#SOUTH publication

[beebox-illustrations]

Clyde third wheeling is my favorite headcanon *chefs kiss*

Have a good week guys 🌻🐝✨

[sarahmackattack]

Ok yeah can this be my new like…Professional photo for all purposes? I think this pretty much sums it up.

[reasonsforhope]

"Lead is a neurotoxin; it causes premature deaths and lifelong negative effects. It’s said “there is no safe level of lead exposure” — as far as we know, any lead causes damage, and it just gets worse the more exposure there is.

After a 20-year, worldwide campaign, in 2021 Algeria became the final country to end leaded gasoline in cars — something the US phased out in 1996. That should make a huge difference to environmental lead levels. But lots of sources remain, from car batteries to ceramics...

Bangladesh phased out leaded gasoline in the 1990s. But high blood lead levels have remained. Why? When researchers Stephen Luby and Jenny Forsyth, doing work in rural Bangladesh, tried to isolate the source, it turned out to be a surprising one: lead-adulterated turmeric.

Turmeric, a spice in common use for cooking in South Asia and beyond, is yellow, and adding a pigment made of lead chromate makes for bright, vibrant colors — and better sales. Buyers of the adulterated turmeric were slowly being poisoned...

But there’s also good news: A recent paper studying lead in turmeric in Bangladesh found that researchers and the Bangladeshi government appear to have driven lead out of the turmeric business in Bangladesh.

How Bangladesh got serious about lead poisoning

The researchers who’d isolated turmeric as the primary cause of high blood lead levels —working for the nonprofit International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh — went to meet with government officials. They collected samples nationwide and published a 2019 follow-up paper on the extent of the problem. Bangladesh’s Food Safety Authority got involved.

They settled on a two-part approach, starting with an education campaign to warn people about the dangers of lead. Once people had been warned that lead adulteration was illegal, they followed up with raids to analyze turmeric and fine sellers who were selling adulterated products.

They posted tens of thousands of fliers informing people about the risks of lead. They got coverage in the news. And then they swept through the markets with X-ray fluorescence analyzers, which detect lead. They seized contaminated products and fined sellers.

According to the study released earlier this month, this worked spectacularly well. “The proportion of market turmeric samples containing detectable lead decreased from 47 percent pre-intervention in 2019 to 0 percent in 2021,” the study found. And the vanishing of lead from turmeric had an immediate and dramatic effect on blood lead levels in the affected populations, too: “Blood lead levels dropped a median of 30 percent.”

The researchers who helped make that result happen are gearing up for similar campaigns in other areas where spices are adulterated.

The power of problem-solving

...When the Food Safety Authority showed up at the market and started issuing fines for lead adulteration, it stopped being a savvy business move to add lead. Purchasers who were accustomed to unnatural lead-colored turmeric learned how to recognize non-adulterated turmeric. And so lead went from ubiquitous to nearly nonexistent in the space of just a few years.

That’s a better world for everyone, from turmeric wholesalers to vulnerable kids — all purchased at a shockingly low price. The paper published this month concludes, “with credible information, appropriate technology, and good enough governance, the adulteration of spices can be stopped.”

There’s still a lot more to be done. India, like Bangladesh, has widespread adulteration of turmeric. And safety testing will have to remain vigilant to prevent lead in Bangladesh from creeping back into the spice supply.

But for all those caveats, it’s rare to see such fast, decisive action on a major health problem — and impressive to see it immediately rewarded with such a dramatic improvement in blood lead levels and health outcomes. It’s a reminder that things can change, and can change very quickly, as long as people care, and as long as they act."

-via Vox, September 20, 2023

[intothestacks]

An extension for library and book lovers

Library Extension allows you to see if your library has a book you're interested in and put a hold on it without having to go to the library site to do it.

They have extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.

The extension works for several dozen countries, so it's worth checking if your country is included.

You then select which country subdivision you live in and which library systems you want to add the extension to.

Once the library is added in, when you go to shopping sites like Amazon, you should see on the side whether the library has any copies of the book!

[itscolossal]

A Vibrant Ndebele Mural by Esther Mahlangu Illuminates Unity at Serpentine North

[ashartstuff]

Was at a theme park the other day and saw someone wearing this shirt

You are so brave

[hoodienanami]

if youre the kind of person who talks about how liberation movements dont need to be progressive about lgbt issues or women's rights bc all that can be worked out after the ppl they are fighting to liberate get their basic human rights yet whines and cries about south korean feminists being 'transphobic' then honestly i think you should die

im not denying that transgender ppl face extreme hardship in south korea. that absolutely is smth thats occurring and it must be addressed. but if youre criticizing the south korean feminist movement, which is a crucial liberation movement that is fighting to end the epidemic of extreme violent oppression of women within the nation, for transphobia and not the korean men who are the ones doing basically all of the violent transphobia against trans women over there then idk what to tell you besides that youre a misogynist

the situation in south korea for cis women is so dire. its beyond dire. its liberation or death/rape/torture for them right now. they can work out any transphobia they may or may not have within their feminist movement after they win back cis women's rights not to be raped by their brothers and fathers and neighbors bc at the moment thats pretty much the only thing on their minds considering how widespread its become

[that-butch-archivist]

