I went to an exhibition on the history of migration and colonial rhetoric in Australia and it really helped me to pinpoint my exact issue with the way non-Australians (and. tbh. some aussies) talk about this country
this map is a piece of propaganda from 1921. honestly what shocked me about it was how little of Australia is marked out as āuninhabitedā. I have seen maps shared around on this website that basically mark out the entirety of non-coastal Australia as āemptyā. fucking colonialists from 1921 were more generous than some of you
the history of colonial Australia is a history of ātaming the untameable landā. this has been reinforced through narratives that this country is:
inherently dangerous
uninhabitable
empty
this rhetoric survives in both the way Australia is imagined by non-Australians and in the self-image of Australia. the (white) aussie battler conquers the unconquerable. the outback is imagined as a post-apocalyptic hellscape. our fauna is categorised as uniquely hellish and unwieldy. so when non-Australians make joke after joke about how scared they are of this place. well you can imagine why it fills me with the kind of rage that can only be generated by the understanding that You Are Reinforcing Colonialism
at some point in your life you are going to do or say something racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted. Your goal is not perfection, your goal is to be the kind of person that the people you've hurt feel safe being honest with when that happens.
since people keep adding this kind of stuff in the notes: no, self-flagellating and making a big show of apologizing and "doing better" is extremely not the same thing as making people feel safe about telling you when you've been shitty. in fact, doing so is in many ways anathema to it.
this book is out now!!! it's a short read, less than 200 pages, and it's SO good. i literally had to pause halfway through just to send the author a message about how much i liked it. definitely leans more utopian than scientific, but that makes sense given the format, and i think it has a lot of good things to say.
once you really start thinking about how restrictive the world is for children and how many bullshit justifications we retroactively come up for it all the time, you can't stop seeing it everywhere. this book makes a good case for including children in our political efforts not as rhetorical devices but as an actual class of oppressed people.
i think "bedtime abolitionist" is an unserious pejorative and i think less of people who use it. it's bad that children's lives are so heavily regimented, actually, and it'd be good for them to have more autonomy in these matters.
but, yknow. ruthless criticism of all that exists unless it makes you look like a whiny child, or something.
I used to work extensively with kids and I am unironically a bedtime abolitionist.
Specifically at summer camp, I noticed that trying to enforce a bedtime would result in nights of me going cabin to cabin telling kids to be quiet repeatedly until 1-2AM. Then we would all be cranky and exhausted about it the whole week, and it made me come off like a controlling asshole to the kids cause...I was being a controlling asshole. And like, I was young enough to have really salient memories of having been a camper, so excited to talk to new friends that I didn't sleep - the kids had good reason to stay up!
So I figured out that I could, instead, lay out the first night that they could stay up as late as they wanted, and talk to their friends, as long as they were physically in bed with lights off. I would get a lot more sleep and was better able to function in the morning, and if a kid complained about being tired the next day, I would ask about how long they stayed up the previous night and let them connect the dots themselves. Inevitably, most kids would stay up really late the first night, and then they would self-regulate and get to sleep way quicker, because they were motivated to balance their own wants & needs instead of an adult breathing down their neck about an arbitrary externally-imposed sleep deadline.
I started extending this method to more things, trying to make sure my role was less Authority Figure and more resource for learning how to care for themselves. I went through college and found it was backed up by a lot of the research out there on parenting and teaching styles. Literally just respecting the autonomy of kids in my care and talking them through decisions instead of telling them what to do would make "behavioral issues" evaporate, and make both me and the kids happier. It helped even more when I started working with traumatized kids and teens in foster care after college. Sometimes a kid would even point out to me when a given rule in a workplace didn't make sense and I could give them an exception and/or go to my boss and try to get things changed. Often, arbitrary rules from higher-ups made things way more difficult for everyone.
Trying to explain this to authoritarian parents AND my worse bosses over the course of my childcare career was like pulling teeth.
Kids deeply crave autonomy and responsibility, and if you give them the former they will often gladly take up the latter, but you have to give them the chance to make their own choices and make non-life-threatening mistakes first. But to someone who views a kid as property, or even a well-intentioned perfectionist parent, the idea of giving a kid that autonomy is terrifying, so they try to make it sound absurd to justify maintaining control.
Anyway, yeah, bedtime abolition forever. The kids will do just fine without bedtime.
don't infantilise yourself. you are not a child who needs an adult to make your decisions for you. you are a splendid and magnificent autocrat and you are consulting your trusted advisors. you are exercising great wisdom by inviting an expert to give their opinion before making your ruling. often the path of wisdom is to say "good morning, I'm trying to [perform task] and I have a question about [aspect], can you tell me who I should speak to for advice?" before you do it. sometimes the path of wisdom is to hire a plumber. there are times when you cannot do things for yourself but that doesn't mean you are not an adult. you don't need a grown-up. you need a specialist.
