never forget.

according to resist racism, this is a photo of a World War I veteran getting rounded up at the santa anita racetrack in arcadia, california, where japanese american civilians were held before getting herded like cattle into long-term internment camps during world war ii. 

i don't know his name. i don't know anything about him. but if you know anything about war, you know how brutal, how devastating the two world wars were for our grandparents and great grandparents, even our parents. the sacrifices they made are unimaginable to us.

social justice, civil liberties, human dignity - it's difficult to remember these fundamental rights in the rush and flow of daily routine, but every so often, we need reminding that our freedoms cannot be taken for granted. 

this photo breaks my heart.

mind blown

i need to learn how to make art like this.

credit where credit is due: milk

GREATEST. SHIT. EVAR.

COLD AS ICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DARKNESS BROTHERS!!!!

WHAT DID THE FIVE FINGERS, SAY TO THE FACE?? SLAP!!!!

FUCK YO COUCH N----!!!!

es effffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

what was i thinking, going up to sf?? now, not only am i lagging on work, but i am also seized with an violent desire to move up there! 

why do i hate my school so much?????????

don't take offense, el ay. it's me, not you. (but really it's you)

"biodiversity down the barrel of a gun"

from the economist: 

conflict conservation

"Some such “parks” are accidents of settlement, or its absence. Nature is preserved in those rare places that people just have not got round to overrunning—for example the Foja Mountains in western New Guinea, an area of rainforest that teems with an astonishingly rich variety of plants and animals. Others are accidents of conflict: places from which people have fled and where the fauna and flora have thrived as a result.

"The demilitarised zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea is a good example. Over the past six decades this narrow and dangerous strip of land running 248km (155 miles) across the Korean peninsula has become a de facto nature reserve. As agriculture and industrialisation have moved ahead elsewhere, the thousand-square-kilometre DMZ, uninhabited and heavily mined, has been a refuge for two endangered birds: the white-naped and the red-crowned crane. It also contains Asiatic black bears, egrets and, according to some, an extremely rare subspecies of the Siberian tiger. The biggest threat to all this biodiversity is probably peace. There are already calls for the DMZ to be turned into a park in the event of reunification."

this makes me so sad. i can't even tell if this is really a sustained argument, the premise just makes me really really sad.

chocolate-saturated disaster.

i discovered a few years ago that i no longer enjoyed candy. instead, my desire for sweets had crystalized into a single form of culinary delight: CHOCOLATE.

sometimes the cravings are so bad i will eat the crappy semi-sweet chocolate bits left over from my last baking expedition. a giant bar of chocolate will vanish into the abyss of my tummy within hours. once, in high school, dee offered me half her snickers bar when i complained of hunger. i returned half of it to her with the chocolate and whipped cream nibbled off, and all but the caramel and peanuts left.

thank God those dark days are over. for the next two weeks, at least.

my favorite favorite FAVORITE chocolate these days is CHOCOLOVE RASPBERRY IN DARK CHOCOLATE 55% COCOA CONTENT KTHXBYE.

it used to be lion bars. i think i still love lion bars, in the way you get over your first love but that aftertaste still lingers in your mouth and mind because it was your first and it was so sweet and sexy and delicious. but CHOCOLOVE RASPBERRY IN DARK CHOCOLATE 55% COCOA CONTENT is like so undeniably hot, it's all smooth and sensuous in your mouth and after it melts you have the sharp sassy zing of raspberries sizzling on the tip of your tongue. it's your sophomore experience, where you're not so innocent and young anymore you want something bold and daring, something that will satiate your initial craving and then leave you wanting MORE.

this is not healthy.

overANALyze much?

predictably so, i read a lot of cultural discourse blogs because i mean, it's not like i should be reading cases and E&Es ALL THE TIME.

i recently came across a post that posed a very serious question:

"jenn f. found herself faced with a 'lucky taco' at the end of her meal at a mexican restaurant. it contained the following text: 'paco says, ‘a bird in hand can be very messy.’”

"is this is an appropriation of another culture? a cruel parody of an authentic tradition? an offensive stereotype to begin with that is no less offensive when re-racialized? or something else?"

this is what it looked like:

yeah, okay, seriously people, let's not get too carried away here. this...this is hilarious!! i mean, come on, a lucky taco?? "a bird in the hand can get very messy"??? that's straight up wise words right there! HAHAHHAHAHA!

the entry goes on to ask, "So this company took the chinese fortune cookie and re-racialized it…. three times over. Is this is an appropriation of chinese culture?"

no! i mean, wtf. are you seriously going to apply the term "re-racialized" to something that doesn't even have honest culinary roots and suggest that it carries any legitimate cultural connotations? if i'm offended by any part of this, it is the idea that chinese cuisine has a monopoly over the concept of a fortune cookie. the fortune cookie is something quintessentially asian american in origin, but it does NOT have a singular background. its history is diverse and deeply tied to the history of asian america. to denote the concept as patently chinese is tantamount to saying CREESPEE COOKIIIEEE WIS FORTUNE INSIDE IS FROM CHINA!!!!! WHERE PEEPOH HAVE SLANTY EYES AND EAT DOG!!

(that's cacophony going on in my head right now - i realize this is not what they are actually saying)

UGH. this is the kind of self-marginalizing aggrandizement that turns people off from being socially minded. because all this extrapolation is totally, utterly bullshit.