"click for frogs" how's about you let me click on people's urls to visit their reblogs directly. remember that

them: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST MEANS HUMANS MUST BE INDIVIDUALLY SELF-SUFFICIENT AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT

biologist:

Like literally the only reason we didn’t go extinct is because we are aggressively social creatures who community organized and helped each other when faced with disasters that drove other species over the brink. 

 (Like we’re so aggressively social that we looked at APEX PREDATORS and went ‘they look soft! Friend????’)

(The answer was yes because wolves are also aggressively social and they adopted the strange tall not-wolves just as eagerly.)

humans @ wolves: holy shit these things are so cute i wonder if they’ll let us pet them?

wolves @ humans: holy shit these things are so cute i wonder if they’ll pet us?

Just in case people want source, here you go: humans are compelled to help each other in disaster situation, humans feel an innate urge to help others. We will help strangers too, not just family, and it has been tested. 

Also we’ve always taken care of our elderly and disabled. When life was literally “hunt and gather every day to live”, we saw value in taking care of those with disabilities. 

reblog to make a libertarian mad

you've heard of draft dodging. get ready for militant draft rescuing

(from Stephen Taylor's "Sons of the Waves; A History of the Common Sailor 1740-1840", which I got from @genderqueer-klinger's folder, thank you mate)

— Pluralistic (via azspot)

Unmasking Autism (Devon Price, 2022)

"Autistic people find it rejuvenating and stimulating to spend time learning about our special interests.

In studies that examine the lives of Autistic adults, engaging with special interests is positively associated with subjective well-being.

When we get to appreciate our hyperfixations, we feel happier and more satisfied with life.

But for a long time, neurotypical researchers viewed special interests as an impediment to having a “regular” life.

ABA therapists penalize Autistic children for speaking about them, withdrawing attention and affection when the subjects come up.

This trains Autistic kids to hide their deepest joys, and avoid cultivating their passions.

Punishing Autistic children for talking about their special interests is perhaps the most arbitrarily cruel element of ABA therapy. (…)

People who routinely complete eighty-hour workweeks aren’t penalized for being obsessive or hyperfixated; they’re celebrated for their diligence.

If an adult fills their evenings after work learning to code or creating jewelry that they sell on Etsy, they’re seen as enterprising.

But if someone instead devotes their free time to something that gives them pleasure but doesn’t financially benefit anyone, it’s seen as frivolous or embarrassing, even selfish.

In this instance, it’s clear that the punishing rules imposed on Autistic children reflect a much broader societal issue: pleasure and nonproductive, playful time are not valued, and when someone is passionate about the “wrong” things, that passion is discouraged because it presents a distraction from work and other “respectable” responsibilities.

The mental health costs of preventing Autistic children from enjoying their special interests are immense.

Having the freedom to develop and express special interests is linked to improved social, emotional, and even fine motor development.

A survey of Autistic young adults by Teti and colleagues (2016) found that many use their special interests to develop emotional awareness skills and coping strategies.

This frequently plays out in fandoms and nerdy communities, where neurodiverse people with mutual special interests find one another, socialize, and sometimes begin to unmask.

In a study of internet habits, researchers Johnson and Caldwell- Harris (2012) found that Autistic adults actually had a greater variety of interests and more numerous interests than their non-Autistic peers, and made far more social media posts about their interest that were designed to provoke conversation, compared to neurotypical people.

Autistic people are also a foundational part of most fandoms and conventions centered around shared hobbies—we devote a lot of energy to finding and creating spaces where we can interact with people who share our interests, and within nerdy fandom spaces, social norms tend to be more forgiving and relaxed.

It turns out that special interests aid us in becoming more outgoing, well-rounded individuals."

Everyone gets “The 90s” look wrong and I hate it

Couple years ago I saw these two board games at the store back to back. Well, not saw them per se, but ya know. Spied them out of the corner of my eye. And for a moment without reading the text, I couldn’t tell you which was which decade at first. Funny. Either they were in a rush to get these out the door or they wanted their throwback trivia game boxes to look uniform. I didn’t think too much of it.

Only, from then on I started seeing it MORE. Every time someone markets a 90s or 80s throwback…

Goddammit they’re identical! What??! How did we let this happen? As a 90s survivor and a designer, this drives me up a wall.

Look, I know I’m late to the party to complain about “the 90s look” when we’re just starting to get sick of the Y2K nostalgia train. But c’mon, the 90s were not The 80s: Part Two™ 

Trust me when I say that we weren’t all wearing neon trapezoids up until the year 2000. The 90s look being peddled is so specific to the tail end of the 80s and an early early part of the 90s - a part of the 90s when it wouldn’t stop being the 80s. This is Memphis design being conflated with the wrong decade.

