[byjove]

One absolutely bizarre thing I’ve seen people with children say to childfree people is “If you wait until you’re ‘ready’, you will never have kids.” Like, yeah. I think that’s better than having kids and not being able to care for them, mentally, emotionally, physically, financially. How is never having children worse than having kids you can’t take care of? One affects you and only you and the other brings in an innocent party?

[thoughtportal]

[blanketfortarchitect]

This tweet is almost 3 years old has been relevant since the day it was posted

[sandersstudies]

Our youth and family nonprofit theatre is doing the musical Annie with a cast and crew of about 100, mostly children. Yesterday we had a two-show day with limited time for kids to rest and eat in between.

A parent offered to set up catering to be delivered for anyone who didn’t want to or couldn’t leave the site, and asked that anybody who was interested contribute a small amount to the cost. A few parents started asking if they could pay for other families who might not be able to contribute, and put in extra.

The whole cast was fed. There was food left over. Very few families left to get food or brought food from home because there was an abundance. Kids got seconds. Kids got seconds of dessert.

It’s been said a million times, but people balk at the idea of socialism and taxation and “paying for freeloaders” because we’re devoid of community and isolated. Nobody feared “paying for freeloaders” because those freeloaders aren’t faceless, they’re kids who go on playdates with your own children, or families who offered your child a ride when your car broke down. If we could think about other people as members of our community instead of faceless, we would be more generous and sharing almost instantly.

[purr-in-ink]

[kidnovaseeghosts]

I'll definitely be checking this out!

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Got it for My Son and he took to it without being told to which is high praise for him; Favorites so far are Clifford: Puppy Tales and Maya & Miguel

[mankillercalledbunny]

It's out! You should be able to find it on all available platforms, as well as their classic YouTube channel!

Scholastic Classic

Welcome to Scholastic Classic, home of your favorite iconic shows full of excitement, adventure and fun! Leap into action with Clifford the

[quinloki]

It was a Tuesday in 1981 when the San Francisco police kicked in the door.

Inside the small apartment, they expected to find a hardened criminal. They expected a drug kingpin. They expected resistance.

Instead, they found a 57-year-old waitress in an apron.

The air in the apartment smelled sweet, thick with chocolate and something earthier. On the kitchen counter, cooling on wire racks, were 54 dozen brownies.

The police officers began bagging the evidence. They confiscated nearly 18 pounds of marijuana. They handcuffed the woman, whose name was Mary Jane Rathbun.

She didn't look scared. She didn't look guilty.

She looked at the officers, smoothed her apron, and reportedly said, "I thought you guys were coming."

She was booked into the county jail. The headlines wrote themselves. A grandmother running a pot bakery. It seemed like a joke to the legal system, a quirky local news story about an older woman behaving badly.

But Mary wasn't baking for fun. And she certainly wasn't baking for profit.

To understand why Mary risked her freedom, you have to understand the silence of the early 1980s.

San Francisco was gripping the edge of a cliff. A mysterious illness was sweeping through the city, specifically targeting young men. Later, the world would know it as AIDS. But in those early days, it was just a death sentence that no one wanted to talk about.

Families were disowning their sons. Landlords were evicting tenants. Even doctors and nurses, paralyzed by the fear of the unknown, would sometimes leave food trays outside hospital doors, afraid to breathe the same air as their patients.

Men in their twenties were wasting away in sterile rooms, dying alone.

Mary knew what it felt like to lose a child.

Years earlier, in 1974, her daughter Peggy had been killed in a car accident. Peggy was only 22. The loss had hollowed Mary out, leaving a space in her heart that nothing seemed to fill.

When the judge sentenced Mary for that first arrest, he ordered her to perform 500 hours of community service. He likely thought the manual labor would teach her a lesson.

He sent her to the Shanti Project and San Francisco General Hospital.

It was a mistake that would change American history.

Mary walked into the AIDS wards when others were walking out. She didn't wear a hazmat suit. She didn't hold her breath. She saw rows of young men who looked like ghosts—skeletal, in pain, and terrified.

She saw "her kids."

She began mopping floors and changing sheets. But soon, she noticed something the doctors were missing. The harsh medications the men were taking caused violent nausea. They couldn't eat. They were starving to death as much as they were dying of the virus.

Mary knew a secret about the brownies she had been arrested for.

She knew they settled the stomach. She knew they brought back the appetite. She knew they could help a dying man sleep for a few hours without pain.

So, she made a choice.

She went back to her kitchen. She fired up the oven. She started mixing batter, not to sell, but to save.

Every morning, Mary would bake. She lived on a fixed income, surviving on Social Security checks that barely covered her rent. Yet, she spent nearly every dime on flour, sugar, and butter.

The most expensive ingredient—the cannabis—was donated. Local growers heard what she was doing. They began dropping off pounds of product at her door, free of charge.

She packed the brownies into a basket and took the bus to the hospital.

She walked room to room. She sat by the bedsides of men who hadn't seen their own mothers in years. She held their hands. She told them jokes. And she gave them brownies.

"Here, baby," she would say. "Eat this. It'll help."

And it did.

Nurses watched in amazement as patients who hadn't eaten in days began to ask for food. The constant retching stopped. The mood on the ward shifted from despair to a quiet sort of comfort.

Mary Jane Rathbun became "Brownie Mary."

For over a decade, this was her life. She baked roughly 600 brownies a day. She went through 50 pounds of flour a week. She became the mother to a generation of lost boys.

She washed their pajamas. She attended their funerals. She held them while they took their last breaths.

She did this while the government declared a "War on Drugs."

By the early 1990s, the political climate was hostile. Politicians were competing to see who could be "tougher" on crime. Mandatory minimum sentences were locking people away for decades.

In 1992, at the age of 70, Mary was arrested again.

This time, the stakes were lethal. She was charged with felonies. The district attorney looked at her rap sheet and saw a repeat offender. He threatened to send her to prison.

One prosecutor famously whispered to a colleague that he was going to "kick this old lady's ass."

They underestimated who they were dealing with.

They thought they were prosecuting a drug dealer. In reality, they were attacking the most beloved woman in San Francisco.

When the news broke that Brownie Mary was facing prison, the city erupted.

It wasn't just the activists who were angry. It was the doctors. It was the nurses. It was the parents who had watched Mary care for their dying sons when the government did nothing.

Mary turned her trial into a pulpit.

She arrived at court not as a defendant, but as a grandmother standing her ground. The media swarmed her. Reporters asked if she was afraid of prison. They asked if she would stop baking if they let her go.

Mary looked into the cameras, her voice gravelly and firm.

"If the narcs think I'm gonna stop baking brownies for my kids with AIDS," she said, "they can go fuck themselves in Macy's window."

The quote ran in newspapers across the country.

The court didn't stand a chance.

Testimony poured in. Doctors from San Francisco General Hospital wrote letters explaining that Mary’s brownies were medically necessary. Patients testified that she was an angel of mercy.

The charges were dropped.

Mary walked out of the courthouse a free woman. But she didn't go home to rest. She realized that her personal victory wasn't enough. As long as the law was broken, her "kids" were still in danger.

She needed to change the law.

August 25 was declared "Brownie Mary Day" by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It was a nice gesture, but Mary wanted policy, not plaques.

She teamed up with fellow activist Dennis Peron. Together, they opened the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club—the first public dispensary in the United States. It was a safe haven where patients could get their medicine without fear of arrest.

But Mary wanted more. She wanted the state of California to acknowledge the truth.

She campaigned for Proposition 215. She traveled the state, despite her failing health. She spoke in her simple, direct way. She didn't talk about liberties or economics. She talked about compassion. She talked about pain.

She forced voters to look at the issue through the eyes of a grandmother.

In 1996, Proposition 215 passed. California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana.

It was a domino effect. Because one woman refused to let her "kids" suffer, the public perception of cannabis shifted. The Economist later noted that Mary was single-handedly responsible for changing the national conversation.

She never got rich.

She had always joked that if legalization ever happened, she would sell her recipe to Betty Crocker and buy a Victorian house for her patients to live in.

She never sold the recipe. She never bought the house.

Mary Jane Rathbun died in 1999, at the age of 77. She passed away in a nursing home, poor in money but rich in legacy.

Today, over 30 states have legalized medical marijuana. Millions of people use it to manage pain, seizures, and nausea.

Most of them have never heard of Mary.

They don't know that their legal prescription exists because a waitress in San Francisco decided that the law was wrong and her heart was right.

They don't know about the 600 brownies a day.

They don't know about the thousands of hospital visits.

Mary didn't set out to be a hero. She told the Chicago Tribune years before she died, "I didn't go into this thinking I would be a hero."

She was just a mother who had lost her daughter, trying to help boys who had lost their way.

She proved that authority doesn't always equal morality.

She proved that sometimes, the most patriotic thing a citizen can do is break a bad law.

Every August, a few people in San Francisco still celebrate Brownie Mary Day. But her true memorial isn't a date on a calendar.

It is found in every oncology ward where a patient finds relief. It is found in every dispensary door that opens without fear.

It is found in the simple, quiet courage of anyone who sees suffering and refuses to look away.

Mary taught us that you don't need a law degree to change the world. You don't need millions of dollars. You don't need political office.

Sometimes, all you need is a mixing bowl, an oven, and enough love to tell the world to get out of your way.

Sources: New York Times Obituary (1999), "Brownie Mary" Rathbun. San Francisco Chronicle Archives (1992, 1996). History.com, "The History of Medical Marijuana." Weird Everything, FB december 12, 2025

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Tags quoted from Previous:

#i didnt reblog the first time #because i wanted to verify this #and now that i have? hell yeah brownie grandma

Can you please share how you verified, and give alternate sources, so we can maybe quiet the accusations of "A.I. slop" in the comments?

[redsixwing]

I'd be only too happy to do that. I was suspicious to start, too. It seemed a bit on the nose to have the weed brownie grandma named "Mary Jane," but also, that's a very common combination in a certain place and time, so I thought it was worth the extra effort.

What I did was find sources that made the claim (in this case, that a woman named Mary Jane was a medicinal marijuana activist in California, USA in the 1980s and 90s.) I checked the dates to get some certainty those sources aren't AI slop, then checked that the sources are generally reliable.

Then I followed useful details about the place and time, and other people involved, to explore it more fully.

The first thing I did was search for "Brownie Mary" and see if that turned anything up at all. It turned up a LOT of results. Predictably, some of them were recipes, but not all of them.

Next up, I checked sources and dates. Wikipedia can be dodgy for academic use, but their policy on LLM-generated input is very clear: they don't want slop. I started by reading that page and then went on to read others.

The Atlas Obscura article is from 2018. I found another one from SFWeekly from 2017.

Both of those are decent sources - Atlas Obscura gets a High factual reporting rate from MediaBiasFactCheck, and while MBFC doesn't have a rating for SFWeekly, the verbiage in that article is very close to what GastroObscura has. (Also to what the post itself has, right down to the choice of pull quote.)

Now, we can stop there and feel pretty confident that articles published before the wide availability of LLMs are not, in fact, LLM generated.

...or we can go deeper, and run this all the way back to source.

I spotted references to a Chicago Tribune imterview of Mary Jane Rathbun, published in 1993.

My search string of "Chicago Tribune 1993 Mary Jane Rathbun" hit it in the top 3 results. That article includes some fun new details: she wore a cannabis leaf shaped pendant to her trial!

She also objected to being portrayed as a cuddly grandma up against The Man, so I must retract my flippant tags, above.

The evidence now strongly points to Brownie Mary being a real woman who really went to court for giving AIDS patients weed brownies. But can we get closer? I've now seen several mentions of a 1980 attempt at convicting her too.

The articles have mentioned Sonoma County and a nonprofit called the Shanti Project, so let's hook onto that and see what we get.

Searching for "Mary Jane Rathbun Sonoma County 1980" gets me an article from a law firm; that mentions the prosecuting attorney by name, and points to a book: Lust for Justice: The Radical Life & Law of J. Tony Serra, by Paulette Frankl. It even has an excerpt!

We can run the book down too, just for fun (now we have a primary source.) My favorite used book site has a copy for $1. Amazon gives a view of the back cover, too:

...wow. I should see if my library has that!

The excerpt on the site has a mention of a candelight vigil held for her death in 1999. It took some hunting past things I'd already read and a bunch of shops giving written tributes, but I found a news report about that, too.

There's a lot of information out there, and it's worth digging into. Otherwise it's altogether too easy to think something real and worth knowing is just another bit of slop.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Thank you.

Signal boosting for the Truth.

As I said in the tags previous to this, A.I. is damaging to our culture not only for producing slop, but also for spreading mistrust of the truth.

[ssshiversss]

I'm not sure if I seen any posts going around discussing the recent VERY DETAILED (and honestly kind of poetic in how vitriolic they are) AI generated spambots on AO3.

I feel like I just need to spread the word, because these guys are NASTY. But they aren't real! You can tell that by the fact that they don't mention a fandom, a character, or anything even remotely about the fic itself.

Just wanted to put it out there in case anyone gets one of these and it crushes them. Never stop writing. Writing and story telling is one of the oldest ways of connecting with other humans. It's a gift to this world. Keep writing!!!

[seethroughhue-deactivated201902]

don’t compromise on how you want to be loved

[prideprejudce]

so today a public health official guy came into my class to give a lecture on disaster awareness and he was talking about house fires and mentioned that the reason people most likely die during a house fire is because they refuse to leave their pet inside or they go back to get their pet. and right when he said this my friend immediately turned his head and looked at me and in that moment I had the most complete and genuine acceptance take over my body. I would 100% in front of my family and Jesus himself walk straight back into some raging inferno that was once my house to go get my fat cat. I nodded back

[prideprejudce]

the best part of this post is reading all the tags from animal people who would also go back to save their pets. like no hesitation. walk backwards from heaven straight back into hell. someone even said they would go back for their fish. amazing

[sterna-hirundo]

If you are a person who would walk into a blazing inferno for your animal, and your pet has free movement around the house, here’s a training exercise that could help save you both:

1) Set off your smoke alarm or play the sound on your phone (if your home has no smoke alarms, pease get some!)

2) stand BY THE FRONT DOOR to hand out treats

Do this a couple times and then keep it up NO EXCEPTIONS. Accidentally set the alarm off cooking? Treats by the door. Smoke alarm sound on TV? Treats by the door. Changing your smoke alarm batteries twice a year like you’re supposed to? Give them a test run and your pets get treats by the door.

Most dogs and cats will clue in VERY quickly that hearing that specific sound means go to the front door and wait for treats.

If there’s an emergency and even if you leave by another way, you will still know the most likely place your pet(s) is and can direct first responders to help.

You can also do this for any other kind of emergency alarm. My friend had both her cats trained to go to the front door for a tsunami siren.

[tilthat]

TIL that the reason lead levels in children’s blood have dropped 85% in the past thirty years is because of an unknown scientist who fought car companies to end leaded gasoline. He also removed it from paint, suggested its removal from pipes, and campaigned for the removal of lead solder from cans.

via ift.tt

[squeeful]

Yep.  It also correlates extremely strongly with an increasing decrease of violent crime.  One of the symptoms of low level constant lead exposure is increased aggression and volatility. 

[kurowrites]

“Unknown scientist”? That was Clair Cameron Patterson.

[solarpunkcast]

Gas companies are still so mad at him he’s “unknown scientist”, know his name

[bogleech]

Daily reminder that health and safety standards like these are what politicians mean when they talk about “deregulation.”

[prismatic-bell]

Patterson died 5 December 1995.

Petition to make his date of death a Tumblr holiday celebrated by talking about cool shit the gas and petroleum industries don’t want us to know about, and fighting to continue his work.

[kittydesade]

Happy Clair Cameron Patterson day!

[ailelie]

Oh, hey, it’s almost Clair Cameron Patterson day!

[knifenymph]

change does not come from a place of comfort

[espanolbot2]

Link to the article itself.

[pussyhoundspock]

joining the war on kids reading any book they want on the side of kids reading any book they want. simply you will be fine. it's even good to be confronted with things you don't understand and even find upsetting, uncomfortable and difficult. it's a surprise tool that will help you later.

[nonevahed]

prev tags:

literally ok so not a funny story but kind of funny? when I was nine I encountered rape in a book and I was like hey mom what’s this mean and she explained it and I was like oh. gross. and then like two weeks later a girl on the bus abruptly disclosed her csa and we were all like ????? what ???? but I was like wait hang on there’s a word for that ☝️🤓 and explained what it meant and that it was illegal and that you could talk to a teacher or my mom if it had happened to you and everyone was like ohhhhh I see I see and very somberly comforted the girl (she was safe she was removed from her home and living with my neighbor at the time so it wasn’t Urgent)

[zarohk]

And this is a perfect illustration of why it is important for kids to read or variety of things, and why abusers don’t want them to.

[liberalsarecool]

Clap Back award winner. #MoreOfThis

[omegaversereloaded]

The Palestinians are feeling disillusioned now. We are failing them so much. Talk about Gaza has stopped, it's become less important, my friend. There are people in Gaza dying slowly from the suffering inflicted by the occupation. Imagine yourself in their place now, how would you feel? That's why I'm saying this: don't ignore it.

[omegaversereloaded]

Think for a minute about helping them with anything Your money will go to save lives Money is not for luxury I hope you do not ignore and help even with a little there is a young man named Ibrahim 16 years old He has seen in his life in war all kinds of killings Destruction Fear and even stepped away from death several times So I hope you donate to him Please don't ignore them. They really need help too much. Donate.

