the-watch-collector

[the-watch-collector]

Some quotes:

[the-watch-collector]

in case you needed to hear it today:

it’s okay to use your turn signal when you’re changing lanes

it’s okay to use your turn signal when you’re taking an exit

it’s okay to use your turn signal when you plan on turning (can even be done sooner than 2 seconds before you’re about to turn)

you have a turn signal. in your vehicle. two of them in fact.

you are so brave and beautiful and smart and can do it. using your turn signal

[the-watch-collector]

A video of Palestinian man burning to death while still connected to an IV went viral after Israel firebombed a hospital and set tents on fire. I won't post the video or the pictures but I'd like to commemorated the victim.

This is Shaaban Al-Dalu. He had two sisters and a little brother. He was studying software engineering in the tent he died in. Shaaban was his family's sole provider. His mother died with him. May they rest in peace

Edited to add family pic

[the-watch-collector]

The Rocky Horror discourse is so annoying, upsetting, and transmisogynistic cuz it often starts off as trans women just honestly discussing how they have trauma related to it or how the film has all the classic transmisogynistic tropes of killer/rapist man crossdressing or how the creator has said some bigoted stuff, and the tme response to personal stories of trauma and actual media analysis is always the same cycle of responses.

"MY trans women friends love it!" Ok that doesn't matter to the point "It's important queer history!" That's why this discussion matters, we need people to understand that queer history can also be transmisogynistic "it's from 50 years ago society is DIFFERENT!" The world is not so different that transmisogyny doesn't exist "the creator is trans!" The creator has said transmisogynistic things and just because he himself might be tma doesn't mean he can't be transmisogynistic or that his transmisogyny doesn't actually influence his identity. "Rocky Horror is ONLY popular cuz transfems love it!" Spacelazar said this one in response to a post I made about actual trauma I have related to the movie, completely discarding my actual real trauma that's not saying you're not allowed to like or watch the movie, to claim that Rocky Horror is only popular cuz of transfems - that cis society isn't more why it's considered a cult classic.

And, tme people just refuse to empathize and often resort to name calling, memes, often times not just falling into misogynistic standards (hysterical women/trannies amiright guys) but also racist remarks (I saw a white tme person make a "woke" joke to mock a black person).

It's just completely dishonest and transmisogynistic. The discussion isn't "you're not allowed to watch Rocky Horror" or "you're a bad person for enjoying it" it's that it's a piece of problematic media that exhibits transmisogynistic bigotry and instead of using their big kid brains and acknowledging that and moving on, tme people really need Rocky Horror to be exonerated as this piece of perfection. (Tbf I think it's largely just cuz it's trans women having an issue, if cis men said Rocky Horror was offensive and misandric I'm sure people would be like oh yeah it is!).

[the-watch-collector]

Emergency: Help Evacuate My Family From GAZA WAR

‼️Help us spread our story and get support after we lost our home and our work😔💔

Help us survive the war with our deprivation and fear for more than 300 days.

‼️Please donate or share the link.🍉🙏

https://gofund.me/c4c2cf82

[the-watch-collector]

[the-watch-collector]

You know what the most frustrating thing about the vegans throwing a fit over my “Humans aren’t Parasites” post is?  I really wasn’t trying to make a point about animal agriculture. Honestly, the example about subsistence hunting isn’t the main point. That post was actually inspired by thoughts I’ve been having about the National Park system and environmentalist groups.

See, I LOVE the National Parks. I always have a pass. I got to multiple parks a year. I LOVE them, and always viewed them as this unambiguously GOOD thing. Like, the best thing America has done. 

BUT, I just finished reading this book called “I am the Grand Canyon” all about the native Havasupai people and their fight to gain back their rights to the lands above the canyon rim. Historically, they spent the summer months farming in the canyon, and then the winter months hunter-gathering up above the rim. When their reservation was made though, they lost basically all rights to the rim land (They had limited grazing rights to some of it, but it was renewed year to year and always threatened, and it was a whole thing), leading to a century long fight to get it back. 

