When your politician wants to do the right thing, they need your help. Calls and tweets are very helpful to them. Here’s why:
Politicians can’t just do whatever they want, because they represent us. Whatever they believe personally, they have to take into account what their voters think. Politicians can do some unpopular things, but they have to pick unpopular issues very, very careful, or they lose reelection and can’t do anything at all.
If you call/tweet your representatives about something they already agree with, you are telling them: We have your back. You don’t have to worry that doing the right thing will cost you the election. Doing the right thing will get you votes, and make you *more* likely to win. That gives them more options.
Another way that calling representatives who are on the right side helps them: Representatives can’t pass legislation by themselves. They have to persuade other representatives to vote the right way. There are usually politicians who are on the fence and potentially open to persuasion.
If your representative can say to other representatives: “My phones are ringing off the hook about this issue”, or “My twitter mentions are overwhelmed with people asking me to do this”, it can persuade other politicians that this issue matters to voters. Every representative who can do this makes a difference. A politician may sometimes be in denial about what their constituents are saying; it’s harder to stay in denial if they’re hearing it from multiple politicians whose states/districts are similar to theirs. Even if your representative is unwaveringly on your side and in a safe seat, your calls/tweets can help them to persuade others.
Stories and pictures also matter. Telling stories can persuade politicians to do the right thing. During the health care debates, every politician told stories that a constituent told to them. The vote was close, and the Republicans who voted against it said that stories were part of what convinced them to do the right thing. If you tell your representatives stories about why the issue matters to you, it can help them to act on it, even if they already agree with you.
Tweeting pictures at your representatives can also help. Pictures of protests show politicians that people care enough to show up in person and protest. This suggests to them that people care enough to show up and vote. This is reassuring to politicians who agree with you, and they can use those pictures to put pressure on politicians who aren’t sure how they want to vote. Pictures of real people affected by the issue are also helpful. They show, viscerally, that this is about real people. That can be very persuasive.
Another reason why contacting politicians who agree with you matters: If you make the issue you’re calling/tweeting about a safe issue for them, then they don’t have to spend political capital on it. If they don’t spend political capital on it, then it’s available to spend on a risky issue. Calling/tweeting them helps them to do the right thing about the immediate issues *and* future issues which may be riskier.
Tl;dr: Even if your representatives agree with you, it’s still worth contacting them about important issues. Calling, tweeting, and otherwise contacting them can give them them *ability* to do what they already want to do. Tell them stories. Tweet them pictures that tell stories, including pictures you take at any protests you go to. Scroll up for more explanation of why this matters.
Trump GUTTED funding for ACA advertising – and slashed the open enrollment period. So he *really* doesn’t want you to share this key info:
Nov 1: Enrollment for 2018 begins
Dec 15: Enrollment for 2018 ends
Don’t miss your chance to enroll in health insurance for 2018
HealthCare.gov
i’m just gonna reblog this every single time it crosses my dash
It’s ironic that his home state of New York is advertising the exchanges harder than ever this year (we run our own exchanges and our own advertising).
Mille Fleur is a specific color pattern of mottling. The literal translation of Mille Fleur is “thousand flowers.“ Mille fleur has a base color or red/buff, with each feather containing a black crescent pattern with a silver [white] tip. Adding blue will dilute the black to grey. Addition of the lavender gene dilutes the black to grey and the red/buff to lemon/citron resulting an a color known as porcelain.
that looks interesting but my focus is shit rn so i’m keeping this tab open for later
*tab sits there for 2 months, untouched*
riiiiight, i never got around to that hmmm well doesn’t really matter anymore *closes tab*
3.1. alright the page no longer exists…..guess we’ll never know
3.2 Lets put it in a bookmark folder I will never again look at except for 2 years later when I’m sure this vital piece of information must be in here somewhere.
If you ever feel like you must be the most unobservant person in the world, remember: I once spent half a year failing to notice that my new favourite restaurant was a money-laundering front for the Ukrainian mafia.
(I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but in retrospect, the fact that it was always dead no matter the time of day – I think the busiest I ever saw it was five people, myself included – well, that should have been a tipoff. Also, the waitstaff kept calling me “Mr. Prokopetz”, which I had assumed was just part of the restaurant’s gimmick, but given that “Prokopetz” is a Ukrainian surname, I’m now force to wonder whether they’d thought I was, you know, in the business. I just liked the pierogi!)
What I need to know is how on earth did OP finally realize his favorite restaurant was a money-laundering front for the mafia.
