Students at Charleston County School of the Arts in North Charleston, South Carolina, have had enough. Too many girls have been sent home because of a strict dress code policy that they claim targets girls unfairly. Now, they’re doing something about it. Not just to protest the dress code — but also how it’s being enforced.
Consider how textbooks treat Native religions as a unitary whole. The American Way describes Native American religion in these words: ‘These Native Americans [in the Southeast] believed that nature was filled with spirits. Each form of life, such as plants and animals, had a spirit. Earth and air held spirits too. People were never alone. They shared their lives with the spirits of nature.’
Way is trying to show respect for Native American religion, but it doesn’t work. Stated flatly like this, the beliefs seem like make-believe, not the sophisticated theology of a higher civilization.
Let us try a similarly succinct summary of the beliefs of many Christians today: ‘These Americans believed that one great male god ruled the world. Sometimes they divided him into three parts, which they called father, son, and holy ghost. They ate crackers and wine or grape juice, believing that they were eating the son’s body and drinking his blood. If they believed strongly enough, they would live on forever after they died.’
Textbooks never describe Christianity this way. It’s offensive. Believers would immediately argue that such a depiction fails to convey the symbolic meaning or the spiritual satisfaction of communion.
Medicine should never have been privatized in the first place. The concept of profiting off of human desperation and the need for life-saving medicine is, philosophically, intrinsically, and morally wrong both as a fundamental concept and in practice. The fact that Martin Shkreli was ever able to buy an AIDS drug and increase its price 5000% is indicative of a problem even bigger than a truly evil, despicable, and selfish human being; it is indicative of the problem of the current system of for-profit pharmaceuticals with obviously inadequate price regulation.
Or, if you're dyslexic, just make you want to cry. Or, so I've heard.
Experienced Scrabble players know there’s more to the game than an expansive vocabulary. An effective player should also be able to quickly find words in a jumble of letters. Developing this skill, reports a team of Canadian researchers, will not only improve your game, it will change the way you use your brain.
Alabama appears to be celebrating its release from the Voting Rights Act by making it harder for black people to vote. The state passed a voter ID law in 2011 despite (or because of) predictions that it would have a disproportionate effect on African-American voters, and now it's closing 31 county driver's license offices, making it harder for people in those counties to get driver's licenses ... which also enable them to vote. The closures don't exactly look random, columnist John Archibald writes:
Take a look at the 10 Alabama counties with the highest percentage of non-white registered voters. That's Macon, Greene, Sumter, Lowndes, Bullock, Perry, Wilcox, Dallas, Hale, and Montgomery, according to the Alabama Secretary of State's office. Alabama, thanks to its budgetary insanity and inanity, just opted to close driver license bureaus in eight of them. All but Dallas and Montgomery will be closed. [...]
Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters will see their driver license office closed. Every one. [...]
Look at the 15 counties that voted for President Barack Obama in the last presidential election. The state just decided to close driver license offices in 53 percent of them.
The 31 closures that have been announced represent an improvement over threats that 45 offices would be closed, leaving just four open statewide. It almost makes you wonder if those earlier threats were to make these closures seem acceptable. In any case, state officials say it won't be a problem and that registrars offices where people can get non-driving photo IDs that allow them to vote will remain open.
Once upon a time there was a dear sweet princess who made friends wherever she went. And on a day, as one does, she set out on a pilgrimage to the Heavenly City. There were monsters and bandits and worse along the way, who had no interest at all in becoming friends with the dear sweet princess, and she had no training in fighting or weaponry, but she made friends wherever she went and found true and loyal companions who could fight the monsters and the bandits and the worse for her, and they stood by her side and counted themselves lucky to be friends with such a dear sweet princess and with each other.
And then, on a day, she and her true and loyal companions arrived at the gates of the Heavenly City. “Welcome, princess,” said the gate-guard of the Heavenly City. “You may enter, but your companions must stay outside, for their hands are stained with the blood of the fallen.”
“They’re coming in with me, or I’m not going in at all,” said the princess. “What they did, they did for me and in my name, and the blood is on my hands as well.”
“That is not the way things are,” said the gate-guard of the Heavenly City.
“Then the way things are is BULLSHIT,” said the princess, who had learned that word from some of her companions, “and I’m not going in until the way things are changes.”
“Very well,” said the gate-guard of the Heavenly City, and turned away.
