Tag: long post

Why I’m Betting on Millennials, this November 6th

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robertreich:

Millennials (and their younger
siblings, generation Z’s) are the largest, most diverse and progressive group of
potential voters in American history, comprising fully 30 percent of the voting
age population.

On November 6th, they’ll have the
power to alter the course of American politics – flipping Congress, changing
the leadership of states and cities, making lawmakers act and look more like
the people who are literally the nation’s future.

But will they vote?

In the last midterm election, in
2014, only 16 percent of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 29
bothered.

In midterms over the last two
decades, turnout by young people has averaged
about 38 points below the turnout rate of people 60 and older. Which has given
older voters a huge say over where the nation is likely to be by the time those
younger people reach middle age and the older voters have passed on.

I’m not criticizing younger
non-voters. They have a lot on their minds – starting jobs, careers, families.
Voting isn’t likely to be high on their list of priorities.  

Also, unlike their grand parents –
boomers who were involved in civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, the
anti-Vietnam War movement – most young people today don’t remember a time when
political action changed America for the better.

They’re more likely to remember
political failures and scandals – George W. Bush lying about Saddam Hussein’s
weapons of mass destruction; Bill Clinton lying about Monica; both parties
bailing out Wall Street without so much as a single executive going to jail.

Most don’t
even recall when American democracy worked well. They don’t recall the Cold War, when democracy as an ideal worth
fighting for. The Berlin Wall came down before they were born.

Instead, during their lives they’ve
watched big money take over Washington and state capitals. Which may explain why only about 30 percent of Americans born in
the 1980s think it “essential” to live in a democracy.

Many young people have wondered if their votes count anyway,
because so many of them live in congressional districts and states that are
predictably red or blue.

Given all this, is there any reason
to hope that this huge, diverse, progressive cohort of Americans will vote in
the upcoming midterms?

My answer is, yes.

First, the issues up for grabs
aren’t ideological abstractions for them. They’re causes in which Millennials
have direct personal stakes.

Take, for example, gun violence –
which some of these young people have experienced first-hand and have taken
active roles trying to stop.

Or immigrant’s rights. Over 20 percent of Millennials are Latino, and a growing percent
are from families that emigrated from Asia. Many have directly experienced the
consequences of Trump’s policies.

A woman’s right to choose whether
to have a baby, and gay’s or lesbian’s rights to choose marriage – issues
Millennials are also deeply committed to – will be front and center if the
Supreme Court puts them back into the hands of Congress and state legislatures.

Millennials are also concerned
about student debt, access to college, and opportunities to get ahead unimpeded
by racial bigotry or sexual harassment.

And they’re worried about the
environment. They know climate change will hit them hardest since they’ll be on
the planet longer than older voters.

They’ve also learned that their
votes count. They saw Hillary lose by a relative handful of votes in places
like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

They’ve been witnessing razor-thin special elections, such as Conor Lamb’s
win by a few hundred votes in the heart of Pennsylvania Trump country, and Hiral Tipirneni’s single-digit loss in an
Arizona district Trump won by 21 points in 2016.

They know the importance of taking
back governorships in what are expected to be nail-bitingly close races – in
states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Kansas. They’re aware of the slim but increasingly real possibility of taking back the Senate. (Who knew Ted Cruz would be so vulnerable? Who even knew the name Beto O’Rourke?)

As doubtful as they these young
people are about politics, or the differences between the two parties, they
also know that Trump and his Republican enablers want to take the nation
backwards to an old, white, privileged, isolated America. Most of them don’t.

In my thirty-five years of teaching
college students, I’ve not encountered a generation as dedicated to making the
nation better as this one.

So my betting is on them, this
November 6th.  

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kyraneko:

mzminola:

twinkie13:

frosttrix:

thepioden:

aenramsden:

I want to see a fanfic where Harry hatches a basilisk.

I want to see a fanfic where he looks up “magical snakes” as soon as he gets to Hogwarts because that thing at the zoo always bugged him, and so the Trio works out that it’s a basilisk immediately after the first petrification in Second Year. But they don’t know how it’s getting around or where it is or anything, so Harry is just like WELP SET A BASILISK TO FIND A BASILISK while Hermione and Ron are like HARRY NO.

I want to see a fanfic where Harry sticks a chicken egg under a toad and makes all these plans about how he’ll talk to his huge deadly snake and get it eye-blinkers and shit so it doesn’t kill people and make sure it’s not too aggressive, and somehow it never occurs to his twelve-year old brain that the chicken egg has a total volume of about four tablespoons and he is not going to get the giant King of Serpents he is expecting.

I want to see a fanfic where it finally breaks out of the shell and Harry finds himself with a bb!basilisk too smol to even have the murder-eyes yet, who can only petrify someone for about half an hour before the effect wears off. She eats spiders and gets tired very easily and demands that he wear a hood she can curl up in and sleep.

