I think this is the kind of stuff that AM would post

Harlan's retrospective on I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream from 1980.

The group behind the "Hands Off 2025" protests in the United States is quite literally just a Democrat party front group serving to funnel energy against Trump away from progressive forces and to a pro-NATO, anti-Palestine Democrat movement - it's the typical Democrat strategy of cooptation, but this time without directly associating it with the Democrats, because they are simply too unpopular now for that to work. Here's their about page:

They treat an attack on one as an attack on all - unless Palestine is under attack! Their leadership page lists only these two executive directors:

The purpose of this group is to funnel people and resources into phone banking and canvassing for Democrats, protecting bourgeois rule and serving as another mechanism for subtly repressing the development of progressive groups. It's a way to take highly motivated and politically active people who are dissatisfied with the existing system in the US and funnel them right back into that system, preventing them from joining or starting revolutionary movements.

I was pretty skeptical about the figures, since they contradict what I usually hear on the media, so I did a little research. Here’s what I found:  (Sorry this is so US centric)  (I’ll also try to stay close to primary sources as possible)

(http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm?s_cid=ss6308a1_e)

- the 12 months before taking the survey, an estimated 4.0% of women experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner -an estimated 14.2% of women experienced some form of psychological aggression in the 12 months preceding the survey. -*4,774,000 women have been victims of physical violence by intimate partner in the 12 months preceding the survey -*17,091,000 women have been victims of psychological aggression by intimate partner in the 12 months preceding the survey

- the 12 months before taking the survey, an estimated 4.8% of men experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner -an estimated 18.0% of men experienced some form of psychological aggression in the 12 months preceding the survey. -*5,452,000 men have been victims of physical violence by intimate partner in the 12 months preceding the survey -*20,471,000 men have been victims of psychological aggression by intimate partner in the 12 months preceding the survey

*Table 6

By the data presented by the Center for Disease Control, out of the estimate of 10,226,000 yearly victims of intimate partner violence, 53.3% of victims where male and 46.6% were female. As for psychological aggression, out of the estimate of 37,562,000 yearly victims, 54.4% were male and 45.5% were female. These statistics would support the claim made in the bottom left.

Now I couldn’t find a primary source for the 70% of DV is initiated by women, but here’s the facts that I found, which may have been interpreted by the people who made this poster:

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-sacks/researcher-says-womens-in_b_222746.html) -Women who were in a battered women’s shelter, 67% of the women reported severe violence toward their partner in the past year.

This can be interpreted as “67% of violent couples with IPV is mutual”. But then again, primary sources and full data would be helpful to back up this claim.

But the one that is most interesting is:(http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsArticle.aspx?articleid=111137)(Another report analysis from the CDC)

-23.9% of relationships are violent -50.3% of IPV is non-reciprocal and 49.7% is reciprocal (Reciprocal IPV= Mutual violence) -70.7% of non-reciprocal IPV is initiated by women. 

So summing up the numbers, it’s not that 70% of all DV is initiated by women, its that 70% of non-reciprocal DV is initiated by women. To go further would say that 49.7% of DV is mutual, 36.2% of DV is initiated by women, and 14.5% of DV is initiated by men

Male victims of domestic violence are real. They are hurting. And they often don’t get the attention and compassion they so urgently deserve and need.

Have a heart. Open your mind, and give a care.

Hm. These numbers are all so different to anything I’ve seen before. I’m reblogging and liking this both for my own reference and to spread these numbers to others. I’m definitely gonna look into this and see if I can find more sources and more information.

Mother fuckers can we all just say let’s not be dicks to our fucking love ones already?

Tagging this for my speech project that I need the sources for

Here are 221 studies on IPV / DV for y’all.

You are a life saver.

That list is good, but outdated.  I e-mailed the researcher who compiled that list a couple weeks ago and he gave me three different documents.  I uploaded them to this dropbox folder. You can go there and download them.

The list of studies is now up to 343 scholarly investigations (270 empirical studies and 73 reviews). Not only did he send me that list, but he also sent me two meta-studies (also in the dropbox folder).  One is on male/female perpetration rates and the other is on male/female victimization rates. 

There is also “Rates of Bi-directional versus Uni-directional Intimate Partner Violence Across Samples, Sexual Orientations, and Race/Ethnicities: A Comprehensive Review“.  It’s a mouthful to be sure. Basically this study took the data from 48 other empirical studies, collated the data, placed it online for public viewing, submitted it for peer review, and was found to be accurate. 

