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whenever i look into a historical monarch who doesn’t get talked about much and is just kind of a blank spot in my understanding of the historical narrative, 95% of the time what i find is pure white hot blistering capability. a pencil pusher for the ages. a 39 year reign with no more than three hours of sleep a night. there aren’t any good stories from his reign because he systematically caught and stopped all catastrophic good stories before they could start. you shrimply must respect it
semi-related but it’s ironic that game of thrones famously neglects to worldbuild textiles when (for me at least) textile history has proven one of the best lenses for an “aragorn’s tax policy” grounded view of history, especially for a late medieval-early modern english setting. yes henry vii of england reinstated the court of the star chamber, but you’ll get a better sense for the character of his reign by looking at how and why and with what result he disrupted the trans-european alum trade. yes elizabeth i of england loved essex and killed him, but you’ll get a better sense for her reign by looking at her sumptuary laws, why she passed them and how they were obeyed. the history of european pin manufacturing sheds more light on spanish-english relationships than any anecdote of walter raleigh could
So shook that I recognized them! That's Khadija Mbowe, a brilliant video essayist on youtube. Here's a link to their channel. They're brilliant and compassionate. Go check them out!
You know what? Fuck it I'm adding more context. Sesame Street has talked about the topic of death more than once and it's done with such gentle carefulness without watering down or censoring the heaviness of the situations. It treats heavy subject matter with respect and dignity and has been for DECADES.
From the early 1980s:
To 2025:
Hell, they even cover the devastating heaviness of MASS SHOOTINGS without censoring or watering anything down.
They've been doing this for YEARS, and it's ALWAYS handled with dignity, respect, seriousness, understanding, and love.
Whenever I see people censoring words because it "might offend" someone or the big ad companies that are currently trying to run everything? I just want to say to them: "What? Is Sesame Street too mature for you?" Because really...what the hell are we doing.
I'm back with even more examples! Sesame Street once again to this day is out here handling extremely difficult subject matter with incredible care and respect. "We can't let kids learn about uncomfortable things!" Oh, really now? Even though they're things that happen in everyday life that they'll face one day at some point anyway? Interesting. Let's see what else this show has covered that people (for some reason) think should be avoided and hidden. Here's more on death of loved ones and greif:
Or how about when someone is put into the foster care system because their home isn't safe anymore and their needs aren't being met?
Maybe some discussions about group therapy/getting help and support?
Hey look! Here's a segment about gender expression vs taught expectation, including unlearning harmful biases and what to do when you hurt someone on accident because you didn't know it was wrong!
Look! The topic of race and diversity! The importance of unity and equity!
They even also have a more allegorical take on discrimination and being looked down on for who you are, featuring Big Bird. The conflict is about how he's not being let into a club because the one bird running the club personally decided he didn't want someone like Big Bird there.
Big Bird goes out of his way to keep changing parts of himself in order to "prove" he can fit into this club if he just changed enough. The truth comes out though, and there's nothing he can do to gain the approval of that bird. He will never be good enough in his eyes, and Big Bird starts to hate himself. His real friends see this finally put their feet down, emphasizing that you should never change yourself just to fit into one singular narrow idea someone else has.
There's A LOT of different situations this can be an allegory for. Racism, sexism, homophobia, basically ANY form of exclusion is put on full blast in this 15 minute clip. Sesame Street can be both blunt and allegorical when approaching difficult topics, and it NEVER misses or looses the point.
It does an exceptional job in both styles of representation WITHOUT watering anything down. The more sanitized everything gets, the more radical Sesame Street is suddenly considered, hence why so many "particular groups" want it gone. Hmmm! I can only imagine why that could be, in this current political climate! (I'm being sarcastic)
When Sesame Street is suddenly labeled as "questionable" or "politically/agenda motivated" content...it says A LOT about where we currently are and who gets to decide what's "best" for kids or not. Don't fall for the censorship and topic-dodging excuses that are covered by the "But think of the children!!!" movement. Never fall for it, because you know which side you're on if you do.
Sesame Street proves kids can be taught and trusted with learning about these topics when it's handled with the right amount of understanding and care. It shows what all this "controversy" is all really about. What it's always been about, actually.
Don't fall for it, always side with Sesame Street.