(She is also the same vivid green as his eyes and already hideously venomous, but doesn’t like using her fangs because she says they get cold and give her brain freeze when she unsheathes them.)

I just… I really want Harry with a haughty, demanding, arrogant danger noodle who has an overinflated sense of her own importance, views Hedwig as a TERRIFYING MENACE because she isn’t big enough to eat owls yet and keeps up a steady stream of insults hissed in Harry’s ear whenever she’s near someone who has a Dark Mark (which she can sense at close range). And who is basically useless as a familiar because she refuses to slither across anything other than sun-warmed stones or Harry, hasn’t got a very powerful gaze yet and doesn’t like biting people.

(Except snake-arm-people. She finds snake-arm-people confusing and annoying, and would probably make an exception on the no-biting thing where they’re concerned.)

I mean there are obviously a lot of factors influencing snake growth rate but if we assume basilisks just get stupidhuge because they grow their whole lives and are immortal, this snake is probably going to be at least 8 feet long by Deathly Hallows, which is a significant and intimidating chunk of scaly muscle that is intelligent enough to do what it is told. Like, you know, hey, bite this necklace.  

So I mean by like his fourth year it’s going to be pretty hard to hide this snake that is nearly as long as he is tall and it’s not going to do much for his reputation that the Boy Who Lived has a pet fucking basilisk but holy damn does it make book seven a whole hell of a lot shorter. 

I feel like I should write this

can you just imagine him ron and hermione coming up with increasingly ridiculous excuses trying to hide their pet baby basilisk in the dorms (hagrid would be so proud). how long do you think it’d take before harry’s pet basilisk is just a really badly hidden secret between all of gryffindor? and the ensuring antics of the entire house as they try to keep mcgonagall from finding out? (she knows something is up, but even just thinking of what could be big enough the entire house is trying to keep it from her makes her want to break out the firewhiskey)

ron gets the idea to try and practices parseltongue with baby basilisk since he hears harry talking in his sleep with it all the time anyway (and ngl, baby basilisk is kind of adorable and eats all the spiders in the dorm so he doesn’t have to deal with them, he’s pretty smitten once she hatches), and as soon as hermione overhears him trying it, she’s dragging him and harry to the library because, well, parseltongue is a language, why can’t they learn it? so it’s the two of them alternating between hissing at harry and hissing at the basilisk and harry is trying so hard not to laugh because 90% of what they’re saying is utter nonsense and the basilisk doesn’t even bother, because she likes these two humans but wow are they dumb, that’s not how words work.

What about once the basilisk gets a bit big the eyes start being an issue and after Ron accidentally gets petrified one evening and it sticks until he misses History of Magic the next morning (he isn’t complaining and Binns sure as hell didn’t notice but if it’s Transfiguration next time there will be a Problem) they have to find a way of dealing with the eyes because one of these days there will be enough power for the permanent kind.

So after a lot of false starts with, like, goggles and shit, Hermione appears with a stack of advanced transfiguration books and the beginnings of a plan to give it eyelids or at least nictitating membranes that the petrification can’t pass through, but even with her being super smart it’s a few years beyond her abilities.

And then Harry sets eyes on the invisibility cloak and says “if you can’t see the eyes, they can’t petrify you.” Well a snake in a cloak doesn’t work too well, but Hermione has heard of the Disillusionment Charm, and that would also solve nearly all of their problems keeping a snake hidden in the dormitory.

So Sibilance Gloriana Theophania Sunstone (she didn’t quite completely name herself, she and Harry had a little conversation about what she likes and what human names mean and also she’s like a six-year-old in snake years so she is named after hissing, two queens, and her favorite thing to sleep on) is now the Invisible Snake of Gryffindor.

Out of necessity, her existence ends up being shared with a few people, either because they’ve tripped over her (Neville, Oliver, Parvati), they’ve accidentally been petrified by her (Neville, Fred), or their twin has found out about her and shared (George).

Fred and George are very keen to have an invisible house snake, and are brilliant at finding new spells to help out: she gains the ability to crawl up the walls like they’re more floor, to levitate and slither in midair, and to fill her venom sacs with substances other than venom; it is extremely rare that she wants to actually kill anything besides dinner, and it is so much more enjoyable to be able to bite people and use her fangs as a delivery system for itching powder or the line of nondrinkable potions Fred and George are in the process of inventing.

By the time the dueling club rolls around, she’s about three feet long and plump on rats and spiders and mice. She bites Lockhart when Snape sends him flying, and Snape ends up taking over the dueling club entirely while Lockhart hurries to the hospital wing with a set of massive boils on his ankle.

When Draco summons the snake with Serpensortia, Harry squeaks with delight and grabs the snake, hissing at it in greeting, and so the whole school learns Harry Potter is a parselmouth by means of an adorable scene with a very friendly, cuddly snake, which doesn’t strike anyone as particularly Dark Lordly at all.

