The Enemy's Gate is Down

You have to learn the rules of the game, and then you have to play better than anyone else.

[soulrevision]

An AMAZING display of solidarity from Atlanta, New York, DC, Philly, London and back to Nigeria. Men, women and children showed up in their Gele’s (headwraps) for rallies and protests today in an effort to push for more coverage and aid in finding the abducted Nigerian girls. #BringBackOurGirls

(These photos are not mine, they are photos from the twitter. Please feel free to tag anyone you may know that is in these pics)

[wilwheaton]

The kidnapping of all these girls in Nigeria is horrifying, and the lack of news coverage about it in America is appalling.

[skunkbear]

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I was recently reminded how much I still enjoy this endlessly zooming video from 1968, “Powers of Ten”:

You’ve got to watch the video for the narration and the kickin’ soundtrack. For a modern, interactive take, check out “The Scale of the Universe" by Cary Huang. Get some perspective!

[itsokaytobesmart]

POWERS OF TEN 4 LYFE

I made a little video back in February featuring some other great ways to appreciate the scale of the universe, in both time and space. 

Explore them below:

[revengeofthelostboys-deactivate]

I like people who are learning to like themselves. Support people on the path to self confidence.

[ladiesagainsthumanity]

Seriously though, WHERE IS THE JJ ABRAMS WHO BROUGHT US FELICITY? Read more here.

[lolmythesis]

I pretended to cry and laugh in front of dogs to see what they would do. Such behavior. Much react. Wow!

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University

[united-nations-deactivated20190]

"Girls: the world needs you to be the scientists, engineers and technologists of tomorrow!" said Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General.

Last week Thursday, people around the world marked Girls in ICT Day, which was established by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to help inspire girls to consider a future in technology Share the word!

[smartgirlsattheparty]

AWESOME!

[addictinginfo]

Most Americans favor common-sense gun reform. It’s the force of lobbyists that have stopped it. 

h/t One Million Moms And Dads Against Gun Violence

[larstheyeti]

Thanks for nothing, social media. [theawkwardyeti]

[real-tweets]

[magnolia-lascivious-deactivated]

amen to vine’s twitter

[an-gremlin-deactivated20160222]

Holy shit high five, Vine.

[thearetical]

Last night a man asked me for a dollar as I left the subway on my way home. I gave him one. He then proceeded to start talking to me and followed me for ten minutes as I tried to walk home. He ignored my repeated attempts to part ways and made comments about my body, his body and allude to us having sex. He asked personal questions about my life. He asked if I was married. I told him that I had a boyfriend, not because I owed him any answer, but my past experience has shown that these type of men, when hearing you are ‘taken’ often will leave you alone out of respect, not for you of course, but for the man who already ‘has’ you. He walked all the way to the block I lived, talking away, moving closer to my side while I clutched my keys, splayed out between my fingers in one pocket and my cell phone in the other, mind frantically going over my options to get out of this situation. How to get away from this man without angering him. How to get into my apartment without him seeing where I lived. When I turned the corner of my block I saw that the bodega was open. I told him I had to go to the store and said, again, good night. He followed me into the store, where with witnesses and the store owner who knows my face I had to courage to tell him to stop following me. That I didn’t want him to know where I lived. To go away. He called me a bitch. The store owner made him stay in the store long enough for me to dart across the street, duck into my apartment, and lock the door behind me. I’ve spent most of today going over in my head what I did wrong to get into this situation. I was stupid to give him a dollar. To speak to him after. To let him walk with me so far. To be so concerned with being polite. But what that really boils down to is that I, my entire life, have been told that being a woman in public is asking for attention, and once received it is my fault in some way. I don’t owe anybody conversation, my number, my time. It’s not a complement. The truly insidious thing about harassment is that in the moment, the potential violence, quiet, persistent and vague threat combine with a world of people telling you that if something bad happens to you it’s YOUR fault. The conditioning women receive to be ‘nice’, be polite, smile for goodness sake (lest, horrors of all horrors we become that horrendous monster, a bitch). All this is why we accept being uncomfortable, being afraid, why we consider how our keys could be used as a weapon. The man called me a bitch, and my biggest regret today is that I wasn’t a bigger one.

A friend posted this on Facebook yesterday. Personally, I am so sick of rape culture and what it’s doing to us. (via thearetical)

[cottna]

[owning-my-truth-deactivated2022]

Hello, I saw you comment on a post about how missionaries in developing countries are ruining the cultures/societies of their people, and it really intrigued me. You see, I am about to go on a trip to Nairobi this coming June with the organization Me To We. Me To We is not religious and I'm not a religious person. But, while there I will help build a school and learn about Maasai culture. Do you feel that service trips without the intention of converting/teaching people are still alienating?

