looking at the stars

Golf Courses ARE Being Converted

The Solarpunk "fantasy" that so many of us tout as a dream vision, converting golf courses into ecological wonderlands, is being implemented across the USA according to this NYT article!

The article covers courses in Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Colorado, and New York that are being bought and turned into habitat and hiking trails.

The article goes more into detail about how sand traps are being turned into sand boxes for kids, endangered local species are being planted, rocks for owl habitat are being installed, and that as these courses become wilder, they are creating more areas for biodiversity to thrive.

Most of the courses in transition are being bought by Local Land Trusts. Apparently the supply of golf courses in the USA is way over the demand, and many have been shut down since the early 2000s. While many are bought up and paved over, land Trusts have been able to buy several and turn them into what the communities want: public areas for people and wildlife. It does make a point to say that not every hold course location lends itself well to habitat for animals (but that doesn't mean it wouldn't make great housing!)

So lets be excited by the fact that people we don't even know about are working on the solutions we love to see! Turning a private space that needs thousands of gallons of water and fertilizer into an ecologically oriented public space is the future I want to see! I can say when I used to work in water conservation, we were getting a lot of clients that were golf courses that were interested in cutting their resource input, and they ended up planting a lot of natives! So even the golf courses that still operate could be making an effort.

So what I'd encourage you to do is see if there's any land or community trusts in your area, and see if you can get involved! Maybe even look into how to start one in your community! Through land trusts it's not always golf course conversions, but community gardens, solar fields, disaster adaptation, or low cost housing! (Here's a link to the first locator I found, but that doesn't mean if something isn't on here it doesn't exist in your area, do some digging!)

I am happy to report that even in Alabama, which isn't known for being progressive, my town's defunct university golf course has been converted to trails and wildlife habitat. We saw an entire family of otters hunting in the creek that crosses it on our last visit! There are wildflowers, insects, and birds in abundance as well, and it is fast becoming one of my favorite local spots to enjoy nature.

LOTRWEEK 2024 | Day 1: the road goes ever on

Okay so this is a big deal

To me, and to a significant subset of Sir Terry's fans (including most of you who've found this by the tags), his writing is serious commentary on the human condition - politics, prejudice, self-control, revenge vs. justice, religion, idealism, faith in people vs. cynicism, and more - dressed up with fantasy settings and a hefty leavening of humor to make it fun to read. And it is WILDLY fun to read, actual laugh-out-loud or at least a snicker averaging about every page.

But there's this common idea among the "important literature" people that fun and funny books are not also worthwhile or important in the same way.

This is a Discworld book being released WITH ACADEMIC COMMENTARY and AS A PENGUIN CLASSIC. That's a HUGE amount of recognition.

@thebibliosphere

Oh, I’m about to tear up. I had to fight so hard to do my thesis on Pratchett because the university didn't like what they considered pop culture being studied as literature and this is just... Existing. 🥹

Witchtober - Apple Cider 🧡🍎😊

music + stars

Reading Mockingjay as an adult is extra devastating because. Of course the plucky teenager and her ragtag friends aren't going to sneak into a government building to kill the president with a bow and arrow. That's absolutely ridiculous. It's the kind of thing that's only possible in the kind of propaganda that Coin developed. But she's so good at it that in some ways she tricks the reader into thinking that's the kind of story this is, too--even after 3 books reminding us that pretty much everything that Katniss does the second she volunteers is manipulated by adults pulling strings to make propaganda in some form or another.

I'm sorry I keep thinking about this. Madge gave her the pin. Haymitch told her and Peeta to act like friends. Peeta and Haymitch worked out the star-crossed lovers angle. Rue decided she trusted Katniss (because of the pin Katniss didn't choose) and saved her from the tracker jackers. Snow made her get engaged to Peeta. Cinna made her the mockingjay dress, and the mockingjay suit. Haymitch made Finnick&Co her allies. The rebels broke her out of the arena. She didn't know most of this was even happening!! Makes me insane.

I feel like a case could be made that the only real choice she made without someone's life immediately under threat was to cover Rue in flowers. And maybe that's the only one that mattered.

Yes. The Hunger Games is very much around things being staged and propaganda on both sides. Katniss from the moment that she volunteers has to play to a crowd.

Katniss makes 2 choices for herself after Volunteering: the flowers and the final shot. After that she can make more choices, but she wasn't thinking that way when she released the string.

@ krimamr

omg

this shit rules

if you’re white and wanna write a poc character and feel awkward about it i implore you to ignore any twitblr stuff treating it as a massive ethical burden and instead come in more with the same mindset you’d have if you wanted to write about idk firefighters but didn’t know anything about firefighters so you do... research. Like fuck off with the weird kinda creepy calls for spiritual introspection you’re not writing about god damn space aliens you’re writing about humans and if you think you need more perspective of different life experiences just read?

If I were writing about firefighters I'd also, in addition to just reading about them, take advantage of Our Blessed Internet to ask actual firefighters about how shit works. I'd do the same for a minority I'm not a part of.

I remember when there was this LiveJournal community where you could just ask about anything you needed for your novel - medicine, professions, vehicles, how things function in country X - and people who knew something about that would answer.

We need to bring this back.

And apparently just this summer they DID bring it back - it's called Little Details and it's on Dreamwidth!!!!

Remember, a world where everyone stays in their own boxes and only writes about their own narrow demographic is straight up a goal for racists. If you ever find yourself attempting anti-racism so hard you've looped back to "functionally the same thing racists want", stop, take stock, and ask yourself where things went wrong.

Tiger walking through algae.

yeah but you could green screen this into any thing you want tiger walking through clouds tiger walking through lava tiger walking through space tiger walking through macaroni and cheese like the possibilities are endless thank you algae greenscreen

WHY ARE THERE NO GREEN SCREEN EXAMPLE IMAGES?!? PHOTOSHOP ARTISTS OF TUMBLR, WHERE YOU AT!

I HAD TO. (forgive my horrible photoshop skills. I hope you’re happy.)

I am VERY happy, the coffee is my favourite.

Yes, yes the tiger is in [fill in the blank here]!

I couldn't have said it better myself.

As a 30 year old man who escaped the Alt-right pipeline, you're not going to be happy about the answer.

All I hear from leftists is how much they hate me for my immutable traits, how much they blame me for everything wrong with the world, how much they want me and everyone who looks like me dead.

Whereas Alt-right types would call me "brother" and welcome me into their ranks so long as I hated the right ways.

Do you understand the difference?

I'm an ally and support equality because I feel it's the morally correct choice to make, but holy fuck is it difficult to reconcile that with the fact that means fighting for a lot of people who see you as the scum of the earth.

Read this and then read it again and then read some fucking bell hooks because this is a legitimate problem on the left.

"To create loving men, we must love males. Loving maleness is different from praising and rewarding males for living up to sexist-defined notions of male identity. Caring about men because of what they do for us is not the same as loving males for simply being." - bell hooks, The Will to Change https://bellhooksbooks.com/product/the-will-to-change/

Crossposted from BlueSky!

The beautiful rings of Saturn in near infrared taken by the Cassini spacecraft in 2014. 🪐

📷: NASA / Maksim Kakitsev

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you bewitched me