Book rec for anyone who wants a short read about a community garden. My teacher read it to my class in fifth grade, and I’m finally rereading it. It’s very good! It does take place in Cleveland in the 1980s ish, so there are a few instances of racist language, but overall it’s a fantastic book about building a community.
Idea: sew some cute little moths with scrap fabrics and sew them on holes you have on your clothes so you can keep wearing them :)
Grasses in the wind.
deadmothh
green wheat field with cypress tree, vincent van gogh
Saw this post by @doppelnatur how dandelions are pretty good trans symbols and got inspired! Happy pride everyone 🏳️⚧️
There’s some company, blackstone, blackwater, something like that, buying up houses that go on sale for 30k above asking price. Immediately outbidding anyone who tries to buy. Corporations are also buying property all across america.
Fuck…
Nobody comes to my tumblr for this, but Americans need to understand that THIS is why my generation can’t afford to own a house outside of Smallest-Town USA. THIS is also why people my age in bigger cities struggle to find decent apartments that don’t consume half of our monthly income.
Housing Speculation is when rich folk, corporations, and wannabe landlords buy up property and sit on it like dragons hoarding gold. The Dutch have a dragon-adjacent term for this because speculation devastated their housing market in the 70s-80s leading to some gnarly Dutch squatting culture. They let homes sit empty, good as money in the bank and watch the value increase as everyone else competes for the remaining houses. That’s value they can borrow against, that’s a few hundred-thousand dollars if you need some quick cash, that’s a property you can rent out for regular income while charging tenants for repairs or maintenance and fining them for wear and tear. If property values go up and laws prohibit raising the rent by a certain degree, in many places they can find shady ways to evict that tenant, make no changes and charge the next renter more. It’s probably illegal but if you rent to people below a certain income, you can be assured most can’t afford to take you to court.
I live in Chicago. Many of the properties that used to house students, small families, single parents, older people, low-income folks have been gobbled up by little airbnb barons who colonize previously well-established neighborhoods and price out families who’ve lived there for generations because they can’t keep up with the artificially inflated property values. The airbnbs spread like cancer until a handful of people can dominate the “affordable” housing for an entire neighborhood. It’s gentrification on meth, but without the kind of localized money circulation or community improvements you get when people live and work and spend within their neighborhoods. It pushes residents further and further from services and resources until all that’s left is the locked-in commodififation of an exploitable renting class.
If that wasn’t bad enough, it also means that when large areas of habitable property are being hoarded by investors with portfolios of empty houses and airbnbs, that reduces the number of actual residents, which can spoil legislation on a community level. When all the storefront space in a neighborhood like mine is controlled by 4 people, you find the number of businesses and services that catered to lower income families start to become whiskey bars, boutiques, vintage shops, and upscale chain retail, businesses that bring money into the property owners at the expense of community accessibility, turning a once largely Hispanic neighborhood community into a posh little destination for travelers, tourists, and other aspiring business speculators who see every empty building as their next revinue stream. Gut a block of apartments with attached commercial space and build half as many luxury condos above a combination tapas bar and day spa and you’ve instantly got half as many tenants on that block to vote against your expansion schemes. Replacing low-income residents with higher-rent folks also bakes in support for future “improvements” that further contribute to the commodification of communities.
Property ownership has always been a tool of the most privileged class to extract value from the working class because the only options become rent, move, or live on the street for all they care. At which point, the police will sweep you further and further into the gutter until they have an excuse to send you to prison. This kind of speculation and consolidation allows people with excess resources to buy up the things the rest of us require to function and sell it back to us forever.
These are the same people that invented the fairy tale about how if we work hard enough and save and spend like smart people, then we can be landlords too! We can own businesses, raise families, chase dreams and be happy if we are smart like they are. But if we can’t it’s because we’re lazy little parasites who need to have our lives portioned out to us lest we waste time that could be earning money for the landlord.
I hate these fuckers so fucking much.
people need shelter. corporations that exploit this at the expense of humanity are a nightmare.
the original idea of airbnb is that people would let out their spare rooms, or their own while they were out of town. that was wholesome. what it has become is just not.
how to make cloth pads (it's dummy easy)
- trace outline of pattern onto wrong side of topper fabric (I use flannel)
- cut out core shape and pin to where the core should be on the topper (I used one layer of wash cloth and 5 layers of thin cotton)
- sew core onto topper
- place backer fabric (I use flannel) and topper fabric right sizes together
- cut off exess fabric, sew on the line leaving a few in gap to turn
- optional iron
- turn through the hole and poke all the seams out (this can be a struggle if the hole is too small rip)
- iron that bad boi till its FLAT
- top stitch around edges (not pictured cuz im lazy)
- add poppers or snaps or velcro (also not pictured cuz i ran outta snaps:()
- done!!!! do it a hundred more times cuz it's fun
My Punk Tips for a DIY Lifestyle:
- Thrift some black fabric (or grab an old black shirt you don't care for anymore), get a white fabric marker, posca, sharpie, or paint and make a bunch of patches to sew onto your clothes.
