Hey hey, as a librarian, can I just say don’t pace yourself at the library. I get a lot of customers saying “oh I shouldn’t get too many books out at once” but like you should!!!! Max out your card, take everything we have on a subject you’re interested in, make a book fort in your home. We love that shit! It doesn’t matter if you read them or not; just take them for an adventure and bring them back whenever they’re due!
For public libraries, one of the ways we secure funding year to year is lending. Governments don’t want to fund more books if they’re not being used and the way we measure use is by issues. Regardless of whether you read it or not, whether you have it for a day or a month, if you issue it to your library card, we get the stats! It makes the library look good!
Help your local library; get books out even if you know you can’t read them all!
And you know what? Even if the guy with all the money should change his heart *right this minute* and donate billions to a cause as good as world hunger:
...Nonetheless, whether he does or not... he will still die, like all the rest of us, regardless of who may be at his bedside, alone in his head: alone. By himself. No one there to mitigate the pain, to be telling him how important he is, to make what's happening okay in any way whatsoever. He will cross the bar alone. And there is nothing he can do to stop it.
Nothing he can do with the science we have in this day and age will change that. Nothing invented in the next twenty, thirty, *fifty* years, will change that.
Is he a schmuck? Yes. Is he vastly wealthy and powerful (in the in-this-life mode) beyond the dreams of almost all of us? Yeah, sure!
Will it avail him at the moment when, eventually, beyond any ability of his or those he's paid to keep it running, his breath stops? NOPE.
...The comfort associated with this may be a bit on the chilly side. But (leaving aside folks' personal beliefs about what happens on the far side of the Last Breath) all his personal bullshit in the physical world will swiftly come to nothing.
Let's wait our time. I may not see it: but some of you will, and will be able to say, "Well THAT's over, finally."
(sigh)
Okay, that's my annoyance for the day. ...And now who wants some tea?
How a Gospel artist became the Godmother of Rock & Roll
When most people think of the pioneers of early rock and roll, several familiar names come to mind. Although many artists have been credited with influencing the genre or even recording the first rock-and-roll song, one remarkable performer is often overlooked. Long before rock and roll had a name, Sister Rosetta Tharpe was playing an amplified electric guitar in the 1930s and 1940s with a style and energy that would help shape the genre's sound for generations to come.
On occasion, an individual possesses such exceptional talent that conventional labels prove inadequate. Sister Rosetta Tharpe was one such artist whose musical gifts were too wide-ranging to fit neatly within a single genre. If her name is not widely recognized, that is not surprising. In many ways, she was erased from music history by two musical worlds.
A Child Prodigy with an Extraordinary Gift
She was a child prodigy who started playing the guitar at age 6. Tharpe developed considerable fame as a musical prodigy, standing out in an era when prominent Black female guitarists were rare. She was so good that she often received the backhanded compliment, “She plays like a man.” Tharpe’s mother was a singer and mandolin player in the Pentecostal denomination Church of God in Christ. She joined her mother as a regular performer in a traveling evangelical group and was billed as a “singing and guitar-playing miracle.” Based in Chicago, Rosetta and her mother sang and played at religious concerts at their local church and occasionally traveled to perform at church conventions.
When Gospel Met the Blues
Tharpe’s distinct performance style, featuring heavy distortion, showmanship, and rhythmic, pounding guitar solos, earned her skill and reputation as she performed on the church circuit. Before long, blues and race record producers heard her play. At 23, Tharpe recorded for the first time with Decca Records. Her recordings were Decca’s first gospel recordings. The label had artists such as Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, the Andrews Sisters, and the Mills Brothers. Her first four recordings were instant hits, and she became an overnight success and one of the first commercially successful gospel recording artists. She blended genres, mixing holy gospel with raw blues. Her sound reached beyond the religious audience, and secular artists took notice of her talent. One who took notice was swing and R&B bandleader Lucky Millinder. He signed her to a 10-year contract, and she toured with his band throughout the 1940s.
Watch her perform, and you'll immediately hear why so many rock legends cited her as an influence.
