on the windy side of care

Fandom, cats animals, music, art, my so-called life, ill-advised aspirations, unsolicited opinions, average nonsense. loves: Catelyn Tully Arianne Martell Peggy Carter Bruce Springsteen Stevie Nicks "This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile." — Wisława Szymborska

[cameronhcwes]

ER (1994-2009) 7.16 — Witch Hunt

[abedsnerdir]

I mean if the pitt is just ER fanon can't kellie martin show up for carcy endgame

[serenityandstardust]

I'm getting older, too.

[cursedtrekedits]

nothing has really felt appropriate for my first post after nov 5th, but here’s kirk blowing bubbles

[everythingfox]

Cat loves playing until he hears the automatic feeder

[onionjulius]

So

I'm not saying the next four years aren't going to be rough, because they are, but if the past few days of appointments have shown anything, it's that Donald Trump is still dumber than shit and at least some of that will still be impossible to hide.

[everythingfox]

He’s got his thinking cat on

[klapollo]

Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke, the youngest MP in Aotearoa, starts a haka to protest the first vote on a bill reinterpreting the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi

[branwinged]

so, someone called cersei a white feminist on one of my posts (not putting them on blast, don't seek them out), and i feel compelled to point out that contemporary comparisons like this don't always work well.

westeros is a pseudo medieval world with no history of a feminist movement and where all women are systemically barred from possessing political authority in their own right. power is derived from their male relations, specifically fathers and husbands. see, the way catelyn has to rally the men in her father's name when she tries to arrest tyrion in agot. in such a world, when characters like cersei and rhaenyra desire to gain the same social and legal benefits afforded to men, to denigrate their efforts right out of hand (which is often what labels such as 'girlboss' and 'white feminist' are accomplishing), is on some level, refusing to engage the premise.

i don't feel it's insightful to call these characters white feminists because their political reality is very different from ours. this doesn't even work as a criticism of the way they're written by the author, because the text certainly isn't neglecting racial and class issues in order to simply tell a story centred around the personal empowerment of two highly privileged women. they are both royalty who still enjoy power derived from an unjust feudal hierarchy, power which they have exercised to maintain their positions in said hierarchy. but at the same time, the desire for meaningful participation in the politics of the realm is not being condemned. nowhere is the implication that they shouldn't have tried to resist their socially ordained marginalisation at all. and we know the feudal patriarchy of westeros won't allow a woman to possess political power in her own right without the constant threat of hegemonic violence. this is the tragedy of both characters. westeros doesn't respect their authority and in order to command that respect they must go to war, but their support of patriarchal institutions and methods of violence eventually makes them tyrants. and the miserable end that rhaenyra meets (one that cersei will likely share) is critiquing both the hegemonic violence required to ascend and keep hold of the iron throne and the misogyny inherent in the system.

asoiaf is historical fantasy, the thing about stories set in the past is that you're being invited to consider a world with different models than ours. not everything is going to have a 1:1 contemporary equivalent, especially not in a fantasy series. and when readers try to force comparisons anyway, they ignore the actual social systems that influence and explain the motivations of these characters, and also often end up creating dishonest, far less sympathetic versions of them (see, alicent being seriously labelled a tradwife). and finally, these characters are narrative tools in service to the story. cersei and rhaenyra are not a moral lesson in the "right" or "wrong" way to resist gendered oppression, but simply one aspect of asoiaf's exploration of women navigating power in westeros. catelyn and alicent are another.

[unpretty]

The Onion wins Alex Jones' Infowars in bankruptcy auction

The satirical newspaper plans to shutter Jones’ InfoWars and rebuild the website featuring well-known internet humor writers and content cre

THE ONION OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE

[catchymemes]

[cleolinda]

[onionjulius]

In an interview with CNN's State of the Union on Sunday with host Dana Bash, Sanders, who won reelection on Tuesday night, spoke about several issues that he believes the Democratic party should have focused on more, including healthcare, raising minimum wage, union rights, expanding social security, etc." All of these issues are not Bernie Sanders ideas, these are all without exception popular ideas that Democrats, Republicans, and Independents support. Now the people who don't support it is the billionaire class," Sanders said. However, Bash pushed back stating, "But what the voters supported is a man who would never do any of what you just said. I mean, not even close." In response Sanders explained what Trump did do stating, "Right. But what that man named Donald Trump did do is he said, 'I feel your pain. I know that you are hurting and I have an explanation,' adding that "the cause of the problem right now is to have a small number of people on top who have enormous economic and political power."

"We tried hard to do this—to have this campaign focus or emphasize an economic agenda that speaks to the need of the working class in this country," the senator said. "The status quo is working very, very well for the people on top but it's not working well for working people, and the Democratic Party has become far too much a defender of the status quo...You have to acknowledge the pain and the reality of people's lives, or people will say, 'Screw you.'" While Sanders praised Harris for her messages on abortion rights, democracy and Trump's perceived unfitness for office, he—and other progressive critics—said the campaign fell short on bold, economic policy plans that they believe would have appealed to more working-class voters.

