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pro-birth · 4 years ago

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Fertility awareness is often used as a tool by trained health care providers to pinpoint the cause of reproductive issues and resolve them without use of synthetic estrogen/progesterone (aka, what many birth control methods contain). I know far too many women who were given BC and no other option, despite having health complications that contraindicated it’s use, or wanting the issue fixed instead of covered up by a pill or other birth control device. Because that’s what BC does for health problems: it might relieve symptoms, sure, but it never truly heals what is going on. It never sets the foundation to require health care systems to value our bodies as they are.

Some women prefer birth control and that isn’t the issue, but fertility awareness definitely has a place in women’s medicine, especially since many are frustrated with BC being their only option given. These fertility awareness based models of care offer medical, surgical, and sometimes herbal/natural options for healing, but the best you can get at a majority of OB offices is BC. That’s it. (And then there’s the issue of some bc methods preventing implantation, but I’ve already discussed that so moving on—)

It’s not just about being able to become pregnant — it’s about the fact that ovulation and menstruation, when healthy, have a huge impact on the wellness and health of women, and it’s not something to treat flippantly. To reduce rates of cancer, mental illness, chronic pain, sexual dysfunction, etc, we HAVE to look at our biology and realize that it needs certain types of medical care to function in a way that benefits our short term and long term health. Our biology isn’t useless if we don’t have babies, our biology deserves a range of options for health care because our ovaries and uteri and other organs!!! Are a part of us!!! And have benefits to offer outside of pregnancy if we keep them healthy!!!

Seriously, I have yet to see people fighting for men to prevent ejaculation through suppressive artificial hormones because they “only need sperm if they want to be dads anyway.” Uh, no, in fact, one of the things a doctor will ask a man is if whether he has trouble getting erect or if he has nocturnal emissions. Because his functioning gonads is considered a sign of health worth protecting for reasons other than reproduction. And if they aren’t functioning, he isn’t offered potent hormones to “regulate”/suppress the sperm-making process: he’s given actual medical or holistic help! Why is it that for women, we can’t be given the same treatment? Why is it that our fertility health isn’t considered good enough to support regardless of whether we want kids? Why can a man be proud of his erections and semen yet women are expected to either renounce their biology as a problem to deal with or only respect it if they want kids?And even then infertility treatments in mainstream medicine are subpar?

And the worst part is that fertility awareness and it’s branch of medical care has been around for decades...yet it isn’t mainstream or well understood because of the monopolized hold that birth control and it’s ideology have over women’s health. Seriously, the maker of the Mirenda IUD has tried to argue that it’s healthier for women to not menstruate through forced hormonal suppression!!! Uh no!! Wtf!!!! Women’s bodies are not broken just because they ovulate and gestate and menstruate and lactate! Fuck the narrative that we are imprisoned by our own bodies and our only hope is to further break down our organs instead of obtaining actual medical care!!!

This shit is so normalized, even people who fight against sexism believe this crap. I see self-loathing for our bodies c o n s t a n t l y in feminist and health circles. And it’s caused and continues to cause all sorts of medical and social harms to improvement for our health. Obviously if people only know of one option (BC) and it prevents you from crippling pain every month, then yeah, I can see why it would be easily acceptable to feel untouched by or to hate our own biology.

But why not question this? Why not question when the world says “Your organs are only useful if you’re breeding to our liking, otherwise here’s some chemicals to make your organs stop working and we won’t tell you the health consequences of it lol″??? We question and critique everything else from how men sit on the subway to air conditioning at work to taking down fucking Hollywood with the #MeToo campaign...but saying that our bodies should have access to respectable healthcare because our gonads and fertility have a reason to exist outside of babymaking is weird, or unpalatable??

I’m so sick of being nice about this, I’m sick of the expectation that I’m supposed to like or be grateful for birth control when all it’s done is make the female body less than, and done social harm for women, childbearing or not, in our culture. Seriously, birth control didn’t “allow” women to work, it made women into convenient sterile workers even after they became sexually active/married, for the explicit use of overworked industries who did not wish to accommodate for female biology like motherhood; maternity and paternity rights were delayed by decades! The year I was born was the year they finally passed the Family and Medical Leave Act!!! And even then it was still subpar protection!!! FFS!!

So yeah, why be “grateful” for birth control when all it’s done is prevent a majority of women from having options outside of potent hormones that may hurt or kill them, or taking out their whole organs with invasive surgeries, whether it’s for birth control or for healthcare? When those are the only options we are given for other people’s convenience? When it’s history and current day use is riddled with sexist and racist ideologies that perpetrate systemic problems that harm me and other women? Fuck that.

And if saying that makes me a deluded sexist, then at least my sexism doesn’t involve devaluing female biology at the expense of women’s health and welfare.

#ranting #fertility awareness #birth control #women's health #sexism #body positivity

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kakosindustries · 6 years ago

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Kakos Industries is ad-free. To help keep it that way, please visit KakosIndustries.com/Patreon, that’s p-a-t-r-e-o-n, and consider a pledge of a dollar or more a month.

Intro: What you are about to hear is gonna make that booty work work work work.

Junior: Hello and welcome to the Kakos Industries corporate shareholder announcements. At Kakos Industries, we squeeze every last ounce of Evil out of every person on the planet, and then we feed it back to them in preparation of beginning the process again. My name is Junior and I am a consultant here at Kakos Industries. Perhaps the best consultant. Everyone’s favorite consultant. Just the other day, they took a poll and I came out as the number one consultant in the building. You see, it’s because I’m so smart. I have the intellect of dozens of ordinary humans, leading to emergent properties of thought that you cannot even imagine. I know of one other mind that might be able to fathom my depths, but she spends all of her time making crossword puzzles.

