Live Like the World is Dying—S1E64
This Month in the Apocalypse
Episode Summary
Brooke and Margaret talk about everything that went wrong this last month, and some good things. Sort of. They talk about more chemical spills, storing water and water filtration, tornadoes, more new on anti-trans bills, inflation, super fun fungi, not fun at all guy Trump’ indictment, and how a drone (or satellite phone) could save your life and also make you a vampire.
Host Info
Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Brooke can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke.
Publisher Info
This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.
Transcript
This Month in the Apocalypse: March, 2023
Brooke 00:16
Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying ,your podcast for it feels like the end times. This is the March]April installment of our segment This Month in the Apocalypse. I’m Brooke Jackson and with me today is the infamous Margaret Killjoy.
Margaret 00:30
I’m infamous now, what did I do?
Brooke 00:33
Well known for being famous? Oh wait, that’s not what that word means.
Margaret 00:37
No. It means famous for bad.
Brooke 00:41
Well, bad means good. [Laughing]
Brooke 00:46
You’re bad. This podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts. Before we dive into today’s episode, we’d like to share a little jingle from another pod on our network.
Brooke 01:08
And we’re back. Margaret. How are you feeling today?
Margaret 01:11
I have a toothache and I’m grouchy. How are you?
Brooke 01:15
I’m doing okay. I have intermittent sunshine.
Margaret 01:19
Oh, does that mean it’s almost not Pacific Northwest winter?
Brooke 01:25
Well, it’s intermittent with like super heavy rains and or hail.
Margaret 01:29
Oh. The weather is much nicer where I’m at.
Brooke 01:32
Yeah, it’s Oregon doing its ‘hold my beer’ weather.
Margaret 01:37
Well, do you wanna hear about some shit that happened this this month?
Brooke 01:43
I definitely do.
Margaret 01:44
A ton of shit happened this month. It’s always funny to do these, because there’s like all of these huge events. There’s like one huge event a week and then it’s like they’re already out of our collective attention spans. So, on March, 26th, a pipe broke at the Trensio PLC chemical plant near the Delaware River. This is the the Philadelphia spill, right? It spilled ethyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, and butyl acrylate into a creek called Otter Creek. Between eight and twelve thousand gallons of this stuff that is used…It’s basically synthetic latex or it’s like the precursors, I believe, to synthetic latex.
Brooke 02:21
That’s a lot of ‘lates’ spilled.
Margaret 02:24
Yeah. And one of them is double meth. But, it actually has nothing to do with meth. I’m sorry. So, it ended up not being….well, it was a big deal. But, it was almost a big deal as in like the entire city of Philadelphia or rather the eastern half of Philadelphia and like millions of people were going to be like completely fucked and out of drinking water. And so we had this fun scare. Not me. I’m not in Philadelphia. People had this fun scare where the city of Philadelphia sent out like, “Oh shit, don’t drink the water alert.” And then later, they sent out a, “Wait, it’s okay to drink it until midnight on Monday. You better fill up some jugs.” And it was just like…but during the OH SHIT scare, right? Like there was just like, no fucking bottled water on any shelves immediately. Right? And in the end, the city’s water was not impacted. And this isn’t like a coincidence. It wasn’t like, “Oh, oops, our bad, nothing was actually wrong.” It was actually like credit where it’s due, it was the coordination of the Department of Public Works and some other folks. And they like got their shit together. And they closed off the water treatment plant that was bringing in water from the river and all that shit. And do you want to know how to get butyl acrylate out of your water in case you have to?
Brooke 02:38
Do I want to know?
Margaret 03:44
You can’t.
Brooke 03:48
Okay, so I already know how.
Margaret 03:49
I mean….Okay, I’m gonna say you can’t and then I’m gonna go into more detail. Because water filtration is something I did a bunch of research about this week. And it’s something that’s like always been sort of on my radar as a weird prepper. Chemical contamination in water is one of the hardest things to filter out. The way it’s handled on an industrial level, is some shit with some fucking little tiny goober plants that eat the chemicals or whatever. I don’t have the name of it in front of me because I’m not good at my job. And it’s not something that people are doing on a home scale. There are other ways that people can minimize the chemicals in their water. Overall, when you’re trying to filter water, chemical contamination is the hardest thing to get rid of. It is much easier to get rid of heavy metals. It is much, much easier to get rid of protozoa, bacteria, viruses, all kinds of things, right? You’re not boiling away your butyl acylate. And, you’re not filtering it out directly. However, through the process of adsorption, which is absorption but backwards. ‘Ad’ instead of ‘Ab.’ Basically, the charcoal filter that are like in your like fucking Brita water filters and stuff like that, that is closest to the DIY version. They are not rated to do this. Do not drink this shit thinking it’s safe because some girl on the internet said….Well actually I said it’s not safe. But overall, removing chemicals from water of the various DIY filtration methods, passing things through an activated carbon filter is more effective, because more of the various particles stick to that than like most of the…it’s kind of funny, because overall, like the kinds of filters that you usually want for like hardcore stuff are not home filters, they’re like, like camping filters and stuff, but it’s just like not actually the case with chemical stuff. But overall…
Brooke 05:46
Okay, but what if I doubled Brita it? If I just if I just pour through the Brita filter twice? Is that? Is that enough?
