#Native American Student Association

[reasonsforhope]

"Growing up, Mackenzee Thompson always wanted a deeper connection with her tribe and culture.

The 26-year-old member of the Choctaw Nation said she grew up outside of her tribe’s reservation and wasn’t sure what her place within the Indigenous community would be.

Through a first-of-its-kind program, Thompson said she’s now figured out how she can best serve her people — as a doctor.

Thompson is graduating as part of the inaugural class from Oklahoma State University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation. It’s the first physician training program on a Native American reservation and in affiliation with a tribal government, according to school and tribal officials.

“I couldn’t even have dreamed this up,” she said. “To be able to serve my people and learn more about my culture is so exciting. I have learned so much already.”

Thompson is one of nine Native graduates, who make up more than 20 percent of the class of 46 students, said Dr. Natasha Bray, the school’s dean. There are an additional 15 Native students graduating from the school’s Tulsa campus.

The OSU-COM graduates include students from 14 different tribes, including Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, Alaska Native, Caddo, and Osage.

Bray said OSU partnered with the Cherokee Nation to open the school in 2020 to help erase the shortage of Indigenous doctors nationwide. There are about 841,000 active physicians practicing in the United States. Of those, nearly 2,500 — or 0.3 percent — are Native American, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

When American Indian and Alaska Native people visit Indian Health Service clinics, there aren’t enough doctors or nurses to provide “quality and timely health care,” according to a 2018 report from the Government Accountability Office. On average, a quarter of IHS provider positions — from physicians to nurses and other care positions –are vacant.

“These students here are going to make a generational impact,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. told the students days before graduation. “There is such a need in this state and in this region for physicians and this school was created out of a concern about the pipeline of doctors into our health system.”

The Cherokee Nation spent $40 million to build the college in its capital of Tahlequah. The walls of the campus feature artifacts of Cherokee culture as well as paintings to remember important figures from Cherokee history. An oath of commitment on the wall is written in both English and Cherokee.

The physician training program was launched in the first year of the pandemic.

Bray said OSU and Cherokee leadership felt it was important to have the school in the heart of the Cherokee Nation, home to more than 141,000 people, because students would be able to get experience treating Indigenous patients. In Tahlequah, students live and study in a small town about an hour east of Tulsa with a population of less than 24,000 people.

“While many students learn about the problems facing these rural communities,” Bray said. “Our students are getting to see them firsthand and learn from those experiences.”

While students from the college are free to choose where to complete their residency after graduation, an emphasis is placed on serving rural and Indigenous areas of the country.

There’s also a severe lack of physicians in rural America, a shortage that existed before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Association of American Medical Colleges has projected that rural counties could see a shortage between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians by 2034. An additional 180,000 doctors would be needed in rural counties and other underserved populations to make up the difference.

Bray said OSU saw an opportunity to not only help correct the underrepresentation of Native physicians but also fill a workforce need to help serve and improve health care outcomes in rural populations.

“We knew we’d need to identify students who had a desire to serve these communities and also stay in these communities,” she said.

Osteopathic doctors, or DOs, have the same qualifications and training as allopathic doctors, or MDs, but the two types of doctors attend different schools. While MDs learn from traditional programs, DOs take on additional training at osteopathic schools that focus on holistic medicine, like how to reduce patient discomfort by physically manipulating muscles and bones. DOs are more likely to work in primary care and rural areas to help combat the health care shortages in those areas.

As part of the curriculum, the school invited Native elders and healers to help teach students about Indigenous science and practices...

Thompson said she was able to bring those experiences into her appointments. Instead of asking only standard doctor questions, she’s been getting curious and asking about her patient’s diets, and if they are taking any natural remedies.

“It’s our mission to be as culturally competent as we can,” she said. “Learning this is making me not only a better doctor but helping patients trust me more.”

-via PBS NewsHour, May 23, 2024

[literaryvein-reblogs]

do u perhaps have any advice/notes on how to write a Deaf character, especially on how to write them signing?

Writing Notes: Deaf Characters

Deaf

The word “deaf” describes a person with profound or complete hearing loss. It is important to understand that many people do not consider being deaf or having hearing loss as a disability. Instead, deafness is often considered a culture.

“Deaf” and “hard of hearing” are the terms recommended by the World Federation of the Deaf and The National Association of the Deaf. Many people in the Deaf community prefer the use of a lowercase “d” to refer to audiological status and the use of a capital “D” when referring to the culture and community of Deaf people. Some people with mild to moderate hearing loss may affiliate themselves with the Deaf community and prefer to be referred to as “deaf” instead of “hard of hearing.” Alternatively, some who are profoundly deaf may prefer the term “hard of hearing.”

NCDJ Recommendation: “Deaf” or “hard of hearing” are the preferred terms. Uppercase when referring to the “Deaf” community and lowercase when referring to the condition. Avoid using “hearing impaired” or “partial” or “partially” in reference to deafness or hearing loss unless people use those terms for themselves.

When possible, ask if a person or group uses identity-first language (deaf students) or person-first language (students who are deaf). However, The National Association of the Deaf supports the identity-first approach.

When quoting or paraphrasing a person who has signed their responses, it’s appropriate on first reference to indicate that the responses were signed. It’s acceptable to use the word “said” in subsequent references.

AP style: The stylebook uses “deaf” to describe a person with total hearing loss and “partially deaf” or “partial hearing loss” for others. It calls for use of a lower case “d” in all usages.

The Portrayal of Deafness in Media

Some examples you can use, and do further research on, as a guide (also to learn from and avoid what are considered problematic representations in media):

A Quiet Place and sequels: Post-apocalyptic thrillers in which monsters with highly-advanced hearing invade America. The main characters are a family who all know American Sign Language, owing to their deaf eldest daughter (played by deaf actress Millicent Simmonds), allowing them to communicate without drawing the monsters' attention, and most of the dialogue (especially in the first film) is in ASL. Static from her hearing aid also proves to be a powerful weapon against the monsters.

Baby Driver: Features a hearing protagonist with tinnitus (Ansel Elgort) who is a getaway driver for a gang and has a deaf foster father (CJ Jones).

Godzilla vs. Kong: One of the main human characters is a deaf girl named Jia, played by deaf actress Kaylee Hottle. She is said to be the last of the Iwi people, the natives of Skull Island, and she has a strong emotional bond with Kong, as both of them are the last of their kind. Past incarnations of Kong typically formed strong emotional connections - sometimes ambiguously sexual ones - with white American women, so this is also the first time the most important human to Kong has been a native of his own island. She also teaches Kong sign language.

Hawkeye: As in the comics, Clint suffers from hearing loss due to his superhero endeavors taking a toll on him. The series also features a prominent supporting character who is deaf (Echo), played by deaf actress Alaqua Cox.

Sound of Metal: An American drama starring hearing actor Riz Ahmed as a metal drummer losing his hearing and working at a school for the deaf.

Switched at Birth (2011) features several deaf characters who are able to sign fluently. The show portrays how they adjust to life and their everyday experiences with being deaf and how hearing people react to them.

There Will Be Blood: H.W. is left deaf after a blast at the oil field.

The entry below focuses on films made by American and foreign filmmakers who have little or no special interest in or knowledge about deaf people or Deaf communities. Casting hearing actors to portray deaf characters is unfortunately common. Because neither the filmmakers, the expected audiences, nor the actors know anything about d/Deaf people, inauthenticities are widespread. These problems are only slightly improved by casting a Deaf actor: Deaf actors can portray authentic use of a sign language but are often limited by the script, the director, and the editing process. Therefore, while the signing community commends the casting of Deaf actors, the discussion here focuses on the deaf characters themselves and reasons for their inclusion in the story. In the following, the actors are labeled either “D” for Deaf or “h” for hearing. If there is no label, the actor’s status is unknown.

Deaf Characters and Sign Language for Intrigue. Thrillers with deaf characters typically put a deaf woman in peril. In Hear No Evil (1993), Jillian (Marlee Matlin d) has been learning from her hearing boyfriend which mechanical devices cause ear-splitting noises. When she is pursued by a would-be murderer, she takes advantage of a fire alarm, a sprinkler system, and a stereo turned full blast to mask the sounds of her movements as she attempts to hide. In Orphan (2009) a family with two children, one of them deaf (Aryana Engineer h), adopts an orphan who turns out to be a murderous psychopath. When this “orphan” cleverly steals the deaf girl’s hearing aid before launching the climactic killing spree, we gasp in horror as the deaf girl negotiates the house unable to hear just where her mother or the murderer are. Suspect (1987) has a major deaf character, a mentally ill transient (Liam Neeson h) who has lost his hearing during the Viet Nam war and is accused of murder, but the film focuses on the efforts of his court-appointed attorney, who first must realize that he is deaf, then piece the case together with minimal help from him. (His treatment by the police will be regarded as unsettling and quite authentic by many deaf viewers.) In a departure from the usual use of the deaf character in thrillers, The River Wild (1996) has hearing characters communicating surreptitiously in ASL after they are taken hostage. A brief glimpse of a Deaf father (Victor H. Galloway d) at the beginning of the movie shows where they learned to sign.

Heightened Sensory Powers. The myth that deaf (and blind) people have heightened sensory perception sometimes prompts writers and filmmakers to provide their deaf characters with supernatural powers. After Image (2001) presents Laura (Terrylene d), a young deaf woman whose visions and strange dreams enable her to discern clues to crimes. What the Bleep Do We Know? (2004) is a hybrid of narrative and documentary filmmaking, with Amanda (Marlee Matlin d) simultaneously experiencing different planes of existence as she struggles with the existential angst of her life.

Writing Notes: Sign(ed) Languages

Sign(ed) Languages are languages which primarily function non-verbally through visual signals, generally invented for the use of the deaf to communicate. As the name indicates, the primary means of communication is generally signs made with the hands in front of the body. However, most sign languages include facial expressions and some, such as Japanese Sign Language, include mouthing as part of their mechanics. It is important to recognize that while almost every community with a spoken language also has a signed language, the signed language used is related more to the geographical region than to the spoken language. For example, English is the primary language of the United States, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, but the US and (Anglophone) Canada use ASL note , the UK uses BSL, and Australia and New Zealand use Auslan and NZSL respectively - all different languages with distinct signs and grammar.

