Naan Issues

Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber. This is a very good summary of the role of textile production in European history from prehistory up until the Middle Ages and, because textile production is the quintessential woman’s work, it is also a history of the economic role of women. My only objection is that it ends with the adoption of the treadle loom and the subsequent removal of weaving from the home to the workshop (and the domain of men). IMO it should have gone up to the Industrial Revolution, especially because weaving was not exclusively the domain of men after the introduction of the treadle loom (see the next book), but I do understand that Barber is primarily an expert in prehistoric textiles and even the Middle Ages is a little too modern for her.

A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard by Laura Thatcher Ulrich. Honestly one of the few books that really explores the “secondary economy” between women that was based on the home economies of textile production and land management. It uses the diary of a woman in Maine in the late 1700s/early 1800s to examine social mores and women’s domestic production of the place and time. The biggest challenge to understanding the history of women’s economic role is that it was almost never written about, or at least not in writings that have survived, because most of those writings were done by men, who were concerned with other things. Ballard’s diary is one of the few surviving writings that is very focused on women’s economic concerns because, well, that was Ballard’s life. It also puts paid to a lot of the stereotypes we have about the social and cultural mores of the time.

(via Turkish woman allegedly kills abusive husband, becomes social media icon)

Here’s the general art style Chinese mountains are drawn in:

And here’s how some of them actually look:

And here’s some at the Colorado National Monument.

And these ones are in central China near Song Shan. I don’t know anything about the geology, but they look like the earth was stacked like pancakes and then turned in its side. They’re fantastic!

In reality, technologies are frequently discovered, lost and rediscovered, often multiple times, and frequently in parallel. A Dark Age in one region may be a time of rapid technological development in another region, and it’s not uncommon to encounter evidence of ancient civlisations using technologies a thousand years out of whack with the “proper” order of discovery… where “proper” is defined in terms of the order in which those technologies were discovered in Western Europe - there’s that Eurocentrism again.

I mean, just to give you an idea of how flexible the order in which technologies are developed can be and how ultimately wrong-headed the notion of linear technological progress is, there are Central American civilisations that had indoor plumbing, central heating and hot and cold running water before inventing the wheel. Some of the First Nations in what is now Eastern Canada had sophisticated climate models and reliable weather prediction - including functioning barometers and other simple meteorological instruments - before they figured out metallurgy.

The Inca are often accused of “not knowing about wheels.”

Except, they did have wheels. They just didn’t use wheels for long distance transportation. They had a huge road system. On which everything was moved by pack animals and people. The Inca road is an incredible feat of engineering.

So, why didn’t they use wheels?

Because their land was so freaking mountainous that the road would repeatedly turn into this:

Tell me what earthly use a wheel is when your road keeps having to have steps and narrow bridges because you live on top of a mountain.

But that image shows us what they did have.

That’s a suspension bridge. Europeans didn’t invent those until centuries after the Inca did.

Because when the most efficient route through your home hits chasms, guess what?

You get real good at making bridges!

And when the best way to move goods through your desert homeland is a big river?

You get real good at making boats.

Minoan Greece was also a sea power. They had huge fleets of ships, which meant they did a lot of exploration. They also built one of the biggest trade networks in the world, reaching as far as Egypt, Cyprus, Canaan, Syria,  the Iberian Peninsula (modern-day Spain and Portugal), the Levantine coast, Anatolia and Mesopotamia (modern-day Turkey, Israel and Iraq).

A volcano eruption on a nearby island, which caused a tsunami, possibly destroyed their sea power and left them vulnerable, which is why most of their technology was lost.

The Late Bronze Age Collapse a few centuries later led to the simultaneous destruction of advanced civilisations in Greece, Egypt, the Near East, Asia Minor, North Africa, Caucasus, Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. This caused a dark age across two continents which created isolated village cultures, and is the reason most of their advancements were lost.

But on the flip side…they came up with a way to use water to basically hydroplane those giant stone blocks in their buildings across the desert. Which is a hell of a lot more useful in an unpaved sandy region.

Likewise let’s not forget the Aztecs, who came up with a farming system so efficient (chinampas) that parts of it are still used today and really ought to be revived on a wider scale as part of sustainable farming. And also Native Americans, and I’m using that term BECAUSE it’s so broad: look at tribes across the country and you’ll see something interesting. Iroquois, living in a cold, well-forested, and often icy land, built immovable longhouses—which would survive the bitter northeastern winters. Plains tribes developed the tipi/teepee—while they also faced long, even dangerous winters, they also lived in a place where travel was far easier and the worst of winter could be weathered by heading south. Or down where I live, the Sinagua (later assimilated into the Hopi) built their homes IN CLIFFS. And by that I mean “off the ground, built into the cliff face with adobe.” Aka, some of the best pre-refrigeration insulation against the heat that you could possibly hope for. We still don’t know how they did it, incidentally. “With ladders, dumbass” is an obvious answer in some of their dwellings, but in others it’s not clear how they just….hung over a sinkhole, a quarter of a mile or so above the water, and chipped out the front doors so they had a place to sit while they made the rest. Scaffolds? Very well-balanced rope ladders? Smaller cliffs they chipped off afterward to prevent enemy incursion? We don’t know, but we do know they found a way to make the extreme heat survivable and even sort of a nonissue. They never bothered with stuff like modern central AC because they found a way to let the stone and clay do the job for them.

Technology isn’t always a race. Sometimes it’s just an evolution.

What you as a non-black person shouldn’t be saying (this includes non-black poc):

killin it

-game too strong (i.e. eyebrow game too strong, etc.)

-ass (i.e. That’s some ignorant-ass shit.)

hella

turnt/turnt up/turn up/turn down for what

shade/throwin’ shade

ratchet (don’t be a smartass, the adjective not the object)

werk

yas

habitual “be” (i.e. they be killin it, he be walkin, bitches be like, etc.)

the thirst/thirsty

anything being “real” (i.e. the struggle is real, the thirst is real, etc.)

the struggle

on point (i.e. outfit is on point)

chill (as in got no chill)

side-eye

stank face

cray cray

-had me like

trippin’

boo/bae

imma be

do/dough/dat

gurl/boi

basic (as in basic bitch)

holla

finna (i.e. I’m finna do xyz)

tho/doe

reading/read

school/schooling

dope

fo sho/fo real

y’all

dig/dig it/ya dig/you dig

respect (i.e. respect man)

about that/here for that (i.e. I’m not about that life, I’m here for this)

tight (i.e. this shit got me tight)

giving life (i.e. Beyonce gives me life, black tumblr giving me life)

swag

goin’ through it

Things to avoid in general because they are offensive and/or mock black culture:

Sassy (NO YOU DO NOT HAVE A SASSY BLACK WOMAN LIVING INSIDE OF YOU.  STOP.  LOOKIN AT YOU WHITE GAY COMMUNITY).

Do not call black hair kinky or nappy. (Don’t touch it either).

Do not call things ghetto. Just don’t.

Don’t use the word thug in relation to black men.

Do not assume black people are ignorant just because they don’t speak the same dialect of English as you do.

Don’t make fun of black names.

Ridiculous that I have to say this but… literally any version of the n word

Deadass

Lit

Real talk

Bless/bless up

Fierce (you know what I’m talking about)

Salty

Woke

Not about that life

On fleek/fleek

Thot

Bye (like “Girl, bye”)

Bye Felicia/son/girl/etc.

Preach (like “Preach it”)

Say/speak that shit

Fuckboy/fuckboi

Stank

Killin’ it

Bruh

Squad/squad goals

Buggin’

Shawty

X was mad X (like “Shit was mad funny”)

Fly (like “She looks fly”)

Aggy (as in aggravated/angry)

Wack/whack (like “That was wack”)

Gas/gassed/gassin’/gassin’ up (like “Gas this” or “She was gassin” or “They gassin’ me up”)

Fam

Wilin’/wildin’ (like “They was wildin’”)

Wit it (as in “With it”)

Throwing hands

Snatched

Wig

Extra/so extra

What’s good/What’s gud

Wont (as in “want”)

Hisself or theyself

We/they was (or any other grammatically incorrect noun-verb agreement. Don’t use ‘was’ like that; you know what I mean)

We X (like “We good”)

I’m weak

Rando (as in “random”)

Slay (like "Girl, slayyy")

They/she/he X (leaving out linking verbs like are or is and just using the next verb; like “They talking” or “He wildin’”)

Don’t refer to anyone as “lightskin/light skinned/light skint” if you’re White

Justice for George Floyd

Justice for George Floyd 2

Justice for George Floyd 3

Charge the Officers Responsible for George Floyd’s Murder 

Charge the Officers Responsible for George Floyd’s Murder 2

Justice For Ahmuad Arbery

Justice For Ahmuad Arbery 2

Justice for Breonna Taylor

Stand with Breonna

Charge Officers Responsible for Breonna Taylor’s Murder

Justice For Tamir Rice

Justice For Joāo Pedro

Justice for Alejandro Vargas Martinez

Justice for Belly Mujinga.

Justice for Rashad Cunningham

Justice For Tony McDade

Justice for Dion Johnson

Justice for Jennifer Jeffley

Justice for Young Uwa

Justice for Elijah Nichols

Justice for Tete Gulley

Justice for Tazne Van Wyk

Justice for Michael Dean

Justice For Amari Boone

Justice for Darrius Stewart

Justice for Shukri Abdi

Justice for Ashton Dickson

Justice For Darrius Stewart

Justice for David McAtee

Justice for Cameron Green

Justice for Crystal Mason

Justice For Zinedine

Justice for Regis Korchinski-Paquet

Justice for Christopher Josey

Justice for Amiya Braxton

Justice For Emerald Black

Justice for Andile Mchunu

Justice for Cameron Green

Justice for Tamla Horsford

Justice for Collins Khosa

Free Siyanda

Reopen Sandra Bland’s Case 

Free Willie Simmons who has served 38 years for a $9 robbery

Get Washington State to Hold Police Officers Accountable for Police Brutality

Arrest Officer Jared Campbell for macing a child 

Demand Jail Time for Dylan Mota and Jacob Robles

Demand Jail Time for All Police who Murder Innocent People

Fire Racist Criminal Michael J Reynolds from the NYPD

Petition for Nationwide Police De-Escalation Training

Petition for Nationwide Police Required Racial Bias Test

stop immigrants being poisoned by ICEBan the use of inhumane rubber bullets

Demand a retrial for Angel Bumpass wrongfully convicted 13 year old with a life sentence

