Okay, so I’ve gotten multiple messages this week alone asking me to signal boost a fundraiser, all from people I have never once spoken to before. So let me make this very fucking clear- I am a person, not a fucking notice board. I reblog fundraisers from people I know and trust, and even then, I do so very rarely. This is my personal blog, I am here to have fun, and I do not want random people trying to use me to get eyes on their shit. If I don’t know you, it is not fucking happening, do NOT ask me to reblog your fundraiser. I will block you and report you for spam, and I will do so while absolutely judging your goddamn manners, since clearly you don’t have any.
If you need eyes on your fundraiser, please go over to @copperbadge’s Radio Free Monday form, fill it out, and stop dropping random messages in people’s inboxes.
For historical context, this is about making a panel for the AIDS quilt, a memorial project which began in San Francisco in 1985. Due to the stigma surrounding both homosexuality and AIDS during this time, victims of the epidemic were often cremated and disposed of or buried without ceremony, their bodies unclaimed by their families or origin or held by hospitals rather than released to same-sex partners.
Each panel in the AIDS quilt memorializes a life lost to the disease. Each panel is 3′ x 6′ (approximately 1 meter wide and 2 meters long), the approximate dimensions of a cemetery plot. The quilt, which then consisted of 1,920 panels representing 1,920 individuals lost to AIDS, was first displayed in Washington DC in 1987. The public response was immediate, positive, and overwhelming, and the quilt began taken around the country to be displayed in more cities. At each stop, the names of the dead were read out loud. At each stop, more panels were added.
By the time the quit returned to the US capital in 1988, it had more than 8,000 panels.
The quilt continues to grow. Today, it has over 50,000 panels memorializing over 100,000 of our dead. It’s too large now to physically display in its entirety, but you can view the entire thing online. There are also curated virtual displays of just panels which honor the Black and native people killed by the virus because in the US (and likely abroad, although I don’t know enough about public health elsewhere to say so with confidence), communities of color are disproportionately impacted by epidemics, as we have seen time and time again.
You can learn more about the quilt and its history here, and you can learn how to add a panel to the quilt here.
If you’re unable to access the quilt, here’s a zoomed in screenshot of the bottom left corner:
The quilt is made up of several panel, each panel itself consisting of 1 to 8 quilts.
Here’s a screenshot of the whole thing:
This is only about half of the people - our people - who were left to die because the government didn’t think “the gay disease” was a problem. This is why we march.
I just watched The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself which is a great show about witches and magic and not letting your parents define you with an absolutely incredible ot3 dynamic that slowly builds throughout the show so of course Netflix had to cancel it.
opens news article. closes three pop up ads. backs out of the survey page i was redirected to. closes a pop up video ad. rejects cookies to make the cookie window go away. dismisses the requests to receive notifications from the website and the offers to sign up for it. dodges ninja lasers and poisonous arrow traps. body of the page is finally visible. i have reached my monthly limit and can’t read the article
Can you elaborate the story of the ”Free Willy” orca (forgot his name). From my understanding the orca couldn’t survive in the wild and imprinted on hunans to the point that he seeked out human compaionship
Oh Keiko. His is a sad story. In 1979, he was tragically captured from his native Icelandic waters as a calf and, after bouncing around for several years, was sold to an amusement park in Mexico City that would eventually become Six Flags Mexico. It was here that he found fame as the star of Free Willy, a very sweet and very fictional story (a favorite of mine as a child!) that later spawned a trilogy, all while convincing the public that it’s easy to free a whale.
The tank you see in the movie is the same tank Keiko lived in during his time in Mexico. Intended to house dolphins, it was incredibly undersized, and the water was far too warm for an orca. Worst of all, he was isolated from others of his kind, with only the companionship of his human caregivers and a few bottlenose dolphins. The years of poor husbandry took their toll on poor Keiko, and he was lethargic and in ill health when his story because known throughout the world.
Although many parties were involved in what happened next, Warner Bros. studios (the filmmakers behind Free Willy) and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS, my beloathed) were at the forefront. Once it became public knowledge that the real Willy was not, in fact, returned to the wild to live with his family and was still living in that too-tiny pool, many of Keiko’s fans (mainly children) began writing letters asking for their favorite cetacean movie star to be released.
Doesn’t that warm your heart? *she says sarcastically*
Some time—and an incident in which Michael Jackson (yes, that Michael Jackson) tried to purchase the whale for his personal collection—later, Keiko’s owners relented. It was decided by the newly formed Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, founded by Warner Bros. and cell phone mogul Craig McCaw (and still in operation to this day, unfortunately), that it was time to make fantasy a reality and set Keiko free. In 1996, Keiko was transferred to the Oregon Coast Aquarium for rehabilitation, where he would spend two years.
