People Only Have So Much Patience For Those Of Us With Chronic Illnesses, Chronic Pain, And Or Mental

Illustrations for Yasunari Kawabata's The Sound of Waves | Shiosai | 潮騒, by Lâm Tùng Nguyễn.

something i think a lot of able bodied people dont understand is that being chronically ill affects your emotions. constantly being exhausted and feeling bad is going to make you sad or depressed or angry or jealous. constantly being in pain is going to affect your mental health. never feeling "good" is obviously going to affect the way you act.

Disabled and chronically ill people are allowed to enjoy things and do things they like (if they’re able) while still being sick and disabled. Yes, even if they aren’t employed. Hope this helps.

Indonesia Plans to Retire All Coal Plants Within 15 Years

Read Bloomberg article here

From the article:

Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto said the government plans to retire all the nation’s coal power plants within 15 years to help stem global warming. The country will also retire all other fossil fuel plants and add more than 75 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity over the same time frame, Prabowo said during the G-20 Summit in Brazil, according to a video statement on Wednesday. He also said Indonesia was optimistic it could achieve net zero emissions before 2050, a decade earlier than its existing target.

This explains a lot about my lack of asking for help when I clearly need it

I think so many people forget making the world a better place isn’t just about having all the ‘correct’ sociopolitical opinions and beliefs and knowing all the theory it’s also hugely about actually being a good person… everyday acts of kindness and empathy, going out of your way to help others, small moments of connection in a cold world, loving thy neighbour all that

Natalie Díaz, from "American Arithmetic", Postcolonial Love Poem

Beatrix Potter

Writer, illustrator, conservationist, natural scientist

For the inaugural Arcade Feature, I'm excited to tell you about Beatrix Potter. Most people (including me) know her best for her picture books-

-which have sold over 250 million copies since they were published in the early 1900s.

Fun fact: In 1903, Peter Rabbit was the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy, making him the oldest licensed character.

But what really caught my attention is the work she was doing before Peter Rabbit came along.

Beatrix Potter had a scientific eye for detail, and was able to faithfully depict the world around her. In particular, she was interested in mycology.

In 1897, she put forward a paper to the Linnean Society in London... but as a woman was not allowed to be a member of the society nor attend the meeting when her paper was read. When the society's members did not pay much attention to her work, and fearing her samples to be contaminated, Potter withdrew her paper, which became lost. Only after Potter left hundreds of mycological artworks to a museum in the Lake District, UK, on her death in 1943, were her scientific talents recognized... Potter's precise and beautiful paintings and drawings of fungi are now helping modern mycologists in their efforts to identify species.*

Potter eventually moved away from books in favor of land management and farming. She was a prize-winning sheep breeder and a prosperous farmer, and bought several farms surrounding her own to preserve the unique hill country landscape. Much of that land now constitutes the Lake District National Park.

Keep an eye out for more Beatrix Potter throughout the month of February.

All Arcade Feature Posts

* Fry, C., & Wayland, E. (2024). Introduction. In The Botanists’ Library, The Most Important Botanical Books in History (1st ed., pp. 9–10). introduction, Ivy Press.