I'm a writer, at least I want to be, and this is my editorial blog. If you're here,
you can look forward to posts and essays about social and political issues I am passionate about.
To sum it up, "I'm not questioning your authority, I'm completely denying its existence!" -Dale Gribble
There's this idea in society that when something in your life comes to an end, whether it be a breakup or kicking a bad habit, that it needs to be done with a certain amount of enthusiasm. For how scornful our oligarchs are of the arts, people expect a bit of dramaticism when such a life-changing event happens, often with this weird "whole new me" mindset moving forward.
Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad sentiment, and admittedly there have been cases in my own life where I just suddenly got inspiration to change out of spite or admission of defeat. Most of the time, that's not the case. Most of the time, changes like these just fucking suck. I could pin it on the neurodivergency or any of my mental illnesses, but I don't think that feeling upset about letting something go from your life, even when knowing it's going to be better this way, is a unique affliction. We should stop pretending that it isn't.
Anyone ever stopped smoking? Doesn't matter if you wean off slow or go cold-turkey, it sucks. Objectively, it is good for you: your family and your doctors will sing their praises for you and support you entirely. Does it get rid of the need to curb your oral fixation or fix your nicotine-free attitude problem? I think we all know the answer, whether you've personally experienced it or lived it vicariously through someone you know.
I'm not limiting this sentiment to minor things. Break-ups and divorces, cutting contact with certain family members, getting taken advantage of by friends or employers, all things that every person alive has had to deal with at some point. A lot of times, it's bittersweet, even if you can look back and know you are in a better place than you were before things changed. There were probably some good things you can remember and even look back fondly upon, and it's okay to miss that or feel nostalgic for it. It doesn't have to be shameful.
This year will be three years since I cut contact with my bio dad. Don't regret it one bit, it's a weight off my mind to not have to deal with him. But I miss having a dad. That feeling never goes away really, I miss what he was to me before and what he could have been for me, but ultimately I had to give up on that, I had to end our relationship. Things are better now, things are easier to deal with, but really only in the sense that the grief around not having him in my life is easier to carry than the mental toll that maintaining a relationship with him would be.
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I feel that "lawn care" as promoted in the USA can be considered some kind of pseudoscience.
It doesn't have the conspiracy-theory-adjacent qualities of virtually every other "pseudoscience," which makes me hesitant to call it that, but the theory and method of it is still full of totally unsupported junk.
I'm a gardener and so are the majority of people I spend time around. If you are mowing 3+ times a week and regularly spending money on fertilizer, soil tests, herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides, you have chosen the most expensive, time consuming thing you could possibly do with your yard. Unless you are a farmer as your livelihood, NOTHING else you could grow is that high maintenance. Nothing.
Most turfgrasses are invasive species. I said it.
The practice of "nuking" your lawn (killing everything in it and "starting over")...If you have a so-called "weed problem" this is probably the worst thing you can do.
Listen to me very carefully: "Weed" seeds are everywhere. There is, at all times, a supply of seeds lying dormant in the soil, waiting for the right conditions to sprout. (It's called the "soil seed bank" and you can look it up.) They are capable of "waiting" for years, even decades. Furthermore, most "weed" species spread by wind, meaning you can't physically eliminate them from an outdoor area unless you...surround your entire yard with an incredibly fine mesh netting and never leave, I guess.
Heavy management will make your "weed" problem progressively worse and worse because those plants are specifically adapted to colonize barren areas that recently underwent disastrous events that killed off most life.
Basically all plants are adapted to live in the company of other organisms, and suffer when there are no other plants around. "Weeds" with deep taproots penetrate into and aerate the soil. Clover puts nitrogen in the ground that other plants need. Low ground covers keep the soil moist and stop the sun from baking your grass to a crisp.
The plant "taking over" your lawn is probably not killing your grass. Your grass is dying and it's being replaced by something more suited to the environment. This is supposed to happen.
