a couple of tumblr functions if you didn’t know about them:
- you can make tags on an individual blog display from the earliest to latest post by adding /chrono to the end, for example: http://gameofgifs.tumblr.com/tagged/season_202/chrono
- you can search through a tumblog by date using “http://username.tumblr.com/day/YEAR/MONTH/DAY”, for example: http://gameofgifs.tumblr.com/day/2012/09/16
- you can view just the photo posts on your dashboard in mosaic form by going to http://www.tumblr.com/photos
- you can save ask messages to your queue or drafts by hovering your mouse over the publish button and holding down “alt”, which will bring up alternative options
- by using the url “http://www.tumblr.com/show/type of post” you can filter your dash, for example “http://www.tumblr.com/show/photos” will show only photos
- you can retrieve previously used themes via the theme recovery page: http://www.tumblr.com/themes/recover
- when reblogging a long text post (like this one!), click on the “as” at the top of the post to reblog as a text post, link or quote
KATY
KATY WHAT ARE YOU DOING
KATY DO YOU WANT ME TO SHIP IT
IMPORTANT UPDATE
So I asked Katy about this scene at Timegate and apparently there was a lot of laughter (and comments that she couldn’t repeat in a room with children) that RTD actually had to cut out.
Because that coffin was high up, and Katy and LIs were not as young as they once were, and Lis had to quickly jump in closely followed by Katy with that coffin lid banging down quickly after it. So when they opened it back up, Katy was on top of Lis in, and I quote, “the most inappropriate way possible,” and someone had to reach in and rearrange them before they could continue shooting.
Fairy tales are NOT all straight white heroes and women sans agency! I swear!
I re-blogged a picture of a little girl, dressed as Tiana, hugging the face actress who plays Tiana at one of the Disney Parks, and noted that everyone should have their princess. And a few people have now contacted me basically going “no, only straight white people can have princesses if you stick with the classics.”
Um.
No.
I am a folklorist, and it’s time for some Fun With Folklore.
First off, very few Princesses/fairy tale heroines who are going to become Princesses because that’s what you do are actually defined by specific physical attributes. You have Snow White, who yes, requires the “skin as white as snow” etc, but that’s to make her an alien beauty and justify the actions of her stepmother. She belongs to the Aarne-Thompson tale type 709, which is commonly referred to as “Snow White,” but which contains a hell of a lot more, including “Bella Venezia”, “Myrsina”, “Nourie Hadig” and “Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree.“ All those links will take you to Wikipedia. Click them. Note that NOT ONE of those girls is defined by her appearance, beyond “incredibly beautiful.“ “Nourie Hadig” is Armenian in origin; you can bet that girl was not white as snow. (Note that I do not actually care for the “Nourie Hadig” 709 variant, due to using a Roma girl as the main adversary, but that’s another story.) Any story you want to tell is going to have variants where the heroines are never described! You know why?
BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WHO WERE TELLING THESE STORIES UNDERSTOOD THAT IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR CHILDREN TO SEE THEMSELVES IN THE MIRROR OF THE TALE.
There are fairy tales about people with disabilities, ranging from the physical (missing limbs, missing eyes, missing tongues) to the emotional (girls who cannot smile, boys who cannot feel fear). There are fairy tales that end in same-sex marriage. There’s even an excellent fairy tale about gender identity, “The Princess Who Became A Prince,” in which our hero has always felt he was a boy, but tried to be a dutiful daughter, until a dragon stole a neighbor princess and he had to ride to rescue the girl in order to save the kingdom. One misaimed curse later, and wham, our new-minted prince is finally outwardly as he had been all along on the inside.
THIS IS JUST AS OLD AND TRUE AND SCHOLASTIC AS CINDERELLA AND THE OTHERS.
The “big fairy tales” of today are the ones that someone seized on as marketable. We have the power, as drivers of media, to say that we want more diversity. We want Princesses of every race, creed, and religion, and we have the folklore and fairy tales to make them real. We want our transgender Princess (although wow would the marketing be problematic). Saying “the classics” are 100% about straight white people reduces the past to a place where only straight whiteness existed, and where no other children ever needed stories. And that’s not what the past was.
Once upon a time has never stopped being right now.
