Admirings

Ok…you guys know I clearly like to over work myself. In addition to being an Assistant Principal and Professor this year, I am starting a Black Student Union with my middle schoolers.

For those who may not be familiar, a Black Student Union (BSU) at the middle school level is a student-led organization that focuses on creating a supportive community for Black students and their allies. The purpose of our BSU is to promote cultural awareness, provide a space for students to explore their identity, and foster leadership and educational opportunities that reflect the rich diversity of our school community. This group will also engage in meaningful discussions, events, and activities that highlight the importance of Black history, culture, and contributions to society.

I planned out monthly activities you can view below. Now I need supplies. Please DONATE if you can, if not, please share with others! Click the Donor’s Choose link. Thank you always! ❤️

in the UK, if 100k sign a a government petition it will be brought to Parliament and debated. y'all know this country is suffering from some 80s-style bigotry right now, and this is one symptom: almost 200k fuckholes have come together to force the government to discuss whether it is 'appropriate' to tell children that queer people exist. this is a big symbolic victory for them. and i am burning with fury.

Thats probably a bad idea and we should let educators decide the best way to educate children and have the freedom to decide how to introduce concepts to kids. So there is another petition to argue against it.

i’ve taken schoolism courses in the past and they’re absolutely wonderful. black artists are seriously underrepresented in the arts, a lot of it has to do with the gatekeeping that happens because large studios and recruiters only pick from schools that are historically white and wealthy. i hope this opportunity proves helpful.

Scarlett Johansson and Drew Barrymore joined other actors and stuntpeople to stage this epic virtual fight

Our Education Team just launched free self-paced online science courses for PK-2nd and 3rd-6th grade kids!

Many of you have asked how you can support the Aquarium during this difficult time. We’re so humbled by the outpouring of affection and support you have shown for us and the animals. 

Your kind comments have buoyed our spirits as we continue to provide the best possible care to our animals and to ensure the Aquarium is ready to welcome you back.

The reality is that being closed has a significant financial impact and we can’t continue our work without your help. If you’re able to, making a donation will help us continue our mission while we’re closed.

Your gift will be put to work immediately to help us pay for the ongoing care of our animals and maintenance of the Aquarium.

In these uncertain times, we’re so grateful for each and every one of you, and we promise we’ll do our best to keep you connected to the ocean, to our animals and to each other. 

Before the computing era, ILM was the master of oil matte painting, making audiences believe that some of the sets in the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogy were real when they weren’t. They were the work of geniuses like Chris Evans, Michael Pangrazio, Frank Ordaz, Harrison Ellenshaw and Ralph McQuarrie ! Forever thank you, to their handmade art and the work of their colleagues, that made us dream of impossible worlds and fantastic places across Earth and the Universe.

There are more background paintings on this article, featuring comments by the masters/artists themselves ! 

Some of the following pieces were made by other artists 2:

Historical-nonfiction is a lot of work, and there’s just one person (hi!) doing it all.

So what can you do to help keep historical-nonfiction going?

To make a one-time donation, please consider buying historical-nonfiction a coffee. It’s just US$ 3.00!

To make a continuing commitment to support the blog for the next year, consider becoming a patron of historical-nonfiction on patreon. Pledges start at just $1 per month!

Wisdom and her egg on Midway Atoll in 2018. Photo credit  Madalyn Riley /USFWS

Wisdom, a Laysan albatross and world’s oldest known, banded bird in the wild has returned to Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and Battle of Midway National Memorial! 

She first appeared back at her traditional nest site on November 29 and biologists on Midway have confirmed that she has laid an egg.  Wisdom was first banded as an adult  in 1956, and although she is at least 68 years old, she is still laying eggs and raising chicks.

Wisdom and her mate Akeakamai return to the same nest site on Midway Atoll each year. Albatross often take time off to rest between egg-laying years, but the pair have met on Midway to lay and hatch an egg every year since 2006. 

Some good news, I’ve been talking to two developers now and got them working together, we just had a meeting with the guys behind an existing large (millions of users) site similar to Tumblr, with a vibrant and open-minded community, and more importantly, it has open-minded owners who believe in free speech. They think we can get something done here to rescue the whole community.

I’m not allowed to reveal the site name yet. I can tell you it’s mainstream, open to everyone, open-minded and welcoming. (It’s not WordPress or any site owned by Facebook or Twitter. It’s not Pillowfort, that’s in closed beta. It’s not Ello, that’s mainly for artists. It’s not kinkspace or fetlife, those are too specialist. It’s not jux, that seems to be closed. It’s not Soup, that seems still in development and too small.)

One of the reasons for delaying the announcement for next few days is they don’t want a “land grab” where people take the names of current popular Tumblr users over there (cyber squatting). So they are looking at ways for existing Tumblr users to keep the same names on the new site.

More info over the days to come.

The plan is, broadly:

1. By December 9th, announcement of the new site and how to secure your username there

2. By December 10th, an online tool for bloggers to copy their existing content to the new site automatically, with the same tags and captions.

3. Bloggers will need to copy their content across between December 10th and December 17th if they want to use the automatic tool.

4. My understanding is that after December 17th there will be no public access to any “flagged” posts on Tumblr, but the original poster will still be able to see the flagged post (for a short time at least). Therefore, the original poster may still be able to manually download a post to their own PC or phone, after December 17th, and manually upload it to the other site. But if you have lots of posts that will take a long time, it will be better to use the automatic tool before December 17th.

Please understand that these dates are approximate and may change for technical or other reasons.

There may be a few rough edges or not so perfect looking site design on the transfer tool. Everyone is doing their best. The main goal here is to help as many people as possible preserve access to their content, in the short space of time Tumblr has allowed us, and preserve as much as possible of the Tumblr community spirit somewhere new.

The new site will cater for photo, GIF, text and html posts. It will not offer video and audio posts, due to cost reasons - maybe in future, but for now you will need to preserve video and audio content yourself in some other place.

If your Tumblr blog has a mixture of original content and reblogs, or all reblogs, all of that can be copied over to the new site. Reblogs will become “your” original content if nobody else posted them yet, otherwise they will be shown as reblogs. The devs are looking at ways to preserve attribution of reblogs back to the original Tumblr poster, if that person also moves to the new site.

Important: your Likes cannot be copied from Tumblr to the new site. You will have to go find the same posts again on the new site, and like them afresh.

(Similarly, existing reblog comments, asks, messages and other user interaction on Tumblr cannot be copied to the new site - that’s just too much to do, in the short time available.)

If you want to preserve any of your existing Liked posts on Tumblr, you will need to either: (1) download the post to your own PC, or: (2A) reblog it now to your own Tumblr blog, and then (2B) use the automatic tool, before December 17th, to move your whole Tumblr blog across to the new site.

If you have Liked a lot of posts here on Tumblr, the gridllr.com webapp should be able to help you do steps 1 and 2A quickly, I mean download or reblog.

(Someone complained to me today about the appearance of Gridllr on a phone. It’s best to use Gridllr on a PC, Mac or Tablet with a large screen.)

If you have liked a post here on Tumblr and the original poster decides to delete it, or even to delete their entire blog, some time before December 17th, then that post will be permanently lost. So if you want to be sure to preserve any of your Liked posts, you should best download or reblog as soon as possible. If it’s reblogged to your own blog it is safe from deletion, at least for next few days.

When people tell you European colonialism and imperialism were a long time ago, and that people need to move on, remember this map.