Meanwhile in Plymouth, MN, a white kid this past week brought a gun to his high school, shot it into the air in the hallways, and OF COURSE is taken in without being hurt or shot.
Unfriendly reminder that this was labelled as a "school shooting" for several days in an attempt to cover up what actually happened.
Even unfriendlier reminder that after enough push back, knoxville pd caved and released the body cam footage of all four officers involved. The child was being restrained by two officers at the time he was shot.
Brazilian voice actress Ana Lúcia Menezes has passed. The tweet went around and then was dismissed by many when it was realized that she did Brazilian dubs of the characters and isn't the voice behind the original English-speaking voices.
In my continuous efforts to be a less gross American, I want to acknowledge this loss as this is the voice Brazilians heard for so many iconic characters and that absolutely means something.
If there was a sci-fi novel with a megalomaniac billionaire who was the son of an Apartheid emerald mine owner, and he was privatizing space exploration so the public no longer has a say in it...you know that would be considered bad, right? The heroes would fight to stop SpaceX.
The fact that anyone considers SpaceX as anything other than a continuation of the transfer of public sector science, that was run for the public good, into the hands of billionaires is a testament to our propaganda. Having space exploration controlled by one billionaire is bad.
Remember in the 60s when rockets launched and the credit was given to the scientists and astronauts that actually made it happen?
Now it's given to the billionaire who pillaged NASA tech and is now using it as his playground and promotion for his cars. That's bad. SpaceX is bad.
Asked to explain why not, Gates — whose massive fortune as founder of Microsoft relies largely on intellectual property laws that turned his software innovations into tens of billions of dollars in personal wealth — said: “Well, there’s only so many vaccine factories in the world and people are very serious about the safety of vaccines. And so moving something that had never been done — moving a vaccine, say, from a [Johnson & Johnson] factory into a factory in India — it’s novel — it’s only because of our grants and expertise that that can happen at all.”
My name is Brandon Boulware and, Chairman, I’ll go as quickly as I can. I’m a lifelong Missourian, I’m a busy lawyer, I’m a Christian, I’m the son of a Methodist minister, I’m a husband, and I’m the father of four kids—two boys, two girls—including a wonderful and beautiful transgender daughter. Today happens to be her birthday. And I chose to be here. She doesn’t know that. She thinks I’m at work.
One thing I often hear when transgender issues are discussed is, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand.” And I would expect some of you to have said that and to feel the same way. I didn’t get it either. For years, I didn’t get it. For years, I would not let my daughter wear girl clothes. I did not let her play with girl toys. I forced my daughter to wear boy clothes, and get short haircuts, and play on boy’s sports teams. Why did I do this? To protect my child. I did not want my daughter or her siblings to get teased. And truth be told, I did it to protect myself as well. I wanted to avoid those inevitable questions as to why my child did not look and act like a boy.
My child was miserable. I cannot overstate that. She was absolutely miserable. Especially at school. No confidence, no friends, no laughter. I can honestly say this—I had a child who did not smile. We did that for years. We did that against the advice of teachers, therapists, and other experts.
I remember the day everything changed for me. I got home from work, and my daughter and her brother were in the front lawn. And she had sneaked on one of her older sister’s play dresses. And they wanted to go across the street and play with the neighbors’ kids. It was time for dinner, I said, “Come in.” She asked, can she go across the street. I said no. She asked me if she went inside and put on boy clothes, could she then go across the street and play. And it was then that it hit me. My daughter was equating being good with being someone else. I was teaching her to deny who she is. As a parent, the one thing we cannot do, the one thing, is silence our child’s spirit.
And so on that day, my wife and I stopped silencing out child’s spirit. The moment we allowed my daughter to be who she is, to grow her hair, to wear the clothes she wanted to wear, she was a different child. And I mean it was immediate. It was a total transformation. I now have a confident, a smiling, a happy daughter. She plays on girls’ volleyball teams. She has friendships. She’s a kid.
I came here today as a parent to share my story. I need you to understand that this language, if it becomes law, will have real effects on real people. It will affect my daughter. It will mean she cannot play on the girls’ volleyball team, or dance squad, or tennis team. I ask you, please don’t take that away from my daughter, or the countless others like her who are out there. Let them have their childhoods, let them be who they are. I ask you to vote against this legislation.
Look, I know a good number of you are from the US and things aren't amazing there either, but my country is literally on the brink of collapse. So I'd love it if we could talk about that for a minute.
