Something Writing

linked tree (includes options to donate to Ghanaian projects)

mom's minion memes for real justice

An antiviral pill has, for the first time, been shown to prevent COVID-19 in people exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus at home, according to trial results published today in the New England Journal of Medicine1. The drug could be a lifeline for those who still face real danger from the virus, such as care-home residents or transplant recipients on immune-suppressing medication.

The shuttering after dark gets on my nerves in particular bc whenever we were out in WV visiting family during the summer, our house’s windows would be open and stay open because we did not have a lick of air conditioning. Or insulation.

Do you know what counties and communities have high Melungeon populations, what their names usually are, and why or do you just holler about possibly being Melungeon because your hair has multiple textures?

Why is it always your Cherokee great grandma and never Haudenosaunee, Shawnee, or Lenape?

Can you tell me what the cultural dynamics between Slavic/Hungarian, Scottish, and Irish Appalachians are? Are you even aware that those dynamics exist?

Better yet, can you tell me the significance of Black communities in our labor rights movements? Because Appalachia has Black people, regardless of what your stereotypes and pop culture interpretations insist on.

Y’all are all about Appalachia and it’s “wild magic” until you have to be respectful about people who have to eat roadkill or hunt off of their back porch, respect that people sincerely believe in Christianity, or until you realize that our communities didn’t just not share remedies because of skin color.

This region has been exploited to hell and back, and back into hell one time just for good measure, don’t think you’re immune to being an exploiter just because you talk about medicine instead of coal.

Anyways, if you are interested in contributing positively to Appalachian communities, Western NC is still recovering from Hurricane Helene almost two years on because the federal government has no interest in offering any real effort at aid, take a look at this site for ways to help:

Those people are not the enemy, they just need to learn that there's beautiful nature everywhere - it just needs our help. Cleaning up garbage and encouraging the planting of native plants, helping to change city/town/HOA bylaws to encourage more native plants are all things people can do to help nature around them. Guerrilla gardening native plants is one of the easiest things to do, most people don't even notice, and the natural world comes back in droves when you do.

The real enemies are Trump and the 1%, the owners of Fox news, all the data centers that are trying to build up here. The wealthy assholes clear cutting the mountain tops so they can build their 4th vacation home "for the views" but don't contribute to the local economy. Chronic lack of social services? Long term policy issues aggravated by the endless right wing propaganda here. Yes our local governments are broke as hell from the lack of FEMA funding. They spend a lot of money that was never reimbursed by the feds.

As someone in a Helene-ravaged area, never heard of cfwnc. My family gives to MANNA, the regional food bank and will continue to do so for as long as we can - and I highly encourage donations to them.

We also need tourism money from the not deer people! Come come see these beautiful mountains! Please don't feed the wildlife - you'll get them killed - but come see this beautiful region.

For two, the whole thing about Appalachia being so spiritually dangerous, which is where the darn not-deer thing got so popular from to begin with, is always framed in the context of "guys listen!!11! Appalachia is so dangerous!! you guys need to listen to us and stay out of the woods!!" which achieves rather the opposite of what you said, which is to get people to appreciate how beautiful the region is and appreciate nature.

They've been showing up to r/Appalachia (which at one point had 180,000 members and is the largest non-right wing Appalachian centric community I know of) for years and pepper the community with questions, they may be annoying but AFAIK they are also the fellow working class and did not / do not actually contribute to any sort of structural oppression. They post on other subreddits like r/nosleep, r/paranormal, r/backwoodscreepy, and r/cryptids, hilariously they have even set up r/notdeer.

They didn't sell my neighbors cheap addictive drugs, they didn't work together to politically weaken labor laws and unions, they didn't work to ensure my neighbors still don't have money yet from FEMA buy outs from trashed Helene homes. They didn't politically work to remove a significant amount of money that came to our food banks. They are not lobbying to or outright buying mountain tops to clear cut them and plop hideous mansions on top of them. They are not trying to build massive AI data centers across the entire region. They are not trying to sell off the national lands to 1%ers. They are not part of the nonstop propaganda machine from the 1% that has Appalachians repeatedly voting against their own economic interests. They aren't trying to build a massive methane gas pipeline in TN, they didn't built the horrific Mountain Valley Pipeline that mountain people fought and lost the battle. They aren't declaring their coal mine companies bankrupt in order to avoid the environmental cleanup. They sure as hell aren't part of the persistent crabs in the bucket or tall poppy syndrome mentality rampant across many of our most impoverished communities, and where so many of our brightest and the best leave for better educational and economic opportunities.

New antivirals and vaccines could follow the discovery by Australian researchers of strategies used by viruses to control our cells. Led by Monash University and the University of Melbourne, and published in Nature Communications, the study reveals how rabies virus manipulates so many cellular processes despite being armed with only a few proteins.

"RNA is the same molecule used in new-generation RNA vaccines, but it plays essential roles inside our cells, carrying genetic messages, coordinating immune responses, and helping make the building blocks of life."

Co-senior author Professor Paul Gooley, head of the University of Melbourne's Gooley Laboratory, said by targeting RNA systems, the viral P protein could switch between different physical "phases" inside the cell.

