common pitfalls of the amateur poet

blackpoquedown:

jellybeing:

thedandyunderworld:

Taking place in England the owners of the yard slowly kept adding sections to the contraption so when the squirrel learned one section and got the nuts, they’d add another section. It took over 2 weeks to get to the final product you see in the video.

OMG….

the most beautiful thing ive ever seen

(via dexterthedarkdefender)

youreatransmisogynistwhen:

thecurvature:

freececemcdonald:

We need yr names, community! Trial is just around the corner and we need yr help. Please post, post and re-post!

http://www.change.org/petitions/free-cece-we-re-looking-at-you-michael-freeman-drop-the-charges-against-cece-mcdonald

If you still haven’t signed the petition to drop the charges against CeCe McDonald, PLEASE do so now. If you haven’t ever reblogged the petition, please do that too.

signal boosting.

(via maxmovinghands)

thatdeafchick:

ghosthustler:

thatdeafchick:

krisshinn:

I just had a deaf man come into my shop, looking for toddler sized Lakers stuff. We had to communicate thru hand writing, but my hand writing is so poor that I actually typed on my computer and had him read it.

I find it incredibly brave that people such as deaf, or blind people go out into the real world and try to live life as normally as possible. 

I’m determined to help this man find what he’s looking for, so I took his # and I’ll be texting him, personally, to let him know if and when we’ll have what he’s looking for.

I feel I’ve done some good for the world today, and it feels great.

I find it incredibly brave that people such as you can go out into the real world and try to live life as normally as possible! WOW! 

is your ignorance congenital or are you just unable to educate yourself on the fact that being deaf or blind does not make one incapable of doing any thing they want to do?

this post makes me want to vomit all over everything you just wrote.

DISGUSTING.

Dear OP,

The disabled are not charity cases. We are not characters in your life story to be used as plot devices, so you can affect on yourself some sort of compassion and nobility that you would help the poor, dejected cripple!

We do not exist to be reduced to an identity rooted in pity, to be regarded with the paternalistic nonsense and ableism about how “brave” we are to “overcome” our disability and live life “normally”.

We do not need to overcome, we live life normally through our disabilities. We have friends, families, communities and causes. We have identities of our own which are nuanced and developed not from perceptions of how we are “diminished” in comparison to you, but in the perceptions of ourselves and the self-esteem and pride we have to establish in the face of the able-bodied constantly dengirating us or dismissing us as invalid and purposeless. At the best, we get the Hallmark treatment, and our life is reduced to a fucking feel-good parable.

You might think that it’s beneficial, or at the very lease you “meant well”, but your intent means nothing and in the end, you took an individual and all but erased their actual accomplishments to prop yourself up.

Take the classic example of Helen Keller. The Helen Keller that most people know is of the young deaf-blind girl who is taught how to speak and read braille, and who overcomes the massive hardships of being able to neither see nor hear. The story ends there, with her speaking in young adulthood some sort of affirmative pap about how you can do anything! Oh, thank goodness for the able-bodied to lead us out of the wilds of disability in the first place! Imagine, if you can make us “viable”, what else can you do with your life since you’re apparently an actual person and not just a disability like we are?

Helen Keller was a radical political activist, a fierce suffragette, and an avid socialist. She was an advocate of equality and justice everywhere, or ending the systems that oppress us and of the rights of the disabled, of women, and of the poor. She was an accomplished writer and a prolific reader and well knowledgable on social and political theory. Tell me, which portrayal were you taught in school? The one in which she is a person, an antagonist against the system, or the one where she is simply disabled?

Maybe take a moment and think about any other time where you’ve seen somebody portrayed with a disability, with no more to them than that alone. Imagine the depth of character that you’re missing out on by dismissing them. It’s a dick move, in short.

There is depth to everyone, and when you remove that? At best, you’re being denigrating and reductive, and at worst you’re actively aiding in oppression and marginalization. In short, you are part of the problem.