Things have been in a slight disarray around Kakos Industries recently for obvious reasons, but I have decided that it is my responsibility to make sure that our responsibilities to you, shareholders, are being met. You see, while many of our employees have experience podcasting, because everyone has a podcast, I have slightly more experience doing actual broadcast like this. I’ve interrupted Corin so many times that I technically have more on air experience than just about anyone. Combine that with my vast intellect, and I am the obvious choice, albeit self-appointed.

What are you trying to tell me, Soundman? Oh, I shouldn’t be here? And what about you? Should you be here? You should be cowering in your home overcome with grief and guilt.

Today, our broadcast is coming to you from a fancy new cellular device you should have received in the mail. This cellular device is the new Evilixia 7, coming to us from the collaboration between our Division of Distraction and DigInfoDox, a company that will give you anything for free as long as you tell it your darkest secrets. While this is very nearly the production model of the Evilixia 7, it is slightly different in that it is much cheaper, and many of the functions were removed or never added so that it would be a perfect vessel for this very transmission and nothing else. The broadcast, as you may have noticed, has come to you as a phone call you couldn’t ignore, and now you must hold the cellular device to your ear and pretend like you’re having a conversation so that those around you will not be in any danger of finding out about us here at Kakos Industries before they’re ready. Be sure to pepper in some uh-huhs and some for sures and some yes daddys to make it believable. If you happened to have answered this call on behalf of a shareholder, or because you’re a snooping jealous lover, then I am afraid I must tell you now that you will have some difficulty putting this device down before its self-destruct mechanism is activated at the end of the broadcast. To save your life, you must now do something extraordinarily Evil and selfish to become a shareholder before your doom. We’ll give you some time to get creative. It may help you to land on our new and noteworthy list.

Now, I do not believe we still have an Automobile Celebration every year, but just recently, there were a lot of you shareholders and a handful of our employees who showed up to the building in modified and incredibly fast vehicles to do donuts in the parking lot and generally cause a ruckus. It seems that some people miss this festival. I do not. I do not fit in automobiles. When I need to get places, I use a helicopter. If you have never gone to the grocery store in a helicopter, I can firmly recommend it.

The Festival of Darkness was a smashing success as always. This one was even darker than normal. We painted the walls of the basement ballroom with pigments that absorb all light. We took away your cell phones and digital devices. Those of you who glow or have blinking lights just below your skin were placed in enormous black bags to keep any light from emerging. And then you were ushered down into the still and quiet room. You were placed on a special rug and allowed to spread out. We moved through the room quietly to make sure that everyone was behaving. Then, we walked through with a collection of man-eating beasts held on a tight leash. We have no reports of any of the handler making mistakes, but we would also have no way of knowing if they did as it was dark and quiet down there. If one of you shareholders disappeared, we would have no way of knowing. Perhaps you just never arrived. We can’t be certain. People disappear so often these days. Probably gone off the grid, I wager.

We also recently had the Festival of Genes. I believe it is technically the Festival of Genes Mark III. I’m not sure why we began to number them, but there you are. This festival holds a special place in my heart because I have genes. A whole lot of them in fact. More Evil genes than any other known living creature. It’s what makes me so smart and so great at everything, and so Evil. It’s always interesting for me to see what augmentations humans choose to get. Longer limbs. Enhanced bosoms. Softer elbows. At this year’s festivities, we wanted to make things a little more interesting. We allowed people to line up based on the type of changes they might like, and then we drew a genetic modification out of a hat and gave them that one. It would be in the right conceptual family, but not always what they wanted. We had one young woman get in line for cheek bones, hoping to get larger cheek bones, but instead, we gave her three more. She was quite displeased, but I personally found it to be very hot. A man waited in line for something to do with fire, hoping he could perhaps create fire with his mind or with some sort of secretion, but instead he became fire. That was something to see, although it didn’t last very long. We also had someone get in line for a tail, and end up with six tails. Some people find this to be unpalatable, but I can firmly get behind tails, if you know what I mean. We wrote “medley” on one of the slips of paper and mixed it into a random hat. When that one was drawn, we gave that person a huge number of modifications, so many that it should take a physiology as strong as mine to handle them. But the woman in question, Dana Govern, is still alive. She doesn’t seem to have changed much as of yet, but we’re keeping a close eye on her. I will say that something about her aroma has changed, and I find this change to be… alluring. No one else seems to be able to smell the difference, but I can’t get it out of my nose. I can tell where she has been, and I can find her in a crowd, and soon, I may even speak to her.

Coming up, we have the Shareholders’ Ball! This is one of my favorite celebrations. It is possible that this is because I have an enormous share in Kakos Industries. It is also possible that it is just the wildest, most debauched event we throw. This year, we will have grilled abominations as the main course. These abominations are anything that comes out of one of our genetic modification labs that we cannot suffer to live. Some have been on ice for a long while in preparation for this feast. We would love to tell you what sort of flavors to expect, but we cannot. We can only tell you that these creatures lived short and painful lives, and now we will consume them so that we can pretend that they never existed. There will, of course, be veggie options as well. The entertainment will be a combination of ventriloquism and puppetry that is certain to unsettle everyone in the audience. The dolls that the Puppetto Miserables troupe use reach an astounding 297 MegaNopes on the standard freakiness scale. But we will not nope out of there. We will stay, and we will witness, and our skin will crawl, and our anuses will pucker, and we will feel a strange arousal of a possibly sexual nature. I personally cannot wait. Following the show from Puppetto Miserables, we will have the blood orgy. This year, I am proud to announce the creation of the Blood Monster, an unfeeling, unthinking creation that produces incredible amounts of blood. It would possibly be useful in transfusions, or other medical applications, but instead we will poke a hole in it and allow its hot, red circulatory fluid to rain over all of us as we get busy. And get busy we shall. Those of you who are interested in doing the horizontal tango with me had better make arrangements soon, as my dance card fills up quickly.

We also have the Chili Cookoff coming up. I assume that many of you will create chili-as-performance-art again this year. And I will eat it all the same because my hunger will not be conquered.

Corin: Junior? What are you doing?

