[softrsoftest]

courtroom sketches of courtney love

[sheepiebeepie-deactivated202603]

Your conspiracies are so lame "Courtney Love killed Kurt" that's so unimaginative, Courtney Love did 9/11

[its-terf-or-nothin]

RIP Maria Niotis and Isabella Salas. They were recently murdered in a hit-and-run committed by a Right-Wing extremist that was infuriated at their criticism of Charlie Kirk.

[paleo-violet]

It's not that simple. Unfortunately, it's even worse: the killer, a 17 year old classmate, had been stalking and harassing Maria Niotis for months.

"According to the New York Times, Vincent P. Battiloro, 17, had been fixated on Maria Niotis for months. Battiloro, who has tens of thousands of followers as a video game streamer, had taunted Niotis and her mother a week before the crash, ordering pizzas to their house as a prank.

Niotis’ mother also told a friend she had called the police multiple times because Battiloro had parked outside the family’s house and refused to leave.

Niotis’ friends stated Battiloro had harassed her.

Another friend and former boyfriend of Niotis, Elio Martinez, told the outlet that she and Battiloro had gone to school together and that she had complained to the principal and the police about him. In an exchange of Instagram messages in April between him and an account linked to Battiloro’s other social media accounts, Martinez told Battiloro to leave Niotis alone.

In response, Battiloro threatened to release nude photos of Niotis.

"I’m not leaving her alone until she apologizes to me,” Martinez said Battiloro wrote him. “I did it to one girl. I’ll do it to another. Keep running your mouth and I’ll create your girls’ nudes right now.”

Currently, the case is in the juvenile court, but minors 15 or older can be tried as adults in the state if a prosecutor files a waiver motion and the court finds probable cause. It’s not yet clear if Battiloro will be charged as an adult.

The victims’ families released a statement to FOX 5, saying, “It is now vital that the truth be shared: this was not an e-bike accident, and it was not a hit-and-run. This was murder in the first degree.”

...

So.

This 17 year old male relentlessly stalked and harassed one of the girls and her family for MONTHS. She and her family tried to get help from the police, from her school, for MONTHS. He threatened to create AI nudes of her, and nothing was done. He targeted her at school, at home, and, finally, on the street where he murdered her and Isabella Salas.

I'm finding out if the families have a gofundme and donating right now.

EDIT: apparently, the city police chief is the perpetrator's uncle. At the moment, he does not seem to be impeding the investigation in any way, but he must have known about the reports filed against his nephew. The cherry on top? He's facing a lawsuit for discrimination, being "accused of retaliating against former police officer Matthew O'Holla, who said he reported alleged sexual harassment."

[paleo-violet]

Update: they do have a gofundme, linked in this CNN article. The fundraiser has received 160k so far.

Donate to Support for Burnside Avenue Tragedy Victims, organized by Tiffany Pinero

It is with the heaviest heart that we share, last night the horrific accide… Tiffany Pinero needs your support for Support for Burnside Aven

[exdivine]

Before he was charged with intentionally hitting and killing Maria Niotis and Isabella Sala, Battiloro left the scene of the crime, and proceeded to livestream himself rambling about getting "vengenance" against these girls. No remorse whatsoever after murding two teenage girls, whom he was publicly TORTURING while police did NOTHING. I hope they try him as an adult.

Vincent P. Battiloro harassed teen girl, ranted about ‘vengeance’ in livestreams before deadly crash

Vincent Battiloro, 17, intentionally hit Maria Niotis and Isabella Salas with a vehicle in Cranford while doing 70 mph, authorities said.

Archive Link

[transpondster]

Two Days Talking to People Looking for Jobs at ICE | Yanis Varoufuckice

Last week I attended a Dept of Homeland Security job fair in Chantilly, Virginia. I learned about the event while browsing the DHS website.

The last applicant I spoke to said he didn’t care much about the politics of ICE—it was just that he thought his taxes shouldn’t be used to buy school supplies for “illegal alien children.” What he was really interested in, he said, was parlaying his wages as a deportation officer into buying Airbnbs. “My classmates came up in the same environment as me,” he said, “but now they’re off posting photographs of Lamborghinis on Instagram, standing on balconies of waterfront apartments.” 

