Neighbors to the north, I know we’ve had beef recently but please avoid burning down.
On a serious note, if anyone has any donation links to help the communities under evacuation orders like the Mishkeegogamang First Nation, I’d love to share those.
Individuals who support the goals and vision of AN7GC can make a donation. The ways to donate: call us, mail your donation, use Paypal or Ca
100% of donations are dedicated to supporting Namaygoosisagagun emergency response and community recovery efforts.
Supporting Indigenous menstruators across Turtle Island by ensuring they have access to menstrual products, and by providing vital menstrual
Donations go towards making sure communities have access to menstral products during times of crisis.
True North Aid provides practical humanitarian support to northern and remote Indigenous communities in Canada through community-led project
True North Aid has a Wildfire Relief program and provides practical Support to remote indigenous communities.
Learn how the Ontario SPCA and Humane Society helps animals during emergencies with disaster response, preparedness resources and emergency
Ontario SPCA and Humane Society is helping with emergency food, supplies, transport, and first aid for displaced animals and are helping families keep their pets when they are displaced.
It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!
It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.
PITCH: We call it Moon Day, and then every 7 years when it falls on a Monday, that's an even BIGGER deal and we call that Moon Day Monday and go absolutely apeshit about it (the next Moon Day Monday is in 2026 so we have a couple trial runs first)
I scheduled this in 2025 to give you all a week to make Moon Day Monday preparations! I think I will order a little rocket cake or bake some moon phase cookies!
having being anti death penalty as one of my core beliefs is fun because it really makes me realize how even progressive people want soooooo badly for there to be a category of people they can kill. I'm sorry but "group of people okay to kill" does not exist.
I write to you with tears welling in my eyes, my body wracked with pain every second. I write to you because the ignore me and neglect I've endured hurts me more than my injuries. So remember, even if I die, I will never forgive anyone who ignored me and my suffering. I implore everyone to look at me and help me by d0nating and sharing whatever they can.
This week, I've been battling severe pain and frequent fainting spells due to severe anemia, and I'm completely unable to afford essential medications because of their high cost. All I wish for is for these fainting spells to stop, and for me to find compassionate hearts to stand by me so I can bu.y my medication and recover quickly.
Shrapnel still lodges in my body, and the pain keeps me awake at night. What makes my suffering even worse is that I was injured when our house was bombed while we were inside. I need urgent surgery but the cost of the operation is exorbitant, and I can't afford it. Now, I can't even afford painkillers to the constant pain tearing at my body.
Please I don't want to diie, I just want to live without pain. I need your sincere sup.port to save my life and end this suffering as soon as possible. Please, I would be extremely grateful to anyone who can d0nate to me. and if you can't, I hope you will shar.e this p0st.
not seeing a lot of people on here talking about ICE murdering another man yesterday. His name was Lorenzo Salgado Arajou. He was a Mexican man living in Huston Texas. He was killed at age 52 and lived the past 35 years here in the USA, and was in the process of obtaining a work permit. He was shot and killed during a traffic stop that ICE claims was part of a targeted operation, and claimed he was “weaponizing his vehicle”- the same claim ICE agents made when they shot and murdered Renee Good.
During the stop, Lorenzo had 3 coworkers with him in his truck who have all been taken into ICE custody.
His family described Lorenzo as a hardworking family man who didn’t deserve to be killed. All he wanted was to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people. His eldest son recognized his father by his cries and pleas when trying to identify who the victim was.
The Salgado Araujo family has set up a gofundme to help with funeral and legal costs, and to help keep their family supported since Lorenzo was the sole provider.
On the morning of July 7, 2026, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was ta… LULAC Institute, Inc. needs your support for In Loving Memory of Lorenzo Salg
We've been struggling to get our basic needs covered, we have no water, our daughter got her hair mutilated by her grandpa, we had to flee to a hotel 2 times during last month because he's been a danger for us, i lost my healthcare and im still in the paperwork to get it back and a couple days ago our trans daughter started peeing blood, is in pain and has shown signs of infection.
She already got checked by a Dr but he recommended an urologist very urgently. She already underwent surgery last year, there is a chance it was badly done or a new issue.
So, can we get help for her? Her birthday will be soon
We need $125 for the appointment with a trans friendly urologist, then we will have a diagnosis.
We were able to pay rent and fill our water tank, we hope the shortage ends and we don't have to get bottled water daily. We'll keep you posted.
I've been offering spanish conversation classes online, just taking time off until I can make sure my father-in-law won't sabotage those with his shouting.
A friend and mutual is offering commissions to help us if you're interested.
Also check our throne, we have some urgent lists of needs for our chronic pain/illnesses if someone can help us with that too.
Finally got the prescriptions scanned, forgot the 3rd one with the labs but this should be better than nothing, we debated a lot on how much information should be censored so i hope you understand we covered all we thought could put our daughter in danger.
We could agree on sharing the uncensored one through dm´s but only to trusted mutuals so they can corroborate its legit, we need to get her the surgery as urgently as possible cause the pain from the balanitis is hindering her ability to go to the bathroom or even just exist.
of course they are in spanish tho, we voted against translating them for accuracy´s sake.
The total cost of surgery through the only trans friendly clinic we could find goes over $52,000 pesos, which is over $3,100 usd, not even taking into account if she needs to stay overnight under their care.
She wouldn't have to go through another surgery if the previous dr had identified the symptoms better, we cant put her through another transphobic clinic, she was miserable and shouldn´t have gone through all that.
If it helps at all it's going to be her birthday on July 14, it would be great if she didn't have to be in pain and going to the bathroom meant a crying session and a constant infection.
We also had hoped the phones would have arrived by now but we got an email saying there was a problem but we hope to get a positive reply by july 11th, we´ll keep you posted.
so yeah, we need so much help not even considering that grandpa is still a danger, we will need food by saturday and i hurt myself handwashing the clothes we needed most urgently.
She suffers from severe anemia due to malnutrition caused by three years of war, genocide, and famine, which has led to a deterioration in her condition.
#the fact that 'can prove access to an online account at least 12 years old' or even 'account to be verified is itself fully 18 years old'#AREN'T accepted methods of age verification is such a telling sign of what the real purpose of age-gating laws is:#data harvesting and deanonymization and the buildout of state-controllable ways to restrict both content and internet access itself en masse (via @shinelikethunder )
I didn't actually want to post about this, at least not yet, but I need to. The demons told me to. Anyway.
Toph and Katara in LOK are both. So, so bad as a representation of women. They are literally the trad wive vs. the career woman archetype. You know, the one where you either get a family by sacrificing your autonomy or become successful by sacrificing your relationships.
(Notice how Aang is holding Katara as to associate them as an item? Notice how Toph is the only one who isn't making any physical contact with the rest of them?)
Katara, who is very traditionally feminine, gets to have a family, as dysfunctional as it is. Yeah, maybe the writing of the ship sucked, maybe we could have had better, but she did get to have a long, committed relationship to a man that she (according to the canon of the show) loved. But that's all she is. They say that she's a great healer? Casting aside the fact that that's not all there is to her, we barely get to see that side of her anyway. She's only ever been relevant as the Avatar's wife and mother of their kids. Who needs acknowledgement anyway? Certainly not a master waterbender who is the only reason the said Avatar is even alive and well in the first place.
Toph, who tends to reject traditional femininity, is the career woman in the stereotype. She gets fame, she gets respect, she gets agency. From a job that doesn't suit her at all, but she still does. But we don't see a single relationship work out for her. She has two kids from different people, who grow up with a neglectful parent largely because she prioritizes her work over them. The work in question is being a cop. She never gets a consistent partner to rely on and trust, but hey, at least she gets to advance her career in a profession she doesn't even seem to like all that much. What a win, am I right?
Both of these feel so wildly out of character for them too.
You're telling me that Katara - a master waterbender, a war hero, a fighter, and a person who passionately defied misogyny at just about every step she took to get where she is - would be okay with being reduced to just a housewife? Because I don't think she would be. It's like her literally fighting a guy for trying to get her to conform to a stereotypically feminine role or struggling with misogyny from even her own brother was never a thing.
