Cate Eland
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romancingnope.bsky.social
Cate Eland
@romancingnope.bsky.social
1.8K followers 870 following 7K posts
Intrusive, intense, and annoying. she/her
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romancingnope.bsky.social
One thing I want to acknowledge is how accurate this bit--about "mental health deserts"--is. My youngest spent nearly 2 years on a wait list to get in to see a developmental pediatrician, because in Austin--the 13th most populous city in the country--only has a few, and they serve ALL of central TX.
In Louisiana—one of the top states for prescribing ADHD meds to children, according to federal data—child psychologist Amy Mikolajewski, a PCIT practitioner and assistant professor at Louisiana State University, says “we are a mental-health desert.” Mikolajewski has observed how behavioral therapy and small changes–like breaking up tasks and positive reinforcement when kids are doing the right thing—can significantly help. In PCIT, Mikolajewski helps parents through a monthslong training program that is designed to help strengthen their bonds with their children and address disruptive behaviors, aggression, defiance and other ADHD symptoms. Some parents who have gone through it say they have seen dramatic improvements in their preschoolers’ symptoms.
November 20, 2025 at 8:59 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
The flip side to this is that more than half of parents of ADHD kids *don't* immediately start medicating their kids, and often it can take *years* even to get a doctor to prescribe any kind of medication, and often they will be started on non-stimulant medication, especially if the child is AFAB.
With no options for therapy, she started her son on the Adderall dose he was prescribed, she said. The medication has generally helped her 8-year-old’s impulse control, but he still struggles with emotional ups and downs at times. More than 42% of children aged 3 to 5 are prescribed medication within 30 days of an ADHD diagnosis, meaning doctors may be directing parents to drugs before giving behavioral therapy a chance to work, according to a 2025 Stanford University paper. That’s despite American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines advising against starting with medication for those ages, instead recommending behavioral interventions first.
November 20, 2025 at 1:44 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
Kids on ADHD meds couldn't possibly be ending up on other psychiatric meds because it's psychologically damaging to live in a world that not only isn't built for you, but also is actively hostile to you and shames you for being the way you are on a daily basis, right? 🙄
For one in five kids who take them, ADHD drugs are just the beginning. A Wall Street Journal analysis of Medicaid data from 2019 through 2023 shows that children who were prescribed a medication for ADHD were far more likely to take additional psychiatric drugs over the ensuing four years. The Journal compared about 166,000 children aged 3 to 14 who started on ADHD medications in 2019 to kids who didn’t. The medicated group was more than five times as likely to be on additional psychiatric medications four years later. Factors such as differences in sex, race and foster-care status didn’t explain the gap.
November 20, 2025 at 1:37 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
It never ceases to amaze me the way women go on Reddit, describe their male partners behaving in monstrous, evil ways, and then are like, "Was I unreasonable? How do I fix this?"

Ma'am, he starved your dog then cussed you out when you were mad about it. You cannot and should not try to fix this.
r/relationship_advice 14h ago unknownn_3 I(28F) am seriously considering divorcing my husband (32M) because of how he treated my dog and what comes after it Background on my story: my husband is never mean to my dog, but he's very much not a pet person. I knew about that going into the marriage, I was fine with him not interacting with my dog or helping me with dog duties. I accepted that. His only duty is to open the yard door to let my dog out to pee when I work 10 hour shifts. Even with this simple task, he complains that this is a lot of work for him and makes him stressed out. His reasoning is that having to let the dog out means that he has to constantly keep this at the back of his head and it's one extra thing that he has to do on top of his busy work, which stresses him out. Anyway he still did let him out to pee most of the time, and I kind of just accepted that. Recently I had to travel out of country because my mom needed surgery. I was gone for a total of 3 weeks, the first week I asked my friend to take care of my dog but they were busy for the last 2 weeks so I asked my husband to take care of him. He did not complain and said ok(which I appreciate). I got back from my trip and found that my 17lbs dog has lost 5lbs under his care. That's 1/3 of his weight. My poor puppy is depressed that I am gone, and god knows whether he's being fed twice a day per my instructions. My dog always loses weight when I'm gone due to stress, but losing a third of your body weight in 13 days? So obviously I was very unhappy about that. I was debating about whether I should have an argument with him because technically he did "do me a favor" by taking care of my dog, but he also did a really poor job. It