For people with anxiety about filing taxes, here’s what things that happen when you make a mistake on your tax return:

- it gets corrected

- you get a letter in the mail either asking for some additional information or a letter showing the adjustment

- you pay the amount (there’s options for payment plans too!) or get a refund

Things that do not happen

- you’re “in trouble”

- you are charged with fraud

- you go to jail

I know that most people are probably just joking/exaggerating when they say a mistake on their return means they get thrown in jail but when I worked with the public I always would encounter people who believed that would happen and they would be panicking about it. So I like to put this out there every year because if I can even prevent one person from feeling that way, it’s worth it

Annual reblog of this important information.  

The thingy above where you sign your tax form says that you’ve filled it out to the best of your ability.  “Sir, I am a dumbass” is 100% a valid defense

Unemployment too: I've had to answer "why didn't you file earlier" with "I didn't know I was eligible" before.

me, helping a little girl pick out a locket at the shop: do you usually like to wear goldtone or silvertone?

little girl: I like silver because of Artemis, the goddess of the moon and the hunt and also she’s a warrior and she never got married.

me, internally: never let the world change you

btw this was only a partial listing of the many Artemis facts imparted to me by this very good small child. I told her Athena was always my favorite so she also told me some Athena facts. 

her dad gave me a look like ‘thank u for being patient’ and I tried to convey with mostly eyebrow moments ‘oh please I WAS this kid, only for ancient Egypt and also Marguerite Henry books’ but i’m not sure it got across

I just blocked at least three people in the notes on this for being snidely superior calling it fake.

REALLY? Really?

It’s that fucking difficult to believe “a child who was interested in Greek Mythology talked about it enthusiastically with an adult who was paying attention to her”? And then the parent appreciated that the other adult was nice to his kid?

THAT’S your cut-off for unbelievable?

Do you know zero children, or are you just being a dick on purpose? Or were you just a boring-ass kid? OR are you just a dick to children who try to engage with you?

My husband teases me because I will unintentionally make friends with children in public ALL THE TIME. LITERALLY all it takes is if a kid says something to you, even of you already know about it, you go “wow, really?” And smile and nod while they excitedly gibber away.

Most kids aren’t used to adults listening to them. If you show (or feign) genuine interest with what a kid is talking about, letting them feel smart and knowledable for a few minutes, you have won them over FOREVER.

That sounds really damn creepy. Not gonna lie. You’re an adult you have no right talking to strange children.

I don’t really know how to explain to you that not every interaction between adults and children is inherently predatory? Like, for example, standing in line next to a family in Disney World and having a kid talk to you about Oswalt the Rabbit while their mother stands next to him isn’t “really creepy.” It’s a normal human interaction, particularly if you view kids as, like…people? Sometimes kids will try to talk to you, even if they don’t know you, and there are appropriate and normal ways to respond to kids when they do. 

But, if YOU feel like YOU can’t interact with children without being creepy, then by all means, please avoid doing so. 

in JUST Disney World I would just GIVE kids Trading Pins that I bought in bulk on line. Like, in line to meet Phineas and Ferb two kiddos were eyeing me and my SO’s lanyards and we traded pins (they wouldn’t let me just give them pins). There was a kiddo who was in front of us for the rivers of Pandora ride who was legit freaking out. Her parents were just screaming at her to be calm. I knelt and asked who her favorite Disney character was (it was goofy and I said she had good taste) and I told her I’d give her a pin, any except the like two I’d gotten that day that I was VERY attached to, if she promised to be brave and ride the ride with us. she rode, she was brave, she got a pin, and she didn’t scream or cry anymore.

Most kids get talked to like they are dumb. If you treat kids like they aren’t complete dummies they become so fulfilled! I was that kid. I was MILES smarter than other people I knew, and my mom to this day tells her friends that “[I] has a fun fact for everything”. Sharing and learning things are so important and treating kiddos like what they say matters is even moreso.

The comments be like

[Image ID: An Onion headline that says, “Newly Discovered DNA Evidence Suggests Children Could Be Closely Related To Humans” /End ID]

As a parent too can I just say this is a fucking godsend. An adult who engages with your child when you’re operating on half an hour’s sleep for the past six weeks and have only been able to manage monosyllables to the person you love most in the world (your kid) because of that when someone treats them kindly, when someone gives them some attention that isn’t a tired “yes honey?” It can make that kid’s day and by knock on make the day a thousand times better for their parent too. 

For fuck’s sake. Smile at babies in supermarket trollies, you might manage to postpone the tantrum they were about to throw by a few seconds and mean mum or dad will get home without a migraine. There are parents out there that would give OP a thousand bucks because of the joy they gave that kid, that kid will talk about the “nice person in the shop” for WEEKS, they will also probably remember them for life.

Children deserve to interact with people of all ages positively. Some of the people in these comments should not be allowed to have them.

if you think it’s creepy for adults to talk to children just on the basis of them being adults and children then please never have or be near children.

at the hairdresser I talked to a little boy about pokemon and he told me all about his favourites, meanwhile his mother was talking to the hairdresser about how his little brother was dealing with the side effects of leukaemia treatment, that little boy was delighted to talk to anyone about his hobby and to an adult that knew about pokemon enough to have a favourite [Jigglypuff] and knew about his favourite [Squirtle which he had a plush of which is how I knew he was into pokemon], his dad was there looking like he would have benefitted from ten years of sleep and the kid just wasn’t listening to him

that little boy was, for no fault of his own, starved of adult attention and he had been kicking up before I got there and was running around getting in the way, it made both of our days to have that conversation

kids have specialised interests and if you find out what that is they will talk the ear off anyone

and if you think it’s creepy you have a terrible worldview - what if you came across a lost child in the supermarket? by your advice it’s best to leave that kid alone and crying rather than taking them to get help [the tannoy people at the help desk]

Y'all. "Hell is empty and the devil's are here" is not one of those epic Tumblr quotes. It's from The Tempest. The Shakespeare one.

remember when that furry post went around with "you have nothing to lose but your chains" and people were saying "this is such a raw ass line and it's from a furry post" but it's literally karl marx

reading waiting for godot for class and finding out that’s where that “that’s how it is on this bitch of an earth” meme is from ruined me i think

new game: "classic or shitpost?" in which we give you a raw-ass quote and you have to determine whether it came from an internet shitpost or classic literature

"I will face god and walk backward into hell" that one on the other hand is actually from a dril tweet

When I explain cultural misappropriation to children, I use the example of The Nightmare Before Christmas.  

It’s effective because especially for children, who don’t have enough historical context to understand much of the concept, you can still fully grasp the idea.  

There was nothing wrong with Jack seeing the beauty and differences in Christmas town, it’s when he tried to take what is unique about Christmas town away from those it originally belonged to without understanding the full context of Christmas things is when everything went wrong.

When Jack tries to get the folk of Halloween town to make Christmas gifts for children, etc., children understand that the Halloween town folk do not have the full context for the objects they are making, and they are able to see that the direct repercussions and consequences are very harmful.

what i like about this is the implication that if jack had taken the time to understand christmas town, bringing christmas to halloween town would not have been harmful. that’s how it works, folks. cultural sharing is GOOD, it’s only misappropriation when it’s done in ignorance and disrespect.

There’s an interesting level here in that Jack tried to understand Christmas town. He could see the magic while he was there, and he did try to explain it that way to citizens of Halloween town.  But they weren’t interested in the kind of life he was describing, so he started “rebranding” Christmas so that it was not like Christmas but was like Halloween. The people of Halloween town, never having actually encountered Christmas, have no way of knowing that what they’re being told about Christmas and “Sandy Claws” is inaccurate. Jack also tried to study Christmas and its culture, though he couldn’t quite get it; eventually, he literally decides to take it for himself, even as he knows it’s not really for him.  He started out feeling sad the others in Halloween town didn’t ‘get it,’ but he then decided it’s not important to fully ‘get it’ but instead to have it.

So it’s not just accidentally removing things form their context; he has intentionally disregard the meaning of the rituals he purports to be recreating, making them more fun for the recreaters but not like what the rituals are supposed to be and without the related significance.

This is the best way to conceptualize the wrong way to share culture I have ever seen and I think I finally get where people are coming from when they talk about “cultural appropriation.”

this site has one setting

I’m laughing, but there’s a super useful corollary, which my husband calls “the Red Balloon.” He was a defense lawyer and had a fair number of drug addicts come through, and there is a thing where if you’re like, on your first offense, they’ll do a thing where you can go to treatment and if you complete it they’ll take the conviction off your record.  And he would tell his clients, “Look, everyone’s going to tell you not to do drugs. They’re going to say it over and over again. And it’s like, if people tell you not to think of a white elephant, you’re going to think of a white elephant. But the trick to not thinking about a white elephant is to think of a red balloon. So you need to find your red balloon. For some people it’s yoga. For others it’s woodworking. For some people it’s scrapbooking or gardening or any of a long list of things to do. They focus on that, it’s a lot easier to succeed in ignoring the white elephant.” So yeah, “watch yourself” is one thing… but the better idea is to watch something else. (Even if it’s fanfic about werewolves fucking.)

