Tech Hygiene and Information Gathering

With the firehose of horrific news coming your way, here are a few ways that I'm maintaining my (relative) sanity without burying my head in the sand (or in Michigan right now, the snow).  Some of this post is about what I'm calling tech hygiene and some if it is about the ways I'm getting information without getting so overwhelmed that I shut down. Maybe some of these will work for you.

1. F.B. Purity

If you still use Facebook, I highly recommend installing the F.B. Purity browser extension. It's by the same people who developed the AdBlocker browser extension and it works really well to restore a more functional Facebook experience so you can find the posts or information or friends you want with less of the absolute garbage, like Sponsored Posts and Reels, that clogs up your feed without it. It only works when you access Facebook via a web browser, not via the app on your phone and it works on most major browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari. It does slow Facebook down a little, but honestly, I think of this as the extension doing its job, sifting out the garbage and cleaning up my feed before I have to look at it. One way of comparing how well it works is to install it in your browser and then compare what you see in a browser version of Facebook compared to the Facebook app on your phone. 

Yes, I've joined BlueSky (I'm @hungryandthinking.bsky.social though not posting much there yet) and I'm hopeful that it'll turn out to be a less evil social media platform, but at this stage it doesn't yet replace the information or people that I want to remain in contact with on Meta platforms. I think of it as supplemental at this stage of its adoption and development. So for now, using the F.B. Purity app has made Meta more functional.

2. Meta settings and hygiene

If I am going to use Meta platforms (FB and Instagram) then I want my account to be as unprofitable for Meta as it can be. Here is how you go into your settings and disconnect your meta accounts from businesses:

3. 5 Calls

A wonderfully empowering and highly functional piece of technology that I am using every day is the phone app 5 Calls which is for both iPhone and Android.  Calls to your elected officials have more impact than emails or letters and Republicans have historically called their representatives way more often than Democrats, though that data may be changing in the past few weeks during which Capitol Hill staffers reported that calls went from 40-50 per hour to 1,400 per hour. It's really really really important to voice your opinion to your elected officials who literally have staff members keeping tallies of what their constituents support and oppose. One of my senators went from posting pictures of her dog to videos of her participation in the filibuster of the evil piece of shit Russell Vought. I think the change in her tone is due to her hearing from her constituents that we want her to be visible and vocal in her opposition to this administration.  

I wrote up this description of how to use 5 Calls and posted it on Facebook so I'll reproduce that here (here's a link to the public post if you want to share it with anyone on FB):

5 Calls is an app for iPhone and Android that makes it super easy to contact your elected officials. It's very well designed. Prior to last week when I downloaded the app, I had my reps numbers programmed in my phone contacts and was calling them to let them know what I thought about issues but it took longer, and I had to keep track about which person I had contacted about which issue. I'll share some screenshots to show you how easy 5 Calls makes it.

 
Once you open the app and enter your zip code you will get a main Issues page with check boxes that show which issues you have contacted your reps about via the app. 

It doesn't record activity outside the app so some of my boxes aren't checked for issues I called about last week or times when the phone lines were overwhelmed and I had to email instead, but if you make a call via the app, it will check the box on the main page. So you can see on my page that "Fight Against Elon Musk" box is checked because I contacted all three of my government officials yesterday. The newest issues are listed at the top, so today I need to make calls for the Protect the Department of Education issue.

Click on an issue and it takes you to a page about that issue so, if you haven't had time to research it, the info is all there. 

At the bottom of that page are the people to contact about that issue (in my case, Senator Gary Peters, Senator Elissa Slotkin and Rep. Debbie Dingell) and there are check boxes next to their names that show if you have contacted them about the particular issue.

Once you pick the person, you get a page with the phone number to call and a script you can use if you want. 

I really appreciate the fact that the app includes a link to local office numbers because when the Washington office lines are full, you can sometimes get through to a local office. That's it! It streamlines the process and makes it super easy to have your opinion tallied and shared with your elected officials.

 
Another tip: if you are phone shy and would prefer to leave a voice message rather than talk to a human, make the calls early in the morning or late at night and you will be able to record your message. The only risk is that the voice mailboxes fill up (that's when you can try a local office, and sometimes when those are full too, I resort to email though it is not as effective.) 

And remember those good rules of parenting: don't forget to praise good behavior as well as ask for changes. Often my messages start with a thank you, like "Thank you for vocally defending NIH funding, now what I'd love to see is an equally visible support for issuing subpoenas for Musk and impeaching Trump for his violation of the Constitution." 

