I'm just sorta here

Maxx | they/them | personal blog | no hate or discourse | pfp by nwarrior777

[beadyeyes]

[dragon-in-a-fez]

under US law, it's illegal for anyone who's not a member of a recognised native tribe to own an eagle feather. the penalty is a $100,000 fine.

14 years ago when I had recently moved to Alaska, I went hiking with an Aleut friend, and she pointed to a feather lying on the ground and said "hey that's a bald eagle tail feather, you should grab it!" and I was like "uhh I'm very white and that's very illegal" and she went "they're fuckin everywhere up here man. I have 20." so she grabs it off the ground and hands it to me and says "there, now it's a ceremonial gift from an indigenous person."

and I'm like, okay, cool, I guess this is how we do things in Alaska. nice.

so I keep this bald eagle tail feather around for years. display it in my home among other cherished memorabilia from places I've lived and visited, etc.

on a whim, I have just now looked it up. there is no exemption to that law for a ceremonial gift from an indigenous person. the last 7 years I lived in the US, I was technically a bald eagle poacher.

probably a good thing I don't intend to move back there anytime soon. I wonder what the statute of limitations is on bird crimes.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

@freedomisscaryshit I'm fucking dying I think you forgot the word "feathers" in your tags?? or do you just wish you could grab whole ass eagles that land in your yard??

[emotional-support-husband]

As an Indigenous person, it continues to astound me that there are such strict laws (written by White people) in our name, laws against...picking up things just found on the ground. Like, stop pretending this is "for" us. We don't want this.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

so, for clarity, that's not what this is. the law against possessing feathers is an anti-poaching measure, derived from a North American treaty protecting certain migratory bird species from hunting. that treaty has an exemption for indigenous people to allow tribes that use eagle feathers in ceremonial or religious practices to continue doing so.

[chekhovs-raygun]

i used to collect feathers (illegally) as a teenager and the thing is that it's incredibly important for feathers from wild birds to be illegal to possess because it ensures that they never become fashionable to wear. the reason we passed the migratory bird act was because the american and european fashion industry was driving species to extinction in a timespan of years. not just decades. the ecological devastation of exporting birds for hats was absolutely insane and people were watching wetlands and forests and meadows just empty out in realtime. look at the wikipedia article for the plume trade.

the law against 'picking feathers up off the ground' means that you can't go shoot an eagle then sell the feathers on etsy by saying you 'just found them'. you can't own them no matter where they came from, which makes sure that they're not going to come from any birds killed and then secretly disposed of.

these laws, as harsh and ridiculous as they seem, saved flamingos, spoonbills, egrets, and all kinds of hawks and eagles from extinction. the minute these laws weaken and people can make money off killing them again, they're fucked.

[rosslynpaladin]

This. It's about poaching. We are barely seeing golden eagles recover where I am from, and condors we nearly lost completely.

My tribe uses eagle feathers in very specific contexts and ceremonies and I take the MBTA VERY SERIOUSLY to stop Faux Wahoos online from making witchy prayer fans for illict "smudging" out of our native sacred relatives. Etsy is RIFE with illegally "collected" stuff.

[communist-ant-hill]

Ya'll remember how online games made specifically for children were programmed in a way that made it practically impossible to share your personal info?

When age, gender, location was censured like profanity in the name of protecting kids?

But suddenly the Only Way to keep children safe online is to make sure that they have 0 privacy?

Yeah ok. Sure. For the children.

[marithlizard]

(via bsky)

In case anyone hasn't heard, the cyclospora outbreak affecting tons of people in the US right now is coming from Taylor Farms produce. Best to stay away from bagged lettuce and prepared salads completely right now, but especially the ones mentioned in the screenshot:

Taylor Farms Earthbound Farms Little Salad Bar (Aldi) Marketside (Walmart) Kroger House Brand Target private label greens Costco salads and greens etc Trader Joe's chopped salad kits and fresh produce Fast food: McDonalds, Taco Bell, (Yum! Brands), Chipotle, Subway, Pizza Hut, KFC, Olive Garden, Top Golf, Red Lobster, Burger King, etc.

This is not the first time I've heard about a Taylor Farms foodborne illness outbreak. I stopped eating their salads after reading a description of the conditions in their facilities. Doesn't sound like they've improved anything.

We need a fully funded and staffed FDA, and regulations with teeth - and that's exactly what we don't have under Trump. To make things worse, the CDC is no longer tracking these outbreaks. We're on our own.

[duckbunny]

"historically people had servants" incorrect. historically people WERE servants, and many of us still are.