- If you're a digital artist this is your time to shine! Make stencils, posters, design clothes (there are free templates online), and if you don't own a printer libraries will let you print for cheap and sometimes free. My library card allows me to print 10 pages for free.
- Reuse everything or if you don't want it anymore donate it or recycle it.
- Trash is very punk. Soda can tabs for instance can make for cool jewlery. It's all about creativity.
- Drug store makeup is your best friend and honestly they're sometimes better than the luxury name brand products. Or hell even make some of your own.
- If you need to order something I suggest etsy. Yes, some of it's expensive but if you're supporting small artists and buissnesses rather than a corportation. It's also easier to find poc, queer, and neurodivergent buissnesses and artists.
- Overall punk is about being creative. Just get creative and have fun!
I’m sorry friends, but “just google it” is no longer viable advice. What are we even telling people to do anymore, go try to google useful info and the first three pages are just ads for products that might be the exact opposite of what the person is trying to find but The Algorithm thinks the words are related enough? And if it’s not ads it’s just sponsored websites filled with listicles, just pages and pages of “TOP FIFTEEN [thing you googled] IMAGINED AS DISNEY PRINCESSES” like… what are we even doing anymore, google? I can no longer use you as shorthand for people doing real and actual helpful research on their own.
Time to drop some links again.
– https://searchmysite.net/ Search engine for the indie web, personal websites, digital gardens. You can also find them in websites like Neocities, Indieweb, Blogarama, and write.as. There is also a big list of personal websites.
– https://search.marginalia.nu/ Search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and promotes websites that aren’t usually at the top of the list.
– https://www.worldcat.org/ Search engine for items in libraries (books, but also maps, articles, sound recordings, theses, etc.)
– https://scholar.google.com/ Search engine for scientific papers, reviews, etc. It’s still google, but a lot better than the normal search engine counterpart.
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines A list of search engines sorted by subject, area, and more. If you’re searching on a specific area, it might be worth checking if there is one focused on that area.
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_search_engines A list of academic databases and search engines.
– https://tineye.com/ Reverse image search alternative to Google’s. Also, P.S.: Please stop using Google, and start using more privacy focused search engines, like DuckDuckGo or SearchX (opensource; personally haven’t used it yet, but it looks promising for privacy-focused users)
i hate you shein. i hate you wish. i hate you temu. i hate you aliexpress. i hate you fast fashion. i hate you consumerism. i hate you planned obsolescence. i hate you plastics.
hey a local town actually did this!
they planted berries, root vegetables, leafy greens, herbs, all sorts. they label each plant and the sign said "free to take, leave some for others to enjoy!"
and people did. they took a bit, but left some for others.
it also fed the homeless people living around there.
bearing in mind this is a tourist town, so i half expected to see the plants gone. but nope, there's always some left.
people aren't naturally selfish, and they will share. the initiative works
And honestly? Most people who don't need it won't bother to stop and pick fruit. It's only people who actually need it who will devote the time. People with money still have grocery stores.
[Image description: tweet by Black Botanist @CreativeTiana: transcript follows]
I was talking to someone about planting food and fruit trees in public spaces and they were like “Why so everyone can steal the food?”
And I was like “See, that’s the problem right there. Why should taking food off a public tree be stealing?”
"Urban food forest" is something I'm hearing more and more. Do some poking around, there may be an opportunity to help with or start something like this near you.
I live in a region where there are random blackberry brambles just around urban areas. It is bizarre to imagine people thinking picking some fruit is stealing. No one has time or energy or thorn tolerance to pick all the berries. People just grab a handful or too usually in all the places I've lived in two states where this is a thing.
I love the idea of expanding it to more hinds of things.
Guerrilla Girls 1991
[Image ID: a poster reading:
“Q. What’s the difference between a prisoner of war and a homeless person?
A. Under the Geneva Convention, a prisoner of war is entitled to food, shelter and medical care.”
Between the question and answer is a black and white photo of a police officer disturbing a homeless person with a baton. The homeless person is lying down on a bench.
The bottom of the poster reads “a public message from Guerrilla Girls - 532 LaGuardia PI. #237, NY 10012”. /End ID]
Early paper-pieced patchwork from the McCord Museum. Excerpts from An Early-Eighteenth-Century Pieced Quilt in Montreal by Jacqueline Beaudoin-Ross in Canadian Art Review 1979-80.
Pedestrian affirmations:
YOU ARE INVINCIBLE
AUTOMOBILES TREMBLE AT THE SIGHT OF YOU
GOD'S DIVINE LIGHT SHIELDS YOU
CROSSWALKS ARE YOUR HOLY PATH TO SALVATION
hey netizens! i'm not sure how many people are aware, but youtube's been slowly rolling out a new anti-adblock policy that can't be bypassed with the usual software like uBlock Origin and Pi-Hole out of the gate
BUT, if you're a uBlock Origin user (or use an adblocker with a similar cosmetics modifier), you can add these commands in the uBlock dashboard to get rid of it!
youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0) youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, []) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)
reblog to help keep the internet less annoying and to tell corporations that try shit like this to go fuck themselves <3
Where do I copy-paste these to? "My filters"? "My Rules"?
