probablyasocialecologist - Tumblr blog

[probablyasocialecologist]

recently at a bar someone told me i seem like id have a lot of pdfs

[probablyasocialecologist]

DMing for the same people at the end of this month! Online as two of the players have changed jobs. Lots of worldbuilding ideas going on in the noggin 🧙‍♂️

I DM'd a game for the first time today :) It was D&D 5e, all the players were new so I used the A Most Potent Brew 1st level adventure with some tweaks. Everyone said they enjoyed it!

[probablyasocialecologist]

I was at a crosswalk. It had one of those buttons that you push and they say: “Wait to cross.” But they also had a second one, it was right next to the first one, and it was identical. But it had a sign that said: “You have the city, why not some soul?” And when you press it, it plays a sick bass solo. 

[probablyasocialecologist]

Fucking obsessed with this manga and Ultimate Dad Senshi

[probablyasocialecologist]

hey icon, hope your day is going well! was wondering if you had seen the open letter against scholasticide (in addition to everything else, obviously) in gaza, signed by over 2k north american university professors? (my uni's entire history department signed, so sexy of them.) hadn't seen word of it circulate on here, but seemed like something up your alley, the type of news/action that intersects with your usual posting! stay cool, and hope you get some sun where you are x

I hadn't, but I'll share it below.

OPEN LETTER FROM NORTH AMERICAN ACADEMICS CONDEMNING SCHOLASTICIDE IN GAZA

[probablyasocialecologist]

[probablyasocialecologist]

made in honor of the now-extinct population of Falasteen crocodiles, the sunbirds that almost lost their names, and everyone else surviving the attempted erasure.

posted the other week as part of an ongoing fundraiser offering free prints and paid, with 100% of proceeds going to Care for Gaza. it has since been translated, wheatpasted, and flown on kites all over the world from Saigon to Scotland...!!!

monetary donations are never a substitute for holistic political action, and a push for a different world... but the shows of solidarity and support have lifted my spirits so much.

this is now available on a t-shirt too, screenprinted by hand in Texas!same deal: all profits go to food, medicine, and other critical supplies via Care for Gaza (& the PCRF). thank you for sharing.

image description below:

a Palestine sunbird holds red poppies in their beak next to the text RIGHT TO EXIST. a Palestine crocodile (a subspecies of the Nile, now extinct thanks to occupying forces) guards a shining key next to the text RIGHT TO RETURN. a Palestinian olive tree, full of fruit is next to the text RIGHT TO RESIST. a Palestinian family of five, all embracing each other next to the text RIGHT TO REMAIN.

[probablyasocialecologist]

DOCTOR WHO | The Parting of the Ways (1.13)

Then, prove yourself, Doctor. What are you? Coward or killer?

[probablyasocialecologist]

YouTube says it will intentionally cripple the playback of its videos in third-party apps that block its ads. A Monday post in YouTube's help forum notes netizens using applications that strip out adverts while streaming YouTube videos may encounter playback issues due to buffering or error messages indicating that the content is not available. "We want to emphasize that our terms don’t allow third-party apps to turn off ads because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership, and Ads on YouTube help support creators and let billions of people around the world use the streaming service," said a YouTube team member identified as Rob. "We also understand that some people prefer an entirely ad-free experience, which is why we offer YouTube Premium." This crackdown is coming at the API level, as these outside apps use this interface to access the Google-owned giant's videos. Last year, YouTube acknowledged it was running scripts to detect ad-blocking extensions in web browsers, which ended up interfering with Firefox page loads and prompted a privacy complaint to Ireland's Data Protection Commission. And several months before that, the internet video titan experimented with popup notifications warning YouTube web visitors that ad-blocking software is not allowed. A survey published last month by Ghostery, a maker of software that promotes privacy by blocking ads and tracking scripts, found that Google's efforts to crack down on ad blocking made about half of respondents (49 percent) more willing to use an ad blocker. According to the survey, the majority of Americans now use advert blockers, something recommended by the FBI when conducting internet searches.

Download NewPipe, it's what I use on Android

[probablyasocialecologist]

I'm going to attend a two-day geology conference wearing these

[probablyasocialecologist]

The way the 40k setting glues skulls and purity seals to everything constantly reminds me of Decora Kei fashion, so fuck it, Decora Kei Space Marine. You're welcome.

[probablyasocialecologist]

More than half of Iran’s weapons were destroyed by U.S. aircraft and missiles before they ever reached Israel. In fact, by commanding a multinational air defense operation and scrambling American fighter jets, this was a U.S. military triumph.   The extent of the U.S. military operation is unbeknownst to the American public, but the Pentagon coordinated a multination, regionwide defense extending from northern Iraq to the southern Persian Gulf on Saturday. During the operation, the U.S., U.K., France, and Jordan all shot down the majority of Iranian drones and missiles. In fact, where U.S. aircraft originated from has not been officially announced, an omission that has been repeated by the mainstream media. Additionally, the role of Saudi Arabia is unclear, both as a base for the United States and in terms of any actions by the Saudi military.

[...]

Israel’s statement that it shot down the majority of Iranian “cruise missiles” is probably an exaggeration. According to U.S. military sources and preliminary reporting, U.S. and allied aircraft shot down the majority of drones and cruise missiles. U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that the Royal Air Force Typhoons intercepted “a number” of Iranian weapons over Iraqi and Syrian airspace. The Jordanian government has also hinted that its aircraft downed some Iranian weapons. “We will intercept every drone or missile that violates Jordan’s airspace to avert any danger. Anything posing a threat to Jordan and the security of Jordanians, we will confront it with all our capabilities and resources,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said during an interview on the Al-Mamlaka news channel. French fighters also shot down some drones and possibly cruise missiles.

[probablyasocialecologist]

“I responded that the state was responsible for the violence and that it is always the oppressor, not the oppressed, who dictates the form of the struggle. If the oppressor uses violence, the oppressed have no alternative but to respond violently. In our case it was simply a legitimate form of self-defense. I ventured that if the state decided to use peaceful methods, the ANC would also use peaceful means. “It is up to you,” I said, “not us, to renounce violence.””

— Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

[probablyasocialecologist]

Writing for Al Jazeera, Zena Al Tahhan reports that the emergence of a new, coordinated generation of Palestinian resistance fighters has significantly impacted the calculations of Israeli officials, who cannot simply attack with impunity.

Sari Orabi, a Palestinian political analyst quoted in Al Tahhan’s piece, says that Israel’s August assault on Gaza “had to be short,” with quick, consecutive “fast hits on the PIJ. If it had gone on for longer, then we may have seen armed operations emerge in the West Bank.”

That Palestinian armed resistance has once more reached the point where it can influence the dictates of colonial military calculations is an important development, one that arguably bodes well for the prospect of Palestinian liberation. After all, liberation movements throughout history have deployed a diversity of tactics.

As Palestinian militancy grows, it’s important to revisit problematic and dehumanizing notions of Palestinian “nonviolence” as the exclusively acceptable form of resistance. My issue is not with nonviolent resistance as such (again, liberation struggles require a diversity of tactics) but the limiting ways in which it can be taken up in advocacy for Palestine.

[probablyasocialecologist]

im gonna throw up

[probablyasocialecologist]

The New York Times instructed journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept. The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars. The areas are recognized by the United Nations as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees. The memo — written by Times standards editor Susan Wessling, international editor Philip Pan, and their deputies — “offers guidance about some terms and other issues we have grappled with since the start of the conflict in October.” While the document is presented as an outline for maintaining objective journalistic principles in reporting on the Gaza war, several Times staffers told The Intercept that some of its contents show evidence of the paper’s deference to Israeli narratives.

[...]

Despite the memo’s framing as an effort to not employ incendiary language to describe killings “on all sides,” in the Times reporting on the Gaza war, such language has been used repeatedly to describe attacks against Israelis by Palestinians and almost never in the case of Israel’s large-scale killing of Palestinians. In January, The Intercept published an analysis of New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times coverage of the war from October 7 through November 24 — a period mostly before the new Times guidance was issued. The Intercept analysis showed that the major newspapers reserved terms like “slaughter,” “massacre,” and “horrific” almost exclusively for Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians, rather than for Palestinian civilians killed in Israeli attacks. The analysis found that, as of November 24, the New York Times had described Israeli deaths as a “massacre” on 53 occasions and those of Palestinians just once. The ratio for the use of “slaughter” was 22 to 1, even as the documented number of Palestinians killed climbed to around 15,000.