Checking In

[twistedchick]

This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time on Friday) now to midnight UT (8pm Saturday Eastern Time).

Poll #24357 Daily poll

This poll is closed.
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 54

How are you doing?

I am OK
40 (74.1%)

I am not OK but I don't need help right now
14 (25.9%)

I could use some help
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single
22 (40.7%)

One other person
16 (29.6%)

More than one other person
16 (29.6%)

Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

Comments

[hitokage]

Grandson D is staying with us this weekend and on the one hand, having him visit is nice and on the other hand, GA isn't exactly doing great numbers with COVID, so my anxiety is going extra crispy now. At least this time it's not an emergency visit and we've got snacks and lemonade and his dad brought cereal and tuna (kid LOVES tuna salad) and bread, so we're good. Just, you know, pandemic anxiety because my brain's stuck on that.

[mecurtin]

Sprog gets together on Saturday evenings to Zoom with some high school friends. She's disturbed by some of what they're saying (they are NOT Trumpers), and would like to have some informative & persuasive links available to give them.

What is persuasive: reporting from major, mainstream news organizations; articles from major scientific journals or Scientific American. The more staid and boring the source, the better.

Here are the points she wants to push back on:

a. "The BLM protesters have some good points, but it's bringing out people who are looting and burning."

b. "I don't trust the COVID-19 data, I think the media is trying to make it sound more apocalyptic than it is."

Can any of you help?

[twistedchick]

Data on COVID compiled by Johns Hopkins, one of the major research hospitals and medical schools in the country, updated daily: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

It *is* apocalyptic. If anything, the media is understating.

Also, although I do not have good links off the top of my head, it is *not* uncommon for more than one group -- or subgroups with different interests-- to get themselves involved in situations of civil unrest. What I think of historically is the combination of peace marchers, Students for a Democratic Society, Weathermen, Black Panthers (who were also feeding the hungry and staffing food kitchens), and some totally bizarre religious cults, all out there during the same civil events in the 60s. People may have high ideals, but they often do things for their own purposes, and one of those purposes can sometimes include throwing disrepute and shade on other groups. Not at all unusual.

[hitokage]

One COVID link from NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/16/891997539/georgia-hospital-worker-sounds-alarm-i-have-never-ever-seen-anything-like-this

NPR has more, I'm sure, but I'm supposed to be going to bed shortly, so...

Also, suggest she ask THEM for THEIR sources and point her at the Media Bias Chart (which is up to version 6 as of right now). Depending on where her friends are getting their info, their sources may not even be on the chart yet, but it's a starting place. And a good excuse to talk about how to identify actual bias vs. perceptions of bias and what non-biased vs. both-sides-ism.

[we_are_spc]

I've had a lot going on this week. If nothing else, this is teaching me that life doesn't slow down, it just gets faster.
-tried to help a friend financially, found out I couldn't, worked through things with him
-said friend lost his father and now must raise funds to bury yhim properly
-found out my own dad's in the hospitl for non-Covid related issues
-someone in the house has come up with Covid symptoms
-found a mattress I like+some other accessories, don't yet have the funds to even think about financing it
-trying to keep up two new businesses, and only half-succeeding at it
-feeling very overwhelmed because therapy is on different days and the break in routine has me freaking out just a tad, which is a new thing for me.
-drinking too much caffine because too addicted and not having the will to argue with myself about it.

...

Yeah, so there's all that. I just...I can't do this forever. I have a friend who's depression is very similar to my own and every time he says he feels alone, or he's really hurting, I wans to say "So am I, dammiit!"...and I don't. But I'm not sure I can talk to this person much longer, let anone be a partner to him (Which isn't even on the table, but I met him through a blind singles group, so) because our mental states are *too* similar.

-T~