ThePrettiestOne

(via xkcd: Marriage)

It’s appalling to me that the majority of Americans didn’t approve of interracial marriage until 1995. We need to recognize that America has been, and continues to be, a *profoundly* racist country.

tamorapierce:

boneycircus:

shodobear:

jepaithe:

transposedsouls:

boo-author:

bitterseafigtree:

thinksquad:

An eighth grade student from Weaverville Elementary School got a detention slip for sharing his school prepared lunch Tuesday.

Kyle Bradford, 13, shared his chicken burrito with a friend who didn’t like the cheese sandwich he was given by the cafeteria.

Bradford didn’t see any problem with sharing his food.

"It seemed like he couldn’t get a normal lunch so I just wanted to give mine to him because I wasn’t really that hungry and it was just going to go in the garbage if I didn’t eat it," said Bradford.

But the Trinity Alps Unified School District has regulations that prohibit students from sharing their meals.

The policies set by the district say that students can have allergies that another student may not be aware of.

Tom Barnett, the Superintendent of the Trinity Alps Unified School District says that hygiene issues also come into play when banning students from sharing meals.

"We have a policy that prohibits students from exchanging meals. Of course if students are concerned about other students not having enough to eat we would definitely want to consider that, but because of safety and liability we cannot allow students to actually exchange meals," said Barnett.

Bradford’s mother Sandy Bradford thinks that her son did the right thing by sharing his lunch. She also believes that it isn’t up to the school to discipline her son for good manners.

“By all means the school can teach them math and the arithmetic and physical education, but when it comes to morals and manners and compassion, I believe it needs to start at home with the parent,” Sandy said.

Bradford says that he would definitely share his lunch again if a friend wanted a portion of his meal.

http://www.krcrtv.com/news/local/student-put-in-detention-for-sharing-school-lunch/28115110

Kids can’t share now? Or trade lunches? What the actual fuck is happening?

I think this article is talking around what the actual issue is.

The student who was “given a cheese sandwich” and “couldn’t get a normal lunch?”

That’s how schools handle students whose families can’t pay their lunch bills. They’re required to give the kid something, so they get a slice of processed cheese between two pieces of white bread. Cheese sandwich.

All those stories about the kids who went through the lines and then had their trays taken away and dumped in the trash in front of them because their account was $5 in the red when they got to the end of the line?

Those kids were given cheese sandwiches.

This isn’t about allergies. I guarantee you that kids at those tables are swapping food all the time. It’s part of the school cafeteria experience.

If the second kid was allergic to the burrito, we’d be reading a different story.

It’s because this kid undermined the system that is supposed to punish students for their parents’ “negligence” (poverty).

^ this

Taken from this article:

These aren’t isolated cases, either. Here’s a recap of the most recent honor roll of American public school cafeteria douchebaggery:

• An elementary school in Salt Lake City, Utah reportedly seized between 40 and 50 students’ lunches on pizza day and threw them all in the garbage when the kids got up to the register and couldn’t pay because their account balances were either low or empty. Students all over the cafeteria were broken down in tears. I’m sure that made for a great learning environment.
• Remember the most important meal of the day? A 12-year-old Dickinson, Texas boy’s breakfast was thrown in the trash right in front of him at his middle school because his account was short a whopping .30 cents. The breakfast itself cost $1.25.
• Around 25 students at a Massachusetts middle school were forced to throw out their lunches or refused lunch entirely because their accounts were empty or they could not afford to pay. An employee from the school’s on-site lunch provider reportedly gave an order not to provide lunch to students with overextended credit or empty accounts. At least that employee was later put on leave. “I’m pissed that when there are people in prison who are getting meals, my daughter, an honor student, is going hungry,” one father remarked.
• A New Jersey elementary school threw a 10-year-old autistic boy’s lunch in the trash because of an unpaid account…despite having already done so before. “It’s between the parents and the cafeteria. It’s not between the child and the lunch lady. Let the kids eat their lunch,” the boy’s mother told a local news station.
• The middle and high schools in Old Town, Maine have a “no pay, no food policy” that Superintendent David Walker says students, like the 11-year-old denied food because his mom hadn’t paid his account, should be able to understand. “Students are old enough to take responsibility for their lunches” by middle school age, said Walker. You know, because apparently 11-year-olds can suddenly get jobs in this country to afford their lunch at school.
• Over 40 elementary school students in Kentucky were denied a full lunch during state testing week. One student’s account was short $1.15, which the mother told a news station she paid online as many schools require the night before, but the funds hadn’t been processed by lunch time the next day, so her fourth grader spent all day upset and left school crying at the end of the day. Luckily a good samaritan showed up to that school and donated $56 to pay up all student lunch accounts so no more kids would have to go without a full lunch (which isn’t even that large to begin with in this country) during state tests.
• Worse, apparently students at some schools across the state of Minnesota are actually branded with “Money” or “Lunch” stamps across their hands when they are late on accounts as a message to parents to pay up. Yep, they are actually branding children with the scarlet letter of poverty if they cannot afford their lunch, so the child will have to walk around school for the whole entire rest of their day branded and a walking target for ridicule by other children because they are poor or the parents forgot to put money in their children’s accounts.

