grandma's tired, dammit ♤ 40+yo graphic designer by trade, doodler/sometimes comicker by hobby under 21 dni ☆ block "politics" tag if you don't wanna see my angry lefty political reblogs~
remember kids, the moral of "Irish and Italians weren't even considered White yet!" isn't "because in those times people were so ignorant they didn't think the Irish were white". the moral is "because white is an unreal category created to justify slavery and ongoing hoarding of power and wealth". It's not that you know better about Italians. It's that the boundaries of the higher caste have changed.
“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.
incredibly pleased that everyone is following the instructions i forgot to give and reblogging to explain their choice in the tags 🙏 more of that please i want to know about your ocs and also i love you
I've had trouble tracking down the original photographers, but these mostly appear to be pictures of the blast furnaces in Belgium (called things like Haut-Fourneau 4/6/B etc.); here are some other pictures of HFB, of HF4 Charlenoi, and some of HF6 Seraing, by other urban explorers. the first picture is probably cables for an arc furnace, I saw one Instagram post claim it was in Canada but it didn't seem to be the original.
cheetah in House perfec t size for put inside! inside very Soft and Comfort cheetah sleep soundly put cheetah in House. Put Cheetah In House. no problems ever in cheetah in ho use because good Happy and Satisfy for human where sleep. House yes a place for a cheetah put cheetah in house can trust cheetah for giveing good love to humans in house. friend cheetah
I mean, as someone who as worked in a zoo, this is fairly true.
Obvious disclaimer that you shouldn't have wild animals as pets.
But like, cheetahs are the only large cats that keepers will do free contact with. Hell, even most small cats don't get free contact. (Because small cats can be VICIOUS. They'll have a baby pallas cat wearing thicker gloves than when handling an owl. Because small cats can just be vicious.)
Like I think the only other cat at our zoo where I've seen free contact with was servals? Because I know they've used servals in shows to demonstrate their natural jumping ability. But I know servals can sometimes have a mean temper as well. Meanwhile they'll do the cheetah run and afterwards put the mic by the cheetahs and it's just like an engine with them purring. It's fascinating to watch when the message in every other large animal is "no free contact because it's dangerous even when they're born in captivity".
Legit if any wild animal could be adapted to a pet it would be cheetahs lmao. Only problem is they can be skittish and very anxious and that's why they're often raised around dogs in zoos to gain confidence.
so ive worked in childcare for a bit now. during the pandemic, the place i worked started a day program for kids whose parents needed to return to work. turns out the school district uses memorization and cueing, and when combined with online learning that read all the instructions to them, overwhelmingly the kids aged 5-9 just... couldnt read.
i brought in a bunch of my books from childhood, and we started having one-on-one reading lessons with the littles. then i went out and bought about fifty more books secondhand. first step was covering the pictures so the kids couldnt guess what the words said and had to actually TRY reading them first. second step was making a list of new words for each kid so we could learn about those words, what they meant, and if the kids were old enough, some of the etymology behind them (because if you can recognize latin root words, it's easier to make connections for pronunciation later on eg. unicorn -> universe).
the kids HATED this. reading was previously the easiest class and now it was really, really hard. but reading class had also previously been the most boring class; their books were ten pictures with a single sentence on the opposite page. we got through it by taking turns reading books the kids picked out from my collection- they would read one sentence or paragraph, then i would read the whole page complete with funny voices, then it would be their turn again, etc. it turns out that if kids are motivated to hear the rest of a good story or a lot of information about a topic they love, they're more willing to struggle.
the kids improved so rapidly that i honestly almost cried a few times from how proud i was. one little girl (kindergarten aged) went from being unable to sound out the whole alphabet to reading goodnight moon by herself in two months :'>
all this, though, was NOT my job. my job was to keep the kids on task during their online schooling and prevent them from killing each other or starving. i am not a teacher. the school system was failing these kids to the degree that outside individual reading lessons were necessary, and school systems across the US are still doing this!
if you are a parent or teacher or childcare worker, PLEASE check to see what your kid is being taught. ask to see examples of lesson materials. raise concerns about the importance of phonics over any other reading strategy. join the pta, go to school board meetings, send emails- just make sure your kid is actually learning to read.
