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and-then-there-were-n0ne · 8 months ago

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Yesterday CNN published an article by senior writer Tara John about the UK National Health Service’s newly skeptical stance toward youth gender medicine. The main takeaway, which is big news to observers of this debate, is that the NHS will no longer provide puberty blockers to young people, other than in research contexts. (As for cross-sex hormones, a relatively strict-seeming regime is set to be implemented, and they will be offered to youth only “from around their 16th birthday.”)

As myself and a number of others pointed out, the article contains a sentence that is, in context, rather wild: John writes that “Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender — the one the person was designated at birth — to their affirmed gender — the gender by which one wants to be known.” But of course, whether youth gender medicine is medically necessary and evidence-based is exactly the thing being debated, and anyone who has been following this debate closely knows that every national health system that has examined this question closely, including the NHS, has come to the same conclusion: the evidence is paltry. That’s why so many countries, including Sweden, Finland, the UK, and Norway have significantly scaled back access to these treatments for youth. So it’s very strange to see this sentence, which reads as though it comes from an activist press release, published in a news article in CNN, an outlet that generally adheres to the old-school divide between news and opinion.

There’s a strong case to be made that CNN’s sentence, as written, is false. Gender medicine is at best unproven, when it comes to the standards society (and regulatory bodies) expects medical researchers to adhere to. The situation with youth gender medicine is particularly dicey, given that this is a newer area of medicine suffering from an even severer paucity of quality studies.

It would be bad enough for this sentence to have appeared in one article on one of the most important news websites in the world. But here’s the thing: this wasn’t the first time. Rather, this exact sentence, and close variants of it, has been copied and pasted into dozens of CNN.com stories over the last few years, as a Google search quickly reveals.

This sentence, and its close variants, appear over and over and over. I asked my researcher to create a list of all the instances he could find. Here’s what he sent back, in reverse chronological order [...]

I haven’t triple-checked every single one of these, but it’s undeniable that effectively the same words have appeared in about three dozen CNN articles since May of 2022, which was already years after the present wave of European nations rethinking these treatments had begun.

When I asked CNN about this, I heard back from someone there who explained on background that it’s standard for outlets to provide reporters with guidance about accurate and appropriate language. While that’s true, it doesn’t really answer my question. Sure, it’s not unusual for an outlet to have a house style, sometimes enshrined in a stylebook, that provides rules about how to refer to, for example, individuals in the United States who lack legal status. They used to be called “illegal immigrants,” and now they’re often called “undocumented immigrants,” or language to that effect. This is a fairly normal process by which language changes and, sometimes as a result of a push-pull between outlets and advocacy groups, outlets decide which changes to make and when. So you may or may not agree with the fact that many outlets have switched from “biological sex” to “sex assigned at birth” when discussing trans issues, but the underlying��process of switching from one phrase to another is standard and occurs in many areas.

This is quite different. You do not generally see the same complex sentence pasted over and over and over into news stories written by different authors and published in different sections. I asked CNN if it could provide me any other examples of CNN.com publishing the same sentence in multiple stories by different authors, and posed the same question in an email to Virginia Moseley, the CNN executive editor who, according to the website, “oversee[s] international and domestic news operations across platforms.” I didn’t hear back about this.

This copy-paste job is journalistically problematic for a number of reasons. For one thing, it suggests that CNN has decided, at the editorial level, that its institutional stance is that youth gender medicine is “medically necessary” and “evidence-based.” While they’re being used somewhat colloquially in these articles, these terms have fairly specific definitions in certain medical and legal contexts, and treatments only qualify for such designations if they have exceeded a certain evidentiary benchmark based on solid published research. That is not the case here — far from it, actually. As written, this is a deeply misleading sentence.

The language also puts CNN writers in an awkward position. Does each and every bylined author of these stories believe that youth gender medicine is “medically necessary” and “evidence-based”? Maybe they do (which would be disturbing), but the fact is that they didn’t write these sentences — they, or one of their editors, grabbed that language from somewhere else and pasted it in. They are effectively outsourcing their own judgment on a hotly contested controversy to their employer. This is not what journalists are supposed to do, and, at the risk of repeating myself, it’s significantly different from a reporter rolling their eyes when using language like “undocumented immigrant” or “sex assigned at birth,” rather than their own preferred verbiage. Those are rather small-stakes linguistic quibbles, different not only in degree but in kind from the question of whether or not youth gender medicine is medically necessary and evidence-based. And it goes without saying that a CNN reporter who does develop doubts about youth gender medicine is likely to be deterred from investigating further by the fact that their bosses have already decided that this is the way they’re going to cover this subject — say the line, Bart. Why bother?

It’s a pattern, unfortunately. Many outlets dug themselves into a deep hole on this issue by simply acting as stenographers and megaphones for activist groups rather than doing their jobs. And now that there is ever-mounting evidence undercutting the loudest activist claims, climbing out of this hole is going to be awkward. But there’s no other option, really. Because right now there’s absolutely no reason to take CNN.com seriously on this issue — the site has proven, demonstrably, that it doesn’t take itself seriously on this issue.

#transgender #ccn #jesse singal #feminism #radical feminism #intersectional feminism

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badsalmonella · 1 month ago

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SGATGK getting 'er done.👍

TLDR: some neato historical/fantasy drawing references, I like character design would be neat if someone paid me to do that someday, I have to trick myself into being motivated to finish anything like one tricks a dog into taking their meds by putting it in the wet food, tales passed down for centuries are cool.

Why did I do this? : Because I'm obsessed with art books and design bibles and it's what made me want to study animation in the first place. Portfolio pieces like this, this and this were always something I wanted to do, I think they are so inspiring.

Unfortunately you like have to put in a lot of effort to get something like this done, and as I have learned from a semi-failed attempt to do this with Hadestown it is very easy to get too precious about the art and restart 80 times and essentially never get anything done. I'm out here chanting "finished not perfect" to myself in the mirror like a mantra maybe one day it will seep into my bones and I will fully embrace it. Full disclosure, one of the circumstances that led to me actually finishing this is that I have way too much free time on my hands atm, like I don't think I would have gotten this done (or gotten it done in a timely manner) if I was also balancing full time work, but I was tryinggg to squeeze some lemons out of a less than ideal situation. Second thing, on top of trying to do this for 4 years with Hadestown, I alsooo initially tried to do this with the musical Camelot/ the Arthur/Lancelot/Guinevere love triangle part of the Arthurian legends but found I was once again too obsessed with the thing, and getting too precious about the art to get anything substantial done. I did get these Guinevere runaway bride drawings done though. Phillipa Soo high cheekbones Guinevere will always be important to me!!

So I switched gears and chose an Arthurian legend I liked well enough, but not so much I would sike myself out of getting it done and went with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It's also a story that adheres to a pretty traditional fable structure. A young guy goes on a quest, he experiences trials in threes, he comes back a little changed having learned a life lesson, etc. Also designing The Green Knight comes with a fun 'cool' factor that I like. The Arthurian discord server run by queer-ragnelle on tumblr is full of really nice, and wayyyy more knowledgeable people who pointed me in the direction of Simon Armitage's translations of the poem so that's what I read to get started. Another great resource I liked was Queer as Fact's podcast episode on the story. Something that I found really interesting was that they discussed Gawain's kissing game with the Bertilak's being something that brought on both queer positive and queerness as a sort of cautionary tale that was encouraged to be turned away from interpretations*. Interesting that you could take away two opposite readings from the same text, but also really framed the experience of staying with the Bertilaks as something that is otherworldly and treading into unknown territory for Gawain.

*I wanna add that 1. just because I acknowledge the two conflicting interpretations doesn't mean that I think one cancels out the other's validity 2. Just because I acknowledge it doesn't mean that it's one that I like or agree with. Obviously these stories are so old we can't ask the author what intent they were writing with so we'll never get 'the right answer', all we really have is interpretation. So like why not interpret something positive out of it, especially if you can back it up with the text.

I got pretty tired of using Google images for research, and actually went to the library for most of my drawing reference. This was also good because it got me out of the house yay! It made me feel like those movie behind the scenes featurettes I love, where people go on their little research trips, like OoooO I'm making the fake movie in my brain!! I unfortunately never wrote down the titles of these books I was using but there were some great illustrated book of clothing worn throughout history. I wanted to keep Gawain, and the design of Camelot fairly close to something historical.

I loved this book especially because all the art was so colourful. I think a lot of people have this idea that medieval costuming should be dull/dark colours but I definitely didn't want to go in that direction. I love bright colours!

I really took inspiration from this illustration I found for Gawain, even though people typically associate medieval knights with full plate armour, in the story Gawain is going on a lengthy journey to find the green chapel, then accept his beheading so I actually felt something lighter like this chainmail outfit with robe on top was the way to go to make him feel mobile. Also Gawain really lays on the self deprecating sauce thick when he volunteers himself up to participate in the Green Knight's game, claiming he is of no great importance, he's just a little guy, it's not a big risk if he gets hurt. (that's not a direct quote. That just the vibe) So I also snuck in the small detail that his clothing is a little oversized, not quite arranged straight, but he grows into it by the end of the tale :3

I also used designing Gawain as the chance to lock down what artstyle I wanted to move forward with. My brain told me 'oohhh storybook!' but go into a bookstore and give it a peruse and you will quickly find there is a wide array of storybook artstyles. So that was not specific enough. I tried simplifying my art style, I liked Cartoon Saloon's stuff (good catch everyone who commented on it's influence in the post's tags) but felt it was a little too simplified and stylized for what I wanted to do. The big lightbulb moment for me was when I found this art by an-old-lady on tumblr. I really like how this artist's work is pretty stylized but sticks close to recognizable human proportions. So I put this one my inspiration board, while still trying to keep it distinctly mine. not really my call to say if I succeeded at this or not lol

But yes Cartoon Saloon's influence is still there, especially with backgrounds,

and I also really loved looking towards the art of Sleeping Beauty. Really amazing use of colour in this art, also the way they simplify nature into easy to read shapes, then pack in all the detail there is something I loved.

me doing my best to harness that Disney concept art power

(Side note one books I can name from all this research is this one because I would like to own it some day. Fantastic resource for not only showing the classic art and architecture they are taking reference from, but how you can apply that to something a lot more cartoony and simplified. Seriously the side by side comparisons of medieval book artwork next to their Sleeping Beauty storybook scenes are masterclass mwah)

From there something I really wanted to drive home was this contrast between Gawain's world and Lord Bertilak/Green Knight's world. The Green Knight comes with lengthy descriptions about his odd (but hot *wink*) appearance, and there is definitely an aura that something unknown has entered King Arthur's court. While I tried to find inspiration for Gawain's armour from old artwork, Green Knight's outfit I was looking more to fantasy influences like Lord of the Rings, House of the Dragon, Renaissance Faire costumes, etc.

