“A Christian-run Kentucky homeless shelter, Emergency Christian Ministries, just wished homeless women and children a Merry Christmas by booting them back onto the streets, claiming that it decided to ban all women (and their children) in an attempt to stop the “sex problem.” The misguided effort has left dozens of women and children on the streets with nowhere to go, and the situation is bleak — as the closest shelter that is accepting women is a forty minute drive from the town where Emergency Christian Ministries is located.
Billy Woodward, the coldhearted Emergency Christian Ministries Director, defended the ban and justified it by saying it is based on teachings in the Bible. Furthermore, Woodward claims that his actions were not “biased or prejudiced whatsoever.” He reasoned that homeless women were utilizing the shelter as an impromptu dating or hookup service that he was not having any part of, “They say, ‘We’re homeless, maybe we can find somebody, a mate or something.’ They want to meet or slip in a room occasionally and we can’t have that.”
The group has set a dangerous precedent for what behaviors are allowed or scolded in spaces that provide co-ed services to the underserved. To villainize women as the “sex problem,” not only denies men’s culpability, but perpetuates damaging myths about men’s inability to control themselves in the face of physical temptation. Woodward’s statements about women utilizing the shelters as a “dating service” marginalizes the real reasons women turn to shelters—domestic abuse, deep poverty, and glass ceilings in the workplace.”
CURRENT MOOD = BEYOND ENRAGED, AND I READ ABOUT INEQUALITY AND OPPRESSION EVERY DAY.
“Billy Woodward, the coldhearted Emergency Christian Ministries Director, defended the ban and justified it by saying it is based on teachings in the Bible.”
“What’s scary about Trump is you have a lot of people out there who feel certain ways and then you see somebody who’s running for president say these things. ‘Oh, Trump said that? I can say that! I can beat up the Muslim in my community. I can be a racist on a college campus.”
And it’s not just Trump. It’s all of them who are running for the Republican nomination. Trump just says it plainly and loudly and doesn’t use the coded language that the rest of them use.
Hey, kiddo. I’m thinking of you, knowing you’re feeling blue, given it’s That time of year. I hope you’ll consider coming to hang out with us this year, if you can manage it. I remember how lousy the season can be with nowhere to be and no one to spend the days with—I had far too many lonely holidays in my earlier days to be comfortable with you stuck out there by yourself. Come to our place.
You can help me feed the feral cats in the garage and on the front porch, and the back yard wildlife (pigeons, squirrels, the odd opossum or raccoon) and pet kitties—since Patches moved in with my brother-in-law, we have eight in-house (well, Sluggo and Lummie still go outside, Sluggo to accept worship from anyone who passes by on the sidewalk, and Lummie so he can come right back in through the door he didn’t leave from). Wubbie will purr in your ear and drool on you, Peabody will rub his nose on your face and shed on you, and the rest will come around when they’ve decided you’re okay. Sluggo and Lummie will also grace you with their company inside.
You and Tim can argue over what to watch—you know we don’t do holiday programs, right? Except for the original, Boris Karloff-narrated “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” and the hilarious, not-too-Christmas-gooey “A Christmas Story.” But you two can decide on movies or streaming shows: we have a big selection of adventure, historical, Bollywood (yep, I said Bollywood!), and action movies, as well as what’s on the tube.
You know our celebrations are kinda weird compared to some families. We’ll have candles for Yule, and you’re welcome to light them with us: bayberry and beeswax, the best smells around when you want to make light during the longest night of the year. You can even have your own if you have private wishes to make. They look beautiful in the dining room with the lights out.
You can help me make my cranberry conserve, if you like: either chop the oranges and walnuts, or pick out the squishy and under-ripe cranberries before I cook them, your choice.
