clara barton, a battlefield nurse for the union army and eventual founder of the american red cross, was dubbed the "angel of the battlefield" for her vital and timely assistance to soldiers and doctors alike. during the 1862 battle of antietam, barton discovered that one of the soldiers she was tending to happened to be a young woman -- mary galloway, who had disguised herself as a man, joined the war effort following her lover lieutenant harry barnard, and would later name her daughter clara after barton eventually reunited the couple

stetson kennedy helped take down the kkk by exposing their code words and secret rituals on a 1947 superman radio show

in 1777, sixteen-year-old sybil ludington rode forty miles to warn the local militia of an upcoming british attack. traveling twice the length of paul revere's journey, she roused around 400 men by banging on their doors with a large stick, and it's even said that she gained recognition from george washington himself

robert smalls, an enslaved man in south carolina, emancipated himself as well as fifteen others in 1861 by disguising himself as a confederate ship captain and sailing the css planter into the union territory (simultaneously providing another warship to the union). not only that, but in 1864, smalls purchased the former mansion of henry mckee -- the man who had once enslaved him

during the 1969 chicago seven conspiracy trial, abbie hoffman reportedly once came in wearing judicial robes with a chicago police uniform underneath, called judge julius hoffman "julie" several times, and raised his middle finger when being sworn in as a witness

after american troops arrived in france In 1917, they made a (mostly symbolic) march through paris, stopping at the grave of the marquis de lafayette to honor his immense contributions during the american revolutionary war. with the tomb at his feet, colonel c. e. stanton declared, "lafayette, we are here!" (over a century too late after the us decided not to aid the french during the revolution, but a cool statement nonetheless)

in 1930s america, a pro-nazi organization called the german american bund was active across america. however, another group was also gaining traction at around the same time: the minutemen. while those in new york were mostly made up of jewish mobsters and those in new jersey mainly consisted of jewish boxers, both had a common goal of breaking up bund meetings by beating the shit out of their members

between 1913 and 1915, there were at least seven instances of people mailing their children through the postal system, since it was cheaper to buy a stamp for your child and have them transported by a trusted mail carrier than purchasing a train ticket for them

the first minnesota volunteer infantry regiment captured a confederate flag from the twenty-eighth virginia infantry regiment in the 1863 battle of gettysburg, and the minnesota historical society still has it today, despite virginia requesting for its return in 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2013. governor jesse ventura famously responded to the 2000 request with "why? i mean, we won"

although many members of various native american nations served as code talkers during the world wars, the most famous of which are probably the navajo code talkers. between 1942 and 1945, over four hundred navajo worked as code talkers for the marines, providing a system that even the most skilled code breakers couldn't crack -- largely due to the fact that navajo has no written alphabet and highly complex tonal qualities. for decades the contributions of these men went unrecognized, but in 1992 they were finally honored at the pentagon for their vital involvement in the allied war effort

founding fathers thomas jefferson and john adams both died on july forth, 1826, with adams allegedly declaring "jefferson still survives" on his deathbed, unaware that his former colleague was already dead

after woodrow wilson had a stroke in 1912, his wife edith wilson took over many of his presidential duties, making her the first female president in practice. she and physician cary grayson decided to keep her husband's condition hidden from the public, even staging several pictures of him to make it seem like he was hard at work in the white house

the youth international party (yippies) held a rally for their presidential nominee, a hundred and forty-five pound pig named pigasus, outside the democratic national convention in 1968. his acceptance speech was being read by jerry rubin when he and six other yippies were arrested along with pigasus and a sow apparently called "mrs pigasus"

after hitler banned bold makeup from public functions in 1933 because he deemed it improper for a good german woman, wearing red lipstick became a symbol of solidarity against fascism. allied militaries were quick to implement it as a part of their female uniforms and issue propaganda encouraging women to wear it. in 1941 elizabeth arden created a shade of lipstick called victory red for civilian women, and in 1942 the us women's marines corp adopted her shade montezuma red as a standard part of the uniform

harriet tubman was not only the most famous conductor of the underground railroad, but also a nurse, soldier, and spy for the union during the civil war. the first woman in american history to lead an armed military raid, in 1863 she commanded the combahee river raid, which included the liberation of over seven hundred and fifty enslaved people

