usa: *steals half of Mexico*
usa: *cuts Panama in half and then retains the rights to the Canal for about 100 years*
usa: *sets up Banana Republics in Central American*
usa: *orchestrates coup d’etats everytime they don’t like an elected leader in Central American countries*
usa: *continues to fuel civil war in Nicaragua by giving money and training to the Contras*
usa: *is an ally of dictator Manuel Noriega and even has him working with the CIA*
usa: *is the main consumer of the drugs that cause drug cartels and drug related violence to exist”
usa: *supports autoritarian regimes in Guatemala (Ríos Montt) and El Salvador (José Napoleón Duarte)*
usa: *fuels gun violence in Central America in order to have a market to sell more (smuggled) guns to*
usa: *forces neoliberal policies like CAFTA that harm local Central American industries and brands that are not able to compete with their American counterparts*
usa: *uses Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine to justify their fucked up foreign policy*
usa: IT IS NOT OUR FAULT THAT CENTRAL AMERICAN CHILDREN ARE BEING TORTURED AND KILLED AND THOSE ILLEGALS SHOULD GO BACK TO THEIR COUNTRIES AND STAY OUT OF OURS!!!!! IF THEY ARE SUFFERING THEY SHOULD FIX IT THEMSELVES AND LEAVE US ALONE!!!!1!!

xenadd:

starswarsladies:

admiralraddus:

I mean it’s great that Star Wars is expanding its diversity in casting characters but I’d also like to see the same trend in directors. Like Kathleen Kennedy said they couldn’t find experienced female directors and that’s just bullshit most of these white male directors have had one box office hit at most (some of which weren’t even good) like there are plenty of women and POC who could do the job and bring a new style/perspective to Star Wars so get on it

Didn’t you hear? She’s gonna find the Mythical Female Director for a YA romance movie type thing they’re making down the line bc it would be rude to inflict such a movie on a male director.

It would also be great if they could afford opportunities to other HoD’s. Costume, Production Design, Sound etc etc. Diversity needs to be in front of and behind the camera and not just in the most publicly accessible and visible parts like writers and directors. This applies to the entire film industry, but something as huge and important as Star Wars (in every sense) could and should be setting the forward moving, progressive trends. They need to start actively placing women and poc at all level of production and stop hiring these endless clones of the last guy.

chronicallycandy:

Me: Oh hey, I had fourteen hours sleep maybe today will be good

My illness: Fool. You think sleep will save you??

neurodivergent-crow:

doyoubeelieveinmagic:

ske-lee-ton:

doyoubeelieveinmagic:

theblazeofmemory:

Actually you know what. Just don’t mow. Get rid of your lawnmower. Turn your whole yard into a wildflower field or an edible garden. Lawns are the invention of the upper class to show wealth through wasted plots of grass that is meticulously tended for no reason other than to be grass. It’s literally an empty plot of land they kept because they had so much money they didn’t need it to grow food. Not using a yard as just a yard is an act of rebellion.

One of the main industries still supporting lawns is chemical pest control companies, and they’re also responsible for the insecticides that crashed the bird populations in the 40s and 50s as well as a lot of what’s killing bees and butterflies now. The herbicides they produce specifically targets “bad” plants like dandelions, buttercups, and clovers, which are plants bees rely on for early spring feeding. Grass is just grass; it would be great for feeding small mammals if people would let it grow more than three inches, but they won’t.

So, yeah. Kill lawnmower culture. Plant some native flowers. Grow some vegetables and fruit trees. Put out bird feeders and bee sugar spots and homes for both. Be kind to bugs and birds and rabbits and opossums and whoever else might wander by. Make your neighborhood a lot more beautiful.

I can be evicted for not mowing, so my alternative is to tear out the grass (itself an invasive species planted by the owner) and replace it with low growing native ground covers. In my area, that means certain species of white clover, and alpine strawberries.

Lawn tearing is a hugely involved project that has pressed my entire household to the limits of our disabilities, however.

For most people, the best choice is “overseeding.”

This is a technique wherein you acquire enough seed for the replacement ground cover to do the entire space 2-3 times, and seed the lawn area thoroughly enough that the grass simply cannot compete with the sheer number of other plants.

To learn about local ground covers and flower mixes for your area, try contacting the farmers associations and agricultural boards nearby. FFA and the 4H are both happy to provide this info.

To buy the seed in large quantities, be prepared to shop from a farm supply chain. While flowers will usually need to be purchased from a garden supplier, ground covers such as clover and rye are best bought from the fallow field or grazing pasture sections of farmer supplies. This will ensure you get the large quantities needed for over seeding at the lowest possible price.

White clover in particular is native to give swaths of the US and Canada (please check your local area though), and for lawn replacement over seeding, you want 10lbs of seed per acre.

If you have pulled your lawn, you can get away with 5 lbs per acre.

Mix in a local wild flower collection with your cover clover and you’ll have a flower field yard that is truly spectacular in short order.

If you’re not at risk of fines or eviction for having ground cover over 6 inches, then you can simply aerate your yard, throw down the flower seed, and let it go wild.

If you have the time and patience and energy, a more traditional lawn replacement- one more closely reassembling the neighbors lawn and garden rather than a wild lot – will be “xeriscape” areas made with local species. Xeriscape is a style of yard designed to use no irrigation, while still remaining pretty, alive, fertile and active. Most tea and culinary herbs grow very well in xeriscapes, but fruits and vegetables tend not to get enough water to produce well.