It’s findings basically wind down to this:

This is featured Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project website and is part of a much larger DV research project.  You can read the summarized findings here or take a gander at the full 61-page review.  This is a compilation of the research of Erin Pizzey, Murray Strauss, Don Dutton, and many others who are challenging the feminist model of patriarchal dominance. They also have some videos that are very informative as well.

Murray Strauss also compiled: Thirty Years of Denying the Evidence on Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence: Implications for Prevention and Treatment.  A report detailing the existence of over 200 studies showing gender symmetry in victimization rates. Studies that show symmetry going as far back as 1975.  He also examines the methods feminist researchers have used to suppress the evidence from public discourse, hence the title “Thirty Years of Denying the Evidence”.

Two other excellent and brief videos on the topic come from the MenAreGood YouTube channel:

Male Victims of Domestic Violence - The Hidden Story

Bias Against Men and Boys in Mental Health Research

I really need to write up a solo reference post for domestic violence data…

You are also a life saver.

Reminder that while there are many government funded women’s abuse shelters, there exactly zero government funded men’s shelters. Not just in the US, but most countries with gendered abuse shelters (Canada, the UK, India doesnt even count it as DV when women do it).

When my brothers were younger I wanted to teach about misogynistic tropes in media without scaring them off by presenting the topic right out the gate as serious and aggressive and intimidating so I pointed out one day that movie dudes usually only ever have three motives- 1. Wife, 2. Daughter, 3. Dog.

And now whenever we watch a movie together and a dude character is about to reveal their angst backstory we take guesses if it’s gonna be 1, 2, or 3.

Which is specifically the most fun to do in bad B-list action movies because you can say “It’s a 1” as it starts and then ten minutes later the ham-fisted Macho Man Tough Guy quietly mentions being married once and you can put your hands in the air and go “AYYY IT WAS 1” like your team just scored a sportsball goal

Truthfully though I think we need more 3’s

John wick is 1 and 3

John Wick 4 had guys with 2’s in it, too! A rare action series hat-trick

remember i said it was a comic panel?

full page under cut

really factual recounting with no embellishments whatsoever

Teenage Clicks

How Netflix’s Adolescence Highlights a Void we can Fill to Protect all Children

Like many parents, I watched Adolescence through fingers, with a wince.

It’s difficult viewing, but the four-part series may be the most consequential show since 1984, when 60 million Americans watched Something About Amelia break a public taboo on child sexual abuse and unleash a wave of investment in child protection systems.

Adolescence opens with  an early morning armed police raid on a modest suburban family in the north of England. The British police are rarely over-dramatic, and the firepower deployed denotes a grave offence.  Everyone I know who watched it, assumed it was the wrong house.  The suspect is be-pimpled thirteen-year-old Jamie, slumbering under a blue duvet with matching solar system wallpaper. He could be my son or yours.

After mundanely polite processing by the duty sergeant, Jamie is led to a police cell through a chorus of adult prisoners yelling abuse. In the first of many viscerally distressing sequences, Jamie’s dad, played by the monumental Stephen Graham, witnesses his son’s intimate  strip-search.

You just want it to be over or rewound like an old VHS. Mistaken identity declared, an apology issued, and Jamie safely returned to his cosmic-themed bedroom. But that doesn’t happen.

An equally precious thirteen-year-old: Katie, has been murdered by multiple knife wounds. The police have surveillance footage of Jamie committing the crime. We don’t hear Katie’s story or see her parents. Adolescence not a suspenseful whodunnit, but an exploration of unfathomable motive . Inspired by real-life tragedy, filmed in single takes, with flawless acting, Adolescence has ignited public debate the world over.

The forensic police interview of Jamie reveals a world his dad doesn’t know. Isolated in his bedroom, Jamie navigated the teenage complexity of his changing body, relationships, and place in the world with the online help of the ‘manosphere’, a network aggrieved by fear males are falling behind in an age of feminism.

Like most conspiracy groups, they exploit mainstream fears. Surveys show male teenagers are unsure of their place in a changing world. Boys are failing in school, twice as likely to be suspended or diagnosed with ADHD and four times more likely in adulthood to die from suicide. But gender  is not a zero-sum game. Girls are more likely to suffer sexual violence, online bullying and grow up to a pay-gap and work-place harassment. As Richard Reeves argues ‘we can be passionate about the rights of girls and compassionate about boys too’. There is not much of a compassionate public narrative about boyhood and history shows bad people love a void. Cue Andrew Tate and the online, radical misogynists.

