If You Paladin Rolls A Natural One When Smiting Evil, Instead Of Being Smoten, Evil Is Smitten. Now they

Things to bring back in books:

Chapter titles

Actually having a synopsis on the back instead of reviews no one will read

homophobes are not allowed to use computers because the inventor of the computer was gay

When the Boss Says, ‘Don’t Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid’

The HR manager tried to convince me that the offer was competitive. She told me that she couldn’t offer more because it would be unfair to other paralegals. She said that if we did not agree to a salary that day, then she would have to suspend me because I would be working past the allowed temp phase. I insisted that she look into a higher offer and she agreed that we could meet again later. Before I left, she had something to add.

“Make sure you don’t talk about your salary with anyone,” she said sweetly, as if she was giving advice to her own son. “It causes conflict and people can be let go for doing it.” (This is to the best of my recollection, not verbatim.)

It wasn’t all that surprising to hear this from a corporate HR manager. What was surprising was the déjà vu.

Just three months earlier, some of my coworkers at the coffee shop told me that our bosses, who worked in the office on salaries, and even the owner, got a higher cut of the tips than we did. One barista told me that when she complained about it, the managers reduced her hours.

When you make minimum wage and have to fight for more than 30 hours per week, tips are pretty important, so I sat down with my managers to discuss the controversy. That’s when they told me not to talk about it with the other baristas. The owner “hates it when people talk about money,” my manager added, and “would fire people for it if he could.” I sulked back to the espresso machine, making my lattes at half speed and failing to do side work.

In both workplaces, my bosses were breaking the law.

Under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA), all workers have the right to engage “concerted activity for mutual aid or protection” and “organize a union to negotiate with [their] employer concerning [their] wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.” In six states, including my home state of Illinois, the law even more explicitly protects the rights of workers to discuss their pay.

This is true whether the employers make their threats verbally or on paper and whether the consequences are firing or merely some sort of cold shoulder from management. My managers at the coffee shop seemed to understand that they weren’t allowed to fire me solely for talking about pay, but they may not have known that it is also illegal to discourage employees from discussing their pay with each other. As NYU law professor Cynthia Estlund explained to NPR, the law “means that you and your co-workers get to talk together about things that matter to you at work.” Even “a nudge from the boss saying ‘we don’t do that around here’ … is also unlawful under the National Labor Relations Act,” Estlund added.

And yet, gag rules thrive in workplaces across the country. In a report updated this year, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that about half of American employees in all sectors are either explicitly prohibited or strongly discouraged from discussing pay with their coworkers. In the private sector, the number is higher, at 61 percent.

just a reminder that the UN classifies forced pregnancy/denial of an abortion as actual torture. that’s how essential reproductive rights are.

God Creating The Netherlands

God: “So, yeah. Make a small country and also make it entirely flat. No mountains, only hills. A whole bunch in the south of it by the way.

Angel: “Sure, that doesn’t sound too bad?”

God: “Oh, and make it under the sea level. So they have a to build dikes to make sure the whole country doesn’t get flooded. 

Angel: “What the…”

God: “Dikes everywhere”

God: “And…what rhymes with dikes? Oh yes, bikes! Bikes everywhere!”

Angel: “You mean that they…’’

God: “Have a lot of bikes? Yes! Let them always cycle. Make everyone who isn’t cycling afraid of the cyclists. Especially the tourists.

Angel: “This starts to sound a lot more dangerous”

God: “What else did I have in mind? Oh yeah, make the weather there unpredictable as hell. Only one thing is sure, there will always be lot of rain”

Angel: “I start to feel sorry for those people…How do you want to call it?”

God: “Mmm, The Netherlands. But we call the people Dutch”

Angel: “Why…”

God: “And everyone mixes them up with their neighbourland Germany”

Angel: “Okay..anything else?’’

God: “Weed”

Angel: “That’s it. I quit”

Some of you haven’t seen this masterpiece I made so here.

Also I beg of you don’t search up my TikTok.

Today I want to remember the Americans who have fought for our freedoms.

Not only the Military.

Today I want to remember:

The Protestors. The Union Members. The Picketers. The Marchers. The Glass Ceilings Breakers. The Strikers.

Today I am grateful for all of the Americans who have stood up to corrupt systems in our Nation and demanded the Freedom and rights they deserved.

Today I want to remember those who exercised their right to protest an unfair government.

Or unfair working conditions and evil corporate fat cats.

Today let’s remember:

The May Day Parade. The Coal Strike of 1902. The Southwest Railroad Strike. The Dearborn Hunger March. The Textile Workers Strike. The Harlan County War. The Birmingham March. The National March on Washington. the US Postal Workers Strike. The Stonewall Riots. Fountain House. The Million Man March. The Los Angeles Riots. Ferguson. Standing Rock. The Women’s March. The March for Our Lives. The March for Science.

