The Reading List, 5/28/2014

I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

Around FtB

  • On ‘Bad Media’ and Bingeing–“It’s nice that you want to write those articles about eating disorders, and I’m all in favor. But please, let’s not talk about how bad it is that Other, Bad Media glorifies disordered behavior when all you’ll write about is the stuff that makes you skinnier.”
  • How to explain–“He’s a good person (see above about diversity), and firing the first woman editor made him look bad, so that’s why he had to attack her after he fired her. Totally makes sense.”
  • That’s not how you do it–“They’re not going to accomplish much if they’re just going to announce a set of goals on a website and then pose wisely to convince other people to go do the actual work, somehow.”
  • And now we pull down / on the lever–“This is the music Lauren played 3 minutes before each talk or panel was scheduled to start, as a signal to everyone to come in and sit down and be quiet.”
  • Tweeters can’t stop us–“So much for the beloved “secular community” eh – if we ask our “thought leaders” questions, they will blow us off as mere pesky Tweeters.”
  • People who are currently at dinner with you–“The Twitter account seemed to want to have it both ways – to sneer from a great height at talk of ‘skin color’ while still patting itself on the back for ‘working on diversity.'”
  • Viewer discretion is advised–“If you’re the type of person to flip your shit about people using trigger warnings, you might not want to read this post unless you have the resources to attack me for defending the use of trigger warnings.”
  • Masculinity, Violence, and Bandaid Solutions–“And before you call Rodger ‘crazy’: it is not actually ‘crazy’ to believe stuff that’s been shoved down your throat from birth.”

