When I walk Bentley the Maltesaurus on the beach, I always pick up whatever trash I find. Some days I find only a few items, some days I fill a contractor's size trash bag. I decided to catalogue it, to put awareness to trash creation in general. Something humans excel at.
Where does this stuff come from? Many places.
What do I do with it? The only thing I can. I bag it up and put it in one of the trash cans along the beach promenade.
Leave the smallest footprint possible. 🐬🐋🐟🐚🐙🐧🐾🐾
Wednesday, Jan 9 2019
#cosotrash
(You didn't think I'd stop, just bc the date changed?!)
High surf advisory (6' to 10'), rain, and a very high tide with sneaker waves made trash collection a bit dicey today. But tomorrow at low tide I expect to hit the trash jackpot. For now...
Piece of rope 1
Piece of surfboard nose 1
Tire pressure gage, rusted 1
Piece of fishing net 2
Plastic water bottle 1.5 ltr 1
99 Luftballons 3
@DachshundSaidSo Hey!! You know better than to be out there with sneaker waves!! Especially with the Maltesaurus!!
How is the little fluffball doing BTW??
@AvaSpeaksUp He is feeling greatly improved (and hungry!) and mostly back to his usual bouncy self.
As far as sneaker waves, when conditions are as today I don't venture out for items. Only grab what is already onshore. Bentley stays above the waterline and waits for me when I do go onto the rocks. He only goes into tidepools on calm days. 😎
@DachshundSaidSo Good, I'm so glad.
I spent so many years walking Oregon beaches. Never failed, every year someone (or two) would get killed by a sneaker wave and someone else (or two) would get killed for walking on logs on the beach. I spent half my time on rough water days talking to tourists and educating them on hazards. I'm glad you're smart!!
@AvaSpeaksUp @DachshundSaidSo Question: sneaker waves - suprisingly large waves at suprise you or does the sea lob Nikes at your head?
I'm on a roll in the last two days of learning new terms! 2 have been apparently racist and now this. Fascinating.
@Fiikus_goddess @DachshundSaidSo And, can I ask, what were the racist terms you learned?
@AvaSpeaksUp @DachshundSaidSo Cracker and beaner.
In case of cracker - the British uses were familiar.
Beaner was just new all in all.
@Fiikus_goddess @DachshundSaidSo Ah, yeah. I was, sadly, familiar with both of those.
@AvaSpeaksUp @DachshundSaidSo Well, as you can imagine, most of my slur knowledge comes from books/ tv/ social media.
At high school, we were forced to use oxford english until the entire student population complained (yes, I went to an all nerdy high school. )
So I struggle writing things with american/british spelling.
@Fiikus_goddess @DachshundSaidSo
I think that's how we learn most of ours, too. We just have more opportunity to *use* them on each other over here, I suppose.
I grew up in the Southern USA, which is about 100 times worse for racial slurs. I've been called a "cracker" even though I'm about as anti-racist as you can get. I dated a "beaner" & was thus called a "beaner-lover" as a slur just about everywhere we went together. I still held his hand proudly. He was a good guy. When things began->
@DachshundSaidSo @Fiikus_goddess -> to get more serious between us, unbeknowst to me my father found out about it & called INS (back when it was called INS and not ICE) on him & his entire family. They disappeared overnight & I never knew why until I got a letter from him months later with a small diamond ring he'd wanted to give me. He said he loved me, but he could never return to the US. I didn't have the $ to go to Mexico. I didn't find out it was my father until years later. Something ->
@Fiikus_goddess @DachshundSaidSo -> else I never forgave him for. I knew my Dad was a Conservative bastard, but I had no idea he was that much of a racist asshole.
Anyway, I loved him, but we could never be. I didn't speak enough Spanish & could never get together enough money to move. I didn't even have a passport until a decade later. But, I'd like to think that somewhere in Mexico there is a man who still has a little crush on "the one who got away". I hope he's happy otherwise, though.
@AvaSpeaksUp @DachshundSaidSo Oh wow. Sorry that happened to you, and to him!
Racial slurrs are present here too, and sometimes really badly evident. The older population still has a deep hatred for all things russian (wartime kids especially). But I suppose everywhere you go, racism, xenophobia and such is still there.
Newer generations are much more woke about it, and have a different values. But as a nation of majority elderly people... well, things are not easy to change.
@Fiikus_goddess
I have such hope for the future. I have hope that this new generation will carry these feelings of interconnectedness that they have with each other throughout their entire lives. But I also worry. You look at the people from the 60's who were all about free love & then you think "what happened to them?" They turned into people who run corporations now & guard their money like dragons horde gold- stepping on anyone to do it. But I want to believe it'll be different this time.
I was a child in the 60’s. There were people who were awakened to racism, sexism, and to capitalistic abuses. There were also people who were awakened to one thing but not to others (racism, but not sexism, for example). And then there were the Archie Bunkers, young and old alike, who were in the majority. Hence, Nixon.
I don’t think those who were awakened went back to sleep. I think the conservatives simply remained in power.
I am hopeful for the future.
@Myrth @Fiikus_goddess @AvaSpeaksUp To some extent, the Archie Bunker generation was the backlash amongst the Elders against the "anything goes" generation. When I looked at Ronald Reagan, I saw Disapproving Grandad.
Unfortunately it wasn’t just older people. It was poorer people, rural people, the people who weren’t privileged enough to go to college at Berkeley, the people who couldn’t afford to dodge the draft and who didn’t like being called baby murderers.
Archie Bunker captured most of America at the time. The hippies, the protesters, etc. were a minority. But they didn’t shrivel up and disappear. They are still here, joined (I hope) by a new generation.
@Myrth @Fiikus_goddess @AvaSpeaksUp The people that you mention needed a political party that would pretend to care about them, and say the things that they wanted to hear, either directly or via dog-whistles. The GOP was that party.
My dad was a decorated WWII veteran. He left the military in Vietnam war and began counseling draft dodgers. He also marched for peace.
When people screamed at veterans returning home, he said it was a GRAVE MISTAKE - the left was alienating the people they could help. He also said it was a GRAVE MISTAKE to burn flags and allow the right wing to wrap itself in patriotism; it was patriotic to protest sending our boys to their deaths in a pointless war.
@Myrth @Fiikus_goddess @AvaSpeaksUp In the UK, where I grew up, people burn flags all the time at demonstrations. The general reaction is "meh". People are smart enough and mature enough to know that a flag is is a symbol, not THE country.
Many people in the USA are attached to symbols while ignoring substance. Maybe that's part of being an adolescent country. But some people need to seriously grow up.
Symbolism is powerful speech. Powerful speech has consequences. We are living with the consequences. We can choose to understand our political reality when we work for change, or we can ignore it at our peril. Hate to say it, but Dad was right.
I take a pragmatic approach to change, as I prefer success to failure. If I can get one step forward, I will take that over demanding only perfect unicorns which I can never attain, as @Stonekettle has so well described.
@Myrth @AvaSpeaksUp @Fiikus_goddess Counterpoint: One of the defining characteristics of visionary leadership is being willing to tell people things that they need to hear, rather than things that they want to hear. Allowing symbolism to overwhelm substance is a behavior that needs to be called out.