“In one of the most notable moments in sports history, Kenyan runner Abel Mutai was just a few feet from the finish line, but became confused with the signage and stopped thinking he had completed the race.

 A Spanish athlete, Ivan Fernandez, was right behind him, and after realizing what was happening, he started shouting at the Kenyan for him to continue running; but Mutai didn't understand his Spanish. Fernandez eventually caught up to him and instead of passing him, he pushed him to victory.

A journalist asked Ivan, "Why did you do that?"

Ivan replied, “My dream is that someday we can have a kind of community life where we push and help each other to win.”

The journalist insisted “But why did you let the Kenyan win?" Ivan replied, "I didn't let him win, he was going to win.” The journalist insisted again, “But you could have won!”

Ivan looked at him & replied, “But what would be the merit of my victory? What would be the honor of that medal? What would my Mom think of that?” Values are transmitted from generation to generation. What values are we teaching our children? Let us not teach our kids the wrong ways to WIN.”

I feel like they should just print this out and hand it to any reporter dumb enough to ask about recovering bodies

Absolutely true

you are so right

Did a cool demon hand cover up today!

HOLY SHIT! The first time I read Dracula I was horrified at Jonathan’s June 24 entry. But with today’s Re: Dracula episode? The woman sobbing out for her child and the wolves howling and Jonathan’s bleak cracking voice? I am REELING. Hats off to everyone at Re: Dracula.

Today’s entry is the worst of the “will the door to my room be locked or not” roulette that Jonathan’s life has become, but him rushing to try it is an important character note. He didn’t have the chance to react when he saw the first child be given to the vampire women, but the guilt of not intervening as useless as it would be has remained. Now, when he hears it happening again, his first instinct is to charge from his tiny corner of safety to do something.

His agency ends at the locked door, but even the failed attempt gives insight to his character. There’s no chance of him overcoming the vampires or of him saving the child’s life, but he rushes to help anyway.

Women in Shakespeare

How Not to Read Terry Pratchett's Discworld Novels

With the very exciting fantasy books poll bracket going on Discworld and how to read it is in the zeitgeist again. I figured I would take a crack at adding to this important topic with a guide drawn from my own chaotic mess of a reading journey:

I always sort of laugh when people ask where to start reading Discworld, because Thud would be first on absolutely nobody's sensible Terry Pratchett reading order. I'm still tempted to recommend it though!

(My actual advice: Going Postal if you love con men being stuck doing the right thing, Wee Free Men if you like YA and smart angry girls owning their own power, Guards! Guards! *and* Men at Arms if you like crime shows with heart and are okay giving earlier work a try (the quality gets better and better, but I think it needs at least two books to get you into it), and Monstrous Regiment if you like gender and queer feelings, anti-war books told in the middle of a war, and/or would prefer a stand alone novel...and, you know, Thud if you want a great read and don't mind some chaos.)

How Not to Read Terry Pratchett's Discworld Novels

With the very exciting fantasy books poll bracket going on Discworld and how to read it is in the zeitgeist again. I figured I would take a crack at adding to this important topic with a guide drawn from my own chaotic mess of a reading journey:

I always sort of laugh when people ask where to start reading Discworld, because Thud would be first on absolutely nobody's sensible Terry Pratchett reading order. I'm still tempted to recommend it though!

(My actual advice: Going Postal if you love con men being stuck doing the right thing, Wee Free Men if you like YA and smart angry girls owning their own power, Guards! Guards! *and* Men at Arms if you like crime shows with heart and are okay giving earlier work a try (the quality gets better and better, but I think it needs at least two books to get you into it), and Monstrous Regiment if you like gender and queer feelings, anti-war books told in the middle of a war, and/or would prefer a stand alone novel...and, you know, Thud if you want a great read and don't mind some chaos.)

Teacher gift idea✏️

I’m obsessed with this because this woman is me (if I had a cricut). I make fun of all this shit but also I am SO into it. The balance between genuine lust for a good Pinterest craft and pure sarcasm in her voice is amazing. 10/10

Also? Cool of her to make something clever that kids can just go up to and take a pencil instead of possibly embarrassing themselves by asking around for one if they don’t have one, forgot it, etc.

and once the dust of fucking around settles, you will come to realize that you have, in fact, found out

but at least you fucked around😔

gotta give credit to gravity falls for having a cartoon explicitly set during the summer but going

“hey we wanna do a halloween episode” “but it’s summer” “the town has a regional not!halloween called summerween fuck you”

I just want to bring to everyone’s attention that summerween is june 22nd ok bye

Reblogging this so that nobody misses Summerween

the cognitive dissonance from people who want the products of modern medicine but get weird about animal research. like im sorry but this is necessary for the survival of the society we currently live in. and the scientists who work on these things are not evil cackling psychopaths. anyone you talk to in animal research has incredibly complex feelings about their work and incredibly complex relationships to the animals in their care. there are regulations and oversight and penalties in place to make the work as humane as possible and scientists are overwhelmingly the ones enforcing and advocating for better care.

@velvetdemon I'm doing a full reply because I want to give this question the time and space it deserves, and I really do appreciate your curiosity about this.

The short answer: It is deeply unethical. There are nowhere near enough willing patients in the world to be able to do this, and it would be criminal to put them through this.

The long answer: The one side of the equation you're focusing on is: how much of a drug is too much, to the point where it will cause negative side effects or even death? And this is crucial to know. But it's not just a matter of finding out the lethal dosage of a heart cholesterol medication, you need to know that it can actually lower the cholesterol of any living thing. There is no way to know this without giving it first to...a living thing.

