Carmen Maria Machado in Queer for Fear: A History of Queer Horror

here is the statement of brandon bernard’s legal team, who put it far better than i ever could. 

[ID: Attorney statement re: execution of Brandon Bernard.

“Tonight, those of us who love Brandon Bernard - and we are many - are full of righteous anger and deep sadness at the actions of the federal government in taking his life. Brandon’s live mattered. To us, his legal team, to his two beautiful and talented daughters, to his mother, brother, and sister, and to the countless people around the country who came to know him and his story in recent weeks.

Brandon made one terrible mistake at age 18. But he did not kill anyone, and he never stopped feeling shamed and profound remorse for his actions in the crime that took the lives of Todd and Stacie Bagley. And he spent the rest of his life sincerely trying to show, as he put it, that he “was not that person”. Brandon showed us that and so much more, carrying himself with grace and generosity, and always treating everyone around him with kindness and respect. He worked to help other troubled kids avoid similar devastating mistakes, and he lived every day his commitment to serving both God and humanity. 

Many things went wrong to put Brandon on death row, including egregious government misconduct in concealing evidence and misleading the jury, which the courts refused to remedy. Before Brandon’s execution, five of the jurors who sentenced him to death said they no longer stood by that verdict. They joined the lead appellate prosecutor on Brandon’s case in urging President Trump to commute his death sentence to life without parole. Those pleas for clemency were joined by hundreds of thousands of supporters, including celebrities, faith leaders, and members of the United States Congress.

Brandon’s execution is a stain on America’s criminal justice system. But I pray that even in his death, Brandon will advance his commitment to helping others by moving us closer to a time when this country does not pointlessly and maliciously kill young Black men who pose no threat to anyone, when we hold prosecutors to the highest standards of integrity in every case, and when our leaders exercise their moral authority where it is needed. 

We were proud to call Brandon our client and our friend, and we will miss him greatly.”

-Robert C. Owen, attorney for Brandon Bernard

December 10, 2020]

this execution is a needlessly cruel and inhumane act as well as a great tragedy.

brandon bernard’s is not the only federal execution scheduled. according to the bbc, trump has five executions scheduled up until january 20th. we need to keep fighting so that these executions do not happen.

i wish brandon’s family all the best and i’m so sorry we could not do more.

i’m including a few links to spread awareness and inform people. 

https://innocenceproject.org/ is an organization that uses modern forensic technology to overturn wrongful convictions.

https://prisonbookprogram.org/for-people-in-prison/national-prisoner-resource-list/ is a list of resources that those who have loved ones in prison or who are in prison can use. it has links to several other similar lists as well.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/ is a website that provides information about capital punishment in the united states. one of the first things written on their website is “At least 18 people have been executed despite serious doubts about their guilt. Official misconduct is the leading cause of wrongful capital convictions.”

brandon’s life mattered. black lives matter. we need to keep up this energy to fight for justice in an unjust criminal system even when his name is not trending on twitter anymore. 

IF YOU’RE GOING TO REBLOG THIS PLEASE REBLOG THIS EDITED VERSION. also sign this petition to keep pervis payne from being executed: https://innocenceproject.org/petitions/stop-execution-pervis-payne/

thank you to girlbosshannibal for the post about the petition in the first place.

JUSTICE FOR CASEY GOODSON

On December 4th, 2020, Casey Christian Goodson Jr. (23 years old) was shot three times in the back and murdered by a Sheriff’s Deputy as he was entering his home in Columbus, Ohio. Goodson’s family stated that he was returning home from a dentist appointment, holding a Subway sandwich, his face mask, and his keys, when he was shot.

Two days later, the Columbus Police Department made a statement alleging that James Meade, the deputy responsible for Goodson’s death, saw a man believed to be Goodson with a gun while driving. Meade then approached Goodson after he exited his car and walked home, where he was shot.

Hours after the shooting, the US Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio, Peter Tobin, confirmed that Goodson was not the fugitive they were searching for. However, Tobin also added that he believed that the shooting was justified, claiming that Goodson was shot after he refused to drop his “weapon.”

Yet another Black man murdered by the police.