Too Gospel for the World, Too Worldly for the Church
Her records caused an immediate furor; many churchgoers were shocked by the mixture of gospel-based lyrics and secular-sounding music, but secular audiences loved them. The response from the conservative C.O.G.I.C. denomination was predictable, and she was accused of playing and recording “the devil’s music,” as church leaders called it. Tharpe's appearances with Cab Calloway at Harlem's Cotton Club in October 1938 and at John Hammond's "Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall on December 23, 1938, brought her more fame, along with notoriety. Performing gospel music for secular nightclub audiences and alongside blues and jazz musicians and dancers was unusual, and in conservative religious circles, a woman playing the guitar in such settings was frowned upon. Tharpe fell out of favor with segments of the gospel community. Her nightclub performances, in which she would sometimes sing gospel songs amid scantily clad showgirls, caused her to be shunned by some in the gospel community. She had some success in the secular world, but she considered going back to singing strictly gospel. But she had contractual commitments that prevented her from doing so. She moved through nightclubs, concert halls, and with big bands.
A Gospel Song That Helped Launch Rock and Roll
She recorded her song "Strange Things Happening Every Day" in 1944 with Sammy Price, who played piano for Decca. The song showed off her skill on the guitar and her clever lyrics. It was the first gospel song to make it onto Billboard magazine's Harlem Hit Parade, and some people have called it the first rock-and-roll record. Her reputation as a guitarist soon spread, and musicians came to hear her and then copied her style. At the beginning of the 1950s, she and her musical partner, Marie Knight, saw their popularity take a sudden downturn as she was eclipsed by Mahalia Jackson in the gospel field.
The Godmother of Rock and Roll
Her groundbreaking sound in the 1930s and 1940s directly influenced the early architects of rock, notably Little Richard, who said Rosetta Tharpe was his favorite singer as a boy. Chuck Berry acknowledged her pioneering guitar work and recognized her role in shaping rock and roll. Elvis Presley mentioned that he admired her gospel performances and was influenced by the blend of gospel and rhythm and blues that characterized her music. Jerry Lee Lewis, the piano pioneer and early rock icon, also took in her high-energy performance style and her fusion of sacred and secular sounds, and Carl Perkins, the "Blue Suede Shoes" singer, adopted her driving, rockabilly-style rhythm-and-blues guitar techniques. Yet she played in relative obscurity for years until the British blues scene of the 1960s discovered her. She influenced many British rock legends, including Robert Plant, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards. Her tour of Europe was a big success, reviving her career and reputation. She crossed the line from sacred to secular, yet still clung to her unique style of gospel music. She was the forerunner of subsequent gospel and secular artists who walked the fine line between religious and "worldly" music.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe, often called the "Godmother of Rock and Roll," playing her Gibson SG in England in 1964.
Forgotten by Two Musical Worlds
Still, church history tried to eliminate her influence. Religious leaders criticized her for working with secular entertainers and music. There were also rumors about her musical partner, Marie Knight. The two were musical collaborators, close friends, and important figures in the gospel scene of the 1940s and 1950s. For years, people speculated that they might have been romantic partners. Early rock historians erased her as well, mainly because of racial and gender biases. It is one of the great ironies of American music. Gospel circles criticized her for sounding too worldly, while rock historians often overlooked her because she was a Black woman whose music was rooted in gospel. For decades, neither world fully claimed her.
Yet, thanks in part to YouTube clips of her performances and to rock and religious historians finally giving her credit, she is becoming known to a new generation. In 2018, she was officially inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an Early Influence.
Had you heard of Sister Rosetta Tharpe before reading this article? Which rock artist do you think was influenced by her the most? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: How a Gospel artist became the Godmother of Rock & Roll
Reasons for hope: Lots of amazing people did a ton of work to make this fantastic, fully interactive resource available - because no matter how bleak things seem, there are millions, and millions of people doing everything they can to protect both the world and their own communities.
