a lot of my disillusionment with the trans "community" comes down to the fact that too many of you take "gender is different from sex" and go "ah ok, so instead of saying women are fragile and men are strong, I should say afabs are fragile and amabs are strong. to be Inclusive"
then you just treat gender like a surface level aesthetic draped over what someone "actually" is. really is indistinguishable from terf rhetoric
you all need to unpack your bioessentialism, but we also need a better theory of gender than "it's just dressup." I will pick my words carefully here, but the word "gender" itself refers to so many different phenomena that have been lumped together, and we need to un-lump them
in a feminist context, "gender" has historically referred to externally imposed categorization and the internalization and performance of said categories. in a paper I wrote on this subject, I called this sense of the word "extrinsic gender"
"intrinsic gender," on the other hand, is what I used to refer to the sense of the word "gender" that a lot of trans people are talking about when they discuss social gender dysphoria and euphoria. it's the internal sense of category that's resistant to external impositions
but then we also use the word "gender" to refer to subconscious sex, which is the term Julia Serano coins in Whipping Girl to name the phenomenon we're talking about when we talk about bodily dysphoria. it is the "gender" being "affirmed" by gender affirming healthcare like HRT and bottom surgery
so, "gender" is: a social classing system, a performance, and at least two internal phenomena as well. and I really don't know if it's doing us a service to conflate all of these things!
a lot of people lately seem to be going heavy on the "performance" use of the word, ignoring (intentionally or otherwise) social classing, intrinsic gender, and subconscious sex. this seems to have led to a lot of "progressive" people treating trans women like men "amabs" who wear womanhood as a costume, and nobody understands why that's wrong because they also think gender is just a performance
cashier who was checking me out was under the weather so i asked them for a snack recommendation and then bought it for them. was inspired by a tumblr post i read on here years ago and i'd always wanted to do it so it was nice to finally see it come to fruition
giving up a seat on the bus
someone giving up their seat for me
was a hot day so i got one of my students some gelato when i went down for ice cream
saw some ppl standing in the lil lobby of my building seemingly having trouble getting in. i normally go around back bc it's faster but i went to help 'em and then they got the door for me (hands full of groceries) and it was very nice
being able to point someone in the right direction when they're looking for something
helped hold someone's bike steady for them since they were standing and it was an awkward position
took doggo to the groomers and met a lady who was having a pet/dog for the first time. shared some stories and reassured her that she was doing a good job with her pup and we parted all smiley
older gentleman that i always discuss books with when we see each other cut out a newspaper article for me about lord of the flies and i read it (it was very good) so now next time i see him we'll get to discuss it
starting this new post a day early, before the final day for ammar's injection because we didn't even get enough to pay off all of last week's, so we really need to start raising it now.
samah and her family have been stuck at the hospital all week, and she was forced to use some of the funds raised for the passport to pay off the remainder of the cost of the iv fluids, with barely anything being made to recoup those costs
so, the transport costs were never paid for, and now we have that same amount to pay this week so they can return home
the most urgent of these funds is the money for ammar's digoxin injection, as well as ammar's food - he needs 3 meals a day at $5 in cash per meal, and we have to have 3 days' worth
that's $1260 we need to raise first, and we need this by tuesday 4 pm at gazan time. currently that's about 48 hours from now, and i hope you'll be willing to help raise this amount
if he doesn't get this in time, he would need an intensive injection that costs $6k+ total alongside the fact he would need extra medicine and this original injection too
unfortunately, even though it is now 10 am wednesday for samah, which was the deadline where ammar required his immune globulin injection by, we have not managed to raise very much
we still need $905 to pay this off; we raised $80 for this purpose
usually ammar would now start needing iv fluids at extreme prices because we hadn't raised the immune globulin injection in time; however, the doctor was able to find a different kind of immune globulin injection, and ammar will be able to wait for another day without requiring it
however, we really need to raise this in as quick a time as possible. it is still a very urgent need. please don't make samah have to worry too much when it's eid, and she hasn't even been home in over a week
samah has informed me that we have until 12 pm tomorrow her time as the deadline. that means we have 25 hours from now
we are an hour past the final deadline and we still need $842 more in order to pay off the immune globulin injection.
what's worse is, the pharmacy is refusing to let us borrow the IV fluids in advance. they say, because it is an emergency situation for them (presumably due to the recent attacks on the hospital), they need the money first before we can use them
essentially, this means we can't use them at all. if we could pay the money in advance, we would just pay for the immune globulin injection in the first place and not waste money getting that!
we need this money immediately.
ammar has had a seizure for the first time in his life just now due to passing the deadline without getting his injection, and the doctor has said that delaying the injection any longer will cause further complications. his health is already worsening as it is without that
we can't afford anything but to get this money as quickly as possible. help him now, i beg of you, because we need this money. this is just as dire and health-threatening as his digoxin injection
without your assistance, we have nothing and no money to keep him stable. without your help, he is going to die.
