trust me, i'm a rocket surgeon

bekah // peanut who isn't 12

[justsomeantifas]

2020 Debate Recap

2 old men yell at each other over shit they both did.

trump gets softball question to condemn proud boys, tells them “stand back and stand by… somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left,” instead. 

both candidates and the moderator scream at each other for 5 minutes straight. nothing is coherent. 

trump tells his people to harass voters at the polls

biden screams about not supporting the green new deal and loving cops

moderator serves no purpose, doesn’t fact check, can’t mute mics, gets dunked on. 

mostly boring, we’re all fucked

[apprenticenanoswarm-deactivated]

hey. american followers. 

this is important.

take a moment to study this post and consider what it’s trying to achieve.

america just watched a fascist president openly endorse white supremacy in front of the entire nation. that is not an exaggeration, it is merely a statement of fact. your Nazi president just did Nazi shit. again. 

and this post is so, so careful NOT to imply that the fascist white supremacist is worse than the non-fascist, non-white supremacist candidate. because they both suck! right? 

look how they frame all those times Trump interrupted and insulted Biden, insulted his children; as both candidates screaming at one another. both sides, you see.

‘over shit they both did’ - yeah, one of them lied and lied and lied and lied and killed 200,000 people, but the point is they’re both bad. both sides, you see. 

trump ‘tells’ people. biden ‘screams’. both sides, you see.

and ‘nothing is coherent’. both sides, you see. 

here’s the important part: ‘mostly boring, we’re all fucked’

how fucking convenient. no hope, yeah? no work to do. nothing to be done except for our glorious revolution which we won’t actually get round to. let’s just lie back in our comfy bed of cynicism and give up. it’s so much easier. 

look, America, i don’t know how to tell you this, but this guy? people like this guy? they are really fucking dangerous and they do not have your best interests at heart.

you are at war with fascists and people like this guy are trying to obscure that fact, sap your energy, and encourage you to give up.

and they know what they’re doing. they’re doing it on purpose. 

recognize this. reject it. 

[bajn]

on this day one year ago someone sewed a fried egg to a tshirt

[kaelio]

I assumed everyone knew this, but

candy desk . yeah I know you’re like “it would be stupid in a tv show if a senator famous for being a libertarian idiot whose ribs got broken in a fistfight over yard waste was infected with a virus from a one-in-a-century pandemic and continued to rifle around in the senate republican’s candy pile”. well sorry Sorkin but this is the real world and that’s just how it is

oh yeah because I forgot to mention, it was Rand Paul because of fucking course it was

[kaelio]

As the OP of this post, I would just like to clarify that I believe the Senate is an incredibly important institution. This is not intended as an anti-Senate post, or even anti-candy. Candy is fine and Senators are human beings.

This was an anti-Rand Paul post.

Vote in 2020. Your vote matters, or they wouldn’t be trying to strip it from you. Make your voice heard!

Joe Biden & Kamala Harris 2020!

[newyorker]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Through the Years

A groundbreaking litigator for women’s rights before being appointed to the bench, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has worn many aspects in her eighty-five years. On the Justice’s birthday, flip through some photographs of her as a girl in Brooklyn, as a law graduate who left Columbia as co-valedictorian (but with no job offers), as a young mother, and as an advocate whose greatest legacy may be in the cases that she argued before what was then an all-male Supreme Court—and won.  (Photographs from the collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.)

See more photos here. 

[0x1-deactivated20220826]

easily one of the most weeks ive had all month

[winebrightruby]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought for every single day to make it to this year’s election so that Trump would not be able to replace her. She dictated a statement in recent days: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until there is a new President.”

Call your Senators and demand they honor McConnell’s 2016 precedent: no new Supreme Court justice until after the election.

Then vote Biden/Harris. Honor her legacy. Protect the Court.

[winebrightruby]

Mitch McConnell has already released a statement saying that Trump’s nominee will receive a floor vote in the Senate. It only takes a simple majority to confirm a Supreme Court justice, and Republicans have a 53-47 majority. McConnell will schedule this vote during the lame duck session so that his vulnerable members (Susan Collins, for instance) don’t have to go on record until after the election.

The only think that will stop Trump from putting a young right-wing extremist in RBG’s seat is Republican Senators turning on him and voting against that nominee.

If you are in a state with at least one Republican Senator, it is now your job to call, email, fax, text, protest outside the office of, and generally harangue that Senator until they refuse to vote for Trump’s nominee. They are the only ones who can stop it. It’s our job to incentivize them.

[marisatomay]

ruth bader ginsburg has died. call your senators and remind them over and over and over again of mitch mcconnell’s own rule to not replace supreme court justices in a presidential election year. call them as many times as it takes until they agree to not fill the seat until 2021. 202-224-3121

[slimetony]

hey people who know astrology shit. ive been having a lot of feeligs lately. any planets i can blame that on.