Sincerely,

A deaf kid

What ghosthustler said.

rhrealitycheck:

Written by Sharon Stapel for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

See all our coverage of the 2012 VAWA Reauthorization here.

There’s a big secret about the bill

mylifeasafeminista:

This list is stil a work in progress, but I really wanted to get it posted. I have either read parts of/all of the texts below or they have been recommended to me. Please reblog and add your own suggestions to the list. Each time someone adds something new, I’ll go…

stfuconservatives:

maritsa-met:

scarygodmother:

nanner:

delicatetbone:

istealforksfromrestaurants:

ellenbee:

drinkingalonetopony:

drinkyourjuice:

Don’t worry, Yankee Candle has Man Candles now.

LAWN MOWER IS MY FAVORITE SMELL THAT BETTER SMELL LIKE GRASS CLIPPINGS AND GASOLINE. i hope to never learn what man town smells like

my dad unabashedly loves regular yankee candles so i can’t tell if he will LOVE THIS or HATE IT

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA football scented man-candles.. that’s the dumbest shi…. 2x4? Oh man, I’d love the house to smell like 2x4!!!

um.  You guys.  MAN TOWN smells like a “Musky Man Cave.”  No lie.

When is the Ball Sweat fragrance appearing?

ngl the “orange, patchouli, vetiver and leather” First Down one sounds like it would smell really really good. 

Musky man cave = spilled beer, Doritos, and dried jizz?

Just go ahead and call them “Mandles,” Yankee. Stop tap-dancing around that obvious portmanteau.

(What do you think are the chances these are regular “lady” candles [womandles] with a new sticker slapped on them? Because I think I’ve seen Fresh Cut Grass and Woodsy Something-or-Other out there before.)

-Jess

There is nothing in this world I want more than 150 hours of fresh “Man Town” scent in my house.

therapsida:

fuckyeahmiserablethings:

11 year olds today: omg i luhv smokin pot omfg i get drunk off lyke my moms wine coolers lol sometimes i take an extra vitamin in the morning so i can get that high lol! on tumblr i reblog sex because unfff me and my boyfriend fuck almost twice a day….

(Source: fuuckvalerie)

stfuconservatives:

An Atlantic Monthly article saying what I’ve been saying for a long time: unpaid internships are terrible and should be illegal. There is no reason businesses should expect unpaid labor from anyone.

Full disclosure: I worked an unpaid internship at a major newspaper in college. I was very lucky that I still had time to go to class and work a part-time (paid) job waiting tables at Chili’s. And that my parents paid my rent, bills, tuition and books.

That internship has given me a leg up in my career ever since. And you know what? That’s unfair. It’s not that I didn’t work hard at it or deserve the internship. It’s that I was privileged enough to be able to afford to take it. Only students who could afford to work for free could take an internship like that. It was a gigantic newspaper and could have easily, easily afforded to pay us minimum wage. But they didn’t, because they didn’t have to.

The most galling is when internships are offered in exchange for college credit. At many universities, students pay per unit. So in order to take an unpaid internship, they have to pay more in tuition. Essentially, they’re paying to work. At least my school only charged a flat tuition rate per quarter.

But there is a silver lining to my tale of privilege. At every job I’ve had since then, whenever someone mentions hiring interns, I personally insist we pay them. On three separate occasions I’ve made paid internships available to people when my bosses wanted them to work for free. If you have ANY chance to do the same, please do. Businesses, if you can’t afford to pay your employees, you don’t get to have employees.

I’m not saying interns should get a salary and benefits or anything. But minimum wage and a modicum of decency should be standards for all workers in America, no matter what level they’re at.

-Jess

This. So much this.

Especially if you have youth and young adults interning for you. I cannot tell you how much it means to so many teenagers for them to get compensated for their work. Seriously.

nakedcrip:

occupyallstreets:

Howard Morgan, A Black Cop Who Was Shot 28 Times By Several White Cops, Faces Attempted Murder Charges

As much of the country follows the Trayvon Martin case, activists in Chicago are hoping to bring some of that attention to Howard Morgan, a former Chicago police officer who was shot 28 times by white officers — and lived to tell his side of the story.

