#i'm very american usa

[eevachu]

Are you in America?

I’m in North America, if I want to be pedantic, but no, I’m not in Canada’s pants at the moment.

[screechingsandwichhologram]

my uninformed american opinion is that i will be calling it derry not londonderry because im american and therefore will always support ireland if its ireland vs the british.

(i wasn't even going to post this but i wrote a whole essay in the tags so i don't want to waste that)

[1nm806]

GUYS THERE R AMERICANS SAT BEHIND ME AND I FORGOT THAT AMERICANS SOUND LIKE THAT ITS BEEN SO LONG SINCE I'VE HEARD THEM IN PERSON

So sry for the spam. I'm SO BORED

[vulpinesaint]

wishing all non-usamericans a very shut the fuck up about your opinions on our voting actually. contrary to popular belief we're not fucking stupid and we know how voting works. first of all if someone is making the choice to abstain from voting as opposed to voting for the lesser of two evils (or actually supporting one of the parties) they have put a LOT of thought into that decision and it's not made lightly! second of all do you fucking HEAR yourself. "don't even think about who that vote's going toward" what the FUCK are you talking about. it is so incomprehensible to me to walk up to someone and tell them that it's important to vote but not to? vote for something good? yeah don't worry bro just vote. surely putting no critical thought into the end result of your political actions will end up fine. even if this were not a much more complex situation where undecided votes are being used to pressure different political sides and decisions not to vote have a lot of thought put into them, this take completely ignores the central problem, which is that people don't want to put a man who is actively contributing to genocide at the moment back into power. i think it's pretty fucking significant to think about what someone might do if they get elected actually.

you get it. you understand. you see how it's different. man i really don't think you do actually. the way to fuck over one party in a two-party system is to vote for the other party and the "better" party here is fucking terrible and will only continue pushing right if unchallenged. "just vote for genocide joe! don't think about what will actually happen! don't you want to screw over trump!" man do you hear yourself???? if we could shut down the condescension for a second and use our brains maybe we could have a productive discussion that didn't hinge around a fundamental misunderstanding of both our electoral system and the political movements that are currently involved and invested in the actions of voters right now. in the meantime goddddddd if you don't know what you're talking about take the high ground and shut the fuuuckkkk upppppppp

[prettyflyshyguy]

Long shot I know but are there any North American accented folks out there who think they could do a solid impression of either of these two:

Rebecca Chambers (vendetta)

Leon Kennedy (Re4/Re6)

The reason being I want to do a little..... Youtube bit, with a very small script (Rebecca has significantly more lines but its not much, like under 1 minute easily, Leon only has a few lines and the audio will be modified/pitch shifted because he's infected but someone who can match him somewhat would be ace)

And I tried recording Rebecca's lines and look. It was OK. My American accent attempt is passable but incredibly strained, and I do not think I could pull off a decent sounding Leon.

Full transparency this is me requesting volunteers and is pro bono so I can make an animated shitpost akin to this.

[bat-the-misfit]

not a mexican dude playing a brazilian character

[kyouka-supremacy]

/

[karlyuchka]

Bad post tbh. The "Europeans can drive 2 hours and be in different country" is bullshit. Americans also can do that if they live near the border? Like??? I could drive like four hours and end up in Belarus and I can also drive eight hours and still be in Ukraine.

The time depends on where you start and end your journey. It doesn't depend on what goddamn continent you live on.

"The train to France takes three hours" Cool, very interesting, you missed one detail: where do you live? In Germany near french border?

Also tbh, us centrism is much more serious and much more bigger problem than "europe centrism".

You shouldn’t date or become serious friends/partners with someone if you can’t stomach the thought of being stuck in a car or train with them for 16 hours.

[boreal-sea]

Look.

I have made you a chart. A very simple chart.

People say "You have to draw the line somewhere, and Biden has crossed it-" and my response is "Trump has crossed way more lines than Biden".

These categories are based off of actual policy enacted by both of these men while they were in office.

