Voting for Democrats is the "leaving the house, getting some exercise, and drinking more water is good for your mental health" of societal change. Everyone keeps telling you to do it, worst of all your mom keeps telling you to do it, and it's not a magical cure-all, but it actually works and rotting in your room shitposting does not help in either scenario.
people online talk so much about hating babies and kids but in "the meatspace" people LOVE babies. hang out with a baby and you will see so many people staring at you with big smiles and waving at you and going "that baby is SO cute" and generally being pleasant unprompted. the lady at the vietnamese place just now gave us like three extra soup spoons because my niece loves those spoons but kept dropping them on the floor and the lady kept giving us more with a massive smile on her face. on our walk today a bunch of construction guys waved and grinned at her the whole time we walked by, and when we passed by an elementary school a little girl said "your baby's really sweet!" babies are not balls of irritation and hatred they are beacons of joy and kindness actually and they bring out the best in strangers. whenever im out with her we have multiple positive interactions with strangers who are so happy to see her. or maybe it's just that my baby niece is the cutest most wonderful baby in the world :]
how odd, to watch the creative writing exercises of angry men in the comments of instagram. you noticed it first in the comments of conventionally attractive women - but then it started appearing everywhere else, too.
a young man talks about what lunch he's packing his wife. there is a little story under it, with 300 likes, fabricated from nothing. "this is pointless. if you treat her like this, she will take the lunch to her office and fuck her boss and divorce him and take all his money."
you scroll. a young woman talks about what lunch she's packing for her husband. it is always uglier when the subject of the video is a woman, you've noticed. "you sit on camera and you smile and you are cheating with the neighbor and then you're going to lie about being sexually assaulted by your husband and -"
you stop reading. it has 567 likes.
where did this even become a thing? people making up stories in their head, disgusting long-winded assumptions about intention and sexual disgrace. the evil twin of fanfiction.
like - it's just a lie. it's a lie that they are telling, baldfaced and assumptive. the undercurrent is of course misogyny, but the trouble is that they're so fucking certain. that's what makes the hairs on the back of your neck rise. there is this pervasive, inventive desire for them to be right. that they must be right. all women are cheating, lying, gold-digging bitches. no exceptions.
in the reverse, when women say i'd rather meet a bear in the woods than a strange man - men funnel in from the sides. they defend each other with a vibrance and capacity for empathy you wish applied to like, the other half of the population. a man could be saying i absolutely did kill her and these creatures in the comments would rise up with king shit. she made it happen. they love each other to the point of this sick strange self-gaslighting, a fervent and unhinged cognitive distortion. all men are good, wonderful people. all women are terrible, conniving, seditious, annoying.
and when did it become okay to just, like... say that kind of a thing? at one point, you find yourself typing out a witty and snappy retort. why are you spending so much time fantasizing about other people babe. but as you stare at the screen, some part of you pictures this man in public, saying these things to your face. his soapbox, high and mighty. his mirrored sunglasses and his empty life: tired and lonely.
what a sad and horrible loop he's locked in. he is terrible to women, so women don't talk to him, which he uses as an excuse to act more terribly. he blames this "failure" on women, rather than on his behavior. it cannot be that he is the problem (that the solution is to just put his ego down and accept women as equals) - he begins to invent a sculpture to replace the flesh frame of each person he sees.
it isn't just a woman posing on the beach. it is now a slut with a desperate need for each person to crave her body. it isn't just a woman yelping with surprise during something upsetting. it is a hysterical, unhelpful cretin who will probably make things worse instead of better. it isn't a person.
someone's very sweet wedding vows get moderate attention on instagram. in the comments, a man says good fucking luck you'll waste your life providing while behind your back she's absolutely fucking the best man. this will be so cringe in 2 months when she walks out on you.
you think - is that what you need to be true? is that what you need to happen, for the world to make sense to you?
A Gazan journalist, not afraid to show his face, explains that coordination between Hamas and Egypt at the Rafah crossing has led to high prices of goods in the Gaza Strip.Â
He adds that through the Kerem Shalom crossing, which Hamas is fighting to keep closed, goods enter from Israel and help lower prices to unimaginable levels, not seen since the beginning of the war.
sorry since realizing my gender i have zero tolerance for the whole âman hatingâ angle of being queer i hate i hate it i hate you. stop. you are hurting people.
This princess is my first granddaughter. She is now in Gaza under the bombing. When I call her, she cries, Grandma. I did not sleep at night. I am afraid of bombing and death, with a sad voice. I have not eaten, Grandma. I want to come to you. Please help me evacuate them. With every posting and donation, you will save my family. Please đ˘đ đđľđ¸đ
A lot of younger people have no idea what aging actually looks and feels like, and the reasons behind it. That ignorance is so dangerous. If you donât want to âbe old,â you arenât talking about a number of years. I have patients in their late 80s who could still handily beat me in a raceâone couple still runs marathons together, in their late 80sâand I lost someone who was in her early 60s to COPD last year. What you want is not youth, it is health.
If you want to still be able to enjoy doing things in your 60s and 70s and 80s and even 90s, what you want to do, right now, is quit smoking, get some activity on a regular basis (a couple of walks a week is WAY better for you than nothing; increasing from 1 hour a day of cardio to 1.5 will buy you very little), and eat some plants. Thatâs it. No magic to it. No secret weird tricks. Donât poison yourself, move around so your body doesnât forget how, and eat plants.
If you have trouble moving around now because of mobility limitations, bad news: you still need to move around, not because itâs immoral not to, but because thatâs still the best advice we have. I highly recommend looking up the Sit and Be Fit series; it is freely available and has exercises that can be done in a chair, which are suitable for people with limited mobility or poor balance. POTS sufferers, Iâm looking at you.
If you have trouble eating plants because of dietary issues (they cause gas, etc.) or just because theyâre bitter (super taster with texture issues here!), bad news. You still want to find a way to get some plants into your body on a regular basis. I know. It sucks. The only way I can do it is restaurantsâthey can make salads taste like food. I can also tolerate some bagged salads. On bad weeks, the OCD with contamination focus gets so bad I just canât. However, canned beans always seem âsafe,â and they taste a bit like candy, so theyâre a good fallback.
If you smoke and you have tried quitting a million times and youâre just not ready to, bad news. You still need to quit. Your body needs you to try and keep trying. Your brain needs it, too. Damaging small blood vessels racks up cumulative damage over time that your body can start trying to reverse as soon as you quit. I know itâs insanely, absurdly addictive. You still need to.
You cannot rules lawyer your way past your bodyâs basic needs. It needs food, sleep, activity, and the absence of poison. Those are both small things and big asks. You cannot sustain a routine based on punishment, so donât punish your body. Find ways to include these things that are enjoyable and rewarding instead. Experiment. There is no reason not to experimentâyou donât have to know instantly whatâs going to work for you and what wonât, you just need to be willing to try things and make changes when things arenât working for you.
You will still age. Your body will stop making collagen and elastin. Tissues you can see and tissues you canât see will both sag. Cushioning tissues under your skin will get thinner. Youâll bruise more easily. Skin will tear more easily. Accumulated sun damage will start to show more and more. Joints will begin to show arthritis. Tendons and ligaments will get weaker and get injured more easily, as will muscles. Bones will lose mass and get easier to break. Youâll get tired more easily.
But you know what makes the difference between being dead, or as good as, in your 60s vs your 90s? Activity, plants, and quitting smoking. And donât do meth. Saw a 58-year-old guy this week who is going to have a heart attack if he doesnât quit whatever stimulant heâs on. I pretended to believe it was just the cigarettes, and maybe it is, but meth and cocaine will kill you quicker. Stop poisoning yourself.
Baby steps; take it one step at a time; you donât need to have everything figured out right now. But you do need to be working on figuring things out.
In 2022, Massachusetts residents voted in favor of a Fair Tax ballot measure to extra-super-duper-tax those earning more than one million dollars a year and to spend the revenue from that on education and transportation initiatives.
Naturally, there were the naysayers. Those who warned that all of the stateâs rich people would move away to their very own Galtâs Gulch or whatever, if they were forced to pay a four percent tax on anything they make over a million dollars. The implication there, of course, is that raising this tax would, ironically, lead to the state collecting less revenue overall.
That didnât happen! In fact, the state has already raised $1.8 billion in revenue so far for this fiscal year â which is $800 million more than they expected, and they still have a few months to go. The vast majority of the surplus will go to a fund that legislators can use for one-time investments in various projects.
The revenue has already been invested in universal school lunches, in more scholarships to public colleges, in improvements to the MBTA, and to repair roads and bridges. These are all things that will improve the quality of life for everyone, including the âultra-richâ who happen to live there. The fact is, itâs just nice to live in a society that is more civil, that takes care of its people and its children and that fixes things when they are broken.
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Elizabeth Warren, Pramila Jayapal, and others have introduced bills in the House and Senate for a nationwide millionaireâs tax of two percent â two cents on the dollar for all wealth exceeding $50 million and six percent on all wealth over a billion dollars. This would bring in an estimated $3.75 trillion over 10 years, which we could use to improve the lives of all US citizens. We could have so many nice things!
Itâs time to stop living in fear of what millionaires and billionaires â who have made their fortunes off of roads weâve paid for and employees weâve paid to educate â will do or where they will move if forced to pay their fair share. Thatâs no way to live. If they have some place better to go that wonât force them to contribute to improving their community? Let them. Other people will come along and be more than happy to pick up where they left off. But more than likely, they wonât do jack shit because theyâre rich, and if they wanted to live someplace else, theyâd be there by now.