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Happy Pride everyone, today is the tenth anniversary of the nationwide right to gay Marriage in the United States and the 22nd anniversary of nationwide legalization of Gay Sex. In 2 days is the 56th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.
We have won nothing without fighting and we have everything to lose, there is no gay liberation without trans liberation, none of us are free till all of us are free, we have won so much and come so far but the road ahead is still long, we must continue to fight for both our liberation and the liberation of all people
The gay liberation movement is young, everything we have fought for and won happened over the course of less than a human lifetime, and there are forces at play that wish to claw back at these hard fought for rights, we must be prepared to defend what we have fought for and we must continue to fight for improvement
We have to celebrate how far things have come, because we never would have made it this far without joy and hope, and while we can and must fight, we also must remain hopeful
[ ID: screenshot of a post by Ian Boudreau that reads:
Sorry I'm not more open-minded about LLMs, it's just some fucking maniacs shoveled out a bunch of useless bloatware featuring that technology, did not give me any chance to opt out, reorganized the entire economy around it, zeroed out gains made by green energy, and made it impossible to buy RAM. /ID ]
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"Scientific fraud doesn't make sense, why would you claim you can turn mercury into gold when everyone can see you can't" well because the vast vast vast majority of scientific fraud is not Elizabeth Holmes Theranos level chicanery but instead juicing the numbers (or the Western blots) to make the results more statistically significant in what is otherwise a fairly minor & straightforward paper
You're a grad student. You're already a semester behind. One of your experimental replicates failed halfway through a 6 week experiment and you didn't notice til you collected the data. You no longer have the statistical power you need and have to start over, with money you don't have and no time. Telling no one and making up some numbers that supports the pattern you can see in the other data is a huge temptation.
And if you succeed at that fraud—because, realistically, no one is going to check—the deadlines don't stop coming and that temptation is always there. You need another grant, you need another publication, another pilot study, on and on and on.
The people who finally get nabbed for scientific fraud, like spider biologist Jonathan Pruitt or the many medical researchers Elisabeth Bik catches, typically were getting away with it for yearsss. And none of them were claiming they could cure the common cold or turn dogshit into gold. They were publishing unassuming papers, with reasonable results. The pressure for publishing above all else is a perverse incentive.
my bag is raising a lot of questions already answered by my bag.
image shows a canvas tote bag reading: this bag contains: cheese, wine, definitely not the disembodied head of our oppressor. the first two items have green check marks next to them and the third has a red x. there is red splattered along the bottom of the back, particularly concentrated in one corner.
I live in the northwest coast of Canada so we walk everywhere and do stuff outside in the rain and swim in whatever lakes and rivers we find so imagine my smug sense of Canadian superiority when I met a USAmerican Midwesterner who was horrified at the very thought
What I mean to say is that it's very easy to delude yourself into believing you are more in tune with your environment when your environment is not actively hostile to your existence in every conceivable way
Rains frequently, but the worst is like standing under a bathroom shower. Genuinely inhospitable rainstorms are uncommon.
Along the coast, it's pretty easy in most areas to walk to at least one store, or else there's usually a bus or shuttle available. There are sidewalks and bike lanes everywhere.
It's a temperate boreal rainforest, so while there are many freshwater lakes and rivers, they're usually pretty cold. The biggest danger is typically getting caught in a strong current, and the most dangerous animals in swimming distance are on land.
Earthquakes happen almost every day, but the vast majority go unnoticed. Buildings are designed to withstand bigger seismic activity, so unless it's a 5 or higher it just kind of feels like having low blood sugar for a second. There are no tornados
Rural Illinois, USA:
One minute it's sunny, then ten minutes later that distant smudge on the horizon has swallowed the entire sky in black clouds and the water is coming down like waterfall and you literally CANNOT SEE. Then there's a crash like cymbals and you need to get indoors because the thunder and lightening are on TOP of you
No sidewalks until you are in the smack dab center of town, which is a three hour walk or twenty minute drive from wherever you are.
There aren't many natural bodies of water other than small ponds and creeks, and because the environment is so much warmer, those are filled with snapping turtles that can grow bigger than a nine year old child and water snakes that are incredibly venomous. These are paired with leeches and mosquitos for that sweet umami flavor.
