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Did You Know Tomatoes Hate Cucumbers? Secrets of Companion Planting

While they might taste great together in a salad, tomato plants actually dislike growing in close proximity to any member of the cucurbit family, which includes cucumbers.

Companion plants assist in the growth of others by attracting beneficial insects, repelling pests, or providing nutrients, shade, or support. They can be part of a biological pest control program.

Keep reading

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To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995)

Dir. Beeban Kidron

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Ways to support Ukraine 🇺🇦

More than 500,000 people have already left Ukraine due to the invasion by the Russian Federation. The European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management estimates that roughly 18 million Ukrainians will be affected by the conflict in humanitarian terms, with 7 million internally displaced and 4 million seeking refuge elsewhere. To help those still in Ukraine, as well as Ukrainian refugees, we’ve compiled this list of resources.

HelpUkraineWin.org has a collection of vetted and trusted resources, charities, and organizations to help Ukraine.

Some additional ways to donate:

Vostok SOS provides immediate evacuation support.

Malteser International provides essentials for Ukrainian refugees.

Ukraine Crisis Media Center provides fundraising links and a list of tips for sharing information.

Misinformation spreads fast on social media. It is more important than ever to share accurate, verifiable news and information. Here are some resources to learn how to identify misinformation:

This link from the nonprofit WITNESS shares tips for identifying authentic video sources (available in English, Spanish, Ukranian, Russian, and Arabic).

These visual verification tips, also from WITNESS, provide information on verifying images and videos (available in English and Spanish).

This interview with NPR contains tips for identifying fake TikToks.

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A sad pupper sketch.

Pen and alcohol ink markers

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I polished up an old sketch I tore out of a notebook years ago and forgot about.

Nightcap Moon - Alcohol ink markers and digital editing.

I ordered a couple stickers of this. I’ll let yall know how they turn out.

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sooooo can yall help me determine if this is a fireable offense

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Starship Troopers Book Review

I don’t use my blog a lot anymore but I have a lot of THOUGHTS and FEELINGS about this book I just read so here’s my review.

There might be spoilers ahead. I will also be comparing the book to the movie at times.

I wanna start out and say that even without knowing anything about him or looking him up I could tell right away that the author was from a military background. He worships the military and it’s clear in every word he writes - even when he’s cussing them it’s with a weird sort of reverence.

He actually talks bad about the military a lot, especially in the first half, but much like the teacher character in the book, Mr. Dubois, he does it in a way to make you want to like it. What’s the reverse of a backhanded compliment? His insults are like that.

The teacher in question is the reason our main character, Johnny Rico, joins the army. When asked about the teacher Johnny claims to hate him, but he constantly thinks about the conversations they had in class and the points his teacher made. The running theme of the book seems to be that punishment is good and criticism builds character. The more the teachers and authority figures yell at Johnny the more he remembers them and respects them. Mr. Dubois talks about joining the army as this hugely difficult thing that no one wants to do, that only the best of the best could every possibly hope to succeed at. Of course this has the effect of making impressionable high school teenagers want to do it all the more,

Corporeal punishment is a running theme throughout the book which couples nicely with his other theme of the glories of war. He extols ad nauseum the theory of “spare the rod, spoil the child” even going as far as to claim this has been proven as a mathematical fact in the future society he paints. In one chapter he spends a nauseating 20 pages expounding on that theory at length using a flashback memory of Johnny in class as a way to indirectly lecture the reader.

And the glories of war? He doesn’t talk about accolades or medals of honor. He seems to feel that being a soldier is it’s own reward, that the act of doing your “social responsibility” is a gratifying accomplishment in it’s own right. I suppose for him it must have been. He lovingly spends half the book describing boot camp and the drill sergeants and the toils and hardships that drove weaker men to quit. I’m not even exaggerating. Literally half the book. For the first 129 pages of the book’s 263 Johnny Rico is not even a solider and there is no mention of the war aside from the first chapter. The war is like an after though, tacked on to the story to give the author an excuse to wax poetic about the good old boy’s club that takes care of their own. 

The army in the book is, in fact, very much a boys club too. There are no wild and dashing women soldiers like in the movie. The original Dizzy character was a man. Women in the book rarely speak and are regard as mythical ethereal creatures. The author always describes them as dainty, small, and pretty. They’re “What make the war worth fighting” and they’re on the army ships (in separate guarded quarters of course) because it’s “good for moral.” The only jobs he talks about that women do well is piloting spacecrafts.

Johnny Rico mentions in passing and usually after the fact going on two or three dates with women. The dates are never fully described and there is little to no emotional attachment with the women. He speaks more lovingly of his comrades in arms and the whole book has a slightly homoerotic overtone. That’s honestly one of the most enjoyable aspects of the book. When he describes two men slugging it out shirtless in the bathroom and then ending with a mutual bond and respect for each other we know what was really going on. Or at least what we like to imagine was really going on...