[ravnervn]

I feel like people try to explain how [historical figure] had all the time to do so many Great Accomplishments and thus go "it's because they had servants". Which is true. But then leave it at that rather than continue on to the more important point that the servants actually often were as tired and overworked and unable to have time for themselves as so many of us are. "People lived this way because they had servants" okay and how were the SERVANTS living???

[stainedglassboots-blog]

Let’s say you wanted to glue fabric to wood, but what do you use? What about glass to paper? This to That lets you choose two things you want to glue and lists what types of glue is best. (Because people have a need to glue things to other things!)

[dramaticthreads]

This is an incredibly awesome site.  Go check it out!

[aicosu]

Whhhhaaaaaattt!???

[techfails]

EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT THIS

This is one of the first websites I was told about in props. It also has information about the toxicity, adhere time, price, and other stuff about the glues.

[geekhyena]

Useful for cosplayers and DIY!

[backofthebookshelf]

THIS IS MY FAVORITE WEBSITE

I consider it my duty as a librarian to make sure everyone knows about it.

[self-loving-vampire]

People talk about loud misogynist grifters online (Andrew Tate, for example) as if they're leaders who create and push sexism. Like if you just give boys better role models than Tate - role models that already exist and always have - that is going to solve the problem.

But rather that the source of the problem I see these manosphere grifters as being more like a symptom. They didn't invent the trends, they just profit from the existing social conditions, grievances, and cultural biases.

People like Andrew Tate would not have nearly as much of an audience in the first place if their ideas did not already broadly align with the existing attitudes that many people are raised with about how men and women are supposed to behave.

[monsterkissed]

symptoms is a good metaphor because the way people talk about radicalisation or even just people internalising Any negative idea or dangerous behaviour at all just reads like really faulty infection preventing and control. as though if we keep acting as if the only solution is to isolate each and every single person with a harmful infectious idea and prevent healthy people from ever even once encountering them and being instantly infected we can solve the problem. instead of like. vaccinating people? if a single video algorithm is enough to make someone a full-blown misogynist then that seems like a problem of how you've educated that person tbh!

we're never ever going to have a world where nobody says anything bigoted somewhere where other people might see it but could we not instead aim for a world where most people are already inoculated against those ideas by being shown that they're bullshit early on, so when they stumble on a clown like tate in the wild their first thought isn't "huh, maybe this guy's onto something" but "oh yeah, i've heard about these losers, wild that anyone actually buys into this crap" the way people talk about it is like some great man theory of bigotry where these guys have quasi-mystical cognitohazard powers

[plumslices]

JAR (Joel Arthur Rosenthal) sheep head hair clip

Pearl, sapphire, aluminum, silver, gold

[lostinhistory]

Wake up babe, new octopus just dropped

He's such a little guy!

[love-ardour-anarchism]

“If you deny any affinity with another person or kind of person, if you declare it to be wholly different from yourself—as men have done to women, and class has done to class, and nation has done to nation—you may hate it, or deify it, but in either case you have denied its spiritual equality, and its human reality. You have made it into a thing, to which the only possible relationship is a power relationship. And thus you have fatally impoverished your own reality.” Ursula K. Le Guin "American SF and The Other" in Science-Fiction Studies 7, 1975.

[hagiomoto]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/muslim-man-stabbed-multiple-times-utah-over-his-religion-police-say-2026-07-15/

[hotvampireadjacent]

I had to do a little digging for this. The article leaves the victims name out but mentions a go fund me.

I was able to find an article mentioning his name that directly linked to his gofundme https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/larsen-sohail-muslim-utah-stabbing-b3015105.html his name is Sohail if you have any money to help his recovery

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-sohails-recovery-after-hate-crime-attack please keep him in your thoughts and donate if you are able

Donate to Support Sohail’s Recovery After Hate Crime Attack, organized by Luna Nunez

Sohail is a devoted husband and father who has always worked hard to supp… Luna Nunez needs your support for Support Sohail’s Recovery After

[blushingbloom]

horse bridle made from watsonia leaves by Hannah Thornhill

[silvermoon424]

This tweet read me to filth

[mogblin]

the thing about job searching is i see all these job postings and im like i dont wanna do any of this for any of you

[tofutomato]

you gotta read, you gotta write, you gotta draw, you gotta watch films and shows. there is literally NO time to be employed

[pangur-and-grim]

Pangur has eaten 6 moths and uncountable silverfish

[longingforrotkehlchen]

It took her longer this time, but for the fourth year in a row, this diva stops by (actually climbs up) to get all she can eat. We actually love you, Criminality.

Eichhörnchen (red squirrel) in Stuttgart-West.