Sometimes Jupiter, Lord of the Heavens decides to jam his finger into the side of your house just to fuck with your whole shit and throws your truck a thousand yards into the nearest church
I remember my first eagle ceremony when I turned nine. The first eagle you get is always declawed, which I always thought was pretty inhumane, but it was a good way to ease into caring for the birds. My eagle (named Baldy, because I wasn’t a terribly clever child) was already quite old when I received him (he was a rescue eagle, luckily) but I did have him until I was 16. I don’t know if I was more excited about getting my drivers license that year, or my new eagle! You should have seen the party we had when I got him, too! Grilled hot dogs and fire works and lemonade…. obviously I named my beautiful new eagle Freedom. He’s too big to keep inside anymore, unfortunately, but we’ve got a pretty comfortable roost for him on our apartment’s balcony.
Ah, yes, the eagle ceremony! My Justice and I remember his quite well. (They had just come out with telepathic link transplants when I got him, which is how I know he remembers it.) Our celebration was quite modest, compared to Freedom’s—apple pie under a cloudless summer sky as we signed our Declaration of Interdependence. I still have the inked and talon-pierced document hanging on my wall.
I was so scared during my pet eagle ceremony I almost threw up. But Stonewall Jackson and I have been best friends ever since. My dad and grandfather built a really massive roost behind the house for my eagle and my sisters’ eagles. Stonewall always waits for me when I get home from class since schools are getting so over protective and strict these days and won’t allow eagles indoors. Which just goes to show how much we’re bubble wrapping kids today. Back in the day, if you couldn’t handle a few stitches because you pissed off the wrong kid’s eagle, you had to just man up and learn your lesson!
Ooo, I never miss a chance to tell this story! I had a rather unusual first eagle ceremony. The traditional giant American flag that you wave around to summon your eagle had been severely damaged the week prior (a ceremony that had not gone according to plan, but the child only suffered minor talon wounds. The flag took the brunt of the attack). Anyway, I couldn’t use the normal flag so we had to search ALL OVER for one suitable for eagle summoning. Unfortunately the stripes weren’t the correct shade of patriotic red so everyone was worried an eagle wouldn’t show up at all. I had to stand in the middle of that wheat field, the wind creating amber waves out of it, shaking that flag in the air for over three hours. Everyone was just about to give up when suddenly Patriot appeared out of nowhere! He came to me so quickly it was like he was apologizing for being late. And we’ve been together ever since.
Some people think it’s excessive to have two eagles. But what can I say, I’m a two eagles kind of guy. Well, I can say, “You must be a terrorist to call me out over my excesses,” but I digress. We don’t have many open fields around here, so I got Liberty by waving my flag atop a decommissioned WWII aircraft carrier. I was kicking a couple of boxes of tea into the harbor for good measure, and there she was. I loved her so much I repeated the process a year later and got young Colbert here. It’s hard work, raising two eagles, but I have two shoulders, after all. Besides, I know that the secret to happy and healthy eagles is plenty of Bud Light.
Oh man, the eagle ceremony. I was a weird fucking kid, okay, so I was totally sure that the eagle ceremony wasn’t just going to net me my eagle and deepen the mystical bond between a citizen and their country, I thought I was going to get to turn into an eagle too. So me and my mom and my dad and my little brother are all standing in the old civil war battleground, surrounded by the ghosts of our fallen soldiers, and all and the problem here — it’s not usually a problem because I make sure to shave my beard off twice a day, three times on sundays — was that I am, actually, born on the fourth of July. So it wasn’t just one eagle that showed up, it was pretty much every big old patriotic warbird in Missouri, all flapping around confused and pissed off, their innate senses of direction completely fucked up by the way firecracker babies warp America’s natural system of ley lines. And I was six, so grabbed the flag and ran with it over my shoulders, rippling in the wind, thinking it was going to turn into wings for me and I would go be an eagle with all the other eagles. Instead I just got mobbed by a freaked-out mess of nationalistic avians who all weighed more than I did. I lost half my nose and my whole left arm and spent most of fourth grade in reconstructive surgery getting machine guns welded on to the shattered remains of my ulna. Completely missed my little brother’s eagle ceremony, which I will always regret, but it was all worth it to have met Columbia. I never did turn into an eagle on the outside, but I like to think those long hours in the hospital, feeding her rubbing alcohol and my own blood, have made me an eagle in my heart.
