Month: September 2018

If it’s hard for you to vote …

aria-i-adagio:

petymology:

In the town I live in, there’s only one place to get the state-required voter ID. It’s way out beyond the end of the bus line, and its hours are inconvenient and unpredictable. Also, the IDs cost like $30; the people who passed the voter ID law obviously didn’t think that was a budget-breaker for anyone who MATTERED.

If you have difficulty getting a voter ID, here are some thoughts:

– Contact a church. (I wish I could say contact ANY church, but to be honest, if you look unconventional, and you don’t know which churches in your town are the progressive ones, look for a Unitarian church. I suspect most synagogues would be more helpful than most evangelical churches, but I don’t know that from personal experience.)

When I was a church secretary, if someone had called and said, “I want to register to vote, but I don’t have a car and I don’t have $30 for an ID,” I’m pretty sure our entire governing board would have been lining up to help you out.

In this part of the country, nuns are a good bet, too.

– Contact the local Democratic Party office.

– Contact a YMCA or a YWCA. Did you know that fighting racism is actually part of the Y’s charter? Pretty sure somebody in that office will be able to help you get the ID you need to register.

– Go to your town’s website and look for a pro-diversity organization – a Multicultural Awareness Center, something like that. Give them a call.

– Call your library reference desk and ask if they know of anyone who could help.

I don’t actually think this would help, but it would be interesting: Call the local office of your senators and your representative, and ask if they can help you get a voter ID. At least it might be entertaining to hear them sputter.

Important information.   Other churches that are good bets:  United Church of Christ (the united part is important), Quaker, Metropolitan Community Churches, United Methodist, Presbyterian Church (USA), Episcopalian Church – not an exhaustive list, and lots of things about church culture are local, but it might get you started if you’re not familiar.

Another possible good bet, in the same vein: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

thebaconsandwichofregret:

archdemonblood:

dewyntersisters:

dewyntersisters:

if a teenager is at your door and they are wearing a costume!! please give them candy!! they are still in it for the halloween spirit and it honestly no different from a little kid in a costume. they are just as excited and happy as all the other lil tykes and dont you dare tell them they are “too old for trick-or-treating” because that will literally break their hearts and that’s not cool.

Its getting close to Halloween again so I just thought I’d reblog this again

And if “don’t be rude to teenagers over a stupid jawbreaker” isn’t enough for you, consider 

  • You can’t tell how old a kid is just by looking. I’ve known multiple 5th graders who were taller than I am, and I’m 25 years old. With their faces hidden by masks, you won’t be able to tell they’re elementary schoolers, but they still are. 
  • Lots of older siblings are expected to take their younger siblings trick-or-treating, and they only get paid in candy. 
  • You don’t know if that teenager is developmentally disabled. 
  • You don’t know if that teenager spent most of their childhood in a hospital or sick and has never had the traditional trick-or-treat experience before.
  • You don’t know if this is that teenager’s first Halloween in America, and they just want to experience a piece of American culture.
  • You don’t know if that teenager ever gets candy any other day of the year. 
  • You don’t know if that teenager has eaten anything at all today. 

And those are just things I can think of off the top of my head. 

and even if it is just a bored 16/17 year old out trying to see what free shit they can get. is it really gonna kill you to give them a fun sized milky way from the multipack you bought at poundland? That thing didn’t even cost you 5p, just give the kid the sugar, say “nice costume”, and let it go.

rembrandtswife:

books-and-candy-ples:

the-winter-road:

andersonsallpurpose:

theshitpostcalligrapher:

bold-sartorial-statement:

theshitpostcalligrapher:

themintykid:

systlin:

hiking-viking:

chromalogue:

kirkspocks:

odin is like “when thor was born the sun shone bright upon his beautiful face. i found loki on the sidewalk outside a taco bell”

Oðinn spake:

Bright the sun shone | at the time of Þor’s birth,
And bathed his count’nance fair.
Loki, wolf-father, | the trickster, the liar,
I found on the cold pavement
While returning in glory | from a grand hunt
For a 3 AM quesadilla.

@damn-fuck-i-burnt-myself-again

I need this framed on my wall it’s so beautiful. 

@theshitpostcalligrapher

ay @systlin hmu

@systlin

My husband complained that this was more Shakespeare than Eddas, and I challenged him to do better.

Solen sken, skönt gyllene

Dagen Tor föddes

På trottoaren, vid Taco Bell

Där låg Loke

—KJN

My translation:

The sun shone, sweet golden

The day of Tor’s birth

On the tarmac, by Taco Bell

There lay Loki

(For poetry reasons, Thor needs the Swedish spelling.)

@bold-sartorial-statement

ay yo show ur husband 

@bold-sartorial-statement no but hang on this should be in runes: 

(oops spot the typos)

i wanna translate this into icelandic so imma do it 

Sólin skein, björt og gullin
við fæðingu Þórs
á stígnum við Taco Bell
Þar lá Loki

The amount of quality going into these shitposts is amazing

This is not shitposting, this is transformative work!

kellyclowers:

sixth-extinction:

I recently visited the Japanese wolf memorial in rural Higashiyoshino, Nara.

A life size bronze statue was built in 1987 to commemorate the location
where the last Japanese wolf, a young male, was killed by hunters in
1905. The memorial statue is located on the banks of
the Takami River, about a 45-minute bus ride away
from the closest subway station.**

The inscription below the statue is ニホンオオカミの像 – “statue of a Japanese wolf.” In
Japan this subspecies is known simply as “nihon ookami,” literally
‘Japanese wolf.’ In English we call it the Honshū wolf (Canis lupus
hodophilax) to differentiate it from the also extinct, but larger
Hokkaidō wolf (Canis lupus hattai). In Japanese the Hokkaidō wolf is
called Ezo wolf.

A stone at the site bears the haiku:
狼は亡び 木霊ハ存ふる (reading: オオカミはほろび、こだまはながらふる)

– I believe this translates to
“The wolf has perished, the spirit trembles.”

I
wanted to leave a flower, but there were none for sale at the nearest
station. Instead I happened to find some red spider lilies (higanbana)
growing by the side of the road. From a symbolic point of view, it couldn’t have been a more perfect flower:

“They are associated with final goodbyes, and legend has it that these
flowers grow wherever people part ways for good. In old Buddhist
writings, the red spider lily is said to guide the dead through samsara,
the cycle of rebirth.” [x]

It was a beautiful and serene place, and truly a moving experience.

**Side note: If you want to visit the statue (which I recommend!), the closest station is Haibara Station (in Uda, Nara on the
Kintetsu Osaka Line). From the bus terminal there, you can take a bus to Higashiyoshino village, but please note that the bus doesn’t operate on weekends or holidays.

There was just an article about how genetic testing indicates that the Japanese wolves where more closely related to a branch that existed 20,000 years ago, than to any of the other modern populations