little crafts & resisting oppression

A Tea Chart I made to remember how to make a cup of tea for everyone who comes by the house. 

As far as I'm aware, firefox's built-in password manager has perfectly wonderful security. The only issue I'd consider is accessibility: do you sign into Firefox on every device you use? Can Firefox autofill into your apps? I don't know the answers to these questions and I think for a lot of people, Firefox is a great password manager. Just don't fall into the trap of using a single, memorable password for a bunch of things because it's not trivial to paste a unique password in somewhere you need it.

I explained very clearly to the manager my issue with the meat section not having the price tags listed, and they claimed it was only going to be for the meat, since meat is by weight, and the price of each item is printed on the packs of each item.

Sure. That’s how they get their foot in the door. Fast forward not even two weeks, and here we are:

Bar codes. No prices, no item descriptions. No price stickers on the individual items. Heck, not even the name of the item that is SUPPOSED to be there.

No. The only way to see the price is to scan it on your phone app, which is also recording what you looked at recently, as a way of gauging what you might be looking for in the future.

So here’s what we’re gonna do gang:

Every time you go into a store that has implemented these price-less tags:

Take 1-3 items up to the cash register. Ask the cashier for the price, or hit the price check item on the self checkout, which will likely call over the attendant.

Express that you didn’t actually want it, you just couldn’t see on the shelf how much it was.

POLITELY, AND WITH A THANK YOU FOR THE PRICE CONFIRMATION, Give the items to the cashier or attendant to put back.

When they inevitably try to push the app, politely decline. If pressed for why not, say you don’t want to have to carry your phone in-hand the whole time you are shopping in order to see how much things cost. (Not having cell service or data to use the app is NOT a valid excuse, as stores already often have complimentary WiFi AND more stores will provide WiFi rather than give up on this push for surveillance pricing)

If it’s a shelf-stable item, the cashier will have to set it aside, taking up room in their limited operating space, and eventually pass it off to someone to put in a holding area to put back later. If it’s a fridge/freezer item, it might have to get tossed due to food product sale regulations.

In either case, you are making it a pain in the ass for them to have these digital bar codes. Tie up the checkouts. Give the employees more busywork that the company has to pay them to do. Hurt their bottom line having to toss the pint of ice cream you carried around in your cart for 20 minutes before giving it back to the cashier.

for example, we have a microscope that is perfectly functional, good microscope, but its software is abandonware because the company refused to maintain it. the company is still in business, still makes essentially the exact same software, but they made all of the old tech incompatible with new software to force people to buy the new microscope tech. it would cost a quarter million dollars to replace this microscope. this perfectly good microscope.

terrifying

how little I could do without it.

And that means no identity purity tests

I don't care how good your intentions are or how important your specific goal is. Requiring someone to tell you that they're queer to access a queer space means that everyone in that space has outed themselves to every other person there by showing up

Protect your community. Stop expecting people to tell you the ways in which they're vulnerable.

(Also no one gets to be the identity police, kill the cop in your head, etc. etc.)

Besides:

Pride is a protest, yes - and that means it would be foolish of us to make it harder for more people to come protest oppression with us!!

terrifying

how little I could do without it.

Please have a moment of silence for the people who were killed instead of freed when news of emancipation finally reached the furthest corners of the american south.

have another moment for the ledgers, catalogs, and records that were burned and the homes that were destroyed to hide the presence of very much alive and still enslaved people on dozens of plantations and homesteads across the south for decades after emancipation.

and have a third moment for those who were hunted and killed while fleeing the south to find safety across the border, overseas, in the north and to the west.

black people. light a candle, write a note to those who have passed telling them what you have achieved in spite of the racist and intolerant conditions of this world, feel the warmth of the flame under your hand, say a prayer of rememberance if you are religious, place the note under the candle, and then blow it out.

if you have children, sit them down and tell them anything you know about the life of oldest black person you've ever met. it doesn't have to be your own family. tell them what you know about what life was like for us in the days, years, decades after emancipation. if you don't know much, look it up and learn about it together.

This is Juneteenth.

and still, nothing is not shameful. it is not immoral to struggle with self care. and it is also not pointless to keep trying. anything you can do, even if its wiping plaque off with a towel, is enough. it is good to take care of yourself however you can, even if it's just trying to muster the will to. reading this post is good, too.

I don't like minty toothpaste, so I buy bubblegum toothpaste and mouthwash for kids. Also, I have a small mouth so I get kids toothbrushes as well.

#you can't reconcile the feminist idea that men and women are equals with acting like they're different species

#the feminist idea that women are more than their reproductive systems with the one that womanhood is defined by a reproductive system

#the feminist idea that women don't need to adhere to arbitrary standards of femininity with the one that they do or they aren't women

#the feminist idea that women are allowed to have body hair and be tall or muscular with the one that they're to be scrutinized if they are

#the feminist idea that women as equals to men should be allowed to compete with them with the one that both must always be separated

#i can not consider terfism to be feminism in any fucking way

#and don't say 'no true scotsman' that's not it

#i don't consider feminists for the same reason i don't consider the democratic people's republic of korea a democracy #or nazism socialism. having feminist in their name does not mean their ideas are automatically feminist

#i've yet to meet a terf that actually cares about women more than about hating on trans folk

#there is no feminist belief that can come from someone who views women as vaginas with legs that are too frail to do anything men do