Extracts.

A list of common, sub-conscious ​irrational beliefs

​Based on the work of Albert Ellis who developed Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

1. I must do well and get the approval of everybody who matters to me or I will be a worthless person.

2. Other people must treat me kindly and fairly or else they are bad.

3. I must have an easy, enjoyable life or I cannot enjoy living at all.

4. All the people who matter to me must love me and approve of me or it will be awful.

5. I must be a high achiever or I will be worthless.

6. Nobody should ever behave badly and if they do I should condemn them.

7. I mustn’t be frustrated in getting what I want and if I am it will be terrible.

8. When things are tough and I am under pressure I must be miserable and there is nothing I can do about this.

9. When faced with the possibility of something frightening or dangerous happening to me I must obsess about it and make frantic efforts to avoid it.

10. I can avoid my responsibilities and dealing with life’s difficulties and still be fulfilled.

11. My past is the most important part of my life and it will keep on dictating how I feel and what I do.

12. Everybody and everything should be better than they are and, if they’re not, it’s awful.

Sergei, who wasn’t asleep because he was thinking about God, Life, and Death, putting on the tea: “omg Vassily Petrovich do tell”

one hour later, Katerina Semyonovna bursts in: “SERGEI YOU BASTARD I AM GOING TO KILL YOU”

Sergei: “would you like some tea Katerina Semyonovna”

Not to pile on here, but this doesn’t look exactly promising.

It means every art blog would have to go through every post one by one and appeal individual flagged posts as not to lose content. Seems unlikely.

NO ONE CAN TELL ME WHERE THE GIANT PRIMORDIAL NORSE COW WENT

STILL

there is a giant cow out there

licking shit, possibly bringing other giant beings into creation

and like no one ever thought to mention it?

And in the gap

My busy tung

Dus lick and lap

My huf is strong

My horn is curld

I wandr round

ek sleiki ís.

_______

Rough translation:

My name is cow from me ther flow all the rivers down belo. and tho my tung  do pay the price, now i stand here.

Holly Maniatty, a certified sign language interpreter upstaged hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg with her enthusiasm during his concert at the Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Maniatty has worked numerous festivals and concerts with well-known rappers including Beastie Boys, Wu-Tang Clan and Killer Mike and this isn’t the first time that she has stolen the show with her major skills.

This looks like some special type of sign language that assists people with understanding the beats and innuendo along with lyrics.

One bizarre thing I noticed was how all the outlets reporting on Maniatty’s gone-viral performance was the language they used to describe it. They say she “upstaged” Snoop Dogg, that she “out G'ed him” or “stole the show,” and I think they all profoundly missed the point, even if the word choices were subconscious. Look at the OP for this post, it says she “upstaged” him and regularly “steals” the attention. It’s not like she’s a random dancer or attention seeker: she’s hired by the performers to make their performance accessible! This is her job, and she was specifically chosen and invited by the performer to be there. She isn’t stealing the show, she is charged with making it accessible to a Deaf and HoH audience.

And instead of a literal translation of the lyrics (which often doesn’t really work with hip-hop, because a lot of the cleverness/entertainment is in secondary meanings and rhythm) she’s trying to express the intention. I bet the performers who choose her are super glad they did, since she studies them so carefully, and tries to put their stage personalities across in sign! So many more of their fans are getting their money’s worth! She’s not doing it for parody, she’s doing it to serve the audience. If she was a threat to the performance, if the value she’s adding is distracting or “upstaging,” then PEOPLE WOULD USE A LYRIC MARQUEE INSTEAD. Basically live closed-captioning for events. But they don’t, because the whole-body human interpretation is what actually transmits the meaning, and artists want the audience to appreciate then meaning.

So it’s very weird to see so much language in these articles/posts crowing about how this (brilliant, master-of-her-craft) white woman “stole” the show and “did better at it” than Snoop Dogg. A lot of weird intersectional stuff to think about there.

