slow learner, deep feeler

@melanie@queer.party
649 Followers
1.5K Following
16.9K Posts

Bodyworker in love with sensory learning, neurodivergent, person, living on Tongvan and Acjachemen land.

Black lives matter. Indigenous lives matter. Trans lives matter. Differently abled lives matter.

Definitely an asshole sometimes, and I care about repair work.

header pic is a galaxy spread diagonally across the screen, so many colors, violet and deepest blue and white stars.

pronounsany
jerks who won't learncheerfully blocked
ā Back in 1987, the economists Stephen Cohen and John Zysman warned: ā€œLose manufacturing and you will lose – not develop – high-wage service jobs.ā€ …Everywhere factories have fled, social rot has followed. Since then, wage growth for most Americans has been stagnant. For those without a college degree it has declined. The promise of a ā€œservice economyā€ was built on the myth that jobs in services could simply replace jobs in manufacturing, without any real trade-off.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/02/american-reindustrialization-manufacturing
The case for American reindustrialization

Walking through the US’s deindustrialized zones is a bit like walking through Dresden after 1945. We can rebuild better than before

The Guardian

Okay but I just want to say everyone who got mad at me for saying we need to bully the shit out of fascists and NIMBYs was wrong and you should feel ashamed.

I cannot stress this enough, you shoulda been shoving these people in lockers the entire time and if we get out of this, I sincerely hope you'll consider treating people who don't give a fuck about anyone but themselves MUCH WORSE than you have until now.

If you're using https://adplist.org for mentoring sessions and care about your #privacy, I recommend you do the calls via another platform. They've rolled out a note-taking system that records everything said in your sessions.

🄸 There's no mentioning of this in the privacy policy, but it looks like an #LLM-based solution from a third party.

ADPList: Learn from the world's best mentors for free

ADPList is the leading free-to-use mentorship platform with mentors in AI, UI/UX design, product management, software development and marketing. Learn portfolio review, resume review, interview preparation and more.

Here’s an online quiz you can take which is said to determine how good you are at detecting disinformation: https://yourmist.streamlit.app

And here is the academic study that came out of the research behind it: https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/45855-americans-distinguish-real-fake-news-headline-poll

I think that academic study is fascinating and super-useful, but take the test first. The server is slow but usable.

Progressives that are incapable of seeing beyond this economic system are the actual obstacle to any change. But if Trump is showing us something is that norms and laws aren't unbreakable.
This constant moaning of a 'better story' or a 'new story' is paralysing any progressive change, and, tbh, it's also kind of patronising in its dismissal of all the beauty that artists and scholars are creating in spite of the ugliness and violent repression.

Story are there, let's finally tell them loud.

I think it stuck with me because, especially with the current fascist turn, I keep reading from leftists of all sorts that we need a story, a better story. And to me, this search for a story is almost becoming the story, and missing the point entirely.
There are tons of stories out there. There have been since I was young. My student last year made a dissertation on U. K. Le Guin as solarpunk. There is an whole world of stories from non-Western indigenous literature.

2/

#ClimateDiary

Hello, hello... turn your radio on. Isn't anybody out there, help me play my songs....

On Bandcamp, that is.

Hooray, it is #BandcampFriday, and I have some #electronic #experimental #DarkAmbient #music for you!

Oh, and if you're really good, I have some codes to give away - want one? Let me know!

https://debonairetoast.bandcamp.com

DebonaireToast

Experimental EDM, Electronic, Ambient, Dark Ambient, Power Noise, Darkwave, Electro-Industrial, IDM-inspired artist located in Alabama. Creating with ProTools, Ableton Live 10, and with Dreams on PS4.

DebonaireToast

The top strata con artists are forgetting the "confidence" part of the game. That in order to keep playing, we must trust them.

Everyone losing trust now.

Good luck earning that back.

Hopefully now we can remember how to trust each other.

#AbuseCulture #USPol

In a Compelling Documentary, Five Doctors Discuss Being Sick

By David Tuller, DrPH

*This is a crowdfunding period at University of California, Berkeley. If you appreciate my work and would like to make a donation (tax-deductible to US taxpayers) to the university in support of my position, here’s the link: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/46120

**********

I first connected with Anil van der Zee, a severe ME patient in Amsterdam, when he reached out almost ten years ago to invite me to talk at an event he was organizing in Amsterdam. In his former life, Anil was a ballet dancer. Now, from his bed, he creates compelling and often visually stunning videos about various aspects of life with ME, and related issues.

In this new documentary, Anil talks with five doctors about living with ME and other chronic illnesses–and about how their personal experiences have altered their perspectives on the medical field and the provision of health care. I have posted it below, along with Anil’s introduction. (I wrote a story about doctors with Long Covid for Codastory.com in 2022.)

**********

Doctors as Patients…Anil van der Zee

In this film, five medical doctors open up about living with #PAIS/#IACC, conditions like ME, #longCOVID, and chronic #Lyme. It’s a format that I believe has never been shown before, not just in the Netherlands but possibly worldwide!

They speak candidly about their experiences with illness, what they were taught (or not taught) in medical school, and how that shaped their own treatment decisions—sometimes even leading to harm. They reflect on how becoming patients themselves radically changed their views on medicine, science, and what needs to change in healthcare. It’s raw, honest, and incredibly insightful—for medical professionals, researchers, politicians, and patients alike.

This project was a true labor of love. We had zero budget. Three amazing cameramen, a few behind-the-scenes heroes, the MDs themselves, and those from the community who shared material for the film—all volunteered their time and energy. It wasn’t easy: illness and #PEM often got in the way, but we somehow made it.

We’re amateur filmmakers (and I’m definitely the biggest one!), so don’t expect a slick Hollywood production. The real professionals here are the doctors—whose powerful voices, shaped by both medical training and lived experience, definitely need to be heard.

I invite you to watch, leave a like, drop a comment on YouTube to help boost the algorithm, and share it far and wide. This is more than a film—it’s a message the world needs to hear and see!!!

Their stories will hopefully change how you think about medicine—don’t miss it. Watch it, feel it, and let it shift your perspective, especially now that PAIS/IACC conditions have become an even more urgent health issue since the pandemic. Their voices matter more than ever!

The film has English and Dutch subtitles. If you want to translate it to another language let me know.

**********

(View the original post at virology.ws)

#anilVanDerZee #LongCovid #Lyme #PAIS #PEM

David Tuller's Trial by Error Spring 2025

Help UC Berkeley raise $68,000 for the project: David Tuller's Trial by Error Spring 2025. Your gift will make a difference!

UC Berkeley

Hey, it's sadly rent day and we're short by quite a bit (around $1300).

That whole "the average American can't afford an unexpected $400 emergency"... really bit us hard this month with the car crash. We're still waiting to get reimburst from car crash expenses and we've had a ton of unexpected bills this month on top of it.

Anything helps:

Rent Goal $950 / $2234

Venmo/cashapp/paypal: $nullagent

https://ko-fi.com/nullagent

#MutualAidRequest #helpfolkslive2025 #BlackMastodon

Buy nullagent a Coffee. ko-fi.com/nullagent

Become a supporter of nullagent today! ā¤ļø Ko-fi lets you support the creators you love with no fees on donations.

Ko-fi