I’ve had many people in the US ask me how they can help, and I’ll be honest that I haven’t had the time to sit down and properly think about it (doesn’t help that I have access to information on the internet for approx 15 minutes every day), but now I’m going to throw this out there. It’s going to be long.
Firstly, you need to understand the situation. Our infrastructure is destroyed. We have no power, in fact, the 4% of San Juan that managed to get electricity back lost it again. Last I read only 45% of the island had clean water services. This isn’t just a lack of food and water. In case you hadn’t heard, we’re also approximately $72 billion in debt, and this hurricane is estimated to have cost over $30 billion in damages.
You can send all the food and bottled water you want, and by all means please continue to do so because we are short on those, but there’s also a huge distribution problem. Many supermarkets have not been able to open again because of structural damage. People are making lines for hours to be able to get into the few that are operational again. Gas stations? 80% were supposed to open again by Tuesday, September 26, yet people are still making literally 8+ hour lines (this is not an exaggeration) in the HOPES that they will be allowed to get some fuel. Many banks are only dispensing cash, which is vital because the vast majority of establishments can only accept cash at the moment, and the lines for the atms also can take hours. People have 5am to 7pm to be able to do all these things in one day because of curfew. Some hospitals are running out of diesel already, meaning that their back up generators are shutting down, so all those patients are being transferred to government hospitals that were already understaffed and understocked BEFORE Maria.
To recap, in San Juan, where conditions are better, people are wholly dependent on cash to buy basic necessities, people have no power, in many cases no water, no communication with the outside world or the rest of Puerto Rico, no gasoline to get around, barely any places to get food, and entire hospitals are being evacuated. Literal boatloads of supplies are sitting in ports because the government can’t distribute them, and some ships are just sitting there with their cargo.
It’s much worse outside of San Juan. Entire towns have no working gas stations, no hospitals, no running water, and no operational supermarkets (on top of no power or communication). Maria destroyed the vast majority of our crops. Many of these towns were also hit the hardest by the hurricane and saw thousands of families completely lose their homes. Now back to the distribution problem: you can send tons of food and articles of basic necessity, but if the government is having a hard time distributing them in the metropolitan area, it’s literally downright impossible to get them to some of these towns.
But what about the aid that has already been sent? Not enough. We need more resources, personnel, money, everything. Many of the rescue personnel and federal authorities already here came weeks ago because of Irma’s devastation in other Caribbean islands and can’t focus entirely on the disaster in Puerto Rico. Like I said earlier, distribution and mobilization is one of the key problems. I go around San Juan and don’t see any of the people that came to help. Entire towns elsewhere in the island have not seen a single paramedic, soldier, or FEMA worker. The only places I’ve seen them are in the hotels they’re staying at, so there’s clearly a massive problem with mobilization.
American politicians? I’ve seen some pay lip service to the plight of Puerto Rico, but not a single package or proposal. Local officials had to beg Congress to notice what was happening. President Trump was kind enough to give $1 million of his vast fortune to efforts in Houston (notice the sarcasm), yet he hasn’t offered a single penny to efforts to rebuild Puerto Rico. He thought that criticizing NFL players exercising their right of free speech was more important.
So what can you, member of the diaspora or concerned non-Puerto Rican do?
1. Call your Congressmen and Congresswomen. Flood them with phone calls, go to their town halls, DEMAND that the crisis in Puerto Rico receive the attention and action it needs. Organize. Reach out to all Puerto Rican and Latinx organizations, come up with a coordinated strategy to make. Sure. We. Are. Heard. Live in Florida? You’re in a swing state. Use that leverage. Pledge to note vote for any politician that doesn’t do everything to help us.
Btw, Trump originally refused to lift the Jones Act for Puerto Rico (which he did for Texas and Florida after Irma), meaning we literally couldn’t receive foreign aid by ship. Now there’s a 10 day waiver, but that’s nothing, and it’s clearly being done to make critics shut up. He cares so little about us and making sure we receive the foreign aid we need that he said he didn’t want to suspend the Jones Act because the shipping industry was against it. The Jones Act has historically crippled the Puerto Rican economy ever since it was imposed on us in 1917. We need, at the very least, a months long suspension, and many are calling for a permanent repeal. Put pressure for that. Make him pay. Make everybody that’s against suspending the Jones Act pay in the voting polls.
