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The tailors at Colonial Williamsburg made a suit for their cat

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vinceaddams

The best part is that they were inspired by a diary entry from 1775, written by a 12 year old tailor’s apprentice who had been left unsupervised all day and decided to make a suit for a cat. Here’s a link to the blog post about it, but I’ll just paste the whole diary entry here:

“I had been at work about two months when Christmas came on – and here I must relate a little anecdote. The principal [the tailor] and his lady were invited to a party among their friends…while it devolved on me to stay at home and keep house. There was nothing left me in charge to do, only to take care of the house. There was a large cat that generally lay about the fire. In order to try my mechanical powers, I concluded to make a suit of clothing for puss, and for my purpose gathered some scraps of cloth that lay about the shop-board, and went to work as hard as I could. Late in the evening I got my suit of clothes finished; I caught the cat, put on the whole suit – coat, vest, and small-clothes [breeches] – buttoned all on tight, and set down my cat to inspect the fit. 

“Unfortunately for me there was a hole through the floor close to the fireplace, just large enough for the cat to pass down; after making some efforts to get rid of the clothes, and failing, pussy descended through the hole and disappeared; the floor was tight and the house underpinned with brick, so there was no chance of pursuit. I consoled myself with a hope that the cat would extricate itself from its incumbrance, but not so; night came and I had made on a good fire and seated myself for some two or three hours after dark, when who should make their appearance but my master and mistress and two young men, all in good humor, with two or three bottles of rum. After all were seated around the fire, who should appear amongst us but the cat in his uniform. I was struck speechless, the secret was out and had no chance of concealing; the cat was caught, the whole work inspected and the question asked, is this your day’s work? I was obliged to answer in the affirmative; I would then have been willing to take a good whipping, and let it stop there, but no, to complete my mortification the clothes were carefully taken off the cat and hung up in the shop for the inspection of all customers that came in.”

Source: facebook.com
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rslashrats

the saddest beanie baby related thing ever is still trap the mouse. no birthday

hi, fun fact! Trap the mouse doesn’t have a birthday because he was THE FIRST BEANIE BABY. Before Beanie Babies had birthdays, there was Trap the Mouse. Basically, he is too ancient for birthdays. Older than dirt, this one.

He predates the modern calendar

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"immortality sucks because all your friends die" all your friends die anyway. those we do not mourn are those who mourn us.

"immortality sucks because you forget who you are" we always forget who we are. do you remember who you were at four years of age? who you were at fourteen? "who i am" is a shadow cast on the wall.

"immortality sucks because" skill issue. skill issue. skill issue. give me your liver

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vicholas

July 26, 2024

(...)With the Paris Games starting on July 26, Israel's killing of athletes and players in Gaza, along with its destruction of the enclave's sports facilities, has triggered mounting demands to disqualify Israel from the tournament as activists and spectators question the legitimacy of its participation.

Palestinian writers and sports commentators contend that Israel's Gaza onslaught, which has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians, also represents an attempt to eliminate sports and athletic achievement.

"It's a genocide ... ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, and the attacks on athletes and sports in particular in the Gaza Strip are all very systematic attacks to obliterate and erase sports in the territory," Abubaker Abed, a Gaza-based sports journalist told Anadolu.

Israel's intentions go further than eliminating Gaza's current athletic capacity, according to writer and lecturer Abdaljawad Omar, who held that it was part of a concerted effort by Tel Aviv to undermine Palestinians' achievements in all areas, with sports being no exception.

"Israel systemically seeks to ensure that Palestinian accomplishments and potential in all realms remain dampened and always dwarfed by its own achievements.

"This applies to political, intellectual, economic, and literary fields, where historically, many talented and highly accomplished Palestinians have been targeted. Sports is no exception in this sense," he explained.  

The situation is "extremely worse" for athletes in Gaza, according to football journalist Abed, adding that many players have been killed in the territory.

According to the Palestinian Olympic Committee and Palestine Football Association, about 400 athletes have been killed since Oct. 7, with the football association noting that the war has claimed 245 players in that sport alone, including 69 children and 176 young men.

Some 33 scouts and 70 members of sports unions have also been killed.

