GoFundMe for my friend is here:

www.gofundme.com/f/support-fo...

Always good to remind folks that, whether it's done against the Israeli government's actions or in support of the Israeli government's actions, equating Israel with Jews writ large is antisemitic.

Vice had the best extremism coverage going. A very deep loss. America is about to face the fascist takeover without much of a way for people to reliably find out about it.

I can't stress enough how downplaying COVID has emboldened the far right.

When you tell people "you do you" or say that schools don't need public health protections, you shift the Overton window, making it easier for anti-vaxxers to say it's fine to spread measles.

What We Owe Nex Benedict If you ask focus groups to play word association when they hear the word “transgender,” most audiences will hit a few common themes: “Oppressed,” “discrimination,” “violence,” or “controversial” make ...

Among my many fears following the death of Nex is that it will simply confirm what many already believe, that a trans life is not a life worth living. The solution isn't just mourning. The solution is building a world that wants trans kids in it.

Nex was described by their family and friends as a kind, creative, and intelligent person, who loved music, art, and animals. They had a passion for learning and exploring new things, and they dreamed of becoming a veterinarian or marine biologist. They also enjoyed playing video games, watching anime, and reading manga. They had a close bond with their grandmother, who supported them unconditionally and respected their identity.

Picture of Nex at a table in a restaurant with water and chopsticks

FINALLY

This is the sort of thing I want to see more of. I want to hear Nex being remembered as being a person, as who they were. Not just what, but who.

Found from www.newsunzip.com/trending-new...

#NexBenedict #SayTheirName #nonbinary #trans #TransAndNonBinaryKidsDeserveToLive

Good Morning, World.

Asexual people talking about how sex-focused marketing is often othering is not the same thing as conservatives being anti-sex and to equate the two is ace-phobic and/or being inflammatory.
We don't want you to stop doing it. We just want you to examine how it can be othering to aces or ace media.

I’m not sure how anyone could look at how ChatGPT fabricates court filings or Midjourney adds extra fingers to the people it renders and think, “This needs to be part of the fabric of our national defense strategy.”

Monday 11/6 is the LAST day to register for my classes on psychic development and witchcraft!

The next cycle will be next March or April.

More info:

www.teaaddictedwitch.com/fall-2023-co...

#PsychicDevelopment #witchsky #pagansky #magic #magick #witch #witchcraft #Pagan #paganism #wicca #wiccan

A quote from https://ingeveb.org/blog/naming-other-jews-looking-at-yiddish-speakers-through-ladino stating "Ladino and Arabic-speaking Sephardim were the locals."

An "ally" got big mad that I said Ladino was a language spoken in Palestine, so I thought I'd just post this (since they blocked me, you can all get some free learning).

I write about Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in my book. His parents were Sephardic Jews from Salonika who came to Brooklyn, and spoke Ladino in the home. He ended up in Ashkenazi Hasidic circles in Brooklyn and learned Yiddish in yeshiva.

He ended up translating the Me'am Lo'ez from Ladino to English.

On Samhain and honoring the dead while navigating loss:
www.patreon.com/posts/on-sam...

#Samhain #sabbats #WheelOfTheYear #AncestorWork #grief #death #holidays #PaganHolidays #pagan #paganism #wicca #wiccan #witch #witchcraft

4/ But also, feeling out if we're outraged about the carpet bombing of Gaza is weird. Asking where we stand on the religious extremists destroying Palestinian villages on the West Bank this week is weird.

No matter where an individual Jew stands on this, let us grieve right now, if you're an ally.

3/ We have hyper-tuned right now to who, among our gentile friends, is being compassionate towards us, and who is being weird. And there are a lot of flavors of weird going on right now. Expressing bloodthirstyness towards Gaza on our behalf is weird. 9/11 brain is weird.

2/ Both kinds of antisemitism are increasing. The events of the last week have traumatized Jews (with the exception of a few weirdos who are so anti-Israel that they have emotionally distanced themselves from the tragedy).

Mood

1/ The challenging thing about antisemitism is that some people fucking hate Jews, and some people don't know how not to be weird around Jews. The former are pretty obvious to avoid, but we have to interact with the latter all the time, and it's exhausting.

Stop telling people to "google" things like works

especially if you work in journalism/ civic life etc

They are factually making it harder to find results

Did you just literally say Jews aren't human?

Byeeeeee

Image of Glinda from the Wizard of Oz movie, asking “Are you a Good Jew, or a Bad Jew?”

It’s a very strange thing to ask someone right after you meet them!

…on demand or whatever. I fucking hate it. Every Jew is somehow obliged to “be accountable” for Netanyahu, every trans woman needs to “be accountable” for Keffals, every gay man needs to “be accountable” for Andrew Sullivan, etc etc etc. It’s some serious bullshit.

Needless to say, don’t do anything similar to Palestinians (or Arabs, or Muslims in general, and also PSA some Palestinians are Christian) or anyone, really, about anything. Let people be people, please.

Please don't demand political litmus tests of Jews wrt their beliefs about the sanctity of Palestinian lives that you do not demand of others.

Assuming someone's politics based on their identity -- or putting forward a double standard you don't ask of others-- are forms of antisemitism.

Tweeting this on a Sunday morning a week later is wild.

If we learned nothing else from the pandemic it should have been that going to work while virally ill is bad. You might be able to ‘battle through’ but those you infect might not be so lucky. Sick days are not lazy nor a luxury, they are necessary for public health.

It’s real covidy out there right now

I still remember when they said "Oh but we'll mask when we're in COVID-19 surges".

Real convenient that they also wound down monitoring so people could know when such surges happen.

It's like intentionally getting rid of weather monitoring stations and wondering why tornado sirens don't go off.

Reminder that if you see disturbing or traumatic images, playing Tetris as soon as possible afterwards can help the brain cleanse itself, and lessen the impacts of it longer term.

No, I'm not kidding. And no one knows how or why it works. But it DOES work, and I encourage you to remember it.