miss marvella

white europeans love to pretend like the united states and europe aren’t two cheeks of the same ass

Listen, nobody who's ever opened a history book says we didn't do that shit first. Pick an atrocity and chances are there was a time europeans did it on mass to someone for the sake of profit. The difference, is that we have for the most part put that behind us, while the US is just sinking deeper and deeper into it. We're not perfect, and we were a lot worse in the past. But it has been a while since we were the problem

"its been a while since we were the problem" someone Black was murdered by police violence in Ireland last month

THERE ARE POGROMS HAPPENING AGAINST IMMIGRANTS, MUSLIMS, AND PEOPLE OF COLOR IN IRELAND AND SCOTLAND AS WE SPEAK

“Big Pharma” okay are we talking about how privatization and monetization has deeply corrupted the field of medicine or are you talking about how you think chemicals in the water are making the frogs gay

“GMOs”? Are we talking seeds that grow sterile plants and patenting genetic modifications then destroying any competition no matter how small they are? Or are we talking life saving rice with vitamin a to make sure kids don’t go blind in regions not suited for other high vit a veg? … or are we talking about your chidoodle?

The sexy fantasy at the heart of heated rivalry, at the end of the day, is not ‘what if you were secretly fucking your sexy arch rival’ but what if, after years contorting yourself into each and every shape people expected and wanted of you, desperately trying to present yourself in a specific way in the hopes that no one was able to look past the facade, someone finally did see past it and for at least a few moments at a time, you could finally let go. Actually be looked at and seen in your entirety and ultimately, even be loved for that

When the topic becomes about racism between children you very quickly realise children of colour aren't seen as children but as some other thing that should just take the abuse and then forgive the Real White Children because they didn't know better. They don't understand it but children of colour can and will very early in their youth.

Analyzing the politics of a work that's meant to be apolitical is actually a really interesting exercise because it asks you to critically examine what the creator considers to be "political" in the first place. Which ideas are just How Things Are, and which ones are Political, and how is that influenced by the creator's beliefs?

Usually this just ends up with you looking like a moron btw

Angrily lashing out at the suggestion that it's possible to do basic media analysis was foundational to the ragebait ecosystem of the 2010s, from which we got basically the entire culture of modern far right politics, btw.

I genuinely believe myself and others are being so sincere and literal when we say TOUCH GRASS

I went outside and got an education, that's where I learned that you can obtain knowledge and insight through analytical methods, then noticed that some people who sit on the internet yelling at strangers get really mad about that constantly.

some hyper famous artists like Van Gogh transcend overratedness and become underrated because they're so normalized. Like I'll look at a van Gogh and I'm like wait this really is amazing you guys don't get it

Shakespeare is like this

One of my favorite parts from bucky!cap is when he tries to give guns to all of the avengers, and they’re all freaking out. AND HE CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY NO ONE HAS A GUN.

There really really ought to be a book about how the staple crops of different civilizations shape and influence those civilizations, and I really want to read it.

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky and A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (three are alcohol, three have caffeine) are not quite that, but may still be of interest?

I read Salt back in the day and it's so so good, second the rec. I have heard of 6 Glasses and not read it but I am sure I would probably love it. Gotta see if the library has it. Thank you!

Gonna throw Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert in the ring here! You'll never see the modern world the same way again.

I'll throw in a rec for Pickled, Potted, and Canned by Sue Shephard - a very interesting look at food preservation and how the availability of different types of food preservation shaped cultures and cuisines.

Sweetness and Power is this but for the topic of sugar

The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past might also be up your alley. It's about "forgotten" foods and staples. They talk about different types of wheat, sauces, veggies, etc and a little about the cultures from whence they come

Also: Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser. One of my favourite books.

Also, The Rice Theory of Culture https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=orpc By Thomas Talhelm

Consider the Fork isn’t about food itself exactly but all about cooking technology and how it changed how and what we eat