Disaster Child

Fraser • 25 • he/they • queer + trans

[viralfrog]

[huffy-1337]

THAT WAS THE BEST SONG CHOICE FOR THIS VID

[evengirlierballs]

I thought I dreamt this video

[baejax-the-great]

Somewhere out there on a planet very far away is a civilization that has included our sun in a beloved constellation of some animal we couldn't dream up if we tried

[asteroidtroglodyte]

I like your brain

[magdaamm]

I won't deny I've got in my mind now

all the things I would do

So I'll try to talk refined for fear that you find out

how I'm imaginin' you

[stellaluna33]

Several times on here I've seen the take "I know local theater is bad and cringey, but you have to support it anyway!" And while I understand what they're getting at, I'm always like, why do you assume it's going to be "bad" just because the artists are members of your own community? I just saw a local production of The Importance of Being Earnest and it was HILARIOUS. Everyone was DELIGHTFULLY funny and we thoroughly enjoyed it! There have been so many times I've been greatly moved by "amateur" or student art, and if you can't allow yourself to appreciate anything but "the Best" (and who decides what "the Best" is anyway? This production of "Earnest" was way funnier than the version that Judy Dench and Rupert Everett were in, as deservedly "famous" as they might be) then you are just being a joyless snob. There's beauty and talent all around you. And if that makes me "easy to please," then well... That means I'm pleased more often! And why should I want to apologize for that?

[jakeperalta]

not using AI genuinely feels like the rest of the world is experiencing some kind of mass amnesia. if someone says they never use it, the immediate response is that can't be true because "everyone" uses it to write their emails or answer their questions. saw a comment suggesting that not using chatgpt to write an essay is "like the 90s". girl I graduated in 2021 and we weren't doing that! how is it that everyone has suddenly forgotten that they were entirely capable of doing these things all by themselves for their entire lives up until the past few years!! am I going crazy!!!

[daftpatience]

for real they should invent a creative hobby that makes your hands feel BETTER

[specialagentartemis]

“This recipe is perfect for weeknights—it only takes 30 minutes!” and and the first ingredient is an entire butternut squash cut into 1-inch cubes

[the-prairies-calling-out]

"Why do you buy books when the library is right there?"

Because publishing houses will not continue printing paper books if libraries are their only customers.

Also, I like being able to read at my leisure and generally have books at hand.

[sokkalore]

season 2 of atla is so good because you’ll watch an episode and it’ll be like -

A plot: aang learns to stand his ground in order to begin earth bending

B plot: zuko screams at god to strike him down with lightning

C plot: sokka is stuck in a hole

[depsidase]

[sublimepizzastarfish]

Shame might not work forever, but it *is* working *right now*.

Opinion | I'm a Minneapolis sociologist who studies violence. Here's how ICE observers are helping.

Research into how violence occurs shows that disapproval from the people around you can help reduce it.

Key quotes from the article:

Researchers have known for decades that there are two primary types of people who perpetrate violence. The first is the small fraction who are independently motivated to commit violent acts. The second, and much larger group, are those who commit violence to seek approval and status from others. This is especially true among men who use violence to affirm their masculinity. Research on gender is particularly relevant for understanding ICE, which has an overwhelmingly male workforce and uses messages of masculinity and domination in its recruitment materials. A lot of men may be joining ICE because they think it will allow them to bond with other men and gain power in our society. ... To put it another way, the vast majority of men are only willing to engage in public violence if they feel like the people around them will approve of — and reward them for — that violence. ICE Watch works because it surrounds men seeking approval with people loudly expressing their disapproval. And the noise has the added benefit of drawing large crowds of bystanders who can quickly outnumber the ICE agents, who then have to decide if they want to escalate a situation or perhaps abandon their activity altogether.

And, the kicker? Where it takes 2 or 3 agents to make an arrest elsewhere, they are traveling by the half dozens in Minneapolis:

ICE Watch organizers have also observed that it takes many more agents to make a single arrest when they are around. In other cities, ICE traveled in groups of two or three, but in Minneapolis, we primarily see groups of 6 to 12 agents. The Department of Homeland Security has pulled agents from other cities to ramp up efforts in Minnesota, which guarantees there will be fewer deportations from the places they left. Plus, ICE's fixation on breaking up ICE Watch groups and detaining observers — often white citizens — has interrupted its original mission.

ICE Watch is shaming ICE (among other things, including documenting their crimes and providing a lifeline to those who are kidnapped).

And it's working.

