scotthyman

Latest Posts by scotthyman

“In 1881 the doctor overseeing President James Garfield’s recovery from a gunshot wound repeatedly probed the president’s wound with dirty instruments and his fingers, prompting assassin Charles Guiteau to plead not guilty of the murder by claiming, “The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him.” But just four years later, germ theory was so widely accepted that the U.S. Army required medical officers to inspect their posts every month and report the results to the administration, and by 1886, disease rates were dropping. By 1889, the U.S. Army had written manuals for sanitary field hospitals, and the need to combat germs was so commonplace medical officers rarely mentioned it. And now, in 2025, the top health official in the United States, a man without degrees in either medicine or public health, appears to be rejecting germ theory and reshaping the nation’s medical system around his own dedication to a theory that was outdated well over a century ago”

— May 4, 2025 - by Heather Cox Richardson

The All-New X-Men

Art by Adam Murphy

Just like bad people can make good art, bad people can also have good politics and the insistence that they were faking it and secretly fascist all along is just as irrational as retroactively deciding their entire body of work was always bad and you never liked it anyway.

I think Neil Gaiman genuinely believed he was a good and progressive person and was perfectly sincere in his support of trans rights and representation. I think Joss Whedon genuinely believed he was a feminist ally. I think JK Rowling was very sincere about the anti-fascist themes she wrote into Harry Potter, and thought she was a good queer ally when she clapped back at homophobes on Twitter. I think Marion Zimmer Bradley genuinely believed she was a good feminist.

We aren't reliable judges of our own character, and we all see ourselves as good people, even when we're hurting others. Anyone can justify their intentions to themselves, no matter how vile their actions are, and that's a scary thought. There's a perverse comfort in believing that people who do terrible things are pure evil demons in human skin with no capacity for good, but its just a fantasy. A comforting fantasy. The uncomfortable truth is that bad people are PEOPLE who do good as well as bad things just like you.

fuck these fascists

Do you think Deckard was a replicant?

If by "think" you mean "has argued like a giant dork for literal decades that he is, long after the poor person who asked me has lost interest", yes.

Green Leader, art and story by Daniel Warren Johnson, colors by Matt Davis

[Image ID: A series of screenshots from a Twitter thread by Jason Coupet / professajay.

Text begins: Man voting in Georgia is so different than in Illinois. When I lived in chicago, during early voting, I went to the local elementary school, waited in line about ten minutes, and they gave me a sheet of paper. I checked people off then I put it in the machine and left.

Not Georgia. We drove downtown because *every* other polling place had a line >90 minutes. We paid ten bucks to park. We went in the building, then emptied out pockets to go through a metal detector. We then saw a sign about where to park to get our parking validated. Inside.

We then waited in line ~80 minutes. We got to the end and we were given a form to fill out (?). We were told *not* to sign it until told. Then we were moved into a waiting room where we were given a ticket number, like when you are at the dmv.

We were told to get our IDs out and wait. We waited here for 15-20 minutes. When your number is called they took your form, did some stuff on the computer, then told you to sign the form. Then you get a little green card. You insert it into the machine.

Then you go through three or four prompts, including a very serious™️ warning about perjury, a totally necessary warning given how huge a problem stolen identity is for the purposes of voting on behalf of someone else.

You then finally vote, and after an “are you sure” prompt you get a sheet. You then have to walk the sheet over to feed it into a machine. About half of these were working.

The bottleneck was clearly the weird application and waiting room thing. There are two dozen people at a time sitting to have their stuffed checked. Think of it as regular voting except when you got there they had to run a credit check for *each person* like you need financing.

It was easier finishing my PhD paperwork. Thankful for the kind people (nearly all black women) the shepherded the processes. But man if you are poor or disabled or whatever, good luck yo. That should have been easier. We finished tho. Text ends.

Image ID: Two Black people are standing beside a city street and smiling at the camera, a man and a woman. The man has close-cropped hair and a beard. He is wearing a black hoodie that says Southside and has a sticker on his chest with a peach on it. The woman has large tortoiseshell browline glasses and long twist locs. She has a light brown leather crossbody bag, and is wearing a salmon-colored windbreaker. She also has a peach sticker on her chest, which she is pointing to. Her hand has a wedding ring. End ID]

PROJECT 2025 MUST BE STOPPED 🛑

Vote Accordingly.

site that you can type in the definition of a word and get the word

site for when you can only remember part of a word/its definition 

site that gives you words that rhyme with a word

site that gives you synonyms and antonyms

These info graphs are by flatbushgirl in Instagram

I thought these were some important facts to share since a lot of people don’t know any of this

The West Coast Avengers by Kevin Maguire (2024) in a fun homage to his iconic cover to Justice League #1 (1987)

"Facts are facts"

Sure, but also.

