"He is in error where the truth is concerned." Babylon 5
Science fiction has a lot of great quotes that have stood the test of time. Funny, inspiring, just beautifully written sentences—there are a lot to choose from. So what’s your favorite? What’s the quotation you find yourself saying all the time?
Whether or not a protest is “peaceful” is decided by the state, not the protestors.
There’s a reason the Women’s March wasn’t considered a riot, and it has everything to do with white privilege and nothing to do with how “well behaved” we were. Police show up to peaceful BLM protests already in riot gear all the time.
“The abuser’s problem is not that he responds inappropriately to conflict. His abusiveness is operating prior to the conflict: it usually creates the conflict, and it determines the shape the conflict takes.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
so quite a lot of people expressed interest in a guide to lion dance! and since the lunar new year is coming up in a couple weeks, which means everyone’s exposure to lions is probably going to increase, i figured i’d go ahead and make it! right click + open in new tab to fullview, etc etc, i hope it’s helpful, although if you only take one thing away from this powerpoint, it’s this: lions are not dragons
disclaimer: i learned fut san style at an american university, and the senior members of the troupe were almost all from hong kong and taiwan, so most of my knowledge is drawn from what they taught me. lion dance varies widely depending on the style and the country of origin, and many schools do things differently! this is just an attempt to establish a baseline and give you a really basic intro to one of my favorite art forms. :)
A conservative friend told me he did not understand why I and so many others are so angry about this election. Why can’t we move on, and let President Trump govern. Here is my answer.
Want to know why I am so angry that Trump is now our president? First and foremost, it has nothing to do with Hillary, Bernie, or any third party candidate. This has nothing to do with Republican, Democrat, or Independent. Just get that out of your head right now.
I am angry because my friends, people I care about, people I thought I knew voted for a vile disgusting human being. It has nothing to do with policy, and everything to do with the man himself. If Trump had run as a Democrat, and agreed with me on every single policy position—I would not have voted for him based on character alone.
He has mocked the disabled, and the handicapped. He was endorsed by the KKK. He ran on a platform of division and hate. He has an avowed racist on his staff, Steve Bannon, who has allowed Breitbart to be used as an outlet for “alt-right”(racist neo-nazi) propaganda. I have no doubt in my mind that Trump is a racist. It bothers me that my friends voted for a racist. There is no defense for that.
He treats women as objects; you actually voted for a man who said that he could grab a woman by the pussy, he said this while his wife and newborn son were at home in New York. Better candidates have lost races for lesser things. He is a misogynist. If you think women should be treated in that manner, if you gave him a pass on that, you should be ashamed of yourself.
His temperament—how can you trust a man with the nuclear codes who does not have enough self-control to not send a tweet at 3 AM disparaging the latest person who made fun of him, or pointed out one of his many lies? Speaking of lies, I was raised to always tell the truth. I have raised my son in the manner, now we have a president who cannot tell the truth—this is far beyond a normal politician’s lies. It isn’t just him, it is his staff too—alternative facts? Really? I will call it what it is—a fucking lie.
“that’s a made-up term!” yes. so are all terms. so is every word ever. language is constructed. that’s how language works. stop unevenly invoking the constructed nature of language to try to stop marginalized people from better representing their experiences and identities.
like, when you say “that’s a made-up term!” we all know what you actually mean is “that term was made up by people i don’t think should be allowed to have a voice"
While bad news and political turmoil were turning everyone against each other, a #CuteAnimalTweetOff erupted, and it was exactly what Twitter needed.
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The catalyst was a precious grey seal pup released to the press by Smithsonian’s National Zoo. Sarah Hill, a user from Virginia, challenged the VA Aquarium to do better – or rather, cuter. A friendly fire of back-to-back adorable animal moments followed, and hundreds of Twitizens eagerly watched it unfold in real time. Eventually, the Bronx Zoo decided to step into the ring, and hashtagged 7 other zoos in with them.
The animals that flooded the Twittersphere were a heartwarming distraction from the latest headlines, so do yourself a favour and take them all in below.
President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order dramatically reducing the number of refugees the United States admits as early as today—a stark choice of timing, as it is also International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In 1939, American officials turned awaya ship bearing more than 900 refugees, almost all of them German Jews. The St. Louis was forced to turn back, and 254 of its passengers died in the Holocaust. Today, the St. Louis Manifest account is tweeting the names of the victims.
My name is Lutz Grünthal. The US turned me away at the border in 1939. I was murdered in Auschwitz pic.twitter.com/DyS8NXrk2P
“The Nazis didn’t just kill the Jews; they made use of every inch of them. Women’s hair was shaved off and weaved into blankets for Nazi soldiers. Fat from Jews’ bodies was used to make soap. Gold teeth were pulled out to make gold bars for the Reichsbank. 384,000 pairs of men’s shoes were sent to Germany from Auschwitz. 646,000 men’s suits. 184,000 pairs of eyeglasses. The most frightening thing is not the gas chambers or the crematoria. It’s the rooms piled to the ceiling with children’s shoes. That gives you have an idea what the Holocaust was. Shoes. Once worn by real people.” - via jewishhistory.org
In the Holocaust Museum in DC, they have a room just for the shoes and hair of the victims. It’s really startling to see it so up close since it makes you realize the sheer scale of this. The pile of hair in the museum weighs several tons, and bear in mind that this several ton pile of hair is only but a small fraction of all of the horrible things found in the camps.