It’s a form of productive dissociation, and is super, super helpful. It’s easy for me to get bogged down in how much pain I’m in… but some of the most painful periods of my life have also been the most productive, writing-wise, because writing is one of my red balloons. 

There is a phrase I use A LOT in my parenting and my son gets very sick of it, but it’s true:

The thing you practise is the thing you get good at.

You may not intentionally be practicing “being grumpy” but if you don’t put effort into practicing “not being grumpy” then I’m afraid that’s what you’re doing. It’s hard! It’s really hard! Sometimes, for some things, it’s pretty much impossible and that sucks!

But being carefully aware that you are going to get good at the things you do most of is a good way to be more careful of what those things are. If that makes sense.

You gotta appreciate sometimes how tumblr works in such a way that everyone who wants to reblog this interesting or useful psychological advice is also forced to reblog the thing about werewolf fucking

Because we want to feel better but also think fucking werewolves really might help.

Wait what’s a buildings fire evacuation plan if you aren’t supposed to use the elevator to get down

You go down the stairwell/fire escape. Is that weird?

But what if you have a walker or a wheelchair??

in america at least, in this situation, there isnt one. either your loved ones or the firemen can get you out using the emergency fire escapes or stairs, or you die 

That’s fucking horrific, thank you

“fun” little story:

last summer my friend who is an amazingly talented artist and i were in this super tall building, and she’s in a wheelchair and i’m pushing her around the room. it’s an art exhibit and some of her art was chosen to be showcased there and so it’s all fine and dandy until suddenly an alarm starts going off

a FIRE ALARM

everyone starts running for the stairs and my friend just looks at me with this forlorn look on her face

“i can’t go down the stairs”

but i’m a stubborn bitch “i’ll carry you”

“what about my chair? it’s too expensive for me to be able to get another one if i can’t get this one back”

“i’ll carry that too”

and i did. we went to the stairs (by then most people from our floor were gone) and i lifted her up in a fireman’s carry over my shoulder and then lifted her chair up and used the ridiculous amount of adrenaline that was coursing through my veins to make it down approximately 20 half-flights of stairs until we met some people exiting lower floors, one of which who kindly took the chair. I changed positions so i was holding my friend bridal-style which was, somehow, easier and the person who took her wheelchair (with her permission to handle it of course) accompanied me to the ground floor and then out the doors

basically there is no real protocol for people who can’t use the stairs in an emergency. it’s up to the people with them, if anyone, to help them or the person to somehow make it down the stairs alone, unassisted

thank fuck that it was just a faulty alarm system, because if i was unable to carry her down those stairs and the building was on fucking fire???? then i don’t know what would have happened to her, but i don’t think it would have been very good.

it’s fucking ridiculous and ableist to the absolute max.

I use a cane. When I did a day-long fire safety training at my northeast American university (UMass Amherst), I asked that exact same question: “what am I supposed to do if the fire alarm goes off and I’m in my lab on the twelfth floor?” 

the fire marshal hemmed and hawed for a while and then said to take the elevator- you’re supposed to leave it free for the fire department to use and they want able-bodied people out fast not waiting for elevators. if the fire alarm has just gone off the building probably hasn’t suffered enough structural damage to make using the elevator dangerous, and modern elevator wells are heavily reinforced. many large and high-trafficked buildings on my campus have fire rated elevators that link in with the fire alarm system so they won’t let you off on a floor with a possible fire. 

if the elevator isn’t working, wait in the stairwell and call the fire department to let them know where you are. modern stairwells are also heavily reinforced- it might not be pleasant but modern building code usually requires fire-resistant stairwell doors in office and big residential buildings, also to help firefighters get in and out safely. older buildings’ stairwells may or may not be retrofitted with fire-resistant doors but a stairwell is generally the safest place to wait if you can’t get out. 

what happened to your friend was horrible, and i’m very glad you were there to help her out, but you can absolutely use the elevator to evacuate if it’s not shut down. those don’t-use-the-elevator rules are for abled people.  