If the ONLY LINE YOU CARE ABOUT is line 12, you have an incredible amount of privilege, AND YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT PALESTINIANS. You obviously have nothing to fear from a Trump presidency, and you do not give a fuck if a ceasefire actually occurs. You are obviously fine if your queer, disabled, and marginalized loved ones are hurt. You clearly don't care about the status of American democracy, which Trump has openly stated he plans to destroy on day 1 he is in office.

EDIT:

Ok fine, I spent 3 hours compiling sources for all of these, you can find that below the cut.

I'll give at least one link per subject area. There are of course many more sources to be read on these subject areas and no post could possibly give someone a full education on these subjects.

Biden and trans rights: https://www.hrc.org/resources/president-bidens-pro-lgbtq-timeline

Trump and trans rights: https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/trump-on-lgbtq-rights-rolling-back-protections-and-criminalizing-gender-nonconformity

The two sources above show how Biden has done a lot of work to promote trans rights, and how Trump did a lot of work to hurt trans rights.

Biden on abortion access: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/politics/what-is-in-biden-abortion-executive-order/index.html

Trump on abortion access: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-trump-republican-presidential-election-2024-585faf025a1416d13d2fbc23da8d8637

Biden openly supports access to abortion and has taken steps to protect those rights at a federal level even after Roe v Wade was overturned. Trump, on the other hand, was the man who appointed the judges who helped overturn Roe v Wade and he openly brags about how proud he is of that decision. He also states that he believes individual states should have the final say in whether or not abortion is legal, and that he trusts them to "do the right thing", meaning he supports stronger abortion bans.

Biden on environmental reform: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-restores-protections-for-three-national-monuments-and-renews-american-leadership-to-steward-lands-waters-and-cultural-resources/

Trump on environmental reform: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html

Biden has made major steps forward for environmental reform. He has restored protections that Trump rolled back. He has enacted many executive orders and more to promote environmental protections, including rejoining the Paris Accords, which Trump withdrew the USA from. Trump is also well known for spreading conspiracy theories and lies about global climate change, calling it a "Chinese hoax".

Biden on healthcare and prescription reform: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/06/09/biden-administration-announces-savings-43-prescription-drugs-part-cost-saving-measures-president-bidens-inflation-reduction-act.html

Trump on healthcare reform: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/07/politics/obamacare-health-insurance-ending-trump/index.html

I'm rolling healthcare and prescriptions and vaccines and public health all into one category here since they are related. Biden has lowered drug costs, expanded access to medicaid, and ACA enrollment has risen during his presidency. He has also made it so medical debt no longer applies to a person's credit score. He signed many executive orders during his first few weeks in office in order to get a handle on Trump's grievous mishandling of the COVID pandemic. Trump also wants to end the ACA. Trump is well known for refusing to wear a mask during the pandemic, encouraging the use of hydroxylchloroquine to "treat" COVID, and being openly anti-vaxx.

Biden on student loan forgiveness: https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-additional-77-billion-approved-student-debt-relief-160000-borrowers

Trump on student loan forgiveness: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2024/06/20/trump-knocks-bidens-vile-student-loan-forgiveness-plans-suggests-reversal/

Trump wants to reverse the student loan forgiveness plans Biden has enacted. Biden has already forgiven billions of dollars in loans and continues to work towards forgiving more.

Infrastructure funding:

I'm putting these links next together because they are all about infrastructure.

In general, Trump's "achievements" for infrastructure were to destroy environmental protections to speed up projects. Many of his plans were ineffective due to the fact that he did not clearly outline where the money was going to come from, and he was unwilling to raise taxes to pay for the projects. He was unable (and unwilling) to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill during his 4 years in office. He did sign a few disaster relief bills. He did not enthusiastically promote renewable energy infrastructure. He created "Infrastructure Weeks" that the federal government then failed to fund. Trump did not do nothing for infrastructure, but his no-tax stance and his dislike for renewable energy means the contributions he made to American infrastructure were not as much as he claimed they were, nor as much as they could have been. Basically, he made a lot of promises, and delivered on very few of them. He is not "against" infrastructure, but he's certainly against funding it.

Biden was able to pass that bipartisan bill after taking office. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan that Trump tried to prevent from passing during Biden's term contains concrete funding sources and step by step plans to rebuild America's infrastructure. If you want to read the plan, you can find it here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/build/guidebook/. Biden has done far more for American infrastructure than Trump did, most notably by actually getting the bipartisan bill through congress.

