“On Helen’s form, which was filled out with assistance from
officials, there is a checked box next to a line that says, “I withdraw
my previous request for a Flores bond hearing.” Beneath that line, the
five-year-old signed her name in wobbly letters.”
What the Trump administration is doing to these thousands of children is morally repulsive. We have to stop it.
Here’s an excerpt from a New Yorker feature
on Helen, “a smart, cheerful five-year-old girl” seeking asylum from
Honduras. She ends up in court, separated from her parents. The
organization helping her is lupenet.org, and you should support their work.
i don’t know whether the russian agitprop bloggers are back under new names or whether there’s a fresh new footbullet brigade who actually bought their nihilistic message, but in the end it doesn’t matter
anyone telling you that, if you hate the way america is turning into a fascist puppet state, you should do nothing, is an enemy
anyone telling you that exercising your rights as a citizen is a bad thing, and that you should totally stick it to the man by sitting around with your thumb up your ass fantasizing about ‘burning it all down’, is a dangerous enemy, or dangerously stupid
and anyone who actually tries to get you to make real plans to go out and blow shit up, do murders, start fires, and get a lot of gung-ho idiots and innocent bystanders killed, is a literal felon, and either it’s a sting or they’re a terrorist
i don’t care if the thought of being a gun-toting shoot-first patriot sounds a-ok to you as long as you’re a leftist gun-toting shoot-first patriot, i am telling you, as Internet Dad, Local Calm Person, and Guy Who Has Seen This Shit Before, put the hateboner back in your pants, wash your hands, and go do what real americans do when they want freedom and progress: VOTE.
things we’ve gotten through voting and persuading people, with some demonstrations but fundamentally by pursuing legalization and persuasion as strategies:
women can vote
gays can be gay
gays can marry
an attempt at making health coverage available to everyone, even if it has flaws
civil rights laws banning discrimination against people based on a lot of things that used to be 100% legal to discriminate based on
laws against child labor
laws against child abuse
women and gays allowed to serve in the military
things we couldn’t get by persuading people, and ended up having to go to war to try to get, but lost so we didn’t get it anyway:
continued legalization of chattel slavery
note the pattern here: (1) the violent revolution lost (2) also they were the bad guys
one of the v. important things the movies missed about ron is just like, how down to fight he was at all times. like not even duel just he was always ready to physically beat the shit out of people who insulted his family or friends and WOULD if no one stopped him.
there are so many points in the books where its just casually dropped in ‘and so Harry and/or Hermione had to physically restrain Ron’ usually from Malfoy but if Harry or Hermione weren’t paying attention it became ‘and so Ron punched Malfoy in the face’.
Like, Ron cursing Malfoy for calling Hermione Mudblood wasnt just a one off thing like every time he did that in the future when Ron was there it was like ‘ron had to be stopped from ending Malfoy’s life’ just thrown in there. Same for any other severe insults.
My absolute favorite instance of this is in the first book when they’re just watching a Quidditch game and Malfoy just starts bothering Ron and Hermione during it and is finally like ‘man its pretty funny how the Gryffindor quidditch team is recruited based on pity like y’know Potter has no parents, Weasley’s brothers have no money they should include Longbottom for having no brains” and Ron just flings himself at Malfoy and starts punching him and rolling around under the bleachers and Neville is like “uh shit i guess i better fight CRABBE AND GOYLE BOTH AT ONCE so they don’t go after him” (very underrated moment of courage from Neville he knew he had no chance but he just went for it honestly almost more impressive than confronting Voldemort in book 7)
and they’re just fighting for like twenty minutes and Hermione doesn’t even notice because she was so focused on tuning Malfoy out and watching the game and when its over she looks around like “where’d ron go” and then later its mentioned “Harry sees Ron and his face is covered in blood and he’s like “GOOD JOB WINNING THE GAME HARRY I GAVE MALFOY A BLACK EYE SO WE BOTH DID GREAT THINGS TONIGHT oh btw i have detention for a week and neville’s unconcious but they say he’ll be fine”.
more quality mushrooms: Termitomyces, a genus associated with african termites in much the same way as the fungus farmed by leafcutter ants.
one species of which, the creatively- named Termitomyces titanicus, has a cap up to a meter across and is ostensibly the largest edible mushroom in the world (although I can’t find any pictures of specimens bigger than the macrocybe above)
we have only termites to thank for this absolute unit tasty treat
funeral-biscuit 