Naamloos

In the Eastern USA, only tiny remnants of old-growth forest remain; all the rest, over 99%, was clear-cut within the last 100-150 years.

Most tree species here have a lifespan of 300-500 years—likely longer, since extant examples of truly old trees are so rare, there is limited ability to study them. In a suburban environment, almost all of the trees you see around you are mere saplings. A 50 year old oak tree is a youth only beginning its life.

The forest where I work is 100 years old; it was clear cut around 1920. It is still so young.

When I dig into the ground there, there is a layer about an inch thick of rich, plush, moist, fragrant topsoil, packed with mycelium and light and soft as a foam mattress. Underneath that the ground becomes hard and chalky in color, with a mineral odor.

It takes 100 years to build an inch of topsoil.

That topsoil, that marvelous, rich, living substance, took 100 years to build.

I am sorry your textbooks lied to you. Do you remember pictures in diagrams of soil layers, with a six-inch topsoil layer and a few feet of subsoil above bedrock?

That's not true anymore. If you are not an "outdoorsy" person that hikes off trail in forests regularly, it is likely that you have never touched true topsoil. The soil underlying lawns is depleted, compacted garbage with hardly any life in it. It seems more similar to rocks than soil to me now.

You see, tilling the soil and repeatedly disturbing it for agriculture destroys the topsoil layer, and there is no healthy plant community to regenerate it.

The North American prairies used to hold layers of topsoil more than eight or nine feet deep. That was a huge carbon sink, taking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it underground.

Then European colonists settled the prairie and tried to drive the bison to extinction as part of the plan to drive Native Americans to extinction, and plowed up that topsoil...and the results were devastating. You might recall being taught about the Dust Bowl. Disrupting that incredible topsoil layer held in place by 12-foot-tall prairie grasses and over 100 different wildflower species caused the nation to be engulfed in horrific dirt storms that turned the sky black and had people hundreds of miles away coughing up clods of mud and sweeping thick drifts of dirt out of their homes.

But plowing is fundamental to agricultural civilizations at their very origins! you might say.

Where did those early civilizations live? River valleys.

Why river valleys? They're fertile because of seasonal flooding that deposits rich silt that can then be planted in.

And where does that silt come from?

Well, a huge river is created by smaller rivers coming together, which is created by smaller creeks coming together, which have their origins in the mountains and uplands, which are no good for farming but often covered in rich, dense forests.

The forests create the rich soil that makes agriculture possible. An ancient forest is so powerful, it brings life to civilizations and communities hundreds of miles away.

You may have heard that cattle farming is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. A huge chunk of that is just the conversion of an existing forest or grassland to pasture land. Robust plant communities like forests, wetlands, and grasslands are carbon sinks, storing carbon and removing it from the atmosphere. The destruction of these environments is a direct source of carbon emissions.

All is not lost. Nature knows how to regenerate herself after devastating events; she's done so countless times before, and forests are not static places anyway. They are in a constant state of regrowth and change. Human caretakers have been able to manage ancient forests for thousands of years. It is colonialism and the ideology of profit and greed that is so destructive, not human presence.

ID 1: all images are screenshots from an Instagram post by letstalkpalestine. They have a light beige background. The first image is a title, reading: "Lets talk armed resistance". The subtitle reads: "Analysing why and how Palestinians resist militarily".

ID 2: The second image begins with an illustration of a pair of fists breaking free from shackles. Below the illustration, the body text reads: "In the face of colonization and violent ethnic cleansing, Palestinians are forced to engage in an armed struggle in order to defend themselves and liberate their land." Palestinian armed resistance has a long history, first deployed against the British occupation. Today, it's a tool used to pursue different political goals as part of the long-term objective of national liberation."

ID 3: The third image is titled: "What is armed resistance?" The body text reads: "Since the dawn of time, oppressed groups have used armed resistance as a legitimate way to free themselves from colonial powers. When a group is occupied by a violent power, which seeks to dominate, exploit, or harm them, resistance is not just a right, but a communal duty." The words 'communal duty' are very large and circled in orange. The bottom portion of the image looks like a piece of lined paper. It reads: "Examples of armed resistance for liberation: Haitian Revolution [Haitian flag], Algerian Independence Struggle [Algerian flag], Zapatista Movement [Zapatista flag], African National Congress [African National Congress flag]."

