yikes

notsoterriblymisanthropic:

twodotsknowwhy:

tilthat:

TIL that in 1985, police engaged in a standoff with the black liberation group ‘MOVE’ at their home in Philadelphia. A massive firefight ensued in which the police used choppers to drop two C4 bombs on the roof. The fire destroyed 65 houses and 11 people died.

via reddit.com

Half of the people who died in the bombing were children. The youngest of whom was only seven. Two hundred and fifty people were left homeless. When the bomb was dropped, the firefighters were ordered to stand back and not do anything to help. Police shot people as they tried to escape. And while the city apologized and called the bombing “unconscionable” the only person who was ever criminally charged in the affair was Ramona Africa, the sole adult survivor of the bombing.

Seriously, every single American should be required to learn about the MOVE bombing.

While this is going around, probably worth adding that Ramona Africa is currently suffering from cancer and asking for help with medical fees, gofundme here: https://www.gofundme.com/helpsaveramonaafrica

(via trainwreckgenerator)

marsismad:

“Listen: Ngūgiī Wa Thiong’o wrote an entire novel on toilet paper in his prison cell. Before her death at Auschwitz, Irene Nemerov wrote Suite Française in microscopic handwriting in a single notebook. Anna Akhmatova’s apartment was bugged and her books pulped, but she’d write her poems out for visitors on small slips of paper, wait till they’d memorized them, then burn the papers in the stove. And no, it’s not always political art we fight for. H. A. and Margaret Rey fled Paris in 1940 on bicycles they’d made themselves, carrying with them the manuscript of Curious George. My new novel, which I’ve been out on the road promoting (yes, instead of canvassing, instead of marching) since the midpoint of this surreal year, largely chronicles the AIDS epidemic in 1980s Chicago. One of the lessons hammered in by my research was how both art and humor sustained a group weary from a lifetime of fighting, and the fight of a lifetime. And, more — how effective that art and that humor were, as both shields and weapons of attack. […] Of, course, it’s one thing to believe in Angels in America, to believe in Picasso’s Guernica, and another to believe in your own sloppy first draft, or in a picture book about a monkey. One thing to fight for the first amendment, and another to retweet an invite for your friend’s poetry reading. It’s hard to feel you’re helping the world by announcing your Pushcart nomination. But the exercise of freedom is a de facto defense of that same freedom. Freely making art, and freely talking about the art you made, is valuable in and of itself when free expression is being eroded. If anyone’s still taking that freedom for granted, it’s time to wake up and smell the history. Write while you can. Paint while you can. Spread your art through the world. Not everyone is so lucky. Publish books and read books and teach books while you can. Take the art you love and blast it from your trumpet. Shout into the wind the names of the things you love. Art is a radical act. Joy is a radical act. This is how we keep fighting. This is how we survive”

— Rebecca Makkai, “The World’s on Fire. Can We Still Talk About Books?”, pub. in Electric Lit (via soracities)

(via trainwreckgenerator)

artsdrug:

Frank Ocean for GQ January 2019

vertiga:

vampiregirl2345:

Vegans of tumblr, listen up. Harvesting agave in the quantities required so you dont have to eat honey is killing mexican long-nosed bats. They feed off the nectar and pollinate the plants. They need the agave. You want to help the environment? Go back to honey. Your liver and thyroid will thank you, as well. Agave is 90% fructose, which can cause a host of issues. Bye.

Beekeeper here! Just wanted to say that the fact that vegans won’t eat honey is very silly. Harvesting honey does not hurt bees. The invention of modern moveable-frame hives means we can remove a selected frame, extract the honey and return it without killing a single bee.

If we destroyed the colony to harvest honey there would be no bees for next year, and beekeepers are incredibly careful to keep their bees healthy and thriving. We take *excess* honey that they don’t need, and it stops the hive from becoming honey-bound, meaning that there’s so much honey the Queen has nowhere to lay eggs. And if the winter is harsher than expected and the remaining honey store runs low, we feed the bees plenty to make sure they survive. We also make sure that pests are controlled, bees are treated for disease, and the hive is weatherproof and in good repair, all things that wild bees struggle with.

Keeping bees in properly managed hives where they don’t starve or die from preventable disease is much better for them than being left to fend for themselves, and they’re far too important to be left alone.

All the fruits and vegetables that vegans *do* eat couldn’t exist without bees, and the hives which pollinate those crops also produce excess honey which the beekeepers can sell to help keep themselves and their hives going.

TLDR: BUY THE HONEY, HELP THE BEES.

(via trainwreckgenerator)