Margaret 05:52
Like, if I was going to die of thirst, and I had some water from the Delaware River, what I would do is I would filter it over and over again, maybe through different charcoal filters. And then I would hope that…and I would only do this because dying of thirst is more immediate of a problem than dying of like whatever poison that you’re getting through this shit. But, there is like some advice that I want to throw out there about how to prepare for this kind of disaster. This is obviously not the first time some of these similar acylates. I can’t remember which of these ones. I can’t remember if it was butyl acrylate or ethyl acylate was one of the main things that spilled in Ohio. So, it’s something that is like increasingly on people’s threat analysis, right? The main way is to have water stored ahead of time. The main ways to find different sources of water. And so, one thing that’s like worth knowing is that water does not really in and of itself go bad. Water, like, has stuff in it, that goes bad, right? But if water is like, correctly treated and sealed properly, it does not itself go bad. What I would recommend to people is if you’re lazy and easy go get several gallons of bottled water and just keep it around. So, like worst case scenario of some drinking water during time of crisis. Because you can’t boil advisory this shit, right? And then the other thing is, if you want to store your own water….oh, and then that water you get, you should replace every two years or so. Just because even though it doesn’t go bad, the plastic that it’s in tends to degrade. They tend to be clear bottles, and you keep it out of heat and sun and it’ll last longer. Go ahead…
Brooke 07:31
Is it not just refilling the containers? Because I have like a bunch of one gallon water jugs that I’ll you know, put on the garden and then refill. But should I replace the jug itself too in those cases? It’s not a long term jug. It’s like the whatever store brand in a gallon jug.
Margaret 07:52
Well, so it’s funny, because a store brand gallon if you never open it and don’t fill it yourself and it’s sealed, is a reasonable thing to store for several years. Especially if you keep it out of the sun, and you keep it in a cool place, because then the plastic degrades less into the water. But if you’re filling up your own jugs, especially if they’re clear jugs, and especially if you’ve ever drank out of them, like directly, you just replace the water fairly often. And you like look for smells and growth and all that shit and keep it in a cool dark place. I don’t keep store bought water, I keep five gallon jerry cans, and then I refill them. People say to do it every six months or a year. I do it closer to every year. But just having enough to have like emergency drinking water on hand during the time of a crisis where it takes time for water to come back online, or for you to set up a way to get it from elsewhere is something I recommend to people. That’s what I got about the Philly spill. Unless you have other questions about water storage?
Brooke 08:54
I feel like we could do a whole thing on water right now, but I’m not going to dump into it. I do have several kinds of different water storage. I have some of the little one gallons from the store and I have some, you know, five gallon heavy duties. And I have some big barrels of water and a whole set up. But, I’m curious if….You mentioned something at the very beginning about a like boil water advisory or something like that. And is that a common thing for other people? Because I feel like that’s a common thing for me where I live, that we have those often enough that I’ve had to deal with it and learn how to do that on a regular basis. But, in other places, is that normal? I guess probably not.
Margaret 09:32
No, it happens a lot in the US now. It either didn’t used to, or it used to be more insulated from it. But, I’ve been in a bunch of different cities where they’ve had boil advisories for various lengths of times. If the boil advisories around like bacterial stuff, which I think is what most of them are, I am now speaking off the cuff. You can also filter it, but not with your Brita. You can filter it with a camping style filter if it’s a protozoa are bacterial worry, as long as the micron size is like .2 or so, you’re fine. If it’s a viral worry, which is almost never the case in the continental United States, your micron size needs to be .02. Instead of .2. Maybe it’s .01. It needs to be rated for viruses, which is rarer, and mostly camping filters don’t do that.
Brooke 10:25
Yeah, okay. That makes sense. Well, speaking of water stuff: air.
Margaret 10:35
We need that.
Brooke 10:36
Yeah, we do. Just all the elements. Weird weather. Have you heard about the tornadoes that that were happening over this last weekend?
Margaret 10:45
Yeah, there’s too many of them.
Brooke 10:47
Yeah, It’s kind of wild. So, as we’re recording this, it’s early April. We just got through the first weekend of April and there were at least 50 separate tornadoes that hit the American Midwest, South, and parts of the East Coast. They hit like a bunch of states, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. There were four separate tornadoes in New Jersey alone, which I don’t think of New Jersey as being a tornado prone state. But, maybe that’s just me not knowing things. But, they’re also expected to have more tornadoes coming up by the time you hear this they hopefully have come and gone. But, they’re supposed to affect as many as 16 states and all in the next couple of days. With the most serious risks two parts of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa and Northwest Illinois. [Said like “Ili-noise”] I watched a video….
Margaret 11:42
What was the last state?
Brooke 11:44
Illi-noise.
Margaret 11:47
Never heard of that state.
Brooke 11:48
Ilii-noooise. I refuse. Also, I’m sorry, I said Arkansas wrong. It’s Ar-Kansas, Ar-Kansas. Tornadoes. So sorry for my mispronunciations there. [Laughing].
Margaret 12:05
Our-Kansas as compared to the Their-Kansas.
Brooke 12:10
Yeah, I watched a fun video of there’s someone who was trying to film a tornado with her phone. And the tornado came up and slammed into the building that she was in. And the phone kept filming, but it was just like, debris and shit flying around and just total chaos.
Margaret 12:29
We might have different definitions of the word fun. Did she survive?
Brooke 12:33
Yeah, she did.
Margaret 12:34
Okay.
Brooke 12:35
Okay, I think she got pretty well banged up and bloodied and stuff, broken glass and all that. And she posted to whatever social media, the video, and the comment of “If there’s a tornado coming, don’t try and film it. Get cover. I had to learn it the hard way.”
Margaret 12:53
Yeah.
Brooke 12:53
Which makes you feel like it’s not someone who’s maybe in a tornado prone area, because I get the instinct like, “Oh, I’m gonna film that tornado.” But not a great idea.
Margaret 13:01
I mean, it’s funny because like, after selfies became such a thing, like more national parks, we’re seeing more…or like more hiking places were seeing more falling deaths as people climbed to try and get selfies on precarious rocks and all that stuff. And I’m not above all of that. Like, I can’t tell you that I wouldn’t try and film a tornado. I don’t know. I can tell you it’s not a good idea. But, that doesn’t relate one-to-one to what I would do.
Brooke 13:25
There was documentary that came out in like the 90s. And there was some really famous people who did it. It was all about tornadoes, and they chased them around and we’re trying to catch data or something like that.
