish brown is a factor of 10. So like, you know, have a more narrow range. Litmus paper is ideal or a pH meter. They've gotten a lot better in the last five or ten years and a lot cheaper, like we're talking under $20. So those are really...if you're going to be doing fermentation, I would recommend using both just in case there's like a, you know, a calibration error or anything like that. It's just a good way to confirm. Margaret: Okay. Alright, so you've got to now, you know, the pH is under 4.2. What else are we checking? Sean: Yeah, we're also going to just use our olfactory sense. So get your nose in there. And if it smells like rotten eggs and sewage like toss that shit out. There are other bacteria at play that we that we don't want playing in our in our happy little colony here. So that needs to go and instead just, you know, do another capture. You want like fruity aromas, aromas that maybe have some spice or piquancy to them are fine. Like alcohol aromas are really good too, you know, things like that. These are all indicating fermentation production of, you know, of alcohol production of CO2 as well. You want to see that. That's another really good indicator is that and that's why I like those S-bend airlocks as opposed to they also make like a three piece one that just kind of percolates through. The S-bend one is really nice because you can see the CO2 coming through, right, you can see it coming through in bubbles. So you have a visual and audible indicator, right? Like you can hear that there are, you know, 10 or 15 bubbles coming through a minute, right. So you know that there is cellular reproduction happening and fermentation happening. Margaret: This whole thing...I recently recorded an episode about yeast, about sourdough, this is why I keep referencing sourdough. Yeah. And the whole thing is like hard for me to believe is real. Once I start doing it, I'll believe it but wild capture...Like sure the invisible alcohol makers in the sky are just going to turn it...like of course they are. Sean: It feels like some like biohacking, like bio-punk speculative fiction. Yeah. Like it totally does. Margaret:Yeah. But I love...I mean, when I start doing this, I'm gonna go out and buy yeast, right. But I'm much more interested in hobbies that I know that like, I know how I will do without buying chemicals if I have to, you know? Okay, so wild capture and then you said that you can also use... Sean: You can inoculate with stuff that you've already made. Margaret: Yeah. Sean: I think your second question, right. So the example I'll use for this is sour beer, right? I can go out and pick up a bottle of sour beer. I can drink the sour beer and leave just the dregs at bottom. I can swirl that up and I can pitch that into a fermenter and I've just inoculated it. That's it. Margaret: And so it can't be pasteurized, right? Sean: No, no, you don't want to pasteurize. But again, remember, we were talking about bottle conditioning, right. It's a bottle conditioned to beer. So, because it has sugar added to the bottle and it's naturally re fermented in the bottle, you know, built up co2 and nice, pleasant effervescent bubbles in the bottle that means that it is it is fully bioactive. That's great, too, because that...much higher levels of like vitamin B and things like that, as well as a full culture of yeast and bacteria, which are really good for your gut biome, which is also important. So that's why I'm a big fan. Pasteurization definitely helps for like safe transportation and breweries not getting sued when their bottles explode and leave glass in people's hands and things like that. Margaret: And so for anyone listening, pasteurization is where you treat it so that everything's dead inside, right? Sean: With heat. Margaret: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sean: Yeah, exactly. They slowly increase the pressure in increments that you don't notice until you find that everything is completely dead. Margaret:Yeah. Okay. Cool. And safe for capitalism. Sean: And safe for capitalism. Absolutely. Yep. [laughing] Margaret: Cool. All right. So once we've domesticize, the bottles of beer...okay, anyway. Sean: Yeah, so we want to avoid pasteurization unless absolutely necessary because then the product is less healthy for us and it's less useful for us in the future. We can't use it to inoculate other other batches. If I were going to be doing that, I would--I mean, again, going back to that stir plate, I'm talking about an ideal situation--I would add some of that to unfermented beer or cider on the stir plate and let that go because that's going to get my yeast and bacteria cell count up very, very high. That's going to ensure the fermentation and acidification start quick and finish strong. Margaret: Okay. And so is there any like...Is it just a taste difference if you were to like....if I were to go get sour beer and then dump it, you know, do everything you just said, and then dump it in as my starter for some cider, would it just be like weird? Or would it be fine? Or like. Like mixing flavors and mediums or whatever it would be called? Sean: Oh, so like fermentables. Like a mix of apples and malt for example. Margaret: Well, so it's like if I'm using...if the yeast I have access to is I drank a sour beer and I have what's left, right. But what I have access to to ferment is apple juice. Can I use that to ferment the apple juice? Sean: Absolutely. Margaret: And will it taste really wild and different? Or is it just kind of yeast is yeast? Sean: Not especially. Sour beers is yeast and bacteria. So you have yeast and bacteria at play. Margaret: Can I make make sour cider? Sean: Yeah. Because there's already both malic acid and lactic acid naturally present in apple juice, using lactic acid producing bacteria doesn't make it seem as sour as like sour beer, right? Because it's already, there's already these natural acids at play. In beer, like the pH of non-sour beer, it's lower than like water, but it's not low enough that our brains register as sour. So, when you apply those bacteria to a, you know, fermented malt liquid, it's such a huge gulf between non-sour bees and sour beer. Non-sour cider and sour cider are kind of adjacent more. There is one other little factor though, that ties into what you brought up, which is that yeast and bacteria over time are going to adapt to perform ideally in the fermentable that they have reproduced in. So, if you are reusing like a culture, and I'm going to use the word culture rather than yeast or bacteria because it's almost always a combination of bacteria and multiple yeast, right? If your culture has optimized itself to reproduce and to, you know, churn through the fermentables in beer, right, you have a lot of longer chain carbohydrates in beer than you do in fruit juice whether that's apple or grape, right? So they're going to evolve to deal with those and, you know, when you switch from one to the other, your first fermentation might be a little bit sluggish. Still perfectly viable. Margaret: So, okay, so to go back to where we're at in the stage. I really actually like...I think probably most of this episode will be just literally us walking through the steps of making some cider, but we're gonna learn so much along the way. I'm really excited about it. Sean: I'm here for it. I'm here for it. Margaret: Yeah. So okay, so you've gotten your apple juice, you've gotten your starter yeast. Ideally, you went and got champagne yeast, but maybe it's the end of the world and you wild captured or maybe you just don't want to do that. My plan is to start the easy way and then try the hard way later. Sean: Yep. Good. It's good to....You're more likely to keep going if your first endeavor is successful. Margaret: If I succeed. Yeah, that's my theory. Okay, now I've got my five gallon bucket. I've added yeast. I'm closing it and putting a little S... Sean: Airlock. And it doesn't...again going back, like if you don't have access to a homebrew store or the internet or whatever and you can't get an airlock, like you're not completely screwed here. All you need is a piece of hose or tubing in a cork or bung or something like that and stick the other end in liquid, you know. Maybe water with a with a few drops of bleach in it, sanitizing solution, vinegar, alcohol, whatever. Right? Because then it's just you know, the CO2 is blowing out of that tube and just bubbling out of thing. Like an airlock is cleaner, takes up less space, and is more optimized, but yeah, improvisation works fine. Margaret: Okay. How long am I leaving this? Does it have to be in a cool dark place? Like can I do this on the... Sean: You don't want direct sunlight. Alright, so you don't want direct sunlight and you don't want light from you know, you don't want Margaret: Grow lights, or UV, or whatever. Sean: Yeah, grow light or UV or anything like that. If you just got like, you know, ambient room light hitting hitting it, especially if it's in a bucket, you're probably okay. Beer is more of a concern because beer has hops, and hops are photosensitive, and your beer will taste like Heineken at a summer picnic, you'll get that like kind of skunky thing that you get in green glass bottles. Margaret: Yeah. Which I weirdly, I have positive associations with just from... Sean: A lot of people do. A lot of people do. It's like...What you like isn't isn't wrong. Like, it is what it is. It's an unfavorable characteristic to some people, but, you know, there's a lot of traditional German beers that are described as having a sulfur character. And it's like, I don't like that though, but it's correct. Margaret: I drink a lot of Grolsch. And like, yeah, yeah, I drank a lot of green-bottled Grolsch when I lived in the Netherlands. And it was not...Yep. I'm not trying to relive my cheap beer phase. But like, Grolsch was a good middle of the road, cheap beer, you know. Sean: I like the bottles because they're almost infinitely reusable. You've got to replace those little plastic... Grolsch bottles are the ones that have that swing top with a little cage that clicks down. So those are...I still have a few of them that I use that I have been reusing for almost a decade now. Margaret: That's amazing. Okay, now so we've got the bucket, you're keeping it out of the sun because you don't want Heineken and especially with hops. Margaret: Oh, I would assume gravity is about alcohol. Sean: It's less of an issue with with cider. But you're going to, depending on how finicky you want to be, you can test the original gravity, right? Original gravity is the original measurement of the liquid's specific gravity, basically how much sugar is in solution? Sean: No, gravity is sugar in solution. Margaret: So that's how you find out your relative...Go ahead, please explain it. Sean: Yeah, you look at how much sugar you started with and how much sugar you ended up with and subtract the difference. Yeah, because yeah, yeah, no, it's...there's a couple ways of measuring original gravity. Margaret: Yeah, how do you do that? Sean: The easiest, cheapest, and most like durable over like a long term survival situation is going to be the use of a hydrometer. So that is like a little glass. It almost looks like an old school mercury thermometer with a bunch of weights on one end and like a glass bubble. And that floats in solution. You can float it in like a little like a tall cylinder so you don't waste very much alcohol. You can also float it directly in the bucket. Right? And it's got little lines. It'll tell you like 1.050 Like, that's like the standard standard gravity for most beer and cider. Right? It's around, you know, 1.050 and that when it's fermented fully... Margaret: Is it measuring the buoyancy of the water? Sean: Basically, yeah. Margaret: Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, sorry, please continue. Sean: So that is how a hydrometer works. And then you'll measure it again. If you're doing it in a bucket, you don't need a cylinder, you just need to sanitize that hydrometer and then stick it in, measure the original gravity, the gravity reading before you add yeast, and then after--in the case of cider, I would say, you know, three or four weeks I would start checking it again. The other really nice thing about a hydrometer is you can hold off on packaging until you get consistent readings, right? So if you check your...you know, you've let it ferment for three weeks. You check your gravity on Monday and then you write it down, you know: 1.015. Then you check it on Wednesday: 1.014. Okay, well, maybe check it again on Friday: 1.013. No, it's still going down. Like we need to, we need to let this continue to ferment. Margaret: Okay, so you're basically letting it eat as much sugar as it can. Sean: Yeah, yeah, it'll...it's got its own limit. It's got its own limit. And once there are no more digestible, you know, saccharides then you're safe to package. If you package while the yeast is still actively fermenting, you've got two problems. One of them is the.... Margaret: Exploding bottles. Sean: You know, exploding bottles, as mentioned earlier. The other is that, you know, our cultures are generally pretty considerate in that they clean up after themselves, right? They metabolize the most easily available sugars first and then there are some compounds leftover. A lot of them have unpleasant, you know, tastes or aromas, maybe like a really bitter, pithy, green apple thing. Sulfur is very common, right. But these compounds, the yeast is going to turn to when it runs...and bacteria are going to turn to when they run out of very, you know, junk food, basically. Very easily digestible monosaccharides. Margaret: Is there something called young beer where it hasn't eaten at all? Am I completely wrong? I just have this in my head somewhere. Sean: Like it's like a historical thing, right? Like in English brewing maybe? Margaret: I don't know. Some concept where people intentionally drink beer that still has the sugar or something? [Sounding unsure] I'm probably wrong. Sean: No, semi-fermented beer is very much a thing. And I know in some brewing traditions, I think there's some in Africa that use like cassava and things like that where you're drinking it like 12 hours into the fermentation and it's like kind of like a communal thing. Like, you know, people, you know, make a big batch and everybody drinks it at once so that you know, you can get it right when it's super fresh. Tepachi as well, like the fermented pineapple drink in South America, it's kind of a similar thing. There's the pineapple and then there's brown sugar added as well and you want to start drinking it when about half of the sugar is fermented so it's still really sweet. It's almost like a semi-alcoholic, like bucha tiki drink sort of thing. Margaret: Okay. Before we get to packaging, my other question is, is beer just white sugar? Is that the thing that's added? Like, what is the yeast? What is it? What is the...or is it eating the carbohydrates instead of the sugar? Sean: The carbohydrates. Beer uses beer uses malted barley. So malting is a process by which you take you take your grains of barley, you get it slightly damp and you just keep turning it over. And the kernels will like begin to germinate. But before they like crack open and you get like a little shoot or something like that, the process of germination, basically you get a lot of these very difficult to digest carbohydrates converted into simple carbohydrates so that the emerging plant has a rapid source of fuel. Kind of similar to an egg in the survival strategy, sort of. Yeah, right. Once it once it's malted, right, once that has has taken place, they kiln it, right. So, they hit it with heat. And that kills the sprouting grain. So, it's not like the malt is going to like mold or, you know, go to seed or, you know, start growing or anything like that. That would be inconvenient. You want this stuff to be able to stay shelf stable for a couple years. So, they treat it with heat, right. And there are there are all kinds of ways of doing it. It is a very involved process. I have never malted my own grains. I've thought about doing it, but it's like very labor intensive and really only economical at pretty large scale. Margaret: Is this why people didn't fuck with beer until after they were fucking with cider and meat and all that shit? Sean: I think so. But, the first beers were actually made from bread not malt. So. Margaret: Because it's simple? Sean: Exactly. Same process, right? It's easier to make bread than it is to commercially, you know, kiln, you know, bags and bags of barley. And also, you know, bread has its own shelf life. So, if you're getting towards the end of it.... Margaret: Oh, yeah, then you turn it into booze. Sean: Exactly. And that's a thing in Russia too. Kvass, K-V-A-S-S, it's a it's made with, like rye, rye bread. And it's usually around 2% or 3% alcohol, but it's literally like a thing that you know, people... Margaret: I love low-alcohol beer. Sean: Yeah, me too. Oh, man. Like a 2.5% alcohol pale ale. Yeah, just a little bit of hops. That is like my sweet spot. Margaret: Yeah, absolutely. Because it's like, oh, I want to drink a beer, but I don't want to get drunk all the time. Like, you know, it's like I love a beer on the nice afternoon, but I hate the after afternoon nap that you could get stuck taking if you drink an 8% beear. Like what the fuck. Sean: Yeah, no, it just like the day's plans have all of a sudden have changed. Margaret: Okay, because the reason I asked about the sugar thing is the first time I ever helped someone ferment. They made dandelion wine. And ever since then I've been like this is all bullshit because dandelion wine--at least as this person made it--I was like, this is just cane sugar wine. It's just cane sugar wine with some dandelion flavor. And I was like really upset by this. Because I--and maybe this is bullshit--but it's like, which of these alcohols are mostly just cane sugar? And which ones can you actually ferment? Sean: Dandelion wine for sure is because there's virtually no fermentable sugars in dandelion, but there are a lot of very strong botanical flavors. Like dandelion wine...like the dandelions are more equivalent to like hops in beer than they are to malt in beer. Margaret: Because the hops are flavor? Sean: Yeah, they're adding they're adding flavor. They're adding aroma. They're adding like all of these botanical, you know, aspects to it, but they are not the source of the alcohol. They are not the source of the sugar or anything like that. Margaret: Okay, can you make dandelion wine with like, with actual...I mean, I know cane sugar does come from a plant, but it's still...I feel betrayed. Sean: Yeah. You could make dandelion...you could add dandelions to cider. I haven't done it but I've noticed people doing it. You can use, you know, any kind of like a reconstituted fruit juice and do like a fruit type wine. I think the reason...and I think the one of the more interesting ways of doing the dandelion wine thing is doing a dandelion mead. I've had a few of those that are really good. Margaret: Oh, that sounds nice. That sounds very like cycle of life, you know, like, honey and the flowers. Sean: It's a lot of closed loops, right? No, I think the reason that cane sugar became a convention for that is, you know, economic. Like cane sugar was fairly cheap. It was the cheapest, you know, fermentable available to rural people in the Dust Bowl era. Margaret: That makes sense. Yeah. Sean: I mean, artificially so, right. Yeah. I think that's where that came from. Margaret: Okay, so you mentioned doing all this in a bucket. I still want to get to the putting it in the bottles and stuff. But, is there an advantage...Like, do...Should I get a carboy if I have the money to spend. I'm under the impression that a carboy are a big glass bottle that looks like one of those five gallon jugs you put in your office cooler, only it's for making alcohol. Is that better? Sean: That's pretty much it. I don't...I don't like carboys. I've used them. I use them for bulk aging of sour beer. I use them for primary fermentation of clean beer and cider. I got rid of all of mine. Margaret: So you use buckets and stuff? Sean: I use buckets or I use converted kegs or converted stainless steel kettles if I'm doing a larger batch. It's just I have a like...for like all the sour beer I have like a 15 and a half gallon stainless steel kettle with a like a bulkhead. Like a like a valve on the bottom. And that allows me to like do pass throughs. So I keep that as like my acidifying chamber. It's called a Solera. I actually wrote a Kindle digital single about like building and maintaining these. It's almost exclusively useful for sour beer, you know, bacterially fermented cider or vinegar making. But, if you're doing any of that kind of thing, especially, you know, small scale, but you know, wanting to provide for a bunch of people like a club or community or anything like that, it's really the most efficient way to do it. Margaret: Why don't you like carboys? Sean: I don't like glass. I don't like glass because there's just a real risk of injury. When...if you've got a seven gallon carboy full of liquid, we're talking 70 or 80 pounds in a glass bottle. Margaret: Yeah, okay. I see where you're going. Sean: Things can go Bad real quick. When I use them, I had some that fit in milk crates so I could just pick up the milk crates. That helped out a lot. They also make, they call them I think just carboys straps, it's like a like a four piece harness with handles that you can use. But when I when I've seen them break, it's almost always when someone's setting them down, right? Anytime you're setting down something heavy, you know, unless you're very strong and have a great deal of control, right, that last little bit you can sometimes kind of crack it down. And again, we're talking 70 or 80 pounds in a glass bottle. And you don't have to crack it down very hard for the whole bottom to go out and that's a mess. Margaret: Yeah. Because then you got blood in your beer. And that's just... Sean: Yeah, right. It gets very Klingon on very quickly. And it's Yeah. But the other aspect I don't like is they're completely light permeable too, right cause they're just clear glass. Margaret: Yeah. That always seemed weird. You have to keep them in a closet with a towel on them or whatever. Sean: Yeah, yeah. It's just I think, again, it was...so homebrewing only became legal in the United States under Jimmy Carter. Right. It had been illegal from prohibition to Jimmy Carter. Yeah. Margaret: Holy shit. Yeah. Does that mean we'll eventually get home moonshining? I can't wait. Sean: I feel like if we were going to get it, it would have happened already. And I don't think the trends politically are towards individual deregulation anytime soon for that kind of thing. But you know, it is legal to make you know, like fuel alcohol. Some people make fuel alcohol and then lose it in barrels and things like that. Margaret: Yeah, it's not worth it for me. I always figure I shouldn't do anything that brings the Eye of Sauron anywhere near me. So I'm just not gonna make it. Sean: Oh totally. And, there have always been people who are going to do it, you know, illegally, but it's not worth the hassle. It can be like...I know we've been talking about fermentation on the side of, you know, consumption and food and beverage and all that, but I do know, people who have stills that use them to produce like fuel alcohol, you know, for backpacking and things like that. And that is valid. And you can, you can, you can produce, you know, fuel alcohol very cheaply, if that's the thing that you use for, you know, kind of off grid type stuff that can really be a useful a useful toolkit, but kind of outside of what we're talking about today. Margaret: Yeah, I'll have you on...have you or someone else on at some point for that. Yeah. Okay. So you've made your alcohol, this was all simpler than I thought. So now you have a bucket full of alcohol, and you don't want to just pass out straws. What do you do? Sean: Yeah, passing out straws is an option, but you need to, you know, make sure there are enough people in your in your group to get through five gallons all at once, I guess. No, so you're the two main options available are bottling and kegging. Right? So bottling is usually, you know, when we're talking about it as an alternative to kegging, rather than, you know, bottling from a keg, which is a totally different thing. If we're going to bottle it, we're probably going to bottle conditioned it. So, we're going to add a small amount of sugar back. What's that? Margaret: But why? Sean: Bottle condition? Margaret Yeah. Sean Bottle condition for the oxygen scavenging effects of Brettanomyces yeast. Margaret To make it as safe as possible. because we don't have commercial... Sean And shelf stable as possible. Margaret Right? Okay. If we had like a big commercial thing then there would be a way of bottling it where no air gets in, but because we're doing a DIY some air will get in so that's why we want to bottle condition to clean up our mess? Sean Well, even in commercial systems you are going to have oxygen ingress, but it's going to be significantly less than than what you have at home. Okay. So yeah, that's going to help with that. So we got longer shelf life both for like a quality flavor product and a, you know, safe to consume product. Both of those are extended. That also adds carbonation, which a lot of people really enjoy, you know, having the nice fizzy bubbles. Margaret Oh, it's flat until this point? Sean Yeah, yeah. Totally flat. Because it's only going to pressurize in a sealed environment. It's only going to carbonate in a sealed environment. Margaret No, that makes sense. Sean You got to blow off tube. So all your co2 is, is going away. Margaret Does that mean people don't bottle condition their wine because otherwise you make champagne? Sean You wouldn't want to add sugar to wine that you are bottling unless you are trying to make sparkling wine. But of course it wouldn't be champagne unless it came from Champagne, France. Margaret I'm glad we have the same bullshit cultural reference. 90s...whatever. Sean Oh, man. That one is, like... Margaret I love Wayne's World. Sean ...hilarious too just in their own right. Margaret Okay, so, okay, so, back to our cider. We're bottling it. Oh, but that actually...cider is not normally carbonated. Is DIY Are you kind of stuck? Does bottle conditioning always carbonate it? Sean You can, if you want if you want still cider, just don't add sugar. Margaret How are you bottle conditioning then? Sean It's just not bottle conditioning, it's just bottled. It still has yeast in there, it still has all of that in there because you haven't pasteurized it, right? So, it still has those those health effects. Shelf life might be a little bit lower. I haven't seen any significant studies on comparing, you know, home produced still versus, you know, carbonated, you know, via bottle conditioning insider. But I would like to. Like that would be really...that'd be some really useful data if somebody wants to get on that. But you still are probably going to have a good few years of preservation. And again, the higher the alcohol you get the longer it's going to be shelf stable, right? You have fortified your cider with say brown sugar, right? That's a very common one that people will do. You add brown sugar and maybe some cinnamon or vanilla, right, especially for kind of like a winter drink. You can very easily make a cider that's 11% or 12% alcohol and ferment almost as quickly and that is going to stick around just fine. And it tastes really good. Margaret You know I want this. I don't even drink very much. But yeah, this is making me...I'm on...like, I barely drink anymore, but I'm like, I just want to make this stuff. Sean It is a lot of fun. And I've always really gravitated towards like the kind of like sensory aspects of beverage. Yeah, like, just the, I don't know, I love a head change. Don't get me wrong. Yeah. You know, there's a reason that humans, that we've been covergently evolving with alcohol for as many millennia as we have. But there are flavors that only really come out through, like for fermentation, specifically through lactic acid fermentation, and I'm talking flavors in beverages and food. You can get you get these, you know, different compounds from all different aspects of the process that you just can't get anywhere else. Margaret Okay, but we're, we're coming up towards an hour and I want to get to the point where my cider is in bottles. Sean Where we have drinkable alcohol? Margaret How do I get it? How do I get it into the bottles? So am I like siphoning it like you're stealing alcohol? Like when you're stealing gas? Sean Yeah, you can people do that. But they also make what's called an auto siphon, which is just like a little racking cane kind of arm that you just put the tubing on. And that like, let's it starts the siphon for you. It automatically starts to siphon for you. So you don't get your bacterial mouth on tubing. Margaret Yeah, that makes sense. Sean Yeah, you know, in a survival situation, you know, switch with some vodka and do it and call it good, but in an ideal situation, a sanitized, racking cane is ideal. Even more ideal, I think a lot of people do especially with cider because it doesn't produce nearly as much yeast sediment, just ferment in a bucket that has a little valve or bulkhead on it. Margaret Oh, down at the bottom? Sean Yep. All you got to do is take your bucket, sit it up on your counter, you add in you know a little bit of sugar. It's usually around like four ounces of sugar, you dissolve it in boiling water and then add the sugar solution. Stir it gently. And then you just use that valve to fill the bottles. And then you use a bottle cap or you can either use like a bench capper that like sits on a bench and has like a little lever arm like this. That's a lot more ergonomic. They also have these they call them wing cappers. There's two handles and you just kind of set it on top of the cap and then you know, push down. I have definitely broken bottlenecks with the wing cappers before. Yeah, not broken any with a bench capper. So I would definitely recommend a bench capper. Margaret Or, drink Grolsch. Sean Yeah, drink Grolsch. Yeah. And any kind of you can, you can save those. It's not just Grolsch bottles, but those are probably the most common ones. They have like a little swing cap cage, a little ceramic cap with a rubber grommet. You have some kind of siliconized grommet. Yeah. And that just sits there and then clicks it in place. And yeah, those sometimes you have to replace the little rubber part after every six or eight uses of the bottle. But yeah, that's a hell of a lot better than replacing the whole thing. Okay, once you have bottled, though, you are going to need to leave them alone for two or three weeks because the bottle conditioning needs to occur. So, it's refermentation in the bottle. So in order to get that CO2 built up and those those nice lovely bubbles, you're gonna have to leave that alone. Margaret But if it's cider, we can drink it right away because cider isn't conditioned. Sean Yeah, cider or wine. I like bottle conditioning cider. I like to carbonated cider. But if you're, if you're leaving it still, you know, that's kind of like the English tradition. I think you generally see more like carbonated cider, though. Margaret I'm...yeah, now that I realize I do....Cider does have carbonation. Great. I totally know what I'm saying. Sean Some don't and like a lot of...like, I was relating to like Basque cider. And you know, from like the France and Spain kind of border area you have like this huge range of carbonation. There you have some that are like champagne levels, like over carbonated like, you know, almost burns your nose when you drink it. And you have some that are completely still and then you have some that are, "Oh, yeah, I guess there are bubbles in here. I guess this is technically carbonated." Yeah, pétillant is the industry term. But so there is like a huge range on that. Margaret Okay, so the stuff I need is I need a fermentable, I need yeast. I need a not carboy but a bucket or whatever. I need a water lock...airlock. Sean Airlock or a blow off tube. Yeah. Margaret Yeah, and I need a way...either a spigot or a auto siphon. And I need bottles, bottle caps and a capper. Sean Yep. The other thing that I would say you need is, you need some kind of a sanitizer. If we're going with convenience, the easiest one is like a brewery specific sanitizer Star San or Quat, things like that. They're no-rinse sanitizers. So you don't...They sanitize and they leave a little bit of foam in place. And you don't need to rinse them. They will be broken down by the process of fermentation and they are soluble in alcohol and they are completely food safe. Yeah. So you generally buy these in like a concentrated form, like a 32oz or 64oz bottle with a little like dispenser, you know, thing at the top, and half an ounce of this concentrate will make...one ounce of the concentrate will make five gallons of sanitizing solution. So if you have one of these around... Margaret Jesus, so that's enough for a long time. Sean Yeah, I know, I've replaced my at some point, but I can't remember when the last time it was. Like, you don't go through it very quickly. It's definitely worth investing. You can, again in a pinch, you can use, you know, water diluted with bleach and then just rinse it with like water that's been boiled. Yeah, you can use you can use alcohol, right? You can you can use... Margaret If you have that still that we of course won't have...Once the apocalypse comes and we all make stills. Sean Yeah. Right, then in that situation, and obviously, you can use that to spray it down. You can even put, you know, in our in our current, you know, situation, you can you can put pop off vodka in a fucking Dollar Tree spray bottle and yeah, do it that way. You know, like there are options for that purpose. You know, like, you know, industry specific beverage and brewing no-rinse sanitizers are the easiest. And again, like we were talking about. Margaret Yeah, if you're planning it out. Sean If your first endeavor, if it goes well, right, and everything works easily, you're more likely to keep doing that. So, I definitely recommend using those, if possible, but again, certainly not necessary. Once you you've got that, the only other bit of material that we talked about, and it is optional, is the hydrometer. Margaret Oh, yeah, that's right. Because then you know when it's done. Sean You can also use a refractometer, which is a different piece of technology I mentioned. I meant to mention this earlier, but I didn't. A refractometer is...it almost looks like a little Kaleidoscope that you put up to your eye, but it's got like a like screen and then a piece of plastic that clips on top that lays flat on top of the screen. You put a couple of drops of your liquid on the screen and then put your plastic on there and you look through it. And it shows you on a line what your specific gravity is based on its refractometary index. Margaret Is the reason people homebrew is because they want to feel like mad scientists? And they want alcohol. Sean A lot of people I'm sure. Yeah. Margaret I mean, this is some mad Scientist shit. Now you use the kaleidoscope to find out how much alcohol there is. Sean I feel like yeah, you should have some Jacob's Ladders and Tesla coils behind you as you're doing it. Margaret That's how you sanitize is you make the ozone with it. Anyway. Sean Oh, you just lightening flash the ozone. Yeah, I can't believe I haven't heard about this. Yeah, no. The nice thing about the refractometer is we're talking like half a cc of liquid being used. So it is a really, really efficient way to measure it. It will not measure accurately in the presence of alcohol. There are like equations that can like compensate for this a little bit. Margaret Wait, then what good does it do? Sean It tells you how much is there originally. So if, like for me, I know to what degree like my house culture of yeast and bacteria ferments. It ferments down to like .002 or even just 1.0. The same lack of sugar in solution as water, basically. Right? So if I know that, I don't need to measure it at the end if it always winds up at the same place. Right? If I was selling it, I would need to, but if it's just for personal consumption, and I always know where it's finishing, I just need to know where it's starting and I know what the alcohol is. Margaret Okay. But then you can't tell if it's done except for the fact that you've done this enough that you're like the bubbles have stopped. It's been a week. I'm used to this. It's done. Or whatever. Sean Yeah, yeah. So, for Starting off, I definitely recommend the hydrometer. It's just more effective. And if you're doing all of your fermentation in a bucket anyway, it's real nice because you can, you can just put it in, you don't have to pull some out, put it in a sample, pour it, you know, put it in a tall cylinder and then toss that, you know, eight ounces of beverage down the drain or whatever. Margaret Yeah. Well, I think that's it. I think that we're out of time and we didn't even get to the food stuff. So, I'm gonna have to have you back on if that's alright some time. Sean Yeah, that's absolutely fine by me. I've enjoyed myself thoroughly. Margaret Fuck yeah. Is there anything that you want to plug? Like, for example, you have a book that people can buy about how to do some of this stuff? Maybe if more than one? I don't know. Like, you wanna? Yeah. Sean So "The Self-sufficient Solera" is the name of the book. I just did it is a Kindle single on Amazon. So you can you can get it there. If you don't, if you don't want to go through there, my website Seanvansickel.com. And yeah, there's contact info there too. You know, if anybody has any questions about any of this stuff, I love to share that and all of my writing is collected there. So, I've published an article on like, composting spent grains and like, you know, reducing waste from home brewing. I published that with Zymurgy Magazine recently. And, you know, that's all on there and original fiction and all that good stuff, too. Margaret Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much. And I look forward to talking to you more about this soon. Sean Sounds good. Have a good one. Margaret Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed that episode then go get drunk. I don't know, maybe don't go get drunk. If you don't drink, we will be talking about fermentation that doesn't have to do with alcohol at some point in the future. And tell people about the show. We're weekly now. And you can be like, "Holy shit, this shows weekly," and people be like, "I've never heard what you're talking about." And you can be like, "I can't believe you've never heard of Live Like the World is Dying, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Or, instead of gatekeeping, you could just tell them that they can find it wherever they listen to podcasts. And if they're like, "I don't listen to podcasts," you can be like, "That's fair. Everyone gets information in different ways." I mean, you can be like, "No, you should absolutely listen podcasts. It's the only reasonable thing to do." You can also support us by supporting us on Patreon. Our Patreon is patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness is an anarchist media collective that puts out, you'll be shocked to know this, it puts out podcasts like this one, and Anarcho Geek Power Hour and Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. And we also put out zines and we put out books, including my most recent book "Escape from Incel Island." So you should support us if you want. It allows us to pay for transcriptions and audio editing and makes all of this possible. And in particular, I would like to thank top of all--I can't say Hoss the Dog is the best dog because Rintrah's the best dog. I'm sorry Hoss the Dog. I know every dog is the best dog to their individual people that they hang out with. But Rintrah is the best dog. But close runner up, just like close runner up on also Anderson, but close runner up is Hoss the Dog. And I'd also like to thank the following people who are presumably humans. Michiahah, Chris, Sam, Kirk, Eleanor, Jenipher, Staro, Cat J., Chelsea, Dana, David, Nicole, Mikki, Paige, SJ, Shawn, Hunter, theo, Boise Mutual Aid, Milica, paparouna, Aly, Paige, Janice, Oxalis, and Jans. Y'all make it possible. As for everyone else, y'all are also great because we're all going to try and get through this really, really nasty shit together. And we're doing it. We're so here. We will continue to be here. That's the plan. All right. Oh, goodbye. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co
Tim Walker, WalkerAg Consultancy, Tasmania Worldwide there are 570 species of oxalis and approximately 30 species in Australia. Recently, PotatoLink's Tasmanian regional representative Tim Walker, has noticed that one type of Oxalis, (Oxalis latifolia) known as fishtail wood-sorrel, is becoming a problem on more and more properties in Northern Tasmania. In late March 2023, PotatoLink and VEGNET held a paddock walk focussing on controlling oxalis.This podcast covers what Oxalis is, what it looks like, why it's a problem, and what to do about it. It also summarises the field walk held in March 2023 and the outcomes from conversations had on the day.Associated resources:SWIPC factsheet: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6046dbe313fcb01afb282298/t/63f7f757cd45297bddc738e7/1677195113426/Oxalisfactsheet_FINAL.pdfAustralian Grower Magazine Winter 2023 - Page 136 - 137: https://ausveg.com.au/app/uploads/2023/05/AUSVEG_AustralianGrower_Winter_2023_FAR_lr.pdfLink to the website: https://potatolink.com.au/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PotatoLinkAustraliaTwitter: https://twitter.com/PotatoLink_AuLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/potatolink/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/potatolink_au/ Please direct all enquiries to: info@potatolink.com.au Phone: (02) 8627 1040This podcast is part of the Hort Innovation funded project PT20000 Potato Industry Extension and Communications Program. It was funded through the Potato-Processing and Potato-Fresh levy funds and contributions from the Australian Government.The music for this podcast is "The Beat of Nature" by Olexy, you can access the music here: https://pixabay.com/music/solo-guitar-the-beat-of-nature-122841/
Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Emily and Margaret talk about organizing against fascists while the Eye of Sauron is upon us. Emily breaks down the history of some far-right groups in the US as well as the history of opposition to them. She talks about how to organize against neo-Nazis, the interconnections of antifascism and transness, the perils of seeking asylum, and how to hunt Nazis and win. Guest Info Emily (she/her) can be found out in the world winning. Or, she can be found on Twitter @EmilyGorcenski or at www.emilygorcenski.com 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 Live Like the World is Dying: Emily on Antifascist Organizing & Hunting Nazis Margaret: Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcasts what feels like the end times. I'm when your host, Margaret Killjoy, and today I'm excited. I guess I say that every single time that I'm excited. But it's actually true. I really...I wouldn't interview people if I wasn't excited about it. Today, we're going to talk about antifascism. There's going to be a couple of weeks--I don't actually know what order they're gonna come out--And maybe you've already heard me talking about antifascism recently, but nothing feels more important in terms of community preparedness than stopping fascism. So, that's what we're going to talk about today. And today, we're going to talk with someone who was involved in organizing the counter protests in Charlottesville, the anti-Nazi side of Charlottesville, and has had to deal with the ramifications of that. And I think you'll get a lot out of it. But first, we're proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts and here's a jingle from another show on the network da da duh da da. [humming a made up melody] Margaret: Alright, if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then I guess, a vague overview of who you are and why I had you on today. Emily: My name is Emily Gorcenski. She and her. And I am an activist from Charlottesville. I had called Charlottesville my home for about eight years before the infamous Unite the Right rally happened. And that sort of called me to anti- fascism. In the wake of all of that, I also started initiatives to digitally hunt Nazis and track them down, expose them, and understand how their networks operate, how their movements form and grow and evolve, and have been involved in sort of organizing against fascism for the last several years. Margaret: Awesome. This is going to be good stuff that we're going to talk about. Well, bad stuff, I suppose. So the Unite the Right rally, what was that? I mean? It's funny because it feels like it was either yesterday or 15 years ago. Emily: Yeah, both of those. It was both of those. Unite the Right was what a lot of people call "Charlottesville." It was the big neo-Nazi rally in August of 2017, August 11th and 12th to be precise, and it was one of several neo-Nazi rallies in Charlottesville. It was the biggest and got the most news coverage. During that summer...Locally, we call it the "summer of hate." We don't like to use the word "Charlottesville" to describe the moment in time because we are still a community, but it was the moment that you saw everything from the neo-Nazis marching with the swastika, to the terror attack, to Donald Trump saying there were very fine people on both sides. Margaret:Yeah, kind of it feels like the moment that sort of kicked off the modern Nazi-right. Like it feels like their big coming out party, their gender reveal--if Nazis a gender. I don't know if it's...Nazi might not be a gender. I hate to disrespect people's gender, but that might be not on the list. And I don't know what color they would use for fireworks. But it... Okay, so it feels like their coming-out, right, like it was this thing. And I'm kind of curious what your take on it is because from where I'm at it seems like kind of a little different than stuff had gone before and a lot of bad things happened. A lot of very bad things happened and we can talk about some of those things. But, it felt like kind of this like aberration. Everyone was like--I mean, except the president the US--everyone was like, "Oh fuck, that's bad. We don't like this. This is bad when Nazis march down the street with torches chanting, 'Jews will not replace us.'" Clearly this is bad. But it feels like...it does feel like it kind of worked for them to kick them off into the mainstream. Like it. It doesn't feel Like their movement has shrink since then, I guess I will say. Emily: I think it's a complicated. Yeah, that's a complicated topic. If you look at the history of what led up to Unite the Right, there were a number of neo-Nazi rallies, sort of the ascendance of the alt-right throughout the country, right. So we had Richard Spencer growing in prominence and forming the alt-right movement. We had these groups like Identity Europa and Vanguard America, and Traditionalist Worker Party. And all of them were sort of, they're holding these rallies all over the country, right. There were some in Pikeville, and there are some in in Huntington Beach, California, and there was some in in Berkeley, right, the the sort of infamous battles of Berkeley. And all of these events were sort of in the months around, I don't know, anywhere from one month before or two months before to a year, year and a half before, right. And this is sort of aligned with the ascendance of Donald Trump, the sort of hard shift right in American politics, the reaction to a lot of things, including Obergefell, the court case that legalized gay marriage, and two terms of a black man being president, right, there are a lot of factors that kind of started to swirl together and formed this vortex of the alt-right. And what happened in Unite the right was, this was...it was almost like that moment in an orchestra where everything was tuning up beforehand, right? You know, there was like the smaller rallies, there was some violence, there were some, you know, definitely some things that are fairly scary, but it was isolated. And it was easy for people to ignore. What happened in Charlottesville, everything came together. And when we saw on the night of August 11th, at the University of Virginia, the Nazis marching with the torches and chanting, "You will not replace us," and eventually, "Jews will not replace us," all of that started to come together to be like that moment that the orchestra starts playing, right. And I think ironically, August 11th was also their high watermark. Because even though we have seen fascism grow in power since then, the dynamics are much more complicated because those groups that organized and participated in Unite the Right have essentially been destroyed and that movement has essentially been destroyed. And so what we see is actually something that's morphing. And I think that's a much more important thing to understand. Margaret: Okay, that makes sense. That does kind of--because I don't hear people talking about the alt-right anymore, right? And a lot of the individual groups that made up yeah Unite the Right like, died, like the part of the Lord of the Rings, where the orc grabs the barrel of dynamite and runs towards the wall and blows up--maybe that...I think that was Lord of the Rings--to bring down the wall or whatever. Like because we don't talk about the alt-right anymore. We talked about the right wing. And now but it does seem like the right wing is now doing the things that the alt-right used to do. Like, why is it--I'm asking this like half earnestly and half to get a an answer from you--but like, why is it we got rid of, we voted out the far right politician and now things are going further and further right, even though he's gone. Does that relate to all of this? Emily: I think I think it does, right? So it's all about movement and counter-movement. We defeated the alt-right. We killed the alt-right. The alt-right didn't die. It didn't die of its own accord. it was killed. it was killed through through antifascist organizing, it was killed through through criminal charges being brought against key players, it was killed through alt-right people committing mass shootings and the movement being unable to recruit, and it was killed through civil court cases even. So there was a number of factors that killed that movement, but Margaret: I take back my comparison the to the Lord of the Rings guy. Emily: The thing about the alt-right, though, is that it doesn't need to exist anymore. Its purpose was simply to set an anchor point that everything else can be sort of tied around, right? And so actually what you see if you look at, over time. at these dynamics, you know, 2015, 2016, 2017, you had the alt-right movement on its upswing. 2018 It started to die. And by 2020 It was pretty much gone. On sort of that sort of downswing of the alt-right, you had groups like the Proud Boys starting to grow in power. So the Proud Boys existed as early as 2016. They participated in Unite the Right, but they were not a major factor. They didn't really participate in the organizing. They were kind of on the fence of "Should we? Should we not?" But they we're there. Enrique Tarrio was there. Many Proud Boys organizers were there. As the alt-right died, the Proud Boys started to gain in prominence. And the difference between the Proud Boys and the alt-right, is that the Proud Boys had more of a sanitized image in the public eye, right? They were led by a Hispanic man. And they were...they had these members that were like Samoan and Asian and they didn't look like the, you know, dapper Nazi with the fascy haircut and all that stuff. And that kind of...what the alt-right did is it created a foil for the Proud Boys, right? So, it was very easy for everyone to decry the alt-right after they committed a terror attack, murdered Heather Heyer, and did all this awful stuff using images of swastikas and stuff like that, right? It was to set a sort of expectation so far removed from what was acceptable, that as long as you weren't that, as long as you weren't the worst possible thing, you were probably pretty okay. And so now you see the Proud Boys and they got really involved in the electoral politics, right, they were really close to Roger Stone, and they had a really big part in the the J6 [January 6th] insurrection and all of this stuff, right? So, you see this sort of like...it's like a three phase current, right, as one, as one movement starts to decline, another movement starts to pick up, and now the Proud Boys are in the decline now. They're they're facing trial. The trial is currently ongoing. I don't know how it will end up. And you see these other movements start to pick up, right, and this is now more mainstream. Now we have more politicians like Ron DeSantis and they're bringing this explicitly fascist agenda into legislatures and into sort of normie spaces, even though it's the same exact thread that has been going through the alt-right, the Proud Boys, etc, all the way to like the white power movements. It's a lot of the same philosophy, but it presents itself differently. And so even though we elected out Trump, we didn't get rid of that undercurrent. We just changed the face of it. Margaret: Okay, so if we have these three phases, and this is a very--I'm not really saying...is a very convincing argument--that we have these three phases. And I really like focusing on this idea that this the first wave of it, at least, was stopped by antifascism and through a diversity of tactics, both electoral and direct action tactics. I want to come back to that because I want to talk about what those tactics are, but I want to ask about with this current wave, what do you think are effective organizing strategies? Like what can stop this? Because it does seem probably, legally speaking, no one's gonna go fistfight DeSantis in the street, right? No one's going to out him because we know who he is. He lives at Florida's White House. I don't know how governors live. What? Yeah, what do we do? Emily: I think this is why the diversity of tactics is so important, right? Because every movement has a different face. And it has a different way of operating. So you need to be able to confront it with different techniques. And I think that what's important about like the current wave of fascist organizing is that there actually does exist a long activist history of opposing what they're doing, right? This movement is not actually new. Everything that like Ron DeSantis is doing, Ron DeSantis is essentially a product of a decade's long evangelical project to essentially turn America into a theocracy, a christo-fascist theocracy. And so this is like, if you look at the history of how these groups have organized and tried to introduce bills and stuff like that, there's actually a really strong sort of cadre of people who can oppose those things through the systematic means that we have, right? And so some of the direct action, yes, you can go out on the street and you can punch Nazis and that's great. You don't want to go out into the street and punch Ron DeSantis. That's probably going to end really, really, really badly for you. Margaret: I feel like there's different ways of defining the word "want." "Shouldn't," maybe. Emily: Yeah, maybe yes. So I think that what we need to do is we actually need to look to these groups that have been opposing the other sort of things that this group that these these fascists have been focusing on over the last several years, like homeschooling, and parental rights, and the opposition to gay marriage, and, you know, things like the Tebow bill, if you remember the Tebow bill, right? It was this this whole thing about like using federal funds to allow home schooled athletes to participate in public college sports. And all of this is coming from the same core, right, and there are people who have been opposing this for a long time quite successfully. And so I think that what's important is actually to understand how to organize with them and follow their leadership and to try to muster up the resources that they can use to effectively oppose these things in the forms where these things can effectively be opposed. Now, there may come a time when that opposition renders itself ineffective, either the bills pass, or, you know, these groups just don't have enough money to fight all of the bills or whatever it might be, there will probably come a time when that no longer works. And then we have to look at other means, right? Funding battles in the courts, right? Use that system against them, you can protest outside of these people's houses, right, you can protest outside of these offices that our that are responsible for, you know, some of these consulting firms that are like, funding these politicians, right you can do, there's a bunch of direct action campaigns that you can choose to organize around that don't necessarily need to be movement versus movement in the streets type of confrontation, there are a lot of tools in the toolkit. And it's really important for us to be fluent with as many of them as we can, right. Organize boycotts, strikes, right, all of that stuff. Margaret: How do people get involved in that kind of stuff? Like, I mean, this would be true, regardless of the tactic, like one of the main questions that I get asked a lot, and I'm always sort of the wrong person ask because I don't have blanket answers and I can't necessarily speak to individuals and also I'm just not an organizer. If people say like, "Well, how do I get involved?" and whether it's how do I get involved in the groups that are fighting Nazis or doxing Nazis, or whatever, but also, how do you find the sorts of organizations that are fighting these bills? How do you? Yeah, how do you do it? Emily: Yeah, I think that the most important thing is to connect with your local community and see who's been organizing in your local community because they usually know the best, right. And even if they're not the ones that are opposing these things, they usually know who is and how to oppose it and stuff like that, or they usually know what groups are out there. There's also a lot of resources online, right. If you're opposed to like the hateful legislation that is being proposed and debated, there's like the Equality Network that tracks and, and lobbies against it and and they're different in each state--and some of the states are kind of mediocre, and some of them are actually pretty good--but they've been effective, right? And I think that what we forget is that what we're seeing now is not unique. It's barely even noteworthy compared to what we've seen over the last year. So right, there's like, 400 or so like anti-trans bills this year, right. But if you look at the last three years, there's been a thousand anti-LGBT bills that have been introduced, right? So, we know how to fight this stuff. And in these organizations that are putting themselves out there and raising funds and looking for volunteers and stuff like that have been showing leadership. Now, I don't always love equality, right? I don't the Equality Network, right. I love equality. But the Equality Network, right. I'm not always their biggest fan, right? If you don't know...like, you can start there and branch out. And I think that the most important thing is that a lot of people come to activism because they're upset with seeing something, they're hurt, they're feeling marginalized, they're feeling scared, and they feel like they need to do something. And that kind of gets bundled up with a feeling that nobody else is doing something. But it's not really true, right? There are people who are fighting these things. And the most important thing that you can do is actually just start with your local community, see who's doing what, go to your city council meetings, talk to your....you know, find your local Black Lives Matter chapter, find your local immigrant rights chapter, you know, whoever is fighting for....fighting against ICE, fighting against, you know, police violence, right? This exists in almost every community. And if it doesn't exist in your community, look at the neighboring community. Network with these people, because they have the leadership. Even if they're not fighting for the cause that you believe in directly, all of these causes are linked together and they will be able to help you. So that's the first step is just get to know people around you. Margaret: Well, it's good...that actually...you know, most of what we talked about on this show is preparedness, right, like how to store water and all that shit. And the number one thing in all of that is the same. It's literally the same. It's get to know your neighbors. And whether it's get to know your neighbors because you want to share water with them or get to know your neighbors because you want to know who is going to try and murder you as soon as it's legally allowed for them to murder you. getting to know the landscape of what's around you makes them a lot of sense to me. And it ties into something...Okay, so you're like talking about diversity of tactics often is used as this kind of like, way of saying, "Hey, more people should support more radical action." But it's worth also understanding that diversity of tactics also means like supporting action that like, isn't quite as radical seeming or as like revolutionary, like you might want in terms of just actually maintaining a decent platform from which to fight, right? It's like easier to fight for things when you're not in jail. It's easier to fight for things when you're not in the process of being forcibly detransitioned medically. And it's interesting because like, okay, earlier on, you talked about how one of the reasons that all this stuff came up is that people felt so aggrieved by the fact that we had two terms of a black president and we had gay marriage, you know, sanctified in law, or whatever. And it's funny, because in the crowds that I'm part of, two terms of a black president and gay marriage was like, so unimpressive. The left was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," right? Whereas meanwhile, I guess the right is, like frothing at the mouth that these things are happening, which makes me realize that they were a bigger deal all along, or something, you know, I don't know. Emily: Yeah, I think it's because the left is really good at judging situations as a...in their distance from where we want them to be. Right? So we judge things, as, you know, from how far are they from our ideal. The right doe opposite, right. They judge things as "How far is it from the norm," so things like gay marriage and a black president, those aren't really big things. Like a black president is not a big deal when they actually what you want to do is abolish the presidency, right? But if you're if you're a, you know, white Christian Evangelical that is a racist and, you know, maybe doesn't like openly support the Klan, but doesn't really denounce them either, right, like, that's a huge deal because you actually do believe in this notion that like white Christian men should be in charge of everything. And that means the presidency. And that means everything else, too. So, I think that part of what we have to do as organizers is actually try to look at where things are, and how our sort of political opponents are using change to drum up recruitment, and are using fear mongering and things like that, right. And we're so used to trying to judge based on the outcomes that we want that we miss that picture. Margaret: Now, I really liked that way of framing it. It's an interesting...do you think that relates to...there's there's sort of this cliche that the left will cast you out for one sin and the right will take you in for one virtue? Which I don't think is...doesn't have to be true, but... Emily: It doesn't have to. It doesn't have to be true. And it's not really true, right? Because there's much more complex dynamics on top of that. But I mean, it's really kind of like to same philosophy. Yeah, exactly. It's the right, well, if...they'll overlook a lot of failures if you can move the needle even one degree further, which is why you have things like fairly moderate, otherwise moderate politically women in the UK who are like, supporting the Proud Boys and these anti-trans issues, right? They're just like, "Oh, yeah, I don't care about the fact that you're basically a Nazi organization, as long as you also hate the trannies." Like, that's kind of how that is all working. Margaret: Yeah, and you have this thing that I wanted to be a bigger split than it was--although I think it's something worth holding on to--is that like, there's like Satanists and pagans throwing down alongside evangelical Christians because they're all Nazis together. And it like, it doesn't make any sense to me. I can't imagine--Well, it's hard to imagine being a Nazi period--but it's just like...You know, even like the rise of the Catholic right. I keep wanting to be like, "Y'all know that the evangelical right doesn't even think you're Christians. Like, they want to murder you too." That is the history of the United States. That is the history of large parts of Europe. Like, it's amazing who will decide the Nazis are on their side because they all hate the same people or whatever. Okay, so to tie this into the the trans thing, right? Both of us are in a book called No Pasarán on by Shane Burley, that you can go and get from wherever you get your books--this is really ad, this is a plug--and your piece in that talks about relating antifascism and transness. And when we talk about like a lot of the laws that are right now being challenged, a lot of the stuff that...currently, the Eye of Sauron seems to be on the trans community in particular. It's on lots of communities in particular, but like we're the ones in the news, even more than usual or something right now. I'm wondering if you kind of want to talk about antifascism and transness. And then we can kind of tie that back into this conversation. Emily: Yeah, sure. So the chapter I wrote is about looking at antifascism through the lens of transgender identity. And what I tried to do is to take a walk through the current day to the historical context and then back through to the current day of how fascist and far right movements have used trans people as scapegoats for a larger agenda, part of that agenda being hatred of other people, including hatred of the Jews, but also a power play, right? And I think part of the lesson of the chapter is that we need, we need to be much more careful and thoughtful in how we look at comparative analysis. Because there's sort of two schools of thought that are happening in the left, especially in social media discourse. One is, you know, you you sort of look at historical mapping, and you say, this is basically the same thing as this thing that happened in the past, right, like, the laws that are being passed against trans people now, it's like, just what happened in the Holocaust. And that's kind of a problematic comparison, right? But it's also, it's also like another thing where it's like, you also have people saying, "Oh, don't compare what like the bathroom bills are about to what happened during Jim Crow, because that's a problematic comparison," right? So these are two things, like two different perspectives. Or it's like, don't compare these two groups of people. And then another perspective is like, "Actually, these things are..." you know, because the first is like, "Don't compare these two, these two situations because, you know, people now don't have the same dynamics. There's not a racial element. There's not a history of slavery," for example, right? And the other school is kind of like, "Well, actually, you need to look at the causes. And you need to look at the factors that went into it." And I think that there's a little bit of both of these things that are going on, right. And so when we actually look at historically how trans people were targeted in the Holocaust and how gay people were targeted in the Holocaust--and they were. There were a lot of trans--what we would now, today, call transgender people--they didn't have those words back then and also they were speaking German--And, you know, and queer people. They were targeted in the Holocaust. But it's also impossible to separate the way that they were targeted from the anti-semitism, right. So a lot of trans people talk about, today, talk about like the raids and the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft [Institue for Sexual Science] in Tiergarten, Berlin. So, the Deutsche Studentenschaft, which was like kind of like the Proud Boys of its time, raided the archives of Magnus Hirschfeld, who is a sexual scientist at the time, and they burned those books and a lot of trans people love to focus on these images and say, "You know, these, these books were the archives of the Institute for Sexualwissenschaft, and it's partly true, right? But, it also erases a big part of that history because it wasn't only those books, it was also Jewish authors like Sigmund Freud. It was Carl Jung. It was Jewish scholars,and politicians, and philosophy. Margaret: So all of this homosexuality is all a Jewish plot to destroy the good German people? [said with dry sarcasm] Emily: Right. And if you actually look at the posters that the DST put up to recruit for what they were calling the aktion gegen den undeutschen Geist, the action against the un-German spirit. Their...one of their key like bold faced bullet points was "Our principle enemy is the Jew," and so what they were doing is they were using trans people as a way to attack Jews. It doesn't mean that trans people weren't attacked. What it means is that you have to recognize that, historically, there was an interconnection here. And so if when we're erasing that interconnection, we're losing out a big part of that history. And we're also losing out a big part of how we can fight against these movements. At the same time, when we, when we totally ignore these things, like when we say, "You know, don't compare the trans movement now to the civil rights struggle of before," we're missing out on how the right wing uses these arguments to recruit and to motivate, right. So yes, it's not true that trans people who are denied bathroom use now, they're not in the same position as black people were who were denied bathroom use during Jim Crow, right, but the arguments are very similar. The white Christians back then were saying "These black people are going to like go into the bathrooms and they're going to rape your women," right? They use the like the fragile virginity of the white American woman as this this sort of rallying cry to drum up support for their cause, which is very similar to the arguments that are being made against trans people now. So when we look at this sort of comparative analysis, we have to bring in sort of a two sided perspective. Margaret: Yeah, there's so much there. It's funny because my immediate instinct, and I don't know whether this comes from my position as a white American or something, is to...it would never occur to me to compare the bathroom bill to Jim Crow, right? That just, to me, seems like obvious that the foundation of slavery is so dramatic and so influential. When, as compared to when I think about being targeted by the Holocaust, you know, to me--and maybe it's just like, my Twitter brain or like constantly thinking about what people could say to undermine what I'm saying or find holes in it or whatever--to me, that feels like a not only a safer argument but a more logical argument because it's...I wouldn't compare what's happening to trans people as to what's happened to Jews in the Holocaust. I compare what happens to trans people, to what happened to trans people in the Holocaust. I can make that comparison. But I really, I think this is really useful, this thing that you're talking about because the way I've been talking about it lately, right, like a lot of the anti-trans stuff and the rhetoric right now on the not-far-right, but the middle right, is around trans athletes, right? Specifically, trans feminine people, participating in sports with other feminine people with similar levels of hormones and bone density and shit, or whatever. Whatever the fuck. And it's this wedge issue, right?. And if you take a step back--it's the reason I don't fucking discourse about that--is because it's a wedge issue. It is meant not to talk about trans people in sports but to use trans people in sports as to break off support for trans people in general from the rest of LGBT community with the eventual intention, I believe--I evade anything that seems conspiratorial, but this seems like the strategy that our enemies are taking--to then eventually, you weaken LGBT, you split them off. Homosexuality can be a larger wedge issue to start more and more just like basically dividing and conquering and, you know, with the eventual plan of making us no longer exist. Emily: Yeah, I don't think it's conspiracy, right, I think it's exactly true because they say so much. They say it like that. They say, "Let's split the T off of the LGB." I think that's absolutely true. And you're right, it is a wedge issue, it is a way to get us to fight amongst each other instead of fighting against them. At the same time, the answer to us fighting against each other, is actually to look outside of us and actually to go and seek the solidarity of other groups of people who are marginalized, right. And so I, like I'm really uncomfortable with some of the language. Like I've written about this, like, there's a big movement of like, "How do you apply for asylum?" right? I'm like, screaming at the top of my lungs, "Please do not do this." Because not only do you not understand how bad this process is for people who are actually seeking asylum--and you thinking that you're going to get some sort of preferential treatment to that is really problematic--but it will also ruin your life, and in ways that you don't yet know. And this is like that sort of, there's like a whiteness or an Americanness of the privilege to this, this thing that's being that's being promoted, right? And so I'm like really hesitant to embrace some of this catastrophizing language. Also, because we have seen stuff that is just as bad being done against people like immigrants at the southern border of the US, right, of Muslims during the early days of the Trump administration, right? We've seen this stuff, right. And what we should be doing is we should be banding together with solidarity with these groups and saying, "Look, it doesn't actually matter what our internal dramas are. What matters is that we must be united against this broader front, right? We have to unite against patriarchy, we have to unite against white supremacy, we have to unite against xenophobia, against anti-semitism, against Islamophobia, all of these things. And we have to, we have to come together, right. And so I'm a little uncomfortable with some of the things that have been sort of out there because it's such an internal focus on ourselves. And it's not really doing a great job at saying like, "Actually, you know, what, like, we've been saying, you know, 'First they came for the x...'" And we've been saying that about three different groups, four different groups over the last four years. At some point, you actually have to stop and think, "Actually, wait a second, I'm not the first. They were the first. And before them, or, you know, before them...before us, was them and before them was another group. Why don't we start building those connections? Why don't we start building those networks? Margaret: Right. Well, and that's actually why like, at the beginning, I was like, you know, the Eye of Sauron like currently on us, right? Like, it's not, it didn't start on us. We are not the primary....yeah, like, I guess I'm saying I agree with you. And then even in terms of when I think about the history of splitting up the movement and things like that, like I think about how the first thing that the Gay Liberation Front did after, in 1969, after Stonewall, you know, which was a very diverse crowd of different queer people fighting back against the repression as gay people, it was in this context of the late 60s in which all of these other struggles are happening. And the Gay Liberation Front, at least, and many other people, at least--whether because of their own intersectional marginalization or just out of having some awareness of history and present--worked together, right? Like the first actions of the Gay Liberation Front were to protest the Women's House of Detention where Afeni Shakur, Tupac Shakur's mother, was being held as part of the Panther 23 [Meant 21] trial, right. And the Gay Liberation Front, I don't think was even aware of Shakur's sexuality at this point--I don't actually know if she was at this point, it was around...I believe she had her realizations while she was in the Women's House of Detention--but they were doing that because they were part of the new left. They were part of...like, of course we roll with the Black Panthers, of course we work together with all of these other groups, all of these different marginalizations. And yeah, so in my mind, it's less like...yeah, rather than comparing ourselves one to one with other marginalized groups, yeah, we just need to be fucking working together. Emily: And I think it's also important, like, at the same time, that we don't...like the Eye of Sauron, as you said, it's on us now and it's going to look away. And it's probably going to look away pretty soon, right? The right wing doesn't have the attention span to stay focused on one thing for a long time, right. Like, over the last five years, I've been called a terrorist by a government organization of some sort at least four times, right? And I'm still hearing, I'm still walking free, right? I remember when Antifa was a terrorist organization that Donald Trump was going to like executive order in prisons all, right? I remember all of this stuff. And I've been through so much of this, right? This focus on the trans thing, it's going to go away and it's going to be on somebody else. And what we should be doing is actually preparing for supporting that group, whoever it goes on to next whether it's Muslims, whether it's immigrants, whether it's Asians, right, remember when it was the Asian hate, right? That was at the beginning of the pandemic. All of this stuff, right. It's going to be something else, pretty soon and we just need to be prepared for that. But at the same time, I think we also owe ourselves this look at history to look at how these groups have won and how they have succeeded, even in the face of these, you know, incredible odds, right? Because, we actually owe ourselves a little bit of joy and hope at the same time, right? You don't become an antifascist, because you like, are a cynic, right? antifascism is about creating a better future. Nobody goes out into the street and like maybe gets shot because they don't believe that they can create a better world. So we do need to think about this as a struggle but a struggle that we will win and a struggle that is going to, you know, lead to a better future at the end of the day. So, I think it's really important to like, keep that sort of focus in that perspective. Margaret: That makes sense to me. One thing, I kind of want to push back a little bit on is about the asylum thing, where--and maybe it's just because my standard is that I do not judge people on whether they choose to fight or whether they choose to go, right? Like, I'm a bit of a stay-and-fight person myself, right. But, I think that there's also this thing where I'm coming at this as an adult, right? Like, the state I'm in will probably pass a law this year that will make it illegal for me to go to the grocery store. It probably won't be used against me. And I can put on pants and pass as a weird looking cis man with bangs, you know? And, but like, I have the tools to navigate that, right? But, the children who can't access gender-affirming care or the adults in some states that will no longer be able to access gender-affirming care without breaking the law--and I do think that there is a difference between...I guess you don't seek asylum in Oregon, right. You just moved to Oregon. But, I think that the general...I dunno, frankly, I think that a lot of people should, if they're able to, keep their passports current. Like, I...go ahead. Emily: Absolutely. Like there's nothing wrong with with fleeing, right? Nobody has to fight. I moved to Germany because I had a Nazi that was trying to kill me and like there were multiple attempts on my life. Right. I was SWAT'd. There was all sorts of stuff. Yeah, there's nothing there's nothing shameful about fleeing. Asylum is a very specific word, however. It has a legal meaning and it means a specific thing and a lot of people...like, yes, keep your passports handy. But before you even think about moving overseas and requesting asylum, talk to people who have done this because there's a lot of options out there for how you can do this safely, and not request asylum. Because, the thing that a lot of trans folks who are not organizing in solidarity, or who have not yet organized in solidarity, let's just say, with immigrants with with refugees and stuff like that do not understand how bad this process is. If you apply for asylum in Europe, for example, like some people are like, "I'm gonna go to Europe" First of all, Europe will deny your claim, almost certainly. I'm not a lawyer. Not legal advice. But, they will almost surely deny your claim. But they will only deny after two years, maybe. During those two years, you have to live in a detention center, essentially...not a detention center. It's called an Arrival Center. But it's essentially a camp. You have four square meters to yourself. You cannot work. You cannot travel. You can't leave the city or the state that you're in. Right? The medical care is worse than the medical care that you'll get even under the laws that are being passed in the United States. The violence in those centers is off the charts horrible, right. And there are trans people who have tried to apply to asylum. There's a there's a case, that I am not going to name to the person, but this person went to Sweden and applied for asylum and spent like 16 or 18 months there, living on the equivalent of $6 a day. And at the end, her claim was denied and was deported. And now she can't even come back to Europe, most likely. So it's a really, it's a really dangerous thing. And I really want to stress this for anyone that's out there. Talk to people who can help with this because this is...the stuff that's going around is so dangerous that if you don't have an expert supporting you, it's going to ruin your life. Margaret: Okay, now that that makes a lot of sense. I was thinking of it mostly in the context of like, leaving the country versus the specifics of seeking asylum. Emily: It's way easier to move to Minneapolis than it is to move to Madrid. Margaret: Right. And there is kind of a like, "Where we'll stay safe" is a very blurry thing, right? It is unlikely, but not outside the realm of possibility that we'll see federal bans on various things in United States, depending on how power can move. But it's unlikely, right? And, but at the same time, it's like, "Oh, yeah, that place that everyone loves all the trans people, and no one thinks we're horrible monsters who are against the will of God," that place, you know, like, I mean, there are places that are better and worse, don't get me wrong. But okay, so I want to I want to change gears and talk about digitally hunting Nazis because I feel like that's something that you have some experience with, is that fair to say? Emily: I think that I'm a pretty decent Nazi Hunter. I've exposed a few. Margaret: What's, you know, cuz it's funny, because I think about like, Okay, we've talked about how the landscape has changed to where it's no longer doxing and holding physical space in cities as like the two primary...Well, they were never the primary, but they're certainly the most visible and some of the easiest to sort of get involved in in some weird way because you can just...you can't just go fight Nazis, right? It's not a good idea. You should have support networks and all that shit. But it is like...it's like the advantage of direct action, as you can imagine point A to point B fairly easily. But even though the landscape has changed, I feel like a lot of people....his, like, the grassroots Nazis still exist, right? And like, they still, like I have my Nazi doxers who occasionally remind me that they exist and things like that, you know? And like, so it still feels like there is still this territory. And I'm curious about what your experiences has been hunting Nazis, like, what are some of the...what are some of like, the wins, you've gotten out of that and some of the things that you've learned from doing that? Emily: I think that what really makes me proud when I do that work is when I get somebody out of the community that could have done harm to that community. And by exposing these folks and by helping a community defend itself, I think that's the greatest reward. So there's a young neo-Nazi, who with his 17 year old wife, lit a synagogue and fire in Indiana, and I did a lot of work tracking down his case and researching the documents. And in following his case, I found that he was recruited along with his wife into Identity Europa and found evidence of some of the people that recruited him and how they met and how they brought him into the network and her into the network and exposed this information. And as it turns out, this information helped connect to an online presence to a real name, and it turns out that this woman was running a stand in the Farmers Market in Bloomington, Indiana, and was just there in the community every day, and she was a neo-Nazi recruiter. And when the community found out, they mobilized and they organized and they work to get this woman kicked out and pushed out a farmers market and totally disrupted her ability to organize and recruit for that group. And I think for me, that's like the reward of sort of hunting Nazis and exposing them is that you actually get to help a community defend itself. I think the thing that I've learned from doing this is that it's fucking dangerous. Because, what you're doing is actually you're exposing people to shame. And the reason that this sort of--we can call it doxing--the way that this sort of doxing works is that it has to be bad enough for a person to be shamed out of their community, right. We don't do it to harass, we don't do it to intimidate. It's done to give people the tools to say, "I'm not willing to have this person in my midst. I'm not willing to employ them. I'm not willing to go to school. I'm not willing to work with them." Shame has to be a factor, right? And when you shame people, they can react, and they can come after you and yeah, that's why I had like an Atomwaffen hit squad tried to fly to Germany to assassinate me once, so I knew that was always a possibility. Margaret: Aw, that's exciting. Emily: Yeah, that was very strange. It was really strange when the Berlin police, like the Berlin polizei slid into my Twitter, DMs. That's 100% true story. I will show I will show you the DMs if you want some day. Margaret: No, I believe you. The interactions I've had with German police have all been incredibly authoritarian and incredibly polite. Those are the two...whatever, I've only been stopped by the German police twice. And both times, very polite, very stern. Emily: That's, the German dream, that that's Deutschland for you. Very authoritarian and very polite. Margaret: Which, you know, I have feelings about but yeah, it is what it is. I guess...Damn, okay. So wait, tell me more about this hit squad. Like what happened? Emily: Yeah. I don't exactly know what the motivation was. But I got a DM from the Berlin polizei. They were trying to find me. Because apparently--we think it was the CIA because the CIA is responsible for protecting Americans overseas--But somebody had, through whatever surveillance they had on Atomwaffen, the Atomic Division in English, whatever like surveillance they had on this group, they detected that these folks were flying overseas and had intentions to be in Germany and that they had intercepted chats apparently, saying that they're going to try to find me at a demo and stab me. Which is very funny, because I don't really go to demos in Berlin. But anyways, that was their plan. And I think I know who these folks are. They ended up getting arrested and sent to prison at some point, not for trying to murder me but for other things. Margaret: For being an Atomwaffen. So pretty...Yeah. Yeah. I don't feel like that group deter deserves to be pronounced properly in German because I feel like that's like what they want is to be like, "We're good, proper German Nazis," but there's just some fucking...I mean, obviously, I'm not trying to....Well it's interesting, I do want to diminish them and make fun of them, but at the same time, like, there's a weird balance here, where you kind of want to be like, "Oh, you dumb little assholes," you know? Well, not, while still accepting that they're a very serious threat in some ways. You know? Emily: I could always speak actual German around them. And watch them be dumbfounded. Margaret: Yeah. Okay, so one of the things that stands out from what you just said about all this stuff--besides the how complicated of strange times we're in where the CIA is stopping Nazis from murdering antifascists--is the fact that this recruiter was at the farmer's market instead of like...like when I was more actively involved in stuff, it was like metal shows, you know, it was this like, it was a very subcultural milieu, the the Nazi scene. And I feel like this like move to farmer's markets is like worth exploring and talking about, you know, you have the kind of like, the way I usually see it expressed is like the crunchy granola to Nazi pipeline and things like that. And like you talked about how, like homeschooling was like a big avenue. Yeah. Do you want to talk more about that just to the why they're at farmer's markets? Emily: I think it's, you know, there's so many different factions of the far-right. And one of them is sort of this traditionalist faction, right, there's a lot of like homesteading, and there's a lot of prepping, and there's a lot of like live off the land and be independent and have lots of white children and be pregnant and barefoot all the time. That's part of this sort of Christian, this this far-right, like, Christian sort of segment of the far right. And there's also like it's part of this white Christian sort of traditionalist second segment of the far-right. There's also like, Neo-pagan segments of the far-right that are similar. But yeah, I think that there's there's a lot of this like mythology, right? One of the essential elements of fascism is that what differentiates fascism from other far-right, authoritarian ideologies, is that Fascism is fundamentally around sort of this mythos of rebirth, right? So these these mythologies around like folkish culture and traditionalism, and the rebirth of like, return to like proper America, and like, when men were men and women were women and all of that stuff, right? Yeah, this is part of the mythology of it. And so the difference, like the shift between the skinhead Nazi to the traditionalist Nazi, it's as much a matter of ideology and aesthetic as it is the degree to which they understand and embrace those elements of the fascist belief, right? And I think it's dangerous because so much of American identity is also about nuclear family and home values, like you know, good old fashioned values and home cooking, and you know, doing things with your mom and your dad and your 2.7 kids and having a white picket fence, right. So much of American culture is wrapped up into that, fascists have realized that it's really easy to prey on that. That's why you have Nazis at the farmer's market. Margaret:Yeah. Makes me sad, but I get it. So what are what are we...we're coming up on an hour, and I'm kind of wondering what's the question I should have asked you? What else do you think? Do you have any, any final thoughts or any like, you know, rousing "How do we solve all of this?" not to put you in, not to give you an awkward question. Emily: I would have asked me about what it's like beyond the activism? Right, because I've actually kind of retired from the activism. And I think that a lot of my perspective now, is about what it feels like to be in the middle of this whole milieu of the shit. And then to walk away from it. Margaret: Yeah. Alright. What's that like? Emily: So I don't know. I think that there's a few years where like, I spent almost every day looking through Discord logs, doing alt-right research, tracking their cases. I was spending thousands of dollars on pacer fees, downloading and court documents and all this shit, right. And I would end my workday, and I would go home and I wouldn't play video games, I would start hunting Nazis. And I would wake up in the weekends and I would update my website where I tracked Nazis and I did this and this was my life. And it was a way of dealing with trauma. There was also a time, still today, probably a week doesn't go by that I don't see the torches from from the rally from August 11th, right? So that trauma is still very present. And it was a response to it was my way of coping with it and dealing with it. And then when the insurrection happened, I kind of saw that as a passing of the torch. The insurrection was the moment that the alt-right stopped being relevant and the Republican-right started being relevant in this discussion of "Extremism," right? And I realized pretty quickly that I wasn't going to...one, I wasn't going to be able to keep up with it and two, my work was done. My goal was always to try to give tools to mainstream journalists so that they could write more effectively about what we were seeing in the world from the position of an antifascist, right? antifascist often have a really antagonistic relationship with the media and for very good reasons. At the same time, if you don't have relationships with the media, nobody's going to tell your story to that forum for you. You have to have some sort of ability to work with these groups of people in order to help get your message out. With these reporters and stuff, right. And I feel like since 2016 up until 2021 there were a lot of folks that actually started to figure out how to write about the far-right. They're not always perfect at it, they don't always do a good job, they sometimes fail to credit and stuff like that. All of those things are annoying, but I think that they covered substantively a lot of this much better. And I decided to retire from public activism. And now that I stepped back, and I can look at this, and I'm not on Twitter day to day, and I'm not, you know, in every debate and having every argument, I can actually sort of zoom out and feel like I can have a much broader picture. And it helps helps with like my mental health. And I think that's actually...I think it's actually important to also take breaks from this work. Because if you're just in the day after day, you're going to be fucking miserable. And it's, and you're not going to be able to change anything, you're not going to fix anything if you don't give yourself breaks. Margaret: That makes a lot of sense to me. I feel like there's a lot of cycling in and out. And I don't know, I do think that there's a difference between...I think that sometimes people and you're not necessarily doing it here, but sometimes people refer to it as sort of like leaving a thing, right, and being like done with it. Or like, sometimes people burn out so hard that they're like, "Now I'm apolitical," or, "Now I don't care," or whatever. And I think there's a very big difference between like, "My time in the front line of this particular struggle is done. And now I'm in this like, support role where mostly I'm living my life," you know, and I feel like--and maybe I say that, because that's what I do, right? Like, I'm no longer in the streets to the degree that I was when I was younger. But and I actually think it's useful for people to see folks like you, who are no longer doing something full time but still still existing in this. Like, I don't know how to say this. But it's just like, I think it's useful for people to see that it's like, this isn't everything. This is not the entire life, one's entire life is not the struggle and things like that, you know? Emily: Yeah. And I think one, people are doing it better than I ever have done it. The people, the work that's being done now is such high quality, like the antifascist groups that are out there, they're so good at what they do that I'm embarrassed to even be in the same breath as them, right? They're so much better. They're so much more rigorous, they're so much more careful, they're' so much more impersonal egoless, right, that I like, stand in awe watching what they do. And I don't even want to consider myself part of that because they're just on another plane. I think that when I started this, we didn't have enough people doing the work. And I'm happy that I was able to contribute. And I think that that's my chapter of it. antifascism is shift work, right? You can't work in solid...like part of solidarity work is knowing when to step up and knowing when to step back. I'm still writing, you know, I think I know that not everyone agrees with some of my takes. My goal is not to get everyone to agree with me. Right? I think that's also something that I'm trying to take away getting away from Twitter, right, is I don't actually necessarily need to convince you or to sell you or to get you to agree with me. What I want to do is actually give you something to think about. And I want to try to give you a lot of tools to view a problem from a variety of perspectives, knowing that we're all on the same side. Right. And so, I don't know, I'm just sort of hoping that that I can add, if there's anything that I still have to add to this fight, it's that there's a little bit of to add depth and sort of dimensionality to it, rather than just being front lines, whether it's digital front lines or physical front lines, just to try to add some...to broaden the spectrum. Margaret: That makes sense. Yeah, go ahead. Emily: And also, just to kind of live a good life. Like I was targeted by Andy Ngo for how long....I was like...Seb Gorka once followed me on Twitter, right, while he was in the White House, you know. There was like, Milo Yiannopoulos was targeting me, right. I went through all of this stuff. I had Atomwaffen trying, you know, flying overseas and threatening to execute me and all this stuff. It's like...none of them succeeded. None. Like Chris Danwell spent, has spent five years trying to put me in jail and has never succeeded. These folks, they're not winning. I won. Yeah. And what allowed me to say that I won is I can close my laptop whenever I want, I can walk out the door, I can breathe free air. And even though I will face oppression in everything that I do because I'm not white and because I'm trans, I still had the freedom of that choice. And that is something that the fascists can never take away from me. And I think that that is an act of defiance and antifascism too. Margaret: That makes a lot of sense. And that feels like maybe a good note to end on. If people want to find more of your work, or in a nice way, if people want to follow you do or....I mean, it sounds like you...do you want people to find your work? And if so, how can they do so? Emily: Um, you can you can google my name. I still syndicate stuff through Twitter, right? So you'll still see the links and the stuff that I do when I post, right. So you can twitter @EmilyGorcenski, you can go to emilygorcenski.com and see what I'm posting and half of it is about my day job working in technology and half of it is about trans issues or antifascism or politics and half of it is shitposting. And I know that that's three halves. But I'm a mathematician, so I get to make the rules with numbers. And yeah, I think that, you know, I'm on Mastodon as well, but it sounds complicated. So just like Google my name and figure it out. Margaret: Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on. And keep winning. It makes me happy. Emily: Thank you for having me and keep doing what you're doing because I couldn't be winning if it weren't for people like you. Thanks. Margaret: Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, you got something out of it then well, the main thing to do is to think about how to be in solidarity with different groups when the Eye of Sauron passes upon each of us, because it does stay in motion for better and worse. You can also, if you like this podcast, tell people about it. You can tell people about it on the internet. You can tell people about it in real life. You can tell your dog about it. Kind of the only person I'd be able to tell about it right now. Hey, Rintrah, I like this podcast. Rintrah doesn't care. I recommend telling people. Animals are great but people are most of our listeners as far as I'm aware. I'm about to shout out Hoss the Dog. Shout out to Hoss the Dog, our like longest standing Patreon backer. If you want to support us as well as Hoss the Dog has supported us, you can go to patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. And there you will see that we put out new content every month that actually anyone can access for free at tangledwilderness.org But, if you want it mailed to your house support us there. And also you get a discount on everything we do in the store. You can also check out our other podcasts. At the moment...well, there might even be a new one by the time this comes out because I'm recording this a little bit before this one comes out--but at the moment, there's Anarcho Geek Power Hour, for people who hate cops and like movies. And there's Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness for the content that we put out as Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. That one comes out monthly. And I want to thank some of our backers. I want to thank Hoss the motherfucking Dog, who has been with us as a Patreon backer for years. Thank you Hoss, Michaiah, Chris, Sam, Kirk, Eleanor, Jenipher, Staro, Kat J., Chelsea, Dana, David, Nicole, Mikki, Paige, SJ, Shawn, Hunter, Theo, Boise Mutual Aid, Milica, Paparouna, Aly, Paige, Janice, Oxalis, and Jans. If you'd like to see your name on here, you can do it. You can even make it be a silly name that I have to say every time but not an offensive one because I wont do it, not even for money. Anyway, I hope you're doing as well as you can and I or one of the other hosts will see you next Friday. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co
Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Emil talks to Margaret about life on Svalbard. They talk about hiking in the Arctic, staying warm, gear, the unfortunate realities of climate change, and the rising conflicts between humans and polar bears. Guest Info Emil (He/they): a masters student on Arctic Outdoor life. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Transcript LLWD: Emil on Arctic Hiking Margaret: Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcasts for what feels like the end times. I'm one of your hosts, Margaret killjoy. And this week, we're going to talk about snow and ice and moving across them. And I'm probably gonna ask about glaciers. And we're gonna talk about all that stuff. And I'm really excited because we're gonna be talking about how to move over Arctic terrain, which might be everywhere in the future. I mean, everything's getting warmer, but like, you know, everything's getting wackier. So things might get different. Do you need crampons? I don't know. I'm gonna find out. And that's what we're going to talk about. But first, we're proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts. And here's another jingle from another jingle...Here's a jingle from another show on the network. [Makes noises that sound like singing a melody] Margaret: Okay, we're back. So, if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then a little bit of your background as to why I'm having you on the show. Emil: Yeah, sure. So, my name is Emil. I go by he/him or they/them. I have a bachelor's degree in Arctic Outdoor Life and Nature Guiding from the University of Tromsø in Northern Norway. And I'm currently doing a master's degree, also in Outdoor Life, at the University of Southeastern Norway. Margaret: Okay, so this means that you spend your time with a sledge and fighting polar bears? And penguins. Is that correct? [Said with dry sarcasm. Emil laughs] Emil: There have been sledges and polar bear guard standing involved. But the penguins are on the other side of the planet unfortunately. We don't have penguins up here. [Laughing] Would be cool, though. Margaret: Yeah, I mean, because then you can have the polar bears and the penguins hanging out and the Far Side comics would be complete. Okay, so yeah, so you're a guide, or like, you know, so this is one of the things that you do is you take people out and show them how to move over this terrain and show them how to explore. Like, is this like tourists? Is this like, scientists? Is this people who got lost in the snow on their way home? Like, I don't really know what...I've never been in Norway. This is gonna come across. Emil: Yeah, no, it could be, it could be all those things. It could be guiding on scientific expeditions, it could be taking tourists on trips, or it could be more like, you know, like summer camps and things of that nature. Which, is more like...not as hardcore. So you have sort of, it's a broad range of sort of different levels from summer camps with kids that's really sort of safe to the two week long expeditions in the Arctic, skiing, where you really have to sort of take care of yourself and the people around you and you have to be sort of on guard. Margaret: Okay, yeah. And so I kind of want to ask you about...I mean, basically a lot of my questions are just like how do you move over Arctic terrain? Like what is involved? How do you get...how do you practice? Like, is it...is everything like snowshoeing? Is it cross country skis? Is it like, dogs and sleighs? Is it reindeer pulling the sleighs? Like what's...I'm making jokes, but I also know there's reindeer up there. Emil: Actually, actually, you can. You can actually do reindeer sledding. Some people do that. Margaret: Whoa. Emil: But yeah, really, in Northern Norway, the northern most county, there is a yearly reindeer sledding competition, actually. So that is the thing that some people do. But it's...Yeah, dogs sledding and skiing, I think, are the most common for long distance. If you're moving, sort of in forests, then snowshoes can be advantageous. But if you're moving any sort of distance, it's going to be cross-country skis, or we call them mountain skis. They're a bit broader. They're a bit wider than normal like racing skis, or dog sledding. Yeah. Margaret: So, like for my own selfish reasons--it's unlikely that I will specifically need to be moving...escaping an apocalypse in Northern Norway--like that seems not incredibly likely but something that does, like, within my own selfish...when I think about it, I'm like, "Well, what if I had to move over some mountains?" Right? Like, what if? And that seems like, the kind of thing that could theoretically come up in my life or just could be fun, right? What's involved in starting to learn that stuff? Like both, like, how does one? Like when you take someone out and you're like, "Here's some snowshoes?" Is it like a? Does it take people hours to figure them out? Is it like, pretty quick? Like... Emil: It's...I think it's pretty intuitive often. A lot of the outdoors sort of pedagogy or the philosophy of learning is learning by doing. So, it's getting hands on experience and just sort of trying it, obviously, putting people in an environment that's challenging enough that they feel a sense of accomplishment and mastery but not so challenging that they die. Margaret: Okay, that's seems like a good way to learn. Yeah. Emil: Yeah. So it's...What's involved in learning it? I think a lot of it does come from from childhood, at least if you live in the north, sort of something you grew up with. But I think it's kind of just like, getting out there. And then I know, there's skiing courses and stuff that you can take if you want to learn, like technique. Margaret: Yeah. Okay. Well, if I like had to, like, Lord of the Rings style cross a mountain pass, do I want skis? Or do I want snow shoes? Or do I want the Ring of Power? Like? Like, like, if I'm just crossing a mountain...Like, obviously, if I'm going to be like moving overland in the far north, it would be way better if I had skis, it seems to be the case. But like, if I'm just trying to like cross a mountain pass, do I need skis? Emil: Well, I think it depends on the...I think it's going to depend on the time of year and the snow depth. So you don't necessarily need skis. You can walk through the snow with just your normal shoes, not even snow shoes. But, it's probably going to be faster on skis. And additionally, you would probably want, at least if if you're going to be out for more than a day and you're going to be out for several days, you'd want something called a pulk instead of a backpack. A pulk is just a sled. So you pull the sled after you instead of carrying a backpack. It helps with stability. You can carry more, which typically, winter equipment is heavier. So it is advantageous to pull the sled. Margaret: Okay. Yeah, cuz one of the reasons...I think, I think that you commented, like, we posted an episode recently with an ultralight through hiker, right, and I think your comment was something like, "Whoa, things are different in America," or something like that. And, and so that's why I reached out to you. So, it's like, I'm curious, your reaction to concepts of like weight and ultralight and stuff like that. And I guess when you're carrying a pulk you, like...weight probably still matters, but in a very different way? Emil: Yeah. At least when it comes to when it comes to winter in the Arctic, you want equipment that sturdy. It's quite often specialized equipment as well. So, on average, it's going to be a bit heavier. So doing ultralight isn't necessarily feasible. So I think it's going to depend on sort of the environment you're in. Moving ultralight in a temperate forest, I think is probably more feasible. Like in, I don't know, the Appalachian Trail or the parts of the PCT, right? But, it's it's also a thing where the arctic environment is kind of inhospitable in the sense that there isn't a lot of available energy in the environment. So if you think about walking through temperate forest, right, you have firewood and there might be some food and stuff that you can forage, right. So energy both in the sense of fuel for heat and in the sense of calories, right? If you think about moving across a snowy mountain plateau, it's sort of a barren, it's kind of like an ice desert. You have to carry all of that energy with you, the fuel, the gasoline, the food, everything. So, it's necessarily going to be heavier. Margaret: Wait, what's the gasoline for? Emil: The gasoline is for stoves for burning. Yeah. Margaret: Oh, okay. Emil: Both for heating food and heating the tents. Margaret: Okay. Okay, so then...this is so much to think about. Obviously the way people do this now is probably very differently from the way people did this a hundred years ago or something, right? Like, I assume that a hundred years ago people probably bringing like--well, actually probably they were still bringing oil stoves a hundred years ago, actually, now that I think that through--rather than, like...people aren't hauling their firewood. People are instead hauling oil to burn? Is that? Emil: Yeah, yeah. Or is it kerosene? The sort of oil? Margaret: From wax? Emil: Yeah. Margaret: Burnable wax. Paraffin wax. Okay, yeah. Um, I'm trying to think there's like so many things I.... Emil: I know, it was different, like, the sleeping bags were made of reindeer skins and stuff, you know? Margaret: Yes. Yeah. And so it's probably lighter equipment now than it was 100 years ago? I assume that's like... Emil: Yeah. Margaret: Okay, what kills people? Like, besides probably everything, but like, what is the? Like, what are the like, main things you're worried about? Like, if I'm like, walking through the snow, am I gonna like just like, fall into the snow and then die? Like, I know, there's like avalanches to worry about...Like, like, I read a lot of like, "And then everyone went hiking, and then there's snow. And then they all died. And it was Russia. And people still argue about what happened to them. And they all went mad." Now, I can't remember where it was from. Emil: Yeah, the Dyatlov pass incident, I think it's called. Yeah, that I think was confirmed to be an avalanche. Or the the main theory now is that was an avalanche. That can....actually this actually a good example. Margaret: Yeah. Do you want to explain to the audience because if people have no idea what we're talking about, what are we talking about? Emil: Yeah, it was a group of people in Russia that went on a hike and they all died. And it's been sort of...it's been sort of a mystery for quite some time, what actually happened to them. Right. So there's been a lot of like, conspiracy theories and stuff. But, to the question of sort of what kills people: what killed them, the the predominant theory now is actually a, I believe, a combination of an avalanche and subsequent hypothermia. Okay. So they're...what we believe is that their tent was caved in by an avalanche, which then made everyone super wet, and super cold, and without shelter. And so they became hypothermic, and essentially, became so hypothermic that--and this is what happens when you become really, really, really cold, you start to feel warm, which is called the sort of...I think it's called the hypothermia paradox, right, which is when people, towards the end, they get so cold that they feel warm, they take off all their clothes and then they succumb... Margaret: Die. Emil: Yeah, to the cold. Alright, so the main things to worry about, I would say, are avalanches. So, if you're moving in terrain that is steeper than 30 degrees, or moving...then that's sort of the avalanche zone and then you have a zone below that where the avalanche could...the run out zone that you have to worry about. And then you have hypothermia, of course, just being cold. And hypothermia can be sort of a slow and insidious killer because it can actually creep up on you over the course of several days. Margaret: Yeah. Oh, interesting. Emil:Yeah, it can. And then the last one is carbon monoxide poisoning. Margaret: Oh, from like burning stuff inside your tent? Emil: Yes. Margaret: Or your snow cave. Emil: Yeah, from burning stuff inside the tent or the snow cave when you have, for example, a gasoline burner that isn't burning properly. So the flame is, if the flame is yellow, that means that it's an impure...the...it's not a...it's not a complete complete combustion, as opposed to when the flame is blue. So blue flame means less carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is tasteless, colorless gas. It's a heavy gas that settles below, sort of on the floor. And it takes up the place of oxygen in your blood. So, your blood transports oxygen through your body. But, when the body takes up carbon monoxide there is no more space for oxygen, essentially. The body thinks it's oxygen, and so what happens is that you actually, your brain becomes oxygen depleted. You become dizzy, tired, you can begin to hallucinate, and just generally your decision making ability degrades. Margaret: You sound like you're speaking from experience. EmilI have, I have woken up one time with sort of...you get these, you can get these sort of black spots under your nose almost from a night of sleeping in it. Yeah. And I was kind of dizzy after, that day. Margaret: Okay, but do you all have a like, and maybe it would be in Norwegian and not in English, but do you have like a like, like, "Flame is blue, that'll do. Flame is yellow, you're a dead fellow." Like, is there like... that's the one I just made up. But like... Emil: It was very good. I don't think we do, actually. We should. Yeah, no, we're not that creative. Margaret: Okay, you got to work on that. Emil: Maybe it's something to do with our Norwegian language. I don't know. Margaret: I literally don't know word of Norwegian. So I can't...That's annoying. I'm like, I usually know how to say at least like, "Thank you," and, "Fuck you," in like most languages. Emil: You know, it's quite similar, actually, because English is a mix between, I think it's...there's some Gaelic in it, and then there's Norwegian, and Danish, and Swedish, and French, right, because of all the different groups of people that invaded England and settled there over the history. So it's, you say, "Egg," I say, "Egg." [rhymes with "dig"] You say, "Window," I say, "Vindu." So, it's quite similar. Margaret: Okay, how do you say "thank you"? Emil: Takk Margaret: Takk. Okay. I think I have heard this before. Or is it? Maybe it's similar to Swedish or something? Emil: Yeah, they're mutually intelligible. Margaret: Oh, interesting. That's good to know. My tiny bit of Swedish. Emil: Swedes and Norwegians can talk to each other. Margaret: As everyone in the audience learns that Margaret doesn't know shit about Norway. I know way more about Finland. Okay, so. So, the question then is like, okay, why do you burn stoves inside? Is it just because you fucking need to? Because there's like, otherwise you'll freeze to death? Emil: You don't, so you don't necessarily need to. It does help, right? It does help with especially the form of hypothermia that's kind of creeping hypothermia that you you get warm once a day in the evening. That you...and it's also like a psychological thing. It's having warm food, knowing that you'll have warm food. It's also...well actually you do need to because you need... Margaret: And you can't look outside because it's too cold? Emil: And you need, and you need, you need water as well. You need to melt snow to drink. Margaret: Oh shit. Yeah. Emil: Yeah, yeah. So you do actually need a burner. You can theoretically melt snow by just putting it in a, some sort of a plastic bottle and heating it with your body heats, so keeping it close to your body while you walk. But, it's not very efficient. Yeah, so and it's also the social psychological aspect of, "You know even though I'm cold now, I know that when I get to camp tonight I will be warm." Right? Margaret: So does that mean y'all's tents...Like in my head when I think about tents in the continental US where I live, there's like three-season tents and then four-season tents, and four-season tents are just like honestly...they're almost like more windproof and they just have like fewer events, right? And they're heavier. And then there's like lighter shit like single wall tents, and little pyramid tents with no floor, and all that stuff. But like...but overall, we have three season four season tents. But then I'm like aware of this thing that just is not part of my life because I don't live in the North--if you ask some southerners I do, but, you know, that's a political distinction and not a how-much-snow-is-that distinction [noise of something hitting the floor]...I just dropped something that scared my dog. But then, I'm aware that there's like these tents that have stove jacks and stuff and you can vent out a chimney and shit. Is that like what y'all are fucking with? Are y'all just basically taking the same four-season tents as us and then like putting a burner in there and like hoping you get the flame right? Emil: Yeah, it's essentially a four-season tent. Yeah. So, the last one. You can, if you do dog sledding, for example, or you use a snowmobile then you can do the really big heavy duty tents with...what did you call it? Margaret: The stove jack. Emil: Stove jacks. Yeah, right. So yeah, it's the chimney, right? Margaret: Yeah Emil: Yeah. So, you can do that. But, I think those are more used for base camps because they're so big and heavy. So, it's more of a four-season tent and then you have like, you know, you have an outer tent and an inner tent, right, so you can cook food in the outer tent, but you can also bring the stove inside the inner tent as long as you're careful with all your sleeping bags and all that stuff. If that squared away, you can put the, you can put the stove on a wooden plate, for example. You can just jury-rig that system. And then, if you then burn inside the inner tent, it can be easily 20 degrees Celsius. I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit, but it's like a nice comfortable temperature. Margaret: Nice and warm. Yeah, I want to say it's around 70 [degrees Fahrenheit] or so. Yeah,, let me actually do this math for our listeners. 68. Yeah, I was close. Yeah. The the ideal temperature in a lot of ways. Emil: Exactly. Margaret: Yeah. Okay, because I cannot imagine bringing a stove inside my...like the way that I grew up, you know, I mean, we would have like...I would camp in...Well, this is going to be non-mutually intelligible. I guess I'll just keep this thing up. You know, it's like I've camped in like five degrees Fahrenheit, right? Which is like negative fifteen. That's about as cold I've camped and it would never occur to me to heat my tent. But, I know a lot of people do do that. And then the other thing...Okay, the other question I have is: do people use little...like what I use in my like cabin and I use in my truck is like a little one burner, a little propane heater that's like meant for inside safeness. Do people use those? Like, why the stove? Is that so they have only one thing that both melts your water and keeps you warm or like...I'm so afraid of this carbon monoxide thing. I'm just like, we need to come up with something different. Emil: Yeah. No, the carbon monoxide poisoning is definitely something to be aware of. The key there is to check your flame and check that you have a blue flame. So, you can do that by, and you can improve that by...Like, when you have a gasoline burner, usually you have a pump to pressurize the gas container. Sometimes you have to pressurize the pump to make sure that you have a blue flame but it's...You can use like propane or butane, but that is mostly used in the summer because when it gets cold enough those gases don't really work anymore. Margaret: Are you fucking kidding me? Goddammit. Emil: No, no. Margaret: Okay, I believe you. I was trying to figure out why the fuck you use gasoline. So, this makes sense. Okay. Emil: Yeah, you use gasoline because gasoline works in extremely cold temperatures. [Margaret unintelligibly interrupts] Margaret: Go ahead. Sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Emil: No, you can get like, you can get like special propane, butane that can do a bit colder. But if it's going to be really cold, you do want gasoline. Essentially. Margaret: When you say really cold--I have a suspicion that we have different conceptions of how cold the world can get--can you give me an example of what you're talking about? Like how cold are we talking about? Emil: Yeah, I mean, so butane and propane, at least I think butane, stops working at, let's say, I don't know, 20...I'm looking at the Celsius to Fahrenheit calculator. 20 degrees Fahrenheit? Maybe? It's below freezing, right? Margaret: Yeah. Emil: So like, a bit below freezing, the gases kind of stop working as they should. But then if we're talking about really cold, my definition of like, really, really cold would be something like 22 below Fahrenheit. Right? That's really cold. Margaret: Okay, what's the coldest you've camped in? This is like, I'm just literally just curious. Emil: Yeah, it's around there. It's around 22 below 0 in Fahrenheit terms. Margaret: I think that's roughly the coldest I've ever experienced in my life and that was not camping. I'm very grateful. Emil: That sort of cold really sort of saps the warmth out of you, right? It really kind of...you feel your heat is being stolen by the environment. You have to be constantly moving. Margaret: So, that actually leads to one of the other questions I have about all of this. Whenever I read about people in Antarctica or the Arctic, it talks about like...because in my head you know, if you're cold, you put on more layers, but I'm aware of this thing where like, if you're hiking and like climbing and doing all this shit, you kind of can't just do that because then you like sweat and die. Like... Emil: Yeah. Margaret: What kind of clothing? Like what do you need clothing-wise to go on an Arctic expedition in the winter? Emil: Right. So you want, you want wool as your base layer. It's also--I think in English, it's referred to as a wicking layer--because it dries, it basically takes the moisture away from your body, right? And it's also...wool is also warm when it gets wet, or warmer than cotton, for example. Yeah, so you want wool as a base layer and then maybe you want, if it's really cold, you might have a second warm layer and then a jacket. You can have, if you're standing still or you're in camp, you can do a down jacket. When you're walking, it's quite common to use just a shell jacket, shell pants that are windproof and waterproof, but that's what you're walking in. And also, it's a constant sort of, it's a constant adjustment, where you're putting on and taking off layers as you're walking as well quite often. So if you're walking up...if you sort of, you've been walking flat and then you come to sort of a pass that you have to climb or a mountain that is...like a steep hill, you might take off the layers, but you have to be adjusting. Okay, but to the sweat thing, like...Yes. No sweating is like...the ideal situation is to be dry. But you are going to sweat. And I think sort of the whole, "If you sweat, you die," thing is kind of overblown as long as you can dry--and that's another reason why you would want a stove in your tend, so you can dry your clothes in the evening. Margaret: Okay, okay. We say cotton kills because it's alliterative. Is it alliterative in Norwegian also or no? Emil: Yeah, you mean you can...Yeah, I think so. Margaret: Okay, because that's one of the phrases I learned when I was very young about not wearing cotton is, "Cotton kills." Although that is a little bit with the like, "Everything will murder you," theory. Although, it sounds like in the Arctic more things will actually murder you than usual. But, alright, well, I feel like I could talk about this for the whole hour. But, there's a bunch of other stuff I want to talk to you about. And, one of the questions I have is, as I read a lot of stuff about climate change and one of the main things that it talks about is like the disappearing ice and the like, the impact this is having on the polar areas of the world. And, and that is completely hypothetical in my head, right? I've only seen a glacier with binoculars. On the other hand, I would have seen a lot more glaciers in Glacier National Park if I had been there 20 years earlier. So clearly, this is an impact. But, how has it...like what does it look like on the ground for climate change? Emil: I can give you two examples. One example is from Svalbard, which is a Norwegian owned archipelago. It's north of Iceland and east of Greenland. It's quite close to the North Pole where I spent a year doing an arctic nature guide course. And on Svalbard, the thing is, Svalbard does have polar bear, right? And polar bears are classified as marine mammals for a reason. That's that they spend a lot of time out on the ice, right, hunting seals. Seals are what they eat. And with the warming climate, Svalbard is actually one of the warmest...or one of the fastest warming places on Earth. It has been...it's warmed, I think 4 degrees Celsius for the past, or over the past 50 years. So, since the 1970s, that's 4 degrees, right? We're talking about the global average of 1.5. Celsius. So, that gives you a sense of the scale of warming in the in the north, in the Arctic, heating up really quickly. And so one of the things that happens is because the ice is melting, the sea ice, polar bears are increasingly hungry and losing their sort of winter habitat, right, so they're more on the archipelago itself instead of out on the sea. Margaret: Are you leading up to they attack more people? Is that what's happening? Emil: Yeah. Yeah. Margaret: Oh, fuck. Oh no. Because then people shoot them and then they die. Emil: Exactly. Margaret: Okay. Please continue. Sorry. Emil: Yeah, no, that's what's happening. So, there's two things, right, they're hungrier and they are in the same places people are, right. And so they...it's it's increasing. The polar-human conflict is increasing because there are more polar bears coming into camp. And they're hungrier, so they're more motivated to find food, right. So, that's--which is again, sort of exacerbating the loss of number of polar bears, right? So, it's kind of like it's a double whammy. It's both the climate and then the climate is impacting human-polar bear relations. If you want to put it that way. Margaret: Okay... Emil: So, then I have another example. Margaret: Yeah, and then I'm going to ask you about fighting polar bears. Okay. Emil: Awesome. So, in Northern Norway, the only indigenous people in sort of Western Europe is in Northern Norway, the Sámi people. So Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. And one of the sort of main components of Sámi culture, at least today, as we know it today, is reindeer herding. And so what happens--and the reindeer eat moss from the ground also in the wintertime--And so what happens is when the winters get warmer, you have more of these freeze...these what do you call them...Cycles... Margaret: Oh, like when it defrosts and then freezes again? Emil: Yeah, exactly. It melt-freeze cycles [melt-thaw cycles] which creates ice. Which makes it more difficult for the reindeer to find food because they have to kick through the ice layer to get to the moss. And so this is impacting indigenous livelihoods as well. I wanted to bring that up, too. Margaret: Yeah, no, no, that's...it's absolutely worth bringing up. And then I think that one of the things about this melt-freeze cycle, I was talking with one of my friends who lives in Canada who like has...like, in rural Canada, where it snows more than half the year, which is not my experience. Where I live, it could snow, you know, three or four months of the year. And, it seems when you when you're somewhere where, like where I live, where it constantly melts and freezes, it seems like a nightmare to have nine months of snow it seems unlivable. Right? I'm like, "How does anyone do it?" And I was having a long conversation with my friend about it. And one of their main points was that like, it stays snow. And so it's navigable in a way that like...you know, when it snows here, the road is fine, because I have a big truck, but the next day, it's fucked because the next day the sun has melted enough of it and then it's frozen overnight. And then like...and if more snow falls, it's snow on top of ice and then the roads are just fucked. You know? So I just...it's interesting to think about that also fucking up moss and fucking up...It makes sense. But I don't know. Okay, my other...Okay, I have two questions about all this. One, is it just heartbreaking? To like, actually visually see more of this happening? Because we have like, "oh, the weather's really fucking weird." And we have a few more like disasters, right? But I'm not watching permafrost melt. I'm not watching glaciers recede. I'm not watching the place that I go...like, I'm not trying to bum you out. But, I'm like...How do you know? How do you cope? Emil: You know, it's it's difficult. I think. I don't think I have a good answer for you. Yes, it is depressing, right? And so I think one coping mechanism could be just taking that sort of sorrow and anger and putting it towards political action. I think that sort of...I think that's what I'm doing. Also, just like, getting really mad at politicians, just going around thinking all day, like, "Fucking Prime Minister. Fucking," you know? You could just, you could just be angry. It's okay to just be angry, you know? That's...that's fine. But, yeah. No, it is, I think, especially for the people who live in these landscapes and have their lives and livelihoods intimately connected to these landscapes, it's...we think of climate change as an existential threat in the abstract, but for them, it's already sort of in their lives, you know? And so yeah, I do think it's...it's, it's closer, kind of. It's not just on TV. It's in this valley you're moving through, you know? Margaret: Yeah. And having it be different every year, probably every year that you go into it. Okay, well, that brings me my other...It doesn't actually but my other question from what you were just saying. Alright, so how do you fight polar...like, you're saying that it increases, like, conflict and so it's like two questions, like, one, is like...I'm sort of aware I'm gonna get some of this wrong--I know how to deal with black bears because they are black bears where I live, which is that you have to like, stand up to them, right? You'd be like, "Hey, fuck you, black bear. I'm bigger than you," which is like a lie, right? But they're like, "Ahh, alright, whatever." And they fuck off. And it's like sketchy. And it like confuses me that I have friends who do this on a regular basis who are like forest defenders, you know. And I've only had to do it like, a handful times in my life and let it stay that way. That would be great. And then we have like grizzly bears are like the biggest thing that we worry about, right? Because like--and I don't worry about them because I don't live in Alaska--but like, the polar bears are like...they're like mythical to me, right? They're like, oh, you know, there's bears. And then there's like dire bears, which are grizzly bears. And then there's dragons. There's just dragons in the north. And that's the polar bears. They are this like mythical fucking thing. And so the concept of like...like I've stood guard for bears or like, when you have a forest defense camp in the Pacific Northwest, people have to do bear duty where they sit around and like, throw rocks at bears that are trying to come into camp and shit, right? But I can't imagine what that is like with polar bears. I want like a fucking palisade, and like, like spotlights, and like helicopters, and shit. Like, like, what is the...How do you deal with polar bears? Emil: Yeah, so, I think it's much the same way that you deal with other kinds of bears. The only thing is that, I mean polar bears can be really, really persistent. I believe they're the only bear species that is known to actively hunt humans in emergencies. Margaret: [Laughing] I mean, it makes sense. They're a lot bigger than us. Yeah. Emil: Yeah, but it's actually, it's only in emergencies because it's a caloric loss project for them. The reason they eat seals is because seals are so fatty. And fat has more than twice the amount of calories per pound than carbohydrates and protein. So, like most of us aren't as fat as a seal. So it's...they don't do it unless they absolutely have to. But you do...When you're out in a big group, you do polar bear guard, right, whenever you have camp. 24/7. That means getting out of your comfortable warm sleeping bag where you're snug at three o'clock at night and going out for an hour and grabbing the rifle and standing guard from from three to four, right, in the middle of night or in the early morning hours. But, you do, you have some sort of signal flare, usually, that is for scaring the bear away. So, you you can have...it's like a small explosive fired out of a flare gun that...it's just like a flash bang essentially, right. It's a really big loud boom. And then you also carry a rifle, usually, you can also, some people carry magnums. I have seen... Margaret: By Magnum, you mean a large pistol? Emil: [Said while Margaret interrupts Emil] I have seen Glocks for sale....Yeah. By Magnum, I mean, like a .44 Magnum revolver. Margaret: Yeah. Okay. Emil: Yeah, a nine millimeter. I have seen some Glocks for sale. That's not really going to be very effective. You need a big round like a .308. Margaret: There's 10mm. Yeah. And they're like, I mean, actually, for Grizzlies and for black bears, you're better off, instead of a gun, you're better off with bear spray. It's just like, statistically, more effective at deterring a bear is to get sprayed with bear spray than to get shot. I don't know about polar bears. But like, but I know that 10mm is a round that is often carried by people who are in Alaska or are in places where like, big fucking game is like a thing that they worry about, you know? Anyway, I didn't mean to cut you off. I'm just like, geeking out about it. But, so the rifle that you're carrying is .308? Emil: Yeah, usually .308. Sometimes .30-06 Springfield, [pronounced thirty-aught-six] usually .308 Winchester. That's kind of the standard, and then some people carry essentially big handguns as well. It's lighter to carry a revolver. But, obviously it has sort of like less range and stuff. But it's less...it's more difficult to shoot a pistol than a rifle, but I have to say it's...it's shooting a polar bear is not something that you should do. There an endangered species. It's actually, it's illegal. It's illegal to shoot a polar bear in Norway. The hunting was banned in the 70s. So, when you shoot a polar bear on Svalbard, in self-defense, it's treated as essentially like a murder case. Margaret: But you just like, prove it was self-defense? Emil: You prove self-defense, essentially. So that's, that's very important to add that it is like a last resort. Margaret: Yeah. Do people use bear spray for polar bears or just not? Emil: You can you can use bear spray as well. But, I think the effective range of bear spray is so short that, sort of, people might not be comfortable with letting the bear get that close. Margaret: That's fair. I mean, I don't want to get that close to a...I've only seen a grizzly once it was through binoculars. And I was like, "This rules. This is the right distance. I'm so happy. I got to see a grizzly bear. It is checked off the list." Okay. Alright, so that's how you defend yourself against polar bears. How common...I mean, you're saying on Svalbard it's becoming more and more common, but it's like, is this a like...like, there's places where bears are like raccoons, you know, they're just kind of everywhere. But I assume that this is a kind of not the case, because they're pretty endangered. Emil: Yeah, not quite like raccoons, but they're quite common. I think--because the usual line about Svalbard is, you know, "The archipelago with more polar bears than people." Which has, which has a degree of truth to it. It's just that the polar bears are also distributed around the sea ice, around the island group, right? So, it's 2,500 people, and they reckon around 3,000 polar bears. So, it's quite common, quite common. It's not unusual to see a bear. But I didn't see one. Margaret: Okay, fair enough. Like, I want to go. I like, I've never been up where the sun doesn't actually set. I've been close, you know, Well, actually, I've done the opposite. I've been in the far north in the summer and had like 2am Twilight and I love it. Emil: It's so weird. It's like a super strange experience coming out of a nightclub at like, 4am and then the sun is just like shining straight in your face. Like, "No, I'm tired. I want to sleep." Like all the birds are circling around you and fucking making ungodly noises and it's...yeah, it's a surreal experience. I mean, it's...I've been partying all night and it's like, it's bright as day now. Margaret: Yeah, I'd feel betrayed. I'd be like...Yeah, I like it. But, I don't know how I would handle it if I lived there. I like that I get to experience that every now and then. And I don't know how I would handle the, you know, how--I don't know how many days of night it is--but you know, the sun not coming up thing. But, okay, one of the other things that you mentioned that you wanted to talk about, and I got really excited about, was how you spent a lot of your time in the outdoors, you spent a lot of your time guiding people and like and working with groups of people in dangerous and complicated situations. And I want to ask you about the decision making in that kind of environment and leadership structures. And also, you know, specifically how this led you towards more thinking about non-hierarchical organizing and anarchism and stuff like that. What was that like for you? Or, what's that? What is that like? Emil: Yeah, so, in my, during my studies, I've been outside, I've been working with a lot of different groups of, especially fellow students, and one of the things that struck me is that the...when we were out on trips, especially like study trips, all of the decision making was remarkably sort of consensus based. Rarely was there sort of a clear leader. It didn't really feel natural to have a clear leader. When we were...When we had differing opinions about which route to take, we would usually sort of discuss and people kind of fall into, sort of, the organizational structure where people just sort of take up tasks that they see need doing, you know, and things just kind of work themselves out. And it's also...Now, it is nice when you have the sort of structure to have sort of evening talks that are, for example, after dinner we have half an hour of like daily feedback, for example. "How did you do this day? Is there anything that's, you know, bothering you? Annoying you?" I think actually the Kurds have something similar? I don't remember the name. Margaret: It's called techmill. Emil: Techmill. Yeah, exactly. It's...So, we kind of had our own, like daily techmill when we were on hikes. And so this experience, really, I think, is one of the things that sort of pushed me towards anarchism, towards like, the idea of non-hierarchical social organization, or like self-organizing, because I see that it works even in sort of demanding contexts because the outdoors can be quite demanding. You're like tired, cold, wet. And yet still, just with like a bit of work, a bit of like good effort it works and works well. Margaret: Yeah. I love hearing this, because I like things that fit my presupposition about how the world works, but specifically, it's like, because it's the opposite of what everyone says. Everyone always says, like, "Oh, you can do consensus when it's like, no stakes. But as soon as you're in the backwoods you need a guy with big muscles to be like, "Nah, we got to go this way, then like," and everyone would just naturally..." It's just really cool to be like, this makes sense to me. They're like, "Oh, which route do we take?" "We should figure this out, not listen to what the captain says. Like, we should actually listen to everyone here. And come to conclusions, because this is all of our lives on the line. And there are a bunch of people who like know what they're doing. So we should ask all of them and figure it out." This makes complete sense to me. But it's completely the opposite of what everyone always says about this kind of situation. Yeah. Emil: I have to say there are specific situations that are...When when the risks are extremely high, when you're in an emergency, for example, if there's been an avalanche, it does make sense to have one person coordinating the whole thing, right? Margaret: That makes a lot of sense to me. Emi:l: Or, or...Yeah, same thing if, hypothetically, this is not just outdoors but like if you're being shot at, if you're in a group of people and you're like taking fire, right, it makes sense to have like one person who kind of, whose job it is to to keep their head on a swivel and kind of figure out what's going on and make some decisions because it needs to happen quickly, right? Since there may be someone stuck in an avalanche. But other than those sorts of extreme situations, right, that consensus works. Margaret: Yeah. Okay. And I actually really liked that you point this part out too, because I think a lot about like, when you're in a situation where someone's been grievously injured, the medic is in charge. And the medic can tell everyone what to do. And you just fucking do it. You know? Emil: Exactly. Margaret: Yeah. And that makes sense. Like, "This person is bleeding out. You go get me towels." Or...you don't need towels. Just whatever it is. Emil: Yeah, you're not going to spend 10 minutes discussing what to do and figuring out a plan together because by that time the person is already dead. Margaret: Right. And so that that actually does make a lot of sense to me. And then you have like, basically, these roles are filled based on the people who are most capable doing them. Like, the person who's been in a bunch of firefights, like...Yeah, maybe when we're planning the overall strategy we listen to the people who have the most strategic knowledge, but it's still "we figure it out together." But yeah, like no, if someone's shooting at me, and someone's like, "You go there. Shoot back. You do this. You do that." Like, I do like...To me, that's almost like...It's like the exploding brain of anarchism. Like, the bigger and bigger steps of it is being like, "Oh, no, sometimes you let people tell you what to do." Like, sometimes that's part of being a part of a functioning group. And then, okay, the other thing that I like about it, too, is that you're talking about like, okay, you have your conversations you have every evening and it's this balance because you're talking about how everyone kind of takes these roles. They're like, "Oh, what needs doing?" and then does it. But, then part of it is structured and so it's this mix of organic...It's like chaotic and structured all at the same time, you know? I really liked it. Emil: And it's not just...I mean, you can have I think social structure without hierarchy, right? Margaret: Yeah. Emil: So you can...So I mean, for me, hierarchy kind of implies a...kind of implies violence and coercion, right? Margaret: Yeah. Emil: But structure, social structure doesn't necessarily imply violence. Social structure can just be sort of something that emerges by itself and which can then be discussed in these evening conversations, for example. So, if a person sort of naturally falls into the role of cook for the group, right, that can be a form of social structure that just kind of emerges. But, if that person isn't happy in that role, it also helps to have these sort of regular scheduled conversations where those sorts of things can be discussed, right? And maybe we want to...maybe they want to do something different the next day, or like, maybe we can like switch tasks. Margaret: Yeah. Emil: Right? And so, but this actually comes to something that I think is sort of important here and that's that the outdoors is actually a fantastic arena for forming social connections and group, sort of, bonds, and also political...and also, like, within political groups. Like there's a reason why in the 20th century outdoor activities, outdoor recreations, like the Scouts and those types of stuff, but that type of stuff was actually taken up by all the mass political movements, socialists, and communists, and anarchists, and fascists. All to use the outdoors as like an arena, right? But, I think as, as the--because it works really well--but as our societies have sort of Neo-liberalized and individualized and kind of also de-politicized in a way, I think that sort of, the outdoors as a political arena, that idea, has sort of faded away. And I think actually, for us as anarchists, that's something that we can kind of take back. We can use the outdoors as a fantastic place to get to know each other and to practice anarchism, to form group bonds, and to just train. And it's also just like fun. It's a nice thing to do. Margaret: I'm really excited by this idea. That makes so much sense to me. I think about like...I mean, one, literally being in Boy Scouts is a very formative experience for my life, right? And I like go back to the stuff I learned there constantly. And I was only in there for a couple years, because then I got like to cool. And like, you know, quit or whatever. And and then yeah, like, as I read about social movements in 20th century, I read about, you know, the hiking clubs in Weimar era Germany that the communist, the fascist, and the anarchists all did things with. And the like, wild, queer kids who didn't really have a political label would also go do. And yeah, and then the Spanish anarchists had sports clubs as a huge part of what they were doing. No, this is really interesting to me. And then because even like when you're describing all this stuff--because I've been getting more and more into hiking--and one of the things that when you're talking, like one of the reasons I want to ask about all the Arctic stuff is like not because I really think that there's a really good chance that I'm going to have to move over mountains personally, right? But knowing how feels like really useful to me and interesting to me. And then also like, going out and practicing and learning seems like fun, you know, and a good way to...And even...Okay, when I was talking about, when I was asking you how to cope with climate change, one of the things that I've been doing--and I don't know whether it's like good or not, but it's been working a little bit for me--is to kind of embrace seeing more and like experiencing more--and not necessarily just like tourist and traveling--but like literally just hiking around where I live and just like feeling the Spring, you know, like getting out and being like, "Spring is here." This winter was weird. We had a really dry, warm winter here. The west coast the US had the exact opposite. You know, but like, being like okay, how is this Spring different than last Spring? I want to be able to start really building that and being like, well if this is the last bits of the Earth being like this, let's fucking enjoy it. Let's do this shit. Emil: Yeah, I agree completely. Yeah, it's one of the things where I think a lot of people...because being outdoors, we've talked a lot about the practical and a little bit about the political, it also has an existential dimension. People go outdoors to feel a sense of peace, or time for reflection, or to get into, there's a particular rhythm to, to hiking, for example. And it also has a spiritual aspect actually for a lot of people. So you can, what some people experience is that like, as they spend time outdoors, they feel a sense of sort of connection, or a being in place, feeling like a part of a network of relations to the landscape around them to the flora and the fauna. And from that can actually emerge, kind of animism as well. Like, if I'm wandering alongside a river, for example, in a valley and I'm fantasizing, I'm starting to think about this river as sort of having a life or like having a life force that sort of an animistic thought, and it doesn't mean that--and it sort of arises naturally, I think--and it doesn't mean that I literally think that the river has a consciousness, for example. But it's an expression of this idea that this river in this valley is central to a sort of network of relations. It's thinking ecologically. So, I think getting in touch with that side of things as well can be really--you talked about how to cope with what you asked about how to cope with like, climate grief--I think just sort of getting in touch in that way, can be a way to...or just like getting close, you know, to the landscape, to this network of relations. I think that can be a really sort of valuable personal experience and also an experience that you can have in groups, but perhaps wandering alone would be the best way to like get that. Margaret: That makes a lot of sense to me. And I feel like that might be a good note to end on, for people to reflect on. And yeah, I guess I want to say thank you so much for coming on. And do you have anything that you want to plug, either your own work or work of people that's around you that you want to draw attention to? Anything like that? Emil: Um, let me think, Oh, yeah. I mean, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. I think I don't have anything to plug personally. But sort of on the last note that we were on, I would direct people towards a book called Becoming Animal: an Earthly Cosmology, by an American author called David Abram. He writes beautifully about, he takes a phenomenological perspective for those who know what that is. And he writes beautifully about exactly what we've been talking about now, sort of getting in touch with this network of relations. Yeah, I think that's what I would point people towards. Margaret: Fuck yeah. I like that. I like that your plug is a book. That makes me happy. I mean, I haven't read the book yet. But now I'm gonna check it out. Alright, well, thank you so much. And I'm probably going to at some other point have you on to ask more questions about how to walk over frozen lakes. Emil: That would be awesome. And also glaciers. We didn't know mention glaciers. Margaret: That was one of my questions I didn't ask. Yeah, I know. I know. All right. Well, we'll have to we'll have to have you back. But yeah, thank you so much. Emil: I would love to be back. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Margaret: Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please tell people about the show. Tell people about it on the internet, or in real life, or in the Arctic, which is part of real life. Believe it or not. If you want to support us more directly, you can do so by supporting us on Patreon patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness because this podcast is produced by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. We are a collective that publishes anarchistic culture stuff, Fiction, essays, memoir, podcasts, obviously podcasts. There's this podcast. There's another podcast called Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. There's another one called Anarcho Geek Power Hour and there will hopefully be other ones soon too that you all can hear. And if you support us on Patreon we will send you all kinds of stuff in the mail as a thanks every month. And also, some of you we'll thank directly. In fact, we're going to thank Hoss the Dog. Michaiah, Chris, Sam, Kirk, Eleanor, Jenipher, Staro, Kat J., Chelsea, Dana, David, Nicole, Mikki, Paige, SJ, Shawn, Hunter, Theo, Boise Mutual Aid, Milica, Paparouna, Aly, Paige, Janice and O'dell, Oxalis, and Jans. Thank you all so much, and I hope everyone is doing as well as you can. And hopefully I will talk to you soon while we're trying to convince the polar bears that they're on the same side as us. And that together we can destroy the thing that's destroying the world together. Us and the polar bears. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co
Episode Summary Bex and Inmn talk about first aid and why it's super important for everyone to know a little. They talk about different trainings you can take, different situations you might need to know first aid for, what the world of street medics is like, and when to seek higher levels of care. They also talk about a really helpful zine by Riot Medicine called Basic First Aid for Emergencies. Host Info Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. Guest Info Bex can be found nowhere. However, Riot Medicine, the writers of Basic First Aid for Emergencies, can be found at riotmedicine.net where you can find a lot more resources on learning about first aid, and responding to emergencies and all sorts of situations. You can read Basic First Aid for Emergencies here. 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 Live Like the World is Dying: Bex on First Aid Inmn Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host Inmn Neruin and I used to them pronouns. This week we're talking about something super important that we've covered in bits and pieces in other episodes and that is first aid. This episode was used on our other podcast that I host called Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. On that podcast we have a voice actor narrate our monthly zine and I do an interview with the author. This month we chose to use our zine Basic First Aid for Emergencies by Riot medicine and invited our friend Bex to talk about first aid. Bex is not the author of the zine but does know a lot about first aid. And since this is a very much a Live Like the World is Dying topic, we decided to feature it over here. Content warning, we talked about blood and bodies. I mean, the precious light that fills our bodies. There's no blood in us. Bex has been on Live Like the World is Dying before to talk about treating gunshot wounds and it was one of the first episodes. So, go back and listen to that one if you haven't already. But first, we are a proud member of the Channel Zero Network. And here is a jingle from another show on that network. Doo doo doo doo. Inmn Real quick. We just launched a Kickstarter for Penumbra City, the TTRPG that we've been writing--we being Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. The Kickstarter launched on June 1st, which might have been yesterday or might have been a long time ago. Watch the game that inspired the short story Confession to a Dead Man come to life. We also have an actual play recording of us playing that game that just came out on this feed right before this episode. So give it a listen. And check out the Kickstarter at kickstarter.com/projects/penumbra-city/penumbra-city. Find your friends. Kill the God King. Inmn And we're back. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and for talking. Bex Woo! Inmn And for talking to us about this thing that is just so important and something that we will...a topic that we absolutely can't cover in a single podcast episode but we're gonna try to get through the basics of. Would you like to introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about your background in first aid and like responding to emergencies? Bex Yeah, my name is Bex, thanks so much for having me on the podcast. Stoked to be here. I first got involved with doing first aid or like emergency medical response in 2010 when I took my first street medic training with the Rosehip [Collective] medics out of Portland. Previous to that I, you know, was like a youth lifeguard and things like that. But, I feel like that's that training in 2010 kind of kicked me off on a different path and I've been sort of running as a street medic since then and running medic trainings and street medic trainings for the last 10 years. And, now work professionally doing wilderness first aid trainings as well. I'm having...I'm not like an expert medical practitioner, but I do have a bit of experience and I'm extremely passionate about education and sharing knowledge and making this skill set accessible to folks who are interested in it. Inmn Yeah, yeah. And it's funny because I feel like people who...like there are a lot of people who are like, extreme experts in a field or something, but are like, maybe not as excited about teaching or education or finding ways to introduce people to those worlds as much. So. Bex Yeah, and especially in the sort of medical industrial complex, I feel like it's a place where people often feel extremely alienated both from their own bodies and also from being able to access information about how to take care of themselves or take care of people around them. And, I feel like trying to break that down and make that...change emergency medical response from something that is, like, highly specialized and professionalized to something that is available and accessible for everyone is tight. Inmn Yeah, yeah, it is a very, very cool thing. And, you know, that's part of what this zine is supposed to do, it's supposed to kind of break down the barriers to just, you know, people who have no medical training to have some kind of foothold in responding to different emergencies. But to kind of back up from that--although listeners, we are probably not going to like go through this zine, page by page in this interview because that would, one, take way more time than we have on this podcast to talk about all the topics and, two, because it is possibly not the best way to learn about the minutiae of these topics. So, we're gonna focus mostly on talking about what first aid is and why it's important and how you can learn more about it outside of an hour long podcast. But, Bex, Could you could you tell us kind of like what...what is first aid? And what is kind of the scope of first aid? Bex Yeah, the like, general gist of first aid is: it's the very first care or intervention that someone receives, or gives to themselves when a illness or injury occurs. So, this is usually what's happening by a layperson, someone who's not a professional, and is happening in, you know, where the injury or illness is happening rather then in a clinical setting. And this can range from the everyday first day that we give ourselves at home, like, "Oh, I got a cut. I'm gonna wash it out in the kitchen sink and put a band-aid on it." Or it could also be in a protest scenario or it could be in a wilderness scenario or it could be anywhere. Anywhere there are people doing things there is first aid happening. Inmn Cool. That is a very great explanation for first aid. And, for folks who are kind of like less knowledgeable--maybe they're hearing these phrases for the first time--what is a street medic? And what do street medics do? Bex What do street medics do. [inflected as more of a statement] Yeah, so a street medic is basically someone who has some amount of emergency medical response training, who goes out in a protest or demonstration sort of scene, whether that is mobilization in the street, or whether it's hanging with their affinity group, or whether it's place based, sort of like encampment type of protest, or anything like that, and responding to the types of illnesses and injuries that we might see in those settings, including things like dealing with police munitions, chemical weapons, or potentially gunshot wounds, as well as like, "Ah! The bike brigade hit me and I fell over and now I'm scraped up," or whatever, but it's basically doing some emergency medical response in a protest setting. Inmn Well, cool, and what kind of training do street medics usually have? Or like could that vary? I'm asking you leading questions I know the answers to. Bex Well, there's controversy here actually. I would say that the gold standard for street medics is to have a twenty-hour training. In that twenty hours, you can really cover the depth and breadth of how to do a basic patient assessment system to make sure that you are really understanding the full picture of what's going on with a person that you are supporting and you learn different types of interventions, whether that's wound care, eye flushes for chemical weapons, how to tell if someone has a spinal injury, all kinds of things. You get to practice in a bunch of like fun hands on scenarios. People do shorter trainings as well. There's like bridge trainings for folks who are already coming from a professional medical background but want to get involved in sort of street medic stuff. And then there are also much shorter trainings, like just "stop the bleed trainings" or things like that where you're just dealing with major hemorrhaging bleeds. Inmn So...Oh, and like, sometimes, you know, street medics obviously have varying levels of training, like whether they have the twenty-hour training or whether they're coming to it with like, you know, like, I know nurses who are street medics. I know, doctors who are street medics. I know EMTs, wilderness EMTs, like people with wilderness first responder certifications. So there's a...Or like, herbalists or clinicians. Like there's such like a wide scope to who practices street medicine, right? Bex Yeah, definitely. And, then there's also this other side of the spectrum where, because street medics for decades now in protests have been sort of like a visible element of many protests scenarios, it can also be tempting for people to adopt this as their identity. And they're like, "This is what I do. I am a street medic and I stand on the sidewalk where I'm really safe and I don't actually participate in anything. And I've like been in situations where you've got like, ten medics, and you've got like, ten legal observers, and you've got, you know, like, a police liaison, and then there's like five people actually involved in the protest. And I would just really encourage breaking that down. And, I think that you can be supporting people and like providing emergency response or first aid while also being a really active, engaged participant in movement spaces and in demonstrations. And like approaching that with like, some nuance or some caution about like, "Hey, am I gonna mark myself as a medic if I'm gonna go do this sketchy thing? Maybe not." But like, Yeah, I think that finding like these niche ways to...or like these kind of, like, ways to bring our skills to protest movements is really awesome but not at the detriment of also being really active participants in all of the things that we're interested in and feel up for engaging. Inmn Well, yeah, and maybe we'll talk about that a little bit more later. But, before we get too heavy into theory, I just want to I just want to go over this is zine. So folks, if you're listening on the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness podcast or if you're listening on the Live Like the World is Dying podcast, we have this zine called Basic First Aid for Emergencies, it was put out by a group called Riot Medicine and it is the first in a series of skills series zines that we're putting out, which we are woefully behind on. If you know a cool skill, and you would like to write a zine for this series of skill scenes, then you know, get in touch with us. So, this zine was put out by Riot medicine and Riot Medicine is an entity that puts out essentially medical information specifically geared at people who might go to things that, you know, some people might classify as riots or like responses to kind of like police violence or violence from the, you know, alt right or fascists. I mean, you know, fascists all of a different name. And the zine, it goes through some really kind of baseline stuff, like stuff that someone with no medical training might find as helpful tips. It talks about safety, your safety, kind of like environmental hazards, and it talks about, like, personal protective equipment that you should consider. It talks about a layperson's guide to finding someone's vital signs. It talks about best practice ways to move people who might not be able to move themselves. There is a very brief introduction to compression-only CPR, there's a brief guide to wounds, specifically for severe bleeding and then for minor wounds. There's a section on burns, heat illness--which we did an entire episode on heat illness before, so if you want to learn more about heat illness, go back and listen to "Guy on Heat Illness"--talks about hypothermia, frostbite, talks about clean water, and then kind of has a basic construction for what a first-aid kit could contain. And that is available for free to read on our website or you can get it mailed to you. And Riot Medicine also, they....just to kind of go through some of the things that Riot Medicine puts out. If you go to their website, Riotmedicine.net, you can find a more comprehensive guide to to learning about medic stuff, they put out a full length textbook called Riot Medicine, it's yeah, it is massive. It is 466 pages, which includes an absolutely obscene amount of information that might, you know, peruse at your leisure. They also put out a smaller field guide. This is something that could be like in your medic kit and view kind of like a reference piece. They put out a bridge guide for people coming from other medical professional backgrounds who want to learn how to apply those backgrounds to engaging in street medic work. And yeah, they put out a ton of really awesome stuff. And yeah, so that is kind of the basis of the guide. And instead of kind of like digging into depth of like all of these topics, I would encourage everyone to go out and read about it or to attend a training of some sort. It's going to be a much better way to learn about a lot of these topics. But, to kind of switch gears into in talking about backgrounds, on the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness podcast, I always like to ask people kind of like, "What the story behind their story is?" or "How this piece came to be?" And that is a little less applicable in this context, but Bex, how did you get your start in learning about responding to medical emergencies of all kinds? Like what what was your catalyst or origin story, so to speak? Bex My first-aid origin story. Well, okay, first, let me just say the zine is really cool. It's a--in addition to all the things that Inmn described--it also has illustrations for almost everything. And so if you are into sort of like the visual learning, it's got illustrations. It's great. Everyone should check it out. It seems really useful. Keep it in your backpack, keep it under your bathroom counter for when you're like, "What am I supposed to do with this gnarly cut I got?" Okay, but my my villain origin...I mean, my first-aid origin story. Honestly, I'm like a very accident prone person. I would say that in general, I've got like pretty low body awareness. And it's not uncommon for me to like, get injured in odd situations. So, I've spent spent a lot of time taking trips to the urgent care and being like, "I think there might be something serious going on." And, specifically, there's like one incident that really launched me into wanting to learn more about first aid, which is that I got a pretty bad concussion from a bike accident. And I had no idea that I had a head injury. I had no idea that I should even be considering that I might have a head injury until like, the next morning when I was like collapsed in the shower and my roommates were like, lifting me up by my armpits and like patting me off and like, putting me in the car to like head out to the urgent care to like see what the fuck was wrong with me. And that experience was just like...was extremely scary and extremely eye opening to know that like there could be something like seriously wrong going on inside my body and I did not...I didn't know....I didn't know what to look for. I didn't know what was going on until it sort of like reached a more critical point. And that just made me really want to learn more. And I think that I probably went to a street medic training and also maybe like a 16 hour wilderness first-aid training in the year or two following that incident. Inmn Why did you go to a street medic training? Like, first, instead of like a WFR class or WFA class? Bex Yeah, and WFR stands for wilderness first responder. That's like an 80 hour training usually, and wilderness first aid is the WFA that Inmn just said and that's usually a 16 hour training. There's different orgs that offer those. Um, well, I went to a street medic training, because when I heard about it I thought it sounded cool and fun. And, because I was looking for a way to plug into some specific movement spaces, or like, demonstrations that were coming up that I was eager to participate in, but wasn't quite sure how to engage in. And this felt like a...I was like, "Oh, there's something I can do, like something I can offer, a skill set." And now I feel like my thinking on that has shifted, where I'm like, actually, every single person brings something. Like every person brings a skill set and that's being exactly who they are engaging in a protest space. But, at the time it felt like getting a street medic training was a really empowering sort of entry point of like, "Oh, I've got this sort of, like, motivating reason to show up and feel like I can be helpful or something." Inmn Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a great--I feel like it maybe this is less true now--but I feel like at--- really aging myself here--a while ago, I feel like it was a really good entry point into, like, getting involved with movements, like, in the same way that, you know, when I was a teenager I would go to Food Not Bombs. And that was a huge entry point into learning about different radical projects in my area was just going to Food Not Bombs. And so, like, I feel like street medic trainings similarly offer a very easy, low-barrier way for people to get involved in protests or like uprising movements. Or at least that's how they did in the past. I don't know if that's true anymore. Bex Yeah, and in general, I mean, I think that, like, we as human beings are like, very, sort of, like, motivated towards connection with others and like, relationship building, and, like community building and a sense of belonging. And I think that in radical movements that creating containers--whether it's things like a street medic training or Food Not Bombs or like, you know, whatever--it is finding places where people can know that, like, "Oh, I can show up here. People are going to be stoked that I'm there. They're gonna, like, be actively and enthusiastically, like, sharing their knowledge and skills and like, inviting me into the space feels really fucking good." And we need more models of that all around us. Inmn Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, that was one of the first ways that I got involved in that kind of stuff was like, I don't know, I went...I like was at a thing and I watched the police fuck some people up and I watched these, like, street medics like swoop in, and like, just, like, instantly have this like, response of like...it's like, I saw someone screaming because they'd been like pepper...they'd been maced in the face and there was suddenly this group of people who knew exactly what to do to help those people. And it was like...it like it was a very, like catalyzing experience for me. At least to like, see that and then be like, I want to help people like that. I want to like know what to do when my friends get hurt. Bex Yeah, totally. And I feel like doing a street medic training and getting involved in that world was a really catalyzing experience for me as well, where previously, when I would witness, you know, like, police brutalizing someone at a protest, I would be overwhelmed with this sense of helpless rage, where I'm, you know, you're like watching something terrible happening and there's nothing you can do or like, you feel like that in that moment. And one of the big things that I love about emergency medicine in general--whether it's street medicine or wilderness emergency medicine or what have you--is his emphasis on calm, like spreading calm, and bringing calm to a situation. And like, Yeah, we should all be fucking mad and energized, but we can like find a place of calm and purpose in our responses rather than feeling completely overwhelmed by hopelessness or rage. And I think that in general, like, when people have a sense of agency in a situation--whether it's a situation in their own personal life or in a protest scenario or what have you--if you feel like, there was something I could do, I could participate in some way, I had some agency here in how I chose to respond, we know that sense of agency reduces the sort of like, permanent traumatic mark that that makes on us. And how we recover psychologically from witnessing or experiencing those things has a lot to do with what we felt we were capable of in our response in that moment. And I think that, for me, having this skill set around first aid, just makes me feel more empowered and able to act and I think that is like, good for my brain. Inmn Yeah, yeah. So like, obviously, it's good for there to be people who know a lot about first aid or a lot about responding to emergencies, like people who have extensive training in doing that but why is it important for everyone to have a basic understanding of how to respond to emergencies? Like why, if we have this zine, if there's, like, you know, if there's just people running around who have 80 hours of training, like what is reading a zine about it going to do for me? Bex Yeah. I love this question. Because we...just because someone's running around with 80 hours of training or more or is a professional, doesn't mean that other people have to rely on that person. Like, we should not be recreating the hierarchies of the medical industrial complex within our movements or within our communities or within our personal lives. Like, the more that we can sort of like decentralize information, we're also decentralizing that power that people feel like they have to support themselves, to support the people around them. And like, yeah, it's freaking awesome to be able to call up someone who's an expert. Like, I use, different herbs. I'll take tinctures or use salves, but I don't actually know shit about herbalism. And it's really useful to be able to call up a buddy and be like, "Hey, this is what's going on, like, what would you recommend?" but I also want to be able to have my own little apothecary, and like, make my own little stuff that I do feel comfortable with. And, I don't want to have to rely on someone else for all of my interactions with that, and I think that sort of like general first aid is a similar thing. Like it's great to have people with more experience around, but we should all know how to clean a wound and recognize signs of infection, or like when to be worried about a head injury, or how to help someone out who's like gotten too hot or too cold, or get fucking tear gas off someone's face and mucous membranes. Inmn Yeah, yeah. And there's actually...there's a funny thing that I want to ask you about because I feel like I see it get...like it's something that is not covered in the basic first aid for emergency zine and something that I see get talked about less but I feel like is like wildly important and applicable to most people's lives. So like, you know, your experience of having a concussion and not realizing how dangerous it was, like, I think we can all relate. We've all like got...a lot of us have gotten into a bike accident and then been, like, "Oh, I'm fine, except I did hit my head, but I was wearing a helmet. So I'm probably fine." Bex All of us here have crashed our bikes, right? Inmn Or like, you know, hit your head on something like or had a friend who hit their head on something. And what are the important things to keep in mind when someone has hit their head and they're unsure about whether they have a concussion? Like, when is the...when does it go from "I'm okay," to, "I have to seek, like some kind of higher level of care for what's going on"? Bex Yeah, totally. Well, like, the basic thing that we're worried about with head injuries is swelling to the brain because there's just not much room inside the skull for the brain to swell at all. And right, like something that gets injured, like if I like, twist my ankle, that ankle is going to swell. There's plenty of room for it to do that. There's not room for the brain to swell up without like, creating some more serious problems. And so that's like, generally what we're worried about. And you can bump your head, you can bump your head pretty dang hard and not get a concussion, like not get a head injury. If you hit your head and you're like, "Oh, yeah, it hurts where I hit my head. And maybe I've got a little bit of a headache from that bonk." We're not worried about that. But if you hit your head, and you're like, "Oh, now I feel kind of dizzy. And I actually feel kind of nauseous, or I can't really remember that like moment of impact, or like my vision is affected, maybe I'm like seeing stars a little bit or a little bit of blurriness," then you might be looking at sort of a mild head injury and you just want to take that pretty seriously. You can go get checked out at a at a clinic, if you are able to access that resource. And in general, you just want to like monitor those symptoms and make sure it's not getting any worse. And rest. With head injuries we need cognitive rest as well as physical rest. So, there used to be all this stuff about like, "If someone gets a concussion, don't let them sleep. Wake them up every you know, 10 minutes with this, like secret passcode they have to remember," and like we do not do that anymore. Like if someone has a head injury, actually they like really need to rest. And like sleep is great. And we want to let people sleep like please. Inmn I feel like that was the unfortunate plot of like so many like 90s sitcoms was like, like kind of torturing someone into staying awake while they're concussed. Bex Yeah, but if you're experiencing that stuff, and you've had some kind of blow to the head, like definitely consider going to get checked out. Concussions are complex. They get worse, the more times that you've had one. You become more and more sensitive to concussions, even from like a minor head bump. And there are also...there's like a long recovery period from a concussion, like it can be like many, many months of recovery, so it helps to get checked out. And then if it's a serious head injury, you want to like get to, like get to a clinical setting, like whether that's the urgent care emergency room or like whatever, like you want to get there right away. If you're having things...if someone has a head injury and they are getting like...they're having like personality changes, like they're becoming really irritable, combative, they're like disoriented, they're having like a really bad headache, they're getting super sleepy or lethargic. If someone has a head injury and then has a seizure. If there's any bleeding from like, the nose or eyes or ears or like other fluid coming from the ears, this person needs to get to like a higher level of care as fast as possible. Inmn Yeah, yeah. And maybe you mentioned it and maybe you didn't, but is is vomiting also a strange sign? Bex Oh, yeah. Well, okay, with head injuries, everyone gets like one free vomit. And then if there's like more vomiting than that then we would consider that that might be like a serious head injury. I'm not sure exactly of like the physiology there of like why there's this vomiting, but there is...yeah, there can be like a lot of vomiting or even like projectile vomiting from from a serious head injury Inmn Yeah. Listeners, you might be noticing that I'm asking Bex a lot of like kind of leading questions. This is, this is partially because I have a fair amount like medical training as well, and--all of which is like horribly lapsed--like, I kind of got out of practicing as like a person who does medical stuff except like casually to myself and my friends a while ago. Bex We're both lapsed wilderness EMTs it turns out, Inmn yeah, yeah. Cool. Well, yeah, thank you, thank you so much for that little explanation. I feel like it is a...you know, obviously, if anyone is worried about something then they should, you know, go to urgent care or go to the emergency room. But I feel like there was a lot of, like, in between things were we're like, "I don't know." And like going to the ER or the urgent care casually is like, not something that people can, like, always afford to do. Bex Yeah, but we do want to pay...like, I would urge people to be very cautious with head injuries. One thing that we've learned from the great sport of American football is that head injuries are very serious and do get worse and repeated head injuries...like if your brain is just getting pummeled all the time that can add up to really serious cognitive, emotional, and like, even like personality impacts. And it's just not...it's not good. It's not good to hurt your brain. So, being like really careful, making sure that someone is getting rest, getting checked out if they're having these symptoms is great. Inmn Yeah, yeah. And yeah, again, listeners, like, you know, we are...this is not medical advice. This is... Bex This is not a medical training. Inmn This is not a medical training. But we are trying to kind of cover some basics for people to think about, but highly suggest if you want to learn more about these things to go out and attend more extensive trainings on how to assess these things. So Bex.... Bex Inmn... Inmn You have been involved in this world for quite a while now, right? Like the world of first aid and responding to emergencies. Bex Yeah. Inmn I was wondering if you wanted to kind of talk about like, just, like, kind of like, experiences or like stories that you might have of, responding to emergencies, providing first aid in like various contexts, like...yeah, do you have any kind of like, notably interesting things? This isn't a leading question? Bex I mean, I feel like, like running around as a street medic, you see all kinds of things, you know, a lot of like, flushing chemical weapons out of people's eyes, definitely have supported people with head injuries, sometimes from police munitions, and working with people who are like, "Oh, I'm bleeding from the scalp, but I don't want to go to the hospital." And then you're just like, "Okay, well, how about your friends that are with you, like, here's this list of things to watch out for, like, here's how we're going to take care of this person." or I feel like, like, notable moments for me have often been like, when I can, like, empower people to like, look after themselves, or like look after the people that they're with, and I can like, do what I can to support someone, but I'm not like therefore positioning myself as like, "And now I am the expert and I've like taken you over and I'm gonna like tell you what you have to do now," or whatever but. Definitely, like one really eye opening moment for me--and I talked about this more in the Live Like the World is Dying gunshot wound episode was like responding to someone with a gunshot wound at a protest. Which at the time, I think it was like 2016 or something, at the time. I was like, that was not what I was expecting to see at a protest. And it really threw me. I like didn't really feel prepared to deal with that sort of like extreme of an of an injury. And since then, now, I feel like the like gun violence in a protest setting is super common. And there have been many demonstrations or actions that I've been at where people have gotten shot. And, it's like a really, it's a really scary thing to witness. And it's also scary the way that it has become such a sort of, like, predictable part of like, the landscape of kind of like radical movements and demonstrations. And, one thing that I remember was like being at a demo and seeing someone get shot and then, you know, I'm there like trying to pull out my, like, pull out my, like trauma response stuff from my medic fanny pack. And before I even can, like, get those things out, there's like a bunch of street medics who are like supporting this person. And I'm like, "Hey, I think I like... it's possible that I'm like, recognizing some of those people from like a medic training that I helped to run a couple of months ago." And that moment, like, even in that moment, that was like extremely scary and traumatizing being like, "Oh, like the transferring of information and the like, sharing and like broadening of like this knowledge base is very much like changing the outcomes that people are having in really bad situations because there's all these people who know how to respond. And especially I think, like in 2020, like, everyone started like running around with like, a tourniquet strapped on their belt, you know, because we're just like, seeing so much gun violence in those spaces in a new way. And I think that like that, that is great. And that, like, if nothing else, like knowing how to respond to like, really major life threatening things is... and having the tools to be able to do so is awesome. Inmn Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it is really amazing to see that. It's funny, I have like, kind of a, like, personal story of where I was incredibly relieved that there were so many people who had training around, which...it's a vulnerable story in that, like, I don't love how I responded, but like, it was a good learning experience for me of like, I had been doing like street medic stuff for like a long time and I'd been doing...like I was a wilderness EMT at this point, and--but you know, I'd never worked as an EMT before--and I was at a thing and I watched someone get run over by a car. And spoiler alert is that this person was like, fucking miraculously fine. Like, literally nothing was wrong with this person. Like, which was incredible. But at the time, like, I was the closest person. And I, like I froze. And because I'd never witnessed something like that before and that's not what I was expecting to have to deal with and like...but, you know, I went over, and I started to try to assess what was going on and then like, three other people swooped in, all of whom had a lot more experience than I did, to which I was so grateful, because I was like, "Hell yeah, there's a more qualified person here to bottomline this situation, I'm just gonna, like help with creating a perimeter around this person so that we can make sure that they're okay." Bex Yeah, totally. Yeah, that sounds extremely intense. And I'm glad that...I'm glad that you were there. I'm glad that those other folks are there. And, you know, I guess like, in...like, as a street medic...or, like, I'm not into like, "Yeah, I hope I get to go out and like, see something gnarly so I get to, like, respond to it, so I can have some experience, like some personal experience of like, getting to do something." That is not what I'm in it for or like a mentality that I am at all interested in engaging with. But, like in that situation, if those other people hadn't shown up, like, yeah, you were overwhelmed, maybe scared. This like wasn't what you were expecting to see. But, you like, had your assessment tools and you like, had those skills, and if no one else had been there, you would have been a great person to have responded to the situation, even though you had that sense of relief of like, "Thank God, there's someone else here," or whatever. And I feel like moving from a place of like, "I just saw something happen to somebody or something happened to me and I have no idea what to do, like don't even know where to begin," or being like...like moving from that place to like, "Damn, this absolutely sucks. And I wish it wasn't happening, but like, I guess I could figure out how to deal with it." Like, that is actually like a really big difference. And I want to support people in moving in that direction, you know, even if it sucks to have to see shit like that. I don't know. Inmn Yeah, if I'm, if I'm going to a....if I'm going somewhere where I expect there to be like a higher probability of like someone being injured--whether that's to a demonstration or whether that's to a youth hardcore show where people really like to like throw elbows--I hope that I'm not going to see anyone get injured, like if I'm providing medical care, like, either as like, "I am here to provide medical care" or is like someone who's just there and like has a little first aid kit--because that is a smart thing for everyone to have--then like, I hope that I never have to use it. I hope that no one gets injured. That would be a better day for everyone. But, it is like part of the like ritual of being prepared that we like learn how to deal with these situations even in small ways. Which, brings me to my next question for you. What are...what are...if you had to give like a short little blurb to people about like, if people want to learn more about first aid in like a small way, say they've read this zine, like, what is the next step for people and what what situations should people like focus on whether they're like at a demonstration or it's just like, another piece of like--saying normal doesn't feel like the right phrase--but like, part of their normal life, you know? Bex Yeah, their everyday life. Um, there's a lot of different types of trainings that folks can seek out starting with, like CPR. A CPR, training is a great place to start. And now you can do, you can even like get CPR trained online and just like watch a bunch of videos. It's better to do like hands on practice, I think that's where we really like, can start building muscle memory around these skills. But, there's like CPR training. Places like the Red Cross offer a basic first aid training. And then there's also these like street medic trainings. So, if you have a street medic, group or collective in your area, like, seek out a 20 hour street medic training, or there are different organizations that offer Wilderness First Aid trainings that are, you know, definitely have some overlap with the street medic training in that both of these things are like you're in an environment where you can't just call 911 and expect that an ambulance is going to be able to like roll up in the next five minutes, either because you're like in the back country, or you're like behind the police line, or what have you. And then there's bigger trainings on the wilderness side that you can pursue like a Wilderness First Responder, Wilderness, EMT. A lot of counties, especially like rural counties that are having trouble staffing up their EMS, I know some folks who have been able to get an EMT training, like a three month EMT training, totally paid for by their county if they agreed to like, volunteer with the fire department for a year or something like that. So that's another way to get like a lot of training for free if you are willing to interface with the like, often shitty hierarchical structures that put you in the role of being like the sort of like, dehumanizing disembodied medic, but you can like bring to that, you know, you can try to like, bring a better, like, approach to that situation. But yeah, all kinds of things like that. And to go back to your point of like, being prepared for things every day and not just like when I'm like going out to a demo, but kind of like, yeah, what we do on the daily to like, prepare for different situations, I'll say that I keep a like a tourniquet and a trauma response kit in my car at all times, just like in a fanny pack strapped to the back of the headrest, in case I come across like a car accident while I'm just like cruising around. Or if, you know, like in today's fucking modern society like your like just as likely it feels like to respond to like gunshots when you're like like passing by a shopping mall or like outside of fucking school or something like this because there's like, there's just so many shootings. There's so much gun violence. There's so many like mass shooting situations that I think that like a Stop the Bleed training that different like organizations offer, even like that on its own is something that might be useful for folks that hopefully they'll never have to use but Inmn Yeah, yeah. I mean, that is that is what we hope. Yeah, I feel like personally, if I had to recommend like two lower barrier things that everyone should go out and do it is learning about CPR and a Stop the Bleed training because these are like two pretty, like, easy to access trainings that can make huge differences in whether somebody survives an injury. Bex Absolutely. I'll also say that like, I feel like I've like talked a fair amount of smack, as is appropriate, on like, the medical industrial complex and like the shitty hierarchies within sort of like clinical emergency medicine or like hospital settings. Those are these like, really like dehumanizing, disembodied environments that really take away patient agency in a lot of cases. But, within those systems, there are a lot of like, really, like, deeply radical badass, like incredible people working within those systems. And if you are interested in like getting involved with a medical practice professionally, or if you are already in that world, you're a med tech, or a nurse or a doctor or, you know, whatever, a paramedic, and you want to find other radical people who are interested in approaching that work together, there are people who are doing that. There's actually--by the time this airs, it probably will have already happened--but there's a really cool convergence happening on the east coast this month in May, that's the Health Autonomy Convergence that's for people who are working within the medical system but are coming at it from a anarchist, anti authoritarian, abolitionist perspective. And finding networks like that, like ways to decentralize our knowledge and skills and like, connect with other like radical folks who are interested in this is just so exciting to me. It's very cool. Inmn Yeah, yeah. I just want to say that, like, a real good reason for everyone to learn about first aid and for everyone to learn these basics is that, one, as we're seeing things change in like how police violence or like violence from other sources of fascism occurs, like, we can't even rely on these kind of like networks as much for like, every situation and like, it is helpful for everyone to have some understanding of what to do in an emergency. One, because it like, takes pressure off of those other groups and also because like, it means that like, you know, the best resource that we have are people and so like another person to know how to do this thing or to like, not need as much like care from someone is a great thing. Like, we yeah, we should all be learning basics of these skills because it makes everyone's lives easier. Bex Yeah, and supporting each other in it. Like if you...like, the number one tool that a street medic has in their kit is a buddy. You always go with a buddy. You don't go alone because it's easier to keep a cool head and have good decision making, and stay sort of like oriented and situationally aware and like know what's happening if you are running with another person, and you both have like, even if you have different levels of experience or training, like you've got another person there to help navigate that situation with. And we can can offer one another like so much strength and resilience just by like being present and like tuned in to the same stuff together. One time my medic buddy that I would always run with was like out of town and there was like something happening in the city where I lived and I was like, "I'll just go by myself. It's like no big deal. Like I don't need a buddy. I'm sure it'll be fine." And I was like, such a huge mistake. It ended up being like a fairly like traumatizing experience for me where I was like, "Oh, wait, actually like being in this alone and being like, 'I'm trying to like respond and be prepared,' and like I don't have someone with me who's going through that with me and like tuning into this with me," was...I wouldn't do it again. Inmn Yeah, yeah. Bex So, find a pal. Find a pal who's interested in first aid and fucking skill up together. It's like extremely fun. And you can practice your patient assessment on each other. It's great. Inmn Yeah, yeah, learning is fun. And, you know, the more that we learn these skills now, the less overwhelming they will be, if we are ever faced with an emergency that we have to deal with. Like, yeah, learn it now so it's less stressful in the moment. Bex Yeah, and like learn from sources that are reliable. Like the materials that Riot Medicine has available, like this zine is super tight. I haven't looked through all of their other materials, like in depth, but it's like very legit, or like going to a street medic training, or another training so that you know that your skills that you're building are coming from some sort of reputable source and you don't end up as like, the wacky chaos medic that everyone dreads who's like, running around in like head-to-toe camo with gallons of milk swinging from their belt. And, you know, like, don't be the chaos medic. Like, learn some real skills that are like based in...that are scientifically based and like vetted and bring calm to the situation. Inmn Yeah, yeah. Speaking of calm... [interrupted] Bex Take your chaos elsewhere. Your chaos has a place and it is not in medicking. Inmn Speaking of calm. So, real quick, we have this last little segment since this is the Strangers podcast, even if you're hearing it on the Live like the World is Dying feed. We have a quick word of the month where this is a word that I learn a little bit about the origins of and then asked people if they know anything about it. And I've maybe given you a clue. But, Bex, do you know anything...Do you know the word anemone? Bex Like a sea anemone. Inmn Yeah, like I sea anemone. But, there are other kinds of anemones as well. Bex Like the sea anemone of my enemy is my friend-enenomy? Inmn Yeah, that's that's absolutely the origin. You just guessed it. Bex Tell me more. Inmn Do you have any guesses as to like what the word anemone means? Or, where where it comes from? Bex Anemone, anemone? No, I do not know. But it really sounds like enemy. Inmn It does. It does. So, anemone. So there's sea anemone, but then there's also like, there's a plant that's called anemone. And interestingly, this plant is used to...it's used for a lot of different things medicinally and, how I'm familiar with it is that it was...someone recommended it to me for like panic attacks. And in very low doses. Very, very low doses. This is a... Bex Consult an herbalist. Inmn This is a...this can be a dangerous plant. So, flowering plant anemone comes directly from Latin "anemone," and then from the Greek "anemone," which comes from two little pieces. There's "anemos" and a, you know, "feminine" suffix. So, "anemos" means wind. And so anemone literally means "wind flower" or "daughter of the wind." And some people think that...or like, you know, one one attribution to that name is anemone blooms only during a storm. And it's like...interestingly, its petals are attached to seed pods. And so when the wind blows, the flower opens, and it rips it apart. And the petals are like each attached to a little seed pod. So that is like...the flower is like destroyed and propagates by getting caught in the wind. But interestingly--and this is this is where I think it gets really fun and interesting--is there's a cognate in Latin "anima" or shortened to "ane" which means to breathe. And anemone, as we just learned, is a plant that you can take when having a panic attack to help you breathe. Bex Dang. That is very cool. And that's like a very beautiful image. You have like, that description of the flower being like ripped apart in a storm, but like that propagating, and I feel like that really resonates with me in terms of like, the things that we face that like feel like this huge destructive force, whether that's like things happening like emotionally or psychologically or also like the literal violence that people witness and experience. And like, how can you like harness that, like, violence or destruction and like see where they're like seeds of beautiful things that will like, be planted or like can grow from that, even if like the destruction itself is like the loss of something beautiful, it doesn't mean it's the end of beautiful things coming. Inmn Yeah. And like first aid, we can bloom and show and spread, unfortunately, sometimes through turbulent times. And this ended up being a very appropriate word that I kind of picked at random to be part of this episode. So, I know you'd have to run, but real quick, Is there anywhere on the internet that people can find you that you would like to be found? And the answer can be "No." Bex No, there's nowhere to find me on the internet. But, you should check out Riot Medicine, which I legitimately am like definitely not a part of or have anything to do with, but it is very cool. And Oh, one other thing I'll just quickly say here for folks who have listened to the gunshot wound episode of Live Like the World is Dying, I would like to make a little amendment. When I recorded that episode, I had some outdated information about tourniquets. And in that episode, I described tourniquets as really a tool of last resort. And what we actually know is that tourniquets are a really safe intervention to use. You can, if applied correctly and if it is a sort of like legitimate tourniquet like the CAT gen 7, the combat application tourniquet, these can safely be left on for a really long time. There have been recorded incidents from our long history of global capitalist imperialist warfare. We've learned a lot about combat medicine. And there have been incidences of like a tourniquet staying on for up to 48 hours without that limb being compromised. Do not be afraid to use a tourniquet. Check out that episode if you want more information about specifically Stop the Bleed stuff. But, just take this little amendment to the tourniquet section. Inmn Great. Thank you so much Bex for coming on the podcast. Bex Thanks for having me. Inmn Yeah, stay well. Bex Bye. Inmn Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please go take a first aid training, and then tell us about it. But also tell people about the podcast. You can support this podcast by telling people about it. You can support this podcast by talking about it on social media, rating and reviewing and doing whatever the algorithm calls for. Feed it like hungry god. But, if you would like to support us in other sillier ways that don't involve feeding a nameless entity then you can check us out on Patreon at patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. 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Episode Summary Margaret talks with Sprout and Charyan from Sabot Media and The Blackflower Collective about organizing in rural areas and how that can be different from organizing in more urban areas. Sprout and Charyan talk about the different projects that Sabot Media and The Blackflower Collective work on, supporting unhoused people, the importance of having a music scene, and the unfortunate state of fascism. Guest Info Sprout (they/them) and Charyan(they/them) work with Sabot Media and The Blackflower Collective. Those projects can be found on Twitter @Blackflowerllc, @Aberdeenlocal1312, or Instagram @Blackflower.collective or @Aberdeenlocal1312, or on their websites https://sabotmedia.noblogs.org/ or https://blackflowercollective.noblogs.org/. They can also be found on Mastodon @Aberdeenlocal1312. 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 – Sabot Media on Rural Organizing 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, Margaret Killjoy. And I'm excited to talk this week about a subject that is very near and dear to my particular heart. And it might be near and dear to your particular hear or it might just be a subject of idle curiosity. I have no idea. I don't know where you live. You're in my head. I'm in your head. Something. Today we're going to talk about rural organizing, and we're gonna talk about some of the differences between rural organizing and urban organizing, and we're going to be doing that with Sprout and Charyan from Sabot Media and The Blackflower Collective and we're going to talk about that. First, we're gonna talk about the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Bah duh duh duh dah [Margaret makes melody noises like she's singing] Okay, so if you all could introduce yourself, I guess with your your name and your pronouns and then like maybe a little bit about what Sabot Media and The Blackflower Collective are. Sprout 02:32 Yeah, hello, I'm Sprout. Pronouns are they/them. Charyan 02:37 I'm Charyan. They/them. Sprout 02:40 We're here to talk about our new project in Grays Harbor County called The Blackflower Collective. And we're here also representing Sabot Media and our podcast Molotov Now. Margaret 02:55 Where's Grays Harbor? Sprout 02:58 It's on the coast, Western Washington. The main town is Aberdeen where most people have probably heard of it is because that's where Kurt Cobain was born and grew up. Margaret 03:12 Oh, one of my favorite trans women in history. That is my contentious belief. Anyone who's ever wonder that. Yeah, Charyan 03:24 I've heard the theory. Margaret 03:26 Yeah. One of my friends was friends with Kurt and was like...and when I first started coming out was like, "Wow, you talk about your gender the same way that Kurt did." And so that's why I hold on to this particular theory so hard. But I'm not trying to...no one has ever been more mad at me on the internet as people were when I said this once on Twitter. So whatever, I'm not trying to specifically claim or not claim dead people...whatever. Anyway, that's definitely what we're here to talk about today. So, I guess really quickly, like what is Sabot Media? What is Blackflower Collective? Sprout 04:09 Well, Sabot Media is a media project that we started because we saw a need for our own reporting of certain stories around the homeless and the mutual aid efforts that were going on in our town. The local paper record the Daily World and the other local stations out here were just not covering the stories at all that needed to be told. And so we stepped up to start talking about that stuff in our own community. We've got a website on No Blogs. Sabotmedia.noblogs.org, where people can go check out our articles. We've got comics, we've got columns, we've got a podcast as I mentioned. Yeah, so The Blackflower Collective was born out of another project here on the harbor that's been going for a couple of years Chehalis River mutual aid network. And the organizers for that project did a lot of talking to the community and discussing internally about what needs there were and how to meet those needs. And the solution came out as The Blackflower Collective. So our goal there is to have a piece of land, just outside the city limits, where we can have a sustainable ecovillage to house low income and unhouse...currently unhoused people, as well as pairing that with a social center and makerspace where we can have a business incubator and people providing social services. Margaret 05:53 That's really...Okay, one of the things I got really excited about when I first heard about this project that you all are working on about it is because I think about how much...how impactful social center type spaces can be in smaller communities. Like it just seems to me...like off the top of my head, at least I think of like...I mean, a makerspace and, you know, social center space and stuff like that in a big city rules and is great, and I'm really excited when they exist, but it seems like a much higher percentage of the town's socializing or something...like it seems like a bigger deal in a smaller place. Am I like...Am I off base about this? Like, what are your kind of aspirations around that? Charyan 06:34 Not at all. That's actually kind of one of the dichotomies that we talked about in our article. And on our interview on It Could Happen Here is like the modes of socialization feel a lot different from big city and large population big city communities and, you know, smaller rural towns and whatnot. For example, like in the bigger city, the way you meet people is like, you know, you have your job, or, you know, you go out to the club or, you know, what have you. There's lots of different groups and classes you can take part in. Like you walk into any building or storefront and there's going to be a wall filled with fliers for different events and classes and all sorts of stuff. A place like here in Aberdeen, you have to hunt and dig for that kind of stuff. And even when it does happen, you're more than likely not even going to hear about it. The mode of socialization in smaller places is usually through friends and family you already have. You know, you're hanging out at somebody's house and somebody comes to the door. It's like, "Oh, hey, here's my buddy, Paul," or What have you. Margaret 07:44 Yeah, it always sort of occurred to me that, you know, living in a small town--I'm probably not going to do it, but I'm like, "Man, if I opened a punk venue, it would be the only place to go see music," you know? But that's also...maybe no one would come because there's like a tiny handful of punks in this town, you know. Sprout 08:04 Well, that's actually what we're thinking about starting to do with Blackflower to raise some funds and get our name out there is hold some benefit punk shows. There's, again, there's just not really much in the way of music venues out here. And so what we're doing is just trying to find needs and then meet them. And that's a huge...you know, coming from a city--I wasn't born here, I moved here from a big bigger city area--so, you know, having a music scene was huge. That's what got me into political organizing in the first place. So, I think it's a good subculture to cultivate to try and get people on board. Margaret 08:47 No, that makes sense. I mean, around where I'm at, like people go, people drive a long way to go to the punk show in the small town in the mountains, you know, that happens to be throwing that particular punk show or whatever thing it is. People go a long way to see live music because you have to. On the other hand, like, do y'all have the phrase "Country close?" Like where it's like, to go anywhere takes about 45 minutes, right, because it's all back country roads. I just think about how far people have to go to go get to places Sprout 09:20 Yeah, no, I haven't heard that term. But I know the concept for sure. Margaret 09:24 Okay, so the other thing I was thinking about when you were first talking about this is, you know, homelessness and mutual aid in a small town, you know, you're saying that the the mutual aid network is kind of what you all grew out of--or in response to or something like that--that's not something that people hear about much. And, you know, we hear about homelessness in big cities and stuff, but I have a feeling that people who don't live rurally might not be aware that this is also a presence in small towns across the US as well as like, you know, people living in tents and trying to make ends meet down by the river and stuff. So that's like...when I say problem, I don't mean the problem is that there are homeless people around I mean the problem is that they don't have homes. You know, that is like a big issue where you all are? [Inflected as question] Sprout 10:15 It's a huge issue, especially in Aberdeen. It's kind of the confluence for the county wherever one goes. It's the only town in the county with like state social services. So, if you're homeless, you're going to be living in Aberdeen. There's a lot of conservatives who seemed to think that it is a big city problem, that everyone is being sort of imported from bigger cities or sent here from bigger cities, but a lot of who we talked to on the streets were born here and grew up here. Charyan 10:52 Yeah, not only all that, but homelessness has been integral to the area that we live in as long as settlers have been coming here to be part of this area of Western Washington and the Pacific Northwest in particular has always been kind of the end of the line as people were coming out here because they had no place else to go. They came out to try to, like, you know, build new build new homes, not having to pay for stuff back east. All the draws of settler colonialism at West. It's...