Sophianotloren

While we can see the rhythm of traffic or the churning clouds from factory smokestacks, the actual levels of pollution in our daily air are less visible. In an ongoing public art project by artist Andrea Polli called “Particle Falls,” a waterfall of light changes colors from blue to flaming reds and yellows based on real time air quality data.

Polli, an associate professor of art and ecology at the University of New Mexico, debuted this digital art installation in San Jose, California, in 2010. Now after cascading through Detroit, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh, “Particle Falls” is now in Logan, Utah. “Particle Falls” is controlled with a nephelometer, which shoots a light beam into the air to measure the concentration of fine particulate matter, particularly the smallest particle, PM2.5. “Presenting ‘Particle Falls’ in several different places has been an eye-opening experience, highlighting how important context is to air quality,” Polli told Hyperallergic.

“In Detroit and Philadelphia, for example, the particulate monitor [nephelometer] was placed on a busy street near a stoplight,” she explained. “We were able to see the effects of various kinds of buses, seeing real improvement from cleaner air buses for example, and how much more particulate is created by diesel vehicles and idling. However, in Pittsburgh and Logan, Utah, the context was very different.” She noted that the persistence of the high levels in these two cities was due to an inversion effect in winter in Utah, and the presence of industry in urban Pittsburgh.

Now part of the newly launched ARTsySTEM project at Utah State University, which brings together art, science, and math, the tumult of blue light on campus is part of Polli’s work to visualize the daily impact of air pollution. Her previous projects include “Cloud Car” in New York, which was parked at various spots in the city shrouded in mist symbolizing emissions, and “Breather” in Delhi, which consists of an automobile trapped in a bubble surrounded by its own suffocating fumes. A more collaborative project, “Hello, Weather!,” involved five semi-professional weather stations in international community centers that shared data online.

Now through April, the data visualization of the temporary Utah waterfall will be responding to the fluctuating levels of pollution in the surrounding area and representing them with differing concentrations of blue, red, and yellow. It is a strangely beautiful digital stream that is forcing people to confront what they might not want to see.

“Particle Falls” will next go on view February 19, 20, March 19, and April 16 on the side of the Caine Performance Hall at Utah State University (1100 East & 700 North, Logan, Utah).

h/t UPR

I wrote the other day about how most parents that are not vaccinating are not senseless or stupid; They are just parents who have anxieties around vaccines and are not sure of whether it is the best choice for their child. Sure, some of their beliefs about vaccines may be unfounded in science, but they are trying to do what is best for their children even though they may actually be putting their children in more danger as a result.

Although this does describe most parents that are afraid of vaccinating, there is a small yet vocal organized anti-vaccine movement who go way beyond just questioning vaccine safety. I became interested in the anti-vaccine movement a couple years ago after I became so curious about what exactly anti-vaxxers were doing and saying that I went to one of their rallies. Since then I have been following their organizations and blogs and went to their big conference a couple years ago (where I was subsequently recognized and kicked out despite following all rules and being nothing but respectful). From years of following the anti-vaccine movement closely, I’ve learned that whatever you think about anti-vaxxers, you are probably underestimated the utter absurdity of their beliefs. For the purposes of this post, when I use terms like “anti-vaxxers,” I am talking specifically about the extremist anti-vaccine proponents that are part of the organized movement. I should also point out that, as anyone who themselves are part of any movement know, factions exist within the movement. People are not homogenous and even if they all agree that vaccines are bad they may not agree on all the details. Not all anti-vaxxers will believe all of the things mentioned here but these are all things that I have seen mentioned often by anti-vaxxers and published on their websites and blogs.

Anti-vaxxers believe that people who promote vaccines are the equivalent of Nazis and rapists.

When I say that “anti-vaxxers believe vaccine-proponents are equivalent to Nazis,” I don’t mean it as an exaggerated metaphor. They literally believe that organizations like the CDC are the same as Nazi Germany. Back in 2010 when I went to an anti-vaccine rally, a band called the Refusers played a song entitled “Vaccine Gestapo” with lyrics such as

They’re a medical military priesthood
Just like Adolf they preach the greater good
Conscientious objectors are just little snot
Why don’t you quit complaining and go get your shots

In addition to accusing the CDC of being the Gestapo, they often will play the victim card, such as suggesting that antivaccinationists are treated like Jews were in Hitler’s Germany. That’s right, because we all know that anti-vaxxers are being rounded up and gassed. Vaccine mandates are totally equivalent to that. That must be why they are such a fan of comparing themselves to Anne Frank.

