Laconic Librarian @laconic-librarian - Tumblr Blog

Baby gecko

GRETA GARBO and ELIZABETH YOUNG in Queen Christina (1933) | Garbo plays the eponymous monarch, who true to the real historical figure, shares a passionate intimacy with her lady-in-waiting and lover Ebba Sparre, played by Young.

whataboutbobbed

Nichelle Nichols (December 28, 1932 - )

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“Uhura never had another name during the series. One of the fan writers wrote “Upenda” - which means “peace” in Swahili, I understand — not officially, but in some of their fan writings. And it sort of took hold. But when they were going to do the official history of Star Trek in a published book, the writer called Gene and asked him was “Uhura” her first name or her last name? Gene said, “Well, Nichelle and I never decided.” We always leaned towards it being her last name because it’s taken from the Swahili “uhuru” which means freedom. So it would sort of be like the same as “Freeman.” So he said, “You can make it her last name.” The writer said, “What about her first name? I’ve come up with one in Swahili. It’s Nyota.” Gene said, “I can’t give you that permission because Nichelle and I named her together, and she has rights to that, so you’ll have to call her and get her permission.” So he gave him my number, and he called me and I laughed and was delighted. He said, “I have a name and it’s Nyota.” I said, “That’s quite beautiful. What does it mean?” He said, “It means ‘star’.” I said, “You can have my permission!” So I have since said that her name is Nyota Upenda Uhura, which would mean a free-floating star: “star of freedom and peace”. I like that.” — NICHELLE NICHOLS

lestatfag

STAY SAFE!! [ID: the Gilbert Baker pride flag with the words “Happy pride to all those who are unable to celebrate openly and safely. You are loved and seen!” in all-caps black text over it. /end ID]

chicinsilk

US Vogue June 1960

Isabella Albonico wears a short black silk shantung evening dress with a point d'esprit apron. Made to order by Mainbocher. Bracelet: Cartier.

Isabella Albonico porte une petite robe de soirée en shantung de soie noire, avec un tablier en point d’esprit. Sur commande chez Mainbocher. Bracelet : Cartier.

Photo Horst P. Horst

thebelfry

I just learned that the Russian word for “ladybug” translates to “God’s Little Cow”

vampireapologist-archive-deacti

It’s the same in Irish! bóín Dé!

peniswizard69

in hebrew it’s “our rabbi moses’s cow”

vampireapologist-archive-deacti

Oh I love this news!!!!

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Multiple cultures upon seeing a ladybug for the first time: “Who’s cow is this????”

thejonymyster

postilionstruckbylightning

It feels like some early humans were naming things and one of them ran out of ideas.

Human 1: (points at animal) What’s that?

Human 2: Cow.

Human 1: (points at bug) What’s that?

Human 2: … little cow.

Human 1: But it’s so much smaller. Who would have use for such a small cow?

Human 2: (panicking but in too deep to stop now) God.

derinthescarletpescatarian

The “Lady” in the name “ladybug” is the virgin Mary. People just cannot stop giving religious names to this bug.

The reason for this was that if you lived in an agrarian society then your survival was a throw of the dice every year, depending on the success of the crops. A failed crop year is a very hard year where deaths are expected. And if you grew a cereal like wheat, there were several things that could cause your crops to fail, but one of the big ones was if you happened to get a fuckton of aphids. You know what eats aphids? Ladybugs! If there are lots and lots of ladybugs around, there was a good chance that it’d be a good crop year! They were little crop protectors! When your family lives or dies on the success of that crop, of course they’d be seen as a blessing and given an appropriate name!

magical-bear-dubin

That is such an interesting etymology!!!!

And entomology too i guess

asparklethatisblue

in German they’re Marienkäfer which also pretty much means “Mary’s Beetle”

istadris

In French it’s “Good Lord’s Beast”

Not even a cow, it’s just a little Creature but we know for sure God loves it.

dent-de-l1on

In Dutch it’s “Lieveheersbeestje”, the Good Lord’s Little Beast

A liddol creeture

thenatsdorf

Box + Cat.

copperbadge

Inside you are two housecats...

Transportation

Okay but I love pictures of animals carrying their babies in slightly precarious looking ways, and the baby looks mildly concerned or displeased

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belovedgoofball

Going places with Mama

gwydionmisha

Thanks to Alan Lomax, we can hear the original sounds of traditional American music: from blues out of the Mississippi Delta, to jazz and mo

peltk9

The Lomax Digital Archive (formerly the Online Alan Lomax Archive) provides free access to audio/visual collections compiled across seven de

high-warlock-of-brooklyn

One of the major ways Elementary stands out from other Holmes adaptations to me is how they wrote Watson. Like it would've been so easy to write her like any other Watson, brilliant, yes, undoubtedly, but forever attached to Sherlock. Watson is there because Sherlock wills it so, because Sherlock needs a rock and because Sherlock Holmes is a man forever in need of a partner. Usually.

But they broke that. They said this is Dr Joan Watson, and she is incandescent and ruthless. She's a surgeon and there's an episode where Sherlock says surgeons have a healthy dose of god complex and you think sure buddy and then Joan threatens Moriarty in the middle of a restaurant and you go, huh. She learns to pick pockets and watches out of boredom. She changed careers over and over again till she found the one that fit. She became a detective and could and would absolutely kill a man and vouch for someone killing a man because it's Sherlock and she loves him very much. She's a partner, in the very literal sense. She kept track of murders as a teenager. She enchanted the most dangerous woman on the planet and EARNED her protection. She's a cancer survivor. She threatens gangs and online hacker conglomerates in free time. She's a mother. She's half of two people who love each other very much. She moved across oceans for him and she would do it again.

sometiktoksarevalid

hell-on-sticks

Today in australia they started senate hearings on the bill the government hopes will make enough disabled people die or disappear to make us all less irritatingly expensive for them. We had two weeks to submit feedback on over 400 pages of complicated legal terms. They don't care what we have to say and they don’t care that this will kill people and disenfranchise disabled people across the country.

There are 760,000 Australians on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the system that - if they feel like it and your personalised plan says you get to have it - provides funding for everything from personal hygiene care to support workers to therapies to assistive technology. It's already very hard for disabled people to get on the NDIS, regardless of your disability. It's near impossible to access most support and equipment without being on the NDIS. And the government has announced that they want that number to drop to 600,000 in four years. 160,000 of us cut off the Scheme - and countless more denied access. This will cause deaths. People will die and people will suffer because there is no safety net. The NDIS is the only option for most of us. Even private health insurance doesn't cover most of these things. Nobody will swoop in to save us.

The bill wants to give the (non disabled!) NDIS minister basically unlimited power to cut our funding. They're already planning what they'd do with that power. What rights they'll strip from us. What dignity and freedom they'll remove to make their budget look better.

The bill wants to force people to try every treatment out there before they're allowed to be on the NDIS. Including if the treatment is literally impossible to access. There’s a lot of us living in regional areas or out bush who can't just pop to the capital cities for specialists. This will especially hurt disabled First Nations people in regional and remote communities, who already experience limited access to healthcare.

If you're australian and worried, the ABC did a good breakdown of the proposed changes.

I know australia stuff doesn't really pop up on the radar on this site, but I want everyone to know what's going on. What we're fighting for here. Your australian disabled friends might be NDIS participants fearing for their life, rights, and freedom. They might not be a participant and afraid these changes mean they never will have access. We deserve better. The government built a system with no backup plan, and now they want hundreds of thousands of disabled people to pay the price for their bad planning.

Sorry we're too expensive to have rights, I guess.