Frankly, The People Whose Kneejerk Reaction To Bisan Asking For A Global Strike Form The 21st-28th Is

my evil chalice came in but its so fucking small. goddamnit. they're going to make fun of me at the wizards circle tonight

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saru brother

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The thing is, Jean Valjean’s “nineteen year prison sentence for stealing a loaf of bread” from Les Mis isn’t actually unusual….not even today! I see people talking about it as if it’s strange or unimaginable when it happens every day.

In modern America — often as a result of pointlessly cruel (and racist) habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws— people are routinely sentenced to life in prison for minor crimes like shoplifting or possession of drugs.

The ACLU did a report in 2013 detailing the lives of various people who were sentenced to life in prison without parole for nonviolent property crimes like:

•attempting to cash a stolen check

•a junk-dealer’s possession of stolen junk

metal (10 valves and one elbow pipe)

•possession of stolen wrenches

•siphoning gasoline from a truck

•stealing tools from a tool shed and a welding machine from a yard

•shoplifting three belts from a department store

•shoplifting several digital cameras

•shoplifting two jerseys from an athletic store

• taking a television, circular saw, and a power converter from a vacant house

• breaking into a closed liquor store in the middle of the night

And of course, so so so many people sentenced to life without parole for the possession of a few grams of drugs.

And we could go on and on!

Gregory Taylor was a homeless man in Los Angeles who, in 1997, was sentenced to “25 years to life” for attempting to steal food from a food kitchen. He was released after 13 years. The lawyers helping to release him even cited Les Miserables in their appeal, comparing Taylor’s sentence to Jean Valjean’s.

And there’s another specific bit of social commentary Hugo was making about Valjean’s trial that’s still depressingly relevant. He writes that Valjean was sentenced for the theft of loaf of bread, but also that the court managed to make that sentence stick by bringing up some of his past misdemeanors. For example, Valjean owned a gun and was known to occasionally poach wildlife (presumably for his starving family to eat.) . So the court exaggerates how harmful the bread theft was—he had to smash a windowpane to get the bread, which is basically Violence— then insist the fact that he owns a gun and occasionally poaches is proof that he is habitually and innately violent. Then when Valjean obviously becomes distressed traumatized and furious as a result of his nakedly unjust sentence and begins making desperate (and very unsuccessful/impulsive/ poorly thought through) attempts to escape…. the government indifferently tacks more years onto his sentence, labels him a “dangerous” felon, and insists that its initial read of him as an innately violent person was correct.

And it’s sad how a lot of the real life stories linked earlier are similar to the commentary Hugo wrote in 1863? Someone will commit a nonviolent property crime, and then the court insists that a bunch of other miscellaneous things they’ve done in the past (whether it’s other minor thefts or being addicted to drugs or w/e) are Proof they’re inherently violent and incapable of being around other people.

A small very petty fandom side note: This is also why I dislike all those common jokes you see everywhere along the lines of “lol it’s so unrealistic for the police to want to arrest Valjean over a loaf of bread, there must have been some other reason the police were pursuing him. Because the state would never punish someone that harshly and irrationally for no reason. so maybe javert was just gay haha”. (Ex: this tiktok— please don’t harass the creator or poster though, I don’t think they were intending to mean anything like that and its just a silly common type of joke you see made about Les mis all the time so it’s not unique in any way.) because like.

As much as I don’t think Les Mis is a flawless book or that its political messaging is perfect….the only way that insanely long unjust sentences for minor crimes is “unrealistic” is if you’re operating on the assumption that prisons are here to Keep You Safe by always only punishing bad criminals who do serious crimes. And that’s just, not true at all. Like I get that these are just goofy silly shallow jokes, and I’m not angry or going to harass anyone who makes them. but it feels like there’s an assumption underlying all those goofy jokes that “this is just not how prison works!” “Prisons don’t routinely sentence people to absurd laughably unjust pointless sentences!” “Prisons give people fair sentences for logical reasons!” When like…no

Valjean being relentlessly hounded and tortured for a minor crime in a way that is utterly ridiculous and arbitrary in its cruelty is not actually a plot hole in Les mis. It’s a plot hole in …..society ajsjkdkdkf. And the only way to fix that is to fight for prison abolition or at least reform, and (in America) stand up against the vicious naked cruelty of habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws.

But yeah :(. I hate how Les Mis opens with a prologue saying the novel will be obsolete the moment the social issues it describes have been resolved— but two hundred years later, the book is still more relevant than ever because we’re dealing with so many of the exact same injustices.

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I like reading DE fanfic but imo the characterization of Harry and Kim is like several steps away from canon in the majority of fics. There is a dynamic that writers tend to favor that is Harry as expressive, clingy, does dumb and impulsive things for the sake of it and Kim the stoic, patient, empathetic minimalist.

And in canon Harry pretty explicitly struggles to form regular facial expressions while Kim has to put substantial effort into controlling his. Harry can choose to go off without Kim or attempt to drive him away while Kim will very rarely leave him alone. Kim is also almost always the one to initiate physical contact between them. Harry typically has some sort of internal reasoning behind his actions, even if they seem nonsensical to an onlooker, but Kim will often do things or agree to plans just because it amuses him.

The biggest thing that bothers me is that in fics Kim often takes on a role of a sort of mediator, settling disagreements, deescalating situations, clearing up misunderstandings. I think that in many ways, that’s the kind of person that he aspires to be, but canonically he has pretty fucking awful people skills. He can barely have a conversation without putting on the role of Cop. I think that one of the main things he admires about Harry is his ability to read people and connect with them.

Idk man. Let Kim be a socially awkward dork and let Harry have more depth than a golden retriever archetype

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Minoru Nomata, The Architect of Ruins

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This is TexanCannibal’s oc on artfight!!!! Uuugh I fucking love him. This is one of my favorite pieces I’ve ever made.

