February 2011
1 tag
Maybe I should have asked Ron Paul for that...
Dear Internet:
I would like one unicorn that shoots gold bullion out of its horn whenever I ask, so I can buy a candy factory and live in it with all of my friends. Also, it would be cool to be able to ride my unicorn around.
If you think this is too much to ask, may I please have some class war instead?
Dear Kind People:
imissedtumblr:
Dear Kiri, assterisk, Cara, and robot-heart,
Thank you for your kind words and thoughts. I’ve been having a rough few days and I appreciate your kindnesses.
<3
Anna
Dear Ginny:
I love you best.
<3
Anna
Dear Ysa:
I love you best too.
<3
Anna
What am I, chopped liver? SOMEONE’S ASKING FOR A TUMBLRCOTT.
Although...
msfeasance:
jhameia:
meloukhia:
If I had the power to zap one word from English usage, it would probably be ‘panties.’ I hate that word. Or ‘nap.’ Just typing it makes me twitch. Something about that hard, sharp sound, that snap. Blech. Give me a nice siesta any day.
So many people I know hate the word “panties”!
The other word I hear being hated a lot is “moist.”
How interesting that...
Although...
If I had the power to zap one word from English usage, it would probably be ‘panties.’ I hate that word. Or ‘nap.’ Just typing it makes me twitch. Something about that hard, sharp sound, that snap. Blech. Give me a nice siesta any day.
I don't advocate for an eradication of words I...
I advocate for making conscious choices about how, when, and where to use language, for harnessing the power of language, for the use of strong language in commentary, storytelling, narratives, for the reclamation and repurposing of hate speech, for getting inside language and turning it inside out, for the thoughtful and considered application of language. For a world where language is never...
January 2011
Tumblr Poll?
I usually don’t attribute links to stuff I’ve written to myself because I feel like, uh, that would be kind of weird and pompous and even my ego has limits. Does it confuse people? Should I start citing myself? (I kind of figure the fact that everything else is attributed is a giveaway that things posted without an author/photographer credit are probably mine.)
Related: Do you prefer...
“Policing from within the disability rights movement can be encountered on all...”
– me in ‘Another View of Ableism’
Persephone Magazine: Another View of Ableism →
People new to the concept of disability rights who are just starting to explore are often confused by the idea that people with disabilities can be ableist; surely, because we share lived experiences, we all get along, right? This is reinforced by a reluctance within the disability rights movement to talk about the hierarchy of disability and the ways disabilities are weaponised against each...
Steven T. Jones at San Francisco Bay Guardian: Do... →
The report questions whether the gift of free trips, a rare exception to the city’s otherwise strict ban on gifts to public officials, is a way of currying favor with decision-makers. “The appearance of thousands of dollars changing hands doesn’t look good and it could be easily fixed,” says attorney Jon Golinger, Chiu’s former campaign manager and a founder of the group....
“One thing which I will note about idea appropriation is that it seems to follow...”
– me (and my last pointed Tumble of the day)
Oh yeah
I’ve also written about the commercial appropriation of campaigns for body acceptance, too!
So yeah.
It’s not that I have a monopoly on these topics, but when I see people lifting wholesale phrasing and ideas from my work, making it painfully evident that they’ve read it, and they don’t drop me a link, I get pissy. Crosslinking, in addition to being a really good idea if...
Hrm, where have I seen people talking about the...
Oh.
Right.
I always love it when people blatantly rip off my work and don’t even have the decency to drop a cite mentioning their inspiration.
Editorial at Socialist Worker: Will the squeeze on... →
In September, 14.8 million Americans were without a job—and 6.1 million of them have been unemployed for more than six months. And the real picture is even worse than the official statistics show. Adding in those who have given up looking for work or who are working part time but want full time work, underemployment rises to 17.1 million—the highest number since last December.
...
Howard Berkes at NPR: Safety System Dysfunctional... →
But on April 5, none of these safety systems were working properly, according to four people familiar with explosion evidence.
The malfunctioning systems include:
— The fire suppression system on the shearer. Sources say it didn’t work. Massey Energy admits that one of two valves on the system was missing, and a hose was “manually plugged.”
— A water-spraying arm or boom...
Brantley Hargrove at Nashville Scene: Will an... →
But ICE agents weren’t the ones who zeroed in on him. Instead, the officers who fingered Renteria worked for the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, the entity that operates our local jails.