One important aspect of Signed Languages is that they are, as a rule, fully-formed languages with their own grammar and words. They are not pantomime nor do they necessarily follow the grammar of the spoken/verbal language of the region. Some signs are iconic, or resemble what they speak of, much like how some spoken words are onomatopoeic, but most signs are abstractions of iconic signs or completely original. The grammar itself frequently differs greatly in part due to the spatial aspects of signs and the ability to convey information non-sequentially. For example, within ASL, it is common to establish specific people in a conversation at spatial locations and later use signs moving from location to the other rather than having to reestablish identities or use pronouns. Similarly, since both hands and the face can be used, multiple pieces of information can be encoded into a single sign. For example, a sentence like "I drove from Jane to John and I enjoyed it" can be conveyed in a single sign if Jane and John have already been previously established in the conversation. And, before you ask, most signs convey individual words. There is finger-spelling (you're familiar with that from The Miracle Worker, it's what Annie shows Helen to communicate), but it's inefficient (especially with big words like "inefficient"), and not all signers are necessarily fluent in it because it requires them to depict, letter by letter, words that are not from their native language — specifically, words from the spoken/verbal language of the region.

It is worth noting that Signed Language, while non-verbal, is not necessarily quiet. Even deaf users typically make sounds while signing and it is not infrequent for a very low-pitched grunt to be used to catch someone's attention via the vibrations.

As an anthropological note, it is worth considering that many communities and cultures define themselves by their language, and the deaf are no exception. The word "Deaf" is often capitalized when indicating the non-hearing culture, or membership of same. Though there are always exceptions, most Deaf individuals do not consider their lack of hearing to be a drawback and are proud of the community their condition allows them access to.

For a number of reasons, including religious, eugenics and association with Native Americans (e.g. Plains Indian Sign Language) and other "savages", the oralist movement sought to eliminate Sign in an attempt at normalization and mainstreaming. There were actually laws against using Sign in school classrooms until 2008. Educators such as Thomas Gallaudet recognized being Deaf as a cultural identity and warned that eliminating Sign and insisting on oral speech would put Deaf children at a lifelong disadvantage. Today, Sign is recognized as a legitimate form of communication and oral-only education has been discredited.

Signed Language has nothing to do with the trope of Talking with Signs which involves characters communicating via written signs. It is related to Hand Signals, which range from pantomime to a reduced vocabulary, sometimes with a sparse grammar. Especially within fantasy works, it is not uncommon to have races or nations where Hand Signals have evolved into a Signed Language, typically to provide a method to communicate in secrecy.

In real life, some professional fields rely somewhat heavily on signed language even if nobody in a particular project is deaf. One such field that relies on Hand Signals and signed languages in varying combinations, is professional diving, since one can't exactly speak out loud when wearing SCUBA gear.

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Choose which of these notes and references are most appropriate for your writing. But communicating with someone (or people) in the community would provide you with even more valuable information.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Margery E. Beck at AP:

A new South Dakota policy to stop the use of gender pronouns by public university faculty and staff in official correspondence is also keeping Native American employees from listing their tribal affiliations in a state with a long and violent history of conflict with tribes.

Two University of South Dakota faculty members, Megan Red Shirt-Shaw and her husband, John Little, have long included their gender pronouns and tribal affiliations in their work email signature blocks. But both received written warnings from the university in March that doing so violated a policy adopted in December by the South Dakota Board of Regents. “I was told that I had 5 days to remove my tribal affiliation and pronouns,” Little said in an email to The Associated Press. “I believe the exact wording was that I had ‘5 days to correct the behavior.’ If my tribal affiliation and pronouns were not removed after the 5 days, then administrators would meet and make a decision whether I would be suspended (with or without pay) and/or immediately terminated.” The policy is billed by the board as a simple branding and communications policy. It came only months after Republican Gov. Kristi Noem sent a letter to the regents that railed against “liberal ideologies” on college campuses and called for the board to ban drag shows on campus and “remove all references to preferred pronouns in school materials,” among other things.

All nine voting members of the board were appointed by Noem, whose remarks in March accusing tribal leaders of benefitting from illegal drug cartels and not properly caring for children has prompted most South Dakota tribes to ban her from their land. South Dakota’s change comes in the midst of a conservative quest to limit diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives gaining momentum in state capitals and college governing boards around the country, with about one-third of the states taking some sort of action against it. Policies targeting gender pronoun use have focused mainly on K-12 students, although some small religious colleges have also restricted pronoun use. Houghton University in western New York fired two dorm directors last year after they refused to remove gender pronouns from their work email signatures.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) and her appointed state Board of Regents enacted a extreme prejudicial policy that is anti-freedom of speech by barring employees from using pronouns and tribal affiliations in email signatures.

This is a naked act of hate and erasure against indigenous peoples and the LGBTQ+ community in The Mount Rushmore State.

[rmstitanics]

* GENERAL OBSERVATIONS, PART FOUR.

ASTEROIDS

Determine the sign, planetary ruler, and the house that ASTEROID SHAKESPEARE (2985) is in to figure out which genres of Shakespeare plays you might enjoy the most!

╰► Example: My own Shakespeare asteroid is in 5H Pisces, and Pisces is ruled by Neptune. The 5th house is associated with romance, while Neptune governs illusions, mysticism, secrets, prophets, and deceptive idealism. So I would probably enjoy his romances and comedies such as Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

In my natal chart, ASTEROID WASHINGTONIA (886) CONJUNCTS SUN. This asteroid was named after George Washington, and the Sun represents our Ego + Core Identity. Guess whose first ever fixation as a historian was the American Revolution? ✨Me✨.

Look for ASTEROID KLIO (84) in your chart to determine what types of history you should study! For example, I have 11H Klio in Virgo, which is ruled by Mercury. So this means that when it comes to history, I might be drawn to studying the friendship dynamics that existed between historical figures (shoutout to Abraham Lincoln and William Henry Seward as well as Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman my BELOVEDS) as well as public discourses and social movements of a given time period.

PLANETS

9H VENUS placements might be more comfortable with befriending strangers on the internet + having online relationships than they are with developing their in-person connections.

While working on my Famous Individuals With Your Moon Sign post, I noticed that a LOT of authors have ARIES MOONS. This absolutely checks out because Aries Moons tend to be assertive individuals who become pioneers in their fields of interest, which many of these authors were.

If you have difficulty relating to your SUN SIGN or BIG THREE placements, check the aspects in your chart and spend some time researching them! HARD ASPECTS to your personal planets may be the culprits responsible for this.

VENUS rules over the 5H of creativity, so check the house that your Venus placement is in to determine your most prominent sources of creative exploration!

╰► Example: Taylor Swift has Aquarius Venus in the 1H. Her music is often inspired by 1H themes of exploring her core identity, and it is known to have Aquarian undertones of progressivism and rebelliousness. When I saw this placement in her chart, I immediately thought of her songs “The Man” and “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”.

╰► Example: William Shakespeare had Gemini Venus in the 12H. His works are widely known for their explorations of hidden enemies, endings, spirituality, mental health, and loss — and with his Venus being in Gemini, it’s clear that he had a lot to say about these topics.

Because the MOON rules over the 4H of home and roots, the house that your moon sign is in can show you where you might feel most at home. For example, I have my moon in the 9th house of higher education, and I’ve always felt the most at home in academic settings.

12H JUPITER placements might do well pursuing an occult career field, such as becoming a professional astrologer, tarot reader, palm reader, or even a past life regression hypnotist.

Going through a period of writer’s or artist’s block? Check to see if your TRANSIT SATURN is in the 5H or if Transit Saturn is aspecting the 5H!

TRANSIT MARS in the 9H is a time of yearning for academic recognition and success. If you have this placement and are currently a student, take advantage of opportunities for class participation, extra credit, study abroad, and extracurricular activities!

ASPECTS

MIDHEAVEN OPPOSITION URANUS natives loathe adhering to social norms and are prone to having unpopular opinions that, if expressed, would drastically alter their social status.

MOON OPPOSITION MARS can indicate strong willed and incredibly assertive personality types that, if caution is not taken, may be viewed by others as “bossy”. They’re the type of folks who like to take the reins and lead the group during a group project.

SUN CONJUNCT URANUS people strike me as the type who enjoys researching conspiracy theories, especially if their Sun sign is Scorpio or Gemini.

MERCURY-URANUS as well as MERCURY-VENUS are the types of people who could be uniquely prone to social media / screen time addiction.

VENUS TRINE SATURN natives are sensitive to rejection, and when rejected, might carry it as a deep wound for a long time.

MERCURY CONJUNCT PLUTO individuals have the potential to be excellent speechwriters, poets, songwriters, and journalists.

[cordycepsfem]

Let's talk about this article:

... because I read the study, and I have some questions.

This article breathlessly states that trans and gender non-conforming teenagers are attempting suicide by up to 72% more, potentially based on laws their states are passing.

... but also as low as 7% more. So no, there is no massive wave of individuals committing or attempting suicide everywhere. There is no trans "genocide."

The survey run by the study did have participants ages 13-24, and found those participants through social media ads. They had more than 5,000 respondents from California and less than 180 from Wyoming, just as an idea of the sample.

The study admits that "no work has been able to identify casual mechanisms between state-level anti-transgender laws and the mental health of the TGNB (transgender/non-binary) community" and "no research has specifically identified a casual link between anti-transgender laws and increased suicide risk" but then boy does it go on and try.

It also fully admits that TGNB teenagers "are already at risk for mental health concerns," which the study believes is due to "minority stress" (stress associated with being the negative impacts of being part of a minority) or potentially because they feel "unimportant and disconnected" (who doesn't, as a teenager?) but which, in my opinion, is more likely because everyone keeps telling them they're going to commit suicide.

Let's talk about these laws that are apparently causing "trans children" not to exist. There have been laws to limit access to cross-sex hormones, dangerous off-label cancer drugs, and permanent life-changing surgery on minors (considering these drugs have a wide range of side effects like slowed intellectual and emotional development, osteoporosis, vaginal atrophy, permanent infertility, and never being able to orgasm, and the surgeries are designed to remove healthy body parts, this seems positive); keeping bathrooms segregated by sex (considering that girls face higher levels of abuse in mixed-sex restrooms and changing rooms, this also seems positive); and keeping sports sex-segregated as well (considering that male and female athletes have different strengths and body types, this seems like it would increase fairness for both groups, and so seems positive to me too).

Now let's talk about people who are actually committing suicide, not just using it for emotional abuse:

The Jed Foundation, which works to increase mental health support on high school and college campuses, says that almost 14% of young adults and 22% of high school students have seriously considered suicide in the past year; 10% of high school students attempted suicide in the past year. The groups with the highest rates of both consideration and attempts are females, Native Americans, and lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals.

