The Grand Canyon is unreal. It’s feels as if you are staring at a painting or a backdrop for a John Wayne movie.
Jess and I visited the South Rim. I really would have liked to to gone to the North Rim just to avoid the Disney World crowd like madness. Our trip was originally planned for coming up from southern Arizona so the South Rim made sense. Due to the fires in the Coconino area and our reservations being cancelled our trip changed last minute and was rerouted.
After setting up camp we headed to the visitor center to attend to our ritual, postcards and a sticker. The visitor center had to have thousands of people there, total madness. The stress levels started to rise. After coming from Bryce and Arches, the crowds just were too much to handle.
Luckily Jess and I read up on a few cool hikes to beautiful views of the South Rim away from the overwhelming crowds. We headed to the first hike’s trailhead, two other cars in the small parking lot was a great sign. We headed down the trail excited to get “our” views of the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is a very spiritual place, I didn’t want that compromised because of the stampede like crowd of tourists. So two cars in the parking lot was an exciting view. The trail was only a little over a mile each way, cake. Coming around the last bend was more than we could have asked for. A ledge that ultimately sticks out into the canyon, I saw Jess’s face light up. After spending hours that only seemed like a mere five minutes we headed back to camp.
This morning we woke up with a family of Elk in our campsite. Grazing the grass and paying no mind to Jess and I’s excitement. We hung out with the elk as one while we ate our egg white burritos. The smile wouldn’t leave my face, waking up with Elk 50 feet from us is what it’s all about.
This morning we are headed to a few more view points including Desert View which I am pretty excited about. I definitely would like to come back to the Grand Canyon and hike down into the canyon. Unfortunately when I booked the sites, all the backcountry permits for camping were booked up. Always next time. Now we are headed back into the magical state of Utah to experience Zion National Park. We only have two nights there. We will be nonstop, fitting in as much as we can. We can always sleep this fall when we head back east.
sometimes i get so angry about how the housing market bubble bursting led to the economy collapsing and literally never recovering for the middle class. like…basically wiped out the middle class entirely, if we’re being honest.
my bank just offered me a “high yield” savings account. high yield! just a fucking amazing APY! …the APY is 0.4%. zero. point. four.
in 2006, i worked in a call center for $17.60 an hour and had a savings account with a 9% APY. not 0.9%, a full fucking 9%. i’d only been with the call center for a year and a half, i was 24 years old, my credit was middling at best, and that savings account was brand fucking new with a bank i’d NEVER banked with.
high yield. 0.4%.
my field is in-home healthcare now, and i get paid $9.25 an hour.
the fucking rage i feel at what was taken away from my end of my generation (eldest millennial) and fully denied to everyone younger than us is unrealsometimes.
You got $17.60 for call center work???????
yup. in 2004 in texas (which had an obscenely low cost of living at the time, i rented a 2br/2ba apartment for $720/mo) - so not somewhere with a really high cost of living like NYC that would NOW seem to justify this shit as a starting wage, i was hired on at $14.75 an hour to an absolutely entry level position. over a year and a half, i had gotten raises that bumped me to $16/hr (without having advanced my position at all, exact same position i was hired in), and then took a 2p-11p shift VERY happily because i had that fucked up 4am-noon delayed sleep cycle…but because that was considered an “undesirable” shift, i got a 10% raise for being on that shift. and short staffing wasn’t a thing, so i would often see up to five minutes between calls.
this was normal for the time.
And if you’re renting now, you’re positively fucked. Even if you could save some money for a down payment for a house, you will never save it fast enough since the price of housing is going up $2000-$5000 PER MONTH unless you want to live 90-120 minutes from where the actual jobs are. My share of rent in 2004 was about $375/month. My jump in monthly rent just from 2021 to 2022 was almost that much. All because I don’t want to live downwind from a slaughterhouse with neighbors who have seasonal cross burnings.
the apartment that was $720 in 2006, the literal exact same apartment, is now $2059.
i knew it would have gone up astronomically, but i’d never looked it up and i am feeling such blind rage.
[Image Descriptions: A tweet from Alice Wong saying: “The delights of being disabled: I found out the BiPap machine I use at night and day (both models) are RECALLED (US only). Due to disintegrating foam inside!! That people…who need respiratory support…are breathing in.” A retweet from Erik Ekins (QueerlyAutistic) saying: “The fact that people are finding this out through Twitter, about the machines that literally help/enable them to breathe.”]
