- Religious exemption at some Florida children’s homes shields prying eyes. Reading this article both infuriated me and made me want to cry. (Major child abuse trigger warning.) Religious people are not morally superior to everyone else, and the illusion that they are is no excuse for adding loopholes to anti-child abuse laws. Aaargh.
- Now something to cheer you up, after you’ve read that previous story: “We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He’d never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs [in English] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android.”
- Occupy: Jubilee. Occupy folks are buying up distressed credit and cancelling the debts. This is an awesome idea, which I hope flourishes. Although of course, if it becomes huge, that will have the inadvertent side effect of raising the price of distressed credit, making the project itself less viable.
- The writer of “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Toy Story 3” will write the screenplay for Star Wars: Episode VII
- If we hadn’t had waves of suffrage, and only white men were allowed to vote, then Romney would have won in 45 states. (Happily, my state – Oregon – is one of the five).
- “”Vote NO On Woman Suffrage… BECAUSE 80% of the women eligible to vote are married and can only double or annul their husbands’ votes.” Fannie discusses anti-suffrage arguments.
- Vintage Anti-Suffrage Postcards
- Contraceptives are an economic policy issue: The pill boosts earnings.
- Republican Pressure Leads to Withdrawal of Fact-Based Report by Nonpartisan CRS
- Is listening to conservative news media – with its insistence that all other news media is corrupt and full of lies – actually becoming a strategic disadvantage for Republicans? Conor Friedersdorf thinks so.
- Related: Apparently the folks running Romney’s campaign, including Romney himself, were shocked that they lost, because they had bought into the Conservative bubble’s “Romney is way ahead once you eliminate the MSM bias” spin on polling. I find that really surprising, and a bit distressing; I had always supposed that Romney and his closest advisers knew better than to live entirely within the right-wing bubble (just as I assume Obama et al don’t rely on The Nation and Daily Kos for all their info).
- I watched this Ted Talk by the excellent book designer Chip Kidd, but was distracted by envy of the way Chip Kidd dresses and presents himself. I want that jacket in my size. (Via).
- Can I Buy You A Coffee? | Ferrett Steinmetz This is such a great post. There’s a nice twist, so I don’t want to describe it, but I really enjoyed reading it. (I forgot who recommended it in comments, and I’m too lazy to go look, but whoever it was, thank you!).
- NOM’s Victim Spokesperson Calls President Obama The ‘Terrorist-In-Chief’ | ThinkProgress
- Creepshots And Consent In Cosplay. Why are there so many fans who say things like “she should have expected that if she dresses like that” – which is to say, fans who want to spread attitudes that, if they become universal, will make conventions and fan culture in general suck?
- I find this sort of controversy fascinating. NCsoft, a company that creates online roleplaying games, is discontinuing their superhero game “City of Heroes,” which was reportedly not losing money but also not making gobs of cash, to put more resources into their new game Blade and Soul, which seems to be much more about “hey! Look! Boobs!” than City of Heroes was, which is really saying something considering what superheroes wear. You can read the blog post linked above, and also this discussion on the City of Heroes forum. It really brings up contradictions with doing a group-creation project in which only a tiny percentage of contributing creators are actually owners of their work.
- There Is No Economic Basis for Holding Middle-Class Tax Cuts Hostage to Tax Cuts for Wealthy
- If you’re a fan of Dave Sim’s drawing, then you’ll enjoy this big gallery of Cerebus head sketches.
- Hawks vs. scolds: How ‘reverse tribalism’ affects climate communication | Grist
- A gallery of photographs of children smoking, by Frieka Janssens. Obviously a subject matter that some people will reflexively object to but the photos themselves are so freaking beautiful.
- Ending Rape Illiteracy | The Nation Really good article by Jessica Valenti, with a lot of really infuriating (and potentially triggering) examples.
- » “Violation: Rape In Gaming” is Out NOW! Edited by friend-of-Alas Clarisse Thorne, this looks like a really interesting collection. Even if you’re not going to buy a copy, click on over so you can look at the stunning cover illustration.
- I really want to see “The Other Son,” about a Palestinian and an Israeli who discover that they were switched at birth in the hospital. I seem to have an affinity for “Switched At Birth” tales – I’ve been really enjoying the teen soap show “Switched At Birth,” which is about a 16-year-old Deaf girl and a 16-year-old hearing girl who find out they were, er, switched at birth, and which has by far the best depiction of Deaf characters I’ve ever seen on TV.
- My friend Amberite makes handcrafted jewelry, collage art, and other items, and is currently trying to raise some funds. Please go check out her work.
