a guy in a salvos truck yelled at me and my gf while we were kissing today so I was thinking of this
Do you know, when I was in high-school I went to the mall near my house with my girlfriend to do some Christmas shopping.
We were there, sixteen year old me and seventeen year old her, holding hands and window-shopping, minding our own business.
This Salvation Army shitheel gets aggro about it in the middle of the mall and I’m there totally flabbergasted cause like, it’s christmas
Only, 16!Tabi had even less composure than 26!Tabi, so I lost my fucking mind on her.
Thing is: when I’m really angry, I don’t rage, I go all cold and apparently that freaks people out, because I could see my gf backing up and the lady getting tense and then I realized that anger doesn’t solve problems.
So instead, I started wailing.
Picture this: 5’4, tiny, blonde haired high school girl with her little violin on her back and pearls in her ears just as PTA-approved as could be, full on sobbing in the hallway.
Just, sobbing like my dog’s been shot.
Now my gf’s like, “oh fuck” and the lady’s like “oh fuuuuck!” and I’m here, head thrown back, tears down my cheeks and in that shrill, distressed, /loud/ voice, “WHY WOULD YOU B-b-be so MEAN?! It’s CHRISTMAS!”
And the lady’s like “please stop Oh fuck” because now we have a crowd, and this Molly Weasley of a woman putters over, “what’s the matter, dear?”
And mall security’s coming and this bell ringer is looking very uncomfortable so I just look at this matronly ellen-watching suburban housewife lady, eyes wide and wet and my lip wobbling.
“I was, she s-said, s-s-she said I was going to HELL!”
And I burst right back into tears.
Maaaaaaaan, they didn’t even stick around to ask why she’d said it. Soon as I said it, Mall po-po bounced her like a fucking pogo stick.
We get outside and my girlfriend’s like “that is the most Slytherin thing I have ever seen anyone do.”
It was four years before I saw the Army back in that mall.
that is beautiful
Holiday reminder: don’t let anyone get away with trying to make you feel bad about yourself.
So yeah, they’re not just ‘homophobic’, they’re bigoted fucking murderers.
(Wikipedia article on her death conveniently (for SA) omits Salvation Army connection, linking only to expired articles from local newspapers)
SA claims that they didn’t turn her away, and accept all homeless people, except, it’s not like Jennifer Gale was only trans woman refused shelter by Salvation Army, making this denial appear to be worth less than bullshit:
🎊Tis the season for reminders: Salvation Army is a horrifically conservative as well as plainly ineffective charity that runs more like a business. And actively spreading reasons not to support them helps them wither amd make room for more productive and hollistic charities.
Another great seasonal reminder: Slytherins are awesome 🐍🐍🐍
It doesn’t run like a business. Businesses have to pay the women who work for them.
Few months early but if I see Salvation Army in a mile radius of me, I’m walking around with my pride flags
Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers.
…
After I arrived, I was ushered into what I thought was the green room. But instead of being wired with a microphone or taken to a stage, I just sat there at a plain round table as my audience was brought to me: five super-wealthy guys — yes, all men — from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. After a bit of small talk, I realized they had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology.
They had come with questions of their own.They started out innocuously enough. Ethereum or bitcoin? Is quantum computing a real thing? Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern.Which region will be less impacted by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”
rich people are fucking terrifying
The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.
This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.
If confirmed, this discovery would represent the widest reach ever seen for a black hole acting as a stellar kick-starter — enhancing star formation more than one million light-years away. (One light year is equal to 6 trillion miles.)
A black hole is an extremely dense object from which no light can escape. The black hole’s immense gravity pulls in surrounding gas and dust. Sometimes, black holes hinder star birth. Sometimes — like perhaps in this case — they increase star birth.
“One always dies too soon — or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.” – Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit