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najia-cooks · 1 year ago

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[ID: A decorative orange ceramic plate with a pyramid of green herbs and sesame seeds, topped with deep red sumac and more sesame seeds. End ID]

زعتر فلسطيني / Za'tar falastinia (Palestinian spice blend)

Za'tar (زَعْتَر; also transliterated "za'atar," "zaatar" and "zatar") is the name of a family of culinary herbs; it is also the name of a group of spice blends made by mixing these herbs with varying amounts of olive oil, sumac, salt, roasted sesame seeds, and other spices. Palestinian versions of za'tar often include caraway, aniseed, and roasted wheat alongside generous portions of sumac and sesame seeds. The resulting blend is bold, zesty, and aromatic, with a hint of floral sourness from the sumac, and notes of licorice and anise.

Za'tar is considered by Palestinians to have particular national, political, and personal importance, and exists as a symbol of both Israeli oppression and Palestinian home-making and resistance. Its major components, olive oil and wild thyme, are targeted by the settler state in large part due to their importance to ecology, identity, and trade in Palestine—settlers burn and raze Palestinian farmers' olive trees by the thousands each year. A 1977 Israeli law forbade the harvesting of wild herbs within its claimed borders, with violators of the law risking fines and confiscation, injury, and even death from shootings or land mines; in 2006, za'tar was further restricted, such that even its possession in the West Bank was met with confiscation and fines.

Despite the blanket ban on harvesting wild herbs (none of which are endangered), Arabs are the only ones to be charged and fined for the crime. Samir Naamnih calls the ban an attempt to "starve us out," given that foraging is a major source of food for many Palestinians, and that picking and selling herbs is often the sole form of income for impoverished families. Meanwhile, Israeli farmers have domesticated and farmed za'tar on expropriated Palestinian land, selling it (both the herb and the spice mixture) back to Palestinians, and later marketing it abroad as an "Israeli" blend; they thus profit from the ban on wild harvesting of the herb. This farming model, as well as the double standard regarding harvesting, refer back to an idea that Arabs are a primitive people unfit to own the land, because they did not cultivate or develop it as the settlers did (i.e., did not attempt to recreate a European landscape or European models of agriculture); colonizing and settling the land are cast as justified, and even righteous.

The importance of the ban on foraging goes beyond the economic. Raya Ziada, founder of an acroecology nonprofit based in Ramallah, noted in 2019 that "taking away access to [wild herbs] doesn't just debilitate our economy and compromise what we eat. It's symbolic." Za'tar serves variously as a symbol of Palestinians' connection to the land and to nature; of Israeli colonial dispossession and theft; of the Palestinian home ("It’s a sign of a Palestinian home that has za’tar in it"); and of resistance to the colonial regime, as many Palestinians have continued to forage herbs such as za'tar and akkoub in the decades since the 1977 ban. Resistance to oppression will continue as long as there is oppression.

Palestine Action has called for bail fund donations to aid in their storming, occupying, shutting down, and dismantling of factories and offices owned by Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. Also contact your representatives in the USA, UK, and Canada.

Ingredients:

Za'tar (Origanum syriacum), 250g once dried (about 4 cups packed)

250g (1 2/3 cup) sesame seeds

170g (3/4 cup) Levantine sumac berries, or ground sumac (Rhus coriaria)

100g (1/2 cup) wheat berries (optional)

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp aniseed (optional)

1/2 Tbsp caraway seeds (optional)

Levantine wild thyme (also known as Bible hyssop, Syrian oregano, and Lebanese oregano) may be purchased dried online. You may also be able to find some dried at a halal grocery store, where it will be labelled "زعتر" (za'tar) and "thym," "thyme," or "oregano." Check to make sure that what you're buying is just the herb and not the prepared mixture, which is also called "زعتر." Also ensure that what you're buying is not a product of Israel.

If you don't have access to Levantine thyme, Greek or Turkish oregano are good substitutes.

Wheat berries are the wheat kernel that is ground to produce flour. They may be available sold as "wheat berries" at a speciality health foods store. They may be omitted, or replaced with pre-ground whole wheat flour.

Instructions:

1. Harvest wild thyme and remove the stems from the leaves. Wash the leaves in a large bowl of water and pat dry; leave in a single layer in the sun for four days or so, until brittle. Skip this step if using pre-dried herbs.

2. Crumble leaves by rubbing them between the palms of your hands until they are very fine. Pass through a sieve or flour sifter into a large bowl, re-crumbling any leaves that are too coarse to get through.

Crumbling between the hands is an older method. You may also use a blender or food processor to grind the leaves.

3. Mix the sifted thyme with a drizzle of olive oil and work it between your hands until incorporated.

4. Briefly toast sumac berries, caraway seeds, and aniseed in a dry skillet over medium heat, then grind them to a fine powder in a mortar and pestle or a spice mill.

5. Toast sesame seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat, stirring constantly, until deeply golden brown.

6. (Optional) In a dry skillet on medium-low, toast wheat berries, stirring constantly, until they are deeply golden brown. Grind to a fine powder in a spice mill. If using ground flour, toast on low, stirring constantly, until browned.

Some people in the Levant bring their wheat to a local mill to be ground after toasting, as it produces a finer and more consistent texture.

7. Mix all ingredients together and work between your hands to incorporate.

Store za'tar in an airtight jar at room temperature. Mix with olive oil and use as a dipping sauce with bread.

#spice blends #Palestinian #Levantine #za’tar

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woolandcoffee · 2 months ago

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Hey, how aware is the general American public that Congress is currently shitting the bed on passing a one-year extension of the Farm Bill (no surprise, but they're fighting over the same thing they've been fighting over for the last 18 months) and if they don't pass a one-year extension by the end of the year, some programs will expire, including programs that affect the price of food. Like, for example, the milk commodity program, without which the cost of most dairy products would double. Prices for corn, wheat, and other staples would also increase, and some programs that focus on getting food out to low income folks would also be affected, like the program that connects farmers with food banks.

Like, in theory, law makers have every incentive not to let the Farm Bill expire, but we all know these jackals don't actually give a shit about us or our well-being. The word today is that they have reached a tentative agreement to pass a one-year extension, but that's not the first time they've made that announcement. It's just wild to me that the cost of food has, rightly, been so prominent in recent months, but there has been pretty much no discussion in the mainstream that I've seen about how close Congress is getting to letting the Farm Bill expiring which would almost immediately cause the price of at least some foods to sky rocket. And look, right now, I do still doubt that they're going to let the Farm Bill expire (not because it would be bad for the public, but because it would be bad for the ag industry), they're letting it get really fucking close, and I'm not sure that the general public is even remotely aware that they're currently 3-4 weeks away from seeing $10 gallons of milk if Congress doesn't act.

#woolly rambles #btw dairy would be hit first because its harvested daily and has a limited shelf life #and maybe my estimate is off and it would be closer to 5-6 weeks but still #we're like right on the line #and yeah the argument is about what you would think - Rs want to cut SNAP Ds don't; Rs want to cut climate $$$ Ds don't

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darklove4u · 1 month ago

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Suspicious Farmer

Warnings: none

Batman spotted a suspicious person in Gotham and ordered Red Robin to investigate.

Thus Red Robin ended up in the small Pelican town. A town so small that apparently no one really owned a car.

So small there was only one bus station but the bus was broken down.

Even smaller and the neighbours still knew each other from school and other things.

The suspicious person that Batman had seen was the farmer of the town.

The farmer had helped someone in Gotham and Batman assumed the farmer had meta powers. Now, it was up to Red Robin to figure out more.

Cue to the farmer waking up punctual at 06:00am and leaving the house a few minutes later.

The first few hours nothing suspicious happened. Although, Tim is surprised that so many sticks and stones can lay around on a farming ground. The field is also pretty small considering it's the farmer's main source of income.... Strange.

