Sunshineandlaughingeyes

stars-bean:

The Secret World of Arrietty | 借りぐらしのアリエッティ(2010) dir. Hiromasa Yonebayashi

baravaggio:

My favorite tiktok account as of late

ouroborosorder:

ouroborosorder:

this is such a profoundly stupid thing to be mad about but. i periodically think about how banksy made one of my single favorite pieces of art of all time, and everything else he’s ever done has sucked. man, how did you nail it once

It’s this piece, titled The Banality of the Banality of Evil. Because on first glance, you’re like. Yeah, okay, it’s obvious what it’s saying. Even nazis, even evil people can appreciate beauty, too. But then you learn its name, and suddenly the interpretation shifts a bit. The idea that evil is banal has in itself become banal. my first response to seeing a nazi on a bench is “oh it’s about the banality of evil” and not “jesus christ there’s a nazi on the bench.”

and like. i dunno i think that’s a really interesting way for a title to recontextualize a piece. it’s finding nuance by tearing out the nuance you want to project onto it. it’s not the greatest piece of art ever made, but i’d be lying if i said i didn’t have a huge soft spot for it

razielim:

Contrary to popular belief, “gancho” is not the Herdazian word for “boss” or some equivalent meaning, it is actually short for “Goncharov,” a beloved national stage play first put on some fifty years ago which speaks to the Herdazian soul with delicate themes of fraternity and five-dimensional Towers levels of intrigue. The play’s central figure Goncharov looms large over all Herdazian understandings of what it means to be family, not by blood but by loyalty.

identitty-dickruption:

identitty-dickruption:

the problem with addiction is not that it’s pleasurable. it’s not “having too much fun” disease. it’s not even a requirement for addiction that you have fun at any point in the process at all and to be honest it is incredibly common that no pleasure is gained from substance use. imagining that addiction is about pleasure does two things: 1) demonises feeling good (there is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy/comfortable/etc), and 2) frames addicts as people who Like Having Fun Too Much. it’s simply not useful to frame things this way as well as just fundamentally not being true

idk man I had to get sober because it got to the point where drinking made me suicidal but I also couldn’t stop getting to that point. but it’s also true that I got to that point in the first place because my life was fucking bleak and I needed something to numb myself from it, and drinking helped me to cope Up To A Point. it’s a lot more complicated than pathological hedonism. lol

cosmicretreat:

Fascists always think they have this great idea to fix a non-existent problem, and it’s always just a poll tax, as specifically prohibited by the 24th Amendment. Meanwhile, there’s already not enough voter turnout and these pigs are just rigging elections or whining to the corrupt Supreme Court. I found out that I was one of only 16% of people who voted in my county. America is disgusting.

asciidot:

asciidot:

i keep thinking about the graphic designer pride flag

it has captivated me

darkenedyeastextract:

mademoiselle-red:

I came across a xiaohongshu post that showed pictures of an abandoned traditional village in a mountainous region of China with very little surrounding greenery that had the captions: “so sad how traditional villages like these are empty and abandoned”

But the top comment was: “I am so happy for the villagers who finally made it out of the mountains and into new homes in prosperous cities. It often takes multiple generations of hard work to get the entire family out. Every family in this village achieved this. What you are looking at is the evidence of their success!”

And the second highest liked comment was: “You can tell this area has poor agricultural resources. The ancestors of the villagers were likely forced to settle here because more powerful villages have occupied the attractive fertile lands. Who knows how long they had been trapped here? I’m glad they finally made it out!”

Another comment with high likes: “My grandparents’ village was like this. Poor air quality from burning coal in poorly ventilated buildings. Bitterly cold in the winter. Dry and hot in the summer. Short growing seasons. And there was always a shortage of water. My parents got factory jobs in the city and after working and saving for years, they finally got all of us out.”

And it occurred to me how when we romanticize old fashioned villages and mourn the loss of the type of community they provided, we sometimes downplay and overlook the extraordinary liberation and agency that industrialization brought and brings to people who in previous generations had no option but to remain where they were born for most of their lives.

I know you don’t mean this in this way, but to reiterate for ppl reading:
“mourn the loss of the type of community they provided” is a continuation of the romantic hallucination and is at best, a deeply ingrained fundamental misunderstanding that needs to be uprooted.

Sense of community is a byproduct of collaboration, a collaboration that is inherently necessary in any economic system that lasts more than one harvest. It is a form of social labour that is, due to survivorship, recognised as necessary for life in these places. It’s the sort of bad thinking that leads to people wanting to “live rough in the mountains” when all they want is to not get winded after walking a mile.

There is no “type of community” to mourn, nor is it “provided”. I implore ppl still confused to reread those translated comments again, of people who have lived experience of these villages and now live urban lives. If there was anything to mourn about the community, they’d be the first to say so, and maybe they do every now and then. But the thing overshadowing that is the one that everyone relates to; the poverty of economic uncertainty, the social strife of isolation, and the basic physical suffering of what needs to be done. I gotta reiterate on that point, if you’ve never experienced soapy tapwater, trash burns, or even keeping a proper flock of animals it’s tough - tough in a way that’s difficult to post about.

underafullmoon3:

Where’s my Breakfast?

Oil on Panel 30x30 cm

Artist: Daniel Arthur

bloglikeanegyptian:

Fom the Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs at Brown University:

Threats to journalists in conflict zones are increasing at a time when journalism is under unprecedented threat and the news industry is mired in a decades-long downward spiral. Since the 2000s, national governments and terrorist groups – from Israel, Syria’s Assad regime and the United States to the Islamic State – have found ways to curtail conflict coverage through myriad means, from repressive policies to armed attack. All have killed journalists and helped to foster a culture of impunity, turning conflict zones like Syria and Gaza into “news graveyards.” The war in Gaza has, since October 7, 2023, killed more journalists than the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the con2licts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined. It is, quite simply, the worst ever conflict for reporters.

[Read the full study here.]