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Tumblr is like a farmyard and I am a chicken. There is so much dirt and nonsense, but in amongst this is scattered seed and the occasional tasty worm which nourish me.

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"Imagine being that ignorant about wild bears that you think they are less likely to harm you than the average man"

You are more likely to be raped by the man than touched by the bear.

I'm sorry you are completely ignorant regarding statistics about bear encounters.

Are you actually arguing that, given a completely random bear and a completely random man, the random man is more likely to harm me than the bear if I was with them in the woods?

Y’all are delusional…

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Ooh. This is SO GEN X.... hopefully some of you younger ones will get it too.

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Tonight, we remember one who lent his enormous talent to telling the story we have all come to love. Hail, the victorious dead!

May the Simbelmynë cover his tomb as it did the tomb of the one he so accurately portrayed.

Bernard Hill Dec 17, 1944 - May 5, 2024

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Humanae Vitae was the biggest flex ever pulled on the Church and I LOVE IT

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May the 4th be with You: A Poem for Star Wars Day

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i can't get over how evil it is that "gap in your resume" is considered a valid reason to not hire someone like "hmmm sorry you weren't working constantly every day of your life we need people who do nothing but work until they drop dead for us we just don't think you're right for the job" fuck youuuu

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Feminism was supposed to create empathy towards prostitutes to help them out of the situation, not to validate it.

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2 minute read

Eight years ago, Sarah Sands stabbed a convicted paedophile to death. Speaking together for the first time, her three sons tell BBC News they were all sexually abused by him, and how they feel now about their mother's crime.

On an autumn night in 2014, Sarah Sands left her east London maisonette with a hood pulled over her head, armed with a knife. She walked to a neighbouring block of flats, to the home of an elderly man. Once there, she stabbed Michael Pleasted eight times, in what was later described as a "determined and sustained attack". He bled to death.

Pleasted was 77 and a convicted paedophile. At the time, he was facing further charges. He was accused of sexual offences against young boys on the estate, in Silvertown, where he lived.

Legally, as in all such cases, the names of those boys could not be made public during the trial. BBC News can now report, for the first time, that all three boys involved in the case were the sons of Pleasted's killer, Sarah Sands.

Her eldest, Bradley, who was 12 at the time, waived his right to anonymity last year to reveal the abuse. And in an interview with BBC News, his younger twin brothers - Alfie and Reece - have now done the same. They were 11 when their mother killed the man accused of abusing them.

As young adults - now aged 19 and 20 - they remember when, as children, they learned what their mother had done. Speaking alongside their mother, they say growing up with her in prison was hard. And while their mum says she has remorse about what she did, her sons are brutally honest about her actions.

"I thought hats off," Bradley tells the BBC. "I'm not going to deny it."

"It did make us feel safer," Alfie adds. "It didn't slow down the nightmares. But it did give us a sense of security because you didn't have to walk down the street thinking he was going to come around the corner."

Reece says, then aged 11, it was "nice knowing that he was dead". But he adds: "It didn't stop any afterthoughts, you know, we would often wake up crying [saying] 'where's mum?'"

"He lived literally across the road from us," Bradley adds. "I could open that window over there," he says pointing, "and I'd see his house."

Sarah Sands and her family moved to their new home, also in Silvertown, months before the killing.

She became friends with Pleasted, who lived on his own. He was a high-profile character on the estate, often perched on a seat outside the newsagents, giving him contact with the local residents and their children. "I thought he was a lovely old man," she says now. "I cooked for him, looked after him, always kept him company when I had the time."

Pleasted sorted the newspapers in the shop and some children had Saturday jobs working with him. "He asked if Brad could help out and he was so excited," Sands says. She says Pleasted was grooming her eldest son and gradually gaining more access to the twins. He invited the three boys back to his home.

One evening the twins disclosed to her that, while at the flat, Pleasted had sexually assaulted them. A week later Bradley revealed the same. Pleasted was arrested and charged with offences against her sons.

While he was awaiting trial, the judge gave him bail and said he could return to the estate. Sands said she was distraught and uncomprehending. She moved her family to her mother's small home.

'The whole world froze'

On the night of the attack, she was caught on CCTV going to Pleasted's flat. She says she wanted to ask him to plead guilty to the charges and spare her boys the ordeal of going to court.

"I didn't know what I was doing there," she says. "I realised I had made a huge mistake. He was not remorseful in any shape or form. He said 'your children are lying'. The whole world froze. I had the knife in my left hand and I remember he tried to grab it." She maintains she did not intend to kill Pleasted.

A few hours later she handed herself in at a police station with her blood-stained knife and clothing. The judge in the trial later said he did not believe she had "rationally thought through what taking a knife might lead to" but added: "I am sure the possibility of its use was in her mind."

Sarah Sands was convicted of manslaughter, rather than murder, on the grounds she had lost control. She was jailed for three and a half years - but later saw the sentence increased to seven and a half years because the sentence was ruled to be too lenient. Court of Appeal judges said she had done nothing to help Pleasted had not called the emergency services.

She spent nearly four years in prison. "I had taken the law into my own hands," she says now. "I've always been raised to take responsibility for my actions."

As a single mother behind bars, the three boys and their two younger brothers lived with their grandmother while their mother was in prison.

"There was loads of us all in one room. There was no privacy," Bradley tells he BBC. "My nan was talking to my mum on the phone in prison, asking her if I could go and play football, or go out with my mates. And often she would say 'no'."

Alfie says the three brothers did "miss out on stuff". They saw her once a month on their regular prison visits. "Sometimes you just want to tell your Mum a problem," he says now. Their friends knew what had happened. But Bradley says he does remember other people asking: "Where's your Mum? We never see her."