The new snake, of course, can detect the presence of Sibilance, and Sibilance is delighted to have a serpent companion, so they’re happily engaged in conversation as Harry, Ron, and Hermione return to the dormitories. This scene of adorable domestic bliss is interrupted when they get up to Harry’s dorm room with one more snake than usual, and Ron’s pet rat Scabbers suddenly turns into a man and runs shrieking down the stairs.

(Harry has explained Scabbers to Sibilance back when Sibilance was smaller than Scabbers, and she has never attempted to eat him. The new snake, however, has not received this conversation and it’s a very different thing hanging around with a snake who you watched come out of the egg than meeting one that’s several times your size from the get-go. Absent introductions, the new snake assumes it’s dinnertime and Peter Pettigrew, faced with something very like what the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets would look like from Harry’s perspective, decides discovery is a slight improvement on dying and drops his animagus form.)

It is Peter Pettigrew’s poor luck to run into the Entrance Hall just in time to meet Severus Snape, who can put two and two together as well as most people and who is, easily, one of the fastest duelists Hogwarts has seen in recent decades.

Pettigrew’s capture and interrogation result in the release and exoneration of Sirius Black, who has one conversation with Harry, one conversation with Albus, and one conversation with Vernon and Petunia Dursley; the deal they all come to is that after precisely two weeks at Number Four, Privet Drive, during which time Vernon and Petunia will be scrupulously polite, Harry will go and live with his godfather.

Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore agree that a snake is an acceptable pet, and the new snake takes the name Hex, quite a bit of delight in the spells Sibilance has had adapted for her, and the unofficial position of Gryffindor house mascot.

There is widespread interest in learning Parseltongue, and with Harry translating, a number of students take time to learn at least some basic words. Chief among these is Ginny Weasley, who is desperate for someone else safe to confide in about the blank spaces in her memory.

It is Sibilance, not Hex, that finds out about the diary, sneaking down from Hermione’s dorm looking for spiders (really, where have they all gone to?) in time to overhear Ginny crying as she writes in a book that really, really reeks of dark magic.

She bites the book, of course, and then there’s an awful mess and Ginny furious and distressed that the diary, and with it, her friend Tom, are no more. It takes some doing for Sibilance to explain her existence, the nature of the book, and what was likely happening to Ginny; eventually Harry has to be tracked down to translate.

With Tom Riddle gone, they all speculate on the Chamber of Secrets and it’s Ginny with the suggestion that Moaning Myrtle might be the one who died last time the monster was released. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Sibilance, Hex, Ginny, Fred, George, and Neville all head to the bathroom, and from there to the Chamber, where they stand with their eyes closed while Sibilance calls out the massive basilisk.

It’s a long, interesting conversation, and it ends with several spells cast, promises made, and a fascinating comedy of errors as they sneak an invisible basilisk out of the Chamber, through the school, out the main doors, and into the Forbidden Forest where its newfound flying, climbing, and poison-switching abilities will enable it to joyously predate upon the acromantula colony for decades to come.

They all get detentions over the matter when they are caught sneaking back in, less for the Forbidden Forest trip and more for McGonagall’s near heart attack at hearing the whole thing, but there are no more petrifications, the affected students are eventually awoken, and Gryffindor wins the Quidditch Cup, much to Oliver’s joy.

Hex and Sibilance enjoy warming themselves curled up on the fireplace hearth until Sibilance gets too big, and eventually Snape discovers her existence by tripping over her, but that’s another story.

This is not mine, but it made me giggle so thought I would share What it’s like to be a network engineer, translated into normal people speak:

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whitebum:

This is not mine, but it made me giggle so thought I would share

What it’s like to be a network engineer, translated into normal people speak:

User: I think we are having a major road issue.

Me: What? No, I just checked, the roads are fine. I was actually just on the roads.

User: No I’m pretty sure the roads are down because I’m not getting Pizzas.

Me: Everything else on the roads is fine. What do you mean you aren’t getting Pizzas.

User: I used to get Pizzas when I ordered them, now I’m not getting them. It has to be a road issue.

Me: As I said, the roads are fine. Where are you getting pizzas from?

User:…I’m not really sure. Can you check all places that deliver pizzas?

Me: No I’m not even sure all the places that deliver pizza. You need to narrow it down.

User: I think it’s Subway.

Me: Ok I’ll check…No I just looked and Subway doesn’t deliver pizzas.

User: I’m pretty sure it is Subway. Can you just allow all food from Subway and we can see if Pizza shows up?

Me: Sigh, fine I’ve allowed all food from Subway, but I don’t think that is the issue.

User: Yeah I’m still not getting pizza. Can you check the roads?

Me: It’s not the roads, the roads are fine. I’m pretty sure Subway isn’t the place.

User: Ok I found it, its Papa Johns.

Me: Ok I looked and Papa Johns does deliver pizza. Is it the local papa johns or one in a different town?

User: I don’t know. Can you allow pizza from all Papa Johns to me?

Me: No I can’t do that. Can you get me an address for Papa Johns?

