Mutuals Do This!!!!

"hows the job search going"

thinking about when i was small, how my mom told me that pipe cleaners were just a tool until people started idly shaping things with them and it grew so popular that they were marketed as crafting materials. and that story about how the original frisbees were disposable pie plates that students flattened to throw. and how when i was a child i had a wooden mancala set with shiny, colorful stones, but on invention it was played with rocks and grooves dug into the dirt. and middle school, paper football and tic-tac-toe and mash and mad libs, games that just need pen and paper. and before that, games of pretend with pirates and princes and masked marauders. how at slumber parties after lights out, we used to whisper storytelling games, i say one sentence and you say the next. and shadow puppets. and the way all the kids in the neighborhood used to divide into teams and throw fallen pine cones at one another. and the floor is lava game, and the quiet game, and the games i play with my coworkers that are just words and retention. and "put a finger down" on the high school bus. and little girls clapping together, and how the first jump-rope was undoubtedly just a length of rope who knows how long ago, and how natural it is to play, how we seek play at every age and with any resources we have and with whatever time we can squeeze it into in a day. i'm not an anthropologist or a psychologist but i think after food and shelter and water and air what comes next is games and stories and laughter. i think that there is nothing -- not sex or fighting or forming unlikely bonds with animals -- there is nothing more human than to play.

it's good that we're saying "i don't feel guilty about pleasure im not Catholic" but we also need to start saying "i don't feel self-righteous about being overworked I'm not Puritan"

been thinking about fantasy/scifi rule systems and free will

Witch Tip - Wild Weed Harvests

When looking around your yard or local biome for wild plants to harvest for your craft, there are several important things to keep in mind:

1 - Prepare for your trip ahead of time. Have some idea ahead of time where you're going, what the terrain and weather will be like, and what plants you want to look for and harvest. Make sure you wear appropriate clothing and footwear, and bring containers, supplies for labeling, and a travel-size resource for plant identification. (Pro-tip: Paper lunch bags are excellent receptacles for harvested plants.)

2 - Look for patches of plants well away from roadways and places which might be contaminated by chemical runoff or pesticides. When possible, select a large patch where your harvest won't wipe out the presence of the plant. (The exception to this is if you are removing invasive plants or weeding a prepared garden as part of your harvesting.)

3 - Make sure you properly identify plants before you harvest them, using a field guide for local plants or an identification app like Plantnet. This helps you avoid potentially harmful lookalikes. (And it couldn't hurt to look up what harmful plants exist in the area where you'll be looking.) Do not harvest endangered plants or plants growing on private property or in national parks. When in doubt, leave it alone.

4 - Take a modest amount of plant material for your stores, no more than you reasonably need, while disturbing the surrounding area as little as possible. Clearly label the container with the species and date of harvest. (Again, I'm recommending those paper lunch bags.) As an added courtesy, you can bring a bottle of water and hydrate the remaining plants to encourage regrowth.

5 - Clean and dry your plant material when you get home, if necessary. Just give them a quick rinse and gentle pat-dry with a clean kitchen towel before placing the plants into your preferred drying device. One simple solution is to cut the flaps off of wide, shallow cardboard shipping boxes and lay out the plant material in a flat layer so that most of it is touching the cardboard. (As opposed to leaving it in a big heap.) Label the sections or the side of the tray and leave your plants to dry.

6 - If you're not using an oven or a dehydrator, allow plant material to dry for at LEAST two or three weeks before breaking it up for storage in airtight jars or freezer bags. Make sure the plants are dry and brittle all the way through to avoid rot and mold in your storage containers and spoilage of the contents. Label and date the containers and store at room temperature out of direct sunlight. (If you discover mold or a bad smell in any of your containers, discard the contents and either throw away the container or sterilize it for reuse - this generally only works for glass jars.)

7 - Check back periodically! Give your wild plant patches time to regrow and you can then make additional small harvests on future visits. Also, look for different plants to emerge as the seasons change.

Familiarizing yourself with your local biome allows you to connect with the land where you live (and encourages you to care about it in the process). Also, it can garner you components for your workings for the cost of a few bags and an afternoon stroll.

But wait! What if your local wild weeds don't have magical correspondences? Not to worry - there's an exercise for that.

Good luck and Happy Witching! 🌿

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.

picking up litter is worth it!!

individual environmentalism gets a lot of flak in the face of corporate pollution but picking up litter makes a significant, noticeable impact. I spend about an hour a week picking up litter from around my dorm complex and I'm literally outpacing my community's litter production. Just an hour a week from one person is enough to offset nearly 200 people's worth of littering.

it would take less than 100 man-hours of labor per week to keep my whole college campus entirely litter-free. If you got two classrooms' worth of people to spend two hours per week each picking up litter, the whole campus would end up spotless and they'd straight up fucking run out of things to pick up.

If you're looking for some way to make a noticeable and positive impact on the world around you, go pick up some litter.

🤎🤍🩷

I'm basically into girls