*insert it’s gonna be May joke here*
Did you hear that our newest comic anthology, Comrade Himbo, is launching on Kickstarter this week? We’d love for you to take a peek at the link and sign up to be notified when it launches, especially if you want the best shot at early bird rewards. But while you wait, you can also take a gander at some real-life stories that are keeping us hopeful for a more comradely future. See: an interesting and inspiring reparations win in Athen, Georgia; a new co-op internet service provider being set up by striking Spectrum workers in New York City; tenant organizing in Milwaukee that is keeping renters in their homes; and last but emphatically not least, an extremely compelling and straightforward argument for returning ownership of U.S. National Parks to their original Native caretakers.
But in truth, the North American continent has not been a wilderness for at least 15,000 years: Many of the landscapes that became national parks had been shaped by Native peoples for millennia. Forests on the Eastern Seaboard looked plentiful to white settlers because American Indians had strategically burned them to increase the amount of forage for moose and deer and woodland caribou. Yosemite Valley’s sublime landscape was likewise tended by Native peoples; the acorns that fed the Miwok came from black oaks long cultivated by the tribe. The idea of a virgin American wilderness—an Eden untouched by humans and devoid of sin—is an illusion.
If you’re looking for ways get more involved in your community as gatherings are becoming safer, why not try starting a reading group? This abolition reading list provides a great place to start!
Look, we are still not over The Nanny’s return to our televisions via HBO, and likely never will be. Here is essential #franculture reading: The Nanny’s costume designer ranks Fran Fine’s 10 best outfits.
Have you ever wanted to help come up with a fun name for a group of black holes? Now you can!
Dinosaur and Pokemon fans have cause to rejoice with the announcement of a Pokemon-themed fossil exhibit opening in Japan. The source article is in Japanese, but we found a good summary tweet in English!
To end things for today, remember that our lord and savior/collective Italian grandpa Martin Scorsese loves you just the way you are, even if you are “just” getting by.