The Reading List, 12/6/2015

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.

  • Christianist Republicans Systematically Incited Colorado Clinic Assault“–“Elected Republicans in the states have sought to intimidate women and providers by demanding the release (and even publication) of identifying information and addresses—essentially a target list for perpetrators. They know exactly what they are doing.”
  • When Feminism Is a Brand“–“However, I do not want us to forget that we have seen this behavior before, in environments that have nothing to do with the sex industry, or even with sex at all. Remember Hugo Schwyzer? Or Hart Noecker? Or Kyle Payne?”
  • Vandal of Louisville abortion clinic released from jail, returns to clinic“–“Anne of EMW told IL that despite her attempts to get information from LMPD about Haste’s release and why he is allowed near the clinic, she has been kept in the dark. Additionally, she claims that either an officer or prosecutor who was in court with Haste on Monday asked her for details about the case, indicating that he did not know she had surveillance video of both incidents, which were not collected by the LMPD until Tuesday of this week.”
  • Fiorina: It’s ‘Left-Wing’ To Link Planned Parenthood Attack To Videos“–“‘This is so typical of the left to immediately begin demonizing a messenger because they don’t agree with the message,’ Fiorina said.”
  • “Now is the time to reiterate how important abortion care is to women’s health and well-being – not just cancer screenings, not just contraception. Abortion. A procedure that saves lives, that offers freedom, bodily integrity, and equality.” Read more.
  • “I worked at a #PlannedParenthood clinic in Kansas for 3 years. My coworkers & I were subjected to the following acts of terrorism:” Read more.
  • Sorry, conservatives, but there is nothing surprising about anti-choice terrorism“–“Ever since the Paris attacks, we’ve been hearing from the right how there is no excuse for religious fundamentalists using violence to terrorize people for the making life choices the fundamentalists don’t approve of. I do wish they would take their own advice on this front.”
  • Why It Matters That Both Civilian Victims of the Planned Parenthood Shooting were People of Colour“–“Mass shootings are heartbreaking, but perhaps most upsetting about Friday’s shooting is how it focuses attention specifically on those who are most affected by anti-abortionists’ enduring war on reproductive rights.”
  • How Talking to Undergraduates Changed My Mind“–“Duke students living in a constant state of fear? Was this an exaggeration or a frightening new reality for many? Listening to them speak up one after another, I sadly came to realize it was the latter.”
  • Before Shooting, Cruz Touted Endorsement From Activist Who Called For Execution Of Abortion Doctors“–“In September, Australian officials revoked a visa for Newman over concerns that his presence and rhetoric could ‘lead to threats or the commission of acts of violence against women or medical professionals.’ Newman traveled to Australia anyway but was denied entry into the country and deported.”
  • Dear Conference Organizers: A No-Fooling-Around Note About Diversity“–“Generally speaking, I’m an easy speaker to work with: again, my honorarium is low, my travel requirements are pretty minimal, and I try to be as flexible as possible. But this is an extremely high priority for me. In my opinion, this issue — making our communities more welcoming and more supportive of a wider variety of people than are currently participating — is the most important issue currently facing organized atheism in the United States.”
  • On the Front Lines“–“We’re in Minnesota, the protesters are more annoying than scary.  But it doesn’t have to be a regular, it only needs to be one person.  Can I really do this?”
  • James Deen Was Never a Feminist Idol“–(CN: details of rape accusation) “It’s not that James Deen appeals to women—in the face of extreme erotic scarcity, women molded Deen into someone who appealed to them. For many of them, Deen was little more than just a conduit for expressing their sexuality, or a key to an online erotic world that had previously been closed.”
  • More than Words: Humanists Should Stand for Secular Social Justice“–“While I am very excited to be a part of this event, I’m also a bit puzzled at how many people have questioned the necessity of holding this convention. It’s both frustrating and amusing that, for some, addressing specific social injustices is even remotely controversial, and yet those same naysayers attend any other atheist meeting without hesitation.”
  • Christian Terrorist Robert Dear and the Army of God “–“The Army of God manual is a terrorist manual, and the Army of God is a terrorist organization—and these are people Robert Dear apparently admired and emulated. And the Army of God is no passive group, simply advising terrorist acts.”
  • Updated for 2015: Dana’s Super-Gargantuan Guide to Science Books Suitable for Gift-Giving“–“No list? No problem! I’ve got you covered with a super-awesome, super-gargantuan guide to many books suitable for secular gifting.”
  • Post-Convention Insecurities“–“But I spend conventions trying to be ‘on.’ Trying to be friendly and entertaining and hopefully sound like I know what the heck I’m talking about. Basically, trying to be clever. And I trust most of you are familiar with the failure state of clever?”
  • Hours before San Bernardino shooting, doctors urged Congress to lift funding ban on gun violence research“–“Signed by more than 2,000 physicians around the country, it pleads with lawmakers to lift a restriction that for nearly two decades has essentially blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research on gun violence.”
  • It’s On Us, Too: An Easy Guide To Contacting Your Elected Representatives About Gun Control“–“PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE. Take a little bit of time out of your day today and call or email your representatives. Not doing so — staying silent and privately grieving — isn’t enough anymore.
The Reading List, 12/6/2015
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The Reading List, 10/11/2015

