Stand Up Gifs!

I remember the first time I read The Little Match Girl. I was about 6 or 7. It was my first time reading Hans Christian Anderson and, as a small child, my first story without a happy ending.

I remember going to my mother and demanding, through tears of sorrow and rage, (paraphrasing, but not much) what the hell kind of story was this? Little girl lives brutal, miserable life and freezes to death in the snow, how could you write something like that? How could anyone write something so unfair?

I remember very, very clearly my mother's attempt to explain.

"It's not a totally unhappy ending, she gets to go to heaven-"

"BUT SHE'S DEAD."

By the time I was a teenager, I understood the concept of tragedy and why people like it, and also that Hans Christian Anderson was Just Kinda Like That.

But I remember very, very clearly the surge of smug, delighted vindication I felt the first time I read The Hogfather, and read Death himself saying (paraphrased) "Absolutely fuck that"

Oh! Oh! Let me tell you why Andersen wrote The Little Match Girl. Honestly, I think you’ll love it.

Hans Christian Andersen wrote it--on the request of the publisher, Andreas Christian Ferdinand Flinch--in response to an illustration. Well, Flinch actually sent Andersen three illustrations to choose from, but I have no idea what the other two pics looked like.

(Photo of the woodcut drawn by Jacob Thomas Lundbye that inspired Andersen to write "Den Lille Pige Med Svovstikkerne"--literally, "The Little Girl With the Sulfur Sticks"--in late 1845. ) The woodcut had been printed once before, in 1843, in another publication (Flinch's Almanac, or House Calendar) run by the same person. The first time around, it illustrated an "article"--little more than a paragraph--called "Gjør vel, naar du giver (Do right when you give)." I don't know if Andersen was aware of this or of the article's content, but if he was, then he delivered the ultimate Take That to its author...who was probably Flinch himself.

If you want a line by line sporking of the translated article, go here. But basically, “Do right when you give” argued that broke kids who were begging (and selling matches was a cover for begging in the Victorian era) shouldn’t be given money or food, as that would simply encourage their parents to be lazy and improvident.

I don't know if Andersen was aware of this article...but if he wasn’t, then he wrote, by coincidence, a tale where everyone closes their eyes and hands to the needs of a poor child. He was extremely poor as a child, as was his mother, and he knew damned well what he was talking about.

If we interpret this story as a Take That to Flinch's article...well, it's basically showing the audience the worst possible outcome of their inaction. The little match girl freezes on the streets--but her home is so full of holes (and her parents clearly aren't earning enough to repair the damage if they are stuffing the holes with rags and straw) that she could have frozen there just as easily. She works all day at selling matches--but no one is willing to buy from her, which does neither her nor her parents any good. It certainly doesn't inspire them to work harder. And the making and selling of matches was generally a family business in the Victorian era. The match girl's mother and older siblings would probably be making the matches she sold--and incurring lasting damage to their bones and facial structure in the process. (DO NOT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GOOGLE "PHOSSIE JAW.") That happened to almost all people who made matches with phosphorus, i.e. mostly poor women, and the results were hideous and, eventually, fatal. The condition also severely limited their employment; businesses, then as now, had issues with illness and disfigurement.

In fact, aside from the boy who steals one of her slippers, no living person interacts with the little match girl at all. She is unimportant to the point of invisibility. No one sees her. No one even notices her presence until after her death. In the midst of all of the holiday celebrations of love and joy--which honor another impoverished child--a little girl freezes to death, because everyone else is busy with their own affairs. The story takes Flinch's argument to the logical extreme, showing what happens if someone with no food and no money isn't given any. There is no Hail Mary pass at the end, as there is for Tiny Tim, who manages to live once Scrooge reforms. Andersen provides no reassuring moments at the end. If you don't feed a child, keep her warm, or love her, you end up with a dead, unloved child. Sure, she goes to Heaven--but Earth could have been a lot kinder. All Flinch's selfish philosophy did was ensure that the little match girl died quicker...which didn't have to happen. I wonder if Flinch realized all this when he published the story.

This tweet is just... Odd. Very odd.

Like... You live like this? You write like this? You think like this??

I want to be absolutely clear that, when I write an alcoholic character, it's because I think that alcohol addiction and drinking to excess are cool. Just like when I write a criminal, I'm trying to persuade you, the reader, to take up a life of larceny and murder. Just so long as that's understood.

Oh good, because that's 100% the message I take from fictional media. For instance, I watched Hannibal for recipes and relationship advice.

