from Falasteen Lawn at UW-Milwaukee

Annelise Orleck, Professor of History, Chair of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth

Being in America is super fun because you get to see Trump going up against Biden in a presidential election with both of them being dogshit options, mass protests against what should very obviously be seen as an injustice that spits in the face of what you were told your country stands for, except the government disagrees, using the power of the militarized state to brutalize protestors, all the while people spread malicious lies regularly with millions believing their every word(a lot of it being thanks to some rich freak on Twitter). Also, the economy is doing pretty damn poor and you see media sources tell you to sacrifice your well-being all while the ultra rich get richer and richer.

And then after you're done with 2020, you get to do it again four years later

If a worker who isn't the owner says ANYTHING similar to "I'm not really supposed to do this but-" and then does something that helps you, under no circumstances inform the business, including through reviews. You tell them that the worker was polite, professional, the very model of customer service and why you like to go there. You do not breathe a word of the rulebreaking.

what went down in nyc at columbia and city college was a massive escalation and a huge show of violent force from the police in what is already one of the heaviest policed cities in the country, if not the world. sending hundreds if not thousands of riot cops, counter terrorism, SWAT and NYPD's notorious SRG units armed with what is basically military equipment to beat up college students and barricade columbia faculty into their apartments. the fact that they removed all press from campus and refused to let journalists in before they swept the camp is very concerning. a lot of journalists said this was an unprecedented use of force even for the NYPD and it seemed like an excuse for them to use a lot of their new equipment. out of around 300 people arrested on tuesday, some still havent been released or even processed. this is illegal in new york state btw, people have to be arraigned within 24 hours. NYPD has been giving very little information about the people detained, not specifying where theyre being held, and taking a suspiciously long time to process them. they're apparently trying to charge some protestors with felonies. anyways all this is to say this is a major escalation from NYPD and a grim sign for the future. this is a prelude to fascism, not an alternative.

the notes on this are something

I am once again thinking about digging holes

It's so fucked up that digging a bunch of holes works so well at reversing desertification

I hate that so much discourse into fighting climate change is talking about bioenginerring a special kind of seaweed that removes microplastics or whatever other venture-capital-viable startup idea when we have known for forever about shit like digging crescent shaped holes to catch rainwater and turning barren land hospitable

"No one wants to work anymore." Damn right brother. If I could sit in a beautiful field for 40 hours every week of my singular precious life I would

I don’t know which author needs to hear this right now but even if you never update your wip i would never regret reading it a time of joy is never wasted

The fact that Microsoft Word has to be a subscription is upsetting. I already paid for it why do I have to pay again

Yes please be mad about it, genuinely- You used to be able to purchase a single disk to install it and use it forever after that initial purchase of one key. It sickens me to see all this stuff which used to be a one time purchase be shunted under a subscription now.

THIS

"Why is pirating going back up?!"

This. This is why. People don't mind paying a high price for software if it's only the once, or every 4-5 years.

But having to pay a high price regularly? Especially in the cases where you lose access to your own work if you don't?

That's why people are pirating software.

It’s possible to buy a non-subscription version of Word; Microsoft just intentionally makes it very difficult to find (and also expensive).

However, I know a guy who knows a guy website: MS Office Pro for $50. If the link starts going to a Page Not Found, just search the site; they usually have some form of this sale available. 

Worth noting: while $50 is still more money than $yo-ho-ho, that money is a great way to make VERY clear to Microsoft that we DO want one-time-purchase products, not subscriptions.

My laptop just died. If it can't be fixed and I need to replace it, this post is gonna be a real life saver, because my family has been sharing an old version of Word that came with a limited number of lifetime licenses, and we're fresh out.

https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/

Get LibreOffice. It's fully compatible with MS Office, but it's free and open source. You're welcome. :-)

literally die

Certified Library Post

at the end of the day it’s not that you hate your job - actually, you like working, you like routine, you like feeling like an adult - it’s that any time you fuck anything up, you feel like you’re fucking dying.

because you could be actually fucking dying. because if one day you wake up and you misunderstood something - you could lose your job, and nobody is hiring, and nobody is paying, and nobody takes people like you, and that job you want hasn’t gotten back to you. and what exactly are you going to do without insurance? good luck with those meds. you should have thought of that before being a person.

so it’s not just that you forgot to CC someone on an email, it’s that if you don’t have this job, you can’t afford rent. it’s not that you misread a comment, it’s that if you get fired, you will be in massive amounts of unpayable debt. it’s not that you are bad at your job, but here are the stakes as they have been decided for you: be perfect or fucking die. like, literally, die. that is how much safety net you have: none.

it’s not burnout, technically. but you literally just had two typos in your work, and you’re already picturing the ending. you want to throw up & curl up & make it all go away. it is two typos. if he decides he is mad at you, you lose literally everything.

your mom says that you seem stressed. the thing is that you have never known a job that isn’t stressful. welcome to capitalism. there is no other road, only this one. what the fuck is a career. you come here, and we hold your life against the barrel of a gun, and somewhere someone is spinning the chamber and pulling. eventually the bullet will come.

you live in a mugging. your boss owns three cars and has four kids. you worry about having enough to feed your dog. good luck. beg for forgiveness. CC the right people next time and be grateful, kid. somebody has it worse than you. someone, probably, has it worse than you. so what if you can’t sleep or eat or focus. your work chat sound literally makes you panic. you had to change the sounds of computer notifications so you’d stop having such an upset stomach.

welcome to the real world! the rat race! the dog eat dog circus!

your doctor studies the results and frowns at you. “it’s bad for your heart,” she says. “try to reduce your levels of stress.”

Reblog to give a trans woman a delicious Cuban sandwich

one of the weirdest experiences ive had being trans and out so far was when i went to the doctors about hrt and she walked me through the consent form (the one that tells you youre doing irreversible damage to your body and you're a freak) with a pen in her hand like crossing shit out and being like "this isn't true, this is actually completely false, this is totally an exaggeration" and it was stuff like "research on hrt is limited poor and speculative" or "hrt can increase risks of disease" or "testosterone makes you more violent and angry" like idk having it written in a way intended to make you feel like you're making a big mistake is one thing but the fact that the form has like literally proven false info in it and the doctor had to verbally be like sorry this isnt even true its just on there because society hates trans people. is wild

Hey btw, here's a piece of life advice:

If you know what you'd have to do to solve a problem, but you just don't want to do it, your main problem isn't the problem itself. Your problem is figuring out how to get yourself to do the solution.

If your problem is not eating enough vegetables, the problem you should be solving is "how do I make vegetables stop being yucky". If your problem is not getting enough exercise, the problem you should be solving is "how do I make exercise stop sucking ass". You're not supposed to just be doing things that are awful and suck all the time forever, you're supposed to figure out how to make it stop being so awful all the time.

I used to hate wearing sunscreen because it's sticky and slimy and disgusting and it feels bad and it smells bad, so I neglected to wear it even if I needed to. Then I found one that isn't like that, and doesn't smell and feel gross. Problem solved.

There is no correct way to live that's just supposed to suck and feel bad all the time. You're allowed to figure out how to make it not suck so bad.