My 6th grade social studies teacher played us the Gordon Lightfoot song and told us the story of the Edmund Fitzgerald. I’ve seen things from the wreck at the Whitefish Point museum, near where the ship went down. 10 pages in and I was wondering why anyone gets on a ship in the Great Lakes.

I went out earlier this week and it was 7 degrees and I thought how nice it out, and then had to wonder when 7 started feeling nice. I guess after -14 with wind, 7 and no wind is a big improvement.

Is this the same attitude you have about other prescription medications? There are many, many medications that have to be taken long term to maintain their effectiveness. Trying to achieve a healthy weight and longer life is not YOLO or expecting a “free lunch”.

I like reading romance novels as well as medical textbooks, but I have never considered whether or not I would enjoy them mixed together in some sort of freakish hybrid. I definitely do not like it.

His posts lately have been a lot of him telling people how terrible Medicare for all type care would be, and people trying to explain to him how their current insurance is already worse than that. A billionaire shouldn’t be trying to explain how insurance he doesn’t use works.

What is far more irritating as a rural person who can’t afford a fancy vacation is people who are condescending and think a politician should pretend to be poorer than they are to connect with rural people. I would rather they be themselves while working to make all our lives better.

Sure, not every rural person is a reader, but assuming that you shouldn’t post a reading list because it won’t connect with rural people is assuming we are stupid and don’t read.

You’re assuming it’s out of touch, and that there aren’t rural people who enjoy books, even if they buy them used or borrow from the library, or listen as audiobook while they are in tractor, as my son does, or on the way to their underpaid teaching job, as my aunt does.

This is a Bluesky post, not a political ad. The rural people that you apparently think are stupid will likely not even see it, but as rural person on a farm in Michigan, I found the list quite interesting and will probably read some.

I don’t know which would be worse- if the people in charge of our military are really this immoral and stupid and willing to break the law to murder these people, or if they’re just willing to lie to cover up the actual orders they were given from Hegseth.

My sibling group chat is sharing the letters from our insurance companies about how unaffordable insurance will be next year, and memes about Bubba and trump. We can focus on both at once.

I’m not even sure what a non-ethnic food would be, that fits with the heritage they think they have. The food of early medieval Northern Europe? Some bland root vegetables and beef or mutton? Certainly not spices from the places they despise.

I’m no communications expert, but it seems like helping people understand that those who are selling them these viewpoints are doing so to manipulate them into making their own lives worse could be useful.

of the population reject racism, sexism, nativism, etc and want a more equal society, we need to put more thought into what factors lead some people out of that and why others don’t.

and my grandma drove her kids 30 miles from the town they lived in to take them to a black dentist, which had to have been a deliberate choice, but I don’t know why, or what factors led to them seeing things differently from the people around them. It just seems like if we ever want to have more

I just try not to feel that I am somehow innately superior because it seems that it would have been very easy to end up seeing things how they did, and I’m glad I don’t, but I don’t feel like it’s because I’m just a better person. I grew up with a family that bought me books on civil rights,

I grew up in, and still live in a rural community, with a lot of racism, MAGA people, etc., but there are some people who see through it. I’ve thought a lot about what has made the difference, but I haven’t come to any firm conclusions because I think it’s likely a lot of factors.

I’m not saying it’s not possible to reject it, but that depends on a lot of factors. For instance, there has been research showing that politically conservative people tend to be more fear driven, which makes them easier to manipulate with fear based rhetoric about “different” people.

to women, then they don’t realize how it is really the rich oppressing them all, and that if they worked together, their lives would all be better. There is a reason the rich put so much effort into destroying educational systems and a more impartial media.

I think it is also similar to what wealthy white planters did in the south before the civil war- they promoted racism because they saw what happened when poor white people had solidarity with slaves. If they make poor white people feel better than black people & immigrants, make men feel superior

It’s a good thing my husband isn’t on Bluesky to see that slide or I know what he would be doing with our round bales next summer.

I literally know no one who is flying home for the holidays, and only a couple who fly more than very, very rarely. I know many people who already were struggling with healthcare costs before this and it will now be unaffordable.

The writers need to watch some soap operas apparently if they need some creative ways to bring back someone who appeared to die. Maybe they shouldn’t be writing movies if they have this little creativity.

I don’t think having all the farm land owned by guys like Bessent who buy land as an investment is going to be good for food security long term, but I don’t see any plans by anyone to make farming a viable way to make a living for regular people.

Losing money at a larger scale is still losing money. It doesn’t make sense. People romanticize small farms, but anyone farming that isn’t the Scott Bessent version, which is just being a landlord who charges enough to bankrupt farmers, is doing a hell of lot of work for little money.

That is a whole skill set that is entirely different from spending my days with my cows. You can’t milk a small herd and get by. Most milk comes from giant farms and I’m not sure the economics of those other than they are a giant tax write off for the rich maybe.

Dairy prices are so incredibly low that’s basically impossible though. The only that’s even slightly feasible is if I also want to have my own bottling facility, and then sell dairy products from my farm, with a storefront and all that entails or convince other businesses to buy.

We have about 15 cows (I never remember how many because I know them by name, not just a number). For the most part, they’ve been very expensive pets for years because you don’t make money raising cattle usually. Most are actually dairy breeds and I would love to milk them and sell it.

The price of beef is also actually where you could make money raising cattle. It’s a complicated problem to fix because it would involve our society not just handing over all the money to a few rich people, but a lot of food prices should be higher so farmers don’t have to live in poverty.

He means he is one of the rich guys buying up farmland for high prices and then renting it out at rates that are more than you can make farming it, bankrupting actual farmers. Most farmland sold in my area now is bought by “investment groups”.