“Overuse of Healthcare” Like. How would that even work?
“Huh, this feels kind of … weird and “off” and not good, given my Universal Healthcare, I will go get it checked out. It MIGHT be nothing, but they MIGHT check it and find something serious before it becomes deadly or disabling, instead of just hoping it’s nothing serious and ignoring it until I can’t ignore it anymore”
Oh wait, that’s how healthcare is SUPPOSED TO WORK.
Guards! Guards! was not the first Discworld book I read but it is the one that punched my angsty, edgy thirteen-year-old self in the face. I have never had a book hit me like that since. Nothing has ever picked me up by the scruff of the neck and shown me my own face in the mirror that way.
I was angsting around, all "the world is terrible" and "people are evil" and "humans are a blight upon the earth" and "everyone is stupid" and Vimes showed up and said, "Yeah, and?"
So what? So they're stupid and petty - save them anyway. So they're selfish - save them anyway. So it's all fucked and there's never going to be a happy ending - save them anyway. Do it anyway. You don't get to opt out of caring just because they're grubby and ignorant and reactionary and petty because so are you and that's all we've got.
No other book has ever changed my worldview in one blow before or since. I reckon that's something that can only happen to you when you're a teenager anyway. But I've never quite gotten over it.
i saw someone in the tags asking if i had any other outfit ideas for isabela and BOY HOWDY i gotta tell you that is a very enthusiastic yes
the particular grief of losing a piece of graffiti that was part of your everyday routes through the city. congratulations "anti-vandalism initiatives" you painted over my dear friend and neighbor
all about love, bell hooks
Image Transcript:
One day on my way to work, looking forward to the day's meditation on love that the sight of the graffiti art engendered, I was stunned to find that the construction company had painted over the picture with a white paint so glaringly bright it was possible to see faint traces of the original rat underneath. Upset that what had now vecome a ritual affirmarion of love's grace was no longer there to welcome me, I told everyone of my disappointment. Finally someone passed on the rumor that the graffiti art had been whitewashed because the words were a reference to individuals living with HIV and that the artist might be gay. Perhaps. It is just as likely that the men who splashed paint on the wall were threatened by this public confessing of a longing for love—a longing so intense it could not only be spoken but was deliberately searched for.
After much searching I located the artist and talked with him face-to-face about the meaning of love. We spoke about the way public art can be a vehicle for the sharing of life-affirming thoughts. And we both expressed out grief and annoyance that the construction company had so callously covered up a powerful message about love. To remind me of the construction walls, he gave me snapshots of the graffiti art. From the time we met, everywhere I have lives I have placed these snapshots above my kitchen sink. Every day, when I drink water or take a dish from the cupboard, I stand before this reminder that we yearn for love—that we seek it—even when we lack hope that it really can be found.
Idk like I think there's a really misogynist way that women are expected to consider being murdered and assaulted as like 1000x worse than anything else that could happen and do everything possible to avoid it and like it's unarguably bad! But constantly whenever I mention going hiking or whatever people are like 'omg you're going camping alone as a woman??? what if you get murdered?????' Actually by far the way I am most likely to die doing that is... some sleep deprived or drunk driver crashing into me on the way there! But no one tells you to avoid driving, meanwhile there's so much pressure on women to like, always stay in other crowded super safe areas or at home to Protect Their Virtue and it's like lol I would actually rather live an interesting life doing things that I enjoy
People in the tags talking about how unlikely it is that you'd actually get murdered camping are kind of missing the point this is about how if you do anything kind of vaguely risky as a man people don't care but if you do anything vaguely risky as a woman people are like 'did you know that's actually risky? I know you don't know what you are doing ever and would never want to do anything vaguely dangerous. you didn't think about how you could get murdered' literally I don't careeee I'm going to see a lizard
When I talk about the value of work vs. the wages the worker gets, this is exactly what I’m talking about. And today, more of that value winds up going to the shareholders than even the business owners.
yeah okay ill reblog that >:(
persimnon asked:
Ever since DD 37, “at my sicko window” has become an irrevocable part of my personal vocabulary. It needs to become commonplace on tumblr. I am totally at my sicko window with several characters right now. Thank you for bringing that phrase to life
dashboarddiaries answered:
yessssssss we love this!!!!! we are always at our sicko window!
(and we love giving credit where credit is due - this image is a crop of a comic from 2015 in the onion by Stan Kelly!)
tired of cannibalism as a metaphor for love or sex. can we get into cannibalism as a metaphor for colonization.
1. Europeans using Egyptian mummies as medicine
2. The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within US Slave Culture by Vincent Woodard
4. Zombies (which I would class as cannibals, since they were human and need to eat humans to live) have a root in Haitian folklore and represented enslavement.
