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Paracartography

@paracartography / paracartography.tumblr.com

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paracartography

Sorry to bother everyone, I’m sure you’re sick of this

But if you’re in the UK, do you think you could spare the time to go and vote in the referendum?

The reason I say this - firstly, I think engaging with democracy is generally a good idea - but moreover, that there’s this overwhelming, obnoxious perception in politics that young people don’t vote. It’s the reason the mainstream political parties aim their policies mostly at the older generation - because they think that appealing to anyone under the age of about 30 is a waste of time, because those people would rather stay home and play videogames than get to the polling station. The only way to fix this is for young people to actually turn up and vote for things and be counted.

(The wonderful thing is, it doesn’t matter what you vote for, or who wins, or whether or not your vote made a difference - you’ve contributed just by turning up. So, please do it!)

#politics
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soyonscruels

The Socialist Case for the European Union

The United Kingdom is voting on the 23rd of June 2016 on whether to remain in or to leave the European Union. This is the biggest decision we will make in our lifetimes, and the shock effects of this will ripple out throughout the world. Voter engagement is low, except among the mostly right-wing older voters who want to leave, and I am not sure I have ever been as frightened about anything politically in my adult life as the possibility that we might leave the European Union.

I want to say something profoundly unfashionable: I believe in the European Union. I believe not that it has the potential to be a force for good, as some people have been saying, but that it is one. I believe in the European Union, and here’s why: 

  1. The European Union was founded to make war in Europe inconceivable. Not all war, obviously, but war between the states who joined as members. Since the foundation of the European Union, not a single member state has gone to war with any other member of the union. Not one. This is unprecedented, to the extent that it has not happened since the Pax Romana of the 1st Century CE– and because this peace happened under the Roman Empire, a violent imperialist power and invading force, in many ways it has never happened before, ever. The Founding Fathers of the European Union were men who watched their continent be destroyed by fascism, ravaged by war, and suffer through genocide. Many were leaders of the resistance against the Nazis in their own countries, and one was imprisoned by the fascist regime of the Italian dictator Mussolini. Many were socialists, with a vision of a united Europe, free from poverty and division and fear. No international project of this size could ever be perfect, but in this aim it can be said that the European Union has achieved its aim absolutely. The European Union is the most successful peace project in the history of the world. 
  2. The European Union acts in practice as a socialist mechanism which redistributes money from richer areas of the EU to poorer ones. Solidarity is one of the foundational aspects of the EU. The European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Youth Employment Initiative, as well as many others, redistribute money to areas with high poverty and unemployment, because there is a recognition within the bodies of the European Union that those with much should help those with little. Human rights within the EU are a major concern for EU bodies, and a staggering array of workers’ rights come from the EU in practice in British law: the right to equal pay, the right to holiday pay, and the right to maternity leave being the most significant. Even in order to be eligible to join the Union, states who seek accession must prove that they have reached a standard of human rights, including most significantly the abolition of the death penalty. These criteria, set out in the Lisbon Treaty, accelerated the move to democratic governments in many post-Soviet states, giving many people in those countries a meaningful vote for the first time in their entire lives. Currently, as unrest and far-right nationalism spreads across Europe – more on that later – solidarity is being practised across the European Union, especially within the Socialists and Democrats bloc in the European Parliament, which has fought recently to improve the treatment of the LGBT population in Poland and to criticise the appalling behaviour of the government of Hungary towards refugees. There are people across the Union who need the support from within these bodies that they cannot find anywhere else from people in positions of serious power, and abandoning them in their time of need is the exact opposite of practising solidarity. The European Union is an exercise in solidarity and a force for democratization.  We cannot abandon our brothers and sisters across the Union who are fighting for progress, freedom and to be treated as equal citizens, because although great strides have been made, the war is not over and there are many more battles left to fight.  
  3. Human rights within Britain are at risk under Brexit from both the loss of EU protection and the intentions of the fucking bastard vandals in the Conservative party of Great Britain. Commentators believe that the rallying point for the Conservative Party post-Referendum, regardless of the result, is going to the abolition of the Human Rights Act (1998), the single greatest achievement in human rights legislation in modern British history. It means that you can defend your rights in the UK courts and that public organisations (including the Government, the police and local councils) must treat everyone equally, with fairness, dignity and respect. If we stay in the EU, the repealing of this will be much easier for us to challenge, and some of the rights they would seek to remove would be protected under European law. If we leave, despite our access to the European Court of Human Rights, it will be so much harder, harder to the point of almost guaranteed victory for the Tories. The Human Rights Act finally abolished the death penalty for members of the military, and, among many other things, has been used to successfully challenge discrimination by councils against the Romani and travellers. It is both an independently important piece of legislation and the basis for other important anti-discrimination legislation, especially anti-LGBT discrimination, for which prior to this Act there was little legislative basis whatsoever. We should never take human rights legislation for granted, because the hand that giveth is often the hand which taketh away, especially when what gave us the Act was a Labour government and what wants to remove it is a Tory one. This government has already tried to remove the right to strike in practice and attempted to push through a bill that could see trade unions monitored by the police. They have used punitive measures against disabled jobseekers so severe that some of them have starved to death, and declared people with terminal cancer who are imminently about to die fit for work. Do you trust an unfettered Tory government or do you want an extra barrier between them and us, which will at least give them another thing to have to try and smash through while trying to take us back to workhouses and Section 28?
  4. Look at who wants us to leave. Nigel Farage, the proto-fascist and nationalist leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), a man who once said all people with HIV should be barred from entering the United Kingdom and wants to privatise the entire health service, is undoubtedly the reason this referendum is happening. Boris Johnson, the arch-liar who is on the right-wing of the Conservative Party and who is treating this as a job interview to be the next Prime Minister, is the leader of Vote Leave, and would probably advocate leaving the actual planet if he thought it could get him into 10 Downing Street. Donald Trump has added his never-welcome voice to the debate and said that he thinks we should leave, because it’s “sensible”. It is a widely known and generally accepted fact that no one desires our exit from the European Union more than Vladimir Putin, and there is a direct paper trail across Europe from many far-right Eurosceptic Parties, including the French National Front, back to the Kremlin, which is deliberately funding these groups precisely to try and weaken the power and influence of the European Union. Putin fears and resents the European Union because rather than using military force against him, it has levied punishing economic sanctions against him and many of his billionaire oligarch friends, which makes operating in the world more difficult for him. We live in dangerous times, and we should not be seeking more division at a time when so many people already want to divide us. 
  5. It is the young the European Union promises a better future, and it is the young who will suffer most if we leave. We live in a Europe where you can work wherever you want, live wherever you want, and fall in love wherever you want. You can study in Paris and live in Barcelona, and if you meet the love of your life while you’re there, you can stay there without complex visa problems and as a citizen of Europe who can take part in public life as a citizen. A massive number of young people have dropped off the electoral register after the Tories changed voter registration law at the end of last year; students have been worst affected. People aged 18-35 are the most likely to want to remain in the EU, and they are the least likely to vote, or even be registered. YOU HAVE THREE DAYS LEFT TO REGISTER TO VOTE, WHICH CAN BE DONE HERE. 