I know it's not summer on a whole half of the planet but here's this anyway. Some will apply anywhere you are. As usual, this is only for fun and completely non-obligatory. Mostly posting it because I love seeing what everybody finds from it. Do as many or as few as you want. I understand that you probably have better things to do!
Number 1: Find something growing where it's probably not supposed to. If it's blooming, all the better. Think cracks in roads and sidewalks, moss on buildings, "weeds" in otherwise organized plantings. Example: not far from me some uninvited nonnative orchids are just starting to bloom in a well-mulched bed in front of some law offices, while other plants are growing right through the street and in some places along Main Street bursting vigorously forth from along the curb.
I love seeing those secret gardens that plant themselves. They give me hope against the doom!
2. Flowers of course. What 6 amazing things are most noticeably blooming near you? This is over the next 2 months. Wild things, your garden, or anyone else's or all 3. Summer likes to show off what it can do that no other season can.
3. Birds! See if you can notice a bird nest in a tree somewhere when you're out. Sometimes they're easiest to notice in a young or small tree. Once I noticed one in a shrub because the babies were yelling.
Along with nests, try to notice a young bird. Not easy if you don't know much about birds but you might see a parent feeding one or a doofus young bird trying to land on a plant that isn't strong enough for it. Cardinal babies are shaped like cardinals but with no red on them. Starling babies are brownish. Keep your eyes open.
4. Whimsy against Doomā¢ļø
Look for anything (nonhuman) whimsical or cute or odd. A few blocks away downtown there's a sycamore tree with growths or lumps and from one angle it looks like the tree has a big face. Or sometimes you see bunnies or some other animals do cute things. A hummingbird might swoop down to get a better look at a cat's eyes.
Or you might see a really cute planting on someone's garden or a rock that resembles something else, or a rock somebody painted. A cool sculpture on a building. Recently I was standing still and a bird flew down and landed at my feet. Something like that maybe? Or it could be lots of other things I could never think of. Surprise me! Or if you don't show me, let nature surprise you.
5. That summer feeling. Notice one time when you're out or if maybe you're someone who can't get out much, one time when you're inside looking out, when you get that full feeling of summer. Once in a while it can wash over you, the summer feeling and a vague memory of having that feeling in other summers. Like you walked into a familiar room in your parents' or grandparents' house, one you haven't been in for a while but it's all so familiar and memories from it are washing against the edges of your consciousness. Your muscles relax. "I remember this. This is summer. and I'm in it right now." Your body feels it. The sun is out. Everything is alive.
6. Find an oasis. A fountain in the city or a shady stream somewhere, or a shaded bench along a lake or river. Mossy rocks with a little water flowing. What are the sounds? water flowing? birds singing? wind through the leaves? Savor that feeling of refuge.
7. Walk somewhere, preferably where other people go this time, and look for 5 things (this doesn't have to be on only one walk or outing) that probably no one else would notice. Lichen coloring the cement for example. Some of the things I mentioned earlier in this post could count. What are you seeing that most people would never bother to notice? A leaf with funny bumps where insects might have lain their eggs, or leaves with whitish lines on them made by things called leaf miners that are so small they can burrow between the top and bottom surfaces of leaves. Noticing is a super power. What can you see when you pay attention?
8. This is already too long but here's one for extra credit: befriend something. This can even be inside your home. It literally doesn't matter what it is as long as you like it. A knickknack, an action figure, or outdoors a tree or other plant, a rock or a sculpture, anything that will be at the same place every time. Just choose it and mentally befriend it and then mentally notice it when you go by. It's special to you. If you want to you can greet it each time you pass. You can even bring it things or sing to it if you want. Maybe make up a song for it or drop some flower petals there, or a few drops of water, anything as long as it's nontoxic.
Do this exercise over time. Make a place for it in your mind. Think of it once a day or more when you're not near it, maybe as you go to bed, or set an alarm if you get into it and think of it when the alarm goes off. "That's my friend. I like it." Pretend it likes you back and looks forward to seeing you. You're special to it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
And that's the treasure hunt. It might seem a little weird but maybe it's because everything feels a little weird these days and I'm in that mode. I hope your season is good no matter what! <#
On of the less intuitive things about love, I've found, of any kind, is the importance of needing things.