This is GOOD TO KNOW. why do they not tell people this??

Okay, firefighter here. If you are not physically able to use the stairs, and the elevator is NOT compromised, use the elevator. But you MUST be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the elevator is NOT compromised before you get into it, because there is always the chance that once you get into it, you may not exit it. Power could go out. The elevator may actually BE compromised and you just couldn’t tell from where you were until you were in there, and it suddenly shuts down on you. Something else could happen. 

Understand that once you enter the elevator, you could POTENTIALLY be taking your life into your hands there.

It is NOT LIKELY, to be perfectly honest. It’s only in a pretty catastrophic scenario - think the Twin Towers, USA, on September 11th - that the elevators will be compromised and out of service. But there is a NOT ZERO PERCENT CHANCE and you need to understand that and accept it.

As for leaving the elevators free for the firefighters, okay, here’s the deal. Unless your nearest fire station is literally right next door? Your first on scene fire truck is NOT likely to be there on scene and needing that elevator before you get to the ground. It takes us TIME to find the address, gear up, and drive to the building. Then we need to hoof it into where the elevators even ARE, so YOU HAVE TIME to use the elevator to get down to the ground floor… BUT ONLY IF THERE’S NOT A RUSH ON THE ELEVATOR! And THAT is WHY we don’t tell people this shit. That’s WHY we tell people to NEVER USE THE ELEVATOR… because every self-entitled asshole will use it because they don’t feel like walking, and then put YOU in danger by delaying the elevator’s arrival to you.

IF, however, the elevator IS compromised, or you just can’t get it to come for you, or whatever, and you either don’t have anyone with you who has the adrenaline fueled BALLS to be able to toss you over their shoulder and hoof it down the stairs with you - because, let’s face it, that is RARE AS FUCK, then HERE IS WHAT YOU DO:

You call 911 and tell the call taker that you are in the building that has a fire alarm going off, and you are not able to evacuate because of a physical disability, and you tell them what floor you are on, and EXACTLY what stairwell you are waiting at. And the very FIRST thing that the firefighters are going to do once they arrive, if it is, indeed, a REAL emergency, and not a false alarm, is come get your ass and bring you down. Whether that means carrying you down the stairs, or whether that means locking out the elevators so that no one else can override them and coming to get you themselves, they WILL come get you FIRST THING if it is a real event. And if it is a false alarm? You will probably be the first person who is not involved with the building to know, because the call-taker is going to stay on the line with you until you are under someone’s care and out of danger, or until the scene has been sorted out as real or false, and you are out of danger that way.

These are pretty standard operations in the fire service throughout the United States. There may be some minor variations based on specific municipalities, but, for the most part, this is pretty typical: LIFE BEFORE PROPERTY. So, as long as SOMEONE knows where you are - hence why you call 911 - Firefighters will come get you. You are NOT alone, and you have NOT been abandoned. I PROMISE. It’s like, our whole reason for doing the shit we do: to save lives and to break shit. Sometimes, we get lucky enough to do both at the same time.

High rise fires suck ass, and I always hated them. But the very FIRST thing I asked anytime we got one was if we had “any entrapments” - which is what we call anyone who could not self-evacuate for ANY reason. We ain’t leaving you behind. And yes, your friend who doesn’t have the stamina to carry you down can stay with you, too. Because I would never ask that of someone, honestly. 

Also, just a little FYI… MOST fire alarms are false alarms. Not to make anyone complacent or anything, but, yeah. Most of them are either system malfunctions, someone accidentally hit a pull station, or someone burned popcorn in a break room. So don’t let a fire alarm freak you out until you need it to - by smelling or seeing smoke or flames. 

i have had multiple nightmares about this very thing because NOBODY BOTHERS TO ACTUALLY TELL WHEELCHAIR USERS THIS STUFF

(Source)

DPC and DPL.  Dead People’s Clothes and Dead People’s Leather. Their toys, their paintings of half naked, naked, screwing men.  The statues.  The leather.  The sling.  The posters.  The ... all of it. We’d literally Straighten homes.  Depending.  Some families knew and were fine. Or more ok.  But pictures of other guys on phones was the least of it. I have... leather that’s been passed through three or four men who’ve died before getting to me.  They’re the heirlooms now, passed down chosen families.   Sometimes there were crews.  We’d show up as soon as possible, as a unit.  We’d hit the bedrooms first.  Clear out closets, under beds, bedsides.  We’d donate, throw out, take mementos.  Pass on.  Secret lives and secret, us only treasures.   Then we’d leave.  For some family’s you never talked about it.  They never knew.  It was better all around.   I have vests, gloves.  A belt.  Arm bands.  Paintings.  T-shirts.  Photos, undeveloped film that’d I’m still somewhat terrified to try to get developed (lol).  We live on in the living rooms of others.

