#globalmajority
anti imperialist anti-colonialist
Japanese woman/nb, raised lower middle class in the American South
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Key topics: BlackLivesMatter, prisoners' rights, liberation🐇
tech, science, indie game recs on and off
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Profile is William Klein, cover words Alice Walker🐀🍽🐘
True love doesn’t always come easy, especially when you’re the last known member of your species. Just ask Romeo, a Sehuencas water frog who lives at Bolivia’s Cochabamba Natural History Museum. For the past nine years, Romeo has been emitting plaintive mating calls, but scientists fear that there are no mates left for the lovelorn amphibian. In a last ditch effort to help the little guy out—and hopefully preserve the future of his species—researchers are scouring streams and rivers for a lady friend for Romeo. As the BBC reports, they have come up with a creative way to draw attention to their efforts: they made Romeo a Match.com profile.
“I’m a pretty simple guy,” Romeo’s profile reads. “I tend to keep to myself and have the best nights just chilling at home, maybe binge-watching the waters around me. I do love food, though, and will throw a pair of pants on and get out of the house if there’s a worm or snail to be eaten!”
Romeo isn’t particularly picky about potential mates, though his profile notes that he has a preference for stocky builds and females who are between two and three inches tall. He is not interested in smokers, but is OK with moderate drinkers.
The frog’s profile links to a donation page, which is part of a campaign to raise $15,000 to help biologists search areas where Sehuencas water frogs were once plentiful. Match.com will match all donations made between February 9 and Valentine’s Day.
As Zoë Schlanger notes in Quartz, amphibians have been particularly hard hit by what some scientists are calling the “sixth mass extinction.” Around half of all amphibian species are in decline, and a third face extinction. Sehuencas water frogs, which are endemic to the eastern Andes of Bolivia, have been all but decimated by habitat loss, water pollution and the deadly disease Chytridiomycosis, which may be contributing to the decline of frogs across the globe.
I just saw the weirdest ad on YouTube. I thought it was for a new WWII video game, but it didn’t seem to be selling anything - it looked like some kind of weird pro-Poland propaganda and just said “Poland did a lot to save the Jews” and then ended with a hashtag about Germany.
What… what did I just watch, and why was it on a YouTube video about sea slugs in America?
as far as I can tell, poland has made it illegal (!) to accuse them of being complicit in any nazi activity which occurred on polish soil, most sensible people objected to this, and the polish government are now putting weird propaganda ads on american youtube for unclear reasons
Hey… Poland? What the fuck?
Yeah they’re basically pulling all the propaganda out that they can saying that they weren’t AT ALL complicit in the murder of Jews and Roma along with the Nazis.
This is a part of Poland’s massive push to erase their own complicity in the Holocaust, and in post-Holocaust antisemitic violence. It is part of Poland’s rising antisemitism. It’s not just American youtube, however. It’s also Israeli youtube. So essentially, Poland is targeting the two countries in the world which have the largest Jewish populations today with this propaganda campaign.
There are multiple advertisements doing this.
I have yet to see one, but I will report any if they show up while I’m watching youtube.
Basically, here is a quick timeline of current related events which make this propaganda campaign terrifying:
60,000 far-right nationalists march on Poland’s independence day, Novermber 2017. chanting “Pure Poland! White Poland!” [Whoops, guess they forgot Nazi Germany saw them as Slavs and therefore lesser? Oh right, re-writing national myth is a part of fascism.] Demonstrators were highly antisemitic, one claimed he was marching against “Jewry.” Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the Polish government seemed to praise the event: “It was a beautiful sight,” the interior minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, said. “We are proud that so many Poles have decided to take part in a celebration connected to the Independence Day holiday.”
“Whoever publicly and contrary to the facts attributes to the Polish Nation or to the Polish State responsibility or co-responsibility for the Nazi crimes committed by the German Third Reich… or for any other offenses constituting crimes against peace, humanity or war crimes, or otherwise grossly diminishes the responsibility of the actual perpetrators of these crimes, shall be liable to a fine or deprivation of liberty for up to three years.”