I’ve personally had the same type of situation happened to me before in which lunch has been thrown right in the trash in front of me when I didn’t have enough money for lunch, and was given an alternate meal of lesser quality. I hadn’t even realized how disgustingly perverse that was at the time because of how it was normalized. Shaming the poor, and even depriving children of food has become normalized. This is especially a problem in conservative states where funding for education is low and funding for things like football stadiums and other less important things is high. Public schools need to be providing students with free meals, which can’t be done without the proper funding as well as the proper allocation of funds on the part of schools and school districts. 

All that wasted food. This is cruel.

….this logic makes no sense to homeschool kid.

If that food (that the school already bought) is so fucking precious it can get taken away from you for being short .30, wouldn’t it….go to the next kid who is paid up or…

Nawp. Whole meal in the trash.

I cannot. I am unable to can.

Murica.

When I lived in California I was too poor to go downtown for lunch, or buy candy at the machines (yeah—there’s a long time ago for you!), or eat in the cafeteria.  Then I discovered I could if I worked there.  So that’s what I did.  In Pennsylvania everybody brought their lunches, so I didn’t feel like a wart.  The San Francisco Bay Area was hard to live in if you were poor.

wolvensnothere:

hotladypants:

This show.

WEARING HATS INDOORS.

What happens when comedian Louis CK starts tweeting about his "feelings" regarding the origin of life on Earth, the nature of the solar system, and the Big Bang? We get a strange piece of science fiction that apparently went straight from CK's brain to the keyboard.

Read more...

theladychelsea:

honeyyvanille:

Sometimes you need to remind yourself that you were the one who carried you through the heartache. You are the one who sits with the cold body on the shower floor, and picks it up. You are the one who feeds it, who clothes it, who tucks it into bed, and you should be proud of that. Having the strength to take care of yourself when everyone around you is trying to bleed you dry, that is the strongest thing in the universe.

I absolutely needed to read that.

bec-centigrade:

writergrrrl:

pervocracy:

postwhitesociety:

hm

I think the “women are mysterious” thing can also come from:

1) Women actually being quite clear, but not telling men what they want to hear.  ”She said she doesn’t want to talk to me?  So many mixed messages and confusing signals!”

2) Women not having cheat codes.  ”I tried being nice, and she didn’t have sex with me.  I tried being an asshole, and she didn’t have sex with me.  Come on, there’s got to be some kind of solution to this puzzle!”

3) Women not being a hive mind.  ”First a woman told me that she likes guys with big muscles.  Then the very next day a woman told me she thinks muscles aren’t attractive at all.  Make up your mind, women!”

4) An individual woman doing something confusing, and instead of asking “why is she doing this now?” men ask “why do women always do this?”

5) Women sometimes don’t say what they’re really thinking/feeling because society has taught us that certain emotions and reactions are unacceptable (i.e. you must be nice to men even when they’re creeps because man feelings are delicate and must be protected at all costs).

6) Women sometimes don’t say what they’re really thinking/feeling because we’re used to our thoughts and emotions being invalidated and can learn to invalidate them ourselves.

7) You didn’t even fucking ask. 

8) You see women as NPCs instead of people, so when they act like people you’re surprised and wonder how such a sophisticated NPC can exist and what algorithms drive it, instead of interacting with her as a human being.

greenthepress:

Happy birthday to Neil deGrasse Tyson!

“

We found that, upon exposure to sexist humor, men higher in sexism discriminated against women by allocating larger funding cuts to a women’s organization than they did to other organizations.

We also found that, in the presence of sexist humor, participants believed the other participants would approve of the funding cuts to women’s organizations. We believe this shows that humorous disparagement creates the perception of a shared standard of tolerance of discrimination that may guide behavior when people believe others feel the same way.

The research indicates that people should be aware of the prevalence of disparaging humor in popular culture, and that the guise of benign amusement or “it’s just a joke” gives it the potential to be a powerful and widespread force that can legitimize prejudice in our society

”

-

Thomas E. Ford, professor of psychology at Western Carolina University (via baebees)

this is why sexist humor isn’t fucking humor. it’s deepseated misogyny.

(via detectivejoan)

Futurists and science fiction authors often give us overly grim visions of the future, especially when it comes to the Singularity and the risks of artificial superintelligence. Scifi novelist David Brin talked to us about why these dire predictions are often simplistic and unreasonable.

Read more...

spellthief:

If I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.

          -Hayao Miyazaki (x)

land-of-propaganda:

THERE IS A WAR COMING IN FERGUSON — (10/03/2014)

Shaun King has found out the Military/National Guard are doing secret drills to shut down protesting that will come after Darren Wilson is not indicted.

They are also planning on shutting down the airports.

Read more here

mostlysignssomeportents:

Sick of being called a social justice warrior? Correct the record with a pin declaring your Social Justice character class (Wizard/Ranger/Warrior/Cleric/Bard/Rogue).

Read the rest…

wocinsolidarity:

x

YES

pr1nceshawn:

Nosferatu Scooby Doo, Supernatural, Buffy and Blade by Six Eyed Monster.