Although anti-vaxxers are quite the fans of holocaust metaphors, it’s not the only horrible thing in the world that vaccine proponents could be compared to. Just this month at Age of Autism (AoA), a popular anti-vaccine blog, they published a post comparing vaccine mandates for public schools to human trafficking. I’m not kidding. They call vaccine mandates Vaccine Trafficking, writing that “Vaccine trafficking is a form of modern forced medical experimentation where people profit from the control and exploitation of others.”

They even got in a Nazi reference in the following description of why vaccine mandates are equivalent to human trafficking.

Although forced medical experimentation is commonly thought to be a thing of the past, dealt with and eliminated by The Nuremberg Code after WWII, vaccine trafficking still exists today throughout the United States and globally when traffickers use force, fraud, or coercion to control other people for the purpose of increasing international vaccine sales by forcing them to be injected with scores of dangerous, ineffective, “unavoidably unsafe”, potentially-fatal vaccines against their will.

This is completely bananas and yet this is the type of fear-mongering language often used by the anti-vaccine movement when communicating to their followers the dangers of vaccines.

Oh, and of course I can’t forget about the vaccine rape metaphors. Anti-vaxxers are constantly comparing giving a child a vaccine to raping them, because in their minds it’s the same thing. Memes like this one, which accuse doctors and nurses of being child rapists, are shared by anti-vaxxers on social media.

Just in case you’re inclined to believe this is just a one-time thing, over at Respectful Insolence, David Gorski has compiled a whole bunch of instances of anti-vaxxers writing articles where they compare the act of vaccinating to rape.

If you can think of something terrible, then an anti-vaxxer has probably made the comparison between that horrible thing and vaccines.

The anti-vaccine movement has ties to the tea party.

Although anti-vaxxers are often seen as liberal whole-foods shopping types, in fact the organized anti-vax movement consists of right-wing extremists and has ties to the tea party. Anti-vaxxers have actually formed their own political party called the Canary Party which lobbies for removal of vaccine mandates. They often will partner with tea party groups in order to protest tough vaccine mandates for public schools and other pro-vaccine measures. They borrow much of the “freedom” language that is popular with the tea party and other right wing and libertarian groups when pushing for laws that make it easier to opt-out of vaccines.

Anti-vaxxers are shockingly ableist.

Most anti-vaccine organizations masquerade as organizations helping parents who are raising children with autism. However, despite saying they are helping families deal with autism, they way they treat people with autism and other mental disabilities is appallingly ableist.

When Jenny McCarthy made her now infamous appearance on Oprah where she first said that she believed vaccines were responsible for her son’s autism, she said that when she first got her son’s diagnosis it made her feel “like death.” She said that soon after her son got the MMR vaccine “boom—the soul’s gone from his eyes.” In other words, people with autism are people who have lost their souls.

Speaking at the anti-vax con AutismOne, RFK Jr. said that children getting autism from vaccines is like the “Nazi death camps.” Not only do we have another holocaust metaphor here, but I don’t think I need to explain why a person having autism is not equivalent to being imprisoned in a Nazi death camp.

In general, the anti-vaccine movement often treats autism like a fate worse than death. It’s why they are so vehement that if vaccines cause autism than vaccines must be far worse than all the diseases that they are meant to protect from. They do not seem to realize that many people with autism and other mental illnesses live rich, full lives.

The Feminist Skeptic explains why the anti-vax view that says that autism is the worst thing that could possibly happen to your child is so problematic:

it leads to the idea that risking preventable diseases (that can totally kill your kid!), autism biomed, chelation therapy, Lupron therapy, and even outright murder is totally justifiable, because hey, your kid wasn’t “normal” (whatever that means), and you just wanted to make them better, even if it means causing them further suffering in the process.

Oh, and speaking of anti-vaxxers defending the murder of mentally ill children…

Anti-vaxxers defend parents who murder their mentally ill children.