1. The most senior officer charged in Gray’s death demanded the arrest of his ex-girlfriend’s husband who lives in a nearby town.
Two weeks before Gray’s arrest, Lieutenant Brian Rice walked into the Westminster Police Department demanding that officers go to the home of Karyn McAleer, Rice’s ex-girlfriend and a fellow Baltimore cop with whom Rice has a young son, to arrest her husband, Andrew McAleer, because he was allegedly violating a court-issued peace order to stay away from her and the home, the Guardian reports.
2. The city of Baltimore has spent more than $5.7 million settling cases of alleged police brutality dating back to 2011.
More than 100 people have won court settlements or judgments totaling $5.7 million related to allegations that Baltimore police officers abused them, according to the Baltimore Sun. Some of the victims suffered broken jaws, noses, arms, legs and ankles. Other experienced head trauma or kidney failure and some were killed. Most victims were black Americans.
3. Most police vans in the Baltimore region don’t have seatbelts.
A Baltimore Sun report found that vans in Anne Arundel, Harford, Howard and Baltimore counties do not have seat belts. One of Carroll County’s two police vans has seat belts. It is an important point, because Baltimore state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby accused officers involved in Gray’s arrest of violating department policy by not securing him in a seat belt. Gray suffered a fatal spine injury while in police custody, according to Mosby. The department has been accused of taking suspects on “rough rides” in police vans, the practice of purposefully tossing people around in the back of a car or van with the intent to hurt them. Since May 1, the day Mosby’s office charged the six police officers involved in Gray’s death, at least two other men have come forward accusing the department of taking them on rough rides.
4. Nearly 2,600 suspects have been turned away from Baltimore city jails because they were too injured to be admitted.
As AlterNet previously reported, from June 2012 to April 2015, nearly 2,600 detainees were so badly injured by the time they arrived at Baltimore jails that the jails would not take them. The Baltimore Sun originally reported that many of the detainees had broken bones and head injuries. Either the arresting officers did not know about the injuries or ignored them altogether. As a result, the city has shelled out tens of thousands of dollars to arrestees who told officers of injuries or pre-existing conditions but did not receive medical treatment.
5. Presidential aspirant Martin O’Malley may have some explaining to do about his record as mayor and the hyper-agressive policing he brought to Baltimore.
During Martin O’Malley’s time as mayor (1999 to 2006), the crime rate in Baltimore dropped 16 percent while arrests rose dramatically, something his critics say was a result of heavy-handed “zero tolerance” policing tactics. In 2005, 108,447 people were arrested, or about one-sixth of the city’s population, according to the Washington Post. About two-thirds of those arrested were jailed for nonviolent offenses.
6. No matter how badly cops behave, there will be legions of supporters willing to finance their defense teams.
Soon after the six officers involved in Gray’s death were charged, a GoFundMe campaign was started to raise money for their legal fees. The campaign was met with harsh criticism, forcing the crowdfunding site to shut down the page. “GoFundMe cannot be used to benefit those who are charged with serious violations of the law,” said Kelsea Little, GoFundMe’s public relations manager, according to the Los Angeles Times. “The campaign clearly stated that the money raised would be used to assist the officers with their legal fees, which is a direct violation of GoFundMe’s terms.”
7. The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the Baltimore Police Department, as it did in Ferguson.
Days after six cops were charged in Gray’s death, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake requested that the Department of Justice investigate the Baltimore Police Department to determine if it has engaged in patterns of unconstitutional policing, according to the New York Times. The DoJ opened a similar investigation into the Ferguson, MO police department and found a pattern of shockingly racist practices.
8. Two city correctional officers were charged with looting during the city’s unrest.
Two Baltimore corrections officers, Tamika Cobb and Kendra Richard, were captured on video taking items out of a 7-Eleven on April 25 during the unrest, according to the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Both officers were charged with theft and burglary and placed on unpaid leave.
Read the full article
ART: Psychedelic Paint and Poured Resin Artworks by Bruce Riley
Bruce Riley is a Chicago based artist who drips paint into paint in an endlessly layered arrangement resulting in paintings that look like underwater scenes, psychedelic visions and abstract dreamscapes.
