I am not saying we should not struggle at all. We want to fight to survive, and it’s hard to turn off that instinct. I am saying we should think about other ways to struggle, which might be counterintuitive but more effective. Getting safe might look a little different than we expect. The bog will not stop trying to destroy us, so we have to be creative. We have to be lithe and loose, quick-footed, maybe a little sneaky, maybe hew a bit closer to the darkness than we’re used to. There are ways out of every quagmire.

redbird

In The Lilac People, my debut novel about trans people in Weimar Berlin and Nazi Germany, I have a side character so small, they’re downright tertiary. Dora Richter has no speaking role, nor does she have any impact on the plot. And yet she’s included because she’s important, and she was real.
[...]
But perhaps most importantly, we now know that such stories sometimes come with a happy ending. The reality is there. All we have to do is look.

andrewducker

musesfool

“These little animals, which had appeared to be completely dried and lifeless, were restored to motion upon the addition of water, as if they had never suffered any harm,” van Leeuwenhoek wrote. Microbiologists would later find that some species of rotifers are able to reanimate after up to nine years of desiccation.

lb_lee

The hit-by-a-bus plan is for when you are suddenly unable to perform your usual duties or communicate the need to get them done to others—such as when you are suddenly committed to a mental hospital, kidnapped, or hit by a bus and put in a coma. The plan is especially for people without spouse or families. Getting hit by a bus may be unavoidable, but less so is getting fired (or a pet dying) because you aren’t there and nobody knows what happened or what to do. It has two components: prep work for yourself (for psychological crisis), and stuff for helpers to do on your behalf afterward (general purpose).

queerspacepunk

emmett

jesse_the_k

During World War I, peace broke out.

It was Christmas 1914 on the Western Front. Despite strict orders not to chillax with the enemy, British and German soldiers left their trenches, crossed No Man's Land, and gathered to bury their dead, exchange gifts, and play games.

Meanwhile: it's 2017, the West has been at peace for decades, and wow, we suck at trust. Surveys show that, over the past forty years, fewer and fewer people say they trust each other. So here's our puzzle:

Why, even in peacetime, do friends become enemies? And why, even in wartime, do enemies become friends?

I think game theory can help explain our epidemic of distrust – and how we can fix it! So, to understand all this...

"It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here.

So… ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space.

Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive."

shadowkat

siderea

My point here is that you don't have to feel bad that you can't do it all. You have to remember you are one person in a huge, multifaceted movement of resistance, and other comrades will be doing the things you don't do. The second most important thing to believe in, after yourself, is one another.

Relatedly, we need to resist the temptation to tell other people they're not picking up the right rocks or the rocks they're moving aren't important. All the rocks ultimately have to get moved, all the rocks are important.

But something Adriana and I have talked about over and over is that dealing with your feelings about hard problems isn't a distraction from the work; it's part of the work. So I'm reaching out to you, through text and symbol, to say: let's work together. When somebody asks you why decisions in Washington matter, here's a story you can share.

They do not understand power. I'm not sure they understand wealth either.

In two clinical trials with over 1,000 patients in each, suzetrigine was found to be equally as effective as opioids at blocking acute pain following moderately painful surgery.

andrewducker

In a study that looked back at outcomes for a series of patients, Heng and her colleagues showed that those who walked early on femurs that had broken just above the knee had no higher rate of complications than those who stayed off the leg for six weeks.

When you survey students, you oversample large classes: If there are 10 students in a class, you have 10 chances to sample that class; if there are 100 students, you have 100 chances. In general, if the class size is x, it will be overrepresented in the sample by a factor of x.

siderea

This is a difficult virus from a public health perspective, but public health couldn’t have handled it worse. Although it remains a solvable problem, the way it was addressed has undermined the ability of public health to do anything useful at this point, given the current leadership and controls over public health as they stand. They are doing nothing except reminding us to wash our hands and not eat raw eggs.

Professor and activist Howard Zinn writes: “The struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold onto it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, and patience.”

Alan Chazaro made the bold decision to leave behind his vibrant network and life in the San Francisco Bay Area to embrace a quieter existence in Xalapa, Veracruz. For Alan and his family, the move wasn’t just a change of scenery — it was an intentional step toward grounding his young son in the linguistic, social, and cultural richness of Mexico.

jesse_the_k

"If I could say anything to Sir Ludwig it would be, “Thank you”… Before he did his rehab work at Stoke Mandeville, if you broke your back or your neck you were just left in hospital to die; it was that simple." -- Tanni Grey-Thompson, Paralympian

These experiences underscore the pervasive impact of weight stigma, which can shape the way fat cyclists are perceived and the way they perceive themselves. Even in inclusive environments, cultural narratives that equate body size or physical ability with worth create barriers to participation, confidence, and access to the joy of cycling. When we falsely equate thinness with health, we deny people the opportunity to live fulfilling, truly healthy lives. The experiences fat individuals have in athletic spaces push many to exercise in isolation—or avoid it altogether. Internalized fatphobia not only limits opportunities for enjoyment and wellness but also has been proven to increase stress and cortisol levels, contributing to health issues that are frequently misattributed to fatness rather than the stigma itself.