Donate to Help Ibrahim's family escape the Gaza war, organized by Ibrahim Yasser

Hello I am Ibrahim, 15 years old, I seek your help and assistance to save… Ibrahim Yasser needs your support for Help Ibrahim's family e

[wolf-aid]

Please guys, I need help a lot, donate to me, please donate. I care about you. Whatever the donation, it will help me. Please donate and don't ignore. Please.

[lesbianbending-moved]

seeing all the 14-17 y/o queer kids who don’t know what v for vendetta is…. u mean the blockbuster film written by two trans women about a masked vigilante who decides to singlehandedly take down a fascist alternate version of england set in the distant year of 2020… and his driving force was getting justice for a lesbian who he never met but whose diary he found, who was separated from her wife before being killed by said fascist gov…. and it stars natalie portman…. okay

[mckitterick]

the movie is great, with amazing acting:

and the original graphic novel is phenomenal:

I highly recommend them both

and they’ve never been more relevant

[digitaldiscipline]

“People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

[lectorel]

There’s strong subtext that V is a trans man and A)the lesbian from the diary or B)her wife.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

frankly I prefer the movie over the comic, for three reasons:

1) lewis prothero as a rush limbaugh/glenn beck/bill o’reilly type is both more applicable and way funnier than a 1940s radio propagandist 

2) it has stephen fry as gordon detriech, and makes him explicitly gay and pretending to be attracted to evey as part of being closeted than actually attracted to evey and having sex with her while she hides in his home.

3) the movie came out in 2005; that is, only four years after 9/11, while the Iraq war was still in full swing, and while xenophobia and Islamophobia were not just acceptable, but tacitly encouraged by the administration at the time. which makes the following exchange even more poignant and sweet:

Evey: [seeing a book in a glass display case] What is that? Gordon: It’s a copy of the Qur’an, 14th century. Evey: [shocked] Are you a Muslim? Gordon: No, I’m in television. Evey: But why would you keep it? Gordon: I don’t have to be a Muslim to find the images beautiful or its poetry moving.

just… the easy acceptance of it. the idea that a religion that he doesn’t believe in and that has been explicitly outlawed in-universe is a source of beauty. I’m not Muslim, either, but that particular moment really stuck with me emotionally.

[triggermangravy]

Love this movie

[machete-inventory-manager]

“…I remember how different became dangerous. I still don’t understand it, why they hate us so much. They took Ruth while she was out buying food. I’ve never cried so hard in my life. It wasn’t long till they came for me.

It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years, I had roses, and apologize to no one.

I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An Inch, it is small and it is fragile, but it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you. -Valerie”

SOBBING

[thistlearts]

Thi movie changed me so much. So so much.

[a-rebellious-waffle]

Honestly V’s acting is some of the most top notch stuff I’ve ever seen.

“No, what you have are bullets, and the hope that when your guns are empty I am no longer standing, because if I am—you’ll all be dead before you’ve reloaded.”

[three--rings]

The film (which I saw in the theater opening night) was EXPLICITLY made as rebellious pushback against the political environment in the US post 9/11. All of the evil politicians in the film INTENTIONALLY look like US right wing political figures, including Bush, Cheney, and Rush Limbaugh.

It’s not, like, subtle, if you were there at the time. Especially if you compare it to the original novel. (I also prefer the film because it gets rid of the weird sexism.)

However I have to say Natalie Portman’s accent in that movie annoys the fuck outta me. It’s not great. BUT Hugo Weaving is magnificent.

It’s very unfortunate that it’s major cultural impact was through a series of unlikely turns, getting the Guy Fawkes mask adopted as an alt-right symbol. Because like the Matrix, right wing people SUCK at picking up on films themes.

[thestraggletag]

I feel validated because I love this movie but at the time it came out it was so panned by everyone because it was “inferior” to the comic, or a bad adaptation, or because there’s one fight scene that makes no sense. But I loved it, weird Natalie Portman accent and all (she killed it otherwise in that movie, she was great). I still do. I had a poster of it taped on my bedroom wall and everything. Nice to see that, years later, it gets the respect it deserves.

[draconym]

I think it sucks that you have to go to so many different kinds of doctor to take care of yourself. It's the 21st century. I should be able to go to a single office where they scan me with a big xerox machine and tell me what I'm allergic to and why my tummy hurts and if I have any cancer or cavities or if my glasses prescription has changed. And then I should get a sticker.