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Cake day: July 6th, 2023

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  • Sociologist Matthew Desmond has an amazing book called Evicted that talks about criminal act evictions and profiles people who have been the target of them. The book follows very low income renters in Milwaukee through years of their struggles to find and keep housing. It also follows individual landlords from the same neighborhoods. It’s technically an academic subject and is impeccably researched (the notes section in the back could be its own book) but it reads like a novel. It won a Pulitzer iirc.

    He also just published Poverty, By America last year. I’ve only just started it, but it’s just as readable. He explains overly-complicated regulations and social services red tape in a way that’s concise and easy to understand, and he illustrates their consequences through his interviews with real people. His books should be required reading for every American.






  • Freight trains. The funny thing is that I was never really interested in them as a kid, only once I got into my early 20s. There’s tons of adults who love trains, but for some reason it’s still viewed as kind of a childish interest and I’m not sure why.

    The last time I drove out to watch some I was kind of disappointed though. It’s been a long time, so I was actually surprised that out of hundreds of freight containers, 90% of them are now just giant Amazon logos, and the other 10% are giant Walmart logos. It kind of sucks. The engines make it worth it though.





  • Same. The amount of times I’ve heard “have you tried Proactiv?” as though it wasn’t the first thing I went and bought when I was 15 is just aggravating. The fact that not even doctors seem to know much about the internal causes of acne and how to treat it is really just embarrassing.

    I’ve also heard the “change your pillowcase” thing far too often. If your pillowcase is so dirty that it’s the one thing that stands between you having acne and not having acne, then it sounds like you might have bigger issues lol.




  • “Nothing happens in god’s world by mistake.” “God never gives you more than you can handle.” Etc etc.

    When 1 in 6 women has been sexually assaulted in their lives (and many men and NB folks), that’s a really fucked up thing to say. You never know what someone’s been through, and I’ve personally been through a lot of awful things. I guess it helps some people to tell themselves this kind of shit, but it is impossible to me to think of any kind of meaning that would make being a victim of violent crime “positive” or “worth it” or “a learning experience” blah blah blah. I think the term for that is “toxic positivity.”

    So either “everything happens for a reason” is utter bullshit, or god is a sadistic fucking asshole.



  • It’s not that deep. It’s just misogyny.

    “Privilege is when equality feels like oppression.” When “straight white cis male” is the default, all resources are “male” resources. All history is “male” history. Not sure how that’s so unfair.

    There are men-only 12 step meetings. There are men-only homeless shelters (way more than there are for women or LGBTQ folks actually). Men-only recovery programs. Men-only church groups and support groups. A few years ago a domestic violence org in my hometown changed from being women-only to accepting all genders, including straight cis men, and it certainly can’t be the only one in the US. And of course men had to create a male counterpart to International Women’s Day. There’s a million resources and groups for prostate cancer and testicular cancer (because I’ve literally heard men complain about the amount of recognition breast cancer gets - not that breast cancer only affects women…) Plus your “no nut/no shave November.” And of course, any space, organization, or institution that is not gender specific to begin with generally becomes dominated by straight white cis men. Maybe you just aren’t looking hard enough for these “male resources.”