The winged scarab beetle in the center of this beaded shroud invokes Khepri, the morning form of the sun god, whom ancient Egyptians depicted as a dung beetle. Just as the sun is born anew each dawn, Egyptians planned to be reborn into a new form of existence after death. As symbols of this renewal, scarab amulets were secured to the body with linen wrappings or incorporated into nets made of beads and laid over a mummified body. The image’s power is strengthened by the hieroglyphic meaning of the scarab shape, “to come into existence.”
As someone who is unrepentantly ~wild and zany~ it feels strange to admit that being stereotyped as ~wild and zany~ is a major insecurity. It always made me feel like shit when I was younger and my social groups would assign each other archetypal roles or character associations and I would indelibly be pigeonholed as The Kooky One. It wasn’t that I was offended to be perceived as eccentric—it just felt like, in Pip’s words, other people assigned their own inability to or disinterest in understanding me as a static trait that I possess.
I know full well that I’m weird, often flamboyantly so, and in such a way that I can be extremely offputting to people with more restrained personalities. But I have interiority! I have depth of feeling! I still value the regard of others! It stings to realize that someone is not willing to even attempt to reciprocate empathy because their perception of me is flattened into a caricature of impenetrable kookiness.
Like yeah man I can see why I annoy the shit out of you but if impulsive Dracula impressions, some odd statements, and moonwalking down the IKEA lighting aisle are all it takes for you to stop seeing someone as fully human or deserving of basic respect, I think maybe we both have insufferable personalities.
To be clear, I don’t mean this in an ableism way—I don’t NOT mean it in an ableism way, but also I resent the implication that odd behavior must be explained by diagnosable medical conditions before those displaying it are deserving of empathy. Just a pet peeve in the way we talk about neurodivergence on this webbed site.
That Kudzu is so highly invasive because—just like most plants evolved to be grazed by herbivores and/or eaten by caterpillars, keeping them in balance with everything else—Kudzu basically evolved to be harvested by humans
The other half of the ecological partnership that keeps Kudzu in balance with everything else isn't a caterpillar or a hoofed beast. It's us.
Wait, you can spin kudzu? Why aren't we harvesting and marketing this as the newest eco friendly fiber for hand spinners in the US? The market may be small, but I guarantee you with the "spin" that you can use your hobby to fight invasive plants and save the earth that people would pay money to have it sent to them.
Someone send me a sample of kudzu bark and I'll do some research on how they got the spinnable fiber out of it.
Can you elaborate the story of the ”Free Willy” orca (forgot his name). From my understanding the orca couldn’t survive in the wild and imprinted on hunans to the point that he seeked out human compaionship
Oh Keiko. His is a sad story. In 1979, he was tragically captured from his native Icelandic waters as a calf and, after bouncing around for several years, was sold to an amusement park in Mexico City that would eventually become Six Flags Mexico. It was here that he found fame as the star of Free Willy, a very sweet and very fictional story (a favorite of mine as a child!) that later spawned a trilogy, all while convincing the public that it’s easy to free a whale.
The tank you see in the movie is the same tank Keiko lived in during his time in Mexico. Intended to house dolphins, it was incredibly undersized, and the water was far too warm for an orca. Worst of all, he was isolated from others of his kind, with only the companionship of his human caregivers and a few bottlenose dolphins. The years of poor husbandry took their toll on poor Keiko, and he was lethargic and in ill health when his story because known throughout the world.
Although many parties were involved in what happened next, Warner Bros. studios (the filmmakers behind Free Willy) and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS, my beloathed) were at the forefront. Once it became public knowledge that the real Willy was not, in fact, returned to the wild to live with his family and was still living in that too-tiny pool, many of Keiko’s fans (mainly children) began writing letters asking for their favorite cetacean movie star to be released.
Doesn’t that warm your heart? *she says sarcastically*
Some time—and an incident in which Michael Jackson (yes, that Michael Jackson) tried to purchase the whale for his personal collection—later, Keiko’s owners relented. It was decided by the newly formed Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, founded by Warner Bros. and cell phone mogul Craig McCaw (and still in operation to this day, unfortunately), that it was time to make fantasy a reality and set Keiko free. In 1996, Keiko was transferred to the Oregon Coast Aquarium for rehabilitation, where he would spend two years.