Back in 2013, a Chicago mother planned and carried out the murder of her son Alex Spourdalakis. Alex was 14 years old and severely autistic. His mother first gave him an overdose of his medication, but when he didn’t succumb she stabbed him multiple times and cut his wrists. This was big news in Chicago, but prior to the murder I had already heard of Alex Spourdalakis because over at Age of Autism they had been talking about him and his mother for months, offering both emotional support and financial in the form of a fundraiser. Andrew Wakefield himself filmed a video of him sitting at the bedside of Alex in a Chicago hospital. They claimed the hospital was illegally preventing Alex’s mother from taking him home and were abusing him and keeping him restrained. The entire anti-vaccine movement rallied around the Spourdalakis family, vilified the hospital, and eventually got Alex discharged so that he could continue to get alternative medicine treatments at home rather than the science-based psychiatric care that the hospital provided. David Gorski describes the entire horrific story in an incredibly detailed post at Respectful Insolence.

The anti-vaxxers were supporting the Spourdalakis family prior to the gruesome murder of Alex. You would then expect that after the murder they would walk back their support or perhaps even admit they were wrong. Instead, over a year later they have only dug in their heels. In fact, they have actually created a documentary entitled “Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis?” where they claim that it wasn’t his mother who murdered him, but the medical community and of course the vaccines which made him sick in the first place. They strongly imply that the murder was regrettable yet understandable in the face of a medical community that refused to allow the mother to treat her child using only unproven alternative medicine. The fact that they find the tragic murder of an autistic child even remotely understandable and defend the murderer is ableism at its most extreme.

Anti-vaxxers don’t believe vaccines protect you against disease.

This point is one of the more controversial even within the anti-vaccine movement. Most of the leaders of the movement will say that they believe vaccines do prevent against diseases, though they will often then give reasons why vaccines aren’t actually very effective or no longer needed since the diseases they protect against are so rare. However, the anti-vaccine movement is rife with those who believe that the disease-preventing power of vaccines is a myth or conspiracy.

Just this month Melanie Mallon used Skepchick’s Bad Chart Thursday to feature and consequently destroy an article from VaccineImpact.com on how measles has magically been reduced to the low levels we have today with no help from the vaccine. Measles just naturally decided it didn’t really like humans as much as it used to and went away on its own. The fact that measles saw sharp decreases in the U.S. following the introduction of the measles vaccine is just coincidence. This argument, that vaccines are not at all effective, is a popular one among anti-vaxxers.

Anti-vaxxers subscribe to dangerous alternative medicine for treating the mentally ill.

As I mentioned earlier, many autism organizations are actually anti-vaccine organizations in disguise. As such, they often will promote various alternative medicine treatments for children with autism. Katie and Ashley from Mad Art Lab went to the anti-vaccine con AutismOne in 2012 and reported back that the con was a cornucopia of alternative medicine, with “biomedical treatments, like supplements, special diet items (gluten-free and casein-free, of course), and, oh yeah, hyperbaric oxygen chambers.”

Although some of these treatments may not be harmful, many of them require strict diets or expensive medication and therapies that have no evidence of effectiveness and may even cause harm. Anti-vaxxers also will often discourage traditional medical treatments in favor of alternatives and in some cases, the treatments they encourage are incredibly harmful. Dr. Mark Geier, who has a ton of support from the anti-vax movement had his medical license suspended in 2011 for chemically castrating autistic children. This wasn’t something he was doing unbeknownst to his anti-vax supporters. In fact, anti-vaxxers supported him and continue to support him in using chemical castration to “treat” autistic children. Since losing his medical license, they have treated him like a martyr.

Anti-vaxxers believe that the government is knowingly and purposefully poisoning children

I already mentioned a lot of conspiracy theories that anti-vaxxers believe, but one of the most prominent is that the government and pharmaceutical companies know vaccines are ineffective and highly dangerous but promote them via propaganda and pass laws mandating them for children going to public school in order to make all that sweet, sweet vaccine money.

Back in the Vaccine Trafficking article I mentioned earlier, the author writes:

There are two primary factors driving the spread of vaccine trafficking: high profits and low risk.  Actually, since 1986, it’s no risk, with a captive and guaranteed market, mostly paid for by taxpayer dollars and cash-strapped parents. Like other prescription-drug trafficking, vaccine trafficking is a pharma-driven criminal industry that is based on the principle of “poison to profit”, with the goal being to ensure that every American is somewhere between sick and dead, for as long as possible. Every year, vaccine traffickers generate billions of dollars in profits by victimizing millions of people around the world, including here in the United States.

