iwieldthesword

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Jewish Progress Pride flag, from Keshet!

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shorthands for dumbassery that i have grown to love deeply

"how dare you say we piss on the poor" in response to someone misinterpreting your post

"_ isnt gonna fuck you" for suck up behavior

"woah. should we tell everyone? should we throw a party?" for who the fuck cares

"and what if the world was made of pudding" for when would this ever matter.

"and sharks are smooth both ways" for a group of people heatedly arguing with 1 guy who is fucking with them all

".. but its about a witch in the alps finding her lost cat" for someone trying to sanitize something to the point of absurdity

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I've mentioned before that antisemites, to varying degrees, imagine Jews as lacking interiority, and what I am using that word to mean is "an interior emotional and mental experience." This often comes in the form of antisemites imagining that Jews make decisions and choices in order to trick or deceive them (or God), rather than for our own reasons. They see all of our actions as performative -- not in the sense of empty or fake, but in the sense of existing for the sake of their perception.

This shows up in many different contexts. One, which I've spoken about before, is the way some people view Jewish legal "loopholes." Take for example Shabbos lamp, which is a lamp with a wooden or plastic cover that can be rotated such that the lamp can be left on for all of Shabbat but can be covered when the user wants darkness:

This is because many Jewish communities hold that it's forbidden to open and close electrical circuits on Shabbat, so this enables people in those communities to be able to choose to lighten or darken their room without breaking Jewish law.

However, a lot of people who are not part of these communities do not realize that the prohibition is on opening and closing circuits, and believe it's about "using" electricity more generally -- and thus see a Shabbos lamp as "cheating." Those with a penchant for antisemitism take it a step farther and see this as an attempt by Jews to "trick God" into believing that we are pious and following all of God's rules when in "reality" we are breaking them. Some also believe we are trying to trick them.

Rather, it is our attempt to put into practice that the commandments are to enrich our lives, not make us miserable; we find approved ways within the laws to meet our needs. The laws are not for asceticism or proving piety, they are a system of holiness, and so finding solutions that the law approves of is not cheating. And God cannot be tricked.

That is to say: we have reasons for doing things based on our own spiritual, religious, and practical needs, not based on how it looks to others. And we are not trying to trick anybody.

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i think one of the most important things you learn about making connections with others is that a significant portion of the time people just do not know theyre doing what theyre doing

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Saddest thing ever is reading an academic paper about a threatened or declining species where you can tell the author is really trying to come up with ways the animal could hypothetically be useful to humans in a desperate attempt to get someone to care. Nobody gives a shit about the animals that “don’t affect” us and it seriously breaks my heart

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SGKSGKSGK MA’AM

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this is so sweet 🥺🥺🥺

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I am really enjoying reading about the University of Wisconsin chancellor fired after the university discovered all the pornos he and his wife were making.

Generally when someone has a public sex scandal (or “scandal”) you get the standard “I am sorry. I regret it. It was a misjudgment on my part” but this guy is like “fuck you I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t violate conflict of interest clauses, you are violating my first amendment rights”

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this poem is about being nonbinary.

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Kids say the darndest things

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I am not immune to the silly scientists from pacific rim I like them. Once again thinking about newt pacificrim. Biologist with like full sleeve tattoos of the animals he specializes in is such a Type Of Guy he's like masc miss frizzle

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Stressful text chat with my mother this morning

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People still tend to lump JK Rowling in with the category of ~problematic artists~ and I need everyone to understand that is not the problem with her. She is not comparable to anyone who wrote a piece of fiction you hate, or someone who made rude comments in 2015 and has since learned better.

She is far more like Elon Musk. She is a radicalized person with an extreme amount of social and financial power, and for YEARS she has been using that power to try to influence her government into hurting vulnerable people, on purpose. And she has succeeded. THAT is the problem with her, and THAT is why spending money on her books is so dangerous, not because her books aged badly.

Critiquing her work is fine, of course (I personally was never a fan so I really don’t care) but you NEED to understand that fiction is not the main issue here. And I truly think acting like she’s the same as the rest of any giant list of ~problematic creators of the week~ waters down how dangerous she is.

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“I’m much happier at 53 than I was at 23.” (x)

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