You can use this to view and subscribe to updates, project statuses, and for at least some of them even whole dossiers. This is an amazing resource, I highly recommend checking it out
whether the internet becomes an intolerable surveillance state, ubiquitous subscription model, or unusably ad- or AI-ridden shithole, I think we need to remember
how to do things offline
either on your personal hard drive (just because it’s an app doesn’t mean the information is stored in your device) or on paper. I’m not saying the collapse of the internet is imminent, and I’m not suggesting we do everything completely without technology, or even stop using it until we have to. (to be clear, I also don’t think the internet will just blink out of existence, suddenly stop being a thing at all; rather I think it might continue to lose its usefulness to the point where it’s impossible to get anything done. anyway) but some people may have forgotten how we got by before the internet (I almost have!), and the younger generation might not have experienced it at all.
I figure most people probably use the internet mainly for communication with friends and family, entertainment and creation (eg. writing), and looking up how to do things, so here’s how to do those things offline:
First and most importantly, download everything important to you onto at least one hard drive and at least one flashdrive! files can get corrupted and hardware can get damaged or lost, but as long as you keep backup copies, you have much-closer-to-guaranteed access versus hoping a business doesn’t decide to paywall, purge, or otherwise revoke your access. I would recommend getting irreplaceable photos printed as well
download and/or print/write down:
anything important to you - photos/videos, journals, certificates, college transcripts
contact info - phone numbers and/or addresses of friends/family (know how to contact them if you can’t use your favourite messaging app), doctors (open hours would be good too), veterinarians if you have pets, and work
how-to’s - recipes (one, two), emergency preparedness (what do I do if… eg. I smell gas)
other things you might google: cleaning chemicals to NOT mix, what laundry tag symbols mean, people food dogs and cats can and can’t eat, plant toxicity to pets
and know offline ways to find things out - local radio station, newspaper, a nearby highway rest area might have a region map, public libraries usually have a bunch of resources
also, those of you who get periods should strongly consider not using period tracking apps! here’s how to track your period manually
free printable period tracker templates (no printer? public libraries usually charge a few cents per page, or you can recreate it by hand)
moving on to entertainment, you can still get most media for free! it’s completely legal to download your favourite movies to your own personal hard drive, you just can’t sell or distribute copies (not legal advice)
movies: wcostream.tv (right click the player) - the url changes every once in a while but usually redirects; I recently noticed that it’s hiding a lot of movies behind “premium,” so it may or may not work anymore | download youtube videos
music: how to get music without streaming it | legal free downloads
games: steamunlocked.net - doesn’t have every game and can be slow to update, but very reliable
Remember that links won't work without the internet, so also write down anything you find useful in this post! You have to download stuff ahead of time while you can still access the internet
keep physical user manuals for things like car, tv, appliances
how to prepare for computer work offline (may need to use reader mode to bypass a popup)
check interactions with any medications you're taking
how to search a library (databases are often accessible via library computers so might still be a thing without internet; also some info on manually searching the actual stacks) (backup rb)
make note of your local/state/federal laws regarding tenants’ rights & housing resources, workers’ rights, gun laws, abortion laws (though this is changing frequently)
How to Download Videos
URL downloaders for specific sites & in general
4k Video Downloader Plus, VLC Media Player, Freemake, YouTube-to-mp4
screencap with OBS (may only work on firefox and may violate ToS) or xbox game bar on windows (win+g)
especially download meme songs that you probably won’t find on a CD (example) with https://ytmp3.nexus/
Print photos with VistaPrint, WalMart, or CVS
Old Farmer's Almanac
Household chores list
Simple household repairs
Loads of old recipes (backup rb)
how to wean yourself off the internet
how to spend time with family
how to get involved with your community
ways to spend more time outside (set a goal/reason to be outside)
how to get outside more in different seasons
how to build nature into your lifestyle
how to start a self care habit | how to make a self care checklist
self care assessment | axes of self care | reparenting resources
Since I've already kind of been doing this due to living on a farm where we easily lose power during storms and lose internet because our only service provider is too fucking cheap to update infrastructure (we have copper wires still, not fiberoptic cable), I feel like I should add on some stuff, too. (Also, we haven't been able to afford any up to date shit since the early 2010s.)
