For people who live in the U.S., November can bring to mind a lot of things, and one of them is Thanksgiving. This can be a complicated holiday because while most people just see it as an excuse to get together with friends and family and pig out, we all know that the story of the "First Thanksgiving" is bullshit.

This November, and for as long as it takes, I'm asking you to keep Native American and Alaska Native rights in mind and to fight for them. ICWA, the Indian Child Welfare Act, is at risk.

This act was created to stop cultural genocide. Until the late 1900s, Native American and Alaska Native children were routinely kidnapped and placed in residential schools and white families, where they faced abuse, forced assimilation, and sometimes murder. ICWA was passed in 1978 to stop this by allowing tribes to control the foster and adoption placement of Native American and Alaska Native children.

However, today, the SCOTUS started hearing arguments in a case that could overturn ICWA. This would not only endanger children and allow cultural genocide, but it would endanger tribal sovereignty since it would deny sovereign tribes the rights over the placement of their own children.

This November, this Thanksgiving, and until ICWA has been upheld, I ask you to stand up for the rights of Native Americans and Alaska Natives.

Age of sail.

Hundreds of union employees at three U.S. Nabisco bakeries that make Oreo and Chips Ahoy cookies and Ritz Crackers have gone on strike to protest proposed changes amid contract negotiations with parent company Mondelez International, Inc.

Approximately 200 workers at a factory in Portland, Oregon, have been on strike for two weeks and were joined on Monday by about 400 employees at Nabisco's bakery in Richmond, Virginia. On Thursday, workers at Nabisco's bakery in Chicago also walked off the job to go on strike.

Employees at a sales distribution center in Aurora, Colorado, also joined the strike on Aug. 12. All of the workers on strike are members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union, which announced the Chicago strike on Thursday.

"This fight is about maintaining what we already have," Mike Burlingham, vice president of BCTGM Local 364 in Portland, told TODAY Food. "During the pandemic, we all were putting in a lot of hours, demand was higher, people were at home, and the snack food industry did phenomenally well.

"Mondelez made record profits and they want to thank us by closing two of the U.S. bakeries (last month) and telling the rest of us we have to take concessions, what kind of thanks is that? We make them a lot of money. It's very disheartening. How is that supposed to make us feel?"

The union is in the midst of negotiating a new four-year contract with Mondelez after the previous one expired in May.

Union leaders say that Mondelez has proposed switching from eight-hour shifts, five days a week, to 12-hour shifts, three or four days a week, without overtime, and with increased mandatory work on weekends without extra pay.

Don't let them go the way of Hostess.

Oh man, this is gonna be messy. I’ve said it loads of times in both fantasy and real life, and it always rings true : you NEVER cross the bakers’ guild.

Read up on the New York bagel famines. Bagel Bakers Local 338 practically brought the city to a standstill back in the day.

If you also didn’t hear, Danny DeVito got unverified briefly by Twitter for voicing solidarity with the union. Dan Rather got involved. It’s messy. Don’t cross the line if you can. 

No contracts. No snacks. 

A strike can only go on as long as its strike fund is deep. Workers have set up a GoFundMe - if you can, support them in solidarity!

ICYMI - Huge news!

^link to the article for further info & accessibility

Just so ya'll know. They're gonna loophole this which is why we have to spread this information. I work at a pharmacy and I can tell you that a lot of these insurance companies only "Cover" them. Here's what has been happening: You go to your doctor to get PrEP, they write a prescription and send it to the Pharmacy. When you get there they tell you that insurance isn't covering it. You say that the law says that they have to. They say that it will, but not through THEM. The insurance company says that they'll only cover it through a "specialty pharmacy" (which on the one hand, fair enough, NIOSH standards for drugs state that if you are handling the pills then there are specific forms of PPE you need that we at retail do not have, but on the other hand that doesn't matter if we aren't opening the freaking bottles) which will then either mail it to you or ship it to the pharmacy to take it out of the box, scan it in, and bag it. Which is what we'd do normally anyways except with the added step of making you wait 2-3 business days to get it. And because technically they "cover it" it's not a law violation. But they're hoping that you'll not want to wait and just pay the $3000 out of pocket.

Imperialism kills.

They stole the land and killed the children.

I want to put this in perspective for anyone else in Canada: this has happened within less than a century. These are 1665 human beings who would have otherwise been elders today. Thousands of people who should have been able to grow up, live their lives, build families, maintain and pass on traditions, and more, gone because of British colonialism.

The Canadian government and Catholic church intentionally destroyed an entire generation of Indigenous people. Please, support your Indigenous friends, and please stop pretending that Canada is better than America when it comes to institutional racism.

