Unfortunately I Can’t Use This Advice Myself. If I Try To Empathize And See Their Point Of View It

What I was taught growing up: Wild edible plants and animals were just so naturally abundant that the indigenous people of my area, namely western Washington state, didn't have to develop agriculture and could just easily forage/hunt for all their needs.

The first pebble in what would become a landslide: Native peoples practiced intentional fire, which kept the trees from growing over the camas praire.

The next: PNW native peoples intentionally planted and cultivated forest gardens, and we can still see the increase in biodiversity where these gardens were today.

The next: We have an oak prairie savanna ecosystem that was intentionally maintained via intentional fire (which they were banned from doing for like, 100 years and we're just now starting to do again), and this ecosystem is disappearing as Douglas firs spread, invasive species take over, and land is turned into European-style agricultural systems.

The Land Slide: Actually, the native peoples had a complex agricultural and food processing system that allowed them to meet all their needs throughout the year, including storing food for the long, wet, dark winter. They collected a wide variety of plant foods (along with the salmon, deer, and other animals they hunted), from seaweeds to roots to berries, and they also managed these food systems via not only burning, but pruning, weeding, planting, digging/tilling, selectively harvesting root crops so that smaller ones were left behind to grow and the biggest were left to reseed, and careful harvesting at particular times for each species that both ensured their perennial (!) crops would continue thriving and that harvest occurred at the best time for the best quality food. American settlers were willfully ignorant of the complex agricultural system, because being thus allowed them to claim the land wasn't being used. Native peoples were actively managing the ecosystem to produce their food, in a sustainable manner that increased biodiversity, thus benefiting not only themselves but other species as well.

So that's cool. If you want to read more, I suggest "Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America" by Nancy J. Turner

Buses are a public health nightmare. Poor ventilation, people coughing, people vaping, one time I caught some jerk huffing inhalants. It’s like they’re trying to get you sick.

I know I sound like your mom but you kids need to stop fucking vaping

This is a joke because of course the c-suite will never fire themselves. They are kind of like the lord of the manor. The employees are like serfs. Nothing ever changes. Oh and there’s one person a step up from the rank and file that actually organizes and keeps the place running, the supervisor, corresponding to the steward. Meanwhile the lord does little but he owns the joint, and can’t be gotten rid of unless the peasants revolt.

Unfortunately they seem to hate minorities of various kinds more than lords exploiting everyone.

Hey Corporations!

And more corporate stuff.

reblog this it takes 4 seconds.

Yeah! I would love to see a complete deconstruction of hp lovecraft. Keeping the surface features like shoggoths, mi-go, deep ones etc, but inverting the tone, and pointing out that he was a xenophobic racist and based all his work on that. Seriously, read the parts where he talks about human beings of color, women (and even poor whites), it’s disgusting. He’s an unreliable narrator of the worst kind. Why should anyone trust him to describe other intelligent beings?

Different does not mean evil. Imagine a crew of all his aliens (except maybe the elder things), revealed to be friendly once you get to know them. With a black (human) woman as captain just to spit in the old bigot’s face.

Concept: Star Trek style quasi-utopian deep space drama, except all of the ship’s non-human crew members are really obviously based on particular sci-fi horror tropes.

The chief physician is an amorphous mass of tentacles and teeth that’s infested the entire medical bay, transforming it into a quivering nightmare of meat and viscera. It speaks with a conspicuously posh accent; the human crew members affectionately call it “Doc”.

The head of security is a lurking, probably humanoid something-or-other that’s mostly imperceptible in the visual spectrum, save as a faintly shimmering distortion in the air. Her lack of visibility is treated as a running gag, with the most frequent bits involving a. other crew members not realising she’s in the room until she speaks up, and b. her making reference to various unlikely anatomic features which, of course, the audience cannot see.

The ship’s computer is a blatantly rampant AI that speaks in a chorus of voices. It tends to talk in cryptic, pseudo-religious metaphors which contrast to humorous effect with the mundanity of the topic at hand, and sometimes wanders off on rambling philosophical tangents that require whoever it’s speaking with to remind it to get to the point. You can tell when it’s paying attention to a particular part of the ship because the lighting turns blood red.

The lead science officer is just a huge fucking spider.

(The captain is an apparently ordinary – albeit extremely photogenic – human. We don’t find out what their real deal is until the season finale; what’s revealed firmly establishes them as the freakiest one of the lot!)

I don’t really have a choice since I can’t drive or afford a car. It’s bike or bus for me, ride shares are too expensive. But honestly I like bike riding anyway.

Bike propaganda by me

Buses do not have good ventilation. Coughing without a mask or spraying toxic aerosols everywhere is not good for other people.

I know I sound like your mom but you kids need to stop fucking vaping

Does anyone want to start a school based on a minority faith? Which would expose their Christian-normative hypocrisy. Watch them get up in arms about anything Muslim (even though that’s Abrahamic and conservative), Neopagan, or other ones. How would they feel about a Buddhist school made by Asian-Americans?

