One of the most annoying things about me is that I constantly need to be reassured that you haven’t started hating me for some reason
(via iamverysorry)
For the Love of Squirrels
I currently live in Upstate New York, but was born and raised in Germany! (Yes, I AM German. I speak it, write it, yell in it, swear in it, dream it, and have that thing called a citizenship.) And I'm very proud (oooh, a sin) of being both a German/Bavarian and an U.S.-ian.
I'm a French major whose French is terrible and therefore I am going to Montpellier, France for a year this fall!
This blog is anything and everything that I like. :D And you may be wondering about the name of my blog. The answer to your question is that my favorite animal are squirrels.
Ask me anything
June192013
9AM
![medievalpoc:
Unknown (formerly att. Johann Zoffany)
Dido Elizabeth Belle
Scotland (1779)
oil on canvas
Scone Palace, Perth (private collection of the Earl of Mansfield)
Although this painting falls outside the usual scope of this blog, it is one of my favorite historical European paintings. Dido Elizabeth Belle was the illegitimate daughter of Admiral Sir John Lindsay and enslaved African woman named Belle.
This painting was most likely commissioned by her father, the nephew of the Earl of Mansfield, and depicts the beautiful and vivacious Belle alongside her cousin, Elizabeth Murray.
The first time I saw this painting was in an art history classroom, accompanied by a story regarding the dehumanization of Africans in the Unites States, and the scores of visiting Americans who were scandalized by this painting. In America and several places in Europe, contemporaneous paintings always depicted people considered Black in subservient positions in relation to people considered White, if they bothered to paint them at all. To raise a bastard daughter of color alongside legitimate heirs was antithetical to American thought.
Dido Belle was raised and educated alongside the other highborn daughters of the household, and remained a favorite of the Earl and her father well into her thirties, after which an advantageous marriage was arranged.
Her position in the Earl’s household supervising the poultry yards was typical for any lady of high birth at the time, but her job overseeing the lord’s correspondence was usually a task reserved for a highly educated male clerk or scribe and is evidence of her importance and elevated rank. She received an allowance of £30 per year, more than any except the heiress herself and a sum unheard of at the time for any illegitimate daughter.
Upon Lord Mansfield’s death in 1788, Belle was furnished with a £500 lump sum in addition to a £100 annuity, as well as a suitable marriage to John Davinier, with whom she had three children. In Mansfield’s will, her status as a free person was carefully confirmed, since many would have been all too happy to divest her of her fortune.
Belle died in 1804 and was interred in St. George’s Fields, the parish to which she and her husband belonged.
My interest in this story was renewed recently when I learned that an upcoming film, Belle (currently in production), will be a dramatized biopic of Dido Elizabeth Belle’s life. The titular role will be played by South African actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
[x] [x] [x] [x]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/d43ee6b11067ecdb0067a68065d0086a/tumblr_molg92ZgV91ssmm02o1_500.jpg)
Unknown (formerly att. Johann Zoffany)
Dido Elizabeth Belle
Scotland (1779)
oil on canvas
Scone Palace, Perth (private collection of the Earl of Mansfield)
Although this painting falls outside the usual scope of this blog, it is one of my favorite historical European paintings. Dido Elizabeth Belle was the illegitimate daughter of Admiral Sir John Lindsay and enslaved African woman named Belle.
This painting was most likely commissioned by her father, the nephew of the Earl of Mansfield, and depicts the beautiful and vivacious Belle alongside her cousin, Elizabeth Murray.
The first time I saw this painting was in an art history classroom, accompanied by a story regarding the dehumanization of Africans in the Unites States, and the scores of visiting Americans who were scandalized by this painting. In America and several places in Europe, contemporaneous paintings always depicted people considered Black in subservient positions in relation to people considered White, if they bothered to paint them at all. To raise a bastard daughter of color alongside legitimate heirs was antithetical to American thought.
Dido Belle was raised and educated alongside the other highborn daughters of the household, and remained a favorite of the Earl and her father well into her thirties, after which an advantageous marriage was arranged.
Her position in the Earl’s household supervising the poultry yards was typical for any lady of high birth at the time, but her job overseeing the lord’s correspondence was usually a task reserved for a highly educated male clerk or scribe and is evidence of her importance and elevated rank. She received an allowance of £30 per year, more than any except the heiress herself and a sum unheard of at the time for any illegitimate daughter.