Update: Trump is too busy playing in his golf courses to care about Puerto Rico, and he’s lording our $72 billion debt (Florida’s is $180 billion and Texas’s is $272 billion) against us in this time of humanitarian crisis.
2. Look for donation efforts and charities that are focusing on more than just food and water. We need to rebuild everything. We need the materials to rebuild, at the very least: – houses – roads – communication networks (i.e. cell service towers) – power lines and infrastructure – water infrastructure
3. We shouldn’t have to rely on just gas and diesel. We need other sources of energy (solar works very well in a tropical island) so that hospitals don’t have to literally shut down if the diesel runs out. If you have the knowledge of how to get those alternate sources quickly and efficiently to the island, please let it be known.
4. Do you work or have any connections to companies that would be willing to donate materials? I’m talking generators, materials for construction, hospital supplies, fuel, i.e. not just food and water.
5. There’s hysteria in the airports because flights are limited. People are making lines for hours, literally staying overnight, in the hopes of getting a ticket out. We need more flights and ships that can transport elderly, children, injured, sick, etc. out. Very importantly, these have to be AFFORDABLE, not the thousands of dollars that were being charged a few days ago. Pressure airlines and cruise companies to join current efforts.
6. If you work in a hospital, see if you have the capacity and personnel to take in patients from the island. The situation for those in need of hospital care and even basic medical services is dire.
There’s a lot more that can be done, and maybe some of my ideas aren’t even that good or feasible to begin with, but I wanted to get this out there before my service left.
This was Joe Simon. He was adorable. Look he’s got a Cap rubber ducky!
He created Captain America with Jack Kirby in 1940 (the first issue was dated March 1941). He was the first editor of Timely Comics, which later became Marvel.
the same year that Captain America: the First Avenger came out. He’s not in it. Stan Lee is. No one knows why.
ETA: I’m lying. We know why Stan Lee is in the movie. It’s because they think it’s funny to put him in cameos in everything. And he did create the Howling Commandos, Peggy Carter and a lot of other characters in the movie. I just get salty when people say he created Captain America because he 100% did not. He didn’t start working for Marvel until like a decade later.
This picture is so cute! 🙂 Plus, I want that rubber duck!
Fun fact about Joe Simon? According to his granddaughter Megan Margulies Joe had a Captain America collection, his apartment was apparently just completely filled with Cap paraphernalia. In fact, she would even make him themed cakes for his birthday.
Excerpt from the article I just linked…
…I don’t think even the most devoted among us can love Steve Rogers as much as Joe Simon loved Steve Rogers (though that won’t stop me from trying ;)).
Pitbull is sending his private plane to Puerto Rico so cancer patients can be brought to the US for treatment and yet Donald Trump can’t get basic supplies over because “there’s a thing called the Atlantic Ocean, this is tough stuff.”
I havent posted in ages, but I have to say this about Seb’s instagram post today:
Look. I know how hard it is when your fave does something shitty. But if you can’t even admit it w/o caveating your admission with a million “BUTs” then that’s equally as shitty. Sebastian fucked up. Don’t you dare come at me w excuses or tell me to, and this is rich, LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!! as if he’s a child who needs protecting or as if fans with concerns are just shitting on him with no reason. If any one of us posted that meme, we’d get told what was up, and that’s good. We should be told. We should be educated. It’s not call-out culture when the action in question is in such fucking bad taste that when I saw it, I looked like that whitemanblinking.gif
You don’t have to hate him. Telling him he fucked up is not “piling” on. Especially when he doubles down on that “my intentions were not” defensive shit. I’ve spent thousands of dollars meeting this man multiple times. I’m a stan. And that means I’m gonna lovingly tell him what’s up. Lovingly. But still gonna tell him. And I lose respect for anyone who believes he shouldn’t be told or that his “intentions” should just be taken at face value because news flash: intentions aren’t what we see. Actions are. Simple as.
