Fandom Is So Different Now And It’s Becoming Un-fun With How Quickly Shit Moves.

ok, because i just saw a terrible take, i feel compelled to say that there is no "fic market" to "oversaturate" in fandom. good gravy.

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life continues. we still have the capacity to do good, important work. that matters

httyd live action is to httyd fans as eels are to dragons

the Guardian

New Mexico made childcare free. It lifted 120,000 people above the poverty line

The state, which has long ranked worst in the US for child wellbeing, became the first and only in the country to offer free childcare to a

"The state, which has long ranked worst in the US for child wellbeing, became the first and only in the country to offer free childcare to a majority of families

There was a moment, just before the pandemic, when Lisset Sanchez thought she might have to drop out of college because the cost of keeping her three children in daycare was just too much.

Even with support from the state, she and her husband were paying $800 a month – about half of what Sanchez and her husband paid for their mortgage in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

But during the pandemic, that cost went down to $0. And Sanchez was not only able to finish college, but enroll in nursing school. With a scholarship that covered her tuition and free childcare, Sanchez could afford to commute to school, buy groceries for her growing family – even after she had two more children – and pay down the family’s mortgage and car loan.

“We are a one-income household,” said Sanchez, whose husband works while she is in school. Having free childcare “did help tremendously”.

...Three years ago, New Mexico became the first state in the nation to offer free childcare to a majority of families. The United States has no federal, universal childcare – and ranks 40th on a Unicef ranking of 41 high-income countries’ childcare policies, while maintaining some of the highest childcare costs in the world. Expanding on pandemic-era assistance, New Mexico made childcare free for families earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level, or about $124,000 for a family of four. That meant about half of New Mexican children now qualified.

In one of the poorest states in the nation, where the median household income is half that and childcare costs for two children could take up 80% of a family’s income, the impact was powerful. The state, which had long ranked worst in the nation for child wellbeing, saw its poverty rate begin to fall.

As the state simultaneously raised wages for childcare workers, and became the first to base its subsidy reimbursement rates on the actual cost of providing such care, early childhood educators were also raised out of poverty. In 2020, 27.4% of childcare providers – often women of color – were living in poverty. By 2024, that number had fallen to 16%.

During the state’s recent legislative session, lawmakers approved a “historic” increase in funding for education, including early childhood education, that might improve those numbers even further...

When now-governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced her candidacy in late 2016, she emphasized her desire to address the state’s low child wellbeing rating. And when she took office in January 2018, she described her aim to have a “moonshot for education”: major investments in education across the state, from early childhood through college.

That led to her opening the state’s early childhood education and care department in 2019 – and tapping Groginksy, who had overseen efforts to improve early childhood policies in Washington DC, to run it. Then, in 2020, Lujan Grisham threw her support behind a bill in the state legislature that would establish an Early Childhood Trust Fund: by investing $300m – plus budget surpluses each year, largely from oil and gas revenue – the state hoped to distribute a percentage to fund early childhood education each year.

But then, just weeks after the trust fund was established, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic.

“Covid created a really enormous moment for childcare,” said Heinz. “We had somewhat of a national reckoning about the fact that we don’t have a workforce if we don’t have childcare.”

As federal funding flooded into New Mexico, the state directed millions of dollars toward childcare, including by boosting pay for entry-level childcare providers to $15 an hour, expanding eligibility for free childcare to families making 400% of the poverty level, and becoming the first state in the nation to set childcare subsidy rates at the true cost of delivering care.

As pandemic-era relief funding dried up in 2022, the governor and Democratic lawmakers proposed another way to generate funds for childcare – directing a portion of the state’s Land Grant Permanent Fund to early childhood education and care. Like the Early Childhood Trust Fund, the permanent fund – which was established when New Mexico became a state – was funded by taxes on fossil fuel revenues. That November, 70% of New Mexican voters approved a constitutional amendment directing 1.25% of the fund to early childhood programs.

By then, the Early Childhood Trust Fund had grown exponentially – due to the boom in oil and gas prices. Beginning with $300m in 2020, the fund had swollen to over $9bn by the end of 2024...

New Mexico has long had one of the highest “official poverty rates” in the nation.

But using a metric that accounts for social safety net programs – like universal childcare – that’s slowly shifting. According to “supplemental poverty” data, 17.1% of New Mexicans fell below the federal “supplemental” poverty line from 2013 to 2015 (a metric that takes into account cost of living and social supports) – making it the fifth poorest state in the nation by that measure. But today, that number has fallen to 10.9%, one of the biggest changes in the country, amounting to 120,000 fewer New Mexicans living in poverty.

