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The Case for Same-Sex Figure Skating: Why It’s Time to Rewrite the Rules of the Ice

Gabriella Papadakis has written an essay on ice dancing with Madison Hubbell, and the issues caused by heteronormativity in figure skating. Please give it a read!

Figure skating has the potential to be so much more. Imagine a sport where skaters are free to lead, follow, or simply express themselves—where the artistry isn’t confined by outdated stereotypes. What if the next generation of skaters saw same-sex partnerships as normal? What if breaking these traditions inspired innovation in mixed pairs? What if we stopped teaching women to shrink and men to suppress their artistry? Thinking about all the talents that we’re losing and those we’d gain back: shorter men who love to dance, tall & muscular girls whose strength could be celebrated rather than concealed. Skaters who don’t see themselves in the expected gendered expressions but still have things to say. We dance on frozen water and skate on a surface that contains the fluidity of life itself. I’m wondering about all the art that could emerge from this beautiful sport. All the artistic & athletic diversity. I believe these changes would elevate the sport—not diminish it. They would create more room for individuality, artistry, and excellence.

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I wish there was a way to completely OPT OUT of AI. Like you could set your ENTIRE Internet browser to NOT shove it down your throat.

When social media was getting big, you could just NOT get a Facebook or a Twitter. It was simple as that. You can't do that with AI.

Trying to find a job? It goes straight to an AI filter. Trying to look at art? Here's 100+ ai shit. Trying to look up who was in what movie from the 1980s? GOOGLE GEMINI IS HERE WITH THE COMPLETELY WRONG ANSWER!

Someone PLEASE create a way to allow people to get AI the FUCK OUT of our lives if we DO NOT WANT IT!

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answering a couple questions i got on this post since i realized ppl genuinely wanna know:

tl;dr:

israel lets very, very little aid get into gaza. even the UN can't get in as much as they want to. funding individual families, gazan led initiatives, and mutual aid collectives operating out of gaza ensures gazans can provide for themselves and pay for the extremely expensive aid that is available.

with all the civil infrastructure destroyed by israel, the situation on the ground has devolved into unrestricted capitalism, driving up the price of aid (that should be free!). this makes it more urgent for people to have funding for daily survival.

the post linked above has examples of how donating to individual families can help a lot. if you want to help more than one family at a time, there are many gazan-led initiatives focusing on rebuilding their infrastructure and distributing aid fairly that are worth donating to instead of large charities that already get the majority of donations.

as i mentioned in the last post: @/careforgaza on twitter is a nonprofit started by gazans, it's been endorsed by multiple palestinian journalists.

the sameer project is a collective organized by diaspora palestinians offering emergency shelter to gazans.

ele elna elak is a project aiming to bring water, food, shelter, etc. to gazans and has been promoted by bisan owda.

and the municipality of gaza itself is fundraising to rebuild water infrastructure.

all of these organizations are active inside gaza right now and are being run by gazans. if anyone knows of other gazan-led mutual aid projects, nonprofits or charities feel free to link them in the notes! hope this helped!

long answers under the cut!

if you wanna donate to a charity that's absolutely fine, but the thing is most charities (and even the UN!) are unable to make it into gaza in the first place, leaving aid rotting at the egyptian side of the border or subject to israeli settler attacks

not to mention, charities and nonprofits also maintain a paternalistic colonial relationship with the indigenous people they are trying to help, determining what aid they need for them instead of returning power to them and letting them make their own choices

i'm not here to say that one option is better than the other, just that they achieve different things and are equally legitimate. there's an attitude among people who question the legitimacy of these gofundme campaigns that somehow the people promoting them are telling them not to donate to charities. nobody is stopping you from donating to charities. we are just asking that you do not dehumanize the very real gazans in your inbox just because their method of asking for aid is more direct and risky.

unfortunately that's exactly what has happened. because israel destroyed all of gaza's more formalized infrastructure, it seems that organized crime and rampant inflation has taken its place. aid is supposed to be free, but in order to save for evacuation or the cost of living, people have started selling them at an inflated price. and aid that is truly free attracts intense, large crowds that are dangerous to navigate.

this was posted on abc a few days ago

it's pure, unrestrained capitalism. i've had multiple palestinians describe this situation to me confidence. that's why everything's so expensive now. why people have to rent out tiny plots of land for their tents to sit on, why my friend @siraj2024 still has to buy tarps to cover the broken windows of the overpriced bombed out apartment he rented, and why a bag of flour can cost a thousand bucks in the north.

even before israel closed and then bombed the rafah crossing, the egyptian hala travel agency was only allowing people to cross the border if they paid a hefty $5000 USD per adult / $2500 USD per child bribe. it denies doing this, but the hundreds of stories from palestinians say otherwise.

with regard to the economy, here in america we saw something similar happen in the wake of hurricane helene and milton. the podcaster margaret killjoy describes how she saw dual economies rise after asheville was fully cut off from the rest of the country - some people offered each other supplies for free in a sort of mutual aid honor system, and some people required payment when they lent supplies because they themselves needed to buy stuff for their families. these dual economies exist in gaza too. and this means they all still need money to survive.

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website

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Honey they’re inventing unions at DoorDash

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I don't really think it's fair to dismiss the idea that that guy might have been framed for killing the CEO as like an unfounded conspiracy theory when NYPD has a proven history of planting/fabricating evidence on people. in 2011 there was a massive investigation of the NYPD and hundreds of cases against people were dismissed after a former police officer testified that they literally have a name for planting evidence on people: flaking. you cannot be out here acting like considering the possibility that cops who do this shit under normal circumstances might possibly also do it when they're under intense global pressure and scrutiny is the same as republicans thinking democrats run a secret pedophile ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant

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NYT has been discouraging reporters from sharing photos of luigi mangione - not due to concerns for his safety but to dissuade sympathy - and refuses to post his alleged manifesto in full. and today, they published an opinion by bret stephens about how brian thompson is the "real working class hero" of this story.

reddit deleted luigi's account, which was completely innocuous and consisted mostly of him giving out advice in health subreddits. they're also deleting any post that includes his alleged manifesto and banning users for sharing it.

luigi yelled that this was "an insult to the intelligence of the american people" while he was being dragged by police and news pundits are framing it as a deranged and violent outburst. news media are picking apart details of his life to paint him as a cold-blooded and mentally ill individual. even something as innocent as playing "among us" with friends is being framed as some insidious look into an assassin's disturbed psyche, ffs.

news media are also capitalizing on luigi's supposed "bizarre and impossible to understand" politics as an obvious way to paint him as a scary individual when the guy is... a centrist, at most. whose views are similar to those of your average college-educated white guy.

multiple news media also keep harping on about how luigi comes from a rich family. an obvious attempt to break the class solidarity that's been formed around this case by continuously trying to tell us "oh he's not like you guys" while ignoring the now pretty well-documented accounts of his multiple health struggles throughout the years.

and all this, and he hasn't even been found guilty of the crime he's allegedly committed. luigi is, as of right now, still innocent until proven guilty. and the news are trying to tear him apart because they obviously fear the symbol he's becoming for low and middle class america.

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Prosecutors argued that Mangione was carrying about $10,000 in cash and that his bag was a Faraday bag that blocks cellphone signals—all proof that he was a sophisticated criminal who should be held without bail. “‘I’d like to correct two things,’” Mangione said after the prosecutor finished speaking, according to CNN’s Danny Freeman, “‘I don’t know where any of that money came from—I’m not sure if it was planted. And also, that bag was waterproof, so I don’t know about criminal sophistication.’”

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NYPD are like uuuuh we still haven't found the killer but we did find footage of a different, equally mysterious man with rogueish charisma and a dazzling smile. If that helps

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you guys made luigi mangione trend for days and I need to see the same energy for brianna boston. she is a 43 year old mother of three who ended a phone call with blue cross blue shield (after being denied a claim) “delay deny depose, you people are next” and is now being held under a 100,000$ bond and could face FIFTEEN years of prison if charged. she has no weapons, her record is clean, and yet she is being held behind bars. they are afraid of the public and are trying to subdue. do not let them!!!! be outraged that our freedom of speech is being threatened!!!!! deny defend depose! free brianna boston!

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It's not him

Actual guy is still out there

Another glaring display of incompetence and corruption by police and media

Guy coulda been up to something else, inspired by gunman?

It IS him

Nothing made him uniquely capable of the action

Even techbros can be radicalized in the right direction

The war against the medical insurance industry is universal here and people of a variety of backgrounds and perspectives are in agreement about something needing to give

Either way:

a refusal to acknowledge the violence of insurance companies and the medical industry complex will only lead to more (reciprocal) violence

all the money and toys in the world don't make cops better at "solving crime" but snitches can fuck everything up

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Hey runners (and walkers)! Thought this might be helpful :)

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NEW YORK, NY (Satirical Press) - An investigator on the Brian Thompson shooting said that they were "absolutely" looking at a professional killer.

"There's no doubt," said the investigator, speaking under condition of anonymity. "This man is a very prolific murderer. We've determined he's directly responsible for thousands of deaths. Still no goddamn clue who shot him, though."

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Some Disney comics I made for a mini zine years back but didn’t post all of them online anywheres! Here you go.