Blitzen the Dwarf I love youuuuu

In other words, consider not saying this:

"May I miss class on [date] so I can observe [holiday]?"

It's not that there's anything wrong with the above, per se. But because it's phrased as a request, it risks coming across as optional — a favor you hope to be granted. Problem is, favors are not owed, and so unfortunately asking permission opens the door for the professor to respond "Thanks for asking. No, you may not. :)"

Instead, try something along the lines of:

"I will need to miss class on [date] because I will be observing [holiday]. I wanted to let you know of this conflict now, and to ask your assistance in making arrangements for making up whatever material I may miss as a result of this absence."

This is pretty formal language (naturally, you can and should tweak it to sound more like your voice). But the important piece is that, while still being respectful, it shifts the focus of the discussion so that the question becomes not "Is it okay for me to observe my religion?", but rather, "How can we best accommodate my observance?

Because the first question should not be up for debate: freedom of religion is a right, not a favor. And the second question is the subject you need to discuss.

1 never use plywood or anything so heavy/splinterable for signs or protest shields. Invest time in making a battlejacket, arm shields, and shin shields.

2 you cannot stop a police horse by pressing on its chest. Get out the way. I don’t care what that pink haired rich white kid on tiktok said. Those things are trained to bowl you over and trample you; get out the way.

3 if you wanna trash the cop shields and masks, mix sand, finely crushed (used up) light bulbs, and paint and fill heavy duty water balloons with them (or condoms). If you’re good, these projectiles can be launched from a t shirt gun. When the cops go to clean their gear, the sand and finely crushed glass gouges the face shields/riot shields beyond repair. They must now spend money and time getting new ones, and meanwhile, they’re in short supply for the next riot. Be warned that if you get caught with these (in the USA), they will likely try to charge you with domestic terrorism. Be smart.

4 cover your face and all distinctive tattoos/birthmarks/scars. Don’t post pictures of yourself or others at the protest. It’s not a block party. They arrested a woman who set a cop car on fire because they had a pic of her tattoo and traced her unique shirt from an etsy purchase. Read “In Defense Of Smashing Cameras” and tell photojornos to fuck off; break their cameras if you have to. They will get people killed

5 cops lie. If you get bagged (again us centric advice), keep your mouth shut. It’s “I invoke the 5th” and “I invoke my right to legal counsel” on repeat no matter what they say or do.

6 stop dumping milk in people’s fucking eyes for tear gas. Not only do this mark darker skinned people for arrest, it’s inviting infection. Use only sterile water or saline solution on the face and in the eyes. (Likewise do not dump baking soda solutions in people’s eyes; while this is good for skin below the neck that has been affected by tear gas, it can scratch the cornea of the eye)

7 DO NO HARM. if you are not trained in CPR, how to use a tourniquet, how to intubate someone, tal tal tal, don’t try. Never try to treat people above your skill level because you could seriously injure them instead.

As a Hawaii resident, and someone who saw this headline and the many others from this same news source, this rubs me the wrong way a bit.

This tweet isn’t necessary wrong, but it’s worded in a way to prioritize outrage, which as I understand it is how Twitter works.

The point is that yes, Hawaii has a problem with the prioritization of tourism, which takes resources away from residents.

But with this particular headline, it’s framing the issue kind of misleadingly.

These tourists are being kicked out so residents have the room and resources to recoup. They’re being moved to Oahu because that’s where the main international airport is, so it’ll be easier for them to leave when there are flights available.

They’re not being given luxury accommodations and allowed to live out their original vacation plans while residents have to just sit in the charred wreckage of their homes. They’re getting kicked the fuck out, as they should be in this situation.

There are resources available for Maui residents right now, including shelters and organizations collecting money specifically for community needs. (Source, source 2, both from the same news outlet that this headline is from)

So, again, it’s like kicking out house guests from your party when you need to deal with a sudden house fire.

