why else does it thunder?

While Saja's husband Ahmad has been recovering from his recent surgery, he experienced a serious complication.

Saja contacted me recently to tell me that Ahmad has been taken to the hospital because of a urinary catheter that caused a wound to his bladder. He didn't notice because he has no feeling in his lower body. He lost a lot of blood and some people donated blood so he could regain consciousness. Now he needs bladder surgery. I have asked Saja for more details about the surgery and will add any I get. Please donate and share to help him out!

Also yesterday (Nov 8, 2025) Ahmad contacted me to ask for help for food and other necessities for his children and to cover the treatment he needs. He has told me that his treatment expenses for his bladder are about $350 per week. He also said he will need surgery for his bladder. Please help Ahmad and his family by donating and reblogging!

Saja is vetted by association. Her brother Jaafar is vetted by gazavetters and is #299 on their list. See this post for screenshot of vetting info.

Saja's fundraiser:

Additionally, Saja told me that she needs some medication herself due to the toll her situation has taken on her mental health.

Please donate if you can and share! This family has had a lot of difficulty collecting enough funds for their large expenses!

BLADDER TREATMENT $184/$350 (per week)

MEDICATION FOR SAJA: $0/?

PHONE: $123/$5000?

MEDICAL TREATMENT: $12/$4,000

Maram has told me that her family survived a bombing just a few days ago, but the place they were staying was destroyed and her son Ibrahim was injured in the attack. Now they need a tent and $3000 for Ibrahim's surgery. Please donate if you can and reblog to help them out!

Maram is vetted by by gazavetters, and her campaign is #575 on the list.

Link to Maram's Chuffed:

She also told me a few days ago that a wall collapsed on her family tent and they were injured. Wall collapses in Gaza are common due to the extensive and continuing damage done to buildings and infrastructure there. To make matters worse, since many people must often live in close proximity, even a single collapse can affect large numbers of people.

Please continue to donate to help Ibrahim get his essential surgery and to help Maram’s family in these catastrophic times!

No donations since yesterday! Time is running out!

It means Cut My Own Throat. Because it's the PEDLAR'S SONG.

Terry Pratchett put a CMOT Dibbler reference into a song for a throwaway scene for a swan, in German. And I never knew because I don't speak German.

Take Lord Vetinari *, for instance, whose youthful nickname was "Dog-botherer" - not "God-botherer" because on the Discworld someone like that is a Gods-botherer so nobody on Cori Celesti feels left out - and is absolutely not the equivalent of the Roundworld's Lord Medici, who didn't bother dogs or gods but was a bit of a problem for the Pope.

* Explanation for US readers: animal doctors over here aren't "Veterinarians" but "Veterinary Surgeons", and the V-word is often pronounced Vitin'ry...

Then there are the two rival noble families called the Selachii and the Venturi, which doesn't matter at all unless you know those names translate as the Sharks and the Jets...

L-Space and Discworld Wiki are the places to learn more, lots more, but - like TVTropes - they've got so much cross-referenced information that they're real time-and-tab sinks, so set a timer before you start...

Once again. I can understand the kneejerk impulse here, I do. It sucks to imagine, say, a creator scrolling online coming across some needlessly vitriolic post about something they worked on. But anyone is allowed to go "That's dickish" and move on, or people can engage with "I think this is oversimplified blah blah" if they want to but at the end of the day it isn't some kind of crime against the hobby or a fandom or even a singular person if someone just shoots off "This sucked I wasted my night" in their own accounts.

Like. A lot of people are trending towards thinking I'm talking about the importance of constructive criticism and like, sure, I think that is probably a more interesting avenue of analyzing something's flaws, but once again if you're not like, addressing an artist or interested in doing a deep dive that doesn't mean you're Not Allowed to be flippant or quick to judge. It's kind of startling how many times I've seen someone be like, "I can't stand this album" on their blogs, untagged, had that shit shared, only for it to come across someone's feed and for them to respond with "Why? What's wrong with it? People are allowed to like it, why are you being so negative, why are you tearing people down for no reason, this isn't even real critique," as though the intention in the first place ever was or ought to have been substantive critique in the first place.

OK sometimes you don't like a certain art style. That's fine. Doesn't mean the art is bad, it's just not to your tastes.

That doesn't give you the right nor even a reason to be a dick on the Internet because you don't like something. If you want to be a dick, do it to someone who has time and energy to give it back. Because at that point you deserve shit in return.

If someone is outright asking for constructive criticism, that still doesn't give you the chance to be a dick. It means they want help learning something they're putting time and effort into.

Why do I need a "right" or "reason" to post anything online? Why is it that my enjoyment of something is intrinsically justifiable, but my lack of enjoyment requires justification? And based on whose standards? If I can thoughtlessly tweet out a "This album rocks," without expecting people who hate it to demand a longform review from me to explain my enjoyment, I'm not sure I understand why I can't say "This album sucks" without having to go into the trenches about its positive qualities and negative ones. Why do I need to formulate every opinion I have in the form of an art school critique addressing nobody at all?

Why can praise be thoughtless but criticism must, at all costs, be formulated in art school constructive form in case the creator happens to see it and get their feelings hurt or a fan finds it harmful? Particularly when someone could very well have their feelings hurt by thoughtless praise of something as well! I'm not even trying to claim a more substantive form of criticism isn't more interesting or more valuable for one's interpretive abilities. I just think this notion that there is a moral obligation in all online spaces-- no matter how siloed-- to tiptoe around the potential hurt feelings of a hypothetical audience that may or may not even be courted, is at best stultifying for any real plurality of opinion and at worst enabling people whose insecurities about their own hobbies lead them to confidently dictate what people say in whatever passes for privacy in an online space nowadays.

I dunno, I've read works of brutal polemic that I've found immensely creatively engaging, thoughtful, and substantial in its knowledge of a particular form or medium. I've read works of praise I've found miserably trite. Why is the former not allowed to exist because of its dickishness? Why is the latter beyond critique itself?

Why do you think someone being a dick is "expecting" someone to listen to your opinions? Why do you think that person is "expecting" any sort of audience at all? I am critiquing the inherent assumption that people who are "rude," however this is defined (and I believe it is ill-defined specifically because so much of this is conflated with whose feelings are hurt rather than the actual substance of whatever hypothetical comment is centered here), and have repeatedly emphasized in multiple places that there is a difference between approaching someone and insulting their tastes and creations versus airing an opinion in the (admittedly, increasingly decreasing) privacy of an online space.