Current as of June 14, 2021. Tweets are from June 15 and June 16, this reblog is on the 18th.
Also, the tweet says “recalled (U.S. Only)” but the article says “recall notification (U.S. only) / field safety notice (International Markets)”, so I’m guessing it’s not that only machines sold in the U.S. have this problem, just that the terminology of the required warning varies country to country. This is probably worth looking at even if you’re outside the U.S.
Called my CPAP distributor/service on June 14, 2021, upon hearing about this.
They were not informed of the recall in advance of the press release. The poor woman who answered the phone was frantic. They were swamped with calls and nobody could tell her what to say.
As of my second call (Wednesday 16th) they still claimed to have no way to know which devices/patients were affected. They were supposedly “hoping” to have a sort of what-to-do email out to customers/patients by Friday 18th. They didn’t.
(The link above lets you register your device and provide contact info, but then sadly informs you that Philips don’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’ and they’ll get back to you approximately the 12th of Never.)
But seriously, if you have a CPAP/BiPAP/etc. from Philips, don’t assume you will get a card in the mail. Don’t assume the company that sells, rents, maintains, or keeps you in parts for your durable medical equipment EVEN KNOWS THIS IS HAPPENING, let alone intends to contact you directly.
As it goes in America: you have to fight the corporations for your own lives.
We don’t talk enough about the systemic health effects of casual fatphobia and how much they fucking skew the data to the point where we literally cannot know how much outcomes are actually related to fatness and how much they are related to society not being designed for fat people, like literal design.
My best friend cannot find a bra.
She’s fat. We won’t get into the ~why~ here because it honestly wouldn’t matter whether it was “all her fault” or whether it was a result of outside forces like genes and such, she still deserves a goddamn fucking bra that fits.
And she cannot find a bra.
She’s short and fat, and Fat Bras are usually full cup, but because she’s short the full cups are usually too tall, or the armbands around them are too tall, to the point where what’ll fit around her chest and over her boobs will also dig up into her arms or have such high coverage that she literally cannot wear a shirt with a neckline high enough. Any bra that goes out enough goes too high.
This affects her ability to find clothing, impacting her ability to go outside sometimes, because she has this tiny selection of bras and she constantly has to wash them and when they’re gone she has no idea when she’ll next be able to find another unicorn bra. They appear in a flash usually in startups that die soon after, and COVID has killed most the small businesses remaining where she had even a hint of a chance of finding a fitting bra.
So she wears bras that don’t fit. Or she doesn’t leave the house. One gives her back pain. The other is, obviously, not very active. She likes to be active.
If she brings it up, people suggest breast reduction surgery.
But the thing is, with a good bra, she does not get back pain.
But if it’s that hard to find a good bra, they say, wouldn’t a reduction just be easier?
Wouldn’t it be easier for you to chop off part of your flesh, they say, then for us to cut fabric and underwire to more sizes? As if that is normal. As if that isn’t horrifying.
It’s not just bras. It’s chairs. It’s benches. It’s goddamn shoes. It’s seatbelts. It’s exercise equipment - I just got an exercise bike for Christmas. I had to shop around to find an affordable one that was also rated to take my level of fat. If I were 100 pounds heavier, which some people are? I don’t think any equipment would have existed in a price range that any working person could expect to afford. I don’t think most people even look at the weight ratings on chairs and couches and furniture. Once you start? They are lower than you think. There are absolutely 100% people you love in your life - whether really tall men or just average kinda overweight fat people - who should not be using the things they are using. Who are not getting support from their mattress, their footwear, their office chair. It might be you! You might be thinking “but I am average size!”, but the amount of furniture out there that’s only weighted to about 200lbs? Or 175??? It’s SO MUCH MORE THAN YOU REALIZE. Get into the Proper Fat? The 350lb, 400lb, 500lb fat? There’s virtually nothing.
Seatbelts are not tested for fat bodies and seatbelt extenders aren’t regulated.
We know about the problems with too small a blood pressure cuff. With too low a medicine dose. With no MRI a really fat body can fit in for a thousand miles.
We know, from multiple studies on multiple oppressed communities, that social bias by itself, with zero other compounding factors, can give people worse health outcomes.