The CDC tells us that teenagers in rural communities who face isolation, Black teenagers, and "LGBT" teenagers have the highest rates of suicide deaths. Alaska (which has, notably, no anti-trans laws on the books) has the highest rate of suicide deaths (roughly 40 in 100,000), and it's noted that pockets of suicide spring up in groups like Native Americans, Mormons, and evangelical Christians. The places with the lowest suicide rate for teens are urban areas and big cities, whereas those in isolated areas with higher access to firearms and illegal drugs or alcohol see higher rates.

The rate of teen suicides is the lower than the general suicide rate of the entire US. Elderly people have the highest rate of suicide. But yet all that's talked about is the rate of specifically trans kids killing themselves because they couldn't get "gender-affirming" health care, or play on a sports team, or go into the opposite sex's bathroom. The media has decided to push this angle, and almost everyone has eaten it up. Obviously they're the most affected by everything.

I am tired of this narrative. Teenagers and kids deserve better.

[uwmarchives]

Native American Heritage Month at UWM Archives

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, we offer this selection of materials from our collections that begin to illustrate Native American presence and power at UWM.

📸: Sandra Harris Tran tables for the Native American Student Movement (NASM) at UWM, circa 1980. The NASM has been a key vehicle for Native student organizing, support, and expression since the late 1960s. NASM is now known as the American Indian Student Association. Call Number: UWM Photographs Collection, UWM AC 6, Box 18.

📸: A Milwaukee Sentinel clipping pictures American Indian students organizing for a dedicated academic program outside Chapman Hall in 1971. Call Number: UWM University Communications & Media Relations Records, UWM AC 134, Box 2.

📸: The cover to a 1974 catalog shows the fruits of Native student organizing in the form of the UWM Native American Studies Program (now American Indian Studies). Call Number: UWM Office of the Chancellor Records, UWM AC 46, Box 54.

📸: The UWM Native American Studies Program announces the pilot of the Wisconsin Native American Languages Project (WNALP) in 1974. This announcement is from "Anishinaabe News: UW-Milwaukee American Indian News," a newsletter of the Native American Studies Program and NASM. Call Number: UWM Office of the Chancellor Records, UWM AC 46, Box 54.

📸: Margaret Richmond offers language instruction to a class of Native "youngsters" as a Menominee Language Resource Consultant for the WNALP in 1976. Call Number: UWM Photographs Collection, UWM AC 6, Box 18. The earlier Native American Studies Program WNALP announcement anticipates an appropriate caption: "We've a lot to learn from our elders!"

In cooperation with the Great Lakes Intertribal Council, UWM Archives stewards the Wisconsin Native American Languages Project Records, 1973-1976 (UWM Mss 20). With extensive instructional materials from the WNALP, the collection continues to serve as an important resource for the study and revitalization of Wisconsin's Native languages for citizens of Wisconsin's Ojibwe, Menominee, Oneida, Potawatomi, and Ho-Chunk nations.

- Eli

[feminist-space]

"At a small-town candidate forum this week, a North Idaho Republican senator left the event early after making a disparaging remark about the Native American heritage of a Democratic candidate, people in attendance said.

Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Viola, was one of six House and Senate candidates for District 6 who attended a moderated forum in Kendrick, a town southeast of Moscow.

Roughly an hour into the discussion, candidates were asked whether they thought there was discrimination in the state. Rep. Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow, answered first, saying he thought there wasn’t any discrimination in Idaho, according to Julia Parker, Foreman’s Democratic opponent.

After Mitchell spoke, Trish Carter-Goodheart, a Democratic House candidate who is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe, responded that she thought racism and discrimination were real problems in the state, and referenced the history of white supremacist enclaves in North Idaho, according to a statement she released after the forum.

After she spoke, Foreman stood up and began to yell, saying: “I’m so sick and tired of this liberal bulls---! Why don’t you go back to where you came from?” according to Carter-Goodheart’s statement.

The Idaho Statesman was unable to obtain a recording of Tuesday’s forum. Two of the event’s organizers, Parker and Kendrick Mayor Rose Norris, corroborated Carter-Goodheart’s account via phone. Carter-Goodheart is from Lapwai, on the Nez Perce Reservation. Indigenous Nez Perce people have lived in Central Idaho and the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years. “Racist comments like this one that were directed at me have no place in our community,” Carter-Goodheart told the Statesman. “Intolerance is unacceptable.”

“This is our land,” she added. “We’re never planning on leaving; this is where our ancestors are buried.” Parker, Foreman’s opponent, told the Statesman that after he left early, the remaining candidates finished their discussion of discrimination, presented their closing statements and ended the forum.

Earlier in the evening, after Parker had criticized Foreman’s record as a senator, she said he told her she’d “better not” do it again. Asking if he meant to threaten her, she said he replied: “You heard me.”

“He was clearly already agitated and making these kinds of aggressive statements,” she told the Statesman, noting that there was another candidate forum on Wednesday night that she reluctantly went to after the experience on Tuesday. “It really hurts democracy when somebody is threatening” at a political discussion, she said.

Norris, the Kendrick mayor, said she hopes future forums will be more civil. “People should be able to have differences and come together at a table or in a room and not have to fear that their opinions or their thoughts are going to be belittled,” she told the Statesman.

Foreman did not respond to a request for comment, but said he had been “race-baited” in a Thursday post on Facebook. In his post, Foreman called abortion “murder,” gender-affirming care for transgender people “sick and demonically influenced,” and homosexuality an “abomination.”

“Does the democrat party challenge the Word of God?” Foreman wrote. “Yes, every person in our state and nation has equal rights under the constitution. That is a good thing. But there are no designer or special rights associated with one’s sexual behavior — sorry democrats and other lefties.”

In his eight years in the Legislature, Foreman has become known for outbursts of anger. In 2018, he yelled at a group of University of Idaho students seeking to meet with him to discuss birth control and sex education, according to previous Statesman reporting. He refused to meet with the students. A few months earlier, Foreman was caught on camera yelling at a man while at the Latah County Fair, telling him to “go straight to hell,” according to previous reporting.

Born in Illinois, Foreman is a retired Moscow police officer."

Read more at: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article293444224.html

[randomfoggytiger]

Fail Better Premium: David's Thoughts (Part X)

Creating a breadcrumb trail with David Duchovny's personal growth.

David: "You said you are ambitious-- um, or, you had ambition. I wonder, I wonder what your ambitions are; and in what fields, in what realms. And how you... how you feel-- 'unfulfilled' is the wrong word, because you seem very grateful and fulfilled in many ways. But, um, with the work you've been able to do. But what is, what is still... what would put you in that 18 year old head space again, that would make you go, 'Ah. I'm challenged all anew. This is a new ambition, this is a place I want to get to, this is a world I want to create.' I mean, not specific project; but, y'know."

Fred: "Doing something immersed in another language where it isn't a gimmick. Where I could, like, disappear into-- something in another language. Disappear into something: American sign language; something in German; something that like... in the way that, like, a lot of pop culture is like, has been changing for so long. Y'know-- like I know Squid Game has already, like, y'know--"

David: "Yeah."

Fred: "--it's been years. But the idea that something in Korean is a huge hit is endlessly fascinating to me. I love that. That, like, now we can... we longer have to take for granted that something has to be in English, y'know."

David: "It's interesting to think back on your roots and on the way you described, y'know, yourself as a child. And, uh. And, and your desire to go to England-- whatever England meant, to be 'English.' It's a very, it's very interesting to me that... that's, that's the ambition-- you want to disappear. It's very interesting that you want to disappear. You know, Samuel Beckett's a writer that I wrote a lot about when I was a student. And he was obviously Irish-- born in Ireland, spoke English-- but he was fluent in French; and he ended up writing in French, and then translating himself into his native tongue English. And he would say he wrote in French because the words were cleaner. They didn't have all the associations from his childhood. Y'know, the words, the words that he grew up with-- I remember my mom saying that, my dad, whatever-- those were all fraught with, with ghosts and echoes and meanings. And French was not. French was something he learned; it was clean. And he felt he could write-- and it just put me in mind of what you were saying, in a way: it's like you could really disappear if you could do something in another language, or through another culture."

(Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV: 1/3, Part IV: 2/3, Part IV: 3/3, Part V: 1/3, Part V: 2/3, Part V: 3/3, Part VI: 1/2, Part VI: 2/2, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX)

[bywandandsword]

I have had such a socially good few days?

Chatted with a lady at the thrift store and it wasn't awkward

Went to a ghost story reading at the library

Had a really good discussion class in history

Actually got into costume for Halloween and went to the Bird Club party

Got offered an officer job for bird club for next semester because "I think you'd be really good at it"

Got complemented on my costume a lot

Ran a table at a Dia de los Muertos event hosted by the museum and showed a bunch of kids how to make ojo de Dios

Helped clean up after and had non-awkward chats with the other volunteers throughout

One girl said we should hang out later

Went to the Wabanaki flag raising to celebrate Indigenous history month with our decolonization group

Swapped Halloween pictures with another girl in the group and talked about vampires

Met with a guy from history class and when I told him I celebrated Samhain, offered to connect me with another pagan he knows

In the same conversation we talked with a girl who's Mi'kmaq who's trying to get the campus Native American Student Association back up and running, and when I told her about our decolonization group, we both thought it would be a good idea to join forces

Swapped contacts with, like, five people

Like, in the past, when I went out to things like this, it was by myself or hardly anyone would talk with me longer than a quick "hi". I don't know what I did to deserve so many nice things happening, but yeah! I hope it keeps up!

[eretzyisrael]

by Aaron Subarium and Jessica Costescu

The deans at the center of the Columbia University texting scandal scoffed that Jewish students concerned about the eruption of anti-Semitism on campus are "coming from a place of privilege" and suggested those students have more institutional support than their peers because of their supposed wealth, according to new messages reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

The messages, obtained by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and released on Tuesday, show that three of the deans—Susan Chang-Kim, Matthew Patashnick, and Cristen Kromm—engaged in a more extensive pattern of disparagement than has been previously reported and shed new light on how Columbia officials reacted in real-time to a panel on anti-Semitism held during the university’s alumni weekend.

"I’m going to throw up," Chang-Kim, Columbia’s vice dean and chief administrative officer, wrote to her colleagues roughly an hour into the panel. The text's timing aligns with remarks from an audience member and daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Orly Mishan, who described how her own daughter, a Columbia sophomore, "was hiding in plain sight" on campus after the Oct. 7 attacks.

"Amazing what $$$$ can do," replied Kromm, the dean of undergraduate student life.