There’s two wolves inside you. One wants disabled + ‘disfigured’ people to be depicted without being portrayed as unnerving or horror. The other thinks horror, gore, and killing people is fucking awesome.

You draw disabled murderers because you’re ableist, I draw disabled murderers because I love murder. We are not the same

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List of Journalists Killed During this Genocide. Say their names!

Ahmed Jamal Al-Madhoun (24/12/23)

Mohammed Abu Hwaidi (23/12/23)

Rizq Arrouq (22/12/23)

Muhammad Al-Saidi (22/12/23)

Adel Zorob (19/12/23)

Abdullah Alwan (18/12/23)

Haneen Ali Al-Qashtan (17/12/23)

Mashal Ayman Shahwan (16/12/23)

Assem Kamal Musa (16/12/23)

Rami Badir (15/12/23)

Ali Ashour Abu Malek (15/12/23)

Samer Abu Daqqa (15/12/23)

Khamis Hussain (15/12/23)

Ahmed Abu Abseh (13/12/23)

Hanan Ayad (13/12/23)

Narmeen Qawas (13/12/23)

Abdel Kareem Oudeh (12/12/23)

Mohammed Abu Samra (10/12/23)

Doaa al-Jabour (9/12/23)

Ola Atallah (9/12/23)

Hossam Omar Ammar (8/12/23)

Hamada Al-Yaziji (6/12/23)

Abdul Hamid Al-Qarinawi (3/12/23)

Mahmoud Salem (3/12/23)

Shaima Al-Jazzar (3/13/23)

Hassan Farajallah (3/12/23)

Hudhayfah Lulu (3/12/23)

Muhammad Farajallah (2/12/23)

Abdullah Darwish (1/12/23)

Muntaser Al-Sawwaf (1/12/23)

Marwan Al-Sawwaf (1/12/23)

Adham Hassouna (1/12/23)

Nader Al-Nazli (25/11/23)

Amal Zuhd (24/11/23)

Mostafa Bakeer (24/11/23)

Mohamed Mouyin Ayyash (23/11/23)

Mohamed Nabil Al-Zaq (21/11/23)

Assem Al-Barash (21/11/23)

Jamal Haniyeh (21/11/34)

Farah Omar (21/11/23)*

Rabih Al Maamari (21/11/23)*

Ayat Khadoura (20/11/23)

Alaa Al-Nimr

Bilal Jadallah (19/11/23)

Abdelhalim Awad (18/11/23)

Sari Mansour (18/11/23)

Hassouneh Sleem (18/11/23)

Mostafa El Sawaf (18/11/23)

Amr Salah Abu Hayah (18/11/23)

Mossab Ashour (18/11/23)

Mahmoud Matar (15/11/23)

Ahmed Fatima (13/11/23)

Yaacoub Al-Barsh (13/11/23)

Mousa Al-Barsh (12/11/23)

Ahmed Al-Qara (10/11/23)

Yahya Abu Manih (7/11/23)

Mohamed Abu Hasira (7/11/23)

Mohamed Al Jaja (5/11/23)

Haitham Harara (3/11/23)

Mohamad Al-Bayyari (2/11/23)

Mohammed Abu Hatab (2/11/23)

Majd Fadl Arandas (1/11/23)

Iyad Matar (1/11/23)

Imad Al-Wahidi (31/10/23)

Majed Kashko (31/10/23)

Nazmi Al-Nadim (30/10/23)

Yasser Abu Namous (27/10/23)

Duaa Sharaf (26/10/23)

Zaher Alafghani (25/10/23)

Jamal Al-Faq’awi (25/10/23)

Saed Al-Halabi (25/10/23)

Ahmed Abu Mahadi (25/10/23)

Salma Mkhaimer (25/10/23)

Hudhayfah Al-Najjar

Mohamed Al Hassani

Mohamed El-Shorbajei

A’ed Ismail Al-Najjar (24/10/23)

Iman Al-Aqili (24/10/23)

Mohammed Imad Labad (23/10/23)

Roshdi Al-Sarraj (22/10/23)

Mahmoud Abu Zarifa (22/10/23)

Hany Al-Madhoun (21/10/23)

Mohammed Ali (20/10/23)

Khalil Abu Aathra (19/10/23)

Sameeh Al-Nady (18/10/23)

Mohammad Balousha (17/10/23)

Issam Behar (17/10/23)

Abdulhadi Habib (16/10/23)

Yousef Maher Dawas (14/10/23)

Salam Mema (13/10/23)

Ali Nisman (13/10/23)

Husam Mubarak (13/10/23)

Issam Abdallah (13/10/23)*

Abdul Rahman Shihab (12/10/23)

Anas Abu Shamala (12/10/23)

Ahmed Shehab (12/10/23)

Mustafa Al-Naqeeb (11/10/23)

Rajab Al-Naqeeb (11/10/23)

Mohamed Fayez Abu Matar (11/10/23)

Saeed Al-Taweel (10/10/23)

Mohammed Sobh Abu Rizq (10/10/23)

Hisham Alnawajeha (10/10/23)

As’ad Shamlakh (8/10/23)

Mohammad Jarghoun (7/10/23)

Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi (7/10/23)

Mohammad Al-Salhi (7/10/23)

*lebanese journalist | could not find date of martyrdom

spent the whole day confirming all of these names and looking through multiple resources. the ones with dates are journalists who’s date of martyrdom and/or exact cause of death is stated by sources besides the government media office official list.

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>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.

>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.

>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.

>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.

>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.

>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.

>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.

>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!

>Lemmings problem now solved.

>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.

>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.

>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.

>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.

>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.

>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.

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