Somewhere in those shoes were the shoes of my great aunts and their children.
Same with eyeglasses.
It’s something I can never, ever forget.
The above are photos I took at Auschwitz. The shoes and suitcases were each encased in a hallway - kept behind glass on both sides. And again comprise only a fraction of what the Nazis took.
Now the significance of these collections can not be understated or undermined, the horrors of the Holocaust, the Shoah, are embodied in these piles of stolen clothing and cases.
We look at them and recoil, promising that we’ll never forget and yet the systematic slaughter of human beings continues around the world.
In different places, for different reasons. Who didn’t learn the lesson? Who still needs to be reached? Who needs to be protected?
Do not forget. Remember and react. Radical evil is not a memory of the past, it is a present and continuous force.
It’s International Holocaust - Shoah Remembrance day again, but this year the remembrance feels weighted with the fear of repetition. With more and more stories springing up of violence against Jews in Europe and the potential of candidacy for the US president by a proto-Hitleresque Trump who is targeting Muslims and immigrants in the place of Jews.
This history is still so fresh and clearly not relegated to the backs of history books. There is still bonedust intermingled with the dirt at Auschwitz. We cannot forget, we must not repeat.
Annual reblog of remembrance. But this year I also have a plea, forgive me if it is a little Christian-centric, but I feel it is U.S. Christians who most need a note of reminder or this day considering our current political situation.
Today we remember the price paid by the victims of racism, anti-semitism, ableism, homophobia, anti-intellectualism, nationalism, apathy, and hate. 6 million+ Jews, 250,000+ disabled people, 200,000+ Roma, millions of prisoners of war plus thousands more of Jehovah’s witnesses, Catholics, homosexuals, intellectuals, etc.
It has been said: “ Never Again” - what good is that if we do not back it up with actions?
Love more than we hate, open our arms to refugees fleeing in terror, longing for peace and welcoming. Open our minds to the truth of science which is the uncovering of the fingerprints of God on our universe. The truth takes nothing away from faith. Loving those who pray differently than you or not at all, or who love differently than you, or who experence the world differently than you takes nothing from you except your fear.
Leave your fear behind and seek the path of radical love which requires actions over words. Be hot, be forceful, do not wait for heaven on earth, make heaven on earth where there is neither male nor female, gentile or Jew, slave or free. The world is steeped in blood, and bone, and ash, the only recompense for our hate. Imagine how much greater the recompense of our love will be.
If you remember how the Tea Party responded to Obama’s election, it’s really tempting to try and draw equivalencies there. Especially if you were one of the people watching and laughing! They acted like the sky was falling! They were freaking the fuck out about death panels, about martial law, about their rights being taken away, about being sent to camps, etc etc etc. So when you see people saying ‘we are going to fucking die’ in response to Trump, yeah, there’s a temptation as a human being capable of empathy to go ‘wow, is this how those Tea Partiers felt?’
Here’s the thing: they made all that shit up. Obama never planned anything remotely like a death panel to decide who would be worth saving, they made that shit up. Obama never did anything to suggest that he would enact martial law, they made that shit up. Obama never said he was going to ban all guns, he just said maybe we should restrict some guns and they extrapolated (i.e.: made shit up). Obama definitely never supported fucking internment camps.
The resistance to Trump comes from fearing that conservatives will do what they have said they want to do to us. The resistance to Obama came from fearing that he would do to conservatives what they said they wanted to do to us. There is a pretty big fucking difference.
You know what… Take my $1.37… I want my PBS. Take my $.46… I am all for federal funding of art programs. Take my $.46… I love my museums, colleges, and libraries. Take my $.11… I support developing minority businesses. Take my $.66… I am for entrepreneurship and innovation. Take my $1.60… I want us to export more goods overseas. Take my $0.43… I would like to see more American manufacturing. Take my $0.88… I think community policing needs vast improvement. Take my $1.48… I support programs for women. Take my $1.55… I believe in due process for all. Take my $0.48… We need a civil rights division in the justice department. Take my $0.38… I think we need to defend our Mother Earth. Take my $0.03… I know more work needs to be done for climate change. Take my $8.95… because we need more sustainable energy. Take my $2.71… we should reduce our carbon footprint. If saving these programs means I’m out $22.36 a year, I’m good with contributing my $.07 a day to save American jobs and these federal programs.
Franklin Roosevelt was 100% the inspiration for Tony in the President Barton AU, but I didn’t even realize for a long time that Joe Biden was also 100% the inspiration for Vice President Steve “Snowball fights and secret revolutions” Rogers.
