Lizzie S🌱

[Linus ✦ Ekenstam @LinusEkenstam]

This is the kind of graph future documentaries pause on before saying, ‘By then, the warning signs were obvious.

[BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ @mmpadellan]

Holy shit, this is BRILLIANT: This dude breaks down why everyone thinks the whole WHCD event was fake... everything about trump is FAKE.

Best video you'll see today.

[Sarah @kokeshimum]

We all know why Farage supports war in the Middle East.

[Mike Hudema @MikeHudema]

We could all use a moment of calm. Here are a few moments in the sights and sounds of a forest.

Protect people and the planet.

#ActOnClimate #nature

[Rutger Bregman @rcbregman]

The BBC just released a new adaptation of Lord of the Flies, the classic novel by William Golding. It's beautifully made, but it's still telling the wrong story.

A few years ago, I went looking for the *real* Lord of the Flies. I wanted to know: has it ever actually happened? Have kids ever been shipwrecked on a deserted island?

It took me a year of research, but I found it. In 1965, six boys from a boarding school in Tonga stole a boat, got caught in a storm, and drifted for eight days without food or water. They washed up on 'Ata, a remote, uninhabited island in the Pacific. They stayed there for 15 months, and what happened on that island was the exact opposite of William Golding's novel.

These boys set up a small commune. They built a food garden, stored rainwater in hollowed-out tree trunks, created a gym with improvised weights, and built a badminton court. One of them, Stephen (who would later become an engineer) managed to start a fire using two sticks. They kept it burning the entire time.

Of course they fought too. But then they argued, they had a rule: go to opposite ends of the island, cool down, then come back and apologize. As one of them told me: ‘That's how we stayed friends.’

Back home, everyone assumed that the boys – Luke, Stephen, Sione, David, Kolo and Mano — were dead. When they were finally discovered by an Australian captain named Peter Warner, he radioed their names to Tonga. After twenty minutes, a tearful response came back: ‘You found them! These boys have been given up for dead. Funerals have been held. If it's them, this is a miracle!’

Peter commissioned a new ship, hired all six boys as his crew, and named the boat the Ata, after the island where he found them. They remained friends for the rest of their lives – Peter and Mano even became soulmates. I tracked them down, and it became one of the central chapters of my book Humankind.

Here's what struck me most: William Golding (the author of Lord of the Flies) was a troubled man, an alcoholic who once said ‘I have always understood the Nazis, because I am of that sort by nature.’ I think he was projecting his own darkness onto children. And we turned it into a lesson about human nature that we teach to millions of kids around the world.

I think the real lesson is the opposite. When real children found themselves alone on a real island, they didn't descend into savagery. They cooperated, they took care of each other, they survived.

I'm not saying that the Tongan castaways were representative of all kids everywhere. But I am saying that every kid who has to read or watch the fictional Lord of the Flies also deserves to know what actually happened when it played out in real life.

Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.

[Dr. Catharine Young @DrCatharineY]

Measles:

Destroys germinal centers, causing immune amnesia and strips away immunity children have spent years building.

Suppresses the immune system long after the rash fades, increasing infections and complications for 2–3 years

Can trigger SSPE, a fatal brain disease that appears years after the initial infection.

Causes pneumonia, encephalitis, hearing loss, and serious complications in pregnancy.

But sure. No reason to fear measles.

[B.Roll.Benny @brollbenny]

urinal cakes are for eating, it has cake in the name

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

BREAKING: A letter from Alex Pretti’s Final Nursing Student:

“I was Alex Pretti’s final nursing student. He was my friend and my nursing mentor. For the past four months, I stood shoulder to shoulder with him during my capstone preceptorship at the Minneapolis VA Hospital. There he trained me to care for the sickest of the sick as an ICU nurse. He taught me how to care for arterial and central lines, the intricacies of managing multiple IVs filled with lifesaving solutions, and how to watch over every heartbeat, every breath, and every flicker of life, ready to act the moment they wavered. Techniques intended to heal.