Under the quality husbandry and veterinary care Keiko received in Oregon, his health began to improve. In my opinion, this beautiful habitat, with trainers who loved and cared for him, should’ve been his forever home. One would think this was the plan all along, considering his trainers were still doing waterwork with him. That doesn’t exactly scream “this animal is a candidate for release!”
But the HSUS and Free Willy-Keiko Foundation had promised the children of the world that Keiko would return to the wild. Think of the children, people.
In 1998, Keiko tasted the crisp saltwater of the Icelandic seas for the first time in nearly two decades. For the next four or so years, Keiko lived in a sea pen, with the intentions of gradually habituating him back to his native environment. Over time, his trainers took him on longer and longer “walks” in the open ocean. One day in 2002, the walk didn’t end.
Keiko was free.
15 months later, he was dead.
The cause of death was pneumonia, the most common disease of cetaceans both in the wild and in human care. He was 27 years old (average life expectancy of a male orca is about 30 years).
Perhaps it would’ve been worth it, had Keiko spent those last 15 months with his long-lost family. But he didn’t. Though he was occasionally observed trailing pods of orcas, Keiko never rejoined a wild pod. Instead, he spent those 15 months traveling the coasts of Iceland and Norway seeking out the only family he knew. Humans.
Keiko would approach swimming children, allowing them to ride on his back as he had with his trainers over the years. He would follow boats in search of food and companionship, as his caregivers had interacted with him from boats during his ocean walks. These escapades became so frequent that the local government passed ordinances to stop its citizens from interacting with the whale. Although the HSUS claimed otherwise, Keiko was never again a truly wild whale. He was a whale dependent on humans, humans who ignored the advice of experts and tried to bring fiction to life. In 2009, the journal Marine Mammal Science did a retrospective review of Keiko’s rehabilitation and release. They determined it was a failure.
Despite this, Keiko remains a poster child for anti-zoo activists. The still-hypothetical Whale Sanctuary Project (my even more beloathed) uses Keiko as an example of why their experiment is a good idea, tugging at heartstrings of well-meaning animal lovers like HSUS did all those years ago.
In reality, Keiko was quite possibly the worst candidate imaginable for release. He was a fully mature male, with a history of poor health, who had spent decades in the care of humans with absolutely no contact with others of his kind since he was basically a toddler. The decision to release him was made entirely on emotion and carried out by movie executives and animal rights activists. For further insight into the political and financial woes of the release, I highly recommend Killing Keiko by Mark Simmons, one of Keiko’s caregivers throughout the rehabilitation process.
RIP Keiko. You were a beautiful, sweet man who inspired millions 🐳
With the recent news of Miami Seaquarium’s intent to “release” their elderly killer whale Lolita (Tokitae), please remember Keiko. Much like him, Tokitae was captured from the wild as a youngster (nearly a decade before Keiko himself was taken) and has lived with only the companionship of humans and smaller dolphins. She has spent over half a century away from the wild and other orcas, and it has been genetically confirmed that none of her wild family is still alive. Like Keiko, the only family she knows are humans.
Don’t let Keiko’s death be in vain. Don’t let the same fate befall Toki.
between swedish people having a passion for mushroom hunting and pigs being built to do the same, I’m surprised that (to my knowledge) there’s never been a sketch where the swedish chef and miss piggy feverishly hunt for mushrooms in a comedy of errors, beginning with miss piggy offended that anyone would insinuate she’d want to help root around in the dirt until the mushroom lust overtakes her
Applying for jobs is a hell designed specifically to torment autistic people. Here is a well-paying task which you know in your heart and soul if they just gave you a desk and left you alone and allowed you to do it you would sit there and be more focused and enthusiastic and excellent at it than anyone else in the building. However, before they allow you to perform the task, you must pass through 3-4 opaque social crucibles where you must wear uncomfortable clothes and make eye contact while everyone expects you to lie, but not too much (no one is ever clear exactly how much lying is expected, “over” honesty is however penalized). You are being judged almost entirely on how well you understand these very specific and unclear rules that no one has explained. None of this has anything to do with your ability to perform the desired task.