I am radically against service trips where people go to “build schools” (or other facilities) in a developing countries, and I find them to be incredibly disempowering and paternalistic at their core. It all boils down to stroking the (usually white) egos of the volunteers to make them feel like “good people” and does NO longterm good for the community.

I just wish people thought more critically about international development and saw through the smoke screen of “aid” that many of these “development” organizations put up as part of the white savior industrial complex. Like it just seems so obvious to me that an organization that goes through all of the logistical and human effort needed to bring “volunteers” to build schools in ~*aFriCa*~ has values that are fundamentally not aligned with those of their communities. They do not have the best interest of locals at heart, at all. 

If they cared about the community, they would be building out local capabilities and talents rather than trying to make a quick buck from western volunteers. They wouldn’t be bringing in untrained (usually) white people from the West without any language skills or understanding of local cultural intricacies to a community that is most at need. Rather than siphoning resources toward making white people “feel good” about themselves and aligning their values with white supremacy and white savior-dom, instead they would be working to give that exact same business to local carpenters and construction workers. Or, worst case, they would bring in people using those same dollars to train community members so that they develop these critical skillsets for themselves and their community at large. Why not actually work in solidarity with a community and build together to improve and develop local capabilities in the longterm? Why must we instead center the white gaze and destructive paternalism, which is disempowering and harmful and only has one longterm impact: making the Western volunteers “feel good” about themselves for “saving the Africans”

It makes me sick.

I also think it’s just so indicative of the deepset narcissism that lies in white supremacy and Western global hegemony that somehow we think that we can “build a school” better than people who are actually from that community. You know the ones who intimately know their needs and those of their communities, far better than the volunteers swooping in for 2 weeks to “save” them. How sick is it that we presume that “expanding our global horizons” can come at any cost, including undermining the fabric of a community, breeding dependency, and pulling resources away from actually building out the longterm capabilities of the people in these communities? I discussed these topics at length with someone who worked in international NGOs for 7 years in Africa and who left incredibly jaded because she saw how the values of so many of these organization was focused on “more NGO, now” rather than doing the more important work of creating communities where the presence of NGOs fades progressively with time as these communities are empowered. 

The structure of the white savior industrial complex is one of disempowerment, damage and harm. Participating in it furthers this destruction and hurts these communities in the long run.

The vast majority of these international aid and development NGOs do not have our best interests at heart, and are simply there to make white people (and other Westerners) feel better for the “good deed” they did once in ~the third world~

It’s horrible.

[rachelraygifs]

This post is very important, and while it mentions this, it needs to be stressed that in many cases these charity construction projects are harmful to local economies. Many countries which are destitute are destitute because they are labor-rich and capital-poor, often times because local and national political structures horde capital at the top (and no, this is nothing like WIRD countries having income inequality, and the equation of the two is disguising.)

When you come in and build a school for free, what you’re doing is depriving the people’s largest resource, labor, from being able to turn a profit, and thus, you’re preventing poor people from getting work. If you really care about people AND build schools (where they cannot afford to build their own), then organize a community locally and provide the capital to build that school AND THEN MAINTAIN IT, rather than doing it yourself. That way they can tailor their institutions to their needs, provide work for their workers, and you provide a constant source of employment for teachers, education for children, and a healthier economy. There are also movements to help develop local technologies that can then be produced locally to free up the time of women, who usually bear the brunt of time-intensive tasks which pay poorly.

[0rganist]

[Watch the entire video of tomska's Sex Talk here]

[bidyke]

Male resistance to rape culture: UR DOIN IT RIGHT

[vodni-deactivated20221111]

which fucking fedora wearing friendzoned nerd made this thing

[nohetero]

yeah but notice that the seal’s intent is to eat those fish and the shark offers a mutually beneficial relationship for them

in which a dudebro unintentionally makes a really accurate analogy for the reason that they’re single forever

[thepfa]

That’s a whale shark. They’re docile and in no way threatening to people or those fish depicted. Seals, by contrast, will attack people, possibly out of a frustrated sense of entitlement combined with poor socialization skills.

[diseonfire]

Well that backfired spectacularly.

[johnbaldesorry-deactivated20141]

life hack: remember to compliment people on qualities other than their looks. remind them of their kindness, thoughtfulness, and intelligence. tell them about how powerful and capable they are.

[saysgoodbye]

[magmarin]

Game Of Thrones: Lord Snow

[olivialaurel]

My dad and I were in a hotel and he tried the coffee and smiled and said “ahh, it’s like making love in a canoe.” and I said, “it’s that good?” and he stopped smiling and looked me in the eye and said, “no, it’s fucking close to water" before pouring it down the drain really dramatically and walking away.

[thedevilstongue-deactivated2020]

Oh my GOD.

[hekseira]

Extreme dad jokes.

[2lazy4chaos]

Good lord…