New Mexico’s child wellbeing ranking – which is based heavily on “official poverty” rankings – probably won’t budge, says Heinz because “the amount of money coming into households, that they have to run their budget, remains very low.

“However, the thing New Mexico has done that’s fairly tremendous, I think, is around families not having to have as much money going out,” she said.

During the recent legislative session, lawmakers deepened their investments in early childhood education even further, approving a 21.6% increase of $170m for education programs – including early childhood education. However, other legislation that advocates had hoped might pass stalled in the legislature, including a bill to require businesses to offer paid family medical leave...

In her budget recommendations, Lujan Grisham asked the state to up its commitment to early childhood policies, by raising the wage floor for childcare workers to $18 an hour and establishing a career lattice for them. Because of that, Gonzalez has been able to start working on her associate’s in childhood education at Central New Mexico Community College where her tuition is waived. The governor also backed a house bill that will increase the amount of money distributed annually from the Early Childhood Trust Fund – since its dramatic growth due to oil and gas revenues.

Although funding childcare through the Land Grant Permanent Fund is unique to New Mexico – and a handful of other states with permanent funds, like Alaska, Texas and North Dakota – Heinz says the Early Childhood Trust fund “holds interesting lessons for other states” about investing a percentage of revenues into early childhood programs.

In New Mexico, those revenues come largely from oil and gas, but New Mexico Voices for Children has put forth recommendations about how the state can continue funding childcare while transitioning away from fossil fuels, largely by raising taxes on the state’s wealthiest earners. Although other states have not yet followed in New Mexico’s footsteps, a growing number are making strides to offer free pre-K to a majority of their residents.

Heinz cautions that change won’t occur overnight. “What New Mexico is trying to do here is play a very long game. And so I am not without worry that people might give it five years, and it’s been almost five years now, and then say, where are the results? Why is everything not better?” she said. “This is generational change” that New Mexico is only just beginning to witness as the first children who were recipients of universal childcare start school."

-via The Guardian, April 11, 2025

What's Going on With Roe v. Wade (6/24/2022 - 10:20pm ET)

As of this morning, in one of their final decisions of the term, the Supreme Court released a 6-3 decision in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization stating that abortion is not a constitutional right in the United States.

What this means:

Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey have officially been overturned.

The six conservative justices (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett) voted in the majority; the three liberal judges (Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan) dissented. Ketanji Jackson Brown is not on the court yet, but that played no role in the result of the decision, as she'll be replacing Breyer.

13 states have trigger laws that were intended to make abortion illegal as soon as Roe was overturned. This New York Times article details the status of all states regarding their abortion legislation.

It's not clear what this means for other precedents established under the same right for privacy.

Thomas specifically called for the reconsideration of Griswold v. Connecticut (right for married couples to use contraception), Lawrence v. Texas (right to same-sex relationships), and Obergefell v. Hodges (right to same-sex marriage). (He didn't call for Loving v. Virginia to be overturned, funny enough.)

Alito tried to wall off abortion from the above cases because of the "critical moral question posed by abortion", but it's not clear if that will stand.

There are currently protests happening across the country, and there will continue to be more.

What this doesn't mean:

That abortion is illegal everywhere in the United States. A number of states explicitly protect abortion in their own state laws. They are primarily in the northeast and the west coast but also include Alaska, Hawaii, Colorado, Minnesota, and Illinois.

That the fight for abortion rights is over. Some of that will happen in state legislatures, and some will happen in the courts. There is already a lawsuit brought by a synagogue in Florida claiming that a Florida abortion ban after 15 weeks violates Jewish teachings.

What to do next:

Donate. Here is a list of some places to donate to. And another. NARAL. Remember to donate beyond Planned Parenthood

Vote. State-level voting will play a large role in deciding abortion legislation. Federal-level voting will play a large role in deciding who is on the courts.

If you are going to protest, be careful and be safe.

Be consistent in your recognition and support of reproductive rights as impacting people beyond cis women. Be clear in the language that you use--if you're talking about people who can bear children, say people who can bear children. If you're talking about pregnant people, say pregnant people. Not all women have uteruses or can bear children, and not people who have uteruses or can bear children are women.

Take care of yourself and your community. This is a really hard time, and we need to look out for each other.

Shout out to everyone who is just so tired So so exhausted So very very tired so very fatigued so sleepy and tired So