Radioblocs & Musicnotes

Dyke March London 2026

Happiness chemicals in the brain and how to activate them

Serotonin: The mood stabilizer

practicing meditation

spending time in nature

getting sun exposure

exercising and being active

Dopamine: The reward chemical

completing a task

taking time for self-care

celebrating the small wins

eating a good meal

Endorphin: the pain killer

watching a good movie

exercising and being active

laughing out loud

volunteering and giving back

Oxytocin: The love hormone

giving a compliment

This was the crossword puzzle in the New York Times yesterday. 

Tausig’s crossword is a so-called Schrödinger puzzle, named for the physicist’s hypothetical cat that is at once both alive and dead. In a Schrödinger puzzle, select squares have more than one correct letter answer: They exist in two states at once. “Black Halloween animal,” for example, could be both BAT or CAT, yielding two different but perfectly correct puzzles. Only 10 such puzzles have now been published in Times history.

It’s the theme of Tausig’s puzzle, though, that makes it special. Four entries in Thursday’s crossword can include either an “F” or an “M.” Both are correct; neither is wrong. For example, “Part of a house” can be either ROOF or ROOM. The long “revealer” answer, tying those select entries together and spanning 11 squares smack-dab in the middle of the puzzle, is GENDER FLUID.

Since Spain is part of the EU it cannot be traded with individually, it is part of a bloc with the rest of the EU, but Trump wants to sanction them for their anti-genocide position and he wants to use his favourite tool: tariffs.

The demonstrably easiest way to get public support for a country getting out of the EU is to instigate white people's fear of brown migrants. The UK is still ripping itself apart over the amount of racist propaganda it generated and consumed for Brexit. Shoving (allegedly) 50,000 African migrants into Spanish territory will cause this panic.

A Bonaparte's gull (Chroicocephalus philadelphia) in Monterey Bay, California, USA

Blue-crowned Ifrit (Ifrita kowaldi), male, family Ifritidae, order Passeriformes, Papua New Guinea

POISONOUS.

This bird has batrachotoxin in its skin and feathers. (Most likely obtained from consuming Choresine beetles.)

i actually do believe that many men are lonely in a gendered way. i think they have accurately identified an issue. socially approved male behavior kind of requires men to be shitty friends

they have no use for women they don't want to fuck, and female "friends" they can't fuck get dropped pretty fast. so about 50% of the population is written off by default

and then they can't be too emotional or too intimate with their male friends, lest they be perceived as feminine or gay by male peers. so the friendships they do allow themselves to have are rather shallow

it's just that this is a self-inflicted problem. and moreover, it's a problem rooted in the idea that it's better for men to suffer in this way than to be perceived/treated as a woman or a gay man (i.e. inferiors)

the way to end the male loneliness crisis would be for men to choose to be good friends to the people around them. and if they don't want to do that, well.

this is not to say that women and other non-men don't suffer from loneliness – there are broader social factors driving loneliness in general – but i do actually think men are correct when they say that their gender plays a role in their loneliness

Blue Clipper (Parthenos sylvia), family Nymphalidae, Chiang Dao, Thailand

-having a job

-not having a job

-applying for jobs

-the job market

like if you are marginalized it is in your own self-interest to interrogate and deconstruct the cultural narratives that position you as subnormal. this is what starts a lot of queer people on wanting to reform the world into something more compassionate and egalitarian.

Misogyny is not just prejudice experienced by a woman. It is not simply something that happens TO a woman. It has nothing to do with the woman. It’s about the misogynist.

Bigotry is not determined or defined by the target of that bigotry. The bigotry is stored in the bigot.

Misogynists will be misogynistic towards any person they associate with femininity, including cisgender men.

When a misogynist cis man tears another man down for liking something he thinks is girly, he is still being misogynistic.

A cis male coach telling his cis male student he runs like a girl is being misogynistic.

A cis woman punishing her son for wanting a “girl” toy or policing her boyfriend’s hygiene habits and interests for anything she considers emasculating, is being misogynistic!

When a woman gets in a car accident and is injured more severely because the safety testing on that car was only done using crash test dummies and models based on men, she’s experiencing misogyny.

When the medication she takes for her injuries doesn’t work right or has unexpected side effects because it was only tested on men, she’s experiencing misogyny.

When the tools she uses at work that are the wrong shape for her hands, and the jumpsuit that’s part of her uniform which she has to take off completely to use the bathroom, and all the spaces she moves through and everything within them are designed with the assumption that an average male body is the only body that matters— she is experiencing misogyny.

Misogyny is the belief that women are inherently inferior, and the systems and institutions built around that belief. It can be experienced by anyone, and anyone is capable of having misogynistic beliefs and doing misogynistic things.

Bigotry is not about the target. It’s about the bigot, and what the bigot believes, and the way those bigoted beliefs have shaped our world.

I don’t care what race gender or sexuality you are, you were raised with racist, sexist, homophobic beliefs. Because it’s literally impossible not to be.

The thing is, everyone has to deal with this. It's not like the malware only targets bad people. It's indiscriminate, hoping to find a bad person who will embrace it and help it propagate. If you are made aware of it and make the conscious decision to let it stay, that is a reflection on your character, not someone pointing it out.