Since Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, there is resignation that parenting adolescents involves preventing them going over a cliff edge. Adolescent propensity for risk was always seen as inevitable and unpreventable. Recent neuroscience shows where this risk comes from. In the teen years two mutually dependent brain functions evolve with the worst possible timing. The brain region that seeks novelty, emotional spark and social engagement is live by the age of twelve, while the stern impulse control function that filters and manages risk hasn’t matured until the end of adolescence. This miscalibration means the teenagers’ brain can act like a sports car without the brakes, airbags, or seat belts. Teenagers are more likely than any other cohort to die from accidents and make life-destroying decisions.

Most parents worry about their teen’s safety, but few will be groomed into extreme violence. Gangsters, traffickers and radicalizers target a certain type of teen, those who feel unsafe, unloved or unseen at home and school.  Interviewed by a psychologist, Jamie wells up recounting a pivotal incident earlier in childhood. His dad took him to boys ‘soccer, the ultimate shared masculine activity, but he is just no good at it. After a few bad moves provoke teammate badmouthing and sniggers from parents on the touch line, Jamie tries to make eye contact with his dad, who looks away in shame. In another memory, his mom ushers him upstairs while his dad tears down the garden shed in a blinding rage. Our view of the intergenerational path this pain travelled along clears later in the series. Jamie’s Dad describes the extreme physical violence, he experienced at the hands of his own father. Despite his best intentions not to harm Jamie, the suppressed anger, shame and fear erodes his capacity to connect with Jamie’s inner world and make him feel safe.

Potentially traumatic events at home are defined and measured as Adverse Childhood Experiences  (ACEs). The Center for Disease Control (CDC) describes ten different forms of abuse, neglect and dysfunctional parenting. In a normal population around 57% of people report one ACE and 13% report four or more. But within radicalized, groomed or gang-recruited teens around 90% have for or more ACEs. The manosphere is a variation of an old tactic, weaponizing or exploiting troubled teens. Worryingly misogynist radicals  are expanding this reach online to a broader group of vulnerable children in a moment when the tech world is dismantling safeguards in the name of a brakes-off  variety of free speech.

Adolescent risk is not the only negative outcome of ACEs. Center for Disease Control surveillance across US states shows multiple ACEs strongly correlate with worse outcomes across 40 major wellbeing and heath indicators. At a conservative estimate, the long-term costs of  ACEs are around 8% of GDP.

Most ACEs occur in ordinary looking families like Jamie’s. They are transmitted across generations unwittingly and hidden in plain by shame, stigma and myth. Teens with ACEs are more likely to have low self-esteem, hyper-vigilance and poor decision-making. They are less likely to have regular, engaged conversation about their daily activities with parents. The leading US expert on parenting Lisa Damour told me.

“I can accurately measure how safe a teenager is by measuring their proximity to loving adults. If you come to adolescence without a sense of trust, affection, and warmth, the child is at a disadvantage for safety and risk.”

Culture warriors now dismiss the term psychological safety, but it’s very real. From the moment they are born, children have a biological imperative to feel protected by a parent. For children safety is not just the absence of violence, it’s the presence of love. When Jamie felt humiliated on the football field and turned to his avoidant, ashamed Dad, it was probably socially terrifying.

As parents we all screw up at times, but repair is essential. Far on the cinematic spectrum from Adolescence, Will Ferrel plays a hapless husband with two teenage sons in a middling US comedy about a family skiing vacation Downhill. The atmosphere darkens after he abandons his family to flee an avalanche . Despite simmering fury, his wife eventually feigns an injury so Ferrel’s character can rescue her and restore his role as family protector in the eyes of the boys. She knows they need it

Some parents inherit that kind of foresighted attunement from their own childhood, others of us must learn it. But it is learnable. Nurse home visits that teach nurturing care in early childhood and at critical milestones like adolescence, are evidenced by hundreds of robust trials to improve child safety, communications and even parental mental health. In New York where we live, 60% of the population have one ACE, yet less than 5% of parents in the state receive a parenting program. parenting programs could be universally available for a fraction of the poor life outcomes they prevent.