"This allows it to infiltrate many of the cell's liquid-like compartments, take control of vital processes, and turn the cell into a highly efficient virus factory," Professor Gooley said.

"Although this study focused on rabies, the same strategy is likely used by other dangerous viruses such as Nipah and Ebola. Understanding this new mechanism opens exciting possibilities for developing antivirals or vaccines that block this remarkable adaptability."

Dr. Rawlinson said the study should change how scientists think about multifunctional viral proteins. "Until now, these proteins were often viewed like trains made up of several carriages, with each carriage (or module) responsible for a specific task," he said.

"According to this view, shorter versions of a protein should simply lose function as carriages are removed. However, this simple model could not explain why some shorter viral proteins actually gain new abilities. We found that multifunctionality can also arise from the way the 'carriages' interact and fold together to create different overall shapes, as well as forming new abilities such as binding to RNA."

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Associate Professor Moseley said this RNA binding allowed the protein to move between different physical 'phases' within the cell.

"In doing so, it can access and manipulate many of the cell's own liquid-like compartments that control key processes, such as immune defense and protein production," he said.

It took a few years for them to get a place of their own, but after a few rentals and apartments, they now own a split level ranch in a town nearby. I’ve lost track of how many coworkers and friends have stayed with them when they were in a tight spot. A mother and son getting out of an abusive relationship, a divorcee trying to stay local for his kids while they work out a custody agreement, you name it. My aunt and uncle knew first hand what that kindness meant, and always find space for someone who needed it, the way my parents had for them.

That same aunt and uncle visited me in [redacted] city last year. They are prolific drinkers, so we spent most of the day bar hopping. As we wandered the city, any time we passed a homeless person, my uncle would pull out a fresh cigarette and ask them if they had a light. Regardless of if they had a lighter on hand or not, he offered them a few bucks in exchange, which he explained to me after was because he felt it would be easier for them to accept in exchange for a service, no matter how small.

I work for a company that produces a lot of fabric waste. Every few weeks, I bring two big black trash bags full of discarded material over to a woman who works down the hall. She distributes them to local churches, quilting clubs, and teachers who can use them for crafts. She’s currently in the process of working with our building to set up a recycling program for the smaller pieces of fabric that are harder to find use for.

One of my best friends gives monthly donations to four or five local organizations. She’s fortunate enough to have a tech job that gives her a good salary, and she knows that a recurring donation is more valuable to a non-profit because they can rely on that money month after month, and can plan ways to stretch that dollar for maximum impact. One of those organizations is a native plant trust, and once she’s out of her apartment complex and in a home with a yard, she has plans to convert it into a haven of local flora.

My partner works for a company that is working to help regulate crypto and hold the current bad actors in the space accountable for their actions. We unfortunately live in a time where technology develops far too fast for bureaucracy to keep up with, but just because people use a technology for ill gain doesn’t mean the technology itself is bad. The blockchain is something that she finds fascinating and powerful, and she is using her degree and her expertise to turn it into a tool for good.

I knew someone who always had a bag of treats in their purse, on the odd chance they came across a stray cat or dog, they had something to offer them.

I follow artists who post about every local election they know of, because they know their platform gives them more reach than the average person, and that they can leverage that platform to encourage people to vote in elections that get less attention, but in many ways have more impact on the direction our country is going to go.

All of this to say, there’s more than one way to do good in the world. Social media leads us to believe that the loudest, the most vocal, the most prolific poster is the most virtuous, but they are only a piece of the puzzle. (And if virtue for virtues sake is your end goal, you’ve already lost, but that’s a different post). Community is built of people leveraging their privileges to help those without them. We need people doing all of those things and more, because no individual can or should do all of it. You would be stretched too thin, your efforts valiant, but less effective in your ambition.

"...Now, a team of climate communication experts – including many members of the former climate.gov team – is working to resurrect its content into a new organization with an expanded mission.

Their effort’s new website, climate.us, would not only offer public-facing interpretations of climate science, but could also begin to directly offer climate-related services, such as assisting local governments with mapping increased flooding risk due to climate change.

The effort is being led by climate.gov’s former managing editor, Rebecca Lindsey, who, although now unemployed, has recruited several of her former colleagues to volunteer their time in an attempt to build climate.us into a thriving non-profit organization.

“A lot of federal employees are grieving over the sense that they’ve not just lost a job, but a vocation,” said Lindsey. “None of us were ready to let go of climate.gov and the mission.”

In the first few weeks after the Trump administration ended their work, Lindsey’s new team has received a steady flow of outside support, including legal support, and a short-term grant that has helped them develop a vision for what they’d like to do next.

“The things that were most popular on climate.gov were things that basically just taught people about climate, both natural climate and climate change,” said Lindsey. “There is a need for content that helps people achieve basic climate literacy independent of an agency.”

As multiyear veterans of the federal bureaucracy, at times they’ve been surprised by the possibilities that the new effort might offer.

“We’re allowed to use TikTok now,” said Lindsey. “We’re allowed to have a little bit of fun. We have a group chat. We’re diving into things that are not part of our wheelhouse.”