DEMAND JUSTICE.

art credit: @alex.albadree on instagram

graphics credit: @worldawarenessassociation on instagram

me 3 seconds after waking up and realizing death still hasn’t claimed me in my sleep and once again I have a whole day ahead of me

thinking about how novartis is running a lottery where the prize is literally the life of babies and apparently this went unnoticed

Spinal Muscular Atrophy is a degenartive disease that affects between 4-10 children in every 100k live births. For those of you unfamiliar with epidemiology, this number might not have a lot of meaning, so suffice to say it is a rare disease, but among the rare diseases, it’s a common one. When it comes down to diseases which only affect one gene, SMA is the most common cause of infant death. 

I won’t go too deep on how and why it happens, or all the diffferent subtypes of the disease, but what it entails is that for the severe presentation, because the baby is lacking one gene, they’ll gradually lose the strenght in their muscles. By the age of 4, most those children are dead. 

It’s not an easy death. The child loses the capacity to breathe and swallow by themselves because of muscle weakness. We provide support as best as we can, but there’s not a lot we can do about something like that. And though muscle strenght is lost, cognition is unaffected, which means the baby brain is maturing as it would regularly, inside a weakening body. 

So, it’s horrific. But because it’s a single gene causing the mess, and because science has advanced this far, scientists went “hey what if we could give the kid this gene?” 

And that’s exactly what they did. Enter Novartis, pharma giant. They decided to try it out: put the gene inside an empty virus, give the virus to the kid. Did it work?

to those of you who don’t speak medical: yes. yes it did. it worked really well. it worked well to a point where they ran tests with 15 kids and all 15 kids survived without need for respiratory aid, as opposed to the usual 92% death/permanent ventilation rate. 

“Wow, this is good,” said Novartis. “I’m going to put a 2.1 million dollars tag on it.”

“What the fuck?” said the parents, who are regular people who do not have 2.1m sitting on their banks.

“Well, you know,” said Novartis. “You only have to take it once in a lifetime! Seems like a fair price to me. Uh, but also, do bear in mind it only works if you give it to the baby before they turn 2 years old.” 

but does it end there? no! although the drug was FDA approved, Novartis needs their prized treatment to get cleared on the rest of the world. people are complaining about the price tag, too. so they have an idea. a brilliant idea! 

“We’ll get the contacts of the kids who have it around the world,” said Novartis. “And then we’ll run a lottery! Because we are generous, we’ll give away a hundred doses a year for the entire population of planet Earth! Of course, that means your country has to agree my drug is legit.” 

“What if I don’t get picked,” wonder the parents of the children.

“Well, you know. You can always just raise 2.1 million dollars, but remember you have to do it before your kid turns two.”

so now i sit here seething in hatred toward big pharma, watching mothers desperately trying to raise an absurd amount of money which is even more absurd if your coin is weaker than the dollar, saddled with the weight that if they don’t do it in time, they’ll have to watch their kids die

and then every once in a while one of them manages to raise the cash, and then they’ll post videos in their social media and i get to watch as the babies gradually regain strenght and starts sitting on their own, then moving their limbs, then standing up by themselves

while the other mothers share increasingly desperate videos of their kids who can no longer sit, and no longer swallow, and no longer breathe, until it all ends with a single text shared through instagram that just says “thank you all, but my child has passed, and we’ll give what we managed to raise to the next one.” 

meanwhile novartis pats themselves on the back for their generosity of playing roulette with the lives of babies

… i just confirmed this. I am floored. There is no humanity in these people. It’s called Zolgensma.

i hate applying for jobs because the employers are always like: do you enjoy working in a stressful environment???? do you strive for unobtainable standards of perfection???? are you good at dealing with people that make you feel extremely uncomfortable??? do you mind losing real hours of your life in order to make minimum wage?? are you a fan of capitalism??? do you love selling your soul just so you can afford to live???

So Kenosha police handed the shooter who killed the protester water and told him that they appreciated him being out there.

They handed him water and thanked him prior to killing 2 protesters.

They handed a accelerationist water and thanked the fascist militia that showed up, essentially deputized them, and offered him water while protesters got tear gas.

Let’s not defund the police. Let’s fucking abolish the police.

A man was defending the local businesses with his fire arm. First guy he shot was in the act of looting second was one of many that tried to jump him because ya know someone not letting you destroy your city is a threat to you and yeah the man was defending himself and his community rightfully so

You are a fucking liar.

First off, the killer wasn’t a man. He was 17 years old. And it wasn’t his community. He traveled across state from Illinois. Now I doubt any fucking “shop owner”(more on that later) would hire a 17 year old kid from out of state to defend a shop unless that shop owner wants to explain why he is using armed militias with a 17 year old from Illinois this breaking the law.

He was just charged with first degree murder btw.

Second there is a video showing that he purposely walked through a group of protesters and killed one with a headshot. There was no looting. He intentionally did this. And then ran away as protesters tried to stop him and he shot two more protesters and killed one of them.

He 17.

Why do you fucking Fascist lie?

Be evil and own that shit. You are a Fascist. You hate black people. You like licking boots. You gave up any hope of suggesting otherwise. You are a Fascist.

In case you don't know, this literally happened in Brazil. One of the first fatal victims of COVID-19 was the maid of an upper-class woman who had just arrived from Italy and knew she had the symptoms.

Lol get stickbugged

Just throwing this out here, biden voted for DOMA, was a segregationist, his head of Muslim outreach is a fucking puppet for the BJP in India, AKA Hindu nationalists who are actively oppressing India’s Muslim population in the most literal sense of the word, he was pro war in the Middle East which has lead to hundreds of thousands of innocent people dying, and possibly most relevant to the events currently unfolding nationwide, the Ferguson uprisings happened during his second term as Vice President and the administration he was second in command of actively condemned the Ferguson protesters and black lives matter. Yes trump is worse but joe biden is a racist, a rapist, a liar, and the face of ambivalence in the face of injustice. I am so sick of people on Twitter like this with no actual understanding of what people to the left of them believe and prefer to endlessly straw man people they disagree with in favor of pointless moral posturing to protect the status quo. If biden wins in November things will just get easier for you to ignore, they will not get better.

Like, he’s not just flawed, he’s emblematic of every issue you supposedly stand against. The lesser of two evils, especially by so little, is still fucking evil.

I am fucking sick and tired as a Black person watching white leftists talk down to us, brow beat us, use black revolutionary figures as a bludgeon, I am TIRED. I am disgusted by how y'all use our tragedies to make these snide little tweets and posts about how your Democratic fave would’ve supposedly not allow this to happen when the reality is the entire system is deeply antiblack and imperialistic at it’s roots!

Y'all see Black people as nothing more than a voting force and don’t actually give a fuck about us, Black people are actually on the ground, in the streets, on the frontlines making change that voting by itself or at all wouldn’t do. Black people are being killed, maimed, disappeared but sure, your Democratic fave who really ain’t shit and upholds the same destructive system would ~totally~ have prevented this.

Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, or whoever isn’t ~lesser~ they just have different PR. White leftists and ~radicals~ shut the fuck up and actually treat Black people with respect and dignity challenge

‘He was my everything’: Boy who drowned in Brookings pond remembered for smile, generosity

The body of Molu Zarpeleh, 10, who was reported missing last Thursday night, was recovered from a privately-owned retention pond along 12th Street South around 8:40 a.m. Friday after authorities searched the pond, according to a new release from the City of Brookings.

A tip that Zarpeleh had been pushed into the pond that circulated on social media has been redacted by the tipster, said Chelsea Bakken, public information officer for the City of Brookings. Investigators also reported that tips they received Friday related to circumstances surrounding the incident were not true but won’t state why. Police are ignoring it and ruling it an “accidental drowning but his mother says differently. 

Brookings police and the Brookings Fire Department searched for Zarpeleh until about 2:30 a.m. Friday before the search was stopped due to safety concerns, poor lighting and murky water, the release states. Searchers used pumps from Brookings Municipal Utilities and Brookings County to remove about 300,000 gallons of water from the pond during the resumed search Friday morning

Source / Source / Source 

DONATE HERE (The local Lutheran Church in Brookings is giving all donations to the family)

Follow here for more news 

#WAKEUP

why is the sims so addictive but only for a short amount of time??? like all u do is play the sims u don’t sleep u don’t eat it’s like you’re on drugs for around two days and then forget about it for the next whole year

God creating Adam and Eve then fucking off for the rest of the eternity like

do not ignore this

our momentum is slowing down. we can’t let our dashes go back to normal when the world is not normal. so, if you are reading this, you are ~legally~ obligated to choose 2 numbers below; you must complete the task of those two numbers today. don’t pretend you didn’t see this. either do them right now or set a reminder to get it done before the sun goes down. the timer starts now. choose two. 

summer is just like ‘you will think gay thoughts and you will sweat’