4. Find the voices and information that work for your brain

I used to be a voracious reader of newspapers: I subscribed to four and started my day reading the news. But it's no secret that the mainstream media is failing and is not providing accurate coverage of our current political crisis. I've never watched TV news though I've heard from a few people that if TV is your preferred news medium, that PBS Newshour is still pretty reliable. (Feel free to correct me or share insights about TV news.)

I still subscribe to four papers, though I cancelled my Washington Post subscription and two of the four papers are for local news (Ann Arbor and Detroit), and I only keep my New York Times subscription going because of the cultural stuff: I still love reading the book and movie and theater reviews, and the Cooking recipes are really good. But I no longer trust their news coverage; they are insanely wishy washy in confronting and complicit in normalizing the insanity coming out of the Trump propaganda network. Sometimes I'll still read the news on the site and compare it to other ways that a story is being covered, but I no longer start my day with their whitewashed view of reality. The one paper that I trust to be more on the correct side of history is The Guardian so I've replaced my Washington Post subscription with an online subscription to The Guardian. 

I've also learned to look outside of the newspaper for news. There are some really excellent newsletters being published now from voices I respect so I now have become a paid subscriber to the following:

• Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American is a daily analysis by a historian that's become a phenomenon. I've been reading it for years and I am thrilled that she is now a voice that is being amplified. While her analysis can be hard to read--she tells it like it is--it is just such a relief to read someone who is forthright and smart and provides context and footnotes!
• For wisdom, beautiful writing, and deep and strategic thinking I subscribe to Rebecca Solnit's new newsletter, Meditations in an Emergency. Solnit is also a columnist with The Guardian and she's one of the main reasons I am still on Facebook because she uses the platform, flawed as it is, to disseminate and amplify information that isn't getting sufficient coverage in the mainstream media. Her book, Hope in the Dark, was on my nightstand for the four hellacious years of the first Trump administration, and I often read it when I woke up in a panic at 2 am. 
• I also subscribe to Jessica Craven's Chop Wood, Carry Water newsletter which is a super energizing pep talk about what is happening, things that are going right, and the issues that we need to act on. She also has state specific newsletters (Michigan included) that come out about once a month for a focus closer to home. I look forward to getting her Sunday posts (titled "Extra! Extra!") where she summarizes good news of the week because it helps me make sense of the week I just lived through and feels like a good dose of hope before starting the next one. I often read her posts before opening my 5 Calls app to contact my elected officials because they are energizing without being naïve. 

There are some other really good voices out there that I check in with for information, understanding and advice, though maybe not always on a daily basis. But who knows, maybe they will be the voice that works with your level of anxiety/energy/information gathering! And please feel free to share what voices are helping you out because I'm interested in what is working for other people. Here are some that you might want to check out:

• Hopium Chronicles by Simon Rosenberg
• Good Queer News by Ben Greene
• Law Dork with Chris Geidner
• Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance
• The Contrarian with Jen Rubin

And finally, since we need to laugh, the political humorist Andy Borowitz, after facing censorship of his posts on Facebook, now publishes his Borowitz Report as a newsletter. I often play a game where I check in once a week and pick my favorite of his fake headlines. This week's winner: Europe United in the Belief that JD Vance is a Prick.

What I Did Wrong the Last Time Around

My response in November to Trump winning the election was severe: I could barely eat or sleep for a week. I know I'm not alone in this response but it was physical and visceral and really, really shitty.

And I realized that my response was a reaction not just to the news but to my memories of how I dealt with the first horrible four years of Trump which can be summarized as NOT WELL. 

I spent four years freaked out and anxious and protesting and advocating and exhausted. Last time I made the mistake of thinking that if I wasn't angry I wasn't doing my part, as though I was holding up the world with my rage and if I stopped feeling angry for a moment, everything would collapse. Besides showing an embarrassing level of egotism, this response led to such severed burnout that by time the 2020 election rolled around and Trump was defeated, I didn't feel much joy. I was so fucking tired that I just collapsed in relief. And even after the Biden administration brought some level of sanity back to my daily life, I was numb and found myself still fighting off waves of depression. 

So on the day after the 2024 election, the idea of going back to that emotional state made me think FUCK NO and my body shut down.

This time around the horrors are much worse: smarter people than me are documenting the destruction being wrought on individuals and institutions and it is coming fast and furious. We are only three weeks in as I write this and it is clear that however long this administration is in power, it's going to be a shitshow of epic proportions.

