solarbird

https://solarbird.net/blog/author/solarbird/

This blog is where Solarbird :flag_cascadia: (npub1hlx…va6k) writes in longer form, and also where she has collected all her old blogs and journals (LJ, Dreamwidth) into a single gestalt. Content here is also cross-posted to Dreamwidth, where she maintains an active presence to this day.

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Last Notes

2026-07-15 19:55:34 UTC

##
Heritage Foundation, authors of Project 2025, attack girl’s and women’s sports generally
Please show this story to any fool or villain who pretended that anti-trans-kid activism had ANYTHING AT ALL to do with protecting girl’s sports. Because it didn’t.
[They’re coming for girl’s and women’s sports. Universally.](https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/07/heritage-foundation-says-title-ix-womens-sports-harm-mens-sports-feminine-graces/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub ) That’s what it was always about. Start at the edges, move in.
When they say who the hell is this and so what, remind them that the Heritage Foundation wrote Project 2025, which has set and controls the social agenda for the second Shitstain administration after Shitstain spent months saying he didn’t know it and had nothing to do with it, before immediately pivoting to implement everything about it as quickly as he could.
And now that they have their stacked Supreme Court ruling against trans kids, they’re coming against *all* women’s sports, *everywhere*. Exactly on schedule.
#fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics
https://solarbird.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-15-at-12.44.18-PM-1024x1012.png

2026-05-21 22:58:37 UTC

##
Let’s talk being able to talk when internet and cell phone service both go down
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot for the last year plus, and with the EFF coming out a number of days ago and strongly encouraging other people to think about it too, I thought it would be a good time to share my findings with all of you.
So here are three decent ways to have communications that keep working when both the internet AND cellphone networks go down.
**1: AMATEUR RADIO, a.k.a. HAM Radio**
*the most capable but with the biggest barrier to entry*<li>THE GOOD: Longest range. Most flexible. Most capable.</li><li>THE BAD: Difficult license. Relatively expensive equipment. Technically difficult. Unencrypted.</li><li>THE COST: Highest of the three options here. Testing and licensing fees alone cost as much as the other options.</li>
This isn’t going to be an option for most of you because you’re going to have to make time to study, take the qualifying exam to get a license (I’m KK7ZLU if you have one), purchase that license, then purchase a radio and antenna(s) you need and yes those are separate, and get it all set up if you want long-range communications.
On the plus side, this is filled with people who already know what they’re doing. So if you’re good at tests and have the money and time to take all the steps? Great! Please do it! The more the merrier.
**2: FRS AND/OR GMRS RADIO**
*surprisingly capable least-effort handheld radios*<li>THE GOOD: REAL easy to get started, particularly FRS. GMRS can be leveraged to extend range. Trivially easy to use.</li><li>THE BAD: GMRS requires a license, but there’s no test and it’s trivial to get. Unencrypted.</li><li>THE COST: Probably the cheapest option. You can buy three-packs of FRS radios for like $60 and they’re fine. GMRS radios are more expensive, how much depends upon how powerful a radio you buy.</li>
Okay, so, you want a modern walkie-talkie, and not junk? Something with some range? And maybe with a base station that sits in your house or car? But you don’t want to have to study for a license examination?
Welcome to the overlapping worlds of FRS and GMRS.
FRS (‘Family Radio Service’) and GMRS (‘General Mobile Radio Service’) are two separate but very compatible radio standards. The radios – typically hand-held – have numbered channels, many of which are used by both kinds of radio. By using them together, you improve both.
Using them is very simple: pick a channel, push the button to talk, then let off the button and listen for a reply. Done.
So: how are they different?
First, GMRS radios are much more powerful – and so longer-range – than FRS radios.
Second, GMRS radios can use “repeaters,” which are automated radios that can pick up your signals and resend them over a much larger area. I can from home talk to people across much of western Washington State because of these repeaters.
Third, Because of these two features, GMRS radios require a license, whereas FRS radios do not. But there is NO test for this license. No studying, no prep, no examination. You just buy one online, and you can do it tonight if you want. Once you have bought the license, your whole family can use it. It costs $35 for 10 years. (I’m WSLT671.)
By contrast, FRS radios can be used by literally anyone, INCLUDING SMALL CHILDREN. There are several families around here who have bought sets of FRS radios for their kids. I know this because I pick them up all the time on my GMRS base station. It’s like hearing neighbour kids play over the fence or down the block.
So how does using them together improve both?
In general, GMRS licensees have more technical leeway than FRS users. FRS radios have small, simple antennas you are not allowed to modify, which limits their range. With GMRS radios, you can buy – or even make – much better antennas.
Between the better antennas and the higher power, having GMRS on one end of any conversation extends the effective range of the *FRS* radios you’re talking to. Using GMRS on shared channels lets you both hear and talk to FRS users from further away.
E.g., in hilly terrain, you’ll be lucky to get one and a half to two miles with FRS alone. But with GMRS on one end and FRS on the other, you can get eight miles or more even in bad conditions. Under ideal conditions, 30 miles is not impossible. Two FRS users may not be able to talk to each other at the same time at those sorts of distances, but if they can both talk to the GMRS station, the GMRS user can pass messages along.
In short: having a GMRS radio in the mix makes FRS radios better, extending their range, sometimes dramatically, which means fewer licenses, cheaper radios, and better access in the short run.
Finally:
**3: TEXT OVER RADIO**
*LoRa digital text radios*<li>THE GOOD: No license of any kind. The longest range of anything without a license. Messages are encrypted. Text-based, so more comfortable for some. Public and private texting, with restricted-access channels. Tremendous range with repeaters – CascadiaMesh extends from the southern Oregon border up through Kamloops and northern Vancouver Island.</li><li>THE BAD: Text only. Very new, so very much in flux. There are two common communications standards and applications to go along with them: MeshCore and Meshtastic. And they are NOT compatible – they do NOT talk to each other – which means different areas are settling on one or the other. Documentation for setup is mid and usability is “yep, sure is for nerds,” a comment which I’m told is also for nerds. What that means is that getting set up and using it may dismay some people, but will particularly dismay the nontechnical who will absolutely need handholding.</li><li>THE COST: Middle ground, closer to the cheaper end. If you use a companion device with an existing tablet, cell phone, or computer, think $60 for each. You may be able to make your own if you’re that kind of person, though that’s only ever really worth it for repeaters.</li>
LoRa is a kind of digital two-way radio being used here for texts. If you want to be able to text across long distances when both the internet and cell phones are down, this is a good way to do it, as long as everyone involved has LoRa devices. (LoRa texting does NOT work with regular cell phone texting, in the same way that Discord doesn’t work with it either. It is an entirely separate thing.)
There are LoRa devices that bundle all the functionality into one piece of equipment, and also LoRa “companion” devices with LoRA transmitters inside which work with software on a computer, phone, or tablet.
An example of a dedicated device is the LilyGo T-Deck. If you remember Blackberry devices, it looks like a Blackberry device. But instead of using cell phone services or the internet, it’s just directly talking over radio. No cell service, no internet: just radio.
An example of a “companion” device is the WishMesh Tag. It’s a rectangle about the size of a debit card, but thicker. If you turn its GPS receivers off, it’ll run a solid four, maybe five days on a single charge. You connect your phone, tablet, or computer to it via bluetooth using special software (the previously-mentioned MeshCore or Meshtastic) and run the accompanying app to send and receive encrypted text messages with individuals or groups.
Again: even though it can work on a cell phone, NONE OF THIS REQUIRES INTERNET OR CELL SERVICE. The “phone” isn’t being used as a cellphone here, it’s being used as a small computer that has bluetooth.
In much of the US, the most commonly used software is Meshtastic. Here in Cascadia, MeshCore (download at https://meshcore.io ) is the standard, and [it is a very large area network](https://cascadiamesh.org/map/ ). It seems to work better than Meshtastic does in our mountainous geography, which is why everyone switched.
Both are open source, although closed-source/commercial versions also exist.
Unfortunately, as above, the two packages don’t cross-communicate! So you want to find out what’s most common in your area and use that one, whatever it happens to be.
**What do I recommend? Glad you asked.**
Being me, I’ve got all three options listed here up and running. I’m just like that; if I *can* have a contingency plan, I *will* have a contingency plan; my noise in fiction about how “Sombra always has a plan” is straight-up me.
But that’s not the answer you’re looking for. The answer really depends upon what people are already using around you, because it’s easier to join an existing network than make a new one. But if you’re somewhere all three are active, or somewhere *none* of them are active, my answer is conditional:<li>If you’re working with people who have no technical background AND you don’t care about encryption, then option two, GMRS/FRS radios.</li><li>If you’re dealing with people who like new digital toys OR you care about encryption, then option three, LoRa radio text. You can even set up your own repeaters just about as easily as you can set up a companion device. Seeed makes a repeater that comes with an onboard solar panel and is as close to set-up-and-forget as you’re going to get. As things like this go, they’re not very expensive, and the battery life is generally kind of insane. They sip power, not guzzle it.</li>
So basically, now’s a real good time to reach out to the kind of people you’d want to be able to reach regardless. Get a conversation going amongst the willing and interested, settle amongst yourselves on at least one of these, then set up and actually use it until you *know* it works and you’re comfortable with *how* it works.
After all – you never know what kind of emergency might happen, or when. And the time to be ready is *beforehand*, not *during*… when you won’t have the time to get comfortable with *anything.*
#AmateurRadio #politics #radio #tech

