It's a team sport. It has to be a team sport to work.

I regret that we don't have more players on the field, not that the players we have aren't zipping around doing everything.

And yes, this reflection is brought to you in part by my own present inability to play my position.

Those versions of reality will be tied to the perspectives of those who helped popularize them, and because we are so diverse, most of us will be left out of those versions.

I've watched that happen for decades. It has not served us well.

If you covered everything there would be no spaces for other people to fill.

If we don't make room for rising leaders, we will stifle their growth. If we don't make room for multiple approaches to the work (yours, mine, &c.), we will get locked into a few versions of reality.

I spent too many years on the idea that it's not okay to put disabled newborns on shelves until they die and then tell the parents they couldn't be saved, among others, to want to lose what little progress we have made on the "People we look down on should die" front.

What I am here for is to speak directly to those of you who see the bullshit, who smell the sulfur in the air, who feel the psychic tremor of something sick pulsing beneath the surface—and are asking: What the hell can we do?

Here’s my answer:
Don’t. Fucking. Comply. 10/23

Lurie Children's cancelled trans-affirming surgeries.

People rescheduled at Northwestern Memorial. Northwestern, which claims it is illegal to restrict doctors' actions in any way (including asking them not to commit violent felonies at work) cancelled them.

This is on-brand for the neighbourhood.

I feel like the literature on the Sorites Paradox may offer insight.

I'm also not suggesting you read it all.

They are now listed as out of stock from the publisher.

Which I see as a communications achievement.

And also, having certain kinds of information and even knowledge are often more markers of *privilege* than intelligence.

I am sleep deprived enough that time resembles Silly Putty so in the interest of not telling you happy birthday in October, I will be early.

Happy birthday! And I hope the cake is delicious.

I am glad you exist.

I think in the current environment I might have edited this to specify that I wanted bullet *points* instead of bullets for much the same reason that I have always been trained that when trying to get a distressed person to put down a weapon I should not point at it and say "Give it to me."

And blocked.

Don't help people reframe hatred, John.

Help them stop hating.

Or at least don't tell the targets of their hatred that hatred is "good."

(Again, Nate is not a bad person. He's not a good person. He's just a person who did a harmful thing as everyone has done. But please ask him to stop. )

I cannot cope with the unrelenting hatred. There has to be an opportunity to be in public minding my own business without unrelenting gleeful bullying.

I last had that in Febeuary 2019 and even then it was only a few days a year.

And I cannot cope.

And then ppl pat themselves on the back for expressing exactly the same hatreds as the people they claim to oppose.

You know what? When Elon Musk expresses his hatred of my loved ones, it hurts. When Nate does it, it hurts the same.