Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org

The former guy is holding a rally tonight in Waco, Texas. It coincides with the 30 year anniversary of the fed raid and battle there with armed radicals.

That’s not a dogwhistle to anti-government extremists. That’s a call to arms.

Idaho Republicans Take Brave Stand Against 'Woke' Tampons In Schools https://www.wonkette.com/idaho-republicans-take-brave-stand-against-woke-tampons-in-schools

#Period_poverty #Menstrual_poverty #Menstrual_products #Tampons #Menstrual_stigma #Menstruation

The American Library Association has released new data about book bans in the United States. The numbers shattered last year's records.

This page has a lot more explanation of what's happening, more images to share, and ways you can get involved.

https://uniteagainstbookbans.org/2022-book-bans/

h/t @elaterite

#BookBans #Books #Libraries #FreeSpeech #Literacy #History #Histodon

Florida teacher: Rosa Parks was ordered to sit in the back of the bus.

Student: Why?

Teacher: We're not allowed to tell you. But that act of defiance led to a movement for equal rights.

Student: Rights for whom?

Teacher: We're not allowed to tell you.

#RosaParks #Florida #DeSantis #TrueHistory #history #Education
--------
A publisher removed references to Rosa Parks' race in a draft of its textbook to comply with Florida's laws, NYT reports
https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-textbook-removed-rosa-parks-race-comply-state-desantis-rules-2023-3

NEW: How Cigna Saves Millions by Having Its Doctors Reject Claims Without Reading Them

Internal documents and former company executives reveal how Cigna doctors reject patients’ claims without opening their files. “We literally click and submit,” one former company doctor said.

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims @ProPublica

An op-ed by our Policy Director and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER):

"These loopholes are being exploited by the energy industry and local BLM managers to the detriment of the sage grouse and the fragile sagebrush habitat they depend on."

#BureauofLandManagement #sagegrouse #sagebrush #Advocacy

https://www.wyomingnews.com/opinion/guest_column/rosenthal-and-osher-groups-sound-alarm-over-hidden-threat-to-sage-grouse-in-wyoming/article_030337e4-c8e9-11ed-8d09-4b4866a063e0.html

Photo: Tom Koerner/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Meanwhile, California’s stormy winter season has hampered the recovery of the western monarchs, which nearly went extinct a couple years ago.

https://www.kpbs.org/news/environment/2023/03/17/californias-punishing-winter-storms-pummel-monarch-butterfly-population

The eastern monarch butterfly population is still declining. The new numbers from the 22-23 overwintering site are in.

#MonarchButterflies #Butterflies #Conservation #Insects

https://monarchwatch.org/blog/

@pluralistic

Mass tech worker layoffs and the soft landing (21 Mar 2023)

The capital classes are ready for the final rug-pull, where all the value is transfered FROM people who #make things for a living TO people who #own things for a living.

"Activist investors" have triggered massive waves of tech layoffs, #firing so many #tech #workers so quickly that it's hard to even come up with an accurate count. The total is somewhere around 280,000 workers:

https://layoffs.fyi/

These layoffs have nothing to do with "trimming the fat" or correcting the hiring excesses of the lockdown. They're a project to #transfer #value FROM workers, customers and users TO shareholders.

– Cory Doctorow

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/21/tech-workers/

Why America has become a deadly place for women who get pregnant. #GOP https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/20/us-maternal-mortality-rate-climbing-health-crisis

As New York Pays Out Millions In Police Misconduct Settlements, Lawmakers Ask Why They Keep Happening
--
Decades of costly settlements have prompted some elected officials to question whether the city enables bad policing by aggressively defending against misconduct claims instead of demanding changes to NYPD practices.

#Police #Misconduct #NYC #NYPD #Accountability #NewYork

https://www.propublica.org/article/nyc-nypd-police-misconduct-settlements-protests?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

I’ve been enjoying “The Guests of Ants” immensely and now that I’ve finished it In a little sad. It was perfect train reading. Of course it’s a rather dense book with a lot of summaries of academic papers and photos you can look at forever. So I may just read it again. Anyway if haven’t gotten a copy yet you should. #antbooks #ants

Minnesota's House passed the "Reproductive Freedom Defense Act," which shields women who travel to the state for abortions. The bill prohibits state courts & law enforcement from cooperating with authorities outside Minnesota #SomeGoodNews

https://minnesotareformer.com/2023/03/20/minnesota-house-passes-abortion-shield-bill-to-protect-women-from-out-of-state-bans/

“Charter #schools have a right to turn their backs on kids and a part of the community. And if we start on that train ... these kids will be left behind in society.”

As the state takeover of #Houston ISD proceeds, advocates worry for the future of vulnerable schools in low-income neighborhoods. McHam Investigative Reporting Fellow @josephinelee uncovers the risks this poses to students:
https://www.texasobserver.org/wheatley-houston-isd-takeover-privatization-texas/

#education #TXedu #TXlege #privatization #vouchers #news #USpol #politics

UPDATE: Today, President Joe #Biden dedicates the Castner Range, a 7,081-acre former Army artillery facility in the Franklin Mountains near El Paso, as a national monument.

In July, Southwest Texas journalist Eli Nuñez wrote about why this new park matters so much: https://www.texasobserver.org/castner-range-national-monument-el-paso/

(📸 Photo by Mark Clure)
#news #Texas #environment #nature #culture #ElPaso

The Republican Party's war on voting (for Democrats) escalates across many fronts, but Big Journalism deigns to notice only sporadically -- doing business as usual in the face of the imminent threat. https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/idaho-removes-student-ids-from-list-of-acceptable-voter-id/

One of my favorite animals is the very rare blanket octopus. Few people have seen them firsthand. https://youtu.be/QJcXMPJ9XN8

The female has a spectacular ‘cape’ enclosing her tentacles, which makes her look larger to predators. She can grow >6.5ft or 2m!

Meanwhile, the male is smaller than a walnut. He weighs 40,000x less than the female, measuring just 2.4cm.

Blanket octopus are the most extreme example of gender size discrepancy across the (non-mircoscopic) animal kingdom. #nature #science

We seem to be posting weevils today? Here's a handsome one (Brachystylus sayi). I like the interesting way his leg joints are made. They look like those plastic Krazy Ikes toys from the 1960s.

#weevils #beetles #coleoptera #insects #arthropods #photography #macrophotography