*tv static*

The important thing about wool is that it continues to keep you warm even when it’s soaking wet.

Other natural fibers don’t do this. In fact, quite the opposite. Campers and boaters are usually familiar with the phrase, “cotton kills.” If you’re wet in cotton or linen, your clothes actually sap heat from your body.

If you sink in a lake in late October like I did today, staying warm is important. I was rescued long before I would’ve actually died, but cold makes your muscles seize up, which isn’t good if you have to swim to land.

Which brings me around to life jackets. If the water’s cold enough, you may only have five-ten minutes until your muscles seize (today I probably had 40-60, more than enough time to get to land if I hadn’t been picked up), and you’ll drown.

In a life jacket, even in extremely cold water, you can float semi-conscious for perhaps another 30 minutes or so before you actually freeze to death, which is usually when someone rescues you.

What’s more, you probably know that moving around on land warms you up. Jumping jacks, jogging in place, etc.

In water, moving actually makes you colder. You need to stay still curled up in a ball, which you can only do in a life jacket.

In wool AND life jacket, you’re warm, and your head’s above water, which is pretty much your only and entire goal.

Yep! A really simple “experiment” I learned as a kid and now use in my own courses is sticking your hand in ice water. Compare moving it around in the water to curling it up in a fist. The contrast is stark!

To increase your survival time in on cold water, you want to curl up! If you’re with others, you want to huddle!

If you want to build rock towers, get your own rocks and build them at home. That’s perfectly fine. But rocks provide vital habitat for wildlife, especially in stream bed; moving and stacking them leaves them without shelter, crushes them, exposes their eggs, and leads to soil erosion and bank destruction. Leave them where they are.

This is a Hellbender salamander. Hellbenders are the third largest aquatic amphibian in the world, and the largest amphibian in the US. They are extremely endangered, in huge part because people are moving rocks in what little habitat they have left to them. These big boys can live for decades and once they choose a rock to live under, that’s it, that’s where they live, and they do not do well relocating. Studies have found that if their rock is moved or even disturbed, the hellbender will not return to it- even if you can replace the rock how you think you found it. Moving rocks, even just briefly, runs the risk of crushing them, their young, their eggs, or depleting the places where their food sources hide (they eat mostly crawfish and small fish that hide among rocks), either from you moving the rock or from other rocks falling in the absence of the rock you moved. Even if it doesn’t immediately kill them, it can permanently displace and ultimately cause the death of one.

These are not the only creatures that suffer from habitat being destroyed, they are just one I happen to know the face, name, and situation of. Please, please, please. It’s not worth the photo. It’s just not. Leave nature in place where it belongs, leave no trace. Protect those that have no defense against you other than your choice to be kind to them.

“Rainy Day with Babka in New York” by Hope Gangloff 

“Coffee and Bagel, New York Breakfast” by Thor Wickstrom 

[ID: Attorney statement re: execution of Brandon Bernard.

“Tonight, those of us who love Brandon Bernard - and we are many - are full of righteous anger and deep sadness at the actions of the federal government in taking his life. Brandon’s live mattered. To us, his legal team, to his two beautiful and talented daughters, to his mother, brother, and sister, and to the countless people around the country who came to know him and his story in recent weeks.

Brandon made one terrible mistake at age 18. But he did not kill anyone, and he never stopped feeling shamed and profound remorse for his actions in the crime that took the lives of Todd and Stacie Bagley. And he spent the rest of his life sincerely trying to show, as he put it, that he “was not that person”. Brandon showed us that and so much more, carrying himself with grace and generosity, and always treating everyone around him with kindness and respect. He worked to help other troubled kids avoid similar devastating mistakes, and he lived every day his commitment to serving both God and humanity. 

Many things went wrong to put Brandon on death row, including egregious government misconduct in concealing evidence and misleading the jury, which the courts refused to remedy. Before Brandon’s execution, five of the jurors who sentenced him to death said they no longer stood by that verdict. They joined the lead appellate prosecutor on Brandon’s case in urging President Trump to commute his death sentence to life without parole. Those pleas for clemency were joined by hundreds of thousands of supporters, including celebrities, faith leaders, and members of the United States Congress.

Brandon’s execution is a stain on America’s criminal justice system. But I pray that even in his death, Brandon will advance his commitment to helping others by moving us closer to a time when this country does not pointlessly and maliciously kill young Black men who pose no threat to anyone, when we hold prosecutors to the highest standards of integrity in every case, and when our leaders exercise their moral authority where it is needed. 

We were proud to call Brandon our client and our friend, and we will miss him greatly.”

-Robert C. Owen, attorney for Brandon Bernard

brandon bernard’s is not the only federal execution scheduled. according to the bbc, trump has five executions scheduled up until january 20th. we need to keep fighting so that these executions do not happen.

i wish brandon’s family all the best and i’m so sorry we could not do more.

i’m including a few links to spread awareness and inform people. 

https://innocenceproject.org/ is an organization that uses modern forensic technology to overturn wrongful convictions.

https://prisonbookprogram.org/for-people-in-prison/national-prisoner-resource-list/ is a list of resources that those who have loved ones in prison or who are in prison can use. it has links to several other similar lists as well.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/ is a website that provides information about capital punishment in the united states. one of the first things written on their website is “At least 18 people have been executed despite serious doubts about their guilt. Official misconduct is the leading cause of wrongful capital convictions.”

The mismatched boy of Yock Island  🌿🍄🦿

ben’s memory is a blessing. that’s extremely jewish. spiderman is inspired not just by the shame of his death, but by the moral teachings he’d given peter in life. and his name given to these babies is another part of it: babies named in spiderman’s honor are also very honestly and truly named in his honor, and continue to be blessings to the world.