The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot

while I’m at it, i may as well post my “how kinky people look at sex reveals how autistic people experience the world better than anything else I have seen” post.

A majority of people in the world appear to view sensation like this: there are some feelings that are Good, and some that are Bad. Pain, of course, is Bad, fundamentally Worse than other sensations, like pressure or touch.

Some people are autistic. They spend their entire lives comparing being touched in ways they hate to being in pain, because people refuse to understand any other way. The world is hard to live in for them, because the feelings that hurt them are not categorized as Bad, and therefore what is torturous is not understood as torture.

Kink really unnerves a lot of people because it upends a lot of assumptions about how brains feel things. How can you want to experience something in the Bad category?

But I think kink better understands and allows for the actual complexity and reality of how brains feel things.

It’s actually more like this: There are very few, if any, actually inherently Bad stimuli. Instead, everything has a threshold at which it is unpleasant, even unbearable, and a threshold at which it is neutral or even good. Those are not necessarily opposite ends of the spectrum and can in fact overlap in weird ways. The intensity of a stimulus, or how much it pushes the limits of your processing, is not necessarily the same as “how much” stimulus, either.

Everyone is different in where their thresholds lie. There is a ton of diversity. This is…okay.

Furthermore, your thresholds are not fixed. You can adjust them a lot based on circumstances, such as how predictable the stimulus is, how much control you have over it, how much control you have over the rest of your environment, the amount of things you’re simultaneously processing, and so on.

In other words, if you experience something in an environment that is controlled, planned, and has low levels of unpredictability and extraneous stimuli, in a way that is curated to your ability to process it, that can cause a dramatic shift in whether you experience that thing as pleasurable or horrible.

Sometimes, people engage in otherwise unpleasant things in a controlled and agreed-to manner so those unpleasant things can become…good. Autistic people try to make their worlds as predictable, controlled and planned as possible so they can process “everyday” things with less pain. (And sometimes they do the first thing too.)

Honestly? I think what has convinced me most of this idea is seeing things people who are “anti-kink” say.

I see posts written by people who believe that doing a thing categorized as Bad in a sexual context is inherently going to cause harm, regardless of consent. The implication, though, in singling out “kink,” is that there is a “normal, natural” form of sex that is not “inherently harmful,” that lacks the characteristics that make pain, for example, harmful.

These people are regarding “normal” sexual activities, certain forms of touch or stimulation, to be inherently “safer” and less hurtful.

But to an autistic person, a touch may feel much worse than pain, no matter how gentle it appears to be. To an autistic person, many “vanilla” and innocuous acts might feel unbearable. But they don’t get treated with suspicion, because the people for whom they are Bad are not Normal.

When you are autistic, agency over your own perception is one of the biggest things you have to fight for in order to heal and be healthy. “This hurts me because *i* say it hurts me” is…basic. Because people don’t believe you when your hurts are non-normative.

“This feels good because *I* say it feels good” seems like it’s just the other side of the coin.

The number of people I have known who have pretended to be more ill/disabled than they really are: almost none.

The number of people I have known who have pretended to be less ill/disabled than they really are: almost everyone.

When people tell you they have a chronic illness/disability, believe them. Otherwise you are an Ableist asshole.

This messed with me for so long and it still does because I’m like,,,, am I faking it??? Is it actually that bad??? And then I have a good day and I’m like well I imagined the pain I’m the first place I’m a fraud,,, then I get a bad day and suddenly I’m dying

i was gonna say “the only times ive pretended to be more disabled than i am was to get accomodations i really needed but wouldn’t have gotten otherwise” and then i was like wait.

That’s just being honest about how disabled i am.

ok wait that last reblog messed with me so much thats so true

It is deeply, deeply beneficial to TERFs if the only characteristic of TERF ideology you will recognize as wrong, harmful, or problematic is “they hate trans women”.

TERF ideology is an expansive network of extremely toxic ideas, and the more of them we accept and normalize, the easier it becomes for them to fly under the radar and recruit new TERFs. The closer they get to turning the tide against all trans people, trans women included.

Case in point: In 2014-2015, I fell headlong into radical feminism. I did not know it was called radical feminism at the time, but I also didn’t know what was wrong with radical feminism in the first place. I didn’t see a problem with it.

I was a year deep into this shit when people I had been following, listening to, and looking up to finally said they didn’t think trans women were women. It was only then that I unfollowed those people, specifically; but I continued to follow other TERFs-who-didn’t-say-they-were-TERFs. I continued ingesting and spreading their ideas- for years after.

