Wellness, Winchesters, and WBAT

My journey to health as a healthcare professional, with some nerd stuff thrown in.

[aishabellasbigblogofeverything]

Reblog if you’re a Black woman, love Black women, are friends with a Black woman, are in love with a Black woman, are dating a Black woman, support Black women, or just really love flowers. 

[guiltyidealist]

Could you maybe reblog this post if you think respecting trans peoples' names and identities is a basic right and not a political opinion?

No pressure. Just seeking some validation of my sentiment. Due to some. people

[eeahs]

if you’re 26 and older, reblog.

[tami-taylors-hair]

I was in line at Aldi and this girl with two toddlers in front of me had her card declined and she looked so fucking sad and said “let me call my husband real quick” and it was only 18 dollars, so I just paid for it, and she was very sweet and then as she walked off, the lady behind me said `”You know that was probably a scam, right?” and like, even if it was, like what a sad fucking scam, right? 18 dollars at the Aldi. If you’re “scamming” me for some Tyson chicken and apple juice and cauliflower, then just take my fucking money. 

“A scam” people are fucking wild.  

[dragginage]

This happened to me, too. A woman had used WIC for the majority of her stuff (which I say from personal experience is such a long and embarrassing process) and to buy the remainder of her groceries, which included diapers and wipes, she used a card, and it got declined. I bought the other $30 of her groceries because hey, I’ve been there, and now I’m not. She was extremely emotional and began to cry and even hugged me. My mom called me on the drive home and could tell I had been crying myself, asked what was wrong, and when I told her what happened, she berated me for being “duped.” I couldn’t believe she could be so disappointed in one of her children for doing something- nice? Is that the hill you want to die on? Getting mad about people needing groceries?

[systlin]

I once paid for a woman’s bill at the vet…it wasn’t a big one, but she was trying to pay for some medication for her dog, and her card was declined. And her lip started trembling, and she says “I don’t get paid until Tuesday, would he be ok until then?” 

So I just told them to add the $20 something onto my bill, and I thought she was going to break down crying right there.

And I don’t care if it was a scam or not. Just do nice things for people sometimes. 

[flurrin]

Do good recklessly.

[solarpunk-gnome]

I think “Do good recklessly” would be fantastic word art to hang on one’s wall. Artistic people, go!

[7faerielights]

So this has happened to me but from the other side. Several years ago when my oldest was around three or so, I had my debit card decline at Walmart. It wasn’t a scam or a mistake, I was genuinely broke. Out of money. I checked my bank and discovered I had something like 7 dollars left to my name and a hungry kid and nothing to eat at home. So I sat there trying to come up with the best way to stretch that tiny amount of money to feed my kid. Not even to feed me. I can live on popcorn or something if I have to but my kid was three and he had to eat. So there I am trying really hard not to cry while I slowly take things out of my basket to get it down to under 7 bucks, when a lady tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up and she smiled at me and started putting the things back in my cart. I opened my mouth to tell her that I didn’t have the money for them but she stopped me right away and said “Don’t worry about it. It’s gonna be fine.” Then she handed the cashier her credit card and said “Ring up all of it.” My kid got to eat because of her. I got to eat because of her. I had laundry soap and deodorant because of her. She could’ve just ignored me silently struggling in that line. She could’ve decided I was a scam and gone home feeling good about avoiding being duped. But instead she chose to help me and she saved us. So maybe the person struggling in front of you is trying to put one over on you or maybe they are just sad and broke and trying to figure out what to do. You get to decide which you want to believe and what you want to do. But I’ll tell y’all, no one has ever been more beautiful to me than that lady in that line who saved me and my baby. Be like her. Be beautiful.

[29-pieces]

Do good recklessly

[lightningchaserarts]

DO BETTER. BE BETTER. STRIVE TO BE BETTER.

DO GOOD RECKLESSLY

[averagemarvelbitch]

One time, my dad and I were living the grocery store and there was a guy outside asking for money to buy some stuff to take home for his kids. It was around Christmas time. My dad asked him if he could give him groceries instead of money, and the guy immediately said yes, so my dad gave him one of everything we bought (meat, rice, some chocolates, milk, oil). At that time, my dad hadn’t gotten his paycheck because the company he worked for was going through a tough time, but he didn’t care, he saw an opportunity to help someone and he did.