But beyond this, I need to emphasize: The goal of a drug trial is to effectively cure people who are already suffering from disease, who are living on limited time.

Drug trials don't just happen on any member of the public, they need to happen specifically on people affected by the disease you're trying to treat. There is at any time a very limited and very marginalized population of the world affected by early onset, familial Parkinson's disease. Because you cannot ethically induce disease in a human being, you are working with, speaking with, and helping patients and their families who are hopeful and desperate for a cure.

If you were to jump straight to human trials from petri dishes, not knowing absolutely anything about how the drug functions in a living, breathing animal body, it would look like this:

I could go on, and on, and on.

The vast majority of these problems can be nearly or almost entirely averted by testing other animals first.

These are all people who possibly could have waited for the normal progression from animal testing to human testing and thus received better outcomes. Some people will pass away in the time it takes to get to that point, and that's heartbreaking, and we all wish science could be faster.

But the cost of expediting science could mean a life of profoundly greater suffering or an even shorter life than the one where no intervention happens at all. And at that point, you have completely exhausted your trust, your goodwill, and your patients' hope, after you've failed to do anything or even worsened the lives of people who are already deeply suffering.

hi, i’m an animal research professional. making sure laboratory animals stay alive, healthy, and enriched has been my full-time job for several years now.

animal research is not the mad scientist wild west that PETA wants you to think it is. there are extremely strict federal laws in place to protect the well being of these animals. animal welfare organizations like AAALAC ensure that lab animals are treated with dignity & respect and are given enough specialized care & enrichment to be happy and content in captivity, just like AZA accreditation with zoos.

not a single animal from a zebrafish to a mouse to a dog to a macaque goes unaccounted for. if an animal gets moved to a new cage, paired for breeding, has a procedure performed on it, gives birth, gets sick or injured, dies, etc. it is legally required that this information is recorded and kept on file for the US federal government to access. failing to record & retain this information is very much punishable by US federal law.

let me tell you - if you abuse or kill an animal, even a mouse - you are almost certainly getting both fired & blacklisted from the industry. if you abuse or kill a more ‘advanced’ animal, such as a dog or monkey, you will likely face criminal charges. killing a monkey is as serious and disastrous as a nuclear meltdown. you are expected to reasonably explain every illness, injury, or death of an animal under your care. you must record all of this information. animals that are clearly suffering with low QOL are required to be euthanized according to AVMA guidelines.

research animals are highly expensive. yes, even the "lesser" animals like mice. the cheapest mice will run you a few hundred $ per individual, with some of the most expensive mice i've cared for being $25,000 per individual. in research we have the "three Rs" - reduction (reduce amount of necessary animals to a minimum), refinement (refine processes to ensure research is accurate and animals feel no pain or distress), and replacement (replace animals with non-living research models as they become available). i can assure you no proper research team is wasting animals (*do not* say "b-b-but elon musk--" his research team is actively being investigated for animal abuse by the government).

research methods that do not require live animals are currently being looked into & efforts spearheaded by - you guessed it - the animal research industry itself (notice how the animal rights people are strangely silent & unhelpful when it comes to this?) but current technology is rudimentary and does not compare to live animal models.

some research animal fun facts (US edition):

so yes, you can rest knowing that laboratory animals are treated with the utmost respect by their caretakers. and you can stop this awful, ignorant talk of human experimentation that will only end in the abuse of nonwhite people, LGBT people, disabled people, indigenous people, and so many others. please just take a look at this wikipedia page if you think “ethical” human experimentation can exist.

LAW AND ECONOMICS BABEYYY

https://t.co/tQNM37KsB0

This is my tribe. Many of us in our home countries live off selling handmade goods, especially the mochilas. Weaving is an important Wayuú tradition. Every pattern and assortment of colors tells a unique story, and it's important to our cultural identity. And right now with the crises in Venezuela and Colombia, a lot of us are struggling financially. Please always purchase directly from indigenous communities!

you know those posts talking about how theres probably a poem somewhere in the image of glow in the dark stars being painted over in landlord white etc? thats how i feel about the submarine filled with rich people that was lost while journeying to the wreck of the titanic. it just feels cyclical, a tragedy turned into a spectacle, turned into a tragedy, turned into a spectacle again. and also about how 39% of first class passengers died aboard the titanic while 76% of third class passengers died. about how a migrant vessel off the coast of Greece sank with hundreds feared dead while help was denied at every turn and how the whole world is rallying to the cause of the missing titan. about how the titanic was often hailed as unsinkable, about the arrogance of power and the lower class bodies left in its wake.

Also, non-bisexual people stop with the myth of ‘bisexual people will only ever experience homophobia if in a relationship with the same gender.’

First off, no, you’re wrong.

Second, are you aware that bisexual people who present as what most people would describe as ‘obviously gay’ with all the same mannerisms and such as many gay people are singled out for exhibiting - like….do exist? Regardless of whether or not they’re in a relationship and who the relationship is with? And are discriminated against on the exact same basis?

Third, no, you’re wrong.

Fourth, when you say dumb as fuck shit like this, have you ever taken five seconds to think your attack ad through to its reasonable conclusion and if so, what is your response to someone asking ‘so does that mean that gay people only face homophobia when they’re in a relationship?’

Fifth, no, you’re still wrong.

Sixth, hi, hello, how were your personal experiences with internalized homophobia, growing up? Did they suck? I would be happy to empathize and relate to you on this front, as shockingly, I, a bi person, too had to struggle with internalized homophobia when growing up in a heteronormative and homophobic society that tried to teach me to hate the part of myself that was attracted to and loved other men, even while still possessing an attraction to people of other genders as well.

Seven, you’re still wrong.