I didn't realize it until recently, but I've always seen love as something requiring sacrifice, selflessness, patience, and generosity- to ask for nothing is to be the best person I can be, small and quiet and never in the way, always happy and helpful, self-sufficient and present when desired.
It's only as an adult, now, that I'm beginning to see the selfishness of wanting nothing.
I cut my friend's hair in my kitchen the other day. They wanted a trim and I had the skills, so I offered, and was genuinely excited when they stopped hesitating over "bothering me" and took me up on it. It was a peaceful afternoon, and we had tea and chatted for an hour or more.
My brother and I shared popcorn at the movies a while ago. When I came time to pay, I pulled my card out like a wild western sheriff and slapped it on the machine before he could fight me for it first. The satisfaction was delightful.
Someone called me crying on the phone the other day. Kept apologizing for disturbing me at work, talking about how they were bothering me on my lunch break. I was telling the truth when I told them that really, I was flattered and honored and relieved, knowing that if they were hurting I would know, that I didn't have to worry in silence. It felt good to hear them slowly come down, and to know that they knew it would be better soon, and to hear them laugh wetly on the other end. We're getting together for a visit next week.
It's hard to need things, if you've trained yourself not to. It's hard to want things, when you don't know how to want anymore. Trusting people is difficult, and so is relying on them, but I don't know where I'd be without the people who rely on me.
I've heard a lot of people say, "Nobody will love you unless you love yourself". I've had a lot of thoughts about it. It's not right, but it's not wrong, either, I think.
"Nobody will love you unless you love yourself"... I've always taken that to mean, "You will not be lovable until you develop a positive view of yourself as a person".
Now, I think it's sort of inside-out.
"Nobody will love you unless you love yourself"... because nobody can show their love to you in a way that you can accept until you treat yourself kindly, and learn what you need, and what you want, and how to ask for it, and then give that vulnerability away.
Love, for me, is someone I ask for a ride to the airport. Whether they end up doing this or not is irrelevant.
It's not needy, or selfish, or taking up energy. It's giving the gift of being wanted, and needed, and thought of. It's giving someone the security of being part of someone's life.
Listening to a podcast discussing conspiracy theories and deconstructing the ideas behind them and it's reminded me of the coolest practical lessons in critical thinking I ever got, both in high school, both from the same teacher. One was a month long project on who killed jfk in which we could basically present any theory as long as we cited all our reasons and it got us really excited about research and interpretation, but it was the follow up that I liked best.
Our next project she brought us into class and showed us a documentary claiming the moon landing was faked. Gave us worksheets to do that sided with that stance. And at the end of class a bunch of us were like miss wait this doesn't seem right?? and she said okay, we'll discuss that next week. The next lesson, she showed us a mythbusters episode countering all the claims of the original documentary and gave us worksheets for that, and another bunch of people went wait miss you can't teach us two opposing things, which one is right? What do we put on the exam??
So she split the class in two and told us each to present a case based on each side, and to explain why our source was or wasn't the more reliable of the two. Got us to debate each other directly and use additional sources to back us up and explain why those sources were reliable and should be believed. And because they were randomly assigned there was no guarantee you'd agree with the stance you were presenting, but you had to present it like you did. At the end of the project she asked us all which stance we found more convincing and why, and the majority of us basically said "we think that the moon landing is real because most of the arguments against it seem like someone reacted to a confusing thing without testing it, but when you test it and ask the person running the test to explain the science it makes sense once you have more information. Also, one documentary was made with the help of scientists with qualifications and experience and the other was made by people who don't have that but like to write mystery books, which looks like a less reliable way to get an answer. But we still dont understand why you showed us both if one is wrong."
And she was like excellent. You've done exactly what you should do. At high school level, we as teachers are expected to filter for the reliable sources for you, so you know to repeat that to pass an exam, but if you want to be historians on your own, I won't be your teacher any more once you graduate. Lots of people have opinions and theories and research about times in history, and it's your job to learn how to look at them and decide who you want to trust. This won't be on the exam, but I need you all to know it. You all did a great job following the school's instructions to repeat information you were given, but for some of you, that information wasn't on a reliable foundation. I know you all know how to pass an exam. You're smart and you've been trained to follow these instructions. What you deserve to be taught is how to use all this once you don't have to do exams any more.
And then as a reward for us doing a good job at figuring out the value of checking your sources' sources she let us watch Bush get hit in the face with a shoe before we had to go to maths. Shoutout to you Ms Hannah you were a good'un I hope you're doing well ten years on from that class
I fell down a rabbit hole last night researching this girl and found some photographs of her that are just peak Weird Little Girl (affectionate) energy, so Iām sharing.