And in that book there are a couple of really poignant anecdotes- one man talks about how park rangers would come harass them if they tried to collect pinon nuts too close to park land- worried that they would take too many pinon nuts that the squirrels wanted. Despite the fact that the Havasupai had harvested pinon nuts for thousands and thousands of years without ever…like…starving the squirrels. 

There’s another anecdote of them seeing the park rangers hauling away the bodies of dozens of deer- killed in the park because of overpopulation- while the Havasupai had been banned from hunting. (Making them more and more reliant on government aid just to survive the winter months.) 

They talk about how they would traditionally carve out these natural cisterns above the rim to catch rainwater, and how all the animals benefitted from this, but it was difficult to maintain those cisterns when their “ownership” of the land was so disputed. 

So here you have examples of when people are forcibly separated from their ecosystem and how it hurts both those people and the ecosystem. 

And then when the Havasupai finally got legislation before Congress to give them ownership of the rim land back- their biggest opponent was the Parks system and the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club (a big conservation group here in the US) ran a huge smear campaign against these people on the belief that any humans owning this land other than the park system (which aims at conservation, even while developing for recreation) was unacceptable. 

And it all got me thinking about how, as much as I love the National Parks, there are times when its insistence that nature be left “untouched” (except, ya know, for recreation) can actually harm both the native people who have traditionally been part of those ecosystems AND potentially the ecosystems themselves. And I just think there’s a lot of nuance there about recognizing that there are ways for us to be in balance with nature, and that our environmentalism should respect that and push for sustainability over preserving “pristine” human-less landscapes. Removing ourselves from nature isn’t the answer. 

But apparently the idea that subsistence hunting might actually not be a moral catastrophe really set the vegans off.  Woopie. 

[the-watch-collector]

interesting anticapitalist post about climate change. however I shan't reblog because in it you implied this devastation occurred because of some sort of innate human trait of selfishness and not the logical development of a profit-motivated economic system

[the-watch-collector]

Guys please donate to and spread Maryam’s fundraiser. I was thinking long and hard about a post I could grab ppl’s attention with first, but tbh it should be enough that this family has been displaced for months / that they’re living in a tent / that they’re prone to bombing at any moment. It’s been incredibly hard getting traction for this fundraiser in particular, which is insane to me considering front and center are pictures of one of Maryam’s toddler children. I’m reiterating what’s been said to death at this point but sharing fundraisers should be as standard as getting up to drink water every day, and even the smallest contribution could add up into a difference. Please help this family afford essentials and evacuate to safety 

[the-watch-collector]

feeling very frustrated about the ways people are talking about hurricane Milton. lots of needless, borderline fear mongering language with very little actual helpful information.

information about Milton that might ACTUALLY be helpful:

Hurricane Milton is shaping up to be the third strongest hurricane ever recorded.

Make sure you have an evacuation plan if the order is given or if you've already been told to leave.

there is also a code for free Ubers to evacuate effected counties, as well as shuttles from evacuating counties to nearby storm shelters

Prepare/secure your home

Find your nearest shelter and be prepared to leave

If you want to stay in the loop about the hurricane, WESH 2 News has ongoing coverage ad-free on YouTube.

General resources/information:

Please for the love of God stop preying on people's fears and causing panic. Know what resources are available to you and how to access them. If you approach this hurricane carefully YOU WILL BE OKAY!!!!! YOUR LIFE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE RUINED!!!

Please link other resources you find or think other people might find useful!

[the-watch-collector]

Don't forget suad and her baby Khaled

Tumblr has once again deleted @suad-ahmad-gaza page yet again, which was the only way I could reach out to my friend. I'm anxious about my friend. Her campaign is lagging behind. Please donate and reblog. Don't forget about her and her baby, who are still needing medical assistance.

