- Please go sign the petition for single payer health care. And (more importantly), go see if your congressional representative is on this list, and if they are, contact them and ask them to co-sponsor HR 676, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act.
- The torture conducted by the U.S. government includes rape.
- Dollhouse first episode reviews at What A Crazy Random Happenstance, Art At the Auction, Constant Thoughts, and Art At the Auction again. If you only read one of those links, I’d highly recommend the last one.
- Oh, and this post, arguing that Echo from Dollhouse is thematically the opposite of Dawn from Buffy.
- Headless fatties. (The first use of the term?)
- The Connection Between Blacks As Apes And Police Brutality.
- Imaginary Fat Toys As Cautionary Tales
- Slut Shaming And The Politics Of Tight Clothes
- Madinkbeard analyzes a panel from an old David Mazzucchelli comic, “Discovering America.” For my tastes, “Discovering America” is the single best-drawn comic I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, it’s long out of print, and copies are expensive.
- I am bored by sports, but sometimes enjoy sports writing. This NYTimes Magazine article, about a great basketball player whose greatness is invisible to conventional basketball stats, is quite good.
- Over at Fat Chicks Rule, in comments, an employee of the Rudd Center responds to fat activist criticism of the Rudd Center, and the fat activists respond in turn.
- Celebrate Black History Month At Walmart.
- I love this gastric bypass t-shirt. A shame it’s not available in sizes above XXL.
- Ten Cartoons from Sean Delonas. I’ve seen them before, but the awesome extent of his bigoted asshattery becomes clearer when seeing them all collected together like this.
- Reflections by an Arab Jew. (I know this and the above link came from “Alas” comments, but I’m too lazy right now to go find out who I should give credit to, so apologies for that.)
- The 1965 Dewey’s Lunch Counter Sit-In’s. “It’s the first documented instance of people protesting over anti-transgender discrimination. … It was an African-American GLBT production.” Curtsy: TransGriot.
- The Case For A Public Health Care Plan. A public health care alternative isn’t just worthwhile as a trojan horse for an eventual single-payer system; it’s a necessary element of making private plans work well.
- Immigrant in “detention center” denied health care because it was assumed he was faking, dies of cancer. I hope the family’s lawsuit is successful. And see also: Abuses Rampant In U.S. Detention Centers.
- On The Indefensibility of the Filibuster
- Boldly sacrificing Mexican lives in order to make it marginally more difficult for Americans to get high.
- Hilzoy explains why the Democrats never make the Republicans actually do a filibuster — it’s much harder on the majority party than on the party doing the filibuster.
- Why Michelle Obama’s Vogue Cover Matters
- In France, heterosexuals are flocking to the “marraige light” alternative created to avoid letting same-sex couples marry. So much for preserving marriage.
- Our taxes pay for “you can’t rape a slut!” abstinence only messages.
- Anti-earmark ideology hurts the country.
- Free book on free range kids. We’re raising our kids to live fearful, constrained lives, and we shouldn’t be.
- More responses to “Why Tom Zarek Was Right.”
- Rape victim blamed for mistaken ID caused by a racist justice system, bad police practices and a DA ignoring evidence.
- How Not To Write Science.
- The idea that one should learn standard English in order to not be discriminated against is poisonous.
I apologize for my last comment. Trump's election is the fault of Trump voters and no one else (well, Putin,…
In France, heterosexuals are flocking to the “marraige light” alternative created to avoid letting same-sex couples marry. So much for preserving marriage.
So? Why should marriage be preserved if it can’t compete anyway? (To be very libertarian about it, but really what’s so great about marriage that it must be preserved against people who clearly prefer an alternative?) I ask as a (heterosexual) person who is taking advantage of the “marriage lite” domestic partnership laws of NYC.
I have nothing against heterosexuals getting domestic partnered or civil unionized. I’d like to see all of these options (and some others) available to all consenting adults, regardless of sex. And I’m truly glad that domestic partnership laws have benefited you.
But if there weren’t people saying that marriage needs to be “preserved” through discrimination against same-sex couples, then there’d be no domestic partnership laws. So it’s ironic that these same laws actually do more to “undermine” marriage than marriage equality ever would.
PG is the source of the Arab Jew link (I suspect she’s too modest to take credit for it herself!).
“On The Indefensibility Of The Filibuster”
The result of the unusually high number of veto points compared to other liberal democracies has been worse policy outcomes with no discernible gain in human rights.
Here in the U.S. we have the right to offend people with free speech without having to worry about being arrested or sued, unlike in other liberal democracies such as Canada. We also have the right to keep and bear arms, and it’s my hope that the end-arounds I anticipate on that (serializing ammunition, reclassifying ammunition as explosive devices, requiring federal permits with ridiculous fees, etc.) will be blocked by a filibuster. Those are two pretty important human rights right there.
“Why Michelle Obama’s Vogue Cover Matters”
Someone help me out here. How many people in this world really care who’s on the cover of Vogue? How many people in this world know who’s on the cover of Vogue or any other fashion magazine? How relevant is this kind of thing overall?