Discussion of ANY Polish complicity in the Holocaust is therefore also part of the proposed ban. Punishment can be jail time, fine, or “restriction of liberty.” Supporters of Polish President Andrzej Duda urge him to sign the bill regardless of strong objections from both the United States, Israel, and the academic community/Holocaust scholars. The measure passed through Parliament on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan 27th 2018. This causes Israel to postpone diplomatic meetings with Polish representatives, and both Israel and the USA voice objections to the measure.
February 6th, 2018: an article which asks an important question – Poland wants to outlaw blaming Poles for Nazi atrocities. But what about the Jedwabne massacre?To cut to the chase, in an occupied town of Poland in 1941, the Polish residents rounded up the town’s Jewish population, and then willingly (and freely) slaughtered an estimated 400-1,400 of their Jewish neighbors [numbers are estimates as the site was not fully excavated, but rather exhumed in a controlled section], as German forces looked on. The Germans had even refused to let them use firearms, and so the gentile Polish residents of Jedwabne used farm tools as their method of execution.
Then, as of this Shabbat (Saturday, Feb. 10th 2018), jumblr users begin to post warnings about Americans seeing these Pro-revisionism Polish videos on youtube. Others confirm Israelis have been inundated with these videos as well. Although I don’t know if it began earlier, I have noticed that people started first seeing these ads introduced on the Jewish weekly holy day/day of rest, and I do wonder if slipping them in when many Jewish people wouldn’t have noticed was intentional, which feels especially sinister.
I’ve seen these, and I always skipped them because I got the vague impression from 15 seconds of it that it was either promoting a video game I wasn’t interested in, or had something to do with some alt-right bullshit. It’s even worse. Great.
R.M. Vaughan is a Canadian writer and video artist based in Toronto
When you are a gay man in Canada, you can’t speak certain uneasy truths to heterosexuals, even your liberal, educated straight friends – okay, especially to your liberal, educated straight friends. And No. 1 on that list is that homophobia, violent, ugly, good old-fashioned homophobia, is alive and thriving in our liberal, educated country.
Goodhearted straight people simply won’t believe you. Everybody has gay friends now. Gays are on TV. We’re so accepted, we’re no longer an en vogue minority. What fortunate days! Gay men in Canada live in a time and place where our sexuality is of so little concern that it’s actually boring. It’s just dreamy, our little bubble – and a damned lie.
Death positive, or the Death Positive Movement, is basically about accepting the inevitability of death and removing the fear and stigma that surrounds it. Everyone dies, it’s part of being human, but there’s a lot of stigma surrounding it that’s a relatively modern thing.
Not even a century ago, death was just a thing that happened. People didn’t exactly want to die, but they didn’t hide it behind closed doors like we do in the modern west.
Death positivity and the Good Death are also about creating a more natural experience with death, opening up discussions about it, like how you’d like your remains to be handled, and just overall making death less of a scary hidden thing.
Not the death itself but everything surrounding it. Up until around World War II, death was a very at home affair. The family would care for the corpse until it was time for the wake, which would be held at home, and then the corpse would be buried in the ground, sometimes in just a basic shroud or a simple wood coffin.
Since World War II however, death has become a privatized industry and partly because of that people put a sort of stigma on dying. Instead of being cared for by the family. a corpse is put behind closed doors and is cared for by a mortician. A wake or funeral service is held in a designated funeral home. The body is embalmed in chemicals to slow decomposition (and the chemicals used in embalming aren’t exactly safe). The corpse is buried in a casket (which is different than a coffin) and is encased in cement.
Overall, we as a society have removed ourselves from the process of death, putting a quite literal wall between us and it, and have assigned a stigma to it. People are scared of corpses, they’re scared of the dead. Death as a concept may be scary, but a corpse really isn’t. It’s just a person who has passed on. Nothing more and nothing less.
