L. Rhodes @lrhodes@merveilles.town

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

@jerry Yes to everything except "look up sovereign citizen on YouTube." You never know what people will fall for.

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.

Finally gotten back to doing the sort of writing that requires sweat and leaves my limbs shaky afterwards.

@cwebber Most of the big disruptor tech guys have little interest in working within the political system. Their Big Idea is to amass so much money that they can operate beyond the bounds of governance — at least until they can colonize space.

There's gonna come a time, sooner rather than later, when the big environmental advice making the rounds will be "stream less, maybe not at all," and a certain set of people are gonna absolutely melt down.

@lesbianhacker Lead off track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWTiVbA0z8I

@rosano Mostly dressings and pickling things. Use it sparingly, as they flavor tends to overwhelm.