Grounded wisdom for curious souls

Good morning, beloved community. It's Monday, January 26, 2026. Today: Federal agents kill a man filming with his phone in Minneapolis, Bezos's data centers devour the atmosphere, a gay lawmaker rises from assault, and the 90-10 rule that'll change your whole fucking week.

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Editor's note: Winter storms batter 80% of the nation while power brokers pretend the blood on snow is necessary.

New York: 32°F, snowdrifts piled like white mountains of consequence, the city locked in winter's grip while 1,000+ flights get cancelled and Citi Bike shuts the fuck down because nobody's pedaling through this frozen hellscape.

Kansas City: 14°F with brutal wind chill, the kind of cold that bites through your goddamn bones and makes you question every life choice that brought you to the Midwest, ice-slicked streets claiming metal and rubber.

Atlanta: 28°F, ice accumulations knocking out power for 300,000 souls, flight cancellations exceeding 1,000 at Hartsfield-Jackson, the South unprepared for this crystalline bullshit that's shut down whole interstates.

San Francisco: 58°F and crisp, the Bay Area dodging this frozen nightmare while the rest of the nation shivers, fog rolling in like a benediction for those who chose coastal mercy.

Detroit: 10°F, 17 snowy days predicted this January alone, windchill dropping below zero, the Motor City encased in white while snowplows mobilize like an army against nature's assault.

The cold steel of Minneapolis January cuts different when federal boots hit pavement. 37-year-old Alex Pretti—ICU nurse, lawful gun owner, keeper of others' lives—stands with his phone recording federal agents during an immigration operation. The air tastes of pepper spray before anyone processes what's happening. They pin him down. An officer removes his holstered firearm. Then another officer fires. Multiple shots crack the frozen air. The videos don't lie even when DHS Secretary Kristi Noem calls him a "domestic terrorist," even when they claim he "approached" them with a weapon visible only in their telling.

The damage:

Second fatal Minneapolis shooting in three weeks by federal agents. Local police blocked from investigating their own city. Marjorie Taylor Greene—yeah, that one—breaks with Trump to question ICE's tactics, asks MAGA to imagine if roles reversed. Congress teeters toward shutdown over it. Minnesota Governor Walz: "They want chaos." Trump defends the killing, blames Democrats for "ensued chaos" while his own Defense Secretary posts "ICE > MN." The winter storm can't freeze this rage.

The Hill

Picture the crackle of data centers humming like locusts across the Amazon's lungs. Jeff Bezos's empire just pushed Amazon's 2024 emissions up 6% to 68.25 million metric tons—triple what they emitted in 2019 when he promised net-zero by 2040. The math tastes bitter: every AI query, every cloud computation, every generative bullshit burns through concrete, steel, cooling water while Bezos counts billions.

The science: Data centers demand energy like open wounds demand blood. Amazon joins Google, Meta, Microsoft in their nuclear power deals—not to save the planet but to feed the machine. By 2040, ICT industry emissions will devour 14% of the global total. The mycelium networks beneath our feet communicate without electricity; Bezos's networks require the earth's combustion.

Action: The company sources "cleaner" energy while building more data temples. It's like putting solar panels on a slaughterhouse and calling it sustainable. Earth.org

Jeremy Moss's arm shattered on impact—metal crunching metal, airbag exploding, consciousness intact through every excruciating second. Weeks later, a bomb squad circled his home with X-rays and dogs while neighbors watched, someone's hatred made manifest in a mailbox threat. Two brutal wake-up calls in a single season, his body and his safety both targeted for refusing to buckle on bathroom bills, for being visibly, unapologetically queer and Jewish in an era that wants him erased.

But Moss carries ghosts with him—Ruth Ellis, Jeff Montgomery, decades of activists who pushed the boulder uphill so he could finally cross the tape with Michigan's LGBTQ civil rights amendment. At 39, he's running for Congress from Oakland County's diverse 11th district, outpacing opponents with endorsements from Governor Whitmer and out lesbian AG Dana Nessel, channeling trauma into voting rights legislation and marriage equality defense. He refuses to let violent threats rewrite his trajectory.

Years ago at Milwaukee Pride, Patti LaBelle—his assigned diva—pointed at the crowd as she left the stage and commanded: "Stay gay." Not tolerate it. Not overcome it. Stay gay. That moment crystallized everything: being queer isn't something to endure but to inhabit fully, defiantly, in a world that keeps trying to bomb you into silence. LGBTQ Nation

Walker nails the invisible theft we commit against ourselves. That gay lawmaker didn't lose consciousness because somewhere deep, he'd already decided unconsciousness wasn't an option. He'd claimed his power before the fist arrived. You do this too—every morning you get up despite the world's accumulated bullshit, every time you refuse to shrink because some asshole demands it.

Your power isn't in controlling what happens to you. It's in that millisecond choice: victim or navigator. The 90-10 rule applies here too—10% is the punch, the slur, the system rigged against you. 90% is whether you stay down or run for fucking Congress. Nobody's saying it's fair. But it's yours.

Practice: Notice today when you're about to give away power. That moment of "I can't" or "I shouldn't" or "who am I to." Stop. Breathe. Ask: what would I do if I knew I had the power? Then do that thing. Even scared. Especially scared.

Dylan Mulvaney steps into Broadway's Six as Anne Boleyn February 16, and the bigots lose their collective shit. Trans actress playing a queen in a feminist pop musical about reclaiming women's stories—the producers lock their X account against the flood of hate, disable Instagram comments, then release a statement: attacking Dylan is "never acceptable." She posts her own response: "Being trans in 2026 when this world works against us... to step onto a Broadway stage is a miracle." The show's always been about 21st-century girl power rewriting history—turns out some people only like feminist revolution when it excludes specific women. Playbill

59 primate species fuck same-sex because evolution isn't a puritan. New study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution documents widespread same-sex behavior among bonobos, macaques, chimpanzees—behaviors that predate Homo sapiens itself. Researchers find it's more common in harsh environments, complex social structures, higher predation. Turns out gay sex helps primates survive by reducing conflict, building bonds, keeping everyone safer. Nature's been queer since before we had language, fire, or the bigotry to pretend otherwise. LGBTQ Nation

Master the invisible framework: When conflict erupts, the person speaking owns 10% of the outcome—their words, their tone, their timing. You own the other 90%: what story you tell yourself about those words, what wounds you let them touch, what power you grant them over your day. Practice the gap between stimulus and response. Someone cuts you off in traffic? 10% their action, 90% whether you let it ruin three hours or three seconds.

Compost your tech for better soil: That smartphone battery degrading in your drawer contains rare earth minerals that could feed new devices. Mail dead electronics to certified e-waste recyclers (check Earth911.com for local options). Your obsolete tech becomes tomorrow's circuits instead of tomorrow's toxic runoff. Small action, measurable impact.

Build the accessible workspace that vanishes: Adjustable laptop stands, ergonomic keyboards, and blue-light-blocking software cost less than one physical therapy session. Set up your workspace for disabled bodies and neurospicy brains—everyone benefits from less strain, better positioning, and tech that doesn't wage war on your nervous system. Universal design is selfish design that serves everyone.

Cook late-January resilience into soup: As winter peaks, your body craves earth. Make white bean and kale soup: soak a pound of cannellini beans overnight, sauté diced onion/celery/carrot in olive oil, add beans and stock, simmer two hours, stir in torn kale and fresh thyme last five minutes. Salt aggressively. Serve with crusty bread and remember that warmth is both food and fucking philosophy.

Preserve seed sovereignty for spring: Order heirloom seeds from small, non-corporate suppliers (Baker Creek, Seed Savers Exchange) while planning gardens. Tomatoes, peppers, herbs started indoors in February give you June harvests. Growing your own food isn't quaint—it's food justice, climate adaptation, and the middle finger to industrial agriculture, all germinating in one pot.

Honor the grain's memory in bread: Make sourdough starter this slow season—mix equal parts flour and water daily for a week, feed it, watch wild yeast colonize. That living culture becomes bread that doesn't spike blood sugar, that tastes like patience, that connects you to every human who's fermented grain since we settled down. Ancient practice, daily ritual, edible history.

Shakur understood interconnection before it was a buzzword. Dylan Mulvaney stepping onto that Broadway stage carries every trans kid who can't afford tickets, every trans elder who didn't survive to see it, every scared teenager scrolling TikTok at 2am looking for proof they'll make it. Her shackles differ from yours—but when bigots come for one queen, they're practicing for all of us.

This isn't abstract solidarity. It's acknowledgment: the systems crushing trans folks test their methods on marginalized communities, then scale up. First they come for trans healthcare, then they come for abortion, then they come for birth control. First they ban books about trans kids, then they ban books about civil rights, then they burn the whole library. Your freedom is tactical horseshit if you're not fighting for freedoms that look different than yours.

Practice: This week, put money/time/platform behind someone whose struggle you don't personally face. Trans mutual aid fund. Indigenous land back movement. Disability justice org. Whatever sits outside your direct experience of oppression. Not as charity—as the strategic recognition that none of us are free until all of us are.

The Hill | Multiple Authors. NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and President Trump text twice weekly in what sources call "friendly" exchanges since their November Oval Office meeting where Trump told the democratic socialist, "You're even better-looking in person than on TV." The 34-year-old mayor who campaigned on rent freezes, free childcare, and taxing the rich now has the 79-year-old president's phone number, and they're apparently discussing everything from Venezuelan coups to NYC zoning. Critics call it betrayal; pragmatists call it survival. Mamdani: "The president and I have always been honest and direct about places of disagreement." Translation: sometimes you gotta sext the enemy to save your city. Read

Seasonal prediction: Based on their texting pattern, Trump and Mamdani will have had a lovers' quarrel by Valentine's Day (Mamdani will call him a fascist again), a reconciliation by March (Trump will offer Manhattan a "beautiful" federal grant), and a full breakup by May (Mamdani will run attack ads featuring their leaked messages where Trump uses way too many emojis and doesn't understand punctuation). But whatever it is, we all agree. Mamdani is the Top, and Trump is the Bottom.

Gothic grandeur gets its dick back: The Basilica of Saint-Denis near Paris lost its 300-foot spire to lightning in 1837, then to architectural rivalry, then to bureaucratic indifference. Now $38 million and hand-carved medieval craftsmanship are erecting what was stolen—completion targeted for 2030, just 183 years late. The birthplace of Gothic architecture that inspired Notre Dame will finally thrust skyward again, proving even amputated monuments can regenerate given enough political will and zero power saws. National Geographic

Clickbait: You Have More Control Than You Think: The 90-10 Rule says 10% of life is what happens to you, 90% is how you react. Coffee spills on your shirt before work—you can spiral into a day-destroying rage spiral or change your shirt and move the fuck on. Someone cuts you off in traffic—let it roll off like water or let it poison your next three hours. The stoics knew this shit 2,000 years ago; we just keep forgetting under the weight of minor inconveniences that we grant nuclear power. Upworthy

Cox speaks the exhaustion every marginalized person feels when their humanity becomes hashtag. But here's the brutal gift embedded in that weariness: they need you to be a symbol because your personhood scares them. Your three-dimensional, contradictory, fuck-up-making, joy-experiencing, complicated personhood threatens every simple story they've built about who belongs and who doesn't.

So yeah, be a person. Be messy. Be tired. Make mistakes. Change your mind. Contradict yourself. Contain multitudes. Your personhood isn't the neat narrative they need—it's the truth that cracks their certainties. When Dylan Mulvaney says stepping onto Broadway as Anne Boleyn is a "miracle," she's not being symbolic. She's being a person who almost gave up on theatre, who got torn apart online, who kept showing up anyway because persons are stubborn as hell.

This week, notice when you're performing symbol instead of living personhood. When you're being The Good [Identity] instead of just being yourself, with all the glorious fuckups that implies. Drop the performance. Be the person. That's the revolution.

Behind the Name:
The Gathering isn't news aggregation—it's the fruiting body of the underground network. While headlines scream and algorithms manipulate, we're down in the dark soil where actual truth decomposes lies, where community resilience feeds tomorrow's growth, where you remember that your daily choices carry more weight than their manufactured chaos. This is the ancestral practice of discernment dressed in morning coffee ritual.