Car garage
I think its important to point out that even if you are a right wing/conservative person you should be furious about this because USAID is also the source of much of the US's soft power in the world. Like, those aid payments and medicines are not given out of the kindness of our heart and for free: they're a tiny expense for the maintaining of the American Empire. USAID makes the countries we aid like the US better, makes them want to keep us happy with beneficial business relationships and trade deals and resource access agreements. IT makes people around the world associate the US government with "I'm still alive today" and "They do good work for us!" Even from the most cutthroat realpolitik empire building power player perspective USAID is one of the most effective tools of power brokering in history and Musk deleted it because he doesn't actually understand anything let alone how a government functions.
These guys are a failure and threat to the goals of literally everyone because even if you ignore their evil goals, they're grossly incompetent and dangerous to literally everyone by just mindlessly wrecking incredibly complex systems they do not care to even try to understand.
before you make that post about "the crisis facing men and boys" or "preventing redpill radicalization" stop and check in:
is your proposed solution
- increased labor of women and girls
- women and girls enduring more abuse for the benefit of men and boys
- women and girls suppressing their emotions (fear, anger, resentment, etc.) and limiting their speech
- blaming populations of women (e.g. trans women, women involved in sex trades, racialized women) for the actions of men and expecting these women to endure punishment for men
- focusing on maintaining manhood and masculinity while reducing the discomfort men feel about holding this position; framing men's feelings of insecurity as the central issue to be addressed when it comes to violent misogyny
if so:
your "solution" to behavioral patterns emerging within patriarchy is more patriarchy.
instead:
try to imagine literally anything else.
Researchers from the Institute for the Research of Male Supremacy did come up with actual recommendations for dealing with incels and it is EXACTLY like this post says.
Guys they reintroduced Galapagos tortoises to espanola island and they’ve essentially terraformed their environment, knocking over invasive plants so that endangered albatrosses (who need space to take off using the ground as a runway) have returned and established nests!
Some key details from the articles:
- In the 1960's, the tortoise population on this particular island--Española--was down to 14 tortoises.
- Those individuals--two males and twelve females--were taken to a sanctuary on the nearby island of Santa Cruz, where they were encouraged to be fruitful and multiply.
- Another male tortoise living in a zoo was identified as being from this island, and joined the group at the sanctuary, increasing the diversity of the gene pool.
- Because Galapagos tortoises live so long--over a century--the reintroduction involved not only the offspring born at the sanctuary, but also the original 14 tortoises, and the guy from the zoo. After half a century, they took their children and grandchildren home.
Also,
- "Galapagos giant tortoises spend about 16 hours per day resting and the remaining hours snacking on grasses, fruits and cactus pads." Mood.
The reintroduction project for Española is now in its end stage, with all the tortoises back on their home island, free-roaming and reproducing on the their own. (The total population is about 3,000). However, the sanctuary continues to work with tortoises from other islands (because of their isolation, each island's population is its own subspecies).
The Trump administration abruptly pulled funding last week for a research grant meant to protect pregnant women from domestic violence because it was categorized as a “DEI” study.
The National Institute of Health grant funded a two-year project to create a training program for early career clinicians to measure intimate partner violence and pregnancy. The leading cause of death among pregnant and postpartum women in the U.S. is homicide by an abusive partner. Perinatal women are more than twice as likely to be murdered than to die from sepsis, hypertensive disorders or hemorrhage.
The grant was awarded last September after hundreds of hours of work from researchers, scientists and other staff, including some NIH grant officers, three of the four lead researchers told HuffPost. The goal was to create a three-day hybrid training program for OB-GYNs, public health researchers and other clinicians across the country to help spot and measure the correlation between domestic violence and pregnancy.
President Donald Trump has pledged to protect women, and yet research that could go on to save the lives of thousands of pregnant women and mothers has been unceremoniously cut. The move is particularly confounding given that Trump’s conservative Supreme Court repealed federal abortion protections, leading to nearly 20 states enacting abortion bans and forcing more people to stay pregnant.
With more pregnant women in the U.S. and maternal mortality rates on the rise, this research is arguably more important than ever. But it was caught up in the Trump administration’s broader campaign to slash all federal initiatives for diversity, equity and inclusion.
[...]
NIH immediately terminated the grant – instead of the standard protocol to temporarily suspend it – because “no modification of the project could align the project with agency priorities.” [...]
Integral to the grant project was a mentoring program to help jumpstart the careers of “underrepresented early-stage investigators.” This would ensure the continuation of critical but often underfunded research on domestic violence and pregnancy.
“The people who do research on violence in sexual and gender minority communities, violence against women, violence in black and brown communities ― they are significantly more likely to be from those communities,” Fielding-Miller said.
“When they are systematically targeting research that focuses on these communities, what they’re also doing is systematically targeting investigators from these communities.”
[...]
Sarah Peitzmeier, the third researcher who spoke with HuffPost, pointed out that domestic violence during pregnancy is linked to often larger, more costly infant and maternal health issues.
“We know intimate partner violence during pregnancy is linked to miscarriage, hemorrhage, placental disruption and postpartum depression. It’s also linked to negative infant outcomes, preterm birth, low birth weight,” Peitzmeier said. “These are really non-partisan issues that everyone should care about.”
“And these are expensive issues, too,” Metheny added. “These are things that cost the American taxpayer millions and millions and millions of dollars a year. By going to the source and the root problem, which sometimes is IPV [intimate partner violence], then this is one way to actually decrease unnecessary health care costs and improve the health of pregnant people.”
An estimated 324,000 pregnant people are abused each year by an intimate partner, and that number is likely to increase as more people stay pregnant after the fall of Roe v. Wade. Since the landmark Supreme Court decision, calls to the National Domestic Violence Hotline about reproductive coercion ― a form of intimate partner violence specific to pregnancy and reproductive health ― have doubled across the country.
Researchers in a 2024 study found that there’s “a dire need for universal screening and interventions,” after concluding that pregnant women are more likely to be murdered by an abusive partner if they live in a state where abortion is restricted.
“They’re systematically removing women, women of color, people of color, sexual and gender minorities from the pool of researchers. And what the end point of that is is an academy that is systematically more white, more male, more cisgender, more heterosexual, more wealthy,” Fielding-Miller said. [...] “So even after the immediate shocks of this are done, the ripple effects are going to live on for decades.”
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. In the U.S., call 1-866-331-9474 or text “loveis” to 22522 for the National Dating Abuse Helpline.
St Kitts Rain Forest Canopy
hey a local town actually did this!
they planted berries, root vegetables, leafy greens, herbs, all sorts. they label each plant and the sign said "free to take, leave some for others to enjoy!"
and people did. they took a bit, but left some for others.
it also fed the homeless people living around there.
bearing in mind this is a tourist town, so i half expected to see the plants gone. but nope, there's always some left.
people aren't naturally selfish, and they will share. the initiative works
And honestly? Most people who don't need it won't bother to stop and pick fruit. It's only people who actually need it who will devote the time. People with money still have grocery stores.
[Image description: tweet by Black Botanist @CreativeTiana: transcript follows]
I was talking to someone about planting food and fruit trees in public spaces and they were like “Why so everyone can steal the food?”
And I was like “See, that’s the problem right there. Why should taking food off a public tree be stealing?”
"Urban food forest" is something I'm hearing more and more. Do some poking around, there may be an opportunity to help with or start something like this near you.