take it easy baby now

[ID: A white man in a suit who is saying, "Now this might strike some viewers as harsh, but I believe everyone involved in this story should die". End ID]

-Don’t use “buy now pay later.” The fine print isn’t what it seems.

-The fine print on medical financing, store credit cards, and contactless payment is also not what it seems.

-Payday loans are still predatory, even when offered by your employer

-Rewards programs are an income stream for the companies that run them. The points systems are manipulated so that the house always wins. They depend on people leaving money in rewards accounts and not in interest-bearing traditional bank accounts.

-Electronic payment apps like VenMo are not banks. You don’t earn interest. Your money is not protected.

-Your financial information is not private if your money is not kept in a regulated bank.

-None of this is regulated by the FDIC. Your money is not protected if it is held by a non-bank doing banking business. Our economy is not protected from the collapse of financial institutions that are not banks.

 A third of younger Americans hold their savings on nonbank tech platforms like Venmo

PEOPLE! DO NOT LEAVE YOUR MONEY IN VENMO OR APPLE PAY OR ANY OF THIS SHIT. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GO FIND A REAL BANK OR A CREDIT UNION.

If Venmo were to close tomorrow all your money would vanish. There's no insurance or guarantee on any of these things. I know banks aren't great but legit banks will have the "FDIC insured" logo on their doors and websites, which means if my bank goes under tomorrow I still get my money back. Also I guarantee you there is a credit union somewhere in your town, go find it.

your funds are insured up to $250,000 by the FDIC in the event Green Dot Bank fails

In the event Green Dot Bank fails. Meaning the only time your money is protected is if Green Dot goes under. Not if Apple goes under (unlikely, granted). Or if Apple changes its terms (entirely possible). Or if you got scammed. Or if Apple freezes your account because they think you're the one scamming. Or any of the other countless mishaps your money could suffer. Green Dot is insured, but Apple Cash is not.

This is the disclaimer (highlighted) you see before you set up Apple Cash:

For the love of god get an account at a federally insured institution. Look for FDIC (banks) or NCUA (credit unions) insured and regulated financial institution. They are legally required to have this status publicly available and accessible so it's not hard to find.

The FDIC and/or NCUA will insure your accounts up to $250,000 PER AUTHORIZED SIGNER and per account type. These are factors to max your coverage to even higher than $250k but the key point is that if something happens to your bank or accounts there, that first $250k of your money is secured anyway.

Banks are for profit. Credit Unions are exactly what it sounds like: unions. They are not for profit and member owned.

Bigger institutions have more money and resources at their disposal; they have the fancier apps, 24/7 phone banking and more locations. But watch out! They are no different than any other large corporation you've heard of when it comes to ethics. Smaller institutions have more limitations, and lesser size is not an indicator of morality, but it's something to consider when choosing where to keep your money.

These institutions, regardless of what kind you choose, will offer interest bearing accounts. Money Market Savings and Time Accounts (also called Certificates of Deposit,) are popular choices to put the money you already have to work for you. You can earn money just for having your money in an interest bearing account type.

All financial institutions charge fees of one sort or another. They are offering products and services, after all. Nothing is free! They will also disclose options to avoid paying those fees, usually based around meeting specific criteria such as minimum balances or direct deposits.

[07/19] HAPPY BIRTHDAY AZUSA MIURA!

frequently when i’m out and about with someone walking, they can’t anticipate what path i will take and therefore they’re in my way pretty frequently. this is fine! i can politely ask them to step to the side. but it makes me think about how little non-wheelchair users understand the way wheelchair users move. as someone who used to walk everywhere, it was an adjustment period for me to figure out how to navigate the world in a chair. here are some things that didn’t occur to me so that you don’t cut off your friend right as they’re building momentum to go up a ramp 😆

for context, i use an active manual chair. the world is very different in a power chair. even among active manual chair users, there is a huge diversity in physicality and strategies for getting around. this is a general guide that i think will apply to most manual wheelchair users. i’m starting super basic and getting more complicated as i go.

———

1. manual wheelchairs are a momentum game. it is very easy to maintain speed and direction. but speeding up, slowing down, or turning, is hard. one thing this affects is if we’re on a wavy sidewalk or other twisty-turny walkway, that is a pain in the ass and i am taking as straight a path as i can.

2. wheelchair users also have to pay attention to the slope and condition of the pavement, so our path somewhere will be different than yours, even if we’re taking the same route to the same place. for example, i usually have to go down slopes straight, not diagonally, to avoid tipping over sideways. one area this affects is crosswalks. many intersections have one curb cut for both roads you could cross, which means i will go down curb cuts to a crosswalk as if i am aiming for the middle of the intersection.

your path in orange, mine in blue. to you it seems indirect, but to me it’s the path of least resistance.

i also will be building speed in the second half of the crosswalk. this is a much easier way to tackle a ramp. if i approach with momentum, i won’t have to drag myself up the slope once i get to it.

