InBabel @InBabel@writing.exchange

JK Rowling is still a bigot. If you know, you know.

She writes and writes to calm the restless sea, and soothe her restless soul.

Like a pebble trying to resist a desert wind.
The wind that erases and abrades
whole mountain ranges down to dust.

She writes to leave a sun-bleached way marker
poking up from a hollow in the desert floor
that says;
"I was here once, but am no more."

#poem #PoetryOnMastodon

Header image is the Boulevard de Clichy Under Snow, by Norbert Goeneutte. The original is in The National Gallery London. #ArtOnMasto #ArtonMastodon https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/norbert-goeneutte-the-boulevard-de-clichy-under-snow

The Perseverance Rover will be making its landing attempt on Mars in about 40 minutes, live feed from mission control at JPL https://youtu.be/kPrbJ63qUc4 #NASA #PerseveranceRover

Pro-tip for how to get around the Facebook news ban in Australia, or any other country for that matter, don’t have a Facebook account.

There’s not a lot to be said about #RushLimbaugh beyond the world is a slightly better place without him. The real tragedy is a life spent lying and fomenting hatred.

I have two weeks of this placement left and I can’t wait for it to be over.

Not everyone dies, its true that most people recover, but that isn’t much comfort to the people who don’t, and their families. Having now had it and spent two sleepless weeks wondering if I was going to be the woman on the bed, gasping for air through an oxygen mask, I wouldn’t wish this illness on anyone.

So much has happened in the past 5 weeks. I began a placement on a covid-19 ward and immediately death became part of my work day. Two weeks in I tested positive for the virus. Which led to three weeks of stress and now I have recovered enough to go back to work among the dying again and I don’t feel ready at all.

Hello mutual friends, I hope the winter/ holiday season is not being too taxing for you. I know in the days when I had a family it was an enormously negative and emotionally exhausting time. I just want to tell you, particularly lgbtq+ people who are unable to be safely out, walking away from family is a totally acceptable and viable thing to do. You will find a new family, people who love you for your complete self.

Screencapping fascists on Parler crying about the SCOTUS decision is still giving them too much oxygen. The fact they’re forced to congregate there, in a space that is “opt-in” rather than somewhere public like birdsite to spew their bile is testament to how great an idea federation is. Siloing extremists is a good idea. It definitely diminishes their reach.

I deleted my Twitter account, to allow me to spend more time on important things, like cleaning my kitchen.

I know its the corporate world, etc, but I love this. Its the UK Supermarkets basically telling racists threatening to boycott them thats fine, but if they want to eat they’ll need to go and catch pigeons for their supper. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/28/uk-supermarkets-unite-after-sainsburys-advert-prompts-racist-backlash

Bonus point if you can summarise what the “female experience” is succinctly, without talking like The Love Witch.

Why is excluding that experience from the canon of “female experience” not just a type of blinkered bias? Now’s your chance to own one of the transes.

Throw down challenge for any cis person (that is any non trans person if you prefer) to explain to me what Suzanne Moore means by “female experience belongs to people with female bodies.” Assuming for the sake of this argument, the biological essentialist position of genitals dictating identity applies. When I had a dick, which I was forced to tolerate for years because getting trans surgery is not easy when you’re poor. I lived a female experience, in a “male” body.

Trump has effectively conceded, it just came up on the Reuters app, he has authorised the GSA office to release funds to Biden’s team, formally beginning the transition process.

I am ready for this pandemic to be done. There will be documentaries made about this for years, the ones dismantling antivaxxers morally and intellectually will be fun.

In the last month I’ve had a flu vaccine, the first dose of a double dose of MMR vaccine, and the first of three Hepatitis-B vaccines. I already feel like the vaccine queen. Hoping I get to add the Covid vaccine to one of my arms soon.

Astra Zenecas vaccine is 70% effective with one dose, and that rises to 90% if a half dose ‘primer’ is given first with a full dose a month later. This has been done using traditional vaccine production methods, and doesn’t require changes to the vaccine supply chain. #Covid19 #SARSCov2