The new messages suggest that the administrators, who were placed on leave pending a university investigation after a Free Beacon report revealed snippets of their text exchanges, see concerns about anti-Semitism as manifestations of entitlement.

"They will have their own dorm soon," Patashnick, the associate dean for student and family support, said of Jewish students, after the head of Columbia Hillel, Brian Cohen, said that many Jews felt more comfortable spending time at the Kraft Center he runs than in their own dormitories following the Oct. 7 attacks.

"Comes from such a place of privilege," Chang-Kim wrote two minutes later. "Trying to be open minded to understand but the doors are closing."

The deans also ridiculed Cohen’s efforts to provide support services, including psychological counseling, to Jewish and Israeli students following Oct. 7, implying that they were receiving special treatment denied to other groups.

"Not all heroes wear capes," Patashnick texted sarcastically. "If only every identity community had these resources and support," Kromm replied.

In 2024, Columbia hosted separate graduation events for black, Asian, Native American, LGBT, and "Latinx" students. Jews were one of the only minority groups not to host a ceremony of their own.

The release of the texts comes as Columbia faces renewed pressure to take action over the ordeal. A petition put forth on Tuesday by Columbia alumni, students, and community members calls on the Ivy League institution to remove Sorett, Chang-Kim, Patashnick, and Kromm "from their positions immediately."

"All four of the deans implicated must be held accountable and terminated. This incident exposes a profound issue at Columbia that cannot be dismissed," the petition reads. "Failure to address this quickly can only be interpreted as a lack of seriousness and urgency in dealing with campus antisemitism within Columbia’s administration. Columbia University must deliver an immediate and unambiguous message that antisemitism will not be tolerated."

Sorett, Chang-Kim, Kromm, and Patashnick did not respond to requests for comment. A Columbia spokeswoman pointed the Free Beacon to a June 12 statement saying the school is "committed to combatting antisemitism and taking sustained, concrete action to ensure Columbia is a campus where Jewish students and everyone in our community feels safe, valued, and able to thrive."

Other text messages obtained by the Free Beacon from the same panel show the four deans dismissing claims of anti-Semitism.

At one point during the panel, Chang-Kim texted Sorett to say the panel "is difficult to listen to but I’m trying to keep an open mind to learn about this point of view." Sorett responded, "Yup."

Kromm, meanwhile, used vomit emojis—"🤢🤮"—to reference an op-ed from Columbia campus rabbi Yonah Hain that raised concerns about the "normalization of Hamas" on campus.

After the release of those messages, Sorett issued a private apology to Columbia's Board of Visitors, saying the texts did not "indicate the views of any individual or the team." He later informed his colleagues that Chang-Kim, Patashnick, and Kromm had been placed on leave. Sorett was not included in the disciplinary move, and a Columbia spokesman declined to say why.

Shortly thereafter, on June 21, the Free Beacon obtained a photo of another text sent during the panel that showed Sorett sneering at Cohen. After Chang-Kim sent Sorett a sarcastic text calling Cohen "our hero," Sorett responded, "LMAO."

On the same day, Sorett broke his silence on his involvement in the scandal in an email to the Board of Visitors. "I deeply regret my role in these text exchanges and the impact they have had on our community," he wrote. "I am cooperating fully with the University's investigation of these matters. I am committed to learning from this situation and to the work of confronting antisemitism, discrimination, and hate at Columbia."

Sorett sent that message after calling the cops on a Free Beacon reporter who knocked on his apartment door to ask him about his involvement in the texts. While Sorett never came to the door or asked the Free Beacon to leave, when the Free Beacon left the building, several New York City police and campus security officers were outside. A Columbia security official said Sorett "raised a whole big issue."

The new texts obtained by the committee, meanwhile, show Kromm and Chang echoed an assessment from Patashnick that Cohen took "full advantage of this moment" for its "huge fundraising potential."

Those texts were sent around the time Cohen cited a visit to Columbia's campus from prominent Israeli politician and human rights activist Natan Sharansky.

"Who was the speaker he mentioned?" Kromm asked. "Natan Sharansky," Patshnick responded before sending a link to Sharansky's Wikipedia page.

[exololyunho]

Hello to the 2 people who might actually remember me! I'm tentatively back. I want to get into writing again but boy have I had a year.

Some of you know, but around this time last year I lost my little brother and my life has definitely been full of ups and downs. I got diagnosed with depression and have been figuring out medication, I got a boyfriend, I've gotten a lot of grief from some girls in my sorority for something I did not do, I became president of my schools Native American student association, I got a lizard, and I changed my major.

I'm trying and I'm not going to promise a fic any time soon, but I'm planning on making a return soon

Peace and love

[beardedmrbean]

A White history teacher accused a California teachers union of discriminating against him on the basis of his skin color and called the move "disgusting."

Isaac Newman, a teacher in the Elk Grove School District, on Friday filed a federal lawsuit against his local National Education Association affiliate for allegedly violating his Title VII civil rights. The suit alleged that the Elk Grove Education Association formed a seat on its executive board that was only available to candidates of color, meaning Newman wasn't eligible.

"It's disgusting, and that's why I'm suing," he told Fox News Digital in an interview.

"My union barred me from a leadership position simply because of the color of my skin," he said, discussing the suit. "I'm prohibited from running for a leadership position simply because of my race. This kind of racial litmus test is illegal, and it's un-American, and that's why I'm taking them to court." 

In 2023, Elk Grove Education Association officials voted to create a "BIPOC At-Large" seat on its executive board, a position limited only to people who "self-identify" as "African American (Black), Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawai’ian, Pacific Islander, Latino (including Puerto Rican), Asian, Arab, and Middle Eastern," according to the suit. 

"Plaintiff Isaac Newman is a white [EGEA] member who wants to run for union office to address the District’s recent adoption of what he believes to be aggressive and unnecessary Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) policies," reads the lawsuit, filed by The Fairness Center, a legal group focused on representing "those hurt by public-sector union officials."

The suit asked the court to "declare the BIPOC Position unlawful" and prevent the union "from creating any similar positions in the future where candidate eligibility is, in whole or in part, based on race." 

Newman said the alleged discrimination was "frightening," as was the prevalence of critical race theory in society's culture. 

"I'm actually really frightened for my children," he said, "when we look to a future where people are being taught [critical race theory]."

Newman believes that DEI ideology pushes hostile messages that focus on a person's skin color as opposed to their expertise and knowledge.

"The message there is that as a White teacher in a district that is very diverse, my students can't learn from me," he said. "It's abhorrent, and it's flatly wrong."

Newman told Fox News Digital that after disagreeing with the union pushing "aggressive" DEI agendas in the district, he decided to run for an executive seat to challenge the status quo. 

"I'm looking to see my district and union back away from this fantastically toxic ideology, back away from DEI and embrace merit and individuality," he said. "I'm hoping to see that other teachers, other people in similar organizations, will stand up." 

Newman said he was not alone in his opposition to DEI in school districts. 

"Most people who think like me are unwilling to speak up," he said. "There are a lot of teachers [who are silent], and it's not really a conservative or liberal thing."

"There are a lot of teachers who recognize that meritocracy, colorblindness are at the core of good teaching," Newman added. "What's shocking is in these DEI trainings, they actually call out colorblindness and meritocracy as racist myths. And of course, if you're dedicated to that, well, then you're going to have division, and you're going to have mediocrity." 

Fox News Digital reached out to the Elk Grove union for comment. 

"Teachers’ unions don’t get a pass from laws that prohibit racial discrimination," said Fairness Center President and general counsel Nathan McGrath. "The Civil Rights Act explicitly forbids unions from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin and from segregating members based on these attributes." 

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Memory

Memory - a single term that reflects a number of different abilities: holding information briefly while working with it (working memory), remembering episodes of one’s life and our general knowledge of facts of the world among other types.

Memory involves 3 processes:

Encoding information – attending to information and relating it to past learning

Storing – maintaining information over time

Retrieving – accessing the information when you need it

The information processing model of memory is a useful way to represent how information from the world is integrated with the knowledge networks of information that already exist in our minds.

Sensory Memory 

The part of the memory system in which information is translated from physical energy into neural signals.

This is part of the encoding process.

We receive information from our environment and we must perceive it and attend to it before it can move to our working memory.

Short-Term Memory (working memory)

The part of the memory system in which information can be temporarily stored in the present state of awareness.

This type of memory is limited to 7 items of capacity and 7 to 30 seconds of duration on average.

Long-Term Memory 

The part of the memory system in which information can be permanently stored for an extended period of time.

It has a large to unlimited capacity and a duration that may last from minutes to a lifetime.

Semantic Memory 

The type of long-term memory about general facts, ideas, or concepts that are not associated with emotions and personal experience.

Episodic Memory 

A type of long-term memory about events taking place at a specific time and place in a person’s life.

This memory is contextualized (i.e., where, who, when, why) in relation to events and what they mean emotionally to an individual.

MEMORY FAILURES

Can occur at any stage, leading to forgetting or to having false memories.

The key to improving one’s memory is to improve processes of encoding and to use techniques that guarantee effective retrieval.

Good encoding techniques include:

relating new information to what one already knows,

forming mental images, and

creating associations among information that needs to be remembered.

The key to good retrieval is developing effective cues that will lead the person back to the encoded information.

Classic mnemonic systems can greatly improve one’s memory abilities.

MEMORY & CULTURE

Many of our memories are personal and unique to us but cultural psychologists and researchers have found that the average age of first memories varies up to two years between different cultures.

Researchers believe that enculturation and cultural values influence childhood memories.

Example: The way parents and other adults discuss, or don’t discuss, the events in children’s lives influences the way the children will later remember those events.

Mullen (1994) found that Asian and Asian-American undergraduates’ memories, on average, happened six months later than the Caucasian students’ memories.

These results were repeated in a sample of native Korean participants, only this time the differences were even larger.

The difference between Caucasian participants and native Korean participants was almost 16 months.

Hayne (2000) also found that Asian adults’ first memories were later than Caucasians’ but Maori adults’ (native population from New Zealand) memories reached even further back to around age three.

These results do not mean that Caucasians or Maoris have better memories than Asians but rather people have the types of memories that they need to get along well in the world they inhabit – memories exist within cultural context.

Example: Maori culture is focused on personal history and stories to a greater degree than American culture and Asian culture.

Individualistic & Collectivist Cultures

Differences in memory could also be explained by the values of individualistic and collectivist cultures.

Individualistic cultures tend to be independently oriented with an emphasis on standing out and being unique.

Interpersonal harmony and making the group work is the emphasis of collectivist cultures and the way in which people connect to each other is less often through sharing memories of personal events.