You're telling me that Toph - the one who tried to reach out to her neglectful parents to reconcile, the one to give Iroh of all people valid advice, the "do you think friendships can last more than one lifetime" one - would choose her career over her loved ones? Because I don't think she would. It's like her being one of the most emotionally intelligent people in the show or having a strong (for better or worse) attachment her friends and family never happened.
I'm not saying that Katara can't have a family. I'm saying that aside from that she also deserves to be remembered for being a badass that she is, and not just a wife or a parent. I'm not saying that Toph shouldn't have had a job. I'm saying that she isn't the type of person to regard it highly enough to put it above her relationship with the people she loves. I'm saying that they deserve better.
Also, take it or leave it, but don't you think that it's kind of similar to how Pema and Lin are? Airbender baby factory and a hopelessly single and frankly probably depressed cop. LOK just doesn't want women to be happy, huh?
This post scratched an itch in my brain that's been bothering me for 5 years. Like, you're so right OP, TLOK butchers these characters and it's honestly no wonder they couldn't give Korra a proper arc. They just punched her down every chance they got and called that character development. Again, well said
[ID: 1: Official Nick art of the adult Gaang, titled "Old Friends." From left, Aang (with Momo on his shoulder) stands with his arm around Katara. Next to her, Toph points at the viewer. Next to her, Zuko stands with arms crossed. Finally, Sokka smirks at the viewer, with a hand lightly resting on Zuko's shoulder.
2: Black-and-white "family photo" official artwork of adult Aang & Katara's family with child Bumi, toddler Kya, and baby Tenzin. Aang has a hand on Bumi's shoulder on one side and Katara's on the other. Katara is holding the baby and Kya is standing in front of everyone on a little table that Bumi is leaning against.
3: Legend of Korra screencap. Korra sits in a pool of water while old Katara sits nearby, hands steepled. Both facial expressions look bummed.
4: Screencap of Toph's statue.
5: Screencap of adult Toph holding a stack of paperwork, her face looking squinty.
6: Screencap of Pakku and Katara fighting in their duel at the North Pole, his ice against her water.
7: Screencap of Katara standing on an ice floe, yelling at Sokka (who has his back to the viewer), shortly before Aang is released from the iceberg.
8: Screencap of Toph standing smiling next to Iroh, just after she opens the door of the Gaang's Ba Sing Se guest house to him.
9: Screencap of Katara, Toph, and shirtless hair-having Aang holding hands in their Fire Nation disguises. Toph's head is facing the ground; everyone else is smiling. End ID.]
people will say “they’re only friends” and then show me two people who would crawl through broken glass to hear the other laugh once. two people who have memorized each other’s coffee orders, fears, childhood stories, and emergency contacts. two people who would haunt each other’s houses as ghosts. be serious.
Just an FYI—the original intention of this post was to challenge the way people say only friends, as though friendship is somehow lesser than other forms of love. As if being deeply known, cherished, and chosen by another person could ever be a small thing. Normalize profound platonic love. Some of the most fulfilling, transformative, and enduring relationships we will ever have are friendships. 🫶🏼
I really can and will blame the 9-5 for everything. "We're in a loneliness epidemic" well, we have to spend a third of our day interacting with people in a professional way that makes forming real friendships difficult and then we're peopled out by the time we're done. "People are eating more and more unhealthily" people have to spend more than a third of their day doing work related tasks and they don't want to spend their tiny amount of free time making food. "People aren't involved in their local communities" after spending more than a third of their day doing work related things people are tired and also all those community events take place during normal working hours. "People need to get more hobbies" after spending more than a third of their day working, people are TIRED and don't want to do anything that takes yet more energy. "Literacy is dying" to maintain your critical thinking skills you need to read/watch things that make you think and after spending more than a third of your day doing work related stuff you are TIRED and don't want to expend even more brainnpower. "People need to get outside more" People. Are. TIRED. Because they have to spend all of their time working or preparing for work or recovering from work or doing all the chores they couldn't stay on top of because of work. I can blame fucking anything on having to work, it is truly the root of all fucking evil.
Hey OP, love your scalding take here; don't forget about commutes.
Once you factor in commute times (which even for short distances can be grotesquely inflated due to the fact that so many people are all commuting at the same time, but that's a different conversation) many people are actually devoting upwards of 10-12 hours a day on "work related tasks."
"it's ok to show (x) in fiction as long as the bad guy gets punished!" the bad guy doesn't have to get punished. in fact the bad guy can win altogether. the bad guy can entirely get away with it. hope this helps
and this part might make some people's head explode but: characters can be written to forgive things you personally wouldn't ever forgive. not everything is written as what you'd perceive to be the right choice. not everything is a self-insert & protagonists don't have to be relatable.
again, i want to preface this again by saying i don't normally make posts like this, but i want to help make these two poor little souls visible to as many people as i can.
i want to thank everyone for sharing jax's post already. it means a lot.
there is another sweet floof in a very similiar position to jax, whose sad, scared eyes have touched me very deeply.
his name is lias:
like jax, he is located in a state-run kill shelter in minsk.
the tierhilfe belarus (link 1 / link 2) is trying to help find lias, jax and others urgently a new home. otherwise they are euthanised.
if you are located in germany and wish to adopt a cat, please consider lias.
lias is:
1-2 years old
timid and shy, but he already allows human touch once he feels safe
please contact them, let them know you're interested.
once approved for adoption, he will travel directly to germany fully vaccinated, microchipped, neutered, and tested for fiv/felv. there is an adoption fee to help support the costs and the work the volunteers do.
just like with jax, i'm willing to help with the adoption fee if there is true interest in adopting him. i just want to help so they can have a life they deserve.
It was a Tuesday in 1981 when the San Francisco police kicked in the door.
Inside the small apartment, they expected to find a hardened criminal. They expected a drug kingpin. They expected resistance.
Instead, they found a 57-year-old waitress in an apron.
The air in the apartment smelled sweet, thick with chocolate and something earthier. On the kitchen counter, cooling on wire racks, were 54 dozen brownies.
The police officers began bagging the evidence. They confiscated nearly 18 pounds of marijuana. They handcuffed the woman, whose name was Mary Jane Rathbun.
She didn't look scared. She didn't look guilty.
She looked at the officers, smoothed her apron, and reportedly said, "I thought you guys were coming."
She was booked into the county jail. The headlines wrote themselves. A grandmother running a pot bakery. It seemed like a joke to the legal system, a quirky local news story about an older woman behaving badly.
But Mary wasn't baking for fun. And she certainly wasn't baking for profit.
To understand why Mary risked her freedom, you have to understand the silence of the early 1980s.
San Francisco was gripping the edge of a cliff. A mysterious illness was sweeping through the city, specifically targeting young men. Later, the world would know it as AIDS. But in those early days, it was just a death sentence that no one wanted to talk about.
Families were disowning their sons. Landlords were evicting tenants. Even doctors and nurses, paralyzed by the fear of the unknown, would sometimes leave food trays outside hospital doors, afraid to breathe the same air as their patients.
Men in their twenties were wasting away in sterile rooms, dying alone.
Mary knew what it felt like to lose a child.
Years earlier, in 1974, her daughter Peggy had been killed in a car accident. Peggy was only 22. The loss had hollowed Mary out, leaving a space in her heart that nothing seemed to fill.
When the judge sentenced Mary for that first arrest, he ordered her to perform 500 hours of community service. He likely thought the manual labor would teach her a lesson.
He sent her to the Shanti Project and San Francisco General Hospital.
It was a mistake that would change American history.
Mary walked into the AIDS wards when others were walking out. She didn't wear a hazmat suit. She didn't hold her breath. She saw rows of young men who looked like ghosts—skeletal, in pain, and terrified.
She saw "her kids."
She began mopping floors and changing sheets. But soon, she noticed something the doctors were missing. The harsh medications the men were taking caused violent nausea. They couldn't eat. They were starving to death as much as they were dying of the virus.
Mary knew a secret about the brownies she had been arrested for.
