I Miss Terry. This Year More Than Last Year I Think.

I miss Terry. This year more than last year I think.

Maybe it’s a bit weird, missing someone I never met, who never knew of my existence.

But Terry has been part of my life for years, since I was sixteen and reading Equal Rites for the first time.

And ll this time his words helped me. Through his work, he’s always been there for me when I needed it.

And when I was feeling gloom, on those days when the world seemed darker than usual, I took comfort knowing that he was there, somewhere. The man who taught me that “sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness”. 

It made my day a little brighter then. It’s just not the same now.

“A man is not dead while his name is still spoken” - it’s true, and probably even more so today, the Glorious 25th of May. 

Today we speak his name and tell his stories and we remember and we celebrate and we mourn.

I’ll reblog art and quotes and fics and I’ll cry a bit and I’ll laugh too, and I won’t be alone doing so. Not a bad way to spend the day. With good memories and good company.

But shit, guys, I miss him.

I’ve always wanted to make a comic and I might be onto something guys! Here have the origins of the little postwoman and what might be the preview of a webcomic if I ever continue. Thank you for everyone who motivated me and all the love I received for her! I hope you liked it

Are western Europe's food supplies worth more than east European workers' health? | Costi Rogozanu and Daniela Gabor

The health threat facing fruit and vegetable pickers flown in from quarantined Romania underlines Europe’s inequalities.

In many ways the asparagus cutters, salad pickers and care workers represent the most efficient form of labour in Europe: cheap, highly productive, untaxed even if humiliated and a potential public health hazard. Europe’s political economy has created the post-communist universal soldier, capable of converting from farm labourer to caregiver to construction worker as the the season changes. Freedom of movement has morphed into migration for survival and even that privilege is reserved for the physically fit.

At the end of the day the huddled masses from the planes heading to the fields of Germany or Italy can rely on neither their own country nor the European Union. This begs tough questions about what east Europeans have a right to expect after years of EU membership: is this it?

Why can we not demand  a different Europe and renegotiate the social contract with it? Why is it so hard to guarantee the safety and the dignity of cross-border workers rather than reducing them to a dehumanised “labour supply” accessible with an app? Why does even the western left withdraw into fantasies about protected labour regimes while millions of east European workers toil under their noses? Why is the movement of millions of people in and out of quarantines, doing essential but undervalued work, not a European issue?

EU enlargement to the east gave millions of workers an opportunity to survive. But it is not a generous gift. Western Europe’s supply chains and essential social services rely on it.

i haven’t seen this being talked about on woke tumblr denouncing the evils of capitalism, so here’s a summary: westerners are too ~fragile to work in the fields picking non-essential crops, so let’s import a couple hundred thousand eastern europeans and make them work in conditions of modern slavery, in the middle of a pandemic, with no healthcare provisions. some of them may die, but it’s a sacrifice the west is willing to make because asparagus.

MAY 2, 2020 HIEROBOOK.COM

(please note that the link will not work prior to May 2, 2020)

All reblogs are appreciated  :)

People who are in self quarantine really have no idea how weird it is to be a base level essential worker through this whole thing. I don’t mean a doctor or a nurse or someone else working round the clock to put a stop to it or find a cure. I mean a truck driver or a gas station attendant or a retail clerk. Because everything is basically normal, only a little bit off, and then again not as off as it should be.

Every day I get up. I go to work. I sell people things. There are fewer people coming through and they’re buying more because they’re stocking up or they haven’t been shopping in a month, but there are still lines, like always. There’s plexiglass between the cashiers and the customers, and no dividers, and we have to continually yell at people not to put their items on the belt until we’ve finished the previous transaction, and they ignore us or argue with us, same as always. The more rules we have, the more rules there are for people to ignore. And the longer it goes on, the more normal it gets. Pretty much no one thanks us for coming in to work anymore. People are starting to act like we should never, ever run out of an item. It’s just blanket assumed that we will have hand sanitizer and soap and toilet paper and people are shocked when we say we’re out.  But there are still ads on the TV in the break room telling us all to stay home and the more the customers ignore social distancing, the more management puts pressure on us to set a good example, until we’re expected to follow standards that are physically impossible.

The longer this goes on, the less ‘essential’ I feel.

And then I come home and get online as always and there are all of these people asking what you’re doing while you’re stuck in quarantine and coming up with fun things to do when you’re in quarantine and talking about what you’re going to do when this whole thing is over and you can finally, finally leave your house. Everyone just seems to assume that you, the person reading their words, are in quarantine, because everyone’s in quarantine. It’s like this big, international, universal experience that you’re not a part of.

It feels like fifteen years from now everyone in the world will be looking at each other and asking “Remember what it was like to be cooped up in the house? Wasn’t it awful?” and I’ll just be sitting there going “…….no, I don’t. I didn’t do that.” And people will look at me and wonder how I could not know.

Instructions for a walk in the woods

-Always bring a knife, never bring a gun. A hunting knife works best.

-If you go alone, you risk yourself. If you go with others, you risk them. Know your priorities 

-Never check your phone, date, or time. Never contact otherpeople.

-If you get a phone call from Unknown, answer it. They will lead you to places you must see. If its from someone you know, do not answer. That is not who you think it is.

-If you hear voices, dont respond to their questions. If they tell you to get out of the woods, dont. There is no way out but through.

-Never make eye contact with other beings, living or otherwise. They are not to be trusted.

-If you see animal tracks, follow. This may lead you to something interesting. If you see Human tracks, do not follow. This person did not make it out.

-If you hear a low voice asking for help, run.

-If you see a street light with no street, do not let the light from it touch you. 

-If you find bones, dont take them. Otherwise They will follow