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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about some of the people I interact with. I have a coworker who I am pretty sure is a MAGA type, and she is also a lovely woman who is dreadfully overworked and so good at connecting to patients when they call. I can see the conflict on her face when she talks to me, a gigantic tranny dork who speaks Spanish and affirms the LGBT community, but can also talk to her about her cows and knows about guns and stuff. I can see the fear in the eyes of my former Young Men’s leader when he misgenders me and realizes that I’m not an ideology but a person he has known for a long time. I can see the way my extended family stop and stutter over political discussions when they realize they are talking about me. And I don’t know why but lately it’s just made me think about my neighbor as a kid.

When we moved to Arizona, we moved next door to a lovely retired couple - John and Lucy. John was a veteran of WWII, he had an M.D. and a Ph.D. in radiology, and he LOVED us to pieces. His wife, Lucy, was a sharp and gifted woman - well spoken, very observant, and VERY clever. I just know that she used that cleverness as a mom to great effect, because with my and my siblings she always managed to find a way to send us home with candy and treats for a week despite my dad’s protests. We loved them, growing up, and even though they have long-since passed away I love them still, and I love what I learned from them.

John was, as stated, a WWII veteran. He was enlisted as a rifleman, and later as a front line medic, starting at Point Du Hoc and moving inwards to France and towards the Rhine. He let me do a report on him in 6th grade where he shared war stories with me he had kept to himself his whole life - he said it was out of respect for his friends who didn’t get to come home and tell their stories.

He said he told me because he knew I could respect the memories of his friends.

He showed me his collection of medals, and which he’d kept hidden away in a sock in his attic because he’d feel an immense grief any time he saw them. He had wanted to be a doctor his whole life, prior to being drafted he was studying medicine and had taken the Hippocratic oath to Do No Harm. He saw his medals as a reminder that he had Done Harm.

After telling me his stories he was able to convince himself that while he had Done Harm, it was only because his only other alternative was, to him, cowardice. He chose to be brave even if it meant acting against his Oath because he felt that if he didn’t do it someone else would have to go in his place and he would be responsible for the harm that befell them. I don’t think that’s true, but for him it was and that was something no being on earth could have ever dissuaded him from believing.

He shared wild stories - melee combat on the beach, clearing artillery bunkers, receiving a Purple Heart for being injured in hand-to-hand combat with a Wehrmacht rifleman he said he felt pity for because they were the same age and he had to imagine the man he was fighting had been drafted just like him.

He shared how he was awarded a Silver Star for charging a machine gun nest, but shared that he was most proud of not killing anyone in the process. He threw a grenade with the pin still in it and when the machine gunners jumped to avoid being blown up they were killed by someone else so he didn’t have to do it. He took the machine gun and shot the other machine gun in that French field to pieces so he didn’t have to kill the people operating it. He said they were giving out Silver Stars like candy but I knew he was being modest.

He told me about being redesignated as a medic, about how he crawled for about 500 yards on his belly to rescue an injured tank driver, then threw him over his back and crawled the same 500 yards back (1000 yards total) to treat his injuries. He said he met the man in an Army hospital in England after his spine was broken by a high explosive panzer shell was fired through a hollowed out French farmhouse and landed about 20 feet away from him.

He told me about all the people he helped and saved as a medic, he told me about his work in radiology and research after the war. He showed me a hallway that was quite literally wallpapered with academic honors he’d earned as a researcher. He told me about how his first Fourth of July back was a horror show for him because fireworks and German artillery make very similar sounds. He told me about how he woke up in a cold sweat well over half a century later hearing the screams of German artillery men being burned alive with flamethrowers, or hearing his own voice apologizing to the young German soldier he stabbed in the heart at Point Du Hoc.

He told me that when he was asked to present at a medical conference in Germany 25 years after the war ended that he was so scared he couldn’t step off the plane, and that his wife had to hold his hand and lead/pull him with her. He said he was not scared because he was worried about being triggered, but because he knew that someone somewhere outside of that plane had the course of their life irreparably altered by his military service. That to someone out there he was the cause of immense suffering and harm. That some unwitting waiter could be the son of the Nazi Officer he stabbed in the heart with a 12-inch hunting knife. That some woman asking questions in the audience would be the daughter or widow of a man he sent to judgement with a .30-06. He was scared that they would hate him.

He knew what the Nazi’s had done, he knew better than anyone I’d ever met. He’d watched the documentaries, he’s seen the PoWs returning from camps, he’d seen the civilians massacred and tortured by their regime, but he also knew that among the monsters were people like him - idealistic 20-somethings who only wanted to make the world better and were ripped away from that life by the Nazi war machine. And he spent his whole life mourning the loss of innocence and peace that was forced on so many people by such a corrupt power.

To be honest I don’t know if I could do that, but he could. He told me he could still feel the dead and lost with him, both when he slept and when he woke. He told me he thought he’d go to his grave never having told a word of this to anyone. That the stories of him and his friends and allies would disappear silently with him and those like him. That he had wanted that until he realized that he didn’t have to sell out to share the stories - that he could give the stories away for free to someone who would love the people in them, and not just the content of them. He didn’t want his stories to be used as Patriotic Pornography by some TV network or magazine. He wanted the people he knew to be respected, he wanted their memories to be honored and loved, and he entrusted me, a 12-year-old “boy” to do that.

