So that every woman and girl makes it home

Temperature: 15/59 degrees. In October. In Scandinavia. And did you hear about this? Or this? 

Eating: a salmon salad.

Drinking: Taking a pause café for sure.

Listening: to various autocrats and tech execs explain things to me. And what a barrage of lies, gaslighting and disinformation it is, time and time again.

Watching: my husband come to terms with his father's illness is heartbreaking.

Reading: Gil Duran's The Nerd Reich yet? About Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy? Or End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor? These scratched something in the back of my mind and then it came to me: Hervé Kempf and his 2007 book Comment les riches ravagent la planète: Et comment les en empêcher, or, How The Rich Are Destroying the Earth. (Other notable people whose thoughts and writings on these matters you might want to look up: Karen Hao, Lauren Bates, Tristan Harris, and Timnit Gebru. For starters.)

Writing: to tell you that it's okay not to adopt or tolerate AI or AGI or SI or whatever they want to call it. (The S in that last one still stands for stochastic. No such thing as super intelligence, the answers you get may or may not be factual, depending on the topic and/or context.) And I know it does a pretty good job when tech support or troubleshooting is what you need, but I also know numerous workplaces where it's been introduced with some version of the preamble, Now try to come up with ways to use it, and it's swimming into our phones and computers and customer and public service, and none of us voted for this or elected the tech leaders shoving this down our throats. Like many Gen X Western Europeans, I was present at the birth of all of modern technology; the first PCs, the videotape format war, Usenet, modems and mobile phones, that cute little MP3 player, all their derivatives, everything that has followed. We've been first users, curious and enthusiastic, but also critical and often disappointed. Hard sells and tough converts. These tools are just one more thing in a long string of Oh What's This Then and Do I Really Need This In My Life. So it's not that hard to not believe the hype. What is more difficult to stomach is how these men are seizing power and capturing states, and making companies and governments believe they are lost without them. If you don't like the way things are headed, there's an alternative to despondency, and that is action. The books and people mentioned above will help you along.

Thinking: that the 1% is looking more and more like the 1%; like organized crime.

Feeling: elated watching my son throw himself wholeheartedly into student life. He is in the right place and the right faculty and the world desperately needs young men such as him. And less of the likes of the Cornell 7. And before you start with the yeah buts, listen up. The victim is too often the focus of the story for all the wrong reasons. There's always someone else present at these scenes, sometimes more than one person. And they made a choice. When someone is drunk or on drugs, regardless of what they may or may not have said or done, past or present, your job is not to take advantage of the situation and invite your friends to take part. Your job is to make sure no one assaults this person, sexually or otherwise. Your job is to see that this person makes it home. That's the job. That's your only job in situations like these. Are we clear on this?

7 de Setembro 🇧🇷

Feliz Dia da Independência! 💚💛

Fun while it lasted 🌅

September. 

Really? No, really?

Tom Petty would like a word

"If you're not getting older, you're dead."

So glad you're getting older! Happy birthday!! 🥂

Stargazing

Temperature: a cloudy 20/68 degrees.

Eating: hummus on rye.

Drinking: Would some poncha pack too much punch? It is Friday, after all. Madeira, que saudade!

Listening: to the wind in the wych elm. We didn't plant it but we're keeping it, and marveling at it.

Watching: Did you catch the Perseids? Or the (partial) solar eclipse? 

Reading: Now this is interesting. And this.

Thinking: By any metric, Trump is the most corrupt president the United States has ever had. 

Feeling: like trying erotic asphyxiation? Don't. I understand curiosity, the draw of novelty, but it's incredibly dangerous, messing with your breathing. If you know what you're doing, you can kill a person with your bare hands, surprisingly fast. If you don't know what you're doing, you can kill a person with your bare hands, surprisingly fast. Why risk injury or sudden death when there are tons of sexy fun to be had in sooo many other ways. Put your hand on my throat in anything but a you-got-something-there-let-me-swipe-that-off-for-you gesture or a gentle caress and I will break your arm.