This type of extremist fear-mongering stating that the government and pharmaceutical companies are knowingly poisoning children is standard fare on anti-vaccine websites. The thing that’s always got me about this conspiracy is that if the government and pharmaceutical companies did come up with fake vaccines to make money, why would they inject children with poison? Why not inject them with saline instead or something else non-harmful? The only explanation is that anti-vaxxers believe that the government and pharmaceutical companies are cartoonish villains who poison children for fun.

Don’t worry though, the anti-vaxxers have a response to this. According to them, the reason the big pharma uses poison rather than placebo to sell their fake vaccines is because they are secretly eugenicists. Seriously.

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I want to reiterate as I did at the start of this piece that these are not things that the average parent who is opting out of vaccines believe. These are the fringe extremists who produce literature vilifying vaccines, run anti-vaccine blogs, events and conferences, and promote laws making opting out of vaccines easier. Though they are small in number, they are almost exclusively holding up the entire myth of the dangerous vaccine that is creating fear and anxiety among parents and leading to lower vaccine rates and outbreaks of diseases like measles. They run organizations purporting to help families with autistic children while actually just using that as cover to lobby against vaccinations. I think it’s important to emphasize just how utterly ridiculous their true beliefs really are. They go way, way beyond just “vaccines cause autism” or “vaccines contain dangerous toxins” to levels that include vast conspiracy theories and ableism.

Special thanks to David Gorski who helped me track down many of the examples of the horrific things that anti-vaxxers have published.

Featured image is a tinted screen shot of the front page of Age of Autism.

montondemierda:

El amperio contra Paca

thefrogman:

[video]

the-real-eye-to-see:

Tricky hedgehog

“

It’s no secret that the queer and LGBT community often only speaks trans women of color’s names after our sisters are long gone. Often times, we know nothing about these women, holding them up as martyrs/symbols to fight for stronger hate crime legislation (although most TWoC murders are unsolved, from Marsha P. Johnson and Brandy Martell to Lorena Escalera) and gain empathy, resources and fundraising that’s funneled into the further mainstreaming of this movement.

When I walk into queer and gender studies spaces on campuses across the country, I’ve witnessed people theorize about these women’s lives. But we often know nothing about their lived experiences, about how these women survived and loved and gave and fought this racist, classist, misogynistic and femme-phobic world.

We need to begin giving these women the space and resources during their survival, during their active lives, to tell their stories, to share their insights, to speak up for themselves. Reading their names once a year is not enough.

”

- Janet Mock, “Not All Memoirs Are Created Equal: The Gatekeeping of Trans Women of Color’s Stories” 

Yeah, yeah, Abraham Lincoln wasn't really thinking about immigrants from Mexico when he talked up the good of diversifying our population through an influx of newbies. But considering that whole freeing-the-slaves thing, there's a good chance he wouldn't have cared where the immigrants came from. In fact, regarding freeing slaves, during a speech in Chicago on July 10, 1858, he responded to his opponent for the Senate, Stephen Douglas, by kicking him in the taint with those long legs: "I protest, now and forever, against that counterfeit logic which presumes that because I did not want a negro woman for a slave, I do necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I need not have her for either, but, as, God made us separate, we can leave one another alone, and do one another much good thereby." This is followed by some uncomfortable talk about mixed-race marriages, but at least Lincoln put himself and the "negro woman" on equal footing.

In that same speech, given as part of 4th of July celebrations, in a section that is often cited by conservatives for its affirmation of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln lays down some logs of truth about the necessity of immigrants to the still-growing country:

"We are now a mighty nation; we are thirty, or about thirty, millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years, and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country, with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men; we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men; they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity which we now enjoy has come to us.

"We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time, of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves, we feel more attached the one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live, for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these, men descended by blood from our ancestors—among us, perhaps half our people, who are not descendants at all of these men; they are men who have come from Europe—German, Irish, French and Scandinavian—men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things.

"If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence, they find that those old men say that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal;” and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration; and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world."

