L. Rhodes @lrhodes@merveilles.town

#introduction: I'm primarily a writer, as well as an incorrigible reader. Much of what I've written can be found at http://lrhodes.net if you're curious. On Merveilles, I also discuss history, philosophy, and a few other humanities-oriented topics.

You know you can just plant the ends of those scallions and they'll grow back, right?

The global footprint of agriculture is decreasing, carving out spaces for biodiversity to regain a foothold. https://e360.yale.edu/features/could-abandoned-agricultural-lands-help-save-the-planet

Persimmons are briefly in season, and I've never really paid them much attention, so when I saw some at my local market, I decided to try them out. Turns out I like them — they're sweet when ripe, with a faint Muscadine flavor. Good for breakfast with yogurt. Will probably turn some of the riper ones into persimmon bread. Technically, they're big berries, like a tomato, a resemblance you can see in cross section.

What does everyone like for FTP on OSX? I've been using Transmit 4, but it's suuuper crashy on the latest version of OSX, and I want to get a sense of the best options before I drop any case on an upgrade.

Wrote a bit about diverse representation in popular culture as an element of justice reform: https://lrhodes.net/readings-workings/pig-farmers-daughter/

What if merveilles.town just, y'know…

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"We change the law not by focusing exclusively on formal legal rules but by changing the experiences, and eroding the myths and stereotypes, that underlie each person's stories. In this way, we can make everyone's stories count. If we want to insure justice we must give voice to previously silenced narratives, remembering that what the law does is part of everyone's personal stories. Otherwise the law has no validity and is an illegitimate exercise of power." — Mary Frances Berry

Same-sex relations are still illegal in Tunisia, but rigorous activism on the heels of a democratic revolution is turning the country into the LGBTQ center of North Africa and the Arab world. https://ezorigin.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2019/1205/Tunisia-as-a-hub-for-LGBTQ-rights-Democracy-is-making-it-happen

Current mood:
PARING DOWN

Fascinating analysis in James Axtell's "The Invasion Within": European colonists faulted Native Americans for their "lack of industry" — meaning they worked for subsistence and not for profit — but the implicit reason for European opposition was that the leisure time this afforded Native Americans allowed them to live like English aristocrats, sporting rather than working long hours like the laboring classes.

Thinking of starting a new reading project to better familiarize myself with the American Indian Movement. So far, my list includes:

• Custer Died For Your Sins
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
• In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

Any recommendations you think it's particularly important that I include on that list? What in particular makes it worth reading?

"In my experience, writing is painful and painstaking work — I like to write much less than I like to have written — but research and the conceptual shaping of a book are pure delight."

James Axtell gets it.

#introduction: I'm primarily a writer, as well as an incorrigible reader. Much of what I've written can be found at http://lrhodes.net if you're curious. On Merveilles, I also discuss history, philosophy, and a few other humanities-oriented topics.

"The era of intensified American policing that began in the 1960s cannot be understood outside the context of the Cold War national-security state." https://www.bookforum.com/print/2604/how-the-united-states-became-the-world-s-police-force-23756

Recommended: Paying for email service.

Reaching for carbon neutral by using food waste to generate electricity: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/11/30/783001327/chew-on-this-farmers-are-using-food-waste-to-make-electricity

Efforts like this are useful so long as the trim around the edges of existing waste, but they have a way of creating pocket industries that profit by producing waste. For example, European biofuel consumption has resulted in Georgia timber companies logging specifically to make the wood pellets that were initially chosen because they were a byproduct.

Student debt debate.