- A job

- Good relationship with father

- Neurotypical brain

- Ability to top

Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies 

Arborists often claim that all-male plants are “litter-free” because they shed no messy seeds, fruits or pods. In the 1949 USDA Yearbook of Agriculture, which focused on trees and forests, this advice was given to readers: “When used for street plantings, only male trees should be selected, to avoid the nuisance from the seed.”  In the years following, the USDA produced and released into the market almost 100 new red maple and hybrid-maple-named clones (cultivars), and every single one of them was male.

It took a number of years for these new trees to mature enough to start to bloom, but eventually they did and with them came more city pollen and the “epidemic of allergy and asthma.” Many of these same trees are still alive and well and getting even larger, and the bigger they get, the more pollen they shed.

Allergies are rarely triggered by small amounts of an allergen; they are initiated by an overdose. Small amounts of pollen exposure are actually good for us, but if we have highly allergenic trees or shrubs in our own yards or lining our streets, we will soon enough be over-exposed. In order to put the brakes on America’s allergy epidemic, we need to reverse the trend toward male-dominated landscapes and stop selling and planting any more of the most allergenic trees, shrubs and grasses in our cities.

and the kicker:

White

Black

Latino

Something else

Asian

We weren’t declared as citizens of our own stolen land until 1924. We didn’t get the right to vote (in all states) until the early 1960’s.

The Navajo and Pima/O’Odham (one of my tribes!!!) communities have been crucial in flipping this state. the Native vote in Arizona was MASSIVE - no doubt to the impact Covid has had on our communities there. I’m going to look at other blue-flipped states but what I’m seeing so far is that Natives have been critical for the Democratic vote regardless of voter suppression tactics designed to keep Natives away from the polls.

“Let’s go on a vacation, just the two of us! Anywhere you want.” “Really?”

If we destroyed the colony to harvest honey there would be no bees for next year, and beekeepers are incredibly careful to keep their bees healthy and thriving. We take *excess* honey that they don’t need, and it stops the hive from becoming honey-bound, meaning that there’s so much honey the Queen has nowhere to lay eggs. And if the winter is harsher than expected and the remaining honey store runs low, we feed the bees plenty to make sure they survive. We also make sure that pests are controlled, bees are treated for disease, and the hive is weatherproof and in good repair, all things that wild bees struggle with.

Keeping bees in properly managed hives where they don’t starve or die from preventable disease is much better for them than being left to fend for themselves, and they’re far too important to be left alone.

All the fruits and vegetables that vegans *do* eat couldn’t exist without bees, and the hives which pollinate those crops also produce excess honey which the beekeepers can sell to help keep themselves and their hives going.

The COVID-19 virus has not changed

Your immune system has not changed

There is no vaccine

There is no cure

What’s Different?

Fewer government-directed restrictions

That’s literally it: fewer lockdowns, closures, and stay-at-home orders, often due to political pressure.

But COVID-19 is still here. It’s still contagious. People are still getting it. People are still dying from it. Just because it’s not as prominent in the news does not mean that this 2020 story arc has concluded!

Please

Wash your hands

Continue social distancing

Wear a face mask

Protect high-risk and vulnerable people

Self-isolate if sick, quarantine if exposed

Help flatten the curve and contain the outbreaks 

Source: I am an actual contact tracer and I just got home from a very long shift where we are having to reach out to more and more and more people as they are exposed to people with positive COVID-19 tests.

The only “animals” that aren’t hybrids are the spirits

And Kuei’s pet bear