When you look up medieval fashion you get a lot of reference for these crazy cool headpieces

Lots of head coverings too for women (lots of it done for modesty reasons. Also a little bit for hygiene reasons) so I kept that consistent with the women of Camelot

Also even though a lot of medieval media associates the revealed shoulders and the sleeves with interesting cutouts with woman's fashion at the time, a lot of actual historical imagery I was finding has a full coverage layer underneath known as the kirtle (mostly for hygiene purposes......though I'm sure modesty is also a factor)

( Alicent where is your underlayer?? Cringe.)

But for Lady Bertilak I went full medieval fantasy and whipped out those sleeves that I always associate with princesses and gave her long flowing hair. Also interestingly I remember the story once emphasising her ~flirtatiously~ revealed shoulders. I wonder if that was a fashion choice still made back then, or if this is fantasy detailing, sort of like how the trash doctor drama TV show Doctor Odyssey will have doctors doing work on patients in full cocktail party attire a decision that is not based on any sort of reality but maybe hundreds of years from now if the media is preserved humans might assume that was how the doctors of our day dressed. HM!

Lord Bertilak actually gave me a hard time with his look. I went in really only knowing I wanted to give him that Hozier inspired bun hairstyle. My reasoning being that like Lord Bertilak loves going hunting he's a kind of man of the woods.....but he's also supposed to be this hot Lord who is making Gawain question if he wants to join a very unchristian open marriage and when I think of man of the woods but make it glam I think of this dude

but other than that I had no ideas on how to approach this 'same shape as the Green Knight but make him more warm and approachable' look I was trying to achieve, so I just made lots of sketches that got trashed pretty quickly. Also at the time I didn't know what colour scheme I wanted for these two yet, only that I wanted green as an accent colour to hint at his true identity (also because plot relevant green girdle) but not the MAIN COLOUR of their colour scheme. So anyways that's how you get this funny drawing of Lord Bertilak looking very Curious George's Yellow Guy vibes.

Then it hit me in the most unexpected of places....

You're probably wondering "hey there is literally a fantasy historical King Arthur musical you are OBSESSED WITH why are you not turning to that for inspiration?" or maybe "why would you reference House of the Dragon earlier but not the much more famous Game of Thrones?" and the answer there is as cool as those costumes are they are taking a LOT of inspiration from modern runway fashion and that just wasn't the vibe I was looking for. But then one day as I played the Camelot bootleg as comfort background noise (normal behaviour) I found inspiration from THE UNDERRATED FASHION ICON SIR PELLINORE!

I just really loved the long sleeveless drapery situation he had going on. I added the fur along the neckline for Lord Bertie though to make him more top heavy (like his Green Knight counterpart) and as a nod to hunting. but yes big props to Pellinore. ty king!

The contrasting shape language I used in the character design then informed all the extra prop details surrounding these characters.

But to keep things consistent I tried to keep some similar design principles for costumes. They like drapery. They like big sleeve moments. Bold colours. Girdles to break up dress forms. Tunics that generally fall close to knees in length.

I think the coolest bit of research I did was I visited a church in my city and got some good pictures as reference for the green chapel. In the poem the green chapel really ends up being a grass mound but that's not really an impressive drawing to put in your portfolio so I got the idea to have a chapel so old that nature has overtaken it and there's a structure in this hill. The church is open to just look through for free without attending a mass, it's a bit of a tourist destination for good reason it's really well kept, I'd been telling myself to go check it out for years of living here now but this project was what got me to finally do it.

I sketched some random object in there (this can be helpful even if you don't draw these things in your actual project just because it fills up your design bank in your brain) I also wish I took this picture but they had what looked like one of those office water coolers but it was labelled 'Holy Water' and I just thought that was funny. Sorry just wanted to share.

and I am HORRIBLE at drawing backgrounds, I really hate doing it, I find placing the horizon line/ vanishing points incredibly hard to do, so if you are like me but you wanna push yourself TAKE YOUR OWN PICTURES OF PLACES. AND TRACE OVER THEM. THEN ADD WHATEVER CHANGES NEEDED. IT'S NOT CHEATING I PROMISE. YOU CAN LITERALLY DO ANYTHING YOU WANT EVER IT IS NOT THE SAME AS PLAGIARIZING OR TRACING ANOTHER PERSON'S ART AND IT WILL SAVE YOU HEARTACHE. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

Anyways this has been my incredibly long advertisement for your local library, your local tourist spots, cool art books, cool cartoons, The Green Knight poem, the kirtle, to try your best to make the art you wanna make because it will fill your heart with joy. Don't be precious about your art in a design project, just sketch like your life is ending in the next couple of hours, it's cool if you draw something like this

There's definitely stuff I wish I had drawn, more props, something more to indicate Lord Bertilak's hunts (I also suck at drawing animals oop) and maybe those things will be drawn in the future, but I am happy to call this done for the time being :)

Did you get this far? Well thanks. ilu 🫶🏼

#yeah this is long...but I added lots of pictures???? :'DD #sgatgk #(also seeeecret Guinevere art heehheheheheh)#if you answered “interested” on my poll a couple days ago.....I hope this was actually interesting lol

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wingzie · 1 year ago

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Behind the Screen

The Beginning

On 20th September 2020 I posted my first ever Live Reactions on GCF in Tokyo. I was very nervous. In a world full of so much hate, would my attempt to go back in time to reminisce together and spread positivity be accepted? I wasn’t so sure. My idea behind the very concept of Live Reactions was because I was sick of so many fights about GCF in Tokyo. I wanted to show the true loving reactions to these moments, without all the drama that ends up going around in a vicious cycle. Thus, I started doing some research.

After I finished advanced searching on various social media platforms, I got ready to make the thread. I found myself quickly enjoying looking through old posts. It was fun and I think that’s a big part of why I am still making these now, nearly three years later. Plus the support. Once the thread was made, I posted it and actually hid my phone. I came back to it about an hour later and was very surprised to see such a huge response to it. At the time, it was one of my most popular posts and instantly there was a desire for more.

I decided to throw myself into it. If people wanted more, then I was happy to help with that! Especially when it was making so many people happy. I made a new Google Drive account and a spreadsheet to go with it, so that I could keep track of which Jikook moments I had already done or not. Over time, I would start formatting my posts properly and understand how the advanced search function worked on Twitter. I am a History and English major, so being accurate is very important to me. This gave birth to my second style of posts: Discussion and timeline threads. The Unexpected

Though these threads are well received and made with a lot of love, there was a dark side to this that I have never really spoken about before. The jikooker hierarchy is a strange one and is one that I try to ignore, but with that comes consequences and a certain isolation. A group of jikookers did not like that my account had apparently grown from out of nowhere and started spreading rumours about me, my posts and my identity. This hurt because I had never spoken to these people before. I would love it if we actually conversed, because I enjoy talking to people and I like to think that I am a pleasant person. But they were not interested and instead they continued to try and tarnish my name. I decided to come out to my closest friends and just continued what I was always doing.

I mostly ignored the bullying and it soon stopped once they realised that I was really not interested in the drama. I never have been and never will. After all, that was the main reason I started this journey of making threads. To try and counter the hate and drama, I just never expected it from my own side. It made me more determined than ever and I also made a promise to myself, to make sure others NEVER experienced what I did. A good friend of mine recently revealed that I was one of the only ones that would reply to their curious messages about Jikook. I feel like this is also something important: How we are seen from the outside. We want Jikook to be recognized for their bond and their talent. But how can we do that if all we do is fight or act better than others? I will always be here to talk or help others, it’s just in my nature to do so.

The Present and The Future

In the last few months or so my life has changed dramatically, in real life and also online. I have lost family members, got a new job and I am currently on carers leave. I decided to bring my laptop in the hope that I could work on some posts whilst everything was happening. I have (somehow) managed to find a balance between both and now have a loose schedule that I try to follow. I also try to not pressure myself whenever there is a new Jikook moment to instantly start working on it. I used to get really stressed, but now I am much better. One thing, however, is making this whole process rather difficult. Twitter. Or “X” as it’s now called. I can no longer just work on a post whenever I want to, I have to be time conscious. I currently have four accounts and have to rotate between them. Last night Jungkook went on We-live, with Jimin active in the comments. Jikookory happened. It was around 2am my time, but I’m still struggling to sleep in case I am needed. I decided to work on getting screenshots and it was hard. The search function does not work as well as it used to and my timeline is messed up on my backup accounts. There’s probably a case study that can be done here, but I just really wanted to work on a post without being restricted. I continued though, determined to show what others see. Sometimes we’re only aware of what is is happening in our own circles and not what is going on around us. Those that are in personal spaces with me know my deep frustration with all of this. On my Birthday, my main account got double limited and then my second account got locked. It was not fun. However, I refuse to give up. I have already completed my scheduled posts for August and September and am (very slowly) working on posts ready for November and December. Assuming that “X” is still around then. If not, I’ll post elsewhere or here. And for those asking why I haven’t been posting on here, my account seems to be bugged and won’t let me post links or videos in text posts for some reason. No idea why. Guess I don’t have much luck with social media platforms. With the way things are right now, this is a promise. I will continue to keep doing what I have been doing over all these years. It might be harder but I still have that same goal that I’ve always had: To spread postivity and appreciation for Jikook for all in a safe environment. Love you all.

#wingzie

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traegorn · 11 months ago

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I need to stop doing this to myself.

(A Rant Where Trae Has Written Too Many Books This Month)

So since most of you started following me because of Witchcraft or podcast stuff, I realize a lot of you don't know how much fiction writing I do.

Primarily what I've published are comics. The big one is UnCONventional (which ran from December of 2009 to December of 2019), but I also did a steampunk comic called The Chronicles of Crosarth (which I put on hiatus in like 2018 intending to come back to... but I haven't, and I make no guarantee that I will even though over 650 of the 800 planned pages are done). Crosarth is... fine? The art isn't great in either of these, but UnCONventional carries itself with the humor.

But that's all old stuff. You may be like "Trae, what have you been producing for the last four years," and the answer is "not a lot." I got major creative block with the pandemic. Peregrine Lake, the "Northwoods Gothic" comic I was supposed to launch in 2020 (which has some characters from UnCONventional in it) didn't materialize when I said it would. What storytelling energy I had went into Stormwood & Associates and The Meatgrinder (my two actual play podcasts), but that was it.

And then 2023 happened, and the juices started flowing again.

Peregrine Lake is moving forward -- but with me just doing the writing. My urge to draw has not returned, but my urge to write has. A friend of mine, Ethan Flanagan, is drawing it, and I've written the first year of comics. It likely won't launch any time soon (the artist I'm working with is busy as hell so we want to get a shit-ton of the comic done before we launch it -- we have like the first month and a half of the comic ready?). But yeah -- it's happening. I hoping for Spring, but we'll see.

The other thing though is that I've started writing, like, novels. I've always had like twenty ideas in my head, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I decided to start with the idea I cared the least about (in case I fucked it up): A queer urban fantasy story.

In the last month and a half I've written complete drafts of two different novels in this setting, and am halfway through another one... and have another one outlined.

I, uh, had some ideas.

If you're asking yourself "Hey Trae -- what the fuck? That's a lot" you need to know a few things that aren't obvious. At one point in college, in 72 hours, I produced over 40 pages of text between three research papers. All were for 300 level courses, and I may have disassociated while writing them because I frankly don't remember most of it. But, like, they were decent papers.

One of those papers is in Google Scholar.

Anyway, yeah. I haven't been sleeping great because I've been obsessively writing, but you might ask "Why didn't you just write one and get it ready to publish?" That's a great question. Because I wrote a book, and when I was 3/4 of the way through it I realized something very important: This book would make a great sequel to a book I haven't written. I've been writing book two in a series where I haven't written book one yet.

Well fuck.

So I finished that draft, and I went and wrote book one. Now that book? That book I'm getting ready to publish. I expect to have it out in January. Part of my editing process involves setting what I think is a completed, good, revised draft down for a couple of weeks and then returning to it with fresh eyes. We're in that waiting period right now.

But I still had a bunch of energy.

So the first thing I did was a revising draft on book two (the one I wrote first), but I finished that. And had more energy. And more stories in this setting kept popping up.

So I started a third book. And I'm halfway through the first draft of that book. But then I realized yesterday... shit, this isn't book three.

This is book four.

I need stuff to happen before we get to this story.

So now I've outlined the actual book three, and am working on literally both of these books at once (I'll take a break for Christmas and then go do a final edit on Book One).

And... I'm just like... why am I like this?

I need to stop myself for a few days and get more sleep.

#writing

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posttexasstressdisorder · 2 months ago

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The very first "research paper" on Tolkienish things was in 7th grade, which would have been 1972-73.

Google would not happen for a few...decades. This was hard-core everything on-paper research. The only things you're gonna work with are books and magazine articles and formally donated collections of letters, etc.

I went to three different libraries and scoured their Card Catalogs for ANY mention of Tolkien, and about the only thing I could turn up at that point in the timeline, besides an odd article or two in some mainstream glossy mag, was a mention of the "Frodo Lives!" phenomenon, which was "old news" even by the standards of the day...the article was from the swinging London mid-'60s, and this was redneck dumbfuckistan early-to-mid-'70s.

Several years and more than one world away.

But I kept searching, deeper I got into the Card Catalog the better what I found was. Learned which books/articles to ignore, which stuff was just a repeat of something I'd read already in another book or magazine.

This took weeks. Literally. This is why Google is all kinds of distressing nowadays. They're burying the good stuff under heaps of bullshit.

The only sin of the old librarians was to not update their Card Catalogs timely. You were limited in very PHYSICAL ways from easy paths to proper research.

It was only after these maddening weeks of hard-copy research that I found the address (from 1966!) of "The Tolkien Society" in England, which I mentioned in the last post about this staggeringly important issue. lulz.

We went to great lengths to find out even the barest of relevant information about the subjects we were researching. Being able to finally access College Libraries opened many doors that were previously closed, but still the difficulty in finding the resources would be substantial for years and years to come.

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dontcallpanic · 5 months ago

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hi there darling! I've got a pretty ask for you🩵

do you have any favorite quotes? why do you like them?

and, if you feel like they are incomplete or missing a bit, how would you complete them and why?

wish you a wonderful day and hope you're living the best life🫂🫂

Helo cariad! This is a pretty ask thank you SO much! You can definitely bet anything precious to you that this will be return served!

I have... Some... favourite quotes. I have a memory like a fish for them though so had to do some googling for ones I recognised. I've tried to cherry pick too for brevity!

They fall into three categories:

Proverbs/sayings

These are some of my favourites I have to admit!

Dod yn ôl at Fy Nghoed - which literally means coming back to my trees but on a deeper meaning is something like finding balanced/calm sense of mind! I love this one because i've had a number of lovely people say this to me at really important moments over the years. It really helps me find my 'roots!'

If ever tha does owt for nowt, do it for thisen - this an old yorkshire proverb which is quite famous but means if you ever do something for nothing, do it for yourself. Husbands family are deep yorkshire so I'm borrowing this one! Personally the way I interpret this is to be well, if you're going to do something for nothing, make sure you're enjoying it. Make sure it's something you care about, make sure it's worthwile to you. I mean this probably applies, even if you're getting something from it!

Words to live by

Dywed yn dda am dy gyfail, am dy elyn dywed ddim- This means speak well of your friend; of your enemy say nothing! There's an old matriarch of the village where I grew up who always said this to me. I really like it, not least because this way any enemies will never know what you're really up too and it's important to shout nice things about your friends.

Don't let the buggers get you down - my nain was a gentle firecracker of a woman and she ALWAYS said this to me. I stand by these words.

Fun/Book Quotes

Not all those who wander are lost (JRR Tolkien) - This is a favourite hobby of mine. Wandering and getting lost - but not really! But it works on multiple levels

It's still magic even if you know how it's done (Terry Pratchett - a Hat Full of Sky) - I love trying to keep that amazement alive. I have a social science research background, heavy on the science, but just becuase you can offer up an explanation for something, doesn't make it any less incredible. Plus, magic is awesome!

There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well I can't, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having (Terry Pratchett - I Shall Wear Midnight) - This comes back to hope for the future and control of my life which are two very important things! I try to remind myself of this whenever things feel shit or overwhelming.

Cymer Amser, Cymer Ofal. Take time, take care - I have this framed on a picture behind my desk. And I love it... link/credit below! Just pure words to live by - it reminds me to breathe and to have compassion - for others and myself.

I was thinking - and I know that this is a cop out but I don't think I would add to any of these quotes. But I will explain - I have a bad memory for quotes so I like the shorter ones, or the ones that get accross a snapshot or a vibe or a sense of something so that the emotion of it lingers with you even if the words don't. Becuase of that, I don't think I would change anything about these - I like them just the way they are, because they are the way they are!

I hope this does some kind of justice to your ask - sorry if it's a bit... endless... or boring!

@gege-wondering-around Sending you lots of sunshine and nice things and a day/week that's full of joy and all the things you need! I hope you are living the BEST life too! Take time, take care! Cariad mawr!

#nice asks #nice things for nice people #fun stuff #quotes #personal #you are just the nicest!#Your asks always get me thinking #I'm not sure how cohrent any of it is but it was SO fun to think about #don't even get me started on song lyrics!#nice things #Have a wonderful day #wonderful people

4 notes · View notes

shankhachil · 2 years ago

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I posted 1,612 times in 2022

277 posts created (17%)

1,335 posts reblogged (83%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@identitycrisis-electricboogaloo

@starcloud-nova

@zindagi-toh-bewafa-hai

@peevesiehasasideblog

I tagged 1,039 of my posts in 2022

Only 36% of my posts had no tags

#hagupost - 164 posts

#important - 70 posts

#kala bibhag - 66 posts

#me speaking - 55 posts

#top shelf - 38 posts

#omg - 12 posts

#lmao - 10 posts

#heartstopper - 10 posts

#banglar bhalobashaye - 10 posts

#inventory - 8 posts

Longest Tag: 136 characters

#anyway one of them randomly sent a message in our gc like “it's called footccer” and not having context it took me like. half an hour to

My Top Posts in 2022:

It’s not gay if a dog is there na?

13 notes - Posted April 22, 2022

homodbodhan

An article, somewhat. For day 11 of the Desi LGBT Fest 2022, prompt: “The first time you heard ‘gay’”.

I’m going to change this up a bit. I mean, not that I’m not going to tell you the first time I heard the word “gay”, but there’s some more that I want to talk about and I think this is a good chance to share it.

Okay, so first of all, the first time I heard “gay”. Actually, technically, that doesn’t count either, because, really, the first time I ever had a sensory experience of some sort with this word (and doesn’t that just sound wrong?) was from a book called Jobless Clueless Reckless by Revathi Suresh, when I was eight years old. I read the word “gay”. The book itself is YA, but age restrictions never had any meaning to me, since I was often left to my own devices by my parents. Well — I probably shouldn’t have been reading that book, since it’s a bit mature for an eight-year-old, but the point stands.

A phrase from the book went something like “(....) it’s like he’s determined to show the world he’s gay (....)”. It’s not the exact quote — I have the book in my shelf at home but I can’t be bothered to dig it out — but it’s close. The context, here, is that the narrator’s younger brother likes those beginner’s cross-stitching and knitting sets, and is proudly displaying his collection to the narrator’s crush.

You see the issue with the narration here, obviously. I’m sure you’re all thinking “casual homophobia” right now, and, yes, once I was old enough to understand what “gay” meant, I went back to this book and said “Yikes!” out loud when I came to this part.

But onwards. I went to my mother and asked her what “gay” meant. She said, “Don’t say such words, you’re not old enough,” and so for a few years I went around thinking that “gay” was a profane word.

And that was it for that. It was the first time I had read, and then heard, the word “gay” at all. But it doesn’t really count because I only understood what it meant three years later. I’ve mentioned in my last post for the Fest that I realized I was gay some months after Section 377 was abolished. It was (I also said) the first time I heard “gay” and actually wondered about what it meant. I was eleven years old, and I enjoyed seeing pictures of attractive men, and didn’t really understand what my friends (who were, looking back, perhaps a bit too mature for their age) meant when they called women “hot”.

I saw “gay” and I went on Google — or maybe Wikipedia — and I looked at what it meant. I read very thoroughly, actually. For a week, when my mother wasn’t actively making me study or go to table-tennis classes or what-have-you, I went onto the Internet on my iPad and researched the LGBTQ+ community like I’d never researched anything before.

I came out of it a changed boy. Obviously, for a few months, I didn’t realize I was gay, I never even considered the fact that I was attracted to men. It never even occurred to me that other boys I knew just... weren’t like me.

A few months later, I started really thinking about whether I was gay or not. It was at the back of my mind for a while. Sometimes I wouldn’t think about it, sometimes I would. More than a year went by like this. And then, in March of the year I turned thirteen, the COVID pandemic came to India. I had already had a lot of alone time — and this increased to almost ten or eleven hours a day. At this point, of course, I had begun to hit puberty, which, combined with the fact that I am decidedly not asexual, led to the development of some... urges. You know what I mean. It feels weird to talk about it since it was so recent. If I’d been in, say, my thirties, I could probably have talked about it more freely, perhaps with a laugh, a look how dumb I was. But I am far from being in my twenties, let alone my thirties, and so I will not elaborate — much.

Skipping the fine details, I will say here that I discovered at thirteen that straight porn did absolutely nothing, and gay porn did everything for me.

Seventh grade, though, had brought my first crush, Who was a girl, and also my best friend. This made things difficult.

So, instead of saying I was gay, I came out to that best friend (who obviously didn’t know I liked her) as bisexual. And that was officially the first label I applied to myself. It was wonderful. These days, to avoid having to explain my full identity, I say I’m bisexual to most people. Most of them don’t ask further.

Fast-forward two more years to now. I discovered that I am demiromantic and homosexual. More labels.

Labels. Probably the most interesting thing that humans have invented — little words that tell you what kind of person a person is, what they do, who they love, where they’re from. All for the uniquely-Homo sapiens purpose of classification. We cannot live without categorizing people into kinds. Detrimental sometimes, yes, but, at its core, one of the most fascinating things about human psychology.

To be honest, before I discovered different kinds of labels, I never really knew anything about myself. I mean... I did, just not actively. The fact that I am Indian, or Bengali, or, for that matter, a boy, never really set itself in my mind very concretely. I never thought about it as much as some people seem to do.

I think that labels are the thing that have helped me most on my journey of self-discovery. Not meditation, or reading, or love interests, but labels. Everything I’ve ever known about myself has been from seeing a word, thinking about it, and going, is this me?

So, back again to the first time I heard the word “gay”. The first time I experienced the word “gay”. The time I came out as bisexual. The eleventh of June, 2022, as I write this post.

If any of these had not happened, I wouldn’t know who I am or where I am as accurately and clearly as I know now.

Thank you, then, to Revathi Suresh, the Supreme Court, my friend M, and you all. As all the stars say — wouldn’t be here without you.

***

@desi-lgbt-fest

19 notes - Posted June 11, 2022

I am SOOO jealous of the economics students in my grade rn they only have two papers in group II and the rest of the science students and I have to write four because SOMEONE in CISCE decided that physics chemistry and biology are three papers of one subject

24 notes - Posted May 1, 2022

BYE I JUST FOUND OUT THE INFINITE NOISE IS BASED ON A PODCAST HELLO GIRL THIS IS ALL I’M GOING TO LISTEN TO FOR THE NEXT 5 YEARS

36 notes - Posted May 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

চিঠি (Letter)

A letter in Bangla, followed by its translation in English. For Day 7 of the Desi LGBT Fest 2022.

০৭/০৬/২০২২ কলকাতা

হয়তো, যখন অবশেষে তুমি এই চিঠি খুলবে, তখন তোমার জীবন পুরো দমে চালু হয়ে গিয়ে থাকবে। হয়তো তুমি জোরটা পেয়েছ তোমার গল্পগুলো পৃথিবীকে খুলে দেখাতে পেরেছ; হয়তো তোমার মনের মধ্যে জাদুর, প্রেমের, আশার দুনিয়াগুলো কাগজের উপর, বা সাদা ডকিউমেন্টে প্রকাশ করেছ। বা, হয়তো, তুমি এই কলেজে ঢুকেছ, কে জানে, আই.আই.টি. দিল্লী যেমন তুমি চেয়েছিলে, বা ইয়েল, বিশ্বের ওই প্রান্তরে, আঠারো বছর পরে মা-বাবার থেকে ৮০০০ কিলোমিটার দূরে। তুমি কী পড়ছ? অথবা কী পড়েছ? অঙ্ক? নাকি ভাষাতত্ত্ব; একা একটা স্বপ্ন দেখে পরিবারের কথা না শুনে বেরিয়ে গেছ?

তুমি প্রচুর বাধার সাথে মুখামুখি হয়েছ। আরও বাধা আসবে; তা ছারা জীবনই বৃথা। তবে তুমি পারবে। আমার দৃঢ় বিশ্বাস তুমি পারবে। তুমি এতো কিছু ঝেলেছ − আমি জানি। আমি জানি যে তুমি ক্লান্ত হয়েছ, হচ্ছ, হবে। কিন্তু তোমাকে চলতেই হবে।

২০১৮। ৩৭৭ ধারা অসাংবিধানিক শাসিত হয়েছে। তুমি কাগজের উপরে বড়-বড় করে দেখছ লেখা আছে একটা ইংরেজি শব্দ − গে, গে, গে। এ কী জিনিস, তুমি ভাবছ। ইন্টারনেটে কোনও বাধা নেই। এই দেখো গে মানে কী − আর এবার তুমি ভাবতে শুরু করো, আমি গে নাকি? এভাবেই তুমি নিজেকে নিয়ে অনেক কিছু শিখেছ, আর এভাবেই, ভেবে-ভেবে, তুমি বোঝো, আমি সন্দেহ ছারা গে।

আর আস্তে, আস্তে, তুমি এটাও বোঝো যে পাশে বন্ধু ছারা, এই যুদ্ধ জেতা যাবেনা।

তুমি আমার থেকে বয়সে বড়। তোমার নিশ্চয়ই বুদ্ধি বেশি, অনেক কিছু দেখেছ, কতজনকে চেনো এবং আলাপ করেছ তা তো অসঙ্খ্য। কিন্তু − তাদেরকে ভুলোনা যারা তোমার জীবনের সবচেয়ে কষ্টের মুহূর্তে তোমার পাশে ছিল। ওই তিনটে বন্ধু − হ্যাঁ, ওরা − ওদেরকে ছেরোনা। আমি জানিনা, সম্ভাবত তোমরা আর কথা বলোনা। তবুও ভুলে যেওনা। আর এটাও ভুলে যেওনা যে তুমি আলাদা। সারা পৃথিবী তোমাকে সন্দেহজনক মনে করে। তোমার আত্মিক পূর্বপুরুষরা তোমার অধিকারের জন্যে লড়েছে। তুমি ভারতীয়; তুমি সমকামী। তোমার নিজের আত্মা স্মৃতি ভর্তি। তুমি এই ধর্ম-পাগল দেশে বেঁচেছ, যদিও কখনও মনে হয়েছে তোমার নিঃশ্বাস যেন যে কোনও সময় বন্ধ হয়ে যাবে, কারণ চারই দিক, না, ছয় দিক, সামনে-পিছনে-ডান-বাম-উপর-নিচে থেকে তোমার দেশ তোমার শ্বাসরোধ করছে। তবুও, যদি তুমি এই চিঠি পড়ছ, তুমি আশা রেখেছ। নিজেকে দুর্বল মনে করোনা। তোমার পুরো জীবন তোমার সামনে আছে। শক্তি রাখো। তোমার যৌবনকাল প্রমান করে যে তোমার আছে।

ছেলেরা আসবে, যাবে, থাকবে, চলে যাবে। তুমি পড়েছ তো। নইলে এতোগুলো প্রেমের উপন্যাস পড়ার কী মানে ছিল? একটু তো সত্যতা আছে প্রত্যেকটি গল্পে। আমি আবার বলব: আমি জানিনা। কী জানি, হয়তো তোমার আছে একজন। একটা অসাধারণ ছেলে। রোজ দেখো তাকে, রোজ ভাবো তুমি ওর মতো একটা মানুষের যোগ্য হলে কিভাবে। আর ও যদি তোমাকে একই ভাবে আদর করে, এটা নিয়ে নিশ্চিন্ত হও যে ও তোমাকে এভাবেই দেখে।

জানিনা, এই পত্র যখন খুলবে, তখন তুমি তোমার স্বপ্নের মতো বেঁচে উঠতে পেরেছ কি না। যাই হক না কেন − উঠে আসো; দাঁড়াও; বেরোও। অনেকজন তোমায় ভালোবাসে। তুমি কখনও একা থাকবেনা।

তোমার অপেক্ষা করা হচ্ছে। তুমি কিসের অপেক্ষা করছ?

− ইতি, অনেক বছর আগেকার তুমি

***

07/06/2022 Kolkata

Maybe, when you finally open this letter, your life will have started for real. Maybe you’ve found the courage to openly show the world your stories; maybe you’ve expressed the worlds of magic, love, hope in your mind on paper, or blank documents. Or, maybe, you’ve just entered college, who knows, IIT Delhi like you always wanted, or Yale, on the other side of the world, 8000 kilometers away from Ma and Baba after eighteen years. What are you studying? Or, what have you studied? Maths? Or linguistics; alone, following a dream, ignoring your family’s advice, have you set off?

You’ve faced many difficulties. More will come; life is pointless without them. But you can do it. I daresay you can do it. You’ve dealt with so much — I know. I know you were, are, will be tired. But you have to go on.

2018. Section 377 has just been ruled unconstitutional. You see one English word written in big letters in the headlines — gay, gay, gay. The Internet has no limits. Look, this is what gay means — and now you begin to wonder, am I gay? You’ve learnt so much about yourself this way, and just so, having thought much, you realize, I am, without doubt, gay.

And, slowly, you realize this too: that without friends, this war cannot be won.

You’re older than me. You’re definitely smarter, you’ve seen so much, and you know countless people and have met infinitely many. But — don’t forget those who were beside you in your life’s worst moments. Those three friends — yes, them — don’t leave them. I don’t know, maybe you don’t talk to them anymore. Still, don’t forget them. And don’t forget this, either: you’re different. The whole world suspects you. Your spiritual forefathers fought for your rights. You are Indian; you are homosexual. Your own soul is full of memories. You have survived this country of religious fanaticism, even though it has seemed, sometimes, that you will suffocate at any moment, because from all four directions, no, six, from front-back-left-right-up-down your country is choking you. If you are reading this letter, then you have kept up hope. Don’t consider yourself weak. Your whole life is in front of you. Have strength. Your youth proves that you possess it.

