Natalie

"The tragic reality is that very few sustainable systems are designed or applied by those who hold power, and the reason for this is obvious and simple: to let people arrange their own food, energy and shelter is to lose economic and political control over them" - Bill Mollison /1

I Want You to Understand Chicago Politics Chicago 2025-11-08 I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time. Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again. An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next. Understand what it is to pray in Chicago. On September 19th, Reverend David Black, lead pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, was praying outside the ICE detention center in Broadview when a DHS agent shot him in the head with pepper balls. Pepper balls are never supposed to be fired at the head because they can seriously injure, or even kill. “We could hear them laughing as they were shooting us from the roof,” Black recalled. He is not the only member of the clergy ICE has assaulted. Methodist pastor Hannah Kardon was violently arrested on October 17th, and Baptist pastor Michael Woolf was shot with pepper balls on November 1st. Understand what it is to sleep in Chicago. On the night of September 30th, federal agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter to execute a raid on an apartment building on the South Sho…

Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.

He is a computer safety researcher.

And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.

In under 1600 words.

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...

Summer visitors

When you understand interconnectedness it makes you more afraid of hating than of dying.

– Robert A.F. Thurman

The official voice of the US government Is cruel, gross, and weird. What is that doing to us? Joking memes about imprisonment, deportation, and death by alligator are designed to radicalize and desensitize.

The White House's memes about imprisonment, deportation, and death by alligator are designed to radicalize and desensitize.

“What you have is this desire to get people to buy into the fun of sadism,” says Jason Stanley, an author who’s leaving the US because of “concerns over fascism.”

China’s 2025 Two Sessions show Tibetans are testing ground for a new CCP “ethnic unity” policy March 17, 2025 This year’s annual political meetings in Beijing,

Tibetans are being used as the testing ground for China’s assimilation of “ethnic minorities” as this year’s Two Sessions meetings indicate a continued clampdown on #Tibetan identity.

Read more: savetibet.org/chinas-2025-...

66 years ago today, His Holiness the Dalai Lama set out on his escape into exile from Chinese-occupied #Tibet.

Today, while #China’s illegal occupation of Tibet continues, the Dalai Lama is one of the most respected figures in the world, and the #Tibetan cause is alive and strong.

I’m jealous. 🤗

Budapest today. People are demanding that PM Orban resign.

With a chaser of raw milk

Pretty Cool !

CARCINOGENIC AIR POLLUTION MAPPED

Two bills in Congress would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from using hundreds of chemical assessments completed by its IRIS program in environmental regulations or enforcement.

bsky.app/profile/prop...

projects.propublica.org/toxmap/?utm_...

No more town halls, NRCC chief tells House Republicans Rep. Richard Hudson issued the edict after a spate of testy episodes.

I would think the GOP would LOVE town halls, given their amazing success with the economy, the stable international situation, and how beloved Elon Musk is by the American people.

www.politico.com/live-updates...

It is not easy to keep myself from being dragged into the rushing currents of anger and grief that are running through my heart right now. Others must feel the same. Yet these very feelings press me forward into action. Meet me there.

You will obey. Exterminate.

China’s surveillance state over #Tibet destroys any sense of peace, privacy, human rights, and religious freedom for the Tibetan people.

@frontlinepbs.bsky.social's 'Battle for Tibet' investigates China’s rule over Tibet and China’s relationship with the #DalaiLama: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDyM...

Heroes

You’re correct- none of these decisions are making sense. You’d think they know nothing about successful governance.

Since Trump has claimed Elon doesn’t run DOGE, we wanted to make sure you know who is running our government. This list has been updated with 15 names.

Yikes! Stay safe.

The censorship algorithm on Twitter reduced our audience by roughly 95%, and seriously, who does that to a wildlife biology & advocacy group ?
So we moved 😇 over here to BlueSky

If you could, please help us regain our following
Follow
Retweet and
Repeat ;-)

Together we can change the world.

Happy New Years to you, and appreciation for the lovely photos.

Hopefully they are yet ~ 3 months to bloom here, slightly south of Lake Michigan, although uncertain with our crazy weather fluxations and overall unseasonable warmth. I’m curious why they are appearing three weeks late in your area. ?

Gaza death trap: MSF report exposes Israel’s campaign of total destruction  | Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF ... Repeated Israeli military attacks on Palestinian civilians over the last 14 months, the dismantling of the health care system and other essential infrastructure, the suffocating siege, and the systema...

A ceasefire is needed now to save lives and move humanitarian aid into #Gaza.

Our latest report has the details: www.doctorswithoutborders.ca/gaza-death-t...

Jeffries: In our nation's history, 25% of our nation's debt was accumulated during the four years of the former president, 25%. How dare you lecture America about fiscal responsibility ever.

After enjoying the book as a child, I grew up to be attracted only to diminutive males in groups of seven.

Fascinating unique instrument.

Just simply wow 💫😲💫😲💫😲💫

Millions of galaxies using real data from the DESI telescope (Dark Enegy Spectroscopy) mapping entire superclusters of the observable Universe.

I like that image also. Thanks for the beauty.