[In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. --L.]
- Here's the Dumbest Thing You'll Read All Day
- "Remember this piece next time you read some transphobic shit about how it's trans women and men who perpetuate gender stereotypes."
- Accommodation is Not “Special Treatment”
- "I know that a lot of us have been told our whole lives that requesting accommodations is being unreasonable and demanding special treatment. It’s not. We shouldn’t have to request accommodations in the first place, because if people treated us like everyone else, they would respect us as human beings and recognize and try to anticipate needs. Kind of how like a group of people walking arm in arm will break up and go single file to let someone else pass them on the sidewalk.
"That’s not special treatment. That’s recognizing that another human being has a need which should be accommodated so that this human being can go about daily activities."
- Another Invisible Elephant
- "I feel like an idiot always pointing out the elephant sitting on the couch and merging with the throw pillows so very well that nobody else sees it. In this case it has to do with the fact that the state of Massachusetts, the Sodom and Gomorrah of all liberalism, has never sent a woman to the U.S. Senate. NEVER.
"We don't discuss this, just as we do not discuss the fact that there has never been a female president of this country. Even feminists don't discuss this…"
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me
- "Bail Offer for Roman Polanski Is Approved"
- Malalai Joya on Afghanistan
- "At this link is an interview with Malalai Joya, the youngest woman ever elected to the Afghan parliament, who was later suspended from her position for criticizing the government and has since survived four assassination attempts. The interview aired Nov. 18 on Canada AM, a national morning news show on the CTV network. Joya was (and still is) on a tour of Canada, talking about her book and how we can end the war in Afghanistan. It just popped into mind when reading Liss' post yesterday morning on the potential for Obama to escalate in Afghanistan."
[Video and transcript at the link.]
- Insurance Company Revokes Depressed Woman’s Benefits Over Facebook Photos — Feministe
- "Even better, it would seem that the insurance company didn’t only use Facebook photos as a diagnostic tool, they also may have hacked her account to obtain them…"
- Guest Post: Hanging Up the Cane
- "The first time I held my cane, I cried.
"It wasn’t a feeling I expected, to be honest. I’d been fired the week before from a job I enjoyed, for telling my employer I was in too much pain to stand for the entire shift…"
- Top 10 Most Ridiculous Soap Operas Of All Time [Top 10]
- "People are complaining that Stargate Universe is becoming a soap opera, but don't worry — it's got a ways to go before it reaches the levels of science fiction/fantasy's most demented, silliest soap operas.
"So here are the most insane SF soaps we could think of…"
- Bioshock Paintings Take Glourious Neon and Art Deco Underwater [Concept Art]
- "Tim Warnock has provided concept artwork and designs for Watchmen and Harry Potter. Just for fun, he's created a series of stunning matte paintings that capture Bioshock's underwater city of Rapture in its glory days, all shimmering art deco."
- Remember, Remember
- "I’m not convinced comic books can’t change the world. Just like any other story, they are ideas."
- Best Idea of the Day: Climate Change Futures Markets
- "His perspective is that whatever their flaws, predictions markets are liable to be better than the alternatives, because they incentivize accuracy [...]
"Climate change predictions markets, indeed, could be a particularly fruitful application of the concept for a number of reasons:
"1) The markets would help to clarify exactly the extent to which there is in fact a consensus about climate change. [...]"
- America's Health is America's Business
- "'In October 2007, the Milken Institute published "An Unhealthy America: The Economic Burden of Chronic Disease," a report analyzing the long-term economic costs of leaving unchecked just seven maladies: cancer, heart disease, hypertension, mental disorders, diabetes, pulmonary conditions and stroke [...]'
"We wouldn't tolerate $7 trillion sort of inefficiency and loss if it resulted from a tax increase or proposed business regulation. Wouldn't Grover Norquist and his gang be screaming tirelessly, perhaps with cause? Yet as a nation we sit back passively and allow our capitalist economy to be hobbled by solvable problems affecting the most important infrastructural input of all: the labors of the American workforce. What's amazing is that American workers today work longer hours and are more productive than earlier generations of workers–despite our health problems.
"When the government does or doesn't do something that is bad for American capitalism, relevant business interests step to the fore to correct the problem. 'The business of America is business,' is the famous misquote from Ronald Reagan's favorite president, Cal Coolidge. So why hasn't corporate America stepped forward–long before Barack Obama even arrived on the national scene–to complain about the business inefficiencies of an unhealthy citizenry?
"But the tougher, more political question I want to ask is this: Why hasn't the president framed his calls for health care reform–either in subtle or more direct, forceful ways–in terms of American economic performance and productivity? Wouldn't that put a lot of his conservative critics back on their heels? Wouldn't it rally more corporate interests and trade associations to his side?
"I can't find any polls to bolster my suspicions–typical national polls ask Americans whether they support reform legislation or whether they approve of the government's handling of the health reform issue–but I suspect that too many Americans conceive of health care reform as a purely fiscal issue, a matter of taxing and spending. Worse, a significant subset of them surely view reform in terms like those recently invoked by Mike Huckabee: that is, as some stealthy, redistributive grab, just another big-government Democratic initiative to take money from their pocketbooks for an entitlement program to help the poor, indigent or other undeserving types.
"Now, it's true that reform will cover more people who don't have the means to insure themselves. But whether they're poor or middle class, the uninsured or merely underinsured also go by another name: the American workforce. And the less we think about them as patients, and the more we think about them as workers essential to American productivity, the easier it is going to be politically to fix what ails us. And instead of a national conversation about how we can't afford health care reform, the president's oft-stated macro point that we can't afford not to reform the system would be a lot easier to make."
- Zero Food Fight Tolerance
- "About two dozen eighth graders at a Chicago magnet school were arrested for cafeteria food fight. I do love the idea of disciplining them for a food fight. Those fights are gross. But fingerprinting? A court date?"
- Digby: Truth And Consequences
- "This must-read report in the New England Journal Of Medicine lays out the facts about the cost to society in lost lives, productivity and money for failing to assure that everyone is covered by health insurance. And the costs of treating them late in preventable emergency situations is far, far higher than it would otherwise be."
- Feminism with atheism: two great tastes that go together
- "…sexism is irrational. PZ Myers gets this, and I’d argue that not only does Richard Dawkins get this, but a lot of his atheist ideas stem directly from feminist analysis, sometimes radical feminist analysis. For instance, Dawkins’ special focus on children’s rights is some radical shit, but the idea that children are oppressed and denied the right to conscience within the family unit is something straight out of radical feminist critiques of the patriarchy. Dawkins has also forwarded arguments against the objectification of animals in a way that echoes feminist critiques of the mistreatment of animals that fall in line with the objectification of women."
The Link(s): Mon, Nov 23rd, 2pm to Tue, Dec 1st, 2pm 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.