I have two chimps within, Laziness and Hyperactivity. They smoke cigs, drink yerba, fling shit at each other, and devour the face of anyone who gets close to either.
They also devour my dreams.
It’s just that “I was finally free from the current wave of oppression, and ready for the next one” would be a shitty closing verse.
But yes, you’re right. I think oppression is like weeds in a garden: if you’re diligent, the fight against it becomes easier over time, as you’re preventing the oppression/weeds from creating more of itself. But once you stop fighting, it sprouts out of nowhere, ready to reproduce and take your society/garden over again.
The nomenclature is really messy across countries and even sub-country entities. The Portuguese language Wikipedia even highlights the mess:
Nomenclature diversity across countries. // Some surveys estimate protected areas in different countries and regions are called by at least a hundred names, and not uncommonly countries have their own categories of protected spaces, roughly similar to the protected space concept defined by the IUCN.
From that I guess the restrictions associated with those spaces also change, and in some you aren’t supposed to remove local fauna and/or flora, creating situations like in the meme (removing invasive species is against the letter of the rule, but within the spirit).
First they came for the billionaires
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a psychopathic money hoarder
Then they came for the fascists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a face to be punched
Then they came for the government
And I did not speak out
Because I was not an instrument of oppression
Then they came for capitalism
And I did not speak out
Because I was not part of the system
Then they came for me
No, wait, nobody came for me
I was finally free.
Happy new year, good bois! And lion! And porcupine! And Butterfly!
What makes me lose my sleep:
Trees are extremely iconic and we see a lot of similarities between them, but they’re mostly due to convergent evolution. Plants have been growing that stalk independently over and over and over. Crustaceans become crab-like, mammals become ant eaters, and plants become trees. *carcinisation intensifies*
HE COMES
̺̜̙͉Z̤̲̙̙͎̥̝A͎̣͔̙͘L̥̻̗̳̻̳̳͢G͉̖̯͓̞̩̦O̹̹̺
…no, wait, that’s Santa Klaus! Merry Christmas!
I know some folks down north who eat pan-fried ant butts. The ants in question are typically flying adults of the genus Atta (leafcutters), so specially large.
That hints to me that one of the main reasons people prefer sea bugs over land bugs is size and texture. Like, you can extract the meat from a crab leg just fine, but you can’t do it with most insects, you’ll be biting through the chitin, you know?
The origin of the name is even sillier.
In 1849, a pharmacist called Garot discovered a new sugar, that gives rhubarb stalks that red colour. They proposed the name “erythrose”, because “ἐρῠθραίνω” erythraínō means “to redden” in Greek, and you got to have that -ose for sugars. Fine name, right?
Later on, it was discovered erythrose was two substances: one a mirrored version of the other. So they got named D-erythrose and L-erythrose.
But then half a century later, a chemist called Otto Ruff discovered another compound. Same atoms as both D- and L-erythrose. Same chemical bonds: C goes to O that goes to H etc. But it was neither identical to the erythroses, nor a mirrored version of them.
So Ruff picked the prefix erythr-, clipped the -ry-, and jumbled the leftover letters — because the new compound was like a jumbled erythrose. Then he added the suffix -ose, and you got “threose”. And guess what, later on it was discovered threose was two compounds.
For reference, here’s the chemical structure of all four molecules. The bonds looking like thick triangles have atoms closer to the viewer than the rest of the molecule, and the dashed bonds are for atoms further behind.
A month ago, I started preparing some anise liqueur. This weekend I’m going to filter it and mix it with syrup, then use the other half of the bottle of vodka for an Irish Cream-like thing. Neither is just for me (they’re Christmas drink for the family), but I guess it counts?
I’m also going to spend some time with epoxy clay modelling. Still thinking on what I’m going to do; probably a critter of sorts. Modelling was something I loved to do through my whole childhood, I’m trying to pick up the hobby again.
Birds in the genus Turdus totally deserve the name. They’re like:
Every single time this happened I managed to save the turd (they should be glad one of my cats is senile and the other overweight), but then the laundry room is full of turd turds and feathers and my cats spend hours looking for the missing bird.
(inb4 yes, “thrush”. Fuck it, I’m still calling them “turds”. Turdus rufiventris, aka rust-bellied turds.)
I know the last two lines are naïve; and yes, the fate of the two former heads of the NKVD is a good example. Or even the whole USSR after Lenin. (If not for an ice pick, that would be known as “Bonapartism with Russian characteristics”.)
Still trying to find a good replacement. The original poem conveys “fight for groups you don’t belong to, because their enemies will also go after you”; I want the subversion to be something like “don’t fight for your enemies”, or perhaps “don’t fight against people fighting for you”.
I’m considering
Pinging @[email protected] for ideas.