I live in Michigan. Our ward still limits in-person sacrament meetings to under 50, socially distances, wears masks, has no singing or musical numbers, wipes down the pulpit between speakers, and Zooms in the remainder of the ward. I applaud the leaders for doing what they can...

It should be noted that not every ward in my area is as restrictive. Our bishop has a health condition that puts him at higher risk of illness. Also secular views that support greater caution, and (lest we forget) the keys & spiritual intuition for our specific ward’s needs.

I don’t doubt there are ppl sitting in my ward building today feeling despair about what they’re witnessing, maybe singing quietly behind their masks, looking for who to blame, trying to focus on the Lord’s hand in it instead of their own misgivings. It’s very hard to endure.

I’m also sure the bishopric is tired of wearing masks, tired of wiping down the pulpit, tired of listening to recorded hymns while they sit silent, & that they too fight not to blame. Some are inclined to blame those who create mandates, & some blame those who don’t comply.

We’ve had our year to feel reactionary. We’ve learned a lot abt ourselves & others by watching reactions under pressure. Some surprised us with their resilience, others with how quickly they came undone. It’s a new year now. Time to stop reacting & start responding with intent.

For us to get through what needs to happen next, our society and we as individuals need to learn how to accept feedback that our behavior needs change and sit with the discomfort of being wrong.
I see over and over again that people are so uncomfortable with this idea that they

distance themselves from reality when others make complaints. You see them question if you're sure that is what happened, they make excuses and wonder if you maybe interpreted it wrong, or maybe you invited it all because if YOU did something wrong here then they can distance

themselves from the idea that similar abuse might occur to them. Instead we need to be supporting people who are speaking truth to abusers. We need to not tone police them, gaslight them, or diminish their stories. But this is exactly where people go first because they are so

unable to sit with the discomfort of reality. They would rather denial that anything happened at all. Then they are safe from it too.

The problem is that this mechanism provides cover for abusers and gives them the space to abuse. It discourages people from coming forward.

And if you try to talk to an abuser about their behavior they won't hear it either. There will always be something wrong with how you phrase your complaints, purity tests, gaslighting, and further abuse.

But there is a moment between the complaint and the response where a breath

One in four hydropower project sites along the Himalayan Rivers are likely to face severe damage from earthquake-triggered landslides, according to a research. #UttarakhandDisaster #earthquake @nivedita_Him @yamunajiye @Upadhyay_Cavita @Indian_Rivers @hridayeshjoshi

The research was conducted by researchers from the University of Potsdam, Germany, who compiled damages to 41 hydropower projects after Nepal’s 2015 #earthquake, and used that data to estimate earthquake-triggered damages to projects in other parts of #Himalayas. @yamunajiye

The model developed by the research team took into account the combined effect of ground shaking (Peak Ground acceleration) & river steepness (Mχ) and was applied to projects in Indian, Nepalese and Bhutanese #Himalayas.
@yamunajiye @hridayeshjoshi @nivedita_Him @Upadhyay_Cavita

The findings indicate that more than 10% of Himalayan rivers may be unsuitable for hydropower infrastructure given high probabilities of high co-seismic damages and ~25% of Hydropower projects are located along these reaches. #UttarakhandDisaster
#earthquake

The study points to an urgent need to re-evaluate hydropower development in the Himalayas. The model used in the study would also help in making a more accurate assessment of risks at locations for potential hydropower plants. #UttarakhandDisaster

BREAKING: Big @TheJusticeDept move against #ProudBoys. 5 new conspiracy arrests for actions at #Capitol.

Mention of the use of fluorescent orange recognition tape, movement as a group. Developing story.

h/t @FPWellman
Story via @davidgshortell @CNN. https://t.co/lvCBe1QqOR

While we wait on docs, I recommend revisiting this excellent @WSJ visual investigation of the #ProudBoys coordinated role in the #Capitol

I'm posting this paper because poor medical communication this year has resulted in a distrust in science. To improve vaccine uptake we need to understand what works and what doesn't.

Increasing Vaccination: Putting Psychological Science Into

Vaccination is one of the great achievements of the 20th century, yet persistent public-health problems include inadequate, delayed, and unstable vaccination uptake.

Psychology offers three general propositions for understanding and intervening to increase uptake where vaccines are available and affordable. The first proposition is that thoughts and feelings can motivate getting vaccinated.

Hundreds of studies have shown that risk beliefs and anticipated regret about infectious disease correlate reliably with getting vaccinated; low confidence in vaccine effectiveness and concern about safety correlate reliably with not getting vaccinated.

We were surprised to find that few randomized trials have successfully changed what people think and feel about vaccines, and those few that succeeded were minimally effective in increasing uptake. The second proposition is that social processes can motivate getting vaccinated.

Some men are beasts while some women also deserve no pity!!! 😡

January 1st, I visited my parents at Ikorodu and around 9pm, i left their place and got home around 9:30pm. While opening the gates to drive in, i saw my NEW NEIGHBOR’S WIFE outside with a worried look...

She quickly rushed towards me that is it possible I take her to Ikorodu that night? I was like Nooooo, do you want to kill me. Apparently, I really drove around ikorodu that day from Isawo to Igbo olomu to Agbede to Igbo oluwo visiting families, so I told her i’m tired...

She said no problem then, that she actually got someone to take her but the person is misbehaving. Since I noticed how unsettled she was, i asked why she can’t reschedule for next morning that it’s late. She said No, she must leave that night with her loads. Loads???...

Why do you want to leave with your loads? But you and your husband moved in just 3 weeks ago, what happened? She said she’s the only one leaving but she will be coming once in a while. I sensed that to be a lie, so my final statement was “If you can’t tell me what happened...

...I won’t move an inch”

I sensed there’s a marital issue but she wasn’t forthcoming with the story. I don’t want a situation where I will later be seen as the wicked neighbor who broke a home. I wanted the full story. She said i shouldn’t bother about the story...

QAnon adherent and admitted Capitol Hill insurrectionist Kenneth Grayson has a hearing today. He allegedly sent the following DM to a friend: "I left one unconscious so I did my little part and got the fuck out before I got arrested.” Grayson was later arrested. This is a thread.

D.C. Magistrate Judge Robin M. Meriweather is presiding. Currently hashing things out with the D.C. U.S. Attorney's office over scheduling concerns for today and the rest of the month. Defense counsel currently conferring privately. Grayson just got on the line and ID'd himself.

Stanley Greenfield is local counsel appearing for the defense. He just asked if the government would be willing to forego making Grayson pay for his own electronic monitoring. (Yes, the attorneys have skipped ahead of things a bit. The hearing has not officially started yet.)

AUSA Soo C. Song was on this case as attorney of record via the Western District of Pennsylvania. But AUSA Judy Smith is on the line and taking the lead for now. But D.C. AUSA Mary Dohrmann will be the actual prosecutor for the government. Lots of lawyers. Hope not too confusing.

Grayson just said he was outfitted with an electronic monitor by pre-trial services today. The hearing is focused on "courtesy supervision" (release provided to defendants referred by other jurisdictions) provisions of Grayson's bail. The conditions are being determined today.

Must agree with David Lammy.

Winston Churchill was indeed a great champion of human rights *

(*Exceptions apply: guarantee does not cover Asians, Africans, Irish, Native Americans or non-docile working-class communities. See historical record for further details)

People upset with Lammy have not seen what wonderful shade he has cast on the Tories. 'Winston Churchill emerges among you lot as the greatest defender of human rights--the winner of the Extremely Low Bar Award.'

"Is juju real?" now you have a bunch of Christians in a room telling you juju is real because of course Christianity is real. I find these questions to be a waste of time.

"juju is real because how do you know juju isn't real. You need to open your mind". Very sound argument.

This one said even plant has spirit. What Albert Einstein did is also written in the Bible. E = MC square. Now he's talking about holiness and removing slippers, I don't know wetin concern this one with "is JuJu real?"

Apparently Africans have the strongest resistance to JuJu because our dark skin colour reacts to dark magic.

Someone has finally asked if JuJu is real why is the black race still at the bottom of the barrel?

Getting ready to hear the juju is only good for bad things like.

1.
WoLF submitted an excellent brief defending women’s rights under Title IX👇👇:

"Plaintiffs ask the Court to proclaim that women & girls are no longer a discrete category worthy of civil rights protection, but men and boys who claim to have a female ‘gender identity’ they are”

2.

If the Court rules in their favor, it will mark a truly fundamental shift in American law and policy that strips women of their Constitutional right to privacy, threatens their physical safety, undercuts the means by which women can achieve educational equality, and

3.

[...] ultimately works to erase women and girls under the law. It would not only revoke the very rights and protections that specifically secure women’s access to school athletics, but would do so in order to extend those rights and protections to men claiming to be women."

4.

"Women and girls are thus protected under the law from subjective beliefs about whether and how women should work, vote, have children or not have children, and how they ought to look and behave.

5. U.S. civil rights law recognizes the need to protect people from the subjective beliefs of others, including subjective beliefs founded on sex- stereotypes. ...In stark contrast, being ‘transgender’ depends on the continued existence of sex-stereotypes.”

Adam McNeil, 34, rents out entire laundromats to allow Black Philly moms to do their family's clothes for free, and he gave away 25,000 diapers, 2 fridges and 2 sets of washers & dryers to Black Philly moms in the last six months alone (a thread):

Here’s the thing about about McNeil's program, SistaTalkPHL: It doesn’t have a fancy executive board or big donors — it’s just got McNeil, his unemployment checks, and donations from people who believe in his grassroots work.

McNeil himself has a hell of a story, having spent nearly a decade of his life in prison and having survived getting into a near-death car wreck.

"I have taken so much in my life," he told me. "Now, I just want to give."

Due to space constraints, I had to cut a section of McNeil's story out that I felt was very powerful. I'd like to share it here.

McNeil never got to meet his dad, who was imprisoned for most of his life.

While McNeil himself was serving time at the State Correctional Institution at Houtzdale he realized a guy he ran around in Philly with, who was in the same prison, was his half brother on his father’s side.

Okay folks, you all have been very kind over the last few days. I promise this account hasn't been highjacked. There's a lot going on & evangelical proximity to it is maddening.

But I promised you a thread about cancel culture, socioeconomics, & vocation.

First, let me say that I believe peer pressure & shunning happens in every social group. I believe the group can rally against the individual to force them comply w/ established norms & established powers. It is feature of human community.

So I don't disbelieve that something akin to "cancel culture" exists. But living in & ministering in working class spaces, I've never understood the emotion attached to popular iteration.

Sure, we talk about political correctness & the pressure to not say things, but the cancel culture narrative always felt imported somehow. Like, it wasn't organic to the way we moved thru the world.

So it's always puzzled me. The emotion that is. The fear. The panic of the woke mob coming for your job. Why is it framed this way? None of this made sense to me until I started mixing more w/ mid-upper class conservatives, particularly Xians.

I keep seeing people on here suggest that making fun of the neo-Nazis undermines an understanding of how dangerous they are. I disagree. I think ridiculing them is both good and necessary. A short thread:

First: ridiculing Nazis is a great American tradition:

Satire is a potent cultural weapon and has been utilized in a political context since ancient times. It serves several functions: in a scenario where it's used to skewer people in power, it's a way to speak truth to power.

In a context more like this, where it's used to ridicule a guy in a silly costume who demands organic food for his shaman diet, it serves a related but slightly different purpose. Everyone needs to understand how dangerous that guy is.

And his stated desire to assassinate members of Congress make that clear. But if you only understand that guy as emblematic of a visceral danger to both individuals and the republic, and only portray him as a grave threat, you run a different risk:

So here's something interesting about our latest 'surge'. If one goes to https://t.co/unPSmmc8Mg you can toggle between 'confirmed' cases, 'probable' cases and both of them together.

So what is a 'confirmed' case? That would be any laboratory confirmed 'case' - any positive PCR, antigen or antibody test, with all the issues of false positivity and hypersensitivity and non-infectiousness that go along with all of those tests.

A 'probable' case does not even have a positive test result associated with it. All it requires are symptoms. Maybe an epidemiological link. We are now in the middle of what used to be referred to as 'flu season' when there is a wide variety of respiratory illnesses that exist -

- and are passed around, creating symptoms in individuals that count under one of the 44 symptoms of 'COVID' in Ohio.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ So how big of a deal are the probable cases in Ohio? On the left are just the 'probable' cases/hospitalizations/deaths. On the right are the total assigned cases/hospitalizations/deaths -

Part of the ecosystem we need to contend with is that the federal grants from which many research assistants and postdocs in science are paid set the pay for RAs and postdocs too low. Faculty may feel tempted to shrug and pass on the bad pay without pushing back. That’s fucked.

If your grant doesn’t allow you to pay certain salaries, be up front during the hiring process about that. I talk openly to my students about why the numbers are what they are, depending on my funding source.

It is also the case that when I apply for grant money, I try to ask for a higher than typical salary and I do try to justify my request in my budget justification. I still haven’t won a grant with a postdoc in it so I don’t know how that’s going.

In the long run, I’ve reminded my students and postdoc that I think unions are great!

A union contract that binds the university to pay them a certain among actually makes it so that my request to federal agencies is “this is what I am required to pay.” Academic unions ftw!

I also think that all faculty should, to the extent of their ability given their circumstances, participate in advocating for an increase in minimum wages and an increase in federal and state funding for science and universities to cover the increased cost.

We could make our Defense cheaper. We could reinstate conscription. We could transfer large portions of our standing forces into guard and reserve units. We could stop invading central and southwest asian countries. We could increase direct military aid to our allies.

The other good ideas include more unmanned and uninhabited systems (WHERE APPROPRIATE, and nobody has convinced me yet that naval presence is worth a damn unmanned), as well as investing more in the dark arts of gray zone warfare.

Now, all that wouldn't be very efficient were we to need to go to war in a hurry. But maybe... And this is crazy... We shouldn't be in a hurry to go to war?

But our adversaries -- Russia, China and Iran -- all invest heavily in the dark arts, all use conscription, are all investing in unmanned. They ain't crazy. They know if WWIII was about to kick off they'd need time to boost readiness and train conscripts.

And I know what folks would say: "Sometimes you don't have a choice of when you got to war. Think of 9/11."

And, good point. But my recollection of that time period was that in Afghanistan, the CIA and SOF had the Taliban and al qaeda just about licked within a few months.