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having the power of one Gillette

@feenyxblue

I post stuff. Mid 20s. Check out my sideblog @feenyreadscomics (formerly catholicism-and-comics). Follow at own risk

Pensions sound so fake as a zillennial. You work for one place for decades (already sounds fake) and then afterwards you leave and they just. keep paying you. the same amount of money. to do nothing. for the rest of your life. if i wasn't already aware that this was something that readily and commonly existed during my grandparent's days then it would sound like some kind of socialist pipe dream

401(k)s became available in 1978, and that signaled the death of pensions pretty much everywhere that they weren’t part of a union contract. Workers who still have pension plans today are almost universally unionized and that benefit has been a holdover from contracts of the past.

The thing about pensions is that they are deferred compensation. You take a slightly smaller salary than your role should have, and the difference is being invested and paid out to you in retirement. But when 401(k)s became a thing and companies dropped pension plans, compensation never rose enough to offset the difference, and employer contributions to 401(k) plans is lower than what they had to invest in pensions. They got to have their cake and eat it too, and workers got screwed.

And now we’re into a third generation of workers who don’t foresee actually having enough money to ever fully retire.

So I’m a historian who works particularly on the relationship between trauma, national memory, and childhood.  The focus of my research is not the Holocaust, but it’s a subject upon which I’ve taught, mused, written, and examined.  A few years ago, I was a TA in a class on the Holocaust (cross listed in the History Department and the Department of Judaic Studies) at a US University (a pretty prestigious one). Most of the course focused on the realities of the Holocaust:  what happened?  how?  why? Now because of my areas of expertise/interest, I was invited to give a lecture to the entire class as opposed to teaching my particular subset of students each week.  The subject of the lecture?  The Holocaust in US education and children’s/YA literature. 

The thing that I found most distressing about this lecture?  The fact that only about nine state in the US require that students learn about the Holocaust in classrooms.  Among those only a few require it as a part of history or social studies classes, the rest require it as part of language arts.  And, the way that students actually learn about this subject is determined at the discretion of the school district, which means that, as long as students meet the general requirements of standardized tests, they don’t have to learn particular details.  So, let that sink in.  Even more distressing?  The states that “require” students to learn about the Holocaust, have only done so since (at the earliest) the 1980s, and far more likely the 1990s and 2000s.  This means that there is an entire generation whose knowledge of the Holocaust comes from popular media and triumphant narratives about US involvement in WWII:  these narratives are hugely false, and what I call the “Punching Hitler” story after the iconic image of Captain America socking Hitler in the jaw.  In the US the general shared narrative about WWII is that the US went over the Europe, lost a lot of boys, but killed Hitler, won the war, and saved the Jews.  o__O  That’s…not what happened.  

In a class of 200 students, only about 10 percent knew anything about how the Holocaust happened.  They didn’t know about the groups that were targeted, the way that anti-semitism and opportunistic nationalist politics helped make it happen, they didn’t know about complicity or bystandardism.  They knew nothing.  They didn’t know that US officials were aware of what was happening and refused to get involved in the war.  They didn’t understand that there was concurrent anti-semitism and racism in the US.  They were taught none of these things.  And that is actually terrifying, not only because it means that these kids have no idea about the past, but because they can’t see the giant flashing warning signs in our current socio-political world.  

elon musk is literally like a parody. like he cant genuinely fucking be like this like bro is on some satirical depiction of a spoiled rich kid type shit. like hes a cartoon evil rich guy. throwing tantrums bc someone criticized him or said they didnt like him. spending billions of dollars to buy an app and then changing the app every time someone uses a feature of the app to insult him or hurt his feefees. dude straight up does the cartoon steam blowing out of ears train whistle shit irl every time someone says anything mean to him or is transgender but whats terrifying is he has enough money to do anything he wants and millions of chuds who would gladly no homo suck his cock every night before he goes to bed. like. how has someone come to be like this. why has this been allowed to happen why was he created