The farmer finally left the farm and ended up at the mountain lake. Tim watched as the farmer used a fishing rod and caught fish after fish: largemouth bass, chub, carp, carp again, another carp, chub, carp, chub, largemouth bass and a carp... again.

Are there only 3 type of fish in the lake?? At least the farmer knew how to fish.

Then something happened.

Tim had to double check when he saw the bowl of salad in the farmer's hands.

The farmer then threw the bowl in the air and swallowed the whole meal! The plate was gone too..??

Tim rubbed over his eyes and looked at the farmer again.

Did he see that right? Or was he seeing things because of a lack of sleep?

Either way Red Robin decided to note down:

◇Strange eating habits

The farmer left the mountain lake and went to the river in town. There was an emo looking guy, whose name was Sebastian apparently and the farmer gave him sashimi. Sebastian seemed super happy about that but Red Robin was over there wondering where that sashimi even came from???

The farmer then started fishing at the town's river.

A lot of fish were caught again: bream, bream, shad, smallmouth bass, smallmouth bass and again a smallmouth bass.

The farmer seemed frustrated with that outcome and thus, Red Robin watched in horror as the farmer threw a whole pizza in the air and made it disappear in one bite!

Tim decided that was definitely suspicious behaviour as he again had no idea where the pizza had come from.

Now, how would he explain all that to Batman?

#fanfic #batman #sdv farmer #sdv x gotham #stardew valley #dc comics #dc #dcu #sdv #sdv sebastian #red robin #headcanon #my writing

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delurkr · 5 months ago

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A barely-edited ramble as I try to figure out stuff about David and other 1692 folks

Under cut because boy those paragraphs got long

I was never a fan of how David is called a farmer in the subtitles before we learn his name, because with all the other type of people it took (and takes) to make a town just calling him a farmer with ultimately no textual backing comes off as rather uncreative or uninformed, as if someone just assumed that of course he would be a farmer because it's ye olden days and nobody did anything else (not an uncommon perception but super dumb). Of course it's possible that there was more thought behind it, but still there were plenty of positions available in towns like Salem and Andover in their time; craftspeople of all kinds and storekeepers and merchants of varying scope are some basic ones (also I've seen it said that the prior increase of business and trading in the area is considered to be a contributing factor to the societal instability that fed the witch trials, not that I'm going to fact check right now or give a citation for that). He's also only 20 years old, and under normal circumstances he's not likely to be a landowner yet so calling him a farmer in his own right is less believable, but it's certainly not a given that the Miltons' circumstances are normal so that's less important.

Now thinking about the museum, there's a mannequin dressed in David's clothes and it's set up at some sort of work table or piece of machinery, and I have no clue what it is but someone on reddit once suggested that it looked a little like a potter's wheel, which seems to be as good a guess as anything. So I've always liked the idea that David was trained as a potter but never progressed in that occupation before he turned to farming for some reason.

So in the interest of filling in backstory for the 1600s characters, because I'm woefully deficient in that department and grasping at anything, an idea I'm considering is that the father of Tabitha, David, and Mary was a potter who was training David in the business, but then when the mother Martha Milton was taken in the Commencement Day Massacre in 1690, when Tabitha was 20 years old, Mr. Milton couldn't deal and left to buy milk as they say and hasn't been heard of since (not to make it all dramatic but if he up and disappeared from LH town with no news from any of surrounding town near or far it leaves an open question with a good amount of potential answers). That would have left Tabitha as the head of household she appears to be, and there might naturally be debts to settle on top of a sudden loss of income with Mr. Milton gone which might have taken the pottery business and the associated livelihood off their hands one way or another, so the Miltons hired themselves to the Lamberts in whatever arrangement best made sense and lived and worked on the Lamberts' farm by 1692.

That gives David his farmer label, and the other side of it is that the Lamberts would have needed someone like him around, because while I know Strong Farmer Joseph is an appealing idea I lean towards the doubles sharing each other's physical capabilities beyond just physical likeness, and farming takes truckloads of stamina but even adrenaline couldn't give John a whole lot of that (I mean let's be real, John is normal in that situation and the others are generally abnormal in their ability to do that much running around for an entire night with barely any effect, but that's a tangent). John also seems to have some concern about his heart, whether there's an actual medical reason behind that idk, so that may be a thing for Joseph too. So I imagine Joseph needed to take a step back from the heavy work on their property and David was needed to take that place, and of course there's plenty for Tabitha and Mary to do as well.

So yeah, that's what I'm considering to give background to the idea of the Miltons working for the Lamberts, which was the one part I'm solid on. If anybody has other ideas I'm lowkey desperate to hear them lol

#ramblings #david milton #tabitha milton #mary milton #joseph lambert #amy lambert #the dark pictures anthology #little hope

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probablyasocialecologist · 2 years ago

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Abstract economic theorizing typically asserts that prices coordinate the best rational resource allocations and that prices reflect the best information available while the market bets of the smartest people with skin in the game ensure efficiency. But Russell exposes this as flawed fig-leaf logic. He quotes one market participant (an insider “traitor”) confessing the “irrationality of commodity prices.” Algorithmic trades are shots fired between swanky skyscrapers as “hedge funds raid each other’s coffers,” collaterally taking calories out of the mouths of poor kids. Besides, only the absurdly blinkered could imagine that global food is used rationally or efficiently—never mind ethically. Grain used for biofuels “eats up enough food to feed 1.9 billion people annually.” Rich-world pets are less food insecure than the 2.4 billion people (1 in 3 humans) classified by the U.N. as lacking “access to adequate food.” Seventy-seven percent of global farming land is used for livestock which mostly the rich consume (or waste). Indeed, 30-40 percent of all food grown is wasted. Market forces aren’t in the business of fixing this sort of massive and malicious malarkey. For instance, analysis of market-oriented African Green Revolution projects, which aimed to “catalyze a farming revolution in Africa” by helping farmers in 13 countries over a period of 15 years switch from traditional subsistence-and-barter methods to raising monocrops for commercial export, concluded that they led to 31 percent higher undernourishment. As Timothy A. Wise reports in Mongabay News, this large-scale effort was led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S., U.K., and German governments, with the goal of doubling “yields and incomes for 30 million small-scale farming families while halving food insecurity.” As much as $1 billion per year went into the effort. But integration of small farmers into international markets put these small farmers under the same pressures that for-profit farmers face the world over (but without rich-nation safety nets). They’re at the mercy of volatile global pricing but have high fixed costs of inputs like commercial seeds and fertilizers. The net result was that even when yields rose, they often “failed to translate into rising incomes.” Many of these small farmers could now neither barter traditional crops with neighbors, nor did they have sufficient income to buy local food, a punishing recipe for food insecurity (further details are available in Wise’s coverage). The bottom line is that markets only feed you if you can pay (to match the bets of invisible-hearted hedge-funders or manufacturers of rich-world pet food).

#food #hunger #famine #food security

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batboyblog · 1 year ago

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The Biden-⁠Harris Administration Advances Equity and Opportunity for Black Americans

Growing Economic Opportunity for Black Families and Communities Through the President’s legislative victories, including the American Rescue Plan (ARP), the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—as well as the President’s historic executive orders on racial equity—the Biden-Harris Administration is ensuring that federal investments through the President’s landmark Investing in America agenda are equitably flowing to communities to address longstanding economic inequities that impact people’s economic security, health, and safety. And this vision is already delivering results. The Biden-Harris Administration has:

Powered a historic economic recovery that created 2.6 million jobs for Black workers—and achieved both the lowest Black unemployment rate on record and the lowest gap between Black and White unemployment on record.

Helped Black working families build wealth. Black wealth is up by 60% relative to pre-pandemic—the largest increase on record.

Cut in half the number of Black children living in poverty in 2021 through ARP’s Child Tax Credit expansion. This expansion provided breathing room to the families of over 9 million Black children.