In some cultures, personal memory isn’t nearly as important as it is to people from individualistic cultures.

Source ⚜ Writing Notes & References

[hedgewitchgarden]

On a crisp afternoon last spring, visiting student Yair Berzofsky found himself in the largest park in Prague captivated by the sight of a human effigy burning on a tall pyre. He took notice of the children in play armor who ran past him wearing giant purple hats and jousted with foam swords as adults drank, danced, and beat drums. The figure in the bonfire was part of this year’s Čarodějnice, a celebratory burning of winter witches. Berzofsky watched the woman’s frame crumple as celebrants took turns roasting sausages and marshmallows over the fiery branches.

“The witch burning was not the reason everyone came,” he later tells us, adding that the event was a testament to Prague’s “ability to not just rehash an old tradition, but to turn it into a reason to celebrate its heritage.”

At the end of each winter, Czechs and diasporic Slavs celebrate Čarodějnice, a variation of the ancestral Walpurgis Night—the Christian Saint Walpurga’s feast day, during which observers light bonfires to ward off witches in Europe and the United States. While some see a witch-burning parties as distasteful, as it recalls a dark history of persecution and murder, Čarodějnice harks back to similar pre-Christian traditions. Berzofsky fondly recalls the event’s warm and charming energy: “In a weird way, I felt at home.”

The witch burning evokes customs associated with Slavic gods and goddesses. As author Michael Mojhe describes in his writings, some deities in the Slavic pantheons lived on through equivalent Christian saints, but others were abandoned. Two critical examples are Jarilo, god of war, vegetation, and spring, and his oppositely aligned sister Morana, goddess of witchcraft,  death, and winter.

While Slovakians reimagined Jarilo as St. George during Christianity’s spread across Europe in the late 900s, Morana was not. This was partially due to the Catholic Church’s patriarchy but also because she lacked a counterpart in a Christian tradition vehemently opposed to witchcraft and a female god. The burning or even drowning of her effigy, much like the one Berzofsky witnessed, is a Pagan tradition both celebrating winter’s end and ritually recognizing her cultural death.

Like the continued celebration of Čarodějnice, this story follows those of Slavic descent reclaiming an ancient faith tradition—namely, witchcraft—that endured centuries of erasure from Christian institutions. Both of us, authors Emma Cieslik and Alexandra Sikorski, are from Polish American families and grew up in the Catholic Church. It wasn’t until Sikorski began researching contemporary Paganism that we learned of Slavic religious practices prior to the sweep of Christianity in Europe. Researching the contemporary reclamation of Slavic witchcraft as an aspect of cultural identity—especially when invasion and destruction threaten that culture, as in Ukraine now—has become for us a way to reclaim parts of our heritage we never knew existed.

The term Slavic, or the culture of Slavs, encompasses an ethnolinguistic group of multiple ethnicities and cultures that share similarities in food, language, and cultural practices across Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe. The Slavic world extends from Russia in the east to Czechia in the west to North Macedonia in the south. Beyond these countries are Slavic immigrants and their descendants, including both of us, who exist in diasporic communities around the world.

“In Slavic Paganism, there are broad practices, but there are also some specific to the regions within each country,” Stephania Short, a Slavic Pagan, explains. These specific practices are often what come under threat. Invaders have fought over and died for rich farmlands of what is now Ukraine for hundreds if not thousands of years, making Russia’s recent attack on its sovereignty feel like a continuation of centuries-old conflict. It may come as no surprise that a long history of Slavic immigration, religion, and war shaped various Slavic practices and traditions. For Short, part of her witchcraft involves connecting with her Ukrainian ancestral roots—an act made all the more essential by recent events.

“People are looking for ancient meaning,” says Slovakian tour guide Helene Cincebaux. “I think there’s a fascination with Slavic culture, the rituals—maybe the plants, the herbs, things they did. They were natural healers.”

Witchcraft and Paganism existed in Slavic regions long before Christianity found a home. Even when witchcraft faced persecution, its traditions persisted, reimagined within the constraints of the new dominant religion.

In the UK, the 1950s emergence of Wicca, a nature-based, Pagan duotheistic religion, led to the repopularizing of witchcraft and other alternative belief systems. In the same way that native religions varied across Slavic areas, the term “witchcraft” does not refer to a singular identity. “Witches,” including those who do not use this term but exist under the umbrella of witchcraft, participate in a variety of practices and hold diverse spiritual beliefs. These include contemporary Paganism, folk Catholicism, and Wicca.

Where one person uses tarot, another may not. Where one person views hexes as inherently unethical, another may not. Where one person venerates deities, another may not or may only venerate one. Despite this diversity of practice, some people avoid using the term “witch” because it was and may still be used as a derogatory label for people holding spiritual power outside Christianity, as well as those who exist outside social norms.

In Eurocentric and Americentric beliefs, the prototype for a witch is a woman or femme presenting person who is targeted because of their practices. during the second wave of feminism, some women turned to witchcraft as liberation from the patriarchy, finding empowerment in venerating goddesses. Together, they could create a community through common practices in witchcraft, such as yearly festivals that mark the passage of time. According to a survey conducted by researcher Helen A. Berger between 2008 and 2010, 71.6 percent of contemporary Pagans, including various religions and witchcraft, are women. The faith has also become a safe haven for some LGBTQ+ individuals.

Ever since Christianity spread to Slavic Europe in the 900s, people who existed on the margins of society were accused or and persecuted for witchcraft, including literate women and individuals with limb differences and disabilities. It became a scapegoat identifier for people the Church deemed dangerous or different. Similarly, queer researcher Mara Gold explains, “those accused of witchcraft were generally those that didn’t fit the norms of the gender binary, including [LGTBQ+] people and poor older women discarded by society.”

Polish photographer Agata Kalinowska’s monograph Yaga supports and holds space for LGBTQ+ individuals within witchcraft. The diary, which includes photographs documenting thirteen years of queer women’s spaces, takes its name from Baba Yaga, a ferocious witch from Slavic folklore. For Kalinowska, this title is important because it speaks to how Baba Yaga creates space for queer witches:

Now there are women in Poland who empower such figures of older independent women… women who know a lot about nature, power of plants, the importance of female and nonbinary friendships. They are Yagas, they don’t belong to the world created around beauty myths, they queer the system.

Witches of the Church

“A lot of witchcraft is heavily intertwined with Christianity,” explains Sara Raztresen, a Slovenian American witch. Although Christianity sought to erase native religions, many Pagan traditions became embedded in Christian practice. Converts tethered Pagan deities to saints with similar iconography.

After the Catholic Church arrived in Slovenia, locals began to identify Kresnik, the god of the sun, fire, and storms, with St. John and St. George. So Kresnik, the head deity of the Slovenian pantheon, is no longer as prevalent as the saints who inherited his role. Kresnik, St. John, and St. George are among the entities with whom Raztresen actively communicates.

On those days, she sets her altar with offerings associated with the deity with whom she intends to speak. For Kresnik, this includes herbs and flowers related to his role as patron of summer, such as chamomile and daisies. When the deity makes their presence known, Raztresen asks questions that are answered through the tarot cards she pulls, acting as a conduit between the two.

One of these practices is “kitchen witchcraft,” a broad practice that encourages intention and focus, using many on-hand food ingredients with magic and symbolic meaning. For kitchen witch Raztresen and others, their practices often involve using ingredients key to their ethnic backgrounds, such as meats, grains, spices, and more that are native to their ancestral homelands. Kitchen witchcraft and other ethnic household rituals allow people like Raztresen to connect with their heritage even if they live far away.

However, the intermingling of Christianity and witchcraft among Slavs doesn’t erase the stigma the Catholic Church perpetuates against witchcraft. Today many Slavic witches practice their craft as a form of opposition against religious institutions. Raztresen says, “[Church goers] all want you to do the white button-up collar thing in Church,” but there’s a great diversity of Christian practices that include elements of witchcraft and folk traditions.

Similar to experiences across the world, the Church inquisitors in Slavic regions interrogated, tortured, and executed a number of witches. Scholar Michael Ostling states in early modern Poland, the Catholic Church executed approximately 2,000 people for witchcraft, most from the lower socioeconomic classes. The best documented example of this persecution is perhaps the 1775 Doruchów witch trial in Poland, where the Church executed fourteen women, although historians have debated the year and number of victims.

Immediately, marginalized people and their loved ones, as well as other concerned citizens across Eastern and Central Europe started questioning these claims of witchcraft. It wasn’t until 1776 that Poland outlawed torture and the death penalty—partly in response to the Doruchów witch trial. Today, more than two centuries later, people like Raztresen are exploring how their own ethnic traditions are rooted in pre-Christian pagan and witchcraft practices. They are reclaiming how practices persecuted on threat of torture and death lived on through cooking, praying, and sewing traditions.

The Strength of Color

Stephania Short was introduced to spiritualism at the age of thirteen after watching her mom pull tarot. By ninth grade, she “didn’t necessarily believe in God,” and as the years went by, she grew more connected to her Ukrainian roots. She reached out to family members and went to her mom to learn more about Ukrainian cultural traditions and spiritual beliefs. Like Raztresen, Short practices her witchcraft to celebrate her Slavic heritage.

“Paganism kind of allows you to practice with everything that our ancestors would, so everything is based off of the land,” she says. Plants and herbs that are abundant in Ukraine, such as rosemary, are important in her craft.

Like herbs, colors hold meanings in Ukrainian witchcraft traditions. Short explains, “Red is a symbol of strength and protection. Gold symbolizes abundance and prosperity and good luck. Blue symbolizes peace and healing and just kind vibes all around.” With this knowledge, she now intentionally decorates her pysanky, traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs, with these colors to welcome the spring.

Deepening the importance of the color red in Ukrainian witchcraft, poppies represent strength and prosperity. Short aims to incorporate the flower into her spell work and practice “as a form of appreciation for [her] ancestors.” To Short, spells may be made with and for a diverse array of occasions and situations. She defines them as “basically manifestations: energy or intentions that you’re pursuing out for the universe to grasp onto.” Herbs, like rosemary or poppy, and flame may speed up this process. Even the color of the candles may impact the spell. “All elements you use connect to your intentions with the spell, as they carry their own energies.” For Short and many other Slavic witches, the study and practice of Slavic witchcraft involves learning the meanings behind these cultural beliefs.

