“Diets do not work. Not just paleo or Atkins or Weight Watchers or Goop, but all diets.
Since 1959, research has shown that 95 to 98 percent of attempts to
lose weight fail and that two-thirds of dieters gain back more than they
lost. The reasons are biological and irreversible.
“
Fatsplaining at its finest. I don’t give a fuck when someone chooses to not be healthy, but don’t sit there and make bullshit excuses and blame anything other than yourself and your lack of self control. Take responsibility and own up to it, you’re not fooling anyone.
I’m sorry other people’s shapes make you so angry that you pretend science is wrong
Obviously this person must think climate change is wrong and vaccines cause autism
Wow, okay buddy, you’re BEGGING for a takedown here.
First world problems? Not a thing. People who say shit like “first world problems” are massive racist, imperialist, dismissive assholes.
If you’re ever tempted to say “first world problems,” do me a favor, and pull down a map. Tell me EXACTLY where the “third world” is. Make sure you correctly identify Switzerland as part of the third world, and Turkey as part of the First World. Don’t forget that Djibouti is a part of the first world.
Literally sit down and learn what “third world” means and why people from nonwestern nations think it’s a total bullshit term.
Second: you think people in the so-called third world don’t care about shit like makeup, and love, and technology? You think they don’t care about internet harassment? You think women over there don’t care about street harassment? You think they don’t care about fashion and clothes? You think they don’t care about music and video games?
Because THEY DO.
Right now, there is a woman in burundi teaching herself how to do a cut-crease eyeshadow look. Guaranteed.
“Third world” nations have fashion shows and fashion magazines. They care about street harassment. They care about the internet. They play video games. They know more about anime than your sorry ass every will. And the idea of “first world problems,” which makes it sound like all women in “third world” nations are dealing with starvation, rape, war, acid attacks etc.
Is bullshit.
Rank.
Bullshit.
Women in Iran spend shitloads of money on makeup. Women in the DRC don’t just care about rape. Rape – the ONE THING westerners can be expected to know about women in Congo-Kinshasa – ranks NUMBER FOUR on the list of issues women in Congo want addressed. Political participation is number 1. Economic empowerment is number 2. Women in India are passionate about information technology, and you know what they hate? Coming to the United States, where Indian women in STEM are suddenly considered LESS GOOD than their male colleagues. My friends in Senegal taught ME how to download movies off the internet. Zimbabwe has a fashion week.
As Teju Coal points out:
“I don’t like this expression “First World problems.” It is false and it is condescending. Yes, Nigerians struggle with floods or infant mortality. But these same Nigerians also deal with mundane and seemingly luxurious hassles. Connectivity issues on your BlackBerry, cost of car repair, how to sync your iPad, what brand of noodles to buy: Third World problems. All the silly stuff of life doesn’t disappear just because you’re black and live in a poorer country. People in the richer nations need a more robust sense of the lives being lived in the darker nations. Here’s a First World problem: the inability to see that others are as fully complex and as keen on technology and pleasure as you are.
One event that illustrated the gap between the Africa of conjecture and the real Africa was the BlackBerry outage of a few weeks ago. Who would have thought Research In Motion’s technical issues would cause so much annoyance and inconvenience in a place like Lagos? But of course it did, because people don’t wake up with “poor African” pasted on their foreheads. They live as citizens of the modern world. None of this is to deny the existence of social stratification and elite structures here. There are lifestyles of the rich and famous, sure. But the interesting thing about modern technology is how socially mobile it is—quite literally. Everyone in Lagos has a phone.”
95% of the people who use bullshit expressions like “First world problems” have NO IDEA what life is like for people in the so-called third world. You just like sitting there derailing.
And for the record? As a white, western feminist, DAMN RIGHT I concentrate on issues in the United States. Because when white western feminists try to “save” women outside the west? We do a SHIT job of it. We’re the ones who bowl over actual congolese women, and what THEY want, and say that the #1 issue affecting them is rape. We become arms of the imperialist patriarchal complex.
Classic example: the guy who was ruling Egypt for the British got british feminists to help him in his anti-headscarf campaign in Egypt. Why did he hate headscarves? Because he wanted to *break the spirit* of Egyptians. Not because he gave a shit about women’s rights. How do I know that? Because he was the head of the anti-women’s-suffrage group in England.
When women who live outside the west do awesome things, I will signal-boost them, and I will do whatever they think I can do to help. But I follow their lead. Because these are THEIR issues, and THEY know what matters to them. Not me.
FINALLY: My problems are not trivial. My problems are not bullshit. My problems are not to be dismissed with your racist, imperialist logic. Dress codes and makeup and music and books and video games MATTER. They matter to me. They matter to my life.
So fuck you.
And fuck your assumptions.