I believe in the European Union because I am an internationalist. I believe in the European Union because I watched its money transform my city and my community, after almost twenty years of suffering under Conservative rule. I believe in the European Union because I believe in the Europe of the International Brigades, of solidarity and charity and hope, of Marx and Keynes and Niemöller, of the revolutions of 1848 and the European Convention on Human Rights and Nye Bevan’s NHS. I believe that what divides us can never be greater than what unites us, and I believe what could come from us leaving could never be better for us, for all us, than what could come of staying. It is never over. It is never done. I believe in the European Union because I believe in socialism: Workers of the World Unite for Peace and Socialism. To quote The Internationale, I believe, utterly, in the international ideal that unites the human race. 

I believe that it’s a start. 

paracartography
stammsternenstaub

The Hungarian settling of Sződliget is often called “Witch Village” due to it’s eerie atmosphere. It is a small waterside town with only a couple of inhabitants, and fog gathers on the lake most nights.

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paracartography

Surely it’s called “Witch Village” because of all the fucking witches? I mean, look at that place!

#earthly magic
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haru-desune

Flower shop AU

Person A owns a flower shop and person B comes storming in one day, slaps 20 bucks on the counter and says “How do I passive-aggressively say fuck you in flower?”

Omfg

MY TIME HAS COME

so you’d need a bouquet of geraniums (stupidity), foxglove (insincerity), meadowsweet (uselessness), yellow carnations (you have disappointed me), and orange lilies (hatred). it would be quite striking! and full of loathing.

