January 2011
Gap Between Rich and Poor Named 8th Wonder of the... →
“Of all the epic structures the human race has devised, none is more staggering or imposing than the Gap Between Rich and Poor,” committee chairman Henri Jean-Baptiste said. “It is a tremendous, millennia-old expanse that fills us with both wonder and humility.”
“And thanks to careful maintenance through the ages, this massive relic survives intact, instilling in...
Healthy Cultural Paranoia and why it is not... →
freshfeminism:
thefeministhub:
In the social sciences, we have a very, very important term that is relevant to this conversation: healthy cultural paranoia (HCP), emphasis on healthy. As a social work student, I’ve learned that when I have clients who are in the oppressed category in areas where I am obviously privileged (this could be race, gender, sexual orientation, class, whatever), there...
healingsakina:
thinking about why it is that when someone brings up a sensitive or introspective issue, friends feel compelled to say “HERE IS A SOLUTION!!! IT WORKED FOR ME, IT COULD WORK FOR YOU!!!” instead of just listening. you know, sometimes people just want to be able to think thru an issue. not necessarily looking for a solution at all, certainly not look for a “hey, it’s actually very...
My position on circumcision...
kiriamaya:
…is that modifying people’s genitals without their consent is wrong — period — and all the other arguments (cleanliness, etc.) are quite beside the point.
feministlibrarian:
pervocracy:
While we’re at it, can we stop trivializing decency in discourse by labeling it ‘political correctness’? Avoiding discriminatory and hurtful language isn’t some partisan posture. It’s just a basic step in not being a dickhead. Characterizing black men as rapists of white women isn’t a daring rebellion against oppressive thought police, it’s just racist.
THANK YOU...
How You Shop When You Are Poor →
elfstaranymore:
I wanted to expand on the idea of how shopping on a very tight budget works, because obviously some people have no idea. I will add the caveat that this is how shopping was done in my family, by which I mean shopping with food stamps for a family with no dietary restrictions, with access to a car, and in a rural area of the U.S. Obviously each family’s needs are different and...
Shepard tones [Wikipedia] →
A Shepard tone, named after Roger Shepard, is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the base pitch of the tone moving upwards or downwards, it is referred to as the Shepard scale. This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower. It has been...
so-treu:
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why...
“I do have one very brutal writing ritual. If I’m working in the morning, I don’t...”
– —Anthony Lane, in the Daily Telegraph
that is brutal! it might work for me, but i don’t know if i could do that to myself.
Running Toward the Gunshots: A Few Words About... →
First we have to get to the part where this random woman from out of nowhere with a ridiculous story manages to convince people to take her to the King, and to convince the King to see her. (“She was not readily received by the King,” says another first-person account. The King “desired that she should first be examined, and that he should know something of her life and estate, and if it were...
so-treu:
dinokitten:
adorianmode:
I’m mentally ill.
The most violent thing I’ve ever done is fight with my sister, fights where she was almost always the aggressor.
Mental illness and violence are two very different things that have very little to do with one another.
And if you think that shooting someone is axiomatically proof that the shooter is “deranged” or “unstable” or “psycho” or...
the thing is, i’m actually really fucking lucky, if i stop to think about it. yes, there have been things i’ve wanted, badly, that i haven’t gotten—like being on track to graduate from college, or moving out of my parents’ house, or knowing what sort of career would make me happy—but there are also a whole lot of things i do have.
like, i’m curled up in bed right...
George Orwell, "A Nice Cup of Tea"
If you look up ‘tea’ in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.
This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but...
Robert B. Moore, "Racist Stereotyping in the...
sheresists:
“Some may blackly (angrily) accuse me of trying to blacken (defame) the English language, to give it a black eye (a mark of shame) by writing such black words (hostile). They may denigrate (to cast aspersions; to darken) me by accusing me of being blackhearted (malevolent), of having a black outlook (pessimistic, dismal) on life, of being a blackguard (scoundrel) - which would...
