and, if you can’t get toasted pearl Couscous handpicked and blessed by a Moroccan shaman on the first tuesday of the winter harvest for your Sautéed Escarole then store bought is fine
This is a dwarf sperm whale (Kogia sima). Kind of looks like a tiny harmless shark!
False and pygmy sperm whales actually have “false gills” behind their eyes, which, combined with their underslung jaw, makes them superficially resemble sharks.
They also can expel a reddish-brown fluid from their bodies when frightened and hide in the cloud that it makes, much like a squid or octopus does when they’re frightened.
I’ve been thinking about the pathological classification of asexuality, and why I find that so creepy, ever since I replied to this post.
It’s the idea, I think, that if you’re not, on some level, sexually (or romantically) available to fulfill someone else’s desires.
It’s best, of course, if you make yourself available in the right way to the
right sorts of people. But if you’re not making yourself available to anybody, then there must be something wrong with you
…
And that’s just …
No.
*(Meanwhile, sexual people who choose to be celibate trading sexual relationships with humans for a relationship with something bigger – often God, but it might be some other ideal. So that’s “okay,”).
I’m also pretty overwhelmed right now, with what sounds like an extremely distressed old lady crying out again at the damned nursing home across the street.
(Which has been an ongoing stressor in general since they built it, and not for the NIMBYish reasons that had some other people in the gentrifying neighborhood trying to head it off in the planning stages.)
But yeah, it’s not just the hyperempathy thing, though that is definitely not making things easier. It’s also knowing that they could literally be torturing and killing someone in there, and not that many people would be interested enough not to just tut and find some justification for any terrible institutional shit that might be happening.
This is not the first time in the past few weeks that I’ve heard the same person that distressed. It’s also been going on for at least an hour now this morning (could be several more still, going by other times). So, at least I don’t think she is in more immediate danger at the moment, near impossible as that is to tell from outside. But, there’s nothing obvious that I can reasonably do about the whole situation, which is just heartbreaking.
I honestly did consider calling the police the first night I heard her screaming and crying and yelling for help over there, as much as I don’t trust them either. It sounded that worrying. But, what are the chances of a call like that getting taken remotely seriously, even without the possibility of making the situation worse for the person already screaming? They’re sure as hell not going to buzz some random angry neighborhood person in to let them see wtf is going on, and talk to her.
Much less buzz anyone out if they really want to leave, yeah.
I have never seen anyone who wasn’t staff outside the building, either. Maybe a few visitors on a weekend, but not even many of them. More than a few red flags that I have noticed.
And the situation is that upsetting from a place of relative safety, on the other side of the street. Not living as essentially a prisoner myself over there.
And all of this mostly just gets accepted as normal and inevitable. That’s the really overwhelming part. I am honestly still not NEARLY as used to that, and don’t plan on trying to get more comfortable with it. Bad enough situation even when nobody is actively screaming and crying for help loudly enough to hear across the street.
I can’t count the amount of people who have said some variation of “I don’t think of you that way” when it comes up that I’m disabled.
Disability (n.):
a physical or mental condition that limits a person’s movements, senses, or activities.
I have permanent paralysis in my shoulder, arm, and hand from an injury to my brachial plexus. My range of motion in that arm is about 40% of what a typical, uninjured arm would be, not to mention my underdeveloped strength, dislocated shoulder, and the resulting scoliosis. I could go on. Based on the simplest, literal definition, I am definitely disabled, because at the very least, compared with a typical body, my movements are limited.*
So, why am I always hearing “I don’t think of you that way”?
Often a person says it to relieve their own social discomfort or cognitive dissonance, either because I’ve self-identified as disabled or because they’ve said something disparaging about disabled people. Examples:
My boyfriend’s mom says she has “crippling self-doubt.” My boyfriend says, “bad word choice,” gesturing to me. She does a double take, looks my way, and says “Oh, I’m sorry, it didn’t occur to me because I don’t see you that way.”
My college roommate and I are chatting and I mention, in a neutral tone, that I am disabled. In the voice of someone finally expressing something that’s been bothering her, she says “I don’t know why you think of yourself that way. I don’t think of you that way.”
In the first example, my boyfriend’s mom uses “crippling,” (cripple (n.): a person who is partially or totally unable to use one or more limbs) as shorthand to say that her self-doubt prevents her from normal activities, or at least from the activities she’d prefer to take part in. When my boyfriend points out that this metaphor implies physical disability (such as mine) necessarily means abnormal, negative, or useless, she experiences discomfort. She relieves it by saying, “I don’t think of you that way,” preserving the abnormal, negative, or useless associations in her head with physical disability. Because she sees me as normal, useful, productive, I must not be disabled. The definition of disability shifts from a value-neutral description of physical or mental difference to a negative social role, in order to exclude me.
In the second example, my roommate does something similar. Although I don’t express sadness or anger when calling myself disabled, it makes her upset, and she pushes back. That’s because, rather than seeing disability as a value-neutral physical or mental difference, she sees it as a negative social role. In her mind, by self-identifying this way, I’m insulting myself.
The problem with both these lines of logic is twofold:
The definition of disability shifts at will in order to protect the nondisabled person’s perception of disability as a negative attribute.
Inclusion and exclusion into this social role shifts at will in order to protect the nondisabled person’s perception of disability as a negative attribute and attitude toward disabled people that they do “think of that way.”
If I’m not disabled, then I have no way to explain why I was told not to become a lifeguard, or why men routinely refuse to date me because my “arm is just too weird,” or why strangers approach me to tell me how great it is that I’m out living life. I lose out on putting a name to these negative experiences (which is a necessary part of healing from them and fighting back) in order to protect nondisabled people’s shifting definition of disability.
Worse still, if I’m not disabled, then disabled people are just the faceless, abnormal, negative, useless Other. If, as soon as a person because a valued figure in your life, they’re excluded from that group, it is far too easy to dehumanize, objectify, and disenfranchise that group.
*I wouldn’t trade that limitation of movement for the world, as it’s caused me to develop an interesting set of physical skills that nondisabled people lack along with character traits that are integral to my personality. But that’s for a different post.
“If, as soon as a person becomes a valued figure in your life, they’re excluded from that group, it is far too easy to dehumanize, objectify, and disenfranchise that group.”
Wow. Thank you for putting this into words so well. I’m going to use this.
Good description. “I don’t think of you as X” seems to function similarly in so many contexts, and it’s depressing.
And it occurs to me again that similar attitudes may well help explain the otherwise baffling figure that “nearly half (43%) of the British public say they do not know anyone who is disabled”. When it’s hard to see how that could even be possible, in reality.
There is also possibly the question of how closely do you need to know someone before even counting them when asked about it.
But, that kind of response (not to mention “just a third (33%)…said that they would feel comfortable talking to disabled
people”) would make a lot more sense if actual disabled people existing in front of them were getting excluded from this very negative stereotyped mental image of The Disabled.
“The Cube” is the name for Deadmau5′s frankly ridiculous DJ stand/stage setup, which basically consists of a giant three-sided LED display on motors for motion control, with Deadmau5 sitting on top doing whatever it is Deadmau5 does. Look, I’m old and set in my ways, alright? If you can’t strum it or hit it with a stick, I don’t know how music is made with it. It just happens. Like babies.
Anyhoo, speaking of babies, recently Mau5 commissioned a little babby version of The Cube, dubbed “Cube Lite”, that’s largely identical to the real thing, just shrunk down to about three feet tall so he can work on his light show from the comfort of his studio, and not, like, an aircraft hangar or something.
It can do other things too, as one Twitter wit managed to convince Mau5 to demonstrate. Click the link for video! I couldn’t embed it or download it to repost here, because Twitter be cray.
Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail shuts down disrespectful white journalists over a question asking if Justin Trudeau is responsible for Missing Indigenous Teens in Northern Ontario.
And that headline on the linked article is a shameful example of exactly what Ms. Wabano-Ishtail was talking about! White fragility at its finest. Out of all the important things she said, reporters think her use of the term “white lady” is the most news worthy.
She is putting herself on the line to educate white people about issues our ignorance and privilege stops us from understanding. We should fucking thank her, not compound the disrespect and harm like that.
So here is a better headline: “Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail educates disrespectful white journalists.”
[ Captions ]
Person in background: Stop right now.
Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail: Don’t speak to us that way. You’re a guest here, and you don’t even know how to speak to us. You don’t even recognize the tone in your voice in your delivery. No you’re done. You’re done. Next question.
Reporter: I’ll-I’ll re-ask what [ inaudible ] question, how do you think
Person off screen: You want to re-ask?
Reporter: Yes.
Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail: You better be respectful.
[ inaudible chattering in background ]
Reporter: I’m being totally respectful. I’m asking how Justin Trudeau record, compared to Stephen Harper’s record, do you think he’s improved the situation. I think that is what Julie was asking.
[ inaudible chattering off camera ]
Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail: We have a holistic genocide happening here.
Female Reporter: I can speak for myself
Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail: And I can speak for myself. You know what white people? You’ve had your voice here for 524 years. 524 years you’ve been visible, white lady. You’ve been visible for 524 years. Look how fast your white man stands up for you. Where is everybody else who will come and stand up for us? I have a right to my voice, I’m still fighting for my voice, and my visibility.
Reporter: We asked a question about what you–
Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail: And I’m telling you! And I’m telling you right now. There has been 524 years of holistic genocide on Turtle Island. We’re the ones that are dying, it is not you that is dying. As far as Justin Trudeau is doing? One of the things that we need to keep in mind is that we’re asking the United Nations to help us of charges of genocide, a war against humanity, war crimes, and a crime of aggression be laid. Because your liberal party, was also responsible; every party, every governments that has been in power. None of your governments have clean hands. All of your governments…all of your governments have blood on their hands. None of you are different, you haven’t changed. The moment we have our voice, and back bone you want to shut us down. And you think you have your privilege to disrespect us the moment we tell you, because of your colonial mindset, and your colonial way of being. Your white privilege, your white fragility, you can’t take our truth. Look how many people came to bat for you, white lady. And you’re a guest here. Without us, you’d be homeless. This is over.
what the fuck is she fucking talking about? how is this about white fragility and white privilege have anything to do with the question she was asked? what did the journalist tell her to stop doing? maybe she told her to stop rambling about identity politics bullshit? seriously, how about just answering the question as to whether or not they think Trudeau is doing a better job figuring out whats happening to these missing native people rather then going off on a tangent about bullshit. we can’t solve the problem of her butt hurt over the colonization of canada, we have to do something about the highway of tears and all the missing and dead people, most of which are native. this is just whining about bullshit thats not relevent to anything. what the fuck is holistic genocide? what the fuck?
Shes saying the government hasnt helped native people. This problem of native people being targeted isnt new and its been a problem since white people came here but no one listens. Do you think that reporter really cares about the native people? Because if she did shed know the answer to her question. Shes practically answering her own question by disrespecting that woman because white people have been disrespecting natives since they came here and they pretend to care but still dont.
They’re sure as hell not going to buzz some random angry neighborhood person in to let them see wtf is going on, and talk to her. 
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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