Read this, digest it, share it in your circles. Share it in all your leftie meme groups, share it with your white friends who need a reason to shrug off some white guilt, & your nonblack friends who think they’re close enough to blackness to use our culture.
I’ve mentioned wanting to start a collective in my city and doing some action in marginalized communities, but instead of doing that i’ve decided to start bigger. Me & other activists have banded together to start a reparations initiative after one we all benefited from was shut down.
Reparations and the importance of reparations are a hot topic in just about every political circle there is. Regardless of ideology it’s often difficult to get people to understand just how important reparations are, not only to the Black community, but to our current racial climate and the social repair that is absolutely necessary for change to happen. A change which is integral to stopping white supremacy + capitalism.
Black activists and leftists have been telling the world for years that the black community is owed reparations in the form of money as well as opportunities like job programs, higher education, and better neighborhoods. This sub-project’s goal is to eventually branch out into an initiative that’ll guarantee all that for the communities that absolutely need it most. The black + houseless, the black + uninsured, the black + otherwise hopeless.
For this subproject to be successful we need people like you to bring attention to it. No one cares about social change unless it’s got a hashtag or pink pussy hat attached to it, so it’s important that people like you get your friends talking about it! Bringing up the concept of reparations can be difficult, but the labor is paramount over all, and any true ally knows the importance of laboring for marginalized communities.
>>>>> Rightful Reparations For Black People<<<<<<< So tell your friends about this group & to join alongside you, about this project, and about how important reparations are.
If you’d like to do your part but can’t commit to something long term and monthly, you can contribute to our paypal pool here: Paypal
HEY FOLKS, THIS POST SHOULDNT BE DYING!
We still need COUNTLESS more nonblack allies or pool contributors as our member requests have just about halted since this post has died down. Reparations and bringing attention to it arenot just a once in a lifetime reblog and forget about it kinda thing. Queue this post up if you must, but please keep reblogging!!
Three years ago, Dr. Philip J. Cheng, a urology resident at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, nicked himself while preparing an H.I.V.-positive patient for surgery.
Following hospital protocol, he took a one-month course of Truvada, a cocktail of two anti-H.I.V. drugs, to prevent infection. Later, because he was an unattached gay man, he decided to keep taking Truvada to protect himself from getting H.I.V. through sex.
But when Dr. Cheng applied for disability insurance — which many young doctors do to protect a lifetime’s worth of income should they be hurt — he was told that, because he was taking Truvada, he could have only a five-year policy.
[…]
There are nearly 800 life insurers in this country, according to the American Council of Life Insurers. There are no national figures on how many of them have denied coverage to men because they take PrEP.
But insurance brokers, gay-rights advocates and staff at medical clinics said in interviews they had heard of numerous such cases. H.I.V. specialists say the denials endanger men’s lives by encouraging them to drop PrEP if they need life, disability or long-term-care insurance.
HIV stigma is based on bigotry and fear, not facts.
For those of you considering picking up a hobby, here is my personal experience with various crafty hobbies I’ve tried and their assorted costs:
Drawing ink/pencil: highly variable $-$$$. To start out with it can be quite cheap, if you’re just starting with school supplies and notebook paper. I’ve found even the higher-end paper products aren’t nearly the biggest drain, however, as when you start using the specifically artistic pens and pencils. I’d recommend sticking with basic supplies while you’re still developing your drawing skills, including using sharpies when you’re doing sketches (although these are getting a bit more expensive, too, they last quite a while even with heavy use). I also got a lot of use out of the 6-pack of varying sized Micron pens. For pencils, wooden is much preferred over mechanical, and if you can’t afford a full pack, I’ve personally gotten by fairly well just with 2B and 6B. As for colored pencils, quite honestly I’ve seen little difference in quality between expensive and cheap beyond color-choice. For charcoal, the charcoal pencils have struck me as something of a gimmick–you can do about as well just with a stick. Also, don’t neglect white charcoal; it really makes a difference and gives you a lot more options with your drawings. This is a pretty approachable craft to learn, however, even if you’re broke to begin with.
