My Cup Of Tea

I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.

Edit: the title for this comic is “Puzzle Rat” this one’s a few days late due to having a lot of doctors appointments sorry it’s  just 9 pages, and about some rats… it’s more symbolic than anything really

2) this is a very badly-conceived question unless you're literally only asking like. KIDS. Because that is such a HUGE gap to the point of the question being laughable. A 13yo, the youngest age someone can have an account on tumblr to vote on this poll, would need to have a 52yo friend to vote "yes". By the time they're 16, they'd need to have a 64yo friend. the 18-24 demo is (i believe) the largest on the site. I don't think most 18-24yos have friends in the 72-96yo range.

I'm not saying that's impossible, obviously, but like... it's VERY unlikely. Plus once you pass 29, you officially can simply no longer have a friend 4x your age, given that the oldest (age independently verified) living person is 116.

(side note but shout out to Jeanne Calment of France, 1875-1997, oldest recorded and independently verified person to ever live, at 122 years. She lived on her own until she was 110, met van Gogh when he moved to her hometown of Arles, France when she was a teenager, and recorded a spoken word musical album shortly before she died. Absolutely fantastic.)

think again motherfucker

This is the most beautiful scientific diagram I've ever seen.

And it ended up not really being suitable for my purposes, as it goes. But part of the book is actually devoted to Kenelm, the author’s oldest son…and man, his dad loved him.

Kenelm seems to have had a fairly typical upbringing for a young English gentleman, although he is a bit slow to read. At twelve he’s sent to board at Stoneyhurst College—often the big step towards independence in a boy’s life, as he’ll most likely only see his parents sporadically from now on, and then leave for university.

When he’s sixteen, however, his father moves the whole family to France, so Kenelm gets pulled out of school to be with them again. Shortly after the move, his dad notices that he seems depressed. Kenelm confides in him that he’s been suffering from “scruples” for the last eighteen months—most likely what we’d now call an anxiety disorder.

And his dad is pissed—at the school, because apparently Kenelm had been seeking help there and received none, despite obviously struggling with mental health issues. So his dad takes it seriously. He sets him up to be counseled by a priest—there were no therapists back then—and doesn’t send him away to be boarded again, instead teaching him at home himself.

And his mental health does improve. His dad describes him as well-liked, gentle, pious, kind and eager to please others; at twenty he’s thinking about a career in diplomacy or going into the military—which his dad thinks he is not particularly suited for, considering his favorite pastimes are drawing and reading. He’s excited about his family’s upcoming move to Italy, and he’s been busy learning Italian and teaching it to his siblings.

Henry Kenelm Beste dies of typhus at twenty years, four months, and twenty-five days. That’s how his dad records it. That’s why his dad is telling this story. It’s not an extraordinary story—Kenelm’s story struck me because he sounds so…ordinary, like so many kids today. And he was so, so loved. His dad tried hard to help him compassionately with his mental health at a time where our current knowledge and support systems didn’t exist. You can feel how badly he wanted his son to be remembered and loved, to impress how dearly beloved he was to the people who knew him in life.

I hope he’d be glad to know someone is still thinking of Kenelm over 200 years later.

That’s the number of people at level 1 literacy or below. Level 1 literacy is like grade school level. Able to read labels and straightforward instructions and whatnot.