According to the association, Israeli forces have also detained players, including 12 in the occupied West Bank.

Israel's attacks have killed several Olympians as well. Sixty-nine have been killed during Israel's ongoing assault, says the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, launched in 2004.  

Besides athletes, sports facilities also have not been spared. Dozens, including gyms, training halls, fields, and stadiums, have been damaged or destroyed since Oct. 7.

A total of 42 facilities have been leveled in Gaza, while seven were destroyed in the West Bank, says the Palestinian Football Association.

Abed pointed out how Israel has destroyed football schools, including the Al-Wahda Academy and the Champions Academy, which "was one of the most promising football projects" in Gaza.

He pointed out how Israel has eradicated talent in football, the most popular sport among Gaza's residents, leaving only one stadium, the Al-Dorra stadium, intact out of the enclave's 10.

Israeli forces have been seizing stadiums in Gaza and turning them into detention centers.

Human rights monitor Euro-Med highlights that the Israeli army turned the Yarmouk Stadium in Gaza City into a detention center "to hold and humiliate hundreds of Palestinians, including children, shown naked and stripped of their clothes in footage published by the Israeli media in December 2023."

A report by the group published in May indicates that facilities bulldozed and destroyed include "300 five-a-side courts, 22 swimming courts, 12 covered sports halls for basketball, volleyball, and handball, and six tennis stadiums.

"Twenty-eight sports and fitness centers have been targeted, damaged, and destroyed."  

Israel's offensive has also caused the death of prominent players in Gaza.

This includes Palestine's first-ever Olympian and flagbearer, Majed Abu Maraheel, who died due to kidney failure in a refugee camp in June.

The 61-year-old Olympic distance runner died as Israel's ongoing blockade of humanitarian assistance left many, including Maraheel, lacking medical treatment and facilities.

Maraheel had competed in the men's 10,000-meter race at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.

In January, the Palestinian Olympic football team's coach Hani Al-Mossader was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

The same month, Nagham Abu Samra, a karate champion who was set to participate in the Paris Olympics, died in a hospital in Egypt after succumbing to her injuries.

She had been severely wounded by an Israeli attack that left her with head injuries and led to the amputation of one of her legs.

(...)With hours left until the Paris 2024 Games' opening ceremony, experts are still questioning the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) decision to keep Israel in the tournament.

"Athletes, whether footballers ... whatever the sport is, they don't belong to political factions ... they are targeted and are illegitimate targets for Israeli forces, and this is absolutely prohibited by all international laws and all FIFA regulations," says Abed.

He argued that Israel's actions show that it lacks the Olympic values of peace, tolerance, forgiveness, love, and sportsmanship.

"So, how could Israel even participate in the Olympics?" he asked.

Russia, meanwhile, has been banned from Olympic and FIFA tournaments after it launched its war on Ukraine in 2022, noted Abed, who maintained that Moscow's actions in that conflict were mild compared to the devastation Israel has caused in Gaza.

This "disgraceful stance," he asserts, revealed the hypocrisy of the IOC, as well as the world governing body for football.

The organizers of this year's Olympics have said their decision to keep Israel in the Games while upholding the ban on Russia and Belarus is due to Moscow's annexation of Ukrainian territory, while Tel Aviv has not formally seized territory in Gaza.

Fadi Quran, senior director at US-based rights group Avaaz, said the Olympics and the IOC's current leadership will be remembered for "turning a blind eye to a country committing what the ICJ ruled is a plausible genocide, and said is apartheid."

He was referring to a preliminary ruling by the International Court of Justice that recognized genocide as a plausible risk in Gaza. Israel stands accused of genocide at the top UN court, which in its latest ruling has ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

Quran expects that athletes will protest Israel's presence at the Olympics and fans will boycott events where the Israeli flag is raised.

"Now that the IOC has refused to ban Israel, activists across the world will take action to ensure that the Paris Olympics are branded as the 'Apartheid Olympics,' or 'War Crime Olympics'," he said.

According to Abed, it will take a decade to revive sports in the Gaza Strip.

"The war on Gaza has changed everything. The war on Gaza has killed the dreams of many."

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