Here’s a weird thing I’ve learned since I started working with the homeless:
If you want to know if someone grew up rich or poor, take a look at their teeth.
It seems so stupid now, but before I got this job, I didn’t really think about teeth. I went to the dentist every six months. I was bucktoothed and gap-toothed as a child, so I got braces. That’s just how life worked. Almost everyone I knew had braces. By my final year of high school, my graduating class was a sea of perfect smiles. It never once dawned on me that other families might not have thousands of dollars to spend on cosmetic dentistry. In my world, if you needed braces and cleanings, you got braces and cleanings.
In the real world, thousands of children go without those things. People who live on food stamps can’t afford fresh food every day; when you grow up poor, you often grow up with sugary snacks and beverages, which decay your teeth over time.If your tooth gets chipped, broken or rotten, it gets pulled or it stays that way, because you can’t afford to fix it. And at the end of the day, you end up as an adult with dental issues.
If you have nice teeth, you probably don’t realize this, but we live in a world that is fucking obsessed with teeth. Celebrities have nice teeth. Politicians have nice teeth. When you picture a rich person, a successful person, an educated person, they have a full set of gleaming pearly whites.
In our culture, we use “bad teeth” as a signal of poverty. They are shorthand for low education, for “hillbillies” with a lower quality of life. Bad teeth are not welcome at job interviews. They are not wanted in the dating scene. If you are trying to be taken seriously – at the bank, at the lawyer’s office, at your child’s school, at the doctor’s office – bad teeth will hold you back.
And the consequences go far beyond the social issues. Tooth problems are painful. When you go to the dentist every six months, cavities and issues get caught early. When you go years between visits, abscesses, infections, exposed nerves and irreversible damage have time to take root. It’s an extremely painful thing to live with, it can make eating unpleasant, and tooth infections can get into your blood steam and kill you. Teeth are a health problem, and yet we price dental care like a luxury commodity.
So if you meet someone with crooked teeth, or broken teeth, or tooth decay, don’t stare. Don’t make fun of them. Don’t fixate on it. That person may not have grown up with the money or nutrition that you did. Take the person for who they are, not for the teeth in their mouth.
Dental care should be a human right, just like healthcare. Let’s fight for that.
The story of the Distant Goddess is absolute proof that it’s a crime that Ancient Egyptian mythology hasn’t entered the popular conciousness in the same way as Greek stuff.
Short, super paraphrased version: Ra is sick of humanity being rebellious wee bastards, so he sends a goddess as an embodiment of his vengeance, usually Sekhmet in the form of a great fuckoff lion – first to the southern deserts to wipe out the followers of Set. She does so, and then for unspecified reasons, Ra decides maybe humanity is redeemable hey call off the murderlion. But being an embodiment of pure divine retribution, she isn’t really having it.
So Ra sends Thoth out in an effort to soothe the goddess before she arrives in the north and wipes out everything including the gods (she’s just that strong). He’s terrified, but he tries all sorts of cunning and wisdom and trickery and tells her moral tales and all that, but all he can do is delay her.
In the meantime, Ra’s priests of the north are hard at work. They brew thousands of barrels of beer, and mix pots and pots red dye. And when the goddess inevitably arrives, they mix it up and pour it into the reeds of the nile. Believing it to be the spilled blood of her enemies, she drinks it up proudly… And gets EXTREMELY drunk, calming down and transforming into Hathor, goddess of joy and love.
And once a year to celebrate this momentous occasion, Egyptians would get Absolutely Plastered.
All true. …There’s also a mention somewhere (different papyrus: I forget who mentions it) that the beer has also has had “mandrakes” mixed with it, so they not only got her drunk, but may have roofie’d her JUST TO BE SURE.
Today the Department of Extraordinary Upcycling salutes B&E, a pair of backyard farmers in Idaho who used a pair of old satellite dishes and a trampoline frame to construct an outstanding UFO chicken coop for their growing flock:
Although it doesn’t feature a tractor beam to lift the hens into their house, the coop is insulated, ventilated, heated, and equipped with surveillance cameras and LED lights throughout for that extraterrestrial ambiance.
Head over to Backyard Chickens for process photos and additional info about the creations of this geektastic chicken coop.
I may not be as impressive as the other wonderful women in this post, but I still have some muscle!
I reblogged this post yesterday or the day before thinking something along the lines of “wow these women are so gorgeous and ripped and I wish my muscles were that big but since then these pictures came into existence
and like maybe this post is EXACTLY where I belong.
Look at these strong ass women!
My poor gay heart can’t handle this. I am smol, throw me over your shoulder and carry me to Valhalla.
I’ve never seen women like me represented before!! This is me!
AHHH YOUR MUSCLES ARE SO NICE
I AM SO HERE FOR THIS
100% here for this holy shit you are all ass-kickingly gorgeous
Being trans and shying away from working out because “muscles aren’t feminine” despite enjoying it this means a lot to me
GORGEOUS BUFF LADIES YAAAASSSSSS
GORGEOUS
this is still one of my favorite posts ive ever made. if this is what im know for on tumblr im happy
Always reblog.
My poor heart can’t take the level of beauty these pictures hold.
i’m so fucking done with winter and coldness *kicks at tree* grow some fucking leaves you piece of shit *throws pebble at the sun* shine harder you fake hoe
Guy about to owe his whole party a drink: “Alright, you think that guy’s a mage or a model?” His Friend: “I dunno, man, like… he looks pretty gaudy, I’m gonna say… model?” Guy: “Hey, you, excuse me?” Taako: “What’s up my dude?”