User: No, I only know it as Papa Johns. Can you get me all the addresses of all Papa Johns and I’ll tell you if one of them is correct?

Me: No I don’t have time for that. Ok I looked at the local one and it looks like they have sent you pizza in the past and they are currently allowed to send you pizzas. Try ordering a pizza while I watch.

User: Yeah still no pizza. I’m guessing they are getting blocked at the freeway. Can you check the freeway to make sure they can get through?

Me: NO this is a local delivery. They aren’t even using the freeway.

User: Ok, well then it has to be a road issue.

Me: NO the roads are fine. OK I just drove from the papa johns to the address they have on file for you and there is nothing there.

User: Hmm, wait we did move recently.

Me: Did you give your new address to Papa johns?

User: no, I just thought they would be able to look me up by name.

Me: No they need your new address. What’s your new address?

User: I’m not really sure. Can you look it up?

Me: sigh, give me a second…Ok I found your address and gave it to Papa Johns. Try ordering a pizza now.

User: HEY PIZZA JUST SHOWED UP!

Me: Ok, good.

User to everyone else they know: I apologize for the delay in the pizza but there was a major road issue that was preventing the pizza from getting to me. The network engineer has fixed the roads and we are able to get pizza again.

Me: but it wasn’t the roads…whatever.

User: oh can you also check on an issue where Chinese food isn’t getting to me? I think it may be a road issue.

It’s okay to change your mind.

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thebibliosphere:

the-opal-mermaid:

sirfrogsworth:

A while back a ton of people saw a video of a turtle with a straw stuck up its nose. I was one of them. It was very sad. 

So when places started proposing we ban plastic straws, I was like…

“Yeah! Fuck straws!”

But then the disabled community spoke up and tried to inform everyone that plastic bendy straws are essential for people with various health issues. Without them, people might end up having to make the choice of whether or not they can consume liquids in public. And that really sucks.

This community put a lot of thought and research into this and was unable to find another material that could be a suitable replacement in every circumstance.

They proposed a system where you could just ask for straws rather than places giving them out all willy-nilly. This would still reduce the use of plastic straws significantly without screwing disabled folks. 

I assessed this new information and…

I CHANGED MY DAMN MIND. 

*gasp* “The Frogman is a flip-flopper!”

Naively, I figured most people who consumed this new information would do the same. 

But it ended up being a mixed bag of mostly sullen disappointment. 

As I read the comments on various articles I noticed a weird phenomenon where people magically transformed into materials scientists. 

Disabled groups thought long and hard about this. These groups did some great in-depth research. And all these groups pretty much came to a unanimous consensus that there are currently no satisfactory alternative solutions. They also found that plastic straws are actually a drop in the bucket of our waste issues. Furthermore, the “straws on demand” solution would make that drop pretty frickin’ tiny. The overall risk to turtle noses would go way down.

Despite seeing these conclusions thoroughly presented to them, people would think about the issue for about 30 seconds and be like…

“Okay, but what about paper straws? What about reusable straws? What about this? What about that? I have a metal straw that works great! Surely that will do!”

These internet dunderheads actually believed their 30-second brainstorm would come up with a sufficient solution that has not been thought of yet. 

As if the entire disabled community is going to be like, “We did all of this research, spent all of this time looking for alternatives, committed all of these resources to spread our conclusions, BUT WE NEVER KNEW ABOUT PAPER STRAWS! Thank you, kind stranger! You have single-handedly solved this dilemma!”

I just have trouble wrapping my head around the kind of ego one must have to think they could solve an issue like this with an internet comment. 

What makes it worse is some of these “what about” comments would be replies to actual disabled people. These sudden experts in the science of materials would start suggesting straw alternatives. And these disabled folks, who are probably exhausted and at their wit’s end, must decide if they should give these individuals explanations of why these genius suggestions won’t work for them. 

“I know you aren’t feeling well, but can you do all of the research for me so I don’t have to spend 2 minutes googling shit?” 

And when you try to tell these people they are being ableist and kinda shitty, they act like a wounded animal. Suddenly they are the victim. THEY WERE JUST TRYING TO HELP! Not trusting people who live with these problems is the height of privilege. And forcing them to make their experiences relateable while remaining calm and polite is exhausting. 

Then someone made this amazing chart that couldn’t possibly make it any easier to comprehend. 

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And people were still responding to it with…

“OKAY, BUT WHAT ABOUT…?”

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In conclusion…

IT’S OKAY TO CHANGE YOUR DAMN MIND.

Also…

YOU’RE NOT AS SMART AS YOU THINK YOU ARE.

(Unless you actually are a materials scientist and you are developing an alternative as we speak.) 

@thebibliosphere for your discourse hell.

@sirfrogsworth thank you for this, and for perfectly encapsulating what this whole experience has been like as a disabled/ill person who a) recently found out using a plastic straw greatly reduces my neuralgia pain and risk of aspiration, b) talked about it on the internet and c) has been living with relentless hate email, and redundant “but have you tried…” comments ever since.