also feels like this is weaponized incompetence(which isn't, he's still a person of good nature he would never purposely hurt my dog). I just can't get over the fact that he's casually making jokes that oh well he's skinny now at least he's easier to carry. Again I am ok with him not caring about my dog(I know I shouldn't), as long as he doesn't hurt him I was already ok with that. All I wanted to do was to have a conversation with him, telling him that he did not do a very good job taking care of my dog, and that he should know better. He then started complaining about how taking care of a dog is extremely stressful for him, that he has to constantly think about whether the dog ate or peed for the whole day and it's stressing him out. I said that I already gave you the bare minimum instructions, all you have to do is feed twice a day, make sure water bowl isn't empty, and let him out for bathroom every few hours. He said these tasks are incredibly stressful, why can't you understand? It's so much work that it's like a second part time job, I have to constantly think about him all day, did he pee? did I feed him? That's incredibly stressful. Obviously anyone would not agree that these simple tasks are stressful, so I disagreed. He then started YELLING at me, saying that I don't appreciate anything that he does, that I'm not being understanding about how stressful it is for him to take care of my dog for 2 weeks, that he's under SO MUCH stress for the past 2 weeks and I'm still complaining. The argument ended with him saying that he doesn't want to deal with this and told me to fuck off(yelling). TLDR: husband thinks taking care of my dog for 2 weeks is super stressful and I am not being appreciative and understanding that this is a stressful task, therefore I should not be complaining that under his care my dog lost a third of his body weight in 2 weeks. He then YELLED at me for not being understanding even though I was the one that is supposed to be mad. (I was calm the whole time when I started the talk). I still want to try to fix this somehow, but I don't even know how to fight back to his arguments. Can anyone help? (Divorce is under consideration, but I still want to have a talk before going that far). Another edit to add: I’m not putting blame completely on him for my dog losing weight, because stress is also a big factor. I’m just pissed that he yelled at me simply because I pointed out that he did a poor job taking care of him. All I wanted was for him to learn that he should be more careful and ask me questions if he’s not sure about dog care. It’s the yelling that makes me consider divorce, not the dog care. So I think this might still be fixable, but I’m not even sure how to go about it? That’s why I’m looking for advice…
November 14, 2025 at 10:55 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
I mean, it's literally a babushka.
young model wearing a floral kerchief in an old fashioned pattern of pink and red flowers on a black field, with a coral-pink border, worn over her hair and tied under her chin. she's also wearing a fur-lined brown coat.
November 8, 2025 at 2:03 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
Something about Old Navy's winter line-up is giving 19th century Northern/Eastern European immigrant grandmother, and I'm trying to figure out what this means for the economy.
A sceenshot of Old Navy's fair isle mittens, that look like something American Girl doll Kirsten Larsen would wear. Screenshot of Old Navy products, included a green "rib knit balaclava" for $10.19, a "rib knit neck scarf" for $7.79 that the model is wearing like a kerchief over her hair and tied under her neck, a "rib knit cuffed beanie for women" for $7.79 that is just a normal beanie the model is wearing in the usual way, and then another "rib knit neck scarf" only in a different color that the model is also wearing over her hair like a kerchief and tied under a neck.
November 8, 2025 at 1:56 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
Can the pundit class *be* the people who focus on what the Democratic party actually is, instead of acting as if fringe right wing disinformation is reality?
Matt Iglesias: Can Democrats *be* the pay that's obsessed with tax fairness, affordable health care for Americans, and making sure poor kids have food rather than the party that's banning plastic bags and worried that it's racist to teach eighth grade algebra?
November 4, 2025 at 7:16 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
1) No one becomes Blackwater merc at the age of 34 to pay for college.
2) Graham Platner's daddy was a lawyer. His grandfather was a prominent architect designed the Windows on the World restaurant in the WTC. Pretty sure he didn't need the military to cover his college tuition.
Bluesky screenshot: Francesca Fiorentini posts: The Platner discourse is pretty shrill, but his reddit posts paint a full picture of someone who though used awful language at times, also went to a BLM demo, supported Afghan refugees, and served in the military --like so many-- in part to access higher ed. October 29, 2025 at 11:58 AM ‪Francesca Fiorentini‬ continues thread: I've often said that in a political choice where one has to be perfect VS being human (mistakes, past transgressions) most people will choose being human and bristle at the idea you must be perfect. It's why the left loses. But on the substance, Platner passes the smell test.
