I need a baby ocelot, guys. Super ButtButt needs a little buddy.
The zoos and aquariums of America know what’s up. They know you and I are starving for cute content, so there is a war of sorts happening on Twitter. The National Zoo kicked off the so-called cute animal “tweet-off” with a photo (above) of a seal giving puppy eyes right into your soul. Ok, cute. Nice fur. There’ve…
If I’m in Hogwarts am I getting a rewind to the age of eleven and magical powers, or am I their weird new squib librarian? Also, am I going back to when I was actually eleven? Because I do not wish to be dropped in the middle of a wizarding war just so I can get nice new green robes. I feel these questions are relevant.
“If fascism could be defeated in debate, I assure you that it would never have happened, neither in Germany, nor in Italy, nor anywhere else.” – Frank Frison, Holocaust survivor
Sound advice from one of the members of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion - Canadian antifa volunteers that fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.
OK, having survived in a state office when an administration change combined with a hiring freeze to create an absolutely terrifying brain drain, THIS IS BAD, THIS IS VERY VERY BAD.
Y'all, this is how we got Flint.
The Washington Post is reporting that a huge chunk of the senior staff at the State Department has resigned. It’s unclear whether the officials left of their own volition or were forced out by the Trump Administration, but the paper reports it “amounts to a near-complete housecleaning” of every senior official who…
A new poll from PPP confirms that Donald Trump, though he’s been president less than a week, is already underwater with most Americans. But the people he’s surrounded himself with are even more despised:
Artist Chris Riddell illustrated this perfect quote from Angela Clarke. While we may not be a library, only a humble website, we are pleased to offer the best news highlights in all of publishing.
World of Wakanda author Roxane Gay has pulled her book, How to Be Heard, from Simon & Schuster.
Amid rumors that he would cancel his trip to the United States, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Wednesday night said firmly that “Mexico will not pay for a wall.” On Thursday, Donald Trump did what looks like the international relations equivalent of “you can’t fire me because I quit,” tweeting that:
If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting
Mexico has not changed its story once. Mexico is not willing to pay for the insulting, racist wall. Trump is the one who’s gone from insisting that Mexico would pay, period, to saying that “we will be in a form reimbursed by Mexico” sometime in the future after building the wall with U.S. money, to canceling the meeting because Mexico won’t pay for the wall. But the wall has to be built because he campaigned on it, even though he also campaigned on Mexico paying for it, and that’s not happening. Whatever, though, no worries, because:
House Speaker Paul Ryan says President Donald Trump's border wall will cost $12 billion to $15 billion — and Ryan says Congress will pay for it by this fall.
For eight years, congresssional Republicans have rejected real investment in America’s bridges, railroads, schools, roads, water systems, and so many other troubled pieces of infrastructure. But an ineffectual wall that will damage relations with a neighboring country? Shoot, yes!
For the first time, the United States has been downgraded from a "full democracy" to a "flawed democracy" by the Economic Intelligence Unit, a group that annually measures the strength of democracies across the world. According to the EIU, the country's decline as a liberal democracy can be attributed to the "further erosion of trust in government and elected officials"—the same factors that led to the election of President Donald Trump.
The report found similar score declines and patterns of lower "popular confidence in political elites and institution" throughout Europe, especially in eastern Europe. Shortly after the US presidential election, one Harvard lecturer warned that the United States and European liberal democracies were under such a serious threat of a democratic decline that current trends resembled Venezuela's political climate before its own crisis.
The findings, which were released on Wednesday, come amid increased alarm over Trump's continued demonstration of authoritarian tendencies, as he issues gag orders across federal agencies and signs an expanding list of executive orders during his first few days in office.
The new commander-in-chief added fuel to such concerns this week when he repeated the debunked claim that voter fraud led him to lose the 2016 popular vote. Government officials and voting experts slammed the president for the assertion, saying any investigation into the falsehood will only further undermine voter confidence in future elections and will likely lead the new administration to make policy changes that make it even more difficult for many people to vote.
So, they're willing to spend our money on a useless symbol of uselessness, but not maintaining healthcare to keep us alive. and healthy. Good to know.
Congress may pay for the border wall through a special spending bill being hashed out over the next two months, footing the cost of President Donald Trump's priority before seeking any refund from Mexico, Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.
Auckland-based illustrator Toby Morris perfectly summarizes what it means to be privileged with this thought-provoking comic strip.
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When we say privileged, we’re not talking about those people who were born into royalty, or those with millionaire parents. We simply mean those folks who have perhaps had a helping hand or two in life while others weren’t afforded such assistance. You can’t blame people for being given opportunities, but it’s always good to spare a thought for how the other half lives. Check out this comic to see what we mean. It’s a short story called “On A Plate” and it’s been “liked” more than 200,000 times. The comic is simple, but we’re sure you’ll agree that the message is pretty powerful.
THEY CANCELED THE WHOLE MUSICAL INSTEAD OF JUST HIRING ACTORS WHO WEREN’T WHITE
Wow
As much as racial diversity is a good thing, you’re not gonna find an entire cast of acting Egyptians in New York…
do you, um… do you understand how large and diverse new york is? between 2008-2012, there were 39,000+ egyptians living in new york, new jersey, and long island. that number has probably only increased. it’s not difficult for me to imagine that many of them are either working actors or aspiring actors. and that’s just egyptian immigrants. these roles could be played by people of egyptian descent. i don’t have a statistic for you on that one, but again, new york is densely populated and very diverse. i can’t imagine it would be that difficult to find egyptian actors, especially if you put out a casting call specifically for egyptians
Also there are tons of North African Jews for the Israelites lmao
I personally know off the top of my head enough multi-talented MENA Jews to fully cast a historically accurate Broadway show and you’re telling me that a massive theater company with a large budget and financial backing couldn’t pull something together with an open casting call in New York City?
Bullshit.
imagine being this isolated from the world.
This is one of many consequences of the whitewashing of cities like New York and LA in media, too. When shows and movies consistently portray these cities as containing 95-100% white people even in background shots (hey Fantastic Beasts, how’re you doing!), folks like @minus-three wind up genuinely convinced that that is what those cities look like.
these (and many more) are some of the Twitter accounts of federal science agencies that have gone “rogue”. I can not believe this is real and that we are living in this moment in time. https://twitter.com/ericholthaus/status/824389711170932736
Since the incident, Thanasi Papoulias (one of the Greek speakers in the video) has decided to show his gratitude toward the store manager who stepped in to defend him and his wife — by setting up a GoFundMe to send her to Greece. In two days, the fundraiser has met about one-third of its $6,000 goal. Read more
“That language is not allowed in this store.” WTF????????
This was almost certainly Islamophobia. Greek people get hit with it a fair amount in the United States. There was a pretty horrifying example I remember from a few years ago.
That man, a Greek Orthodox priest named Father Alexios Marakis, speaks little English and was lost, police said. He wanted directions.
What the priest got instead, police say, was a tire iron to the head. Then he was chased for three blocks and pinned to the ground — as the Marine kept a 911 operator on the phone, saying he had captured a terrorist.
Anyway, remember when I said that “whiteness is a social construct that can be given and taken away”?
Welcome to that.
YUUPPPPPP^^^ Italians are feeling this shit too.
Eastern Europeans in general….
everyone that aint swedish with a prominent nose and tanning abilities got their whiteness revoked in the U.S