I left my mind behind in 2015

[sovay]

Today was the yahrzeit of the molasses flood. I was last at Langone Park for the centenary, since which time the field has been renovated and a new marker erected in memory of the disaster and its dead. Seven years ago feels nearly a century itself.

Speaking of man-made needless awfulness, I have been made aware of the locally vetted aggregate of Stand with Minnesota, a directory of mutual aid, fundraisers, and on-the-ground support against the onslaught of ICE. All could use donations, since internet hugs are of limited efficacy against tear gas, batons, bullets to the face and legs. Twenty-three years ago feels like several worldlines back, but the Department of Homeland Security sounded absurdly, arrogantly dystopian then.

The fourth and last of this week's doctors' appointments concluded with an inhaler and instructions to sleep as much as possible. My ability to watch movies remains on some kind of mental fritz which upsets me, but I liked running across these poems.

Comments

[aurumcalendula]

Seven years ago feels nearly a century itself.

It really does.

Thank you for the Stand with Minnesota link!

I hope your sleep and ability to watch movies improves. Those are cool poems.

[sovay]

It really does.

And it was no utopia! But it wasn't . . . this.

Thank you for the Stand with Minnesota link!

You're welcome! Via mrissa.

I hope your sleep and ability to watch movies improves. Those are cool poems.

Thank you. I'm not sure what the deal with the movies is. It did not use to happen. I worry about my brain.

[selkie]

Since I learnt it at a work training on Tuesday and it may not be common knowledge:

To defuse those awful people’s most-common tear gas canister, stop it rolling and cover with an open backpack, a plastic shopping basket, a home improvement store bucket with a hole in its bottom, or a traffic cone. Add water through the gaps your containment object presents to you until the canister stops sputtering. The more rigid your containment object the better, but the water has to be able to get through.

Ideally you will be wearing face protection already or have used your keffiyeh, tichel, or spare shirt to cover your adorable airway.

[sovay]

Since I learnt it at a work training on Tuesday and it may not be common knowledge

Uncommon knowledge is always worth sharing!

*hugs*

[selkie]

I don’t think I get the same work trainings as everybody else’s.
*holds up lab goggles and CAT tourniquet forlornly*

[asakiyume]

Glad to know this for future reference

[gwynnega]

The Department of Homeland Security sounded like a terrible idea twenty-three years ago, but it would have been nice to be wrong about that.

[sovay]

The Department of Homeland Security sounded like a terrible idea twenty-three years ago, but it would have been nice to be wrong about that.

I wanted it to be as ephemerally stupid as freedom fries.

[asakiyume]

Thank you for the Stand with Minnesota link. Things like that float by on the shrieking micro-social media sites, but I can take it up more easily in the quiet space that's your DW.

The poems are great. These lines grabbed me:

From the first: when you ask your love for something, make it small

From the second: all the small insignificant darknesses
that gang up on the imagination.

Huh. Small is a common denominator in those. *shrugs*