All my stories are about going to work and to the store and therapy and the park :) because that’s what I do and encourage in real life

kind of obsessed with my dad's friend who apparently goes back to being a Buddhist whenever he gets a divorce

[gets divorced] Alright, that's it! No more worldly desire! [sees another beautiful woman] Well... unless?

I love that it’s apparently happened enough times that it’s a cycle. Almost like…

i need to smoke a joint with him so so bad

If trench warfare were made-up, it would be the most on-the-nose anti-war satire ever created. Bunch of young men shooting at each other from inside open graves, slowly rotting even as they fight to stay alive. Every so often, they get to move a few hundred metres to dig a new grave for themselves somewhere else and this is called a victory.

I’m reading that new memoir about working at Facebook,”Careless People,” and it’s just fucking insane.

At one point Facebook wanted to be an international hub for organ donation. The “Lean In” lady asked why she couldn’t go down to Mexico and buy a kidney if her four year old needs one. This is literally on p.57. What the fuck else is going to be in this book if that is on page 57

Facebook also had to have protocols for armed raids of its foreign offices because they violated so many laws or failed to pay taxes or comply with other official protocols!! How is this a company that still exists!!!

“Doing jail time in a foreign country is not a reasonable ask from your bosses” — legitimately an argument the author’s husband had to have with her!!

Is this what gilded age readers felt like when they read Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”???

Though strangely nothing Mark Zuckerberg does is worse than Sheryl Sandburg, who comes across as an unhinged hypocrite who uses her uncontrollable anger issues to cultivate a reign of terror, I am just… baffled and appalled at how much Zuckerberg does not care about the world outside of Silicon Valley. There have already been two instances of him trying to wear a hoodie to state visits, and not in a Zelenskyy protest way. He just doesn’t like clothes that are not hoodies.

Wow they just abandoned a team member in the middle of an out of control crowd in Indonesia! Horrible company!

Guess who Mark Zuckerberg thinks is the best president of all time?

Hint: it’s Andrew Jackson!

Another mind-boggling line: “I think the point at which you have to explain Nuremberg to the head of the team leading your China entry is probably a red flag.”

Real exchange that happened between book author and the head of the DC office:

This conference room detail seems like too much for satire. But it isn’t!

This book has gotten so insane I can’t even summarize anymore. I can only post photos of this moment where Sheryl Sandberg wears her pajamas on a private jet and tries to make her heavily pregnant employee cuddle in bed with her on a flight back to California from Davos, Switzerland.

Following this, we discover that Sheryl says, “you should have gotten in the bed,” and ices out the narrator. Sheryl also has her assistant Sadie buy $10k of lingerie for her, and $3k of lingerie for herself, after which Sadie has to go to her house to model the lingerie and stay overnight. What the actual fuck.

Woooow FB knew the whole time that Trump was using trolls and spreading disinformation before the 2016 election but because they were making so much money off of it, they were just fine with it. They completely ignored the author pointing out how Duterte had done the same thing.

Direct quote on p 251: “Outrage is a lucrative business for Facebook right now, a month before the election….”

Jaw-dropping.

Guess who lied to Congress about how the Chinese Communist Party would apply its laws and regulations to Facebook?

Mark Zuckerberg!

A lot of this later stuff about Facebook’s attempts to get into China are going a little over my head but I can see why Meta was trying to discredit the book and shut down reviews. She’s whistleblowing violations of US AND international laws. I doubt they’ll see consequences under Trump but YIKES

“By now it feels like the day-to-day at Facebook is lurching from one dismaying shit show to the next.”

SEEMS ACCURATE

This is so evil!!!

I don’t even know how to summarize the particularly heinous things that happened with Facebook in Myanmar and I’d have to take photos of the whole chapter to select bits but BASICALLY

-thanks to a telecoms deal Facebook came preloaded on a lot of mobile phones and often time on FB didn’t count towards your minutes so to many in Myanmar Facebook WAS the internet

-nonetheless FB was not optimized for Burmese, Myanmar was not renders on Unicode, and the terms of service were translated extremely late and passed out on paper flyers instead of posted anywhere. FB in Myanmar had little to no oversight and there was only one contractor in Dublin monitoring hate speech in Burmese even when there were LITERAL RIOTS caused by misinformation posted on Burmese FB

-Myanmar was not a priority for FB leadership so after LITERAL RIOTS they only hired one other contractor who seemed to remove posts from peace activists rather than hate speech or posts calling for violence

-due to what seems like internal politicking against the author, the person she tries to hire to be in charge of Myanmar in the right time zonenever gets hired

-FB higher ups were warned in advance of huge misinformation efforts like troll accounts and takeovers of fan accounts for pop stars but did nothing, leading pretty much directly to what the UN calls genocide and crimes against humanity

Why did it all happen? The author’s conclusion: higher ups “didn’t give a fuck.”