I’d like to say I put together the clues, but in reality, I just showed up one day to find that the place had been indefinitely shut down, and later learned it was because the managers had all been arrested.
What I really want to know is how good the food was?
Excellent, if your tastes run to the “heavy cream and too much garlic” end of the spectrum.
Every crime front I’ve ever eaten at has had completely amazing food, honestly. I am pretty convinced that if you want to open a front, you don’t choose “restaurant” as your front-business unless you have a relative who loves to cook.
It tickles me that this is evidently a sufficiently common experience that people find it relatable. (Seriously, check the notes!) We should write reviews or something.
did I just read the line “every crime front I’ve ever eaten at” with my own two eyes
Look, I went to college and lived my early adulthood in a town whose entire thing was import/export, and we had a lot of restaurants that were suspiciously empty except when they were closed and filled with very serious men in nice clothes.
They were usually run by someone who was about the right age to be some adult’s parents or grandparents, and in the case of the two Korean restaurants matching this description, they didn’t speak English. Universally though, they were very pleased to see customers, very proud of their cooking, and very very interested in keeping us far away from the aforementioned serious men in nice clothes. And despite having huge dining rooms and never having more than a couple customers, they never went out of business.
Also, because I am very, very stupid and sometimes don’t think before I talk, I once said loudly, over the phone, while sitting in one of these places, “Hey! Yeah if you want to meet us, we’re eating at [place]. You know…[place]? You totally know it. The Front, on Warwick st!”
The looks I got from every single employee were amazing and then I left.
Like, 90% of infomercial style products were designed by/for disabled people, but you wouldn’t know that, because there is no viable market for them. THey have to be marketted and sold to abled people just so that any money can be made of off them and so the people who actually need them will have access.
I think snuggies are the one example almost everyone knows. They were invented for wheelchair users (Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a coat on and off of someone in a wheelchair? Cause it’s PRETTY FUCKIN HARD.) But now everyone just acts like they’re some ~quirky, white people thing~ and not A PRODUCT DESIGNED TO MAKE PEOPLES DAY TO DAY LIVES 10000X EASIER.
But if at any point you were to take your head out of your own ass and go “Hey, who would a product like this benefit,” that would be really cool.
This makes informational make so much sense now.
Like… of course there’s no reason for that guy to knock over that bowl of chips. However, the person it was actually designed for has constant hand tremors that would make this pretty rad, but since we don’t want to show that in a commercial, here’s an able bodied guy who can’t remember how gravity works.
Shit. Those commercials suddenly get a lot less funny when you realize it’s pretty much just people ineptly trying to mimic disability.
Or like the thing for the eggs? Like, oh, it cracks eggs perfectly, you only need one hand?
IT WAS DESIGNED FOR PEOPLE WHO ONLY HAVE THE USE OF ONE HAND.
Or the juice bottle pourer? For people who’re TOO LAZY TO POUR THEIR OWN JUICE? Or FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE DIFFICULTY BEARING WEIGHT IN THE HANDS.
It’s amazing how with just a few words by a few people, my whole perspective on something can shift entirely.
I feel so ignorant for never having realized this before.
Don’t feel bad. You’re not supposed to realize it, since the collective conscious isn’t supposed to realize disabled people are sentient and therefore can be advertised at.
This is why I hate those buzzfeed articles that have these products featured and the title is something like “for the laziest people ever” like For example, a device to pick up your sock and put it on your foot with minimal bending over ( http://youtu.be/9GFOqlAmJUc ) , it would take more effort than it’s worth for an able bodied person, but for someone who is disabled, it’s super helpful. These products are not even meant for able people to use, that’s why when they see them they think it’s ridiculous.
yeah it took me forever to realize this too. those buzzfeed articles feel especially weird now because i actually have some of those products – not because i’m lazy, but because it actually allowed me to do more within the constraints of my chronic illness
it isn’t that “disabled people aren’t enough of a market”
because if they were not enough of a market, then why would infomercial people design and sell a product for them?
as I understand it, FDA regulations say you are not allowed to advertise your product for disabled people without doing a bunch of ruinously expensive tests, tests that manufacturers of infomercial products can’t afford to do. because if you say your product is for disabled people, it’s a “medical device” and falls under their purview
so they have to pretend it has nothing to do with disability, because actually advertising it to the people it’s for would require them to spend insane amounts of money on useless tests
Yup. And then you get people who actually don’t know what they are talking about noticing that the actors in these infomercials are white and doing this “wypipo who sit at home be SO LAZY” thing
no.
wypipo who sit at home all day be on disability benefits, probably
Animal rights activist keep your colonial ethics off of our children. Look at yourself and your own complicit-ness in policies that are genocidal and problematic.