End Police Brutality and Violence Against BIPOC in the USA

Ban the use of rubber bullets for crowd control

Join Campaign Zero

Drop All Charges Against Incarcerated Trafficking Survivor Chrystul Kizer!

Reopen Kendrick Johnson’s Case

Abolish Prison Labour in the USA

Require Dash and Body Cameras for the King County Sheriff’s Office

Donation Links

A thread of Youtuve videos you can stream to donate to BLM

Official George Floyd Memorial Fund

OFFICIAL Gianna Floyd Fund (George Floyd’s child)

Black Lives Matter

We Cant Breathe

43 Bail Funds to Support

Homeless Black Trans women fund

Split a donation between 70+ community bail funds, mutual aid funds, and racial justice organizers

Minnesota Healing Justice Network

Women for Political Change

Spiral Collective

When We All Vote

National List of Bail and Mutual Aid Funds/Organizers/Black Owned Businesses

Venmo names of black trans people that need help

Latino Community on Lake Street

Black Immigrant Collective

Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha

Atlanta Black Owned Business Relief

Al Maa'uun

Remembering Shana Isuroon 

Fundraising for destroyed black owned businesses

Joyce Preschool

Black Table Arts

Northside business support

Du Nord Riot Recovery Fund

Unicorn Riot

Donate to Destiny Harrison & her daughter Dream’s Legacy

Pimento Relief Fund

Southside Harm Reduction

West Broadway Business and Area Coalition

Division of Indian Work

TC Care Collective

Justice for Breonna Taylor

Justice for Jamee

The United States of America has the highest prison population in the world

Black Americans and Latin people make up the majority of this population (many of whom are non-violent offenders)

Federal Prisons in America require that their state keeps their prisons at a maximum occupancy at all times.

If county-A has a population of 50 voters but no prisons, and county-B has a population of 50 voters and 50 prisoners, the county with the prisoners gets more government funding and more political represention. This is sometimes called “prison gerrymandering” and it is used in redistrictring.

So, I was just reading an article by Darren Naish at Tetrapod Zoology about the blog’s fourteenth anniversary, and I came across this part. 

I’ve been doing litter-picks at beaches for years now. Things haven’t improved but have steadily gotten worse. The end of much of the natural world is in sight.

He then posted this photo, and said:

Imagine trying to clean a beach like this of its plastic pollution. It isn’t going to happen: no-one is ever going to remove all of this waste.

Hey there!

It’s hard not to be discouraged when faced with the enormity of the world’s plastic problem. Plastic has infiltrated most of the world’s ecosystems, to the point that microplastics are even begining to show up in the bodily fluids of some animals.

But, I am also a scientist and here is something that helps me feel more hopeful about the plastic crisis:

Did you know that the first trees on planet earth didn’t decompose when they died? Wood was a brand new invention, so the microbes that digest and break down wood didn’t exist yet. For millions of years, dead trees just piled up on the forest floor like a bunch of non-biodegradable trash.

But eventually some microbes developed a mutation that allowed them to digest wood, and because there was so much wood lying around those bacteria thrived and spread throughout the world. We think of trees as being inherently biodegradable, but that wasn’t always the case. 

^These are mealworms (a type of beetle larva). They can digest styrofoam (aka polystyrene) thanks to symbiotic bacteria in their gut. That’s right; they can eat a type of plastic that is estimated to make up 30% of the trash in US landfills.

And they aren’t the only ones! A type of bacteria that can break down the plastic found in disposable water bottles was recently discovered by scientists in Japan. All this time as we’ve been pumping plastic into the world, microbes have been busily evolving a way to consume it.

Now, we are still quite a ways off from a plastic-eating bacteria that can be sprayed on landfills or releasing bioengineered, plastic-eating organisms onto polluted beaches, but those things might not be that far off in the future.

It’s still definitely better if we can limit our plastic consumption and manually pick up as much plastic as possible, but our ability to remove litter may not always be limited to what people can remove by hand. Hope is not lost!

And even if the plastic crisis was really unsolvable, life is still worth living. There will always be bad things happening somewhere in the world, and the best we can do is help when we can and seek to live our lives and find happiness in spite of those bad things.

So the thing with chickens are, they are adaptable and frankly, do not care.

you

can

use

just

about

anything

Here are some more that I like: