I Think We Should Be Talking About The Semi-recent Advancements In Cystic Fibrosis Treatment Like All

on endlings, and despair

Hey, y'all. It's...been a rough couple of weeks. So, I thought--better to light a single candle, right?

If you're familiar with wildlife conservation success stories, then you're likely also familiar with their exact polar opposite. The Northern White Rhino. Conservation's poster child for despair. Our greatest and most high-profile utter failure. We slaughtered them for wealth and status, and applied the brakes too slow. Changed course too late.

We poured everything we had into trying to save them, and we failed.

We lost them. They died. The last surviving male was named Sudan. He died in 2018, elderly and sick. His genetic material is preserved, along with frozen semen from other long-dead males, but only as an exercise in futility. Only two females survive--a mother and daughter, Najin and Fatu.

Both of them are infertile. They still live; but the Northern White Rhinoceros is extinct. Gone forever.

In 2023, an experimental procedure was attempted, a hail-mary desperation play to extract healthy eggs from the surviving females.

It worked.

The extracted eggs were flown to a genetics lab, and artificially fertilized using the sperm of lost Northern males. The frozen semen that we kept, all this time, even after we knew that the only living females were incapable of becoming pregnant.

It worked.

Thirty northern white rhino embryos were created and cryogenically preserved, but with no ability to do anything with them, it was a thin hope at best. In 2024, for the first time, an extremely experimental IVF treatment was attempted on a SOUTHERN white rhino--a related subspecies.

It worked.

The embryo transplanted as part of the experiment had no northern blood--but the pregnancy took. The surgery was safe for the mother. The fetus was healthy. The procedure is viable. Surrogate Southern candidates have already been identified to carry the Northern embryos. Rhinoceros pregnancies are sixteen months long, and the implantation hasn't happened yet. It will take time, before we know. Despair is fast and loud. Hope is slower, softer. Stronger, in the end.

The first round may not take. We'll learn from it. It's what we do. We'll try again. Do better, the next time. Fail again, maybe. Learn more. Try harder.

This will not save the species. Not overnight. The numbers will be very low, with no genetic diversity to speak of. It's a holding action, nothing more.

Nothing less.

One generation won't save a species. But even a single calf will buy us time. Not quite gone, not yet. One more generation. One more endling. One more chance. And if we seize it, we might just get another after that. We're getting damn good at gene editing. At stem-cell research. In the length of a single rhino lifetime, we'll get even better.

For decades, we have been in a holding action with no hope in sight. Researchers, geneticists, environmentalists, wildlife rehabbers. Dedicated and heroic Kenyan rangers have kept the last surviving NWRs under 24/7 armed guard, line-of-sight, eyes-on, never resting, never relaxing their guard. Knowing, all the while, that their vigilance was for nothing. Would save nothing. This is a dead species--an elderly male, two females so closely related that their offspring couldn't interbreed even if they could produce any--and they can't.

Northern white rhino conservation was the most devastatingly hopeless cause in the world.

Two years from now, that dead species may welcome a whole new generation.

It's a holding action, just a holding action, but not "just". There is a monument, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where the last white rhinos have lived and will die. It was created at the point where we knew--not believed, knew--that the species was past all hope. It memorializes, by name there were so few, the last of the northern white rhinos. Most of the markers have brief descriptions--where the endling rhino lived, how it was rescued, how it died.

One marker bears only these words: SUDAN | Last male Northern White Rhino.

If even a single surrogate someday bears a son, we have erased the writing on that plaque forever.

All we can manage is a holding action? Then we hold. We hold hard and fast and long, use our fingernails if we have to. But hold. Even and perhaps especially when we are past all hope.

We never know what miracle we might be buying time for.

So Kinder, wir gehen das jetzt einmal schnell durch mit der Neuwahl und so. Hier ist die derzeitige Wahlumfrage:

Jetzt einmal kurz schreien und dann aufgepasst:

Das ist jetzt erstmal n grober Richtwert. Statistisch kriegen die Grünen und die Linke wahrscheinlich weniger Stimmen als in vorläufigen Umfragen, während CDU/CSU und vermutlich AfD mehr Stimmen kriegen. Wir nehmen die Werte jetzt trotzdem mal so.