Sojourner Truth. Mother Jones. The “Rednecks”. The Suffragist. Francis Perkins. Lucy Parsons. Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks. Malcolm X. Ruby Bridges. Kent State. SANE. MADD. Occupy Wall Street. Black Lives Matter. Times Up. Emma Gonzalez.

And all the other groups and unnamed/forgotten individuals who put themselves in harm's way to fight for the rights we deserve.

Freedom isn’t free.

*Sometimes yes that will mean war and the lives lost protecting America*

Sometimes, however, it means using your voice to stand up against the wrongs that our own country is allowing or committing. Freedom then comes at the price of being blacklisted, rubber bullets, tear gas, lives lost, and long nights spent in jail. Do not forget the cost it took to get to where we are today. Even when it feels like we have so far left to go.

Remember protest is patriotic. It’s the very freedom our Founding Fathers wanted to ensure we had when they wrote the Bill of Rights. Even if we have used those rights to grant more freedoms then they ever anticipated. Expanding and evolving the concept of freedom to reach more than just rich, white men.

Protesting is the very reason America exists.

Never forget those who have fought for our rights.

Never forget that you yourself hold this same power.

This Fourth of July educate yourself on the movements, marches, and protests that it took to make America the nation we know today. Then think about the ways you can use your voice to continue to improve America and make it a place we can all be proud to call home. A place where even the most marginalized groups can feel free.

Happy Fourth of July.

Let Freedom Ring.

Ravelry Ban

Hey guys, I know a lot of you may not be crafty people, but please listen.

Ravelry, the largest online crafting community (of several million people), just banned all Trump support on it’s platform claiming that he is a white supremacist and all of his supporters must be the same.   Let’s start:  First off, Trump isn’t a white supremacist.  Thought I should get that out of the way.  

Secondly, you just banned the political opinion of HALF OF AMERICA.  You are saying that HALF OF THE COUNTRY are racist.  Even the ones that don’t happen to be white.  You are saying that anyone can say anything politically, except for the Trump supporters, who we say are second-class intellectual citizens based on a lie that they aren’t allowed to refute.

Thirdly, Oh Yeah!  If you complain about this, they will delete your comment.  You can’t protest, you can’t get mad, all disagreement is hate speech.  

Fourthly, Ravelry is a HUGE source of income to crafters!  It is where you buy and sell patterns, yarn, and other yarn crafting supplies.  Ravelry is also where crafting events are organized.  They are essentially saying that you can’t make income unless you agree with their false claim.  

Fifthly, this is a precedent for other sites.  After doing some research, ravelry followed in the footsteps of rpg.com, who did the same thing.  If we let Ravelry sweep people they disagree with to the side, and essentially gag a whole spectrum of viewpoints on a false claim, then where do they stop?  Other social media has tried to take down conservative viewpoints, and said the same vile things, calling people racist, bigoted, homophobic, and essentially sub-human, as if saying those things without evidence and shouting them louder when they are refuted makes you cozy and inclusive.  It’s a very us vs. them mentality, and I have to wonder if the people who make these rules are ever around people who disagree with them, or if they realized that people they knew did disagree with them would they turn them out in an instant or see common humanity? 

Again, I know this isn’t everyone’s thing, but if you could reblog or make your own post, I would be eternally grateful:  I am trying to use the hashtag notokayravelry to get things going.  Crazy knitter types can’t let injustice stand!

a step in the right direction:)

If you believe “Kill all blacks” is racist (which it is) but “Kill all whites” isn’t racist or vice versa, you just proved you hold a double standard.

If you believe “Trans people suck” is transphobic (which it is) but “Cis people suck” isn’t cisphobic or vice versa, you just proved you hold a double standard.

If you believe “men hitting women for reasons other self defense” is abuse (which it is) but believe “women beating men for reasons other than self defense” isn’t abuse or vice versa, you just proved you hold a double standard.

If you believe treating females poorly for being female is sexist (which it is) but believe treating males poorly for being male isn’t sexist or vice versa, you just proved you hold a double standard.

If you believe “Homosexuals/bisexuals are horrible people” is homophobic/biphobic (which it is) but believe “Heterosexuals are horrible people” isn’t heterophobic or vice versa, you just proved you hold a double standard.

If you believe “Muslims need to be wiped out” is Islamophobic (which it is), but think “Christians need to be wiped out” isn‘t Christianophobic or vice versa, you just proved you hold a double standard

Double Standards are NOT OKAY

TL:DR The double standard doesn’t have to be on a wide scale, it can be as simple as what people say