This is. A very important message for the younger generations of queers.

We still have so much father to go, but y'all. Don't let our past be forgotten.

honestly really hate how most of the people i follow on social media now “act” like influencers. how my friends will pose in the most outlandish poses i know they didn’t come up with and how they will film their hotel stays and beach vacation days and post it to their stories with some shitty dubstep over it like they’re filming an ad or something. how one of my friend groups gathered at this bar instead of the other because “this one will give us better pics” honestly just hate all of it

not to sound like a boomer but i miss the pictures in vacations where people would just go \o/ you know? like they literally just went “yay i’m here!” i miss that. i miss seeing the kind of pics like shitty pics my mom took of the inside of her hostel when she backpacked through europe not because she wanted to show anyone but because she wanted to remember it or the random shots of chairs and posters she just thought looked cool. i miss taking pictures with people and not thinking about my angles. i miss just doing things without performing them

Let people enjoy things. Just because the pictures are nicer doesn’t mean the people in them didn’t have just as much fun as your mom did.

I promise you, if I knew there were better ways to pose and I had access to something better than a disposable camera, my photos from 1996 would have been similarly “performative”

They’re literally completely unnecessary photographs of someone on vacation, of fucking course they are going to be performative. Let people enjoy things in the ways they want to if they aren’t harming anyone. Oh and if you “miss” crappy photos with low effort and bad lighting, go take some mama.

Watching an ableist as fuck movie during class and realizing after I opened my mouth about it just how hard it is for disabled people to fucking get a point across about inspirational porn.

No, The Butterfly Circus is not inspirational. Disabled people pushing themselves to abled standards is a disgustingly common thing that can KILL disabled people. Fuck you and fuck your inspiration porn. Fuck you and your display of disabled suffering to entertain abled people. It was disturbing.

Worst of all was how my teacher took it, as a personal attack. "I just wanted to inspire you all for the weekend, now mine is ruined."

You're a fifty something year old woman, get over your fucking self, Jesus fucking CHRIST. I'm your twenty four year old student who just pointed out the MOVIE'S usage of disabled suffering as prop, and now you think I'm attacking you??

"Nico, you need to calm down", no, Y'ALL need to realize that there's a fucking disabled woman in our class and she had to mute her microphone as she began CRYING, sending me a private message to say thank you, that she was afraid the class would dislike her if she spoke up.

This is what you, as an able-bodied person can do. Speak up about this shit. It makes me so fucking angry, my blood is BOILING.

STOP. USING. MARGINALIZED PEOPLE'S SUFFERING. AS. FUCKING. ENTERTAINMENT.

STOP IT!!!!!

I get so fucking tired of people taking your valid arguments about a movies shitiness as a personal attack. “Hi this movie is actually incredibly offensive to real humans on earth” gets a general response of “how dare you insult this fictional movie about fictional people that I have grown attached to for some reason”

Also….if there’s a disabled person in that class it stands to reason that she very well could believe that the teacher’s use of this movie is telling her, specifically, that she Should Just Try Harder.

Good for you for speaking up and supporting her and others with disabilities

How dare you leave this Jason Todd discourse in the tags.

Where does Harley Quinn fit into all of this?

Same points as Jason Todd, plus a generation of readers realizing the IRL figures they vested authority in were actually narcissistic and toxic AF.

Source

While it would be horrifying regardless, this post fails to mention (although the source does) that Phi Pham is not from Vietnam. His parents were Vietnamese refugees who ended up in the Philippines, where he was born, and from there he legally emigrated to the US where he has lived the majority of his life. He is facing deportation to a country that he is not a legal citizen of, that he has never been to, and where he knows no one. He is not unique in this situation, the US government increasingly deports refugees to "countries of origin" that they have never been to.

love that i have a VERY big and fairly detailed idea for a game that i could never possibly in any way make. 