Another time, my dad gave 50 bucks to a guy who said he needed to buy medicine for his kids. I told my dad he was probably going to spend the money on alcohol or something, but my dad said that “whether he was lying or not says something about HIS character, but hearing someone in need and choosing not to help when I have the means to says something about mine”.

I never forget that.

[lesbian-bookworm]

Can we make Do good recklessly The slogan on 2019

[box6502-deactivated-deactivated]

Do Good Recklessly

[thecarrott]

Because if anything this is the year we need it more than ever.

Do Good Recklessly 2021.

[earlgreytea68]

I assigned this book Humankind to my students this year and it had its good points and its bad points but one of the things it said at the end is that we have to learn to be okay with being scammed once in a while, because our fear of being scammed is interfering with our ability to be kind to each other, and really, what are we so afraid of? That other people will think we are stupid? How awful that we have a society where we’re more scared of being thought stupid than being thought cruel.

[icantwritegood]

rawest fucking florence and the machine lyrics in no particular order:

no more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone

want me to love you in moderation, do i look moderate to you?

this will be my last confession, ‘i love you’ never felt like any blessing, whisper it like it’s a secret only to condemn the one who hears it

because i am done with my graceless heart, so tonight i’m gonna cut it out and then restart

tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks and the kindest of kisses breaks the hardest of hearts

but the loneliness never left me, i always took it with me, but i can put it down in the pleasure of your company

at seventeen i started to starve myself, i thought that love was a kind of emptiness, but at least i understood then the hunger i felt, and i didn’t have to call it loneliness 

the fabric of your flesh, pure as a wedding dress

it’s an even sum, it’s a melody, it’s a battle cry, it’s a symphony 

but i know it’ll have to drown me, before i can breathe easy

to the crowd i was crying out, and in your place there were a thousand other faces

and it’s over and i’m going under, but i’m not giving up i’m just giving in

in a moment of joy and fury i threw myself from the balcony like my grandmother, so many years before me

and it’s peaceful in the deep, cathedral where you cannot breathe

i know i seem shaky, these hands aren’t fit for holding

i’m not beat up by this yet, you can’t tell me to regret, been in the dark since the day we met, fire help me to forget

it seems that i have been held in this dreaming state, a tourist in the waking world, never quite awake

shower your affection, let it rain on me, pull down this mountain, drag your cities to the sea

and i did cartwheels in your honor, dancing on tiptoes, my own secret ceremonials

a year like this passes so strangely, somewhere between sorrow and bliss

in the spring, i shed my skin and it blows away with the changing winds

i swallow the sound and it swallows me whole until there’s nothing left inside my soul

and i want you so badly, but you could be anyone 

i was in the darkness, so darkness i became

[alpacinosgf]

[squidificati0n]

[nerdjona]

This is the link from the video. It’s important that we try to take action. Don’t buy chocolate that may be connected with slavery. In the link there’s also information about slavery free chocolate.

https://iradvocates.carrd.co

International Rights Advocates

End child labor in the cobalt and cocoa industries.

[anarkissa]

On chocolate, coffee, tea, other products coming from the global south: if you can afford it, buy only products with some kind of a certificate that demonstrates the product has been ethically produced (and this has been verified by an outside agency), such as the Fairtrade, UTZ or Rainforest Alliance certificate.

But also beware that some producers have made up their own certificates, with no outside oversight. These essentially fake certificates include Cocoa Life, the certificate invented by Mondelez – one of the companies listed behind the link for using slave labour, who stopped using Rainforest Alliance certified cocoa and switched to their own certificate instead.

[leepacey]

here’s a list of companies who use fair trade chocolate:

Clif Bar

Tony’s Chocoloneley

Ben & Jerry’s

Aloha Feels

Newman’s Own Organics

The Endangered Species Chocolate

Dagoba Organic Chocolate

Starbucks

Aldi’s brand

Green & Blacks

Sappho Chocolates

Larabar

more info here

full list of ethical companies in the carrd above

and a list of companies who knowingly use slave labor to make their chocolate:

Hershey’s

Mars (M&M, Snickers, Dove, etc)

Mondelez (part of Kraft) (Cadbury, Toblerone, Oreos)

Nestle

Lindt

Godiva

Ghirardelli

sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

[justsomeantifas]

idk about the others but isnt dagoba literally owned by hersheys ...

and then isnt ben and jerrys owned by uniliver which was also tied to child slave labor

🚶

[jameszmaguire]

All the information is on the task.