- GET YOURSELF A WEATHER RADIO. Phones can be stolen, malfunction, die, etc. While these things can be a pain in the ass because it goes off for the region your local National Weather Service covers, this could very well save your life, especially if you are in a situation that I'm in that I described above. I recommend Midland, and this one is the most affordable if you're worried about price (Jesus, this thing was 30 bucks a year or two ago... stupid cheetoh). One of my local library branches even has it. (I also heavily recommend getting an emergency radio from them, too! Just be sure you get familiar with it soon and use it every once in a while so you're not struggling in a panic. This is the one I have.) Radio isn't a service you have to pay for like cellphone service or internet. Just be sure you have your battery situation all figured out. That being said, while the weather radio only uses the WX bands, the emergency radio allows AM and FM stations, too.
- Get an antenna of some sort for your television so you can receive local TV stations. This could be important regarding local news. I haven't gotten one for us yet, and I'm not even certain if we can get signal anymore because of how defunct many relay stations for airwaves are. If you live in or near a city and you're not deep in a valley, you're gonna have better luck with this. Yes, there are antennas made for modern flatscreens. Look them up while you can right now, and learn how to hook them up. I wish I could share more on this, but like I said, I haven't gotten one for us yet. I don't even know if we'd get anything to come in, lol. But like radio, airwaves are free. This includes what you could get on television!
- Look into meshtastic. Wanna get in touch with a friend or family member and get a response back quickly? Want to send out a message to the local community also using it? Imagine texting on radio waves. That's... kinda basically what this is. And there's no service to pay for! AND IT'S DECENTRALIZED! I haven't had the chance to try it out, but I'm definitely interested. Here's a video if you wanna learn more about what this is.
- Field Guides in book format. Get them. Mainly those involving local plants and insects/arachnids. Get familiar with where sections are in them in case you need to quickly look something up. You don't wanna assume whether or not something that bit you isn't going to be a problem for your health. I'd also recommend snake guides as well. It's VERY IMPORTANT to know what species bit you if they're venomous so you can be given the correct antivenom.
- Physical media is a thing gaining popularity for obvious reasons. Don't assume it's a fad. Unless you taped it, there aren't gonna be any ads or commercials interrupting what you're trying to watch. Learn how to operate VCRs and DVD players if you're too young to be that familiar with them. (I have the coveted combo machine that I've had since the 2000s. Still works like a charm.)
- Learn to make a go-bag (or several) *NOW.* Climate change is making shit get worse. I've got 2 hiking backpacks ready just in case we gotta split, so all I have to worry about is getting the cats into their carriers. Another thing that weather radio can sometimes be used for is if you need to evacuate due to things like volcanoes, chemical accidents, and wildfires. I am not kidding. A NOAA Weather Radio is fucking awesome and essential. I'm hoping to get a duffle bag to fill with more supplies for long hauls if needed, but I wanted to get the backpacks ready. (And if you're gonna have food with you, BE SURE TO ROTATE THE FOOD SO YOU DON'T HUNKER DOWN OR DIP OUT WITH EXPIRED FOOD. THIS INCLUDES ANY PET FOOD YOU HAVE PACKED.) You need to be able to get your shit and get at a moment's notice. Seconds could matter in an unexpected situation. Make sure you thoroughly plan every possible thing with the rest of your household and loved ones, such as where to go in certain circumstances, where to meet up, etc. INCLUDE ANY AND ALL PETS IN YOUR PLANS, TOO! (If you takes meds, make sure you plan for those, too, and make sure they don't expire. You will also want supplies for typical dental care. Trust me on this one.)
- Learn how to write and mail letters. If shit gets so bad for privacy online, the only way to keep in touch with friends and loved ones with privacy is gonna be through mailing letters. This means you gotta hand-write them. Yes, responses will be slow and you'll have to get the hang of using a writing utensil, but if we did it back in the day and survived, so can you. It is against federal law to open or tamper with someone else's mail. (For now. That cheetoh sure is doing whatever the fuck he wants without consequences.)
I just woke up about an hour ago and still drinking my coffee, so that's all I have for now. I don't know if I have any other things to add and just not remembering any of them. I'm also old and doing this on mobile, so trying to go back and edit and shit made the screen boop around and made me fuck a couple things up. I hope i fixed it all and the wording is fine and the links are helpful.
The recent hot VS cold polls have made me realise that a lot of people have no idea how to cool down.
As someone from a hot country that's regularly on fire, here's some tips:
WATER IS YOUR FRIEND! WATER! IS! YOUR! FRIEND! You can transfer SO much heat into this bad boy! You cannot cool down without water!
Wrists under the cold tap. Splash your face and the back of your neck. Fan yourself.
In some countries you can buy a little handeld fan with a water sprayer.
Damp tea towel around the neck. Stick an ice pack in there on hotter days.
Half fill a water bottle with water, stick in freezer. If you use a bottle with a straw, make sure it's lying on its side with the straw side up and out of the water. When frozen top up the rest of the way with tap water and off you go.
Desperate to cool off? Wet T-shirt. Sit in front of a fan. This will nuke it, just don't get hypothermia and don't fall asleep like this.
Cold showers are also your friend in summer. Some people get psyched up by these. Personally, I sleep like a baby, so I'm good to have them before bed. Just keep in mind that it takes a bit of time for the cool to circulate, so your body will tell you that you're colder than you actually are. I find that when I have cold showers I need to step out of the spray when I think I'm cold... I'll just wait, and thirty seconds later the temperature has evened out and I actually need to step under again. Rinse and repeat until you maintain coolness even after stepping out for a bit.
If you can't do cold showers, turn the cold shower on anyway and just stick your arms under. When they're cold, lift your arms up above your head. The sensation of cool blood draining into your body is fucking weird and kinda unpleasant but less unpleasant than being hot.
Feet in a tub of water with ice. Blood naturally flows to your extremities when hot, so take advantage of this. If you don't have a tub of ice water, sticking a wet rag on your feet in front of the fan works too, it's the less powerful version of the wet T-shirt.
Drinks lots of water but make sure that water has electrolytes as well. Stay in the shade.
Keep air circulating. Fans don't actually cool rooms down, they just help transfer heat from your body to the moisture on your skin or the air via evaporative cooling.
Block north facing windows early in the morning so the sun doesn't get in. If you're in the northern hemisphere, this is opposite for you. Keep in mind that if your home is brick, the bricks will still heat up and slowly release heat into your home even after the sun goes down so this will only do so much.
If it's hotter inside than outside, close all your windows but two, making sure they're on opposite sides of the house/unit you're in. Point a fan out of one window, making sure that the doors between the rooms with the open windows are all open. This will help create a mini pressure system in your home, pulling cooler air in and pushing the hotter air out via the fan. Bonus points if you can get that fan high up where the hot air rises; even within a single room the top is much hotter than the air by the floor. Adjust the amount of open windows based on how many fans you have, but generally you want more windows with fans open than windows without fans to keep the pressure correct.
Obviously, use your common sense for these. Not everything WILL work for you, just use the stuff that does and adjust what needs to be adjusted. Some of these will be impossible to use in the workplace but others you can still use. Others are best used at home. If humidity impacts your ability to use any of these, get a dehumidifier if that's an option, or use more ice instead of evaporation.
Also keep in mind that the skinnier you are, the faster these will work. More fat means more insulation, means more heat, so you may need to be more patient with some of these or use them in combination.
I'm spending my days in an Mail Truck without AC and these tips are *legitimately* saving my life our there. If you can find cooling towels for workers they're the best thing ever. They activate with water and will keep you cool for hours with a breeze or fan. I wrap mine around my neck. Also! Long thin sleeves and long thin pants if you have to be outside in this. Counter intuitive I know but the sun kills and keeping it off your skin will keep you cooler (also use sunscreen for exposed skin if you're going to be outside).
UK friend just made this error so I'm sharing my tip here: cold towels go on your neck not your forehead.
Putting it on your forehead feels good but does little for cooling down your circulatory system.
Putting it on your neck helps cool a major artery that is going to your brain. There are two areas you want to make sure are temperature regulated to avoid heat stress and illness. Your brain and core. This helps severely with one of them.
I lived in an old house with no AC for most of my adolescence and there are tips that I can add:
Understand your home and if its architectural features still function well. There is not much you can do if you live in an apartment/flat but a house may have features that can help or hinder keeping cool... and features that don't work anymore. For example, maybe you do live in a 'breezy' bungalow but the roof has been renovated and there's no longer a light-blocking overhang, or it's missing the ceramic roof it once had. Maybe your home is built to retain heat in the winter and previously relied on a tall fence or hedge to shade a north wall for summer which has since been since taken out. Not all of these can be addressed by quick fixes but it can still be helpful to understand-- including when your safety means leaving for the day because personal effort to cool the residence might be futile.
Stay on the first floor if you live in a multi-story house. Again, this may not be helpful for those who live in an apartment/flat. But you want to be as close to the ground as you can and away from rising heat. If you have access to a basement that is sunk into the ground, you may want to relocate there in extreme conditions.
Close your windows during the day if possible. ESPECIALLY if you live in an urban or highly developed area. You do not want the hot air from outside to get sucked into your relatively cool, shaded house interior. The effect is much worse if there is a lot of paving and especially asphalt around your house, which many normally-colder areas use for its flexibility and resistance to cracking in wintertime. That stuff absorbs 80-90 percent of sunlight and radiates it as heat. WAIT UNTIL AFTER SUNSET to open your windows, try to prioritize cross-airflow and if you have a second floor, do it up there. If you live in a flat and can't do cross airflow, this is a good time to use any box fans you can find to blow air out of the window as stated by robotslenderman above.
If bugs are a problem when you open your windows and you have no window screens, there is no shame in going to a hardware store for cheap screen (that is rated for mosquitos) and taping it up temporarily. If you use the 'open two windows' tip that may work very well because you'll only have to screen two windows. Climate change also means a change in the range of insects.
Some people have double layers of curtains and the 'conventional' wisdom is to put a decorative/sheer curtain on the outside and the blackout curtain on the inside, but reverse it for now. You want the sun to hit the blackout curtain and not enter your house, and if the blackout curtain gets hot the second layer of curtains might be able to create an insulating layer of air to prevent it from heating the room up. If your non-blackout curtains are too sheer to do this, there is also no shame in using a spare sheet, blanket, tarp, or even trash bags.
Go to the bathroom and pee. This sounds obvious given the advice to drink lots of water with electrolytes but there are a lot of urban myths about whether holding it or not holding it makes you cooler or warmer, etc. The actual cooling effects of eliminating waste are pretty negligible compared to having exposed skin and staying out of the sun, but you will be able to take in more cool liquid if you pee regularly.
Remember to Check your medications' side effects! That's the main reason I tend to vote in favor of colder over hotter on those cold vs hot polls; my meds make me a lot worse at dealing with heat.
So like what if the thing you love doing is also the thing that kills you and like what if Florence and her Machine wrote a song about that? Wouldn't that be wild?
Wonderful video edit with an excellent choice of accompanying music! I love the selected scenes and how you worked them into the song's lyrics. The end of it is particularly powerful. Great work! 💜 Thank you for sharing this amazing piece!
Happy Victory Day at Greasy Grass! ("Battle of Little Bighorn"), June 25, 1876
150 years ago today, combined Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho forces got revenge against Indian-killers George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry.
There were many brave akicita (Native warriors) there on the field.
Stories vary about the death blows to Custer himself. According to Cheyenne oral history, Buffalo Calf Road Woman fired the shot that knocked Custer off of his horse which eventually led to his next two fatal wounds.
Once he was dead, women used their awls to poke holes in his eardrums "so he would listen to us in the next life."
As Native people, we continue always to defend what is sacred.
Via Mahtowin / United American Indians of New England
star trek would be the ideal fictional universe to get trapped in because you'd explain your situation and they'd be like yeah makes sense. no further questions. fortunately we can use the mysterious warp signature emitting from this system's icy moon to counterface with the solar radiation and slingshot you back home
prguitarman
kianamaiart
2087
gummygunk
baratheonpilled
titsay
turnnoffyourmind