ID 4: The fourth image is titled: "Israel's military is one of the most powerful in the world". The body text reads: "Freeing Palestine by defeating Israel's military isn't feasible. This is why armed resistance is a political tool used for mid-term tactical political goals as part of a bigger long-term struggle." A subtitle reads: "The three elements of armed resistance according to Palestinian intellectual Basil al-Araj:". The elements are listed left to right and have illustrations below them. They are: "Direct Action", with an illustration of a raised fist. "Popular Mobilization", with an illustration of four people with arrows pointing at them. "Development", with an illustration of a graph going up.

ID 5: The fifth image is split into three sections. The first section is titled: "Direct action", in orange, and has an illustration of a raised fist, also orange. The text beside it is black and says: "Includes both violent and non-violent actions such as military operations, protests, boycotts, and strikes. The purpose of direct action is to slowly weaken the occupation and spread political awareness." The second section is titled "Popular Mobilization", in orange, and has an illustration of four people with arrows pointing at them, also orange. The text beside it is black and says: "An organized populace raising awareness and collectively uniting around a specific demand or vision. Organized masses build upon direct action through large-scale protests." The final section is titled "Development", in orange, and has an illustration of a graph going upwards, also orange. The text beside it is black and says: "The process of building independent institutions and economic sufficiency free from external influence to empower the community."

ID 6: The sixth image has no title. The body text reads: "Palestinian armed resistance first emerged in the 1936 Palestinian Revolution against British rule, where it performed these three roles." Below, there is a stylized bullet list with three points, which have titles written in white text on an orange background. The first point is titled "Direct Action", and reads: "Palestinian military operations targeted British and Zionist military objects and officials." The second point is titled "Popular Mobilisation", and reads: "News of these operations spread across Palestine, sparking mass mobilization in solidarity with the fighters. This led to a nationwide strike that halted the economy for months, pressuring Britain." The third point is titled "National Development", and reads: This mobilised initiatives to replace British colonial structures with independent Palestinian institutions like courts and postal services.

ID 7: The seventh image is titled: "Armed resistance played the same role in The Second Intifada.". The body text reads: "Palestinian fighters took direct action by regularly blockading Israeli colonies and laying traps for Israeli tanks and soldiers to weaken the occupation. These military operations fueled long-term and sustained mass mobilization throughout Palestine, which revived local traditions of village, camp, and neighborhood-based self-reliance as a model of economic development and independence from Israel." The words 'independence from Israel' are in large bold text, circled in orange.

ID 8: The eight image is titled: "Hamas". Text to the right of the title reads: "A political party founded in 1987 during the First Intifada which has resisted the occupation through its military wing. Hamas makes headlines for its regular use of rockets to fight the occupation." A subtitle, circled in orange, reads: "So why rockets?" Below the subtitle there is a numbered list, which reads: "1. Deterrent. The threat of launching rockets deters Israel from extreme military actions, and incentivizes it to accept ceasefires earlier, saving lives. 2. To Send a Message. Hamas often launches a single rocket at empty land as a message and form of protest, similar to how countries conduct military exercises or fly over airspace to make a statement. 3. Overcome Isolation. As Gazans are trapped in an open-air prison, rockets allow Hamas to influence Israeli policy in the rest of Palestine. IN 2021, Hamas used its rockets to add pressure to Israel to stop its ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem. This connected Jerusalem and Gaza as a single political theater, overcoming Israel's strategy of divide-and-conquer."

ID 9: the ninth image is titled: "The Lion's Den", and subtitled: "A new youth-led resistance group in the West Bank city of Nablus." The body text reads: "Their short-term goals are to defend the city from Israeli raids, disrupt settlements, and weaken Israeli control by targeting surrounding checkpoints. Their long-term goal is to create mass consciousness among Palestinians to create a 'generation of numbers', after which a 'generation of liberation' will come. They lead mass mobilizations, such as strikes and protests, to create this consciousness. Their popularity has challenged the corrupt Palestinian Authority, presenting a new model of leadership: decentralised and youth-led, uniting members of all parties and factions."

bear requested by Kyle Lewis on my patreon

Someone made an extensive google spreadsheet I've attached below (bless their hearts my gosh) -also don't forget to block Charlie Puth too and any other artist or actor you can think of. 'Influencers' are also NOT excluded from this. If I find a list with them I will post it but this includes every single one of them with a platform who have been silent. That includes the "let them eat cake" Haley Baylee who gushed about having 10 million followers after attending the Met Gala -all while Rafah was being bombed.

Also, on contrary to what was said above -I'm well past the point of caring about the feelings of celebrities and influencers. They should be publicly shamed because their priorities and moral compasses are broken -clearly. The ones who have spoken up, especially over the past 9 months, are the one's who deserve to be supported.