Morgan was off-duty as a detective for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad when he was pulled over for driving the wrong way on a one-way street on Feb 21, 2005, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. While both police and Morgan agree on that much, what happened next is a mystery.

According to police, Morgan opened fire with his service weapon when officers tried to arrest him, which caused them to shoot him 28 times. His family, however, very much doubts those claims.

“Four white officers and one black Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad police man with his weapon on him — around the corner from our home — and he just decided to go crazy? No. That’s ludicrous,” Morgan’s wife, Rosalind Morgan, told the Sun-Times.

She was not the only person to doubt CPD’s side of the story. A Change.org petition signed by more than 2,600 people called for all charges against Morgan to be dropped, and now Occupy Chicago is getting involved.

“After being left for dead, he survived and was then charged with attempted murder of the four white officers who brutalized him,” Occupy wrote on their website, adding that Morgan was found not guilty on three counts, including discharging his weapon. The same jury that cleared him of opening fire on the officers, however, deadlocked on a charge of attempted murder — and another jury found him guilty in January.

That jury was not allowed to hear that Morgan had been acquitted of the other charges.

Protesters and Morgan’s family say the second trial amounted to double jeopardy, and claim officers have gone to great lengths to obstruct justice in the case:

“Howard Morgan’s van was crushed and destroyed without notice or cause before any forensic investigation could be done.

Howard Morgan was never tested for gun residue to confirm if he even fired a weapon on the morning in question.

The State never produced the actual bullet proof vest worn by one of the officers who claimed to have allegedly taken a shot directly into the vest on the morning in question. The State only produced a replica.”

“If they can do this and eliminate double jeopardy and your constitutional rights, then my God, I fear for every Afro-American — whether they be male or female — in this corrupt unjust system,” Morgan’s wife told the Sun-Times.

Howard Morgan will be sentenced Thursday. He faces 80 years in prison.

Source

He was sentenced on April 5th to 40 years in prison.

(via dancing-fetuses)

HAVE I MENTIONED

that I left for South America on Sunday and will only be sporadically updating this blog until September? I think I forgot to.

I have a travel blog, so feel free to continue to send me asks and stuff because I’ll see them, but it’ll be mostly reblogs (per usual) now and then until July 15th, at which point I don’t know if I will bother accessing a computer or Tumblr until September. I am traveling from Santiago, Chile to Guayaquil, Ecuador over the summer.

If you want my travel blog’s info, message me. I’m not posting it here. It’s kind of boring and really vegan kosher, since my dad’s family will be following it, but whatevs. There will probably be cute pictures of dandelionchild and me there.

OTHERWISE

see you all in September!!

callmegamine asked: 21, 42, 37

21. What I find attractive in other people: kindness, a good sense of humor and sarcasm, easy-going, femininity, communicative, strong legs, soft bellies.

42. What I did Yesterday: Traveled for 30 fucking hours. Although, I think you asked this last Friday which means on Thursday I was packing, cleaning, and went to our department BBQ and then went out to some bars with department students and graduates and a couple of our professors where much hilarity ensued and I probably embarrassed myself more than is ever necessary.

37. Three habits I have: Biting my nails, whistling, and drinking too much and trying to flirt with beautiful and seemingly heterosexual women.

dandelionchild:

amorousoutlaw:

dandelionchild:

NEW HOLE IN MY FAAAAACE.

i’m excited. it’s not the jewelry i wanted but it will be soon. in the meantime, there may be multiple pictures of my face appearing on tumblr. i’m not sorry.

Never be sorry! You are too adorable, and the septum piercingi s SOOPR cute on you!

thanks thanks thanks! :]

I’m gonna get to smooch this cute face in less than a week!

doctorwho:

Don’t blink

berrybell366:

A Weeping Angel I crocheted as a gift.

I could add these to Parker’s collection!

