Great Big Garden Party in the Sky

Basically I got in and there was an email that there was a new policy on lunch breaks which is that we are required to clock out for 30 minutes for a meal break. Which wouldn’t be a problem except we’re often staffing stores alone. And the company was like “You’re not allowed to close the store, though, just clock out and don’t get paid for 30 minutes.”

This made a lot of people very unhappy and was widely regarded as a bad move.

So our manager was trying to go over the changes and I was like, “So I’m required to clock out for 30 minutes even if I’m alone in the store for the day.” Yes.

“I am going to leave the store. I am legally allowed to leave if you are not paying me.” You will get written up.

“That violates the labor laws and this company has had to pay for these violations previously. I will leave and look at birds.”

When we clock out we get an option to say whether we took a lunch. If we say no it then asks if it was voluntary or not.

If it’s not voluntary then the company has to pay us a penalty for not giving us an opportunity to take the break.

Every single shift I worked alone (which was most of my week at that time) I marked the penalty box. If I couldn’t close the store and was working alone then I did not voluntarily give up my lunch. Turns out, I wasn’t alone in doing so.

Three months later the company sent out signs that we could put on the door for lunches and an official update that we could close the store to take a lunch.

Insurgent Survival: Reflections on the Fight Against Sweeps Targeting the Homeless in Austin, Texas

http://crimethinc.com/StoptheSweeps

In 2019, militants in Austin, Texas started an organization with the aim of defending homeless camps against sweeps—forced removals disguised as “cleanups” carried out by police and work crews. We explore the history of Stop the Sweeps and the strategic thinking behind it, seeking to distill lessons about autonomous organization that can aid revolutionaries in future struggles.

The absolutely pervasive mentality that unwanted criticism or critique shouldn't be given and should be ignored is why fans of color don't stay in fan spaces.

And I am not going to mince words here:

A lot of you are racist. A lot of your fan works are racist.

That might have been difficult to hear. And if it was, you should probably reflect on why that was.

"Fandom etiquette" has created a space where fans of color either bite our tongues and eventually leave or say something, get dogged on, and then eventually leave.

If I say "I am uncomfortable with fandom's tendency to write trans men as feminine and submissive" I do not mean "I think every person who writes feminine submissive trans men should be chased with pitchforks". I don't even mean "any cis-person who writes feminine or submissive trans men should be chased with pitchforks". I mean "I would like writers to seriously think about why this is so common, why they write that, and if it fairly and genuinely engages with what it means to be a trans man, or if they just think it's hot when submissive people have vaginas and didn't want to write omegaverse of m/f".

Similarly, when people say "fandom is systemically less interested in black characters, less willing to give flat black characters rich fanon than flat white characters, and less interested in black characters in ships", the response is not to explain why you, personally, just happen to like popular white guy in that fanon. Your job is to look at yourself and ask if you tend to "just happen to be more interested" in the popular white guy across fandoms, be honest, and start unpacking that. Sometimes it's easier to love the flat character who's already getting 10,000 fics with headcanons and art and meta.

If somebody says "I wish there were more gluten free options at the potluck. I hate always showing up and not finding anything I can eat*", they are not asking you to throw your cake in the trash and weep. They do not want to hear your long speech about how actually this is your grandmother's recipe, and you've tried it with rice flour actually, but it just didn't work. You think about what you can do, and you listen to how they feel.

Building a home for a toadlet

Gang of violent murderers has a fear of people defending themselves against their attempts to murder them.

Scientists in China have developed a more efficient form of solar desalination that uses 47.4% less energy than alternatives. After the first year of testing, the scientists believe that at scale it would be able to desalinate water more cheaply than producing bottled water.