If anyone has ever worked or talked with a refugee or asylum seeker, none of this is surprising. The US gives so little assistance to resettling refugees that it’s truly embarrassing.

They get three months of bare minimum help - often through religious “resettlement” groups who receive the funds. After three months, they are expected to get a job, pay their own rent, navigate life in the US (including driving), and speak English well enough to do all of that.

They get almost no extra healthcare, rent assistance, food assistance, trauma therapy, or anything else beyond that point unless they are able to navigate the systems to do so. And to be honest, that is difficult enough for someone born here. It’s almost impossible for a new refugee. What little assistance they do get after the first 90 days is often due to community and church groups, not the US government.

Theoretically, they have case workers etc. through the resettlement agencies, but it’s a total mess. It’s an absolute disgrace, and we can and should be doing better to support refugees and asylum seekers. Especially if they are going to get dumped in a small town with no resources. I really understand residents’ frustrations, but I also hope this ugly episode teaches people how woefully inadequate our refugee program is - and helps them advocate for change! We can do better.

May I suggest “Don’t Let Me Die in America” by of Montreal? (Confusingly, an American band)

Also “Sunset on 32nd Street” by Strike Anywhere - although you could pull any track off that whole album and it would work.

Me too!!! I still play through it once a year or so and listen to the soundtrack all the time. My favorite game of all time; one of my favorite pieces of art of all time. Guess I’m due for another round!

Ugh yes, nailed it!

Thank you for posting, I never really pursued this but just downloaded Airalo for an upcoming trip and I’m really excited to not pay $10/day with my carrier!!!

I don’t manage our PiHole, so easier said than done. I’m the non tech spouse (although not clicking ads or on TikTok all day, lol) but I can’t bug my spouse in the middle of the day to whitelist something for me. I can easily disable it myself and it takes 10 seconds. I could learn how to whitelist, but TBH I have enough tech to keep up with for the business already.

My most frequent issue is that links created through an email service provider like ConvertKit will get blocked by PiHole.

I’m a small business owner and so I get a lot of other people’s newsletters, on purpose. I like seeing what mentors and colleagues are doing with their businesses. But a link to their website, a blog post, anything really will almost always be blocked by PiHole if it’s sent via an ESP. This kind of “tracking” (email clicks from a small biz I know and trust) is something I am totally fine with.

It’s easy to disable for 1 minute to click through, but sometimes I forget that the PiHole is active and I can’t figure out why the links aren’t working.