i know we'll reunite up there in the clouds

I JUST

KATIE TRIED TO SEND US COOKIES OUTTA THE GOODNESS OF HER HEART AND JUST

“OHHHH THESE COOKIES WERE SUPPOSED TO GO TO NEW JERSEY, PHIL? I THOUGHT YOU SAID

THE COOKIES ARE FINALLY ON THEIR WAY TO NEW JERSEY

GO COOKIES GO

@phantomrose96 @cupcakecreeper​ @homebeccer GET READY

@phantomrose96 @homebeccer @cupcakecreeper

holy fuCK HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS

THE THRILLING CONCLUSION

also as a bonus visual here’s a rough approximation of these cookies’ journey

AND 

IT’S

IT’S

IT’S NOT AN OPTION IT’S NOT AN OPTION I CAN’T I-

No one said “hey let’s stop missending things to Nepal” they just said “let’s make a stamp for this” and called it a day.

My dad has 4 half siblings and two step siblings. They're all a decent bit younger than him. When I was a teenager, we went to a family reunion, and I realized something—my dad did not respect his siblings. He looked down on all of them. He saw them as fuck-ups and overgrown children. My dad had the American dream: well paying management job, suburban house, wife, and three kids. My aunt and uncles did not. Excluding my aunt, none of them were married or in serious relationships. They hadn't really settled into long term careers. Several of them were working the kind of jobs that get called "Unskilled labor." So he looked down on them because the youngest one was in his thirties (and several were much older), and yet none of them had "settled down" into what he saw as lifelong, permanent careers and relationships and lives. He was polite to their faces, sure, but I heard how he talked about them behind their backs, to my mother.

And then a few years ago, we visited his brothers again for Thanksgiving. And I realized something again--he respected them now. He saw them as equals. Why? Well. All of a sudden, every single one of them had serious, committed romantic partners. They didn't even need to still be with those partners—one of my uncle's fiance passed away from cancer before they could marry—just having had one showed that they matured into a real adult participating in society. In fact, at one point, my aunt was telling my mom about how one of my uncles was no longer living in an apartment she owned, but instead, after having a steady girlfriend for about a year, he moved in with her. And my mom literally said to my aunt, "wow. Look at that. He finally grew up."

One of the lines that frequently gets repeated about anti-aspec sentiment is "why would anyone hate asexuals/aromantics/etc? They aren't even doing anything." And that's exactly it. In the eyes of amatonormative culture, we aren't doing anything. Adults are supposed to do things. That's how you become a member of society.

it's mouth season

My mom gave me and my sister two days every semester that she called “mental health days.”

Those were days, that for ANY reason, and without having to tell my mom the reason, we could skip the day of school. We’d just tell her we were taking a mental health day and she’d call the school and let them know we were not coming in. 

#1 This helped keep our grades up by lowering our stress levels. I never got a C in any grade school class. The majority of my classes I received A’s. I also took 4 AP classes and they were not weighted. Trust me, it made a difference.

#2 I never felt the need to skip school. I knew if I ever wanted to or needed to my mom would help me. 

One of my math teachers in high school had a policy called The Red Beanbags of Don’t Bother Me. He kept a pile of red beanbags on his desk, and at any time of the day you could go over and take one. From that point on, as long as you were in his classroom with a beanbag on your desk, no one could bother you. He wouldn’t call on you to answer problems, no students were allowed to talk to you, and perhaps most importantly, no one could ask why you took a bean bag that day. The only caveat was that if you used the beanbag more than three times in a semester you had to go talk to the school counselor about it.

please take the term “factory farm” out of your vocabulary when discussing animal welfare

talking about the welfare of livestock and livestock production is incredibly important! all animals deserve to have the best welfare possible, regardless of if they’re going to end up on a plate or not

but the term “factory farm” does not actually discuss animal welfare in the way so many people seem to assume it does

for starters, “factory farm” is not an actual industry term. it doesn’t actually mean anything, because what constitutes a factory farm is completely subjective. you will never see the phrase “factory farm” in any kind of published research or official article because, again, it doesn’t mean anything

sure, the phrase definitely has connotations. and the connotation is the issue here. people use the term “factory farm” as a shorthand for… well, typically, “farming practice i don’t understand but think looks bad”

the term isn’t something neutral. it is specifically designed to create a negative image when you hear it. someone says “factory farm” and most people imagine large amounts of animals kept in bad condition

the key here: large amounts of animals

the size of a farm does not dictate the welfare of the animals on it. there are plenty of large farms with hundreds, thousands of animals that take stellar care of their livestock. there are small farms with only a couple animals that live horrible lives

the size of a farm is not the issue when it comes to animal welfare, but rather the practices used on the farm. sometimes they do go hand in hand, yes. there are some practices that are only necessary because of the amount of animals present

but say that

there are other terms that are actually industry terms that work better for these scenarios. try “conventional farming” “industrialized farming” “commercialized farming”. these actually have meanings that you can then jump off of into talking about animal welfare practices on these farms

From the USA EPA website:

(https://www.epa.gov/npdes/animal-feeding-operations-afos )

CAFO and AFO are easy to understand even if you aren't interested or involved in ag, but they are also legally defined and there are regulations and policies written about them. While terms like conventional farming and industrialized farming are useful and widely used and you won't be misunderstood (and I agree with op that they're better than 'factory farming') using specific language when talking about something that is regulated is important. "Conventional farming is bad" is a much harder point to argue when compared to "Confined Animal Feeding Operations are bad" even though I would agree that both are true. One is a broad statement about a wide variety of practices and operations and the other is discussing a specific type of operation with well documented animal welfare concerns and environmental impact (there's a reason they're defined on the EPA website - these things absolutely fuck up a watershed).

Using AFO/CAFO is also useful when discussing animal welfare as a whole. There are organic AFOs and while their animal welfare standards are higher than conventional AFO operations, they do exist. I grew up in a county with thousands of turkey and chicken CAFOs and some of them work with organic brands and were Certified Organic. Definitionally these operations are not Conventional, they're Organic. In professional circles those therms are opposite. This is where Industrial Agriculture is a more effective term than conventional, but I think my point stands.

And my manager was like no!!!! If that happened, I would drive to find you guys in my truck and we could eat stuff from my wife's garden and I would make sure everyone I know survived!! I would carry you all on my shoulders away from the zombies!!

Here it is again. You might want to save it just in case an accident like that happens again