I always wondered why the Western Zodiac and the Chinese Zodiac were both called zodiacs if one was associated w astronomy and the other w time in general. Like what defines a zodiac that the word is only used to describe these two things? Looking up the word “zodiac” in the dictionary didnt help bc it only talked about the western one.

Well, I decided to look up the etymology for zodiac and it turns out it comes from the Greek for “circle of little animals.” I love humans

was unwilling to accept this outright so i checked etymonline and, truly:

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Behold, a zodiac!

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So I spend quite a bit of time in the mountains, but as a disabled person I end up spending a lot of time hanging out at the cabin or only getting to see the views via car accessible overlooks. But!!! I just discovered this wonderful website called Accessible Nature. It lists “easier”, wheelchair accessible, and trails designed for the visually impaired all across the United States and Canada. It’s of course not a perfect system, because we all have different varying degrees of physical capability, but an incredible resource all the same.

They are also always looking for more info! Definitely get in contact if you can help build this database!

5 Things Not To Do When You See A Disabled Person Under 21

I’m a disabled high schooler so I experience this shit a lot and I just wanna tell y’all what not to do, not to be mean but to just educate y’all

This is just the tip of the iceberg but here’s some basic no-nos.

I AM NOT JOKING THIS IS THE BEST SITE EVER THIS SITE HAS EVERY SINGLE FRAME FROM EVERY EPISODE OF GOOD OMENS. EVERY FRAME. HERE

PERFECT FOR PHOTO EDITS, PFPS, REFERENCES AND COLLAGES. AHHHH

@greatsouthernpansy @tragic-cosmic-magic @daisy-has-too-many-wives @janeway-lover @sparrowsortadrawzzz @helphowdoiusethis

every now and then the internet decides it should revamp the ole “stop texting first and see how many friends you lose” when in reality you could literally just communicate that u feel bad that ur the only one texting first

mfs are legit assuming that their friend isnt texting first because of how little they care abt their friendship when in reality they literally just dont know ur upset and didnt realize there was a problem in the first place. just talk to ur friends its not that hard and if they’re a bitch just tell them to kick rocks

"everyone experiences [symptom]" how many times does it have to be explained that it's often about the frequency of the symptom, not the symptom itself

"nearly everyone has had a headache before" i agree. "most people get headaches regularly" you're starting to lose me. "it's normal to have a headache all the time" go to a doctor.

"everyone gets anxious sometimes" true! "people get anxious pretty often" um. "it's normal to be anxious all the time" go to a doctor. etc

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/indigenous-astronomy-1.5077070?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

Published Mar. 30, 2019.

Excerpt:

“The recognition of First Nations contributions to science has been on the rise in recent years. In astronomy, instead of teaching constellations and stories from the Greeks and Romans, many Indigenous people are turning to teaching the star stories of the people who have lived on this land for thousands of years.

For the Cree (Salt River First Nation is made up of Cree and Chipewyan) the sight of the dancing lights means spirits are dancing across the sky” (Mortillaro).

In case you were thinking of scrolling past this article, here's a picture of a science guy and his portable planetarium.

America has a weird relationship with cults where they’re terrified of small cults (or organizations they think are cults) but completely normalized massive cults that hurt many more people (eg: LDS Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, Scientology, most Megachurches)

To anybody asking if the Amish are a cult, the answer is yes, very much so.

They’re a high control group that isolate you from society. The cult decides how you dress, how you behave, who you marry and how. They control what you know, blocking all information from the outside world. They control how you feel and what you’re allowed to think with threats of both social and supernatural harm. They’re a cult.

The best method to determine if a group is a cult, in my opinion, is Steven Hassan’s (cult expert and former cult member himself) BITE model.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever they’re confronted with criticism.

#you might notice that there are a lot of similarities between cult techniques and those of abusive partners#and that is an important thing to be aware of

yah that goes in the post

The creator of the BITE Model considers abusive relationships to be two-person cults.

It’s important to note that almost every sect of evangelical christianity in the US today fails the BITE Model.

This was the post that lead to breaking my JW mindset. Been a while since I seen it.

I’m glad I could help in your deconstruction, if only a little bit. I wish you all the luck in your journey moving forward.

Alcoholics Anonymous and its splinter groups are cults lowkey. They are operating on religious doctrine rather than science, abuse members, and aggressively proselytise even to non-alcoholics (I know bc they repeatedly did this to me, even though I don’t drink and never really have).

i don't think people take me too serious when i say i'm legally blind. Like, guys I am legally never allowed to drive, I need assistance with a lot of stuff because I can't see. People both irl and online tend to be like "oh but you're not THAT BAD OFF" it's not a thing of whether my eyes are "that bad off" it doesn't matter, they're still blind. i still use magnifying and screen readers. i'm learning braille because my eyes are getting progressively worse and I'd like to be able to still read.

I may not be totally blind, but that's the thing, a lot of blind people AREN'T Totally blind. Blindness is a spectrum. and i don't think a lot of people realize that. And I'm just as valid in my blindness as someone on the spectrum with better eyesight than me, or someone with worse.

(This is OK to reblog. I hope that sighted people who might read this really get it into their heads that blindness is a spectrum...)

writing tip: searching "[place of origin]ish names" will get you a lot of stuff and nonsense made up by baby bloggers.

searching "[place] census [year]" will get you lists of real names of real people who lived in that place.

Want to start writing image descriptions? This Cooper Hewitt guidelines for image description living document is super useful. It's made for museums so it focuses heavily on art. It covers alt text, captions, long descriptions, describing size, color, people (age, skin tone, gender, physical characteristics), enriching descriptions, infographics, etc. It gives many useful examples.

More accessibility links

when (able-bodied) people casually use any variation of “crippling,” “disabling,” or “chronic” to describe something that, you know, isn’t any of those things, I just wanna…

What trans men say: when you exclude us from your activism simply because we're men, you are telling the patriarchy that it's okay to be misogynistic towards us, as long as we don't identify as women. Not only are you putting us in danger but you're also feeding the same evil that oppresses you, that will never respect you no matter how many of us you sacrifice, because at the end of the day predatory cis men see us as just another flavor of you. They hate us cause they hate you.

What y'all hear: when you say you hate men, that hurts our feelings so please stop saying that

to ME. discovering philosophy was like ... when you hike to the top of a mountain and see a body of water that you KNOW you've seen before, but from a new angle, and the way the dappled light is smearing it with color makes it look like something entirely different from anything you've ever known. it's the same world as before but you keep thinking, i never would've seen this if i hadn't come up here, other people will never ever see this, there is a whole resplendent world just outside of what we can see and i have been blind to it for so long. you keep thinking about how much beauty there is, and HAS been, that is so secret and tucked away that it may as well be a different universe, that seeing it for the first time feels like being exposed to the raw current of the world. it's exhilarating. so anyway that's how i felt when someone objected to one of my arguments in class for the first time