Latest Posts by straw-cleaner - Page 2

Throwback to when I took painkillers and woke up with Photoshop open on my computer to this image I had made

from Falasteen Lawn at UW-Milwaukee

Burning Down the House - Talking Heads

My house’s out of the ordinary That’s might don’t want to hurt nobody Some things sure can sweep me off my feet Burning down the house No visible means of support and you have not seen nuthin’ yet Everything’s stuck together I don’t know what you expect starring into the TV set Fighting fire with fire

‘I wish for death’ - Twelve-year-old Alma says. She fled bombing and shelling twice before the third place they sheltered was bombed, She was rescued from the rubble only to find out both her parents and all four of her siblings had been killed. She found her 18-month-old brother in an unimaginable state. Her little brother was beheaded from the rubble after the IOF massacred them.

Source: BBC

If a worker who isn't the owner says ANYTHING similar to "I'm not really supposed to do this but-" and then does something that helps you, under no circumstances inform the business, including through reviews. You tell them that the worker was polite, professional, the very model of customer service and why you like to go there. You do not breathe a word of the rulebreaking.

happy anniversary

this headline is so fucking horrible why is it whenever indigenous people are murdered everyone avoids saying they were murdered

my life advice is if anyone ever says 'let me know if there's anything i can do' think of something for them to do even if you feel like they didn't mean it. if they didn't mean it they shouldn't have said it and if they did mean it u will both feel closer to each other for it.

Palestinian families huddle Tuesday, May 25th 2021, during a candlelight vigil, which condemned the killing of children and civilians, over the rubble of homes destroyed by an Israeli military strike in Gaza City. Photo by Marcus Yam

she will be famous forever

Please please please donate to the PCRF

Or donate to the Cartoonist Cooperative's e-sim drive that provides a handy guide to how it works and why it's important

you arent going to be capable of any meaningful kind of solidarity with anyone if your response to new perspectives or information is to pretend you already knew.

if you cant say things like “i hadnt thought about it that way” or “thats a good point” (or even, god forbid “thanks for checking me on that”) when theyre appropriate, consider whether youre actually interested in developing your understanding or if youre just invested in your political self image.

What always gets me about learning about settler colonialism is how once you learn about it you cannot unsee the violence to the land itself. My home state was previously nearly 100% wetlands, apart of the wider Ohio river valley whose biodiversity supported such large populations of hundreds of different species that many contemporary source from settlers describe it as like the garden of Eden.

The Indigenous people who farmed and hunted here (and still farm and hunt in what land they have been able to keep and reclaim) were able to grow miles of upon miles of crops with multiple harvests a year, encouraging this biodiversity by creating forest gardens with incredible amounts of food from staples like corn and squash to local fruits like pawpaws to European imports like apples alongside controlled burns which allowed fields and buffalo ranges to expand.

Nowadays my state is known almost exclusively for its fields of nothing but corn and soy beans. Driving through in between the comparatively small cities you'll see nothing but fields where the plethora of different trees and plants were chopped down mile by mile, the remaining wetlands drained and flattened, and the rich black soils robbed of their nutrients through decades upon decades of monocrop agriculture now preserved through the life blood of petrochemical fertilizers which destroy the surrounding environment.

This process was done mile by mile as the tens of thousands of Indigenous people were killed and displaced by settlers and the US army, the land measured and sold acre by acre to white settlers who raped the land as described, filling the pockets of wealthy land speculators (like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) who bought the land directly from the government in schemes so corrupt historians have dedicated entire careers to mapping out their dramas.

It's like learning about commodity fetishism and suddenly seeing hundreds of strangers in the products that surround you. Once you learn how the land was destroyed for profit you'll never look at the miles of fields or the cracks in the concrete of buildings built on wetlands or the stench of now obsolete canals built solely for a once boat-dependent economy with no care for the environment the same.

James baldwin’s the artists struggle for identity. Btw.

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, Caravaggio, c. 1601 (x) // The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, Elilsabeth Ohlson Wallin, 2017 (x, x)

When a straight man lashes out after dating or having sex with a trans woman, he is often afraid of the implication that his sexuality is joined to hers. When a gay man anxiously keeps trans women out of his activism or social circles, he is often fearful of their common stigma as feminine. And when a non-trans feminist claims she is erased by trans women’s access to a bathroom, she is often afraid that their shared vulnerability as feminized people will be magnified intolerably by trans women’s presence. In each case, trans misogyny displays a fear of interdependence and a refusal of solidarity. It is felt as a fear of proximity. Trans femininity is too sociable, too connected to everyone—too exuberant about stigmatized femininity—and many people fear the excess of trans femininity and sexuality getting too close. But sociability can never be confined or blamed on one person in a relationship; it’s impersonal, and it sticks to everyone. The defensive fear and projection built into trans misogyny, whether genuine or performed, is an attempt to wish away what it nonetheless recognizes: that trans femininity is an integral part of the social fabric. There will be no emancipation for anyone until we embrace trans femininity’s centrality and value.

Jules Gill-Peterson, A Short History of Trans Misogyny

April will start well 🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿

there is a huge difference between criticizing an institution and criticizing individual behavior. i can criticize the makeup industry without criticizing the 14 year old girl who uses concealer because she’s self-conscious about her acne; i can criticize the plastic surgery industry without vilifying the woman who decided to get a nose job after two decades of pointed comments and bullying. it is intellectually dishonest to respond to an institutional criticism as if it were a personal attack; on the flip side, it is cruel and unnecessary to leverage personal attacks in the name of institutional criticism

if i see one (1) more person respond to a perfectly reasonable beauty-industry-critical sentiment with “but i personally enjoy eyeshadow. why are you attacking people who like eyeshadow :(” or “exactly, all women who wear makeup are miserable and brainwashed” i am going to climb a tree and bite the top of it

Unpopular opinion but literally not one person in the world should have their human rights violated

Happiness Will Come To You.

“People are always telling you that “we have always done thus,” and then you find that their “always” means a generation or two, or a century or two, at most a millennium or two. Cultural ways and habits are blips, compared to the ways and habits of the body, of the race. There really is very little that human beings on our plane have “always” done, except find food and drink, sleep, sing, talk, procreate, nurture the children, and probably band together to some extent. Indeed it can be seen as our human essence, how few behavioral imperatives we follow. How flexible we are in finding new things to do, new ways to go. How ingeniously, inventively, desperately we seek the right way, the true way, the Way we believe we lost long ago among the thickets of novelty and opportunity and choice…”

— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Seasons of the Ansarac (via probablyasocialecologist)

Palestine will be free in our lifetime 🇵🇸🍉🕊️ Don't look away, and let's keep supporting Palestine in any way we can.

Boycott Eurovision

“killing the flowers will not delay spring” / al-yarmouk palestinian refugee camp in damascus, syria

little palestine; diary of a siege (2021) dir. abdallah al-khatib