i learned that in India, there is a species of giant squirrel that have multicoloured fur, with with varying shades of orange, maroon and purple. Their bodies measure 36in from head to tail – double the size of their grey relatives – and they can leap 20ft between trees (x)
Some more pictures of these funky dudes cause they’re so pretty
Oh, and they’re very cleverly called Indian giant squirrels or Malabar giant squirrels
I’ve noticed lately that it’s often Americans who leave tags like “I don’t even care if it’s made up” on posts I make that are not particularly unbelievable, but are pretty specific to my way of life or corner of the world (like the one about the cheese vendor). It reminds me of that tweet that was circulating, that said Americans have a “medieval peasant scale of worldview”—I mean, if you don’t want to be perceived this way by the rest of the world maybe don’t go around social media saying that if a cultural concept or way of life sounds unfamiliar it must be made up?
It’s the imbalance that’s annoying, because like—when I mentioned having no mobile network around here I had people giving me info about Verizon to fix my problem. I post some rural pic and someone says it must be somewhere in the Midwest because the Southwest doesn’t look like this. My post about my postwoman has thousands of Americans assuming it’s about the USPS. On my post about my architect there’s someone saying “it’s because architecture is an impacted major” and other irrelevant stuff about how architecture is taught in the US. This kind of thing happens so so so often and I’m expected to be familiar with the concepts of Verizon and the Midwest and impacted majors and the USPS and meanwhile I make a post about my daily life and Americans in the notes are debating like “dunno if real. it sounds made up”
Going online for the rest of the world means having to keep in mind an insane amount of hyperspecific trivia about American culture while going online for Americans means having to keep in mind that the rest of the world really exists I guess
The Kiss of Life - A utility worker giving mouth-to-mouth to co-worker after he contacted a low voltage wire, 1967
Taken in 1967 by Rocco Morabito, this photo called “The Kiss of Life” shows a utility worker named J.D. Thompson giving mouth-to-mouth to co-worker Randall G. Champion after he went unconscious following contact with a low voltage line. Thompson over 400 feet away recognized the critical situation and ran to the pole and scaled it to reach Champion. Realizing champion wasn’t breathing he delivered CPR and chest compression while supporting his friend; super impressive /difficult given the angle (if you get it wrong air goes into the stomach and inflates that instead).
This all happened oddly in Champions work anniversary. And weirder Rocco Morabito, a newspaper photographer who had been covering a strike down the road with eastern freight (this happened in Florida btw) happened to be nearby with his camera in a time that no one carried cameras daily. This photo won him the Pulitzer Prize for journalism photography.
