Thanks!

Find a supportive and fulfilling community that is trying to make things better locally. I’ve found this at my Unitarian Universalist (UU) church. UU’s don’t believe in a shared religious text, instead they have a core set of shared values. My church has people who identify as atheist, Christian, several types of pagan, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, etc. We celebrate religious holidays from all of them as well as secular holidays like Trans Day of Visibility and Earth day. The focus is on being together and trying to make the world a better place. There’s active volunteer groups for hunger relief, housing support, the environment, and LGBTQ support. I also really like the music program. There’s a handy website to find a congregation near you, many stream services on Zoom so you can test them out before going in person. They can vary a lot based on the members of each congregation.

Yes, exactly. You need a stable society to run oil refineries and distribute the gasoline to every community. Portable solar panels may be a trickle of energy, but it’s still something to juice up an EV that only requires sun. Some EV can also power an extension cord, so they’re a mobile back up battery.

They give fine grain details on the Chance For Hope Foundation page. There are some pieces of info the charity posts transparently, but they’re missing critical items like any financial statements. The Charity Navigator rating system basically only recommends donating to charities with a perfect 4 star rating.

There are many great organizations out there doing awesome work. The website Charity Navigator does a good job rating different organizations for their transparency and how much of their funds are actually spent on their mission. They gave the “charity” mentioned in the article a 2 star rating.

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My money is on Detroit for the first one

Recommend this City Nerd video on downtowns with the best and worst parking lots

Not strictly about boundaries, but I think you’d like the Evolving Self by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It goes a lot into how to consider your priorities in life and what you want to spend your time on

Agreed. There’s plenty of suffering that happens in life just because. Purposeful suffering doesn’t seem like a good thing in most cases.

But there’s also the issue of the definition of suffering. Minor suffering like tolerating a colder thermostat setting in the winter, it saves money and energy, seems rather subjective on where the line could be drawn on bad vs good.

Check out your local recycling center, they often do tours!

Hmm I wonder which power source may be best suited for dry and sunny areas with abundant land available

There was news today that the Senate is considering cutting Medicare in addition to Medicaid, as well as news of major changes to how science funding is sent out to researchers. Also the travel bans for foreign nationals from certain countries.

This is why. Republicans in Congress are planning to take “at least” $880 Billion over ten years out of Medicare and Medicaid to pay for extending tax cuts for the wealthy. There are also ads in the opposite direction raising alarm about this. They say they’ll make the cuts without reducing benefits, and by that they generally mean they’re going to pay doctors even less for caring for those patients.

The Coalition to Strengthen Healthcare has some resources to facilitate grass roots advocacy if you’re interested!

Plants are actually pretty sensitive to soil compaction, which can take a lot of time to reverse. the composition clay/sand in the soil can changed the time it takes to resettle, and it might even just erode down to rock.

Our Shark brand vacuum has been a world of difference with dog hair in the carpet, compared to our previous vacuum. They have several models in your price range

Echoing that the Hyundai Ioniqs are fantastic EVs with plenty of actual buttons in the console as well as fast charging speeds (the chargers themselves are the limiting factor)

What’s wrong with frogs?!

They’ve recently awoken from hibernation in my neighborhood and you can hear them at night. Frog season is great! 🐸

You can either start with a general Internet search for doctors and read their reviews and check if they accept your insurance. Or start with your insurance company’s list of providers (which may be out of date) and then go read reviews for doctors. If possible, I highly recommend non-profit/university-affiliated doctors offices, and especially stay away from anything owned by private equity…they try to squeeze as much money out of patients and their employees as possible.

In the US, doctors aren’t allowed to share info about their patients with anyone without the patient’s permission. However, there are lists out there for people who try to circumvent controlled substance laws.

Wicca/paganism/Earth-based traditions tend to be matriarchal and use names like Earth Mother, Ancient Mother, Gaia, etc to describe the most powerful deity.

A lot of things marketed as soaps these days are really detergents that contain sulfates and can be very harmful if swallowed.

Stick to FDA approved medicines. Medicine like tums use this strategy to decrease the acidity. Other medications block the stomach’s ability to become acidic.

If you have heart burn that won’t go away or chronic acid reflux, see a doctor