- Scary Word of the Day: Feminized Sci-Fi –
"There’s no place for women in science fiction. It’s about men! Manly men! Doing manly things! For the entertainment of other men! Men viewing at home, not in their respective fictional ‘verses! But, not in a slashy way! You know what I mean!"
(tags: none) - It’s time to put the insurance companies out of their misery –
If I were on trial for robbing a house, the last thing in the world I would do is give a series of public lectures on cat burglary techniques. “I’m completely innocent,” I’d say, as the sample lock clicked open. “I’ve lived a clean life. Any questions about the order in which to rifle dresser drawers?”The health insurance companies, admittedly with the help of a few journalists and bloggers, seem intent on demonstrating just how good they are at heisting TVs and jewelry. They’re denying babies for being too fat. They’re denying babies for being too skinny. They’re denying women for having been raped. They’re charging women 84% more than men, although that last one may be par for the American course. [...] I’m not enjoying the thought of what will happen to the lower-level employees of the health insurance companies if we finally manage to deliver the coup de grace, but when I weigh them against the now-estimated 45,000 deaths a year , I have to conclude that I’m just happy that they’d have health care while they’re looking for other work.
(tags: none) - Feminists get married?! –
"I’m forced to conclude that Jessica getting married and letting the NY Times write it up is some kind of brilliant subversion disguised as rather mainstream, ordinary wedding behavior. Because a happy, smiling feminist in a wedding dress drives sexists absolutely fucking nuts, because it deprives them of their favorite delusion, which is that feminism is the last resort for bitter, lonely women."
(tags: none) - Taser International to police: don’t fire at suspect’s chest, may cause ‘adverse cardiac event’ –
…how long have I been blogging about this "electrical shock device" and the deaths, maimings and abuse heaped upon the guilty and the innocent, the elderly, the mentally disabled, the bedridden and wheelchair bound, as well as humans minding their own business on bicycles and at a child's baptism party? [...]Law enforcement officials around the country have been on a mission to prove that face-to-face negotiations are passe, and compliance should be achieved by physical assault, even in cases where there is no threat to the officer. Occasionally [...] the Taser "negotiation" ended up with the Tasee DOA.Meanwhile the devices are being handed out to guards at schools, and proliferating without any standardized training to law enforcement departments all over the world.
(tags: none) - Bamboo Review: The Eliminationists –
The way the anti-choice movement has rolled for a long time has become the mainstream of American conservatism, and the result is incredibly scary. David’s hardly claiming that mainstream American conservatism is fascist, but there are fascist elements in its margins, and more disturbingly, those marginal ideas are rapidly being mainstreamed through people he calls “transmitters"—people like Sarah Palin, Lou Dobbs, and even Rush Limbaugh, who put a smiley face on eliminationist ideas and make them more palatable to the public. This has been going on since the 90s, really, and I’d argue it was one reason that the mainstream conservative movement embraced the anti-democratic idea that it was acceptable to impeach a rightfully elected American President by any means necessary. Not, as liberals were arguing with about Bush, because he was a war criminal, or any kind of criminal at all. Whatever it took—getting rid of Clinton was the goal, and no matter how illegal or unethical the means, it had to be done. Luckily, they failed, but they were just successful enough to get an appetite for it. [...]But what really makes this book so great is that David rejects the American tendency to forget the past, and places the current right wing movement in a long historical context, to show that eliminationism is far from impossible in American society. He places this in the context of the genocide of Native Americans, the use of lynching and running black people out of town that characterized the late 19th/early 20th century, and the internment camps for Japanese-Americans that resulted in a permanent destruction of the majority of Japanese-Americans’ livelihood as farmers. The enemies of conservatism have been more nebulous and harder to define on sight since then, but the increasing racist hysteria is scary in large part because it gives right wingers focus. David also careful explains what fascism is and what it isn’t, and how the biggest problem right now isn’t that conservatives are fascist, but that they play footsie with fascism.
…Are we sure this didn't start BEFORE the nineties?
(tags: none) - How come women are the only ones to blame in this? –
"The dynamic between men and women is still one where men get to unapologetically express preferences, and women accommodate and only feel right expressing preferences if they don’t step on anyone’s toes. Putting your foot down and saying, 'You picked the last 10 movies we saw, and we’re going to go see this movie that centers around female friendship,' just won’t fly with most heterosexual couples."
(tags: none) - Well, then, maybe it isn’t so cute –
"Saying women dominate the sex work labor market is like saying women dominate the unpaid housework industry."
(tags: none) - Trigger Warning: Update and Teaspoons -
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- Joe Lieberman: Full-blown wingnut –
"What’s interesting is that if the public option was what Lieberman described, then the most clear term would be “Medicare available to whoever wants it”, but obviously, he wants to avoid saying that, because Medicare is a wildly popular program, and expanding it to everyone would be wildly popular. So he has to lie, but in very strange terms, because using terms that more accurately convey the lie he’s telling would make people get all excited about this potential new program that would save them so much money."
(tags: none) - Choices: Pain vs a Life « for the Means of Grace and for the Hope of Glory –
" I’d love to have both good health and the ability to pattern my life in the manner I want. I don’t. (And I would argue that none of us really do.) I live in a body that will experience pain if I try to do too much. I consider myself lucky to know about where that line lies. And sometimes I choose to push and bring extra pain meds. And sometimes I choose not to push and to be pain free. There’s no magic formula. I try to balance the life I want against what I expect the physical costs of extreme activity to be."
(tags: none) - Scooterblogging: I’m Right Here –
"Within a week or two of getting the scooter, which was within perhaps 2-3 hours of scootertime, I had my first Talking-to-my-companion-and-not-me experience."
(tags: none) - Current Unemployment Rate & Statistics 2009 – Job Layoffs, Loss | MintLife Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice –
WARNING: May scare the pants off you.
(tags: none) - Why I Identify As Disabled -
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- Guest Post: Why I Say I’m Okay -
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- Atheist-based business offers fundies adoption service for dogs left behind by The Rapture -
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- Goldman Sachs vice chair: “Public must learn to ‘tolerate the inequality’ of bonuses” -
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- FAQ: Rape Culture 101 -
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- The Ultimate Round-Up Of T-Shirt Design Tutorials -
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- Freelance Contracts: Do’s And Don’ts -
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- Essential concepts: Responding to a challenge of privilege -
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The Links for October 5th through October 28th by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at leesalazar.com.