See that picture above? That’s a close up of my great grandmother’s immigration papers when she first came to the US back in the early 20th century. But my great grandma’s information isn’t the important part here. The important part is that line in the middle there about how they arrived in the country.

And how ‘stowaway’ is a legitimate, valid option to select.

So yeah. They absolutely just showed up, and that part of immigration history needs to be talked about a lot more.

REMINDER THAT TRAVEL VISAS AS WE KNOW THEM TODAY WERE INVENTED IN THE 1930S TO KEEP JEWISH REFUGEES OUT OF COUNTRIES THAT DID NOT WANT AN ‘INFLUX’ OF THEM, THEREBY FACILITATING THEIR GENOCIDE :)))))

read What is A Refugee for more history. Educate yourselves.

My book club is reading Paladin’s Grace (highly recommend) and the main lady owns a civet for use in perfume making.

We’re getting ready for bed when my beloved told me I should draw a civet for them because they sound cute.

“You can just look them up,” I suggested.

“Wait, they’re real? She describes it as a weasel cat!”

“Yeah no, it’s a real animal.”

My beloved furiously googled while meandering back into the bathroom and then from the other room exclaimed, “NO ONE SHOULD OWN THIS.”

Then whispered, “They’re so cute though.”

good traits gone bad

my collection

Boycott launch date of Switch 2 and buy it the next day, June 6.

This has worked before:

When the 3DS released, it was over priced too. No one bought it so then they lowered the price!

It has happened before, it can happen again.

If you can wait even 1 day at least, or 1 week at best, it will make a difference.

Spread the news. In solidarity of those who can't buy Switch 2, those who can buy it should at least boycott the launch date. I garantee you it WILL make a difference.

Remember the consumer is always right.

Source:

You could also just… not buy it until the price goes down? Yall have other games you can play right

This^

You won't die if you don't buy it until the price drops. You actually won't even die if you NEVER buy it.

Just leave it alone until they learn their lesson again.

i think itd be funnier if yall just didnt buy it in the first place

one of my little hobbies is tagging posts with things that make just enough sense to know why it's there, but making the comparison is going to piss off OP. notably #homestuck and #weezer, neither of which have i read

You can read Weezer?

No

Well you actually can

the reading comprehension on this site

None of those words are in homestuck

i do think we need to start treating spraying harmless "weeds" in your lawn as utterly absurd princess and the pea level of obsession with needing the world to revolve around your every whim, like.

Okay a flower grew out of the ground outside and you can't cope with it. Do you need to sleep on thirty feather beds as well

in my meeting with one of the people who is over grounds on my college campus i was told that when the college stopped spraying weeds, they would actually get calls from people. complaining about the dandelions

and I was sitting here like okay this is why I shouldn't be in a public facing job because i would be the rudest motherfucker imaginable about that.

what, are you some kind of spoiled child monarch who drinks out of a golden sippy cup? Do you have a retinue of servants at home to dispose of anything and everything that you might arbitrarily dislike? have you considered leading a life where you might encounter something that could be described as a real problem? do you call the weatherman to complain when it rains?

I honestly can't even imagine what must happen inside the kind of person that would do that. "Hello I have an urgent problem, you see, I visited your campus recently and there was a flower." "yes?" "I didn't like the flower." "Uh huh..."

What a sad way to live, honestly, that the sight of a little flower could ruin your day so much you have to call someone to complain.

for a website who talks about reading comprehension so much, no one has any idea what its like for animal videos. so here you go, sincerely im tired of your fucking bullshit.

I thought I’d expand on point 2 for a little more context. The AZA is not the only accrediting organization—there are others in the USA and around the world. Admittedly, most of my knowledge is centered around US zoos.

AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums) is considered the gold standard in the USA. Their standards are rigorous, and it is exceedingly difficult to achieve accreditation from this organization. They cover zoos and aquariums, but rarely accredit sanctuaries.

The ZAA (Zoological Association of America) also performs accreditations for zoos and aquariums, with moderate standards and less frequent check-ins. Many members of the AZA look down on the ZAA somewhat. Approach ZAA accreditation with a little more caution, but they can generally be trusted

The ASA (American Sanctuary Association) accredits sanctuaries in the USA. The GFAS (Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries) accredits sanctuaries worldwide. Both have high standards.

USDA licensing is the absolute bare minimum. The USDA requires licensing for animals in research facilities, zoos, circuses, pet dealers, etc. These licenses and inspection reports are publicly viewable through APHIS. The permits say that you provide proper food, water, shelter, and vet care—but they are so wildly under-enforced that they cannot be trusted. Note that APHIS primarily targets mammals and some birds, so reptile-focused facilities such as Snake Discovery are legally unlicensed.

Other accrediting bodies exist around the world. EAZA for Europe, BIAZA for Britain and Ireland, and so many more. For zoos outside of the USA, your best bet is to look up which accrediting bodies oversee the country in question

this is very very good and useful!! thank you !!

oh hey. one last thing to put on here

7. stop touching that fucking hippo stop it stop it stop it stop letting her bite you she deserves better it is not safe to be touching animals like that and teaching them it is okay to bite stop touching her stop she is displaying threat responses please

i love the phrase "which could mean nothing" i think its my favorite thing to come out of the internet ever i love saying it. it could mean nothing but we all know better. we know the truth.

excuse me, no I wasn't???

congratulations to today’s lucky 10000

it is weird that celiac stuff has become part of the 'culture war'. because it's literally just a medical thing.... I get super anemic unless I cut a certain protein out of my diet, because it bulldozes the villi in my intestines. but if I post about it, right-wingers send me gore images. I guess you can't expect shitty people to be logical, but I've even heard lefty people make fun of gluten stuff, and it's like why are you mad about this??? why are you pissed off that I'm eating bread that doesn't taste as good so that I can have blood in my body? it's so morally neutral.

I'm sorry, I know you weren't actually looking for an explanation but I always have a rant about this locked and loaded.

As far as I can tell the reasons that this happens are:

Anyway, in conclusion: it sucks, I'm sorry.

The fun flipside of this is that I've seen people who are more right wing become aggressively pro regulation and pro accommodation when they or their family members have to suddenly take on the individual burden of making up for a society that doesn't include them by default.

US specific:

Is your ham made with vinegar? Does your ham have the generic word "spices" on the ingredient list? Does your ham include "smoke flavoring"? Does your ham include caramel coloring?

Because malt vinegar has gluten in it. "Spices" may include wheat products in a mix. Smoke flavoring may be made with barley flour. Caramel coloring may be made with wheat or barley syrup.

If the label says "gluten free" that means that the "spices," caramel coloring, vinegar, and smoke flavor are certified to contain 20ppm or less of gluten.

If the ham is cured in any way, it may include gluten. If the ham was marinated, it probably includes gluten. If the ham was prepared in a facility that processes wheat in any way, it might be cross contaminated with gluten.

There's a company out there called "Gluten Free Water" that makes water in plastic bottles, poking fun at the idea that too many things have a gluten free label. I fucking hate that company. Because that company is functionally saying "lol, people are so sensitive and over the top about this, let's be a little silly and laugh about how crazy people can be with their 'gluten free' nonsense."

Did you know that there are sustainable food containers and straws that contain wheat? And that you don't have to label them? There are definitely people with celiac who have been sickened by biodegradable plastic straws in their "obviously water is gluten free there's no risk here" water.

"It's over-labeled so it looks trendy" just means you don't know how foods are made or what foods contain gluten. Gluten is ridiculously common in foods in general, and also in packaged meats.

Your ham has to say gluten free because it distinguishes it from the hams that do contain gluten, which is a fucking lot of them. And you're annoyed that your ham has to say gluten free and I'm annoyed that I'm standing in the grocery store calling a ham company to figure out where they source their caramel coloring so I can figure out if the damned ham is safe to eat.

"lol, oats don't have wheat in them, are people so stupid that they have to be told what is and isn't wheat? why does this oatmeal have a gluten free label?" Cross contamination; gluten free oats are not grown near wheat and are not processed in facilities that process wheat.

"lol, rice doesn't have wheat in it, why is this rice labeled gluten free, all rice is gluten free" Cross contamination; the rice isn't processed on equipment that processes wheat.

"lol why does this turkey breast say gluten free, it's just fucking turkey" read the ingredients on your "just" turkey, lots of packaged meat is packed in broth, some of which contains modified food starch, which may contain wheat.

"lol why are these strawberries labeled gluten free? they're fucking strawberries" WAX, BUDDY. SOME FRUITS ARE COATED IN PRESERVATIVE WAX FILMS BY THE MANUFACTURER AND SOME OF THOSE FUCKING FILMS CONTAIN GLUTEN.

I think that part of the reason that people are so irritated by g-free labels is because it exposes them to just how vast and alienating their food systems are.

"Ham should just be meat from a pig, maybe with sugar and salt; what on earth is happening that there might be wheat in that process? Nothing in that process should involve wheat." And then you might have to think about it for a second, might have to wonder what "sugar" and "salt" mean when someone is producing a million hams to be delivered thousands of miles away. It's not just sugar and salt; it's preservatives and nitrates and batch cooking and getting corn syrup instead of sugar and getting smoke flavoring instead of smoking the ham and turning your "whole food" into all the ingredients that make up the ingredients that make up the ingredients.

A "gluten free" label says "you can eat this" to somebody with celiac disease, who has already pounded their skull against the shittiness of the medical system and the food system.

But to someone who doesn't have to worry that their food is going to disable them, a "gluten free" sticker on ham takes a known quantity and turns their sandwich into a hyperobject that contains animal agriculture and industrial additive production and shipping pollution and the ongoing assault on regulation.

If it doesn't have the label, you can just eat your lunch. If it does have the label, you are haunted by the specter of RFK junior imploding the FDA.

Turns out that everyone in the US with celiac is already constantly haunted by the possible implosion of the FDA because food regulation is an up-close and personal part of our daily lives that most people would rather not think about.

I haven't watched Amok Time in a while, so remind me:

was there an explaination given in episode why Spock didn't just have his 7-year heat cycle on a 24th century period-tracker app?

Like it seems like the kind of thing you'd want to take time off work for, and I'm sure Starfleet has medical leave.

Even if he didn't want to tell them, surely he could have just asked for time away ahead of time and not explained why?

frankly the whole scenario feels like an HR/management failure?

Even if Spock is the only Vulcan on the ship, surely one of these fucks has been to a training class which talks about the different medical needs of the various races of the federation?

There's gotta be a yeoman who tracks time off who has been to a bunch of cultural sensitivity classes.

okay I'm gonna headcanon it as being entirely spock's fault.

He's been getting notifications for months and keeps ignoring them, putting them off for later, forgetting when that exactly would happen... until suddenly it's too late and he's on a mission and OOPS HE JUST INVENTED SLASH FICTION.

the worst part of "you'll understand when you're older" is that you really do understand when you're older

The second worst part is, once you get older, you find yourself saying "you'll understand when you're older" with Full Comprehension of how fucking annoying you're being right now, but also knowing that it's all you can say.

i made a little game over the weekend for ludum dare yay

Okay okay okay so I’m changing like every recognizable detail of this for privacy purposes but yall need to appreciate this

So I know how to retain CCTV footage, right? It doesn’t come up everywhere but I know my way around- and if someone gets jumped in a parking lot or whatever I can go backwards and see whodunnit

So I’m at this one place, right? And I get a call that an older woman in a wheelchair got hurt somehow and we need to see what happened.

Nobody remembers the exact time, because of course not, but they tell me she was wearing like a massive hot pink jacket and she’s in a wheelchair and she left with a medic round 09:45ish, so I figure I’ll start there.

So I find the incident itself no problem, but they need ALL footage for liability and insurance and stuff, so I have to keep going

And about ten minutes backwards, I lose her. She comes into view past a single shelf on one of the worse cameras and vanishes.

like. VANISHES. Hot pink jacket, big bulky black chair, gonzo. No idea where she came from.

So, I pull up entry cams. Zoom backwards till I see her come in… at like 06:15.

THREE AND A HALF HOURS EARLIER.

So first off, this is gonna take me like two hours minimum to write down, forget retention. And I’m kind of dying in my soul a bit but I start over there, watching her come in and meander and whatever.

At about 08:30ish she disappears.

Doesn’t leave. Doesn’t head to a bathroom. Doesn’t take her coat off. Her trail just stops.

Now, I’ve done this before. Typically, a location only has the mandatory minimum amount of room for a chair or walker to get around, so a person using one can only go forwards and it’s hard to 180. That limits options and makes it easier to follow, whereas a little unattended and fully mobile kid will zoom around in circles and shit and go who the hell knows where.

Then I see her again on the other ass end of the building, and I have to go back again to see how she GOT there.

My guys.

Her two and three-point turns are INCREDIBLE.

She’s popping on the wheels, flip, zoom, she’s out somewhere I didn’t think she could even GET to. I’ve been planning my search for places that fit a wheelchair or least-resistance fast-paths from A to B and she’s like… doing some Tokyo Drift shit.

I don’t know WHY. The whole place is basically completely accessible so long as you put up with having to reverse, but no. No, she goes where she wants.

I’ve been at this for half the day, and I still have no idea where she went for like an hour and a half.

Fuck me, I’m taking a lunch break

This is barely an exaggeration

(x)

I love how the tornado doesn't look malicious. She's just dancing along, doing her thing, and it's a pity you're so very ant-sized below.

tumblr will turn anything into a girl

of course, this is the turning into a girl website

she/herricane

i love that my primary social media site is the Turning Into A Girl website