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.

  • “Bistline wrote that FLDS bishop Lyle Jeffs would use ‘the FLDS Church’s voicemail system to alert families that the harvest would begin.’ A 15-year-old girl wrote that she worked the farm for three years, beginning when she was 10. She testified she was not paid for any of her work.” Read more.
  • “Atheism can motivate terrible crimes, just like religion can. This is a thing we have to get used to.  Atheists are so used to being exceptional, to being smarter and less criminal than other Americans, that the fact that someone was an atheist and did a bad thing seems to be exceedingly difficult for us to understand.” Read more.
  • “The general plot is the playwright’s own, but his characters are the historical figures I unearthed, and snippets of the dialogue they speak appear in the archival evidence presented in my book.” Read more.
  • “Bad reviews of businesses have typically gone viral because those businesses have acted in discriminatory or otherwise unfair ways, but people have gone viral for things as innocuous (and irrelevant to normal people who have shit to do besides stalking people they don’t like) as speaking at a feminist rally, being a bad date, or simply existing.” Read more.
  • “Skepticon strives to create a yearly event that is accessible for as many attendees as possible. This year, we’re hoping to take that mission a step further” Read more.
  • “Charamsa, flanked by his Catalan boyfriend Eduardo and wearing his priest’s collar, told a news conference in Rome he had been compelled to speak out against what he said was the hypocrisy and paranoia that shapes the Church’s attitude to sexual minorities.” Read more.

Continue reading “The Reading List, 10/11/2015”

The Reading List, 10/11/2015

The Reading List, 10/8/2015

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.

