Notices by Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐 (gcvsa@mstdn.plus)

@gnu2 What I was trying to convey is that Americans do not necessarily have an aversion to the idea of a savory cookie, in general, not that the cookie needed to taste like chicken. Chicken in a Biskit is just one example of something that could plausibly be described as a "savory cookie". But CiaB is clearly what Americans would call a "cracker", not really a "cookie", even though there's little to distinguish between them.

@skinnylatte "Chicken in a Biskit" crackers are reasonably popular in the US, though. I loved them when I was a kid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Biskit

@skinnylatte That looks big, and I see no sprocket holes. Is that 120 film?

@skinnylatte I would just like to point out that some of the most popular brands in Hawai'i and the Philippines are hydrolyzed, and some people culturally identify with these products. So, although I do not buy hydrolyzed soy, I'm not going to insult people who grew up eating Aloha, for instance, or Silver Swan, or whatever, and want to keep buying it, because it's the taste of home for them.

@skinnylatte Also, for the record, I am unaware of any product by Kikkoman that is hydrolyzed. If you have some documentation on this, I'd love to see it.

The Kikkoman shoyu that is made in the US is made identically to the Kikkoman koikuchi shoyu made in Japan, except that it uses sodium benzoate as the preservative rather than alcohol. In both cases, they are 100% naturally brewed, no part of it is hydrolyzed. Neither the US or JP version is "stale". Soy sauce doesn't spoil.

As unsettling as the Trump Administration is for the global community, it is even more unsettling for Americans. We are now at the mercy of the rest of the world's choices and we have no influence left over those decisions. Our representatives in government can no longer be trusted by any other nation.

The Republican Party has single-handedly destroyed America's prestige and power in global politics by withdrawing every form of leverage we once wielded and ruining the trust we held. #USpol

I just found out today that the Parket Quink Green Jade #FountainPen ink I've been looking for was apparently a limited run made in China only for the Asian market in 2021.

It's one of the most beautiful jade green inks I've ever seen, and I hate it when companies do that kind of thing, because I specifically want a jade green ink to celebrate my heritage.

Here's niki.notebook with an interesting plastic dip pen that features the Parker Green Jade Quink:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFIXXxcXViA

@skinnylatte I mean, there's America, and there's America. My family is English/German/Filipino from Queens, NYC, the single most diverse county in the entire country. There probably doesn't exist a cuisine on Earth that you can't get in Queens without even look that hard.

@skinnylatte As a person of German American descent, I heartily disagree with this. There is amazing German American food.

"Extreme fear is driving the US market." #USpol

Not that I disagree with the sentiment, but before we bother building more trains, we need to build more mixed-use apartment buildings in town and city centers. No point in trains if there aren't concentrations of populations to use them. #urbanism #architecture #planning #transit #transportation

@evan I don't usually say so, but yes. Usually I say, "well-being and self-actualization", but that includes "happiness", for me.

@skinnylatte I ended up living in Vermont because I was homeless and unemployed with nowhere to go, and this was the only place that a friend offered me a place to live.

Ten years later, I've been homeless in this town twice more, because of the extreme housing crisis and stagnant economy, but thankfully have been marginally housed for over 7 yrs.

I just ran for my first public office and won a 3-year term. I'm still living in poverty, underemployed, and brown and queer in a very white place.

@skinnylatte @chrisjrn Yeah, being Filipino, I don't mind the vinegar at all, since vinegar is one of the most important things in Filipino cuisine, but it's not always appropriate. Thanks for the info, I will try to track some down. I live in rural Vermont, so it's definitely not available locally.

@chrisjrn @skinnylatte I really need to know what sambal you are talking about. There is never enough chili in life.

This post makes me think of something that I've been pointing out for many years, and that is the fact that the government is permitted to make "mistakes" and ruin people's lives, pretty much with total impunity and immunity.

The government can place you under false arrest, cause immense immediate and irrevocable damage to your life, and there are almost never any legal consequences or compensation for it.

https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/114121067006477074

I could very easily spend an indefinite time in detention being tortured, causing irreparable damage to my life, my health, my finances, and my public reputation, as the result of the racist, sexist, or anti-LGBT whims of a DHS thug, and there would be no legal recourse for me, whatsoever. And if I attempted to resist in any way, I could be brought up on criminal charges or even summarily murdered.

All I'd get is a "sorry about that", while they sneer at me right to my face, if I even survived.

A side effect of this is something I have also pointed out many times. US Customs and Border Patrol claims very wide latitude in violating Americans' constitutional guarantees within the 100-mile border zone (in which I have lived, most of my life).

As a person who is frequently mistaken for Latino/Hispanic/Chicano, if they decide to harass me, no amount of documentation is a shield, because they can simply claim that my documents appeared to be forged or make up some other unfalsifiable lie.

And there wouldn't even be any consequences to the personnel involved for having "made a mistake", because as @whknott points out, there is a legal shield doctrine that presumes that officers are always acting in "good faith", and obviously trying to prove otherwise is effectively impossible, unless someone blatantly admits otherwise and directly implicates themselves or fellow officers.

There is no system of national identification in the US. We have a de facto hodgepodge of state-issued driver's licenses, state (and/or municipally) issued birth certificates, Social Security numbers (which by law are not supposed to be identification documents), US passports, and immigration/naturalization papers.

In all of these categories, there are Americans who do not have and have never had one or more of these documents.