Marguerite Bennett's Blog, page 212

darkbeautymag:Photographer: Christopher Willner -...

darkbeautymag:

Photographer: Christopher Willner - Culturebel
Choker: RQ-BL

"People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.Stories exist..."

“

People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.

Stories exist independently of their players. If you know that, the knowledge is power.

Stories, great flapping ribbons of shaped space-time, have been blowing and uncoiling around the universe since the beginning of time. And they have evolved. The weakest have died and the strongest have survived and they have grown fat on the retelling … stories, twisting and blowing through the darkness.

And their very existence overlays a faint but insistent pattern on the chaos that is history. Stories etch grooves deep enough for people to follow in the same way that water follows certain paths down a mountainside. And every time fresh actors tread the path of the story, the groove runs deeper.

This is called the theory of narrative causality and it means that a story, once started, takes a shape. It picks up all the vibrations of all the other workings of that story that have ever been.

This is why history keeps on repeating all the time.

So a thousand heroes have stolen fire from the gods.

A thousand wolves have eaten grandmother, a thousand princesses have been kissed. A million unknowing actors have moved, unknowing, through the pathways of story.

It is now impossible for the third and youngest son of any king, if he should embark on a quest which has so far claimed his older brothers, not to succeed.

Stories don’t care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself.*

It takes a special kind of person to fight back, and become the bicarbonate of history.

Once upon a time…

”

- Terry Pratchett: Witches Abroad. A Discworld Novel. (via you-are-the-lightning)

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fashiondailymag:

sparkle + lace REEM ACRA fall 2015.

(ph marcus tondo)

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dontbearuiner:

cannibalcoalition:

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Remember that time when Pence made a last minute decision to not sign an application for a grant that would have made preschool in Indiana more accessible and help fix our crumbling infrastructure?

Remember that stern letter that a bunch of big businesses in Indiana wrote to Pence because he signed a law that was discouraging business from both within and without the state of Indiana?

Oh, and that time that Pence caused an HIV outbreak in rural Indiana because the only clinic that did HIV testing was a Planned Parenthood and his fixation on defunding reproductive rights caused it to close- even though that particular clinic didn’t even offer abortion services?

And then there’s the “Pence Must Go” signs all over central Indiana…

And who could forget the time that he planned on using taxpayer dollars to fund a news outlet because he couldn’t control the negative image surrounding him from the press.

What about the time that the FEC had to rewrite laws to prevent challenging candidates from using campaign funds for personal use because Mike Pence used 30% of his campaign funds on mortgage payments and golf tournaments?

And who else remembers when they were giving states a chance to individually tailor their Clean Energy laws to fit the needs of the state and Pence just said ‘no’ and didn’t offer any alternative?

Hey, what about that time that Pence stated that condoms were ‘too modern’ of a solution to HIV and STI prevention and that abstinence was the best choice?

Remember also that 49% of pregnancies in Indiana are unintended, and that out of 1000 teenagers, an average of 49 will become pregnant before they age of 19. And that STI cases have reached record rates for the state of Indiana.

Oh! Remember when Pence went against the advice of legal professionals and signed a good number of laws that mean that you are classified as a drug dealer (whether proven or not) if you are found with a certain quantity of drugs in your possession, and increased the minimum sentence to ten years- even when it was argued by many legal sources that the best way to combat drug use is rehabilitation and not incarceration?

How about the time that he campaigned heavily against raising the minimum wage to match neighboring states, even though an overwhelming majority of Hoosiers polled said that they support a $9/hr wage and approximately 93000 residents of the state bring home less than $300 a week?

Or that time he stripped the office of state superintended of all its meaningful power because he didn’t like who won.  (More.)

That person being Glenda Ritz, who by the way, received more votes than Pence.

Of course, I thought that it needed no mention, but who could ever forget the national embarrassment that was the RFRA laws, which allowed business-owners to refuse service to people if they felt ‘religiously burdened,’ which essentially boiled down to discriminating people who are part of the LGBTQ community. 

And you know I’d love to rant about Mike Pence all day long, but for those of you who want a more comprehensive list of how incompetent he’s been as our governor, this one sums it up pretty nicely and has sources! 

Oh, but don’t take my word for it: here’s another masterpost of all this and more. 

And just in case you thought he was done being awful- how about the time that Pence and Trump made a visit to Louisiana despite the fact that politicians were asked NOT to visit the flooded areas for essentially photo ops because its a further strain on resources? Meanwhile, South Bend IN is currently experiencing a flood where a visit would not be a negative impact the resources, but a photo op in Baton Rouge is more important somehow. 

Also seemingly less important than an unwelcome photo op is the soil in East Chicago, IN- which has a lead content 30 times what is considered unsafe levels for children to be in contact with. This comes from a man whose initial decision not to run for President was based on his ‘need to focus on his home state.’ 

Of course, everyone remembers how the RFRA, a law that was written in the spirit of LGBTQ discrimination, was strongly protested but signed anyway. No one could have possibly guessed that people would try to use it to justify child abuse- except for literally every person who protested. 

But to put a little more levity in this post, Purvi Patel’s sentence of feticide has been reduced to ‘child neglect’ and she’s out of jail. So that’s good news! 

Of course, injustices like these haven’t stopped radical anti-choice laws from being signed in during the entire run of the controversy. 

As afraid as I am of Trump, I’m even more afraid of Pence.

laffinggasses:sizvideos:Girls Do ScienceVideoWomen...

laffinggasses:

sizvideos:

Girls Do Science

Video

Women Empowerment!

sourcedumal:Yep.

sourcedumal:

Yep.

"But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them."

“But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them.”

- David Wong   (via forebidden)

doublemooncrab:everythingasoiaf:Cersei LannisterZareena...

doublemooncrab:

everythingasoiaf:

Cersei Lannister

Zareena Couture

herrhasen

fuckoffchrisevans:IT BEGINS AGAIN

fuckoffchrisevans:

IT BEGINS AGAIN

cracked:…which is to say, bears are THE BEST.5 Unexpected...

cracked:

…which is to say, bears are THE BEST.

5 Unexpected Combinations That Put PB and J to Shame