witchymoonhag:

witchymoonhag:

blueandbluer:

aishawarma:

Learn to defend against a bigot grabbing your hijab from behind!

In this post-election hate-crime spike, self defense is more important than ever. Practice this move until it becomes muscle memory and teach your body to react before thinking.

(via Zee Abdulla)

Signal boost. Anyone know if this would work equally as well if he grabbed with his other hand? I feel it wouldn’t, but it’s still better than nothing.

If the attacker used the other hand, then the woman wearing the hijab could use the opposite arm than is shown. SO PRACTICE BOTH SIDES.

Also please note the position of her arm on his. It’s not on the elbow but just above it. That is will be important for the submission. The grip on her hand is important as well. It looks like she is using a monkey grip where the thumb stays with the fingers of the hand instead of wrapping around. It protects your thumb from being broken and can be a stronger grip in general.

But yes, practice practice practice practice

Btw, if you click on her name, Zee Abdulla, in the post it takes you to her Facebook where she has another video for a defense for a front hijab grab.

#MDSen: Chelsea Manning files to run for U.S. Senate in Maryland

justinspoliticalcorner:

Justin Jouvenal at WaPo

Chelsea Manning, the transgender former Army private who was convicted of passing sensitive government documents to Wikileaks, has filed to run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, according to federal election filings.

Manning, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, would be challenging Democrat Ben Cardin, who has served two terms in the Senate and is up for re-election in November. Cardin is Maryland’s senior senator and is an overwhelming favorite to win a third term.

Manning, 30, was convicted in 2013 of the largest leak of classified documents in U.S. history and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Last year, then President Obama commuted Manning’s sentence to time served and she was released from a military prison in Kansas.

Manning moved to Maryland after her release and friends and family raised more than $175,000 to support her through an online campaign. Since then, she has written for The Guardian and Medium on issues of transparency, free speech and civil liberties, according to her web site.

#MDSen: Chelsea Manning files to run for U.S. Senate in Maryland

allieinarden:

aspiringwarriorlibrarian:

marzipanandminutiae:

kinkyturtle:

flintandpyrite:

kakumei-no-tomoshibi:

ravengoodwoman:

flintandpyrite:

Inexplicably annoyed by men writing about knitting!

???????

image

The tags on this are extraordinary:

image

girlfriend: *does a completely harmless craft that she enjoys, creating something while she watches tv*

boyfriend: “what is this anti-feminist spinster shit, i’m so alienated”

this is literally why I feel like I have to apologize for sewing

“sweetly oblivious old ladies” Hon I 100% guarantee to you that those old ladies are aware of you, your bloodline, your daily habits and your breakfast order and gossip about how rude you are as soon as you leave.

“If you want to eavesdrop on someone, knit or sew or some sort of womanly craft. Men will act as though you are deaf and blind even when shown evidence otherwise.” – Tricksters’ Choice.

I sourced this one a while back and I was really glad I did. It’s from the book Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting, an anthology in which “twenty-seven writers tell stories about how knitting healed, challenged, or helped them to grow.” The passage in question, from a story by Andre Dubus III, describes the writer’s state of mind after going through some problems with his family and having a fight with his girlfriend. Part of his difficulty is that their class disparity has recently come to the fore (his family is working-class, she was born into wealth; the “busywork” line seems a little more pointed), but mostly it’s that he feels disconnected from his roots and craves the easy connection to the past that his girlfriend’s art represents. Look at the way that even this out-of-context passage is written: his apparent contempt barely disguises his envy of her ease and skill, “her fingers working the needles and yarn without having to peek.” The entire arc is about how, finding himself compelled by her craft despite himself, he asks her to teach him to knit so that he can make a Christmas present for his aunt, and, in the process, comes to realize that there is more to knitting than the shallow ideas he read into it before he really understood it.

It’s sad that a man who wrote honestly about the impact that a “womanly art” had on his life got skewered (no pun intended) on the Internet because of this contextually necessary lead-up passage in which he outlines the negative stereotypes that stood in his way and pokes fun at his own immaturity.