Edited my comment since on a reread my initial comment sounded rather confrontational.
But you’re right, I am uncomfortable with the subject matter of #20. I’m no fan of smoking in general, but when done by adults who are aware of the risks that’s one thing. These are pictures of children being given an addictive poison by an adilt for an art project. These children are far too young to consent to this. I’m not disputing their aesthetic appeal, I’m just wondering about whether it is really a good argument for displaying them.
What the fucking fuck. That first link made me want to throw up. I doubt there’s a stauncher defender of religious rights on this blog than me, but bull fucking shit letting the state verify that you’re not abusing kids to death is a violation of your rights.
Thank you for setting the tone for the week. Gonna be a punchy one.
The kids aren’t actually smoking, Eytan. (Photoshop, I’d guess, with similar-sized non-tobacco objects used as props to get the right facial and hand shapes.)
There’s something very nasty/culturally imperialist underneath the second story – why not open the boxes and teach the children? Because “primitive” brown children make such good research objects? Because it’s just so much more *dramatic* that way?
I remember fondly some of Amp’s posts on the politics of fat people dancing. Thought you might enjoy a couple of links to British soap star Lisa Riley kicking all kinds of ass on this year’s Strictly Come Dancing:
Cha Cha Cha
Foxtrot
That cover art IS amazing, right?! I was really lucky to find that artist. Her site is here: http://eijanejanetlin.com/
Lotesse, so you’re saying that “I bet these kids can figure out amazing things on their own if we stay out of the way” is culturally imperialist, whereas “we must provide a teacher so that these ignorant children will be able to use this wonderful gift we so generously are giving them” would be the non-imperialist route? Seems a little backward. Of course I am saying that from my position of “forward privilege”.
Somebody here might know: is The Ferrett of the “coffee” article above, The Ferrett of the execrable “Open Source Boob Project” from a few years back? And if so, has he done something (hopefully multiple somethings) to redeem himself as A Person Who Might Get It About Sexism and Male Privilege in the intervening time? Because I read the article, liked it a lot, then realized “wait this might be that guy…” and was really reluctant to spread it around if so, given what I last knew about his reaction to the whole OSBP mess.
Yes, same guy. (Or someone who has taken the same name and is copying blog posts to or from his LiveJournal.)
Yes, it’s him.
I think he’s responded to his mistakes re: osbp with genuine introspection and change, evidenced by a shift in his writing and speaking about feminist issues, as well as conversations weve had about it. His initial apologies didn’t wash, but he’s since been very clear that he understands he was being ignorant, including by repudiating people’s belated attempts to defend him.
I’ve heard others disagree, but I am quite comfortable dealing with him as sincere and commendably willing to self-reflect, if occasionally still learning, which, aren’t we all?
I didn’t follow the original kerfuffle other than as vague disturbance in the penumbra of the emanation from fandom, but he certainly seems to be sorry now.
@3 – Thanks Robert. Colour me fooled. And foolish.
@4 Lotesse – I think there’s a real economic issue here. If the pads are an effective tool for kids without a teacher supervising, that means that it’ll be significantly less expensive to spread the pads around, meaning more kids can be given pads.
@5 Lilka – Thank you! Those are awesome (and let me to finding some others to watch)! Made my day.
@8 Elusis – Wow, I didn’t make that connection at all. Nice to know people can improve.
@12 Eytan – They do look awfully realistic – or, if not, then only as unrealistic as the rest of the photos look. So are you able to enjoy the photos now, or do they still squick you?
Mandolin – great to know, thank you. I have to believe people can change, given my profession; I just want to see evidence if they’re people I don’t know. :)
Amp @13 – Well, on a personal level, the pictures still seriously squick me. This is not a subject matter I can comfortably look at, real or fake. But I’m glad this wasn’t a real case of an artist harming children for her art.
On another note, I find #6 really telling not only in its sexism and fear of women, but in how dismissive it is of voting in general. The slogan on the front page – “Votes of women can accomplish no more than votes of men. Why waste time, energy and money, without result?” – only makes sense if you believe that the votes of men are also worthless.
I know its petty, and Eytan, I completely respect your right to have your opinion about things and to be squicked by whatever you like.
But I am overwhelmed with the desire to come camp on your lawn in a pup tent and whenever I see you, shoot up heroin and chug Budweiser and smoke stogies and shout lewd phrases. (I’ll just pretend with the heroin, ‘cos heroin is bad, mkay, but I can make it look realistic enough for a goodie two-shoes like you .)