If TERFs “only target trans women” and “only want trans women gone”, if that’s the one and only problem with their ideology and if that’s the only way we’ll define them, we will inevitably miss a vast majority of the quiet beliefs that support their much louder hatred of trans women.

As another example: the trans community stood relatively united when TERFs and conservatives targeted our right to use the correct restroom, citing the “dangers” of trans women sharing space with cis women. But when they began targeting Lost Little Girls and Confused Lesbians and trotting detransitioners out to raise a panic about trans men, virtually the only people speaking up about it were other transmascs. Now we see a rash of anti-trans healthcare bills being passed in the US, and they’re hurting every single one of us.

When you refuse to call a TERF a TERF just because they didn’t specifically say they hate trans women, when you refuse to think critically about a TERF belief just because it’s not directly related to trans women, you are actively helping TERFs spread their influence and build credibility.

what is some TERF ideology we should be on the look out for?

This isn’t comprehensive, but I’ll do my best.

TERFs are, first and foremost, radical feminists. Radical feminism is essentially second-wave feminism without the intersectionality brought in by third-wave feminism. It believes that patriarchy is at fault for the oppression of women, but sees this in a very strict, binary way: women are the oppressed, and men are the oppressors.

TERFs use this to justify their specific brand of transphobia. This idea, among others, is essential in supporting that transphobia.

I’ll try to outline some of those ideas, and some of the logical thruoughlines they use:

Some of these ideas are contradictory, but they lead to the same conclusions. Some of them lead to similar conclusions, many of which take very little further nudging to push into more dogmatic ideas.

This is exactly why we need to understand all of these paths into TERF ideology- and more.

In fact, the vast majority of the points on this list- particularly the beginnings of their logic- can be very easily swallowed while still holding that trans women are women, and trans men are men.

That’s what TIRFs (trans-inclusive radical feminists) are, and they’re still incredibly dangerous. TIRF ideology normalizes these points, making it far easier for TERFs to recruit; even if TIRFs themselves try to be aggressively anti-TERF.

Again, this isn’t comprehensive, and it would take a long time and a lot of words to cover every flaw and danger in every line of reasoning here.

But remember how these things work; even if some of them begin with a grain of truth, even if some of them are true- especially if you define the words they contain differently- be wary of them.

It’s important to note how sex-negative they can be, and how in some circles this leads to a belief that being a lesbian is the only way one can liberate oneself from the abuse of men. They see sexual orientation as a choice to be made for one’s safety, or a political act–not something based on genuine attraction. They also sometimes push the idea of the “gold-star lesbian”–that is, a lesbian who’s never been with a man–as the ideal. If you’re a bisexual? Disgusting, don’t interact.

It’s… sadly common to see on dating sites.

Yes, in the same vein that radfems believe all sex is rape, they also believe all kink is rape, and even that masturbating to kinky erotica is a form of self-harm (if you are a woman) or a predatory thought crime (if you are a man). I also want to point out that radfems are eugenicists. Bio-essentialism is eugenics. A radfem’s conception of womanhood is based on the idealization of conventional white womanhood. A radfem’s conception of masculinity is based on white western masculinity.

Microsoft announces it will shut down ebook program and confiscate its customers' libraries

Microsoft has a DRM-locked ebook store that isn’t making enough money, so they’re shutting it down and taking away every book that every one of its customers acquired effective July 1.

Customers will receive refunds.

This puts the difference between DRM-locked media and unencumbered media into sharp contrast. I have bought a lot of MP3s over the years, thousands of them, and many of the retailers I purchased from are long gone, but I still have the MP3s. Likewise, I have bought many books from long-defunct booksellers and even defunct publishers, but I still own those books.

When I was a bookseller, nothing I could do would result in your losing the book that I sold you. If I regretted selling you a book, I didn’t get to break into your house and steal it, even if I left you a cash refund for the price you paid.

People sometimes treat me like my decision not to sell my books through Amazon’s Audible is irrational (Audible will not let writers or publisher opt to sell their books without DRM), but if you think Amazon is immune to this kind of shenanigans, you are sadly mistaken. My books matter a lot to me. I just paid $8,000 to have a container full of books shipped from a storage locker in the UK to our home in LA so I can be closer to them. The idea that the books I buy can be relegated to some kind of fucking software license is the most grotesque and awful thing I can imagine: if the publishing industry deliberately set out to destroy any sense of intrinsic, civilization-supporting value in literary works, they could not have done a better job.

https://boingboing.net/2019/04/02/burning-libraries.html

If you’ve got an ereader and want to actually own your books, I heartily recommend using cailbre to scrape the DRM off and so you can backup the files.

