Kolya

it kinda feels like the only thing we're meant to be doing this year is internal healing and letting things go. there is so much pain this year so let's not feel bad if we don't do anything 'productive'. just being alive is enough

vegans make peace with honey

no shut up do it

vegans will pretend not to hear when natives tell them their agave products are unsustainable because they have whimsical feelings about, and i cannot stress this enough, the freedom of hive insects

Honey is literally murder but go off

Prove it.

They literally puke their guts up to make your honey

I have not seen any evidence tonsugges they are harmed or die in the process of production. They do regurgitate the nectar as part of the process to concentrate it into honey (an interesting process) but they do not suffer any injury during this process. If they did, the cost to produce honey, which is done naturally as a measure to survive over winter and through times of lower availability, would outweigh the benefits. If you kill several bees to produce enough honey to make one more bee, It makes no sense. Any animal that did that would die, even with human intervention.

Do you have any sources which suggest otherwise? I’d be interested to hear of this (relatively publicly available) information was false or misunderstood.

Bee farmers use whats called a honey maker. It’s a crude devices. It similar to a meat grinder. They force the bees in and grind them up. What comes out is a paste. That paste is later filtered into what we know as honey

This is the funniest thing I’ve ever read

@zoologicallyobsessed please show us pics of your bee grinder

they might be falsely thinking about a honey extractor machine. but all these do is you place the beehive frames inside and a motor rotates it at a speed that removes the honey, which is then tapped through a tap at the bottom. 

…do they think they put bees in that and spin them around until they vomit…?

bee carnival

bad and naughty bees get put into the b e e c e n t r i f u g e to extract their honey

While this is hilarious, it’s also important to remember that bees do not value individual bee-lives even vaguely similarly to how humans or other animals do. Bees are all about the hive.

For example, did you know worker bees ALWAYS work themselves to death? There’s no “retirement” or anything. They just keep working until they die. One of the first jobs for newly hatched bees is rolling dead bees out of the hive.

Did you know that worker bees’ stingers are a modifier part of their reproductive system? Did you know they’re attached so that when a bee stings you the barbed tip gets caught in your skin and rips out all of their internal organs? Did you know that bees are more than willing to sting you because they fight and die for their hive?

Did you know that drone bees only mate with a queen bee once, and then they immediately die? Did you know when winter comes, the worker bees push 100% of the drones out of the hive so they starve to death?

Did you know when a queen bee emerges from her lil pod, the very first thing she does is stab all the other potential queens so they don’t have a chance to usurp her? Did you know if two queens hatch at once they have to fight to the death until there is only one? Did you know if you purchase a new queen for a hive without one, she travels with a small escort of worker bees who are all promptly killed when they arrive at the new hive, even if the queen is accepted?

Did you know absolutely all of this is natural for bees, and human intervention for honey collection is actually extremely helpful because farmers offer protection from the real threats, like hive beetles, wasps, ants, and the general chaos and misery that seems to befall a lot of hives?

Like, I mcfreaking love bees, but you have GOT to stop thinking of them the way you think of people or dogs or even cows and sheep. Bees are on a completely different level.

With any hive-based creature (bees, ants, termites, mole rats, etc) you cannot think of one animal as an individual. The organism is the hive, and each individual within that is less like a person and more like an organ, or even a cell. The queen is not a leader, she’s a reproductive system. They don’t even think individually; a single ant or termite is unbelievably stupid, dumber than a roomba, but a hive together is capable of incredible feats of engineering and tactics because they treat the brain of each member like a human treats each of their individual neurons.

An individual bee has no say in whether their honey is used to feed the young of their hive or sold to humans, but an individual bee has no say in anything. The hive has decided that living in the human-box and giving them honey is a better deal than living out in the woods, because the human-box is clean and sturdy and guarded by a horrifying lumbering titan which will smite the enemies of the hive.

Can I just say I love the line “The hive has decided that living in the human-box and giving them honey is a better deal than living out in the woods, because the human-box is clean and sturdy and guarded by a horrifying lumbering titan which will smite the enemies of the hive.“? Like, as this gestalt entity it decides that yes, the big weird thing that is giving us free room and board and brings down the wrath of of thousands of us on our enemies is a good friend to have, expecially if all it wants is the honey.

when you go from a bad situation into a better one you may collapse exhausted and unsure what to do and full of grief, you may need time to regain the ability to do things as yourself or motivated by anything other than terror, you may need time to process or mourn or fall apart in ways you could not before,

and people may use this as proof that the old situation was better for you, proof that you need to go back, and it is not proof that it was better for you or proof that you need to go back

!!!

It’s so incredibly common to “fall apart” when you’re finally safe. You no longer need to stay so tightly coiled in on yourself, you can finally leave survival mode and process your trauma. You’re not holding yourself up by sheer terror anymore and suddenly the damage that terror has done to you becomes immediate and obvious. 

This is so important. Don’t go back. Things are already getting better, even if it doesn’t feel that way.

This is a documented phenomenon with abuse in particular. I’ve had a number of people ask me why they’re falling apart now after they’ve moved into a safer home, or they’re in a less dangerous area, or they’ve left an exploitative job, or they’re in a healthy relationship for the first time. Generally, it’s because they made that positive change. 

When we’re still in the midst of crisis, we’re often too overloaded and physically/emotionally unsafe to really feel or process anything. So for most of us, everything gets pushed down/repressed/dissociated until later, when we’re safe and supported. The threshold of safety at which processing begins to occur varies from person to person. And the mental calculations used to determine “safety” usually happen on an unconscious level. Very few of us have the conscious thought “I’m safe now, so I can process what happened to me.” Instead, the subconscious realizes some level of safety has been achieved, and so it just dumps a load of suppressed stuff. 

Sometimes, it’s contrast to past experiences that makes us realize something was traumatic at all. In such cases, it’s not that we’ve reached a level of safety and can thus begin to process, it’s that we finally have a basis for comparison to know that what went before was unacceptable. 

Does anyone else purposely avoid some of their interest because you know that once you get into it, it will take up all of you mental and emotional energy and you’re just not ready to through that even if it brings you joy?

Wow this is relatable

Something important that i thought of while half asleep this morn but: youre trans even if you’re not “doing anything about it”. You’re trans if youre in the closet. Youre trans if youre pre/never hrt. Youre trans if youre pre/never op. Youre trans if you don’t ever tell anyone that youre trans. You can realize right now that youre a man or a woman or neither or both and walk around with that for the rest of your life without doing anything, and youre still gonna be trans. Youre born trans and you’ll die trans. Just how it is. Also its not that complicated to “be trans”, wanting to be a different gender is what makes you trans, not hrt or dysphoria. have a good day yall.

A friend told us that rat licker is slang for anti-masker in Ireland. My wife made this wonderful comic.

ireland is on to some shit actually

if we could all stop pretending we are whole, and instead embrace our constant becoming…

…perhaps we could begin to love the process of growth and change, rather than anxiously awaiting the final form.

Dehumanizing criminals are a favored tactic among authoritarians.

A society that has already demonized criminals and are stripping them of rights need only criminalize political dissent for opposition to be practically impossible.

This.

I feel like we don’t talk enough about Valjean’s AMAZING ability to lie.

It’s an important Theme in Les Mis that being dishonest can often be valuable and moral (like the bishop lying to the police to save Valjean.) So if Javert’s Special Skill is being so honest that he would literally rather die than tell a lie…… then Valjean’s Special Skill is his ability to look someone dead in the eye and tell them the most BOLD and OUTRAGEOUS flat-out lies with a straight face

Like. After he’s healed from his wounds, Marius says to Valjean: “hey dad-in-law, weren’t you at the barricades too? I saw you there!” And Valjean flatly responds “I have no idea what you’re talking about”

When Thenardier kidnaps Valjean for being the rich man who “stole” Cosette from him, Thenardier demands Valjean confess that he recognizes him. Valjean does not. Thenardier goes on a long rant about who he is, and how Valjean wronged him, and his gang is clearly threatening Valjean with torture and death– and Thenardier asks Valjean again “NOW DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”

Valjean’s casually responds “i only know that you’re a bandit”

Valjean spends his entire time at the barricade weirding everyone out by being unusually nonviolent and pacifistic. Then he walks up to Enjolras like “GIVE ME JAVERT BECAUSE I AM A VIOLENT MAN AND I WANT TO SHOOT HIS BRAINS OUT”

Javert goes up to Valjean in Montreuil and says “I mistook you for a convict named Jean Valjean.”

