Downlo

Note to followers

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 02:39:50 -0500

I’ve been thinking about writing some sort of statement about this blog for a little while now. Might as well do it now.

First, this is a personal blog. Not a social justice blog. Not a news and politics blog. Not an art blog. This is just my blog about things that interest me. If you go back 2-3 pages, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what I usually post. I do try to publish interesting things, but ultimately, this is my blog. I post what I want to post.

If you don’t like what I post, then just unfollow me. I probably won’t even know you’re gone since I don’t use those Tumblr unfollower scripts and I never look through my follower list. Don’t feel an obligation to follow me because we know mutual people or because I follow you. I regularly follow and unfollow people depending on what they’re putting out there.

Second, I don’t know if you all are aware of this, but I quit Tumblr last winter and was completely away until October of this year. It seems like I missed a lot of drama because I’ve accidentally stepped on at least two hornets’ nests in the past month or so.

I don’t know what happened, but it seems more toxic now (or maybe I just didn’t notice it before). Doxxing, gossiping, passive aggression, bullying—some of this seems like it’s being done in the name of social justice. Maybe it’s justified, maybe not. I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m too old for this shit. I don’t care what x blogger has done to y blogger and how we should all hate z blogger forever because they are the worst. I didn’t get involved in this sort of thing when I was in high school and I’m not getting involved in it on Tumblr. Others are welcome to it.

Finally, I try my best not to be shitty, but I’m human and do make mistakes. If I say or do something problematic or ignorant, then I’d appreciate it if you’d drop a note in my Ask. Of course, you don’t have to do that. But if you follow me or people who reblog from me frequently, and you really wish I’d stop fucking up, then the fastest way to fix the problem is to talk to me directly.

Thanks for reading. Good night.

allthingsworthsharing: The Finnish artist Jonna Phojalainen...

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:59:47 -0500

allthingsworthsharing:

The Finnish artist Jonna Phojalainen carves the oversized pencils from local aspen trunks, resulting in cool street art that’s also an environmental statement.

amazonfeminist: The “Night Witches” was the all female Night...

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:58:44 -0500

amazonfeminist:

The “Night Witches” was the all female Night Bomber Regiment of the Soviet Air Forces that bombed German lines in WWII. They were equipped with the worst, oldest, noisest, crappest planes in the entire world. The engines used to conk out halfaway through missions and they had to climb on the wings mid flight to restart the props. To stop germans from hearing their noisy planes and firing at them, they’d climb up to a certain height, coast down to German positions, drop their bombs, restart their engines in midair, and get out as quickly as possible. Their leader flew over 200 missions and was never captured.

nybg: theuncarved-block: Okay guys, look at that! We...

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:52:45 -0500

nybg:

theuncarved-block:

Okay guys, look at that! We harvested these sweet potatoes from Sara’s mothers house yesterday. She does a lot of backyard gardening, living on an acre of land herself (we have much to learn from her.) These potatoes were completely unattended and we only stumbled upon them because we were planting some sugar cane near by. Crazy, right? That large one weighed almost 10 pounds! In the second photo, the potatoes to the right are the same variety. We boiled some of it right away and it was delicious. We are thinking about making a dessert with the rest.

Did you know there are 6,500 varieties of sweet potato worldwide?!

If you never thought plants could be horrifying on a Cronenbergian level, welcome to the land of tubers run amok! I’ve seen a couple of these undisciplined sweet potatoes popping up in our feed, and felt I’d post this as a PSA for those who think these starchy treats are “love ‘em and leave ‘em”-style garden inclusions.

If you’re going to grow, keep your potatoes in check! —MN

I like sweet potatoes, but that thing is gnarly as hell.

laughingsquid: Urban Air Project, Converting Billboards into...

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:50:12 -0500

laughingsquid:

Urban Air Project, Converting Billboards into Bamboo Gardens

hifas: Show Room by Los Carpinteros

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:48:39 -0500

hifas:

Show Room by Los Carpinteros

elarogers: Life within death. Physalis alkekengi, or the...

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:45:47 -0500

elarogers:

Life within death.

Physalis alkekengi, or the Chinese/Japanese Lantern, blooms during Winter and dries during Spring. Once it is dried, the bright red fruit is seen. The outer cover is a thin mesh that held the flower petals, seen in golden brown colour.

aleyma: Tobias and Sara on their Wedding Night, made in...

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:41:00 -0500

aleyma:

Tobias and Sara on their Wedding Night, made in Germany, c.1520 (source).

I love that the artist depicted the family ~~cat~~ dog (where are my eyes?) curled up at the foot of the bed.

"Not only did a Latino actor not play Tony, who clearly in real life looks like a Chicano, but his..."

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:38:00 -0500

“

Not only did a Latino actor not play Tony, who clearly in real life looks like a Chicano, but his ethnicity is stolen from the Latino community at a time when Latinos have been demonized. Our real Latino national heroes if acknowledged would dramatize our patriotism and contribution to the United States…

In “Argo” we have yet another instance where the public has been denied of an opportunity for all Americans to learn of an American Latino’s valor, talent and patriotism. This occurs because there has been no consequence to this behavior. It is time for a change.

”

- Moctesuma Esparza on Ben Affleck’s Argo and the White-Washing of the Mexican-American. Esparza says:

The film actually goes out of its way to obscure Tony Mendez’ ethnicity. His name (Mendez) is mentioned only once and the character says he is from New York (Tony was born in Nevada from a mining family with six generations in Nevada and raised in Colorado). Nowhere in the movie does the viewer get that the hero is Mexican American.

Ben Affleck’s portrayal of Antonio “Tony” Mendez was very contained and had very little range, I don’t know what Tony personality is like to judge the portrayal but this did not impact the movie’s success or failure. It was an excellent role that would have elevated a Latino actor like Benjamin Bratt or Michael Peña.

Instead, like with the story of Guy Gabaldon, whose extraordinary achievements in the WWII Battle of Saipan, capturing, by himself, 1800 enemy soldiers, more than any other American soldier in the history of our country, was similarly white-washed as Jeffrey Hunter played him in the 1960 film, “Hell to Eternity.” But that was more than half a century ago, Argo is now.

In the closing credits, the photos of the real people portrayed are presented side-b- side with the actors’ photos showing the very close resemblance and care that was taken in the casting process to cast actors who looked like the real people. Yet, for the key role of Tony Mendez, the director/producer Ben Affleck chose a single long shot of Tony with President Carter where his image was not distinct or recognizable, breaking the pattern he had chosen for all the other real people depicted.

(via racebending)

~~White privilege is being able to star in a person of color’s life story. See also: Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart and almost everyone in 21.~~ Nevemind. I should have made a separate post. Sorry, folks.

kiratsukai: goats are assholes and I fucking love them for...

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:33:00 -0500

kiratsukai:

goats are assholes and I fucking love them for it

Wee prancy bastards

Goddamnit, Tumblr. I had an extremely important gif that needed to be uploaded earlier today.

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 23:52:09 -0500

Thanks for nothing!

Jindal's selective concern for the poor

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:07:44 -0500

Jindal's selective concern for the poor:

Jindal and his allies want the public to see them as entirely sincere. They’re not trying to crush teachers’ unions, and they’re not on a privatization crusade, intent on destroying public institutions. They just want to help low-income children, even spending public funds to advance their goal.

But their purported concern for the poor is literally unbelievable. When the issue is health care and housing, Jindal and other conservatives say struggling families should rely on the free market and their capacity to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. When the issue is education, suddenly the right cares deeply about disadvantaged children and is eager to “help.”

When Jindal and other school voucher advocates are ready to assist “poor and disadvantaged” families in ways that don’t undermine public schools and teachers’ unions, I’ll gladly revisit the debate. Until then, this looks a lot like a scam.

laughingsquid: reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian & reddit...

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:02:00 -0500

laughingsquid:

reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian & reddit General Manager Erik Martin

Fun fact: these two douchebags knowingly allowed scumbag violentacrez/Michael Brutsch to create subreddits like r/jailbait, r/n*ggerjailbait, r/rapingwomen, r/beatingwomen, etc. and fill them with child pornography and horrifyingly violent, racist, and misogynistic material. Brutsch brought Reddit a ton of traffic in its early days. Reddit eventually got bigger, but all the pedophiles and assorted other scumbags remained on the site. It was only after intense public pressure and a media campaign that Reddit agreed to take down r/jailbait and other child porn subreddits. Brutsch was also involved in moderating r/creepshots, which was also the subject of much controversy a few months ago.

Look at these smiling motherfuckers. Erik Martin and Alexis Ohanian got their start with the degradation and exploitation of children and women (and these things still exist on Reddit—the administrators refuse to remove anything unless forced). Yet media outlets continue to write laudatory pieces about them and their terrible website. Fuck the whole lot of them.

"There’s a big difference, however, between hating a dominant group in an oppressive system like..."

