It’s actually impossible to measure how many fucks a corvid give because there is no device sensitive enough to register such a tiny amount.
science/animal side of tumblr… explain to me the birb thing
Tail Pulling is a behavior noted in many corvids. The practical application is to create a distraction that will allow the birb to make off with the target’s food. Imagine being in the lunch room and a large fellow has a Twinkie you covet. You can’t just take it from him because he’ll defend his Twinkie. But if you thwap him on the back of his neck and then dash around to snag the Twinkie while he investigates, you stand a decent chance of enjoying spongey goodness. This is basically that in birb form.
Except corvids don’t only do this as a distraction. Sometimes they seem to just being doing it to mess with other animals/birbs. But to use my lunch room analogy, there are times you might thwap someone sneakily on the back of the neck just for amusement. Primates exhibit behavior that appears to be just be annoying other animals for amusement. Given how intelligent crows are, its not unlikely that this is a manifestation of an innate desire to just fuck with someone else for the fun of it. Such as this from the link above:
THANK YOU FOR THE BIRB KNOWLEDGE
BECAUSE IT IS FUN
This speaks to me on a molecular level.
birbs just wanna have fun
Sorry to hijack a little, but to put it bluntly, corvids are also pretty BALSY. They are more than prepared to harass other huge birds of prey which could deal them a lot of damage. There’s plenty of cases of corvids ‘riding’ other birds as well. It’s often to harass the larger bird out of the area, but as @red3blog said, they quite often (in layman’s terms) enjoy fucking shit up for fun.
‘Where the hell is the seatbelt on this thing?’
I mean they deserve a medal for having such huge bird balls imo
Never Underestimate The Power of Your Voice (or, how I and a mother of two children stopped American Airlines from kicking a woman and her autistic son off the plane).
I won’t type out the whole story because I don’t need to expose this woman and her son’s hard moments anymore than just being in public already does.
But there was an autistic boy on my flight, maybe 5 or 6, just a few rows in front of me. Nonverbal according to mom, but he had “no” down, which is a good start. And he had a meltdown when he was supposed to be getting buckled in.
both myself and a mother with two small children walked to the front of the plane to talk to her, separately. I talked to her son a bit, he did respond to me once but mostly didn’t, but I knew he heard me. I told him and his mom that I was autistic as well and understood what a hard time he must be having. I don’t know if it helped but I wanted to share that with her. I gave him my fidget cube, said it was my Christmas gift to him, that he could keep it. He liked it. It helped him calm down.
it took maybe 20, 30 minutes but he calmed down and reluctantly sat in his seat.
Even still, the flight attendants said they would have to get off the plane. the mother protested but they wouldn’t listen.
I stood right up out of my seat, stepped into the aisle, and said loudly and firmly “You are NOT kicking them off this plane.” and to my surprise, the mother behind me piped up “he’s calmed down! let them stay!”
The attendants tried to quiet us, saying they were just following protocol. I said “he just calmed down, you’re gonna make her go through all that AGAIN??”
someone near me said “they have to get home SOME how!”
and an older woman piped up “let them stay!”
A flight attendant tried to argue with me again, so I said loud and clear, but not with anger: “So this is how American Airlines treats the parents of disabled children?”
Nothing makes businesses listen better than the threat of bad PR
(and you bet your ass I would have been contacting reporters about this if they had kicked her off!!)
In the end the flight crew aquiesced and let the woman and her now quiet son remain on the plane.
I’d heard people whispering around me. Saying Are they really gonna make her leave? They shouldn’t do that.
No one around me thought this woman shpuld have to leave. But if I hadn’t stood up, if the other mother hadn’t stood up, those people probably would have only ever whispered.
When you speak up, when you’re the one to be the first to act a fool, other people will follow. Mom doesn’t want to fight with the crew? Alright. Fine. I’ll do it then.
When you say yes, I’ll act like a complete asshole for the sake of this other person, I’m not ashamed to cause conflict, people who are afraid to do so themselves follow.
I don’t want to say that oh, I saved the day for this poor woman and poor little boy. I don’t. Because I’m not a hero, I’m an ordinary person who feels responsible to stand up for others. From my perspective, I only did what I should.
But the truth is that if I and other people hadn’t said anything, this woman and her son would probably be in the airport begging for a replacement flight. Instead they got home safe and on time.
The truth is that one random 20-something and a preoccupied mother with a baby made enough of a fuss to change what was happening.
The bystander effect is real. Don’t be the bystander. Be the person who makes other people speak up as well.
And on our way out both me and the other mother complimented the little boy on how great he did through the rest of the flight, and offered words of encouragement to his mother. She thanked both of us, a lot. And while I’m glad that she appreciated what I’d done and said, I still see this as my job. She could have been rude to me and told me to mind my own damn business and I would still do it again. From my brief talk with her, the other mother felt the same.
I will always stand up for disabled people and, when applicable, their families.
Anyone can stand up to discrimination. Anyone can speak out against ableism. Anyone can advocate for the equitable and ethical treatment of disabled people.
Your voice has power. Don’t stay quiet. Don’t be a bystander. Be the person who moves others to speak up as well.
Be the person who makes sure a scared little boy and his mother make it home safe, regardless of what others have to say about it.
Not all heroes wear capes! Good work! :)
This is beautiful.
That’s very kind of you but personally I see no beauty in the way AA treated this family, nor in the fact that it took multiple plane passengers protesting to stop it.
Did it make me feel better (and probably the mom as well) that other people were willing to back me up when I stood up? Yes of course. Honestly I half expected to be thrown off the plane with her. But at the end of the day I witnessed blatant, public ableism against a small child …. and I wasn’t on their connecting flight to stand up for them if it happened again.
I do truly appreciate the kind words people have given me for what I did. But the fact that I did something most people wouldn’t do doesn’t make me feel cool or special or like a hero. It makes me sad that I was an exception.
What Native people say about the use of sage: you can use sage, but you cannot smudge as nothing you are doing (waving sage around) is actually smudging. Smudging is a ceremony and you are, we promise, not smudging. Please buy sage from either us, or someone who sources the sage from us. White sage may not be considered endangered by the US government but corperate sourcing is making it difficult for us to source sage for our own religious purposes. Let alone to sell it.
What white people hear: never use sage ever, don’t ever buy it, don’t own it, don’t even look at it.
Look, y’all. There’s a couple of facets to my talk today.
1) Yes! You can buy sage! You really, truly can! Buy it from either native sellers (go to a powwow! Eat our food, buy our stuff, watch some dancing!) Or buy it from a seller who sources the sage from native people. Pick one. And no, buying it from 5 Below doesn’t count.
2) you CANNOT smudge. This isn’t just you “shouldn’t”— this is a YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF SMUDGING. Waving a sage stick around your doorways IS NOT SMUDGING. It is smoke clensing. Smudging, depending on the tradition and tribe, could easily have dancing and drums involved. You, as a white person, do not have the cultural BACKGROUND to even know how it works. At all. Period.
3) please, for FUCKS SAKE, stop making posts here on tumblr where you tell other white people about cultural appropriation and what they can and cannot do. Please stop, your license has been revoked because none of you bother to get the facts right. We native people are FULLY CAPABLE OF DOING IT OURSELVES. Consider instead: a) reblogging our posts where we talk about it! We’re here! We have made posts!! b) Making a post that states what we said and then LINKS BACK TO US. Screenshot with a link if you must. Stop centering your own voices in these conversations. You are already centered in everything, stop centering yourselves in a native space.