3. building momentum and maintaining it is only half of the job. the other half is stopping. manual wheelchairs cannot stop on a dime if they’re moving with any kind of speed. if i tried to stop immediately when going downhill, i would fly out of the chair. so don’t walk right into the path of a wheelchair in motion and then stop! i will have to turn to the side very quickly and hope i don’t tip. i can’t tell you how often parents pushing strollers will stop their stroller directly in my path and then get offended when i am alarmed and turn sharply to avoid hitting their child. from their perspective, i was being careless and going “too fast.” in reality, normal walking speed takes a few feet to slow down from and stop.

4. in terms of slope. see this street in san francisco?

i can’t go down this street, it’s way too steep. i would give myself friction burns on my palms trying to control my speed. if i was in a situation where there was no avoiding this street, like in an emergency, i would be breaking my straight-slope rule and zig-zagging in the middle of the road.

this would require several zig-zags back and forth, more than the four that i drew. i also could not go up this road other than with this method. up or down, i risk tipping over sideways if i’m not careful.

4. in a similar vein, consider terrain. slopes with grass or carpet take huge amounts of energy to get up. this grassy hill isn’t insurmountable, but it would take me like thirty minutes to get up there. honestly i would probably go backwards, because it’s easier to pull yourself up a slope than push yourself.

other types of terrain can be completely immobilizing, though. this decorative gravel pathway is beautiful, and inaccessible to me. my casters (front wheels) simply will not go through that.

5. in terms of walkways and obstacles. if there’s a deep gap in the pavement lined up the way i’m going, and it’s, say, an inch wide, that is an obstacle for me. my casters are one inch wide, and my back wheels are an inch and a half. i’ll get stuck in it like a train on a track.

i have to straddle this, even if it means being too close to the middle of the sidewalk and preventing us from walking side by side.

similarly, if a crack is greater than an inch high, i’m gonna wheelie over it. at two inches, i have to. a wheelie may require a change in speed, either faster or slower depending on the person.

i have 4 inch casters, so a lip as little as 2 inches will stop me in my tracks. a lip as little as one inch, hit with any speed, can knock my casters out of square. casters can get knocked out of alignment pretty easily depending on the chair. i’d rather not have to pull out an allen wrench and a level, so i’m gonna wheelie.

this happened when i hit about a 1.5” lip on a pavement crack when i was going downhill at maybe 3mph.

6. putting it all together. see how diagonal this crack is?

this is another situation where i have to go straight relative to the slope. because that crack is wide, it will probably also require a wheelie. if i tried to approach that straight relative to the sidewalk, my left caster would get up the slope, i’d wheelie, then my right caster would land in the crack. i have to go this way.

(also lol at the trash can blocking the curb cut)

Namaygoosisagagun First Nation/Collins has burned to the ground. The entire community is nothing but ashes after being quickly consumed by wildfires. They did not have any support from emergency services, and no one offered aid. The community saved themselves by escaping into boats because no one came.

Mishkeegogamang and Cat Lake have lost power. Families are ending up in shelters with nothing. Armstrong, Lac La Croix, Whitesand, Gull Bay, Lac des Mille Lacs are currently in the fires path and all members are being evacuated.

All this loss, all this devastation, and it was entirely preventable.

After steadily underfunding wildland firefighting and purposefully excluding Indigenous wildland firefighters and Indigenous wildfire organizations from wildfire operations, firefighter training, decisionmaking, and resource exchanges, in 2025, Doug Ford slashed the forest firefighting budget.

It's hard to ignore his decision to cut funding and leave us out of adequate fire training (even though we've lived with forest fires for thousands of years—far longer than settlers have been in Canada—and made sure fires like the ones we're all seeing today were prevented through kinisitotēn) when, despite making up less than 5% of the population, we account for 42% percent of all wildfire evacuations in Canada.

And when we are successfully evacuated, we face discrimination and racism—like Kashechewan—because it's always been easier to blame us than it is to blame the true culprit: denialism, corportate greed, and colonization.

The people of Collins and every other impacted community deserve better.

Right now, the AFN is currently accepting donations to help Collins First Nation. If you're able to, please consider donating.

ONWA (Ontario Native Women's Association) is another great place to donate to. They have outreach vans going to motels and inns and offering food, water, resources, and cultural support to those impacted by the wildfires.

Other places to consider donating to are Mikinakoos Emergency Fund, Red Cross, True North Aid, Indigenous Climate Action. You can also send donations directly to Whitesand First Nation via e-transfer ([email protected]) and they request that you add your full name in the e-transfer comment section to receive a tax receipt.

*Before sending money, verify that the appeal appears on an official First Nation, Tribal Council or registered charity channel.

If you can't offer financial support, please consider donating items of need. Moontime Connections is currently accepting drop-off donations. If you live in the Thunder Bay area, Namaygoosisagagun Health Office is also taking in donations! They can also bemailed to Superior Inn Hotel & Conference Centre at 555 West Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, ON, P7E 5P8.

items needed are: food, diapers, medical masks, men’s and women’s joggers (all sizes), children’s clothing (newborn to size 14), children’s shoes, summer clothing, men’s clothing, toiletries (lotion, Vaseline, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner, soap, deodorant, etc.), strollers, adult depends-all sizes, dog & cat food