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nixhil

im no Florist but I thought I’d try my hand at such a beautiful gift of absolute loathing

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cosplayeriori

It go better..

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entomancy

This is definitely the bouquet S_R would send.

#nobilis
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misterlucian
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misterlucian

May the 25th.  All journeys from one world to another pass, however briefly, through Carcosa.

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paracartography

Along the shore the cloud waves break,

The twin suns sink behind the lake,

The shadows lengthen

In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,

And strange moons circle through the skies,

But stranger still is

Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,

Where flap the tatters of the King,

Must die unheard in

Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead,

Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed

Shall dry and die in

Lost Carcosa.

—"Cassilda's Song" in The King in Yellow Act 1, Scene 2

#carcosa
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iztarshi

Inspired by various tumblr posts.

Humans quickly get a reputation among the interplanetry alliance and the reputation is this: when going somewhere dangerous, take a human.

Humans are tough. Humans can last days without food. Humans heal so fast they pierce holes in themselves or inject ink for fun. Humans will walk for days on broken bones in order to make it to safety. Humans will literally cut off bits of themselves if trapped by a disaster.

You would be amazed what humans will do to survive. Or to ensure the survival of others they feel responsible for.

That’s the other thing. Humans pack-bond, and they spill their pack-bonding instincts everywhere. Sure it’s weird when they talk sympathetically to broken spaceships or try to pet every lifeform that scans as non-toxic. It’s even a little weird that just existing in the same place as them for long enough seems to make them care about you. But if you’re hurt, if you’re trapped, if you need someone to fetch help?

You really want a human.

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roachpatrol

you know fantasy dragon soulbonding fic i want more of that where the humans are the dragons, like, we’re huge, we’re old, we’re scrappy as hell, and if you are small and cute enough we would be delighted to carry you around on our back 

#sci-fi & fantasy#humans are weird
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agreekdoctor
justthestupidparts asked:

When you became a doctor, did you not swear an oath to, among other things, try to prevent disease as much as treat it? Refusing to advocate weight loss to obese patients breaks that oath; how do you justify continuing to practice medicine? Serious question.

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agreekdoctor answered:

First of all, I apologize for taking so long to answer your post. When I received it I was still out of town. Second, I wanted to write something thoughtful and I needed time to not write something out of anger. Anger that you would accuse me of doing harm by not mindlessly insisting on weight loss as the ultimate solution to a fat person’s health problems.

To start with I would like to state that I do not refuse to advocate weight loss, where it is appropriate to do so. I assume that you are operating on the false assumption that being fat automatically makes a person unhealthy. I can assure you that it does not.

“But, what about the obesity epidemic? What about the diabetes epidemic? But what about…?” I hear you ask.

There are lots of illnesses that have been statistically correlated with being fat. But the thing to understand is that correlation does not equal causation.

Lets use Type 2 diabetes and fatness as an example. Diabetes type 2 is an illness of insulin resistance. That means the body requires more insulin to produce the same sugar lowering effect than a nondiabetic body would need. Insulin is produced by cells in the pancreas called beta cells.

Contrary to popular belief, people don’t just go from being nondiabetic to diabetic overnight. Rather there is a process that occurs. We have found that there are differences in a person’s beta cells that happen long before a person even begins to show signs of insulin resistance. Many people who go on to become type 2 diabetics will have higher levels of insulin circulating in their bodies for years before they even become prediabetic. One of the other functions of insulin in the body is to promote the storage of excess energy as fat. So, insulin makes people fat, and keeps people fat (makes it harder to lose weight).

Can you see where I’m going with this? The question now becomes, are people diabetic because they are fat? Or are they fat because they are diabetic? This is an extremely important distinction to make.

When I see a diabetic person, fat or not, I tell them to make sure they get plenty of exercise and to watch what they eat to control their carbohydrate intake. What does this sound like? “Diet and exercise.” The difference is that I don’t tell people to lose weight. Many of my patients who follow this advice do in fact lose weight, and that is fine. Many of my patients do not. That is also fine. They all have better control of their sugars, and in most cases, to similar degrees. I fail to see how not insisting on losing weight is “doing harm.”

There are times when a person’s weight turns out to be a factor in their illness and where weight loss may help in treating it. In those cases, I do suggest some weight loss. But in NO case is it ever necessary for someone to get to their “ideal body weight” to help their condition.

