I’m not saying it’s an omen that at the same time Kennedy announced his retirement yesterday the rope on our flagpole at work snapped and dragged the flag through the mud, but it’s def ONE HELL OF A COINCIDENCE.

why-animals-do-the-thing:

jhameia:

premierbonheur:

sententiola:

[Video of venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough standing amid vegetation.  On a near-horizontal branch above his head is a brown and yellow greater bird of paradise, about the size of a crow, with big floaty yellow plumage puffing out along its back.]

Bird:  Pwuk.  Pwuk.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  This, surely –
Bird (hopping along the branch):  WUKWUKWUkwukwukwukoooh.  Oooh.  Oooh.

[Cut.  Same shot.]

Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  This, surely, is one –
Bird:  Kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  This, surely –

[Cut.  Same shot but the bird is on the other side now and venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough has his hand on the branch.]

Bird (hopping up and down on venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough’s fingers):  Eh-eh.  Eh-eh.  Eh-urrrr.  Eh-urrrr.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  Close up –
Bird (hopping away from him):  Tiktiktiktik.  Tiktiktiktik.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – the plumes –
Bird (hopping around):  Huek.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – are truly –
Bird:  Huek.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – exquisite.
Bird:  Huek.  Eh-eh.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  The gauzy –
Bird (hopping and spinning on the spot):  HukWUKWUKWukwukoooh.  Oooh.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  …

[Cut.  Same shot but the bird is back on the original side of the branch.]

Bird:  Aark.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  Of course, by the eighteenth century –
Bird:  Ehhh.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – naturalists realized that birds of paradise –
Bird (hops across to the other side of the branch)
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – did have –
Bird (hopping back again):  Krrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – legs.  Even so –
Bird:  WUKWUKWUKWukwukwukooh.

[Cut.  Same shot.]
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough (apparently trying to tickle the bird’s tummy):  – by about the eighteenth century –
Bird (hops away and spins round)
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – and so –
Bird:  AAAAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK aaak.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough (wearily):  …  Very well.

[Cut.  Same shot.]

Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – but Karl Linnaeus, the great –
Bird (vibrating rapidly on the spot and then flapping its wings):  PWAAAAAAAK.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – classifier of the natural world –
Bird:  AAAAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAUUH.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – when he came to allocate a scientific name –
Bird:  …
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – to this bird –
Bird:  …
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – called it –
Bird:  Wooo-ooo.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – wooo-ooo –
Bird (surveys the surroundings with a dignified turn of the head)
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  ‘paradisia apoda’: the bird of paradise –
Bird:  Hoooo.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough:  – without legs.
Bird:  Eh-eh.

[Close-up of the bird.]

Bird:  WUKWUKWUKWUkwukwukwukwukoooh.  Ooh.
Bird:  Ooh.

[Fade to black.]

Officially the only good post on tumblr

I’ve been planning to teach students how to describe videos and write transcripts and I shall save this post for this very purpose.

Sharing for the perfect transcript.

labelleizzy:

freckles-and-books:

“In the spring of 1940, when the Nazis overran France from the north, much of its Jewish population tried to escape the country towards the south. In order to cross the border, they needed visas to Spain and Portugal, and together with a  flood of other refugees, tens of thousands of Jews besieged the Portuguese consulate in Bordeaux in a desperate attempt to get that life-saving piece of paper. The Portuguese government forbade its consuls in France to issue visas without prior approval from the Foreign Ministry, but the consul in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, decided to disregard the order, throwing to the wind a thirty-year diplomatic career. As Nazi tanks were closing in on Bordeaux, Sousa Mendes and his team worked around the clock for ten days and nights, barely stopping to sleep, just issuing visas and stamping pieces of paper. Sousa Mendes issued thousands of visas before collapsing from exhaustion.

The Portuguese government—which had little desire to accept any of these refugees—sent agents to escort the disobedient consul back home, and fired him from the foreign office. Yet officials who cared little for the plight of human beings nevertheless had a deep reverence for documents, and the visas Sousa Mendes issued against orders were respected by French, Spanish and Portuguese bureaucrats alike, spiriting up to 30,000 people out of the Nazi death trap. Sousa Mendes, armed with little more than a rubber stamp, was responsible for the largest rescue operation by a single individual during the Holocaust.”

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

One dedicated person in the right place can make all the difference

vrabia:

vrabia:

vrabia:

vrabia:

vrabia:

i’m in the middle of re-watching the original sw trilogy and hands down the best thing about esb is leia and han experiencing the same feelings for eachother but at totally different speeds.  

leia, processing emotions at a reasonable pace: i think i like him

han, that same afternoon: dead diary i have accepted that she hates me but instead of dealing with the heartache like a mature adult i’m gonna catch a big-ass attitude and insist on returning to a life of crime where i don’t have to worry about dumb things like being in love.

leia: you’re quite nice when you aren’t being such a scoundrel

han, vibrating with the effort to keep from launching himself vertically into the vacuum of space: s c o und rel

leia: i love you

han, making a mental note to start practicing his brand new ‘mr. organa’ signature the second he’s out of the carbonite: i know

on the other hand remember how in rotj he decided to slow down on making unfounded assumptions about leia’s interest in him and accidentally slowed all the way down?

han: so um, i think it’s really cool that you love luke, you guys are gonna be great together haha guess i’ll see you guys around sometime?!?!?!

leia, already taking her clothes off: god han you’re so fucking stupid