'my filters'! if you look closely you'll notice the format is different between the two pages. the (website)(##)(additional text) format goes in filters
An attempt at summarizing the controversies that embroil mycorrhizal network research:
- a bunch of scientists are miffed at how the media has taken "plants communicate and distribute nutrients through the mycorrhizal network" and run with it, finding the "mother tree" thing too anthropomorphizing and too presumptive about something very poorly understood
- unfortunately all of the major models for understanding the mycorrhizal network are anthropomorphizing, even the more competition-centered ones...to the point that papers discuss whether the network is a "capitalist" or a "socialist" system
- other researchers, screaming STOP USING LOADED TERMS THAT PROMOTE AN ANTHROPOCENTRIC INTERPRETATION
- But, setting aside the question of whether trees can "intentionally" do something or be altruistic...how do we know the plant is the one in control? Are the trees "sending" nutrients or is the fungus taking the nutrients and sending them to other trees? Wait, how do we assign agency in a system like this at all? Isn't it unscientific to assume that any part of the system, fungus or plant, is consciously acting? Wait...are they actually separate organisms with their own interests, or is it more accurate to view all the members of a mycorrhizal network as one big super-organism? (Wait, is it anthropomorphizing to consider organisms as having interests? If yes, how do we describe what's happening using language?)
- Basically, yes we have demonstrated and established that nutrients move from one plant to another plant in the mycorrhizal network, including from fully grown trees to saplings, plants in sunlight to shaded plants, and other things that are definitely fun to interpret as one plant "helping" the weaker plant. However, we don't actually know the intentions of plants, so for all we know, the fungus could be doing everything. Or it could be completely stupid to describe any of it as "one individual organism in the network Intentionally Does A Thing."
- Big Problem: Although a shit ton of research is being done, most research in the mycorrhizal network is done on very simple networks of 1 or 2 plant species with a handful of selected fungal inoculants in otherwise sterile laboratory settings. These conditions do not reflect the natural world at all.
- in fact, experimental conditions used to study mycorrhizal networks are mostly completely unlike anything that would ever exist...you know, Outside,
- most of the research pertains to agriculture and there are many demonstrated benefits, and many farmers are ALREADY using methods to promote mycorrhizal networks, but my guess is that it's not as simple as matching crops up to fungal inoculants that help them for instant 20% yield increase, at least in Real Outdoor Soil with an existing microbiome and seed bank.
- Roughly speaking, 50% of mycorrhizal associations benefit seedling establishment, and the remaining 50% are themselves split halfway between "no effect" and "negative effect." Doesn't this mean that the mycorrhizal network is not always chill and altruistic?
- Well, those findings might mean absolutely nothing either way, since in a field-setting plant community, there are dozens if not hundreds of fungi species (the diversity and number of specialists increases in later-successional communities) that are part of the mycorrhizal network, and through them any given seedling might be linked to a thousand different plants.
- Some researchers find it puzzling how so many mycorrhizal partnerships seem to have no effect. Maybe the effect only comes online in certain conditions?
- Parasitism, mutualism and commensalism aren't fixed types of relationship, and two partners in the mycorrhizal network can and do switch between the three constantly. This is another problem: the experiments don't usually follow both partners in a plant-fungal pairing to the end of their natural lives, and it's been shown that a fungus can be mutualistic early in a plant's life and later on become more parasitic (for example). Or that a fungus can be beneficial in poor soil conditions and become parasitic in rich soil conditions.
- But...is this really best understood as a situational switch between types of symbiosis, or can we judge it by the net effect on both partners throughout their life spans, or...my brain is breaking
- Like, a fungus that mostly decreases the fitness of the host plant, BUT becomes very helpful in the presence of extreme drought...is it a parasite or mutualistic partner?
- Some researchers lean toward a source-sink model where nutrients tend to flow toward plants that are most lacking and away from plants with most abundance. This is a rough approximation of something ridiculously complicated
- Plants can and do select fungal partners to pair with and reject fungi that contribute fewer benefits.
- Fungi also appear capable of selectively distributing resources based on the fitness of the host, or at least they did this one experiment where the fungus was connected to two different trees and researchers ripped all the leaves off one of the trees. This caused the fungus to divert its nutrient flow to the undamaged tree (throwing in its lot with the tree most likely to survive). However, we're not sure if this would happen in a forest or other natural plant community, since in the lab, the fungus was totally dependent on the two trees for survival and there were no other participants in the network. So basically, it's kinda like those behavior studies on captive wolves?
You know what? Destroy the "people in rural areas are all ignorant conservatives" stereotype and start mocking the "trad"/anti-feminist/neonazi people that are obsessed with rural areas despite having never been to one
I'm absolutely laughing my ass off at all these "Traditional Femininity" blogs that post nothing but aesthetic photos of supposed "Rural Life"
Lady this is a skinny influencer in a frilly white dress that's never had dirt on it, with her hair in professionally-done beachy waves, doing a photoshoot in a field using a basket of strawberries bought at walmart as a prop.
If you saw an actual woman farmer you would think you were seeing the Masculinization Of Women By The Degenerate Left