Items of interest come across recently in my feed-reader over the Xmas break. What did I miss? Leave your own interesting links in comments.

• Why I like vicious, anonymous online comments

– “And yet anonymous comments — all of them, even the written equivalent of high-speed drive-by shootings — serve a useful function. They show us what the species is really like: the full spectrum of human behavior, not just the part that we find reassuring and enlightening.”

• A non-comprehensive list of ways the holiday season grates upon my feminist sensibilities

– “There a zillion and one reasons a feminist could come to despise the holidays, everything we’re taught to critique, and everything I personally find wrong with the world, seems to be wrapped up into a nice, jolly, present for us this time of year. Complete with a shiny red bow. Pun intended. In case anyone wants to know exactly what it is that pisses me off so much this time of year, I’ll list them neatly for you.”

• Never Complain, Never Explain

– “We’re far more hardwired culturally than we’d like to think. Progressive notions notwithstanding, facts almost never change the minds of adult humans unless something happens to affect them concretely in their health, status or wallet.”

• Religious right scared that California youth will learn about gays in history

– “One thing is sure about religious right groups. Just mention the word “gay” in any form regarding the schools and watch them bloviate about how children are going to be “indoctrinated into the homosexual lifestyle.” Case in point”

• Bats In Their Belfry: DC Comics’ New Muslim Hero Angers Islamophobes

– “Not to be outdone by the Council of Conservative Citizens, right-wing bloggers have found a new cause for umbrage: DC Comics’ newest member of the nascent “Batman Corps” is French, an Algerian immigrant, and – cue the melodrama – a Muslim.”

• Assange: "Sweden Is The Saudi Arabia Of Feminism"

– Proving yet again that there’s two letters (F and L) missing from his name, Assange still won’t just STFU about those wacky Swedes and their flimsy accusations

• Why Trans People Are Pissed About Being Legislatively Left Behind

– “Some of our lesbigay brothers and sisters may be puzzled as to why we in the trans community have had the mixed bag mostly negative reaction to last Wednesday’s signing of the DADT Repeal Act”

• My Christmas Reading: The Science of Sex Differences

– “Short conclusions (much more will appear in later posts:

1. Do not read all these in two days or so. You get tremendously angry and then you kick holes in the garage door.

2. The history of sex differences in science is a nasty one, and there’s not much reason to expect we are doing much better right now.”

• “What if…?” On prenatal precautions and superstitions, and the burden of blame

– “The risk is that one will spend an entire pregnancy obsessing and worrying over what one “ought” to have done better, taken more of, eaten less of. The risk is that one will blame oneself for the rest of one’s life should it happen.”

• Feminist Fairy Tales for Last-Minute Xmas Gifts

– Sometimes it’s annoying only getting these Northern Hemisphere Xmas Ever articles when it’s already Xmas Day here – there’s some really good stuff.

Categories: linkfest

Tags: Read-ems