can everyone plz wish my parents a safe flight tomorrow morning to the isle of man cos my dad’s ban from visiting the island has been lifted finally after 40 all cos he fired a bottle rocket at the queen of england when he was a teenager
since i’ve gotten some intrigued asks here’s the story:
when my dad was 15 he went with his scout troop to a scouting jamboree on the isle of man where he and his friends decided to set off bottle rockets in the park cos idk they were dumb boys. and one of the bottle rockets went careening off into the road where it exploded right beside a car
now, in what year was my dad 15? 1977. the queen of england’s silver jubilee year. and what was the car my dad’s bottle rocket hit? the queen’s car in the cavalcade during her jubilee visit to the isle of man
throw in the fact my dad is irish and the 70s were the height of the troubles between the republic and britain and WHAM BAM THANK YA MAM! my dad got hit with a lifelong ban from ever visiting the isle of man and he and the whole scout troop were sent home
idk who decided to let him off for good behaviour after 40 years but when he got the letter in 2017 saying he could visit the isle of man again after jan 1 2018, my dad burst into the room on my stepmom and i and announced, “WE’RE GOING TO THE CHANNEL ISLANDS!”
shout out to the anon who just messaged me “that means somewhere out in the multiverse there’s a universe where your dad murdered the queen of england” which i’m never posting and just keeping in my inbox forever thank you that’s lovely and yes that’s exactly the response i wanted this to get
just to truly bring this story to complete conclusion my dad just facetimed me from the park where he nearly killed the queen 40 years ago 🌟
actually, it’s been psychologically proven that bronze winners are happier than silver winners! silver winners see themselves as being “so close” to gold, while bronze winners are just happy they won a medal. so any silver medalist isn’t as happy as a bronze medalist!
For 17
years, Nick Makris never uttered a word in public. The autistic teenager
from Levenshulme in Manchester has been a selective mute since birth,
unable to speak due to severe social anxiety.
In September he began taking part in a cooking class at the Grange
Special School, which has 137 pupils on the autistic spectrum. The class
was established a year ago by a teacher, Serene Phillips, with food
supplied entirely by the food waste charity FareShare, which the Telegraph is backing in its Christmas appeal.
Every
Wednesday, Nick and his class spend the morning preparing a lunch and
then take it to a nearby day centre where they serve up to 30 elderly
people (many of whom have their own health issues including dementia).
In recent months, because of the social bonds formed over the
lunches, Nick has finally started to speak. With a broad smile on his
face he slowly tells me what he enjoys most about the cooking classes:
“making old people happy”.
Part charity solicitation, but an entirely heartwarming and uplifting story.
Once the children were asleep, Sajjad headed out on an urgent shopping mission. “We are Muslims and we’d never had a Christmas tree in our home. But these children were Christian and we wanted them to feel connected to their culture.”
The couple worked until the early hours putting the tree up and wrapping presents. The first thing the children saw the next morning was the tree.
“I had never seen that kind of extra happiness and excitement on a child’s face.“ The children were meant to stay for two weeks – seven years later two of the three siblings are still living with them.
this is a beautiful article and i just want to include a few other highlights from the above family as well as another profiled:
…she focuses on the positives – in particular how fostering has given her and Sajjad an insight into a world that had been so unfamiliar. “We have learned so much about English culture and religion,” Sajjad says. Riffat would read Bible stories to the children at night and took the girls to church on Sundays. “When I read about Christianity, I don’t think there is much difference,” she says. “It all comes from God.”
The girls, 15 and 12, have also introduced Riffat and Sajjad to the world of after-school ballet, theatre classes and going to pop concerts. “I wouldn’t see many Asian parents at those places,” she says. “But I now tell my extended family you should involve your children in these activities because it is good for their confidence.” Having the girls in her life has also made Riffat reflect on her own childhood. “I had never spent even an hour outside my home without my siblings or parents until my wedding day,” she says.
Just as Riffat and Sajjad have learned about Christianity, the girls have come to look forward to Eid and the traditions of henna. “I’ve taught them how to make potato curry, pakoras and samosas,” Riffat says. “But their spice levels are not quite the same as ours yet.” The girls can also sing Bollywood songs and speak Urdu.
“I now look forward to going home. I have two girls and my wife waiting,” says Sajjad. “It’s been such a blessing for me,” adds Riffat. “It fulfilled the maternal gap.”
[…]
Shareen’s longest foster placement arrived three years ago: a boy from Syria. “He was 14 and had hidden inside a lorry all the way from Syria,” she says. The boy was deeply traumatised. They had to communicate via Google Translate; Shareen later learned Arabic and he picked up English within six months. She read up on Syria and the political situation there to get an insight into the conditions he had left.
“It took ages to gain his trust,” she says. “I got a picture dictionary that showed English and Arabic words and I remember one time when I pronounced an Arabic word wrong and he burst out laughing and told me I was saying it wrong – that was the breakthrough.”
The boy would run home from school and whenever they went shopping in town, he kept asking Shareen when they were going back home. She found out why: “He told me that one day he left his house in Syria and when he had come back, there was no house.” Now he’s 18, speaks English fluently and is applying for apprenticeships. He could move out of Shareen’s home, but has decided to stay. “He is a very different person to the boy who first came here,” she says, “and my relationship with him is that of a mother to her son.”
