Sophianotloren

It is every mother’s worst nightmare to lose a child, and I have to feel Carla May Alcorn’s pain.

This is certainly not the time to take exception to the religious sentiments in her announcement. Except…

Those sentiments contributed to the misery of their daughter, Leelah Alcorn. She wasn’t just hit by a truck, she committed suicide after years of misery when her parents denied who she actually was.

She knew her parents would try to bury the truth of her death, so she scheduled her suicide note to appear on the web, so that her message couldn’t be hidden.

A parent’s worst nightmare might be the death of a child, but I should think a child’s worst nightmare would be being denied by a parent, in life and even more cruelly in death.

(via robertdafoto)

asylum-art:

Famous Musician Portraits from Their Own CDs - Mirco Pagano & Moreno De Turco

It’s very popular to create musicians portraits from vinyl records or recycled cassette tapes. This time the following portraits were created from cds. For the inauguration of First Floor Under, a pop-vanguard culture magazine, artists Mirco Pagano & Moreno De Turco  spent more than 200 hours lining up the CDs to recreate the portraits of seven world-famous musicians: Bob Marley, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendrix, Michael Jackson, James Brown, and Freddie Mercury. Take a look!

Wow. Very cool. But… where da women at? What, no Janis? No Nina? No Joan? No Tina? No Madonna? 

carudamon119:

ライブドアニュース ‏@livedoornews  

【ストレス発散に】通常の約6倍サイズ、超巨大エンターキー「BIG ENTER」

beeftony:

zetsubonna:

thank you so fucking much, science side of tumblr

One small correction: using cowpox to treat smallpox isn’t vaccination, it’s a similar but distinct process called inoculation. A vaccine uses a weakened, mostly dead form of the virus to let your body do some target practice. An inoculation actually infects the body with a related, but less severe form of an illness, and the antibodies developed from fighting it off also repel the more deadly disease.

Whee!

It’s been a busy fall, but we always have our notebook with us, so it’s time for our irregular feature — and everyone’s favorite LULZ — Overheard in the Art World (#OHAW).

Honestly, art world, don’t take yourself so seriously.

Man: “Look, that’s a Gaza mural.”
Woman, not paying attention and on her cell phone: “What? Gossip Girl?”
Man: “No, Gaza, like the war.”
Woman: “Oh, well, they film episodes here.”
—on Flushing Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn

Little boy: “This place looks like a circus.”
Father, slightly shocked: “I guess it does.”
—in the Jeff Koons retrospective at Whitney Museum of American Art

Curator: “As soon as we accept that we all just work at the service of a bunch of rich people, we will be fine with this whole ridiculous world.”
—at the opening of the third section of the High Line park

Man: “She’s just breaking stuff to make art?”
—in front of Kate Gilmore’s video work at the Site:Lab installation at ArtPrize

Man talking to friends: “She wants me to be in a piece. She asked me if I’d roll around naked in menstrual blood, and I said ‘yes.'”
—at Hyperallergic and Brooklyn Museum’s Crossing Brooklyn event at Livestream Public

“That’s a lot of ideas.”
—in the Crossing Brooklyn show at the Brooklyn Museum

“Oh look, it’s the Ferris Bueller painting.”
—at the Museum of Modern Art bookstore, looking at a children’s book about Post-Impressionist Georges Seurat

“Did you just say Koons? Best show of the year?? Okay, Jerry Saltz.”
—at Chris Ofili opening at the New Museum

Woman to man: “Time to get a Kiefer.”
—during Art Basel Miami Beach 2014 vernissage

“Is that Sheldon Adelson on his shirt?”
—at the preview of Ryan McNamara’s MEEM 4 Miami: A Story Ballet About the Internet

“I can’t remember if I wanted the sculpture or the painting.”
—at Pulse Miami 2014 art fair

“I’m not drunk enough for this.”
—at the Rubell Family Collection during the Miami Art Week 2014

“What’s the view out of Klaus [Biesenbach]’s window today?”
—at the NADA Miami 2014 art fair

“I like it because I’m tired of photograph, photograph, painting, photograph, painting, painting, painting.”
—at the NADA Miami 2014 art fair

“Is he as cute as his art?”
—at the NADA Miami 2014 art fair

“Why are there so many art shows?”
—on Collins Avenue in South Beach during Miami Art Week 2014

“If there’s people, there must be art.”
—in the Design District during Miami Art Week 2014

“Lena Dunham is related to Laurie Simmons? Omggggg my mind is blown.”
—at Sciame holiday party

“This world of ours will be so much better when we all just accept that we are catering to rich people … I just want us to be the country club I know in my heart we can be.”
—at a gallerist’s holiday brunch

“I’m just so glad Shaquille O’Neal is a curator now.”
—at Circa 188 launch party

“This art looks like it’s from a bad Miley Cyrus video. Oh wait … ”
—at a dinner party while curator flips through her Miami photos

“That new Britney video looks like a a Paweł Althamer retrospective.”
—overheard at the Artist’s Institute’s Tuesday bar night

Girl 1: “Franco’s kind of annoying, again.”
Girl 2: “I just can’t believe Franco is the guy from the art world that pissed off North Korea.”
—overheard at the Artist’s Institute’s Tuesday bar night

Woman: “Is that his art?”
Man: “No, it’s a big pile of cocaine.”
—at Dram bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

maggiesox:

attndotcom:

Good point, Stephen.

