impossible bird

Charles Augustus Milverton

“Well, well, my dear fellow, be it so. We have shared the same room for some years, and it would be amusing if we ended by sharing the same cell. You know, Watson, I don’t mind confessing to you that I have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal. This is the chance of my lifetime in that direction.”

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

Hi @lumiilys! You've received a lovely letter. 💌

This one hurt, her work had such a profound effect on my life, thoughts, and politics.

May her memory be a blessing

literal first paragraph of the wikipedia article for learned helplessness. this is a depression symptom. it is frequently caused by lifelong abuse from controlling authority figures. it is the exact OPPOSITE of an abuse tactic and would most likely be displayed by the WOMEN in that kind of scenario!!

when you try and be nice to someone and they react poorly, you know they did not take it in the way it was intended. the kind of reaction can sometimes clue you in to what exactly about it they misunderstood. you can try to adjust your own behavior to better communicate what you're trying to communicate.

by this I mean. behavior is communication and if you learn it you can truly communicate with people things like "I value you as a person" you can communicate that with your behavior. its not the same with every person. you have to constantly adjust how well you understand them so that how you're behaving is communicating what you want it to.

(also, she was never judgey - if my meal was a single potato chip she would simply say good job eating a potato chip today <3 )

Textpost by "tapir worf" @‌eggy_egregore, that reads:

If you don't go outside every single day during the day and look at the sky, you are performing a punishing biological experiment on yourself previously reserves for prisoners

End ID.]

At the 1985 Labour party meet, the motion to support LGBT rights as a party was passed due to a block vote from mining unions.