Ah, see, in Canada things are very different. In Northern Ontario, for example, you never quite know what you’re going to get. Ralph, my beaver, is a very standard 20 lbs, and she came to me quite easily during my Oh Canada Calling. A friend of mine, though, ended up bonded to an 800lb bull moose (she named him Bambi, she was a weird kid).
My eagle ceremony was weird. First of all, my parents felt I was too young to get my first eagle so I was the last one of my classmates to get an eagle. My parents are hippies so they got really into the spiritual aspects of it. Like, with my first eagle, I wasn’t allowed to get the telepathic implant, they wanted me to do it “natually” so I had to sit and meditate with Artemis for the entire morning. Luckily she was awesome and creating a natural telepathic bond pretty much happened organically. Of course we had some of the traditional parts of the ceremony, the waving of the American flags while the guests chanted “USA USA USA”. But other than that it was a pretty relaxed eagle ceremony.
I’m glad my parents gave me the opportunity to develop a natural telepathic bond with my eagle because it’s good experience, but with my current eagle, Brunhilde, I went ahead and got the implants because I’m so busy with school that I didn’t have time to do the proper meditation. Brunhilde is a scientific type so she thinks the implant was a good call.
Ugh growing up in New Zealand is worse. You just stand outside and yell Xena war cries until a Hobbit pops their head up over the nearest hill and politely tells you to keep it the hell down.
If you’re lucky, a Kiwi ambles up, but it’s basically like having a football with a handle for a pet.
This is why I moved to America…
getting my american citizenship was both amazing and a bit traumatic. you have to do a lot of work before they will let you have an eagle ceremony, and the older you are the more difficult it can be. but after I passed all the tests and received my flag, my canada goose, laura secord, and I went to a shut-down auto plant and waited. eventually uncle sam, my eagle swooped out of the sky, and after a brief struggle, killed laura secord. it was sad, as we had been together for so long, but everyone knows canada geese are assholes, so I got over it quickly. because of my age we had to get the implants, but uncle sam and I are quite happy together.
Our family, well, the common word you’d have for us is “hillbillies,” but I don’t mind. We’ve been living in our part of the Alleghenies for a long, long time, and my Pa’s family in particular holds to the old values. Of course, this was a while back, so we didn’t have the link, but I don’t think the old man would have approved if they’d been around. Anyway, he was determined that I would do things the right way, even though we both knew he was pretty sure I would be a disappointment to him. I didn’t like to fish or hunt (to his shame, I was gunshy); I hated camping, and I wasn’t good at swimming. Still, I was bound and determined to go for my eagle like our family had always done it.
He took me up into the Laurel Highlands, past where stupid old British General Braddock got himself shot in the back and where George Washington built and surrendered his first fort to the French and their Indian allies (though the enemy never got his cannon because George hid them). We got to the end of the track our family had always taken up into the mountains, and Pa gave me a panic button if I wanted to quit. He’d come and get me then, but he’d give up on me, too. That was another thing we knew without saying.
Long story short, I was coming down a hill my second day, worn out because I’d gotten little sleep in the cold, and upset because I hadn’t seen or heard any birds or animals let alone an eagle (I wasn’t what you would call an observant kid) when I tripped and fell. Down I went, and tumbled. I stopped on the bank of a stream,
I had my first aid badger from Girl Scouts, and supplies in my back pack, so I soaked my sprained ankle in the icy creek, then bound it up. By the time I found a branch long and strong enough to lean on, it was coming on sunset. I had two more days before Pa started to track me. I wanted at least to be partway back before he found me.
I had given up on that eagle. He’d have to wait for my sisters Kim and Dani to get big enough. They’d find theirs; they were better in the woods than me already. I was just a daydreamer, someone who never had any sense. Put me to shelling peas or doing dishes and I’d take twice as long as anyone else, because I’d be telling myself stories. That’s what I did that night, to keep my mind off my pain. I told myself stories of brave girls who found their eagles and went off to be soldiers (girls weren’t allowed to be in the Army then) or joined the FBI (we weren’t allowed to be agents, either). If the owls who hooted or the deer who drank at the stream liked the story, that was good, too.
I must have dozed off sometime before dawn. When I woke, a golden eagle stood by my hand. Not a bald eagle, like all those in my family, or like my friends’ parents had, or like people had on TV. A golden eagle, a big fellow with a trout in his beak. He dropped it on my knee.