"Today, I am wearing my hair long and permed into full curls around my face, tying it up in sheer, silken scarves. I often choose to be late for a date rather than go out feeling "unfinished," which some days means a little powder and Chap Stick and other days means a total makeover. I wear long silk shirts and fluffy sweaters when I want, and regard the word pretty as a compliment again. Still, I know I am regarded as a failure and even a traitor by many in this [lesbian] club because I suffer occasional self-recrimination for being a size sixteen instead of a size six, because I enjoy wearing miniskirts and stockings, because I apparently care about and conform to the opinions of the "wrong" people (people in that other world who label us unacceptable or unfit). They say I am selling out, catering to patriarchy, being codependent on my mother and her opinions. Choose your descriptors, choose your chains. Too often, the saleswomen of the so-called freedom are more like the neo-conservatives and fundamentalists of the world, who say, "Do it our way or don't expect any privileges." They are not selling us the right to be who we want to be, they are selling us the right to be what they believe we should want to be. Sometimes, those rights are the same thing. More often, they are not. And when they are not, worlds may collide in a firestorm of indignation, embarrassment, and rage. I want that freedom they sold me. I want the freedom to love women, passionately and overwhelmingly. I want the freedom to love them the way I want, whether I wear a lace dress or jeans, whether I wear press-on nails or no lipstick. I want the freedom to feel sexy at 170 pounds. I want to do aerobics without resorting to stealth maneuvers. And I want the freedom to be who I am, without embarrassment or fear. I want no exceptions, no contingencies, no caveats. And if our community cannot--or will not--grant that freedom, I, and those like me, the rebel-conformists if you will, will take it. We will even steal it if we must. They'll be surprised at how fast we can run in those tight skirts and pumps."

- An excerpt from "Supercolliding over a Twinkie: Angry Musings from a Femme in the Deep South," an essay written by Constance Lynne and found in The Femme Mystique. (Emphasis in bold my own.)

[cateyedfox36]

Straight up the worst thing about the trans rights readathon is getting all my books squared away but knowing I have to wait to read them.

That being said, my public library is coming in clutch with a lot of books! I've already got 3 books and got like 4 more coming. Plus, the digital copies Im borrowing from hoopla and libby!

My aim is to read more than I did last year and get donations from people who aren't my family. Last year I read like 15, so this year I'm going for 20.

So if you'd like to follow me and donate to South Dakota's own Transformation Project that would be great!

I'll use this blog to keep track of my books, my ratings and any pledges.

[nashvillethotchicken]

Sometimes I think about how loustat are in a placage marriage and make myself insane.

[laniidae-passerine]

obsessed with the idea of What Will People Think that permeates actions in Barry. even though it’s a terrible idea, Barry goes on fun runs to support the family of the guy he murdered and posts evidence of it online because he wants to be seen as a good guy. Sally’s mother being more concerned about what the women from her church might say about Joplin than about the real abuse her daughter endured, because they don’t care about that. Cousineau making an awkward public apology to Annie and then later trying to capitalise on Barry’s arrest so he can be a big hero. The big song and dance Cristobal and Hank have to do to hide their relationship and trick people into thinking they’re enemies. Fuches constantly bragging about being The Raven because he wants to be the coolest guy in the prison yard. What people think doesn’t matter. What people think means everything.

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

In the North and South, women's standing as citizens had always been refracted through their normative adult status as wives, and by the state's equal or greater commitment to upholding marriage and the law of coverture. That law put women under their husbands' legal power in the interests of marital unity. The transformation of woman into wife made "citizenship--a public identity as a participant in public life--something close to a contradiction in terms for a married woman." The terms of female citizenship had always been set by the perceived necessities of marriage and its gender asymmetries between man and woman, husband and wife. In the North by i86o, agitation for the woman citizen's natural right of suffrage had, in conjunction with antislavery, already made serious political inroads. Increasingly women's continued exclusion had to be dignified by an argument. But nowhere in the nineteenth-century United States did any women's rights, not to mention demands for the vote, emerge outside of the context of antislavery politics. So in the South, where a proslavery agenda set the tone in politics and where politicians regularly dragooned marriage into the work of legitimizing slavery (as just another desirable form of domestic dependence suitable to the weak), women's status as citizens hardly mattered. There, politicians were habituated to thinking of women as existing at a remove from the body politic, as part of the family or the household, and not of the people and the citizens.

stephanie mccurry, confederate reckoning: power and politics in the civil war south

[caracolcondiarrea]

I’ve heard some people say like “ but it isn’t confirmed that tweek and Craig are married in post COVID bc they don’t wear a ring and/or they don’t say that they’re married”

ok, the ring thing is stupid, like, none of the adults that are married have a ring as far as I’m aware.

secondly and most important, they don’t need to say that they’re married so you can guess they are. They literally introduced themselves again as Tweek and Craig, they do it together, they don’t need to be showing affection constantly to put it clear that they’re married. Also, when they go to look for aluminum foil, they go together, it would be rather awkward if they had to be together and they are exe’s.

“maybe they’re still dating but they decided not to get married” maybe, but after like 40 years of dating the same person it would be weird if they aren’t honestly.

[artisticow]

genuinely fuck the people blaming "inbred hillbillies" for this shit..... y'all can't condemn bigotry without being bigoted yourself can you?? first we deserved hurricane helene bc we're all racist rednecks who wanna suck trump's dick and now we're also to blame for his presidency.... as if queers and poc aren't a huge facet of the american south. as if atlanta isn't the gayest fucking place around here. how about we blame the fucking corporations and the outdated government and all the old white men still in power instead of turning on impoverished people and continuing the divide of this country. fuck off

[driveintheaterofthemind]

The Chase

Art by Harry Lemon Parkhurst

Spicy Adventures Stories (Oct1941)