Boys will come, go, stay, leave. You’ve read about it. Otherwise, what was the point of all those romance novels? There’s definitely a grain of truth to every story. I will say again: I don’t know. Perhaps you already have someone. An extraordinary boy. You see him every day, and each day you think, how did you manage to deserve someone like him? And if he loves you as much as you love him, rest assured that he sees you the same way.

Who knows if, when you open this letter, you have managed to live as you always dreamt. In any case — rise; stand up; come out. You are loved by many. You will never be alone.

You are awaited — what are you waiting for?

Yours, From years in the past, you

***

@desi-lgbt-fest

53 notes - Posted June 7, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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pyrrhicpaths · 2 years ago

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* important headcanons to consider.

can they use chopsticks : Yes. She’s pretty good at using them to pick up individual food pieces, though she struggles a little when eating noodles in broth haha.

what do they do when they can’t sleep : Lately Kyrie suffers from insomnia and the occasional night terrors because of her anxiety and trauma over the years. She used to rely on meditating, tea (her favourite flavours being chamomile and lavender), and some essential oils (lavender again) to help her, but most recently she finds overworking herself physically is a better faster way to conk out. At ungodly hours, one may find her cleaning the kitchen or the garage, or chopping firewood in the backyard. It all sort of helps relieve a bit of her stress, too.

what would they impulse buy at the grocery store : Nothing. She’s real good at managing money and not getting more than what the household needs, mostly because she isn’t very materialistic and generally dislikes the idea of buying things she doesn’t immediately need to use.

HOWEVER, she will ‘impulse buy’ for others-- like if she’s shopping with her three boys, or Nero and Nico, or whomever else-- and they show even the slightest interest in a random trinket/food/item, she will end up buying for them because she wants to make them happy.

what order do they wash things in the shower :

First she makes sure the shower water is hot enough (to open pores, rid the body of oil, and overall relaxes her) and takes care to avoid getting water on her face while she bathes.

Then comes shampooing her hair, only using conditioner about once a month because she thinks her hair is oily enough as it is.

While she leaves her hair sudsy, she scrubs her whole body down with soap, and then lets the water fully rinse her off. Once all the suds are gone, she turns on the cool water to seal the pores.

She then uses a gentle face scrub and finally lets the cold water clean her face before she towels off.

Moisturizing her face and body happens before she puts on her clothes.

what’s their coffee order : Coffee or chocolate drinks aren’t something she often consumes, so it’ll always be hot herbal tea for her without sugar/sweetener, or a honey tea latte. Sometimes she’ll indulge and order an iced matcha green tea drink, extra matcha powder (for more caffeine and flavour), less sugar/sweetener (or honey only).

what sort of apps would they have on their smartphone : Whatever messaging app is being used by everyone. Her kids have also convinced her to get Snapc.hat because she often prefers taking pictures to show to others instead of sending messages (plus she is very amused by the funny filters and loves using them in selfies with her friends). An app for note-taking that also has the option to record audios. The camera app. Her internet browser perpetually has 20+ tabs open because of all the research and googling she does (at least 9 tabs are about demons; maybe 3 are just random pop-up ads that she pays no mind to).

how do they act around children : Kyrie is Absolute Mom. Loves children so much, and loves caring for them-- often getting real protective, too. She helps run an orphanage, okay, everyone knows how great she is with them.

what would they watch on tv when they’re bored and nothing they really like is on : Whatever channels have little to nothing displayed visually but are playing music. Often times it’s the weather channel, sometimes it’s various ‘radio’ channels (she mostly sticks to ones that play instrumental/classical/orchestral music, but she does get interested in some modern pop music so she’ll listen to those now and again). Kyrie’s never bored; she’ll always find something to fixate on if she doesn’t already have a busy schedule, and the music is just for background noise.

tagged by: stolen from the old blog LOL

tagging: @guardianlost even tho i totally stole this from ur old blog too, @amicitiaeclipse, @leidemechanic, @hartofbalamb (or any of ur other muses!), @florafound

#About || Kyrie #HC || Kyrie

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muttsmischiefacademysblog · 1 year ago

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Change the world for one dog

Audio link - 8 mins 40 secs https://youtu.be/3vYhLr0e3SU?si=1Z_Ep-Z9TaOL8Uz2

This will be a series of blogs as it is just far too long to keep to one blog.

As someone with compassion fatigue I wanted to explore this and how both we as professionals and guardians can do better. I believe the solution is that people begin to see the care of dogs as the same standard of care for a child.

Many people strive to be the best parents that they can be and will find someone that they look up to, to guide them through this journey whether that's parenting books or television shows. When people find out that this person was actually sharing harmful information, parents are understandably upset by this.

I see the same in the dog world, harmful information is more rife now than ever before, we aren't just fighting against television but also YouTube and all social media channels. We aren't just guiding guardians away from rubbish on Google, but trying so hard to protect them from every angle that is harmful.

Many guardians believe that they are doing everything correctly and they actually probably are doing their absolute best. How do I know this beyond opinion? Good question. Good old research and journals. Viewing this cross sectionally as I feel this is really important, I will be looking at two papers specifically, one from 2019 (pre TikTok and covid) and one from this year.

Animal Welfare is complex and those of you who follow my posts know that with the Animal Welfare Act 2006 just how complicated this really is. We know that there are huge failings for animals all across the world but specifically the UK which doesn't police its own laws, but I digress.

So the 2019 paper (1) expresses that dog welfare is multifaceted and multidisciplinary, there are so many factors to take into account when exploring this subject such as economic, scientific, psychological, biological, philosophical, social, cultural, political as well as consequential. (2)

There are so many things to consider when bringing a dog into your life. As can be seen by the photo of Koda and Diesel, once upon a time (5 years ago) I wrote out a hypothetical budget for the cost of a puppy or dog. This would be three times the amount now.

Back in 2019 it was estimated that 26% of the population shared their home with a dog. We now know how much this has increased post covid to double this amount standing now at 53% of the population across the UK.

As I explored in my Five freedoms blog series we can see how difficult it truly is to define good welfare standards, as we saw when animal welfare was becoming a need in the UK that the paradigms were very different to what we see today where it is now accepted that dog welfare should be viewed with a scientific approach as a measure of the welfare standards.

Veterinary care was an easy tool for researchers to use as a measure of dog welfare standards as this can be seen by statistics, measured and observed objectively. The second way to learn about dog welfare is through neuropsychological approach and the third being the dog's affective state. Welfare is not something that can be done to someone but is a state of being.

If a dog enjoys a positive state of welfare it is generally considered that all three aspects of the welfare considerations are applied to ensure the dog's positive welfare status. (4)

Animal Welfare and companion dog psychology are relatively new sciences that are also not fully understood clearly. It is also viewed as disordered and lacking boundaries too. Which makes it complicated mixed with the philosophical considerations of what truly constitutes good animal welfare. Especially as dogs are unfortunately seen as how they benefit society and humans. (5)

Unbelievably there is extensive guidance on dog welfare specifically for charities, councils and the law to best advise guardians how to care for dogs but sadly as we see with most things this is due to being produced by those who have a stakeholder in dog welfare. So it can be argued that there is much evidence out there for education for dog guardians and it has been argued that dog guardians simply disregard this information and learning resources. (6)

However as a behaviourist I would in fact argue that information is not readily available and is in fact gate kept. I know this as fact, many journals and peer reviewed papers we have to pay a considerable amount of money for. They are also not user friendly for everyone, being in battle with one currently for not being user friendly for neurodivergent readers.

We also know this from my previous post referencing the policing laws for the UK concerning dogs which you can read here. 📸 Look at this post on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/100057373879884/posts/740670534522069/?d=n&mibextid=WC7FNe

It has also been argued that schools have a duty of care to teach animal welfare as a part of the curriculum. (7) However we know that the Animal Welfare is simply not policed nor governed unless in the most tragic and awful of cases, where animals have to come to extreme harm before anything is done.

References

Philpotts, I., Dillon, J. and Rooney, N. (2019). Improving the Welfare of Companion Dogs—Is Owner Education the Solution? Animals, [online] 9(9), p.662. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/ani9090662. ‌Bayvel A.C.D., Cross N. Animal Welfare: A Complex Domestic and International Public-Policy Issue—Who Are the Key Players? JVME. 2010;37:3–12. doi: 10.3138/jvme.37.1.3.

Yeates J.W., Main D.C. Veterinary surgeons’ opinions on dog welfare issues. J. Small Anim. Pr. 2011;52:464–468. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-5827.2011.01095.x.

Fraser D. Animal behaviour, animal welfare and the scientific study of affect. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 2009;118:108–117. doi: 10.1016/j.applanim.2009.02.020.

Belshaw Z., Asher L., Harvey N.D., Dean R.S. Quality of life assessment in domestic dogs: An evidence-based rapid review. Vet. J. 2015;206:203–212. doi: 10.1016/j.tvjl.2015.07.016.

PDSA PDSA Animal Wellbeing (PAW) Report 2016. [(accessed on 23 August 2019)]; Available online: https://www.pdsa.org.uk/get-involved/our-campaigns/pdsa-animal-wellbeing-report/past-reports

RSPCA Call for Animal Welfare in Education. [(accessed on 28 August 2019)]; Available online: https://www.rspca.org.uk/whatwedo/education/action

Image description: A grey comic book panel with two windows. The title is “We can change the world for one dog” underneath the subtext says muttsnmischief.com

The first window is of a grey and cream Wolfdog sitting on a spaceship looking out of the window at the galaxy and different planets. But looking back into the ship with her head over her shoulder.

Second window: a mint green background with a shaded green category circle. Within the categories are sleep, with a grey wolf dog sleeping on a pink bed.

A Wheelchair user with their back to the screen playing the chair game with a cream and grey wolfdog with the category title of "Time to train new protocols."

A category called "diet" with the sodapup honeycomb slow feeder with raw food in the centre with vegetables, fish, liver and eggs in the outer of the bowl.

A Vet with blonde short hair, white medical coat and green scrubs stood with a dark grey and tan Wolfdog with the category "vet check".

