Adult Living

"I would never feel sad again if I had a knitted frog."

Then there it was—my mother’s love, in the shape of a soft, green creature.

it’s fun that Mormonism is based off pseudo-archeology and Scientology is based off pseudo-psychiatry. By that logic the big American New Religious Movement of the 21st century is gonna be based on… pseudo-computer science?

Hi, can I introduce you to our new lord and savior, JesusGPT?

/sarcasm

BABES WAKE UP TODAY’S A NATIONAL HOLIDAY 🌈🐀

🎶NEIL IS BANGING OUT THE TUNES🎶

My (old) contribution to the beautiful day that is april 13th

Keep at it with the tunes.

I think it needs to become common knowledge that "inability to read social cues" can show up as overcompensating.

You don't know how much misbehaviour is allowed, so you become the perfect child who never tests rules.

You don't know if someone is irritated with you, so you'll be extra generous and self-effacing.

You don't know how much is expected of you at work so you'll kill yourself in a minimum-wage job and not notice that nobody else is working like this.

"Hardworking and quiet" should be as much of an autism red flag as "ignores rules and doesn't know when to stop talking". Or why don't we just start using words to communicate so i can stop tracking everybody's eyebrow twitches, that would be great.

as a cis-passing guy i dared to ask the question "how femme can i be be before my coworkers get uncomfortable" and the answer is apparently. a single gold dangling earring

Our local newspaper ran a story about the legendary graffiti artist who recently passed away and. Literally everything about it is fucking insane. I'm insane about it.

So this guy has been extremely active for around fifteen years, during which he spread these beautiful, high quality pieces all over the country, way over a thousand of his standard signature, and probably thousands more. He did completely batshit stuff like literally spray painting an entire train from top to bottom or leaving his signature at the top of a 600ft tall overpass and this whole time, only five people from his crew know who he really is. To everyone else it's a complete mystery.

And then he dies at the age of 35. A few weeks after his death, his crew shows up at his completely unassuming parents' doorstep, reveals who they are and asks if they can host a memorial exhibition of his art.

Turns out, this dude has been leading an insane double life. In the daytime he was a meek little office worker with a partially paralyzed arm and no social life to speak of. In the nighttime he was a fucking legend. Not only did he climb that fucking 600ft overpass, he did it WITH A PHYSICAL DISABILITY. THE MADLAD. And throughout the entire time, fifteen years, he got caught once. ONCE. HE DID ALL THAT UNNOTICED. THAT'S INSANE.

If anyone has taken their eyes off what's happening to federal workers in the US right now, here's some highlights that we're hearing from our comrades across the government who have not yet been fired:

And I'm not just saying this to lament how bad it is for federal workers. I'm saying this because, as workers are reporting this to one another, the response is, inevitably: "This is illegal." "Yes, but who would I report it to? OPM? They're a DOGE puppet. OSHA? They've cut OSHA. The Inspectors General? Cut. The NLRB? Cut. My union? No longer recognized."

There is no one left to enforce these laws, so taking away access to basic sanitation is now effectively legal. They are doing this to federal workers, who historically have been some of the best-protected workers in the country. They are doing this specifically because it demonstrates to the public sector that it is now legal to do these things to their own workers.

Neil!!!

Another layer of fun. The first time I applied for a passport I was told my birth certificate was fake. It was the original. Literally the same piece of paper. But the state that issued it used to do half pages, so the government in other states, and then, the federal government wouldn’t accept it as real.

I had to get a new copy of it, which required a separate process, so I could then reapply for the passport. At one point they misplaced my submitted documents so there was a couple extra weeks. And then the earliest passport appt was like 9 weeks out.

If you changed any part of your name for any reason — Did your parent remarry and changed your name when you were little? — go start the process. You have no idea how many hoops it takes.

I don’t know if this will be in place. I don’t know if there will be another election. Start this process anyway. Right now.

A hero without a cape

Her name is Theresa Kachindamoto, and she is a senior chief - political leader of a region with a population of about 900,000 people.