Then we’ll drive to New York (with regular stops for Starbucks) to spend Christmas Day with Raquel and her mom. We always go a couple of days early and stay a couple of days late, so pick what you would like to see: the tree at Rockefeller Center, that Japanese book and stationery store I told you about, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or even movies. Raquel will want to show you the Highline, the park built on an old set of railroad tracks above the Lower West Side, though that might depend on the weather! And on Christmas day we swap gifts—you don’t have to bring anything, but Tim and I will have something for you—and then we’ll probably eating at Gene’s, since Raquel’s mother doesn’t like to cook the way she used to. There are two small fuzzy dogs to play with as we watch completely non-holiday movies—Raquel loathes Christmassy sentimental overload.
Then it’s back to Syracuse and relaxing, playing with stuff and laying around the house until New Year’s Eve. Where would you want to go? We’ve got the Syracuse Zoo, which has some good indoor exhibits, and the Women’s History Museum in Seneca Falls, as well as the Corning Glass Museum. The choice is yours! With luck no one will have left any kittens on the porch for us to add to the menagerie, though you might think emergency kitten rescue is fun! On New Year’s Eve Bruce and Kathy have invited all of us to their house, where we eat lentil-and-sausage soup (for luck in Bruce’s family—Tim will be defrosting the pork roast for our New Year’s Day lucky pork and sauerkraut). We’ll maybe play a game or watch a movie—don’t worry; we won’t foist one of our Bollywood movies on you unless you’re actually interested! —and mostly talk as other friends and family arrive. You’ll get to meet the grandbabies whose pictures I keep showing you, and pet Bruce’s cats and dog instead of our cats, for a change.
I know this isn’t the family’s idea of a holiday celebration. My mother managed to screw holidays up for me, so I start to shake the moment I see decorations go up. This is what I love best: the people I care about, which includes you, friends more than presents, talking more than singing carols and going to church, and on just enough food rather than stuffing ourselves. It’s the kind of holiday for people who just want to hang out together, and we’d love to have you with us. You can even call us from the airport or bus station and say you’re here. No fuss, no bother. It would be good to see you.
I don’t know when this interview happened but I AM SAD AND ANGRY NOW
The philosophies in Star Trek are kinda part of the actual setting. If you don’t get that, why are you allowed to make Star Trek movies.
He said Star Trek is too “philosophical”? Screw that noise.
Sigh. The whole point of Star Trek is that it’s philosophical. If you don’t want philosophical Science Fiction, there’s plenty of that for you to enjoy, but Star Trek is philosophical. Philosophy is part of Star Trek’s DNA, and if you’re given the captain’s chair, you’d better damn well respect that.
Also, I don’t think somebody who just flat out said “I don’t like X” should be allowed to make the reboot of “X.” Just on principle. Also, I can’t help thinking that part of why he got away with it is that he’s a man. So he can make a reboot of Star Trek without watching it or liking it and nobody is going to write thinkpieces about how he’s a “fake geek boy.” Nobody’s going to turn him into a meme. Nobody’s going to ask for his credentials. If a woman director of the Trek reboot had said that? Can you imagine?
Why the fuck would you agree to make a movie if you didn’t like the whole point of the original???
Swedish engineer Simone Giertz has again created a fabulously handy machine to take on the routine activities of daily life such as chopping fruits and vegetables. To conquer this particular task Giertz put together a slightly terrifying chopping machine. While the results aren’t perfect, the idea is incredibly clever, along with Giertz’s sense of humor.
Keeping all ten fingers – In conclusion, using the chopping machine proved to be quite a terrifying experience. But it worked and managed to chop broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini cucumbers and bananas. Just about anything really! I give the Chopping Machine 7/10 points. It worked, but that didn’t mean that it did a good job.
“I saw an image online and thought how interesting it is that many painting throughout Western art history are called The Conversation or Two People Flirting or The Couple. You’re clearly meant to see this as a pleasant interaction, but the look on the woman’s face is so clearly, “Someone, please, for the love of God, get me out of here. I wish I were dead.” I don’t want to make sweeping generalisations, but I love the idea that basically for 600 years of Western European art, male artists were thinking, ‘That’s the look women always have on their face when you talk to them. That’s not boredom, that’s just their listening face.’”
