Left Coast Reads 📚🌹

There's a passage in the Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin which discusses wages and what is "owed" to each of us. He describes how everyone's work relies on a million other works past and present, some of which can't be quantified or remunerated. That argument lodged deep in my brain (and heart).

Hell isn't a place. Turns out the real hell is the friends we made along the way.

Thank you!

$375k 3bd is tough to find almost anywhere in Portland unfortunately. Shit, $375k for a 2bd is hard to find. Is there any legitimate reason that this zoning change should take multiple years to implement? Genuine question.

100%. And interestingly, both are deeply entangled with notions of masculinity.

Right, the graph is a bit confusing because it plots the ratio. But if VMT and deaths were tightly correlated the line would be flat. What the graph shows is even worse: the number of deaths per VMT has actually increased a lot!

This. And don't look back. Best political decision I've made.

Image of Eugene Debs with glowing red eyes over a newspaper article he wrote calling for the abolition of the Senate

It's time.

I've also noticed a big increase in the number of people sleeping out in the open without tents in the Buckman area. Now that you say this, the explanation seems so obvious.

it is pretty darkly funny seeing posts like URGENT!!!! it is SUNDAY EVENING you must PUT DOWN YOUR DINNER and call your senator IMMEDIATELY to politely request they not press the big button marked "fuck you". this will not actually stop them from pressing the fuck you button. functioning democracy

I hope one day the left is successful enough to have our own version of normie cringe yard signs.

What's going on with his left hand? It looks weirdly photoshopped. Did you take this photo?

This is what I've been saying. I don't see many democratic off ramps for the regime at this point. The longer their lawlessness and violence goes on, the less likely they are to abide by democratic processes and norms.

Line chart of percentage of electricity from fossil fuels and clean sources.

For the first time, Australia generated more electricity from renewable sources than from fossil fuels for an entire month.

Photo of Rama Duwaji and her husband Zohran Mamdani looking at each other

Find you a woman who looks at you like Rama looks at Zohran (and who wants to dismantle capitalism).

A digital flyer inviting people to come see the world's largest jeans

Portland is special.

Nice of @nytimes.com to make clear that, whenever its dull conservative columnists complain about the evils of "feminism" or "liberal feminism," they of course mean "women."

A thumbnail of a New York times videos which asks did women ruin the workplace?

I am once again asking you not to give any money to the New York Times. There are so many other places to get your news that don't push this sort of rage bait sexism.

This book was challenging without much background knowledge of events in the UK and Ireland in the 17th-19th centuries. I've been very busy lately and admittedly struggled to make consistent progress on this one, but I do want to read Volume 2.

When there are no such hierarchies, they will attempt to eliminate or exile the entire population. Sometimes a combination is required, especially if there is a large settler population vulnerable to reprisals.

In all these instances, what elites fear most is a united laboring class. When colonizers encounter an indigenous population with existing social class hierarchies, they will attempt to co-opt a portion of the indigenous elites.

But when Irish people moved to the US in large numbers, the strategy of elite control stipulated that they be recruited into the ranks of the "white" race. Side by side with Protestant Anglo-Americans, the Irish immigrants embraced their privileged position vis-a-vis the oppressed black population.

Ireland is a perfect example because it demonstrates the "relativity of race" as a function of ruling class control. Elites will often incorporate some of the oppressed group into an intermediate buffer which Allen calls a social control stratum. In Ireland, it was the Catholic bourgeoisie.

The fascinating thing about this book is that it focuses most on Ireland. Allen considered the Emerald Isle a mirror to better understand the system of white supremacy in the US. This is Volume 1. Volume 2 focuses more on the US.

The social category of white was created later as part of elite efforts at social control.

The book is white with a black side profile of a person. It sits on fall leaves.

Historian Eric Williams once said that "slavery was not born of racism; rather, racism was the consequence of slavery." In The Invention of the White Race, Theodore Allen makes a related claim: when Africans were brought to Virginia in 1619, there were no "white" people there. #booksky

sorry but I can't support zohran. someone with a wife that hot should be spending every minute dedicated to her, not the people of New York City.

Wikipedia article for the prothonotary warbler. It has a photo of the bird which is mostly yellow

First thing I thought of: