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

• Farewell to FtB & Blag Hag; Introducing my new blogging home, The Jenome–“And you thought there couldn’t be a geekier metaphor for resurrection than a phoenix. Pfft, why turn to mythology when you have biology?”
• Bread and Roses TV: On Nude Protest–“Bread and Roses is a taboo-breaking, freethinking Political and Social Magazine – much needed in Iran, the Middle East and N Africa.”
• Ghostcraft; or, how Minecraft can really be used to build anything–“Except… was that another player off in the distance? He looked just like your player skin… only his eyes were entirely white.”

The Wider Web

• The White House wants to end campus rape. Great. Now what about colleges?–“But thanks to the work of grassroots and student-led organizations, a new initiative from the White House to curb sexual assault on campus is using explicitly feminist ideas to frame their recommendations.”
• Experience: I inhaled a pin into my lung–“I called my boyfriend and he was at the hospital to help me, rather shakily, fill in the forms. He signed the one that released them from responsibility should I die.”
• Look, I’m just trying to help–“You’re going to help. That group over there. The one you’re not in, but can totes do a solid. Because you’ve got privilege and a plan.”
• A Brief History of Exploding Whales–“It’s not exactly uncommon for whales to wash up on land, but the disruptiveness of such an event depends on how populated that land is by humans.”
• The benevolence of white men–“Sterling apparently wishes his audience to see an inherent tension between the idea that a person could put themselves in a position of authority over black people and still harbour racist ideas about them.”
• Oregon exploding whale–A musical tribute.
• You Can’t Fix What You Can’t See–“When that loved one is suffering from the effects of a mental illness, sometimes it can feel like watching them catch on fire right before your eyes but behind an impenetrable screen.”
• Last Chance for a Free Pass to SkepchickCon!–“We help organize the science track that we call SkepchickCon and we pack it to the gills with fun and interesting panels and hands on art and science activities.”
• Newfoundland Whale Probably Won’t Explode–“A whale is a really nice, contained package with a big, big layer of blubber around it that’s designed to keep everything in and keep water out while it’s diving. So they actually make fairly good balloons, as you can see in some of the pictures.”
• Botched OK Execution No Surprise–“State officials had to rely on less traditional sources of medications because it’s hard to find companies that want to sell you drugs that are known to kill (unless they need to get a last pack of smokes for the condemned).”
• From a Strike to a Home Run: A Thank You (and also a nudge, but just a little one)–“Shiny stuff, whatever the sort, is already funded a’plenty in a capitalist world: actual human service, for people in real need? Not so much.”
• Concerns growing about militia members at Bundy ranch–“According to Horsford, his constituents say the militia have set up checkpoints where residents must prove they live in the area before they are allowed to pass and have set up a ‘persistent presence’ along federal highways, and state and county roads.”
• What to do when you realize the meeting you are speaking at is a YAMMM (yet another mostly male meeting)?–“I know it is not always possible to have meetings have equal representation and I know some people try very hard and do not succeed. But this seems unpleasantly extreme.”
• Study Finds That Women Aren’t Run by Their Periods. Scientists Everywhere Are Confused.–“Earlier studies in the sample—those conducted between 1998 and 2003—were more likely to report statistically significant findings, but more recent studies failed to replicate those initial conclusions.”
• The FCC Chairman’s Many Excuses–“Wheeler’s posts attempt to placate critics, but let’s get one thing straight: He is not backing off his plan to hand the keys to the Internet over to the cable and phone industries.”
• How Censors Killed The Weird, Experimental, Progressive Golden Age Of Comics–“When EC Comics reprinted the science fiction story “Judgment Day” by Al Feldstein and Joe Orlando (which had originally been printed to little controversy before the Code), Murphy claimed the story violated the Code, and that the black astronaut had to be made white in order for the story to run.”
• An Opportunity for Education–“I’m sure most of you have seen that photo by now, but I’m attaching it because everyone deserves to know what happened. There was no light in that act of vandalism, only darkness.”
• When “I Didn’t Mean To” Makes it Worse–“Just as implicit bias is often at odds with consciously held opinions, actions we take out of entitlement often conflict with our stated values — to the frustration and confusion of everyone involved.”

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

• Avoiding Ableist or Sexist Language Won’t Make Us Less Fun!–“As someone else admitted on the post thread ‘I call myself a bitch sometimes. Most times, others do the calling.'”
• On the Right to Evolve as a Music Band–“I love Metallica not in spite of the fact that they are a band with a fluid style, I love them because of it.”
• Religion a mental illness ? I say NO and this is why–“I would call it a SOCIAL illness.”
• I Interview a Groovy Atheist Running for Congress in Arizona–“Woods wants to be the one to replace that guy. And his campaign asked me to interview him because Woods wants to reach out to underrepresented voting blocks, including the secular, atheist, and humanist communities.”
• A place where the writers call themselves “free thinkers”–“But the missed point is the more important aspect, because it’s so typical (of the genre as well as of Reinhardt’s friends and colleagues).”
• The ghost in the Pokémon machine–“The myth has come to be known as ‘Lavender Town Syndrome’.”
• Wills without bigotry – protest against the Law Society–“You have no business in normalising discriminatory religious principles in the legal culture and practice of this country.”
• 4 questions for Anne Marie Waters and secularists voting UKIP–“UKIP’s latest manifesto, meanwhile, promised ‘Ofsted will be abolished’, opening potential floodgates to a tidal wave of religious malpractice.”
• Fat shaming is ugly and body shaming of any kind is disgusting.–“Do we really need another person telling us what we should look like, weigh, how to make our hair, what to wear, who to love, what the size of our tummies should be or what size our bank account should be before we are considered entitled to be free from stigmatization or be treated as human beings deserving of dignity and respect?”

The Wider Web

• “The Hatpin Peril” Terrorized Men Who Couldn’t Handle the 20th-Century Woman–“Instead of arguing with the suffragists, some detractors took a more subtle approach, objecting not to women’s changing roles but to their preferred mode of self-defense: the hatpin.”
• Share My Stuff–“Here’s what we need to remember – no matter what the Facebook algorithm that governs your news feed does, Facebook is a community. And a community supports each other.”
• 17 Lies we need to stop teaching girls about sex–“Blood usually comes from vaginal tissue tearing due to lack of lubrication and, ahem, inexperienced love making — not the hymen breaking.”
• ‘Gun enthusiasts’ threaten woman for selling a safer gun–“If we try to make a gun for police departments that only officers can fire and not people who might be attacking them, well now that takes some of the sport out of it, doesn’t it?”
• An Open Letter to a Struggling Friend–“It isn’t fair. In no way is it fair. However it is also the reality of the situation that your actions affect others, and if you want to be consistent with your values you have to start taking care of yourself.”
• The fear of being called ‘Islamophobic’–“Astonishingly, this ludicrous argument was enough to convince both the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan to cancel their screenings of the film.”
• G.H. Hardy and Mrs. Ellis–“Assume that this quality can be uniquely quantified, on some scale that covers all types and ranges of ‘math ability.’ Assume further that the resulting distribution is described by a bell curve, because why not.”
• Two Weeks On, 234 Abducted Nigerian Schoolgirls Are Still Missing–“The group’s name translates to ‘western education is sin.'”
• 7 Lies We Have to Stop Telling About African-American Girls–“There is a myth that African-American girls generally fare better than African-American boys — that they somehow have it easier.”
• Ian Cromwell is creating Music–“As a patron, you’ll get first access to created music, exclusive content that won’t be available elsewhere, and behind-the-scenes looks at what I’m doing thanks to your support.”
• Women Destroy Science Fiction! — Table of Contents–“Just one more month to go before we publish our Women Destroy Science Fiction! special issue. To whet your appetite for destruction, here’s the table of contents.”