Wow and after all that they fired the author for reporting sexual harassment from her Bush-trained, Trump insider boss

Holy shit was this a harrowing read. These insanely rich people have so much money they are insulated from the consequences of any and all actions and don’t care what countries they smash as long as they can pull money from the wreckage

Lovely sentiment but the way it’s worded sounds like this dude got fucking killed during a little league game

you've heard of "quiet quitting," now I'd like to introduce you to the next level, The French Work Ethic:

This was in another goodwill bin and I'm gonna put the back cover under a cut just so you can experience the same sensation of flipping it over to see this:

bad, depressing: well-insulated apartments of sturdy concrete and steel, with centralised heating

good, liberating: one thousand little houses made of cardboard and plaster, each running a gas furnace and air conditioner

Nothing but critical support for this Lynx

You ever think about the MOVE bombing and then think about the fact that so few US Americans even know that the MOVE bombing like. Happened.

"The United States is dedicated to moving bombs away from people who would use them for nefarious purposes! Google MOVE bombing to learn more!"

jesus christ 😐

this also doesn't come close to telling the whole story.

the Philadelphia police harassed the MOVE organization for over a decade. MOVE began with peaceful protests against conditions at long-term-care facilities and against the city Zoo's mistreatment of animals. in 1972, police classified the group’s use of profanity as riotous and designated them violent threats to public order. the actual reason was their radical abolitionist message.

the Philadelphia police department had a brutal, corrupt, and racist reputation long before MOVE entered the picture. despite that fact, MOVE’s claims of police brutality typically fell on deaf ears, even when they had undeniable proof of mistreatment. the bombing is only one part of the story both because it is the culmination of violence between MOVE and the police and also because it is part of the broader narrative of police brutality in Philadelphia that is still largely played out today.

in 1957, two Black men were beaten by three off duty and allegedly drunk police officers, putting one in the hospital for 19 days. the commissioner at the time testified that all officers were trained in "race relations," which involved things such as having officers brandish shotguns out the window of their patrol vehicles as a show of force in so called "shotgun squads." the three officers were not convicted of any crimes.

in 1960, shots indiscriminately fired by officer Robert Marinelli killed two innocent Black bystanders. Marinelli was charged, tried, and then found not guilty on all charges by an all-white jury.

in 1967, a guy named Frank Rizzo became the police chief. his nickname while working in West Philadelphia as a captain was "The Cisco Kid," which referenced the fictional cowboy who "killed for the love of it or any other reason that came to mind." he referred to "vermin" in Philadelphia as the source of the crime and decline.

shortly after he was appointed, he sicced 300 officers in riot gear on Black students and advisors protesting the Board of Education who were protesting the lack of Black studies and Black teachers. Rizzo ordered the officers to "get their Black asses." 57 protesters were arrested, dozens were beaten, and 15 were hospitalized. Frank Rizzo was elected Mayor of Philadelphia 3 years later and during his bid for re-election in 1975, he said that he would "make Attila the Hun look like a faggot" once he was reelected.

so yeah, not only is the MOVE bombing virtually unheard of by the average person in America (and it's not much better in academia, for that matter), but the story that is often told when people do hear about is that this all happened in a vacuum "due to the actions of a violent Black resistance group." in reality, it was the culmination of over 50 years of brutality against Black people and minorities in Philly.

Simone Zimmerman in Israelism

I tap the mic. “Most people don’t want to crawl down your chimney and steal your dog.”

the crowd murmurs uncertainly.

“If someone wants to steal your dog,” I continue, “there are easier ways to do that. They don’t have to crawl into a chimney.”

Murmuring intensifies. People stand in their seats and begin to boo.

“People disguising themselves as chimney sweepers and stealing dogs is not a rational fear,” I shout. “Literally anyone could steal your dog. Why make sweeping chimneys illegal?”

“I have a list of chimney sweeps who stole dogs from parks!” Someone yells, throwing a shoe.

“You seriously think no chimney sweepers could possibly ever steal from a home?” Another cries.

“Only a dog thief would even want to crawl into a chimney to begin with!” Says a third.

A single tear rolls down my cheek. They are all so fucking stupid

This is a metaphor