Under the controversial program called 287(g) — an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE — Sheriff Daron Hall’s ICE-designated deputies can screen anyone who enters...
this ain't livin': Minding Plates: Eat What Makes... →
When everyone’s telling you that you are a bad person for eating repetitive meals, you do tend to internalise that, and you start to think that way, and there lies a path of much food shaming and guilt. You call yourself a failure for not giving something new a try, you try and force yourself to mix up your diet, sometimes with equally mixed results, and you’re reminded over and over that you’re...
Allow me to repeat myself. Enough of the "But can...
thehumorlessfeminist:
Rape isn’t a hypothetical question. Rape happens to real people every minute of the damn day. So instead of masturbating to the sound of my own voice, and telling everyone what I, as a great, compassionate feminist, consider to be sexual assault, I prefer to listen to the victims. IF SOMEONE FEELS VIOLATED, THAT SOMEONE HAS BEEN VIOLATED. Period. It’s not up to a third...
Cam Fenton at Vue: Following the dollars →
Take a walk through the University of Alberta campus and you are almost guaranteed to walk past a building, lecture hall or lab paid for by oil companies. As public funding continues to decline, universities in Canada are becoming dependent on funding from corporate sources for research and infrastructure, and in Alberta that means oil money.
To schools this represents a new, steady source...
Wyatt Williams at Creative Loafing: What happened... →
On Thursday, April 4, 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped out onto the balcony of a Memphis hotel and was killed by an assassin’s bullet. The story typically ends there, with the slain civil rights leader on the ground, surrounded by blood-stained colleagues left to carry on his vision. Rebecca Burns’ new book, Burial for a King, begins that day in Atlanta, as the news...
Alex Woodward at Gambit: Pot Holes →
The ordinance does not, however, decriminalize or “reclassify” possession. The term was reported and proliferated following the council meeting, but both District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro’s office and the Vera Institute, which advises the council on criminal justice, emphasize neither decriminalization nor reclassification are correct terms. The penalties for possession —...
Guy Hand at Boise Weekly: Cider: The Hard Truth →
Here in the back room of their shop, both Brewforia employee Oates and owner Boyd do a little wrist swirl with their glasses, getting that liquid turning like a golden whirlpool. I do my best to imitate them, then take a sip. The flavors are surprising. After all, we’re not tasting beer or wine here. It’s bright, slightly sweet, but far from cloying, and as Oates says, makes a...
Jeff Gore at Orlando Weekly: On the grid →
The organizers wanted something in return: information. Before getting the perks and services, participants were asked to fill out a form from the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida requesting personal information like one’s veteran status, Social Security number and date of birth. The form also asked questions like “Have you ever been incarcerated?” and “Where did you stay last...
this ain't livin': Today In Ink: Social... →
Bodily autonomy tends to shift when you’re tattooed because people assume your body is available for public consumption and discussion. People absolutely will touch you without consent, something that seems to come as a surprise to people without tattoos when I talk about how people relate to me when my ink is readily visible. The routine violations of personal space most women are familiar with...
Every day, I am reminded in new and increasingly creative ways that people want people like me to die. They want disabled people to shut up and disappear and go somewhere else: They want us to die. Genocide has been perpetrated against people with disabilities for thousands of years and ‘progressives’ have proudly picked up the torch and carry it high and mighty, right alongside their...
There is a lively discussion on Twitter right now...
Dressing gowns represent! *adjusts robe*
AQRGH
Neighbours to the South have a college-age son home on break (at this time of year? I don’t know either) who has decided it would be a SUPER IDEA to hold AN EXTEMELY LOUD PARTY. Trying to go to sleep. Have been enduring ENDLESS NOISE. It is echoing off the walls of their storage shed and basically rebounding directly into my house. I seriously want to go over there right now and commit acts...
Super!
I deleted my Facebook, uh, four years ago, and was hoping to remain among the unfacebooked, but then everyone was like ‘you have to have a Facebook to make professional contacts and stuff’ so I said ‘FINE I will set up a really basic one to do that,’ only right in the signup it forces you to pick a gender, only offers two options, and won’t let you complete signup...
Monitoring the Human Rights of People with... →
imissedtumblr:
Key Findings
Reports of denials and violations of human rights were in general more prevalent than reports of people being able to access and exercise their rights. This was true for all the areas examined in this study- education, work, income security and supports, privacy and family life, social participation, information and communication, health, habilitation and...
Friend: Why are they re-doing the pavement? It looked nicer before?
Me: It’s to make this city accessible to people in wheelchairs.
Friend: Isn’t the architectural character of this city more important than those wheelchair people?
mel: There was much debate here when they redid the sidewalks over whether we 'really need' textured pavement at curbs so blind folks can navigate. Because, you know. It looks funny.
Kinsee Morlan at San Diego City Beat: A visual... →
But, mostly, the two have been working side-by-side in the important, but far less sexy, field of scientific visualization—or, creating educational tools for visualizing concepts and ideas.
“Something must be used in the place of the blackboard and hand-waving,” the wide-eyed revolutionaries stated in an article published in 1975 under the headline “Computer Graphics as a Way of Life.”
...
Don Jones at Fort Worth Weekly: The Longest War →
Back on the gray, scrub-covered mountaintop, Lt. Adam “Moose” Jarmuz knew his platoon, part of the 101st Airborne, was still at risk. A mere 10 minutes after the Black Hawk lifted off, a bomb from an F-15 had taken out almost 40 of the enemy. But if the Americans stayed where they were, it would only be a matter of time before the insurgents would muster a larger force to oppose them. So as...
Snarky's Machine: 33 Days: From Lovestruck to... →
Cher’s quiet, earnest performance as Dolly Pelliker the roommate whose sapphic love for Meryl’s Karen Silkwood goes hopelessly unrequited is infused with such tenderness, warmth and humility it’s hard to believe this was the same woman who marinated herself in bedazzling and strutted on stage singing, “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves”. There’s a rumor that audiences and even some mean spirited...
Raymond Cummings at San Antonio Current: The... →
There were, as it happens, three J.D. Salingers. There was the reclusive, apparently stingy Salinger who, beginning in the 1960s, shut himself and his manuscripts away from public view and retained lawyers in a failed effort to curate the world’s perception of him. There was the complicated, continually evolving Salinger, whose short, long, and novella-length fictions doubled as coded or...
Lauren Smiley at SF Weekly: Bait Car Pays SFPD to... →
Police netted more than 30 alleged car thieves, many of whom you can see in the episodes that have aired since late December. What you won’t see disclosed on TV is the special relationship between the police and the producers — the fact that Hollywood-based KKI Productions donated two specially outfitted bait cars worth $31,000 to the police’s fleet. The show won’t reveal...
this ain't livin': Today in Irk: Podcasts and... →
And it irks me to see people now relying on crowdsourced transcripts made by people who really really like content and want to share it but can’t until it is transcribed. Transcription work is time consuming and taxing and there’s a reason it costs money, because it is work. When your content is inaccessible and other people have to make it accessible for you, you really ought to be paying them....
Wyatt Buchanan and Marisa Lagos at the San... →
Poor people with chronic illnesses such as kidney failure, cancer and HIV face the prospect of dying due to budget cuts proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown, lawmakers and health advocates said Wednesday.
As Brown’s proposal faces its first week of scrutiny by the Legislature, the governor said he believes the budget process is on track for an early March deadline, but modifications are likely....
Scientific Review Showing ECT To Be Ineffective... →
imissedtumblr:
ECT is the technical term for Electroshock Therapy. It still happens in the US and Canada, at least, and often happens against the patient’s will.
Scientific Review Showing ECT To Be Ineffective And Unsafe Submitted To FDA On Eve Of Its ECT Hearings 24 Jan 2011 For decades the FDA has allowed electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) to be used without requiring any proof of safety or...
I Fry Mine In Butter: Cross WHAT Over? →
Crossover fiction walks the boundary even more finely, appealing to both ‘young adults’ and, uh, ‘old adults,’ if you will. Looking at the current crop of crossover fiction, I’m seeing a lot of fantasy and steam punk, which I think speaks to a desire on the part of some readers (especially folks in their 20s and 30s) to recapture some lost youth. There’s also a lot of snark and some fairly high...
Steven Leigh Morris at LA Weekly: Community... →
Brazeman had never heard of the Core Findings Ordinance his friend was talking about. He soon realized that his ignorance was shared by L.A.’s nearly 4 million residents, even though the bureaucratic-sounding plan could affect — profoundly, in some cases — the streets and neighborhoods where Angelenos live.
“I hadn’t intended to get this involved in public policy,” says Brazeman, who in...