Mother Jones

The Supreme Court is about to let religion ruin public education

Two recent cases suggest that the era of secular schools is coming to an end.

In modern America, religious education is offered in private schools or in a homeschooling setting. Public education, by contrast, is secular, because the government is not in the business of sponsoring religious indoctrination. But in two cases the Supreme Court heard over roughly the last week, the justices appear ready to throw out public education as we know it and usher in a new era where tax dollars flow to religious schools and religion can dictate what is taught in public classrooms. When the decisions come down, public education may change forever. On Tuesday, the justices heard arguments in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, a case over whether Oklahoma must fund a religious charter school that carries out religious instruction and hosts religious activities, including mass. Rather than consider this an affront to the separation of church and state, four Republican-appointed justices appeared outraged at the idea that a state would fund a charter school focused on language immersion or the arts but not one focused on religious instruction. Without ever acknowledging that the the First Amendment’s establishment clause (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”) prohibits government-sponsored religion, several expressed palpable anger that allowing only secular charter schools was a form of anti-religious discrimination. “All the religious school is saying is ‘Don’t exclude us on account of our religion,’” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. “If you go and apply to be a charter school and you’re an environmental studies school, or you’re a science-based school, or you’re a Chinese immersion school, or you’re a English grammar-focused school, you can get in. And then you come in and you say, ‘Oh, we’re a religious school.’ It’s like, ‘Oh, no, can’t do that, that’s too much.’ That’s scary.” He continued: “You can’t treat religious people and religious institutions and religious speech as second-class in the United States… And when you have a program that’s open to all comers except religion… that seems like rank discrimination against religion.” [ ... ] This case alone will be a bombshell if the court mandates that states begin funding religious schools through their charter school programs. But this term, the Supreme Court is poised to deliver a one-two punch. Last week, the court heard arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which it considered whether religious parents could opt their kids out of lessons that did not conform with their beliefs. Again, the GOP-appointed majority appeared ready to side with the plaintiffs and allow religious parents to pull kids from the classroom when material they object to is taught—a policy that threatens to create a backdoor through which religious parents have veto power over elements of the curriculum and classroom discussion.  In any school that cannot accommodate children leaving the classroom and being provided alternate materials, the religious preferences of a minority seem destined to dictate the curriculum for all. The likely result is the wide elimination of LGBTQ content. Teachers may fear answering a question about a gay politician, for example, or even displaying a picture of their same-sex partner on their desk. If the justices decide in the next few months to allow religious opt-outs in public schools and the creation of religious charter schools, it’s hard to see how public education will not change profoundly. In many districts, together the decisions would likely mean the only publicly-funded school options would be either explicitly religious or circumscribed by the religious preferences of certain parents.

I might add that at least some of this is experienced by anyone in a marginalized group of any kind. Being oppressed is stressful, and telling someone to “challenge thoughts” about real and present dangers is gaslighting.

As an Autistic Person, I spent years trying to overcome my anxiety, only to realise that I was an autistic person in a non-autistic world....

Neurodivergent_lou

I have some thoughts about the whole trans athletes ban bs.

When I played soccer in school we often scrimmaged against and with actual boys twice my size (I was under 5' and about 105lbs at the time) and we even had a co-ed varsity team. Never ONCE did I or any of the girls complain or think it was unfair. The girls on the co-ed varsity team were incredible and completely equal in ability to the best of the boys. (If not better imo) They won many games. I remember watching those girls play with great admiration. I am now trans-nonbinary and it amazes me how quickly transphobes will accept and parrot the lie that women and girls are inferior in every way to men if it means trans people will suffer. The girls on our team were fucking TOUGH and would have thrown a FIT had you insinuated that to them! "ANYTHING YOU CAN DO, I CAN DO BETTER!" Until trans people are involved, apparently. Then suddenly they're poor, pitiful victims who just can’t be expected to compete with “men”. GET A GRIP, LADIES!

**I have been corrected by a friend who was also on the team at the time (and the coach's daughter)** Our soccer team was completely co-ed until our sophomore year of high school when the girls team was established. I started in 7th grade and don't remember ever hearing any complaints.

I was not personally very good at soccer but neither were some of the boys. Your assigned sex at birth plays NO part in your athletic ability! Just let people play sports! I find it especially telling that they even separate sports like CHESS on the basis of gender and want to ban trans people from that, as well. It's not just athletic ability transphobes believe sex assigned at birth gives you an unfair advantage or disadvantage to, but intelligence too! The internalized misogyny is so sad and pathetic.

I grew up with commercials like this. So many people who also grew up with this message and were taught to embrace that "fuck you energy" in sports and life are now crying about how "unfair" it is that they may have to play against a trans person??? BOO fucking HOO, princess!