He told me for years afterwards that after telling me these stories that he slept better than he ever had. That by sharing the stories with someone who could hear Him over the din of victory and glory and honor and revisionistic history. Someone who could see the man in the story and not just see the plot of a battle being won. He wanted to be human, and he wanted the people he saw die to be human too - everyone, not just the people on his side. He wanted someone to see and to know the anguish of having to look someone in the eye as heartblood muddies the ground beneath them and hope that they understand that this was not an act of love or hatred but an act of desperation. To hope that you had just taken out One Of The Bad Ones instead of a medical student or a poet who had been drafted. He wanted me to see how hard he had worked since then to build a world without scarcity, to build a world of peace. He wanted me to know SO badly that the cost of violence, any violence, even necessary violence, is always ALWAYS paid by both parties involved.

I think about the rise of the new right wing - the new Nazi movement’s traction in politics, and I feel sad and scared - the world that Johnathan J Yobaggy, my neighbor, my friend, and my hero, worked SO hard to build is being done away with by people who do not understand the cost of the path they are entering. I can see brief moments of recognition in the eyes of some of the people I mentioned - The former young men’s president who immediately regrets misgendering me and hen he makes eye contact with me and sees Me staring back at him and not a faceless “ideology.” I can hear it in the voice of my uncle who quietly comes up to me to apologize for some homophobic comment he made absentmindedly. I can see it in the eyes of racists and sexists being interviewed on TV when they realize that they didn’t vote for a concept, they voted for a real thing. And honestly, I have mixed emotions about it. Because while I understand frustration with the status quo, the importance of basic human needs like affordable good and rent, and I know the fear that comes with feeling powerless, I also can’t help but grieve the endless wheel of history bringing us back to this God Damned Fucking Place again. I hope we can avoid this fate, not just for our sake but for the sake of everyone who has ever tried to make the world safer. For everyone who has ever tried to make up for human nature, for everyone who has ever placed themselves on the offering plate to protect others from the cruelty they know lies just under the surface of mankind’s tenuous grip on progress. I want SO badly for there to be a solution to this, for the people who idolize the Nazi party and the impact of fascism to see that the price of this path is paid in more than just blood but in soul. That they’re allowing themselves to be devoured too. I want for the centrists and the fence sitters and the idealists who want to “change it from the inside” to see how dangerous our politics have become. I want them to see that they’re losing the things that make them great in exchange for a security blanket that’s now become far far far too small to ever work for them again.

Safety found in the past is already gone, and safety found in the future is only as real as a daydream. That any ideology that promises that by “joining us now we’ll make things rough so we can make things safe in a decade�� is a promise made by those who will not have to fight the battles they send you to.

I don’t know if America was ever really great, but as long as John was alive it felt great to me. There is no ideology that can replace a neighbor. No tax plan that can replace a friend. No grocery bill that can replace community and connection. No amount of budget cuts that can replace kindness. No amount of suffering from people I hate that will ever make more love. I don’t know how to make America great, but I know how to make my America great and it is not by selling out integrity and compassion and community and fucking humanity to make eggs and gas cheaper. It is by seeing and hearing the people around me. I’m not Mormon anymore, but I still know the value of mourning with those that mourn and comforting those that stand in need of comfort. I’m not Christian anymore but I still have Eyes That Can See and Ears That Can Hear. I want to make this all stop but I can’t stop the collective power of tens of millions of people so instead I listen to my MAGA coworker tell me about how sick her kid was last week. I make jokes with my Young Men’s leader. I hug my uncle. I let them see me fully, as a human and not an ideology. As a woman and not the concept of gender. As a whole person and not someone who can be easily summarized or boiled down into something short and quippy. And I let them know I can see them fully too, and I can see all their humanity as easily as they can see mine. I just have to hope that this works - that enough people can See and Hear the people in their lives who matter to them to bring them out of their personal world of forms and into the real world.

I am probably, honestly, just spiraling a little bit. I took my ADHD meds today and in addition to helping me focus they make me a little anxious so I doubt things are as bad right now as they seem. But just in case there’s any truth to the way things seem to be going, remember, and I mean this seriously: Be kinder to each other, be gayer, and read more Terry Pratchett.

And for the love of god day hello to your neighbor.

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Lirael by Tommy Arnold

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If you feel ashamed of getting government provided assistance

whether that's Snap, or cash assistance or housing or insurance or WHATEVER.

I just want to say- I am a tax paying middle class person.

For the love of whatever you find holy, TAKE THE HELP. Seriously. Please. I am paying these taxes, and I am begging you to use that money to make your life better.

I find it tremendously depressing when my tax money goes to tanks for cops or subsidies for billionaires or general colonizing bullshit.

I want my tax money to improve your life. I do not give one single shit what you do with your cash assistance. I don't care if you think you maybe possibly could have gotten by without SNAP. If you can qualify TAKE IT. Eat as well as you can. Live as well as you can.

If you feel bad, picture me, cheering you on with every single choice you make that brings you comfort, stability or joy.

You are not a burden. You are my neighbor. There is enough to go around and I want us all to thrive.

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Cute doodle I found in an old sketchbook

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giant anteater

prints: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/guilhernunes/giant-anteater/

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"bears repeating" and "time flies" are two kinds of creatures that fill similar ecological niches

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Art by maskenjager

Narcisse

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I am beset by bots. Utterly overrun. Is August their breeding season? They're everywhere.

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It’s kinda just started to sink in - the things I f* saw with my own two eyes

omg

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I had never heard of these crabs until today, but they bring me immense joy and I think more people should experience this knowledge.

Shellback Crabs: these crabs create their own shields out of clamshells; their semi-membranous bodies can be pressed into the contours of the shell, producing a suction mechanism that holds the shell in place

The members of this genus (Hypoconcha) have a series of unique adaptations that facilitate this kind of camouflage behavior. Many of the Dromiidae crabs (e.g. hermit crabs, sponge crabs, shellback crabs, etc.) are equipped with a specialized pair of legs that enables the crab to hold a shell, sea sponge, and/or ascidian against their body, but shellback crabs also have a flexible, semi-membranous body that can be tucked more firmly into the contours of a bivalve shell, producing a suction mechanism that keeps the shell firmly locked in place.

The body of the shellback crab is also covered in a very fine layer of hair-like structures called setae, and when the crab presses itself against the shell, these membranous "hairs" can take on an almost translucent appearance, particularly around the margins of the crab's body.

I recently posted some photos/info about some of the crabs in the genus Lamarckdromia (which belongs to the same family) and as I was doing the background research for that post, I was just kind of mesmerized by all of these weirdly adorable crabs that seem to exist within the Dromiidae family tree. Each genus has its own unique adaptations that allow the crabs to use specific materials for camouflage -- some of them use living sponges, clamshells, ascidians, etc.

And I could not stop laughing at the little faces on these crabs. They've all got the same bemused/indignant expression...as if some random asshole has just walked up to them, shoved them over, and announced to the entire ocean that there's a crab hiding beneath that disguise; as if that actually happens to them quite a lot, and they're getting really sick of it.

Sources & More Info:

Crustaceana Monographs: Comparison of the Shell-Carrying Behaviors of Desmodromia, Conchoecetes, and Hypoconcha (the relevant info is on page 191)

South Carolina Department of Natural Resources: Shellback Crabs and their Larval Stages (PDF)

South Carolina Public Radio: Shellback Crabs

Again, I don't normally feature crustaceans on my blog...but I really couldn't resist this one.

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Another from my Carolina Parakeet series, this painting is gouache on 18x24” watercolor paper. It is a particular companion to the previously-posted ‘American Tannenbaum’, and its title is ‘The Etymology of Loss’.

The word ‘extinct’ existed for nearly four centuries before it was applied to the death of a species. Originally a variant of ‘extinguish’, the earliest use of the word can be found in the 1400s, when it was a descriptor for lights that had been doused. Within a short span, its meaning would expand to include the ending of specific family lines (i.e. “the king died without heirs, and his house became extinct”).

The progression from candle to lineage to species seems obvious in hindsight, yet it wasn’t until the early 19th century that the word became synonymous with the loss of an animal—the simple reason for this being, it wasn’t until that point that learnéd-minds accepted that species-death was possible. 

According to the prevailing philosophy, the universe had been designed in perfect, unshakable balance, from which no element could possibly be subtracted or altered—much less by the actions of mere humans. (I’ve heard similar reasoning from modern climate change deniers.) The removal of species was an inherently blasphemous concept.

Even as they watched animals like the aurochs and tarpan vanish before their eyes, people assured themselves with the knowledge that more existed…just…somewhere else (after all, wolves had). 

(Do you want to know one of my favorite stories from American history? When Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis & Clark on their expedition out west, one of his dearest hopes was that they would discover a living population of mastodons.)

It was the continued lack of any live mastodons, or mammoths, or wooly rhinos, not to mention the reptilian leviathans being uncovered by the burgeoning field of paleontology, that finally tipped the scales of common sense. In 1807, French naturalist Georges Cuvier, who had extensively studied such bones, came out strongly with the assertion that, yes, clearly, species can and do die.

Then began the task of counting the extinguished.

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despite staff's recent changes, we're... winning??????

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Please check out Crow Time on Webtoons and my webcomic Namesake on Hiveworks!

💜 namesakecomic.com

💙 crow-time.com

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Going from being an introverted lurker on reddit to trying to post my own stuff here is so wild. I keep typing out a post, deleting it, then retyping because I think it's not good enough but then I look at other posts and why am I so worried?

It's like I'm at a fancy Italian restaurant and keep glancing around the room to see which hand people use to pick up the forks. But then I realize that everyone is shoveling spaghetti into their mouths using their bare hands and I'm like ah okay so I'm clearly overthinking this

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A weird unicorn – better avoid it.

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Winter Parting (2019) Scanned from original risograph print --- ko-fi | gumroad