The thing that is getting to me the most about news of Carrie Fisher’s autopsy report is not the results themselves, but the way the media is handling it. Like it’s a Gotcha moment—like somehow we were tricked into thinking she was a better person than she actually was.
And that is profoundly bullshit.
Carrie was open about being an addict. Her opening line from her iconic stand up show (and book by the same name) “Wishful Drinking” was quite literally, “Hi, I’m Carrie Fisher, and I’m an alcoholic.”
She talked at length and in often brutal depth about her problems with substance abuse, her compulsive self destructive tendencies, and her dependencies to both illegal and prescription drugs. She wrote about it in her books, she talked about it on talk shows. She made an entire comedic stand up performance out of it, detailing the lengths she went to in order to try and regain some semblance of safety and normalcy in her life.
She was brutally honest that every single day was a struggle for sanity after years and years of attempting to self medicate a mental illness that for most of her life was mistaken for feckless lack of self control.
You know how they way “Religion is the opiate of the masses?” Well I took masses of opiates religiously! -Wishful Drinking
She was bright, and beautiful and bold about it. And she didn’t have to be.
Carrie Fisher didn’t have to stand there and take the shitstorm of criticism people launched at her for decades, let alone turn it into humor. She didn’t. She didn’t owe anyone outwith her immediate family an explanation for her erratic behavior over the years, nor the flack she caught for it. (Think of all the male actors in Hollywood who are in and out of rehab centers so quickly they could harness the revolving doors as a wind turbine. Then tell me the media press about her life and now her death are fair.)
But she did it anyway, because she knew it was important. And she took those bright lights of Hollywood shining down on her like a ruthless, malevolent child holding a magnifying glass under the sun—and she turned that merciless heat and pointed it at things that mattered, often at the expense of herself, opening herself up to ridicule and the severe cruelty of others who lambasted her for everything, ranging from her weight, her mental illness or her audacity to simply grow old.
Is it tragic that her addiction likely cost her her life? Yes, of course it is. Does it invalidate any of her achievements? The strength and vibrancy with which she lived her life and touched the lives of millions around her for the better?
“I call people sometimes hoping not only that they’ll verify the fact that I’m alive but that they’ll also, however indirectly, convince me that being alive is an appropriate state for me to be in. Because sometimes I don’t think it’s such a bright idea. Is it worth the trouble it takes trying to live life so that someday you get something worthwhile out of it, instead of it almost always taking worthwhile things out of you?”
-The Princess Diarist
Carrie Fisher mattered, her voice mattered. The things that she said and did, mattered. They still matter. And they are no less true and poignant in the light of these revelations.
Addiction is a disease. It’s a dysfunction of the brain’s reward system which requires constant management and care and often goes hand in hand with other mental health disorders. It is not simply a question of willpower or the perceived lack thereof. And while sobriety is to be praised and encouraged—of course it is, of course it absolutely unquestionably is—you cannot possibly know what may cause a person to slip or to feel like they can’t cope without that crutch. And shame on anyone who says it was therefore deserved.
Shame and my heartfelt wishes that you never go through the things that can lead to serious addiction. Or that you are ever abandoned, derided and regarded as less than human because of it and your death turned into a smear campaign against your memory for the sake of a sensationalist headline.
Yes. Carrie Fisher was an addict, she had drug dependency problems related to her mental health. There was a time she kept it hidden, but after she made the decision to come out about it, she stuck by that decision and became a champion, for herself and everyone like her who struggles. Because she never wanted anyone to suffer like she did in order to get help. And she did it with as much grace and humility as she could manage—and a whole lot more indignity, immodesty, crass humor and love as well. Because that’s who she was and she cared.
And that’s a hell of a lot more than can be said for those crowing over her death like it’s just deserts.
Fuck you.
People do not exist to stand up to your demands of a perfect ideal of humanity. You do not get to place that burden on the shoulders of someone then tear them apart when they fall under that weight—famous or otherwise.
Fuck you and your whole pretense at moral piety and the horse you rode in on.
Carrie Fisher was not your unproblematic fave. She was in fact extremely problematic, and no one knew that better than she did.