And Valjean is calmly like “‘Mistook’ is the right word, because you were absolutely mistaken. I am definitely not Jean Valjean and frankly? I’m stunned and offended you could ever mistake me for him”

#i do want to write another post on how in les mis#lying is often framed as a noble heroic act  

Honestly, please do? This has been an aspect of Les Mis that has intrigued me for years, and that I don’t really seen talked about or addressed that much. (Like, if there’s an essay or dissertation out there already about how honesty and lying are treated in Les Mis , please link, cause I would read the heck out of that.)

I’ve never read Les Mis in the original French (My French is just not that good, I can get some joke memes on French tumblr and that’s about it), and I’ve wondered what ‘honest man’ is actually a translation of? But putting that aside and just looking at the English language versions, I remember way back when first seeing the musical when the Bishop tells Valjean “You must use this precious silver to become an honest man” when he…just lied??? Like you said, he just lied to the police, that was his act of goodness and compassion. And again, like you said, Valjean goes on to spend most of his life lying in one way or another, while still trying to do good. The only time when him lying–and really, just keeping silent–is framed as probably bad is the whole ‘someone else might be convicted in my place’ thing. So then, actual honesty suddenly becomes very important. 

And then there’s Thernardier and Javert–one who is a malicious liar and con man, and the other who Will Not Tell A Lie–but they’re both shown to be incredibly damaging to the people around them. And even little Cossette sometimes lies to try and protect herself from the Thernardiers, and that’s not framed as entirely unsympathetically either. AND THEN now that I’m thinking about it, the women who “tell the truth” about Fantine having a daughter aren’t exactly depicted in a favorable light. 

I mean, I’m sure there’s more examples, but this is already longer than I meant it to be, my point is, it really does seem like, taken all together, in the world of Les Mes that Hugo is building, honesty is not a virtue. Both lying and telling the truth appear to be morally neutral acts, and whether they are good or bad depends entirely on the circumstances involved–on the intent, and on the effect of it. If you’re lying or telling the truth in order to be kind, to be compassionate, to help, to protect, then that’s good. But if you’re lying or telling the truth in order to be spiteful, malicious, to hurt, or just in an act of indifference to another’s suffering, then that’s bad.But there is no inherent moral value to honesty depicted in the text, really. 

Which…is a pretty fucking radical take if you think about it (particularly from a traditional Christian perspective, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic)? Like, even today, if someone came out with a work of fiction that explicitly spelled out that moral stance–that sometimes lying is good and telling the truth is bad actually, and being “honest” in that sense has no intrinsic moral value–like…I feel like that would be a pretty big deal. Like, lying might be framed as a “lesser, necessary evil”, but hardly ever as an actual act of goodness and heroism. Les Mis only really doesn’t get attention for that because Hugo doesn’t really spell it out, he just shows it in the text, and so I genuinely don’t think most people even notice what a pretty radical stance on honesty and morally he’s taking. (And really, I don’t even know if Hugo was aware of what kind of picture he was painting in that regard, but I also don’t really care–that’s the text we have, so that’s what matters)

Anyway, sorry for the rambling, but yes! I would love to hear your take on ‘lying is noble and heroic sometimes actually’ in the world of Les Mes! This exact topic has been a mini obsession of mine for ages!

#Bishop Myriel: Be honest. But LIE TO COPS!#Myriel: it doesn’t count as lying when you’re lying to a cop#and if I ever make a post i’d talk about like#Sister Simplice lying to the police#and#how Javert’s “‘redemption”#or whatever you want to call it#is signalled by the first time he tells a lie#(“i will wait for you here”)  (tags via @secretmellowblog )

Wow this is wild

We forgot about it

I once signed up to participate in a study on how depression affects memory, forgot I was meant to go do it, and when I emailed to apologise to the PhD student running it she basically told me that a) she was very used to this happening and b) the weird irony of her theories’ correctness making it very difficult to arrange proving them had by now gone from infuriating to hysterical

I went to the Grand Canyon when I was depressed and I literally forgot the whole thing. Like, the only reason I even know I was there is that I have photographs of myself standing in front of the Grand Canyon with dead eyes but i have absolutely no memory of it

People talk about depression like it’s just being sad all the time but straight up your brain stops working and sadness is just one of the many, many consequences of that

I found this really important tiktok about what to do if a Jehovah's Witness or Morman missionary comes to your door:

I spent some time in a Jehovah's Witness church. They're exceptionally skilled at recruiting people into their church. (And I was an ATHEIST)

I left after a couple months, I stayed just long enough to see that they explicitly believe women are inferior to men, and of course, that homosexuality is a sin on par with murder.

The whole missionary door to door thing is NOT how Jehovah's Witnesses recruit. That is how they convince their members that the world is out to get them. One of the first things they teach is that Jesus requires you to try to convert non Christians to the faith. (They say non Christian but mean non JW.)

Then they say, "look how people treat us, just for the crime of wanting to save their soul"

They have long time church members tutor the incoming members to smooth the process over. They're trained to smooth away any doubts you may have about the church.

It is a textbook cult but because it's a Christian cult, nobody will do anything about it.

friendly reminder that u can be like “lin manuel miranda created a work of art that was meant to highlight performers of color and made broadway mainstream again and was full of amazing themes and motifs” and still be like “but hamilton is inherently problematic because it glorifies the founding fathers when they should not be treated as people to look up to” like u can and should do that

this post blew up in the few hours since i made it wow so one thing i wanted to address is that some of the replies on this post and others that i’ve seen have argued that hamilton plays largely off of criticizing the founding fathers. and you’re right, it does. but the issue is a lot more fundamental than just the characters within the show calling each other out. when i say that the narrative glorifies the founding fathers, i don’t mean that it shows them as perfect—because to an extent it does bring up some of the bad things they did—i mean that the way that the story is written makes them the protagonists, and therefore as an audience we’re driven to root for them. a lot of that is also contributed to by the way we’ve learned american history in schools and stuff, but what i’m trying to stress is that after falling so in love with this musical, i now have to constantly make a conscious effort to separate lin manuel miranda’s version of the founding fathers from the actual people in history. because they’re not the same people. the plainest example: thomas jefferson was not a black man, he was a slaveowner and a disgusting human being! every single “character” in this show was historically at the very least a white supremacist; almost all of them owned slaves or engaged in the trade. they created a system that solely benefitted rich white men. and yet, every single time i listen to this musical it convinces me that i love them and i want them to succeed. that’s what media does. no matter how much it openly criticizes its characters, the moment you’re emotionally invested in them, it becomes extremely difficult to view them as bad people. i’m not immune to it, and neither are you. that’s why hamilton is inherently problematic, despite the groundbreaking things it did for the industry. that’s why it’s necessary to separate yourself from the text for long enough to say “this piece of media is incorrectly influencing my viewpoint and i need to make a conscious effort to undo that”. i am absolutely not saying you can’t enjoy it; i definitely do. and i believe, despite all of this, that it was well-intentioned. but unfortunately that’s not enough. double check the way you consume media and please, by god, allow yourself to acknowledge when the things you love are flawed.

I absolutely love Hamilton, but yes. This

it would take 2.3 million years for Jeff Bezos to earn his $183.3b net worth working 24 hours a day at New Mexico’s $9/hr minimum wage.

That’s 11.5 times longer than the human race has existed.

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly