Hay bale delivery day always gets the buns excited. New food smells!

Status:

My recovery might be at the stage where I can start doing small jobs again and I’m considering popping into work tomorrow.

My brain is definitely waking up as I’ve been thinking about mutual aid again and how it might work in my local community. The Peter Kropotkin In Our Time was particularly useful - if you’ve been following my Listening habits there’s been a fair bit of Marx &co recently, and last year I did all 100+ episodes of Mike Duncan’s Russian Revolution podcast, and while I find Marxist analysis interesting with plenty of value, I can’t say I like the guy or his authoritarian mates. Kropotkin I do like, so far anyway.

Mutual aid isn’t too weird a concept for me to be into. It’s a foundation of the cooperative movement and underlies a lot of counterculture activity and activism. It’s totally my cuppa, and if we’re going to stand any chance against the forthcoming fascist insurgency we’re going to need it.

No real capacity in my brain for coherent thoughts though, let alone deeds, but seeds are sprouting. Time to crack open Adam Greenfield’s Lifehouse again…

Listening:

• Empire - Orwell pt 1
• In Our Time - Seismology
• In Our Time - Peter Kropotkin

Music listening:

• Dream Time

Reading:

• America’s Dumbest Billionaires Fail to Stop Zohran Mamdani
• Garbage Day - We did it, Zo

Watching:

• Smarter Every Day - Refueling a Nuclear Reactor
• Zohran Mamdani’s victory speech following historic NYC mayoral win

Telly:

• The Lowdown - finished this, and it’s SO GOOD. Probably my best show of the year. Highly recommended.