Can I watch a great film knowing the actresses in it were terrorized and mistreated the entire time? Can I watch a football game knowing that the players are getting brain injuries right before my eyes? Can I listen to my favorite albums anymore knowing that the singers were all beating their wives in between studio sessions? Can I eat at the new fancy taco place knowing when the building that used to be there got bulldozed eight families got kicked out of their homes so they could be replaced with condos and a chain restaurant? Can I wear the affordable clothes I bought downtown that were probably assembled in a sweatshop with child labor? Can I eat quinoa?
Can I eat this burger? Can I drink this bottled water? Can I buy a car and drive to work because I’m sick of taking an hour each way on the subway? Whose bones do I stand on? Whose bones am I standing on right now?
On one hand, it’s a privilege to be able to choose to acknowledge these horrors or not–we’re going to acknowledge that privilege. On the other hand, I once attended a lecture by the explorerer-conservationist Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s daughter and son and they had a lot of opinions about what we could do to help the environment and the ocean and I talked about how in my country, we have to drink bottled water, because it’s a desert and there’s only salt water all around, but we’re contributing to pollution and all of these things…
And she looked at me and told me not to fall into the trap of “activist guilt.” I couldn’t remember the exact words, but, it was the first time I’d heard the term and it took a weight off my shoulders.
We do what we can. It’s so much better than giving up entirely or not doing anything at all because we can’t do it perfectly. It doesn’t benefit anyone in the end if we just sit around feeling guilty about every little thing in life. I’d just joined tumblr back then (haha, so like, eight or nine years ago at this point?), I was being exposed to way more than I’d ever been before (I was previously just into feminism and animal rights/wildlife conservation/environmentalism since I was a kid), and it was weighing on me.
As long as humans are humans and living flawed lives, many consumed by greed, there will not be anything in this world untouched by evil.
I usually avoid stuff that says it was made in China or other cheap looking knockoffs, out of fear of them being made in sweatshops (now, I know even a lot of big brands use those…), it’s exhausting. Then, I read something about how people who actually lived and worked in those would still buy this cheap stuff and how this shocked the foreigner reporting on it, but they just looked confused like, it’s what they can afford and them avoiding consuming it isn’t going to change the whole system from the ground-up.
… it went on about how “money talks” and choosing where to put your money still feeds the whole capitalist system and is nearly a way of comforting yourself, but you not buying doesn’t mean everyone else isn’t. What needs to be tackled is at a much higher level than any of us can reach.
Of course, I’d still, given the choice, give my money to companies I agree with and I’ll boycott what I know to support awful stuff, but I also feel no superiority over this and know now it’s not as black and white or easy as I thought it was.
This is the same reason that moral purity “you can’t enjoy [x] because it’s Problematic ™” is such nonsense, because nothing is pure. There’s something bad about everything if you dig deep enough. As long as we lived in flawed human societies we’ve got to make the best of what they offer us. If you have the choice and means, please, do support those who do good, but also, don’t beat yourself up over not living up to an unattainable ideal.
No one can. You’ll just make yourself so miserable, you either burn up and stop fighting entirely or you’ll make yourself a non-productive, depressed heap just out of a bleeding heart left unchecked. You can’t make a change to this world if you refuse to engage in it.
This is what Republicans try to demonize for political gain. Think about it.
“Death Panel” is an easy manipulation. Know why? Because death is FUCKING SCARY! For everyone involved – patient and family.
Know what else? Hospice care is FREE for Medicare and Medicaid patients. And it’s typically covered by private insurance at a high percentage (and realistically, if you qualify for hospice care, you’ve likely already met your deductible).
Here are some (American) hospice facts:
– hospice care is for anyone who receives a prognosis of six months of life or fewer.
– hospice care isn’t just for cancer or dementia patients. Any life-ending diagnosis qualifies for hospice care.
– hospice care isn’t just for elderly. Again, anyone who has a life expectancy of six months or fewer should quality for hospice care.