UPDATE $25,533\$70,000 (30 August)

TAGGING FOR REACH

♡Message me for removal♡

@opencommunion @heliopixels @schoolhater @neechees @beserkerjewel @brutaliakhoa @deepspaceboytoy @kibumkim @rhubarbspring @lesbianmaxevans @malcriada @turian @appsa @neptunerings @vampirevoice @magnus-rhymes-with-swagness @buttercuparry @captainsaltymuyfancy @timetravellingkitty @socalgal @xinakwans @kahin @anneemay @halalgirlmeg @userpeggycarter @brokenbackmountain @decolonize-the-everything @mothblossoms @dlxxv-vetted-donations @dykesbat @victoriawhimsey @dirhwangdaseul @cruzwalters @gabajoofs @transmutationisms @greenmossyrock @northgazaupdates @feluka @irhabiya @steep1253o @determinate-negation @chilewithcarnage @vague-humanoid

[the-watch-collector]

i'll keep this brief to spare your dash:

27 person family, trapped in gaza

injured and sick members, young kids, and elderly

displaced 8 times, currently separated & sleeping on the streets

less than $1k USD to reach their goal

verified / donate here

[the-watch-collector]

“The last time I checked my textbooks, the specific therapy for malnutrition was food”

—

Dr. Jack Geiger, quoted in Rebecca Onie’s Ted Talk  What if our healthcare system kept us healthy?

“In 1965 Dr. Geiger founded one of the first two community health centers in this country, in a brutally poor area in the Mississippi Delta. And so many of his patients came in presenting with malnutrition that be began prescribing food for them. And they would take these prescriptions to the local supermarket, which would fill them and then charge the pharmacy budget of the clinic. And when the Office of Economic Opportunity in Washington, D.C. – which was funding Geiger’s clinic – found out about this, they were furious. And they sent this bureaucrat down to tell Geiger that he was expected to use their dollars for medical care – to which Geiger famously and logically responded, “The last time I checked my textbooks, the specific therapy for malnutrition was food.“”

(via mdintraining)

[the-watch-collector]

“If you CHOOSE to stay in one of those evacuation areas-” we need to have public transportation running out of evacuation zones and free public storm shelters before you can say bullshit like that. we need to have free wheelchair ramp instillation on homes. we need to have free out of state pet boarding facilities. we need public infrastructure for the people in flood zones since these hurricanes are only getting worse and they are not going to stop.

[the-watch-collector]

it's been one year of horrifying genocide, on top of over seven decades of occupation and violence. please donate to palestinian families to help them survive. if you don't know where to look, or are anxious about making a choice about who to help, head to gazafunds.com. please do what you can to help.

[the-watch-collector]

Unlearning How White People Ask Personal Questions

http://www.samefacts.com/2014/05/culture-and-civil-society/unlearning-how-white-people-ask-personal-questions/

[the-watch-collector]

hello! my name is jolt, and i’m trying to move out to go live with my partner after years of struggling to live on my own and holding multiple jobs.

i am… not in a great spot right now. for the past two years i’ve only been able to keep my home thanks to some generous friends and my partner, because no matter what i do or how many jobs i take, shit just keeps happening with my health and with my car and just… everything. at one point this year i was working three jobs, around 85 hours a week, and i STILL wasn’t able to have a savings account because several things went wrong with my car, resulting in thousands of dollars in repairs needed. i’ve been planning to live with my partner for a little while now and was planning to save up to help with new place expenses, but now, it’s essentially become a rescue operation on his part. i’ve failed, and i need help.

i have four months until my apartment lease is up and i’ll be able to move there. i’m in collections for about $2000 of medical debt and around $17,000 in total credit card/loan debt, so my credit score is completely and utterly fucked, and my current doctor is threatening to cut off access to my blood pressure medication if i don’t pay my outstanding medical debt. i’m opening my paypal and my ko-fi for donations to help clear the medical debt i’m in collections for, and if there’s any left over it’s going to be used to help pay for a mover to get me to the new state that i’m moving to.

literally even a dollar will help. there’s a light at the end of this tunnel, and i’d appreciate any help i can get in ensuring that my emergence from this hole isn’t a complete disaster just like the past couple of years have been.