Began reversing decades of infrastructure disinvestment, including with $4 billion to reconnect communities that were previously cut off from economic opportunities by building needed transportation infrastructure in underserved communities, including Black communities.

Connected an estimated 5.5 million Black households to affordable high-speed internet through the Affordable Connectivity Program, closing the digital divide for millions of Black families.

Helping Black-Owned Businesses Grow and Thrive Since the President entered office, a record 16 million new business applications have been filed, and the share of Black households owning a business has more than doubled. Building on this momentum, the Biden-Harris Administration has:

Achieved the fastest creation rate of Black-owned businesses in more than 30 years—and more than doubled the share of Black business owners from 2019 to 2022.

Improved the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) flagship loan guarantee programs to expand the availability of capital to underserved communities. Since 2020, the number and dollar value of SBA-backed loans to Black-owned businesses have more than doubled.

Launched a whole-of-government effort to expand access to federal contracts for small businesses, awarding a record $69.9 billion to small disadvantaged businesses in 2022.

Through Treasury’s State Small Business Credit Initiative, invested $10 billion to expand access to capital and invest in early-stage businesses in all 50 states—including $2.5 billion in funding and incentive allocations dedicated to support the provision of capital to underserved businesses with $1 billion of these funds to be awarded to the jurisdictions that are most successful in reaching underserved businesses.

Helped more than 37,000 farmers and ranchers who were in financial distress, including Black farmers and ranchers, stay on their farms and keep farming, thanks to resources provided through IRA. The IRA allocated $3.1 billion for the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to provide relief for distressed borrowers with at-risk agricultural operations with outstanding direct or guaranteed Farm Service Agency loans. USDA has provided over $2 billion and counting in timely assistance.

Supported small and disadvantaged businesses through CHIPS Act funding by requiring funding applicants to develop a workforce plan to create equitable pathways for economically disadvantaged individuals in their region, as well as a plan to support procurement from small, minority-owned, veteran-owned, and women-owned businesses.

Created the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that will invest in clean energy projects in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

Increasing Access to Housing and Rooting Out Discrimination in the Housing Market for Black Communities To increase access to housing and root out discrimination in the housing market, including for Black families and communities, the Biden-Harris Administration has:

Set up the first-ever national infrastructure to stop evictions, scaling up the ARP-funded Emergency Rental Assistance program in over 400 communities across the country, helping 8 million renters and their families stay in their homes. Over 40% of all renters helped are Black—and this support prevented millions of evictions, with the largest effects seen in majority-Black neighborhoods.

Published a proposed “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” rule through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which will help overcome patterns of segregation and hold states, localities, and public housing agencies that receive federal funds accountable for ensuring that underserved communities have equitable access to affordable housing opportunities.

Created the Interagency Task Force on Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity, or PAVE, a first-of-its-kind interagency effort to root out bias in the home appraisal process, which is taking sweeping action to advance equity and remove racial and ethnic bias in home valuations, including cracking down on algorithmic bias and empowering consumers to take action against misvaluation.

Taken additional steps through HUD to support wealth-generation activities for prospective and current homeowners by expanding access to credit by incorporating a borrower’s positive rental payment history into the mortgage underwriting process. HUD estimates this policy change will enable an additional 5,000 borrowers per year to qualify for an FHA-insured loan.

Ensuring Equitable Educational Opportunity for Black Students To expand educational opportunity for the Black community in early childhood and beyond, the Biden-Harris Administration has:

Approved more than $136 billion in student loan debt cancellation for 3.7 million Americans through various actions and launched a new student loan repayment plan—the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan—to help many students and families cut in half their total lifetime payments per dollar borrowed.

Championed the largest increase to Pell Grants in the last decade—a combined increase of $900 to the maximum award over the past two years, affecting the over 60% of Black undergraduates who rely on Pell grants.

Fixed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, so all qualified borrowers get the debt relief to which they are entitled. More than 790,000 public servants have received more than $56 billion in loan forgiveness since October 2021. Prior to these fixes, only 7,000 people had ever received forgiveness through PSLF.

Delivered a historic investment of over $7 billion to support HBCUs.

Reestablished the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans.

Through ARP, secured $130 billion—the largest investment in public education in history—to help students get back to school, recover academically in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and address student mental health.

Secured a 30% increase in child care assistance funding last year. Black families comprise 38% of families benefiting from federal child care assistance. Additionally, the President secured an additional $1 billion for Head Start, a program where more than 28% of children and pregnant women who benefit identify as Black.

Improving Health Outcomes for Black Families and Communities To improve health outcomes for the Black community, the Biden-Harris Administration has:

Increased Black enrollment in health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act by 49%—or by around 400,000—from 2020 to 2022, helping more Black families gain health insurance than ever before.

Through IRA, locked in lower monthly premiums for health insurance, capped the cost of insulin at $35 per covered insulin product for Medicare beneficiaries, and helped further close the gap in access to medication by improving prescription drug coverage and lowering drug costs in Medicare.

Through ARP, expanded postpartum coverage from 60 days to 12 months in 43 states and Washington, D.C., covering 700,000 more women in the year after childbirth. Medicaid covers approximately 65% of births for Black mothers, and this investment is a critical step to address maternal health disparities.

Financed projects that will replace hundreds of thousands of lead pipes, helping protect against lead poisoning that disproportionately affects Black communities.

Provided 264 grants with $1 billion in Bipartisan Safer Communities Act funds to more than 40 states to increase the supply of school-based mental health professionals in communities with high rates of poverty.

Launched An Unprecedented Whole-Of-Government Equity Agenda to Ensure the Promise of America for All Communities, including Black Communities President Biden believes that advancing equity, civil rights, racial justice, and equal opportunity is the responsibility of the whole of our government, which will require sustained leadership and partnership with all communities. To make the promise of America real for every American, including for the Black Community, the President has:

Signed two Executive Orders directing the Federal Government to advance an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda that matches the scale of the challenges we face as a country and the opportunities we have to build a more perfect union.

Nominated the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court and more Black women to federal circuit courts than every President combined.

Countered hateful attempts to rewrite history including: the signing of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act; establishing Juneteenth as a national holiday; and designating the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Mississippi and Illinois. The Department of the Interior has invested more than $295 million in infrastructure funding and historic preservation grants to protect and restore places significant to Black history.

Created the Justice40 Initiative, which is delivering 40% of the overall benefits of certain Federal investments in clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, clean water, and other programs to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution as part of the most ambitious climate, conservation, and environmental justice agenda in history.

Protecting the Sacred Right to Vote for Black Families and Communities Since their first days in office, President Biden and Vice President Harris have prioritized strengthening our democracy and protecting the sacred right to vote in free, fair, and secure elections. To do so, the President has:

Signed an Executive Order to leverage the resources of the Federal Government to provide nonpartisan information about the election process and increase access to voter registration. Agencies across the Federal Government are taking action to respond to the President’s call for an all-of-government effort to enhance the ability of all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.

Repeatedly and forcefully called on Congress to pass essential legislation, including the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, including calling for an exception to the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation.

Increased funding for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, which has more than doubled the number of voting rights enforcement attorneys. The Justice Department also created the Election Threats Task Force to assess allegations and reports of threats against election workers, and investigate and prosecute these matters where appropriate.

Signed into law the bipartisan Electoral Reform Count Act, which establishes clear guidelines for our system of certifying and counting electoral votes for President and Vice President, to preserve the will of the people and to protect against the type of attempts to overturn our elections that led to the January 6 insurrection.