A little later, after saying that he disagreed with the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln added, "I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it, and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it? If it is not true let us tear it out! (The audience yelled, 'No') Let us stick to it, then; let us stand firmly by it, then." Lincoln believed, and he expressed it often, that you either mean "equal" or you don't and can go fuck yourself.

But the tall man with squeaky voice didn't just talk the talk. As president, he called on Congress to pass legislation to encourage immigration. When he was nominated for reelection in 1864, the Republican Party platform contained this resolution: "That foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, development of resources and increase of power to this nation, the asylum of the oppressed of all nations, should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy." The act was passed, which allowed Lincoln to appoint a Commissioner of Immigration.

And in his final annual message to Congress, Lincoln wrote, "The act passed at the last session for the encouragement of immigration has so far as was possible been put into operation. It seems to need amendment which will enable the officers of the Government to prevent the practice of frauds against the immigrants while on their way and on their arrival in the ports, so as to secure them here a free choice of avocations and places of settlement. A liberal disposition toward this great national policy is manifested by most of the European States, and ought to be reciprocated on our part by giving the immigrants effective national protection. I regard our immigrants as one of the principal replenishing streams which are appointed by Providence to repair the ravages of internal war and its wastes of national strength and health. All that is necessary is to secure the flow of that stream in its present fullness, and to that end the Government must in every way make it manifest that it neither needs nor designs to impose involuntary military service upon those who come from other lands to cast their lot in our country."

Now, you can also argue that Lincoln was talking about legal immigration, but, actually, he was for creating a system to make immigration easier and to treat those who came here with dignity. Republicans, of course, won't talk about that Lincoln.

archiemcphee:

Reading is awesome, but we all have to put down our books from time to time in order to do other things. Bored Panda assembled an wonderful collection of creative bookmark designs that make saving your place an entertaining and aesthetically pleasing occurrence. Our favorites of the bunch are the wading Hippopotamus bookmark by Peleg Design [Buy on Amazon], the playful dust jacket + bookmark pairings by Moldovan designer Igor Udushlivy, green page markers that look like blade of grass growing up out of your book by Yuluriku, and Olena Mysnyk's delightfully macabre Wizard of Oz-inspired bookmark that looks like the legs of the Wicked Witch of the East sticking out between the pages.

Head over to Bored Panda for even more creative bookmark designs.

[via Bored Panda]

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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m0llyh8su:

therickymartin:

andysambergsbitch:

explaining autism

Holy fuck Arthur was on some next level shit

Oh my god

sswincestiel:

lepreas:

mahramore:

shots fired

rockets launched

“"…You want to play what?"
“A toaster.”
“….”
“Who thinks he’s an elf.””

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GM to first time player (via outofcontextdnd)

Sometimes these posts just speak to me, and I have to draw them.

(via noobtheloser)

^^^ This guys been threatening to do OOCDND art for ages.

dark-recesses-of-the-soul:

☽ dark, horror, eerie, macabre ☾

“Children sexually abusing other children in care has become a greater concern than adults inflicting the abuse, a report has found.”

Link to article

Up on a hill in a guarded compound, not far from where Harvard University keeps its primate labs, a 127,000-square-foot structure holds the heart of the institution’s library. With its concrete exterior lined with utility tubes, the Harvard Depository may not look like much, but inside are “nine million items and counting,” as narrator Jeffrey Schnapp explains in the new short documentary “Cold Storage.”

Schnapp produced the film, which is hosted on an interactive website embedded with mapped features like soundscapes, with Matthew Battles. Both work at the Harvard metaLAB, where Schnapp is founder and director and Battles is senior researcher. They collaborated on the 2014 publication The Library Beyond the Book, and the film is a continuation of their focus on the future of the library. “Cold Storage” had its premiere this month in conjunction with the opening of Icons of Knowledge, an exhibition on the architecture and symbolism of national libraries, in the school’s Loeb Library.

The Harvard Depository opened in 1986 and has expanded almost continuously since, with seven modules constructed and room for eight more. Even back in 1902, Harvard’s then president Charles William Eliot saw the need for an offsite storage facility, not “a crematorium for dead books, but only a receiving tomb.” As is the case with libraries everywhere, the amount of printed material produced and collected was far too cumbersome to keep on-site without creating Collyer brothers–level clutter. So now, about 25 miles from the Harvard campus, human “book pickers” rise on machine lifts among the 30-foot-high shelves to retrieve books and other media organized by size in acid-neutral boxes. These are then brought to the campus library about four times a day by truck.

In its 24 minutes, “Cold Storage” borrows from and responds to Alain Resnais’s 1956 Toute la mémoire du monde (All the World’s Memories), an expedition to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Over 50 years later, the modern library is much more about machine organization and retrieval, although human hands still manage each book request in the depository. However, as Matthew Sheehy, head of access services at Harvard Libraries, points out in the film, “because of the trend towards electronic books and electronic journals, the percentage of the collection that gets used is declining, but the collection continues to grow.” While library research might rely increasingly on digital platforms, these growing repositories of knowledge remain, climate-controlled and managed in colossal facilities, the real world of the online catalogue.

View the “Cold Storage” documentary and interactive site online.

The recent Maureen Dowd post caused numerous people to mention other salient examples from her immense body of terrible work.  A couple strands are worth particular emphasis.

First Pareene had an excellent roundup of her remarkable history of distorting quotes.  Really, more than one of these should be firable offense, even if the rest of her work actually had merit.  And they’re never innocent mistakes — the dishonesty is always in the direction of the narrative she’s pushing.  “Who among us doesn’t like NASCAR?” is the classic example.  Leaving aside the consistent journalistic malpractice, this should also remind us that the idea that she has some kind of shrewd insight into people’s character is risible.  Her narratives are always the stalest, shallowest spin that’s already been established by flacks of the public official’s opponents.  “Al Gore is a soulless, goody-goody liar.” “George W. Bush is an amiable dunce.”  “John Kerry is an effete snob.”  “John Edwards is a pretty boy with a fancy haircut and a big house.”  “Barack Obama is a cold wimp.”  (In fairness, I’ll grant that “Bill deBlasio’s wife doesn’t know her place” is pretty much her own, although not to her credit.)  There’s nothing in her columns that you wouldn’t “learn”  if you spent a few minutes watching “consultants” yell at each other on bad cable news shows.

We discussed this at the time, but the other classic example was when Sandy Hook showed that there’s a first time for everything: in this case, Maureen Dowd caring about a public policy issue.   The first why she could have proceeded is to do some homework, try to find it if any feasible policy changes could have…hahahaha, OK, let’s be a little more realistic.  The political questions surrounding the issue — why couldn’t even the most popular gun control measure pass? — are still interesting, albeit not terribly complicated for anyone who paid some measure of attention to how Congress operates prior to 2013.  Her response, alas, was to wonder why the political team that got comprehensive health care reform passed where Truman and Clinton failed and LBJ didn’t. even. try. didn’t keep track of which Senate votes were needed.  I swear.  And this “analysis” is not just implicitly based on Aaron Sorkin scripts; it’s openly and explicitly based on Aaron Sorkin scripts, which indeed seem to be Dowd’s sole basis for political “knowledge.”

The fact that Dowd has been given large amounts of money to ostensibly write about politics by the nation’s best newspaper for more than two decades says a lot, and none of it is good.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that she’s also the Judy Miller of love.  The ultra-ultra hard sell the NYT gave to Are Men Necessary? was sort of their equivalent to Mouthpiece Theater.

Trigger Warning- frank discussion of suicide

When a well-known porn star direct messaged me and tenderly asked if there was anything she could do to help with my struggles, and if it would be ok to signal boost my tilt campaign to help with my no-fault eviction, I was amazed. I didn’t expect someone who had 429,000 Twitter followers to know who I was, much less to reach out to me when I was in pain. Full of gratitude, I thanked her for her compassion, gave her permission, and was temporarily contented that perhaps I was less alone than I thought.

The next day I was at a shoot talking about mutual care when I discovered that an acquaintance had been vaguebooking about how people in the adult industry shouldn’t be asking for handouts, that we should just work harder. Bootstraps, y’all, right? This sort of attitude is one I feel I confront often, and it’s one I have in myself- how dare I ask for help? Who am I to receive assistance? Obviously it would be better for me to self destruct, or to suffer needlessly and silently, rather than asking people who seem to maybe care about me if they could give me a boost.

