Paper on #HBC promissory notes in Red River Colony. #Canada #CdnHist #FurTrade #History #Money #Numismatics #Histodons @histodons

Michael Ryan, "Paper Money of a 'Peculiar Character': The Notes of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1820-1870" (2022)

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4256795

"In Buffalo, with professional rescuers slow to arrive, and shelters often unreachable, residents improvised. A restaurant became a hotel, bunking stranded people atop the bar. Doctors and nurses interrupted Christmas celebrations to make house calls. A couple took in a busload of Korean tourists who cooked Christmas Eve dinner. A tow-truck driver helped deliver lifesaving medicine.

Blizzard Facebook groups popped up overnight, with stranded residents begging for help. More than one family sought out a midwife to coach a pregnant woman through labor. Christopher Pulinski put out a call for help reuniting with his 17-year-old son, stuck home alone in the neighborhood of Elmwood Village. A stranger with a snowmobile replied that he was on his way.

Leon Horace Miller, 52, of Buffalo, transformed his landscaping and snow plow company into a rescue operation. By late afternoon on Christmas Day he had dislodged 14 people from snow banks or moved them out of unheated homes that had lost power. “It’s been nonstop since Friday,” Mr. Miller said. “Everyone knows I have big trucks.”

Healthcare workers posted their locations and phone numbers online in hopes that those in need nearby would find them. At 2 a.m. on Sunday, Tamara Joy Rettino, an alternative medicine doctor, fielded a call from a mother whose asthmatic child was struggling to breathe.

Neighbors and local businesses donated supplies, an outpouring of support which made the mood, despite the storm, “ecstatic,” he said."

- Reports on mutual aid in #Buffalo, #NewYork in the face of a massive storm from the New York Times

Also, its interesting that the media will champion these forms of mutual aid that go somewhat outside of property relations: people utilizing a building for housing, and the sharing of skills, resources, and supplies, but when it comes to the 'looting' of corporate stores; the looting of commodities from stores that have insurance and will most likely loose food items due to the storm regardless, there is vast hand ringing and condemnation.

We should cheer on mutual aid just as we cheer on people organizing outside of market and property relations during disasters, just as we should support those who do so amidst the disaster of everyday life in capitalist society.

For the holiday, a thread on how to befriend crows.

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Befriending crows is a wonderful thing.

I have many crow friends at home and at work. They bring joy at unexpected moments and can rescue a miserable day even without shaking down the dust of snow that Robert Frost described.

This thread is an updated version of one I posted at the bird site in July 2019.

#birding #birdwatching #birds #urbanbirding #crows #corvids #crow #corvid #crowfriends

"Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man.

You take a step toward him. He takes a step back.

"Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man.