But I've decided that the one thing under my control is my response. I will not go back to that state of despair and exhaustion. I am still protesting and advocating but equally important to my remaining functional is my daily mindset and so I'm adopting the following mantra:

Fiercely Protecting My Joy

(or more accurately)

Fucking Fiercely Protecting My Fucking Joy

As the oh so wise Rebecca Solnit says: “Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection. Let us be fed by revolutionary joy."

I'll be sharing a few things that help me protect my sanity and my joy here. Please feel free to share what brings you joy because we can use all the ideas available to us. 

Let's start with an easy one: people who make you laugh. Oh my god laughter is great therapy for anxiety and stress. Here is a 6.5 minute video from one of my favorite comedians, Chris Fleming (here's a link to his web page that lists his appearance dates). I was lucky to get to see him live at the Ark this past summer and I left with my stomach muscles aching as though I'd been doing a core workout for the whole show, that's how much I laughed. Maybe this video will help you ignite your own fierce joy today.

"Would it help?"

 

I don't know if it's normal to have a movie about the capture and prosecution of a Russian spy as your comfort movie*, but Bridge of Spies has helped me a great deal when I feel panic descend. (If you haven't seen it, or want to watch it again, go to the library and check it out. My library has 8 copies and since the movie came out in 2015 there's not a lot of demand so most copies are available!) 

Last year was a really hard year for me in so many ways. The biggest one was one of my kids had cancer. I won't go into too many details, to respect their privacy, but in early February they noticed a lump in their side and by the end of March a 4 cm soft-tissue sarcoma (along with a whole lot of surrounding tissue) had been removed. We were lucky: we got great care and have insurance and they are in good health now. But I bring this up because it was so sudden--the shift from good health to contemplating death--and the feelings I had at the time were a lot like how I feel now, with our democracy.

I won't belabor the cancer metaphor, but rather I'll share what helped me get through it: when I felt the panic and doom and pessimism descend I replayed the above scene in my head (the same back and forth between Mark Rylance and Tom Hanks happens a few other times in the film). The temptation to freak out would arise and I would ask myself "Would it help?" And the answer was always No. Freaking out does not help: it might feel good in the moment to lose it like a toddler but afterwards there is fatigue and collapse and maybe (depending on your childhood) a little bit of shame. But by asking myself the question, I was acknowledging the stress I was under and the fear I was feeling and that meant that the fear and stress weren't staying bottled up and festering and growing to the point where they would explode. I acknowledged them and then I was able to set them aside. 

I don't know if this will help other people out, but maybe watch the movie if you are interested and then give it a try. Once I got good at interrupting the freak out urge I discovered that I didn't just feel calm or stable or neutral, I felt surprisingly tender: I was better able to see and prioritize kindness and connection and love. 

*my other comfort movie is Fantastic Mr. Fox which is joyful and sweet and shows the little guys banding together to defeat the corrupt big guys which is also a perfect pep talk for these times. 

 

Here we are again

I thought about switching platforms* but then I thought, why reinvent the wheel? So here we are, back at the old Blogger, working to strengthen community in a time that we desperately need it. Getting back on the old blogging platform feels strange but what about 2025 doesn't feel strange right now? I'll post links to these posts on Facebook** and BlueSky (@hungryandthinking) since most people have stopped using RSS feeds (I still use Feedly to track new posts from blogs that I follow; I check it about once a week and then I don't have to worry about missing a new post. The free version works fine). 

As always, I'm going to share a mishmash of stuff here, though mostly it'll be devoted to staying sane and ideas for keeping your shit together. That might include:

• joy focused posts: things that might help you nourish your body (recipes!) or nourish your brain (books! podcasts! ideas!) because fiercely protecting your joy (knitting! walks in the woods!) is a facet of having the energy necessary to participate in the resistance
• political actions: I'm not going to reproduce work that other people are doing better, but will try to connect people to those who are doing it and share some ideas about how to keep from going down the doom spiral of helplessness. 

More content coming soon; for now enjoy this photo of Jeffrey who yesterday was doing his damnedest to keep me calm while I wrote emails to my senators and representative.

*So many people are fleeing to Substack but they are kinda problematic in my book since they host a hell of a lot of NeoNazis. There are also lots of decent humans who have chosen to use Substack, some of whose content I subscribe to and that I'll link to here. So, mixed bag for sure. 

** Yeah, I know Facebook is fucking evil. But I do find it problematic that people are quitting it at the moment when we need all the connection we can get. I'll share a few tips soon on how to make it work better for you and totally understand if quitting it is the right choice for you.