Addressing the Crisis of Gun Violence in Black Communities Gun violence has become the leading cause of death for all youth and Black men in America, as well as the second leading cause of death for Black women. To address this national crisis, the President has:

Launched the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, and taken more executive action on gun violence than any President in history, including investments in violence reduction strategies that address the root causes of gun violence and address emerging threats like ghost guns. In 2022, the Administration’s investments in evidence-based, lifesaving programs combined with aggressive action to stop the flow of illegal guns and hold shooters accountable yielded a 12.4% reduction in homicides across the United States.

Signed into the law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun violence reduction legislation enacted in nearly 30 years, including investments in violence reduction strategies and historic policy changes to enhance background checks for individuals under age 21, narrow the dating partner loophole in the gun background check system, and provide law enforcement with tools to crack down on gun trafficking.

Secured the first-ever dedicated federal funding stream for community violence intervention programs, which have been shown to reduce violence by as much as 60%. These programs are effective because they leverage trusted messengers who work directly with individuals most likely to commit gun violence, intervene in conflicts, and connect people to social, health and wellness, and economic services to reduce the likelihood of violence as an answer to conflict.

Enhancing Public Trust and Strengthening Public Safety for Black Communities Our criminal justice system must protect the public and ensure fair and impartial justice for all. These are mutually reinforcing goals. To enhance equal justice and public safety for all communities, including the Black community, the President has:

Signed a historic Executive Order to put federal policing on the path to becoming the gold standard of effectiveness and accountability by requiring federal law enforcement agencies to ban chokeholds; restrict no-knock warrants; mandate the use of body-worn cameras; implement stronger use-of-force policies; provide de-escalation training; submit use-of-force data; submit officer misconduct records into a new national accountability database; and restrict the sale or transfer of military equipment to local law enforcement agencies, among other things.

Taken steps to right the wrongs stemming from our Nation’s failed approach to marijuana by directing the Departments of Health and Human Services and Justice to expeditiously review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law and in October 2022 issued categorical pardons of prior federal and D.C. offenses of simple possession of marijuana and in December 2023 pardoned additional offenses of simple possession and use of marijuana under federal and D.C. law. While white, Black, and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionately higher rates.

Announced over 100 concrete policy actions as part of a White House evidence-informed, multi-year Alternatives, Rehabilitation, and Reentry Strategic Plan to safely reduce unnecessary criminal justice system interactions so police officers can focus on fighting crime; supporting rehabilitation during incarceration; and facilitating successful reentry.

FACT SHEET

#Joe Biden #Thanks Biden #Black History Month #black americans #african american #kamala harris #politics #US Politics #Economy #student loan debt #marijuana #criminal justice #gun violence #voting rights #from the White House #long post #because a lot has happened

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campy-mccampface · 3 months ago

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Bus Pass: Chef Heimlich McMuesli

Why are you like this.

Name: Heimlich McMuesli

Age: Early Fifties

Residence: His camping edition Volkswagen Bus

Origin: California, USA

Occupation: Chef, also grows fruits and veggies for farmers’ markets on the side

Orientation: Pansexual

Significant other(s): None, but several free love associates

Heimlich McMuesli is the resident cook at Camp Kidney. He’s a self-proclaimed vegetarian and his tendency to push this onto the scouts makes him unpopular at meal times. That said, he seems genuinely to care for them and only wants his idea of what’s best for them, (for better or worse.) He also doubles as a guidance counselor to them, utilizing New Age child therapist techniques and going to admirable pains to help campers such as Edward and Gretchen find peace. Per his own admission, he was an angry child and wants to put that behind him. He is however still short on patience at times, holier than thou, and very judgmental.

Biography: Canon and Headcanon

Heimlich was born to veteran hippie parents in California, not far from Prickly Pines. They ran a little farm and also sold art, clothing and handicrafts for income. He was an only child and thus was kept very busy by his parents helping them with their work. This lack of free time and constant delegation of chores made him very sour for a few years, but he mellowed out and quickly became a little clone of his parents, fully embracing hippie life and abstention from meat by the time he entered middle school.

As an adult, Heimlich began backpacking more often, especially in Peru, and his means of transport, a Volkswagen Bus fitted for camping, became his steadiest home. His parents passed away back in the States while he was away, (though he had been regularly in touch and visited plenty,) and he was for a while very aggrieved, but recovered. Still, the old McMuesli Farm made him mournful just thinking about it, and he was increasingly interested in his own mobility. He sold the farm shortly after inheriting it and didn’t look back. Heimlich took several odd jobs as he went up and down the country, never staying rooted in one place but making many, many friends, (and free lovers too.)

His travels brought him back where he started in California, and his newest gig was the chef for a summer camp belonging to the Bean Scouts of America. His ideas of sustenance were… very untraditional for a crowd used to canned pork and beans, but no one else was applying for the job, especially due to its pittance salary. McMuesli, who was frugal, adept at self-support and needed no room and board, was able to make it work, and so he was hired (with much grumbling and mockery, to his face) by Scoutmaster Lumpus.

By the time of the show, McMuesli has been the camp cook for five years or so. This is far and away the longest he’s stayed in a single place since the sale of his parents’ farm, and although he has yet to say so aloud, he probably plans to stay even longer. The Bean Scouts of America, who are chronically cash-strapped, are now his biggest backers; any replacement would surely want a raise. This newfound sense of tenure-esque invincibility has affected Heimlich profoundly; whereas before he would serve meat at least three times a week in return for… being allowed to complain, he’s completely remade the food curriculum to what he sees as fit. He also has a megalomanic penchant for confiscating junk food contraband, complete with security CCTV and a bank vault. He’s… a character.

Not long after his arrival, McMuesli started his “Temper Tee-Pee” program. Slinkman, who we’ve seen is chronically overstretched, no doubt was thrilled at the prospect of some of his counseling duties being shouldered. He and McMuesli generally get along well, though the former can find Heimlich grating in his worst moments. McMuesli tried once to confiscate Slinkman’s usual diet soda, and only once. I won’t go into detail, but if you watch Slinkman “go ballistic” in “Slugfest” it was more or less a repeat. After which, Slinkman’s necessary daily caffeine was left unmolested and the two agreed never to speak of it again. (Where was I? Oh yeah, the tee-pee.)

The Temper Tee-Pee program, if you haven’t seen the eponymous episode, is basically a child therapy program run by McMuesli. Campers who have outbursts are issued “temper tickets” and join McMuesli in a bespangled, hippie-dippie little tent that reeks of incense, is full of Native American paraphenalia that comes off as a bit tacky in retrospect depending on McMuesli’s heritage, and has beanbag chairs that suck you in like quicksand. (No, it’s not considered a punishment. Officially.) Here, Heimlich does… pretty admirable work of trying to understand campers’ pain and resolving it. His methods are unconventional, (“and he smells it, too,” says the little Edward voice in my head,) but they work and aren’t patronizing to a scout. (Granted, Edward and Gretchen found the peace he wanted them to find by fantasizing about running him down with a roadroller, but the end justified the means: they chilled out and learned to vibe.)

Again, though, he’s not a pillar of nirvana himself. While trying to teach the Jelly trio how to make tofu frankfurters, he leaves in a huff to backpack in Peru, and leaves the whole camp chefless. This would be unacceptable anywhere else, but as has been said, McMuesli’s just that untouchable. Another occasion sees him get VERY worked up and out of line when the Jellies insinuate eating broccoli is like cutting down trees. And, when Scoutmaster Lumpus reminds him he’s trying to gain weight, McMuesli flees in hysterics, exclaiming that the moose is “not of this world.”

He’s something else. But then again, so’s everyone in this show.

