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Reposted by Katherine Traylor

Kim Kelly @kimkelly.bsky.social · 2h

Happy John Brown’s Raid day to all who celebrate

Reposted by Katherine Traylor

Dr. Rebecca Gibson @drrgibsongirl.bsky.social · 3h

Putting aside what I want to say about Mitch McConnell falling over, please remember for older people who you care about, the first priority should NOT be getting them back on their feet. Injury assessment including for orientation to their surroundings FIRST before moving them.

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 2h

Unironically yes. There's a green one on my street I covet deeply.

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 1d

Winchester Mystery House vibes.

Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @peterpaulrubens.bsky.social · 1d

Scale model of Longleat lets you see how the current house is wrapped around an older one. And the roofscape! So amazing. By Robert Smythson, 1570s.

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Reposted by Katherine Traylor

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 1d

WASHINGTON (AP) — Journalists begin leaving Pentagon after refusing to sign Trump administration agreements on rules of access.

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Reposted by Katherine Traylor

Climate Home News @climatechangenews.com · 1d

In 2024 alone, the world permanently lost forests the size of England - about 8.1 million hectares. The target for this year was no more than 5 million. buff.ly/WtEKdS2

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Reposted by Katherine Traylor

Eric Geller @ericjgeller.com · 2d

"During the encounter, Greeley said they told her she 'doesn’t look like' a Greeley.

"'They said this isn’t real, they kept telling me I’m lying, I’m a liar,' Greeley recalled."

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/i...

ICE tickets Chicago man with legal residency $130 for not having his papers on him: ‘It’s not fair…I’m a resident’

Under federal law, registered foreign nationals must carry proof of registration with them at all times. But prior to a second Trump administration, it was rarely enforced.

www.chicagotribune.com

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 2d

It blew my mind that this beautiful plant was native to the state where I mostly grew up and I'd never seen it in my life. I think a big part of it is growing up deep in the suburbs (ask me how I feel about the suburbs...), but I don't think I'm alone, either.

Anyway, thank you for listening.🌿

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 2d

And it's hard to connect emotionally with your homeland when you're taught to be fearful and suspicious of everything it produces.

Anyway, I think this has been stewing at the back of my mind since I saw this video: youtube.com/shorts/DYJHm...

by @blackforager.bsky.social -->

POISON or SNACK: PURPLE BERRIES!

YouTube video by BlackForager

youtube.com

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 2d

(I wonder if this impulse might not contribute to the deep knot of cultural insecurity that causes White America to be Like That. It's difficult to walk straight if you've still got one ankle tied to Europe.)-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 2d

So with a few exceptions, any plant or animal that wasn't originally imported from Europe is treated as part of the scenery, ignored most of the time and destroyed when inconvenient.-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 2d

The backbone of US historical/cultural education has always been, "Everything good about this country we built ourselves, on this beautiful empty landscape, out of pieces we brought with us from Europe." That's still true, I think.-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 2d

Imagine stealing a homeland like that for yourselves, and then knocking it all down and trying to turn it into a shitty facsimile of Europe (as illustrated by this horrifying painting; follow link for detailed description). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America... -->

American Progress - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 3d

It's like the joke about England conquering the world for spices and never using any of them. The US slurped up 40% of the North American landmass and treated every single living thing in it (human, animal, vegetable, and all the way down) like worthless trash.-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 3d

So if I saw something in a grocery store or a fairy tale, it was good and wholesome and useful. If I saw it on the ground outside my house in the country where I had lived my entire life, it was pretty but probably poisonous and best not licked or played with too roughly.-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 3d

And, of course, the whole North American landmass was successfully foraged by Indigenous people for thousands of years. I knew that. I'd read about that. But I'd never made the mental leap from "Indigenous people gathered and ate these things" and "anyone can gather and eat these things."-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 3d

When I was talking to my student today, I actually had the absurd thought that maybe there just weren't as many edible wild plants in the US as there are in Europe. Sense fortunately caught up with me a few seconds later, because I KNOW you can forage in the US: some people do it all the time.-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 3d

But if you dumped me in the woods somewhere and told me to forage or starve, I'd die. The only non-toxic wild plant I can readily identify in North America is honeysuckle, and I'm not sure that's enough to keep me going in the long run.-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 3d

But I DON'T know these things about American plants. I know about the big ones that were part of Native agriculture and adopted by settlers: potatoes, tomatoes, certain beans, squash and pumpkins, peanuts, cacao. I know some flowers and trees (sunflowers, black-eyed Susans, echinacea, sugar maple)->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 3d

The reason, I think, is that they're IN all the fairy tales. I'd read The Wild Swans, about a girl crushing stinging nettles to make shirts, three decades before I was ever stung by a nettle myself. I didn't know what a rowan tree looked like, but I knew it was associated with protection.-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 3d

A lot of the things that grow here, though, feel stunningly familiar: nettles, mallow, yarrow, chicory, rowan, hawthorn, linden. When I first moved here, I'd often stop and look around and wonder if I'd slipped into a fairy tale.-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 3d

When I first moved to the Czech Republic, I had never seen currants or gooseberries before. Seeing them in the market sent up an automatic "POISON!!!" flag in my brain that I had to consciously remove before I could try them. (They're fine. Nice on yogurt.)-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 3d

My student looked confused and showed me how easy it was to tell blueberries apart from similar-looking berries (the example she used was Paris quadrifolia). I thought about the big patches of blackberries growing wild along park walkways here for anyone to pick and eat (if you avoid the dog pee)-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 3d

I told her how my sister had eaten some toxic berries when she was a toddler and how dramatic and scary that was. From then on, our parents warned us so direly against touching berries or mushrooms that we used to kick and crush any mushrooms we found so they wouldn't be able to hurt us.-->

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Katherine Traylor @katherinetraylor.bsky.social · 3d

I said, "Well, you know, most of us don't go into the woods very often,"and that most US residents don't have the chance to learn which growing things are safe to eat (our parents don't know, either, so they can't teach us). She was bewildered, and told me that she learned these things at school.-->

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