This is an open thread. Use it to post whatever the heck you want. Linking to your own awesome posts would be, well, awesome.
Happy Passover, folks!
- Last week, I posted about Steve Perry, former “Thundercats” and “Timespirits” writer, who is in pretty dire need of help. This week, cartoonist Walt Simonson (whose 1980s Thor run is widely considered the best that character has ever been done) is ebaying the above drawing to help Steve Perry out. At this moment, the high bid is $2000 (!), and there’s still six days to go. Sometimes it must be really, really cool to be Walt Simonson. Plus, no one draws big-ass capes the way Walt Simonson draws big-ass capes.
- A long-delayed missive on “childhood obesity”, from a onetime obese child. If only Michelle Obama would read this…
- Predator Theory. “…of the 120 rapists in the sample, 44 reported only one assault. The remaining 76 were repeat offenders. These 76 men, 63% of the rapists, committed 439 rapes or attempted rapes, an average of 5.8 each (median of 3, so there were some super-repeat offenders in this group). […] Lisak & Miller also found that the repeat rapists in their survey were responsible for a broad array of violent acts, including intimate partner violence and child abuse.”
- Fugitivis comments on the above-linked Predator Theory post.
- The Kaiser Foundation has a two-page, pdf summary of the Affordable Care Act that’s pretty good.
- This is great. “When Salinger was 7 she became plagued with nightmares about the film ‘Monster House’. Strangely, through a friend, I knew the screenwriter Dan Harmon (@danharmon, Creator of ‘Community’ on NBC). So one day, in early 2008, I wrote to him….”
- Nothing whatsoever of any importance happened to Social Security this week. And at Dollars and Sense, learn how to fix the entire Social Security “shortfall” in one simple step.
- If someone would pay you the same money (and the same benefits) as your current job to be chased by a bear for 10 minutes a day (workdays only), would you do it?
- How Might We Measure Race Without Reifying It?
- We Hate the Government But Want More Government Jobs
- In West Bank Palestinian Childhood Is Cut Short – It’s the Law
- Outrageous Treaty Nonsense, or The Copyright Tail Wagging the Internet Dog
- White Backlash: Yes, It’s Real
- I Died in a Law & Order: SVU Bus Wreck and Lived to Tell the Tale [Law And Order: Svu]
- Abra-Cadabra: NBC’s Community Makes Burqa Jokes
- Revisiting the Paradox of the Chess Queen
- Broken down by race, the trends for education achievement scores in the US look pretty good.
- Recruitment and the Underrepresentation of Women in Political Offices
- 11 predictions for the health-care reform bill
- Citizens United doesn’t treat corporations like people. It treats them better than people.
- I haven’t yet listened to this Douglas Adams lecture, but I want to.
- J.D. Shapiro, screenwriter of Battlefield Earth (which just won a Razzie Award for the worst movie of the decade), discusses his participation. “No one sets out to make a train wreck. Actually, comparing it to a train wreck isn’t really fair to train wrecks, because people actually want to watch those.”
I like the racial suggestion of collecting the information, but relying on self-report rather than top-down categorization.
I’m still writing “human” on my census form, though. :)
I’m watching the Ned and Jane fundraising project for the Alpha scholarship fund, and it hit a thousand dollars– with matching, that’s two full scholarships. I’m impressed by the Alphans who put it together and the community that’s been so generous in its support. The link is in my name– http://www.nedandjane.com.
The White backlash article caught my attention because it addresses something I’ve felt around the more conservative members of my daily interactions. I was just in a debate with my Contracts TA that the health-care reform was necessary and not-unconstitutional. He was less than agreeable and seemed to fall along the party lines of “Obama’s doing his own thing, not what the people want.”
Perhaps I’m not fully understanding the situation, but for me this type of conflict doesn’t bode well for America, and the South has a tradition of not agreeing with Washington (see the American Civil War for details) and feeling pride in standing up for their ideals, right or wrong. The article’s subject reminds me of the mentality that I’ve seen portrayed (rightly or wrongly) regarding Israel. I actually had a rabbi who was invited to a discussion in my World of Islam class call Palestinians a “demographic threat.” What stands out to me is how entrenched the sides have become in that issue, and how long it’s taking to try and resolve.
The question, to me, is should we try to head this off at the pass before it turns into a standoff? Whose shoulders should this fall on to try and mitigate? Is the conciliation of an entire subset of American’s feelings of perceived (?) injustice necessary? Prudence would seem to suggest that some type of redirect would help to diffuse the situation, at least before the battle lines get etched in and people become immovable. Or is it too late for that? Is there a way to reform more diplomatically?
I completely understand if the reaction from PoC and everyone else who’s been marginalized by this system is “boo-f*cking-hoo.” Personally, I’m encouraged by the reform and the spirit of finally accomplishing something, but this undercurrent of anger is…unsettling and doesn’t seem to bode well.
I hope this post is coherent – I’m under some heavy meds right now. I apologize if I’m less than clear.
Palestinian reporters urged to ‘repent’
Journalists who met Israeli colleagues face expulsion from Fatah-run syndicate.
from the Jerusalem Post:
Palestinian journalists who last week met with their Israeli colleagues and an IDF spokesman in Tel Aviv have come under fire from both Hamas and Fatah.
They now face expulsion from the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Journalists Syndicate on charges of promoting normalization with Israel.
Link:
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?ID=172106
The latest Order of the Stick strip, titled “The Rouge’s Guild”, is made of win.
I’ve got an African ggreat grandmother and an African gggreat grandmother. I forget exactly how it worked now (I sent mine back the same day I got it), but I indicated that I’ve got both white and African ancestors.
So, open thread: what do you all think about GE, the company that owns MSNBC and CNBC, taking a lead role in celebrating the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth? I’m old enough to just barely remember seeing him host “General Electric Theater”.
Doug S., I thought that unrealistic expectations of what a female adventurer should look like included breasts the size of volleyballs.
Just more blogging on the ongoing PD scandal…
Who’s running the department given that the rise and fall of the acting chief is currently unfolding.
Also the who-called-who from the cell phone records released by the city of the police chief’s traffic stop.