Here is a short and bitter letter I just sent to my representatives.

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To:
Rep. Scott Peters
Sen. Alex Padilla
Sen. Adam Schiff

Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are both responsible for blatant war crimes in Iran and language advocating for war crimes. You must introduce and argue strongly for impeachment and removal of both of them. I do not care if you “don’t have the votes,” it is the right thing to do and human lives are at stake.

Please join Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari in her intent to bring Articles of Impeachment.

Impeach. Remove. Trial by the International Criminal Court.

For the April IndieWeb Movie Club, my selection is Arrival (2016).

It is a unique approach to the science fiction story of aliens visiting Earth. Even if you don’t usually like the genre, I hope you’ll give it a chance because there’s some thought-provoking questions and deeper emotion in it. I’ve found it quite moving on multiple viewings.

A couple years ago I remembered that it was based on Ted Chiang’s short story “Story of Your Life” and I read it in his collection Stories of Your Life and Others. I enjoyed the whole collection and gave it five stars. If you enjoy the movie, I recommend checking it out as well. I lean towards recommending the movie first because it is more fleshed out and potentially a stronger impact in that form. I could be wrong, though; that’s just the order I experienced them in.

Arrival trailer

You’re invited to watch the movie and write a post on your site sharing your thoughts on it! You can share your link using the form below (webmention), leaving a comment, or tagging me elsewhere. The format is pretty casual; your post can be a short note, blog post, or review. I will keep an updated lists of participants on this page.

In the US, it is available on Kanopy, which I was recently reminded is usually free with your local library card. Visit JustWatch to find other options for streaming/renting in your region.

Submissions

• IndieWeb Movie Club April 2026: Arrival by Sara Jakša

March 15 is Long Covid Awareness Day.

“Long Covid is a multi-systemic disease following a COVID infection, this includes severe, mild, or asymptomatic infections. Long Covid can occur in young and healthy people, including children.

The wide range of symptoms and conditions caused by Long Covid can last for weeks, months, or years.

There are currently no proven treatments or cures for Long COVID.​”

— What Is Long Covid? International Long Covid Awareness

If there were two things I wish people would understand about Long Covid, they would be:

1. People are at risk of Long Covid after each infection, regardless of how “mild” the symptoms were. That risk is cumulative; each infection increases the risk.
2. The research is young. Since there are a variety of symptoms and no tests/treatment currently, the best way to avoid Long Covid is to avoid Covid infections.

As always, I recommend a layered approach to prevention: wear high-quality respirators, clean the air, and stay up-to-date on your vaccinations, if possible.

Additional Information

Definition of Long Covid:

• The ILCA is working on a community and patient-driven definition of Long Covid, to be announced later this month
• A Long COVID Definition: A Chronic, Systemic Disease State with Profound Consequences from National Academies of Sciences
• A clinical case definition of post COVID-19 condition by a Delphi consensus, 6 October 2021 from The World Health Organization

Advocates and Communicators:

• Julia Doubleday: has Long Covid and writes The Gauntlet newsletter sharing public health information and commentary. Check out her What is Long Covid? post.
• Kelly: disabled and chronically ill writer. Check out her Long Covid Awareness Day 2026 post.
• Michael Hoerger, PhD, MSCR, MBA: Runs the great Covid-19 Data Dashboard tracking wastewater data in the US and estimating the spread
• Dr. Lucky Tran: Scientist, science communicator, public health and climate justice advocate
• Babs on Bluesky and TikTok. Check out her thread from last year’s Long Covid Awareness Day

Research:

• Long COVID in Young Children, School-Aged Children, and Teens doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.1415

  “Long COVID is common, affecting up to 10% to 20% of children with a history of COVID-19. With almost 6 million US children potentially affected, this is higher than the number of children with asthma, the most common chronic health problem in children.”

• Experiences of Canadians with long-term symptoms following COVID-19

  “As seen in Chart 2, Canadians reporting two known or suspected COVID-19 infections (25.4%) were 1.7 times more likely to report prolonged symptoms than those reporting only one known or suspected infection (14.6%), and those with 3 or more infections (37.9%) 2.6 times more likely.”

General:

• World Health Network’s Long Covid blog posts
• Post COVID-19 condition (long COVID) from the World Health Organization
• CDC: Long COVID Basics As compromised as the Department of Health and Human Services is under this regime, this page is still currently a good summary from what I can tell.
• Wikipedia: Long Covid

Previously

I’m sharing this letter I just sent to the 7 House Democrats that voted to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Feel free to borrow any language from this letter and give them hell yourself. I also recommend contacting your senators to urge them not to pass this budget.

Edit: if you are sending email, their websites require a mailing address to show you are a constituent in their district. Thankfully, they include their district mailing address right in the footer! 🤔

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To:
Rep. Henry Cuellar
Rep. Jared Golden
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez
Rep. Laura Gillen
Rep. Donald Davis
Rep. Tom Suozzi
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez

It is unconscionable that you would vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security after the blatant human rights abuses they’ve demonstrated.