  • “With more and more women brought up to believe that sports can be their space, too, it’s natural for them to expect a seat at the table when sports come up in conversation. And yet, 40 years after Robin Herman became the first female reporter to enter an NFL locker room, women are still fighting a war against rampant sexism in the industry, with Twitter and Facebook serving as the new frontlines.” Read more.
  • “Particularly on television, reporters used visual as well as verbal content to shape the meaning of feminism for public consumption. Negative coverage used extreme close-ups to make radical feminists appear wild-eyed and eccentric, and other stories featured multiple images of women protesting while never interviewing them on camera, making feminism into a kind of visual spectacle.” Read more.
  • “But alongside that genetic understanding, an old and pernicious assumption has crept back into the American conversation, in which aptitudes are supposedly inherited by race: certain peoples are thought to have rhythm, or intellect, or speed or charm. That’s a fast track toward the old 19th- and early 20th-century problem of ‘scientific’ racism.” Read more.
  • “Georgina sat on the bed and sang a song about being kidnapped and the home and family she feared she would never see again.  Across the hall George laid on bed his listening to her sing, and he hummed along because he couldn’t understand the words.” Read more.
  • “I voted to authorize a strike because our employers in the games industry refuse to negotiate with us at all about some very, very important issues surrounding our working conditions.” Read more.
  • “This has led some people to regard [Justice Kennedy] as a ‘moderate’ or ‘swing vote’ on these matters. Since then, however, he has yet to come across an abortion restriction he finds unconstitutional, and his opinions drip with paternalism and moral condemnation of a pregnant person in need of an abortion.” Read more.
  • “There is allegedly another employee still working at DC who allegedly assaulted a woman multiple times in his office. The woman concerned reported him multiple times to management at DC and the person who hired her, but didn’t receive the support she needed and eventually left DC altogether.” Read more.
  • “And of course, as a feminist atheist, the reproductive war against women is one of our biggest challenges. FFRF began right after Roe v. Wade, and we’ve lost so much ground since then.” Read more.
  • “So while CBO estimates that cutting off federal funds to Planned Parenthood would reduce spending by $520 million 10 ten years, it would also increase spending by $650 million over that period. The net effect is an increase in spending of $130 million. ” Read more.
  • “And you need to put time and effort into your culture, and into making sure that everyone feels someone has their back, they have someone they can go to. I think startups gloss over that. They think, ‘We can do that later, that’s a big-company kind of thing.’ And what I’ve learned is we should have done that from the very beginning.” Read more.
  • “‘Patients must be able to make fully informed decisions about their health care,’ said Amanda Knief, national legal and public policy director for American Atheists, and author of the bill. ‘This legislation would help patients get the information they need to navigate the increasingly complicated—and increasingly religious—health care marketplace.'” Read more.
  • “There are a lot of other factors that can be overlaid here to add some gray space: preventability, trends, definitions. Regardless, it’s clear that terrorism holds an outsized role in political debate for the demonstrated threat it poses to American citizens.” Read more.
  • “Joking about ‘Bitey the Clown’ internally, however, does not seem to follow these guidelines. A company culture where someone’s ongoing misbehavior and sexual harassment habits becomes a joke is not one where employers have made the seriousness of harassment obvious, despite their statement.” Read more.
  • “But put these two things together — Voter ID and 28 counties without a place where you can get a driver’s license — and Voter ID becomes what the Democrats always said it was. A civil rights lawsuit isn’t a probability. It’s a certainty.” Read more.
  • “Amidst conservative outrage over abortion practices and the distribution of fetal tissue at Planned Parenthood clinics — and an aggressive Congressional hearing with the organization’s president Cecile Richards this week — an alleged act of arson took place at the Thousand Oaks, California location Wednesday night.” Read more.
The Reading List, 10/8/2015

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.
The Reading List, 10/4/2015

The Reading List, 9/22/2015

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.

  • “All in all, this growing community of atheists and secularists in the Caribbean that we have seen has led to the emergence of more activists, not only in atheism but in related areas such as LGBT rights.” Read more.
  • “That’s something for therapy, perhaps, not for you, or anyone else who isn’t getting paid by the session.” Read more.
  • “But you’ve lost. And you’re going to have to face up to the fact you’ve lost. There are no do-overs. There are no more games.” Read more.
  • “Leaving aside the substance of these points, which are deeply disingenuous and perhaps even offensive to nonbelievers, look at the words being used: Virus. Infect. Course of treatment. Spiritual health.Read more.
  • “A study of the 2005 General Election in the UK found that in the Conservative party, men were selected to contest seats that were easier to win, while women were selected to contest seats that were unwinnable.” Read more.
  • “That already-low number drops off precipitously when it comes to black children: Only 21 percent were given opioids, versus 43 percent of white patients. Overall, the researchers found that black kids with acute appendicitis only have a 12.2-percent chance of receiving proper pain management. ” Read more.
  • “The stigma of public morality, fueled by white supremacy and patriarchy, has always come down more heavily on black women. Religious right policies gutting reproductive health care disproportionately affect poor and working class black women.” Read more.
  • “If you take nothing else from this post, take this: if you have no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to legal issues like this, don’t offer ‘friendly’ advice. You’re just going to make the aforementioned psychological cost that much worse.” Read more.
  • “‘There was a rule in place, for whatever reason, that girls couldn’t wear leggings,’ Brockett recalls. ‘We found ourselves fighting the leggings without any of us knowing why.'” Read more.
  • “It was disorienting to spend our class discussing the ethics of mourning and the application of Holocaust, postcolonial and trauma theories to 9/11, only to return to my office to find dozens of emails accusing me of sympathizing with terrorists, calling for the deportation or extermination of all Muslims or telling me to’“go back where I came from.'” Read more.
  • “Indeed, whether in sports, politics or business, the best leaders are usually humble — and whether through nature or nurture, humility is a much more common feature in women than men.” Read more.
  • “When I was a little younger than Ahmed Mohamed is now, I invented the distance formula for Cartesian coordinates.” Read more.
The Reading List, 9/22/2015

