These Questions (and A Dozen More Besides) All Ignore The Fundamental Truth I Have Been Trying To Convey

These questions (and a dozen more besides) all ignore the fundamental truth I have been trying to convey ever since I started this blog. Birds are not a monolithic entity and thus you cannot make blanket statements regarding motives or goals. Yes, there are some birds who want to take over the world. However, there are other birds dedicated to stopping that from happening. While visiting New York I made sure to visit the Hua Mei Ornithopenitentiary, where some of the most notorious songbirds are held prisoner for their crimes. Originally built to house solely Hua Mei, it was renovated in the mid-1990′s to accommodate a wide variety of criminal birds. Next week I’m going to profile three of the birds imprisoned therein, so stay tuned!

[image description: over a soft blue background, “LGBT & Latinx & Loud” is centered and towards the top. It is in black font, with the words “Friday, July 1st” underneath it. That is in a smaller, white font.]

LGBT & Latinx & Loud 

What is it? It’s an event to celebrate people that are latinx and LGBT! Our latinx communities and our LGBT communities intersect, and we want to support both! A night that was supposed to celebrate our shared communities was brutally taken from us, and lives belonging to them were ripped away. But we are here. We love each other. We are latinx, we are LGBT, and we will be louder than those trying to erase us. 

Can I participate? As this is to celebrate latinx LGBT people, you must be both. Are you? Then yes, you can participate, and we will be so appreciative of your participation! A few questions have been asked, for example a white-passing latinx asked if they could participate. Yes, they can! Are you a white-passing latinx LGBT person? Then you’re a latinx LGBT person, and we want to support you!! You are welcome to participate. Are you a mixed latinx LGBT person? Then you’re a latinx LGBT person! We want you to participate! The latinx people involved must also identify as LGBT. That means latinxs that experience any kind of SGA, our mlm and wlm, latinx trans people, and nonbinary latinxs! If there are any questions on whether or not you can participate, just send me, @alexandrareadsthings, a message! 

What do we do to participate? Post selfies! Celebrate your beauty! Don’t feel comfortable taking pictures but still want to participate? That’s ok! You can celebrate yourself by writing a couple of quick sentences about what being LGBT and latinx means to you, even if it’s as simple as “I’m Lauren, I’m a lesbian, and I’m Colombian!” Since we’re trying to celebrate and support each other, we’ll need to tag our posts with “lgbt&latinx&loud”.

When do we post our stuff? Friday, July 1! At the time of this post, that is two weeks and one day away.  While June is pride month, it’s a little tough to squeeze the event in while giving people time to see it since it’s mid June now.

What if I’m LGBT and latinx, but this is too much for me? That’s ok! This is about love and support. You are loved whether or not you participate! 

I’m latinx, but not LGBT. I’m LGBT, but not latinx. I’m not latinx or LGBT. What can we do to help? We need you to help us be seen! Reblog our posts! Let us be seen and recognized and supported! Do not let us be erased. Do not tag a post you make with “lgbt&latinx&loud”. Lift us up! This is about us, and we need you to support us by letting it be about us.

The biggest thing anyone can do to help is to spread this post around! We want as many LGBT latinx people to see this as possible so that they know they are supported, and they get the opportunity to support their siblings!

If anyone has any questions about any of this, please message me! I will be happy to help! 

recovering from trip to new york

sorry i don’t have a bird prepped; writing time last week was swallowed up by planning and packing. on the bright side, i managed to obtain a couple of previous-millennium artifacts, visited a bird penitentiary, and even got to spend an evening with one of the leading ornithographists of NYC! so i have some interesting content as soon as i get photos developed, track down the list of incarcerated birds (i swore i put it in my purse but I can’t find it), and independently confirm the provenance of the artifacts. exciting stuff!

Perennial hoodlums, Red-winged Blackbirds have finally broken the Law of Gravity. While it is easy enough to simply grip tightly to their perches from now on in order to prevent slowly drifting away, this remains quite an inconvenience for daily flight as these playful scamps need a crash course in orbital mechanics in order to navigate. Above, a Red-winged Blackbird crawls down a Cattail in order to reach water.

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Large corvids and parrots possess the largest avian brains, harboring the highest absolute numbers of neurons (Fig. 1 D and E and Fig. S4C). Their total numbers of neurons are comparable to those of small monkeys or much larger ungulates (Fig. S5).

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/07/1517131113.full

the whole paper is a trip, read it if you’re interested in comparative neurobiology with a focus on avian brain structure. tl:dr is: bird cells are smaller than mammalian cells, and as a consequence can pack in twice to four times as many neurons in the same space. bonus: as avian brains scale up they preferentially devote space to the telencephalon with three times as many neurons proportionally in the pallium as compared against humans and holy fuuuuuuuuuck this is the dopest shit read it read it read it

Moz Crithagra is the mastermind of the Midwinter Coup, an event which nearly led her country to ruin. With the stated goal of responsible stewardship “of birds, by birds, and for birds,” Crigathra’s reign was marked by mass executions of ideological opposition and pogroms of humans unseen since the rule of Jacobin Cuckoos. She is currently serving several hundred life sentences (both concurrent and consecutive) and is ineligible for parole at Hua Mei Ornithopenitentiary.

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