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McSweeney's: doing the lord's work

full listing here on the McSweeney's website: X

free .pdf version (it's really that long): X

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There is a reason the majority of therapists are doing CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) now. Because the actual cause of our anxiety, depression, stress, etc is capitalism. But CBT doesn't treat mental health problems, it treats the symptoms.

Or to put it another way, the goal of CBT is not to cure your mental health problems. The goal is to alleviate the symptoms enough to continue being productive.

This isn't to say CBT is bad. Its a positive, useful tool for therapy. But only when used in conjunction with other treatments.

Capitalism just doesn't care about that, so CBT became the only tool that is used anymore.

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I desperately want to hear miku singing "Big Red Cups" now. Someone who knows how to use vocaloid, please

Appalachian Miku

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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!

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Miniminuteman posted a hilarious video about the expanding earth conspiracy. Never heard of that one, very silly. Link below.

But I want to talk about what the conspiracy theorist says at about 24:23. "Its important to remember that science and the universe should and must be easier to understand as we go back in the universe's evolution."

This is insane for many reasons, and Milo points out a few. But this is the core of so many conspiracies and bad ideologies.

Things happen that either don't make sense or are very complicated. But its hard to deal with a problem that is complicated or even out of our control, so people favor explanations that are easier to understand.

It's a big reason for the pervasiveness of religion. The world is big and complicated, but saying a god or gods did it is (at least in some way) easier to swallow than...understanding physics, evolution, climate science, politics, economics, sociology, etc. Or worse, trusting someone else to understand those things.

An important and very difficult step to getting people to accept reality is to first accept that reality is messy. There are no easy answers and in most cases, no easy solutions to big problems.

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Opt-out "features" keep coming out on everything. I have to comb through settings on every new app/device to reclaim as much privacy and control as they will allow me to. Everything keeps becoming more "user friendly" at the expense of user control. Its becoming near impossible to buy basic electronics that don't come with a useless computer attached that will inevitability fail and brick your appliance.

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Kids who don't receive enough attention grow up to have bad attention seeking habits. And I think shitty adults treat any form of attention seeking the same. They refuse to give attention, especially affection.

Thats how you get adults who are so emotionally damaged and crave any form of attention that they do something stupid like buy Twitter and run it into the ground.

its kinda weird that humans, a social species, view “attention-seeking” as a negative trait

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I took one business class as a post-graduate, considering a second degree to help my career. "Change Management."

The entire curriculum was rich white men explaining how to get people to accept worse conditions, benefits, workload, etc. Without offering anything in return. Of course, they went to great lengths to dance around it.

But you can't dance around saying, "Actually, people don't work harder if you pay them well." Then they explain how you should be friendly and make your employees feel like "family" and feel invested in the business.

Like....here's a business tip! Don't pay your employees! Manipulate them emotionally and throw a pizza party every once in a while!

So yeah, business degrees are that bad.

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Say it louder for my grandfather that tried to recruit me to white nationalism by claiming only white people have ever contributed to the advancement of society.

Here's the link to the video

👏 SAY 👏 IT 👏 LOUDER 👏

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The thing is, you can't call Republicans out on hypocrisy because Right leaning politics is literally built on hypocrisy. Its about creating an "us" and "them" and enforcing rules over "them" for the benefit of "us".

And of course, every Republican voter imagines themselves as part of "us", even as they suffer the consequences of the policies meant to hurt "them".

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[Id: post on bluesky by user joekatz45.bsky.social that reads "Seriously. Pick an aspect of Project 2025 you don't like. Write up 200 words TOPS on why you don't like it. Submit it to your local paper. They often publish these online, too, so you can give it a bump on social media when it runs." End id]

For my American writer friends on here: something you can do that could help in the coming election if you live in a small town - especially a red-leaning one.

Posting this to tumblr because I know people here are actually capable of writing 200 words lol.

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The mechanics of From games around revival and death are always a little ambiguous. Like, we know the tarnished are undead, so it makes some sense they can come back. But why do enemies revive? Why do bosses regain all their health?

But regardless of the ambiguity, I do always take some pleasure in imagining that bosses have some recollection of your past attempts. And they get progressively more desperate as this vaugely familiar undead/hunter/tarnished gets closer and closer to winning.

however annoyed by an elden ring boss you are, remember, they're more annoyed by you. you're a lord or god or something, 15ft tall because you're a legend, hanging out behind your Fog Wall and some goddamn little duende saunters in with 5 different glowing effects around her. she rings a stupid little gnome bell and summons the ghost of some other weird cryptid. she hits you, ok not much damage, no problem. you hit her and she seems about halfway dead. she has a little sippy of her Duende Juicebox. She has precognition of how you move so she dodges 12 swipes in a row. you finally hit her again, this time hard. she takes a little sippy of her Duende Juicebox. she's Rudely stubbing your toe this whole time because she can't reach any higher than your shin. she seems to only know like 2 moves. you completely lose track of how many Sippies of her Duende Juicebox she takes after her seventh. as you tire, she seems cheerful and full of energy, ever sipping on her goddamn Duende Juicebox. you finally kill her. she enters through the fog again. this continues forever until you die

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Might not be what OP was thinking, but my take on this:

History in school is the history of states. Its about who controlled what land, how they fought over it, who won, etc. Its about the laws and governments, control and loss of it, and occasionally about social changes, but only in the context of how it affected the state.

