bombardier: "our new train will be called 'talent' because it's very talented at transporting passengers!"
siemens: "very nice, we are naming our new train 'desiro', it is a desirable addition to an operator's fleet.
alstom: "mmh, so we have decided to –"

stadler, crashing through the door and tumbling through the room: "well *our* new train is called 'flirt' because trains are fuggin sexy and you prudes are just afraid to say it... i wanna kiss one so badd,,"

*silence, bombardier shoots an awkward glance to alstom*

stadler: "oh yeah we also have a bilevel version called kiss mmm look at that schakuuu"

as we leave gpn and its lice jokes behind us and look ahead to a long summer full of more chaos events, let's all remember that infectious disease is a community issue. lice can't buy gulasch-genusspakets and wear those shitty wristbands; they don't care what city they're in or who organized the event that brought new people together and prime new louse real estate within crawling distance.

if lice were transmitted at gpn, the same will happen at other events – sure, scale might matter, but lets not pretend that this stuff stops when the jokes do.

when we share space and closeness in our bodies, we also share responsibility. this is, indeed, the point: what brings you joy brings me joy, and what hurts you hurts me; what makes you sick makes me sick, and what helps you helps me. we run on the same biological substrate; we share similar vulnerabilities, and similar desires; and when we acknowledge this by exchanging mutual care and joy in our embodied forms, let's reaffirm that shared responsibility, too.

take care.

i think it'd be nice to have some level of infectious disease monitoring in the community – are case numbers for lice and scabies going up? down? no one knows; we're flying without instruments – but statistics is hard, and there might be legal issues? (gotta be very careful with that health data) and in general i don't think i'm the right person.

... but if i were to write a call-to-action on this, and you'd grant me a bit of mischievousness at the end of this post to lighten the tone, i would title it "lice, damned lice, and statistics"

why yes, youtube, why *wouldn't* i like to watch an obscure video with 600 views on issues with toki pona featuring a turtle with chef hat holding a knife?

but thekla, you ask, how could it be a proper conlang review without featuring a song written in toki pona sung over chiptune backing track, filled with obscure references and general mischief?, and i say: worry not, it has those things too.

if you're in the small subset of people who are interested in this: don't take everything in it as gospel, but i think there's a few good points! read the comments too, there's some good discussion

https://youtu.be/bCA4U4hqfTk