The central idea is that. I want a single player MMO. And I don’t mean “an MMO that you can play solo” or “a solo game with multiplayer aspects” I mean 100% completely single player, no multiplayer features at all, but there should be raids, dungeons, neat overworld zones, interesting gear progression, RAIDS. 

So the basic premise is that there are three storylines, for now we’ll call them The Awakening (the one with dragons), The Children of the Gods (the one with angels and demons), and The End of All Things (the one with bug monsters). In each you play a different character class. Likely the Magicky Type for the Awakening, the Sneaky Type for the Children of the Gods, and the Hit It With Your Stick Type for the End of All Things. Each of these (which I have some reasonably in depth ideas about what should go into them, storywise) culminates with your character killing The Big Boss of the enemy faction, and receiving a key to the endgame area. Once you complete all three stories, you can access the endgame zone, as well as freely replay through the main story dungeons for unique loot and whatnot on any class. The endgame zone is a crucible of creation, where the four main factions you fought in the main storylines are attempting to harness the power that was used to create the universe to remake it in their own likeness. 

Throughout each of the storylines, you gain several NPC allies, who have simpler gear (likely 2-3 gear slots) and a few preset skill loadouts they can use. Each one likely has 2 or 3, depending on whether they’re intended to serve as a support character or be purely DPS focused. The progression through the main storylines will be based primarily around unlocking new skills and refining your build, and when you unlock endgame, you also unlock access to more powerful tiers of gear that can change how you play your builds. I’d likely restrict “build defining” gear to 3 slots, while other gear slots (likely 8-10 total) will be for building out stats. 

In the endgame, you unlock the ability to mix and match mercenaries, set more complex tactics for them, and switch freely between the three main characters. The main characters would all have some simple design details shared between them. All of them will be fairly androgynous (The mage hidden beneath voluminous robes, the sneaky type beneath a leather cloak, and the warrior clad in armor) and will have their faces obscured. You will be able to select your character’s pronouns, and customize the color of their robe/bandana/cape, but otherwise the characters will not be customizable, in terms of appearance. As a running gag throughout the game, you will be interrupted any time you attempt to introduce yourself, leading to people simply calling you “Mage,” “Thief,” and “Warrior.”

Honestly now that I’m thinking about this, I might just. Make this as a game that doesn’t exist. Like, write things about gear and stats and story stuff as though it’s a game I’m going to make, with no plans to actually make it. 

In TGDNE, each of the three characters has the ability to fulfill all three classic roles, with a variety of offensive, defensive, healing, and supportive abilities available to them. As a class focused around combos, the Warrior’s tanking is built atop this system. Through the shieldbearer skill line, in addition to the powerful AoE debuffs in Shield Slam and Cascading Shield, the Warrior gains a pair of combo finishers designed to complement the tanking playstyle, and a mechanic unique to the skill line, Block. There are a few ways to build up block, and when you have it, it prevents a flat amount of damage from each hit you take. Block can be built to a cap of 500 by default, but certain items, and this tree’s capstone ability, can add to this cap. Block decays at an accelerating rate the more you have, so keeping up with your combos and making sure you don’t drop too low is essential to tanking the hardest dungeons and raids. The combo finishers from this skill line are Crush and Bloody Bash. Crush is a simple, powerful single target stun, that lasts for .5 seconds per combo point stored, while Bloody Bash inflicts a hefty bleeding debuff on your target and grants you 50 block per combo point. This bleed will deal a decent amount of damage while also drawing quite a bit of aggro to yourself, so managing your finishers is an important part of the Warrior tanking experience.

I was reading a post about dipping baby carrots in ranch, and it reminded me of what I've previously described as an Additive vs. Subtractive approach to nutrition.

The Subtractive view looks at all the things you're currently eating, or might eat in a given day, and sees a pile of Bad Stuff, with probably some Good Stuff mixed in, which would be better if only you could clean off and remove the Bad. The Unhealthy, the Fattening. So this outlook sees the carrots as Good, and that ranch is Bad, so in order to eat well, the thing to do is remove the ranch.

(I fear I've gotten in too deep with capitalizing Things for Emphasis, so I'm going to back off on that now. You get the point - foods are not *actually* fundamentally good or bad, they are just categorized that way.)

Dipping carrots in ranch is not a healthy food choice, because the ranch is unhealthy. The ranch has "cancelled out" the carrots, by adding all that fat and processed sugar & stuff, so it would be better not to have eaten that at all. Subtractive nutrition is very concerned with lessening the Bad things: calories, fats, trans fats, processed ingredients, carbs, sugar, salt, meat, non-organic foods - whatever their current trend of "healthy eating" says will kill you.

