As another commenter alluded to, inflicting trauma and depression on perceived enemies is an intentional tactic of oppressors. Therefore any moments of joy are acts of resistance against oppression. Depression is a valid response, but it isn’t always helpful to yourself or others. So trying to find ways to cope can improve your situation.

Two things I find helpful for coping are being in community with people who share my values and volunteering to try to improve my corner of the world. I find both of these things through my Unitarian Universalist church. There’s no expectation to believe any specific scripture, just a shared set of values. The first principle being all humans have inherent worth and dignity. Our congregation has people who identify as atheist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, several types of pagan, etc. Our music program is also a big bonus. Find a congregation near you, they can vary based on the local membership and many stream services so you can check out the vibe before going in person.

There is a board game! There’s also a virtual version of Mapmaker on Board Game Arena

It is quite fun despite the depressing context.

Would you prefer less effort and readability in my comments?

Did not ask ChatGPT. I spend a good amount of my free time volunteering on environmental projects, including rain water management. Rain gardens are great!

Not sure about the specifics in this particular case, but here are common things that contribute to poor river water quality:

• Impermeable surfaces in human-built environments, which cause water to flow more quickly and therefore erode river banks (dams and retaining ponds help slow down water flows)
• Residential and agricultural fertilizer/manure runoff, increases nutrients in water that cause microbes to grow faster
• Tiling agricultural fields, which releases more of the above
• Untreated human sewage
• Improper dumping of industrial chemicals, or breach of containment due to upstream flooding
• Runoff from abandoned mines

The main bottleneck in training new doctors (both MD and DO) is that federal funding for medical residency slots have remained mostly unchanged since 1996. Some hospitals have been able to pay for extra slots out of their clinical revenues, but they’ll be facing more financial pressures because of the Big Beautiful Bill.

We have an 11 year old rescue pup from Puerto Rico, he’s a really good boy. They kind of have their own breed going on on the island. We DNA tested him and he’s about 1/3 Chihuahua, 1/3 “super mut”, and then like small portions of a dozen other breeds. He loves laying outside all day on the hottest days of the year.

Hmm I wonder which power source may be best suited for dry and sunny areas with abundant land available

Right, I try to spread the word :)

Propublica is an excellent nonprofit investigative journalism organization. They have a strong track record of holding powerful companies accountable and achieving real world results/consequences. They often partner with local news organizations to help give them good content and there’s never a paywall either.

Echoing that the Hyundai Ioniqs are fantastic EVs with plenty of actual buttons in the console as well as fast charging speeds (the chargers themselves are the limiting factor)

What’s wrong with frogs?!

They’ve recently awoken from hibernation in my neighborhood and you can hear them at night. Frog season is great! 🐸

Totally agree it’s important to engage all levels of government. But only the US Senate has the authority over nominations

Awesome!

Trump doesn’t have that power, he’s pressuring the Senate to do so. Thus calling Senators to stand up to these shenanigans is important.

Have you tried calling their phones? Sure some don’t pick up, but enough do.

I’m in favor of larger structural changes, but I’m not about to roll over and allow fascists to get everything they want in the current system. How many people do you expect to join a revolution if they won’t even be bothered to pick up a phone?

The book does acknowledge and analyze the violent and nonviolent aspects of the resistance movements in the case studies, and how they impacted each other. Thanks for the suggestion on Setting Sites

It’s highly variable, and yes I absolutely agree money in politics is a big problem. I do have a direct experience where reaching out to my Senators led to them aggressively and successfully opposing a provision in a law that would have had a big impact on me. Don’t want to dox myself, but this real change to a bill made a huge difference to me and many others. So it is possible to make an impact.

I’m for larger structural changes, but I disagree that rolling over and allowing fascists to get their way in the current system is acceptable. Let’s do both