The Reading List, 9/18/2015

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.

 

  • “I did not feel I could sink any lower. I did not believe I had anything left to lose.  I walked into a Directors Guild of America Women’s Steering Committee meeting asking questions and demanding answers.” Read more.
  • “That’s important because Universal had argued that fair use has to be considered an ‘affirmative defense’ of otherwise unlawful conduct. The panel of judges dismantled that idea.” Read more.
  • “But Ben and Kepner didn’t just save their activist writing for Vice Versa and ONE. Their science fiction writing was full of their desires for a more equal world.” Read more.
  • “Don’t be like Bill.” Read more.
  • “This video is a telling bit of MRA ephemera. I almost admire the efficiency of it. Why go through the process of hitting on women, getting rejected, and doing the pathetic ‘I didn’t want you anyway, you smelly bitch!’ rationalization dance, when you can skip directly to the last step?” Read more.
  • Cillizza and Berman are right about the perceptions. It seems worth pointing out, however, that no woman has the option of this kind of candor.” Read more.
  • “That all would be traumatizing enough, but these campaigns are structured so the damage is permanent — all of that information is compiled on sites, wikis, defamatory tabloid style blogs, and Youtube videos. The message is clear: this is forever. It’s never going away.” Read more.
  • “Oatmeal is generally considered a no-no on the modern paleo diet, but the original paleo eaters were definitely grinding oats and other grains for dinner, according to new research.” Read more.
  • “It follows a letter from education minister Hakuban Shimomura sent to all of Japan’s 86 national universities, which called on them to take ‘active steps to abolish [social science and humanities] organisations or to convert them to serve areas that better meet society’s needs’.” Read more.
  • “But it appears that the solution is a simple one: diverse creators and producers lead to diverse crews.” Read more.
  • “A 28-year-old programmer I spoke to mentioned that she too had ‘aged out’ of the recruiter tables. Every discussion I attended that involved older women (and there weren’t many) emphasized that we were there to mentor, preferably from managerial roles that we had achieved by ‘leaning in.'” Read more.
  • “Now, the Superman office allegedly employs no women, and a cursory glance over the mastheads of several Superman titles and Wonder Woman seems to confirm that allegation. The reason, I’ve been told by several people who work or used to work at DC, is because one of the most senior editors is a sexual harasser with multiple incidents on his HR file.” Read more.

 

The Reading List, 9/18/2015

The Reading List, 9/16/2015

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.

