You don’t even have to be in a stable situation to be a Big Brother/Sister at your local Boys and Girls club or a court advocate/CASA for a child. Volunteer at a school district. Children recognize how fucked everything is, and on the whole they are suffering. We need kind and loving adults to show up for them - to teach them art and read them stories to show them the parts of living that can hopefully make it worth it.

Talked to a social worker - kids in DHS care sleep in homeless shelters, hospitals, DHS offices. Teen group homes are inherently damaging to them; I’ve never seen a good one.

Foster teens. Short term commitment. They will have severe trauma and can be hard to deal with, but you would be amazed at how they respond if you can genuinely provide love. Love and Logic is fucking magic.

If you can’t foster, you can be a child advocate. Many states have CASA programs. Visit the kid once a month, let them know someone cares, and tell the court what you think is best for them. Even just something like a phone call “hey, kid left something behind at the group home - any way we could get that moved?”

Or even just someone to protect them from the group home. A dozen seriously traumatized kids, with staff paid less than $15/hr on a week of training. A place that provides opportunities for people to be around children, who are already isolated and have limited access to supportive adults… and financial incentives to cover anything up.

I don’t think there’s much hope for the future, but we can focus on the now and helping the children who are already here.

I’m a stealth trans man and use a stall. No one gives a shit. I’ve had “I have a medical condition and need a stall” prepped for years, but never has anyone even gave me a passing glance. It’s annoying to wait when I’m about to piss myself and someone is camping in the lone stall, but the only real rule of the men’s bathroom is “don’t acknowledge anyone’s presence.”

Honestly, give me a stable 9-5 office job with a living wage and I’d be happy. “The grind” doesn’t sound so bad if I can have the money for a bed and food.

Also the novels are kinda bad tbh, the first one is tolerable but they really fall off. Maguire is a bit of a hack.

Zoom would be nice if they stopped pushing the AI crap and didn’t randomize functionality and button placement every other upgrade. The annotation tool is really great when it decides to show up.

“Publicly” is doing a lot of work there. Happened under the table a lot through the early 1900s.

Also, even in mainstream LDS, there is polygamy in the afterlife. Women can only get sealed to one husband, if they die or get divorced their husband can be sealed again, and will get all of his spirit wives back in the afterlife. I think women who die unmarried get passed out as well, although some of them get husbands that fought valiantly in the pre-existence or something but weren’t born.

From what I’ve heard, none of the mothers are interested.

There’s a serious problem where the majority of grocery market supplements do not contain the substances they claim to contain. There is no monitoring.

Dr George Tiller came to mind immediately. As well as Operation Rescue’s bombings.

Touch screens also seem like they would be easier to integrate with subscription services. Auto manufacturers are looking to make things like heated seats a subscription.

Cars have been getting steadily worse. There doesn’t seem to be any enforcement of recalls (has anyone satisfactorily had the Honda Civic 2016-2021 air conditioning resolved? How much did you spend?)

If they can take cars away from us entirely, and move to us renting self driving cars, that’s what they would really want to do. Pay for your radio, pay for heat and AC…

His appointees from the last go round are already still fucking things up. If you’ve tried to interact with the legal system or any regulatory agency, there basically is none. For everything from DHS to FOIA, the government is and has not functioning in many southern states.

Yeah - the more I look into it, the less sympathetic I am. There’s a lot of good reasons to have regulations for wildlife. A lot of “common sense” is just wrong (like the “mother birds abandon babies because of human scent”), and sometimes that gets animals killed unnecessarily. Folks assume because they know how to deal with a cat or a dog that squirrels and raccoons will be similar - they aren’t.

Legitimate wildlife rescues with ambassador animals don’t typically present them as pets. An animal being unreleasable is a fail state. A legitimate rescue will be trying to make the most out of a bad situation. When I’ve talked to keepers or watched vids online, they understand it as tragic that the animal will not be able to live its life independently - the fact that they can make money because people like getting to see cute animals is just trying to get something good out of it.

Squirrels aren’t domestic. They aren’t supposed to live with us.

[I’m not a wildlife expert, but I’ve shoveled shit as a volunteer at lots of different types of refuges and have chatted with many of the types of folks who run these places]

A wildlife rehabilitator (Nessie) on TikTok pointed out that his squirrel and his raccoon would not have had access to veterinary care (ie, vaccination for rabies).

She also pointed out that showcasing wildlife in social media is currently unregulated - in person exhibitions requiring an expensive license to get. This is a bit of a loophole, and what that guy did is likely to get that loophole closed up, and impact sanctuaries that do operate within the current law while using social media platforms to fundraise.

Also, personally, the way he showcased the animals just seemed inappropriate - squirrels eating human food just seems problematic. Iirc he ran a domestic rescue, not a wildlife rescue, which is a different skill set. Wildlife rescuers avoid interacting with animals as much as possible. Animals aren’t toys and don’t have the same kinds of needs we do, and the fact they are cute shouldn’t complicate our emotions.

In Oklahoma, you don’t even need a religion. Not wanting to employ trans people is a valid reason to be fired. I have lost garbage DAY LABOR gigs for being trans.

They also made it illegal to be a trans teacher, and no federal agency seems at all interested in looking into it. I’m surprised this woman has been able to get a lawsuit off - I’ve been looking for someone to take mine for three years!

How can I trust my government?

As a trans man, my state strips more rights from me everyday. I can be discriminated against in housing or employment. With a recent executive order, I could be arrested for having the “wrong” letter on my drivers license. The federal government is doing NOTHING to keep LGBT folks in southern states safe.

Fuck, in Oklahoma, a transgender child was murdered and the state government was allowed to cover it up! They can kill us and there will be no consequences.

Chomos in gen pop get hurt, although I’m not sure why I would be content with vigilante prison “Justice”. But Trump or Prince Harry wouldn’t be placed with the general rabble, even in the unlikely event they ever face any form of punishment.

Like genuinely,

If there are Epstein tapes, with video evidence of Musk or Trump or Prince Harry (or Gates or Soros or whoever) having sex with children, will there be any consequences?

Honestly called the gov office right after he got the nomination.

I’m a teacher, I want to still be at least, but they’ve made it dangerous for trans people to exist in Oklahoma. There’s currently a court hold on ANY investigation based on gender identity discrimination in schools.

Having interacted with him a few times online (if he was alive he would be on this comment thread right now, and would probably have been banned at this point) - he was severely mentally ill. I’m not sure if he had any form of political ideology that was coherent enough to be “theocratic.”

Like, when you run TempleOS, the majority of programs on there are about using random number generators to “talk to” God. There are keyboard shortcuts for this purpose. I don’t think he was fun to be around - I imagine that his parents were at the end of their rope by the time they kicked him out - but Davis spent the last ten years or so of his life completely untethered from reality.