And even if it wasn't working to the efficacy as shown, it's (1) cathartic to jeer at these fascists, (2) shows support to the community that you are not alone in thinking these agents are scum, and (3) still helping because everyone who joins ICE is a social pariah and knows it *because of this outward and ongoing shame*.

It doesn't matter if they think we're degenerates. Sometimes the things us "degenerates" say will stick and hit a nerve.

[leebrontide]

These boys are falling apart so fast ICE is trying to recruit therapists. Which is what inspired my earlier post about how treating these guys is a huge liability therapists don’t want to take on.

Also it is critical to us in the target area to signal unambiguous support for our neighbors and that those opposing ICE have significant and broad support.

[cadmiumflavoredsoju]

So if for some goddamn reason you still have tiktok? Maybe delete it

This shit is dystopian as fuck

Delete it as soon as you can do not fucking use the app at all

[chaoticcosmonaut]

It’s worse than that I’m afraid. TikTok is to automatically collect I.P. addresses, the type of phone carrier you use, the make and model of your phone and what operating system you use

[starrynet]

everybody loved the goalie fight

[carsonjonesfiance]

“You can’t vote out Capitalism” yeah but you can vote for Elizabeth Warren and her Consumer Financial Protection Bureau you can vote for not abolishing food stamp. You can vote for Biden’s millions of dollars in federal loan forgiveness. You can vote for Medicaid expansion to help those at the bottom rungs. You can vote for racial, gender, and sexuality protections in the workplace. You can vote for a million things that improve our life under Capitalism and saying “voting doesn’t change anything” only shows how much privilege you must have that you wouldn’t notice the difference.

[transchaoswizard]

"You can vote for Biden's millions of dollars in federal loan forgiveness" We did that though, and he proceeded to quite immediately and explicitly Not make it happen.

[carsonjonesfiance]

He forgave $188.8 Billion USD in federal student loans. I’m sorry you weren’t one of the borrowers who qualified, but he forgave billions with a B

[carsonjonesfiance]

5.3 million borrowers had their loans forgiven and while, yes, that’s only a drop in the bucket, that’s still a 5.3 million Americans who had a financial burden taken off their back and acting like that didn’t happen when these numbers are a Google search away can only be explained by ignorance or malice.

[emptydragonseverywhere]

Also, acting like it was Biden and not the GOP who blocked further student loan forgiveness can also only be explained by ignorance or malice. Biden fought his entire presidency to expand loan forgiveness and Republicans in every branch and every level of government fought back at every opportunity. Biden was unable to expand loan forgiveness because Trump got to stack the Supreme Court in his first term (after the GOP's senate majority took the unprecedented step to refuse to confirm Obama's justice pick in his last year as president) and bc folks didn't show up to vote blue in the midterms in 2022, giving Republicans the majority in the House and thus the ability to block Biden's policies.

It wasn't Biden's fault that he had his student loan forgiveness plans blocked. It was the fault of every Republican and, truly, every American who could have voted blue down-ballot in every election they were eligible to vote in since 2012 and chose not to. If you aren't voting for dems in congressional and gubanatorial elections then you can't blame the dems when they don't have the power to implement the leftist policies you want to see. That's on you.

[zigdirty]

As someone who did benefit from the student loan forgiveness (on loans that my mother's second husband fraudulently took out using my information, no less), it absolutely provided immense relief. And I ONLY had less than $5k left to be paid back (although I never even received a dime of the loans.)

Reagan put the US on a path to destruction and every time anyone that isn't a far-right lunatic tries to course-correct, the conservative dark money made sure they never succeeded.

Every nationally beneficial piece of legislation in the last fifty years was from the left. Saying otherwise is sheer ignorance.

[callmearcturus]

And as someone who would have qualified for 10K of forgiveness only for the GOP to launch a dozen legal challenges: I hold all of you "lol the dems are useless" people personally responsible.

I think we've turned incrementalism into some great evil that must be destroyed because passing imperfect solutions isn't as sexy and fun as total reform. And I'm sick to my teeth about it.

Obamacare, the ACA, is an imperfect solution. It was not a universal option, and allowing the individual states to choose whether to take federal subsidies that were set aside for them regardless to expand Medicare created an enormous ironic hell. In red states, which refused the subsidies obvsly, you could be too poor for ACA coverage. I know because I lived in three such states. After Obamacare passed, I still was without insurance for years because I was too poor to be covered.

That, all of that? Is about as imperfect and fucked as a "solution" can be.

But then Obamacare literally saved my life. I would be dead without it. A few years ago, in Florida, I made barely enough money to qualify for ACA coverage. And then something went extremely wrong with my esophagus, and I had to get a magnetic ring surgically inserted around my throat or, y'all, I would have been dead in another month.