Finally, let’s look at the idea of “doing harm.” Did you know that studies (link and link) have shown that the medical profession as a whole is biased against fat people? That there are countless stories about people having serious illnesses going undiagnosed because they are fat and doctors refuse to look beyond that? That fat patients stop going to their doctors after being repeatedly made to feel ashamed for being fat by their doctors? For trying so hard to lose weight but not being “successful?” That, to me is the real harm that is done. The psychological harm. The physical harm that results from not going to the doctor for a serious problem because the doctor will either ignore it or just embarrass them again.

Are you aware that the vast majority of people who lose weight are not able to maintain that weight loss over the long term? And that people can end up far fatter than they would have become otherwise due to the lose-gain cycle. That that cycle can also cause serious harm to a person?

I care about each and every one of my patients whether they are fat or not. Whether they are healthy or not. Fat patients get the same consideration given to their concerns as thin people. I don’t simply dismiss things because a person is fat or tell them that losing weight is the ultimate answer. If my medical work up indicates that losing a small amount of weight may help, then I suggest it. Otherwise, it is not necessary.

Finally, before you try to tell me about all the research that shows being fat is unhealthy, I have a few of links to lots of evidence-based medical research that shows that being fat does not necessarily make one unhealthy.

Link

Link with lots of individual links to various studies.

And finally,

Another link to lots of individual studies.

Serious question? Serious answer.

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bigfatscience

There you go, folks. Straight from the horse’s mouth. I mean, if doctors were horses.

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matchgirl42

There are also documented instances of doctors doing outright harm by assuming that a patient’s health issue was because they were fat and not looking any further (like they would with a patient who doesn’t fall into the “overweight” category):

This woman was told for years that she needed to lose weight, took 15 years to get a PCOS diagnosis

17 year old told her back pain was caused by her weight and she just needed to lose weight, ended up having a cancerous tumor in her leg and because the diagnosis was delayed, her entire leg had to be amputated

This woman was told for years she just needed to lose weight, turns out she had lung cancer

Fat women are less likely to be screened for breast and cervical cancer, and more likely to die from those cancers

And that’s just scratching the surface, and doesn’t take into account that telling patients to lose weight without addressing the underlying health issues that are making them fat, not only sets those patients up for failure (and the increasing stress that does things like raise blood pressure and in extreme cases can lead to adrenal fatigue), but also lets those underlying health issues go undiagnosed and untreated, which leads to them getting worse, including and up to death of the patient.  Which is, you know, medical neglect.

How is that not doing harm?

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agreekdoctor

The 17 year old girl mentioned above wasn’t even officially “obese” by BMI standards. Which goes to show how fat phobia harms patients of ANY size.

#illness cw#fatphobia cw#medical
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vands38

DEAR YOUNG BRITISH PEOPLE

The EU referendum is on the 23rd JUNE and here’s some scary stats the BBC decided to throw at me this morning: 

“just over a third of 18- to 24-year-olds intend to or are certain to vote, compared with well over two thirds of the over-75s” mix that with “those under the age of 35 are roughly twice as likely to vote to stay in as those over the age of 55″

DO YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS HEADING? No? Then let me spell it out for you, Hamilton style:

We are outgunned Outmanned Outnumbered Outplanned

We are gonna get ourselves kicked out of the EU if you don’t get your arse down to the polling station and VOTE for us to stay on the 23rd June.

So, here I am, doing my best to convince you to VOTE STAY.

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?

I get it. You’re apathetic. Politics is boring/corrupt/pointless, all the parties are the same, we’re screwed anyway etc etc. I FEEL YOU. Mate, do I feel you. But THIS referendum has NOTHING to do with political parties or alliances, even the muppets running this country are split. THIS is about the SINGLE QUESTION of if you want us to stay, or want us to leave.

And if you don’t vote for us to stay, then the older generation will most likely vote for us to leave. 

SO WHY ARE WE HAVING A REFERENDUM?

The EU has been going pretty great considering it was all one giant experiment, and it’s been swimming along mostly A-OK for years, but then… the Tories got desperate. Last election, they promised a referendum to get some of the right-wing *cough*UKIP*cough* votes, so now, here we are, having a vote about the EU even though, WE HAVE NO FUCKING PROBLEM WITH THE EU.