Monocultures are notoriously susceptible to disease and mass die-offs. "Oh no a big patch of my lawn is dying!" Yeah, that happens when you plant monocultures. You set yourself up for this.
"Why is there a bare patch in my yard/why won't grass grow well here?" Because in nature, each plant has a relatively narrow range of conditions it likes to grow in, so other plants it might otherwise compete with can stick to their preferred conditions and nobody has to compete directly. Win-win. Not all parts of your yard have the exact same amount of sun, moisture, etc. Expecting the plant life to look the same is unrealistic.
Let me make this very clear: It is fully impossible to "solve" the problem of plants popping up in your yard that aren't your one favored variety of grass. You will be buying herbicides for the rest of your life, and it will get worse, not better, because willy-nilly use of herbicides is leading to plants developing herbicide resistance faster than we can come up with new herbicides.
From my limited knowledge of ecology, "but this is what natives have been saying for YEARS" basically sums up literally all work that has been done with ecology in north america
It's probably similar to the way people use too much shampoo because they follow the directions on the bottle but the bottle purposely suggests more than you need to sell more. I wouldn't be surprised if the pseudoscience of lawn care comes from some lawn mower advertisement disguised as an article written in the 50s and people just keep parroting it
For me, censorship laws are a lot like the death penalty. There are people I wish would die, but I don't want the government to have any say over who lives or dies (because then they can stretch laws out to justify killing someone they dont like). There are stories that I think are reprehensible and should have never been written, but I don't want the government to have any say over which stories are reprehensible (because then they can stretch out what they deem wrong out to fit anything they don't like)
We know more than ever about the abundance of life in the soil. Now we have to step up to save it.
Look down. You may not see the soil beneath your feet as teeming with life, but it is.
Better scientific tools are helping us understand that dirt isnât just dirt. Life in the soil includes microbes like bacteria and fungi; invertebrates such as earthworms and nematodes; plant roots; and even mammals like gophers and badgers who spend part of their time below ground.
Itâs commonly said that a quarter of all the planetâs biodiversity lives in the soil, but thatâs likely a vast understatement. Many species that reside there, particularly microorganisms such as viruses, bacteria, fungi and protists, arenât yet known to science.
âPublished literature has only just begun to unravel the complexity of soil biological systems,â a 2020 study by researchers from University of Reading found. âWe barely know what is there, let alone their breadth of functional roles, niche partitioning and interaction between these organisms.â
But what scientists do know is that healthy and biodiverse soil communities support a wide variety of functions that sustain life on Earth. That includes nutrient cycling, food production, carbon storage and water filtration.
What happens belowground supports life aboveground. And not surprisingly, if that underground biodiversity is threatened, so are the important functions that soil performs.
âWhen soil organisms begin to disappear, ecosystems will soon start to underperform, potentially hindering their vital functions for humankind,â wrote researchers in a 2020 Science study.
Threats
Unfortunately thereâs evidence that soil biodiversity is decreasing today â how badly is still a matter researchers are working to determine. By just one metric, studies found that 60â70% of soils in the European Union are now unhealthy.
The threats there â and across the world â are numerous.
The Reading University researchers narrowed them down to five main areas:
Human exploitation, including intensive agriculture, pesticides, fertilizers and genetically modified organisms.
Land-use change like deforestation, habitat fragmentation, and soil sealing.
Soil degradation from compaction, erosion, and loss of nutrients.
Climate change, which influences temperature and moisture.
The growing threat from plastic pollution.
âLand changes [like intensive agriculture] are right up there with climate change,â says Diana H. Wall, a biology professor at Colorado State University and director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability. âBecause what weâre doing is tearing up the soil. And thatâs the habitat for all these species.â
When we lose biodiversity in the soil it leads to a decrease in the soilâs ability to withstand disturbances â that could cause a loss of important functions and even more biodiversity.
Knowledge Gaps
Much like new molecular tools have helped researchers understand the microbiome in peopleâs guts, scientists can now also learn much more about the tiny organisms living in the soil, says Wall. But while research about soil biodiversity is growing, there are still significant knowledge gaps.