and all this during eid, when samah should be able to celebrate with her family.
as if the situation could not possibly be bad enough, the hospital is now actively under attack. they are being bombed and samah urgently needs ammar to have his injection and then evacuate with him
previously, i mentioned that ammar had been admitted to the intensive care unit with a high fever and non-stop tremors, which is an addition to the complications mentioned before because we have now delayed the injection for literal hours.
though the pharmacy didn't accept us borrowing IV fluids, the situation was so urgent that the doctor bought it for us first. this means we now owe him $69 in cash, or $194
we still need $1395 more in order to pay all of this off and allow them to urgently evacuate
i am begging you to help them so that they aren't left to die like this. people barely donated for ammar's urgent immune globulin injection goal already, which was much smaller, but we absolutely need your help now.
[May 29, 8:05 AM] Samah: Brother, please help us! There's a lot of fighting coming from the hospital. Please tell everyone that we have to get the injection and escape from the hospital. I beg you, help us! We're dying 😭😭😭😭🙏
[May 29, 8:09 AM] Samah: Brother, please don't leave us like this. You're our only lifeline. 😭🙏🙏
despite the extremely urgent situation they're in, samah and ammar have been forced to stay for another full day.
ammar's situation was so fucking bad that the doctor outright paid for his immune globulin injection in advance, so that he wouldn't outright die. though i thank everyone who contributed, people just were not helping enough to avoid that, even with all the danger involved in ammar having a high fever, having his first seizure
this just means we have to pay the doctor back, however, so the cost amount changes not at all
we still need $901 more to raise everything that is required, $285 of which would be for the immune globulin injection
i don't know what else i can emphasise to tell you how urgent the situation is. we need to pay this off as quickly as possible so they can return home
the iof planes and drones are still present over the hospital, though they haven't yet attacked again, but the drones are consistently threatening that they will - the danger is ever-present, and we really need to get them home before the hospital is bombed again
i have to additionally add that samah and ammar are out on the hospital grounds, exposed and not in the hospital itself, so any shooting would be directly into their bodies.
thank you so much to the person who donated for this, and i hope we can receive more donations to assist with this. we still have quite a bit to raise before ammar and samah will be able to return home
It genuinely upsets me that there are people who call this animation and voice acting bad, there’s so much heart and soul on display in just this clip alone
She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.
She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.
81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.
The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.
Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.
Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.
The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.
She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.
Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.
When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.
The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.
When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.
The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.
You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.
Tbh germ theory DOES sound crazy. Like if you told a regency-era nobleman that tiny creatures lived on the surface of everything and THAT’S what causes consumption, they’d be like “ah, I see you are a lunatic. Would you reside in my hermitage? Rantings and ravings do so amuse my guests”
Yeah, actually, it would probably be pretty easy to explain germ theory to a Medieval person as tiny evil spirits that live on everything, but they can be purified by soap and water, or by alcohol, because that is why God has granted us those things. And because they can float in the air, if you cough or sneeze after they have infested you, that can cause them to infest others. And when you are sick, the angels God has deputized to defend the bodies of His beloved children are at war with the evil spirits, and, sadly, sometimes they lose, but the best way to help your angels win their battle is to rest, drink plenty (this would probably be small beer in this time period, not water, because the water was also infested), stay clean, and for the sake of God do not allow anyone to let your blood, for the angels need that blood in their war against the evil spirits. Bloodletting is good for some types of illnesses but not the kinds caused by the tiny evil spirits.
boiling as a sterilization measure is also easy to explain. water returns to the air when heated and it rises as steam back up to the floodgates of heaven; we know God created the world in seven days, He's not up there making more water every time it rains. it circulates. the returning of water to heaven also purifies the water of unclean and malign influences. you know wormy water from a muddy puddle will kill your kid. you know you wouldn't wade into a bog and have a slurp. water that remains in the low places of earth absorbs all that is unclean from our waste and it may also sponge up new diseases from hell, we're not totally sure about that one, but it seems likely. God set up the heavenly water cycle so that the earth's waters wouldn't totally fill up with gunk.
what does this have to do with boiling your surgical tools? well look, the boiling water releases bubbles of steam which carries the malign influences up to heaven. you boil a knife, you send all the miasmic particles off with the steam to heaven. if you rinse the knife off in a bucket the water isn't hot enough, the particles go into the water and then right back on to the knife. you gotta boil it to get the particles all the way away.