Now, what you CAN be outraged about is the need to spend this amount of time and money kicking out house guests from a party during an emergency in addition to saving yourself and loved ones at all, BECAUSE THOSE AREN’T INVITED GUESTS

-they just showed up and started hanging out in your house and eating your food. Sometimes they leave money but usually they just leave trash

-your local HOA has seen this and looooves it because actually they’re getting lots of money out of it, so they start catering towards your uninvited guests and handing out invitations to your awesome house party. Which you didn’t plan or want and would like to stop

-your house is a permanent party house and you can’t even get to work or a quiet minute to yourself

-and now it’s on fire

The point is that, even though these resources need to be used to get tourists out for legitimate reasons right now, a disaster like this in most other states would likely not include a headline about how moving visitors out of the area is a needed priority. (Bc there wouldn’t be as many proportional to the population, except for other obvious tourist-y cities.)

And while there are shelters and other resources for residents right now, by necessity some of those resources are going to tourists, because that’s how things are here.

I’ve seen some people who seem to think that the news agency who wrote the headline is biased or that it’s a wording/framing issue, which I don’t think is the main point here.

I just felt this tweet was more focused on making people angry than actually providing information, although I’m not on Twitter so who knows, maybe there’s a whole thread diving deeper into the issue. But for tumblr, here’s a little more of the story.

Tl;dr: This is a tweet with limited context if you haven’t been following the story; this isn’t a case of tourists taking 100% of the resources leaving none for residents, they are being kicked out so residents can recover. But this extra step would be unnecessary if Hawaii wasn’t so commercialized.

So, sometime last year (?) science invented Vantablack, which is the darkest possible shade of black. Art world got incredibly excited. But as it needs to be very carefully made in a lab, it’s hard to get a hold of, and is extremely expensive. Enter Anish Kapoor, aka FuckFace McGee. Anish Kapoor buys the rights to Vantablack. He is the only human being on the planet that can legally use it, and he’s kind of a prick about it.

Art world is not thrilled with that.

Enter Stuart Semple.

Stuart Semple is an artist, and also makes pigments to sell in his free time. Stuart Semple is astoundingly pissed about this Vantablack nonsense, and Anish Kapoor’s dickery. Stuart Semple makes a new pigment, the brightest shade of pink ever, called Pinkest Pink, and puts it for sale on the internet. To be bought by everybody except Anish Kapoor. Literally, to purchase, you need to confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, do not associate with him, and will not sell or give the pigment to Anish Kapoor or his associates. Art world has a good laugh, everyone buys Pinkest Pink because it’s awesome, and damn it we deserve something.

Anish Kapoor however is a penis, and will not take this lying down, because HOW DARE he not have literally everything.

Anish Kapoor gets his London associates to buy him a thing of Pinkest Pink, and being such a classy human being, posts a picture to instagram of him with his middle finger covered in Pinkest Pink, captioned with “Up yours. #pink”

Everyone flips shit, because. Y’know. Fuck that guy. Especially Stuart Semple. For context here, Anish Kapoor is one of the richest artists on the planet, and has repeatedly been referred to as everything wrong with the art world, and the epitome of the art worlds elitism problem. He’s a giant douchebag. Meanwhile Stuart Semple makes pigments just to get them out there. He turns 0 profit from his now enourmously popular pigments.

Stuart Semple launches an investigation as to who the fuck leaked Pinkest Pink, and plans to strike back. He does so by releasing two new products. First is Diamond Dust, which is a glitter made from glass, so that a painting is still visible after it’s applied, but glitters like a mofo. It’s the most reflective glitter out there, and is available to everyone who isn’t Anish Kapoor. And it being made of glass, if you stick your finger in there, it’s going to hurt quite a bit, so that was Stuart Semple’s way of saying “shove your middle finger in this, asshole, see what happens”. Except without saying that, because he can get an insult across while still being fucking classy.

He also releases Black 2.0, created with the help of over a thousand artists worldwide.

