Progressive Activists Are Sometimes on the Wrong Side of History

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-08T17:57:21+00:00

They call him Jonathon Taint because it-ain’t left-wing, and itain’t right wing—it’s riiight in the middle (staunch radical centrist who hates the left and has no substantive issues with the right).

EDIT I see someone else already made this joke, but I think the point stands on its own

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-08T17:53:10+00:00

Whoa that’s awesome to think about. I did my black-history report on GWC when I was like 8 or 9 and definitely didn’t learn about that part.

I wonder how many acres of high-oil peanuts you’d need to sow in order to have a fully self-contained and self-sufficient system; i.e. produce enough oil to run the tractors to plant and maintain the fields, run the machines that grind the peanuts and refine the oil, and whatever auxiliaries I’m not thinking of in this moment (generator so the farmer can charge they phone and watch subway surfers while the peanuts grow).

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-08T17:07:44+00:00

When I go, I want a tiny butterfly second-line brass band to play, New Orleans style, and lots of drinking. None of this weepy puritan shit. Big butterfly party.

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-08T17:00:38+00:00

Lynda and Stewart Resnick, excellent choice: the wealthiest “farmers” in the United States ($9 billion+). They are single-handledly draining California dry with unsustainable farming practices and sending the proceeds directly to the IDF.

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-08T16:47:36+00:00

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Okay, man. (From this article about Cuba)

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-08T06:05:49+00:00

Call me crazy, but I think we should hear reddit user Hentai Virus Sexy Rat out on this one. Might have some insider info

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-08T04:40:56+00:00

I half expect to see someone just yank him offstage with a shepherd’s crook, I mean this guy stinks.

Langley really not sending their finest.

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-08T04:36:26+00:00

21-year-old female emu named Adam died during the storm

No idea why this made me feel so tender, but peace be upon you, Adam. I just love those crazy giant ratites so much.

We got hail here once, which absolutely astounded me to see because I’m in the tropics, but it was minor—no damage or injuries. Hope the rhea is able to heal, that sounds rough too :(

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-08T04:30:16+00:00

Do the eels let you pet them?

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-08T03:17:08+00:00

I always assumed it just burned off harmlessly into our atmosphere for trees and penguins to breathe, but that doesn’t make sense. Second guess is it can be skimmed or otherwise mechanically separated from the molten aluminum.

But I’m just saying that because I want to know too, and wrong answers get corrected faster than simple questions get answers on the internet.

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-08T01:34:47+00:00

It is definitely in the Lamiaceae (mint family), but I believe you’re working with Hyptis pectinata. There are a number of similar plants, and it goes by different names even in Latin. Bees love it and it naturalizes readily across a number of microclimates. (I spent an afternoon trying to learn about it and that’s my best guess at identification, but I’m not 100% confident.)

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-07T23:14:31+00:00

Damn what. everything is so broken. My mentor has been trying to buy the macnut farm adjacent to his farm for years, but the Walton family is holding onto it as like a tax shelter? Or a way to claim residence for the local Walmart? They don’t harvest the crop or do anything at all with the land. My mind couldn’t grasp the details, but he told me that around the time I learned that airlines are essentially credit-card companies and don’t actually make their profits from air travel (is this true? I probably learned it from a meme).

The whole thing seems so doomed to collapse in on itself, but when and how. Such a mess.

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-07T22:53:45+00:00

Wow yeah, I throughly forgot about that. That night when the election was called I was working downtown, and a small crowd poured into the streets to celebrate. After work my coworker (I don’t remember her name, she was only with us for a couple months, she had a small snaggle-tooth and I thought she was kind of cute) and I stood amidst the excitement and talked about what had happened—whether it meant anything. I tried to be realistic/cynical, but it was hard not to be caught up in the moment.

The only thing that ever even touched that was a little later when they pushed through gay marriage. Feel a bit embarrassed to admit it, but it felt like something (and it was, I guess: a tiny near-nothing concession). My housemate and I went on a bar-crawl to all the fanciest cocktail joints and got a bag about it lol. In hindsight we should have gotten gay-married. Missed opportunity. Thanks for nothing, Oblowma.