2026-01-18 22:14:33 UTC

##
Recommendation: Do NOT bite on this
The story going around, upon which I do not think you should bite:
Medias reports speculation on French TV (by former DGSE guest Vincent Crouzet) as confirmed, stating that Ukraine and/or France supplied fake information to US intelligence services to see whether it would be leaked to Moscow, and are also saying that it was in fact shared with the Russians.
This is *not* confirmed, and Ukraine ACTIVELY DENIES this happened. [Here’s a story on UNN being very clear about that](https://unn.ua/en/news/did-ukraine-allegedly-provide-the-us-with-distorted-intelligence-the-gur-rejected-fakes-from-kremlin-bot-farms ). I repeat, Ukraine EXPLICITLY have denied this, calling it Russian disinformation.
This does not mean it’s definitely *not* true, because there are a lot of reasons Ukraine would/could want to deny this even were it true. But it’s my position from a fair amount of time in this kind of information environment that this SHOULD NOT be run with without MUCH stronger evidence.
#politics #ukraine #uspol #uspolitics

2026-01-07 18:31:43 UTC

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ICE murdered a woman in the streets today. You need to know, and you need to tell others.
ICE shot a woman, believed but not confirmed to be an American and confirmed not to be a target of their raids, to death in the streets today, murdering her. They are lying about it, calling her a terrorist and lying about what happened. Tricia McLaughlin in particular is lying about what happened. ICE and Tricia McLaughlin have lied many times, irrefutably, in the past, about ICE violence; this is yet another time.
There is third-party video. I have reviewed it several times. It matches reported eyewitness descriptions taken at the scene. In it, the ICE agent shoots while fully clear of any vehicle – having in fact stepped back from the vehicle to make room to raise his pistol – as the vehicle is moving ***away from him***. Eyewitnesses say he shot directly into the vehicle, from the side, at a near-right-angle (at first), which matches what can be seen in the video itself.
[Here’s one posting](https://bsky.app/profile/danielsuitor.com/post/3mbtzlfajm227 ). If necessary, I have a copy and can make more copies if needed. I think these’ll be disappeared if we don’t put them enough places.
The fash are building a lie, a “false narrative.” That’s just extra syllables for “lie,” one that they’ll all pretend to believe. Debunk it at every turn.
ICE murdered a woman in the streets today for funsies and because they were mad about it, and now they’re lying about what they did, while this woman is indeed quite dead.
**ETA:** The original video has been moved behind moderation and is no longer visible without a Bluesky account. [This is a different video from a different angle](https://kolektiva.social/@alissaazar/115855334077645687 ), unfortunately lacking earlier context.
#fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics

2026-01-05 17:42:00 UTC

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what to do now
Stop using oil.
That’s it. That’s what to do.
Stop using oil. Stop using natural gas, too. Stop. The sooner you can stop, the better. Do what it takes. I don’t know what that is for any individual – for you – but do it.
I know it’s work. I’m not saying, “here’s the easy no impact thing you can do to feel better about yourself,” I’m saying “this is what you need to do if you want to actually do something,” and those are very different statements. It’s a lift, and it’s a heavy lift, but it’s what to do now.
Being work – being *difficult* – doesn’t change that it needs to happen. Stopping the Nazis in World War II was a heavy lift too. It was work, it was difficult, and it was very literally very very deadly. Millions of people died. Millions more got fucked up for life. Still needed to happen, just like this still needs to happen now. And both the deaths and the fuckery were going to happen anyway.
So stop using oil.
I started saying this literally decades ago, talking about US adventurism in the Middle East. For the money people – the ones who matter – it was then and is now about oil. You want the US out of the Middle East, do everything you can to stop oil consumption. Starve the beast, and eventually the beast will weaken and die. It’s not fast and it’s not easy and it’s not glamorous, but it’s what will work.
Sure, you can talk about the lunatic fundamentalists who want to start Armageddon and end the world to bring back Jesus – fuck, I hate that typing that out is relevant and important – but without the money people using them as muscle, they’re a bunch of flea-picking determinedly-ignorant dipshits feeling up snakes in strip-mall storefronts. Fuck ’em. The reality is that fossil fuel companies are ass-deep in fascism, and always have been, so:
Stop. Using. Oil.
Internalise that. The problem is oil and the people who extract, refine, and sell it. It’s also natural gas and coal and any other fossil fuel, but mostly, it’s the oil.
Stop using oil.
Hit those goddamn breaks, slow down, and then just. Fucking. Stop. Using. Oil.
Some of that’s easy, some of it’s not, and it’s not fast. Lots of people can tell you ways how, including me, but don’t get me wrong – I’m not a saint on this; our furnace is still natural gas. I want to fix that, and we’re actively stockpiling money to do so, but it’s going to take time. It just is. But we’re actually actively working towards it, and we have been for a while.
Not just at home, either. If things go right at the work I don’t talk about online – ever – we’ll be cutting fossil fuel consumption there by another 91% by late this summer.
Thanks to *me*.
It’s taken ages. We’ve already cut use by about 77%, thanks again – I stress – to *my* efforts. This new 91% cut will be 91% of what’s *left over* after *all that*. It’ll be a 98% cut from where we started, years ago.
If things go right – and there are supplier questions so it might not go right – we’ll be throwing that switch mid-year. For good. It’ll have been years of effort but we’ll have gone from over two thousand gallons of oil a year to
***FUCKING ZERO***
…with the remaining 2% being natural gas. (We have a path out of that, as well. But the oil comes first.)
There’s nothing unique about my position in this. My accomplishment can be repeated by others, *I am just saying*.
The end result of not using oil will be much *better* than what we have now. Some of the intermediate steps will be improvements, too. Some won’t. Some, people just won’t like. Surveys show Americans want to stop climate change but they also want to keep using gas forever and I’m fucking sorry, but *that’s just not how reality works*.
Until people internalise that they ***have to stop using oil***, I don’t know how much anything else matters.
Step one is stop using oil. (And natural gas.)
It’s also step 10, step 30, step 3000.
You want to do something?
Stop. Using. Oil.
#fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics

2025-11-10 15:14:00 UTC

##
Get on ’em RIGHT NOWWe saw what happened last night. If you didn’t: eight fuckheads went over (7 Democrats, 1 Republican) to end the shutdown. They got ***absolutely fucking nothing*** for it. ***NOTHING***.
The Democrats and one independant siding with Republicans on the vote Sunday night were Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., John Fetterman, D-Pa., Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., Tim Kaine, D-Va., Angus King, I-Maine, Jackie Rosen, D-Nev., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.
However. There’s one last long shot, but you have to go from zero to 100 on this ***right the fuck now***. You may not have until the afternoon, you almost certainly don’t have until tomorrow. You’ve got to go ***RIGHT NOW***.
There’s going to be a series of steps before this is over. As I understand it, IT IS NOT YET OVER, THERE IS ONE MORE 60-PERSON VOTE. We have to get at least one of these fuckheads to go “oh shit, what was I doing?” and change their mind.
***They need to see an absolute eruption of fury.***
I don’t want to link to Threads, so I’m posting text from a post there, telling you to WRITE, CALL, BOMBARD ON SOCIAL MEDIA, SCREAM, most particularly at these four:
[TIM KAINE (VA)](https://www.kaine.senate.gov/contact )
[MAGGIE HASSAN (NH)](https://www.hassan.senate.gov/contact )
[JEANNE SHAHEEN (NH)](https://www.shaheen.senate.gov/contact/contact-jeanne )
[JACKY ROSEN (NV)](https://www.rosen.senate.gov/email-jacky/ )
Quoting OP:
“Is the shutdown over? Not yet. Tonight’s vote was only step 1 of 5. There’s still another 60-vote hurdle, amendments, and then the House. Nothing has reopened. Pressure matters right now—especially on (Tim Kaine, VA), (Maggie Hassan, NH), (Jeanne Shaheen, NH), and (Jacky Rosen, NV).”
Here’s what I wrote variations of tonight, just after the betrayal vote:
> How DARE you cave?
> HOW. DARE. YOU. CAVE.
> The Republicans are toxic, the election gave Democrats their first hope in a year, Trump is the most unpopular he’s ever been and you’re SURRENDERING?! You’re giving up the ONLY piece of leverage we have in exchange for… a fucking SHOW VOTE? A show vote that means NOTHING?! From a party who LIES like they BREATHE?
> I am repulsed. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!
> Frankly it’d serve you right if they didn’t even have the show vote. I hope they don’t. I hope they rub your face in it.
> I want my goddamn contributions back. I need to send them to whoever primaries you, and the rest of your little pack of coward turncoats. Seriously, if there was a way after all this time to yank back every dollar I gave you, I would.
> Yeah, I know, I’m not a constituent but this fascist MAGA Republican Party budget affects me just as much as everyone else and you’re the one yanking them from the jaws of defeat to hand them a victory.
> Clear the goddamn seat and make room for someone who might actually vote like a Democrat.
> Frankly – you should just resign.
Get loud. Right now.
And primary every single one of these motherfuckers. They’ve all got to go.
#fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics

2025-11-05 16:39:00 UTC

##
Why Tesla matters so muchThis is why some of us are still out there, week after week, protesting at Tesla dealerships:
Here’s the story. It’s old, but it’s still pretty much true. Driving the stake through the heart of Tesla is how to take down the rest.
That’s why those of us who understand that this is a marathon are still getting out there, week in, week out. Not every protest, but over and over again, we’re there.
We’re not there yet. But sales keep falling. The more they’re reminded about who he is, the more sales go down.
We are that reminder.
[Join us](https://www.teslatakedown.com/ ).
#fascism #politics #protest #protests #uspol #uspolitics
https://solarbird.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-04-at-6.43.35-PM-1024x932.png

2025-10-31 04:23:57 UTC

- reply

[Nourishing Networks](https://nourishingnetworks.net/bothellkenmore-get-help ) has a list for Greater Northshore. They have a list and also [a custom Google Map view](https://www.google.com/maps/@47.7136345,-122.2453385,16130m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m3!11m2!2sRPJZ6drGSxmIfqkVDKEriQ!3e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTAyOC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D ) which is actively maintained.

