#florida is dangerous

[ausetkmt]

Northview High School English teacher Vicki Baggett during an interview with Studio 850 in September 2022. (Screenshot via Facebook)

Vicki Baggett, an English teacher at Northview High School in Florida, is pushing for the Escambia County School District to remove nearly 150 books from school libraries. In an interview last month, Baggett told Popular Information that she is challenging books like When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball — the story of a sprinter who overcame racial discrimination to become an Olympic champion — because she's concerned the book could make white students "feel uncomfortable." Baggett said she has "a responsibility to protect minors" from this kind of content. 

While Baggett claims she is keeping inappropriate content away from children, her former and current students tell Popular Information that Baggett openly promoted racist and homophobic beliefs in class. 

Peggy Sunday, who graduated from Northview in 2021, told Popular Information that, during a 10th-grade English class, Baggett said she opposed interracial marriage. "[Baggett] said in the Bible somewhere it says that it is a sin for races to mix together and that whites are meant to be with whites and blacks are meant to be with blacks," Sunday alleged. About 15 students, from a variety of racial backgrounds, were enrolled in the class.

Another student in the same class, Stone Pressley, recalled the same incident. Pressley said that Baggett said she was opposed to "race mixing" because "she wanted to preserve cultures" and "didn't want everyone to turn the same color eventually." Pressley said that although Baggett had a reputation for controversial remarks, he found Baggett's comments on interracial relationships "shocking." After the incident, Pressley recalled asking his science teacher if it was possible, as Baggett claimed, for everyone to be "the same color one day." 

Another student in the class, Hamza Jacobs, confirmed Baggett's comments opposing "race mixing." A fourth student in the class, who asked to remain anonymous due to the nature of the allegations and Baggett's standing in a small community, also confirmed the episode. 

Sunday said that Baggett is known throughout Northview as an "openly racist teacher." Sunday worked at a local pool and, one day, Baggett asked her about "the black-to-white" ratio. According to Sunday, Baggett then asked two Black students if they "knew how to swim" because "most black people don't know how to swim." The incident was confirmed by one of the Black students targeted by Baggett, who asked to remain anonymous. That student said Baggett "asked me and another girl of color in my class 'could we swim because black people usually can’t.'" Jacobs and Pressley also confirmed the incident. 

A Black student in the class also alleged Baggett said that "she didn't understand why black people get tattoos in black ink" because "you can’t even see them." Pressley and Sunday confirmed the incident. Sunday and Jacobs recalled Baggett frequently commenting on the hair of a Black female student. Sunday said Baggett questioned why the young woman wore hair extensions and asked if her hair "was heavy or hurt her." 

Popular Information previously reported that, in 2015, Baggett posted an image of the Confederate Flag to her Facebook page. In the December 2022 interview, Baggett defended the posting, because "everyone in my clan fought in the Civil War" and she was not "ashamed of that." Baggett added that she was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy, which has been designated as part of the Neo-Confederate movement.

The Escambia County School District did not answer a detailed list of questions about Baggett's behavior but did provide the following statement to Popular Information: "We categorically condemn any form of discriminatory speech. Our mission is to reach all students, regardless of race, background, or gender identity."

Baggett did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the allegations made by her students. She has, however, continued to submit challenges to books in Escambia County school libraries. Most recently, Baggett challenged a bestselling book of poetry available in high school libraries, The Sun and Her Flowers, on January 5. 

Baggett accuses a student of "faking being a lesbian" 

Both Sunday and Pressley recalled another incident involving Baggett that "the whole school talked about." According to Sunday, Baggett told a 10th-grade student that her sister, who had a girlfriend, was "faking being a lesbian for attention." Baggett allegedly said that "nobody's born that way." 

The incident was confirmed by a student, who asked to remain anonymous, who witnessed Baggett's comments. Popular Information also confirmed the identity of the targeted student and her sister but is not publishing their identities due to the nature of the allegations. 

In September 2019, a Northview parent emailed principal Michael Sherrill objecting strenuously to Baggett's classroom conduct. (The email was obtained by Popular Information on the condition that the identity of the parent not be disclosed.) In the letter, the parent accused Baggett of "a toxic and hostile learning environment for her students" and asked that "a full investigation of her actions be conducted." 

The letter states that Baggett "has expressed her utter distaste for homosexuals to her students." According to the parent, Baggett "stated she thinks homosexuals are DUMB/STUPID for wearing the rainbow and pink colors because, according to Mrs. Baggett, that is the way that Hitler marked homosexual males during the Holocaust." (The pink triangle was used by Nazis but has been reclaimed by the LGBTQ community as a symbol of pride.) The parent expressed concern that these comments would make students in her class feel "judged" and "humiliated."

Many of the books challenged by Baggett have LGBTQ themes. Among the books challenged by Baggett is And Tango Makes Three. The book is the story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo. The pair build a nest together and raise an adopted child, Tango. Baggett alleges the book promotes the "LGBTQ agenda using penguins." On the form, Baggett said she believes the purpose of the book is "indoctrination."

In the December 2022 interview with Popular Information, Baggett said And Tango Makes Three includes sexual "innuendo" and K-3 students are "too young to even be concerned about sex." Baggett explained that she objected to the book because if a second grader read the book "that idea would pop into the second grader's mind… that these are two people of the same sex that love each other." Baggett's challenge says the book is inappropriate for all grade levels. 

The September 2019 parent letter also claims that Baggett "openly stated that men and women should 'Know Their Role.'" Baggett allegedly said that "men are the protectors and the women are the nurturers" and that is why "women have the children and the men go to work to provide and protect the women." 

The parent demanded their child "be removed from Mrs. Baggett’s classroom effective immediately." But the parent told Popular Information that no action was taken in response to their complaint. The school did not address the specific allegations in the letter, and Principal Sherrill told the parent that Baggett was "a good person." 

A former student in Baggett's class told Popular Information that, despite her "wild" conduct in class, "a lot of people were scared" to complain to administrators about Baggett. Northview is a small high school, with about 90 people in each graduating class, and Baggett has taught English at Northview for more than 30 years. 

Inside Baggett's classroom today

Baggett is seeking to remove books like When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball from Escambia County libraries, claiming texts that detail historic discrimination amount to "race-baiting." The form Baggett submitted to the school district says When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball "opines prejudice based on race" and is inappropriate for students in any grade.

But a current student in Baggett's 12th grade English class told Popular Information that Baggett's curriculum includes texts that cover racial issues in crude terms. Popular Information is withholding the name of the student because the student is a minor and is currently enrolled in Baggett's class.

Among the texts covered in Baggett's 12th grade English class this academic year was A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor, an acclaimed but controversial author. (See "How Racist Was Flannery O'Connor?" in the New Yorker.) In A Good Man Is Hard to Find, a man named Edgar Atkins Teagarden courts a woman by leaving a watermelon at her doorstep every Saturday carved with his initials — E.A.T. The punchline is that a Black child, referred to in the story with the n-word, ate the watermelon because he interpreted Teagarden's initials as an invitation. 

According to the student, Baggett played an audio version of the story that included the unredacted racial slur. During the classroom discussion, Baggett also allegedly spelled out the n-word, which the student said made many of her classmates uncomfortable. Another student in the class posted a screenshot of the of the passage from A Good Man Is Hard to Find with the n-word to social media, commenting that it was a "regular day in Ms. Baggett's class."

Baggett previously told Popular Information that her 12th grade class included texts with the n-word. But Baggett claimed that when the text was read in the classroom, she "basically skipped over" the part of the book that included the slur because it was her job to make "students all feel comfortable." (During the December 2022 interview, Baggett herself used the racial slur in full oin describing the incident.) Baggett declined to name the text, so it's unclear if it was A Good Man Is Hard to Find or another story. 

There is nothing particularly unusual about including a Flannery O'Connor story in a 12th grade English class. But it highlights a troubling contradiction in Baggett's approach. Baggett maintains that A Good Man Is Hard to Find is appropriate for high school students but books like When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball and And Tango Makes Three are inappropriate andshould be removed from all school libraries. 

#Florida English teacher pushing book bans is openly racist and homophobic #students allege #florida #florida book ban #racism #systemic racism #white supremacy in government #florida is dangerous

[reasoningdaily]

Yahoo News: Civil rights groups warn tourists about Florida in wake of 'hostile' laws

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The NAACP over the weekend issued a travel advisory for Florida, joining two other civil rights groups in warning potential tourists that recent laws and policies championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida lawmakers are “openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.”