Flint, Michigan, is in a state of emergency—a long-term public health emergency that will cost the city and its residents for years and years to come. Lead levels in the city's children are so high that Mayor Karen Weaver has had to resort to the emergency declaration to get the federal help the city will need to deal with the long-term effects.
The Hurley Medical Center, in Flint, released a study in September that confirmed what many Flint parents had feared for over a year: The proportion of infants and children with above-average levels of lead in their blood has nearly doubled since the city switched from the Detroit water system to using the Flint River as its water source, in 2014.
The crisis reached a nadir Monday night, when Flint Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency.
"The City of Flint has experienced a Manmade disaster," Weaver said in a declaratory statement.
The mayor—elected after her predecessor, Dayne Walling, experienced fallout from his administration's handling of the water problems—said in the statement that she was seeking support from the federal government to deal with the "irreversible" effects of lead exposure on the city's children. Weaver thinks that these health consequences will lead to a greater need for special education and mental health services, as well as developments in the juvenile justice system.
As this Washington Post story points out, the World Health Organization details the many effects of lead exposure to children, including "reduced intelligence quotient (IQ), behavioral changes such as shortening of attention span and increased antisocial behavior, and reduced educational attainment. Lead exposure also causes anemia, hypertension, renal impairment, immunotoxicity and toxicity to the reproductive organs." All of these effects are "believed to be irreversible."
The city began using the Flint River as its water source in April 2014, switching from the Detroit water system in preparation to move over to a pipeline to Lake Huron’s Karegnondi Water Authority next year. The complaints from citizens about the smell, taste, and appearance of the water began immediately after the initial switch. By January, the state was forced to issue a warning to residents that their water was unsafe, but it took until October of this year for the state to reconnect Flint to the Detroit system.
Of course, the irreversible damage to children in Flint had already been done. As a result, Flint residents have filed a class-action federal lawsuit "against Snyder, the state, the city and 13 other public officials." They allege that they were deprived of their 14th Amendment rights when the officials replaced their safe drinking water with water they knew was unsafe.
geneticist: sequences every nucleotide in my dna
my dna: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
geneticist: what the fuck
tbh people mock harry for going back to rescue fleurs sister in the second triwizard task but harry knows dumbledore better than anyone else. he probably looked at the situation and thought “would dumbledore let an eight year old drown just because fleur couldnt do this bit? yes. yes he would.”
it’s also possible he was acting off of the lessons he learned in the abusive dursley household. that’s why he does a lot of his so-called “hero complex” shit. he takes a lot of personal responsibility for other people bc he learned growing up that “no one’s here for you, no one will help you, you will not catch any breaks”. he helps bc if he didn’t, who would? certainly not the dursleys, and that’s what he grew up with.
he does things by himself and the two people he actually trusts, bc he’s learned that authority figures are no help and will only make things worse. he takes situations at face value bc he’s never seen other options in his life, he’s never HAD other options in his life. speaking very personally, that was a serious marker of abuse that i saw in myself - i never thought abt escape, or what i could do to improve my situation, bc i didn’t even see that as an option. the options were survive or don’t, deal w it or don’t, acclimate or implode.
maybe he wasn’t thinking abt what DUMBLEDORE would do, what anyone at hogwarts would do. maybe he was acting off what he knew the dursleys (his main authority figures) would do. the dursleys would let the girl drown. and harry was there, and harry could do something, and so harry did. he took personal responsibility for fleur’s sister’s safety bc all his life he’s learned that authority figures cannot be trusted to do so.
people characterize these aspects of harry as a “hero complex” or a “stupid nobility” or a “lack of common sense”, but i don’t agree with that. i can’t put my finger on exactly what it is. it’s not completely unhealthy; it’s even very useful and responsible on occasion.
it’s called “complex ptsd” and if you get out of the abusive situation before you’re old enough to understand how fucked up it was, like Harry did, you don’t end up with the classic flashbacks so much, just atypical behavior patterns and a high risk of other shit. That’s why Harry is so fucked up by everything that Umbridge does, it’s because he’s being retraumatized in his safe space.
