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Not even half a day after the ceasefire, armed Israeli soldiers are once again shooting rubber-coated metal bullets and throwing stun grenades at unarmed Palestinian civilians in Al Aqsa mosque while they were praying, just like they have been doing to the worshippers there multiple times these past 2 months.

Source: X

Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)

Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)

Gardening

Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)

Country/Rural Living:

Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it's like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)

"Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy" by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)

Sewing/Mending:

Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)

Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs -- in this case, indigenous American beliefs -- can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)

Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"

Note: the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use "crunchy" spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.

"The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline" by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)

Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it's a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)

These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

Yesterday was the circassian day of mourning where we adyghe people remember our ancestors that were killed during a genocide that began in the 1840s, with deportations going on until the 1870s.

Our tribes lost many members during that time, with survivors being forced to leave our homelands, leaving almost no one behind. An estimated 70-90% of our people disappeared from our mountains, either dead or displaced.

I'd like to stress that us being muslim and indigenous was an important factor in all this.

I don't want to go into the details and would like to link to the wikipedia article instead, however it might be important to share at least a single story: since survivors of the first killings were forced across the Black Sea and then died on the way plenty of those that made it to the coast never ate fish again. They feared that those fish may have fed on their loved ones. To this day fish is not common in our cuisine and many still refuse to eat it.

Back then the Ottoman Empire offered us refuge (although to make it clear, circassian warriors and circassian women were popular and thus sometimes made to serve in certain roles), and so today most of us can be found in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and many former Ottoman territories but also in Germany and even the US. Thankfully we still exist in Kavkazye, but that's a minority.

I took a break from social media a bit, but now that I post this I also want to extend my respects to the communities that still face genocide, the palestinian and the uyghur people in particular.

Finally I'd like to remind everyone of this crucial thing:

Genocides do not start when the killings begin.

Genocides do not stop when the killings end.

Very cold take but the reason I think a lot of settler vegans view meat as murder (and therefore immoral) is because they cannot get past their colonial mindset of viewing all interactions as either consumption or domination instead of the reality of a vast web of mutually beneficial and self sustaining relationships with the ecosystem and eachother

For anyone looking for free zines on Black resistance, policing and activism, Sherwood Forest Zine Library in Austin, Texas, United States has a huge online collection for you to explore.

Source for more facts follow NowYouKno

A road has no special qualifiers. It connects point a to point b.

A street connects buildings together, usually in a city, usually east to west, opposite of avenue.

An avenue runs north south. Avenues and streets may be used interchangeably for directions, usually has median

A boulevard is a street with trees down the middle or on both sides

A lane is a narrow street usually lacking a median.

A drive is a private, winding road

A way is a small out of the way road

a court usually ends in a cul de sac or similar little loop

a plaza or square is usually a wide open space, but in modern definitons, one of the above probably fits better for a plaza as a road.

a terrace is a raised flat area around a building. When used for a road it probably better fits one of the above.

uk, a close is similar to a court, a short road serving a few houses, may have cul de sac

run is usually located near a stream or other small body of water

place is similar to a court, or close, usually a short skinny dead end road, with or without cul de sac, sometimes p shaped

bay is a small road where both ends link to the same connecting road

crescent is a windy s like shape, or just a crescent shape, for the record, above definition of bay was also given to me for crescent

a trail is usually in or near a wooded area

mews is an old british way of saying row of stables, more modernly seperate houses surrounding a courtyard

a highway is a major public road, usually connecting multiple cities

a motorway is similar to a highway, with the term more common in New Zealand, the UK, and Austrailia, no stopping, no pedestrian or animal traffic allowed

an interstate is a highway system connecting usually connecting multiple states, although some exist with no connections

a turnpike is part of a highway, and usully has a toll, often located close to a city or commercial are

a freeway is part of a highway with 2 or more lanes on each side, no tolls, sometimes termedexpressway, no intersections or cross streets.

a parkway is a major public road, usually decorated, sometimes part of a highway, has traffic lights.

a causeway combines roads and bridges, usually to cross a body of water

circuit and speedway are used interchangeably, usually refers to a racing course, practically probably something above.

as the name implies, garden is usually a well decorated small road, but probably better fits an above

a view is usually on a raised area of land, a hill or something similar.

byway is a minor road, usually a bit out of the way and not following main roads.

a cove is a narrow road, can be sheltered, usually near a larger body of water or mountains

a row is a street with a continuous line of close together houses on one or both sides, usually serving a specific function like a frat

a beltway is a highway surrounding an urban area

quay is a concrete platform running along water

crossing is where two roads meet

alley a narrow path or road between buildings, sometimes connects streets, not always driveable

point usually dead ends at a hill

pike usually a toll road

esplanade long open, level area, usually a walking path near the ocean

square open area where multiple streets meet, guess how its usually shaped.

landing usually near a dock or port, historically where boats drop goods.

walk historically a walking path or sidewalk, probably became a road later in its history

grove thickly sheltered by trees

copse a small grove

driveway almost always private, short, leading to a single residence or a few related ones

laneway uncommon, usually down a country road, itself a public road leading to multiple private driveways.

trace beaten path

circle usually circles around an area, but sometimes is like a “square”, an open place intersected by multiple roads.

channel usually near a water channel, the water itself connecting two larger bodies of water,

grange historically would have been a farmhouse or collection of houses on a farm, the road probably runs through what used to be a farm

park originally meaning an enclosed space, came to refer to an enclosed area of nature in a city, usually a well decorated road.

mill probably near an old flour mill or other mill.

spur similar to a byway, a smaller road branching off from a major road.

bypass passes around a populated area to divert traffic

roundabout or traffic circle circle around a traffic island with multiple connecting routes, a roundabout is usually smaller, with less room for crossing and passing, and safer

wynd a narrow lane between houses, similar to an alley, more common in UK

drive shortened form of driveway, not a driveway itself, usually in a neighborhood, connects several houses

parade wider than average road historically used as a parade ground.

terrace more common in uk, a row of houses.

chase on land historically used as private hunting grounds.

branch divides a road or area into multiple subdivisions.

Resources for Male Survivors

I posted last week asking people if they knew of some good resources for male victims of sexual assault. Here is the list people came up with:

www.malesurvivor.org

www.violenceunsilenced.com

www.rainn.org

www.pandys.org

www.1in6.org

www.soulspeakout.org

Thanks everyone!

Zine: All Together: A Primer for Connecting to Place & Cultivating Ecological Citizenship

By: Emma Percy

Review:

When it comes to place, there are many aspects to study. Culture. History. Resources. This zine focuses on nature. In “Full Sun,” I included this zine under “further reading” with this description:

“Consider this zine a solarpunk textbook. It focuses on the individual’s relationship with the nature where they live. There are activities and questions for the reader to complete, with lots of blank space for reflection. I recommend this especially for people who are new to environmental activism.”

To go into further detail: this work is beautiful, with typewritten words and collage backgrounds. (The author is talented with collage, as seen in this zine and the Stravaig series.) I almost want to call it a perzine, but rather than being about the author’s personal experiences, they’re about the reader’s. This is a zine that encourages introspection and reflection.

I imagine it is not uncommon for people to feel unconnected to the place where they live. While they may know a lot about the water cycle and how food is grown, those things can feel very distant in everyday life. Percy gives guidance and specific prompts for the reader to understand how they fit into the natural world around them.

This review was written April 22, 2021.