Gladys (sometimes spelled Gladyce) Ditmars was born October 16, 1903 in the Bronx.
Her father, Raymond L. Ditmars was, at the time, the assistant reptile curator at the Bronx Zoo, and would later be appointed curator of the entire zoo.
Raymond met his future wife, Clara, when she was visiting the zoo and witnessed Raymond break up a fight between two venomous snakes. She was so impressed she asked to meet him. They were married eight months later. The venue was decorated with snake skins and Clara wore a live gopher snake around her neck during the ceremony.
im comforted in knowing that there are things about my life that id like to change but that was also the case a year ago and i did it so i enjoy that fruit, spit out the pit, and bury it to see what comes next
You're a reasonably informed person on the internet. You've experienced things like no longer being able to get files off an old storage device, media you've downloaded suddenly going poof, sites and forums with troves full of people's thoughts and ideas vanishing forever. You've heard of cybercrime. You've read articles about lost media. You have at least a basic understanding that digital data is vulnerable, is what I'm saying.
I'm guessing that you're also aware that history is, you know... important? And that it's an ongoing study, requiring ... data about how people live? And that it's not just about stanning celebrities that happen to be dead?
Congratulations, you are significantly better-informed than the British government!
So they're currently like "Oh hai can we destroy all these historical documents pls? To save money? Because we'll digitise them first so it's fine! That'll be easy, cheap and reliable -- right? These wills from the 1850s will totally be fine for another 170 years as a PNG or whatever, yeah? We didn't need to do an impact assesment about this because it's clearly win-win! We'd keep the physical wills of Famous Peopleā¢ though because Famous Peopleā¢ actually matter, unlike you plebs. We don't think there are any equalities implications about this, either! Also the only examples of Famous Peopleā¢ we can think of are all white and rich, only one is a woman and she got famous because of the guy she married. Kisses!"
Yes, this is the same Government that's like "Oh no removing a statue of slave trader is erasing history :("
You have, however, until 23 February 2024 to politely inquire of them what the fuck they are smoking. And they will have to publish a summary of the responses they receive. And it will look kind of bad if the feedback is well-argued, informative and overwhelmingly negative and they go ahead and do it anyway. I currently edit documents including responses to consultations like (but significantly less insane) than this one. Responses do actually matter.
I would particularly encourage British people/people based in the UK to do this, but as far as I can see it doesn't say you have to be either. If you are, say, a historian or an archivist, or someone who specialises in digital data do say so and draw on your expertise in your answers.
This isn't a question of filling out a form. You have to manually compose an email answering the 12 questions in the consultation paper at the link above. I'll put my own answers under the fold.
Note -- I never know if I'm being too rude in these sorts of things. You probably shouldn't be ruder than I have been.
Please do not copy and paste any of this: that would defeat the purpose. This isn't a petition, they need to see a range of individual responses. But it may give you a jumping-off point.
Question 1: Should the current law providing for the inspection of wills be preserved?
Yes. Our ability to understand our shared past is a fundamental aspect of our heritage. It is not possible for any authority to know in advance what future insights they are supporting or impeding by their treatment of material evidence. Safeguarding the historical record for future generations should be considered an extremely important duty.
Question 2: Are there any reforms you would suggest to the current law enabling wills to be inspected?
No.
Question 3: Are there any reasons why the High Court should store original paper will documents on a permanent basis, as opposed to just retaining a digitised copy of that material?
Yes. I am amazed that the recent cyber attack on the British Library, which has effectively paralysed it completely, not been sufficient to answer this question for you.Ā I also refer you to the fate of the Domesday Project. Digital storage is useful and can help more people access information; however, it is also inherently fragile. Malice, accident, or eventual inevitable obsolescence not merely might occur, but absolutely should be expected. It is ludicrously naive and reflects a truly unpardonable ignorance to assume that information preserved only in digital form is somehow inviolable and safe, or that a physical document once digitised, never need be digitised again..At absolute minimum, it should be understood as certain that at least some of any digital-only archive will eventually be permanently lost. It is not remotely implausible that all of it would be. Preserving the physical documents provides a crucial failsafe. It also allows any errors in reproduction -- also inevitable-- to be, eventually, seen and corrected. Note that maintaining, upgrading and replacing digital infrastructure is not free, easy or reliable. Over the long term, risks to the data concerned can only accumulate.
