[elsa williams]

snippets of writing, quotes from books I’m reading, links to podcasts I’m listening to, pretty pictures, harm reduction

[acidgirl]

never shouldve smoked that shit, now i’m on the july 17th 1995 cover of newsweek

[acidgirl]

[peduin]

Happy 30th birthday bisexuality

[innerchildabortionclinic]

there is something very sad and humiliating about having to desperately beg doctors and family members to understand that involuntary institutionalization does not in fact help your mental health, knowing your perspective will always be dismissed at the end of the day

it's such an awful existence to be a psychiatric patient as a teenager, there has to be another way to help aggressively suicidal teenagers, such as addressing the circumstances that make them want to die so much in the first place! you can stop suicide by locking someone up, sure, but they will not want to live

[doe-eyed-disaster]

it's awful that researchers are only now starting to take this perspective seriously, but there is a small but growing body of study supporting exactly what patients have been saying about psychiatric incarceration. one study in particular, from Allegheny county in Pennsylvania, offers a damning analysis of involuntary psychiatric commitments:

For individuals whose cases are judgment calls, where some physicians would hospitalize but others would not, we find that hospitalization nearly doubles both the probability of dying by suicide or overdose and also nearly doubles the probability of being charged with a violent crime in the three months after evaluation. We provide evidence of earnings and housing disruptions as potential mechanisms. Our results suggest that, on the margin, the system we study is not achieving the intended effects of the policy.

[innerchildabortionclinic]

What Looks Like a Sugar Addiction Might Be an Eating Disorder

Sugar cravings aren't usually addiction. Discover how restriction and the binge-restrict cycle may be driving your eating patterns.

Feel like some people may need to read this. Basically when you under eat you crave sugar a lot more because it's an easy source of energy for your body

[roseoilz]

translucent fabric sculptures by korean artist do ho suh

[teaboot]

FABRICCCCCC?!??!?!?

[cristian-1975]

Nick Cave by Harry Papadopoulos, 1982

[visionsof-la]

marina abramović's dragon heads - 1990

[davidhudson]

Keith Haring, May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990.

1983 photos by Bruce Osborn.

[headspace-hotel]

I read a scientific paper that was so, so bad and I've been pissed off about it for hours

title "Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain" but the sample size was 20 people and each diet was followed for 2 weeks.

but the thing that pissed me off about it was, it doesn't define what "ultra-processed food" is. Having an operational definition of the thing you're studying is a basic requirement in science!!!!!!!!

Even worse, it makes some vague suggestions about what "ultra-processed food" might be, but the foods actually used in the study as "ultra-processed" don't even match those descriptions

You have to download the supplemental materials to see, but there's photos and descriptions of the meals the participants in the study ate, and in the "ultra-processed" group there's stuff like. canned fruits and vegetables. Like there was canned sweet corn in the "ultra-processed" group vs. frozen sweet corn in the "unprocessed" group.

Since the study had participants follow two specific, pre-defined meal plans, it's not even saying anything about "types of diets," just those two specific, pre-defined meal plans.

[headspace-hotel]

The study was so small and over such a short period of time, and was so different from normal conditions where people choose what they eat (like, the subjects' meals were being chosen for them, they were only choosing how much to eat) that I think the conclusions are meaningless.

It's a rigorous study in the sense that they collected many different types of data including biological data and subjective questionnaires, but I think it doesn't demonstrate anything at all about "ultra-processed food" because it doesn't define what that is.

In the introduction, there are two different parts that might describe what "ultra-processed food" is, this:

an increasingly industrialized food system (Stuckler et al., 2012) characterized by large-scale production of high-yield, inexpensive, agricultural “inputs” (primarily corn, soy, and wheat) that are refined and processed to generate an abundance of “added value” foods (Blatt, 2008; Roberts, 2008).

and a reference to the NOVA classification of food processing, which you can read about on Wikipedia here. This is a quote from the Wikipedia article (itself a direct quote from a publication) which might help:

Ultra-processed foods are operationally distinguishable from processed foods by the presence of food substances of no culinary use (varieties of sugars such as fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, 'fruit juice concentrates', invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose and lactose; modified starches; modified oils such as hydrogenated or interesterified oils; and protein sources such as hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, gluten, casein, whey protein and 'mechanically separated meat') or of additives with cosmetic functions (flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents) in their list of ingredients

The NOVA system seems to be trying to capture the idea of foods that are created using industrial processes, out of ingredients that were broken down and extracted by industrial processes. It's pretty vague and flawed in some ways: "Flavors and flavor enhancers" could mean anything, including any seasoning at all.

But, NOVA classification at least gives a potential operational definition of "ultra-processed food."

Trouble is, the "ultra-processed" diets in the study don't even follow that definition.

If you download the supplementary materials, you can scroll down to where it shows photographs and descriptions of every meal the participants in the study ate.

Like, the ultra-processed diet includes...whole milk?? How on earth is whole milk "ultra-processed?" It's milk! Canned corn definitely isn't ultra-processed according to the NOVA definition. It's corn...in a can. Ditto with the green beans and peaches.

