In the USA the big cities are fully paid, the suburban areas are a combination, and the rural areas are fully volunteer. I’m in a combination department, where the paid staff handle most of the medical calls and both respond to fire calls. The biggest issue with growing income inequality is folks just don’t have as much free time to volunteer so it’s hard to get enough members to fully staff an apparatus. That means paid staff but those are expensive and require a lot of logistics to maintain.

I started out thinking firefighters should all just be paid and it’s unreasonable to expect folks to volunteer. I’ve come back around and think it should be “volunteer or pay”. We obviously need the money for expensive gear and apparatus maintenance. Also it’s helpful to not have to get out of bed in the middle of the night when tomorrow is a work night

On the other hand, I think it’s extremely beneficial to have the resilience of a lot of skilled firefighters in the community. When there’s a big call you want as many people as quickly as possible. I also think it helps with PTSD to be able to just take time off from calls without losing your job. So I think there should be a lot more volunteers and an easier path to getting enough skills to become a volunteer.

I consider doom scrolling to be an unhealthy way to consume news and an ineffective tool for political change. Protests, strikes, and voting change politics. There is little to be gained by algorithmically filling my body with cortisol and adrenaline.

My head is not in the sand because I read apnews and reuters periodically.

I prefer for lemmy to be an enjoyable place to visit. If it was an endless feed of doom I would uninstall and read a book instead.

Every time I see a politics news or comic or meme I block that community. It’s great my entire feed is fun stuff and cool art

Wow this takes me back

From one chaotic to another, may you be blessed with a peaceful soul and find a deep and healing rest

Maybe Attack Pack?

https://hotwheels.fandom.com/wiki/Attack_Pack

https://www.ebay.com/itm/266660026443

For example

I don’t remember, I’d just put some raw bacon in there on a rack and eat when it was cooked and smokey

https://www.themudhome.com/mudbuilding/how-to-make-a-cob-oven-and-avoid-the-common-pitfalls

https://theyearofmud.com/2009/09/12/outdoor-cob-pizza-oven/

There’s a book too, if you want more detail, that’s what I used when I first made mine like 12 years ago

https://permies.com/t/223763/Cob-Oven-bible-Build-Earth

The simplest explanation is you pile sand into a dome shape, then mix clay and sand and pile it on the sand, then mix clay sand and straw and use that for the outer shell. After the walls dry you can scoop out the inner sand dome.

I highly recommend renting a cement mixer, doing it with foot stamping takes a very long time.

lawl absolutely true, but also it gets below freezing here and rebuilding it only take a few hours so it’s nbd. I’d rather just rebuild it every few years vs stress out super hard a fancy one cracks

I built one with just clay and straw, used it every weekend for years, it cracked, rebuilt it, used for another two years, cracked again, rebuilt it a third time. I’ve moved to a new house and already miss it. Even if I’m not making pizza, it’s great just for an outdoor fire while sitting in the hammock. It’s contained and uses like 1/4 of the wood while not being as dangerous.

A great way to spend a weekend afternoon is to fire it up and loaf on the hammock. I’d also use it to bake bread, make peach cobblers in cast iron, and smoke bacon. Great times. Maybe I could get the parts to rebuild it this weekend…

I love the single movie book edits! They are so much better and more enjoyable without a lot of fluff

Ugh I wish I could use one of those badass reflective helmets with the built in radios, but I’d be mocked for the rest of my life if I wore one to a single call. They are just so cool though, looks like a space fighter helmet

Biggest difference is most firefighters generally don’t even get paid, it’s volunteers waking up in the middle of the night, driving to the station, putting on gear and responding for the love of the game.

Gruff assholes yeah, but everyone I know trains two hours every week on top of a few classes a year. Also the whole point is the expectation that you’re responding to a dangerous situation. Too many times I’ve seen bystanders do dangerous stuff and yelling at them is the fastest way to notify that they are walking into danger.

Hmmm go figure at the comments here complaining about Bazzite, I’ve been on it over a year now and really like it

I am seeing more and more folks go veg simply because the price, and that’s great! Build a culture of veg meals and normalize the epic curries, chillis, soups, stews, spreads, and tofu / seitan/mushroom dishes

I really like Derek Sarno’s YouTube channel for this reason. I feel very welcome watching his content because he doesn’t browbeat folks who aren’t fully vegan, he just presents an epic mountain of some of the most mouth watering vegan food I’ve ever seen.

Instead of purity tests to keep folks out, we need more people like Derek who hold the door open for everyone, so they can smell the amazing food cooking inside.

I think you need to look into how rare earth minerals are mined. Or how slavery works. Humans treat humans as bad as any animal if they can make a profit.

Consider that humans sometimes bully other humans to death simply for the power trip. That is some pretty horrific physiological torture.

We’re not that far from accepted child labor. Chimney sweeps. Heck there’s a chance clothes we’ve worn this week were sewn by children in a sweatshop. Or the phone or computer metals were mined with child slave labor.

This is why veganism is hard for me, it’s absolutely not possible to live a cruelty free life unless you’re living on your own land with your own spun clothes and never consuming medication (all tested on lab mice).

Drawing the “perfect line” at eating only plant based food is fine, but it’s a far cry from a cruelty free life. Folks get very serious optimizing on one dimension of cruelty (foods not being animal products) but then completely ignore everything else. And then bully others who do not do the same.

I’d rather see a universe like the OP, better to celebrate every step folks do take in the right direction, not tell them it’s not enough. Everyone should be celebrated for:

• making clothes last longer
• buying used clothes
• keeping the same vehicle longer
• choosing vegan dishes when they can
• delaying PC and phone upgrades, buying used when they do
• taking the bus over driving, walking instead of taking the bus
• standing up to bullies
• growing food at home

At my volunteer station, we all just go to work like normal and respond if there’s a call.

We do have some part time staff who remain at the station for EMS calls. When there’s down time they are:

• cleaning the station
• filling out charts from earlier calls
• checking all the apparatus equipment
• training skills
• homework from advanced classes (paramedic, rescue technician, officer, etc)
• napping to catch up on sleep from calls in the middle of the night
• doing station laundry

It’s enough to keep them lightly busy but not enough to be strenuous, as they typically do 12-24 hour shifts. Being “at work” for 24 hours is pretty rough, so I don’t begrudge them a mid-day nap.

smh Bazzite doesn’t even get on the list