I'm Going On An Adventure

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click for palestine (arab.org)

click for sudan (arab.org)

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🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸

click on the link and then on the big "click to help" button. wait for the page to reload, it should read "your click has been counted" and you should see confetti

if you want to click more than once, you can use different browsers or devices, or open incognito mode, it seems to work (at least on the client side of the website)

if you want to buy me a pizza, here's my info!

paypal.me/classypay

$junedelphox for cashapp.

posting this early so tme people who want to help have a chance to consider how they can/will help

context: mira bellweather is the author of fucking trans women, and an activist for transfeminism and sex education for and about trans women. she passed away tragically in 2022 from lung cancer. and as dour as it is to say, many of us are not afforded the luxury of growing to see 40 OR dying of something other than violence (including homelessness and such as violence, of course)

march 31st is her birthday, and has been declared by her friends, family, and supporters as "buy a trans woman a pizza" day. she was a disabled trans woman who did so much for this community and it would mean a lot if allies of all stripes and walks of life would participate and buy us a pizza.

People talk about how you can’t see stars in the city and yeah, that’s true, but their concept of “seeing stars” is being able to make out orion’s belt.

So, so few people have see the sky in all its glory and it’s not sad. It’s a fucking crime. Seeing a perfectly dark night, no clouds, not a hint of light pollution? That’s a fucking religious experience.

The sky the vast vast majority of us grew up with is not the sky that inspired us to look up. It is not the sky that inspired constellations. You can’t even see most constellations.

Your ancestors looked at the night sky and said “surely, that is where the gods must live.” And you might be lucky if you can see hardly more than a handful of stars.

When we were on a field trip to the middle of the red sea, I remember us all crowding at the end of the boat that didn’t have lights and just lying on our backs and staring

When you see a properly dark starscape

You understand why people wrote poems and made up legends and built rockets and said heaven’s in the sky

You think of the night sky like fairy lights on black velvet, but it’s not it’s not it’s like, like, dust in sunlight, like - I can’t find the words.

The stars are everywhere, like sugar, like glitter, like dust. You can’t find the constellations at first, not because you can’t recognise them, but because there’s so many stars you can’t pick out the familiar line of Orion’s belt. The North star has gone from bright familiarity to almost vanishing among a thousand, a hundred thousand, a million other lights. The milky way is a line of light arcing across the sky like a moon-trail on water only infinitely, infinitely bigger.

And for the first time in your life you’ll understand why people call it a dome, because it is, it’s three dimensional in exactly the way a city skyscape isn’t.

You’ll understand why Luthien Tinúviel danced under starlight, not moonlight, why people in a time before we knew the earth was round still looked up and wondered and built telescopes and dreamed about the stars.

The stars are endless and ancient and infinite and you will stand with your head craned back and your rucksack forgotten at your feet and you’ll feel like you’re falling upwards into that great bright sky like it’s calling you home and you’ll wonder how you ever thought the stars were beautiful before tonight when all you’d ever seen were the naked empty skyscapes of your home. And you’ll cry and you’ll spend the rest of your time there gazing up and wondering and imagining what it would be like to stand among those bright silver flecks

I’d often set an alarm to wake me in the middle of the night, so it was as dark as possible and my eyes as dark-adapted as they coud get, and starlight alone was enough to guide me

this post was inflicted upon me so now i’m inflicting it on all of you

Irena lived in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation, and dedicated her life to rescuing Jewish children from the Ghetto, and her story is complicated in a lot of ways but - well, this story isn’t actually about Irena, per se.

It’s about a bus driver.

It’s about a day when she’s traveling across town by bus with a very young Jewish child, and partway to their destination the child looks up and asks a question - in Yiddish. and the whole bus goes quiet, because everyone knows what that means. And Irena thinks, okay, we’re going to die here today.

And she’s running through her options - all of them bad - and suddenly the bus stops, and the bus driver announces that there’s been a mechanical failure and the bus needs to return to the depot immediately. Everyone off, please.

