onservantswings

[onservantswings]

Finished a new piece. I think it speaks to my state of mind. Notice the fine details. :)

[onservantswings]

One quiet day on the farm, the Little Red Hen found some wheat seeds and decided to make bread.

"Who will help me plant these seeds?" the Little Red Hen asked.

"I would." said the Horse "But I'm a workhorse, and I'm too busy moving carts around."

And so the Little Red Hen planted the seeds by herself. And they grew into bountiful golden crops.

"Who will help me harvest the wheat?" the Little Red Hen asked.

"I would." said the Dog "But I'm a guarddog, and I'm too busy keeping away burglars and predators."

And so the Little Red Hen harvested the wheat herself and made it into flour.

"Who will help me bake the flour?" the Little Red Hen asked.

"I would." said the Pig "But I'm a mother of 5 newborn piglets, and I'm too busy taking care of my young."

And so the Little Red Hen baked the bread herself into twenty beautiful loaves.

"Who will help me eat the bread?" the Little Red Hen asked.

"We would." said the Farm Animals. "But we're ashamed, for we didn't do anything to make the bread."

"Nonsense!" said the Little Red Hen. "You, Horse, helped move around the stones that built my oven. You, Dog, kept me safe while I worked. And you, Pig, are raising a new generation of Farm Animals, who will too contribute to our Farm one day. You've all helped me so much by simply being you."

"Besides," the Little Red Hen added. "I couldn't possibly eat all the loaves on my own, most of them would go to waste. Come, eat with me."

And so the Little Red Hen and the Farm Animals ate the bread together. And all saw their own, and each other's, worth.

[onservantswings]

I haven't watched the video, but what your describing of her experiences of Lutheran Sunday school sound similar to mine in evangelical xian churches. I completed in Bible Bowl and was given a king sized candy bar for every chapter I could quote word perfect in the NIV.

One of the "ah-ha" moments for me as I was becoming Jewish relates to this cultural difference. As a tween/teen I was kicked out of several Sunday School/Youth Group type programs for what amounted to trying to do Torah study at chuch years before discovering Judaism.

so today illymation released the video: "why sunday school SCARED me." and I wanna talk about the absolute most baffling thing to me about this video.

I'm a reform jew, and went to hebrew school from age 5 to 16, or from kindergarten through 11th grade. my temple's hebrew school is split up into two main phases: k-6, which is more tradition hebrew school and happened during the day on sundays, and our hebrew high school program for 7-12 (it had a specific hebrew name but I'm just gonna call it HHS because I don't wanna accidentally doxx myself). secondly, 4-6th graders attended hebrew school twice a week, on sundays and in the evenings on a week day, to give them more time to practice learning prayers for their b'nai mitzvah in a few years.

so illy talks about her experiences growing up lutheran, and her experiences at lutheran sunday school. and most of that experience was... memorizing. their homework assignments involved memorizing bible verses. their confirmation "test" involved memorizing the 10 commandments and all the books in the bible, along with a one page essay on "what jesus means to me." and for her lutheran church, confirmation happened in 7th grade, and confirmation class was from 5-7.

and this just. baffled me.

because, okay, the early years of hebrew school? like, k-3? it's all memorization and being told what to believe. I remember being a teacher's aid for a second grade class when I was 15 and the teacher just told them stories and stuff about gd and they were also starting to learn to read the hebrew alphabet.

but as kids got older, there was so much more conversation. yes, 4-6 did involve a lot of just memorizing prayers for your b'nai mitzvah, but we also talked about jewish teachings and beliefs, and we were all allowed to have our own relationships with gd. by the time you enter HHS, the teachers don't even have any expectation that you believe in gd at all, and the classrooms were much more open, almost socratic style class, with everyone asking questions and learning and sharing their different opinions. we didn't spend those hours just memorizing things, certainly not as tweens and teens. my 7th grade year at HHS was spent learning about the holocaust, not memorizing passages from the tanakh.

now, because I'm reform, we stole confirmation, and the reform movement does that at 15. it's sort of a mini b'nai mitzvah for the whole class, and it wasn't a test, we were leading a service as a group. now, yes, again, there was some memorization involved (prayers, a song we sung as a class), but our classes in 10th grade weren't focused on memorizing things, we'd sit in a circle and talk about different issues and topics related to judaism. we'd talk about current events and our personal experiences with antisemitism.

there's this... emptiness to the way illy talks about her sunday school experiences. for other people who grew up christian, is this what sunday school was like for you? memorizing bible verses? my only experience with christian sunday school is from the simpsons, and those scenes are usually a bit more interesting because it's a tv show lol and they're not gonna have pointless scenes of making the kids learn bible verses. and I will admit my hebrew school may be an outlier. my parents HAAAAAATED their hebrew schools growing up, saying it was boring and meaningless and as soon as they were b'nai mitzvahed they were out of there like a shot. I think my mom even joked about leaving a her-shaped hole in the wall once lol.

anyways the idea that sunday school = memorization blew my mind. is illy's experience common???

