gravelgirty

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Doctor and Patients Protest UnitedHealth’s Record Earnings https://inequality.org/article/doctors-and-patients-protest-unitedhealth/

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Senator files bill to point out contraceptive double standards

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Not too long ago I made a post about the Sanded Church of Skagen that was abandoned due to being buried in sand, but the “sand problem” is much larger than the church.

If you look at Denmark on a map you might notice a white dot near the very top of the country.

That my friend is a huge sand dune that arose out of the sea 300 years ago and is slowly eating its way through the landscape at 18 meters a year.

And if you look closer you might notice that it’s heading straight for the towns Rannerød and Hulsig and when that happens no one will come to save them because the dune is protected. At least they’ll see it coming.

That means that in a few hundred years we won’t just have a sanded church, we’ll have sanded towns with more roofs and towers sticking out of the dune than any tourist bureau could wish for.

Because the dune is a very popular tourist spot. I myself have been to it a few times and it’s quite the experience for a child to suddenly be in a “desert” in Denmark.

If you feel sad for the people in the towns just remember that’s nature. The reason why the dune is protected is because the area used to have many more but people made an effort to destroy them and it fucked up the ecosystem in the area. The dunes leave moist wetland behind that loads of rare creatures thrive in.

So today the inevitable end of the towns are viewed as sort of romantic poetry about nature, the march of time and appreciating the now.

And isn’t it kinda beautiful? To know that something like this exists in the world that will destroy our towns, roads and railways that we could easily eradicate with our modern technology but we choose not to simply because we know it would be wrong.

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So I had a hysterectomy today (hooray!) and I brought along my stuffed orca, Shamu, as a comfort object. And everyone i interacted with during my pre-op was like "Oh! Who's this?" so I was telling them all about him, how he's been with me since I was 9 and gone on every single vacation and road trip, and they were telling me about their own stuffed buddies (one lady said she still has hers after 40 years!) and all of this while I was signing consent forms and providing a list of the things I'd brought with me, you know, small talk.

So then a nurse comes over and goes "Okay, I've got some stickers I'll put on your things so we know they're yours" and I'm like "OK cool" so she puts a sticker on my coat and stickers on my bags of clothes and then she turns to Shamu and I'm like "oh I guess he gets a sticker too"

But no. She pulls out a hospital bracelet that's an exact copy of mine and slaps it on his tail, like so:

And i was delighted by this, so I took a picture to send to my friends, who were equally delighted, and were cracking me up with their reactions (like so:)

Anyway, they take me back and put me under, and when I awake groggily a few hours later it takes me a minute to get my bearings, so I don't notice Shamu at first. But then I realize he's tucked up next to me in the gurney, so I grab him, and my hand touches gauze.

And I'm like "huh?" so I look at him and I realize

They gave my fucking orca a hysterectomy

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Studies show that babies are not afraid of snakes

Scientists launched reptiles into the nursery to assess the reaction of the kids. The result killed: the crumbs perceived the reptiles as toys, and some tried to eat them

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Y'all

Im not on tiktok and never have been, but I downloaded RedNote just to see what is up, and I am witnessing something truly amazing

The Chinese user community is giving the American tiktok refugees an overwhelmingly warm welcome, meanwhile the American users seem to have collectively agreed that not only will they not let the app be taken over with English and they will provide Mandarin subtitles for everything, they are LEARNING MANDARIN. Ive scrolled through so many videos of Americans offering greetings in Mandarin to try to acclimate to the new environment and be respectful, and speakers of both languages are posting lots of tutorials on language basics and internet slang in Mandarin

My God, there is an AMAZING outpouring of curiosity and delight among everyone to learn about each others cultures and daily lives. People are posting videos of landscapes, cities, towns, and natural areas in USA and China, posting recipes and traditional foods, vlogs of everyday life, and reaching out to find people with similar hobbies.

And it's not just young people! There are loads of videos from middle-aged American guys who have come to post about fishing or motorcycles and are now happily chatting with Chinese users sharing the same interests using Google translate

One American guy who was like. in his 60's had a comment on one of his videos that was like "Red Neck?" and he replied "Yes!" and I just about fucking lost it

Also the Chinese users love, and I mean LOVE, Luigi Mangione. He is apparently broadly adored in China. There is SO much fanart and SO many edits.

There are many threads initiating Chinese users to ask questions of American users about the USA, and vice versa, and everyone on both sides is clearing up a lot of misconceptions. Some of the questions I saw a lot from Chinese users were: "Is it true that American parents kick you out of the house as soon as you turn 18" (not often, but sometimes) "Do you all really wear shoes in bed" (NO!!! Apparently a lot of characters in American sitcoms are shown lying in bed with shoes on which I never noticed before!) and "are there really guns everywhere" (yes).

For the most part Chinese content creators seem just overwhelmed by the sudden influx of hundreds of followers that are super enthusiastic about what they're doing. A lot of them have made posts about how initially they thought the uptick in follower count was some kind of error, or that there was some kind of joke or prank, but then they realized the interest and enthusiasm was genuine and now they're welcoming all the newcomers.

I found several posts by Chinese users saying that this felt like a really profound historical moment, where these previously separated worlds are suddenly smashing together and suddenly there is freedom to learn about each other's cultures and connect. One of them said something along the lines of "This is a 21st century Tower of Babel and even though I'm an atheist I hope God lets this tower stand." OUGH MY HEART.

The app itself works a little bit like a video-based version of Pinterest. It's not really my thing so I probably won't be on there long term but it's been amazing to see what's happening.

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Quiet reminder that in the US of A, libraries are struggling with funding and competing with Kindle and other pay-venues.

Every library book you check out on your library app is valued because it is another vote for the service.

Also, I'm asking you to open up the Libby app and read it as a Libby app instead of on your kindle app

library understanders in my phone I have a question. can I keep abusing the ebook system of my hometown library once I move away? can I collect local library cards from towns nearby to where I move to and use them all? is this logistically or morally acceptable. do they still receive goods or services for this

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I understand that museums have to be dark because light can destroy fragile artifacts. That said, I’m always afraid to walk around the blind corners because what if there is a skeleton

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join the praxis discord - sign up - github

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imagine being a Korean person awake at like one in the morning trying to accept that the president of South Korea actually just tried to go full dictatorship by way of an emergency martial law because he was basically having a political temper tantrum and every agency and corporation in the country is all hands on deck, code red mode on everything and the military is being deployed and then the assembly revokes the martial law and then the president is like lol nevermind and now you have to get ready to work at your shitty job on a Wednesday

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so was anybody gonna talk about the new ecology paper proposing Ethiopian wolves as potential pollinators of native nectar-rich flower inflorescences positioned on stalks conveniently within wolf enjoying height AND that it includes photos of said wolves doing said unconfirmed alleged pollination (delightful) AND that it has observational evidence suggesting some wolves do like 1 flower and are done and other wolves just get really into it and spend upwards of an hour going between 20 and 30 flowers for up to 4-5 minutes per cluster just utterly going at it, lost in the nectar sauce? because I cannot BELIEVE I haven’t seen something on this webbed site about it yet. it just has everything this site enjoys