(Source: , via therunawayworld)

madelinethelion:

Another gem I remembered today: every little bit counts.  The problems of the world are too daunting to expect to fix them all, or even a substantial amount.  But, every act of justice or love or redemption counts.  Don’t be discouraged if you feel overwhelmed by the brokenness of the world.  Instead, take what gifts and resources you have and exhaust them for the good of the world and the people of the world.  If everyone agrees to do this, perhaps a significant force will be mobilized.  

whoiusedtobe:

I was shopping today and I found Kente print skirts at American Apparel. I’m on the fence when it comes to traditional prints being sold commercially. 

On the one hand, exposing the world to these beautiful colours and textures can certainly lead to greater engagement and learning about the cultures which produce them. Whenever I wear the prints that I brought back from Ghana, I always do my best to talk about where they came from and what they mean with my friends. I’m also very careful about wearing them casually; I think I’ve worn my clothing from Ghana twice since I returned eight months ago. 

On the other hand, the hipster girl who buys this skirt and wears it all summer probably doesn’t know that each of those squares has a different meaning (let alone what the meanings are). She also probably won’t know that the print she’s wearing is distinct from other kente prints because it was produced by a different tribe. She will be taking part in the commodification of a complex and rich culture about which she knows nothing. That’s the basis of cultural appropriation. Make no mistake: it’s a form of exploitation.

I don’t even know if I can comment on the designing of this skirt. I’m going to assume that it was created by an American (AA is all about sourcing stuff in the states, right?). If that assumption is correct, then this skirt is doubly exploitative, because it represents the use of someone else’s culture to produce money for North Americans. How screwed up is that?

This is why I can’t get too excited about seeing beautiful prints from African cultures in the mall in downtown Ottawa. Just because they’re pretty doesn’t mean you should forget about the people(s) who created and produced them. 

(via fieldoflilys)

fieldoflilys:

“Faker!” too real, y’all, too real. 

theamericankid:

How is he so chubby and yet so tiny!? I think he swallowed a muffin whole and is now regretting his decision

(via fieldoflilys)

anthropologie:

Jon Huck’s photo series of people and their breakfasts is completely addicting, and surprisingly insightful—one peek at the photo pairings and you’ll find yourself imagining how the rest of the day unfolded for each person.

Via: Jon Huck

organizationxiii:

bringing you back to middle school for a moment

(Source: staff, via gettinglostinspace)

(Source: makeofthiswhatyouwill, via girl-violence)

(Source: fairybunny, via girl-violence)

thirdeyeblinking:

madamethursday:

[Image: Close up of an ear of corn with multi-colored kernels ranging from pale sky blue to deep red to orange and green and white and purple and pink.]

alexandraerin:

npr:

Ooooo.

jtotheizzoe:

Genetics of the Beautiful “Glass Gem” Corn

Corn gone viral? You’re looking at an ear of a corn variety called “Glass Gem”, grown by Greg Schoen of Seeds Trust. This is real corn! How does it grow this way?

First you have to understand a few things about corn. Each corn kernel is actually a sort of unique plant. A corn plant’s male parts (the “tassels”) sit at the top of the stalk, and drop pollen downward. Unfertilized ears (the female parts) catch the pollen with the sticky ends of their corn silks. Each corn silk (I hate when that gets in my teeth) grabs a pollen grain, shuttles it allllllll the way down inside the ear, eventually creating one kernel for each pollen-silk-ovum combination. It’s one of the more interesting and inefficient breeding schemes I know of.

If you’ve taken genetics, you know that the parents’ genes will combine by chance, leading to certain ratios of inheritance in the offspring. This is the basis of Mendelian genetics (great Khan Academy video here).

With corn, we’ve simply carefully bred all the interestingness out of them. Native Americans were used to multi-colored corn, because corn plants held many varieties of color genes that could combine at random. Now all we are left with are one-color clones.

This “Glass Gem” corn is the other extreme of the spectrum, a combination of corn color hybrid genes and random pollination. It’s almost too pretty to eat!  

(via Discover Magazine)

…for those who wondered where I got the text for the giraffe post.

Nature is incredible 

(via fieldoflilys)

(Source: jamjars, via bitch-step-off)

(Source: wasbella102, via drugstodogirlstoscrew)

tablogs:

Accent Challenge!!

m-oonblaze:

fashion / indie