[chandra-nalaar]

earth

[prokopetz]

Trainability in cats is a funny thing.

My cats understand and will obey a number of verbal commands, one of which is “go away”. I don’t use it often, but if they’re bugging me and I’m trying to work or doing something that could be dangerous for cats, I can tell them to go away, and off they go - they’ll only keep pestering me if there’s a serious problem they need me to look at.

That said, their idea of a serious problem that requires my attention is somewhat eccentric. Previous instances have included:

There was an unfamiliar car parked across the street

Their water bowl was four inches to the left of its usual position

One of them had puked on the stairs and they didn’t want to walk past it

It was raining

One of them saw a weird bug

[hollowedskin]

These are all very important things that required your attention. They’re doing a good job.

[blenderweaselhasopinions]

Dogs really aren’t much better.  I teach all my dogs the command “show me”.  How it works is if the dog needs something but I’m having trouble understanding what exactly they’re trying to tell me, I say “show me” and they lead me to whatever the problem is.  Usually they lead me to a real problem (like a toy that got stuck under the couch, their water bowl is empty, etc).  But sometimes they want me to fix things like this-

They pulled the covers off my bed and now they want me to put the covers back

They put their ball on top of the ottoman but the ottoman won’t throw it for them

The cat is sleeping and won’t chase them

A flower fell off the potted plant

The cat is sitting in a box and they don’t like it

One of them lost their bandana

The cat won’t take the toy they’re trying to give her

The cat DID take the toy they gave her and now they want it back

[thouroghly-inconsequential]

These are all very important things that required your attention. They’re doing a good job.

[fishdetective]

my neighbors are frat guys who are apparently incapable of taking their trash further than their front door so they had a friend come visit today

he’s very cute but i’m worried about him because he won’t leave even when i make loud noises or throw sticks at him from behind.

[noctomania]

have you considered instead throwing sticks at the frat boys to make them leave?

[fishdetective]

that’s actually a genius idea, you’re hired

[mwg-drwg]

[mwg-drwg]

If I told you the replies for this were full of Black Plague discourse would you believe me?

[merrybitchmas91-deactivated2019]

Why "doing something relaxing” does not help your anxiety

A lot of the time when people give advice intended to relieve anxiety, they suggest doing “relaxing” things like drawing, painting, knitting, taking a bubble bath, coloring in one of those zen coloring books, or watching glitter settle to the bottom of a jar.

This advice is always well-intentioned, and I’m not here to diss people who either give it or who benefit from it. But it has never, ever done shit for me, and this is because it goes about resolving anxiety in the completely wrong way.  

THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO when suffering from anxiety is to do a “relaxing” thing that just enables your mind to dwell and obsess more on the thing that’s bothering you. You need to ESCAPE from the dwelling and the obsession in order to experience relief.

You can drive to a quiet farm, drive to the beach, drive to a park, or anywhere else, but as someone who has tried it all many, many times, trust me–it’s a waste of gas. You will just end up still sad and stressed, only with sand on your butt. You can’t physically escape your sadness. Your sadness is inside of you. To escape, you need to give your brain something to play with for a while until you can approach the issue with a healthier frame of mind. 

People who have anxiety do not need more time to contemplate, because we will use it to contemplate how much we suck.

In fact, you could say that’s what anxiety is–hyper-contemplating. When we let our minds run free, they run straight into the thorn bushes. Our minds are already running, and they need to be controlled. They need to be given something to do, or they’ll destroy everything, just like an overactive husky dog ripping up all the furniture. 

Therefore, I present to you: 

THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO WHEN ANXIOUS

–Go on a walk

–Watch a sunset, watch fish in an aquarium, watch glitter, etc.

–Go anywhere where the main activity is sitting and watching

–Draw, color, do anything that occupies the hands and not the mind

–Do yoga, jog, go fishing, or anything that lets you mentally drift 

–Do literally ANYTHING that gives you great amounts of mental space to obsess and dwell on things.

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO WHEN ANXIOUS:

–Do a crossword puzzle, Sudoku, or any other mind teaser game. Crosswords are the best.

–Write something. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Write the Top 10 Best Restaurants in My City. Rank celebrities according to Best Smile. Write some dumb Legolas fanfiction and rip it up when you’re done. It’s not for publication, it’s a relief exercise that only you will see. 

–Read something, watch TV, or watch a movie–as long as it’s engrossing. Don’t watch anything which you can run as background noise (like, off the top of my head, Say Yes to The Dress.) As weird as it seems, American Horror Story actually helps me a lot, because it sucks me in. 

–Masturbate. Yes, I’m serious. Your mind has to concentrate on the mini-movie it’s running. It can’t run Sexy Titillating Things and All The Things That are Bothering Me at the same time. (…I hope. If it can, then…ignore this one.) 

