arrogantwerpen

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garfield caused a controversy a decade ago by publishing this on veterans day

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my friend is still dying

anas's gastric cancer is metastatic and he's suffering terribly. i've seen videos and photos of him vomiting blood and i don't feel right sharing even if he's given me permission because i shouldn't have to show you my sick friend at his worst for people to care. he is not alone. he still has to care for his parents all while dealing with this illness taking so much from him, and the hospitals in the strip have been left with nothing to treat him. all i want is my friend's safety. all i want is his happiness. please give whatever you can

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it’s eunuch Tucker’s adoptiversary and defacto birthday today <3

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Today's Walruses Are: The Shifting Mound

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Please help Monis and his family

I know you see a lot of fundraisers on your dash, and I don't have a magic wand to wave to ask for your help. I know there are so many other families that need help, but Monis https://www.tumblr.com/monis2family/ and his family really need yours right now.Monis and his family have been through so much over the past year: the destruction of their home, the loss of innumerable treasured possessions, constant relocations throughout the Gaza Strip, the ever-present risk of death in a bombing, and constant extortion by the merchants.

Monis is struggling with cancer, and needs medicine that costs $100 every three days. To make things worse, their family is hungry, and needs money for flour. I don't need to tell you how expensive Gaza is right now, and the money you've raised for them already is barely able to keep them going. Any amount you give will help get them the medicine, food, and shelter they need.

Even $10 could help keep a Gazan family warm, safe, and fed during this cruel winter. Every little bit counts. Please, share this post and donate if you can.

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"You can say that [orangutans] are not dependent on social support and approval, and if you admire this in them, that an orang is irredeemably his own person, 'the most poetic of the apes', researcher Lynn Miles told me once in an unguarded moments. What she had in mind was the difference between orangs and chimps in the way they carry on their discourse with the world.

Chimps are much admired for their tool use and for their problem-solving relationship with things as they find them...the orang is, let us say, not so replete with enterprise. Give an orangutan the hexagonal peg and the several shapes of hole, and then hide behind the two-way mirror and watch how he engages with the problem.

And watch and watch and watch--because he does not engage with the problem. He uses the peg to scratch his back, has a look-see at his right wrist, makes a half-hearted and soon abandoned attempt to use his fur as a macramé project, stares dreamily out the window if there is one and at nothing in particular if not, and the sun begins to set. (The sun will also set if you are observing a chimp, but the chimp is more amusing, so you are less likely to mark the moment in your notes. An orang observer has plenty of time to be a student of the vanities of sunset.)

You watch, and the orang dreams...when casually and as if thinking of something else, the orang slips the hexagonal peg into the hexagonal hole. And continues staring off dreamily."

Vicki Hearne, "The Case of the Disobedient Orangutans"

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Israeli occupation forces have opened fire on Palestinians trying to return to their homes in the north of the Gaza Strip, killing at least one person, as Hamas accuses Israel of delaying the implementation of the ceasefire deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will not allow the return of the displaced Palestinians over a delay by the Palestinian movement in releasing a female civilian captive.

The dispute came as a ceasefire between the two sides entered its second week, with the exchange of four Israeli soldiers for 200 Palestinian prisoners taking place on Saturday.

“Palestinians here in the north are waiting for their loved ones to return from the south,” said Al Jazeera journalist Ibrahim al-Khalili.

He went on to say: “Some of them have not seen their loved ones for 15 months of the Israeli war. But even if the displaced Palestinians get the chance to return today, they will be coming back to nothing but rubble. The Israeli operation in North Gaza governorate – we are talking about Beit Hanoon, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya – has completely destroyed these areas. The mass devastation that has been inflicted in the area has rendered it unfit to sustain human life. But people are waiting. They say every minute feels like a day. But no one has been allowed to cross over yet.”

Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers have continued a large-scale military operation in and near the city of Jenin, killing at least two people, including a two-year old girl.