Wir beobachten folgendes: - CDU gewinnt beinahe garantiert - Die FDP kommt nicht über die 5% Hürde - Die Linke erst recht nicht - 14,3% aller Stimmen haben keinen Einfluss auf den Bundestag, weil die entsprechende Partei zu klein ist - Die AfD hat keine Sperrminorität, selbst wenn sie sich mit dem BSW zusammentut

Das gibt uns die folgenden Koalitionsmöglichkeiten:

Bis jetzt lehnt die CDU eine Koalition mit der AfD offiziell ab. Bei den Grünen sind sie gespalten. Die einfachste und fürs Image attraktivste Option für die CDU/CSU ist eine Koalition mit der SPD. Das ist jetzt nicht gerade großartig, aber nicht ansatzweise so katastrophal wie Schwarz-Blau.

Hier ist der Knackpunkt: Wenn durch ein mittleres Wunder sowohl die FDP als auch die Linke in den Bundestag einziehen, sieht die Verteilung plötzlich so aus:

(Grafik stellt ein Szenario dar, bei dem beide Parteien 5% der Stimmen erhalten. Bei Einzug durch Direktmandate weichen die Nummern etwas ab, die Optionen sind aber die gleichen.)

Die "kleinstes Übel" Große Koalition ist nun keine Möglichkeit mehr. Welche Koalition in diesem Fall zustande kommt, lässt sich nicht mit Sicherheit sagen, aber die AfD wird für die CDU plötzlich sehr viel attraktiver aussehen.

Natürlich muss man dazu sagen, dass der Anteil an AfD dadurch schrumpft. Wirklich relevant ist das aber nur im Falle der Sperrminorität, die sie ja auch vorher nicht hatten.

(Wenn entweder FDP oder Linke die 5% schaffen, ist eine knappe GroKo noch möglich. Allerdings ist es wahrscheinlicher, dass die FDP die Hürde kriegt als die Linke.)

Die Zahlen werden sich im kommenden Monat natürlich noch ein bisschen hin- und herbewegen, und die Wahlergebnisse werden nochmal anders ausfallen, aber die Tendenz haben wir ja schon besprochen.

DESHALB:

Die eigene Stimme nicht verschwenden!

Wenn die 14%, die Klein(st)parteien wählen, stattdessen SPD oder Grüne wählen, hätten wir fast schon Chance auf Rot-Grün.

Die CDU wird stärkste Kraft.

Daran lässt sich nicht mehr rütteln. ABER wir können beeinflussen, auf wie viel Widerstand sie trifft. Je mehr SPD, desto weniger CDU in der GroKo.

Überleben ist wichtiger als Reine Moral.

Ja, SPD ist auch kacke. Ja, ich würde auch gerne lieber die Linke wählen. Ja, ich finde auch, dass die alle was falsch machen, und moralisch verwerflich sind, und Dinge tun und sagen, die mich zum Kotzen bringen, und für die ich mich schäme, deutsch zu sein. Ja, ich bin der SPD eigentlich scheißegal. Aber die SPD will mich zumindest nicht fucking tot sehen. Das Gleiche kann ich, als queere trans Person mit Uterus, nicht über die CDU sagen. Und über die AfD sowieso nicht. Und wenn ich Migrationshintergrund oder kein Einkommen hätte, wärs noch dreimal so schlimm.

Wir hatten das grade erst in den USA. So verdammt viele Nicht- oder Protestwähler. Und jetzt haben wir den verfickten Salat. KÖNNEN WIR DAS BITTE VERDAMMT NOCHMAL NICHT NACHMACHEN??

Wählt strategisch. Bitte.