BUT WHAT HAS THE EU EVER DONE FOR US?

Being a member of the EU means you can hop across borders as you please: you can study abroad, live abroad, and go on holiday abroad within the EU with much less hassle than if we were outside it. 

But they are also responsible for a bunch of welfare laws that we take for granted: 

👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀 good shit go౦ԁ sHit👌 thats ✔ some good👌👌shit right👌👌there👌👌👌 right✔there ✔✔if i do ƽaү so my self 💯 i say so 💯 thats what im talking about right there right there (chorus: ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ) mMMMMᎷМ💯 👌👌 👌НO0ОଠOOOOOОଠଠOoooᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ👌 👌👌 👌 💯 👌 👀 👀 👀 👌👌Good shit

But seriously here’s some other things that you might not have realised were thanks to the EU:

At the minute it’s a great symbiotic system where we have plenty of freedom but also, plenty of support. 

SO WHY DO PEOPLE WANNA BREXIT?

Because it sounds like a breakfast cereal and I’m guessing they’re hungry af. Admittedly, we have to pay a fee to be in the EU (but relatively, this is minimal) and it can also mean more “red tape”. But as far as I can tell these are all just very polite ways to say that the EU just have too much gosh darn ~power~ over us. URGH. First of all, this is not the British Empire, we’re allowed to have allies, and it’s a good thing that we have other nations keeping us in check. (And with the Tories destroying the country, you might find yourself hoping that the EU did have more power to keep us in check). Secondly, we’re already a special snowflake in the EU, and they grant us PLENTY of leeway, so it’s not as if they’ve got us by the tighty whiteys. 

GIF by ealylo

The Leave campaign are scapegoating refugees as to why we need to leave the EU which would be hilarious if I didn’t live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by white middle-class racist UKIP voters that are goddamn licking it up. (Cornwall. Don’t even.) They are using the recent “migrant crisis” to emphasise that as soon as someone becomes an EU member they can live anywhere in the EU, as in, all the EU countries that are nicer than we are and actually let people fleeing from their wartorn country stay, can therefore decide to move to the UK. But, yo, leaving the EU won’t stop immigration. And even more hilariously, our borders are actually more likely to be weaker if we leave the EU than stronger.

Putting aside the fact that apparently millions of people in our nation don’t give a fuck about refugees that are in part OUR GODDAMN FAULT and certainly if you’re a human being OUR GODDAMN CONCERN, the Leave campaign are apparently forgetting about OUR IMMIGRANTS. 

As in:

2.2m British nationals that, if we leave the EU, are suddenly dumped into muddy water. Oh yeah, Leave campaign, I really see you caring about them. 

I’ve honestly never seen such hypocrisy in my life. 

OH, AND IT’S ECONOMIC SUICIDE

The Leave campaign cannot produce a single independent study to show that economically we’d be better off leaving the EU.

jk it’s because we’re NOT.

Our economy is now so tied to the EU that it would be a fucking MESS if we left. It’s 57% of our trade. It’s 1 in 10 of our jobs. It could take us a decade just to untangle ourselves. And, lord knows, we’d never win Eurovision again.

TO SUMMARISE

On JUNE 23RD please vote to REMAIN IN THE EU. If you do nothing, it’s likely we’re gonna be outvoted by hypocritical racist UKIP-wankers and get our country in an even worse financial state.

The reason I am here BEGGING my 12 followers and 200 spambots to VOTE TO STAY is because the last time there was a referendum, I was a naive little undergrad, and I thought “this option is so obviously better, everyone’s going to vote for it” and HAHAHAHAHA DID THAT NOT HAPPEN. You may think you don’t need to vote, but YOU DO. 

Governments are only as smart as the people informing them.

We need to give our idiotic government as close to an actual representation of our country’s opinion. That means we need to get our turnout percentage up to AT LEAST two-thirds like the over 75s so that the result of the referendum is an actual reflection of opinion.

That doesn’t happen if you don’t vote. 

So please, check you are registered to vote RIGHT NOW. And on June 23rd, VOTE TO STAY.

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fatfeistyandfashionable

We’re already fucked here in the colonies, don’t get fucked over there too!

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chaotictechnocracy

The European Union isn’t perfect. Infact, it’s in dire need of a damn good rewiring. However, it’s in our best interests to stay. We, the UK, absolutely cannot survive outside of it.