Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898), ‘Remorse’, “Fifty Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley”, 1920
Month: April 2018
A Little Advice for Life from Sir Terry Pratchett
“Use your gifts and your talents to greatest possible effect while you can. Spread joy wherever possible. Laugh at jokes. Tell jokes. Make puns and bugger the embuggerances. Read books. Read my books. You might like them. You might find something else you like even more than them. Look for these things in life.
Question authority. Champion good causes. Speak out against injustice. Do not tolerate bullies or bigots or racists or anti-intellectuals or the narrow-minded. Use your education to challenge them. Broaden their perspectives. Make the world you interface with a happier place.
These are your choices. Choices you have been fortunate to have been given, so don’t waste them while you have them. Don’t look back in years to come and wish you had grasped a fleeting opportunity. Grasp it now with both hands, Live. Strive. Love.
~Terry Pratchett
April 28, 1948 – March 12, 2015
Changes in Severity of Allergy and Anxiety Symptoms Are Positively Correlated in Patients with Recurrent Mood Disorders Who Are Exposed to Seasonal Peaks of Aeroallergens
“Using linear regression models, we confirmed a significant positive association between allergy scores and anxiety scores (p<0.04); however, the IgE specific tree pollen positivity was not significantly associated with changes in anxiety scores. Because changes in anxiety scores relate to changes in depression scores, the relationship between allergy and anxiety involves states rather than only traits…”
Translation: in a study of 51 patients with either unipolar or bipolar disorder, anxiety symptoms went up sharply when tree pollen of any kind was heavy enough to cause allergy symptoms.
If you’re having anxiety and/or depression symptoms get worse out of the blue, it is entirely possible that this is tied to respiratory allergies, especially at this time of year.
OH FUCK EVERYTHING.
Oh, this is worth knowing about.
to autistic people who are semi-verbal, non-verbal or selectively verbal – i want to say a few things
we are not defective
it is not wrong for us to either be unable to speak at times, or to not be able to speak at all
it is not wrong to need communication tools to help us during those times
we shouldn’t be forced into situations that make us uncomfortable, ones that force us to speak if we can’t or don’t want to
society views it as wrong to be this way, but it is not wrong
this is natural for us
this is how our brains are
it can be frustrating when we can’t convey what we are thinking and some neurotypical people don’t understand us, but all we need is understanding and patience
the lesser-known roof-fox makes its nest
What kind of birds are these?
the-great-and-powerful-satsuki:
By far the best part of Assassin’s Creed III is the fact that you can chase down the founding fathers and just harangue them, just bully those slaveowning nerds and shove them around a bit.
Here we see the guy on the $1 bill kneeling and crying because a stronger boy pushed him
George Washington didn’t own slaves. He inherited slaves but set them free because he saw slavery as inhuman.
#DO YOUR FUCKING RESEARCH #AND PAY ATTENTION IN HISTORY CLASS YOU DUNCE BUCKETS
George Washington inherited some of his slaves from Martha’s first marriage, but owned over 100 of his own by the end of his life. He did not give any indication during his life that he saw slavery as inhuman and, in fact, was pretty enthusiastic about the practice of holding humans prisoner and putting them to work in a forced labor camp.
When he needed new slaves, he known to ask for “Six or more n*****s… males… well-grown lads… healthy, and none of them addicted to running away.” (Letter from George Washington to John Francis Mercer, November 6 1786)
There was also his practice of dealing with “misbehaving” or “unruly” slaves was to ship them off to an even more brutal plantation in the Caribbean in exchange for various luxury foods and drinks. Like in 1766, when he sent an “unruly” slave named Tom to the West Indies in exchange for barrels of molasses and rum, or then again in 1791 when he shipped of an unnamed “misbehaving fellow” in exchange for “one pipe and quarter cask of wine.”
Now, you’re partially right on one thing. He did set his slaves free. In his will. You know, when he was dead and therefore done exploiting them. Couldn’t be bothered to do it while he was alive and stood to lose something from, you know, releasing the inmates of his forced labor camp, but he did technically allow SOME OF them to go free when he was no longer alive to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
You might be thinking of Ben Franklin, who actually did set his slaves free and take up the cause of abolition because he thought the institution of slavery was abhorrent, but this was also something that made him incredibly unpopular, especially with enthusiastic slaveowners like Washington and Jefferson.
Oh, and in reference to your tags. Temple University, class of 2014. Bachelor’s in History. During my years there, I specialized in American history and specifically built my curriculum to cover race relations in detail. The subject area of my capstone class was the American Revolution. If you’re going to accuse someone of skimping on research and not paying attention in history class, maybe don’t pick someone who just came off of five years of history class culminating in a final intensive course on this exact subject when you couldn’t even be bothered to google it.
they literally have the slave quarters on display at Mt Vernon…
George Washington didn’t own slaves he just ~inherited~ them!!
???? What?
Also, at least as relevant to that game featuring Connor/Ratohnhake:ton? George Washington’s War on Native America. In which he personally tried to wipe out the Iroquois League.
Though, those are not totally separate issues. As quoted from another source through the link (bolding added):
He insisted in killing as many Indians as possible without taking into account age or sex. The survivors were to be given as agricultural slaves to the colonists who deserved them “Destroying not only the men but the settlements and the plantations is very important. All sown fields must be destroyed and new plantations and harvests must be prevented. What lead can not do will be done by hunger and winter.”
