I live in Michigan. Our ward still limits in-person sacrament meetings to under 50, socially distances, wears masks, has no singing or musical numbers, wipes down the pulpit between speakers, and Zooms in the remainder of the ward. I applaud the leaders for doing what they can...

It should be noted that not every ward in my area is as restrictive. Our bishop has a health condition that puts him at higher risk of illness. Also secular views that support greater caution, and (lest we forget) the keys & spiritual intuition for our specific ward’s needs.

I don’t doubt there are ppl sitting in my ward building today feeling despair about what they’re witnessing, maybe singing quietly behind their masks, looking for who to blame, trying to focus on the Lord’s hand in it instead of their own misgivings. It’s very hard to endure.

I’m also sure the bishopric is tired of wearing masks, tired of wiping down the pulpit, tired of listening to recorded hymns while they sit silent, & that they too fight not to blame. Some are inclined to blame those who create mandates, & some blame those who don’t comply.

We’ve had our year to feel reactionary. We’ve learned a lot abt ourselves & others by watching reactions under pressure. Some surprised us with their resilience, others with how quickly they came undone. It’s a new year now. Time to stop reacting & start responding with intent.

Lately, I've been thinking about Communities.

Thread 👇🏽

A community is where people with similar interests hang out. They feel a sense of identity. They feel at home.

In a community, people share common values. They feel identified.

When you build a community, you host the conversation. When you build and show you have an audience. It's not bad, but It's not great.

A community is a two-way avenue. An audience is a one-way street.

With a community you will get better feedback, and new ideas.

With an audience, you are going to push content not ideas.

You can't value your community on metrics. Each user will have a different experience. It's Subjective.

People hang out in a place because they are learning or they are having a good time. Aim to entertain or teach.

Build a space where people want to be.

Indian muslims have faced injustice in 2020 as we have been facing since the Independence. It was not only the year of pandemic but also year of injustice and fascism for IMs

I have made a thread with picture of few Imp events:

Thread🧶🧵👇

#NeverForget

#InshaAllahInquilab

Secular India enacted a citizenship law which guarantees citizenship for everyone except Muslims

Muslim took part in Anti CAA protest

23 muslims k!lled for merely protesting against CAA in Uttar Pradesh

Muslim student leaders like Sharjeel Imam,Sharjeel Usmani,Umar Khalid were arrested under draconian UAPA for demanding justice and equal rights while the real Terr*rist are sent to the parliament

Students like Safoora Zargar, Gulfisha Fatima,Ishrath Jahan were arrested under draconian laws for protesting against injustice while criminals like Komal Sharma and Ragini Tiwari are still roaming free

[THREAD]

(TW; Sexual Abuse; Rapist)

I was very recently forwarded a news article concerning a person who has been convicted of various sexual offences against children, and it has came to my attention that this individual may have been targeting the #ActuallyAutistic community

The person’s name is Tom Graham. He used a couple of different Twitter account names, but the most common was this one, @serverusautismo

In December 2020, Thomas Graham was returned to prison after breaching a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, (SOPO). He was in prison after being convicted of rape in 2011, and previously was jailed in 2003 for taking and distributing indecent images.

When he was on Twitter, Graham frequently tried to ascertain the ages of individuals on Twitter, and given what has come to light, this is now extremely worrying as I believe he was searching for individuals to groom.

I believe he specifically targeted Autistic People because he believed we were more vulnerable to his advances for a variety of reasons.

Feeling cute, still mad at cis gay white men, idk, might still be mad at them later.

For the straight folks out there, feel free to observe, but for a lot of you this probably isn't your lane, but just from my personal experiences, here's why a lot of people are mad about it.

Seems silly, right? Just a bunch of mostly white gay guys saying they'd let a white supremacist hate fuck them and expecting to get no pushback on that statement.

Your non-white gay friends see you and remember that, in most cases, you'd want to hit that before you even see us.

We shouldn't be surprised though, we see your online crushes and thirst posts. We see you fuckability rating the "White Chris Squad". We see your profiles saying how you "love guys with blue or green eyes" or "if you look like [insert popular white actor here] front of the line!"

And we see the other profiles, the ones that even you'd scowl at, the ones that specify non-white guys shouldn't even bother saying hello. We see the porn, the party fliers, the magazine covers, even the gay magazine covers that will put straight white men on before any gay POC.

We've been out to bars and parties where we're one of the few non-white people in the room. We've been equally ignored or fetishized. We've watched your uniform/cop fetishes. We've had to fight to get fetish spaces to even be inclusive. We've constantly had our concerns ignored.

Thread 🧵
The number of deaths in the nuclear research facility presents a horrific story as 73 suicides, including by many scientists, were reported between 1995 and 2016.
1966 Dr. Bhabha had died in an air crash after he publicly said India could produce a nuclear device
1

On June 13 2009, India’s television channels reported the death of Lokanathan Mahalingam, a not-so-well-known nuclear scientist. Mahalingam was working for eight years in the Kaiga atomic power station, located in the South Indian State of Karnataka
2

Uma Narasimha Rao, aged 63 and a retired scientist of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), committed suicide at her house at Govandi owing to chronic depression. In a suicide note, she said none was to be blamed for her “extreme step.” 2011
3

Ravi Mule
Another employee of the Nuclear Power Corporation India Ltd, Ravi Mule, went missing and was later declared murdered. His brother made his own efforts to investigate after police failed to make any headway. 
4

On February 2010, M Iyer, an engineer working with the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, was found dead in his residence. Police investigations reached a dead end, with forensic experts declaring, as in all cases of unexplained deaths of employees involved in nuclear programme
5

//thread/

This was the very first experience I had in an LGBTQ social circle when I first openly came out as a lesbian at 18. I had just gone through a difficult breakup and was depressed and lonely for lesbian community, so I thought I would go to my university’s Pride Club.(1)

Pretty much all the members were female, with the exception of one gay man and one trans woman (who was 31). Not one single girl in the group identified as bi or lesbian, but rather several combinations of ‘queer’, ‘pansexual’, ‘genderfluid demisexual’, and ‘non binary’.(2)

We began by introducing ourselves and stating our preferred pronouns. I already felt super out of place but I went along with it anyway. When introducing myself as a lesbian, the head of the club kindly asked me to refer to myself as ‘queer’ or ‘gay’ so as to be inclusive of (3)

everyone’s identities. I apologized and agreed to the terms but it stirred up something inside me, pretty much the exact same feeling I had when I came out to my family and they refused to acknowledge or accept that I was a lesbian.(4)

The topics of discussion ranged from dating, gender expression, and the difficulties Victoria faced as a ‘trans lesbian’ and how so few people in her life would validate her identity. Victoria was showered with praise and support, and not one single person had any (5)

Who are all the hypocrites who voted against abolishing the Tampon Tax back in 2015 but have had a sudden change of heart? First up, Steve Baker, Conservative MP for Wycombe.

Next we have Bernard Jenkin, Conservative MP for Harwich and North Essex. The patronising way in which he calls Stella Creasy "feisty" really shows his commitment against sexism. Nice job!

Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor and Conservative MP for Richmond, Yorkshire, also voted against the 2015 motion to abolish the Tampon tax. What's with the autographed graphics, Rishi? Do you think you're some kind of rock star?

Harriet Baldwin, Conservative MP for West Worcestershire has posted the lie that it was EU membership which prevented us ditching the Tampon tax. Harriet, you voted against the 2015 motion to abolish this tax. Have you forgotten?

James Cartlidge, Conservative MP for South Suffolk didn't post his own tweet. But he did retweet Rishi Sunak. James, how soon you forgot your vote in 2015 against abolishing the Tampon tax!

I wish he was more direct about how we got here, but this is powerful. Pandemic response has had a devastating impact on 100s of millions of people in poor countries. Covid death is *not* the only thing that matters. How come this isn't the focus? 1/x


"Starvation is agonizing and degrading. You lose control of your bowels. Your skin peels off, your hair falls out, you hallucinate and you may go blind from lack of vitamin A. While you waste away, your body cannibalizes itself: It consumes its own muscles, even the heart." 2/x

"the U.N. warns that famine is looming in Yemen, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and northeastern Nigeria, with 16 other countries slightly behind in that trajectory toward catastrophe" 3/x

"Outside of the rich world, the casualties are not octogenarians with the virus so much as children dying of hunger because of economic disruptions, or middle-aged adults dying of AIDS because they can’t get medicines." 4/x

"Lockdowns meant that casual laborers had no income, and tuberculosis patients couldn’t get medicine. Campaigns to battle malaria, polio, AIDS and vitamin A deficiency were left in disarray." 5/x

I wish everybody a Happy New Year 🎆. 2020 was a year like no other. The pandemic put normal life on pause. 🇲🇻tourism collapsed, thousands lost jobs and incomes, children missed schooling, some of us lost loved ones. Few of us will miss 2020. Thread (1/9)