So I’m intrigued by the implication that there are different levels of goose warning. Presumably it goes like this:
Level one: there is no goose in the immediate vicinity and no goose has been spotted recently. However, geese still exist in the world, so we can’t assume total safety. No matter where you are, you are always at least at a level one goose warning.
Level two: geese have been known to occasionally frequent the area, so while there is not a goose present right now, your chances of encountering one are higher than usual.
Level three: geese have been spotted in the area quite recently. May be around, but hiding. Waiting.
Level four: you can see a goose or geese flying above you but they have yet to land and start harassing you actively.
Level five: the goose is there. This is not a drill. You are in direct contact with a goose. Everything is terrible.
Level six: you died.
I don’t know if this is actually IN Canada, but if this isn’t the most Canadian thing ever then I don’t know what is.
I’d say that the ‘London Underground’ gives it away as British 🙂
as in, stop quoting the fucking daily caller, for the love of god. we are all gross liberals/progressives/socialists here, so if you see any political post on your dash that uses any news outlet in the first list as its source, then there is like an 80% chance you’re about to reblog hyperbolic conservative propaganda with very little basis in reality. don’t do it, guys. don’t do it. check sources. save a life.
Hot Air: doesn’t vote the straight conservative opinion ticket, some columnists have more liberal social views, but still. on the top 10 list of popular conservative blogs. don’t do it.
National Review: tbh if you gotta cite a conservative news source, go with TNR. the print magazine and policy institute especially do some high quality pieces, but like as a rule, you’re probably not gonna like the conclusions they come up with. online-only content can be a bit more opinionated. maybe do it.
Wall Street Journal: so center-right the right has actually started to disown it. you’re not gonna like their economics, but they’re not scandal-mongering drivel like some of the blogs on this list. maybe do it.
The Washington Examiner: very good local D.C. reporting, actually, but like, the opinions section is still not gonna be anything you wanna read. maybe do it.
The New York Post: conservative AND a tabloid, do not look to for unbiased reporting or anything except like vile exploitation of tragedy. don’t do it.
Special Mention:The Daily Mail: do not cite the Daily Mail for any goddamn reason, i will come to your house and rub your nose into your keyboard like an untrained dog.
GOOD HEARTY LIBERAL STOCK:
The New York Times (plus Magazine): american paper of record and probably deserves it. will surely be too white elite new york liberal center-left for most of your commie asses, but still excellent.
New Yorker: i mean it’s not breaking news and it’s frequently so pretentious you get sucked up your own ass turning the page, but they do know their investigative journalism.
The Washington Post: on average, best political/policy reporting of any paper in the country. their wonkblog, even after Ezra Klien &co’s mass exodus, does excellent daily roundups of domestic political news.
The LA Times (and most other city papers): LA’s great, p much everything is center-left, some of them are gonna be better at covering national issues than others (looks pointedly at SF Gate). good for local, double-check for national.
Huffington Post: PROCEED W/ CAUTION, their news reporting is fine enough but the sheer number of bloggers attached to the site means there’s not always so much quality control. double-check that shit.
BuzzFeed: PROCEED W/ SLIGHTLY LESS CAUTION: be on the watch for bloggers here too, but tbh their staff reporting is some real good shit. they have a white house correspondent now and everything.
Mother Jones: some good liberal shit. older than you.
The Guardian: actually does some great US reporting, had reporters in Ferguson last summer.
Al Jazeera: also has an american bureau, good stuff, and, of course, international coverage unlike almost anything in the US.
BBC: doesn’t care as much about the US, but more foreign policy coverage worth reading.
Vox: where Ezra Klien and his crew all ran off to. unfortunate tendency for clickbait headlines, but their explainer cards do an excellent job of breaking complex news stories into easily digestible parts. i’m biased, but i love them.
SORTA INBETWEEN, THIS IS A SLIDING SCALE AFTER ALL (look, a graph):
The Economist: technically has a majority center-left readership, but you’re not gonna like their economics. they love themselves some free markets.
AP/Reuters: about as neutral as it possibly gets. all facts, no opinion. (pronounced roi-terz btw, impress your friends)
USA Today: well i guess making every hotel guest in the country step over it on their way to breakfast qualifies it as the most popular print paper in the country.
CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.: all technically left of center (by maybe a milimeter), but watch out for sensationalism. they are 24-hour networks after all.
The Daily News: i have no opinion on the daily news and i doubt any of you do either.
TIME magazine: i mean like, not objectively unreliable, but you could be making better choices.
I’m so glad there’s a link to that Jon Stewart tears into Crossfire video my soul needed that
A note on the BBC: they bust their asses trying to be neutral. If you need a source with little bias, the BBC is usually a good place to go, especially if you’re a UK person. I usually use it as a barometer of ‘this is story actually a thing’.
Reblogging mostly for the comment on the Daily Mail, but also to suggest ProPublica as another good liberal source, primarily for long form reporting.
Steel Phoenix Studios 