Cailbre d/l:

https://calibre-ebook.com/download

How to use cailbre to remove DRM:

http://www.geoffstratton.com/remove-drm-amazon-kindle-books

Seconding calibre as a brilliant tool for ebook management in general. 

Some more tutorials and tools:

removing DRM from your kindle purchases

Removing DRM from epubs

Removing DRM for cross device use and archiving

do non americans know that sometimes you’ll just see lifelike human testicles hanging off the back of peoples trucks

non american here! i wish i didnt learn english

um. fat people are allowed to be outside btw. fat people are allowed to wear clothes that do not completely flatter them. fat people are allowed to have their belly showing or wear clothes too small for them. fat people are allowed to exist in whatever they want and we dont have to constantly make ourselves look appealing + attractive. skinny people can wear lazy clothes and be called gorgeous but god forbid a fat person not put 100% into their fucking appearance every single day of their life

one of the [many] reasons autism goes undiagnosed is because autism is genetic and families are always more likely to notice traits that stand out. little Sam doesn’t like broccoli and flinches at loud noises and cries if you make him wear jeans but so does his dad and so does his dad’s mom, so obviously it can’t be that strange, right? nothing to worry about. and Karen can’t sit in quiet places and she fidgets constantly with her skin and she speaks so fast no one can understand her, just like her aunt and her mom, so it’s not a big deal, obviously. if you’re thinking about getting a diagnosis but keep telling yourself it’s ‘normal’ - it really isn’t, that may well just be your family.

THIS!!! So many times This!

(9 June 2021) You may have heard that the Keystone XL pipeline project, which environmentalist and First Nations protestors have been fighting for years, has been cancelled by developer TC Energy after Biden revoked its permit (in January 2021).

Despite this victory, First Nations/Sioux water protecters High Elk and Jasilyn Charger are still facing criminal charges for protesting the construction of this pipeline. High Elk faces 23 years and Jasilyn faces a year of jail time after their arrest in January 2021.

You can sign a petition to drop the charges against them (dated Jan 2021, updated March 25 2021) here (and watch this space for updates and requests for protesters to attend court dates). There is also a GoFundMe campaign to support Roots Camp (which was set up on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in protest of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and will remain as the pipes are removed) and to help fight the charges against High Elk and Jasilyn (updated 23 January 2021). See here for more ways to help (including joining the camp and donating supplies).

This victory is not a permanent one. The Keystone pipeline has been cancelled and reinstated in the past.

As long as the U.S. president has the authority to issue cross-border permits for piplines (such as the permit that Trump issued for Keystone XL), any president (including Biden) could reinstate approval for it without warning. The pipeline was revoked solely on presidential authority and not for any reason that references First Nations sovereignty or the project's illegality. That's why there is currently (as of 2 June 2021) a lawsuit challenging the president's authority to do this.

You can read more about the history of this pipline here.

The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is not being shut down, having been allowed by the Biden administration to continue running (article dated 21 May 2021).

This overturns a decision last year (July 2020) to halt the running of the pipeline pending an environmental review. You can read updates on the Standing Rock Sioux litigation against the pipeline here.

Given the ever-evolving nature of the situation involving these pipelines, it seems irresponsible to share news about Keystone XL's cancellation without history, action items, or things to keep an eye on.

As of 10 June 2021, I’m not able to find any updates more recent than 27 March (including about High Elk's court date on 28 April). Please do add on here if you can dig anything up.

UPDATE: Jasilyn Charger has reached a deal with South Dakota’s state’s attorney and is free as of 9 June, 2021!

Take action to #StopLine3 (petition & fundraising campaign at the link)

The leather daddy Angry Bird makes me laugh so fucking hard every single time, I trust this fucking bird with my life

I've said this before and I'll say it again: it's more important to know and understand fully why something is harmful than it is to drop everything deemed problematic. It's performative and does nothing. People wonder why nobody has critical thinking skills and this is part of it because no one knows how to simousltansly critique and consume media. You need to use discernment.

This is ultimately why propaganda is going to work on you. Because you never learned how to think for yourself and the actual ideology behind things. You simply rely on group think and the bare minimum explanations to tell you what's good and bad.

may have accidentally convinced gen z that iconic western actor sam elliott is queer :|

"friendly hot turtle man"

the kids are alright, i love them and im proud of them

why do i get the fucking notes for other people's posts. i hate this website

don't make no damn sense