Mary Carroll-Mason (she/her)

I understand why people as individuals want to know but I think it’s not great for society as a whole for people to feel comfortable expressing any bigoted/anti social opinion they might have.

Assholes.

I use a lot of delivery apps (and tip well) and the guy who says the immigrants are just working harder tracks to my experience as well.

And, like, I KNOW personally of stuff that folks within government are doing to just quietly slow down and undermine fascist shit where they can. Do I talk about it or video it for the fucking internet? Absolutely not. Because I am not an idiot.

Yeah, me too now. It is very much internet loser energy. Expecting others to do dangerous performative shit when they aren’t even here under their own name.

And what exactly are they supposed to do? The people who made the decisions are probably not even in the building. Typical keyboard warrior talk, divorced from reality.

They are clapping out their colleagues who are losing their jobs so they know that their work was valued even if the leaders are fascists. People did the same thing at the agency I support when RIFs happened there.

Excellent summary. And like, it’s weirdly provincial. An astonishing number of people who seem to have very little exposure to the world even among people old enough to know better.

Reddit is kind of weird in that I still wouldn’t call it “liberal”, but it’s also anti-MAGA. It doesn’t really easily fit the left-right paradigm.

As one of those contractors, 100%.

The U.S. government is vast and touches a lot of different things that are VERY important but that a lot of people don’t know about. Because none of us can know EVERYTHING and that’s no one’s fault. But not knowing about something doesn’t mean we won’t experience consequences if it disappears.

Also—miss me with the argument that there was some sort of failure by USAID because YOU, an educated, informed person didn’t know about it. If you didn’t know about USAID, then you AREN’T informed in foreign affairs, international development, etc. That’s ok and kind of illustrates the issue.

…not self promoting. And that’s as it should be—we shouldn’t be paying taxes for the government to promote itself. It’s the job of our elected officials to be advocates of the work the government does.

The problem is that we have too many elected officials who don’t actually believe in government.

Federal agencies have relatively small communications budgets for orgs of their size because convincing the public of their utility is not really their mission. Even in the org I support, the comms staff (before they were RIFed) were focused more on communicating research….

This is correct. My professional expertise is communications and digital strategy AND I currently support a federal agency under attack rn.

Do my clients sometimes do not a great job explaining their value? Yes. Does that matter when you have bad actors completely distorting reality? No.

My husband’s cousins in Chile said that people lined the streets in Santiago when Pinochet’s funeral procession came by and cracked bottles of champagne celebrating that the bastard was dead and spat at the motorcade as it passed by. That’s the energy I am bringing.

normally if you want to spend millions of dollars on something no one goes to you have to make a joker movie

a woman holding a cupcake with the words good for her above her Alt: a woman holding a cupcake with the words good for her above her

I really love the pettiness of the specificity of this. Good for them.

The other two options are doomerism or hoping for revolution, which—seem to me to come with some pretty significant moral hazards of their own. They certainly increase human suffering.

Folks on the left need to recognize we have only a few options here:
Incrementalism in which we have to work with at least most comers—even if we disagree with them on a lot and hope to educate and persuade.

I read a lot of George Orwell (his political essays not Animal Farm) in my early 20s and in one of them he commented on how in a meeting of 12 English socialists there would be at least 5 different versions of socialism represented and nothing would get decided.

There's a real attentional trap that all protest movements face and have faced for a long time. If you pull off protests that are polite and civil, even if large, they will struggle to get coverage. Reporters will dismiss them as not newsworthy.

L.A. Protests Prompt Calls for Police Restraint After Journalist Injuries

Amazing how hard it is to write: “Police shoot at journalists.”

Two dark wood carved candlesticks

Wooden Brutalist style candlesticks

White opaque glass bowl, saucer and spoon with grape pattern on it

Milk glass sauce bowl with saucer and spoon, grapevine motif.

Wooden sculpture of a knight on a rearing horse pushing a sword through the heart of a dragon

Wooden sculpture of St George slaying the dragon

2 brass candlesticks

Pair of tall brass candlesticks (I actually have A LOT of brass coming soon).

Wooden jewelry box with pastoral scene on the lid

Some vintage stuff from the past couple of weeks, coming to Etsy soon. First this mid century modern wooden jewelry box with a 3-panel landscape painting on it.

On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama

A junkie unmoored from reality destroyed our govt:
"The drug has psychedelic properties and can cause dissociation from reality. Chronic use can lead to addiction and problems with bladder pain...Mr. Musk told people that his ketamine use was causing bladder issues"
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/u...

Front of pink, purple and gray snowboard jacket

Back of pink, purple and gray snowboard jacket

Photos attached to original post since Etsy links don’t unfurl.

So are any of my followers 90s era vintage snowboard/surf folks? I have a vintage Burton insulated snowboard jacket right now in size XL. Couple spots of minor discoloration, otherwise great condition. marycmvintage.etsy.com/listing/4312...