The Wikipedia for the NOVA classification explicitly says that the following foods fall under category 3, "processed," NOT "ultra-processed:

Examples include cheese, canned vegetables, salted nuts, fruits in syrup, and dried or canned fish. Breads, pastries, cakes, biscuits, snacks, and some meat products fall into this group when they are made predominantly from group 1 foods with the addition of group 2 ingredients.

There is no explanation of whether or how the foods selected for the "ultra-processed" group fit into the NOVA system, but at a glance, it seems like the "ultra-processed" diet includes a lot of things that aren't ultra-processed.

The "unprocessed" diet also includes items that (as per the NOVA classification) are not unprocessed, such as yogurt, spaghetti, and penne pasta. Like I get that it would be hard to make a meal out of only unprocessed foods but spaghetti noodles have been through some industrial processes. They don't grow out of the fucking ground like that.

I don't know, maybe it wasn't the point that every item in the meals fit the definitions, but if they don't all have to fit, it's kind of arbitrary, isn't it?

I appreciate how this paper shows how much more expensive the "unprocessed" diet is, and looking at the pictures you can get a sense of the kind of privilege you would need to eat that way: year-round access to fresh, perishable fruits and vegetables, and lots of time to cook and prepare meals. Whereas the "ultra-processed" meals are mostly easily prepared and shelf-stable.

The creator of the NOVA classification was analyzing "ultra-processed food" in relationship to class, but the authors of this study aren't.

Limiting consumption of ultra-processed foods may be an effective strategy for obesity prevention and treatment.

They're just interested in how making the Wrong individual choices makes people fat.

[whitepeopletwitter]

[ramshacklefey]

No IDs, but these tags got me in a huff:

So ok look. The point is not the flared leg by itself. These cannot be yoga pants. These are, and you have to understand this if you are too young to have worn them, BLUE JEANS. And this was the last years before all jeans were 70% spandex.

They were denim, and they weren't bell bottoms. They hung loose from the knee in a way that would make a wizard envious. We all walked around like we were wearing hakama. And they dragged on the ground. That was important. Ragged cuffs. If your jeans weren't so long that they had ratty cuffs, they were embarrassingly short.

And the thing about denim is that it's a twill weave and it's cotton. So not only does it hold a lot of water, it wicks. Walking around in these suckers on a wet day could get you wet to the knees even if you never stepped in a puddle.

Then you'd go inside and take off your shoes and try to avoid letting your freezing, wet, filthy pant legs touch your skin.

Yoga pants. Hmf.

[elodieunderglass]

people in cold climates would have a tide line of white marks around their knees (if they were normal height) in the winter.

From wicking up road salt.

[aleprouswitch]

Herbie Hancock trying to figure out how to fix a mixer, c. early 80s.

[babyboodle]

[homunculus-argument]

The thing about ADHD is that the "lack of reward chemicals in your brain" doesn't just mean that you don't want to do any tasks that don't feel particularly yummy :(, it means that your brain will look at chores and tasks that need to be done like "doing this would be painful and tedious for absolutely nothing to gain from it, Do Not Do That." The same thing that your brain tells you about everything else that would feel really bad and hurt the entire time that you're dying. The part of your brain that stops you from doing the thing is the same part that keeps you from shoving your arm into a wood chipper.

With unmedicated, unmanaged ADHD, "I have to do this assignment or I fail and my life will be ruined and I die" feels like a SAW trap, every single time.

[urgentkettle]

Articles written by neurotypicals will be like “ADHD children find the external motivation of the SAW traps is very effective. Here’s how to build SAW traps to maximize their productivity.”

[tpwrtrmnky]

Guy who has a non-research degree in a field that never studies human subjects: Here are my opinions on what needs to be done for me to respect this field I've decided to become a denier of.

[Extreme breach of scientific ethics]

[Violent abuse of power]

[Method that actually doesn't obtain any information]

[Controlled double-blind studies of phenomena where that is literally impossible]

[Seeking empirical proof that a word has the meaning that it's defined as]

[Study that would have a dropoff rate of 100%]

Additionally, how do we know that [best currently available theory] is true, and not [dominant theory from 100 years ago that repeatedly failed in the face of evidence]? I have found some minor methodological flaws in [studies that were not designed to prove the best available theory, but rather examine edge cases within that theory], so we should really consider [nonsense with no evidence backing it whatsoever].

[myfootyrthroat]

When the health food store unionized, something wild happened that I thought was just a goofy one-off, but makes more sense now.

There was a big push to eliminate "degrading jobs" but the strategy was to eliminate the position, then create a new position outside of the bargaining unit to do the work. So like, we wouldn't have dishwashers, but we'd have people who washed dishes that weren't eligible to be in the union.

I was like A) what the actual fuck? Dish washing isn't "degrading", it's fucking vital. B) What the actual fuck? You want to create a union just to exploit different people?

There were enough of us to be like "Absolutely the fuck not," and put a stop to it, but I was absolutely flummoxed that people involved in a union would say that out loud. Working with more leftists now, it makes sense.

[myfootyrthroat]

I think it was coming from a background that viewed labor as necessary to accomplish anything, but advocated for the equitable distribution of the gains made by labor... and then being thrown in with people who just thought labor was icky.

The first time someone told me that busing tables was "degrading", I was like "Oh, uhh, yeah, like it's very necessary work but under compensated for how vital it is?" and they responded "No, touching plates that other people have eaten off of is disgusting."

But I want to eat off of clean plates. So somebody is going to have to touch/clean those plates. And I respect that person and want them to be able to afford to live.

[official-torfmoor]

Those people sound like a guy I'd make up to be mad at.

[myfootyrthroat]

I mean, that job definitely had a Truman Show vibe. If they hadn't been in-person interactions, I'd think I was getting trolled.

[myfootyrthroat]

Just to put a bow on it:

In bargaining, someone on the Union side suggested that we eliminate all the cashiers and exclusively use self-checkouts (they were a cashier and didn't like it). The organizer told them that the union wasn't in the habit of eliminating bargaining unit positions. (This is the same person I've talked about how said that "as a prison abolitionist" we just needed to execute most criminals.)

When I explained holiday scheduling (time off requests granted in order of seniority, shifts assigned in reverse order of seniority). Someone was angry and said that time off requests potentially being denied "wasn't in the spirit of the union". When I pointed out that our departments made like 30% of our annual revenue between Thanksgiving and New Years and that required production staff to be working, they said that we just needed to create a class of positions ineligible for the bargaining unit that wouldn't be able to request time off. (Which again, most of us figured we'd just rotate holidays or something, but assumed that some holiday production was mandatory.)

[bees-and-mice-and-frogs-and]

I was on leftie tiktok (as a creator) for a bit and I saw this attitude there as well. I specifically remember one argument around cleaners where someone said that employing a cleaner was, like, ethically bad, and that "after the revolution" we wouldn't have cleaners.

It got me thinking, along with Ann Russell talking about how to treat cleaners (being a cleaner herself), about how we conceptualise domestic service as particularly degrading in all its forms, when, really, why is that? Why is paying someone to do something intrinsically bad?

Like, even in a moneyless, gift economy society, there would still be people whose primary contribution to their communities would be cleaning. Some people like to clean, and are really rather good at it.

I've talked ad nauseam in the past about how British attitudes towards cleaners and other service based positions today are the descendants of Victorian attitudes. That is, both the attitudes of conservatives and many progressives of that time. The trade union movement was particularly exclusionary towards service workers.

I think people on the left thinking about forms of labour can sometimes be worse than people on the right. People who have taken these positions generally just conceptualise them as something you need to do to get by, and there are particular employers where these positions are degrading but in general the jobs themselves aren't.

[myfootyrthroat]

Yeah, that really sums it up. There's stuff that needs to get done, so I'll never be of the opinion that it's degrading work. I worked in kitchens for a long time, and every other position is reliant on having clean dishes, so nobody can really be "above" washing dishes. The shitty thing about washing dishes or busing tables is how people treat the people doing it. The work itself is vital.

And some of those jobs are like, sure, you can throw almost any warm body at it and get it done adequately, but you still run into people where you're like "Holy shit, you're good at this."

[leebrontide]

People doing a job most people don't want to do should be paid MORE in order to get people to do it. That's how it would work if we weren't mired in a schema assuming that less-frequently-desired jobs are the province of people who "can't do better" and "deserve" poverty because they have less value as people.

[toreblogallthethings]

Peer reviewing the tags: #these attitudes are also why ppl are weird about sex work#and weirdly enough visibly disabled people working - like esp thinking of like#places that employ ppl w LDs as workers and volunteers#what they FEEL is 'these people make me uncomfortable'#and they say 'they shouldn't have to do that'#so the solution is. no visibly disabled people getting to work#the fact that. they want to work. and want jobs#is irrelevant#too many people base their politics off their like. gut feelings of discomfort and unease#which are completely disconnected from both practicality and actual morality

[holdoncallfailed]

greenwich village party, ca. 1956 by weegee (via)

[dnalounge]

35 years ago today at DNA Lounge: CHURCH OF THE SUBGENIUS SLACKOFF https://www.dnalounge.com/flyers/1985-1999/1991-05-16.html?utm_source=sp_tu

[allloversbetray]

"to the bone" by Dorothy Allison

[gracklesong]

Kinda surreal to see people explain WHY Tumblr is implementing age verification in the UK and Brazil just to see responders argue that it's still all Tumblr's fault for complying. They don't want to imagine that this is anything but a bad UI choice that can be turned around by yelling at social media employees. "What's the government got to do with fascism?", or something like that

[rosstmcd]

Tumblr putting in age verification in places where age verification is now legally required: not much they can do to avoid this. Like, Meta could probably fight it with some chance of success if they wanted to, but Tumblr doesn't have anything like the clout required.

Tumblr moderation aggressively and disproportionately flagging posts by or depicting trans people and people of color as "mature" no matter what the content is? Very much their fault and they should yelled at about it until they are finally browbeaten into fixing it, or the end of time, whichever comes first.