Margaret 13:35
Twister?
Brooke 13:36
Oh, yeah, that one. That one. It’s a documentary, right?
Margaret 13:39
Yeah, sure. Tornadoes aren’t real. It’s funny that people keep spreading this theory of tornadoes, but I’ve never seen a tornado. Have you seen a tornado.
Brooke 13:52
I’ve seen some little dust spinneys.
Margaret 13:55
Yeah, no. Tornadoes are fake. You heard it here first.
Brooke 14:00
But wait, then Margaret. How did all the houses get destroyed and all of the things that are left in the wake of so called tornadoes? What did it.
Margaret 14:09
Did your parents not raise you right? Like, do you not know what the Big Bad Wolf is?
Brooke 14:14
So, all the damage is fake too?
Margaret 14:15
No, it was done by the Big Bad Wolf.
Brooke 14:19
Oh!
Margaret 14:20
Who huffed and puffed and blew all the houses. Yeah, this is….
Brooke 14:24
I didn’t think he was that big. I didn’t think he was big enough to blow over apartment buildings and stuff.
Margaret 14:29
Yeah, I mean there’s no reason why her couldn’t. There’s like a bunch of them. They stand on each others’ backs.
Brooke 14:34
But, he couldn’t blow down the brick house that the smart pig built so….
Margaret 14:38
No, correct.
Brooke 14:39
So, I feel like he shouldn’t be able to knock down all the concrete buildings and stuff that we see.
Margaret 14:45
Well, actually okay like, to go back to actually believing in tornadoes, brick houses and concrete houses are like remarkably more resilient against….
Brooke 14:54
Did you just waffle on tornadoes? Was that just a giant tornado waffle?
Margaret 14:58
Yeah. I did. I couldn’t keep the bit up, because I got really excited about the fact that brick houses and concrete houses are remarkably more weatherproof than other houses, which it’s one of the things that matters about understanding tornadoes, right, is that, like a lot of things, they impact poor people substantially more and most of the…it takes a much more powerful tornado. I’ve spent a while this week reading about tornado classifications. It takes a much more powerful tornado to tear down stick built house…What’s the word I’m looking here for? Drywall, and two by fours and shit, then taking down like a trailer, right, that a lot of people don’t have as much money live in. Those are easily destroyed by tornadoes. Drywall and studs, are a little bit harder. And then when you get into like brick houses and shit, you start getting houses that are like substantially more weather resistant. And, there’s going to be remarkable class things about that. And like the most damage you hear, and the most deaths you hear about during tornadoes tend to be like trailer parks and shit. And it fucking sucks. It sucks that it impacts poor people more.
Brooke 16:02
Yeah, for sure. One small happy story that came out of the tornadoes from last weekend anyway, is that there’s more than half a dozen Ukrainian refugees who were living in Minneapolis, who when they heard about the tornado damage, volunteered to drive down to Mississippi and help out with the tornado relief efforts.
Margaret 16:22
That’s nice. That’s better than… at the start of the story I was expecting it to be like, they left the war zone and then died in America from climate change weather.
Brooke 16:35
Nope, they’re here and they’re refugees of the war, and they’re going to help Americans. So that’s pretty dope of them.
Margaret 16:43
Well, speaking of good things…nope. I was just gonna talk about trans bills. There’s really nothing good here.
Brooke 16:50
Trans people. Trans people good.
Margaret 16:52
Yeah, I can give you the trans report. I’m still here, still gay. The war on trans people continues. It will probably be about as successful as the war on drugs in that we had a war on drugs and now you can’t buy drugs anymore. Or, it’ll be like successful war on drugs and lots and lots of people have their lives ruined by it and nothing will be impacted. Well, in this case, to me, there’s like literally nothing wrong, like trans people aren’t doing anything wrong. Obviously, individual trans people are doing things wrong in the same way that individual everyone is doing something wrong. As of…this is a couple days old. So, already people are going to be like, like I wrote this two days ago and now by the time y’all hear it, who fucking knows. Kentucky’s Congress just overrode their governor’s veto of one of the worst anti trans bills in the country. Trans kids can’t use the right bathrooms in school. Trans kids are forcibly detransitioned. Shit like that. North Dakota’s governor…this is actually really interesting to me, these governor people vetoing things are interesting because they are across party lines. Off the top of my head, and again, I wrote this a couple days ago, I think Kentucky’s governor’s a Democrat and North Dakota is a Republican. And North Dakota’s Republican, again, could be a different state, i could be messing all this up, just like knows trans people. So, he was just like, “I can’t…What? I can’t in good conscience sign this bill that like fucks over my friend.” or whatever, you know. So, North Dakota governor vetoed a similar bill and as of…and it’s gonna be overridden. And, in North Dakota, teachers can’t use the kids correct pronouns unless the kid has a note from their parents that is cosigned by an administrator of the school. And government agencies can’t require people, like who work for them, to correctly pronoun their co workers. And so it’s just this like government oversight of everything bill that’s just like “No, no one’s allowed to be like.” Like no workplace is able to be like “We’re a trans accepting workplace,” you know. And then, West Virginia passed a law prohibiting gender affirming care for trans youth. It does have more work arounds than many similar bills. Two doctors and parents all have to sign off before puberty blockers and all those things can be prescribed. So, it’s less of a ban and more of like, lots of roadblocks. And it’s interesting to me, because in many ways, this is like way better than an outright ban. However, it will be harder to…if we get this like wave of people defeating these trans bills, these ones are going to stick around longer. These ones that are not outright bans. They’re much harder to challenge in court, is the theory that I learned from asking someone about it.
Brooke 19:43
Yeah, so they put up roadblocks or speed bumps more than roadblocks.