[Interrupted] Sprout 11:31 Well, the homeless camp that the city evicted off the banks of the Chehalis River in 2019 had been there probably since the turn of the century in one form or another. Vagrants and poor people just living along the side of the banks of the river. Charyan 11:52 When the port dock was still a thing before--the old one from the back like 1930s and stuff before it was finally tore out--during the days of like Billy Gohl. It was... Margaret 12:07 I have no idea who Billy Gohl is. Sorry. Charyan 12:09 Oh, just a local legend. And they tried to frame him as like a serial killer. But he was getting blamed for all the deaths from people in the mills and the factories and stuff. And the bosses would dump the bodies in the river. And they blamed them on this guy because he was a labor organizer. Margaret 12:27 What's his name? Billy Gohl. Sprout 12:29 Billy Gohl. Yeah. Margaret 12:30 That's so metal. I know that that's not the takeaway I'm supposed to get from here. Also, I interrupted you. I'm so sorry. Okay. Charyan 12:37 You're fine. There's a...If you want to learn more, there's a labor historian, Aaron Goings, who did a book recently called "The Port of Missing Men" if you'd like to learn more about that. Okay. But yeah, it was common practice for for workers, or vagrants, or whoever to get shanghaied here, you know. You go to the bar, they slip something in your drink, and then you'd wake up the, you know, out in the ocean thousands of miles away from home. Margaret 13:06 Cool. That's so great. That's such a good system that is totally consensual for everyone, and a good way to build society. [Said with a lot of dry sarcasm]' Charyan 13:17 It's Aberdeen. Sprout 13:18 So yeah, it's definitely something that's existed here since settler colonialism showed up. Margaret 13:27 I think it's really interesting how all different parts of the country or the world have these different types of darknesses to them. You know? And like, hearing about like, okay, yeah, this is the end of the line for settler colonialism heading west and things like that. And then you have workers dumping bodies and rivers and people that have Gohl [pronounced like "Ghoul"] are running around getting blamed for it. And then everyone's getting...It's like, I don't know, it's just like, really interesting. Not in a good way, but an interesting way. So, okay. One of the one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on to talk is you all recently put out an article about the difference between rural organizing and urban organizing, and that's kind of the core of what I want to ask you all about, pick your brains about is what are some of these differences between rural organizing and urban organizing? And also, what's the article called and where can people read it? Sorry. Sprout 14:18 Oh, yeah. It's called "The Dichotomy Between Urban and Rural Political Organizing." You can check it out on our website Sabotmedia.noblogs.org. Charyan 14:27 You can find it under the co-conspirator section under the Harbor Rat Reports Margaret 14:33 Cool, and Sabot is spelled with a T for anyone's listening at S-A-B-O-T. Sprout 14:37 Yes. So, some of the dichotomies that we highlight are the police in the city, the relationship between those entities and activists, the need for and difficulty in obtaining anonymity in a small town while you're organizing, and as Charyan mentioned already, the sort of modes of socialization that happens between rural and urban organizing, and just living in general. And then, there was a presentation to the National Association of the Rural Mental Health Association, rural mental health, that we highlighted, in which one of the professors for Minnesota State University laid out two general approaches to community organizing, one that he found was most applicable to urban organizers and one that was most applicable to rural organizing. Margaret 15:41 Well, let's start there. What is it? What are these two modes? What is the difference? Sprout 15:47 So, he proposed two general approaches to community organizing, the Alinsky model and the Eichler method. Saul Alinsky had a conflict theory and model, in which community power focuses on people, with underserved communities rarely having enough money to fight power but usually have strength in people. These are called the have-nots. And in order to gain power, the have-nots must take power from the haves. It's aggression oriented and it focuses on people as the agents of protest and creators of conflict. This is primarily the attitude seen in urban organizing, with large protests riots and police resistance actions framing the debate around who has power and trying to seize that power over others for oneself. In contrast to that, Mike Eichler came up with a consensus theory and model that was informed by Alinsky but focused on identifying consensus points between divergent groups. It sought opportunities to strengthen relationships between different groups' interests. It was more collaboration oriented and focused on each group's best interest in establishing trust, mutual agreements, and compromise. And then each method has its own list of rules. Margaret 17:03 Okay, is Saul Alinsky the one who wrote Rules for Radicals? Sprout 17:06 Yeah. Margaret 17:07 Okay. This is so interesting to me because like, one, when you describe those things side by side, my thought is like, "Oh, the second one's better." and like, maybe that's not true. And also, probably when I was younger, I certainly didn't act in that way. Right? So what makes the second one not just better? Charyan 17:28 The way I kind of view it from what I've read is it's kind of like the offensive and defensive arms of the movement. Margaret 17:37 Yeah, I guess that's the other thing is that, like, whenever I see a dichotomy I want it to be false. And so I'm a little bit like, "Why not both?" Sorry, go ahead. Charyan 17:43 So like, with...I forget exactly what where...how it shakes out. I'm certain they can expand more about in a second. But, it's kind of kind of like a yin-yang thing where like, rural communities will focus on one with a kind of a dash on together while urban communities would focus on the other one with a dash of...a little bit of both with.... [interrupted] Sprout 18:12 It's not so much like one is better than the other, it's more like one is more likely to arise in a small rural area, and the other one is more likely to arise in a in a dense urban environment. I think a lot of that probably has to do with this main dichotomy that we highlight in the article between police and the city in a rural environment versus in an urban environment. A lot of what you see in big cities is the importation of officers from surrounding areas so that no one serving on the force in say, Oakland, is actually living in the city of Oakland. They're generally imported from the surrounding suburbs. So you get a sort of like invading force sort of feel. And here, majority, if not all of the officers live in the community. So while they're all police and they all have the same social functions, it looks a lot different. And the reactions...like the activists' reactions to those are a lot different. Margaret 19:26 Okay. Yeah. I think about like the difference between...a really bad thing happened near where I live--that I don't want to talk about for sort of just general content warning type stuff--and of the police that responded to this bad thing, you know, the state police were how I'm used to cops acting where they were like, not so nice, right? And the sheriff treated everyone at the scene like a human, right, like, they treated everyone at the scene like they had just seen something horrible because that's what just...something horrible had just happened, right? I feel bad being so vague about this but whatever. People can deal. And yeah, because you can see in the state police...you know, where as the sheriff is like, well, the sheriff grew up with everyone who's involved in this. And so it's really interesting to me because you get this thing where it's like...I often wonder, I'm like, well rural culture is so into being outlaws, they're so into like--they do at least as much crime as anyone else if not more--you know, why are so many center-right rural communities, especially more recently, all bootlickers. And like, I guess if you generalize your idea of the police as being like, "Oh, well, that's Joe. He happens to be the sheriff," as compared to like, these storm troopers walk down the street and like kick everyone's heads in every...once a day or whatever, you're gonna have like really different conceptions of them. Am I completely off base about like kind of...I probably should have just asked....[Interrupted] Charyan 21:02 Yeah, cause like in smaller towns right around here, you definitely get like that Andy Griffith kind of vibe from some cops, or at least from people's perceptions of the local police. Our local police definitely have their share of dirty dealings and unreported abuses and whatnot. I've known people personally who have been murdered by our local police department and it just...but it doesn't get the attention that someone in the bigger city might. Sprout 21:32 We found that the police here have largely shown if not ambivalence, like tacit support for the mutual aid that happens here. Charyan 21:43 We've gotten like the...what's the word I'm looking for? Like, thanks but a different word. Margaret 21:51 A nod? Charyan 21:52 Yeah, we've definitely received words of like appreciation and thanks and whatnot from the handful of officers or whatnot at like the meals when they drive by checking on people or whatever. Sprout 22:03 And that's the officers as distinct from the city. The city would definitely shut us down in a heartbeat if they could, but the officers have no desire to do so. Charyan 22:15 Some of them anyway, Margaret 22:16 That is interesting. Because, yeah, very often in an urban environment, a lot of the elements of the city often support a lot of the mutual aids. Not always but like the police are more likely to be the primary antagonistic force. This might just be showing that I haven't lived in the city in a long time. But that is like my understanding. And it is interesting, though, because in both cases, the police are not part of the democratic existence of the society, right? Like, one of the things that I found so interesting that we saw more boldly during the past few years is police departments just straight up being like, "I don't care what we're supposed to do. We're not going to do that. And you can't make us do it." And then having the city back off and be like, "Oh, well, I guess we can't make them." And you're like...it was a good moment for people to realize that like the police are completely not democratically controlled or not controlled by the people. They're not, you know, they're just a wholly separate thing. So, it's still interesting that they're like, doing it in the good way. And that's probably why rural outlawy people tend to like the so-and-so cop because that so-and-so cop lets them get away with driving home drunk from the bar or whatever. Sprout 23:29 They have a lot of discretion. Charyan 23:29 Yeah. Like, the whole politics between the population as compared to the police is reversed or, you know, one of those dichotomies, where like, in the smaller town we have more liberal "chill" police as compared to a reactionary base, the reactionary population that shows up to the big city protests to mow people down in trucks and stuff like that, versus in the city where you have that more larger liberal population and outright fascist cops Sprout 23:57 It does make it hard to push the "all cops are bastards" sort of rhetoric, right, when you have that sort of, "Oh, here's officer so-and-so helping this grandma across the road," kind of Facebook posts. Whereas if you're in a big city and you, like you mentioned, you have these sort of shock troop looking people coming in and beating people in your neighborhood up every so often, it's a lot easier to make that argument that "Oh, look at these police, you know, we need to abolish the police." But out here, the argument is still the same. We believe...we're not saying that we shouldn't abolish the police just because, you know, they're helping old ladies with groceries, but right it's a harder argument to make. Charyan 24:51 Yeah, we're gonna be expanding on that too here soon in a article we're gonna be releasing soon and a episode of Molotov Now that we'll be discussing that article called "The Problem with Good Cops," trying to dive into this idea a little bit more. Margaret 25:08 That's a really good idea and kind of an important thing because we need to, you know, I believe ACAB, right? I believe that the police are the worst. But, I also recognize why like, that's not going to be my main talking point around here, or like not my main starting talking point around here, partly because it is a more subtle bastardry because it's less obvious like, "Well, that person hits people for living," even though they still do, right? They exist to enforce violence. And, you know, one of the proudest strange moments of my life is I got a cop to quit once. Sprout 25:48 Nice. Margaret 25:49 Yeah, it was a weird...I don't think I've told the story on-air before. I wasn't...It wasn't solely me. But basically, I was like, at a nerd convention and I was like, complaining about police. And this one person was like, "I'm a police." And I was like, "What?" And then they were like, "But I'm a good police." They didn't, but they were like, "I'm good at..." you know, and we talked.... Sprout 26:12 They knew they had to make that argument. Margaret 26:13 Right, totally. But then even from that context, I was like, "Well, you throw people in cages for living for breaking laws that aren't immoral like having weed." And they were like, "Well, I choose not to throw people in jail for weed," and I'm like, "Oh, so you support the system that allows this to happen," you know, and it's like, and I saw them at another convention--and I don't know if it's solely this conversation--but some other another convention and they're like, "I quit." And it's like, I think the ACAB...It's like the rural ACAB is a little bit more of a like it--depending on, I mean, some rural police are just as fucking awful and terrible as any other cop in a very obvious way--but you still have like...it's this...The role you are playing in society is bad. And your choice to participate in that role is bad and has negative consequences versus just like, "That guy's a piece of shit," you know? Sprout 27:12 Well, and it's bad for the officers themselves as human beings. Charyan 27:16 Yeah, there's a YouTuber, That Dang Dad, they do some videos. They're actually an ex-cop who are fully ACAB police and prison abolition now. They do a video kind of talking about how being a cop like messed with their mentality and mess with their mind because of the way that they do the training and the way that they're expected to act. And it does nothing good or healthy for them. Their channel isn't really like the ex-cop channel. They have a lot of other really good content as well, but they do have some good videos on those subjects. Margaret 27:53 That's cool. Sprout 27:54 So probably the most beneficial thing that we as abolitionists could do for police is to get them to quit their jobs. Margaret 28:02 Yeah. Sprout 28:03 You know, because it's not good for anyone. I often make the argument with people when I'm talking about the, you know, the wider social revolution, that it's desirous for everyone including Bezos. You know? I don't think that he's got a life that he's enjoying living, you know, a whole lot more than anyone else. I think that this system brutalizes and emiserates everyone and it's even those at the top who can benefit from having their social position taken from the hierarchies having being abolished. Charyan 28:34 Yeah, and all this stuff requires us to do the same kind of organizing and the same kind of things that we're already talking about doing. Say, like, you know, preparing for a strike, for example, in the workplace, though, like, it's all the same stuff we would need to do to help cops be able to quit their job, you know, make sure that we're going to be able to feed their families, making sure that their house is going to be warm, you know, all these same kind of support structures that we're building for ourselves. We need to offer to these people but with the pretense of like, "You gotta stop being a cop." Margaret 29:08 Yeah, totally. It's like, they're kind of like...Like, Bezos is like the person I'm like, least concerned about the well being of as relates to all of this. But I have always...I've gotten in arguments with people about it, where I'm like, "No, I want there to not be billionaires, by force if necessary but ideally, without force, you know? Like, I don't think that they like, need to be punished. Like, I don't believe in vengeance and punishment. I believe in problem solving, for me as an anarchist, like I believe...and sometimes that might look like stopping people by force, right? Like it's not...I'm not saying like, "Oh, we need to like think about the cops' feelings while they're in the middle of hitting people or whatever." Sprout 29:52 But sometimes, the best thing you could do is to stop them by force. Margaret 29:58 Yep, totally. Sprout 29:59 For everyone, you know, so. Charyan 30:01 Before you can convince someone to stop punching someone in the face, you kind of got to grab their arm. Margaret 30:06 Yeah. And frankly, if you can't convince them to stop punching them in the face, you might have to punch them in the face harder. You know? Like, but that's not the ideal. The ideal is... Sprout 30:18 It's not coming from a place of revenge, it's coming from a place of understanding that their actions need to be stopped. Charyan 30:26 in solidarity with the rest of your community. Margaret 30:29 Yeah. No, that's interesting. And this ties into what you all were talking about about the difference between Alinsky and Eichlers' models, right, this sort of...a slightly more confrontational one that's more urban and slightly more touchy feely one that is more rural. Okay, why is the more touchy feely one--I know it's not the most polite way to phrase it--why is it the more appropriate one for rural places. I can imagine, right, because you have these more deeper connections with the people around you? Or like, what's the deal? Charyan 31:01 Well, I would definitely say it starts with like, the modes of socialization, where things are just a lot more personal in a small town. Everybody tends to know each other. There's a lot more deeper roots. Where in a bigger city, you're probably going for more of an appeal to the masses kind of tactic or whatever, but especially with like rural community, where we're wanting to make things community focused or whatnot, that is definitely going to be your biggest testing ground or incubator for building community, having those personal connections, which to be able to have that community, have those personal connections or whatnot, you actually have to, you know, put that work in. We need to be talking to people, we need to be having the conversations, we need to be, you know, not just going up to people and tell them like, "Hey, you're wrong. Here's how we need to be doing things." But we're saying, "Hey, what kind of problems are you facing in your life? What can we do to work together to solve those?" Sprout 32:05 Well, and it's also a function just literally of the size of the groups. When you have a smaller group--like I know, our crew here is, is pretty tight--and when you have a small group like that you have to take into account everyone's thoughts and feelings a lot more than if you have to, like a General Assembly or something where there's a couple of hundred or fifty a hundred people, not everyone might get their personal opinion heard in that setting. Whereas if you're with five people, ten people, you know, you just kind of have to listen to everyone and come to a more of a consensus model. So it's kind of the environment itself that imposes the different modes of organizing, Charyan 32:50 Yeah, and another aspect of that, too, is like, you know, in a bigger city, you're more than likely going to find more radicals. You're going to find more people who are already on board, you know, the like, "I'm for all the social justice issues, I'm all in for, you know, getting rid of capitalism, and all these things," which helps you like, avoid a lot of those harder conversations. And, it makes it easier to have that specialized group versus places like here, where we're having to do more work and finding the sympathetic liberals who are on that edge, bringing them in, and helping pull them the rest of the way left. Margaret 33:30 Okay. And is the way that that usually happens is that you're working on an issue together and then they see, they end up sort of assimilating to the sort of like leftist values of that group and realizing that they're appropriate to the problems that they're facing? Or like, what does that look like, pulling people further to the left? Charyan 33:48 Definitely its own tug of war. There's a lot of active work that needs to be done to keep groups from being co-opted by more liberal ideals or opinions and whatnot, which is always going to be a constant struggle. Sprout 34:09 There's also an effect that we mentioned in the article, there's a study out of, I think, Washington University in St. Louis, that they found that it was actually the geography that dictated whether people would lean more towards certain political labels. But, it wasn't the...which kind of sounds like what you'd expect. But what they found digging deeper into the research was that it wasn't actually the underlying political beliefs of the people that changed. It was really just the labels that they used. So what you can find is a lot of the similar sort of libertarian tendencies that you might expect out of like a more social left kind of as we would conceive of it individual but being labeled as conservative or, you know, something on the right. So, there's a lot of like mislabeling, and that happens here in this country uniquely I think and sometimes deliberately where political ideologies are mislabeled. Charyan 35:27 Libertarian is a big one. That means not what it means here everywhere else in the world. Sprout 35:34 But, you'll find a lot of people who are calling themselves one thing. And if you don't dig into that, you just think, "Oh, they're conservative. I know what that means." But if you dig into it, you find, "Oh, well, actually you think, you know, people in your community should have their needs provided for and people should take care of one another. And you believe all of these actually sort of like leftist values." And it's interesting that it's actually, again, it's like the environment itself that imposes these differences and not like any underlying individual traits. Charyan 36:09 I saw this guy at the bar recently. He was claiming to be like an anarchist, or whatever and this is unprompted, him having his own conversations when I got here, so I'm like, "What do you got to say about that?" And he started talking about Michael Malice. I'm like, "Alright. I'm finishing my drink. I'm leaving. I'm done here." Sprout 36:27 Yeah. And then you have that in the bigger cities where everyone is like, oh, using the same exact label, but you find actually, you think something completely different from me. Margaret 36:35 Yeah, you have the like, Democrats in California, who are--I'm not trying to be like, all people in California--but like the politicians and shit who have all of the same policies of like fund to the police, sweep camps, enact the war on drugs, like whatever. Sprout 36:52 The law and order liberals. Margaret 36:53 Yeah, exactly. And like, at the end of the day, there's not an incredible amount of difference besides like, what they like...I had this experience that I really appreciated lately. It's very rare that you could start a sentence with, "I was in a gun store talking about a conspiracy with the guy behind the counter, and it was cool." But that's...but it happened to me recently in this small town, and I'm like talking to the guy and his conspiracy was--and I agree with this. There's very few things that...he was like, "Yeah, I think that gun companies lobby anti-gun stuff constantly in order to spike sales." Sprout 37:35 Oh, yeah. Margaret 37:36 Yeah. And that's what...when I told someone this earlier they were like, "Oh, where is she going with this?" And they say that and they're like, "Yeah, no, yeah, of course," you know, like, we've got these, like, run on guns like, Y'all are in Washington. I, you know...I mean, in this case, it's--I dunno if valid is the right word--but, you know, Washington is poised to pass an assault weapons ban and so there's this run on guns in Washington. And that might be like...I mean, those are actually being banned. So if you go and get them now, it's legal. But as compared to like, federally, right, where Congress or whatever is talking about how they're going to pass an assault weapons ban, like, they're not. Like, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe. Whatever. But they're not. And it's like...and it seems like the reason that they do that...I don't know if it's actually the reason or not, and that's the...but the effect of it, is that everyone runs out and spends thousands and thousands of dollars on firearms. Sprout 38:36 That's funny. That's, that's where my mind jumped to when you brought it up before we started recording. I was like, "Oh, well, they're gonna sell some guns with that." I mean, there are conspiracies. So. Margaret 38:48 Yeah, no, totally. And, this one is a good example where it like literally doesn't matter whether it's a conspiracy or not. Like I also think that a huge reason as to why the Democrats don't actually ever do anything to solidify Roe v. Wade in law is so that they continue to use Roe v. Wade, hold people's right to choose over their head, hold bodily autonomy over people's head to blackmail people into voting for them. Right? Because as soon as it's solidified into law then you're not as freaked out and need to go run for the Democrat, vote for the Democrat every time. Sprout 39:22 And no one's gonna vote for a Democrat unless there's a life and death reason. Margaret 39:27 I know, because they're the least interesting political party that...All they've ever been able to do is be the lesser evil. Yeah. Have you all had the experience of having people explain about Trump being the lesser evil? Sprout 39:41 No. Charyan 39:43 Yeah. Unfortunately. Margaret 39:46 It's so fascinating to me, because I'm like, this is just literally the conversation I keep having with liberals. This is so wild, you know, only inverted. Sprout 39:55 When Trump was very first sort of running.... [interrupted] Margaret 39:59 Nah,this was recently. Charyan 40:00 I think it falls in with like, in line with the... [interrupted] I think it matches with this wave of like patriotic socialists and mega communists and all that other weird online Twitter shit. Sprout 40:03 Well was like, "I'll just throw a brick. We're just gonna throw this brick in the window and burn it all down." Margaret 40:15 Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. My other question then is how much does the weird...How much does the culture war in your experience filtered down to the actual people that you're around? Like, I know that you all are in one of the most polarized states in the country. It's a deep blue state with like pockets of deep red, right? Sprout 40:40 Absolutely. Charyan 40:40 That's definitely our area here. Margaret 40:42 Is one of the pockets of deep red? Charyan 40:44 Yeah. Our whole city council is pretty much far right. We have maybe one or two allies, quote unquote. And that's it. Margaret 40:53 Yeah. Is that causing, like specific issues around the issues of like, are people getting harassed for wearing masks? Are people getting harassed for not wearing gender appropriate clothing? Are people of color being harassed? Like, I mean, obviously, these are...the answer, of course, on some level is going to be yes to all of these things because people are everywhere and stuff, but I'm just curious how much it is impacting people there, the culture war shit. Sprout 41:18 There's been a little bit of the whole drag, anti-trans drag fear mongering but far and away the biggest thing on their plate is the homeless? Or I guess just poor people in general because it's hard to tell out here who's homeless sometimes and who's just wearing a real baggy coat because it's always wet. But they've been pushing that issue for going on five years really hard. And by they, I mean, Save Our Aberdeen Please is our local fascist contingency. Charyan 41:58 Yeah. And so they recently tried to do a protest against like a drag show that they were doing for Christmas fundraising here recently. It was turned into a whole thing. But, ultimately, nobody ended up showing up. They got freezed out by the fog and the rain. And the property is also set back a ways from the road so there was no place for them to effectively protest at, but here last year or the year before--I'm bad with my time and dates--But there is a huge protest outside of a local Star Wars shop with a big anti-trans protests that resulted after a trans council woman that we had, at the time, had called out a local shopkeeper, the owner of the Star Wars shop, for some transphobic signs that he had displayed front and center at the business. It turned into a whole thing. They brought Proud Boys to town. It was a big ordeal. Margaret 43:01 This offends my nerd heart very deeply. Nerd culture has always been one of the safest places for gender marginalized people. Charyan 43:12 Yeah, and this guy was anything but safe. He was a groomer. He let his kid deal heroine out of the back of the shop. Just nothing but bad from this guy. Sprout 43:27 Yeah, but this small group of old ladies who were just trying to pick up trash somehow coordinated like 50+ Proud Boys to show up for that event. So... Margaret 43:41 Jesus. Charyan 43:42 It also appeared on Stormfront before any local news. It went straight from local Facebook drama to Stormfront. Sprout 43:50 Yeah. And then it was a part of the Right-Wing Outrage Machine for about 24 hours. Charyan 43:56 They brought Matt Walsh to town. He put something about based grandpa in that fucked off documentary, whatever you'd call it that he made, the "What is a Woman" shit? Margaret 44:08 Yeah, cuz he's never met one. So that's why he made that. It was the only to get women to talk to him. [said sarcastically] Charyan 44:15 I saw Lance from The Serf Times talking about him and the crew from Daily Wire, about how none of them know how to operate a fucking washing machine. And it was just hilarious. Margaret 44:24 I was thinking that shit. Imagine telling people that you don't know how to do your own laundry. Imagine thinking that makes you look strong. Charyan 44:37 Yeah, and proud of it. Margaret 44:40 Nothing makes it more clear that they believe that they own the women in their lives than the fact that it's like...because they're like all into...the right wing mythos is all about self reliance and shit, right? But it's like, "Well, I don't have to be entirely self reliant because I own this wife." Sprout 45:00 Yeah, that's my wife [said sarcastically] Margaret 45:02 and fucking...You all will be shocked to know that I don't like misogyny. God, imagine being proud of it. I can't. It's just doesn't make any sense to me like there...Okay, this is a kind of a question too, right? Because it's like, there's people I can talk to with different values than me, even values that like matter a lot to me, where you can kind of be like, "I see where you're coming from. I disagree strongly with your desire to protect women all the time, or the women, the girls sports team," or whatever fucking weird shit people are on. You can like, see where people are coming from...And then you have the fucking Nazis, where you're just like, how can anyone look at Matt Walsh and be like, "There's a man I can relate to?" I can't imagine anything he's saying. Charyan 45:56 He's like, the most boring guy too. Like, all his content, like it...For all the inflammatory stuff, he says, like, there's no flavor to it, it's just the most boring monotone... Margaret 46:14 And how do you deal with that? I mean, like, honestly, okay, as a question like, how do you deal with like, talking to people around you? This is one of the questions we get a lot, actually, on the show, is people are like," I live in a place--you talk about how part of preparedness is communicating with your neighbors, getting to know them--how do I talk to people, you know, in ways that are safe? How do I talk to people who are steeped in culture war, or might be steeped in culture war?" Like, and there's gonna be like, limits to this, right? Like, I'm not gonna like, go knock on the door of the person with the Confederate flag in a dress and be like, "Hey, bud, what's up?" Right? But I'm like, curious how you all navigate as organizers, because my...I just hide from everyone. My immediate neighbors know me, but I just hide from everyone, because I'm not an organizer. Like, how do you all handle that? Charyan 47:06 Well, I have no solid answers. But one thing I definitely would say, it probably is a good start, is like finding the people who are closest to you, or at least closest to your immediate circle, and just do all you can to like help out, make yourself an asset to them in a way that you guys can start getting closer on some sort of other level. And once you've gotten to a point where it's like, alright, they care about you, and they care about how things affect you, at least, you might be able to start making that bridge, like, "Hey, here's something that affects you, here's something that affects me. This is shitty," but it's going to be different for everybody in every situation. That said, I don't really have any hard fast answers. Sprout 47:55 No, I mean, when we've found the best approach has been to just ask people what they need and start there, and then don't over promise, you know, if they need more than you can provide. Let them know that. But, consistency, you know, showing up, and doing what you tell someone you're gonna do, those those can help build a reputation, you know, something that's going to generate respect regardless of your political views is you just being out there in your community helping people meet their needs. And, how you can do it as an anarchist is that element of asking what their need is and not going in as charity, saying, "Here's a bunch of blankets. I didn't call ahead to see if that's what you needed." But you know, like, going in saying, "Hey, what do you need?" And then helping them get that without judgment. That's pretty much what we've done and it's taken us this far. So, I'm pretty proud of it. Margaret 49:05 Makes sense. Well, the main thing that y'all are currently working on we haven't talked too much about, but kind of here at the end, I'm wondering if you want to talk about your...you know, Blackflower Collective, you're talking about getting this space, right? How's that going? Like, what...what are y'all running into as things that are helping or not helping as you work on that? Charyan 49:26 Well, our main obstacle and our main goal right now is finding land, being able to have property in the hand is vital for our project because between the hostile political environment in town, and all the other problems associated with renting property, we need to have a property that we can own to get this off the ground. And with property values rising and skyrocketing and us pretty much essentially starting from zero to get this off the ground, we are head focused on trying to figure out how we can do fundraisers, how we can launch some side businesses to help fund this project because we're looking at pretty much anywhere between $300,000 and a $1,000,000 we're going to need to raise for this property. Sprout 50:17 Yeah. Right now we're focused on getting the word out because it's just a brand new idea and a brand new project, and starting to generate some sources of revenue. So we have Blackflower Bookkeeping, if there's any radical businesses that need bookkeeping services, hit us up. We also have Blackflower Permaculture. So, we're starting to do some design work around permaculture. And so those are two sources of revenue that we're trying to open up, as well as the--as I mentioned before--the benefit shows, which not only would serve to start to cultivate sort of community around the project but would hopefully be another fundraising effort. Margaret 51:07 Yeah. Okay, so with the bookkeeping thing. One of the things that's come up a bunch of times...I've met people who've been like, "I want to be an anarchist." But people think that they're like, get kept out of anarchy because they're not like punks, or they're not like...their skill set is not like, organized...depending on what they think of anarchism, either they're not a punk, their skill set is not antagonizing cops, or their skill set is not organizing or whatever, right? And I've met people who are like, "Oh, I'm only good at spreadsheets. I don't know how I could be of help." And I just like, want to shake them and be like, "Every group I know needs a spreadsheet wizard." Charyan 51:48 So, for a message for all the boozy radicals that are listening that are looking for their entrance into radical spaces, and anarchist spaces, and whatnot, we definitely could use a lot more of those skills that are removed from a lot of lower income people and whatnot. Like, for example, I need a fucking anarchist lawyer. Get me a Saul Goodman. Someone, please, come through for me. Margaret 52:20 We'll talk after. There are good anarchist lawyers. Sprout 52:25 I mean, we need every skill, you know, when you think about it. So yeah, there's no wrong place to get involved. That's the thing is, you don't have to be out on the front line throwing yourself at a line of police. You can do anything. Just do it for the revolution. Margaret 52:45 Yeah, yeah. Fuck yeah. Well, that feels like kind of a good end note. If people are interested in supporting you, or hearing more about the stuff that you're doing, do you want to talk about your pod...Like, where can people find your...well, people can find your podcast where are they found this podcast. It's called Molotov Now. But, you want to plug any of the stuff you're working on? Charyan 53:09 Well, if you want to find more of our projects from Sabot Media, you could find our website at SabotMedia.noblogs.org. Or check us out on your social media platform of choice @Aberdeenlocal1312. Sprout 53:28 Ideally at Kolektiva's Macedon server. So, for Blackflower, the website is blackflowercollective.no blogs.org. And that has all the information about where to donate and what the different projects that we're trying to get off the ground are. And any information that comes up about new events or shows anything like that we'll be putting on the website as well. Margaret 53:58 Awesome. All right. Well, thank you all so much, and I can't wait to hear more about what you all are getting up to. Charyan 54:07 Thank you. It's been great talking with you. Sprout 54:09 Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Margaret 54:16 Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, you can go and start a rural organizing project. Don't call it that. There's already a rural organizing project called Rural Organizing Project. Oooh, I should have them on too. But, you can go organize, or you can just be lazy and tell people about this podcast. Or, you can rate, and review, and do all the algorithm stuff. Or, you can support us financially. Supporting us financially pays the people who transcribe and edit these episodes. One day it might even pay the hosts of this episode, wouldn't that be cool. Or the guests. I guess should probably pay the guests first. But you can help make that happen by going to patreon.comstrangersinatangledwilderness. Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness is an anarchist publishing collective that publishes this podcast and a bunch of other stuff, including the podcast Anarcho Geek Power Hour, for people who like movies and hate cops, the podcast Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which includes our features zines that we put out every month. And, if you want to know more about our features zines, you can go to patreon.com...I already said that part. But, you get sent those zines if you're part of our Patreon, and if not, you can look at them for free by going to our website, which is tangledwilderness.org. And it really is the Patreon that that makes all of these things happen. And I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who supports it. And in particular, I'm grateful to Jans, Oxalis, Janice, Paige, Aly, Paparouna, Milica, Boise Mutual Aid, Theo, Hunter, Shawn, SJ, Paige, Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Kat J., Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Kirk, Sam, Chris, Micaiah, and Hoss the Dog. And if you want to hear your name listed in this list, you just head on over, and I can't do the...I can't do that voice. I'm not very good at the non earnest voice. But, it really it means the world. It also means the world that so many of you listen to this show and tell people about it. It's what makes it worth it. And take care Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co
Episode Summary On this week's Live Like the World is Dying, Margaret and Inmn finish their talk about go bags. They talk about important documents, knives, tools, sleeping systems, shelters, coping with isolation, food, water, firearms, specific situations you might need a go bag for, and of course, DnD. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. 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 Live Like the World is Dying: Margaret on Go Bags Part II Inmn 00:14 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host Inmn Neruin, and this week we're continuing to talk about go bags. We have the second part of an interview with the founder of this podcast, Margaret Killjoy, where we continue our conversation from last week at literally the exact place that we left off. 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. Doo doo doo doo doo. [Making noises like a song] So Margaret, we've gone through hygiene kit, survival kit, and... I immediately forgot the third part of it. Margaret 01:39 First aid. Inmn 01:39 First-aid kit. And so that wraps up kind of like an emergency pack? Margaret 01:44 Yep. Inmn 01:44 What what what else goes in a bug out bag. Margaret 01:47 So, now that we get to the bag itself, I would say the next most important thing is a water bottle. Specifically, I like--and I give to all my friends--single wall steel canteen style water bottles. And the reason that I like these is that you can boil water in them. The double wall vacuum sealed canteens, they rule for a lot of purposes, like actually, they're really good for like putting hot soup in your bag. If you're going out hiking for the day and you get to the top of the mountain you get to--as if I've ever climbed a whole ass mountain. By my standards where I live, the mountains are very short. And so when you climb up a whole ass Appalachian mountain, you can have your warm soup up at the top even when it's snowing and shit, you know. But overall, I use 32 ounce steel wall canteens. I like them a lot. And then you're also going to want to make sure that you have food in there, protein bars and other snacks. So that's the core. But then for the bag itself, it's really going to depend on what you're doing. So, I guess I'll go over the not camping stuff first, the kind of like...the stuff that is like...Okay, because there's all the camping shit. And that's really useful depending on your situation. But, things to put in your go bag: your passport. If nothing else, if you don't want your actual main documents in here, you're going to want to put photocopies and digital copies of your stuff in here, which is of course somewhat of a security risk. If someone steals your bag, they get this stuff, right. But for me, the threat model is that my passport is more useful to me in my backpack than it is at home in a safe when I'm 1000 miles away. So, your passport, which I would push anyone who was capable in the United States of making sure that they have an updated passport, especially these days. You want your important documents backed up. This could be some of your medical records. It could be your dog's medical records. It could be your children's medical records. And, you might want the deed to your house. You might want some of the vehicle registration stuff. You want your like stuff--not necessarily the originals in this particular case--but you want the documents of it in case you're like coming back later and need to prove some shit. You know? Because a lot of crises might disrupt a lot of the institutions of bureaucracy. And you would think that in times of crisis, bureaucracy will be like, "I guess we kind of get in the way of human freedom." But no, in times of crisis borders will still be like, "Oh, I don't know about you. You don't have the right document. I don't care that the road you're on is literally on fire." or whatever the fuck you know. Another way to back these up is to literally just to take pictures of them on your phone and have it on your phone. But I think it's actually a good idea to have a USB stick with these documents as well and you might want to consider encrypting that, which I don't know if all computers can do easily but at least my computer can do easily. And you probably want...you might want more of an expanded first-aid kit in this. I guess I gets into the other thing thing. And then the other thing that I think you're gonna want in your go bag is you want fucking entertainment. Like this gets over overlooked so much. But, when when Covid hit, the way that my mental health works I was very isolated, right? I could not put myself at risk to Covid because of my mental health. And so, I lived alone in a cabin without much electricity. And the best purchase I made was something called a Bit Boy, and I highly recommend it. It is this tiny...it looks like a tiny Gameboy and it has all of the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and everything else games like on it. And it uses almost no battery. It's rechargeable. It's a little finicky. If you like turn it off it like fucks it up because it's like a it's like a $30 thing full of pirated shit, right? So it's super finicky. But, I swear that this thing had a better mental health effect on me then like almost anything else during that time. And the other thing that got me through it was I had legally purchased downloads of TV. And so even though I didn't have internet, I once a week, once a day, like sat down and ate my cold soup and watched fucking Steven Universe, and that she got me through it. And so like a USB stick full of like movies, TV, also, specifically, a USB stick full of like survival guides and information about how to build things, fix things, all of that shit. I think it's a super useful thing for a bug out bag. And I leave it up to... Inmn 06:32 It's funny because I feel like this episode is something where we're covering a lot of stuff that--and I just want to start flagging things--we did a whole episode on how you can build a mesh network essentially to have things like libraries of entertainment, or Wikipedia downloads, or like survival bits. So, if you want to learn more about that then go check out that episode. I believe it's called Andre on Solar Punk. Margaret 07:08 Oh, yeah. I forgot we talked about some of the mesh network stuff. That shit's fucking cool. And yeah, so have a library with you. You know, keep a download of Wikipedia on your computer. My computer bag is an example of the kind of bag that theoretically I should be a little bit smarter and kind of keep next to the bug out bag when it's not in use, right? Because I'm going to throw my laptop into my bug out bag if I'm running, right? And so it's like people are like, "Oh, but where's your like giant knife." and like, don't get me wrong, I have a giant knife on my bag. But. I also now have a Nintendo Switch in there, which is an upgrade from the Bit Boy. And like, I am proudest of that of all of the things in my bug out bag. I see that as the most likely for me to use. And I remember before Covid, I remember thinking to myself as I was preparing a library hard drive. And as I was preparing--well I didn't have the Switch yet--but I was like, "Man, what kind of Apocalypse leaves you with free time?" And I'm like, "Oh, Covid." or the next pandemic or fucking hanging out in a refugee center for trans people in Canada or whatever the fuck horrible shit we're gonna have to deal with, you know? Inmn 08:24 Yeah, and just sorry, just to clarify, free time for a lot of people and an incredible amount of not free time for a lot of people. Margaret 08:33 Well, yeah, no, I I think I mean more about isolation. It's not like I like...maybe I'm just being defensive. But it's like at the beginning of the pandemic, my cabin did not sustain life. And so I had to put all of my work into plumbing it, solaring it, you know, washing all my clothes by hand, like doing all this shit, right? But, I think that especially in times of isolation there's like downtime that people don't expect. And I could be wrong, but I suspect that this would be true almost no matter the crisis is that there's like downtime you don't expect where turning your...where not thinking about the crises that are happening is incredibly important. No, it is funny. You're right because I think in my head there's like the beginning of Covid a lot of especially middle class people were like, "Oh, fuck, I'm stuck in my house and bored." Right? Versus a lot of working class people who are like, "Well, now I'm still working in the middle of this nightmare," you know? I think that like...but I would guess that...I dunno, whatever I'll stop being defensive. Inmn 09:41 Yeah, sorry, less of a push back and more just a bringing in this other piece of the piece of the context. But, you know, there were also overworked doctors who were separated from their families. And so, I imagine they also did have probably this weird amount of downtime where It's like, "Well, I'm not at work, but I'm not with my family. What am I doing?" Margaret 10:04 Yeah, and specifically for me, games are a really good anti-anxiety because I definitely hold by the, "Busy bee has no time for sorrow." But then you're like, "Well, it's dark out and I don't have lights in my house. Fuck am I gonna do?" You know? Okay, so that's some of the stuff from a bug out bag point of view. That's the kind of...like;, documents and things like that matter a lot. You're also going to want anything that you need for taking care of other loved ones and or animals that you might have to do. Like, my dog has a smoke mask. He does not like it. If we were in a wildfire situation, he would deal with it. You know? And so there might be like different stuff like...I should probably get a muzzle for my dog. I do not. I do not muzzle my dog on any kind of regular basis. But, I could imagine a situation in which like, everything is so stressful that it would be necessary, right? And you're gonna know better than us what specifically other other stuff you need. But I guess we'll talk about more of the expanded survival stuff that a lot of people are gonna put in their bug out bags, if that makes sense? Inmn 11:20 Yeah, totally. And sorry, just to keep flagging some things. So folks, if you want to learn more about other little pieces of this topic like how to prepare for needing extra medications in a world where like medication systems kind of break down, we do a whole episode on it. I'm blanking on what the episode title is. But I believe it's called "Taking care of your medical needs." Margaret 11:50 That sounds right. Inmn 11:51 And I forget who the guest was. But yeah, I love that we're having this go back conversation now. Because I feel like we can really tie a lot of larger topics that we've talked about before into it, which I'm really loving. Margaret 12:08 Yeah. And then maybe we'll go through, you know, kind of some more of this checklist type stuff and then talk more about the different situations in which one might need to go bag. How does that sound? Inmn 12:18 That sounds great. Margaret 12:19 Okay. So, for the bag itself beyond the emergency kit, you've now added your documents, you've added your water bottle, you've added snacks. And for snacks from my point of view, I recommend snacks that you don't like because otherwise you're going to eat them beforehand. If you're me. [laughs] I used to keep Clif Bars and not Builder Bars as my snacks because I didn't like Clif bars, but I ate so many builder bars as part of my regular life as being an oogle that now I'm kind of sick of them. So now it's like reversed. And Clif Bars are my regular protein bar and Builder Bars are my my snacks I throw in my bag, you know. And, everyone's gonna do this a little differently. And then that stuff is like...most of the stuff in here is...Like I also pick things that don't really expire, but food expires. And also so does that medication, although the medication tends to just lower its efficacy rather than become dangerous. Other things I keep in my bug out bag: a collapsible plastic water canteen. These are useful for a bunch of different things. Like if you just need to hold more water for a while, you might want one of these. I also have moved to a hydration bladder. A lot of people move away from them. I've recently moved towards them. People kind of go back and forth in the hiking world about hydration bladders. As an oogle, I never used them. As a hiker, I really like them because you can hands free or like minimal effort drink as you go, you know. And, you know, more water good except for the weight part of it, you know? And you're also going to want, to keep talking about water, you're going to want to filter in water. And I think that this is true in most circumstances. I think that this is like...you know, some of this like survival stuff is very back woodsy, but a lot of the survival stuff also applies to cities. And it applies to cities where like if you got to boil advisory... like I don't know, anyone who's not had a boil advisory where they live at some point or another, right? You know, every now and then they admit that the water isn't drinkable in your area, and also a lot of like urban survival stuff is like...whatever, I've like slept on a lot of rooftops in my life and shit, you know? Like shelter from the elements is often easier to find in a city but not necessarily a lot of other stuff. So for myself, there's a lot of different water filters. A lot of them are designed for backpacking and those tend to be pretty good. I use a Sawyer water filter. They're these little tiny ceramic water filters and they have a bunch of different attachment sense to them. I used one of these at the beginning of Covid for all of my water because I didn't have a great water source. And, I was just like basically like...I set mine up to a five gallon bucket system where I put water in the five gallon bucket, and then it goes through a hose into the Sawyer filter, and then it gravity drips into a five gallon jerrycan. That's like a stationary kind of thing. For a go bag, you use the same water filter, but it has like one bag of dirty water and one bag of clean water. You can also just rely on chemical filter...not filtration but like purification. Some people like the UV filter chemical things. I've never used one. I don't totally understand them. I mean, I understand the concept, but I don't...I can't attest to them. It seems like most people are picking ceramic water filters. There's also a LifeStraw. And a LifeStraw is a perfectly fine thing to have. I keep one in my hiking day bag. These are these cheap water ceramic filters--like 15 bucks often--and you just drink through it. Usually I go up to the stream and you stick this thing in it and you drink out of the stream. Inmn 16:09 It acts as a filter but also you can't get viruses or stuff? Margaret 16:14 Exactly, it's a ceramic filter that...Yeah, all of these filters are designed to take like mountain stream water and make it potable. Actually, the thing that they're bad at is filtering large stuff like mud. And these can get like clogged up. It's the biggest downside of a ceramic filter. What a lot of people do is they take their bandanna or their...if you're an oogle you use a banana. If you're a military bro, you use the...I forget what they're called. They're the like, giant bananas that...Folk...I can't remember the name of them. Folks in the desert and like, you know, Southwest Asia and stuff tend to use, I think. You use one of those. And then if you're a hiking bro, then you use your...what did I decide they were called? Buffs? Inmn 17:11 Yes. Margaret 17:13 So, you filter all the water through that if you want to keep the ceramic water filter lasting longer. I haven't done as much like hiking filtering, I usually just bring enough water because I don't go on really long hikes. But, I mostly have used the ceramic water filter in a stationary sense. So that's like my personal experience with it. But, that's what I carry. You can also add, if you would like, you can add these more ready-to-eat food besides just like bars and stuff. They make these...it's basically Lembas [like in "Lord of the Rings"] bread. They make these like military rations that are like vacuum sealed and are good for five or ten years. And it's just like oil and flour. And it tastes like nothing. And it's just calories. It's just like a block of calories. And your body can go a fairly long time without food compared to water, right? But like, for peak efficacy--and also to not be a grouchy asshole--you want to at least put calories if not nutrition in your body. A lot of the survival food isn't really focused on nutrition because like it's not the end of the world if you don't get your vitamins for a couple days. Inmn 18:21 Yeah, but obviously everyone has different, you know, body needs or like food requirements. Margaret 18:27 Yeah, totally. Inmn 18:28 And so this is like maybe a good time for folks with diabetes or just any any other kind of predisposition that requires to have more food around. Margaret 18:39 Yeah, and different types of food. And I think it's actually worth having a variety of types of food also for the people around you because I think a lot of this is going to be based on sharing, because greediness in times of crisis, people are like, "Oh, that's when you got to be greedy." And I'm like, "The single most useful tool you can have is another person." Like I can't imagine something I would rather have in a time of crisis than someone else. And so like, yeah, having a variety of types of foods, I think is great from that point of view. No, yeah. And like, yeah, everyone's going to need different things. Okay, so next, fire. In most people's day to day life, fire is not a big component of it. And honestly, most random overnight...like, when I was in oogle, I didn't like fucking stop and make a fire in the woods most nights, you know? And if I did, it was kind of like a celebration type thing, you know? However, from a survival point of view, there's a lot of situations where being able to have a fire is really useful specifically mostly for warmth, also for other like, you know, signaling purposes and for like...you know, if you make a wet fire, it'll smoke more and things like that. And for both boiling water to...another way to, you know, purify your water or whatever. And also for cooking. It's kind of a morale thing for cooking a lot of times. A lot of foods you can just eat them cold and that's especially the kind of stuff you might want to keep in your bag. But for fire, you might want to have additional fire methods, but you've already got a lot of them going on in the rest of your kit. The kind of thing that I always sort of made fun of, but now I understand, is the big fuck-off knife. I mean, you're a knife maker. So you probably think about knives more than the average person. But... Inmn 20:39 It's true and I think I'm curious what you have to say about the big fuck-off knife mostly because I've kind of worked my way back from it, because I used to have a big fuck-off knife all the time. Like when I was an oogle, I was that oogle with the big fuck-off knife. Margaret 20:57 The big fuck-off knife has two purposes. One, is to get people to fuck off. It's not even about drawing it, it's about fucking open carrying it. It's just about being like, "Yeah, I'm in a miniskirt. And I have a like seven inch knife on my waist." Like, people just fuck with you less when you have a big fuck-off knife. And so that's like one of the purposes. But then, bushcraft. I didn't understand why survival knives were big because I was like a big knife...I'm not a knife fighter. I think anyone who is a knife fighter is not thinking about how long they want to live. Like, that's why I mean having a big fuck-off knife is to make people leave you alone, not to like fight them with it. But just to like fucking get people to leave you alone. But the giant knife is really useful for bushcraft. It's really useful for processing wood especially if you don't have a hatchet or something with you. That's what I've like come to understand as to why survival knives are big and how specifically they're bladed on one side with a wide--you're going to know these words better than me--like spine. [Inmn mummers affirmatively] And they have a wide spine so that you can split wood with it. You can take a stick and you can put it on it on the end of the stick and then you can hit it with another stick or a rock. And you can push the knife through the thing. That's [Inmn interrupts] Inmn 22:18 Can I? Margaret 22:19 Yeah. You know more about knives than I do. Inmn 22:21 Yeah, yeah. Just to offer a little bit of re-contextualization. So you know, I'm not a bushcrafter by any means. I wish that I was. I'd be. God, I'd be so much cooler. But I do know knives pretty well and I've been asked to make bushcraft knives before and so you know, I did a bunch of research about bushcraft knives. And what I found was that and then what I found from use is that like the big fuck-off knife is not actually great for bushcrafting. Margaret 22:58 Oh, interesting. Inmn 23:01 Yeah, most Bushcraft knives are like they kind of max out at six inches. And a lot of people err more on the like, you know, four and a half to five and a half range. And what that gives you...because for bushcraft, it's like--you described batoning earlier--if you're batoning your knife through wood to reduce it you don't need a big knife for that. You need a sturdy knife for that. And with a smaller knife, you kind of get a lot more manual dexterity so you can do all of your other tasks. I love knives, I love big fuck off knives. I agree that the purpose of a big fuck-off knife is for people to fuck off. And, you know, I can imagine like survival knives are often longer because you might need them for heavier, larger tasks. But I'm honestly a fan of having a belt axe for that purpose because it's does that thing better. Sorry. That's my that's my segue into knife world Margaret 24:06 No, that makes a lot of sense. And if you ever want to lose a lot of your life--and I feel like you might have also--read people talking about survival knife versus axe versus saw versus machete, about what you're supposed to bring into the woods, you know? Inmn 24:27 Yeah. And what you're gonna learn is that knives...there's no single knife. That's good for everything just like there's no single bag that's good for everything. You need to pick the things that you're comfortable doing. And you need to pick the tasks that you need done. And then find the right tool for it. Margaret 24:48 No, that makes a lot of sense. I will say in terms of saws and knives and all that shit, I have found that the little wire saw is sort of bullshit. Have you seen these? Inmn 25:01 I always wondered. Margaret 25:03 But yeah, I think...and the one...I haven't used that much. I think I tried to use one once. The pocket chainsaw is not bullshit, which is basically a chainsaw blade with two loops on either end, and you loop it around a limb, and then you like, saw back and forth. You know, I think those are not bullshit. Although I think, personally, I'd rather have a folding saw. But they're bigger. So. Inmn 25:30 Yeah, yeah. And that's the key thing here is like if you want to build shelters, use the saw. Don't...You could use your knife for some of it. But yeah. You don't want to build a structure with like hacking 10,000 sticks into something. Get a saw. Margaret 25:51 No, I think you've convinced me. Because I've been like, I've been pondering my--I have a survival knife on my bag--and I've been pondering its actual usefulness versus its weight and stuff, you know? And like, besides the like, I keep it on the outside of my bag and it's a little bit of a like, leave me alone, you know? I think that I have been seeing...Yeah, like, yeah, I think I want to fuck with this more. Redefined my own...Because the knife that I use on a day-to-day basis is my folding pocket knife. You know? It's what I use for almost everything. I'm not going to baton wood with it. Well, I would. It just wouldn't do a very good job of it. Inmn 26:27 Yeah. And, you know, I say this as someone who is always going to have a big knife, probably. And I don't have a purely rational reason for that. But yeah, it makes me feel more comfortable. Margaret 26:45 No, and it's like, and I think it's telling that backpackers don't tend to have large knives. They don't tend to have survival knives at all. Backpackers also tend not to have axes or saws because they're not really...they're focused on getting somewhere and camping, not like building large fires or building structures and things like that. Yeah. And then like, I think more and more, I think fighty type people have been focusing more on smaller knives anyway. Like the karambit is a popular fighting knife or whatever and it's not a big knife. Inmn 27:19 Yeah, yeah. And if you see the...like a lot of the like, original from...I actually don't know where karambits come from. But, where they were developed, they're incredibly small knives. They're like inch and a half long blades. They're incredibly tiny. Margaret 27:36 It's Indonesian. I just looked it up. Yeah. Yeah, no, yeah. It's not a like...Like don't fight a bear. Like a general rule. Don't live your life in such a way where you're fighting bears. And then, if you are then use bear spray. If you're not using bear spray, use a 10mm handgun. Like, you know? Oh, we haven't really talked about firearms. Inmn 28:06 Anyway. Sorry. Derail into knife world over. Margaret 28:09 No, no, I think that...I'm really...It was useful. I learned some. It's probably worth carrying some kind of knife sharpener. If you suck like me, you can use the pull through style--that Inmn is probably going to be disgusted that I use because it destroys the initial original bevel. If you know how to sharpen a knife properly, you can bring a whetstone. It's a little... Inmn 28:31 But, whet stones are heavy. Margaret 28:33 I know. And it's also...or you can also bring a little diamond sharpener stick and stuff like that. Yeah, what would you...Okay, what would you suggest? What would you suggest as your portable knife sharpener? Light and transportable? Inmn 28:45 Yeah, so you know, a knife doesn't do much good if it's not sharp. And most people's knives are not very sharp. I would say that it is a great skill to invest in is learning how to sharpen a knife. There's a lot of stuff... Margaret 29:06 I've tried it so many times. I don't believe in it. I don't think it's real. Anyway, yeah, let's continue. Inmn 29:13 And yeah, like, you know, like what I have at home are these big series of benchtop whetstones. There's a million grits and...but one of the better things that you can have is a strop. Just a leather strop, which is just some like full grain leather. You want it to be fairly thick and use some green polishing compounds that you rub on it and you strop the edge, which helps maintain the edge. And, but as far as pocket sized sharpening devices, the strop doesn't sharpen the knife, the strap like helps redefine the burr on the edge. And there's a million different little pocket sized whetstones. But, the important part is that you want something coarse and you want something fine to like refine the bevel. And so like if I had to build a little to-go kit, I would get a little miniature like 400/1000 combo stone. That is probably not something ceramic because it's heavy. But, they make a bunch of different things. I'm actually less knowledgeable about these pocket things. Yeah, but you want something coarse and you want something fine. 400/1,000 are great grits and then a strop to kind of like polish out the edge with. With that you can't go wrong. Well, you can go wrong... Margaret 30:48 Yeah, I will go wrong. Inmn 30:49 I don't know enough to tell you how to go wrong. Margaret 30:51 No, I will successfully go wrong. I've been trying to sharpen knives my whole life. I will continue to do it. I can kind of do it. I actually use a little all-in-one pocketstone, a little bit larger than the like stick ones, and it's a longish yellow piece of plastic with two sides. And then also has a little fold out part that can be used for filing in the saw parts. And it has kind of a guide, has a little bit of an angle guide built into it, and that's the most useful part for me. So that's the only time I've been able to sharpen knives to where they like can shave. Inmn 31:28 Knife sharpening is is a skill. Don't...That would be my advice is don't think that you're going to...don't rely on learning how to sharpen your knife for the first time when you're in an in an emergency. Practice that now. Margaret 31:40 And I will say as someone who has used all knives for almost everything over the years, it's like, it's all right. I mean, it's not as good. But, I can still cut a cord with a shitty knife, you know? Inmn 31:54 Yeah, well, you know, the old knife making adage, "A dull knife..." or sorry, the old kitchen worker adage, "A dull knife is a dangerous knife." Margaret 32:02 Yeah, so live dangerously. Cut... Cut paper with your knives and never sharpen them. Yes. Okay, let's talk about sleeping systems. Inmn 32:06 Live dangerously? [laughing] Sleeping systems! Thank you for indulging my derailment. Margaret 32:20 It's what we're here for. And some of this we might kind of like...some of the like camping stuff we might not dive as deep into. We're already on episode two of what was going to be one episode. So, I believe in the sleeping bag. And that's leftover from being oogle. I would say that the one thing I would carry in any kind of bag is a sleeping bag. This is not always true. I don't always carry sleeping bag. But, it's like almost a comfort item. It's a like no matter what I'm warm kind of item. I believe in sleeping bags with a good stuff sack. I personally don't use down. Backpackers tend to use down. It's lighter. It compacts more for the same warmth. However, it doesn't insulate once it gets wet. And that is a big deal from my point of view, from a survival point of view. When everything is fine, I prefer a non down one. They're also cheaper. And that might be why I have that preference. And also, I don't know anything about how the birds who produce down are treated. So, sleeping bag super important. A lot of backpackers have now moved to backpacking quilts. And then a lot of old timers will actually just use like wool blankets and stuff like that. I love a sleeping bag. You're gonna want to get off the ground. However, that said, in an urban environment you can use cardboard. You just need to layer it a lot. And it's not as good as a sleeping pad. But it is still useful. And you're going to need a sleeping pad that is appropriate to weather and desired comfort. If you want to hear me learn more about sleeping bags and tents you can listen to me talk to Petra a year and a half ago. I don't remember the name of the episode besides Petra being the guest. And that's where I learned that the combo move of an air mattress and a foam pad is is often really good. For shelter, the sort of three choices kind of is a tent, a bivy, or a tarp. This is not necessarily in a lot of bug out situations. It is necessary in my bug out situation and it might be in yours. And the advantage of a tarp is that it is like only one object. It is light. It is kind of easier to hide in a lot of ways. And I actually, when I'm sleeping in dangerous situations--like a lot of oogle life is like trespassing--I don't like tents because tents, you can't see out of them. Like it's like a little bubble. It's why people do like tents is that they want to be in their little bubble and I totally get that. And I'll probably be a tent person moving on because it's like comfortable, and safe, and stuff. But when I was younger and everything was well, not easier, my life was fairly hard. But like whatever. It was easier for me to not bother with a tent so I used a tarp. And then the other option is the bivy. And a bivy is like a...It's like a waterproof sleeping bag. And there's like ones...like I have one that has like one pole, just to keep the head of it off your face, you know. And these compact really small. This is what a lot of people who are rucking, who are doing military shit, tend to prefer are bivys. They're not popular among backpackers. The kind of closest equivalent is hammocks. A lot of people also use, but that involves there being good trees in the right place. However, hammocks can be light, and good, and stuff, too. And these are all gonna be preferences. And the reason I no longer fuck with bivys is I have a dog. And he's coming with me. And so I'm now probably a tent camper. Because if I'm sleeping outside, I'm just leashing my dog to a tree. But, I don't want him to get rained on. I want him warm. So I'm probably going to be a tent camper from now on. And then some tents now, a lot of backpackers are moving to these tents where you use your hiking poles to keep them up and then they're super lightweight and they're actually kind of cool. And they're a little bit...like some of them are like almost halfway between a tarp and a tent. And... Inmn 36:06 I love as like camping technology evolves it just like...I feel like it gets more old timey and more oogley but with you know, fancy stuff. Margaret 36:17 The $700 oogle tent. Yeah. Some of these tents are like fucking $600-700 and made out of like, space material or whatever. Yeah. What's your favorite shelter for camping? Inmn 36:32 So this is funny. I once bike toured across the entire country. From the west coast to Chicago, I built a tarp tent every night. Margaret 36:47 Like an a-frame? Inmn 36:50 Yeah, I built like a little tarp tent every night, which I had to get really creative in the West. As you know, there's not a lot of trees everywhere it turns out. And then when I got to Chicago, I went out and bought the Big Agnes ultralight backpacking tent, which is like sort of halfway between....Yeah, it's halfway. It's like...It's not a bivy, but it doesn't have a much larger footprint than a bivy. And it was the best thing that I've ever spent money on. I'm embarrassed to say that I spent money on it. Margaret 37:28 Whatever. Whatever. Inmn 37:29 But, I did. Margaret 37:30 I'm revoking your oogle card. You didn't scam it from REI dumpsters? I can't believe you. Yeah, yeah. Fuck yeah. Inmn 37:41 All right. Yeah, but I love that thing. But, I would love to move to a bivy. Yeah. Margaret 37:45 Yeah, I think that..Yeah, honestly, like, I've only...I haven't slept a ton in my bivy. But I was like, "Oh, this works." The other downside of a bivy is that your bag doesn't fit in the tent with you. And so if you sleeping in a bivy in the rain, you're going to need to work on waterproofing your bag. But that is something that like as a backpacker, you're probably trying to do anyway. The main ways that people do it is 1) a pack cover that goes on the outside. And then 2) people often either put things in dry bags, or just like fucking contractor bags, like trash bags, inside their bag and let the bag itself get wet. And if you're, if you're bivy camping, you're accepting that your bag is getting rained on and you just need to work around that. Which, is I think part of why it's the tactical person's choice or whatever. Because you're like, "Comfort doesn't matter. Surviving to get where I need to go shoot somebody is what matters." or whatever, you know. Or not get shot or whatever. Which actually, you're going to have to take into mind when you when you choose what kind of color for all of these things you want. I personally would lean towards the camo type stuff for my...I live in a red state. I could imagine having to leave. Inmn 38:49 Yeah. Margaret 38:50 I'm gonna like I'm gonna like speed run the rest of the camping stuff. You might want a poncho or a raincoat. Some people like ponchos because you can also turn them into shelters or whatever, but I think sometimes it's a little bit just fucking carry what you like. You want additional socks in your go bag no matter what, no matter what you're...Even if it's not a camping go bag, put some fucking socks in there and some other...change of underwear and possibly like better soap, like camp soap, like more hygiene type stuff. My go bag has a fucking battery powered Waterpik so that I can floss with water at night because I have spent a lot of money on my teeth. They are not in great shape and water picks rule. I also have a portable battery powered electric toothbrush that I fucking love. You might want an emergency radio. If you're like good at radio shit, you might want a Baofeng. It's like an all channel and it can send as well as receive. It's called a transceiver. It's really easy to accidentally break the law with a Baofeng because you're not allowed to actually use any sending signals on it most of the time. But they're very useful crisis if you know what you're doing. On the other hand, I would just say get one of those like, your little battery powered weather AM/FM radio. Have and put it in there. At home, I keep one of those like hand crank solar panel everything survival radios or whatever. But they're like a little bit bulky and a little bit cheap. And so, I like don't quite trust it in my bag, but I keep one at home. But, other people feel differently. I like having a monocular or binoculars in a go bag. I like this because looking at shit is cool. And sometimes also, I could imagine there are situations where I would want to look at and see what's ahead and not go there. If I had money, if I was a money person, I would have at least a thermal monocular if not full on like night vision shit. But that's money. You want the rain cover, the dry bag, you want to beef up your first-aid kit a little bit. You probably want an ace bandage at the very least. There's some other stuff like moleskin and other things for like long distance walking that you might want. I've heard good things about leukotape--and I haven't used it yet--but as like...people use it as a replacement for moleskin for covering blisters and shit. You might want cooking stuff, which I'm just not gonna get into cooking stuff here. And you might not. You can also like cold soak your food and just like put it in like a peanut butter jar with water and fucking have it turned into food. Whatever. You might want hiking poles. You might want a solar charger. You might want, as we've talked about, a folding saw, a hatchet or machete. You might want more light. Like some people like the collapsible LED solar lanterns. They're not like a great bang for your buck in terms of like, I mean, they're actually really light and shit, but like, you know, you can use a headlamp just fine. But, like sometimes if you've got like a family and shit, it's like nice to have like a little bit of ambiance and niceness or whatever. Especially like maybe if you're in like a building right when the power's out, you know, like that's the kind of thing that like is a little bit more likely and is useful. You probably want a plastic trowel of some type for pooping outside or a little aluminum trowel for digging a hole so you can poop into it. And alright, guns really quickly, and then...My recommendation is only carry firearms if you train in them. Unlike everything else. Carrying something you don't know how to use is fine if you know you don't know how to use it and you get someone else to use it, like your first-aid kit. Like, my IFAK for gunshot wounds, If I'm shot in the belly, it's for someone else to use on me if at all possible. You know. I am trained in how to use it, but so guns are the exception to this. Do not carry a gun unless you can keep it secure at all times and you pay a lot of attention to the ethics and also the legality around firearms. Those have been covered a lot more in other places on this show. Specifically, my current recommendation that I'm a little bit this is like do what...Whatever, I haven't yet mastered this. The handgun that I keep near my bed in a safe, in a quick access safe, would go into my bug out bag in a moment of crisis or be on my person. And then in the bug out bag is additional magazines with 9mm ammunition. 9mm is by far the most common ammunition besides like .22LR, which is a survival round meant for hunting small animals. But, for a self defense point of view, I believe a handgun 9mm. And if you are the type who wants long guns, if your whole thing is you're gonna be surviving in the woods or whatever, you might want to consider some type of backpacking .22. They make, I think it's the AR-7 is one type of survival collapsible .22. And then the other one is a 10/22 with a backpacker's stock that folds. What I personally plan on carrying if it was a get out past the militia checkpoint the US government has fallen scenario or whatever is a folding 9mm carbine, which is a rifle that shoots nine millimeter rounds. A lot of people don't like these from a tactical point of view. It's not nearly as effective at long range stuff as say an AR-15 or other rifles that are meant to shoot larger rounds, right, or not larger but more powerful rounds. But, the ability to use the exact same magazines that I already use for my other gun and the exact same ammunition makes it worth it for me for specifically a bug out bag scenario. I don't have enough money to do this yet. That is why I don't have that. My only bug out bag gun is my handgun that is also my home defense gun. And now everyone knows what I have at home. Anyway, that's my firearms. Inmn 44:30 They know one thing that you have at home. Margaret 44:32 Yeah, totally. Or do they!? They think I have a 9mm but really I have a 10mm. Whatever. Oh, and then the other thing. Randomly. Okay, if your other threat model, if you're in like fucking Alaska or some shit, you might want a 10mm, but you already know this if you live in Alaska. 10mm is a round that's better at shooting really big animals. It doesn't really have any like particular advantage against people in it and shit, right, but like against grizzly bears and shit. One, bear spray more effective. There's a bunch of studies, bear spray is more effective at stopping a charging bear than any gun that exists. Whatever, I mean maybe like a bazooka or some shit, I don't know whatever. Oh, poor bear. And then also, you don't kill the bear. It's just trying to fucking scare you and live its life. Yeah, yeah, that's my bug out bag. Do you feel ready? And or do you wanna talk about, really quickly, like some some scenarios? Inmn 45:35 Yeah, I feel a lot more informed. I feel overwhelmed, Margaret 45:40 I should address the overwhelm. And I should have led with this. I'm so sorry everyone. You don't need all this stuff. This is the "I'm building a bug out bag. And I have all the time." You slowly build the bug out bag. You slowly get prepared. There's no one who's entirely prepared for all things. And the purpose of a bug out bag from my point of view is to ease your mind. When I first made my bug out bag and my cabin in the woods, I was able to say to myself, "If there's a fire in this forest, I know what I will do. And now that I know what I will do, I am not going to worry about a fire in this forest anymore." And so the first little bit that you get is the most useful. You get diminishing returns as you spend more money and more size and things like that. Massively diminishing returns. The everyday carry, your cell phone is the single most important object. You know, the pocket knife, the pepper spray, the the basic shit is the most important. If you have purse snacks and a water bottle, you are more prepared than almost anyone else. Yeah, I should have led with that. Inmn 46:57 Yeah. Oh, no, no, it's okay. I feel like, you know. We eased into it then it got real complicated. And I'm, grateful to think about the overwhelm afterwards. But, Margaret, so in thinking about a lot of these things, there's like...I'm like, okay, like, if I'm in real life DnD or if the literal apocalypse happens then I could see needing these things. But why else might one need a bug out bag? What is some threat modeling kind of stuff to think of? Margaret 47:42 Yeah, I mean, like, again, it's gonna depend on where you are. If I were to pick where I'm at, I can imagine gas supplies running out, right? I don't think...or like getting interrupted in such a way that, you know, suddenly, there's a lot of limitation to the amount of fuel that you can have, right? I could imagine grocery store stuff. I could imagine like, you know, supply chain disruptions. We're seeing supply chain disruptions. People might have to leave because of earthquakes. People might have to leave because of fires. Like, natural disasters is like probably the number one thing, right? And where you live, you will know what the natural disasters are. Where you live, personally, I would worry about drought. And I would worry about water war. But, and I would focus my prepping around rain barrels and you know, keeping five gallons of water in my truck or whatever. I didn't even get into the shit you should put your vehicle. Some other time will the vehicle preparedness. And but yeah, I mean, like there's scenarios where like...it was completely possible that January 6th type stuff could have happened on a much larger level, right? They tried to have it happen on a much larger level. We could have had a fascist coup in the United States, because they tried. And in that scenario, you might need to leave the country or you might need to move to a safer part of the country. Or you might need to move to a place so that you can prepare to defend. God, defend the country. But like, fight fascism, even if that means being like, "Alright, it's us and the Democrats versus fascism," or whatever, you know? Like, I can't imagine like the partisans in Italy were like, "Oh, no, you're a bourgeois capitalist. I'm not going to fight the Nazis with you." You know? Like, I mean, actually, that probably did happen. Inmn 49:46 Yeah, or how there's...there have been tons of anarchists who are fighting in Ukraine. Margaret 49:52 That is a...Yeah. Yeah, totally. And like if we were suddenly invaded by Russia, there would be like us and some patriots next to each other fighting on the same side, and it would be real awkward. Right? Real awkward, but like, you know. Okay. And so I think that it was entirely possible, at that moment, that my threat model included, "What if I need to get out of the south?" you know? And if I need to get out of the south, yeah, I'm driving until I hit the points where I start thinking that there's gonna be militia checkpoints. And then I'm in the woods, you know? Yeah. And like, so. It's not nearly as likely as other things. But, most bug out scenarios, yeah, are like, "I need to go spend a weekend somewhere." It could even literally be like, a go bag is like, if I got the call that my dad was in the hospital and I just need to get in my fucking truck and go see my dad, right? Like, nothing else bad is happening in the world. It's still real nice to have the bag that I am grabbing and walking out the door. You know? Yeah. Yeah. What are some of the scenarios that you imagine that you would worry about? Inmn 50:01 There's kind of, there's kind of a lot. I mean, there's, you know, there's a lot of scenarios, and I'm wondering if this is the potential for like, future episodes is like...You know, where I live, I do think about drought, I think a lot increasingly more about militia checkpoints, because I live in a--I mean, I feel like everyone lives in a place where there could suddenly be an active militia--but I think about those things. This is a whole episode that we should do. But, I think about friends who live in places where it floods, I think about friends who live in places where there's hurricanes. Margaret 52:01 And a go back is also getting to go...If you need to go help someone who's in a tight place of crisis, you know, like having your truck--don't drive your truck into standing water ff you don't know how deep it is-- but like, if you needed to get into a disaster zone to help people, if you're more prepared, you're more able to do that. Inmn 52:22 Yeah. Oh, and actually, could I suggest an addition to to go bags? Just as a thing. Yeah, I would love to heavily urge people to have in their go bags or to have this as a separate bag in your emergency kit is, you know, something that we're learning a lot from harm reduction communities and organizing right now is harm reduction supplies. Yeah, Naloxone or Narcan, fentanyl testing strips, drug testing stuff in general. And, you know, even if you don't use drugs, then I would suggest having stuff in case other people who do use drugs and need them to some extent or have complicated dependency around them, having that kind of stuff for someone else could be life saving to someone else. Margaret 52:29 Of course. No, everything I said is the only stuff you can use. Inmn 52:41 That is a really good point. Alright. Well, that's some stuff. Is there anything else we should talk about go bags. It's cool to have a go. That's what I'm gonna say. Don't let the right wing have it. It's fucking cool. Being prepared rules. People are gonna think you're cool. They used to make fun of you, but now...now they don't. I have two kind of silly questions, because I love rooting these discussions in humor and light heartedness. There's another word for it. Margaret 54:14 I famously hate joy. Inmn 54:16 Yeah. Okay, so we've just gone through this big list of stuff and do you remember Donny Don't from Crimethinc? Yeah, what is the Donny Don't of go bags? Margaret 54:33 Donny Don't is a, just so people know, it's the don't do with Donny Don't does. And what is the Donny Don't of go bags? It's probably the like crazy overkill versions. Like I probably don't need an ice axe in my go bag. Now that I say that I'm like, I mean, if I had to cross into Canada on the East Coast I would actually need an ice axe. So, but like, gear obsession, I think that and letting go bags be an endless bottomless non fun thing. If it is fun for you to geek out and find the the version of the thing that's two ounces lighter, do it--as long as you give away the old one or like, you know, maintain it in such a way that it's useful to somebody else. But yeah, I think that Donny Don't is the overkill, like a bag that you can't carry. Unless, I mean, some people can't carry certain amounts of weight that they would need and then they need assistance and things like that. That's actually okay too. But like, but overall. Yeah. Inmn 55:42 Cool. Yeah. And actually, that is my retrospective answer for which knife to bring is the knife that you will carry. Margaret 55:49 Yeah. Inmn 55:49 Is the knife that does not that does not impede you from caring it. And then my other comical question because I can't do a single interview without talking about it is: So in Dungeons and Dragons, you have the adventuring kit and what is the 50 foot of hempen rope, which every single adventurer uses at some point, and what is the like climbing like...not crampons. Pitons. What is the pitons thing that no one has ever used. If you use them, please tell us about it. Margaret 56:32 Everyone uses the the eating stuff. The spork, the utensils. Everyone uses...Yeah, the stuff that everyone uses is the tiny light cheap shit. You know? It's the fucking BIC lighter. And know what what no one uses is the magnifying lens to start the fire, which I didn't even include. I actually include tiny little magnifying lenses in the kits because they cost like five cents, like little Fresnel lenses size of credit card. But, it's mostly so you can read small stuff. And that weighs nothing. I like throwing it in. But the magnifying lens. That's the Yeah. Inmn 57:21 The piton thing. Margaret 57:25 Yeah. Whatever it is. Inmn 57:29 Cool. Thank you. Thank you for indulging my silly questions. Well, it seems like maybe we should do some more...Talk about this more some other time. Margaret 57:41 Yeah, you should ask me about vehicle preparedness sometime. And home preparedness. Inmn 57:46 Yeah, vehicle preparedness, home preparedness, like specific disaster preparedness. Yeah. Like, I know, we're gonna...we're planning on doing a hurricane thing at some point. Margaret 57:58 We're just gonna throw a hurricane. Inmn's a level 17 Wizard. Inmn 58:07 And, you know, maybe we like...do we eventually started talking about...Do we just throw you, Margaret, into situations and say, "How would you deal with this issue?" Like as an episode concept? Margaret 58:22 I thought you meant physically. Like, while I'm on tour, be like, "Sorry, Margaret, you're suddenly survivor lady." And I'm like, "Wait!" Inmn 58:32 No, no, I'm thinking of like, this funny episode concept where we come up with situations, almost like roleplay situations, but real life, and you tell us how you would prepare and deal it. Margaret 58:46 Okay. Yeah, we should do that sometime. I guess I'll have to get good at this. Usually, because I'm like...Well, my whole thing is I'm not quite an expert. At this point. I think I do know more than the average person. But my whole point was like, I'm not an expert. I find experts and ask them things. But, I guess at this point, there's a lot of this shit that I either sometimes have hands on experience and sometimes I just fucking talk to people about it all day. So. Yeah, sounds good. Well, Inmn 59:12 Well. Thanks so much for coming on this, what ended up being a two parter episode of your own podcast that I am a weird guest host of right now. Margaret 59:24 No, it's our podcast. It's Strangers' podcast at this point. Inmn 59:29 Yeah. Do you have anything that you would like to plug? Margaret 59:34 You can hear me on my podcast, Live Like the World is Dying, it's a community and individual preparedness podcasts published by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. You can also hear me talk about history. I spend most of my time reading history books and talking about it on a podcast called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff on Cool Zone Media. It's very confusing that one of my podcasts is on CZN and one of my podcasts is on CZM, but that's the way it goes. And my most recent book is called "Escape from Incel Island." You can hear me talk about a shotgun that I used to really want, the Celtic KSG which is what Mankiller Jones carries. It's no longer that shotgun I lust after. Now I want to Mossberg 59A1. But, you know, I don't know whether I want to change what they're carrying. And I'm on the internet. @MagpieKilljoy on Twitter and @Margaretkilljoy on Instagram and you can also follow...I'm now trying to make people follow our social media, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. You can also follow us on social media @TangledWild on Twitter and then at something on Instagram. I'm sure if you search Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness it will come up. Do you know what it was? What is our Instagram? Inmn 1:00:48 It is @tangled_wilderness on Instagram. Margaret 1:00:51 We did a really good job of grabbing all the...we've been around for 20 years and we didn't fucking grab good Instagram handles at the beginning. Yeah, that's what I got. Inmn 1:01:00 Great. Great. Well, we will see you next time. Margaret 1:01:04 Yeah. Inmn 1:01:11 Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please go make a go bag and then tell us about it. But also tell people about the podcast. You can support this podcast by telling people about it. You can support this podcast by talking about it on social media, rating, and reviewing, or doing whatever the strange nameless algorithm calls for. Feed it like a hungry god. And, you can support us on Patreon at patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Our Patreon helps pay for things like transcriptions, our lovely audio editor, Bursts, as well as going to support our publisher Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. Strangers and in a Tangled Wilderness is the publisher of this podcast and a few other podcasts including my other podcast, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which comes out monthly and is usually our monthly feature of anarchist literature or something. We also put out the Anarcho Geek Power Hour, which is the podcast for people who love movies and hate cops. And we would like to make a special series of shout outs to some of our patrons in particular. Thank you Anonymous, Funder, Jans, Oxalis, Janice and O'dell, Paige, Aly, paparouna, Milica, Boise Mutual Aid, Theo, Hunter, Shawn, SJ, Paige, Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Kat J., Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Kirk, Sam, Chris, Michaiah, and Hoss the dog. I love that this list just keeps getting longer and longer and longer. And seriously, we could not do any of this without y'all. So thank you. I hope everyone does as well as they can with everything that's happening and we'll talk to you soon. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co
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If you thought Phong Nha, was just all about visiting the amazing caves you see and hear about, you would really be selling the area short. In this episode of "What about Vietnam?" we get to give you some background as to how the area managed to get through the Covid years. And we open up the agenda to talk about domestic tourism and diversification. Then of course we get to showcase many other cool fun things to do in the locality. My guest, is a bit of a legend in this area of Vietnam, and is none other than Ben Mitchell. Besides being an all round nice "Aussie bloke", he is extremely knowledgeable in local history and riding the Phong Nha loop as it is called. Ben has been on the program before and along with Howard Limbert in other episodes we have covered the caving aspect of Phong Nha in great detail, which undoubtably is its main attraction. However what you are about to find out in this show, is the caves, ....are just the entry point to other things to do in the region. Furthermore, the episode encourages visitors to consider extending their stay in Phong Nha since a few days might not be enough to experience all the activities available. Everything from bike riding, walking tours, cycling through villages, farm to table feasts, and surfing, to finally enjoying a G&T watching a beautiful sunset over the paddy fields.Ben has done a lot for tourism in the region, and is considered very knowledgeable on its history and many aspects of bike touring along the HCM trail. I feel sure from listening today you may like to consider bringing the whole family, as like Ben's young family, there is something for everyone. And everyone loves it! On the aspect of history - Ben mentions this Video you may like to look at - https://vimeo.com/424932090?fs=e&s=cl&fbclid=IwAR0tf7bfnyxT0z1LGYifi_0tSs6Q18RmZBnrkIMOoItPr-w8mfPx66V8zkQThere is also a Podcast talking about the National Park - The Ke Bang Park https://soundcloud.com/user-326960059 You can reach Ben at his local homestay called - Phong Nha Farm stay - https://www.facebook.com/thephongnhafarmstay[00:01:28] Phong Nha's diversification efforts during and beyond Covid[00:06:18] The Ho Chi Minh Trail.[00:11:21] Other attractions in Phong Nha[00:14:03] Free-range chickens - a fun story[00:18:44] Vietnamese workers leaving travel industry - the impact on tourismPlease reach out and give us your feedback. with our new VOICE MESSAGE on our home page - www.whataboutvietnamLet me design your customised private tour of Vietnam - See our new Travel Services Sign up for the newsletter. Read our blogsListen for FREE. https://www.whataboutvietnam.comPlease rate, review and send us your comments on Apple. Follow us on our Facebook here - https://www.facebook.com/whataboutvietnam Follow us on Insta here - https://www.instagram.com/whataboutvietnampodcast/ Follow us on LinkedIN here - https://www.linkedin.com/company/what-about-vietnam/ Why not listen to us on YOU TUBE - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCavCC1--oE5rUhO_SlENmqwCheck out out #Shorts - 30 #Vietnamtraveltips in 30 days.