Biden on Racial Equity: https://www.npr.org/sections/president-biden-takes-office/2021/01/26/960725707/biden-aims-to-advance-racial-equity-with-executive-actions

Trump on Racial Equity: https://www.axios.com/2024/04/01/trump-reverse-racism-civil-rights https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-37230916

Trump's racist policies are loud and clear for everyone to hear. We all heard him call Mexicans "Drug dealers, criminals, rapists". We all watched as he enacted travel bans on people from majority-Muslim nations. Biden, on the other hand, has done quite a lot during his term to attempt to reconcile racism in this country, including reversing Trump's "Muslim ban" the first day he was in office.

Biden on DEI: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/06/25/executive-order-on-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-in-the-federal-workforce/

Trump on DEI: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-tried-to-crush-the-dei-revolution-heres-how-he-might-finish-the-job/ar-BB1jg3gz

Biden supports DEI and has signed executive orders and passed laws that support DEI on the federal level. Trump absolutely hates DEI and wants to eradicate it.

Biden on criminal justice reform: https://time.com/6155084/biden-criminal-justice-reform/

Trump on criminal justice reform: https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election/21418911/donald-trump-crime-criminal-justice-policy-record https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/05/trumps-extreme-plans-crime/678502/

From pardons for non-violent marijuana convictions to reducing the federal government's reliance on private prisons, Biden has done a lot in four years to reform our criminal justice system on the federal level. Meanwhile, Trump has described himself as "tough on crime". He advocates for more policing, including "stop and frisk" activities. Ironically it's actually quite difficult to find sources about what Trump thinks about crime, because almost all of the search results are about his own crimes.

Biden on military support for Israel: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-obama-divide-closely-support-israel-rcna127107

Trump on military support for Israel: https://www.vox.com/politics/353037/trump-gaza-israel-protests-biden-election-2024

Biden supports Israel financially and militarily and promotes holding Israel close. So did Trump. Trump was also very pro-Israel during his time in office and even moved the embassy to Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem the capitol of Israel, a move that inflamed attitudes in the region.

Biden on a ceasefire: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/06/05/gaza-israel-hamas-cease-fire-plan-biden/73967659007/

Trump on a ceasefire: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-israel-gaza-finish-problem-rcna141905

Trump has tried to be quiet on the issue but recently said he wants Israel to "finish the problem". He of course claims he could have prevented the whole problem. Trump also openly stated after Oct 7th that he would bar immigrants who support Hamas from the country and send in officers to American protests to arrest anyone supporting Hamas.

Biden meanwhile has been quietly urging Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire deal for months, including the most recent announcement earlier in June, though it seems as though that deal has finally fallen through as well.

[mclqren]

SUCCESSFUL ★ MV33

PAIRING ✦ max verstappen x fem!singer!reader

SUMMARY ✦ between you winning an award in the grammys in february and him winning the first grand prix of the 2024 season, you and your boyfriend are proving to be very successful [ SMAU ]

WARNINGS ✦ cursing

REQUESTED ✦ here!

NOTES ✦ my first max smau!! reader is implied to be american (refers to america as her home). as per request, the fc i've used is sabrina carpenter, but feel free to picture whoever you want! my requests are open so feel free to leave a request :)

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liked by maxverstappen1, oliviarodrigo, and 2,100,391 others

yourusername grammys tomorrow 😘

view all comments

user1 respectfully, she’s so fine

user2 FORGET MAX PLS COME HOME W ME

user3 I CAN TREAT YOU BETTER 🙏😔

user4 THE LAST SLIDE Y/N WHAT'S THE MATTER

yourusername these are tears of happiness trust me 💗

user5 OMG YOU GOT A REPLYYY SO LUCKY

maxverstappen1 so excited ❤️

yourusername yeah but i’m most excited so 🙄💗

user6 THEIR DYNAMIC HELLO??

user7 okay but MAX IS GOING W HER TO THE GRAMMYS??

user8 he usually does go w her to these events, like how she goes to his races!