Drawing digital: highly variable $-$$$. Tablets aren’t nearly as expensive as they used to be, and there are a lot of free programs online. My experience here has been limited by my own funds, but I will say this is still an accessible hobby. For the most part, because my digital equipment is lower-end (also just due to talent), I’ve found it most useful for touching up my hand-drawn artwork after the fact by cleaning up the digital image, fixing mistakes I didn’t notice before, etc. It’s also a medium in its own right, but you’d have to get better advice elsewhere on what products would really be worth it.
Sewing: high cost $$$. Sewing machines themselves are a costly investment and pretty necessary if you’re actually making a garment, but even hand-sewing racks up, quickly. Thread, pins, and needles are fairly low-cost, but the fabric is getting ever more expensive. A proper pair of scissors can also be a bit costly; kitchen scissors are all right and will get the job done, but you will weary of their ineffectiveness. I also recommend a seam-ripper. I’ve gotten by without any of those special measuring mats or rotary cutters, but each project has its unique costs (snaps, buttons, zippers, batting, etc.). This craft is also a bit difficult to learn by yourself. Youtube tutorials can go a ways, but it’s really better to learn from someone else. If you have access to a sewing machine and a teacher already, this is a pretty useful skill to learn if you can take the time.
Oil painting: moderate to high cost $$-$$$. The costs can be fairly low if you stick with acrylics, but I don’t think much of that medium outside when you’re initially learning how to paint at all. Oil paints are pretty expensive, and you’ll need several base colors–I wouldn’t recommend trying to mix any yourself just from basic red, yellow, blue. When I started out it was in a class, and we were given 2 shades of red, 2 shades of blue, a green, 2 shades of yellow, a brown, and a violet, and even with this, getting just the right shade for the subject was a little tricky (although admittedly this was a beginner’s course). Brushes are also something you’ll want to invest in, and you’ll need several sizes. Turpentine is needed to clean the brushes, and you’ll want Gesso to prime your canvases, too. You’ll also need a flat palette, and then a razor to clean your palette. If at all possible, I recommend taking a class to learn how to do a proper oil painting and care for your equipment, and get some of your initial supplies from there.
Crocheting: low to moderate cost $-$$. I never got into knitting, but I imagine it’s much the same cost-wise. You basically only need yarn and a hook for this. Hooks come in plastic, and you can make a single size work for several weights of yarn in a pinch. The yarn is where the variability comes in. Simple acrylics won’t feel nearly as nice, but they do come pretty cheap. It’s also a very forgiving craft that you can undo and try again, over and over, so you don’t waste much. There’s plenty of online tutorials and forums, too, to help you get started.
Cross-stitch/embroidery: low cost $. Floss is fairly cheap, you can get a very wide selection of colors, and it goes quite a long way. Aida cloth is also fairly inexpensive, particularly given how long a project can take. You don’t need a frame, but they do help, and they run pretty cheap if you just get a plastic one. In terms of learning how, it’s very easy to pick up. There are also free online resources to make your own patterns. If you start adding beads and such the costs may stack up, but for the most part this is a pretty inexpensive craft.
Perler beads: moderate cost $$. You wouldn’t think plastic melting beads would cost much, but you’d be wrong. The color assortments are such that you rarely have enough to complete a project unless you buy each color you need individually, and even then you’ll want to stock up on black. Pegboards aren’t too expensive, but you’ll likely need a few even for a fairly small project. You’ll also need an iron (if you don’t have one already), masking tape, tweezers, and a needle. This is a project you can learn alone with little guidance once you learn the basics, but keeping up with the hobby will mean buying a lot of those beads, which gets expensive before very long.