Episode Summary Brooke and Margaret talk about every thing that went wrong this last month, and some good things. Sort of. They talk about more chemical spills, storing water and water filtration, tornadoes, more news on anti trans bills, inflation, super fun fungi, not fun at all guy Trump and his indictment, and how a drone (or satellite phone) could save your life and also make you a vampire. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. 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. Transcript This Month in the Apocalypse: March, 2023 Brooke 00:16 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying ,your podcast for it feels like the end times. This is the March]April installment of our segment This Month in the Apocalypse. I'm Brooke Jackson and with me today is the infamous Margaret Killjoy. Margaret 00:30 I'm infamous now, what did I do? Brooke 00:33 Well known for being famous? Oh wait, that's not what that word means. Margaret 00:37 No. It means famous for bad. Brooke 00:41 Well, bad means good. [Laughing] Brooke 00:46 You're bad. This podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts. Before we dive into today's episode, we'd like to share a little jingle from another pod on our network. Brooke 01:08 And we're back. Margaret. How are you feeling today? Margaret 01:11 I have a toothache and I'm grouchy. How are you? Brooke 01:15 I'm doing okay. I have intermittent sunshine. Margaret 01:19 Oh, does that mean it's almost not Pacific Northwest winter? Brooke 01:25 Well, it's intermittent with like super heavy rains and or hail. Margaret 01:29 Oh. The weather is much nicer where I'm at. Brooke 01:32 Yeah, it's Oregon doing its 'hold my beer' weather. Margaret 01:37 Well, do you wanna hear about some shit that happened this this month? Brooke 01:43 I definitely do. Margaret 01:44 A ton of shit happened this month. It's always funny to do these, because there's like all of these huge events. There's like one huge event a week and then it's like they're already out of our collective attention spans. So, on March, 26th, a pipe broke at the Trensio PLC chemical plant near the Delaware River. This is the the Philadelphia spill, right? It spilled ethyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, and butyl acrylate into a creek called Otter Creek. Between eight and twelve thousand gallons of this stuff that is used...It's basically synthetic latex or it's like the precursors, I believe, to synthetic latex. Brooke 02:21 That's a lot of 'lates' spilled. Margaret 02:24 Yeah. And one of them is double meth. But, it actually has nothing to do with meth. I'm sorry. So, it ended up not being....well, it was a big deal. But, it was almost a big deal as in like the entire city of Philadelphia or rather the eastern half of Philadelphia and like millions of people were going to be like completely fucked and out of drinking water. And so we had this fun scare. Not me. I'm not in Philadelphia. People had this fun scare where the city of Philadelphia sent out like, "Oh shit, don't drink the water alert." And then later, they sent out a, "Wait, it's okay to drink it until midnight on Monday. You better fill up some jugs." And it was just like...but during the OH SHIT scare, right? Like there was just like, no fucking bottled water on any shelves immediately. Right? And in the end, the city's water was not impacted. And this isn't like a coincidence. It wasn't like, "Oh, oops, our bad, nothing was actually wrong." It was actually like credit where it's due, it was the coordination of the Department of Public Works and some other folks. And they like got their shit together. And they closed off the water treatment plant that was bringing in water from the river and all that shit. And do you want to know how to get butyl acrylate out of your water in case you have to? Brooke 02:38 Do I want to know? Margaret 03:44 You can't. Brooke 03:48 Okay, so I already know how. Margaret 03:49 I mean....Okay, I'm gonna say you can't and then I'm gonna go into more detail. Because water filtration is something I did a bunch of research about this week. And it's something that's like always been sort of on my radar as a weird prepper. Chemical contamination in water is one of the hardest things to filter out. The way it's handled on an industrial level, is some shit with some fucking little tiny goober plants that eat the chemicals or whatever. I don't have the name of it in front of me because I'm not good at my job. And it's not something that people are doing on a home scale. There are other ways that people can minimize the chemicals in their water. Overall, when you're trying to filter water, chemical contamination is the hardest thing to get rid of. It is much easier to get rid of heavy metals. It is much, much easier to get rid of protozoa, bacteria, viruses, all kinds of things, right? You're not boiling away your butyl acylate. And, you're not filtering it out directly. However, through the process of adsorption, which is absorption but backwards. 'Ad' instead of 'Ab.' Basically, the charcoal filter that are like in your like fucking Brita water filters and stuff like that, that is closest to the DIY version. They are not rated to do this. Do not drink this shit thinking it's safe because some girl on the internet said....Well actually I said it's not safe. But overall, removing chemicals from water of the various DIY filtration methods, passing things through an activated carbon filter is more effective, because more of the various particles stick to that than like most of the...it's kind of funny, because overall, like the kinds of filters that you usually want for like hardcore stuff are not home filters, they're like, like camping filters and stuff, but it's just like not actually the case with chemical stuff. But overall... Brooke 05:46 Okay, but what if I doubled Brita it? If I just if I just pour through the Brita filter twice? Is that? Is that enough? Margaret 05:52 Like, if I was going to die of thirst, and I had some water from the Delaware River, what I would do is I would filter it over and over again, maybe through different charcoal filters. And then I would hope that...and I would only do this because dying of thirst is more immediate of a problem than dying of like whatever poison that you're getting through this shit. But, there is like some advice that I want to throw out there about how to prepare for this kind of disaster. This is obviously not the first time some of these similar acylates. I can't remember which of these ones. I can't remember if it was butyl acrylate or ethyl acylate was one of the main things that spilled in Ohio. So, it's something that is like increasingly on people's threat analysis, right? The main way is to have water stored ahead of time. The main ways to find different sources of water. And so, one thing that's like worth knowing is that water does not really in and of itself go bad. Water, like, has stuff in it, that goes bad, right? But if water is like, correctly treated and sealed properly, it does not itself go bad. What I would recommend to people is if you're lazy and easy go get several gallons of bottled water and just keep it around. So, like worst case scenario of some drinking water during time of crisis. Because you can't boil advisory this shit, right? And then the other thing is, if you want to store your own water....oh, and then that water you get, you should replace every two years or so. Just because even though it doesn't go bad, the plastic that it's in tends to degrade. They tend to be clear bottles, and you keep it out of heat and sun and it'll last longer. Go ahead... Brooke 07:31 Is it not just refilling the containers? Because I have like a bunch of one gallon water jugs that I'll you know, put on the garden and then refill. But should I replace the jug itself too in those cases? It's not a long term jug. It's like the whatever store brand in a gallon jug. Margaret 07:52 Well, so it's funny, because a store brand gallon if you never open it and don't fill it yourself and it's sealed, is a reasonable thing to store for several years. Especially if you keep it out of the sun, and you keep it in a cool place, because then the plastic degrades less into the water. But if you're filling up your own jugs, especially if they're clear jugs, and especially if you've ever drank out of them, like directly, you just replace the water fairly often. And you like look for smells and growth and all that shit and keep it in a cool dark place. I don't keep store bought water, I keep five gallon jerry cans, and then I refill them. People say to do it every six months or a year. I do it closer to every year. But just having enough to have like emergency drinking water on hand during the time of a crisis where it takes time for water to come back online, or for you to set up a way to get it from elsewhere is something I recommend to people. That's what I got about the Philly spill. Unless you have other questions about water storage? Brooke 08:54 I feel like we could do a whole thing on water right now, but I'm not going to dump into it. I do have several kinds of different water storage. I have some of the little one gallons from the store and I have some, you know, five gallon heavy duties. And I have some big barrels of water and a whole set up. But, I'm curious if....You mentioned something at the very beginning about a like boil water advisory or something like that. And is that a common thing for other people? Because I feel like that's a common thing for me where I live, that we have those often enough that I've had to deal with it and learn how to do that on a regular basis. But, in other places, is that normal? I guess probably not. Margaret 09:32 No, it happens a lot in the US now. It either didn't used to, or it used to be more insulated from it. But, I've been in a bunch of different cities where they've had boil advisories for various lengths of times. If the boil advisories around like bacterial stuff, which I think is what most of them are, I am now speaking off the cuff. You can also filter it, but not with your Brita. You can filter it with a camping style filter if it's a protozoa are bacterial worry, as long as the micron size is like .2 or so, you're fine. If it's a viral worry, which is almost never the case in the continental United States, your micron size needs to be .02. Instead of .2. Maybe it's .01. It needs to be rated for viruses, which is rarer, and mostly camping filters don't do that. Brooke 10:25 Yeah, okay. That makes sense. Well, speaking of water stuff: air. Margaret 10:35 We need that. Brooke 10:36 Yeah, we do. Just all the elements. Weird weather. Have you heard about the tornadoes that that were happening over this last weekend? Margaret 10:45 Yeah, there's too many of them. Brooke 10:47 Yeah, It's kind of wild. So, as we're recording this, it's early April. We just got through the first weekend of April and there were at least 50 separate tornadoes that hit the American Midwest, South, and parts of the East Coast. They hit like a bunch of states, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. There were four separate tornadoes in New Jersey alone, which I don't think of New Jersey as being a tornado prone state. But, maybe that's just me not knowing things. But, they're also expected to have more tornadoes coming up by the time you hear this they hopefully have come and gone. But, they're supposed to affect as many as 16 states and all in the next couple of days. With the most serious risks two parts of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa and Northwest Illinois. [Said like "Ili-noise"] I watched a video.... Margaret 11:42 What was the last state? Brooke 11:44 Illi-noise. Margaret 11:47 Never heard of that state. Brooke 11:48 Ilii-noooise. I refuse. Also, I'm sorry, I said Arkansas wrong. It's Ar-Kansas, Ar-Kansas. Tornadoes. So sorry for my mispronunciations there. [Laughing]. Margaret 12:05 Our-Kansas as compared to the Their-Kansas. Brooke 12:10 Yeah, I watched a fun video of there's someone who was trying to film a tornado with her phone. And the tornado came up and slammed into the building that she was in. And the phone kept filming, but it was just like, debris and shit flying around and just total chaos. Margaret 12:29 We might have different definitions of the word fun. Did she survive? Brooke 12:33 Yeah, she did. Margaret 12:34 Okay. Brooke 12:35 Okay, I think she got pretty well banged up and bloodied and stuff, broken glass and all that. And she posted to whatever social media, the video, and the comment of "If there's a tornado coming, don't try and film it. Get cover. I had to learn it the hard way." Margaret 12:53 Yeah. Brooke 12:53 Which makes you feel like it's not someone who's maybe in a tornado prone area, because I get the instinct like, "Oh, I'm gonna film that tornado." But not a great idea. Margaret 13:01 I mean, it's funny because like, after selfies became such a thing, like more national parks, we're seeing more...or like more hiking places were seeing more falling deaths as people climbed to try and get selfies on precarious rocks and all that stuff. And I'm not above all of that. Like, I can't tell you that I wouldn't try and film a tornado. I don't know. I can tell you it's not a good idea. But, that doesn't relate one-to-one to what I would do. Brooke 13:25 There was documentary that came out in like the 90s. And there was some really famous people who did it. It was all about tornadoes, and they chased them around and we're trying to catch data or something like that. Margaret 13:35 Twister? Brooke 13:36 Oh, yeah, that one. That one. It's a documentary, right? Margaret 13:39 Yeah, sure. Tornadoes aren't real. It's funny that people keep spreading this theory of tornadoes, but I've never seen a tornado. Have you seen a tornado. Brooke 13:52 I've seen some little dust spinneys. Margaret 13:55 Yeah, no. Tornadoes are fake. You heard it here first. Brooke 14:00 But wait, then Margaret. How did all the houses get destroyed and all of the things that are left in the wake of so called tornadoes? What did it. Margaret 14:09 Did your parents not raise you right? Like, do you not know what the Big Bad Wolf is? Brooke 14:14 So, all the damage is fake too? Margaret 14:15 No, it was done by the Big Bad Wolf. Brooke 14:19 Oh! Margaret 14:20 Who huffed and puffed and blew all the houses. Yeah, this is.... Brooke 14:24 I didn't think he was that big. I didn't think he was big enough to blow over apartment buildings and stuff. Margaret 14:29 Yeah, I mean there's no reason why her couldn't. There's like a bunch of them. They stand on each others' backs. Brooke 14:34 But, he couldn't blow down the brick house that the smart pig built so.... Margaret 14:38 No, correct. Brooke 14:39 So, I feel like he shouldn't be able to knock down all the concrete buildings and stuff that we see. Margaret 14:45 Well, actually okay like, to go back to actually believing in tornadoes, brick houses and concrete houses are like remarkably more resilient against.... Brooke 14:54 Did you just waffle on tornadoes? Was that just a giant tornado waffle? Margaret 14:58 Yeah. I did. I couldn't keep the bit up, because I got really excited about the fact that brick houses and concrete houses are remarkably more weatherproof than other houses, which it's one of the things that matters about understanding tornadoes, right, is that, like a lot of things, they impact poor people substantially more and most of the...it takes a much more powerful tornado. I've spent a while this week reading about tornado classifications. It takes a much more powerful tornado to tear down stick built house...What's the word I'm looking here for? Drywall, and two by fours and shit, then taking down like a trailer, right, that a lot of people don't have as much money live in. Those are easily destroyed by tornadoes. Drywall and studs, are a little bit harder. And then when you get into like brick houses and shit, you start getting houses that are like substantially more weather resistant. And, there's going to be remarkable class things about that. And like the most damage you hear, and the most deaths you hear about during tornadoes tend to be like trailer parks and shit. And it fucking sucks. It sucks that it impacts poor people more. Brooke 16:02 Yeah, for sure. One small happy story that came out of the tornadoes from last weekend anyway, is that there's more than half a dozen Ukrainian refugees who were living in Minneapolis, who when they heard about the tornado damage, volunteered to drive down to Mississippi and help out with the tornado relief efforts. Margaret 16:22 That's nice. That's better than... at the start of the story I was expecting it to be like, they left the war zone and then died in America from climate change weather. Brooke 16:35 Nope, they're here and they're refugees of the war, and they're going to help Americans. So that's pretty dope of them. Margaret 16:43 Well, speaking of good things...nope. I was just gonna talk about trans bills. There's really nothing good here. Brooke 16:50 Trans people. Trans people good. Margaret 16:52 Yeah, I can give you the trans report. I'm still here, still gay. The war on trans people continues. It will probably be about as successful as the war on drugs in that we had a war on drugs and now you can't buy drugs anymore. Or, it'll be like successful war on drugs and lots and lots of people have their lives ruined by it and nothing will be impacted. Well, in this case, to me, there's like literally nothing wrong, like trans people aren't doing anything wrong. Obviously, individual trans people are doing things wrong in the same way that individual everyone is doing something wrong. As of...this is a couple days old. So, already people are going to be like, like I wrote this two days ago and now by the time y'all hear it, who fucking knows. Kentucky's Congress just overrode their governor's veto of one of the worst anti trans bills in the country. Trans kids can't use the right bathrooms in school. Trans kids are forcibly detransitioned. Shit like that. North Dakota's governor...this is actually really interesting to me, these governor people vetoing things are interesting because they are across party lines. Off the top of my head, and again, I wrote this a couple days ago, I think Kentucky's governor's a Democrat and North Dakota is a Republican. And North Dakota's Republican, again, could be a different state, i could be messing all this up, just like knows trans people. So, he was just like, "I can't...What? I can't in good conscience sign this bill that like fucks over my friend." or whatever, you know. So, North Dakota governor vetoed a similar bill and as of...and it's gonna be overridden. And, in North Dakota, teachers can't use the kids correct pronouns unless the kid has a note from their parents that is cosigned by an administrator of the school. And government agencies can't require people, like who work for them, to correctly pronoun their co workers. And so it's just this like government oversight of everything bill that's just like "No, no one's allowed to be like." Like no workplace is able to be like "We're a trans accepting workplace," you know. And then, West Virginia passed a law prohibiting gender affirming care for trans youth. It does have more work arounds than many similar bills. Two doctors and parents all have to sign off before puberty blockers and all those things can be prescribed. So, it's less of a ban and more of like, lots of roadblocks. And it's interesting to me, because in many ways, this is like way better than an outright ban. However, it will be harder to...if we get this like wave of people defeating these trans bills, these ones are going to stick around longer. These ones that are not outright bans. They're much harder to challenge in court, is the theory that I learned from asking someone about it. Brooke 19:43 Yeah, so they put up roadblocks or speed bumps more than roadblocks. Margaret 19:48 Yeah. And a 2017 study says that West Virginia has the highest per capita rate of trans youth in the country. And another study says--and this is the dark thing behind all of this about like denying health care to children---another study says that West Virginia trans youth are three times more likely to attempt to kill themselves than their cisgender peers. So, God forbid we do the thing that all the Medical Association's agree ends that risk. Stopped Clock, the Libertarian Party, is standing up for trans people in some situations. Like some of the state libertarian parties, which tracks, but then again, you also see individual libertarians going on about like, "Well, I'm not paying with my taxpayer money for this degeneracy." And I'm like, "You're not a libertarian. Fuck you." And I'm like, I'm not even...like, whatever. It's just fucking conservatives calling themselves that. Brooke 20:41 I mean, I get why libertarians would come out against all the trans bills because small government. Margaret 20:48 Yeah, yeah, totally. Brooke 20:50 It's consistent with what they believe. But, allegedly, Republicans also believe in small government, but that never pans out that way. Margaret 21:00 That's the state of trans bills. It's bad. That's the state of it. And it's gonna get worse. Brooke 21:04 How much effort and money is being wasted into worrying about trans youth and trying to block that as opposed to real issues that we have going on? Margaret 21:05 I mean, okay, so like, from my point of view, and I think it's a wedge issue. It is specifically designed to...like, the sports thing is designed...it's not because people care about that teenage cis girls get to compete with only teenage cis girls. It is designed to make people angry at trans people. And then that is used as a wedge to then have trans people themselves be the wedge to pull off from LGBTQ, right, and get left with LGB. And you can already see that they like want...in the same way that like Roe v Wade. It's like they're going to come for...and they are already trying to come for birth control and all kinds of other shit too. You know? And they want...probably eventually, they'll get the sodomy laws back and premarital sex and whatever. You know? Handmaid's Tale shit. Brooke 22:08 Let's hope not. Margaret 22:09 And so, but there is this theory that they're gonna die on this hill, because the trans thing doesn't really win elections, because like, most people kind of don't give a shit what other people do with themselves. Like a lot of people give a shit, right, enough that there's all these bills being passed. But like, there's still a majority of United States-ian's who support access to trans health care, including for teenagers. And I won't say across party lines, because the majority of Republicans are opposed to it. But like, overall, you still have this, like people are kind of like "What the fuck is going on? Like this makes no sense?" Like, even the like it kind of icky people. So yeah, that's trans bills. Hooray. Brooke 23:03 Yeah. I just like, I don't want to jump off that topic, because it's so important and affecting so many people that I love, and, you know. This queer person, that is some of the other letters in that acronym is not gonna let go with a T. Trans people are staying here in this alliance. Margaret 23:24 And like, and I think it is worth understanding that like, it is already directly affecting large numbers of people. Entire families are leaving states with anti trans laws that are forcing the detransition of youth, and have to move to other states in order to access health care that keeps their kids alive. And so we're going to see an increasing amount of that. Whereas I would guess, a slightly higher percentage of adults, one aren't as...Trans adults aren't as directly affected yet. And also they might have more agency about staying and fighting. And I want to like just continue to say that I think it is absolutely worth offering full support to both people who choose to stay in dangerous situations to fight and people who choose to leave those situations, and full support to all people who are making either these decisions Brooke 24:13 And to help the people who want to leave the situation, but don't have whatever means or opportunities to do so. Well, I don't know if this is any less evil, as we talk a little bit about our old friend inflation. Margaret 24:34 That's where suddenly money's worth more, right? Brooke 24:38 Close. Really close, Margaret, but the other direction Margaret 24:42 We're worth more as more money. Brooke 24:43 We'll go back to our friend the banana example. Bananas.... Margaret 24:53 I know what inflation is. I'm just being a dick. Brooke 24:57 That's alright. We forgive you. Yeah. All right, inflation is where you can buy fewer bananas with your buck than you could before. Margaret 25:07 But, I want more bananas. Brooke 25:09 Yeah, they're gonna cost you more money. The same bananas are gonna cost you more money. Margaret 25:15 I guess bananas are still dirt cheap. I mean, how much could have banana cost? What? $5? [Margaret laughs] I made a meme. I said a meme. Brooke 25:24 Do you know that you're quoting a thing? Margaret 25:25 Yes. I'm smart. Brooke 25:28 I think she actually says $10 or $20. Margaret 25:30 I dunno, my pop cultural literacy is as literate as she is about finance. Soon enough, it's just gonna be accurate. People are gonna look back at that and be like, "Yeah, no, that's about how much of banana costs. What do you want?" Brooke 25:44 It's funny, because I think it is $10. And that was like 2003, so 20 years ago. So, it's a little less obscene now than it was when she said it. Margaret 25:55 Bananas are the cheapest fruit. This is why I like them so much. Brooke 25:59 I don't think I knew that. Well, your bananas are gonna cost more money or have been costing more money. I had to look it up for one of my other jobs the other day, so I just felt like doing an update on it. So, prices right now, compared to one year ago, are up about 5.5%. And I realize we haven't necessarily talked about what normal inflation looks like. Inflation is is a normal thing that happens in our society. There was a time in history when inflation was not normal, when things did not rapidly increase in price, or really have much of an increase. But that's a normal part of society. And normal inflation is closer to like 3% in a given year. So we're at close to double that with 5.5%. Margaret 26:44 Isn't that still down from what inflation was a year ago? Brooke 26:49 Yeah. So if we compare it from the last two years, so where prices are right now, compared to two years ago, they're up 13% when when we would have only seen maybe a 6% increase under normal inflation or less. So, still more than doubled. But it also depends on which things you look at. Like food is up more like 18% over the last couple of years. Margaret 27:12 Okay. But not important stuff? Brooke 27:16 No, not things that we need to survive, Margaret 27:18 Like TVs? Brooke 27:20 Yeah, of course. And, it's really interesting when I look at the charts of where the inflation is, because it's summer 2020, you know, like, right, as the impacts of all the pandemic shutdowns and supply shortages are starting to hit is when those prices start to do a clear difference in the way inflation hits, you know, goes for being that normal 3% rise to boom, much sharper. Margaret 27:45 What can people do about inflation? Get all their money out of the banks, put it in a cash envelope and put it under their mattress? Brooke 27:51 You know, that's actually going to be the opposite of what you want to do. Margaret 27:54 Yeah, I went that was on purpose again. Brooke 27:56 I know. Yeah, anything you can you can do with your money to have it earn at least some amount of interest, you know, if your bank offers a savings account that has a slightly higher rate of interest, and you could put some more of your money in there, or filter it through maybe a different type of checking account at your bank that perhaps offers a little bit of interest. Generally, interest rates never keep up with inflation. Like I just bought a CD that I think, is at four and a half percent or something like that over the next year? Which Margaret 28:33 What band is it? [Brooke laughs] What's a CD? Brooke 28:42 Yes, people don't know what either kinds of those are anymore. Certificate of Deposit. It's like a really short term investment that's with a guaranteed return on it. It tends to be a very small return. Generally doesn't keep up with inflation, but it's better than not getting any kind of interest. So, unlike a savings account you can't touch, or you can but then you get penalized, you don't get your interest on it. Margaret 29:11 Can I tell you my 'it sounds like a joke,'but is actually my financial strategy? Brooke 29:16 Oh, boy. Sure, you can. I can't promise I won't tease you about it Margaret 29:20 During times of high inflation, feast or famine. The thing that you want is not going to be cheaper tomorrow than today. Brooke 29:28 This is true. Margaret 29:28 So ,holding on to cash right now, I hold is less useful as an overall strategy than investment in the material goods that you expect to be using, whether it's the material goods that you use for your art to turn into things, whether it's like you know, shit you're trying to turn around and sell, or whether it's just tools or even fucking experience....like, kind of in that same way that like nothing's better later. And we're all gonna die one day and we can't control when, I feel like it's like extra true during a...like smoke if you got them, right? But ideally it's like....like I do consciously think about this where I'm like, "Well you know what, a table saw is going to stay useful to me many years from now if I take care of it, and the amount of money that that table saw will cost me is going to be 25% higher in three years," or whatever, you know. But that's only I mean....I don't know. Don't listen to me. I mean, I guess that's the point of the podcast is to listen to us. But don't. Brooke 30:42 You know what's interesting, though, is the economic theory, the economic textbook and stupid fucking Keynesian economics, would would agree with you there that your money is going to become less useful, so you should you should go ahead and spend it now. Margaret 30:53 Hell yeah. But I'm gonna write an economics book called "YOLO." Brooke 30:58 No, Keyne's already did. And should be ceremonially shot in the head. But yeah, I guess. Go ahead and go out and spend all your...No, no, no, I'm not even going to finish this. That's terrible financial advice. Margaret 31:14 I mean, like, hold on to like not die. But like, I don't know. Like, I don't have retirement fund. And I'm not saying like, no one should have a retirement fund. I'm saying I made some decisions in my life about how I was going to live that did not prioritize having a regular job. And I'm like, but I will have a table saw Right? Like, I don't know. Brooke 31:34 There is something to that though, to consider about, you know, purchases you might be making, you know, medium sized purchases, not super large purchases, like cars and whatnot. But yeah, if you need a table saw it might be a better idea to get it sooner rather than later. And it is a durable good. So it's not it's not as consumable. Margaret 31:56 Yeah, four Lamborghinis. Brooke 31:59 Probably not? I don't know what the resale value is on a Lamborghini, but that's probably not going to be worth it. Margaret 32:05 I know a Lamborghini is a car. That's all I got. Brooke 32:11 Okay, all right. Anyway, yeah, inflation continues to suck. Buy some shit, if you have some money to spare because prices are going up. Margaret 32:20 Okay, well in other fun...We really need to get better at having some intentionally positive things in this show, because for This Month in the Apocalypse, but in other fun news--actually, this one is like almost fine, right? Like there's a super fungus going around called Candida Auris. Brooke 32:40 Super fun. Can't spell super fungus without super fun. Margaret 32:44 I know. That's right. Or Gus. Don't trust anyone named Gus. Is Gus short for something? Gustav? I'm going to ask the next Gus I talk to. I know a Gus. So there's a new fungus. It's been around since 2009. Basically, it's just like there's this like kind of like constant war on...like the same way that like antibiotics are like an arms race where we like we get the new upgraded penicillin and then the biotics, the bacteria, is like, "Whatever, fuck you. I'm like penicillin resistant." So we're like, "Well, now we've got [mutters nonsense word]," and then you know, we're like, "Well, we're [nonsense word] resistant." And that happens in the fungal world as well. Candida Auiris. It was first noticed in 2009. It came to the US in 2016. I'm mostly saying this to say this is not worth freaking out about. This is a thing that like some news articles are telling us about--and I don't think it's bad for news articles to tell us about, right? But, it is not worth freaking out about unless you're in very specific situations, in which case it is worth paying attention to, and I don't mean to disparage, it is mostly currently in hospital settings. It is mostly affecting immunocompromised people who are in hospital settings. If you get it, it's sketchy, right? It has a very high mortality rate. But, it's not airborne. It is surfaces and direct contact. Most people...when I say 'get it,' I mean like get it and it creates its effect, its disease thing, and basically people start worrying about because it was antimicrobial resistant. And that's why people started freaking out about it because it was resistant to like, off the top of my head, I want to say, two of the three main things that were treating other forms of Candida...fungal problems, yeast problems. But, already since this has become a problem, two new anti fungal drugs that are effective on it have been passed by the FDA. So, I guess I'm saying this one to be like, this is a thing that people are like, most than use articles about it are like on your like local news station, you know, like the ones that want to tell you about smiling dogs and about how we're all going to die. Again, it's still worth understanding and keeping an eye on. But it's not worth freaking out about right now. What do you got? What's next? Brooke 35:21 It is kind of positive news, because it is a super fungus, but then they found some things that actually do work on it. Okay, well, I want to I want to insert another short happy thing, since we're talking about happy things. That I read. And this is universal. Scientists discovered, I think just the last couple of weeks, that the rings around the planet Saturn actually help to warm the atmosphere of the planet. Yeah. Just a happy scientific discovery. Margaret 35:57 So, in order to solve climate change... Brooke 36:01 Oh, boy. Margaret 36:02 We need to blow up the moon. It's gotta be worth just a couple of degrees. Brooke 36:10 You know, I think that's gonna fuck up some other things that we don't want to do. Margaret 36:15 I didn't read a whole novel called "Seven Eve's," by Neil Stevenson about what would happen if the moon blew up. Brooke 36:20 Yeah, also as an indigenous person, and the moon is considered our grandmother, I have some feelings about blowing up my grandmother. Margaret 36:28 Everyone dies. Brooke 36:30 I'm gonna. I'm gonna pass. Margaret 36:31 All the people die. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everyone. I have a tooth ache. I'm sorry. Brooke 36:39 How about some other great news that will make you really happy? Okay, about our former president, Ruffled Dumpagins? Margaret 36:45 We put him on the moon and then we blow it up. Brooke 36:48 Hey, okay, that...I might consent to blowing up my grandmother in that regards. Margaret 36:54 All right, all right. Maybe just put him on the moon, and just let them see what happens. And then your grandmother could take care of them. We don't have to get rid of the grandmother at all. Brooke 37:02 There we go. That's an even better plan. My grandma will definitely take care of Donald Trump. Margaret 37:07 Okay. All right. Brooke 37:09 So, as we're recording this, the former president was indicted just last week by a New York grand jury on more than 30 counts of stuff. And we don't know exactly what the various counts are. That's being kept secret. But, we know that it surrounds the hush money payment that was made to the former porn star--or maybe she's still a current porn star, I don't know which, but good on her way either way--Stormy Daniels, which, in case people don't realize this, paying the hush money isn't actually illegal. It's the way it was paid that was bad. Because it was filtered through the campaign. And yeah, the Dumpikin's former attorney, Cohen, I think was the one, has already been found guilty on this and is serving jail time over it. So, definitely illegal shit happen. What they're trying to argue now is whether Trump himself knew about it, and how involved he was in the illegal activity. So by the time you're listening to this, Grumpikins has already been arraigned, and he's probably gone back to Florida, and he's probably back to campaigning. So you'll have more news on this than we do. But it's that happy thing that I want to mention. An unhappy part of it is that in the three days following the announcement from the grand jury that he was going to be indicted is the disgraced former President raise $7 million in campaign funds for his current presidential bid. Brooke 38:09 You say million or billion? Brooke 38:43 Million. In three days. So, yeah, not a bad return on $130,000. But the payments... Margaret 38:54 Okay, so I have a new way that we can make money. Nope, sorry. Go. Ahead. Brooke 38:57 Yeah, there we go. I mean, and I'm okay if I get to hang up some porn stars too. That'll make me happy. Margaret 39:03 We can become right wing grifters. Brooke 39:05 No, Can we be left wing grifters? Margaret 39:10 Okay, let's find out. Everyone who's listening, send us $10. And then you become an official Live Like the World is Dying host, who can then get other people to send you $10, of which you will turn around and send us $5. But, don't worry, because the people under you will be earning... Brooke 39:28 No, no, no, no. You're describing something that's shaped roughly like a pyramid, which I'm pretty sure is... Margaret 39:34 It's devil worship. Triangle is devil worship. Margaret 39:34 No, it's a triangle. It's the strongest shape in nature. Margaret 39:41 It's the A-frame. It's the a-frame financial model. Brooke 39:48 The former president is also facing other legal challenges, which haven't brought forth charges yet but some of them certainly will. He's under investigation for things including the January, 6th attack on the US capital. Federal election tampering in Georgia, mishandling of classified documents, a civil lawsuit for fraud in New York against the Trump Organization, and a defamation lawsuit, amongst other things. Margaret 40:10 What a good guy. Brooke 40:11 Yeah, super awesome. Margaret 40:14 I do love all the like...You know, it's like the like, the prison abolitionists, anarchists who are too good for electoral politics like, myself and many other people, but it's like, I feel like there's just like a little bit of like, "Alright, well, we can still take some fuck that guy." Like, fuck that guy. I don't care. Yeah. You want to hear some some list of stuff? Brooke 40:38 What else is going on out there, Margaret? Margaret 40:40 Well, there's a diesel spill in West Virginia from a derailed train. I spent a while trying to look up how you filter diesel out of water. But, unfortunately, most of the information is about how to filter diesel out of water...how to how to filter water out of diesel cause people want the diesel. Brooke 40:58 As long as you capture the water, that might not be the worst. Margaret 41:01 Well, it's like, because the water that they're pulling out might some diesel and they don't care. They're getting rid of that water. They're probably throwing it in the fucking creek or on the ground. But like, because you don't want to put watery gas or diesel into your engines order, but the way that people do it is that water is denser than diesel so it sinks to the bottom of the container. So I guess if you're a life or death....I'm not even going to make that advisory. Like don't drink diesel water. Artificial sweetener erythritol, one of those--I think it's one of the alcohol sugars--seems to be linked to heart problems. Doubles your chance of bad shit. It's in some vegan ice cream. So beware. Brooke 41:35 Oh, good to know. Hey, before we go too far from the train derailment. Margaret 41:38 Oh, you wanna do the train thing. Brooke 41:40 Well, just there was another train derailment that made me think of in Montana just over this last weekend. And they were carrying a lot of... Margaret 41:48 Ice cream? Brooke 41:49 Coors Light, and another brand of beer that's similar to that. Margaret 41:57 That's just funny. There's no. Okay. Hell yeah. Brooke 41:59 So, you don't need to filter the beer out of the water. You can just go ahead just drink it. Margaret 42:04 Yeah, it's really good for you. It hydrates you more effectively than water. Brooke 42:08 Its water beer in the first place. So. Margaret 42:11 Okay, that's fair. Speaking of Oregon, we weren't, but a guy who was trapped in the snow, managed to get an SOS out on this phone. This is like a survival tip. This is not a survival tip that applies to almost anyone. He attached his phone to his drone, and flew his drone up until it got enough service and the message sent and he was saved. And that rules. Brooke 42:35 That's fuckin rad. Margaret 42:37 That said, in terms of getting out emergency signals, one way--satellite communicators are a more effective method and cheaper than drones. Not a lot cheaper than drones. I'll be real. There in the like, $300-$400 range, however, and I bet more and more phones will do this. The newer iPhones. I don't have one. But, the newer iPhones have built in satellite communication SOS systems. Where the satellite communicator is like more like what like people hiking in the backwoods and stuff have and it like lets you like text. It's a little bit slow. But like, no matter if you can see the sky, you can get a message out with satellite communicators. Brooke 43:15 You have one of those, don't you, Margaret? Margaret 43:16 I do. I spend some time in the backwoods. And so it's nice to have, Brooke 43:24 Well I have a drone. So, I'm just gonna take my drone and just follow that guy's success. It's like a $300. Drone. It's not a special drone. Margaret 43:33 Yeah, you gotta keep that in your car at all times. You will literally die if you don't have that in your car at all times. Brooke 43:42 Will I not die If I haven't my car? Will it protect me in other situations? Margaret 43:45 I think we're getting off topic. Margaret 43:45 In this specific situation that this man was in, he's immortal now. Because the the signal was interrupted by some vampires. And they came over. He's not allowed to see the sun anymore, which is like a heavy price to pay. Right? And he consumes blood and there's like a lot of like, ennui attached to that. He's a vampire now. Margaret 44:06 So, here's a list of worst air quality in the United States listed from 1 to 10: Bakersfield, California. Congratulations. You've the worst air quality in the United States. Los Angeles, Chicago, Northwest Indiana and the industrial areas like Gary, Indianapolis, Houston, St. Louis, a bunch of rural Pennsylvania managed to like really come in hard for the rural areas. I'm glad to see that rural representation. These are mostly localized to a few hotspots, because you're like in the mountains and there's a factory there and they don't care about you because you're poor. You'll notice that a lot of these places are poor. Atlanta and Birmingham, Alabama. I'm sorry. Finland is joining NATO, so Putin's weird war is having the opposite of the desired effect, and I don't really have an opinion about that, but it's like worth noting. Most of the current like prepper news you can go out and read is gonna be like, "Today, World War III is about to happen tomorrow." And it's like the same person will say this like over and over and over again. And they always have like some reason, as we like inch closer, and they're not even usually like wrong about their reasons. Like the China, US. and Russia are like playing a fucking crazy game right now, you know? And there's like nuclear capable planes from the US like flying near that little weird part of Russia that isn't attached to Russia that's like, south of the...the like Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, you know, there's a tiny piece of Russia under there. And then like, US planes are like, playing a like 'not touching, can't get mad,' game about nucular war. And that's like, not great. But, I'm not like those...I know, I'm now saying the thing that I just said don't worry about, but like, it's...I don't know. I don't feel like we're any more likely to have nuclear war tomorrow than we were yesterday. Personally. Brooke 45:58 We're all going to die anyway. Margaret 46:00 Yeah, except for that guy who sent his drone up to talk to the vampires. Brooke 46:06 Vampire man. Margaret 46:07 Metformin taken during COVID is looking like it's reducing long COVID cases. At least according to some studies. I'm not giving you medical advice, but it's like promising, right? What's promising is that there's more and more information about how people are handling long COVID, which is also really promising because there's a lot of long viral problems like Lyme and things like that, that have been ignored and the people who suffer from them have been mistreated by the medical establishment for decades. And I am optimistic that the research into long COVID--Because long COVID can't be ignored because of the scale at which it's happening--will help people who suffer from these other viral infections. That is my hope. The far Right government in Italy has stopped registering children born to same sex couples. I think it's basically like same sex couples were going to other countries in order to have kids via surrogates. And then now they're like not able to come back to Italy. I don't have the absolute details about...Italy's being fucked up and homophobic. Brooke 47:13 They can't like get a birth certificate? Margaret 47:15 It's something like that, Brooke 47:17 Wow. Margaret 47:17 The the news article was clearly translated and not incredibly well. That was the best I could figure. China is on track to destroy American exceptionalism and become the number one cause of climate change. So, we're gonna have to step up our game everyone. Brooke 47:32 No. Margaret 47:35 On--well, we are stepping up our game because--on March 13th, Biden approved...this could have been a whole separate topic. But, Biden approved a project called Willow and I am offended because "Willow" is an amazing movie and an amazing tree and not a oil development on federal land in Alaska that's the size of fucking Indiana. Brooke 47:54 Yeah, I heard about that. Margaret 47:55 It is key habitat for polar bears and caribou. It fucking sucks. It is like, absolutely a spit in the face to any pretense that one of the most powerful nations on the planet would possibly stick to what it claims about the--not deindustrialization--but de fossil fueling and or whatever... Brooke 48:15 Yeah. Gross. Margaret 48:17 Positive environmental news that is no longer in positive environmental news is electric cars were getting a $7,500 subsidy from the federal government. Except it's a big confusing mess. And no one can tell...like not even the car companies know whether you have to lease, if you can buy, which ones you can buy. And it all has to do with this like pissing match thing where they want all of the...the subsidy cars have to have a certain percentage or maybe it's all of it, I'm not sure, of the components made within the United States. But, at the moment, all of that is a nightmare mess. So people don't know which electric car they can get $7,500 subsidy on. Brooke 48:53 But, there is a $4,000 federal subsidy that is more straightforward and not all fucked up and confusing. Margaret 49:03 That's good to know. Like Virginia recently passed a gun law that makes a lot of sense to me. I'm not opposed to all gun laws, I guess, except in the abstract way or I don't like law as a system, but they passed a thing that's just like subsidies for people to get gun safes. It's not a requirement. It's not a like safe gun lock up requirement, although I think that that should exist, but maybe not in a law way but in a cultural norm way. But yeah, like if you want people to change an economic system, and we do. We need a different economic system, or a different...Well, we did a lot of different things to be changed, but whatever. I don't know. Okay, so Finally, my small thing is that the Inter governmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC released a new report. We're fucked. I mean, we're almost certainly going to overshoot the Paris Agreement, of capping climate change at 1.5. C [degrees Celsius change] And 1.5. C is where you start getting runaway feedback loops, at least according to...I mean, everyone's given different numbers. Some people, I've heard 2 C [degrees Celsius] or whatever, but like, yeah. It's bad and things need to change more dramatically than I believe the current system is capable of changing things. So as much as I'm like, "Oh, money for electric guitar," Guitars? Electric guitars for everyone. Because then if you're all vampires, you can like [makes guitar note noises] like, the Crow. But I think that fundamentally and dramatically shifting the way that our governmental and economic systems work is a more likely way to stop climate change than convincing our current governmental system to effectively address it. Brooke 50:49 Right there with you. I bet our friends over It Could Happen Here will probably read that report and talk about it in depth. I know they did last year when that report came out. And that was pretty good info they distilled down there and so hopefully they'll do that again for us. Margaret 51:04 They're not our friends. We hate them. We're starting beef with....No. They're all so nice. They're also, they want to...I also work for them. But yeah, okay. Margaret 51:16 They play games with us. We like them. Margaret 51:22 Yeah. What else? We're coming up on an hour. We got anything else? Brooke 51:27 Oh, that was my list. Margaret 51:30 Okay. Well, I think we can change things fundamentally. And I also think we can build the systems by which to mitigate the worst effects of the changes that are going to happen. And I think we can do that by building together in community minded preparedness ways. Brooke, do you want to start a podcast with me about how to do individual and community preparedness? We can make it be weekly. Give it some name, like Don't Die Weekly or.... Brooke 52:07 I feel like Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness already produces something like that. And we might be on it right now. Margaret 52:17 Whoa. Brooke 52:18 I know. You can listen to it starting weekly, starting right now. Margaret 52:24 Whoa. Yeah, Brooke 52:26 It's actually called Live Like the World is Dying and Margaret, you do most of it. Though, I think the toothache is making you forget. Margaret 52:34 The Vampire Cast. Brooke 52:37 Come to Oregon. Become a vampire. Or not. Margaret 52:39 Yeah, it's true. Oregon's could still hang. I mean, my toothache is fucking me up. I'm not even on drugs for it yet. I'm just excited to finish so I can take ibuprofen. Brooke 52:50 Well, how can we finish? Brooke 52:57 Thanks so much for listening to the latest installment of This Month in the Apocalypse. We come to you as members of the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness publishing collective. We produce three, soon to be four other podcasts, create zines and publish books. You can check out that great stuff on our website, Tangledwilderness.org. We're also on some social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Margaret 53:20 And Vampire Freaks. Brooke 53:23 We are able to do these rad things because of our Patreon supporters. Margaret 53:27 Myspace. Brooke 53:34 You make this Friendster. Do we have Friendster? Margaret 53:38 We only add you on Friendster if you support us on Patreon, I'm sorry, them's the rules. Brooke 53:44 Our patrons make this work possible. And if you're interested in supporting our work, please check us out on patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Those who support us that $20 a month level get a special shout out at the end of every podcast. Margaret 53:56 They're in our top eight. Brooke 53:58 Top eight? Margaret 54:01 Were you not a MySpace kid? Brooke 54:03 I was but I don't...Oh! Yeah! The little the board thing with the squares. Yes. Okay, I forgot we called it that. Margaret 54:09 Your top eight friends. Brooke 54:11 Yep. All right. We want to say thanks to Hoss the dog, Miciahah, Chris, Sam, Kirk, Eleanor, Jenipher, Staro, Cat J, Chelsea, Dana, David, Nicole, Mikki, Paige, SJ, Shawn, Hunter, Theo, Boise Mutual Aid, Milica, paprouna, Aly, Paige, Janice, Oxalis. And yes, thank you so much. Margaret 54:32 United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru, Republic Dominican, Cuba, Caribbean, Alabama, Alaska. El Salvador too, Brooke 54:39 Colorado, Connecticut. Margaret 54:44 We actually like you all individually. I'm sorry that we made it...it's a toothache. Bye, everyone. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co
Episode Summary Margaret and Agatha talk about mutual aid in Ukraine and Agatha's experience trying to go there to fight in an anti-authoritarian platoon, but ending up doing a bunch of mutual aid supply distribution work instead. They talk about he intricacies of relief work and some of the special circumstances in Ukraine. Heavy content warning on this episode. Towards the end of the episode around 46:00, Agatha starts to tell a really intense story about being in a war zone. Around 56:00 is when it begins to get graphic. Guest Info Agatha (they/them) can be found on IG @jalutkewicz You can donate to their mutual aid work on venmo @agathawilliams or on Paypal @jalutkewicz@gmail.com 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 Agatha on Ukrainian Mutual Aid Margaret 00:14 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for it feels like the end times. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy. And I'm really excited about this week's interview, I am going to be talking to an old friend of mine from quite a while back who haven't talked to in a while about what's involved in anarchists mutual aid in war zones, and specifically, Ukraine, and in the things that are going on there. Yeah, I'm really excited for you all to hear this conversation. But first, I'm excited for you all to hear that we're a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Margaret 01:13 This is Margaret, from the future, coming back to say that this episode deserves a content warning near the end of the episode and there'll be some heads up. We will be talking about, "Hey, so I hear you were attacked." That part contains graphic descriptions of war and violence. And so listener discretion is advised. Margaret 02:05 Okay, we're back. So, if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then kind of a brief description of why you are in a good place to talk about anarchists mutual aid in places of active conflict. Agatha 02:20 So my name is Agatha. My pronouns are they/them. Yeah, I went over to Ukraine last year about this time to do mutual aid support with anti authoritarian units and anarchists units. Things got fucked up on my way over there. So, that wasn't a possibility any longer. So, I just started doing aid runs with a convoy of other solo operators who went over there to try and do something to help alleviate the suffering of folks. Yeah, I'm here to talk about that. Margaret 02:57 So one of my questions about that, is, what do these aid runs look like? I'm under the impression there are different organizations working to try to get new vehicles and armor and all of these things that, you know, to frontline units, to anti authoritarian units. And these are like, organizations from outside Ukraine that are like sending people and supplies to then deliver the supplies? Like what does this look like? Agatha 03:25 Yeah, so me and a few other folks went over there with a group of cash all of our own, you know, what I mean, and we use that for operational costs, which was, you know, feeding ourselves buying diesel in Poland. And then we worked with some more wealthy sympathizers to the cause, who, one person we worked with owns a distribution company, and they have a giant fucking warehouse in Warsaw, Poland. And, you know, they would make sure items that needed to get to folks close to the frontline, where bigger NGOs wouldn't go, could get things that they needed that were not getting there, i.e. like medicine, sanitary products, food, you know, and then later on body armor and diesel. So, this person would basically...they have a bigger organization that looks a lot friendlier on their website, and you can go and donate money and it has pictures of like Ukrainian kids smiling. So, the run would start like this, we'd get a text from this wealthy patron and they'd be like, "Alright, I've organized another run," you know, "Meet me at my warehouse Saturday at four in the morning and bring four vans," you know, "and eight drivers." And like, we wouldn't know where we're going. We wouldn't know what we're doing. And then we'd get there at four in the morning and then there'd be all these like, gnarly angry Polish dudes just like moving boxes around and making piles. And then the, you know, the person who lead everything and orchestrated everything, she's just a very strong, amazing woman. And she would come out and just start barking orders and be like, "You, you're driving this van, and you're putting all this in your van, but like, I have some other shit to hide at the bottom of the pile. So don't load it yet," you know, "load this van." And then she'd like really quickly, have one of her cronies, bring out a pallet full of body armor inserts that were like, made at a metal shop out of like, AR500 steel that can withstand 556 and 762 rounds. Margaret 05:31 Yeah, gun Twitter will be very upset about this. Agatha 05:35 What's that? Margaret 05:36 I said gun Twitter will be very upset that they're using steel. Agatha 05:40 I know. But if you're out there fucking around, you want something more than nothing, and it's not gonna spatter, AR500 is at least not going to spatter on you, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's not going to create any spalding. But, that regardless, you know, she did her own research on what steels are like the most bulletproof and then she fucking contacted a metal shop with a brake press that could you know, bend quarter inch thick steel that was hardened. And then she had them plasma cut out the designs that fit into vests that she had manufactured from different tailors around Poland, you know, it was just like, it was 100%, DIY, you know, ballistic vests. And it was just amazing. And she'd be like, "Alright, you're delivering all this, like toilet paper, and ibuprofen, and like, you know, baby food to this one location, then you're going to meet with my people at this location, and you're gonna give them these 10 boxes," you know, and those had whatever in them. I never asked, you know, but and then she'd be like, "Give them these 50 vests," you know, "they have like a poorly equipped unit that needs them. They have a mortar unit that's taken a lot of casualties because they're so ill equipped," like, blah, blah, blah. And then she'd be like, "Also, the next van, we're gonna fill it with all toilet paper. But, at the bottom of the toilet paper pile, we're gonna hide 300 gallons of diesel, you know, in these little containers." Margaret 07:02 Why are you hiding it? Agatha 07:05 Because there's like tariffs involved with transporting body armor and transporting fuel across conflict zone lines, apparently. I don't know very much about it. I just know that like, there was like, a big to do. And you had to file a lot more fucking paperwork that took weeks and weeks, if not months to get like 50 fucking vests across the border, and then to the east of Ukraine. Whereas she was just like," I don't give a fuck, you're going there anyways." I mean, she was crazy. She was like, linked up, she'd be like, "Alright, these are your things you need when you get to the border. If you get there early, wait till 5:30 shift, change or whatever. And wait till this one dude is working. Show him this paperwork, and he's gonna let you through without giving you hassle or looking in your van. If you go at other times, I can't guarantee you're gonna get through without a hassle." So, she had stuff going on, that I didn't know about. And I didn't care to ask about. I was just into helping and I was good enough just bringing food and medicine. You know. When I found out we were bringing other shit and like hiding it. I was like, "Oh, that's cool." I was like, "I'm into it. Like, I'm sketchy. Like, I'm down." you know? And so we just like, we would wait, we'd pack up all the vans at four in the morning when we met her there. And then there was a few Polish dudes who would run the convoy once we were on the road. And we all had radios. So, it's like, you know, head convoy dudes like, "You guys got to pick it up, we need to make better time." or people in the back would be like, "Hey, head of convoy slow down, we're losing ya." Yeah, because all our shit was painted drab green and had the organization we were working for plastered all over the side of it. So, we wanted to look like a convoy while we were in Poland and the West of the country, and stick together. And then once we'd get across the border, and hit Lviv, you know, then it scattered and we would take magnets off, and we didn't want to look like a convoy, because convoys get targeted and like, all this other junk. So we had basically leave Warsaw at like five or six in the morning, we'd drive for fucking ever, we'd get to the border, we'd sit there forever, you know, we'd give our slips to the guy we were supposed to give them to, they would just wave us through, they wouldn't search our shit. And then we drive fucking forever to Lviv. And then at Lviv, we'd unload like 80% of the stuff, you know, four out of six in the convoy would go back to Warsaw. And then you know, I was generally one of the ones who would go further east. So, I'd stick around, we'd get coordinates to a new warehouse that we didn't know about, and then we would go refill our vans and Lviv with other shit going further east. And then from there, we'd hit Kyiv. We'd drop a bunch of shit of in Kyiv. If we were transporting vehicles, we'd bring them to the specific units that was asking for them, basically just four by four vehicles that can carry around and a little Assault Squad through mud and shit that they didn't have. And then we'd deliver that shit. And then, you know, we'd spend a night in Kyiv and then we'd get more coordinates the next day. We'd go to another warehouse. We'd fill it up with whatever the fuck was planned for us. And then all this is going on while we are like doing our own shit. Like, last time we were in Zolochiv, they needed salt because their bakery had run dry of salt. They had everything to make bread for the frontline troops except for salt. So, they're like, "We need three vans worth of salt" you know, "We need like 5000 pounds of salt." So, we'd be like moving our salt around to make room for our wealthy patron's shit that she wanted to go to specific units that she had friends in, or whatever that were hard up. You know? So we were just have to like, juggle shit around. And then like, make sure everything fit, throw our 50 gallon drums of diesel on the fucking roof of the car and siphon it out and fill our fucking tanks back up, because you just can't get diesel in Ukraine when we were there. So we had to smuggle in all the diesel for the entire trip. And then, we'd be on our way again. And then we'd eventually get to Kharkiv or wherever, in the far east of the country, get rid of all our shit. And then just like, usually pick up some passengers who wanted to get the fuck out of Kharkiv or wherever the fuck they were, and bring people back and get them out of sketchy situations. And then we'd slowly make our way back to Poland. And we didn't really stop when we were driving. So, some days we drive for like 48 hours straight or some couples of days and then we would take naps and switch out drivers. But on the way back, it was a little more relaxed, like we'd get a hotel or something like in between Kharkiv and fucking Kyiv and try and take showers and get like a good night's rest and then whatever. And then we finally make our way back to Warsaw or Krakow, wherever our next pickup was. We'd rest for 24 hours without doing shit. We would just eat food sleep, nap, like fucking whatever the fuck we felt like doing. Go on walks. Then we'd get another another call from from our person who was funding a lot of this and she'd be like, "Meet me at the warehouse, Tuesday at 1"30 in the morning and bring seven vans this time," you know, so yeah, that's pretty much the cycle that was going on when I was there. Margaret 12:42 Yeah. Okay, so I have a bunch of questions about this. There's so much that's curious to me. Yeah, one of them is like, like, what's in it for this lady? Like, I don't know, if you want to like out her specifically or whatever. But like, it's international solidarity? Is it like... Agatha 12:57 I couldn't tell. Margaret 12:58 Is it just like, we don't want Ukraine to fall because then we think we're next? Is it just the same reason you're there, we just got to fucking help each other? Like, what's going on? Agatha 13:09 So, everything I gathered from talking with this person was that she just like, thought what was going on was super fucked up was like, disgusted that like civilians, were paying such a high price for the actions of, you know, a fascist imperialist government's need to try for a land grab and was just like, honestly disgusted about how little the rest of the world seemed to care about these people who, like, were fucking starving to death and are still starving to death and like fucking living in occupied villages that change hands every couple of weeks, and like, can't get anything because NGOs won't go there. Because Red Cross thinks is too dangerous or whatever. Yeah, I mean, it is but like, that's your fucking job. Like, that's what you should be doing. And it like, came down to like, hundreds and or thousands of like, solo operators who have like these little groups, there's a bunch of us, like, but it's like, hard to...It's hard to say what her end game was. Like, she had a bunch of fucking dudes who, I don't speak Ukrainian or Polish, but there's some words that are the same, you know? And I mean, like, we'd be driving and the radio chatter would be all Polish. And I'd hear like "Americanski,"" and then, "Blah, blah, blah," and then nothing for a minute. And then you'd hear like, "Blah, blah, blah, Pistoleta, blah, blah, blah." And I'm like, what do they got in their van? You know what I mean? But I'm not asking, you know. The most I ever asked was like, the lead dude who took us on the convoys just seemed like he knew his way around a warzone, knew his way, you know, bunch of those motherfuckers were into Brazilian jujitsu. And that's where we like, connected a lot, because that's something I'm into, and they all knew how to handle themselves. They all seem like ex military or something. And one day, I was just like, I was like, "Hey, dude, like, are you ex... It's like, don't answer mean if you don't want to, but like, are you ex military or like current military or something?" And he says, "Kind of." and then walked away. And I was like, "Okay, that's enough." You know what I mean? So like, I don't know what their motivations were. They were like, super not into Russia, I can say that. It like, a little uncomfortable for me because like... and especially the closer you get to the border of the Russia, the more you start hearing terms like 'orc,' and like, stuff like that, as opposed to 'Russian.' I don't know, they had seen more shit than me at that point, had really strong opinions and like, as much as I could tell, they just wanted to, you know, kind of ease some of the suffering that normal everyday people were going through because of the conflict. Margaret 15:47 Yeah. Okay. So that brings it back to like, you know, you mentioned that you, you headed out there hoping to specifically work delivering aid to the anti authoritarian units and stuff. Is that work that you got to continue to do or like? Agatha 16:03 in some ways. So, just to clarify, I originally went out to fight in an anti authoritarian unit made up of English speaking foreigners. That was my my first goal. I had issues with getting my passport in a timely manner. And then there was this like, horrible incident where the unit that had accepted me, they knew when I was coming, they had someone picking me up to bring them to the base and get me situated and fucking geared up. But they're like, "You need body armor. You need a ballistic helmet. You need your own IFAK. You need like, your own fucking compass, you know, basically full kit was needed to be provided by me, because all they were going to....they're going to stick me on a mortar team and I was going to be like, stuck with that mortar team with whatever I brought, or essentially, and then, on my way over there, something happened where the platoon leader was found dead on base. They got assigned a new Platoon leader. This dude was like, "You guys can still fly you're anti anti authoritarian and anarchists flags as a unit, but we're not taking in any more foreigners. And that's that." So while I was on my way there, I was told, you know, "No go on the, on the infantry unit. Blah, blah, blah." So I just like, didn't know what to do. I had like $5,000 worth of tourniquets, and quit clot and fucking chest seals. You know, I had I had ballistic helmets, I had a level four ceramic plates with me. I had more shit than I could carry. I looked like an asshole coming from the Warsaw airport to my hostel, you know. And then I couldn't leave my hostel for like, a week and a half, because I had like, all this gear in there that wouldn't fit in my tiny little safe and like, everyone was like, "What the fuck are you doing with all this shit? And like, why are you here?" And I didn't want to say anything. So I just like seemed sketchy. And then I eventually found a group that was working directly with anarchists fighters at the front. And I was like, "Hey, I brought all this medical supplies. It's basically only heavy bleed stop supplies to treat gunshots and amputations and things of this nature. Do you want it? Like, how do I get it to you?" And they're like, "Yes, totally. One of our people, we'll get with you soon," you know. And this is when I started my waiting game in the hostel trying to like, not leave my shit for too long. And be there waiting for the call. And like a week and a half went by before I got any kind of information. And honestly, I was like, kind of bummed out. This group seemed like they knew what they were doing. Their social media presence was like on point. They were like, just vague enough to like, promote their cause, but like, not giving too much information out. You know, they're just like, whatever. So, I was like, I'll deal with these guys. Fine. I'll give them this medical equipment. And then they just like, totally dropped the ball. And like, they kept saying, someone's going to call me. Every day I texted them. I'm like, I'm sitting on all this crap, I need to get rid of it and be on my way and try and find another way to like, do what I'm trying to do. And it just kept going on. And then, you know, a week and a half. I'd never left the country before I left for this. And I speak no other languages. I'm like super neurodivergent, have like really high anxiety and was just in this foreign city where I didn't understand anything. And just like, every day felt like a week. You know, I was just waiting for my phone to ring and then I could hand the shit off. And like, I had a couple of leads on folks who were like, "Yeah, when you're done doing your thing, like, give us a call and we'll set you up doing some aid work." So I was just waiting and waiting. And then they finally called me. They're like, "Go meet this person at this address. And they'll take all your shit from you." And I was like, "Okay, great." So, I take a fucking cab like across Warsaw, I ended up at this place. I eventually find out it's like, basically like a methadone clinic for like houseless people. I was like, oh cool, whowhoever's doing this also works doing this kind of work you know, but then I just look like a sketch ball, sitting outside of this place with like three fucking duffel bags, waiting for.... Agatha 20:09 Yeah, I have no idea who's coming to meet me. Every person that walked by I'm like, "Are you them?" You know like, yeah, I don't know shit. I'm there. Like the time they're supposed to meet me goes by. I got there like half an hour early because I just wanted to not fuck this up. And then like the time they're supposed to meet me comes and goes and then it's like an hour later. And I call my dudes and I'm like, "Hey, your person's not here yet." They're like, "They're on their way." and then they hang up and I'm like, okay, like literally like four hours goes by of me doing this. Like I'm just like, whatever I'm so bummed and then this like, door flies open to this place and this little person comes out and they're like, "Hey, are you Agatha?" And I was like, "Yeah," and they're like, "Alright, I'm gonna take this shit. Like thanks a bunch." and then like, drags in three duffel bags really quick and slams the door shut and I'm like, fuck like they knew my name, but like I'm pretty sure that was who I was supposed to give this to you know, and then I go back to my hostel and then like whatever. So like, it was like super disheartening to be told I couldn't be in this fighting unit, and then like it was super disheartening to have trouble handing the shit off, but like, in the end, it was probably the best thing that could happen to me, because like, after being there for a while, I was like fuck, "I don't know if I could have been of service in a unit where I have no military training," like, you know, I probably would have been a liability more than anything. So like, Thank God that happened. And then I got hooked up with these people who like, it was like perfect for me. You know, I just drive for 30 hours and then like that was fine with me you know? Like I traveled the country a million times as like a dumb useless punk. Like this was like the same shit, just like felt better because I was like helping people you know what I mean? Margaret 20:09 Thousands of dollars of gear. Agatha 20:36 For everyone that's listening. That's how we that's how we know each other, is being dumb, useless punks traveling the country. Agatha 22:02 So, I just applied whatI knew about like traveling and being comfortable being uncomfortable with like, doing shit and it was like a perfect fit. So, I originally went over to do that. Yeah. And then it switched to this. And then I was only there for like six more weeks. But, I did a bunch of shit while I was there. And, you know, I will probably get into it later. But, I needed to do like a lot of trauma therapy once I got back and like, it's been a year and I just felt comfortable enough to buy another plane ticket there and I'm on my way back. But this time, I don't have to figure anything out. I already have a crew. We have a fleet of nine vehicles. We have deliveries lined up for fucking months. So it's like, I can just jump right back in you know, and like, it's just nice when you like hand a bunch of fucking hungry people food or you know, yeah, like. And that's the thing that struck me most is I went out there as an anarchist and then while I was there, I kind of just turned into like a humanist. I was like, you know, I just didn't give a fuck who I was working with anymore. I was like, "Oh, you're hungry and you need food. I'm gonna bring it to you," and it didn't matter to me anymore who was picking it up. You know, I even worked with some known fascist units who supposedly kicked all the Neo Nazis out, and anti Semites got kicked out, but they still have unscrupulous pasts as like street gangs and stuff, but like, you know, I was bringing them stuff to like, keep people alive. I didn't. I just stopped caring, you know, about political affiliation and shit. Margaret 23:39 No, it makes sense to me though, like, because one of the things that has been so interesting to me about like studying disaster stuff and disaster responses, right, are these like, you know, there's this moment that I wasn't there for but sticks in one of my head, my head is that one of my best friends. I've probably mentioned this on the show before, but one of my best friends is this, you know, crusty traveling punk kid who went to go do flood relief in a place that you could normally drive into, but could only be flown into. And the people who were flying in, were all of these people with like, tiny airplanes, which means rich libertarians. And you know, and so my friend is like talking about being like, and you know, and they're nervous person, and they're in this tiny airplane driving and like flying into a storm with this, like, random libertarian guy, right? And it's just like, and they were fine. And they landed and they delivered supplies and they got food out and got stuff out to people who needed it who were trapped and hungry. And I think that's what's so interesting about disaster, whether it's, quote unquote natural, like the accelerating climate disasters, or, you know, the invasion of an imperialist power into your country is just this like....like the goal isn't to help anarchists. The goal is to help people who are being destroyed by an imperialist power. You know? Agatha 25:05 Yeah, exactly. Margaret 25:07 It's interesting to me, because I do have I have a...like it's like cool, right, supporting the anti authoritarian unit specifically. It's cool and like anarchists organizing this is cool, but a lot of that is like...well, I'm excited that an anarchist is at least one of the drivers of this organization that you're working for, you know. Like you. You know? What is it? What is it like interacting as an anti authoritarian person within this like...you know, yeah, you have this like, rich industrialist lady who's just like, pouring everything and all kinds of risk into just providing things for people and I presume you have this very...like is it this melting pot environment. Like, what is it like socially? Agatha 25:50 It's fucked up, man. Like the guy I got stuck with like, when the group I started driving for wanting to vouch for me, they're like, "We have a solo run. It's like not very sketchy. We're not going that far east. We're just going like outside of Lviv. It's like a fucking shit ton of sanitary products. And then like, you're going to come back to Częstochowa and you're going to fill up the van full of strollers and bring it to this orphanage that's only run for orphans that were victims of losing their parents in fucking Bucha you know. Margaret 26:21 Well, it better be anarchists babies, because otherwise they don't deserve strollers. Agatha 26:24 Yeah. But, the fucking guy picks me up and he's wearing a fucking Black Rifle Coffee Company t shirt. Margaret 26:30 Oh shit. Agatha 26:31 And I was like, What the fuck is this? You know? And I was like, this sucks. And I was like, cuz I knew they weren't going to be anarchists. But I was like, this dude is wearing just a straight up fascist companies t shirt. Margaret 26:44 Yeah, this dude wants to kill you in the United States. Agatha 26:47 Yeah, well, he's from Canada. And that's the thing, like, his view on it was like totally different. I was like, you know, after like, nine hours in the van and like 18 cups of coffee. I was like, "So what's up with your shirt, dude?" And he's like, "Well, I just really like their coffee. And like, they have pictures of guns on their shit. It's like good advertising." I was like, "You know those are the assholes who like bailed out Kyle Rittenhouse, right?" and he's like, "Who the fuck is Kyle Rittenhouse." and I'm just like Jesus Christ. And, it was just like, super fucked up and like, we had like really long conversations about what like being an anarchist means to me. And you know, the more we talked, the more I realized our like end goal was exactly the same. He was like, just a farm boy from from South Central fucking Canada who grew up on a fucking....what's that stuff called? I don't want to say the name of it cause I hate it. And there's another name for it. He's from a canola farm. And he joined the military when he was young. And he's like....I'm a pretty tall person. I'm like 6'2", and he's like three inches taller than me, built like a brick shithouse.Just look like the dude you don't want to run into as an anarchist in like a war zone wearing a fucking Black Rifle Coffee Company t shirt. But the more we talked, the more we were just like yeah, we just want to fucking help people. And like that's it. Like, I just don't care anymore. Like it basically came down to everyone in our group wanted to ease some suffering that was happening at the behest of like, fucked up agitators who were acting on like imperialist like logic, you know? And yeah, that's basically what it all boiled down to. So, like I went there as an anarchist trying to support anarchist endeavors....and because they were helping just normal people, right? And and then it just turned out like, you know, circumstances change. They didn't...like multiple groups didn't want any more foreigners. You know, I was never given explanations as to why....Someone said it was because my social media presence was too hard about going to Ukraine, and they didn't want people getting their spots blown up. But, I was like literally all I said is I'm going to Ukraine, bringing medical supplies to anarchists units. And if you want to donate, donate here. I gave zero information on what unit I was delivering to, where I was going, who my contacts were. It was like vague as possible to just get donations, so I could buy more tourniquets. That's like all I was doing. That's that's the most explanation I got, which never added up. Margaret 29:19 They must have had their own shit going on. There must have been like something that had happened recently or like something within the internal structure where they were like trying to hold on to their anti authoritarian unit within an authoritarian structure, you know? Agatha 29:34 Exactly. And I later found out like, once I was back from a couple runs, and the unit that had originally accepted me, and said no more was like, "Hey, we got a guy coming to Warsaw and he wants to meet you." And I was like, "Okay," and it was just like the most giant man I've ever met and he was just like, decked out in like fucking workout gear and he's like, "I'm coming from the gym and I only got an hour I'm going back to the gym. I'm with this unit. I'm on leave blah, blah, blah." And I guess what it was was like, you know, it was other foreigners who were in the group who were posting shit online they shouldn't have been, you know, and one example was, there was someone who posted a picture of themselves outside of a building being like "Training for the good fight," or whatever. And whatever fucking Russian like ops that we're monitoring social media saw a picture of the building, did a bunch of fucking research, found out where it was, what the building was, and fucking a missile strike happened and like 500 volunteers died or some shit. Agatha 30:39 It was like super fucked so like, I totally got it, but like, and I wasn't gonna argue with them, you know what I mean? I was like okay, I'll find something else to do, but like that's not me. And that's not what I'm doing, but like, whatever I'll try and help out some other way. So, I think that's the kind of shit that was happening that led to me not being invited into these like strictly anarchist groups, because I mean, you know, fucking anarchists. Everyone's like security culture. Like the feds are like bugging my phone because they want to know what dumpsters I'm hitting or whatever. You know what I mean? It's like... Margaret 30:39 Oh my god. Margaret 31:12 Only here, it's like they're actually throwing missiles at you. Agatha 31:15 Exactly. Exactly. So I was like, I get it but, like whatever, so I think that's really what it was and like I couldn't fault them for it. I was like whatever, but yeah, I'm just some like scumbag from America anyways. Like you don't know me. Like you don't know if you can trust me like. Sure, I have tattoos on my face, but like whatever. Like you know what I mean? Like yeah, so I got it but like, I don't know. I'm kind of rambling at this point. I'm gonna let you direct the conversation a little more. Margaret 31:39 No, no, I'm really curious about all of this kind of stuff, like I'm very curious and I think the audience will be curious about....I mean, even down to like how do people take you as this tall, you know, person who presents somewhat masculine, but often has a non masculine name, has face tattoos, doesn't have like, you know isn't like mister Mr. heterosexual cis man, but also is like a tough as fuck looking, like face tattooed punk, right? Like, what do people make of you? Like how did that go? Agatha 32:18 It just depended, you know, some people were just like, "Who the fuck is this guy?" Like? Yeah, cuz I mean, I do have a lot of visible tattoos, but just to like, give it some context. Like my tattoos are like of puppies and like, I have a giant heart on my throat. You know what I mean? They're not like tough guy tattoos. Aside, I have some air 15 magazines tattooed underneath a "Do not resuscitate," tattoo on my chest. My chest looks like some pre-schooler went to prison and got tattooed or something. It's like light hearted. There's like skulls and puppies and yeah, rifle parts and like a 'do not resuscitate,' banner and like shit, but like, that's not stuff people generally saw. But they'd see my heart tattoo on my throat and my shit on my face. And like my hands were all blacked out. And you know, people were either like...A good example is like, people either didn't say anything, or they'd be like...like, one time we were in Kyiv we're kicking this grifter who had gotten caught up in our shit out. We needed like five to six hundred litres of diesel that we had shoved in his van. We needed to get that out before we kicked him out. Because we knew he would just steal it from us. I mean, I found out the guy had gone through my phone when I was sleeping. There was like links to his aid organization to the like, PayPal link on my phone. Like my Safari was open. And it was like, please enter your Paypal password to donate to this group. And I was like, "Who the fuck is this group?" And then we realized it was this guy and we needed to kick his ass out. But like, whatever, we didn't know where to kick him out. Like we didn't know if he was gonna get violent with us. So we picked like a super populated spot and Kyiv which is where we were at the time. And we're like, "Meet us here," you know, "at this parking lot for this fucking train station." But the parking lot was closed. And, it was like, all the spaces were empty, but we couldn't get in, and there was this like drunk ass dude wearing a body camera in this little booth. And he was like....we just went up and we're like, "Hey, are you the one watching this parking lot right now?" And our interpreter could not understand a fucking word this guy was saying. He was so drunk. And it's like the farther east you go like, the more the dialects change, so like our interpreter was 18 years old from from Lviv. He had never been this far east, you know, which Kyiv isn't even that far. But like, you know, if you've never been to Kyiv really and you get there and then there's people from the opposite end of the country who you know, I mean, it's just like, there's a big disconnect with with local dialects. He could only you know, figure some shit out. And we eventually paid the guy like a bunch of grivna not to fucking, just do this deal real quick. We're like, "Hey, we'll give you this wad of cash. Just let us park here for like 20 minutes, this guy is going to meet us. We're going to move a bunch of shit around from Van to van, and then we'll be out of your hair," and he's like, "Alright, fine." But, he was like fucking hammered. And he would not leave us alone. And he was like, uncomfortable drunk where he was like in our faces, like breathing on us, asking us questions. And our interpreter was trying their best to like, fucking answer. And then it just got hot during the day, and I went to take my shirt off, and all my tattoos are black line work. They look like fucking prison tattoos. And this guy, I see him catch my eye as my shirts about to go over my head for a second. And I pulled my T shirt down real quick. And he's like, "Ah, prison." And I was like, "No, no, no, no, not prison," and he's like, "Prison." And I was like, "No, it's not prison," and the guy just wouldn't shut up about it. He just kept saying "prison" to me and like, give me the 'okay' sign with his hand. And I'm like, "No, dude," you know? So, it's like, it was like, stuff like that. And then other people just being like, "You're a fucking freak American? Are they all like you", kinda shit. it was just like, I don't know, it was super weird. I got some shit for it. But like, most people, like I would talk to them for five minutes. And they'd be like, "Oh, you're just a person who wants to like, do shit." You know what I mean? But then, the more I got into this shit, and the more I was like, getting deeper into the east of the country, like, it got like, less and less about personal identity and what you what you were presenting to the world, right? Like I am an assigned male at birth guy who's six foot two inces and like, I have tattoos everywhere. And I carry myself like, like, really confidently, because I'm a martial artist, and blah, blah, blah. I'm just like...and I don't take shit from people like...It just was like a little easier for me to get by. But like, I was with this really well known fascist unit, who was giving personal protection to this trans woman, who was in the east of the country and had been there for months. Like she had gotten fired from her news organization because she started using the term 'Orc' in her in her pieces, and they're like, "You're no longer unbiased." And she and she was like, "You can't be unbiased. If you've been out here," like, "These Russian soldiers are fucking pigs. Like, they're like, they're raping people. They're killing children. They're doing all sorts of shit. They're bombing schools. They're bombing hospitals, like, and all these people could just shoot their officers and come across the line with a white flag. And the Ukrainians would treat them fine, right? Like yeah, but they're not doing that they're doing what they're told. And they're being complicit in these atrocities, blah, blah, blah." So she was like just going around doing all these pieces and her personal protection unit was all these supposed fucking homophobic, you know, fascist pieces of shit and granted, I never got drunk with these guys. I didn't have beers with them. I don't know what they really think but, they thought what she was doing was important enough to like give her a pass, you know what I mean? And like protect her, and get her to these like places to interview these people. And that's the kind of like, shit I mostly ran into, was like, you know, you don't have to agree with me right now, but we have a goal in mind. And once the Russians are gone, fuck it. We'll figure out our differences later, but like right now, like were chill, and I got like pretty hopeful about it till I met this like, platoon leader in an infantry territorial defense unit who, after...we were bombed at one point our fucking vans got destroyed, and we were looking for a mechanic to fix our shit, so we could get out of the east of the country. And this dude who spoke perfect English came up to us and was like, "What are you doing? What are y'all doing?" We told them what was up and he was like, "I'll try and find a mechanic. I got a mechanic buddy, like right around the corner, blah, blah, blah." And then while we were waiting for a callback, me and him just like got some coffees and like, talked for a while it turns out, he's like, uh, you know, he was a fucking, like, a human rights activist who was a lawyer forever, and like, graduated college in '92, and started his own organization to help like, LGBTQ refugees from like Belarus and shit, you know? And I mean, he was like, super fucking cool. Yeah. And the guy just eventually was like, "Yeah, I went to school at a military accredited college. So when I joined the territorial defense units, they're like, "You're an officer. You're, you're in control of a whole platoon,"" and he like, tried so hard to convince them that he was not their guy. Margaret 39:44 That he has the wrong platoon. Agatha 39:46 Yeah, he's like, "No, dude, I don't know how to fight blah, blah, blah. These are all like seasoned infantry men that I'm supposed to be...." So he's like, "I just fucking started listening to the most experienced dudes in my company and like, like, let them decide basically," and then, but like I got talking to him, I was like, yeah. You know, I introduced myself to him as my birth name. And he's like, yeah, you know? And then we started talking and it became apparent that he was not straight and all this other shit. And I was like, "Yeah, like, we've been working with this one group," and he's like, "Oh, yeah, they're bad news, you know?" And I was like, "Are they, though? Because like, they've shown me to be like, pretty decent to like, a lot of marginalized folks. As far as I can tell. I don't know." Yeah. And I was like, "I go by Agatha in the states and like, my crew calls me Agatha. But like, I do feel scared enough to not introduce myself as Agatha to the people in this unit, because they're, they're staunchly fascist, right? Like, you know, they, they're not into it." and they're like quick like without missing a beat they're like, "Oh, yeah, no, do not introduce yourself to these motherfuckers as Agatha. They're like, they did get rid of a lot of antisemites, they did get rid of a lot of overt racists, but there's like homophobia is still a huge problem in the Ukrainian military and population in general. It's very conservative. And so like, he like really opened my eyes that like, I was like, "Yeah, we're all in this together. Like, who gives a fuck your political affiliations? You know?" And then he was quickly like, "Yeah. No, people still disappear all the time during wartime. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, watch your fucking ass and like, keep doing what you're doing. But like, don't get too comfortable with these people." And it was just like....It was hard because like, I fucking was just feeling good about, working with people of different ideological backgrounds. And it felt good to just feed people and have this shared goal. And then just to be like, brutally reminded that, like, that's not actually the case. And it could get backwards really quick. You know what I mean? If I like yeah, said the wrong thing to the wrong person. Like, I have like an antifascist action pin on my hat. It's just like, you know, the little two black flags. It says "Anti-fascist action." He's like, he's like, "I wouldn't wear that, you know, I just wouldn't. you know, and I was like, "Okay." I listened to the guy, you know, he's fucking awesome. And I like, kept in touch with the dude through Telegram, and it was fucking on and then he got captured by the Russians, and he's still in captivity, and like, they're trying to act like he's a super Neo Nazi, because, like, that's what they do to human rights...and you know, people who are obviously leftist who get who get taken prisoner. But, you know, he's facing fucking 12 years in prison in the Donbas now, you know, and I'm just hoping, because he's an officer, they're going to do a prisoner swap, you know, but they're like not into it. And I, you know, if I had weird questions, I'd ask them, and then they'd always give me like, a nice response. And, you know, didn't treat me like an idiot American. They're like, yeah, "You just don't know the culture, blah, blah, blah." So, now what? Margaret 42:48 Yeah, that's, that's a really good...it's a sad, but it's an important counterpoint in this conversation we're having is to realize that like some of the civility between these units is probably short term, probably a veneer, and like, probably necessary veneer to drive out the invading force, but it makes sense to not to get too comfortable with it. And that's sad, but it's interesting because it's like, I hold, perhaps naively, that a lot of center Right, people really are distinct from far Right people, and like, have, you know, some really good ideas in terms of "Hey, what if we all left each other alone and sometimes took care of each other?" And it's like, easy for me to say as like someone who lives in a rural center Right area, but not a far Right area. And that's an important difference, you know? Agatha 43:45 Yeah, but I think that's like a pretty fair assessment too, of people out there. It's just it doesn't...you just can't count on that for long because even though like you could be a center Right, dude, and then you spend nine months in a fucking infantry unit full of fucking mutant goons who are espousing all this hate and it's easy to go from center Right to far Right, you know? Margaret 44:05 Yep. Yeah, no, totally. And it's...Yeah, fuck. Well, to go from that light subject to another really light subject. You mentioned that you were attacked, your caravan was attacked. Agatha 44:20 Yeah. Margaret 44:21 Do you want to talk about that? Do you want to say what happened? Is that right? Agatha 44:24 Sure. It's hard for me to just like, do it kind of like, you know, like, give you the synopsis. Like I kind of rant about it when I start going into details, because I start going into like lizard brain thinking about how I felt while I was there. So, with the caveat that like I want you to like be like, "rein it in," if you're like...if I'm given too many details, or if I'm going off on a fucking rant or whatever. Basically, we had done....we had been driving for like 48 hours on and off. We left Krakow. We got to Lviv. We dropped a bunch of shit. Picked up a bunch of shit. Got to Kyiv, dropped off a bunch of shit, picked up a bunch of shit, and this all started like insane. I was at the fucking ladies warehouse, loaded up like usual. And that grifter dude we were working with....so his thing was, he was working with the....What the fuck is their name? Not the Rotary Club. They're like something like that. The Lion something? Do you know what I'm talking about? Margaret 45:28 Yes, one of those like weird things. It's like not the Masons, but it's basically the Masons. Agatha 45:32 Yeah, t's not the Masons, but it's kind of like the Masons, and they do like whatever.....So, he, I don't know how he fucking did it got a bunch of funding for them, bought like two brand new vans and was out there, under the auspice that he was working for them. But he had all these weird things he was doing that he wouldn't share too much information on. And he had a Land Rover and it was one of those fucking British Land Rovers with a steering wheel on the wrong side, or the other side, not the wrong side. Margaret 46:01 When we're British people, we can say the wrong side. That's fine. Agatha 46:06 So, we're loading up all the shit. I'm waiting for the rest of my crew to get there. We got there a couple hours early. We get all loaded up. And I'm like, "Hey, person who runs the shit, like, what can I do to be of help while I wait for other people? Do you have shit that needs to get like moved around in the warehouse? You know, like, what do you need for me? She's like, "I need you to get this fucking guy off my back. He won't leave me alone. He wants to leave right now. And I told me, he's got to wait till the rest of the convoy gets here so you all get to the border crossing at the same time when you're supposed to. And you can give this paperwork to the guy who needs it." And I was like, "Okay." So the guy won't shut up. Eventually, they get in a huge fight. He says, "We're leaving," and looks at me. And I was like, "What?" and the lady's like, "Alright, good luck crossing the border," you know. And he's got his own van and he's like, "You're gonna drive this Land Rover full of shit by yourself. And you're just gonna follow me to Kyiv where we drop this off to a unit of American volunteers who are all ex military. And they're working on their own outside of the Ukrainian military. And they need a four by four vehicle to get in and out of like weird spots." And I was like, "Okay, fine." And then. So, I call the main planner of my group and I'm like, "Yo, dude is trying to be sketchy. He got in a fight with Lady. They're at each other's throats. He just wants us to leave. She wants us to get the fuck out of there just so she doesn't have to deal with like, this, like sketchy male bodied person yelling at her. She just doesn't need this, you know?" And he's just like, "I'm so sorry to do this to you. But like, just go with him. Just like get out of there with him, like, help him out. We need his van space once we hit Kyiv because we have more supplies than we can bring to Kharkiv in the space we have. So, I was like, "Okay, fine, whatever." And this guy like we eventually....She looks at me, she gives me a big hug. And she says, "I'm so sorry about this." And I was like, "Sorry, about what?" And then she looks at the guy and she's like, "Have fun crossing the border," and handed him a thing of papers and like was like, "See you guys." And then she's just like, "Please stay safe, Agatha." And I was like, "Okay." And and then I was like, I don't know what's going on. This dude throws a radio on my lap. I had never used a fucking CB radio at this point in my life. And he's just like, he's like "Try to keep up." And then he like fucking takes off on me. And I was like, What the fuck, and I'm like, racing to keep up with him. But, he's passing all the semis on the highway and I'm driving a right handed vehicle. I have to get all the way in the other lane to see if there's oncoming traffic, which is sketchy as fuck. I have never driven one of these things. It's still like normal driving lanes, you know what I mean? It's just a different driving side on the car. And it just was like the most stressful thing that's ever happened to me. For four hours trying to keep up with this guy. And then we finally get to the Ukrainian border. We're well outside that window of time she told us to get there. And he's like, "Don't worry, let's skip the line. Let's drive on the outside of the line in this like break down lane and get up to the gate and I'll get us through." And I was like, "I don't think that's gonna work, bro." And he's like, "Whatever." We get all the way up there. I'm still sitting in the car. I see him arguing with the border guard. The border guard's just pointing to the back of the line and then I'm like, "Fuck," and then eventually he's like, "Oh, we gotta try again blah blah blah." And he like turns around and we go...we do this like three times. He argues with three different border guards. And eventually we just have to sit in line for like eight fucking hours like Lady told us we were gonna have to do if we didn't fucking wait and he's all griping about it and blah blah. Yeah. And I'm just like I want to be like, "I fucking told you so." I don't like this guy already. He's like, super macho, has no regard for other people's emotional like capacity for anything and it's just about him and blah blah blah and he's got to get this vehicle to this unit or they're fucked and blah blah blah. We finally get through. He does the same shit, and I don't know if you know anything about Ukrainian roads, but they are that was fucked up roads I've ever seen in my life. Like, before the war. Like there's just like...they are fucked up. It's like the main highways are just packed with potholes that like, are just so devastating when you hit them. You're like, Oh my God, and like, he's just flying down this highway and like, he's like, "Keep up," like I keep hearing in the radio get more and more staticky. He's like, "I can't see you back behind me. Like keep up. Blah, blah, blah." And I was like, "Dude, you're going too fast. Blah, blah, blah. We do this for a whole day. And we get to Lviv and then whatever....I missed a detail. It wasn't Kyiv we were going to deliver this vehicle to. It was Lyviv, which is much closer to the border. We get we get to Lviv, and he's like, "We gotta meet this fucking dude, and hand off this fucking vehicle. And I was like, "Okay, fine, whatever." We finally get to this gas station. And there's these two dudes dressed in fatigues with their weapons out, like totally out of place, and they're holding gas cans. And he's like, "There's my dudes." And I was like, "Okay." Margaret 51:16 From the Lions Club or whatever? Agatha 51:18 Yeah, yeah. Well, no. He didn't tell me how he knew these guys. He alluded to the fact that he was in Afghanistan for a while working with Blackwater motherfuckers doing the same shit, but just equipping Blackwater units like not other stuff. So, I was like, alright, this dude's got sketchy friends. Whatever. Turns out this dude doesn't know the fighter at all. They met through the internet. He's not donating this vehicle. He's selling it to them and then fucking dudes like all sketched out because he looks at this Land Rover and is like, "So, this thing's good to go. It's all like mechanically sound?" And dudes like "Yeah, it's good. I had a mechanic look at it and everything in Poland blah, blah, blah." And I was like, "Yo," I could not shut up. I was like, "Yo, I drove this thing from fucking Krakow and it is not sound. Like you at least need new tie rod ends." Like I'm a proficient mechanic. "I was like, You need new tie rod ends and or like fucking drag link for your steering unit. And like, I don't know if you've looked at the back hubs, but like, they are rusted to fuck, like, Good luck getting the rotors off of the hubcap kind of shit. You know what I mean?" And he's like, "Well, what the fuck, I can't use this dude, we already paid you. I told you this was to get infantry units into hot zones, to do some sketchy shit. And to get out. Like, you told me this thing was going to be mechanically sound, and it just wasn't and like, blah, blah, blah." And I still had my whole kit from when I thought I was going to use my time there fighting. So, I feel bad for this guy. And I was like, "Hey, do you guys need any like, PPE or anything for one of your members of your unit? Like, he's like, "Yeah, the Russians just overran our base. And we lost everything. Some of our dudes are wearing jeans and sneakers." And I was like, "Okay, I got like, three sets of BDUs. I got a pair of combat boots. I got knee pads. I have a fucking thermal imaging camera. I have weapons sights. I have, like, you know, weapon attachments," all this shit. And he's like, "Oh, fucking A. Thank you so much." And he's like, you know, "Fuck this dude. I don't know how I got mixed up." I was like, "Whatever, just take all my shit. And we're gonna get out of your hair. I'm so sorry this happened. Yeah, blah, blah, blah." We get to Kyiv. We kick them out like I told you we did with a drunk dude. And then. And then like, another day later, we finally ended up in Kharkiv. We get rid of all our shit. Margaret 53:32 Okay, how much of this is lizard brain? I'm just... Agatha 53:35 A bunch. But I'm I'm at the point now it's starting to matter. Margaret 53:40 I appreciate that you're telling like a hitchhiking story. So it's like, it's very relatable to me. Yeah, please continue. Sorry. Agatha 53:46 So, we're in Kharkiv. We've given up all our shit. We've re-supplied and done that shit like four times. We have one more delivery to do. And then we're going to head back to Poland. And.... Margaret 53:57 Wait, who you with at this point? This is the rest of...The rest of your crew has caught up with you at this point? Agatha 54:03 Yes, yes. The rest of the crew has caught up. They caught up with us after we handed off that vehicle to the unit. And they caught up with us in Kyiv. We did a bunch of drop offs. We did a bunch of pickups and then we all drove as a unit after we kick that dude out to Kharkiv, which is, I don't know. It's like 20 miles from the Russian border or something like that. I could be wrong. It's not far. I mean, while we were there, you could hear artillery going off in the background. Yeah. You know, whatever. So we have 75 IFAKs to deliver to this one particular unit who, we had another wealthy benefactor, those two were in contact, the unit and this wealthy benefactor, this wealthy benefactor said "I know these people who will deliver it to you," and that was us. So, we have 75 IFAKs. I don't know if you know what an IFAK is. Margaret 54:51 Yeah. Individual first aid kit. It's a trauma kit for gunshot wounds, for anyone who's listening. Agatha 54:56 Yeah, it's got a tourniquet. It's got some quick clot. It's got a chest seal. It's got like a aluminum brace, it's got all the shit you need to like, stop some bleeding for 20 minutes to hopefully get them to like a more well equipped place but... Margaret 55:08 They save a hell of a lot of lives. Agatha 55:10 They save so many lives and they're so important and like...So, we were delivering 75 of those. We're meeting this unit at this restaurant. It's one of the only restaurants open in in Kharkiv that we can find. There's like three Ukrainian families eating there. And we just start hearing artillery getting closer and closer to us. And we're like, "Fuck, this is getting scary." Like, we start feeling it in the table. Our glasses start shaking. And my friend with the Black Rifle Coffee shirt, he's like, "Fuck, they're bracketing us." And I was like, "What is that?" And he's like, "It's when you have a, you know, an end goal in mind of where you want to hit. And then you like launch a round of munitions. And through whatever means whether it be like drones or whatever you see where it hits you readjust your calibration on your aiming device, you launch another round. It gets closer and then you're getting closer to your target, right? Yes, I think they're bracketing us." The shit is getting closer and closer, because we're at the base of the Soviet monument. And it's like a 100 foot tall statue of a Ukrainian dude wearing like Russian combat gear from World War II and it's like, supposed to be a Soviet monument to people who lost their lives fighting the Nazis in World War II, but someone had climbed all the way up there and taped a huge Ukrainian flag to their to their gun and it was like...it just seemed like that's what they had to have been aiming for because it was like a big "Fuck you," to Russia, you know what I mean? And yeah, so we're like okay, and you know, we're trying to get our social media presence up so we can get more donation so we ended up with this fucking Tik Tok'er with 2 million followers with us. And he doesn't want anything to do with us most of the time. So, he got an Airbnb. We're getting bracketed. We're waiting for the.... Margaret 56:56 This sounds like a movie. You've got a Tik Tok guy with 2 million followers.... Agatha 56:59 It's insane. It was fuckinginsane and we're waiting for this military unit to come pick up the 75 IFAKs. We have our food boxed up. We're like as soon as we give these dudes this shit we're out of here. We're leaving Kharkiv. And then someone's like, my buddy, who's the main planner is like, "Yo, y'all need to go get dude, he's at an Airbnb, like fucking 10 blocks away." So, we're like, okay, so me and Canadian infantry dude get in a van and we start like going like 110 kilometers through the middle of Kharkiv literally shit blowing up all around us. We're trying to get to this fucking dude. And we finally get there. And we're like, "Where are you?" on the phone? We're like, "We're down here. Get the fuck in the van." He gets in the van. We throw him a fucking vest with like body armor and give him a helmet and we start racing back to the fucking restaurant and it's just like...there are just like artillery munitions going off all around us. it was fucking terrifying. And then we finally get to the park where this monument is that and we have to park, walk through the park itself to get to the restaurant where all the rest of our crew is at, right? So, we park our last two vans we have in the convoy. Me and Tik Tok'er get out. Dude I'm with gets out. Se start walking across the park and I mean even with....like people are just used to artillery going off in the city right, so there's like old people everywhere soaking up the sun on benches and shit like that and people just like ignoring it and then we get like about I don't know 30 minutes or 30 meters into the park and then all of a sudden I hear this explosion really close behind me. I turned around I see all the glass in our vans get shot out all at once. And then something blew up like right next to me and I lost consciousness. I woke up on the ground. Tik Tok'er was confused and like we both didn't know what was going on. I couldn't hear anything. All I heard was like the biggest like ringing in my ears I've ever heard. My chest hurt from the impact of like the sound wave hitting me. Agatha 59:10 Yeah, yeah, I couldn't breathe. I was just like freaking out. I just started like grabbing my body armor and seeing if there was like blood anywhere. I was like whatever, and then I realized I'm okay and then I'm like, "Fuck all the windows of the the restaurant that my buds were in are blown out and it's like fucking on fire. It was like....so I run over there. Buddy is trying to....military dudes trying to tell me to get back in the van. I was like "I'm not getting back in the van, like that things like destroyed and blah blah blah." And so I just follow him and we both run in and he's just like "Boys, boys, where are you?" and we hear them yelling from the kitchen and everyone that was in the the dining hall went to the kitchen and we're hiding behind this like knee wall and the military unit we were supposed to give this shit to was there and I was like "Fucking great. Like, there's someone who knows what they're doing." Yeah. And everyone's like, "Are you okay? Are you okay? Like, what's going on?" And Meantime, there's still rounds hitting all over the fucking place. And he's like...everyone's like, "What do we do? What do we do?" And I was like, "Yo, we got 75 IFAKs in the van right now. And there are people like hanging out with like, missing limbs and like, screaming, bleeding everywhere outside, like, we need to get out and try and help people. And I tried talking to the medic who was with the unit that we were meeting up and he just like, didn't understand me. The interpreter was having a hard time. They lost their shit, you know? Yeah, everyone's freaking out. And like, I'm just trying to get these people to follow me. I was like, "Just come to the park. Like, we know how to put tourniquets on. We know how to pack wounds, like, please, like, let's just do this." And everyone's like, I don't know." A few of the people in my crew were like, "Yeah, let's do it." And then the people of this unit, like pissed me off, they're like, "No, we should just hang out here till the artillery barrage stops." And I was just like, "Fuck you. I'm going." And then like me and four people went out. We ran to the vans, we fucking grabbed all these IFAKs and then we just like, dumped them on the ground and started ripping out tourniquets. And then we split off into different little teams and just started fucking tourniqueting people who were bleeding everywhere, like this one dude was like missing limbs and was just like screaming. It was like the most intense thing I've ever experienced. He ended up fucking dying. Like, it was just like, so nuts. And that went on for like, 25 minutes, 30 minutes. And, um, and my personal IFAK that I wore on my chest rig was like, that was the first one I ripped off, you know, and yeah, tourniqueted at this lady was bleeding heavily from her inner thigh and I was scared it was like a femoral artery or something. And, after like, 30 minutes, this ambulance shows up. And they're just creeping by the park. They're not stopping. And I was like, "Fuck," and I like, stopped what I was doing because I had treated everyone I could find at this point. And I was like, in like, crazy mode. I was like hiding under a tree that would provide me no protection from an artillery round, but I was like, freaking out and then I saw them ran up. I was like, "Yo, you guys gotta get out of here. There's people bleeding all over the place. Blah, blah, blah." And then the military dude, I realized the medic had never even opened his fucking med kit. He was just standing there with hi AK watching us like tourniquet up...watching us of civilians like tourniqueting up all these people, and then fucking whatever. They're like, as soon as the EMTs arrived, they eventually get out. They start tending to the people, we had been triaging. And then the military dudes just like, "Alright, we gotta get out of
Det stora väderomslaget med minusgrader och snö som drabbat vissa delar av landet oroar Victoria. Det kan bli jobbigt att se hur alla växter klarat sig när trädgården ska vakna till liv. I veckans avsnitt pratar vi om magnolior, denna förhistoriska älskling. Vilka olika sorter finns och vilka passar i vilka lägen? Hur ska man plantera magnoliaträdet och hur tar man hand om dem på bästa sätt? Dessutom blir det tribut till Maggan, tydliga svar och utbrott på bilverkstan! Mejla till oss: rodavitarosenpodden@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A l'occasion de l'opération "Mange, Lille" Laurine Desfargeas est allée visiter la pâtisserie "Oxalis et Bergamote" ! Au menu : des gourmandises, issues de produits locaux, à dévorer de toute urgence !
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Potential employees have a unique lever to influence the behaviors of AI labs, published by oxalis on March 18, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum. (Cross posted from my personal blog) People who have received and are considering an offer from an AI lab are in a uniquely good spot to influence the actions of that lab. People who care about AI safety and alignment often have things they wish labs would do. These could be requests about prioritizing alignment and safety (eg. having a sufficiently staffed alignment team, having a public and credible safety and alignment plan), good governance (eg. having a mission, board structure, and entity structure that allows safety and alignment to be prioritized), information security, or similar. This post by Holden goes through some lab asks, but take this as illustrative, not exhaustive! So you probably have, or could generate, some practices or structures you wish labs would have in the realm of safety and alignment. Once you have received an offer to work for a lab, that lab suddenly cares about what you think far more than when you are someone who is just writing forum posts or tweeting at them. This post will go through some ways to potentially influence the lab in a positive direction after you have received your offer. Does this work? This is anecdata but I have seen offer holders win concessions, and I have heard recruiters talk about how these sorts of behaviors influence the lab's strategy. We also have reason to expect this works given that hiring good ML and AI researchers is competitive, and that businesses have changed aspects about themselves in the past partially to help with recruitment. Some efforts for gender or ethnic diversity or environmental sustainability are taken so that hiring from groups who care about these things doesn't become too difficult. One example is that Google changed its sexual harassment rules and did not renew its contract with the Pentagon over mass employee pushback. Of course some of this stuff they may have intrinsically cared about or done to appease the customers or the public at large, but it seems employees have a more direct lever and have successfully used it. The Strategy There are steps you can take at different stages of your hiring process. The best time to do this is when you have received an offer, because then you know they are interested in you and so will care about your opinion. Follow up call(s) or email just after receiving offer In the follow up call after your offer you can express any concerns before you join. This is a good time to make requests. I recommend being polite, grateful for the offer, and framing these as “Well, look I'm excited about the role but I just have some uncertainties or aspects that if they were addressed would make this is a really easy decision for me” Some example asks: I want the safety/alignment team to be larger I want to see more public comms about alignment strategy I would like to see coordination with other labs on safety standards and slower scaling, as well as independent auditing of safety and security efforts I want an empowered, independent board Theory of change: They might actually grant requests! I have seen this happen. If they don't, they will still hear that information and if enough people say it, they may grant it in the future. This also sets you up for the next alternative which is. When you turn down an offer If you end up turning down the offer, either to work at another AI lab or some other entity, you should tell them why you did. If you partially turned them down because of concerns about their strategy or that they didn't fulfill one of your asks, tell them! The most direct way to do this is to email your recruiter. Eg. write to the recruiter something like: “Thanks for this offer. I decided to turn it down...
