the aliens land and the heavens gate dudes come out drunk as shit whooping and cheering and start firing lazer guns at national monuments
Its kind of fucked up how the spread of tumblr-type gender thought and “The newest innovation of American folk culture is a ceremony for asserting birth gender assignment using, like, over-the-counter explosives and mortal danger” have been treated as two distinct plotlines this last decade
Where precipitation drops below 20 inches yearly defines the start of western US.
by @metricmaps
Each state gets two senators, but some states have been in the Union longer than others, and some have had longer or shorter-serving senators. Here’s the total for each state.
in other news a pivotal scene in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn involves Huck pretending to be a girl and getting caught when he’s too quick to close his legs just saying
If you can’t find a US flag to salute today, you can just look at the moon.
We should really start preparing for the 2026 semiquincentennial as a way to invest charisma into reenchanting American continuity
Those tall ships really lifted the nation’s spirits after Watergate
I’m not sure if the reason I feel unsettled about the American Dream is that it seems too dark, or that it seems too ominous, or that it seems too “forward”. Either that. I’ve had bad and good nights. I don’t feel quite that certain anymore, but I feel unsettled. And I want to believe that I can do something better, that I can make this work. I want to believe that I’m better than what I’m feeling. I want to believe that I’m not the sort of guy I used to be.
I’m stuck in a house that’s on fire. I don’t know how long it’ll last. I’m tired and I’m hungry and I’m cold. I can barely see anything. The fire is coming out of the vents. The girl who lived here with me is dead. Her name was Mary. I don’t know why I’m alive. I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die. Stop the fire! I can’t do it. I can’t stop it. I can’t stop it. I can’t stop it. It’s coming out of the vents. I can’t stop it.
holy shit frank call 911
Thanks. I keep having this experience where when I see things that I should be able to understand, but are not quite right in some way, I instead become convinced that they are wrong and that I’m in a bad place in which to live.
if this is the American Dream I’d hate to see the American Nightmare
Hearing the Dream is about the horrible things you’re capable of doing to someone when you treat them badly. The Nightmare is that you can’t even notice the difference. The Dream is a good story that you want to live in because it sounds good and you want to live in it because you’re not very good at reading people. The Nightmare is very bad at not noticing the difference.
thanks! once again I’m terrified
Wheat fields are more mystical than fields of other crops. You are 7,000 times more likely to meet an old god or see a portent of doom in a wheat field than in a field of like… soybeans.
For your consideration: cornfields
Cornfields are less mystical than wheat fields but more mystical than soybean fields. Two-bit monsters congregate in corn fields to eat people, but their power is nothing compared to the things that manifest in wheat fields.
Have been in both wheat and cornfields; can confirm. Cornfields host monsters who eat people. Wheat fields attract old gods.
I have a theory that this is because the notions most of us have of “old gods” are pretty intrinsically European, and wheat was (and is) the staple crop of European life. It is quite literally tied to the ancestral rituals and beliefs of most white people. Odin, the Morrigan, and even Zeus are actually linked to a set of peoples who cultivated wheat.
Meanwhile, corn (maize) is a crop native to the Americas. It features in the white cultural imagination in a very different way. Corn is a motif seen not in our ancestral myths, but in a much newer genre: the American Gothic. With its focus on the tensions between man and nature and—perhaps more importantly—the United States’s history of genocide against its indigenous population and trade in enslaved Africans, the American Gothic is VERY preoccupied with agriculture. Our monsters come out of corn fields because corn is a symbol for not only what we did to the Native Americans (who were the first to grow the crop), but of what we are doing to the very land itself. Corn is a monument to our cultural sins.
Meanwhile, I suspect that corn features very differently in the imaginations of people of color. If you asked a Native American person or a Latinx person what sort of mysticism they associate with corn fields, I imagine their answer would be very different than ours.
TLDR: White people associate wheat with our ancestors’ gods because our ancestors grew wheat. We associate corn with terrible monsters because it is a literal sign of our own monstrosity.
Native American here, can confirm that small plots of corn feel safe and homey; ideally they should be interplanted with other crops. You find turkeys and possums and raccoons in the corn. It might tell you important knowledge.
However.
Giant monocultures of corn, where the corn grows unbroken for miles and miles, not near human habitation, devoid of local wildlife, just corn on corn in the soft wind? Corn mega monocultures? Those sound like screaming.
“monocultures attract people-eating monsters” is not the take I expected to see today but I’m glad I saw it
Like okay I am so generally positive about Taylor Swift I would understand you discounting my praise
But look at it this way: do you know how good something has to be that I’m convinced I had been underrating Taylor Swift?
Lover is that good, it’s one of the all-time American masterpieces
like, things I think it already exceeds:
Things I am not yet convinced it exceeds:
Currently on the borderline:
Underappreciated genres of old-school rock:
- My friend with an unusual nickname sure is awesome, and I strongly encourage them to continue doing whatever it is that they do
- Here, have an eleven-minute orchestral intro for a two-minute song
- Really, this whole business is just a delivery mechanism for the stupid fucking pun in the chorus
- You think this is deep, but it’s really about a horse
- I discovered a particular configuration of amp settings that makes a really weird noise, and I must share it with the world
- An incomplete list of things that give me a boner (part 3 of 5)
- I tried to parody a genre of music I don’t care for and accidentally produced a perfect example of the thing I was trying to make fun of
- Behold my vocal range, ye mighty, and despair
(Black Oak Arkansas, fucking Styx, Aerosmith, America, Peter Frampton, Kiss, Kiss again, Judas Priest)
(Three Dog Night, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Procol Harum, Black Sabbath, Mötley Crüe, Beastie Boys, Freddie Goddamned Mercury)
Just in case you weren’t familiar with those particular genres.
“Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarcy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.” -Thomas Paine
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” — Benjamin Franklin (at the signing of the Declaration of Independence)
“There! His Majesty can now read my name without glasses. And he can double the reward on my head!” - John Hancock (upon singing the Declaration of Independence)
We began a contest for liberty and independence ill provided with the means for war, relying on our patriotism to supply the deficiency. We expected to encounter many wants and distresses, and we should not shrink from them when they happen- George Washington
“[T]he flames kindled on the Fourth of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.”
– Thomas Jefferson“They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave….. Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” - Patrick Henry
“I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm’s way.”
― John Paul Jones“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us…” - Samuel Adams
But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. -John Adams.
me: what if australia is just america's america also me: no, that's texas me: california is new york's america also me: america is california's america
honestly the development of the “football field” and the “first down” as power-of-10 imperial units was the American Century in a nutshell
