Art, Anarchy, Earth Science

they show up in court and just ask the lawyer for the collection company: can you prove where this number comes from? Do you have a contract showing that you purchased our debt? probably luckily for them, a reporter researching a book on the topic showed up and asked the same questions.

10 minutes later they get in front of the judge and the collection company drops the whole case and theyre free to go. story is below, it has a transcript in the link too

https://twitter.com/BrianManookian/status/1674963884703088642

1. Do not pull a plant out of it's pot by it's foliage. Instead, loosen the plant's root ball by squeezing the sides of the pot, and then splay you hand over the surface of the soil and turn the pot upside down and ease the plant out.

2. Do not plant trees deeper than their original soil line. Become familiar with what people mean by root flare and don't bury it.

3. If you're filling a pot, fill it to almost the top. Do not leave it half empty, you want the plant to have a much media as possible. Do firm it gently.

4. When digging a hole or a trench that you're going to set a post or something in, don't dig it wider than necessary- the more extra space it is, the harder it is to set something securely.

5. When transplanting, roots go below the surface. So do under ground runners. If possible/feasible, spread the roots out instead of basically making a ponytail, except perhaps very young seedlings.

6. Mulching depth depends on your goals, and probably varies from climate to climate. Here three to four inches is generally good.

7. Soil is not compost and compost is not mulch. They each have different roles in the garden.

8. Each tool has at least one correct way to use it, which will make your job easier and be more gentle on your body. It pays to either watch someone else, or try out a few things. Also a basic understanding of physics and simple machines.

11. Weed fabric does not work the way you think it does. It was, at least according to my old boss, invented to be an underlayment for pavers and flagstones. It does not prevent weeds from growing. Weeds below will force their way up, and wind blown weed seeds will root down past it. This creates an awful situation where it's actually harder to weed. Just, use mulch, vigorous ground covers, plants that can out compete the weeds, or just resign yourself to weeding because it's gonna need to happen.

12. Fresh chicken poop will burn your crops. Compost your manures.

13. The easiest way to fill a pot is to scoop up media in it until you have a low dome, and then gently press down. Look and assess: is it close enough to the top that the little grippy lines are the only part visible? If not, adjust.

14. Follow the directions on the label. Using a fertilizer? Follow the directions. Using ANY kind of pesticide? Fungicide, herbicide, insecticide, etc. Read the directions, especially the safety information and dosage, and follow them. Including organic options.

15. If you're in the U.S., then you have an extension office and/or master gardening program in your state and likely in your county. These are programs run by your local land grant university (and if you don't know what that is, look it up), and they exist to help people be successful in their gardens. They are often a great resource for local gardening knowledge.

16. When you have a raised bed or large planter, 3 still applies. Fill it, to within at must a couple inches of the top. The soil will settle over time.

17. That is a native oregon grape (Mahonia* aquifolium) not an invasive English holly! Put the clippers down!

18. That is a native red Huckleberry, not an invasive scotch broom, put the clippers down!

19. When you are weeding, the idea is to get the roots, because that's where they store their energy. So if you just get the top parts, they'll regrow really fast.

I already posted this here but I wanted to make it into a post of its own. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in non-hierarchical decision making. This post will be focusing on what coordinators (assigned or informal) can do that can undermine the non-hierachical nature of the group and can put more power in the hands of the coordinator.

Within groups genuinely committed to non-hierarchy, everybody needs to be committed to maintaining a space where it is always socially acceptable to say ‘I think you’re having too much power over this decision making process’ and we all gotta teach each other how to recognize dynamics like that.

Some examples of what to look for:

One person is coordinator for a long time and takes offense at the idea of someone else taking over. Someone taking over would not be seen as a normal rotation of tasks but as a judgement on the coordinator.

Alternatively: a group of close friends rotate key positions and nobody else in the group ever holds a key role.

The coordinator proposes what must be done, instead of letting the group come up with ideas together. The thing the coordinator wants to do ends up being the thing the group decides to do a lot of the time.

Some people talk far more in meetings than others and the coordinator does not take steps to restore the balance and create space for the quieter members to speak.

If the coordinator is sick, the meeting does not happen or no key decisions are made. If anyone else is sick, the meeting carries on as usual.

Meeting dates and times are set by the coordinator alone or by a small group who inform the others.

Access tools such as keys to the meeting space, access to the back account and passwords of the groups email-addresses, website and social media accounts, are not shared with the whole group. 

Important skills, knowledge and networks are not shared. Group members with a less central position can not take over key tasks because they have not been allowed to learn how to do them or build the connections to organize them.

The key decision makers all live in the same house or hang out together a lot, other members find that the plan is already 90% done by the time the actual meeting takes place and they can’t really go in a different direction anymore.

Members that challenge the coordinator(s) are ‘accidentally’ not invited to meetings or meetings are always planned on a day when they have other obligations. 

Meetings in which the coordinator(s) does not get their way are dragged on until members get too tired and agree to the coordinators proposal to get out of the meeting.

Members that challenge the coordinator(s) are told they’d have a bigger part in decision making if they’d do more work, attend more meetings, etc. A few members use the fact that they have a lot of time and a lot of energy to dominate groups and efuse to change their decision making process and meeting schedule to better incorporate members who have a demanding job, or young kids, or who are often low on energy or who can’t travel much, etc. This often ends up putting marginalized people on the side lines, as they often have a lot more stuff on their plate to deal with, and it especially impacts disabled people who can not conform to abled ideas about productivity. At worst, people who can’t keep up with the grueling pace set by the high-energy abled folks face to choice to either burn out or get out.

This is an incomplete list. Feel free to add your own.

Because I see that something that has happened with me (as coordinator) with a bike co-op. Through COVID's 2020 and 2021.... and a little of 2022 I ended up being the only one to organize monthly community meetings and I stopped doing that when I noticed I would get burned out I started not doing it more and more often... hoping someone would do it... and that only happened once... and there hasn't been one in a year now.

It could be virtual, or in person, or hybrid, and we have easily resources (and space) for any of that, but nobody is doing it. And the co-op is going to stop existing within a few years if that doesn't change.

If you've accidentally concentrated power, just not calling meetings and waiting for others to do it isn't going to fix it. Some stuff that might:

Explicitly address the problem. Own up to the fact that you allowed yourself to become to central to the co-op. State your desire to change that and ask for feedback on how to do that. Not sharing your concerns with the group is just one more way of concentrating the decision making process in your own head, so start with transparency.

Share any direct sources of power/access with everyone. Keys, passwords, admin-status of the app group, etc. This also includes vital information like how the program to edit the website works and contact details of important allies of the co-op.

Rotate the facilitator role at meetings. Maybe in this stage you're still doing the work of finding a date and time for the meeting and making sure the meeting happens, but during the meeting you take a back seat and let others lead the conversation.

Eventually, state (during a meeting) that you want to stop being the one to set up meetings and suggest rotating that task too. So at the end of every meeting you together pick a new date together and assign a person responsible for organizing that meeting. Maybe that's also next-times facilitator.

Accept imperfection. Maybe someone in the group will be flacky about setting up a new date and you'll have to step in once or twice to stop the group from grinding to a halt. That's okay. Disentangling yourself from the center of organizing takes time.

Option: after you've started rotating facilitator role, get a little flacky yourself. Miss a meeting that has already been planned and see if the rest of the collective still do the meeting. Give 'em a chance to really make decisions without you. If they put off a decision because you weren't there, ask if they would have done that for any other collective member?

Important: recognize and resist tendencies from people inside or outside the group to treat you as an authority. Someone want the co-op to do a workshop next month? They can't get an answer directly from you, they'll have to message/email the group directly, who will talk about it at the next meeting. Yeah, that's slower, but you're working on making yourself non-essential.

The key thing here is that dismantling your power (and with it, the passivity of a group who is used to you taking the lead on everything) comes first, and doing less work comes second. Move from leading the group to serving the group, then gradually do less of that.

ingredience:

lemons/limes (this needs to make up the bulk of the fruit being used, like at least 80%)

whatever other fruits or fruit scraps you want, plus any herbs/other flavorings you want to try. by fruit scraps I mean things like cherry pits, apple peels, pineapple cores, strawberry ends, things like that.

granulated white sugar, the coarser the better, 50% by weight of total citrus rinds + 100% by weight of any additional fruit. you'll measure this after you prep the fruit.

water as needed

equipment:

a few nonmetallic mixing bowls

a mesh strainer

a chinoise, ricer or some cheesecloth

a kitchen scale

a citrus juicer or reamer (manual or electric)

a potato masher

juice the citrus through a strainer - saving all rinds -  and refrigerate the juice for the time being. dice the rinds and other fruits if any, keeping the rinds separate. make note of weights, and measure your sugar.

 Place sugar in a large nonmetallic bowl. If using non-citrus fruits and/or any other flavorings, mix them in with the sugar and mash with potato masher. add diced citrus rinds, mix thoroughly, and mash again. cover and let stand at room temperature for at least 4 hours. this allows the sugar to draw out flavors that would otherwise get discarded with the rinds, and the rinds' acids should be enough to dissolve the sugar into a syrup.