And maybe consider that YOUR first world problem? Is that you can’t “see that others are as fully complex and as keen on technology and pleasure as you are.”
::stands up and applauds this response::
Have I blogged this before? Still bears repeating.
“Here’s a First World problem: the inability to see that others are as fully complex and as keen on technology and pleasure as you are.”
My boyfriend is trying to explain cricket to me again. “He’s only got two balls to make 48 runs”, he says. The camera focuses on a man. Underneath him it says LEFT ARM FAST MEDIUM. A ball flies into the stands and presumably fractures someone’s skull. “There’s a free six”, my boyfriend says. 348 SIXES says the screen. A child in the audience waves a sign referencing Weet-Bix
The first time he showed me this I assumed he was pranking me
“you’ll never amount to- well, i’m doing alright, i guess.”
ever heard the phrase “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”? that applies not to just to others but to yourself as well. it’s better to think neutrally or not at all than negatively. and once you’ve got into the habit of that, it’s much easier to move to uplifting yourself!
this is EXTREMELY hard to do when you hate yourself.
Cause it’s like, there’s these two separate people in my head and one of then hates the other SOMUCH that given the chance, it would kill the other, literally murder it
but it can’t
so it just HAS to say as many bad things as it can cause it’s the only outlet
I see where you’re coming from, but it is extremely hard.
Of course it’s hard.
If it was easy we wouldn’t need to do it.
If it was easy we wouldn’t be giving people tips on how to do it.
If it was easy we wouldn’t be struggling with the monsters in our minds, day in and day out.
Why wouldn’t it be hard?
That’s WHY we have to try. That’s WHY we have to keep fighting. That’s WHY you keep pushing and working with it. Because if you do, it gets a little easier. If you do, you path the way for your future self, if you do, you start to see why we have to do it.
Of course it’s hard.
Do you know how long I’ve hated myself? Do you know how hard it was to start doing this? Do you know how hard it was to put down the knife and the pills and pick up the phone, pick up my soul, three separate times in six years? Do you know how many more times I had to lock myself away to try and fight off the demons and the monsters?
Of course it’s fucking hard. But that’s not a reason to give up. That’s the reason to keep fighting.
If it wasn’t hard, we wouldn’t be ill.
If it wasn’t hard, we wouldn’t be tired.
If it wasn’t hard, we’d all do it.
But hard isn’t an excuse. It isn’t a reason.
It’s why we have to try.
I hated myself for twenty fucking years. I am finally starting to like myself. I’m finally starting to be able to pick up myself and go “no, this isn’t a big deal, I can keep going.”
So of course I see where you’re coming from – you’re coming from where I was, two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, five, six, seven, eight years ago.
And that’s why I reblogged this. That’s why I believe in this. Because honestly? No matter how much that little voice says “you’re worthless”, you can keep saying “i’m all right, i guess.” and eventually, that starts to work. And it can take months, it can take years, but fucking hell it works. Because you find these teeny tiny reasons to live, to find worth, to enjoy yourself.
You find reasons to breathe and reasons to get the rest of the help you need.
Of course it’s hard.
If it was easy, it wouldn’t be calling “battling mental illness”, after all.
I just saw the phrase “whooping cough party” and I can’t… I can’t.
Okay, so here’s the thing. Whenever someone asks me “how are you still alive” my favorite
flippancy is usually “spite”, but in all honesty it’s vaccines. Spite
and vaccines.
And not just me being vaccinated, but everyone
around me too, because there are some vaccines I cannot safely have and I
rely on everyone else around me being vaccinated to avoid it.
Things
like, oh, say, whooping cough, which I actually had as a child because I
went to school with the victims of antivaxxers, and we all got super
sick and coughed so hard the blood vessels in our eyes ruptured and
every fit felt like you were going to die choking for breath.
And
tonight, a friend of mine who happens to be a mother, hauled me into an
argument on Facebook where people in her neighborhood group were hosting
a “whooping cough party” cause one of their kids got sick, and the tag
line was “come on over and get it over with lol”, and words cannot
convey how much visceral hatred I had for this person in that moment. If I could have set them on fire with my brain, I probably would.
Because I
can wholly remember sitting in bed clutching my little
chest, desperate for the pain to stop, making that horrible wheezing
sound, with tears streaming down my face, utterly convinced I was going to die if I couldn’t draw breath. And that went on for months
because even with treatment, the cough can take up to three months to
subside. And that is a horrible thing for a child to go through. I
cannot stress enough how painful and terrifying it was and my parents
for all their faults could do nothing. They’d done everything they could
to keep me safe from other illnesses. I had all my other vaccines, I
just couldn’t have that one.
And the thing is, you can get it
again, it’s not a one time deal. You can get it more than once, and
doctors actually recommend you get a booster shot for it every ten
years, and I can’t do that. I cannot protect myself from it. I rely on
other people being responsible, and taking the necessary steps to keep
whooping cough outbreaks low, and the only way to do that is through
regular routine inoculation.
