‘Rat Park’ -Stuart McMillen

You’ll never think about drug addiction the same way again after reading this comic.

What I found absolutely impressive and stunning about this comic is the way the artist explained the identification and elimination of the confounding factors in the Rat Park study. This is one of the hardest parts of experiments to explain to the public, and I think it was just brilliantly done.

This is so important!  And a good comic!

But one thing that worries me - I really hope the Rat Park rats weren’t kept on cedar shavings because that can be very toxic to rats and harm their breathing. :(  I almost lost 2 rats that way before I knew better.  So please do not keep rats on any sort of conifer or softwood shavings (cedar, pine, etc.)!  Get paper bedding or look into alternatives like cloth, corncob, etc!

Other small animals too, including hamsters and guinea pigs. The researchers may not have known better, especially decades ago. But, cedar shavings in particular really are not recommended now. Keeping inhaling the aromatic compounds wouldn’t be particularly good for humans, either. (Besides it probably being really unpleasant just to live in an overwhelming cedar smell all the time…)

There are also paper-based beddings available. Kiln-dried pine may be much safer since the heat treatment process drives off most of the phenol, etc. Hardwoods like aspen are probably the safest choice if you want to use a wood shaving bedding, though.

Those things are also bad for cat litter.  And that alarmed me the moment I read it too (I’ve had pet rats before, and other rodents).  But I love the comic, way too many people have no idea this ever happened – they all know about the first rat experiments somehow, but not this.  I always worry about the rats, though.  :-/

Suddenly all those Hinterlands quests to go round up a random farmer’s druffalo don’t  seem so silly.

Dragon Age Inquisition - doing something right.

(source)

#war in pre-industrial societies was *very different* from what many people imagine#i keep seeing calls for ‘realistic medieval huge military battles’ and im like#yon average feif could maybe afford like 10 guys tops

YES. This whole thread is the best thing and betterbemeta’s tags (above) are on point. I would love actual ‘realistic ancient battles’ where like ten actual fighters and whatever serfs they can persuade to accompany them posture and try to intimidate each other, or have an Official Scrum on a mutually beneficial day. That and just…cattle raiding.

I guess in post-collapse terms it’s theoretically different because your whole raider gang exists to nick other people’s shit so doesn’t need to cultivate or craft much except perhaps to make them more self-sufficient in weaponry, armaments, and other logistical things that’ll enable them to raid harder and more often. That’s exactly why, on the other side of things, as many citizen’s as possible in your vulnerable good-guy farming commune might need to be militia members to protect themselves from people who can dedicate their full-time everyday energy to Being Raiders.

I say in theory because, even if you’re nicking other people’s shit, why not treat that as a bonus? Why not look to history’s peoples who placed a particular import on raiding as a way of life, and notice that none of them were just straight-up predators. They had enough agricultural or pastoral or pescatoral (is that a word?) infrastructure to subsist, and then the luxury, the surplus, came from attacking other people part-time, very occasionally. Look at norse folks going viking; look at the invasive pastoralists of the Eurasian steppe. Just in terms of the caloric requirements and risks inherent in combat, you’re not gonna want to do that full-time. Training to do it well will take more calories and they need to come from somewhere. You pick your battles. You take without fighting at all where you can – so intimidation and making enemies surrender without having to fight is important here; c.f. pirates of the Golden Age – and you fight rarely and only when you know you can a) win, b) benefit hugely from it.

THANK YOU

Never forget that black Americans welcomed and accepted Jewish refugees in this country before almost any one else. We must always stand together.

Jumblr I'd love some help!

I’m currently a junior in college, studying philosophy and religious studies. I was raised Southern Baptist but became an atheist in high school. I find it’s very hard for me to understand the intricate part that Midrash plays in Jewish life. I understand it’s important to the binding Jewish narrative because it helps to flesh out the Torah and teach children. But how do you use it as a grown up? What benefit does the Midrash give you as a Jew? I ask these honestly, because I find myself frustrated in trying to understand it. It may seem very obvious to most Jews why the Midrash is important but I find myself constantly pushing against my professor (a reform Rabbi). Do y'all ever feel frustrated about the purpose of Midrash? I guess I’m hoping to have someone explain why it’s such an important part of Judaism as a whole. Like how it’s used, and why it flourishes.