how can a tool or rag or a bed have miasmic particles on it when you can't smell them? humans have a lousy sense of smell. look at your dog on the hunt. are there no rabbits in the woods just because you can't smell them? we know that miasma is carried on the air, and is what makes stench so dangerous, and we know that humans can't smell worth a damn compared to dogs cats horses etc. a dog can smell if a rat died in a corner of the room last week. you can't. do you think licking the spot where the rat died is going to go well for you? luckily, what humans lack in snout we make up for in brains. we have extra brains where our sniffers should have been. God set that up for a reason.
and why does a rinse with wine spirits work? man, look how fast alcohol evaporates. my guess is that because wine contains a lot more vice than water, it evaporates a whole lot faster, in sort of an equal and opposite way that a rock falls faster than a feather. if you want the miasmic particles to get off there FAST, you dunk it in something that's going back to heaven at a gallop.
what's up with honey? it just preserves things against corruption. doesn't clean them off. honey doesn't evaporate at all. probably because bees don't sin. it's not good for ridding a tool of particles-- it's sticky-- but fine for preserving anything you don't want to go to heaven OR hell. this is why you wash the wound with wine spirits or purified water FIRST, to sluice the miasma out, then slap the honey on AFTER. and boil the damn bandage, too. you wouldn't put a rotten door in a sound doorframe and expect it to keep out bandits, would you? cmon.
voter suppression against black people is reaching Jim Crow era levels in the US so please get registered to vote now, learn who's going to be on your ballot in advance, try to talk some sense into your conservative relatives or coworkers (diplomatically), and, when November rolls around, vote to make Republicans lose as many seats as possible. there are many other things to do, of course, but the midterms will have a massive impact on the future of civil rights.
The next three elections are incredibly critical to turning back the fascist wave.
2026 - Make the Republicans hurt for all the ways they're trying to strip people of their votes and put a check on Trump. We can flip the House and maybe even the Senate and actually put some of the checks the Constitution intended back in place. SCOTUS is still fucked and not a lot will get passed over Trump's veto, but we can stop the bleeding.
2028 - Get Trump, Vance, and all the fascists out of the Executive Branch. It's also the only way to start on SCOTUS reform and getting back on the right track. This is also the president who will be overseeing the next census that controls which states get how many Congresspeople.
2030 - State legislatures will be the absolute MOST important races this cycle. These legislators are the ones who will be drawing the maps for the next 10 years of elections. Republicans used 2010 to completely rewrite maps across the country; Democrats need to do it in 2030.
Additional note for 2026: this is looking like a REALLY good year for Democrats to win Governor's races, as as we've seen with Pritzker, Walz, Shapiro, Newsom, and Whitmer, a Dem governor can REALLY help in pushing back against a fascist federal gov.
Caldwell’s boyfriend, 38-year-old Jonathan Fernandez, has been charged with murder.
another woman lost to intimate partner violence. another woman lost to transfemicide. rest in heavenly peace and pride and power Eryka. i know she's being welcomed with open arms and so much love by her late mother. but Eryka should still be here.
if anyone is able, please donate to or share around her family's fundraiser, they are raising money for the funeral, travel to NY to identify and claim Eryka, as well as transportation of her back home to Kentucky.
My family is asking for help in the unexpected loss of my cousin, Eryka Caldw… Loretta Worthy needs your support for Bringing Eryka Home for
One of the contractors at work is a dude who recently moved here from the Bay Area. He is used to Northern California, which is to say that he is NOT used to the general Tornado Alley attitude towards Thor dragging his dick across the plains and causing massive destruction on a semi-regular basis.
Namely, the fact that we get them at all, and the fact that the general Midwestern response is to wander outside to see if we can see it.
We have bad weather forcasted the next few days and I had to talk him through the site tornado plan and storm shelter locations (we have six on site, my office is actually inside one) to head off the poor guy's anxiety and also I had to admit that yes, I also share the general Tornado Alley brain damage and go outside to try and see it when the sirens go off.
Poor man thinks everyone in tornado Alley is out of their minds and as one of those people I can't even deny it. 'I seek shelter if it's heading this way' did not reassure him, he's convinced we are mad.
To answer the question in the notes, @what-about-second-tmblr ; when I visited Sacramento and LA some years ago, the sensation of a minor earthquake shifting the ground around just barely enough for a human to feel it had me freaked out and basically lying flat on my back outside going AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA while the Californians looked at me like I'd lost my mind.
This particular image is of the famous (among people fascinated by weather, anyway) Pilger Nebraska twin tornados! Two EF4 tornados from the same storm on the ground at the same time. This footage was captured by storm chaser Hank Schyma, better known as Pecos Hank, who is a fabulous nature photographer and provides data to weather researchers to better predict storms and severe weather. The smaller twin at this point is setting the land speed record for a tornado as it orbits the larger tornado; it was clocked at a foward speed of 94.6 MPH (sustained for only 5.3 seconds)
Anyway, yes. Two. Supercells can do that.