Margaret 19:48
Yeah. And a 2017 study says that West Virginia has the highest per capita rate of trans youth in the country. And another study says–and this is the dark thing behind all of this about like denying health care to children—another study says that West Virginia trans youth are three times more likely to attempt to kill themselves than their cisgender peers. So, God forbid we do the thing that all the Medical Association’s agree ends that risk. Stopped Clock, the Libertarian Party, is standing up for trans people in some situations. Like some of the state libertarian parties, which tracks, but then again, you also see individual libertarians going on about like, “Well, I’m not paying with my taxpayer money for this degeneracy.” And I’m like, “You’re not a libertarian. Fuck you.” And I’m like, I’m not even…like, whatever. It’s just fucking conservatives calling themselves that.
Brooke 20:41
I mean, I get why libertarians would come out against all the trans bills because small government.
Margaret 20:48
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Brooke 20:50
It’s consistent with what they believe. But, allegedly, Republicans also believe in small government, but that never pans out that way.
Margaret 21:00
That’s the state of trans bills. It’s bad. That’s the state of it. And it’s gonna get worse.
Brooke 21:04
How much effort and money is being wasted into worrying about trans youth and trying to block that as opposed to real issues that we have going on?
Margaret 21:05
I mean, okay, so like, from my point of view, and I think it’s a wedge issue. It is specifically designed to…like, the sports thing is designed…it’s not because people care about that teenage cis girls get to compete with only teenage cis girls. It is designed to make people angry at trans people. And then that is used as a wedge to then have trans people themselves be the wedge to pull off from LGBTQ, right, and get left with LGB. And you can already see that they like want…in the same way that like Roe v Wade. It’s like they’re going to come for…and they are already trying to come for birth control and all kinds of other shit too. You know? And they want…probably eventually, they’ll get the sodomy laws back and premarital sex and whatever. You know? Handmaid’s Tale shit.
Brooke 22:08
Let’s hope not.
Margaret 22:09
And so, but there is this theory that they’re gonna die on this hill, because the trans thing doesn’t really win elections, because like, most people kind of don’t give a shit what other people do with themselves. Like a lot of people give a shit, right, enough that there’s all these bills being passed. But like, there’s still a majority of United States-ian’s who support access to trans health care, including for teenagers. And I won’t say across party lines, because the majority of Republicans are opposed to it. But like, overall, you still have this, like people are kind of like “What the fuck is going on? Like this makes no sense?” Like, even the like it kind of icky people. So yeah, that’s trans bills. Hooray.
Brooke 23:03
Yeah. I just like, I don’t want to jump off that topic, because it’s so important and affecting so many people that I love, and, you know. This queer person, that is some of the other letters in that acronym is not gonna let go with a T. Trans people are staying here in this alliance.
Margaret 23:24
And like, and I think it is worth understanding that like, it is already directly affecting large numbers of people. Entire families are leaving states with anti trans laws that are forcing the detransition of youth, and have to move to other states in order to access health care that keeps their kids alive. And so we’re going to see an increasing amount of that. Whereas I would guess, a slightly higher percentage of adults, one aren’t as…Trans adults aren’t as directly affected yet. And also they might have more agency about staying and fighting. And I want to like just continue to say that I think it is absolutely worth offering full support to both people who choose to stay in dangerous situations to fight and people who choose to leave those situations, and full support to all people who are making either these decisions
Brooke 24:13
And to help the people who want to leave the situation, but don’t have whatever means or opportunities to do so. Well, I don’t know if this is any less evil, as we talk a little bit about our old friend inflation.
Margaret 24:34
That’s where suddenly money’s worth more, right?
Brooke 24:38
Close. Really close, Margaret, but the other direction
Margaret 24:42
We’re worth more as more money.
Brooke 24:43
We’ll go back to our friend the banana example. Bananas….
Margaret 24:53
I know what inflation is. I’m just being a dick.
Brooke 24:57
That’s alright. We forgive you. Yeah. All right, inflation is where you can buy fewer bananas with your buck than you could before.
Margaret 25:07
But, I want more bananas.
Brooke 25:09
Yeah, they’re gonna cost you more money. The same bananas are gonna cost you more money.
Margaret 25:15
I guess bananas are still dirt cheap. I mean, how much could have banana cost? What? $5? [Margaret laughs] I made a meme. I said a meme.
Brooke 25:24
Do you know that you’re quoting a thing?
Margaret 25:25
Yes. I’m smart.
Brooke 25:28
I think she actually says $10 or $20.
Margaret 25:30
I dunno, my pop cultural literacy is as literate as she is about finance. Soon enough, it’s just gonna be accurate. People are gonna look back at that and be like, “Yeah, no, that’s about how much of banana costs. What do you want?”
Brooke 25:44
It’s funny, because I think it is $10. And that was like 2003, so 20 years ago. So, it’s a little less obscene now than it was when she said it.
Margaret 25:55
Bananas are the cheapest fruit. This is why I like them so much.
Brooke 25:59
I don’t think I knew that. Well, your bananas are gonna cost more money or have been costing more money. I had to look it up for one of my other jobs the other day, so I just felt like doing an update on it. So, prices right now, compared to one year ago, are up about 5.5%. And I realize we haven’t necessarily talked about what normal inflation looks like. Inflation is is a normal thing that happens in our society. There was a time in history when inflation was not normal, when things did not rapidly increase in price, or really have much of an increase. But that’s a normal part of society. And normal inflation is closer to like 3% in a given year. So we’re at close to double that with 5.5%.
Margaret 26:44
Isn’t that still down from what inflation was a year ago?
Brooke 26:49
Yeah. So if we compare it from the last two years, so where prices are right now, compared to two years ago, they’re up 13% when when we would have only seen maybe a 6% increase under normal inflation or less. So, still more than doubled. But it also depends on which things you look at. Like food is up more like 18% over the last couple of years.
Margaret 27:12
Okay. But not important stuff?
Brooke 27:16
No, not things that we need to survive,
Margaret 27:18
Like TVs?