Junior: I’m doing the announcements. I wasn’t sure…

Corin: You weren’t sure what?

Junior: I wasn’t sure if you would be ready.

Corin: I was at work all day, Junior. I’m fine. I promise. I was just running around ten minutes late.

Junior: You should really take it easy.

Corin: I really appreciate that, but I’ve been fine for weeks. Everyone just keeps telling me that I should rest, and take it easy, and allow myself time to recover, but I’m totally fine. I don’t even need the crutches anymore.

Junior: I can see that.

Corin: So, please let me take over. This is my job.

Junior: Yes. Of course.

Corin: So where were we… What’s that, Soundman? He already did the Shareholders’ Ball? For fuck’s sake, Junior, it’s the best part of the announcements all year! Come on.

Junior: I think we can all agree that I did a fantastically Evil job selling it to the shareholders.

Corin: You don’t have to sell it to the shareholders. They’re already going to be there. It’s more of a victory lap. A chance to brag. A chance to tell them what they mean to us. What’s that Soundman? Well, okay, I guess you did okay, Junior. Been doing a lot of things okay.

Junior: What’s that?

Corin: Well, I know you took over a chunk of my workload while I was out of commission. No complaints, I hear.

Junior: I did my best, of course, and, as you know, my best is astronomically great.

Corin: I know. I just… I don’t like feeling replaceable.

Junior: Continue the announcements. While everything I do is amazing and better than anyone else could do it, I do not wish to step on your toes.

Corin: I feel like I owe you an update, shareholders. I took a little bit of unexpected time off recently after… Soundman shot me. I survived. I assume. I could be a clone of some sort, but I don’t think that was necessary. Soundman, in the throes of some sort of power fantasy, was pointing his firearm at my genital region when he had a terrible sneeze, or maybe some sort of whole body climax, that led to the gun going off. His aim is not that great, so he actually grazed my thigh. I was sitting at the time, so it grazed my thigh longways. It nicked the femoral artery, I assume, or something that bleeds like crazy in that area. I don’t actually know. I contend that I passed out due to blood loss, but they tell me it was far more likely the sight of the blood that caused me to lose consciousness. Then I hit my head. I was unconscious for a few days, but the speedy response of my medical team had me patched up in no time. If you’re keeping score at home, this means that Soundman came far closer to killing me than I did him. And let me tell you, our very own Soundman de Sade has had an unyielding erection ever since. It nearly tore through his pants when I hit the floor, I’m told. I understand that this detail is a source of great shame for Soundman, but I’m just happy to have him back at 110%. I am told that his return to his original stature has increased productivity here at Kakos Industries so much that it completely offset the month plus that I took off, and with Junior taking over some of my responsibilities, me getting shot was a greater boon to Evil than if I had just come to work in that time. I can tell you that feels great to know. I can personally think of no better way to enter my fifth year as CEO than from a hospital bed with the smallest hole in my leg slowly healing itself up. They even left the carpet bloody in here, which is really cute.

Here’s the strange thing about my time in the hospital. There was this beautiful woman taking care of me. A nurse practitioner, but I think I may have been her only patient. Striking eyes. One of those colors of gray violet-ish green that makes you think one of their grandparents had to be a space alien. I was sedated to some extent, probably unnecessarily, for the first week as my support staff tried to get me to take a break by any means necessary, so I only barely remember interacting with her. But she was so kind. I don’t believe I’ve ever been so doted on in my life. When I was getting ready to go home to finish my recovery, she offered to come check on me. She handed me a card with all of her contact information on it. I smiled and told her that I would be happy to see her. She walked away and I kind of laughed to myself until I looked down to see that her name was Tabitha.

Kimzzzzzzzzzzz has made a new decree. Apparently, in order to be sexy now, you must dye exactly half of your hair red. If your hair is already red, you have to make half redder. I think I’m just going to sit this one out. I’ve seen enough red for a little while.

Our drones down in hell have found Meredith Gorgoro’s left arm. We are unsure as of yet if this is the only remaining piece of her after some dramatic battle, or if the rest of her is still out there fighting monsters. We are hopeful, of course, but it cannot be easy to survive down there with this new disability, even for her.

I stopped by the Division of Erotic Experiences earlier to check on Jasmine Aashna and Dr. Dunkelwissen. They are still trying to answer the question “What is most sex?” They were both asleep in their boardroom with their heads down on the table while a very bored and very naked pair were sitting inside of an observation room you could see through a large window in one wall. I looked at the white board beside the sleeping duo. It simply said “putting it all the way in?” with a bunch of question marks at the end. It seems that they have been working tirelessly on this one, and it doesn’t look good. I don’t know what “it” is, and I don’t know where “it” is going all the way into, though I can imagine, and something tells me that’s not the answer to their question. I will keep you updated.

The Division of Figuring Out What All These Keys Go To has unchained a monster. In fairness, the monster was quite communicative and persuasive. In unfairness, it has since eaten three people and mailed their teeth to their loved ones. The missile they launched is still MIA.

They say that Evil once toured the planet in a traveling carnival. Its attraction was sitting quietly in a room full of people and making all of them feel gut-wrenching, insurmountable terror. This is Things We’re Taking Credit for Now. Today, we are taking credit for plastic litter, the aroma of decomposition, and the fact that your body is basically decomposing at all times. As always, some of these things are kind of big, and it’s difficult to tell if we actually caused them, but we did. And if you disagree, you’ll start to decompose a little faster than the rest of us.

Jonathan Ulrich has won today’s Ruin-A-Life Drawing. As a result, the life of Zweelee TeeHee Me Three will be ruined. We assume that Zweelee is Jonathan’s nemesis, but really that’s not strictly a requirement, though we often make it sound like it. We spun the wheel of misery in the same direction as Earth’s rotation and it landed on the space for covetous. From this day forward, Zweelee will be 90% more covetous, leading to an ever greater amassing of objects and lovers. For Evil measure, Jonathan Ulrich will be 13% less covetous, which might just push Jonathan over the edge to not having much interest in stuff at all. That could be trouble. Congratulations on the win, and best of luck.

