not Balkan but im an ally

I think sixpenceee might like this– it’s not paranormal or anything, just really creepy. My music teacher played it to the class in 9th grade and only a few of us were able to listen to it all the way through, and that was with difficulty.

John Cage, Indeterminacy 6.

he normally followed this with ‘there is nothing to fear for the future of music.’ a pivotal moment for the creation of 4’33

— Jean Baudrillard, Simulations

I attended a writing seminar online and a few of the attendees were from Gaza, some of them told us they were joining from their tents.

I wish I can summarise everything that we talked about but one topic kept coming up and I think it's really important for us to keep in mind while talking about Gaza and Palestine.

It's true that sometimes it feels as though we have created an image of this Gazan Hero who has endured and fought to survive on the land time after time, reemerging victorious each time - not considering that this supposed hero did not have a say in their fate; without considering how thoughts like this strips Gazans from their basic human traits.

It was like a punch in the gut to hear the words of this emerging author talking to us from her tent in Gaza, almost begging the listeners to understand that she is unable to write because she can't stop thinking about her embroidered dresses she had to leave behind. Or the other displaced man who chimed in to say that he can't write because he can't reason with the fact he's still alive.

Another person from Gaza told the story of how when the news of American soldiers aiding in the massacres in Gaza came out, he overheard a man say something like "they can bring in all of the US military, we are not scared" and he describes how angry that phrase made him, and how he ran home and wrote and wrote and wrote nonstop.

So this is a reminder to you and me that when we talk about Gaza, to remember their humanity and to put it at the forefront of our discussions; Gazans feel scared, they feel hate and love, they feel ashamed, jealous, angry and even defeated.

To create this image of the Gazan Hero is truly harmful when you realise that it's in fact part of the bigger issue of dehumanising Palestinians as a whole.

social skills training, solmaz sharif

adventures with the Bromley Contingent! Siouxsie Sioux, Debbie Juvenile, and Simon Barker in the queue for COUM Transmissions' exhibition Prostitution in London circa 1976

COUM Transmissions was founded by Genesis P-Orridge aka the lead vocalist of Throbbing Gristle

On a very basic immediate level, being obsessed with being "morally pure" and having a framework wherein political analysis is attached to morality means that you are actively incentivized against learning. Learning requires being wrong or not knowing things, and if your political framework understands "being wrong" as "I'm morally evil and I should kill myself" you literally will never be capable of growth or education. You will just sit there festering until a) some outside force knocks you into motion out of necessity (which is often a traumatic experience!) or b) you die. To be able to educate yourself, to grow as a person, to change and adapt and become more mature and effective and politically conscious, you must have the capacity to acknowledge that you can be wrong, that being wrong is a normal thing to happen to people, and that it doesn't make you "evil."

Sometimes when we are wrong, or we believe things that are not true, or we analyze the world using the frameworks we have (including those which were given to us by our contexts!), we will inevitably hurt people. You have to be able to acknowledge that, while those people will never be obligated to forgive you, you are responsible for how you respond to your life, and only you, and that you cannot go around begging the world to assure you of your righteousness. Rather, it is your responsibility to be able to own your mistakes, make amends where possible if it feels relevant, and most importantly, learn from your mistakes. Not only is this the only path towards interpersonal health, it is the only path towards political consciousness.

If you cannot handle being wrong, you will never learn anything in the world, and you will live your life both indignant and foolish.

I like art that challenges me and shows me a different perspective. I like art that shows me things I haven't seen before.. I like art that makes me feel bad or scared. Being thrilled and learning what is in other people's heads is very enriching even if it's disturbing. I like art I disagree with. I don't want to shield myself from the horrors of nature and humanity and to have the privilege of being able to make myself a little less naive from the comfort of my bed is amazing! to learn about the dangers of the world without needing to be experiencing it the hard way it's brilliant! I hope to see many more artists create about things that scare them! I hope to see more art created by people who have experienced intense abuses. I hope to see more survivors speaking up and having more spaces for them opening up to talk about it and start healing! I hope to see more survivors cope by creating twisted artworks ! This includes people who sexualize their trauma! There needs to be more safe spaces for us! I have spent my whole life trying to speak up about my trauma it has always been extremely hard to be taken seriously and to feel safe while doing it .. it's so hard this world is so cruel but we can explore our minds in fiction and we should ! Be experimental and messy !

this post is fearmongering. the results of this study are concerning and should definitely be a matter of public discussion, but this is certainly not the conclusion the researchers came to.

the point of the study was to assess the risks of exposure to toxic metals- something one of the co-authors notes are “ubiquitous” fwiw- via menstrual products. Their research confirmed that these metals are indeed present in tampons, but no further conclusions are drawn. it is possible the metal entered into the cotton from the soil, which is a well-known phenomenon; cotton is so good at lifting heavy metals that it has actually been suggested as a part of the solution for revitalizing polluted ground.

the authors conclude with an acknowledgement that the study should be repeated- their sample size was 60 tampons- and a suggestion that further testing ought to be done to indicate whether or not these metals can even leech out of the tampon in the first place, let alone whether or not such leeching could occur at levels deleterious to human health.

there is, in fact, a body of research- too small, for sure, but much larger than this single study- indicating that long-term proper tampon use has no observable negative impact on health. i am grateful and thrilled that more research is being done and i hope that this study is the first of many on this line of questioning, but i am really frustrated at this post and the response it got.

obviously, if this study alters your approach to menstrual health, more power to you. consumers should be informed-risk-takers, and menstrual health is double-obviously a very personal choice. but it definitely wasn't the researchers concluding that you ought to “avoid using tampons at all cost," only this tumblr user did. the lead author of the paper, in fact, specifically says that she hopes people do NOT panic about the results.

(the notes of the post were disappointing. people affirming that they knew they were right to be suspicious of tampons all along, or even recommending alternatives that actually have very little to no research regarding the safety of long-term use, etc. it’s a different conversation, but categorical distrust of tampons is old-school misogyny. you certainly shouldn't wear them if you don’t want to, but there is nothing inherently scary or wrong about them, and people who prefer them are not being reckless or crass.)

((if you're really worried about exposure to heavy metals, you may want to turn a critical eye to fast fashion, as an aside))

This is a perfect example of why vagueposting can be used to strawman and "make up a guy to get mad at".

Like genuinely who is saying this? Is this a a strawman of transfems pointing out the hot allostatic load problem, of transfems disproportionately face callouts and ostracization via pedojacketing, sometimes entirely made-up or for objectively harmless things, like shipping two fictional characters who are related, while men get away scot-free for actual abuse ? Is it a strawman of a popular post by a transfem child abuse survivor reflecting on how her trauma shaped her? (she isn't named because she got harassment strawmanning her in the exact same way the screenshotted post probably is doing, and people are directing harassment towards her in the notes).

But who knows, that is in the nature of vagueposting.

Like if this is vagueing about any of the transfems making a stand against callout culture, or that specific post by a survivor i mentioned, it is definitely a strawman, but you have no way of knowing that. It's a vaguepost, so there are no examples of the things OP is complaining about.

It's just vagueness, about how creepy transfems are making pedophilia part of being transfem. And, well, to quote porpentine, "Be extremely critical about what people say about trans people, especially things said in vagueness."

“Never Forget Srebrenica / 11 July 1995” 26 years has passed since Europe was shaken by the genocide of more than 8000 muslim boys and men in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica, at the hands of Bosnian Serb troops during an operation of ethnic cleansing, witnessed by UN peacekeeping troops who failed resoundingly in their protection mission. Since then, limited justice has been rendered by international tribunals, and the repeated denial by several government officials of what happened reminds us of the still pressing need for the international community to support efforts to obtain truth, justice and reparation for victims and survivors. In the midst of the conflict in the Balkans during the 1990’s, the small city of Srebrenica, in Eastern Bosnia, was established as a “safe area” by the UN for civilians fleeing fights between Bosnian government and separatist Serb forces, during the breakup of Yugoslavia. On 11 July 1995, Serb forces attacked Srebrenica lead by Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić, conducting a ten-day operation to take over Srebrenica and subject it to ethnic cleansing. More than 8000 people were killed, mainly Bosnian muslim boys and men. The reality of the genocide in Srebrenica was officially recognized in 2007 in a judgment delivered by the International Court of Justice. But countless Srebrenica survivors remain awaiting truth and justice. On 11 July each year, newly identified remains are buried at the Srebrenica memorial cemetery at Potočari. Organisations like Mothers of Srebrenica or movements like Women in Black advocate to continue the search for the missing persons and to identify those who were involved in and responsible for the massacre and bring them before local and international courts. Yet, the government of Bosnia & Herzegovina still lacks resources and a comprehensive strategy to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the crimes committed. Moreover, the communities are still deeply divided, and both the governments of Serbia and Republika Srpska continue to deny the reality of what happened at Srebrenica.

Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (Terence Dixon, 1970)