in 1782, deborah sampson disguised herself a man, adopted the alias robert shurtleff, and joined the fourth masschusettes regiment. she managed to protect her true identity for over two years -- however, after she lost consciousness due to illness, her sex was discovered and was given an honorable discharge. after her death, her husband petitioned congress for pension as the spouse of a soldier, and surprisingly he was awarded the money

adolf hitler had a nephew who fought for the united states navy during world war ii. born william patrick hitler, in 1933, he declined his uncle's request to denounce his british citizenship, earning himself the nickname "my loathsome nephew." after his 1939 lecture tour of the united states where he warned americans about the nazi threat, he enlisted in the us military because he wasn't allowed in the british forces. he eventually became a us citizen in 1946 and legally changed his name to william patrick stuart-houston

in 1970, richard nixon signed the poison prevention packaging act, which required all prescription and over-the-counter drugs to have childproof packaging. stephen bull, a former presidential aide, recalled that he was once asked by the president to open his allergy medicine, and the childproof cap had numerous teeth marks on it from nixon's apparent attempts to gnaw it open

the elephant became the mascot of the republican party to demonstrate union war strength (as "seeing the elephant" was slang for experiencing combat). the donkey became the democratic mascot because people frequently called andrew jackson a jackass

and then on the day of the show, my friend asks, "where is the camera I requested?"

gallerist: "you didn't request a camera"

my friend: "I did, and you confirmed that you would have one here."

gallerist: "that isn't true."

and then she proceeded to pull up the email thread, and my friend could see that every single email they had sent had been summarized by AI, and that the gallerist had then had AI write a response to them based on the AI summary, and that the AI had detected that they needed a camera, and confirmed on behalf of the gallerist that they would bring a camera, but because the gallerist had offloaded the work of actually reading and responding, she simply hadn't actually made any note of it herself, therefore didn't bring it, nor did she even know one was needed.

which meant i went and read about snail brains.

here's the bad news, at least by human standards:

snails do not have anything like a centralized brain. their nervous system is made up of small clusters of neurons (ganglia) that mostly handle very local tasks. they don't have a cortex, they don't build big integrated models of the world, and they almost certainly don't experience things like appreciation, anticipation, or savoring.

pudding is not looking at the sky and thinking it's beautiful.

snail eyes are basically light sensors - they can tell bright from dark, but not form images. snail "taste" is done through chemoreceptors on their tentacles and around their mouth. those receptors don't produce flavor the way ours do; they just detect chemical compounds and sort them into "approach," "ignore," or "avoid."

so there's no evidence that snails enjoy food, or wind, or views, the way mammals do.

and that does sound kind of sad. but then i thought that maybe we are asking the wrong question.

snails do have valence. they detect aversive things (like salt or dryness) and withdraw from them. they detect non-aversive or beneficial conditions (like moisture) and stay extended. when pudding is stretched out like this, it means his nervous system is basically saying "this is safe; nothing is wrong."

if we define pleasure not as our human experience of dopamine and reward chemicals but instead as "the absence of aversion" - a state where the organism is open to its environment instead of defending itself - then this does count as something positive, even if it's extremely nothing like human enjoyment.

pudding isn't appreciating the wind. but his body is registering humidity, safety, and the ability to keep functioning, and that matters to him in the only way his nervous system can make things matter. he does not think "this is great, this is awesome, i love the weather", because he doesn't think in the way we do at all, but the neurological action in his ganglion tell his body that he is safe, that the moisture is an acceptable level, that it's not too dry or windy, and that there's nothing imminently threatening.

i think a lot of the sadness comes from assuming that a good life has to look like ours: full of enjoyment, meaning, and aesthetic experience. but a snail isn't missing those things. its world just isn't built to include them.

snails don't have a sense of flavor. they don't even have tastebuds. this seems like a gimme, right? but again that might be asking the wrong question about what "taste" is. biologically speaking, it's chemoreception. we taste sweet because it indicates high value, high calorie sugar molecules. we taste salty for salt, umami for proteins. so in what way does pudding's chemoreceptors differ from ours instrumentally? we can say "by our human perspective, pudding can't experience "preference" or "savoring" or "anticipation of delicious food"", but from pudding's perspective we have radically overengineered ourselves for the task at hand. pudding can tell what's salty, what's high value, what has the chemicals he needs. the functional outcome is that he can discriminate food souces based on their composition. is that not taste?