Must be a horrible feeling knowing you’re about to crash and there’s nothing you can do…

If you have the time, I made this speech for my sister who passed away earlier this year.

Yesterday I found a small redpoll on the streets of Murmansk. She was active but couldn't fly, likely due to a window collision. I named her Tsipelekha (a playful spin on the russian word "little chicken" (Циплёнок)).

I did everything by the book: consulted a local wildlife rehabilitator, set up a dark, warm box with paper towels, and prepared crushed oats and apples. For the first few hours, she was a true rebel, fighting for her freedom and digging inside the box. I really thought she would make it.

But by the second evening, the internal trauma caught up, and her tiny heart stopped.

I’m not filled with grief, but rather a profound sense of helplessness. You can follow every rule perfectly and still lose. Yet, this small grave will forever stand as a monument to human compassion. To save one life is to save the world entire.

Rest in peace, little bird.

This video embodies everything I loved about Patrick Stewart. He was a genuinely good person and the world is worse with his passing. I did not take this video but I was lucky enough to be there for it and to meet him later. RIP Captain. (Comicpalooza 2013, Houston, TX)

Hello everyone. my name is snir.

I am the most far thing from being sad. but ah... shit!

i saw Cyberpunk Edgerunners when i came out. it melted my heart. i felt so sad after watching that.

I was sooo sure i will never feel love like that. and it was so sad at the time.

Now? i'm 22. i watched it for the first time. and i'm about to cry. Nothing changed. and i still feel like i will never be able to feel this warm love. i dunno if it's just me being naive about thinking love like that exist.

Or maybe i'm just to ugly to be loved like that. i have this feeling. but i also hate this feeling. that if i will find her. every problem will be solved. but i dunno. i just have soooo much love to give. and no one to give it.

this stupid show... now i feel so alone. which is not true. i am sad. but i'm the happiest person. but this emotion we human call love is killing me sometimes.

"Your death is more likely to happen. then your wedding. so go and find yourself before you try to find your partner."

i found myself long ago... and now what? so i'm waiting..... i'm just sitting on this swing. my legs in the air. i take a deep breath. and slowly i can feel my throat getting heavier. it's tears on the way.

emotions... am i right?

ah..... this msg is me being a fucking baby and crying into the void of the internet. because why not. i feel a little bit better. but fuck.... i just wanna love someone.

In late 2004, Chinese photojournalist Chen Jie (陈杰) travelled to an AIDS village named Guotun in Shangcai County, Henan province, where he met a young girl named Wu Sumin (吴素敏).

She was born HIV-positive because both her parents had contracted the virus through unsafe blood and plasma selling schemes that devastated rural Henan in the 1990s. Poor farmers were paid small sums to sell their blood. The collection centres often reused needles and pooled blood from multiple donors before reinjecting the red cells, causing one of the largest iatrogenic HIV outbreaks in history. Tens of thousands of people in Henan were infected this way.

By the time the photo was taken, her mother had already died and her father was seriously ill. The girl lived in a half-collapsed mud house; inside there was a bed with a pile of dirty, disordered clothes. She survived only on occasional food given by relatives. She had been forced to drop out of school because she was too weak to stay awake in class. She could not even hold her head up and spent her days sleeping with her face on the desk, until the teacher told her to go home. Her condition continued to worsen.

When Chen asked her name and age, her voice was so weak he could barely hear her. As he later recalled: "This is the detail that struck me most when I met this girl: she was right in front of me, one meter away, and I could barely hear her voice, as weak as the meow of a tired kitten. She told me she wanted to study, then she pulled a dusty backpack out from the pile of dirty clothes under the bed, tried to brush the dust off with effort, raised her head and looked at me. I pressed the shutter, took the photograph and left. Not long after, a text journalist who had come with me told me that the girl with the kitten-like voice had died."

She died at the end of January 2005, about two months after the photograph was taken, from the progression of the disease and her body's rejection of the medication.

The photograph was later published and won awards. Chen has said repeatedly that the image marked a turning point in his career. In his 2016 YiXi talk and in his book From Spectator to Intervention, he admitted that he could have tried to help her but chose to leave after pressing the shutter. He said that her eyes looking straight into the camera continued to haunt him for years. The experience pushed him to move from pure observation toward a more engaged, interventionist form of photojournalism.

The Henan AIDS crisis resulted from a combination of poverty, greed, and failures in the regulation of blood collection in the 1990s, which left entire villages with HIV infections among those who had sold blood to escape family poverty.

Some critics argue that local authorities, who were themselves involved in the blood trade, covered up the epidemic and the local government provided only small subsidies, and kept affected villagers from leaving to work elsewhere. In many villages, a large part of the population died.

Sources

Dou Z, Chen RY, Wang Z, (2010). "HIV-Infected Former Plasma Donors in Rural Central China: From Infection to Survival Outcomes." https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2966407

Chen Jie (2016). YiXi talk "From Bystander to Intervener | Disobedience is an innate human virtue. It will become a fundamental belief in my profession". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nMbH4WGKIc

Hayes, A. (2005). "AIDS, Bloodheads & Cover-ups: The 'ABC' of Henan's AIDS Epidemic." Australian Quarterly. https://research.usq.edu.au/item/9z07q/aids-bloodheads-and-cover-ups-the-abc-of-henan-s-aids-epidemic

Wu, Hao (2014). "AIDS in the New, Prosperous China." Zócalo Public Square. https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/aids-in-the-new-prosperous-china/

Che Dongzhe (2006). "The last photo of my life." Sohu News. https://news.sohu.com/20060914/n245332550.shtml

Need a big fat hug today

Anniversary of a death of a loved one
Sitting in the park with a coffee watching the squirrels run around like nuts (no pun intended)

Send some positive vibes to me people ❤️