But aside from all the patriotic propaganda, war mongering, chauvinism, patriarchal old fashioned thinking I did really enjoy this book. Everything is written from Johnny’s point of view. We only know what he knows, what he thinks, and how he feels, and he feels like a whole complete character in a well fleshed out world. He talks about his world in a way we might talk about day to day things in our world. Like “Oh that? Yeah, it’s the powered suit the mobile infantry uses. You’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.” He gives us exposition in a way that doesn’t talk down to us or over explain. The author trusts the reader to come to the correct conclusions and fill in the blanks with context clues and the course of the plot.

The aliens leave a strong impression and honestly were the reason I was so eager to read the book. The movie changed pretty much nothing in regards to their appearances or the different varieties. This novel was groundbreaking and inspired hundreds of other authors throughout the years. Written in 1959 it’s impact on the science fiction genre is still seen to this day. I love the parallels and contrasts with the 1985 novel Ender’s Game in this regard. I love how this book said war was the answer and Ender’s Game replied with a resounding “No it’s not” It’s like they’re written from two different perspectives in the same universe.

The heavy armor suits the Mobile Infantry use are really iconic as well, clearly a strong inspiration for later sci-fi classics like Stormtroopers and Masterchief. There’s a lot of well developed and intriguing ideas.

The character Johnny Rico is a macho man’s man in a man’s world - dumped headlong into this idealized version of the army - but he’s believable and relatable. He makes mistakes. He gets scared. He grows and changes his ideals and his goals in a way that not only feels genuine but also borderline autobiographical. I knew by the end of the book the author was a career military man just from the way he wrote about moving through officer school and the reverence he gave to those of rank.

Over all this novel feels like a giant military parade circle jerk designed to make impressionable young men set their comic books down and go enlist. However the sci-fi elements are on point and I enjoyed reading this iconic work.

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I'm my community the Northern Oregon Regional Corrections Facility had a contract with ICE. We protesters long and hard and finally they decided to end that contact...

But they increased their US Marshals contract by 3700%

US Marshals can be used for almost anything. They have few limitations and restrictions. They have been used for undocumented immigrant detention in the past and our fear is that this contact is a way for them to continue working with ICE behind the scenes.

Join us in asking them for transparency and for their written commitment to end any and all collaboration with ICE for good!

We need to shut down all of these concentration camps - even if it's only one at a time.

Our community will not be complicit. We refuse to collaborate with the uterus collector.

Please SHARE and let them know how important this is!

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Me: *Removes my cat from my lap to do something else.*

My cat: Father is…evil? Father is unyielding? Father is incapable of love? I am running away. I am packing my little rucksack and going out to explore the world as a lone vagabond. I can no longer thrive in this household.

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MAILING ADDRESS 

Town of Tusayan 

P.O. Box 709 | 845 Mustang Drive

Tusayan, AZ 86023 PHONE +1 (928) 638-9909 

EMAIL

Mayor Craig Sanderson 

mayorsanderson@gmail.com 

Vice-Mayor Becky Wirth 

tusayan.rwirth@gmail.com

Councilor | Brady Harris 

Tusayancouncilharris@gmail.com

 Councilor  |  Al Montoya 

almtusayan@hotmail.com 

Councilor  |  Robb Baldosky 

robb@tusayanaz.com 

if you don’t have time to write an email, here’s a pre-written letter: https://pastebin.com/Cc3YBWYA 

just copy, add your name, and send the email to a town member!

Please do! Corporations are the biggest criminals of climate change, environmental damage and pollution. Capitalism is rooted in destruction. 

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*thinks about very small frogs* *angrily wipes away tears*

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My bff brought it back from camp one year and we did it ALWAYS.

We had the hand gestures and swimming and everything.

But the time was just a little different so this version confused the heck out of me.

the degree that parents of young children seem to think Baby Shark came out of nowhere astounds me. this is a DECADES-OLD camp song, that has spanned generations. 

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tfw someone calls you their friend for the first time

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nose job turkey

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gifted kid burnout

you used to read so much and now youre jared 19 where has the inspiration gone?? your life goals are basically nothing at this point your only hope for the future is that you'll be able to sleep one day. iced coffee is not a meal eat something solid king

take my quiz and find out whats wrong with you!

https://uquiz.com/ijjhC7

[drakansa]

Zuko who spent years at sea with sailors: *stubs his toe* “Ow! Fucking son of a bitch, motherfucking god-fuck fuck fuck. Holy-“

Aang: