Obsessed With How Fixable Society Is, On A Structural Level.

I get a little annoyed at how writings don't give Native North American peoples any agency in agricultural technologies

Domestication takes hundreds or thousands of years to accomplish, so it's weird to me that so many sources claim that food plants native to North America were cultivated into existence after European settlement, from a "wild" ancestor into a highly desirable crop

Take for example, the famous Concord grape. Supposedly it was bred from wild ancestors in a few years by just one guy.

With pecans, the word itself is Algonquin, so it's harder to deny that Native Americans cultivated them, but supposedly "domestication began in the 1800's". and as the source says, "wild-type" pecans are perfectly acceptable for sale in the market

And then there is nonsense like all the sources that will tell you pawpaws are an "evolutionary anachronism" from when they were distributed by giant ground sloths and other megafauna, as though humans don't count.

Are we to believe that indigenous peoples knew nothing of plant breeding? When the Cherokee were given peaches, apples, and watermelon, they adopted the new plants for use in their orchards and soon developed their own breeds.

Don't even get me started on all the plants that were almost lost and largely not used anymore, like Rivercane and the American Chestnut.

If anyone has taken their eyes off what's happening to federal workers in the US right now, here's some highlights that we're hearing from our comrades across the government who have not yet been fired:

In one building (hosting multiple agencies), the locks on the bathroom were changed so employees no longer have any access to a bathroom during the workday. People are peeing in trash cans.

Elsewhere, multiple agencies have reported that hand soap is no longer being supplied in the bathrooms.

Toilet paper supplies have not been adjusted to meet the needs of a vastly increased number of in-office employees.

Employee-owned coffee and coffee makers have been stolen or thrown away without notice (it was already illegal for taxpayer dollars to be spent on supplying federal employees with amenities like coffee, so many offices have coffee supplied by pooled employee funds).

Meanwhile, many offices don't even have potable drinking water (recurrent legionella outbreaks), so employees have to bring their own water from home.

Despite an explosion in the number of workers in offices, cleaning budgets have been slashed and many offices are not being cleaned regularly enough to remain sanitary. Pests like roaches and rats are a problem.

The firings continue, legal and illegal. Entire programs are being cut. Managers have no idea when they might lose staff. Employees are getting fired at 6pm on a weekend or finding out when they're unable to log into their computer or when they receive a shipping label in the mail to return their equipment.

Through all of this, the DOGE employees in federal workplaces are enjoying incredible and expensive luxury: AI-powered sleep pods, entire dormitories so they can live in federal buildings, nurseries for their children on site, free food and beverages, laundry services, and who knows what else. They have special security to restrict access to their areas of the buildings, including armed guards.

And I'm not just saying this to lament how bad it is for federal workers. I'm saying this because, as workers are reporting this to one another, the response is, inevitably: "This is illegal." "Yes, but who would I report it to? OPM? They're a DOGE puppet. OSHA? They've cut OSHA. The Inspectors General? Cut. The NLRB? Cut. My union? No longer recognized."

There is no one left to enforce these laws, so taking away access to basic sanitation is now effectively legal. They are doing this to federal workers, who historically have been some of the best-protected workers in the country. They are doing this specifically because it demonstrates to the public sector that it is now legal to do these things to their own workers.

There's an open pit in the middle of our office plan that drops down into a bunch of very sharp spikes that kill you instantly. This is bad. People keep falling in there and dying. Someone put a sign up, the other day, all bright yellow so you can't miss it, that says "Beware!!! Spikes!!!"

The office immediately split into two factions over it. One says that if anyone falls in the spike pit it's their own fault for being so stupid and not watching where they're walking, so we should remove the sign. The other says that the sign is an insult, there shouldn't be a spike pit in our office at all, and having the sign up like that is just normalising the existence of the spike pit, so we should remove the sign.

We ended up removing the sign. Probably for the better. Still... for a while there it looked like it might have worked...

News Graveyards: How Dangers to War Reporters Endanger the World

The war in Gaza has, since October 7, 2023, killed more journalists than the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined. It is, quite simply, the worst ever conflict for reporters.

Tumblr Tuesday: Nineteen Years of Neil

Two days ago, that momentous time in April blessed us once more: the anniversary of Neil banging out his tunes. It's been 19 years, and Neil still brings us joy each year in April, famously the cruelest of months. In celebration of this fact, some art was created. Please enjoy these depictions of a happy little rattie making some music on a toy piano.

(Lest we forget, April 13 also marked the 16th anniversary of Homestuck. Happy Homestuckness to those who celebrate; we've added a few small treats for you <3)

@emwheezie:

@crtastrophe:

@www-proxxicles-com:

@lotostar:

@artbygiraffe:

@bweirdart:

@bucket-of-amethyst:

@rela-monarchy39:

@jakdaw:

@pizza-feverdream:

@spectrumspace:

@moms-against-homestuck:

@crafftypenguin:

@artificialhaunts:

@cintailed:

@thatlittledandere:

@tobisaurus:

@rabiesram:

@auxhilerated:

@oswald-can-draw:

@bzedan:

@arborix:

@pandaragons:

@wizard-legs:

@inchwormvinny:

@gildedware:

@corvidcrowned:

@stealingpotatoes:

@wpmz:

That's my punter!

Former Minnesota Vikings punter, Chris Kluwe, who was blacklisted from the league for standing up for marriage equality, speaks at a city council meeting where he calls Trump a Nazi. He is subsequently arrested and carried out by police.

It's actually fine for trans people to say "when I was a boy" or "when I was a girl" in reference to experiences they had while they still identified as their assigned birth gender, this does not invalidate their current gender or the concept of being transgender at all, nor does it invalidate your current gender