bloopfrogblog

Vultures are holy creatures.

Tending the dead.

Bowing low.

Bared head.

Whispers to cold flesh,

“Your old name is not your king.

Vultures are also responsible for keeping diseases at bay.

Vulture stomach acid is so powerful that it can kill anthrax and many other deadly diseases.

So when they consume the carcass of a creature that has died of disease, they actually destroy the disease within it too!

I worked there three summers in a row, and every laborer from every nearby town would come there for whatever supplies they needed, and man could they gossip like there was an Olympic medal for it.

At 8 AM, every morning, every plumber, roofer, electrician, and landscaper in the county was at the door waiting for me to unlock it, and they’d come back throughout the day.

I knew every tradesman in a 30 miles radius, and I knew too much about everyone in town because of, like I said, the tradesman gossip. It’s shocking that people basically tune out an entire person in their living room and say whatever they want, because they don’t see the guy fixing their light fixture as real somehow.

Then your average citizens, the townsfolk, would come in to ask for labor recommendations. The cashier at the local hardware store is a god among yelp reviews.

A woman needs her roof repaired. A man wants central air installed in his 100 year old house. Someone needs to break into a safe they inherited without the combination.

And I would make recommendations. I’d take down names and information so when a plumber I liked walked in an hour later, I could say, “come here, I have a job for you” like I needed them to clear a village of Redcaps.

There is no difference between your local mom-and-pop hardware employee and Greed Karga sending the Mandalorian on bounty hunting jobs.

If Geralt of Rivia walked in, I could have found him something to do.

I believe all plumbers dual-wield drain snakes and arcane magic, because you’d be surprised how often Liches come up in septic tank repairs.

So the thing about that is, I gave up and crushed it with a wrench and the shards flew all over the place.

It's not meant to be a 1:1 thing where, like, they're Mary and I'm Jesus. That would be nuts. I chose religious imagery because I met them in PFLAG meetings that were held in the basement of this really striking church.

The piece is called "Seeing Spots" and it's about the way the sun would hit the floors of the church filtered through the stained glass. It's about getting your lights knocked out in a bad fight and knowing there's no comfort waiting for you in your own home. It's about the spots on a fresh baby deer, yearning to be a buck. It's about a lot of things, but mostly it's a piece about gratitude and reverence and love.

While that is true, a lot of parents will do that and fail to see how their own actions are the problem.

If you've spanked him, he's less likely to understand consent.

If you've forced him to sit on Santa's lap, he's less likely to understand consent.

If you've forced him to give hugs and kisses to family members, he's less likely to understand consent.

If you've grabbed him in order to force him to sit still, he's less likely to understand consent.

If you've labeled him as "too sensitive" for not wanting to be touched, he's less likely to understand consent.

If you've assumed he's okay with something because he technically allowed it even though he felt pressured, he's less likely to understand consent.

Apparently Subspace Highways are a thing? And they go through people's heads? And Ramona treats this like it's obscure, but not secret knowledge. Ramona doesn't think she's doing anything weird here. At this point, it's not clear if Scott is accepting Ramona's explanation or not, things kind of move on as mundane as ever until their Date, when Ramona takes Scott through subspace, and he doesn't act like his world was just blown open or anything, although I guess that could have been a metaphor. there's a couple other moments, but everything with Ramona could be a metaphor, or Scott not recognizing what's going on. Maybe Ramona is uniquely fantastical in this otherwise normal world. And then, this happens

Suddenly, a fantastical element (A shitty local indie band finishing their set with a song that knocks out most of the audience) is introduced unrelated to Ramona, and undeniably literal. We see the crowd knocked out by Crash and The Boys. but the story doesn't linger on the implications of that, the whole point of that sequence is to raise the Nonsense Level, such that you accept it when This happens

Here are some more “ambiguous” phrases which courts have found DO NOT invoke your right to a lawyer:

“Maybe I should speak to my lawyer first.”

“I might like a lawyer.”

“I think I should have a lawyer present for this.”

“Could I speak to my lawyer first?”

“How long until my lawyer gets here?”

And perhaps most egregiously – “Get me a lawyer, dawg – ‘cause this is not what’s up.”

Here are the magic phrases which you need to know if you want to invoke your Miranda rights:

1) “Am I free to leave?”

It’s worth asking this even if the answer is obvious. Even if the officer does not let you leave, by forcing them to admit that you are not free to leave, you are creating a record which your attorney can use to prove that you were in custody. Miranda rights only apply if the interrogation is custodial, meaning that police officers will frequently claim that their suspects were “not in custody” to get around their Miranda rights.

2) “I am invoking my right to remain silent.”

Simply staying silent will not invoke your right to remain silent. As absurd as this is, you must explicitly say that you are invoking your right to remain silent in order to invoke that right.

3) “I am invoking my right to an attorney.”

As stated above, you must be not only clear and unambiguous, but clear and legally unambiguous. Don’t get cute. Don’t get sassy. And on the flip side, don’t get intimidated and use verbal ticks to minimize your request. Say the line with those words exactly – say it clearly, and say it once, and then say nothing else.

Because even after you’ve done all this, the police can still try to get you to talk. They’re not supposed to interrogate you, but they’re allowed to make casual conversation, and if that conversation just happens to circle back around to the thing they wanted to question you about, well, that’s really your fault for talking after you said you wouldn’t, isn’t it? Can’t possibly fault the poor officers when you initiated – if you really wanted to have your rights respected, you wouldn’t have talked to them in the first place.

The police know this, and they will mercilessly exploit this loophole. So, once you’ve successfully invoked your Miranda rights, any and all conversation you have with police officers will put those rights back into jeopardy. 

Putting it all together:

Ask: “Am I free to leave?”

If they say no, say: “I am invoking my right to remain silent and I am invoking my right to an attorney.”

And then shut up and do not say a single thing to them for any reason whatsoever until you have actually spoken to an attorney. Yes, even if it takes hours. Yes, even if they start talking to you about something else.

Finally, a very important disclaimer:

You may not have been subjected to this, but as a person from an Arabic country, every Ramadan from every year there’s always headlines of Israeli iof soldiers or Israeli extremist settlers attacking Palestinians during Ramadan, especially Palestinian worshipers trying to pray in the al aqsa mosque

It’s happens almost every single year

Ramadan is suppoused to be Muslim people’s month of worship, of Baraka and it is very important to Muslim people

But Palestinians never ever experienced a normal Ramadan because Israel attacks them Viciously

Almost

Every

Single

Fucking

Year

And I will dare and say that Israel does it on purpose, it does it every Ramadan on purpose

And now, this year, with Ramadan being only a few weeks away, I doubt that they’ll have a normal Ramadan, not in the West Bank, and not in Gaza

She was on call 24/7 as an operator for the Grammar Hotline.

Which is, yes, a phone line that you could call at any hour of the day or night to have your emergency grammar questions answered.