A 2020 study on âblind spotsâ in global soil biodiversity and ecosystem function found that most research focused on a single sampling event and didnât study how soil changed in the same area over time, which the authors say is âessential for assessing trends in key taxa and functions, and their vulnerability to global change.â
The research has also been geographically unbalanced, they found. Temperate areas, which include broadleaved mixed forests and the Mediterranean, have received more study than many tropical areas, tundra or flooded grasslands.
This is not a new problem: Another study revealed that we lack historical information on soil biodiversity that would make it possible to understand baselines on previous land cover and local drivers of biodiversity. Without understanding past conditions, itâs not clear how things are changing or why.
Knowledge gaps arenât just limited to science, either. When it comes to policy, national and international bodies lack systematic ways to monitor and protect soil biodiversity.
Taking Action
Efforts to better study and protect soil biodiversity have begun to ramp up.
One is the Soil Biodiversity Observation Network (Soil BON), co-led by Wall, which is a coordinated global project to monitor soil biodiversity and ecosystem function to help inform policy.
Wall also leads the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative, a volunteer scientific network of more than 4,000 researchers who are studying the vulnerability of belowground biodiversity. The group recently sent a letter to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity urging action to protect soil biodiversity.
âKnowledge of the importance of the vast diversity of fauna and flora that inhabit soil and sustain all life aboveground should be recognized and included in global policies for the protection, restoration, and promotion of biodiversity,â the group wrote.
Europe isnât waiting for the U.N. to take action.
The Farm to Fork Strategy, part of the European Green New Deal, calls for better soil protection, including cutting pesticide use in half by 2030. The European Union also launched the Zero Pollution Action Plan for Air, Water and Soil that aims to improve soil quality. And the EU could push further action with a planned Soil Health Law in 2023.
And while soil health demands more big government efforts, there are a lot of changes at the local level and by industries that could help.
In urban areas, pavement that has sealed off soil can be removed and replaced by vegetation. The construction of green roofs and gardens rich in plant diversity can aid soil biodiversity, too.
Society also needs to be mindful of the chemicals that we use in our homes, farms and cities, she says: âPollution in soil is very bad for the organisms that live in the soil, and itâs bad for any that may have a pupating cycle in the soil.â
Soil biodiversity can recover after industrial or agricultural sites are taken out of production, but it may happen slowly and require specialized restoration efforts. In those cases, âmicrobial transplants together with seeding of target plant species might help speed up these processes,â suggests a 2019 study co-authored by Wall. âEven small changes, which often come at little monetary cost, may increase soil biodiversity and ecosystem services.â
And an even smaller change is also important â getting people to notice and appreciate the role healthy soil plays in our lives and why itâs so vital we protect it.
âSomething that we really ought to realize is that soil isnât forever,â Wall says. âSoils are vulnerable, and we know that worldwide. Pay attention to the life beneath your feet â itâs fragile.â
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even before i lived in a place with a massive population of feral cats decimating the wildlife i had read the studies and knew the data said that TNR did not work and we need to be trapping and euthanizing feral cats but now that iâve lived in a place where there are an enormous number of feral cats itâs like, inconceivable to me that anyone supports TNR, not just for the health of the world but for the sake of the fucking cats
nobody will even acknowledge it not even in most conservation circles. We have a solution to a massive, massive problem that is more humane, cheaper, easier, takes less time, prevents animal suffering, and saves valuable members of our disappearing ecosystem. And nobody is even willing to theoretically acknowledge that it exists outside of a few very small circles.
it works. It works. It is better for the cats. Itâs better for the cats. Living in a place where you cannot drive 10 minutes without seeing a new roadkill cat almost every single day really makes you think about how much suffering could have been prevented if we just dealt with the problem we have created. Itâs not a pleasant way to go, being hit by a car. Or being ripped apart by a predator, or eating a poison, or starving to death, of dying of an infection, or an illness, or any of the hundred thousand ways an animal in the wild passes without human intervention. Euthanasia is simply falling asleep. It is fucking wild to me that saying you think we should take responsibility for our mistakes and ensure that cats fall asleep peacefully instead of capturing them and then hurling them back out into the world SPECIFICALLY in order to allow them to die in agony makes people treat you like a fucking serial killer.
