Ur A Whole Girl

Hand of Buddha, circa 710-794 

I finally got 9 Alyosha and Ivan pic to post hahahahah！！！

Fiona Finnegan

Crystal Ship, 2020

Oil and acrylic on wood

puts cocaine in my lipgloss so when he kisses me he thinks im god

the humanity of the AIDS crisis: the ward by gideon mendel

colorized by me

by the sea

Rabies is an incredibly lethal virus that kills more than 50,000 people globally each year. About 99% of those people who die from rabies were infected by the bite of a dog. This doesn’t mean that dogs are evil, or that they are disgusting, or that they should be eradicated from the planet to prevent the risk of disease transmission to humans. It does mean that we should do everything in our power to promote vaccination efforts, study disease transmission on a local and global scale, and find ways to prevent infected dogs from encountering and biting humans.

Okay, now are you ready to hear my biggest personal biology hot take?

This is pretty much how I feel about ticks carrying Borrelia burgdorferi (the bacteria that causes Lyme disease) and other arthropod disease vectors. Yes, these animals cause unbelievable suffering to humans by inadvertently transmitting disease, but that doesn’t mean they should be portrayed as evil or exterminated entirely from the environment. Ecologists have been speaking for years on how critical these species are within their established trophic webs, and how their removal could have devastating effects to many other organisms including humans. You can still be scared of or grossed out by these animals (very normal response to a potentially dangerous disease vector), but it’s important to understand that the best way for scientists to minimize the risk of these animals is NOT just eliminating them from the environment. No animal is evil or immoral for the ecological niche it fills, and encouraging a more nuanced understanding of these animals can arm us with better ways to minimize their negative impact to humans.

Domari people (middle eastern romani) of Palestine

(1) A domari tent in Jerusalem near the Damascus Gate, 1920s

(2) A domari street circus in Jerusalem, 1905

(3) Domari dancer and musician in Mandatory Palestine, 1930s

(4) Domari settlement at the north of the Damascus Gate, 1914

(5) Domari musician and dancers in Galilee, 1920s

(6) Domari women and children in a domari settlement in Mandatory Palestine, 1920s

7) Domari woman with seashells in the hand to tell fortune, near the sea of Galilee in Palestine, 1930s