So I work at a video game store in a mall and across the hall from us is this really nice suit shop. One day one of the guys came in an asked if they could use our microwave (the store they used to go to closed down) and we bargined for use of their bathroom in return since the mall bathrooms are like a 5 min trek.
So for like three months now we just have these men in really nice suits come in and talk while using our microwave and teach them about nerdy shit? Then I, the goblin king in various shitty tee shirts and paint stained pants, walk into their super expensive store and just get greeted with “Yo dude what’s good?” and talk about the pains of steaming silken dress shirts properly and it’s my favorite business interaction every day
A new jewelry store opened up right next to our store and when I used the bathroom today we were talking about it. I hate it on principle (they flooded our systems closet during building) and immediately both Suit Guys™ working went on mini rants. “Their suits are baggy as hell, I wouldn’t trust them to sell me a $9,000 ring when they can’t get a fitted jacket. They look so unprofessional, ” and “I saw one of the dude’s wearing a teal shirt. It’s fall, and you go with teal? At least get a color to match your store if you’re gonna ignore the seasons like that, Christ, but teal is awful.”
I feel the need to add a story to this? My co-worker brought his longboard to work, and one of the suit guys reminisced on how he used to ride pretty often. So Co-Worker and I were like, “Dude, go give it a spin, who cares, this mall is huge.” He was nervous about it because there are mall cops on segways everywhere (with helmets, like bruh, full on Paul Blart) and he was worried he was gonna get caught, and eventually we made a bet that he could ride down to Macy’s and back (it’s like a straight shot). So dead ass, this man hung up his jacket, took a running start, and zipped down the hallway with his tie in the breeze.
He evaded the mall cops and claimed that was, “One of the biggest rushes he’s ever felt.”
Especially when the world around you is so breathtaking.
Beautiful seems a word not strong enough to describe Yellowknife in the
Northwest Territories. It’s a city full of ice, snow, and dark most of
the time (around seven hours of sunlight this time of year) but full of
the most incredible landscape, northern lights, and people
[…]. Here, rock faces peek around every street corner, spread between
swaths of trees interrupted by homes, trailers, and arts and craft
stores. […] Everywhere you look are postcard images of
rivers, islands, ice roads, and art. Culture and history too. The city is located on Chief Drygeese
Territory, traditional home of the Yellowknives Dene alongside the North
Slave Metis. Indigenous languages like Dene, Inuktitut and Cree are
spoken everywhere, alongside the territory’s eight other official
languages.
Everywhere is beauty here.
It’s a world, however, infected with poison. Yellowknife has always been known for its minerals. […]
Yellowknife is most known for gold, however. “Discovered” in the 1930s
by prospectors, southerners flocked here for decades looking for future
and fortune, bringing Canada and colonialism with them. In 1944, a massive gold deposit was uncovered in the Baker Creek
Valley, five kilometres north of Yellowknife. The gold wasn’t easy to
obtain, though. It was contained in specks in bedrock, requiring
crushing and high-temperature heating to be obtained.
This is how the Giant Mine began in 1948.
For 56 years, the Giant Mine was owned by three private companies and produced over 220,000 kilograms of gold. In addition, it also produced hundreds of thousands of tonnes of
arsenic trioxide – a crystalline by-product that is dust-like and
easily becomes airborne
For the first ten years of the Giant Mine, the Falconbridge company
released nearly 7,400 kilograms of arsenic into the atmosphere, covering
the landscape in and around Yellowknife.
Residents – and in particular Yellowknives Dene elders – immediately
began to notice the death of fish, animal mutations, and the loss of
medicines like berries and Labrador tea. Their nation had already had
their traditional lands occupied (and later stolen) for gold.
No one believed them about the atmosphere until the sickness
began to grow. Arsenic is a poison. When exposed, effects first appear
on the skin – gangrene, pigmentation, or keratosis (skin hardening on
soles of feet or palms). Eyes may turn red and suffer permanent damage,
while breathing it in causes lung cancer.
In 1951, a child died from eating snow. Hundreds more reported other health issues. In 1958, government officials imposed restrictions and policies on the
Giant Mine to control the spread of arsenic. In response, the company
began to store most of it, leading to nearly 237,000 tonnes in existing
stopes and custom-built containers still sitting on the Giant Mine site. Royal Oak Mines (the third owners of the mine) went bankrupt in 1999,
the entire Giant Mine site was contaminated, hundred of miles
surrounding the area was infected […].
The clean-up costs for the site alone are nearly a billion dollars,
never mind the costs for the surrounding areas (which is, as yet,
incalculable).
Part of the clean-up involves what to do with the quarter of a
million tonnes of arsenic in metal containers on the site. After
thirteen years of planning, government officials have settled on a
solution: to freeze and bury the containers, keeping them cool with
technology for an additional $2 million a year.
Meanwhile, rivers and lakes remain unusable, medicines and
animals remain unsafe to regularly consume, and residents wait and hope
the technology that keeps the poison frozen nearby doesn’t break down
one day.
All last week [January 2020], public hearings were held to discuss the
billion-dollar clean-up plan and fulfill requirements to attain permits. As the people most impacted by the legacies of the Giant Mine,
Yellowknives Dene leaders have demanded a role in the clean-up project
and compensation for the loss of use of their land.
So far, their appeals have fallen on deaf ears.
“Every time we raise our concerns, you guys always change the
subject and say, ‘No, that’s not what we’re talking about today,’”
Yellowknives Dene elder [AB] stated at the hearings.
Meanwhile, the entire city of Yellowknife remains surrounded by
arsenic, and its people consume a little bit in their food, water, and
air every day.
This is the cost of choosing gold over life. —–
Niigaan Sinclair. “Mine leaves Yellowknife legacy of poison.” Winnipeg Free Press. 27 January 2020.
i can’t with quark and rom appearing into captain sisko’s office via a jeffries tube by accident and captain sisko just being like “wrong room dumbasses” and they just… leave the way they came? from a hole in the wall? after breaking in? like the captain just sees these two idiots doing shady shit in the walls and his response is “yeah can you go do your shady shit elsewhere?” i fucking love ds9 the chaotic energy is unprecedented
![helloitsbees:
“ istandonsnowpiles:
“It’s thirty… foursixer and Slværtcast I guess
”
oh the weather outside is [REDACTED]
”](https://64.media.tumblr.com/1aee538082d348d1bb9768c61986c8ef/tumblr_oht30u8H7j1roccwao1_500.jpg)
