Been a while since we posted a newsletter, here's this month's installment with updates on upcoming events plus an essay on yaupon tea and future possibilities: foodforestschattanooga.substack.com/p/yaupon-tea...

Preaching to the choir on here I know but here's an account of a lynching that occurred in the Mississippi town where I lived as a teenager, and which only got around to memorializing this event a couple years ago:

Stacks of yam tied in an Igbo yam barn, Nigeria. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-invent...

Interesting to see that elements on the right are already turning on the "official" narrative of the Kirk assassination, doubting the evidence the administration is putting forward and groping towards other explanations. Feels like there are some wild dynamics just under the surface...

Meg & I collaborated on the Philly Native Plant Project that distributed 10,000 native seed packets in Philly. The proceeds from this calendar will fund the 2026 installment! We hope to distribute even more in '26. Learn about animals, how to help them AND fund a project that supports biodiversity.

On the one hand the administration is no doubt demoralizing and dramatically mismanaging the very state agents they need if they want a real campaign of political repression; on the other hand many repressive states did similar things in their formative stages and did not collapse on themselves

Weird cute little funky marble water fountain, E Pearson St, Chicago

This refugee student is in the final months of his dissertation after a long journey out of war. Helping him helps assure the future of Syria. There's a lot of darkness in the world right now, but this is how we bring the light. No amount is too small (or too large lol)! 🙏 💖 givebutter.com/fgQG3V

"In spite of his advanced years, 'Old Man' Scarborough was still able to work the wooden machinery to chop, crush, roast, and cure the leaves of the yaupon holly when North Carolina naturalist H. H. Brimley interviewed him in 1905. "Scarborough, Brimley explained, was the Black owner

Straight up just doing a Horst Wessel 2.0 aren't they

Sometimes late at night after reading for a while and perhaps having had a drink it hits me that we're twenty-five years into the twenty-first century and this, *this* is where we're at and that I bear at least some personal responsibility within our wider collective failure

Philipp Georg Friedrich von Reck's (1710–1798) depiction and description of yaupon holly, the main source of the famed "black drink" of Native peoples of the American South; he outlines the tea-making process and avers that "the taste is better than the finest 'Keyser' tea":

“Assuming that deaths from deprivation were four times the violent deaths – an estimate at the lower end of projections – then the 136,000 violent deaths after 15.5 months of killing (25 April 2025) would imply 544,000 Gaza deaths from imposed deprivation.”

I understand he's not all there, still imagine looking at all of the terrible things that have happened in the history of this country, from chattel slavery to genocide of Native peoples- and concluding that "open borders" and the existence of transgender people are "the worst," it's just... man

Headed up into Chattahoochee National Forest for a little overnighter at one of our favorite dispersed camping spots, found a new waterfall, revisited the Gennett Poplar, no internet or cell service, hard to beat

Some community garden flowers with happy pollinators this evening

Was at one of our community gardens this evening, met an older lady- originally from Sand Mountain, Ala.- who was picking up supplies from the community fridge for a homeless couple she's helping, we picked beans and peppers together and she reminisced about her granny's garden from years ago

The American Civil War contained "conventional" civil wars within it, particularly here in the Southern Highlands and in the Trans-Mississippi; little bands of deserters, criminals, edlerly homeguards, scattered detachments of regular troops, and straight up psychopaths, more murders than battles

It's fun to think that when full scale nuclear war finally breaks out and wipes out modern civilization the last transmission out will probably be a livestreamer reminding his audience to like and subscribe

Kind of sounds like they've been waiting for their opportunity doesn't it

Gustav Laundauer on the futility of political violence and what real propaganda of the deed should look like:

One day after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on racial profiling, federal agents swarmed a car in Van Nuys. Four masked agents with guns drawn yanked people out, slammed them to the ground, and pointed a weapon at a pregnant woman. There is no justification for this. None.

We're in the process of incorporating the community agriculture organization I helped start, @foodforestchatt.bsky.social, as an independent 501 c3, and want to develop it along worker self-directed lines. Anybody out there who has had experience with such things and could give some pointers?

Socialism looks quite different depending on whether you see it as something that is essentially handed down from above by benign (or grudgingly politically compelled) bureaucrats and politicians as opposed to something that is built up from below by ordinary people exercising self-governance

Bishop Barron needs to be sent to a forty day retreat during which he is required to read and re-read the story of St. John the Baptist until the message begins to sink in

Reminder that as with so many other things when conservatives claim to care about decentralization, subsidiarity, local control, etc, they are most likely simply lying

IDF sniper from Chicago who says he killed Gazan teenager just for trying to retrieve his brother's corpse: “They’re thinking, ‘Oh I don’t think [I’ll get shot] because I’m wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon' and all that, but they were wrong. That’s what you have snipers for.”

Love some partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata), such a beautiful plant of marginal and disturbed locales that keeps its insect neighbors happy as well (via both pollen production in the flowers and nectar in little nectary glands at the base of leaves):

Selection from "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins Artist: Kreg Yingst (kregyingst.com) #kregyingst #psalmprayers #gerardmanleyhopkins #piedbeauty

Got a lot done this afternoon at the Chattanooga Civic Center at Mountainside, refreshing the existing beds, pulling a ton of grass and setting in native perennial flowers and fruiting plants, prepping for other plantings soon. Very excited to see what happens here in the coming months!

Lot of stuff is pretty bleak out there these days but also I planted maypops in the garden about a month back and somehow a Gulf fritillary butterfly found them and now there a bunch of very fearsome fritillary caterpillars doing their thing on them (tree the maypop is climbing is a witch hazel)

working on the abundance agenda

Everything else aside, the language these guys use with the administration is just absolute North Korea tier Dear Leader stuff, it really feels like they're mocking the guy (and maybe they are, while also ingratiating themselves)

Following up on our environmental history reading group last spring we will be offering monthly (potentially bi-monthly depending on everyone's availability and energy!) sessions on the theory, practice, and history of agroecology, we'll do a potluck and weather permitting hands-on work outside too.

Two years ago this hillside was thin grass over hard clay and the thinnest covering of soil; today apple trees (visible here), plums, fig, pecan, hazelnut, serviceberry, raspberries, blackberries, elderberry, and a whole host of ground-level plants are now flourishing happily, it's just amazing

"It goes without saying that this problem of the mastery and liberation of everyday life is a pressing one in the old cities. But it is even greater and more urgent for the new towns, where the objects of modern technology are in a state of open confrontation with everyday life.

'But that long-drawn struggle for freedom which [Landauer] calls Revolution can only bear fruit when “we are seized by the spirit, not of revolution, but of regeneration.”'

Something I see- and I hope I'm not naively misinterpreting- at our church parish, in community organizing work, and other spaces is an intense desire, especially on the part of young people, for real society, for tangibility, and life not defined by technology, capital, or state

This piece is now free to read. @kmilb.bsky.social, @bertrussell.bsky.social and I argue that popular power and social property - rather than merely nationalisation - are important goals for working class struggles today. tribunemag.co.uk/2025/08/the-...

Why did I just now in the wee hours of the night discover the work of Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (1850-1913) and his absolutely incredible children's book illustrations

Not to sound like an old man- though I am a few weeks out from 40- but young people really are looking for ways to practice community, do tangible things, and improve their world for the better, best thing us old people can do is help to facilitate the realization of those desires

So many things dumb- to put it mildly- about this stuff but one of them is the idea our ancestors were coming over for high-falutin reasons, my ancestors came to this continent to grow tobacco and make money, maybe they went to church a couple times a year but that was about it for a long time

Five children in Gaza among those killed by Israeli strike while fetching water

Happy feast day of St. Mamas: born in a prison cell, peaceful dweller in the wild, friend of all creatures, evader of state legibility, cultivator of the untamed commons, generous giver even to his persecutors, martyr for Christ

Starting this week we'll be facilitating weekly morning sessions in the St Elmo Community Food Forest, our volunteer coordinator will be on hand to lead in whatever tasks need to be done week to week so as to maintain and expand the food forest's productivity:

Sublime scenes around the garden last couple of days, summer is receding and fall is very much in the air

It's like these guys had their LLMs trawl through every over the top super villain of popular media for the last half century, generated a script from the aggregate output, and are following it to the letter

It's sad to have to close shop on one community garden but fortunately we have been able to get new spaces going using the accumulated resources of the old one, the experience has also underlined how important securing long-term access for community agriculture is

Coming up THIS SATURDAY: we are partnering with the CHATT Foundation to help build new garden beds for residents at their permanent supportive housing site. If you plan on attending it would be helpful to fill out the volunteer form: chattfoundation.galaxydigital.com/need/detail/.... Thanks so much!

very cool and very normal