When winter bleeds into spring, effigies of Morana are drowned or burned just as Berzofsky witnessed, ushering in new life. The Catholic Church banned this practice in the fifteenth century, so the residents of some Slavic countries replaced her with an effigy of Judas. But the custom of burning Morana lived on. Short’s cousin introduced her to Morana. Before, she hadn’t been aware that Slavic Paganism contained so many deities. However, she doesn’t “believe in gods and goddesses necessarily.” Instead, she views it as alluring and something she needs to acknowledge.

Short discusses Slavic and Ukrainian witch practices on social media, from beliefs surrounding native gods and goddesses to the use and meaning of native Ukrainian herbs in spell work. The importance of this has risen in light of the current war. “I’m maybe a little biased, but the Russians’ goal is to eliminate our culture,” she says. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian witch has become a symbol of solidarity for some—recalling the woman of the past who fights for her cultural heritage (her native religion) in the face of erasure and destruction at the hands of the Christian Church.

Images of Ukrainian witches appear on the Ukraine War NFT Collection and among Ukrainian cosplayers around the world, alongside messages showing the strength of Ukrainian people. Madame Pamita, a Ukrainian American witch and author of Baba Yaga’s Book of Witchcraft, explains that during the invasion, traditions and practices have grown more dear, more important to preserve. Ukrainians and other people in Slavic diasporas see the rediscovery of their traditions and practices as a healing tool.

Healing

Emblems of Slavic witchcraft have been interwoven with messages of Ukrainian solidarity, including motanka dolls, 5,000-year-old symbols of feminine wisdom and guards for families within Ukrainian folk traditions. Motanka dolls are talismans unique to each family and symbolize connection between familial generations.

Madame Pamita’s grandmother was a baba sheptukha (баба шептуха), a healer who made motanky (мотанки) spirit dolls, but her grandmother died before she was born. Although she heard about these practices, she never knew how to perform them. Others share a similar experience of unfamiliarity, but a mother-and-daughter team in British Columbia are changing that by creating and selling motanka dolls as a fundraiser for Ukrainian relief.

With attention on agency and the self, Slavic witchcraft encourages healing and identity formation. It focuses on reflection and connection. Even if they aren’t recognized as religious practices, the cornerstones of many Slavic witchcraft traditions can be uncovered in small Ukrainian dolls, Slovenian kitchens, and large celebrations. Ukrainians and their allies are preserving these traditions for solidarity, fundraising, and strength.

The presence of magic may not be obvious, but it is simply a matter of perspective. That perspective may bring people closer to culture they may feel disconnected from in diasporic communities or from being part of a marginalized people. It may bring them their own version of spiritual happiness and cultural enrichment.

Emma Cieslik is a museum professional in the Washington, D.C., area and a former curatorial intern at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

Alexandra Sikorski is a writing intern at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and a master’s student in public anthropology at American University. When she isn’t researching contemporary witchcraft, she enjoys dissecting material culture and design.

[animeraider]

Project 2025 will kill you. Yes, you. Sections 11-15 (of 30)

So I've been reading Project 2025 so you don't have to, and I'm going to report on everything I find that is alarming, which is a lot. Part One can be found here. Part Two can be found here.

Section 11 - Department of Education

"Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated."

That's the first sentence in this whole section. I think that pretty much says it all.

All student loans and grants are to be moved to the private sector. Move education for military families to the Defense Department and for Washington D.C. to Congress. I imagine that also applies to protectorates like Guam and Puerto Rico but the document actually doesn't say.

Put all education funding under State Control. You should really ask a child living in Florida how that's working out. Reject Gender Identity and Racial studies. Eliminate executive orders in education. I remind you that integration was done by executive order.

Transfer all Native American education to the Bureau for Indian Affairs. Transfer all adult education programs to the Department of Labor. Privatize Student Aid.

Move all civil rights enforcement to the Department of Justice. Transfer all civil service employees to other agencies. Eliminate the understanding that Trans people even exist.

Eliminate any privacy regulations used to protect students from any form of abuse. Rescind all regulations in Equity in IDEA.

Eliminate all food programs for students. All of them.

Phase out income-based student loan repayment programs. Rescind all funding for the National Education Association. Consider "Critical Race Theory" to be racism. 

Here's a crazy one that takes paragraphs to unravel: Allow parents of children over the age of 18 to sue to recover any monies spent on their education. Also, allow families to "opt out" of the education system entirely and for those that do give as a tax break the funding that would have been used to educate that child directly to the parents.

Allow states to opt out of any and all federal education programs. Eliminate Parent PLUS loans. 

There is page after page of basically "end anything Obama or Biden did", but eventually it all boils down to that first sentence. Eliminate the Department of Education.

Section 12 - Department of Energy (and related commissions)

You would expect this whole document to be drill baby drill but in fact it starts with the repeal and elimination of the Biden Administration's Infrastructure Act - the single largest jobs creation bill in the last 75 years. That's followed with not only a dependence upon oil and natural gas but a declaration that the U.S. needs to be the best in the world in Science. Great for a country trying to eliminate the Department of Education.

Eliminate the office of Clean Energy, and the office of Grid Deployment. Yep, they don't want the government looking at the power grid. 

Not only increase a reliance ("dominance") in oil and gas but nuclear power as well. 

Lots of paragraphs on focusing on science, which again - see the section on the Department of Education. Lots of contradictions here. Increase the level of private sector disposal of nuclear waste. What could possibly go wrong?

Fund a rebuilding of the country's nuclear arsenal. New warheads and testing. Eliminate Carbon Capture programs and Carbon offsets. Pursue much more coal, including coal waste as fuel. Increase fossil fuels. 

End the government's focus on green energy and renewables. Eliminate efficiency standards for appliances. In fact, they put this paragraph in the document twice on consecutive pages. 

"End Grid planning and focus instead on reliability." I shit you not, that's a whole topic in here. Say goodbye to grid upgrades and hello to more Texas-style outages. They then spend several pages repeating everything I've already told you about. 

Eliminate the Department of Energy's ability to make loans. Eliminate the Advanced Research Projects Agency. Looks like that better battery for your Tesla is going to have to wait.

Eliminate the Clean Energy Corps. Privatize the Energy Information Administration. Stop all funding for "climate reparations" - i.e. paying for the damage caused by oil production in underdeveloped nations.

Drill in Alaska (of course). Claim the Arctic Circle for the same purpose. Take an "America First" approach at the Office of Technology. 

Accelerate cleanup of all "Superfund" sites (except for Hanford in Washington State - which is where the U.S. government has stored Plutonium Waste for many years) with a goal of completing all work by 2035. That sounds good on the surface but in most of these sites there is a reason that it needs to go slow: fast work actually makes the contamination WORSE and spreads it further. Eliminate some regulations specific to the Hanford site.

Get all active Nuclear Waste stored at Yucca Mountain already.

As long as we're talking about nuclear stuff again, let's make more nukes. Abandon the Test Ban Treaty. Divest certain programs at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore to refocus on nuclear energy and weaponry. Several pages are spent rehashing the need to get rid of renewables

Refocus transmission of electrical to the state level. I mean, why can't we all be Texas? Eliminate all questions about oil and gas pipelines to only consider the need for the fuels, not environmental or any other concerns. 

Eliminate the guidance of "as low as reasonably possible" for nuclear exposure when considering renewing the licensing for existing nuclear power plants or building new ones. 

Fuck, this was a nightmare to get through. but guess what's next?

Section 13 - Environmental Protection Agency

This whole section was written by Mandy M. Gunasekara, a former Chief of Staff at the EPA under the Trump Administration who in 2023 was kicked off the ballot in Mississippi when she ran for Public Service Commissioner - because she didn't live there.

Let's start that in the mission statement that it blames the lead poisoning crisis in Flint Michigan on The Obama Administration, which is so obviously incorrect that it boggle belief. It also states that every expansion of the EPA since 1972 is unnecessary.

Eliminate the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. Eliminate the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance. Eliminate the Office of Public Engagement and Environmental Education. "Relocate" the Office of Children’s Health Protection and the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization - although the document does say where to relocate these agencies to.

Review the grants program to ensure that taxpayer funds go to organizations focused on tangible environmental improvements free from political affiliation (there are no such groups). 

This document goes on for more than 30 pages and makes the same faulty assumptions and rewrites historical data so often that it should be considered a work of fiction. But the key thing is unchanged: That everything that the EPA has done in terms of rulings and regulations since 1972 should be repealed.

Where I grew up you could see the air in 1972. It was grey. That's what they want to go back to.

Section 14 - Department of Heath and Human Services

This whole section was written by The Heritage Foundation. In the first two sentences it proclaims the COVID-19 Pandemic as over (which it isn't) and that life expectancy has decreased since the end of the Pandemic - which we do not yet know as the timing is too recent for statistical analysis. It's a lie.

No more abortions. Ever.

Prioritize families over everyone else. By the way, that's "traditional" families. Mother, father, children, church.

Remove the ability to declare emergencies and provide guidelines for outbreaks of diseases that contradict the political agenda of the administration. Move the recommendations of the CDC on how to treat anything into a separate political agency.  The entire document assumes that the CDC is faulty and corrupt, and not that the people using the CDC to make policy are. This is also a lie.

Remove Generic drugs from Medicaid. Make Abortion pills a controlled substance, with the ultimate goal of making them illegal at the same degree as Meth and Cocaine.

Eliminate chickenpox, Hepatitis, and MMR vaccines that originate from studies and science from fetal tissue. That's all of them, by the way. Also, eliminate vaccine mandates of any kind - you know, the type that for a while eliminated chicken pox, small pox, the mumps, measles and so on and could have been used to eliminate COVID. I notice that all of these are on the rise in the US. Even motherfucking POLIO is back.

Eliminate all research that uses science from Fetal Tissue. Eliminate all science funding and research that involves the fluidity of human sexuality. There are men and there are women and they are born that way. Period.

Several paragraphs are about "Woke" policies, and they encourage an end to diversity in conferences and studies.

When it gets to the Medicare section there is paragraph after paragraph about the bureaucracy of Medicare and how much time doctors have to spend on paperwork. This is a common fallacy that has been around for decades - yes, there is paperwork and there is a lot of it, but it's still LESS PAPERWORK THAN REQUIRED BY PRIVATE INSURERS. 

The truth is that bureaucratic waste in Medicaid is about 2%, where in the private industry it varies from 5% to 10%.

Eliminate the ability to negotiate drug prices under Medicare. 

As for Medicaid, paragraph after paragraph is dedicated to the elimination of problems that don't actually exist, plus adding work requirements to eligibility and actually taking away from states the ability to make programs flexible - which seems like an oxymoron until you realize that most waivers for various programs under Medicaid are for Democratic Party controlled states that are allowed to use these funds to treat the LGBTAI+ community and allow for abortion access.

