I hate it when people say u need to learn the basics of art before u go into it…the true way to learn art is actually going directly to drawing what you like, then being so attached to it that you have to go back and learn the fundamentals in order to make the art of what you like better.
I forget why, but I was on the Wikipedia page for polycystic ovarian syndrome, and I started researching hirsutism in women, and I learned the following things in this order:
there’s a diagnostic criteria used to evaluate how hairy a woman is
This is important because being too hairy is a diagnostic criteria of most disorders that cause hyperandrogenism
Disorders that cause hyperandrogenism can be diagnosed by…measuring how hairy you are (this is the main and most important diagnostic criterion for PCOS)
Disorders that cause hyperandrogenism are important because they are correlated with obesity, infertility, and…being too hairy?
I think to myself, wait, what is a normal range for testosterone in women? I find this article…which set reference ranges for “normal” testosterone levels in women…EXCLUDING WOMEN WITH PCOS?
Quote: “Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is another notable condition in genetic (XX) females, which is characterized by excessive ovarian production of androgens. This condition is included for comparison with DSD, as the affected females with PCOS are genetic and phenotypic females. The elevated levels of testosterone in these females can lead to hyperandrogenism, a clinical disorder characterized variably by hirsutism, acne, male-pattern balding, metabolic disturbances, impaired ovulation and infertility. PCOS is a common condition, affecting 7%-10% of premenopausal women.”
So: the study claims to demonstrate a clear distinction between the normal range of hormone levels in “Healthy” men and “healthy” women…with “healthy” being defined in the study as…having hormones within the “normal” range…………………..
So I researched what the clinically established “normal” range for testosterone in women is
Quote from the above article: “Several different approaches have been used to define endocrine disorders. The statistical approach establishes the lower and the upper limits of hormone concentrations solely on the basis of the statistical distribution of hormone levels in a healthy reference population. As an illustration, hypo- and hypercalcemia have been defined on the basis of the statistical distribution of serum calcium concentrations. Using this approach, androgen deficiency could be defined as the occurrence of serum testosterone levels that are below the 97.5th percentile of testosterone levels in healthy population of young men. A second approach is to use a threshold hormone concentration below or above which there is high risk of developing adverse health outcomes. This approach has been used to define osteoporosis and hypercholesterolemia. However, we do not know with certainty the thresholds of testosterone levels which are associated with adverse health outcomes.”
What the fuck?
What the fuck?
It’s batshit crazy to make a diagnostic criteria for medical disorders by placing arbitrary cutoffs within 2-5% of either end of a statistical distribution. What the actual fuck?
“The results came back, you have Statistical Outlier Disease.” “What treatments are available?” “Well, first, we recommend dietary change. You should probably stop eating so many spiders.”
Quote: “Subjects with signs of hirsutism or with a personal history of diabetes or hypertension, or a family history of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) were excluded.”
“We’re going to figure out the typical range of testosterone levels that occur in women! First, we’re going to exclude all the women that are too hairy from the study. I am very good at science.”
Anyway I got off topic but there are apparently race-specific diagnostic tools for “hirsutism.” That’s kinda weird on its own but when I looked more into this in relation to race I found this article that straight-up uses the term “mongoloid”
(The last article linked also mentions that measurement systems for ‘hirsutism’ were originally developed for the purpose of defining race)
[ID: meme of dog facing wind straight on with text that reads “posts about gender wasn’t lying that gender binary can racist”]
and also importantly in this case, the socially constructed sex binary is racist
there comes a point in some dudes ceramics careers where they start fucking with glazes so hard they spend their weekends hand digging rare minerals out of a desert deposit or a friend’s multi-acre lot so they can grind them up and put them in a glaze. I know at least three guys that do this.
I also knew this guy derrick who was an absolute beast on the wheel (threw an entire 40pc porcelain serving set w/ cups bowls plates serving dishes and casserole dish in ONE HOUR) who also rented out a backhoe so he could dig clay out of his yard and refine it. Unfortunately it had too many inclusions in it so he had to dilute it with industrially made stuff. when he did that though he found that the clay in his yard, when fired, produced it’s own glossy green glasslike ooze that vitrified during firing. he called it “self glazing clay”, and went back that day to go dig up more. hope hes doing well. I imagine he’s excavated his entire property by now
This probably sounds obvious, but I learned today that prisoners aren’t protected by OSHA regulations, and that this is another reason why employers are so eager to utilize this modern slavery. It’s only a couple cents an hour, less transportation costs than the overseas sweatshops, and if you want people to work with hazardous materials without proper training? That’s fine too! Prison labor is the ultimate free market solution!
If you want to really change the world, prisoner rights and prison reform is the way to go. Removing the ability of the ruling class to effectively punish the population frees everyone to challenge them in meaningful ways. Arbitrary violence and incarceration is how they keep people scared and divided. There is no crime in our society that isn’t generated by our society. Even the worst ones you can think of.
Prisoner rights are human rights. Prison abolition is mass freedom.
lost two years of your life cause of covid - then got hit with inflation right after. we’re down tremendously
And still gon thrive cus it’s what we do.
brother this ain’t a kumbaya words of affirmation chain. the price of groceries is very real out here
yeah….and so is COVID. Still.
Idk how to put this anymore plainly: You thought loosing those two years was bad? Try going on four with NO help in sight. Friends, please please start masking again in public and keep fighting for quality air filtration in your workplace. You do not want to get long haul COVID. I cannot emphasize enough: there is NO help, no cure, nothing out there that will help you. They are using the same playbook for COVID that they used for the AIDS crisis and for climate change, aka leaving at risk communities behind while the wealthy are still given access to testing and mitigation strategies. Please, extend some care towards your community. Keep masking and keep fighting, the price of being apathetic is, to quote the post above: very real out here.