Now add up
+ one of the social biases with the least pushback even from the educated liberal set with
+ having a world that is literally not made for you. Where you cannot get clothes, furniture, or transportation in a way that will actually accommodate you,
+ where society is constantly blaming you for this. And even if you somehow (and if you know how, please tell me) manage to retain some sense of self worth and optimism and determination despite all that
+ that’s not gonna magically give you access to the daily supplies a person needs in their home and out in public that’ll make living safe and healthy life literally physically possible.
If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health start a bra company. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health mandate changes to seatbelt requirements. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health have a variety of chairs in your waiting room with at least some being properly Fat Rated. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health, make it easier for fat people to be active by making exercise equipment that fits them, swimwear that’ll actually stay on them, athletic shoes that can bear them. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health ask they be included in more medical trials. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health, promote fat visibility and fat people loving their bodies - because hating yourself has literally never been good for anyone’s health.
If you’re using “concern for health” as a shield to allow you to judge and criticize strangers, you don’t give a fuck about anyone’s health. You’re just an asshole who prefers a veneer of respectability when you bully people. You’re hateful and we can see right through you.
But fatphobia isn’t just bullying. It isn’t just judgment from strangers. It isn’t just medical neglect and medical bias. Even if we could wave a wand and make all that go away, my best friend still wouldn’t have a bra that fits, people still wouldn’t have a chair that supports them, a seatbelt that protects them. It’s literally engineered in. And it slowly kills people day by day by day.
truly makes me sick and angry that Africa so far has only been able to vaccinate 1% of the whole continent’s population bc the whole western world is herding vaccines and wont share the patent with poor countries, so much for black lives matter
my fellow EU citizens here’s a link to a petition bc it’s more than time that we suspend the covid vaccine patents so that every country can afford the vaccines!!!!
I swear to god that’s the exact reason people hate Americans so much, are you completly fucking dumb, have you read the fucking news lately?? the US is literally one of the countries who is the furthest when it comes to vaccinating its people, why? oh because they are the only country who doesn’t share a single produced vaccine with other countries (which isnt something to be proud of btw) also when will Americans finally understand that A not everything is about you and B sharing and making things free isnt a bad thing, its literally the fucking opposite, oh and btw your people would also benefit from suspending patents bc your country would also save A LOT of money and could produce more which means more people could get the vaccine and even faster than now oh and also FUCK YOU
Also like… the biggest reason adults in the USA aren’t vaccinated is that they don’t WANT to be? My job has had vaccines available to ALL employees since FEBRUARY; our associated hospital is at 70% vaccination and holding. THESE ARE MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS AND THEY’RE NOT GETTING THEIR NO-COST VACCINE.
My wife had to go to a different hospital for hers and they said they were booked solid for 1000 appointments per day but were only having 600-650 people keep their slots. THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO WENT OUT OF THEIR WAY TO REPEATEDLY REFRESH A WEBSITE UNTIL APPOINTMENTS OPENED AND STILL DID NOT SHOW UP.
Even if you (commenter, not OP) believe “USA first” is just… enlightened self-interest, or something… it’s pretty clear that, even if we DIDN’T have more than we NEED… we have more than we WANT.
You know what you do with things you don’t want? That’s right, you give them away.
There was a mass shooting at a high school in Tennessee this afternoon. Fuck America.
Just this morning I saw the upcoming anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting on my calendar and thought something like “oh! another silver lining of COVID, no RL school = no school shootings”
What Are You Really Celebrating, #blackfolk??! #Celebrating4thOfJuly #iuseto. #notanymoremayne I have #KnowledgeOfSelf #youknowhowthatshitgo #amerikkka #independenceday #murica #emancipationproclamation #aintnoindependencedaybih
Walter white rly was like. How dare you offer to pay me for my cancer treatment, old best friend from college who holds me very dear. I’m gonna kill tons of people and ruin my whole family’s lives before I take a handout
when people say “Breaking Bad couldn’t be made anywhere else but America” they’re usually referring to how Walter White would get free health treatment but imho there’s something about Walter’s “i’ll do stuff on my own, i don’t need handouts you fuck” attitude that’s even more American
not to sound too much like a millennial who has lived through two major economic downturns but like, i don’t think banks should be able to give you 0.1% interest and call it a “high interest savings account” with a straight face. thanks for the 10¢ i guess, if i find a dime on the sidewalk i’ll have doubled my free money for the month
and then turn around and say 6% is a low interest rate when you’re the one paying them
