I'm trying to write a post about tick safety and avoiding tick bites, but a lot of the info on websites is like "Avoid going in the woods, in plants, and where there are wild animals" and "Activities like hiking and gardening can put you at risk" and I'm like thanks! This is worthless!
As ticks and tick borne illnesses are expanding their range, I think it's important for people to be educated about these things, and I think it's especially important to give people actual advice on how to protect themselves instead of telling them to just...avoid the natural world
Rough draft version of Tick Advice:
Ticks don't jump down on you from trees, they get on you when you brush against grass, brush, bushes etc.
Ticks get brought to an area when they get done feeding from an animal and fall off them. In the USA, the main tick-bringing animal is deer, but I've seen plenty ticks on feral cats and songbirds.
Ticks get killed when they dry out so drier areas with more sunlight are less favorable to ticks.
The above is useful for figuring out whether an area is likely to have lots of ticks, and how vigilant you have to be in that area.
Wear light-colored, long pants outside. Tuck your pants into your socks, and tuck your shirt into the waist of your pants. Invest in light, breathable fabrics idc
IMMEDIATELY change out of your outside clothes when you come back from a tick-prone area, wash them, and dry them on high heat to kill any ticks that might be stuck on.
Shower and check yourself for ticks after coming inside. Hair, armpits, and nether regions in particular. You can use a handheld mirror or rely on touch; an attached tick will feel like a bump kinda like a scab
While you're outside, you can just periodically check for ticks by running your hands down your legs and checking visually to see if anything is crawling on your clothes. Light colors make them easy to spot, and they don't move fast.
Combing through each others' hair to check for creepy crawly critters is a time-honored primate ritual and is not weird. When hiking, bring a friend who will have your back when you feel something on your neck and need to know if it's sweat or a tick
If you're careful, you can usually catch ticks before they bite you, but if one does bite you, it's not the end of the world. Since tickborne diseases are different regionally i suspect this advice will differ based on where you are, but the important thing is remove the tick with tweezers (DON'T use butter, a lit match, or anything that kills the tick while it's still attached, please) and contact a doctor to see what to watch for. Most illnesses you can catch from ticks are easily treatable if you recognize them when symptoms first appear
embalming, the process of chemically preserving a corpse, is typically not required by law. unless you need to transport the body long-distance or postpone the burial, it’s 100% a vanity thing.
a body still rots in air-tight conditions. so “protective” or “sealed” caskets are basically a scam, and anything fancy like metal is a waste of money.
want a beautiful casket for a viewing, but think burning or burying an expensive piece of hardwood is a waste of money and trees? rentals exist.
you don’t need a coffin for cremation. the minimum requirement is that the body be in a “cremation container,” which is a simple cardboard box.
home funerals are an option. you don’t need to hand the body over to a funeral home, and you can keep their involvement to a minimum.
natural burial sites exist. you can have your unembalmed body straight up thrown in the dirt to be tree food, if you want.
there are a lot of funeral homes that will prey on your ignorance and vulnerability in order to get as much money out of you as possible. they may imply optional certain services are legally mandatory, steer you away from cheaper options, charge additional costs for what’s supposed to be all-inclusive services, etc.
one person’s death is another person’s profit. know your rights, do your research, and apply the same scrutiny you would to any other business.
Most people recognize that there are first names given almost exclusively by black Americans to their children, such as Jamal and Latasha. [...]
Many scholars believe that distinctively black names emerged from the civil rights movement, perhaps attributable to the Black Power movement and the later black cultural movement of the 1990s as a way to affirm and embrace black culture. Before this time, the argument goes, blacks and whites had similar naming patterns.
Historical evidence does not support this belief. [...]
For example, in the 1920 census, 99 percent of all men with the first name of Booker were black, as were 80 perecent of all men named Perlie or its variations. We found that the fraction of blacks holding a distinctively black name in the early 1900s is comparable to the fraction holding a distinctively black name at the end of the 20th century, around 3 percent.
as someone who has been involved in union organizing through my dad's union since i was literally in second grade, the way that people on tumblr think unions work drives me literally insane
A thread this good shows up on my dash and I don't have any freakin' popcorn for it! Gaaaaah!
Who's your favorite of the classic universal monsters and why? (based solely on their portrayals in the universal movies, sequels and crossovers included, not their original book counterparts.)
The Wolf Man, because the character was both written and performed so well that he basically redefined what werewolves are in Western culture. None of the other Universal monsters can claim that impact, and since they never recast him, he also remains the most consistently well characterized and acted monster from film to film. Dracula and Frankenstein got their characters shaved down in sequel after sequel, but Lon Chaney Jr. made sure Larry Talbot was never less than his best.
The only good thing about long COVID is that it made the medical community admit myalgic encephalomyelitis is likely caused my viral exposure. We were like “Hey, I had a virus and just never got better.” and doctors were like “That’s silly. And stupid. Chronic fatigue syndrome is just a random vague constellation of symptoms. Or just depression. It’s all in your head.” and now doctors are experiencing it.