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FirstCircle

@ FirstCircle @lemmy.ml

Posts
88
Comments
312
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Churches close their doors as fewer Americans attend

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  • Congrats to Buffalo, it sounds like things are looking up there.

    In my area (WA state) there was a small-ish Xian church (the one-storey building was probably <2000 sq ft and cheaply built - the steeple-ish thing (w/o a bell of course) blew off in a windstorm once)) that shut down a year or two ago and was boarded-up. It's been repurposed as a homeless shelter that specifically serves people with serious medical problems. The change has greatly improved the 'hood.

    People here are arguing for the (gate-kept) community that Xian churches once offered in the US. By "gate-kept" I'm referring to the fact that Xian churches were, and are, open to only the "right kind" of people. I'm sympathetic to the need for community, and have even looked around locally for what's on offer from Xian or Xian-aligned/compatible organizations, but haven't found any that promote an ideology that isn't based on superstition and that don't demand that I defer in all things moral/ontological to a human power hierarchy within the church. One whose authority, such as it is, is based on "it's in the Book".

    Hard pass on that. I'll find my community through volunteering and possibly, one day, through fraternal orgs, though I've found the ones around here (Masons, Rotary, &etc) are still hardcore on gatekeeping themselves, despite being on the wane just as much as Xian churches are. If you think you'd be most comfortable in a Xian-churchy sort of context, but are politically and socially "liberal", the UCC seems pretty inoffensive, though they still (at least locally here) carry on about "worshipping" invisible deities all the time. The Unitarian Universalists (uua.org) seem the least offensive of any old-timey church that I've encountered and it has a certain appeal to me for its association with New England and with 19th-century intellectuals like Emerson and Thoreau. The local UUs have had a local schism in the past five years, with the historical church taking a politically rightward lurch and another UU church spinning-off it but seemingly being more preoccupied with how their church is controlled (no more all-powerful pastor-types, only collective decision-making allowed) and less with charity and community. Finally we have Unity here (unity.org) which has potential for community, but where weekly service addendees seem to be almost exclusively elderly, so I wonder how much longer it will be a going concern?

    I'm hoping that someday we get a Satanic Temple that meets in-person here. I could definitely see myself joining that. The Church of the Subgenius (https://www.subgenius.com/), praise "Bob", would suit me well too, and I already own a copy of the Sacred Text, but they don't meet in person AFAIK.

  • Elon Musk pens German newspaper opinion piece supporting far-right AfD party

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  • And to dye his hair blonde, like frumpf does, rather than black. In the last pic I saw of Musk on stage, hopping around with Cheeto, he already had the big whale gut showing, so he's almost there.

  • Welcome to the femosphere, the latest dark, toxic corner of the internet… for women

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  • they would remain the person primarily responsible for keeping house and caring for children, but in which they would also be the sole financial provider, as well.

    Huh? Sole? House-husbands? I don't think I've ever met one. The norm across the vast majority of working- and professional-class people I've encountered is for both partners to be working or, if wealthy enough (the minority) for the woman to be the stay-at-home child-raiser.

    I could definitely imagine many, if not most women being disgruntled at the current socio-economic situation (at least in the US) where they're expected to both work at a paid job full-time (just like their spouse) while also doing a majority of the unpaid child-rearing work.

  • A 9th telecoms firm has been hit by a massive Chinese espionage campaign, the White House says

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  • So AP, why not Name and Shame this ninth company?