[onservantswings]

I was rambling on the issue of museums and human remains and how certain populations are more likely to have their bodies put on display to be gawked at and then went "well I guess the Pompeii casts were of Europeans. there are bones in there right?" and Googled it to make sure, at which point I confirmed that yes there are bones in there, but more interestingly DNA testing revealed that a cast of an adult holding a child everyone assumed was a mother and child were, in fact, a man and a kid entirely unrelated to him. Honestly that's more moving to me. Maybe they were connected in a way other than blood, but maybe a stranger saw a child when the world was ending and thought the one thing he could do was hold them.

[onservantswings]

Not a sports guy but this is wonderful

[onservantswings]

The timing of this was not accidental

[onservantswings]

All Dinosaurs Are Jewish

A comedic essay by a Jewish Paleontologist who nearly went the Rabbi route

In Judaism and Jewish culture, the word for life, chai, has a value of eighteen in Jewish numerology. As such, this essay has 18 points. However, I am sure I could think of more, if pressed.

Well we can start with the easy one - people don't actually know what either of us actually are. What people typically think of when they hear or say EITHER "dinosaur" or "jewish person" is usually far, far off from the reality for either group! We are both deeply misunderstood among most people.

People think we aren't still here, either of us - they think all dinosaurs are extinct, when birds are still around - and many people think, or at least act, like all Jewish people are dead - or irrelevant to the modern world, whichever. And yet, both Jews and Dinosaurs are keep kickin'!

Not only are both of us still here, but we're thriving! Despite suffering through hardship after hardship, both Dinosaurs *and* Jews are still here. We have chutzpah.

People keep ascribing us managerial skills we have never demonstrated having??? Whether it's saying "Dinosaurs ruled the world during the Mesozoic" or "Jews control the media" or "Birds are just governmental drones", people think we're controlling things when all any of us are doing is just vibing

We love music! Whether it's the toot toots of the Lambeosaurines, the casual harmonization of the niggun, the lovely songs of Passerines, or the delightful energy at a tisch, music is a thread that unites Dinosaurs and Jewish folk across millennia

Similarly, from the dozens of display structures we've found in extinct dinosaurs as well as modern birds, in addition to dancing and performances in living birds, and the pagentry of Jewish ritual life and ritual objects - all the way back to the clothing worn by the Kohenim during the First Temple period - one thing Dinosaurs and Jews *definitely* have in common is a DEDICATION to STYLE, unparalleled for both - we are fabulous, and that alone proves we are one and the same

We are truly cosmpolitan - not a lot of groups can claim as far flung of membership as dinosaurs/birds (not a lot of animals live in Antarctica today... but birds sure do like it) and Jewish folk (there have been enough Jews in Antarctica for a minyan!)

I mentioned earlier that we aren't really perceived as we actually are - in that vein, we are both extremely diverse and varied groups that have taken many forms and aesthetics over the years! I mean, just look at the juxtaposition between, say, a Titanosaur and a Hummingbird, and then a Bukharan Jew and a Beta Israel! Still part of a cohesive whole, but one diverse and heterogeneous in a wonderful way!

People keep focusing on a single major tragic event in our past - the End-Cretaceous extinction, and the Shoah - as if we don't both have a rich and vibrant history before and after those events that is wroth focusing on, discussing, and celebrating!

We also both have a fairly famous member of each of our groups that isn't exactly indicative of what we're like as a whole and also people are way more obsessed with that individual species/person than they are with actual living dinosaurs/Jews (Tyrannosaurus rex and Jesus)

A lot of folk act like our old members - the Israelites/Biblical Jews and Nonavian Dinosaurs - are very distinct fro our living members - modern Jews and Birds - when... no, we're just continuations and the natural evolutions of the past...

Similarly, the general consensus is that we were both "replaced" - dinosaurs by mammals, and Judaism by Xtianity. This is very false - both Jews and Dinosaurs are still here, thanks, and actually Dinosaurs are doing better than ever, and better than mammals

Both of us are mistakenly called "lizards" (whether people or terrible) despite neither of us being anywhere close to lizards

People are obsessed with us in a conspiracy-minded way?? We're always the subjects of weird conspiracy theories for no other reason than this public fascination with our existence??? For Jews the list is infinite, but there's a surprising amount for dinosaurs too (the whole "birds aren't real" thing, for a start...)

Our modern members are being attacked in truly alarming quantities - birds are killed in droves by outdoor cats, and antisemitic hate crimes keep rising dramatically in the United States and elsewhere - and yet no one cares outside of specific circles??? Wtf???