Storm chaser Stephen Jones got this image when both twins were at their maximum size.
I am afraid for my friend Fadel. He's one of the 1.7 million Gazans living in overcrowded displacement sites. Fadel's health has declined so completely this year from these conditions that he has been repeatedly collapsing unconscious from severe anemia and malnutrition. He is being hospitalized still, and needs our help to afford medical care to survive.
On the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, over 50 people living in a residential building in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City were victims to an air strike. One child and six adults died. 45 survived with injuries. Two years ago, Israelis bombed Fadel's home while he was inside. He still has not been able to raise enough funds to travel to a hospital that can remove the shrapnel from his body, and he lives with constant pain.
Fadel's campaign (gazavetters #197) is hosted by a friend of mine and I promise you the donations are getting to him! First priority is paying hospital bills so he can continue treatment. After that money goes towards his blood medication, supplements, and food so his health can stabilize. If we can raise even more, then it will go towards expenses so @fadel-dani can access medical evacuation for surgery.
My friends, I'm currently in the hospital and my health is very poor. I desperately need help to pay my hospital bills and to buy my medication as quickly as possible. I hope you will stand by me and help me, and not ignore me. Please donate.
That's right - it's glacier mice. One of my favorite things maybe on the entire planet. Let's talk about these freaky fuzzy little rats!!
Glacier mice are balls of moss that live in large herds like this in a few select glaciers. They are moss all the way through, with a center consisting of dead moss matter, implying that they begin as small growths of moss and simply accumulate over time, like snowballs. However, their outside surface is alive and well on all sides. Glacier mice have been observed, through tagging and tracking, to roll across the glacier like a majestic herd of wildebeest, exposing all of their sides to the sunlight. They trundle along at a pace of about 2.5 cm per day. That's 30 feet in a year! They're really schmovin'! Certainly further than most mosses can claim to travel.
What's really exciting, though, is that they all move in the same direction, and we're not sure why or how. Scientists experimented to try and attribute their coordinated behavior to wind, sunlight, and the direction that their grazing ground slopes, but to no avail. They speed up, slow down, and change direction in unison, based on some mysterious moss code that we haven't cracked yet.
Cross-section of a glacier mouse. Note the dead moss matter inside, and the short gametophytes on the outside, adapted to harsh winds and sunlight. [image credit]
We have figured out how they roll, though - while the moss ball sits on the ice, it insulates the ice directly underneath it, protecting it from melting. This forms a little pillar of ice that the moss eventually rolls off of. The insulating power of glacier mice also gives it the wonderful ability to host all kinds of microorganisms that otherwise wouldn't survive the glacier's harsh conditions, and their ability to move makes it possible for microorganisms to spread from one habitable spot to another. They're like a bunch of little tardigrade passenger ships, braving the dangerous glacier to go where no water bear has gone before!!
Glacier mice have been found to consist of several moss species, most of which must reproduce asexually in order to survive in the dry climate. They've been observed to live for at least six years, but are projected to live much, much longer. I love them. So much. I hope they know that I love them!! I LOVE THEM!!!!
“Haha remember when murder-hornets were gonna be a thing? What a nothingburger.”
Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.
“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”
Yes because an army of software engineers working around the clock, losing sleep, and busting ass till the last minute prevented it from happening.
“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”
You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?
One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.
The good news is this is actually quite correctable. I maintain my firm belief that we as humans are capable of solving almost all of our problems, when we decide to do so.
And I still think that’s going to happen. I don’t know when or how, but I do know that abandoning hope won’t help bring it about.
And I refuse to let the cynics own a chunk of my heart.
Help Sudanese families and a community kitchen surivive May
Thomaserena has shared the new monthly goals for the families and community kitchen he is helping.
The gofundme, which is supporting individual families, needs to reach $62k. It is currently at 59k.
Urgent help needed!!
This campaign was originally meant for 4 families as you… Maurice Wenig needs your support for Help Sudanese Famili
The chuffed, which is dedicated to the community kitchen, needs to reach $22k. It is currently at 18k.
As a Sudanese living in Egypt, my heart aches every day for the people of Sudan - both those still enduring unimaginable hardship back hoke,
We were able to help them reach last months goal on gfm to split the funds amongst the families, but still fell short for the community kitchen. Inflation has risen again due to Sudan's Council of Ministers banning the import of goods they've labled as "luxury items." This list contains food and nutrition items like milk, juice, and even certain fruits and vegetables. These bans will affect the operating costs of the community kitchen going forward and will make it harder for them to afford food for the community.
Please donate if you are able to do so.
Thomaserena is vetted on SudanFunds.com and has been shared by Sara (bsonblast). If you check the updates section for gfm or chuffed, you can also find proof of the transfers ThomaSerena has made.
Tagging for reach. Please share if you see this. Thank you