A category called opportunities for mental enrichment with a dark grey and tan Wolfdog behind an xpen fence, within a Doggy Enrichment Land. A green wall with the bottom of a picture frame and a music speaker. There is a destruction box filled with balls, a Kong, a lickimat, a snuffle mat, an orange bed, a bone, an ostrich twist and a loose ball.

The last category is "Keep a journal" with a lined journal with green edges and rainbow dividers.

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what-even-is-thiss · 2 years ago

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I have linked to a free version of each of these texts if I could find them. Keep in mind though that if a translation is free it's usually old enough to have lost its copyright and is therefore pretty out of date and harder to read. If you want a smoother reading experience of any of these texts I'd suggest googling the most recent English translation and buying a copy of that.

This is not a comprehensive list by any means. To me it's just stuff that's good to be familiar with because it's still having a large impact on culture today. If you have any other recommendations please add them.

Ancient Mesopotamia:

The poetry of Enheduanna, the earliest credited author we have records of. She was a priestess of the goddess Inanna and her poetry is hymns to the goddess in question as well as functionally political propaganda for her father who was king of the region at the time.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, the earliest written epic poem we have on record. It tells the story of a demigod king losing his best friend and going on a quest to try and achieve immortality to avoid the same fate.

Ancient Greece:

The Iliad by Homer tells the story of how the hero Achilles led to the end of the Trojan war. It notoriously has entire chapters composed entirely of lists but other than that it's good I promise.

The Odyssey by Homer tells the story of the ten year journey home of the hero Odysseus after the Trojan war. This is a text claimed by many to be just as important as the bible in terms of its impact on western literature.

The poetry of Sappho of Lesbos, called by many to be "the tenth muse". Her poetry is unusual for the time because she speaks about herself as the subject of her poetry. She's often considered to be important today because of her poetry about openly lusting for other women. Although she was very popular in her time, very few of her poems survive because the dialect she wrote in fell out of fashion.

Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles, also known as the three Theben Plays. Together, these plays tell the tragedy of the Greek hero Oedipus and the aftermath of his death on his children.

Ancient Rome:

The Aeneid by Virgil continues the story of Troy from where the Greek epics carry off from the Trojan perspective, following Rome's founding hero hero Aeneas and his journey to Italy.

Metamorphosis by Ovid is a poetic collection of short stories from Roman mythology with an anti-authoritarian bend. Ovid retells Greek myths from a Roman perspective, and from the perspective of a man who hates authority living in a time where a republic is being replaced by a monarchy.

Ancient China:

The Poetry of Li Bai. A controversial man in his own time in the Tang dynasty who was kicked out of many courts and was married four times. His poetry has a lot of beautiful imagery in it that modern poets from all over the world still take inspiration from.

The poetry of Du Fu, also known as Tu Fu, is another great poet of the Tang dynasty. His poetry is more personal than that of Li Bai, who was his contemporary, and he is sometimes also considered an early historian.

The Analects of Confucius is a series of sayings and lecture notes gathered by the students of the philosopher Confucius. The philosophy in these works still has an impact on cultural values in many Asian countries to this day.

Ancient India:

The Vedas are a series of texts sacred to Hinduism. Although important, they are so long that I can't in good conscience tell you to read the whole thing. So here is a small selection of quotes from the university of Hawaii's intro to Asian philosophy course and I invite you to do your own research after that.

Shakuntala by Kalidasa is a play that tells the story of a woman who is cursed to be forgotten by her husband for a small slight she committed. Kalidasa is extremely pro-monarchy but he wants monarchs to be good, so this play serves as a moral example for the upper classes.

Hala's Sattasai is an ancient Indian collection of various love poems. Only recently translated into English. And I am personally very glad for that because they are lovely.

I think that these are a good place to get you started if you want to actually read this stuff instead of just reading summaries. There's an endless well of fragments and other texts you can jump into if you like, but these are, in my opinion, the basics. I hope you find something here that you like.

Would people be interested in a reading list of classic ancient world literature for beginners I'm kinda in the mood to infodump

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theneuralnet · 7 years ago

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Inside Waymo’s strategy to grow the best brains for self-driving cars

Waymo, the self-driving unit of Alphabet, is the only company in the world to have fully driverless vehicles on public roads today.

The company asserts that its cars have the most advanced brains on the road today thanks to a head start in AI investment, strategic acquisitions by sister company Google, and a close working relationship with the tech giant's in-house team of AI researchers

Waymo's engineers are modeling how cars recognize objects in the road, how human behavior affects how cars should behave, and they're using deep learning to interpret, predict, and respond to data accumulated from 6 million miles driven on public and 5 billion driven in simulation.

In March, a 49-year-old woman was struck and killed by a self-driving Uber vehicle while crossing the street in Tempe, Arizona.

A few weeks later, the owner of a Tesla Model X died in a gruesome crash while using Autopilot, the automaker’s semi-autonomous driver assist system

Meanwhile, the public is growing increasingly skeptical of the safety of driverless vehicles

In the midst of all this uncertainty, Waymo invited me out to its headquarters in Mountain View, California, for a series of in-depth interviews with the company's top humans in artificial minds.

ImageNet

ImageNet started as a poster from Princeton University researchers, displayed at a 2009 conference on computer vision and pattern recognition in Florida

It grew into an image dataset, then a competition to see who could identify the most images with lowest error rate

Around 2011, the error rate was about 25 percent, meaning one in four images were being identified incorrectly by the teams' algorithms

A big shift was going from neural nets that were quite shallow (two or three layers) to the deep nets (double-digit layers)

The biggest breakthrough was in 2012, when AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton and his two graduate students, Ilya Sutskever and Alex Krizhevsky, showed a new way to attack the problem: a deep convolutional neural network to the ImageNet Challenge that could detect pictures of everyday objects

This led to Google acquiring Hinton’s company DNNresearch

Problems emerged almost immediately: the new system was making too many errors, mislabeling cars, traffic signals, and pedestrians

Google began applying the technique to other parts of the project including prediction and planning

Other car and tech companies have already caught on to the importance of machine learning, and Waymo's data may be too specific to extrapolate to a global scale.

AI and machine learning are essential to self-driving cars, but how long can they last?

A natural consequence of improvements in AI is that big head-starts like Waymo’s are less significant as they have been

Each additional mile that Waymo accrues needs to be interesting for it to be relevant to the process of training the neural networks

Dolgov is sitting in one of X's conference rooms, whiteboard marker in hand, MacBook Pro splayed before him, asking me to describe to him the difference between Garfield and Odie.

Before I can stammer out a reply, Dolgov keeps going: "If I give you a picture, and I ask you "is it a cat or a dog," you will know very quickly."

This type of question is well-suited for deep learning algorithms

It's one thing to come up with a bunch of basic rules and parameters, but teaching a computer to distinguish between different types of traffic signs is much easier

Waymo uses an automated process and human labelers to train its neural nets

After they've been trained, these giant datasets also need to be pruned and shrunk so they can be deployed in the real world in Waymo's vehicles

This process, akin to compressing a digital image, is key building the infrastructure to scale to a global system.

The Future of AI

The future of AI at Waymo isn't sentient vehicles. It's in cutting-edge research like automated machine learning, in which the process of building machine learning models is automated.

Waymo uses Google's data centers to train its neural nets, using a high-powered cloud computing hardware system called "tensor processing units."

Information Source: The Verge

#Tech #AI #ComVis #Google

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phantomtutor · 2 years ago

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SOLUTION AT Academic Writers Bay basically pick a place and then make 10 questions it goes into detail below if you would like to do this order i will be having several more after based off this one after we complete this one. Please submit the name of your family archetype and 10 questions that you have about your family archetype that you want to research either through personal interviews with family members or through the PCC Library and databases or through Google Scholar. To explain this process to you, I will just copy and paste information from other documents that are available to you on Canvas. First of all, here is an PARAGRAPH FROM the Family Archetype Essay instructions that includes a description of the family archetype. Your first job is to select some family object or place that is significant to you and/or to your family. This can include any of the following: a photo; any object from your childhood home; your childhood home itself; a piece of jewelry or any art work; a flower, plant, or tree; an article of clothing; your own or your fathers/mothers grammar school; your local church; your neighborhood park; a family heirloom; a favorite family vacation spot; an automobile, bicycle, bus stop, train junction, etc.; a family hero/heroine; an official document, etc. The object or place you select does not have to be listed on this sheet. These are only suggestions. Look specifically for an object or place that reflects important aspects of your familys psychological, ethnic, and/or cultural history. You may also choose an object or place that has influenced your familys history (a particular freeway; a major league sports team, a theme park, a local festival). We will call this object, place, hero/heroine your family archetype. Here is an PARAGRAPH FROM “Tips For Choosing Your Family Archetype and For Writing Questions and Themes” that gives a further description of the archetype and also of how to create 10 questions. So, what kind of object, place, or occasion do you need to choose? First and foremost, you need to choose an object, place, occasion that is very meaningful to you. This is the most important factor. Some examples of successful objects or places are a family rug that a student inherited from his grandfather; a gold chain or prayer beads that students received from grandparents; an old camera given to a student by her father when she was fourteen; a wedding picture of a students parents taken in Mexico; a photo taken in Vietnam before a students grandmother emigrated to the U.S.; a theme park in South Korea that was a students family vacation spot; a doll that a student was given by her father; a prom dress one student wore that was made by her mother for her mothers prom in Mexico; a painting on the living room wall of one students home; a pet a student had as a child that was adopted from an animal shelter; a series of childrens books that one student read as a child, etc. Other successful family archetypes were a students grandfathers bracero worker documents; an annual cultural festival in Alhambra that a student attended annually with her parents; a students local church that three generations of her family attended; a summer camp one student attended many years through grammar school and middle school; a basketball program that two generations of a students family participated in, etc. As you can see, there are many different possibilities. So, what makes for a successful family archetype? You need to pick an object, place, event, etc. that is meaningful to you and that can be researched. Remember, you have to be able to research social, historical, commercial, sociological, cultural, popular aspects of the archetype. So, the student who chose the wedding picture of her parents in Mexico researched wedding photography in Mexico during the decade her parents wedding photo was taken. She also researched wedding ceremonies and wedding attire in Mexico during that period. She also looked at the rate of divorce in Mexico and the US during that time period.

