pinskal

pinskal, 10 months ago to random

"Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.
But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said."
We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized.

pinskal, 6 months ago to random

“People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”
– Greta Thunberg

pinskal, 5 months ago to random

#silentsunday

pinskal, 10 months ago to random

Ta-Nehisi Coates:

Racism tends to attract attention when it's flagrant and filled with invective. But like all bigotry, the most potent component of racism is frame-flipping - positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So the gay do not simply want to marry; they want to convert our children into sin. The Jews do not merely want to be left in peace; they actually are plotting world take-over. And the blacks are not actually victims of American power, but beneficiaries of the war against hard-working whites. This is a respectable, more sensible, bigotry, one that does not seek to name-call, preferring instead change the subject and straw man. Thus segregation wasn't necessary to keep the niggers in line; it was necessary to protect the honor of white women.

pinskal, 5 months ago to random

pinskal, 2 months ago to random

A Pole Suggests:

pinskal, 4 months ago to random

Random fun film fact: The crow in It’s a Wonderful Life seen in the Building & Loan that Uncle Billy kept as a pet is the same crow that flew on Scarecrow’s arm in The Wizard of Oz whom he was unable to scare. His name was Jimmy and he was a raven who first appeared in You Can’t Take It With You directed by Frank Capra who went on to cast the bird in every subsequent movie he made.

pinskal, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to random

#ALT4me

pinskal, 11 months ago to art

StreetArt by Fabian Bane
#streetart #art #mastoart #artist #fediart #artmatters

pinskal, 8 months ago to random

pinskal, 10 months ago to random

The water in your body is just visiting. It was a thunderstorm a week ago. It will be the ocean soon enough. Most of your cells come and go like morning dew. We are more weather pattern than stone monument. Sunlight on mist. Summer lightning. Your choices outweigh your substance.

~ Jarod K. Anderson Field Guide to the Haunted Forest; The Cryptonaturalist

pinskal, 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago) to random

pinskal, 8 months ago to Artist

New unsanctioned work by @coriemattie in West Hollywood.
#streetart #artist #fediart #mastoart #artmatters #art

pinskal, 1 month ago to random

pinskal, 11 months ago to random

GRAHAM: What I tell my students, when they feel singularly unfortunate to be born in this moment, is this is your moment, the moment your soul showed up incarnate. In this world. It is an astonishing moment to be alive. You could have been born into a lull — instead you were born into a tipping point. It’s your one life and you’ve entered it at a flexion point — a point when everything you do matters. How often in history does a soul get to live in such an era? Don’t waste it. Show up for it. With everything you’ve got. Some will invent, some will organize, some will witness, some will grieve, some will console. Live this life now. Even if in fury and grief, live it. You don’t want to die not having lived. It’s incredibly easy to find a way around experience rather than through it. But you will have cheated yourself out of your only possession: your life. You are here now. Now is the time to live fully, not hide, not escape.

[The Harvard Gazette :: ARTS :: Jorie Graham confronts past, present, and future]

pinskal, 5 months ago to random

pinskal, 1 month ago to random

TINY DRAGON
The Armadillo girdled lizard of the desert along the western coast of South Africa.
When threatened, the lizard curls into a ball and takes its tail in its mouth. In this formation, it is protected by the thick squarish scales along its back and the spines on its tail.
Photo posted by Earth Unreal

pinskal, 1 year ago to art

StreetArt by Seth Globepainter
#streetart #art #mastoart #artist #fediart #artmatters

pinskal, 4 months ago to Artist

#artist #fediart #mastoart #artmatters #art

Pencil carvings by Cindy Chinn

pinskal, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

“He had heard her say, so many times, that a society that approved of making abortion illegal was a society that approved of violence against women; that making abortion illegal was simply a sanctimonious, self-righteous form of violence against women- it was just another way of legalizing violence against women, Nurse Caroline would say.”

― John Irving, The Cider House Rules

pinskal, 2 months ago to random

“Everything will be all right. And, even if it won’t be, we’ll have the consolation of having lived honest lives.”

Alexei Navalny (1976-2024)

pinskal, 5 months ago to random

pinskal, 5 months ago to random

Before I was six years old, my grandparents and my mother had taught me that if all the green things that grow were taken from the earth, there could be no life. If all the four-legged creatures were taken from the earth, there could be no life. If all the winged creatures were taken from the earth, there could be no life. If all our relatives who crawl and swim and live within the earth were taken away, there could be no life. But if all the human beings were taken away, life on earth would flourish. That is how insignificant we are.”

Russell Means, Oglala Lakota Nation (November 10, 1939 – October 22, 2012).

pinskal, 26 days ago to random

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

– Mark Twain

pinskal, 1 month ago to random

A Full Plankton Moon: What glows in the night? This night featured a combination of usual and unusual glows. Perhaps the most usual glow was from the Moon, a potentially familiar object. The full Moon's nearly vertical descent results from the observer being near Earth's equator. As the Moon sets, air and aerosols in Earth's atmosphere preferentially scatter out blue light, making the Sun-reflecting satellite appear reddish when near the horizon. Perhaps the most unusual glow was from the bioluminescent plankton, likely less familiar objects. These microscopic creatures glow blue, it is thought, primarily to surprise and deter predators. In this case, the glow was caused primarily by plankton-containing waves crashing onto the beach. The image was taken on Soneva Fushi Island, Maldives just over one year ago.
Credit & Copyright: Petr Horálek / Institute of Physics in Opava
Explanation