Woop! Sorry for the late update. Server issues.

punklagertha:

i like how cis people act like it would be the worst thing in the world not to assume people’s genders i mean we don’t assume people’s names what if you just met someone and you were like “hey emily” and they were like “thats not my name its megan” and you were like “oh well how was i supposed to know. you look like an emily to me. i guess i can try to call you megan but its gonna be hard because i just see you as such an emily”

“I think I’m making progress on this whole ‘flight’ thing.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! It seems like if I sort of splay the bones out over here, and then I stretch the skin over, I can make a membrane that the Sharovipteryx can use to glide from tree to tree.”

“Hmm. That sounds like the right general idea, evolution, but…”

“I mean, I’ll probably refine some details over time, like maybe I’ll let them flap up and down a bit or add some feathers to catch more air. But I think this might be the big break.”

“I don’t know, evolution. I’m not really sure you’ve got it yet.”

“Just imagine! If this works out, then in a few hundred million years, there’ll be leg-flappers all over the place.”

“Imagine that…”

“‘Spread your legs and fly,’ they’ll say.”

“Maybe just sleep on it, okay?”

Source: Wikimedia Commons / Nobu Tamura / licensed under CC BY 3.0

beanmom:

nospockdasgay:

redbloodedamerica:

mallninjacode:

pual1010:

brownglucose:

stunningpicture:

So proud of my mother for doing her own research after I sent her that meme. A sign she hung in her car window.

Stay woke

Is this true?

Not only is it true, it gets worse. The Susan G Komen For The Cure Foundation has actually successfully sued “competing” charities, because (paraphrasing) their “message or branding was infringing.”

You read that correctly: they took money that people had donated to cure cancer, and hired attorneys with it, to sue ANOTHER group of people trying to find a cure for cancer, who, in turn, had to us their donated money to hire their own legal counsel to defend themselves.

Yeah signal boost because not enough people know about this and seriously FUCK SUSAN G. KOMEN THEY ARE THE ACTUAL WORST

Some links…

http://thinkbeforeyoupink.org/

http://www.somethingawful.com/feature-articles/for-the-cure/

http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/132728/susan_g_komen_foundation_has

(reblogged in honor of my mother, who died of breast cancer, 11/13/97)

karnythia:

soradiesinkh3:

rdotsmith:

thee-renaissance-man:

Just gonna leave this right here

Yes…..yes….

welp…

The Real Game of Life

thenightlymirror:

 

“I am an atheist myself so I suppose I should be sympathetic to Maher and Harris here, but I’m not because because it’s an irrational intellectually nonsensical point of view. There are 1.6 billion Muslims in this world. And a few thousand of them —- hell it could be a few hundred thousand of them —- are members of the extremist fringe that wreaking havoc in the middle east and causing everyone else to pee their pants. Nobody disputes that these particular Muslims are assholes. But you can’t blame the religion itself when there are more than a billion adherents who aren’t killing anybody and don’t want to kill anybody. As Affleck says, they’re just going about their lives, trying to do their best for their kids, working, praying, screwing —- everything everyone does. If Islam is an inherently violent religion, then more than a billion of its believers don’t seem to be getting the word.
 
It’s infuriating. Do we condemn all of Christianity because of Operation Rescue? Is it ok to condemn all of Judaism because of the violent right wing settlers? Is Buddhism inherently violent because some Buddhist monks in Myanmar and killing people left and right? It’s not as if we haven’t seen exactly the same behavior among humans forever for entirely secular, avaricious, tribal, egomaniacal, nationalistic reasons. This is what we do! That this particular group of human assholes has seized upon religion for their justification for it is meaningless. It’s always something.”

-

Digby: They Don’t Even Know They’re Bigots.

I, too, am an atheist, and I agree with everything Digby says, here.

““I wanted to … make [Rorschach] as like, ‘this is what Batman would be in the real world’. But I have forgotten that actually to a lot of comic fans, ‘smelling’, ‘not having a girlfriend’, these are actually kind of heroic! So Rorschach became the most popular character in Watchmen. I made him to be a bad example. But I have people come up to me in the street and saying: ‘I AM Rorschach. That is MY story’. And I’d be thinking: ‘Yeah, great. Could you just, like, keep away from me, never come anywhere near me again as long as I live?’”

-

Alan Moore (via class-snuggle)

Most Alan Moore quotations make me think he’s sort of insane, but this one is gold. Few things weird me out about fictional characters more than when people idolize the ones who were clearly created as terrible human beings.

(via chrisisoninfiniteearths)

Amazing.

(via losertakesall)

there-was-no-other-sound:

rnultiplayer:

wanna know what a cow looks like washed and blow dried?

that is what a cow looks like washed and blow dried

FLUFFY MILK HORSE

reflectingblue:

raakellars:

bansheeandahunter:

False rape accusations are an anomaly.

True rape accusations are a norm.

You’re, quite literally, more likely to be killed by a comet than falsely accused of rape.

Re-blog now, read later.

"Because 1 in 33 men will be raped in his lifetime, men are 82,000x more likely to be raped than falsely accused of rape. It seems many of us would do well to pay more attention to how rape culture affects us all than be paranoid about false accusers.”