The student who chose the rug that his grandfather gave him researched imported oriental rugs in the mid-west; symbols on Armenian rugs; the rug business in Chicago and California during the 1970s, etc. The student who chose the family dog that was adopted when he was a child researched characteristics of the dog breed that he had; the history of the humane society shelters; the psychological importance of pets, etc. One student who chose a series of books researched that series by name, the impact on children of being introduced to literature at a young age, art in childrens books, etc. Another student chose his uncles charro outfit, and he researched the history of the charro costume, the history of the charro tradition, the contrast with the Western cowboy, etc. So you can see that the three themes develop from the archetype itself and from its cultural, historical, regional, commercial, popular, educational, psychological, and sociological significance. How do I write ten questions about the archetype? The questions come out of your curiosity about the archetype itself. But you also have to expand your curiosity and your imagination about the archetype to look at its broader significance within history, your city or community, the culture, popular trends, and in its sociological, artistic, psychological, or popular significance. It might be helpful to discuss your archetype with your group so that your group can contribute some ideas about larger issues concerning your archetype. Look at Section C above and notice the themes that students eventually chose. So you have to imagine your archetype having a place not just in your own personal life, but in your family, in your culture, in history, in your educational process, in your development, in a particular time period, etc. If you pick a neighborhood park as your family archetype, some questions might be: How did my family and I spend time at the park? What activities did we engage in? How often did we go there? When was the park built? Why was it built? What is the history of the park locally? Are there newspaper articles about any of the activities or events held at the park? Was the park safe for me and for my family? What is the history of city parks in California or in LA County? (this is quite an interesting topic) How do city parks improve family life? CLICK HERE TO GET A PROFESSIONAL WRITER TO WORK ON THIS PAPER AND OTHER SIMILAR PAPERS CLICK THE BUTTON TO MAKE YOUR ORDER

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ochipi · 2 years ago

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Why I (an archaeologist) don’t watch archaeological documentaries (warning loooong post).

I never doubt the local archaeologists who have to hang around in the background for good measure, but I have no need for a pretends-to-know-what-he’s-talking-about-presenter because production is too lazy to translate say Spanish or Arabic

Archaeology exist in two ways. Field archeo and desk archeo. No archaeologist, no matter how skilled he/she/they/them is, has the skill to do a full explanational analysis of everything he finds that day on the spot. They’re repeating old research and proposing possibilities. You have to wait until the comparative desk research and analysis is complete before you can say anything with confidence.

Once you notice it, you can’t unsee it. Have you heard anything in the news about a NatGeo archaeological dig being the big breakthrough? Just google the place or subject they’re “digging”, and as much as nothing will show up. That’s because the real results are either not as exiting (to the untrained eye), the results are simply not finished yet or they just filmed for a few days on site, put a story on it and called it a day. You can’t tell me that Thebes or Chichén Itzá is only being researched just once every three years or something.

I rather hear the local archaeology professor who’s spent their entire carrier on this site or subject than a whitewashing outsider

Archaeology doesn’t centre around Mayan kings, Egyptian pyramids or King Arthur. I’m more exited to hear about everyday life from a site or location I’ve never heard of before

Too many special effects? Field archaeology is expensive but everyone involved except for the field archaeologist wants to save money on everything. It’s not how real life works

STOP SAYING A SITE IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE YOU FOUND “TREASURES”!!! Archaeologists hype just as much on intact podzol or tertiary soil

“Wait until the scientists see this” is the one phrase that kills me every time. Archaeology is a science thank you very much (logos: Ancient Greek, meaning “science” boom. Knowledge drop). We’re not just university graded swimming pool diggers! Oh wait…

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nickyhemmick · 4 years ago

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A Very Stressed American Jew here again,

Hi! Thank you for taking the time to respond to my ask and yes, I’m someone who loves hearing as many perspectives as possible so I’d love some sources from you. I also very much appreciate the fact you are being very careful to only reblog posts that are anti Israel, not antisemetic (which is frankly a breath of fresh air, the internet has been a bit exhaustingly full of both antisemitic & Islamaphobic content these past feel days as I bet you’ve seen)

I’ve also been to Israel on a Birthright trip. We met people who ( both Palestinian and Israeli) on various sides of the conflict and learned a ton about it, from both perspectives which I was lucky to have the opportunity to do. We even went a little into the Gaza Strip to talk to these people running a pro Palestine peace movement and it was so important to me hearing those stories.

I never said they were on equal footing militarily, they definitely are not, Israel definitely has that advantage. But you are incorrect about Israel always being the aggressor since 1948,they’ve defended themselves about as often as they’ve attacked. Isreal is a small country comparatively to the ones surrounding it, so it makes sense it defends itself heavily in case of an attack.

I 100% agree that there are too many people who are compliant with the mistreatment of many Palestinians! I’m not anti #freepalestine at all! I get why that is a thing. But I also stand with Israel( but that does not mean I condone every action they take. ) Overall I think the situation is extremely complicated and some sort of compromise should be reached.

It’s just been very frustrating to see so many people reblog things on a situation just bashing Israel because so many others are doing it. Especially when then don’t know what they are talking about or using big buzz words that they don’t know what they mean, or spreading misinformation. It’s been on both sides and has been very very draining. I just want peace and some sort of solution. It makes me extremely happy you know what you are talking about and can debate politely yet happily about it. The internet has been so ‘ either agree with me 100% or you a bad person’ about this so it’s refreshing to see you are not like that.

I’ve done a lot of research into it from as many perspectives as I can get my hands on.

Some extremest Israelis are hurting Palestinians

Some extremest Palestinians are hurting Israelis

Both sides are throwing rockets at each other and it’s terrifying.

Both sides claim the other side is brainwashed

There is so much biased propaganda out there on both ends it’s hard to know what is truly happening.

I know people living in Israel who have sent me videos they’ve taken of rockets flying over there heads and I’m so scared for them. I’m so scared for all the innocent people caught in the crossfire on both sides.

Thank you for a more nuanced response and I’d love some of your sources,

A Very Stressed American Jew

Hi anon,

I wasn’t going to respond to this until after my math final tomorrow but I’ve spent the past two days thinking of your ask and the things I wish to articulate in my answer.

I am going to start here: how can you say you support Israel but say you are also pro-free Palestine (as in, you said you are not anti free Palestine). In my opinion, these two ideas cannot coexist. Simply because, the entire establishment of Israel has been on violent, racist, colonial grounds.

(Super long post under here guys)

You said you don’t support all Israel’s actions, and definitely, just because you support something doesn’t mean you can’t criticize it. However, in my opinion, if you do not support Israel’s actions against Palestinians there’s not much left to support? I admit this is a very biased view as I am Palestinian, but many things that people support about Israel have existed before its creation: as in, these are things and qualities that have existed in Judaism and are not due to “Israeli culture.” There is no Israeli culture. There’s Jewish culture--100%. But there is no Israeli culture, because Israel does not only steal Palestinian land, but Palestinian culture, too. Such as claiming Levant food is Israeli; hummus, ful, falafel, shawarma. I mentioned food from this article I know is culturally and traditionally of the Levant, and has been for centuries, it is not something that has come to culinary creation in the past 73 years.

I do not think this is a complicated issue. I said that in the previous ask and I’ll say that again. Saying it is a complicated issue is trivializing the deaths of innocent Palestinians, the violent dispossession our ancestors endured, and the apartheid they live under. I hope if anything comes from this discussion it is you removing the “it’s a complicated issue” phrase from your vernacular.

This is not complicated. A journalist reporting the death of martyrs only to discover that of them include two of his brothers is not complicated. The asymmetry of Israel vs Palestinian armed forces is not complicated, nor is the asymmetry in Israeli vs Palestinian suffering (which I will get to later). It is not complicated. Destroying the graves of martyred Palestinians (or just in general, the graves of the dead) is not complicated. Little children being pulled from the rubble, children being forced to comfort one another as they are covered in the ashes of their decimated homes, attacking unarmed citizens in peaceful demonstrations (you can find videos before this attack where they were playing with kites and balloons), destroying an international media office and refusing to allow journalists to retrieve the work they are spending every waking hour documenting but claiming it was because it was a hide out for a “Hamas base,” fathers who are trying to cheer their frightened children up only to end up dead the next day, while many Israeli have the privilege and the option to go to hotel-like bomb shelters is not complicated.

This brings me to my next point: the suffering of Palestinians cannot be compared to the inconvenience of Israeli’s. On one side, you have children who are happy to have saved their fish in the face of their homes and lives being decimated behind them to Israeli’s in Tel Aviv having to cut their beach day short to get to bomb shelters. You have mothers and fathers ready to set their lives down for their children to save them from bombs to Israeli’s enjoying their brunch only after making sure there are bomb shelters there. You have Palestinian children being murdered to blocking out the sound of sirens in the safety of your bomb shelters. (The first picture of the Palestinian child is not from footage of the recent problems). You have the baby lone survivor of a whole family recovered from rubble. His whole family, gone, before he ever had the chance to realize that he even exists, while Israeli’s decide to flee out of the country,(Translate the caption from Twitter, it checks out), or have to leave the shower due to sirens. Who is really suffering?

I won’t sit here and pretend like the thought of rockets flying over my head, no matter which side I am on, is not terrifying. It is. It’s scary to just think about. But Israeli’s have protection beyond Palestinian’s, they have sirens to warn them (Israel does not always warn Palestinian building members that it is about to be bombed), they have the Iron Dome, they have simply the threat of nuclear power (which I am not saying Israel would use, but the simple fact they have it would make me feel a lot better if I were an Israeli citizen) and they have bomb shelters. What do Palestinians have? Hamas? That smuggles its weapons through the ocean? That only ever reacts to the action Israel instigates? And yet Gazans are branded terrorists and that it is their fault that they “elected” a terrorist organization that only was ever created due to no protection from any armed country? (There are so many links I want to add in this paragraph but it is simply impossible for me to add everything I want, a lot of what I’m referring to can either be found through a Google search, or you can stalk my Twitter account, all that I am posting now is about Palestine, and will include sources of things I cannot add in just this one post.)

Look, I see myself in the genocide happening in Palestine right now. I see myself in this ten year-old girl. In this three year old girl. I see me and my family in videos of cars being attacked in Ramallah and Sheikh Jarrah (I cannot find the Ramallah video, should be somewhere on my Twitter), I see my father in the countless videos of fathers crying out for their children, of kissing the corpse of their loved ones (again, translate the Tweet, the man holding the body is saying “just one kiss”). I see my grandfather in videos like this (old footage). I see my younger brother, I see my grandmother, my mother, my aunts and uncles and cousins. I see myself and my life and my family were my father not lucky enough to get a scholarship to the UK and out of Palestine, were my maternal grandfather not been lucky enough to make it to a refugee camp and build a life in Jordan. I have an unbelievable amount of privilege to be born into the life I was born in to, in terms of I do not have the threat of bombs and violent dispossession around me, and I do not even live in the US. I have privilege and sheer luck that my parents were able to go to the US so that me and my brothers can be born, because now I have both the protection of the most powerful country in the world while at the same time being part of a people to have suffered so generously the past seventy-three years.

On the other hand, you saying that Israel has “defended themselves about as often as they’ve attacked. Israel is a small country comparatively to the ones surrounding it, so it makes sense it defends itself heavily in case of an attack,” I offer you this question: why are they using military grade guns and stun grenades in mosques to “defend” themselves from rocks? And before you mention that Hamas hit Tel Aviv, I remind you that Hamas did that due to the violence in the Al-Aqsa mosque square and the attempted ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah. The violence didn’t begin with us; the violence was brought out of Palestinians in resistance to the generations of oppression we have endured and the attack on Palestinian Muslims during the holiest night of Ramadan. Hamas has since asked for a ceasefire multiple times and Israel is refusing. New reports say there is a possibility of a ceasefire in the coming days, but Israel could have decided this a long time ago and spared many lives. (Remember, no matter what resistance we make, Israel is the one in power).

Israel has been the aggressor since 1948. Just read up about the Nakba! 700k Palestinian families were dispossessed violently. The only reason Israel was established at all was because it simply declared it was now a country and the US and many other countries recognized it as such. (Of course, there are many other historical details here, like the British Mandate of Palestine, the Balfour Declaration, the Oslo Accords and many others. I am aware of them but these are for a different post all together). My paternal grandfather was a little younger than me when Israel as a state was created. The hostility that followed was due to this independent declaration being listened to over Palestinian voices.

Here is a very, very simplified analogy, one that can also answer some people’s questions as to why Palestinians (not Arabs, we are Palestinian before we are Arab) did not like what happened in 1948 and why they refused a two-state solution (that Israel was never going to go through with anyway). (I am also aware other Arab nations got involved, and that is perhaps what you mean when you said they had to defend themselves, but my response to that would still be we didn't start it, that we only responded to it).

Let’s say you are a farmer. You have many fields of trees, ones you have taken shelter under from the sun since you were a child, or hid behind when you wanted to avoid your parents when you misbehaved. You have seen your trees grow from a seed, to a sprout, to a flower, to a large, beautiful tree with fruits the size of a fist. You pluck the fruits from one tree, and make a jam from it. I don’t know how to make jam but I know it takes a lot of energy. So, you make this jam and from it, produce a lovely, mouth-watering pie. Once it has cooled from the oven, you take it with you outside your balcony just so that you can admire the years, months, weeks and hours this one pie has taken to be created. Suddenly, a stranger walks past and yells to you, “That pie looks delicious, I want it!” And you, shocked at their boldness but ready to share, say, “I will give you a bite.” But the stranger says, “No! I do not want a bite or a slice or whatever you want to offer me, I want the pie!” And they grab it from you. You and the stranger start screaming at one another about who the pie is for, who is allowed to decide what happens to it, and who you can share it with. Then, another stranger comes by and says, “Why all the problems? Let’s cut the pie in half and the both of you can share it!” But why should you, who has spent years cultivating the fruit and grain inside this pie, share it? Why should you give up half of the 100% that you already owned? Of what you already had? So you disagree, and now a crowd has formed around you. “What’s the problem?” someone in the crowd calls. “They don’t want to share their pie!” another voice says. Then you become branded a selfish, mean bastard. Again, this is a super simplified analogy, so don’t take it too seriously, but I am trying to show you why Israel is the aggressor.

In addition, I do not know too much about the Birthright program, just that American Jewish people are sent to Israel, all expenses paid. I tried my best to find the Twitter thread but I read it so long ago, about an American Jewish person who went on their trip and they talked about the propaganda that they were exposed to on that trip. I can’t say for sure that it is true, because I haven’t been on it and never will, but that is the first thing I thought of when you mentioned your Birthright trip. Either way, I think it is still great you went and saw the country. However, I must ask you this: are the people you met ones you, yourself, sought out, or ones you were organized to meet?

Now, I haven’t been to Gaza, so I don’t know what you really saw or didn’t, but did you speak to Palestinians who lost their homes to airstrikes? Did you speak to siblings, parents or children of loved ones who had been lost beneath the rubble of buildings and towers? Outside of Gaza, did you speak to Palestinians that live in poor quarters? Ones who have been victims of an IDF soldier shooting them, or who have family members who have died from such attacks? Did they take you guys to Ramallah, to Nablus, to Beit-Imreen, to Jenin, to small villages in the West Bank, far away from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? Did you speak to people there? Ask them their stories? Because if you did I have a very hard time believing you still think Israel is “defending” itself.

I’ve been to Jerusalem, many times, even Tel Aviv and Jaffa and Haifa. All the times I visited Dome of the Rock there were IDF soldiers with huge guns strapped to their person, standing menacingly outside the courtyard. For what? Genuinely, genuinely for what? It is nothing but an intimidation tactic. The same way we are not allowed in through the airport. If you could see the struggle some Palestinians actually go through just to get into Palestine, through the land border, you would be disgusted. I love Palestine, it is my ancestry land, it is my culture and tradition. But I always hated going to visit because I knew the way to getting there would be hell.

My father worked in Tel Aviv through the first Intifada. My maternal grandfather was forced out of his home in the Nakba and was forced to leave behind his belongings and the orange trees that have been in his family for generations. Hell, the town they lived in was destroyed! It doesn’t exist anymore except in the memories of my aunts and uncles, who never even saw it, but just heard of it from their father!

I’m not saying there aren’t Palestinians who are racist and anti-Semitic (though, tbh, I will direct you here for that) and who support Hamas in killing Israeli’s, but talking about how there are many “extremist” Palestinians who are hurting Israeli’s and in the next line say there are extremist Israeli’s who are hurting Palestinians is not correct. There are extremist Israeli’s killing, lynching, stealing the houses of Palestinians, and there are Palestinians who are fed up and fighting back. (I am not talking about Hamas vs the IDF here, I am talking about the citizens). I have not seen one reported death of an Israeli due to Palestinian violence (if you have, from a trusted source, send it to me), but I have seen countless of the other way around. I have seen images of charred little bodies, of a baby being dug out of the rubble, of a child’s body that had been so mutilated that you can literally see the insides of their body coming out. (I don’t know if it’s on my Twitter, I didn’t want to save that shit). If this was my country I would be absolutely ashamed of myself and my people and what they are doing in the name of my protection. So you have to forgive me, and forgive other Palestinians, who don’t give a fuck about Israeli’s having anxiety over rockets flying over their heads when we see these images. Where is the protection of our kids? Why does no one seem to mention them except when mentioning the poor, innocent ones in Israel? At least more than the majority of them have their parents to comfort and rock them. At least many of them will probably be saved of ever having to be beneath the rubble of a destroyed building, or digging in it, to hope to find the parts of their parents or siblings just so that they can bury them. Just the links from the start of my answer is enough to support what I am saying.

I have soooo much more I can say, like how Israel uses religion to distort the image of what’s going on (tbh, just check my Twitter for that: language is EVERYTHING), but you didn’t mention religion in any of this and so I won’t either. The only reason I decided to respond to you in such length was because you have been one of the few respectful anons in my inbox in the past few years of me being on here talking about Israel, so I appreciate that from you.

As promised, some more sources: decolonizepalestine is a good place to start if you haven’t used it already, it has reading materials, myth busting, and more. Here is a map list of destroyed localities from pre-1948 until 2017, run by two anti-Zionist Israelis. Here and here are the articles I promised of a former IDF soldier-turned Palestinian activist, I read these two last year in June and remember coming out much more informed than before I read them. I suggest looking into the writer and his organization, which, if I remember correctly, collects accounts from previous IDF soldiers. I would suggest not to follow Israel and the IDF accounts on any platform, or any Israel times newspaper, simply because they will not tell you the truth. In fairness, you do not have to follow any Palestinian Authority accounts (which I am not even sure there are), but to follow on-ground Palestinians like Mohammed El-Kurd, who has been speaking out since he was 12 (he is now 22) and he is part of the families in Sheikh Jarrah. I have noticed that this and this account have been translating Arabic headlines and tweets for non-Arabic speakers, I have just started following this person but their bio says they are a Palestinian Jewish person so I am interested in their view of things. You can also follow Israeli’s on-ground and see their perspective on things, but I would also advise to compare the Palestinian and Israeli side of things from the people, and critically analyze the language used in each case. Also, this article references Jewish scholars opposed to the occupation (I have not looked into them myself but I plan to after my exams), and Norman Finklestein is another great Jewish scholar to look into if you haven’t. Twitter is better than Instagram and Facebook, so I would stick to getting live-info from there, Twitter does not censor Palestinian content as much as Insta and Facebook so you’re more likely to see things there.

I will end this by saying I personally do not see any other option for peace than to give Palestinians our land back. Whether we may be Muslim, Jewish or Christian, it has always been and will always be our land. I only hope to see it free in my lifetime.

Free Palestine.

#palestine #israel #west bank #tala gets asks #anon #whew this ask took me like 2-3 hours to respond to #pls read it even if ure not the anon #lots of good links and info #palestine tag #anon there are more reading lists in my #to read #and palestine tag tags #check my likes on twitter too if u decide btw not just what i retweet #like also: imagine palestinians around palestine and the world who are simply waiting to hear if their relatives are dead or alive or #have been striked from a rocket. like i can see my father worried abt his friend in gaza rn like any day #now he can just never hear back from him and have to guess hes dead somewhere beneath the rubble #and israelis are anxious at the rocket sounds? good for them but again that shows the asymmetry in #palestinian vs israeli suffering #and by ‘good for them’ i mean good that thats what theyre worried abt compared to palestinians #my aunt is in sheikh jarrah #my cousin lives right by the al aqsa square #again theres so much more i couldve mentioned and talked abt but theres just so much #theres so many LAYERS i wld say but not that its complicated #and definitely theres more i need to learn and read and watch dont get me wrong! i am not a fountain of knowledge by all means!!!!

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