Oh boy things are terrible

Hey, historians who might stumble across this blog long after I forget it exists! Just dropping in an obligatory things aren’t great in the ol’ US of A at the moment otherwise this blog might look like “old lady Russell is completely doing fine in early 2025.”

We’ve had two terrible plane crashes (one in DC, another where a plane literally crashed into a busy area of Northeast Philadelphia), Musk’s cronies are apparently copying vast quantities of payment data onto USBs, and Trump just issued tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China which (pardon my language) is going to fuck America’s consumers right up the ass. Other than AOC and–God help me I swore I’d never give him the time of day on this blog–Bernie Sanders, nobody on the Democratic party seems to realize they’re the opposition party. ICE is swarming cities, including churches and schools, and detaining anyone who looks like they might speak Spanish. Cutting (and then being forced to restore by court order) federal funding to countless states, programs, and non-profits until they fall in line with the administration’s DEI policy, which is no more talk of DEI.

This is not a good era for Safe, Loved, and Warm and honestly I’m so overwhelmed I don’t know where to begin to push back. And the overwhelm has to be intentional for that very reason. We don’t even know where to start.

But I guess the best place to start is anywhere, so tomorrow I’ll call my elected officials and let them know I’m concerned about everything. Then I’ll look for some mutual aid societies that will fill in the blanks when that federal funding is inevitably taken away.

So yes, I’m still blogging about things like “I did a thing!” and “here’s what I’m reading!” (that’s tomorrow) but I don’t want you to think those are the only important topics going on. Okay? Okay.