This is really sad … I still send letters, sometimes it’s nice to get a post card or letter in the mail. 😔

Pilots train for hypoxia in hyperbaric chambers, repeatedly losing consciousness to train.

I question the claim that the brain needs to rewire itself because of massive cell death.

It’s happening here in Australia too. I’m watching the slow rise after being lucky enough to escape the US.

I wrote about my experience going to a racist rally a month or so ago with my husband and children.

It was supposed to be peaceful and I wouldn’t have expected to be putting my kids in danger.

WHAT??!

Sigh. I don’t know. We brought that up often that day.

We are so fucked. There is no escaping this global rush of extremism.

I am originally from the states, but was lucky enough to move to Australia 11 years ago.

I thought I escaped the growing right wing crazy, and watched from afar as Trump was elected the first time, and my country descended into fascism.

Then here in Australia there was a white supremacist rally. Then another.

Then in my city there was a “March for Australia” organised by known white supremacists, but claiming not to be racist.

“They just don’t want all this immigration”.

Their website also said they wanted remigration.

Remigration is an originally European far-right proposal for ethnic cleansing via the mass deportation of non-white immigrants and their descendants, sometimes including those born in Europe, to their place of racial ancestry.

Sounds pretty racist to me.

This march was planned for the final day of the state multicultural festival. Its planned start and end point was the park where the festival was being held.

My family and I decided we would go. I haven’t been to a protest since I was a teenager, but I felt it was our duty to show that not everyone agrees with this.

The day before the march our best friend said their friends were afraid to go out to lunch with them that day, because their parents were verbally assaulted in a grocery store on Friday for being immigrants.

They later said people came to their parents house and were beating on the door and yelling about them being immigrants.

My husband stood there in his suit, I stood in my pretty dress with flowers, our daughters held signs that said things like “so bad even the introverts are here”.

The March was not peaceful and was definitely racist. We started off to the side, sitting with flags my daughters and I made with hundreds of countries on them, and eventually we were swarmed as the crowd veered to come right past us.

They screamed obscenities at us, pushed into me, pushed my husband, tried to rip the sign from his hands. They ripped down the flags we made. Blew an air horn in our faces.

Many claimed they were not racist but my husband got called a f-ing Jew multiple times??? Maybe it was the beard and the hat, I don’t know.

Seemed pretty racist to me.

Eventually police came and stood in front of us while we packed our things and left. We would do it again, in a heartbeat.

Before the rowdy crowd came looking for trouble we had immigrants come up and thank us, hug us, and we want them to know that not everyone agrees with this march.

Not wanting immigration is not what this march was about. This march was about fear and racism.

I urge all of you, show up, make signs, show that not everyone agrees.

Oh yeah, they can get around it, but not without me knowing about it. If I find out, they lose the devices, simple as that.

You are right that parents who aren’t technical will have a hard time, but it’s not insurmountable. No devices in the bedrooms, ever. No downloading apps without permission ever. Google the app and give a yes or no.

When it came to it, wifi off at night and she got the basic Nokia phone. It’s a constant battle, sure but one we must win.

Also reminded her that no matter what, if she’s on our network, I will know what she’s up to. Instilling a healthy sense of fear is good. Router logs do not lie.

I highly recommend Qustudio. It works on phone and PC, and allows you to customise exactly what is monitored or blocked so you can keep an eye on things in an age appropriate way.

We started monitoring after we found out our 12 year old daughter was catfishing a 19 year old boy. He had no idea and after we explained that she could literally ruin his life, and made her tell him her age he noped out of there. (Wisely.)

At first we had it set to monitor everything, report all searches, all app downloads, block porn, etc.

Yes she was able to get around certain features, like when she was young we had the phone locked past midnight… But it logs when it’s in use, so we then had a talk the next day and took away the phone or PC if needed.

As she got older we removed the block on all websites, and stopped monitoring any messages. We kept the software on to let us know when she was using her devices because she would often be up until 3am on her phone on a school night and we would then have a conversation about it.

We removed it when she was 17 or 18.

I unfortunately am a victim of this. My Sense was great. Then a forced update pushed despite never allowing the Fitbit app to update. Now the battery life is horrible and I am of course encouraged to buy a new one and move my Fitbit information to Google.