Afterward, mash one last time, then collect the syrup by pressing the macerated mixture through a strainer/chinoise or ricer, or squeeze it through cheesecloth. if you want, this can be saved as a standalone syrup at this point, for use in cocktails or desserts. if not, slowly pour the reserved juice through the solids to to help get the remaining syrup out, and squeeze/press again. do the same thing one more time with warm water (roughly the same amount of water as juice). discard solids (or try making sangria with them!).

taste the mixture and add more water if necessary. a stronger mix is totally fine if you anticipate serving over ice on a hot day, or adding booze, or if there was a lot of non-sour fruit. keep in mind that it will taste a bit less sweet once it's chilled. pour into a pitcher and refrigerate.

citrus oils will float to the top, so stir/shake before serving. love you. enjoy.

some tried and true flavor combos:

straight lemon or lime, or any combination of the two, is of course an untouchable classic

lemon & strawberries (that's pussy babe!)

lemon & orange with a hint of vanilla (creamsiclemonade...?)

lemon & apples or apple peels with cinnamon/ginger/allspice (for late summer)

some cocktail type combos, booze optional:

lemon or lime & berries with basil + gin

lime & mint + white rum

lime & ginger + dark rum

lime & cucumber + gin

lime & orange (berries optional) + tequila

link to PDF

I used two more condor photos by Andrew Orr and Alam Clampitt from peregrinefund.org

Gotta use the skills I learned from making tabloids out of the Jane Austen novels somewhere right?

Written by Shavonne Cruz for Mood Fabrics, this dressmaking tutorial teaches you how to make a beautiful cosplay dress inspired by fantasy media like Lord of the Rings and House of the Dragon!

The pattern is offered free via email subscription, and the tutorial provides detailed instructions. You can check it out here!

The CovidSafeCosplay blog and its admin are unaffiliated with the patternmaker or Mood Fabrics, and are simply sharing the resource. Blog admin has not personally tested this pattern (yet). Please thoroughly read the pattern and tutorial for full instructions.

Early medieval food - part 4: served during the annual festival in Wolin, Poland. Images © K&W Szlósarczyk.

It's a natural impulse -- if you love crime -- to want to talk about how great it is. And if you hate America, it's only natural to want to share your dreams for its future with the rest of tumblr dot com. It can feel brave and transgressive. And there is a drive to share your soul with the world at the heart of social media. Surely I should be posting the most concrete implications of my politics, right? This is the poster's curse.

Security Culture refers to a set of "best practices" developed over the past several decades, largely (in a US context) coming out of radical environmental groups as they faced intense state repression, infiltration and entrapment. If you're not familiar, there's some fascinating crimethinc write ups to give you a window into that world:

Much of it boils down to: don't talk about crimes, past or forthcoming with people who don't need to know about them, and be mindful of the possibility of surveillance and infiltration. And, we can support each other as a community in minimizing risks, with an eye towards enabling bold action rather than getting bogged down in fears and anxieties. The guidelines that make sense for AG-based trouble-makers are different from the guidelines that make sense for posters, but plenty of common principles apply. To speak briefly to our position here as posters:

First, it bears saying that long term anonymity is extremely nearly impossible to maintain. Unless you've never accessed Tumblr without a vpn, and avoided connections with other ppl who can be associated with you/your location, and never shared pictures without scrubbing metadata, and a bunch of other 100% consistent steps, it's trivial for the state to know who you are.

Second, just because something isn't actively being prosecuted now doesn't mean it can't be prosecuted later. The priorities of the state change and a shift in power towards the right or a growth in radical action from the left can suddenly make it a priority to destroy anarchist networks or just find a few ppl to prosecute as examples (who probably weren't that plugged into larger networks before getting arrested. Advocating for specific anti-government crimes or declarations of intent to commit such crimes are likely prosecutable even if charges don't stick they're an easy vector for legal harassment.

Third, it's worth thinking about heat as separate from prosecutability. There are modes of engagement that may not be directly criminalized but signal that you are someone worth watching. Some people choose to be public in ways that make heat unavoidable. But it's worth noting that heat isn't strictly individualized, that it persists over time but also is going to shrink over time.

It's easy on here, ime, to see yourself as a proud member of the crime fandom but not much of a content creator. And it's easy to feel like you've generated an amount of heat where you're locked into that role. But heat you generated 10 years ago is probably pretty well gone. Heat you generated 5 years ago has faded substantially. It's worth thinking about how the world might shift in the coming years and what doors you want to keep open.

The non-individualized nature of heat also means that leaning into the spiciest of anti-state positions will make it a bad idea for people who are acting out those positions end up tied to you. Loudly talking about how "more people should be doing [X/Y/Z]" unfortunately sets you up to remain distant from people who might be doing or thinking about doing such things.