Upon Lord Mansfield’s death in 1788, Belle was furnished with a £500 lump sum in addition to a £100 annuity, as well as a suitable marriage to John Davinier, with whom she had three children. In Mansfield’s will, her status as a free person was carefully confirmed, since many would have been all too happy to divest her of her fortune.
Belle died in 1804 and was interred in St. George’s Fields, the parish to which she and her husband belonged.
My interest in this story was renewed recently when I learned that an upcoming film, Belle (currently in production), will be a dramatized biopic of Dido Elizabeth Belle’s life. The titular role will be played by South African actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
(via elisabethdarling)
9AM
Guys, check out this crazy bird!
This is a real animal, I shit you not!
The Pennant-winged Nightjar (Macrodipteryx vexillarius)
(via nightmareloki)
9AM
15 amazing things in nature you won’t believe actually exist
(via dr-fantabulous)
9AM
Please don’t remove the artist’s caption/comment when you reblog a drawing/comic/etc.
I obviously can’t speak for everyone, but in my case the caption is often an addition to the joke, and if you take it away, you take away a part of my comic.
(via captaingalaga)
3PM
But i’m a crepe
i’m a weirdough
what the hell am i doughing here
i doughnut belong here
(via narcokeemers)
3PM
(Source: workyardplaysard, via hark-a-geek)
3PM
![rraaaarrl:
Baby Bat [x]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/d3204168b8b29bd4f2ae6e2a27405b98/tumblr_moljx9SZcg1qzizmho1_500.gif)
Baby Bat [x]
(via earthandanimals)
3PM
Russians Recover Fresh Flowing Mammoth Blood
About 15,000 years ago, an old female wooly mammoth plunged through the ice as she was being chased by predators. Her remains have now been uncovered by scientists working in Siberia. And remarkably, as they were digging it out, blood began to stream out - wich is weird given that it was 10° below freezing.
It’s not known if the blood or tissue samples contain living cells required for cloning. And even if such cells are recovered, the DNA repair would require a very complex process that could take years. A report is expected later this July.
The beautifully preserved specimen was discovered partially embedded in a chunk of ice at an excavation on the Lyakhovsky Island, the southernmost group of the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic seas of northeastern Russia.
The mammoth’s lower portions, including the stomach, were locked in the ice for the past 10,000 to 15,000 years. Its lower jaw and tongue were also recovered; the trunk was found separately from the carcass. The upper torso and two legs were preserved in soil and show signs of being gnawed upon by both prehistoric and modern predators.
Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Museum of Mammoths of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North at the North Eastern Federal University, is calling it “the best preserved mammoth in the history of paleontology.”
During the excavation, and as the researchers were chipping away at the ice, they noticed splotches of dark blood in the ice cavities below the mammoth’s belly. When they broke through with a poll pick, blood started to flow out.
“It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryo-protective properties,” noted Grigoriev. Mammoth blood, it would appear, contains a kind of anti-freeze. This is consistent with work done by Canadian geneticists who in 2010 showed that mammoth hemoglobin releases its oxygen much more readily at cold temperatures than that of modern elephants.
In addition to the blood, the paleontologists also recovered well-preserved muscle tissue. The scientists say it has a natural red color of fresh meat. The blood is currently undergoing a bacteriological analysis, and the results are expected soon.
Based on the preliminary evidence, the scientists say the female wooly mammoth was anywhere from 50 to 60 years old and weighed about three tons. They theorize that she was trying to escape from predators when she fell through the ice, or that she got bogged down in a swamp.
(via airreka)
10AM
Sometimes the jokes write themselves
(Source: drunkonstephen, via dr-fantabulous)
9AM
I need feminism because I should not be ridiculed daily for a haircut. (I’m feminine too!)
Since taking this photo and getting the courage to submit it, I have shaved half my head and still undergo daily criticism, insults, and countless other degredations of myself as a woman and a human being in general.
This is why I need feminism.
June172013
Harry Potter’s effect on society. I like it.
(via iamverysorry)
11AM
The mothers of Turkish protesters form a protective chain around Gezi Park.
Mothers know the safety of their children depends on a free future.
That… was actually really deep, man. Like, shit. Made me stop for a second. Dude.
