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masonjar

@masonjarart

he/him I do art sometimes Lingering Stars: The First Encounter

Too much movement makes your joints hurt and too little movement also makes your joints hurt. This would imply that there's an optimal amount of movement that allows your joints to not hurt. This is a lie.

there should be a such thing as a medical detective. you should be able to hire a doctor to figure out what the fuck is going on with you come hell or high water by consulting whatever specialists they can get their hands on, connecting your constellation of symptoms, etc, instead of 10000 different doctors for every distinct bone in ur body that all just kinda go "dang that sucks idk" when you present with more than one fucking symptom

"Friends outside of Minnesota please read. I'm sharing a post written by a personal friend and medical doctor: Friends outside MN, you need to know what is happening here. Everyone knows that ICE shot and killed a woman here on Wednesday. But that’s not the only thing that’s going on:

  • ICE agents are cruising areas with immigrant-owned businesses, and kidnapping patrons and employees alike. Yesterday they abducted two US citizen employees at a suburban Target, one who was begging them to allow him to go get his passport to show them.
  • ICE is going door to door in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, asking residents where their immigrant neighbors live. Read that again. If it sounds like something out of your high school history textbook, that’s because it is.
  • ICE is targeting schools and school buses. They pepper sprayed teenagers and abducted two school staff members at the high school up the street from me on Wednesday. Police are literally escorting school buses to ensure children can get to school and home safely. The Minneapolis Public Schools have moved to virtual learning for the next 4 weeks because it’s unsafe for children or teachers to physically come to school.
  • They are targeting hospitals and clinics. Patients are scared and are cancelling their appointments or just not showing up. Kids are missing their checkups and vaccines, folks aren’t getting their cancer care, etc.
  • They are smashing windows in cars and homes.
  • ICE is increasingly picking up Native Americans—again, targeting folks based on skin color alone.
  • They are arresting and beating legal observers. A friend of a friend had her arm broken yesterday. Folks are showing up at local hospitals, brought in in ICE custody, with severe injuries that are absolutely inconsistent with mechanism of injury reported by ICE. (Think: patient appears to have been beaten unconscious, while ICE agent says he slipped and fell.) I can’t emphasize enough that these ICE agents do not have warrants. There are 2,000+ agents here and they are simply hunting for anyone that’s not white. It doesn’t matter if you’re a citizen or a green card holder, they will kidnap you first and ask questions later. But the community is fighting back.
  • Protests are happening every day.
  • Community groups have been leading know-your-rights sessions for months, often to packed venues.
  • Whistles are being distributed by the thousands, carried on keychains and worn on coat zippers, always at the ready to be blown in warning if ICE is spotted.
  • Drivers are following ICE vehicles, blaring their horns in warning.
  • Businesses are locking their doors even while open to keep employees and customers safe. As I type this, I’m standing guard at the locked door of our neighborhood burrito joint while I wait for my takeout order, so the employees can focus on their jobs. The place is packed with neighbors supporting this small business.
  • Anti-ICE signs are posted everywhere. The community is making it crystal clear that ICE is not welcome here.
  • Parents and neighbors are standing guard outside schools, organizing carpools, and escorting kids to and from school on foot.
  • Parents of kids in Spanish-immersion daycare (there are a LOT of these daycares here!) are keeping their kids home so the teachers don’t have to take the risk of coming to work.
  • Churches and community groups are holding fundraisers to buy and deliver groceries to families who don’t feel safe leaving home.
  • Mutual aid money is going out to folks who can’t make rent because they can’t work or because a breadwinner was abducted, or who need a warm place to stay after their home’s windows were smashed. THAT is what is happening here. This fight is ongoing and it’s horrifying to watch. But we are not backing down. To my friends in other cities and states, don’t think for a minute that this won’t happen in your town. It will. Be ready. Learn from us, as we have learned from Portland and Chicago and New York. Fight back. Don’t let us get to the last line of Martin Niemoller’s poem.” -Grant Boulanger

Here's an AP news brief with a little more info. It's limited in the way major news outlets are right now but provides context that supports the personal account shared.

I’m begging all my mutuals to pay attention to the wildfires in Argentinian Patagonia. Almost 10.000 acres of unique Patagonian Andean forests, with South America tallest and world’s oldest trees, burned and they were all intentional. The worst part is that back in December, the government announced that they would lift the ban on foreigners buying rural land, and on changing the land productive activity after a wildfire for 30-60 years. Firefighters are crying because they don’t have enough resources, the government cut their budget by 70% for this year, while they wasted 300 million dollars on F-16 jet fighters. It’s not just trees, it’s animals and people’s lives, whole towns, that have been endangered, more than 3000 tourists had to be evacuated. The climate catastrophe is worsening the fires, with less rain and more wind this summer.

by the way guys, this deployment of ice to minnesota is largest ever. more agents than chicago. we are a much less dense state. we are being inundated.

It is the largest Department of Homeland Security operation in history. And yet Minnesota’s Somali population (this operation’s primary target) is upwards of 90% naturalized American citizens. It’s even more of a manufactured crisis than most DHS operations. Genuinely living in Minnesota now feels like we’re a small country on the brink of invasion.

If you want to provide culturally specific food for immigrant families in Minnesota who can’t leave their house due to ICE, Neighborhood House is partnering with El Burrito Mercado to deliver food. You can buy a gift card from El Burrito Mercado online to donate to a family. Here is how you do it:

Buy gift cards online or in person, and El Burrito Mercado will donate them directly to Neighborhood House. Neighborhood House will use these cards to purchase culturally relevant foods requested by families.
Buy El Burrito Gift Cards: https://order.toasttab.com/egiftcards/el-burrito-mercado (use [email protected] as the recipient, and please indicate that this is for Neighborhood House in the Personalize Your Card section).

You can also donate directly to Neighborhood House, which has helped refugees and immigrants in the Twin Cities area for over 100 years.

Original Post: Keith Porter was tragically taken from us by an off-duty ice agent, and his family is seeking justice during this difficult time. Every donation can help support their fight for truth and accountability. Please consider clicking the link below to contribute or share it with others who might want to help. Thank you for your support! https://gofund.me/530afb61e

well you know what they say. when you've invested billions of dollars into hammers every problem looks like a nail and you keep handing these hammers to your users and they go "i don't really think i needed this hammer" and "but i don't have any nails that need hammering in right now" and "this is not a nail this is a glass vase that will break if i hit it with a hammer" and "didn't you used to have, like, other tools avaliable that might be better suited to this job" and you tell them to suck it up because you've replaced all your screwdrivers and wrenches and box cutters and crates and ladders and paint with hammers because your shareholders need to see an increase in value from your hammer investments

finally finished a painting i've been cooking in my mind for a few years! shadowgast as The Devil, one of my favorite tarot cards and one of the three cards i associate with their relationship

i'm not much for divination but i love the story-telling aspect of tarot, and one of my favorite visual metaphors of The Devil is how loose the chains around the two figures' necks are. they're not kept bound. it's that possibility to choose that i find so significant, and so fitting for the story of these two wizards. to say you're not defined by your past is to say you're born with all the choices you make; but to say you are forever defined by it is to deny yourself the right to change. the chains around your neck might be very heavy, but the choice to shrug them off is always yours to take.

tip jar!

It is truly fascinating to go and make ocs because at first! The sillies! Then suddenly, you are struck by over two hundred pounds of crushing realization as it clicks into place what exact portion of your soul you just made into a little homunculs.

If you’re a USAmerican and rightfully horrified by what the government is doing right now, I just want to rq share 5calls. They have a really simple tool for finding your reps and contacting them, as well as a variety of scripts for anyone not confident speaking off book. Emails can be filtered out, phone calls, voicemails, and physical letters are much harder to ignore. Calling your reps isn’t the end all be all of anti-war action, but it’s a place to start while you process what the fuck just happened.

please call if you can call

If text is more your speed resist bot has a ton of HEY WHAT THE FUCK letters about Venezuela rn - I like using the fax option - it’s physical paper that can’t be ignored. Resistbot also has a mail option (it does cost money) if you use resistbot or are interest in using it you can text SIGN and then any of these codes below to 50409 to send messages about Venezuela to your reps

PNUSAU “return to session now to reign in illegal Venezuela airstrikes”

PCHAWK “demand congressional action to stop war in Venezuela”

PGYZRL “VENEZUELA: a step too far. NO ILLEGAL WAR. check Trump NOW. DO YOUR JOB”

easier for the owner of LED headlights to pass through the eye of a needle than to enter the kingdom of heaven.

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