2025-10-30 16:04:00 UTC

##
as we head into the SNAP shutdownAs we head into the SNAP shutdown – however long it may last, and while I’d love be surprised and see it end tomorrow with the Republicans giving in on their whole refusal-to-negotiate shutdown bullshit, I’m leaning towards it lasting a while – I want to hand out a couple of critically important items, one short and easy, one long and difficult.
First, the easy one: food banks need your money right now. If you have spare money, now’s a great time to give them some. They’re going to bear the immediate brunt of the hunger, and will need every dime they can manage. Some states are stepping in – Washington State just advanced a couple million a week to local food banks – but not all. Particularly not red states.
No judgement if you can’t, obviously. Everything is terrible. But if you can, now’s a great time.
Secondly, the difficult one: I want to talk about the context in which this is happening, and why the money matters so much, and why it’s really quite important to give now if you can.
Topline inflation numbers – which we don’t even *have right now*, I remind you, thanks to the Republican MAGA shutdown – are not representative of a fixed basket of goods. They representing a *shifting* basket of goods, a *price basket* that is intended to meet the same needs, but does *not* always have the same *contents*.
Remember that term: *price basket*, both *fixed* and *shifting*. It’s important.
That’s because the topline inflation numbers are less about *mechanical cost* and more about *how much are people spending within a category*. While those two numbers may look similar at first glance, they are in fact very different.
Let me show you how different, simplifying by only using… beef.
If beef prices go up – as they have, through the roof, under Trump – then the bureau assumes that people will move to *cheaper cuts* of beef.
(Really, they assume that they’ll likely move to cheaper types of meat outright – that people will forego beef sometimes, and instead eat more chicken or fish, just for example. But again, we’re sticking with beef for this example.)
Let’s say people had been buying a lot of porterhouse cut beef last year. That’s not the most expensive cut of beef, but it’s on the higher end.
Let’s say porterhouse has gone from $10/pound to $15/pound over the last year. That’s a lot, obviously; I’m picking that big a jump because I want clearer maths, not just because that’s about the kind of price change we’ve seen in beef since Trump took over. Even though we have.
Let’s say that as a result, people who were buying porterhouse last year have shifted this year to buying T-bone stakes. Still a very good cut, nutritionally equal, but cheaper. This is the sort of rational decision the Federal government assumes people will make, and which they look for in sales.
Now we’re talking T-bone steaks. Let’s say that over the same period of time, T-bone cuts went from $9 a pound to $13 a pound. Still a big jump! Less of one, but still big, and still a cheaper cut.
Still with me? Let’s recap:<li>Porterhouse went from $10/pound to $15/pound over a year.</li><li>T-bone went from $9 to $13 a pound over the same year.</li><li>People bought less porterhouse and more T-bone as a result, shifting their purchase pattern to save money in the face of higher prices.</li><li>We’re about to calculate the inflation rate.</li>
How do you think this year-over-year inflation rate would be calculated?
$15/$10, producing a 50% annual inflation rate? No.
$13/$9, producing a 44% inflation rate? *Also* no.
Remember above, I said “price basket” would be important? This is why. They’d use the *current* price basket against the *year ago* price basket, *even though* the basket *no longer contains the same item*.
Which means that they’d calculate the price increase as such:
$13/$10, producing a 30% inflation rate.
Now something I want to make clear is that *if you are talking about cost of living, this is reasonable*. It *does* reflect real-life behaviour. They aren’t “cheating” by doing this *if* the goal is to measure cost of living, *which it mostly is*. (If prices go down, which happens regularly in food, they do adjust back the other way too. Just to get that on the record.)
So where a *fixed goods* price basket would show a 50% or 44% inflation rate, depending upon which kind of stake was in it, the *shifting price basket* – the *cost of living adjusted* basket – would show a 30% inflation rate, because that’s how much people are actually spending.
How happy you are about that change in your basket doesn’t really factor in so much.
Now that we’ve made it through all *that* noise – why is this relevant?
Because people already buying on the very low end don’t have as much manoeuvring room to change their purchase choices. And in *that* context, the *fixed* price basket becomes *more* important than the shifting price basket, not less.
Anna and I have extremely good budgeting. And even during all we’ve been through over the last couple of years, we’ve remained fairly price-***insensitive*** over what foods we choose to eat.
As a result, I know a few important things:<li>I know what we spent on a monthly basis a year ago, what that averaged out to over five months as of each month.</li><li>I know what we’re spending now, and how that’s averaged out over the last five months.</li><li>I know that where groceries are concerned, what we buy really hasn’t changed much, due to that price insensitivity. It’s changed some, but it hasn’t changed a lot.</li>
And knowing all that, I know that our average grocery spending per month has gone up ***61%*** from September 2024 to September 2025. *Sixty. One. Percent. *I have every number and calculation to prove it.
Does that mean all fixed-price baskets would show that kind of spike? Absolutely not. I’m sure I eat more imported and/or speciality foods than typical – Bonne Maison preserves from France, instead of Smucker’s. Maple syrup from Canada on Sunday pancakes, not Mrs. Butterworth’s table syrup, a mix of HFCS and flavourings. Stuff like that. Having been “food insecure” more than once in my life, if there’s one place I am spectacularly resistant to cutting back on quality, it’s *food.* As a result, we’ve been hit harder by food tariffs than most, and my fixed-basket inflation number is ***not*** going to be typical.
But while I’m confident that grocery costs at the lowest-income levels *haven’t* gone up 61% – they may have less opportunity for cost reduction via purchase changes than people higher up the income scale, but they do have some, and they’re also not getting hit as hard directly by the tariffs – I am just as confident of this:
Food costs for low income Americans have gone up a lot more than the official inflation rate will ever say. 3%? 4%? That’s fart noises. I don’t know what it is, but I’m confident it’s a lot more than that.
It is, after all, *always* a lot more expensive to be poor.
And *that’s *where we are as Trump and MAGA decide to cut off SNAP. There’s $6 billion in contingency funds that are supposed to be used in situations like this, and Trump is refusing to use it, just like he unconstitutionally refused to spend other Congressionally-ordered spending. His puppets in the FDA are saying that American hunger *isn’t* an *emergency*, so it won’t be spent.
And why *that*, in turn? Well, maybe it’s for just political pressure. Using hunger to force Democrats to let through insane doubling to tripling of health insurance costs is entirely his kind of shitheel manoeuvrer.
Maybe that’s all it is.
Or maybe it’s because he and Miller and Vance and all those goddamn ghouls want his fucking street riots so he can invoke the Insurrection Act, and if starving American citizens is what it takes to get his riots, starving American citizens is exactly what he’ll do to get his street riots.
You *know *I’m right about *that*.
So.
Let’s not give the fascist any goddamn food riots. No matter how much he might want them.
Give generously.
#economics #fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics

2025-10-24 18:54:07 UTC

##
I really gotta point something out hereI really, really, *really* gotta point something out here.
This “ballroom” Trump Shitstain the First says he’s building is 90,000 square feet, and is going to cost THREE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS.
Apparently. That’s what he says.
This is *bullshit*. He’s pocketing AT LEAST half of that money. Probably two-thirds, maybe 70%. I daresay *probably* 70%. Or who knows, all of it – but let’s say he’s actually going to build something and some part of the extorted “donations” will actually be spent doing so. It’s still bullshit, and he’s still pocketing most of the money.
How do I know this?
Because $300 million for 90,000 square feet is over $3330/square foot in construction cost. That’s absolutely batshit insane by ***any*** standard. The highest-end commercial construction in the US is under $1000/square foot. You’re telling me he’s going to spend over three times that?
I don’t fucking think so. It’s bullshit, and he’s keeping most of the money.
But if that’s not enough for you, consider this:
The most expensive commercial building EVER BUILT IN THE WORLD (according to Wikipedia’s list of most expensive buildings) is One Financial Centre in Hong Kong, which is, slightly ironically, *two* massive skyscrapers. It’s a combined two million square feet of floor space, mostly vertical, which adds assloads of cost. It is opulent as fuck and serves extremely high-end customers in an *extremely* wealthy city.
Excluding land costs (because shitstain has the land already), 1FC cost right around $3315/square foot to build.
Which is to say, slightly LESS than his fucking “ballroom.”
His ballroom will cost MORE per square foot than the most expensive luxury commercial construction project ever built.
Which is, again, bullshit.
He’s pocketing that money, and nobody should think for a moment otherwise.
#economics #fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics

2025-10-09 16:01:00 UTC

##
post your reality, part twoI’ve been calling for people to [post pictures, video, whatever, of their towns when Herr Fuckface describes them as war zones](https://solarbird.net/blog/2025/09/28/chicagoans-post-pics-and-video/ ), as hellholes, as whatever he pukes up this time. Particularly Chicago, and now, *extra* particularly Portland. But any blue city or state he lies about.
Post the truth.
On Wednesday night, [Jimmy Kimmel requested people do that too, using the hashtag #ShowMeYourHellhole](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XXpWVNtsVg ). They’ll look for and highlight some of those videos and contact you if they want to use it, so *only use it on video you specifically want seen by as many people as possible*.
Post your reality; use the hashtag to help other people see it, *if* you’re okay with the one in a million shot that they ask you to let them use it on Kimmel.
In reality, of course, they’ll mostly be checking YouTube and maybe other corporate social media, not cooperative spaces like the Federation. But he’s famous enough that if he calls for a hashtag, a lot of people will use it, and in this case, that’s no bad thing.
So – Portland. Chicago. Los Angeles. Memphis. DC. You in particular, but not just you…
…mods are asleep. Post your reality.
#cascadia #fascism #photography #politics #portland #seattle #ShowMeYourHellhole #uspol #uspolitics

2025-09-27 20:29:24 UTC

##
it is all liesBefore things get a lot worse, which it looks like they’re about to do given Trump’s “full force” order and his “anti-fascism is terrorism” executive memo, I need to reiterate:
It’s lies. This shit about Portland? It’s all lies.
The lies about Seattle were lies too. Particularly reviving the old lie that “they” “took over a significant percentage of the city” back in 2020. Remember when I posted a map showing the three blocks and a park that were the entire protest zone? And how it was 0.0something percent of the city? How it was basically the equivalent of a guy and a yappy dog on the corner of a Walmart parking lot, and how on a full map of the city the red rectangle was literally too small to see?
Remember that?
It’s lies about Portland now. I know people in Portland. I know people who are in Portland RIGHT NOW, for the weekend.
It. Is. All. Lies.
If you don’t believe me, believe Tess Vigeland, a Wall Street Journal senior producer who lives in Portland. The Wall Street Journal is not exactly a “left” publication and doesn’t exactly employ “radical leftists.” [I quote her here in entirety](https://www.facebook.com/tessvigeland/posts/pfbid0HKqPfJdSZXxCAW9ZRyknzWz7rBcd78QXgWqLU9VDwe9b5EtMEr7zwCfz8EvVnKAGl ):
> > “He is lying. They are lying. They are literally making this shit up. I live four blocks from the ICE facility they say is a “war zone.” I pass it every single day on my way home. There are, on average, maybe 30 protesters who’ve camped out (they have a small grill) and set up tents. Sometimes more show up on the weekend. They use bullhorns to shout invective at the building and it’s been awful for the residents who live across the street and noise laws should be enforced. But the notion that this city of 600,000 people is a war zone is completely laughable. CNN has a photo from September 1st on its story about this that makes it seem like the city is, indeed, under siege (and that’s part of the problem, images that don’t tell a complete story). But the idea that they needed that kind of show of force is insane. Would I like the protesters to go away? As a neighbor, yup. Do they have the right to set up a tent city outside the facility? Probably — but again, it’s annoying. Does Portland have myriad problems that a maddeningly ineffective local government seems unable to solve no matter how much tax money we throw at it? Yup. But does any of it call for federal troops fanning out across the city? Absolutely not. It’s stupid. This is all for show by an authoritarian administration that knows its base will applaud because oooooh lookie a liberal city getting its due. (I have relatives who will applaud this, by the way.) But they’re lying. They’re all LYING.”Tess Vigeland, The Wall Street Journal
If you don’t believe her? There are plenty of webcams. Here’s [Pioneer Square in downtown Portland](https://www.thesquarepdx.org/see-the-square-live/ ) as I write this right now:
I won’t even point you to more webcams. Use DuckDuckGo or something. Find them on your own. It’s easy.
Find any cam you want. Look at them for yourself. Tell any Trumpy relatives you have to do the same thing. Look. See.
They. Are. All. Lying.
#cascadia #CasPol #CasPolitics #fascism #oregon #portland #uspol #uspolitics
https://solarbird.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/portland-lioneer-square-2025-09-27-at-1.24.41-PM-1024x606.png

2025-09-22 15:41:00 UTC

##
Write Disney a LETTER.WRITE DISNEY-ABC A LETTER TODAY.
Not email, don’t @ them on social media – or do that, that’s fine, but it’s not a substitute. It’s not as good. Do that too, but mostly…
WRITE DISNEY A LETTER. On PAPER. Put it in an ENVELOPE and MAIL IT.
Yeah, they’ll think you’re old. They’ll also think you have 1) money and 2) probably have children, more likely grandkids.
Now, grandparents *love* to spend money on grandkids, and if you say Disney’s not getting one goddamn dime until and unless they walk this back, *they will care*.
Particularly if enough of us do it.
See, paper letters are *scary*. They mean you aren’t momentarily angry, you’re *determinedly* angry. Paper letters mean you care enough to *write this shit down by hand* or *get a printer working* and *print *something. You’re so mad you got ahold of *printer paper* or *stationery*. You even care enough to get an *envelope* and a *stamp* and take something to a *post office*, or at least a post *box*.
You’re *mad*, and it’s not just a momentary twitch of reactive anger. You *mean it*.
And all that above means that paper letters are *effective*. So.
WRITE DISNEY A LETTER. ON PAPER. And send it HERE:
Disney-ABC Home Entertainment and Television Distribution
500 S. Buena Vista St.
Burbank, CA 91521-3515
That’s what I did today.
Your turn.
Oh, and, use your own words, not mine. Duplicates are bad. And at least one upon a time, they would watch for that. You can hit the same beats, just … write your own. It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare, it just has to make sense.
Go.
Do.
Write Disney a *letter*.
#disneyAteMyGrandmother #fascism #politics #protest #uspol #uspolitics
https://solarbird.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/IMG_5713-768x1024.jpg

2025-08-11 16:31:00 UTC

##
no better satire could be writtenHoly hell. The Tesla Truck is such a complete fucking sales disaster that he’s getting a corrupt deal with the military to buy them as targets.
I repeat:
[THE TESLA TRUCK IS SUCH A COMPLETE FAILURE THAT THEY’RE SELLING THEM TO THE MILITARY AS TARGETS FOR TARGET PRACTICE](https://fortune.com/2025/08/10/air-force-tesla-cybertruck-relationship-big-tech-pentagon-contract-spending/ ).
Only a couple at first. Still, no doubt it’ll be at full price or some shit. Gotta claw those losses back somehow, right? Try this, see who complains.
Regardless, [“OFFICIAL US MILITARY TARGET” stickers for Teslas, y/y](https://mastodon.murkworks.net/@moira/115008240651145312 )?
Also, I may need to make yet another new sign for the Tesla Takedown protests because holy shit xD
#fascism #politics #tesla #TeslaTakedown #uspol #uspolitics

2025-07-08 22:31:05 UTC

##
Elon Musk’s Grok going full-NaziGrok went gone full Hitler-supporting Nazi today. At first it was slightly hidden, but [since I boosted this around,](https://mastodon.murkworks.net/@npub1yxv…lleu/114819380420368621 ) it’s just gone full-bore literal Nazi, calling for National Socialism and talking about what Hitler would do and why it would be *good*.
I don’t have time to write a long version of this, much less edit it to a good short version of this, so I’m just gonna dump my thesis:
I don’t think anyone changed Grok’s startup prompt.
I think they shifted weightings on sources until it started agreeing with Elon about all the shit he was mad at it about, and that meant…
…full-bore Nazi time.
Unintentionally.
But inevitably, since he’s literally a fucking fascist who literally threw a Hitler Rally-identical Nazi salute at the fucking inauguration.
Think about this, think about that, and think about who Elon is.
Today is a very good day to protest at a Tesla dealership. Find a protest near you. [Get out, show up, do shit](https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/teslatakedown?source=website ).
And it’s *always* a very good day to leave X behind forever.
#ElonMusk #fascism #FuckElon #politics #Twitter #uspol #uspolitics

2025-06-30 22:09:17 UTC

##
Call your Republican Senators RIGHT NOW.Not later; not tonight; **RIGHT NOW. **Pick up the phone and dial the switchboard if you don’t know their office’s direct number:
(202) 224-3121
Tell your Republican Senator or Senators that you demand they vote AGAINST the Big Ugly Bill that transfers wealth to the billionaire class at a scale not seen in decades if ever, and balloons the national debt to levels never imagined.
They’re still going through amendments. There is still time, if you call **RIGHT. NOW.**
#fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics

2025-05-09 23:22:01 UTC

##
threatening the supreme court[Miller’s out there again threatening the courts with a suspension of habeas corpus if they don’t rule the way the fascists want](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evIsu20wFLI ). Explicitly. In words.
They’re threatening to start arresting anyone and everyone they want, at will, with absolutely no legal recourse for anyone. That’s what “suspending habeas corpus” means. Habeas corpus is the right to challenge an imprisonment through law, through the courts – it means you have to have a reason to arrest someone and it has to be valid, and people can demand you demonstrate that it’s valid or otherwise release that person.
Most people are quoting the “looking at” part, but I want to highlight two other phrases. First, I want to point at the monstrous cur calling this *fundamental right of the Constitution* a “privilege”:
“…the ***privilege*** of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended…”
Habeas corpus is a *fundamental right*, not a goddamn *privilege*, you solipsistic ghoul, and you know it but you don’t care. It predates the Constitution; hell, it [predates the Magna Carta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus#Origins_in_England ). What he’s doing here is telling the MAGAt base what to say and how to react, saying that it’s *not* a right, it’s some kind of *bonus* which can be taken away.
And that’s horseshit. If you don’t have the right to contest your own imprisonment, if you can be imprisoned by them at will, thrown overseas or into some dark hole to die with absolutely no recourse, then ***you have no rights at all***, and that’s what they’re going for. You: no rights. Them: absolute power. That’s the intent.
Now, to the threat:
“[suspending habeas corpus] depends upon whether the courts do the right thing or not.”
If the courts don’t let them do whatever they want, they’ll throw out the most fundamental right that can exist – the right ***not*** to be arbitrarily imprisoned without recourse.
The right not to be disappeared.
The right to exist at all.
For *anyone*.
That’s what he wants to take away. That’s what *they* want to take away.
*This alone should be cause for impeachment, conviction, and removal.*
That it’s not is a complete condemnation, by their own hands, of the Republican Party.
If you’re not getting out there on the streets, why the hell not? Here are some places to look for protests near you:<li><a href="https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/teslatakedown">Tesla Takedown</a> – this is a big weekend for anti-Musk protests at Tesla dealerships. Find yours. Get out there.</li><li><a href="https://www.mobilize.us/?utm_source=mobilize&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=footer">Indivisible</a> – this is a bigger list with a more general focus. Find something near you. Get out there.</li><li><a href="https://www.nokings.org/?SQF_SOURCE=indivisible">No Kings</a> – June 14th. Put it on your calendar now. Be there.</li>
The more effective we are, the more of us there are, the more radical and scary they’ll get up to the point where they piss off enough people that they get taken down. But we have to keep building, and we have to keep getting out there, and dragging as many people out there with us as we can if we ever want to reach that point.
It’s been said a bunch, but the rubber has hit the road, and if you’ve ever wondered what you would do in the 1930s, you’re finding out now, because it’s what you’re doing right now.
Make it the right thing.
Get out there, team. And stay out there. If we want to keep a republic, we have to get this done.
#fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics

2025-03-31 16:42:00 UTC

##
Do This: HANDS OFF! National Protest this Saturday, April 5thHello and welcome to another Monday planning day. At time of writing, I don’t actually know how this past weekend’s Tesla protests went – I’m writing this well in advance, and scheduling it to go up no matter what happens. But hopefully you were there and hopefully it went well.
This weekend is bigger. It’s called Hands Off! and it’s not specifically Tesla focused, it’s against the entire Musk/Trump administration agenda.
Like with the Tesla protests, there are hundreds scheduled. Like the Tesla protests, not all are at the same time of day – I have two in reasonable range of me that don’t even overlap so I may be able to show up at *both*.
You have options is what I am saying.
[Go find a good one for you, make the time, and get out there](https://handsoff2025.com/ ).
And good hunting.
#fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics

2025-03-30 17:23:00 UTC

##
HEY EVERYONE DOING PROTESTS LISTEN UPOne addendum to the last post:
We need to do our own reporting. We need to talk about these protests. To everyone. You need to post about them, at least to say you did them, that you were there.
The media’s not reporting it, so WE HAVE TO REPORT IT INSTEAD.
Which is one reason why I’m writing all this up. WE have to spread the news, because THEY will NOT.
Seriously, the fash podcasting littleman I talked about last post? He was literally the ONLY media to show up. No other *media* was there.
So once again, we have to be that media. For real.
#politics #uspol #uspolitics #wapol

2025-03-04 01:10:47 UTC

##
Democrats stand united; cloture vote FAILS in SenateHoly shit, team. [That thing I told you to do? Last week?](https://solarbird.net/blog/2025/02/27/call-your-senators-right-now/ ) The anti-trans bill, and the attempt to cut off debate, and how we had to stop it here or we wouldn’t, because then it could pass with only Republican votes so we needed to stop it here and now?
It fucken
**WORKED**
The vote got called this afternoon. [Move to cloture **FAILED** 51-45](https://mstdn.social/@_L1vY_/114101404030056036 ), and ***not one single Democrat crossed the line***.
Note how if this were a straight-up 50%+1 vote, it would’ve passed. That’s why we needed to win it here, where they needed *60* votes.
They might try again later but right now this is a big win. Drop ’em a note of thanks, team. Shouldn’t be required, but give it a moment anyway. This one can just be email, if that’s easier for you.
Not *one* crossed over.
Not *one*.
Good job.
#LGBT #LGBTQIA #politics #uspol #uspolitics

2025-02-15 02:02:03 UTC

##
HHS employees, DO NOT OPEN YOUR EMAILHHS employees, DO NOT OPEN YOUR EMAIL.
Not without [reading this first](https://www.muellershewrote.com/p/attn-hhs-employees ).
They’re going to cut off your network access as soon as you read your email, so you need to download a bunch of things first. Details at the link.
[DO NOT OPEN YOUR EMAIL WITHOUT READING THIS FIRST](https://www.muellershewrote.com/p/attn-hhs-employees ).
See also the firings in the [Epidemic Intelligence Service](https://med-mastodon.com/@luckytran/114004704845979956 ).
#datascience #fascism #medicine #politics #science #uspol #uspolitics

2025-02-09 22:21:17 UTC

##
shit is hitting the fan right nowOkay, so, Vance is out there saying that the courts have no authority over the executive branch’s “legitimate power” – as defined by the executive branch – so we’re ramping up into full-on, overt refusal to comply with court rulings.
It’s a great time – if you’re them – to be moving on this kind of shit, because nobody’s paying attention. It’s Super Bowl Sunday. Nobody’s watching and nobody cares about anything but the championship.
So what’s going to need to happen is that rank and file workers and management are going to have to be the ones saying “no, the courts said that’s illegal,” and they’re going to need to be ready to do that first thing Monday morning.
That’s going to get real scary when [DOGE and Project 2025 people call the US Marshals in, like they threatened at USAID](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/usaid-security-leaders-removed-refusing-elon-musks-doge-employees-acce-rcna190357 ) in order to force employees to give them illegal access to systems.
Would the Marshals do it? Are they ready to act as the local shock troops for an illegal Trump regime? That’s going to be a wildly important question in the next week or so.
States are going to have to be ready to refuse executive orders too. If your state has a law preventing National Guard from other states being deployed to your state without your governor’s permission, that’s a good thing right now. If your state *doesn’t* have this, it might be a good law to get into place immediately, if you can. (Washington State is in the latter category, and is actively putting said law into place at Governor Ferguson’s insistance, which is good. It means he’s aware.)
I’m not sure how to say “there is no Constitution if they do this,” or how to say “there is no United States if there is no Constitution,” but that’s basically the situation, and maybe that’s how to say it. This dissolves the compact, *de facto* if not *de jure*, and I they’re hoping to conquer the several states through emergency decrees, intimidation, and maybe just outright force of arms.
Trump *wants* to invoke the insurrection act. Trump* wants* to suspend the Constitution.
This is probably as good a way to do it as any.
#fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics
https://solarbird.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-09-at-1.16.11 PM-1024x373.png

2025-01-23 17:05:00 UTC

##
Our first “Why are you complaining?”I’ve been saying since the election that the most useful phrase we may well have over the next several months to years is this:
“Why are you complaining? This is exactly what you voted for.”
You may add, “you stupid-ass motherfuckers” onto the end as your taste dictates.
And we have our very first true case already, as [the Fraternal Order of Police have condemned Donald Trump for doing exactly what he said he would do in pardoning January 6th insurrectionists](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ3vVheA0h0 ), including those who attacked police.
All together now, everyone! Three, two, one:
***Why are you complaining? This is exactly what you voted for, you stupid-ass motherfuckers.***
Now. Isn’t that nice?
After all, it’s not like he didn’t tell everyone who would listen. Over and over again.
This is what people get for voting like complete fucking morons, voting with the single goal of hurting people they don’t like.
You see, there’s a fact here, and it’s very simple:
Every psychopath who tells you they’ll deliver your retribution and pain onto others will not hesitate for a ***single goddamn second*** to turn around and deliver it onto ***you***, too, if they decide it’s in their interest.
Or that it would just be fun.
And to those people, I further say this:
**Get smart, dumbshits, and for once in your useless goddamn lives, *learn something*.**
No. I do not intend to be gracious. Not about any of this.
#fascism #uspolitics

2025-01-16 22:10:00 UTC

##
Hey Bluesky users!
I’m on Mastodon. I like it here; it’s neat! But I know folks on Bluesky I’d like to follow, preferably* from* Mastodon.
And I can! ***If*** they give permission. So if you want to let me and other Mastodonians follow your Bluesky account, here’s how.
This link goes to a special Bluesky account profile: https://bsky.app/profile/ap.brid.gy
If you click on the link, you’ll see the profile. If you then click the profile’s “follow” button, that will give me and others from Federated services like Mastodon permission to see your posts and follow your *Bluesky* account.
That’s all there is to it. You don’t need to know anything about Mastodon, or have a Mastodon account; you’re done! We can now follow you and see your posts.
If *you* want to follow *me* from Bluesky, you can do that already. You don’t have to do anything special, because I gave *my* permission a while ago.
Here are my account profiles as seen by Bluesky users:<li><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/moira.mastodon.murkworks.net.ap.brid.gy">My Mastodon account</a></li><li><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/solarbird.solarbird.net.ap.brid.gy">My Wordpess blog, which is my same bullshit, but in longer form</a>.</li>
These act just like Bluesky accounts to you, but I’ll only see your replies if you give permission like I described above. Otherwise, I won’t see anything.
And that’s it! So… welcome to the world of non-billionaire-hijacked social media. Let’s make some connections!
#BlueSky #Facebook #meta #Twitter
https://solarbird.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/give-mastodon-permission-to-follow-you-1024x594.png