History to most of those passionate about it, is the history of People. Inventions, food, entertainment, art, language, everything that makes humans human. Its all part of the rich history of our species.

Its important to know and document the history of states. But its also boring. And focusing solely on government and those in power, elevates them more than they deserve. Monarchs and Presidents don't shape all of human progress. But the way we are taught in school, you would be excused for thinking so.

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Second playthrough of the DLC, I went straight for the Scadu Fragments. I'm now having a much better time. I'm "getting good" and using only a weapon. No magic, no summons.

I'm so mad about Commander Gaius though.

After many attempts I learned his attacks well enough I was getting pretty far in the fight consistanly. But I kept running out of heals.

For the life of me, I could not dodge his stupid charging attack. So finally I looked it up. Turns out, I was always dodging to his right. He holds his weapon to his right, and it HAS A HITBOX.

What the hell, Fromsoft? The timing to dodge the boar is already so tight, but they made his sword that's just held loosely to the side not only have a hitbox, but actually deal more damage than a charging boar.

Knowing that one thing, I beat him my next try. So dumb.

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LOZ x Dunmeshi crossover

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Final thoughts on the Elden Ring DLC. There is shockingly little I feel lukewarm about. Everything was either perfect or shit.

Perfect things:

Most of the areas and architecture. As always, From is incredible at this. I was honestly blown away how they made such a small map feel so expansive. There was plenty of diversity, and honestly I don't get the people saying it felt empty.

Divine Beast, Romina, and Midra were fantastic. I even like some of the repeat bosses like the ghostflame dragon.

Dear god the soundtrack! Incredible work.

The new weapons are super fun, I couldnt possibly pick a favorite. And there is plenty of incredible drip.

Love the new NPC's! They interact with each other (though, mostly through you) and actually have some effect on the story.

The shit:

I tried my best to play completely blind. If I hadn't caved and looked for guides, I would have missed out on like, half the map. So many places are only reachable from one specific place and its nowhere near where you're trying to go.

All the other bosses. It seems a lot of people loved Mesmer, but FUCK THAT FIGHT. All his attacks are either instant or delayed by 5 seconds. He has a couple combos that after dozens of attempts I still couldn't dodge every hit. And I probably wouldn't have lost my cool so much if he didn't have an ENTIRE SPEECH every time you die. I never got tilted at, "put these foolish ambitions to rest." But I legit had to turn voices and subtitles off to keep fighting Mesmer.

Rellana was cool as hell, but all I could say was, "when is it my turn?" You can get 1 attack in most of the time, and even then you might get punished. My saving grace was using the Rune smith Circe and throwing them over and over.

And then there's Radahn. If the damage in Phase 1 was toned down A LOT, I would call that an extremely challenging but totally fair and fun fight. But with full Scadu and the tankiest armor I could get, I still lost 80% of my health after one hit or a 1-2 hit I was stunlocked. Basically always had to heal twice for each mistake. But still, everything is readable and its clear how to handle it.

Phase 2 is the culmination of all bullshit. Full arena-wide AOE, Radahn meteor, but this time its not from wherever your camera is facing. I only avoided it because he targeted my mimic. Lights and flashes and swirls everywhere so good luck even guessing what the fuck is going on. And how in the actual hell are you supposed to avoid 4 spectral attacks followed by the real one all withing .5 seconds of each other? What the actual fuck?

I'm not afraid to admit. I saw phase 2 one time, and said, nope! Time to get a tower shield and poke him to death.

Your reward for beating all that BS is a really dull cutscene where Miquella says he wants Radahn as his consort. Okay...we literally learned that in the phase transition. Thats it?

And yeah, the thing where half the quests break if you approach the Shadow Keep is ass.

I don't know what to feel, honestly. Never has a DLC been so good and so bad at the same time. (For me)

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For the last month, I have actually managed to take my ADHD meds every day. Because of regulations, if you get a 30 day supply of an amphetamine, you can't refill it until 30 days have passed (maybe a couple less, not sure).

So as a reward for taking my meds on time every day, I can't pick up my refill until I'm already out of drugs, making it even more likely I'll forget.

I love it here.