“I heard someone say once that many of us only seem able to find heaven by backing away from hell. And while the place that I’ve arrived at in my life may not precisely be everyone’s idea of heaven, I could swear sometimes—if I’m quiet enough—I can hear the angels sing. Either that or I fucked up my medication again.”
It might be too little too late, but amid all the Uber controversy, which recently culminated in its CEO’s resignation, Uber has decided to allow all U.S. drivers to accept tips. Here’s what that means for drivers and passengers.
Not only that, he takes a question that is CLEARLY written by someone who wants to trivializes girls in general and flips it over onto the questioner's head.
Professor Stephen Hawking believes Zayn might still be in One Direction - in a different universe
The important thing about this is that Stephen Hawking well understands the fact that you can enjoy and/or be upset about frivolous things while simultaneously enjoying and/or being upset about important things.
He also turned this into a massive encouragement for girls to become female scientists as they age.
I fucking love Stephen hawking he gave this a serious answer instead of trivializing teenage girls like most men (esp. highly intelligent nerdy men) do
Last three “elite cosmopolitan liberal” presidents:
-From Georgia, *actual* peanut farmer
-Raised in Arkansas, poor, by an abusive stepfather
-Raised by single mom and grandparents in Kansas/Hawaii
Last four “everyman, white-working-class conservative” presidents:
-Hollywood actor from IL
-Son of borderline-royal Massachusetts family with banker/politician patriarch
-Literally the previous guy’s son
-NY millionaire at birth and later reality show star who probably owns a bunch of ponies but won’t talk about it or tell us their names
“average homosexual sleeps with more than 500 ppl in their life time” factoid actualy just statistical error. average homosexual sleeps with 3 people per year. Homosexuals Georg, who lives in cave & tops over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
USA Today undertook a year-long investigation into southern California truckers, so-called “independent contractors” who form a critical link from America’s busiest port to the rest of the country, and found that drivers are sunk into deep pits of debt due to predatory contracts they signed under duress, debts that are used to force them to work unsafe hours, falsify their work records, and sometimes bring home literal pennies a week after working 80+ hours (some drivers even finish the week in deeper debt, owing money to the companies they “contract” for).
When these workers take their grievances to California’s labor board – with the help of the Teamsters Union – they are generally vindicated and awarded compensation, but the majority of the drivers lack the wherewithal to undertake such a grievance.
The companies whose goods these truckers move include some of America’s biggest brands, like J Crew, Ralph Lauren, LG, Home Depot, and Target, and these companies wash their hands of any responsibility for ensuring that their shipping contractors are not engaged in criminal, exploitative, systematic theft of wages and unsafe working conditions.
The current situation stems from a California rule that banned out-of-date, polluting diesel trucks from its ports. Trucking companies bought all-new trucks with better emissions profiles, then forced their workers to sign contracts through which they assumed all debt for this new fleet, with payments to be taken from their paychecks. The workers were made to sign on pain of immediate termination, without access to a lawyer or advisor, and many didn’t speak or read English well enough to understand the contracts.
The contracts allow the company to terminate the truckers’ employment at will, or to deny them shifts. Workers who miss any work, or a single payment, lose all the payments they’ve put into their trucks, and many report watching years’ worth of wages disappear at the stroke of a pen because they refused to go out on the road for 20 hour shifts, or took a few days off work for a parent’s funeral.
Desperate drivers take out second mortgages on their homes and borrow from relatives to make payments on their trucks, but a driver who falls out of favor with a boss can be “starved” out of his rig if the boss just refuses to give him any shifts – eventually, the driver will simply run out of places to borrow money for payments on the truck (and the drivers are contractually forbidden from driving for other companies, even if the company they work for won’t give them any hours).
The owners of the companies that USA Today investigated denied all this, and when USA Today presented them with documentary evidence, they stopped answering USA Today’s calls.
All else being equal I’m strongly in favor of transitioning away from trucking as a major form of transportation infrastructure, but in the meantime and in the transition it’s extremely important to take care that the workers displaced by those changes are taken care of.
This is corporations using clumsy environmental efforts to increase their stranglehold on the lives of their employees, and we need to fight that. We need to be on the side of the folks who lose their jobs when flawed or destructive infrastructures are phased out. Not in the sense of not ending those destructive practices, but making sure that those workers’ lives and freedoms are protected.