Under the quality husbandry and veterinary care Keiko received in Oregon, his health began to improve. In my opinion, this beautiful habitat, with trainers who loved and cared for him, should’ve been his forever home. One would think this was the plan all along, considering his trainers were still doing waterwork with him. That doesn’t exactly scream “this animal is a candidate for release!”
But the HSUS and Free Willy-Keiko Foundation had promised the children of the world that Keiko would return to the wild. Think of the children, people.
In 1998, Keiko tasted the crisp saltwater of the Icelandic seas for the first time in nearly two decades. For the next four or so years, Keiko lived in a sea pen, with the intentions of gradually habituating him back to his native environment. Over time, his trainers took him on longer and longer “walks” in the open ocean. One day in 2002, the walk didn’t end.
Keiko was free.
15 months later, he was dead.
The cause of death was pneumonia, the most common disease of cetaceans both in the wild and in human care. He was 27 years old (average life expectancy of a male orca is about 30 years).
Perhaps it would’ve been worth it, had Keiko spent those last 15 months with his long-lost family. But he didn’t. Though he was occasionally observed trailing pods of orcas, Keiko never rejoined a wild pod. Instead, he spent those 15 months traveling the coasts of Iceland and Norway seeking out the only family he knew. Humans.
Keiko would approach swimming children, allowing them to ride on his back as he had with his trainers over the years. He would follow boats in search of food and companionship, as his caregivers had interacted with him from boats during his ocean walks. These escapades became so frequent that the local government passed ordinances to stop its citizens from interacting with the whale. Although the HSUS claimed otherwise, Keiko was never again a truly wild whale. He was a whale dependent on humans, humans who ignored the advice of experts and tried to bring fiction to life. In 2009, the journal Marine Mammal Science did a retrospective review of Keiko’s rehabilitation and release. They determined it was a failure.
Despite this, Keiko remains a poster child for anti-zoo activists. The still-hypothetical Whale Sanctuary Project (my even more beloathed) uses Keiko as an example of why their experiment is a good idea, tugging at heartstrings of well-meaning animal lovers like HSUS did all those years ago.
In reality, Keiko was quite possibly the worst candidate imaginable for release. He was a fully mature male, with a history of poor health, who had spent decades in the care of humans with absolutely no contact with others of his kind since he was basically a toddler. The decision to release him was made entirely on emotion and carried out by movie executives and animal rights activists. For further insight into the political and financial woes of the release, I highly recommend Killing Keiko by Mark Simmons, one of Keiko’s caregivers throughout the rehabilitation process.
RIP Keiko. You were a beautiful, sweet man who inspired millions 🐳
With the recent news of Miami Seaquarium’s intent to “release” their elderly killer whale Lolita (Tokitae), please remember Keiko. Much like him, Tokitae was captured from the wild as a youngster (nearly a decade before Keiko himself was taken) and has lived with only the companionship of humans and smaller dolphins. She has spent over half a century away from the wild and other orcas, and it has been genetically confirmed that none of her wild family is still alive. Like Keiko, the only family she knows are humans.
Don’t let Keiko’s death be in vain. Don’t let the same fate befall Toki.
i hope everyone knows that the last wga strike was ~100 days and it’s a pretty common phenomenon for strike support to tank after a month or two when it feels like it’s dragging on and some writers and talk show hosts are crossing picket lines and trying to “return” to “normal” because of people’s livelihoods etc when they’re really just scabs. sure hope that we keep that in mind and are prepared for the long haul and aren’t just in it while it’s convenient for us <3
So I was looking for the budget of One Day at a Time which is a standard fourth wall single set (most of the time) 3 camera show.
This means that the props and set budget is minimal so it being cancelled at the end of season 3 (and being one of the earlier shows to meet this fate) makes it an ideal candidate to call "bullshit" on.
But I couldn't find the budget. However I did find this [link] to a deadline article from when it got saved and moved networks for season 4. Apparently the reason Netflix Originals so rarely get picked up by other networks (after they get the Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend treatment and are prematurely dumped) is that Netflix contracts them to be made with a clause that prevents them from carrying over to any other digital platform for several years.
Which means Netflix model of being saviour to major network shows which get axed cannot work in reverse as even the major TV networks rely on their online platforms for profit and they would not be allowed to host their own damn shows online.
As the writers strike is now underway, this seems an opportune moment to draw attention to the shitty ways in which show creators, and production companies are getting penned into a trap by streaming services (it won't just be Netflix, it's right up Disney and Amazons street to pull this crap) whereby they can't continue their shows once the initial hosting platform drops their funding.
This is the same way that Amazon corners "self published" book authors by the way. Once you've gone direct to Amazon with your stuff to get it on Kindle or get a short run of paperbacks, that is it. You can't get it printed traditionally to get them into bookshops and normal publishing channels.
The digital only option is killing creatives with its double standards and we need to challenge it at all levels.
Also it goes without saying but modern companies need to dial back their idea of success. If they're setting the bar too high or the targets too immediate things will fail by default.
