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[whateverkaty]

Source For more facts follow Ultrafacts

[whateverkaty]

[whateverkaty]

Robert E. Lee himself refused to wear his confederate uniform after the confederacy’s defeat in the American civil war. At his funeral he was not buried in it and no one in attendance was permitted to wear theirs either. He also declared that his confederate battle flag (what we now call “the confederate flag”) never be raised again and that it was a flag of treason.

So there’s your “southern heritage.”

[whateverkaty]

The Radioactive Man Who Returned To Fukushima To Feed The Animals That Everyone Else Left Behind

Naoto Matsumura is the only human brave enough to live in Fukushima’s 12.5-mile exclusion zone

He fled at first but returned to take care of the animals that were left behind

He returned for his own animals at first, but realized that so many more needed his help, too

Matsumura, who is 55 years old, knows that the radiation is harmful, but he “refuses to worry about it”

“They also told me that I wouldn’t get sick for 30 or 40 years. I’ll most likely be dead by then anyway, so I couldn’t care less”

Matsumura discovered that thousands of cows had died locked in barns

He also freed many animals that had been left chained up by their owners

Many of them now rely on him for food

The government has forbidden him from staying, but that doesn’t stop him either

He started in 2011 and is still going strong 4 years later

He relies solely on donations from supporters to work with and feed the animals

His supporters are calling him the ‘guardian of Fukushima’s animals’

The man clearly has a sense of humor as well

[whateverkaty]

Have you ever seen a violinist going APESHIT?!

Be sure to check out IAmDSharp!

[whateverkaty]

[whateverkaty]

[whateverkaty]

a really important thread

[whateverkaty]

[whateverkaty]

“The paternoster elevator at Prague City Hall. These door-less, continuously moving lifts are the 1860s invention of Peter Ellis, an architect from Liverpool, and were once popular all over Eastern Europe and Germany before production ended in the 1970s over safety concerns. ” Video courtesy Jada Yuan

[whateverkaty]

i know its the mets, but this is the coolest shit i’ve ever seen a human being do

[whateverkaty]

“Get a rat and put it in a cage and give it two water bottles. One is just water, and one is water laced with either heroin or cocaine. If you do that, the rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself very quickly, right, within a couple of weeks. So there you go. It’s our theory of addiction. Bruce comes along in the ‘70s and said, “Well, hang on a minute. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It’s got nothing to do. Let’s try this a little bit differently.” So Bruce built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything your rat about town could want, it’s got in Rat Park. It’s got lovely food. It’s got sex. It’s got loads of other rats to be friends with. It’s got loads of colored balls. Everything your rat could want. And they’ve got both the water bottles. They’ve got the drugged water and the normal water. But here’s the fascinating thing. In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use any of it. None of them ever overdose. None of them ever use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction. There’s a really interesting human example I’ll tell you about in a minute, but what Bruce says is that shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. So the right-wing theory is it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment. […] We’ve created a society where significant numbers of our fellow citizens cannot bear to be present in their lives without being drugged, right? We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for a lot of people, much more like that first cage than it is like the bonded, connected cages that we need. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of our society, is geared towards making us connect with things. If you are not a good consumer capitalist citizen, if you’re spending your time bonding with the people around you and not buying stuff—in fact, we are trained from a very young age to focus our hopes and our dreams and our ambitions on things we can buy and consume. And drug addiction is really a subset of that.”

— Johann Hari, Does Capitalism Drive Drug Addiction?

[whateverkaty]

One time in high school we read “the lottery” and I jokingly said to the teacher that we should immerse ourselves in the story by having our own lottery where the “winner” got lunch detention and she said it wouldn’t be fair to make participation mandatory so if you don’t want to participate just don’t put your name in the hat, except this one kid who won wasn’t paying attention at the beginning and didn’t know what the winner got, only that it was optional, and just put his name in the hat because everyone else was, and the teacher drew the name all exciting and dramatic and it was his name and he was like “YES! I WON!!” and she handed him the detention slip and I’ve never seen someone go from so excited to so scandalized that fast. We definitely all understood The Lottery after that.

[whateverkaty]

Woke Giant, retro political art for third century America

Over at Woke Giant you’ll find some seriously cool, retro-styled “political art for third century America.” Don’t miss the downloadable protest signs!

https://boingboing.net/2018/08/16/woke-giant-retro-political-ar.html

[whateverkaty]

I’m in.