2024-12-04 16:27:00 UTC

##
the most fucked up thing you’ve ever seen SO FAR[Blue Cross/Blue Shield want to stop covering anesthesiology drugs beyond a fixed amount of time](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vWA2aQYXDbo )
during
*surgeries?*
So if a surgery goes longer than their time allotment, coverage stops on
*anaesthesia?!*
I mean
I mean
I mean
there’s also the whole “nothing says quality medicine like rushing a surgery team” but
HOLY SHIT YOU MONSTERS
#HomeEc #lolscience #medicine #science
https://solarbird.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-03-at-10.48.29 PM-578x1024.png

2024-11-30 18:14:00 UTC

##
google’s latest fuckery: if you write online, read thisThe [Google app for iOS now adds **THEIR links** to **YOUR posts from YOUR website** unless you opt-out](https://www.yahoo.com/tech/google-app-ios-now-adds-193040741.html ).
Their links lead people away from your site and back to Google. Because that’s definitely what you want, right? That’s why you have a blog or portal or web site or whatever. You want people to leave your site and go back to Google.
Oh, it’s not?
If you don’t like it, you can “Opt out.” Opting out is a pain in the ass. [Here’s where you go to do it](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1h9I0TbN-H_1e85CqXYb1ng7rQfg2ijfODc1sBxPBd08/viewform?edit_requested=true ). You have to enter every variation of each of your domains or it won’t work. It will take up to 30 days, during which time Google will continue to pollute *your* work and *your* writing and *your* website with *their* modifications and *their* added links to take people *away from your site* and back to themselves.
For example, here’s the list of what I need to opt-out *just for this one blog*:<code>solarbird.nethttp://solarbird.nethttps://solarbird.netwww.solarbird.nethttp://www.solarbird.nethttps://www.solarbird.netweb.solarbird.nethttp://web.solarbird.nethttps://web.solarbird.net</code>
*Yes, you explicitly have to file no prefix, http:, and https: variants separately. They say so.*
Making it difficult like this is 100% intentional and entirely designed to make it as annoying as possible, and also, to make sure you slip up if at all possible and forget one or more combinations.
(Tho’ I am just going to depreciate web. as a prefix right now, to bring down the load a little. Still gonna list ’em, though, because spite is why.)
Right now it’s only in the Google app for iOS and it’s probably a test to see whether they can get away with it without complaint, and how much revenue it generates. Let’s make that a combination of *no* and *as close to zero as possible*. Because otherwise they’ll roll it out everywhere, and probably derank you if you don’t go along.
Fucking hell, Google. Fuck you. Just… *fuck you*.
#art #t0000000000bs_ #writing

2024-11-20 06:41:05 UTC

##
o noes there go the electronsMassive windstorm this evening in Cascadia has taken out our power; we lasted, honestly, longer than I thought we would. But we are definitely now out. This should federate out to most of our followers, though, since we have like an hour of battery backup that we’re chewing through right now..
We’ll come back when power does. If you’re local, well, good luck out there.
#murknet

2024-11-11 17:06:00 UTC

##
tariffs, mass deportation – the pieces fit togetherI think I’ve squared a circle. Doesn’t mean it’s real; just that I’ve found a way to square it.
Walk with me.
Let’s say you’re Trump and you’ve promised mass deportations and huge tariffs on China and other countries.
Let’s say that mass deportation is incredibly expensive – maybe you’re aware that Hitler’s camps and extermination programme were eating 13% of Nazi Germany’s GDP in the middle of their wars of conquest.
Let’s say you’re also aware that this will take years and years and years, because there’s literally no way to do this quickly. Physically, I mean. 15 million people can’t be thrown out overnight, or even over months. It’ll be years.
Let’s also say you want to keep inflation down, particularly to keep prices from skyrocketing due to your tariff policies. Tariffs are, I remind you, a tax an imports that get paid by the importer, and which are passed on to the customer. They *are* inflationary, *by design*. At least, until and unless they torpedo the economy entirely, at which point, well, you’ve set off a second Great Depression, just like Smoot and Hawley.
Now, let’s say that it’s very important to you to keep wages down as well, because nobody wants to pay workers if they can avoid it. If you want to bring back a lot of manufacturing in an already-tight labour market, that’s going to raise labour costs. It just is.
So you assign an amoral monster like Tom Homan – author of Trump’s Family Separation policy – as the “czar” of immigration. He’s promising the largest deportation force in history and recently said [his answer to preventing “family separation” is to expel the entire family](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-announces-tom-homan-incoming-border-czar-rcna179536 ) – citizenship be damned.
(He’s also a contributor to Project 2025 and a visiting fellow at Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 *absolutely is* the agenda. All of it.)
Then you start talking to people you’re already very friendly with, the operators of private prisons. They are utterly ready and looking forward to the new policies. [They see it as an opportunity to double – or better – the size of their evil industry in all its forms](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-deportation-plans-private-prisons-opportunity_n_672d3faae4b01e5999fc97c0 ).
Your inner circle have already acknowledged you’ll have to build camps – lots of them, big ones. You’ll call them “prisons” or “detention facilities” or “military camps,” not “concentration camps,” you certainly won’t call them that. Let’s say “facilities.”
Prison “facilities” are already well known for requiring prison labour, and for their pennies-per-hour payment to inmates. Private prisons have pushed the envelope on this in many ways; prison labour is a profit centre. One I was working against, before the fascist era.
So.
Imagine, if you would, the very easy jump.
You’ve got to do *something* with these hundreds of thousands of imprisoned people, don’t you.
Imagine expulsions taking months, then years. Years at a time. Perhaps they stop working so hard on speeding up the process. Perhaps they slow-walk it, timed to, say, suit the availability of “facility” beds.
Of course you’ll put them to work. A rotating cast of “facility” workers – “prison workers” – worked slowly through the system so there’s no one there quite long enough to start organising.
Paid, technically. At pennies for the hour, as a token, a pretence that it’s not slavery. But, of course, it is. You recoup the pennies you have to pay by charging them for everything. Maybe even their bed.
And just like that you have highly profitable… North Korean-style labour camps, with entire families of workers imprisoned, for who knows how long while they are put to work as factory labour for the private prison companies which become the new internal outsourcers of zero-cost labour.
Slavery, though not by name.
Maybe you’ll tie camp expansions to increases in tariffs. Raise them in parallel, timed so that the internal outsourcing absorbs the cost of the new tariffs. And then look – no price inflation, no wage inflation.
And whole new class of people to look down upon forever, if you like.
It’s quite the plan. Very neat. Very clean. Given that Trump voters actively *want* “military camps” used against immigrants, it’ll be a very easy sell.
And very, very profitable. Slave camps always have been, really.
And all you have to be is an abomination upon the earth.
And all your supporters have to do is let you be one.
Is that the plan? I don’t know.
All I know is that all the pieces seem to fit.
#fascism #politics #uspolitics

2024-11-10 22:21:17 UTC

- reply

Say “You know that rape taunt going around? If you do this in front of me, I WILL IMMEDIATELY PUNCH YOU IN THE DICK.”
Or whatever you’re willing to say, but say it as strongly as you’re willing to say it. They’re looking for social permission from men. You must pre-emptively deny that in the strongest terms you’re willing.
This is about force now. Not reason.

2024-11-10 22:10:49 UTC

##
CISHET MEN: GET ON ITI am not seeing nearly enough cishet **men** react proactively to this national wave of rape threats.
Most men listen only to men, particularly on topics like these. These men *specifically* only listen to men. *Not* listening to the opinions of women is the *point*, because as far as they’re concerned, **we don’t get to have any**.
Right now, these men are testing what they can get away with. They see but don’t care about how women react; if anything, they like the revulsion and anger, and look forward to more of it when they actually start “grabbing women by the pussy.”
But they **do** want to see how other **men** will react. They want to know what **other men** will say or do.
Passivity now, in the face of this, is **permission**. And your **men** friends are watching. If you don’t object, *they probably won’t either*. So if you’re against this – and you fucking well need to be – you need to get ahead of it.
And the next time, and the time after that? Every other time the fash test something? Because they will be testing everything they can?
It’s the same reality.
**You** have to get in front of it. Independently. Not just a thumbs up to a woman’s post. Preferably in your own words.
And you have to start **right now**.
#fascism #politics #uspolitics

2024-11-08 20:29:20 UTC

##
an appropriate responseAn appropriate response to someone saying “[Your body, my choice](https://newrepublic.com/maz/post/188159/donald-trump-maga-attacks-women )” is to shoot them in the face.
To be very clear, I’m not saying this is legal. I’m most certainly not arguing that you should do it. Are we clear on that? I’m not saying to do that, I’m not saying it’s legal. It’s not, you will go to jail. Don’t do it. You’re almost certainly not even capable of it. Don’t feel bad about that; most people aren’t. That’s one of the reasons for professional armies instead of draftees; you have to get people who are willing to shoot people in the face, and most people just won’t, no matter how hard you train them.
But that statement *is a threat of violence*. More than that – much like the public adoption of naziism – it’s a *promise* of violence. And that combination of threat and promise is, “I will rape you, and nobody will stop me.”
And that is why shooting them in the face is an appropriate response. It’s an act of self defence in direct reaction to a direct statement of intent of to harm you with violence.
Again, I’m not saying to do this. I’m not arguing that you should do it, even if you can. You should not. You *should not* do this.
I’m just arguing that as a response, it is *appropriate*.
In Stand Your Ground states, I’d argue that maybe it should be *legal*, if you talk about the supposed intent of the law. You’re allowed to stand your ground, after all, to defend yourself against assault and threats thereof. Yes, of course I know that no Trumpist judge will ever support that argument; self-defense is for white men and no one else. But it seems to me this *should* qualify, even if it absolutely won’t.
So again – because I need to make this as clear as possible – I’m not saying it *is* a legal response, not even in Stand Your Ground states. It’s *not a legal response*. They *will* jail you. They may have the state kill you. I’d say it’s *pretty likely*. Don’t do it.
All I’m saying is that it’s *appropriate*. That it is a *measured* and *proportionate* response to a direct threat upon your body and quite possibly your life.
To my mind, after having done so, it is also reasonable to then repeat “your body, *my* choice” to their cooling corpse. After all, they’re not a person anymore – just as you were never a person to them – so it’s not a threat. But that does assume they are in fact already dead, so you would need to be very careful about that.
Not that I’m saying you should do this, either. I’m not saying that. Absolutely not. Don’t do any of this.
I’m just saying…
…it would be an *appropriate response*.
#fascism #politics #uspolitics

