labhair gaeilic liom, má tá suim agat!
siad/iad i ngaelic ; they/them in english
soirbhíoch dúshlánach ; defiant optimist
apparently a neoliberal & bad news, for opposing climate-change-accelerating genAI 🤷
it’s well worth identifying what plant it is exactly & whether it’s native or not, just to be sure. a lot of native plants can have vigorous growth & spread because that’s exactly the habitat & climate it’s adapted to.
but if it’s not native & is spreading, it sounds like it’ll be a hell of a job to remove. i don’t envy you if that’s the case, best of luck!
if those thorn bushes are native plants, then why not let them grow?
i just let the place grow wild without input from me, beyond what i & my dogs walk over. the grass/clover/purple deadnettle/buttercups/etc stay shorter in high-traffic areas, then the low-traffic areas tend to fill up with bigger wild plants like docks, thistles, nettles etc.
butterflies, bees, and other insects seem to love the thistles when they start flowering, and it’s so nice to see pollinators fluttering & buzzing around that it’s worth the occasional thorn/nettle sting when i’m not watching where i’m going! not to mention the blackberry harvest from the briars in the autumn.
fadhb ar bith! 🙌
https://cula4.ie/ is handy. media made for kids/young people is great for getting used to sentence structures and common vocab. they’ve got everything from “saol faoi shráid” to the irish dub of “shrek”!
https://www.rte.ie/player/series/bluey-as-gaeilge/10019908-00-0000 “bluey” is available in irish on the rté player just beginning this week or so. the first episode says there’s only 6 days left to watch it, so they won’t be up forever, sadly.
https://snas.ie/ has a load of resources starting at level B1; i enjoyed going through the lessons based on “ros na rún”, and the explanations for the grammar/vocab in them are in english.
a blog i keep coming across when i’m looking for explanations online is https://toingaeilge.com/ too. it hasn’t been updated in a few years, but it has some great breakdowns & good lists of resources too.
https://www.foclach.com/ and https://seafoid.com/ are some daily word games (based on wordle and waffle) that might help with expanding vocabulary. i find seafóid easier & it pops up with a definition as soon as you get each word.
other than that, i recommend reading as many books in irish that you can get your hands on, starting with books for kids & working your way up. starting at too high a level is likely to just be frustrating & demotivating, so focus on what you can easily do now & keep adding to it.
for getting books, your local library’s online catalogue will let you know what it has & what it can get via inter-library loan. (free resources are my favourite 🥳)
i’d recommend these for buying books in irish, if there’s nothing of interest anywhere local: https://www.siopaleabhar.com/ https://www.siopagaeilge.ie/ https://www.litriocht.com/
ádh mór ort! 🙌
i wish they were happening at a time when the dáil was in session, to affect the people who most need to be affected by this.
that said, fair play to them for organising a protest that actually disrupts things & happens during the week, rather than a weekend protest that gets ignored.
it being almost immediately hijacked by racists & anti-immigration bigots is awful, and i fear it’s going to make more people support the dangerous precedent of the army being called in.
i feel that the bigger picture isn’t being looked at or talked about beyond fuel prices, at least by our media:
this is amazing, and through this, i’ve now found a load of other zines to check out! tysm for this 🙌
the r slur really can’t be reclaimed, because the people most impacted by that slur are unable to participate in these conversations.
gross, there should definitely be a rule against stealing people’s work & reposting it without credit so no one can find or support the artists 😮💨
amazing, thank you! 🙌
i’m assuming these are so closely cropped because you’ve cut out the title & artist attribution, hence the request to repost them uncropped.
can these be reposted with attributions to their artist(s)?
these days, people want to be sure whether what they’re looking at was actually made by a human or not
i hope it didn’t come across as harsh! really both problems 1 & 2 that you’ve outlined are the same things that everyone is dealing with. a lot of systems of oppression like patriarchy, european colonialism, capitalism, ableism, etc push people into isolation by design, & then tell people to heal from that in isolation, rather than in community.
(i suspect it’s designed that way to make people feel that these are individual problems & not collective problems, because if we realise that we’re all suffering from the same systems of oppression, we might do something to end those systems!)
we humans are a social species, and we’ve lived & learned & healed in community with one another for hundreds of thousands of years. just being open & communicating with the friends you already have about those issues is a great first step, then seeking out hobby groups etc is a way that you might expand your social circle beyond other men.
for the dating side of things, dating apps can be great, because boundaries are lot clearer there (over what is a date, what people are looking for etc) & that way, you can avoid the potential messiness of dating within your friend group.
tl;dr: i don’t think the formality of classes/training would be needed for this, but talking to your friends about this & going out of your way to make friends with mixed company would help a lot. (also, gathering with your friends, new & old, to dismantle the systems of oppression that are causing all these problems will solve things for future generations too 😎)
oof, it sounds like claw caps and a cat exercise wheel might be really helpful, so!
it sounds like you’re in a pretty tough situation, i wish you & your cat the best of luck ❤️🩹
the outdoor area sounds great! and it’s sweet that your cat brings toys to you, even if they’re very insistent 😅
if the damage from their claws is the main problem, there are a few brands of claw caps (“soft paws” & “soft claws” are the main brands i know) that will stay on for a few weeks at a time until their claw sheds, then you replace any caps that have fallen off. they’ve been a lifesaver for me in rented places, and they’re fairly cheap to order from ebay or wherever.
if having the zoomies at all is the main problem, then i would recommend getting them a cat exercise wheel & training them to use it; so along with the claw caps, they’ll have somewhere to zoom around indoors without doing any damage.
i don’t really know any cats that don’t get the zoomies around the mornings and evenings, other than fairly sedate elderly cats, so if you’re rehoming your cat to get a new one, i’d suggest looking for the oldest cats you can find, to avoid setting yourself up for disappointment & ending up back at square one.
what are you doing for enrichment for the cat you currently have?
maybe you didn’t mention it in your post, but it sounds like your cat potentially doesn’t have enough enrichment. the issue could be solved by making sure that your cat gets tired out during the day, fulfilling their hunting instinct, being able to climb & hide in cat furniture, etc.
indoor cats need things like:
a lot of young indoor cats would also really benefit from a cat exercise wheel, because young cats have so much energy to burn! if your cat’s climbing the walls with energy, i’d highly recommend one, it can be a game-changer.
in my opinion, no. an artist’s worldview informs their art, so things like racism/misogyny/ableism etc etc seep into the works they create. consuming media like that uncritically can be harmful by reinforcing biases, conscious or unconscious.
there’s also the more direct harm that can be done by financially supporting certain artists. jk rowling, for example, is funnelling any wealth she gets from the harry potter franchise into funding anti-trans organisations.
in my experience, people who want to separate art from the artist just want to continue uncritically consuming everything, without feeling guilt over the harm they could be doing by “voting with their dollar”.
the centralised big websites all seem intent on shoving gen ai into everything, which is far worse for the environment & climate than using smaller self-hosted networks that don’t use gen ai.
things could be re-assessed & done differently post-capitalism, but we’ve got to get to that stage first!
If men are facing a loneliness epidemic, they could learn to be friends with one another, enjoy one anothers’ company, and open up to one another about being lonely etc, instead of expecting women to train them.
I cant train men on how women want to be treated, and I wouldnt even want to tell men how women should be treated seeing as im not a woman.
Women want to be treated as equals to men, to be paid the same as men are, to be promoted in jobs as often as men are, and to be represented in government and media as much as men are. This is absolutely something that men can and should tell other men about.
i wonder if i could go there to apply, then spend the three month waiting period at home, then head back for the completed paperwork 🤔
either way, it’s a much better situation than nothing at all for nonbinary folks, like we have here in ireland!
(although hopefully the proposed amendments to our gender recognition act can be finally pushed through with this ruling 🤞)
fast food, which the cheetah will consider slow-cooked 🙂↕️