Vulgar Wheat

something i’ve never understood

Poison Ivy (Batman: TAS) loves plants, right?

So why is she vegan?

Shouldn’t she only eat meat?

To be a pedantic, approximating ass: a cow eats something like x calories of plants, and converts it into about 1/10 * x calories of meat. So if you need to eat a certain number of calories a day, you get those calories with only one tenth the plant death if you eat the plants directly than if you eat the cow. While there are some exceptions (Probably fish?), and the numbers are different for pigs, chickens, lamb, etc, and it’s really handwaving the numbers… It holds for all animals that there’s a lot of ‘wasted’ calories.

Moreover, there are people who don’t eat anything that requires a plant to die; meaning no root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions, garlic, etc), just leaves and fruit (fruit, squash, tomatoes, etc). So it could be that Poison Ivy is actually a fruitarian, and it just hasn’t been outright stated.

Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about Poison Ivy except for “She is a Batman villain”.

Oh, those pesky atheists, trying to run for public office in the free world!

fatmolly:

famousflowerof-manhattan:

Mississippi:

No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state.

Maryland:

That no religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God; nor shall the Legislature prescribe any other oath of office than the oath prescribed by this Constitution.

Arkansas:

No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court.

South Carolina:

No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution.

And they say that atheists face no discrimination.

Texas:

RELIGIOUS TESTS. No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.

If you want to criticize certain types of women for being airheaded, superficial, and shallow

youarenotyou:

wateroftheclearestblue:

for downplaying their intelligence and/or ‘acting dumb’

for not caring about real life events

for constantly deferring to men

then maybe you might want to first criticize the social system that teaches women to be silent

to not care about political events (‘political’ being used really loosely here) because it’s not womanly and you’ll never be worthy of love if you spout off your mouth

that a man’s opinion, no matter how off-the-wall and unresearched it is, will always be better received and more valid than your entire life’s work

that a woman’s place is always two steps behind a man’s and there are consequences if that is not the case

before you start dishing out judgement on people who may simply just not want to be harassed.

And I know, I know there are people following me who in the past have told me I make this shit up for something to say. But when women are getting death threats for running blogs and being shot at for saying no and subjected to all kinds of sexist bullshit for being political or aware or informed, yeah I don’t blame other women for keeping quiet. And I’m not gonna sit there and criticize anyone for taking a path they may believe keeps them safer.

We do what we have to do.

truth.

peace-is-cheaper:

We need to hear more stories like this in the news:

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.

But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.

He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

“He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, ‘Here you go,’” Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, “like what’s going on here?” Diaz says. “He asked me, ‘Why are you doing this?’”

Diaz replied: “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me … hey, you’re more than welcome.

“You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help,” Diaz says.

Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.

“The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi,” Diaz says. “The kid was like, ‘You know everybody here. Do you own this place?’”

“No, I just eat here a lot,” Diaz says he told the teen. “He says, ‘But you’re even nice to the dishwasher.’”

Diaz replied, “Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”

“Yea, but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way,” the teen said.

Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. “He just had almost a sad face,” Diaz says.

The teen couldn’t answer Diaz — or he didn’t want to.

When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, “Look, I guess you’re going to have to pay for this bill ‘cause you have my money and I can’t pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you.”

The teen “didn’t even think about it” and returned the wallet, Diaz says. “I gave him $20 … I figure maybe it’ll help him. I don’t know.”

Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen’s knife — “and he gave it to me.”

Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, “You’re the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch.”

“I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”

chronicillnesscat:

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat with blue eyes. Top text reads: “If you’re depressed, get up and do something about it!” Bottom text reads: “I CAN’T.”]

(There are days I can’t bring myself to *shower*, much less join a club or activity, mom.)

i want a t-fal actifry so badly it hurts

nom-chompsky:

kitchen appliances are my impulse buys. i can barely go near a williams sonoma or sur la table without my credit card jumping out of my purse and into a cashier’s hand

Yep. I nearly bought a seltzer-maker the last time I was there. I don’t even drink that much soda, I just assumed I would drink more juice that way or something.