–Do math problems—literally, google “algebra problems worksheet” and solve them. If you haven’t done math since 7th grade this will really help you. I don’t mean with math, I mean with the anxiety. 

–Play a game or a sport with someone that requires great mental concentration. Working with 5 people to get a ball over a net is a challenge which will require your brain to turn off the Sadness Channel. 

–Play a video game, as long as it’s not something like candy crush or Tetris that’s mindless. 

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO DURING PANIC ATTACKS ESPECIALLY:

–List the capitals of all the U.S. states

–List the capitals of all the European countries

–List all the shapes you can see. Or all the colors. 

–List all the blonde celebrities you can think of.

–Pull up a random block of text and count all the As in it, or Es or whatever.  

Now obviously, I am not a doctor. I am just an anxious person who has tried almost everything to help myself.  I’ve finally realized that the stuff people recommend never works because this is a disorder that thrives on free time and free mental space. When I do the stuff I listed above, I can breathe again. And I hope it helps someone here too. 

(Now this shouldn’t have to be said but if the “do nots” work for you then by all means do them. They’ve just never worked for me.)

[lovelyplot]

This would’ve been great an hour ago

[h0lyhandgrenade]

This is good advice for anxious peeps and peeps with anxious friends. Seems obvious now but I hadn’t thought about it this way before.

[randomslasher]

oh heck this is…really really useful advice.I wonder if it would also help when my brain does that ‘too fast can’t settle’ thing and flips from activity to activity at ludicrous speeds.I think I’ll try it next time. <3

[talika00-deactivated20191203]

Yeah. Do math, not art.

Unless you have my idiotic brain that would use less energy on algebra than on drawing plain background compositions.

(Not criticising, btw. Just trying to be hilarious. It’s a good post. )

[inkskinned]

actually even though we’re in the era of zoom, i do want to say…. if anybody just listened to students, at LEAST 60% of them would be able to give you a specific & identifiable thing that is standing in the way of their education. they already know! even second graders are able to tell me - my mom is sick. this class confuses me. i don’t like how math is taught.

and high schoolers - sometimes mere months before being able to vote, before being poached into the military - will tell you things that ring absolutely true in scientific studies. they tell me: “this is only meant for 1 type of learner.” “I don’t feel that teacher/student ratios actually allow teachers to get to know their students.” “some teachers are only here for a paycheck, and we can tell you which ones.” “my mental health is a fucking joke to the administration and my actual physical safety is not guaranteed by my living situation” “i was horrifically bullied but we both were threatened with suspension, so now i’m still bullied, just without me being able to report it” “i was told i would fail, so why would i try?”

and yet nobody fucking listens! the admin says over and over - well, it has always been done this way, so it’s fine. it’s cool we wake kids up WAY too early for their natural patterns, don’t you know? and it’s horrible. because the mental health of students is treated as a natural sacrifice for the sake of convenience. 

and i just! want it to change! if it is ever going to change, this is the year it needs to change! and i also know it won’t because a devil person is running our national education department! but for the love of all that is good! if you are an educator! just! Freaking! Ask! Your! Students! What! They! Need!!!!!! 

[jstor]

Institutionalized racism

It’s taken us too long to post this on Tumblr, we’re sorry. We’ve compiled a syllabus that is free to all that addresses institutionalized racism and how it’s caused historic, pointed harm at the Black community in the U.S. Understanding history is key to understanding the present, and in order to make real changes, we need to fully understand the racist history of the U.S. Black Lives Matter.

Find it here: https://daily.jstor.org/institutionalized-racism-a-syllabus/

[fixomnia-scribble]

I would far rather see academia take a bit of time to think and consider rather than reacting hastily. This is not a time for knee-jerk reactions (which run the risk of dying off like any fad) but careful attention to what the short-term and long, long-term changes will need to look like, across faculties, institutions and internationally.

[jstor]

Fully agree. We put together this resource quickly (all the articles were previously published), but are coordinating internally to see how we can address certain issues. Subjects that have come up include the colonialism and racism in academia, the erasure of Black and BIPOC academics, and how we can help minority students more, among other ways we can participate. This is a tiny step in a long-term process. 

[lunnefisk]

*pecks you with plague doctor mask* *pecks you with plague doctor mask* *pecks you with plague doctor mask* *pecks you with plague doctor mask* *pecks you with plague doctor mask* *pecks you wi

[ivy-crow]

Why did you stop? :(

[lunnefisk]

died of the plague

[thoodleoo]

there are a lot of really good ancient roman laws but i think my favorite is that, if you got struck by lightening and died, you couldnt have a proper burial because it meant that the gods hated you

[ancient-rome-au]

“Jupiter cancelled him and we’re not going to question that”

[valtsv]

ive never proofread a single thing ive written in my life as soon the words are outside my brain i no longer recognize them as mine and i want nothing more to do with them

[valtsv]

i write bastard sentences with my evil little hands and i make them everyone else's problem