What’s Up The Spider Stairs?

Lar, elder millennial, she/her, artist in Reno. Saw apologist. Cat lady. Certified yapper. Disney blog: laurenovercalifornia

[lornrocks]

It seems like the OG posts about it have been deleted so I’m posting the screenshot here so I can pin it.

[vaguedisapproval]

for those unaware of the situation, an indian engineer, activist, innovator, education reformer, and environment activist who refused to patent his inventions, so that people could use them freely, and built a free school for underpriviliged kids, went on a hunger strike to demand accountability from the indian government for the massive amount of exam paper leaks that have occurred during this current government's rule. his name is sonam wangchuk, and today, on the 20th day of his hunger strike, he was forcefully apprehended by the delhi police, and taken into custody. so far, we have no idea where they've taken him, and during his apprehending, a large group of men forced their way onto the dais he was lying down on(because he's no longer capable of even sitting up in his current state), and held up screens to prevent people from even seeing or recording what they were doing to him behind them.

as a result of the latest paper leak-which was a medical entrance exam-20+ kids committed suicide. this man saw their plight, and decided to use a form of peaceful protest, that indian freedom fighters used, to fight against colonial rule. it's something that has barely gotten any media coverage, as most news channels and newspapers are tightly controlled by the government. there were plans to conduct a peaceful walk to the parliament, and before that could proceed, the police-armed in tactical gear-kidnapped a frail old man, who can't even stand without assistance. this is plain and simple fascism, please talk about it on your various social media platforms to put some pressure on the indian government for the immediate release of this man.

update on this post: we now know he's being kept at safdarjung hospital, and has not been allowed to leave, or have access to his phone or the internet. they have essentially arrested him for practicing his right to peaceful protest. a colleague of mine who works at safdarjung, has not been able to meet him or check on his condition.

[ashyminivet]

india is not a democracy anymore.

everyone needs to hear about the situation in india right now. the youth of this nation are going through hell and back to protect the foundations that our country was built on in the first place, while the adults who are supposed to actually be in charge try to silence our voices.

NEET, which is an exam taken by millions of students per year and is the ONLY gateway for medical admissions across the country, had its papers leaked. so many took their lives because this exam meant everything for their future. and NTA, the agency who conducts this exam, was not held accountable.

there was national backlash. cockroach janta party (initially a satirical political party formed by abhijeet dipke in retaliation to the remarks of the chief justice of india calling the youth "cockroaches" and "parasites of society") started protests at jantar mantar, demanding the resignation of the union education minister, dharmendra pradhan. the movement also asked for ten million inr (~100,000 usd) in compensation for the families of students who died by suicide and wanted NTA be held accountable.

sonam wangchuk, a climate activist and education reformer, also went on a hunger strike at jantar mantar to protest against this corruption in india's higher education system. his fast began on june 28, demanding the resignation of the union education minister. his fast lasted for 20 days until delhi police FORCIBLY removed him and admitted him to safdarjung hospital on july 18.

because of this, cockroach janta party announced "chalo sansad," a march to the parliament beginning on june 20th, 9:00 am ist. but the police seems to be responding with water cannons, mobile jammers, and baton charge. all of this, because of a peaceful protest led by people no older than 30.

and yet there has been absolutely no indian media coverage about a movement that spans the entirety of this nation. so, please, if you see this, keep talking about us. we will not let those old bastards stoop any lower than they've already had. we will not let them ruin our country any further. we will not be silenced

[your-mom-friend]

Please look it up. Students have been beaten bloody. They’re using electrified batons. They’re using batons with nails hammered in. They’re dragging people off and locking them up for no reason. People are being beaten, assaulted, and even molested by the police.

The government is doing everything it can except for actually having an honest dialogue with the protestors.

It’s important to note that despite all the police brutality, despite how the government has had extra forces airlifted to Delhi to help quash the protest, this has deterred no one.

Not only is the protest in Delhi going strong, the government closed down every metro station in Central Delhi in an effort to stop them and it still hasn’t.

There’s protests in most major cities in India in solidarity. Palakkad, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kochi, and probably more besides. There has been a protest in the UK as well in solidarity.

People who aren’t at the protest are donating so much food that the organisers have had to ask them to stop doing so because there’s more than enough. In lieu of that people are donating money for medicine, lawyers, cleanup, and umbrellas.

Most crucially, hopes aren’t broken. Spirits aren’t broken. People with bruises and broken bones are still showing up. People are showing up cosplaying as freedom fighters and super heroes and a dinosaur. People are doxxing goons who show up trying to incite violence. People are making reels. People in Mumbai literally opened a moving police detainment van to allow arrested students to escape.

*all links lead to Instagram posts or reels showing the same. Almost every major Indian news network has been bought and either ignores the protests or depicts them unfairly. All honest news comes from people on the ground and smaller independent news outlets.

[hypoel]

poser culture made people think that they cant like things or be a fan of something unless they know all trivia bits or seen/experienced the whole thing.

you can be a fan of a franchise that has 11 movies 3 shows and multiple comics even if you have only seen one or two movies. or maybe only read the comics. or watched one show.

you don't have to pass some sort of pop quiz about every side character in the lost episodes in order to say its your favorite media and you enjoy it. because if thats true then theres no lie.

youre not a poser if you genuinely enjoy something, even if others have seen more of it than you.

[enki2]

[captain-price-returns]

[meangreenspaceman]

fiber artists online making the most insane shit and captioning it like "saturday knitting project :)" as if it isn't the yarn equivalent to the sistine chapel

[captain-price-returns]

[captain-price-returns]

the average red state is closer to Sharia Law than Zohran’s NYC

[natalieironside]

People get mad @ me when I point out that one of the major hurdles to overcoming anti-vaccine conspiracies amongst the general populace is that the medical-industrial complex has repeatedly demonstrated itself to be unworthy of trust, but listen. Listen.

The overwhelming majority of antivaxxers I've met in real life have been nurses in hospitals. I make it a point not to associate with such people if I can possibly avoid it, so pretty much the only time I would have to hear about it directly is if I'm part of a trapped audience waiting for something else to happen. And so almost all the people I've met who felt moved to take me aside and "warn" me about the fictitious dangers of vaccines have been registered nurses despensing medical """advice""" inside of hospitals.

So if anything I'd say the problem has been grossly, critically underestimated.

[captain-price-returns]

Ngl "being so vapid and easy to influence that the neo-nazis and Israeli government are passing you back and forth" is quite a funny bit

[baybelletrist]

Americans Are Cutting Down Flock Cameras. The Company Calls Them Terrorists.

This month people have been tearing Flock cameras off their poles.

This month people have been tearing Flock cameras off their poles. Perched above public streets, they are birdlike things, weatherproof, and they photograph every passing car and file it in a searchable national database. Somebody cut two of them in half at Washington Avenue and Westcott in Houston, spray-painted the wreckage, and left an American flag on one of them. Police were notified on the morning of the Fourth of July. Somebody severed a camera in Rutherfordton, North Carolina. The police department posted the photograph itself and collected more than twenty thousand comments. “Not all heroes wear capes.” “Give them a medal.” Here is what the cameras do when nobody cuts them down. Cops use them to hunt immigrants and to follow ICE targets across state lines and to find women who ended pregnancies in states where that is a crime and to watch exes and to watch women they want, without a warrant and without a judge. A cop types a reason in a box and the box does not check. A man in Burleson, Texas, told deputies his girlfriend had taken abortion pills. He showed them the photographs, the FedEx envelope, the instructions. Deputies opened a death investigation into a non-viable fetus, and the district attorney told them the state could not charge her, and they searched anyway: 83,345 cameras across 6,809 networks, a month of everywhere she had been. The reason they typed was had an abortion, search for female. The search reached Illinois and Washington, where what she did was legal. They found her in Dallas. She came into the sheriff’s office a week later, and they thought she had come to explain the fetus, and she had come to report that the man who called them had put a gun to her head. A sheriff in Jerome County, Idaho ran his wife’s plate more than seven hundred times in three months. He typed the same reason every time. Test. The attorney general found nothing to charge him with. He retired in April. The Institute for Justice counts at least twenty-two officers who used the system to track people they were romantically interested in, and calls that almost certainly an undercount. And the cameras keep falling.

Become ungovernable.

[datsderbunnyblog]

This comment was left on a post about making the most of the Libby app. "Excessive use of generous lending policies" is the most absurd phrase I've ever seen anyone use to discuss libraries.

[catboycommunist]

evergreen

[dragon-in-a-fez]

actually I think you should be normal about ordinary citizens of authoritarian countries and yes that applies even to that country you're thinking of right now

[hadesisqueer]

Two World Cup finalists from opposing teams in this fucking picture, this sport isn't real

[hadesisqueer]

Context for anyone who is wondering: Lamine Yamal's parents won an UNICEF raffle for a charity photoshoot in which Barça players posed with kids, and 5 month old Lamine happened to get 20yo Messi. Which is like. Literally insane

[joyflameball]

[demilypyro]

having free control over our endrocrine systems and the ability to change our genitals is currently inextricably tied to trans rights, and for good reason, but frankly i don't think it even needs to be. it should just be a matter of bodily autonomy, and that should be universal. if a cis dude wants tits and a pussy i think that would be fine. if cis women want a dick or nothing at all that should be allowed i think. people shouldn't need to be transgender to be allowed to change their bodies. free the nipple, enlarge the nipple, remove the nipple. whatever the fuck you want. i dont know if there's a term for this belief but i hold it very strongly. everybody biohack yourselves NOW

[slicklike007]