oliviarodrigo BABY GIRLLL CANT WAIT 😉❤️

yourusername MY BABYY CANT WAIT TO HANG OUT TOMORROW 😘😘

yourusername

( caption one: omw to the grammys!! (i swear i'm happy to be going my boyfriend is just pissing me off) | caption two: you'd think i wasn't even in the car with him 🙄 )

liked by maxverstappen1, charles_leclerc, and 2,819,209 others

tagged maxverstappen1

yourusername guess who won her first grammyyy!!!!! thank you all so so much for ur endless support, im forever grateful! 😘❤️❤️

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user9 BEST GIRL WON A GRAMMYYYY

user10 I LOVE YOU Y/N

user11 wait what category did she win??

user12 best new artist!!

user13 SHE'S STUNNINGGG

user14 max is punching idc

maxverstappen1 so proud of you ❤️

yourusername love you maxie 💗

reneerapp CONGRATS ANGEL 💗💗

yourusername OMG I LOVE YOU!!

user15 oh to be y/n.

liked by maxverstappen1, reneerapp, and 1,865,819 others

yourusername who said i couldn't go to a beach in february?? 🤷‍♀️🏖️

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user20 HOW WERE YOU NOT FREEZING COLD

user21 she IS the moment!

user22 ur life seems so fun omg

user23 literallyyyy

user24 is she not in monaco w max rn??

user25 nooo!! she's staying in the usa for a bit while max goes to prepare for the start of the f1 season :)

reneerapp photo creds? ☹️

yourusername SORRY ANGEL yes photo creds to you!!

maxverstappen1 only you would go to a beach in february

yourusername awww are you missing me maxie 😘

charles_leclerc can confirm he is

maxverstappen1 charles you weren't meant to tell her ☹️

yourusername I'LL SEE YOU (BOTH) SOON TRUST

user26 what did y/n mean in her replies w 'see you (both) soon'??

user27 she always goes to the first gp of the season, so she probably means that!

liked by maxverstappen1, reneerapp, and 2,201,334 others

tagged reneerapp

yourusername coming home's been a blast 🚀

user28 MY TWO FAVS HANGING OUTTT

user29 Y/N IN LA HOW DID I NOT KNOW THISSSS

user30 so are her and renee friends then?

user31 they're very good friends!! when y/n first joined the music industry, renee sort of took her under wing and they become super close! 💛

user32 this friendship is just everything to me

maxverstappen1 cant wait to see you❤️

yourusername likewise max emilian!! 💗

reneerapp I CANT BELIEVE UR GOING TO LEAVE ME

yourusername I'LL BE BACK YOU BEFORE YOU KNOW IT ☹️

yourusername

( caption one: two flights and almost a day later and i’m finally here 🇺🇸➡️🇧🇭 | caption two: back in the garage 🏎️ )

liked by maxverstappen1, carlossainz55, and 1,951,396 others

tagged maxverstappen1

yourusername VAMOS MAX VAMOS 🏎️ (i'm so sorry i don't know any language other than spanish)

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user33 THE CAPTION??

user34 shes so funny stop

user35 Y/N IN BAHRAINNN WE LIKE TO SEE IT!!

user36 the last slide awww

user37 y/n's spirit animal

maxverstappen1 not dutch? ☹️

yourusername read the caption hon im so sorry 😘

carlossainz55 🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸

yourusername SIIII

maxverstappen1 oh.

yourusername shh look away max ❤️

user38 HELP???

liked by yourusername, schecoperez, and 871,301 others

maxverstappen1 unbelievable start to the year, 1-2 finish is absolutely fantastic 🏆👊

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user43 THE CHAMP IS BACK 🏆

user44 AND THE DUTCH NATIONAL ANTHEM PLAYS AGAINNN 🇳🇱

user45 RED BULL REMAINS SUPREMEEE

redbullracing Best start to the season! 👊❤️

liked by maxverstappen1

yourusername WOOHOOO THAT'S MY FUCKING CHAMPION!!

maxverstappen1 ❤️

yourusername RED BULL RAHHHHH

user46 HELP ME Y/N

liked by maxverstappen1, charles_leclerc, and 2,104,346 others

tagged maxverstappen1

yourusername HE ONLY WENT AND DID ITTT!! congrats boyfriend, guess we're both starting this year off as winners ❤️

view all comments

user47 Y/N BEING SORT OF NICE IN THE CAPTION FOR ONCE?

user48 it usually depends on her mood ❤️

user49 'congrats boyfriend' HELP MEEE

user50 SHE'S SO FUNNY

user51 ugh i love you guys!!

maxverstappen1 love you ❤️

yourusername love you more!! 💗

maxverstappen1 the last slide 🤨🤨🤨

yourusername you can thank pinterest for that one 💗

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[nyancrimew]

Do you think your race/nationality may influence on the consequences of hacking? Or like how far you can even get?

I'm asking because I very rarely see a "prominent" hackitvist that's not white European/USA

it is definitely a factor yes, especially with me, like the only reason im free rn is because switzerland doesn't extradite citizens. but another very big part of it is that to become a widely prominent hacktivist (and as with many other things) you either need to do things western media cares about or get in trouble with the law big time (in the west), which also usually implies being in a country that actively works together with primarily the US or other empires that actively and publicly work against hacking and hacktivists. there are lots of hacktivists in asia and latin america (specifically phineas fisher here also being a popular figure, who is believed to be in latam and has yet to be caught) as well especially (also elsewhere ofc but i dont know of as many), but they are either doing hacktivism within their communities which are usually not internationally that news worthy, or are out of reach enough for the US empire to never get unmasked.

in a lot of ways being a popular hacktivist as an individual is actually moreso a failing in staying safe from consequences by either you or people you work with (see in the history of lulzsec and most of the now well known anonymous figures in the US) or a conscious choice done out of the knowledge that you'll be relatively safe/recklessness. but i definitely feel like international (social) media bias towards western interests is also just a very big part of why you will mostly only ever hear of (assumed) white european/american hacktivists.

and also just as a quick closing note, i would not say that (even white) people in the US or the US sphere of influence are safe from consequences due to hacking in any way, the US is one of the strictest countries when it comes to persecuting hackers and goes to long ways to be as cruel as possible, and especially so with hacktivists. this goes so far that in the 2020 counterintel report the US government put hacktivists/leaktivists on the top 5 biggest threats to the US government, which is ofc both a honor (and shows it works and scares them) but is ofc also scary as fuck. it is this big spectacle they make out of persecuting hackers and making examples out of them that also leads to more of the very distorted prominence of western hackers.

[herpsandbirds]

I love American magpies, can i get some pretty pictures and not commonly known facts about them please?

Hey there, I'm going to basically repost a post I made a few months back. I think this may be what you're looking for:

Black-billed Magpies (Pica hudsonia), family Corvidae, order Passeriformes, western USA

Photographs via: US Fish & Wildlife Department and the National Park Service

Here in the United States if you want to see a magpie, you’ve got to head out west, and this is one of my favorite western birds.

Most of you probably know that magpies, like other corvids are very intelligent, and get up to all kind of mischief. Some of you may know that Black-billed Magpies particularly like to sit on larger animals, where they survey for small prey, disturbed by the larger animal’s hooves, as well as feeding on parasites that may be on the animal.

[hexhomos]

have u seen that artists r getting death threats on twitter over hc viktor as russian 😭

I have seen a literal friend of mine get stupidly angry comments from new age arcane fans who swear up and down he's been czech all his life and it truly boggles the mind. that's straight up not true. Viktor was created as a russian communist caricature by an american corporation. he was "villainous crazy russian guy" for twelve years, the funny harry lloyd czech impression only started out 3 years ago. We're just doing cold war propaganda all over again now???

viktor being russian =/= liking the ghoulish russian government. You aren't giving Putin an endorsement, you're drawing a cartoon faggot //russian immigrant allegory// who would get deported by the CIA during the first red scare. Viktor can be russian. there's gay and trans and disabled russian people who are discriminated against & very much at risk at at a home country that is hostile and controlling towards its own citizens, and when they try to get out of that oppressive environment there's all these preloaded notions painting them as "untrustworthy" or "inherently shady" thanks to the Russian Enemy american popculture slop archetype.