If you can't do anything else, please just read and reblog.
A second COVID wave has taken out the healthcare system. There are no more hospital beds. There's an oxygen shortage. There's a critical vaccine shortage. The Central Government has thrown its hands up and is passing the baton to the State Governments to do what they can.
There are over 16 million covid cases. A record 330,000 new cases reported yesterday - comparable to the US at its peak. 187,000 dead as of today.
There is no plan.
Mass cremations are taking place. The cremation grounds are running day and night and they are short on wood. People are watching their loved ones die while waiting for a hospital bed, and then they're unable to give them the proper burial rights.
Hospitals are overwhelmed. Patients are being confined, two to a bed. They're the lucky ones.
We are on the verge of people dying in the streets.
This is the second-most populous country in the world. The largest democracy. A country that encapsulates over 15,000 years of recorded human history and has endured everything from famine to invasion to colonisation.
We might be at the end. This might be the thing that does us in.
People are dying.
People are dying.
People are dying and there is no plan.
More good news? Variants are popping up. A double mutation strain has shown up. It is resistant to current vaccines. This will not go away. This is the devastation they warned of when the anti-maskers were out protesting the minor inconvenience of covering their face in public.
My country is on the verge of an emergency state. Our government has failed us. This is as dire a situation as it ever could be.
Look. I don't do much with my life. I write fics, some of you have read them and that's pretty much it. I spend my days with my head in the clouds because that's where I like to be.
But two days ago, my grandmother tested positive, had to be taken to hospital and the ambulance caught fire.
She barely made it to the urgent care she needs.
So, here I am, using whatever meager platform I have to cobble this request together. Because I have to do something.
Even a small amount of 5 or 7 or 10 of foreign currency will help a lot. Our government has essentially abandoned us. People have turned to social media for help. WhatsApp groups and DMs on twitter/insta is where we find help. Our helpline is a Google doc. Situation is so dire that hospitals are discharging patients due to lack of oxygen. Every night the same story, oxygen running out in hospitals, citizens running around to somehow arrange for oxygen with minutes to spare. Last night, we had manged to get oxygen to a hospital with 14min to spare.
Reblogging with more links. Listen to @groundzero-and-deku ☝️ they know what they're talking about.
Some of you in the US have asked what else you can do. I'm not the best person to answer this since I'm not from there, but I do know that Biden is being urged to ship supplies to India. Maybe a more informed person can chime in with how best you can help but calling your representative and registering your concern sounds like a good starting point.
From one democracy to another, thank you. Please keep this going, you're all amazing.
EDIT: Reblogging with some more donation links from @spacegirlstuff
Here and Here
Some more posts with links, resources, and ways to help collected by @groundzero-and-deku who is doing the absolute most:
Here and Here
Some more NGOs that are helping:
Habitat for Humanity India
Oxfam India
Also re-adding the link to the give2asia charitable foundation for those who don't want to go through the whole post.
One more comprehensive resource link here
Y'all, this is a good time to mention that I am not affiliated with any charity or donation center and am not receiving donations on behalf of anyone.
This is a list of resources compiled by me and more importantly, other people who have a better grasp on the situation than myself. They are to the best of our knowledge great resources but
I still encourage you to do your research and put your money where you believe it will be used best.
If you find more ways to help or donate, add them in a reblog - let's get as much information out there as possible.
Much love and please stay safe
PLEASE BOOST THIS VERSION OF THE POST WITH THE EXTENDED LIST OF LINKS TO DONATIONS AND RESOURCES
COVID is slowly becoming a “third world” disease. While first world countries are hoarding vaccines, having doses for populations many times their size, third world countries can’t get any because pharma companies want to sell to the first world countries first. Even then, first world countries will receive them first. While rich countries recover from COVID, they will forget about the pandemic while many other countries live the absolute worst moment of the pandemic without being able to vaccinate their population.
Watch also when some first world countries finish vaccinating their populations, they will turn to third world countries and “donate” or sell surplus vaccines. People in these countries will go “Oh how sweet! The government is donating vaccines to the poorer countries <3” when it was their hoarding that led to many, many third world citizens dying before they could even get vaccinated in the first place.
