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If your democrat friends start muttering about stolen election conspiracy theories, the time to have a sit down with them and express your concerns is NOW, while you still have a chance to reach them, not 6 months from now when they're fully conspiracy-pilled.

Here's some of the talking points and why they're bullshit:

But just as importantly as the facts: sit down with your friend and talk about the anxiety that's behind their conspiracy leanings. Acknowledge their pain and fear. Help them find ways to feel less powerless and regain their sense of agency. Take them to a mutual aid event, involve them in a fundraising event for a marginalized group, invite them to a local community effort. If they spend more time feeling connection and empowerment and less time doom scrolling online, they're far more likely to stay in reality.

This this this

I worked as an election judge across multiple polling locations and election types in my state from 2018-2023 (presidential primary and general elections, midterms, and special elections like for the school board etc.)

US elections are extremely secure. There are so many safeguards in place. Everything is double and triple counted.

The number of ballots electronically counted by the box are checked against the number of physical ballots at the end of the night, and also the receipt papers that individuals exchange for their ballot. All three of these counts MUST MATCH. Sometimes you're off by 1 number and it means everyone stops and triple counts these papers until you find the error (human error, it's been 16 hours and two pieces of thin receipt paper were stuck together and the second person to recount finds it and everyone cheers because thank fuck, it means no one dropped anything on the floor anywhere.)

There are eyes everywhere and there's a deliberate mix of poll workers across political parties/affiliations. It's simply not possible to alter even 1 ballot at 1 polling place, much less thousands.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump won this election. If there was interference, it was NOT at the voting booth. That's simply not possible. The "interference" (if you can even call it that) comes from right wing propaganda convincing stupid and/or hateful and/or selfish people to vote for him.

1913 c. Evening gown by Margaine Lacroix. A little earlier than I usually post, but it's so pretty and an actual designer dress, I thought you all might like to see it. From Kerry Taylor Auctions.

How are disabled and interracial illegal???

Interracial marriage was outlawed for the longest time, and disabled people lose government benefits when they get married so they cannot have reassurance that they will continue to LIVE if they get married.

Story time: my mom is white, dad is black. They’ve been together twenty four years, married for twenty three. When my parents were dating they did it on the low TO KEEP MY DAD SAFE.

My mom’s parents said “We don’t care who you love.” At that point she’d only ever brought home white guys. She brought my dad home-her mother called her a nigger lover and damned the relationship as much as possible. Her father grew around his prejudices after I was born but never apologized, just wasn’t a blatant fuck.

The day she introduced my father to her family was the last time she spoke to her mother for over twenty years. When I was getting sick and she called and asked her mother and grandmother if anyone in the family had anything strange happen similar what I was going through they told her “it’s because you married a black man. You made your bed, you lie in it.”

Cops pulled them over all the time and asked my mom IF SHE WAS OKAY AND IF SHE NEEDED HELP BECAUSE MY FATHER-A BLACK MAN-WAS DRIVING A 100 POUND WHITE WOMAN AROUND. HE WAS HARRASSED AND THREATED WITH ARREST.

My father ended up getting into a fight in self defence because some entitled hick decided he didn’t like seeing a black man and white woman in the bar together. Thankfully other patrons helped my father but he still couldn’t go to the er for his injuries. My mom patched him up and they were terrified the cops would take him away.

THEIR BEST FRIEND GOT LICENSED TO MARRY THEM SO THEY COULD ACTUALLY TIE THE KNOT BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WOULD AND CITED JIM CROW ERA LAW AS TO WHY.

When shopping with just me my father wouldn’t hold my hand if there was a group around. Why? I’m far lighter than him and people had stopped and asked him “whose child is that?” Or “little girl where’s your parents?” and were stunned when I grinned and pointed at my dad and proudly proclaimed “my daddy’s right here.” You know where else mixed kids couldn’t hold their parents hands? Apartheid South Africa. We live in fucking FLORIDA.

So yeah. Some history for you.

This post was made in October 2018. The above poster’s parents met in 1994. We were a generation removed from the Civil Rights movement and this was happening.

My mom married my stepfather, a black man, in the 80s. My siblings were born in the late 80s, and one of my earliest memories of them was my brother toddling along with us and my Mom pushing my sister in a stroller and some stranger deciding it was okay to comment and call my mom “brave” for adopting her own fucking kids.

This was probably in 1991.

I married my husband in a hick town in PA with confederate flags brazenly flown everywhere in 2009. No one said a word. We moved back to Philadelphia the same year and that's where I was called a "n* lover" from the street and overheard our neighbors saying it wasn't right that we were together.

