Be an optimist. Not much use being anything else.

DEFINITELY wait for it!

Owls confirmed to be the creepiest birds ever. LOOK AT THE FUCKING THINGS. If you fail to notice the one on the left fucking SWALLOWING a rat, then you have the dude singing some satanic chant or something next to him, and then you have those two other fucking psychos synchronized to make you feel creeped the fuck out with their soulless dance of FUCKING DOOM.

Hamburg is built around a river, so there’s many many many canals (the 2400+ bridges put Venice and Amsterdam to shame), as well as a fairly sizeable lake (here the smaller section, innit precious):

This means a shittonne of swans

(stay away from the swans) (seriously don’t go sailing on the lake because they WILL chase you). Obvs swans aren’t made for cold weather (p sure they’re all Australian immigrants actually) so Hamburg has an official job position to take care of the issue.

This dude’s name is Olaf Nieß (trying to spell his name on non-German keyboards must be fun):

This guy’s job title is “Schwanenvater”, aka “swan father”, and his job literally consists of getting swans to safety before the winter chill sets in. How does he do this, you wonder? Easy: he goes up to EVERY SINGLE FUCKING SWAN in the city and sticks them in barges. I’m serious:

Look at this dude and his swans

Swans are like Satan’s personal pet and he paddles around with barges full of them like it’s nbd.

I was a little confused because mute swans (pictured)* are native to Northern Europe and are generally happy with cold weather (they’re quite significant in the folklore of, say, Northern Russia). In fact,my friend Dru posted a lovely video of some of my Swan Friends breaking ice here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxDXURNuDNk

The cob, or daddy swan, is breaking the ice with his chest to make clear water for his family to feed in. Later the ducks (shown standing on the ice) will hop into the cleared water and enjoy the free foraging. 

But then I remembered that wild Mute Swans tend to fuck off from the big rivers when it gets really cold and go somewhere warmer (such as a nice shallow pond) cos swans ain’t fools and they don’t actually like icebreaking. So why wouldn’t they want the swans in Hamburg to fuck off from the big rivers? Why are they putting them into small warm ponds for winter? Wouldn’t the swans just… do that themselves if they got cold enough?? Why do you need to have a guy go out and grab them before they do anything? THIS IS IMPLYING THAT THESE ARE NOT WILD SWANS, BUT MUNICIPAL SWANS. 

 AND APPARENTLY, I researched this 5 minutes ago, APPARENTLY there is a prophecy about these swans that is similar to the prophecy of the Ravens of the Tower of London : “As long as the proud swans draw circles on the Alster, Hamburg will be a free and prosperous Hanseatic City.”  The swans also served the practical purpose of demonstrating that Hamburg was a free and independent city, because previously, only royal Europeans had swans.

So they are not exactly wild swans! The Swanfather cares for the swans year-round - they’re municipal animals - and in the winter he brings the swans to a place where they can “draw circles on the Alster” without fucking off entirely, and show off to everyone that Hamburg is a strong independent city that don’t need no king. 

SO the Ravenmaster of London is a position that exists because if the ravens leave the tower, a prophecy says that England will fall. And the Swanfather of Hamburg exists because if the swans leave the Alster, Hamburg will stop prospering. The Swanfather role has existed since 1674, about the same time as when the Ravenmaster job was set up. I guess there was a lucrative trade in bird-related political prophecies at the time. CLEARLY I HAVE MISSED MY CALLING???

A huge amount of people’s fear/anxiety/outrage about swans and geese is because these large wild animals have the AUDACITY to live near humans, and to interact with humans, but not in a fearful and submissive way. Swans aren’t afraid of humans - why should they be? - and that makes us escalate our own behavior, because we expect animals to be either loving or afraid. So we often do silly things to swans, such as poking our hands at them, provoking them, threatening their young, using incredibly aggressive body language when we see them, approaching them with kayaks (kayaks are Incredibly Rude for swans) and allowing our companion animals to behave threateningly towards them while we giggle.

Then the swan indicates (fairly politely) that we are being rude and need to give them more space… and we complain that swans are disrespectful, mean and scary. Most of swan politeness is about giving them space, not making direct eye contact, and not pointing at them, or flailing your hands around, or waving a paddle at them, or looking directly at their babies, or letting a dog approach them. BUT PEOPLE ARE INCAPABLE OF DOING THAT, so they complain that swans are Satan. 

In reality, they are just large wild animals that are often quite happy to be “nice” to humans, and will recognize ones that are trustworthy.

doggy bed

Made for each other. 

Stacey Abrams saved Democrats and should be given any job she wants in DNC.

I haven’t seen those comments because I live in a self imposed bubble but your point is well taken.  I’ll start.  Here am I in 2013 and today

Trump systematically rolled back EVERY major climate regulation Obama and Biden enacted, from increasing fuel standards for cars to limits on methane. He backed out of Paris. He dismantled the pandemic response team.

Republicans don't believe climate change is a thing at all. Biden has a $2 trillion dollars climate plan based on the Green New Deal. Biden has said multiple times that climate change is one of the greatest existential crises the next President must face.

This isn't "vote for Biden because he's not Trump." The parties could not be farther apart. Biden heard y'all in the Primaries and MOVED LEFT.

If y'all think that Biden is just as bad as Trump, or that he doesn't want anything to fundamentally change, you didn't pay attention the entire time under the Obama administration. You aren't paying attention now.

Trump is a literal fucking fascist. Not to be the Jew that tells you all the signs of Nazi Germany are already fucking here. But they are.

Biden at least fucking believes in Democratic norms and not being a fucking fascist

Even if you think Biden is some kind of boring centrist who doesn't want to change a thing. If you can't tell the fucking difference between that and a fucking fascist. Fuck you.

Also, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 87 and has cancer for the fifth time and Trump just announced that he wants to replace her with Ted Cruz. Things like Roe v Wade, climate regulation, voting rights, and criminal rights are all hanging by a 5-4 thread on the Supreme Court that depends on one of the five Republican Justices having a spasm of conscience. If Ted Cruz replaces RBG and solidifies a 6-3 Republican majority for the next forty years, it won't matter how progressive your President or Congress is because SCOTUS will strike down every fucking law and regulation they pass, in addition to overturning Roe v Wade, marriage equality, and other fundamental rights.