[Screenshot of two tweets by Hayes Davenport, the first reading “Everyone saying Lyft Shuttle is ‘just a bus’ is missing the disruptive innovation: a bus that excludes people too poor to own a smartphone” (link) and the second reading “They love when you say it’s a bus! That means they’re getting away with the real marketing strategy of There Will Not Be Homeless On Here” (link)]
It is significant that the Russian government looked at America, and decided that it would interfere with our elections to promote and support Republicans with its hacking, and social media bot farms.
It’s difficult to ignore that Russia must have determined that a Republican majority would undermine democracy and America’s global leadership position more effectively than a Democratic majority.
It also says something about the Republican base that they don’t seem to care.
yesterday i went to a gay bar for the first time, and I met two people. The first was a man well into his 70′s, who had only come out since his wife died. Even though he could barely walk, he knew every single person at the bar, and each one came over for a hug and to chat. The second was a transgender woman who, after two children and three grandchildren, had finally decided to live as herself. She was wearing heels and leather pants and makeup, and she was absolutely beautiful. she knew she was as well, and she was so proud and excited when people walked by and said “hey girl” without even thinking about it. point i’m trying to make is, it’s never too late to come out
cant believe a bunch of english kids go through a fuckin cupboard and find a magical kingdom full of wonder and they go “yeah we’re the royal family now”
typical english behaviour
I think what’s more creepily imperialistic is the reaction of everyone in Narnia to the Pevensies.
Like, the Pevensies end up the royal family in large part because everyone’s like ‘it has been prophesied that you will come and rule us and everything will be great!’ and, well, in-universe I can’t really fault them on that; if I were a young teen or pre-teen in a completely foreign country, I too would probably just go along with whatever seem to make people friendly to me.
But the reaction of the Narnians, in almost ubiquitously welcoming these foreigners as obviously destined to rule them even though they know nothing of the country and the culture… now that is some creepily imperialist writing.
This is the only good reblog of this post in it’s entire 3 year hellscape existence
if four foreign kids popped out of a magic box and deposed trump by the express wishes of god’s fursona, i’d crown ‘em. this winter already fuckin feels like it’s lasted 100 years.
Meet Bear, a sad doggie no one adopts, who has been waiting for a loving forever home at a shelter for more than 2 and a half years now. The pooch was found as a stray in Flint, Michigan, and has been spending his lonely days at the Detroit Animal Welfare Group (DAWG) ever since.
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“He was about 7 months old and very emaciated,” Kelley LaBonty, director of DAWG, told The Dodo. “He stayed in foster care for a while, but then the foster had family who moved in, and they couldn’t keep him anymore.”
Throughout the years, those who were interested in taking him would change their minds at the last second. “We’ve taken him to hundreds of adoption events over the years, and he just gets overlooked every time.” This left Bear depressed and heartbroken.
LaBonty took a picture of the canine in the kennel. “It went viral because it was a very sad picture… He is depressed in the kennel, as most dogs get, especially after two years of being in a kennel… Mostly he just lays on his bed with his head down.” Bear is a very sweet and loving dog, who just wants to be loved. The only thing is that he doesn’t get on well with other pets.
I mean, the construction and everything is awesome, but no, I've never been walking around and, upon seeing a tree tumor with flying hate stingers floating around it, said to myself, "Hey, let's go poke that around!"
The way we throw money at police to spend on tech for accountability and less than lethal force and they can turn around and decide to just not use it, kill people and get away with it fucking rules
“I don’t like wearing a Taser cause it’s not comfortable” *turns off body camera during patrol*
Oh, my, look at all the female privilege I have. I'd personally have more respect for him if he'd worn hose with that getup. Then we could talk about who's more comfortable.
Office dress codes have become a hot-button issue in recent years, especially as hot temperatures outside force people into less-than-modest attire. An employee at a call centre in Buckinghamshire, UK, named Joey Barge recently faced up against his company’s code when he was sent home for wearing a smart pair of shorts on a nearly 30-degree summer day. In rebellion, he took a tip from a fellow Twitter user and came back in a dress.
