top birb

(created by Anna Edwards (dwardslife on Instagram))

“Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be assassinated, but I’m overwhelmed seeing the flags of the United States of America at half-staff calling this nation to honor and venerate a man who was an unapologetic racist.”

– Pastor Howard-John Wesley, Alfred Street Baptist Church

on survival

what ppl defending kids on ipads don’t seem to understand is that there are other ways to keep kids occupied. my mom had a whole bag full of little toys and games for me to play with while waiting in lines at disney world. once your kid is like 7 or 8 they can read a book. they can color. or they can literally just sit there and imagine things. i did that a lot as a kid.

thanks for putting your wrong and bad commentary in the tags where i still have to read all of it. most of what you said is untrue.

OP: giving children too young to process things so much access to ipads isn’t good for them maybe.

People in the notes: So you hate moms??? You’re ableist?? You think we should go back to the Dark Ages?? (My personal favorite because it makes no sense) you’re poor shaming??

Why is it so difficult to explain that children not developing fine motor skills and losing their attention spans is bad actually??

also children can end up being entertained by just about anything. I remember building "bird nests" with sticks in the backyard when I was like 7 years old. That was it. It took up my whole afternoon and I was entertained the entire time.

I worked at a kindergarten for a year, and Jesus Christ these kids are falling behind on so many milestones

Everyone knows who the iPad kids are

I've seen it all from kids who don't know how to use scissors, and can't perform the motions right compared to other kids in that age group, to kids who can't write the alphabet or spell their names (the older ones)

And one of the most startling thing I encountered was every now and then we have a country day, where we choose a country, color in the country's flag in the colors and watch a little film about said country.

And I was overseeing the coloring, and one boy just refusing to color

It happens, stubbornness, bad days, 'just don't wanna' s happen, but I sit with him and continue to try and encourage him and figure out why he doesn't want to

And he keeps saying he doesn't know how to color

And I'm like ??? Just pick up the pencil and put it on the paper buddy, cmon

So I'm showing him how, and he refuses to try over and over

So then I try like, coloring while guiding his hand, and again this is a flag were coloring it's a giant rectangle, not much precision is needed

And I realize while I'm helping him, literally moving his hand to color for him, he's CLEARLY never colored before. He's 4, there is no excuse for this when kids start coloring at like, 2 maybe younger.

By 4-5 kids can generally color inside the lines well enough and draw recognizable figures like people and landscapes and pets

Eventually he got into it, understood how to do it and requested to continue on by himself, which was great! I told him I was proud of him and we continued on with our day but it absolutely shocked me that these iPad kids are so beyond stunted like jesus

He didn't know how to grip a pencil, he didn't know the wrist movements and motions, he didn't understand the pressure control, he had no control over where or how he was coloring like, these kids NEED TO learn these things it's STARTLING how many kids don't have these milestones and are just not developing these fine motor skills

Ask any kindergarten attendant and they'll tell you the same thing-

The best thing you can do for a kid is buy them a shitton of construction paper, decorative child-safe scissors, and coloring books

Please please please kids need to cut paper up and color. It helps them develop so many fine motor skils

Now don't be mistaken, the percentage of these kids are low, for now. It's definitely not every kid, and thankfully not the majority but it is still a problem

What you're going to start seeing is a social class stratification of this.

I was at an MVA call--car into a powerline. Three kids, 9, 5, and 2 years old, trapped in the back of a car, crushed against a pole, live lines on the car. Meaning they were fine as long as they stayed inside but we couldn't cut the car open until the power company came and killed the line.

It took about a half an hour. We were all losing our MINDS thinking about three kids who had just been in a significant car accident, unknown injuries, trapped in a car without their mom, and all these strange noises and people around them. We thought these kids would be terrified.

Nope. All three of them were on devices watching videos. Like they didn't even register what had happened or the danger they'd been in or why people were so worried, or even THAT we were worried.

The most distress I saw the kids in as we drove the 30 minutes to the peds hospital? Was when the 2 year old's device's battery died. She went from sitting unnaturally quietly staring at Cocomelon to SCREAMING and throwing things and biting anyone. She only calmed down when her older brother agreed to share his device with her.

It was spooky af, man.

The mom thought she was doing a great job bc her kids were 'so well behaved'. To this day I wonder about kids who cannot process anything other than visual dopamine. How are they going to do in school? Sure? But how about their social development? How are they going to have friends? Boyfriends? Girlfriends? Anything?

[Image ID: Tumblr tags reading: #it's actually critical for people to learn how to be bored #i'm not joking on that. i'm 100% serious. #it's critical for kids to learn that skill too #<- prev you are so correct #my mom is a child psychologist and the number of kids she meets who can't regulate themselves because they never learned is Wild /End ID]

“Great art, AI could never do this!” “Hell yeah! I love trans people! Transphobes cannot handle trans swag!” “Look at this lesbian dating another lesbian! We’re about to piss off the homophobes with this one” “POC have great cultural practices. I’m sure the racists are having heart attacks right now.””Love seeing disabled people around. Bet the ableist are peeing their pants right now.”

Oh I get it, we’re in the Bad Place.

"But what's wrong with this?" What's wrong with this is that often times, people leave these types of comments when it's not necessary.

Leaving comments like this takes a moment of celebration and turns it to a moment of spite.

This is especially annoying when it's online. Most online spaces are algorithmically based and since algorithms like to share posts that will spread controversy, comments like that are only going to attract more people to it.

Bringing generative AI into a conversation that was started when someone wanted to share their art is just going to attract a generative AI dick rider to "erm actually..." the conversation. Bringing transphobia into a conversation that's supposed to be support of trans people will cause transphobes to enter the conversation and remind said trans person about transphobia. And so on and so forth.

If you want to show your support, keep the first half and drop the second half. Just say "you're amazing" and move on. It's a supportive message and it's still a celebration.

This is also the exact same mental trap conservatives and right-wingers fall into, doing shit just to "own the libs" - then their entire existence becomes defined by hatred instead of having an actual personality

If you can't enjoy something without thinking about how it's pissing off someone you don't like, then what's even the point??

As a wheelchair user I'm trying to reframe my language for "being in the way."

"I'm in the way," "I can't fit," and "I can't go there," is becoming "there's not enough space," "the walkway is too narrow," and "that place isn't accessible."

It's a small change, but to me it feels as if I'm redirecting blame from myself to the people that made these places inaccessible in the first place. I don't want people to just think that they're helping me, I want them to think that they're making up for someone else's wrongdoing. I want them to remember every time I've needed help as something someone else caused.

To the people saying this also applies to fat people - you are not derailing! This is true!!!

Oppositional sexism is a very useful term actually. Like, so much is better explained by the idea of “there’s a societal belief that men and women should remain opposites and should have no overlapping traits” than “this is homophobia/transphobia”. Why does society hate displays of femininity in men and masculinity in women? It’s oppositional sexism. They hate that you’re proof that masculinity and femininity aren’t inherently opposites. Thank you julia serano for another banger

being gay or lesbian also doesn't free you from belief in, snd enforcement of, oppositional sexism. a lot of radfems hate when trans men and women remind them that the differences between men and women are more societal than biological, and it's actually really easy to do both. or neither. or flip back and forth.

i didn't fail at being a woman, i was good at. i just quit being one because i didn't want to anymore. now im a man and im doing that well enough lots of people don't perceive anything 'wrong' with my behavior or even my body.

men and women aren't naturally opposite creatures, they're just two modes of human expression. it takes a ton of work, violent work, to maintain the premise that Male and Female are fundamentally different categories. and if we ever want freedom and equality it's on us to challenge that assertion as often as we can.

just saw someone (a trans + autistic person) say "most trans people are autistic" so just wanted to clear up real quickly. that is not true. you cannot separate the autism/trans overlap from the reality that many trans people have to have psych evals in order to access healthcare, which makes us more likely to be identified as autistic. when I was trying to access HRT, my doctor gave me questionnaires for autism and ADHD. many of my friends who are on HRT had to get evaluated for gender dysphoric disorder, and picked up other diagnoses in the process. this is altogether unsurprising to me, and it should be unsurprising to anyone who has been through those layers of psychiatric screening

I'm not saying there's a 0% chance of a real overlap existing between the two groups. it is an overlap that would make some sense. but 1) it's certainly not "most" trans people, and 2) you cannot trust any data about a group that is more likely to be exposed to pathologising processes than the majority

this is also one of many reasons you should be suspicious of data about mental illness diagnoses in prison populations. criminalising and pathologising go hand in hand. if more people in a population are assessed for a diagnosis, more people in that population will present with that diagnosis. this is particularly true when there are political factors at play. such as, for example, the political pressure to pathologise 'criminality' as a trait held in an individual. or 'transgenderism' as a process undertaken by the insane. unsurprising!

It’s so crazy that suicide prevention is just people going awwww don’t!! Awwww come on noooooooooo stopppppp

One of the best ones I saw was a thing noting that every single one of the few survivors of suicide jumps off of the Golden Gate Bridge realized, on the way down, that the problems they were killing themselves over actually were fixable or could be worked through...except for the now - extremely unfixable - problem of gravity.

Went to the Holocaust Museum in DC once. There was a video interview of an Auschwitz survivor who said he and some other prisoners stayed up all night with a man who wanted to kill himself. The man didn’t kill himself and survived to liberation.

In the video the survivor said “Never seek a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And they’re all temporary problems.”

Hearing that from a guy who survived the Holocaust rewired my brain a little bit.

[ID: Post from @/amaros-system that reads, "The best suicide prevention I ever saw was an exhaustive list of every way to commit suicide with pros and cons. It felt more like an academic paper than anything else. It concluded that there was no way to kill yourself that wasn't extraordinarily painful, incredibly unreliable, or both. If you kill yourself you, in all likelihood, will suffer immensely. That scared me straight for a while. /end ID]

Take a walk with me. You grew up going to Chick-fil-A. They're honestly your favorite fried chicken, and you could *drink* their dipping sauce.

You find out that Chick-fil-A is a bad company. Like, puts LOTS of money to anti-LGBT organizations. Unchecked discrimination against employees. So, buying their food actively funds oppression.

So you start ordering from other restaurants when you crave fried chicken. You try your hand at cooking your own. You find a copycat recipe online for Chick-fil-A sauce so you can have the taste without the guilt.

You have a friend over for dinner and make fried chicken. "Oh, I almost forgot-- I've got homemade Chick-fil-A sauce to go with it!" You say, grabbing the jar out of the fridge.

Your friend asks why you would support Chick-fil-A when you know how terrible they are. You explain that it's not actually Chick-fil-A brand, just something that tastes like their sauce. You don't support that restaurant or eat there anymore, but you grew up eating out there so you've got fond memories with the taste.

Your friend looks offput. Doesn't your disgust at their actions override your nostalgia? How can you still enjoy the taste of Chick-fil-A?

You say that because you're not giving any money to Chick-fil-A, you don't see why you can't enjoy the sauce. It tastes good to you, and it lets you engage with those memories without actually causing harm.

Your friend is upset now, saying that creating something based on Chick-fil-A's food is still showing support for the restaurant. Raising Cane's and Zaxby's also have chicken sauces, so there's no reason to stick with Chick-fil-A.

You say that you like Cane's sauce just fine, but it's just not what you grew up with. And again, you don't go to Chick-fil-A or buy their products. You're not supporting them financially, and you don't support their ideals. You aren't trying to make them use your homemade sauce, but you're going to use it on your own chicken.

The argument goes in circles until your friend says that if you're going to defend the oppression and disenfranchisement of LGBT people, there's no point continuing the friendship.

You watch your former friend leave and wonder what the hell just happened.

Anyway this is what arguments about whether it's okay to read Harry Potter fanfiction feel like.

i hate it when i cant even write a poem about something because its too obvious. like in the airbnb i was at i guess it used to be a kids room cause you could see the imprint of one little glow in the dark star that had been missed and painted over in landlord white. like that's a poem already what's the point

you get it. you get the themes. i dont have time to do it justice. just look at it its on the ceiling

as someone who has been involved in union organizing through my dad's union since i was literally in second grade, the way that people on tumblr think unions work drives me literally insane

unions do so much more than just strike. unions bargain. unions sit in at meetings with upper management. unions help people navigate benefits. unions coordinate aid drives for disabled members. my union ran a donations campaign for me for the interim between the end of my allotted paid leave and my disability claim

"unionize your workplace" means so much more than "talk to your coworkers about striking." you gotta actively know what a union is and what a union isn't before you can form one. calls to unionize should lead to more people learning their rights and learning how unions work, and coordinating with orgs like seiu and the teamsters and the aft (and if you don't know what those are, look them up).

My union found me a legal expert to help me check over my last redundancy settlement for free, provided private medical cover whilst I was unemployed, and negotiated a good deal on cheap insurance for their members. It is so much more than strikes.

Antigonick, Sophocles (tr. Anne Carson)

The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

Orestes, Euripedes (tr. Anne Carson)

Herakles, Euripedes (from Anne Carson, Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides)

Orestes, Euripedes (tr. Ian Johnston)

The Mark of Athena, Rick Riordan

The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

Orestes, Euripedes (tr. Anne Carson)

Two Slow Dancers, Mitski

Last week if you told me you had "Trump accuses Kamala Harris of racefaking in front of an audience of black journalists" on your bingo card, I would've chastised you for an incredibly poor-taste joke, but apparently you can mark that square today

In case you thought I was making an incredibly poor-taste joke,

So, something to understand is that he does not listen to his advisors or follow the strategy they set out for him, almost ever. His campaign strategists and advisors have been pretty staunchly pushing the GOP and the public-facing side of the campaign to avoid attacks on the basis of race or gender, because it loses them poll numbers and gains her support. This hasn't stopped him, or any of the other Republicans, they just can't help themselves, but his advisors are practically begging him to cut this shit out. The other important thing to understand about this event is that the appearance was cut short because his own campaign requested they end it, that's how bad a job he did following his advisors' strategy