Also, fandom as a whole needs to stop gassing him up about memes. Now he thinks a meme means he can do no wrong. We shoulda seen this coming with that pedo mustache controversy ya’ll.
Also also, ONE last thing. How hard would it have been to say “Shit, I’m sorry, this meme was funny and I didn’t realize the impact it would have, that’s my bad, here’s another meme instead, GO SEE ITONYA!” Not hard. Not hard at all, and instead he comes out with this weird defensive “you know what’s in my heart” bullshit. Well, yes, I know you’re sweet and kind but I also know you like Woody Allen and will literally do anything for a laugh so….[Frysideye.gif]
Now I have RICC tickets and no desire to use them, and no ability to refund them. I’m hoping that he steps up to this and proves that he’s not just stann-able when he’s leaving sweet messages on Insta, when there’s literally nothing at stake. I hope he leans more Hemsworth here than Pratt. We’ll see.
He fucked up, he should own his mistakes. He’s human, he’s problematic, we all are and fucking up is what we do. We fuck up, we apologize, we learn from our mistakes, we get on, rinse, repeat.
What happened?
@theprinceofprinces seb posted a meme on his instagram that was just distasteful
I know it’s hard to believe this, and some of you may think I’m making this up, but Puerto Ricans are as American as you and I are (except that they don’t have meaningful representation in Congress, but I’m not going to pretend that you care about that, anyway).
I need you to look at these pictures, and understand how massively devastated Puerto Rico is right now (for example: imagine how you’d feel if the power was out in the entire state of Hawaii, or the entire city of – hey, I’ll let you pick any city in America that isn’t New York or Los Angeles).
Remember how we came together as a nation after Katrina, and we all chipped in to help the Gulf Coast recover? Remember how furious we were at George W. Bush’s incompetence and indifference to the suffering in the Superdome? Remember how we all mobilized to help our fellow Americans, because that’s what we do?
Well, we need to do that right now, White America. I know they mostly speak a different language and that they don’t have white skin like we do, but they aren’t just our fellow humans (which should be enough, but I know it isn’t because I know you, White America). The people who are suffering in Puerto Rico right now are our fellow American Citizens.
Look at all of these states that have a smaller population than Puerto Rico:
Imagine that any one of those states (or more, if you want to do the math) were destroyed by a natural disaster. They have no power. They have no clean water. They have no cell or internet service. It’s hot as hell and they have no air conditioning.
Try your best, White America, to imagine it, and reach into your heart to find the same empathy and concern and resolve to help the people of Puerto Rico, because our shitty “president” is too busy having a tantrum about athletes protesting police brutality (when he isn’t praising a Turkish dictator whose bodyguards keep beating up our fellow citizens) to do anything about it.
Thanks for listening, White America. We have a lot more to talk about.
It’s SVTFOE hiatus, and you’re like “omg is Brian going to leak something about the new season” and I won’t (or will I?), but I am going to take time out of my day (during which I really need to write the music that brought you all here in the first place) to write about something very important to me. I hope over the years I have gained enough of your respect and trust that you will read this to the end. It’s about health care, but mostly about me and my family and how this bill screws us.
You probably know that the Graham-Cassidy bill is being set up for a vote sometime soon in the Senate (so that they can decide its fate before Sept 30, which is the deadline for them to only need 50 votes to pass it; after Sept 30, they will need 60, which would require bipartisan support). Let’s get it out in the open now: this is an unequivocally a bad bill. The last time the Senate brought forth a bill like this (the “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act / Obamacare), that bill had 12% support from the American public, and the Graham-Cassidy bill is WORSE than the “skinny repeal” bill in many respects. I’ll let Jimmy Kimmel explain, because he’s funnier than I am:
K cool. We’re all up to speed. This bill sucks, all the major medical associations that you rely on oppose it, and the creators of the bill do not want you to know its details because they know you will hate it.
Here’s how this all affects me, personally.