- Newsweek, "Bernie Sanders Explains What Donald Trump Did That Worked With Voters" (Nov 10, 2024 at 12:41 PM EST)

[onionjulius]

Reading the numbers: 130 million American adults have low literacy skills, but funding differs drastically by state

(March 16, 2022)

[M]ore than half of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 (54%) read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.

The most recent national survey on adult literacy is from 2012-2017, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics as part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). The U.S. ranks 16th among the 33 OECD nations included in this study.

While Feinberg said anyone can have low literacy, adults who have poor reading skills tend to live in underserved communities with few resources, or what she calls a “print desert.” In these areas, she said there is little signage beyond local stores as well as few libraries and bookstores.

“They likely went to schools that weren't supported by a wealthy tax base,” Feinberg said. “And so, they don't have good internet access. They may not know how to use the internet if [they] can't spell very well. You're [going to] have a really hard time finding things.”

Typically, [adult basic education] and literacy programs are federally funded through the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), Title II of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) of 1998. Feinberg said this federal funding goes toward communities based on the percentage of people without a high school diploma. The funding is broken into basic funding for adult education and literacy services and the Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education (IELCE) program, which supports English language learners. However, Patterson said this funding is not enough to make sufficient impact. “Within the last couple of years, there's been more of an emphasis on getting additional funding,” she said. “But essentially, when you have the same amount of money, inflation [and] cost of living would imply that it's just going to get worse and worse.”

See also: Which states have the highest and lowest adult literacy rates? - source for map below:

See also: Highlights of PIAAC 2017 U.S. Results

PIAAC will release its next round of data (collected in 2023) next month.

[syoddeye]

ok, because i just saw a terrible take, i feel compelled to say that there is no "fic market" to "oversaturate" in fandom. good gravy.

[cordeliawhohung-deactivated2024]

i need everyone reading this post to remember that writing is not "content." writing is art. you don't look at a painting of an ocean and say "eh, it's overdone." you look at it and think its beautiful, because it is, and y'all better start treating writing the same fucking way before you lose your favorite authors for good.

Art is not something to be capitalized on. Stop treating it like it is.

[irisbleufic]

ILU @impishtubist for these tags

[theophages]

everyone says join your local mutual aid groups and build community, but uh, what do you do if a lot of them seem to have dissolved and the other ones don't have consistent recurring meetings.

[luulapants]

this is real, and it's a thing that a lot of people are going to run into in the fact of calls to "get involved," especially if they're people who haven't been deeply involved in their communities before. so here's what I can share:

You can't expect it to be built for you already. Community organizing has fallen apart in a lot of places. That means you may need to be the one to start it. Someone has to.

Your presence will matter. Local community networks are SMALL. That means that every single person has an outsized presence and an outsized absence. One person dropping off the map can feel catastrophic, but that also means that one person stepping up can make all the difference.

Find a center. Any community group needs a steady base. That can be a physical location - that's why coffeehouses were historically such effective grounds for building political and creative movements. It can also be a person or people who are consistent and reliable. If one person shows up to make space for work on a regular basis, they'll be there when the second person shows up. They'll be there for the third. That's how it starts.

Play secretary. A lot of activist groups are starving for some basic admin support. Maybe you're not up for being the leader, but maybe you can organize the Google drive. Maybe you can be the one that keeps phone numbers. There's a lot of unsexy shit work out there that needs to be done.

Count your eggs before you start baking. There is an economics of labor to why activism circles have shrunk. Be mindful of the time and hands you have available when deciding what work you're able to take on.

Build tolerance, build coalitions. Small organizing means you can't afford to fracture over every little disagreement. Decide your mission and your values from the start, the things that are non-negotiable, and don't get hung up on the rest. Be prepared to work with people you don't like. Focus on the task at hand.

Network! Know what other related or like-minded projects are out there, whether they are groups like yours in other areas or groups in your community who are doing work that intersects with yours.

Be there for people. Step up. Offer to help. Even outside an organizing structure, if you become the kind of person who shows up and helps, people will remember you and they will reach out to you when need arises.

[asstrongasyouthink]

some of the most successful organizing ive been a part of was a group in pittsburgh who for much of the year focused on providing snow shoveling to older folks in a neighborhood that was, undoubtedly, very conservative. the goal was neighbors helping neighbors and that did happen but another thing that happened was a lot of italian grandparents thinking fondly of anarchists as that nice young lady who comes by after blizzards

the problems are immense but not every single strategy to counter them has to be. it can just be small solutions sometimes too

[dailyflicks]

WOMAN OF THE HOUR (2024) dir. Anna Kendrick

[byneddiedingo]

sadrobots

Every Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Dance Number “Cheek to Cheek” in Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935)