Raven Onthill

@ravenonthill
358 Followers
252 Following
4.5K Posts
Just a dilettante amateur political science bird who lives in the US Pacific Northwest. If you want to know what I think, try my blogs at adviceunasked.blogspot.com and shinycroak.blogspot.com. I’ve also been known to write about science fiction, computing, and design.
Raven Onthill2d ago
Anna Anthro3d ago

#Florida is about to lose its most famous symbol forever. What happened to #oranges?

“Soon enough, trees everywhere were showing blotchy, mottled, yellowed leaves and suffering from twig dieback and sparse foliage.

Under duress, the trees would drop all their fruit on the ground prematurely.

What rare fruit survived to maturity on these little, addled trees was misshapen, acrid, and stubbornly green on one end; in short, it tasted terrible.

The juice was gross.”

https://slate.com/business/2026/04/florida-state-orange-food-houses-real-estate.html

It Was on Your Table Every Morning Growing Up. It’s Dying Before Our Eyes. No One Wants to Face It.

The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal decline. Everyone has a theory about why.

Slate
Raven Onthill4d ago
Chris is.4d ago
It feels like I have this complaint every time I travel, but… if you are actively sniffling and coughing constantly while traveling, and you don’t wear a mask, I hope mosquitoes find your eyeballs delicious.
Raven Onthill5d ago

"This report demonstrates that agricultural products from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in China, such as tomatoes, peppers, marigolds, and stevia are tainted by forced labor, coercive transfers of land-use rights from Uyghur peasants to large Chinese agribusinesses, and forced assimilation and political indoctrination of Uyghur laborers in these corporations."

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5053281&__cf_chl_tk=8UL9G9L.TJ60wHOV.MpddZDeFyJgbQb16ZL3RstjCMc-1776521840-1.0.1.1-vLYf.CVWX9T8ejowiY16aR2t4UOPMYf.1XJQltUr_qQ

Raven Onthill5d ago
Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)6d ago

The end result of that is a bunch of people popping in to conversations about Age Verification laws to talk about separate and legitimately important issues as if those issues and Age Verification laws are the same thing.

And some of those people might be paid PR Sockpuppets, but some of them are definitely real people who really care about the harm social media might have on children.

And so we spend so much time talking about the nuance and potential solutions to this much more complicated problem that the real issue (these proposed Age Verification Laws are actually tools of fascist surveillance and control which will be used to suppress dissent and harm marginalized communities) gets lost.

Raven OnthillApr 16

"Apropos of absolutely nothing, we'd like to remind everyone that Kobo distributes to libraries via OverDrive, and it costs nothing to publish on Kobo. Come join us!" #indieauthors #publishing—https://bsky.app/profile/kobowritinglife.bsky.social/post/3mjk2zveqqk2y

(The Kobo sites over here either don't belong to Kobo or have been unused for a while.)

Kobo Writing Life (@kobowritinglife.bsky.social)

Apropos of absolutely nothing, we'd like to remind everyone that Kobo distributes to libraries via OverDrive, and it costs nothing to publish on Kobo. Come join us! #indieauthors #publishing

Bluesky Social
Raven OnthillApr 15
Why isn't it as easy to input data by drawing as by typing?
Raven OnthillApr 14
It is eerie the way my remarks on Chinese slavery just seem to fall into the void, and it is not only China. I think we need a new abolitionist movement. I focus on slavery in China because has the potential to harm human rights globally, by making global energy systems dependent on slave labor. For all their horrors, other slave systems do not do that.
Raven OnthillApr 12
Mastodon MigrationApr 12

Hungary Elections - Orban Concedes!

"Orbán concedes election to Tisza’s Magyar. That’s it.

Viktor Orbán is now speaking at Fidesz’s election night and he says the election result is “clear” as he concedes defeat."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/apr/12/hungary-election-latest-results-viktor-orban-peter-magyar-fidesz-tisza-russia-europe-live-news-updates

Raven OnthillApr 12
I would like to donate to the "Send Netanyahu to the Hague" fund. The US should have cut him loose decades ago. He was the missing stair; the dangerous person who insiders know to avoid, but outsiders like Trump do not. And I think the reason we didn't cut him loose was largely the Christian zionists.
Raven OnthillApr 12
Trump's threatened blockade of the Strait of Hormuz risks World War III. I'm calling my congressmembers (they are Democrats) and asking them to get Congress to kick Trump out. The Republicans own this war, I hope they will see reason.