And thank you for thinking about the subject with critical compassion and changing your mind, and being open enough to talking about the fact that you changed your mind. I think some people think changing their mind means they’ve made some sort of moral failing sometimes, and would rather continue to be wrong/hurtful but feel right, than actually address their own behavior and question their motives.

So thank you. Again. For this and the *barks internally* caption, it’s a mood 😂

On the care and keeping of your scientist

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adventuresinchemistry:

Congratulations on adopting a scientist! Regardless of their field they will require much coffee, free food, and love. Here are some field specific tips for keeping your scientist happy and healthy!

Biology: make sure they don’t get overly invested in their model organism by reminding them about the flaws inherent in their system on a regular basis, but also make sure to join in when they criticize other models in favor of their own

Chemistry: don’t let them do that ‘just one more reaction’ at 10 pm. make sure they get out of the lab and see the sun on a regular basis. try to keep them from partying too hard when they do leave the lab

Geology: humor their rock puns but don’t let the lick the rocks (they will tell you they need to lick the rocks to identify them, but don’t fall for it)

Astronomy: try not to let them become completely nocturnal. point out nice stars to them and look suitably impressed by their “pictures” of planets that don’t look like anything to you

Physics: take them to the park on a regular basis to remind them that things larger than subatomic particles exist. bring a frisbee or a ball to play catch with and be impressed by their ability to calculate trajectories

Math: always make sure to have free batteries for their calculators and a mathmatica user guide on hand. Humor them when they tell you why space without angles is important

Ecology: make sure they remember to wear sunscreen and keep an eye on them in the field. Remind them to come inside and analyze their data occasionally

Psychology: don’t mention Freud or ever call them a soft or social science, but make sure you gently remind them that social factors can impact reproducibility and try to keep them from drawing sweeping conclusions about the inherent nature of humanity

Neuroscience: be suitably impressed by their newest experiment and then remind them that people are not mice as often as possible

Computer Science: make sure they take breaks while debugging by limiting their supply of coffee. Nod and smile when they go off on indexing and arrays. Make sure they always have a rubber duck.

Make sure to keep your scientist away from engineers unless they have been properly socialized to interact in a translational household. The most important thing is to remember to hug your scientist on a regular basis and remind them that there is life outside the lab

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mcnuggetsandfandom:

prochoicefeminism:

beardie-fella:

Can you imagine a world without abortion?

A world without abortion would need universal healthcare, free 100% effective reversible birth control with no side effects, no rape, no reproductive coercion, free childcare, free education, zero poverty, no health complications or fetal abnormalities incompatible with life (and probably a few more I missed!)

Otherwise it would just be a world where people with unwanted pregnancies, unaffordable pregnancies, deadly pregnancies and pregnancies with dead/dying fetuses are forced to continue them against their will by people with zero regard or compassion for their health and well-being.

And who the hell could possibly want that?

A world without (legal) abortion would be a miserable one. 

-More kids who are missing a parent because said parent was forced to carry a dangerous pregnancy to term.
-Even more kids in the foster care system because people who don’t want to parent have to carry out any accidental pregnancies. 
-A lot of dead loved ones, who either killed themselves, had to stop taking vital medications, tried to abort on their own, or straight up died from one of the many complications that can arise from pregnancy.
-More people dealing with painful and/or permanent medical conditions caused by pregnancy, against their will. 
-More people dealing with dysphoria caused by pregnancy.
-More kids growing up in abusive households where the abusive partner uses children as a method of control.
-More minors having to deal with being pregnant at a young age, and having to cope with all the problems that entails. 

Those are just the ones I can come up with off the top of my head. There’s many more reasons that a person would want to abort a pregnancy, but the biggest thing is that no one should ever have to go through it against their will. Ever. 

And note that I specify legal abortion. Because you could never truly get rid of it, people have been trying to terminate pregnancies since pregnancies have existed. All you’d actually take is the ability to do it safely.  

SUCK IT FLAT TUMMY: WHY MARKETING EATING DISORDERS TO “BABES” IS HARMFUL AF

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themilitantbaker:

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If this billboard strikes you as vaguely familiar, it’s likely because you either saw something similar last month while in Times Square or read about the colossal internet controversy it’s generated since.

The original billboard (photographed by Sophie Vershbow) hosts a smiling model’s face—placed in one of one of the world’s most visited tourist attractions—holding two lollipops with the text “Got Cravings? Girl, Tell Them To #SUCKIT!” bookending her grin on a trendy, Millennial Pink background. This advertisement belongs to Flat Tummy Co., a business which, in addition to selling “tummy flattening” tea and smoothies, seems to delight in calling consumers “babes” as often as possible. In May, they launched and quickly began peddling their new “Appetite Suppressant Lollipops” or—if we were to stop mincing words—eating disorders for just $49 per month.

