radioactive-violet

Her name is “Reality Leigh Winner” and she was a NSA Contractor. She passed a top secret NSA document to a news source (an article from The Intercept) that contains information about a Russian cyber-attack with one voting machine DAYS before the 2016 presidential election. This is considered the most detailed piece of proof regarding Russia’s interference with the elections to date. 

Here’s how the NSA document described how the Russians did the hacking: 

“As described by the classified NSA report, the Russian plan was simple: pose as an e-voting vendor and trick local government employees into opening Microsoft Word documents invisibly tainted with potent malware that could give hackers full control over the infected computers.

But in order to dupe the local officials, the hackers needed access to an election software vendor’s internal systems to put together a convincing disguise. So on August 24, 2016, the Russian hackers sent spoofed emails purporting to be from Google to employees of an unnamed U.S. election software company, according to the NSA report. Although the document does not directly identify the company in question, it contains references to a product made by VR Systems, a Florida-based vendor of electronic voting services and equipment whose products are used in eight states.

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of decoden and polymer clay questions about what to use to as a gloss/glaze. Almost every time the first response is “Clear nail polish, duh!”.

The reason a woman cannot ‘have it all’ is because you can’t as an individual be as productive a worker as Capitalism wants you to be to ‘get ahead’ in commercial industry, and then also perform the domestic labour to keep yourself and your family happy and healthy. Women are still expected to fill their binary role as caregivers, they’re just allowed to also be workers outside the home. This is exhausting and literally impossible, and not an expectation imposed on men.

It’s also worth pointing out that stay at home dads also do face a certain stigma. Resources for men to be included in the kinds of communities built around stay at home parents are more limited, and they can often be derided by toxic masculinity as being ‘whipped’ or somehow emasculated by taking on what is a traditionally female role. A lot of men are brainwashed into thinking they are diminished if their female partner earns more than they do. Value is inherently tied to capital earning under a Capitalist system, so unpaid domestic labour is worthless.

Fathers who do their share of the domestic labour while still being active in the workforce are lauded in ways women in the same position aren’t - working women are called selfish for neglecting the home; men are heroes for contributing to it. However, men who choose to leave the workforce to be the primary caregiver also face pressure for stepping out of their Capitalist assigned gender role. I cannot speak for POC, but I would imagine all these pressures are magnified and made even worse when you’re non white.

Domestic labour is as taxing and as important as any other kind of labour. It is also perceived still as women’s labour, and so unimportant and unfulfilling. While many men and women (myself included!) would be bored and unhappy staying at home to raise children and keep the home, I know a lot of other women and men who are fulfilled and happy making that their primary focus.

But domestic labour doesn’t contribute to capitalist production, so it is deemed to be both feminine and worthless. A necessity for survival, but a menial and unprestigious one. It earns the individual no capital, and so its communal and spiritual benefits are meaningless. Contributing to the family and building loving happy relationships in a nice environment doesn’t pay money, so it’s boring and stupid to value it over things that do pay money. This is the great lie of Capitalism - that we should all want to be individually rich off the backs of others, even our loved ones.

Same thing happened when I got into fighting. I got even stronger, and I got *fast*, man, and nimble, like a cat. Still chubby.

Body-building culture is a bunch of crap, my dude. Functional muscle is not necessarily toned or lean. You can be swole as hell and still be heavy. And that’s cool.

And every damn one of those huge shredded motherfuckers has the endurance of a fucking newborn puppy. Fifteen minutes into warmups and they’re panting for air like like they’re about to die. I’ve sparred them and every one of them telegraphs their moves about two weeks in advance, and are slower than my dead grandpa because their huge useless muscles get in the damn way. 

Now. I also work with a couple of guys who are not weightlifters. They do, however, do very physical jobs and are Big Dudes. Picture this sort of build. 

No abs to speak of, a bit of a tummy, and those motherfuckers can pick up one of the weightlifters and throw them. 

And they’re fast. Like, unfair fast. 

At my heaviest (well over 300lbs) I still ran an 11 minute mile (pre-disability). And even when I was at my most active, and training intensely, I was never hardbodied despite working out full time. Functional muscle for me looks like horse legs and a big muscular butt with a soft tummy and big arms.

Have you seen olympic powerlifters? 

This is Sarah Robles, on the USA Olympic Powerlifting team. 

Holy shit I love her even more. 

This is my favourite moment from ‘Point of Light’. Michael picks up on something that doesn’t make sense. Then she smiles and makes a joke because Tilly, her best friend, her favourite person in the whole universe, is close to breaking down… and Michael’s found a problem she can solve. 

No. 

I mean that in the most positive way, that Tilly doesn’t have the same body type as most of the other Starfleet officers we see ever which means a lot to me

Until I saw Tilly running with Micheal without being shamed for her weight, and being a badass officer who is really good at her job, and generally existing, I didn’t quite realize that I’ve never really seen myself as a Starfleet officer in my imagination. It’s been like a hypothetical version of me, a skinny version that I’ve never been.

When I actually think about it, there’s no reason that I should have to be fit and pretty or buff or whatever in order to imagine myself as a comm officer or exolinguist. I’m not trying to do Kirk-fu here, and even if I were imagining myself as a security officer that could have different body types too. Why did I have this unspoken idea that passing an academy fitness test necessarily meant no one is fat in Starfleet?

Like even when her mom is criticizing her appearance, it’s about her hair and not her weight. And in the mirror universe, where everyone is Evil and Hot, Killy has different hair but the same body type. And when her dietary choices are questioned by Micheal or by the replicator itself it’s for the sake of her actual health, not her weight. It’s not like a defining feature it’s just a little part of who she is, and who she is is awesome