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currently maybe possibly single-handedly crashing whatever servers eton hosts its archived student newspapers on because me and a friend are getting obsessed with a single outspoken prefect from 1883
@queenlua Happily! This is going to be long, so here's some set dressing first:
Eton College, for anyone unfamiliar, is a prestigious boys' school in England that has famously educated MANY MANY politicians, royals, nobility, and other assorted famous people. All you really need to know about it is that's it's incredibly posh and expensive and exclusive
The Eton Society (called “Pop” internally) is a self-selecting body of senior students at Eton that have historically held a decent amount of power at the school. If you’ve ever attended a school with a prefect system/house system etc you probably know a little bit about how obnoxious this kind of group can get. Now imagine they're all called Lord Godfrey Pickerington or something. Are you getting it? Is the set being dressed? Good.
Now that the scene is set, here’s our tale!!
I stumbled into Eton’s archives while doing research for a fanfiction and we’ll just leave that admission where it is!! It was in reading old issues of their student-run paper, The Chronicle, from 1883 that myself and @carebewear started becoming fixated on one guy in particular.
Cecil B. Gedge (from this point on known as Gedge) was a member of the Eton Society in 1883/84. He won a few Science awards during his time there (Biology!!) and seemed to like rowing during school sports events. He went on to become a barrister, which will make sense once you know more about him.
The best part of Gedge, though, is his appearances in the minutes for the Eton Society meetings. At least at Gedge’s time, the Eton Society seemed really fond of staging debates (more like loosely organised discussions) on a wide variety of topics.
Here are some of the riveting questions they discussed!
And my personal favourite: "Are Ghosts Real?"
(They were very divided)
Gedge first came to our attention in debate about the annexation of New Guinea, in which he apparently started an "abusive attack on the British army and missionaries":
Wow! Based Gedge!? He continues to spit period-typical truths about things like how we shouldn't tax bicycles actually because it would disproportionately affect poor people. YIMBY Gedge?? He would've loved light rail.
The final nail in our Gedge obsession was a debate on women's suffrage, in which Gedge vehemently advocates for women's right to vote and then gets no supporters at the end of the meeting. But I appreciate that he said it anyway and kept saying it. He is more persecuted that Christ, to me.
Here are some more, from anti-conscription sentiment to indirectly calling his classmates stupid to weirding everyone out by saying he wants to donate his body to science (his friend dissecting him for fun):
We started getting the feeling people might not have liked Gedge that much, mainly since one of the Society members wrote a poem about all his friends and Gedge isn't in it.
In 1884, there was some extended drama in the Chronicle where someone whom I groundlessly suspect was Gedge under a pseudonym ("A Socialist"), wrote to the editor complaining that the "debates" published by the Eton Society were "bad" (genuine quote) and that they should make a REAL debate society at the school that ALL boys, not just the self-selected seniors, could participate in:
To make a long story short most of the vocal members of the Eton Society threw up their hands at this and refused to do anything, basically boiling down to "Just because we're the prefects of the school doesn't mean we should have to actually DO anything!! Unfair!!" and also this quote which reads exactly like at least a thousand real tweets I've seen in my life
Liberal. Gedge, of course, was there giving practical suggestions, but the discussion was ultimately cut short because their principal died and they had to push a memorial issue of the paper. We have a working theory that the staff might've used that interruption as an opportunity to get the boys to cut it the fuck out.
Anyway it's a little unclear what happens to Gedge after that. He isn't credited as being in the 1884 Eton Society in the larger school register but it's unclear if that's because he wasn't re-elected or if he just graduated. Either way, he went on to become a barrister in London, which makes a lot of sense. Sadly though, he passed away in WW1, which we were really normal about
Thank you Lt. Gedge, for truly embodying the eternal spirit of an outspoken debate-kid, a friend to the lefties, a proto-yimby, a terminal back-talker, and the kid in a biology class that's a little too excited for the dissections. I hope your life, however short, was a rich and bright one. Thanks for the incredibly entertaining afternoon, brother 🫡
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Terrell Wong is about to plant 100 trees in her small Toronto backyard, a dense mini forest based on the Miyawaki Method. What at first seems like a simple act soon evolves into a complex story about dirt, lawns, fungus, wildlife, native species, and finally the human brain. An anti-lawn anthem from director David Hartman, The Mini Forest explores this innovative form of afforestation and the importance of restoring the native woodlands that once covered so much of Canada and the World.
