People in the notes confused because they're so accustomed to running water they don't know how close diarrhea might have otherwise come to killing them if they've had it even once lol it's killed more humans than just about anything in history

We’re the granddaughters of the bowels you couldn’t irritate

Mine would be baffled that I've gone 5+ years with bloody diarrhea. Inflammatory Bowel Disease has probably always existed, but they didn't have treatment.

I do want to specifically shout out Dr Thomas Latta, who is the person who gave us IV hydration, and pretty much magically cured cholera with it in his first attempt. From his diary:

I attempted to restore the blood to its natural state, by injecting copiously into the larger intestines warm water.. trusting that the power of absorption might not be altogether lost, but by these means I produced, in no case, any permanent benefit.. I at length resolved to throw the fluid immediately into the circulation. In this, having no precedent to direct me, I proceeded with much caution. The first subject of experiment was an aged female. She had apparently reached the last moments of her earthly existence, and now nothing could injure her – indeed, so entirely was she reduced, that I feared I should be unable to get my apparatus ready ere she expired. Having inserted a tube into the basilic vein, cautiously – anxiously, I watched the effects; ounce after ounce was injected, but no visible change was produced. Still persevering, I though she began to breathe less laboriously, soon the sharpened features, and sunken eye, and fallen jaw, pale and cold, bearing the manifest impress of death's signet, began to glow with returning animation; the pulse, which had long ceased, returned to the wrist; at first small and quick, by degrees it became more and more distinct ... and in the short space of half and hour, when six pints had been injected, she expressed in a firm voice that she was free from all uneasiness, actually became jocular, and fancied all she needed was a little sleep.

Diarrhea can very easily be death by dehydration, especially when you can't consume oral fluids (Cholera causes extreme vomiting as well). Not only did we solve part of the problem with clean water, the other half was learning how to put clean water into our bodies (with salt).

Also fun fact, Thomas Latta was active in England at the same time as John Snow, the father of epidemiology, also in response to the Cholera epidemics at the time.

Throughout history, so many people have worked so hard to alleviate human suffering, misery, and death. You will never know the names of all the people who have spent their life’s passion to take care of you, someone divided from them by decades, even centuries, someone whose existence they’d never know, whose name they’d never hear. But they did it, all the same.

I think this is an important thing to keep in mind.

I love how two of the greatest inventions in the field of medicine were soap and saline IV

I'm reminded of this time I saw a post complaining, "Why do blind people in movies always have cloudy gray irises? Real blind people don't look like that!"

Yes they do. People with advanced cataracts look like that. Modern cataract surgery has virtually eliminated cataract-induced blindness in places where the surgery is readily available, however cataracts are still the leading cause of blindness worldwide, accounting for over half of world blindness.

#arent they supposed to. yk. show the damage?#a la 'look!! someone messed up our sculpture!!>:('#blue blob looks neat but i have No idea whats happened to it

The damage is the two spots on its face where the powder coating has peeled away when somebody ripped the woman's googly eyes off.

#those look small enough to be covered by new larger googly eyes#just saying

They can avoid further "vandalism" of this specific Kind, by OFFICIALLY modifying it with more permanent eyes. I don't know If the reason for NOT doing that is to preserve the defining featurelessness of the original Art, or because they don't want to create precedent for adopting modifications, which might lead to eventually being expected to give it genitals...?

Sticking a dildo to it was the first thing anyone did

That kind of looks like Connecticut Clark.

I was kind of ambivalent if baffled by the blue blob but now that you've pointed this out I hate it

Yeah, when I saw the belly up pic with the blue blob, I assumed that someone had given him a penis. But he seams like the kind of statue that people should be allowed to dress up or add temporary modifications too.

People have, I think they're clamping down on this because of the physical damage to the statue. They just installed the thing and have to repaint it already.

Many of the townsfolk are pointing out that if you can accidentally peel off the powder coat via googly eyes then it was probably painted really badly in the first place.

#you shouldn't build a blue featureless blob in a populated area if you want it to remain featureless

they were so fucking cheap with the sculpture that any attempt to have it be a real public piece has to be stopped lest it be damged, it has become a literal proof that art cannot truly exist under capitalism

This statue is:

• in a main area of town, populated by both tourists (who the council wants to make a good impression on) and teens/young adults (who get bored and do silly shit)
• outdoors without shelter, in direct, frequent rain for ten months of the year, and direct sunlight in extreme heat (38-42C) about one month of the year
• in a town absolutely full of outdoor metal sculptures, many of which are coloured and have stood up to time very well, and would serve as good examples for how to colour future artworks to have them stand the test of time
• is apparently made of metal covered in some kind of shitty rubber paint that peels from the statue easily and sticks to the rest of the paint

I'm no expert but it's like they designed this thing to weather and rust as quickly as possible and then plonked it in the most visible, high trafficked part of town.