So the dear sweet princess and her companions set up camp outside the gates of the Heavenly City, and now and then a few of them would hike the weeks and miles to another city to work and buy food, and the ones who stayed made things and cooked things and did what they could to make the camp a nice place to live and give the ones who went to cities something to sell when they were there. And as the years passed and the way things were in the Heavenly City did not change, their camp grew to a village, and a town, and a city, as the ones who stayed had children and the ones who went brought back new friends, and merchants and traders came.
And eventually the dear sweet princess and her true and loyal companions grew old, and one by one they made themselves little houses of grey stone with no windows, and went in, and blocked up the doorways behind themselves. And the city they had built continued to grow, and continued to thrive, and some people say they are waiting still for the way things are in the Heavenly City to change so that they can all enter together, but others say they have no need to wait, because they had reached it already by building it for themselves.
I had to get at least one good photo because these two were amazing. O AO
*EDIT!!!! (please reblog this version if you can since I finally was able to add links of the cosplayers!)* Left is Kyujo Cosplay on tumblr, Kyujo Cosplay on Facebook, and ThePlastiks on instagram! Right is FARRONFARRON on instagram.
reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it Tumblr Gets Deep: Next Page–>
Margaret Cho has a simple philosophy for dealing with degrading comments about herself: If you’re debating a woman and you stoop to calling her “fat” or “ugly,” you’ve already lost the argument.
Oh, hey, look at that, contraceptives go down, and abortions go up? It's almost like there's a correlation!
House Oversight Committee Chair Jason Chaffetz doesn't think it was misleading of him to use a chart suggesting that 327,000 is a substantially larger number than 935,573. Not if Planned Parenthood is involved, anyway. During Wednesday's Planned Parenthood hearing, Chaffetz displayed the chart, which showed the number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood rising from 289,750 in 2006 to 327,000 in 2013, while the number of cancer screenings and prevention services declined from 2,007,371 to 935,573—but the chart showed the lines crossing, with abortion ending up dramatically higher than cancer screening and prevention. You can be pretty bad at math and still realize that 935,573 is larger than 327,000, but Chaffetz is not backing down:
"I stand by the numbers. I can understand where people would say the arrows went different directions, but the numbers are accurate. And that’s what we were trying to portray," he told Blitzer.
The numbers—the part of the chart Chaffetz stands by—are in a much smaller font than the words on the chart, and of course the most noticeable thing are the two lines, one going up and the other down. Vox has helpfully provided a chart that shows Planned Parenthood's real numbers, with a Y-axis and everything, and also including contraception services (which declined from 3,977,333 to 3,577,348) and STI/STD testing and treatment (which rose from 3,018,077 to 4,470,597). It's kind of a different picture.
Chaffetz, though, remains on his high horse about cancer screening, saying "So don’t tell me that I don’t care about this when I lost my mother to this, when my dad died from cancer, when my wife works on this. There is a better way to do this … I am tired of getting lectures from these Democrats that try to say we don’t care about women. That is just absolutely offensive."
His reference to "a better way to do this" is especially interesting when you consider that part of Planned Parenthood's decline in cancer screening between 2006 and 2013 is exactly because of doing things "a better way." During those years, medical guidelines shifted from calling for women to have a Pap smear—a key screening for cervical cancer—every year to calling for the screening every three years. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists made the shift in 2009, with other groups, including the American Cancer Society, following suit in 2012. As Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards pointed out in the hearing.
Let's not try to confuse Jason Chaffetz with facts, though. He stands by his numbers.
name one native american intellectual off the top of your head, name one native american actor or actress off the top of your head, name one native american senator, one native american news anchor, or an author or a tv personality or a singer or a poet or a comedian, name a single native american teacher you’ve had, can you? probably not
ok so now think of one native american cartoon character you know of or a sports team relating to native americans whether it’s their actual name or their team logo, or a town you live in or near with a “native” name bet a lot of these things came to you right away i bet you didn’t even have to think
needing native representation in media, education and government are not decoy issues, the commercialization and appropriation of native cultures are not decoy issues, the lack of native representation is institutional oppression at work
i love the mythbusters they’re like those weird uncles that you only see occasionally at big family reunions and every time you see them they’re like, “hey kid, wanna see what happens when we light a bee hive full of jalapeños and grenades on fire and shoot it?” and you’re like “uncle adam no” but it’s too late and there go your mother’s hydrangeas
We know from decades of linguistic research that all people express themselves in ways that can convey an affiliation with a particular group or identity. We know that gender identity, sexual orientation, regional background, socioeconomic status, racial/ethnic affiliation, level of education, age, political beliefs, and many other social categories can be indexed through manipulations of voice quality, pitch, rhythm, vowel quality, consonant articulation, etc.