This brings us to the end of today’s broadcast. Your Evilixia 7 will now self-destruct momentarily. If you’re not a shareholder yet, and that phone is stuck to your ear, it would probably be a smart idea to do something Evil quick. Like headbutting someone who would really be a lot better off without being headbutted, or telling your pet that they have been very, very bad, when in fact they have been completely obedient. The numbers are next.

337

Corin: Hey, Junior.

Junior: Yes?

Corin: Thanks.

Junior: Glad to help. You know, you can always give me more to do.

Corin: You know they don’t like that.

Junior: Yes. I know.

Credits: Kakos Industries is written and produced by Conrad Miszuk, who is also the voice of Corin Deeth, and the composer of the music. The introduction is read by Kim Aiello, and the credits are read by Kelsey Kemmer, the second most interesting conversationalist in the room. Any room. Please visit KakosIndustries.com for news, extras, and more episodes. There are also transcriptions on the website if you’d like to read along with the Kakos Industries announcements. That’s K-A-K-O-S-I-N-D-U-S-T-R-I-E-S dot com. Please visit store.KakosIndustries.com for merchandise and special offers and get wonderful benefits by becoming a subscription donor at kakosindustries.com/patreon. Questions, comments, or a strong desire to collaborate? Drop us a line at [email protected]. If you like Kakos Industries, be sure to rate and review us on your favorite podcasting service, and connect with us on YouTube (YouTube.com/KakosIndustries), Facebook (facebook.com/kakosindustries), Tumblr (kakosindustries.tumblr.com), and Twitter (@KakosIndustries). We encourage fan art and listener participation on all our social media platforms. Please visit our website for cast details and the credits for all of our social media contributors. We’ve recently expanded our social media team, so please visit the website to view their credits and current projects.

Special thanks to our esteemed shareholders Iain Croall, Dan Shumway, William Brandon, and Jack Attack. Also thanks to honored employee Dorkpool Dorkuss, who chewed enough gum to blow an enormous bubble, which saved the woman falling from the window of the Division of Defenestration, and Chris Leclerc, who scooted all of the glassware a little further away from the edge of the countertop moments before the earthquake. And thanks to our division heads Britney Garcia, head of The Division of Beanies, Booties, and Construction Projects That Are Probably Too Large for Yarn, Valerie Koop, Director of the Division of Inappropriate Games to Play in Public, Patrick Green, head of The Division of Oceanic Micro-Cryptozoology, Lynne Herman, director of the Division of Increasingly Improbable Slash Fiction, Carl H, Director of the Division of Unanswered Messages, Xavier Jarman, Director of The Division of We Know Magic Doesn’t Exist But We’re Going to Keep on Trying, Craig Czyz, director of the Division of Obscure Vintage Technology, And Lady Squidney, Director of the Division of Cephalopod Psychology. The Division of Beanies, Booties, and Construction Projects That Are Probably Too Large for Yarn has run out of Ultra Yarn in Dayglo Yellow. Everything in the building seems to have a dayglo koozie wrapped around it. The Division of Inappropriate Games to Play in Public has introduced public park mud wrestling. We looked it up. Mud wrestling is pretty much always pornographic in nature. The Division of Oceanic Micro-Cryptozoology claims they have found the puddle-cabra, a rare cryptid that lurks in small puddles, and resembles a goat, kind of. They say that it is very shy and doesn’t like being looked at too much.. The Division of Increasingly Improbable Slash Fiction has started shipping keeping things nice with having a thriving arts culture. There’s gotta be a give and take there somewhere. The Division of Unanswered Messages has left a “You up?” text message unanswered so long that the person who sent it is now monogamously married. It seems unnecessary to say that they never RSVP’d to the wedding either. The Division of We Know Magic Doesn’t Exist But We’re Going to Keep on Trying has given up on the hunt for magic words for now, but instead they are looking for ancient scrolls with some kind of power. They’ve gone right through our dry storage trying to read the paper towels. The Division of Obscure Vintage Technology has found a box of old brass finger screws. They’re not as hard as steel ones, but they still hurt like hell when applied to fingers. The Division of Cephalopod Psychology has discovered that the exectopuses do feel quite a bit, but usually they feel jealousy and frustration and anger. They tend to clam up when asked why. Clams are not cephalopods, in case you were expecting a pun there. Our esteemed shareholders, honored employees, division heads, and other Patreon patrons are the best. If you want a thank you in the credits, your own division, or other great rewards that help to keep this show running, please head to Kakosindustries.com/patreon. That’s Patreon: p-a-t-r-e-o-n.

Kakos Industries can be heavy sometimes. Try volunteering with a secular charity to bolster your indie cred.

#IFTTT #Kakos Industries #Do Evil Better

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lazerpanther · 6 years ago

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youtube

"... Welcome to 103.3, The Breeze. *Wooooosh!* We've got a real special treat here, in studio we've got George... Lanes, he's the owner, the operator, he's a little bit of everything over at Zanes Lanes, Bernard's premier bowling establishment. We've got George right here in the studio, he's gonna take a few minutes, tell us a little bit about the specials we've got coming up here at Zanes... Lanes. George, take it away."

"Bowling alleys are America's pastime. I know this to be the truth because of Zanes Lanes, which has been for many folks the backbone of the city of Bernard for ages and ages. Established in 1992 by my father, Zane, Zanes Lanes is clean and trash free, which is crucial for many folks to know. Many folks, when they think of bowling alleys, they focus in on the word 'alley', to the extent that they may just as well be thinking of alleys. They cannot seem to understand any sort of fun can be had at such a place, especially one that may be associated with sketchy places like, for example, dark alleys and back alleys, which are indeed lowdown and sketchy and filled to the brim with trash, which is something you throw out of your home. If you were to venture down such a place you better know that you may perchance be tricked into some sort of scheme that is not beneficial to you or your family.

