This feels like the destruction of USAID. Deliberate revenge on well-known organizations that have made significant progress and results for racial justice.

An old wooden fence with two nails in it and a dusting of almost florescent green and yellow moss, with bits of teal lichen. It's a rainy day microworld.

A close up shot of lush, soft, verdant moss growing in little feathery branches reaching up and away from the gray wood plank of a park railing. It is a rainy day microworld.

Rainy day walks

A beautiful chestnut brown shepherd husky mix dog sits proudly atop a huge rhyolite crag with rusty and beige colors, looking lovingly upon the landscape. Rain clouds and conifer in the sky behind his back

Rhyolite boulders glimmer with wet mosses, grasses and lichen growing along their luminous chalky white and rust surfaces. The huge, wavy boughs of a chestnut tree twist just above, its clusters of pinkish white flowers are starting to bloom. Ferns and deep moss are visible amongst the trees.

Rainy day walks

Filthy liars. Are you bankrupt yet? Can't wait til you stop publishing your right wing misinformation rag. Please improve society by never publishing another lying word again.

A crowd of people walk past several long, many storied office buildings with reflective glass. So many people fill the frame, and the entire street, many with such creative and beautiful hand made signs. Some are tall fabric banners on wooden frames that say Tax The Rich and Health Care for All and Green New Deal Now. Others say No Ice No War No Kings! Make Lying Wrong Again. The Lying King. Most Corrupt President Ever. No Blood For Oil, No Bodies For Ice.

#NoKings #Oakland

A hand lettered, vaguely calligraphic sign propped up on a Bart seat. It says "antifa since 1941" in white wax crayon on black poster board.

#NoKings #Oakland Let's Fuckin Gooooo

That sounds wonderful. I've grown some peppermint (beware, its roots spread everywhere fast!) and hung the stalks upside down to dry. Then took the leaves off the stalks and put them in those paper tea bags for loose leaf tea. Simple and tasty. Haven't tried any more complicated blends though.

Your garden looks wonderful and very profesh! Lots of happy little plants. Some may not succeed this season, but it's just the beginning. Over the seasons you'll get to know all the plants you grow like old friends, and connect more deeply with your own little corner of nature.

Again several mistaken leaps of logic. If you believe yourself logical and reasonable, have a look at the numerous articles linked in this thread. They detail how these policies harm women and are not evidence based.

bsky.app/profile/esqu...

Absolutely disgraceful and dehumanizing. Will they be bringing back "nude parades", too?

www.coyotemedia.org/the-olympics...

Sex testing in sports has always been about holding back women who win, and about identifying black and brown women as not feminine enough to be women, or even human.

www.coyotemedia.org/the-olympics...

I looked it up.

"Semenya was born with the typical male XY chromosome pattern and female physical traits."

www.nbcnews.com/sports/track...

Maybe you find your own logic suspect, as now you're making a new argument. It's not much better reasoned though.

If it's based on working testicles that produce sperm? Intersex folks don't have those.

I think your logic is flawed there. If she must be a man because she has internal testes, then by that same logic she must be a woman because she has breasts and a vagina. Because men don't have breasts or vagina. It's ridiculous to even suggest it.

I'm not familiar about Rio but I think Imane Khelif has defeated some opponents and lost to other opponents, she is not universally undefeated. I think that means the one opponent who complained after losing to her is a sore loser and lacks sportswomanship and character.

If you Google Cater Simenya it says she is an intersex woman. I think that means you are mistaken on your facts here.

Caster Simenya isn't tragic, she's a great runner. The women Olympians stand plenty of chances: when intersex women compete sometimes they win and sometimes they don't.

I think that's quite an impressive Olympic-level jump to conclusions.

Women in Sports: Barriers and Mixed Messages in the 20th Century Explore how women in the 20th century faced restrictions and contradictions in sports, navigating barriers while carving out space for athletic achievement.

Here's some history on women's sports that may give you a new perspective on how much of this is about ideals of femininity across race and class, and less about ideals of fair competition or actual science.

brewminate.com/women-in-spo...

So I guess my point it it all depends where IOC chooses to draw the line, and I suspect the line is being drawn based on current social ideas more than science or biology.

I think Caster Semenya's variation is within sex? She has breasts and a vagina, and also an additional genetic variation, internal testes, that causes her body to produce more testosterone. It doesn't make her a man, just a woman who won the genetic lottery for her sport, like Phelps.

Here's an interesting history on women's sports that suggests the choice may be more about social ideas of femininity and blackness than about science or biology.

brewminate.com/women-in-spo...

It is a social choice whether we consider that "woman enough" to compete with women, and whether we consider her genetic variations "fair" to compete with or not.

To address the point, it is incorrect to call Caster Semenya biologically male, she is intersex. She has breasts, a vagina and lives as a woman. She also has internal testes that produce more testosterone than an average woman, giving her a competitive advantage in her sport. 1/2

Fyi: Turning my lil rhetorical flourish into a point of personal insult does not persuade, but in fact detracts from your argument, and reflects poorly on you. If you're trying insult random people on the Internet, you're succeeding, and I bet it feels good. If you're trying to make a point, well...

A stalk of a milkweed plant, close up. The leaves look beleaguered and bitten. A caterpillar with a delicate pattern of black stripes on pale yellow perches on the underside of one leaf. About a dozen bright yellow oval-shaped little aphids perch all along another. Dry leaves and soil and plants and branches are blurry in the background.

Monarch caterpillars have arrived in the pollinators garden! Aphids are also there, the livestock of ants.

My milkweed plants are all still very small, I'm worried they will run out of leaves to eat. Should I then move them to some bigger milkweeds down the street?

IOC back to worrying women's uteruses will fall out if they compete with women who look too manly or grunt too loudly.

I'm confused why Michael Phelps gets to compete with his advantageous genetic variations, but Castor Semenya does not? IOC has Olympic-level mental gymnasticsed themselves into misogyny in the name of protecting women.

Our public library publishes great lists for each grade, here's a recent one for 6th, I'm sure you can find more. Focusing on graphic novels or comics can be helpful because he can read books for his age without necessarily reading at grade level yet.

www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/sites/defaul...

Getting lots of reps on reading he finds fun, and building positive daily habits will go a long way. School should be able to identify if he needs specialist help with the mechanics of reading.

Graphic novels. Anything related to his interests and/or or stories about kids his age. His own cozy place in the home with a bookshelf and bean bag chair, and dedicated reading time every day, with snacks and tea. A weekly library trip, get a stack of 30 books of whatever he likes. thriftbooks.com