I never thought I'd call a high school valedictorian metal but that was before this kid called for school board members to resign over their participation in racist and queerphobic oppression targeting students during his valedicory address.

The kids are out there putting it all on the line, fighting not to be dragged into a theocratic future. Adults could learn a thing or two.

Calling for the school board to resign at graduation. Fuck yeah he did.

https://dailyprogress.com/community/orangenews/orange-county-valedictorian-calls-on-school-board-members-to-resign-at-graduation/article_a1cbcf70-f9af-11ed-9eff-ff57adb96e35.html

While I'm bitching about batteries, large or small. We need laws which require manufacturers to make mobile phone, tablet and laptop batteries replaceable and trade-in-able (<- not a word, I know), with additional legislation requiring manufacturers to be responsible for the recycling. Replacing a whole device because the battery is at 25% of spec is a major part of the problem. And the cobalt in the battery casings can be recycled instead of mined by slaves in the DRC. Most metallic elements are as close to 100% recyclable as to make disposal and mining new a crime against humanity, even without slavery being involved.

The device I'm writing this on was bought with a trade-in of my old device to the manufacturer of these devices. This was only voluntary, though. These trade-ins need to be compulsory and batteries need to be exchangeable. I turn my old desktops into Debian boxes when they become too old to run their native OS after security patches and updates.

In rural Australia in the 1940s, my mother had rocks thrown at her and was branded a 'communist' because her father, a school headmaster, advocated for establishing a public library.

In the Canadian province where I now reside, the Catholic Church controlled libraries -- and thus access to information -- until the 1960s.

We forget how recent the democratisation of knowledge is -- how transformative such institutions were and how hard-won.

We should not part with them easily.