where the reblogs go

The FDA has upgraded an egg recall issued last month to “Class I,” its highest risk level, as it warns the public that consuming the products could cause “serious adverse health consequences or death.”

The recall of 1,589,577 dozen white-shell eggs and brown cage-free shell eggs was initially issued by Midwest Poultry Services in late July, which warned they might be contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis.

According to the company, the eggs were produced and distributed from farms in Texas between June 6 and July 3 and have sell-by or best-by dates between July 20 and August 17. The recalled egg cartons have either the code P-1950 or 0840962 and Julian Dates between 157-184.

I was told by my professors that Kitty Genovese was a 28-year-old unmarried woman who was attacked, raped, and brutally murdered on her way home from her shift as manager of a bar. I was told that numerous people witnessed the attack and her cries for help but didn’t do anything because they “assumed someone else would”. Nobody intervened until it was too late. 

What I was not told was that Kitty Genovese was a lesbian who lived more or less openly with her partner in the Upper West Side and managed a gay bar. 

Now… is it likely that people overheard Kitty’s cries for help and ignored them because they thought someone else would deal with it? Or, perhaps, did they ignore her because they knew she was a lesbian and just didn’t care?

Maybe that’s not the case. Maybe it was just a random attack. Maybe her neighbours didn’t know she was gay, or didn’t care.

But it’s a huge chunk of information to leave out about her in a supposedly scientific study of events, since her sexuality made her much more vulnerable to violent crimes than the average person. And it’s a dishonour to her memory.

RIP Kitty Genovese. Society may only remember you for how you died, but I will remember you for who who were.

One shouted out his window for the attacker to leave her alone, which did successfully scare the man off temporarily.

Another called the police but, seeing her still on her feet, said only that there had been a fight but the woman seemed to be okay.

And when Kitty Genovese was finally attacked in a vestibule where she couldn’t be seen from outside, Karl Ross, a neighbor, saw what was happening but was too frightened himself to go to her rescue–so he started calling other neighbors to ask what he should do. Eventually one of them told him to call the police, which he did, and the woman he called, Sophie Farrar, rushed out to help Kitty even though she didn’t know whether the attacker was gone.

Kitty Genovese died in the arms of a neighbor who tired to help and comfort her while they waited for the police and ambulance to arrive. Kitty was in fact still alive, although mortally wounded, when the ambulance reached the scene.

The man who saw the final stabbing? Who panicked and called other neighbors first instead of the police? The man who said, infamously, that he “didn’t want to get involved” because he was reluctant to turn to the police for help? He was thought to be gay himself. He was a friend of Kitty and Mary Ann’s. After being interviewed by the police he took a bottle of vodka to Mary Ann and sat with her, trying to comfort her.

So, no. I don’t think the evidence indicates that Kitty Genovese’s neighbors let her die because she was a lesbian, because Kitty Genovese’s neighbors tried to help.

See also: Debunking the Myth of Kitty Genovese (The New York Post)

A Call for Help (The New Yorker)

At the time, the NYPD was coming under quite a bit of criticism about rising crime rates and the seeming ineffectiveness of the police’s response to the problem. In the Kitty Genovese case, even though people did in fact call the police, it took about an hour for them to show up and the first detectives didn’t arrive until three hours later (at which point they mostly spent their time interrogating Kitty’s girlfriend about their relationship, because for “some reason” they considered her to be the most likely suspect for the murder. In fact, the police wouldn’t catch the actual killer until six days later when he was picked up for having a stolen TV in the trunk of his car, at which point he admitted to having committed a total of three murders). It’s not an accident that one of the things to come out of the Genovese case was the establishment of the 9-1-1 system, because at the time that the attack happened, you had to call the specific number of a particular police precinct and it was up to the duty sergeant on the desk to take action - which was usually to send someone out from the precinct to the address reported, because cops on foot patrol wouldn’t be outfitted with two-way radios for several years. It’s more than a little convenient that at a time when the NYPD is coming in for public scrutiny about its ability to do the basic job of responding to reports of crimes in a timely fashion, the Police Commissioner happens to hand the City Editor of the city’s most prominent newspaper a story which puts the blame for the slow response on the apathy and inaction of New Yorkers, neatly absolving the NYPD for its ridiculously poor performance in this case in particular and its response to the rise in crime in general. 

As a former music teacher, I can also say that "learn the fundamentals first" is the death knell for a vast percentage of beginners, especially adult learners.

I've run into this with drawing several times, where some well-meaning artist has lectured me on needing to study anatomy properly or not use shortcuts like CSP brushes. And oh, believe me, I know. I know exactly how to learn an artistic discipline in a structured way. I just...don't want to!

The thing is, I'm not aiming to be a professional artist. I want to draw my gay little anime guys. I would undoubtedly improve at art much faster if I approached every gay little anime guy drawing as a study exercise. But I would also have quit drawing a decade ago if I couldn't just let myself enjoy drawing imperfect fucked-up little guys with whatever shortcuts I needed to body myself across the finish line.

With my adult piano students, my approach was always "What's your goal?" If their goal was to learn exactly one Elton John songbook to play at parties, then...that's what we did. We'd put tape on the keys to label the notes, and just fuckin go for it. Learning exactly one Elton John songbook is a good and noble musical goal, full stop.

Some of my students needed and enjoyed a more structured approach to learning; if they wanted to be able to play classical music, then yes, scales were going to have to enter the equation at some point. And yet others would learn the Elton John songbook, catch their white whale, and realize they wanted to explore more of the ocean. The scales were still there for them to learn!

