#8 October 2024

Hurricane Helene ripped through North Carolina last week and outside of work it has been essentially the only thing on my mind. There are entire areas that are simply gone now. I am incredibly, incredibly lucky that no one I know was injured or killed, but western NC is not going to be the same after the floods.

There's a lot more I could talk about -- how water utilities aren't expected to be fixed for at least a month, how many people dependent on the food service industry will lose their jobs and housing in that time, how even as the official death toll rises the isolation of rural communities in Appalachia means there are likely hundreds more who will simply disappear. I don't know. It's surreal.

And it's impossible to experience this, watching FEMA and the people of WNC fight to get aid, and not think of how this country's government continues to prioritize funneling money into the war machine instead of providing infrastructure or support to its own people.

Oscar and Val Wise have been operating a campaign for their friend Abdulrahman, as well as diligently sharing information and links to other fundraisers here and here on their Twitter pages. Additionally, the Cartoonist Co-Op is still running the E-SIMs for Gaza campaign. You can donate to NC communities affected by Helene here.

...of course, it is a little difficult to follow that with 'and hey here's this other stuff' but it feels impossible for me to write pretty much anything right now without talking about Helene in some capacity, so here we are.

I've started up a new blog, as my previous preferred platform (Cohost) is sunsetting and will shut down at the end of the year. This one will be different from the newsletter in that it's more of a personal rambling style blog than a monthly work-focused feed. It's also RSS enabled if you're a feed reader sicko like myself.

The Vow is progressing as well. We've now crossed the 50% completion mark, which is scary and thrilling in equal measure. I think once the file has been handed off for prepress I'll likely go back in and put together an updated version of the teaser so people have something a bit more representative to flip through, but as with everything else outside of 'finish the book' that's a lower work priority right now. It does look really really good though.

Thanks for reading. This is a pretty somber update, but I do want to wish a l'shanah tovah to all who celebrate. May this coming year be sweeter.