They’re not only hoarding and blackmailing, but the cherry on top is that the US, UK, Australia, most of Europe, Brazil et al. actually voted AGAINST waiving intellectual property agreements for the existing vaccines, something that India & South Africa proposed MONTHS ago to the World Trade Organization, and which most of the Global South voted yes to. So rather than letting countries manufacture these vaccines themselves, meaning they could have their own supply, they’re being kept, by multiple measures, beholden to the Global North for donations. The US voted multiple times to block this, before and after Biden’s inauguration.
Read more:
Overview from JANUARY of this : https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2021/01/02/india-south-africas-covid-vaccine-proposal-wto-patent-waiver-must-considered-compulsory-licensing/id=128652/
Update from February: https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news21_e/trip_23feb21_e.htm
Recent coverage of the deal not being met (again): https://www.law360.com/lifesciences/articles/1363457/wto-fails-to-reach-deal-on-covid-ip-waiver-proposal-again
Map of the vote (colorblind-friendly): https://twitter.com/comradesquirrel/status/1370595876536729600?s=21
[Image description: a world map. Countries in black (US, Brazil, most of Europe, Japan, Australia) opposed; countries in green (Africa not including Algeria/Libya/Western Sahara/Eritrea; China, South Asia, and most of southeast Asia; and Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua) are co-sponsors/full supporters; countries in yellow (Canada, Mexico, Chile) are undecided; countries in light brown (Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam, Thailand, Bhutan, the Phillipines, and Papua New Guinea) are general supporters; and the remainder are gray, which is not designated as anything]
Meanwhile as India is getting hundreds of thousands of new cases a day and running out of oxygen tanks for hospitals, the US won’t lift restrictions on raw material exports that would support vaccine production: https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/us-defends-restrictions-on-export-of-covid-19-vaccine-raw-materials-amid-indias-request-to-lift-ban/
On vaccine nationalism: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/coronavirus-vaccine-justice/
Poor countries are paying more for the doses that remain after rich countries have had their fill.
yeah and the irony of australia voting against waiving that shit is that our vaccine rollout and supply has been absolutely terrible because we have to ship these vaccines over from Europe and the US to here which is an insanely long distance, when we could be making it in the university laboratories that were initially contributing research to the vaccine. Brisbane labs were contributing significant research, even I had a friend working in a lab that was doing COVID research and development. We have the capability to manufacture these vaccines ourselves but the lib government would rather have a dangerously slow vaccination process rather than fund public healthcare and education (as most of the research was done in university labs).
Look, I know a good number of you are from the US and things aren't amazing there either, but my country is literally on the brink of collapse. So I'd love it if we could talk about that for a minute.
If you can't do anything else, please just read and reblog.
A second COVID wave has taken out the healthcare system. There are no more hospital beds. There's an oxygen shortage. There's a critical vaccine shortage. The Central Government has thrown its hands up and is passing the baton to the State Governments to do what they can.
There are over 16 million covid cases. A record 330,000 new cases reported yesterday - comparable to the US at its peak. 187,000 dead as of today.
There is no plan.
Mass cremations are taking place. The cremation grounds are running day and night and they are short on wood. People are watching their loved ones die while waiting for a hospital bed, and then they're unable to give them the proper burial rights.
Hospitals are overwhelmed. Patients are being confined, two to a bed. They're the lucky ones.
We are on the verge of people dying in the streets.
This is the second-most populous country in the world. The largest democracy. A country that encapsulates over 15,000 years of recorded human history and has endured everything from famine to invasion to colonisation.
We might be at the end. This might be the thing that does us in.
People are dying.
People are dying.
People are dying and there is no plan.
More good news? Variants are popping up. A double mutation strain has shown up. It is resistant to current vaccines. This will not go away. This is the devastation they warned of when the anti-maskers were out protesting the minor inconvenience of covering their face in public.
My country is on the verge of an emergency state. Our government has failed us. This is as dire a situation as it ever could be.
Look. I don't do much with my life. I write fics, some of you have read them and that's pretty much it. I spend my days with my head in the clouds because that's where I like to be.
But two days ago, my grandmother tested positive, had to be taken to hospital and the ambulance caught fire.
She barely made it to the urgent care she needs.
So, here I am, using whatever meager platform I have to cobble this request together. Because I have to do something.
this is the most sophisticated phishing e-mail I have ever received and if they had sized the logo correctly and actually proofread the fucking thing I probably would’ve clicked that button
actually please reblog this because someone else got it too. do not click on the links in this e-mail if you get one like it, just forward it to [email protected] and delete it