  • “All Paul Elam and company are doing is making seeking treatment even harder by portraying mental health professionals as man-haters who must ‘[accept] that men have problems vs. the default assumption that men are the problem.’ I’ve never had any professional, ever, tell me that what happened to me or that my mental conditions were my fault. I have, however, had MRAs repeatedly attack me and mock me.” Read more.
  • “We need police to value the lives of everyone in the community – yes, even the criminal ones. We need to imbue our police with a social service mentality rather than a siege one.” Read more.
  • “I’d thought this would be obvious, but perhaps it’s not: When I say ‘leader,’ I don’t mean ‘person you never oppose.’ I don’t mean ‘person who tells you what to believe.’ I don’t mean ‘enforcer of a dictated belief system.’ I don’t mean ‘dictator’; I don’t mean ‘demagogue’; I don’t mean ‘pope.'” Read more.
  • “Fans may be concerned about the lack of details whenever allegations about creators emerge– frequently through the inherently untrustworthy platform of social media– but if you’re a journalist, that frustration is amplified to a huge extent because you can’t speak for fear of endangering sources, who won’t speak themselves for fear of ruining their careers, while publishers are well aware of the bad behavior of their employees and choose to either do nothing about it or in some cases even encourage it.” Read more.
  • “And after a year and a half, while I absolutely believe Edmondson’s an asshole and did what he’s accused of, as a journalist who believes in checking sources and facts, I have not had enough to run a story I felt I could defend in court. Because, I’ve been warned numerous times, if I ran it I should expect to be sued.” Read more.
  • “‘Kevin far exceeded institutional requirements in reporting potential conflicts of interest,’ wrote Dr. Payne. ‘His disclosures were not merely filled out and summarily buried in an electronic filing cabinet, Dr. Folta broadcast Monsanto’s support for his outreach efforts by thanking the company publicly and disclosing its contributions at the beginning of his outreach talks.'” Read more.
  • “The very fact that genderbending is a thing draws attention to standards of dress and the depiction of gender in fiction. However, its done as a celebration of a character rather so it doesn’t end up being grumpy. Its fun and often funny, and comedy is often the best form of commentary.” Read more.
  • “I would have walked away without a second thought, as this kind of harassment is usually written off as a joke by men who have spent too much time offshore away from their wives. I wouldn’t have bothered to even report the problem once I had plugged the hole myself — why create drama and give the men another reason to complain about allowing women on the ship?” Read more.
  • “Ok, but what happens if someone registers to vote and none of your friends knows that person personally? Do you just reject them out of hand? Does that mean that they’re not actually a science fiction and/or fantasy fan? Yeah, I’m being facetious.” Read more.
  • “Where is Adam Lambert’s line for Gap Kids, promoted with an upbeat commercial of young boys playing with dolls and doing ballet while wearing shiny sparkly glam clothes and lipgloss while Diamond Rings serenades us all?” Read more.
  • “The voters (well, some) find the choosing amusing;
    It’s theatre, played on the world’s grandest stage!
    It’s comedy, tragedy, mystery, history,
    Farce, at a level defining an age!” Read more.
  • “The people raising religious objections to same-sex marriage take pains to try and distance themselves from earlier generations of people who objected to mixed-race marriages on religious grounds but the parallels are just too close to make that effort successful. North Carolina has a particularly ugly history with this kind of marriage bigotry and one case demonstrates that this is just a new version of an old story.” Read more.
The Reading List, 9/16/2015

The Reading List, 9/13/2015

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.

