Dash Of Paprika

Just a little bad taste

[famprined]

[noneedtofearorhope]

image descriptions thanks to image to text machine transliteration

first image is a screenshot of a tweet. screenshot reads:

Polemicist @PalmTreesnGz In 1994, when the EZLN launched its offensive on strategic urban centers in southern state of Chiapas, people clamored for "peace." Children wrote letters to EZLN calling for "peace." This was the Zapatista's written response: #FreePalestine

end screenshot.

second image is a scan of a book. scan reads:

A LETTER TO SCHOOLCHILDREN EZLN, Mexico, February 8, 1994 To the Solidarity Committee of Elementary Boarding School #4, "Beatriz Hemández." Guadalajara, Jalisco

Boys and girls, We received your letter of February 19, 1994, and the poem "Prayer for Peace" that came with it. It makes us very happy to know that boys and girls who live so far away from our mountains and our misery are concerned that peace should come to Chiapan lands. We thank you very much for your brief letter We would like you (and your noble teachers) to know that we did not take up arms for the pleasure of fighting and dying; it is not because we don't want peace that we look for war. We were living without peace already. Our boys and girls are like you, but infinitely poorer. For our children there are no schools or medicines, no clothes or food, not even a dignified roof under which we can store our poverty. For our boys and girls there is only work, ignorance, and death. The land that we have is worthless, and in order to get something for our children we have to leave home and look for work on land that belongs to others, powerful people, who pay us very little for our labor. Our children have to begin working at a very young age in order to be able to get food, clothing, and medicine. Our children's' toys are the machete, the ax, and the hoe; from the time they are barely able to walk, playing and suffering they go out looking for wood, cleaning brush, and planting. They eat the same as we do corn, beans, and chile. They cannot go to school to learn Spanish because work kills the days and sickness kills the nights. This is how our children have lived and died for 501 years. We, their fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers, no longer want to carry the guilt of not doing anything to help our children. We look for peaceful roads to justice and we find only mockery, imprisonment, blows, and death; we always find pain and sorrow. We couldn't take it anymore, boys and girls of Jalisco, it was too much pain and sorrow. And then we were forced to take the road to war, because our voices had not been heard. Boys and girls of Jalisco, we do not ask for handouts or charity we ask for justice: a fair wage, a piece of good land, a decent house, an honest school, medicine that cures, bread on our tables, respect for what is ours, the liberty to say what is on our minds and to open our mouths so that our words can unite with others in peace and without death. This is what we have always asked for, boys and girls of Jalisco, and they didn't listen. And it was then that we took a weapon in our hands, it was then that we made our work tools into tools of struggle. We then turned the war that they had made on us, the war that was killing us --without you, boys and girls of Jalisco, knowing anything about it-- we turned that war against them, the rich and the powerful, those who have everything and deserve nothing That is why boys and girls of Jalisco, we began our war. That is why the peace that we want is not the peace that we had before, because that wasn't peace, it was death and contempt, it was pain and suffering, it was disgrace. That is why we are telling you, with respect and love, boys and girls of Jalisco, to raise high the dignified flag of peace, to write poems that are "Prayers for a Dignified Life," and to search, above all, for equal justice for everyone. Salud boys and girls of Jalisco.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast

CCRI-CG of the EZLN

Mexico, February 1994 Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos

end scan

end image descriptions

[beepboop-its-a-robot]

STORY TIME:

I work in a decent sized, local, indie bookstore. It’s a great job 99% of the time and a lot of our customers are pretty neat people. Any who, middle of the day this little old lady comes up. She’s lovably kooky. She effuses how much she loves the store and how she wishes she could spend more time in it but her husband is waiting in the car (OH! I BETTER BUY HIM SOME CHOCOLATE!), she piles a bunch of art supplies on the counter and then stops and tells me how my bangs are beautiful and remind her of the ocean (“Wooooosh” she says, making a wave gesture with her hand)

Ok. I think to myself. Awesomely happy, weird little old ladies are my favorite kind of customer. They’re thrilled about everything and they’re comfortably bananas. I can have a good time with this one. So we chat and it’s nice.

Then this kid, who’s been up my counter a few times to gather his school textbooks, comes up in line behind her (we’re connected to a major university in the city so we have a lot of harried students pass through). She turns around to him and, out of nowhere, demands that he put his textbooks on the counter. He’s confused but she explains that she’s going to buy his textbooks.

He goes sheetrock white. He refuses and adamantly insists that she can’t do that. It’s like, $400 worth of textbooks. She, this tiny old woman, bodily takes them out of her hands, throws them on the counter and turns to me with a intense stare and tells me to put them on her bill. The kid at this point is practically in tears. He’s confused and shocked and grateful. Then she turns to him and says “you need chocolate.” She starts grabbing handfuls of chocolates and putting them in her pile.

He keeps asking her “why are you doing this?” She responds “Do you like Harry Potter?“ and throws a copy of the new Cursed Child on the pile too.

Finally she’s done and I ring her up for a crazy amount of money. She pays and asks me to please give the kid a few bags for his stuff. While I’m bagging up her merchandise the kid hugs her. We’re both telling her how amazing she is and what an awesome thing she’s done. She turns to both of us and says probably one of the most profound, unscripted things I’ve ever had someone say:

“It’s important to be kind. You can’t know all the times that you’ve hurt people in tiny, significant ways. It’s easy to be cruel without meaning to be. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can choose to be kind. Be kind.”

The kid thanks her again and leaves. I tell her again how awesome she is. She’s staring out the door after him and says to me: “My son is a homeless meth addict. I don’t know what I did. I see that boy and I see the man my son could have been if someone had chosen to be kind to him at just the right time.”

I’ve bagged up all her stuff and at this point am super awkward and feel like I should say something but I don’t know what. Then she turns to me and says: I wish I could have bangs like that but my darn hair is just too curly.“ And leaves.

And that is the story of the best customer I’ve ever had. Be kind to somebody today.

[luzsadventures]

coming straight from my three page long notes app essay I wrote at 4am after seeing the barbie movie, some thoughts on why barbie is definitely aroace, and why that means the world to me tbh:

BARBIE IS AROACE. TELL ME IM WRONG.

barbie not wanting to be with ken is so important. she never has to explain herself. she’s just not interested. and that’s okay. she’s never shamed or ostracized because she’s not interested in ken. it's not played for jokes. there’s never even a moment of “well, maybe barbie will have a realization that ken's been there all along and they'll end up together”. nope, there’s never any expectation. and it’s not even in a girlboss feminism, “she doesn’t need a man” kind of way. she just doesn’t want that, and the movie respects that. the movie respects what she wants, which is something we don't see much when it comes to aroace rep (or like most rep when it comes to women tbh).

barbie also turns down ken in a way that makes it clear that she's just not interested. there's no hesitation or sugar coating to it. we see this in the "girls night" scene in front of the dreamhouse, when barbie says simply, she doesn't want ken there. even later on when she turns him down in ways that are a little nicer, she's still very firm in her decision. time and time again we see barbie knowing what she wants and asserting it. we live in a world where when turning down men women always feel the need to be nice about it and "let them down easy" either out of being polite or sometimes as a safety precaution. regardless, to see barbie be able to be firm in her decisions is so empowering.

I love how this subverts expectations, bc we know ken is (supposed to be) barbie’s boyfriend. she’s everything and he’s just ken (although we can get into the nuances of that statement some other time). that is the role ken has always played. so to have that subverted, to make it clear to begin with that barbie is not really all that into ken is such a nice change.

this is also SO important because barbie is a beacon of “stereotypical” femininity, and has also been historically sexualized. so the fact that the movie lets her be feminine and girly but she can still not be interested in ken is amazing. she is still allowed to be herself, and her femininity is neither tied to, nor does it detract from her want to not be with ken. the movie said girls can be feminine without being tied to male attention !! girls can be feminine just bc its fun !!

I can talk about this for hours it’s so genuinely healing for me. I doubt many others picked up on it, hell idk that this all was intentional, but I loved it <3

[timidsketch]

This pride and all year long, I want to give a shout out to us fat queer people

To fat queer people who never get to see representation of themselves because the vast majority of queer representation is of thin people

To fat queer people who have to put ten times the effort into their gender expression just to be viewed as 10% of their gender

To fat queer people who get misgendered no matter how they look

To fat queer people who can never present how they want to anyway because affirming clothes in their size are either nonexistent, triple the price, or terrible quality

To fat asexuals who are believed even less about their identity because they're told it's just a matter of "no one wanting to have sex with them"

To fat aromantics who aren't respected because their aromanticism is viewed as "No one loved you anyway"

To fat gay people who have their identities denied because "You just couldn't find a man/woman who wanted you"

To fat nonbinary people whose bodies are viewed in the queer community as inherently gendered and incapable of being androgynous

To fat binary trans people who are always viewed as whatever gender hurts them most

To fat trans people who are denied surgeries due to medical fatphobia, have difficulty finding products like binders in their size, are told that thinness is a must to "pass" as their gender, and have their bodies weaponized by terfs

To fat queer people who are viewed as "cringe" for the crime of existing as fat and queer

To fat queer people who can't even buy pride merchandise without having to worry if their size will be offered and then have to pay more than thin queer people just to show their queer pride

To fat queer people who developed eating disorders due to the fatphobia peddled by their own communities

To fat queer people whose identities are partially influenced or entirely caused by the fatphobia they have experienced for years and decades

To fat queer people who are forced by fellow queer people into sexual positions they're uncomfortable with, such as topping, just because they're bigger and have stereotypes forced onto their body

To fat queer people who joined a relationship and experienced sexual trauma because their partner only wanted to humiliate a fat person and ignore your boundaries

To fat queer people who only see themselves in queer porn as a tool for the humiliation of thin queer people who dared to have sex with a fat person or never see your body in sexual content at all

To fat femmes who are viewed as butch no matter what they do because their fatness is gendered against their will

To fat butches who don't feel able to experiment with femininity if they want to

To fat queer people who have an even harder time finding a partner in the queer community because of rampant fatphobia

To fat queer people who have had to hear "No fats, no femmes"

To fat queer people who are constantly told they're not "truly oppressed" because they "don't have it as bad as [X queer identity]"

To fat intersex people who have to deal with strangers believing they're an expert on your body because fat people can't have knowledge about how their own bodies work

To fat queer people who can't even trust that other queer people fighting for equality won't use fat bodies as symbolism for immoral behaviors and beliefs

To fat queer people who can't rely on doctors who accept queer identities to not still discriminate against them because of medical fatphobia

To fat queer people who don't believe they can be loved without being fetishized

To fat queer people whose queer identities are viewed even more as a fetish because their bodies are viewed as a fetish

To fat queer people who took way longer to realize they're queer because they never saw any queer representation that included them

And to so, so, so many other fat people with experiences of fatphobia in the queer community

You all belong. You are the identities you say you are. You do not make the queer community "look bad" just because fatphobes want to use our bodies as weapons for fatphobia and queerphobia. You deserve to be respected and have representation. You deserve to not be treated as an afterthought.

We are queer, and our experiences matter.

[iambacon99]

i’m not crying, you are

[assiraphales]

oh so the military propaganda in the beginning of the super bowl about the player who joined up after 9/11 and was killed “in the line of duty” is actually so much worse than I thought because he was killed by FRIENDLY fire after he criticized the war/called invading iraq “fucking illegal” and the army tried covering up his death

[stele3]

His name was Pat Tillman.

Some day, on someone’s death bed, they’re going to admit that Pat Tillman’s death was a murder. I’m not saying there was some grand conspiracy to lay a hit, but someone didn’t like what he had to say and took advantage of the fog of war.

[tzikeh]

Pat Tillman was also an atheist. His family is atheist. The military and U.S. politicians who wanted to make hay out of the all-American boy giving up his NFL contract to fight for 'our way of life' did not like that he and his family were not Christian and refused to go along with the "Onward Christian Soldiers" narrative of the ever-increasingly-Evangelical U.S. Armed Forces.

There's a documentary. There's a book. Everyone should know about Pat Tillman, and what this country did to him.

[mishastoesies]

“if no art makes you feel anything, make your own art and feel something” is too raw of a line to have come from a jenna marbles video of her painting a rainbow/polka dot seahorse saying “it’s seahorse time” on a denim jacket

[starseekrr]

[greenycrimson]

Why do you people feel profound thought has to come from high places? The gutter looks at the stars too

[aberrantemotion]

not only did you prove your point, but you showed an example of it in the same sentence

[shutyourmoustache]

So you don’t have to watch the video every time you need one of these hacks immediately:

1. If you feel nauseated, smell rubbing alcohol.

2. If you feel like throwing up, start humming.

3. If you have a runny nose, put your tongue to the roof of your mouth and press your thumb to your forehead for about 20 seconds.

4. If you have a headache, pinch the webbing between your fingers and rub it back and forth for about 1 minute.

5. If you’re lightheaded from standing up too quickly, clench your butt cheeks.

6. If your arm’s dead/has the pins and needles feeling, rock your head back and forth.

7. If you need to pee badly, think of sex to trick your brain and relieve the pressure.

8. If you have a migraine, stick your hands in ice water.

9. If you wanna calm your racing heart, blow on your thumb.

[natandacat]

If you're lightheaded while standing up, opening and closing your fists is also something to do. Also try stretching before getting up!

(These are vasovagal syncope tricks, to get the blood pumping where it should be)

[shutyourmoustache]

Thanks for adding another hack!

I used the humming one when I randomly started dry heaving today, and that shit worked so fast!👌🏼

[slowlyshytheorist]

My good people, I give you: Amatonormativity.

[kittykatninja321]

My hypothesis is that in like 10 years gen z is gonna have a big cult boom the way the boomers did in the 70s

[chazymandias]

It’s already happening on tik tok. There’s a fun new thing going round that’s citing common symptoms of depression and anxiety as signs you’re about to have your awakening and that you are actually an alien and the reason you don’t feel right is because you’re home sick for your own galaxy. So that’s fun.

[aleatoryw]

agreed, and i don't mean this in a "haha gen z is so dumb they're gonna join a tiktok cult lmao" i mean that conditions are perfect for the formation of cults right now.

high unemployment and a lot of underpaying, pointless jobs = people are looking for things to do with their life, a purpose

skyrocketing cost of living = most young people will not be able to live on their own, meaning some will end up in a group living situation with people interested in recruiting them

it's a time of great cultural and political upheaval, nothing feels real, people are desperate for meaning and human connection. cults promise that

there is a new wave of acceptance and understanding for ways of life outside the norm, which is great! ...except for when cult leaders tell you abusive and controlling practices are just their culture, their religion, their lifestyle, their beliefs, their tradition, and if you disrespect it you are the problem

social media influencers have already shown us how easy it is to build a cult of personality and attract people from anywhere in the world who are interested in the exact brand you are selling

spirtuality is having a boom, as are things like astrology, crystals, tarot, meditation, energy... those things aren't bad on their own but they are often used as tools of cult spaces

wellness. i think a lot of people are already in wellness cults. you can make people do a lot of things in the name of "wellness" and a big factor of maintaining a cult is keeping members in a state of decreased cognition..... like say, with regular fasting

i think people are just unaware in general of how cults function, especially because the satanic panic was a big stupid false alarm that convinced the youths that dungeons and dragons or doom were gateways to cults, which are scary evil child murdering, satan-worshipping gangs. people don't know how to spot them in real life.

[iambacon99]

Case in point: trumpism

[v-is-a-cyberpunk]

A version for tumblr that can be read without opening a new tab, since plenty of people would scroll past this story otherwise.

[fuckyeah-nerdery]

The bravest woman on Earth.

[unofficiallyjuni-deactivated201]

I love her. Forever reblog.

[theatsymbol-deactivated20210220]

I have the utmost respect for this woman. 

[the-dream-i-had]

please reblog. reblog the way you would reblog a picture of a hot singer, a pretty girl, a tasty meal or some nice stationary. Because this will not make your blog ‘less aesthetic’ or anything. This is important, far more important than anything I’ve mentioned before.

[motherbychoice]

Nevertheless, she persisted.

Persist.

[randomfandomteacher]

She graduated from Oxford this past June 2020

With a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics

[inqilabi]

Um this woman is living the dream

[iambacon99]

Goals

[no-longer-another-bondi-blonde]

[skunkeyemcghee]

Read this again.

Read this to others.

Force the idiots, read it to them

[iambacon99]

I can’t imagine people denying the virus is real

[whitepeopletwitter]

[pseudodesigner]

[sameboot]

This is such an important and genuinely terrifying post. I could completely go off on the rise of anti-science, but for now I’ll just add: it isn’t just boomers that get deceived. This is a warning to all of us.

Pay ATTENTION to what you are being told. If you think you cannot be deceived, you leave yourself open to deception. Question, doubt, research research research. Learn about your personal biases, dig up any subconscious cognitive dissonance. Keep an eye on your mind.

[oldmanyellsatcloud]

It needs to be stressed that biases, not a lack of intelligence, is very much the issue here. Being aware of the need to fact check yourself is key: Intelligence won’t protect you from bad or unhealthy mental states, or keep you safe from cults of any sort. Intelligence will just make it easier for you to rationalize and attempt to justify the malformed tools you’ve taken/been given to yourself and others. You need to be wise enough to challenge yourself.

[gardenofroseandthorn]

As a cult survivor, this is lethally accurate.

[iambacon99]

You are not so smart you cannot be deceived

[acesartemis]

[debthedemi]

We've always been here!!

[niggazinmoscow]

I will never get tired of this

[englishproblems]

On a serious note, what questions we ask and how we phrase them matter. Imagine if a journalist asked questions like these and actually spoke truth to power.

[anthropologyofwater-deactivated]

getting better is like *absolves childhood me of guilt for things i was too young to understand* *forgives present version of me for not being compassionate enough to my younger self* and so on

[iambacon99]

...and so on

[logicallyblind]

hi i’m seeing no one talk about this cover??? this is HAUNTING, it’s dedicated it to everyone who’s died from the coronavirus so far especially healthcare staff i just,,,

[g1sunstreaker]

thank you @thisnightsrevels for the explanation, I was curious as to what was going on

[iambacon99]

If you want to cry