I started using Head and Shoulders ten years ago for itchy scalp and dandruff, and then for ten years I have not had itchy scalp and dandruff, so I thought “why do I still buy shampoo to combat itchy scalp and dandruff when I do not have itchy scalp and dandruff,” so I stopped buying the shampoo for itchy scalp and dandruff and can you guess I have now? Can you predict what currently afflicts me? It’s alright if you can’t because apparently I fuckin couldn’t either
Cutting something out of your life because you think you don’t need it any more only to realize that it was in fact working as intended and preventing a problem that will return should you stop doing this is a good experiment to run periodically with something small like dandruff shampoo, lest you start to think it would be a good idea to do this with like let’s say public health and the social safety net and vaccines
I had a liver transplant when I was 14 and like six months later I was chatting with my surgeon and he said “there’s gonna come a time, probably when you’re a teenager, where you’re gonna think, ‘I feel great, why am I still taking all this medication? I haven’t needed it in years.’ and you’re gonna want to stop taking all this medication. Guess what’s gonna happen then? You’re gonna go into rejection and your liver is gonna start failing, and you’re gonna be dying again, and we’re gonna have to find you another liver. So don’t do that.” And I said “why the fuck would anyone do that?” and he said “people are stupid.”
every once in a while when I get annoyed by a pharmacy or don’t wanna get out of bed to do my drugs I think “ugh, this is dumb, why do I do this?” and that conversation slams into me like a truck and I remember that I am, in fact, stupid
A lot of people don't realize just how much space car infrastructure takes up. So I've decided to provide everyone a visual aid!
I've presented two maps at the exact same zoom level, as indicated by the big red arrow. They also each have a red area circled, of approximately the same area.
In the first image, I've circled one of eightish parking lots at a US mall. A normal amount of distance for even Americans who drive everywhere to walk through.
In the second image, I've circled:
a subway station
a park
like twenty apartment buildings
like twenty restaurants
three convenience stores (which, being Japanese, can also handle banking, copying/printing, and a variety of governmental paperwork)
one grocery store (another two right outside the circle)
seven medical clinics, two pharmacies
a fire station
a post office
two preschools and three cram schools
a Shintō shrine
a Buddhist temple
multiple parking lots and a car dealership
This wasn't even a particularly cherry-picked part of Tokyo! I just picked the area around my house.
In case anyone thinks by "a park" I'm talking about the green area not circled, I'm not, I'm talking at this area at the southeast end of the circle:
Here's another angle on the area I circled, with a lot of the things I mentioned in view.
The shrine, just because I have a soft spot for Tokyo neighborhood shrines:
Anyway, I suppose I'll end on what the mall parking lot looks like.
Remember, this is one of eightish parking lots at this mall.
Over 90% of parents of visibly intersex children opt for cosmetic surgery on their infants.
The ones that don't experience medical violence then, likely experience it as a teenager.
I didn't.
I am very rare in that I did not experience medical violence.
Why? Because I learned what intersexuality was as a young age, and I actively fought against what doctors wanted to do to me. All the way down to legal research on what medical care minors can be forced into. I remember walking into that doctor's appointment with the state law written down that proved that if I did not consent they could not do surgery.
That is why intersex activism is important. It saved me and it will save more.
I think it’s really cute to see cows by the side of the road when driving, but it also makes me sad to think they might be eaten. How can you tell dairy cows from beef cows? Is there a difference? Is there any other reason to raise cows besides food?
i could spend some time teaching you guys about different beef and dairy breeds, but i think the underlying concern here is about beef farming if im correct! if im not, let me know and i can write up a post about beef and dairy breeds, because i do love talking about them too hehe.
its completely normal and human to be upset at the thought of an animal dying, death is an ugly thing to a lot of people you know? i think its in our nature not to want animals to suffer. but its important to realize that everywhere in the world animals are there to be eaten by other animals. the ecosystem, the cycle of life, whatever you wanna call it.
in the wild, bovines are mostly picked off by predators when they're young and unable to defend themselves! an animal can be killed and eaten at any point, and if they get sick or injured thats often fatal for them. in captivity, cattle and other bovines get to live to adulthood happy and healthy and surrounded by friends! they get free food n water, free medical care, and they get to sit in a big field with all their buddies. we care for them and love them for their entire lives, and at our hands they die quickly and painlessly. and then we eat them. its a symbiotic relationship.
to an outsider the industry can seem 2 to be all death bc thats the only part we know about. but its so much more than that! farmers dedicate their whole lives to their animals. they raise them, feed them, tend them when theyre sick, give them space to run around, make sure theyre not too hot or cold and that their water troughs are clean... for whole lifetimes! over and over and over, farming is about life. we feed them and they feed us. its beautiful. genuinely.
The existence of YT channels dedicated to hoof trimming should also demonstrate that these critters are cared for their whole lives. Besides appealing to us weirdos who like to see gnarly things get cleaned (the good ones will also show follow-ups of the healed hooves), it shows that these animals' owners do pay attention to their health and well-being, and call in specialists to help when they notice something is wrong.
maybe y'all didn't notice but fat people who don't hate ourselves sure did notice that people were obsessed with shitting on fat people in the late 90s and early 2000s (conservative political time) and now are again (fascist political time), coincidentally while the market for weight loss has become a 90 billion dollar industry due to glp1s.
you are not immune to propaganda. it makes some people a whole hell of a lot of money for you to hate fat people and fear becoming (or staying, I think like 70% or something of the US is fat) one of us.
a lot of the fearmongering over fatness comes from studies directly funded by the weight loss industry...i think people don't really realize or think about the fact that research can absolutely be influenced and skewed by its funding. there is also research that shows that an amount of the negative health outcomes for fat people come from anti-fat bias. if you go to the doctor with concerns and the doctor simply tells you to lose weight, your problem is neglected and you may not even bother going to the doctor with the next problem.
every fat person you know for the most part probably has a story like this, of medical neglect. many of the stories i've heard personally are when the complaint or the doctor wasn't related at all, like being told to lose weight at the ear nose and throat doctor or at the dentist. it's straight up just bias. it's such a thing that in the show Shrill it's portrayed, when Aidy Bryant goes to the gynecologist and her doctor suggests she get gastric bypass.
the studies on health and fatness are simply not that black and white and there is basically no research that shows that more than an incredibly tiny minority of people can lose weight and keep it off for more than like 2 years. bodies have set points that they gravitate towards, it's not a personal failure. this also is how the weight loss industry succeeds so well - repeat customers.
some of the harm associated with fatness is also due to weight cycling, which is very hard on your body and is even worse if you get off a GLP1, which according to a recent study causes weight to be regained at a rate that is 4x faster than without taking a GLP1.
you don't have to hate yourself. you don't have to hate other people for their body type either. it makes me so sad to see the thinspo tag going around again in 2026 a lot like it was back in the day.
A study spanning almost four decades and involving more than 100,000 adults in Denmark found that those with an 'overweight' body mass index
there's so much crazy shit once you go down the rabbit hole. for example, BMI was not invented by anyone with a medical background. it was never meant to measure individual health.
Yesterday my little brother told me something very sweet and touching, that when he was a kid and had nightmares about monsters chasing him or whatever he would be able to end the nightmare by finding me in the dream and I would protect him by fighting off the zombies, or carrying him away. This is adorable, and makes me feel like the greatest older sibling in the world, but the hilarious thing is that when I was a kid I had nightmares of needing to save him from zombies and such. so many dreams where he was in trouble and I needed to save him. Like my nightmares began where his ended. Low key I think he mastered the ability to psychically transfer his nightmare to me as a child and I'm kind of annoyed with him.
being black in any art community is such a strange feeling cause you’ll see just blatant racism being expressed in others art and you have to just casually ignore it, for your sake if anything, colorism being something that’s just fundamentally there in every artist and you deal with it cause it’s not worth it in the end to even think of it too hard let alone even mentioning it, it’s definitely something
Hello nonblack reader of this post, I think you ought to share this one so that you and your peers can actively remind yourselves 1) of how your Black peers feel when you tolerate antiblack racism in your art spaces for entertainment and 2) that we notice it, but don't believe it is secure around enough of you to bring it up 🙏🏾
[ID: a screenshot of the (in)famous GMod adaptation of the "Half Life: Full Life Consequences" fanfic. John Freeman sits in his awesome bathtub monster truck motorcycle, staring blankly into space, set against a pleasant forest background. Above him is the surtitle "its a good day to do what has to be done by me," with the last three words running into each other as they crowd over his head. /end ID]