  • After backing Trump, low-income voters hope he doesn’t slash their benefits

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  • When our economy collapses due to the Musk/Trump "management" of it, then Musk/Trump/etc will need to start a hot war to put citizens to work and excuse vast new amounts of spending (financed with borrowing), mostly on the MIC. Just like Hitler did in the late 30s. Who the victim will be, I've no idea. The stupid little post-9/11 middle-eastern wars made MIC types richer but I don't think they greatly affected the US economy otherwise. No, I think we'll need a big war, against a fairly powerful opponent, to justify all of the "sacrifice" the domestic Poors are going to be asked to engage in. The opponent should be, ideally, a prime target for racial and cultural bigotry - a people that the Poors already think is gross. That'll boost the enlistment rates among their young, who'll be all too happy to sign up to murder whoever MAGA says is foul and hateable and responsible for the shit sandwiches that they've found on their plates. But will Musk/Trump try to take on a Russia or China or NK, opponents that might let fly with nukes? Wall St. won't be keen on that I think, and the billionaires own MAGA now, but still there'll be all those starving, diseased poors ... how will we protect billionaire wealth while maximally leveraging the poors' racism/bigotry and their desire to feel strong and important, to have a stage and to have at least a micro-MAGA-sized personal claim to glory?

  • CEOs struggle to process their new reality after the public glee at Brian Thompson’s killing

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  • thrown off of a moving train

    It's called "dying of an apparent suicide" and the authorities can find no sign of foul play. It's so sad when this sort of thing happens. The company's thoughts and prayers are with his family.

  • Deleted

    Permanently Deleted

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  • "woke", used in a US political context (and not as the past tense of "wake", as from sleep), doesn't have any meaning in the first place. It's made-up propaganda noise invented by the far-right. I refuse to parse any sentence containing the word, from the media, because that sentence is guaranteed to contain right-wing propaganda, if only obliquely. I certainly won't utilize the word in any political way myself - that would mean that I accept as legitimate the propaganda machinations of the right-wing. And they are pure festering slime, so no.

  • Eye in the sky: The feds have quietly built surveillance towers along the Canadian border in Vermont, New York

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  • citizens of another country

    Or another planet. Back in the day we addressed the alien problem with style, advanced technology, and a cool theme song. Nowadays it'll be just MAGA bumfucks running things, people who can barely put two coherent thoughts together, and that's on a good day.

  • Emboldened 'manosphere' accelerates threats and demeaning language toward women after US election

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  • Loser incels are so pathetic.

  • House passes bill allowing Trump admin to declare nonprofits supporters of terrorism

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  • If this becomes law the charitable-giving industry is going to be slammed. Right now there are lots of ways that you, a donor, can give to your favorite causes via an intermediary, taking a current tax deduction for doing so but (possibly) having the intermediary pay out in the future (an endowment), possibly forever (if endowment growth exceeds charitable outflows). If all of a sudden a large chunk of the nonprofit space are deemed anti-Trump "terrorists" then these intermediaries (public and private foundations and donor-advised funds (DAFs) for example) will suddenly have far fewer recipients to write checks to, and may have no recipients at all in the case where funds are directed to just a few recipients or areas-of-interest by the terms of the donation. Oh sure, the money will be disposed of one way or another, but it might very well not be disposed of in the way the donor intended at the time of the donation, and might well end up being disposed of in a way the donor would never have agreed to. Tough luck donor, you took the tax write-off, you can't get the donation $ back and you can't have it disbursed to non-charities either.

    These intermediaries, the foundations and charitable-fund managers, are themselves charities. Their job is to disburse donor funds to a myriad of charities more or less according to the wishes of their donors. So what happens when, say, Fidelity Charitable is deemed a "terrorist" org for sending donor money to the ACLU? If it's stripped of its nonprofit status, it can no longer be a DAF manager, so what then? What happens to the donors and all the assets under management? I suppose there will need to be a follow-on bill that will compel the fund managers under such circumstances to cut checks to Trump and Trump-affiliated orgs (nonprofit or not). I read recently that the sum of DAF assets under management alone is around $250B (2023 numbers I think) so if a substantial amount of those funds are deemed "terrorist" funds, then it'll be mighty tempting for "somebody", somebody bad at business yet well-known for criminality to see about doing some confiscation.

    Also, right now, if one is, say, a DAF donor, many of the managers (most?) allow you to make anonymous donations out of your account. But if you are (or were) having checks sent to newly disfavored (i.e. not regime-aligned) orgs, will the manager have to turn your name over to the government? After all, you'd then be a "terrorist" yourself wouldn't you?

    I could really see this decimating the charitable-giving industry. Charitable foundations and fund managers have got to be losing sleep over what these laws could entail. As a donor, unless I was already MAGA-aligned and really wanted that tax deduction, why would I bother with all this uncertainty and risk?

  • Democrats May Give Trump the Power to Wipe Out Nonprofits

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  • Inslee activates Washington National Guard ahead of Election Day

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  • Good. From another article posted here today, regarding NC domestic terrorists:

    In the summer of 2024, before Hurricane Helene, Veterans on Patrol was active in Spokane, Wash. In Telegram message from July 2, 2024, Veterans on Patrol announced to the police that it “would no longer be safe” for one of its officers “to work his beat.” The channel also posted the home addresses of city council members.

  • 2 dead, 6 injured in Orlando mass shooting amid Halloween festivities

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  • The assault was one of at least 439 mass shootings in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that defines mass shootings as incidents involving four or more victims.

  • Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin endorses Trump for president

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  • Ah, a @YourChildhoodRuined moment. Just great. :-(

  • Teenager Is in Custody After 5 Are Found Dead in Home Shooting

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  • Court upholds freedom for woman whose conviction was overturned after 43 years behind bars

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  • O’Brien also outlined evidence that was withheld that pointed to Michael Holman — a former police officer, who died in 2015. Evidence showed that Holman’s pickup truck was seen outside Jeschke’s apartment, that he tried to use her credit card, and that her earrings were found in his home.

    The appellate court’s ruling said the record “strongly suggests” that police buried their investigation into Holman.

    One of the appellate court judges noted particular concern about what happened when Holman, the discredited police officer, couldn’t be ruled out as the source of a palm print detected on a TV antenna cable found next to the victim’s body.

    The FBI asked for clearer prints, but police didn’t follow up. Jurors never heard about that or other evidence because the police never informed prosecutors.

  • 12-year-old boy brought loaded handgun to Shaw Middle School, police say

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  • New article with more details: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/oct/16/12-year-old-who-brought-loaded-handgun-to-school-t/ .

    Court records say another student was skipping class and hanging out with JV near the stairs when she saw the barrel of a handgun inside his backpack. When she asked about it, he said he was holding it for someone.

    The student criticized JV for bringing a gun to school and he responded, “If you snitch, I will pop you in your head the next time I see you,” records say.

    Another student who was skipping class told police JV showed her the gun and asked her not to judge him. He said he had it because another student would be coming to the school, records say, but didn’t give any more details.

    The semi-automatic, 45-caliber Springfield model handgun found in the backpack had bullets loaded in the magazine, but no round was yet chambered in the barrel.

  • Kamala Harris 'is in control of this hurricane' using 'weather weapons': Alex Jones

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  • I don't understand what the word "certified" is supposed to mean in his rant. Is this some new teen-speak redefinition that he's trying to appropriate? "power certified"? Huh?

  • Florida university to host extremist after DeSantis-led lurch to right

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  • "MAGA is eating out" - this is happening to the colleges in N. Idaho as well, possibly all of ID. Schools losing accreditation, admin and faculty bailing, students unable to xfer credits... a big shit-show that fucks over students but makes the local Fascists think that they're "taking back education". Got kids? Send 'em to FL or ID and they can get an unaccredited PhD in Ignorance Studies in a year or less.

  • Four dead and 18 hurt in Alabama mass shooting

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  • At the scene, multiple people pulled over in a car and fired with at least one automatic weapon at one person before getting back into the vehicle and fleeing the scene, Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond said in an update Sunday morning. More than 100 shell casings were collected at the scene, among other pieces of evidence, and bystanders were caught in the crossfire.

    Thurmond said the shooting was not random and may have stemmed from an alleged murder-for-hire against an individual in the Five Points South entertainment district at the time. No one is in custody, but police are asking for businesses and witnesses to report any information they have.

    City and police officials believe a switch — a small device that can convert a semi-automatic handgun into a fully automatic weapon — may have been used in the shooting.

    https://wbhm.org/2024/birmingham-police-4-dead-dozens-injured-in-five-points-south-mass-shooting/