The Reading List, 10/4/2015

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.

  • “Other people’s opinions can act as a reality check. And that doesn’t just happen through the exchange of information and analysis. It also happens by emotional demonstration. In fact, a show of anger, insult, revulsion, is an exchange of information — the information that the idea being expressed is considered morally bankrupt.” Read more.
  • “Sexual activity probably doesn’t trigger many heart attacks, scientists report September 21 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. In fact, the study’s authors say, the benefits seem to outweigh the risk.” Read more.
  • “And, best of all, a science fact fulfills that need to respond without engaging, and sends a message that trolling is neither affective nor acceptable (especially if others get involved) without you having to expend much effort or use up precious emotional bandwith.” Read more.
  • “There are no standards for law enforcement officials or judges to follow: Is the presence of drugs in the mother’s body cause for charges if the baby tests clean? What test results are appropriate for medical providers to report and when? Should a mother face charges even when she was using a prescription drug under a doctor’s supervision? Local prosecutors and courts have wide discretion.” Read more.
  • “It was a big room — did I mention that this was a plenary session? — but managed to achieve pretty good coverage before a staffer noticed what was happening. We discreetly tucked away our remaining bingo cards and sat down to watch the panel.” Read more.
  • Everything we want to talk about in terms of the rampant violence and insidious mechanics of subjugation and control in Muslim communities is obscured and blocked off the most by our progressive allies.Read more.
  • “Beyond the ways in which personal-experience-as-the-road-to-empathy can dangerously reinforce the myths of shared experience, it also places a disproportionate burden on survivors to do the work of support, care, and advocacy.” Read more.
  • Person B: ‘Wait, I understood you. I just disagree‘” Read more.
  • “But the social media battles have shown that Sanders’s supporters also have become a major hurdle for the candidate in building a positive image with the black electorate.” Read more.
  • “Some people (mostly young white men) get really grumpy when their precious identity is besmirched in some way by the presence of somebody whom they find unworthy. But last weekend while I was in Portland, I ran into a sort of gatekeeping I never expected.” Read more.
  • “Yes, there are people who regret having abortions, and whose hearts will always be a little broken by their decisions. There are also people- although it’s even harder for them to share their story- who know that the decision to have children was a mistake.” Read more.
  • “Lo and behold, a year or so later she got pregnant. She asked me again what I wanted to do.” Read more.
  • He wrote it, but he didn’t realise it was offensive. (So why are you taking offence?)Read more.
  • “The ability to produce sperm and ova is simply that, but the political and social ramifications of having one’s person socially associated with certain modes of gametes production go far beyond any medical considerations.” Read more.
  • “They found absolutely nothing. But they found nothing in a useful way.” Read more.
  • “Even after the luncheon was over and the news spread like wildfire that Kitt had ‘made the First Lady cry,’ the pinnacle of class and grace that was Madame Eartha was not sorry.” Read more.
  • “In the case of the L’Oréal Foundation survey, both the questions and the interpretation seemed geared to making the problem of sexist attitudes look impossibly bad.” Read more.
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The Reading List, 10/4/2015
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