@tikkunolamorgtfo – y'all keep it real and I’d love to hear your thoughts on Midrash if you’d spare the time. I understand if you don’t want to answer though!

@jewishconvert – your journey has been mad cool to follow and I’d love to hear how Midrash was introduced to you and if you incorporate it into your life as a Jew!

@jewish-privilege – y'all are cool as all heck and I’d love if you could take a second to enlighten a confused goy. No pressure! Just love the blog and thought I’d try

Midrash is not an aide for teaching children - in fact, children probably aren’t capable of understanding the point of the vast majority of midrashim (and adults, while largely capable of understanding, don’t automatically do so). It’s likely you’ve gotten that impression because many Jews misunderstand it that way as well - especially here on tumblr, where I’ve seen more than a few times people refer to midrash as “rabbinic fanfiction.” I’m not really sure how to explain what “role” it plays in life, though - Torah study as a whole (including the study of Midrash) is valued for its own sake, and need not necessarily have a specific practical function.

Midrash is basically attempted explanation a and extrapolations of the text and the greater meaning in order to understand the significance. It’s based on oral tradition (later written down due to fear of loosing it), strange wording, and out of order sequencing. A lot of further Jewish identity and rationality is based on the midrashim. Some are simply moral stories, but most are much more.

For example, Pshat Abraham is basically just some random dude who was walking with his family and had an infertile wife. Midrashic Abraham was a critical thinker, a balancer of the physical and the spiritual, a rationalist, a rebel, a preacher, a teacher, a sage, a host, a wanderer, an adventurer, an a philosopher.

(This is exactly what I’ve been learning in Chumash class recently) @dianaraven @nerdinsomniac

The way that I always understood Midrash is that Pshat is the literal understanding and taking it at face value while Midrash is looking at the Torah in a non-literal way.

It looking at what the Torah is saying and then going okay what is the in-depth lesson to be learnt here, what is the moral, what does this teach about Hashem? Now that we learnt something about Hashem how does that help each person with their relationship with their maker, with themselves, and with each living being.

I mean that I how I personally understand Midrash. Hope it is helpful.

I think also one things about Midrash is that because it is more in-depth is gets more complicated and confusing. Which is why a lot of the time it is taught each time you relearn it you go further beneath the surface.

I think Midrash is our way of connecting closer with the people we are learning about too because we get to see them are fully fleshed out and relatable and I think that helps us to grow as people and as Jews.

I would love to offer an answer, but my knowledge of religious Judaism is kinda like

I’m studying some of the big commentators–Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Nachmanides– with my son for his bar mitzvah. There is a new translation of Mikraot Gedolot by Michael Carasik that  we’re using. It’s so new that the fifth volume hasn’t come out yet! Mikraot Gedolot, or great sources, is basically like, “the weekly portion explained by medieval rabbis important enough to have acronyms for names .”

You should take a look at it in a library somewhere–it might give you some insight to see all the commentaries arrayed around the text. Anyway, doing it with my kid has given me some new insights into the role of midrash. 

Sometimes midrash can be a form of homiletics or apologetics–that is to say, the rabbis use explaining the weekly text as an opportunity to impart ethics or wisdom, or they try to reconcile difficult concepts in the text for the reader. Mostly, and this is what I like, they just seem to grapple with what’s tough for them in what we’re reading. They use linguistic analysis and comparing where words appear elsewhere in the Torah. They cite, and sometimes disagree with, earlier commentaries. 

They also use little stories as plot spackle–that’s what most people mean by “midrash”–but that is only one delightful aspect of the explanation. When we study the text with these explanations, it feels like we are participating in their dialogic process. Which we are. 

It gives the impression that we can be part of a group of not always agreeing voices interacting with a sacred text. 

Another awesome response!! Thank you! I didn’t think about how it could engage you in that dialogue process (my professor has mentioned this but I think I wrote it off as wholly a commentary thing) but Midrash seems like a great way to involve yourself in that discussion! Having come from a Christian background we didn’t engage with the text in any sort of way like this so it’s absolutely mind boggling to me to see a religion based on it. I never imagined as a kid that someone could argue with Biblical text! But to be quite honest it seems to do more justice to the text itself if you’re engaging with it and engaging in dialogue about it. It seems that the ability to disagree is extremely important (something lacking in Christianity) and gives Jews an agency you don’t see in many religions, especially not in those who hold sacred texts in high regard. That dialogue process is what keeps interaction with the Torah vibrant and fulfilling, as so many Jews describe it to be. I only hope my academic study of it can bring me a small portion of that joy! I will definitely see if I can find a copy of that collection!

I do want to caution you, and really a lot of people, against anticipating that the traditional commentaries are openly arguing with the text. That’s a way of thinking of ourselves that a lot of Jews value, but it’s not quite what the big name interpreters are doing. They are definitely troubled by the text in a lot of places, but they are religious people who see engagement in study as a holy activity. They disagree openly with each other. The process of explicating the text does not result in a single, authoritative voice. 

Many Jews study the weekly portion with Rashi’s commentary. I grew up Reform, and we used a book with biblical critical commentaries, the Plaut translation, but I think that version presented a more univocal explanation that dismissed problems too frequently. (But not entirely univocal and not all the time. Also the entire translation is an argument against previous interpreters, so there’s that.)  Rashi presents more than one previous commentator’s opinion, along with his own. The version of Rashi that I use has notes about where Rashi got these earlier opinions. (It also uses a Hebrew font that I can read easily and has an interlinear English translation.) 

Anyway, yes, I think you’re onto something about disagreement with authority. I have been reading the theological essays of the novelist Marilynne Robinson and she seems to think that religious study of the Bible is central to Christianity, or at least to the liberal Calvinist Protestant version of Christianity she’s framing. 

Ugh, I had one more thing to tell you, but I’m running too long. Oh well, you’ll live. That agency you’re observing is also on some level feminist. Jewish legal scholarship has largely, though not entirely, excluded Jewish women. Where Jewish women have had more of that agency is with Tanach. That’s why you have a great commentator of the twentieth century like Nechama Leibowitz, who combined a traditional education with a modern university education. Another example we are privileged to have writing in our own day is Aviva Zornberg, whose work combines trippy literary criticism with the psychological insights of Hasidic rabbinic commentaries. 

Favorite world-building elements: Realistic depiction of trauma

One of the things that makes Fury Road so immersive is the way it presents the result of violence. Unlike movies in which characters shrug off what in the real world would be horrific injuries*, the inhabitants of the Wasteland experience the full effect of the bad things that happen to them.

Some examples:

George Miller financed the original Mad Max with his earnings as an ER doctor, and made the movie in part to explore the effects of trauma on people who encounter lots of it. Although he hasn’t worked as a physician in many years, his experience and willingness to hold the movie to a high standard adds greatly to the believability of Fury Road.

*No disrespect to Holy Grail. That shit’s hilarious.

Comic #3 for International Working Women’s Day.

International Working Women’s Day was started by the Socialist Party of America to commemorate a wave of spontaneous strikes by first- and second-generation Jewish, Russian, and Italian immigrant teenage girls (as in like, they were 16 years old) in the textile mills of New York City. This was the “Uprising of 20,000” and was one of the most infectious displays of labor militancy in the 20th century. A couple years later Clara Zeitkin, a German Marxist who would be arrested several times for helping to incite the 1919 communist revolution in Germany, brought it to the floor of the Second International and the first Women’s Day celebrations in Europe were held by communist parties and communist women.

This isn’t even like “oh yeah well maybe it kinda had the phrase ‘working women’ in there originally.” It was started by socialists to commemorate daring strike actions led by newly-immigrated teenage girls and then formalized by the international communist movement. Fuck the UN’s tepid IWD celebrations.

PSA:

Binarism is a word used to refer to the experience of people of colour being forced to conform to euro-centric binary gender roles, and who have had their culturally-specific gender roles eradicated by colonialism. even cis-identified PoC suffer from binarism.

if you’re trying to describe general exclusion/invalidation of non-binary genders, the term you’re looking for is non-binary erasure.

for non-pakistanis/non-desis:

peshawar is pronounced “peh-shower” (like ‘i’m going to take a shower’) not pesha-waar. 

I like Halloween in Australia because I can buy 5 packs of fun-size chocolates in preparation and know that at the end of the day the only bitch eating them will be me because no bitch kid trick-or-treats around here no matter how hard Woolworths tries to make it a thing.

Australia still has Woolworths?!?!? so jealous