– every licensed hospice provider is required by federal law to use a team approach. The team includes the medical director (who is an MD), nurses (RNs and LPNs), CNAs, social workers (MSWs), chaplains, and volunteers. These people are death experts.
– the RN case managers see everything. EVERYTHING. Every imaginable living condition, every insane family dynamic, and every conceivable physical condition. They know wounds. They know symptoms. They know pain. Can’t poop? Ask a hospice nurse. I guarantee they’ll have a dozen recommendations, including their own secret recipe for a “brown bomb” or “crappuccino” or “loosey goosey”. They all taste like garbage, but YOU WILL POOP!
– hospice CNAs are maybe the most gentle people on the planet. They care for a patient like they’re caring for their own grandparent. They’ll wipe your butt and wash your armpits. They’ll hold your hand and cry with you. They’ll sing to you or paint your nails or trim your ear hair and they’ll do all of it without an ounce of judgement.
– hospice social workers know death. Lots of families hear social worker and think family drama. That’s not what hospice social workers do. (Though they do that too, when necessary.) They help with anything not directly medical. Moving the patient from the hospital to home? The social worker can help with logistics. Questions about money? The social worker probably knows, or knows where to send you for answers. Need help with a living will or DNR? Ask the social worker. Terrified about what the final moments might be like? The social worker can walk you through what to expect.
– a patient or family can choose hospice care at any point, whether immediately after receiving a diagnosis or within hours of death. Obviously, the longer the hospice team is involved, the better they can guide the patient and family along the journey.
– hospice care can be revoked at any time, should the patient or family choose to seek active treatment or discontinue the care. Hospice care can be reinstated as well – it’s typically just a matter of paperwork.
– here’s what Medicare and Medicaid cover for free
the team home visits (home is considered wherever the patient currently lives, whether it’s the hospital, a long-term care facility, or their actual family home)
the medications needed to treat the symptoms of the qualifying diagnosis, plus the pain management meds and anything else the medical director prescribes
supplies – bed pads, diapers, gloves, bandages, etc
equipment – hospital bed, oxygen, lifts, etc
room and board isn’t covered if a patient is in a facility – that cost falls to the family.
Choosing hospice care isn’t giving up. It isn’t a death panel. It isn’t euthanasia. Choosing hospice care is acknowledging the reality that time is limited and that the patient deserves expert, specialized end-of-life care.
Hospice care is a choice. It’s not that surprising that Republicans are anti-choice.
the DA didn’t make the case for the crime and i went into the deliberation room knowing that. i also knew a half-dozen white orange county folks might not see it that way. the defendant was latino, there was a gang charge in addition to robbery.
sure enough, as we went around the table to give our first impressions, the white ladies used language around “gut instinct” and “he shouldn’t be hanging out with bad people” and the like. others were undecided because there was so much unreliable testimony.
they got to me and i flatly said “i have reasonable doubts.” i stated some of my reasoning and heads started to nod. the next 3 jurors to talk after me were hispanic. they stated that they understood why this might be confusing, and then gave some personal perspectives about growing up in disadvantage neighborhoods, how not everyone is a gangster just because they live there. one white lady said “well, you know, they should really move if that’s the case.”
the discussion opened up and it went right to gangs, right to how the defendant shouldn’t be hanging out with gang members. everyone had an opinion about how the defendant looked, or talked, or that he was drinking a 40 just before the robbery, or that he was related to a gang member. they went right to that.
but that’s not what we were supposed to decide on. we were there for a robbery as the primary charge. a robbery that i very clearly felt the state had not be able to pin on this guy.
so… being the loud mouth that i sometimes am… i interrupted and said “let’s all turn to page 14 in the jury instructions and go through what would make the charge ‘guilty’, line by line, and see where we all stand.”
sure enough, when we focused on the actual charge, and the facts actually required for someone to be found guilty, most in the room agreed it wasn’t there. well, except for two white ladies.
