"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.

Ubuntu's owner, Canonical, to go public (see cite below). apparently not to raise money, so why? so shareholders can get money out? but then it can be purchased by another company.

So much of the open world, depends on ubuntu....

What do you think?

"The head of Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution, claims it recorded a profit of US$175 million (A$237.7 million) in 2021 and is likely to undertake an IPO in 2023."

https://itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/canonical-may-go-public-in-2023,-claims-us$175m-profit-last-year.html

Around 14,000 customers impacted after substations in #Tacoma area vandalized by burglars #Washington #news

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/25/us/tacoma-washington-substations-vandalized/index.html

#BlackTwitter, quoting, and white views of toxicity on Mastodon

https://privacy.thenexus.today/black-twitter-quoting-and-white-toxicity-on-mastodon/

Is it true that quoting "inevitably adds toxicity"? Of course not.

Does quoting cause conflict? Or is it more that confronting people with racism triggers conflict, whether or not the platform supports quoting?

Are conflicts caused by pointing out racism – or talking about Mastodon's whiteness -- always a bad thing?

With perspectives from @futurebird @timnitGebru @shengokai @hildabast @[email protected] and more

As a human rights lawyer who has done extensive immigration work, let me make something absolutely clear.

Asylum is legal immigration.
There's no "port of entry" requirement.
There's no "visa" requirement.
There's no "first country" requirement.
You enter the United States, and you apply for asylum.

Because asylum is legal immigration. Period.

Period.

The strike is over. We won.

With 62% of the 18,483 Academic Student Employee votes in favor and 68% of the 14,697 Student Researcher votes in favor, workers at the University of California have ratified a contract that secures raises of at least 46.3% over the next two and a half years, ending six weeks of what was by far the largest academic strike in US history.