Keep reading for a long ass graphic design history lesson and pictures of old soda and fast food.

Afficher davantage

Françoise Gilot holding a red gladiolus, by Gjon Mili, 1948

Henri Matisse, Abstract Portrait of Françoise Gilot, 1947, Gouache cut-out

Idk who this guy is but I’m just gonna leave this here without comment and hope the audience I’m indirecting it at finally understands something for once

Text transcription for easier reading:

Usually I wouldn't address stuff like this but I feel like it as a conversation is bigger than me. I'm not gay; but I think the culture of trying to "find" some kind of hidden trait or behavior that a closeted person "let slip" is very dangerous. Overanalyzing someone's behavior in an attempt to "catch" them directly contributes to the anxiety a lot of queer and queer questioning people feel when they fear living in their truth. It makes the most pedestrian of conversations and interactions in spaces feel less safe for our gay brothers and sisters and those may be questioning. It also reinforces an archetype many straight men have to live under that is often times unrealistic, less free, and limits individual expression.

I've been very clear about the intentionality I try to put into using my platform to push back against those archetypes every chance that I get. Being straight doesn't look one way. Being gay doesn't look one way. And what may seem like harmless fun and conversation may actually be sending a dangerous message to those struggling with real issues. I refuse to inadvertently contribute to that message. Happy Pride to all of my queer and questioning brothers, sisters, and individuals. I pray that you feel seen in ways that make you feel safe in the celebration that is this month. As an ally I continue to be committed to assisting in that where I can and helping to cultivate a future where we are all accepted and given permission to be ourselves.

TYLER JAMES WILLIAMS, EVERYBODY

cannot stop thinking about this skit from the new i think you should leave season

— Margaret Macmillan, The War That Ended Peace (via st-just)

Consistent observation about guys who say "I just don't understand women": they don't understand men either.

Like, a common response to these guys is to say "women are just people, to understand them just treat them like people". But I think that often fails, because many of these guys just don't really understand anyone else's behavior. They talk about other men with just as much bafflement as they talk about women, it's just that they don't attribute this bafflement to the person's gender when talking about men.

So they're basically just confused, and they think they're confused by women specifically (because of misogyny), but they're actually confused by everyone.

One problematic trend I see in a lot of media is a woman will have an unplanned pregnancy they do not want (for dramatic purposes) and the option of abortion is not seriously considered. It's either completely erased, as if abortion does not exist in the universe of the story or it is dismissed out of hand quickly, often without the word even being said

This trend reinforces the idea that abortion is not a reasonable option, that it is something unspeakable. That the life altering nature of a lifetime of unwanted motherhood is something that you simply must inure yourself to, regardless of your own wellbeing. In the media, women (even teen girls!) are venerated as martyrs for enduring an unwanted pregnancy. There's a subtle undercurrent of incredibly conservative messaging here. Women who have abortions are unspeakable. Women who undergo unwanted pregnancies are noble.

One of my greatest inspirations as a writer is the late great LA Times food reviewer Jonathan Gold. I legitimately think he should be considered one of the best writers of the last 100 years. Look at this.

Poetry. Non-fiction par excellence. This is a man who not only understood the visceral, the sensory, the sublime, but he could put it into words.

He was the opposite of a snob. The man ventured where other reviewers feared to tread. He would visit any greasy taco shack or tacky theme restaurant that caught his eye and detail it with romance befitting a Victorian poet. I have such admiration for his ability to find the beauty, the indulgence, the love, in places you would never expect to find it.

Just looked him up and he looks like how I imagine Dionysus

Truly a Dionysian man

I’m watching that documentary “Before Stonewall” about gay history pre-1969, and uncovered something which I think is interesting.

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.

It appears that no one has made the connection between Dale Olson the publicity agent instrumental in the AIDS debate and Dale Olson the 22-year-old first openly gay man on TV. So I thought I’d make it. For Pride month, an unsung gay hero.

RATING: RELIABLE

you can listen to the clip of the 1954 interview here and find him on wikipedia here

always so touching and vibrant when you remember people a hundred years ago had profound lives full of fun and love

my great grandparents met because they were both telephonist-telegraphists and they used to communicate in spoken morse code so that their kids wouldn’t understand the dirty jokes they were saying. And my great-aunt was telling me the other day about how her father would sit with his kids during stormy nights and hug them as they looked out the window and he pointed out how beautiful the lightning was. Because he didn’t want them to be afraid. It isn’t far away but it’s easy to forget that people are people are people

isn’t it cool that we still take silly pictures where we pretend to put our baby niece for sale or where we pretend to officiate a funeral on the beach? I think that’s neat

In one of my family’s old photo albums from around the 1910’s-20’s there’s a picture of a dog sitting on a chair and wearing a hat.

Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983) dir. Richard Marquand