And if you donât care about cats dying in agony do you care about the world around you? Thereâs a species of bird we only know ever existed because someoneâs cat brought home our only example. Thatâs horrific. Weâve lost so much biodiversity because we simply wonât listen to the research, which again, has proven that TNR is not effective.
https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/UW468 âHow Effective and Humane Is Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) for Feral Cats?âÂ
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6523511/ âA Case of Letting the Cat out of The BagâWhy Trap-Neuter-Return Is Not an Ethical Solution for Stray Cat (Felis catus) Managementâ (also has a thousand references attached that are handy)
Not a reference so much as the human society actively admitting that TNR does nothing to decrease population, actively contributes to harming wildlife, and doesnât actually help the cats in any way, just reduces some of the nuisance behavior that people complain about: https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/resource/real-impacts-trap-neuter-return
Unscientific from here on out as i donât feel like trying to find the studies i read in like January of last year:
https://hahf.org/awake/the-trouble-with-trap-vaccinate-neuter-return/ âThe Trouble With Trap-Neuter-Re (Abandon!) from the hillsborough animal health foundation, articles also link to studies
https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/The-Evidence-Against-TNR.pdf from the american bird conservancy, has scientific articles quoted.Â
Even More Sources on TNR being non-viable and ways that cats are impacting the world from birds to *hawaiâiâs monk seals*
Animal Emergency and Referral Center of Minnesota. (2022, October 26). Indoor cats vs. outdoor cats. Animal Emergency & Referral Center of Minnesota. https://aercmn.com/indoor-cats-vs-outdoor-cats/
Campbell, V. (2017, January 25). The Obituary of the Stephens Island Wren. All About Birds. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/the-obituary-of-the-stephens-island-wren/
Castillo, D., & Clarke, A. L. (2003). Trap/neuter/release methods ineffective in controlling domestic cat âcoloniesâ on public lands. Natural Areas Journal, 23(3).
Coe, S. T., Elmore, J. A., Elizondo, E. C., & Loss, S. R. (2021). Free-ranging domestic cat abundance and sterilization percentage following five years of a trapâneuterâreturn program. Wildlife Biology, 2021(1). https://doi.org/10.2981/wlb.00799
del Hoyo, J., Collar, N., Kirwan, G. M., & Sharpe, C. J. (2022, October 25). Guadalupe storm-petrel (Hydrobates Macrodactylus), version 1.2. Birds of the World. https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/guspet/cur/introduction
Dickman, C. R., & Newsome, T. M. (2015). Individual hunting behaviour and prey specialisation in the house cat Felis catus: Implications for conservation and management. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 173, 76â87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2014.09.021
Edge. (2019, June 19). Guadalupe storm-petrel. EDGE of Existence. https://www.edgeofexistence.org/species/guadalupe-storm-petrel/
Galbreath, R., & Brown, D. (2004). The tale of the lighthouse-keeperâs cat: Discovery and extinction of the Stephens Island wren (Traversia lyalli). Notornis, 51(4).
Hawaiâi Department of Land and Natural Resources. (2025). Feral cats. Feral Cats. https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/info/invasive-species-profiles/feral-cats/#:~:text=Feral%20cats%20on%20islands%20have,kill%20approximately%202.4%20billion%20birds.
