why not donate to a trans rights org or abortion fund instead of sending me anon hate?
just a driveby reminder that if you comment on a post I reblogged claiming some vague term is actually talking about pedophilia, without ironclad proof, I am going to block you
if you do this using fandom terms like “proship” I am going to block you and then set you on fire
I guess I’m not surprised intellectually that papers of record are coming out in favor of “white men can just kill whomever they please and we’ll call them good Samaritans” (definetly a story where the good Samaritan prevented someone from dying homeless and alone in the desert, as I recall) but viscerally I’m deeply fucking unnerved.
Like it’s very strange but there’s a large subset of Americans who genuinely believe that every crime, every potential crime, and every person who served punishment or time for a past crime, is subject to the death penalty without judge or jury.
i understand that this is the “disabled people know our own limitations” website, but ime, if you are the kind of disabled where everyone around you knows about it and has known you as a weak, incompetent, subhuman creature your entire life: it is important to learn how to make the distinction between “i can’t” and “i’m not allowed to.”
“i can’t hold fragile things without breaking them” vs “my housemates won’t let me do dishes anymore.”
“i can’t manage my own finances” vs “my family won’t let me make my own financial decisions”
“i can’t ever learn how to drive” vs “the state has decided that people with my disability cannot be allowed to drive.”
also “what would need to happen for it to be possible for me to be able to do dishes?” or “what would i need if i were to ever move out?” or “what kinds of supports would i need if i did try volunteering?”
even if the answer to these you come away with is “i actually cannot do the thing, no matter what supports or accommodations i’m given” that’s fine! they’re still useful questions to ask!
Boy did I ever have to learn the difference between “I often struggle with normative social cues and subtext” and “I am bad at socializing and will embarrass the people I’m with every time I open my mouth”
“i can’t socialize” vs “people wont let me speak/advocate for myself/share my opinions”
If some asshole in your neighborhood shoots people through his locked front door. Then shoots them again when they are on the ground.
I think THAT’S the problem.
Language matters. Reframe the narrative.
And let’s drop the charade that this is a tragedy only because he’s a great kid and super nice. It doesn’t matter if he’s an honors student or a dropout or homeless or a gold medalist.
May 16 is Romani Resistance Day, which commemorates the uprising of Roma and Sinti prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In May of 1944, Roma and Sinti prisoners staged an armed resistance against the planned “liquidation” of the gypsy camps, which would have led to the mass murder of approximately 6,000 Romani. Thanks to the efforts of the Roma and Sinti interned at Auschwitz, these execution plans were staggered and delayed for several months. We hold this day to honor their bravery, mourn their deaths, and memorialize that which the Romani community endured under the Nazi regime.
The network can support Gypsy Roma and Traveller Women to
- Get help registering with a GP
- Get help to arrange a GP appointment
- Access to Midwives
- Advise on getting the right support
"This is a community led group” Dee, told Travellers Times “I think eventually it will be a positive move forward in terms of women’s health - but along the way we will be able to help men’s health and children too. For now, it’s all about building trust and getting those much-needed appointments and conversations going” at our first meeting in October- one woman left saying she “felt heard” after sharing her lived experience. Others had appointments booked for them that were long overdue.”
In the UK, Romani women are more vulnerable to stillbirths and miscarriages, have higher maternal death rates during pregnancy and after childbirth, and are 20x more likely to experience the death of their newborn child. Reasons for that are a lack of access to proper maternal care, a lack of awareness and education about maternal care, as well as poverty and poor environmental conditions. As of 2021-2022, the Romani life expectancy in the UK was of 50 years old for both men and women (x), about 30 years shorter than that of the general British population (x).
this is FANTASTIC. the next step is to dismantle the racism and misogyny within the NHS that affects all areas of our care, but this organisation will absolutely be a lifeline to gypsy/roma/traveller women in the UK.
outsiders don’t understand that most travellers are not registered with a GP surgery, meaning they can’t be prescribed medication, seek non-emergency treatment of any sort or be referred to an outpatients service (including cancer care iirc).
please support this network, it could really help people!!
it’s great that the network is community-run, as well, but i really hope the local NHS services cooperate on their end. i could see some issues coming up there as our actions often mean next to nothing in the eyes of non-travellers
I am thinking about making a passionate defense of the passive voice just to cause trouble on purpose
Look once you learn how to use the passive voice it will become clear to you why I spend half my time deliberately writing in it
Fuck it, let’s talk about it
Warning: Passive voice can be used for evil! Do not do it! Do not write sentences like “The man was shot by police.” No! Do not hide state violence in sentence structure!
You should use active voice when:
1. You introduce new information
2. You take or assign responsibility
Active voice is key for clarity when the sentence doesn’t have anything to refer back to. If you have to put “by (person, organization)” at the end of the sentence, it should have been active voice. Ex:
Our company fucked up the project and we’re sorry
NOT
Regrettably, the project was fucked up by us/on our watch/by one of our teams
But here’s why passive voice is great: because it collapses who did a thing and centers the fact that it happened. When you are referring back to something the parties already agree upon, it puts the result up front.
All project review will be completed by 18 Never 2029.
NOT
Kyle | Mark | us Arch | itects, Jim’s Construction, the Statesonia Department of Endangered Hummingbirds, the Federal Bureau of Staying the Fuck Out of It and like twelve other people will complete their reviews by 18 Never 2029.
No! Bad! The completion of the action matters, not the parties involved. And no, “The parties will complete their reviews” is absolutely not clearer, because it requires the same knowledge.
In fiction, passive vs active refocuses a sentence towards what you want the reader to pay attention to. Active:
A fog covered the city
Passive:
The city was covered by fog
Nothing wrong with either of them. It’s just what you want the reader to think about. Bonus round: the sentence feels more natural if you put the bulk of the description in the second half, so you can add more without making it impossible to follow. Active:
A fog covered the quiet, unsuspecting city as it slept
Passive:
The city was covered by a terrible, choking fog that crept through the silent streets
These are different sentences, but nothing’s wrong with either of them.
Passive voice gets a bad rap largely because even the dumbest professional development expert can ID it fairly regularly. It’s bad when it makes a sentence less clear; it’s good when it makes a sentence clearer. That’s it.
AND it can have immense humoristic potential, for the exact same reason you outlined, because passive voice reads as an attempt to dodge responsibility and misplace blame.
“The man was shot (by police)” and “The project was fucked up by us” are bad in serious contexts and actual writing.
But you can have a lot of fun with things like:
“My boss has been described in impolite terms.”
“Alice’s boss has been described in impolite terms by someone who wishes to remain anonymous.”
“I have been vilified, demonised, slandered, calumnied, scapegoated, lied about, written horrid pamphlets about, unlistened to, and reputationally walked all over.”
“The priceless crown jewels known as The Fanciest Rock Ever, insured for 100,000,000 billions and entrusted in our care by HRM the Queen of Fancyland, were found to have been misplaced this morning and have not been located at this time.”
“He was separated from his head.”
“He found himself divorced from.”
Useful friends in such cases: euphemisms, unexpected verbs, grammatically questionable sentence constructions, and obfuscation of the responsible party when it is glaringly obvious to the audience that there should be one or even who it is, etc., etc.