so i, also a white lady, helped to walk them through the list. when “gut instinct” or “it’s a bad neighborhood” came up, i kindly pointed out that those are not facts of the case. when i requested that they use the facts of the case to provide reasoning for their position, they both quietly agreed there weren’t any.
and that’s how, in about an hour, we came to a unanimous decision of ‘not guilty’.
i don’t have experience with the court system. and i don’t watch court room based tv dramas. so i was really a blank slate to all this.
i was taken aback at the very clear inherent bias that some jurors displayed, and all the while realizing they didn’t think of themselves as bias. but i was also taken aback by how focusing on the process, the rules, and the facts quickly squashed that line of reasoning.
this has buoyed me a bit, in light of the actions of the aclu over the muslim ban. but it also feels so fragile. so very fragile.
And this is exactly why I have never tried to get out of jury duty. We need clear thinking, intelligent people on juries. I get so frustrated with people I know who are always looking for a way out of serving.
somebody offer this hero a cape
Fellow whites. THIS IS WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING.
Which means -get yourselfs on juries-. Don’t skip jury duty. Don’t skip don’t skip don’t try to sneak out of it, get on that jury, and make sure you are keeping all the other white people in line.
Scientists invented fabric that makes
electricity from motion and sunlight.
To create the fabric, researchers at
Georgia Tech wove together solar
cell fibers with materials that generate
power from movement. It could be
used in “tents, curtains, or wearable
garments,” meaning we’d virtually
never be without power. Source
Y’all are fucking idiots. Clean energy will NEVER be enough to replace the energy we have now. We’d have to tear down DOZENS of forests just to fit enough windmills and solar panels to get even a QUARTER (probably less, tbh) of the energy we can produce now.
Yeah, sure, when they’ve already calculated that a few square miles of panels in the empty ass Arizona desert could power the whole nation. But ok, fracking and the diminishing petroleum supply is worlds better.
Nevermind that windmills are often most efficient off the coast. There they take up no land, impact no trees, don’t pollute the water, and are conveniently located where winds are often strongest anyway.
And solar panels can literally be built into roofs of buildings and in empty areas like deserts. The sun strikes the Earth with the same amount of energy in an hour that our civilization uses in a year.
But yeah, it would be impossible for us to ever have enough energy from clean sources.
Durr hurr technology is bad and I would rather light shit on fire than have clean energy
I can also testify to the Arizona desert being empty ass. And the California desert. And the Nevada desert.
The fact that anyone can believe a limited amount of dinosaur oil is more plentiful and efficient than moving air or fucking sunlight is proof that entire populations can be completely brainwashed.
I’m here for the clean energy smackdown!
clean energy smackdown!
Costa Rica has been powering itself almost exclussively through hydroelectric, eolic and geotermic means for a while lmao all you need to do is not be a coward
52 years ago, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, second-in-command Vasilli Arkhipov of the Soviet submarine B-59 refused to agree with his Captain’s order to launch nuclear torpedos against US warships and setting off what might well have been a terminal superpower nuclear war.
The US had been dropping depth charges near the submarine in an attempt to force it to surface, unaware it was carrying nuclear arms. The Soviet officers, who had lost radio contact with Moscow, concluded that World War 3 had begun, and 2 of the officers agreed to ‘blast the warships out of the water’. Arkhipov refused to agree – unanimous consent of 3 officers was required and thanks to him, the world was saved from being scarred badly.
His story is finally being told the BBC is airing a documentary on it.
…before somebody tags me in stuff about him and I go off on a big rant and the tagger feels bad. Lars Anderson the ‘revolutionary archer’ has (or had, he might have taken it down) a video of him doing ‘Willian Tell’ shots where he shoots cans off people’s heads.
(until now he’s just done a bunch of sensationalist bullshit and ridiculous claims, which irritate me, but fine. This William Tell shit though, crosses a Line.)
Anybody handling weapons is familiar with that cardinal safety rule of ‘never point a weapon at something you’re not intending to shoot’ right? Yeah.
