We are multiple generations now with no experience with strikes, and I see a lot of confused, well meaning people who want to help but don’t know strike etiquette.
1. Never cross a picket line of striking workers.
2. Never purchase or take free goods from a company who’s workers are striking
3. Honk to support strikers if you drive by a picket line.
4. Join strikers on the picket line even if it’s not your strike, but follow their directions and defer to them while there.
5. Say “that’s great, the strike is working, the company should negotiate with their workers” whenever someone complains about profits lost, inconveniences or other worker-phobic rhetoric. Always turn it back on the company, who has all the power and money.
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.
And people were still responding to it with…
“OKAY, BUT WHAT ABOUT…?”
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.)
@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 😂
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
spiders will pull their own legs clean off if they get damaged because most of them can regrow legs during molting, which explains why you often see spiders missing a leg but never any missing half a leg?
some remarkably distressing scientists proved this by getting a spider to pull off all of its legs and then feeding its limbless torso for months until it sprouted a full complement of legs again and then hopefully used them to get the fuck out of dodge
baby spiders don’t get lenses until their first molt and before that they just have baby eyes and while this ought not to be any weirder than the concept of baby teeth, welp,
there are so many spiders floating around thousands of metres up in the air that they’re described as “aerial plankton”
The Sky Is Full Of Spiders
there are spider-parasitising spiders but instead of laying eggs in organs or stealing blood or anything like that they just ride on top of bigger spiders and steal snacks when their mighty steed is eating
there are ant-mimicking spiders that use their disguises to raid ant nests and w/e but there are also ant mimics that just. hang out. they make fake ant colonies full of fake ants. sometimes the actual ants that they’re mimicking find their house and live with them. stealth 100
some mother spiders live in communal family nests, where multiple mothers can work together to bring down bigger prey while all their collected babies are cared for by the babysitters
some mother spiders feed their babies mouth to mouth like birds
some mother spiders carry their babies around and i was aware of this but not the fact that if you steal their eggsac they’ll freak out and search for it for hours and sometimes end up adopting anything that’s vaguely the right size, they will carry around empty snail shells for weeks and lovingly dote on them…
guys i am literally about to cry over spider moms
i borrowed the book op cites from the library (biology of spiders by rainer f. foelix) because of this post and my two favourite new spider facts are
-they don’t just have an exoskeleton – they also have a secret partial inside skeleton
and
-you know the guy who gave spiders drugs and took pictures of their fucked up webs? he ended up studying them because his buddy was studying garden spiders and they spin webs at 2-5 am and his buddy was like, Ugh, fuck this, i want to sleep in, do you have anything i can give these spiders to make them spin webs at not two in the morning -and this guy, A Pharmacologist, was like, hell yea, here are some amphetamines for your spiders -and all those did was make the spiders spin some exceptionally weird webs at 2-5am -and i guess his buddy gave up in disgust at these spiders who wouldn’t let him sleep but mr. spider amphetamines was like, you know what, this is cool, i’m gonna keep going with this
this is the purest video you will see all day, it includes not only practical advice on how to make cats feel comfortable but also:
the most patient and long suffering clawdia
bob ross, but a vet
squish the cat
squish the cat, but with a towel
absolute unit mr. pirate
a little chubby but quite beautiful
please watch this immediately
Squish! That! Cat!
I considered myself to be well versed on cats/communicating with cats. I’ve lived with at least two cats my whole life, and currently live with two very different cats who I love. Apparently most cats are shoulder cats? My cat Mason has always been very nervous about going up on people’s shoulders, so I thought I’d try the “shoulder cat” technique.
I had to help him up on my shoulders because he’s never done it himself before. But once I got him up there I squished him, he started purring like nobody’s business. I carried him around our entire apartment, up and down staircases, and he was so happy. He didn’t try to leave once! When I put him down he head butted me and meowed and was super affectionate. And of course I gave him a treat.
TLDR- Even if you live with cats and think you understand cats, please watch this video.
We have a cat. Still testing names but he’s responding to “Mochi” well. As you can see, he’s a bit of a chunky boy and will have to be on a diet and exercise regimen for a while. But he seems to be doing well and likes having an entire bedroom to explore, instead of just a 3×3 foot cube.
He has discovered
The crinkle paper.
We haven’t introduced him to Charlie the dog yet on the advice of the shelter- first 24 hours are “sniff through the door time” and tomorrow is “hold Charleston while Kitty sniffs and explores more of the house time”. Slow introductions are less stressful and will result in better relationship later.
Updates:
Like every other domestic cat I’ve hung out with, he’s a Titty Kitty and wants to sleep on my chest
He’s a biscuit-making baby, kneading everything
even titty, but very nicely and without claws
We have done the Look-At-Eachother-Through-A-Cracked-Door Test, and Kitty hissed a bit and got puffy but didn’t run, which is about what we’d expect for day 1.
Charlie, on the other hand is STOKED about Kitty and is sitting up by the bedroom door hoping that kitty will come out to play.
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.