TASKMASTER (2015 - )

+ bonus: Little Alex Horne, who, despite having invented the show and being in it the most, fittingly didn’t actually make it into this tribute gifset

(P.S. Open this gifset in a new tab for all the gifs to sync up. Your time starts now.)

[embodiedfutures]

Racism pervades all aspects in our lives, even when we are doing something as natural and human and universal as giving birth or being born.

Stay safe and educate! ✊🏽

Follow @bfpnola for more and check our bio for over 200 free social justice and mental health resources!

————————————————-

[transcription, thank you to @nynaeve-almeara for writing this! (it won’t let me tag you, so I’ll just link your profile)

Racism in Healthcare: Black Maternal Mortality

The Statistics: According to a CDC analysis from 2007-2016

An increase in pregnancy-related mortality from 15 to 17 deaths per 100,000 births

Black women experienced 3.2 times higher pregnancy-related mortality than their white counterparts

5.2 times higher pregnancy-related mortality for Black women with at least a college degree than white women

Racism in Maternal Healthcare: Black mothers are constantly questioned and have their pain and concerns dismissed by medical professionals. An AAMC study showed that half of white medical trainees, such as residents, believed that Black patients felt less pain and that their blood coagulated faster than their white counterparts. This leads to many Black mothers having their concerns dismissed by their doctors after they have given birth. Furthermore, studies have shown that black women have to challenge their medical professionals, on average, at least 3 times before their concerns are acknowledged.

One Mother’s Story

Serena Williams has won 23 Grand Slam Titles and is a world renowned tennis player

In September 2017, after giving birth to her daughter Olympia she lost her breath and recognized that something was severely wrong

She left her room and gasped to her nurse that she was afraid that she had developed a blood clot

She requested a CT scan and heparin (a blood thinner)

However, her concerns were dismissed and instead an ultrasound was run for her normal swollen legs

Only after she pleaded again was she sent to have a CT where several life-threatening blood clots were discovered in her lungs

Afterwards, she was given the heparin which saved her life, she knew her own body best but was instead ignored and questioned

However, many black mothers are not as lucky

Pregnancy-related deaths by race in the U.S., 2007 to 2016 (Number of deaths is per 100,000 live births).

Black: 42.8

American Indian / Alaska Native: 32.5

Asian / Pacific Islander: 14.2

White: 13

Hispanic: 11.4

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Graphic: Robin Muccari / NBC News

How Can Things Change?

Expand and maintain access to health coverage. Only 87% of Black women of reproductive age have health insurance

Provide patient care that centers on Black mom’s needs. 22% of black women report discrimination when visiting the doctor or a clinic

Reinforcing preconception and postpartum care. Pre-existing health conditions should be accounted for before the birth

Address the social detriments of health. Black women are affected by systemic inequalities and discrimination that leads to chronic stress which has been shown to reduce the healing capacity of a person’s body

Organizations to Support:

The National Birth Equity Collaborative (NBEC)

Sista Midwife Productions/Directory

Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA)

MomsRising

The Shades of Blue Project

The Black Maternal Health Caucus

Mama Glow

Sésé Doula Services

Growing and Glowing

Sources:

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/america-is-failing-its-black-mothers/

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0905-racial-ethnic-disparities-pregnancy-deaths.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/u-s-finally-has-better-maternal-mortality-data-black-mothers-n1125896

https://www.nationalpartnership.org/our-work/health/reports/black-womens-maternal-health.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1595019/

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/07/568948782/black-mothers-keep-dying-after-giving-birth-shalon-irvings-story-explains-why

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5915910/

https://www.self.com/story/organizations-activists-fighting-black-maternal-mortality

https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/how-we-fail-black-patients-pain ]

[nature-punks]

Instead of endless wastelands of mowed grass lawns, consider:

[sophist-sophia]

😍

[dvar-trek]

this only works in places with lots of rain, a temperate summer, and a nice cold winter. like England. or Michigan.

[star-anise]

True! Unless you can find an economical way to irrigate, more appropriate lawn alternatives in hotter, more arid places might lean more to prairie meadows using local grasses and wildflowers:

Or, they might mean doing classic landscaping, but with rocks and xeriscape plants:

Or having a cactus garden:

There are lots of exciting possibilities once you throw the classic turf lawn out the window!

[jackgoodfellow]

We’re the ones who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.