"It is with this in mind that Zanes Lanes is not a bowling alley. It is, we like to say, a bowling home, a warm place where you can feel safe and secure from outside natural forces. And let me tell you friends, times are tougher than ever before. The other day I stepped on a acorn. Hurt like heck f- uh, friends. I believe chaos reigns, and when it rains it pours and you and your family deserve a respite. I'm sure you are all familiar with the image of a rose growing up through concrete, or just some fl-fl-flower growing through a concrete walkway it is supposed to represent a triumph of the human spirit. Well let me tell you, friends, that flower is not human. It is, in fact, evil. In some ways, it represents a failure of human defenses which surround human life on Earth. I will tell you... Ba- ba- what it is beautiful about that picture it is the grey, thankless concrete w̷a̵l̵k̸w̷a̵y̸ think about it friends, without that pavement we'd be stepping on flowers, on bugs, on rocks, acorns, sharp... items, our feet would be worn, our shoes would be worn down very very quickly. That flower is a startling breach of our perimeters which, as I have said, aff- uhh buh buh surround human life on Earth that flower could be poisonous. It could- it may contain allergens. It is, at best, unpalatable, and it deserves tuh to be snipped. That flower may just as well represent a jaguar set on stealing your child in the night, we are not in the dark ages my friends, uh, nature is evil at times my friends, and it is out to get us at times, but we are not helpless against its evils.

"You deserve some certainty in this world, and friends, here at Zanes you can set 'em up and knock 'em down and set 'em right back up again within the safe structural foundation that our business provides at Zanes our perimeters are secure. In fact, we have not suffered a breach in years, plant life is not permitted. We have state-of-the-art air purifiers going 24/7 7 days a week and within these confines everything is safe and man made, just the way it ought to be venture up Zanes and breath easy and have a safe hypoallergenic time peher- perhaps in one of our three party forts. We are located behind Shawn's Pond on Windmark Street we offer many fun things throughout the week you must know this. Monday night is kids night, kids receive a discount if and only if they are twelve or below. Beware! We have now switched to a staggered pricing system due to the recession Tuesday night is teen cos- teen costume night, wear a costume get ten percent off on the assumption that you are a teen. Wednesday night is rain prv- puh uh duhh prh dh duhh uhhh th- uhh cancel it! Cancel it! D-uhh parents are human beings too and they need to have fun too. Friday we are closed due to the recession. Saturday night is cosmic bowling... night with, uh, special guest DJ Hype playing the finest in dance and electronica Sunday we are closed f- for rest, for rest. “What are people saying about Zanes Lanes? I love going to Zanes Lanes with my family on Saturday nights for the fun and excitement it provides. Zanes Lanes, I have found, is a great place for kids specifically my children my - the Zanes the Zlanes Lanes is clean and safe in the usual sense of also because I have found that it uh offers safe storage behind the counter for valuables like sl suh sed- ssgegg - gemstones. Zanes Lanes is kid friendly in almost every way I can think the party forts are a blast because of the fun games we are able to play inside of them and the delicious pizza we are able to eat from the snack b uh buhh beehh p- pp the it- the uhh employees are always nice and friendly and always willing to help out with problems that may arise during your time at Zanes for example: running low on cheese sticks that are provided at the snack bar for a great price and boy are they good to eat we love that uh buhhh music that is played on Saturday nights because of the DJ who is playing there, DJ Hype. 'My wife and I feel young when I am listening to the DJ' that is a direct quote from Gr-r- uhh Greg who has wrote to us because of his time at Zanes and you, too, can experience fun and cleanliness above all, the safety of Zanes. We are not a bowling alley, we are a bowling home. I am George Lanes and on behalf of all of us here at Zanes, we wish you a happy New Year."

#zanes lanes #zanes #bowling

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sarahburness · 6 years ago

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5 Reasons Why You Need to Stop Taking Life Seriously

Pretentious title, but far from a call to adopt a stance of apathy within this wondrous and dynamic reality we exist together in.

Well, no. It’s quite the opposite.

The insight I’d like to share with you today is the equivalent of an open-handed, movie-cliche slap to the face, regretfully but lovingly administered to pull a panicked comrade back from the brink of a full-blown meltdown catalyzed by a collapse of rational, critical thinking.

This short read is nothing special. Basically, it’s a reminder of the same thing you’ve always known, but for some reason decided to stuff far too deep into your travel pack. And of course, the bug sprays and painkillers at the top of the pile provide less incentive to dump the bag to re-evaluate priorities of survival.

My motivation this day is to encourage within you a willingness to consider the game you’re immersed in from a different hilltop. It’s one with a joy-horizon not obscured by the clouds of stress or grief.

Brevity is always the best way to get a message across, so let’s sink our teeth into the meat of this feast. Let’s skip the greens for a time when protocol dictates we munch on a smaller fare to prolong social interaction.

Enough ramble, let’s dive in.

Here are practical considerations to stop taking our lives so seriously:

Reason #1: You’re Gonna Die

This is definitely the most obvious and important point I need to share.

If your attention wanders to YouTube videos of dogs wearing hats before you read this essay’s completion, at least commit yourself to finishing this first segment’s diatribe. That way, you’ll still walk away with a much-needed reminder to stop giving such a serious fuck to whatever drama encompasses your life.

I can’t speak for Jesus. I can’t speak for yogis, mystics or other tight-lipped people about prolonging a physical body eternally. However, I can suggest to you that there’s a high degree of probability the animal vessel you occupy will slowly break down. It’ll become enfeebled, endure a six-foot covering of dirt or an unceremonious barbecue behind closed doors, severing your tangible connection to this physical world.

So, let’s look at death from both sides of the coin.

If you believe in a mechanistic, uncaring, fluke of a Universe that big-banged you from dumb luck and random chance, every second of your existence here should be valued as the only shot you’ll ever have to experience happiness or contentment.

So, why would you spend one second engaged in something you don’t want to do? Why would you fill your days ingesting toxic food? Why would you consume tainted water? And why would you believe the ridiculous ideas corporate entities endlessly serve to keep you in perpetual fear of living out your most heartfelt desires?

If you believe in the continuity of spirit, eternal life or any form of reality after the Earth-plane, the same basic questions apply — why would you spend a single second in fear of tackling head on each and every beckoning to revel in the experience of a unique, fleeting world? What could an eternal spirit possible have to worry about?

Don’t think about your fear. The time to jump into the deep end is now.

Whatever your beliefs, the most important thing you need to realize is the only time you’ll ever have at your disposal is this very moment.

If your job is boring, quit it. If your woman sucks the life out of you, ditch her. Or if you tap the snooze alarm ritually, it’s probably the time to consider making fundamental changes to the way you navigate your reality.

You can start climbing any moment you choose.

See Also: 7 Easy Ways to Remove Negative Energy and Unnecessary Stress

Reason #2: Your Telepathic Skills are Most Likely Not Great

I’ve met some bonafide empaths and psychics over the years. For the most part, humans are unable to step into the minds of their fellow creatures and accurately read the thoughts/emotions/intentions of the entity standing 2-feet from their face.

When we inject our personal spin on the motives of another, our egoic speculations are almost always a cause for grief. Judgment and faulty perception lead to obsessive and tormenting conjecture, such as…

“That person must hate me. Why else would she have said that? Look at her hair. What was she thinking? I wonder if my ass looks fat in these jeans. Oh, I forgot to check my Facebook updates, I’m sure someone liked my recent post by now. I’m gonna order nachos, I think they’re gluten-free. Oh yeah, forgot about that nasty person.”

And on and on…

The point here is simple and quick:

Stop judging other people’s journeys when you’ve never sampled their footwear. Stop caring about what people might think of you.

You wanna impress someone? Impress yourself and forget the tortuous speculations of how fellow explorers might perceive you.

Adopt an empathetic approach to life, applying it both to yourself and others. Keep in mind that your travel comrades have been just as duped as you to believe iPhones and designer clothing have any bearing on self-worth. The contributions necessary to healing this broken world will never come with a “Made in China” stamp.

Reason #3: You’ve Been Lied To

I’m doing my best to keep these points as concise and simplified as possible. However, there would be nothing more fulfilling to me right now than to break into a 97-part series about all the things we’ve accepted over the years as “truth.”

From politics to health to relationships to government to history to the very nature of the cosmos, everything our “protectors” have weaned us upon is manipulated, twisted, and skewed. They are so far from authenticity that “facts” are more accurately perceived by assuming the exact opposite of whatever vomit the media spews out.

Ironically, I can probably sum up this segment faster than any of the others with a simple statement. It comes not from a paranoid, untrusting person who rebels for the sake of rebelling, but from one who has experienced the buffet of media and culture first hand.

“Do not accept the sustenance proffered without sampling the fare. It makes no sense to fill your belly with fodder that causes indigestion, bloating or queasiness just because it’s familiar, convenient or steadily dined upon by the rest of the tribe. If the menu is unpalatable, learn to cook for yourself.”

Reason #4: Other Realities Exist

It’s tough to broach this topic in the mainstream without coming across as a foil-hatted nut job. I have a sneaking suspicion that within a decade or two, this next topic might just become the motivation for humans to rediscover the adventurous, limitless nature that lies at the core of our essence.

The subject here is lucid dreaming.

I will forego elaboration for the sake of a concise post. However, I would urge you to do a bit of research into this fascinating practice. Let me share with you the key insight I’ve learned from conscious awareness while in the “dream” world.

Earth is not the only game in town. No matter how much the gods of science and media love to dismiss the things they can’t measure, there’s far more happening under our very noses than the Facebook updates and Netflix subscriptions we’ve come to accept as the comforting norm.

There are other realities beyond the JunkieSphere we inhabit. I’ve visited, I’ve played ball. If a man of science wants to tell me there’s nothing more to my astral experiences than a delusion of synapses firing in my brain, I could easily make the argument Earthland conforms to the exact same parameters.

They’re equally both real or both fake — no further elaboration needed.

If you want to explore beyond your job at the office and renew your zest for life, I’ll give you a dozen links to start your journey of lucid dream exploration. Or just call me, I love shooting the shit with weirdos. Track me down through the bio.

Reason #5: Egos Are Fictional

Perhaps another obvious one, but worthy of a last loving slap to the face.

You can shift your ideals and views of the world you live in with a single thought. Your ego is a fiction you’ve created to provide a frame of reference to experience the world. It doesn’t have to control you any more than Instagram does.

An ego is capricious. It’s fickle, fluctuating, and endlessly malleable. The wider you open your doors of perception, the less controlled you’ll be by it. The less you define it, the grander your nature will become. The less often you feed it the spiritual Cheetos it joneses for, the wider the panorama of clarity will stretch, facilitating an ever-deepening understanding of cause and effect.

Maybe the person you hate at work isn’t a vindictive monster because she never gives you the days off you request. Maybe she’s just feeling impotent to change her own world, unconsciously projecting her shortcomings on the people around her. Or maybe life here on Earth isn’t the stress-filled, grab-as-many-prizes-before-the-circus-ends kind of carnival we’ve been led to believe it was. Perhaps, it’s just a unique opportunity to discover the very nature of who we are, what we are, and why we’ve chosen to pay the extra five bucks to enter the freak-show tent.

I’m not an expert on evolution, creationism or pretty much anything else for that matter. I can’t say for certain why humans wander this planet, but I’ve committed my days to digging as deeply as possible into the existential questions that haunt us all.

It’s up to us to choose when and where we ride

Perhaps, candy-floss isn’t the healthiest thing to walk away with as the carnies shut down the midway for the night, but I’m in no position to judge what might satisfy the longings of a wayward soul. We’re all doing our best to understand the endless stream of data thrown at us. The only way to do so is to experience the roller-coaster with arms up in the air as it peaks each crest. Sometimes, the attraction sucks and other times, we feel compelled to buy another ticket. Either way, it’s up to us.

Life is an amusement park that should be enjoyed, not wandered through in fear of every megaphone-announced call to action. The snake-oil tonics and rigged bottle-toss games will always be part of the show, but we can pass them by just as easily as convincing ourselves happiness couldn’t possibly exist without partaking in whatever the rest of the crowd is doing.

When you pass a long line of humans standing patiently, waiting to give the flavor-of-the-month a lick, don’t feel compelled to take a position among them. There’s a good chance the raspberry/crack cocaine swirl wasn’t engineered with your best interests at heart. Sample if you must, but also consider walking past the bright and colorful kiosk.

In Conclusion

Eventually, we’ll get to where we want to go, but only after donning our hiking shoes and accepting the eventuality our feet will get muddied.

And that’s why so few people stand on Mt. Happiness. If the path leading to it was already well-worn, equipped with safety lines and neon signs, we’d all be up there.

You’ll likely need a machete to find the hill you seek. Snakes and spiders will definitely await the trek. But once you’ve filled your soul with the stunning view after an exhausting journey, the pitiful knolls you’ve been continually encouraged to frequent will never satisfy again.

See Also: 9 Baby Steps To Happiness For The Naturally Gloomy

The really fun things are still out there. The adventure only awaits your willingness to embrace it with fascination and wonder, knowing limitation is merely a concept defined by Fox News and the fiction writers of science who profess their wisdom as absolute.

Grab your hat and walking stick, and find out for yourself.

The post 5 Reasons Why You Need to Stop Taking Life Seriously appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

from Dumb Little Man https://www.dumblittleman.com/dont-take-life-seriously/

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kim26chiu · 8 years ago

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Ten Things You Need to Know About Indianapolis City Culture

Photo Credit: Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 4.0

What makes one city different from another? Some of it is the geography, the economy, or the buildings. But a big chunk of it is culture.

Every city has its own culture. A journalist recently interviewed me about Indianapolis and asked about some of the things that make that city’s culture distinct. I’m reposting ten of my observations here. Keep in mind that many of these points are relative, not absolute. They are comparisons versus what I see in other cities.

1. Indianapolis has a very open social structure. Many cities have very insular cultures that are difficult to penetrate. The Midwest river cities like Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis are like this. If you weren’t born there, in a sense you’re always something of an outsider. I’ve also heard reports of similar things about Cleveland, where people who come there have trouble making new friends and connections. The stereotype of some Southern cities is that who your daddy was, etc. matters a lot.

In Indy, outsiders can move to the city and rapidly make friends and contacts, and to get integrated into civic networks. Columbus, Ohio is similar I’m told. I speculate that these cities have a more open orientation because they are state capitals. They frequently have new players circulating in and out, and this opens up the social networks considerably.

A newcomer is likely to have a much better time of it in Indianapolis than most other Midwest cities.

2. The social life of Indianapolis happens in back yards. This was an observation made some time ago by local cultural commentator David Hoppe. It’s dead on. In a city like New York or Chicago, there’s a palpable sense of bustling street life. This is largely absent in Indianapolis. If you operate on the assumption that this is the One True Way cities should function, Indy looks bad. But in reality the history and even built environment of Indy simply created different forms of social life. Different doesn’t mean worse.

People in NYC have tiny apartments, so of course they want to be out and meet people out. People in Indy mostly have single family homes, and so people can gather inside and in back yards. This produces things like Sunday night dinners and porch parties. In my experience, this produces many more useful “collisions” than the merely physical ones you’re likely to have on the street in Chicago.

Monument Circle. Photo Credit: alexeatswhales, CC BY 2.0

3. A bimodal distribution of quality. Indianapolis has a “barbell” shaped quality curve. There’s a lot of stuff that’s pretty bad, but some things that are truly excellent. So, for example, the design of the average street in Indianapolis is terrible, but Monument Circle is one of the world’s great urban spaces. This contrasts with say Columbus, Ohio, where the vast majority of things are solid but relatively few stand out as terrible or exceptional. Interestingly, Nassim Taleb recommends barbell strategies. This may be one reason why Indy has the best small city tech scene in the Midwest.

4. An excessive preference for the pragmatic. This is a common Midwest trait. Again, I’m writing a future magazine column about this and its downsides. But for now note that the Midwest tends to actively discourage ambitious undertakings and the pursuit of excellence. This can produce a stifling environment for people who want to dream big and care about doing things right. Indy is certainly far better than the rest of Indiana on this, but it’s still present.

Looking at Indy’s barbell quality distribution, it’s clear the community gives itself permission to do A+ level work in certain areas: sports hosting, Monument Circle, etc. But I’ve yet to crack the code on what the characteristics of these are that made them acceptable while so many others were not.

5. A weak sense of neighborhood identity. Cities like Chicago and Cincinnati are deeply steeped in a sense of neighborhood. They have strongly delineated, long-standing neighborhood areas people strongly feel themselves to be part of. Like Detroit, Indy has always been more about what side of town you live on than what neighborhood you live in. There were some exceptions to this, but the norm has been a weak sense of neighborhood identity. Unigov, where the city took in a lot of suburban and rural areas in a city-county merger, doubtlessly contributed to this, but I suspect it far predates that.

One reason some friends and I started the Naplab Indianapolis Neighborhood Map project was to start strengthening a sense of neighborhood identity.

6. Low cultural differentiation vs. the state. People who live in Indianapolis are Hoosiers and think of themselves that way. There’s historically been little sense of urban identity apart from the state. Chicago is like a different planet from Illinois. People in Chicago think of themselves as Chicagoans first, and Illinoisans secondarily if at all. By contrast, in Indy people are Hoosiers first, residents of the city second. It’s telling that there isn’t even a commonly used word to refer to residents of Indianapolis. Indianapolitans anyone?

Also, the city is mostly a draw from the rest of the state, so it has a very Hoosier feel. In Chicago, there’s a Midwest feel because it draws from a regional catchment area. In Dallas, you meet people from everywhere.

This is one the urban progressives would probably like to dispute, but they are a relatively small tribe in the city.

7. Low institutional differentiation vs. the state. As the only big city in the state, the city’s major institutions are frequently pressed into double duty as statewide ones. There’s an Indiana Historical Society but no Indianapolis Historical Society. (Is Indianapolis the biggest city in the country without its own historical society?) The major state economic development groups like TechPoint are basically Indianapolis organizations that serve a statewide audience.

People in the rest of the state people feel the state and major institutions give too much focus to Indy. But again, in many cases these are de facto Indianapolis institutions doing double duty for the state. In many (most?) states there would be separate organizations for the major urban region and for the state. In Indiana, that’s not the case. (I’m not familiar with how others states with one major city like Georgia and Minnesota are set up. Are they similar?)

8. A strong civic but weak political culture. Indianapolis is known for having three top notch mayors in a row: Richard Lugar, Bill Hudnut, and Stephen Goldsmith. But in general mayoral leadership and city government have not been the drivers of change. I don’t know how Lugar operated as I was not around. Goldsmith seemed to have a strong mayoral agenda (e.g., outsourcing). But others relied more on a broader civic grouping of people – business, foundations, etc. to get things done.

I suspect most cities would claim their civic sector is strong. Chicago likes to boast of its corporate involvement, for example. But it’s also clear that Chicago likes to get things done through a powerful mayor in City Hall. In Chicago, if the mayor says Yes to you, you are probably golden. In Indy, however, that’s not the case.

It’s hard to describe how this works because frankly it’s very opaque. Civic initiatives are largely cooked up in the back room behind the scenes. There seems to be a big focus on consensus. Disputes are generally not aired in public. And there’s a very “go along to get along” civic ethic.

This has had a lot of benefits. First, while it generally takes longer for Indy to decide to do something than other cities, once the decision is made to go forward, it almost always happens. You don’t see things like Louisville arguing for 40 years over whether and where to build a bridge (which only got built because Mitch Daniels stepped in). You don’t see repeated failures to pass a light rail program, like in Kansas City. When Indy decides to do something, it has a very high success rate. (A critic might say some of these things should have failed and that success at doing something you never should have done in the first place is a Pyrrhic victory).

Indianapolis hosting the Super Bowl. Image via Shutterstock.

Secondly, there is long term continuity in civic initiatives. Rarely do things die when mayors change. The sports hosting strategy has gone back over 30 years, for example. While the current mayor didn’t strongly support the transit initiative developed under his predecessor of a different party, he didn’t stand in its way either. Contrast with how a new mayor came into Cincinnati and tried to pull the plug on a streetcar project. Or at the state level Chris Christie in New Jersey taking office and cancelling a rail tunnel project.

The downside is a very enfeebled and low capacity city bureaucracy. Also, some changes need to come from the political sector in order to have democratic legitimacy. This makes the Indianapolis system bad at solving certain kinds of civic challenges. It should be no surprise that the mayor-driven (i.e., politically driven) system of suburban Carmel, Indiana was better able to redesign infrastructure, for example.

Another downside is that it’s an extremely difficult environment for a civic entrepreneur to try to get things done. That’s where cultural fit comes in. If you don’t know how to navigate an opaque civic structure, accumulate political capital in that environment, etc. then you are going to fail to accomplish anything. This tends to reward insiders vs. outsiders. Though because of point #1, outsiders can become insiders fairly easily in Indianapolis, if they know how to play the game. Due to the nature of the civic structure, playing the game is likely to involve significant dilution of their ideas and compromises many people might find unpalatable.

9. A strong preference for local hires. Indianapolis might be the biggest city in the country that’s basically never hired a global starchitect to design a major civic structure. Now there are many negative things one might say about the starchitect trend, but this is still revealing of the local culture. There’s a strong preference to hire locally in most places, but it’s very high in Indianapolis and often very clearly trumps quality. In fact, an out of towner with high flying ideas is exactly the kind of person who is going to be resented by a significant faction of the local power structure, and probably not be long for this world.

Image via PRINTtEXT Instagram

10. You need to a guide to find the good stuff. Similar to point #2, you’re not just going to stumble into some famous place randomly, like you can in many cities. It’s a city where you need a guide to point you at the good stuff. For example, PRINTtEXT at 52nd and College is one of the best magazine stores in the entire world. I’m not exaggerating. But you’d never find it unless you were looking for it. There are all sorts of great things and great people in Indy, but they take time to find and get to know. In some cities the greatness is on the surface. In Indy, it’s in layers you need to dig up over time.

from Aaron M. Renn http://www.urbanophile.com/2017/03/14/ten-things-you-need-to-know-about-indianapolis-city-culture/

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barb31clem · 8 years ago

Text

Ten Things You Need to Know About Indianapolis City Culture

Photo Credit: Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 4.0

What makes one city different from another? Some of it is the geography, the economy, or the buildings. But a big chunk of it is culture.

A newcomer is likely to have a much better time of it in Indianapolis than most other Midwest cities.

Monument Circle. Photo Credit: alexeatswhales, CC BY 2.0

One reason some friends and I started the Naplab Indianapolis Neighborhood Map project was to start strengthening a sense of neighborhood identity.

This is one the urban progressives would probably like to dispute, but they are a relatively small tribe in the city.

Indianapolis hosting the Super Bowl. Image via Shutterstock.

Image via PRINTtEXT Instagram

from Aaron M. Renn http://www.urbanophile.com/2017/03/14/ten-things-you-need-to-know-about-indianapolis-city-culture/

0 notes