And these fuckers are throwing a party??? What???
Let me be clear, it is through profound measures of willful ignorance, hubris, and yes privilege,
that people have allowed for things like measles and whooping cough to
make a come back. It is a privilege to live in a healthy society where
you can expect all your children to make it out of infancy. It is a
privilege to not die young from TB, it is a privilege that many people
before you had to suffer for and work hard to bring about, all in the
hopes that another child wouldn’t have to go into the iron lung from
polio. And through the privilege of never having had to suffer, you have
elected to do harm. You have elected to allow for the resurgence of
mumps, and measles and coughs that sound like a death rattle in the
lungs of infant children, and then you have the absolute audacity and
malice in your souls to celebrate and throw “sickness parties” because
you’d rather let your child suffer through unnecessary illness than be
vaccinated?
How dare you. You have a moral and social
obligation to protect your children and the people around you, and not
only have you chosen to wave this responsibility, but you are actively endangering others?
How dare you.
And
the thing is I know, I know in your own misguided way you think you are
doing what is best for you child. But if the road to hell truly is
paved with good intentions, I can tell you now with absolute certainty
that you fuckers have got your own burning stars on the walk of shame.
Vaccinate
your god damn kids. And get your booster shots while you’re at it. You
might just save someone’s life without ever knowing or trying.
(Note: This is not aimed at people who cannot be vaccinated or whose
children cannot be vaccinated. I know that struggle, I know it is real
and I’m so sorry other people are putting you and your loved ones at
risk.
Also yes, I know chickenpox parties used to be a thing, I
went to one of them as a kid. Thankfully there is now a vaccine for that
too! Isn’t living in the future neat!
And just so you know, if
you come onto this post telling me that vaccines cause autism, you will
be afflicted with the condition known as my foot up your ass. I will not
engage on discourse over this, there is no discourse to be had. You are
wrong. And that is the end of the discussion.)
The Redback would like you too! They love humans and human homes, and seem to preferentially prefer living around us. Their venom causes almost pure pain and they are happy to share it. Here’s a picture of one eating lunch.
Perhaps you’d like the Sydney Funnel-Web Spider instead? A spider that more or less is restricted to our largest, most populous city and can kill you. It likes to dig holes in your garden.
Perhaps reptiles are more your style? Consider our Tiger Snake, which is not a peaceful soul content to be left alone. Tigers have attitude and will have a go when provoked, unlike the relatively chill red bellied black snakes.
Also around our homes we also have the notorious Magpie, aka murder bird, which is not really as bad as the internet makes them out to be unless you’ve bothered them previously, but they can do significant damage divebombing your skull if they decide to.
Like birds? The cassowary probably should be a cryptid, but this dinosaur who didn’t get the message really exists, and will trample your organs. It eats fruit.
On the topic of large herbivores, red kangaroos are as big as ours come. They will eviscerate dogs and humans that get too close, and will total a car in a crash. Do not approach a red kangaroo hit by your car unless you are sure it’s dead.
If you’re interested in something a little more legendary, we have the Razorback pigs. These are not cryptids, they are large enough up north to start eating cattle.
This sounds like something I’d really enjoy, care to share the recipie?
@gallusrostromegalus
Definitely! Would you like the recipe with the long-winded childhood or martial background story that has nothing to do with the recipe, or without?
(I believe “with” is traditional for the internet but I’ll forgo for sake of sanity.)
Anyway-
I usually eyeball it, having learned to cook from a man who firmly belived in the method “Your heart will know how much salt to put in to the soup.” so forgive my somewhat casual measurements.
The only really important things you’ll need-
-A Big Pot.
Big.
No, Bigger. Seriously. Think cooking food for Army of Many, even if it’s just You.
-One smaller pan/pot.
-About 2 cups of rice (so 4 cups of water)
-A can of black beans if you’re short on time or low spooned (or a good ol’ fashion all day soak of a couple cups of black beans till they’re soft and you feel like they taste pretty good for plain black beans that have been soaking all day.)
-an onion. I prefer red, but I used white all through college and it was fine. Why red? No idea. I just like red onions.
-oil- olive/canola is probably best.
-various spices, but even just salt and pepper will do…..in a pinch. (Ahahahah.)
(I listed the ones I used below.)
-if you wanna get fancy, lemon or lime juice
That’s it for the base of things! Super easy. A note- All you *really* need is the rice/onion/beans, so it’s good for low-income life. The rest is just adding some…spice (Thank you, thanks, I’ll be here all week.) to it and making it even more exciting with meat sometimes.
How to Make The Thing-
Start cooking your rice. Use the Big Pot for this, trust me.
While that’s cooking, get the smaller pot or pan and start cooking your onions till they’re almost completely cooked (they’ll get golden-brown and sort of clear), then add your (drained!!) beans so they start heating up. I usually cook them in a mixture of olive oil and the lemon/lime juice.
When the rice gets to “sticky but not soft/kinda soft crunchy” stage, add the beans and onions in with them and stir. Stir until everything is pretty evenly spread out through the pot. Let it cook the extra 5-10 minutes until the rice is proper rice texture. It will be a big sticky mess. It will make your Russian Grandmother go “Yes, good, this is food that will keep you through winter and stick to your ribs.”
Add any spices you might want at this point- I used (for tonight)
-two heavy pinches of cayenne
-a pinch of cumin
-a dash of black pepper
-a heavy dash of white pepper
-a pinch of chili powder
-a pinch of garlic powder
-a pinch of salt
Stir a bit longer, and then glop it into a bowl and enjoy!
Let me know if anyone tries this and likes it!
(The meat, by the way, was just pork and chicken I threw into a pan with lemon juice and the same spices as the gallo pinto and cooked until it wasn’t pink anymore. Super simple.)
I was right this IS something I will extremely much enjoy, but also I live for weird family stories and would like the Full version as well.
honestly this will probably be a Controversial Post so Don’t @ Me but
you absolutely should be pro animal testing.
against cosmetic animal testing is one thing. to be honest, if we were in 1955, i’d say it’s still necessary, but we’ve kinda sussed out our options. we have a good database. only the weird experimental bullshit is worth animal testing in the field of cosmetics.
medical animal testing, though? if you come for medical animal testing, i will fight you.
yes i know the pictures look gory, and mean, and creepy. but this is still the primary way we learn.
only a fucking fool says that we know enough about biology to model it all on a computer. biology is one of those subjects where it can look like we know what we’re doing in that big picture high school view, but SURPRISE ASSHOLE! WE KNOW JACK FUCKING SHIT. we just discovered a new organ, like, a couple years ago. there are layers of immune system so involved that we know humans probably have them but we just don’t fucking know how to spot it. and if you can’t spot it, if you can’t describe its behavior – how the fuck do you computer model it?
so what do you do? you use test animals as analogues. a lot of test animals are used because we want to study something, but we need it simpler, and more easy to spot. shoutout to fruit flies and zebrafish! and then there are some test animals where we want to see what it might look like in a complex critter with a lot of moving parts similar to ours – like mice.
in a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to do any animal testing. let me get this straight: i know that animals suffer and die so we can test on them. i know that. but even as i mourn them, i thank them.
we still need animal testing in medical science the same way a general needs foot soldiers. in a perfect world, there would be no war. but there is war yet to fight.
be grateful. be compassionate. fight for strict ethical standards. (for one fucking thing, bad ethics means bad fucking science, because you’re introducing additional variables into the mix and not being honest about balancing for them!) remember every single animal from chimpanzee down to fruitfly as a brave soul who gave their life for a greater cause.
but the cause is still great.
honor the sacrifice of these animals by supporting research, not seeking to make their deaths be in vain by saying you do not want the foundation of knowledge they gave us to be built upon any longer. they gave us a precious gift of knowledge for their lives already. it is not kind nor ethical to spurn that gift, because the war isn’t over, and the battles are not yet won.
remember these animals as brave soldiers. honor them. be proud of them. seek that those still in the fight are treated humanely. hell, make memorials! there is a lovely memorial in poland iirc dedicated to all the knockout mice that have helped us understand genetics, and it’s one of my favourite monuments in the entire world.
…but don’t disrespect their sacrifice.
(and if you need to care, on a more practical level, about the medical animal testing that looks ickiest to you because it’s cute doggies and kitties? ….where the fuck do you think new veterinary medicines come from, shat out by cherubim upon our heads? knowing that a medicine works for x illness in dogs isn’t just a stepping stone to human test trials, WE NOW HAVE A MEDICINE FOR DOGS TOO.)
it was unveiled in 2013, and is in Novosibirsk at their institute of genetics (same people that still are running the SibFox experiment)
i think we need more monuments like this. i would like to see one in every college that has a genetics department. thanking not only mice, but all laboratory animals.
seriously though whenever i’ve brought it up to people who are against medical testing on animals, there’s about 95% odds that they go “oh we can just test people who are in jail and on death row instead!!!”.
and then i always have a moment of being quietly exhausted at them. i feel like it’s a bad sign when my white as wonderbread ass has a moment of “oh god help you, i dunno if i have the strength to explain to you right now about racial problems”. it’s so above and beyond that when i think somebody is being too white, like when they complain about salt being too spicy and mayonnaise being exotic, like, they’re deep in the shit indeed
Frankenuff’s Castle 