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brooding men who cannot communicate their feelings if their life depended on it are only hot when they're fictional. if i have to deal with one in real life i will curse him and pray for his downfall every night before i go to bed

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there was a huge wave of grassroots organizing in the spring of 2024, students, activists, professors—the democratic base. democratic mayors and governors set the police on them, democratic congressmen sold them out to the republicans, and the democratic media lied about antisemitism. now there's only token opposition, chuck schumer is cracking jokes about area 51 . the party is over, sorry

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A true son of Philadelphia.

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French royalist newspaper progressively freaking out as Napoleon gets closer to Paris

So I don't know if it is a true story but it is hilarious. In his Impressions de Voyage, Alexandre Dumas (who also wrote The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo) recolls reading a few years ago the royalist (and so) anti-Napoleon newspaper Le Moniteur. Every day, he notes the changing tone of headlines as Napoleon, who fled from the island of Elba, approaches Paris :

The cannibal left his lair

The Corsican Ogre has just reached Golfe-Juan

The tiger has arrived at Gap

The monster spent the night in Grenoble

The tyrant has crossed Lyon

The usurper was seen sixty leagues from the capital

Bonaparte is advancing at great strides but will never enter Paris

Napoleon will be under our ramparts tomorrow

The Emperor arrived at Fontainebleau

His Imperial and Royal Majesty arrived yesterday in his Tuileries castle among his loyal subjects

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Rural Ireland in the 1950s/60s by John Hinde

source

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A sudden noise pierced the silence of a dark night. 

The infuriated banging on the gate of the blue-painted house terrified not only the family sleeping behind it but the whole neighbourhood. 

The cries of babies alarmed by the shrill noise blended with the ear-splitting sound of fists banging on iron. 

This is not the banal opening of a mysterious fictional story. It is the day-to-day life of Palestinian families in hundreds of villages all over the occupied territories: Israeli soldiers appear at the doorsteps of families in deep sleep, between 10pm and 5am, coming to search, arrest or detain a relative. 

...

A 14-year-old boy from al-Arroub refugee camp in the southern West Bank recounted the night of his arrest: 

“I woke up at 2.30 am, when 15 Israeli soldiers broke into our house… Some were masked... The commander told me I am under arrest. They handcuffed me tightly, my hands behind my back... It was painful. I complained, but they just told me to keep quiet... I was detained. Then came the interrogation... They said I threw a Molotov bottle on a settlers’ bus... I did not.  They were very aggressive… After a few hours I chose to admit to it, just to get it over. Deep into the night, a member of the family was waiting for me at every possible checkpoint since they could not know when and from where I would be allowed to enter…”

Another minor whose testimony was shared on International Children's Day recounted a very similar story with slight variations.

“My interrogator made me sign some document... I do not read or write Hebrew but he insisted, so I did. I was released late at night. It was freezing cold and rainy... I was afraid.”

Here’s another testimony of a 40-year-old mother of three from a village in the southern West Bank, Beit Ummar: 

“Loud screaming in Hebrew and banging on the door woke us up at 5am. I opened the door. Six soldiers accompanied by dogs entered the house. I told the soldier my husband just underwent open-heart surgery. It made no difference. My 10-year-old reacted with a severe asthma attack; the eight-year-old has been wetting his bed since the soldiers first came to the house two years ago. Now, he did it again… The soldiers pushed us all into one room. I tried to find a blanket to cover the children but the soldiers threatened me and would not let me... They left about three hours later, said nothing, explained nothing.”

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Sometimes, I really love working with archaeologists

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Me: *Currently talking to one of my severely ill Palestinian friends stuck in Gaza trying very hard to walk a fine line between talking him out of his intense suicidality vs not invalidating his very justifiable feelings of hopelessness and dread.*

Some random fuck who tooOooOootally cares about Palestinians: We can't be exposed to the suffering of your """""friend""""" (if he's even real!) 24/7, or else WE will be the ones running on fumes!!!! No, I won't donate to him btw. I'm a good person and the real victim in all of this, just so you know.