Loss, S. R., Will, T., & Marra, P. P. (2013). The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States. Nature Communications, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2380
McGregor, H., Legge, S., Jones, M. E., & Johnson, C. N. (2015). Feral cats are better killers in open habitats, revealed by animal-borne video. PLOS ONE, 10(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133915
Medina, F. M., Bonnaud, E., Vidal, E., Tershy, B. R., Zavaleta, E. S., Josh Donlan, C., Keitt, B. S., Corre, M., Horwath, S. V., & Nogales, M. (2011). A global review of the impacts of invasive cats on Island Endangered Vertebrates. Global Change Biology, 17(11), 3503â3510. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02464.x
National Research Council. (1992, January 1). Scientific Bases for the Preservation of the Hawaiian Crow. U.S. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK235935/
NOAA. (2024, August 29). Toxoplasmosis and its effects on Hawaiʝi Marine Wildlife. NOAA Fisheries. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pacific-islands/endangered-species-conservation/toxoplasmosis-and-its-effects-hawaii-marine
Read, J. L., Dickman, C. R., Boardman, W. S., & Lepczyk, C. A. (2020). Reply to Wolf et al.: Why trap-neuter-return (TNR) is not an ethical solution for Stray Cat Management. Animals, 10(9), 1525. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10091525
Reed, L. (2022). The effects of free-roaming cats on native wildlife populations. Wildlife Rehabilitation Bulletin, 40(1), 17â21. https://doi.org/10.53607/wrb.v40.250
Salano, E. (2024, October 5). Eliciting the effect free roaming cats have on Native Hawaiian wildlife using stable isotope analysis. UKnowledge. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/biology_etds/103/Â
Steele, J. H., Thorpe, S. A., & Turekian, K. K. (2009). Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences. Academic Press.Â
science says itâs long past time to stop prolonging the suffering of feral cats, for the sake of the people, the native wildlife, and the goddamn cats themselves.
I was at a friend's house to check on carcasses I had macerating in his yard. A little grey cat ran up to me, yelling her head off in friendliness and wanting nothing more than to be pet. I had nothing to give her but let my friend know he should catch her since she was so friendly. I am ashamed to admit I didn't give her much thought beyond that, finishing my work and giving her a last pet before going home.
My friend told me how he'd seen her before but she always vanished before he could catch her. He works far too many hours and is always tired so he couldn't prioritize catching this cat.
Three months pass with no sign of her. I go back with my partner to check on carcasses and this same little grey cat appears. This time, however, a tooth has been snapped off and her tongue is so badly cut that she can't keep it in her mouth. She was thin and dirty and screaming to please be given some food.
This time I couldn't look away. I asked my friend's girlfriend if I could borrow a cat carrier. She loaned me one and a tin of wet food that the grey cat willingly followed into the carrier. She didn't care at all about being put into the carrier - all she wanted was a hand on her. She'd arch up against the top just so my hand would rest on her back for a moment.
We drove through rush hour traffic to the only shelter still open. We knew we couldn't keep her and I couldn't stand the thought of putting her back out on the streets to die slowly.
The shelter couldn't take her. Her ear was clipped so she was a "community cat" and outside their ability to help. They tried desperately to offer alternatives to me as I cried over her carrier, knowing I couldn't take her home but also that if I didn't I couldn't live with the thought of her back on the streets.
I made a Hail Mary call to a local friend who is very connected in our city. They didn't have my number saved but answered all the same to hear me sobbing about a cat I'd found and to please help me find a place for her. Please. If I don't find something then she'll be alone on the streets again to die.
My friend came through. I could keep the cat in their garage overnight and in the morning my friend would be back in the city and could find someone to help the cat.
The shelter folk gave me a crate and some food - their hands were tied but they didn't want to leave me with nothing. They were good people doing the best they could in their own system. Community cats were ones they weren't allowed to "waste" resources on. Ostensibly they'd been dealt with and their fate decided. There was nothing the shelter folks were allowed to do for them.
I took the cat to my friend's garage. She was settled into a crate on towels, happy as a clam to be warm and safe. This was a cat made to be loved and to love, as she immediately began trying to groom one of my friend's roommates. He stayed in the garage with her, giving her food and water and in exchange having no say on whether she was in his lap or not. She was always in his lap.
