A Holiday Appears!

[beatbandito]

[nosimpleway]

Karma+

[Mongrel]

belly laugh

[Thad]

(via Star Trek Minus Context)

[Thad]

Happy John Brown's Birthday.

[Friday]

My favorite thing to do to the "I agree with BLM in principle but don't agree with their actions" crowd is to ask them if they think John Brown was an immoral criminal who should have not done what he did.

Inevitably, they reply "Who?"

[atog]

My favorite thing to do to the "I agree with BLM in principle but don't agree with their actions" crowd is to ask them if they think John Brown was an immoral criminal who should have not done what he did.

Inevitably, they reply "Who?"

sadly that response characterizes the vast majority of Americans regardless of where their civic responsibility axis might point :/

[Friday]

Yeah I was not taught about John Brown at all in school despite the fact that he is the best (white) American person in history basically

like this dude just straight up went YO BITCH I AM GONNA BURN THIS WHOLE SLAVERY THING DOWN AND I'M DOING IT BECAUSE I'M A GOOD BOY CHRISTIAN AND GOD HATES SLAVERY and just nothing at all in public schools is said

like i understand schools just sort of trying to sweep Malcom X under the rug while coughing and averting their eyes and saying "oh don't look at this guy, instead look at this heavily whitewashed and fictionalized version of MLK" but like you'd think white people would hold John Brown up as an example of the ultimate "good one" but instead they just hide him because oh no what if we teach our children that it's okay to use violence against the institution of slavery and the people who run that institution and profit from it

i had to learn about him on wikipedia eight years ago when i was reading about Bleeding Kansas (another thing you will not be taught)

tl;dr as i have gotten older I've realized that it's not so much that the history they teach you in school is lies (though there's a lot of that, see whitewashed MLK above) it's more that they just leave so, so much out.

The Tulsa/Greenwood race massacre wasn't even taught in Oklahoma schools for decades.

[KingRoyal]

I learned about John Brown in school, though I learned more about his violence than about the violence of the actual slavers

[Mongrel]

Yeah I was not taught about John Brown at all in school despite the fact that he is the best (white) American person in history basically

like this dude just straight up went YO BITCH I AM GONNA BURN THIS WHOLE SLAVERY THING DOWN AND I'M DOING IT BECAUSE I'M A GOOD BOY CHRISTIAN AND GOD HATES SLAVERY and just nothing at all in public schools is said

like i understand schools just sort of trying to sweep Malcom X under the rug while coughing and averting their eyes and saying "oh don't look at this guy, instead look at this heavily whitewashed and fictionalized version of MLK" but like you'd think white people would hold John Brown up as an example of the ultimate "good one" but instead they just hide him because oh no what if we teach our children that it's okay to use violence against the institution of slavery and the people who run that institution and profit from it

i had to learn about him on wikipedia eight years ago when i was reading about Bleeding Kansas (another thing you will not be taught)

tl;dr as i have gotten older I've realized that it's not so much that the history they teach you in school is lies (though there's a lot of that, see whitewashed MLK above) it's more that they just leave so, so much out.

The Tulsa/Greenwood race massacre wasn't even taught in Oklahoma schools for decades.

Hell, virtually no one knows about the MOVE Bombing in Philly, even though it was less than 40 years ago and, you know, involved the Philly Police FIREBOMBING AN ENTIRE CITY BLOCK TO THE GROUND.

I mean, I guess Philly residents actually remember (it was broadcast live locally at the time), which is maybe SLIGHTLY better than the Oklahoma situation, but like "Handled better than the Greenwood Massacre" is not exactly a high bar of civic duty. For all I know maybe they don't even mention it in Pittsburgh, let alone other states.

[Mongrel]

In a non-racial context, the Battles of Matewan, Blair Mountain, and the greater West Virginia Coal Wars are in a similar memory hole.

[Mongrel]

Oh, a couple days late now, but in honour of V-E day on the 8th, a letter, from Lt. Richard Helms, an agent with the OSS who managed to get his hands on some of Hitler's stationary, to his three-year old son.



In one of those sadder twists history takes, Helms eventually became director of the CIA from '66 to 73' (what a time), and by then was deeply devoted to previous director John McCone's view that, by definition, intelligence agencies could only be maintain proper operational secrecy by withholding information to the maximal possible extent, even from one's own government. As a result, Helms subsequently became the only Director ever convicted of lying to Congress, subsequent to the Church Committee hearings of of 1975 which had been appointed to uncover abuses in the lettered agencies of the US government, the FBI, CIA, IRS, NSA, etc.

Among many other things, the Church Committee most famously investigated or revealed MKUltra, COINTELPRO, Project SHAMROCK, the "Family Jewels" assassination program, and the entire existence of the NSA, which had been a secret prior to the hearings.

So, uh, yeah... but I would say the words composed by a younger man are no less true or accurate, in spite of the sinister creature his older self became.

[beatbandito]

[Mongrel]

Sure, ours is in November when everything is somber anyway, but May lets you be more... colourful.

[Silversong]

Happy International Lolita Day!

I went out in mounds of fabric and had brunch in the melting sun, while trying to explain to a waitress how to make an iced americano.

[Mongrel]

Happy first Father's Day Thad, may it be a great memory for you.

[Silversong]

http://www.swil.org/FILKS/Old_format/Ha ... arols.html

I just found this, and it makes me so happy.

... What? I waited till September.

[Mongrel]

It's Friday the 13th in October!

Give us your spoopiest scares!

[Friday]

/me slams down the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark trilogy

[Büge]

It's Friday the 13th in October!

Give us your spoopiest scares!