George’s own words. So obviously opposed to the idea of slavery… 😩
Please, give me Standard Medical Care | Evil Autie
When I go in, I literally pray, “PLEASE let this be something obvious and easy to diagnose.” Because if it’s not, I’m going to get injected with psych drugs I don’t need, have my other medications discontinued in favor of this month’s preferred drug, be told that I don’t really hurt, and have my file annotated with “drug seeking.” Seriously, I’d rather have a heart attack than a severe, but non-life-threatening, pain when I go to the ER. The heart attack they will find quickly and treat effectively – because they can ignore everything I say and still treat it. But they will ignore everything I say if what I say is essential to diagnose the real problem. Just once, I’d like to go to an ER – or have my disabled friends go to an ER – and be believed from the start when we say we hurt and need help. Just once.
I’m not so sure about the heart attack, especially while AFAB. (And diabetic, and expecting to need to fight to avoid getting put on contraindicated statins again soon–with the idea of reducing the elevated risk of heart attacks…)
But, excellent post overall. I didn’t want to go totally overboard quoting, but the whole thing is well worth a read.
Today is a good day to respect lesbians.
Every day is a good day to respect people!
Lesbians.
“Lurking behind all these stories of malpractice and missed diagnosis, from fibromyalgia to broken birth control, is the grim specter of hysteria — a mental illness, diagnosed mainly among women, in which emotional distress was said to convert into physical symptoms. In practice, “hysteria” was a catchall diagnosis for any number of mental or physical ailments. But it embodied a belief that still informs medical practice today: Women could believe they had symptoms, and they could even think themselves into manifesting those symptoms, not because they were sick, but because they were women, with all the emotional fragility and gullibility that supposedly implied.
To this day, when women say they don’t feel well, our first instinct is to wonder if they’re being melodramatic or acting out for attention. And in a dispute between a woman and a medical practitioner about her own experience, the medical practitioner is still automatically assumed to be in the right — even when we have a mounting pile of evidence that this isn’t always true and that the assumption harms and even kills female patients.”— Believing Women Means Believing Their Pain – Member Feature Stories – Medium
@thebibliosphere you’ve dealt with this irrc?
Too often. From the ER doctor who prescribed me sleeping pills for chest pain/lack of oxygen, to the doctor who recently suggested the pain in my foot was stress and not the sliver visibly stuck under the skin.
And while many doctors don’t diagnose it as “hysteria” anymore, the term you need to watch out for is “conversion disorder” which is basically just the new terminology for hysteria, and is a catchall phrase for “we think you’re making this up so we’re not going to help you” and is actually what a lot of women are misdiagnosed as having, when they are actually developing MS (or other autoimmune dysfunctions). (source)
I’ve been so effectively gaslighted by the medical profession that this week when I started going into slow anaphylactic shock I dismissed it as “probably nothing” and tried to wait it out. The ER nurse was absolutely horrified. But the truth is I’ve been conditioned to believe I am “fine” and don’t need medical help. Even if and when my airways are closing, because I have been told in the past whilst having slow acting anaphylaxis, that it was “just nerves”.
The system is broken. Worse than that, it is currently designed to fail. And not enough is being done about it.
I had cancer for 5 years and my doctor wouldn’t investigate even when I went to her and said ‘I’ve done my research and I don’t feel well and I think it’s cancer.’ For five years.
I had this discussion with a woman last night, I was outside vaping in my wheelchair and I glanced through the window and saw her using the mini cripple lift and smiled at her, and even though I smiled specifically to make sure she didn’t feel judged, she came out to explain that she can’t go upstairs even though she can walk on the flat just fine.
Something is so broken about the way we’re treated by the medical establishment, and justifying ourselves constantly is a terrible way to have to live.
The worst part is that even after they are proved wrong they don’t care.
Like as of roughly 2 years ago, I was in a wheelchair and in such rough shape that going out and doing fun things for a day had to be automatically assumed that it would leave me bedridden for days. Yesterday I climbed a hiking trail like a fucking goat.
What changed? Well I now have a pcp willing to give me actual treatment. That’s it. I said for 5 years “give me painkillers I will build myself up”. They gave me painkillers, I built myself up.
But to this day I will go to appointments with other doctors and they will say I need motivation not painkillers. Like AFTER I have proven with clear evidence that if you give me treatment I will automatically ramp my activity levels to match I STILL having doctors write they think I have a conversion disorder.
Tests don’t matter. Actual evidence of you getting better/worse on different treatments doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how much proof you have they will STILL tell you to stop your treatment and focus on your mental health, which has gotten 10x better now you are not stuck in bed alone all day.
Also, being noticeably ND in any way/otherwise marginalized seems to be enough. No matter what diagnosis you may eventually manage to get? It’s not necessarily going to make much difference in the interpretations of what’s going on with your health.
A truly nasty package of biases, too often.
Adult-diagnosed celiac and (probably also autoimmune but they’ve refused to test) diabetes here. Also more obviously autistic the sicker I get. Symptoms/complications? Still mostly All In Your Head and Wasting Their Precious Resources.
Regardless of the details, it’s dangerous for so many people.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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