#9 in the world?????

[mousemannation]

when i get really sad about australian tennis i go look at the tennisaustralia instagram highlights bc like despite the horrors (jannik sinner) it's been an EXCELLENT year

[padawan-historian]

no caption needed

[victusinveritas]

Hunter S. Thompson wrote this a week after 9/11

[yokelfelonking]

Post 9/11 Trivia

Most folks on this site were either children on September 11, 2001, or weren’t even born yet.  But America went crazy for about a year afterwards.  Here’s some highlights that I remember that might not be in your history books:

There was national discussion on whether or not Halloween should be canceled because…fuck if I know why.  After planes crashed into buildings in NYC it follows that 6-year-olds in Iowa shouldn’t be allowed to dress up like Batman and ask their neighbors for candy, I guess.  (Halloween wasn’t canceled, by the way.)

On a similar note, people asked if comedy - any sort of comedy - was appropriate anymore, ever.

People sold shitty parachutes to suckers “in case your building gets attacked and you have to jump out the window.” There were honest-to-God news reports warning people not to jump out of the window with shitty mail-order parachutes because they wouldn't work.

As a follow-up to the attacks, someone mailed anthrax to some prominent politicians and news anchors - you know, famous people - along with some badly-written notes about “you cannot stop us, death to America, Allah is good” and after that every time some random dumbass found a package in the mail they didn’t recognize they thought that the terrorists were targeting them, too.

Everyone was similarly convinced that their town was going to be the next target, even if they were a little town in the middle of nowhere. "Our town of Bumblefuck, South Dakota (population 690) has the largest styrofoam pig statue west of the Mississippi! Terrorists might fly planes into that too! It's a prime target!"

People started taping up their windows and trying to make their houses or apartments airtight out of fear of chemical and biological attacks. There were news reports warning people that turning your house into an airtight box was a bad idea because, y'know, you need air to breathe.

"[X] supports terrorism!" and “if we do [X], the terrorists win!” were used as arguments for everything.  "Some rich Arab you never heard of donated to his organization that backs Hamas which backs al-Queda, and also owns stock in a holding company that has partial ownership of the Pringles company, so if you eat Pringles you're supporting terrorism!" "The terrorists want to tear down our freedoms and our way of life and rule us through fear! Eating what you want is one of our freedoms as Americans! If you're afraid to eat Pringles, the terrorists win!" (I promise you that this sort of argument is in no way hyperbole.) (This argument is how Halloween was saved, by the way.  “If we cancel Halloween, the terrorists win!”)

People worked 9/11 into everything, and I mean everything, whether it was appropriate or not.  If you went to the grocery store the tortilla chips would remind you to support the troops on the packaging. Used car sales would be dedicated to our brave first responders. You couldn't wipe your ass without the toilet paper rolls reminding you to never forget the fallen of 9/11, and again, this is not hyperbole. My uncle, who lived in Ohio and had never been to New York except to visit once in the 70′s, died of a stroke about 8 months after 9/11, and the priest brought up the attacks at the eulogy.

On a similar local note, on the day of 9/11, after the towers went down, gas stations in my home town immediately jacked up gas prices.  The mayor had the cops go around and force them to take them back down.  I doubt any of that was legal.

Before 9/11, Christianity in America - and religion in general - was on a downward swing, with reddit-tier atheism on the upswing. Religion was outdated superstition from a bygone age. The day after 9/11? Every single church was PACKED. (This wasn't a bad thing, but the power-hungry on the Evangelical Right saw this as a golden opportunity to grab power and influence.)

EDIT: By Popular Demand - Freedom Fries. I initially left these off because they came a couple years after the initial panic and most people thought they were kind of absurd (and I don't recall anyone really going along with it other than maybe some local diners here and there). France didn't want to get involved in our world policing so some folks were like "TRAITORS!" and wanted to call french fries "Freedom Fries" instead, so as to stick it to the French.

Besides dumb shit like that…it’s really hard to overstate how completely the national mood and character changed in the span of a day, or how much of the current culture war is a result of the aftermath. (9/11 was the impetus for the sharp rise in power of the Evangelical Right, who made themselves utterly odious and the following backlash helped the rise of the current Progressive Left, for instance.)

And if all of this seems batshit...well, it was. But I want you to think for a moment how people react today over even trivial shit. People send death threats over children's cartoons. They call for blood if the maker of a video game had an opinion they don't like. If someone made a racist joke a decade ago when they were a teenage edgelord, folks will go after people who even associate with them. "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ALL THE HARM THEY'RE DOING!?"

Now take that same level of over-the-top histrionics and apply it to the unprecedented event of passenger planes crashing into crowded buildings in America's most populous city and killing thousands of people all at once. "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT WE WERE ATTACKED!?"

[goryhorroor]

“1950s horror movies contrast radically with their 1940s predecessors. understandably – they were reflecting a whole new world. audiences wanted stories that connected directly to their lives, to the ever-expanding technology in their homes and workplaces. they also wanted horror movies that played to their fears – stoked by politicians – of the shadows that lay beyond their immediate, personal experience of the shiny american dream (applies to some of these movies).”

[kalivasquezart]

(banners for @ask-the-pioneer)

[kai-7kh]

Sound on! 🌧️

Practicing backgrounds for an au that im working on

Here's the picture version

Mmm Gold

Rain sound credit => here

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[endyillustration]

POV: You got into a transporter malfunction.

Based on the House MD poster below the cut.

[shepscapades]

Been thinking about lots of soft and cozy and healing xisumas to make up for the terrible terrible horrors I’m putting him through <3

[tybarious-ii]

[castielsprostate]

once again i ask of you to please stop looking towards celebrities and influencers for political commentary and their takes on catastrophic and inhumane world events and to instead focus your attention on experts, journalists and world leaders

[starplatinumnun]

don't ask:

a woman, her age

a man, his salary

the american government what happened in chile on september 11th, 1973

[gingermaple]

i had the opportunity to create a set of app icons for @hotguycomiczine! it was a fun chance to work on my graphic design skills and i hope everyone enjoys what i came up with!!!

this set includes two versions, one with and one without white borders for maximum readability on both simple and complex backgrounds!

[ START ]

[ MERCH ] [ MISC ] (version with borders can be found below the cut!)

woah borders!!!

[maxanor]

RYAN GUZMAN as FERNANDO REYNOSO WINDOWS ON THE WORLD (2019) dir. Michael D. Olmos