What a fucked up thing to say.

In my case it is easier for me to let go of the shame associated with asking for help, especially financial help, because I’ve been homeless and no amount of pride will put me back into that situation, ever. I can reflect on the hours of unpaid labour I do through activism, through giving personal guidance and advice, through taking on crowdfunding campaigns for other performers in dire straits, and I can say “sure, I do the work, this is just a way for people to repay me”. I can see it as an exchange- I scratch their backs, and eventually, they scratch mine.

But when I am anxious, or sad, I find it hard to crawl out of the hole I’m in to ask for a hand. I also find it hard to do self care, to eat properly, or to communicate about other things. I have multiple friends of friends who have committed suicide over the last two years, and many many more on the verge at any given moment, because they feel they’re not heard, that no one cares. They’re afraid of that shaming. So I hear you, person who is struggling and who is scared to ask people if they can do things for you. I understand the fear that comes with being vulnerable and saying, “yes, actually, I need you”.

I’m here to say- it is OK to ask people for help. Fuck those people who say otherwise.

Do you hear that? IT’S OK TO ASK PEOPLE FOR HELP.

They may not always be able to provide the help you need, but it’s perfectly fine to ask. I would say it’s especially ok to ask if people ask you for help all the time, with events, with editing, with personal problems. I think as caretakers and givers, we find it harder to get our needs met because we’re afraid the world will fall apart if we take a time out. And I think, for me at least, it’s scary to slam up against the possibility that all the assistance I’ve paid forward were just examples of people taking advantage and using me. That makes me feel like I should have known better, and gives me nihilistic feelings towards humanity. Much better to not ask at all than to be disappointed, right?

Considering a week ago I had a noose around my neck and was heavily considering where to put the knot for the quickest and easiest death, no. It’s not better to keep these things to yourself and suffer in silence. That way lies madness and isolation and the very good likelihood that you will end up martyring yourself when there was some possibility people would have helped you. At least give them the chance by asking.

I am still fighting off suicidal feelings, because receiving help isn’t a cure-all. But I also have some financial aid to cushion the sudden fall that happens with evictions, and I have some pleasurable things to remind me to do self care (flowers, cookies, bath bombs and makeup). I know I have people I can talk to and lean on when I need to. I know I have lovers I can be honest about how bad things are with, who will hold me tighter rather that be scared and run away. And that knowledge is keeping me alive. Communicating about where I’m at is what’s keeping me breathing. Trust that I can be honest without being sent to a hospital or made to feel guilty for making other people upset is helping me be strong. And when someone talks shit about you doing that, consider the source- in this case, realizing the amount of unpaid labour I had provided for this person in the past allowed me the closure to say “well, fuck you too”.

It is ok to ask for help. There are a lot of systematic oppressions that cause us to not want to ask for help, something missed by “The Art of Asking” by Amanda Palmer, though she touches on the also-important personal barriers that prevent people from coming forward. For example, this campaign in Hull suggested that people begging on the street should not “intimidate or harass people” but “ask for help and support”- help from resources often overflowing, sometimes dangerous, and often not friendly towards minorities. People of colour asking for help, trans people, sex workers are all seen less as “needing a helping hand” and more “demanding a hand out”, or “charity cases”. My question is, when did we get so scared of charity?

We’re taught that it’s a weakness to ask, but it’s a weakness to ignore our limitations. Being able to be vulnerable is strength beyond measure. Crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, Patreon, tip jars, these are all ways we can help each other, encouraging an ecosystem of mutual care rather than individualistic selfishness. And ask for the big things, because you won’t know unless you do- people often surprise us. The highest donating person on my tilt is a guy I knew years and years ago, who I offered a place to sleep when his parents kicked him out of his home.

All this said- asking for help is only as good as the community of people you have around to help you. I’m very lucky to have social media, but its worth noting that while I have about 10,000 followers at least total on my social networks, 47 actually contributed to my tilt. Another 5 paypaled me directly or gave me cash. All that is totally fine, of course- people have their own shit going on, right? But to prevent burnout, remember community is about accountability, shared responsibility, and mutual care. Think long and hard about who you spend time with and make efforts for and if they are, in fact, your community, or when you ask for help you will feel resentful. Its made me really appreciate the people who DO make time, who DO donate a dollar or two, who DO reach out and ask how I’m doing. I have radically redefined my community in a way that feels more sustainable and safe.