The pushback against these lollipops—and this billboard in particular—has been both widespread and thunderous. Pushbacks have ranged from a Change.org petition demanding its removal signed by close to 100,000 people to dozens of articles pointing out how encouraging customers to not eat adds to the already pervasive issue of eating disorders that affect approximately 70 million people worldwide

When you take into consideration that:

… those who rail against Flat Tummy Co. have every right to be appalled. This type of advertising campaign isn’t casually controversial; it’s deadly.

Here’s what companies like Flat Tummy Co. will never tell you, so I will: We are born with an inherent connection between our minds and our bodies—a glorious communication channel that is then systematically stripped away by our ubiquitous diet culture.

The solution to this monumental problem is NOT to suppress cravings or our appetite; this not only causes mental and physical harm, but also perpetuates the cycle of internal disconnection. Rather, the solution is to relearn how to trust ourselves and how to listen to what our bodies are telling us they need—to slowly rebuild the beautiful relationship with our bodies and brains. A relationship that was intentionally removed by companies who profit from a $66 billion dollar weight loss industry.

In light of everything mentioned above, I’d like to offer an antidote to this Baffling Billboard Bullshit.

If we are going to be posting advice-dispensing billboards that start with, “Got Cravings? Girl, …”, here’s what they could say:

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The backlash against Flat Tummy Co. and their marketing choices isn’t new by any means. Before the arrival of the infamously damaging billboard, preexisting criticism intensified almost a month earlier when Kim Kardashian West endorsed the newly launched lollipops.

Kim Kardashian West is, for the record, the “Top 7th Influencer” in the country and 14th largest influencer in the world, with over 114 million followers on Instagram. It’s important to point out that more than 77% of her followers are under 25 and if you’re wondering why this particular percentage matters, simply read on my friend. It definitely matters.

A not so fun fact: 95% of people with eating disorders are between 12 and 25. With some simple math, we can quickly deduce that, with every image she posts, Kim reaches more than 87 million people within that high-risk age bracket—87 million people who “coincidentally” are  the most vulnerable demographic when it comes to disordered eating and body image issues.

It’s almost as if the CEO of the company that owns Flat Tummy Co., Jack Ross, stood in his office one day and thought, “Hmmm … I wonder how we can cause the MOST harm to a group of people who are already the most vulnerable? … Oh, I know, Lollipops. And let’s be sure to hire Kim Kardashian to tell her young followers that they’re ‘literally unreal’!”

I don’t actually know who developed the lollipop pitch; but regardless, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that this calculated collaboration was a powerful and brilliant business decision that hit consumers with alarming accuracy.

I also will remind you (repeatedly if necessary) that these types of sponsorships are potentially fatal to the millions of young people who inadvertently receive this dangerous messaging while scrolling through their feeds—messaging that easily could stay with them the rest of their lives.

In short and if we were to use their words?

Suck it, Flat Tummy.

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When I invited the “girls” (or “babes,” take your pick!) to model in these “antidotal” replacement ads, I asked them one simple question before they arrived for the photo shoot: “What is your favorite food?” The question, shown clearly throughout the images, was answered very differently by each person, but I adored the enthusiasm that it was met with by all.

I was intentional in both asking this question and in leaving it open-ended—I wanted to offer the opportunity for each person to check in with herself without limitations. Being inquisitive about what we enjoy, want or need when it comes to food is not only culturally uncommon, but discouraged (see toxic lollipop campaign mentioned above).

Hunger, also known as cravings, is our body’s fundamental way of communicating that we need to eat— that we need food and nutrients to function. Food can serve other purposes as well, like addressing meaningful mental needs that we often disregard as frivolous. How I wish we would stop insisting on treating mental and physical health separately when they couldn’t be more connected!

Our cultural norm may encourage deprivation, restriction and dissociation, but it’s important that you know that there is a brilliant alternative—often referred to as Intuitive Eating.

This holistic substitute prioritizes the individual and encourages the practice of making peace with food, respecting our emotions and honoring our bodies’ unique needs. Relearning how to approach food after dedicating the majority of my life to following diets is (still!) hard as hell. But I’ve come to find that the road to recovering from diet culture is more than worth it.

Fortunately, there are more and more educational resources available every day to support intuitive eating, flexibility and body trust!

I highly recommended these 12 starting places if you happen to be looking for a more comprehensive and balanced way to approach health.

There is power in educating ourselves about how our bodies work and what they need, and then deciding how to best work towards understanding and respecting their requests. There is power in making decisions based on what is ideal for you, not what is best for someone else. There is power in looking at an eating disorder waiting to happen, packaged as a stylish piece of candy and saying “Hell. No.”

I am SO ready for this to become the new norm.

You are welcome to join in on the fun!

We would love to see a picture of you enjoying your favorite food (or whatever you’re currently craving!) with the hashtag #SuckItFlatTummy!

You are also welcome to stay current on other cool conversations alongside an awesome group of bad-asses that all hang out here.

P.S. Flat Tummy Co., if you ever decide you’d like to rectify your billboard mistake and host something healing instead of harmful… I’ve got plenty of images you’re welcome to use.