She knew they settled the stomach. She knew they brought back the appetite. She knew they could help a dying man sleep for a few hours without pain.
So, she made a choice.
She went back to her kitchen. She fired up the oven. She started mixing batter, not to sell, but to save.
Every morning, Mary would bake. She lived on a fixed income, surviving on Social Security checks that barely covered her rent. Yet, she spent nearly every dime on flour, sugar, and butter.
The most expensive ingredient—the cannabis—was donated. Local growers heard what she was doing. They began dropping off pounds of product at her door, free of charge.
She packed the brownies into a basket and took the bus to the hospital.
She walked room to room. She sat by the bedsides of men who hadn't seen their own mothers in years. She held their hands. She told them jokes. And she gave them brownies.
"Here, baby," she would say. "Eat this. It'll help."
And it did.
Nurses watched in amazement as patients who hadn't eaten in days began to ask for food. The constant retching stopped. The mood on the ward shifted from despair to a quiet sort of comfort.
Mary Jane Rathbun became "Brownie Mary."
For over a decade, this was her life. She baked roughly 600 brownies a day. She went through 50 pounds of flour a week. She became the mother to a generation of lost boys.
She washed their pajamas. She attended their funerals. She held them while they took their last breaths.
She did this while the government declared a "War on Drugs."
By the early 1990s, the political climate was hostile. Politicians were competing to see who could be "tougher" on crime. Mandatory minimum sentences were locking people away for decades.
In 1992, at the age of 70, Mary was arrested again.
This time, the stakes were lethal. She was charged with felonies. The district attorney looked at her rap sheet and saw a repeat offender. He threatened to send her to prison.
One prosecutor famously whispered to a colleague that he was going to "kick this old lady's ass."
They underestimated who they were dealing with.
They thought they were prosecuting a drug dealer. In reality, they were attacking the most beloved woman in San Francisco.
When the news broke that Brownie Mary was facing prison, the city erupted.
It wasn't just the activists who were angry. It was the doctors. It was the nurses. It was the parents who had watched Mary care for their dying sons when the government did nothing.
Mary turned her trial into a pulpit.
She arrived at court not as a defendant, but as a grandmother standing her ground. The media swarmed her. Reporters asked if she was afraid of prison. They asked if she would stop baking if they let her go.
Mary looked into the cameras, her voice gravelly and firm.
"If the narcs think I'm gonna stop baking brownies for my kids with AIDS," she said, "they can go fuck themselves in Macy's window."
The quote ran in newspapers across the country.
The court didn't stand a chance.
Testimony poured in. Doctors from San Francisco General Hospital wrote letters explaining that Mary’s brownies were medically necessary. Patients testified that she was an angel of mercy.
The charges were dropped.
Mary walked out of the courthouse a free woman. But she didn't go home to rest. She realized that her personal victory wasn't enough. As long as the law was broken, her "kids" were still in danger.
She needed to change the law.
August 25 was declared "Brownie Mary Day" by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It was a nice gesture, but Mary wanted policy, not plaques.
She teamed up with fellow activist Dennis Peron. Together, they opened the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club—the first public dispensary in the United States. It was a safe haven where patients could get their medicine without fear of arrest.
But Mary wanted more. She wanted the state of California to acknowledge the truth.
She campaigned for Proposition 215. She traveled the state, despite her failing health. She spoke in her simple, direct way. She didn't talk about liberties or economics. She talked about compassion. She talked about pain.
She forced voters to look at the issue through the eyes of a grandmother.
In 1996, Proposition 215 passed. California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana.
It was a domino effect. Because one woman refused to let her "kids" suffer, the public perception of cannabis shifted. The Economist later noted that Mary was single-handedly responsible for changing the national conversation.
She never got rich.
She had always joked that if legalization ever happened, she would sell her recipe to Betty Crocker and buy a Victorian house for her patients to live in.
She never sold the recipe. She never bought the house.
Mary Jane Rathbun died in 1999, at the age of 77. She passed away in a nursing home, poor in money but rich in legacy.
Today, over 30 states have legalized medical marijuana. Millions of people use it to manage pain, seizures, and nausea.
Most of them have never heard of Mary.
They don't know that their legal prescription exists because a waitress in San Francisco decided that the law was wrong and her heart was right.
They don't know about the 600 brownies a day.
They don't know about the thousands of hospital visits.
Mary didn't set out to be a hero. She told the Chicago Tribune years before she died, "I didn't go into this thinking I would be a hero."
She was just a mother who had lost her daughter, trying to help boys who had lost their way.
She proved that authority doesn't always equal morality.
She proved that sometimes, the most patriotic thing a citizen can do is break a bad law.
Every August, a few people in San Francisco still celebrate Brownie Mary Day. But her true memorial isn't a date on a calendar.
It is found in every oncology ward where a patient finds relief. It is found in every dispensary door that opens without fear.
It is found in the simple, quiet courage of anyone who sees suffering and refuses to look away.
Mary taught us that you don't need a law degree to change the world. You don't need millions of dollars. You don't need political office.
Sometimes, all you need is a mixing bowl, an oven, and enough love to tell the world to get out of your way.
Sources: New York Times Obituary (1999), "Brownie Mary" Rathbun. San Francisco Chronicle Archives (1992, 1996). History.com, "The History of Medical Marijuana." Weird Everything, FB december 12, 2025
I'd be only too happy to do that. I was suspicious to start, too. It seemed a bit on the nose to have the weed brownie grandma named "Mary Jane," but also, that's a very common combination in a certain place and time, so I thought it was worth the extra effort.
What I did was find sources that made the claim (in this case, that a woman named Mary Jane was a medicinal marijuana activist in California, USA in the 1980s and 90s.) I checked the dates to get some certainty those sources aren't AI slop, then checked that the sources are generally reliable.
Then I followed useful details about the place and time, and other people involved, to explore it more fully.
The first thing I did was search for "Brownie Mary" and see if that turned anything up at all. It turned up a LOT of results. Predictably, some of them were recipes, but not all of them.
Next up, I checked sources and dates. Wikipedia can be dodgy for academic use, but their policy on LLM-generated input is very clear: they don't want slop. I started by reading that page and then went on to read others.
The Atlas Obscura article is from 2018. I found another one from SFWeekly from 2017.
Both of those are decent sources - Atlas Obscura gets a High factual reporting rate from MediaBiasFactCheck, and while MBFC doesn't have a rating for SFWeekly, the verbiage in that article is very close to what GastroObscura has. (Also to what the post itself has, right down to the choice of pull quote.)
Now, we can stop there and feel pretty confident that articles published before the wide availability of LLMs are not, in fact, LLM generated.
...or we can go deeper, and run this all the way back to source.
I spotted references to a Chicago Tribune imterview of Mary Jane Rathbun, published in 1993.
My search string of "Chicago Tribune 1993 Mary Jane Rathbun" hit it in the top 3 results. That article includes some fun new details: she wore a cannabis leaf shaped pendant to her trial!
She also objected to being portrayed as a cuddly grandma up against The Man, so I must retract my flippant tags, above.
The evidence now strongly points to Brownie Mary being a real woman who really went to court for giving AIDS patients weed brownies. But can we get closer? I've now seen several mentions of a 1980 attempt at convicting her too.
The articles have mentioned Sonoma County and a nonprofit called the Shanti Project, so let's hook onto that and see what we get.
Searching for "Mary Jane Rathbun Sonoma County 1980" gets me an article from a law firm; that mentions the prosecuting attorney by name, and points to a book: Lust for Justice: The Radical Life & Law of J. Tony Serra, by Paulette Frankl. It even has an excerpt!
We can run the book down too, just for fun (now we have a primary source.) My favorite used book site has a copy for $1. Amazon gives a view of the back cover, too:
...wow. I should see if my library has that!
The excerpt on the site has a mention of a candelight vigil held for her death in 1999. It took some hunting past things I'd already read and a bunch of shops giving written tributes, but I found a news report about that, too.
There's a lot of information out there, and it's worth digging into. Otherwise it's altogether too easy to think something real and worth knowing is just another bit of slop.
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