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:50:42 -0500

“There’s a big difference, however, between hating a dominant group in an oppressive system like patriarchy and hating the individuals who belong to it. Angela Davis once said that as an African American she often feels hatred for white people, but her feelings for particular white people depend on the individual. She hates white people’s collective position of dominance in a racially oppressive society, she hates the privilege they enjoy at her expense, and she hates the racist culture that whites take for granted as unremarkable while she must struggle with the oppression it creates in everyday life. But Davis also knows that while individual whites can never be free of racism, they can participate in racist systems in many different ways, which include joining people of color in the fight for racial justice. The same can be said of men and women.

The distinction between groups and individuals, however, is subtle and easy to lose sight of when you’re up to your ears in an oppressive system. Of course women are going to feel and express anger, resentment, and even hatred toward individual men who may not have it coming in just that way or to that degree or at that moment. Of course men are sometimes going to get their feelings hurt or be called on to take responsibility for themselves in ways they may not be used to. When I heard Davis talk about hating white people, and when I’ve heard women talk about hating men, I’ve had to get clear in my own mind about how these words refer to me and how they don’t, and it often takes some effort to get there. And as a white male who benefits from both male and white privilege, I’ve also had to see that it’s up to me-and not to women or people of color-to distinguish one from the other. Too often men react to women’s anger by calling on women to take care of them, and in this way recreate the male-centered principle of the very gender order that women, feminist and otherwise, are angry about.”

- Allan G. Johnson (via wretchedoftheearth)

“Too often men react to women’s anger by calling on women to take care of them, and in this way recreate the male-centered principle of the very gender order that women…are angry about.”

This is also true in other instances, just replace “men” with any oppressive group and “women” with any oppressed group. If you’re in a position of privilege in a situation, then do not make the other person’s anger all about your hurt feelings. You are just reproducing the oppression that led to that anger.

"I don’t need a ‘What If’ movie scenario for black heroes because history shows they actually..."

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:44:49 -0500

“I don’t need a ‘What If’ movie scenario for black heroes because history shows they actually existed. Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, MLK—Where the frack are their movies? Do you know Danny Glover has been trying for almost two decades to get a Touissant L’Oeuverture movie made? And every major studio has shut the door in his face. And let’s not talk about how a Nat Turner movie has been unanimously blackballed in Hollyweird. So a studio will give money to a fictionalized spaghetti western, revenge slavery movie but not support our real heroes. Think on that. Then go get your life!”

- ReBecca Theodore-Vachon, Thinking Critically Because You Refuse To (via sonofbaldwin)

nat turner, for folks who dont understand why his story is so scary.

(via deluxvivens)

"He was a sassy youngster…[A]s to burning the epistle up or not—it never occurred to me to do..."

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:39:30 -0500

““He was a sassy youngster…[A]s to burning the epistle up or not—it never occurred to me to do anything at all: what the hell did I care whether he was pertinent or impertinent? he was fresh, breezy, Irish: that was the price paid for admission—and enough: he was welcome!”

- Turns out Walt Whitman and Bram Stoker were pen pals. (via millionsmillions)

Never thought I’d hear the author of Dracula referred to as “sassy”.

think-progress: WHOOPS: Investigation looks for Muslim bias in...

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:34:51 -0500

think-progress:

WHOOPS: Investigation looks for Muslim bias in Texas schools and finds Christian bias instead.

What a colossal waste of time and money. Good job, Islamphobic bigots.

This is how this shit works:

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:28:59 -0500

lesbianese:

When a person of color says that they hate white people, they hate white people as an institution (aka white supremacy/hegemony)

When a woman says that they hate men, they hate men as an institution (aka male dominance/patriarchy)

When a queer person says that they hate straight people, they hate straight people as an institution (aka heteronormativity)

When a trans* person says that they hate cisgender people, they hate cisgender people as an institution (aka gender essentialism/rigid gender roles)

SO WHEN ANY OF THESE PEOPLE SAY THAT THEY HATE ANY OF THESE GROUPS, DON’T RESPOND WITH “NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE/MEN/STRAIGHT/CIS PEOPLE ARE LIKE THAT”. WE KNOW THAT. IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU PERSONALLY. IT’S ABOUT INSTITUTIONS AND THE WAYS IN WHICH THEY, AS INSTITUTIONS, OPPRESS US. SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Do cats dream? Mine is twitching and sort of whimpering in his sleep. I hope it’s a good...

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 03:11:33 -0500

Do cats dream? Mine is twitching and sort of whimpering in his sleep. I hope it’s a good dream.

elarogers: Farmers’ Market! You win this round, farmers.

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 02:59:52 -0500

elarogers:

Farmers’ Market!

You win this round, farmers.