"They were angry with me," Sands adds. "Before I went in, we were so close and then all of a sudden, I wasn't there anymore. It was awful for them."

Asked if she felt remorse for ending Michael Pleasted's life, she says: "Absolutely." Pressed further, she adds: "I bring life into the world. It never occurred to me that I would be guilty of taking life out of the world."

Name changes

During the court case it emerged that Pleasted had changed his name from Robin Moult and he was a convicted paedophile. He had 24 previous convictions for sex offending spanning three decades. His crimes had carried jail terms. But nobody in the area, including the local council that housed him, knew about his past.

Sarah Sands has now joined others who are campaigning for tighter restrictions on sex offenders who change their names.

Labour MP, Sarah Champion, who has raised the issue with ministers, says some sex offenders are using their new identities to get through DBS checks. These are compulsory in certain roles and reveal criminal convictions.

"Once they have changed their names, they are able to get a new driving licence and passport in that name," says Sarah Champion. "That enables them to get a new DBS check. And we are finding that these people are then going into schools and other places where there are children and vulnerable people and exploiting their positions of trust in the most horrific ways."

A Home Office spokesperson said it had already conducted a review of the issue, but it could not publish it because it contained sensitive information, which could potentially be used by offenders to exploit the system.

It said the UK had some of the toughest powers in the world to deal with sex offenders living in the community.

Sarah Sands was released from prison in 2018. Her sons say they have managed to rebuild their relationship with her since then. "She did try to baby us," says Reece, smiling. "It was nice but it just makes you realise all those years that were lost."

"There is nothing that is going to break the family bond," adds Bradley.

The boys say, as children, they regretted revealing the abuse. "If we had all kept out mouth shut, we would have had our mum, and we would have been going shopping, going to the cinema, doing what a normal 12-year-old would do," says Bradley.

But they say they now realise it is important for victims to speak out. "It going to be hard, but it does get better," says Reece. "You should always come forward," Alfie adds. "It's better to talk. If you don't, it's just going to get worse."

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just read an article where some ex-Catholics said they left the church because their parish's new priest started including some latin and chant to the Mass and brought up confession and sin more often in homilies.

my brothers/sisters in Christ, if that is all it takes to make you leave the religion (minor aesthetic differences and reminders that we need confession), i don't think you were ever Catholic to begin with beyond the technicality of your baptism.

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I genuinely think the last few generations raised on “You are special!” and “You are important!” and “You are unique!” were actually deeply harmed by the message.

I was only able to pull myself out of a miserably anti-social hole after I made the actually world-shattering discovery that I wasn’t important, I’m just like other girls, and no one (absolutely no one) cares what I’m doing.

It sounds mean, it doesn’t sound all that inspiring, but it’s what I needed.

I was so insecure and utterly miserable, because I was absolutely certain my every move was being analyzed, scrutinized and misconstrued. I had no self confidence and I was scared of people, even though I had a deep longing to be part of “community,” I couldn’t make a step to join

And then when I was…sixteen? I suddenly had the thought “Hold up, am I spending all this time analyzing what other people are doing? Do I care if they’re special or different?”

And I was not. And I did not.

I was so busy being obsessed with a my own insecurities that I wasn’t able to think about other people at all, either for good or ill.

And that was what it took to snap me out of it. I started to realize that everyone was more afraid of me than I was of them. (Even the people who seemed to have it together.)

It might sound uninspiring, but I’m really not that important. And that’s a good thing, because people aren’t spending their time judging me. I’m actually not all that unique, and that’s a good thing because I can empathize with people. I’m not special, and that’s a good thing, because no one is out there trying to idolize or sabotage me.

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Children are precious. Respect them, and protect them.

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“A woman's heart is inseparable from her womb. When she bears life through pregnancy, she forms an indescribable bond with her child. Through the gift of sexuality, a wife becomes one flesh with her husband. The womb is meant for life and for love. Her body is a sacred place, because it is within the woman that the marriage is consummated and human life is created. Because of its sacred pur-pose, it demands tremendous reverence.

However, when a woman's sexuality is desecrated, the wound is especially deep.

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When a woman suffers sexual abuse, her abuser sends her a vivid message that she does not deserve to be loved, cherished, or protected. If she does not seek help in dealing with the abuse, she may begin to integrate this message into her soul. Her life will soon begin to reflect the belief that she does not expect to be loved. She may begin to give away her body to men who are as lustful as the man who abused her. But this time, she consents and even initiates such encounters. One wound is buried under another. She thinks she has discovered a way to prevent being hurt by guys. Her body may be available to them, but her heart is locked up and she gives it to no one. She won't let anyone hurt her —because she's too busy hurting herself.

The victim asks herself in silence, "Who would want me now?" What she does not realize is that the kind of guy she really wants —a respectful and loving gentleman—would not love her any less because of the abuse she has suffered. If anything, he would want to love her more, to make up for what she has suffered. Do not think that you are worthless or worth less because of the past. No matter what has happened, you still have yourself to give.

After a woman has suffered sexual abuse, it's best for her to take a time of healing for herself before she enters a new relationship. If she doesn't take the time to be made whole, she might begin using relationships to soothe her pain. In a sense, she's attempting to fill a container that's been broken. As a result, she'll wonder why she feels so empty after trying so hard to be filled.”

-Jason and Crystalina Evert, How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul

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Can't stop thinking about how Jimmy Akin accelerated his entrance into the Church so that he and his wife could receive Communion together at least once before she died of cancer.