Under the Affordable Care Act there is an awful lot of focus on redesigning medical care into a Concierge Medicine approach, which most people would not be able to afford. The document calls this stronger health care (true) and more affordable (patently false). It would also eliminate all of the cost controls in the system. There is no language saying that they want to eliminate the ACA, but they certainly would render it useless.

Prohibit travel for Abortion care.

Defund Planned Parenthood, which as I like to tell people is NOT a chain of abortion clinics but is a chain of Doctor's Offices with an emphasis on women's care. Withdraw Medicaid funds from any state where abortion is legal.

Deny gender affirming care for anyone with Medicaid or Medicare. Again, men and women are the only two genders and they are determined at birth.

Rescind all COVID-19 Mask and Vaccination guidelines, and pay damages to anyone displaced (i.e. fired) for not following those guidelines.

Institute work requirements for all recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Most of the verbiage about the prevention of teenage pregnancies is to deter things that aren't happening. Adoptions should be funneled through religious organizations. Crazily enough, the document in the same paragraph also acknowledges that there are 4 times more children awaiting adoption than people who want them, although I believe the actual ratio is closer to 7 to 1.

Move the office of Refugee Settlement to the Department of Homeland Security. Looking back at that document, there is no indication that DHS actually wants this.

Allows for parents who do not have custody of their children to receive a child-tax credit anyway. It actually specifically calls out that it wants the ability to allow deadbeat dads to take the tax credit.

Encourage bad marriages to stay together as a requirement of government assistance. Allow faith-based organizations who distribute this aid to discriminate as they see fit. Implement a national campaign that is pro-father propaganda. You know, to keep marriages together. Think of the poor men.

Eliminate Head Start.

Criminalized Physician assisted suicide, which is legal in 10 states according to this document. Remove requirements that telemedicine be local to the patient. I should point out that this would eliminate the ability to recommend hospitalizations, as these doctors wouldn't have admitting privileges where the patients actually are.

Allow hospitals, doctors and physicians to not provide abortion related care of any kind because of religious beliefs, even in states where it is legal and protected.

No more funding for condoms. No more funding for "Morning-after" pills (which they call "the week after pills" in this section). Withdraw all support for gender affirming/transitioning guidance. 

Stop teaching the medical procedures used in abortion care. I repeat, hinder the educational skills of every doctor in America.

The entire section on Indian Health Care (and why can't they ever use the phrase "Native Americans"?) is full of lies and I won't dignify them. 

Sunset all HHS regulations, which Trump tried last time around.

More bullshit about violations of human rights that never happened (mostly involving twitter and Facebook). They don't want the department to push back against lies on social media.

More verbiage that the administration needs to be Pro-Life and anti-Trans care. This is like the fifth or sixth time in this document so far, making it one of the longer ones I've gone through. This is followed by a series of paragraphs that are mostly lies about the COVID Pandemic, complaining about things that never happened.

It's full of lies.

Restrict and/or rescind funding to any country that supports abortion care. Prohibit overseas personnel from providing care that is in contradiction with administration policy. That's right, overseas care is now a political decision.

The entire rest of the document - several pages - is about how the only civil rights violation in health care is that providers of care of certain religions are not allowed to discriminate in their health care decisions, and that such discrimination should be allowed.

To summarize: No abortions, no gender affirming care, no contraceptives, stay in abusive marriages, no good health care for poor people, let churches discriminate, and lie every third sentence (or more often).

Section 15 - Department Housing and Urban Development

Woohoo! This section was written by Dr. Ben Carson! This of course means it's the shortest section in the whole damn thing, clocking in at all of 14 pages, 4 of which are footnotes.

Also, unlike previous chapters, the first 4 pages are only about what the department does who what the department posts and responsibilities are, and has no policy directives save for the basic concept that the department needs an overhaul.

Replace all career officers with political appointees. Issue an executive order making the HUD Secretary a member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S, to counter the Chinese threat that they are buying to much real estate in the U.S. Seems highly reminiscent of the same language used against Japan in the 1980's.

Reverse all protections for LGBTQIA+ persons implemented under the Biden Administration. Reverse all property appraisals done under the Biden Administration, because you know they did them all wrong. Eliminate any programs that have any mention of Climate Change. Eliminate the use of special-purpose credit authorities. Eliminate the new Housing Supply Fund.

Non-citizens, even those households who are comprised of both citizens and non-citizens, are to be denied housing assistance. Anyone with mental issues or drug assistance issues need to be treated before considered for housing. 

"Statutorily restricting eligibility for first-time homebuyers." That's the EXACT wording.

Finally, create an office of CFO for the department, who will do most of the work. Not bad for the laziest cabinet secretary in all history.

14 pages, only 6 of which are policy, all of which is designed to not actually do anything.

Next posting will cover the Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice, Department of Labor, Department of Transportation, and the  Department of Veteran Affairs.

[alder-saan]

The Path of Poisons .2

Manchineel

Larissa x gn! oc

The Path of Poisons masterlist . [01] . [02] . [03] . [04] . [05] . [06] . [07] . [08] . [09]

Warnings : none (maybe an hospital can be triggering)

Words count : ~3.3k

Avareida was waiting in the small café in Jericho. They had promised their friend to meet them there, since they had arrived in the city the day before. They yawned. They were tired from their nightly excursion. They crossed their arms on the table, put their head on it, and tried to fall asleep when a waiter appeared.

"Can I get you anything?

"A double long ristretto espresso with whipped cream, but no cream," they grumbled, raising their head.

"There's no such thing," he answered embarrassed.

"I know. A strong coffee without sugar is fine."

"I'll be right back."

He left, they buried their head in their arms again. The door tinkled as it opened. Small heels clicked on the floor. Avareida recognized them as those of Thalia, their friend and history teacher at Nevermore Academy. They sighed and sat down properly.

"You're late, Thalia."

Thalia was a small, pudgy, laughing black woman. Her mother was descended from native Americans, and her father from black African slaves, and she made a point of showing her students all the horrors the colonists had committed in America. Avareida understood. They were a descendant of the Cree.

Thalia always wore very colourful clothes, probably, Avareida thought, because she wasn't that happy after all, and today was no exception: she had put on a yellow dress with white polka dots and a little pink hat to match her tights. Where did she get all her clothes? It was still a mystery.

"Yes, I'm sorry Rei, we had a little trouble at the academy yesterday…"

"What kind of trouble?"

The waiter served Avareida their coffee and they began to drink it while listening to their friend, who ordered a long coffee.

"Well, for a start, our former botany teacher wanted to destroy the school and to do so she resurrected Joseph Crackmore, her ancestor."

"Woah..."

"Three students managed to stop him, but one of the inhabitants of the town, who was a Hyde and who was killing people in the area, associated with this teacher and another student stopped him."

"Well…"

"And finally, the principal, Mrs. Weems, was found overdosed with belladonna, and one of our manchineel plants has disappeared. We suspect that thieves may have taken the-"

Avareida choked on their coffee. They coughed to regain their composure.

"Sorry, what were you saying?"

"It is suspected that thieves wanted to take this plant and came across Mrs. Weems, who then gave them a dose of belladonna, not enough to kill her though. The question is: who stole this manchineel, and for what?"

"Mmh… it's strange, this whole thing…" Avareïda said, looking outside.

Thalia nodded, the waiter gave her her order.

"Especially very dangerous! If this person doesn't know what it is, they could die! And if they know, we can be sure of their criminal ambitions!"

Avareida put down her cup, now finished, with the most innocent look in the world.

"Do you know what a manchineel tree is?"

"To be honest, I didn't know until this morning…"

"Read The Path of Poisons and How to Cure Them, by Avareïda Hydrurga, and you'll never have any doubts about a potentially poisonous plant again."

The teacher laughed a little.

"Haven't you finished your commercial?"

"Hey, my income depends almost entirely on the sale of this book! And I love money!"

Thalia sighed, looking up at the sky... well the ceiling.

"So, how was your trip to the South Pole?"

"Nice, I made a friend. I called her Katia."

"What do you mean you called her?"

"She's a female leopard seal. At first she was a bit aggressive, but eventually she accepted me completely."

Thalia smiled as she watched her friend sink into her seat, gesturing wildly as they explained their encounter with the animal. Rei had that look in their eyes when they talked about their travels… she loved to hear them tell their stories.

"Isn't that your mother's name, Katia?"

"Yeah, because she acted like a mother. She used to bring me food. Which was penguins. And since they're not part of my diet, I had to decline her offer…"

"How do you manage to make so many enemies among humans and so many friends among animals?"

"I'm beginning to think that I'm not the problem… well, anyway. Is your principal okay? I mean, belladonna's a hell of a poison."

"She's in the hospital. I'm going to see her right after. You can come with me if you want. I'll just have to stop by the police station first. As you know about poisons, you could help them, couldn't you?"

"I don't see how I could be of any use to them…"

Thalia got up and went to the counter to pay.

"You underestimate yourself… I'll buy your coffee, a welcome to Jericho gift. And since you don't have any money…"

"Thank you for your great generosity but I can still afford coffee."

"I don't want to hear about it. I'll buy you one."

"All right, all right…"

Avareïda stood up and put their brown jacket back on their shoulders. They ran a hand over their hair, which was still neatly tucked back.

"You'd look good with red hair," Thalia remarked, coming back to her.

"Do you think so? I might try it… But I like my hair black."

"Shall I show you around town, and on the way we go to the police station?"

"Oh, yes, I've always wanted to!" they sneered

Thalia gave them a flick.

"Sorry, I don't have much choice, I've been summoned as a witness… You're lucky you weren't there yesterday. You would have been suspected. What time did you arrive anyway?"

"A little before midnight," they lied.

In truth they had arrived at 9 p.m., but they had nothing to blame themself for and didn't want to get into trouble with the law…

The door tinkled again as it opened. Avareida sighed. They had chosen the wrong moment to steal the manchineel tree…

Thalia pushed open the door to the police station, and was immediately greeted by the sheriff. Rei found the man was sad. There was something tired in his eyes. But they didn't know what. The place was small, smelled of ink and coffee. The policeman questioned Thalia with his eyes after noticing Rei, who was going through all the corners of the police station with a curious eye.

"Avareïda Hydrurga, this is a friend who arrived last night. They were not there on the night of the incident if that's what you're wondering. But they can be a great help to you."

"You're exaggerating, Thalia…"

"I'm curious to see that…" the sheriff said

"All because I know a little about poisons," they sighed.

"Mmh, we'll see. In the meantime, I'll take your statement, Mrs Kedlan."

"No problem. Can Rei come along or do I have to be alone?"

"Since you're not a suspect, you can bring whoever you want."

"Then they're coming with me."

Galpin opened the door to his office and pulled the blinds wide open. A bright light flooded the room. He invited Thalia and Rei to sit down, which they did.

"Well, Mrs Kedlan, tell me what you know."

"Well, the boy who called the emergency room went to warn me and other teachers, and when I arrived, Mrs. Weems was lying in the greenhouse, and a manchineel tree was missing, but there was no sign of a crime. The thief knew the code of where the manchineel trees were put."

"What were you doing before?"

"I was in my classroom, correcting papers."

The policeman wrote everything down on a sheet of paper, Rei was silent.

"Well, do you know if Mrs Weems has any enemies?"

"I don't know of any. And even though we are not necessarily well regarded, she is well respected."

"I see, so you believe in the hypothesis of a robbery gone wrong?"

"I don't," Rei cut in.

The Sheriff opened his mouth and took a few seconds. He leaned back in his chair, put his pen and elbows on the table, put his hands together and intertwined his fingers before speaking.

"Why did he do this?"

"Why, when the thief had a manchineel tree in their hands, would they use nightshade to poison Mrs. Weems?"

"What do you mean?"

Avareida crossed her legs, sinking into her seat.

"The thief knew the code, so they came from inside the school. Mrs. Weems wouldn't have suspected them until they took the manchineel, and so wouldn't have stood in their way. This means that she interfered after they took the manchineel. Now, when you have a manchineel tree in your hands, you don't try to poison with belladonna."

"Why not?"

"If they had just thrown the manchineel at Mrs Weems, she would have been out of the way. For ever. A manchineel tree is toxic enough to poison you if you stay under it. Anyway, you'd better wait for the potential witnesses to wake up. Starting with Mrs Weems. She'll probably know what happened."

The sheriff nodded.

"Of course, but I like to get a head start…"

"It's possible that the botany teacher or the normie attacked her and stole the manchineel tree… That would fit very well with the fact that she attacked her and knew the code. And it would be the normie who poisoned her because…"

Thalia nudged her. Avareida fell silent.

"I have no more questions. You may go."

"Thank you, Sheriff Galpin."

Thalia stood up, Rei followed. They left the place.

"Rei, the normie was her son."

"Oh… Damn. You think I should go apologize?"

"No, it should be fine. You couldn't have known."

"You want to go to the hospital now?"

"Yeah, I'm just gonna stop by and buy her some flowers first. Then I can show you the plant shop, I think you'll like it."

"You know how to talk to me…"

Thalia smiled and walked towards a small shop on a street corner. Huge bunches of poppies, lavender and craspedias indicated that it was the beginning of summer. Avareïda liked poppies, especially pink, wild poppies. They found them particularly charming. They decided to buy some flowers for Mrs. Weems. Their friend went straight to the counter and ordered an assortment of peonies. Rei, on the other hand, walked slowly through the potted plants of different sizes and shapes. Crassulas, bonzaïs of all kinds, everything smelled of soil and humidity. The tables on which large bunches of leaves were placed to embellish the bouquets were made of rough wood. A few everlastings were drying, hanging from the ceiling. They remembered that Larissa had always liked immortals. Rei approached the counter.

"What can I do for you?" the florist asked with a smile.

"I would like a small bouquet of Calendula officinalis and Helichrysum stoechas."

"What colour should the marigolds be?"

"Yellow and orange please."

"Well, I'll make your bouquets, if you'll wait a few minutes."

"No problem," Thalia said

The florist disappeared into the back of the shop. Avareida continued her little observations.

"Rei, who are the flowers for?"

"For Mrs. Weems, I felt bad coming to the hospital without bringing anything."

"But you don't even know her?"

"What's the big deal?"

"And what flowers did you ask for?"

"Marigolds and shrubby everlastings."

"Why shrubby everlastings?"

Rei pointed to the little yellow flowers hanging from the ceiling.

"Because they don't wilt. That way, even if she doesn't wake up for several months, she can enjoy them. The marigolds will be dead, of course. And I like immortals. Besides, surviving belladonna poisoning, although it depends on the dose, is quite an achievement."

"Hm. A student injected her with physo… stuff. Apparently it stabilized her well and kept her from deteriorating."

"Physostigmine. He had the right reflex."

"What's physostigmine?"

"A poison found in Calabar beans."

Seeing the expression of incomprehension on Thalia's face, they continued.

"A vine of the bean family that grows in the tropical forests of Africa."

"But… why a poison?"

"Oh, it's a poison that has the opposite effect to belladonna. Belladonna slows the heart rate, Calabar bean increases it. It's what is used to treat atropine toxicity in general. If he'd put too much on her, it might have killed her, but if he hadn't put any on her at all, she'd probably have died anyway. It was a risk to take. You'll have to reward the boy."

"I see, fighting fire with fire."

"Sort of, yeah."

"So she was incredibly lucky that someone who knew about this came along…"

"You have no idea," Rei murmured thoughtfully.

The florist returned, their bouquets in hand. Thalia paid for her bouquet, Rei paid for hers.

"Say, florist lady," Rei asked, "do you have a loyalty card or something? I might come here regularly."

"Oh, yes, I do."

She pulled out a small card with a sunflower on it from behind the counter and applied two bramble stamps.

"Every 10 dollars you get a stamp, after 10, you get 10 dollars free. The first stamp is automatic."

"Thank you very much."

"You're welcome. Have a nice day."

"Have a nice day."

Thalia and Rei walked out of the little shop, each holding a bouquet. The streets began to fill up slowly. Rei was pensive. He wasn't sure if he wanted to tell Thalia that he knew Mrs. Weems. He was waiting to see if the woman had changed.

"Rei, shall we take my car to the hospital?"

"Shall we? Yes, I don't know where it is anyway."

"It's not far, we could walk but it takes about half an hour. I'd rather take the car, I'm in heels."

"I'm in heels too."

"Perfect, I parked it near the café."

Avareida followed her friend to the car, thinking about her last real conversations with Larissa.

"You can't, it's not normal to be like this."

"I didn't choose, Rissa, I'm sorry…"

"Stay away from me, you're disgusting."

"But… Rissa…"

"LArissa, for you. You know what, don't talk to me anymore. I don't want to be friends with your kind."

They shuddered, hoping that their old friend had changed. After all, they hadn't seen each other for almost thirty years. They couldn't hate her, even after all that time. Larissa had been a great support to them. She had helped them to integrate, which was more difficult with the two classes they had skipped. It was thanks to Larissa that they had a more or less normal school life. They had always gotten along with her very well. A smile passed over their lips as they remembered the nightly trips to the forest, the times they'd skipped school to go shopping, the coffees they'd had together. Rei shook their head. Yes, their relationship had been good for them. Not everything about Larissa Weems was a waste.

"Rei? Is everything all right?"

"Is it? Oh, yeah, sorry. I was just thinking about my years at Nevermore."

"Oh, come to think of it, did you know Larissa when you were there?

"From a... certain distance, I know she was there, I might have talked to her once or twice, but I'm not sure. She was already 18 when I entered the academy, I was only 13. I only had two years in common with her."

"That's right, I forgot that you were younger than me."

"When you're around 40…"

"Shh, don't talk about that, I'm still 20 in my head."

Avareida burst out laughing. Thalia frowned as she unlocked her car. Rei climbed into the front passenger seat.

"And that was an old person's sentence."

"That's right, just mess with me. Just because you're four years younger than me doesn't mean you can. Watch out, time's catching up with you."

"Okay, boomer."

"So, shall we go to that hospital?"

"Well, get going, old girl."

Thalia grunted and turned on the ignition. As the car approached the hospital, Rei became lost in thought again. Thirty years had passed. But Larissa was not a forgettable character. Shit, they thought. They didn't want to risk loving her again. Yet they couldn't help but wonder how much she had changed.

"Say, Thalia. Are you still dating that other teacher?"

"Elizabeth? Yes, still. I mean, it's been a few weeks."

"And… your principal is okay with it?"

"She doesn't know about it. It's still new, we haven't told anyone around here, we don't want it to get out amongst our colleagues. Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if she was a lesbian."

"She? Lesbian?"

"Why does that shock you so much?"

"I don't know, I'd heard stories about her love for Gomez Addams, at the time, that's all."

Rei smiled a little. Of course she were a lesbian. They'd guessed it, at the time. But Larissa had locked herself in her closet so much that they'd come to believe it.

"Mmm… I don't know… But my gaydar rarely deceives me. You know, we're pretty close, though. Larissa is someone I like and respect very much. I think I can count her among my friends. She has a courage that I don't have and…"

Thalia's voice caught in her throat.

"God, I'm so glad she's not dead. The academy wouldn't have been the same without her."

"I hope she wakes up soon, then."

"Yes…"

Thalia parked the car in the hospital's large car park and got out. Rei followed her into the building. The hospital smelled clean and new. There was no smell of dirt, no smell of damp. It was all white. They were given the room number: room 128. They walked to the lift, without speaking.

The room was clean. Larissa was lying on her bed in a white patient's gown, her eyes closed, tubes in her nose and arms. A machine on the side was going "beep…beep…beep…beep…", as the lines representing her heartbeat distorted into spikes. Thalia readjusted her hat, which she had refused to remove at the reception desk, explaining her gorgon situation, and placed her bouquet in a vase, on the small cabinet next to the main one. Rei did the same. And then their eyes roamed over the principal's body. She had changed, yes. But she was still as beautiful… Very tall, too. Rei estimated her at almost 6"3. They were only a poor 5"7 feet tall.

"Get well soon, Larissa. The academy needs you again," Thalia said, as if the principal could hear her.

A nurse entered the room and motioned for the Gorgon to follow her.

"I'll be right back, Rei."

Rei nodded and left. They took the opportunity to take a closer look at their former friend's features. She was beautiful…

"So you're a lesbian, huh? You should have admitted it to yourself earlier, stupid. You'd better get over it soon. I think I'd like to see you again. You're lucky, I could have hated you."

They left the room to wait for Thalia, who soon returned with a smile on her face.

"Her condition is completely stabilised and she is starting to recover. She even showed signs of brain activity in some places that indicate a near awakening. She'll probably be back with us in a few days!"

Rei smiled. They loved to see their friend so happy. And the thought of Larissa waking up made them happy too.