My own country has gone through decades of horrific dictatorship before! Through the hands of our own military forces and highly aided by the USA, profiting off our misery! Should our people as a whole be conflated with the military troops that abducted protesters into death-torture camps? Should our people as a whole be represented by the worst geriatric nationalistic bigots who can plant themselves in power? Is this how we look at the whole world? This is a dangerous line of thought. I get that a lot of arcane fandom is young but that is a rightwing calling card line of thought. If we're all to be represented exclusively by a sum of our Leading Cops, we're deep in the muddy shit. I don't even like these pigs in a good day. If you're an american saying this, especially? LOOK AT YOUR OWN FUCKING TROOPS. YOU'RE THE IMPERIAL CAPITAL. IT'S YOU.

It also stands out to me that viktor league of legends was perfectly fine as crazy evil russian stock villain n.99999 for 10+ years, but as soon as he gets an adaptation that depicts him as empathetic/altruistic and well intentioned all the way through, humanized like a proper human being... the americans in charge conveniently drop the 'russian' part of his persona. (but oh, they keep the red scare stuff. and they keep the stuff about communism being a path to certain evil, they just cut out the russian identification, so people have a harder time criticizing it.) I don't think that is a neutral decision, and its not one I'm interested in reproducing.

It's completely fine to have your own hcs, but I don't like the shallow conversations around this. Viktor isn't a representation of the russian government; but he is, fundamentally, a byproduct of how american propaganda rules the entire world and defines who gets to be alienated as the villain forever. We used to see this with china A LOT as well (still do!), and it only changed after a whole lot of effort, be it by chinese immigrants or the proliferation of media depicting them as whole, multifaceted people, distanced from the american-made boogeymen. The common citizen is not my enemy. It shouldn't be yours either.

[petermorwood]

Food on St Patrick's Day (in the USA)...

...is usually Corned Beef & Cabbage, which is the Irish-American version of the original Irish boiled bacon & cabbage, but while the celebratory Irishness is still going strong, try something a bit more authentic.

A nice warm coddle. Not cuddle, coddle, though just as comforting in its own way. (Some sources suggest it's a hangover cure, not that such a thing would ever be necessary at this time of year, oh dear me no.)

Coddle is a stew using potatoes, onions, bacon, sausages, stout-if-desired / stock-if-not, pepper, sage, thyme and Time.

You'll often see it called "Dublin Coddle", but my Mum made Lisburn Coddle lots of times, I've made West Wicklow Coddle more than once, and on one occasion in a Belgian holiday apartment I made Brugsekoddel, which is an OK spelling for something that doesn't exist in any cookbook.

*****

I do remember one amendment I made to Mum's recipe, which met with slight resistance at the time and great appreciation thereafter.

Her coddle was originally cooked on the stove-top, not in the oven, and nothing was pre-cooked. Potatoes were quartered, onions were sliced, bacon was cut into chunks and then everything went into the big iron casserole, then onto the slow back ring, and there it simmered Until Done.

However, the bacon was thick-cut back rashers, and the sausages were pork chipolatas.

Raw, they looked like this:

...and the bacon looked like this:

Cooked in the way Mum initially did, they looked pretty much the same afterwards. The sausages didn't change colour. Nor did the bacon.

While everything tasted fine, the meat parts always looked - to me, anyway - somewhat ... less than appealing. "Surgical appliance pink" is the kindest way to put it, and that's all I'm saying. This is apparently "white coddle" and Dubs can get quite defensive about This Is The Way It SHOULD Look.

I'm not a Dub, so I persuaded Mum to fry both the bacon and sausages first, just enough to get a bit of brown on, and wow! Improvement! I remember my Dad nodding in approval but - because he was Wise - not saying anything aloud until Mum gave it the green light as well.

Doing the coddle in the oven, first with lid on then with lid off, came later and met with equal approval. So did using only half of the onion raw and frying the other half lightly golden in the bacon fat.

Nobody quoted from a movie that wouldn't be made for another decade, but there was a definite feeling of...

*****

There are coddle recipes all over the Net: I've made sure that these are from Ireland to avoid the corned-beef-not-boiled-bacon "adjustment" versions which are definitely out there. I've already seen one with Bratwurst. Just wait, it'll be chorizo next.

