Dr Michelle @Drosmel@qoto.org

The White House has backtracked on the FOTUS wanting to rename Veterans Day but before that happened, there were statements issued by veterans groups like this one word response from the Disabled American Veterans.
https://www.dav.org/learn-more/news/2025/dav-statement-on-the-proposal-to-rename-veterans-day/

Protip 🧟🧟‍♂️

Who called them 'genetic engineer' instead of 'heir stylist'?

Your art history post for today: by Robert Smullyan Sloan (1915–2013), “Negro Soldier," 1945, egg tempera and oil on board, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts. #arthistory

From Sebastian Smee, “‘Negro Soldier’: a haunting portrait worthy of salute,” The Boston Globe, June 26, 2016: “It shows an unknown US Army private in a dress uniform adorned with two ribbons — one standing for good conduct, the other for participation in the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign…

The astonishing portrait shows his subject sitting in a compressed space, squeezed between us and a window. Through that window we can make out an urban scene that is likely New York. There is a black truck loaded with coal, apartment buildings catching various degrees of light, and a run of down-at-heel shops at street level. One sign says “LOANS CASH”; another has mannequins in the window display…

Even after fighting for their country in foreign theaters of war, African-American soldiers, if they were lucky enough to survive, faced hobbling prejudice back home. This picture, one might argue, illustrates that predicament.

But isn’t it too singular to be reduced to sociology? Sloan makes us feel so close to this man that we become acutely aware that his nose, the bulge of his tie, and the gleaming brass button at the center of his chest occupy pockets of space nearer to us than his eyes. Slightly recessed though they are, his eyes gaze out with a vulnerable pride that is haunting.

Sloan maintains an almost Flemish evenness of attention across the entire picture. This gives it a surface tension that either we or the vivid, light-catching protrusions of the soldier’s slightly turned face feel permanently on the verge of breaking.

We kid ourselves if we think we can know what this man is feeling, what he has experienced, or what his political views are. What is not in doubt is that he is a human vessel, full to overflowing.”

🙄 There's a hairball clogging up the sink again. 🪠

#HarleyQuinn #EveryDayIsCaturday #CatsOfMastodon

Happy Fossil Friday! Meet the short-necked plesiosaur, Cryptocleidus oxoniensis. This marine reptile’s short tail could only function as a rudder, leaving the limbs as its main organ of propulsion.

#plesiosaurs #fossils #FossilFriday

Holy sh*t. This is a real xkcd, not funny, disturbing, and also one that must be shared

https://xkcd.com/3081/

It was Timothy’s second week undercover, and frankly, he was getting absolutely nowhere.

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https://www.thefarside.com/2025/04/22/0

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Hello all. I'm Devin. I'm 26 years old. I'm blind. I'm autistic. RFK Junior has been spreading outright lies about autism in the eye of the public recently.
Now I understand my form of autism may be what some call "High functioning" which is in and of itself another whole debate to have, but primarily I'm focusing on the misinformation spread by a man of power, a man who has the ear of the president and is in the position of head of health and human services.
This man claims that it is environmental exposure that causes autism... as if suddenly at age two those with autism have a sudden sharp regression do to "Environmental factors." he's a well known antivax advocate... so you can draw your own conclusions as to what he means by, "environmental exposures."
This man claims, incorrectly, "These are kids who will never pay taxes, never hold a job, never play baseball, never write a poem, never go out on a date, and many of us will apparently never use a toilet unassisted."
I'm Devin. I'm 26 years old, Blind! and autistic. I have:
payed taxes, with sighted assistance.
I (currently!* hold a contract job at the texas school for the blind as a music and technology instructor*.
I have played baseball with the help of assistive devices with other blind individuals, (look up beep baseball.)
I write music for a living as I am a professional musician, and many will agree music is a poem set to a rhythm and notes.
I currently have a long term relationship... and I live alone, with the occasional help of an attendant, and I just got up off the toilet a few minutes ago after completing my business in a non-abnormal fassion.
This isn't about who you voted for. this isn't about politics. this is a hateful attack on those of us who just happen to think differently.
Please! Boost this for me and help stop the spread of hateful mis and dis information today.
I'm risking the Ire of the president just by writing this post, and he has already said he has no qualms about potentially deporting actually american born citizens to nightmare camps in El Salvador. I don't care. this isn't about politics at all. this is about me fighting for my right to exist as a disabled person!
#PleaseBoost