#camp lazlo #headcanons tag #chef mcmuesli #bus pass tag #quick reference tag #scoutmaster lumpus #slinkman #mark slinkman #edward platypus #gretchen

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jewishbarbies · 2 months ago

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random things I would do if elected president, in no particular order:

ban LED headlights nationwide, no exceptions

make it illegal to donate to a political campaign if yearly income is above 100k

forgive all student debt (college, medical school, law school, etc.)

ban PACs and super PACs

require a special license for pickup trucks of a certain size with a specific drivers test

mandatory yearly drivers tests for people over the age of 55

make it illegal for politicians to use all social media in an official capacity

install a free public railway that connects all major cities in all 50 states

give Hawaii back to indigenous Hawaiians along with a promise of monetary reparations and/or supplies for an agreed upon period of time

give Puerto Rico back to the Puerto Ricans with monetary incentives for american citizens who move back to the states

ban the purchase of single family homes by any corporate entity in all 50 states

create a care program for migrants and refugees with housing, food, and supplies along with free English classes and courses on their preferred job field (with credits applied if enrolling in college plus a more streamlined path to citizenship starting with a work/school visa) paid for by taxes they’re already going to be paying working here anyway

complete overhaul of the american prison system with an implementation of rehab and mental health facilities, community projects, education and job training with no sentence longer than the completion of these courses/treatments unless for high crimes and special cases

bring home economics, culinary, and finance courses to middle and high schools with specialized AP courses for fields like human/veterinary medicine, law, engineering, environmental science, etc.

create a federally funded program for college students who want to become teachers, including specialized classes, free tuition, and sign on bonuses when employed at your first school as a one time tax credit with proof of employment

run federally funded educational tours and classes with volunteer opportunities at all national parks, with $10 general admission at all parks

require cities with a population over 1k to allocate funds/resources for warming stations, homeless and women’s shelters within city limits and maintain them year round

ban all fireworks no exceptions nationwide

mandatory voting in state and federal elections

executive order to make it illegal for politicians to earn more than the average yearly salary in their state/county/district/etc. at all levels of government

mandatory college education requirements for running for political office

anti inflation laws preventing the selling of goods and services for more than double the cost nationwide

make food waste in the agriculture industries illegal with tax credits for donating unsellable but edible food to shelters, churches, charities, and food banks

increase indigenous sovereignty in all 50 states, with regulations to prevent price gauging and predatory sale prices of goods and services to reservations, and increased legal protections for recognized tribes

work with local tribes to create programs delivering food, water, medicine, and supplies to households on reservations that sign up, 1-2 times a month like a food bank

create a federal agency of environmental scientists, biologists, etc. that work with indigenous peoples and maintain/protect land and local ecosystems in all 50 states through any means necessary with cooperation of the indigenous people

create additional tax credits for families, people with disabilities, students of any kind, home buyers, and farmers/agricultural workers

free school lunches in all schools in all 50 states

this is a non exhaustive fantasy list, don’t take it seriously. I’ll probably add more things I think of later.

#g talks #mine #/mobile #/okay to reblog

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racefortheironthrone · 1 year ago

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did african americans ever gain the benefits of the new deal or were they deliberately excluded by fdr or his administration?

The short version is "yes, but."

If you read the work of Ira Katznelson, Martha Biondi, Tom Sugrue, and others, the picture of the New Deal as it related to African-Americans is not one of comprehensive exclusion, but rather partial access on a discriminatory basis, depending on where you lived and where you worked.

The Faustian bargain that FDR made with the Dixiecrats was based on an either/or proposition that Dixiecrat legislators would vote for New Deal programs, but on the condition that they would either be jointly operated by state/local and the Federal government, or they would have occupational exclusions (chiefly agricultural and domestic workers). The objective was that either all-white Southern governments would be able to racially discriminate (as long as they could come up with a facially-neutral justification) or that the New Deal's national programs would exclude a supermajority of black people in the South, where sharecropping was the dominant occupation for black men and domestic service was the dominant occupation for black women, respectively. (IIRC, it was about 70% for both men and women.)

However, the intent wasn't to completely cut off black people from the New Deal - Southern governments desperately wanted Federal money to boost incomes and thus consumer spending without undermining their low-wage, low tax, low benefits political economy - but rather to ensure that black people's access to public benefits was under white control. So, for example, Southern governments did not want black workers to get access to Unemployment Insurance or Old Age Insurance, because those were entitlement programs where national eligibility and benefit standards would give people a due process right to social insurance. Instead, they wanted to funnel black workers into Aid to Dependent Children or Old Age Assistance (what we think of as "welfare"), where they could use the threat of arbitrary denial to keep black people compliant and achieve other policy objectives.

In addition to cutting people off benefits as punishment for violating the color line by trying to register to vote or hiring a lawyer or trying to buy land etc., Southern governments would routinely engage in a seasonal practice whereby ADC and OAA recipients would be kicked off the rolls when the cotton-planting and cotton-picking season came around in order to ensure a large and desperate workforce, and then re-added to the rolls to provide them with income during the winter months so that farmers didn't have to pay them a living wage.

You'll note that everything I've talked about above had to do with black people living in the South. The story was very different in the North, where black people could vote and largely worked in manufacturing and other occupations that were not excluded from New Deal programs (although black women did face a double burden, in that many of them still worked in domestic service). As a result, black workers were able to benefit from Unemployment Insurance, Old Age Insurance, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Wagner Act, et al. and dealt with governments that were less interested in systematically discriminating against them. Not uninterested - there's a long history of Welfare Departments using dehumanizing regulations to exert social control on black people - but it tended to be a subtler and more patchwork form of discrimination than under Jim Crow.

The one major exception to this was in the area of housing. One of the peculiar manifestations of American racism is that the South was largely uninterested in residential segregation and focused instead on political, economic, and social control, and that the North was the reverse. Whether it was through the red-lining of the Federal Housing Administration and HOLC or straightforward racial segregation in public housing constructed by the Federal Housing Authority, Northern governments and communities went to great (and oftentimes violent) lengths to ensure that white neighborhoods and black neighborhoods were kept separate.

But here again, the pattern was one of partial access on a discriminatory basis. Black residents of Northern cities could get apartments in public housing, but only in buildings designated as black-only that were located in poor black neighorhoods. Some black residents might be able to get a mortgage from a black-owned bank to buy a house in a segregated neighborhood, but because they were cut off from the FHA and thus from the GI Bill, most black workers couldn't afford the option of overpaying for lower quality houses and the ones who could generally did not generate much long-term equity because their property was considered less valuable.

So there you have it.

#new deal #history #u.s history #policy history #social policy #economic policy #historiography #historical analysis #history of race

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najia-cooks · 1 year ago

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[ID: Seven yoghurt balls on a plate drizzled with olive oil. The one in the center is plain; the others are covered in mint, toasted sesame seeds, ground sumac, za'tar, crushed red chili pepper, and nigella seeds. End ID]

لبنة نباتية / Labna nabatia (Vegan labna)

Labna (with diacritics: "لَبْنَة"; in Levantine pronunciation sometimes "لَبَنَة" "labanay") is a Levantine cow's, sheep's, or goat's milk yoghurt that has been strained to remove the whey and leave the curd, giving it a taste and texture in between those of a thick, tart sour cream and a soft cheese. The removal of whey, in addition to increasing the yoghurt's tanginess and pungency, makes it easier to preserve: it will keep in burlap or cheesecloth for some time without refrigeration, and may be preserved for even longer by rolling it into balls and submerging the balls in olive oil. Labna stored in this way is called "لبنة كُرَات" ("labna kurāt") or "لبنة طابات" ("labna ṭābāt"), "labna balls." Labna may be spread on a plate, topped with olive oil and herbs, and eaten as a dip for breakfast or an appetizer; or spread on kmaj bread alongside herbs, olives, and dates to make sandwiches.

The word "labna" comes from the Arabic root ل ب ن (l b n), which derives from a Proto-West-Semitic term meaning "white," and produces words relating to milk, yoghurt, nursing, and chewing. The related term "لَبَن" ("laban"; also transliterated "leban") refers to milk in Standard Arabic, but in Levantine Arabic is more likely to refer to yoghurt; a speaker may specify "لَبَن رَائِب‎" (laban rā'ib), "curdled milk," to avoid confusion.

