Drowning In The Minutiae

my brother and his friends in this field trip group were truly great kids. but they were not above run of the mill teenage boy shenanigans. it’s the end of senior year, you and all your buddies are at the amusement park, you’re naturally going to want to act like a complete moron

there was one kid in the group who was especially prone to goofing around. committed to the bit, some may say. my mom knew that if nonsense was going to break out, he’d likely be at the center of it

so she goes up to this kid at the very start of the trip and says “hey, i’m kinda worried about this chaperoning thing. this might be a lot to ask, but can you help me keep an eye on everyone? you wouldn’t have to do anything big, just be an extra set of eyes for me.”

friends, this kid proceeded to run their field trip group like the fucking us marines. everyone is at the meet up spots at the designated time. everyone waits in line for the rides like a bunch of boy scouts. the second the horseplay gets too out of hand, this kid is getting it back under control

it’s incredible how differently people act based on the expectations you set. instead of going to this kid and saying “hey, i know you’re trouble, so i’ve got my eye on you,” my mom went “hey, i know you have influence in your peer group, so i think you can help me.”

It also seems like it will go off, sound and vibration, whenever someone posts. Trump is awake at 2 AM. You will not be able to shut off your phone or stop the noise until you handle this. It will also drain your battery by being a surprise 2 AM noisemaker.

Don't put it on your phone. It's actually stealing less data than I expected (I mean, yes, OBVIOUSLY it's tracking your location and sending that to any cop who's bored, but it isn't taking any credit card info, so hey, that's nice), but it still can access and fuck up anything saved on your phone, record any unlocking method you use including fingerprint and face, and seems to want to do so to force you to suddenly have an explosion of noise.

Again: this may extend to dropping a call for an ambulance.

Based on this article and other discussions with tech people, the app:

Provides your location, every 4.5 and 9.5 minutes, to Trump and company;

Can copy, modify, or delete information on your phone;

Can alter webpages you visit through them;

Has multiple security flaws;

Is creating a personal profile on users;

Can, in fact, interrupt phone calls, no definite answer on 911 but very likely;

Is showing signs of being spyware in unstated ways.

With the new Harry Potter series she will be making a reported $20 million per-season renewal + other performance dependent royalties. She has been open across multiple interviews regarding her intentions to use said funds to push forth even more trans targeted legislation in the years to come.

This isn’t a “she gets paid no matter what” situation. The more eyeballs on this show the more money she has to actively harm vulnerable communities. By engaging with it you are directly supporting this and otherwise making a conscious choice to consume HP over doing the literal very least possible to not destroy the lives of trans people across the world.

If my stating the objective facts above upsets you then feel free to unfriend and move along. Your nostalgia-goggles feelings for a tired, problematic franchise mean nothing to me compared to the welfare of my trans friends and loved ones."

If you care more about badly written children's books and imaginary wizards more than you do about real people in the real world do it far the fuck away from me.

Don't try to be in my life.

This has been quite a gay week, with many people coming and going to lunch and tea ; one day we had the Land Commissioners, and I must tell you an absurd story of Mr. I , the American Commissioner, and Louis. Mr. I happened to tell us that one of his daughters had been born on Christmas Day, and always complained bitterly that she had never had a birthday present in her life, and for all practical purposes did not possess a birthday at all. Louis promptly declared that he really had no further use for his, which only served nowadays to call attention to his increasing years, so he would willingly make it over to Miss I. At once a sort of legal document was drawn up, solemnly handing over the 13th November to her 'for her sole use and behoof henceforward as a birthday, and the paper was despatched to Vermont with all due formalities! . . . I, of course, pointed out to Louis that in future he need not expect anything more in the shape of birthday presents or congratulations.

in my case it definitely helps that I teach kids martial arts classes at a boxing gym with a lot of women. so little boys just factually cannot tell me that girls can't fight or aren't strong or something, because they're constantly surrounded by proof that isn't true. also rules are very different in a boxing gym so if a kid is being a little shit I'm allowed to pick them up and put them in upside down air jail. you probably can't do this in most contexts.

I think the biggest thing is that they need to see men and other boys listening to women. they're following the example that's been set for that. at home maybe their dad never listens to their mom, but when they show up at my class all the other boys are following my instructions. peer pressure is real and you can use it to your advantage. I make a point to tell the biggest buffest manliest dudes what to do in front of the little boys. now this works because those dudes already listen to me, but getting any dudes to follow your instructions could probably work.

the best punishment is the natural consequences of your behavior. if a kid isn't going to listen to me, he doesn't get to do class. this works because class is fun and he wants to kick stuff and hit people with noodles. kids want to have fun more than they want to misbehave. as long as listening to me is more fun than misbehaving, they'll listen.

because these boys are learning this behavior from their dads, the dads also tend to be the kind of tough strict emotionally distant parents that would yell at "girly" behavior or crying. even when I'm strict with the kids, I never yell, I obviously never hurt them, and I always listen. they want to yap at me about pokemon or youtubers. it can be tough when they're really sexist at the beginning but eventually they will show you something that their dad wouldn't approve of, whether they want a pink noodle or quietly mention they like a girly show. this is the part where you simultaneously act like it's no big deal while encouraging it. you need show it's completely normal for a boy to want or like that. if you can, bring up another boy or man they know who likes the same thing. I always show off my nails to the kids and bring over the guy who also paints his nails. you'll probably get "boys can do that?" comments and I usually just go "well he's a boy and he did it, so unless his hand falls off right now I think it's okay"

for me, it's always eventually gotten to a point where the boys realize that everyone else thinks it's normal to listen to women, and that if they want to have fun they need to listen too. they also realize that these people and these women are nicer and listen to them more than their dad does. they notice how all these nice people that make them happy talk to women very differently than their dad does. when those boys yelled at their dads for being rude to me, I made a point to thank them and say that they were right and their dads were rude.

some ableist fool who knows naught of magic: if you’re so tired, how come you can [stim/talk about special interest/scroll through tumblr]– you must be faking! you just don’t want to do it

It's a lot, for books aimed at eleven year olds who want to read about kids turning into fun animals.

On the podcast, the two (American) hosts happened to get onto the topic of the post-9/11 Iraq War and their reactions to it. They were both children at the time and as such could not be expected to have particularly nuanced views of US military policy. The person who hadn't read Animorphs was unsurprised by the declaration of war; that's what you did. Someone attacks America, America goes to war. That's how a country protects itself, through military revenge. The Animorphs fan, about the same age, had been devastated and against the war from the start. War was a Big Deal and, while sometimes unavoidable, should be a last resort; a lot of people were going to die, and a lot more were going to get hurt, and no matter how the war shook out it was still going to be horrible. They attributed this perspective, of course, to the series that had taught them about the horrors endemic to war in an engaging way at such a young age -- to Animorphs.

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