I'm sitting here alive because imperfect solutions. And when virtue-signaling cowards talk about how the Dems and GOP are the same, I want to scream, "The GOP would have let me fucking die! They have let so many others die! What the fuck is WRONG with you?"

You, all of you, are surrounded by people who are only here because imperfect Democratic solutions. And I think it's hideously disrespectful to the people who aren't here, who didn't survive, who didn't get the SNAP benefits they needed or didn't get the insurance they needed or didn't get the housing subsidy they needed, to pretend otherwise.

If that's you, if you have ever sat there and gone "the dems do nothing, I'm not going to bother voting," I want you to understand you were incorrect. And then I want you to do better.

[madlori]

"I didn't get the perfect progressive Utopia I wanted with a single election so WHY BOTHER, the left is USELESS."

--way too many fucking people

[luckyladylily]

Oh I think it's rather worse than people being mad they didn't get a perfect utopia in one election cycle. I think the real problem is that these self declared leftists are basically motivated in the exact same way as your typical conservative blowhard. Which is if it doesn't directly matter to them, then it doesn't matter at all. "Biden didn't forgive student loans!" actually means "Biden didn't forgive my student loans!". Because who gives a shit about all the good Biden's loan forgiveness plans did? Who cares about those 5.3 million people that he helped? *They* didn't get *their* loans forgiven, so it doesn't count.

I genuinely think this is the primary motivation here. They didn't get theirs and they are pissed about it. They never really cared about the good of the people at large.

[glumshoe]

what do I have to do to go to events where people are dressed nicely and there are plates of free cheese cubes

[nowlander]

Go to the inaugurations of littlely known artists’ exhibitions.

We are always begging for people to attend, there actually is the “hack” to invite your whole family but tell them to pretend they don’t know you. People with money are more willing to buy your work if they think many people likes it, so your mere presence eating our cheese and canapes will be a great helps. Please bring whoever you want too.

[glumshoe]

Don’t mind if I do!

I will dress like an eccentric weirdo if that helps.

[themightyglamazon]

[modmad]

one time a pal of my pals was having a tough time selling their work in an art exhibit and called us up on the last day, ‘us’ being about 8 students who were Very hungry and also bored. We put on the nicest/artsiest clothes we had available (one dude had a legit fancy suit and put on some shades which were Bright Pink he looked like a movie star I swear) and rolled up to the show in pairs, separately. Fine Art Pal has some nice paintings! but nobody is really paying attention to them, so after getting some fancy cheese cubes in a manner that did not betray that we were actually a ravenous pack of starving students we casually wander around the show and then, fairly individually, drift to a stop by their work. Some of us even walked away, then came back a bit later ‘captivated’ by the art (it was actually really nice but recall we were all poor as shit and this was a help hustle). Our group’s interest naturally caught other folks, and eventually there was a small clump of about 15 people musing over this art, and within ten minutes the biggest piece had been snatched up by a shrewd investor. by the end of the exhibit every single piece was sold. It helped pay off the artist’s student debt and on that success they got into another exhibit! They’ve been doing well ever since.

So yes, please attend new artist shows, you get free cheese, get to look at nice art, and you can really help out people who deserve more attention.

[sarahseeandersen]

[figuring-421]

🚨

HEADS UP: The U.S. Postal Service quietly changed how postmarks work.

Mail is no longer automatically postmarked with the date you drop it off. Instead, the postmark now reflects the date it’s first processed by an automated sorting facility — which can be days later.

If you mail something right at a deadline, the official postmark could be later than your drop-off date and may be considered late.

If mailing date matters to you, go inside the post office and request a hand-stamped postmark.

USPS postmark shake-up could cost you big — property tax payers warned of surprise late fees

A new USPS postmark rule may cause property tax payments to look late even when people mail them on time. The change can create surprise lat

This will invalidate votes too

[seymour-butz-stuff]

This will invalidate votes too

ding ding ding ding ding

[carbomcoco]

"these researchers published a paper on something that literally any of us could have told you 🙄" ok well my supervisors wont let me write something in my thesis unless I can back it up with a citation so maybe it's a good thing that they're amplifying your voice to the scientific community in a way that prevents people from writing off your experiences as annecdotal evidence

[carbomcoco]

they did the research in the first place because they believed you and wanted to tell people about it. they are not our enemies.

[yesthattoo]

Sometimes "they" are us who got an entire graduate degree for the explicit purpose of saying this stuff where academics might take it seriously.