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The War on Weeds

noemamag.com

31–40 of 52 posts

Re: The War on Weeds

#31
I'd hate to be this author's neighbor. Her insistence on letting invasive species propagate her lawn and then spread their seeds across the neighbourhood is downright disrespectful.

There's a horseshoe theory with academics. Mid curving is thinking that bumblebees need Dandelions instead of perennials.

Re: The War on Weeds

#32
> My father was a Vietnam veteran and a lifelong Republican. He liked to say that women belong in the kitchen.

> Until the end, he was convinced that being exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam had caused the disease. He had lived half a century longer than many of the young men he’d served with, and he felt ashamed, I think, of the extra time.

> In the weeks after his death, I looked up the logbooks of his aircraft carrier, hoping to piece together whether he would have been exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Exactly zero adults have perfect parents. Publicly berating your own father like this is shameful, a sign of a petulant adult stuck in permanent adolescence.

Re: The War on Weeds

#33
post #2

Interesting if perhaps a little over simplified, however I can't take anyone seriously who self describes as "a member of the East Coast liberal elite" Yikes

> My father was a Vietnam veteran and a lifelong Republican. He liked to say that women belong in the kitchen. I had become an environmental studies professor, a member of the East Coast liberal elite, a daughter he was ashamed to introduce to his friends at the Post. It's pretty clear from the context that it's a "badge of shame" label from the point of view of her father, applied since she went down the path of aca…

It might be a badge of shame from his perspective but it's still how she describes herself, it's not attributed to him.

Re: The War on Weeds

#34
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also "non-endemic", "non-indigenous", "pest plant", "invasive". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endemism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species

No, invasive species are a type of weed; not all weeds are invasive (i.e. non indiginous)

And not all invasives are weeds, surprisingly.

I recently learned that people commonly use privets as a bush or hedgerow around me in North Texas, but they are invasive in wooded areas. DFW has the largest urban forest in the US but 40% (and counting) contains privets.

Re: The War on Weeds

#36
post #2

Interesting if perhaps a little over simplified, however I can't take anyone seriously who self describes as "a member of the East Coast liberal elite" Yikes

HN, where every idea comes to get shit on for the most pedantic reasons.

Re: The War on Weeds

#37
post #9

what exactly is a "weed" this seems like such a nefarious and ill-defined concept.

Two definitions. 1) A plant that you don’t like 2) a plant that rapidly proliferates, especially in disturbed habitat

Re: The War on Weeds

#38
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, invasive species are a type of weed; not all weeds are invasive (i.e. non indiginous)

> not all weeds are invasive (i.e. non indiginous) I believe you are mistaken or confused. You also misspelled indigenous. Invasive typically refers to the propensity of a non indigenous species (~= "plant that comes from somewhere else") to spread and replace or out-compete for resources such as light, nutrients, water, etc. other species that are indigenous species. At least in my travels, it is exceptionally rarel…

That's nice for the Australian Plant Society, but I assure you in the various parts of the US that I have lived in, native plants that people don't want in their sterile patches of grass are also definitely considered weeds.

It's a term used for anything smaller than a bush or tree that people don't want in their yards. Official definitions be damned.

Re: The War on Weeds

#39
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not all weeds are invasive (i.e. non indiginous) I believe you are mistaken or confused. You also misspelled indigenous. Invasive typically refers to the propensity of a non indigenous species (~= "plant that comes from somewhere else") to spread and replace or out-compete for resources such as light, nutrients, water, etc. other species that are indigenous species. At least in my travels, it is exceptionally rarel…

That's nice for the Australian Plant Society, but I assure you in the various parts of the US that I have lived in, native plants that people don't want in their sterile patches of grass are also definitely considered weeds. It's a term used for anything smaller than a bush or tree that people don't want in their yards. Official definitions be damned.

Yes, the joke here too is that in common use "weed" just means "plant that is not wanted by the speaker", but it is considered both incorrect and unlearned to call an indigenous plant a weed and would be quickly corrected/retracted here if popularly used, for example in media.

Re: The War on Weeds

#40

> My father was a Vietnam veteran and a lifelong Republican. He liked to say that women belong in the kitchen. > Until the end, he was convinced that being exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam had caused the disease. He had lived half a century longer than many of the young men he’d served with, and he felt ashamed, I think, of the extra time. > In the weeks after his death, I looked up the logbooks of his aircraft car…

I find it pretty lame that there are more comments in the HN discussion section upset about these few lines in the backstory intro than comments about the actual content of this article.
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