It is hell! I want to acknowledge that the original point of the post is NOT fixed by my providing solutions (the way jobs are filled makes no sense), but also I want to leave some notes for folks struggling with these unspoken rules.
Some brief notes on the correct kinds of “LYING”:
Always use “I” expressions, instead of “we”:
eg “I created a solution to a recurring problem by doing [x].”, even if it was really you and two others in a group
If you LED the group (or did project-management), you can say, “I led a team to create a solution to a recurring problem by doing [x].”
This is because employers like to know that YOU can do, and they also value team-leadership. If you say “we”, they may stop you and ask what You did specifically. You can avoid this by just saying “I”.
Someone asks if you have experience in a program (like excel):
If you feel confident using it: “Yes, I am very proficient.”
If you have used it a few times, and could at least google what to do next: “Yes, I have good experience.”
If you don’t have any experience: “I have used it before. I generally pick up programs very fast, and I’m a quick learner.”
Mistakes (some interviewers may ask about a time you made a mistake, or a weakness of yours):
Good answers are those with solutions.
Bad answer examples: “Sometimes I don’t catch mistakes before sending things.” OR “I don’t like working with other people”
Good answer examples: “I had a problem catching typos, so I implemented steps that force me to check my work.” OR “I prefer to do things on my own so I know it’s done right, but I’m working on trusting my teammates to take on pieces as well.”
Someone asks if you’ve ever led a team / managed a project:
Try to say YES to this question (even if it is a lie)
If you have, say yes, and say how many people were on the team.
If you haven’t, but you played a large role in a group of people, say yes, and talk about your primary role on the team.
If you haven’t, but you worked solo on something that needed input from other people, say yes, and say what the project was about.
Additional:
Misc Rules
You can ask people to repeat interview questions
You can write down interview questions while they’re asking (write the basics of the question down for yourself, like the top things you have to answer). People will wait for you to finish writing, you don’t have to answer Immediately.
Try to keep your answer to questions somewhere between 30 seconds to 1 minute and 30 seconds. You don’t have to time it, but if you find that your answers are taking 3 minutes, you might lose interest.
Have a list of projects / bragging points to talk about in advance
Try to make sure they at least answer the core question asked, don’t just bring up a completely unrelated topic
Example: if you are really excited to talk about a program you wrote, and someone asks about balancing projects, you can say you are good at AUTOMATION, and an example is this program you wrote
“Do you have any questions for us?” (A question asked at the end of most interviews.)
“What has been your favorite part of working at [company]?”
“What’s been your favorite project to work on?”
People like talking about themselves
Thank you emails
Some employers care if you send them a thank you “letter” (email). Sometime by the end of the day (you can do it right after the interview if you think you’ll forget), send a thank you email like this (you can look up other templates, or ask a friend for help):
Subject Line: Thank You
“Hi [interviewer name],
It was great speaking with you. Hearing more about the role, as well as what you said about [their answer to a question you asked them] has made me even more excited for this opportunity.
Thank you for your time today,
[Your Name]
love when you stop a cat from doing something and instead of understanding that they shouldnt be doing that theyre just like. ah sorry my good sir you seem to have interrupted me. no worries let me just shimmy past you and get a taste of that pan of hot oil. please.
As someone who owns cats that will run away if you get up while they are eating from another cat's bowl, but not while they are eating from their own bowl: I am more inclined to agree with the posts that say "cats understand the concept of sin".
sometimes when they see you coming they do the naughty thing faster (eg: when trying to steal an object they cant quite reach, or trying to eat all of something). they realize you're going to stop them, but their thought process doesn't reach the conclusion of "I shouldn't be doing this".
instead they're like "I guess there's a time limit to my task now. but god as my witness I'm gonna complete it."