Labna is a much-beloved food in Palestine, with some people asserting that no Palestinian home is without a jar. Making labna tabat is, for many, a necessary preparation for the winter season. However, by the mid-2010s, the continuation of Israel's blockade of the Gaza strip, as well as Israeli military violence, had severely weakened Gaza's dairy industry to the point where almost no labna was being produced. Most of the 11 dairy processors active in Gaza in 2017 (down from 15 in 2016) only produced white cheese—though Mustafa Eid's company Khalij had recently expanded production to other forms of dairy that could be made locally with limited equipment, such as labna, yoghurt, and buttermilk.

Dairy farmers and processors pushed for this kind of innovation and self-sufficiency against deep economic disadvantage. With large swathes of Gaza's arable land rendered unusable by Israeli border policing and land mines, about 90% of farmers were forced by scarce pasture land and low fodder production to feed their herds with increasingly expensive fodder imported from Israel—dairy farmers surveyed in 2017 spent an estimated 87% of their income on fodder, which had doubled in price since 2007. Cattle were thus fed with low quantities of, or low-quality, fodder, resulting in lower milk production and lower-quality milk.

Most dairy processors were also unable to access or afford the equipment necessary to maintain, upgrade, or diversify their factories. Since 2007, Israel has tightly restricted entry into Gaza of items which they consider to have a "dual use": i.e., a potential civilian and military function. This includes medical equipment, construction materials, and agricultural equipment and machinery, and impacts everything from laboratory equipment to ensure safe food supplies to packaging and labelling equipment. Of the dairy products that Gazan farmers and processors do manage to produce, Israel's control over their export can cause huge financial losses—as when Israel prohibited the export of Palestinian dairy and meat to East Jerusalem without warning in March of 2020, costing estimated annual losses of 300 million USD.

In addition to this kind of economic manipulation, direct military violence threatens Gaza's dairy industry. Mamoun Dalloul says that his factory was accused of holding rockets and subsequently bombed in 2008, 2010, 2012, and again in 2014, resulting in repeated moves and the loss of the capability to produce yellow cheese. The Israeli military partially or totally destroyed 10 dairy processing factories, and killed almost 2,000 cows, during its 2014 invasion of Gaza, resulting in an estimated 43 million USD of damage to the dairy sector alone. Damage to cow-breeding farms in 2014 reduced the number of dairy cows to 2,600, just over half their previous number. Damage to, or destruction of, wells, water reservoirs, water tanks, and the Gaza Power Plant's fuel tank exacerbated pre-existing problems with producing cattle feed and with the transportation, processing, and refrigeration of dairy products, leading to spoiled milk that had to be disposed of. Repeated offensives made dairy processors reluctant to re-invest in equipment that could be destroyed at any time.

Israeli industry profits by making Gazan self-sufficiency untenable. Israeli goods entering Palestine are not subject to import taxes, and Israeli dairy companies are not dealing with the contaminated water, limited electricity, high costs of feed, out-of-date and expensive-to-repair equipment, and scarce land (some companies, such as Tnuva, purchase milk from farms on illegal settlements in the West Bank) with which Gazan producers must contend. The result is that the local market in Gaza is flooded with imports that are cheaper, more diverse, and of higher quality than anything that local producers can offer. Many consumers believe that Israeli products are safer to eat.

Nevertheless, Gazans continue building and rebuilding. Despite significant decreases in ice cream factories' production after the imposition of Israel's blockade in 2007, Abu Mohammad noted in 2015 that locally produced ice cream was cheaper and more varied than Israeli imports. In 2017, the amount of dairy sold in 74 shops in Gaza that was sourced locally, rather than from Israel, had increased from 10% to 60%. Ayadi Tayyiba, the region's first factory with an all-woman staff, opened in 2022; it produced cheese, yoghurt, and labna with sheep's milk from affiliated farms. However, demand for sheep's milk products has decreased in Gaza due to its higher production costs, leading the factory to supplement its supply with purchased cow's milk.

The current Israeli genocidal offensive on Gaza has caused damage of the same kind as—though to a greater extent than—previous shellings and invasions. Lack of ability to sell milk that had already been produced to factories, as well as lack of access to electricity, caused an estimated 35,000 liters of milk to spoil daily in October of 2023.

Support Palestinian resistance by calling Elbit System’s (Israel’s primary weapons manufacturer) landlord, donating to Palestine Legal's activist defense fund, and donating to Palestine Action’s bail fund.

Equipment:

A blender

A kettle or pot, to boil water

A cheesecloth or tea towel

Ingredients:

1 cup (130g) cashews (soaked, if your blender is not high-speed)

3/4 cup filtered or distilled water, boiled

1-3 vegetarian probiotic capsules (containing at least 10 billion cultures total)

A few pinches sea salt

More water, to boil

Arabic-language recipes for vegan labna use bulghur, almonds, or cashews as their base. This recipe uses cashew to achieve a smooth, creamy, non-crumbly texture, and a mild taste like that of cow's milk labna. You might try replacing half the cashews with blanched almonds for a flavor more similar to that of sheep's or goat's cheese.

Make sure your probiotic capsules contain no prebiotics, as they can interfere with the culture. The probiotic may be multi-strain, but should contain some of: Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Bifidobacterium bifidus, Lactobacillus acidophilus. The number of capsules you need will depend on how many cultures each capsule is guaranteed to contain.

Instead of probiotic capsules, you can use a speciality starter culture pack intended for use in culturing vegan dairy, many of which are available online. Note that starter cultures may be packaged with small amounts of powdered milk for the bacteria to feed on, and may not be truly vegan.

If you want a mustier, goat-ier taste to your labna, try replacing the water with rejuvelac made with wheat berries.

You can also start a culture by using any other product with active cultures, such as a spoonful of vegan cultured yoghurt. If you have a lot of cultured yoghurt, you can just skip to straining that directly (step 5) to make your labna—though you won't be able to control how tangy the labna is that way.

Instructions:

This recipe works by blending together cashews and water into a smooth, creamy spread, then culturing it into yoghurt, and then straining it (the way yoghurt is strained to make labna). It's possible that you could skip the straining step by adding more cashews, or less water, to the yoghurt to obtain a thicker texture, but I have not tested the recipe this way.

1. If your blender is not high-speed, you will need to soak your cashews to soften them. Soak in filtered or distilled water for 2-4 hours at room temperature, or overnight in the fridge. Rinse them off with just-boiled water.

2. Boil several cups of water and use the just-boiled water to rinse your blender, tamper, measuring cups, the bowl you will ferment your yoghurt in, and a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to stir. Your bowl and stirring implement should be in a non-reactive material such as wood, clay, glass, or silicone.

3. Make the yoghurt. Blend cashews with 3/4 cup just-boiled water for a couple of minutes until very smooth. Transfer to your bowl and allow to cool to about skin temperature (it should feel slightly warm if dabbed on the inside of your wrist). If the mixture is too hot, it may kill the bacteria.

4. Culture the yoghurt. Open the probiotic capsules and stir the powder into the cashew paste. Cover the bowl with a cheesecloth or tea towel. Ferment for 24 hours: on the countertop in summer, or in an oven with the light on in winter.

Taste the yoghurt with a clean implement (avoid double-dipping!). Continue fermenting for another 12-24 hours, depending on how tangy you want your labna to be. A skin forming on top of the yoghurt is no problem and can be mixed back in. Discard any yoghurt that grows mold of any kind.

5. Strain the yoghurt to make labna. Place a mesh strainer in a bowl, making sure there's enough room beneath the strainer for liquid to collect at the bottom of the bowl; line the strainer with cheesecloth or a tea towel, and scoop the cultured yoghurt in. Sprinkle salt over top of the yoghurt. Fold the towel or cheesecloth back over the yoghurt, and add a small weight, such as a ceramic plate or a can of beans, on top.