Here’s a good way to ruin your afternoon. Go on the Internet and find any discussion thread that brings up overweight people. Stand back and watch as a crowd absolutely rants about how incredibly easy it is to lose weight, and how incredibly lazy you have to be to get fat. The conclusion will be that being fat is literally a moral failing and the sign of a bad, disgusting human being. It’s to the point of actual anger and violence directed toward the overweight in real life — the fat are one of the last groups people can openly hate.

But now take any of those people and try using the same logic with their weaknesses:
“You’re struggling to get by on your income? I can’t imagine how lazy a person would have to be to not be wealthy. Just go out there and make money! Duh!”

“You don’t have a girlfriend? I can’t imagine how much of an antisocial dick you have to be to not get a beautiful woman to love you. How hard is it to get off your ass and be a dynamic, sexy, personable human being?”

“You drink alcohol? Or smoke cigarettes? Or smoke pot? Why don’t you try not doing those things?”

“You suffer from depression or anxiety? Uh, have you tried not?”

Now watch as they rattle off ten thousand extenuating circumstances for their embarrassing problem (the economy is bad, women are bitches, I have an addiction) while completely rejecting all of the similar causes of obesity.

“

—	Cracked: 5 Logical Fallacies that Make You Wrong More Than You Think (via squeetothegee)

It’s not too much to ask men and boys to “look, but don’t touch.” A young woman who wants to be noticed, even desired, without being assaulted isn’t making an unreasonable request. She’s not defying the facts of biology. She’s asking to be watched, appreciated, and left unharmed. Saying that she’s asking to be raped is like saying that a talented actor who portrays an unsympathetic villain particularly well on screen is asking to be attacked by an outraged member of the movie-going public. There’s a difference between a performance and an invitation, and it’s not that hard—really, it’s not—to distinguish the two.

“

—	Sexy Halloween Costumes for Girls Don’t Cause Rape — The Good Men Project (via sexisnottheenemy)

stfusexists:

chlorophyll:

First of all, our entire society needs to step the fuck AWAY from being such incredible racist jerks towards mothers who aren’t white. Just as a general statement. the “welfare queen” archetype is a myth. Manufactured. It was created during the Reagan administration because Reagan and his officials wanted to remove funding from social support services and could find no other way to make people feel okay with cutting off support to needy families and letting innocent children go hungry. they decided to exploit our society’s overt and dormant racism, woman-hating and woman-blaming in order to further their selfish and shameful political goals. there is documentation of the strategics that went into this.

Secondly, we also need to stop being obnoxious towards mothers who aren’t over 30 or over 25 or whatever age we seem to have collectively agreed is “proper” for childbearing and child-raising.

Young moms don’t mean bad moms. Poor moms don’t mean bad moms. You know what makes a good parent? Loving care, ability to provide for the child’s needs and a solid understanding of what those needs are. that can happen at almost any age. Children do well when parents do well. Parents do well when they are supported by their community. If you want healthier families, make it easier for families to be healthy.

Something is wrong when a person can’t support themselves and a child/children doing honest hard work. Something is wrong when people have to take on multiple jobs, or work ridiculous hours just to get by. Something is wrong when people are forced to wait until their 30s or later to have children because they will otherwise struggle to support them. Something is very, very wrong when no social services, such as quality universal daycare, are available so that people with children CAN work and parent at the same time.

If our society were set up properly, young people would be able to have families and support themselves, even when parenting singly. It is not acceptable that having a family, a near-universal human desire, has become a privilege reserved for the rich, educated and “old enough”.

Let me tell you some things.

I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world.

First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty. Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child. Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it?

Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that?

End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening? I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either?

You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count?

And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.)

In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born!

Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle. You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours. Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage?

“Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.

“

—	Desliz (via merrickmayfair) Always reblog.