What’s that, 1980s kids? You say you’ve collected all the available Star Wars action figures, playsets, and vehicles? Think again! Kenner has a line of “mini rig” toys you need to nag your parents into buying. What did you say? You don’t recognize them from the movies? That’s because we just made them up! Now shut up and fork over the dough!

These info graphs are by flatbushgirl in Instagram

I thought these were some important facts to share since a lot of people don’t know any of this

site that you can type in the definition of a word and get the word

site for when you can only remember part of a word/its definition 

site that gives you words that rhyme with a word

site that gives you synonyms and antonyms

HEY!

Back up your computer!

Go get the external drive you bought specifically for this purpose and then left in a drawer somewhere and RUN A FULL BACKUP.

There are lots of posts that make the rounds reminding us to sit up straight, stretch, drink water, refocus our eyes, take our meds, etc. But while this may not be about your health, it's still super-important.

Back up your whole-ass computer. If you can afford a second backup drive, buy one so that you have one SSD and one HDD, and back up to both of them (you can back up just the current important stuff to the SSD and let the HDD do the heavy-duty lifting).

Do not rely on 'the cloud' or the internet to keep jack shit.

AND BACK UP YOUR GMAIL AS WELL HOLY SHIT. The last thing you want is a catastrophic issue where literally every single thing you have in gmail is gone. It's happened. It happened to a friend of mine and basically her entire life was in there and now it's all gone. 20 years of it.

Reblog to save a life.

Saw this Trucks Discourse on facebook and I'm not part of that world but yeah that one on the left is delightful and I really had no idea just how wasteful and pointless the other kind is until this comparison

This is one of the new, limited edition prints I've made. Get them now at www.tomgauld.com/shop

"The best thing we can do with power is give it away" - On the leftist critique of superhero narratives as authoritarian power fantasies:

The ongoing "Jason Todd is a cop" debate has reminded me of a brilliant brief image essay by Joey deVilla. So here it is, images first and the full essay text below:

"A common leftist critique of superhero comics is that they are inherently anti-collectivist, being about small groups of individuals who hold all the power, and the wisdom to wield that power. I don’t disagree with this reading. I don’t think it’s inaccurate. Superheroes are their own ruling class, the concept of the übermensch writ large. But it’s a sterile reading. It examines superhero comics as a cold text, and ignores something that I believe in fundamental, especially to superhero storytelling: the way people engage with text. Not what it says, but how it is read. The average comic reader doesn’t fantasize about being a civilian in a world of superheroes, they fantasize about being a superhero. One could charitably chalk this up to a lust for power, except for one fact… The fantasy is almost always the act of helping people. Helping the vulnerable, with no reward promised in return. Being a century into the genre, we’ve seen countless subversions and deconstructions of the story. But at its core, the superhero myth is about using the gifts you’ve been given to enrich the people around you, never asking for payment, never advancing an ulterior motive. We should (and do) spend time nitpicking these fantasies, examining their unintended consequences, their hypocrisies. But it’s worth acknowledging that the most eduring childhood fantasy of the last hundred years hasn’t been to become rich. Superheroes come from every class (don’t let the MCU fool you). The most enduring fantasy is to become powerful enough to take the weak under your own wing. To give, without needing to take. So yes, the superhero myth, as a text, isn’t collectivist. But that’s not why we keep coming back to it. That’s not why children read it. We keep coming back to it to learn one simple lesson… The best thing we can do with power IS GIVE IT AWAY." - Joey deVilla, 2021 https://www.joeydevilla.com/2021/07/04/happy-independence-day-superhero-style/

Tony: here, hold this *hands Peter a wrench*

Peter: *now holding 17 wrenches* I think I'm gonna drop it

Tony: You're fine

*loud clang and crash*

Peter: I dropped it

Clint: *from the vents* 16! I repeat, he can hold 16 wrenches! Who had the bet for 16?

Tony: Damn it! You couldn't have held one more wrench, kid!?

Peter: ...what is going on?

Steve: *from upstairs* BUCKY WON! AGAIN!

Clint: DAMN YOU BARNES!

Tony: Thats 4 rounds Barnes has won now! How does he do it!?

Bucky: *from upstairs* I'M JUST A REALLY GOOD GUESSER

Clint: This is bullshit! He's cheating!

Peter: Not that I understand remotely what's going on... but how would he cheat?

Clint: Well I dont know that! If I knew how you could cheat at this bet dont ya think I'd have won by now!