Die Linke kommt nicht in den Bundestag. Deine lokale Furzpartei kommt nicht in den Bundestag. Steck deine Stimme nicht dahin. Steck sie wohin, wo sie was ändern kann. Wenn du SPD halt gar nicht hinkriegst, wähl zumindest Grün. Auch das begrenzt die Macht der CDU und AfD. Und je mehr sich ändert, desto wahrscheinlicher können wir nächstes Mal wieder was Schönes wählen.

Ada Limón, “To Be Made Whole”, On Being with Krista Tippett

working on a zine about the intersections of fatness, gender, and growing up online. it's a long time coming and i'm still not sure where it'll take me.

how much of ur online presence is performative and how much is it u being u

“reasons not to kiss her 1.) this sort of love is not allowed. you are both too soft, and the world around you is all knives and chipped teeth 2.) no one ever taught you how to love. your war paint and scarred hands could never hold her like she deserves 3.) no one has ever loved you this full surely you would drown in it all 4.) she belongs in a museum, and you are merely here to gaze. look around you, all the signs scream ‘do not touch’ 5.) she touches you like youre fragile, and if you break you wont be able put yourself together again 6.) she is all bubblegum skies and chapped stick kisses, and you cannot watch the love run out of another persons eyes 7.) if you jump, she might catch you, and then youd have to watch as she tumbled through the dark 8.) her gaze is too gentle. you will not be the one to tell her that not everything can be fixed with a smile 9.) she is so good. she is so good, and you cannot ruin one more good thing 10.) you will not watch her crumble under the weight of your sins. she is too light, too breathless to be caught up in the dizziness of your heart reasons to kiss her 1.) she loves you, and her eyes are closed, and didnt your mother ever tell you not to leave a good thing waiting”

— lessons in listening to your heart, and not your head

“It was November — the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines.”

- Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Montgomery

So OPs intent here is to highlight biphobia and gate keeping, which I applaud. I do want to talk about this:

"straight-passing" includes 90% of queer people, unless you really know what youre looking for (hets dont), in which case "straight-passing" only includes about 60% of us instead.

Hello. I disagree with the wording here very much. There is no 90% or 60% of queers passing as straight, because your sexuality is not determined by how you look.

There is no "when you know what to look for". No "hets don't". You might get a feeling for when someone you're meeting might be queer, but can we PLEASE let go of this gatekeeping fuckery. Please don't put down heterosexuals in a side sentence for no reason.

Don't feel bound by how you think a queer person should look.

I know I did, and if someone had told me this when I was 14 it would have spared me a lot of insecurity.

shout-out to the person in the tag last night calling hbomb "straight-passing". what does that mean here? "white-passing" is a useful term because you can usually tell what race someone is visually. "straight-passing" includes 90% of queer people, unless you really know what youre looking for (hets dont), in which case "straight-passing" only includes about 60% of us instead. do you mean he can pass as het by not showing us any male partners? hes a youtuber. are all youtubers straight unless their partners (mandatory both male and female for bisexuals) show up in the background of their shots? or do you mean he never talks about it? because he does. repeatedly. in other videos.

you have 30 seconds to explain how the term "straight-passing" is useful when discussing whether or not hbombs claims are out of his lane before i shove the biphobia L into your hands

Ophelia (2018) // November Nights, Arden Mae // House of the Dragon (2022-) // Persephone Returns, Emily Rose Cole // Ophelia, Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser // Mystery of Love, Sufjan Stevens // Fire with Fire (1986) // Spring and All, Cathy Park Hong // On-drakón (2015) // The Complex Sentence, Tony Hoagland // The Musketeers (2014-2016) // [from a letter], Sylvia Plath // 1883 (2021-22) // The Leaving Season, Jihyun Yun // Dorian Gray (2009) // The Lady of Shalott, Alfred Tennyson // Anne of Green Gables (1985) // Advantages of Being Evergreen, Oliver Baez Bendorf // Ophelia, John Everett Millais // Hamlet, William Shakespeare // Melancholia (2011) // Wild Geese, Mary Oliver // Revenge of the Sith (2005) // Summer Morning, Mary Oliver