If you’re ever up Huntsville way, check out Beaver Dam Swamp. It’s just off I-565, boardwalk out over a tupelo swamp. Absolutely beautiful, eerie.

Spent a lot of time squirrel hunting in the Wheeler Wildlife Refuge swamps. Found a spot where I could watch the whooping cranes.

I was raised in fundamentalist Christianity in the deep South US. I understand some of what you’re going through. Left home when I was 18, flunked out of college and picked up a fast food job.

I know you’re venting but you still have some agency. If you’re able, think about your next moves.

Looks like you’re in Toronto, Canada. There may be shelters and public assistance available. Also, couch surfing. Also, the student group you mentioned may be able to assist you.

Can you get an income stream going?

Did you get your documentation like birth certificate, passport, vaccination records? (If not, you may be able to have police or social worker present while you retrieve them.)

Do you want to think about lying to your family and, “seeing the light?” Basically put the religious mask back on, deal with their bullshit, and use them as a source of food and shelter while you plan and save for a permanent separation.

Pedantry incoming!

That is a swing cylinder revolver. It has a double action. There are also single action revolvers with a gated cylinder, (think cowboy movies). There are break barrel revolvers with single or double actions. There are bolt action rifles and shotguns where the bolt seals the breach. Semi auto rifles, shotguns, and handguns also generally have a bolt that seals the breach. Pump action shotguns and rifles are also a thing, kind of halfway between semi auto and bolt action.

I don’t know of a “breach action.”

Pedantry ends.

See Cultural aspects on Wikipedia.

Your general feeling comes from what you know, and what you know is limited to your personal worldview.

See, that’s kind of condescending. I know that solstices and equinoxes are important and were recognized by prehistoric humans all over the world. This isn’t western vs eastern hegemony bullshit. Note that even the Chinese calendar is divisible by 4 and delineated by the solstices. I’ve also read about the solar observatories found in Mexico that predate European involvement as well as the wooden ‘henge’ of the mound builders.

Trying to act like recognition of solstices and equinoxes is some sort of Western cultural imposition is silly.

Wouldn’t solar observation pretty much universally divide the year into something divisible by four? Unless you’re directly on the equator, there are four points in a year and four points of direction (other than ‘right here’).

I haven’t read deeply about world calendars, but do know that the solstices are pretty much universally recognized.

Not a history or anthropology buff, but I have a general feeling that four pointed symbols are often tied to the solar year. You can build a solar calendar with a stick and rocks.

Not really any context other than trying to put words to the incestuous cannibal horrorshow that is about to begin. Just trying to buckle up for the next four years and hope me and mine aren’t in the splash zone.

I’ve always kind of figured this was the actual origin of the swastika and why it was created independently by various cultures. The arms from the center are the solstices and equinoxes and the trailing arms from the elbows are the seasons that follow.

Mutant and brain damaged kittens with crab claws all in a box together trying to eat and fuck each other.

Sounds like your grandfather was a wise man. That’s a great story!

Luckily, I’ve never ended up in a survival situation. However, I have a few habits. I keep a fire source or two in my truck, zippo in my jeans. Feel naked without a pocket knife and keep a knife or two in my truck. I also keep a piece of pine heart in my truck bed. Has come in handy many times and I’ve built fires in southern February thunderstorms.

Taught my kids how to build a one match fire with just a knife and a match when they were in elementary school.

Also taught them to never go in the woods without a knife, fire, and water. Taught them how to find pine heart. Probably time for a refresher course for my son on fire building.

I’ve been trying to teach my son how to sharpen knives, but it requires a level of stubbornness that he doesn’t have yet. (I don’t see the point in all those fancy angled sharpeners.) Use a flat stone, diamond preferred for speed and sharpness. You can make any sort of edge you want. Get good, and in a pinch you can sharpen a knife or other piece of metal with a brick or flat rock.

When you have shitty insurance and you’re working 60hrs a week to barely make ends meet. Then, you hurt your back or fuck up a joint.

You can’t stop working because you can barely afford to live. Workman’s comp is a joke and you’ll get fired if you try and get your job to pay for your work related injury.

However, there for a while, they were handing out oxycontin like it was candy. You can kill the pain and keep working. Until they won’t give you anymore pills. Then you buy pills from a buddy or a friend of a friend. They’re fake, the fentanyl in them hits different. Pain is still mostly killed. You can still keep working, keep food on the table for your kids.

But yeah, it’s a rich white people thing because of something in our food.

Unless you’ve been in it, you don’t understand the suffering built into the system. Lots of people that are suffering don’t have the time, energy, or resources to do anything but tread water to keep them or their family from drowning.

Very nice. Never owned a Benchmade, can’t justify spending that on myself. 😁 I carry Chinese Kershaws, easy to sharpen and I can beat the hell out of them without guilt. I’m a cheap knife person, other than the Victorinox Swiss Champ I also always carry (on my fifth or so). Like Dexter Russell and Mora for fixed blades.

Any chance you’d share the survival stories?

Here are our kitchen knives, mostly carbon Dexter Russell:

What kind of knife? Also, just like cats, got a pic?

I’m hoping we get a vaccine that confers really good immunity to bird flu and its 50% mortality rate.

A good vaccine means the whole thing will just sort itself out.

These fuckers tried to kill my immunocompromised family member with COVID. Fuck em.

I seem to remember a string of copycat attacks where lighter fluid or gas was sprayed inside a kiosk that contained a cashier or person taking tickets. Think there were several deaths.

Expect that an accelerant like gas or lighter fluid was used in this case. Doesn’t take much.

Monstrous thing to do.

Which “This is Christmas”? Seeing one about a train and one about a broken family.

This isn’t heavily controlled stuff. Antidepressants, heart medication, gi prescriptions, stuff insurance should cover but deductibles, yada yada. Sky Pharmacy.

Bitcoins should be used as god intended: buying prescription drugs from India. Most everything else is a circlejerk of stupid.

Yah, the rumor is that the north Koreans got ahold of cellphones with open web access for the first time in their life. So they immediately started watching all the porn and jacking themselves raw.

Not the OP, but I appreciate your ethical explanation.

I agree partially with you. I don’t have a moral issue with the killing of individuals who have engaged in particularly heinous acts: murder, rape, torture, extreme child and spousal abuse, white collar negligence/willfully allowing death to occur through inaction for pay, etc.

I just don’t trust the US or the states to ethically carry out executions, especially given their track record of executing innocent or low IQ individuals. So I’m anti death penalty. Life is cheaper than execution anyhow.

That being said, I don’t have a problem with certain kinds of vigilante justice or vengeance either. Especially vengeance for a loved one. FWIW, I’m not seeking vengeance, but I absolutely get it. Jury nullficaton should always be a right.

Anyhow, the news isn’t in, but I’m rooting for an ethical vengeance situation. He killed a fucking vampire, I hope he’s a hero with respectable views. Even more, I hope they never catch him. Either way the fucker is dead, and good riddance. I hope the other CEOs squirm, they need to either get right or go to prison.

We should be having this discussion in News.

Not getting into the ethics of poor/uneducated people eating endangered species. Everybody sucks. It’s unfortunate.

Turtle is fucking delicious. I’ve only had freshwater turtle from non-threatened species. Best way I ever had was as barbecue sandwiches using a crockpot recipe prepared by an old man. Seven kinds of meat in a turtle. Killed a snapping turtle in a stocked pond once and spent hours trying to recover it just so we could eat it.