“Klansplaining” will immediately be added to my vocabulary

[whateverkaty]

I tried to explain to a friend of mine who has never ever been poor in his life why it is that poverty is a cycle, and why it’s so difficult to escape poverty. 

His response was, “just save money”. I kept trying to explain that when you are living paycheck to paycheck, there really is no saving money because most of your income is being spent on basic needs: food, shelter, clothing, transportation. 

So, then he responded, “well, why can’t you just save $5 every week”. Well, a lot of poor people do try to save. I would manage to get a few hundred in my savings account, but then you get a flat tire, or you end up getting sick and missing a week of work, or you have an unexpected bill. And, that few hundred dollars suddenly disappears. I tried to explain to him that when you’re poor, unanticipated expenses can very quickly and easily blow through what little you have in your savings account and put you back at square one. 

I also tried to explain that when you are that poor, you need to make purchases while you have the money. Like, if I needed a new pair of jeans and I had an extra $30 that week, I would buy myself a new pair of jeans that week because I didn’t know when I would have an extra $20 or $30 to spend. So, he countered that with, “You don’t need to buy clothes. You could have put that $30 in your savings.”

To which I responded, “Well, if it were socially acceptable to walk around without pants on, then maybe poor people could climb out of poverty, but until then, when your jeans have holes in them, or don’t fit you anymore, you need to get some new ones.”

Then it kind of clicked for him.. a little. 

So, I went on to talk about the sociological aspects of poverty, like how growing up poor, or growing up as part of a marginalized demographic pushes your starting block 100 feet behind your peers.. how our educational systems are set up to fail impoverished children. The light bulb flickered, but never fully turned on. 

And, then he said, “I still can’t believe you were ever on food stamps.” 

Yes, my friend, poverty and I get a nice little reunion every few years. I know it intimately, which is why you should sit back, relax, and just listen. 

I never understood how it was so difficult to see the realities of poverty. To me, it is sort of common sense. And, what is irksome is that poverty doesn’t always present itself as an old beat up car, and falling apart sneakers. People who grow up middle class and financially secure seem to think that poverty looks a lot like dirty children with dirty clothes, and no shoes. But, it doesn’t. It can be that, but it’s often not. 

I grew up in a nice house in the suburbs, but we were poor. We were very poor for a long time, in part due to my medical issues. People assume that because we went to Catholic school, and had a nice house that we were well-off. We weren’t. My mother worked 2-3 jobs, and my parents took out loans to pay for our school tuition. My mother’s parents helped pay for some of our education, even though they were also incredibly poor. My parents sometimes struggled to put food on the table. 

I never had clothes that were dirty or falling apart, but most of my clothes and shoes were hand-me-downs from my older cousins. In fact, a lot of my toys were, too. 

Both of my parents grew up in poverty. My father, especially, grew up in complete and abject poverty. Their parents grew up in poverty, and so did their parents. My parents made immense sacrifices to set us up for financial success, but life always finds a way to intervene. 

Personally, my health issues have been the driving factor behind my own financial issues. I have amassed thousands of dollars in medical debt. I work a job that doesn’t use my degree at all because I can work part time and still get benefits, and because I know I won’t get fired if I need to take extended absences due to my health. 

So, when you say, “I still can’t believe you were ever on food stamps,”  you are really saying, “I have this picture in my head of what poverty looks like, and you don’t fit that image.” 

That idea we have about what poverty is supposed to look like is a big reason why people in the middle class are so content with cutting safety net programs, even though they are one medical problem, one car accident, or one lay-off away from complete financial ruin. What does poverty look like, then.  How do you “just save money”, then. 

[whateverkaty]

“Women are also rejected. Women also spend their teen years pining after dreamy boys who will never love them back. You don’t see us going around murdering people over it. You don’t see us setting up internet communities for the purpose of talking about how evil and shallow men are for not taking us to pound town. Women don’t go around killing men who don’t like them, because if you’re a woman in this society, a boy not liking you is the least of your problems. It is nowhere near the shittiest thing you’re going to be expected to “just deal with” in your life — one of those things being the fact that we are expected to “just deal with” how men are sometimes going to murder a bunch of people because they felt entitled to romantic attention from women. We are expected to “deal with” that, while never bringing up the terms “male privilege” or “male entitlement” or “toxic masculinity” and why those things so often lead to mass murder, on account of how that might really hurt the feelings of the men who have been gracious enough to not go on killing sprees.”

— That Is Not What ‘Lovesick’ Is | Wonkette (via holyfiiire)