Crucially, it’s not just the minorities of these categories who use such features; majority groups make use of these indexical features as well. For example, straight male speakers of American English are known to have deeper voices than straight male speakers of many other languages; even prepubescent boys in the US have been documented to have significantly lower pitch than girls of the same age, even though the two groups are physiologically indistinguishable in their throats. This trend has been getting more extreme since the 1960s, with American boys getting deeper and deeper voices with each generation.
This means that inviting a gay man to talk about how his voice conveys gay-maleness is (scientifically speaking) just as valid as asking a straight man to talk about how his voice conveys straight-maleness, how a white person’s voice conveys whiteness, how a middle class person’s voice conveys middle class-ness, how a college-educated person’s voice conveys education, etc. But I can say I’ve never heard of such an interview from your program or any program; this is only something that gets asked of women, gay men, African Americans, immigrants, and other people who are in a socially un(der)privileged position.
The questions that get asked are “why do gay people/women have to talk like that?” or “why can’t blacks speak (what we consider) proper English?” instead of “why do straight people/men have to talk like that?” or “why don’t whites know how to speak (any variety of) African American English?”, etc. There is no logical reason why we should ask the questions like the former two and not questions like the latter two.
Not only is it inaccurate to label minorities as the only ones who convey their identities through their speech, it also perpetuates a misguided belief that there is a “natural” way to speak, or a way to speak that has no “styles”. This concept of “naturalness” or “authenticity”, which came up many times in your interview, assumes that only some people (i.e. minorities) are adopting “styles”, deviating from “natural” speech in order to convey their identity.
This myth comes up all the time with another linguistic feature brought up in the interview, “vocal fry”. This type of voice quality, which linguists call “creaky voice”, “glottalization”, “laryngealization”, or a host of other terms depending on the specific acoustic characteristics, appears to index a number of social categories in American English: younger age, urban background, and (lately in the popular media) a sort of femininity. Ms. Sankin’s technical description of the voice quality was not incorrect (it does involve a slow vocal fold vibration with often incomplete closure), except for the part where she said it is harmful or unnatural.
Endless popular articles and podcasts (and your interview) describe “vocal fry” as a deviation from a natural voice quality, that it can be physiologically harmful to the vocal folds, that it grates on the ears, that it’s a “style” coming from singers of pop music, and that it should be avoided in order to be successful in life. None of these claims has any basis in reality. In truth, these voice qualities are used extensively in languages like Danish, Vietnamese, Burmese, Hmong, and many indigenous languages of Mexico and Central America (such as Zapotec, Mazatec, and Yukatek Maya), far more than they are in English – and as you might imagine, speakers of those languages do not suffer from medical problems in the throat any more than speakers of other languages.
Jfc it’s not like JKR came out of the womb clutching the first draft of Harry Potter, have people forgotten that she’s not always been rich and that she was actually pretty fucking poor not so very long ago and remembers what it’s like?
Have we forgotten this is the woman who took herself off the Forbes list because she gave away so much money?
I want to see them do an episode of The Price is Right with ultra rich people I want to see Mitt Romney try to tell me what he thinks the price of dish soap is
“An abusive man may embellish his childhood suffering once he discovers that it helps him escape responsibility. The National District Attorney’s Association Bulletin reported a revealing study that was conducted on another group of destructive men: child sexual abusers. The researcher asked each man whether he himself had been sexually victimized as a child. A hefty 67 percent of the subjects said yes. However, the researcher then informed the men that he was going to hook them up to a lie-detector test and ask them the same questions again. Affirmative answers suddenly dropped to only 29 percent. In other words, abusers of all varieties tend to realize the mileage they can get out of saying, ‘I’m abusive because the same thing was done to me.’”
Playstation 4 controllers do all kinds of cool things, but those nifty features can drain the battery pretty fast. This video shares nine simple tips for getting the most out of each charge.
OK, not even bothering to click through, but how do you even type a sentence that includes the phrase "a Swatch that can't have cost him more than a couple hundred bucks" and NOT realize you should really be re-examining some of your priorities and life choices?
I wasn't expecting much, but this list of status items from The Cut is pretty interesting reading. Status is often equated with money, but this list goes beyond that with picks like Japanese chalk for lecturing professors, the proper throat balm for theater people, watches for bankers1, weed for High Times editors, and the best canned tomatoes.
You might think that the watches get more expensive as you climb the corporate ladder, but that's not how status symbols work sometimes. For instance, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein wears a Swatch that can't have cost him more than a couple hundred bucks.↩
If you own a cat, then it is highly likely that you will identify with these photos… via via via via via via via via via via via via via via via via via via via via via
I bet this is like the basis of their relationship, though. Rebel command is like, alright go and face certain death doing xzy task. It will be difficult and you have to go fast. Luke is like “pffffff I did that at home so many times only the target was smaller. And moving. And I really couldn’t see that well because sand. This is gonna be cake, guys. CAKE.” Wedge’s reaction the first couple times, even after the death star, is basically that picture. But eventually he’s like sweet space jesus what terrible planet are you from that you keep telling me all these nigh impossible tasks are cake? Everyone’s like oh skywalker is a softie. He’s a squishy ball of love and sunshine, and wedge is like yeah. That is all extremely true but he is also MADE OF TEMPERED DEATH.
(After like the first 3 times Luke starts messing with Wedge. He’s like they want us do run these cables to the bottom of that extremely ominous cravasse? I did that one time when I was five, and uncle owen had me wire the relays with my toes because we had to shoot down this pack of anoobas that were trying to kill us and eat us. Wedge is just like that can’t be true, and yet…)
Unicorn on a Roll: more comics in the tradition of Calvin and Hobbes
The first collection starring Phoebe and her unicorn friend Marigold Heavenly Nostrils was the strongest new syndicated strip I’d read in years; with Unicorn on a Roll, Dana Simpson demonstrates that she’s got plenty more where that came from.
It alarms me to think that I almost skipped this series. The publisher sent me the first book and I stuck it in my daughter’s room, thinking we’d try it at bedtime. But it got shelved, and then every time I looked at the spine, I thought, “gah, not more dainty-girly stuff” and pass it over.
But my daughter rescued it (and me) because she’s smarter than her old man. By the time I noticed that she was reading it to herself, she was basically finished with it, but wanted me to re-read it to her at bedtime. Dubiously, I picked it up and started reading, and in seconds, I knew she’d found a winner.
Phoebe isn’t just a female successor to Calvin – I think I like her better than Calvin. Like Calvin, she’s precocious and funny and has this amazing imaginative internal life. But unlike Calvin, she’s not a jerk to kids of the opposite sex, and she’s introspective in a way that’s healthy without being mopey (and is the source of a lot of sweet humor that adults and kids can both enjoy).
Book two starts a year after Phoebe meets Marigold Heavenly Nostrils, freeing her from paralysis brought on by being unable to look away from the beauty of her own reflection (unicorns, right?). In that time, Phoebe’s parents and frenemies have come to grips with her new invisible (usually) friend, who can project a field of uninterestingness that allows her to mix with humans with impunity.
Phoebe is growing as a character (another satisfying departure from the usual kids’ comic formula), as is evidenced by the first major plot-arc of the book: her decision to free Marigold Heavenly Nostrils from her duty to be Phoebe’s best friend (naturally, Marigold rewards her by sticking around of her own free will). The amazing thing is that this piece of relatively moral philosophy manages to pull off a bunch of extremely funny gags in several modes – some aimed square at the grownups, some at the kids, and plenty that both can enjoy.
The book is a perfect mix of ongoing stories – largely about Phoebe’s relationship with her rival/pal Dakota, and Max, the boy she’s friends with and who acts as a kind of foil for her strongest characteristics – and one-off gags about things like nose-picking, rainbows, generation-gaps with parents, and how awesomely cool a unicorn looks on roller-skates (hence the title).
The ongoing stories – Marigold falls in love with a unicorn so humble he won’t let anyone see him lest he be admired; Phoebe competes with Dakota for a part in the fourth grade play; the other unicorns summon Marigold for an intervention to get her to unfriend Phoebe – cover some heavy ground, but always with a sprightly touch, and never without great comedy.
In case there’s any doubt: I plainly love this strip, and I love the books. The short intros (the first by Peter “Last Unicorn” Beagle; this one by My Little Pony rebooter/creator Lauren Faust) make it clear that there are plenty of others who can’t get enough of Phoebe and Marigold. And the aftermatter – glittery unicorn poo cookies recipes and tutorials for drawing Phoebe and Marigold – are great, too.