October 29, 2025 at 5:48 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
The argument here is that until one of the Trumps loudly announces, "WE ARE OFFICIALLY TAKING BRIBES IN EXCHANGE FOR PRESIDENTIAL FAVORS," the behavior can't be called illegal, even though all evidence, including Trump's own words, heavily imply that's exactly what's happening.
However, the ethicists said, unless the Trump brothers are explicitly promising access to or favorable treatment from the president in their sales pitches, they are breaking no laws. “It's legal but unethical,” said Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush and is now a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. None of the more than a dozen people Reuters spoke with who had met with the Trump brothers or their partners recounted any of them explicitly offering presidential access or favors in return for investing in their family businesses. The White House has repeatedly denied any conflict of interest, saying that upon taking office, the president ended his involvement in his businesses after placing them in a trust managed by his children.
October 28, 2025 at 12:47 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
A two frame comic. The first frame has a close up of a goose asking, "which identity and culture issues?" The second frame shows the whole goose chasing after a man running away. The goose is yelling, "WHICH IDENTITY AND CULTURE ISSUES?!"
October 27, 2025 at 11:27 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
Mackenzie Price is one of the founders of Alpha.

This is abusive language, dismissing the criticism of a mom of 2 former Alpha students who both were so stressed by the environment, it negatively impacted the health, by accusing the parent of having low standards.
Screenshot: Earlier this year, Lopez published some of her critiques of Alpha School on Substack. Price says that Lopez is a “loud example” of someone who has “a huge difference in philosophy” and that Alpha is not for everyone. “Students thrive when they're in an environment with high standards and high support, which our guides do,” Price said. “But not everyone believes that, right? There are so many parents who do not really believe in high standards. There are parents who don't believe in high support.”
October 27, 2025 at 1:55 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
I don't want my leadership to be more like Republican leadership, thanks.
Dr Deb K ‪@drdebk.bsky.social‬ So, Republicans can forgive the most lying corrupt overtly racist & sexist & greedy person ever. But Dems/progressives are willing to totally eliminate someone with a Nazi tattoo from Croatia at age 23 on someone who has NOT acted or preached neo-Nazi ideas that anyone can find. Dems are so screwed! October 23, 2025 at 4:57 PM
October 24, 2025 at 1:13 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
When I started working in the corporate world 20 years ago, cubicles were routinely criticized/made fun of for being dehumanizing and robbing people of privacy and quiet.

The fact that cubicles now seem like a luxury workspace is beyond depressing.
Photo shows a sea of side-by-side desks, each 2 computer monitors wide, which have a set of 4 monitors (2 stacked on 2) on either side of the desk. There are 9 rows of these side-by-desks in the photo packed into a relatively small footprint but with high ceilings and large windows in the background. There are enough workspaces in a relatively small, portrait formatted photo for >120 workers. One man walks through this photo for scale, and is completely dwarfed by the scale of all the desks. There are clearly more desks unseen outside the boundaries of the photo.
October 23, 2025 at 1:59 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
"All presidents do it."
Screenshot from Fox News: [White House] Trump celebrates White House demolition as new ballroom rises: ‘Music to my ears’ White House cites 13 historical examples of presidential renovations after demolition photos surface By Jasmine Baehr - Fox News
October 23, 2025 at 12:56 AM
romancingnope.bsky.social
it's a 2-frame comic. in the first frame, a goose asks "move to the center of what?" in the second frame, the goose is chasing a person in a coat screaming, "MOVE TO THE CENTER OF WHAT?!"
October 20, 2025 at 5:50 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
Maybe I'm confused about what the term ceasefire means, but if the IDF is launching "air strikes and artillery fire at targets in southern Gaza", it seems like the ceasefire is broken, not just strained.
Israeli military launches attacks on Gaza, ceasefire under strain By Reuters October 19, 20258:49 AM CDT, Updated 2 mins ago
October 19, 2025 at 1:53 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
I'm so tired of people who run things acting like petulant children all the time.
jay.bsk.team 2 days ago skeeted in reply to lucas, ho chi minh thot: WAFFLES jay.bsky.team today skeeting in response to another user: Are you paying us? Where?
October 3, 2025 at 5:30 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
As if the ethical, environmental, and quality implications of generative AI weren't bad enough, there's also the highly probable prospect that the tech industry's overhyping of AI's capabilities is going to crater the US economy.