Lars Andersen is an arrogant, irresponsible asshole taking safety risks nobody should be taking, and I’m dreading the inevitable moment that among all the inspired backyard shooters who think this is SO AWESOME, some moron shoots some other moron in the head.
I say inevitable because every time I teach archery clinics to complete novices, I already have to explain why We Don’t Do That, Ever. People do not need the inspiration or encouragement from a ‘guru’.
People need to realize the significance of this post, because when I reblogged it it was just blank so I think some people may not understand what this is trying to say
Adopting an animal (or buying from someone close to you who has recently had puppies, kittens, etc) is not like simply going to the store and buying a toy. You do not just get to throw it away once you are done with it and it stops being cute in your eyes
This is a real living thing that has emotions, needs, and wants, not something to be thrown away when YOU are done after YOU entered at commitment to raise and care for this animal.
What’s just as bad as dumping the animal off just anywhere you want, whether it be on the side of the road or in a shelter, is that a lot of these animals end up dying after that. Animals are NOT always adopted and strays are not always picked up. Animals can get put down, run over, tortured, and a list of other things
People should really think about what they are responsible for before they bring an animal into their life
Not to mention that that animal loves you, you are his world, and when you drop him off at the shelter – or worse, in the street – you are abandoning him. He doesn’t know what he did wrong, he thinks you’ll come back, maybe you just dropped him off for a bit and you’ll come back to him. Not only did you make a commitment, but that animal loves you and throwing them away isn’t just breaking that commitment, it’s throwing away someone who doesn’t understand why you don’t love him anymore and where you went.
This is so important. Animals are NOT toys you just can’t return them because you got bored. Think first before you buy a cute little puppy for your stupid girlfriend or sister or whatever. Okay. This just make me so mad that I can’t keep talking about it. Seriously you have no heart if you do this. Seriously
With Christmas coming up in a few weeks, I felt this needed reiterating.
Reblogging for the holidays. Know what you’re getting into when buying a pet!
This! My cat has abandonment issues. The first time I went away for a weekend, he licked a good chunk of his hair off his stomach. It’s never grown back. It thankfully did not get bigger and he knows I’m always coming home but still. Multiple people abandoned my poor cat before I adopted him. I’ve left him alone a few times over the year since I’ve had him and he knows I’m always coming back but it still kills me to leave him knowing that. Animals have feelings just like humans. Dont be a dick, don’t just adopt animals for a present when you are not prepared to take care of them for the rest of their life.
THIS THIS THIS THIS!!! I have no sympathy and no mercy for people abandoning these animals. They deserve being abandoned and helpless in ther old age, after being shot in both kneecaps. I wish I could do the shooting.
We had to write a Mini Comic for my Illustration Class so I did mine based on The Frog and The Scorpion. Hopefully you all know the story!
But if you don’t know the story… In the original the scorpion stings the frog in the middle of the river. When the frog asks “why” the scorpion says “it’s in my nature” and they both die. I like my ending more.
Done with watercolor and pen and ink nib.
I always thought this story was fucked up, even when I heard it as a very young child. I even got put in the naughty corner, and a star next to my name crossed off for questioning it.
This story is so much better, and I like it’s message much more.
When communicating to someone about a sensitive topic, I’ve found it’s helpful to explain why you want to talk about it. If you say you’re worried, or hurt, or just needed to get it off your chest, it can help the other person not get defensive and then more completely process what you’re saying.
Many relationships die by a thousand little cuts. Little problems that on their surface are penny-ante. But the real offense, the hurt, is unresolved. And the little hurts pile up and the resentment builds until things fall apart.
It’s very easy for people to read a bad intent when you’re communicating a problem. Sometimes it’s a natural defense mechanism, if you think someone is just being shitty then you don’t have to really hear them. But it can just as often simply be an incorrect assumption. Communicating your intent can stop that from happening and help the conversation come to a more fruitful resolution.