i do think that one of the worst things “activist” spaces on the internet ever did was convince young marginalized people that individual people, complete strangers, were their oppressors. no, matt from chemistry class isn’t personally oppressing you because he’s a guy, that old lady at the bank isn’t personally oppressing you because she’s cis, your waiter isn’t personally oppressing you because they’re white. individuals can and do contribute to systems of oppression. but seeing random individuals you encounter in your daily life as your oppressors will do nothing but trick you into punching laterally or punching down because you think it’s “empowering.” you might get a momentary rush of endorphins from snapping at the male cashier bc #menaretrashuwu but all you’re doing is being shitty to a random guy making poverty wages.
i saw a tik tok the other day that like perfectly described this phenomenon, how gen z (and some young millennials too tbh) pushes for systemic justice and equality, but refuses to give that on an interpersonal level, and like. y’all. you simply cannot achieve systemic change if you’re not also working toward interpersonal change. you will do more for your own liberation by treating others with sensible patience and kindness than you will pushing this toxic individualist narrative of “i don’t owe anyone anything and i get to act however i want to people i view as my oppressor.” we need class solidarity now more than ever.
this is what happens when we let this mindset become the default. this person is 15 and already using this mindset to spread bigotry. we have to work to deprogram our spaces and focus on collective liberation, because “i’m just hating my oppressors” is no longer an excuse to act like a bigot. it never was.
heyyy hey hi hello wow this person is a child. when I was being sexually abused at age 15 I also believed men were evil trash who didn't have the capacity to love. especially since this person directly says their mother taught them to think this way. what do you expect from a teenager?
I do not disagree with the broader point, but the example above is a bad one.
“it’s actually okay for teenagers to be raging bigots, we shouldn’t hold them accountable until they turn the magic number when it’s suddenly magically not okay to be a bigot anymore.”
also 15 is a reasonable age to expect someone to be cognizant of how what they’re saying is harmful. 15 is still a minor, they’re still figuring shit out, but they’re not 5. they have the capacity to be better. and trans kids, kids of color, other marginalized kids, don’t get the grace that other kids do. when they act out, they’re met with violence. when kids like this act out, we say they’re just being teenagers.
not to dox myself but i'm sixteen. a lot of my friends are still fifteen. my sister just turned fourteen. and yeah if you haven't interacted with teens irl in awhile you may not have a great mental picture of us so i'd like to take a minute to remind everyone that we do in fact have the capacity for logical thought and enough self awareness to Not be this. like we've very much reached kohlberg's postconventional stage of moral development (except the surprising amount of people who stay in the conventional stage for their whole life). most of us are taking college classes. like i can drive i have a job i can legally consent to sex in my state.... this person should absolutely know better.
also if you're still making excuses, i have been sexually harassed and assaulted and subjected to violence from men my whole life. even more so once i transitioned to being a man (though they don't see me as that), actually. same with honestly most of my friends. we still know better.
and for those who are gonna be like "but men aren't systematically oppressed so it's not bigotry," i'm gonna be honest with you the people this person is going to hurt are not cishet white men. they are going to hurt trans people (of all genders), men of color, disabled men, etc.
i think if we’re going to have conversations about consent we should talk about how consenting to something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be a good experience, and having a bad experience doesn’t necessarily mean someone violated your consent. this can apply to a lot of situations but the two i’m thinking of right now are sex and transition.
you’re getting it on with someone. you enthusiastically consent to having sex with them. afterward, you feel a little weird about it. maybe even distressed. maybe they did something you didn’t enjoy and in the moment you just didn’t say anything. maybe you just realized after the fact that you were not in a good headspace for sex and now your mental health is declining. that doesn’t inherently mean the person you had sex with violated your consent. sometimes it just means you need to take a break from sex or work on communicating your needs or boundaries better during sex.
and with transition, i feel like this is something that gets consistently overlooked but like. there will never be zero detransitioners. there will always be people who decide that actually transition wasn’t right for them. they could have had the best most thorough doctors in the world who did everything by the book and got full informed consent at every step. and some people are still going to decide they don’t like the changes and wish they hadn’t transitioned. that doesn’t mean that the doctors violated their consent, and that doesn’t mean that transition shouldn’t be available to anyone. it just means that we need to have more resources available for folks who detransition.
regret does not automatically mean someone did something wrong. regret is simply one possible result of having bodily autonomy, and i think we need to get more comfortable with that.
anyway, here's some things i've learned and some things i'm working on as a survivor of sexual assault/rape and prolonged abuse that might help people.
one of the things i struggle with is communicating what i want during sex, because it was something i was punished for while i was in an abusive relationship. this means whenever i want something during sex, instead of just asking for it, i panic and start overthinking about how to ask for it and if my partner will be upset if i ask for it and what if they say no and am i a bad person for even asking and maybe i should just shut up and wait for it to be over and you see how this can make sex very unpleasant, yes?
one way i'm working on coping with this is trying to talk to whoever i'm having sex with before we have sex. it's easier if you have a partner, but really anyone you're going to sleep with should be cool with you talking about your likes and dislikes before you have sex. sometimes it even helps to write it out, a list of likes or dislikes or things you want to try or things you notice that trigger you. for me, it's hair pulling, so i always make sure to say something before i hook up with someone. it can feel really really awkward at first, so this one just takes practice.
another thing is i used to get triggered during sex, and occasionally still do, and the biggest issue i had was asking the person to stop. usually i'd just be frozen in place and they'd have no idea anything was even happening. instead of trying to figure out what to do when i got triggered, i practiced telling them to stop while i wasn't triggered so i could practice what i was going to say and do and how i was going to handle it. once i had that skill on my roster, it was easier to say or do something if i did get triggered during sex, whether that was saying "stop" or tapping their arm to let them know to stop. this, again, is even easier if you have a partner or a consistent sexual partner you trust.
another thing i've started doing is telling my fwb anytime he does something i do like. it's a lot easier to communicate because i'm not worried about rejection, and once i got more comfortable communicating that way during sex, communicating what i wanted got a little easier.
it's still an uphill battle for me sometimes, there are still times during sex when i just can't get the words to come out of my mouth, and i'm working on being gentle with myself. if you struggle with this stuff too, it's not your fault, and you also don't have to be afraid of sex. focus on getting to know yourself and your limits, practice communicating, check in with yourself after sex, and know that it does get easier!
Today, as you read this […], there are almost 2 million people locked away in one of the more than 5,000 prisons or jails that dot the American landscape. While they are behind bars, these incarcerated people can be found standing in line at their prison’s commissary waiting to buy some extra food or cleaning supplies that are often marked up to prices higher than what one would pay outside of those prison walls. […] If they want to call a friend or family member, they need to pay for that as well. And almost everyone who works at a job while incarcerated, often for less than a dollar an hour, will find that the prison has taken a portion of their salary to pay for their cost of incarceration. […] These policymakers and government officials also know that this captive population has no choice but to foot the bill […] and that if they can’t be made to pay, their families can. In fact, a 2015 report led by the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Forward Together, and Research Action Design found that in 63 percent of cases, family members on the outside were primarily responsible for court-related costs […].
Rutgers sociology professor Brittany Friedman has written extensively on what is called “pay-to-stay” fees in American correctional institutions. In her 2020 article titled, “Unveiling the Necrocapitalist Dimensions of the Shadow Carceral State: On Pay-to-Stay to Recoup the Cost of Incarceration,” Friedman divides these fees into two categories: (1) room and board and (2) service-specific costs. Fees for room and board – yes, literally for a thin mattress or even a plastic “boat” bed in a hallway, a toilet that may not flush, and scant, awful tasting food – are typically charged at a “per diem rate for the length of incarceration.” It is not uncommon for these fees to reach $20 to $80 a day for the entire period of incarceration. The second category, what Friedman refers to as “service-specific costs,” includes fees for basic charges such as copays or other costs for seeing a doctor or nurse, programming fees, email and telephone calls, and commissary items.
In 2014, the Brennan Center for Justice documented that at least 43 states authorize charging incarcerated people for the cost of their own imprisonment, and at least 35 states authorize charging them for some medical expenses. More recent research from the Prison Policy Institute found that 40 states and the federal prison system charge incarcerated people medical copays.
