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COWBOY BEBOP カウボーイビバップ (1998) Session #4 Gateway Shuffle

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Thinking about the werewolf from the hate mail Lemgo council pharmacist David Welman (1595 - 1669) got after being accused of being a werewolf

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I haven’t seen this little guy posted yet today for #LunarNewYear #YearOfTheSnake 🌕🐍 so I guess I’ll be the one to do it…

Snake (Naga) Figure

U Thong District, Suphan Buri Province, Thailand, 6th - 11th c. CE

Baked clay with incised details

National Museum Bangkok

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Um, actually, if you'll look at the definition of pedantry in the Oxford English Dictionary...

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Ecological collapse is a small price to pay for an anaemic culture of air fryers, reiki influencers, Shakespeare & Co tote bags, unkillable stock markets, and twitter-using Habsburgs.

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when people are like “he’s not even attractive you could find a guy that looks like him at any gas station” i’m like….. well you see there’s beauty everywhere actually

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Can anything be done to help this wretched twenty four

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Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a movie first and foremost about the destruction of minority neighborhoods and public transit by the American car industry. After that, it's a technological milestone. And then it's about cartoons

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Verified fundraisers who need your support!

These are fundraisers who are at less than 10% support who need a bigger boost.

Aisha's family: at 3% funding only. Line 340.

Yasser Al Ostath: at less than 1%. Line 338.

Ribhi Ishtawi: at less than 1%. Line 372.

Mosab El-Dali: at 6% funding only. Line 321.

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Don’t make me put your ass in the sealbarrow

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call me buster keaton the way im making moves in silence

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I'm back, maybe.

Mostly on Mastodon at MediumWasTedium@kolektiva.social

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Michael bublé wants to be frank Sinatra but he’s never tried to have woody Allen killed

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Organisers of an interfaith meeting in Tunisia among members of the Scouting movement disinvited French Jewish delegates following pressure by promoters of boycotts against Israel.

The two delegates of the International Forum of Jewish Scouts were excluded from the meeting held last week in the resort town of Hammamet for members of the youth movement from around the world. Titled “Interfaith Dialogue Ambassadors,” the event brought together 150 participants from 24 countries.

But the French Jews who travelled there to participate in the event were asked to leave, Francis Kalifat, the president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, wrote in an open letter of complaint to Abdelaziz Rassaa, Tunisia’s ambassador to France.

The treatment of the two Jewish delegates at an event that “purports to bring closer people of various religions,” he wrote, “seriously tarnishes the image of tolerance and openness that Tunisia wishes to transmit.”

The organisers’ decision to bar the Jewish delegates, who are not Israeli citizens, follows protests online by anti-Israel groups.

TACBI, the local branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel published a statement Nov. 6 about it.

“The Tunisian Campaign for Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel has learned that the Tunisian Scouts have invited an international Zionist organisation, ‘The International Forum of Jewish Scouts,’” to the event, they wrote. TACBI “strongly condemns the disguised normalisation operation carried out by the Tunisian Scouts.”

This is not an Israeli group. These are not Israeli citizens. This is a French Jewish group and they were barred on spurious accusations of “normalisation.” This is antisemitism poorly justified using the rhetoric of antizionism.

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LGBT BRAZILIANS TAKE CARE WITH DATING APPS AND GRINDR, THEY WILL BE USED TO TARGET VICTIMS PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST

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Every year, thousands of people in Pennsylvania prisons write directly to nonprofit organizations such as the one I co-chair with a request for reading material, which we then send to them at no cost. This free access to books has dramatically improved the lives of incarcerated individuals, offering immense emotional and mental relief as well as a key source of rehabilitation.

But as of last month, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) has decided to make such rehabilitation much harder. Going forward, books and publications, including legal primers and prison newsletters, cannot be sent directly to incarcerated Pennsylvanians. Instead, if they want access to a book, they must first come up with $147 to purchase a tablet and then pay a private company for electronic versions of their reading material — but only if it’s available among the 8,500 titles offered to them through this new e-book system.

In case you forgot: Incarcerated people are paid less than $1 per hour, and the criminal-justice system disproportionately locks up low-income individuals. Adding insult to injury, most of the e-books available to them for purchase would be available free from Project Gutenberg. And nonpublic domain books in Pennsylvania’s e-book system are more expensive than on other e-book markets.

This policy, part of a larger trend of censorship in state prisons around the country, should alarm everyone. Not only does it erect a huge financial barrier to books and severely restrict content, it also dehumanizes people in prison.

The changes in Pennsylvania follow an unprecedented lockdown in the state’s correctional facilities during last month’s national prison strike. The Pennsylvania DOC argues that these new policies are necessary to prevent contraband drugs, especially synthetic cannabinoids such as K2 from entering prisons after a string of incidents in August involving staff reportedly being exposed to contraband substances.

But this argument doesn’t hold up. Based on the DOC’s incident report, out of the 60 staff members exposed to unknown substances, only six tested positive for drugs. The DOC has also published examples of contraband drugs they have intercepted, none of which came from free book organizations. It is, of course, important to protect staff and inmates from exposure to drugs, but the DOC is purposefully exaggerating the risk to push their draconian policies. The DOC should instead focus on real security risks and addiction treatment, not further collective punishment.

In addition to the financial barriers, this policy also severely damages an incarcerated person’s ability to fully reenter society. Not only do organizations such as mine provide education material such as GED and SAT study books, textbooks, nonfiction books and business and trade books, but many organizations also send individualized workbooks designed for self-improvement or focused on the needs of minority populations such as LGBTQ inmates. The list of available e-books is missing some of the most requested books, including dictionaries, textbooks, graphic novels and books focused on incarceration issues such as “The New Jim Crow” and “Illegal to Legal.”

By using their time in prison to prepare for reentry into society, incarcerated people have a greater chance at living a productive life and their time in prison is enhanced through reading as a form of self-improvement. Books-to-prison organizations also offer inmates connections with the outside world, as people request books over and over again, often sending personal updates, drawings and sharing their stories. These connections cannot be replicated by e-books or ordering a specific book through the DOC.

Perhaps more alarming is that the head of the Pennsylvania DOC, Secretary John Wetzel, is president of the Association of State Correctional Administrators. If Pennsylvania’s policies remain in place, other states are sure to follow suit. Increasing literacy and education should be an essential part of the correctional apparatus, but by imposing financial barriers to accessing books and restricting content, Pennsylvania is failing to serve the greater good.