Once, in the early part of his career, the [applicant’s father, who had worked at ICE,] had gotten to travel to Southeast Asia on various deportation flights and had sent his son photographs of a beautiful waterfall in Cambodia. “I was like, what the fuck dad?” the young man said. “I thought you were supposed to be deporting people!” 

The prospect of travel excited this applicant. And in fact over and over the DHS agents at the fair emphasized how it was the best part of their job. 

A longtime ICE agent said he had accompanied undocumented immigrants on deportation flights to more than fifty countries and stayed in numerous three- and four-star hotels. A White House rooftop sniper said that she had had “amazing experiences in foreign countries” and that the camaraderie of her sniper team reminded her of her college volleyball team. 

A CBP agent in Arizona said his favorite part of the job was riding horses through the mountains. The staff of the EMT Hazardous Agent Mitigation & Medical Emergency Response team (Hammer) said that he traveled with his ambulance all over the world, loading it into massive C17 airplanes and then sleeping beside it midair. He said it was “almost like camping.” 

The motivating force behind American career fascism would appear to be wanderlust.

[madamserpentessa]

“The fruit was never an apple”

Max Svabinsky, (1873-1962)

“In Paradise” circa 1918

[mirrormirror2]

Beautiful Street Art in Hollywood. Walk of shame. By the way .....FUCK DONALD TRUMP!

[ralfmaximus]

Fun fact: every time his star is destroyed he has to reapply to the Walk Of Fame people to have the star reinstated. The fee for that was raised in 2020 to $50,000 per incident.

[werewolfetone]

Not an attempt to downplay current happenings at All but I am noticing a scary number of people acting like certain political developments in the usa are brand new and shocking and unfathomable as though that government did not put japanese people in concentration camps and do the chinese exclusion act and lynch mexicans in an institutionalised form with the texas rangers and let the KKK exist and well the entire relationship between the average settler and indigenous people for the past like 400 years and so on and so forth

[werewolfetone]

"Giving ice more money is going to totally restructure the usa because this is unprecedented" no, white usamerican tumblr user, it isn't, because ice is just the latest manifestation of something that has existed for centuries by now and you just got to ignore it before because it isn't YOUR ancestors who the evils ice is descended from were murdering, disappearing, raping, stealing from, displacing, etc

[kaftan]

Tag yourself as this list of “bad art” features, according to a twitter fascist

[dragonheart2497]

“Never Forget” until the new target is those that they disagree with.

Edit: please watch this video essay by Jacob Geller. It speaks on really important points as to how “bad art” is a weapon of fascism and how it reflects the Degenerate Art Exhibition(s)

[aetherograph]

It's worth noting that the nazis were happening at the same time as Modern Art, and the transition from Representative to Abstract art.

Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. By the end of the 19th century, many artists felt a need to create a new kind of art which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. (from Wikipedia)

This is a reaction to paintings like this:

(Tableau I, Piet Mondrian, 1921)

(Champs de Mars: La Tour Rouge by Robert Delaunay, 1911)

But it wasn't just paintings. The nazis also thought architecture was "degenerate". Stuff like this:

(A Bauhaus style building in Chemnitz)

(La Samaritaine department store in Paris by Henri Sauvage (1925–1928)

(Club Moderne, designed by architect Fred F. Willson and built by Frank Wullus in 1937 for John Francisco)

I am showing you because it is important to understand what they were calling "degenerate", and understand that Art in the West had been moving away from representing reality and into specifically NOT doing that for SOME DECADES. They had likely grown up with new styles of architecture that were a radical departure from all that had come before (Nouveau, Deco, Moderne, Modern, Futurism, Bauhaus), ditto with philosophy, paintings, clothing, even gender politics. The Weimar Republic was the centre of the cutting edge of queer rights and that was largely thanks to people like Hirschfeld, basically the first person in the West to say there was nothing particularly wrong with trans people and help them transition and live their lives to the fullest. He also wrote and advocated for the queer community, and kept a huge library (which was burned by nazis in 1933 during one of these sweeps for "degenerate art").

This is what they're calling degenerate. They're whiny babies panicking because THINGS are CHANGING and CHANGE is SCARY and I'm gonna make it stop by setting things that are different on fire. These are deeply unserious people that need to grow the fuck up.

[marzipanandminutiae]

it's also worth noting that the needle on what constituted "degenerate" art and architecture was always changing, too

just when you think fascists only hated then-modern architecture, here's what fascist architect Le Corbusier wanted Paris to look like:

much like "trad" types today, they only liked "traditional" art and architecture when it conformed to their imaginary vision of what the past was

(also can everyone in the notes please remember that there's a difference between "this style is not my thing and I wish not ALL buildings nowadays looked like that, plus companies only build that way because it's cheaper and safely bland" and "this is Degenerate and Destroying Western Civilization?" thanks)

[hurenisvoordeburen]

It’s a threat!

[keirametzbrassknuckles]

RIP Richard Serra. You made so many people so so so mad

[keirametzbrassknuckles]

In honor of this guy's passing let me once again tell the story of my favorite piece of art ever - Tilted Arc.

Commissioned by the US government in 1979 the work was made up of a 12x120 foot sheet of cor-ten steel which bisected Foley federal plaza in Manhattan. That's it. Just a sheet of metal in a plaza between several government buildings. It doesnt do anything. But it made people So Angry and also made the best argument I've ever seen for the worth of public art.

Foley square is the sqare around which the NY County courthouse, US Court of appeals, and several international ans national seats of law are positioned, which makes it a very important governmental spot in the US. These are the courts that don't send billionaires to jail and rule in class action suits against the prosecution.

The sculpture was installed after a lengthy period during which Serra carefully watched the way people interacted with and moved through the space. His artwork was as much a piece of participatory performance as it was a piece of sculpture, using the general public as part of the piece itself.

Of course everyone fucking hated it.

Because of the way the structure was positioned, lawyers and government employees had to walk around the structure, not only disrupting their habitual path of movement and allowing time for contemplation, but also making them contend directly with the people they were supposed to be working in the best interest of. The sculpture became a site of impromptu games of soccer between neighborhood kids, a makeshift arena for buskers because of the accoustics, and a windbreak under which the homeless could take shelter. It was a sculpture which made one intensely aware of their trajectory in space and thereby the world. While, granted, not as good as the park which had been initially considered (and which is there today) it did function as a living community space in ways it previously had not.

There were multiple hearings at which artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Joan Jonas, and Keith Harring argued in support of keeping the piece. But to no avail. After a protracted legal battle -- during which Serra stated his right to free speech and that the government itself had greenlit the commission and the government argued that the curvature of the piece would cause bomb blasts to ricochet into the courthouse (what?)-- the piece was dismantled in 1989 and is stored in a warehouse somewhere in Brooklyn to this day.

Ultimately the commission and subsequent censorship of the piece triggered long running debates over Institution vs. Public, general poor urban planning, public perception of art, and the creation of environments as art which continue to rage within sectors from public policy to architecture to art. It really shifted the discourse and formed the basis of a lot of my own academic inquiry.

Public art should not (and arguably can not) be just pure aesthetic frosting on the cake of life. It needs to activate a space, and, more importantly, activate people within that space. Contemporary art should make you uncomfortable, should make you think, and this piece really speaks to the general societal fear of anything that disrupts our routines or makes us think about our environment too much. It was a wakeup call and a community space and a free speech argument and an example of the stupidity of the US government all wrapped up in one thing and I love it so so so very much.

Anyway, RIP Richard. You made so many people so mad and so many people so happy. Hope you're frolicking in a field of rusty steel monoliths as was your happy place.

[zooophagous]

I have been a sheep caretaker for like two days and already I'm like. Wow. I get it.

I get why these were some of the earliest mammals to ever be domesticated. They look up to humans with this sort of dumb but all at once innocent and pure and trusting expression. They're happy to see you. They follow you around. They like to be rubbed under their chins. Maybe its just some latent Scottish highland shepherd DNA I still have in me but I look at my sheep charges and suddenly I see why the love of God for humanity is so often described as a shepherd and his sheep. I'd fight a wolf for these guys. I'd go way the Hell out of my way for them. I'd carry their young for miles on my own back.

[upward-bound]

nearly 80k reblogs and how many of you eat lamb

[zooophagous]

The ancient shepherds I'm referencing also ate lamb lol

[bff0f7]

so can we start hunting down white liberals now or what

[adamtheredbeard]

The full picture is even more heart breaking after you open the uncropped version. Just a heads-up, it's rough

“The Roman Catholic Parish in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan was just grafitted.”

[afronerdism]

Nah let’s post it. Let’s feel it. Don’t look away.

[doobiebenson]

[butch-bakugo]

I notice alot of my followers on here skipping these posts just to mess with my lgbt ones, suspiciously the white popular ones.

Heres a not so friendly reminder, as an lgbt metis person, i dont give a single fuck what your blog is themed or if this is too painful for you to look at. Reblog this post. Reblog this post with the sources of the 751 children who were found.

Your compliance and silence as well as the compliance and silence of your ancestors is what allowed these schools to open and kill first nations children. The children of MY people.

Dont follow me if you cant reblog this post or the one with sources to your political blog or your most popular blog. Add trigger warnings if you must but if your political blog is only focused on the harms you personally face like being lgbt then you need to see some bigger pictures and stop being afraid of angering your racist mutural or actually saying some shit about racism. If you can reblog some antifa graphics or add blm to your bio to be a surface level ally, you can reblog some sources on the genocide first nations people faced and still face today.

They were CHILDREN.

They were murdered in cold blood.

[churchoftheconfusedchicken]

I’d like to add this photo I took last night in Victoria of the statue of Captain Cook. Though I myself am not indigenous, I 100% agree that these murderers, kidnappers and rapists shouldn’t have huge statues and plaques that decorate them and say how “great” they were.

Here’s another photo of the legislative assembly from yesterday. Later on there were more items, candles and signs at the memorial, as well as a big poster with 1505 painted on it but I didn’t get a picture

People need to see this. Not just quickly glance at the photos and keep on scrolling. They need to see this.

Reblog this or just stop following me

[ifiknewiwouldtellyou]

I had seen the first picture of the church, but not the second.

I went to a “Cancel Canada Day” event and burst into tears - not because I was surprised to learn of the unmarked graves (survivors told us they were there. Our government pushed it aside, and we let them), but because seeing all the people gathered in mourning drove it home: They. Were. Children.

This is my country’s legacy - and it’s not history. The last schools closed during my lifetime. My Father went to school with students who lived at the local residential school, after it was changed to a boarding house (read: holding centre) for indigenous youth who went to local schools.

They were all children, injured, abused, and killed in my country’s attempt to erase them. I want the world to see this and hold the state accountable to *active* reconciliation> I mean we could at least truly adopt UNDRIP in action instead of words for god’s sake.

[gayvampyr]

here you can read an article about a survivor of the church and some of the things he experienced to help put into perspective how awful and just how recent it was

[nothingweirdhere]

this is the memorial at the vancouver art gallery. 215+ pairs of children’s shoes (as well as stuffed toys and flowers) cover the steps…

[theconcealedweapon]

[butchfagminotaur]

i don’t know how to explain to you people that no matter what a country’s government is like i do not and will not support the US indiscriminately bombing that country’s civilians and i don’t know why that’s a controversial take tbh

[butchfagminotaur]

“oh iran is a dictatorship!” “oh palestine is homophobic!” i don’t care like literally i don’t care that’s not a problem to be solved by other countries blowing innocent people up

[389]

PETER DE POTTER Transmission

[dreamsareforme]

[youmakemenotwannadie]