It’s also critical to understand how little incarcerated people are paid for their labor in addition to the significant cut of their paltry hourly wages that corrections agencies take from their earnings. Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of incarcerated people work behind bars. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, those who work regular jobs in prisons such as maintaining the grounds, working in the kitchen, and painting the walls of the facilities earn on average between $0.14 and $0.63 an hour. […] Arkansas and Texas don’t pay incarcerated workers at all, while Alabama only pays incarcerated workers employed by the state’s correctional industry. […]
For example, if someone sends an incarcerated person in Florida $20 online, they will end up paying $24.95. […]
Dallas County charges incarcerated people a $10 medical care fee for each medical request they submit. In Texas prisons, those behind bars pay $13.55 per medical visit, despite the fact that Texas doesn’t pay incarcerated workers anything. Texas is one of a handful of states that doesn’t pay incarcerated people for their labor.
In Kentucky’s McCracken County Jail in Paducah, it costs $0.40 a minute for a video call; this translates into $8.00 for each 20-minute video call. […] For those who need to use email, JPay charges $2.35 for five emails for people in the Texas prison system ($0.47 an email). […]
People in Florida prisons pay $1.70 for a packet of four extra-strength Tylenol and $4.02 for four tampons. And with inflation, commissary items are priced higher than ever. For example, according to the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, incarcerated people in Kentucky experienced a 7.2 percent rise in already-high commissary prices in July 2022. Researchers noted that a 4.6-ounce tube of Crest toothpaste, which costs $1.38 at the local Walmart, is $3.77 at the prison commissary. […]
In Gaston County, North Carolina, incarcerated individuals who participate in state work release may make more than the state’s $0.38 an hour maximum pay, but they pay the jail a daily rate based on their yearly income of at least $18 per day and up to $36 per day. In fact, Brennan Center research indicates that almost every state takes a portion of the salary that incarcerated workers earn to compensate the corrections agency […].
These room and board fees are found throughout the nation’s jails and prisons. Michigan laws allow any county to seek reimbursement for expenses incurred in relation to a charge for which a person was sentenced to county jail time – up to $60 a day. Winnebago County, Wisconsin, charges $26 a day to those staying in its county jail.
—
Text by: Lauren-Brooke Eisen. “America’s Dystopian Incarceration System of Pay to Stay Behind Bars.” Brennan Center for Justice. 19 April 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]
look to be a bit serious I know "no gay person would say this" but like.
The amount of people who are LGBT+ who ALSO hate on polyamory because "It's just straight men who want to fuck a lot of women" and "It's just abusive straight men cheating with extra steps" (which also all REEKS of radfem flavored bullshit) is...
An astounding and terrible amount.
Anyway. Every time I see "polyamory is all straight men" I look at my little polycule. Which consists of me and my wife. And her nonbinary girlfriend. And my boyfriend- who I guess you COULD argue is straight but the man is somewhere on the asexual spectrum and also is 1) dating ME, a very not woman and 2) has been told multiple times by Annoying Straight People that he isn't straight because he doesn't balk at the idea of women and feminine people who aren't women with non-normative genitals and that apparently makes him gay and at this point he fucking counts even if you DON'T include the asexuality so anyone who says that shit can fuck off into the sun.
Polyamory is inherently queer. The idea that it is "straight men wanting to fuck a lot" and "cheating with extra steps" is bullshit that comes from the same place that says gays are all sexual predatory monsters and trans people want to hurt children. It's all conservative puritanical bullshit. Except I hear it MOST OFTEN coming out of the mouths of my fellow LGBTQ+ siblings.
I've seen so many queer people say shit like "polyamory is cringe, it's always just some loser forty-year-old cishet woman claiming having five boyfriends means she's special and queer" which is literally just a remix of the old biphobic "bi women aren't special(read: don't count as queer) for dating men" argument with an extra dose of misogyny and slut-shaming/sex-negativity/anti-kink rhetoric thrown in for good measure.
I'm really glad attitudes seem to be changing and that there are spaces where polyamory is accepted filled with people who are willing to stand up and make us feel welcome, but yeah polyam people have been on the respectability politics chopping block right alongside bi+ folks, a-spec people, nonbinary people, kinksters, trans people, drag artists, and sex workers for a long ass time.
The Epaulette shark is only about 9 million years old as a species, making it the most recent branch in the shark family. And it is slowly but surely evolving into a land animal
