Voter roles are registration are effective. I vote in almost every election, and they can tell my ballot status when I go in. My vote is tied to my address and other factors, so it seems like it would be clear if I wasn’t a legal citizen.

I also have to show a government ID when I vote, but it doesn’t seem like that’s made a big difference in the security of the elections I participate in.

Facing the day can look like whatever you need it to to get to Tuesday. Getting up, taking care of your body by feeding it, drinking water, and practicing good hygiene can be enough. Caring for your mental health with compassion and understanding is also very important.

Doing what you need to do to keep yourself safe and comfortable is the top priority right now. Having a medical condition is not your fault, and it’s nothing you should feel any shame about. You’re not feeling well, and that means you need to give yourself the space and grace to heal and feel better. However you need to achieve this, as long as you aren’t harming yourself or others, is perfectly valid.

Please try to be kind to yourself and focus on healthy coping mechanisms. You have an appointment coming soon, and help is just a few days away. If you need emergency care in the meantime, that’s okay, too. You’ve got this. It takes strength to get this far, and you can do this, too. Please take care.

It’s a Gentle Leader. It doesn’t function like a muzzle, because it doesn’t inhibit a dog from biting. It’s basically a harness that attaches at the head. You can read more about them here: How to use the gentle leader

God, do I miss living alone sometimes.

Absolutely. I moved from urban Southeastern Wisconsin to the upper peninsula of Michigan in a rural area. I love visiting that spot, and I got a job offer five years ago while on vacation. I snatched the opportunity to move to my favorite place and uprooted my life in under two months. I didn’t last two years before coming back.

The amount of times I got into verbal altercations with strangers and acquaintances over their use of racial slurs, most often the N-word, made me become a homebody. I was a bartender, though, so you can’t exactly hide.

That’s not to say I haven’t heard it in public all throughout Wisconsin. The difference was how comfortable people felt using these words and sharing openly racist views and stories like they were bragging about it. It felt like an area where people breathed a sigh of relief and took their hoods off. I couldn’t stomach staying in a place where certain friends of mine couldn’t comfortably visit.

Still, all that is nothing compared to what I saw and heard living in Tennessee. It’s sad and frightening how many communities are like this.

Won’t somebody think of the rapist’s feelings?

Yeah, probably when the system changes.

As I said, dog bite and behavioral euthanasia reports are murky at best, and rely upon nonexpert information. I’m sorry, but a picture graph with no information on how the information was obtained, what verification was involved, etc. is no better than a Facebook share. That’s my point. Information is hard to qualify, quantify, and assess. Trying to oversimplify such a complicated issue is not going to get to the root of the problem.

It’s really disheartening to see Reddit’s irrational pit bull venom is just as present here. Notice how rarely you see comments from animal industry professionals chiming in with these opinions. It’s not because professionals don’t have their own breed biases, and they don’t typically keep quiet about them, either. It’s that most people with a lot of day-to-day experience with dogs don’t share this opinion. Their experiences don’t match public perception.

Bite statistics and behavioral euthanasias both in private and public spheres are anything but transparent. They also often rely upon witness statement accuracy, which is not reliable nor scientific. There simply isn’t enough accurate information available to support such a vitriolic, knee-jerk reaction to a dog’s breed in and of itself. There are too many variables to consider to accept that mindset as rational.

I encourage anyone who cares about these issues and who loves animals and people to consider volunteering. There are a lot of opportunities out there that you might be surprised are available. It’s not just shelters who need volunteers, either, and you can find opportunities in an array of different settings and ways of helping. You might find that experience will give you a broader understanding of how complex these problems are, and how we can work to solve them.

That makes a lot of sense to me given my personal experiences. Reading this thread is interesting. I’ve never heard the idea that you can’t read in dreams. The last couple of months I’ve been having dreams where I’m doomscrolling headlines on an app, and I’m actively reading the headlines to myself. But since I’m doomscrolling , I notice them and move on. I’m aware of when I’m dreaming, so sometimes I’ll laugh to myself and my partner about the stuff my sleep- psyche comes up with. I don’t know if this is a recent development, but I can’t remember ever trying to read something in a dream and being frustrated that I can’t.

I have a number of problems that result in unusual and unhealthy sleep patterns, so that probably contributes to odd dream experiences.