My partner and I used to do a biannual local craft market, selling our own handknitted and handmade goods. One of the elderly ladies who ran the trash and treasure side of the market was talking to us about it, about how her own mother? grandmother? I can’t remember, was never without something to do with her hands. She said that she talked to her about it, and she said, “Well, Bea, sometimes a lady needs to sit down.” Bea clarified that she was talking euphemistically about pregnancy. She was also talking about male expectations of female productivity. That if your man came home at the end of the day, and said, “well, what have YOU done all day?” that you could then trot out a list of mending, knitting and handcraft (in addition to the staples of cooking and cleaning) to justify your upkeep. So, yeah, if a dude has a problem with a girl doing handcraft in her spare time, he should know that it’s his damn fault women are conditioned to be busy and productive even in her leisure, and maybe question exactly what benefit he brings the family unit by playing video games.

ruffboijuliaburnsides:

ourladyofwaysandmeans:

booyahkendell:

INCREDIBLE.

[Caption: Four tweets in a thread by @seananmcguire:

Tweet 1:

Mom: What’s slash?

Me: You know Dt. Carisi on LAW & ORDER?

Mom: Yeah?

Me: Well, I like to read stories where he’s banging the ADA.

Tweet 2: 

Mom: …you mean he’s not?

Me: The showrunners don’t seem to think so.

Mom: Aren’t you the one who says the author can be wrong.

Tweet 3:

…Mom is now full death of the author-ing the showrunners of LAW & ORDER: SVU on the topic of Carisi/Barba and how they’re obvs. banging.

Tweet 4:

She is SO MAD, she really thought they were this adorable queer couple on network TV, and now she’s going WHAT and muttering.]

@seananmcguire your mom is a delight.

titians:

titians:

titians:

can everyone plz wish my parents a safe flight tomorrow morning to the isle of man cos my dad’s ban from visiting the island has been lifted finally after 40 all cos he fired a bottle rocket at the queen of england when he was a teenager

since i’ve gotten some intrigued asks here’s the story:

when my dad was 15 he went with his scout troop to a scouting jamboree on the isle of man where he and his friends decided to set off bottle rockets in the park cos idk they were dumb boys. and one of the bottle rockets went careening off into the road where it exploded right beside a car

now, in what year was my dad 15? 1977. the queen of england’s silver jubilee year. and what was the car my dad’s bottle rocket hit? the queen’s car in the cavalcade during her jubilee visit to the isle of man

throw in the fact my dad is irish and the 70s were the height of the troubles between the republic and britain and WHAM BAM THANK YA MAM! my dad got hit with a lifelong ban from ever visiting the isle of man and he and the whole scout troop were sent home

idk who decided to let him off for good behaviour after 40 years but when he got the letter in 2017 saying he could visit the isle of man again after jan 1 2018, my dad burst into the room on my stepmom and i and announced, “WE’RE GOING TO THE CHANNEL ISLANDS!”

shout out to the anon who just messaged me “that means somewhere out in the multiverse there’s a universe where your dad murdered the queen of england” which i’m never posting and just keeping in my inbox forever thank you that’s lovely and yes that’s exactly the response i wanted this to get

kyraneko:

jenroses:

brinconvenient:

dani-kin:

quarterinthequeerjar:

fairytale-villain:

A good thread on whether “queer” is a slur and if it should be used or not.

“If I am unashamed of being queer, you do not get to give that word BACK to the fuckwits who made it a slur.”

you do not get to give that word BACK to the fuckwits who made it a slur

EVERYBODY WHO CAME OUT BEFORE YOU HAS TAKEN THE ROCKS AND BOTTLES AND MADE THEM INTO SHIELDS AND WINDCHIMES

Holy motherfucking shit. Don’t fucking come at me about Queer is a slur. I FUCKING KNOW IT IS. It was hurled at me like a fucking spear all through my youth. I know it’s a god damn slur. And it’s mine. You don’t get to take it away from me because you can’t take also away the scars it gave me while I was standing in front of my younger queer siblings in this community. 

always, always reblog this one.

If my enemy swings a sword at me and I take that sword away from them, it’s my sword now. And the person telling me I can’t use it because it belongs to my enemy and I have to give it back to them sounds quite a bit like an enemy themselves.

quinfirefrorefiddle:

grownupgeekgirl:

rightwingtoday:

lesbianshepard:

lesbianshepard:

lesbianshepard:

lesbianshepard:

my favorite out of context quotes from my archeology professor so far in no particular order

  • and floridians are just as human as you and me!
  • and the moral of the story is that there are no deadly snakes native to alaska
  • you might know this guy as one of the only archaeologists cool enough to be mentioned by indiana jones
  • it’s my dream to have my name said by harrison ford
  • i’m not going to apologize for having this class at 6am because you paid for it and it’s your fault. 
  • we don’t all dress like lara croft. i tried to get it to be a thing on a dig and my colleagues yelled at me. 
  • they were pretty good archaeologists except they were too racist to realize anything they found. 
  • i take back what i said about us not dressing like lara croft because lewis binford here is wearing nothing but short shorts and a cowboy hat. take notes for an academic halloween costume!
  • archaeologists can be good artists! not me, though. or anyone i know. but if you can draw just know you have options.
  • sometimes you find dead bodies when you dont really expect it and you just have to deal with it
  • archaeologists are the only people allowed to get exited when they find corpses. 
  • once i ruined thanksgiving dinner when i told my family i had gotten my degree in archaeology and my uncle commented he liked dinosaurs too
  • the closest i’ve ever been to a grizzly bear is when i left my glasses in my tent on a dig in alaska,  saw a big rock in the distance, and almost screamed

additional quotes

  • ah yes. archaeologists. or, as i love to call us,  pottery analysts
  • i mean he was kind of a good guy for helping us beat britain but he owned slaves so that really cancelled it out.
  • archaeology is like cultural anthropology, except after you interview the person you turn around and shoot them in the head.
  • do not use trees! trees are bad! don’t do it!
  • usually you find shards, but it’s super exciting when you find a really big shard
  • it’s basically like a waterpark, except you’re fully clothed and walking through a dark tunnel knee deep in muddy water. so, basically splish splash.
  •  i dont believe in curses but my colleagues and i like to encourage the idea of them so people stop touching our stuff
  • usually, you would find a knife in a kitchen. or underneath your pillow to really freak out your roommate who is a history nerd and has no idea why you would sleep with a knife under your pillow and he’ll get really scared and freaked out and okay i’m getting off topic
  • no matter what the other scientists say, archaeology is a real science.
  • don’t worry, i promise you, and whatever government agency that’s spying on me right now,  that i’m not a crazy communist trying to overthrow the government
  • by now you’ve noticed the big “POP QUIZ” written on the board. there isn’t one, but i wanted to see the looks on your face when you saw it. but you’re all dead inside so it’s not really funny.
  • everything was fine except the citizens of pompeii just woke up dead the next day
  • the number one question you should ask when you read old archaeology papers is “how the hell do you know?”
  • nothing pisses off old men more than young people asking “why” and “prove it” so do that as often as possible
  • this is incredible! all it takes is a computer the size of this room!

even more from the margins of my notebook!

  • when in doubt, it’s ritualistic
  • coprolites are the only shit archaeologists get excited over
  • i know the only reason you’re not laughing at my hilarious jokes is because it’s early 
  • they called it the garbage project. which is also what people call the projects i work on when we apply for funding.
  • what you have to realize is that people are fundamentally weird. they do weird stuff now and they have done it thousands of years ago.
  • things come and go but pottery is forever
  • i dont know if you all know this but moose are terrifying abominations. 
  • and today’s lesson is about the difference between dirt and soil!
  • please, please, please do not eat old butter you found buried in a bog.
  • normally i would say this blackboard is a feature because it isn’t portable and can’t be moved but this is a community college so who knows

one of my biggest fears is that this will get so many notes that someone in the class will see it and show it to the professor and he’ll realize half the notes ive been taking in class are jotting down the weird shit he says

This was the most magical thing I’ve ever read.

I would have loved this class. There are some good nuggets in there, among the weird. I’ve told my students a variant of this one:

“nothing pisses off old men more than young people asking “why” and “prove it” so do that as often as possible”

That right there is half the religious education for middle schoolers curriculum I’m writing.