  • “The Red Wolf announcement is a real life version of the comics trope of a villain making a hero choose which victim to save– basically, anyone who speaks out about Edmondson being part of Red Wolf must also be aware that they are doing harm to representation in comics. Do you want Native Americans to be better represented in comics? Then you must also accept this alleged serial predator being involved in the title. Do you want this alleged serial predator to get outed and stop getting jobs in comics? Then you must accept potentially dooming a book that opens up diversity in comics.” Read more.
  • “In DBT there’s something called Wise Mind. It’s the balance between emotions and reason. When you’re in Wise Mind, you’re aware of your values and goals, and also capable of paying close attention to the facts at hand. TWs give me the space to try to be in Wise Mind. It’s that moment of mindfulness that makes me pull away from the strong emotional reactions I would have otherwise.” Read more.
  • “Knoxville news station WBIR reported that Jackie Sims, the mother of a 15-year-old boy at Knox County Schools’ L&N Stem Academy, had objected to Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks when he brought it home as part of his summer reading. Her son has now been assigned a different text, but Sims is attempting to get Skloot’s biography of the African-American whose cancer cells – taken from her without her knowledge and which subsequently changed modern medicine – pulled from all Knox County schools.” Read more.
  • “Family First national director Bob McCoskrie said in a statement his group welcomed the interim banning of Into the River and the move could set a benchmark for restricting offensive content to younger readers in New Zealand. Media law expert Professor Ursula Cheer told the New Zealand Herald it was legal to possess a copy of the book for your personal use but not to supply it to anyone else.” Read more.
  • “I thought that having more realistic people and pet characters would hopefully excite her more about building with Legos. I was wrong, every time I showed them to her she was wholly uninterested. Her first Lego set was actually Sponge Bob which she loved a great deal. My son however did express an interest in Lego Friends (he still doesn’t have any, only because other sets he liked a little bit better). This was the first time my son had really been highly interested in a toy marketed to girls.” Read more.
  • “Yes, I found the all-black, female college group on my predominantly white campus of Iowa State University . . . but I was still an outcast for spending my nights chatting online, writing fanfiction, watching copious amounts of Yu Yu Hakusho, and destroying my fingers trying to beat Guilty Gear X2 on its hardest difficulty setting. So my defenses were way, way up when I went to my first anime convention, but when I walked through those doors I found so many people who got it, because no matter what size they were or the color of their skin, they knew what it was like to be picked on for being yourself.” Read more.
  • “It could be a show starring an unapologetically girly, silly, fun, and witty host doing science demonstrations and interviewing brilliant scientists and engineers. I would love that! It could be like Felicia Day’s Flog for science, or a cousin of Emily Graslie’s The Brain Scoop. But it’s not. It’s a show starring a hapless character who takes pride in not being able to do anything.” Read more.
  • “We need to start calling things by their real names. This is gender terrorism.” Read more.
  • “However, this isn’t an example of any kind of genetic freeloading. If anything, it means that a few of those previous male’s cells might get enslaved to contribute to the somatic tissues of your child: the germ line, the cells that produce the gonads of the child and are going to produce your grandchildren, are set aside very early in development and are not going to incorporate the microchimeras, especially since the microchimeras consist of primarily previously differentiated cells that are not in the totipotent state of a germ cell. There is no genetic cuckolding going on. I just have to roll my eyes at this paranoia of MRAs.” Read more.
  • “It requires so much information – good luck if you haven’t had consistent health care. It requires so much waiting and waiting and waiting and fucking waiting.  Lots of people give up after that first rejection. Even more after the rejected appeal. Your life is picked apart as complete strangers examine every part of it.  If you can’t lift 30 pounds with your chronic illness, can you lift 10?  You can’t speak on the phone without a panic attack, but how about customers face to face?” Read more.
  • “However, even in the best conversations with officers, just as I have with theists, there is usually a missing piece of history that they gloss over or blatantly dismiss. For theists, it might be the whole killing babies thing, inability to reconcile creation thing, or the Flood that never happened thing. For many police supporters, its the the historicity of policing and its influence on the way they approach minority communities they over police.” Read more.
  • “Murdoch is a notorious climate change denier, and his family’s Fox media empire is the world’s primary source of global warming misinformation. Which would be no big deal here, I guess, were it not for the fact that the National Geographic Society’s mission includes giving grants to scientists. Or had you forgotten?” Read more.
The Reading List, 9/13/2015

The Reading List, 9/10/2015

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.