The funny thing is that he simply said he thought she was only Indian, even though she's always called herself a black woman, even when he gave her campaign when running for Senator $5k. I think he might think this makes him look less racist but only serves to make him look more racist for not understanding mixed race people. I've also seen people trying to equally deny Harris is black by pointing out where her parents were born, ignorant that most Jamaicans are black. (Some of these are also those who believe she cannot be president because her parents weren't born in the US, ignoring that the litmus to the position only refers to her birth status, not her parents.)

as someone who detransitioned and now identifies as gnc i will never ever understand other detrans people who hate the trans community. like they loved you. they loved you when no one else would. i am forever grateful for the guys and dolls in my life personally. i will love them and fight alongside them until i die

as someone who also detransitioned i would like to add that the transphobic detrans people are a very very vocal minority and its a genuine shame that people only ever give detrans people attention when theyre useful for the Discourse. this is a good and true post of course but its incredibly isolating for people to only acknowledge your existence or give you the floor when its to show support or disdain for another group.

I think I can trace my intense hatred for the whole "regulations are just corporate bullshit, building codes are just The Man's way of keeping you down, we should return to pre-industrial barter and trade systems" nonsense back to when I first started doing electrical work at one of the largest hospitals in the country.

I have had to learn so much about all the special conditions in the National Electric Code for healthcare systems. All the systems that keep hospitals running, all the redundancies and backups that make sure one disaster or outage won't take out the hospital's life support, all the rules about different spaces within the hospital and the different standards that apply to each of them. And a lot of it is ridiculously over-engineered and overly redundant, but all of it is in the service of saving even one life from being lost to some wacky series of coincidences that could have been prevented with that redundancy.

I've done significantly less work in food production plants and the like, but I know they have similar standards to make sure the plants aren't going to explode or to make sure a careless maintenance tech isn't accidentally dropping screws into jars of baby food or whatever. And research labs have them to make sure some idiot doesn't leave a wrench inside a transformer and wreck a multi-million dollar machine when they try to switch it on.

Living in the self-sufficient commune is all fun and games until someone needs a kidney transplant and suddenly wants a clean, reliable hospital with doctors that are subject to some kind of overseeing body, is my point.

from what I know of just the general history of building codes and osha rules, I would not be the least surprised if every single one of those healthcare codes exist not just to prevent someone from dying, but because pre-code, someone did.

osha rules, building codes, food production rules are all written in blood

I've helped write regulations for things before (luckily nothing life-or-death) and I promise you that 95% of all regulations in literally any context come about because before the regulation, someone fucked shit up to the point where new rules were Needed. (Also the same logic applies to crypto Bros re: financial regulation).

Poorly written regulations cause problems, and regulations constantly need to be assessed to make sure they're not simply protecting the powerful at the expense of everyone else. But rules are necessary for literally any space where there might be people with bad, or even just apathetic/negligent intentions.

Lots of small activism spaces operate on consensus, which is awesome, but that doesn't work once you're organizing 1000 people and need to worry about those who are either incompetent or have potentially harmful motives.

I’m old enough to remember way back in 2018 when the NYPD got busted spying on Muslims, and how they illegally infiltrated Muslim communities + mosques, and that their actions were unethical, unlawful and ultimately found to be unconstitutional.

And now that same NYPD is suppressing pro-Palestinian protests and using unreasonable force against college students whose demands are for peace, a ceasefire and an end to the war crimes + genocide being inflicted on Palestinians by Israel.

Never forget that under the guise of fighting “terrorism,” police forces around the country have always been deeply Islamophobic, but especially the NYPD.

And now they’re doing this against college students.

The protesters are American taxpayers, citizens (you don’t have to be a citizen to be a taxpayer) activists, and college students. And the cowardly university presidents, mayors, governors and the police are treating them like armed insurrections—except on January 6th law enforcement actually treated armed insurrectionists much better than unarmed college protesters.

America, where armed white nationalists—literally fomenting an insurrection—get treated with more equity, dignity and respect than peaceful college students who are exercising their constitutionally protected right to protest against war and genocide.

Some of you don't have firm principles that transcend ideology, and it shows.

"Spreading blatant misinformation is okay when it supports a cause I care about, and if anybody corrects me, it means they do not share my values." 🤡

"Police brutality is okay if it's being carried out by a government ascribing to my preferred political philosophy." 🤡

"If this person has harmful views, then my criticism of them can't be [racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/antisemitic/Islamophobic/classist/ableist/etc]." 🤡

Like, please, I'm begging you guys to invest in some basic standards.

-- Against the Logic of the Guillotine

The fact that homelessness is controversial tells you everything you need to know about conservatives.