She didn’t run for election; she was appointed, without her knowledge, while she was living and working in a completely different part of the country. She just received a call one day telling her to come back to her childhood home, because she was in charge now.

So she did; and when she arrived, she discovered widespread sexual abuse of children. She browbeat 50 uncooperative local leaders into accepting her decision to annul all the marriages. She then fired four of them when they continued to allow children to be married off in their areas. She still faces widespread opposition from parents who consider it their right to sexually abuse their daughters if they want to; but Kachindamoto very evidently does not give a fuck, and is continuing to use political and legal means to protect children in the region.

She’s not just an anonymous do-gooder; she’s an effective political leader despite incredibly difficult circumstances. Theresa Kachindamoto.

[Image Description: a twitter post from user Al Jazeera English @ AJEnglish that reads “This woman has broken up 850 child marriages and banned sexual initiation camps in Malawi”

Below the text is a picture of Theresa Kachindamoto. She is a dark skinned woman with short hair. She is outside and smiling. End ID]

got worried checking the dates on this post and seeing 2016, knowing how risky this kind of political activism is

good news: Kachindamoto is still in office, and last year (2024) she received honorary doctorates from 2 universities and was given the African Genius Award 🙏

The United States government is literally disappearing people to a gulag with no due process and yet it's the stock market crash that has finally pissed conservatives off.

Welp found the Adolf Eichmann of the Trump Admin

You make sure those cattle cars run on time, buddy.

I cannot get over this. They have a fucking Adolf Eichmann.

For those of you who don't know his whole deal, Adolf Eichmann was the primary bureaucrat/administrator behind the Holocaust. Overseeing supply chains, ensuring rail infrastructure was in place, collecting lists of Jews, etc.

He fled to Argentina after the war and, after a complex series of events, was found in the late 50s. The Mossad carried out an illegal extradition (which the Argentine government was, by all accounts, aware of and cool with), brought him to Jerusalem, put him on trial (you know, Hannah Arendt's whole thing, and the setting of my profile pic of Zivia) and he was hanged on June 1, 1962.

this... disturbs me way more than just donald trump. trump in power without logistics is just a talking head making threats. none of the large-scale evil in the world would be possible if it were just one guy at a time doing stuff.

evil needs people who will comply, but more than that, it needs people who will plan, and manage, and structure things. to keep timetables and ledgers. they need a whole chain of people who want to make these evil things happen.

so. todd lyons. may he accomplish nothing and make no name for himself.

keep each other safe. don't talk to ICE.

You are describing the very topic of Arendt’s work: the banality of evil.

they could have said, like, "we made a new wolf morph, which shows how far genetic science has advanced". they could have said, "we're calling them direwolves out of a love for the extinct species." maybe too much to ask for but would have loved it if they'd pointed out some kind of ecological niche they were theoretically intent on resolving - like, "wolves are having trouble adapting to human sprawl and we are hoping that our research into the past will help us save wolves in the present."

but alas they did not do this. and see this sucks because i want to be hype about new bigass fantasy wolves. there is a 7th grade version of me that would be ecstatic about this. she would be obsessive.

unfortunately, due to capitalism, now i gotta have beef with puppies. can you imagine.

There is a photographer in our town that works for a local news feed just for our town (which I'm 90% sure is volunteer run) and I see him sometimes at things. He usually covers the town halls, school board meetings, he was taking photos at Juneteenth last year. Basically he's everywhere and I'm also everywhere, so we cross paths often.

But he also does a thing called 'My Final Photo,' which is just random day to day stuff happening in town that he thinks is cool enough to snap a photo of. Like... ongoing construction of the new buildings, when the crocuses come out, a bird landing on a lamppost. Stuff like that. He's a really talented photographer.

The Final Photo for yesterday was kind of awesome but I don't think he knows how much the caption contributed:

Because that is both

a. sick as hell

b. perfect encapsulation of the childhood experience.

as a child being told "the moon controls the tides" with no additional explanation was like. oh okay. you want me to believe in magic? you're talking about magic right now? okay. fine

sorry. only semi-related but i simply wasn't ready for "the sun is a distant gorilla". thank you NASA