On the other hand, the Additive view (which I think is more sensible) looks at the carrots & ranch snack and says, you ate some carrots! Carrots are objectively good for you, and you got that nutrition into your body. Good job! Sure, you also ate ranch, which nobody thinks is a health food, but a) the carrots are still definitely in there, nourishing you, and b) the ranch made you more likely to eat them, and enjoy them, and so eat them again in the future. Ranch also provides essential nutrients, regardless of whether it's the ~optimal~ way to get them.

Additive nutrition looks at your day and sees what nutrients you consumed, any that are helpful. Any good choices you make, regardless of if there are also bad ones. What's good, and maybe let's not go overboard on "Bad" stuff if we're really worried about it, but what did you eat that helped you? Eat food that serves you, and if you can put in more good things that's great! But if you have ice cream afterwards, it doesn't rip the kale out of your stomach. It just means you had ice cream today, and also you had kale.

And while Additive thinking helps with motivation, because it gives you little mental gold stars for lots of things, and doesn't take any away or call for shame if you do eat all the nachos, it really comes into play in decisionmaking, and weighing options. Subtractive thinking says, don't eat broccoli with cheese sauce, the sauce is bad for you. Just eat the broccoli, plain, steamed, with maybe a little low-salt seasoning mix. But let's be real - you're not going to do that. Or at least, not very often, not if you're starting from "I don't like broccoli unless it's covered in cheese sauce". Subtractive thinking says take ALL the bad stuff out, and make only the Correct choices, and then you're being healthy. Otherwise you might as well not have bothered.

Additive nutritional thinking says the broccoli with cheese sauce is adding broccoli to your diet where it would not otherwise have been. It's not a choice between plain broccoli and cheesy broccoli, not really. Really the choice is, do I add some broccoli to my diet today, along with tasty sauce, or do I not eat broccoli at all, because that's what I would be doing otherwise?

On Eskimo Disc Numbers

People tend to assume that Inuit hate the word 'Eskimo' because it is inaccurate, annoying, and is associated with stereotypes. And that is a factor. But it's really not all of it. Before I get into it, among many non-Inuit (Yupik, Aluet, etc) even people who don't like the word Eskimo often still prefer it to being called Inuk. Because it's at least slightly less inaccurate. Of course many of them also hate the term themselves and would prefer to just be called what they are. And one weird and complicating factor is there isn't a widely accepted alternative umbrella term.

In eastern arctic Canada, there is an additional reason, however, and this is known as the Eskimo Disc Number, or Ujamiit. It's a kind of identification number attached to what's basically a dog tag. And it was used in place of a surname (as Inuit didn't really have surnames, for a long time) And some would refer to people primarily by number instead of name.

Images from the article here

Now the E actually stands for east, the 6 is the region, and 215 is the individual. The syllabics are the person's name, Sakariiasi.

People were expected to wear them at all times, though many would only wear them when ships were coming in from the south. Some people found it dehumanizing from the start, some didn't really care. Some grew to resent it later, viewing it as a reflection of how the government viewed them as 'things' Some of the resentment stems from how, if the government was so intent on tracking us, then why was it so difficult to locate those in residential schools, or lost to tuberculosis sanatoriums?

Some people are hesitant to talk about it to this day. I was born well after it discontinued, I didn't learn much about the disc numbers until adulthood.

And communication on the mandate of keeping them around seems to have been... inconsistent? Some people feared legal repercussions for losing theirs. My mom says as a kid she lost hers all the time.

Eventually they were replaced by project surname, an initiative by Abe Opik to assign a surname to all Inuit families.

This solution was contentious too. In part because some people had grown used to their numbers, in part because it was the patriarch of the family that chose a surname. Sometimes without consulting their wives or children. And some wives were resentful, why impose their husband's name on them?

And there were some interesting hiccups with name standardization, my mother's maiden name is not long, but I've seen it spelled about five different ways by different family members.

I recently got a look at my grandfather's birth certificate, and it lists his Eskimo number as a surname. If you have an older carving, the artist's number might be listed instead of their name.

It's complicated and messy, but this is one of the reasons for the backlash against the word Eskimo in the eastern arctic, at least. Some links, if you're interested in looking into this more:

Canadian Encyclopedia on Project Surname

Eskimo Identification and Disc Numbers. A Brief History by A. Barry Roberts, published in 1975

Reflections of a disk-less Inuk on Canada's Eskimo identification system JOSTR, Non-JOSTR

Nunatsiaq News, on an art exhibit featuring Disc Numbers

Vice article, including interviews

Mistreated, a CBC article about a child's traumatic experience in a tuberculosis sanatorium

This January will mark the 128th anniversary of the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom. With this anniversary on the horizon, I wanted to discuss my people and our history with you.

The Hawaiian monarchy began in 1795, when King Kamehameha the Great conquered and united the Hawaiian islands under his rule. The Hawaiian monarchy was recognized by world powers, becoming trade partners with the US, and was recognized as a fellow monarchy by the British. In 1887, Queen Liliuokalani (then Princess Liliuokalani) was invited to attend Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. She even composed a song for Victoria in celebration.

However on January 17th, 1893, Sanford Dole and a group of American businessmen overthrew Queen Liliuokalani. Their intent was to create a new government with Dole as president in order to keep their sugar trade profitable. This coup was carried out with the backing of John Stevens, the American minister in Hawai’i. 300 U.S marines were called to Hawai’i, under the guise of protecting the Americans, however they were actually called to intimate Liliuokalani into surrendering in fear of bloodshed. Later she wrote of her feelings at this time:

“For myself, I would have chosen death rather than to have signed it; but it was represented to me that by my signing this paper all the persons who had been arrested, all my people now in trouble by reason of their love and loyalty towards me, would be immediately released. Think of my position, – sick, a lone woman in prison, scarcely knowing who was my friend, or who listened to my words only to betray me, without legal advice or friendly counsel, and the stream of blood ready to flow unless it was stayed by my pen.”

For the rest of her life, Queen Liliuokalani fought for her people. She brought many pleas and lawsuits to the U.S government, but was met with indifference and ignorance.

Today, Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) make up 15% of Hawai’is total population. Yet, Kānaka Maoli make up over 60% of Hawai’is homeless population. Homeless, on land that was stolen under our feet. Starving on land that used to be plentiful.

Hawai’i is one of the most expensive places to live in the nation. Recent reports indicate that in order to live “comfortably” a single family household must make $122,000. The average income of a single family household in Hawai’i is $65,000. The average rent in Hawai’i is $2,300 a month. The Honolulu Board of Realtors lists the average price of a single family home at $992,500.

The Coronavirus disproportionately affects Kānaka Maoli, with over 30% of Covid cases on Hawai’i being Kānaka Maoli. So many of my people have died because someone “needed” to take a vacation.

There is no vacation for Kānaka Maoli, there is no escape from the hell of exploitation America has trapped us in. We cannot live like this. My people cannot live like this.

Below I’ve listed a link to ‘Āina Momona, a beloved community organization. On their page you can find in-depth articles on Hawaiian issues, historical facts about the Hawaiian kingdom, information in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, and donation links to various efforts to enrich and restore Hawai’i and the Hawaiian community. Please check them out and sign up for their newsletter.

End the American occupation. Return Hawai’i to Hawaiians.

No offence to anyone, but... this is incredibly transparent propaganda. I’m not defending the Biden administration or anything, but Trump did not, in fact, send shit. Congress approved some slight relief -- which Republicans consistently blocked above $600 -- and that was it until Biden and the newly Democratic Congress was inaugurated. The next $1400 was under the Biden administration, and the big kerfuffle was their assurance that it would be $2k, then they decided to count the earlier $600 towards that total.

Remember how Trump called for the checks to be raised to $2k with the explicit assurance from McConnell that any such increase would be blocked? Remember how the checks originally were supposed to be signed “Trump”? That was intended to make Trump look like he gave a shit. So is this. He didn’t. The current administration has fucked up a ton, but any comparison with Trump’s response, whether in relief checks or on any other level, is utter bullshit. 

Trump will most likely be running in ‘24, with state-level infiltration of all voting procedures intended to override a losing vote. Stuff like this tweet is the same type of post-truth rabble-rousing used throughout his ‘16 and ‘20 campaigns. Ask yourself, who benefits from this sort of thing? The People? No, the ones seeking to take advantage of social-governmental collapse, same as before. Please consider why there’s this knee-jerk assumption that any hot take is equivalent to speaking truth to power or some shit just because it taps into your rage.