Emotionally untethered at home, Jamie experiences another major public humiliation at school, a social media pile-on where he is branded an ‘involuntary celibate’ (Incel), something he shouldn’t have to worry about at 13. The chaotic school makes little effort to understand or manage this cruelty. Research shows healthy relationships with teachers improve learning outcomes for all children, but for vulnerable children they promote healing and reduce risk too. Its unfathomable schools in the UK or US are not expected to systematically promote healthy relationships and belonging when it’s known to drive learning outcomes and risk reduction.  We are the first generation in history with an understanding of the causes and costs of childhood adversity and the solutions to eradicate it. Rather than seeing the manosphere as a new and mysterious challenge, it’s just another group of violent extremists with Fagin style child-exploitation tactics . We need to find a way of regulating the internet to protect children and bring predators to account. In the meantime, by scaling up parenting and school programs that ensure children are safe, seen and soothed, we can minimize risk and cut off predator's supply lines.

My book Trauma Proof: Healing, Attachment and the Science of Prevention is out in Hardback, kindle and Audio in the UK now and in North America on the 15th April

Source: Teenage Clicks

What, the forest-dwelling entities with imperfect human mimicry who insinuate themselves into groups of hikers? Yeah, we had one of those. Clocked it immediately, of course. Honestly it kind of fell in that so-inept-it's-kind-of-charming range. We just played along until it'd had it's fill of marshmallows and shambled back into the treeline. We might have been violating some kind of killjoy wildlife contact best practices but what the hell, can't plan around every little thing. Why, what happened to you guys

these tags are gold omg

It's a misconception that the mimics are hunting humans when they trail along at the back of hiking groups.

In fact, the creature you'll find suddenly walking beside you and acting as if they've always been there is almost certainly a juvenile, as the adults lose the ability when they reach reproductive age.

Recent studies suggest the forest mimic is less like a preying mantis (mimicry as a hunting strategy) and more like a cuckoo (mimicry as a protective strategy for their young). Adult forest mimics will leave their offspring near a group of hikers while they forage during the day, and retrieve them near trailheads in the evening. Groups of hikers provide safety from predators and allow the parents of the species the freedom to forage more widely.

For this reason, the traditional advice to never let a mimic into your vehicle is still very important, as this would separate the young mimic from its mother. If a juvenile forest mimic does follow your group to the parking lot, you can keep it entertained with trail snacks, dad jokes, and simple goofs. The mother will usually collect them shortly before sunset.

When you notice the woods around the trailhead go silent and feel a sense of nameless foreboding, find an excuse to avert your attention from the juvenile so it can sneak back into the forest to rejoin its mother, convinced it's fooled another party of unsuspecting humans.

surprisingly wholesome takes from the cryptid community here

@monstrousproductions

Tornado

I want every non-Midwesterner to know that we are drilled in tornado safety from a young age and know exactly what we should do to keep ourselves safe. And yet we do exactly as pictured in the bottom image every time a tornado comes around.

Hands Off Protest NYC, April 5, 2025

shit ton of people are repeating the thing about hayao miyazaki saying AI art is an "insult to life itself" and just as a reminder he was talking about the zombies that team made that were intended to be scary in how much they shook, but instead reminded him of his disabled friend. the insult to life itself was referring to the team trying to make scary real symptoms that people live with.

it was a quote about ableism. if he has said other things about AI type stuff, that is a different thing. but that specific quote was about ableism.

this is the full quote.

His actual answer to AI is this which is just a few seconds after the insult to life speech. [source]

here's the thing about the fucking tariffs. besides Unfairly Punishing Our FUCKING ALLIES YOU MORON- okay okay. anyway. the other thing

the other thing is that we have no manufacturing here

most of the fabric I buy to make my clothes is made overseas. I would actually love to buy wool from a local, unionized woolen mill! I'd be pleased as punch to do that! it's better for the environment and creates good local jobs that don't have a barrier of entry re: college degrees, which we need more of!

except we don't have any more fucking woolen mills because your billionaire ilk outsourced all of them to avoid union rules, OSHA, and paying minimum wage, when those things became commonplace and/or law. you orange fuckface

"buy American instead!!!" okay FROM FUCKING WHERE. we don't MAKE shit here anymore. and the few remaining local producers have been forced to charge exorbitant prices because they're competing with cheap unethical labor practices from big companies, so most people can't afford to buy local

god it's all so fucking stupid and I have to suffer for other people's idiocy that I actively tried to prevent

big fan of when youtubers break out the corkboard and string. thats when you know youre in for an insanely pointless breakdown of a media you're only tangentially familiar with.

wait how could i forget him. mr gilbert the king of this genre.