I really like toads. Specifically Fowler toads. They look grumpy all the time, in a good way.

Marmots also rule hard.

I like a lot of bugs, but a recent focus of mine, as I found one in my shower and didn't know they lived in my state, is a bristletail. They're like a shrimp that does backflips for some reason. They're one of the older bugs out their, and I think possibly related to sea scorpions, but I'll have to recheck that particular knowledge base when I get the motivation next.

My day is about to get hectic. I'm building a house, and left a room intact from an old build to qualify as a remodel for tax and appraisal purposes. I was getting ready to install some tile so I can put a toilet in, and the salvaged room floor collapsed. After ripping out the subfloor, I found that a porch attached to the house was hollow and filled with dirt, which rotted the wooden sill plate on the foundation. So I have to Jack the house up to replace the boards and then build a new floor.

Any advice I get on the fix seems to come from flippers. I don't want landlord repairs, I want permanent fixes. I'm not selling this shit. No ten year fixes. 50 year fixes.

At least it happened before I finished it and moved in.

More places should have Malta India. Its like if cornflakes was soda.

Glad to hear it. I may have made an ass of myself on here a few times, but a few patient hexbears showed me what I needed to get it. If you defederated, I'd have to make an account and convince the mods I know better now.

Yep. I opened one of their locations and lost 2 years of my life to their shitty owners. Loved my coworkers though.

Washing dishes at a restaurant was my jam. Cranking music, making the other staff happy since I could clear that place like nobody else. all the dishes were the same and fit in the machine that was made for them, so I could focus on making the most efficient system to get everything done fast. I was wet and standing on slippery concrete all day, but it's rewarding being the best at something.

But it payed 7.00, and the managers treated me like shit. Only job I ever walked out of when the owner started scolding me for washing a bin that was brought to me that still had too many frozen peas in it in her opinion. Final straw after constantly being short staffed, changing shifts last minute, firing good managers to give their shitty kids the positions, and forcing everyone to fill in other jobs without training.

Fuck you, pie company. I could have been happy.

This is true. To me it seems nearly hopeless with our current climate of dismantling social services to create an entirely new one.

It seems like the prisons in the US should be mental healthcare facilities. Ignoring imprisonment for unjust laws, which i know is a stretch, if you've done something bad enough to have your freedom taken away, you could probably use some mental healthcare.

We treated psychology as a hard science before it was ready to be a soft science. They were imprisoning neurodivergents on the suggestions of psychologist that were effectively making things up that sounded plausible. Testing their ideas for the last hundred years has allowed us to figure out cognitive behavioral therapy, treatments for schizoid disorders (NOT THORAZINE), and countless other helpful ways to help the population (if we were interested in helping, that is.)

In it's current state, psychiatry is being captured by the pharmaceutical industry. Psychopharmacology has become the standard, ignoring the fact that therapy is needed to solve the root problems during the time the meds control the symptoms. This is not to say that medication is not necessary, but it makes so much money it's viewed as the only solution for just about anything out of the ordinary.

The old hospitals were prisons. They needed major reform, but instead we shut them down. I don't know how they would be run if they were reopened today, but if they were run as a social service by real psychologists, and not by businessmen, pharmaceutical companies, prison industry, or politicians, we migjt be able to help some of the people who no longer have the ability to help themselves.

A few weeks ago, a homeless woman threw a large rock at my car. It put a solid dent in the fender, and we're lucky it didn't hit the windsheild. I tried to talk to her, and she just herled insults and me and kept walking away talking to herself about seemingly random paranoias. I didn't know what to do, if i called the cops they would've possibly shot her, jailed her, and then just put her out again to be exactly where she was, but worse off. So i just had to continue on with my newly dented car.

The only thing that could help her is a well run mental health facility, but those don't exist. So what do we do?

That and chronically overheating the pan it seems in their particular cases. I've spent a lot of time scouring chick peas and lentils of my favorite pans.

Maybe my vegan friends are just bad at cooking, but i swear any time they use my steel pans they leave them fucked right to fucktown.

"My side of history is american men and women disabled by an IED"

Wonder why they were where IEDs were an issue. Wonder if they got all the support they needed when they came back.

Weird thing to be proud of.

I've been rather defeatist when it comes to american imperialism. I assume that anyone not helping arms companies would be removed from politics through some means before they ever had the chance to get into any real position. I've been hoping the dems can wipe the republicans out of existance with social issues so a truly left party can form, forcing the dems to become the conservative party and pushing the left/right divide closer to the center. It seems like there will always be a (fabricated) reason to send weapons somewhere and keep upping the military budget, so it hasn't really been a view i've paid much attention to since there are no current politicians that would oppose the military industry. I don't see anyone in the system trying to change it, regardless of platform.

So i get it. It just sucks.

What news sources would you consider trustworthy? I don't trust anything by default, but npr was my go to before the political fatigue got me in 2021.

CBC? BBC? Al Jazeera? Hell i don't even know if NPR has it together still.

Also again, thank you for your time and effort. My business trip had me in florida, and i didn't get a sunburn, but still managed to come back red.

Higher sugar and sulfate content maybe? Same for me, but red wine is a whole different feeling than other alcohols, so it's worth ot every once in a while.

DANCE DANCE STOMP

I may have been misenterpreting jokes in that case.

Why the hate for bernie? He seems to be ad close to a socialist candidate that our system would allow?

That may have been a lot of effort to ask, sorry, but i appreciate it. I'll look into all of that when i get the chance.

I've noticed major hate on the democrats here, which is completely justified, they're not doing shit to help anything, but iv'e also seen it horseshoe around to being almost pro trump, which is what kept me apprehensive to join conversations. I don't like biden, but i decided after living through bush and trump to do anything possible to stop republicans from ever holding any office.

Is the "both sides are the same" rhetoric i see just because they're both capitalists? I have a hard time believing a commumity of queer folks wouldn't think repunlicans would actibely make their lives worse.

Is the point that worse is closer to spurring action? Or is trump viewed as actually a better candidate?

What would you reccommend as being the three strongest books i should read? I've already pulled some marx, so what outside of that?

I'm tall white and traditionally masculine. They tend to think i'm one of them. I can't tell you the number of times i've had patients just casually drop some really racist shit on me like we we're going to become friends over it. I'll calmly make them feel like an idiot, and watch them scramble to get back on my side by contadicting everything they said now that they suddenly 'see the light'.

I've cut ties with companies because their reps thought they could drop n bombs in conversations. Those are the people i prefer not to call out though, i'll just quietly quit doing business with that company, and hope they keep outing themselves and failing.

These are well travelled, educated representatives whose job is literally to relate to clients. I really don't understand how you can witness so many different types of people and still think like that. Not only think like that, but be comfortable enough saying out loud to a person they hardly know.

I obviously haven't had time to read her essays, but from the preliminary info i've found on leslie so far, she makes perfect sense.

I'll keep looking. Thanks for the recommendation.

You're the first person to humor me and help me out. Every other peron i've talked to on here for months has just told me to go look it up or it's not their job to educate me.

Like i know it's not your responsibility, but what is the point of social media if not to spread information?

I really do appreciate it. I'm busy as hell and don't have the time or energy to become another kind of extremist right now.the only reason i have time to be on here now is during down time on a continued education trip to keep my lisences valid. I'm already cutting into my sleep before i have to go back to regular worker hell tomorrow.

It was dumb for me to claim fdr was the role model, i was just referring to the changes he was making that were getting us a lot closer to having having a good quality of life for workers. If it was a ploy to pacify unions, then fuck him too i guess. I don't know his goals, just that americans could raise a family comfortably for 50 years afterward.

I want to raise a family comfortably.