Oh, hell's teeth, I was right. And from RTE...

Returning to relative normality, here's Donal Skehan's white coddle and his browned coddle with barley (I'm going to try that one).

Here's Dairina Allen's Frenchified with US measurements version. (I feel considerably less heretical now.)

And finally (OK, not Irish, but it references a couple of the previous ones and is a VERY comprehensive write-up, so gets a pass) Felicity Cloake's Perfect Dublin Coddle (perfect according to who, exactly...?) in The Guardian.

*****

Returning to the beginning, and how boiled bacon became corned beef (a question which prompted @dduane to start an entire website...!)

The traditional Irish meat animal for those who could afford it was the pig, but when Irish immigrants (even before the Great Famine) arrived in the USA, they often lived in the same urban districts as Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.

For fairly obvious reasons pork, bacon and other piggy products were unavailable in those districts, but salt beef was right there and far cheaper than any meat Irish immigrants had ever seen before.

Insist on tradition or eat what was easy to find? There'd have been contest - and do I sometimes wonder a bit if sauerkraut ever came close to replacing cabbage for the same reason.

The pre-Famine Irish palate liked sour tastes: a German (?) visitor to Ireland in the mid-1600s wrote about about what were called "the best-favoured peasantry in Europe", and mentioned that they had "seventy-several sour milks and creams*, and the sourer they be, the better they like them."

* Yogurt? Kefir? Skyr? Gosh...

Corned beef and Kraut as the immigrants' celebratory "Irish" meal for St Patrick's Day? Maybe, maybe not.

Time for "Immigrant Song" (with kittens).

*****

Corned beef got its name from the size of the salt grains with which the beef was prepared. They were usually bigger than kosher salt, like pinhead oats or even as large as grains of wheat, and their name derived originally from "corned (gun)powder", the large coarse grains used in cannon.

BTW, "corn" has been a generic English term for "grain" for centuries, and "but Europe didn't have corn" is an American mistake assuming the word refers to sweetcorn / maize, which it doesn't.

Lindsey Davis, author of the "Falco" series, had a couple of rants about it and other US-requested "corrections". As she points out, mistakes need corrected but "corn" is not a mistake, just a difference in vocabulary.

*****

In Ancient and Medieval Ireland pig would have included wild boar, the hunting of which was a suitable pastime for warriors and heroes, because Mr Boar took a very dim view of the whole proceeding and wasn't shy about showing it (see "wild boar" in my tags and learn more).

Cattle were for milk, butter, cream and little cattle; also wealth, status, and heroic displays in their theft, defence or recovery. It's no accident that THE great Irish epic is "The Cattle-Raid of Cooley" / Táin Bó Cúailnge (tawn / toyn boh cool-nyah).

Killing a cow for meat was ostentation on a level of lighting cigars with 100-, or even 500-, currency-unit notes. Once it had been cooked and eaten there'd be no more milk, butter, cream or little cattle from that source, so eating beef was showing off And Then Some.

Also, loaning a prize bull to run with someone else's heifers was a sign of great friendship or alliance, while refusing it might be an excuse for enmity or even war. IMO that's what Maeve of Connaught intended all along, picking undiplomatic envoys who would get drunk and shoot their mouths off so the loan was refused and she, insulted, would have an excuse to...

But I digress, as usual. Or again. Or still... :->

*****

For the most part, "pig" mean "domestic porker", and in later periods right up to the Famine, these animals were seldom eaten.

Instead, known as "the gentleman who pays the rent", the family pig ate kitchen scraps and rooted about for other foods, none of which the tenant had to grow or buy for them. These fattened pigs would go to market twice a year, and the money from their sale would literally pay that half-year's rent.

For wealthier (less poor?) farmers, pigs had another advantage. Calves arrived singly, lambs might be a pair, but piglets popped out by the dozen. A sow with (some of) her farrow was even commemorated on the old ha'penny coin...

What with bulls, chickens, hares, horses, hounds, pigs, salmon and stags, the pre-decimal Irish coinage is a good inspiration for some sort of fantasy currency.

But that's another post, for another day.

[theabigailthorn]

what's it like directing writing and starring in your own film? Your massive success going from theater and youtube to cinema? the whirlwind of acting, directing, and writing opportunities in a country that many perceive to be one of the more transphobic places to live? how do you manage the stress of work, life, and organizing and protesting for LGBTQIA+ rights?

Well, I guess as a clarification a lot of my opportunities lately have come from the USA, not Britain - American producers tend to answer my calls and emails much more readily than Brits. For the moment at least. A great deal hinges on the American election.

But yeah, to answer your question - it's nice! It's certainly very nice. I've said before that I struggle with survivor's guilt a lot, but I do what I can to help the community; I'm finding that sometimes means turning stuff down as well as accepting the right offers. I also know that there's no guarantees in this business: a career is a long, long thing and it doesn't go up all the time. Some actors don't work for years, even if they're "very successful" in people's eyes. So I try to just dedicate myself to my creative work and my professional ethics, I try not to get distracted or envious of people who are doing differently - I've got my principles that I'm working and living by and they're important to me so, I just get up and do it day by day I guess? It also helps that I'm finding my people. I don't think I could have done what I've done had I not fallen in with the right folks - my theatre friends in London, the Nebula crew, my manager and the LA gang... It helps to surround myself with people who get what I'm about and who love and support me.

[txttletale]

h… how is any of that racist

assuming that you mean my posts about the 5e monster manual entry for orcs and how insanely racist it is--by happy coincidence i have a bunch of sources about this strewn haphazardly across my browser so i'm happy to answer this.

so we will start with this. the words 'tribe' and 'chief' are deeply, deeply racialised. they have been used throughout colonial (and well into modern and present-day!) history to describe groups of indigenous peoples across the world—with implications of 'primitive' people and societies within the Western myth of linear societal progress. europeans have nations and kings--africans and native americans have tribes and chiefs. the 'tribe' is not a neutral concept--it is a concept that was constructed by europeans in positions of global military domination over a century to justify a narrative about the linear progress of civilization to justify domination [1][2]. of course, it's not just the use of the words 'tribe' or 'chief' but their deployment here in the context of what is obviously supposed to be a 'primitive' method of of government--the 'orcish tribe' is inherently violence, a 'savage' society entirely built on "bloodlust" and "fear"

regis stella puts it much better than i could in this account of an early 20th-century travel memoir in Imagining the Other: The Representation of the Papua New Guinean Subject

while we're on this point i figure i'll add all the other language around 'savagery', 'inherent bloodlust' and so on in the monster manual here to further illustrate my point: it's all quite rote and repeats itself a lot.

now, wait, waiiiit, wait a second. wait a moment. hold up what was that last thing

oh thats not good. having to explain why this is racist feels a little like having to explain why its bad to hit people with hammers but i'll do it anyway: the comparison of real-life 'tribes' of people to insects, vermin, and pestilences is a very real element of genocidal rhetoric--from the holocaust [3] to the rwandan genocide [4]. what is the implied correct societal responose to a tribe that is 'like a plague?'

finally, this is the part that made me say "holy fucking shit this is in the 5th edition monster manual?" because it is pure undiluted gygaxian eugenics shit. first of all, the narrative of the ever-swelling horde, the indigenous or Asian people as an undiffernetiated mass of amorphous Other, is an old one and one that's been used to devalue the lives of people of colour and justify violence against 'the horde'. but the part that's absolutely jaw-dropping is the use of the tropes of reproductive racism--the narrative of Black and indigenous hyperfecundity is also an established racist trope, one which was instrumental in the forced sterilisation of Black and Native women in the USA [5] and now manifests itself in the "great replacement" demographic anxieties of modern racism [6] -- think of White Genocide conspiracy theories and the 14 Words. and of course that is to say nothing of the fact that is made very clear and reiterated (and mechanicised in the form of the Half-Orc player race!) that WotC wants to be very clear about how much orcs "readily crossbreed with other races". this is miscegenation anxiety, plain and simple--somethign else stella talks about.

so yeah! hopefully nobody will ever ask me this fucking question again! (this is just across two fucking pages of the monster manual by the way don’t get me started on the shit that’s in the other books! god forbid i even think about campaign modules!!)