[insert witty subtitle here]

then I looked in the notes and y’know.

some people seems confused.

Why a shopping cart with stained glass? 

or This would be cool to shop with

or something about religion and NO

NO

THIS. Is about HOMES.

That style stained glass? Those diamonds? They speak to me, and they say “Townhouse”. and FANCY townhouse, at that. They say “City home, old home, a home that is RICH, a shelter from the storm and a safe place for a family”.

But on! a! shopping cart!

That evokes - to me - Homelessness.

The person on the street who had no other choice but to steal the best cart they could from a store’s corral just to have a way to transport the meager belongings that are all they fucking have in this world. And it’s NOT a home or a safe place or a shelter but it’s all you fucking have!

And this piece goes and puts them fucking together! AND NAMES IT.

MOYERS: As I listen to you talk about the liberation of motherhood and love, I find all the more incredible Sethe’s willingness to kill her son—

MORRISON:: Oh, yeah.

MOYERS: —Rather than let the slavecatcher kidnap him. Was that a far-out figment of your imagination to make a dramatic point, or did you find in your research into the past there were mothers willing to do that?

MORRISON:: That was Margaret Garner’s story. There was a slave woman in Cincinnati named Margaret Garner who escaped from Kentucky; arrived in Cincinnati with her mother-in-law. The situation was a little different; I think she came with four others. And right after she got there, the man who owned her found her. And she ran out into the shed and tried to kill all her children, just like that. And she was about to bang one’s head against the wall when they stopped her. Now, she became a cause celebre for the Abolitionists, because; you see, they were trying to improve the situation a little bit and get her tried for murder, because that would have been a big coup, if they had gotten her tried for murder. Because it would assume that she had some responsibility over those children. But they were not successful. She was tried for the real crime, which was stolen property, and convicted and returned to that same man. But what struck me, because I didn’t want to know a great deal about her story because there would be no space for me to invent — was that when they interviewed her, she was not a mad dog killer, she was this very calm, you know, in her 20s, woman. And all she said was, “They will not live like that. They will not live like that.” And her mother-in-law, who was a preacher, said, “I watched her do it, and I neither encouraged her nor discouraged her.” So for them, it was a dilemma. This is a real dilemma. “Shall I permit my children, who are my best thing, to live like I have lived, and I know that’s terrible, or to take them out?” So she decided to kill them, and kill herself. And that was noble. That was the identification. She was saying: “I’m a human being. These are my children. This script I am writing.”

MOYERS: Could you have put your — did you ever put yourself in her position, and ask—

MORRISON:: In the writing of the book, yeah.

MOYERS: —could I have done that to my three sons?

MORRISON:: I asked it a lot. As a matter of fact; the reason the character Beloved enters is because I couldn’t answer it. I felt just like Baby Suggs. I didn’t know whether I would do it or not. You hear stories of that in slavery and Holocaust situations, I mean, where women have got to figure it out fast, I mean really fast. So the only person I felt who had the right to ask her that question was the child she killed.

MOYERS: The child.

MORRISON:: And she can ask her: “What did you do that for? Who are you talking about? This is better? What do you know?” Because I just — it was, for me, an impossible decision. Someone gave me the line for it at one time, which I have found useful, is that it was the right thing to do, but she had no right to do it.

MOYERS: And you’ve never answered it in your own case, “Could I do it?”

MORRISON:: I’ve asked. I don’t know.

Two little girls playing gently with a daddy long legs.

Girl 1: can it die?

@highway-to-the-bi-way I mean, I see this as more of a catch-22 than a conspiracy--if the state house votes to give themselves raises, most people are not going to say "ah yes this is going to make it easier for more people to run for state house," they are going to say "fat cats in [state capital] voting to give themselves a raise while the potholes still aren't filled, we aren't re-electing those bastards."

It's also a logistical thing--I just looked it up and a legislator in my state makes about 70k/year, which sounds pretty sweet when you consider that the legislative session is only 60 days. But that's also 20-30k below our state average and median annual income, and most people have to pay a second rent two months of the year because they don't live in the capital. And the kinds of jobs that let you take off all of January and February--and leave enough time off the rest of the year to work on bills for next year, or schmooze, or campaign, and so forth--are not your average lower-to-middle class jobs. They're CEO or Owner or Partner or Board Member jobs.

And of course, state legislature is only a 2-year term, so you may or may not have a job come January.

It feels like a uniquely American capitalist take to assume these traditions will make you completely self sufficient. You need a lot of people, a lot of time, a lot of knowledge across a lot of subjects, and a lot of luck to provide for everyone's nutritional needs.

So should you even bother trying to be more self sufficient with your food? I argue yes. Foraging and gardening are fun and will teach you so much about many things. They are deeply rewarding activities that can supplement your diet. There are herbs I haven't bought in years because I grow my own. There are dishes I can only make with foraged ingredients because I can't get them in stores.

if you put potatoes in your medieval european style fantasy world people will by and large not find it jarring and accept it as a normal fantasy trope

if you put, say, black people in your medieval european style fantasy world a whole demographic of people will get very angry and accuse you of breaking their immersion

-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)

-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt

-ayran: yogurt, water, salt, mint

-sees the reports of the heatwave in Europe-