  • “And yet…I still need community. Badly. I need community when my friends and family reject me based on what, to me, are clearly fairy tales. And I know that’s a vulnerable thing to say, but I also know I am not the only one.  Believe it or not, there are atheists of many different backgrounds who struggle a lot with their atheism, and it’s not because they secretly think God exists.” Read more.
  • “One RH-related project we’ve been working on and are launching soon is one that focuses on the issue of abortion, which is currently illegal in the Philippines. We want to start a discussion on this taboo topic to dispel the myths and misconceptions surrounding something that affects many: despite being illegal, there were over 500,000 abortions in 2008. We’re aiming for decriminalization first, but eventually, legalization in some cases (currently, there is no exception even to save the life of the mother).” Read more.
  • “These topics can include; leaving religion, atheism, skepticism, art, poetry readings, (your own) book readings, how-to workshops and DIY workshops, feminism, activism, crafting, science, community building and other such empowering subjects. If you have an idea, pitch it to me!” Read more.
  • “Whether you like it or not, whether you realise it or not, your life is tangibly better because of fat women who live unapologetically, who wedge the gates of acceptance open wider every day. I fight for you in your capacity as a woman who wants to be more than just a body. I fight for you in your capacity as a woman whose body is scrutinised and policed every moment of your life.” Read more.
  • “Legal historian Paul Finkelman (Albany Law) has made a compelling case against the label ‘compromise’ to describe the legislative packages that avoided disunion in the antebellum era.1 In particular, Finkelman has dissected and analyzed the deals struck in 1850. Instead of the ‘Compromise of 1850,’ which implies that both North and South gave and received equally in the bargains over slavery, the legislation should be called the ‘Appeasement of 1850.'” Read more.
  • “As a doctor who has an interest in physiology, this stuff sounds really cool. But it is just a tiny study, with no clinical significance of any kind. To be clinically significant, it would have to be a much larger study, it would need a control group of subjects who did not get exercise or vitamin C, and it would have to measure a clinically relevant outcome, something like blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes–something that would tell us if the findings can help real patients.” Read more.
  • “Debates about the condition aside, Boehringer Ingelheim, the company that originally developed flibanserin, and Sprout, which acquired the drug in 2012, tested the drug in clinical trials in which 1,227 women diagnosed with HSDD received the now-approved 100-milligram dose at bedtime. After 24 weeks of treatment, 43 to 60 percent of patients saw an improvement of about nine to 14 percent over placebo, which translated to an additional 0.5 to one satisfying sexual experience per month.” Read more.
The Reading List, 9/10/2015

The Reading List, 9/8/2015

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.

  • “The reality of Ashley Madison, just like the reality of everything else about sex, was different from the image carved out during advertising strategy sessions. It’s appalling that so many people whose public identities are founded on being skeptical of the default expectations of sexuality and gender dumped that much-vaunted skepticism as soon as they saw a chance to score points on Josh Duggar or whatever other symbol of mainstream sexuality they discerned in that great Rorschach blot of data.” Read more.
  • “None of this is going down because Americans are anti-choice or opposed to the basic tenets of reproductive justice. A majority of Americans support abortion rights and oppose closing abortion clinics. A majority of Americans believe LGBT people are entitled to start families just like anyone else. A majority of Americans support the ACA’s birth control benefit.” Read more.
  • “The convenient thing about choosing your political stances based on what you believe is right is that it doesn’t really matter to me if social justice work is full of assholes. (I mean, it does, but not for the sake of this particular argument.) There are assholes everywhere.” Read more.
  • “…I also don’t think most people know what to do when they see this happening. I hardly expect 15 or so people in the vicinity approved—several were women my age. To that end, here are some things that might have helped me either feel less trapped or bring the catcalling and following to end.” Read more.
  • “Puckett said the higher wages did not cause Punch to increase prices. He also said it “has had a big impact culturally in the company.” He said that retention of employees is up, which helps them save money on hiring and training. He estimates the average worker in the front — cashiers and waiters who are often students — work about three years, while the kitchen workers average five years of employment, which is very high for this transitory industry.” Read more.
  • “For the second debate on 16 September in California, CNN is asking $200,000 (£130,000), 40 times its normal rate, for a 30-second prime-time spot. TV advertising strategists say it is hard to quantify Trump’s value to the media, or the value of non-stop free media attention to Trump’s commanding lead over the Republican field, but CNN’s ad price is a good indicator.” Read more.
  • “Johnson says when she told her U.S. History Professor Maury Wiseman that she disagreed with his assessment that Native Americans did not face Genocide – the professor said she was hijacking his class, and that she was accusing him of bigotry and racism. The professor then dismissed the class early, apologized for Johnson’s disruptions and told her she was disenrolled at the end of the class on Friday.” Read more.
  • “Here is where I get really conflicted: I think that churches should provide that space for doubters, but I don’t trust them to handle it right. And I doubt I’m the only one who feels that way.” Read more.
  • “There’s a plan in place here—the trouble is, I can’t start executing it until I’ve left Berlin, and right now I can’t afford to do that. A year ago, when I was in monetary meltdown below the bottom of my overdraft, people who read this blog came to my aid, and as a result of projects they hired me to carry out—as a translator, editor, graphic designer—I haven’t been in the red since.” Read more.
The Reading List, 9/8/2015