Items of interest come across recently in my feed-reader. What did I miss? Leave your own interesting links in comments.
n.b. articles only are read, not comments threads. Some may be NSFW or tirggering, so please protect yourselves and report back any problems you encounter.
- I’m fat and am going to die (eventually)
- oh yes, you’re really very nice
- Spinster aunt mutters in Yiddish
- Naomi Wolf And The Danger Of Universal Genius
- The fiction of the militant gnu atheist
- I wonder what they’re comparing it to?
- Um Gabriel, Your Daughter's Black
- Some reasons I’m looking forwards to PAX East
- These are the people who want you to die
- I am not your cautionary tale
- The Old Spice Super Fan and Insanely Clever Marketing
- Travelling feminist: Golda Meir
- An Observation
– “I learnt something… because I’m fat, I’m going to die. It’s a huge relief, because I was worried, that like my thin brothers and sisters, I’d live forever, and that wasn’t ideal.”
– “A memo to all of my coworkers, who will not, of course, read this, because if I told you what my website was I’d have to self-censor more and I’m super uninterested in doing that:
Yep, you heard me correctly, I’m autistic.”
– “Hahaha! Hoooo-boy! That’s a hot one. I have to say, the notion that more than a handful of men would ever do any of that stuff makes me throw back my head and laugh, as the poet said, a hollow, mirthless laugh.”
UPDATE: comments thread becomes transphobic, blog author’s next post is trans-supportive.
– “Being smart is no protection from being wrong; any intellect processing bad or incomplete information is likely to produce bad conclusions. Garbage in, garbage out.”
– “The linguist Larry Trask suggests that the word militant “is used all too freely in the feebler sense of ‘holding or expressing views which are unpopular or which I don’t like’.” He notes that Richard Dawkins is “accused by tabloid newspapers and other commentators of being a ‘militant atheist’”, although, the adjective is never used of Christian activity. Trask concludes, “if you find yourself writing this word, stop and think whether it has any clear meaning, or whether you are just using it as a swearword.””
– reality check time
– “Halle is biracial, just like her daughter, but she let you know a long time ago how she and society sees her.
‘Blackness is a state of mind and I identify with the Black community. Mainly because I realized early on that when I walk into a room people see a Black woman, they don’t see a white woman. So out of that reason alone I identify with the Black community.” “
– “I actually have tickets for PAX East. I decided to go long before this whole debacle because I’ve enjoyed PAX prime in the past, and a friend of mine has had an incredibly rough year so a bunch of us planned the trip partially as a present to her. She’s much more important to me than a bunch of jerks are, so backing out is not an option for me.
Rather than let the actions of a few people ruin something I enjoy, I’m going to step away from that part of things and talk about why I’m still excited about the trip.”
– 101 congresscritters want pregnant women to die if the only way they could be saved would be to abort a fetus. They really would rather have two deaths instead of just one.
– “My fat body is not your punch line, it is not your entertainment, it is not your grotesque freakshow, it is not your life-lesson.”
– Oh yes!
– Fabulous biog
– “Troll Logic:
1. It is censorship to criticize something with which you disagree.
2. It is not censorship to tell me to STFU.”
There’s this, at the Hathor Legacy – regarding a proposal to prohibit the victims of certain crimes from being called victims before the legal conviction of a perpetrator – the crimes in question being “stalking, rape, obscene telephone contact with a child and family violence” (quoted from a CNN article on the subject). According to CNN, it’s not clear why the legislation applies only to these crimes. I think it’s very clear indeed. Also covered at Shakesville.
I thought this was going to be about Richard Stallman for a minute.
Great set of links. Thanks.
@Jason, hehe.
On the facebook bit for religious views, I use “militant agnostic” at least partly from sheer perversity because of how many people misuse/misunderstand both words.
For my political views I have “idealistic misanthrope”.
Just a note to our trans friends – avoid the comments at the Spinster post, it’s degenerated into a ‘who is a woman’ argument. I don’t know how bad it gets because I stopped reading. Please note that Twisty was not, up to the point that I read, involved in the argument or against transwomen commenting on IBTP.
Indeed, Twisty/Jill’s put out a subsequent post of full support for transwomen as fully women.
I should have foreseen that somebody would hijack that post that way, but I didn’t. My apologies to any of you who were sideswiped.
Sorry TT, I should have looked at the rest of IBTP.
My facebook religious views bit says “evangelical atheist”, from much the same motivation, tigtog. For political views I’ve just written “raving lefty”.
The Yes Means Yes post on smart vs informed looks like fuel for much interesting further discussion.
There are, of course, a few prominent evangelical atheists, although I don’t know of any militant examples. I have yet to meet or hear of an evangelical aGnostic.
What’s “Savage Death Island?” It’s all over IBTP, but Google just takes me back there when I ask what it means, no matter how politely.
Sorry Jason, I don’t follow comments threads there any more, and I’m suspecting it’s some sort of in-joke.
I think it is to balance out the heartwarming nature crap stuff, but don’t quote me on that.
Lysistrata is getting a run in Belgian. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12402838
I used to describe myself as an evangelical atheist in my twenties and thirties and used to make a nong of myself in civic (act) loudly, at the drop of a hat. i guess i am just practicing now, maybe i am a work-in-progress atheist.
ta for the shiny links, the spinster esp, took me back.
Delurking momentarily to say that I’m pretty sure the concept of Savage Death Island was introduced by Jill (Twisty) in a post a while back. If I remember correctly, she happened to mention in a post that many dudes treat entering feminist conversations/spaces as though they’re hazarding onto some kind of savage death island. The concept was lauded in the comments, and Jill changed the blog header image shortly thereafter (for a while the header read only Savage Death Island, in a red font dripping like blood; it was amended to re-add IBTP and include Heartwarming Nature Crap a while later).
Also, thanks so much putting together these readers, tigtog. I always look forward to making my way through them and finding awesome new posts and authors I wouldn’t have been exposed to otherwise.