And that’s why I will always love this man.

BOOTSTRAPS THO RIGHT??

So I’m sitting in my office earlier today, waiting for students to hand in their final assignments, which for some include assignments on which I gave them extensions. One student, who has done barely a stitch of work all semester, rushes in with headphones on and music blasting loud enough that I can hear it. He puts his bag down and pulls out a manila pocket folder stuffed with paper. He has, he says, made up or rewritten all the work he missed or failed over the course of the semester. I’m not in the mood to argue with him about the fact that he has never once come to ask me for an extension of any kind, so I take the folder, wish him a good holiday, and put it in my bag to look at later.

Well, it’s now later, and I just finished going through his work. Aside from the fact that most of it is so late that it wouldn’t count anyway—since, as I said, he never once came to ask about an extension—and aside from the fact that (because he never bothered to pay attention) he ended up doing assignments I changed or eliminated over the course of the semester, he managed to do every single assignment incorrectly, including plagiarizing significant portions of the first page of his final paper. He even failed almost every single one of the online, untimed, open-book self-quizzes I assigned for each of the chapters that we read. And he did self-quizzes for at least three chapters I didn’t assign, and he failed those too.

The victim told police that Pastor Gaylard Williams grabbed and squeezed his genitals, and then requested that he perform oral sex.

Remote Mines in the Complex is a nostalgic art print by illustrator Zac Gorman that celebrates playing video games with friends. The art print specifically references levels and weapons from the 1997 Nintendo 64 video game GoldenEye 007. The art print is available to purchase online from Attract Mode.

3 am, a half-eaten bag of chips, a florescent glow lighting the room, 4-way split screen, and not a care in the world other than blowing up your friends.

images via Attract Mode

“These *are* the handbags you’re looking for!”

ThinkGeek has released two officially-licensed Star Wars bowling bag-style purses that are made to look like the infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett and the loyal astromech droid R2-D2. Both handbags, which come with two interior pouches and protective metal feet on bottom, are available to purchase online.

The right bag, matched to her wardrobe, would have been a fantastic addition to her ensemble. Hooked on her arm, her new purse could have not only carried Death Star plans, but also a blaster, lightsaber, droid-recall unit, plus all the pins and clips necessary to keep her hair in place (no small feat in any galaxy but particularly in one far, far away).

Perhaps too late, ThinkGeek now has a consignment of Star-Wars-themed handbags, in two different styles. Choose Boba Fett or R2-D2 (which means you can still smuggle the plans in a droid, only a more stylish version). These bags have more than enough room for you to fit whatever you need the next time you find yourself in a club, at the store, or in a scoundrel’s stock-light freighter somewhere around the ruins of Alderaan.

images via ThinkGeek

ghoulnextdoor:

 PoshFairytaleCouture on Etsy

Via a blog at Daily Kos:

San Jose police officer Phillip White has been put on leave after posting a series of death threats to protestors on his personal Twitter account.

His tweets raise at least three very disturbing questions.

1. How could an officer who makes such statements just be put on temporary leave and not fired? It will be hard for members of the community to ever feel safe around Phillip White.

2. In his mocking statements of #BlackLivesMatters and #iCantBreathe, he fails to see that these are chants from peaceful protests. Nobody saying these statements has been called violent in any city in the country. Why is he using them as an opportunity to mock and threaten the community?

3. Is it safe to assume that the sentiments expressed by Phillip White, which seem to invite violence and death and confrontation, are shared by his colleagues?

I remember after the Rodney King beating, the ACLU asked a very simple question: Who do you call when the gang wears a police uniform?

It is getting harder and harder for me to defend police, even though I know there are good cops in the world. Institutionally, however, there’s way too much of this sort of thing, and instead of being put on paid leave, law enforcement who do this sort of thing — that’s make threats, not express abhorrent opinions, which are protected speech — should be immediately fired, have their guns taken away, and be barred from ever serving in law enforcement again.

Above the decomposing corpse of the Party of Personal Responsibility, conspiratorial apparitions are constantly fizzing in and out of existence.  They bubble up from ancient, rotting Hate Radio talking points and the unquiet graves of the Southern Strategy, flare feebly to life, and then fall apart and slide feebly back into the Great Wingnut Swamp.

While these fool's fires burn, the denizens of the Great Wingnut Swamp follow them wherever they lead as zealously as any Wise Man from the East following the Star of David.  They point to each new apparition of bullshit and Fox News vapor as proof that their idiotic ideology is, in fact, the One True Faith.