Black 2.0 is the answer to Vantablack. Black 2.0 is a slightly less black black, but looks functionally the same to the human eye. It’s completely safe, smells like cherries, and costs four pounds. Vantablack is highly toxic, potentially explosive, needs to be applied in a special laboratory and sealed properly, can’t be moved across borders, can reach 300 degrees celsius if you’re not extremely careful, and costs thousands of dollars. Anish Kapoor is the only human being who can use Vantablack. He is the only human being who cannot use Black 2.0.

So I think we can guess who got the better deal.

And thus the feud ends, Kapoor defeated.

…But not quite.

Kapoor, in this entire afair, has made exactly two comments to the public. The first being his charming message about aquiring Pinkest Pink, the second being claiming to Buzzfeed that he and his small army of lawyers will be suing Semple, an extremely poor artist who cannot afford a lawyer.

No lawsuit has been made yet, fyi.

The point is, Kapoor is a prick, and doesn’t like talking to the lower classes. So one day in July 2017, he decides he needs another floor on his London studio apartment, and starts making arrangements to have it built. His neighbors are fucking pissed, because this will ruin the light of their apartments. They call to Semple to save them, or at the very least piss Kapoor off some more.

Semple answers to the call, and releases two new paints, Phaze and Shift, as always, banned to Kapoor. They change colours, Phaze with temperature, and Shift is just iridescent. Shift needs to be painted over Black 2.0 to work, and Phaze just works on its own.

So that’s been the art world for the last two years.

1. “Anish Kapoor is however a penis” is the best line in this post.

Stuart Semple: gonna make an anti-government t-shirt with it.

Me:

With this in the description

“Anyone*” I wonder who he could want to not have any England???

Try to comprehend that there are fully functional, high capacity boats passing through the waters in front of an area full of survivors who are stranded and in need of supplies, refusing to help. They are hosting snorkeling tours.

Really think about, try your best to actually picture over two thousand people unhoused and in need of shelter, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and nothing to return to. Understand that the island, stolen land, is littered with hotels full of air conditioned of rooms with beds and showers and toilets, each fully equipped to host hundreds of families for weeks, turning these people away because they're booked up with tourists who refuse to leave.

And understand that these tourists were offered free transport to return home or be hosted on other islands. Free. Courtesy of local tax dollars. 4,000 wealthy tourists were offered free flights shelter on Oahu and begged to leave the island, BEFORE the survivors were given shelter.

BUT. Home Depot also, technically, schedules what time you're supposed to take your lunch. But NO ONE follows this part of the schedule because you literally CAN'T. The lunch times are so random and rarely work with people's coverage and they frequently break the rule of getting a 30 minute break every 5 hours because of where they sit in a shift. Plus, sometimes they'll be super early in a shift when you just aren't hungry yet.

And the new policy? If you are even a few minutes off on taking your scheduled lunch you'll get an attendance occurrence. (Or half of one, depending on how off you are in your timing.) Once you reach 10 occurrences, which would only take about 2-3 weeks at most of being off on your lunches, you get fired.

Talking to a customer? Too bad, you must drop everything and go to lunch. In the middle of cutting a lumber order for a customer? Too bad. In the middle of a huge rush at the paint desk with no backup that actually knows how to work the paint machines in the store? Too bad. Driving a forklift? Too bad.

The policy goes into effect in a week. People are already crossing out "customer service" and "employee support" (or whatever that one is) on the little values wheel on their aprons. There's talk of a work to rule strike.

Here is the latest verrsion of the map from June.

Adult literacy is low.

Child literacy is low.

Information literacy has shifted dramatically in the last decade, but reputable information sources like research journals and factual news reporting have been unable to keep pace.

We are genuinely in a crisis of media literacy, with ever fewer genuinely factual resources available in the style and language used by contemporary audiences.

It may sound condescending, but we genuinely need to remind people, or worse, explain to them for the first time that art is not evidence of real world behaviour.

So, thank you, for this reminder. Genuinely.

You're correct: