shoutout to paris hilton for not abandoning her ‘micropig’ 

when it turned out that it was a normal piggy who grew up to be a big fat fatty piggu

I am going to tell everyone a secret, especially people in rural areas. 

You…can do a slow social progressive takeover of your local Democratic party, probably. You just need to carve out some time for it.

“Renay”, you say, exasperated, “that sounds fake, but okay.” But I’m here to tell you that if you’re in a rural/red state (or even blue states), you have an excellent chance of infecting the Democratic Party in your area with some straight up radical empathy. And you can do it in sneaky ways. It’s a long game. Here is a list:

1. Find your county Democrats. You may have to start at state level, but eventually you should be able to track down the chair of the county party and find out where and when they meet. Start attending meetings. If they’re not having meetings, hoooooboy. That’s a totally different thing. I spent two years fighting that battle, but if you want help, ping me. 

2. At the very first meeting, if the group isn’t using a microphone, bring it up. Ask if the committee can invest in a portable PA system to bring to meetings to help people who have trouble hearing. If they balk (ables often will), don’t worry. Make the request once, and then make the request at every subsequent meeting, kindly, until they get so sick of you they cave and/or start empathizing with you. My position here: who cares why it gets done. Just get it done.

3. Keep going to meetings. Generally county parties meet every month.

4. If there are nametags at meetings, always use them and put your pronouns on them. Yes, even you, cis people. ESPECIALLY YOU.

5. At your third meeting, if the group is using sign in sheets, ask the secretary, or meeting chair if the former is unclear, if the sign in sheets could have a field for pronouns. It’s not about getting people to use it yet—that’s later—we just want it on the template so YOU can use it and set an example. Yes, you can make this request even as a cis person. In fact, it’s probably better that you do because it will cost you less. You can do the emotional labor instead of making trans and enby friends do the labor. This goes back to nametags: if you do it, you create a safe bubble for others to do it, or a social pressure situation for people to do it. Social pressure is sometimes toxic, but we can use it for positive things!

These are Very Simple things you can do to Increase Inclusion in local Democratic spaces and shove them left. This is just the start, too. There’s language scrubbing (kind of advanced because you need to have relationships with the people), requesting the committee invite guest speakers from marginalized communities, and becoming a delegate to the state party annual convention. This is Very Advanced because it generally means travel, but I plan to do it myself because in two years I’m going to make the Arkansas DPA adopt gender neutral language in their platform instead of this “he or she” business.

I mean, maybe you think of going to county meetings and go, “ugh I would rather eat glass” but you can always take an ebook on your phone or something (I do this…soon I will have time to knit again and I’ll be doing that). Take 3-4 hours out of your month and invest it.

What shoves the Democratic Party left? We do. A bunch of people taking small steps in their local communities. And then the candidates coming out of those committees get more progressive and thoughtful, too.

The world doesn’t change just because we want it to. We make it change.

Go do the work.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) confronted a CEO Thursday for pricing a drug designed to reduce the risk of HIV transmission at $8 in Australia but over $1,500 in the U.S.

“You’re the CEO of Gilead. Is it true that Gilead made $3 billion in profits from Truvada in 2018?” Ocasio-Cortez asked Gilead CEO Daniel O'Day.

“$3 billion in revenue,” he clarified.

The current list price is $2,000 a month in the United States, correct?“ she asked, referring to Truvada.

“It’s $1,780 in the United States,” O'Day responded.

“Why is it $8 in Australia?” Ocasio-Cortez countered.

“Truvada still has patent protection in the United States and in the rest of the world it is generic,” O'Day explained, adding, “It will be generically available in the United States as of September 2020.”

“I think it’s important here that we notice that we the public, we the people, developed this drug. We paid for this drug, we lead and developed all the patents to create Prep and then that patent has been privatized despite the fact that the patent is owned by the public, who refused to enforce it,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“There’s no reason this should be $2,000 a month. People are dying because of it and there’s no enforceable reason for it.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/444091-ocasio-cortez-confronts-ceo-for-nearly-2k-price-tag-on-drug-that-costs-8-in

Find an organization you trust - and join the fight. This is not the way the world must turn. https://www.instagram.com/p/BxglrGaBOKX/?igshid=br5hb8fn5inn

Brendan Fraser in George of the Jungle (1997)

BONUS:

Brie Larson’s acceptance speech at the Crystal + Lucy Awards

Don’t let another person ruin your day

ruin your own damn day

I don’t usually share screenshots of other people’s tweets, but this was too perfect 🐻

https://twitter.com/alixeharrow/status/1030461852579520512

Anyone that doesn’t think this is the coolest thing is wrong

You know the main problem with the “live action” Lion King? Why it looks so lifeless?

The hyper realistic style is actually limiting the animators, rather than freeing them. The style makes it much harder to have memorable character designs and good expressions. Real lions don’t need to do things like emote in a way that humans can understand – but characters in a film do. The original movie was more cartoony not due to animation limitations of the time, but because that style genuinely serves the story better.

To show you what I mean, compare these two shots of Simba, from right after Scar says “run away and never return.”

Here is a clear reaction, with a strong beat for us to connect with before the character makes a decision. Even without any dialogue, even without any context, you can understand the emotion there just by the expression and the mannerisms. Is it realistic? No! He’s bright yellow and has eyebrows. But do we empathize with him? Yes!

Meanwhile, here is… a lion. Turning and running. No expression, no beats, no character moments, nothing. He actually can’t express himself because the animators are locked into the realistic style. If they tried to animate a strong expression as warranted for the scene, it would look terrible. Is it realistic? Hell yeah! Look at those textures! Look at that fur! But do we empathize with him? …nah. Not really.

To conclude: when you’re retelling Hamlet with a bunch of animated lions, cartoonish-ness is your friend, not your enemy.

we’re getting into BOOKS again, kids. we’re out here reading BOOKS. it doesn’t matter if it’s YA lit or elementary school readers or “”great classic”” novels or comic books or even creative non-fiction. we’re reading BOOKS and we’re having FUN with it. 

My life is complete.

Hercules - is a rescued Lion that lives at the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado, and like other lions there, he sometimes dreams of roaring while he is sleeping

draw some fat elves you cowards you tepid fools