You can also tie the cheesecloth into a bag around a wooden spoon and place the wooden spoon across the rim of a pitcher or other tall container to collect the whey. The draining may occur less quickly without the weight, though.

Strain in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours, depending on the desired texture. I ended up draining about 2 Tbsp of whey.

6. If not making labna balls: Put in an airtight jar, and add just enough olive oil to cover the surface of the labna. Store in the fridge for up to two months.

7. To form balls (optional): Oil your hands to form the labna into small balls and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. They may still be quite soft.

Optionally sprinkle with, or roll in, dried mint, za'tar, sesame seeds, nigella seeds (القزحة), ground sumac, or crushed red chili pepper, as desired.

Optionally, for firmer balls, lightly cover with another layer of parchment paper and then a kitchen towel, and leave in the refrigerator to dry for about a day.

Place labna balls in a clean glass jar and add olive oil to cover. Retrieve labna from the jar with a clean implement. They will last in the fridge for about a year.

#fermented #cashews #cheeses #Levantine #Palestinian #gluten free #cooking

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pockymun · 1 month ago

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I made this build sometime last year. This one is very sentimental. It is a rough replica of a house that I lived in for a few years when I was young. My parents rented it from a farmer that my dad did service calls for. The house was intended to be the farmer's retirement house when he finally retired, but in the meantime, he rented it to my parents for some extra income.

This house was never marked as historical, but it had a some significance in local village history. It had once been its own farm as well. I could not build the white barn on this lot as well, and honestly I was never allowed inside the barn, so I could only guess what the interior of that was. But attached at the end of the barn was a one-story expansion where at one point, there had been a large farm stand. The family name, phone number, and two weird-colored potatoes were painted big on the side that faced the road.

I believe the original family owned this house for generations. In the neighborhood, it was known as the Old [family name] House, even though they had sold it to the aforementioned farmer, who added the land to the land he already owned (he lived just down the road). In my childhood, the family was diminished, with the few remnants living in double-wide modular homes just up the road. Last I heard, both grandparents had passed, the granddaughter was assumed in a facility due to having severe Down's Syndrome, and no one knows exactly where the grandson ended up.

Like I said before, this house had history. It was an old house, presumably from the Victorian era (although it did not look nearly as Victorian as another house 2 miles up the road with a tower). It even had the old-fashioned wooden window frames, where the panes shook in the frames when there was strong winds. In high school, I heard a local history legend that when the Civil War broke out, a woman of the family ran off, presumed a male identity, and joined the Union army. She was shot in combat and died of a nasty infection. I never looked into it, but I have to suspect that she could have lived in this house. It's the only house associated with the family that's so old.

Anyway, the left picture was the formal front of the house that faced the road. The right picture was the side of the house, and the sidewalk led to the gravel driveway. This was the entrance we always used to get in and out.

I put some stuff in for the backyard, but I didn't have enough space to show how huge it was. It sloped down on a hill, and my brother and I had lots of fun sledding down it (and crashing into our mom's little flower garden). There were two massive trees on the slope, and we would build forts in between them. In the far bottom corner, my parents planted a vegetable garden.

The white trees are supposed to be lilacs. The Sims doesn't have lilac bushes. Also there was a small tool shed in the side yard, but there was not enough room on the lot to include it.

The backside of the house was a large attached shed. That door on the end is accurate. I assume the stairs were never installed or just taken away for some reason. The shed was another place I usually wasn't allowed to go into, but one time we kept a duckling in there until she was a little bigger to go outside.

I did my best with the interior, but the Sims has specific rules around building that didn't exactly match what I remember. I cannot get round walls to work. Also, I was building this based on memories that are over 20 years old, when I was very young and my brain wasn't fully developed.

The interior of the house was huge. My parents didn't make a lot of money and they were young. They came from much smaller homes, so this was a mansion to them.

To start with, when we entered through the porch on 15, we entered a huge muckroom (noted as 1 in the picture), which was not the house proper. From there, we would enter the kitchen (2). There were actually two doors in the kitchen that went into the muckroom. From the back door, we would let our dogs out into their special yard (18). Over this yard, the clothesline hung. For some reason, the dryer hookup was in the kitchen next to the oven, and the washer was all the way out in the muckroom.

Number 3 in the picture was the formal dining room. It had a very old, hunter green damask carpet, typically found in historical houses. My parents were given a large heavy table by some of my mom's relatives who needed someone to dump it on, so naturally it ended up being the formal dining table. We only ate there when we had company over for a big dinner. We had to leave the table behind because it was too heavy and we had no place to put it.

Number 4 was the regular dining room, and also where we kept the spare freezer. There was also a small pantry closet where we kept the snacks. We did not have such a nice table and chairs that I put in there in the Sims.

Number 5 was the living room. There was shelving on the wall towards the back, and shelves and drawers made into the wall in the back that we put all our books in. In the Sims, I made it a closed closet with a bookcase.

Number 6 was the main bathroom, the one that worked properly. Both bathrooms were carpeted. It was a headache in the summer because of the humidity. The first floor bathroom had a large maple cabinet for towels and such.

Number 7 was the formal pantry, where a lot of kitchen things went. There was also a door to the basement, but I was never allowed in the basement, and the Sims gave me issues about putting stairs there when there were stairs in the next room. When we lived in this house, I was small enough to hide in the bottom shelves of the pantry.

Number 8 was my dad's computer office. He had custom built an L-shaped corner desk that took up most of the space, and also had a oak chest and a gun cabinet. It's where I first saw him playing the Sims (the first one, when it had just come out). Typically, his computer was off-limits.

Number 9 was what I refer to as the service stairs. They were steep and narrow, and went up into a back area of the house. They were hidden behind a door. My mom and my brother both had bad falls on these stairs, so my parents closed them up and we weren't allowed to use them. It was also where they hid the Christmas presents.

Number 10 was I believe at one point a parlor, then a master bedroom. It had this textured damask wallpaper that was bright pink. You'd be hard-pressed to find wallpaper like it now-a-days. I suspected it was a parlor at some point due to the large white double-doors into the room. It also had a closet off to the side with sliding doors. When my family lived in the house, it was a playroom for my brother and me, where a lot of our toys went. The room stood very tall, so at Christmas, my dad would get huge trees. My parents had to use a ladder to decorate the higher branches and put the angel on top. Those Christmases were definitely the kind of magic young kids anticipated.

Number 11 was the grand stairwell. Unfortunately, the Sims does not have round staircases like there had been in the house. In the hallway, we kept the cat box. At one point, we even had ferrets, too! The front entrance would enter through the stairwell, as shown by Number 12. Actually, I'm not sure if that door ever opened when we lived there. It might have been sealed shut.

Numbers 13 and 14 were small side porches. Neither one of them had stairs attached, so you had to climb onto them. My brother and I weren't allowed on Number 14 much because the roof was unstable. For later Christmases, we stopped getting large trees and set up modest ones in the living room, in front of the porch door.

Number 15 was the large side porch, and the one we would enter the house on. We had a couple plastic Adirondack chairs set up on the porch in front of the large kitchen window. It was also where could enter the tool shed on.

Number 16 was the back porch. We got a patio table and chairs, and my dad had the grill set up against the wall. We had a few dinners there on warm summer nights. It was surrounded by the dog yard. My brother and I would climb over the railing sometimes just to get in the dog yard, just because we could.

Number 17 was the large tool shed that I wasn't allowed into except for the duck. Number 18 was the large fenced-in dog yard. They loved it, although occasionally they did dig under the fence.

Number 19 was what we termed the front yard, also it was a side yard. In the large gray space, there were cellar doors. The Sims 4 does not have cellar doors.