The NAACP, long an advocate for Black Americans, joined the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a Latino civil rights organization, and Equality Florida, a gay rights advocacy group, in issuing travel advisories for the Sunshine State, where tourism is one of the state's largest job sectors.

The warning approved Saturday by the NAACP's board of directors tells tourists that, before traveling to Florida, they should understand the state of Florida "devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”

An email was sent Sunday morning to DeSantis' office seeking comment. The Republican governor is expected to announce a run for the GOP presidential nomination this week.

Florida is one of the most popular states in the U.S. for tourists, and tourism is one of its biggest industries. More than 137.5 million tourists visited Florida last year, marking a return to pre-pandemic levels, according to Visit Florida, the state's tourism promotion agency. Tourism supports 1.6 million full-time and part-time jobs, and visitors spent $98.8 billion in Florida in 2019, the last year figures are available.

Several of Florida's Democratic mayors were quick to say Sunday that their cities welcomed diversity and inclusion.

“EVERYONE is always welcome and will be treated with dignity and respect,” tweeted Mayor Ken Welch of St. Petersburg in a message echoed by the mayor across the bay in Tampa.

“That will never change, regardless of what happens in Tallahassee,” tweeted Mayor Jane Castor of Tampa.

The NAACP's decision comes after the DeSantis' administration in January rejected the College Board’s Advanced Placement African American Studies course. DeSantis and Republican lawmakers also have pressed forward with measures that ban state colleges from having programs on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as critical race theory, and also passed the Stop WOKE Act that restricts certain race-based conversations and analysis in schools and businesses.

In its warning for Hispanic travelers considering a visit to Florida, LULAC cited a new law that prohibits local governments from providing money to organizations that issue identification cards to people illegally in the country and invalidates out-of-state driver’s licenses held by undocumented immigrants, among other things. The law also requires hospitals that accept Medicaid to include a citizenship question on intake forms, which critics have said is intended to dissuade immigrants living in the U.S. illegally from seeking medical care.

“The actions taken by Governor DeSantis have created a shadow of fear within communities across the state,” said Lydia Medrano, a LULAC vice president for the Southeast region.

Recent efforts to limit discussion on LGBTQ topics in schools, the removal of books with gay characters from school libraries, a recent ban on gender-affirming care for minors, new restrictions on abortion access and a law allowing Floridians to carry concealed guns without a permit contributed to Equality Florida's warning.

“Taken in their totality, Florida’s slate of laws and policies targeting basic freedoms and rights pose a serious risk to the health and safety of those traveling to the state,” Equality Florida's advisory said.

#florida #discrimination #southern danger #florida's dangerous atmosphere #naacp #Civil rights groups warn tourists about Florida in wake of 'hostile' laws #civil rights warnings #florida is dangerous #florida is dangerous because of white supremacy in government

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

#ACLA24 #ACLA24Leaders #youtube #youtube video #climate leaders #climate solutions #climate action #climate and environment #climate #climate change #climate and health #climate blog #climate justice #climate news #weather and climate #environmental news #environment #environmental awareness #environment and health #environmental #environmental issues #environmental justice #environment protection #environmental health #Youtube

[danu2203]

THE GRAND WIZARD

#FLORIDA IS DANGEROUS

[curioscurio]

crying a lot more lately.

#vent art #its not often i end up liking the results of my vent art but . i guess i do like how it turned out. #im not doing so well right now #im trying to set up a gofund me to get me out of this house but im having trouble doing . well anything for myself. #if i were making a fundraiser for anyone else id be right on it. but my self worth is in the gutter and i spend all my time and energy #helping make my family's lives easier #anyway im at the point where now im speaking without thinking put of anger which is dangerous and stupid to do in this house #im just like. i need help. this is the cry for help. please help me escape florida and my abusive family when i can get myself organized en #ough to get it all set up #this is ok to reblog

[technofairyprincess]

guns in the summertime

#dollette #coquette dollete #coquette #art student #coquette aesthetic #southern gothic #coquette girl #creepy cute #cute and dangerous #madoka magica #madoka kamane #cosplay #lana del rey #florida kilos

[lesbianredpanda]

Can someone take this fucking fascist out please?! We don't assassinate politicians like we used to and that's tragic

#us politics #on the outside chance this dude becomes president I'd genuinely consider leaving the country #to think of him doing to the whole country what hes doing to florida is genuinely terrifying #like chilled to the core with danger fear

[gxlden-angels]

I don't know if it's the religious trauma or the dead mom trauma but the conservative christian insistence on not teaching children about their bodies in school and insistence that this knowledge should be private in all circumstances with no exceptions should be seen as suspicious at best and criminally malicious at worst

#but wait there's more #I know this isn't a new hot take or anything #but I have 'periods' without blood cause of medical reasons and every time I get them #I think about my great aunt scoffing at me for admitting Im on birth control before she told me #how until she was maybe 16-18 y/o she thought holding hands with boys she liked would get her pregnant #and I think about being 9 y/o and just losing my mom only to be told a few months later that Im a woman now #I was barely sentient let alone a woman #and with the recent period talk ban in florida #where you can't even discuss periods without getting in trouble before 6th grade #how scared and alone I already was being raised in this cult where everything was hush hush #My dad couldn't teach me about them and my extended family didn't tell me about all of the reproductive conditions we have running thru us #so I barely talked to anyone until I was like 13-14 and so anemic I was blacking out and sleeping 14 hours a day #and no one told me it wasnt normal until then #it's dangerous at best and deadly at worst

[mistofstars]

Irgendwann geh ich schlafen, aber nicht jetzt *manisches Lachen*

Schau gerade auf joyn.de bisschen vom Deutschen Fernsehpreis und skippe zu den mir wichtigen Stellen har har.

Also im Publikum gesehen habe ich: Benny, Lundt, Katha Karg, Schmitti, Arne, Klaas und Doris, Joko, Micky Beisenherz

...

also Joko mit "most dangerous show" gewinnt und die Rede hält, die "stolzen Eltern" während seiner Rede...

übrigens sind Schmitti, Jakob und Klaas sofort aufgestanden, als Joko gewonnen hat - während irgendwie alle um sie rum sitzen geblieben sind x3

#joko und klaas #joko winterscheidt #florida #deutscher fernsehpreis #the worlds most dangerous show #doris golpashin #klaas heufer-umlauf #jakob lundt #thomas schmitt #floridatv

[girderednerve]

i have once more Read a Book !

the book was jim morris' cancer factory: industrial chemicals, corporate deception, & the hidden deaths of american workers. this book! is very good! it is primarily about the bladder cancer outbreak associated with the goodyear plant in niagara falls, new york, & which was caused by a chemical called orthotoluedine. goodyear itself is shielded by new york's workers' comp law from any real liability for these exposures & occupational illnesses; instead, a lot of the information that morris relies on comes from suits against dupont, which manufactured the orthotoluedine that goodyear used, & despite clear internal awareness of its carcinogenicity, did not inform its clients, who then failed to protect their workers. fuck dupont! morris also points out that goodyear manufactured polyvinyl chloride (PVC) at that plant, and, along with other PVC manufacturers, colluded to hide the cancer-causing effects of vinyl chloride, a primary ingredient in PVC & the chemical spilled in east palestine, ohio in 2023. the book also discusses other chemical threats to american workers, including, and this was exciting for me personally, silica; it mentions the hawks nest tunnel disaster (widely forgotten now despite being influential in the 30s, and, by some measures, the deadliest industrial disaster in US history) & spends some time on the outbreak of severe silicosis among southern california countertop fabricators, associated with high-silica 'engineered stone' or 'quartz' countertops. i shrieked about that, the coverage is really good although the treatment of hawks nest was very brief & neglected the racial dynamic at play (the workers exposed to silica at hawks nest were primarily migrant black workers from the deep south).