Nobby Nobbs (so named for the only other character known to man that is as scrungly as she is) was then formally adopted by my friend. Her tongue has healed, her fur remains scrungly, and she's every bit the rabid love bug I suspected her to be when she came to me yelling to be pet.
She's a TNR cat. Someone thought they were doing her a kindness in that and if nothing else she didn't add kittens to the world but that doesn't negate the pain she suffered before I found her - the broken teeth, the lacerated tongue, the ulcerated cheeks, the flea-bald patchiness of her coat.
I say this as someone who adores this cat and has the privilege to see her loved and cherished: I wish she'd never had to suffer what she did. I wish people were alright making the harder call that leads to less misery on the side of the cats.
TNR is a polite fiction, nothing more. Just so the humans can pretend they've done right by the same cats they're letting loose to die miserably somewhere else. As long as the humans don't see it it's fine.
The shelter folks told me she's a community cat and that I could take her home and release her by my house. Then I could feed her myself and keep up with her and know where she was! I could still keep her, after a fashion.
I am not proud of how I snarled back that I would never exchange a quick death for a slow one. I would be giving her a different funeral plot, not giving her a life. Even near me she'd be just as vulnerable to the innumerable predators that find cats quite delicious, let alone cars and poisons and the other cruelties humans practice on stray cats.
She's the second stray cat I've met that when I held them the cat melted in my arms, purring and so desperately wanting to be loved. The first cat I was able to trap and take to a local shelter only to find when I called to check on him a day later that his health had been so terrible, so beyond help, that he'd been put down. All the love in that tiny body lost because the people I lived beside didn't care enough to trap the cats they had.
My partner was asleep. I woke her up to crawl into her arms and sob, my heart breaking for the stupidity of the humans who hadn't cared enough to grant this poor little cat the chance to be either an indoor cat, loved and cared for, or to grant him a quick death long before I met him. I've other stories of the cats they kept around, essentially feeding the poor souls to the predatory birds and wandering dogs that frequented our area.
TNR doesn't work. It is a lie humans tell ourselves so we can pretend we haven't failed these animals on a massive scale. Cats are invasive and cause massive harm in their turn. It is humanity who needs to deal with this crisis, this horror we've made, and I pray one day we look it square in the face and vow to make it right.
At least, not in the way that most people think. When you look at a steak in the supermarket and it's labeled as grass-fed, you'd probably think "oh sweet, this animal subsisted on grass instead of corn, soy, and wheat", and that would be a logical conclusion to reach.
Problem is, you'd be wrong, and it's not even your fault. Marketing and labeling around food and other agricultural products is notoriously sneaky. Aside from a few things that must be abided by legally such as USDA and AMS guidelines, the true meaning (or sometimes lack of meaning) of most labels is not well-understood by average consumers.
So what's the deal then? They're pretending to feed the cows grass? Not exactly. When a label says grass-fed, that animal was indeed fed grass on pasture. HOWEVER, what they don't tell you is that while it may be fed grass, it's usually finished on grain. Whether a calf is weaned onto grass or grain based diets, most cattle in the US are fed grain in the months before processing.
It's not for nothing. Cattle finished on grain have much more abundant and consistent marbling in the desirable cuts like those that become steaks. The American palate has grown accustomed to that marbling, so it just makes sense that most producers would make that common practice. But that's not all: due to differences in lipids (among varying other nutrients) between grass and grain, the latter produces fat that is much more mild in flavor.
While grass-finished beef has a market in the US, it is not desirable by processors due to the longer finishing time to produce adequate marbling. Additionally, it isn't as popular among consumers, partially due to differing flavors and textures; some have described it as gamey, tough, or even fishy. The fat in grass-finished beef is also notably different, taking on a vibrant yellow color as a result of the beta-carotene in the grasses they'd have eaten.
Neither is better than the other, but one certainly is favored due to convenience and cost-efficiency. A vast majority of beef cattle are finished in groups in feedlot settings, and there is a staggering amount of land dedicated to cattle corn that will mostly be bought by the companies that own the feedlots. Quite the vicious cycle, isn't it?