Brooke 27:20
Yeah, of course. And, it’s really interesting when I look at the charts of where the inflation is, because it’s summer 2020, you know, like, right, as the impacts of all the pandemic shutdowns and supply shortages are starting to hit is when those prices start to do a clear difference in the way inflation hits, you know, goes for being that normal 3% rise to boom, much sharper.
Margaret 27:45
What can people do about inflation? Get all their money out of the banks, put it in a cash envelope and put it under their mattress?
Brooke 27:51
You know, that’s actually going to be the opposite of what you want to do.
Margaret 27:54
Yeah, I went that was on purpose again.
Brooke 27:56
I know. Yeah, anything you can you can do with your money to have it earn at least some amount of interest, you know, if your bank offers a savings account that has a slightly higher rate of interest, and you could put some more of your money in there, or filter it through maybe a different type of checking account at your bank that perhaps offers a little bit of interest. Generally, interest rates never keep up with inflation. Like I just bought a CD that I think, is at four and a half percent or something like that over the next year? Which
Margaret 28:33
What band is it? [Brooke laughs] What’s a CD?
Brooke 28:42
Yes, people don’t know what either kinds of those are anymore. Certificate of Deposit. It’s like a really short term investment that’s with a guaranteed return on it. It tends to be a very small return. Generally doesn’t keep up with inflation, but it’s better than not getting any kind of interest. So, unlike a savings account you can’t touch, or you can but then you get penalized, you don’t get your interest on it.
Margaret 29:11
Can I tell you my ‘it sounds like a joke,’but is actually my financial strategy?
Brooke 29:16
Oh, boy. Sure, you can. I can’t promise I won’t tease you about it
Margaret 29:20
During times of high inflation, feast or famine. The thing that you want is not going to be cheaper tomorrow than today.
Brooke 29:28
This is true.
Margaret 29:28
So ,holding on to cash right now, I hold is less useful as an overall strategy than investment in the material goods that you expect to be using, whether it’s the material goods that you use for your art to turn into things, whether it’s like you know, shit you’re trying to turn around and sell, or whether it’s just tools or even fucking experience….like, kind of in that same way that like nothing’s better later. And we’re all gonna die one day and we can’t control when, I feel like it’s like extra true during a…like smoke if you got them, right? But ideally it’s like….like I do consciously think about this where I’m like, “Well you know what, a table saw is going to stay useful to me many years from now if I take care of it, and the amount of money that that table saw will cost me is going to be 25% higher in three years,” or whatever, you know. But that’s only I mean….I don’t know. Don’t listen to me. I mean, I guess that’s the point of the podcast is to listen to us. But don’t.
Brooke 30:42
You know what’s interesting, though, is the economic theory, the economic textbook and stupid fucking Keynesian economics, would would agree with you there that your money is going to become less useful, so you should you should go ahead and spend it now.
Margaret 30:53
Hell yeah. But I’m gonna write an economics book called “YOLO.”
Brooke 30:58
No, Keyne’s already did. And should be ceremonially shot in the head. But yeah, I guess. Go ahead and go out and spend all your…No, no, no, I’m not even going to finish this. That’s terrible financial advice.
Margaret 31:14
I mean, like, hold on to like not die. But like, I don’t know. Like, I don’t have retirement fund. And I’m not saying like, no one should have a retirement fund. I’m saying I made some decisions in my life about how I was going to live that did not prioritize having a regular job. And I’m like, but I will have a table saw Right? Like, I don’t know.
Brooke 31:34
There is something to that though, to consider about, you know, purchases you might be making, you know, medium sized purchases, not super large purchases, like cars and whatnot. But yeah, if you need a table saw it might be a better idea to get it sooner rather than later. And it is a durable good. So it’s not it’s not as consumable.
Margaret 31:56
Yeah, four Lamborghinis.
Brooke 31:59
Probably not? I don’t know what the resale value is on a Lamborghini, but that’s probably not going to be worth it.
Margaret 32:05
I know a Lamborghini is a car. That’s all I got.
Brooke 32:11
Okay, all right. Anyway, yeah, inflation continues to suck. Buy some shit, if you have some money to spare because prices are going up.
Margaret 32:20
Okay, well in other fun…We really need to get better at having some intentionally positive things in this show, because for This Month in the Apocalypse, but in other fun news–actually, this one is like almost fine, right? Like there’s a super fungus going around called Candida Auris.
Brooke 32:40
Super fun. Can’t spell super fungus without super fun.
Margaret 32:44
I know. That’s right. Or Gus. Don’t trust anyone named Gus. Is Gus short for something? Gustav? I’m going to ask the next Gus I talk to. I know a Gus. So there’s a new fungus. It’s been around since 2009. Basically, it’s just like there’s this like kind of like constant war on…like the same way that like antibiotics are like an arms race where we like we get the new upgraded penicillin and then the biotics, the bacteria, is like, “Whatever, fuck you. I’m like penicillin resistant.” So we’re like, “Well, now we’ve got [mutters nonsense word],” and then you know, we’re like, “Well, we’re [nonsense word] resistant.” And that happens in the fungal world as well. Candida Auiris. It was first noticed in 2009. It came to the US in 2016. I’m mostly saying this to say this is not worth freaking out about. This is a thing that like some news articles are telling us about–and I don’t think it’s bad for news articles to tell us about, right? But, it is not worth freaking out about unless you’re in very specific situations, in which case it is worth paying attention to, and I don’t mean to disparage, it is mostly currently in hospital settings. It is mostly affecting immunocompromised people who are in hospital settings. If you get it, it’s sketchy, right? It has a very high mortality rate. But, it’s not airborne. It is surfaces and direct contact. Most people…when I say ‘get it,’ I mean like get it and it creates its effect, its disease thing, and basically people start worrying about because it was antimicrobial resistant. And that’s why people started freaking out about it because it was resistant to like, off the top of my head, I want to say, two of the three main things that were treating other forms of Candida…fungal problems, yeast problems. But, already since this has become a problem, two new anti fungal drugs that are effective on it have been passed by the FDA. So, I guess I’m saying this one to be like, this is a thing that people are like, most than use articles about it are like on your like local news station, you know, like the ones that want to tell you about smiling dogs and about how we’re all going to die. Again, it’s still worth understanding and keeping an eye on. But it’s not worth freaking out about right now. What do you got? What’s next?