These are all things you knew — or should have known — before your vote:

• At least 32 people died in ICE custody last year. 7 of those were in December alone. It was the deadliest year in over two decades. Source: “2025 was ICE’s deadliest year in two decades. Here are the 32 people who died in custody”, The Guardian, 2026-01-04
• Silverio Villegas González was killed by an ICE agent in Chicago September 12, 2025.
• Keith Porter was killed by an off-duty ICE agent in Los Angeles December 31, 2025.
• Geraldo Lunas Campos was killed while in ICE custody in Texas January 3, 2026.
• Renée Good was murdered by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026.

These are just some of the prominent cases we are aware of. Every day there is ample new video evidence of agents acting with violence and intimidation towards people. They act as an unaccountable paramilitary force instead of a civil immigration enforcement agency.

Rep. Suozzi, you referred to your responsibility “...to govern, not to lurch from one manufactured crisis to the next.” These are human lives, not manufactured crises. You are naive if you think “additional training and the use of body cameras” is going to stop these authoritarians.

Rep. Gillen, you said this bill is about “stopping child trafficking,” except the immigration enforcement actions you are supporting are literally ripping children from their families and shipping them across the country.

Rep. Davis, you said that “...reliable support for natural relief is non-negotiable.” Your vote for this clearly communicates that the violence and death detailed above is negotiable.

Rep. Cuellar, your statement on this bill doesn’t even acknowledge ICE or the atrocities your vote funds. Shame.

Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez (representative’s statement), no agency is ever sacrosanct and calling for defunding an agency over its rampant abuses is absolutely a solution. ICE is only 23 years old and we had civil immigration enforcement before that.

Rep. Gonzalez, your statement speaks “regrettably” about ICE abuses as if you’re not in a position to do something about it. The next best thing you can offer is you asked administration officials to let the President know about the negative effects ICE raids are having? Naive and weak.

All of you: grow a spine.

If you do not have the courage that this moment requires to oppose these authoritarian human rights abuses, I and many others will work tirelessly to ensure you do not get reelected.

Regarding this present moment, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg offers a prayer. In part:

“Notice all the layers of emotion you might be having about this–

the terror, rage, despair, helplessness, anguish, hope, heartbreak, and/or something else.

Just notice?

The great lie that we're separate from each other – that hate is logical, that stealing human beings or hurling bullets makes sense – is related to the lie that we're separate from the Earth and all things.

However you do it, find a way to lift something up from your heart today.”

— “how to face the horrors of now” by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg

Fun

• Need some encouragement to blog? Ava’s got some GIFs for you.
• Eric Mill posted 10 games he loved in 2025. This massive Sudoku Metroidvania jumped out at me. I’ve started on it and expect it to be a loooong one.
• Ekul.me is a newer member of the IndieWeb community and has a lot of fun things on his site: a retro computer terminal aesthetic, icons showing other visitors’ mouse movements on the page, tracking Monster Energy intake, and a map that IndieWeb people can add themselves to.

Music

• New earworm: “Divorce Horse Court” by Queen Frog

Tech

• Cory Doctorow wrote this great bit. No notes:

  I'm sorry. As a technology writer, I'm supposed to be telling you that this bet will some day pay off, because one day we will have shoveled so many words into the word-guessing program that it wakes up and learns how to actually do the jobs it is failing spectacularly at today. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding horses to run faster and faster, one of them will give birth to a locomotive. Humans possess intelligence, and machines do not. The difference between a human and a word-guessing program isn't how many words the human knows.

  — Sorry, eh by Cory Doctorow

Health

• duringcovid.com: I was feeling some frustration with people’s use of “during covid” and thought about setting up a single-serving website. I was pleased to find someone else already did.
• Loved Ava’s post “yes, i still wear a mask.” Don’t be mean to people who are wearing masks!

Media

• My friend Sheryl started up a video podcast! The first several episodes are up; here is the first one.
• I recently watched Dispatches from Elsewhere. I loved it and keep thinking about it. Beautiful stories about human connection and a fantastic cast. I might re-watch it and write some more about it.

Music

• I’m digging Placebo’s cover of “Running Up That Hill”. It’s the first song I’ve added to my 2026 playlist.

Fun

• infiniteballdrop.com takes the New Years Eve NYC ball drop and extrapolates the countdown to the whole year. Fun visualization! Note: turn your volume down before you click “Start” since the audio is a bit loud.

Health

• Crawford Killian wrote a good overview of what we’ve learned about COVID in its first six years:

  “Long COVID can last for years; it’s a personal disaster for those suffering from it, and a social and economic disaster for the country. Worse yet, a study in The Lancet Regional Health — Americas found repeated infections increase the risk of incurring long COVID.

  The COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2, isn’t only a respiratory threat. It can migrate through the body, doing damage to many organs. One study found that the virus can invade the brain, causing injury and cognitive deficits.

  A recent Australian study reported that brain damage inflicted by COVID-19 can last years, long after people feel recovered from the disease. The consequences include problems with memory, cognition and overall brain health.”

  — COVID-19 Is Six Today. What We’ve Learned (archived) by Crawford Killian

A while back I came across AJ Hawkins on TikTok. I really enjoyed how she talked about accessibility and community care in the context of the Kalma shop they opened in Port Townsend, WA. The staff wears masks, they purify the air, they invite/encourage guests to mask, and they provide free masks at the entrance. They were also intentionally making it a third space with community gatherings.

I really like their Values page and recommend reading it in full. A good summary, in part:

“WE ARE BUILDING A MORE CARING WORLD. We pursue equality by pursuing equal access to joy. Equal access to joy requires equal access to safety, community, opportunity, play, creativity, expression, self-determination, and the natural world.”

I was reminded of this today when another of her videos came across my feed. She talked about using affirmative language for our values since it communicates better who we are and can provide a roadmap for what living out those values looks like. A quote from it that is an evergreen reminder for me:

“My husband recently reminded me of the quote, ‘;Hating my neighbor's oppressor is not the same thing as loving my neighbor.’ I wonder what our protest looks like when it’s no longer rooted in a hatred for the way that things are, but in a love for the way that things could be.”

I’ve been enjoying @doodlesbycharlie_ drawings on Instagram for a while, described as “turning disabled grief into comics.” Such cute drawings and a lot of relatable feelings portrayed in them.

I loved that they created a set of prompts for a creative challenge this month, #MaskUpTober:

Turn your pandemic feelings into art! Any format is welcome. Use #MaskUpTober hashtag & tag @doodlesbycharlie_

Week 1: Oct 4–10: Zoinks! vampire, scare, nightmare, trick

Week 2: Oct 11–17: In the Woods. fog, wander, moon, tree, lost

Week 3: Oct 18–24: Mystery World. illusion, hidden, portal, dreams

Week 4: Oct 25–31: Casting Spells. magic, wish, glow, mirror, float

— original Instagram post

Also from the caption: “...this is low pressure. any medium is welcome. doodles, song, voice, poetry, writing, makeup, memes, photos, collage, scribbles on a napkin! only rule is to not use AI.”

I didn’t think I would participate myself, but the mood just struck me. The first prompt reminded me of Scooby Doo and the modified phrase popped to mind “...and I would have got away with it if it wasn’t for you pesky maskers” and the idea came together.

I pulled up an image of the scene, did a little sketching, and voila:

(yeah, I know, it’s not the scene that goes with the quote. ✨c r e a t i v i t y✨)

Hi, recovering perfectionist here and I often feel self-conscious about drawing, but I pressed that down and made a mark, as Joe would say.

I was pleasantly surprised when The Echoing Green announced a listening party for a new single. They’re one of my all-time favorites. They’re independent these days and it is a side gig, so new tracks are less frequent and always a treat.

“I Know Right” is some really catchy synthpop and you can listen above or at the Bandcamp link. It has some of the vibe from The Winter of Our Discontent, which I love. That lyric is still in my email signature:

“our hearts are burning bright, as we’re lifted out of nowhere. our songs all stay behind to sing the story of our lives”

I joined the listening party tonight expecting it to just be a livestream of the song, but Bandcamp also has a chat feature, so it was fun to chat with others. I saw some names I recognized and also unlocked a memory of the echocentral forum (archived) we used to have discussions on in the good ole phpBB forum days.

Chrissy joined and said they were starting up a YouTube livestream, so we hopped over there and had a fun hangout for the next hour talking about other songs they’re working on (it sounds like they have a lot!) and talked about what songs they should try to cover. I immediately said “Pink Pony Club” half as a joke, but I do think it could work. We’ve seen metal covers, why not a synthpop cover?

They don’t really tour much, but there was talk about maybe doing a livestream concert and they definitely want to do more hangout livestreams like tonight’s, so I’m looking forward to that.

The title of this post is the second half of the lyric I used for the last post about the band: “Hope still has a name and it sets us on fire.”

A short story

You feel the air on your face as you’re rushing to work. It’s your first day and of course you’re running late.

You land at the entrance of the large, nondescript building. It does not have many windows. That might be unsettling for some, but you find it kind of a relief. Still, you hope you don’t get stuck in there for long hours every day. You shiver as you remember your previous job.

As you approach the door, the RFID scanner beeps. A green light turns on and the door automatically slides open for you. “Whoa, fancy.”

The ceilings inside are so high. The lighting is better than you expected — at least they’re not using those obnoxious fluorescent lights. You line up behind a few other tall employees at the metal detector, but a moment later you’re ushered around it by one of the agents. “Robin? You don’t need to go through the metal detector. You’re late, by the way. Not a great look on the first day.”

You’re led down the hallway until you finally see a door more your size. You slip in quietly and settle in as the presenter continues, “…your spy work will be keeping the country safe. Welcome to the National Security Agency, Avian Division.”

This is my entry for the September IndieWeb blog carnival, Second Person Birds.