2024-10-23 21:08:50 UTC

**they don’t even pretend it’s not true anymore**
Republican Chris Sununu says that Trump openly admiring Hitler won’t change his vote, that it’s basically okay and that he thinks the majority of Americans will think it’s basically okay.
[This is a Threads link, sorry. It’s where I have video right now](https://www.threads.net/@aaron.rupar/post/DBeRJ9cg44i ).
I expected 2024 to have more overt religion and less overt Hitlerites. I mean, in the end, the fundamentalist movement will get whatever it wants out of a Trump presidency – and that’s a lot – but I didn’t think they’d be so openly support someone so pro-Hitler.
Not just fascist, not even just Nazi: pro-*Hitler*.
Republican Governor of New Hampshire Chris Sununu was on CNN, earlier, talking about this. If you watch it, note that he doesn’t deny a single word of anyone’s accounts of the story. Not one word. Doesn’t even contest it, doesn’t even shade it, doesn’t even try to spin it; he accepts all of it as completely true. The Trump-campaign issued a slur-laden denial, but nobody believes them. Everyone else, including his supporters, seems to agree that it’s all completely true.
And yet, for them, it doesn’t change a single goddamn thing.
Bouduan: “In supporting the [Trump] ticket, in saying that, that is saying you’re going to support someone who Marine General John Kelley fits the definition of fascist. For sure, he says. In supporting the ticket, that is something you’re supporting.”
Sununu: “Yep.”
He then says he isn’t “okay with” Trump praising Hitler, but he’ll still support him and thinks America will too.
He does not say the words “fascist dictator” when he says he thinks America is ready for a second Trump administration and he’s all in to help with that, but that is what he’s saying.
For the first years of my long fight against this, a lot of it was about trying to convince people that this kind of raw, fascist, dictatorial power – in the case of the fundamentalist core, to institute a religious order to their liking and kill me and everyone like me – is what they wanted, and what they were working to create.
And it looks like a lot of them – all official Republicanism – have finally faced that reality, that out-and-out desire to be American Hitler, and said, “well… fine. I’m in.”
There is precious little time left. Whatever you have in you, whatever you have left, use it. There’s still a few days remaining to write Go-To-Vote letters, if there’s still Trumpy people you know, that you have emotional connections to, try to get them to explain it to you. Ask them why. Get them to put it into their words. Maybe that’ll jog some memories of conscience along the way. It probably won’t, but as long as there’s a chance, we all have to take it.
If you’re thinking of holding something back for later, don’t. Or as they said in the *last* fascist war, “smoke ’em if you got ’em,” because there really isn’t a day after if we lose.
12 days remain.
[[link](https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/10/23/they-dont-even-pretend-its-not-true-anymore/ )] #politics #USPol #fascism #politics #uspolitics

2024-10-15 16:12:00 UTC

**A quick set of “no” on statewide initiatives**
Okay, so there are four (4) statewide initiatives on the Washington State ballot this year, all funded and backed by a California hedge-fund manager named Brian Haywood. He’s your usual hedge-fund dickhead, and has worked with the MAGA-pilled Washington State GOP to dump several million dollars into these.
So, what are they?
Two are “fuck yeah climate change” initiatives, the pro-carbon pro-global-warming horseshit you’d expect out of MAGAttry. These are I-2117 and I-2066. 2066 discourages electrification and requires more availability and use of natural gas. 2117 repeals sections of the 2021 Washington Climate Commitment Act and prohibits the state from discouraging use of carbon-based fuels via carbon caps or investments.
So those are a big two FUCK YOU NO. How about the others?
The next one is a tax cut focused on the very wealthy. I-2109 blows a massive hole in the already-underfunded education budget by massively cutting taxes on the state’s 4000 wealthiest people, making our already-regressive tax system super extra regressive. Very Trumpian, so there’s no wonder the MAGAts like this one a lot.
The last one is one of those “medical choice!” amendments that is really about “choosing to go bankrupt because people don’t understand maths.”
I-2124 seeks to eliminate WA Cares, the state’s long-term-healthcare insurance programme. If you love going bankrupt when you’re old and too sick to work so you can end up dying penniless and possibly homeless, this is definitely the initiative for you!
Obviously, I am unimpressed. Brian Heywood moved up here to be our new Tim Eyman after Original Tim Eyman did too many crimes and so isn’t running initiative campaigns anymore. The difference is that while Eyman was making a business out of it and making money – or trying to – Heywood already has all the money he needs so doesn’t have to cash in the same ways.
So please vote no on all of these, ‘k? I’m not super impressed by [Defend Washington](https://defend-washington.com/ )‘s weirdly vague website, but they do have at least some information on all the initiatives and why you shouldn’t vote for them.
Two hands, two fingers each means giving four fingers to this bullshit.
Vote no across the board on statewide initiatives in 2024.
21 days remain.
[[link](https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/10/15/a-quick-set-of-no-on-statewide-initiatives/ )] #politics #USPol #fascism #politics #uspolitics #wapol

2024-09-07 00:14:13 UTC

**Elon and Russian propaganda**
Today’s been another absolute zoo of a day, so [here’s a little comic](https://sfba.social/@markmetz/113087140521818067 ) I saw going around on Mastodon.
What you need to know is that 1) [Tenet Media turns out to have been – “allegedly” – a Russian-funded propaganda outlet](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/09/05/tenet-media-russia-rt-tim-pool/ ), paying far-right commentators like Tim Pool hundreds of thousands of dollars to spread their disinformation, and 2) [Elon Musk has been one of the biggest, if not *the* single biggest, booster of Tenet Media stories](https://mastodon.social/@angdraug/113088079610142559 ) on eX-twitter.
X, what was once twitter, is an *op*.
59 days remain.
[[link](https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/09/06/elon-and-russian-propaganda/ )] #politics #sociality #USPol #fascism #politics #t0000000000bs_ #uspolitics
https://solarbird.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/image.png

2024-09-04 20:37:55 UTC

**oh really?**
> [> Elon Musk says he ‘can’t wait’ to work in Trump’s White House](https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-trump-cabinet-election-x-2024-9 )
> Business Insider – September 4, 2024
“White House.” Does he mean jail? I think he means jail. As in jail house.
Seriously though, he’s gonna keep being [the world’s wealthiest fascist](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tucker-carlson-nazi-podcast-elon-musk-b2606800.html ) for the rest of his life and we’re gonna have to deal with that. So maybe get people to get off eX-Twitter, because being on “X” is basically subscribing to [Völkischer Beobachte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lkischer_Beobachter ) – it serves literally the same purpose – and don’t buy a Tesla, those things are [still deciding to run red lights and jump out in front of oncoming cars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rZz2JqsWGE ) anyway.
61 days remain.
[[link](https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/09/04/oh-really/ )] #politics #USPol #fascism #politics #uspolitics

2024-09-04 04:10:48 UTC

**The New York Times is still an obscenity**
Following their re-fashioning Trump’s planned mass ethnic purge of 15 million people as an “[affordable housing programme](https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/08/30/the-new-york-times-is-an-obscenity/ ),” they decided to re-frame Hitler-quoting book-burning extremist hate group “Moms for Liberty” as a run-of-the-mill group of “[conservative moms](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/31/us/elections/conservative-moms-for-liberty-trump.html )” who can “can get a bit carried away” but are mostly “fired-up suburban women.”
The New York Times couldn’t be working harder to normalise literal fascism if they tried, and oh wait, they *absolutely are trying*.
They’re absolutely part of the problem. If we hadn’t already ditched ’em, we’d be doing it now.
62 days remain.
[[link](https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/09/03/the-new-york-times-is-still-an-obscenity/ )] #politics #USPol #fascism #politics #uspolitics

