Witch’s Glen

You know what line gets me every time I watch MAD MAX FURY ROAD? 

“Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.”

Think about that. “Addicted to water.” It makes it sound like water is an extra luxury that people don’t need but are greedy for, something they should be able to go without, and if they are desperate for it, it’s their own fault, and not the fault of the man who has all of it, and withholds it.

Think about how the people in power tell us not to be greedy for the things we need, like healthcare, like a living wage, like the right to be free of fear and violence in our own communities. The people in power tell us not to be greedy for these things, when they themselves already enjoy them freely, and withhold them from us.

Don’t trust the narrative that tells us we’re being greedy by asking for things that we need.

Don’t trust the asshole sitting on a grassy hilltop with his hand on the spigot telling us not to be greedy for water.

they wanna kill the memes like they killed Harambe

after graduating the american public school system

Shortly after arriving in Lagos, my guide showed me a story that was being passed around Nigerian social media.  There was a woman who’d been stopped in traffic behind a crowded prison truck, and she witnessed a food vendor running alongside, shoving his food between the bars of the window, into the hands of the prisoners inside. By the time he was finished, he’d given away all his food.  The man was himself in desperate circumstances.  He was sleeping outdoors.  But despite having hardly anything to give, he gave away all his merchandise.  Amazingly, my guide Kola was able to locate the man.  His name is Ibere Ugochukwu.  And this is his story:   

“A few years ago I worked as an apprentice in a cosmetics shop.  I was supposed to receive a payment at the end of my term.  But I was warned by the other employees that the owner would find a reason not to pay me.  He’d always invent reasons to fire his boys right before their payment.  So I made the decision to quit.  But when I told him, he dragged me to the police.  He told them lies about me.  He told them I’d stolen so much money.  And they tortured me.  They tied my hands and legs and they hung me from the ceiling.  They beat me.  I went deaf from all the slaps.  For ten days I was given no food.  My fellow prisoners would share little bits of their meals when they were finished.  But some days I saw nothing.  Honestly I was about to die.  And I started to pray to God.  And on the tenth day, the guards decided that it would cause too much trouble to let me die.  They told my employer: ‘After what we did to him, he must be innocent.  Because he’d have confessed if he was guilty.’  They released me into the world like a madman.  And I’ve carried the memory ever since.  I promised myself that if I ever found someone in a similar situation, I would help.  So when I learned that prisoners pass down this road, I chose to hawk in this location.  I waited until I finally saw the truck, and I pushed all my food through the bars.  My fellow vendors couldn’t believe it.  They asked me who would pay me for the food.  I told them: ‘I didn’t do it for any man.  I did it because of what God did for me.’”  (Lagos, Nigeria)

Watch: President Jimmy Carter tells Oprah America is no longer a democracy, it’s an oligarchy — and he’s not wrong.

illiterate dairy maid in 1750, hundreds of years before germ theory was even thought of: because of my exposure to cowpox, im immune to smallpox. if we expose people to cowpox, they won’t die of smallpox

upper middle class college educated mother with internet living in the year of our lord 2018: vaccines are the devils handiwork and a conspiracy i’d rather my child die of polio than be the autism