Rebecca Ruth Seidel

Politicians and pundits trying to aura farm as centrists when they're really crawling into bed with bigots.

Holy shit - this would be very, very bad:
"The databases, called “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” include records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names."

‘Hey’ came before ‘hi,’ and ‘hi' came before ‘hello.’

‘Hi’ is most likely a variant of ‘hey.’

‘Hello’ is not related to either.

Goodbye.

Every time u have to make a doctor appointment for anything I am reminded of how broken US healthcare is. We really should stop tolerating this. It’s so terrible! And why?

As I keep saying, at least I'm alive and that's the important part.

That's fantastic! I've been having a rough patch of stomach stuff since Christmas, and finally gave in to eating chicken again, which I haven't in ages, after getting diagnosed with severe gastritis. I recalled it as being one of your safe foods, right?

I'm glad to hear you're improving! I've thought of your health often as I've had my ups and downs.

Man.

The world fucking is on fire.

So go be as corny and cringe as you wanna be without hurting people.

Live whats left of your only life.

If you can’t be free in your body at least go be free in your mind and soul.

Fuck the haters.

There's an emerging undercurrent in AI skepticism as the EO mandating its use in K-12 education is rolled out and mothers are pushing back on untested tech ed taking over our children's learning.

We're well enough! I'm still unemployed, but we're getting along. The kid has a sparkling new ADHD and writing disability diagnosis, but was placed in the enrichment reading program and is tearing through chapter books. How are you?

I've been wondering where you were!!!

One of the more mild ones is that he got kicked off the church's cemetery board when they were cleaning up grave stones and he dropped one on his foot and swore to high heaven in the graveyard.

There are so many stories about my great-grandfather. He was definitely a character, but rarely in a good way. Lots of early 20th century one-main-street-town Pennsylvania Dutch culture lore.

My dad was just a little kid when his grandmother died, but he remembers his grandfather tearing apart the house, looking for a will, and muttering that "the kid wasn't even his."

She was pregnant with his best friend's child when my grandfather killed him in a car accident. So, he married her and the child was stillborn. Thus began a very, very, very unhappy decades long marriage.

The marriage makes a really good case for the benefits of divorce.

His mother gave one name in the hospital, his father gave the minister at his christening another name, and because they weren't talking, she didn't correct him.

This is even more funny because my uncle was named to be a jr.

Imagine going from George to Calvin in a day.

My grandfather didn't have a birth certificate until he wanted to go to an Ayrshire convention abroad and needed a passport...

Upon receiving his birth certificate, he learned that the name he'd used for over six decades wasn't his name at all, but his parents weren't speaking when he was born.

also something happening here (you can see it w/ the price of oil today) that ties into my larger feeling of *too much happening and too fast.* struggling to explain it but it feels like the dynamics of the physical world have been replaced by online ones. you get trump trying to ctrl-z the economy

AOC came out swinging against age verification legislation and somehow the entire tech press seems to not have noticed?

In Bluesky news:

i actually think "books should be difficult and somewhat painful to read and you are Bettering Yourself through Struggle" is a worse attitude for mass literacy than "I have specific preferences and like reading a lot of fun stories" tbh

As an American who moved to Europe and benefits from a strong social safety net along with high taxes, the problem is not the taxes, it’s that in the U.S. families get nothing in return. I’m happily paying high taxes bc I get healthcare, public transit, a child benefit, etc, in return.

The Discourse has become sort of numb to the fact that the richest guy on earth and owner of a major social media platform just routinely spits out the kind of nakedly white supremacist shit that until a decade ago you rarely saw outside of places like Stormfront.

I think this is about the temperature but honestly it works for decades as well

I am so serious when I say that there is a direct line to be drawn between Evangelism having no meaningful concept of the future save death and American conservatives having zero awareness of or interest in the future consequences of their actions

I miss complaining about things that just sucked a regular amount instead of a profound psychological injury amount.

Diaper pantries and food banks are running on fumes these days. Signing up for a recurring gift of $25/month can make a genuine, substantial difference on the ground.

I keep thinking I'm not stressed, but my severe gastritis says different.