a.k.a. Earl Fergus Clankingchild

Jay Kallio is a transgender man who lived through a healthcare nightmare he hopes no other trans person will ever have to face, and he shared the painful story with HuffPost Live’s Nancy Redd last week.

It began when Kallio found a lump on his breast just three months after a mammogram. He had a second mammogram, then a biopsy and, when weeks went by without receiving any test results, he just assumed everything was fine. That changed when he suddenly got a phone call from the doctor who performed his biopsy – and who was not his primary physician.

“She said to me, ‘Hi, I was just curious how you were doing with your diagnosis.’ And I said, ‘What diagnosis?’ She sort of spurted, ’[Your doctor] hasn’t called you yet?’” Kallio remembered.

The biopsy confirmed that Kallio had “very aggressive” breast cancer, and Kallio knew he needed treatment immediately, especially as the pain in his breast intensified.

“It felt like getting shot slowly. It felt like it was heading right for my heart. So I was getting nervous. I still get nervous when I think about it,” he said.

Even after that, Kallio’s doctor still wouldn’t contact him, which came as a huge surprise considering his doctor was head of surgery at a major hospital in “great big blue Manhattan,” a liberal city where Kallio expected “embracing care” from “competent experts.” The physician eventually got in touch when Kallio made moves to have his case transferred, but the conversation did not go as he hoped.

“The first thing [the doctor] said was, ‘I have a real problem with your transgender status.’ And he said, ‘When I found out you were transgender, the first thing I wanted to do, my first impulse was to send you to psychiatry,’” Kallio said. “So this is what a breast surgeon wanted to do with my breast cancer, is first send me to psychiatry.”

After a long struggle, Kallio eventually did find a “very welcoming” surgeon to help him, and the procedure also accomplished something Kallio had never been able to do because of his low income.

“That’s how I lost my breasts. I was never able to afford any transition care as a transgender person, so I lost my breasts through having a double mastectomy for breast cancer,” he said.

Unfortunately, Kallio is currently in the middle of another fight for his life – this time with terminal lung cancer. Though the outlook is bleak, Kallio told HuffPost Live he sees the effects of the work he’s done in between his two diagnoses, including providing free training to hospital staffs on how to treat LGBTQ patients of all kinds.

Dinosaurs: I think we should call it your grave!

They say necessity is the mother of invention and this is sure the case when it comes to 13 and 15 year old, Nigerian brothers Anesi and Osine Ikhianosime. Their necessity is their need for a faster mobile web browsing experience…because who wants to wait a few extra seconds for Google Chrome to load when you can build a better browser?

The dynamic coding duo are your ordinary African teenagers. They attend school in Greensprings school, Anthony Campus, Lagos. They love their friends, soccer, to have fun and coding, obviously.

The young problem solvers got tired of waiting for Google Chrome to load on their mobile phones, so decided to do something about it instead of complain. They decided to build a better mobile browser last year and called it Crocodile Browser Lite. It is currently live and ready for your download in the Google Play store right now. Raised by parents who believe education and technology is very important to the lives of all, they were raised with high aspirations in mind. Their mother says they were able to use the computer before they know how to read and have always been fascinated with technology, creating, building and solving problems. 

By the age of 7 & 9, the duo knew they wanted to start their own technology company. Inspired by Microsoft Windows platform, they decided to name their company “Doors”. However, later they discovered that the name was taken, so they changed it to Blu Doors”, which is still the current name of the company.At the ages of 12 and 14, they decided to take on the task of learning how to code. They taught themselves, but had much encouragement, inspiration and access to computers from their school. 

They did take advantage of free resources. “I learnt to code by myself. I startede in 2013, I used sites  like Code Academy, Code Avenger and books like ‘Android for Game Development’ and ‘Games for Dummies,” said Anesi.The plan to create a better browser for low end featured phones is one that is needed for the developing world. While Chrome and other browsers work great on high end smart phones, the majority of the world are not using this technology and need a low-end option that still provides quick browers response, so this is what the young men did. 

They built a better mouse trap for the phones they were using.Crocodile Browser Lite 3.0 will be available this year [available now] in the Google Play store and something you should check out to give the young people support. They currently have over 500 [between 1000 - 5000] downloads of their browser, but hoping to see it grow in the near future.Their future plans are to attend MIT in the United States because they feel the educational opportunities, resources and access to technology are exactly what they need to positively impact the future as then intend.Hats off to these young men and their family!

IN CASE YOU HAVENT HEARD YET

!!!!! MUST READ !!!!!!

Dominican Republic to be ‘Socially Cleaned’ of all Hatians/Dark Skinned Dominicans in two days

In two days about a quarter of a million people will be made stateless. They will have no homes, no passports, and no civil rights. There are several reasons for this, but the primary reason is racism.

 At issue is a ruling by the Constitutional Court in the Dominican Republic to strip away the citizenship of several generations of Dominicans:

According to the decision, Dominicans born after 1929 to parents who are not of Dominican ancestry are to have their citizenship revoked. The ruling affects an estimated 250,000 Dominican people of Haitian descent, including many who have had no personal connection with Haiti for several generations.

Dominican Republic has always had a longstanding hatred towards Haiti for years but what they’re doing is literally taking anyone who’s family lineage cannot be traced back to 1929, and putting them on a one-way bus back to Haiti, whether they were born in the DR or not. They don’t care. 

The US State Department has denounced the Dominican government for this plan, and pointed out that it is a gross violation of human rights according to the U.N. charter.

Below are 5 things you need to know about what is happening in the Dominican Republic:

The DR government has revoked the citizenship of more than 100,000 Dominicans born in the country of Haitian parents.

Many of the Dominican-born Haitians facing the looming threat of deportation have never visited Haiti or know anyone there.

The criteria the government will use in deciding who is to be bussed out of the country is “dark-skinned Dominicans with Haitian facial features.”

The DR government claims to have established a legalization process for Dominican-Haitians wishing to remain in the country, but the system is close-to-impossible, according to sources on the ground.

Even though currently the deportation of Dominic-Haitians persists as only a possibility, all evidence points to it happening.

Source / Source / Source

Delete Yourself From Web Services With JustDelete.me

JustDelete.me is a directory that allows you to permanently remove yourself from different web services such as Facebook, PayPal, Amazon, etc. 

Why can’t you just go to the listed sites on your own and delete yourself that way, you ask? It’s not that easy. 

A lot of sites have dark patterns — interfaces created to trick users into agreeing to terms they otherwise wouldn’t — and JustDelete.me is designed to work around those patterns.

For example, Facebook’s Account Settings menu only offers people the option to deactivate their accounts, so many think that it’s not possible to completely delete themselves from the site; the “Delete Account” button can only be found if you hunt it down. With JustDelete.me, you can click the Facebook link and be taken directly to the “Delete Account” page without all the hassle.

JustDelete.me even color codes web services by how difficult it is to delete yourself from each site, with green being the easiest, and black being impossible. (Good luck deleting yourself from Craigslist.) 

“These are my babies…. They have too many legs, but they are handsome and strong”

inspired by that viral pick of Mabel. I’ve seen it on my dash a million times, and I finally did something about it c:

I am utterly shocked and saddened by the news of Christopher Lee’s death. May he rest in peace and travel back into the west. For all my life, he has been such a beautiful presence, not only being such a fantastic portrayer of Saruman but that of the countless roles he played.I remember growing up to LOTR and Star Wars, and my dad telling me about growing up to Dracula. His bravery, courage and resilience in life is a quality that he held highly. The very fact that he chose to act in The Hobbit at 92 is credit to the love of life he held. I really do not know what to say, this is heartbreaking. Utterly heartbreaking.