But if you break it down, your intent is not just a lubricant to keep the conversation productive. Your intent is the point of the conversation. More often than not the problems we have with each other are not the real issue, it’s how those problems make us feel. When you communicate your intent, you’re fully explaining the issue that needs to be resolved.
“I’ve been missing you, could you skip your TV show tonight so we can play a video game together?” works better than “You don’t give me enough attention.” or “you watch too much TV.”
Or “I suspect it’s just my anxiety, but I’m worried that you’re angry with me because you’ve been kind of quiet.” is better than just “Why are you so distant?”
For years I worried that we couldn’t discuss problems because it would cause a fight. That was how the world I lived in as a kid worked. Having a partner who is open to hearing you is huge, but choice of wording helps even when you have a partner who wants to hear you.
very good advice. it really helps when you give the other person something actionable. a request, a suggestion, an offer to brainstorm. don’t complain; troubleshoot.
you don’t have to be emotionless or conciliatory. it’s ok to express anger. just be mature about it, and respect the other person. don’t go on a power trip, don’t leverage your legitimate gripes to make them grovel. keep your eyes on the prize. if you don’t know what the prize is, the next step is to tell them so and invite them to help you figure it out, not to moan until they miraculously do the right thing at random. even when you’re super upset you can still apply these skills.
wrong: “this place is a damn landfill because nobody but me does any housework!”
right: “there is some serious housekeeping fail going on around here. it’s kinda driving me bugfuck. i want to sit down and take a look at how we do the housework, because how we’re doing it right now sucks.”
see how the second one doesn’t blame? blame’s not important. responsibility is important, but that has to be worked out calmly or it’s not going to be functional. the first person is picking a fight; the second person is trying to solve a problem. you’ll notice they’re not smoothing ruffled feathers or acting apologetic, they’re clearly quite annoyed. but they’re aiming their anger at the situation, not the person.
even if they are angry with their housemate, working those feelings out is beyond the scope of the conversation. trying to combine venting with chore planning is, imo, the number one cause of screaming kitchen fights on planet earth.
I’m so fucking tired of goyim ignoring antisemitism. They ignore everything until something so extreme happens, like the recent shooting. How about you start caring about us BEFORE WE FUCKING DIE. Just fucking LISTEN for ONCE when we say we’re angry or scared or sad about the injustices we as a people have faced OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I don’t know one single Jewish person who hasnt been touched by antisemitism. I’ve been called a kike more times than I can count. I went to elementary school with a boy who told me he wished Hitler had won the war. I was shouted at and threatened by a stranger for wearing a Magen David. My grandpa has had to respond to bomb threats at our synagogue. My grandma had to switch roommates in college because her roommate was violently antisemitic. My fucking Jewish PRESCHOOL had to have ARMED GUARDS to keep people from fucking MURDERING PRESCHOOL AGED JEWISH CHILDREN. I thought all preschools had armed guards until I was like 12. Just fucking LISTEN when we say things. Here, I’ll give you a list of things you NEED to listen to us about.
Holocaust deniers are violent antisemites, no exceptions. They are dangerous and do not deserve a platform to speak.
Jewish people cannot be nazis, no matter how much you disagree with them. Ben Shapiro is a piece of transphobic racist shit, but he’s not and will never be a Nazi.
Trump and many people in his cabinet have repeatedly used antisemitic dog whistles, most recently calling himself a nationalist.
We. Are not. All. White. Stop being dicks to Jewish people of color.
And we’re not all ashkenazi!!! Google is your friend if you don’t know what that means.
Don’t do that “Nazi puncher” bullshit if you don’t actively uplift and defend Jewish people. Punching nazis is a great thing but you need to uplift and support jews at the same time.
Stop pinning Israeli war crimes on random Jewish people. And stop demanding we tell you our opinions on Israel before you treat us with basic human decency.
GOY IS NOT A SLUR
Judaism is an ETHNORELIGION. I am both religiously AND ethnically Jewish. It’s not that hard to understand.
Steel Phoenix Studios 