To the power of a group of people unapologetically loving something silly and taking control of the stories that matter to them.

To the power of saving your favorite characters as a form of saving yourself.

To positive and healthy expressions of queer love, shared art, and making something beautiful together.

To the realization that “canon” merely indicates the version of the story preferred by the copyright holders - often corporations - and the rest is just fan fiction fodder, baby!

To fan fiction as an outlet for majority queer and female creators, perpetually blowing paid male writers out of the water.

To better fucking representation on every front moving forward.  

To blackout poetry, its own form of rebellion.

To family.

To family found.

To asserting that we, too, can live to see our own happy endings.

And,

of course,

to Fergus Crowley,

who is currently hogging the karaoke machine.

[fashion-runways]

BIBIAN BLUE Butterflies Collection if you want to support this blog consider donating to: ko-fi.com/fashionrunways

[randomitemdrop]

Item: dress made of dozens of giant perfectly-trained butterflies. Hopefully nothing startled them

[citizen-zero]

YA literature? You mean books about Super Special White Girl and Her Mysterious Brooding Boyfriend?

[readyalit-blog]

Here’s a list of black YA leads! And ten Native American protagonists! And a list of ladies who love ladies in YA! And genderqueer / transgender YA leads! And more queer titles! And 2015 / 2016 YA books with Asian / East Asian leads! And bisexual YA leads! And Muslim YA leads! And asexual YA leads! And YA Interrobang’s entire section on diverse YA fiction! *confetti*

[hikatebishop]

PLEASE REBLOG THIS

[lilacbreastedroller]

BIG DISCLAIMER: i was 9 when 9/11 happened, so this might be more about my own crystalizing tastes than anything else. i think it’s a pretty darn good theory tho and other people have validated it.

BIGGER DISCLAIMER: i am not saying that country music prior to 9/11 was free from nationalist, racist, misogynist undertones - i just think that these themes became more the norm!

MY HOT TAKE:

with very few exceptions, including goodbye earl, before he cheats, and daddy Iessons (side note - all women!) 9/11 ruined country music. around 2014 onward we’ve got margo price, sturgill simpson, jason isbell etc., who are making country music great again (wink), but those folks are mostly considered “alternative” country. the mainstream country music for well over a decade now is a glut of trash performative patriotic / working-class-but-not-really lab-crafted budweiser-sponsored nonsense that has managed to sound rebellious (or has convinced its fans that it sounds rebellious) without ever actually questioning any power structure. so much so that artists who ACTUALLY criticized the government were literally blacklisted for nearly a decade (the dixie chicks)

pre-9/11 country music, though not perfect or ideologically pure by any stretch, did not have the raging american flag painted truck boner that comes to mind for a lot of people who say “i like everything except rap and country”

SPECIFICALLY, toby keith’s “courtesy of the red, white, and blue (the angry american)” (2002) literally destroyed country music. it was a direct answer to the 9/11 attacks and war song in support of the invasion of afghanistan. the lyrics read like a disjointed feverish email chain letter forwarded from your great uncle sprinkled with glittering american flag gifs and heavily saturated pictures of bald eagles. the entire song is lifted from an estimated 248 peeling bumper stickers collected from rusted trucks on cinder blocks in overgrown yards, cut up and arranged to fit a catchy, formulaic tune that is almost certainly the background music playing in george w. bush’s head at all times.

“we’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the american way and uncle sam put your name at the top of his list and the statue of liberty started shakin’ her fist and the eagle will fly, and it’s gonna be hell, when you hear mother freedom start a'ringin’ her bell”

country music and the new country musicians that toby keith paved the way for became so pro establishment and so unquestioningly nationalistic that, again, the dixie chicks who went against this grain were blacklisted by the industry and received death threats from country music fans. hell, there are folks who STILL froth at the mouth at the mere mention of the dixie chicks.

9/11 killed outlaw country - how can you sing the praises of law breakers when your main circuit consists of singing to troops? there are some great classic country songs critiquing the police state - especially from johnny cash and merle haggard - now country music artists hold fundraisers for FOPs. new country music is basically in-law country music.

you don’t have to write a pro-bush patriotic anthem to be part of this post-9/11 ruination. playing meaningless songs about living in the heart of (read: white) america, eschewing the city (read: not white), and cracking open a cold one with the boys for “authentic” country music is also important to the war effort.

there’s a progression of themes here:

post 9/11 top tier: war anthem, vocally patriotic, directly used as pro war propaganda; which paved the way for: “things used to be so much better” thinly veiled racist laments, good for campaign ads; which paved the way for meaningless party anthems - attempts to make things “like they used to be” and craft a reality that neither the artist nor listener likely ever experience.

that brings us to what most people think of today when they say they hate country music: the country party anthem - “tiny hot gal in tight jean shorts who can drink beer like the guys, she doesn’t like beyoncé Like Other Girls, oh she’s so into me and my truck, i’m gonna take her fishing after i finish sowing my corn - sung by a guy who’s never touched a tractor” - has overtaken the tragic, done me wrong, despairing country ballads of tammy wynette, george jones, and even up into pre-9/11 contemporaries like reba mcentire and george strait. you didn’t necessarily have to be country to relate to their pain. now you have to perform suburban redneckness to enjoy luke bryan.

when was the last time you heard a sad country song?

after 9/11, cowboys (whether or not they had ever been near a cow) weren’t allowed to be sad anymore (no more done me wrong country), and they certainly weren’t allowed to question authority (no more outlaw country). partying hardy became the most important American Thing and if you don’t sing about that, our Enemies Will Win.

so - understanding that country music has always had bad stuff, and that like any genre it suffers from commercialization, 9/11 DESTROYED COUNTRY MUSIC. and toby keith gleefully helped destroy it.

for some further evidence of the decline of country music, please listen to the dixie chicks’ “long time gone” which is an indictment of the industry (i believe it was written before 9/11 but my point still stands - the genre was on the decline and 9/11 was the major cultural event that hastened the decline).

maybe i am a curmudgeon - almost every generation of country music has had its own “country music is not what it used to be” anthem, but i really think something distinct happened with 9/11.

[thunderboltsortofapenny]

Can confirm. Alan Jackson and Toby Keith, the blacklisting of Dixie Chicks, literally the only singer I can think of that ever spoke out against anything from 2001-2010 was Johnny Cash. I’d also say that the uber-patriotic stance lead to the shiny, vapid County Boy® nonsense that lead to so many of the solo artists all sounding and looking the same.

[cenodyke-deactivated20211019]

Johnny cash wrote an entire album about the destruction of Indigenous lands and of Indigenous people, Kris Kristofferson has been an activist most of his career working closely with the UFM, Woody Guthrie was a social justice advocate and union activist, Dolly Parton has tackled explicitly feminist issues even in the 60s and has been an avid supporter of her lgbt fans, Willie Nelson made Farm Aid to try and help farmers in danger of losing their farms due to mortgages keep them and is also an avid supporter of LGBT rights as well as marijuana legalization, Lorettea Lynn wrote about birth control in the 70s and had her song banned, i could go on!

When in the correct hands, country music is a powerful medium, but post 9/11 it’s been handed off to apathetic white men who have turned it into the most useless genre of music out there.

[twilightsky15]

I think about this post a lot for some reason.

[assyrianjalebi]

[geniexo]

yo if you’re a cis girl or afab and femme presenting and you’d be comfortable with having a trans girl roommate, please reblog this. i just need reinforcement that there are girls out there who wouldn’t be disgusted by a girl like me.

[ithelpstodream]

[cookie-sheet-toboggan]

so is Victory

[ashermajestywishes]

LOVE TRIANGLE

[bsparrow]

Don’t forget Truth (Coming Out of Her Well to Shame Mankind)

[justrollinon]

This must be why the Trump administration hates them all 

[acciowine]

The Four Horsewomen of the Trumpocalypse.

[krustybunny-deactivated20221129]

I’ve never reblogged anything so quick

[spectrometon]

The Ultimate Squad, comin’ to wreck your shit and save the world

[quentineliot]

Rb for that art doe

[identicaltwinhalfbrother]

Dignity here to join the girl posse.

[brainwad]

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE

[becomeunsolved]

reblogging for the second time

[athelind]

ALWAYS REBLOG

[cydonianlady]

Reblogging because I don’t think Dignity was on it last time I saw it.

[thenightling]

Dignity is rare on this site. 

[drdessertfox]

If you’re freaking out about the novel coronavirus, but have not gotten your flu shot (FYI flu has killed approximately 8,000 people so far in the U.S. this season) then I’d like you to sit down and take some time for self reflection.

[medical-gal]

👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

[md-admissions]

Co-signed