Sparrow Aiden

It feels like such an unpopular opinion these days but I'd much rather a story take a big swing and miss than just be a tepid, lightly-tread path. I'd much rather writers take big risks, play with expectations, subvert tropes and ultimately maybe fail a little bit than have this constant stream of content that can be summed up in trite soundbites or carved up into 30 second clips.

What I was taught growing up: Wild edible plants and animals were just so naturally abundant that the indigenous people of my area, namely western Washington state, didn't have to develop agriculture and could just easily forage/hunt for all their needs.

The first pebble in what would become a landslide: Native peoples practiced intentional fire, which kept the trees from growing over the camas praire.

The next: PNW native peoples intentionally planted and cultivated forest gardens, and we can still see the increase in biodiversity where these gardens were today.

The next: We have an oak prairie savanna ecosystem that was intentionally maintained via intentional fire (which they were banned from doing for like, 100 years and we're just now starting to do again), and this ecosystem is disappearing as Douglas firs spread, invasive species take over, and land is turned into European-style agricultural systems.

The Land Slide: Actually, the native peoples had a complex agricultural and food processing system that allowed them to meet all their needs throughout the year, including storing food for the long, wet, dark winter. They collected a wide variety of plant foods (along with the salmon, deer, and other animals they hunted), from seaweeds to roots to berries, and they also managed these food systems via not only burning, but pruning, weeding, planting, digging/tilling, selectively harvesting root crops so that smaller ones were left behind to grow and the biggest were left to reseed, and careful harvesting at particular times for each species that both ensured their perennial (!) crops would continue thriving and that harvest occurred at the best time for the best quality food. American settlers were willfully ignorant of the complex agricultural system, because being thus allowed them to claim the land wasn't being used. Native peoples were actively managing the ecosystem to produce their food, in a sustainable manner that increased biodiversity, thus benefiting not only themselves but other species as well.

So that's cool. If you want to read more, I suggest "Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America" by Nancy J. Turner

And then I think about:

How we hunted the beavers to near extinction, and a beaver pond effects the soil moisture level, wetlands, etc.

How we banned intentional fires, and now are dealing with bigger, hotter, more dangerous fires. And that one of the tools in invasive species management is intentional fires.

How we have all these invasive plant species invading everywhere, and if people were still allowed/encouraged to "forage" like they did pre-colonialization, that would include removing those invasive species. And people would have eyes everywhere, so the populations of invasive species would not have had the chance to get established.

The land needs people. Leaving it "wild" and "untouched" is actually neglect.

i was cheering for him...

I know "60s housewives who invented slash fanfiction" has taken on a life of its own as a phrase, but Kirk/Spock didn't really exist until the 70s and THOSE WOMEN HAD JOBS. They were teachers and librarians and bookkeepers and scientists and they damn well spent their own money going to conventions, printing zines, buying fanart and making fandom happen. Put some respect on their names.

Salute to our troops (70s careerwomen who put their hard-earned dollars into homemade gay erotica)

It was women with secretarial jobs doing a lot of the heavy lifting, if memory serves correctly.

They had training in type setting, could churn things out quickly, knew how to organise mailing lists, and had easy access to Expensive High Tech like photocopiers.

Boss make a dollar, she makes a dime. That's why she's printing Kirk X Spock zines on company time.

Article basically says that s2 will be greenlit if s1 blows up on Netflix when it drops there on May 31st.

To those who've already watched it and have Netflix, watch it again! To those who haven't, here's your chance, and spread the word! This show is incredible and unlike any other western animated show out there and it'd be a shame if it became yet another victim of corporate write-offs. Let's give Scavengers Reign a second chance at life!

This show is so good - a human colony ship essentially crash lands on an exoplanet teeming with truly alien life in an ecosystem like we've never seen before.

The art is gorgeous, the worldbuilding is fantastic, the story is compelling, and the voice acting and sound work are great.

Seldom do we get science fiction shows like this. It would be a tragedy if it's not renewed.

We here at Ad Astra strongly recommend Scavengers Reign!

Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds - Ada Limón

I think about this post all the time

I swear once you start digging out their crimes you'll dig to hell and back.

This article is more that 24 years old

This will make you cry.

"Elderly Palestinian couple looking at their former home, now occupied by a couple from Brooklyn. 🇵🇸" [@/RamAbdu on X. April 4th, 2024.]

horrible news: in order for you to finish a wip, you have to work on that wip and not the 2543524 other wips you were brainrotting over instead of that one. more investigations at 7.

We ought to criticise the Dutch more, not sure on what yet, but there has to be something

Not ENOUGH trains. There.

also not enough rails to fit additional trains on

also the trains are always delayed

also if you see something i write or post, feel free to say something! i love seeing more perspectives and learn a lot from yall!

damn its almost like this is.. social media

people are gonna be social lmao

if i exactlyyyy

if i wanted to interact with myself, id be on pornhub

Imagine sending hatemail to @saintjosie on the having a crush on @saintjosie website

look i know im hot but that feels like a stretch

i voted no on myself obviously

i mean i’d hit it but i wouldn’t catch feelings

did lemony snicket write this

people say that the Spaniel is a gentle breed of dog. and yet, when accelerated out of this railgun at 2,500 m/s directly towards this group of orphans,

Rafah Crossing and Kerem Shalom Crossing have been closed since the Rafah invasion began. The little aid that trickled in kept its starving population alive and hospitals open. Israeli settlers have increasingly attacked aid trucks preventing them from entering the Strip by destroying bags of flour and blocking the streets with stones, all while the Israeli army bombed water pipes and warehouses storing aid.

And now they're doing this

This was an attempt to lynch to a Palestinian because they thought he was bringing food and fuel to a population that's being bombed hundreds of times a day