Learning to say 'No'

At minimum about 4.5 thousand people liked this without reblogging it.

Progress.

The continued existence of these species is the legacy of so many people whose names we will never know--some of who never lived to see the impacts of their work.

When you count up the flaws of our species, you have to count the good things too--out of the many species throughout Earth's history that have caused the demise or endangerment of other species, we are the only one that tries to fix it out of our fascination and love for other life forms.

And I'll add some other recent good conservation news.

•Green sea turtles are no longer endangered

•Giant pandas are no longer endangered

•Panamanian golden frogs were returned to the wild for the first time since they were wiped out by chytrid 17 years ago

•The Eastern humpback whale population has exceeded pre-whaling numbers and many other whale species are showing strong signs of recovery

•Salmon and bison have been returned to their former habitat in multiple parts of the US through dam removal, habitat restoration, and reintroduction

•The Western monarch migration was up 60% compared to last year

•Galapagos tortoises were reintroduced to Floreana for the first time in 180 years

•Attenborough's long beaked echidna was rediscovered after being though extinct for decades

•Five "lost" island bird species were documented by citizen scientist birders in 2025

So ok look. The point is not the flared leg by itself. These cannot be yoga pants. These are, and you have to understand this if you are too young to have worn them, BLUE JEANS. And this was the last years before all jeans were 70% spandex.

They were denim, and they weren't bell bottoms. They hung loose from the knee in a way that would make a wizard envious. We all walked around like we were wearing hakama. And they dragged on the ground. That was important. Ragged cuffs. If your jeans weren't so long that they had ratty cuffs, they were embarrassingly short.

And the thing about denim is that it's a twill weave and it's cotton. So not only does it hold a lot of water, it wicks. Walking around in these suckers on a wet day could get you wet to the knees even if you never stepped in a puddle.

Then you'd go inside and take off your shoes and try to avoid letting your freezing, wet, filthy pant legs touch your skin.

Because that makes sense. Anyway, this poison would submit me to its well-known and much-feared symptom: "17 Day Paralysis" in which you're paralyzed for exactly 17 days and you only chance of survival is to be on full machine support for 17 days.

Just before the medical team intubated me I remembered I have a Zoom meeting with my academic advisor today (I actually do in real life) and I needed to email him to let him know I was the victim of a mass-poisoning and would need to reschedule.

I kept trying to type the "□" symbol in my dream but could not figure out how and gave up.