They've got all this construction stuff up and are making a big deal over the repairs.

I peeked in there there's one (1) guy in there with a little tin of paint

This is wonderful

Now if I were a cynic, I'd say that they want to make an example of Miss Googly Eyes to scare away future vandals and are trying to make the repairs as expensive as possible in an attempt to get her a worse sentence, so they hired a bunch of unnecessary fencing and bullshit.

But I'm not a cynic so I'm sure all of this is necessary and the usual bit of string to keep people away would have been insufficient to protect the wet paint for some reason.

What's the chances that the repair job is gonna look arse

Facebook has gifted us an inside look.

I don't know why his belly needs work but frankly I think he looks better like this. Sort of Amongus-ish.

The locals are, as you can imagine, taking the whole thing super seriously.

told him i made this post and he's still insistent that he isn't tall

bf: i'm not tall! i feel like everyone i see is around the same height as me. like people in the street

me: they aren't

bf: but i can see their faces! if i'm looking at their faces they must be the same height

me: you're looking down slightly babe

bf: why would i do that

me: because you're tall

incidentally the fact i am 5'5 also comes as a shock to him at least once a day and then he inevitably asks if i'm "normally that short"

if you lean in real close you can hear his singular brain cell bouncing around like a windows screensaver

Has your boyfriend got his eyesight checked? Bc when I don’t wear my glasses I’m nice and close to the ground but when I do it’s HOLY SHIT WHY AM I THIS TALL, I’M AFRAID OF HEIGHTS, HELP ME time and it’s genuinelly terrifying.

he wears glasses he's just dumb

update to this post from yesterday:

bf: apparently only 7% of people are over 6' tall
me: yes........?
bf: that isn't very many. am i tall?
me: i cannot believe we are having this discussion again. yes. you are tall. you are still tall. you were tall yesterday. you will be tall tomorrow
bf: oh my god i'm tall aren't i
me: my love the netherlands is the tallest country in the world and even there average male height is 6' 0.5". you are tall by "kingdom of giants" standards, even. but we live on "shortarse island", so...
bf: AM i tall though
me: you are 6ft 4

he is he's very pretty

Can he make spinach puffs? Asking for irrelevant reasons....

having watched emperors new groove (it's my favourite) he does understand this reference but also he really loves cooking so you saying this has now prompted him to look up how to make spinach puffs

which is to say that yes, he is kronk

fun fact they're both the same person. same 6'4 boyfriend referred to himself as a short king because he thought it meant a man who really likes wearing shorts

Large dog energy

fuck this happened again i was buying some LPs and the clerk was like: can i have your email? and i was like no.

she full on stared at me. she was like: but i need to put you into the system.

and i was like: need to? you NEED to? i don't want to give my email

and she was like: but...how are you going to return items without an account?

and i was like, with a fucking receipt??? wtf is going on right now. if i can't return them i guess i'll die??whatever

and i was like: need

to? you NEED to? i don’t want

to give my email

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

pt 2, this time Frankenstein by the same. Said Frankenstein is greatly relieved when he returns and the 'apartment was empty' because this means his monster has fled. but then

...did that servant materialise out of thin air to bring him food in his room. The place not actually empty, just empty of people of his own class. he just left the servant and his monster with each other while he was out.

Eventually the monster was like "well this is awkward. I'm out." and the servant presumably just filed the encounter under "weird shit upper class people do" and went on with his life.

I remember taking this college elective on film adaptations and we talked about the controversy caused by the PBS adaptation of Emma, which made a point of putting servants in every. single. scene, confronting the audience with the reality that the main characters are surrounded by servants constantly and are choosing not to acknowledge their presence. Emma is consoling her "poor" friend Harriet over her misfortune and the entire time a servant is standing there silently brushing Emma's hair or some shit.

Virtually every other adaptation of Emma does a very good job of invisiblizing the constant presence of the working class labor force that allowed these people to live the way they did.

If anyone is interested the murder mystery Gosford Park specifically explored this phenomenon. Roger Ebert did a review of it here.

[Description:

1. A quote from Mary Shelley's Mathilda: '[...] arrived and quite incapable of taking off my wet clothes that clung about me. In the morning, on her return, [highlighted] my servant [end highlight] found me almost lifeless, while possessed by a high fever I was lying on the floor of my room.
2. A quote from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: [...] hands for joy and ran down to Clerval. [highlighted] We ascended into my room, and the servant presently brought breakfast; [end highlight] but I was unable to contain myself. It was not joy only that possessed me; I felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly.]

reblog to disturb jk rowling

thank fucking god

thank god i was wondering if that would ever happen

thank god we all hate JKR.

anything to disturb that pile of steamin shit