 See how the criticism is bracketed with a friendly start that recognizes the good points of the post, and ends with a self-deprecating and positive ending for people to reblog from? That’s my favorite way to offer critique, because it raises the level of the conversation, keeps the OP in good faith, but still points out the flaws; the OP can’t really say that you’re being nasty and hateful and singling them out personally, if you sympathetically agree that they’ve done the best job that they could. 

And it deliberately changes the direction: from the negative narrative of one performer “upstaging” another, to the positive “two performers creating a unified performance.” So the OP can’t really argue: they’ve been wrapped up and redirected, and they either have to ignore me or agree with me. 

Obviously, I can’t claim that this was a long-term political plot, I just did this because those two words (”upstage”/”stole”) in the OP annoyed me viscerally, and I am very pedantic and mischievous. 

The OP of this post (the-real-eye-to-see) is one of the accounts charged with spreading belonging to a troll farm and being used to spread disinformation. Tumblr has allowed posts with reblogs to stay up, as they are often “often challenging or debunking the false and incendiary claims in the IRA-linked original post". The official Tumblr statement is here. A BBC article (that I found a bit more clear) is here. And the Guardian’s rather enjoyable headline, “Tumblr says Russia used it for fake news during 2016 election.”

There has been a lot of buzz in the news this week about “troll farms,” and how they aim to influence people’s opinions, with an eye towards changing election outcomes. They don’t do this by shoving Enemy Propagandas into your face. They do this by showing you some content that will appeal to you, and manipulating your feelings about it. “Fake news” is a large part of this, but there is also the deliberate fragmentation of communities, the sowing of suspicion and apathy. And discouragement! Discouragement is a brilliant tool, creating annoyance and a negative approach to problems (“Ugh, look at that bullied child, humans are so awful, there’s just nothing we can do about it”) rather than good attitudes that could encourage social change ( “oh, that poor bullied child! How can I help?”). Discouragement is brilliant, because it’s so wonderfully simple! It’s such an easy way to stop people from taking an interest in politics or even voting. You don’t have to convert progressives into conservatives to “win.” You just have to stop them from voting. And who wants to vote to benefit someone who attacked you in an internet fight?

The two words in the OP that annoyed me enough to deconstruct ( “upstaged” / “stole”) were probably a rather good piece of constructed, deliberate rhetoric. @damnfool-of-a-took explained it much better than I did here:

It’s this kind of bullshit that is really well designed to snipe discourse-inclined folks on Tumblr and get them riled enough to not realize the reason they’re fighting is disingenuous commentary making a story that’s actually kinda cool into a chance to align yourself with antiracism or antiableism, like you have to pick one. 

And in time it came to pass that a young man by the name of Outis came of age in that city; and, as with all who lived in that city, he was taken to a secret place where a wise elder showed him a small cold dirty room. And in that room there was a small cold dirty child, naked and hurt and starving, who had never known the least human kindness.

And the wise elder said to Outis, “In our city, everything is good and no one suffers. But it all depends on this child. If the least kindness is shown to him, our city will become like all other cities. There must always be such a child in Omelas.” …

…And Outis said to the elder, “If our city becomes like all other cities, many children will suffer.” And so he became a citizen of Omelas. And Outis led a good and happy and fulfilling life; and the child continued to suffer.

…And Outis said to the elder, “I will have no part in this evil thing.” And he walked away from Omelas. And Outis led a cold and short and brutish life; and the child continued to suffer.

…And Outis said to the elder, “I will have no part in this evil thing.” And he took the child and bathed him and cared for his wounds. And the city of Omelas became like all other cities; and many children suffered there.

…And Outis said to the elder, “I will have no part in this evil thing.” And he took the child and bathed him and cared for his wounds. And the city of Omelas carried on as it always had; and from that day forth no child suffered there.

…And Outis said to the elder, “I will have no part in this evil thing.” And he took the child and bathed him and cared for his wounds. And the city of Omelas became like all other cities; and many children suffered there.

But Outis, who would leave no child to suffer, worked tirelessly to save each one of them, and to build with his own hands a city in which everyone lived a good and happy and fulfilling life; and so in time it came to pass that the latter days of Omelas were greater than the former. And for ten trillion years Omelas carried on, and no child ever suffered there again.

…And Outis said to the elder, “Nevertheless, this child is my son, and I will not leave him to suffer.” And he took the child and bathed him and cared for his wounds. And the city of Omelas became like all other cities; and many children suffered there. But Outis did not care, because he valued the well-being of his son over all of them.

…And Outis asked the elder, “Why?” And the elder showed him to a library filled with books. And Outis studied the books for many years. And when he was an old man with a gray beard, Outis went out of the library and returned to the child and took the child out of the room, and in the child’s place he put a stone. And the stone was naked and dirty and cold; and the child Outis took and bathed and cared for. And Omelas carried on as it always had; and from that day forth no child suffered there.

Once upon a time there was a city called Omelas, where everyone lived good and happy and fulfilling lives; except for one child, who suffered so that the city might prosper. And all who lived there knew of this…

…And each citizen of Omelas, having looked into himself and seen that he would stand by while a child suffered in abject misery, found in himself a new willingness to do dark and evil deeds. And in time, all those who lived in Omelas suffered.

…And each citizen of Omelas lived with the gnawing guilt of his complicity, and the abiding terror that his own child would be chosen as the next to suffer. And in time it seemed to them that they could take no joy in any of the glories of Omelas.

…And one night, the child rose up and went out of his room and killed all the people of Omelas in their sleep.

Once upon a time there was a city called Omelas, where everyone lived good and happy and fulfilling lives. And each morning, each citizen of Omelas was taken to a small cold dirty room, and shown a small cold dirty child, and told that the child must suffer so that his day might be filled with all good things.

And all in Omelas agreed that it was better that one child should suffer than many; and none of them ever asked if it was the same child they saw each morning. And after all, one small cold dirty child looks much like another.

Once upon a time there was a city called Omelas, where everyone lived good and happy and fulfilling lives; except for ten thousand children, who suffered so that the city might prosper. And all who lived there knew of this…

…but none of them were ever taken to see the children in person, so none of them ever did anything about it.

…and whenever anyone saw such a child and “shouldn’t we rescue that suffering child?”, the other citizens of Omelas laughed and replied to them, “Naïve fool! Don’t you know that a child must always suffer in Omelas, so that the city may prosper? Otherwise it would become like all other cities, and many children would suffer.”

And everyone nodded wisely and went along with their days; and so ten thousand children continued to suffer where it might have been only one.

Once upon a time there was a city called Omelas, where everyone lived good and happy and fulfilling lives.

And in time it came to pass that a young man by the name of Outis came of age in that city; and, as with all who lived in that city, he was taken to a secret place where a wise elder showed him a small cold dirty room. And in that room there was a small cold dirty child, naked and hurt and starving, who had never known the least human kindness.

And the wise elder said to Outis, “In our city, everything is good and no one suffers. But it all depends on this child. If the least kindness is shown to him…”

“…the city will continue on as it always has, only your internet will be slightly slower.”

And Outis went back up into the city, and on that day he became a citizen of Omelas; and the child continued to suffer.

“…the best predictions of our scientists suggest that there will be a slight average decrease in various hard-to-measure kinds of happiness, which nevertheless in total adds up to more suffering than this child experiences.”

And Outis said to the elder, “I will have no part in this evil thing.” And he took the child and bathed him and cared for his wounds. And the average happiness increased in some ways and decreased in others, and the net effect might have been negative, but the best results on the matter had p > 0.05, so the scientists of Omelas could not rule out the null hypothesis.

Once upon a time there was a city called Omelas, where everyone lived good and happy and fulfilling lives.

And in Omelas there was a naked dirty child in a small dirty room; because the child was agoraphobic and was making mudpies.

Once upon a time there was a city called Omelas, where everyone lived good and happy and fulfilling lives.

thankfully it wasn’t an elaborate fever dream and i have found screenshots

“I was born halfway between poverty and the sun. Poverty kept me from thinking all was well under the sun and in history; the sun taught me that history was not everything.” - Albert Camus