The Wider Web

  • On Animals, Part III: A Conversation with Barbara J. King and Jessica Pierce–“The evolutionary trajectory of humans is more complicated. For one thing, we’re omnivores. This means that the contribution of meat to the diet of contemporary populations varies greatly and indeed the same was true for ancestral populations in prehistory.”
  • Reporting Rape: More On The “Proper Authorities”–“You can read the story for the rest of what the NYPD did, but I want to bold that part. This is a sworn police officer, making a statement that’s appalling not only culturally, but in its sheer, astounding legal ignorance.”
  • Nicholas Wade and race: building a scientific façade–“Practical. Simple. Wade wants us to cut up human diversity into five races not because that’s what the statistical analyses show, but because thinking about it as a gradient is hard.”
  • The Troublesome Ignorance of Nicholas Wade–“In making these assertions Wade ignores the majority of data and conclusions from anthropology, population genetics, human biology and evolutionary biology.”
  • The Case for Reparations–“Between 1882 and 1968, more black people were lynched in Mississippi than in any other state. ‘You and I know what’s the best way to keep the nigger from voting,’ blustered Theodore Bilbo, a Mississippi senator and a proud Klansman.”
  • We Are All Short Now–“There’s nothing ‘better’ about being tall. But we all behave – really, almost all of us – as though being short is bad, something to be ashamed of, and indeed, something to fudge.”
  • Fed Up with Sexual Harassment: Guest Post By Dara Norman–“After the larger meeting ended, we were chatting, and I asked who she thought I meant. She was reluctant to say so I named the person I was referring to… no not that person… I named someone else (at the same institution)… no not that person.”
  • If scientists were to make the arbitrary decision that biological race is real, can you think of a positive outcome?–“These are arbitrary decisions made by lumpers and splitters (who are first and foremost humans and who are therefore not, nor required to be, consistent in their lumping and splitting ways). These kinds of debates will never be resolved as long as someone takes the opposing side.”
  • Interview with Caroline Fiennes–“We tend to think that all charities are good, but it turns out that some are much better than others. I’m not talking about their administrative cost, but rather what they achieve.”
  • An Open Letter on Feminism In Tech–“Being nice doesn’t work. We’ve been nice. Some of us that have written down our stories here have even been paraded around by men in the industry for how nice we’ve been in trying to address the social problems in tech as a way to discredit more vocal, astutely firm feminist voices.”
  • Attorneys for North Dakota Argue Viability Begins at Conception–“In a later case, Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court said that when lawmakers are considering matters of ‘contested science,’ lawmakers are essentially free to choose a side in the scientific debate and there’s not much the courts can do about it.”
  • Islamophobia? Muslimophobia? Anti-Muslim Bigotry? A discussion between Ex-Muslims on appropriate neologisms–“During the last day or so, community members at the Ex-Muslims of North America have been having a discussion regarding the terminology we ought to use to differentiate between undue discrimination against Muslims and reasoned critique of Islam.”
  • On Paying Your Atheist Speakers–“This all mirrors a debate in larger society, where asking people to work for free has become a third rail, with good reason.”
  • Twitter Agrees to Block ‘Blasphemous’ Tweets in Pakistan–“This censorship comes as challenges to Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy law have become increasingly deadly, amid a flurry of arrests, killings and assassination attempts on secularists.”
  • Engraved on the Eye [free stories by Saladin Ahmed on Smashwords]–“These short stories have been nominated for the Nebula and Campbell awards, and reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy Anthologies.”
  • As Publishers Fight Amazon, Books Vanish–“‘How is this not extortion? You know, the thing that is illegal when the Mafia does it,’ asked Dennis Loy Johnson of Melville House, echoing remarks being made across social media.”
  • Macmillan Authors Rally Fans in Battle with Amazon–“As the news broke last weekend, several Tor/Forge authors immediately reacted to Amazon’s ceasing direct sales of their books by replacing Amazon’s links on their sites and redirecting their fans to Barnes & Noble and IndieBound.”
  • Morning coffee and an Amazon rant (Storify)–“I like the publishing industry. I live here. It’s where I keep my stuff.”
  • Why the Amazon buy buttons disappeared on my website today–“I don’t think punishing the authors and readers by delaying books, hiding search results, and playing around, is a good thing. As a result, I’ve pulled the buttons for Amazon links on my site until this is resolved to stand in solidarity with the authors at Hachette.”
  • The Cult of Positivity–“Positivity hasn’t done a damn thing to help my MS. It didn’t prevent me from getting MS, it won’t stop the progression of MS, and it won’t treat or cure my MS.”
  • I don’t want to do this anymore–” I would love for no escorts to have to bust their asses and risk their bodies and minds dealing with sometimes large hordes of protestors and fake-ass ‘counselors’.”
  • Stop Citing My 1975 ‘Global Cooling’ Article–“Now, as the author of that story, after decades of scientific advances, let me say this: while the hypotheses described in that original story seemed right at the time, climate scientists now know that they were seriously incomplete. Our climate is warming — not cooling, as the original story suggested.”
  • A brief history of the war between Reddit and Tumblr–“Likewise, subreddits like r/TumblrInAction allow Reddit users to gang up on bloggers by sending dozens or hundreds of pageviews their way—some of which may translate into hateful messages and responses. In that sense, it’s less like ‘trolling’ and more like bullying.”
  • Leaving Islam for Atheism, and Finding a Much-Needed Place Among Peers–“There are few role models for former Muslims, and although the religion’s history contains some notable skeptics, very few of them are women.”
  • Neko Case had the best response to a sexist ‘Playboy’ tweet–“DONT PEGGY OLSEN ME, MOTHERFUCKERS.”
  • The Pick-Up Artist Community’s Predictable, Horrible Response to a Mass Murder–“It is disturbing, if not surprising, that they are using these murders to reinforce their hatred of women and ‘Beta’ men, and to cement their own status at the top of the pyramid.”
  • Elliot Rodger And Men Who Hate Women–“We live in a culture that constantly devalues women in a million little different ways, and that culture has evolved to include a vast online community of men who take that devaluation to its natural conclusion: brutal, violent hatred of women.”
  • Women in Secularism Explained… by David Brooks?–“A successful panel can happen as if by magic sometimes, but I think really relies on an integration of expertise, personal experience, and articulation.”
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The Reading List, 5/28/2014
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One thought on “The Reading List, 5/28/2014

  1. 1

    Thank you for sharing the Neko tweet response. I agree monuments should be built in her honor. She may yet tip me into the twittersphere….

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