And she stands and goes to get off the bus and the driver says - not you two. Sit down. So she sits down as everyone else leaves, because, well, what else is she going to do? the options are all still bad, at this point.

and when the bus is empty the bus driver says,

“Where do you need to go?”

And then he drives them as close to their destination as he can, and lets them off, and drives away. And Irena lives, and the kid lives, and they never cross paths again.

So a janitor got three people killed, and a bus driver saved two lives - not to mention all the other lives indirectly saved because Irena was able to continue her work.

I think about that almost every day now, to be honest.

We can’t all be Irena. I couldn’t be Irena. She was in a unique place with very specific skills and connections that let her do what she did. I am just one mentally ill librarian. I can’t be her. But - I can be the bus driver. Or I could be the janitor. Because it doesn’t matter what your job is. It doesn’t matter who you are. In a world like this, every single one of us has the opportunity to do massive harm or massive good. We can save lives or end them.

And that’s scary. but it’s also very comforting? at least for me. Because at the end of the day it means this: no matter of how small and helpless and unimportant you feel, you’re never powerless in the face of great evil.

An update on Kara Sternquist, the girl in this iconic image. She's currently in prison in a very trans hostile environment, but should have enough good behavior/classes etc credits to be released as early as this year if her credits can be correctly counted/filed. If you are someone who is experienced with the bureaucracy of the federal prison system and can help Kara navigate the gauntlet of FSA credits, medical requirements, and more while she remains on the inside, If she can find someone who has specialized wisdom in this sector. If you think you might know someone else who could help, please spread the word and reach out.

She can receive mail just like any other mailing address in the USA could, from either domestic or international senders. Please be certain to write or print on plain white paper and use plain white envelopes. If you include your email address in your letter, Kara can work to add you to her CorrLinks email contacts list and reach out to you (check your spam filters please for the confirmation email from that system)

Everyone is always saying that they are scared of sharks and don’t want to help them.

But, this is a serious issue.

Sharks aren’t he only ones who are affected by the actions of hunting and shark finning, but the entire ecosystem.

So everyone, PLEASE REBLOG!

I keep dreaming for the sharks…

how to troubleshoot by yourself when you have a technical problem

what common file types are

some very basics on how to use ""developer tools"" on your computer (because i cant think of a better way to refer to them) like task manager and command prompt (and their mac equivalents, terminal and activity monitor ofc)

how to read and understand a privacy policy and what your personal data is, as well as what it being collected actually means and steps you can take to keep it private

how to understand terms of service (hey. if you have trouble with reading legalese and worry about being able to understand these policies anyways, here's a site that gives basic summaries of privacy policies and ToS)

what a cookie actually is

internet privacy and your digital footprint!! seriously i dont know why we stopped teaching people that they shouldnt be putting their entire real identity online in a world where your online actions can ruin you irl

basic safety measures like antivirus software (and why you should use it or if the built in one on windows or mac is enough for you) and backing up your computer (also a mac guide)

common keyboard shortcuts (and on mac)

as an additional note: things i think everyone should know on computers and the internet but schools may bit hesitant to teach about for whatever moral/legal standards schools pretend to operate on

vpns and adblockers! (btw for most of these where you can pay for things im purposefully not recommending any specific software but seriously just use ublock origin for an adblocker)

how to not get a virus while pirating something

what a temporary email is and when to use one

red flags that you shouldn't trust a website (and how to quickly check the security of a site)

an online compiler so you dont need to download anything or worry about running code directly on your computer if that makes you nervous

a basic video guide to introduce you to python and walk you through beginner steps

a guide to some syntax and commands you should know (this was literally my lifeline in my first CS class)

He was found hanging from a tree on the Delta State University campus on September 15th at 7 A.M with the police suggesting it was a suicide. The problem with that is the student body is suspecting it to be a lynching.

No major media outpost is talking about it. There are no flags hung at half mass for him. Hell, there's not even gonna be an investigation, and that not okay. Not to his family, not to his friends.

hiiii i'm a queer mentally ill native and still unemployed and broke and currently in the middle of a bunch of family drama with bills adding up and a senior dog to take care of. i would really appreciate any help i can get thank you mahsi cho it means the world to me