"Unlike the methods for preserving analog documents that have been honed over millennia, there is no deep precedence to look to regarding the management of digital records. As such, the processing, long-term storage, and distribution potential of archival digital data are highly unresolved issues. [..] the more digital data is migrated, translated, and re-compressed into new formats, the more room there is for information to be lost, be it at the microbit-level of preservation. Any failure to contend with the instability of digital storage mediums, hardware obsolescence, and software obsolescence thus meets a terminal endāthe definitive loss of information. The common belief that digital data is safe so long as it is backed up according to the 3-2-1 rule (3 copies on 2 different formats with 1 copy saved off site) belies the fact that it is fundamentally unclear how long digital information can or will remain intact. What is certain is that its unique vulnerabilities do become more pertinent with age."Ā -- James Boyda,Ā On Loss in the 21st Century: Digital Decay and the Archive, Introduction.
Question 4: Do you agree that after a certain time original paper documents (from 1858 onwards) may be destroyed (other than for famous individuals)? Are there any alternatives, involving the public or private sector, you can suggest to their being destroyed?
Absolutely not. And I would have hoped we were past the "great man" theory of history. Firstly, you do not know which figures will still be considered "famous" in the future and which currently obscure individuals may deserve and eventually receive greater attention. I note that of the three figures you mention here as notable enough to have their wills preserved, all are white, the majority are male (the one woman having achieved fame through marriage) and all were wealthy at the time of their death. Any such approach will certainly cull evidence of the lives of women, people of colour and the poor from the historical record, and send a clear message about whose lives you consider worth remembering.
Secondly, the famous and successsful are only a small part of our history. Understanding the realities that shaped our past and continue to mould our present requires evidence of the lives of so-called "ordinary people"!
Did you even speak to any historians before coming up with this idea?
Entrusting the documents to the private sector would be similarly disastrous. What happens when a private company goes bust or decides that preserving this material is no longer profitable? What reasonable person, confronted with our crumbling privatised water infrastructure, would willingly consign any part of our heritage to a similar fate?
Question 5: Do you agree that there is equivalence between paper and digital copies of wills so that the ECA 2000 can be used?
No. And it raises serious questions about the skill and knowledge base within HMCTS and the government that the very basic concepts of data loss and the digital dark age appear to be unknown to you. I also refer you to the Domesday Project.
Question 6: Are there any other matters directly related to the retention of digital or paper wills that are not covered by the proposed exercise of the powers in the ECA 2000 that you consider are necessary?
Destroying the physical documents will always be an unforgivable dereliction of legal and moral duty.
Question 7: If the Government pursues preserving permanently only a digital copy of aĀ will document, should it seek to reform the primary legislation by introducing a Bill orĀ do so under the ECA 2000?
Destroying the physical documents will always be an unforgivable dereliction of legal and moral duty.
Question 8: If the Government moves to digital only copies of original will documents, what do you think the retention period for the original paper wills should be? Please give reasons and state what you believe the minimum retention period should be and whether you consider the Governmentās suggestion of 25 years to be reasonable.
There is no good version of this plan. The physical documents should be preserved.
Question 9: Do you agree with the principle that wills of famous people should be preserved in the original paper form for historic interest?
This question betrays deep ignorance of what "historic interest" actually is. The study of history is not simply glorified celebrity gossip. If anything, the physical wills of currently famous people could be considered more expendable as it is likely that their contents are so widely diffused as to be relatively "safe", whereas the wills of so-called "ordinary people" will, especially in aggregate, provide insights that have not yet been explored.
Question 10: Do you have any initial suggestions on the criteria which should be adopted for identifying famous/historic figures whose original paper will document should be preserved permanently?
Abandon this entire lamentable plan. As previously discussed, you do not and cannot know who will be considered "famous" in the future, and fame is a profoundly flawed criterion of historical significance.
Question 11: Do you agree that the Probate Registries should only permanently retain wills and codicils from the documents submitted in support of a probate application? Please explain, if setting out the case for retention of any other documents.
No, all the documents should be preserved indefinitely.
Question 12: Do you agree that we have correctly identified the range and extent of the equalities impacts under each of these proposals set out in this consultation? Please give reasons and supply evidence of further equalities impacts as appropriate.
No. You appear to have neglected equalities impacts entirely. As discussed, in your drive to prioritise "famous people", your plan will certainly prioritise the white, wealthy and mostly the male, as your "Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin and Princess Diana" examples amply indicate. This plan will create a two-tier system where evidence of the lives of the privileged is carefully preserved while information regarding people of colour, women, the working class and other disadvantaged groups is disproportionately abandoned to digital decay and eventual loss. Current and future historians from, or specialising in the history of minority groups will be especially impoverished by this. Ā
