Everywhere we humans go, we bring our world with us. There is no empty that is deep enough to swallow our life completely. When the last of us huddle in a dying world, one of us will tell a story, and another of us will laugh.
— Cecil
Gershwin
Palmer, Welcome to Night Vale, episode 220: A Radio Jupiter Holiday Special
My brother is a librarian, and his library is one of the ones that hosts Drag Queen Story Time.
He is also 6'3", 300 lbs of Heavy Weapons Librarian.
This week, some karen showed up to take video of said storytime. She was unmoved by the director of the library telling her their policy against taking video in the children’s room.
My brother was also unmoved. Specifically, he was unmoved from his position directly in the line of karen’s cellphone. She got video of an acre of blue broadcloth shirt, and that’s it.
Other people who showed up to scowl at the drag queen decided they had other things to do that day when my brother scowled at them. He inherited our Mama’s scowl, and it’s a good one.
Sometimes, an ally looks like a big fat bald white guy. Sometimes, an ally looks like a wall.
Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?
It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!
It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.
companies really have got to be okay with stagnant profits. what is wrong with earning the same amount every year? why does it always have to be more? it’s not sustainable. there are only so many people on the planet you can profit from 😭
This is the thing. If there are only so many people they can profit from, and they demand to see profits go up every year, they will have to steal more out of the pockets of the little people each year, either by paying less, or by charging more. And that is the problem. Because that is exactly what is happening. And the rich get richer. And the poor are getting so poor that it is coming to a crisis point. They seem to have forgotten what happens at the crisis point though: people who have nothing to lose, will rise up and fight.
Cancer: a malignant tumor of potentially unlimited growth that expands locally by invasion and systemically (Merriam Webster)
See also: Capitalism
But also, “increasing profits every quarter” is a relatively recent thing. It’s new since the 1980s! In the 1980s, Reagan heavily promoted the economic theories connected with the Chicago school of economics. (“Reaganomics” is basically the Chicago school ideas dumbed down to fit in soundbites.) The Chicago school is, among other things, responsible for such wonders as “all regulation in the marketplace is always bad” “monopoly is good because it’s efficient” and “trickle-down economics.” When those ideas became mainstream, and were adopted wholeheartedly by Wall Street, they spawned the idea that the most important measure of a company was its stock increasing in value. Not how much business it was doing, not how well its customers liked and valued it, not how stable it was for the long-term. Is its stock increasing is the only measure of value.
Prior to that point, a business–even large corporations!–were valued more on how reliable they are. If I invest in this business, will it still be there five, ten, fifteen, twenty years from now? Businesses were good if they were profitable and stable. Increasing profits was wonderful! But they understood that that is not infinitely sustainable, and that if you wanted to maximize long-term profits for individual investors and for the economy as a whole, you did not want flash-in-the-pan trendiness, and you didn’t want a business cannibalizing itself, you wanted a business that was stable and took good care of its customers so they’d keep coming back.
maidens if you are going to flee dramatically from my castle in the middle of the night once i reveal my true nature to you please leave your candelabra on the little ledge by the portcullis we are running out of them
starting to think these maidens are stumbling in soaked through from the rain just to steal my beautiful gowns and homeware are any of you actually lost
women should lift weights because it prevents osteoporosis in old age and makes you a more capable person in everyday life please shut up about butts and waists and hourglasses i’m going to fucking kill
;___;♡♡♡♡
genuine question from someone who would rather chew their arm off than go to a public gym, and also doesnt have a lot of money: how do you safely get into strength training? are there youtube channels, apps (android), etc anyone recommends that makes it approachable and don’t lean into diet culture / body shaming?
also the biggest thing that keeps me from working out is that I already have joint and spinal issues and moving the wrong way can fuck up a knee or a shoulder or my spine for days. I really don’t want to injure myself, and have unwittingly done so before. resources that are extremely clear on exactly how to move and offer gentler / alternative ways to move for people with limited range are vital.
Okay, so this may not technically be strength training, but muscles are dumber than bricks and cannot tell the difference between your own bodyweight and actual weights.
He runs a YouTube channel where he goes over how to work your way up to more complex exercises (for instance, his pull-ups videos start with using a door jamb and moving your weight back and forth) so it’s good for easing yourself into things.
You also don’t have to fork out for expensive weights and such if you don’t want to/can’t. Substitute with stuff you either already have at home or can get from the supermarket and build up the weight you can exercise with. 500 gram cans of butter beans then 750 gram bottles of pasta sauce. 1 litre drink bottle then your 1.5 litre milk bottle. 3 litre bulk-buy bottle of laundry detergent. Etc. One of my dogs weighs 13 kilos and I pick her up on the regular (to her delight). One weighs 16 kg and I pick him up too (to his consternation and mild disapproval). You don’t have to fit out some fancy home gym before you can start strength training.
I second Hybrid Calisthenics, that’s the program I use. It’s run by one guy who’s taken it upon himself to make exercising more accessible and it’s completely free! Each exercise has different variations based on your ability and each variation is further divided into different levels of difficulty so you can work up to where you want to be. If you can’t do a single push up for example then this program will help you work up to the point where you can, and if you’re a master of push ups then there are more advanced body weight exercises you can tackle so you can keep moving forward in your training without stagnating. The routine offers a full body workout with absolutely no equipment required for the beginning levels. The only reason you would need to buy anything is if you want to work up to a full pull up, at which point you would need actual pull up rings
Here’s his actual website which I feel is easier to navigate than the YouTube channel on its own and organizes things in a way that’s easy to understand. He explains everything you need to know about the routine and each individual exercise has both a text description and a video tutorial
no offense to anyone personally but I think we are way too used to and comfortable with weekly releases and if that wasn’t already bad enough, it seems like most of you aren’t even patient enough to wait for the official release date my point is this industry moves way too quickly
The way that people treat with the medium of manga is interesting and sad because a lot of mangaka are disabled and becoming disabled because of the intense workload. The grace extended to legendary author-artists like Togashi should be how all these artists are treated, and more. Your favorite artists are destroying themselves to create the pages you consume and make judgments on and they deserve to take the time their bodies need to recover from these efforts. The weekly release schedule is literally hurting artists.
What’s worse is how they’re expected to do extra work unpaid like exclusive bonus illustrations for retailers and are expected to pay for assistants themselves. Licensing deals with adaptions are fucked up Gureishi is not the only one who has said an anime adaption did nothing for them financially Hideaki Sorachi of Gintama fame has also been open about how little money he has made from the hugely successful Gintama live action projects. Its so fucked up out there for them with no safeguards when their health fails them aside from living off of royalties, and this is an “improvement” from when publishers were fully okay roping manga artists into doing more than one serial at a time or lock them up in hotels with no sleep until they completed their manuscripts