At first I couldn’t breathe. When I could talk, I said, “Thanks, but I have jerky, and peanut butter, and celery, and … things. You eat it.” And he did.
When Pa saw me limping on the track three days from where he’d dropped me, dirty and crazy-looking with twigs in my hair and no eagle on my shoulder, he stopped and looked at me, his weathered face like stone. Then Anthony Wayne, his eagle, began to raise hell on his shoulder as Tecumseh glided down from his tree top. We’d found it was easier for him to fly ahead and wait for me than for him to ride on my shoulder, at least while I had one bum foot. This time, though, for the purposes of meeting family, he settled on my shoulder.
I describe things all the time, but I can never describe the look on my Pa’s face. I only know that he reached a hand out to Tecumseh, who stretched out and touched his fingers with his beak. Finally Pa said, “It’s been right in front of me all along. I’ve been trying to make you a strong member of the family, and you are strong, but you’re also a medicine woman. A dreamer. And this is a dreamer’s eagle.”
“His name’s Tecumseh,” I said.
Tecumseh fluffed himself up with pride.
Pa grinned. “Now let’s see if I can get you two home. Your mother is going to read me out for letting you into the woods alone.” He put two fingers to his mouth and whistled. One of my uncles and two of my aunts walked out of the woods, their own eagles on their shoulders. Tecumseh and I were going home like royalty.
Guys. Oh my gosh, guys. You think your childhoods were difficult?
I have a freaking gryphon.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my darling Goldeneye to bits, but seriously, growing up was hell.
First of all, even though she was small when she came to me during my eagle ceremony, “small” for a gryphon is not actually small. I live in the suburbs, and public high school was a nightmare. I was pretty much an outcast, called a freak basically every day. Because, of course, everyone else had eagles perching on their shoulders and looking cool, and here’s little ol’ me, running along late for class with a huge lion-bodied animal tromping along, trying to get into my bag for fish.
Second, I am tiny. I scrape 5′3″ with my arms up. I jump to fool the doctors into thinking I’m 5′5″. My half-eagle picks me up regularly to groom me and I’m stuck there between her paws until she decides she has had enough. She’s honestly got the worst personality traits of both cats and birds and it’s insane.
But, to be honest, flying is awesome. And nobody tries to beat me or my friends up anymore.
(I still blame my brother for this though. He needed the good flag for Boy Scouts that day and left me with the wholey-cat-hairy-flag. I guess nobody should be surprised at the outcome.)
I see all these country folk are telling their eagle ceremony stories, so let me tell you how we do it in the city. There are specific days, every one or two months (depending on the population of your city) where all the kids who are looking for their eagles meet up in the local park. The park rangers make sure to put out apple pies around the park perimeter to alert nearby eagles that a ceremony is upcoming. Then, on the designated day, all of us kids walk to the park, outfitted in various striped and spangled clothing. Everyone sits in a circle, and waits until the park flag is raised, at which point veritable hordes of eagles will descend upon the seated group. At this point, it will become hard to see, but you’ll know when your eagle picks you, as it will land on your shoulder. (Those of us who wish for a deep bond with our eagles often forgo a shoulder pad, so that the first blood on their talons will be ours.) Then, you can stand up, and, using the caws of your eagle as a guide, navigate towards the park entrance where a vet will be standing by to outfit both you and your eagle with the psychic implant.
We moved twice in the space of eighteen months around the time I was nine and ten. The cutoff age for what grade you were in was different in all three cities, and I was always too young or too old for eagle ed classes and never got a ceremony.
We don’t have eagle ceremonies in my community. We go out, we chant “I’m Black and I’m proud” a dozen times or so, do the necessary offerings, and we bond with a nearby falcon. It’s the pride that’s key, but really why not make sure the kid learns to love themselves early. A positive message never goes astray. Like all raptors kestrels love high perches and cities are great that way, plus there’s lots of food sources. The best part of having a kestrel is that they will follow you anywhere and don’t need much in the way of direct care if a child is skittish or a family has a lot of kids who have already done the ceremony. The only downside if your kid befriends someone who called a pigeon the first time their kestrel might decide that sucker is lunch and that can really make new friendships harder to maintain. Some kids are stronger than you would expect and bond with two kestrels, a coyote, and a murder of crows. The last kid to do that ended up the First Lady.
This is really fascinating! I never knew there was a whole ceremony for calling your eagle. In Italy, you just walk outside one day and the cat is waiting for you. You know which one is yours.
I gotta tell you, the ceremony I had was a giant pain the ass, but totally worth it. I’m from the Midwest and live on the Mississippi River, and our ceremonies are always in early January on Bald Eagle Days. You have to go out on the dam, in freezing-cold weather with the wind whipping up the river, so the eagles can see you. And trust me, we always make sure the apple pies we bring are fresh so we can use them as hand-warmers. One of the guys from the Army Corps of Engineers puts up flags for us, and the we hold up the apple pies, wait, and try not to die of frostbite. I made my pie myself, and felt so lucky when Betsy chose me! She and I have been together since, and I have a fantastic nest for her. Which is lucky, because my husband is British, so he of course has a swan, and Bitey (cut him some slack, he’s had her since he was a tyke) does NOT get along with Betsy, but since their nests are separate, we work it out.
It really is incredible seeing Midwestern kids from where I grew up talk so casually about summoning their bald eagles these days. When I was young the eagle population was only just starting to rebound from DDT, and a sighting was an Event–I was in high school when a pair started nesting on a little pond a couple towns over, and kids and their parents from all over the state were camping out in the fields around the pond in all weather, for weeks, waiting for them to choose their bondmates.
Most kids in my class ended up with red-tailed hawks–that’s what the summoning ceremonies were geared toward. I skipped a grade so I wasn’t old enough when my class did the big ceremony out on the football field, but my girl scout camp held its own ceremony over the summer, and that’s where I got Persephone, my turkey buzzard.
She’s been with me through a lot and our bond is really strong, but having a carrion-eater was not easy in those days. You came in for all sorts of bullying. I hope that’s changing, too. I think it must be, with the eagle populations coming back–last time I visited my parents, I counted five bald eagle sightings in a week, and four of them were eating roadkill.
For those of you who aren't familiar, I live in an exceptionally flammable part of the United States, and despite the fact that every goddamn year multiple parts of my state catch fire, destroy homes and kill people, the local assholes insist on getting drunk and setting fire to a bunch of illegal explosives anyway.
In 2023, God granted me a Miracle that prevented my house from burning down.
Last year, I had to resort to Psychological and Chemical Warfare to keep the patriotic arsonists at bay.
This year is apparently An Important Birthday for the clusterfuck we have the nerve to call a nation, so despite the fact there is so much smoke in the air that the sun has literally been blood red for the last week, the pyrotechnic fetishists are out in force.
Last year, I hit upon the concept that if my neighbors were going to act like problem animals, it would make sense to use the management techniques on them that you might use on say, a Bear that was doing serious property damage. Thusly, I created The Stench, a nontoxic but FOUL smelling concoction that I could discretely spray around the flammable gatherings and render the area extremely uncomfortable to occupy for the rest of the night, forcing them to give up or move on.
If this seems harsh:
There is no story from 2024 because a grass fire was started by fireworks less than 12 miles from me and the high winds put me in the evacuation zone in under an hour.
Over fifty people lost their homes.
Errant fireworks burning my house down is a very real possibility, and I pay the price in anxiety and insurance premiums.
The Stench is noxious but harmless, and also very effective at building a buffer zone around my home. But sneaking up to parties on foot in this heat is both exhausting and nerve-wracking. There have to be more effective ways to do this
-And there is!
It involves Weeds and Business Cards :)
All of this spring, I've been battling Bindweed and my City Code Enforcement Officers.
The city code people have been professional, but the truth is that one of my neighbors is calling them on use because one of my housemates is transgender. It's extremely grating to get these notices, having to explain repeatedly that I *AM* working on the weed situation, I just have a heart condition and No Money. It's also deeply paranoia-inducing to know that the city is regularly coming by and photographing my house.
The Solution to the Bindweed is 1 gallon of high-concentration vinegar, half a cup of Borax, a quarter cup of salt, and a couple tablespoons of dish soap. Get one of those weed sprayers from a hardware store and mix it up in there. Spray it on your thistles, bindweed, kudzu, garlic mustard or whatever your local herbaceous invasive is on a day with bright sunlight, and in a few hours the entire part of the plant above the soil is Deceased. It's non-toxic to insects, pets and wildlife (just wait a few months before trying to plant anything in the area for the traces to wash out).
