Eye of the Storm

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.

green? the rarest and not one ive seen personally but it can happen

blue? classics of sky

indigo? violet? twilight babyyy

pink? also shows up at sunrise/sets

black? night. get goth with it

Saint Alice of Schaerbeek

1220 - 1250

Feast Day: June 15

Patronage: the blind and the paralyzed

Saint Alice of Schaerbeek (also known as Adelaide or Aleydis) was entrusted to the care of the Cistercian nuns of La Cambre Abbey when she was seven years old and remained there for the rest of her life, eventually becoming a Cistercian laysister. At 20 she contracted leprosy and was isolated from the community. A year later she was stricken blind and later became completely paralyzed. Alice's greatest consolation came from reception of the Holy Eucharist, although she was not allowed to drink from the cup because of the danger of contagion. However, the Lord appeared to her with an assurance that to receive under one species, was sufficient. Known for her visions and ecstasies, she died in 1250.

St. Vitus

c.290 - c.303

Feast Day: June 15

Patronage: actors, dancers, comedians, epileptics, dogs, and against oversleeping, snake bites, storms, animal attacks, lightning and Saint Vitus Dance (Chorea).

Saint Vitus, the son of a pagan Sicilian, became a Christian along with his tutor and nurse at the age of 12. When his father found out he had them arrested and tortured. Legend has it that an angel freed them from prison and they fled to Rome. While there, Vitus exorcised a demon from Emperor Diocletian’s son. When Vitus wouldn’t sacrifice to the pagan gods, they attributed it to sorcery and threw him in a pot of boiling oil, along with a rooster (as part of a ritual against sorcery). The rooster became a symbol for Vitus, making him the patron against oversleeping. He was martyred in Lucania, Italy and is one of the 14 Holy Helpers.

10:19 (U.S. Federal/Military standard) 2:3 (The most common global standard, used by about 88 countries) 1:2 (Common in Commonwealth countries/former British colonies) 3:5 (The most common retail/commercial standard for the U.S. flag) 1:1 (Square) Switzerland and Vatican City use perfectly square flags. Non-Rectangular: Nepal is the only country with a non-rectangular national flag, featuring two stacked triangular pennons.

We began with the US case, and the problem that the electoral system causes the politics of a diverse and pluralistic electorate to collapse to binarism. We "solve" that problem by looking e.g. to Europe, with its multiparty democracies, but again we see a kind of collapse to binarism, just at the level of legislative coalitions rather than overt political parties. But the effect is quite similar! In the United States, most voters don't feel like their values and interests are faithfully represented by either of the two political parties. We vote for candidates of one or the other based on some kind of calculus of which of the two coalitions will deviate less terribly. In multiparty parliamentary democracies, we vote for parties that do more clearly express an allegiance to values and interests close to our own. But we understand that in practice their behavior will be governed by coalitional dynamics that are difficult to predict. In both systems, we have learned that our values and interests will often be betrayed. In both systems, politicians discipline voters, rather than the other way around, by pointing out how much stronger their differences are with members of the other coalition than with the politicians whom they must hold their noses to support. The fact that the coalitions are so diverse internally — the Democrats and Republicans in the United States, the flock of governing parties in parliamentary democracies — cedes in practice to politicians in power tremendous freedom to pursue their own interests at the expense of the values and interests of those who elect them. After all, almost everything they do will please part and displease part of their coalition's voters. This freedom creates space for electeds to treat politics as an incumbency and seniority machine, or worse. It encourages them to pursue their personal interests, which are at best orthogonal to, and sometimes directly opposed to, the interests and values of the diverse factions that elect them. This case can be overstated. The electorate does still impose some constraint. In the US, politicians can't consistently make decisions that nearly all subfactions of their party would consider betrayal and expect to be reelected. In Europe, voters can credibly threaten to switch to parties that typically work in coalition with the party they would abandon, or else to an outside party whose ideology is so in sync with their own that they are sure a reorganization of the coalitions to bring the party in would constitute an improvement, without risk of ceding power to parties they find terrifying. The binarism into which both systems collapse loosens the constraint that voters can impose upon their electeds, but does not entirely eliminate it.

and EVEN WHEN things were more muted/neutral, the neutrality was OFFSET by ACCENT COLORS and HIGH CONTRAST between the wood tones and everything ELSE

ALSO AMERICAN COLONIAL INTERIORS POPPED OFF, Y'ALL (IN TERMS OF COLOR/COZINESS)

PEOPLE USED WHITEWASH AND COLORFUL TRIM OR EVEN JUST COLORFUL FURNITURE IF THEY COULD AFFORD TO DO SO

AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON FRENCH AND BRITISH AND AMERICAN WALLPAPERS

"ELIZABETH" YOU CRY, "WHY ARE YOU BEING SO EXTRA THIS MORNING?! IT'S MONDAY"

Because, my friend, my war on GREIGE will NEVER end.

Historic interiors were filled with LIFE and LIGHT and COLOR. ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.

Part of the reason we don't see a lot of textile art is because, frankly, textiles tend to degrade over time - especially ones that had utility! And yes, pigments and weaving and dying all boosted the expense of things, when we were finally reliably block-printing fabrics and broad reams of paper, it was no longer just the wealthy who could afford pretty patterns!

In the Americas, a far wider variety of pigments also became available because of the abundance of... well, a shitton of flora and minerals, some of which weren't as common in Europe.

WHY THE HIGHLIGHTER COLORS? you ask.

CANDLES.

Those colors reflect candlelight and natural sunlight REALLY WELL.

Humans LOVE bright colors, it's NOT just a thing for kids. We live in a brilliant, vibrant, multifaceted world. We ALWAYS have.

Saint Germaine Cousin

1579 - 1601

Feast day: June 15

Patronage: abandoned people, abuse victims, against poverty, disabled people, illness, loss of parents, the sick.

When Saint Germaine was an infant her mother died. A sickly child, Germaine suffered from scrofula and was ignored by her father and abused by her step-family and made to sleep under the stairs. At age nine she was put to work as a shepherdess and spent much time in prayer and refused to miss Mass, putting her flock under the care of her guardian angel when she went. She was eventually treated as a holy person and invited to rejoin the household, but chose to live as she had. In 1601 she was found dead on her straw pallet under the stairs.