so kojima got a new boy toy

@power-chords pray for his wife

how could you leave out the best one...

i learned about Tim Wong who successfully and singlehandedly repopulated the rare California Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly in San Francisco. In the past few years, he’s cultivated more than 200 pipevine plants (their only food source) and gives thousands of caterpillars to his local Botanical Garden (x)

hmmm

pics that make you go well yeehaw little pardner

well yeehaw little pardner

The way that we learn about Helen Keller in school is an absolute outrage. We read “The Miracle Worker”- the miracle worker referring to her teacher; she’s not even the title character in her own story. The narrative about disabled people that we are comfortable with follows this format- “overcoming” disability. Disabled people as children. Helen Keller as an adult, though? She was a radical socialist, a fierce disability advocate, and a suffragette. There’s no reason she should not be considered a feminist icon, btw, and the fact that she isn’t is pure ableism- while other white feminists of that time were blatent racists, she was speaking out against Woodrew Wilson because of his vehement racism. She supported woman’s suffrage and birth control. She was an anti-war speaker. She was an initial donor to the NAACP. She spoke out about the causes of blindness- often disease caused by poverty and poor working conditions. She was so brave and outspoken that the FBI had a file on her because of all the trouble she caused.

Yet when we talk about her, it’s either the boring, inspiration porn story of her as a child and her heroic teacher, or as the punchline of ableist, misogynistic jokes. It’s not just offensive, it’s downright disgusting.

the reason the story stops once hellen keller learns to talk is no one wanted to listen to what she had to say

how’s that for a fucking punchline

Another part of the story that is often conveniently omitted is that Anne Sullivan, the “miracle worker” in question, was also a visually impaired woman (and abolitionist) who faced her own struggles finding accessible education. That was why she was able to teach Helen Keller and connect her with resources that would allow her to flourish in academia. When Helen Keller was railing against poverty-induced diseases that caused blindness, she was talking about things like trachoma which was what had caused her friend’s vision loss.

The fact that Sullivan is often portrayed as able-bodied in retellings of their story is indicative of the narrative that is most comfortable for an ableist society: that accessibility and equality are gifts bestowed upon the disabled by able-bodied heroes. Disabled children are never taught that they have the power to lift each other up, and that’s a crying shame.

I didn’t learn she was an activist until college when (the chillest history teacher in the world) had us read Zinn & Arnove’s Voices of A People’s History (which I highly recommend), and we were tested on Helen Keller’s “Strike Against War” speech. Here is the beginning of her speech:

some lion sketches!

“A dog with a flair for the melodramatic.”

(via)

This should not be hidden in the comments

…number. *sad cannibal noises*

A tiger bursting to freedom after being rescued from a poacher’s snare in the Russian Far East.

Standing directly in the doorway to achieve peak mental health.

This little angry Flemish puppet is me and nobody can tell me otherwise

why am i allowed to draw

NOOO

good for him.

“nope”

(via)

Fall witchiness…

COVID is slowly becoming a “third world” disease. While first world countries are hoarding vaccines, having doses for populations many times their size, third world countries can’t get any because pharma companies want to sell to the first world countries first. Even then, first world countries will receive them first. While rich countries recover from COVID, they will forget about the pandemic while many other countries live the absolute worst moment of the pandemic without being able to vaccinate their population.

Watch also when some first world countries finish vaccinating their populations, they will turn to third world countries and “donate” or sell surplus vaccines. People in these countries will go “Oh how sweet! The government is donating vaccines to the poorer countries <3” when it was their hoarding that led to many, many third world citizens dying before they could even get vaccinated in the first place.

african and latin american countries are also pushed by pfizer to give up sovereign assets as part of their vaccine agreement

Yo europeans, sign the fucking petition, get the european commission to lift the patents

This is not a bullshit useless change dot org petition by the way this is an actual thing with legal consequences. If this petition gets to a million signatures, the european commission HAS to examine it.

They need not only a million signatures but to pass thresholds in at least seven member states - which only Belgium has done so so far. Especially if you have Italian, Irish, or Cypriot citizenship, please sign. Sign it in general, but try to circulate if you can to anyone with those nationalities specifically.

231,195 / 1,000,000 signatures as of 10/28/21

237,730  /  1,000,000  signatures as of 11/28/21 and the Signatory Deadline(it has to be signed by this date) is January 8th, 2022.

PLEASE sign, especially if you’re from one of the countries that has not reached it’s threshold. (France, Sweden, Greece, Germany, The Netherlands, Austria…basically every country except Italy and Belgium)

Minimum thresholds must be met in at least five more countries in addition to the 1,000,000 signatures requirement.

The countries closest to reaching their minimum threshold are Ireland(89% of required signatures), France(75%), The Netherlands (75%), Spain (69%), and Cyprus (46%). If you or anyone you know have citizenship in these countries, please sign it, encourage them to sign it, and pass it forward.

If the requirements are met, the European Commission will be forced to examine this and take legal action. Real change is a possibility if enough signatures are collected.

Spread this.