Despite being truly ancient groups by many standards - surviving animal clades and continuous human cultures - we are both fortunate to have complete and detailed knowledge of our histories over this vast expanse of time, one via the written record of the Jewish people preserved expertly over time, and the other via the detailed fossil record for dinosaurs extending from the Mesozoic into the Cenozoic and today. We both preserve our history - as carefully as we can!

Disney's Dinosaur, one of the better dinosaur films made post-1980, is literally the story of Moses and the Israelites wandering the desert. Frankly, dinosaurs wander the desert so much in documentaries and film, the comparisons to wilderness wandering and exile write themselves

The "dinosaur" community (at large, fans of dinosaurs, scientists, people in entertainment involving dinos) and the Jewish community have so much overlap it's embarrassing. We're drawn to each other. Jeff Goldbum. Jon Favreau. Stephen Jay Gould. Tilly Edinger. Ross from Friends. The list goes on.

The similarities are too uncanny. Dinosaurs are the Jews of animals, or Jews are the Dinosaurs of People, or both, or the same, or all dinosaurs practice Judaism in their hearts, or something. Take your pick. Whatever framework you want to use, there's no way around it - all Dinosaurs are Jewish!

L'CHAIM!

[onservantswings]

This is kind of a weird reason for hope, honestly, but it genuinely changed how I think about catastrophe.

Historical fact that you probably do not know:

At least 30-50% of the population of Pompeii survived.

Maybe even the majority of the people of Pompeii survived.

(The numbers 30-50% there are according Professor J. Theodore Peña, a professor of ancient Roman archeology who studies Pompeii, whom I took a class on Pompeii with in 2018. The numbers of "maybe even the majority" are from articles linked below.)

Yes, that Pompeii, the one where the entire city was swallowed by a volcanic eruption.

And no, I'm not kidding. x, x, x, x, x, x

So how this is possible, that anyone could survive, when the entire city was literally buried in volcanic ash? And the answer is that the eruption actually took place over the course of almost 24 hours, as the earthquakes and clouds of smoke emitting from Pompeii gradually got worse and worse, followed by the ejection of ash and giant stones that gradually escalated, until the fifth pyroclastic flow (aka giant wave of searing hot ash) hit the city.

So, people had a bit less than 24 hours to flee the city. And many of them did, whether by boat or cart or horse or foot. And many of them made it.

Pompeii is the iconic, ultimate example we have, culturally, for a natural disaster that causes complete annihilation.

But it never caused complete annihilation at all. Not of the people who lived there.

I think climate change, ultimately, is going to be like Pompeii. Yes, there will be natural disasters. Yes, it will keep getting worse for a while.

Yes, people will die, and yes, we do need to act fast, and we need to do all that we can to save every single living being that we can.

But unlike the people of Pompeii, we have the ability to fix most of the effects of climate change. We have the ability to cool the planet down from whatever temperature it ultimately hits. (Masterpost on this here.)

Natural disasters fucking suck. But as the true story of Pompeii exemplifies, they are often a lot more survivable than we think. And we have benefits and resources and technology and knowledge above all communication that the people of Pompeii never did - in fact, we're getting so good at building for and detecting and warning for natural disasters that the number of people dying from natural disasters has been plummeting, even as natural disasters are getting worse and worse (x).

We are going to survive climate change (x). We are going to fix as much of it as we can (x). And we are going to rebuild afterward.

Because as the many survivors of Pompeii show, that's what humans do.

[onservantswings]

super rough sketches for a personal project about transphobia and sports

[onservantswings]

You. Are. worthy.

Even if you never drive. Even if you need help with basic tasks. Even if you need help with hygiene. Even if you’ll never work. Even if you’ll need help for the rest of your life. You’re. Still. Worthy.

Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re useless, or that you don’t deserve certain things. You’re amazing, and I see you.

[onservantswings]

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled “immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

[onservantswings]

New zine that's free for anyone to print and distribute! Read the whole thing at newlevant.com/COVIDzine or in the rest of this post.

UPDATE 4/11/2023:

I swapped out the colloidal silver nasal spray info for xylitol nasal spray info. I originally included colloidal silver spray because of the linked study and recommendation from RTHM, but I don't want to be pointing people toward something with notable health risks. Xylitol spray (Xlear) is also cheaper and more widely available!

[onservantswings]

biologists will be like this is a very simplified diagram of a mammalian cell

chemists will be like this is a molecule

[onservantswings]

Image description: Three versions of the same picture: a digital painting of a cluster of yellow dandelions on a dark earthy background. Handwritten in white above and below the flowers is the same text in Yiddish in the alef-beys, in romanisation, and then in English. The text reads: "מיר וועלן זיי איבערלעבן", "Mir veln zey iberlebn", and "We will outlive them". /end description

[onservantswings]

memeception