I’m having a really hard time not being anxious about the next 48 hours of my life. Help me out and distract me? Anon is on.

(Source: stillllugly, via dandelionchild)

my-soulwhispers-memories:

1. But you eat!

Of course they do. They have to or they would die, very quickly. It doesn’t matter if you saw your friend eating a chocolate bar two weeks ago, or they eat something at lunch every day: they can still have a serious problem. They might calorie count, purge, only eat ‘safe’ foods, restrict what they eat: but they will still eat something, sometimes.

2. But you have a great figure! (especially when said to an underweight person)

Society has managed to twist everybody’s eyes to the point where underweight or ill looks normal or desirable. If somebody ever says ‘I’m Xlbs underweight’ and you reply with this, that’s telling them ‘there’s nothing wrong with you’. We hear it as ‘if you gain anymore, you’ll lose that figure and be fat’.

  3. But you aren’t thin?

     Eating disordered patients are not always underweight. A diagnosis of anorexia has a weight requirement at the moment, yes- but being 5lbs underweight isn’t always obvious. Unless somebody is very underweight, it can be difficult to tell. That isn’t even the point- severity is not the same as weight. A person can be very ill with an eating disorder and be normal or overweight. Not to mention that actually telling a sufferer that they aren’t thin is often heard as ‘you’re fat’. Plain and simple.

4. Just eat [X] and avoid [Y] and you’ll be fine.

This tends to be the ‘just eat a healthy diet and you won’t get fat!’ type thing. It’s more than a diet. It’s not like a sufferer can just ‘snap out of it’. Advising a healthy eating routine is sweet, but it’s a little like showing a person with cleanliness based OCD a light cleaning routine. The second part gets its whole own entry-

5. Avoid [Y].

On stories about treatment, people are always asking ‘well why are they feeding them pizza and things? Can’t they have grilled fish and vegetables? It’s healthier!’ It’s healthier in that it has may have nutrients, sure. But you’re mixing up ‘good for weight loss’ with ‘healthy’, as many people do. Low calorie foods are hard to gain weight on- not to mention that learning to eat all foods is very important in recovery. If I somehow managed to gain weight on lean meat and salads but couldn’t consider chips without a breakdown, I wouldn’t be recovered or healthy.

6. Just snap out of it!

If we could do this, none of us would have a problem.

7. Let me tell you about my diet-

Not only is this boring (sorry, it’s true), it’s very triggering. If you enthuse about how you feel sooo much better and happier and you’ve lost 8lbs since you cut out bread, I’m going to think about the toast I ate this morning and feel like crying. You may be in a very different place from me- you might genuinely need to lose some weight. But I’m not in a place where I can make that distinction right now: if you talk about how you never eat carbs, I’ll think ‘clearly I don’t need to either’- which isn’t true.

8. Wow, you ate a lot at that meal! Well done!

I’ve heard this used to mean ‘you tried hard, well done’. It’s a sweet sentiment, but all I hear from that sentence is ‘wow, you ate a lot’. And I tend to hear ‘a lot’ as ‘too much’.

9. Why don’t you just go out for a run if you feel fat?

I’ve had this advised as a way to deal with the food I’m eating. You can see the logic- anxious over being unhealthy/overeating could be answered with healthy activities like exercise. But exercising whenever you eat is unhealthy. It’s very unhealthy. Doing actions purely to burn off calories is purging, and that’s not a habit any of us need.

10. Oh, I had a friend with an eating disorder! Yeah, she got down to XXlbs and was in hospital for months, it was awful, she didn’t eat for days on end…

We’re competitive. We shouldn’t be; but we are. If you stand there and tell me about how thin your friend was, I think ‘well, she was really sick. I’m nothing like that, I can’t be sick!’ I feel ashamed and upset and- yes, jealous because she did it better than me. If you’ve come to identify yourself purely as your weight and your disorder, as many people do, hearing this is like hearing ‘you aren’t good enough’.

[source]

(Source: i-am-ambivalent)