cancer factory spends a lot of time on the regulatory apparatus in place to respond to chemical threats in the workplace, & thoroughly lays out how inadequate they are. OSHA is responsible for setting exposure standards for workplace chemicals, but they have standards for only a tiny fraction—less than one percent!—of chemicals used in american industry, and issue standards extremely slowly. the two major issues it faces, outside of its pathetically tiny budget, are 1) the standard for demonstrating harm for workers is higher than it is for the general public, a problem substantially worsened during the reagan administration but not created by it, and 2) OSHA is obliged to regulate each individual chemical separately, rather than by functional groups, which, if you know anything at all about organic chemistry, is nonsensical on its face. morris spends a good amount of time on the tenure of eula bingham as the head of OSHA during the carter administration; she was the first woman to head the organization & made a lot of reasonable reforms (a cotton dust standard for textile workers!), but could not get a general chemical standard, allowing OSHA to regulate chemicals in blocks instead of individually, through, & then of course much of her good work was undone by reagan appointees.

the part of the book that made me most uncomfortable was morris' attempt to include birth defects in his analysis. i don't especially love the term 'birth defect'—it feels cruel & seems to me to openly devalue disabled people's lives, no?—but i did appreciate attention to women's experiences in the workplace, and i think workplace chemical exposure is an underdiscussed part of reproductive justice. cancer factory mentions women lead workers who were forced to undergo tubal ligations to retain their employment, supposedly because lead is a teratogen. morris points at workers in silicon valley's electronics industry; workers, most of them women, who made those early transistors were exposed to horrifying amounts of lead, benzene, and dangerous solvents, often with disabling effects for their children.

morris points out again & again that we only know that there was an outbreak of bladder cancer & that it should be associated with o-toluedine because the goodyear plant workers were organized with the oil, chemical, & atomic workers (OCAW; now part of united steelworkers), and the union pursued NIOSH investigation and advocated for improved safety and monitoring for employees, present & former. even so, 78 workers got bladder cancer, 3 died of angiosarcoma, and goodyear workers' families experienced bladder cancer and miscarriage as a result of secondary exposure. i kept thinking about unorganized workers in the deep south, cancer alley in louisiana, miners & refinery workers; we don't have meaningful safety enforcement or monitoring for many of these workers. we simply do not know how many of them have been sickened & killed by their employers. there is no political will among people with power to count & prevent these deaths. labor protections for workers are better under the biden administration than the trump administration, but biden's last proposed budget leaves OSHA with a functional budget cut after inflation, and there is no federal heat safety standard for indoor workers. the best we get is marginal improvement, & workers die. i know you know! but it's too big to hold all the same.

anyway it's a good book, it's wide-ranging & interested in a lot of experiences of work in america, & morris presents an intimate (sometimes painfully so!) portrait of workers who were harmed by goodyear & dupont. would recommend

#if anyone knows about scholarship that addresses workplace chemical exposure #& children born with disabilities through a disability justice lens please recommend it to me! #booksbooksbooks #have reached the point in my Being Weird About Occupational Safety era where i cheered when familiar names came up #yay irving j. selikoff champion of workers exposed to asbestos! yay labor historians alan derickson & gerald markowitz! #morris points out the tension between workers - who want engineering controls of hazards (eg enclosed reactors) #& employers who want workers to wear cumbersome PPE #the PPE approach is cheaper & makes it even easier to lean on the old 'the worker was careless' canard when occupational disease occurs #i just cannot stop thinking about it in relation to covid. my florida library system declined to enforce masks for political reasons #& reassured us that PPE is much less important than safety improvements at the operational & engineering level #but they didn't do those things either! we opened no windows; upgraded no HVACs; we put plexi on the service desks & stickers on the floors #& just as we have seen covid dangers downplayed or misrepresented workers still do not receive useful information about chemical hazard #a bunch of those MSDS handouts leave out carcinogen status & workers had to fight like hell to even be told what they're handling #a bunch of them still do not know—consider agricultural workers & pesticide exposures. to choose an obvious & egregious example.

[killerchickadee]

Cuddles

Oh finger, we're really in it now

Still can't figure out if he doesn't know or just doesn't care.

