I was in first grade during a particularly bad brushfire in Southern California, and the experience has stayed with me ever since.  Miles away from the fire, the sky was clouded but not with clouds (and not with smog), and it snowed ashes all the time.  It was considered unsafe to be outside and not under a roof.

I still kind of hate seeing the world after a light thin snow.

I’d never seen a picture of such a thing before.  So nice to imagine it’s thousands of tiny campfires, some bigger ones, perhaps tiny buildings…

…but it isn’t.

hellanne:

Pike National Forest, Colorado by Thomas Cooper (by NatGeo*)

Actually the statistics on ER visits where “bed or sheets” is named as the reason for visit are kind of terrifying.  (If you haven’t read the Bill Bryson essay on this— I forget which book it’s in, probably I’m A Stranger Here Myself— you should.)  Hint: there’s more injuries from beds than from sharks.

the-absolute-best-posts:

Click to follow this blog, you will be so glad you did!

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Awww, owl kisses!

(Source: pr0paganda, via nothing-cansavemenow)

Acid attacks and honor-killings were probably the first human rights issue I ever got pissed off about.  When given a highschool assignment to educate our class about such an issue, I drew a series of simple, full-page drawings of women’s eyes framed by abeya (forgive me for not being entirely fluent in hijab terminology, but I think abeya is correct)) showing the woman, with bruises, with crosshairs, I don’t remember what else; I don’t think I drew acid scars because we’d discussed it in class, but not seen pictures, and I wasn’t quite brave enough to go looking.  My classmates called it “brutal.”  I was glad for that, because my stark, imprecise drawings completely fell short of what I felt about it.

At that time, anyway, the best and likely only thing local police could do to help a woman in danger of attack, or who had already been attacked, was effectively to benevolently arrest her.  Police custody had proved the only way to ensure a woman’s safety.

I’m glad the issue is being talked about more, in ways that will hopefully lead to corrective action.  

I hope many more people are moved.  Or enraged.

doctorfurious:

approachingsignificance:

Acid attack survivors fight back

Seventeen year old Neela is one of more than 2,700 victims of acid attacks in Bangladesh over the past 10 years. ‘My husband was angry…because he claimed a dowry but my family couldn’t provide one’, she says. ‘His plan was to sell me in Saudi Arabia - when I refused he threw acid on me and he fled.’

Nicolas Alexrod/ActionAid

Acid is thrown in women’s faces or forced down their throats almost daily in Bangladesh. Such violence melts skin and bone, often resulting in blindness. The country has become a hotspot for acid attacks, mostly on women, because of land disputes, refused marriage proposals and domestic quarrels.

A woman’s face is seen as sacred; to permanently scar it brings dishonour on her family and is a public mark of shame. It makes it hard for a woman to get married or gain employment and she becomes a financial and social burden on her family.

Acid attacks sicken me. They are one of the few situations where I almost think “an eye for an eye” is appropriate.

I am so glad to see this; I thought everybody did it, but every now and then, a lot more often than I’d like, somebody I’m with gets on the escalator behind me and then asks if everything is all right.  Or apologizes, because they forgot I hate escalators.  I don’t even know why.  But I hate them.

relatableblog:

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Breaking my rule of only reposting things I have something thoughtful to contribute about.  ’Cause this is adorable.

poupon:

coelasquid:

catbountry:

sweetappletea:

heyoscarwilde:

From imdb: ”During the filming of some scenes for The Princess Bride, the weather became markedly cold for Robin Wright Penn. Andre the Giant helped her by placing one of his hands over her head; his hands were so large that one would entirely cover the top of her head, keeping her warm.”

comic by Box Brown :: via flickr.com

This is so sweet how can I NOT reblog this. 

D’aaawwww.

All of the behind the scenes stories about Andre the Giant were adorable like this, Apparently Wallace Shawn is deathly afraid of heights, so he was freaking out while they were doing the scene scaling the cliff and Andre was like “it is okay, I’ll keep you safe.” there’s a behind the scenes thing on the DVD and everyone is choked up and misty eyed when they talk about working with him.

Andre the Giant was a radiant human being.

(via itswalky)

slaughterhouse90210:

“Good librarians are natural intelligence operatives. They possess all of the skills and characteristics required for that work: curiosity, wide-ranging knowledge, good memories, organization and analytical aptitude, and discretion.”

― Marilyn Johnson, This Book Is Overdue!

About the first time I sat down to watch Buffy, I made some very excited but kind of skeptical noises that went about like “Why do they have a cage full of crossbows?(!!?!)”

The answer, of course, became rapidly apparent; the comment I got in reply was actually “Wow, Giles is really your perfect hero, isn’t he.”

I have been trying to find out more about library cages ever since; I had previously I think only seen one at Lamont, which is Harvard University’s undergraduate library.  (I don’t think I got to go into the cage, but I got to send a librarian in to retrieve a microfilm for me.)  The guy I was watching Buffy with that night, though, swore his highschool library had a cage— admittedly, it housed an archival collection of newspapers they’d been given by a nearby repository, I think— and found it completely normal that Sunnydale did.  (Sunnydale?  Please forgive me if I’m wrong.  I have a lot of things in my brain.)

I’ve asked a few professors or lecturers and admittedly part of the problem is I don’t really have a focused question— like where do they come from?  Is there some kind of tradition about them, or lineage of which libraries have them?— and so I have gotten answers ranging from “A what now?” to “Oh, well, yeah, some universities have those, I’m sure…”

I’m told the Lamont cage— which is much, much, much bigger than the one shown above; I’ve been to public libraries with less square footage and shelf footage than the Lamont cage, I’m pretty sure— also houses “the X collection,” which is to say, the pornography collection (important, you know, for academic reasons), due to repeated theft problems.

I have not fact-checked any of this, except that Lamont has a cage.

I am sure if I did more research I could come up with a reason I find library cages fascinating that has nothing to do with keeping a pet “sexy librarian”… 

Oh, also, I love the quote that came attached to this.

I don’t know what I’d put in this, but I know it’d be awesome.  Clearly, I need to have one.  Moreso than the veins/branches vessel-for-wine I ran across sometime in the last couple weeks.  This is much more practical.

emileegraceee:

dopatonin:

want.

BRYCE.

(Source: horrorfetish, via nothing-cansavemenow)