The new year brings hope: of the speedy roll-out of the vaccine, and the eventual end to this horrible virus. I urge all Maldivians to take the coronavirus vaccine as soon as it becomes available. 💉👊🏾🦠(2/9)

worked well this year -- passing many important bills. No longer a corrupt, rubber stamp, Majlis now holds Government to account, upholds Constitution, debates important issues and passes legislation crucial to our country’s success. 🇲🇻🇲🇻🇲🇻 (3/9)

I'm very pleased @mvpeoplesmajlis helped ensure the international border reopened in July. Re-opening quickly was a good decision, and led to mini-boom in tourism we see today. We would have been in a much worse position if we kept the border closed. 🛬=💰 (4/9)

I hope 2021 sees 🇲🇻unite behind a peaceful and more tolerant vision for the future, without the bigotry and hatred we have sometimes seen in past months. We must learn to listen to the other side, and forge compromise where possible. (5/9)

my 2020 was boring and sad and lasted forever and i lost my job and had my left fallopian tube try to murder me and i got pumped full of poisonous drugs that made me sick and i cancelled my trip to ireland and my car was totaled and there were rats in my furnace but i didn't die

oh also i had emergency surgery and evacuated my home because of a month of horrific wildfires that burned up the whole canyon and my dad's friend george with it. but that's all

i mean aside from the plague obviously and the getting tear-gassed in my own backyard in my vegetable garden by a gang of jackboot thugs. and every politician i supported losing spectacularly lol

BUT DID I DIE??? NO

that's basically all i did tho, not die. i didn't read any books. i did some silly little crafts that brought me no great joy. i went camping once and tried to make the best of a sad damp social distanced outdoor friendsgiving. i didn't learn anything whatsoever

It was some days to Christmas and as a TEAM, they had just finished an intervention for a brother. He was still mulling over certain revelations from the prayers when his wife got a call.

It was from a colleague who was in distress and was crying over the phone in confusion.

"They just chased me out of the house I was staying...again".

The young lady had a history of rejection wherever she went to and even when she got a job, she was so surprised because she was rejected everywhere.

It was in her place of employment she met his wife.

His wife quickly gave him a breakdown and he told her "Let her come to the house in the morning".

By 7:30AM, she was in the house.

Immediately he saw her, he asked her "How old are you?"

"26" she responded.

She actually looked 40. Her responses didn't alarm him.

He understood certain spiritual realities and hers was one of such. It was evident, there was another occupant in her.

She went on and on about her circumstance which led to him asking her a question:

"Are you Born Again?"

"I attend church and I have Pastors I go to..."

"...who pray with me and give me prayer points". She said.

"So you have not given your life to Christ" he asked trying to ensure she understood the question

"No" she responded quietly.

"Stand on your feet, and join hands with my wife and repeat after me" I said.

"I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears, except coronavirus. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed, though they shall be covered.” Psalm 34:4–5. COVID trans.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, except coronavirus, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me, and thy mask protects me.” Psalm 23:4, COVID trans.

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The maskless. The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Those without masks.” Psalm 27:1, COVID trans.

"For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you, but only if you wear a mask.” Isaiah 41:13, COVID trans.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid, except about the coronavirus, which can kill you.” Luke 14:27, COVID trans.

You know how occasionally you get glimpses of just how casually racist the world we grew up in really was & you get like a vertiginous lurch in your stomach? Heads up, this thread does need a content warning.

Background, I worship The Kinks & rate Ray Davies as one of THE great songwriters, but they're ruined for me by one song - 'Apeman' - a cod calypso in a comedy Caribbean accent with the chorus "wanna live like an apeman" & I thought it was about the most racist pop hit ever >

Well last night I happened upon a 1971 song by Harry Nilsson, a white man from New York, called 'Coconut,' which is another cod calypso etc in an even more offensive comedy accent ("put me lime in de coconut" etc.) I was appalled enough by it, but then >

I looked it up on Youtube & there's an old promo performance video of him doing the song. And it's just him and a guitarist and they are wearing actual monkey suits. I'm not going to paste the vid here because it is genuinely horrible.

But the moral of the story is, people my age (54) & older, we grew up SWIMMING in this stuff. Surrounded by it. People talk about the horrors of the Black & White Minstrel show as if it was in isolation. The truth is our culture, from films & TV, drama to sitcom >

If Migration is part of your plans for 2021.

Follow this thread carefully-

7 countries you can easily move to:

NORWAY 🇳🇴

NEW ZEALAND🇳🇿

SWEDEN 🇸🇪

FINLAND 🇫🇮