A lot of you know that I had cancer in my 20s. I’ve discussed it openly here. It sucked, it was out of my control and probably written into my DNA and thus unavoidable, and while I am totally in remission now, it is something I think about every day, as I am at higher risk for certain other cancers in the future due to my treatment.
I am also a creative professional, as is my wife. We do not receive insurance from our employers. We are eligible for health insurance through our unions, but we have to log enough official union hours to qualify. THE MUSICIANS UNION DOES NOT INCLUDE COMPOSERS. I can log union hours as an orchestrator or instrumentalist, but only if a show I am working on is a “union show” and I “hire myself” to orchestrate, which is weird. I have never composed for a union show. Some of us composers never will. (There are very few union shows. That’s a whole other issue.) Basically, it is almost a certainty that I will never qualify for health insurance on my own.
My wife, on the other hand, is part of the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA), and whenever she works on a show (she’s on The Flash, Tuesdays this fall on the CW!), it is highly likely that she will qualify for insurance. Very good insurance. But, she is under the same constraints as me, in that she must earn a certain amount of money in a year to qualify. If she works on a short gig, or if she goes on maternity leave and misses a TV season, then we will not qualify for union insurance and will have to purchase it out-of-pocket.
Okay, here’s where the Graham-Cassidy bill royally screws us over. Check out this map from the The Washington Post (or go here and then come back).
See California way over there to the left? We could lose $78 BILLION in funding if this bill passes. That is almost double the state that would lose the second most (New York). This funding is used to stabilize the health insurance market. It’s very complicated to explain why, so I won’t try to do that here because I’d probably get it wrong anyway. If you’re curious, Google (and time – health insurance is super convoluted) is your friend.
What will that loss of funding do? NO ONE FUCKING KNOWS. IT’S SO MUCH. UC Berkeley kind of guessed, hypothesizing that 6.7 million people would lose their insurance. Or that essential services would be cut. And that kids, or people with disabilities, or senior citizens would suffer the brunt.
(Difficult to spot SVTFOE S3 spoiler, not located at the end of this post because I know some of you might just scroll to the end: I scored an entire episode for season 3 primarily with nylon Latin guitar, to reflect a specific character who is the focus of the episode. It doesn’t sound like any other episode to date.)
The Graham-Cassidy bill allows states to decide whether to let insurance providers charge more for people with preexisting conditions. How much more? Well take a look at this chart.
Hey look, there’s “other cancers” on the third line and there’s that absurd surcharge of $73,000. And oh look there’s fucking PREGNANCY (successful, perfectly healthy pregnancy, like my wife had), and there’s a rise in cost of $17,000. That’s an additional $90,000. Great. Would California eliminate pre-existing condition protections? I mean, probably not, we’re super progressive. BUT WHO KNOWS, WE MIGHT LOSE $78 BILLION IN FUNDING.
So what’s the better alternative? There’s enough discontent about Obamacare that, yes, the bill should be reviewed and strengthened. BUT. This should be done with MEMBERS OF BOTH PARTIES (and they’re trying right now, but the GOP is like nah, let’s pass this shitty bill instead because we hate Obama hardcore). If Graham-Cassidy fails, then the Senate will HAVE TO create a bipartisan solution, because they will need 60 votes to pass it.
Listen, I didn’t ask to get cancer. I have never smoked, I have maybe like 4 drinks a year. I exercise multiple times a week. Our home is vegetarian. I did everything right, and I still got sick. When Obamacare passed, I sighed a huge sigh of relief, because I was protected from being gutted by insurance companies (which are profit-based). Now? Now I’m pretty fucking stressed. If my wife and I aren’t working, it means we aren’t making any money, and this is exactly the situation in which the Graham-Cassidy bill would expect us to pay MORE money for health insurance. How does that make any sense?
What can you do? Call 202-224-3121. Tell them this bill sucks. ESPECIALLY CALL if you live in Arizona or Alaska or West Virginia or Maine. Your senators will most likely be the deciding votes. But everyone call. It only takes a few minutes but can protect millions of Americans like me.
Thanks for reading.