Number 20 was a staircase leading into the abandoned apartment that was added onto the house, sitting above the muckroom. Back in the 1980s/90s when the original family still owned the house, the son of the family had gotten engaged. His parents build the apartment for him and his soon-to-be wife, to give them a place after the wedding. Unfortunately, the son died in a car accident. The fiancee moved on with life, and the parents closed up the apartment and let nature get to it. Not even my parents entered it much, except at one point to go through old bags of clothes dumped on them by my mother's family. There were plenty of dead rodents and birds there.

Now for the second floor! Not as many numbers, as a significant chunk was the abandoned apartment, which was not accessible on this level.

Number 21 was the large hallway from the grand stairwell. Yes, there was only one ceiling light, which made half of the hallway very dark. Coming up the stairs, on the opposite wall, there was this large oil painting of George Washington walking through a Revolutionary town, visiting a blacksmith's shop. I don't know when it exactly came to the house, but it was massive and one-of-a-kind. It was not ours, so we left it. My parents had no idea what to do with an oil painting anyway.

Further into the dark corner of the hallway was a set of stairs that led into the attic. The Sims gave me trouble about adding stairs in that spot. I didn't want to ruin the floorplan, so I omitted them. I was never allowed into the attic.

Number 22 was my dad's train room. While we lived in the house, he got into model trains and cars. He built a massive train table. We did not have such space in our current house, so all his model train stuff was shoved into the unfinished basement, where it has rotted for over 15 years. My brother and I weren't allowed in the train room without our dad. I think there was a closet in there, too. The Sims didn't have much for model trains, much less a table, so I didn't really bother furnishing this room.

Number 23 was my bedroom! That diagonal wall was actually a round wall, curving out into the hallway. I had so much Barbie stuff, and most of it was in the tiny closet. The layout changed a couple times whenever my mom thought it needed to change.

Number 24 was my brother's room. I was given the larger room for being the girl and the oldest. He complained about it a lot, but we played in his room too. He once dropped his nutcracker down the heater vent. We both had lava lamps, but I think his broke soon after he got it.

Number 25 was the upstairs bathroom. The toilet and sink worked, but not the shower. The toilet seat was sticky vinyl. We used that bathroom very sparingly.

Number 26 was my parents' bedroom. Beside my mom's side of the bed was a pile of pillows and blankets, but I just put a pet bed down for simplicity. There was a door on the other side that led into what I consider to be the servants' quarters of the house.

Number 27 was the main hallway area of the quarters. My brother and I weren't usually allowed in this area. It was where my parents stored a lot of our baby things and decorations, and the Christmas presents. Number 28 was probably a bedroom in the past, but my parents made it into storage. The same for Number 29, which was much smaller and had no window.

Number 30 was much larger, so I struggle to believe it was once a servant's bedroom. It also had a closet, and a sloped ceiling. The walls were a lavender color and the carpet was thicker. My mom made it into her sewing/craft room (notice that my dad had TWO rooms to himself in the house, and she was fortunate to get one). She didn't get into any crafts for long, so much of the room was bare.

Number 31 was the stairway leading up into the abandoned apartment. This is where the floor plan gets really dicey, because I was not allowed into the apartment except for once, and I didn't go deep into it. There's a lot of empty space between the apartment and the second floor of the house. The apartment must have also taken up that space, but I can't remember if it did. I only walked into Number 32, which had a wall partition that cut across it, for privacy.

My family only lived in the house for a few years. We loved it, but my parents wanted to own their own house, and the farmer had no intention to sell. As it was, it was impossibly expensive to keep the house warm in the winter. The servants' quarters were sealed off during the winter just to conserve heat. When we were expecting a particularly frigid winter, my parents bought a house five miles away (and immediately went bankrupt).

Unfortunately, there was miscommunication during the move. My dad never told the farmer when we were finally out of the house. The water was never shut off. Winter came, the water pipes froze, and then they burst. No one checked on the house for the longest time, long enough for the house to be flooded and mold to grow everywhere. My dad, of course, refused to admit fault for anything. It led to animosity from the farmer for years, but they eventually patched things up. Even so, the house was condemned by the health department.

Within a year after moving out, my mom had to go back into the house to get some things we left behind. She let my brother and I follow her, so long as we didn't touch anything. We had no PPE. I remember that the hunter green carpet in the formal dining room squished with every step, and slimy yellow pustules covered the walls. It was the same way in the second floor hallway, where the floor was slick and mold obscured the brown walls. The oil painting had survived then, but I can't say it hasn't deteriorated by now.

My family was perfectly happy in that house. It was when we moved out that that fell apart. My mom would avoid driving past the house if she could. I used to drive by just to remember my happy childhood where I didn't know so much, but I also learned to avoid it in time because of the disappointment. If my dad has us kids in the car, he makes a point to drive by the house, and make all kinds of claims about what should have been done to the house (he can't finish a single house project).

We have watched it further deteriorate over the years. Finally last year, the roof began to cave in on the house itself. So, I decided to make a replica of the house in the Sims, to the best of my memory (and what the game would allow me to do). The game doesn't do the house justice, but it is the best I can do.

#my build #sims 4

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de-fright-ful · 5 months ago

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Members of the Joy Family working in Generalized Healthcare, but Pokemon Healthcare specifically is an unspoken, non-concrete tradition that's carried on for centuries. Nurse Joys beget Nurse Joys, child wants to emulate mother or father, and on and on the cycle goes until the Family Name is so tied in to the Healthcare System that they're practically synonymous.

People even assume 'Nurse Joy,' is a title, not a family name. It's become a trope, but WHY. How did this come to arise? Short answer: colonialism.

A slightly longer answer: during the third attempted annexation of Saijikara through the mountain range by members of an early Sinnoh, the ancestor of the modern Joy Family was instrumental in pushing back against the invading forces of the Sinnoah fighters—not through military action exactly—but through medical work.

Legend goes that the Joy family, simple farmers at that time (the highest of the low class for Saijikaran society, not counting the footsoldiers, who were also held in high regard and income during times of conflict) and their land was a far cry from what it is today - what are now manicured gardens were once wilds where animal grazed and where foods were grown and where hidden entrances to caverns carved by time into the rocks lurked. When the war broke out in the Kiyose, The Joys, while not fighters, took up the cause for their emperor and their land.

They invited troops into their home and land to establish their foothold and hold the line; they fed them from their stores, entertained them as any guest, and held their tongues—prepared for the worst when the armies clashed. When fighting inevitably broke, victory seemed hopeless. The Saijikari were starkly outnumbered, and the Sinnoans knew it.

But what the Sinnoah soldiers hadn't anticipated was that, in living on the land for generations, the Joy's knew every hidden cavern and entrance to the underground caves - they had stocked the cold, dark areas with supplies and lanterns, and when the horns blew at the sight of Pokemon flying in the distance, ducted down into them, waiting to play their role. When men and Pokemon fell - the Joys emerged, clutching their lanterns, to bring the fallen into the dark caves to heal and protect them from the war raging above. Fighting raged for weeks, but because of the efforts of the Joy, the invading forces were widdled down, and victory was won - though it cost them their home in the process.

So impressed by the Loyalty and the Ingenuity of the Family and grateful for the changing of the tide, which played an instrumental role in dissuading the invading forces from continuing the efforts (creating legends of soldiers that would fall, only to rise again like an unstoppable army of the dead in Sinnoh) - The Emporer at the time raised their status, making them nobility - the only nobility in that corner of the region, and rewarding them with double their previous land - repayment for the land rendered useless by the battling (which later became the Forgotten Minka)

Then time passed, and more noble marriages and legendary individuals were inspired by the legends of the Joy Healers and the family name. Thus, the Legend was born and subsequently forgotten. Becoming a nurse or doctor became normal, expected even, and eventually, the reason why the clan is marked with the Lantern was lost—the reason the Minka was abandoned—and where the stream met the lake.

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