the rest

[the rest]

[zvaigzdelasas]

Harvard professor who studies dishonesty is accused of falsifying data

Francesca Gino, a prominent behavioral science professor at Harvard Business School, has been accused of fabricating data in studies than sp

NPR

26 Jun 23

[msvorderofoperations]

Headlines that ought to be on the Onion, but aren't

[the rest]

[queerbatting]

people need to realize that dissolving the lines between gender also means dissolving the lines between sexuality. you cannot say gender is fake and then say sexuality is strict and rigid.

there are multigender/genderfluid people who are lesbians and gay men at the same time. there are mspec lesbians/gays/straights who have a complex relationship with gender and their sexuality. there are gay men who are women and lesbians who are men because male isn't the opposite of female.

"conflicting" labels are a part of many people's queer experience, because the human experience isnt simple enough to be put into neat perfect categories. if you truly support trans/genderqueer people, you need to accept the fact that gender and sexuality is complex and there will be people whose identities you don't understand

[eyes-onthehorizon]

In addition: identity politics are a scam. The human experience is a bunch of overlapping venn diagrams on a rollercoaster ride. It doesn't matter what people identify as, it matters what they say and do.

You don't need to police people's identities. It doesn't matter and it doesn't change who you are (unless you want to).

[the rest]

[lagonegirl]

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/05/what_state_prisoners_get_to_wo.html

OMG 

[pinehutch]

Things that I knew about: that the mass incarceration of people in the USA , particularly black men, has direct ties to/is an extension of slavery.
Things I did not know: this specific shit about Louisiana HOLY FUCK this is evil.

[the rest]

[queeranarchism]

I’m really disappointed that Ukraine independence in the face of Russian imperialism and ethnic cleansing isn’t a bigger topic in leftist circles in the Netherlands. Like, most people on the left that I speak to will affirm that yes, Russia is the baddie and the Ukrainian people should be free, but then they will not be interested in contributing to that in the way they contribute to other righteous causes.

It’s not particularly present in the visual culture of social media, posters, stickers either. I’ve been putting up pro-Ukraine stickers in leftist venues and there’s always some shithead removing them.
Which points to a bigger problem: a widespread tolerance for Putin-apologism if it’s wearing a communist hat. Like, I thought these were places where we kicked out people who defend genocidal dictators? I thought we were going to unfollow & block those types on our social media? Can we do a little better on this?

[queeranarchism]

& like, I get that aesthetically it feels more radical to support people who don’t also have huge states supporting them, but like, if you only support the Ukrainian people after they’ve lost the war, after they have been subjected to a brutal occupation and after they have been declared a lost cause by states, then I think you really need to question where that attitude gets you. We could also, like, try to make sure it never gets to that?

[traycakes]

The number of leftists who got tricked into thinking media being critical of the US means it wasn’t propaganda so they trusted people paid by the Russian government is pathetic. I remember how mad people got when twitter pointed out a bunch of “independent” journalists popular on the left were employed by Russian state media.

Then rather than admit a capitalist imperialist government was corrupting “independent” media to control the anti-US narrative, they started acting like Putin was communist. The same people who used to make fun of liberals for using soviet imagery to smear Donald Trump are now also acting like the USSR never fell rather than admit that they are not immune to propaganda.

[queeranarchism]

Yeah, those are the most obvious disappointing leftists. But I feel like around that is a whole mass of people who just don’t really care enough.

They won’t block that Kremlin-paid journalist because “I really like their articles about Palestine” when, like… the articles about Palestine are only there to make you follow them so they can feed you a steady drip of Russian propaganda in between.

And then before you know it they’re ‘just asking questions’ about nazis in Ukraine, as if nazis aren’t ambulant in every European country and as if their presence negates a people’s right to not be occupied by a dictator.
Or they ‘just think Ukraine should compromise for peace’. (To which I ask: which part of your own country would you hand over to a brutal dictatorship for your own safety? Who would you sacrifice? How many people? How could you live with yourself after doing that?)

And like.. all of that just shows that the propaganda is working, and leftists that don’t fall for the bullshit are having to spend time pushing back against that, instead of being able to focus their energy on actually supporting Ukranians.

[the rest]

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Lilo & Stitch is a great example of a story that has no villains. It has antagonists, sure, but most of them are well-meaning. The worst person in the film is that little shit Myrtle, but she’s not in the film that much anyway.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Since this post is getting traction I want to clarify how not-villainous the antagonists are:

• The Grand Councilwoman is literally just responding to what she sees as a threat to the galaxy and is extremely reasonable.
• Gantu is much the same. He’s a bit overzealous, yes, but he thinks he’s saving the galaxy from stitch.
• Cobra Bubbles is literally just doing his job, he’s obviously not happy about it but he is doing what he feels is best for Lilo. And much like the Councilwoman, he is extremely reasonable.
• Myrtle is, again, just a little shit. She’s a schoolyard bully and is truly small potatoes.
• Jumba calls himself an “evil scientist,” but literally nothing supports that. His only onscreen crime is creating a bunch of Pokémon that have powers that will mildly inconvenience people and can be persuaded to be nice over the course of 22 - 90 minutes, to say nothing of himself seeing as he decides to change his ways at the softest bit of persuasion.
• Pleakley is literally just gay.

[a-method-in-it]

The "villain" of Lilo and Stitch is, rather directly, societies and social systems that write people off and do not provide support and care.

It is obvious to the audience -- and deliberately presented this way by the film -- that it is better for Lilo to stay with her sister, even if her sister is a bit of a mess and not financially stable. Mr. Bubbles is not evil. He is there because he wants what's best for Lilo, and he is not unreasonable to think that the sister without a job who leaves the stove on and whose house nearly burned down two days later is not it. The solution is not to "defeat" Mr. Bubbles; the solution would be for society to help Nani succeed, rather than watch as she fails.

Similarly, no one provided any help to Stitch when he was created and discovered. They wrote him off as an abomination, something too dangerous to be destroyed. They weren't evil, and it wasn't unreasonable to think that the experiment created to be an agent of destruction would be better off scrapped. But what would have happened if they had at least tried?

Lilo and Stitch are two characters who were caught in systems that were cold, uncaring, and unsupportive, even if the people in them were not evil and were, in fact, just doing their best.

It's a movie about people who have been written off finding one another and building a found family where they can get and give the support and care they didn't get from the people with authority and I love it so much.

[the rest]

[queeranarchism]

I’m really disappointed that Ukraine independence in the face of Russian imperialism and ethnic cleansing isn’t a bigger topic in leftist circles in the Netherlands. Like, most people on the left that I speak to will affirm that yes, Russia is the baddie and the Ukrainian people should be free, but then they will not be interested in contributing to that in the way they contribute to other righteous causes.

It’s not particularly present in the visual culture of social media, posters, stickers either. I’ve been putting up pro-Ukraine stickers in leftist venues and there’s always some shithead removing them.
Which points to a bigger problem: a widespread tolerance for Putin-apologism if it’s wearing a communist hat. Like, I thought these were places where we kicked out people who defend genocidal dictators? I thought we were going to unfollow & block those types on our social media? Can we do a little better on this?

& like, I get that aesthetically it feels more radical to support people who don’t also have huge states supporting them, but like, if you only support the Ukrainian people after they’ve lost the war, after they have been subjected to a brutal occupation and after they have been declared a lost cause by states, then I think you really need to question where that attitude gets you. We could also, like, try to make sure it never gets to that?

[queeranarchism]

#I’m also somewhat uncertain as to what random Dutch leftists could do to help Ukraine

So many things! So many things are beyond our reach but Ukraine is literally a 16 hour drive away and there is constant movement back and forth. An incomplete list of some of the many things already happening are:

• Housing refugees.
• Helping provide the needs of refugees, whether that’s material needs, translation services, language training, a place to host activities with other refugees, or just listening to what the refugee in your street is going through.
  
• Gathering supplies and raising funds for solidarity collectives active and humanitarian groups in Ukraine. Everything is needed from medical supplies to drones.
  
• And a significant number of Dutch people are literally in (relatively safe parts of) Ukraine right now to help run community kitchens and nurseries and to rebuild houses, which will be much needed again in winter.
  
• Some people with experience are doing specialized work like psychological first aid, medical aid, etc.
  
• Finally, simply communicating that we care about this issue and shutting down Putin-defending-bullshit makes a difference in how Ukrainian refugees experience being in our spaces.
  

Right now, a lot of the above is being done mainly by liberals and fairly apolitical folks, often first-time volunteers, who just saw what was happening on the news and decided to go do stuff.

The far-left is notably absent and that’s a shame because (1) we should actually care about this issue, right now we’re talking the talk about solidarity without walking the walk, (2) we’ve got a massive amount of collective experience and knowledge about how to organize these things and we’re not utilizing and sharing that knowledge and (3) we’re missing an opportunity to build bonds of solidarity with Ukrainians and with fellow volunteers who could grow to appreciate the far left because they see what our solidarity looks like.

[the rest]

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

ALT

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[the rest]

[rjzimmerman]

13-Foot Endangered Sawfish Spotted in Northern Florida Hints at a 'Slow Recovery'

Scientists tagged the rare animal farther north than any such fish in decades, suggesting the species is returning to areas it once lived

Smithsonian Magazine

Excerpt from this story from Smithsonian:

But before long, the animal jerked against the fishing line, and Grubbs suspected the group was about to see something much stronger and rarer—a critically endangered smalltooth sawfish. This eerie, boneless creature looks like a shark with a chainsaw for a nose, called a rostrum.

“I was pretty sure this was a sawfish, but I remained stone-faced because I didn’t want to disappoint the students if I was wrong,” Grubbs says in a statement. “I saw the tail before the rostrum, so I lost my calm at that point and screamed ‘Sawfish! It’s a sawfish!’”

A century ago, such a find would have hardly been shocking. Smalltooth sawfish were common across Florida waters and could even be sighted as far as Texas or North Carolina. Young sawfish sheltered in spindly mangrove roots. But throughout the 1900s, coastal development destroyed mangrove forests along Florida’s shore. Hunters captured the animals and sold their toothy snouts, and sawfish became entangled in fishing nets. Juveniles take several years to reach reproductive maturity, making it even more difficult for their numbers to recover. By the end of the century, their population had crashed by 90 percent.

Now, sightings of sawfish are few and far between. Before Grubbs’ find, no one had tagged a sawfish in Cedar Key for three to four decades.

Having confirmed the identity of the massive creature, Grubbs and his students restrained the animal, which measured 13 feet long. Another team member went back to shore to get a tagging device, since “no one had imagined they’d need” one, with sawfish being so rare in the region, per the statement.

Scientists tagged and released the fish, which despite its shark-like appearance, is actually a type of ray. Now, they’ll follow its movements for up to ten years, collecting data that’s crucial to conservation and recovery efforts for the species.

[reasonsforhope]

Article date: July 17, 2023

[the rest]

[cptsdwillgraham]

beep beep sometimes when you have been in survival mode for a long time the parts of you dedicated to Wanting Things atrophy and you forget how to envision a future that feels rewarding because you are busy with the business of staying alive, and it can seem like your life must be pointless because you can’t imagine any long term goals. sometimes even when you leave survival mode you can’t remember how to Want Things. that doesn’t mean you need to give up on having a good and fulfilling life, it just means that Wanting Things is a muscle you need to gradually strengthen. the part of you that has dreams and aspirations is still there, it just fell asleep, but if you wiggle it enough it can and will regain feeling. it’s okay to start small

[weaselle]

i’ve been in recovery from this for almost two years now… like, i stopped being super depressed but it didn’t mean i remembered how to feel joy or excitement etc. It’s a process, and sometimes it seems like you’re wiggling as much as you can and you’re not getting any feeling back, but keep at it.

find anything. does warm water feel good? stand in the shower and carefully hold that warm water feeling, feel as much of that feels good feeling as you can, memorize its face, remember it later, look forward to it next time. Anything, the sweetness of a peice of candy, the salty taste of a french fry, the softness of a fleece blanket, the relief from taking off shoes at the end of a long day..

anything that feels even a tiny bit good for even a second; try to cup that feeling in your hands, breathe into it like a tiny flame you are trying to catch back into a proper fire. Keep at it

[the rest]

[sirfrogsworth]

I graduated high school in 99.

There was a student at our school named Wayne.

Wayne was gay. It was obvious. He was unable to stay in the closet even if he wanted to. To make matters worse, he was also Black. From a bullying standpoint, that was not a great combo. Both Black and white students made fun of him relentlessly. He was ostracized from the only community that may have given him protection. Only us theater kids stuck up for him, but not to significant effect.

Wayne was bullied so much that at one point he finally snapped and attacked his bullies with a lunch tray. I was actually seated in perfect line of sight and just sat there chewing my soggy fries in stunned silence. It didn't even seem real as I was witnessing it. The image of him wailing on his main bully as the food on his tray flew off is permanently logged into my long term memory.

The bully he attacked had blood all over his face and went straight to the nurse. Other than superficial cuts, he was not injured.

Before the attack, Wayne went to teachers for help.
He went to guidance counselors for help.
He went to the principals for help.

He did all of the things you were supposed to do. No one helped him. They wagged a finger at the bullies and warned them to stop.

Wayne's lunch tray melee was the only thing that worked. His bullies stayed far away from him. But a week later Wayne was expelled and the bullies were given no punishment.

So... no.

No one in my school talked about being trans.

Because the only way to survive being openly queer was to bash people with a lunch tray.

[jenroses]

Graduated high school in 1990. There was one guy in my class who was bullied and called gay because... he liked wearing eyeliner. That's it. he had a girlfriend. He's still, afaik, straight and cis. But he wore one item of makeup and had a fashion sense and that was enough. I left my small town and went to college at an extremely liberal private college and immediately met trans and gay and bisexual and lesbian people and started considering my own identity, which it had not been safe to do AT ALL in high school.

And later learned that a number of people I'd known in high school were queer. By later, I mean 20 years later when we all found each other on facebook.

[vaspider]

Kids started calling me a "lesbo" on the playground and beating me up for it while I was in elementary school. I became "boy crazy" as a form of self defense. If I was a slut, at least I wasn't a dyke.

It was a joke in my family that my youngest sibling hated dresses, which of course were mandatory for "girls." Ha ha, it's funny, ha ha. Because of course we just have to put up with wearing dresses.

That's my brother. Jake. He graduated from HS in 2001.

Fuck that asshole. We broke ourselves trying to survive. Some of us didn't.

[wolfinthethorns]

If you were in the UK, there was a little thing called Section 28 that made it illegal for schools to discuss "homosexually" (which was the catch all for any non-het, non-cis identity) in a positive light. Three internet wasn't an easily accessible thing yet, and positive representation in the media vanishingly rare. Many of us who have grown up to be some variety of queer literally did not know there were options beyond Gay Man (predatory or tragic, will be dead from AIDS by 30), Lesbian (ugly and shrill, always predatory) or Transvestite (see Gay Man but more laughable).

Aside from similar experiencing similar levels of violence and ostracisation to those described by previous posters, would my mental health been better had I known I was bisexual and genderqueer at 15 (rather than 28 and 39 respectively) instead of being keenly aware that I was Doing Woman Wrong despite trying Really Hard to be normal and not sure how I was still failing? Almost certainly.

Do I remember Eddie Izzard describing herself in the mid 90s as "a lesbian with a man's body" and feeling a strong sense of kinship, albeit the other way around, and then immediately dismissing it because female "transvestites" didn't exist, so I guess I couldn't feel like that? Painfully.

So why didn't you get kids coming out at trans prior to 2000? Because if we weren't getting any non-conformity beaten out of us by peers/teachers/parents, we were beating it out of ourselves thinking we were the only ones who felt like this so it could be real.

[anxious-mess19]

Yall are talking 2000 and earlier but ik kids at my fucking school who are too terrfied to come out bc they're in a bad class.

I spent middle school clutching my identity in secret because if it came out I was more then a emo girl with funky colored hair we'd be fucking dead. Litterly.

We went to a good school, in a big-ish city. Our current school is considred one of the queerest, and yet we can still point out each and every closeted person we only know to be trans because they've confided in us.

Its still like this. It's better, but it's never been the time. It's been that if we come out, we're fucking dead.

[seananmcguire]

Graduated high school in 1996. One of the first people I met in the school who wasn't awful to me was a splendid, but awkward individual who took me home and handed me off to their big sister as a more suitable mentor for a weird, loud, mouthy little baby lesbian.

Said person was several grades ahead of me, and graduated long before I did, but I remained very close with the sister.

Said person fully transitioned the minute we were all out of high school, and he was my manager at my first full-time office job. No, he never talked about being trans on campus. He would have been beaten to death by the other students. But he was trans, and the minute he could live his truth, he did.

[emotionalhimbo]

Graduated HS in 2010 from a private high school. There was one gay girl at our school and she was slowly forced to leave by the school banning her from all activities that involved changing clothes cause “parents were worried about their daughters”. She couldn’t do PE unless she changed in the bathroom at the other end of the school which made her late every time. She was banned from acting in any plays cause she wasn’t allowed to use the dressing room. She joined us in tech cause none of us cared (and 9/10 of us ended up coming out as queer later in life) but I was partnered with her anytime she had to go behind stage during costume changes ‘just in case she tried to go in the dressing room’. She couldn’t do sports or any activity that involved overnight trips. They took away everything from her. Most of us students didn’t care that she was gay, she was a great friend and smart kid, but the school didn’t care. The faculty and staff bullied her out of any group activities.

I came out 2 years after I graduated and slowly 9 other members of my 60 person class have come out since. 5 of us are trans in some way. 0 of us talked about it until after graduation cause we all watched how this girl was bullied by her own school and it didn’t matter how many of us students tried to say we were chill with her on our teams or in the dressing room, the faculty didn’t care, they had decided she was an “other” and she was gonna be treated like it.

[something-like-a-heart]

I graduated from high school in 2001. (At the time, Ontario had an optional fifth year of high school. I’m that old.) I didn’t know anyone at the time who was out as trans; however, I know a few people from my graduating class who have since come out as such. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they weren’t trans back then. It just means that it wasn’t as safe to be anything but cishet at the time. It sickens me that things are getting to be that bad again.