This post has already gotten way more views and love than I initially expected, and it warms my heart and gives me hope. I’ll reblog it every day until the deadline, ten days from now. Call. Please.
Also, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who will be a deciding vote (and voted no on the “skinny repeal,” standing up to her party LIKE A BOSS) is reportedly listening to calls from people who don’t live in Alaska. If you oppose this bill as strongly as I do, let her know how you feel. I don’t agree with her on a lot of issues, but she is in a position to help people here, and I am thankful for that. Here is Sen. Murkowski’s direct office line, and you can leave a voicemail if you don’t like talking to an actual person: 202-224-6665.
And finally, I just want to reiterate that I agree that the Affordable Care Act needs work. It helps people, but it doesn’t help everyone. We can encourage our senators to include everyone in this process by forcing them to listen to us now.
Folks, I am officially opening some dirt cheap commissions! I am hoping to move to Washington soon, and the only way I have to make extra money is in writing. If you’re interested at all, please read this post.
For one dollar, I will write you a small ficlet of 500 words, about anything you want. You want me to write about Grunkle Stan meeting Mickey Mouse? I will write that.
For five dollars, I will update any fic you want with a new chapter. It doesn’t even matter how long it’s been on hiatus. I will write the next chapter of it. You can even influence the direction of the fic and decide where it should go.
For ten dollars, I will write you a one shot of your very own, at least two thousand words. I will literally write anything you want. I have no limits. I will whore myself out for ten dollars.
For twenty dollars, I will write you your own multi-chapter fic about literally anything you want. You want to read about how the Paladin’s of Voltron would react to being Rickrolled? I will make a multi chapter fic out of that. I don’t care, I will write it.
I will write literally anything for more. Please these prices are dirt cheap, I really need the money (it doesn’t help that every week I find myself short on money for basic necessities like food). If you can’t commission, please reblog this post! It’ll help in more ways than you imagine.
Contact me here on tumblr or at oilux@yahoo.com for a commission!
A majority of millennial men failed to see women as equals, according to the study, which looked at how college biology students viewed their classmates’ intelligence and achievements, the Harvard Business Review reported.
Among the findings:
In every biology class surveyed, a man was seen as the most celebrated student, even in instances where women earned significantly better grades.
Men were also found to overestimate the intelligence of their male classmates over that of female ones.
Men continued exaggerating their assessments of the male peers, despite unequivocal evidence that their female peers were performing better.
Women, conversely, weren’t found to display a bias: Their assessments of fellow classmates tended to be spot-on.
The National Institutes of Health researchers pointed out that female STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) majors drop out at significantly higher rates than their male counterparts.
“The reasons for this difference are complex, and one possible contributing factor is the social environment women experience in the classroom,” they wrote.
Still, scores of men are under the impression that they’ve become the target of reverse sexism. Conservative columnist John Hawkins ranted in Town Hall last year:
“Men have it rougher in America than most people realize. In part, that’s because they’re one of the few groups (along with white people, conservatives, and Christians) it’s cool to crap on at every opportunity. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a nonstop assault on masculinity in America.”
But research has confirmed the reality of gender bias against women. A staggering 90 percent of women reported experiencing gender harassment in the workplace, a 2010 University of Michigan study found. The results suggest that such harassment had the purpose of driving women out of jobs and not the generally assumed motivation of trying to draw women into relationships.
“One could argue that, in these instances, ‘sexual harassment is used both to police and discipline the gender outlaw: the woman who dares to do a man’s job is made to pay,’” the researchers wrote, quoting an article by Katherine M. Franke, an associate professor of law at the University of Arizona College of Law.
As for millennial men specifically, they have been less accepting of female leaders than their older male counterparts, according to a 2014 survey of more than 2,000 adults residing in the United States, the Harvard Business Review reports.
Half of Millenial men said their careers would take priority over their partners’.
Three-fourths of women, on the other hand, said their careers would be at least as important as their husbands’.
oh look its the shit women have been saying all the damn time and antifeminists stamp their feet and cry about
Tumblr Exodus 