Brooke 35:21
It is kind of positive news, because it is a super fungus, but then they found some things that actually do work on it. Okay, well, I want to I want to insert another short happy thing, since we’re talking about happy things. That I read. And this is universal. Scientists discovered, I think just the last couple of weeks, that the rings around the planet Saturn actually help to warm the atmosphere of the planet. Yeah. Just a happy scientific discovery.
Margaret 35:57
So, in order to solve climate change…
Brooke 36:01
Oh, boy.
Margaret 36:02
We need to blow up the moon. It’s gotta be worth just a couple of degrees.
Brooke 36:10
You know, I think that’s gonna fuck up some other things that we don’t want to do.
Margaret 36:15
I didn’t read a whole novel called “Seven Eve’s,” by Neil Stevenson about what would happen if the moon blew up.
Brooke 36:20
Yeah, also as an indigenous person, and the moon is considered our grandmother, I have some feelings about blowing up my grandmother.
Margaret 36:28
Everyone dies.
Brooke 36:30
I’m gonna. I’m gonna pass.
Margaret 36:31
All the people die. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, everyone. I have a tooth ache. I’m sorry.
Brooke 36:39
How about some other great news that will make you really happy? Okay, about our former president, Ruffled Dumpagins?
Margaret 36:45
We put him on the moon and then we blow it up.
Brooke 36:48
Hey, okay, that…I might consent to blowing up my grandmother in that regards.
Margaret 36:54
All right, all right. Maybe just put him on the moon, and just let them see what happens. And then your grandmother could take care of them. We don’t have to get rid of the grandmother at all.
Brooke 37:02
There we go. That’s an even better plan. My grandma will definitely take care of Donald Trump.
Margaret 37:07
Okay. All right.
Brooke 37:09
So, as we’re recording this, the former president was indicted just last week by a New York grand jury on more than 30 counts of stuff. And we don’t know exactly what the various counts are. That’s being kept secret. But, we know that it surrounds the hush money payment that was made to the former porn star–or maybe she’s still a current porn star, I don’t know which, but good on her way either way–Stormy Daniels, which, in case people don’t realize this, paying the hush money isn’t actually illegal. It’s the way it was paid that was bad. Because it was filtered through the campaign. And yeah, the Dumpikin’s former attorney, Cohen, I think was the one, has already been found guilty on this and is serving jail time over it. So, definitely illegal shit happen. What they’re trying to argue now is whether Trump himself knew about it, and how involved he was in the illegal activity. So by the time you’re listening to this, Grumpikins has already been arraigned, and he’s probably gone back to Florida, and he’s probably back to campaigning. So you’ll have more news on this than we do. But it’s that happy thing that I want to mention. An unhappy part of it is that in the three days following the announcement from the grand jury that he was going to be indicted is the disgraced former President raise $7 million in campaign funds for his current presidential bid.
Brooke 38:09
You say million or billion?
Brooke 38:43
Million. In three days. So, yeah, not a bad return on $130,000. But the payments…
Margaret 38:54
Okay, so I have a new way that we can make money. Nope, sorry. Go. Ahead.
Brooke 38:57
Yeah, there we go. I mean, and I’m okay if I get to hang up some porn stars too. That’ll make me happy.
Margaret 39:03
We can become right wing grifters.
Brooke 39:05
No, Can we be left wing grifters?
Margaret 39:10
Okay, let’s find out. Everyone who’s listening, send us $10. And then you become an official Live Like the World is Dying host, who can then get other people to send you $10, of which you will turn around and send us $5. But, don’t worry, because the people under you will be earning…
Brooke 39:28
No, no, no, no. You’re describing something that’s shaped roughly like a pyramid, which I’m pretty sure is…
Margaret 39:34
It’s devil worship. Triangle is devil worship.
Margaret 39:34
No, it’s a triangle. It’s the strongest shape in nature.
Margaret 39:41
It’s the A-frame. It’s the a-frame financial model.
Brooke 39:48
The former president is also facing other legal challenges, which haven’t brought forth charges yet but some of them certainly will. He’s under investigation for things including the January, 6th attack on the US capital. Federal election tampering in Georgia, mishandling of classified documents, a civil lawsuit for fraud in New York against the Trump Organization, and a defamation lawsuit, amongst other things.
Margaret 40:10
What a good guy.
Brooke 40:11
Yeah, super awesome.
Margaret 40:14
I do love all the like…You know, it’s like the like, the prison abolitionists, anarchists who are too good for electoral politics like, myself and many other people, but it’s like, I feel like there’s just like a little bit of like, “Alright, well, we can still take some fuck that guy.” Like, fuck that guy. I don’t care. Yeah. You want to hear some some list of stuff?
Brooke 40:38
What else is going on out there, Margaret?
Margaret 40:40
Well, there’s a diesel spill in West Virginia from a derailed train. I spent a while trying to look up how you filter diesel out of water. But, unfortunately, most of the information is about how to filter diesel out of water…how to how to filter water out of diesel cause people want the diesel.
Brooke 40:58
As long as you capture the water, that might not be the worst.
Margaret 41:01
Well, it’s like, because the water that they’re pulling out might some diesel and they don’t care. They’re getting rid of that water. They’re probably throwing it in the fucking creek or on the ground. But like, because you don’t want to put watery gas or diesel into your engines order, but the way that people do it is that water is denser than diesel so it sinks to the bottom of the container. So I guess if you’re a life or death….I’m not even going to make that advisory. Like don’t drink diesel water. Artificial sweetener erythritol, one of those–I think it’s one of the alcohol sugars–seems to be linked to heart problems. Doubles your chance of bad shit. It’s in some vegan ice cream. So beware.