And then, inevitably, it gutters out and goes away --

Report: Darren Wilson's Key Witness Lied About Everything 

In a damning new report by the Smoking Gun, a crucial witness in the grand jury deciding whether to indict former Ferguson, Mo. police officer Darren Wilson is revealed as having fabricated her eyewitness account of the altercation between Wilson and unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9. "Witness 40," identified as 45-year-old Sandra McElroy, has a documented history of racist remarks, criminal behavior, and mental illness.

-- leaving behind the same stink of racism and willful ignorance that the last dozen, collapsed wingnut conspiracies left in their wake.

But here's the thing.  The real story here is not that -- surprise! -- the Right's entire narrative and the prosecutor's entire kangaroo court hinged on the unhinged ramblings of some mentally ill liar.

The real story here is that no matter how many times the Right's ridiculous fairy tales fall apart, it has no effect whatsoever on their disposition or their worldview.

They will go right on clinging to the lie du jour like a dog hanging on to the last bone on Earth right up until it disintegrates completely.  Then they will actively seek out the next, comforting lie and fall for it just as hard,

And the next.

And the next.

And the next.

The real story is that there is no point in this cycle at which the Right ever becomes amenable to reason -- no point at which they will look in the mirror and feel a flicker of shame or a twinge of remorse.

Like old junkies, they got hooked on a steady diet of lies long ago, and unless they are forced to quit, they will go right on feeding that monkey and destroying this country until they day they die.

davescheidt

ughsocialjustice:

mickeyblowsyourmind:

moralvirus:

legalmexican:

penis-hilton:

i honestly want aliens to come and annihilate the human race

mess

Fucking special snowflakes.

don’t they know doing things like that might fuck up their body or….

please let this be a troll. This has to be a troll, right?

And now I’m sad.

thisishellhere:

mydrunkkitchen sooo true 😂

Anyone who still doubts that internet memes can have an impact on the real world should pay a visit to the small town of Borja, in northeastern Spain. Thousands of tourists have been doing just that ever since local amateur art restorer Cecilia Giménez blessed us with Beast Jesus. According to a new report in the New York Times, about 150,000 people have visited the town of 5,000 and made the trek to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Mercy, the 16th-century chapel that houses the beloved fresco since it first came to international attention in 2012.

Many locals were initially unhappy about the attention Giménez had brought to the town, but they have since come around and made of her something akin to a new patron saint. “The impact of ‘Ecce Homo’ has been really great for businesses,” José M. Baya, owner of local eatery La Bóveda, told the Times. His business has been so successful he’s planning to open a second restaurant. “Sadly, everyone heads to look at a painting that, frankly, is ugly.”

Aesthetic judgments aside, Borja has embraced Giménez and her handiwork. She is the focus of a local holiday every year on August 25 to commemorate the day of her momentous restoration effort. She judges an “Ecce Homo” painting competition in which local children paint their own versions of the fresco. And an image of the work appears on the municipal lottery tickets. The increased visibility has also been a boon to the nearby Museum of Colegiata, which has seen its attendance increase tenfold to 70,000 visitors per year.

In spite of the trickle-down effects of “Ecce Homo” tourism, some locals still don’t get it. “I can’t explain the reaction,” Miguel Arilla, Borja’s mayor, told the Times. “I went to see ‘Ecce Homo’ myself, and still I don’t understand it.”

First, I knew I could trust him not to hurt me.

Then, I knew I could trust him to hurt me.

Who else is being Sinful?

dropboxofcuriosities:

Matthieu Bourel - Attraction II, 2013.

peabug:

meladoodle:

AMAZING

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA

It’s actually about ethics in ‘bots, though, people.

Before the Affordable Care Act I could literally not get insurance. I have a chronic disease, ulcerative colitis, which causes me a lot of pain, about $300 in prescription drug bills per month, and will probably give me cancer.

The treatment for the cancer that I hope won’t kill me is a surgery that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and it will be followed by a lifetime of medical bills to help me live without a colon.

Do you want to know why I didn’t have health insurance? Because I was diagnosed in college…and when I graduated I had to get off the University’s plan and when I applied for new coverage I was denied. I was denied by every insurance company that operates in the state of Montana. Apparently this was my fault?

So now we have the Affordable Care Act. I pay full price for health insurance, and if I get in a car accident (which might happen) or get cancer (which probably will) I can avoid bankruptcy. I can continue running my business that employs 30 people and not dissolve all of the assets of the thing I have built in order to pay for the luxury of not dying.

And what is the price to you? To the average citizen? Oh, y’know, nothing. No increase in your taxes, and you’re more likely to see your insurance bill go down than you were before the ACA was passed. Fucking Horrible. I’m so sorry that the sustainability of our nation’s economy and the freedom of average citizens to not live in constant fear take precedence over your bullshit ideology.

_{what if hannibal told cheesy jokes instead of implying cannibalism?}