I’m back in Buffalo. My cat is mostly indiff

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I’m back in Buffalo. My cat is mostly indifferent to me, but also has lost her meow? She’s very hoarse now, and I’m not sure why. Dude says nothing happened to her, she’s just hoarse now. I’m a little weirded-out. 

The drive was intensely annoying and lasted about a week, subjectively. 

I was too frazzled to bring any food, but dude went grocery shopping, so that was good.

we had indian takeout for dinner and my outlook on life immediately improved like four thousand percent.

and I managed to figure out Torrid’s goddamned Haute Cash bullshit coupon thing and bought myself a bikini to wear on vacation. So ha!

And some new jeans, so I can have more than one respectable pair of jeans at once. Normally I wait for Amazon to have a sale on Lucky, but I’m waiting for the strike bullshit to settle down before I go back there.

I mean, I can’t avoid the site, my camera store is in business due entirely to selling via Amazon, but at least I’m not buying anything at the moment. 

Prime Days always suck anyway, as a sale, which just goes to show you how bullshit the hype is. Anyway… 

I’m so tired. This was such a long week. It was all meaningful, satisfying work, though. I mean, harvesting flowers is not my most very favorite thing in the entire world, but it is really rewarding. I’m getting to be okay at it. And I got enough sun to sunburn a little on two different occasions, and no hives, so I further proved that the hives aren’t caused solely by sun. I don’t know what they are caused by, but I can take a little sun anyway. Who fucking knows. 

I’m enjoying the novelty of being in a house and having no mosquitoes making noise. The mosquito net was nice and all, but it’s a little bit of a bummer to have to stay in a single rectangular area while reading in the evening. I quite like sprawling out on the couch. Having a couch, full stop, is really nice.

Work tomorrow, though. Someday I’ll have a day off, but it won’t be this week, or next. 
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I’m worried about Chita, it’s not just

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I’m worried about Chita, it’s not just that she has a hoarse meow but that she has coughing fits. There’s got to be something wrong, either something stuck in her throat, or she’s got a cold, or a growth or something. 

She’s acting mostly normal, and even sneak-attacked me this morning, so she’s feeling peppy. But she can’t meow normally, and she’s usually a big talker. 

We have to go to the vet to get her thyroid medication checked up on, but. I’m so bad at phone calls, I’m literally two years overdue for a doctor visit myself and have been wearing broken glasses since new year’s 2017, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to get this done in the five days before I leave again. But I’ll try, I guess. 
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The Man Who Made More Than $1 Million From Bail

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The Man Who Made More Than $1 Million From Bail:
antoine-roquentin:

The fortress around Mississippi’s bail industry began to show cracks in 2015. Equal Justice Under Law, a fledgling nonprofit started by two young Harvard alums, teamed up with Cliff Johnson, director of the University of Mississippi’s recently formed MacArthur Justice Center, to sue the Gulf Coast city of Moss Point. The lawsuit aimed at the city’s bail schedule, a 62-page menu that set bond amounts for an exhaustive list of traffic offenses and misdemeanors: a $300 bond for keeping a pig, $350 for failure to stop at a railroad crossing, $400 for possession of tobacco by a minor, up to $2,200 for keeping a vicious dog.

People charged with these offenses had to pay up or remain in jail, waiting up to a week before seeing a judge. In effect, the lawsuit argued, the schedule created an unconstitutional debtors’ prison. Five months later, the city settled and agreed to end the use of money bail in misdemeanor cases. Jackson, the state capital and largest city, reached a similar settlement in June 2016. The city of Corinth in northeastern Mississippi settled a similar lawsuit July 6.

Similar lawsuits had been successful around the country, but the piecemeal approach wasn’t sustainable. Mississippi has 82 counties and 250-plus municipalities. “We can’t sue every one of them,” Johnson said.

Plodding along in the background, however, was a threat so obscure the bail industry never noticed. The Mississippi Supreme Court created a committee in 2004 to draft the state’s first uniform Rules of Criminal Procedure. Thirteen years later, in July 2017, it released a list of changes that have the potential to end cash bail in most misdemeanor and many low-level felony cases.

The new rules established the right to see a judge within 48 hours after arrest, relieving pressure to turn to a bail agent to buy freedom more quickly. Cash bail is no longer the default option, and bail schedules have been banned. If a person is not a flight risk or danger to the community, the judge must release them on a written promise to appear or to pay money to the court if they fail to show up. Cash bail will continue for those wanting out of jail immediately, or those charged with most felonies.

On paper, it looks revolutionary. Kemp, the sheriff in Clarke County, said the rules have cut his jail population in half, making it safer and easier to manage, and saving him money on food and health care.

“It’s taken a while for us to get the feel of it. We’ve had class after class after class to school our employees. So far things are working out,” Kemp said.

Whether judges are complying statewide is unknown. The state’s hundreds of justice and municipal courts operate largely in independent venues in rural corners of the state. There is no statewide digital record system.

“I don’t think it has had too much impact yet,” said Associate Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens, a former district attorney and defense lawyer who is a leading advocate of the rule changes. He predicted justice courts — where a high school diploma is the only requirement to be elected to the bench — will be slow to adopt the rules.

The insurance data shows a modest but steady decline: the number of bonds written fell 19 percent in the first nine months of the new rules compared to the same period before. Revenue collected at the time of release fell 16 percent.

The rule changes caught the bail industry off guard. The Mississippi Bail Agents Association, which represents personal surety agents, declined to comment. (Corbett sits on the board of the association.)

In September, the group’s president, Chris Williams, likened the plight of bail agents to the citizens of Houston as Hurricane Harvey rolled through. “The intensity to eliminate our profession has reached a fever pitch,” Williams wrote his members. He cited the lawsuits and the new rules.

“The bail industry’s adversaries have dishonestly criticized, demonized and politicized our profession. How will the battered bail agents of MS react?” he asked, and then cited John 16:33’s call for courage in troubled times. “We should pray for our industry. We should pray for MBAA and our board of directors to act with peace and courage.”

The bail lobby did not rely on prayer alone. They hired three lobbyists from the law firm of former Gov. Haley Barbour. One lobbyist is the daughter of U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker.

Before the legislature convened in January, Williams mailed letters to 61 lawmakers detailing their legislative agenda and concerns about “the increasing pressure to release arrestees without secured bond.” Williams wished the lawmakers a Merry Christmas and included checks for campaign contributions from $250 up to $1,000.

Despite the money and lobbying firepower, the Mississippi bail industry failed to pass a single measure.

During his 15 years in the Mississippi legislature, Mike Chaney voted for bills backed by the bail industry, votes that came easy to a pro-business Republican. After he was elected commissioner of insurance in 2007, Chaney began an on-the-job education that made him rethink his support.

“It’s the most rotten system in the United States, the bail system,” Chaney said.

He first heard complaints about agents overbilling or squabbling over access to a jail. Then judges and lawyers told him of allegations that bail agents extorted sex from female clients or pushed men to transport drugs in lieu of payment.

Chaney’s opinions were cemented in 2015 as the FBI investigated a bail agent who eventually pleaded guilty to using counterfeit paperwork to write more than $1 million in illicit bonds. A client wore a wire as part of the investigation. “Lance had sex with this person in the hotel room and said, ‘I got to put my socks on and hurry up, I’ve got to be in church in a few minutes’,” Chaney said. “That’s on tape.”
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s-leary: ao3tagoftheday: [Image Description: Tags reading...

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s-leary:

ao3tagoftheday:

[Image Description: Tags reading “despite the tags this is g-rated fluff, except for the gore”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: A small caveat

@bomberqueen17, that’s all you. ;)

I feel almost uncomfortably seen.
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bomberqueen17: By the way. I think it’s been a

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bomberqueen17:

By the way. I think it’s been a while since I’ve mentioned it here. I do operate a sideblog, which is pretty expressly for the purposes of cheering up Middle-Little Sister when she’s at work and sad. She’s straight, so it’s a little cis-hetero for my tastes (and sometimes I put in gratuitous pretty ladies anyway, especially fat ones), but mostly it’s things I’m scrolling by and think are goofy or poignant or affirming. Zero original content, heavy focus on naked dudes and cats. No quality assurance. No tags, generally, because she doesn’t understand them and I didn’t either when I started doing it. 

It’s called The Fortress Of Blankets. If you want random cheering up or affirmations, that’s what’s over there. 

So– the sister I created this for changed jobs so she can’t look at Tumblr at work anymore. So I don’t know if anyone’s still really looking at this page but I do still try to put things on it. I might do it more for me, though, and less for Middle-Little, who I really don’t think sees these things anymore. 

So uh, the page might get a little gayer, but I don’t foresee any other major changes. Just maybe a less-frequent queue. 
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robotlyra: thisnewjoe: crosmopolitan: when-did-this-become-dif...

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robotlyra:

thisnewjoe:

crosmopolitan:

when-did-this-become-difficult:

scottsumrners:

and THAT is what you do with a nazi

ACTUAL NATIVE ACTORS PLAYING ACTUAL NATIVE CHARACTERS?

WHO KNEW YOU COULD DO THAT

Like, holy FUCK I love Letterkenny.

First, we have Kaniehtiio Horn, who is just awesome (also the character is named Tanis, so bonus points there); then there’s actual Natives playing Natives; and then there’s the local hicks who’ve fucking rallied… and Jay Baruchel! This season was so. good. Letterkenny has no chill and gives no fucks anymore.

SKODEN. SDOODIS.

I love the Letterkenney style. 😊

Today’s mood is: Wayne whipping off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves and fucking RIGHT HOOKING the fuck out of some nazi troll
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