If you have a way of irrigating, such as large rain barrels or a cistern, a high water table, a stream spring or pond on your property, or just regular and thorough soaking rain interspersed with strong sunlight and sun exposure, a fruit and vegetable garden is very rewarding as well, but it will require constant maintenance that your xeriscape or flower field will not.

If you get Heritage flowers that will reseed themselves, the flower field will require effectively no maintenance after planting. A xeriscape should be touched up every season, or thoroughly pruned and maintained once a year.

An edible garden, however, is an often daily commitment.

The easiest place to start is local berries. Whatever berries grow (or grew) wild in your area. Berry bushes are extremely low maintenance, but when they fruit, you should try to pick the fruit relatively quickly. Otherwise it will draw ants, flies, and other unpleasantries to your yard and, if the bushes are near the house, into your home too.

The next lowest intensity plants would be fruit trees and fruit vines. Again, these need to be determined by your climate. In Florida, for example, oranges and passionfruit are great choices. In Pennsylvania, apples and grapes will do better.

Run the vines along the property fence if you have one, or trellis them up a sun-facing wall of your home.

Fruit trees need full sun exposure, and have very individual planting requirements based on the age, type and size of the tree. The store where you purchase the tree will provide you with detailed information.

As for more traditional vegetable garden content, all of it will be more work and commitment than the fruits listed through here, but the easiest place to start is with vining vegetables such as cucumber and squash. Leafy greens, tomatoes and tomatillas are also very beginner friendly!

However, greens grow best in the cooler, dimmer early spring and late fall seasons.

Onions and potatoes that went to sprout in your kitchen will grow easily, but getting a good harvest from them is more tricky, so leave that until your second year when you are more confident in your skills. That said, potato and onion flowers are quite pretty, so feel free to let them grow!

If you’re interested in a good reference book for designing and dealing with an eating garden as a yard replacement, Half Acre Homestead is a hugely valuable book.

For xeriscapes, because they vary so hugely by location, you’ll want to stick to local information sources : your local gardeners guild, the future farmers association, 4h, and the local agricultural oversight board. All of these people are hugely passionate about plants and the environment, and will be invaluable resources.

Additionally, they will know who has the best rotten hay and animal manure for mulching and composting.

This for longer than I meant it to, but hopefully it will help you get started on destroying lawn culture and getting more in touch with the local environmental community!

unfortunately, a lot of rental properties won’t let you do that either
fuck the lawn culture pushing landlords

also worth noting that overgrown/long grass lawns can really fuck with people with limited mobility (at least the grass where I’m from, it tires me, able bodied, out trying to navigate), and also brings the danger of hidden venomous snakes (i’m australian, enough said). of course, the solution to this would be low growing ground covers.

That’s true. My landlord “misplaced” my security deposit of over $1000 USD and refuses to do any necessary home maintenance tasks like plumbing or replacing a broken kitchen stove, however, so I’m taking a very “well fuck it” attitude towards all this.

For mobility purposes, I find that the best choice is just to make a path. Packed dirt, or paving stones, leading to the kinds of places you might hang out in your yard, and let the rest grow tall. I use a cane, though, not a chair, so I’m not sure how well that will work in all cases.

reblogging for rebellious, disability-friendly botany

elaxisfae:

jamaicanblackcastoroil:

bi-privilege:

alright, so as many of you might know, the trump administration “asked” the previous surgeon general to resign. his name was dr. vivek murthy, he was an obama pick, and he was highly qualified, so of course he had to go. presumably, the trump administration will be working to replace him with someone who says abortion and vaccines cause cancer, but smoking does not ¯_(ツ)_/¯ however, in the meantime, this is our acting surgeon general:

her name is dr. sylvia trent-adams, and she is highly fucking qualified. she is the first surgeon general that doesn’t have an md (i.e. is not a medical doctor) but she does have a phd in nursing and a masters degree in health policy. she was the deputy surgeon general before the trump admin booted murthy. she is absolutely the most logical choice to be the acting surgeon general, and she is probably a thousand times more qualified than whatever fuckup trump is going to appoint to the position. so there’s no problem here, right?

hahaha yeah right, guess again. and while some of the criticism seems to be rooted in??? a complete lack of awareness of what the surgeon general does??? (they primarily advise the executive branch and the public on public health issues). a lot of it just seems to be “a NURSE couldn’t POSSIBLY be as educated or informed about medical/scientific issues as a doctor is!!” which is…pretty fuckin ridiculous when you think about the fact that this is a woman who has a motherfuckin phd.

fun fact: the primary reason to get a phd in nursing is because you’re interested in a career in research and/or administration. it’s basically four years (after your four years you spent getting your bsn) of learning about health policy, public health, epidemiology, research, etc. and to suggest that a highly educated woman is the equivalent of an anti-vaxxer, or that she’s unqualified to, you know, sift through peer-reviewed articles in order to make conclusions about health policy, when she probably spent a good portion of her 8+ years of higher education doing just that, is absolutely fucking ridiculous.

people act like there’s no way a nurse could know as much / more than an md about anything remotely health related–even if it’s something that many mds aren’t even trained in, like health economics or wtfever–and it’s just one way that the knowledge and skills of nursing professionals are completely devalued in our society, because nursing is typically viewed as a “woman’s job.”

Lmao they really think the surgeon general is performing surgery

^^^^^😂😂😂😂