Okay I need to ask. Why do YOU write?

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thebibliosphere:

thebibliosphere:

I grew up surrounded by words in quite very
literal sense. By the time I was six months old my parents had taped words
to every surface in the house. So the walls said “wall” the window said
“window” and so on so forth. I still don’t know how they managed to get
the cat involved (she had a sign that said Cat) but some things in life are meant to be wondered at.

But for the next six years the world was covered in words, as first I learned to read, and then my brother. I dare say if you move some furniture in my parents house to this day you will find a faded piece of paper that says “shelf” or “bookcase” on it. It was a sad day when they were taken down, they were like old friends. But by then the magic had already worked. I was able to look at the world and see words, whether they were printed there or not.

I
was four when I sat down to consciously write my first story. I remember
it vividly because I had my bright yellow Cadburys Caramel mug, that
had the purple flowing font on the side with the bunny rabbit lady
on it. It was filled with “baby tea”— which is mostly hot milk with a splash
of tea from the pot to give it color— and I was holding it in both hands, sitting at the
little “art” table dad had built for me in the corner so I had a place
to sit and scribble that wasn’t the walls. Contemplating my next masterpiece I looked around the room for inspiration. Would it be an exploration of color through pinky finger painting only? Or would it be the greatest macaroni interpretation of a dog we’d ever seen? Sadly we’ll never know how this might have worked out, as at that very moment, mum came in holding a crystal mobile and hung it up on the window sill. This in turn had the effect of creating a living, dancing rainbow in the living room, and something in my brain short fused.

That was the day I learned the word “iridescent”. It was like learning the language of angels.

After that I was always scribbling something. My school books were a mess of words, crammed into margins and on back pages. I was always in trouble for letting my mind “wander into whimsy.” Once I got a report card that said “fantastical leanings towards flights of fancy.” It was meant as criticism, but dad still has it framed in the office.

Then there came the time a few years later when I was reading the Hobbit with dad, and I turned to him quite seriously and asked “where are all the girl hobbits?” and dad hemmed and hawed before eventually telling me “they’re in another book, darling…having their own adventure…” and I accepted this and settled back down to let him finish the chapter. He probably thought I forgot about it until that weekend I marched up to the Librarian and asked for “the girl hobbit book please”, which was met with much confusion and my dad rushing over to tell me they probably wouldn’t have it yet because it was very rare. A few weeks later, dad handed me something. It was sheaves of paper bound together by string. It was, he told me, a very exclusive copy of the girl hobbit book.

I still have it somewhere, back home. Probably on a shelf somewhere that still says “shelf”.

And sweet, naive thing that I was, I believed him. It wasn’t until later on and someone else popped my bubble, that I realized dad, not Tolkien, had written it. And oh I was furious, furious because the story had been so good and because dad had lied about not writing it himself. But that small bubbling anger was nothing compared to the heat inside my brain when my dad confessed he’d tried without much success to find books I might like with girls in them. All the heroes were boys, you see. It made me quite tearful actually, that no one had ever thought that someone like me could go off on an adventure and save the world, when I knew it to be a blatant lie. Old Mrs McDougall across the street had been a land girl and saved a man shot down from his spitfire. Mrs Mitchell had been the emergency coordinator and saved people from burning buildings when the Nazis bombed the shipyards, and her skin was all bubbled and tightly pulled across the left side of her face because of it and her hands didn’t quite work because she’d gripped burning metal to try and free the men inside. Those, were heroes. But we never learned about them at school. We only learned about kings and tyrants and the kind of heavily filtered history that lead you to believe that women were in there somewhere, but only in the same sense that a wall has paint on it.

And now my books, my lovely wonderful books, where you could travel through space and time or climb up volcanoes to throw rings inside and save the world…those wonderful colorful worlds that spoke the language of angels, were just the same.

I was ready to cry and be defeated about it until dad, raising his eyebrows at me and offering me a notebook, said, “well, maybe someone ought to write one.”

And you likely know the rest by now. But in short I write because there are stories to be told. I write because it’s the closest I’ll ever be to how the word iridescent feels. I look at the world and I see words, dancing like rainbows, singing like angels.

There’s words everywhere. I’m just scribbling them down as fast as I can.

For the person who saw this on Pinterest and wanted to reblog from the source, here you go <3

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house-of-crows:

deadmomjokes:

I know cats have a stigma of being evil little robots who care for nobody but themselves. I don’t deny that there are some out there like this. But in defense of the large majority of darling cats who have been given a bad name due to the wicked few, I would like to tell you a story…

I am asthmatic. I’m not as bad as some; my asthma is generally well-controlled, and I don’t have much trouble with it on a daily basis. However, as all asthmatics know, getting sick becomes a nightmare. Even a small cold can turn into a days-long asthma attack, one that is very painful, and very annoying for me and those around me. The asthma cough sounds like an ill seal at best, or an angry moose with a nasal condition at worst. Y’all with asthma, and y’all with asthmatic friends, know exactly what I’m talking about. The bark. The hack. The Cough Heard Round The World. It’s painful, it’s loud, and it doesn’t stop. Even the rescue inhaler can only do so much to calm it. It just has to run its course with the cold.

Well, this week I caught the crud, and in the past few days it deteriorated into The Cough. Last night, I took some NyQuil to try and stave it off for as long as I could, just to try and get some sleep. That meant that for a few hours, I was cough-free. After that, I was still doped up enough to sleep through some of it. However, by 2am the sleep aid had worn off and The Cough woke me up. Since lying down makes it worse, and I didn’t want to wake my sister, I sneaked out of my bedroom into the living room, where I sat on the recliner and proceeded to hack up a lung while I waited for my next dose of NyQuil to kick in. That is when I noticed Simon.

Simon is a Russian Blue with a masterful resting-witch-face and an attitude to match. She (yes, she’s a girl, that’s another story) is old, fat, proprietary, and attitudinal. She isn’t shy about telling you when she is displeased, and does so with a loud shriek and some teeth or claws thrown in. She is convinced she owns the place, and owns all of us in turn. She is particular about where you can pet her, like most cats; and, like most cats, she loves her sleep and hates to be woken up.

And of course, my hacking woke her up.

Attempting to whisper an apology in between bouts of coughing, I noticed she was getting off her perch atop the chair nearby. She stretched, made a little squeaking sound, and trotted over to me.

I expected her to demand petting as payment for having woken her precious sleep, but she did not. Instead, this traditionally cranky dragon of a cat did something that amazed me.

She began to purr loudly, and sat herself directly on my aching chest. She kneaded my sternum softly, and nosed my chin as if to say, “I’ve got this, you sleep.” Even though I was still coughing, and bouncing her horridly in the process, she remained settled on my chest right above my diaphragm, purring loudly so that it vibrated through my ribs. I don’t know what magic spell she was chanting between her boat-like purrs, but within minutes my cough had subsided and I was able to sleep.

I didn’t wake up until about 4:30. When I did, it was to discover that my lap and chest were devoid of Simon’s presence, and I was coughing again. As I started coughing once more, I heard her familiar “I’m here” squeak from the area of the water dish. I heard some hurried lapping, and then her heavy gallop across the floor. She flumped onto my lap again, and resumed her purring and kneading. She had evidently been doing that for the past 2 hours, and had only left to get some water. Hydrated, she had returned to take care of me.

So yes, she has her share of evil, jerk-cat moments, but I can no longer pretend that Simon is entirely heartless. For that matter, I now refuse to believe that about any cat. Just because they act like a jerk doesn’t mean that they don’t love you.

My Lilith is a Grade A Bitch.

I’ve known this since about three days after I rescued the tuxie fluffbutt at two weeks old from the Great Outdoors. Her colony abandoned her, mum nowhere in sight, and the Toms were being drawn to her little kitten wails. I waited it out for 24 hours, hoping mum would come back for her and I wouldn’t have to get involved. We didn’t really have the money for a pet and all the vet bills, and really I’d rather have a yearling or one of the over five crowd that don’t get adopted so easily. Nope. 

So she screamed and screamed and eventually, I heard snarling Toms. I’m not going to let a kitten die if I can help it, so I ran outside, scooped her up, and started making her a box. Thankfully at that point, we had plenty of Amazon boxes piling up all over the place, so it was pretty simply to make her one up, with a hot water bottle wrapped in a rabbit pelt, and some hot rice socks to make SURE she stayed warm in our pretty chill house. (even in May it’s ridiculous.) 

I started googling quick as possible milk alternatives, and found one for a little oil in milk with an egg yolk mixed in. Now, generally, you’re not supposed to give cats cow milk OR raw eggs, but the point was calories and fast. As soon as Sir got home, we headed out to the pet store and got her some of the KMR. For about six weeks I was awake every two hours feeding this little asshole. She wouldn’t eat for anyone but me, really, and she made her voice HEARD. 

She’s since grown up into a real Asshole of a cat. Spooking people on purpose, hiding around corners to jump us, and attacking the shower curtain any time either of us needs to clean off. BUT. Ever since I had my surgery back in February…? She sneaks into bed with us at night. Curls up at the foot of the bed or in between us, and tends not to move until I wake up in the morning; except to get breakfast and come back in.

She likes to sleep on Sir’s chair when He’s not around; she steals it when He gets up for a drink because it counts; and she follows me from room to room if she’s not off doing her own thing. Watching birds from the windows or terrorizing her brother. 

She cries for playtime, and knows to lead me to the water dish if it needs cleaned or refilled, or to shake the kibble in her bowl so it covers again. And sometimes, if I am very lucky and awake very late, she will come sit in my lap, and purr, and stay there until my arm falls asleep. She’s definitely an asshole, but she loves me anyway.

Lilith sounds like our Jade.