i think most rich guys are actually more like elon than they aren't, they all have simpering fanclubs online but enough haters to keep them up at night. i've seen a good half-dozen "richest man in X country" instagram accounts litigating their personal beef with some obscure shitposter who won't stop trolling them. they run the world but everyone doesn't love them so they're not happy

this is the richest guy in africa and his mortal enemy, a bored brazilian man

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The thing that kills me about the sheer invisibility of being a woman with a visible beard is knowing there are millions of Gender Conforming Cis Women who grow beards and hide them so well that I, a gnc cis woman, am equal to a fantasy creature to liberals and a sign of the end of times to bigots. There are tons of trans folk of every type who also are women or women-aligned who could grow beards and I don't blame them for doing what is comfortable and safe if they remove them. It's just fucking lonely!!!

It's lonely when you know there are women and femmes all around you who are perfectly capable of having facial hair but have been so utterly crushed into pretending it doesn't even exist that I've had two different women in their 50s break down to me in a grocery store precovid about how they've been shaving nonstop for 30-40 years and they're so tired of being afraid of their husband's touching their stubble. It makes me so sad because when I used to obsessively hide my beard I swore up and down to everyone that I was happy and comfortable with myself and that I loved shaving and I CHOSE to do this and I'd hate the sensory feeling of their hair bc I'm autistic!!

And it turns out all of that was me stuck in a state of cognitive dissonance and flinching from any touch like I did for most of my life isn't a sign of comfort in your body and I wonder how many others are stuck there, too. How many more women in their 50s and 60s and 70s have been doing this shit out of a sense of anxious miserable obligation just like I was and just like the women who cried to me in a fucking Kroger

my stupid fucking aunt loraine bought us an air friar for our wedding present 🤦‍♀️ the apartments barely big enough for the two of us now weve got this dumb asshole flying around preaching at us ... every time i get a migraine he tries to give me herbs and poultices 🙄

Every time I remember that Bezos said that Earth would become a "vacation planet" in the far future I get so full of rage that I want to punch in a wall

You hubris filled piece of shit. You want to take away humanity's home and turn it into a goddamn tourist trap for profit. You want Earth itself to be owned by a corporation. You want planets to be owned. You forsake the world's history and love and beauty. You pollute her waters, kill her creatures, and darken her skies. You think our world is a plaything for your capitalistic greed to break and throw aside. You ruin and force us out of our home and only return when people are too far apart to even care. I hate you. You will kill us all you egotistical son of a bitch.

Why would you hide that in the notes

I want an ice maker and enough room in the freezer for a pizza and that is IT.

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I want the dumbest fridge you got. Gimme the orange tabby of refrigeration. I want my fridge to pull the wrong lever and turn my enemies into llamas instead of killing them. I want the following features: keeps things cold, has compartment that keeps things colder, a door that opens and shuts.

"Here at Stupid Jeff's Dumb Appliance Warehouse we sell the dumbest fucking appliances. Check out this fridge. This fridge won't ask you about your day, this dumb fucking fridge doesn't know what an Elon Musk is and won't fucking tell you what bullshit that dumb monkey is slapping into his phone today when you try to get some fucking milk. We took out all those "smart" electronics and in their place we put a loaded Glock 9mm that is put right up to that light that turns on when you open the door, which is the smartest thing in this fucking stupid fridge and let me tell you that fucker is on thin goddamn ice, if it gets too smart and tries to turn on before you open that door, the Glock will blow it to hell. Speaking of ice, this stupid fridge makes it. It makes ice, it keeps things cold, it comes with shelves. It's sturdy enough that when your ex comes back to your place looking for their stuff that they think they left behind like nine months ago and they know that you don't have it, but they wanted an excuse to come start a fight with you and throw a chair at your head but miss you and hit your fridge MICHAEL, this fridge will keep trucking because it gives zero shits and it only lives to keep things cold. Come to Stupid Jeff's Dumb Appliance Warehouse, if you ask us if we have an app, we break your kneecaps."

Y’all in the American SW and west Mexico better check the national hurricane center and your weather for this weekend and next week.

Hurricane Hilary is about to make landfall and that whole desert area is supposed to get a years worth of rain or more. Death Valley is supposed to get twice the annual rainfall. Severe winds, massive flooding, and landslides are all strong possibilities.

This is gonna get ugly. Please spread the word. This is a majorly anomalous event and people may be unaware of the threat headed their way.

Flash floods are definitely gonna kill people, so here’s your regularly scheduled PSA:

Desert soil does not absorb a significant amount of water. It reaches maximum saturation very very quickly, and all the rest of the water rushes downhill. Even if you can’t tell that the ground is not perfectly flat, the water can. And it will move. Quickly. No, faster than that. Nope, still faster. If you try to cross moving floodwater, you will get swept downstream and probably die.

Do not try to wade in/cross flood water that is any deeper than the thickness of the sole of an average athletic shoe, no I am not kidding, the water will get deeper literally while you’re standing in it.

This goes for cars, too. I’ve seen entire vehicles getting swept downstream in flash floods because the driver thought they could cross the “puddle” and Found Out.

Stay safe, y’all.

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CALL TO ACTION to support WGA/SAG-AFTRA: Submit a comment about the corporate monopoly crisis.

August 18, 2023: You can personalize the template message included in the above link, or simply just add your name & email. Seems like it's US only; please boost if you can't sign yourself.

"More than 100 days into our strike, as we continue to fight for the sustainability of our profession, events in Washington, D.C. provide an opportunity for writers to shine a light on one of the root causes of the strike: media consolidation. For decades, the WGA has advocated for stronger antitrust oversight, bringing attention to the ways that mergers and vertical integration in our industry – from AT&T-Time Warner to Warner Bros.-Discovery to Amazon-MGM to Disney-Fox – have consolidated the power of our employers and harmed writers as well as the diversity of content. In numerous reports and policy filings – including a new report called The New Gatekeepers: How Disney, Amazon and Netflix Will Take Over Media, released yesterday – the WGA has documented the threat to our industry from past and future consolidation and called for more aggressive antitrust enforcement. Our current strike highlights the urgency of the issue; studios gained power through anti-competitive consolidation and vertical integration and then used that power to push down wages and impose more precarious working conditions for writers while profiting off of their work, and currently – together – refuse to bargain a fair contract for writers to mitigate those harms. Last month, the FTC and DOJ jointly released proposed revisions to their Merger Guidelines, a policy document designed to guide law enforcement around consolidation. These new Draft Guidelines are part of an effort by these agencies to reinvigorate antitrust enforcement. Compared with prior versions of Merger Guidelines, they give significantly more weight to the ways that mergers can be harmful and, for the first time, explicitly direct agencies and courts to consider how mergers can hurt workers. The Draft Guidelines have been released for public comment, and the FTC and DOJ want to hear from people who have been affected by consolidation – people like you.”

The FTC and DOJ are accepting comments on their revisions of the Merger Guidelines until September 18.

It's midnight, I stumble out of Chicago union station bloody, I collapse dramatically on the steps, the bright warm glow of a streetlight illuminating me as I fall, the song Dancing Queen by ABBA begins to play from an unknown source, as the snow slowly begins to fall on my lifeless body as you see a woman in a long white fur coat with red stains exit the building, you are too preoccupied with the music source to stop my murderer

When I found out Paramount+ was removing Star Trek: Prodigy I bought all 20 episodes of S1 from Amazon Video since that was the only way for me to watch all 20 at the time. On 6/27, I lost access to episodes 10-20. Amazon has done what they can, which isn't much.

All 20 were accessible when I paid for all 20. The full season is what I was buying. Now, I only have access to 9 of the episodes.

What is the point of buying digital content if they're just going to steal it back from you afterwards?! Is this not false advertisement?

Seems appropriate

People don’t seem to realize this. Digital purchases are great until the seller no longer has the rights to the media and suddenly its not yours anymore