#i won't let them interact if anyone's concerned #she sure the hell noticed him though #she was chilling and then was like ummm hiding behind the arm now thanks #sorry y'all i got a new pet and I'm making it everyone's problem #thing is snakes aren't slimy like some people think but it might be better if they were lol #they're sort of rubbery and they stick to dry skin pretty bad #so she's trying to slither around my arms and it's like stick stick stick stick #she's back in her tank now #i want to make sure she's used to being handled cause ngl I'll probably be a little intimidated as she gets bigger #....so guess I'm getting myself used to handling snakes too lol #I've always been a little afraid of them #i mean i grew up in florida so you know... not a bad thing to be when you've got dangerous snakes around #but in the two months we had her at the store she never once tried to bite anyone #balls are notably chill but she's like extra chill lol #it's not even the idea of getting bitten it's just the striking motion that's scary #if she did like a gentle nom i wouldn't be so nervous

[simplyghosting]

Mention burrowing owls and the elementary school memory and emotions of “Hoot” by Carl Hiaasen wakes up in me with a vengeance

#ghost posts #that book changed me as a kid #especially as a kid that lived in Florida #was a big factor in recognizing environmental issues and hating bad urban planning for me #news was talking about the owls being in danger and i got emotional #he wrote another book that I read as a kid too #can’t recall the name at the moment

[cynical-crypt]

realized I'm rapidly becoming the pete to your patrick and I just wanted to apologize in advance

ive always needed a pete. sorry for being patrick. in advance. also you're more like his evil alter ego pee wentz. cuz you keep having to whizz in the bushes

#sorry about that by the way i gotta keep packing i was going strong before the florida trip but ive been slacking bigtime since we got back #pathetic shit fashion white boy fails at vacation recovery part 2 #one day youll be able to piss at my place #lets be codependent in all the most dangerous ways you feel #hope you dream about the lung fic also

[defilerwyrm]

#garter snake #florida blue garter snake #snek #danger noodle #(very dangerous to tiny earthworms. a terror) #snakes #pets #baby snake #wiggle wiggle wiggle #animals #reptiblr #reptiles #meatspace

[greenmenace]

Every movie I watch with him in, I instantly get heart emoji eyes when he's on screen.

All of his characters are beautiful and I love each and every one of theeeem.

#;;memes #willem dafoe #norman osborn #green goblin #light sleeper #john letour #the lighthouse #thomas wake #daybreakers #finding nemo #gill #to live and die in l.a. #rick masters #platoon #elias grodin #clear and present danger #mississippi burning #alan ward #the florida project #bobby hicks #the life aquatic with steve zissou #klaus daimler #at eternity's gate #streets of fire #raven shaddock #american psycho #togo #leonhard seppala #the grand budapest hotel #SO MANY TAGS HAHA

[reading-writing-revolution]

Links to every local news article that back the articles claims.

#florida #fascism #dangerous cops #police brutality

[hiding-under-the-willow]

Tossing and turning in bed plagued by visions (Ed Edgar headcanons that are definitely just me projecting my cowboy ass autistic interest in strange animals onto him bc he too is a strange southern man with autistic swag)

#atlas speaks #i think he keeps exotic animals. not in like a joe exotic tiger king 'I'm raising endangered mammals that could kill me in my bedroom' way #but like. he has a bunch of venomous snakes and weird spiders. his living room is just lined with shelves and shelves of terrariums #i think you see him interact with his strange and dangerous pets and it's like meeting a whole new person #he is so much less of an asshole the second he is looking at a weird bug #i think he would love camel spiders in particular. those fuckers are so weird he'd love it #and bold jumping spiders. bc they're native to where he grew up #you take him out hiking or some sblhit and he starts acting like that guy on tiktok who hunts for pythons in the florida everglades #he's picking up snakes with his bare hands like #'oh yeah this is a black racer! they're totally harmless but they've got a lot of personality ^-^' while it aggressively bites his arm #he tried showing Bim the David Bowie Huntsman once. he's like 'Bowie is a gay icon Bim'll love this' and quickly learns Bim is arachnophobic #he's waving around cane toads like 'oh my god guys look at the poison glands on this thing!!!' #i feel like he'd love eastern hognose snakes too he loves the silly fucking way they play dead #anyways what I'm saying is give him a educational nature show let him do some weird shit out in the wild it's his natural habitat #he's the types of guy to stand barefoot on the asphalt next to a diamondback to get it to cross the road so it doesn't get run over #I'm hoping releasing these thoughts into the world frees me from them so i can sleep lol can you tell #anyways he absolutely handles like black widows and brown recluse with his bare hands like a madman #he would love eel pit guy #anyways this is his one redeeming quality he is still the worst in every other way 👍