heavenly

Passover: They enslaved us, God freed us. Remember this via a big ceremony/feast and then don’t eat bread for a week. This is a big one; you’re going to have to clean your house and host all your relatives.

Tu B'Shevat: It’s Earth Day, let’s eat some fruit.

Simchas Torah: We read the entire Torah every year, and we got to the end! Let’s have a dance party and then start all over again!

Tisha B'Av: They destroyed our temples. That sucked.

Rosh HaShanah: Happy New Year! It’s time to ask (and grant) forgiveness for the wrongs done in the past year, pledge to do better, and wish for a sweet new year. And go to synagogue for HOURS.

Yom Kippur: Rosh HaShanah’s somber counterpart. God decides on this day your fate for the next year. Repent your sins, hope for forgiveness, and fast. (And go to synagogue for HOURS.)

Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Sukkot: Harvest festival! Sleep in a hut under the stars.

Shemini Atzeret: Man, I don’t even know?

Shavuot: God gave us the Torah! That was pretty nice of him.

“Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled “211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull.” We have gien this specimen a careful and detailed examination and regret to inform you that we disagree with you theory that it represents ‘conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago.’ Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the ‘Malibu Barbie’. It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to it’s modern origin:

The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.

The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.

The dentition patters evident on the ‘skull’ is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the ‘ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams’ you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

A) The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.

Clams don’t have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in it’s normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating’s notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly , we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation’s Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name ‘Australopithecus spiff-arino.’ Speaking personally, I for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn’t really sound like it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to or nation’s capital that you proposed in you last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the ‘trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix’ that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe

Curator, Antiquities”

—————————————————————————————————-

Harvey Rowe was a grad student from Charleston, South Carolina who wrote the letter in 1994 as a joke for his friends. it was always intended as a piece of creative writing, but it went viral and the context got lost

In court that day, the judge asked the boy, “Are you afraid?” No, the boy said.

Pipes says the judge seemed surprised, and asked, “Why not?”

Chief’s thesis was that a child who has been abused by an adult can benefit psychologically from the presence of even more intimidating adults that they know are on their side. “When we tell a child they don’t have to be afraid, they believe us,” Arizona biker Pipes told azcentral.com. “When we tell them we will be there for them, they believe us.” ( Article)

They go on runs to protect the child if they feel even the slightest threatened no matter where. If the child needs them to go on vacation with them, they do. Bikers come from across the nation to watch over and take shifts for these kids. And the best part is once you’re adopted into this family as a BACA kid, you’re always one. Even when you’re 40 and the perp gets released from jail, they’ll come meet with you and find your best options for avoiding the person and maintaining the life you’ve built for yourself. Once a BACA child, always a BACA child. In Florida, there’s 100% rate for identifying the perp based on the child’s testimony. Why? Because BACA stands with the child and supports the child so they feel comfortable enough to point out their attacker.

They’re in Canada as well and probably other countries. I met and talked with a native guy who runs the place near me. His name is Shaman. I got in, and I’m considered a BACA child now. Despite being 17, turning 18 when I talked to them. They spent time with me when my abuser was over, they gave me therapy resources. They give you something called a ‘level 1′ where they go to your house with as many bikers as they can, i shit you not a solid 20-40 bikers came from even out of province, and met me. I got to choose my biker name and I got a vest with patches on it and my name on it. They all hugged a Teddybear before giving it to me, and told me if I ever felt the BACA bear was running out of love, to give them a call and they’d refill it for me, and then I got a ride on one of their bikes. Just a day or so ago I went to an annual party with them and they we ate food one of them cooked and had a lot of laughs. 

I’ve never felt as loved as I did being a part of the BACA family. They also gave me dog tags with the names, and phone numbers of my 2 workers.  So I can call them whenever I feel scared. 

BACA is an absolutely wonderful group that will do everything in it’s power to help any child whos been abused. 

And it doesn’t end when you’re 18 either. As long as you get in contact/get your level 1 before you’re 18? you’re ALWAYS a BACA kid. I’m 18 now and they still invite me to parties, ask me if I’m okay, and are there for me. They’re still trying to find me resources for therapy. 

BACA has changed my fucking life. 

My friend started her period unexpectedly while we were at our local temple (in America) for dance class. Asking around if any of the parents had pads (all of them apologized and acted like adults about it), I thought surely the front office has a first aid kit. Don’t they have pads? When we asked, not only did they not have any, when one of the women gave one from her purse, the head secretary told us “There are men who need to use the first-aid kit, ya? So we don’t keep period things there.” Not even ibuprofen (which has so many more uses than period pain).

There are girls in India and Nepal (and other places, but I just read an in-depth piece about the situations in Nepal) who have to go to the “period hut” when their period comes and not leave until its over. They can’t wash and dry their cloth pads in the daylight, so they do it at night when the pads won’t dry properly before their next use, making them vulnerable to infection.

It is incredibly important, especially in India, to break the taboo surrounding periods. Break the secrecy around an event that happens to almost every woman, every month for literally half of her lifetime. Break the hiding, break the cover-up, break the SHAME.

$995,000/4 br/2700 sq ft

Chehalis, WA

Akkadian

Arabic

Aramaic

Church Slavonic

Egyptian (hieroglyphics and Demotic)

Elamite

Ethiopic (Ge’ez)

Etruscan

Gaulish

Georgian

Gothic

Greek

Hebrew

Hittite

Latin

Mayan (various related languages/dialects)

Old Chinese

Old English

Old French

Old Frisian

Old High German

Old Irish

Old Norse

Old Persian

Old Turkic

Sanskrit

Sumerian

Syriac

Ugaritic

I take pride in this.

Shoutout to Lesotho, South Africa, Ethiopia, Algeria and Kenya for representing African Alpine culture.

African Alpine culture produces the best wool cloaks, so it’s definitely a thing.

Consuming dark fiction, though it allows the audience to empathise with morally dubious or outright evil characters, nonetheless increases their overall amount of internal empathy towards other people. Not just bad people benefit from an overall increase in empathy.

Consuming exclusively sanitised, fluffy feel-good fiction with no counterbalancing dark sides does not increase the audience's empathy, because anyone who cannot empathise with The Littlest Cinnamon Roll, who has adventures dealing with happiness and friendship and harmony, is already a lost cause. Rather, such fiction, when all other kinds are excluded, normalises the idea that the only people worth empathising with are the morally pure cinnamon rolls who have never done anything wrong in their entire lives. The normalisation, and reinforcement of same through the standard life cycle of a fandom, reaches such a point that as soon as the characters in question step outside the boundaries of that bubble of innocence by doing (1) problematic thing, they are cancelled for crimes against humanity and the fandom tears itself apart.