Episode Notes Episode Summary For this episode of This Month in the Apocalypse, Brooke, Margaret, and Casandra chat about more horrible things and some fixes. They talk about supply chain shortages, corn, ways to keep your house warmer without using a ton of energy or resources, dubious debunked how warming myths that also might burn it down, and a thorough introduction to hurricane preparedness. Host Info Casandra can be found on Twitter @hey_casandra or Instagram @House.Of.Hands. 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 @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, October 4th, and every two weeks there after. Transcript An easier to read version is available on our website TangledWilderness.org. This Month In the Apocalypse: October Brooke Hello and welcome to Live Like The World Is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm Brooke Jackson, one of your hosts today, along with the brilliant Margaret Killjoy and the iridescent Casandra. This is October 2022 installment of your most favorite Live Like The World Is Dying sub-segment, This Month In The Apocalypse. Today, we're going to talk about the latest shortages, the looming crisis in energy, fuel sources and what can be done about the crisis, war, climate disasters and probably some shit about the economy. But first, we'd like to celebrate being a member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts by playing a little jingle from one of the other luminous podcasts on our network. Doo doo doo. Jingle Speaker 1 Kiteline is a weekly 30 minute radio program focusing on issues in the prison system, you'll hear news along with stories from prisoners and former prisoners as well as their loved ones. You'll learn what prison is, how it functions and how it impacts all of us. Margaret Behind the prison walls, a message is called a kite, whispered words, a note passed hand to hand, a request submitted the guards for medical care. Illicit or not, sending a kite means trusting that other people will bare it farther along until it reaches its destination. Here on Kiteline, we hope to share these words across the prison walls. Jingle Speaker 1 You can hear us on the Channel Zero Network and find out more at Kiteline radio.no blogs.org. Brooke And we're back. Quick introductions for those of you who might not remember each of us or might be listening for the first time. I'm Brooke an indigenous, baby anarchist woman who loves spreadsheets home remodeling and connecting with the land. And I'm going to toss to Margaret. Margaret I'm Margaret, and I am someone who writes a lot and is on podcasts a lot. And does useful stuff too. But, those are some of the things I do. And I will pass it to Casandra. Casandra I wasn't prepared for an introduction. Margaret Neither was I. Casandra My name is Cassandra. I garden and weave. Check! Margaret Yay. Brooke And do amazing art. Casandra Yeah, I make books. And drink tea. Okay. Margaret That's good tea. Casandra Yeah. Margaret Back to you, Brooke. Casandra Oh, yeah, we're supposed to remember to plug things. Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness is putting out our...Well, it's not really technically our first book is it, Margaret? Brooke Speaking of books, I feel like there's a book that you've been working on lately. I know we're supposed to plug things at the end. But this sounds great to mention it now. Margaret No, but it's our first book is a new collective. Casandra Okay, we're putting out our first book as the new collective. And also, first book in a long time, called "Try Anarchism For Life: The Beauty Of Our Circle" by Cindy Barukh Milstein. And I think I sent it to the printer yesterday. So fingers crossed. Brooke If people want to preorder that, Casandra, where can they do that? Casandra On the Stranger's site. And if you preorder it, you'll get some cute little book plates, which I didn't realize other people didn't know what book plates are. But, they're like the little stamps or stickers, you can put at the beginning of books. And it says "ex libris," which means 'from the library of,' and you can write your name so everyone knows it's your book. Brooke Nice. So check out our website for that awesome book, which is beautifully designed, and actually a really, really good read. I really enjoyed it. All right, in our very first episode of This Month In The Apocalypse, one of the things we talked about was things that were in shortage, and surprise, surprise, we are continuing to have supply chain shortages. The thing that made me recall this and want to bring it up, again, is that I saw an NPR article in the last week about the fact that Adderall is facing a shortage, which is interesting, and did a little more digging on what's going on there. And part of it is that they had labor shortages. So, they fell behind in their production. And then the part that was super interesting to me that I've never thought about, Adderall is a highly controlled substance. It's probably a well known fact, part of the part of the highly controlled portion of it is that manufacturers are regulated in how much of it they can produce. So, if they fall behind their schedule, it's not as easy as just like, "Oh, we're gonna do a double shift and make extra this month," they have to get like, special dispensation to be able to make more. So they can make the amount that they're allowed to, but not more than that without special permission. Margaret So they can't catch up? Brooke They can if like they apply for FDA approval and get, you know, temporary approval or whatever to make extra, assuming they can get the ingredients they need and workers to actually make the extra. But yeah, it's not as easy as just like, "Oh, we need to make extra." There's a whole bunch of extra stuff going on that they have to do to do that. Casandra Yay, bureaucracy. Brooke Yeah, totally. So ration your Adderall? That's probably probably not how that works. There are other medical supplies that are still in shortage too. This, I also found interesting because we haven't seen it in the headlines as much, or at least I haven't, right.? Like, it hasn't been in the news. But, there have been things that have continued to be in short supply of the throughout the whole pandemic. One of the items is gloves. There's lots of different kinds of gloves that medical providers use, you know, you've got vinyl gloves, and nitrile gloves, and powdered, and non powdered, and the thicker and thinner, and all of that kind of stuff. And so there's like several different types of specific gloves that are in short supply that.... Casandra When you said gloves, I was picturing like knitted gloves. Like why? Brooke Sorry, no, like medical gloves. Casandra That makes much more sense. Brooke Just get your grandma's to start knitting, and it'll be okay. Casandra Yep. Brooke Also, testing supplies are in short supply for medical providers. And specifically, it was like the equipment used to collect samples, store samples, transport samples, for medical tests, that portion of it. And then I guess, ventilator parts are still in short supply, as well. Margaret I guess that makes sense, since everyone wants that. Brooke Yeah. So that's the medical side of things. And then other things out in the real world, this is one I hadn't heard about, but tampons, I guess I've been in short supply. So it's good time to learn menstrual extraction. If you know somebody that can teach you that if you want to learn, or looking for other options, if you haven't previously been open to trying things like menstrual cups, might be a time to do that. Margaret, this is a fun throwback to our first one, there was this thing that was in short supply that you mentioned, and that each of us have two have on our respective homes. Margaret Um, wind...I'm trying to come up with something clever, I know the actual answer, but trying to come up with something funny. Casandra Garage doors? Margaret Yeah, it's garage doors. Brooke To the point where like, if you're a contractor, and you're going to build a house, they're recommending that before you start with anything related to the building of your house, the very first thing you do is order the garage doors, because it will take basically the whole time for them to get there. Like the last thing that will arrive and that you will install in the house is the garage door because of how long they taking. Casandra I knew it! Casandra Okay, I feel like every, like it's a running joke, and you all will always bring up garage doors. And every time I'm like, But, why is there a shortage? And then every time I forget, so I'm gonna ask again. Why? Brooke I don't think we talked about why last time. Margaret I don't think we have a 'why.' I think that there's just a lot of shit that is like, my guess is because it's so specialized that they make a certain amount. And then I don't know, but it might be something more about new homes? I don't know, The answer is I don't know, Brooke Part of it is lumber. Because remember, lumber was in short supply, like lumber mills shut down early in the pandemic. And so there was like a lot of lumber that was not being produced. And then when they started up again, because the price of lumber has gone up the price of garage doors are like two or three times higher, depending on where you live than they were pre pandemic. And part of that's because the lumber is so much more expensive. Margaret Okay, but hear me out. It'd be prettier anyway, it's instead of having the kind that rolls up above, just have like big old barn doors that swing open, and just make them out of two by fours. And it will totally work. And I'm sure there's no specific reason that people have developed a much more specialized solution. Brooke Yeah, definitely not. Casandra And there can just be like a rope from the door to your fence. So when you drive up to your fence, you can just grab the rope and pull it. Margaret Yeah, totally. Casandra And that will open the garage door. Margaret Yeah, or some sort of like system where you like knock something over as you're driving up towards your house. It like knocks over the ball, that rolls down the hill and it hits the thing and then it does the thing. And then the garage door swings open and then hits something that it shouldn't have and then starts another chain reaction and then the whole neighborhoods on fire. Casandra Yeah, totally secure Brooke I was with you till the end. So a real nice Rube Goldberg type of garage door opening. Margaret Yeah, I think that is the solution for most of these things that we're missing. Like for example, lack of gloves. Have doctors considered using knit gloves? Brooke Really great point, Margaret. Really great point. Moving on. Computer chips continue to be in short supply.That was an issue like this time last year. It got a little better. Casandra Wait, what news? Brooke Computer chips, Casandra Computer ships? I'm sorry, I... Brooke The ones that go into like everything, like not just computers, but like they go into cars now, they go into your television, they go you know... Casandra My contribution today is going to be to mishear everything. Brooke That's alright, it's going to be way more fun that way. Margaret Okay, so tortilla chips, also chips conduct electricity, probably if you put enough electricity into them. Brooke I don't know if they have any conductive materials in them, Margaret. Maybe we need to add some metal to our tortilla chips. Brooke And then they can do this. Margaret Yeah. Margaret It's good for everyone. And just mark it for anyone who has braces that they should avoid them. Brooke Okay, yeah. Excellent. Renewable too because corn. Margaret That's not something I'm going to talk about later about. Anyway. Brooke Sadly, baby formula continues to be in shortage. Again, that's not making the headlines like it was when it first started. But, that is still a major issue. So, check on your people. Do what you can to help out there. Unfortunately, that's ongoing and doesn't still doesn't have a solution in sight right now. They've been...like they ramped up production on it and stuff, but it's just still not enough. And then the raw ingredients that go into make it too, of course, have continued to have problems. Here's a really sad one for you, Margaret. It's it's one of your favorite things. And the concept of this item tends to be a sponsor of one of those other podcasts. Casandra Guns. Margaret Oh no, smiling children? Brooke No, there's plenty of them. You only really need one. So that's, that's okay. Margaret Don't tell me that there's no potatoes. Brooke Potatoes are in short supply. Margaret This has gone historically badly for my people. Brooke There was like a whole famine or something. Except there wasn't. Casandra Something. Brooke Yeah, sorry. potatoes, potatoes in short supply. Okay. Casandra But it's like harvest potato season right now? Are they just already anticipating that there won't be enough potatoes? Brooke Yeah, that's part of it. Again, we've talked about in previous episodes, how like, there have been really weird climate shit happening, especially like in the US that's affected the growth and production of things. Like here where we live, our Spring was way long and cold and wet. And it really fucked up the growing cycles of things. So, loss. Casandra Yeah, my potatoes didn't do great. Brooke Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there were losses due to that early in the season of like potato plants. And then they're not anticipating, you know, what they are getting out of the ground to be, excuse me, as plentiful as it might otherwise be. Or normally be. Yeah, that's sad. Less sad, Christmas trees are probably going to be in short supply again, this year, they're not sure. But, they were last year, and the conditions that cause that are looking to be much the same. So yeah, living things that get chopped down in order to decorate your house for a month, fewer of those. Sorry? Margaret Alternatives include decorating a living tree, or moving into a house that some old weird person left a fake Christmas tree in the attic. Or using last year's tree. Casandra I'm a big fan of rosemary trees, and then you just plant it. Brooke You can also paint a tree on your wall somewhere and then just set out presents. You can make out of cardboard with your children. Margaret Or, you can realize its pagan idols idolatry and realize that a true Christian would never celebrate Christmas. Casandra Or you can convert, and do Hanukkah, because they overlap this year. Brooke Yes, I love it when they overlap. Casandra Menorahs are pretty. Margaret There's so many options. Yeah. Brooke Okay, cool. And then our last supply chain thing, which will be a nice toss is that energy and fuel are in short supply and expected to be in even shorter supply, which means I can toss this to Margaret to talk more about that issue. Margaret Yay, everything's doomed. I mean, everything's gonna be fine. Somewhere in between these two extremes is the truth. Okay, so Europe is having a power crisis. And not the old fashioned kind where people decide they don't want kings anymore, but kinda about natural gas mostly. And, it is the worst energy crisis since World War II. And, there's a lot of causes of it. The most immediate cause, that is absolutely the most immediate cause, and it's, it's not the straw that broke the camel's back, it's like the two by four that broke the camel's back, is the is that Russia has responded...Okay, so no, I'm gonna start at the beginning instead. Okay, so for 20 years or so... Brooke No, start in the middle! Margaret So for 20 years or so, Euroupe has been trying to use fossil fuels...If I was really starting at the beginning it would be like: the economic project that is Europe was caused by stripping all of the natural resources out of the developing world. But, for the last 26 years, Europe has been like, "We want to be the seen as the people who are really good. And so we're going to use fewer fossil fuels." And so, for about 20 years, they've been trying to work on that. However, this has basically increased their dependence on other places, like Russia, primarily Russia, in this case, where natural gas imports cheap, natural gas imports from Russia have been absolutely a mainstay. However, this has been crisis for the past two Winters too, even before the Ukrainian war, basically. Because, if you're going to have renewables as the way that you're trying to make a sustainable world, it has to be coupled with degrowth, instead of just like continuing to have a growing thing, because like, actually, renewables create less power overall at the moment, right. So, increased dependence on Russia, and then Russia has not officially cut off natural gas exports to Europe, what they did instead is they stopped 89% of their natural gas exports. And, they did it by saying, "Oh, we have a leak, and we can't fix it because of the sanctions. So, I guess you have to stop the economic sanctions against us, or you don't get any natural gas." And so they're blackmailing the West, and I don't know, whatever, I mean, I don't expect better of them. They're in the middle of fucking fading and genociding Ukraine, so whatever. But, this is a problem. And also increasing drought that's been hitting Europe really badly, it fucks up a bunch of other things, too. It fucks up their hydroelectric. And then, it even fucks up their coal, because coal is transported by river. And, they can't if the rivers are too low. And so the Right wing wants to blame a lot of this on Germany's shutdown of like the completely safe nuclear power plants or whatever. But, I think that that's worth contrasting with...France is actually at half nuclear power right now, because corrosion, lagging repairs, and general lack of safety have caused the nuclear power plants about to...to have to operate at about half capacity. So nucular, actually, sometimes complicated. And the heatwave has also meant that they can't use river water to cool the plants, because there's the nuclear power plants, and the other, I think other power plants too, because they use river water to cool it. But, I think it's a combination of the river water being much hotter than it usually is. And then also much less of it. Though, the one weird thing that people are like hoping will like pull it through at the last minute is there's now this new micro nucular reactor that's supposed to be safe, because it uses molten salts and fuel rods. And it fits onto a tractor trailer and powers 1000 homes, and is not yet being produced commercially. But, it's like a thing that people say that they've developed. So, the UK has seen energy prices, the energy price increase has doubled since last year's increase. So, it's not like...energy prices aren't double, but they have grown at double the rate, protests are breaking out, people are starting to burn their utility bills. And what's kind of cool is that you'd sort of expect this kind of protest to kind of go in a Right wing direction about like, you know, fuck you, let's go frack or whatever. But, actually, it's, at least what I've seen is that the protests are mostly coming out of a Left wing and a-political position. And, a lot of is like pushing to nationalize gas, and basically say like, "This is fucked up. This is affecting the poor people more than anyone else." Gas being, in this case used for heating, but also is used for power generation, and then a lot of industrial manufacturing. And, this is not just a matter of rising costs, it's literally a potential in the next couple of weeks, there might be blackouts and power rationing. Various places are limiting power use, like businesses are being encouraged to turn off their air conditioners, and all this kind of stuff. And of course, everything happens in a vacuum with this kind of thing. So, there's no way...wait, no, no, this will cause stagnation economically and could easily trigger a recession. Margaret And the other thing that it does, is it creates this awful fucking feedback loop. We talked about last time where like the feedback loop of like, all this flooding, destroying Pakistan, causing them to get IMF loans, which cause more austerity, which cause more, you know, climate change or whatever, you have a very similar feedback cycle, in that it's the...because of this stuff that's happening, more fossil fuel production is happening, coal plants are coming back online. Fracking is no longer banned in the UK. And of course, the pipeline attack that didn't help any of this, that was probably Russia, but Russia blames it on the US, was the largest methane release in documented history. So, even though the pipes weren't even an active use, the fact that they were ruptured caused the largest methane release in documented history. And of course, it was the heatwave the summer that spiked power usage. And so, climate change causes people to get more desperate for power. So, we enter to a vicious cycle, which will definitely not have any effects anywhere but Europe, and we can probably be done with that issue unless someone else has something to say about it affecting elsewhere. Casandra Yeah, I was reading about how the domino effect is impacting the US. It sort of seems self evident, but I'll talk about it anyway. So it looks like 40% of the US of our electricity is generated by natural gas, which I didn't realize. So, you know, in the US, we either heat our homes with natural gas or electric, but natural gas prices impact electricity prices, maybe someone else can explain that to me, because I don't quite get it. But, the moral of the story is that when natural gas prices go up, all of the other prices go up as well. Yeah, they're expecting anything from a 17% increase to a third increase? I don't understand. Yeah, thank you. 33%. So that sucks. It's not as bad as Europe, like I'm looking at...I was looking at Germany in the UK, and it sounds like their prices are way, way, way, way higher, but it's still not gonna be great here. So, I was hoping we could talk about things that people can do. Like ways they can keep their home warm, and insulated and stuff like that. Brooke and I are both in the Pacific Northwest, which is known for its mild winters, but we also get lots of rain and damp and then Margaret is on the East Coast and has much harsher winters. So maybe between the three of us, we can come up with some good ideas. Brooke Let me start with what I tell my kid which is put on some socks and a goddamn sweater. Casandra And a hat. Feet and head. Margaret And then what I tell your kid which is, "If you if you make a...if you build a fire, if you build a man a fire, he's warm for a day, but if you set a man on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life. Brooke Well we do like to set men on fire in this house, so that's that's perfectly acceptable here. If any men come in, you can be set on fire for our warmth. Margaret Yeah, yeah, that's a renewable resource. Casandra Because, I mean, we know that lumber and wood prices have gotten up and you got to use something in your fireplace, Margaret And I hear that they're made out of wood. That's why we throw them in the lake to find out. Cause men are witches. Wait, hold on. Okay, so sweaters and hats, okay. Okay. Casandra Some things I learned. So clothes dryers can be up to 20% of a home's energy bill. I had no idea. And in my head, a dry...like drying racks aren't good idea where we live because it's so damp here. But maybe that's not the case. So, I'm gonna try that this winter. Checking...I've always rented so the the idea of like checking the filters and shit on my whatever way your home is heated has never occurred to me, but apparently that's super important. Right, Brooke? Brooke Absolutely. I'm gonna be totally honest, I don't know if that has anything to do with the, I guess it probably helps the efficiency of the device. Yeah, I do it every six months, because I know it helps the air quality in my house. And that's important. Casandra I don't even know how to do that. So you should come over. Margaret There's both filters in the HVAC. Sorry. Casandra Let me know, tell me more, I don't understand. Margaret As far as I understand, there's both the filters that are like the big screen filters that people are like run out and strap to their fans to do air filter cleaning, right? And then there's like, at least in my house has an oil heater and in an oil heater, there's a filter, an oil filter, and so my presumption is that it just takes more power to push things through a clogged up filter, both air filter and oil filter. That's my guess. The main thing I learned the hard way by moving somewhere with harsh winters and an oil furnace is that if you let your furnace run dry, it breaks. And so you actually have to keep it full, which is cool because my gauge is broken, so I just need to every now and then like call and be like, "Hey, can you fill it up?" And they're like, "How much do you need?" And I'm like, "I don't know. You fill it up." I did learn that heating oil and diesel are functionally the same thing, although you're not allowed to put heating oil in your car, because that they'd like stain it red so that you can get caught if you do that. Casandra Weird. Margaret Yeah, and there are some diff...please don't run out and put diesel in your home oil filter because you heard some girl who lives in the mountains tell you to. I haven't fucking done this. And but, some people I think sometimes like top off, like in a hurry. They'll do that if they keep diesel around for like their tractor or whatever the fuck. Brooke I mean, it's probably better than...may be....I'm guessing, totally guessing, that it might be better than letting it run dry, because that can be an expensive fuckup. Margaret Yeah, if you do that you have to change at very least the oil filter. And then if not the also the fucking spark plugs and all this shit and the parts are cheap, the capacity to do it without exploding things is harder. This is sort of beside the point that only applies to oil. Let's talk about other ways to heat homes. Casandra So, yeah, other ways to heat your homes or more like how to keep heat in. I was researching this anyway, because my house has lots of windows like huge, like walls of windows, which is beautiful, but they're all single pane and none of them seal. Like literally, there's no, I don't even, I still haven't figured out what this type of window's called, but it's like slats of...horizontal slats of glass sort of layered on top of each other, and you can crank it so they tilt open or crank it so they tilt shut, but there's nothing actually...like air just you know, comes in. So using that fun, classy plastic stuff that's temporary to cover your windows. That's one of my plans this year, the few windows that don't have that tilty glass, that's an official term, I'm going around the edges and caulking them. I checked on my door seals. I learned that they're like energy efficient electric blankets. Casandra I'm anticipating that if I set my set my thermostat a lot lower and like use those while I'm working during the day or even at night, maybe that will be helpful. Margaret Oh, that's cool. Brooke Heavy curtains can help too. With Windows. Casandra Yeah! Inulated curtains! Brooke That can be a real trade off if you have any like seasonal effective disorder, light issues, but like they can do a lot to keep the cold back if you have a heavy curtain that you hang over the window. Casandra Totally, yeah, those are super effective. Margaret And then you can play the fun game of opening them when the sun's out and then closing them when the sun's gone. Casandra Though here when the sun's out, it's colder. Margaret Oh, okay. Yeah. Casandra So, that's why we're all sad all winter. Margaret Yeah. Casandra Let's see, did I find anything else exciting? People are on social media right now sharing all of these like wild ideas about how to heat your house. And, I haven't tried these. I'm not going to vouch for them. But some of them are really interesting. So, one is like, when you're baking, you put very, already dry, that's important, bricks in the bottom of your oven, because they hold in heat. So, when you're done baking, you can open your oven and turn your oven off and the bricks will keep your house apparently. People are making a little like tea light and flower pot heaters. Margaret Can I talk shit on those really quick? Casandra Yeah, please do. Margaret They're bullshit. They're absolutely bullshit. Casandra I kind of figured. Also, like open flames? Margaret Yeah, no. And like actually, a lot of them the the actual clay pot can get hot enough to catch the candle wax on fire. And so, there's been like a bunch of houses, people have like burned down their houses trying to use these fucking things. And it would take like, I think it I looked this up the other day, it would take like hundreds of these to heat a small room. The time in which that this is a reasonably efficient thing to do is an emergency or survival situation. If you make...if you're in a fucking tent, if you're in, if you're in your house, you can do this, you can throw a blanket. If you're trying to heat up the space hidden under a blanket. A candle can be a meaningful part of that. But, if you're trying to heat up even a small room, they're not a meaningful part of it in terms of the trade off, but the stuff about thermal mass like these bricks, sorry, is it okay to just tangent on this? Casandra No please do. These are my like things that people are talking about that kind of sketched me out. Margaret Yeah, and so it's like in that I haven't specifically researched putting the bricks in the oven. What I would probably do, I mean, you want thermal mass thermal mass doesn't heat things. It's like a battery. It's a heat battery, right? And so like for example, what a lot of people do is if you put like...thermal mass is often like clay or something like that. Some people even historically use like stored jugs of water and stuff where the sun comes in and heats it up or wherever your passive heating comes from. Then it radiates out that heat once the heat sources gone. And so, you can keep your house cooler at night by having a lot of thermal mass. This is one reason why cob houses have some advantages in a lot of climates and adobe and all that stuff right. And concrete even, can actually act as thermal mass, although I don't know as much about the efficiency of that. Brick houses have an advantage for this. But yeah, like a lot of the hacks around like, "Oh, light a candle," are like just a really good way to burn your house down. Casandra Well, it's not even just a candle. People are like building...like constructing these like...you take a flower pot. You know what I'm talking about? Margaret Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, so and that doesn't actually amplify...Okay, so this idea where you take the candle and you put the flower pot on top of it and the terracotta flower pot is amplifies the heat, it doesn't amplify shit, you can't amplify heat. That's like one of the laws of thermodynamics. But you can't store the heat and you can centralize the, so it doesn't get lost as much, right? So in some weird ways as maybe like a handwarmer, it would like be maybe a little bit more effective, right? Because Casandra That's an expensive handwarmer. I'm gonna knit gloves. Margaret Yeah, totally. And so it, the, the flower pot itself does get so hot, and especially if you put enough candles under it to make it useful. And you can see there's a bunch of like research that people have done, where they're like, "Oh, the flower pot gets up to 170 degrees with one candle or like 400 something degrees with four candles," or something roughly like that. I don't have the numbers in front of me. But, it doesn't make enough heat to fill a space. It instead is actually specifically preventing that heat from going out into the space, which is... Casandra Which is why it gets so hot. Margaret Yeah, totally. And again, like I mean, I don't know, and there's some advantages to it. But overall, however, I think the alcohol lamps that people make, the like DIY, there's like, like the heater block, and I think it's Philly, I can't remember. Brooke Portland has one. Margaret They like make...you can make alcohol lamps, as little portable heaters. And, and when you're talking about like a tent or something in a survival situation, they are fairly effective. I actually don't know enough about the BTUs that they put out to, to in terms of heating and other spaces. That that's beyond what I know. That what's my rant about candles, sorry. Casandra No, I appreciate the rant. My contribution was gonna be like, people are talking about sketchy shit that I don't know about. So confirming that it's sketchy shit is great. Yeah, I don't know. Do y'all know any other fun ways? I'm trying to think about like, my grandparents live in a really old house, and they have a wood stove, which heats one room. And the house is very long and thin. So, it heats one room on one end of the house and their bedrooms on the other end. So, all of the weird shit I've seen them do over the years to stay warm, like the window plastic, or those like long sock things that you put at the bottom of doors, you know, I'm talking about? Margaret Oh, yeah, totally. My house. I mean, I clearly bought my house with like 'prepper' in mind, but my house has the two different wood burning stoves, or one's a pellet stove, which are more like human energy efficient, but they require electricity, so a little bit more complicated. It's like a wood burning stove, but it's a little pellets of fuel that you can buy super cheap, but you have to buy them. You can make them yourself, but it's super labor intensive and complicated. I looked into it for a while. And then I have a regular wood burning stove in the basement and the wood burning stove is actually hooked into the HVAC like vent system in my house. And so that is something you can do is you can put a wood burning stove and hook it up to...this is not a simple retrofit. Installation in general, just fucking add insulation to your house however you can, which sometimes means like, you know, tearing open the walls and putting in more insulation or putting more insulation in your attic. If you have an attic or Casandra Covering your fireplace when you're not using it, that's one I'm learning. Margaret Oh, really? Oh, that makes sense. Because it just goes up out into the...Yeah, Casandra Yeah, even when it's closed, it can still suck heat out. Not using fans for too long, which sucks. I'm thinking about like bathrooms. You know? Margaret I see Yeah, yeah. Casandra Like, above your kitchen stove. Margaret Yeah, hmm, that makes sense. Brooke One thing I've done for the last several years to conserve energy use is to consolidate where in the house I am located and or with my person, or people are located to a single room or a portion of the house and then closing up the rest of it and closing the vents that go there and all of that and just focusing the heat on wherever I am or I am with my kid or whatever it is. Casandra Oh, closing the vents you're not using as a good idea. Brooke Yeah, so like when she's off at school while I'm working, I close the door to my office, close most of the rest of the house. And then when it's like the two of us, we'll hang out in just her room with the vent open, or just our two bedrooms that are next to each other with vents open. Margaret And it's it's another advantage of people who choose to live communally is that I mean more people in a house is just going to warm things up a lot, like putting a bunch of people into a room with closed...that's like closed off and insulated is a real good way to stay warm. So like, I don't know, use this as an opportunity to get close to someone, I mean, very consensually and stuff. Brooke I was gonna say cuddling. Cuddling is a good way to provide heat. Margaret Get a dog. Brooke Or fucking Margaret I take back the part about the dog. Okay. Casandra They're also, both in Europe and I know state by state and the US, there're also energy and utility assistance programs and grants that have always been available, but it's seems like more are starting to become available. So, if you live somewhere colder than me, it's a good thing to look into. Margaret Well, and then also in Oregon, starting in 2024, Medicaid is going to cover expenses related to climate change in terms of like, generators and air filters and shit like that. Brooke That's amazing. I haven't heard that. Margaret I just read about it while I was getting ready for this episode. Brooke If you think you may qualify for one of the energy assistance programs, that's something to look into sooner rather than later, like, Now, instead of before the colds get real high, or the bills get real high. I know that one of the programs here in our town, for instance, only has a few days a month in which they accept applications. And we'll even close that, you know, for the next month if they got too many in the previous month kind of a thing. Casandra Yeah. Yeah, then, yeah. The The only other thing I wanted to bring up with all of this is that, you know, we've talked in past episodes about how expensive food is getting and how expensive everything's getting, and with rising energy costs, that's just going to contribute to inflation more because of businesses are having to pay more money to stay open. You know? Margaret Yeah. Brooke But Biden just passed the Inflation Reduction Act, so everything's gonna be fine now. Casandra Right? Brooke He did it. Casandra Okay? Brooke He solved it. Margaret Yeah, thanks, O-Biden. Casandra 'O-Biden?' is that what you said? Brooke Haven't you heard that joke? Margaret Usually, it's because you want to complain about something. The gas prices are high, like, "Thanks, O-Biden," because people always said, "Thanks, Obama." Casandra Okay. Yeah. Thanks for explaining jokes to me. Brooke Well, Biden's just Obama's puppet. I mean, haven't you heard that he's old and senile, and it's actually just secretly Obama still running the country through Biden? Margaret Who's totally not old and senile. Casandra I mean, according to Tulsi this morning, it's it's actually the elite Cabal. So. Brooke There's a whole other conversation I want to have with you about why everyone is so anti--fucking-semetic. But that's like not on our topic list. Casandra Oh, gosh, the French Revolution. Brooke If we want to do a segue I really really want to talk about it. Casandra Now we're gonna segue to talk about the French Revolution. Margaret Welcome to Mediocre People Who Made Lateral Moves, the new podcast about all the revolutions that have happened Casandra and how people blamed it all on the Jews. Margaret The only revolutions accepted are the Haitian Revolution, the Mexican Revolution kinda, yeah. Anyway, Brooke This is the thing I don't understand. Like, why why is anti-semitism been such a global thing for fucking ever? Like, I can't think of another group of people that have had it quite like the Jews. Casandra It's called the coldest hatred for a reason. Margaret I mean, everyone has it different. I think anti-blackness is also real fucking old and anti-indigenous as soon as we find y'all. Casandra There's these interesting accounts of of...We should not go on this tangent. Brooke But it's interesting. Casandra I could talk for too long. Brooke It's topical. Casandra It's always topical. Brooke Exactly. Casandra Oh, what were some of our other fun topics? Margaret Okay, let's talk about hurricanes. Can I talk about hurricanes? Casandra Hurray! Margaret Oh, wait first I wanna talk about about corn really quickly. It's like a short note. Okay, so by 2053, the Corn Belt won't be able to grow corn. Brooke What? Casandra Wow. Margaret Because there will be days 125 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. And of course, corn is already having trouble now. It's not like a switch that will be flipped in 30 years. And also, my cynical ass has been proven right every time someone's like, "All of the X will happen by 2080." I'm like, that's gonna be way sooner. And then like 2020 comes around, they're like, "Yeah, nevermind this is sooner." And then so some of the solutions that people are trying to come up with around this, some of them are like make a lot of sense about like, being a little less monocroppy and like, and people are like getting really into perennial grains. But, of course they're doing it in like weird capitalist ways. So there's like weird named ways to be less monocrappy. And there's also this perennial grain that's like trademarked called Kernza which is a plant name with a little reserved symbol after his name. So that's how you know, it's good. And basically, a lot of the existing perennial grains are actually more like hays and things are for foraging. And so intermediate wheat grass is Kernza. It's a type of intermediate wheat grass, which is not actually wheat, but has a similar grains. However, they're currently trying to hybridize it with wheat and it's hard to bake with because it's not as gluttony. Unfortunately, it still has some gluten, so it's not the solution for that problem, either. But, people are trying to do some weird shit. Then I could talk about hurricanes unless y'all wanna talk about corn. Casandra Most grass seed is edible. That's my contribution. Brooke Also tubers. So plant yourself some day-lilies, dahlias. Casandra Turnips. Brooke They're pretty and then you can eat them. Casandra We should bring back neeps as a instead of mashed potatoes, mashed neeps. Margaret Y'all are just making up things. Casandra We're listening now. Margaret Casandra's always making up plants that don't exist. There's only three plants: corn, potato, and grapes. Casandra I thought it was wheat. Margaret Oh, yeah, and wheat. Brooke I know you've seen apples. And also, I've given you kale. So. Margaret That's just fancy. It's just different forms of...okay to be fair, broccoli, kale...Can you help me list off all of these things that are the same plant? Casandra Brassicas? Margaret Yeah. Brooke Cauliflower? Brussels sprouts, cabbage, mustard. Margaret Everything is already secretly...the the secret cabal that we should be blaming is the brassicas. Casandra Plant families? Margaret No, just brassicas, because they're everything. Everywhere you look, it's brassicas. Casandra Unless it's a nightshade. Brooke I get what you're looking for. And I'm with you. Margaret Okay, so hurricanes. So, there's two things about hurricane survival. And one is like this, like promising thing, although it ties into some bougie shit is that like....cause obviously, people who are listening this...a lot of people are listening to us have dealt with hurricanes more immediately and recently than any of the three of us have. And so I don't mean to be light hearted about like, you know, like, whatever I want to say that, like people are dealing with this shit...I, I'm not trying to...It's a big fucking deal. Okay. One thing is that communities absolutely can be built to survive hurricanes. And it isn't done because people aren't rich enough. And because doing so is incentivized, and because people don't value this, right. It's like a combination of these things. Have you heard of this small town called Babcock Ranch that survived Hurricane Ian? Brooke Nope. Margaret Okay, there's this. It was built in 2015 People started moving into in 2018. It's a 2000 home community. And it's, it's sort of like actually mixed class a little bit. The houses start at 200,000 and go up to a million dollars. And it's, and they're like working on building condos and stuff. And it is meant to survive hurricanes. This is in fucking Florida. And it got hit by Ian. And so it makes sense to build things are meant to survive hurricanes. The streets are designed to absorb water. I think that they're designed to absorb water into like, basically almost a French drain system that runs underneath where there's like pipes or whatever. I know that they are capable of making this like some kind of concrete that water can just like flow right through. And I think that's what's happening. Yeah, Brooke Yeah, pervious concrete. yeah. Casandra What is that not everywhere? Brooke More expensive, Margaret Because people don't value infrastructure in this country. And and then there's, they use native landscaping everywhere to like limit flooding. They do all this stuff to like, make sure that...because flooding kills more people in hurricanes than wind. And so they do all of this stuff with native landscaping to limit flooding. The power and all the communication lines are buried, which is another thing that should just be happening everywhere, but isn't. Like where I live, I lose power all the fucking time, because like, "Oh, sorry, a tree fell on a power plant. Power Pole." Casandra Are you laughing at me Brooke? Brooke I'm picturing your backyard right now where you could like, garrote yourself with your power lines in your back yard. Casandra That my landlord is like, "This is not a problem." Yeah. Margaret Yeah, no, totally. And like, every...where I live like a tree falls on...it's like, it's like once a month, I lose power for a day, because I'm in the fucking mountains with really shallow soil, and so the trees fall over every time there's a windstorm, but we're in the fucking mountain. So there's wind storms all the time. Anyway, so they bury their power and internet lines. And the whole town has it's own solar array that powers like all of it, and 8000 other nearby homes. And so, to that 2.6 million people lost power during Hurricane Ian but not Babcock Ranch. And this was its first like trial by fire. And to be and to be fair to them they weren't total assholes about it. It wasn't like "I've got mine fuck you." They turned their school into a shelter for all the nearby folks, because it still had power even though, it like I think I think it couldn't be registered as an official storm shelter because didn't have a generator. But, it didn't need one. Casandra Cause it didn't need one? Margaret Because it had its own fucking micro grid. Casandra Wow, amazing. Bureaucracy. Margaret Yeah. So that's like, what we could be doing, right? We could have a society that like, prepares for these things, you know, and like there are ways to build things if people are able, if people are able to have the resources or like institutions are willing to give resources to make things that are appropriate to their area you know, you can have fire resistant homes you can have...I mean everything would just be concrete domes if I had my way as of the past six months, but then I'm sure get over this particular infatuation with concrete domes, but they're like everything proof. Okay, anyway. Except aesthetic proof. Okay, so actually, okay, whatever. The other thing that's... Brooke Also concrete is not great for the environment and climate change. It's really bad, actually. Margaret Yeah, but it has actually weirdly, I haven't looked in this little while, there's the embedded greenhouse gases and in terms of how long it lasts are like, compare favorably in a lot of ways. And also in terms of its insulating...Well, its insulating properties because of thickness. The way it's constructed is...the way it's made is not nice. You can you can also disagree with me about this. Brooke No, that's fair. And there's been recent research and work into putting cellulose into concrete mixtures that actually helps. I can't remember all the beneficial properties of it, but some really cool research that's out there about about mixing wood fibers. Margaret That's cool. Plus brutalism is way cooler than...anyways Okay, whatever. Now everyone's gonna hate me if I start talking about liking brutalism. Alright, so hurricanes, I have never survived a hurricane, just to be really clear. And so I'm not trying to tell everyone....okay, but I it's my disclaimer, I researched... Brooke You've also never not survived a hurricane. Margaret That's true. Oh, I see what you're saying. Every time I'm in a hurricane, I die. I've been playing this...I want...this video game I've been playing called...Okay. So, God, what if I was...the ultimate prepper would be Groundhog Day guy. That's what he really should have done. Margaret You ever seen that movie "Hurricane Day" where the person has no...groundhog, whatever, as a movie,... Casandra What? Casandra What does Groundhog Day have to do with hurricanes? Margaret Okay, but if you died and came back every single day, you could do so much research. The ultimate scientist Casandra No one can see me putting my head in my hands. Brooke They just heard the thunk of your skull on the table there. Margaret Alright, so what to do if you live in the path of a hurricane and you don't live in a little weird prepper neighborhood. First of all, if you live in a mobile home, I'm sure you already know that life sucks, because classism is real and awful, but mobile homes are in a really bad situation. And I'm sure you already know that. Hurricane timing is forcastable, but its course is less predictable. So, you can start knowing that a hurricane is possible, but you won't necessarily know where it exactly where it's going and exactly what kind of power it will have by the time it lands. Flooding kills more people than wind. And basically the best that I've been able to read and find different people have researched this is that like overall evacuating if the instructions say you should evacuate is probably the best move. And, voluntary evac happens before mandatory evac. Voluntary often comes earlier to basically give people to get a head start, because when everyone tries to leave an area all at once it fucking sucks. I'd love to at some point, talk to someone who has done more work into evac, and like talk about like what it means to transport oneself over a roads during those kinds of crises. But, and to be clear, mandatory evacuation doesn't mean they come around at gunpoint to force you out, it means that no one will help you while you stay. At least that's the official version of it. If you're going to stay or rather, if you like think that you might be stuck, consider being able to survive two weeks without outside help or without the grid. And the grid in this case means water. And it means probably the ability to heat food if you run on a municipal gas line or power, right. And that also means electricity. And so you want like for example 15 gallons of water per person in storage containers. You want two weeks of non refrigerated food that doesn't require utility cooking gas, because maybe you have a separate gas stove you know, or you're planning a cold cans of chili or whatever. You want a battery or hand crank radio, you want to get medical kit. If you're trained, you want a chainsaw, but one of the main ways that people kill themselves in the wake of disasters is using chainsaws incorrectly to try and like move down trees and stuff. One of the other main ways is like propane and propane accessories, and people trying to use like shit that you shouldn't use inside inside. Don't run a fucking generator in your house or your garage. Make sure everyone has a flashlight. When you're prepping your house. You want to bring in everything in your yard like furniture and tools. You want to get directions to local evacuation shelters and you want to have them printed out and or like saved offline in Google's maps. You want to prepare your house for internal flooding by moving shit up off the floor, and like getting everything that you don't want to get wet available. Make sure it's able to stay dry. You want to know how to shut off your utility gas, water and electric in your house. You do want to fill up your bathtubs for extra water, but don't fucking rely on this. This isn't the like "Haha," everyone's like , "Oh it's cool I got like you know this bathtub filled with water." You usually want to use bathtub water more for sanitation water. You want to turn your fridge and freezer to the coldest settings and make sure they're packed full of thermal mass like we were talking about. Thermal mass is also a battery for cold as well as heat. So for example, your freezer works way less hard if it's full of frozen bottles of water. And so, if you feel plastic water bottles like 90% full, and this is true generally speaking, right? A full fridge or freezer works way less hard. And, because you know it's not stuff that disappears every time you open the fucking door whatever. In general, your fridge or freezer can last about two days without power if they're like real packed full of thermal mass and set to the coldest. In terms of long term preparation for your house, if you live somewhere and you're trying to retrofit shit, you kind of want to go through and make sure that there's hurricane ties attaching your roof to your house. And do the same with your deck and shit, which are just basically these like metal straps that attach one piece of wood to another piece of wood. If you look up hurricane ties, you'll see pictures of them. And then you can go up to your attic or whatever and look to see if you have them. And you can you can retro actively add this, because what happens, the way that wind destroys a house, first, it like pulls off like shingles and siding and stuff that only sort of matter. And then it starts breaking out windows with debris, and doors flying open because of wind, and stuff like that. But then eventually you get to the point where the fucking roof rips off your house is like one of the main things, and then once the roof rips off your house, then the walls have nothing supporting them, so then they fall over. And so you can do a lot of stuff with your doors also to help protect them, especially if you have like double doors, you can add bolts to the inactive door, the door that doesn't open, or the door that doesn't have the handle or whatever, and you had bolts that go up into the ceiling and through the floor. It's also stuff that makes your house harder to break into, which is like cool bonus, right? And garage doors, our old friend garage doors. Casandra Why we're really talking about this. Margaret I know Margaret They they can be storm proofed, but it means you buy a new one. And, I have a feeling that they are expensive and hard to get right now. Like old articles are like "Oh, they cost between $1,000 and $5,000 for a storm proof garage door and I assume that that is not easily the case right now. Okay, and in terms of covering your windows, you want to cover all the windows in your house, not just the ones facing the water. And ideally, if you live there like long term, you want to actually get storm shutters, but those can be expensive. Worst case scenario, you can screw plywood or metal roofing over the windows and glass doors. With plywood you want to aim for about a half inch thick at least, half inch to five eighths. And particle board, don't use particle board or MDF, because probably not strong enough. I don't know and there's just like other shit right like you keep your car packed and facing outward with gas in it. However also, you might want to keep it in a garage and or at least next to a solid building, so that it doesn't fucking blow away or get destroyed by things. Fill up an extra gas can or two because fuck it there's often gonna be gas shortages after these sorts of things. Don't fucking drive through floodwater, that is another way that people die all the fucking time. Like it's about a foot or something of flood that will move a car that will like take a car away. It's way less than you think. Don't fucking drink floodwater. Most of the ways that people water filter don't filter out like gasoline and all kinds of other shit. With a generator, don't fucking run it inside. During the storm, don't go outside during the Eye of the Storm, it'll come back suddenly. Stay away from your windows and glass doors and such. Don't take a shower or a bath because of electrical risk. Kill the power of the main breaker if flooding is coming. And that is what I learned not through direct experience, because again I've died every time I've tried these...I've never been in a hurricane. I've been on the coast rain some storms, right, some tropical storms and shit. But I've never personally been through a hurricane. Brooke Full circle. Casandra We should add like Hurricane Preparedness Guide to our list along with the First Aid Guide. That'd be cool. We should talk to like Mutual Aid Disaster Relief folks or someone. Margaret Yeah. Agreed. Casandra Cool. But this isn't a Strangers meeting, so... Margaret No. Welcome to our Strangers meeting. Brooke You hurri-'can' survive. Margaret Hurri-'can't.' It's a hurri-'can', not a hurri-'can't.' But, that's...the hurricane itself can destroy houses. It can't...It's a hurri-'can' destroy houses not a hurric-'can't' destroy houses. Got it. You see what I'm getting at. It's a funny joke. Brooke You're hurri-canceled. Love it. Casandra When Margaret makes jokes... Brooke Margaret makes great dad jokes and I love it. So does my kid. Casandra It's us, not you. Margaret I say a few short things with our last five minutes. Margaret No, no, it's fine. It's fine. I mean, I'm trying to make you laugh, so you all laughing works. Okay, so I don't know, what other what other shit? I got. I got like some like little short things. Is anyone else have a major topic? We should talk about it? Should we go into short things? Margaret Okay, here's the ones I've got. Other people add them at the end. Monkeypox transmission is slowing. There's a small chance it's gonna go endemic, but like overall. monkeypox transmission is slowing. And that's cool. You should still go get fucking vaccinated, though. I should go get vaccinated. LA is installing water restrictors in houses of people who break their water limit, including like including rich people, which is great. Like basically if anyone is using more than 150% of their limit like they're going around and just like literally being like, "You get less water now." The Mississippi River is currently so low that grain and fertilizer transports are halted. Brooke And that's contributing to supply chain shortages in all kinds of ways, because they can't get stuff up here. Margaret It also fucks up China. They apparently...a lot of them...They get a lot of soybeans from the US, and 40% of the US soybean export to China comes through the Mississippi River. The Army Corps of Engineers, don't worry as dredging the river to deepen it. Brooke Great. Margaret So that they can still ship things there. Brooke I'm sure that no part of the Mississippi River is a Superfund site or anything like that, and highly toxic. Margaret Nah, it's fine. I'm sure it's good. I bet everyone who's working that job will be treated well. And a British Columbia river has dried up, and I think a bunch of British Columbia rivers have dried up. They're facing like one of the worst fucking droughts ever, which has killed 65,000 salmon, and has cut spawning by 70%, at least in this area. Bird flu in California is killing a ton of birds. I saw this thing, I was like reading oh, it's like a bird flu again. Goddamnit. And then I'm like, Oh, it's just killing birds...Wait, no, birds are good. Casandra Yeah, we need birds. Margaret Yeah. Oil prices might go up again, because OPEC countries are cutting oil production more. Thanks. O-Biden. Inflation is causing manufacturers to start using cheaper ingredients. That's like one of the main ways that like manufacturers are getting around this. And so like a lot of shit they're used to using and trust might now be made like shit. Casandra I've read about new homes they're building as well. Margaret Oh, great, because that's what we need is cheaper designed homes. Casandra Yeah, they're like, A) don't buy a home right now. But B) when you can buy a home in the future, maybe someday don't buy homes built right now. Brooke I hear that. Margaret That makes sense. Brooke But Biden passed the inflation Reduction Act, you guys, so it's gonna be fine. Margaret Yeah, the fine print is like, "Now use refined," I don't know, whatever, "corn syrup instead of..." Brooke And the Federal Reserve is raising the target interest rate. So, it's gonna be fine. Casandra Have you all seen the new like COVID antivax study that just came out? Margaret No. Brooke Nope. Oh, we were supposed to die yesterday. Casandra Apparently, I'm using air quotes, a study came out linking the risk of like heart disease with COVID vaccines in 'men' in particular, something like that. And so, you know, anti vaxxers are like, "See!" Margaret I wonder if it came out because...the the one that I had heard was that there was a study that came out and I don't have these numbers in front of me, and I'm sorry, audience. I think it's, I think that the the rate of death among Republicans is 18% higher than the rate of death among Democrats, with all other factors considered, as soon as the vaccine came out. And like, yeah, exactly just the vaccine came out people who didn't get it just fucking die more. Brooke Comparative Study. Margaret Conspiracy, to try and kill all the Republicans, by the Republican leaders. No, no, wait, go ahead, Brooke. Sorry. Brooke No, I was gonna give more details on the study. But y'all can y'all can look it up. It was definitely aninteresting study. And it's not like 100% due to COVID for sure. At least they can't like rule out... because it was like measure of excess deaths. And they don't have all the specifics on that. But yeah, a large portion of that is due to vaccine versus not vaccine. Than also there was some tweet that made the rounds that that we were all going to die on October 10 because something was gonna get activated in the vaccine. Y'all see this on Twitter at all? Margaret That explains why I died in the hurricane. Casandra I want to back up to the study I mentioned because I didn't clarify that there were like major issues with it. That's all. I didn't want. I didn't want to bring up like this study antivaxxers are using without saying like there were major issues with the study. Margaret Yeah. That makes sense. Casandra Yeah, that tracks. Margaret Well, does that do it for us this month? Casandra That was a lot. It really was a lot of bad things. Margaret Oh, one good final thing. Tankers that go around with like, all the stuff that they ship around, are starting to add sails back, and it saves about 10% of their fuel. This is a really minor thing. Brooke Sailing sails? Margaret Yeah, yeah. Brooke Math. Nice. Margaret Like all the container ships and shit. Not all of them, but they're starting to add sails to container ships to help alleviate the cost of fuel to move everything around. Whatever it is a really minor thing. I just thought was neat. This is my final note. Casandra Yay, sailboats. Margaret Yeah. The global economy that got us into this mess in the first place trudging along. Casandra Ohhhh. Well, stay warm out there, everyone. Margaret Brooke, you want to lead us out? Brooke Yeah, I do. So, I took your outro from from the last episode and transcribed it. I'm just gonna I'm gonna read it word for word, Margaret. Margaret Oh, God. Brooke Are you ready for how great this is gonna be? Margaret Yeah, let me hold on to something. Alright. Brooke And then maybe I'll do a real one after I do this. Thanks so much for listening. Algorithms suck, but if you like this podcast, please like comment, review, blah, blah, blah. It makes the algorithms give our show to more people. It's kind of the only way people end up hearing about our shows is word of mouth. All of that stuff's true. I'm not just saying it cynically, it's just that I have said it, like, whatever, I'm on Episode 50, or whatever. So I've said it like 50 times, and you can support us on Patreon by supporting our publisher, our publisher is Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness. The three of us are collective members of a collectively run publisher called Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness. It's been around for like 20 years, but it's like getting new mega forces Voltron combines version of itself lately, and it's primarily supported by Patreon. Brooke I think that was perfect. Flawless. And also, that means that Inmn doesn't have to transcribe it again. Margaret Yeah. Brooke You're welcome, Inmn. Just copy/paste. But more seriously, this podcast is produced by the anarchist publishing collective Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness. And you can connect with us on Twitter at Tangledwild. And I think we have like Instagram and stuff too. But I don't do Instagram and I think Instagram's
Episode Notes Episode Summary For this This Month in the Apocalypse episode Brooke, Margaret, and Casandra all researched different topics and discuss them. Margaret talks about climate collapse, droughts, floods, wildfires, the cost of wheat, and the dangers of rising humidity for wet bulb temperatures. Casandra talks about Monkey Pox, rises in other viral and vector borne illness, and discovers why rain might actually be a bad thing for your food. Brooke talks about student loan forgiveness and things you, brave listener, might not be aware you are forgiven for. Everyone attempts to get us sponsored by 'Big' Rain Barrel. If you're out there 'Big' Rain Barrel. Please sponsor us. Host Info Casandra can be found on Twitter @hey_casandra or Instagram @House.Of.Hands. 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 @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 Come out Friday, September 23rd, and every two weeks there after. Might be about thru-hiking, Parenting, or Archiving. Transript An easier to read version is available on our website TangledWilderness.org. Margaret 00:16 Hello, and welcome to Live Like The World Is Dying, your podcasts for what feels like the end times. I'm one of your hosts, Margaret killjoy. I have Brooke and Casandra with me as well as cohosts today, because today, you will be very excited to know that the world's still ending...that we are doing our second monthly This Month in the Apocalypse and we're going to be talking about basically the last month and the I guess that's in the name. Okay. So, Brooke, Casandra, do you want to introduce yourselves? Possibly with Brooke going first. Casandra 00:52 Your name was first. Brooke 00:53 Yeah. Okay, alphabetically. Hi, everybody, it's Brooke Jackson again, coming to you live? Oh, wait, no, this will be recorded by the time you hear it. From the sunny lands of the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Casandra Johns 01:11 We're all in the Willamette Valley right now. Margaret 01:14 It's true. Casandra 01:15 It's true. This is Casandra. That's me. Margaret 01:19 Okay, and so this will be a very short episode, because actually, nothing bad has happened in the world, certainly not nything that feels end times ish, nothing out of the ordinary. I'm under the impression we have reversed most of the major...I mean, I think Biden passed a bill. So, I'm pretty sure climate change is over. And COVID is over. I learned that just the other day walking into a place where I thought everyone would be wearing masks, but it's over. So that's cool. Or, alternatively, let's talk about how China's in the worst heatwave in human history...in recorded history. We're gonna cut it up into segments. And I'm gonna go first with my segment. Casandra Johns 02:06 Do we need to say "Du duh duh duhh, Channel Zero? As part of the intro? Brooke 02:13 Do a Jingle? Margaret 02:16 Yes. Okay. You want to do it? Brooke 02:20 She just did. Casandra 02:21 Oh, yeah, I did. Duh duh duh duh! Margaret 03:19 Okay, and we're back. Okay, so, China...70 Day heatwave as of several days ago, now. And by the time you all are hearing this, I believe we're recording this about five days before this episode comes out. So, who knows what will have happened? There has been a lot of heat waves and floods all over the world this summer. And so China's in the middle of a 70 day heatwave. The drought has reduced hydroelectric output, which huge areas were reliant on the electricity because the water levels are so far down. And of course the electricity is what powers the AC. So no air conditioning is really fun as things get really hot. AC has been turned off in a lot of office buildings. It's cut power to tons of industry, including a bunch of car manufacturers where I'm a little bit like "Eh, whatever. Cars are bad." I mean, I drive cars so I'm kind of an asshole and hypocrite. Anyway. But also solar panel output and EV battery plants and like lots of stuff that's like being pitched as the alternative to things...y'all can feel free to cut me off too as I talk about these things. I'm just like going through my notes. And I don't know, it's breaking records all over the place by like four degrees in a lot of places. It's four degrees Fahrenheit. Brooke 04:44 What is heatwave in this context? Like are they having like, you know, 115 degree temperatures, are they just? Margaret 04:53 I mean, so. I mean, I believe in localized places. It's getting like crazy hot but what's interesting about this is that it's it's more the length of it and the abnormality to its usual that is, like, it's a lot of this stuff is like 106 degrees Fahrenheit and things like that. You know, things that are very not nice, but are...well, human survivable. Although we should probably at some point talk about wet bulb temperatures and how dry places are survivable at substantially higher temperatures than humid places. But yeah, so it's it's, it's an it's an abnormality causing problems as far as I understand, rather than like, just specifically, if you step outside, you will be scorched by the heatray that is the sun. It's affecting over a billion people, which is a lot of people. The area of the heatwave is 530,000 square miles, which for context is Texas, Colorado and California combined. Casandra Johns 05:57 Does that overlap with the area...like, isn't there like a massive wildfire happening in China right now? Margaret 06:04 I think you know, more about the wildfires than I do. Casandra Johns 06:07 I don't know what region it was in. Margaret 06:09 Okay. Casandra 06:09 I guess I'm curious. Of course, they're related because everything climate-y is related, ultimately. Margaret 06:16 Yeah. Casandra 06:19 Yeah, I'm curious how closely they're tied together. But, if you don't know, and I don't know, that's fine. Because there's also a massive wildfire. And that sucks. Margaret 06:27 Yeah. There's a massive wildfire. Brooke 06:31 Is that a continuous area, Margaret? That five? Whatever, something miles? Margaret 06:37 You all are exceeding my level of research that I did, because I did research about the entire world. So I don't know. Brooke 06:44 Okay, fair. Casandra 06:45 Oh, yeah. You have more. This is just like heat waves everywhere. Okay. Margaret 06:48 Yeah. Okay. And also joining us today on playing the squeaky toy in the background is Rintrah, the best dog in the world. Brooke 06:59 Can confirm. Margaret 07:00 The best dog in the world. No complaints? Okay. Yeah, I, you know, there's a lot more I don't know about this, right? But this was one that I haven't even seen really cropping up much in the media at all. And actually, one of the things that's sort of interesting and terrible and telling is that a lot of the information that I've been able to find about climate change disasters comes from the business media, like, a lot of this is about how it will affect stock prices, how it will affect, you know...300 Mines are shut down right now in China, or as of you know, two days ago when I did most of the research for this recording. And so it talks more about the 300 mines that have been shut down instead of the 119,000 people who have been evacuated from their homes. And it's just, it's a real problem. There's a lot of photos of like, low reservoirs that are like 20 meters below what they're supposed to be and things like that. And, of course, to tie everything into everything else, you know, things that happen in one place don't only effect that region. The drought is fucking up their harvest, and fertilizer for export has been affected, which will probably fuck up the world's food supply, which was otherwise very stable. So, I don't think that's gonna be a problem. Casandra Johns 08:16 The world's been chaos, but at least we know, food is cheap and available. Margaret 08:20 And will stay that way. Margaret 08:22 Okay, so then the one that I'm finally starting to see more get talked about in the media, thankfully, although it's annoying, because it's only been talked about because now there's like dramatic photos. But whatever. I mean, I'm not blaming people for not paying attention to everything that's happening in the world. Pakistan is having flooding, like just absolutely massive flooding. I've read reports saying that there's a half a million people living in refugee camps. It's taken at least 1000 lives, it's fucking up food production. Over a million homes have been destroyed. A third of the country is underwater. Have y'all seen the satellite image photos? Casandra 08:22 Yep Casandra Johns 08:59 Yeah, and they're referring to it as a 'lake.' Which makes me wonder like, are they anticipating at least some portion of it to remain? Like, "And look at our new lake!" Margaret 09:10 Yeah. Casandra 09:12 I heard I heard someone else I heard someone referred to it as a 'small ocean.' Margaret 09:18 Yeah. Margaret 09:19 Yeah. And, and Pakistan is the the fifth most populous country in the world after China, India, U.S., Indonesia, I think. Yeah. And so it's like, it's a big fucking deal and a big fucking problem. And one of the other problems because capitalism solves...makes everything worse. Pakistan has taken out a $1.1 billion dollar loan from the IMF, which for anyone following at home, the IMF is a predatory lending organization called the International Monetary Fund, that actually a lot of modern leftist politics, at least in the Western world and actually a lot of the developing world kind of cut its teeth in the...during the, the turn of the millennium fighting against the IMF and the World Bank, specifically because of the stuff that they do, which is that they loan predatory. It's like a payday loan. You know, it's like a paycheck loan place, but for entire countries, they loan you $1.1 billion, and then you're going to be paying off the interest for the rest of your life as a country. And of course, a lot of what's happening right now is that developing nations as they take out these loans are therefore forced to extract more fossil fuels from their own countries, in order to pay off the interest of their loan, not even touching the principal, trapping us further and further in the cycle of what's destroying everything. So that's all really fun. Okay, then, East Africa, particularly Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia, are also facing prolonged drought, rising food prices. A lot of this is because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This is projected to leave 20 million people hungry with an estimated 3 million potential deaths if aid isn't delivered, and these three countries represent 2% of the world's population, but 70% of the extreme food insecurity. And most of...about 90% of the wheat imported by East Africa comes from Russia and Ukraine, which are of course, having some issues right now. They're not famously friends. But you're thinking to yourself, "Well, I'm a wheat farmer in the US, and the high prices are good for me." They are not. Things are not good with domestic wheat production here in the United States, either, which, of course, affects large quantities of the world. Also, the US is a major grain exporter. And so this is things that affect the US do affect everyone else. And not just because we're the center of Empire. Drought is affecting wheat fields in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. Kansas is estimating a 30% drop in their harvest. Oklahoma is estimating a 50% drop, in its harvest. And so even though you have these, like record high prices for wheat, farmers are expecting to lose money, because they're not able to grow enough. You look like you have a question. Brooke 09:19 Oh wow. Casandra Johns 12:24 And yeah, so we talked about this a little bit the other day, I think, like I'm not sure if people realize what it means when the wheat crop is devastated. You know, it's not just like, "Maybe I can't eat bread." Brooke 12:43 There's more to it than that? Casandra Johns 12:45 Right! I mean, the next thing I think of is like, who eats the wheat? Not just humans. You know, like, I can't eat wheat, but like, I eat beef. Margaret 12:58 Yeah. Casandra 12:58 And chicken. Margaret 13:00 Yeah. Brooke 13:00 Was does that matter, Casandra? Casandra 13:03 Maybe they eat wheat. Just the like domino effect. Margaret 13:07 Yeah. Casandra 13:08 Yeah. When we talk about rising food prices and rising fuel prices, and how those are connected to like rising everything prices. Margaret 13:15 Yeah. And book prices most famously. Brooke 13:16 Okay, well, like, I have a solution. Casandra 13:19 Okay, what's your solution? Is it Communism? Brooke 13:19 Cause, we're all about solutions here. Well, you started talking about Pakistan being all flooded like the country's a giant lake. And then you said drought in the US and I'm like, "Let's just pick up some water over there and just put it over here." And then there won't be a drought or flood. Margaret 13:36 So what's so great and I'm gonna get to in a moment is that drought and flood are entirely related. I think you knew this, and we're just setting me up to say this, but they're absolutely related. The more drought you have, the worse flooding you have, which of course, like boggles my immediate science, right? My non science brain is like, "But water is the opposite of drought," you know, and we're gonna get to them second. Okay, so also in the US, Lake Mead is drying up. It's the largest reservoir in the United States, it provides water to 25 million people. It's possible that soon it won't have enough water to feed the Hoover Dam, which provides electricity to about a million people. And the one upside of all of this drought..this is really selfish. It's kind of like interesting the stuff they keep finding in the water. They keep find... Margaret 14:26 Yeah. They're like finding like some guys like "Oh, look a barrel," and he like pops open some barrel from the 1920s. And just like a dead guy with a bullet in his skull, and they're like, "Oh, the mafia really did just drop people off in barrels," which led me to the conclusion that apparently leaving dead bodies in large body in large bodies of water is more effective of a strategy than I've been led to believe. Casandra 14:27 Well, they haven't they also...hasn't also revealed like Nazi...like sunken Nazi ships and shit. And then they're like the.... Casandra 14:27 Crime? Margaret 15:01 Yeah, not in Lake Mead, though. Casandra Johns 15:04 Right. But then..No, but I'm just saying like everywhere it's revealing interesting things like in Europe the...what are the stones called? Margaret 15:12 The Hunger Stones. Casandra 15:13 Hunger Stones? Margaret 15:15 Yeah. Casandra 15:15 So apparently, what's the context for this? Previously, in history when there were massive droughts and like rivers dwindled down to nothing, people made carvings in the stones at particular water levels with these like really epic, maybe Margaret's looking at some examples, of these really epic miserable statements about like, "Fear ye, fear ye, if the water gets this low..." Margaret 15:40 You're dead. Casandra 15:40 Yeah, but people are seeing those now, which is terrifying and interesting. Margaret 15:47 Yeah. Terrified and interesting is a good way to describe the current epoch. Brooke 15:52 Cool. That's the silverling, the mud caked lining. Brooke 15:52 Yeah. There was. It's not happening right at this moment. But here locally, when the Detroit reservoir got real low a couple of years ago, there was a town that had been flooded when they built the dam there and it was low enough that like, remnants of this town were visible, including like an old wagon, like covered wagon base kind of wagon and other cool artifacts. Brooke 16:27 See some history before we all die. Margaret 16:30 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Brooke 16:31 Great. Margaret 16:32 So, in California, heat and drought are also combining as power usages reaches a five year high power use, because people are running more and more air conditions. I didn't quite realize exactly how...I don't I don't have a percentage in front of me...But like, air conditioning is a really, really big use of electricity. And so in California, the grid is estimated...is expected to become unstable, although that might have already happened. It was supposed to happen like this week. So that might happen by the time y'all hear this. Or maybe it didn't happen. And I'm here I am chicken littling, all day long. And, of course, Jackson, Mississippi flooding. The capital of Mississippi, which is primarily black city has left 150,000 people without drinking water. Sooo... Brooke 17:18 I haven't heard about this at all? Margaret 17:20 Oh, yeah. And there's some mutual aid groups on the ground. Cooperation. Jackson is a long standing organization that works to sort of build dual power and do all kinds of awesome stuff in terms of cooperative economics and things like that. And they are doing a lot of mutual aid work. I believe there's also a group and maybe this is actually not maybe they're not directly related. I'm not sure there's a group called Hillbillies Helping Hillbillies that I've at least seen talk a lot about this issue. I don't know if they do most of their work down there or if they've been more focused on the Tennessee floods. Casandra Johns 17:54 I know Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is also doing work there. Margaret 17:59 Yeah. So "Why does all this stuff happen, Margaret?" you might ask. Brooke 18:07 Why does all this stuff happen, Margaret? Margaret 18:09 Well, I am an expert named Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodward Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and my quote, that is definitely me is, "As the air and oceans warm under a thicker blanket of greenhouse gases, more water vapor evaporates into the air providing more moisture to fuel thunderstorms, hurricanes, nor'easters and monsoons." Basically, as the temperature rise of the Earth, the warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, every degree of...every increase of one degree Celsius can boost the capacity for holding water vapor by about 7%. So that's fun. And also as things get more humid, you're like, "Okay, well, that's cool. It's like more tropical and stuff, right?" Higher humidity is substantially more dangerous, like heat and humidity is what kills people, because of the way that our bodies thermo regulate basically, like, if you're at 100% humidity, and the temperature goes above your body temperature, you die. Not like instantly, right? But your body loses its ability to thermo regulate. And so that is the wet bulb temperature is the temperature at 100% humidity, and that can be calculated out from there. So, for example, 105 degrees Fahrenheit at 5%. humidity is not that bad. It's like 61 degrees wet bulb, right? You're not in danger, I mean, you can be in danger zone from other parts of it, you need to get in shade, right? But like, whereas 105 degrees at 95% humidity is 103 degrees wet bulb. So, and for context, you know, it's like I used to never really think about the level of humidity that I lived in until I moved to the South and I had to worry about mold and all kinds of other shit. But, much of the South, and San Francisco and also I believe much of Alaska sit at around 80 to 90% humidity, whereas the Southwest might be at around 30% humidity. So, when you hear about temperatures at different levels in different parts of the country, the humidity that they're facing, like matters in terms of how catastrophic this type of thing is likely to be. And then the "What to do about it section!" Don't worry, we're almost done with the terrible climate shit part. Casandra Johns 20:20 I feel like earlier, you mentioned something about the relationship between flooding and drought. I was hoping you were gonna circle back to that. Margaret 20:28 Okay. Oh, yeah. So. So basically, the...some atmosphere shit I only half understand. But, as everything gets hotter, more of the air like sits...and more of the water sits in the air and that...it just fucks everything up. So, like, the rain falls off fucked up. I, I kind of like, wrap my head around it. And then I, it unraveled, you ever, like study things that are completely outside your thing? And then you like, you get your takeaway, and then the details like dissolve? That's what happened to me while I was researching this? Casandra Johns 21:00 No, that's I didn't realize it had I, I thought my assumption was it was going to be that, you know, you can look up videos of this where like, people put a cup of water upside down on like dry soil, you know, partially damp soil and like saturated wet soil. And the cup of water immediately, like seeps into the ground in the saturated soil, but it takes a really long time for the dry soil to absorb the water. Margaret 21:25 Yeah. Casandra 21:25 And so my assumption was like, "Oh, if there's a drought and the soil is bone dry, it can't absorb moisture very effectively." Margaret 21:33 Yeah. Casandra 21:33 Which is counterintuitive, maybe? But...then it floods. Margaret 21:36 I think that is a big part of it. Yeah. Casandra 21:38 Okay. Margaret 21:39 And then also, I was even just like...go ahead. Brooke 21:43 I was thinking about how matter can't be created or destroyed. And so the water still exist somewhere, even though it got sucked up from the dry places. And that might be why it ended up flooding in other places because the water still exists. Margaret 21:58 Well, a lot of places it's literally the same place will have droughts and floods. I think Texas was dealing with that I think it was Dallas, was having a record drought and might still be in a record drought and then had like, really fuck off flooding. I think it was about a week or two ago. That was like destroying everything. And, you know, because if the rain patterns are just completely different than Yeah, what the ground is used to absorbing and like, and which ties into what to do about it. A lot of what to do about it needs to happen at the scale that we're not necessarily going to talk about right now. But, rainwater catchment and drought areas is super important. And, you know, I was looking it up because there's this like. I'd always been sort of told that rainwater catchment like fucks up the water system of that area, you know, because Colorado has, they have re-legalized it a little bit in 2016. But it's been illegal for a very long time to catch rainwater in Colorado because they're like, "Oh, it's so dry here. We need all the groundwater." That was what I had always got told. The real reason's that Colorado made rainwater catchment illegal have a lot more to do with...capitalism, and the way that water rights are, you're basically stealing from people in entirely different areas if you catch the rainwater at the source or whatever. And, it it can affect things,right, if you like take water that could otherwise have ended up groundwater, but you're mostly it's mostly like shit that would have run off anyway. And so rainwater catchment increasingly in a lot of places, I believe Arizona has like new laws that like require new buildings to include rainwater catchment. There's entire countries who I didn't write down the names of that require rainwater catchment in all new buildings, especially island nations, I'm under the impression and so rainwater catchment is cool. And then, Arizona you can get rebates if you install rainwater catchment. In Colorado, it is now legal again for like home level and there's like all these like rules and shit. And you're, you're only allowed to store two barrels for a total of 110 gallons and you can only do it at like, home, or whatever. I'm sure there's ways that people could imagine catching rain water without getting caught. The CDC points out that rainwater is generally not safe to drink without treatment. You can use it to water non food plants without treatment. I say this, I showered with rainwater for the past three years and don't give a shit. But, maybe I shouldn't recommend that to other people. But, also filtering rainwater is like not the biggest deal in the world. And then... Casandra Johns 24:39 Also like, the idea of only using it on non food plants is really funny to me, because like it just rains on my plants, you know? And then I eat them. Margaret 24:51 Yeah. Brooke 24:52 You shouldn't let rain land of your plants. Margaret 24:54 You shouldn't be eating food from plants. Plants comes from stores, Casandra. Casandra Johns 24:59 Uh oh. Okay. And if they get rained on specifically then they're like poison. Margaret 25:06 Yeah, me, okay. Like, you walk out of a food store, the main place that people get food, like McDonald's, and you have your chicken nuggets, or... Casandra 25:14 And then they get rained on? Margaret 25:16 You wouldn't want to eat them now, would you? Casandra 25:18 Okay, I see what you mean. Margaret 25:20 Yeah, no, I like that part about the like non food plants or whatever is like to me is like that's what the CDC says. The CDC has lost a lot of...I don't trust it as much as I might have used to. Casandra 25:36 Interesting segue to... Margaret 25:39 Yeah. Well, there is one more part though that I believe one have you added to the notes about soil remediation and dry gardening? I'm wondering if you want to talk about some of that. Brooke 25:52 That has to be Casandra, cause it wasn't me. Casandra Johns 25:54 Oh, I mean, that was me thinking about like, how the what I was saying before how bone dry soil...the best place to store water is in the soil. Right? Margaret 26:04 Yeah. Casandra 26:06 Just like the best place to store nitrogen is in the soil. But, you know, if I lived in a super dry area, and this is only so effective for like the home gardener, this like ideally would happen on a large scale. But, if I lived in a really dry area, I'd be working really hard to like improve my soil health so that it can store more water. So that things like dry gardening are possible. So I can you know, have food even in a drought. Margaret 26:32 What is dry gardening? Casandra Johns 26:36 Dry gardening is gardening with little to no, like, manually added water. Margaret 26:43 Is that where you like mulch the shit out of it all to prevent evaporation? Casandra Johns 26:46 Yeah, you can do it that way. You can also...there. There's a...well, it's on my bookshelf, so I'm not gonna mention it because I can't remember the title right now. But yeah, mulching, spacing your plants a lot farther out, making sure that your soil can store water so that if you know we live, where I live, it rains a lot in the spring. And if the plants I plant have a room, and the soil is fluffy enough that they can send the roots really deep, then in the summer, when it's dry, they can still access the water that's stored in the soil. Does that make sense? Margaret 27:19 Cool, and then they grow chicken nuggets? Casandra 27:22 Yep. Margaret 27:23 Cool. Okay, so back to the clever segue that I broke about not trusting the CDC.... Casandra Johns 27:36 Yeah, yeah, I Okay. So, we realized we should probably say at least something about monkey pox. Because it's the thing that exists. My notes are titled monkey pox sucks. And... Brooke 27:52 Correct. Casandra Johns 27:53 Correct. Yeah. And I realized in researching this that I knew very little, I think I was just like, "We live in a time where there will be epidemic after epidemic," and I'm, you know, mentally overloaded on this topic. And had a lot of assumptions that were wrong. But, one interesting thing I found out is that the CDC is saying it's not transmitted....It's not airborne. Which, you know, they've kind of gone back and forth about whether masks are going to help...masks. I can't enunciate....whether masks are going to help prevent the spread. Brooke 28:37 If the mask prevents you from licking someone's open wounds, then then I say that would be helpful. Put your mask on. Casandra Johns 28:44 But, then there's there are other recommendations around like, avoiding close face to face contact with people. So that's all. I think I'm just affirming that I am also skeptical of CDC guidelines at this point, which is a bummer. Margaret 28:59 Yeah. Casandra 29:01 Anyway, do you want to hear all about monkeypox? Margaret 29:04 Yeah. Yay. Casandra 29:06 Yay. Margaret 29:06 What a fun show we make. Brooke 29:10 That's like a game, right? It's a children's game that you play. It's fun. Spread all over? Isn't it great? Casandra 29:18 No. Margaret 29:19 It's one of those games with a 1-3% death.... Okay, please continue. Brooke 29:24 That's pretty low. It's fine. Casandra Johns 29:26 Oh, my God, what a world that we live in. So apparently was discovered in 1958 in laboratory monkeys. So, you know, you can insert something here about blaming capitalism for everything. Because maybe it wouldn't have been a thing if monkeys were not in laboratories? Anyway, it's a cousin of smallpox in the first human case was recorded in 1970. When I first heard about monkey pox in May or whatever I was like, "Oh, cool and new disease." It's not new. It's been around for decades. So, it's really interesting that like, we don't have a vaccine that can quickly be rolled out. Do you want to guess why that is? Margaret 30:14 Is it Capitalsim? Brooke 30:14 I guess 'racism.' Casandra 30:15 Racism. Brooke wins with 'racism.' Brooke 30:23 Yay? Casandra 30:26 Yeah, so it was that to be uncommon in humans, but cases started increasing around 1980. And most of the cases have been documented in central and western Africa. That correct? In Africa. Margaret 30:41 Yeah, you said Nigeria is like one of the main spots of it? Casandra 30:45 For this outbreak. Margaret 30:46 Okay. Casandra 30:48 Yeah. So, and they think that one of the reasons....so there have been multiple outbreaks since it was first recorded in humans in 1970, which I didn't realize, because we don't hear about them, because mostly they've taken place in Africa. Which is just depressing. And I'll come back around to that in a minute. But, they think that that the increase in cases might be connected to the fact that it is related to smallpox. The smallpox vaccine, they think gives like, 85% that it is like, 85% effective against monkey pox. But most people don't get the smallpox vaccine anymore. Brooke 31:27 Yeah. Casandra 31:28 And I think that's related to the increase in monkey pox cases. Margaret 31:33 People don't get the smallpox vaccine anymore, because smallpox kind of went away because of vaccines? Casandra 31:40 Yeah, Brooke 31:41 No, it just stop being trendy. People were like, "That is not cool anymore. I'm not gonna take that one." Casandra Johns 31:48 Yeah, yeah. Which then is like, there's a whole tangent in here about who and how they decide a disease has been 'eradicated.' I'm doing air quotes that you can't see has been, 'eradicated.' Especially when something like monkey pox is trance was initially transmitted from animals to humans. And so, yeah, I don't know, is smallpox eradicated? I don't know. I'm not an epidemiologist. But I'm curious. So, let's see. Okay, so the current outbreak grew from one case in Massachusetts in the US, I'm talking about the US now, May 17. And at this point, you know, however many days it's been since May, there are almost 20,000 cases in the US, which is a lot of cases. Brooke 32:40 I mean, it sounds like a big number. But, also I know, there's a lot of people in the US, but also, I don't know how much cases of other things that we know about are common. So I don't have any frame of reference. Margaret 32:51 Yeah same. Casandra 32:53 Yeah. Brooke 32:54 Well, it's way smaller than Covid. Casandra Johns 32:57 Right. It is way smaller than Covid. But, you know, and it's, it's sort of like Covid, you're probably not going to die from it. But then there's the asterisk, 'unless you're immunocompromised already,' you know. So like, who are we? Who are we willing to throw under the bus for this? Brooke 33:13 So just Casandra. Casandra 33:13 Yeah, just me. Yeah. But then there's also public health experts are apparently warning that the virus is on the verge of becoming permanently entrenched here. Margaret 33:24 Cool. Casandra 33:25 So maybe 20,000 isn't, you know, a big chunk of the population, but in terms of like, a virus, it's bad news, because we don't really want it to become entrenched here, right? Brooke 33:38 Yeah, viruses, bad. Casandra 33:41 Virus equals bad. Okay. Okay, so, so there's been a lot of criticism about Biden's administration and their sluggish response to the outbreak. I read a really interesting report. I think WaPo [Washington Post] was the first place to report on this, but they said that, on August 4, US Health and Human Services officials plan to stretch the country's limited supply, or they announced, that they plan to stretch the country's limited supply of vaccines by splitting doses to cover five times as many people. This is after saying that they had plenty of doses. So, already sketchy. Yeah, cool, cool. And then the chief executive of Bavarian Nordic who's the vaccine manufacturer responded by accusing the Biden admin of breaching contract by planning to use them in this like inappropriate way by splitting the doses and then apparently threatened to cancel all future vaccine orders so that....Yeah, I'm not sure how that was resolved. Brooke 34:45 Capitalism. The other 'ism' now at play. Margaret 34:50 I was right. I was late. Casandra Johns 34:57 So the big concern for me in researching this was how it spreads, because I have a child who's about to go back to public school, so apparently animal to human transmission, it's spread by direct contact with blood, bodily fluids or cutaneous or mucosal lesions of infected animals. And then human to human transmission is close contact with respiratory secretions, which to me says airborne, right, right? Is that not what that means? Anyway, respiratory secretions, skin lesions of an infected person, or recently contaminated objects. So things like bedding, clothing, stuff like that. Um, but the CDC says it's not airborne. So, take that, as you will. I don't know. How are you gonna take that, Brooke? Brooke 35:41 Right. Well, I mean, respiratory secretions that does sound more significant than just like, you know, air droplets, like we talked about with covid, like, more moist, kind of things coming out of you, like sneezes and coughs and stuff that actually sprays more liquid matter? Casandra 36:07 So, use your imagination with that. Margaret 36:08 We could just go through and describe every act that could... Casandra 36:10 Don't spit in people's mouths. Brooke 36:14 Damn it, there goes half of my kink play. Margaret 36:18 I mean, it does seem like it's less contagious than like, because like, okay, right, like, because they said originally COVID wasn't airborne. And they weren't always wrong about that, right? But, the fact that it's been here for months, and is at 20,000 cases, is like, 'promising,' in that it seems less contagious than COVID? But that's, I guess I'm talking about like, the first or second most contagious virus that the world's ever faced. So, I guess it's a terrible benchmark to compare it to. Casandra Johns 36:49 Yeah, I think comparing everything to covid is probably not in our best interest, especially because a lot more people are comparing this to AIDS, in terms of the communities it's impacting, and how it's spreading. So it's, it's okay, let me go back to my list. Alright, so the incubation period is usually six to thirteen days, it's thought to be mainly spread through sexual activity, specifically, men who have sex with men and have multiple partners, though now they've sort of expanded that to include like queer and trans people, which is good. Not that it's spreading in queer and trans communities, but that they're changing language. So then I was like, "Well, is it an STI, right?" And I Googled "Is Monkey pox and STI? And the first two articles that came up, were: Number one, "Monkey pox is an STI and knowing that can help." And then number two is, "Monkey pox is spreading through sex, but it's not an STI." So you know, I'm not a doctor. Casandra Johns 37:02 It's not an STI. Casandra 37:29 Okay. Brooke 37:31 Because it's not it's, yeah, go ahead. Casandra Johns 37:52 But it seems to mainly be spreading through sex, probably because of the close contact involved. Margaret 38:02 Yeah, I mean, like, like, scabies is... Brooke 38:04 Yeah, like not through the sex itself. Casandra 38:06 Right. Brooke 38:07 But through the close physical contact of you know, that happens during sex. Casandra Johns 38:12 I think. I also saw a list. I think it's LA County. I was reading their like, list of eligibility criteria, and maybe risky behavior to avoid...'in void.' Would that even? Yeah, thank you. I was just trying to figure out what my made up word means. Risky behavior to avoid and they listed that, like, we're still learning about how it's transmitted, right, which is wild for a disease that's been around since the 70s. But, they listed that it could possibly be transmitted through semen. Like not solely but that could be another way that it's transmitted. Brooke 38:53 Sure, transmitted through bodily fluids, but the distinction when it when it's an STI is something that's sort of limited to being transmissible through kind of the genital region. Casandra Johns 39:10 Is that why one type of herpes is considered an STI, and the other isn't? Brooke 39:14 Yeah, so you can like can get both of them in both places because of oral sex. Casandra 39:21 Huh, that's interesting. Brooke 39:23 But yeah, technically. That's why. Casandra Johns 39:25 Thanks for knowing more about STI classification than me. I appreciate it. Brooke 39:29 Well, I fuck a lot. So I got to know these kinds of things. Casandra 39:35 All right, moving on with my notes. My next... Brooke 39:40 I just made everyone turn a scarlet blushing red color because I have non prude among this collective. Casandra Johns 39:48 I'm not blushing. I'm not prudish. I'm just Demi. Okay, so my next section is titled "Racism," which, yeah, so the virus isn't spreading in this specific outbreak of monkey pox is been spreading in Nigeria since 2017. Yet, somehow there are no clinical...there's no clinical trial data of the effectiveness of the vaccine or T pox, which is the antiviral they've developed. No human studies. I wonder why. Um, well, I as I said it's understudied because up until now, it's been isolated to central and west Africa. Yeah. What would have happened if we were vaccinating on a large scale in Nigeria? Would it have spread? Margaret 40:31 Yeah, I mean, that's like such a thing that I keep thinking about all this shit, where it's like, it's just seemed so obvious to me that, like the solutions to all the major things that we're dealing with right now, like don't make any sense in a world full of borders. You know? Being like, like, "We got ours. Fuck you," doesn't make any fucking it never made any fucking sense. But, it really doesn't make any fucking sense now, or it's like, yeah, if we had, like, I don't understand, even if I'm like a self interested, rich white American. I don't understand how I can be like, "Oh, new new disease just dropped and it's in another country." Let's go get rid of it in another country. That makes sense from...it's cheaper than building spaceships to Mars. Brooke 41:16 I think it's people still just not fundamentally understanding how deeply integrated we are now as a global society. Yeah. I mean, we shouldn't have figured especially in the last couple of years, if you haven't figured it out before, then like, you should understand that now. I feel like... Margaret 41:32 Yeah, acids been around for a long time. Casandra 41:39 Don't understand the reference? Margaret 41:43 Just like, oh, no, like, we're all one consciousness? Whatever. Casandra 41:52 Okay, my next subsection of notes is titled "Homophobia." Margaret 41:55 Hurray. Casandra 41:56 This is...I'm announcing these by way of a content warning. So yeah, so I read a few different, you know, I've seen like on Twitter and stuff, people talking about how homophobia relates to the way the language the government has been using and media outlets have been using around monkeypox, and also the government response to it and didn't fully understand that other than that it's mainly spreading in queer networks right now. But, I read an article that talked about how the homophobia they were seeing was mainly around the language that gay sex is quote, unquote, 'driving' the epidemic. Yeah, and just like really sex negative advice around how to keep from getting monkey pox. But, in reality, the drivers of the epidemic are the structures globally that have led to like vaccines and tests and treatments all existing for this virus, but not being accessible. Margaret 42:57 Yeah. Casandra 42:58 Yeah, I don't know if y'all have read any of the first person accounts of people trying to find access even to a test. Like I read an account of someone who went to their doctor was like, "I think a monkey pox." and the doctor, like, had to jump through all of these hoops just to access a test Margaret 43:14 Fucking hell. Margaret 43:16 So that's cool. Let's see, before I talk about the 'What we can do,' I want to circle back to climate change really quickly. Because, I think that in my brain, I know that epidemics and climate change are related, but I hadn't thought much about how in the particular mechanisms, but I read an interview that, that interested in me a lot. And they talked about how climate change is driving the risk of infectious diseases. I saw a report that 58% of the 375 infectious diseases they examined, have...this is a quote, "have been at some point aggravated by 'climatic hazards.'" So that's cool. Brooke 44:03 I...but how? I don't understand the connection. Casandra 44:06 Yeah. So. So one way is that climate change, they were talking about how it brings humans closer to animals, not in the sense that like "We are closer to nature," but just like, as we encroach on... Brooke 44:17 oh, sure. Casandra 44:20 And so, animal to human transmission is a thing. But, also if we're talking about like climate change and natural disasters, people get very sick of diseases and die after natural disasters. So, I'm sure that's part of what they mean by 'aggravated,' being 'aggravated by climatic hazards.' Warmer temperatures also attract insects and carriers of disease to parts of the world that they didn't used to exist in. Margaret. I feel like you were talking about...we were talking the other night and you mentioned like...no was it you? Maybe I was reading something? I've been reading too much lately. I was reading about a type of mosquito that is like, more likely to carry things like Dengue fever, and is now in the US, is now in the northern hemisphere. And. Margaret 45:08 Oh, that's exciting. Casandra 45:10 Yeah, and it has to do with warmer water temperatures where they can hatch their eggs and also with capitalism, because apparently they were transported here in 'tires.' Margaret 45:22 Huh? Casandra 45:23 Like when tires sit, you know outside in a wash, tje water pools? Yeah. Wild. Margaret 45:33 Which ties back to rain catchment and how don't do lazy rain catchment where you just put your downspout into the barrel, you should filter it, and you should prevent mosquitoes from breeding in there. Also algae, and all kinds of other stuff. Casandra 45:47 Yeah, it's true. Brooke 45:49 So today's episode is brought to you by capitalism and racism. Margaret 45:54 And I was thinking rain barrels. But Sure. Brooke 45:59 Well, the reason we have to talk about these horrible things is the 'isms.' Margaret 46:04 Right? Where as I was thinking about sponsors, Big Rain Barrel. The big sponsor of the show. Brooke 46:11 That'd be a great sponsor. I hope we get a free barrel. Casandra 46:14 Yeah. Brooke 46:14 Free barrel with every Ep [episode] Margaret 46:16 Yeah. I want to be able to talk about them personally. So, please contact us through the site. The advertisers. I want the I want Big Rain Barrel to...I just want a rain barrel. That's all. Please continue. Casandra 46:31 So in 2022, we're still experiencing the COVID outbreak, right? And now my monkey pox. And also polio. Margaret 46:40 Cool. Casandra 46:42 Yeah. Yeah, yes. Polio. Someone Someone got polio. For the second time since they declared polio like a...they don't use the word eradicated. But they were basically like, "Humans don't get this anymore." But two have since then. One was this summer. So that's...okay. Brooke 47:06 That's neat. Casandra 47:07 Yeah, what can we do about it? We can wash our hands a lot. I'm still gonna wear a mask, even though the CDC says it's not airborne, because I don't understand the difference. And also Covid's still a thing. We can research testing and vaccination in our areas, because it seems to be vastly different in different cities and counties and really confusing. So you can do the research ahead of time and share it through your network so people know where to access information and help. You can also get vaccinated if you qualify. However, I let's see, I looked at a few different counties and their eligibility criteria. And they all seem to have a few things in common. You have to be gay or bisexual men, or a transgender person who has had either 1) Multiple or anonymous sex partners in the last 14 days or 2) Skin to skin, skin to skin or intimate contact with people at large venues or events in the last 14 days. And then they're also starting to include people of any gender or sexual orientation who have engaged in commercial or [cuts out], so sex workers in the last 14 days. So yeah, if any of those are you, and you have a vaccination place near you, why not get it? Margaret 48:32 Because Bill Gates will be able to track all the sex you have? Brooke 48:38 Yeah, Casandra 48:39 The reason I agreed to research monkey pox for this episode is because, like I said, my kids about to go back to school. And I was really nervous. And I'm feeling a little bit less nervous for the moment about school because of the cases documented in children so far areextremely low. So, that's some good news for all of the other parents out there. Margaret 49:02 And the children listening Casandra 49:05 For any of the children listening. Margaret 49:06 It just occurred to me that children might listen to this podcast. I'm so sorry, children, about the world. Not about the cussing. I'm sorry about the world. Casandra 49:18 Speaking of school, Brooke 49:20 Hey, yo, student loan forgiveness that's been in the news. Right? And as the person with the background in economics, I feel like I have to talk about that. So, student loans, I'm fairly certain that of the two of you one of you has student loans and one of you does not. And I'm I'm curious how each of you feel about student loan forgiveness without...you can go ahead and not reveal which one of you it is and isn't for the moment. Just tell me if you like it? Is it good? Or bad? Casandra 49:56 Fucking-tastic I mean, not this version, this version is just like so. So, but like, should they forgive all of our student loans? Fuck yes, they should. Margaret 50:04 I agree. Brooke 50:05 Casandra says yes. Oh, and Margaret agrees Wait, but only one of you has student loans? Margaret 50:11 So, I don't have student loans. And...I can't imagine, I can't imagine anyone who doesn't have student loans giving a shit. Like I just like, I struggle so hard. Like, every time someone's like, "They did this with our taxpayer money," and I'm like, "Motherfucker, they invaded half the world with our tax money." Like... Casandra 50:35 There there other things you should be frustrated about being done with your tax dollars. Casandra 50:40 And this is not one of them. Margaret 50:40 Yeah! Margaret 50:42 Yeah. And then even with my like, even if I was like a self interest capitalist shit, it's like, I don't know, healthy economy is not one built on fucking debt. And I don't know, whatever. I'm just like... Brooke 51:00 Don't spoil my ending, Margaret. Margaret 51:02 Oh, sorry. Right. Casandra 51:04 But capitalism means that there have to be people who are suffering and poor so that I can feel superior and be stable and have more money. Margaret 51:13 Oh, that's a good point. Casandra 51:14 Yeah. Margaret 51:15 No, I take it back actually, Brooke. I'd like to change my answer. No one should. Casandra 51:21 Fuck Casandra. Margaret 51:26 No one should have the right to have debt forgiven. It should probably be transmitted to children and children's children. Oh, wait, that already happens. Just okay. Anyway. Casandra 51:36 What about corporations? Shouldn't they be able to get their debt forgiven, Margaret? Margaret 51:40 Oh, yeah. I mean, corporations, obviously should have their debt forgiven. I mean, otherwise, we wouldn't have an economy. Brooke 51:46 Like, God. Okay. You two know everything. My work is done here. Throw the topic and walk away. Excellent. Casandra 51:55 Sorry, Brooke. Brooke 51:56 No, I'm loving it. Casandra 51:58 This is how we cope with talking about money. Margaret 52:01 Yeah. Brooke 52:04 Oh, it's so good. No, I have you know, I have a couple of, of friends and or relations that are both on the against it side. Well, neither of whom went to college or have any students debt. Casandra 52:21 Why are they still your friends? Brooke 52:22 Well, Facebook friends, let's say that. Casandra 52:25 That's fair. Brooke 52:25 I think it's important to listen to what people say on the other side. So, I try and understand the arguments and can have a conversation back and hopefully bring them into the light. Margaret 52:34 Yeah, that's legit. But wait, what if we instead created an increasingly more insular and pure subculture? Brooke 52:44 It seems problematic I'm gonna say, but... Margaret 52:47 What? Brooke 52:47 That's probably for another episode. Okay. Margaret 52:50 Okay, I'll stop derailing you, Casandra Johns 52:52 it would only be the three of us. Everyone else is wrong in some way. Margaret 52:56 I think that that's probably true. I'm sorry Bursts, who's doing our editing, I'm sorry Inmn, who produce the podcast. Brooke 53:06 You better apologize to all the patrons right now too. Margaret 53:10 Yeah, if you want to be pure and join our pure culture. A $20 a month level. Brooke 53:19 No. No cults. No cults. Margaret 53:22 Everyone keeps saying that to me. Okay. Brooke 53:26 That's why I took away that book on cults that I showed you the other day, you don't need the help. Margaret 53:32 Please continue. Brooke 53:33 Oh, God. Right. So so the arguments against it. Like you were saying, you know, one of them's about the, "I don't want my tax dollars going to that," which, like you said, is a pretty wild argument, because we don't get to decide directly where our tax dollars go. There's plenty of things that I'm in...None of us like taxes...And amongst us, especially like, abolish the government abolish the taxes, but even people who are okay with taxes as a functioning society, we still, you know, you don't get to decide where each dollar goes. What's your question face? Casandra 54:10 You mean when I vote, it doesn't directly change things? Brooke 54:14 Oh, God, another topic for another whole podcast episode about how about how it actually works out there in the world. Yeah, so that argument is kind of wild. And then the other one that I that I have seen is the, you know, "Why should anyone else pay for their choices?" especially if it's their...other people's bad choices or whatever. Which again, is wild to me. Margaret 54:42 You mean the bad choice to loan $60,000 to a 17 year old? Brooke 54:47 Yeah, seems like maybe that should be not a not a thing. Margaret 54:51 Well, I just but it's a bad financial like, like come on. That's that's a that's part of loaning money is you take into account like, there's risk involved. It is a risky loan to loan a 17 year old money. Anyway, yep. Sorry. Brooke 55:07 Yeah, I saw one of my, you know, probably Gen X or Boomer aged relatives saying, "Hey, I signed up for the loans at 18. And I read the document, and I knew what I was getting myself into. And it was a choice. And it's everybody's choice." And it's so many bad takes so many bad takes... Casandra 55:24 I wonder how much their loan was compared to mine? Brooke 55:27 Yeah, and there's that. Casandra 55:28 I'm gonna guess significantly less. Brooke 55:30 Yeah, so let me get into a little bit of data here, because I love data. Let's talk also about what the loans are and aren't, because if you're only looking at the headlines there's a lot that's not captured in there. The number we see tossed around is the $10,000 of forgiveness. And that's up to $10,000 of forgiveness. So there's caveats on that, because there's a income limitation as to when you can get it. And it decreases a little bit based on what your income is. But also, if you were awarded a Pell Grant, at any point in your college education, you can actually get up to $20,000 in forgiveness, and Pell Grants are a federal grant, not a loan, but a grant, i.e. a gift, basically, that only go out to the lowest income kind of folks. So, if you qualified for a Pell Grant at the time that you also took out loans, then you can get a higher amount of loan forgiveness. And then it also only is it takes effect for people who had taken out a loan prior to June 30th of this year 2020. So if you're in school, right now, if you're just starting this fall, it doesn't apply to you. You had to have taken out a loan prior to that to qualify. Some of the cool things about it, though, are that it helps kind of all kinds of federal loans, which 95% of student loan debt is a federal loan. Only about 5% is private loans. So that's most people with loans, although it's only again, those income requirements, but that's still a large portion of folks. Where's the other one I was looking at? Oh, there's a type of loans that parents can take out to help their kids. So most of the federal loans that folks sign up for, they are signing up themselves, right, you're putting yourself in debt for it, even though you're only 18, or whatever. But parents can also get a loan, there's a federal loan called Parent PLUS, that you can take out to help your kids and those loans also qualify for forgiveness. And that is different than the student's loan. So if you're a parent who took out one of those loans for your kid, and your kid also took out loans, you both separately qualify for forgiveness. Casandra 57:48 Is this...Sorry, is this...I hadn't heard of those parent loans. Is the thought that they're taking out a loan to help pay for their kids college? Brooke 57:56 Yeah. Casandra 57:57 Okay. So, just like, "Look, another loan we can give to someone." Brooke 58:02 Yeah. And it's a federal federal one again, and you know, federal loans overall are, at least compared with like private student loans you can get they're way more reasonable, super low interest rates, longer repayment periods, you can get restructuring, if you're having financial issues or get a pause on it, there's more ways to get them forgiven, like working for a nonprofit or in the private sector, stuff like that. So, these are sort of nicer loans, which is one of the faults that people point out with it is that the the private loans that are the more of the predatory style loans, like we talked about with the IMF earlier, you know, higher interest rates, they don't care about how much you are or aren't making necessarily, they just say you have to start paying it at this point, and you have to pay this much and they'll come after your car or your dog or your firstborn child or whatever in order to get their repayments. And this federal forgiveness doesn't affect those folks. Margaret 58:59 Would you say that our listeners should take out predatory loans from payday loan places in order to buy rain barrels? Brooke 59:08 No. Because you should never support predatory loan places. You can steall from those places. Margaret 59:16 What if we, what if we start a rain barrel loan fund that offers predatory rates? Brooke 59:28 Then I would no longer call you an anarchist. You'd be an An-Cap [Anarcho-capitalist] and out of the club. Casandra 59:33 Is this you? Is this you segwaying into an ad break for our sponsors? Margaret 59:41 No, i was my brain's poisoned by how the fact that my other podcast is...has actual ad breaks. Casandra 59:48 Duh Duh duh duuuuh! I'm rain barrels! Brooke 59:49 Hey, if rain barrels would give away some, loan some rain barrels, I would let them plug a little ad on this ad-free anarchist podcast network. Yeah. Margaret 1:00:01 Yeah. Although, I'm holding out for big IBC tote. Brooke 1:00:05 Yes. Margaret 1:00:05 Cause IBC totes are 275 gallons, sort of 55 gallons. And that's what I showered with for the past three years, an IBC tote available from wherever you're willing to go get a really cheap thing that used to be full of detergent and wash it out vaguely. Margaret 1:00:11 Half an hour's drive, we can go grab some. Casandra 1:00:25 Wait, really? Margaret 1:00:26 Yeah, yeah. Casandra 1:00:28 We should talk about that after we're done doing a podcast which we are in fact doing right now. Margaret 1:00:32 Oh right, okay. Brooke 1:00:33 Okay, one of the other things that comes up when folks talk about student loans is you get like the the Boomer types that will say, you know, "I worked a part time job when I was in school and paid off my...paid for my school while I was going to school." And I think we all know that that's just not possible to do anymore. And that's because of the cost of education and how it has skyrocketed. So, if you look at the difference from 70s, 80s, or so, of like median income in the US with the average household makes, versus the average cost of college, the average income has gone up like half again as much since the 80s or so, whereas the cost of college is four times more expensive than it was. And then the other argument that comes up that people make is, well, "Everybody thinks they have to go to college. Now, you know, everybody's trying to enroll in college, not everyone needs to go to college. But everyone tries to." And when you look at the numbers of like, the portion of the population that has that's going to college and how that's changed in the last like 50 years, it's been pretty much steady for the last 25 years. It rose in the 60s, late 60s was kind of flat in the 70s then started to rise again through the 80s and the mid 90s. Probably because of the series of recessions that we had that were really severe in some places, like Oregon had a really severe recession. And when there was a recession, more people go back to school, but it hit a peak in the mid 90s And then dropped for a while and then has kind of been staying around that peak, on average, over the last 25 years. That and that's the number of people has gone up, but the portion of the population, right, so as a percent of the total population has actually been quite stable for a while now. Margaret 1:02:30 And like, I'm a big fan of having not gotten a degree, right? But, I even had a dream again last night where I like dropped out of school again. And I was like, "Fuck you, I quit." And it was really, but, but it's something that I think that a lot of people don't talk about when they talk about being like, "Oh, well, not everyone needs a college degree," or whatever it is they they don't understand that like how important upper higher education is to upward mobility and upward class mobility, especially for like people who are like, marginalized among other identities besides class, like specifically around race, you know, like, there's...so I think that...I think it's something that we can accidentally get a little to like, "Yeah!" like, you know, people get very, like "I'm so blue collar, everyone should drive forklifts," instead of going and studying gender studies or whatever, right? And just like not fucking getting how important class mobility can be for people and how that functions most of the time. And so I get really annoyed when people are like, "No one should ever go to college," or whatever, because I'm like, that is a really that is a position that comes from a specific place for some people, you know? Casandra 1:03:44 Yeah. Brooke 1:03:46 I think people also forget in that the fact that college classes can include courses for some of those types of jobs. So,talking about like the other four year degree, an apprenticeship. You know, if you're an electrician or a sheetmetal worker, you're probably you're going to take some classes and probably through a community college as part of your education to get those kinds of jobs. If you're doing a forklift or CNC, you have to take a course and they can be three months, six months, twelve months courses, and often again, through community college. So even though you're not getting a degree, you're still doing some post secondary education. Margaret 1:04:29 Yeah. Casandra 1:04:30 Do you want to know how much debt I have for my community college? Brooke 1:04:34 Oh, this is gonna hurt. Casandra 1:04:36 Forty Grand. Brooke 1:04:38 Shut the front door. Casandra 1:04:41 And that's like with grants and shit because like I good grades and all that. I was on the 'President's list.' Brooke 1:04:45 For a frame of reference, listeners, Casandra graduated more recently, like last couple years, or three or whatever it was, but fairly recently. Yeah. When I was looking at the numbers, here's my personal anecdote. The cost have the four year degree that I got 15 years ago. I'm taking some community college classes now. And if I did an associate's degree, it would cost me as much for two years of community college today as it did for a four year degree with two majors 15 years ago. Yeah, the cost has has exponentially risen again. Four times. It's it's four times higher than it was like 40 years ago. It's risen more than anything, any other good or commodity. The cost of college has increased. Margaret 1:05:40 I will say, my, like optimistic, putting on my optimism hat. I don't like hats. That's probably why I'm not great. Okay. When I think about like some of the most...the strongest that leftist movements, anarchist movements, I know more about anarchist movements, I do other movements. The strongest they've been is like often, while popular education, or the existing educational infrastructure is failing everyone. And, you know, like a lot of work around reframing education in both France and Spain was coming out of anarchists in the late 19th and early 20th century in the modern school movement, all this stuff, and people were getting, like, literally murdered for advocating for things like "What if boys and girls are taught in the same classrooms and shit," and it's like awild idea that anarchists came up with. And like not talking about God in the classroom. Oh, my god, we're actually losing on all of these. Okay, anyway. It's like, "Remember the fight for an eight hour workday?" And I'm like, "Man, I wish I had eight hour workday right now." Okay, and but, but so that's like, my like, my, like, optimism is that like, in a burned for us new weeds grow? You know, I think that there's a lot of opportunity for alternative educational systems, but not in a way where they could like, immediately step in and be like an accredited university that allows the sort of class mobility that we're talking about, or whatever, right, but like, it does seem like mutual aid schooling and education are like, probably in a better position to take a foothold than they used to be. I hadn't really...I'd only previously thought about this more for like, grade school type stuff, especially for the whole, like how public school is like also kind of like low key just like childcare. And like, hadn't quite thought about this in terms of like, how it ties into, you know, continuing education, but it could, we could have Anarchy University, and then everyone could have degrees and okay, I don't know where I'm going with this. Brooke 1:07:45 Anarcho-U. Casandra 1:07:45 You need another project, Margaret. So... Margaret 1:07:51 No, dear listener, you need a project. At Projects-R-Us, we will give you a project. Brooke 1:08:00 Wrong podcast. Wrong, wrong podcast. Margaret 1:08:02 Replace the continuing education system!. Brooke 1:08:04 Nope, wrong podcast. Margaret 1:08:04 Okay, fine. Brooke 1:08:06 Yeah, so, Casandra 1:08:07 That'd be like your ideal job, I think. Margaret 1:08:09 it really would be, yes, I have way better at coming up with things that I can dedicate my entire life to than dedicating my entire life to any of the individual things. Brooke 1:08:22 Oh, maybe, maybe you didn't need to start the cult just to find leaders fo
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Episode Notes Episode summary Andre and Margaret talk about a lot of things. They talk about recycling/reusing/remelting plastics, turning them into fuel, setting up solar power systems, setting up DIY internet, intranets and mesh networks as well as some concepts dealing with solar punk and hydroponics, and of course how most things can be easily analogized to baking a cake. Guest Info Andre can be found at www.anarchosolarpunk.substack.com, or on Twitter @HydroponicTrash or on TikTok @HydroponicTrash. Host Info Margaret Killjoy 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 Andre on Solar Power, DIY Internet, Mesh Networks, and Solar Punk 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, Margaret killjoy. And I use 'she' and 'they' pronouns. And I am very excited about this week's episode, which I guess I probably say, most weeks. But, I'm excited to be talking to Andre, who is someone I first ran across his work because someone was just I think someone sent it to me or was showing me these, these pictures of someone who had 'hydroponic trash' as the user name, and was talking about making off grid internet through mesh networking. And I was like, "Yeah, this is up my alley," but not my alley that I've actually explored. It's a alley that I'm interested in. So I'm very excited. I think you all will be very excited. But first, this podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show in the network. 01:45 Jingle Margaret 02:23 Okay, if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then maybe kind of a little bit about yourself about the kind of stuff that we're going to be talking about today. Like how you got into it or what you do? Andre 02:34 Yeah, for sure. My name is Andre, my pronouns are he/him. I go by Hydroponic Trash on Twitter and Tik Tok. I focus a lot on upcycling things that people would normally kind of regard as like trash, like recycling plastic containers to make indoor vertical hydroponic gardens. I'm a hacker, a gardener, a woodworker, I kind of tend to do a lot of random shit. So. I also write speculative solar punk fiction on combining technology, both low and high tech, with social change, and balancing that with the ecosystem. With that being said, I've been also kind of focusing in on infrastructure, and how people can build passive and active systems to meet their basic needs like food, water, shelter, communications, electricity. Right now, what that kind of looks like is making off grid intranet networks, off grid solar power, and some other passive projects that kind of deal with DIY off grid stuff. Margaret 03:47 Yeah! You basically just listed all of my interests. This very exciting to me. I'm going to ask at the end of the episode as well, but do you want to say where people can find like, say, for example, your speculative fiction, like, I know that you write about a lot of the stuff that you do, and you also write fiction. Where can people find that? Andre 04:03 Yeah, so mainly, I post my long form stuff on anarchosolarpunk.substack.com. So mainly post my like, long form writing on Substack. But, I post a lot of written form content and other stuff to my Twitter, HydroponicTrash and Tik Tok, I posted videos whenever I can make videos about a whole bunch of various different topics or projects that I'm working on. Margaret 04:29 That's cool. Okay, so I was gonna start with off grid internet. But first, I want to ask you about recycling plastic trash, because I'm really excited about ways to...recycling is like fake, right, these days, you know, like market based recycling? It seems like most, I don't have the numbers in front of me or whatever. But it seems like more and more if you put something in the recycling bin, it just gets thrown in the landfill. And so I'm really excited about ways that people can directly recycle. So, what does that look like that you're recycling plastic trash. Is this like melting it down? Or are you just like repurposing it or what's happening? Andre 05:03 So, at the moment, it's mostly repurposing, but I am going to start doing actual plastic recycling by melting it down and making it into other objects. But um, so right now repurposing plastic, it really started when I, like, just saw how many plastic containers there were just out in the world, I've been picking up trash in like my local park for a little bit. So, while picking up trash, it was like, it makes you really, really aware of the type of pollution that's out there in the world, because you're picking it up out of like waterways and in parks and stuff. So. it got me thinking of like, okay, well, plastic to-go containers, for instance, how do we actually like reuse these types of things. So, what I started doing was taking old Tupperware, that was just kind of sitting in my cabinet, sitting in my kitchen. And I drilled holes for it to put in net cups, which are usually used for hydroponics, and I just started growing plants in it. So trying to find some creative and different ways to not only like reuse plastic in a safe manner, but not only to reuse the plastic, but to find a new use for it. So that way, it didn't just end up going into the landfill. And it was also kind of doing something productive as well. Margaret 06:24 Yeah. Yeah, I, I got really excited when I, I people think people might have already heard me talk about this, but I'm really excited about the idea of basically like, setting up mutual aid recycling in the same way that I think that neighborhoods can compost with each other. Like, some of the infrastructure, it seems like is better put at a neighborhood level, like a small community level than like a, you know, an individual level. But I'm curious when you start repurposing it....Okay, so the things that I've come up with for plastic--I haven't done any of these things.This is all just me falling down rabbit holes on YouTube and stuff.--The main things is people taking certain kinds and making DIY 3D printable plastic. Other ones are like literally just melting it down and putting it into forms and molds. And then the one that I'm like, kind of the most excited about, although it's sort of terrible is that apparently you can make diesel fuel out of plastic DIY? I don't know, like, what do you? What are your aspirations? Or what are you thinking on for your DIY recycling? Andre 07:22 So, all of that pretty much entire, all the stuff that you just said, is pretty much what I want to do. So I'll go into some more repurposing stuff and talking about specifically about additive manufacturing and recycling inputs into stuff. So yeah, like, recycling, plastics is a really big thing. So recycling PLA plastic or recycling...there's a whole bunch of plastics that will melt and be able to remelt that you can make in certain different things. And I think that recycling plastics specifically for 3d printing is going to be kind of like the next frontier of additive manufacturing, because not only are you taking plastics...so say, for instance...it's a full cycle...So, we could be not only cleaning up the environment of plastic waste, but using that plastic and re-melting it down and making it into new objects, when otherwise that plastic would have just been floating in some water in a creek or sitting, you know, not deteriorating in a landfill. Margaret 08:29 Yeah. Andre 08:30 And so from there, it kind of opens up a whole new space of thinking about the things that we use and thinking about manufacturing in general, because we're moving away from mining the earth and using natural resources and exploiting the natural resources to make the inputs for the stuff. And instead, mining the trash and mining the stuff that we've that we've thrown away and regarded as trash and mining that. So, I kind of think of it as like a closed loop, circular ecosystem of removing trash from the environment, repurposing it. And then not only that, kind of changing our social relations when it comes to how we deal with objects, changing our conceptions of things of like disposability, changing our conceptions of how we treat objects, and moving away from disposal into like modularity or repurposing stuff. So yeah, I think it's really interesting to think of it in that way of like, instead of making these new things, taking what we've already polluted the earth with and making things out of that. Margaret 09:45 Yeah, no, this is...I'm just gonna basically over and over be like, "Yeah, this is this is my alley. This is the shit that I love." Yeah, one of the things that I notice is that, you know, from living off--I don't currently live off grid, but I've spent a lot of my time living off grid--is you start noticing every single object that comes into your purview, right? Because 'what are you going to do with it at the end?' becomes this very important thing. If you don't have trash pickup, if you don't have a way to just easily make the thing go away, then you have to be like, "Okay, I'm going to compost this, I'm going to, you know, compost that." I was just thinking of cardboard. And I was like, "Oh, I used to burn all my cardboard, but I'm gonna try and move to composting it," you know. And, you know, just like thinking, "Okay, I'm responsible for all of these objects, I've chosen to caretake." And this isn't me trying to be like, "Oh, recycling is gonna save the world," or whatever, because it's like, but for me, it's more about when we think about when we start thinking of small scale systems, based on all of the things involved, I think that puts us in a better position to imagine better futures. Because we actually have to think to ourselves like, "Well, if I don't want, if I want to use plastic, what the fuck am I going to do with it afterwards?" And I mean, I don't actually particularly, I used to sort of hate plastic. And now I'm kind of like now that I think of mining the trash for plastic. I sort of like it, you know? Andre 11:05 Yeah, I could talk more about turning plastic into fuel. Margaret 11:09 Yeah, please, do I only know the like YouTube level of it. Andre 11:15 Yeah, so another part of that is...okay, so, even if we were to say, for instance, like in the future, get everything that we wanted, have the big 'R' Revolution, you know, have the utopic vision that we have come to fruition, there's still going to be the problem of trash, there's still going to be the problem of yeah, like, what do we do with plastic, even after it's like, use has kind of gone through, and we can't reuse anymore? Like, what do we do with it?Like, another option of that, too, is using the plastic as a fuel source. So you can do stuff like pyrolysis, where basically, you're heating up plastic, condensing that, and basically making it back into a form of burnable fuel. And like, you know, personally, I absolutely hate combustible fuels, obviously, for their, for their, their impact to the environment. But then again, there are a lot of things that are absolutely necessary to run. So say for instance, you know, if we are using renewables only to power things, one issue is, say, for instance, solar, if you don't get a lot of sunlight, you don't get power, pretty much. And you could supplement that with other, you know, renewable energies. But there might be times especially in say, like a natural disaster, when like, you absolutely need power to power like medical equipment to power to power hospitals, or to power equipment that we need up and running. And so that would be a time when, like, using these fuels would really make a lot of sense. On the flip side of that, too, talking about like fuel and stuff like that, there's also making hydrogen fuel using electrolysis. So, using electricity, to basically separate the hydrogen from water, and then using that hydrogen as a fuel. So, that's another, you know, way of approaching it and way of approaching energy, not thinking of extracting it from the earth, but trying to figure out new ways and different ways of finding energy that's really all around us. Margaret 13:34 Yeah, my, my favorite, I looked into it at the last place I lived because was on enough of a hill, I got really into storing electrical power through gravity. You know, like, you could do this thing where I've seen people do it where you like, you set up...okay, you set up a water...a rain barrel at the bottom of your house. And then you also set up a rain barrel at the top of your house. And you use your solar while it's running, instead of to power a lithium battery, which is obviously not a renewable resource, you know, which is the thing that people often forget. Well, I mean, whatever, it's better than some things. But, you know, the battery storage is one of the weakest parts of off-grid power, right? And so you put your rain barrel at the top of your house, and then while there's power, you pump the water up to the roof. And then when there's not power coming through the solar, then the, the rainwater comes back down and it charges...like I mean this charges like a cell phone, this is not a you know, but people are talking about doing it on these industrial scales where you can do it like water towers, you can do it, you know, dammed areas, whatever.. I'm not presenting it as like the perfect solution, but just like interesting to me that there's all of these different ways that we can store power that we don't traditionally think of. I don't know. Andre 14:54 Yeah, exactly. And it's one of those things where like, it isn't necessarily profitable too, to do stuff like that. So it just isn't being done right now. But if we were to look at living in a post capitalist world, obviously, we want to pick solutions and pick things that not only like are detrimental socially, but not detrimental ecologically as well. So like stuff like that is just so perfect in taking the energy that we have just all around us and using it in responsible ways. So yeah, Margaret 15:29 Okay, so this isn't even what we were going to talk about today. I just got really excited about that. The the main thing I wanted to talk to you about today is, is off-grid internet is mesh networking is DIY internet. And I'm wondering if you could explain what that kind of concept is? Andre 15:45 Yeah, for sure. So I'll kind of go into a little bit of background on like, why, or what really got me started in thinking on this train of thought. So like, I live in Texas. And living in Texas has made me very aware of kind of the crumbling infrastructure in this country. Margaret 16:06 Whaaat?! [Sarcastically] Andre 16:07 Yeah, I know, "What?" a private grid run by a corporation that seems to fail, even though there's no regulation, "What?Oh." And a big wake up call was winter storm Yuri, which like completely, absolutely fucked up Texas. It was a week long ice storm with snow. And, it just like completely destroyed the homes of just thousands of people. Thousands of people lost their lives because of the storm. And it just kind of pointed out the fact that ERCOT's mismanagement of the power grid and the effects of that were just like, really big. So, it kind of got me thinking of ways to do communication and electricity, that didn't rely on the crumbling infrastructure around me. So, after thinking about that kind of got me thinking about emergencies and building resilient systems, and communication was like really, really up there. Especially when it comes to communications during natural disasters. There's, you know, there's obviously Ham radio and handheld radios that people use during natural disasters. But, when it comes to actually sharing information, say, for instance, sharing books, sharing videos, communicating with a massive amount of people that doesn't require specialized equipment, like radios, that's a whole nother realm, you know. So, that's what kind of got me thinking about making an emergency like community internet was so that way people in my neighborhood could have access to like, a chat server ebooks with like info on surviving different natural disasters, a media server to stream videos, either for educational content, or for just like, if the power's out, you're bred you know, you have nothing to do, sooo. And music is another big thing. Margaret 18:08 That was one of the things that before, before Covid, I was like, running around doing all my preparedness stuff. And I went out and got a hard drive and filled it with movies that I obtained legally. And I was kind of even as I was doing it. I was like, "What the hell disaster am I going to be in? What version of the apocalypse has me like bored watching movies?" And then COVID hit. And I like, and I was off grid, and I like, didn't have good internet, you know? And I was like, "Oh, this, this is the crisis for which I prepared." And, you know, whatever public domain television shows got me through, got me through the worst of it. Anyway, I didn't mean to completely derail you, please continue. Andre 18:54 No, no, no, that's completely on topic, you know, especially because like, these kinds of systems allow people to communicate without needing to be face to face. And so what a lot of people don't like think about are people who are immunodeficient who can't like, go face to face in front of people or people with disabilities who it would be harder for them to physically go out and get a radio from somebody and start using it. So, you know, resilient systems that like keep everybody in mind that can access it like really big. But yeah, like COVID was a perfect...not really perfect, but you know, it definitely pointed out some some, some stuff that maybe we were all thinking about, but didn't really want to think about, but...So, from thinking about all this stuff, what I kind of landed on was making a solar powered internet with like a Raspberry Pi as the server that ran all the services and a Raspberry Pi is a single board, like small computer that runs off of USB power. So it requires really, very little power. But, from there, you know, it's fine to have your own small kind of like local network. But, I really wanted to come up with ways to try and expand that network. So, basically make like beacons to connect back to the main network to spread out the signal. Margaret 20:25 Cool. Andre 20:27 So, in a way, this kind of started off as just like a small off-grid, solar powered system. But, now it's kind of grown out to be more of almost like a community wide Internet where like, we can add more routers to the network and spread the connections out from there. Margaret 20:44 How...How do? [Pause] How does that happen? Like, like are thre resources that, you know...how complicated is it? How expensive? Is it? How...it seems like it's scalable, so you can kind of up the complexity and the expense as you want? But yeah, what's involved? Andre 21:04 So I, when I wrote the article, and like, was thinking about this, I really wanted to start from like the bare minimum, and try and convey the bare minimum of information that somebody would need to do this. So, starting off, I wanted to make sure to use things that were first of all easy to find, second of all, easy to work on, like the average person with some technical skills could pick it up and like, know what to do with it, and wasn't something super proprietary, where maybe only a handful of people in a city would even know how to work it. So, it has to be, you know, easily picked up by your average person. So, that's kind of where I wanted to start from was using the most basic hardware, the most basic software, and from there, you can build up to it. So, for example, like in the article that I wrote, that kind of goes by like step by step on how to make it, it's more of like a recipe book almost. So, breaking it down into like, its fundamental parts, with core ingredients to make it what it is. So like, you know, a cake has core ingredients that you know, make it a cake, but you can add and subtract on top of it to make it work for whatever you need it to work for. Margaret 22:34 Well other people can. Andre 22:35 True Margaret 22:38 Whenever I try to make a cake...I can make muffins and brownies. Anyways I'm that useful wit cakes yet. Andre 22:49 Well, yeah, as long as you can find somebody to make it. That's the biggest thing. Yeah. Margaret 22:54 Okay, what are some of those core ingredients? Andre 22:57 So, the core ingredients are basically a client, a router, and a server. So, that's pretty much it, which sounds really really reductive. But, when you boil it down, and kind of like, look at the core concept, that's the three things you have. So, a client is a computer. Really, any computer. A router determines like what addresses computers in the network have, and it directs traffic. And a server is basically another computer that hosts the data for your clients to access. So. I'll kind of walk through some of that stuff, too. So, like I said, A client can be really like literally any computer, it could be like a brand new MacBook, it could be a single board computer, like a Raspberry Pi, you could even use like a smart fridge to do this. It can literally be anything that...it can literally be any computer that can access the internet, you can use as a client to go onto the network, right? Yeah. And so next you have routers, which are basically like little boxes that can direct traffic and determine like, what addresses computers on the network have. So think of it as like mailing addresses almost. So, if I wanted to send information to somebody down the street, I would have an address and they would have an address, and the router is basically like a mailman who delivers that information from me to the address that I wanted to send it off to. And I'm obviously kind of like making this way more simpler than what it is, because in reality there's like so many networking things in the middle that makes this happen but routers basically do that. Margaret 24:44 Okay, can this router in this case be like, like I have a router right now I believe that is connecting between my modem and my computer or something, right? Can Can. It sounds like this router is the most custom piece of this whole puzzle or is it something that you can also repurpose out of an existing like Wi-Fi router or something? Andre 25:06 You can repurpose it out of any Wi-Fi router, which is awesome. Margaret 25:10 Hell yeah, cause it's in every house. Andre 25:12 It's in every house. Every house has internet access, you have a router. All you have to do is change the networking settings to be able to basically connect back to whatever network you make. So, it doesn't require you to go out and buy something. You probably already have it in your house already. Margaret 25:29 Yeah. Okay. I mean, you probably have to destroy the one you have, or you have to reprogram the one you're having you have so you wouldn't be able to use it and your regular internet? Andre 25:42 Excatly. Margaret 25:43 Yeah, you would need to go find one in an abandoned house. Andre 25:45 Yeah. Margaret 25:45 Okay. Cool. Andre 25:49 You could, you could. Yeah, I mean, like internet squatting is a, I guess, a new thing now so.... But the last kind of part of that is the server. And that's like, again, really any computer that's running software to share data. So, with those three pieces, a client, a router, and server, if you scale that up like a million times and add in fiber optic cables from the bottom of the ocean to connect routers and to data centers together, and then boom, you have the 'Internet,' right? So, like network engineers are probably going to be listening to this and be really mad about what I'm saying. But, the internet is basically just a giant combination of intranets. It's a big intranet that's been connected to other intranets, through a bunch of other networking equipment, protocols, datacenters, all that kind of stuff. Margaret 26:43 An an intranet is a is an internet, but a local one, a one that exists within like a building or a neighborhood or something is an intranet. It's a network that is not part of the larger internet. I mean, it can be part of that. You can access it from the larger internet, but it's sort of walled off. Is that a decent way to explain intranet? Andre 27:03 Yeah, exactly. So, if you add your client, a router and a server, you basically made an intranet right there because it isn't connected back to the major, actual internet. But, that's what the Internet is. It's this gigantic intranet. So, it kind of takes a lot of the black box magic out of the Internet, because really, you're just distilling it down to these core pieces and understanding, "Okay, well, if I can do this at like a super small level, and I spread this out, we really could create, you know, a local, a regional, or even a gigantic people own Internet with our own hardware." Margaret 27:48 So, basically, if we build this entire shadow internet...Are there other people who have done this? Are there already existing like large networked intranets all networked together? Do they control like, the giant space laser or whatever? Like? I mean, what are the? Yeah, how much is this already done? Andre 28:08 Yeah, so not exactly when it comes to like making it almost like an alternative internet, it's mainly done to actually provide internet access to people who can get it. So, a good example of that is NYC Mesh. And they're are a group in New York City who basically are doing this exact same thing. They're making an a mesh network to broadcast out a Wi Fi signal. And then they have nodes that pick up that Wi Fi signal and keep basically building out the range that the network can can hit. So, what they're doing is finding areas that internet service providers won't bring in the necessary equipment to give people internet access, or people who can't afford internet access. And so, they're basically making these mesh networks to get the Wi Fi coverage over to the people who need it. So, we can do basically the same thing with a system like this. So, you can make a network like this that works in tandem with the Internet. So say for instance, if power or Internet access gets shut off, for whatever reason, you have a backup, basically like community internet. But, you can also connect, say, for instance, like your main router that you're kind of using to run the network or just any router on the network, connect that to the internet, and then you can share Internet access across the secondary internet. So, basically, you can make a mesh intranet network, and you can have it walled off from the wider internet and still have it work without electricity. grid electricity and without internet access, but when you have electricity and internet access, you can actually supply Internet access to the network and give other people access to the internet. So, it kind of serves two purposes too so that way, it's not just like, "Oh, this is only in an emergency network." But also, you know, there's some resilience resiliency built into it. Margaret 30:25 That's cool. I like that it has a purpose, sort of during crisis, and also even just like during the crisis that is, you know, poverty and lack of access and stuff like that. The other thing that I like about this, I mean, it's funny, I don't like it personally, because I live rurally, but, but one of the things that comes up is that so much of the prepping stuff that gets talked about, especially under the name 'prepping,' rather than 'preparedness' focuses on rural folks, right? It focuses on access to, if not financial resources, it often focuses on access to space, like physical space to store things, or even kind of what you can do with low population density. Right? It's a lot easier for someone to have five acres here in West Virginia than it is for some of the five acres in the Bay Area or something, right. And the thing, that's kind of interesting, because you're pointed out that the you know, a lot of this work, people have been doing it New York City, and I'm like, h, it the higher population density you have like, the more bang for your buck, it seems like this kind of thing would have. And that's cool, because I think that we way too often think of high population density as like, 'bad.' Whereas actually, in terms of like, efficiency of living, in terms of even like small ecological footprint, higher population densities can be really fucking good. So, I like that. For my for myself, I'm like, oh, well if I set it up, it would just be on my like, you know, like, where I live with some people or whatever and it would just be the like, "Well, if the power goes down, you can access the the movie server and the off-grid, Wikipedia," or the, you know, I do a download of Wikipedia every, whenever I remember, it's usually about once a year as like part of my preping is I do the download of Wikipedia or whatever. Without the images. I don't have enough money to pay for that kind of terabytes of data for the images. But yeah, I don't know, the larger. I don't know, I'm just getting lost thinking about the possibilities of something like this. What distinguishes a mesh network from just a simple intranet? Is a mesh network, because it's all wireless. Like what what makes it a mesh network? Andre 32:32 Yeah, so mesh network differentiates itself because you're basically able to connect networking equipment back to each other. So, you can do a mesh network, a quote unquote, 'mesh network' with like, hard wired Ethernet cable, but really what network mesh networks do is use certain protocols to connect routers or network equipment together. So, in this case, what we're doing connecting our main router to our beacon that will, you know, propagate that network is using a protocol called WDS, which is called 'wireless distribution system.' And basically, what that lets you do is it lets you connect other routers, as if they were connected with an ethernet cord together, but it's completely wireless. So, you can get another router, turn on WDS, join in the network, and then this new router that joins in becomes a beacon and extends the range of the network. Margaret 33:37 Okay. So, you don't have to, you don't have to as the alternative internet engineer, you don't have to walk around and physically set up each and every beacon. It's a it's a thing where basically people by joining are making the network better? Andre 33:53 Exactly.. As long as they can get power. Anybody can turn their home router, and either use WDS to connect their routers together, or basically putting the routers into what's called AP mode or basically making it an-- 34:12 An 'access point.' [Not getting the joke] Yeah. Margaret 34:12 [Interuptting] Advance Placement. Margaret 34:15 No, I was lying. Sorry, I was trying to make a bad joke. Andre 34:21 See, I'm not smart enough to have taken an AP classses High School. Yeah, I my terrible ADHD like stopped me from going into AP classes. So. Margaret 34:32 Yeah, fair enough. I took AP English. Did not did not pass it to the college level. In my defense, the only they only taught, they only taught books written by men in my AP English class. I think all white men. Now there might have been I feel like.... Andre 34:54 Yeah, what English class isn't just full of just like old white dudes? Margaret 34:58 Yeah. Although actually, it was before....This is just completely tangential. English class is how I like learned about like Langston Hughes and stuff in 10th grade and like, so that was good. That's all I remember. Andre 35:14 My introduction to de-schooling was actually through an English teacher. So I guess, yeah, English teachers, English classes, thumbs up, you know? Margaret 35:25 Yeah, Totally. Many of them, many of them. Okay, so before we started thinking about our English teachers, okay, you mentioned that if you have power, right? But and I'm I'm under the impression, a lot of what you've also done is work on trying to figure out how to make sure that people within this network would have access to power during a crisis or whatever. What does that look like? Andre 35:54 Yeah, so I mean, obviously, we can't run electronics without power. So trying to think about, what are some ways that we can generate power locally, and be able to supply power to people who need it. So, getting into talking about power kind of connects it to other areas of infrastructure to, and all those other areas of infrastructure connect into building mutual aid networks, but so we'll start with power first. So, with powering nodes, basically, what we're talking about here is creating almost like micro, community micro grids using solar. So, basically making like small power stations that use solar energy to charge batteries and supply power to your neighbors. And so, this can turn into a form of mutual aid, right? So if we're making these small scale solar power stations that we can attach to like dollies, or attach to wood and like, roll them out when need be. Now we're talking about giving people the autonomy and giving people the tools to make their own power and help each other survive in a way that's beneficial to everybody in the community. But also is helping to power, you know, the devices that will connect back to the network, the network itself, but also help power medical devices and stuff like that, that you know, people need to survive and live off of. So, talking about making community micro grids, we'll start from like, the small scale and then start building up, because again, like, all of this is modular and able to scale with however many resources you have, or however big you need it to be. But, the key part is to understand that like at every level, it's the same idea, just with, you know, some parts switched out. So. And there's also two, there's also different kinds of solar power, too. There's solar photovoltaics using like traditional solar panels is what we think of, but also passive solar as well, because there's energy, you know, the sun is fucking hot. The sun rays have a lot of energy. So, there's other ways to produce energy and talk about that sort of stuff. So, there's high tech and low tech, solar, but we'll start in and start small with small scale, kind of micro community micro grids. Right? So by solar in this case, I'm talking about photovoltaic cells to generate electricity from the sun. So you can make stuff like this, or you can buy like premade systems to kind of cut down on the amount of work that you need to do, but there are some like major downsides to getting like a premade solar system kind of like an all in one package, because most of the parts are proprietary. So, in the middle of an emergency, you're not going to be able to like mail your solar charge station if the power plug breaks. So, a DIY method allows you to kind of have modular off the shelf parts that if something breaks, you can easily fix it. And all of these parts are easy to find too. So once I start talking about the parts that are involved with it, you can think of a whole bunch of places where you can find this stuff that's just sitting out there. Margaret 39:32 Just by the side of the road. Andre 39:35 Yeah, honestly Like literally, I found solar panels in the middle of forests, just kind of like smashed solar panels in the middle of a forest before so like yes search on the side of the roads. You could find some cool shit. Margaret 39:52 Yeah. Andre 39:53 But yeah, so like when you start talking about solar power and solar power generation it's really daunting, because like what we're used to is seeing solar panels on roofs, or electricians installing this stuff. But, really, it's really simple once you break it down into the core ingredients, just like before, just like making a cake, once you know the core ingredients, you can scale things up, add, subtract to whatever you need, to whatever scale you need. So. Margaret 40:21 Yeah, that you have to like...you do when you scale solar power...I don't know that much about mesh networking. But I've installed a bunch of different solar systems and lived off solar systems of different types. And, it's a really good point about the modularity that can pull pieces out and put them back in. But, it's annoying that every time you're like, Oh, I'm going to go from 400 watts of solar power to 800 watts of solar power. Now, I need to change out every piece of the entire thing. Because it's, it's like baking, if in order to double the ingredients. You also had to like, buy a different bowl and spoons, you know? Andre 40:58 Exactly, exactly. You're like these look exactly the same, but like I have to pay like an extra $500 For this one that can handle like, oh, a little bit more power. What the hell? Margaret 41:07 Yeah. Yeah. And it is it is more like baking than than cooking. You know? it's...because it is very like, "Okay, do this. Exactly. And it'll be great and safe and right." Andre 41:24 Yeah, add these ingredients in together in a safe way, and you'll be good. Margaret 41:30 Yeah, exactly. Which is not to try and scare people off of it, it really can be done safely. Like, I didn't know shit about electricity when I first started doing this, I, when I first installed my first 12 volt battery, I was like terrified of it. You know, I was like putting the cables on it. And I was afraid it was gonna like shock me and my friend just like went up and grabbed both terminals and was like, "It's fine. It's 12 volts." And like, and then he was immediately like, "But if you dropped a wrench and connected the two poles, then you might die. But..." Most use case scenario....anyway. Sorry, I have a lot of I have a lot of thoughts about solar. But please, please continue. I'm sorry. Andre 42:13 No, no, no, no. But like, yeah, like you just said, with anything to do with solar power, obviously, there's gonna be some safety things to keep in mind. But, you know, if you practice basic electrical safety, you can make these systems pretty well, at least at a small scale. Once you're talking about like, multiple megawatts of power generation, then we're talking about kind of things that are kind of outside of this. But, for small scale, like, say, for instance, right now I have 400 watt solar panels charging a battery bank right now, like that's easy to handle for most people. And for producing power for, say, for instance, like a couple of different families at different houses or different apartments, that, that that'll work. It sounds small, but like 400 watts of solar power, and like a decent amount of storage will get you really far, especially in emergencies when you're only powering a couple things at a time, but. Margaret 43:15 It's not going to run your AC. And it's not going to run your electric heater. And it probably it's not gonna run your fridge. But, it'll run a tiny electric cooler, it'll keep your phone's charged, it'll keep the lights on, it'll keep a fan going. Especially if it's not...box fans use an ungodly amount of power. I mean, that said, I did keep a fan going on 400 Watts, 24 hours a day for like a year once. So, you know, Andre 43:41 Yeah, I can't be done. But like, okay, so in terms of like the core ingredients of a solar system, you've got really basically four parts, you've got your solar panels, a charge controller, batteries for storage, and an inverter if you're going to be doing specific stuff. So, adding those four things together, you can make either like a super small system more, say for instance, like you're talking about earlier, running some pretty basic household appliances. But you can also change all this stuff to fit the needs that you have. So, using this as an example, for like a really, really micro community micro grid, we could basically take like furniture dollies, tie some wood to it, put a charge controller, a battery, or two, strap it on to that, and an inverter, and then attach those to a solar panel, and then basically what you're doing is just generating power on a really small scale. And then, say for instance, you want to make a bigger one well, get more solar panels, add a different charge controller, add more batteries in series to your battery bank, and add a bigger inverter, and then you could power refrigerators and AC units and stuff like that at a bigger scale. But, the key is just knowing kind of the core parts to it. I go through step-by-step on an article on my Substack called "DIY Off Grid Solar Primer." And it kind of walks through like all of the steps that you go through to make either a really small solar system or a pretty big one, that'll power a lot of things. And so it's kind of like, it's one of those things where it's, it's like a black box, and not a lot of people really, like understand the stuff that goes behind it. And not a lot of people understand that it's not that crazy to do this type of stuff. Margaret 45:53 Yeah, I guess that is the...you know, when I, I don't know, the fact that this is actually doable, like, from, you know, I won't do...I'm not going to do a house level install. I'm not going to do grid tied solar myself. I feel like, that reaches a level where, I mean, you're actually putting the safety of the like, the electrical workers at risk if you do grid tie stuff, right? So, I understand the need for people with specialty training for that. But yeah, the the actually doable part, I think, is just what people...what I want more people to understand. Andre 46:34 Yeah, because there's so much information out there that just seems so out of reach for most people. But it's really enriched, it's just the fact of like, knowing what to do, knowing, even knowing what you don't know, is like the key to really getting started with it. Margaret 46:49 Yeah, but I will say though, in defense of the, the all-in-one boxes, I've used both, and I've like talked with a lot of people who are living off grid about which is better in which circumstance. And for people who are like, "I live in this cabin, I want my life in here to be good," Build it yourself, or work with a friend who knows what they're doing, but get the actual pieces and build it modularly. But, for people who are kind of like, "This is my truck camper, I sleep in two months of the year," and like, or, "This is my cabin for now. But I kind of don't really see myself being living here in a year," you know, or "I have a really limited budget, and I just need to get my cell phone charged." There's like, there's, I think there's purposes for the all-in-one boxes there in that you just don't have to fuck with it. It's like it takes less specialization, like one of the one of the infrastructures I've lived with...sorry, there's very few topics I get to like be I get to be really excited about and have like more like some experience on compared to, you know, when I talk to someone about. But, one of the ways that I had it going at one point was like I built a solar power setup, and I built it modularly partly actually, because I didn't have enough money to go out and get the size of box I wanted. On the other hand, in the end, I probably paid more for my system,because I kept upgrading it, because I kept being like...but you can kind of you can kind of do it. 100 bucks here, 100 bucks there as compared to going out and buying this $1,200 all-in-one box or $400 all-in-one box. They come in all different sizes. And, what I found that most people didn't bother with was using the all-in-one boxes hooked up to solar panels. What I found, what we ended up doing was, you know, the the barn on the property with the solar setup that I built, everyone would just bring their boxes over and charge them. You know, and so it's not a very proper way to do a grid. But, in some ways, that's how we did our grid is that there was like a central charging station and everyone would bring their boxes and then go plug their boxes back into their shacks or whatever, you know, Andre 48:58 That's really cool. Because like, I mean, that technically is a grid, because I mean, you're transferring power from one generation into, you know, a place where you're actually going to use it. So like, but people don't consider that a grid only because, you know, it's just kind of so used to just like, oh, the grid is just the shit on the lines that just exists. Yeah, but like there's so many other ways to think about it. Margaret 49:23 Yeah, I had another friend who, another off grid project I know of, a friend of mine has a cart, a trailer pulled behind a car, very light, one very small, one size of a teardrop or smaller and it's just full of old iron, lithium, whatever the cheap old batteries, the car batteries. And well they're AGM. They're just not lithium ion. And we just drive them into town like once a week. Just attach it to the car, drive it into town. Charge it at the Anarchist social center in town. And then drive it back out. And then power everything on the land project for like a week or whatever with these, you know, big battery banks. Andre 50:10 Yeah, I mean, that's that's definitely one way to do it. Like I did the same kind of thing where like, I was running a whole bunch of stuff off of this, like little RYOBI portable inverter thing for like my power tools, and like just charge the, the, the batteries and then just like take the batteries with me and then use it like that. So like yeah, it's same concept. Margaret 50:37 Yeah, I use my battery tool batteries as my cell phone charger for a long time before I got all the solar stuff set up. Yeah. Andre 50:45 It works. You have power. So, that like ultimately, that's what it comes down to is like figuring out ways to take energy, store it and then transport it somewhere else where somebody else can use it. So like, who cares if you're using like, a drill battery attached to a little inverter to power the router for the network? It's still powering it. So there you go. Margaret 51:08 That's cool. That just makes it cooler. Because then also anyone could just take it and charge it on it. You know, like everyone has a charger for that thing. Well, then you can have the Ryobi versus DeWalt class war, but the person with the Makita will chime in and be like, "No!" Andre 51:31 But yes, so I mean, like, so we've gone from making like small internets into making a larger mesh network. I also want to like, I also wanted to run back and talk about what you brought up earlier, when it came to the differences between kind of urban and suburban areas and doing this in rural areas, or areas that might not like be as accessible. So, when it comes to rural areas, you can do the same thing. So making this mesh network. The biggest thing is going to be actually getting that signal out. So, then we're talking about like, kind of more high powered antennas, and talking about, like, how to broadcast signals, like a far distance. And there's some interesting stuff out there. So, I saw this guy on YouTube who made a giant parabola, and made it out of wood and chicken wire, and then put a Wi-Fi card in the middle of that parabola. So, you know, like the curve, almost like a satellite dish, but made out of chicken wire. And, he was able to broadcast Wi-Fi through the jungle for about six miles, just just using chicken wire in a parabola shape. And, you know, a simple like off the shelf network card. So like, line of sight, with some really simple DIY shit like that, like making parabolas out of chicken wire, or even using old satellite dishes to bounce that signal off, And at least get it over to maybe if you, you know, have a neighbor six miles away from you, then they could be the next node in the network. And they could just bounce signal around there. So like, in mountainous regions, it's really hard to get internet access. Margaret 53:37 I'm Aware. Andre 53:42 Mainly because, you know, internet service providers are, you know, they don't think it's profitable to spend the money for the infrastructure to bring it out there. But, it's also really hard to do it period. So, in that case, you know, you could set up a mesh network with your own DIY antennas to basically like bounce up and down mountainsides to supply internet access to other people. So, it works not just from like urban suburban areas, but also rural areas, but it just requires a, again, like a different, like thought process behind it. Margaret 54:17 Right, but out here, it would be more possible for me to like, you know, talk to the person who does own the next ridge over and be like, "Hey, can I put up like this old satellite dish and some solar panels on your property, you get free internet, and so does everyone on the other side of the hill," you know? I mean, presuming the friendliness of the person who has the...owns the top of the mountain or whatever, but no, that's okay. Yeah. Andre 54:48 And that can be a really good intro point to establish a mutual aid networks in rural areas, because it's really hard especially like in In rural areas to like, talk to your neighbors if your neighbors are like six miles away, but if you come to the people and say like, "Hey, we can mutually benefit each other," in a way that like, you know, they can completely understand and like be on board with, then you have, then you're talking to your neighbors, even though your neighbors live like super far away from you. So yeah, it's a really good in to like starting to build relationships locally. Margaret 55:29 Yeah. No, that's interesting. So one of the things that you talked about, you mentioned earlier about how this all ties into general infrastructure and how infrastructure as a way to build mutual aid networks, is that something that, you know, basically, because most of what I've talked to people about mutual aid networks, which is incredibly valuable, but a lot of mutual aid networks are around community health, or food access, or, you know, defense against sweeps of encampments of people who are living out. And, you know, the idea of like, providing internet and power it obviously makes sense, as part of it, it's just part that doesn't get talked about as much because I think it probably more of my friends know how to cook than know how to program routers, you know, although then again, 10 years ago, it was probably the opposite. Well, when I was a teenager was definitely the opposite. But yeah, so I'm curious if you have thoughts about sort of general infrastructure, how this ties into infrastructure, mutual aid networks. Andre 56:32 Yeah. So, when we were talking about like, hierarchical, well, we talked about like, systems like capitalism, hierarchical systems, states, the way that they cement power is basically by controlling our access to like our basic needs. So, if we can build our own infrastructures, either both like within the system, but also alongside and out of the system, then we can much more easily separate from capitalist and hierarchical systems, and create our own networks, and our own infrastructure in our own worlds alongside of things. So, that kind of touches into, you know, ideas of building dual power of like building the systems that we want to use and building the world that we want to see now, not just working within capitalism, sometimes you'll have to say for like legal issues and stuff like that, but building systems that work outside of capitalist and hierarchical systems. So, taking back control of the infrastructures that really rule our lives. So like, the infrastructures that can underlie everything that we do, you know, we kind of have the main, the big three, food, water shelter. But, I'd include a couple more things in there just because like, you know, our modern times things have like changed, technology has changed. On top of that, I put communications, so that would include like stuff like radio and Internet, electricity, which includes things like air conditioning and a lot of regions that like you will literally die without air conditioning, and care work as the kind of like main parts of infrastructure Margaret 58:38 That, that tracks. And those do seem to be...I mean, those are the things that we kind of focus on with mutual aid with this special edition of communication and power. I'm into it. Andre 58:58 But like, so, I'll go into a scenario of how building community micro grids and building communication networks can like, tie back into mutual aid efforts and like other revolutionary things, so you know, starting out, you decided to do this, you get a foldable solar panel, you use that to make your own small network with your server, you get a Raspberry Pi or like an old laptop and use that as a server. And then use an old router that you have or your the router that you have in your house right now. To just start, to start the network. And from there, you're like, Okay, well, let me you know, if I want to build this network out, then I'll start making small micro community micro grids to share with my neighbors. So, let's say if you live in an apartment building, then you're like, Okay, I'll go to the people in my apartment building, make one of these things, you know, make one of these, like solar power carts or something. And then just like talk to my neighbors and say like, "Hey, would this be valuable to us?" And so then like, you're starting to provide, basically free electricity to your neighbors. And by doing that, you know, you're starting to build relationships, starting to talk to people, and with talking to people, and kind of showing people what can be done with just like solidarity and working together, then, you know, you start talking some more and some more. And let's say like, you, through these relationships that you have with the people in your apartment building, you're like, "Okay, well, what if we like formed a tenant's union? I don't know, that might be a good idea?" And in trying to form that, you'll need some ways of communicating that's going to be secure. So, you can either meet in person, but not everybody is going to be able to meet in person. So, how do we make secure communications with each other to do stuff like organizing tenant unions are organizing unions within our workplaces. And so, you can do stuff like this, where you're making the services, the infrastructure available to people to be able to talk to each other in secure ways. So you could on your server, put up like encrypted messaging, and then use that as a method of organizing the tenants union or whatever, you know, use that as a method of organizing. So, you're going from like, starting out with just kind of like wanting to build your own solar power stuff into now you're talking to your neighbors, and now you're organizing stuff. And this kind of snowballs. As you add on to it, as you talk to more people as things kind of, like, move along, there's a snowball effect and to just like, being able to make the infrastructure for things to happen. And like that's the big thing. Margaret 1:02:09 I like it. I am sold. I...there's that joke, "I would like to subscribe to your newsletter..." But in this case, people should subscribe to your newsletter, or Substack or whatever. Okay, well, we're kind of coming up on time. There's a lot of stuff that I want to talk to you about that we didn't even get into about you know hydroponics. It's what's in your username, and I want to turn my basement into a place that produces food, 24 hours, or 12 months, a year, whatever. You know, I live in a climate with a real winter. And I'd like to be able to still have fresh vegetables and hydroponics seem cool. But that's not what we're going to talk about today. But, that might be what I bug you about sometime in the near future. Is there any kind of final thoughts on the stuff that we've been talking about today that you want to bring up? Andre 1:02:50 Yeah, I mean, I guess ultimately, it just comes down to if there are things out there that you want to do, try and figure out like, the core concepts and build on that. And just like just fucking try it. Like there's, there's so many things like all this, like building this off grid, internet building, off grid power systems was all just kind of like, I want to do it. I'll try and find the information and condense it for other people to use and they can build it themselves too. But like, that was the key was just like, fuck it. Let me just get started and try it. So, it's the same thing with like mutual aid networks. It's like if there isn't one around you, fuck it, try building it. Margaret 1:03:31 Yeah, totally. No, that's so good. That is...Yeah. The secret is to really begin. I can't remember what this from, some insurrectionist tract, but I really like it. You know, just the like, well we actually just got to do it. We you know, like, I don't know, I feel like I would have more clever way to say that, but I don't Andre 1:03:54 No. That was good. Margaret 1:03:57 All right. Well, if people want to subscribe to your newsletter, or follow you on the internet, how should they go about it? Andre 1:04:03 Yeah, you can find me on Substack. It's anarchosolarpunk.substack.com. And then I'm active also on Twitter and Tik Tok at 'hydroponictrash.' Margaret 1:04:18 Cool. Yeah, we didn't even talk about solar punk. That was like on the list of things that we should talk about. We will talk again soon, I assume and people will get to hear from you again. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Andre 1:04:30 Awesome. Thanks for having me. Inmn 1:04:37 Hi, I am not Margaret. But, I am here to thank you for listening, because Margaret forgot to record an outro, which is short for our introduction, in case anyone was wondering. Okay, I stole that joke from Margaret. Sort of. So now it's kind of like you're getting her. I'm Inmn, and I do some of the behind the scenes work for Live Like The World is Dying, to make sure that it comes out every two weeks. If you enjoyed this podcast, please go tell someone about it and rate and review and like and subscribe or, you know, whatever the algorithm calls for, feed it like a hungry God. You could also post about it or tell people in person. It's the main way that people hear about the show and honestly one of the best ways to support it. 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Try anarchism for life by Cindy Barukh Milstein, a thrilling exploration of art and social relationships and worlds soon to emerge, featuring amazing art by 25 incredible artists. Look for it on our website, and also look for Milstein on the Strangers podcast as the September featured zine. A dear friend of the Strangers Collective also has a book out for preorder right now. Nourishing Resistance: stories of food, protest, and mutual aid, edited by Wren Awry along with a foreword by Cindy Milstein. The preorder is currently live at PMpress.org. So please go check it out. Wrenis an incredible writer, editor and archivist. As you heard on our last episode of Live Like The World Is Dying, we are about to start playtesting or TTRPG. Penumbra City. Listen to the last episode on composting to hear more. And check out the next episode of the Strangers podcast where I talk to Margaret and Robin about the game after we listen to Margaret's new short story, "Welcome to Penumbra City: part one." Find it wherever you get podcasts on August 31st. One last shameless plug: By the time this episode airs, we should have t shirts live on the Strangers website. You can get both a Strangers' t shirt and a Live Like The World Is Dying shirt. Both have art created by our art director Robin Savage, and we're printed by the CREAM print shop and our seriously soft, cozy, and beautiful. That's all my plugs. Except for a very special plug. A shout out to these wonderful people who have helped make this podcast as well as so many other projects possible. Shawn, SJ, Paige, Oxalis, Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Natalie, Kirk, Michaiah, Sam, Chris, and Hoss the dog. And here's a special thank you to Bursts, our audio editor who has an incredible anarchist new show called The Final Straw, which is also on the Channel Zero Network. Thanks so much for your support. It means so much to us and us has allowed us to get so much done as a collective. 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Episode Notes Episode summary Margaret talks with Paige, who works in composting and humanure systems, about how to set up systems for disposing of food and human waste, different kind of systems that can be used including worm composting, and the importance of thinking about the scale and purpose of your system. Guest Info Paige can be found on Twitter @bad.compost Host Info Margaret Killjoy 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. Penumbra City Spot If you would like to play test our Penumbra City TTRPG with your friends, contact us at Penumbra.City.Playtest@gmail.com Transcript Paige on Composting 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, Margaret Killjoy. Well, I'm one of the hosts, but I'm your host today. But, now there's new hosts for the show, which is very exciting to me. As much as I love listening to the sound of my own voice all the time, sometimes I like listening to other people talk. And, today we are going to be talking to Paige about composting, we're going to be talking about what to do with stuff that rots and why it's so important. And I don't know, lots of stuff around shit and things like that. I'm really excited about this kind of selfishly, because I have a lot of questions that are for my own personal use as someone who composts, and you know, has lived off grid a lot and stuff like that. So I think, I hope that you will get a lot out of it, and 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. JINGLE Margaret 01:49 Okay, if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then I guess kind of why people should listen to you about compost. Paige 01:58 Thank you so much for having me. My name is Paige. I use she/her pronouns. I guess I started composting at a pretty young age. We had a pile at my parents house growing up and then more recently, actually worked for Tucson's city composting program when it was run through their university, so was on like an industrial scale operation for a couple of months. I currently work at the food bank in their farm and garden program. And I have helped them redesign their worm composting system as well as their just general composting system as well as installed composting toilets on site. I've also worked with friends of a land project and help them set up a composting system for humanure as well as just like food waste. Margaret 02:51 Cool. For anyone who's listening, if you can hear a squeaking in the background is because I gave my dog a toy that I thought didn't have a squeaker in it. And I was proven mistaken. So, I apologize for that. But okay, so composting, what is composting, that's where things where you just like throw an apple into the woods, and hope for the best. Paige 03:12 So composting isn't just kind of throwing stuff and hoping for the best. It's usually just taking, like organic material. And there's different types of composting, there's different systems, but it's kind of creating in a controlled environment to process what would be waste products into something that you can use more as a soil amendment, maybe for your garden, and maybe for fruit trees. But it's just yeah, processing waste into something really valuable and useful. Margaret 03:40 I get really excited about it. I have this kind of like scavenger mindset leftover from when I was more of like a squatter and traveler. But, I feel like food waste is like the main way I can still really feel that, like scratch that itch, you know? I mean, I guess I do it sometimes with other stuff where I try and scavenge. But like, I get really excited by the idea that you can like not have food waste be waste. And so I don't know, I'm very excited about this. Okay, so what are some of the basics of you know, okay, so, I mean, I guess the 'why' someone would compost is probably sort of implied, like not letting things go to waste. And then also like, not needing to, you know, go and purchase fertilizer and things like that for your garden. But, what are some of the basic 'Hows' like, I guess starting at a smaller scale, you know, if someone wants to set up compost at their apartment or at their house or wherever they are. Paige 04:35 Yeah, so I think it's really going to depend on like what you have available to you. So, like a backyard system. You could do an outdoor, like hot or thermophilic pile, which I've seen systems built out of pallets where you just kind of set up like a three or four sided bin, and then you just throw your food scraps in there along with some sort of cover material which will generally be like a dry carbon based thing, maybe leaves, maybe sawdust. In my house, I use manure I like go pick it up every couple of months if you're an apartment and don't.... Margaret 05:09 Manure is the cover? Paige 05:10 Yeah, I use like, well, so the manure that I find it's like it's manure mixed with straw. So it's like pretty dry. Margaret 05:18 Oh, okay. Paige 05:18 And bulky. And I think the thing that I see people doing wrong is just not having enough material to do like a hot compost pile. So, they're just kind of throwing stuff in a pile, and I live in the desert, so it just kind of dries out. I think it's probably different and more humid wet places. But yeah, to get like, kind of your traditional hot compost pile, I feel like would be kind of more on the scale of like, a pallet bin at the smallest, like three feet by three feet. Ish. Margaret 05:48 Okay. Paige 05:49 But, there's also you know, there's other options for like apartments and indoor use, such as like a worm bin, or there's, there's also a style of composting called Bokashi. That's actually more of like a fermentation that people do in buckets that you can also use to process your waste. I'm not as familiar with that. But, you know, not everybody has outdoor space to have a big pile that might be kind of gnarly sometimes. Margaret 06:14 Yeah. So, you keep talking about hot composting. Is that like, in contrast to cold composting. Is there cold composting that we could be doing? Or? No? Paige 06:22 There is. Yeah, I mean, if you if you're just adding material really slowly over time, or you don't have a lot of material, you'll probably have like kind of a colder compost and stuff won't break down as quickly. Generally, like a big hot compost pile is also going to result in like an end product like your compost will be more like bacterially dominant versus like, a long to cold compost where you're like not trying to get the temperature up, is going to be more conducive to like a fungally based compost. So, there are like there are kind of different end, end goals based on maybe what they use is going to be. A veggie garden that's going to prefer like a bacterial heavy...a bacteria heavy compost, and like trees are going to prefer like a fungally based, but if you kind of mix and match, like, it kind of doesn't matter. There's like, yeah, I feel like you can go really deep into all the science behind it, or you can just kind of like not and still make good compost and like, deal with your food waste accordingly. But, there are like different methods you can do, depending on on what your end goal is if you wanna goo deep into it. Margaret 07:35 Yeah, I guess that's something that's always sort of intimidated me about it is that, you know, before I started composting, I had always been sort of, I'd read all this stuff about it. And it was very, like, "This is the perfect ratio of nitrogen versus carbon material to add," or I guess, greens versus browns, I think is the way it's like often phrased or something. "And if you get it wrong, like all hell will break loose and demons will come forth from the seventh seal," and all of that and, and so it like kind of like, I think it scares a lot of people off, but you're sort of implying and my understanding is that you can kind of just do it and then like fuck with it to fix it as you go? Is that is that fairly accurate? Paige 08:13 Yeah, I would definitely say that's accurate. Yeah, I think like...yeah, definitely people kind of stick to like the greens and browns, but I don't know, I think it's kind of tricky. Sometimes if you have material that's like, drying out or really not drying out, depending on your climate. So, like here out in Tucson, where I live, it's like you have to water your compost. Otherwise, it just, it's just a pile of like dried old vegetables or whatever you're throwing into it so. And yeah. So I mean, it's like the greens and browns, which are your carbon to nitrogen, but then it's also you're looking at like moisture and porosity. So, if you think of like a pile of sticks, like that's like too porous, there's too much airflow that's not going to break down. But if you have like a mucky swamp that's also not going to have airflow. it's gonna it's gonna be really anaerobic and smelly. So yeah, I mean, I think like you kind of just have to see what works for your climate, and I think trial and errors the best way to go and err on the side of maybe a little more of like the browns, the carbon, stuff and add water if need be. And if it's not breaking down, then you'd want to add more of like the green nitrogen rich stuff, but I don't know. Yeah, I feel like in the current moments, I've tried to like come up with the perfect recipe and it's just not...it's just not necessary for like a backyard system. Margaret 09:41 Yeah. So it's more cooking than baking? Paige 09:44 Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like throwing in the spices.... Margaret 09:48 It gets presented as baking. Paige 09:49 Yeah, Nah. It's I mean, yeah, If you're doing it on like an industrial scale where there's like regulations and all of these different things that could really go wrong and you're dealing with like, tons and tons of material I think it's a bit more of an issue, but for like your average backyard person, I think like, just try to start and see what happens and adjust from there. Margaret 10:10 Yeah. What about those like roller...I feel like when you look for like compost, backyard composting like products, you have these...And I actually have one in my side yard, but it has yet to produce useful compost, but I think that's not not the fault of the product. But like, yeah, what do you what do you make of these, you know, it's like, I have this thing that looks a little bit like a five gallon of sorry, a 50 gallon drum but on a spindle where it can spin and there's like a...mine has like two compartments. And, I don't know, I've got it a Tractor Supply. Paige 10:46 Yeah, I've never had luck with those. But, I think it's just being in the desert. I think here inthe desert they just dry out. So, I've I've never tried those. I kind of tend to think that a lot of I mean, there's there's so many like compost products out there that are like try to make it easier. And I...to me, they all feel a little gimmicky. It's like, okay, you need like, you need to put stuff somewhere. It needs water, air, carbon, nitrogen. And that's it. And so having all of these like, additional, like tools, I yeah, I haven't had luck with them. I think the idea is that it gives you more airflow and allows you to like turn and mix the material, which probably helps it break down faster. But, it's also they're so small, like 50 gallons...I just, I usually try to start a pile that's bigger than that if I'm trying to get it hot. Margaret 11:35 Okay. Paige 11:35 And then. Yeah, I mean, I try to like I just put stuff in a pile, have enough material, and then I kind of like turn it sometimes. But, I try to kind of more just like let it sit and let like all the microbes and like fungus like do their job because it's just less work for me to deal with. But, I think they probably worked for some people. I don't know. Margaret 11:57 So we shouldn't do the Live Like The World Is Dying branded backyard compost tumblers? We should find a different gimmick product to sell? Paige 12:04 Probably. But you know, also if you're trying to do a brand deal, I think I'm open to discussing it. Margaret 12:10 I know I was gonna say like what did you get a cut? Does it suddenly...is it a better product at that point? Paige 12:14 Yeah, well at that point. Margaret 12:15 Okay. Yeah. Okay, I mean, I, the times I've seen them I think that the the primary appeal is almost like the...well it's like the like, my dogs not gonna get into it because it's in this thing, you know? It's like it's like pre contained, right. But, but yeah, I also have had it for nine months and it is still just sort of full of old leaves rather than full of like good useful dirt, so I can't really like speak to its efficacy. Paige 12:47 Yeah. Margaret 12:49 And I'm, I'm trying to build a system now that is like three bins that are four foot by four foot each each bin with the idea that one bin per year, and then by the time I fill up the third bin the first bend has been sitting for two years is my like, maybe overkill. I have all these like plans to make it rat proof and stuff too. I guess Okay, so I want to talk about some of the like downsides of composting or these sorts of compost like the things that I've heard about and worry about, 1) is you know, my dog has gotten into compost before and gotten really sick, right? So, keeping specifically Rintrah, my dog, out of compost is the first most important thing, and then also rats, and then smell, and then okay, what's the other one? Murdering yourself by putting it on plants, and having the plants that you grow murder you instead of feed you. Those are the four things that I've heard as potential downsides. Paige 13:47 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think all of those can be concerns. I definitely have like my friends dogs come over, and they hop in the compost. We kind of joke that like our house is the fun house for all the dogs, because they get to come and like play in like rotting stuff. But, you know sometimes that's maybe not ideal for them just because of, yeah, I put chicken bones and stuff in there, which you definitely don't want dogs getting into. But yeah, I think for to kind of control for for small animals and pets. I think doing pallet bins and then lining that with hardware cloth, kind of like what you were saying or honestly even lining it with cardboard would probably be effective at keeping them out. And not the rats, but at least like dogs. If there's like wood and then a couple other layers of stuff. As far as the smell, that's often an indicator of too much nitrogen and too much humidity and liquid. So, to kind of mitigate that you'd want to add more like dry carbon based stuff. And yeah, it's interesting because it sounds like your pile on the ground might be kind of smelly, but then you're like tumbler pile might just be dry leaves, so maybe if you just like threw the dry leaves in with the pile thatmight kind of address that. Working with what we got. Margaret 15:03 Oh, the tumbler pile. The tumbler pile is gross as Hell. That's why it's full of dry leaves now. Paige 15:07 Oh, Okay. Margaret 15:09 It used to be. There is no ground pile yet. The ground pile is a dream. It's a 2x4 frame that is currently sitting in the space that used to be a garden from the last person who lived here. Paige 15:21 Oh okay. Margaret 15:22 Tut I haven't...I haven't done the lining it with hardware cloth and all that stuff yet. Paige 15:26 Cool. Yeah, yeah. But, I...you know, composting in the desert we're trying to keep out pets and javalinas, and also squirrels. And yeah, I feel like doing it out of pallets, and then hardware cloth has...I've seen be pretty effective in keeping that stuff out. And then yeah, smell is usually it's too wet. As far as like creating like a dangerous end product, I think for that you can really just think about the time that...how long it takes as well as like the heat of the pile. So if you're able to get enough material and get it to heat up, it's gonna kill almost anything that is harmful to humans. The kind of industry standard is getting piles up to 130 degrees for about 15 days. And that's considered like sufficient to, like, kill pretty much anything like even like human waste. So, you know, and I think letting it sit for longer periods of time is the way to kind of guarantee that, that it's going to be alright for for food production. Margaret 16:24 That was kind of my thinking behind the the setup that I'm going to do with the two years instead of like one year is just out of like, well, what if I'm really lazy and do it badly then I'll just have it have set for two years instead of one year. Paige 16:33 Totally. Margaret 16:33 I don't know. What shouldn't people compost? I have a feeling that the answer to this is, 'It depends.' It depends on like the scale of the compost and things like that. But, to maybe like, I feel like kind of at this beginning, we're sort of talking about like backyard level compost, like vegetable garden level compost, and then I'd love to from there move into humanure and also like doing it at scale. But, in terms of like a backyard compost. What are things that are like good or bad for compost? Paige 17:10 Yeah, generally, most like vegetable and like fruit scraps are super great. Some people have trouble with like citrus peels, like they'll just kind of dry out. People tend to recommend against dairy, meat, and bones as well as really fatty things. If you have something it's really oily, as well as like often cooked food. But, a lot of that is mostly because of the salt content in the cooked food. Like adding a bunch of salt to your compost isn't ideal, because you don't want to be putting like salty, just salty compost on your vegetable garden. That's going to kind of suck the water away from from the roots of the plants. But, honestly, if you're doing like even like a four by four backyard, like I put meat, I put cooked food, I put pretty much anything in there, and just kind of...as long as it's getting hot enough and it's big enough, it's probably going to be okay. But, if you're doing smaller scale, you might want to be a little more choosy. And then if you're doing like an indoor worm bin, if you don't have an outdoor space, then you have to be a lot more choosy because you're not, you're not just putting stuff together and hoping it works out. You're kind of like feeding worms and they're they're a little pickier than some of the microbes that will be in your big outdoor pile. Margaret 18:25 Yeah, that makes sense to me. How long does it take to like, if you're throwing like chicken bones and stuff in that, like, how long is that taking to break down? Paige 18:33 Um, I feel like it takes like three to six months generally, but that's if it's..if you keep the pile hot and big, and there's like a lot of like, if it's moist enough, then like stuff will break down pretty quickly. Margaret 18:45 Okay. Paige 18:46 The bokashi method I was mentioning earlier, too, that can be used to kind of like ferment and like break stuff down. And, that's like a couple of weeks, but I haven't I haven't actually tried that method. But, I've heard that it can be really good for like animal bones. Margaret 19:00 Yeah, I watched one video. I probably a lot of people listen to this also do the thing where they're suddenly interested in something to watch all the YouTube videos and listen to all the podcasts about it. That might be why you're listening to this very podcast right now. Maybe you don't listen to the show. Maybe you just googled or searched 'compost.' One of the things that I watched was just like, "And then you kill the rats, and then you throw the rats in the compost pile." It was just sort of the the compost pile is like the 'all devour,' and it was like clearly he was doing it in this very like, "See. Look. The compost pile is not so fragile as people claim." I don't know that kind of impressed me, the idea that you can just throw the rats into...the dead ones into the compost pile. I don't know. Paige 19:43 Yeah, totally. No, it's it's kind of wild like what a pile will just like totally consume. Yeah, I think also like speaking about rats, like rats aren't gonna go into a pile if it's 140 degrees. Like that's too warm for them. They're like not gonna fuck with it. Margaret 19:58 Oh Huh, okay. Paige 19:59 Yeah. I just like it's just not...Yeah, if you if you're keeping it hot, it's like not a very like, comfortable environment for a lot of like the rodents and things like that. They'll kind of keep away from from at least the hot parts of it. Yeah, it's also cool. Like the the heating aspect of it, I've seen systems where, you know, it's like, you're using the heat to kind of generate all these microbes and break down all the material, but I've also seen systems where people are using it to heat water. If you like coil like pipes through it, you can even kind of get a couple of different uses out of that heat, which is pretty cool. Margaret 20:35 And compost piles generate this heat on their own from like, it's like a byproduct of the process of breaking down? Paige 20:42 Yeah, basically, it creates like, it'll just kind of breed all these microbes. And as these micro populations multiply, they yeah, and they consume food, they just create an like an immense amount of heat. I've seen piles that got up to like 160 degrees Fahrenheit. When I was working at the city's composting site, there was one winter where it snowed in Tucson, which was kind of scary, but there were two inches of snow on the ground everywhere, except for on top of...a lot of industrial scale areas, we'll use what's called wind row, which is like a pile, it's maybe five to six feet tall, and then it's just elongated it across whatever area they have. And so everywhere there was snow, except for on top of these wind rows that were just steaming and just melting everything that fell on them, which was really cool. Margaret 21:29 Yeah. Okay, so can you heat a house? By setting up a compost bin in your basement? Paige 21:36 Oh, I wonder. I mean, I think you could, if you put a compost pile in your basement, and then ran pipes through the pile, and then through your floor, I feel like you could gett some good like, floor warming action. Yeah, or like, some people will pile.. they'll put their pile against a greenhouse to kind of like, passively have a little like heat source near their greenhouse. But, if you're trying to... Margaret 22:01 Oh, that's interesting. Paige 22:02 Yeah, if you're trying to maintain like a pretty consistent amount of heat, though, you kind of need to constantly be adding a good amount of material and turning it because it'll, it'll kind of like it'll get really hot initially, when there's all this like new new material, microbes, air, water, and then it'll cool off. And then if you add more, or turn it and add more air, it'll heat up again, and it kind of will go through these cycles. But, eventually, what you want is an end product that's not going to reheat. And that's kind of a sign that the compost is like aged well and is a stable thing that you can put into your garden. Margaret 22:36 Oh, okay. Paige 22:36 Yeah, I've put in compost to my garden, like mixed it in when it wasn't fully done. And then like my garden bed, like, reheated and like was up at like 120 degrees, which is like not, yeah, not ideal and not good for growing plants. But if you have like unfinished compost, you can like, put a couple inches on top of your plants. And that's often going to be all right. But if you're like really doing like a first amendment of your...of a new garden plot, you want to make sure that you're working with something that's not going to reheat. Margaret 23:10 Okay. So, you know, you kind of know compost is done when it looks like dirt and isn't hot anymore? Do you like? Do you build up a pile and then just move on to the next pile? Are you kind of always adding to the original pile? Like, what what is to be done? How do you? How do? Paige 23:27 So there's a lot of different systems you can do. So there's, if you start a pile and then move on to the next one, that's kind of what's considered a batch system. So, you're building something up and adding to it and then you're letting it sit for an amount of time to make sure that stuffs broken down. There's other systems that are more designed as like a flow through system. So you're maybe adding to the top of the pile but you're able to pull stuff off the bottom, a lot of worm composting systems are flow through because you kind of have to, when you're putting new material and then harvesting old material, you're also trying to not like remove all the worms from the system. So you're trying to kind of add often, add material to the top and harvest from the bottom. So there's, there's different like commercial or DIY systems that that can be made to accommodate that. So, you can do either. And I think it really depends on like, what your timeline is and what your end goal is. Like, are you just trying to get rid of the waste that you have? And not have it be in your trash? Are you trying to make a soil amendment that's as good as possible as fast as possible? And so there's kind of different systems that that make the most sense based on just like what you have on site, what kind of energy you want to put in, and what your goal is. Yeah, but either are options. Margaret 24:44 Okay. So this kind of brings me...Well, I don't know if it logically brings me to but the thing that it makes me think of is that okay, so if you're in an apartment, right, and like I guess you could kind of tiny scale compost and on your porch or something, but it seems like it It makes more sense to have sometimes composting be a sort of shared thing between houses or within a community. Right? Like, you know, I know a lot of cities, and it sounds like this is something that you have been involved with at a municipal level, have like composting where people were able to set aside their food and the city goes and composts it because it's not trash, right? It should never have been trash, so the idea that we live in a society that's all organic matters is trash is very bizarre. But, it seems like you could also set that up kind of like smaller scale, right? Like, you know, within any given community, if you don't live somewhere with municipal composting, or, or is it better to just let it be at municipal level? Like what are the advantages of doing compost at scale, whether it's a community wide scale or municipal wide scale? Paige 25:45 Yeah, so I think doing it at a community or at a municipal scale and having it be really official, I think it makes it easier to divert stuff from the landfill. So, when food waste goes into the landfill, it creates methane, which is, you know, more potent than than co2. And, so it's actually interesting here, and here in southern Arizona, a lot of food comes through the port, that's like two...an hour south of Tucson through Nogales, and they have...the landfill there is like one of the most methane rich ones in the country, because they don't have a composting program down there, or like a way to divert food waste besides through like their food bank. And so when trucks come across the border, and food doesn't pass inspection, it just goes and the semi trucks are just dumping food waste into the landfill. And then it's creating like methane. Margaret 25:45 Oh, god. Paige 25:47 And so, you know, that's like a huge problem. It probably like deserves like a pretty big solution as far as like, what a system to address that would be. But, I think when I was working at the at Tucson's program, we had a lot of problems of people putting just garbage and trash into like the food waste bins at different restaurants. And, so it creates this really big problem of contamination, like when you're doing it on a large scale, like we...I remember seeing like freon tanks and just like constant plastic bags. Yeah. And so we were, it'd be like a huge part of what we did is we would just like kind of like tromp around in these massive piles of rotting food like pulling out plastic and even like the quote unquote, like compostable bags don't actually break down in some systems, and they would, they would clog up some of our machinery. And so yeah, I think I think large scale, you just have issues of contamination. And you also need a bunch of heavy machinery. Like we were operating, like a water truck and front loaders, we had like this machine that was specifically like a compost turner. It was, it was just like a lot of...it was pretty energy intensive process. It was fun. It was cool. I like you know, got to drive a tractor around. That was fun. But yeah, I think I think having it more be like the community scale where it's like, either backyard based or neighborhood based, or like community garden based, I think is is a better way to do it and just kind of cutting out like the transportation time and just having it at that scale. But, but again, that's not going to it's not going to address, you know, the semi trucks full of rotting food. But right, yeah, so. So there's, yeah, there's benefits and drawbacks, but I think I think, you know, with almost anything usually, like a lot of small, decentralized solutions are usually better than the large centralized ones. Margaret 28:27 I've I've based most of my political beliefs on this concept. But yeah, but I also believe that sometimes certain things need to be structured at larger levels in order to be effective, you know, or like, I don't know, accomplish what they need, like what you're talking about with like the, you know, the trucks or whatever. Well, okay, so then if you do it at the community level, it seems like another advantage right is you probably get less contamination literally because people could be like, "Joe, you can't keep throwing your Freon tanks in with your compost." You know, like Joe keeps doing that and, and probably gets shamed enough about it, right. Paige 29:07 Yeah, definitely. Margaret 29:09 I literally can't even imagine what a Freon tank is. I mean, I'm aware that there's a liquid called Freon... Paige 29:13 It kind of looked like a propane tank, but it was like blue and like, I was just like, In what world do we think this is gonna break down? Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was just, it was a bit of a mess. But yeah, so I mean, you know, when you're doing large scale, yeah, it's like you need to also figure out like how to like educate people versus Yeah, like, the just like community shaming of Joe for his Freon tank is is maybe a little more effective than like a massive scale like, program. Yeah. But yeah, and also, I mean, I think when you're doing smaller scale it also...people end up talking to each other and, you know, building community Yeah, that they do if they just aren't interacting. Yeah, Margaret 29:55 That makes sense. Okay, so But then, in terms of the stuff that...one of the things I got kind of excited about when I started doing...looking more into compost, because I've lived in situations that have required relied upon compost at various points in my life, a fair amount, but I've never been personally like, directing it the way that I am currently. And one of the things that kind of surprised me to learn about is that, like cardboard and paper and stuff can be composted, but maybe not easily, or it needs to be shredded or like, like it, there were a couple things that in my mind were marked trash, or fake recycling, because one of the biggest problems I think we have in this world is that recycling is a scam, or at least the version of--not the concept of recycling, right--but yeah, you know, the current industrial infrastructure of recycling seems to be largely smoke and mirrors. So, I'm excited by the idea of like, the more DIY recycling type stuff we can do, the more repurposing we can do. So, paper, cardboard: Yes? No? Maybe? Paige 31:03 Paper, cardboard, yes, under certain circumstances. So yeah, you're totally right about the shredding. So a lot of what that has to do with is like the surface area to like mass of the item. And so if you think about, like your compost pile is all these little particles, and then the microbes that are breaking stuff down, kind of live on like, the slime level surrounding each little particle. And so all these little microbes are going to have a lot easier time breaking down a bunch of shredded tiny bits of paper than like a full sheet or like a full chunk of cardboard that you're just creating more areas for them... Margaret 31:37 Or like an entire Ayn Rand book. Paige 31:39 Yeah, I mean, that's a good yeah. Yeah, you might need to rip that up first, which I think people would not be opposed to. Margaret 31:46 Okay. Paige 31:47 Might have fun with. Margaret 31:48 Okay, cool. Yeah. Paige 31:50 Yeah, I think that would be the ideal. I think also, cardboard and paper, worms really love it. So, you know, you could also set up multiple systems where you put something somewhere in some in another. The system that I have at the food bank demo garden here in Tucson, we have like a hot compost area, but then we also have a big worm area. And what we feed them is we feed them shredded paper, and then unfinished compost. And so we we put like a layer of paper and then we on top of it, we put a bunch of hot compost essentially but because we're only putting like an inch or two, it's not gonna stay hot. But we that's what we feed our worms. And they they love it. And so yeah, cardboard and paper, I would think more of as worm food than then putting it in my in my pile, although you can. But as the more you're able to break it down, the better. Margaret 32:44 Are there like--speaking of products and gimmicks--I can imagine a paper shredder, and I can imagine a wood chipper. But, can you just put cardboard into a wood chipper? Or like, like, is there a way to, you know, because I think that a lot of people during the pandemic probably receive more and more things in cardboard boxes at their front porch. And, like, you know, having ways to dispose of that as like bonus besides of course just using it as like sheet mulch or I don't know if that's what you call it, but like the gardening purpose of laying out cardboard, you know, any any tips on on breaking down cardboard? Paige 33:24 Umm, getting it wet and ripping it? But it's Yeah, I don't I don't think you could put it into a shredder. I think it would maybe gum it up. You also have to kind of take off like the plastic tape of that stuff. Because that won't break down. Some people get really specific and focused on like, "Oh, this is with a like plastic based ink. Like we're gonna be putting microplastics in like the soil." And like, there might be some truth to that. And I'm just like, we just live in like an industrial world where there's microplastics everywhere. And like, you can not put the like plastic based ink into your compost, because of the micro plastics or you can just be like, shrug and throw it in. Margaret 34:07 We're all gonna die one day. And yeah, we did this to ourselves. Yeah. Paige 34:10 I live in a city and I breathed the air here. Like, I think some microplastics in my garden is...we're already full of microplastics. I think it's fine. We're just like, you know, we're all connected. Margaret 34:21 I mean, it's either fine or it's not right. But it's like, I don't think I'm going to dramatically improve my quality of life by avoiding that additional little bit in my cherry tomatoes or whatever. Paige 34:30 Yeah, totally. Yeah, I guess it's actually deeply deeply not fine. And we don't have control over it may be my actual belief but... Margaret 34:38 Yeah, totally. Okay, well, speaking of the ruins of industrial society, can you can you put ash in compost? Is it depend on what the ash is of Paige 34:46 No ash and compost. No, don't do that. Margaret 34:50 Fuck. Paige 34:50 Yeah. Well, I mean, like... Margaret 34:51 What am I supposed to do with ash then? Paige 34:53 I don't know. People ask me that sometimes. And people were putting it into like a composting system and like using it in the humanure system, and I was Like, I mean, it's kind of just like, it's almost like really fine sand like it's just not alive. It's, it's maybe gonna bulk it and not harm it. It's not you're not adding anything that the pile needs. It's just kind of like fluff and like very dense fluff. Margaret 35:14 You're just putting it there to get rid of it. Paige 35:15 Yeah. And just like based on how dense ash is, especially when it's wet, you're probably limiting some of the airflow which is not good. So I yeah, I don't have a good use for ash besides, I've mixed it into like concrete before like when I needed to buy like sand and mix up like Portland cement. I've just like thrown ash in and that was fine. But I don't know how many how many concrete projects you have in your life right now, that might not be a reasonable solution. Margaret 35:43 I actually have more experience building than growing food so...I'm growing food as the unexplored terrain. Although I kind of hate working with concrete and I'm not very good at it. And I'm terrified of breathing it in. But well, yeah. Okay. Cement, I guess is what I'm terrified of breathing in concrete itself. I'm not particularly worried about chunks of gravel or whatever. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So no ash. Okay. But you mentioned these compostable plastics, aren't they gonna save us all? And isn't everything fine and plastic is great now because it's all compostable? Basically. Okay. So like, I've heard this before, right? That you need that, like your plastic spoon that you get at the hippie diner doesn't actually break down in a home compost. It would only break down on like, municipal level compost. Is that true? Is it like does it just take a lot longer? Or is it about a heat difference? Or is it all scam? Paige 36:37 Um, it's yeah, it's a heat and time thing, but it's really just a scam. I mean, I just don't...In what world is a single use item good for the environment at all. Like it's just greenwashing bullshit scam. Yeah, it's also there's interesting things about like what's biodegradable versus compostable? Like biodegradable just means it's gonna break down into way smaller pieces and compostable means it's like made out of a carbon or like quote unquote, natural thing that will eventually become dirt. But,we yeah, even at like an industrial scale, like we would constantly just be pulling plastic out. And so you know, it's kind of a thing that, you know, people do where it's like, 'wish cycling,' where you like, you're like, Oh, I'm gonna put this in the recycling bin because I like hope it's recyclable, but it's really not. Margaret 37:27 I did as a kid. Yeah. Paige 37:29 Yeah. And it's like, ultimately, proud. Totally. It's like a weird Yeah, you're like, you're like hoping something will break down. But, you're ultimately like, making it so like, some like worker or machine is gonna have to, like deal with it later down the line. And, you know, it's like, maybe you feel a little better about yourself, but it's, it's ultimately not not making a difference. Margaret 37:48 It's like calling the cops instead of handling the problem directly. You're just putting it on someone else. Paige 37:53 Yeah, it's like, yeah, It's kind of some weird like, Nimmy Nimmy thing. Maybe it would be a way to think about it. But yeah, yeah. Margaret 38:01 Yeah. Okay, fine. Paige 38:06 Sorry. Margaret 38:07 Okay, so I can't put ash in. All the plastic stuff is a scam. Yeah. I mean, neither of these thing surprise me. The ash thing I'm sad about. It makes a lot of sense. The way you described it makes perfect sense. Basically, because burning cardboard when when recycling is fake is something that people sometimes do. Paige 38:26 Yeah, totally. Margaret 38:27 Okay, so let's talk about...you've been bringing up worms a couple of times. My conception of worm composting is fairly simple. It's like, instead of the food is digested by random bacteria from the air/becomes sort of soil in the classic rot way. Instead, like worms, eat it and then poop it out. And then the worm poop, which we call castings to not sound gross is the like, some of like, the best, most nutrient dense compost in the world or something? Paige 39:02 Yeah, that's right. Yeah, worms are a little pickier eaters than the microbes. But yeah, they'll break stuff down really well. It's not all types of worms. There's like some specific worms that are better for composting. They have different names. Often people call them Red Wigglers but they're like scientific name is Eisenia Fetida and that those are yeah they're good worms for composting. Margaret 39:23 It's a prettier word. Paige 39:23 Yeah, it's a little prettier. Or fetid, you know, working with rotten stuff, but they, yeah, they're not good for fishing. They like kind of create like a weird smell that fish don't like so they're, they're very specific for for compost and they kind of only live in like the top three inches of soil, usually like rotting leaves and stuff. Yeah, and so you can you have to, you have to have a little more control over a worm pile because you're not you're not it's not just kind of like set it and leave it. You need to make sure that they have water, that they have fresh food, that they don't get too hot or too cold. Like there's a little more care that goes into that. Margaret 39:58 That they don't get bored. Paige 39:59 Yeah. You got it? Yeah. Totally gotta... Margaret 40:01 Like little worm toys or yeah? Paige 40:03 Yeah, exactly. Definitely add adding a few toys I haven't I feel it's a good idea to see how that affects our our system at the food bank, do some trials see if they're more productive if we give them some, you know, we give them bread, but not circuses. So we'll see if they're a little more productive if we meet their needs. Margaret 40:24 Flea circuses are the worms. Paige 40:26 Yeah, we'll figure it out. Margaret 40:28 Okay. Paige 40:30 But yeah, what else can I say about worms? Oh, it's interesting, because a lot of worms like for compost, as well as worms that like live in our soil are mostly invasive in North America. So kind of similar to honey bees or a lot of honeybees in North America. And they've Yeah, they've really, you have to actually be kind of careful with what types of worms you're working with, and where you're putting the material in certain parts of the country, because there's been really big problems of invasive earthworms. And they're, they're really impacting forest ecology, actually, you know, a lot of forests, maybe had a certain type of worm there, or maybe it didn't have worms. And so part of the forest ecology is that all of these, like leaves fall on the ground and take a long time to rot. But if you add a bunch of worms to that system, they end up eating all the all the leaves, which it just changes the soil makeup. And and it's, it's kind of a big problem. Yeah, Margaret 41:23 It gets rid of the mulch or whatever, right? Paige 41:26 Yeah. Margaret 41:26 Hmm. Okay. And so when you when you do worm composting, and you have a worm bin, you're basically breeding worms at the same time, right? Like, do you end up with more worms than you started? And you therefore can like, go and start your new worm bin? Because you have like, twice as many worms, or... Paige 41:46 Yeah. Margaret 41:46 Like, do...You don't have to like keep going by and buying worms at the worm store? The wormery? Paige 41:54 Yeah, ideally, you would not have to make too many trips to the wormery kind of like a one and done scenario would be ideal. But yeah, they'll double in population every three to six months under ideal conditions. They...eah, it was interesting. Like, you can get worms as like bait worms, where you buy them like 12, in a little cup, but those often aren't actually composting rooms. And the way that you generally buy composting worms is by the pound. And so when we started our system at the food bank, I bought 25 pounds of worms, which was about 25,000 worms. And the way you kind of calculate how many worms you need is actually based on the surface area of how big your system is. So every square foot, you can do a pound of worms, but.... Margaret 42:38 Cause they only hang out the top three inches? Paige 42:40 Yeah, yeah, totally. So if you have like, a super deep system, like they're just not going to go that deep. But yeah, there's a lot of...Yeah, worms are fun. And again, they they're creating like, super high quality material. Part of that is because when they, you know, part of what's good about compost and worm castings is like they will they add a lot of like microbes and bacteria to your soil and kind of help build up your like soil food web. And there's a lot of like microbes and bacteria that actually breed and reproduce like within the digestive tract of a worm. And so they'll like they're basically eating microbes and bacteria, and then shitting out like, way more microbes and bacteria. And that's like, kind of the thing that you want in your garden. So yeah, worms are fun. They're cool. And they Yeah, they'll any worm can like mate with any other worm. And then they they lay like an egg that has like, two to four baby worms in it, and then they hatch. Margaret 43:34 Okay, because they're not individually sexed or something like... Paige 43:37 Yeah, they don't. Everybody's got all the junk. Yeah. Margaret 43:41 Okay, cool. So The Left Hand of Darkness is the worms existence. Can you use other creepy crawlies? Like if you want to have your like goth garden where you only grow black eggplant, and black tomatoes, and black roses, and stuff, can you get like nightcrawlers or like, centipede or something? Paige 44:01 You can do you can do like nightcrawlers. Yeah, I mean, same as worms, but you can also do people will do black soldier fly larva to break down food and it's like, they just look like little weird grubs. And you can use those not to I guess that's not really composting at all. I mean, it's it's getting rid of like a waste material and like feeding it to like, little little bugs. But then you would just use those to like feed your chickens or something. So...not really compost, but a way to.... Margaret 44:28 So there's more steps involved? Paige 44:29 Yeah, probably. Yeah, yeah. Margaret 44:32 Okay, so speaking of worm casings, and poop, the--not the final question, but the final like category--we'll be talking about human casings as part of composting, like, I know that this, you know, one of the reason want to save it for last is almost like the escalating level of like perceived grossness, right? Like I, I think people are like, "Oh, food rots. I understand that. Vegetables and rot. That's cool." And then you're like, "Yeah, but what if there's a bunch of worms," and then people get a little bit weird. And then you're like, "Okay, but what if you do with human shit?" Paige 45:04 Yeah. Margaret 45:05 And then that's where people say that they don't want to come over anymore. And that they don't want to eat your vegetables. Paige 45:11 Yep. Margaret 45:12 But it's actually completely fine. Well, it just takes additional safety precautions? I'm asking this is like, it's funny because I'm like, I try to self insert as the person who doesn't know anything about this, but I've like also lived on in places with humanure systems for a number of years. But,I'm curious your experience or like, how you sell people on humanure, or? I don't know, can you give an introduction to human casings? Yeah, Paige 45:38 Totally. Um, yeah, so you a lot of like, what to compost on what not to compost will be like, definitely not human, like poop or pee. And yeah, that's just totally not true. You can, you know, we're an animal like any other creating manure, and you can definitely use it. The yeah, there's a lot of different systems. I mean, there's commercial composting toilets that you can buy for your home that are like in the 1000s of dollars, but you can also make like DIY systems for like, under $50. Yeah, I've, I've seen a couple of different systems, I've helped set some up. At the garden that I work at, we have like a fully permitted humanure system that I built. And yeah, I've helped set up some different ones on like a land project. But yeah, you can definitely do it, the, the differences are, you just want to be really certain that you're hitting high temperatures, because that's what's really going to address like kind of the pathogen problem. But if you're if you're getting like a big hot pile of compost, and you're putting like human waste in it, like it's, it's gonna break it down, and it's going to be safe to use. Yeah, I'm trying to think of the I think the big questions are like, at what scale are you trying to do it? And do you care if it's like permitted or not? In some states, you can legally compost human waste at your home and some places you can't. It's also interesting, the like, a lot of sewage treatment plants end up composting, like their final product, and they refer to it as bio solids. And so actually, a lot of cities are composting human waste, they're just doing it after it's gone through like... Margaret 47:13 That's good. Paige 47:14 Yeah, it's like it's after it's gone through like a really like chemical heavy process to like, really ensure that there's nothing like bad in it. But yeah, 'bio solids,' is kind of like the, like industry term that, that they've adopted to not say like 'human shit,' which, you know is a little more off putting. But ultimately, yeah, yeah. Margaret 47:34 I mean, it's interesting to me, right? Because like, I think that this, to me is an example of where sometimes people...I read a book by a purported environmentalist once that was like, "We're animals, we should just poop on the ground." It was this big name, author that...whatever it was Derek Jensen, I fucking hate him. I don't care about name droping him. Fucking transphobe piece of shit. But anyway, you know, he wrote this book called "What We Leave Behind," that I just like, even back, this is like, back when I like before I learned...I'm not a particular fan of this particular author, but I was when I was younger. And one of the first things that talks about is basically being like, "I just go poop on the ground, because that's we're animals and it's fine." And I'm like, I also believe that the idea of like, taking our nutrients or whatever, and flushing them into the ocean is a bad idea, right? But, I also believe that we develop that system for a reason, which was that before we used to just poop in the streets, and everyone would get sick and die. Paige 48:31 Yes. Margaret 48:32 And so, so something like this is actually really interesting to me, because it seems to be this...you know, both sides are just full of shit...I didn't even mean to make that pun. Yeah. We'll be here all day. Okay, and I don't know. So it's just like, it's particular interesting. It's particularly interesting to me that it's like, "Okay, well, we actually can just do it right." We can actually...and it's not incredibly hard. You just actually have to do it. You just actually have to make sure that your compost pile sits for a really long time and or gets up to the right temperature if you're not going to be you know, I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with that rant. But... Paige 49:18 Derek Jensen sucks. Conclusion. Margaret 49:20 Yeah, yeah, totally. Don't just go poop on the ground next to your dog's shit. Paige 49:26 Yeah. I yeah, I think it feels really absurd to poop in drinking water, especially in the desert. A lot of like municipal sewage systems were not built to the scale that they're now operating at. A lot of them were like built to just totally overflow into like, whatever local water source there is. So yeah, I think like not shitting in drinking water and like having smaller scale ways to address like human waste I think is like a way better option and, you know, kind of similar to your other compost pile where you add like your greens and browns. In this case, the poop is actually a green, it's more of a nitrogen rich thing. It's not a brown, ironically. But yeah, you can I mean, I think the simplest system is like, it's called like a 'bucket to barrel' system or a 'bucket to bin.' And you would just have like a five gallon bucket with a toilet seat and like kind of a bin built around it so it's comfortable to sit on, and then you just like, go to the bathroom in it, and then cover whatever you leave behind with your dump, I guess, with wood shavings or some kind of carbon source. And then basically like, when that's filled, you just transfer it out to your bin system or wherever you're, you're kind of doing the the secondary processing. And yeah, just like make sure that pile gets hot. The systems that I've helped install, and we're actually trying to get one installed in my house in Tucson right now are either like barrel systems or like larger, I guess, bin or like a tote system. But you. Yeah, so there's the barrel, the bucket system, or you can also build toilets out of like 55 gallon barrels where you just like put build a toilet seat for the top of it. And then just like use, use that for your waste, and you're adding sawdust and things. And you just want to make sure that that system has like some ventilation as well as like an insect trap. And... Margaret 51:28 I was just going to ask, yeah, if you're doing it. Is that where you like? I've seen people do it where they like, take a...I completely cut you off. I'm sorry. Paige 51:36 Oh, you're good, go ahead. Margaret 51:38 People take a tube and like drill holes in it, and then stick it in the middle of the whole thing. So that way, like, even as the compost builds up, there's always like, a way for air to get in and throughout it all. Paige 51:48 Yeah, totally. Yeah, that's, that's.... Margaret 51:50 I think sometimes people over design these things, too. Paige 51:53 Yeah, totally. I think that's, that's definitely true, I think. I mean, I think it's helpful to have like more airflow, especially in like a composting toilet scenario. You also like, if you have like that 55 gallon barrel, like you do need to like turn it, which you do with a compost crank, which is kind of like a long, stick with like a coil at the end. And you just kind of like you put that stick in and kind of like crank it down and pull up and just try to get like some some like mixing in there. And that'll help the material breakdown better. Margaret 52:22 Oh, I see. Paige 52:24 Yeah, and then usually those are, those are kind of more of a batch system. So you would have a certain number of barrels, depending on how many people you had using it. And you would essentially use one and once it's filled, you would cap it, and then like wait four to six months and then empty it eventually. In that four to six month time period, you do want to make sure that you are turning it, and making sure that it's getting up to temperature to kind of guarantee that any any pathogens are dying in there. Yeah, and the other system that I've built is like more of like a larger tote system. So it was built out of cinder blocks. And it was like a two two section toilet. And so it's a bigger space is going to take longer to fill. But it's by having kind of like multiple of the same thing, then you have one that's like aging and resting and one that's actively being used. The other factor to consider is urine diversion. Different people have different take on it. I think if you're doing a bigger system, like with barrels or like the bigger bins, it's helpful to try to divert urine. So having like... Margaret 53:27 Oh, interesting. Paige 53:28 Yeah, it kind of depends on where you are and how heavy of use it is. But a system that I helped work on was one that like often would have like a lot of people using it really quickly. And so kind of keeping urine diverted was helpful because otherwise it would just get too moist and bulky. And like in that sense, and in those moments like it actually does get smelly and gross often. If you're maintaining it well it's actually not smelly or gross at all. But yeah, if it's heavier use it's helpful to like have a urinal or like there's like urine diverters or funnels that like you can have like in the toilet seat that kind of helps like if people are like sitting and peeing it all kind of separate from the solids. Yeah, so there's there's there's different ways to do it. But I mean, urine also can be composted. So. Margaret 54:16 Right, yeah. Well, and a lot of people will put it--please don't listen to me as the expert gardener anyone who's listening to this--I'm under the impression is about 10 to 1 water to urine and then like apply as fertilizer directly once it's like watered down that heavily. That's something that you've heard ever? Paige 54:37 I've heard people do that. I feel like I I've kind of tended to more just do like, compost everything first and then use it. Yeah, just because yeah, I mean, I think for me, too. It's just like not It's not easy for me to like, harvest my own urine. It's not a thing. I feel super....Like. Yeah, I but I have heard of people doing that. Margaret 55:00 Yeah, yeah, it just seems like the process of combining the two. 10 to 1 or whatever it just involves, like lots of...I don't know, stagnant urine is one of the worst punk house smells that's ever been smelled. Paige 55:16 Yeah. Margaret 55:17 And that's not something that I would try to sell someone on. But, then that is the reason...As I've been researching hypothetical humanure systems....I have been interested to see the different ways that people take the different takes that people have on it. It seems like if you're not diverting it, you're just you're ending up with a lot watery buckets, right. And so you just have a lot more. You're saying it's bulkier, because you're just adding so much more sawdust or hay or whatever your carbon is, in order to start absorbing all that? Paige 55:49 Yeah, you can, you can run through your carbon source a lot faster if you're trying to add that. I think also like, especially with bucket systems, like if you're peeing in the buckets, and just like, I've carried some buckets that were just like, I was like, This is disgusting. Like, this is just like, piss and shit and like a little bit of sawdust. And I'm not happy about this. I've also like, yeah, you know, trained people to use a bucket system and like, don't ever pee in the bucket. And then the next morning, I'm like, sitting there, and I'm like, Oh, God, I'm peeing. I'm letting everyone down. I'm such a hypocrite. Oh, no. It happens. It's a shameful thing to do I guess but. But yeah, if you're, if you're, especially with a bucket system, if you have to, like move it, I feel like if there's a lot of people using it, it's nice to maybe divert the urine just for like it weighs less, it just is less smelly. But you can also just add a lot more carbon. So like, when I've done systems that weren't going to have urine diversion, I've actually started whatever like receptacle or container with like, a third full of whatever carbon material I'm going to be using, just to really make sure that there's like, kind of like just a bunch of dry material that can soak up that excess liquid. And yeah, and I think it's, you know, a, I've worked with systems that are I've gotten systems permitted. And I've also been around systems that were not permitted. And a lot of like, the permit stuff, like will require urine diversion, just for, like, pathogens and smells and things like that. Yeah. So I think it's just a thing to consider of how you're, how you're gonna manage that, that added, like, moisture and, like, just like dense material. Margaret 57:33 So what do you...so in terms of carbon to add, I think that this is also another thing that holds people up, right is because, you know, there's like, oh, just add a lot of sawdust. And most people, I think, think to themselves, I don't have a lot of sawdust. I don't produce much sawdust in my life. Even I as someone who like makes her own furniture, sometimes and shit. I don't produce that much sawdust compared to like what is necessary, right. And, you know, some of the places I've lived before will make deals with sawmills where they just basically show up with a truck and are like, "Hey, can I have your sawdust?" And the place is like, "Yeah, whatever, just get rid of the sawdust for me, I don't care." But it seems like everyone has different tactics on getting carbon material. And it's like, it seems like it's the it's the one that a lot of people aren't producing themselves enough and therefore go and get. And that was actually why I was so excited about like cardboard and paper as possible carbon sources. I know that for myself, I fortunately, live somewhere where there's a lot of land and I can just like, run a push mower with a bag on the back and fill out the bag. And then this is literally my hypothesis. It's green when it first gets cut, but later it's brown, and it seems like it when it's dried out. It's more of a carbon for compost. Paige 58:49 Yep. Margaret 58:51 Okay, so how would you recommend 1) Am I doing it right? And 2) that other people go and find a carbon source? Paige 58:56 Yeah, I mean, I think the sawmill thing is a great thing to do. That's what we're doing. Like with the garden and other projects, like we just have agreements with sawmills, and like, cabinetry places and the only thing we have to keep an eye out for is if they're working with walnut. That's a word that has a lot of like antibiotic, antibacterial properties and will like kind of halt the process. And so you don't want to be adding walnut and I think there's maybe a few other types of wood that that you wouldn't want to use. Margaret 59:24 Like Cedar, maybe? Paige 59:25 Potentially I'm not, yeah, I'm not totally sure. But yeah, I think dried grass clippings would work great as a cover material. The other thing that we will sometimes do out here in the desert is like sweep under like mesquite trees because there's just these really fine little leaves that when they're dried out work really well. But yeah, the other thing is just getting...if it's like just a system for yourself, and you're not having to source that much you can also just buy like wood shavings at like a pet store, which is annoying. It's like annoying to have to buy, buy something that you have to put into your system, but I think it's better than shiting in water, personally. But... Margaret 1:00:01 Yeah, well especially in Tucson or something. Paige 1:00:04 Yeah, totally. Yeah. But it's, you know, I think it's up to what you have on site. I don't know that shredded paper would be...because part of what you want to do is you want to kind of cover your poop so that it's like not smelly and not like easily accessible to flies and different insects--and so like I'm thinking if you just did like shredded paper, I think it would just be kind of like some fluff on top but still like a lot of access for like smells to pop up and for like insects to get in. That might not work super well, unless it's like that really finely shredded paper, but I'm not sure. Margaret 1:00:43 But it'd be really fun for whoever's job it is to, to steal your shredded paper in order to like, re put together your files and try and prove that you did this or that, you know, yeah, if they had to, like literally go into the compost bin. Paige 1:00:58 Yeah, that's a good way. Yeah. Some good security culture, maybe to compost your, your paper and I support that. Margaret 1:01:10 Okay, well, that's, that's the majority of my questions. I was wondering if you had any final words about why this is like, great? And matters? And it's so interesting? You know, you've, you've talked about, like, for example, like, like shitting in drinking water is like, not the coolest thing that's ever happened. But, but yeah, do you have like, or any other final thoughts are things that I should have asked you that I didn't, or? Paige 1:01:35 I can't think of anything right now. But yeah, I mean, I think composting is just like, it's a way to just like address waste problems on site. It's like small scale, it's a way to build up soil and not use fertilizers and inputs. So, I think it's just a really good thing to do if you're able, and it's fun. I think it's fun. Margaret 1:01:55 Yeah, I think it'd be a cool way to like, you know, one of the questions I get asked a lot is, like how people can can meet their neighbors? And I mean, obviously, sometimes it's a very complicated question, you know, if you're, like, I'm not in a, I'm not in a blue state, let's say. And, you know, like, like, there's a lot of like, compl
Episode Notes Episode summary In this new monthly segment, members of the Strangers Collective discuss current events as they relate to community preparedness. If you're watching the news and wondering what's going on with inflation, supply chain shortages, the heat "wave", or Q'anon talking about space lasers and the black holes that are causing all of this, tune in. The group breaks down the mechanics of inflation, why prices are what they are, why we're seeing shortages, and ways you can prepare now for when things get worse. Host Info Casandra can be found on Twitter @hey_casandra or Instagram @House.Of.Hands Margaret Killjoy 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 This Month In The Apocalypse Margaret 00:15 Hello and welcome to Live Like The World Is Dying, your podcast for feels like the times. I'm one of your hosts, Margaret killjoy, because joining me today are two other co-hosts if y'all want to introduce yourself. Casandra 00:28 I'm Cassandra. Brooke 00:30 I'm Brooke. Margaret 00:32 And today, we are starting a new, a new fun series talking about all the fun stuff that's going to be coming your way soon. It's called This Month In The Apocalypse, because we've realized that on this podcast, we talk a lot with different people about how to do different skills, about different specific issues, but there's so much happening these days that it seems worthwhile to kind of keep track of this as it happens, all the different things that are happening, I don't know, does that decent description of what the hell we're trying to do? Casandra 01:09 Yeah. Margaret 01:11 And you will be excited to know that 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. Jingle song 01:24 It's going down, and you're invited for what they sell it. We buy in, there is no running. There is no hiding. There's only fighting or dying. It's going down, and you're invited for what they're selling, we aint buying. There is no running. There is no hiding. There's only fighting or dying. Jingle Host 01:53 It's going down is a digital Community Center from anarchists, Anti-Fascist, autonomous, anti-capitalist and anti-colonial movements. Our mission is to provide an autonomous and resilient platform to publicize and promote revolutionary theory and action. Jingle Host 2 02:10 Go to itsgoingdown.org for daily updates, check out our online store for ways to donate and rate and follow us on iTunes if you like this podcast Margaret 02:27 We're back from the jingle. I'm used to having another podcast where there's actual ads, which sucks. And so I don't know how to talk anymore. So, nothing really happened this month and everything is continuing as it should. I believe there's no major supply chain interruptions nothing forecasted bad to happen. Does that that match with the yall's understanding? Brooke 02:54 Yeah, good done, end of pod. Move on with our lives. Margaret 03:01 What do we want to talk about first? Want to talk about shortages? All the stuff there's shortages of? Brooke 03:09 Sure. Casandra 03:10 Yeah, I was looking at a list. And it's it's just everything. They're shortages in everything. Margaret 03:16 Give me some example. Casandra 03:17 It started out like meat, dairy, eggs. And then it was like produce, aluminum for packaging things, plastic packaging things, fuel to get things to places. Margaret 03:27 Yeah, one of the things I was trying to think about was like, you know, when I was looking through, it seems like some of the things that they're shortages of there's shortages of from a supply chain point of view, sort of a temporary point of view, right? Like, like one of them is like pet food. I saw that one and I like freaked out. It's like I have a pet. You know, do I need to fill my basement with like a like a ball pit, but just full of kibble? Brooke 03:52 Ongoing forumla shortage issues. Margaret 03:55 Yeah. Well, but and what's interesting is to try and figure out which of these things are....the pet food issue, at least as I saw was a little bit different than some of the other ones. It actually more is about there's increased demand, because locked down got more people to decide to become closer buds with different creatures that aren't human that eat pet food. And, I guess there's a word for those. And so... it'sprobably in the word pet food. Food. People decided to become friends with different food. Shit, I'm supposed to be the vegan on this podcast. Okay, so.... Brooke 04:30 We're off to a banging start. Margaret 04:34 Hell yeah. So pet food, it seems like the shortage is, at least at the moment more just that like there's a lot more demand for pet food. And, so therefore, like people are rushing to keep up. Kind of like the mask shortage at the beginning of the pandemic wasn't like, "Oh God, we're out of the capacity to produce masks." They just were like, "Oh, we need to like ramp up our infrastructure." And so there's like some of it like that. But, then it seems like some of the other shortages are a little bit more because there's not the capacity to either create the thing, or distribute the thing. I don't know, you all know more about this. Casandra 05:09 Or even there's...I think about crops, like there's the ability to create the thing, but not to actually harvest and process the thing. It's seems like every step along the way, is having issues. Brooke 05:23 Right. And if you've got issues with plastic and aluminum, then you can't package the thing. So, maybe you could make it and maybe you even can ship it, but you pack it up. But, there's also then lots of problems with actually transporting it from place A to B. Margaret 05:40 One of the things...Okay, I was reading a list too. And I came up with this clever segue. So I'll just draw too much attention to the fact that I planned this ahead of time. One of the things that there's a supply chain shortages of, I was like, looking through this list, and one of them was garage doors. And that's not something that I think about on a regular basis. I just don't think about whether or not I could go down to the store and buy a garage door today. Right? But it has all of these like, cascading effects. And like, I don't know, you all were having this interesting conversation that I'm trying to trick you into having, again, about housing and the ability to construct homes and all that shit. Casandra 06:21 Oh, I thought you were referencing the conversation about how I actually need a new garage door. And I was like, "Oh, I don't think that's useful. I don't think that's useful on this podcast, Margaret." Margaret 06:30 I was just gonna embarrassingly admit that I have two garage doors, because I live rurally and there's multiple garages on the property. So, I just feel like I'm kind of like, you know, I'm stealing doors. Casandra 06:44 Rich in doors! Brooke 06:46 Well, I mean, technically, Cassandra and I also both have two garage doors, because we have two car bays in our garage and each has a separate door. So we are all two garage door people. Casandra 06:57 Door Priviliege. Door Privilege. Yeah, no, what you actually asked me about was much more useful. Margaret 07:02 Okay. Casandra 07:06 Brooke, please help. Brooke 07:09 Yeah, well, I feel like it came up, because you know Cassandra, you are renting your current house and would love to buy it and have wanted to buy it for a while. And so, you and I keep having these conversations about everything going on with the housing market. Margaret 07:27 So let's talk about that. Casandra 07:28 Right before Covid, it seemed like a good time to buy a house. And then six months later, it seemed awful. And it seems like it's just getting worse. Brooke 07:38 Yeah, that's super accurate. And for just a whole bunch of different reasons. I mean, housing has been overpriced for a while and has gotten just exponentially more so. The cost of housing is outrageous. But then the bigger kicker in the last year is interest rates on mortgages have doubled. So you know, they went from a place where they were at like 3 or 4%, which is actually really pretty reasonable. And now they're up between, like closer to 6%, on average, most of the time, which is not a good interest rate. And one of the things that we saw before the fall of the housing market back in '08, was these super high interest rates, you know, 7-8%, or some of the really predatory lending stuff, people will have them at 10-12%. And we're not quite seeing that. But we are seeing with things like the 6,7,8% interest rates right now, which is not good. Margaret 08:33 Does that mean we're heading for similar places as 2008? Like, how does the how do these compare? I feel like you know, a little bit more about this. Brooke 08:39 Yeah, the the underlying factors that are causing our current bubble, are very different from what we saw in 2008. The ultimate outcome will be a lot the same in a housing crash, and people not being able to afford their mortgages and all the ripples through the economy and whatnot. But, the underlying causes are different. One of them is that the inflation has been on the rise. And so mortgages, you know, we tend to think of a mortgage as a thing that we have in order to buy our house. But from a bank's perspective, a mortgage is a commodity, it's a product that they're buying and selling. So anytime you see prices for products on the rise, mortgages are going to be one of those products that become more expensive. Margaret 09:24 How does this affect renters? Like I would guess, sort of maybe rudely that most of our listeners are renters, and, you know, is it like is that just kind of cause rents to go up if the fact that like if if mortgages are getting harder and harder for landlords like... Casandra 09:40 Well, rents are already going up, at least here. I guess I wonder how much that's related, though. Margaret 09:47 No, I don't know. Is it just going up because of inflation? Casandra 09:49 Yeah, i think it's just general inflation. Yeah. Margaret 09:51 Which is interesting, though, right? Because one of the advantages of homeownership, it seems to me is that it's slightly more inflation resistant, because If your interest stays the same as locked in of whatever you bought it at, you know, and so...and the amount you owe, the bank doesn't go up to match interest. So the landlords have any excuse at all for jacking up rents? Because it's not like they're not like their mortgages have gone up, you know, the same amount is as interest. Brooke 10:21 Well, if they're requiring, if they're using the mortgage payment that you're making in order to fund their life that's their source of income is the profit, you renting the house. Then their costs for all of their other goods in life are going up, so they need to make more money off of the thing that pays them, i.e. the renter, Margaret 10:42 It doesn't seem like a good system, the idea that someone can just make money off of someone else's work instead of their own work. That doesn't that doesn't sound right. That sounds like Communism. It doesn't actually sound like Communism. But that is what people claim. Brooke 11:01 It's incredibly problematic. Margaret 11:04 So landlordism, not not a good... Casandra 11:07 Not great. Margaret 11:09 Hot take. Brooke 11:10 I do not stand. I do not stand the landlords. Casandra 11:13 I hope my landlord doesn't listen to this podcast. Brooke 11:17 If he's the kind of person who listens to this podcast, he should just give you your house. Casandra 11:21 It's true. Shout out to my landlord. Margaret 11:23 And if you're a landlord listening to this, sell your houses to your renters at reasonable rates. Casandra 11:32 Right? Margaret 11:32 Or just give them if you can afford it. Brooke 11:35 Yeah, we were talking about the interest rate the other day, Cas, I think you had some good questions about...you had a bunch of good questions the other day that I would love to talk about here on the pod to if you want. Casandra 11:47 Oh shit, I wonder if I can remember what my questions were. The other day, it was a long time ago. Brooke 11:54 Understood. And also, you know the answers, so you're not wondering anymore. Casandra 11:59 Yeah. Or I just got confused and forgot, which is also possible. Margaret 12:05 That's what I would have done if someone explained many things to me. Casandra 12:08 Yeah, that's generally what my brain does as well. That's why Brooke's here. Thank you, Brooke! Brooke 12:13 Sorry, I guess we should have done in the introduction why I'm relevant too. Margaret 12:19 Yeah, okay. Well, so like, so folks who've listened, if you've listened before, you've probably met me. You might have met Casandra. Casandra has been on a few more times recently. Brooke, who are you? Brooke 12:35 I am a baby anarchist with the pronouns "she" and "her", living in Oregon, relatively near to Casandra. And I have a background in economics and accounting, because before I was an anarchist, I was a capitalist. I'm sorry. And I thought that capitalism was good and fine. And I did a whole lot of time studying and learning about it. And now I like to use all of that knowledge and understanding to talk about how bad capitalism is. Margaret 13:09 I mean, the person who did the most work researching capitalism was Karl Marx. Like, as far as I understand, like, a lot of capitalists were like, "Ah, yeah, that that's what we're doing," you know, after he like, actually wrote down how capitalism works. Just had different takes about whether it was good or bad. So, you know, I dunno. Yeah, so, so we've been talking about...and Brooke is part of Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness, the publishing collective that puts out this podcast as well as other good things, like a podcast with it's the name Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness that you can listen to also. And so we just, we've been having a lot of conversations amongst ourselves about like, "Well, what the fuck we going to do as people as all this crisis happens?" And then we were like, "Oh, right, we should, we should talk about this stuff more." So... Casandra 14:02 l remember. Margaret 14:04 Great. Casandra 14:06 Thanks for that, giving me time to remember. So, I asked about your interest rates. The last time they were this high was 1984. And theoretically they're hiking up interest rates to help deal with inflation, which doesn't make sense to me. But Brooke, you had you understood that? Brooke 14:33 Yeah, because when you mentioned the thing about the interest rates, I was like, "Wellllll, not actually." Because the interest rate that we hear about a lot in the news is the Federal Funds rate, which is set by the Federal Reserve, which is the National Bank that we have in our system. It's basically the bank that our banks use, so all of your US banks and Chases and all of that, they bank at the Federal Reserve. And that's the interest rate that we're talking about is the Federal Reserve's rate that they pay to banks to store money with them. So you're a bank, and you are legally required to have a certain amount of your cash saved at the Federal Bank. It's like 10% of your holdings have to be there. And then the government says, "Thanks for letting us sit around and hold on your money, here's some interest." And to incentivize banks to save more of their money, they've raised that interest rate. So that's the one that you've heard about that's higher than it's been since 1984. Margaret 15:39 Oh, interesting. Brooke 15:40 And it's not directly tied to the other types of interest rates, like loan interest rates, you know, mortgages and credit cards and cars and stuff. But it definitely influences them, because when you look at it from a bank's perspective, like you walk down to your neighborhood bank, and you want to take out a loan from them, they have the choice to get a certain guaranteed interest rate from the Federal government, which is super secure, they're gonna get their money back, they're gonna get their interest, you know, think safe over there, or to loan you a consumer money and gain interest from you. And they only want to give you money, if they can make more on it than they would by loaning it to the Federal government, especially because you as a consumer might be taking it out for like, a mortgage loan, which is going to be 30 years, let's say, so the banks not going to get their money back for a much longer period of time. Whereas with the Federal government, they can go anytime and say, "Hey, I need some of my money," and get it right then. But you as the consumer, they can't. So, they charge you the consumer higher level of interest. So, whatever the federal interest rate is, the bank is going to then want to set its interest rates that it charges to people higher, so it can make more money. And if you can't afford to pay that higher interest, the bank is like, "Fine, I can load my money to the government, and still make still make money off it." Margaret 17:05 So how does this relate to inflation? How does this relate to everything costing more money now and like, you know, you're saying that they were like, they're doing this to solve it, it sounds like it would make it worse to me, I don't know shit about shit. But... Brooke 17:20 Yeah, so they're trying to make money more valuable. So right now, because inflation is high....Let's say you have $1 in your pocket, and you go buy a banana today, and that banana costs $1. So your dollar equals a banana. Let's say you decide to buy a banana tomorrow, and you still only have $1, but the price of the banana has gone up to $1.10. You no longer have one bananas worth of money, in this situation, Margaret 17:51 92% of a banana or something. Brooke 17:55 It's too high for a banana, but that was the first thing that came to mind. Anyway, so they want to curb that inflation so that tomorrow you can still buy your banana for $1. But in order to do that, they have to make your money more valuable, in a sense. And they do that by removing some of the money that's out there in the world. Casandra 18:18 It's...is it possible I'm an anti-capitalist just because the shit can.... Brooke 18:21 Doesn't make sense? Casandra 18:22 Yeah. Brooke 18:23 Yeah, you have to stop thinking about money, the way that we as normal human beings think about it as like, "I give you this stupid thing and you give me something good and useful." And think about it in terms of a bank that thinks of it as a product. So their money is a product that they can buy and sell and get value for. So when you decrease the amount of a product that's available, what's left becomes more valuable. Casandra 18:48 I'm glad this isn't a visual recording so people can't see my like trying to grasp face. Brooke 18:53 This is very helpful to me to know whether or not I am making any fucking sense at all. Casandra 18:59 I'm sure you're making sense. I just...yeah, my brain shuts down when I think of all this stuff, which is why I'm glad you're here. Margaret 19:07 Yeah, and it's like, I want to understand this stuff, but I've also have a little bit of a like, yeah, part of why I'm anti capitalist is I'm like, "This just seems needlessly complicated." And then I'm like, but then I turned around, and I'm like, "Okay, so a federated model, where you have all of these different autonomous groups, and the spokes go to this other thing. And then those make decisions by consensus, except in some cases where they use majority vote, except people have a block, but then as it goes to this other level, and then this is the way they communicate." And so then I'm like, okay, I'm not actually afraid of complicated organizational structures. Casandra 19:45 But that's...Complicated is different than bureaucratic, you know? Margaret 19:49 Okay. Okay. Brooke 19:50 Yeah. I find myself living in this weird place of like, all of this is just ridiculous and unnecessary and most really bad. But also, this is how the thing works, and I'm a pretty big opponent and like, understanding how the thing works, especially when you want to dismantle the system, Margaret 20:11 Yeah. No, and like, I actually just want to appreciate you and people like you, you know, I remember I had a conversation with someone once recently, or they're like, "Oh, I don't think the anarchists would like me. I like spreadsheets too much." And I'm like, "No, we need you.... Casandra 20:25 We love you! Casandra 20:25 We need you more than we need other people." Brooke 20:28 Yeah. For the listeners at home, every time the word "spreadsheet" comes up in the Strangers' group discussions for work, I'm always like, "Me! Me?, do I get to do it? Can I have a spreadsheet?" Margaret 20:39 Whereas I'm like, I've been doing it? And I'm like, I don't know, I'm just beating my head against these things. Casandra 20:47 Well Brooke, you mentioned wanting to understand like, how, how things work. And I'm wondering, so we talked about that the fact that there is inflation, but I'm wondering what the factors are contributing to that, like, why it's continuing to go up at such a rapid rate, because we haven't really... Brooke 21:08 inflation? Casandra 21:09 Yeah. Brooke 21:09 Why it's gone up so much? Casandra 21:11 Yeah. Brooke 21:11 Inflation is a complicated beast. We know that a portion of it is just straight up corporate greed and fucking capitalism being capitalism, you know, of companies saying, "Oh, we can, we can raise prices and have great profits. And people will just like, do that, and we get more money? Yay!" So, and because it's happening in real time, there's not like great data to say, "Oh, half of the reason of inflation..." or whatever, like, we don't know exactly how much that specific action is contributing to it. But it's some large portion of inflation is just because companies are awful greedy, terrible. But, a couple of other factors that are leading into it are fuel prices, like everything in the world is basically affected by fuel prices to move things from A to B, and the creation of so many things, you know, incorporate some amount of petroleum. And...there was a third thing that just fell in my brain. But that actual cost is on the rise. So like it is more expensive to create products. So, that's contributing to it. And then also, the shortages in the supply chain, like we were just talking about that anytime there's less of something, it becomes more valuable. So like, how you see price gouging, when there's an emergency, you know, like, like, if the city's water shuts off, suddenly bottled water becomes more expensive. It's because there's less of it, then they can start to charge more, because people who will afford it can still buy it, and people who can't, then too bad for that. And again, it's all just because capitalism is evil and bad. Margaret 22:57 So, in terms of like solutions, one of the things we talk about when wee want to talk about all the bad stuff and then we want to talk about what people can do, at least as individuals and communities to combat it. Right? And like, and I'll say that for my own sake, and I don't know that this is actually a you know, I actually, I've talked to some of my friends who actually work in finance, and they're a little bit like, "That's not what I would have first thought of," but that's...I guess that makes some sense. You know, one of the things I've been thinking about, right is like, I don't know, like, if you can get in things that hold value, right? You know, this is in the sort of traditional prepper sense, this is where you like run out and buy gold, right? Not because gold is an investment, it doesn't become necessarily more valuable, but it because it like, is more likely to hold its value as inflation goes up. But I would argue the same is true of hard liquor, which does not go bad. I don't even drink hard liquor, but I have a bunch of it.Ammunition. Eh Eh? Okay, this is gonna be where everyone's giving me the "We let this wingnut prepper on." But ammunition does go up and down in value. But overall, I will argue that it will stay valuable and therefore continue to hold its value against inflation. And then also like, this is where my financial friends get really mad at me. I'm like, "Basically like spend it if you've got it," because like, because money is becoming less and less valuable. So like, cash in your pocket is just losing money when it stays in your pocket. Its value goes down every day, you get fewer and fewer bananas. Brooke 24:32 Bananas. Margaret 24:32 Yeah, you have fewer bananas every day. The longer that you hold on to it. Casandra 24:36 This is making me hungry. Margaret 24:38 Yeah, I kind of want a banana. I need to go to the grocery store. But okay, so this is like for example, this is like why I'm like, "Alright, well fuck it," like, get tools. Get stuff if you can, right? Obviously, this is like kind of annoying advice for anyone who I mean like right now I think most of the money issue that people have right now is not having enough money for their basic necessities that they meet on a regular basis. But even like, like I was like, I don't know, as I try to explain someone to be like, Alright, look, if you're going to go out if you're going to spend X amount of money on canned chili over the next three months, buying it now, instead of later, if you can afford it will literally get you more chili, because the prices of everything are just going to go up. And so as you're able to fucking cans of chili are better than cash right now is my my claim, especially the good vegan chili with the little TVP in it. Brooke 25:39 Yeah, if you've got a spare dollar in your pocket today, it's going to be less valuable tomorrow. It's going to be less valuable the day after that. It's just going to keep getting less valuable as long as we're in this cycle of this high inflation. So as much as I tend to be like a saver, it does make more sense at the moment to go buy things preferably things that are like durable, useful, and will last then to... Casandra 26:08 That's still saving. Brooke 26:10 Yeah Margaret 26:11 Yeah, you're just transferring the value into a different form. Brooke 26:14 Yeah, buy some seeds. Casandra 26:15 [At the same time] My favorite form is seeds. Yeah, that's my preferred one. Margaret 26:19 Yeah. Brooke 26:20 How To books. Casandra 26:22 Like oh, I just got I got all my spring seeds for next year. Brooke 26:25 Oh, wow. Casandra 26:25 Well, yeah, just last week, because I knew they'd be way more expensive next year, and they're just in the fridge in plastic bags. Waiting. Brooke 26:34 Very smart. That's a genuinely a good investment, especially given the food supply shortages that we've got going on right now. Casandra 26:43 Yeah, what a good segue Margaret 26:44 [At that same time] What a good segue.[Everyone laughing] Hope you all like this new format of friends chatting. We'll work on it. Casandra 26:56 We're doing great! Brooke 26:57 Yeah, no, it's gonna be exactly this great every time. Margaret 27:02 Food shortages. What do you mean food shortages? That sounds like a bunch of wing nut talk. Casandra 27:11 There are no food shortages. Brooke 27:13 There's no such thing as food. Buy guns. Casandra 27:20 Eat ammo. Brooke 27:22 That's exactly what I was thinking when you said ammo and gold and I was like that's good. Those are things you can eat. We'll be fine. Margaret 27:29 Yeah, yeah. [Everyone laughing] Casandra 27:30 I think there's something to be said about the fact that you and I both have kids, Brooke. So, when I'm like oh...You know if I have 20 extra bucks, what am I putting it into? It's like it's food. Margaret 27:41 It's not whiskey? Brooke 27:45 Pretty much all the time or the next size of clothing for my child that doesn't stop growing. But But yeah, food shortages. So, that's like a really interesting and again very complicated topic. So, I work part time for a local farm as well. And here in Oregon, our spring was especially wet like it's it's...Oregeon is a fairly wet place and we get a fair amount of rain in the spring, but it was like a lot more than usual. And it stayed cold for longer. So this farm, which usually opens up the first week of June and starts selling produce had to delay by a week its start date, because there just was there weren't crops and then they're battling larger infestations of problems and new and different ones so they've had funguses, and mold, and bugs, different kinds of bugs, and greater quantity of bugs attacking their crops, and they've been sending like... Margaret 28:44 Larger bugs. Brooke 28:44 Yeah. Casandra 28:45 Yeah, the pest have gone wild up here. Margaret 28:46 Like bugs the size of cars. Brooke 28:48 Yes. Yeah, they've been sending almost weekly samples to the state, the Oregon State Extension office which is our...they do a bunch of farming program things anyway they... Casandra 29:01 OSU? Brooke 29:02 Yeah, OSU. A lot of states have extension services from their state university, anyway that that analyze like "What is this blight? What is this fungus? Why is this thing turning yellow? Why...what is causing this?" So they... Margaret 29:17 What is this language it's speaking to me and why are its eyes rotating sideways from its head. Brooke 29:22 Yeah, they test for that kind of thing too. E.T. For sure. You know, they would usually send maybe a couple of samples in a season and they've had to send like almost weekly samples for two or three months and then you know devising on the fly--because organic farm, you know, safe organic practices to combat these things. And it's, you know, required a lot of extra time and investment and attention to the farm and the crops that are going in it just to to get a healthy crop out of it. Casandra 29:56 And we're not even experiencing you know, the heat wave here that they're experiencing what, like Western Europe right now. Margaret 30:05 Yeah. And parts of the southern and central United States also. But like. Casandra 30:10 Yeah, and North Africa. Margaret 30:12 Yeah. Casandra 30:13 I was reading that in Portugal. It's so hot that farm equipment is setting dried crops on fire as they're like trying to harvest things. Brooke 30:25 Oh, wow. Casandra 30:26 Like things are that hot and dry. Growing food is becoming more difficult. That seems to be the moral of the story. Margaret 30:36 Well fortunately, I believe the biggest breadbasket of the world, or at least of Europe, is doing just fine and isn't currently being invaded by a megalomaniac, and certainly huge chunks of what's left aren't supporting someone who would invade such a place, so....Or, as I doubt this is news to anyone who is listening, but maybe it is, you know, the the war in Ukraine is fucking up well will fuck up remarkably, the harvest in Ukraine of wheat, and I believe, like it's them in the US maybe are the biggest exporters of wheat in the world. I should have looked up my actual.. I'm learning so much about how I'm gonna do this next time. Casandra 31:22 I was just reading percentages, and they fell out of my brain, but it's big. Brooke 31:27 The combination of Ukraine and Russia and it's mostly Ukraine on this, they provide 12% of the world's wheat supply. Or to put it in other terms, Ukraine's wheat feeds 400 million people a year. So like, the for scale, the population of the US, like one year's worth of wheat. So yeah, it's, it's a lot. And they're basically going to have essentially zero harvest coming out of Ukraine this year in terms of wheat. Casandra 32:01 And it's not just like not having flour on the shelf, but if you're a meat eater, you know, grain fed, grain finished...My brain just died. Brooke 32:15 Animal feed. Casandra 32:16 Thank you. Fuel and animal feed. Brooke 32:20 Cows in particular, yeah, all the little things that the grain goes into, yeah, it's very bad. And, you know, we in the US might not experience as much of that being a wealthy country that's more insulated. Like one of the readings I was doing was talking about how, of course, Africa will be one of the most impacted continents by all of this because it has the highest rate of imports of food from other places, because so much of its inhospitable to growing or growing large quantities of food. And they often get the short end of the stick when there's global supply chain issues. Margaret 32:56 And it's not just the US' position as wealthy. It's that we grow...I think I, I think we're the largest exporter of food in the world, I again, really have learned so much about the kind of stuff I'm going to look up before I start recording next time. Brooke 33:12 Yeah, California, grows like some percentage of the entire world's...just California State of California alone grows an appreciable percent of the world's food supply. Margaret 33:25 Not to just drive home the animal agriculture point, but wow, it sure takes so much more grain to feed a cow to then turn around to feed a person than to just feed the grain to the person. Whooa! Anyway, if I'm gonna get accused of propaganda. Casandra 33:44 But Margaret, I can't eat grain. Margaret 33:46 Yeah, no, I know. That's actually why I don't believe in, everyone should do X. There's very few things I would say everyone should do, and that certainly, certainly applies to diet more than almost anything else. People should do, what they need and what their bodies want. And also what their, you know, local environment sustains most effectively and all those things. Casandra 34:14 I was listening to a podcast yesterday about food shortages that I'm going to forget the name of now. Brooke 34:19 There are other podcasts? Casandra 34:21 There are other podcasts like this? Wild. Margaret 34:24 Cool People Who Do Cool Stuff? Casandra 34:26 No, it wasn't that one, I'm sorry, Margaret. Margaret 34:28 Wait, there's a third podcast? Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness? Casandra 34:33 Is it Behind The Bastards? Is that the? Margaret 34:35 Oh, yeah, I guess they do technically... Brooke 34:37 Are they still allowed to have a podcast? I thought we shut that down. Casandra 34:42 Anyway, Margaret 34:44 So you can't start with another podcast because it takes too much grain. Casandra 34:49 Noooo! Brooke 34:52 That's the title of this episode now. Margaret 34:57 It's called interrupting Casandra. That's the name of the podcast. Brooke 35:01 I love you, Casandra. I'm sorry. Casandra 35:03 You guys, my brain can't hold a thought for that long. Brooke 35:06 Understood. Casandra 35:08 Okay, so I was listening to this, what I would call like a progressive podcast. And I'm usually really annoyed with the like, "We can solve climate change and world hunger by eating locally." But when we're talking about, you know, International food shortage crises, that does seem like one of the more manageable solutions. And we were talking in the chat prior to this episode noticing that I feel really grateful for my CSA share this summer. Because I paid for it, you know, months ago, which means that, you know, if we're going back to the banana analogy, Margaret 35:52 The value hold on. Brooke 35:53 I mean, that is very accurate. You know, we've got, we've got eggs included in the CSA that I work on. And, you know, we do a small markup on that just to cover all the logistics of getting the eggs from the egg supplier. But she had to raise prices at the start of the season. And we'll probably have to raise them again, like in the fall. But if you signed up for the CSA, and that included eggs in your particular box, your price gets to be set, right where it is. Casandra 36:26 Yeah, it's hard, though, right, because especially when we're talking about prepping like one of...I get annoyed with prepping conversations, because oftentimes, people either don't have the space to store large quantities of things or the money to buy things in bulk. And I would consider paying for a CSA ahead of time buying a thing in bulk, or similar, you know, similar impact. And it's hard because a lot of people can't do that. Like, I was hurting for a few months, because the payment came out. I was like, "Oh, yeah, that thing I said I'd pay for." I'm glad I did it. But... Margaret 37:06 Okay, but. [Brooke interupts] Go ahead....Okay, so there is a community solution to this, though. So you can't eat ammunition. But if you have enough ammunition and friends....This thing that happened in history, that should never happen again, because it was violent, during the Spanish Civil War, people collectivized all the farms. Brooke 37:32 Wrong podcast. Wrong podcast. Margaret 37:34 No, but see, see, this is... Casandra 37:36 Did they do it with dinosaurs? Margaret 37:39 I've heard that dinosaurs were involved. They...I at least read one story about that. But, you know, it...I means it's funny to me, right? Because it's like, on some level, okay, so individual solutions are complicated, because they involve certain types of resources. A lot of community solutions are good. And they're working to set up different kinds of like small scale agriculture that you can do within a community and mutual aid organizations that can take care of people and help fill in some holes and different people's, like, dietary needs and stuff like that. But it's like, it's so frustrating, because honestly, like, like, a lot of the solutions to these problems are destroy the existing infrastructure and build an infrastructure, well, not even the infrastructure, the systems that control the current infrastructure, and enter them into a more reasonable and equitable method of distribution. But obviously that has some risks associated with it. So I don't know, I guess, I guess sometimes I get like, frustrated, because it's like, you know, we're all like, kind of trying to be like, "Okay, how do we deal with these issues in this issue," and it's like, and we should figure out how to do it on these, like, smaller scales, but it's like, so frustrating because I think so many people like, kind of have a sense of like, what the grander solution is, and just don't know how to fucking do it. Casandra 39:01 Yep. Margaret 39:01 Including me, I don't know how to do it. Although in 1936...Anyway. Casandra 39:07 Were you gonna say something, Brooke? Brooke 39:10 One way to help solve the problem of food supplies in a very small way, amongst you and your friends: We grow things more efficiently when we focus on growing one thing at a time. So we've talked about on the pod growing, starting a garden, even a single container on your balcony kind of thing. But ,if you have a friend or a couple of friends that can also do a little gardening, maybe talking amongst yourselves and have each of you grow a specific thing or a couple of specific things. And they have each of the three of you be different. And that way you can focus on doing a good job of growing a couple of things. And they can do a good job growing their couple of things and then you can exchange the produce as it starts to ripen because it'll be more than you want. Casandra 40:01 I like that. When you said one thing my brain was like, "But polyculture!?" Brooke 40:06 Yeah, sorry, I'm thinking of like, if I can get everyone on my street to, you know, grow something in their backyard, and we all had one different crop, you know, just this whole weird place that my brain goes to that would be beautiful. But the other thing about the the food shortages, the crop growing problems, and all of that that I wanted to point out is how much this is an immediate future problem. Like, right now we're having all of these problems growing things and creating the food. And what we're eating for a lot of the part is if you're eating dry foods, packaged foods and stuff that was grown maybe last year in a previous growing season. So where we're going to start to see this pinch, even worse is going to be later this year and into next year, when we're going to buy things that were grown in a previous season. Except they weren't, because Ukraine didn't export any grain or because all of the black bean crops failed, or what have you. So it's going to get worse very soon, because of that kind of problem. Margaret 41:15 Yay. Yeah. Brooke 41:20 Thinking about growing a thing, like right now before that problem really hits home, and then you'll suddenly have some food growing on your back porch, or whatever. Casandra 41:29 That also makes me grateful for...this is probably an option in other areas, not just where we are, but Brooke and I are part of a co op. And we can purchase things through companies at wholesale prices. So like, I just put in an order for like 10 pounds of salt and 25 pounds of beans and, you know, makes me grateful for options like that. Brooke 41:59 Yeah, bulk buying. Margaret 42:02 And that's like, kind of the origins of food co ops, as far as I understand it is that, you know, now we have this conception. And I feel like most people are like, "Why would a food co-op be cheaper food co-ops are more expensive, because like food co-op is like practically just like, a way of saying super bougie independent grocery store with natural food. And the origin of food cooperatives is basically people pulling together and saying like, well, "We want to buy a bunch of food. So let's act like we're a store and go to the distributor, and put in orders together." And those do still exist in various places. And also, not everything that call itself a food Co-Op is just bougie and shitty and like, some of them are very good. Brooke 42:44 I would say ours isnt...wasn't. At least that's from my very biased perspective. Margaret 42:50 Wasn't good or wasn't bad? Brooke 42:52 Wasn't bougie wasn't bougie. Margaret 42:54 Ah.Yeah. Brooke 42:56 Can I go back to Casandra, you mentioned, the heatwave stuff happening in Europe and crops catching on fire. I had read last week about this heatwave that was coming in Europe and some of the problems they anticipated having but I have not had time this week to like catch up on what actually happened. And I think both of you guys have been paying more attention to that news. And I'm curious if you want to enlighten me and perhaps our listeners about the actual effects of that heatwave in addition to farming equipment catching crops on fire. Which is bad. Casandra 43:29 Part of a glacier collapsed in Italy. Margaret 43:34 They still have glaciers there? Casandra 43:36 Apparently. Margaret 43:38 You ever get depressed, you ever go to Glacier National Park and just been sad, because you're like, it's just full of signs that are like, "There used to be a glacier here." and you're like, "This sucks." Brooke 43:48 That would be depressing. Margaret 43:49 It's really beautiful. Anyways. Brooke 43:51 What is what does it mean, the glacier collapsed, like a portion fell over? Casandra 43:55 Like an avalanche, like a portion of this glacier collapsed and it killed 11 people, but it's just also a testament to how hot it was. Iran was like 126 degrees. Casandra 43:59 There was something about the railways, the rail lines that so was having problems. Margaret 44:17 Yeah. So, TERF Island is this island off of the coast of Europe. That is ruled by, it's still a monarchy, and it's ruled by J.K. Rowling, Queen of the TERFS. But unfortunately, most of her subjects actually wish they didn't live on a place called TERF Island, and wish that they could go back to just being embarrassed about having colonized most of the world. That's also worth being embarrassed about anyway, yeah, England, TERF Island, is pretty fuck right now, and I mean, the same as the rest of Europe, right. But, England is normally a dreary, overcast place and that's why everyone has turned their head against so many people. And so they are...And so their their rail infrastructure is designed, you can build railways for cold, and you can build railways for heat, but it's like actually kind of hard to build railways for both. Because you have these, like, long chunks of steel, these rails, right, and they warp. And as people want to go faster and quieter, they are now continuous rails that are welded into like one continuous thing. Which means that when they distort in the heat or contract in the cold or whatever, it's a bigger issue, right? So, their rail system, at least as we record right now is just like fucked. And like, a lot of the rails aren't running or if they are running, they're running really slowly to not, like, I believe, cause additional heat and cause additional problems. I actually don't remember exactly why going slowly is the solution to this. But it's like such as like a clear example....And then they're having this thing where, and I'm sure this happens everywhere. But they're particularly good at being like, cozy during crisis that's like part of the national character as far as I can tell. And so they're like, "Oh, this isn't a big deal." And like, they had this heatwave in 1976. And so they're all like, "Oh, this is just like 1976." But and 1976 was bad, right? But there hasn't been like more and more heat more and more times, right? That was a little bit of an outlier year. Whereas they're constantly breaking all these records. And it's just, it's fucking everything up. And I hate...I want...I sort of hate that I know more about this than I know about some of the stuff that's going on in Iran, or I know that very recently, India has had really massive heat waves that have caused a lot of problems. I know... Casandra 46:35 China. Margaret 46:36 Yeah. Yeah. And, but there's this sort of like, I don't know, at least by the way, people are talking about it who are not in England. I almost feel like there's this like, Oh, thank god if this happens to the English and to the white Americans, like maybe something will start happening. And because like just seen as like these like centers of power or whatever, but people are very resistant to actually believing anything's wrong. But it's really obviously something wrong. Casandra 47:06 Oh my gosh. But, you know what people are willing to believe is wrong? Margaret 47:12 What? Casandra 47:14 People are willing to believe that our globalist overlords at CERN have shifted our dimension multiple times and opened a gateway to Hell, and summonned Satan. And that's why everything's bad. Margaret 47:33 Please Explain. Casandra 47:34 It can't be climate change, it has to be a Stranger Things portal...run by the Jews. Margaret 47:43 I was about to ask if the Jews were involved. I thought you all were busy with the space laser. Casandra 47:48 Always. God, if only we had an actualy space laser. Margaret 47:53 I know! You all multitask so well, like you're busy running the space laser. I mean, I guess thats.. Casandra 47:59 It's because we rest one whole day a week that we have all this energy. Brooke 48:02 Hey, wait a minute, Mormons do too, but we do not have space lasers. So.... Casandra 48:07 You have like alien and tablets and shit. Margaret 48:08 Yeah, Catholics don't rest. Wait, so please explain more. So there. Okay. So CERN is the the miniature black hole creator, right. [Brooke and Casandra laugh skeptically] Wait, at that point. I thought I wasn't even lying. I thought that was what it does. Like it investigates...Am I wrong? Casandra 48:29 It's, it's.... Brooke 48:31 It's a particle accelerator. Margaret 48:32 Yeeah Casandra 48:33 No, it's not. It's a group. It's a group. CERN isn't even the thing itself. CERN is the like group that does the research. Margaret 48:39 Oh, like the Zionist Cabal or whatever. Casandra 48:44 Yeah, and it's been around since the 50s and they do like particle physics shit that I don't understand. You know, finding new particles, researching antimatter, potentially creating mini black holes, apparently. Margaret 49:00 Do you think antimatter gets mad at regular matter? Like kind of like an Antifa versus FA kind of thing? Brooke 49:08 Well, matter wins over antimatter. So I mean, it can get mad all it wants. It loses the battle. Casandra 49:13 So they're trying to find, you know, proof of like the Big Bang and doing all these....But then, so it's been around for a long time. It's been around since the 50s I think. But, I want to say the facility, the particle collider...this is gonna be the funniest explanation because none of us understand it fully. But, apparently the facility is like 17 miles wide, and most of its underground and it looks very like you know, Stranger Things, Sci Fi, space AG. Brooke 49:52 It's that wide because it's a giant metal circle. So it's not actually like taking up 17 miles, but like you're able to go from one end of this metal tube to the other like it is that far apart. Margaret 50:03 Yeah, it's like a roller derby rink. Brooke 50:07 Yeah, more or less. Margaret 50:10 Or it will be. Casandra 50:10 Yeah, so all these conspiracy theorists for years now I think particularly since 2012, have decided that the reason things continue to be bad is that...there are multiple theories, but one is that the world actually ended in 2012. Another is that each time they turn on this particle collider, we like shift timelines. So that's happened in like, 2012, 2016. And then just this last July 5, apparently. It's just fascinating to me, the lengths people will go to to explain bad shit happening rather than just like, accepting climate change. Margaret 50:53 Yeah. Casandra 50:54 Or like, pausing to understand capitalism and its function. And it's like, "Nope, it's gotta be a black hole to Satan." Brooke 51:03 This is especially funny to me, because the, the collider literally takes like, the like, the tiniest little bits of matter. Like it tries to get down to like a single atom, and then sends it through this giant tube to smash into each other. And I'm like, Yeah, so you're telling me that like, two oxygen molecules smashing into each other, is what's opening multiple timelines? Casandra 51:29 And it's stuff that's like, only comprehensible and interesting to physicists, as far as I can understand. Like, if you look at their list of achievements, none of that makes sense to a normal human being. You know? Margaret 51:45 I kind of like some of that stuff. But I read a lot of science fiction. Casandra 51:49 Yeah, I have an ex who's like, really into both space and physics, and is really fascinated by some of the work they've done. But yeah, it doesn't make sense to me at all. And it doesn't make sense to the conspiracy theorists either. Brooke 52:07 Okay, so we're running out of food. Europe's on fire. Casandra 52:13 Not just Europe, apparently North Africa, China, India, the southern United States, Brooke 52:18 Most of the world in the last two years has burned down in one way or another. We're opening black hole portals. No one can buy a house. Casandra 52:27 What's that, Margaret? Margaret 52:29 Oh, just always the wrong parts of it are burning down. Casandra 52:32 Right Margaret 52:33 I mean, well with the exception of the Third Precinct. Brooke 52:35 Yes. Margaret 52:36 Notable. Notable Exception. Casandra 52:39 We're still figuring out how to aim the space laser. Margaret 52:44 Okay, okay. So it was actually you all. It wasn't actually Dark Biden. Casandra 52:48 Oh, no. Marjorie Taylor Greene blamed the wildfires. Margaret 52:52 On the space lasers? Casandra 52:53 That's how the spacel laser thing started. Margaret 52:55 Oh, my God. Really? Why would you burn down the forest? Is her claim that you all don't know how to aim it? Casandra 53:06 Let me find this was... Margaret 53:08 What is your [Marjorie's] rationale for why the Jews have decided to start forest fires? It it seems to me that even if I....There are other targets that I could imagine, as an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist that I would imagine that the Jews would point the space laser at. Casandra 53:26 Right? Let me try to...let me see if I can find the exact tweet because it was really funny. Oh, all I can find is spoof tweets in my quick search. Brooke 53:35 I feel bad for you having to read through Marjorie Taylor Green's tweets right now. That's a punishment you do not deserve. Casandra 53:42 The like wingnut anti-Semites kind of crack me up. I don't know why she would blame it on that. I have no idea. It's... Casandra 53:49 I mean, Q'anon ties into the whole thing. Margaret 53:50 Well, let's come up with it. Margaret 53:51 Oh, yeah. Brooke 53:53 Casandra, do your people hate forests? Casandra 53:57 Forests? Brooke 53:58 Yes. Casandra 53:59 No, of course not. We actually have a whole holiday dedicated to trees. Margaret 54:05 Whoa, that's cool. Casandra 54:06 Tu BiShvat. We liked the trees. Margaret 54:15 Well, maybe you are trying to....No, I don't even want to. I'm trying to come up with anti-semetic conspiracy theorists. But I don't want to do it. I can't do it. Brooke 54:25 Here's a news thing that we didn't talk about in our briefing. And I don't know if we care to right now. But, are y'all paying any attention to the whole January 6th committee things? They just had one last night. Margaret 54:36 Yeah, a little bit. Casandra 54:37 No, I didn't read about last night. Brooke 54:40 I am mostly not paying attention as well, except that I see these tweets of people being like, "Oh my gosh, did you know blah, blah, blah." And most of it's like all along I feel like yeah, that's been reported on already. We already knew about that. Why is this news? Margaret 54:54 That's kind of how I feel about it. I like maybe maybe it's not fair. Bu,t I kind of just say this political theater at this point like we we all know what they did. We watched it. And we all know what their organizations look like. Anti-fascists have done the infiltration work and released all of the...like everything anyone has ever said to each other that's a fascist in the United States has been released by anti-fascists, not the government. And so in some ways, I'm a little bit like...and maybe it's not right, maybe, maybe I should care more about it. But in my mind, I'm a little bit like, I've moved on to the next news cycle issue in my head, and it feels like kind of like...remember how we were like waiting forever for them to impeach Trump? And they're like, "We swear we're going to impeach Trump soon." And I'm like, is this whole thing just a way for The Washington Post to sell newspapers? And that's more...again, more than is fair, how I how I feel a little bit about January, 6th, it's just like, Okay, y'all found something that you can milk for? I don't know.... Casandra 56:05 I mean the too little too late sort of encapsulates our response to most things, right. Margaret 56:12 Yeah. Casandra 56:12 Whether it's climate change or insurrection. Brooke 56:15 Now the one good thing that did that did come out of last night's was little video of Senator Josh Hawley running away from the rioters. And then all the people on Twitter who use that little video and set it to various pieces of music. Casandra 56:33 Finding moments of joy. Margaret 56:35 He's the guy who supported....he's the guy who was supporting them beforehand, right? Brooke 56:40 Yeah, he's the one with like the really well known fist raised in support picture rightbefore they started destroying everything. Margaret 56:47 I never thought that the leopards eating people's faces party would eat my face...Well, does that seem like a decent spot to end it for July? Nothing bad can happen in the next week.There's gonna be like at least a.... Casandra 57:06 I think we wanted to give people more hope you know, like more tools, or ideas? Or even just like... Margaret 57:16 Oh, right. Buy whiskey. Build a bunker. Hole up Brooke 57:19 Tanks are bad. Casandra 57:20 If you live in wildfire country like we do those plastic windows... Brooke 57:26 Blame the Jews. Casandra 57:27 Blame the Jews. We can say that because I'm a Jew. I want to make that really clear. Before we put this podcast out. No, buy those plastic windows sealer kits and fresh filters for your air filters. Margaret 57:45 Yeah, do it before they're needed. That's part of the supply chain stuff. Brooke 57:50 Plant a zucchini, Casandra 57:51 Planted zucchini with your neighbors and trade them with each other. Margaret 57:57 What if everyone just grows zucchini? Casandra 58:00 Zucchini's really versatile. You know. Brooke 58:01 Zucchini and potatoes. Margaret 58:02 That was the main thing that my mom grew. My mom grew mostly zucchini. And so it was just like nothing, nothing, nothing and then everything is made out of zucchini for like two weeks. And I actually loved it because we ate so much zucchini bread and it was so good. Casandra 58:17 Yeah. Brooke 58:18 They're relatively easy, like if you haven't gardened before and you need something to garden that'll make you feel really good and successful. Like they're easier to grow you know a little harder to kill than, and then when they start producing like you get these big zucchinis and like if you completely ignore them, you can get these like just monstrous beasts and it's just really satisfying to grow zucchini. Casandra 58:41 I never grow zucchini because I always have friends who grow zucchini and have too much. Brooke 58:45 Yes. As zucchini does. Casandra 58:49 Anyway. Brooke 58:50 Grow zucchini. Margaret 58:52 This podcast is brought to you by zucchini. Okay, what's another hopeful? Don't rush out and buy a garage door right now if you can avoid it. Turn your basement fear into a kiddie pool full of kibble. Casandra 59:15 If your garage door privileged you can just like revel in that. Margaret 59:18 Yeah. Brooke 59:20 Genuinely you know, pet food is an example of a thing where if you're gonna go if you have some extra money and you're gonna go invest it quote unquote, in something pet food will hold up and your pet will need food. So instead of bananas buy pet food. Margaret 59:34 If you do buy bananas, you have to put them in you have to peel them and put them in the freezer if you want them to last and then you've turned them into smoothies. Casandra 59:43 That's the only good way to eat a banana anyway. Controversial take Brooke 59:48 I do not agree. Margaret 59:50 Yeah, I just...Huh, I thought we I thought we were friends. Casandra 59:58 I just lost to friends. Brooke 1:00:05 I just know not to bring bananas over your house. They won't be safe. Margaret 1:00:09 Well they are safe. Casandra 1:00:09 You can use them perfectly for smoothies and banana bread. How do we end this? Margaret 1:00:21 We we like can do this, right? Like all this like bad shits happening, but like the reason to talk about all this bad shit that's happening is to stare soberly into the face of what's coming. Not so that we like, give up and like, it's not the part in the movie where the "Run there's a monster," and then the monster eats everyone. It's the part where you're standing on the bulwark of the--I watch love fantasy movies--the bulwark of the castle and you look out and there's the gathering storm and the hordes of usually poorly racially designed enemies...is coming...now I just feel bad about using this analogy. I love Lord of the Rings, but i was not... Casandra 1:01:03 The new Lord of the Rings is about to come out. Margaret 1:01:05 Yeah. Casandra 1:01:05 Apparently it's more racially fair and equitable and diverse. Margaret 1:01:09 Yeah. That's good. And I personally more than I probably should think Tolkien would have listened to some of this criticisms since he like, like, when the Nazis came to Tolkien, and were like, "Hey, we love your story, are you Aryan?" and he got really fucking mad. And he was like, they like he was like, "If you're asking if I'm Jewish, I am sad to say that I am not, but fuck all of you forever." So anyway. he's not a perfect man. Casandra 1:01:43 Comrade Tolkien. Margaret 1:01:45 But I think he, I think he meant, well, we all know that intentions are what matters. Okay. So but this is the part of the movie where you're staring out at the, you know, the bad thing is coming, right? And it is a big, bad thing. And we can't just all go back to bed and be like, "Oh, the government will take care of this for us, right?" Because the government is one of the things that's out there gathering and the big fucking mass. Well parts of it, because governments are made out of people. And some parts of it will probably stop being part of the government when bad things happen. But... well like the National Guard like gives food to the like mutual aid groups and like that they're supposed to give to Red Cross, like this has happened sometimes. They're like, "Oh, shit, y'all actually put things where they're supposed to go." And they like help the anarchists instead of the bureaucracies, because they're people. But, we can do this. We can look, we can see what's happening, we can face it, we can communicate with other people about what we're facing. We can work together to get through this. And, and I genuinely believe that and that's why I do this podcast. And that's why my basement is full of kibble. And um... Casandra 1:02:54 We're all gonna come swim in it. Margaret 1:02:55 Yeah, totally. Yeah, it's probably gonna be full of rats by that time, but you know. Margaret 1:03:01 Yeah! Brooke 1:03:01 Rats are food...too. Margaret 1:03:01 I'm like a rat farmer in my basement. That's a turn you never expected from Ol' Margaret. Brooke 1:03:01 Rats need food too. Casandra 1:03:14 Vegan turned rat farmer. Margaret 1:03:17 That's still vegan. Brooke 1:03:21 Okay, so this segment is... Casandra 1:03:24 Devolving. Margaret 1:03:25 Alright. And, so thank you all so much for listening. If you enjoy this podcast, please tell people about it. You can tell people about it on the internet. And you can tell people about it not on the internet. And both of those things are good, because not in person. Because on the internet is good because of algorithms and in person is good because that's a better way to live your life. She said while living alone and on the top of a mountain. And also, if you want to support us more directly, you can do so by sponsoring our Patreon. We are published by Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness, which is a anarchists collective that is dedicated to creating culture and good stuff. Sometimes we do theory, but that's like not our thing. It's like almost like we try and kind of do the other stuff around. And you can support us by following us on Patreon or by supporting us on Patreon patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. If you sponsor us at $10 or more a month, we will send you a zine anywhere in the world for free every month. If you sponsors at all, you'll get access to the digital copy, even before other people get access. I think usually we're good at that. Sometimes. Most of the time. We're still getting our shit together. But there's lots of good content. We have bunch of books coming out. We have another podcast you can check out called Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness, which is the monthly zine, but it is available to everyone and then it also follows with an interview with the Creator talking about their process. It's really good. You should check it out. Do either of you to have anything to plug before I? Casandra 1:04:58 I just got this book in the mail that I did the art for that you might know about. Margaret 1:05:03 Yeah, what is it? Casandra 1:05:06 It's your book. Margaret. Margaret 1:05:07 I have a book? Casandra 1:05:08 Yeah. You have a book coming out. Margaret 1:05:09 Is it called "We Won't Be Here Tomorrow. I have a book of short stories that's coming out called "We Won't Be Here Tomorrow." It comes out September 20. From AK Press, which is a collectively run anarchist publisher, which rules and if you order it now you get art print made by Casandra. Well, drawn by Cassandra. It's probably made by a printer somewhere. The prints part of it anyway, and it illustrates one of my stories and also Casandra did the cover art, and it's really beautiful. So, you should check it out. And in particular, we want to thank some of our Patreon backers. We want to thank Hoss the dog, Chris, Sam, Micaiah, Kirk, Natalie, Eleanor, Jenipher, Staro, Cat J, Chelsea, Dana, David, Nicole, Mikki, Oxalis, Paige, and SJ. Thank you so much for for making this possible. And yeah, I hope you all are doing as well as you can with everything that's going on. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co
Episode Notes Episode summary: Margaret talks with Mixael from the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective about access to different medical technologies, biohacking access, and how the medical industrial complex complicates that. They talk about the importance of being able to audit medical access and ways you can build medical infrastructure in your own communities. They talk about old projects like the DIY Epi Pencil as well as new projects they are revealing, which include new ways to access medicines for abortion, regimens forpairing emergency contraception with PReP, and potential medicines for the treatment of Long Covid. About the Guest: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective is an anarchist collective dedicated to bringing access medicines and medical technologies to those who need them but don't have them. This is done primarily by publishing DIY methodologies for taking responsibility for one's own health by building your own medical devices, manufacturing your own ingredients, or compounding medications yourself. They can be found at https://fourthievesvinegar.org/ or on Twitter @4ThievesVinegar Host Info: Margaret Killjoy 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 Four Thieves Vinegar Collective on The Promise of DIY Pharmaceutical Abortions 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, Margaret Killjoy. And this week, we've got a special treat for you or i dunno if it's a treat. But, it's a really interesting episode. And, I think you might get as much out of it as I do. On this episode, I'll be talking with Four Thieves Vinegar Collective, who we've talked to before. They're basically people who do DIY wet chemistry and teach people how to make their own medications. And this time, they're going to be talking about how people could choose to make their own abortion medications, and also even some Long Covid drugs that have some promising successes and many other things besides, so a lot to dig into. 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 da da ba da buh baa! Jingle 01:12 What's up, y'all? I'm Pierson 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 podcasts so that you never miss an episode. We are proud to be a part of the Channel Zero network. Margaret 02:06 Okay, if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns and then I guess a little bit about Four Thieves Vinegar Collective and what it is you all do? Mixael 02:19 Yeah, my name is Mixael Laufer, I prefer to take whatever pronouns the person addressing me seems are appropriate of the moment. And the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective is an anarchist collective devoted to bringing access to medicines and medical technologies to people who need them, but don't have them. And we're fairly agnostic about the methodologies that we use to try to bring that into being. So, we do a lot of different things, and including trying to find ways to build DIY medical devices. We do a lot with chemistry, and devising ways that people can build the active pharmaceutical ingredients of drugs that they might need. And we also look at methodologies and strategies by which people can acquire the things they need through non traditional channels. So, either looking for drugs that are packaged for other purposes, or looking for things that are closely related, that you might be able to get and convert into what you need. And that's what I spend most of my time doing, I'm the chief spokesperson for the collective. And, I do a lot of work in logistics. So, mostly I take people who are subject matter experts of different types and I try to make sure they have the tools and materials that they need, and that the information they need and the information that they have gets shuttled to the other subject matter experts with whom they work so that we can eventually release literature and guides for people to be able to take control of their own health and hopefully have a better quality of life. Margaret 04:18 So, basically, what you all do is you're decentralized collective of people who've research ways to open source different medical technology, drugs and physical equipment, and then make that open source like show people how to make it and make the tools available for people to make it themselves? Mixael 04:37 Yeah, so that is exactly correct. And to be a little more specific just for your listeners, we don't do any research of our own. We're not developing any new tools. We mostly are hijacking existing tools. We're looking for medical technologies that we already know work. We don't do things like clinical trials or try to develop new drugs that nobody's ever heard of. We look for things that are on the shelf, but inaccessible things that are perhaps not legal for various reasons, perhaps things that have merely not come into the marketplace because they weren't profitable, but still are effective, things that perhaps weren't approved because they were effective, but only in a small margin of the population, and, or in events where they're really inaccessible because the price has been jacked up too high. Or if you happen to be in a situation where the infrastructure just can't reach you, for whatever reason, either due to sclerotic bureaucracy, and you just can't get your insurance provider to give you what you need, or you might be in a rural place where there just isn't a pipeline to get such things. So yeah, we're, we look to take things that are already established that they work and try and get them to the people who need them. Margaret 06:02 So what are some examples of the...I know, we're going to be talking about some of the new products that you all have been working on in a moment, but what are some of the examples of existing things that you all have done that you've released that people are on their own using and accessing right now, because of you all's work? Mixael 06:20 Yeah. So the thing that we are ironically best known for was just a sort of side project that happened, but when, when Heather Bresch was lying in front of Congress about why she jacked up the prices of the epi pen, you had a lot of people knocking on our door, saying, "Why aren't you doing something about the epi pen?" So we put together a project that we lovingly and playfully called The Epi Pencil Project that allows you to make in an open source reloadable version that costs $30, to build and about $3, to reload. And that garnered a lot of attention just because it was very timely. And that was fun, and felt good. And, you know, I still get letters from people saying that they're using it. And it's it's good to know that that technology is out there and that people are benefiting from it. Our sort of flagship project that I believe you and I talked about last time is the Apothecary MicroLab, which is an open source, automated chemical reactor that helps you walk through the process of doing organic chemistry if you're trying to synthesize on active pharmaceutical ingredient of a particular drug, and it will help you through the things that are easy for a machine to do, but are easy for a human to mess up. And then it will ask you to sort of help it are the things that are difficult for machine to do but easy for human. Margaret 07:46 What kind of successes have y'all had with getting this stuff out in the world? You're saying that you've you know, met people who use the Epi Pencil, like, have you? Have you seen widespread adoption? Is it mostly within the hacker community? Like what kind of reach do y'all currently have and what kind of reach are y'all working towards? Mixael 08:04 Well, we don't really know. And I don't think we really have a goal as to reach. And this is a really sort of central tenet of our philosophy is that we're not looking to try to get what we have out there in a certain volume, because we don't want to be supplanting an infrastructure that we're trying to offer an alternative to. The idea is that we build some tools, and those tools are available. And ultimately, the decision as to whether somebody wants to use those tools or thinks it's necessary to use those tools, or even thinks it's a good idea, or wise or foolish to use those tools really lies with the end user. I mean, and this is really important, right? Because the thing is, is we're not saying "Hey, you should use our stuff instead of the regular stuff." Instead, what we're trying to say is, look, you shouldn't be stuck in the position where either the medical infrastructure serves you the way it's supposed to, or you shrug and just continue to suffer or wait to die. You should have the option of taking things into your own hands. And plenty of people don't want to do that for any number of reasons. And that's their personal decision. The goal here is to make it possible for people to have an alternative option where they previously didn't. And so, because of all of that, we work very, very hard to not try to push what we create as "Hey, you should use what we do." It's, "Here's what we did. We think it's kind of cool, and we hope you look at it carefully and make up your own mind thoughtfully." And at the same time, like, we don't go trying to chase down people who've used it to say, "Hey, you know, give us a good review on Yelp," or whatever. It's...the idea is that it's out there, right? The idea is that it's out there in terms of reach the... Margaret 10:18 But how are you going to become a millionaire if you don't sell it? [laughing] Mixael 10:22 Yeah, right? I get that question all the time. And. [both laughing] And, yes, that sort of giggle is typically what comes out of me. Margaret 10:35 yeah, yeah. Mixael 10:37 So, so it's...the one the one thing that I think about in terms of that sometimes is I think about people who might want to use what we've created, but don't know that it exists yet. I like to get the message out there a little bit. And it was interesting, too, because we're revamping the website currently. And the, in a group of, of people who are doing the redesign. One of them isn't from a really strong anarchists background, and was looking at this, this new look that we have, it's like, so pretty, and I'm so excited. It's got this like green neon noir look. And there's like splatters of ink and stuff. And he said to me, he's like, "I am concerned that this, this gritty look that you are pushing for is going to turn some people off." And I said, "Uh huh." And he said, "But don't we want to get as many people as possible to the website." And I said, "Absolutely not. What we'd like is we'd like to get as many people who like what we do and appreciate it to our website. And I promise you that if you try to polish this up, like some corpo thing all of our gutter punk friends are going to see that and run. But make it gritty, we're raising a flag saying "You're one of us. Welcome home."" And there was this long silence. And then finally he said, "Understood, thank you." So yeah, so in terms of like reach, I, I want to reach more of our people, you know, I want to reach more of the people who would use the sort of stuff that we do. And when we get these big splashes in mainstream media, it's very weird, because we get a lot of praise from people who kind of pay lip service to like the idea that they think they like what we do, but they don't [pause] like deep down. And it's so bizarre, because I remember, I remember I had been invited shortly after that project to speak at the Sloan School at MIT. And so I was with a bunch of kind of normies. So, after the after the epi pencil droped. And, and so we're having dinner, and like this woman, I think she was from NASA. And she's sitting next to me. And, and like, and just to be clear, like this conversation that I'm about to recount is typical. Like, I've had the same conversation with a lot of people like her. But, she was from NASA. And she said, "Oh, I heard about the Epi Pencil Project. It's really so great that you're making this accessible. My," I don't know, husband or niece or whatever, "has some sort of anaphylactic shock that she goes into when blah, blah, blah, happens. It's really so wonderful to see you do this." And I said, "Oh, thanks." And I said, "So did you build one?" And the inevitable response was, " Hahahaha, God no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I bought it. But, it's really great that you're doing that." And I was like, "Excuse me, I think I'm in the wrong seat." Margaret 13:55 Yeah, I mean, I can, I can understand being like, "Well, I have the resources. So I'm gonna buy this one that's like, I expect to be dependable." In a weird way, though. It's almost like saying, "I want to trust an expert rather than trust my own expertise", right, like, because-- Mixael 14:17 It's even weirder than that. Yeah. But this is exactly the point. The the phenomenon that you point out is spot on. It's...because I've dug into this a lot, because I've come across it so much, but it's so bizarre. And the thing that's strange is that they want to put faith into an infrastructure that they can't audit. And it's so counterintuitive, because you think that will be the opposite of what you want. But the reason that they want it so badly is that when you do not have the power to check then you're absolved from the responsibility of checking. Margaret 15:01 Ah, yeah, uh huh. Mixael 15:01 And this offloading this outsourcing of responsibility is something that I find over and over and over again, is so very appealing to people. Where if you, if you take something on then if it goes wrong, it's your fault. While if you have an infrastructure supporting you, if something goes wrong, well, that's just bad luck, right? It's a nobody's fault. And there's this this bizarre, this bizarre sort of like blind eyed psychology that happens when you say, "Well, I trust that the infrastructure in place is going to take the best care of me that it can. And that is more comfortable, because I don't have to worry that if something goes wrong that I am blameworthy." And this is terribly ironic, on multiple levels. And it is the most ironic, especially with the Epi Pencil Project, and not to like harken back to this little little thing that we did. But, right after we did that, there was a recall of something like 65,000 epi pens, because they were failing. Margaret 16:20 Huh, Yeah. Mixael 16:21 And the number of tragic stories that came out were just innumerable, of, you know, some poor little girl had a airplane meal that like had a peanut in it or something, and her throat starts to swell shut, and her father hits her with the epi pen, and it fails, and he's got a second one, and that one fails, and he's 30,000 feet in the air somewhere over the ocean and just has to watch her die, because you can't take the thing apart and make it work unless you're trained in like how to break it properly. If instead, he'd made it himself, like, there'd be no way for it to fail. It's it's an auto injector. And if something went wrong with the mechanism, you just unscrew it and you use the syringe. There's there's...and it's just it's I don't know, it's it's maddening sometimes when you hear about these tragic stories where people either thoughtfully or thoughtlessly have put all of this trust in in an infrastructure which heartlessly fails them and feels no remorse when it does. It's just a matter of business. Like, that's what, that's the American Way. Margaret 17:32 Yeah. I mean, that's the that's a an easy microcosm of a very large political truth. And that that's what people want. That's why people trust police. That's why they essentially give up their agency in order to...Well, I mean, in some ways, like, you know, I understand the desire to not have to think about everything I do, right? Like, it's nice, that some stuff... Mixael 18:00 Sure. Margaret 18:00 ...someone else takes care of, like, my friend Bursts is editing this audio. And it's nice to be able to be like, "Oh, he's going to edit the audio. And I don't have to think about it," you know, and, and so I understand why people want to do that. But, when you do it at the level of society, and you have everything turned into these black boxes, and you just sort of say, "Well, the black box never fails." And then when it fails, you're like, "Well, I guess there's nothing that could possibly have been done to solve this," you know? And then what you all do is you rip open these black boxes. Mixael 18:35 That is the goal. That is definitely the goal. Yeah. And I think what you point out is really a critical thing. When you talk about this is why people trust police and trust government and trust, you know, infrastructure and roads and bridges, and like, whatever, you know, whatever you're looking at, in terms of systems, you know, trusting your internet service provider, trusting your phone company, trusting the water systems, like any number of things. And ideally, it would be really nice if all of these things worked, right? Margaret 19:10 Yeah. Mixael 19:11 You know, in, in a sort of a Hallmark card fairy tale world, we'd really like to think like, "Well, the water that comes out of the tap, won't catch fire or be full of lead. And the roads that are designed are designed to be safe. And I'm not being unduly spied on or abused or exploited." And unfortunately, we don't get those systems working that well most of the time. Margaret 19:45 Yeah. Mixael 19:46 Or enough of the time. And so, I harken back sometimes his memory I have of a friend of mine who went to business school and he's a really nice guy and has plenty of good qualities. But, in a moment of being rather misguided, he went to business school. And so he still has a little bit of that business mindedness sort of stuck in his consciousness. And he said to me, "How would you qualify success of Four Thieves?" And I kind of thought about it for a minute and I said, "Well, if we didn't have to exist anymore." Margaret 20:20 Yeah. Mixael 20:21 And he kind of looked at me quizzically, and I was like, "We're filling a gap that really shouldn't be needful. Either the infrastructure should function well enough that it takes care of everybody, or the idea of DIY medicine should be sufficiently normalized that like, we're not important anymore. And everybody's just doing it. Because that's a natural thing to think of." Margaret 20:44 Yeah, I I like this idea of the ability to audit things mattering ,right? Like, I think of, because I think about how I want to offload certain responsibility. It's just part of my life, as I, you know, as I try to dive deeper into certain specializations, it's nice to free up mental space to not have to think about every system that I rely on. And, one of the things that I think scares people away from anarchism, even if they understand that anarchism is an organized thing, is that there's this assumption that everyone has to have a decision about everything, make a decision about everything. So you have like everyone in the city gets to decide how the water is filtered, or whatever. And, I'm much more into there being a working group of the people who filter water, who figured out the best way to do it and and present it. But, the difference that matters to me is that that would remain auditable, that would remain...I like that phraseing and that would be something that I could-- Mixael 21:41 Exactly. Margaret 21:42 I don't want to think about how the water is filtered until I suddenly do, and then I want to be able to know, you know, I want to know, and have input if it's necessary. Mixael 21:51 Yes. Exactly. And that's beautifully put, right? That's beautifully put, and that, and that sort of two tiered, I don't even mean to say it's a two tiered system, that sort of a dual structured system, where it operates independently, but is accessible is really ideal, you know, and people, often when people hear about Four Thieves, right, the first thing that they say is like, "How do you know it's safe?" And I always just have this quizzical moment where I say, "How do you know what you get from the drugstore is safe? You're not allowed to go behind the counter, and even see, if they got the right pills out of the right bin. You're not allowed to go right back there into the refrigerator and see if they stored it properly. You're not allowed to check the truck that it came in on and see if it was shipped properly. Furthermore, you're not even allowed to know what factory it came from. And you're certainly not allowed to go into that factory and see if it was manufactured properly. And yet, somehow that feels safe to you? But if you had your own eyes on everything from start to finish, that seems like a terrible risk. Why? Why do you feel that way?" And people don't tend to have a really good answer most of the time, but it's the same sort of thing. I mean, I think that...I think that there's something automatic about it, again, about wanting to trust structure. But, in the same way, you know, I think that the same thing happens when people who are like, I don't know, cooking their own psychedelics, I think a lot of people would be like, "Oh my God, how is that safe?" And you say, "You bought something from a stranger? How do you know what's even in that? That doesn't seem safe at all." Like where is your saftey versus... Margaret 23:41 Yeah, I mean, the answer is that none of them are safe. Mixael 23:46 Right, well, but in one case, you at least have complete surveillance over the entire process. And in the other. You have zero. Margaret 23:55 Yeah. Mixael 23:56 So, that seems like a better trade off in my mind. Margaret 24:01 Yeah. I mean, part of it is that it's like, like I keep kind of harkening back to is that I don't want to be an expert on everything, right? Like, you know, I really like what you all do, and there's a version of the world where I would learn wet chemistry, but it is not particularly likely, right? Like I am, personally not incredibly likely to start manufacturing these things, and but in part because I don't personally physically require any of the things that you all make, to my knowledge, that exists so far, right? And so I'm kind of like, it's sort of easy to, to not think about, but it's... Mixael 24:37 In the event that you have one that you needed. Margaret 24:41 I also like am part of a community where I do know people who are smart enough to do these things and, and one of the reasons I like Four Thieves, one of the reasons I talk about you all a lot, is that one of the questions I get asked a lot by people was like, "Well, how do, you know in an anarchist society or after the apocalypse which people equate a little bit more than they should and I do sometimes too, but how would you create such and such drug? And the answer is always like, well, people do it. And there's still going to be people. So, people will do it. Mixael 25:13 Right. Yeah. Margaret 25:13 You know? And one of the things that I try and remind myself as a person is that I'm like, I generally believe that if people are capable of doing something, I am a people, and therefore I am capable of doing it. Not like, today, I could go and do open heart surgery. But... Mixael 25:32 This is exactly my argument too. Yeah. Margaret 25:34 But I like, I trust my friends that did learn how to do that. Mixael 25:39 Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's absolutely astute. Margaret 25:43 Well, you know, we're, we've been talking for a while already, but I wanted to kind of give this groundwork. But, I'm really excited about y'all have an announcement today, you have many announcements of a bunch of new products that you all are releasing. And when I say today, I mean, yeah, July 22, 2022. I have no idea when you're listening to this. But, let's, let's hear some of these things that you have to announce. Mixael 26:09 Yeah, so we have a bunch of new projects, because we've been working through the pandemic. We decided to stop going to virtual conferences and just focus on projects. So, now that it's been almost two years, since we've made any announcements, we have a lot of new projects to drop. And as we were talking about before we went on the air, the sort of element du jour here is abortion drugs. And, this is such a...such a head shaker of an issue, to my mind, because this is a social problem that has a complete and perfect technical solution that there are all of these barriers to implementing that are entirely unnecessarily present. It's just so so so so bizarre. Because, when I think of abortion, I think, "Well, there are some drugs, you take the drugs, and your body is no longer pregnant. Why do we even have to discuss this anymore?" There are a few other pieces where things have-- Margaret 27:27 It seems like a solved problem is what you're saying? Mixael 27:27 Right, it seems like a solved problem. And, and it's just maddening to me that the the technical part of it was solved decades upon decades ago. And still, it's not accessible, which is just the most bizarre thing ever. So, in looking at the decision that just came out of the so called Supreme Court, you see that the the adenda include this sort of roadmap for bringing this down to emergency contraception, eventually bring this down to contraception itself and, you know, re-criminalizing gay sex and like a million other things that just are kind of just incomprehensible that anybody would want to make that happen. Like, even from the most conservative standpoint, you think that the pragmatism of realizing that it's bad for business when you're horrifically bigoted like maybe he would count for something, but clearly, I am in error when I assume that because it just happened. Margaret 28:50 Yeah, no. Hate is big business. Mixael 28:53 Yeah, yeah. It really is. And, I think I need to learn more about why it is because it's, it's so...I don't know, I can't get it to gel in my head. It's It's really weird. Margaret 29:10 It's a different reality. Mixael 29:13 It is. It is. And, I think that yeah, I think that that's really it, right? Where if you if you want to really crank up your compassion and try to understand why these people might feel that they're doing the right thing, despite this just horrific acts that they're doing that somewhere in there, like they think that something is better by doing this and it's, I really need to unpack it. And maybe it's something more basic in human behavioral biology that I just don't have a good handle on. But, like you said, it's it is big business and it is definitely a thing So, that to say, regarding abortion, there are two major releases that we have around that that are pretty exciting. And the first one, a we call them, Plan B Plus. And, when you think about getting emergency contraception, as is you know typically termed Plan B, which interestingly enough, all Plan B, and even the off brands like My Way, and the others have in the last week, tripled in price. Margaret 30:39 Holy shit, Uh huh Mixael 30:40 It's I mean, not that that's still super expensive, but it's amazing that you used to be able to get My Way for $6. And now it's $16. Like, it's crazy. But you know, again, right? Money drives a lot of things bizarrely, and, you know, supply and demand and all that. But looking at that, you know, Plan B emergency contraception is very effective. But, when you think about the potential negative consequences that might happen from unprotected contact, you might also be thinking about contracting HIV. And we also have a good solution for that. There's post exposure prophylaxis. There's this good regimen for taking some anti-retrovirals. And in the event that you were exposed to HIV during the act, you can be pretty confident that you're going to be protected. And we were able to go through the literature and find what a good regimen for post exposure prophylaxis is. Now it's interesting. So if you look at what happens in a hospital, if somebody has a needle stick accident, the typical regimen for post exposure prophylaxis is a fairly aggressive multi-drug set of anti-retrovirals that you take over a period of a month, and they're pretty rough on your body, because you're taking them in fairly high dose, and you're taking them for a long time. However, the literature indicates that the first dose or two is really doing the heavy lifting. So, if after an event of unprotected contact, or exposure of whatever type, you get one dose of this, it can do 85-95% of the work in terms of protecting you against HIV, which is really great. And so, we had the idea of saying, Well, why not take this with emergency contraception? It seems like kind of a, you know, why not just do them together? Margaret 32:54 Right. Mixael 32:54 And, we were very deflated to find out that anti-retrovirals actually interfere with emergency contraception biochemically. Margaret 33:05 Ah, okay. Mixael 33:05 And we thought, "God, what a drag?" This...I mean, what a terrible, difficult decision that you'd have to make. Would you prefer to protect yourself?-- Margaret 33:14 Yeah. Which one do you want to deal with? Mixael 33:15 Right? Would you rather deal with HIV or an unwanted pregnancy? That's a terrible decision to have to make. And one of our superstar researchers managed to find a research summit that was done on this very question just last year, and as it turns out, all you have to do is double the dose of the emergency contraception and that's enough that it's no longer being interfered with by the anti-retrovirals. So, there is a course of treatment that you can give yourself, that is both Plan B, emergency contraception, and post exposure prophylaxis with a multi-drug cocktail, and you will be able to be fairly certain that you will not have either an unwanted pregnancy or an HIV infection, which I'm pretty excited about. I think that's really great to be able to empower people with that, you know. You can just take some pills and that problem is, you know, 19 times out of 20 no longer gonna be a problem anymore. Margaret 34:21 And so, if someone is interested in making this, it's y'all's system, the MicroLab that people could use to make Plan B Plus? Mixael 34:34 That is possible, um, indeed, and the...and we are releasing version four of the Microlab as well. And there's a whole software suite with that. Not only is there the MicroLab itself, but there is a graphical user interface that's there to build programs to run on the MicroLab. We have open access our new supercomputer so that you can utilize it to figure out synthesis pathways for whatever drug you're trying to synthesize. And on top of that, also, there's a research assistant that will help you comb through the scientific literature. So you could do that. However, in this case, these are off the shelf drugs, and you can just take them. Margaret 35:22 Oh, I see what you're saying, okay. Mixael 35:24 So we'll be releasing a regimen. So, what you can do is merely you would, if you wanted to have this on hand for a rainy day, what you would do is you would buy two doses, so three milligrams, instead of a milligram and a half of the emergency contraception and then you would buy a, you know, a dose of a couple of different anti-retrovirals and you would just, you know, stash them away in the event that you will need them. And, and we'll be releasing that specifically as a, as a regimen, and there'll be documentation so that you can both read through what we have found and also, you will be able to read the original research and literature that this is based on. Again, like, we didn't come up with this. Margaret 36:19 Yeah, yeah. Mixael 36:20 This came from existing scientific research. So yes, all the all the primary source material is there, again, auditable, right? You should be making up your own mind. We, we've gone through and found the stuff and you can take a look at it and decide if it's something you want to do. Margaret 36:38 Okay. Mixael 36:40 So yes, we do have another technology in the abortion drugs realm that is extremely, extremely exciting. And so as you and most of your listeners, no doubt know, abortion medication is typically made up of Mifepristone and Misoprostol, and you take one dose of the Mife, and then you follow that up with three doses of Miso. And that is roughly 95% or more effective. And so that's kind of a slam dunk. However, in the world of underground abortion providers, it's very well known that if you have Miso only that you can take the three doses of Miso. And, it's roughly 85% effective. And of course, the earlier you take it, the more effective it is. And so most underground abortion providers do that. They work with Miso only. It's easier to get a hold of and it's it's easier to work with. Margaret 37:48 Okay. Mixael 37:48 However, there's still the problem of getting it from point A to point B. Typically, these days, it goes through the mail. And, one of the problems is it gets hung up, in the reason that it gets hung up is that it's a tablet. And there are these rigid object detectors that are in mail systems, and they get caught and they get pulled, especially through crossing international borders. It's very difficult. Same sort of thing. If you're in a some sort of oppressive environment, either like your home life or your small community if you have pills lying around, or if somebody spots you with pills, like a lot of question marks are going to come up. So when we released our video on how to make your own Miso tabs, the big thing is making the tablet. And the reason you have to make a tablet and this is really critical is that misoprostol is a very fragile molecule. If you just swallow it, your stomach acid will immediately destroy it and it's useless. You need to have it in a tablet so that you can put it in your cheek and let it dissolve and it will slowly soak in and be effective. That's also the reason why the alternate route of delivery is vaginal administration just of the tablets. You need it to dissolve in a place where there are a lot of capillaries. And apparently it's also fairly local. So there are some theories, that vaginal administration can be more effective. But, I think the literature is kind of split on that. But again, it can't be a capsul. Margaret 39:35 People have talked about this idea. And I don't know. So, don't listen to me as saying absolutely the truth. But, I have heard people talk about how vaginal use of this is more traceable than oral use of it, in terms of possible prosecution. Mixael 39:53 Right. So, there are documented cases of that. So, what can happen and what has what has happened in, I believe in number of Latin American countries, is that when things have not worked, and somebody's had to go in to a hospital, say, "I'm having a miscarriage, and it's going poorly, and I need medical attention," that after a pelvic exam, not the active ingredient, but some of the buffer and binder hasn't dissolved, and somebody says, "You have chunks of pills in you, we know what you did." And so, there are...sometimes say if you're in an extremely non permissive environment where you would go to jail for murder, if anybody knew that you tried to induce a miscarriage in your body, that taking it orally is safer in that regard. So again, again, the key thing here again, is thinking about it dissolving, that it has to be in a...you can't just put it in a capsule and swallow it, right, it has to be in a tablet form. And this is the difficult part. If you give somebody a bunch of raw active pharmaceutical ingredient, they can't just put it in gel caps they get from the health food store and make pills, you have to press it into a tablet. And while you can do that, and you know, we did release a video on how to do that, it's not that difficult, but it is a pain and putting through the mail is you know, they're fragile, and they break and what do you do with that? Is that okay? And people get nervous. So we were all sitting around trying to figure out what to do about this and one of our absolutely brilliant members just kinda looked up and said, "Why don't we just put it in blotter paper, like acid tabs?" And we all just had this moment of silence and said, "Oh, my God, that's brilliant." And again, scouring the literature, it turns out that this has been done. It's just nobody does it. There's a very effective way that you can put miso into paper with a binder so that it's less...so it's more stable, more shelf stable and less fragile. Misoprostol is shelf stable when stored properly. Margaret 42:31 Do you have to keep it in a freezer? Mixael 42:32 You don't have to keep it in the freezer. The thing apparently that it is most susceptible to is-- Margaret 42:38 I'm just thinking of Acid. Margaret 42:39 Oh, right. Haha. Yeah, so the thing that the thing that misoprostol apparently is most susceptible to is moisture. And the interestingly, the buffer that comes with, when you put it into the paper makes it less susceptible to moisture. If you're planning on storing it for a long period of time, yeah, you can put in like a Ziploc bag or a little Mylar bag or whatever, that's fine. And it'll keep for longer. But, in the suspension that we've found, you can just have a little piece of card. And so what we are hoping to do is to have a whole bunch of little business cards that have six little squares that you can cut out, and you take two of them, and put them in your cheeks and you let them sit there for about an hour. And then you you wait the requisite number of hours and you do your second dose and then you'd wait the requisite number of hours and take your third dose and you're done. And the thing that's magical about this is that it removes a lot of the infrastructural problems. You can send this through the mail. It's totally undetectable. You can stick it into a copy of "The Left Hand of Darkness" in the public libraries and just tell somebody that they can go pick it up, if they need it. You can take this and stash it in any number of geocaches. Margaret 44:11 I think that you should use "A Country of Ghosts." Mixael 44:13 There we go. Yeah. So you know, they're...right or or or "The Mists of Avalon" or any number of appropriate works of literature that you can stash these in entirely appropriate. Margaret 44:25 Yeah. Mixael 44:26 And what we're hoping to have by the time this airs is to have a lot of these already out there and circulating. Not just that it's an idea, but that it's been manufactured by a bunch of affiliate cells, a number of other anarchist health activism groups, and that hopefully the opinion as it's called of the Supreme Court becomes just their opinion. And if there's so much out there that people can just get it for free whenever they want, because we've made so much of it, then maybe they just don't matter that much anymore. Margaret 45:15 So, I'm laughing super hard, because it's fucking brilliant. And also, of course, because I really liked the idea of being able to say, "Yeah, well, that's just your opinion, man," to the Supreme Court's opinion. Mixael 45:27 Yeah, I like that. Margaret 45:28 But this, this does bring up a question. What's the legality of manufacturing and or, clearly, we would never advocate anyone break the law, because that's the, I mean, actually, literally, that's the kind of thing that people need to make their own decision. Oh, well, Mixael 45:46 Oh, well you and I might differ on that. Margaret 45:51 You live in a different country. Mixael 45:51 I would certainly advocate for people to break the law. But yeah, details. Yes. Right. Margaret 46:00 And also, I would say that I advocate for people to have knowledge with which they can make their own informed decisions about which laws they want to follow. But-- Mixael 46:08 That's a good way to phrase it. Margaret 46:09 To what degree is there a concern around like, like, if I live in a state where Miso is legal, is it legal for me to make it myself? Mixael 46:20 Oh probably not. Margaret 46:20 Like, in general, what kind of legality will people be running into? Mixael 46:26 All manner of weird things, and it does depend on the state that you're in. And the the legal team at Four Thieves basically put it to me like this. If they want to arrest you, they can find a way. And it was sort of it was kind of like it's a moot right. Are you distributing a dangerous drug? Are you distributing a dangerous drug with intent to defraud? Are you practicing medicine without a license? Are you...that there's so many weird laws that are so broadly written, that any number of things could be thrown at you, if you were making it, distributing it, sharing it, taking it, especially with all the new shifts in law. And again, it becomes, in, in my mind, with my understanding of the situation as it is now, the risk that you run is really measured in Is it going to be worth it for the law enforcement in question to try to chase you down? Or not? How possible and how plausible is that? Because if you think about the state of New York, you're in the northeast, some you're near New York, right? Margaret 47:57 Sure, yeah. Mixael 48:00 Okay, you might be in New York. Margaret 48:02 I'm in Appalachia. I am closer to New York than I am to like San Francisco. Mixael 48:09 Right, closer to New York than I am. So but, I happen to know that in the state of New York, if you were to say, "Hey, Mixael, you know, I have a headache?" And I say, "Oh, yeah, have you thought of taking an aspirin for that," that I am technically, committing a felony of practicing medicine without a license. That's how broadly the law is written. Now, nobody's ever gonna prosecute that of course. But, the law in many cases and in many places is written so broadly that anything will fall under its purview. And it becomes this weird question of is it worth the energy of a prosecutor? Is it worth the energy of the local police force? Is worth the energy of an investigator? And so in sort of a threat modeling sort of idea, the way the InfoSec people talk about it, you just want to make yourself just a little bit more of a pain in the ass to hunt down than anybody's willing to do. And you're probably safe. Now, this isn't like good advice from me, like go talk to a real security person, if you're thinking about doing this, and like, keep yourselves and keep each other safe. Please, please, please, please, if you're if you're one of us, we need you out here and safe. So that we can all keep doing stuff and helping each other. So, you take as...take more precautions than you think you need. Please. Try to be...try to err on the side of safety. However, I would say do not allow the the fear to paralyze you into inaction. There are ways that you can keep yourself relatively safe, and stay out of so called trouble and still do the things that you believe are right. And you will be able to continue to help other people and keep each other healthy and keep each other safe. Margaret 50:25 Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I sometimes get sad because I'm like, "Well, I picked being very public as my role. So I guess I'm not doing anything really cool." But, I don't know. So. So what else you got? It's your big day of announcements. You've already offered the world ways to access reproductive, their own reproductive health. What about oh, I don't know this thing that's going around that's disabling a lot of people and causing a lot of problems and killing people called Covid. You got anything for that? Mixael 51:05 Yeah. Well, we do, we do. And I'll give at least a little teaser. Margaret 51:10 Yay! Mixael 51:10 Now, this is an interesting thing. Because in Four Theives we we have a general policy of marching away from the sound of the guns. If there are a lot of people working on something, we tend to think, "Okay, well, then we're not needed there, we need to focus on the things that aren't being focused on." We did I construct a Covid survival guide. In the very early days. I think we released it in February of 2020. When people kind of weren't appreciating how scary it was going to be. And, we put together the information that we had access to at the time, and it's aged, okay. There are a number of things that are certainly outdated. And at least one thing that's not terribly correct. Or, it's miscontextualized. We have a thing where we're like, "You know, masks don't keep you safe very much," which is true. But masks are really important because they keep everybody else safe. So you know, don't be a jerk, wear a mask, keep everybody else safe. It wasn't clear at the time that it was going to be so pervasive that we were going to need to do that all the time. So, we did that when it seemed nobody else was. And then subsequently, when basically every scientific organization in the world suddenly turned their microscopes on this, we thought, well, okay, cool, we're not needed anymore, we're going to focus on other things. But, as the years have passed, there is one aspect of Covid that is getting all largely ignored by the mainstream medical infrastructure, which is Long Covid. I have spoken with a number of medical professionals who have a very dismissive attitude. And they say that they feel they think, Long Covid is largely psychosomatic. And I'm kind of disgusted. Margaret 53:18 It's the same shit of every fucking viral. It's just the same thing as every viral long term thing, that people just like, like, like people have....there's other viruses that people get that cause long term symptoms that get called psychosomatic is what I'm saying. Mixael 53:36 Sure and the thing that it, it sounds very...harkens back to a lot of the stuff that you typically hear mainstream doctors say about things like chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, things that definitely affect people with two X chromosomes. When you're looking at these things, it's like, "Oh, it's on your head, you need to exercise more, you should probably lose weight. You," you know, whatever. Just this very, very dismissive attitude that when I hear it, and when I sort of poke at these people and ask them to sort of unpack their reasoning for me, that when you get down to it, they're basically like, "Look, we don't know how to treat it. So essentially, in my reality, it doesn't exist." And I'm like, that's exactly the opposite of the attitude we should be having towards something that's crippling people. This is terrible. This is terrible. Margaret 54:37 Yeah. Mixael 54:37 And so as happens sometimes there are occasionally people that reach out to Four Thieves and have some information that's not in the public sphere or is not highlighted enough. And a guy that I worked with years and years ago said, "Hey, I know what you're doing and there's this thing that I have for Long Covid. And I can't get any traction on it. Maybe you can push it in through one of your backdoors." And I said, "I don't believe you. There's no way you have a cure for Long Covid. Long. Covid is so complicated. It's like this world. It's this giant umbrella of different symptoms and different mechanisms of action." And he was like, "Yeah, yeah, I know. It's only for one." And so I shut up. And I said, "Okay, I'm listening. What are we talking about?" He said, "Well, a lot of Long Covid cases seem to be autoimmune in nature." And I was like, "Yeah, I've read that. And he said, the very few doctors who are taking this seriously are treating it with immunosuppressants." And I said, "Okay, cool. What now?" And he said, "Well, the problem is, is immunosuppressants that are approved in the United States, are very, very hard in the system, and will often cause people's kidneys to fail before they do what they're supposed to do." And I said, "Yeah, so you got something better?" And he said, "Actually, yes, it's an old drug. It's FDA approved. It was originally designed for leprosy. And it's called Clofazimine." And I said, "This is ridiculous. You're talking about an antibiotic. That's not going to do anything," And he said, "Slow down." He said, "This modulates the calcium channels in your T cells, and it will bring your immune system down to chill out." And I said, "I don't believe you. This is ridiculous. This is this is this seems totally...There's no way you just have this in your backpack. How is this real?" And I said, "Wend...Do you have documentation?" And he said, "Yeah, of course. I have a truckload of documentation." "So we'll send it to me." He said "Well, I will." And he did and he was right. The weird thing that's, that's so difficult is that Clofazimine is almost impossible to find, because leprosy is seen as a poor people disease, a non-white people disease. Margaret 57:19 Yeah. Mixael 57:20 And, so despite the fact that Clofazamine was approved by the FDA, and is on the books, it's not manufactured by anybody in the United States. And it's not imported to the United States by anybody. So you really, really, really have to go looking for it. And, so the last thing where I'm still kind of totally incredulous with this guy, whereas I said, "So what? Somebody just takes this for the rest of their lives, and maybe they're okay? Like, and how long do they need to take it before they even know that it's working?" And he said, "They can take one or two doses, and it'll either work or it won't." And I said, "You've got to be joking." And he said, "No, I'm serious." I said, "Well, and then when they take it forever?" And he said, "No, then you can take it for about a month, and your immune system will settle out to a regular setpoint. And then you can stop taking it, and you can just go back to your regular life." And I was just absolutely floored. And so we continue to try and look for sources Clofazamine. They allegedly are available in places like Indian Bangladesh. Again, we're recording this in advance of when it's going to be released. So hopefully, we'll have a truckload full of it. And we'll be throwing it to people from the stage. But, again, it's been very hard to turn up. And again, I think just the fact that it's hard to get these sorts of things is so emblematic of all of the problems that you and I keep talking about in terms of the way that health running both worldwide, and especially in the US. So hopefully, we'll have some of this and hopefully, we'll be able to get it to the people who need it and help people who need it, get it themselves. And Long Covid can be something that isn't affecting so so so many people, and we'll be able to make at least some of them a little better. Margaret 59:12 What...like what kind of...you're saying that it only works on certain, certain Long Covid symptoms or sufferers, like, is there a sort of like a rough idea of like, what percent you're talking about? Because also, there's I know that you expressed incredulity in the story, but it's like, it's so hard not to hear this and think this is horse paste again, you know, this is ivermectin. Mixael 59:35 Right. So, so, so Long Covid again, is this it's this big umbrella term for something happened with Covid and you're experiencing things after you are quote unquote, "better." One of the ways that this manifests is people just get severe forms of Covid and get organ damage. And that's Long Covid Right. You have permanent effects from it, like no drug gonna to fix that, okay. You have organ damage, you have organ damage. That's very hard to reverse. There are manifestations where people kind of have chronic infection where especially in people who are immunocompromised, their viral load never really goes away. And, they just continue to suffer. Also, this is not going to help that at all. But what seems to happen in a, you know, maybe not the majority or even the plurality of cases, but a large chunk of cases is what happens is, people get a fairly severe Covid infection, and their immune system kicks into hyperdrive as it is designed to, but Covid can be sufficiently aggressive and hang around long enough that the immune system never modulates back down. And so what will happen is that people who have recovered from their Covid infection become hypersensitive to things again. They're totally fatigued all the time, because their immune system is taking up all of their resources. They don't tolerate things well. They get weird, like allergic reactions to things. All sorts of stuff that, again, is in this sort of autoimmune disease manifestation. And the thing that's really magical is that you take one or two doses of this, and it'll either work or it won't. If you if you start to feel better, you know, that you're in this particular category of this is what you needed. And then you can just take a course of treatment, and hopefully, you'd be better. And you so you don't have to, like tax your body for a long time trying to say, well, like maybe it'll work maybe won't, you'll know very quickly, which is such a blessing. And so my hope at the HOPE conference in New York, is that if I find people who say they have Long Covid, that I'll be able to give them one or two doses and say, "Take one today, take one tomorrow, and if on Sunday, you feel much better, I can give you a month's worth. And then you can just take it home with you and be better." Margaret 1:02:20 Right. Mixael 1:02:21 So that's my dream. And again, also that you proliferate it so that people know how they can access it on their own without having to need us as an intermediary. And have ways that people can, as you say, potentially manufacture it, if it's not accessible at all. Access is really the thing. There's so many, so many things that are on the shelf we can fix, but you can't get them legally. So, while you might not encourage people to break the law, I say, have at it. Have at it! If it's the difference between breaking the law and keeping your health, would you rather be the most law abiding citizen in the graveyard? Or would you like to maybe work circum-legally, or extra-legally and live to fight another day? I think it's a pretty easy decision Margaret 1:03:16 That that I encourage everyone can make on their own. Yeah, no, totally. All right. And so I think you have one more announcement for today. And maybe we'll go over this one quickly. We're kind of running out of time. So, but, you have a defibrillator? Mixael 1:03:33 Oh, so I'll give another teaser is that we have...yeah, the defibrillator. So we have an open source defibrillator that you can build for about $600 instead of the usual $6,000. And so we'll be giving details on all of these things at the talk at HOPE [conference]. And we'll be doing workshops at DEF CON a few weeks later. And I encourage you all to come out. And if you can't, I know that you can get a virtual ticket to HOPE so that you can not just stream all the talks, but also interact and ask questions in real time. And I believe that DEF CON will also be hybridized. So, if you go to the Biohacking Village Channel [On Youtube], you should be able to watch what we're doing. And yeah, I hope to see you all there. Or sooner or later somewhere. Margaret 1:04:26 All right. There any last words, things that we forgot, things that need to get pointed out? Mixael 1:04:37 Well, if you like what Four Thieves is doing and you want to support the mission, please go out and find somebody who needs your help and help them whether or not you think they deserve it. Margaret 1:04:49 Yeah, fuck yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Again. Mixael 1:04:55 Keep each other healthy, each other safe. Margaret 1:04:58 Thanks so much for coming on again. Mixael 1:04:59 Thank you so much. It's always great chatting with you. And I hope we can do it again. Margaret 1:05:02 I look forward to it. Mixael 1:05:03 Yeah, me too. Margaret 1:05:11 Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, you should tell people about it. You should tell people about it on the internet, and in person, and sky writing. I don't know if sky writing is ethical. If you all come up with a green version of sky writing, you should do it hot air balloons? I feel like hot air balloons. If you were to set up hot air balloons, and do banners from the hot air balloons, maybe that don't just say "Live Like The World is Dying" because that would be kind of a scary thing if you were just driving around and there was a hot air balloon up above you that said, "Live Like The World is Dying." Or maybe that would be good. I'm not the boss of you. You do whatever you want, including not tell people about this, whatever. You can also support us. You can support us by supporting our publisher. We are published by Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness, which is a publishing collective that's how you know, they publish things like podcasts. We. I'm part of it. We put out zines. And we put out podcasts, and we're going to be putting out books soon. We've been around for almost 20 years in various different incarnations, but this new version of it is new and exciting. And if you support us on Patreon, patreon.com/strangersInatangledwilderness, you can sign up there and you can get a zine sent to you every month. Not for free. It's like, you have to pay for it. But it's like once you sign up for the thing, then we send it to you and we'll send it to you anywhere in the world. And also all of our content is made available as best we can free on the internet as well. But, it's really cool to be supported and really grateful. I know that I like to say this every time but I'm really grateful for all the support that people have shown. Both the people who came over with me. It used to be a personal Patreon for me, and have come over to supporting the collective, and then also all of the new supporters. It it's like really good for morale. We're like trying to do this fairly ambitious project with all this stuff that we're trying to get done. And we haven't been able to get all of it done yet, right? And people being like, "No, we believe in you!" by supporting us has been really big, really great. So thanks. Thank you. And in particular, I would like to thank Hoss the Dog, who is a dog, not a person. I already made this joke. And now I'm stuck making the joke again. I'm sorry. If you missed the joke, Hoss the Dog is a dog but anyway, Hoss the Dog, Chris, Sam, Miciahah, Kirk, Natalie, Eleanor, Jennifer, Staro, Kat J, Chelsea, Dana, David, Nicole, Mikki, Oxalis, Paige, and SJ. Yeah. Thank you. And to everyone else, go out and don't commit crime unless you want to commit crime. Really, I guess that was the whole point of the whole thing you just listened to. Good luck! Weird shits happening? I don't know. We'll get through it. Yeah, it'll be good. Totally. See you all soon. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co
Looking very similar to a clover or a shamrock, Oxalis definitely has a ton of personality! The foliage folds up at night and moves with the light intensity while also sporting tiny, beautiful flowers. Go to www.houseplant-homebody.com/ for more detail and the corresponding blog post! Don't forget to follow Houseplant Homebody on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. If you want EVEN MORE of Houseplant Homebody, become a Supporter, sign up for the bi-monthly newsletter or reach out with a question, request or just say hi! I love hearing from each of you! Thank you SO much for listening!
Ayer fue el día de San Patricio y quise hacer un episodio hablando de algunos datos curiosos e interesantes sobre los famosos tréboles. Link Record Guiness por encontrar trébol con 56 hojas: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.es/world-records/most-leaves-on-a-clover También puedes seguirme por aquí: Instagram: @aventuraplantastica Tiktok: @aventuraplantastica Twitter: @mariangelaeb
Happy St. Patrick's Day! This day brings shamrocks to mind. What are shamrocks? It's a slurred version of seamrog from the Celts. There's some very interesting history involved in the "shamrock". It's actually a couple of different plants. I'm sharing some history and some mystery on Oxalis and the fact that we have a native oxalis too! Check out my website while you listen! Gardenbite.com.
With St. Patrick's Day coming up soon, many people will be touting green clothes, green hats and drinking green beer. Those traditions are fun but, as a horticulturist, the one tradition I don't enjoy are the green carnations. I generally love all flowers, but a white carnation dyed in green just doesn't cut it for me. If you want to give a flower for St. Patty's Day, I have some better options. The shamrock is the symbolic flower of St Patrick's Day. The original Irish shamrock is thought to have been a clover. It's not the best gift plant. Luckily, florist shops and garden centers are filled with oxalis this time of year. Oxalis grows from a small bulb and has stems with three leaflet leaves and a dainty little flower. There are green varieties, purple varieties and even one called 'Iron Cross' with a red center edged in green. Oxalis can be grown as a houseplant now, and used later in your outdoor container or garden. If oxalis gets leggy or insect-infested simply cutback all the foliage to the soil and it will regrow. Mini roses are a great gift, especially ones with yellow or white flowers. They contrast beautifully with all the green around. Select varieties that stay only 1- to 2-feet tall and grow them as houseplants now and outdoor plants for years. Perhaps a true Irish gardener would love some seeds of Bells of Ireland. This annual flower grows stalks with green blooms in summer. Bells of Ireland likes cool weather, self sows, is a great cut flower and would be appreciated all summer long.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Phong Nha caves have been described as a "a bucket list adventure travel destination" and after this podcast, I think you will understand why.Phong Nha as a location, is fast becoming the major draw card to Vietnam for adventure seekers. If its magical scenery and surprisingly clean and green flourishing forests you are seeking, then you will want to give some serious thought to Phong Nha caves.It has been said, passing through the different caves, that the stunning landscapes will make you believe the myths about fairies, and magical kingdoms, while the magnificent scenery will continue to enchant you. And let's not forget the enormity of some of them. Some are big enough to fit skyscrapers in.My guest on the show, is Howard Limbert. Howard has been caving for 32 years and was part of the leadership team which discovered Son Doong, in 2009. Just in case you didn't know, this cave is now touted as the largest cave on the planet. I was fortunate to catch up with Howard when he was in the Uk at the time. He has a great way of describing the caves in such a way that you feel you are already there. OR, it is something you'd really love to experience.There are literally hundreds of caves and a tour variety for all types of explorers.This show covers the main Oxalis run tours, that operate over 1,2,3 and 4 days. There are other shorter more mass tourism tours available, but in this show we don't cover those. As lead technical adviser Howard breaks down each of these stays so we can understand what types of experiences can be achieved in different time slots. For example, if you only have 2 days to devote to this activity, what could you get to see and experience.Howard is open about the skill levels required; who and what age groups certain tours attract and just some of the handy things to know about before you book. If we miss covering it in the show, please make sure you visit the Oxalis website here. If you have ever thought about doing something like this, then I urge you to have a listen and maybe print off the transcript notes in PDF from the website page here for future reference or booking. Tours discussed in the program are as follows:1. https://oxalisadventure.com/tour/hang-tien-1-day-discovery/2. https://oxalisadventure.com/tour/hang-va-expedition/3.https://oxalisadventure.com/tour/hang-tien-exploration/4. https://oxalisadventure.com/tour/son-doong-cave-expedition-4d3n/PLEASE NOTE: This is not a paid advertisement for Oxalis, nor is it an advertorial. WHATABOUTVIETNAM - check out more podcasts to help you trip plan.If you are liking what I am doing with the show, I'd love it if you would please consider giving me a short review on Apple Podcasts/ITunes.
This week, we get to the root of things! Literally! I speak with Dr. Eve Emshwiller, ethnobotanist and expert on the Andean tuber crop “Oca” in the genus Oxalis. We dig into the fascinating genetics, chemistry, and morphology of this staple food source. We also discuss how research on crop wild relatives can contribute to food security for the future. #oca #Andes #crops #eveemshwiller
Just as all gardening is local, all weeds are local, too. And we are hearing from many of you about your yard's nightmare weeds, especially ones that can be mistaken for clover, and you let it go…until it starts taking over. It's oxalis, and its close relatives, creeping wood sorrel, and bermuda buttercup, and another weed that crashes the oxalis family parties, bur clover. Debbie Flower and I feel your pain on this one.And UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden's Superintendent Emeritus, Warren Roberts, tells us about one of the best trees for its brilliant yellow leaves this time of year, the Ginkgo. It's our Plant of the Week!Podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, it's episode 153 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. And we will do it all in under 30 minutes. Let's go! November through January, the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast slows its production schedule. Look for new episodes each Friday. In February, we will return to twice a week podcasts, on Tuesdays and Fridays.Pictured:Creeping Wood Sorrel, an oxalis weedLinks:The New Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter Smart PotsDave Wilson NurseryUCANR Guide to Woodsorrel and Bermuda Buttercup Weed ControlBurclover Control TipsGinkgo leaf landscape art Subscribe to the free, Garden Basics with Farmer Fred NewsletterMore episodes and info available at Garden Basics with Farmer FredGarden Basics comes out every Tuesday and Friday. Live links, product information, transcripts, and chapters available at the Buzzsprout home site for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred. Got a garden question? • Leave an audio question without making a phone call via Speakpipe, at https://www.speakpipe.com/gardenbasics• Call or text us the question: 916-292-8964. • E-mail: fred@farmerfred.com All About Farmer Fred:The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter Farmer Fred website: http://farmerfred.comDaily Garden tips and snark on TwitterThe Farmer Fred Rant! BlogFacebook: "Get Growing with Farmer Fred"Instagram: farmerfredhoffmanFarmer Fred Garden Videos on YouTubeAs an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases from possible links mentioned here.And thank you for listening.
Jeden z hlavních důvodů, proč se rád potkávám s úspěšnými lidmi, jsou zkušenosti, které díky tomu mohu získat. Dříve, před rozvojem internetu a technologií, jsme měli omezené možnosti, co se získávání těchto zkušeností týká. Naštěstí dnes už máme možnosti prakticky neomezené a navíc si ještě můžeme vybírat, jaké informace pustíme do naší mysli. V předchozí epizodě Myšlením na vrchol jsem se potkal s Petrem Zelíkem, majitelem společnosti Oxalis. Petr se v rozhovoru podělil o...
Oxalis is a weed-like ground cover that can quickly take over a lawn. Travis Lowe saw "Oxalis" as an apt metaphor and appropriate title for his latest stage play, about one woman's experience with bipolar disorder. "It can have pretty flowers and it's very hard to kill," Lowe said. "So it can look like it's completely dead for long periods of time and then seemingly come back to life." "Oxalis" is premiering through Different Strokes Performing Arts Collective and it's Lowe's fifth play produced locally. Performances of "Oxalis" are Sept. 2-5 at the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts.
If you've got a small garden and worry that it can't have the same impact has a bigger plot, then listen up for some great planting ideas! In this edition of Talking Dirty, Alan Gray (East Ruston Old Vicarage) and Thordis catch up with fellow podcasters Michael Perry (Mr Plant Geek) and Ellen Mary of @ThePlantBasedPodcast and three of the four have small gardens at home. Alongside chatting about the trials, tribulations and triumphs of gardening in a small space, the quartet also cover allotment life, some zany planting combos and living a plant-based lifestyle. PLANT LIST Thunbergia alata 'Arizona Brownie' Thunbergia alata 'African Sunset' Echium pininana Mathiasella bupleuroides 'Green Dream' Vaccinium corymbosum Vaccinium 'Pink Lemonade' Acanthus mollis Lapageria rosea Camellia rosthorniana 'Cupido' Puya berteroniana Puya coerulea Radish, 'Watermelon' Kalanchoe 'Dolly' Calibrachoa Petchoa 'Beautical' Begonia 'Glowing Embers' Oxalis vulcanicola 'Molten Lava'
Carol and Dee discuss clover and oxalis on this week's podcast episode.Helpful Links:Proven Winners Proud Berry® CoralberryProven Winners Charmed® Wine Shamrock (Oxalis triangularis)On the Bookshelf: A Woman's Garden: Grow Beautiful Plants and Make Useful Things, by Tanya Anderson of Lovely Greens.Incredible Edible, a group started by two women in Todmargen, U.K. plus an inspiring TED talk from Pam Warhust about it. (Also featured in The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature by Sue Stuart-Smith)Email us at TheGardenangelists@gmail.com For more info on Carol and her books, visit her website. Visit her blog May Dreams Gardens.For more info on Dee and her book, visit her website. Visit her blog Red Dirt Ramblings.Affiliate links to purchase any of our books:The 20-30 Something Garden Guide: A No-Fuss, Down and Dirty, Gardening 101 for Anyone Who Wants to Grow Stuff, by Dee NashPotted and Pruned: Living a Gardening Life, by Carol J. MichelHomegrown and Handpicked: A Year in a Gardening Life, by Carol J. MichelSeeded and Sodded: Thoughts from a Gardening Life, by Carol J. MichelCreatures and Critters: Who's in Your Garden, by Carol J. MichelThe Christmas Cottontail: A Story for Gardeners of All Ages, by Carol J. Michel
sent $$$ this week to Harm Reduction Services.hrssac.org“Our Mission is to improve the health and wellbeing of people affected by drug use in Sacramento and surrounding areas, to increase access to health care, empower people to protect themselves, and educate each other to reduce harm in our communities.Harm Reduction is grounded in justice and human rights - it focuses on positive change and on working with people without judgment, or discrimination. It is the belief that making practical, safer, and realistic steps towards reducing one’s harm will create long term positive change in individuals. The primary goal of harm reduction is to reduce the negative effects that may be experienced with substance use while not challenging a person’s right to use substances. The secondary goal is to provide people with resources when they do decide they would like to stop using substances. The underlying principle behind harm reduction is that the use of drugs does not mean people forfeit their human rights.”DOWNLOAD RECORDINGsubscribe to the podcast here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/5432fun(intro by omar)UV-TV “You’re High” GLASSRob Magill “The American Race Mystery” A Direct ThreatWeed Hounds “Oxalis” Double LifeLaffing Gas “Television” Laffing GasRebecca Schiffman “Fireflies” Upside Down LacrimosaBad History Month “A Warm Recollection” Dead And Loving ItChud “Walking Clouds” The Man Behind The MenergyTeenage Halloween “Jerk” Eternal RoastCrystal Eyes “Already Gone” The Female ImaginationCandace “Horizons” Horizons b/w GreysThe Cowboys “I Spy” Vol. 3Mark E. Deutsch “Protocol for C'lapse” Found VoiceNo Home “Who Cares, The State Wants Me Dead Anyway” Self PreservationGel “Medication & You” Demo 2No Sister “Romantic Notion” The Second FloorMorning TV “Sun’s Rising” SunWeeping Icon “Inauguration” Eyeball UnderSea Moss “Wanna Sea a Trick?” Bread BoredPatsy “Count it on Down” LA WomenSquirrel Flower “Conditions” Contact SportsOnsind “Grieving Kind” We Wilt, We BloomGus “Just Foolin’” It’s…Gus!Cabbage “So Hard” Crab BagZula “Unmistakable” 6 PassesChoir Boy “Sunday Light” Sunday LightDrahla “Silk Spirit” Third Article EPWHIMM “Town Hall” A Stare AjarFurnsss “Do What I Want” FurnsssLumpy & The Dumpers “Hair on the Inside” Those Pickled FuckersJust Blankets “Longshore Drift” Like VelcroAshby and the Oceanns “Ode To Boy” Future SummersPleasure Systems “Crumbs” Antumbra PullBugg “Caveman” BuggEgrets on Ergot “Wrapped” Surfeit of Gemutlichit foot, it ears “humor me” teeterYANKEE BLUFF “Waking Up” 3 EpsSo Many Wizards “Just Poison” Heavy Vision
Probablemente en invierno tu oxalis triangularis y tu alocasia ¡se secaron completamente! Y si pensabas que estaban muertas. Existen algunos tipos de plantas que estan en reposo durante el invierno como es el caso de estas dos. Aprende más de suculentas y plantas de interior
Dr. Oxalis Jusino has made it her mission to advance the state of assessment in Puerto Rico. She also has an excellent Spanish-language podcast (linked in the show notes) all about conducting good assessments. Join us today as we talk through the ins and outs of testing “on the island.” The post 203. Assessment in Puerto Rico w/ Dr. Oxalis Jusino appeared first on The Testing Psychologist.
Join Nick and Shannon for a fun-filled episode. Shannon covers Oxalis Triangularis and the Morrigan – we know we promised this one quite a long time ago…sorry about that. Nick gives Shannon a chart reading, which is a fun preview for those of you that will take him up on his offer to do some practice chart readings, and you get to learn a bit more about Shannon's super lopsided chart. For information on where to send bags of rubies, or to send in your questions/comments/lewd remarks for the next Q&A spectacular, you can email WandsandFrondsPod@gmail.com or message them on Instagram @WandsandFrondsPod.
Our special guest is Joy Cho. She is a pastry chef based in Brooklyn, NY. She studied political science at UChicago before moving out to the east coast, attended pastry school at the Institute of Culinary Education while working a day job, and fully switched over to pastry work in 2019. She externed at Oxalis, a one Michelin star Brooklyn bistro and worked as a pastry cook at Gramercy Tavern, an iconic restaurant in NYC's Flatiron district, before losing her job due to COVID-19 in March 2020.Joy then launched an Instagram business, Joy Cho Pastry, and most recently developed a product called Gem Cakes that are available for purchase in the NYC area. Joy's writing/recipes have appeared in Basically, Food52, and Bon Appétit, and she has been mentioned by Grub Street, Eater, and Food & Wine. She was also recently featured in a New York Times article. Please visit www.joychopastry.com for more info.This Podcast allows listeners to discover and support Multicultural businesses, entrepreneurs, and leaders in the community
Listen to the second part of my interview on biological controls for pests, plus I answer a question about an Oxalis and give an update on the sowalong, and we hear from listener Tate. For full show notes visit https://www.janeperrone.com/on-the-ledge/2021/3/12/episode-177-biological-controls-pests
News: If you’re interested in testing the Sucker Punch Shrug, Emily is looking for testers for the youth/petite sizes and the adult large sizes. You can inquire via email (kittywithacupcake@gmail.com) or through Ravelry https://www.ravelry.com/discuss/kitty-with-a-cupcake---knitwear-by-emily-obrien/4112657/1-25 FO: Niente! WIPS: Emily - Art Deco Cowl - design in development, knit in Brooklyn Tweed - Self striping leg warmers - design in development, knit in Born to Make History by Valkyrie Fibers and silk mohair -Vanilla Socks in Regia https://www.yarn.com/categories/regia-yarn Lauren - Stereoisomer Socks by High Contrast Knits https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/stereoisomer-sock in Valkyrie Fibers Matte Sock, Spectre 4 colorway and West Yorkshire Spinners Licorice colorway - Vanilla Socks in Valkyrie Fibers High Twist BFL, Ghost Crew colorway https://www.etsy.com/listing/961086579/bfl-ghost-crew-its-a-trap-series - Slippery Cowl by Stephanie Lotven https://www.tellybeanknits.com/knit-happy in Valkyrie Fibers Matte Socks Base, Snips colorway, https://www.etsy.com/listing/931022057/snips-its-a-trap-series Acquisitions: Emily - a purple Oxalis plant! Lauren - Stickers and an enamel mug from La Serena Tejera LaSerenaTejera.store Occult Corner: The symbolism of the color orange across various cultures, fields, and time periods! Shameless Self Promotion: None this week, friends
We have talked a lot about the pivots and changes restaurants are making since the pandemic started. But some restaurants are staying true to their core identity, making it work while adding on additional revenue streams.With the “cold dark winter” upon us, how are restaurateurs planning to keep their teams employed, their businesses intact and their customers happy while maintaining what they’ve built?Our guest today is Nico Russell, Chef/Co-Owner of Oxalis, a Michelin starred neighborhood bistro in Crown Heights, BK. Oxalis garnered fans for offering a hyper seasonal affordable tasting menu. Which they continue to do today, in addition to offering an a al carte menu outdoors and pantry subscriptions.Photo Courtesy of L PalmbergHeritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Opening Soon by becoming a member!Opening Soon is Powered by Simplecast.
A Thanksgiving breakdown, the outdoor dining situation, Yakitoriya chicken, smash burgers galore, olive pizzas, Oxalis returns, pecans, the tremendous spirit of the L.A. food world, and Air Jordan is on hiatus until 2021.
durée : 00:03:27 - Normandie nature FB Normandie - Cueillette de plantes sauvages à mettre dans nos assiettes : orties crues, oseille sauvage, oxalis des bois, menthe aquatique et achillée mille-feuille.
Max and I connected over Instagram and I've admittedly gotten tons of inspiration from the dishes on his menus. He's very well eaten and travelled as well, sharing his experiences via IG Stories for all things tasting menu & rare-to-drink wines.Things mentioned: https://geni.us/maxshownotes Follow Max - https://www.instagram.com/maxshapiro/—What's next?
Today we take a peek into one of the worlds most famous cave systems located in Phong Nha National Park.Characterized by mountains, tropical forests and underground rivers, it's known for its ancient limestone karsts and vast network of caves including the world-famous Son Doong Cave, the largest Cave in the world.After talking with my guest today, I think you will be convinced there is a lot more than meets the eye about this place. A place you just have to experience to believe it.Please let me introduce you to my guest today, Ben Mitchell. Ben lives with his wife and family in the historical region of Cu Nam Village just outside of the main town of Phong Nha. A more down to earth Aussie guy you'd never meet. And one who has had front row seats to the development of the region over the last 10 years.The caves are so new that information has up until now been a bit scant, and focused on reaching the ardent trekker, explorer and high adrenalin super fit traveller. What you will love about this episode is how Ben demystifies the urban myth that you have to be the super-fit traveller to enjoy the caves and the National Park. He breaks the caves down into types, which helps us understand what skills you need for each one. If any.Ben has a lot to share. And I can't give it all away here. You will just have to listen for yourself.Ben and his wife have lived in Phong Nha since 2010, and during that time they have built their own homestay called Phong Nha Farmstay. It's a cosy homestay with all the traditional elements you will come to love in Vietnam, with some highly desirable creature comforts, including a swimming pool looking over a perfect vista of rice paddy fields; a spa and bar pouring the perfect gin and tonic after a busy day exploring.Since living in the region Ben has become very active working with major tour groups like Oxalis and local operators, to boost tourism to the area, including working with others to build luxury accommodations to attract a more discerning long stay traveller. You might like to also check out the Victory Road Villas which he and a friend built in 2017.Stay tuned, for a truly valuable experience if you are keen to check out this region like I am.If you would like to contact Ben, click on the link here https://phong-nha-cave.com/contact/SUBSCRIBE to this Podcast. It's FREE - Please shareChoose your favourite channels - Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Iheart Radio - https://whataboutvietnamtripplanning.buzzsprout.com/Check out our website for further Traveller information, Tours, Tips, Hints and Experiences to consider. www.whataboutvietnam.comEmail me for further information. I am happy to help: whataboutvietnam@gmail.comPlease rate, review and share your thoughts through my Facebook page – I'd love to hear what you think. https://www.facebook.com/whataboutvietnam Do you have a topic, destination or experience you would like featured on the show? Email me now - whataboutvietnam@gmail.com Phong Nha, more than just caves!Check out the following accommodation links Ben mentions in the show.PNKBVillas - https://www.pnkbvillas.com/VISITPHONGNHA- https://www.visitphongnha.com/about/PHONG-NHA-CAVE - http://phong-nha-cave.com/VICTORYROADVILLAS - http://www.victoryroadvillas.com/ You Tube Channel - Ben Phong Nha Embassy
George Meindl, studying at the University of Pittsburgh, with thoughts and reflections on sheeps sorrel, or Oxalis. Mining by Moonlight Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
George Meindl, studying at the University of Pittsburgh, with thoughts and reflections on sheeps sorrel, or Oxalis. Mining by Moonlight Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Steve Wong is a Partner and the Director of Operations for Oxalis, an affordable, accessible, and approachable neighborhood bistro with a Michelin star just steps away from Brooklyn Museum and Prospect Park. Steve's childhood in the Bay Area involved early opening shifts at coffee shops, light Forbes article reading, and eventually a career in the world of worker cooperatives. However, hospitality always played a part for Steve, and not long after, he reunited with his high school friend, Chef Nico Russell (Daniel, Mirazur) and beverage director Piper Kristensen (Booker and Dax) to run Oxalis as a successful pop-up, selling out 50 events in a span of two years. It now faces a new challenge ahead in response to COVID-19 in the form of a pantry box, appropriately named 'Boxalis.'
Eli Ward, studying at Yale University, with thoughts and reflections on wood sorrel (Oxalis). Background Music: "Carefree" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Eli Ward, studying at Yale University, with thoughts and reflections on wood sorrel (Oxalis). Background Music: "Carefree" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Today we celebrate the Spanish botanist who tackled the area known as New Spain and the man who discovered the Schneck Oak. We'll learn about the French botanist who made many of our blooms bigger and better and the mayor who was known as the Little Flower. We'll hear some thoughts about Winter and how we can benefit from the solace. We Grow That Garden Library with a book about indoor gardening. I'll talk about a beautiful holiday gift for the gardener who likes to work on puzzles, and then we wrap things up with the 1992 discovery that rocked the botanical world. But first, let's catch up on a few recent events. Today's Curated Articles: Chinese Witch Hazel Plant story - Hamamelis mollis - The English Garden @theenglishgarden.co.uk Here's the story behind the beautiful Chinese witch hazel - Hamamelis mollis. The English Plant Hunter Charlies Maries found it in China in 1878 & brought it home to London, where it sat unnoticed for 20 years. From @theenglishgarden.co.uk In pictures: Tubers of the future | Kew @KewGardens Thanks to @KewGardens for trialing these petite high-yield alternatives to the potato: oca tubers have a lemony taste (Oxalis tuberosa) & mashua tubers are peppery (Tropaeolum tuberosum). Both are native to the Andes. Garden Design and Landscaping “College Glen” | Decorum.London @LondonDecorum @cedstonegroup Here's a fantastic post by landscape design co @LondonDecorum Gorgeous "College Glen" w/ Sandstone Paving @cedstonegroup, timber, Siberian Larch deck, & Lavender plantings. Love it all - pics, project & plant list - so thoughtful!| Decorum.London https://buff.ly/35lR7HK Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community on Facebook. So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group. Brevities: #OTD Today is the birthday of the Spanish botanist Martin Sesse who was born on this day in 1751. King Carlos III charged Sesse with identifying, classifying, and illustrating all of the plant species throughout New Spain. This was a tremendous request. But Sesse was the man for the job. He was excellent at training young botanists, he was a pragmatist, and he had a strategic mind. He made plans for a major botanical expedition of new Spain, which was composed of the southwestern part of the United States, Mexico, and Central America. The expedition was an elaborate undertaking, and the botanists and the rest of the company would not return to Spain for a dozen years. Sesse put together an A-team of botanists, including José Mariano Mociño and Vicente Cervantes, as well as a cantankerous naturalist by the name of José Longino Martinez. A surgeon and naturalist from Madrid, Martinez wasn't suited to teamwork. After one too many disagreements with Sesse and the other botanists, Martinez went his own way and went off to explore California, which is how he became known as California's first naturalist. As for Sesse and the other botanists, they conducted several plant collecting missions all over Mexico, which resulted in Sesse's most significant contribution to botany; a Flora of Mexico. Of course, Sesse didn't do any of this alone. He collaborated with his team, especially Mociño and Cervantes. Together they established the Royal Botanical Garden of Mexico City, and Cervantes ended up serving as the Prof. of botany. They also founded botanical gardens in Manila and the Canary Islands. Altogether, Sesse's team cost Spain nearly 400,000 pesos. Sesse's work could not have been done without the support of King Carlos, the Third. Luckily Sesse's significant endeavors were accomplished by the time Carlos the Fourth ascended the throne in 1788. Number Four had little interest in advancing scientific knowledge. It was clear that the time of significant Spanish scientific exploration was coming to an end. During his lifetime, Sesse made a significant number of botanical illustrations, which he brought with him when he returned back home to Spain. These pieces were never published, and they sat dormant until the botanist de Candolle saw them, and he knew right away that they were worth pursuing. He hired the artist is Jean Christophe Heyland to produce new drawings based on Sesse's work. Today Sesse is remembered most conspicuously by a dry gin that's made in Madrid. It has a beautiful blue label. #OTD Today is the birthday of the Indiana physician, naturalist, and botanist Jacob Schneck who was born on this day in 1843. After his service in the Civil War, Jacob decided to educate himself by going to school to become a teacher. After teaching for a short period, he decided he wanted to become a doctor. His teaching jobs allowed him to put himself through medical school Jacob loved plants, and he spent as much time as he could in the field Botanizing. His quick curiosity and cleverness enabled him to observe a feature regarding some species of red Oaks. Jacob noticed that the acorn from one species of red Oak was quite distinctive. He shared his discovery with a fellow botanist named Nathaniel Lord Britton. Britton agreed with Jacob’s observation, and he named the oak in his honor, calling it the Quercus Schneckii (ii = "ee-eye"). But most people just call it the Schneck Oak. Jacob put together a collection of various types of wood for an exhibition at the Chicago World’s Fair. Jacob died at the age of 63. His funeral was reported to be the largest ever held in Mount Caramel Illinois Newspaper accounts indicated he had been battling pneumonia but still had gone out to tend to his patients. His efforts probably cost him his life. “No man in Wabash county had endeared himself to so many people as had Dr. Schneck. Year after year he had gone about in our midst, quietly doing his great work for humanity, turning away now and then to investigate some scientific question, especially in the realm of botany, his favorite study, and one in which he had acquired a national reputation.” After Schneck died, his collection of specimens, stones, shells, and fossils was put on display at the Carnegie public library in 1934. When he was alive, Jacob spent a great deal of time fashioning cases and containers to display his collection. Each specimen was labeled in Dr. Schneck’s impeccable handwriting. #OTD Today is the anniversary of the death of the French flower breeder Victor Lemoine ("Loom-one") who died on this day in 1911. We owe a debt of gratitude to Lemoine for enhancing the beauty of so many flowers in our gardens: Lilacs, Mock-Oranges, Phlox, Peonies, Gladiolus, Tuberous Begonias, Geraniums, and Deutzias. Around the year 1850, Lemoine borrowed money from his gardener father and began a nursery that survived three generations thanks to his son Emile and his grandson Henri. The Lemoine nursery thrived on land bought in Nancy, France (pronounced "non-cee"). A few years later, Lemoine created his first double-flower; the Portulaca grandiflora or Moss Ross. As with so many of Lemoine's creations, the double-flower created double the beauty. In 1854, Lemoine turned the original five-petaled single blossom of the geranium into a double-flowered stunner he called "Gloire de Nancy" or "Glory of Nancy." Northern gardeners owe Lemoine a debt of gratitude for his work with peonies. He crossed the Paeonia wittmanniana with the Siberian albaflora; creating a peony that could withstand a winter freeze. Lemoine created some of our most memorable heirlooms: the white Le Cygne or Swan peony, the Primevere with creamy white outer guard petals, and packed with canary yellow petals inside, the blush-colored Solange peony, the pink Sarah Bernhardt, La Fee the Fairy peony, and the creamy-white Alsace-Lorraine peony. But, it is the Lilac that will forever be associated with Lemoine. Incredibly, Lemoine didn't start working on Lilacs until he was almost fifty. That said, Lemoine's wife, Marie Louise, was his tireless assistant when his eyes and fine-motor skills were failing. She hand-pollinated the little lilac flowers and aided both her husband and her son with hybridizing. Lemoine worked magic with his Lilacs. He made them bloom earlier and later. He improved the quality of the bloom, and he expanded their color spectrum. He grew the very first double Lilac. By the time the Lemoine nursery closed its doors in 1968, the Lemoine's had bred 214 new cultivars of Lilac. #OTD Happy birthday to the Little Flower, aka Fiorello LaGuardia, who was born on this day in 1882 on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village. Mayor LaGuardia often referred to as the Little Flower (Fiorello means little flower in Italian). Although the reference could be construed as a slight for LaGuardia’s short stature (he was only 5’2”), it became an ironic endearment as LaGuardia had a larger than life, take-charge personality. Little Flower is remembered for his desire for justice and fairness; he was a champion of the working class and immigrants. He died at age 64. Unearthed Words "In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me, there lay an invincible summer." - Albert Camus "There is a privacy about [winter] which no other season gives you ..... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself." - Ruth Stout It's Time to Grow That Garden Library with Today's Book: Countertop Gardens by Shelley Levis The subtitle for this book is Easily Grow Kitchen Edibles Indoors for Year-Round Enjoyment. This is such a timely topic for those of us who I want to maintain some type of gardening activity during the winter in addition to satisfying I desire for garden-to-table produce. Self-contained growing systems are perfect for growing your own food indoors, and they're becoming evermore is sufficient and occupy such a small footprint that now you can grow your food even in the smallest spaces. Shelly walks you through the different growing systems that are available nowadays, including hydroponic, aquaponic, and vertical gardening systems. She also shows you how to make your own DIY setup. Chapters include: Countertop garden methods Best edibles for countertop gardens DIY countertop gardening Growing basics Countertop growing devices Troubleshooting Thanks to Shelley, Countertop Gardens ensures that fresh food is at your fingertips year-round. You can get a used copy of Shelley's book and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for under $3. Today's Recommended Holiday Gift for Gardeners: Galison's 1,000-piece butterfly puzzle by Wendy Gold This flawless fit 1000+ piece puzzle is a stunning collage work of art that makes for a challenging and gorgeous puzzle that you will love piecing together. The puzzle features Wendy Gold’s vintage images of butterflies collaged and clustered over a map of the world. Plus, it includes an insert with information about the artist and her fantastic image. The Galison Wendy Gold Butterfly Migration 1000-piece puzzle is the right level of challenge for older children or adults to complete over a long weekend or a few days. Pull up a chair and sit together at the kitchen table, talking and laughing as you find the proper place for each puzzle piece. The finished puzzle measures 20” x 27.” The 1054-piece colorful jigsaw puzzle is just the right level of challenge for a few days of activity. It includes an insert with information about the artist and her fantastic image. This flawless fit jigsaw puzzle features vintage images of butterflies collaged and clustered over a map of the world. Makes an ideal gift for any puzzle lover! Galison uses continuous quality control checks during production to ensure there is virtually no puzzle dust. Each piece is printed with no glare, non-toxic inks. $15.81 Something Sweet Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart On this day in 1992, California newspapers reported that botanists had discovered a new plant in California, and it was caused a big stir in the botanical world. The plant is a member of the Rose family and has a delightfully charming common name - the Shasta snow-wreath. The closest known living species to the Shasta snow-wreath is the rare Alabama snow-wreath. The Shasta snow-wreath is regarded as one of California's rarest plants. It has a beautiful blossom, which appears for just ten days in the spring. It looks like a white spikey puff ball made up of a cluster of stamens rather than petals. A native shrub to California - especially around Lake Shasta - researches studying salamanders were familiar with the plant, but they didn’t know what it was. In 1992, the two botanists - Dean Taylor and Glenn Clifton - were able to discover the plant thanks to the California drought, which caused the waters of Cedar Creek to drop far enough to enable them to access a limestone outcropping. The Shasta snow-wreath was identified after a week of review. In April of this past year, volunteers removed invasive species from the places where the Shasta snow-wreath likes to grow - like along shorelines and canyons around Lake Shasta. Today there are only around 20 populations of Shasta snow-wreath in California. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener, and remember: “For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.”
An elderly lady's enthusiasm for plant life has become a source of frustration and contention for certain folks in the neighborhood. "The Occupiers" is the second episode in a series sprouted from our 2019/2020 season premiere, In the Garden. It was recorded live 9/29/19. NOTE: A special Patreon bonus will soon be released that is a companion to this very episode! You can access this and all FMT Patreon Playlet exclusive content when you become a Patron at the $5 monthly sustainer level! https://patreon.com/firesidemysterytheatre The cast featured in this episode: Eirik Davey-Gislason as Hopman Ali Silva as Jackie Joyce Mary Murphy as Lilly Goldenrod David Linton as Mr. Tolley Michael Pate as Sal Alain Laforest as Jeff Kacie Laforest as Beatrice the Plant Audio play by Silbin Sandovar Directed by Holly Payne-Strange Song: “Flower/Weed” written and performed by Emily Frembgen Produced by Gustavo Rodriguez & Ali Silva Musical score improvised by Nico Sleator Sound effects designer & engineer: Andrew Hammond Technical director at The Slipper Room: Johnny Goddard Theme music by Jason Graves Audio post-production: Ali Silva Copyright 2019 Fireside Mystery Productions Live show info, links, and more: https://firesidemysterytheatre.com Fan our flames with your support at https://patreon.com/firesidemysterytheatre Swag! http://tee.pub/lic/firesidemystery
I return from holiday to find a dozen bottles of milk turning into cheese on my doorstop, but the good news is that my houseplants are mostly thriving! I check them out, then discuss the wonderfully tolerant (and tasty!) houseplant that is the falseleaf shamrock aka Oxalis triangularis. For full show notes, visit https://www.janeperrone.com/on-the-ledge/2019/9/6/episode-107-oxalis-triangularis-aka-false-shamrock
From bringing home a new plant to moving your outdoor plants indoors to keeping your cat out of your plants and getting your orchid to bloom again, Jaz and Shannon talk all things houseplants.
Carolus Linnaeus was a botanist who worked out modern taxonomy and binomial nomenclature, but there are two mystery animals associated with his work. Let’s find out about them! Rembrandt sketched this elephant whose skeleton is now the type specimen of the Asian elephant: Linnaeus’s original entry about Furia infernalis: Further reading: Ewen Callaway, “Linnaeus’s Asian elephant was wrong species” Karl Shuker, “Linnaeus’s Hellish Fury Worm – The History (and Mystery) of a Non-Existent Micro-Assassin” Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week let’s learn a little something about binomial nomenclature, which is the system for giving organisms scientific names. Then we’ll learn about a couple of mystery animals associated with the guy who invented binomial nomenclature. That guy was Carlolus Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist who lived in the 18th century. Botany is the study of plants. If you’ve ever tried to figure out what a particular plant is called, you can understand how frustrating it must have been for botanists back then. The same plant can have dozens of common names depending on who you ask. When I was a kid, the local name for a common plant with edible leaves that tasted deliciously tart was rabbit grass. I’ve never heard anyone anywhere else call it rabbit grass. Maybe you know it as sourgrass or false shamrock or wood sorrel. There are over a hundred species of that plant throughout the world in the genus Oxalis, so it’s also sometimes just called oxalis. The species that’s most common in East Tennessee where I grew up is Oxalis dellenii, but all species look pretty much the same unless you get down on your stomach and really study the leaves and the flower petals and the stems. So if you were a botanist wanting to talk to another botanist about Oxalis dellenii back in the early 18th century, you couldn’t call it Oxalis dellennii. Not yet. You’d have to say, hey, do you know what rabbit grass is? And the other botanist would say, why no, I have never heard of this no doubt rare and astounding plant; and you’d produce a pot full of this pretty little weed that will grow just about anywhere, and the other botanist would look at it and say, “Oh. You mean sourgrass.” But imagine if you weren’t right by the other botanist and didn’t have the plant to show them. You’d have to draw it and label the drawing and write a paragraph describing it, just so the other botanist would have a clue about which plant you were discussing. Nowadays, all you have to do is say, “Hey, are you familiar with Oxalis dellenii?” and the other botanist will say, “Ah yes, although I myself believe it is the same as Oxalis stricta and that the differences some botanists insist on are not significant.” And then you’d fight. But at least you’d know what plant you were both fighting about. Before Linnaeus worked out his system, botanists and other scientists tried various different ways of describing plants and animals so that other scientists knew what was being discussed. They gave each plant or animal a name, usually in Latin, that described it as closely as possible. But because the descriptions sometimes had to be really elaborate to indicate differences between closely related species, the names got unwieldy—sometimes nine or ten words long. Carl Linnaeus sorted this out first by sorting out taxonomy, or how living creatures are related to each other. It seems pretty obvious to us now that a cat and a lion are related in some way, but back in the olden days no one was certain if that was the case and if so, how closely related they were. It’s taken hundreds of years of intensive study by thousands upon thousands of scientists and dedicated amateurs to get where we are today, not to mention lots of technological advances. But Linnaeus was the first to really attempt to codify different types of animals and other organisms depending on how closely they app...
Our guest is Nico Russell who is the chef/owner of Oxalis, a beautiful new American restaurant in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Nico worked in some of the greatest restaurants in the world, and after a series of popular pop-up dinners, he finally opened Oxalis in November 2018. His dishes are elaborate and refined, but very approachable and reasonably priced. Nico incorporates Japanese flavors uniquely into his dishes. In this episode, we discuss his approach to new ingredients and flavors, how he apply elements of Japanese cuisine in his kitchen, and much much more!!! Japan Eats is powered by Simplecast.
On today's episode of All in the Industry®, host Shari Bayer is joined by Brett Martin, Food Critic and Correspondent for GQ magazine, who recently compiled GQ’s annual Best New Restaurants in America. Brett is the author of Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution, From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad (2014) and the forthcoming Fuck You, Eat This (Crown). He is a two-time James Beard Award winner and a six-time selectee of the annual Best Food Writing anthology. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Bon Appetit, the New York Times and The New Yorker, among others, and on public radio’s This American Life. Today's show also features Diella Allen, Executive Director, Event Marketing for FOOD & WINE, who directs the FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen, which has its 37th Annual event taking place from June 14-16, 2019. In this role, Diella oversees all aspects of the premier culinary event of its kind, including programming and related content, talent coordination, marketing and promotion, ticket sales, sponsorships, and more. This episode also includes Shari's PR tip, and Solo Dining experience at Oxalis in Brooklyn, NYC. Listen at Heritage Radio Network; subscribe/rate/review our show at iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify. Follow us @allindustry. Thanks for being a part of All in the Industry®! Photos courtesy of Brett Martin & Diella Allen. All in the Industry is powered by Simplecast.
Today on The Line we talk with Chef Nico Russell who took his pop-up dream and turned it into a brick and mortar reality. Nico was born in San Jose California and spent time in some of the top fine dining kitchens in the world in San Francisco, New York City and France. When he ran into his childhood friend in France and was considering his next move, they decided to open a restaurant together in NYC. Together they started Oxalis as a roving pop-up and after doing dozens of dinners, opened in Brooklyn in 2018. It was quickly reviewed in The New Yorker and recieved 1 star from the NYTIMES. Photo by Erinn Springer The Line is powered by Simplecast.
After honing his style in pop-ups for three years, Chef Nico Russell opened his Oxalis restaurant in Brooklyn, New York, about 12 weeks ago. On the day after he was inducted into Star Chefs' Rising Stars for New York, Class of 2019, we are delighted to run this conversation with a talent Andrew agrees is one to watch in the coming weeks and months. They get into how Nico's family kitchen--blending Mexican and Filipino influences--growing up influenced his palate, why he's attracted to French cuisine, and the enduring lessons of the pop-up life. Here's a thought: If you like what you hear, please tell your chef-fascinated friends, subscribe to Andrew Talks to Chefs (it's free) on iTunes or Stitcher, follow us on your favorite social media platforms @ChefPodcast, and/or rate or review us on Apple's podcast store. Thanks for listening! Andrew Talks To Chefs is powered by Simplecast.
30 What’s for dinner: Mustards, Cresses, and Peas Spring greens and Peas What to forage for in early spring, and should you really plant peas on Saint Patrick’s Day? 5:18 Insider Information: Cymbidiums How to grow Cymbidium orchids, keep them alive through summer and bring them back into flower. 9:15 Eat/Drink/Grow: Cold Frames and Other Ways of “Pushing Spring” Ellen and C.L. explore the ways we can jumpstart our spring growing with cold frames and other means of protection. See the lyrics for Lou and Peter Berryman’s song that C.L. refers to on the Plantrama website. 21:57 Did You Know: Shamrocks At this time of year garden centers and grocery stores are filled with several types of Oxalis plants, sold as signs of spring and symbols of St. Patrick’s day. We talk about how to grow these as houseplants and use them in outdoor containers. 26:05 Love Letters and Questions: Planting pansies as early as possible.
In today's episode I clear up a detail about soil aeration that I missed in a previous episode and go into organic ways to control oxalis in the garden. Keep Growing, Kevin
Kath & Jan leave the studio to host a live show of In The Service taped at the PIT Loft on September 30, 2017. Crystal Beth joins us right after working a double at work where she wore many hats! Then we chat with Jay Neal and Nico Russell about life in the industry, balancing passion and productivity and Oxalis, Nico's amazing and delicious pop up restaurant!
On today's episode we have two guests speaking to us from Oxalis Tea and Coffee in the Czech Republic. First up is Petr Zelik, owner and founder of Oxalis. Petr chats with us about tea culture in the Czech Republic, and especially about the challenges and successes of building a tea company after the fall of Communism. We also explore Oxalis’ offerings of Korean teas, which are not easy to come by among quality tea offerings in the US. Our second guest is Julian Overall, who coordinates Oxalis’s English-language social media flow. Julian's Twitter and Facebook feeds have become an invaluable source of news and connections for many of us in the tea world, and we talk with Julian about his views on the roles of social media and online information sharing for the tea community. Here's a brief break-down of today's show, with time marks: 1:00 Petr's vision: starting a tea company in a nation without a tea culture; initial challenges 9:14 Success! The growth of Czech tea culture and the phenomeon of the Czech tea house, the "cajovna" 18:38 Green teas from Korea: unique taste characteristics 27:08 Connecting tea drinkers through social media, blogging and podcasting You can find information about Oxalis' teas, as well as its comprehensive online catalogue, at its English language site, http://www.oxalis.cz/en. And you can follow Oxalis on Facebook under Oxalis Tea and Coffee, and on Twitter @julian_overall. Oxalis' videos on tea can be accessed through the "Videos" tab on its Facebook page. For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken. This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Photo courtesy of Oxalis Tea And Coffee.
Yellow wood sorrel (Oxalis stricta) is a common plant in North America — growing along roadsides, waste places and in cultivated gardens (where it’s usually not wanted). The above photo shows its compound leaves with three heart-shaped leaflets, along with … Continue reading →
Fakultät für Biologie - Digitale Hochschulschriften der LMU - Teil 05/06
This dissertation addresses the application of the statistical computing language R in the study of evolution and diversification of plants. The topics included range from the worldwide historical biogeography of the cucurbit family and the phylogenetic composition of the Mediterranean Oxalis flora in central Chile to the interplay between population genetics and climatic niche evolution in four Horde- um clades in the Americas. In these studies, I drew on existing methods in R and on java and C programs that could be easily integrated with R. Whenever necessary, I created additional software available in four new R packages. R's features, e.g., intersystem-interfaces, extensibility, reproducibility and advanced graphical capability, proved well suited for evolutionary and phylogenetic research. My coauthors and I addressed the history of Cucurbitaceae, one of the most economically important families of plants, using a multi-gene phylogeny for 114 of the 115 genera and 25 per cent of the 960 species. Worldwide sampling was achieved by using specimens from 30 herbaria. Results reveal an Asian origin of Cucurbitaceae in the Late Cretaceous, followed by the repeated spread of lineages into the African, American and Australian continents via transoceanic long-distance dispersal (LDD). North American cucurbits stem from at least seven range expansions of Central and South American lineages; Madagascar was colonized 13 times, always from Africa; Australia was reached 12 times, apparently always from Southeast Asia. Overall, Cucurbitaceae underwent at least 43 successful LDD events over the past 60 Myr, which would translate into an average of seven LDDs every 10 Myr. These and similar findings from other angiosperms stress the need for an increased tapping of museum collections to achieve extensive geographical sampling in plant phylogenetics. The second study focused on the interplay of population demography with the evolution of ecological niches during or after speciation in Hordeum. While large populations maintain a high level of standing genetic diversity, gene ow and recombination buffers against fast alterations in ecological adaptation. Small populations harbor lower allele diversity but can more easily shift to new niches if they initially survive under changed conditions. Thus, large populations should be more conservative regarding niche changes in comparison to small populations. My coauthors and I used environmental niche modeling together with phylogenetic, phylogeographic and population genetic analyses to infer the correlation of population demography with changes in ecological niche dimensions in 12 diploid Hordeum species from the New World, forming four monophyletic groups. Our analyses found both shifts and conservatism in certain niche dimensions within and among clades. Speciation due to vicariance resulted in three species with no pronounced climate niche differences, while species originating due to long-distance dispersals or otherwise encountering genetic bottlenecks mostly revealed climate niche shifts. Niche convergence among clades indicates a niche-filling pattern during the last 2 Myr in South American Hordeum. We provide evidence that species that did not encounter population reductions mainly show ecoclimatic niche conservatism, while major niche shifts have occurred in species that have undergone population bottlenecks. Our analyses allow the conclusion that population demography influences adaptation and niche shifts or conservatism in South American Hordeum species. Finally, I studied the phylogenetic composition of Oxalis flora of Mediterranean zone of Chile by asking whether in such a species-rich clade xerophytic adaptations arose in parallel, at different times, or simultaneously. Answering this type of question has been a major concern of evolutionary biology over the past few years, with a growing consensus that lineages tend to be conservative in their vegetative traits and niche requirements. Combined nuclear and chloroplast DNA sequences for 112 species of Oxalidales (4900 aligned nucleotides) were used for a fossil-calibrated phylogeny that includes 43 of the 54 species of Chilean Oxalis, and species distribution models (SDMs) incorporating precipitation, temperature, and fog, and the phylogeny were used to reconstruct ancestral habitat preferences, relying on likelihood and Bayesian techniques. Since uneven collecting can reduce the power of SDMs, we compared 3 strategies to correct for collecting effort. Unexpectedly, the Oxalis flora of Chile consists of 7 distant lineages that originated at different times prior to the last Andean uplift pulse; some had features preadapting them to seasonally arid or xeric conditions. Models that incorporated fog and a `collecting activity surface' performed best and identified the Mediterranean zone as a hotspot of Oxalis species as well as lineage diversity because it harbors a mix of ancient and young groups, including insuficiently arid-adapted species. There is no evidence of rapid adaptive radiation.
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