Seen in the window at Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick, Maine.
Photo: Bill Roorbach
Except America wasn’t an endless expanse of forest with no certain borders. At least not while human beings inhabited it. The idea that native peoples did not cultivate or shape our land and that we had no borders is white propaganda meant to dehumanize and de-legitimize native peoples.
This illustration here show Apalachee people using slash and burn methods for agriculture. Fires were set regularly to intention burn down forests and plains. Why would we do this? Well because an unregulated forest isn’t that great for people, actually. We set fires to destroy new forest growth and undergrowth, and to remove trees, allowing for easier game hunting, nutrient enriched soil, and better growth rates for crops and herbs we used in food and medicine.
Pre-Colonial New England, where my tribe the Abenaki are from, looked more like an extensive meadow or savannah with trees growing in pockets and groves. Enough woodland to support birds, deer, and moose, but not too much to make hunting difficult. We carefully shaped the land around us to suit our needs as a thriving and successful people. Slash and burn agriculture was practiced virtually everywhere in the new world, from the pacific coast to chesapeake bay, from panama to quebec. It was a highly successful way of revitalizing the land and promoting crop growth, as well as preventing massive forest fires that thrive in unregulated forests. Berries were the major source of fruit for my tribe, and we needed to burn the undergrowth so they could grow.
That changed when white people invaded, and brought with them disease. In my tribe, up to 9 in 10 people died. 90% of our people perished not from violence starvation, but from disease. Entire villages would be decimated, struck down by small pox. Suddenly, we couldn’t care for the land anymore. There weren’t enough of us to maintain a vast, carefully structured ecological system like we had for thousands of years. We didn’t have the numbers, or strength. So the trees grew back and unregulated. We couldn’t set fires anymore, and we couldn’t cultivate the land. And white people would make certain we never could again. Timber, after all, was the most important export from New England.
Endless trees and untamed wilderness is a nice fantasy. But it’s a very white fantasy, one that erases the history of my people and of my land. One that paints native peoples are merely parasites leeching off the land, not masters of the earth who new the right balance of hunting and agriculture. It robs us of our agency as people, and takes our accomplishments from us. Moreover, it implies that only white people ever discovered the power to shape the world around them, and that mere brown people can’t possibly have had anything to do with changing our environment.
Don’t bring back untamed wilderness. Bring back my fire setters, my tree sappers, my farmers and my fishers. Bring back my people who were here first.
AAAAAAA!!! I GOT MY FIRST PAIR OF PRESCRIPTION GLASSES TODAY!!!!!! I HAD NO IDEA HOW BAD MY VISION USED TO BE IT’S LIKE I JUST BOUGHT AN HD TEXTURE PACK FOR THE WHOLE WORLD!!!!!!
Reblog if you felt the same way when you got your first pair of glasses
They also have some on amazon I think, but I always buy from their site because I like to make sure my money is going into their charitable works too.
From their website:
VOGMASK is used for protection from airborne particles such as PM 0.3,
PM 2.5, PM 10, dust, allergens, post combustion particles, germs,
shavings, biologics, odors, scents, mold, mold spores, particles in
wildfire smoke, volcanic particulate pollution, and other airborne
contaminants. The benefits of particulate respirators are confirmed by
leading health providers worldwide. Highly efficient filtering masks
help protect the mask wearer from particles as small as .254 microns.
I can’t get through allergy season (so, the whole year round apart from the dead of winter for me) without mine, and it also helps to filter our scents and other stuff. I’ll even wear mine if I have to walk down the laundry aisle at the grocery store cause the scent of all that stuff in one place makes me wheeze and feel like my throat is closing.
You can also choose if you want one or two filers. They are sadly, not replaceable, but they do last a good few years. I’ve had mine for coming on four years no and it’s only just not starting to need replaced. I can tell because the ragweed hit my lungs like a tongue of bricks this year. But I do know it’s still working cause on the days when I don’t wear it it’s substantially worse.
Anyway, hope this is helpful!
would it work for filtering out smoke particles? I have asthma and the smoke in my area has been getting really bad. Will the vog mask help with that?
They list wildfire smoke and other air pollutants as things it helps to filter out. I haven’t personally used it in an area affected on a large scale by smoke, but I have used it around campfires and the like when even the smoke from that is enough to make me wheeze, and it does help.
This may just be my experience as an autistic person, but the kids I’ve nannied whose parent’s complain of ‘bad awful in cooperative selfish autistic behavior’ are… Not like that? At all?
Like, for example, I cared for a kid for a while who was nonverbal and didn’t like being touched. Around six years old? Their parent said that they were fussy and had a strict schedule, and that they had problems getting them to eat. Their last few nannies had quit out of frustration.
So, I showed up. And for the first little while, it was awkward. The kid didn’t know me, I didn’t know them, you know how it is. And for the first… Day and a half, maybe? I fucked up a few times.
I changed their diaper and they screamed at me. I put the TV off and they threw things. Not fun, but regular upset kid stuff.
Next time, I figured, hell, I wouldn’t like being manhandled and ordered around either. Who likes being physically lifted out of whatever it is they’re doing and having their pants yanked off? Fucking few, that’s who.
Next time, I go, ‘hey, kiddo. You need a new diaper?’ and check. ‘I’m gonna go grab a new one and get you clean, okay?’ ‘Wanna find a spot to lay down?’ ‘Alright, almost done. Awesome job, thanks buddy’.
I learned stuff about them. They liked a heads up before I did anything disruptive. They didn’t mind that I rattled of about nothing all day. They didn’t like grass or plastic touching their back. They were okay with carpets and towels. They liked pictionary, and the color yellow, and fish crackers, and painting. They didn’t look me in the face (which was never an issue- I hate that too, it fucking sucks) but I never had reason to believe that they were ignoring me.
Once I learned what I was doing wrong, everything was fine. Did they magically “”“become normal”“” and start talking and laughing and hugging? No, but we had fun and had a good time and found a compromise between what I was comfortable with and what they were comfortable with. (For the record, I didn’t magically sailor-moon transform into a socially adept individual, either. In case anyone was wondering.)
I don’t like eye contact. It’s distracting and painful and stresses me out.
They didn’t like eye contact either.
Is eye contact necessary to communication? No. So we just didn’t do it.
Was there ever a situation where I HAD to force them to drop everything and lay down on the lawn? No. So the thirty second warning came into play, and nobody died.
“But they never talked!”
No, they didn’t. And they didn’t know ASL, and they didn’t like being touched.
So you know what happened?
My third day in, they tugged on my shirt. ‘Hey monkey, what’s up?’ I asked. And they tugged me towards the kitchen. ‘oh, cool. You hungry?’. They raised their hands in an ‘up’ gesture. ‘you want up? Cool.’ and I lifted them up. They pointed to the fridge. I opened it. They grabbed a juice box out of the top shelf, and pushed the door closed again. ‘oh sweet, grape is the best. You are an individual of refined taste.’ I put them down and they went back to their room to play Legos.
“But they didn’t say please or thank you!” “But you should be teaching them communication skills!” “But!” Lalalalala.
1. The entire interaction was entirely considerate and polite. I was never made uncomfortable. I was made aware of the problem so that I could help them solve it. There was no mess, no tears, no bruises, no shouting.
2. Did my brain collapse into a thousand million fragments of shattered diamond dust out of sheer incomprehension? No? Then their communication skills were fine. Goal realized, solution found, objective complete. They found the most simple and painless way to communicate the situation and then did it.
Kids are not stupid. AUTISTIC kids are not stupid.
I’m willing to bet real cash money that the real reason the last few nannies had quit had a million times more to do with their own ability to cope, not the kid’s.
To this day, that was the most relaxed and enjoyable job I’ve ever had.
And I know I don’t speak for everyone. All kids are different. All adults are different. But in my time and experience, pretty much 95% of all my difficulties with children come from ME not being understanding enough. Every single “problem child” I’ve worked with turned out to be a pretty cool person once I started figuring out how to put my ego aside and let them set the pace.
Again, not speaking universally, here. I’m just saying. Sometimes social rules are bullshit, you know? People are people
Have you ever read an article about the study that found that teaching the parents to cope with autistic kids yields better results than other therapies? Because this is exactly what they were talking about.
I watch two autistic boys every once in a while, and they are honestly the easiest kids I’ve ever watched. Neither of them speak more than a few words, usually one at a time, but they have no issue with communication.
One of them is really quiet and reserved and happy to play on the computer. The other one gets excited to see people he knows and ran up to me at my University the other day and felt my hair (I recently shaved it down, he loved it).
But everyone I talk to, except their mom, is so impressed by how well I handle them?? Their mom knew we’d get along famously, so she isn’t. Because since they don’t talk and prefer to be on their own and initiate touching and don’t make eye-contact and whatever other reason people thought that it would be hard for me to deal with these cool little dudes.
The first day was a little hard, because I didn’t know them very well yet and I hadn’t seen them at home before. But it was easy enough to just respect their boundaries? And their communication was very clear, just different.
Everyone is so impressed that I handle them so well, especially when I tell them I’m Autistic too, but like, of course I do? I know how to treat people with respect and I understand how being Autistic affects you, since I am myself.
No eye-contact? Not a problem. More comfortable guiding me by hand to help you get a snack? Cool. They are the most respectful 10 year olds too. If I need to finish something before I can help them, they wait patiently. If I need help they come running over to try.
Basically, learn to cope with autism, not work against it. Speech isn’t the only form of communication. People are happier when their needs are respected. People are people and respect goes both ways.
And maybe? Watch how autistic people act around other autistic people, and take note? Because we’re supposed to be the rigid ones, but it seems that we’re better at adjusting.
James Rhodes, a pianist, performed a Bach composition for his Youtube channel, but it didn’t stay up – Youtube’s Content ID system pulled it down and accused him of copyright infringement
because Sony Music Global had claimed that they owned 47 seconds’ worth
of his personal performance of a song whose composer has been dead for
300 years.
Just last week, German music professor Ulrich Kaiser posted his research
on automated censorship of classical music, in which he found that it
was nearly impossible to post anything by composers like Bartok,
Schubert, Puccini and Wagner, because companies large and small have
fraudulently laid claim to their whole catalogs.
Europeans have one week to contact their MEPs to head off this catastrophe.
Stop what you’re doing and contact two friends in the EU right now and send them to Save Your Internet – before it’s too late.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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