???

(by cobacom10)

Do you know how bugfuck insane the words "Unionized Starbucks" would have sounded to someone in 2005? Baristas getting union-mandated breaks could have been a throwaway joke in part of the Scary Movie franchise as something ridiculous.

RALPH NADER WAS AGITATING FOR A FIFTEEN DOLLAR MINIMUM WAGE IN 2004 AND SHIT IS MOVING SLOWLY BUT MY STATE HAS A TWENTY DOLLAR MINIMUM WAGE FOR FAST FOOD WORKERS. WHEN I STARTED HIGH SCHOOL THE ONLY OPTION FOR AN ABORTION AFTER 7 WEEKS WAS SURGICAL AND NOW THERE'S A PILL.

FUCKING. ELECTRIC CARS. SO GODDAMNED MANY PEOPLE HAVE SOLAR PANELS ON THEIR HOUSES OR IN THEIR PARKING LOTS.

WE DON'T HAVE SMOG DAYS IN LOS ANGELES ANYMORE UNLESS THERE'S A FIRE AND IT'S BECAUSE OF CARB STANDARDS.

LITERALLY MILLIONS OF FUCKING PEOPLE TURNED OUT TO PROTEST POLICE BRUTALITY IN 2020 AND YOU CAN SAY "NOTHING HAPPENED" ALL YOU WANT BUT THE WAY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT IT NOW IS FUCKING DIFFERENT THAN THEY DID AFTER RODNEY KING AND NOW PEOPLE WILL STOP AND WATCH OUT FOR EACH OTHER INSTEAD OF GOING 'NOT MY BUSINESS'

THERE IS A MALARIA VACCINE THAT HAS BEEN GIVEN TO OVER A MILLION CHILDREN IN JUST THE LAST FIVE YEARS SINCE IT WAS APPROVED FOR USE OUTSIDE OF TRIALS

Something that struck me the other night as truly incredible—I grew up during the height of the AIDS crisis in the ’80s and ’90s. I remember around 1990 or so was when people really started working to bring HIV/AIDS and the search for a cure into public view and begin the really, really long work of destigmatizing it, even a little bit. The homophobic terror people had of even being NEAR someone who had the so-called “gay disease,” I really cannot understate this. A diagnosis was considered an absolute death sentence.

The other night I was watching whatever random thing on YouTube, and I got yet more of the constant ads that irritate the fuck out of me. But this one was for an HIV maintenance medication. It was a long ad, probably 60 seconds, and so help me, I watched the whole thing. It talked about this drug (forgive me, I can’t remember the name) that would let you live a happy and fulfilling life (while mentioning that of course safe sex is important). And it showed queer couples, straight couples (to break the stereotype), people who looked single and happy, different races and genders and presentations and body sizes, going out to lunch or cuddling on a couch or going out for a date, whatever it was the scene was implying. Bright colors, soothing optimistic music and voiceover, physical affection including kissing—you couldn’t even tell who among the actor couples was or wasn’t portraying an HIV patient. It blew my fucking mind to just see a whole minute of this between ads for Pizza Hut and car insurance. I’m not even sure anyone would have shown a gay couple kissing, full stop, on TV in 1990. And this ad was just out here like, if you’ve contracted this illness, there’s help for it, and you can live a good happy life among your loved ones. But also, you deserve to have that happiness, out in the open, and there will be people who love you, unafraid. Even if, and especially if, you’re gay. This is a world where this is possible. Like I’m honestly tearing up right now. I could not have imagined this in 1990. I could not.

You will swim for decades, and suddenly you will look up and see islands that you never would have dreamed of.

try not to get scared, scariest stories

Bonus slice:

November 16, 2024 - Maplewood, MN

Platypus By: Jean-Paul Ferrero From: Natural History Magazine 1985

Noir goddess. Photo from my collection, no date/info.

de chirico painting made for a magazine competition i found in a weird pdf but cant find anywhere else. he suffered from extreme migraines

Not that anyone’s going to care after all this time, but that’s not by de Chirico. This piece was entered into one of the four Migraine Art competitions held between 1980 and 1987 by a member of the public. It was used for comparison as an illustration in a 1988 BMJ article about how de Chirico’s migraines influenced his art, which is where the misattribution seems to have started.

[ID: A colored pencil or pastel illustration of a roadside view of a pond with a wooded hill behind it. The view is obscured by the aura of an ocular migraine, which looks like a blurred grey circle in the middle of the art piece surrounded on the left side by a rainbow jagged line. End ID]

openly stealing this from reddit because im losing it

What is this guy doing on Bird App and why is he not writing seemingly impossible comedy-horror stories?

"i voted for him because MY groceries are expensive" says woman who voted for the man with the Adding Additional Prices to Goods Campaign