Ursula

Thank you. I love it.

What I just learned is an orb weaver spider. White, brown, and black.

Oh thanks for the id—here’s the non-silhouette version with lovely markings visible.

Aww, this so lovely to hear.

We (me and the spider) are giving out candy and Just Seeds coloring books.

Spider silhouette against cloudy sky. Blurred backyard, street, trees.

Happy Halloween from the big ass spider living outside my back door.

Oregon sees largest immigration raid under Trump 2.0 in Woodburn, group says • Oregon Capital Chronicle Federal immigration agents detained at least 30 people headed to work Thursday morning in Woodburn, farmworker advocates say.

At least 30 people headed to work in Woodburn were detained yesterday by ICE. It's believed to be the largest immigration raid in Oregon since Trump took office. Many of the folks who were detained were breadwinners for their families.
oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/10/31/o...

YouTube video by York University - Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies The 2025 Alchemy Lecture: Sound—at the Interregnum

I am still vibrating from last night’s Alchemy Lecture. The video is available for 2 weeks. Please join us in this chorus.

Sound—at the Interregnum.
Glen Coulthard
Madeleine Thien
Canisia Lubrin
Immanuel Wilkins

Whew. What they did!!!

m.youtube.com/watch?v=EqpH...

Mariame Kaba posted Graeber the other day & yup: “Yet it’s only when we reject the idea that labor is virtuous in itself that we can start to ask what is virtuous about labor. To which the answer is obvious. Labor is virtuous if it helps others.”

The old ones say
Don’t give up
Keep trying.

City of Portland Begins Enforcement of ‘Public Camping’ Rules This Weekend This weekend, the city of Portland is resuming enforcement of its local laws governing when, where, and how homeless Portlanders can live in public spaces. Mayor Keith Wilson announced that enforcemen...

Mayor Wilson announced police will begin citing homeless Portlanders for declining shelter, starting this weekend. The move comes as 15,000 homeless residents in the county are set to lose food assistance, and service providers say the criminal justice system only makes things worse.

The 4 Rs — reading, writing, arithmetic, & rapid response to fascist goons.

‘This community is not the enemy’: Hillsboro teachers form neighborhood ICE watch ICE arrested a parent near Eastwood Elementary School last Monday. Teachers and parents have been patrolling the neighborhood every morning since.

Immigration officers have hit the city of Hillsboro hard in the past two weeks. To help students and parents feel safer, staff at an elementary school and nearby middle school, along with representatives from the local teachers’ union, have responded by standing watch in the neighborhood.

“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale. [...] There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. [...]” --Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Good night everyone. May tomorrow bring us more justice and some peace.

Deleted b/c I was just mad posting with no larger purpose.

To what question is "AI" the answer? Are you… lonely? despairing? grieving? scared? ashamed? lost? overwhelmed? Do you... want to talk about it? know you are not alone? want to come over and take a walk? Can I... call? send a letter? hold your hand? make you some food? take the kids for a few hours? How do we... stop the genocide? protect our neighbors? defeat the fascist fuckers? keep ourselves and each other safe? learn the skills that will help us survive? Where... will we go from here, together?

Absolutely everyone I know is running on fumes. I am trying to think about small, concrete things I can do to fortify myself & those around me.

Looking at the “Do you” & “Can I” parts of my “Why I am Saying no to ‘AI’ and yes to you” zine for reminders of what those things are.

Hey y'all I'll be hanging out with @mskellymhayes.bsky.social and some other great folks at her digital book launch tomorrow! RSVP with this link and bring your ideas, thoughts, and questions!
www.tickettailor.com/events/hayma...

CPS lunchroom workers say wages are so low they can barely feed their own families The workers, most earning $18.42 or less an hour, picketed outside CPS headquarters on Monday. They’ve been working without a contract for three months.

More than a hundred Chicago Public Schools lunchroom workers picketed outside the district’s downtown headquarters Monday morning demanding a new contract, higher wages and fully staffed kitchens.
trib.al/22EFkpA

Trump plans to install Border Patrol officials to lead a more aggressive migrant crackdown The White House has approved a list of ICE leaders to be replaced by Border Patrol officials in coming days amid disappointment with arrest numbers.

NBC has a story on this as well already, and they've got an indicative quote as to how things will go:

"'The mentality is CBP does what they’re told, and the administration thinks ICE isn’t getting the job done,;' one of the DHS officials said. 'So CBP will do it." www.nbcnews.com/politics/imm...

Schools right now:
—Hey, can we reserve the library on the 13th after school for the ICE defense training?
—No, sorry, the folks organizing emergency food boxes already nabbed that day.

💛

Trump administration posts notice that no federal food aid will go out Nov. 1 The new notice comes after the White House said it would not tap roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program flowing into November.

The new notice comes after the Trump administration said it would not tap roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits through SNAP flowing into November. That program helps about 1 in 8 Americans buy groceries.

“Babcock said having an address has helped him while he lives on the streets. He has received mail from the Social Security Administration, replacement identification cards about five times and chocolate chip cookies from his mother.”

“We are talking about the murdering of dreams, the imposition of an apparatus of hopelessness, designed to squelch any sense of an alternative future.” — David Graeber

Given the hunger and fear that this administration is inflicting upon so many children across the country, it has never been a more difficult time for schools to be good places for kids to walk into and it has never been a more important time, too.

And that both/and is overwhelming.

Time to start the day’s work. Have a good Sunday.

Getting 10 people in a room to try to work on something together is HARD in 2025. And if you haven't done this, you won't know how hard. I think everyone who can should try to get 10 people in a room together to do something. It is deeply humbling.

thread

another curmudgeonly thread for the many of you who will be entering organizing spaces.

all other things being equal, when confronted with one team of people recruiting you to Be a Thing and another team recruiting you to Do a Thing, please give serious thought to joining the second.

Let your commitments carry you forward and through,
from this to that.

for some, it's more appealing to get off the couch for a group that can move 1000 people to do anything (march, chant, make art projects) than 10 people who'd be doing something more effective in the alternate universe where 990 others joined. the solution to this isn't a critique of art protests