The only real downside to this stuff is that it smells HEINOUS.
Sure, The Stench is nauseating, but WeedFucker 5000 is genuinely painful to inhale. Again, it wont hurt people- even my asthmatic housemates can use the stuff- but boy howdy it sure smells toxic. I've got the ingredients for about 40 gallons of WeedFucker 5000 prepared and ready to go.
I've also got a disposable hazmat suit, rubber boots and gloves, respirator, goggles and a shitty little golf cart from the free section of craigslist to haul my shit around in.
I also have Business Cards!
See, the very nice officers from the City Code department left some Very Nice business cards so that I may contact them about "the fucking bindweed is gone, get off my back".
So I scanned the business card into my computer, fired up Clip Studio, and made my own business cards. I've turned my City's Abstract Triangle Logo into an Eye of Providence and the slogan of "E Pluribus Unum" to "E Plurbis Anus", Changed my city's name to a dumb pun, and stated the card originates from "The Department Of Public Nuisances".
Crucially, where the name and contact information of the real city employee has been replaced with the name and business email of the neighbor who has been bragging on facebook about calling the city code department on my home because he hates my housemate :)
It looks, at a glance, very much like the business cards of city employees. If you look at it for like 5 seconds though, there's no way it could be mistaken for the real thing.
I've printed out 500 of these bad boys and will have them on hand as I, a put-upon employee, am forced to work overtime on a national holiday doing weed mitigation, because my boss can't manage deadlines for shit.
You're mad about it? I've been out here since 5 AM! But if we don't finish by the deadline we lose the contract and I could get fired. You know what the economy is.
Here, this is my Boss's Business card- how about you send him an email about how this has ruined your barbecue?
It's golden hour now, so I'm Suiting Up and preparing to embark on some civil service in the form of Noxious Weed Eradication, and by coincidence, Fire Mitigation.
I'll report back later Tonight🫡
(If you'd like to support your local disabled storyteller in their Acts Of Public Service, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or supporting me on Patreon)
Well.
It's not quite an hour into July 5th.
I am very tired, may have destroyed my sense of smell, and am not sure if I'm proud of or VERY disappointed in my fellow citizens.
On one hand: FAR fewer fireworks parties this year!
- Only nine to last year's thirteen
- three of them had the good sense to be firing their recreational explosives out over the local reservoir
- That's far from foolproof
- and really bad for the fish
- also y'all are RIGHT NEXT to where the Bald Eagles are nesting
- but congratulations on at least attempting some risk mitigation!
On the other hand.
Absolutely NOBODY questioned why the hell I was out spraying weeds.
- In a Hazmat Suit (technically it's a coverall for painting rooms, which is much more breathable, but looks the part)
- In a Residential Area
- After Dark
- On a Federal Holiday
Like I'm glad I didn't get into a fight or something, but like.
I was Ready.
I had that conversation locked and loaded.
I MADE BUSINESS CARDS.
...But instead of Very Reasonably asking What The Fuck I Was Doing, the crowds at these parties saw me (5'0" flat, potato-shaped, sweating profusely) trundling up on the slowest and least-intimidating motor vehicle in the county*, hanging a bit out the side to spray thistles and bindweed on the streets and sidewalks**, and instead of raising a rival stink, I was instead greeted by some derisive muttering and a couple of "OH COME ON!"s, but the groups dispersed and retreated indoors or at least away from the general direction of my home.
*Like genuinely, I think Barbie's Dream Car has more horsepower than this golf cart. This thing doesn't have horsepower. It doesn't even have ponypower. It's running on duckpower. It waddles, something I didn't know a wheeled vehicle could do.
**Actually completely legal and a welcome community service in my city. Thank you Neighbor Barbara for telling me the exact part of city code that details what civilians are allowed to do about weeds on public roads, which is apparently "LOTS". Theoretically I could bill the city for my time tonight.
Do people not know how to Make A Scene anymore?
I was absolutely sure I was going to get filmed and shit thrown at me, or someone would call the cops. My beloved was terrified I was going to get shot. I at least had ONE woman shout "YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING!" at me, which isn't quite as good as being told I'm ruining Christmas, but she said it with a genuinely heartwarming anguish while gesturing to a homemade "HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!" banner, with an attempt at rendering The Evil Orange that as so enthusiastically yet talentlessly executed I almost stopped to get a picture of it. He looked like he'd been put in a wafflemaker.