John Rogers is the creator of two of my favorite things:
Leverage and Leverage: Redemption, show(s) about criminals who team up to punish billionaires and corporations who take advantage of regular people in ways that the law won't punish. It's a great heist show, it's hilarious, it's satisfying in a vengeance sort of way, it's deeply nerdy in sometimes subtle ways (criminals using aliases from Doctor Who, anyone?), and seeing the characters and relationships develop is really nice, too.
The following quote: "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
I love that Leverage really goes out of it’s way to show us that just because you break the ‘rules’, it doesn’t mean you’re breaking the rules. Rules and laws and society are all made up, at the end of the day, and all you really have is your own moral compass and sense of justice; is this just to you? Is it right? Should it be OK for companies to put people in insurmountable debt for the rest of their lives just because our medical care is so expensive in this modern day and age? No law or rule should change what you know in your heart is right and wrong, and I think that’s the key thing that makes someone a good person in my eyes.
#there was a time when parker wouldn’t have noticed, #not because she lacked the capacity to care, #but because she had narrowed herself, #to stay alive she cut off as many unnecessary things as possible, #watching her get them all back, #is one of the glories of this show (via @seananmcguire)
This scene hit me like a brick. My parents were hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when I was 16 bc I’d had cancer the year before (my treatment ended up being free but the initial ER bills and such were not).
But somewhere along the line they just… Disappeared. My mom says they’re not being paid and they’re not in collections. It’s almost as if someone out there did…exactly what Parker did.
Ever since I saw this the first time, I’ve imagined it was Parker doing it. That she and Hardison had a free weekend and decided to take it out on a collections agency. That I was one of the lucky ones who got a little Leverage.
Okay but like yeah, that is actually a thing that happens, albeit not exactly like this. I don’t remember the exact process but basically there’s a booming industry to sell peoples debt - the business you owe money to sells it to someone else for a fraction of the money owed, wipes their hands of the whole affair, and now whoever bought your debt is riding your ass to get you to give the money to the. But it’s also entirely possible for people to just… buy up massive amounts of debt for pennies on the dollar, and then just. Forgive it. Because capitalism is a living nightmare, but the system is broken enough that it’s possible to exploit it for good sometimes.
Like, the main reason I know about this is because John Oliver did a piece on debt buying a few years ago, and ended it by revealing that he’d bought 15 million dollars worth of medical debt just so he could forgive all of it. Both to expose how broken the system was because some random fucker like him could buy millions of dollars in peoples debt with zero regulations, and also just to take the record for biggest TV giveaway in history.
yes! if you want to help with the medical debt crisis in the US and have some extra money please donate to RIP Medical Debt if you can. They’re completely legit and really do what they say - you really CAN relieve an incredible amount of debt for the needy with even a small donation. I’m a monthly donor and receive a quarterly report of the debt they’ve abolished, and it truly is amazing. Based on those reports the average amount of debt abolished per person is actually I would say about $600 - which means, if you’re doing the math, that with a $6 donation to RIP Medical Debt, you can potentially pull one person out of a poverty spiral - maybe even one family. For six dollars. that’s a pretty good deal, I think.
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The “Stockholm tree pit” method was created to help trees thrive in paved-over urban spaces. Now, it’s taking root across Europe.
When Stockholm’s Traffic Office conducted a general assessment of street traffic in the Swedish capital in 2001, it came to the shocking conclusion that two-thirds of all trees in the city center were dead or dying.
City authorities agreed that an urgent response was needed to nurse these leafy urban ecosystem pillars back to health.
Enter Björn Embrén, Stockholm’s first “tree officer.”
Under his leadership, various technologies and materials were tested in an attempt to create a more suitable living space for trees in the urban environment.
“I knew that they could grow if the circumstances were right,” says Embrén, a former professional gardener.
“It’s like putting a plastic bag over your head and tightening it over your neck,” says Embrén. “That’s what happened to the trees in Stockholm. They were dying.”
Eventually, inspired by railroad embankments — which require only a small amount of organic matter for healthy trees to grow — Embrén concocted what was to become known as the “Stockholm tree pit” model.
By 2002, Embrén had drawn up designs. And by 2003, they were already building.
The design involves digging a pit and constructing a frame underground around the tree’s roots, and then filling said pit with a mixture of soil and stone, sometimes including biochar, to both aerate and fertilize the soil. These permeable layers are very strong and physically adaptable but also allow stormwater to flow in, meaning the trees are provided with sufficient air and water naturally. They also allow rainwater to be soaked up — a necessity amid more extreme weather brought on by climate change.
“We found that the more breathable the materials we used, the happier the trees were,” adds Embrén.
Proponents say the method has a number of benefits, including the fact that pits can be installed around existing trees, they can bear the weight of heavy-vehicle traffic, they require little topsoil — a resource that is becoming scarce — and they need less watering than traditionally-planted trees.
This approach, which allows tree roots to thrive beneath hard surfacing, ergo allowing healthy trees to grow within the modern built environment, is particularly relevant as cities attempt to re-green and reforest in the face of climate change.
According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, urban forests can help “future-proof” cities, which are responsible for about 75 percent of global CO2 emissions. Sustainable urban forestry, it says, can bring multiple benefits, such as lowering temperatures, improving public health, creating habitats for biodiversity, sequestering carbon, generating green jobs, and mitigating risks of floods and landslides.
“It’s more important now than ever before,” says Ryan Klein, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Horticulture at the University of Florida. “We have these massive populations in urban areas. And we’re seeing more extreme weather like hurricanes, wildfires and prolonged droughts. Trees can help to offset some of these negative effects.”
However, amid the rush to rapidly reforest cities, experts like Klein warn that due to ineffective methods and techniques being used, it’s common to see urban trees in poor health, and trees planted in cities often have very high mortality rates.
“We have the understanding of how to grow healthier, more sustainable and resilient forests,” says Klein. “The research backs it. Unfortunately, we don’t always invest the time, money or internal know-how on implementing this.”
A review of 16 scientific studies on urban tree mortality, published in 2019, found that in the first five years after planting, 6.6 to 7 percent of trees died annually.
“Urban soils are not very tree-friendly currently,” says Rik De Vreese, leader of the Urban Forestry Team at the European Forestry Institute. “It’s quite a serious threat.”
When trees aren’t properly anchored, De Vreese adds, it can also lead to other issues, such as trunks falling over and causing damage or roots warping sidewalks.
However, the Stockholm Tree Pit method — and the way that it’s been implemented in Sweden — is helping urban forests genuinely take root.
One of the first locations where Embrén introduced a tree pit was Erik Dahlbergsallén street in Stockholm, not far from the popular Swedish Museum of Natural History.
There, according to research by the municipality, the circumference of a selection of those planted trees increased from 30 to 35 centimeters to 70 to 83 centimeters between 2004 and 2013, even surpassing that of trees without the tree pits that have been there for more than 80 years. The latest figures from 2024 saw them reach between 100 and 136 centimeters.
“It’s easy to see how effective the pits have been,” says Embrén.
The municipality estimates that 2.3 million liters of rainwater are managed by the trees per year, and consequently, 4,600 square meters of roofs and sidewalks have been disconnected from the sewage system, reducing the burden on water treatment services.
This technique has proven so successful that it has become the standard for all other development projects in the public spaces of Stockholm. Embrén says he has been directly involved in constructing more than 3,000 tree pits, and while he has since retired, there are now three “tree officers” who have taken on the expanding role.
Britt-Marie Alvem, one of the current tree officers, estimates that the city now builds between 500 and 1,000 tree pits a year.
These days, the tree pits are also in almost every Swedish city — with a few variations.
“Some have copied and changed a little bit, like adding pumice to the stone mix,” says Embrén.
Stockholm’s tree pits are now spreading across Europe, too. In Budapest, Hungary’s capital, the tree pits can be found all over Bartók Béla Boulevard and Arany János Street. Embrén says the Spanish city of Madrid has implemented the method using local materials. And it’s become increasingly popular in the U.K.
Ben Rose, the principal arboricultural consultant at U.K. tree service Bosky Trees and the founder of Stockholm Tree Pits, a U.K.-based company that produces the equipment required to make tree pits, says that he has planted about 500 trees using the Stockholm model in the U.K. since he began in 2019, mostly as part of small-scale pilot projects.
“The approach is very suitable for use in urban situations, particularly in car parks, in plazas, and beside walkways or cycle paths,” says Rose.
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Yet there are some drawbacks to the system. Installation costs can be high, the pits can require a large amount of space to install, and it is impossible to reuse existing soil. In addition, for now there is a relative dearth of professionals who know how to construct tree pits.
“Our main concern is the price,” says De Vreese, whose team is currently studying the importance of “structural soils” like those deployed by the tree pits. “Excavating the soil surrounding the tree and refilling it is no small job.”
And while Professor Klein praises the Stockholm Tree Pit’s use of structural soil and how effective it’s proven to be, he notes that the long-term success of urban forestry also relies on other factors such as the supply of high quality nursery stock and proactive tree management such as routine pruning by municipalities.
“If we don’t have these we are setting ourselves up for failure,” he says. “Some cities do the bare minimum. In the U.S.A., it’s the wild west. But others, like Stockholm, are proactive, and they have public officials seriously behind it. That’s what we need.”
This person wrote a manifesto I ain’t reading all that but this is literally the type of behavior im talking about the idea hobbies all cost money is so removed from reality if you have the time to pick up your phone and write 7 paragraphs on how im victimizing you with my offhanded post you have the time to watch a movie on YouTube with your very same phone instead come on now. How is you freaking out on the internet helping any of these issues
things that dont cost money: hiking, walking, birdwatching, identifying plants, drawing (you have a pen, reading (library), collecting rocks, dancing, singing.... etc wtc etc
if you cant find a hobby you can afford, thats a you problem. and if youre posting online, you have a device to do that, get some free games, trawl wikipedia, study something. stop picking fights online and do something else.
if you can write an essay about it on your phone you can write fanfic or poetry or something on your phone also and it will be much nicer for everyone involved, including you
There are several groups of traditionalist Catholics that have been pissed since something called Vatican 2, which updated a bunch of practices and official positions, and one group of those is called The Society of Saint Pius X. Their leader was excommunicated in 1988 for making bishops (?) without permission.
Those bishops are now hella old, so they decided to make some more, and the pope said that was automatic excommunication. (excommunication matters both as a matter of theology (sacraments performed aren't valid) and economics (the church stops giving them money, can take back property, etc))
Pope said don't, and they did, and now: schism?????
Apparently they claim not to be sedevacantists ("pope's not valid"), but idek what else you would call this.
Article from the Vatican press office (calling them Lefebvrians is apparently itself a diss, as that is the name of the founder and emphasizes the cult of personality aspect)
Excellent bluesky thread liveblogging the consecration (must be logged in, I think? Screenshots are highlights)
once again i have to say that the letter from the vatican makes it very clear that this is a christian hate group. they explicitly reject vatican 2, a series of doctrines meant to update the church's relationship with its body and the rest of the world. When the letter says that SSSX is disagreeing with the church's "understanding of and relationship to judaism", they mean that SSSX believes the antisemitic myth that jews killed jesus and ought to be held responsible for it.
in my opinion, the catholic church does not get credit for this change in policy, as it was only made in 1962 after literal CENTURIES of jewish persecution and oppression. However this is not a "root for the underdog" situation- the schismers are an extremist conservatives and should be called as such.
They also believe that women belong pregnant in the home, and wearing trousers is "an assault upon woman's womanhood and so they represent a deep-lying revolt against the order willed by God." Also, they practice Holocaust denial, funding far right extremist political groups, and many higher order members have been taken to court for sexual abuse against multiple women and children. So yeah. Not the scrappy underdogs stickin' it to the boring old pope, as I've seen some people here trying to pass them off.
this is probably my favorite tiktok of all time and I finally got around to showing it to my dad the other day and now he comes home every day and tells me about all the places he saw crumbling concrete and says "guess they didn't add enough chinchilla flakes"
My dad has worked in construction is whole life, primarily with a company that does concrete foundations, and I immediately sent him this back when I first found it on TikTok, and he IMMEDIATELY shared it with everyone he worked with. They apparently still quote it on his job sites to this day.
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