Also, I'd like this blockout to continue. This isn't something that happens for a week and then goes away if 'they do talk,' (Lizzo is the most recent example I can give when she said celebrities have no power then pulled a Rock and Oprah moment by asking her fans to help send funds to someone in Gaza instead of donating herself which she could very well have done -major side eye).

I also recently posted about another strategy -cart abandonment you can view here:

It’s a way of simplifying something so complex as a whole life story, take away the good parts, the artist’s talent, and atribute years and year of studying and practicing their craft to an illness. As if it makes people feel better that maybe they aren’t geniuses but at least they aren’t “insane”.

Artists are constantly working to the bone to get people to see and understand their art, to change the current status quo, to perfect their craft. The most important thing is not how an artist died. It’s the life they lived, the work they’ve left behind, their mark on the world. Reducing people to a tragedy is not a way of appreciating their genius: their art is.

No one is a genius because of their illness, their trauma, their suffering, but because they studied and worked hard to develop the aptitude they were born with. Talent is not a miracle, it’s a lifelong effort.

This stereotype is extremely harmful to people who are currently struggling with those health problems, and it should not be used to “give pain a meaning”, because there is always so much more to someone’s life than suffering, and there is always so much more to your own life than romanticizing your own struggles and those of others.

Pain is meant to be worked through, not fed. And when you feed yourself the myth that an artist was brilliant because they were sick, you are erasing a big part of their life to try and make sense of yours. But you won’t find true meaning in life if you’re only feeding your sorrow instead of maybe, just maybe, doing what those artists did and work through it with your own art.

A lot of them did not have any access to healthcare because their conditions were unknown, but they did what they could to keep going. Their deaths don’t mean they gave up in a big tragic ending, and reducing them to that means you’re erasing everything they did to keep going, every fight, every effort they put into their own health and into their life’s work.

I love impressionist art ever since I was in elementary school, my favorite artist being Vincent Van Gogh. I was first introduced to his story as a man who had a mental illness and died a tragic death, while struggling financially and never being recognized properly during his lifetime.

But you see, Vincent Van Gogh had his brother Theo, who kept all the letters his older brother sent him, and sent his brother words of admiration, support, and unconditional love in his own.

He helped Vincent financially so he could pursue his paiting career. He saw the talent in his own brother even when others might’ve not. The period when Vincent was doing a little better with his health was actually when he was most prolific in his painting, which shuts down the idea that someone must be on the gutter and on the deepest pain and sickness to produce great art.

Most people in really poor health have a hard time managing daily life, and they probably won’t miraculously produce their best work yet while they in extreme suffering (I dare you to make the greatest work of art you’re capable of while you’re down with the flu, now imagine being in constant physical, mental and emotional distress and people think you can just make just about anything). Great art takes a lot of work. Genius and suffering don’t go hand in hand, and it reductive to explain away talent by an illness, as if any effort artists put into their craft was meaningless.

Theo named his own son after his brother, and after Vicent died, he still wanted to make his work known, and after his own death, his wife Johanna kept working on Theo’s mission besides her own political activism. She published the letters between the two brothers, and her own son helped in making Van Gogh’s work even more well known. Even though he was just a baby when his uncle died, he kept his memory alive by founding a world famous museum in his name.

Vincent Van Gogh was able to keep working because he was helped by his own family, financially, emocionally, and was given every encouragement so he could go on with his own career. He painted more when he got medical help, even though in his own time he would have had access to much simpler treatments, since the understanding of illnesses has largely changed in the last centuries.

Healthcare, support, compassion and understanding go a long way, and that’s why it’s important to keep pushing society to be more inclusive to people with illnesses - so they will get the help they need, so they won’t leave earlier than they should.

Vincent Van Gogh’s name is not well known just because of his own efforts, but also by the efforts of those who loved him and kept his name alive long after he was gone. He is not famous because he was a tortured artist. He is famous because those who loved him tried to help him in the ways they could, even after he was gone. His fame is not the result of his death, but of his life’s work and the work of those around him.

Love made him known. Support allowed him to keep working. Getting some help even at a time people did not understand his condition well enough meant he could paint more.

Van Gogh was only human, and he felt such a broad spectrum of emotions and lived through so many things, just as we all do. Behind those paintings, there is a person, a story, and so much hard work, and none of that can be reduced to the romanticized ideal of a tragic death of a tortured man.

It is not about his pain, his suffering, his death, you see. It’s about his life. And it’s about the life of those who loved him. He was able to do what he loved because he was loved, and that is the reason is remembered to this day.

I will end this long post with one of his most famous quotes:

—

Brigid Schulte: Why time is a feminist issue

(via

librarianbyday

)

Why sitting on my ass is a feminist act, thank you.