I promised my beloved that I would turn around and come home at midnight, and I did, having eliminated every fireworks party and Scottish thistle in a five-block radius despite the lackadaisical maximum speed of my Steel Steed.
The complete lack of protest is honestly shocking to me. My flabbers are completely gasted. I waddled home on the golf cart in a sort of stunned silence that this HAS worked so well. The whole world is almost eerily quiet, and reeking of vinegar.
...Which is maybe why I didn't notice the cop pulling up beside me at a red light until he rolled down his window and leaned out at me.
"WHAT'RE YOU DOIN'?" He asked, in a voice that could be used as a foghorn in emergencies.
I probably would have jumped were I not currently melting into a semblance of the Chernobyl Elephant's Foot in the heat, which was the first thing that saved me.
The second was the voice of my Grandfather, coming to my aid through decades of generational memory, to tell me his words of wisdom, usually spoken right before doing something wildly inadvisable:
The Age Of Miracles Is Not Yet Over.
"Weed Mitigation!" I called back.
"CHRIST ON A BIKE, THEY GOT YOU GUYS WORKING THE HOLIDAY TOO?" He said, in the same fontissimo as before. Apparently Officer Foghorn just talks like this.
"Yep." I nodded.
"SHIT." He blared in solidarity. "WHEN DO YOU GET OFF?"
"Just finished."
"MOTHERFUCKER. THEY GOT ME OUT HERE UNTIL GODDAMN 5 AM." Officer Foghorn whined in THX.
"Shit." I commiserated.
The light turned green.
"ALRIGHT YOU GET HOME SAFE! GOD BLESS!" He waved, and drove off at something significantly above the speed limit, and I trundled on home.
I must have still looked shocked when I came in, because My Beloved immediately got up to hug me and ask if I was alright.
"The Age Of Miracles Is Not Yet Over." I nodded slowly as the animals all battered me about the legs for attention. "...For real though, absolutely nothing happened."
"What?" he squints, wobbling slightly as Charlie tries to shove him aside for better access to me. "That's... Is it weird to say I'm almost disappointed?"
"I mean, I confirmed that I inherited my Grandfather's supernatural ability to get out of trouble for no good reason, but we knew that from the code enforcement people." I shrugged. Selene finally noticed the smell of vinegar and retched in disapproval.
"How about a shower and some Ice cream?" My Beloved suggests.
So now it is July the 5th.
- My house is not ablaze
- There are four medium-sized carnivores sleeping on me
- I am freshly bathed
- and I have a pint of Americone Dream all to myself
Here's to you, your health and your happiness, and a reminder to go make good trouble. Goodnight all.
---
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I think a lot of people call it that because they're misusing the term.
Judaism is a foundational religion. There are fourteen offshoots, including but not limited to Islam, Christianity, Baha'i, Druze, and Rastafarian. Very literally half the world is Christian or Muslim. Islam is just over 25% and Christianity is almost 29%.
It's a form of supercessionism.
Also I regret to tell you we're not 2% of the population. We're 2% of the American population.
I work for the road crew in the summer. Crack sealing (the process you see above) is fairly quick and simple. (Though holding a hose that pumps literal tons of 350F tar into the road in the middle of the summer is NOT easy)
I think what a lot of people underestimate is just how much road there is in your city. And just how many directions the crew gets pulled.
For our city of around 50k people there are 8 of us.
Also, crack sealing is a wholly temporary measure, meant to slow the break-up of the roads, it’s not a permanent fix.
Roads tend to get closed for months on end because we have to tear the whole thing up, then, depending on the class of road, we either have to hammer-drill into concrete to lay rebar and the pour concrete, or we can get straight to paving. If it’s a road requiring concrete we’re required to wait at least 24 hours for it to set.
So after 2 days we’re finally able to pave. But the city allocates one (two if we’re lucky) 5 ton truck to transport material.
A relatively short paving job requires at a minimum of 60 tons. So that’s 12 trips to the asphalt factory and back. Each ton is around $80.
TL;DR
There’s a lot of road, not many of us, and soup is expensive.
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