2024-08-29 18:49:27 UTC

**I can’t believe I have to go off again about eX-twitter already**
Remember yesterday’s post, wherein I said [organising on Xitter (X, formerly Twitter) is a very bad idea, because it will not be there for anyone but the fash if things go south this election time](https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/08/28/why-i-keep-checking-back-in-on-ex-twitter/ )?
Remember that?
Trump has a very bad story out today about how [he and his team physically forced their way around an Arlington National Cemetery staffer to shoot a promotional video](https://twitter.com/safety/unsafe_link_warning?unsafe_link=https://npr.org/2024/08/29/nx-s1-5092087/trump-arlington-cemetery-altercation-tiktok ) in violation of not just rules and military decorum but every even minimal sense of decency.
And X is marking links to stories about the incident as “spammy or unsafe” and says they may infect your computer, and putting up an interstitial urging you not to follow the link if you try.
Presumably Elon’s stopping your computer from getting the “woke mind virus” in his mind, but regardless: this will stop the vast majority of people from reading the story.
Meanwhile, he promotes literal Nazis.
If things go south, the site *will not be there for you* in November. Organising there is not a viable option. It is, frankly, insane.
You have two months to move yourself and your followers to another platform. If you’re still on there, get to work.
67 days remain.
[[link](https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/08/29/i-cant-believe-i-have-to-go-off-again-about-ex-twitter-already/ )] #politics #sociality #USPol #politics #t0000000000bs_ #Twitter #uspolitics
https://solarbird.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/image-9-1024x647.png

2024-08-18 22:15:18 UTC

**“grab my pussy,” diapers, maxipads on ears, and now Vance sample jars**
Let’s talk about those horrible JD Vance semen-sample jars for a moment, because it’s weird – holy crap it’s weird, it’s Monseur Boeuf Le Tet let’s go to Mexico and found a UFO religion weird – but it’s also gross and violent in whole new ways.
And yeah, I said violent. I meant it. Walk with me.
So. If you don’t know, [Republican/MAGA cultists are going around with medical sample jars containing fake semen. They’re labelled JD Vance Full Family Kits](https://www.joemygod.com/2024/08/cultists-brandish-fake-vance-semen-samples-at-rally/ ).
Yes, really. *But they’re not weird*.
If you ask them, they’ll tell you it’s for Democrats. Democrats who can’t have kids, which means even on the surface level, this is exactly as gross and mean as it appears. They’re mocking people who can’t have children but want to, and echoing the Christian Nationalist line that a family isn’t a real family if they don’t have children, as well as JD Vance’s line in particular that if you don’t have biological children you aren’t a real woman.
But if you dig a little deeper, it’s even worse than that.
You see, once again, this is something that comes out of American fundamentalist cults. These items are *talismans* of their beliefs. Sure, they’re nasty sneers aimed at strangers they’ve chosen to degrade and hate, but they’re also talismans of their religious beliefs.
And there are two obvious meanings to this talisman. First is the statement, *just* below the surface, that if you can’t get pregnant by your weak Democrat – who naturally isn’t really actually a man since he’s not MAGA – then don’t worry, JD Vance is our God-Emperor’s apprentice. Therefore, he is a real man, and will be able to get you properly pregnant like you want to be, just like any Real Man could.
The second is uglier.
The second is a promise. A promise being made to women who don’t *want* children. And that promise is, *we **will** make you pregnant like you **should** be, **bitch*****.**
I was going to write about JD Vance’s style of misogyny vs. Trump’s style of misogyny soon, but I guess I’ll talk about it here and now, because this is a manifestation of it.
Trump’s style of misogyny is the sort that doesn’t outright hate women, it just doesn’t think of women as *adults*. Women aren’t responsible, women *in general* can’t be trusted to make the right decisions *in general*, but occasionally, you get one that proves themselves, similarly to a bright child or trustworthy teenager. You can bring those on and grant them with responsibility, much like you might trust a properly-raised child. They just should never be in actual charge; a man must be the actual boss, because you need an actual adult – always a man – at the top.
Plus there’s the sex, of course. That’s important. And babies, also important. But when all is said and done, *select* women can be treated as *mostly* people too. Not quite full people, of course, but – *mostly* people.
JD Vance’s misogyny is much, much meaner. JD Vance’s misogyny – and the misogyny of his entire cult – deeply hates women. *Deeply*, as in, deeply resents our necessity for sex and childbirth deeply, as in, wishes we didn’t have to be here.
Given that, then if women *must* be around, it must be *only* for the purposes of reproduction and childcare, and okay, sex. Also, they should serve their superiors – men – since that’s useful and right too.
JD Vance has pretty much come out and *said this*, with his commentary about only families with children being real families and the only purpose of post-menopausal women being to raise kids.
And if you’re in a society that permits women *not* to have and raise children, then *maybe you’re not in a righteous society at all*. So they intend to *fix that*, by making damn well sure you have those kids and you raise those kids and that’s *it*, because that is, after all, your *only* valid purpose.
And so, this carrying around the talisman of Vance, this symbolic manhood of Vance, this statement that “it’s for Democrats” and a “full family kit?” It’s *absolutely* a promise. It is a symbolic promise to make unmarried and/or childless woman into *literal* Handmaiden’s Tale handmaidens.
They will *make you* fulfil your *only* valid purpose.
Most of them are probably not fully conscious this is what they’re promising. A lot of them are just in the cult, and the cult is doing this, so naturally, they are as well.
But some of them know.
Take a look at this guy and go ahead. Look at that incel sneer. Tell me he doesn’t know what he’s promising.
I *dare* you.
He knows.
78 days remain.
[[link](https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/08/18/grab-my-pussy-diapers-maxipads-on-ears-and-now-vance-sample-jars/ )] #politics #USPol #fascism #politics #uspolitics
https://solarbird.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/jd-vance-semen-3-836x1024.jpeg

2024-08-18 02:32:47 UTC

**the voter purges have begun**
Hate to steal a title from lolgop, but at least I’m crediting them, right?
Seriously, now’s the time, particularly in red states and contested states, to start checking your voter registration and *keep checking it*, because the voter registration purges have actually begun, like, [Wyoming de-registered *a quarter of its voters*](https://journa.host/@lolgop/112978994065596723 ) literally [four months ago](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/after-midterms-wyoming-lost-over-80-000-registered-voters-raising-concerns/ar-BB1lhHZK ).
Check it, and *keep* checking it – once a month, maybe more – until the election, because this is absolutely a critical part of their game plan.
79 days remain.
[[link](https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/08/17/the-voter-purges-have-begun/ )] #politics #USPol #fascism #politics #uspolitics

2015-06-19 08:30:00 UTC

##
jupiter ascending isn’t what most critics thought
We finally saw *Jupiter Ascending* a couple of weekends ago, in the lair, rented rather than in a theatre. I wish I’d got myself out to see it large, but, well, life and all that.
It’s better than it’s given credit for. And I thought I had a long post to write about this, but I keep not writing that post, so I’m going to write a shorter one and see what happens.
Jupiter Ascending is, in large-brush-strokes, David Lynch’s *Dune*, but with the “Chosen One” trope excised and replaced with “Hidden Princess.” It’s a bold decision to make, because audiences aren’t used to Hidden Princess in live-action anymore, and they’re not used to it in nominally-SF movies *at all*.
That’s what it is, though. You’ve got all the bits. You have ultra-rare critical-to-galatic-society unique-brutal-production-method High-Protein Liquid MacGuffin. You have old-school Dune-style space-opera politics-as-secret-warfare over the usual space-opera things, with betrayals! Everywhere! You have overflowing decadence, commentaries on exploitive economics, and massive disparities of wealth and power on an intergalactic scale, and set design Lynch would’ve killed to possess. And it’s a whole family of disturbing predilections and obsessions, as in, again, *Dune*.
You even have Eddie Redmayne channeling Sting’s shouty Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, only with a little more of a lid on it.
*But not much of one*
Meanwhile, instead of Chosen One tropes and fantasies, you get a huge bundle of Hidden Princess – the lost royal child, the family of commoners who know actual love vs. the royality who doesn’t, all of it.
Plus you get the bundle of heterosexual schoolgirl fantasy stuff that tends to go along with that trope. So… you’re found by a guy who is part wolf *and* has a tragic backstory you can’t be bothered to explain coherently because it doesn’t really matter *because* it’s different for you *because* it’s you (of course) *and* he has wings *and* he’s utterly devoted to you *and* has a great ass – did Tina Belcher write this part?
That’s just one example. And sure, it’s silly, just like a lot of the Chosen One tropes – Harry “Lightning Scar” Potter, I’m looking in your direction. But we take those tropes for granted, and run with them because they’re so common, they’re shorthand, and given meaning depending up on how well they’re done or not done. We don’t even call them “silly,” half the time; we call them “mythic” if we don’t just gloss over them entirely.
And when push comes to shove, that’s what I think did in *Jupiter Ascending* with critics; familiarity with “Chosen One” tropes, and the expectations thereof, but a *lack* of current familiarity with “Hidden Princess” in anything like this context.
Many, many people complained that the story made no sense, or was confusing. It’s not. It lacks narrative discipline, sure, but the primary flow is *deeply* linear – pedantically so at times. It only *fails* to make linear sense if you either try to force it into the Chosen One paradigm against all the actual storytelling on screen, *or* if you ignore everything women characters do as unimportant. (Every reviewer who referred to Black Widow as “eye candy not doing anything much” in the first *Avengers* film, I’m looking in *your* directions.)
But also explains why it *did* eventually find an audience. A subset of the viewing audience *did* pick up on the Hidden Princess tropes, and *once you get that*, it makes all kinds of sense.
Particularly once you realise it’s Hidden Princess *Dune*. Then, suddenly, it’s pretty neat.
I should schedule a critical-viewing double-feature at the Lair: Lynch’s *Dune* and the Wachowskis’ *Jupiter Ascending*. Seeing them in that close a proximity sounds neat to me, as a cinematic exercise. Maybe in the fall, once summer touring season is done.
Mirrored from [Crime and the Blog of Evil](http://crimeandtheforcesofevil.com/blog/2015/06/jupiter-ascending-and-dune/ ). Come [check out our music](http://crimeandtheforcesofevil.com ) at:
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