“Free Book on Free Range Kids”
Some past Boing Boing posts have talked about how children’s lives in the UK and North America have become more and more stifled by overprotective adults in the last few decades. This 2007 book by Tim Gill, now free in its entirety online, show how many of these efforts are largely misdirected, and even counterproductive.
…
Over the past 30 years activities that previous generations of children enjoyed without a second thought have been relabelled as troubling or dangerous, and the adults who permit them branded as irresponsible. No Fear argues that childhood is being undermined by the growth of risk aversion and its intrusion into every aspect of children’s lives.
I and my fellow leaders in my local Scout Troop have been running a campaign against this for years. I would add to the above the tendency of the school districts to drug kids rather than deal with their natural personalities (yes, some kids do have a problem that needs medical intervention, but the schools abuse this). I wonder how many copies of the PDF I can get away with printing out?
Although I think that the book’s contents are very valid, they miss a main point that I think is very important. What I see a lot of is that kids are risk adverse not only physically but mentally and emotionally. Kids are being taught that failure is wrong and is something to be avoided at all cost. We have a horrible time in our Troop getting kids to be leaders and to try new things because if you are a leader or if you try a new activity you can fail. They’ve been taught to quit or avoid an activity if there is a risk of failure. Part of that is that parents are constantly worried about their child’s “self esteem” and part of it is that they think that failing something will count against their kids’ chances to get into a good college. But self esteem is built by overcoming obstacles through one’s own efforts to gain an objective, especially if there is initial failure. Succeeding at something where success is guaranteed from the start, especially if the guarantee comes from one’s parents or teachers, does nothing to build self esteem and in fact damages it (IMNSHO).
“How Not To Write Science”
Science is dealt with terribly overall in the media. You can constantly see stuff like this. Newspapers, etc. should pretty much disqualify any J-School graduate from writing about science unless he or she also has a science degree; if that’s not possible, at least have someone with a degree in science fact-check and/or edit it.
The idea that one should learn standard English in order to not be discriminated against is poisonous.
How is the word “discriminated” being used in the context of the article (which I did read and still was confused)? If you do not speak standard English in America then you will have a very hard time communicating with people. If people have a hard time communicating with you then you’ll likely not be able to get a decent job, not have money, and thus have a problem overall in living here. What’s the alternative?
The NYT article on Shane Battier, a NBA player who thinks defense is important – hockey has a stat to measure the effectiveness of defenders. It’s called “plus/minus” – what’s the difference between how many points you score and how many points the opponent scores when you’re in the game. Maybe that stat would work for this situation
“Anti-earmark Ideology Hurts the Country”
As is well-known, in order to secure the votes of the handful of Republican Senators necessary to overcome the 60-vote hurdle, Obama had to make some non-trivial concessions. Those concessions have made the stimulus much less effective than it otherwise might have been and will lead to hundreds of thousands of people being unemployed who could have been engaged in productive labor.
Say what? Examples, please.
Plenty of women read Vogue, and do know and care who’s on the cover. And, as one of the high-end fashion magazines, it’s generally given fairly prominent placement in newsstands. As the linked post points out, Vogue, along with a very few other magazines, is one of the arbiters of who is considered beautiful in this country. And Vogue has had VERY few black women on the cover before.
Re #2: That’s insane–why isn’t this getting more press?
Re #30: this appears to reference a earlier Harper’s article which is long but utterly fascinating. The #30 link is good too, but you may well really lke this: http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html
Sailorman – that’s a good question. Why doesn’t prisoner rape and rape of suspects/arrestees in the US get more coverage? Why doesn’t rape of enlisted women get more coverage?
I see the coverage in feminist and women’s press, even when the issue is rape of men by men – maybe the mainstream press feels that since it’s devoting so little space to the treatment of detainees in the first place, the details aren’t worth it?
I’d like to see an essay by some knowledgeable person reconciling the free range kids movement with the conclusions offered in Malcom Gladwell’s new book, Outliers. (Is he well known to purvey fake science? I’m not acquainted with his reputation.)
So Amp, I’ve been away for a while…it’s not a link farm anymore?
Kai,
Gladwell shouldn’t be considered a science writer, particularly with Outliers. He’s a good anecdotalist, but you know what they say about the plural of anecdote.
Thanks, PG. The book is popular where I work, but without any basis for evaluating the author I have been dreading revealing my opinion of the book.
The world’s only source of Fafblog on Israel:
http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/life-during-self-defense.html
I’ve seen “headless fattie” used in fat-acceptance blogs for a while, maybe a year.
Oh, FafBlog.
As usual, the Medium Lobster makes me want to cry, even while I’m laughing. I love the Medium Lobster.
However, I must agree with the commenter who questioned the notion that it takes an entire semester to cover Violence 101. Surely a single punch in the face from a bully, swiftly followed by the burning desire to retaliate with a loaded gun, is all it takes? I mean, gosh. I think I covered all the requisite material sometime in early elementary school.
Rachel, sometimes it’s a link farm. This is an issue in which I’m prepared to make changes arbitrarily. :-)