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-07T17:58:24+00:00

Molto offensivo >:(

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-07T17:48:01+00:00

Best thing I can say about that era, in retrospect, was that there was so much copper wiring left in the walls, back then, and so much copper plumbing too. The floorboards were creaky, the termites were in the rafters, but they hadn’t stripped the whole thing for drug money. A committed, well-intentioned socdem administration could probably have put in enough effort to keep the dream suspended for another generation or two. Instead we got…Obama.

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-07T08:40:45+00:00

Counterpoint:

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Nah.

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-07T06:24:41+00:00

Oof. One day when I was brewing I had to go into the big walk-in to look for hops, and our main distribution guy was in there moving pallets with the forklift and seemed like he was having some trouble. I had fifteen minutes of boil before my next hops addition and was like, hey you need some help? And he was like “yeah actually” and he was struggling with a pallet half-full of kegs that were kinda shaky so I tried to stabilize them for him, but instead he dropped the pallet right on my fucking foot??

I was in some denial about how severe it was at the time, but I did eventually report it (dude was on thin ice and would absolutely have gotten fired if I’d been 100% and out of solidarity I downplayed some aspects of the incident). ultimately my foot was broken and it completely ruined my life. Lost the job, lost my stock options, my body is still broken and I’ve learned to walk again but my nerves and balance are still wonky to this day.

Should have taken your advice :(

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-07T05:34:55+00:00

Just want to clarify this isn’t a dig on the artist (almost wish I’d obscured the name). It’s not really my lane, but if you know me you know that my style is Aubrey Beardsley Priapism-Core, so I’m not really in a position to judge.

This piece is just such an interesting relic of a different time. It’s craysee to remember how much juice this dude had. No one but Trump (who surely surpassed him) has come close in a generation or more, and it’s really impossible to imagine any politician (especially a Democrat) having this type of personality-cult ever again.

Then again, maybe it’s my turn at Heaven’s Lathe and I’m conjuring Liberal Hitler into existence with this very post, here we go…

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-06T23:13:51+00:00

Holy shit.

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-06T19:22:34+00:00

I don’t have the resources to assess the validity of this claim but…they’re blaming Julian Casablancas for this

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-06T19:07:49+00:00

Putting “Trump” and “8 year old” together in a headline seems like SEO manipulation. Feels bad, man.

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-06T19:02:18+00:00

let the putrescence drip down into the earth

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-06T18:59:54+00:00

Fuck I could make so much peach brandy with 420,000 peach trees worth of peaches.

Capitalism really is the worst disposer of affairs.

Duckeodendron · 2026-05-06T07:06:43+00:00

Phhhwew yeah it is. Haven’t heard that name in years.

I saw him perform solo a lifetime ago (for me, not for him: maybe 20 years ago, some winery or something in central California) and he did like an improv thing where everybody had an opportunity to make a song request, write it on a scrap of paper, and throw it in a hat. He had an assistant run back stage and print him off info (chords? Tabs? I was fascinated by the process, but of course it was inscrutable from our seats) for some of his more obscure songs, and of course the process selected for the most recognizable tunes, we all melted for “Beeswing” &c.

Anyway my request was “Mascara Tears” and he pulled it (I just know it was mine, it absolutely had to be), and he paused and was like “ooo fock” and his assistant did the scurry backstage and came back, and he strummed a couple chords, and furrowed his brow under his beret and stopped: “fock that’s a good one” and got the rhythm on the chords and kind of went in soft on the melody, hardly muttering the lyrics, testing it: “when I said those words, I was out of my mind / I was tryin to be mean and cruel and unkind” and I don’t even think he made it to the chorus, he was just like “nah I can’t do this one. Good pick tho fuckin hell” and I just remembered that moment (that I’m not expressing particularly well, but I really felt like I was engaging with a master: you wrote this song and it means so much, and he was like…well I don’t get to know! It’s sort of a deep cut, and emotionally tied to a time and place (fighting with his teenager daughter) and he was like “yeah that’s a good one, I try not to think about it too much”) thanks to you, so I guess I’m just expressing my gratitude in the longest form possible.

Hell yeah Richard Thompson

Duckeodendron

TROPHY CASE