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“See you soon, twitter. I’ll be sent home soon,” he posted with a photo of himself sporting the neon-pink and black smock. Surprisingly enough, 20-year-old Joey was allowed to remain at work after changing, undoubtedly benefiting from strict UK laws that prohibit companies from discriminating against employees based on their sexuality or gender identity. His boss must have feared a trend of men turning up to the office ‘dressed up’ in solidarity with Joey, and promptly sent out a memo that the dress code had been temporarily amended – a smashing victory on Joey’s part, though we must admit that his dress looked rather fetching.
Follow the whole story with photos below, and let us know what you think in the comments!
UK temperatures are currently scorching at 30°C and higher, and office workers are feeling it
Call centre employee Joey Barge, 20, decided to test his company’s dress code to stay cool
When it didn’t quite work out, a Twitter user suggested a clever way to bite back…
…And Joey went for it
However, he was allowed to stay, protected by anti-discrimination laws on gender expression
His boss, probably in shock, made some quick adjustments to the dress code after Joey’s stunt
“Ok but this was me sat in my office in a dress,” he wrote on Twitter, flaunting his new style
Internet reactions began pouring in, with some praising him and his “nice legs”…
…And others taking issue with his “big baby” attitude, as well as the dress itself
What do you think? Was Joey’s solution extra or unprofessional? Tell us in the comments below!
apparently there was a telephone booth in the middle of the mojave desert originally meant to service miners and a guy claiming to be sent on a mission from god camped out in it for a month and answered over 500 phone calls, including one from the pentagon, and if that isn’t the most southwestern gothic shit i have ever heard then i will eat the entire mojave desert
Despite assurances from the U.S. intelligence community that Russian hacking only influenced the 2016 U.S. election—and didn’t change vote tallies—there was never actually a formal federal audit of those systems, the Department of Homeland Security said.
And while DHS offered free security scans to any state that wanted them, many states—even ones that took up the DHS offer, like Michigan and Maine—either use audit procedures that are considered inadequate or don’t audit their election results at all.
“I think there’s a presumption amongst both the general public and lawmakers that DHS did some sort of investigation,” said Susan Greenhalgh, who serves as Elections Specialist at Verified Voting, a nonprofit devoted to U.S. election integrity.
“It didn’t happen. That doesn’t mean that something happened, but it also means it wasn’t investigated.”
Straight dudes are their own worst enemies when it comes to getting laid.
Like, i know so many girls who are down for something more casual and who actually have really low standards that boil down to “treat me like a person, not a talking fleshlight”. And dudes refuse to even meet those standards!
Like, you know how many times I’ve been talking to a guy and I’ve already decided that when we hang out I’d down to mess around, only for the guy to start talking super graphically or send me a picture of his dick–and then literally all desire I had for him went out the windows.
Like dudes are so obsessed with sex that theyre scaring almost-certain sex partners away because they refuse to act like human beings capable of rational thought.
Bring thing this back to add an example:
I started talking to a guy on tinder. He was funny, flirty and super nice even though he wasn’t really my type. Most importantly, he was completely respectful. He managed to let me know he thought I was attractive, and that he was interested in me, without ever saying anything gross, asking for pictures or asking for sex. We met up for drinks and talked for hours and I realized I was more attracted to him than I initially thought . Not only did I sleep with him on the first date, but I’ve hooked up with him multiple times after that. The first time, he didn’t make any assumptions. We hung out, started making out and then he asked me if I wanted to stay the night. That was it. He STILL has never asked me for a nude, or sent me some overtly sexual message or picture.
But SOMEHOOOW I still want to have sex with him.
Conversely, I started talking to another guy on tinder today. On our FIRST conversation, he has mentioned my boobs 3 times, invited me over to “watch a movie” (he added the quotes, not me), suggested a fwb set up and just asked for nudes.
GUESS WHO ISN’T GONNA GET IN MY PANTS.
I try so hard to tell them.
Trash men are out here getting advice from other trash men so they don’t know how to act. 🙄
But… But why are they incapable of learning from bad experience after bad experience?
Because they find it easier to blame the women for it.