He literally fed his whole village. Alaska is known for having very high food prices and he provided for his village. I’m proud of him.
I’m proud of him too. Also bowheads aren’t endangered. At all. Welcome to ethical sources of food.
What he did was admirable. It is absolutely noble to make it so your village doesn’t starve to death during winter. These communities are too poor to move and relocate and food is so expensive they’re close to literally starving. He’s just taking care of his loved ones and neighbors and hunting whales is difficult and dangerous. Falling overboard can lead to drowning, hypothermia, and getting crushed by the ice floes they hunt in. People have died doing it. Undertaking risk to feed other people and keep them alive is absolutely noble.
Speaking as someone who lives in Alaska after moving up from NJ, people from the lower 48 just have no idea how easy they have it in being able to just get food off of a grocery shelf. Grocery store food is expensive as fuck here. In some places in Alaska, it’s even worse than in many of the food deserts in the US, and climate conditions (a short growing season) and soil quality make growing extra food for your home (like in a garden) very difficult. I’m lucky in that I can afford the supermarket stuff because my roommate is in law enforcement and I’m a skilled worker in healthcare (which there are shortages of up here) and that pays well.
But just for example, it costs our house of 3 about $400-$500 a month on groceries, and that’s with buying really cheap staples, like dried beans, rice, cheap as fuck ramen, and all generic instead of name brand. We rarely eat any fresh fruit or vegetables, because it all has to be dried, frozen, or canned to be affordable. And we’re in one of the least remote areas, not far from Anchorage (where things are the cheapest in the state). We can at least make the 300 mile trip sometimes to Anchorage to buy things in bulk from Costco. In some remote places in Alaska, groceries are $500 to $700 or even $1000 a month.
But many rural Alaskans aren’t as lucky as us. They’re born into poverty (esp. indigenous Alaskans), and have trouble getting out of poverty due to the remoteness of the area making job opportunities harder to come by than many areas in the lower 48. And often their only way of eating enough is subsistence hunting. Even non-indigenous rural Alaskans and people living in the bush sometimes only have a choice between hunting things like elk (also NOT endangered) and starving to death, and moving down to the Lower 48 takes thousands of dollars they just are too poor to put together.
This is just bullying by a bunch of privileged idiots that have no idea how easy they have it, plain and simple. There’s a reason Alaskans have been supportive of this kid and it’s that it’s just a lot harder surviving up here.
yo mad props to this kid. alaska is freakin mental they gots moose in they parkin lots. (i went to alaska on a cruise this year)
one of the bus drivers i had said that most of them hunt and trade any meat theyve hunted (so they can have a variety of meats to choose from so they dont get bored w one type) including reindeer n moose and other things (bear? i forgot what she said) ((she also said u cant trade meat for a truck, like thats a law lmao))
but most of alaskans live off the land. even though alaska is part of the US, p much nothing is the same as the lower 48. its p crazy.
3
Yeah, even where I’m at, which is less remote than other places, most people do a little hunting and fishing on the side because food is so expensive. Like our freezer right now is stuffed with a whole trash bag of frozen fish that my roommate caught. Since meat is one of the most expensive things, it definitely helps save money to catch or hunt at least some of your own.
I always knew arctic regions had problems getting food but it didn’t sink in properly until I moved to iceland. I’m in a more metropolitan area now (read: a town of 2000 people), but in the village where I used to live, it was a 45 minute drive over two mountains to get groceries, and about half of the year, those mountain roads are at risk of completely snowing over. When that happens, visibility drops to zero and going up there in anything less than a search and rescue tricked out monster truck thing is dangerous. The doctor was also over those mountains, as was the post office, the mechanic, the pharmacy, and anything else you needed. And even in good weather, food was hard. It’s expensive being that isolated, and it’s not like you can shop around for the cheapest option.
And living that far north has an effect on your dietary requirements too. You need meat and dairy to survive winter. We got about 6 hours of daylight in winter, less if the weather was particularly bad. I was working in a factory without windows between 6am and 3pm so I was only really getting about 3 hours of sun. You need a shitton of protein and vitamin D to get through the day when it’s dark all the time, especially considering most of the jobs up there are labor intensive like farming, fishing, or factory work. Sure you can add supplements, but a jar of 30 pills will cost you at least £15 and if you can’t get to the pharmacy because the mountain is snowed over, you’re fucked.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 