Screenshot from Futurism article: “The bad news is that in order for the tech cycle to continue contributing to GDP growth, capital investment needs to remain parabolic,” he concluded. “This is highly unlikely.” He’s right to be concerned. Total AI spending has contributed more to the growth of the US economy this year than all of consumer spending combined. Especially alarming is the amount of money the AI industry would need to actually make to justify all its spending. According to a new report by global management consulting company Bain & Company, it’d need a whopping $2 trillion in annual revenue to “fund computing power needed to meet anticipated AI demand by 2030.” “However, even with AI-related savings, the world is still $800 billion short to keep pace with demand,” the report reads. Screenshot from Futurism article: Others remain more optimistic, with Goldman Sachs arguing that productivity gains thanks to AI adoption could ultimately boost the economy, according to a note to clients seen by Fortune. However, reality has often been messier than those predictions. Earlier this year, MIT researchers found that a staggering 95 percent of attempts to incorporate generative AI into business so far are failing to drive rapid revenue growth. Researchers have also found that employees are actually being slowed down by AI “workslop” that needs to be fixed by a human with common sense.
October 3, 2025 at 1:41 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
Everyone's excited about October.

Meanwhile, in Texas...
Screenshot from weather.com Austin, TX as of 12:04 pm CDT 91 degrees Sunny Day 95 degrees Night 67 degrees Air Quality Alert
October 1, 2025 at 5:06 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
😂😂😂
I posted "The fact that [Canada has] chosen not to stop buying from the US now doesn't mean they have to remain reliant on us in the future," to which Spencer Fordin replied that "Canada hasn't made that choice." I replied, "What did I say in my last post, buddy?" so he dirty deleted his post where he made it clear he either can't or didn't read, then replaced it with a reply that there was nothing in my response for him to respond to and dismissed it as "sophistry". 😂😂😂 Then he blocked me!
September 24, 2025 at 5:16 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
"FBI Director Kash Patel posts an image of unspent bullets from the scene with the phrase 'ANTI-ICE' on them"

www.bbc.com/news/live/c4...
Old white man stands in his driveway next to a burned Confedrate flag on the ground with "BLACKS RULE" spray painted on the pavement.
September 24, 2025 at 5:06 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
Mike Morath, TEA commissioner of education, launches a witch hunt on teachers who can't toe the Republican party line on Charlie Kirk's death.
TEA Texas Education Agency Dear Superintendents, TEA has been made aware of some Texas public school educators that have posted and/or shared reprehensible and inappropriate content on social media related ot the assassination of Charlie Kirk. These educators' comments do not reflect the vast majority of Texas teachers who are dedicated practitioners that work diligently to serve the more than 5.5 million impressionable young minds in our classrooms. In response to such posts, I am referring all documentation of educators that have proliferated such vile content to TEA's Educator Investigations Division. Such posts could constitute a violation of the Educators' Code of Ethics, and each instance will be thoroughly reviewed to determine whether sanctionable conduct has occurred and staff will investigate accordingly. While the exercise of free speech is a fundamental right we are all blessed ot share, it does not give carte blanche authority to celebrate or sow violence against those that share differing beliefs and perspectives. Mr. Kirk was a father and a husband, and tragically, his children no longer have their father, and his wife no longer has her spouse. As a father and husband myself, and as someone devoted to the education of children, it is heartbreaking. If you are made aware of additional instances of inappropriate content being shared, it should be reported to the agency through TEA's Misconduct Reporting Portal. I commend the swift action taken by the leadership of the distracts that employ these educators. Respect is a core tenet of what we teach and reinforce to our students, and together, we can ensure that such values continue to be reflected in our Texas public schools. In service, Mike Morath Commissioner of Education The State of Texas
September 20, 2025 at 9:58 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
Searchlight Institute here punching left, when the only reason Congress/FDR were able to pass social security is because the further left Townsend Plan and Share the Wealth programs were so popular. If they hadn't existed, neither would social security.
For example, the groups currently charged with generating new ideas would have rejected Social Security due to their overriding commitment to left-wing orthodoxy. Focusing on the elderly was itself a compromise, with the left demanding universal payments to all Americans in the form of the Townsend plan or Huey Long’s Share Our Wealth campaign—programs that could not have passed, even with Democrats enjoying enormous margins in both chambers of Congress. The policy design of Social Security would have been derided by today’s progressive think tanks because the benefits are financed by a highly regressive funding mechanism in the payroll tax. Yet FDR’s decision to focus on the elderly made the plan politically feasible, and his insistence on the payroll tax made it durable. Nearly 100 years later, Social Security remains highly effective and profoundly popular.
