girls I know this isn’t at the top of the concerns list but you’re gonna want to stop eating commercially produced meat real soon

this got more attention than I thought. if you’re confused:

he had promised to fully deregulate and privatize food safety inspections in his second term. this is to favor massive producers and reduce their costs at the expense of public health and safety. the reason why I make immediate mention of this is because anything that can be construed as “culture war” makes the news and everyone finds out about. these things, however, happen quietly because they aren’t sensational stories for the media to profit off of clicks with. the recent numerous recalls can be tied back to these first term rollbacks, which went over so quietly and discreetly no one demanded reinstatement during the Biden admin.

Jacob van Loo (1614-1670) "Young Woman Going to Bed" (c. 1650) Oil on canvas Located in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon, France

Lovely people of tumblr, if I may speak with my librarian hat* on for a moment:

If you are in the US, you may be aware that librarians are Going Through It because some malicious people believe in fascism and have decided to make that our problem. Whether you are in the US or not, there is something you can do to help your local librarians out:**

Say something nice to us.

You can post on social media and tag your library, you can find the library’s main phone number and call, you can go in person, you can send a card (we display cards in our break room)! I guarantee you that you will make the day of the person you talk to, we will immediately go tell all our colleagues how lovely you were, and you will help us live to love and fight another day.

*it is a fetching piece of millinery in purple silk

**I propose we make this an international group project. Whether your librarians are going through it or not, we all appreciate a kind word.

Well, my loves.

(downs three cups of coffee in quick succession)

The above advice remains one thousand percent true no matter where you are in the world, I would venture to say.

For those of you in the US, I am going to add that if you need a way to not feel helpless, getting involved with your library is a wonderful and *genuinely useful, will make a day to day difference in your neighbor’s lives* thing to do. Librarians are there to provide, vet, and guide you through reams of information. Give us a hand and everyone wins. This can look like:

- using the library and getting to know the staff

- if there’s a volunteer Friends group, join it! Or start one! These folks raise extra money for the library and often run things like book sales

- going to library board meetings and standing up during public comment time to talk about how much you love the library and the First Amendment

- if you have an elected library board, run for it. Usually the only qualification is you have to reside in the district the library serves.

- vote yes on library funding measures

Librarians have been fighting for your rights for years and while I’m sure some of us are tired, I have to confess I’m not. I’m full of love and determination and spite, in that order. Give us a hand and we can help keep each other safe and informed.

Co-signed, except if you go to a library board meeting and mention the First Amendment you may get a reflexive reaction from library folks who have experienced “First Amendment Audits” which are pretty much staff harassment in the name of My Rights, so it may be better to specifically praise examples of free speech you see in the library.

Go in June and tell them you love the Pride displays. Go in February and talk about Black History month. Go any time of the year and say how glad you are to see diverse authors, queer representation, etc. say you’d love to see more of those things, programs on those themes, all of it.

Library boards set budgets and policies and they NEED to hear from the part of their community that wants a drag queen at every storytime or they WILL decide they can’t risk pissing off the parts of the community who does show up to complain.

Might I add, also find out:

I know that was long but I hope it was helpful for readers who want to support their local libraries!

AMAZING additions. I’m especially co-signing the union support and running for library board. My library unionized about a year ago and two community members who got involved supporting us just ran for library board and won. Now we’ll have two pro-union board members the next time we negotiate, and the board member who was the biggest pain to work with lost the election and is no longer my problem. Being a union worker is something that is going to help me stay in the same job for a long time and do good work for the long haul.

i have understood so many things about online leftist culture by the fact that when i said "your local community has people you will morally and politically disagree with but you cannot lock them out of accessing any tangible service you’re organising" one of the tags responding said "this isn’t about proshippers in here you’re not welcome" like. folks. focus with me. some of us are homeless here.

There's a disconnect happening here because the primary function of social media for most casual users is to form a circle of friends around the usual things that friendships are built on: shared interests and lifestyles and ideas of what is important and what is unacceptable. When people are mainly doing leftism on social media, this encourages thinking of leftism as centered around establishing high-minded social clubs.

For anyone who still isn't getting it from someone who helps people IRL: There's a difference between whom you're helping to feed at the mealshare and whom you're choosing to hang out with for fun after the mealshare. You don't have to invite a hungry person with opinions you don't like to play board games with you, but you do have to help keep them from starving if you're serious about leftist organizing.

You don't have to invite a hungry person with opinions you don't like to play board games with you, but you do have to help keep them from starving if you're serious about leftist organizing.

much better footage of the haka that shut down parliament today

There's a deluge of post chastising women for mocking or being harsh to men as thee reason they become right wing and then when women push back on the ridiculousness of this being touted as leftism or reasonable, you see these people move the goalpost and start talking about making sure " leftist spaces " aren't hostile to men but the leftist space they're referring to are women's companionship and all of social media

Your friendship is a leftist space and if you aren't nice to an emotionally unstable men that hates women, you're personally personable for fascism. The rise of sexual assault of teen girls by their teen boy peers can also be solved by being nice and not actual stragery or online leftist men doing more than volunteering women as punching bags until right wing men see women as people.

You'd think we lived in a world without femicide and women bleeding out because they can't an abortion.

A trump-appointed judge just struck down a policy put in place by Biden to protect undocumented immigrants married to US Citizens which is crazy because the rhetoric online for the past 4 years has been that Democratic politicians are just as cruel to immigrants as Republican politicians are...it's almost like not being allowed to celebrate any legislative accomplishments by democratic politicians can create apathy in a huge portion of the voting block and then everyone is shocked when helpful policies they didn't even know existed are stripped and suddenly 500,000 people are at risk if deportation because of one judge and one president who appointed them.

A helpful Biden policy being struck down or ended by some judge or Trump is going to become a very familiar headline. The irony is that this might be how people start to recognize Biden actually did something as a president.

If a fetus's life isn't worth sustaining, then when does it become worth sustaining? When does a fetus's life start to matter? An infant is not able to care for themself, so does life start even after infancy? No. The life was always there. A child is a life starting with the zygote.

It's not a matter of if it is worth sustaining. It is a matter of if the women's life matters more or less. Sure, an infant can't take care of itself, but it does not need the mother. Two men can easily take care of a newborn. When an organism is not reliant on another living being for sustainability, then it can have equal rights to a living, breathing human.

Which is a great point, and the reason we have the option if adoption.

Adoption is a solution to unwanted parenting, not unwanted pregnancy.

A solution to unwanted pregnancy is protection.

You almost understand. Contraception prevents the unwanted pregnancy from happening when it's working correctly; It would be ideal for no one to ever have an unwanted pregnancy. But once the unwanted pregnancy has occurred, the only options are termination or carrying to term.

might i add, some women die from pregnancy or it might raise health risks

(dont quote me i am a male kid, idk about women going through childbirth)

Yes, and in the event that the pregnancy is a threat to the woman's health, every state whether pro-life or pro-choice is required to terminate the child. The mother's health will always be prioritized.

This is demonstrably untrue:

When termination of pregnancy is against the law, doctors hesitate to give necessary termination care because they fear legal action.

This kills people.

Wanting a thing to be true does not make it true.

You previously stated how we do not live in an ideal world. Things are not perfect. People will inevitably die.

These deaths were entirely preventable.

These women died because they were denied timely medical care. Further, these deaths are presented as evidence that your assertion that 'the mother's health will always be prioritized' is incorrect. Do you concede that point?

I understand this, but no situation will ever be ideal. Abortion or not, medical care or not, there will be no ideal way to go about this, is what I am saying.

For fuck's sake, listen: I have presented a rebuttal to a claim that you made. Your claim was 'the mother's health will always be prioritized' and my response was evidence that it will not.

I am not claiming any kind of idealism. I am refuting your claim. Do you fucking concede this point?

I always find it fascinating that pro-lifers, when faced with the reality of what they are fighting for, tend to just throw their hands up and go “well, life isn't fair! People die. Get over it” when they are actively saying they are sooooo passionate about saving lives. No you aren’t. You just hate women

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, 1997 - photographed by Mark Seliger for US Magazine.

Casting a spell on you that makes you happy, by the way. Your day tomorrow will be pretty good. Something nice will happen, maybe.

Project 2025 ain't gonna roll out all at once. So what we're gonna wanna do is make passing each individual part of it as difficult as possible, so there's less to undo once we finally get this country back on the rails.

Resist every step and do not get distracted by stupid bullshit. Distracting people with stupid bullshit is one of Trump's favorite political techniques. We saw it all over the place in the first term.

Trump will say something like "You know the Hispanics actually punch kittens, it's what they do."

And the news will be like "TRUMP SAID HISPANIC PEOPLE PUNCH KITTENS" for three weeks.

And while they're doing that the Republicans in Congress have quietly deleted healthcare.

Do not get distracted by stupid bullshit. Trump is a dancing monkey whose greatest asset is the ability to yank the spotlight off of everyone else. Keep your eyes on Congress.

if you’re having a bad day, here’s a cute little marching band

this actually made me cry with joy also one of them is eating noodles

It just keeps going and getting better. *^^*

Me two minutes ago: “cry with joy? an animation of cats playing instruments made someone cry with joy?”

Me now: (sobs into a tissue) “OH MY GOD THAT ONE IS PLAYING TWO RECORDERS AT THE SAME TIME” (blows nose)

CAT PARADE IS BACK

ALWAYS reblog Cat Parade! 💕💕💕

And one of them has a little duck on its head 🤣

I’ve been blessed with the kitty marching band! I love them 💚🥰

GIVE YOURSELF A 2 MINUTE PRESENT.

YOU DESERVE TO STOP AND EXPERIENCE A SIMPLE JOY.

Sasha Gordon (American, 1998) - My Friend Will Be Me (2021-2022)