My bet is the same VOIP tech that allows scammers to make calls appear to be legit, despite being a continent away. It would be almost comforting if the calls were coming from distant troll factories, since almost anyone can make a call and disrupt, but a bomb requires exacting skills and proximity, but VOIP means the…

YES. I keep reminding myself of my nephew when he was just a bit past toddler and was tantruming all over the place because we weren’t letting him have binkies and bottles and diapers anymore. He’d get so pissy and whiny and bratty when he was tired and really, really, really wanted the easy privilege of not having to…

We ARE headed forward. Women are talking about this and filing suits. Our blog posts are getting international press. Women in tech are banding together and building strategies to make this stop or opting out of the bro culture and doing tech for ourselves. The reactionary asshats aren’t new, but overall, we’re done…

I think we are taking the step. One of my profs years ago used the metaphor of a kayak on a river for the progress of social change. When the river is flowing through a narrow channel, it is often turbulent and risky, but we move fast through it, and we have to work hard to steer ourselves safely past the rocks. When…

Star for support. I wouldn’t wish dementia on my worst enemy. Give me cruciatus, give me avada kedavra, but Obliviate is the one that destroys the person and everyone in the blast radius.

Eh. The OFA team was not real great about data-sharing, and that hurt in 2008 and 2012. When that is a DNC function instead of a campaign function, it works much, much better. At the state level, it really depends on the state. Some states have excellent data sharing, some don’t. Some counties work together well; some…

I hate having to admit to this, because it sounds like I was a callus bitch, but in my grandmother’s last year, she couldn’t see me. She had severe vascular dementia, and in one of a long series of TIAs, she forgot my face between two visits about 4 days apart. She knew she was supposed to know who I was, but…

Funding is always first. Contact sharing tools is second. So if Liz is running for a house seat and Ivy is running for the Senate seat, both are Dems and have similar platforms, the logic is to let them share information and campaign volunteers. It’s easier on the volunteers and the voters if they get one call saying…

How very nice that he’s bothered about privacy. Sounds more like he doesn’t want anyone to know where his money comes from and goes.

Love the men from hip upwards. Ready for drainpipe trousers to toddle off, though. They emphasize foot size and make legs look like pipe cleaners. LMM can pull them off because he’s a pretty petite guy, but Sting and Ashton Sanders look way top-heavy. If you’re going to wear britches, go whole hog and cuff them at the…

I wonder if this might not be an opportunity for activism, hacktivism and to bring communities together. Because we do need to protect our communities and spaces. I am fairly far from my metro’s Jewish cemetery, but I’ve got two public ones with separate sections (because definitions of consecrated ground differ) for…

Yeah, he was in his 90s when I asked, and I spent most of that evening just leaking around the eyes.

My great-grandfather used to take us little ones to the (rural, small-town, Midwestern) cemetery for summer twilight hide and seek and fireflies. Many years later, I asked him why, and he said he thought his sister (who died very young) and his little boy (another childhood death) should get to share playtime, too.

Says the same feather-head who tweeted his email password multiple times.

... there are days when unions feel just as rare...

Well, I, a random internet stranger, think you’re aces.

It’s less about what we believe, and more about what gets under his/their skin. There’s (iffy) evidence that if people know others are praying for them to get better, they get a morale boost that seems to help improve their symptoms, if not their condition. I would guess the opposite is also true.

You know about talkspace? Online therapy isn’t for everyone, but it does have some advantages, especially for people who aren’t tied to a location. (Downside is that it’s all out of pocket, but it’s less expensive out of pocket than therapy was before ACA.)

... so is the dress something that’s only going to work in a wedding? Or could it be used for some extra fabulous events? Maybe dress up and go to the opera/theater? To an extent, it sounds like you may have inadvertently dodged a bullet.

I’m so sorry. I get it — I cut off the Asshat almost 20 years ago and Smother more than a year ago (after two years of limited contact, after several years of minimal, after years of none) because both are toxic and abusive in their own ways. My siblings kept Asshat at a distance for most of their adult lives, and…