It's only going to get worse now. Any progress we've made is going to backslide in people's behavior. We need to remember our history and actively fight against bigotry when we see it. If we don't, we going to lose everything. We're not as far removed from it as we like to think.

I remember seeing a comedian (on TV) do a routine in the late 80s or early 90s where he was talking about going to buy shoes and being shown a pair that the salesperson said were the first shoes specifically designed for walking

and the routine revolved around mocking that idea, because what else would shoes be designed for ha ha!

and my pedantic teenage brain was like "protection. shoes were created to protect the feet. how can he not realize that."

and that may have been the beginning of my "if your joke can be deconstructed in one sentence maybe you need to be funnier" attitude

which I now know is probably

y'know

autism

This is the most painfully accurate thing I’ve seen all day.

BE MAD BE SAD BUT DONT U DARE GIVE UP

To quote @sigridstumb, spite will do.

The world ended. 75% of plant and animal life was gone forever. Then tomorrow came. So it goes; happy new year.

On one hand I understand not teaching cursive in school anymore, because it actually is slower than regular handwriting and almost everything is typed on a keyboard now anyways.

On the other hand, so much of our (even recent!) history was written in cursive, and having a whole generation of kids who can't read letters written by their grandparents, momentos saved by their great-grandparents, or even photo albums from theur immediate family seems like a dangerously quick way to detach us from previous generations.

And on the third, related but slightly malformed hand, I feel bad that yet another form of small, everyday art that brings joy in the middle of mundane tasks, which celebrates personality and individual style and self-expression, is about to fade into obscurity because it wasn't efficient enough for today's world to put up with.

Like... if we continue to whittle away the small arts out of every day life, what's going to be left except stark, ruthless pragmatism?

Maybe writing a grocery list is less mundane when you get to feel elegant for a moment. Maybe you're a little more proud of what you write when you see it flow together like a painting

Reading cursive is one of my most valuable skills as a historical professional.

But it's also not a one and done thing! Scripts came in and out of fashion as they were taught in schools, and each one has a learning curve as you get used to it, along with nuances of the individual writer.

I don't think you necessarily need to know how to write in cursive in order to read it, but it certainly helps. My advice if you find yourself in a situation where you're struggling to read something is not to give up, which is often the impulse when you encounter a barrier to something that usually comes easily.

Depending on the document, you might find your eyes feeling strained or getting a headache (the ink in the one above was so faded my brain was mush after a couple of hours sitting with it) but there will be a threshold after which the pieces come together. Don't give up.

And just to add to this - as someone who has to read a lot of old handwriting for my job and who has developed this skill, it is SO frustrating to see transcription jobs only advertised as “volunteer”. I get the appeal of it to give retirees something to do (like with the National Archives), but once that generation dies off we’re going to have next to no one who can read and transcribe old documents written in cursive. If we don’t give younger people an incentive to learn the skill, it will die out. So maybe actually pay people who are trained or learning this skill instead of relying on volunteers, because I promise you we’ll pay for it in the long run otherwise 😢

Nov. 13, 2024, 5:17 AM MST / Updated Nov. 13, 2024, 6:10 AM MST

By Laura Jarrett, Rebecca Shabad and Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith and his team plan to resign before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, a source familiar with the matter said.

Smith’s office has been evaluating the best path for winding down its work on the two outstanding federal criminal cases against Trump, as the Justice Department’s longstanding position is that it cannot charge a sitting president with a crime.

The New York Times first reported Smith will step down.

The looming question in the weeks ahead is whether Smith's final report, detailing his charging decisions, will be made public before Inauguration Day. The special counsel's office is required under Justice Department regulations to provide a confidential report to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who can choose to make it public.

I am going to be haranguing anyone I see who voted Trump because it’s their fault. And I’m going to update them on every person they’ve killed.

Ever seen a Golden Tiger sneeze?

(Source)

A bit of Moby-Dick oceanography context:

Up until the mid 1870s, it was generally accepted that life could not exist below a depth of 550 meters. This is why some of Ishmael's whale theories are so off and why Ahab pictures the sea floor as a vast wasteland of bones and shipwrecks. 🌊

I mean. Can you blame them

Oh here it is!!!! The most unsettling thing Ahab/Ishmael might’ve believed about the deep sea

The entirety of the bottom of the ocean is a giant brine lake

(through gritted teeth) sometimes what's good for your mental health isn't another do nothing day or a little treat sometimes what's good for you is putting in some of the work. Not all of it at once but sometimes you have to finish that essay or at least take the next step or you have to clean your room or at least dust the shelves or you gotta do the laundry or at least put it all in the hamper and it's not fun and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks but you have to because i read a post on the internet that told me that's what being nice to yourself is sometimes

tumblr users not immune to weird guy in a river