It's Always More Complicated

I think in Australia this may have happened with cane toads (not that that was a good idea either): National Park Service Asks Visitors to Please Stop Licking Toads. The Sonoran desert toad’s toxins create an intense psychedelic experience, but that’s not an excuse to put one in your mouth. And we wonder why people are resistant to epidemic containment measures. I begin to be surprised that certain common H&S practices ever got embedded.

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I have had a swipe or two at Ye Olde Rhythme Methode Boogie, but I think I missed this in its first outing: Astrological Birth Control: Fertility Awareness and the Politics of Non-Hormonal Contraception.

This was not actually about astrological b-c but moving towards the woowooier end of the spectrum, hmmm:

Singer advocated for non-hormonal methods in order to feel closer to the natural rhythms of the earth and sky and to connect more closely with her male partner.

This is an old one, and I can't believe I've never mentioned Elsa Lanchester's ma being certified insane for going off to live in a 'free union' with a fellow socialist: Edith Lanchester sectioned by her family for ‘living in sin’, 1895. I feel that her professional middle-class family probably objected to his being of a Lower Social Class as much as the Unhallowed Union thing.

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As an archivist, am not surprised or shocked by this story (alas): when it comes to creating—or not creating—myths, the story of how a collection is created and the context of its donation are just as important as the interpretation of that collection by historians.

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I honestly thought this was going to be about Beatrix Potter before Peter Rabbit, but it's another C19th woman who drew fungi: A Stunning, Hand-Illustrated Book of Mushrooms Drawn by an Overlooked 19th Century Female Scientist.