September 17, 2025 at 5:14 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
We cannot discuss "deservingness" without addressing the white supremacist elephant in the room, and Searchlight Institute has no interest in doing that.

How do I know?
Screenshot from Searchlight Institute's website: SUPERMAJORITY THINKING The Searchlight Institute is guided by Supermajority Thinking. 1. Supermajority Thinking is a necessary precondition of stable, majority-rule governance and policymaking. Today, it is taken as a given that regardless of which party controls the White House, the president will win by a hair and preside over a narrowly-divided Congress. This is a recipe for instability: as we have seen, whatever meager agenda the administration manages to push through will be quickly undone when the other side retakes power, as they are likely to do in short order. Instead of aiming at bare majorities and getting there by appealing almost entirely to voters of one stripe, Supermajority Thinking aims at appealing to voters across the political spectrum. By scrambling ideological lines, this approach supports stability and durable policymaking. 2. Supermajority Thinking requires starting from first principles and following them wherever they lead—including when they take us outside of traditional ideological categories. According to repeated efforts to chart the American electorate by ideology, the nation breaks down roughly like this: 43 percent liberal, 31 percent conservative, 22 percent populist, and 5 percent libertarian. Thus, there is no majority—let alone a supermajority—to be had in any of the traditional categories. To build a supermajority, we must defy ideological boxes and embrace a mix of positions from across the spectrum. We must refuse to accept as gospel what the current ideological lines are and instead ask: what are the policy outcomes we want to produce—abundant housing, energy, and health care; a government capable of delivering for the people it represents; an economy where workers enjoy the fruits of their labor and big corporations and the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share; the world’s best schools—and design policy with these goals in mind, ignoring special interests when they try to steer us away from them. We need an agenda that is as heterodox as the American people themselves. This spirit of heterodoxy is distinct from moderation: Whereas moderation points to the middle position along a left-right binary, heterodoxy breaks the binary and pushes leaders to embrace positions from different ideologies, regardless of whether the positions themselves are moderate or immoderate—or populist, libertarian, conservative, or liberal. It’s the mix that matters. 3. Supermajority Thinking is attentive to the American people, but sees public opinion as malleable. In a democracy, listening to the American people and being responsive to their wishes is fundamental. When the American people feel ignored by their leaders, they become alienated and discontented—dynamics that feed authoritarianism. Used properly, polling and data can help us understand what Americans think and feel. This does not mean being constrained by polling—it means being informed by data. To craft the issue mix that will trigger a realignment, leaders need to know where they stand with the American people. Elected leaders can and should lead on issues that they care deeply about, even if they are out of step with public opinion. However, leaders should be clear on where the public stands, and not be fooled into thinking an issue is popular when it is not. They need to know when they are building capital with the public, and when they are spending it. Today, there is a crisis of misinformation in the political sphere. Polling has become a lobbying tool, not a means of seeking truth. Interest groups cherry-pick the results they release, and shape question-wording to produce their desired results. As just one example: In 2022-24, as Democrats were hemorrhaging voters without a college degree, they let biased polling convince them that universal student loan forgiveness was popular. It was not—in fact, it would be hard to design a proposal more perfectly designed to tag them as the party of college-educated elites. After President Biden proposed universal student debt forgiveness, it became the economic policy voters heard about most and liked the least. We reject that practice entirely. We are committed to producing transparent and intellectually honest polling, releasing all of our results, and holding ourselves accountable. Read more about our polling values here. Ultimately, Supermajority Thinking leads to a pro-growth, pluralist, all-terrain populism—a populism that can go anywhere, and is not artificially cordoned off to a certain set of issues.
September 17, 2025 at 4:00 PM
romancingnope.bsky.social
Digging into the Searchlight Institute's website, and immediately got the ick. "Can liberals build broad-based support for strengthening the social safety net by frontally addressing questions of deservingness in ways not seen since the New Deal?"

Gross.
Screenshot of Searchlight Institute's Policy page: Earned Benefits [image of a blank social security card] Can liberals build broad-based support for strengthening the social safety net by frontally addressing questions of deservingness in ways not seen since the New Deal? Can resentment that stems from violations of just-world beliefs be separated from other forms of resentment, and assuaged?
September 17, 2025 at 3:43 PM