Alex carried patience, compassion and calm as a steady light within him. Even at the very end, that light was there. I recognized his familiar stillness and signature calm composure shining through during those unbearable final moments captured on camera.

It does not surprise me that his final words were, “Are you okay?” Caring for people was at the core of who he was. He was incapable of causing harm. He lived a life of healing, and he lived it well.

Alex believed strongly in the Second Amendment and in the rights rooted in our Constitution and its amendments. He spoke out for justice and peace whenever he could, not only out of obligation, but out of a belief that we are more connected than divided, and that communication would bring us together.

I want his family to know his legacy lives on. I am a better nurse because of the wisdom and skills he instilled in me. I carry his light with me into every room, letting it guide and steady my hands as I heal and care for those in need.

Please honor my friend by standing up for peace, preferably with a cup of black coffee in hand and a couple of pieces of candy in your pocket, just as he would. He would remind you that caring for others is hard work, and we must do whatever it takes to get through the long shifts. Step outside with your dog, breathe in the world, hike or bike as he loved to do, and let yourself find peace in the quiet moments within nature. Stand up for justice and speak with those whose views differ from your own. Hold your beliefs with strength, but always extend love outward, even in the face of adversity.

Take one step, no matter how small, to help heal our world. Through these acts, carry his light forward in his name. Let his legacy continue to heal.”

[Crazy Vibes @CrazyVibes_1]

Roald Dahl on Measles: Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

'Are you feeling all right?' I asked her.

'I feel all sleepy,' she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was...in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her. On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunised against measles.

...I dedicated two of my books to Olivia, the first was ‘James and the Giant Peach’. That was when she was still alive. The second was ‘The BFG’, dedicated to her memory after she had died from measles. You will see her name at the beginning of each of these books. And I know how happy she would be if only she could know that her death had helped to save a good deal of illness and death among other children.

Roald Dahl, 1986

[Lizzie S🌱 @LizziStephenson]

Cannot understand how these wonderful mushrooms are banned under so-called ‘novel food’ regulations- when supermarket shelves are packed with absolute (albeit quite addictively tasty) rubbish- please sign the Petition https://t.co/n6IQvPX7fR via @UKChange

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

Claims that a South Korean study "proves" a link between COVID-19 vaccines and an increased risk of up to six types of cancer have gone viral, fuelling misinformation amplified by prominent figures and platforms.

Here's what you need to know ⤵️ https://t.co/V3du1hwe0x

[Lizzie S🌱 @LizziStephenson]

@itsnotaboutwork Love this 💛

[The Daily Show @TheDailyShow]

An obedient Jon Stewart offers a refresher on the rules of free speech (White House-approved) in the wake of Jimmy Kimmel's suspension

[Little Green Space 🦋 @LGSpace]

A single 400-year-old ancient oak produces 234,000 litres of oxygen a year while soaking up carbon dioxide, and can support more than 2,000 species of bird, insect, fungus, and lichen. Nature is amazing - we need more of it, not less. Please RT if you agree 🌳

[Lizzie S🌱 @LizziStephenson]

@mutablejoe Wishing you all the best

[Susie Dent @susie_dent]

Word of the day is ‘recrudescence’ (17th century): the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve.

[HENRY MORRIS @mrhenrymorris]

No, it's a butterfly whose populations have crashed by 80% since the 70s due in no small part to the refusal of your government to ban things like neonicotinoids.

[Munya Chawawa @munyachawawa]

Russell Brand’s convenient conversion 👀😅 #russellbrand

[Patrick Dexter @patrickdextervc]

Zombie by The Cranberries (1994) an Irish anti-war song first released 20 years ago today

[Stonehenge U.K @ST0NEHENGE]

It's Perseid's Meteor shower time ☄️✨🌟 Photo credit Nick Bull 🙏
https://t.co/R72fN93IFY