Often the choice isn't between "learn art well" and "learn art imperfectly" - the choice is between "learn art imperfectly" and "don't do art at all." To which I say, learn imperfectly! Or, what the hell, don't 'learn' art. Just do, and enjoy the doing of it.

Wormhole, 2026 Digital paint (sketches -- pencil on paper) Prints No AI was used in the creation of this image. I've been working on this painting off and on for over two years, and figuring out the composition alone was a serious challenge. I didn't think it'd take this long to complete, but the timing's rather fortuitous with Trek's 60th anniversary right around the corner! 🎉🖖✨ Sketches below the cut.

Black Hills Pow Wow 2025

Dragging Custer's 7th cavalry flag that was captured when he was defeated at the battle of Little Big Horn.

in anaïs mitchell's own words, hadestown was conceived in the wake of the economic and climate devastation brought on by hurricane katrina. i don't think i need to belabour the concept of hades building a wall to keep the enemy out—explicitly and repeatedly named as poverty. nor do i feel the need to dumb down the environmental message. by hoarding capital for the sake of it, hades destroys the environment for the working class who he requires as fodder for (in the words of william blake) his "dark, satantic mills."

this message isn't particularly subtle, and it shouldn't be.

the vision orpheus presents with his song is not only one of ecological restoration with the seasons, but also community and egalitarian collectivization "if no one takes too much, there will always be enough."

in finishing his song, orpheus succeeds where eurydice cannot: not only setting the seasons right, but returning humanity to the anonymized workers by unionizing them.

i think that, as is the case with a lot of theatre, it's easy to anonymize the chorus. they're extra voices to round out a song or bodies used for the dance break. in hadestown, this anonymity is purposeful. whether above ground or below it, the chorus have been so thoroughly ground under hades' boot that they do not even have the luxury of individuality. their identity is reduced simply to workers.

the workers keep their heads and voices down because it is the only way they can survive, wretched as this existence is. they are not allowed to hold onto their old identities because voices that are too loud can be raised in protest and music. see field hollers, work songs, sea shanties—or chanties; it's no coincidence that two of the songs most explicitly about the toll this backbreaking labour takes on the body are called chants.

moreover, the work that they do—building a wall that will never be finished, extracting resources—isn't merely productive in the sense that it's furthering hades' capital. this form of labour is specifically punitive in a way that is meant to break their spirits. the workers "dig [their] own graves for a living." penal labour is destructive rather than productive. workers are given monotonous and repetitive tasks meant to punish them for a perceived wrongdoing. tasks like moving stones from one pile to another, turning crank machines, or walking on treadmills. the repetitive nature of these tasks was meant to break both body and spirit with no focus on rehabilitation because you are never getting out of prison. we see examples of this hard labour in victorian england, in chattel slavery, and around the world today.

it's easy to get swept up in the romance and forget that orpheus is responsible not only for bringing eurydice out of hell, but the workers as well. when threatened with a strike, hades (encouraged by the fates) breaks up the union. orpheus is separated from eurydice, yes, but also from his fellow workers. his impossible task is meant to break up his community, because community is harder to quell than individual rebels.

Sometimes when an action makes NO sense to us ("he's like a stupid alien"), it's bc we are not understanding its true motivation/purpouse. If his goal was control, financial pressure and limiting her options due to lack of funds, it makes perfect sensie to buy the truck.

Therefore, here is an alternative explanation based entirely on his impulsive feelings:

She's getting near the end of her degree, she's going to be making a lot more than him when she finishes. This makes him angry and jealous. The closer she gets to finishing, the stronger his anger and jealousy gets.

Well, if she's gonna be making so much more than me, the least she can do is pay for my truck. And maybe if she had to pay for this truck she wouldn't even be able to finish school. Then I'd still be man of the house. That would really show her whose boss. Now I feel more in control and less jealous.

"Honey, I bought a truck."

I think we often talk about abusers like we talk about evolution. We say polar bears evolved to have white coats for camouflage. We talk about evolution like it has a plan and is doing things on purpose. But evolution doesn't care about camouflage. Birth rates are all that matter, but evolution doesn't even "care" about them.

I think the majority of abusers don't actually plan things out. They just act impulsively on malicious feelings. It makes them feel good to have lots of power, so they take whatever power they can find. It makes them feel good to make their victims uncomfortable so they do that.

Most abuse tactics can be explained (and should be defended against) as if they are strategic. Just like evolution, it's just easier to talk about that way. But I think most abuser tactics are really just the consequence of impulsively acting on malicious feelings.

Strategy is big picture. It’s about asking “what do I even really want here?” You say you want to Win. What does Winning mean? What does Winning look like?

In an argumentative context, Strategy is about the frame around the picture, so to speak. Are you approaching the conversation as a confrontation or a confession or a Conversion?

Tactics are about individual goals. In wargaming, Tactics are things like pincer attacks and flanking maneuvers; things like armor penetrating ammo and anti-cavalry fortifications.

In an argumentative context, Tactics are things like making an attack ad hominem, or shifting the goalposts, or turning the tables.

Abusers tend to be excellent Tacticians but terrible Strategists. They often do not even recognize good/healthy relationships as such. Their Strategy is a mess. They would not recognize victory if they stood in the midst of it.

But. They are very good at not losing. They are very good at making sure that the other person doesn’t win.

A good relationship is win-win; both parties benefit mutualistically from the symbiosis.

for any address to twitter you can replace the “x.com” with “nitter.net” and you will be able to browse as if you have an account. Lifesaver.