Brooke 41:35
Oh, good to know. Hey, before we go too far from the train derailment.
Margaret 41:38
Oh, you wanna do the train thing.
Brooke 41:40
Well, just there was another train derailment that made me think of in Montana just over this last weekend. And they were carrying a lot of…
Margaret 41:48
Ice cream?
Brooke 41:49
Coors Light, and another brand of beer that’s similar to that.
Margaret 41:57
That’s just funny. There’s no. Okay. Hell yeah.
Brooke 41:59
So, you don’t need to filter the beer out of the water. You can just go ahead just drink it.
Margaret 42:04
Yeah, it’s really good for you. It hydrates you more effectively than water.
Brooke 42:08
Its water beer in the first place. So.
Margaret 42:11
Okay, that’s fair. Speaking of Oregon, we weren’t, but a guy who was trapped in the snow, managed to get an SOS out on this phone. This is like a survival tip. This is not a survival tip that applies to almost anyone. He attached his phone to his drone, and flew his drone up until it got enough service and the message sent and he was saved. And that rules.
Brooke 42:35
That’s fuckin rad.
Margaret 42:37
That said, in terms of getting out emergency signals, one way–satellite communicators are a more effective method and cheaper than drones. Not a lot cheaper than drones. I’ll be real. There in the like, $300-$400 range, however, and I bet more and more phones will do this. The newer iPhones. I don’t have one. But, the newer iPhones have built in satellite communication SOS systems. Where the satellite communicator is like more like what like people hiking in the backwoods and stuff have and it like lets you like text. It’s a little bit slow. But like, no matter if you can see the sky, you can get a message out with satellite communicators.
Brooke 43:15
You have one of those, don’t you, Margaret?
Margaret 43:16
I do. I spend some time in the backwoods. And so it’s nice to have,
Brooke 43:24
Well I have a drone. So, I’m just gonna take my drone and just follow that guy’s success. It’s like a $300. Drone. It’s not a special drone.
Margaret 43:33
Yeah, you gotta keep that in your car at all times. You will literally die if you don’t have that in your car at all times.
Brooke 43:42
Will I not die If I haven’t my car? Will it protect me in other situations?
Margaret 43:45
I think we’re getting off topic.
Margaret 43:45
In this specific situation that this man was in, he’s immortal now. Because the the signal was interrupted by some vampires. And they came over. He’s not allowed to see the sun anymore, which is like a heavy price to pay. Right? And he consumes blood and there’s like a lot of like, ennui attached to that. He’s a vampire now.
Margaret 44:06
So, here’s a list of worst air quality in the United States listed from 1 to 10: Bakersfield, California. Congratulations. You’ve the worst air quality in the United States. Los Angeles, Chicago, Northwest Indiana and the industrial areas like Gary, Indianapolis, Houston, St. Louis, a bunch of rural Pennsylvania managed to like really come in hard for the rural areas. I’m glad to see that rural representation. These are mostly localized to a few hotspots, because you’re like in the mountains and there’s a factory there and they don’t care about you because you’re poor. You’ll notice that a lot of these places are poor. Atlanta and Birmingham, Alabama. I’m sorry. Finland is joining NATO, so Putin’s weird war is having the opposite of the desired effect, and I don’t really have an opinion about that, but it’s like worth noting. Most of the current like prepper news you can go out and read is gonna be like, “Today, World War III is about to happen tomorrow.” And it’s like the same person will say this like over and over and over again. And they always have like some reason, as we like inch closer, and they’re not even usually like wrong about their reasons. Like the China, US. and Russia are like playing a fucking crazy game right now, you know? And there’s like nuclear capable planes from the US like flying near that little weird part of Russia that isn’t attached to Russia that’s like, south of the…the like Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, you know, there’s a tiny piece of Russia under there. And then like, US planes are like, playing a like ‘not touching, can’t get mad,’ game about nucular war. And that’s like, not great. But, I’m not like those…I know, I’m now saying the thing that I just said don’t worry about, but like, it’s…I don’t know. I don’t feel like we’re any more likely to have nuclear war tomorrow than we were yesterday. Personally.
Brooke 45:58
We’re all going to die anyway.
Margaret 46:00
Yeah, except for that guy who sent his drone up to talk to the vampires.
Brooke 46:06
Vampire man.
Margaret 46:07
Metformin taken during COVID is looking like it’s reducing long COVID cases. At least according to some studies. I’m not giving you medical advice, but it’s like promising, right? What’s promising is that there’s more and more information about how people are handling long COVID, which is also really promising because there’s a lot of long viral problems like Lyme and things like that, that have been ignored and the people who suffer from them have been mistreated by the medical establishment for decades. And I am optimistic that the research into long COVID–Because long COVID can’t be ignored because of the scale at which it’s happening–will help people who suffer from these other viral infections. That is my hope. The far Right government in Italy has stopped registering children born to same sex couples. I think it’s basically like same sex couples were going to other countries in order to have kids via surrogates. And then now they’re like not able to come back to Italy. I don’t have the absolute details about…Italy’s being fucked up and homophobic.
Brooke 47:13
They can’t like get a birth certificate?
Margaret 47:15
It’s something like that,
Brooke 47:17
Wow.
Margaret 47:17
The the news article was clearly translated and not incredibly well. That was the best I could figure. China is on track to destroy American exceptionalism and become the number one cause of climate change. So, we’re gonna have to step up our game everyone.
Brooke 47:32
No.
Margaret 47:35
On–well, we are stepping up our game because–on March 13th, Biden approved…this could have been a whole separate topic. But, Biden approved a project called Willow and I am offended because “Willow” is an amazing movie and an amazing tree and not a oil development on federal land in Alaska that’s the size of fucking Indiana.
Brooke 47:54
Yeah, I heard about that.
Margaret 47:55
It is key habitat for polar bears and caribou. It fucking sucks. It is like, absolutely a spit in the face to any pretense that one of the most powerful nations on the planet would possibly stick to what it claims about the–not deindustrialization–but de fossil fueling and or whatever…
Brooke 48:15
Yeah. Gross.
Margaret 48:17
Positive environmental news that is no longer in positive environmental news is electric cars were getting a $7,500 subsidy from the federal government. Except it’s a big confusing mess. And no one can tell…like not even the car companies know whether you have to lease, if you can buy, which ones you can buy. And it all has to do with this like pissing match thing where they want all of the…the subsidy cars have to have a certain percentage or maybe it’s all of it, I’m not sure, of the components made within the United States. But, at the moment, all of that is a nightmare mess. So people don’t know which electric car they can get $7,500 subsidy on.
Brooke 48:53
But, there is a $4,000 federal subsidy that is more straightforward and not all fucked up and confusing.
Margaret 49:03
That’s good to know. Like Virginia recently passed a gun law that makes a lot of sense to me. I’m not opposed to all gun laws, I guess, except in the abstract way or I don’t like law as a system, but they passed a thing that’s just like subsidies for people to get gun safes. It’s not a requirement. It’s not a like safe gun lock up requirement, although I think that that should exist, but maybe not in a law way but in a cultural norm way. But yeah, like if you want people to change an economic system, and we do. We need a different economic system, or a different…Well, we did a lot of different things to be changed, but whatever. I don’t know. Okay, so Finally, my small thing is that the Inter governmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC released a new report. We’re fucked. I mean, we’re almost certainly going to overshoot the Paris Agreement, of capping climate change at 1.5. C [degrees Celsius change] And 1.5. C is where you start getting runaway feedback loops, at least according to…I mean, everyone’s given different numbers. Some people, I’ve heard 2 C [degrees Celsius] or whatever, but like, yeah. It’s bad and things need to change more dramatically than I believe the current system is capable of changing things. So as much as I’m like, “Oh, money for electric guitar,” Guitars? Electric guitars for everyone. Because then if you’re all vampires, you can like [makes guitar note noises] like, the Crow. But I think that fundamentally and dramatically shifting the way that our governmental and economic systems work is a more likely way to stop climate change than convincing our current governmental system to effectively address it.
Brooke 50:49
Right there with you. I bet our friends over It Could Happen Here will probably read that report and talk about it in depth. I know they did last year when that report came out. And that was pretty good info they distilled down there and so hopefully they’ll do that again for us.
Margaret 51:04
They’re not our friends. We hate them. We’re starting beef with….No. They’re all so nice. They’re also, they want to…I also work for them. But yeah, okay.
Margaret 51:16
They play games with us. We like them.
Margaret 51:22
Yeah. What else? We’re coming up on an hour. We got anything else?
Brooke 51:27
Oh, that was my list.
Margaret 51:30
Okay. Well, I think we can change things fundamentally. And I also think we can build the systems by which to mitigate the worst effects of the changes that are going to happen. And I think we can do that by building together in community minded preparedness ways. Brooke, do you want to start a podcast with me about how to do individual and community preparedness? We can make it be weekly. Give it some name, like Don’t Die Weekly or….
Brooke 52:07
I feel like Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness already produces something like that. And we might be on it right now.
Margaret 52:17
Whoa.
Brooke 52:18
I know. You can listen to it starting weekly, starting right now.
Margaret 52:24
Whoa. Yeah,
Brooke 52:26
It’s actually called Live Like the World is Dying and Margaret, you do most of it. Though, I think the toothache is making you forget.
Margaret 52:34
The Vampire Cast.
Brooke 52:37
Come to Oregon. Become a vampire. Or not.
Margaret 52:39
Yeah, it’s true. Oregon’s could still hang. I mean, my toothache is fucking me up. I’m not even on drugs for it yet. I’m just excited to finish so I can take ibuprofen.
Brooke 52:50
Well, how can we finish?
Brooke 52:57
Thanks so much for listening to the latest installment of This Month in the Apocalypse. We come to you as members of the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness publishing collective. We produce three, soon to be four other podcasts, create zines and publish books. You can check out that great stuff on our website, Tangledwilderness.org. We’re also on some social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter.
Margaret 53:20
And Vampire Freaks.
Brooke 53:23
We are able to do these rad things because of our Patreon supporters.
Margaret 53:27
Myspace.
Brooke 53:34
You make this Friendster. Do we have Friendster?
Margaret 53:38
We only add you on Friendster if you support us on Patreon, I’m sorry, them’s the rules.
Brooke 53:44
Our patrons make this work possible. And if you’re interested in supporting our work, please check us out on patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Those who support us that $20 a month level get a special shout out at the end of every podcast.
Margaret 53:56
They’re in our top eight.
Brooke 53:58
Top eight?
Margaret 54:01
Were you not a MySpace kid?
Brooke 54:03
I was but I don’t…Oh! Yeah! The little the board thing with the squares. Yes. Okay, I forgot we called it that.
Margaret 54:09
Your top eight friends.
Brooke 54:11
Yep. All right. We want to say thanks to Hoss the dog, Miciahah, Chris, Sam, Kirk, Eleanor, Jenipher, Staro, Cat J, Chelsea, Dana, David, Nicole, Mikki, Paige, SJ, Shawn, Hunter, Theo, Boise Mutual Aid, Milica, paprouna, Aly, Paige, Janice, Oxalis. And yes, thank you so much.
Margaret 54:32
United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru, Republic Dominican, Cuba, Caribbean, Alabama, Alaska. El Salvador too,
Brooke 54:39
Colorado, Connecticut.
Margaret 54:44
We actually like you all individually. I’m sorry that we made it…it’s a toothache. Bye, everyone.