Fred Hampton Jr visiting his father on Father’s Day…his grave is annually shot by local police

.Some context for this:

-Fred Hampton was a black activist from Chicago – an extraordinary speaker, youth organizer for the NAACP. 

-He joined the Black Panthers and shone so brightly that he was made chair of the Chicago chapter when he was only 20.

-He founded the Rainbow Coalition, which brought together Black and Latino activists and radical anti-poverty Catholics.  He forged an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them make peace and work for social change.

-In 1967, when he was just 19, Hampton was identified by the FBI as a “radical threat.” The FBI tried to subvert his activities in Chicago, sowing disinformation to get the groups he’d drawn together to distrust each other, and getting an FBI plant next to him as a bodyguard.  

-(This is part of an illegal FBI program called COINTELPRO, which aimed to paint black civil rights activists (among others) as violent and threatening.  If you’ve only seen pictures of the Black Panthers as armed and dangerous revolutionaries, and never heard of their children’s breakfast program, their community health clinics, or their “copwatch” patrols, this is why.   It’s because COINTELPRO was a highly successful work of political propaganda.)  

-On December 3, 1969, Hampton taught a political education course at a local church, and then several Panthers gathered at his apartment for a late dinner.  One of them was the FBI plant bodyguard, who drugged Hampton.  

-At 4:45 AM on December 4, a squad of Chicago Police officers and FBI agents with a warrant to search for weapons stormed the apartment. Investigations later showed they fired between 90 and 99 times.  The Panther on security detail, Mark Clark, was holding a shotgun.  He was shot, and the gun went off into the ceiling.  This was the only shot fired by the Panthers. 

-Fred Hampton, in another room, didn’t awaken.  He was shot in his bed.  Twice, in the head, at point-blank range.  He was 21.  

-Four weeks after witnessing Hampton’s death, his finance Deborah Johnson gave birth to their son, Fred Hampton Jr.  That’s him in the photograph, visiting the grave of a father who died before he was born.  A resting place riddled with bullets.  

Not entirely sure what to do with this information

Just ate 2/3 of the way through a babybel cheese but stopped because I got full

You all won't be laughing when you need someone who can walk across the stone floor without triggering any pressure plates

A hot take, apparently.

That post I made over new years had people at my THROAT for saying I only buy real leather. Sorry I really do think that wearing textured plastic that will fall apart in under 5 years and go on to irreparably poison the environment is the worse option here.

In love with this

we have to spread this around so this dudes hapless victims can go "YOU!!!"

we have to spread this

around so this dudes hapless

victims can go “YOU!!!”

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

A lot of younger people have no idea what aging actually looks and feels like, and the reasons behind it. That ignorance is so dangerous. If you don’t want to “be old,” you aren’t talking about a number of years. I have patients in their late 80s who could still handily beat me in a race—one couple still runs marathons together, in their late 80s—and I lost someone who was in her early 60s to COPD last year. What you want is not youth, it is health.

If you want to still be able to enjoy doing things in your 60s and 70s and 80s and even 90s, what you want to do, right now, is quit smoking, get some activity on a regular basis (a couple of walks a week is WAY better for you than nothing; increasing from 1 hour a day of cardio to 1.5 will buy you very little), and eat some plants. That’s it. No magic to it. No secret weird tricks. Don’t poison yourself, move around so your body doesn’t forget how, and eat plants.

If you have trouble moving around now because of mobility limitations, bad news: you still need to move around, not because it’s immoral not to, but because that’s still the best advice we have. I highly recommend looking up the Sit and Be Fit series; it is freely available and has exercises that can be done in a chair, which are suitable for people with limited mobility or poor balance. POTS sufferers, I’m looking at you.

If you have trouble eating plants because of dietary issues (they cause gas, etc.) or just because they’re bitter (super taster with texture issues here!), bad news. You still want to find a way to get some plants into your body on a regular basis. I know. It sucks. The only way I can do it is restaurants—they can make salads taste like food. I can also tolerate some bagged salads. On bad weeks, the OCD with contamination focus gets so bad I just can’t. However, canned beans always seem “safe,” and they taste a bit like candy, so they’re a good fallback.

If you smoke and you have tried quitting a million times and you’re just not ready to, bad news. You still need to quit. Your body needs you to try and keep trying. Your brain needs it, too. Damaging small blood vessels racks up cumulative damage over time that your body can start trying to reverse as soon as you quit. I know it’s insanely, absurdly addictive. You still need to.

You cannot rules lawyer your way past your body’s basic needs. It needs food, sleep, activity, and the absence of poison. Those are both small things and big asks. You cannot sustain a routine based on punishment, so don’t punish your body. Find ways to include these things that are enjoyable and rewarding instead. Experiment. There is no reason not to experiment—you don’t have to know instantly what’s going to work for you and what won’t, you just need to be willing to try things and make changes when things aren’t working for you.

You will still age. Your body will stop making collagen and elastin. Tissues you can see and tissues you can’t see will both sag. Cushioning tissues under your skin will get thinner. You’ll bruise more easily. Skin will tear more easily. Accumulated sun damage will start to show more and more. Joints will begin to show arthritis. Tendons and ligaments will get weaker and get injured more easily, as will muscles. Bones will lose mass and get easier to break. You’ll get tired more easily.

But you know what makes the difference between being dead, or as good as, in your 60s vs your 90s? Activity, plants, and quitting smoking. And don’t do meth. Saw a 58-year-old guy this week who is going to have a heart attack if he doesn’t quit whatever stimulant he’s on. I pretended to believe it was just the cigarettes, and maybe it is, but meth and cocaine will kill you quicker. Stop poisoning yourself.

Baby steps; take it one step at a time; you don’t need to have everything figured out right now. But you do need to be working on figuring things out.

You will be unsurprised to learn that someone already accused me of ableism for suggesting that people not smoke, move regularly in ways their body can tolerate, and eat plants.

The backstory for the horse is that he injures anyone who tries to ride him

I won an evil laugh competition last night

every so often I remember that the East India Company is back

Admittedly this is one of the funnier timeskips I've seen in a corporate history page

Damn, sure hope nothing important happened in between 1874 and 2005

Today's Seals Are: Big Wet Smooch

Genuinely cannot begin to fathom what postpartum is like in Gaza. I was beyond blessed to have doctors and nurses present and I still suffered so much not only during labour but afterwards, and for months and months after. I cannot imagine doing that while also trying to survive genocide. Literally cannot imagine going through postpartum in a tent. I cannot imagine having to heal after giving birth in the heat of the summer with no electricity or a sip of cold, clean water. The fact that most mothers are malnourished and maternity care is almost nonexistent because of Israel is devastating to just think about. And I'm sure most of the care items needed postpartum are unavailable due to the blockade and to Zionist lunatics preventing aid from getting in.

I shared these campaigns earlier and I couldn't stop thinking about them since, please share/donate to expecting families and to families with newborns and DM me any campaigns that you come across of expecting families please.

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