"hows The Job Search Going"

more reasons for hope: https://www.tumblr.com/tzikeh/778008105875275776/bothering-the-fuck-out-of-your-elected-officials

AHAHAHAHAHA FUCK YES!

Full post here

KEEP BOTHERING YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS.

THEY WORK FOR THE PEOPLE. NOT WASHINGTON.

i love it actually when nonnative speakers make mistakes that reveal how their native languages work.

lots of koreans online say they "eat" drinks which would assume they only have one word which covers the concept of consumption.

arabic immigrants in sweden (my mother included) have a hard time differentiating between "i think/i believe/my opinion is" which suggests that in arabic these different modalities of speaker agency is treated as one or at least interchangeable.

swedish speakers in english will use should/shall/have to/must with much higher nuance precision than native english speakers, to the point where they sound well awkward, because the distinction between these commands in swedish is much clearer than in english. i make mistakes between is/am/are and has/have constantly because swedish only has one pronoun covering all grammatical persons.

i've heard speakers of languages without gendered pronouns (finnish, the chinese dialects, and a tonne more) make he/she mistakes because it's hard(!!) to learn two or more gendered pronouns and when to use them correctly.

how neat is that?! it add a charm to international english usage in particular and make our appreciation of both our native languages and our learnt ones stronger...!!

you mean to tell me there are people who don't make little creature noises on a daily basis? wild

putting things by...

I am so happy I live in a western democracy, if I speak out about my boss I have to find a new job if I speak out about my landlord I have to find a new home if I speak out online I will be muted or banned I can buy 40 brands of breakfast cereal all owned by three different companies if I protest in the street I will be arrested this is the best

the whole point of life is just knowing a bunch of weird stuff and being kinda flirty

A technique for planting on hills. I'm sure there are many terms and traditions for this. If you're into permacture, you might recognize it as a sort of mini-swale. Basically, it serves as a way to help plants get established on hillsides, when you don't or can't terrace them.

The idea is that you plant in a little pocket, such that the plant is a little more sheltered & such that whatever rain falls on or up-hill of the plant is captured so that it sinks in rather than contributing to runoff.

In this particular case, one of my clients has a bald patch on a hill side that they don't want to invest any money in, because they don't think anything can grow there. Thus, I have been slowly populating it with divisions and transplants from other parts of their yard, with permission, and am slowly changing their mind.

The soil is not in particularly great shape, because it's a very steep hill, and a dog has been using it for a pathway. So it's steep, bare of any mulch or plant life, compacted, and the soil is poor in organic matter. A lovely challenge, no?

Today I was deadheading & thinning their rose campion, a tough little plant that is drought tolerant and can grow in very poor soil. Here's the first one I planted (and you can see why I included the diagram, it is a bit hard to tell what's going on:

On the left is an overhead view, right is a side-on view. Now, see what happens when you add water:

It pools at the base of the plant, and then slowly soaks in. Ideally, I'd have a nutritive mulch to add on top, but alas. These are tough little guys, and now when the rains come, they'll actually get watered instead of all that water washing down hill.

politicususa.com

Fascism Expert Timothy Snyder Says Trump's Oligarchical Coup Is Fading

Professor Timothy Snyder posted that people are waking up and Trump's attempted oligarchical coup is fading.

If you have read about fascism and tyranny or watched cable news, you have probably seen Professor Timothy Snyder, who has been warning about Trump and tyranny for a few years now.

Snyder’s book On Tyranny is one of the go-to modern works for people who want to understand tyranny and how to fight it, so what Professor Snyder posted on his X account on Saturday merits attention.

Snyder posted:

Something is shifting. They are still breaking things and stealing things. And they will keep trying to break and to steal. But the propaganda magic around the oligarchical coup is fading. Nervous Musk, Trump, Vance have all been outclassed in public arguments these last few days. Government failure, stock market crash, and dictatorial alliances are not popular. People are starting to realize that there is no truth here beyond the desire for personal wealth and power.

Professor Snyder’s perception is backed up by a mountain of polling that shows the country turning against Donald Trump in increasing numbers. If polling isn’t convincing, consider the large and growing number of almost daily protests directed at what Trump and Musk are doing.

There are also results. When the public gets angry and speaks out, the Trump administration has caved.

Actual fascists don’t allow their opposition to speak out. A real authoritarian doesn’t cave. When pressure is applied to the Trump administration, it breaks. The reason why it breaks is successful authoritarian movements have a majority of the population behind them.

Trump’s support is sinking like a stone.

None of this means that the country is out of the woods yet. As Professor Snyder wrote, Trump and his billionaires are going to try and try again, which means that it is going to take constant resistance from the American people to defeat them.

Things will get much easier for pro-democracy Americans if Democrats win control of the House in special elections this year or next year's midterm election.

Until then, it will be a grassroots battle.

The good news is that Trump is losing, and so far, Americans are fighting for their democracy.

i recently saw a tiktok where a woman asked "girlies: what are some things you do to be more whimsical? I love knowing cute little habbits"

and i've never loved a comment section more. some of my faves:

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