Forum Federato

When I was a child we had fire drills and tornado drills. (Ohio)

There is a whole generation for whom “active shooter drills” are just as ordinary.

Every year teachers all over the US rehearse with their classes what they must do if someone decides to shoot up the school. The whole country has to bend around to accommodate the profits of arms dealers and “freedom feelings” a small number of people ascribe to having no effective tracking and licensing of deadly weapons.

When checking, none of them are in “sight lines” of the windows or doors? I have never felt less free.

Normal people don't know who Charlie Kirk is. My mom, dad, husband, neighbor are very confused why it's such a big deal.

Which is good to remember. He's never done anything notable. Didn't run for office, didn't break a big story, didn't write an important book.

So, for a lot of people this is all very confusing.

Stop calling it a “letter” from Trump to Epstein. It’s more like a page from a book. A 22 year old bound leather book of admiration letters, photos and memorabilia.

If it is a plant or a fake someone was planning this for 22 years. I keep bringing up that we know who bound this book. The shop is closed but their work is very recognizable. It’s hard to call the *only* Trump’s page a fake for these reasons.

The book as a whole is … disturbing. Given the context.

@thesquirrelfish @GinevraCat

That brings it back to economics IMO.

@dlakelan

Or it could be that people are lying less about having sex?

When I was younger I was kind of ashamed if I didn't have a "sex life" ... for guys this was way more intense and they all lied all the time about being players. It was very funny and obvious.

@minmi

“I had kids with this man and then he got overwhelmed by what it takes to parent and turned into an additional child to take care of”

Tale as old as time.

Being a parent is a lot.

@GinevraCat

Divorce is sometimes the right thing to do. And a low divorce rate could be a bad thing if people were feeling financially, or emotionally "trapped" in bad marriages.

But the rates are way down, it's one many remarkable social shifts that doesn't get talked about very much.

In my social circle there are very few divorces, but there are also not as many marriages as I think my mom might have seen.

@catmisgivings

Yeah, that's totally false. We live in a golden age of fidelity and commitment.

The secret? Only "commit" if you really want to.

The bitter irony of the "family is being destroyed" crowd destroying families by trying to ban gay marriage, scapegoating and persecuting trans people, deporting parts of perfectly happy families over minor paperwork errors or nothing...

I almost don't like to point out hypocrisy any more because to do so implies some set of shared vales and a capacity for caring that simply isn't there.

But I am very upset about all of these "attacks on the family" and how "the family is being destroyed"

I wonder, if like crime, if you asked people if divorce is a big problem if people would still overestimate it?

The fall in the divorce rate presents a problem for conservatives who want to talk about how "the family is being destroyed" (which family? how?)

But I wonder if people still think that a large number of marriages are ending in divorce.

All through the 80s and early 90s the news was dominated by stories about the "divorce epidemic" and "single moms" also "latch-key kids"

Then something shifted and I think people are less likely to get married due to outside pressure and social expectations, and more likely to do it because they just really like being married. (That's why I did it. 10/10 best choice ever.)

In fact the "young people are having less sex" stat is normally reported alongside similar stats showing smoking tobacco and drinking are less popular.

I've only once seen it alongside the marriage stat... which is odd isn't it? At least if you were expecting reporting to reflect "traditional values."

I also suspect some young people aren't dating or getting married or even going on vacation or having a drink ... because they are BROKE and working their fingers to the bone to survive.

This is a question for the younger adults. Those in your 20s and 30s. There have been a few surveys and articles about how "young people are having less sex" and "young people aren't getting married"

And then some people will say there is a "loneliness epidemic"

How real is this? Are these things even connected?

There are fewer marriages but also far fewer divorces which, to me, kind of sounds like a good thing?

But I rarely hear about the low divorce rate in this context.

shhhh!

My husband is developing an obsession with cicadas. He's always liked insects, but never really found "his bugs" but I think the mysterious goggle eye'd cicadas may have his heart.

I'm obtaining and leaving field guides in strategic locations about the apartment.

wish me luck!

(and if you have not yet found *your* bugs keep searching, there are bugs for each of us. )

@tiotasram @lori @timo21

The largest single contract, at $78.5 million: Jacksonville based Critical Response Strategies which is responsible for hiring corrections officers, camp managers and IT personnel.

https://criticalresponsestrategies.com/about-us/

Longview Solutions Group was awarded $25.6 million for site preparation and construction

https://longviewsolutionsgroup.com/

IT company Gothams has a $21.1 million contract to provide access badges and detainee wristbands.
https://www.gothams.com/

When the subway arrives just as you enter the station it’s like the longest limousine in the world pulling up perfectly to whisk you home.

@leadore

It was a more than a PR stunt. It was a trial balloon to see if they could get the public to go along with having it all out in the open operating at full capacity.

Dammit now you have me wondering if they didn’t fight back hard enough against the lawsuit just to let it go away without needing to admit it was wrong and disgusting.

of course it’s not gone yet.
of course there are more.

There is a voice in my head that keeps saying "There is a concentration camp in the swamps of Florida." When I'm shopping for groceries. When I'm taking a shower. "There is a concentration camp in the swamps of Florida."

Here is a tiny victory in a much bigger battle. There was a tension I've been holding in me ever since this place opened that I didn't even know was there.

https://www.newsweek.com/ron-desantis-wasted-250-million-alligator-alcatraz-it-faces-closure-2120638