I might even make it through this alive, and part of that is because I trusted those around me enough to ask for help.

Here’s my guide on helping suicidal people, and also here’s a bit more about where I’m at at the moment if this seems kind of out of nowhere.

Here’s a great flyer on sustainable self care and activist burn out.

I dislike commercialism and sentimentality quite a bit. I am known to send texts like “You’re so cute, I love you, voms x” because I find it extremely difficult to be earnest in the realm of romance. For Valentine’s Day this year, I’m going to eat soup with my boyfriend while we hack up our lungs as we’re both sick with colds, maybe we’ll shoot some porn, and then I’m going to go see ‘Kingsmen: Secret Service” with my partner later that evening. It’s not terribly exciting or endless flowers and chocolates and I am a reasonably cynical person.

But I have a shameful admission that I am choosing to not be ashamed of anymore.

I love all that shit. I love stuffed animals, and heart shaped boxes of delicious candy, and beautiful big bouquets with lilies in them (my favourite). I love getting cards that say lots of mushy genuine stuff in them. I love receiving little boxes of thoughtfully chosen jewelry I can wear all the time to feel close to a sweetheart. I’m even coming around to public displays of affection like holding hands.

I get it, commercialism of emotions is bullshit. Christmas cashes in on feelings about family, and generosity, and ends up with us all scrambling to make rent the next month in the process. And the Fourth of July, another popular holiday to hate, stimulates feelings about patriotism that has me excited for fireworks even if I have some strong opinions about the United States. And Valentine’s Day is about capitalism and heteronormativity meeting and manipulating love in many, many ways, so yeah I get it. I also want to acknowledge how Valentine’s Day deifies romantic and sexual love/relationships over all other kinds, which is harmful especially when codependency is how we’re programmed to care for each other. Yes yes yes, I’m with you on all that.

But have you noticed it’s also a super femme holiday? Everything is pink and red and purple, bows everywhere, hearts everywhere, a focus on feelings rather than action. Love and romance are often trivialized in our society, sneered at as being feminized. A day to celebrate romance that often focuses on appreciating women in clear, obvious ways sounds pretty fucking good to be honest. We do a lot of unpaid ignored emotional labour and a day where we’re lavished with attention and gifts and appreciation is the absolute LEAST I think women deserve. Not that men don’t deserve to get flowers too- I think there’s a lot to be said for queering Valentine’s Day to celebrate the femme in everyone- but let’s face it, women get this day, and Mother’s Day if they happen to have children, and that’s it for recognition.

So why do we resent that so much?  Is it perchance because we have a general distain for femininity and femmeness? Is this perhaps a reflection of misogyny around “women’s stuff” like self-indulgence and beauty that causes us to reject Valentine’s Day so strongly? Is it about self-worth, and a fear that either by being unpartnered you’re not worthy, or that your partner’s lack of energy/creativity/money spent/whatever matters to you in planning a Valentine’s Day thing is reflective of your desirability as a person? Maybe we push this holiday away because love is vulnerable and vulnerability is fucking terrifying. I mean, that’s legit, to be honest. Love scares me every fucking day.

This year, though, I’m going to cautiously try to accept that yes, I have feelings, I do love people and they love me back, and that’s a good thing. Maybe I don’t have to protect myself with snide remarks again, but instead can just open my heart up to being cared about.

[UPDATE February 12th, 2015] Goal reached! In less than 24 hours, I received a total donation exceeding my goal of $400. I will keep some of the surplus for food and printing costs, and contribute some to other women of color I know who are struggling to pay for the trip to attend the conference. Thank you everyone who contributed and/or spread the word! – ek

Original post follows below.

*****

Short version:

I need financial help to get to Color of Violence conference. Please paypal emi@eminism.org or send check to Emi Koyama, PO Box 40570, Portland OR 97240. You can also support me by ordering my buttons and zines.

Long version:

Hello friends – I am doing two presentations at the upcoming Color of Violence conference in March, and about a month ago I posted a comment on Facebook asking for financial help getting there. But I didn’t set up any crowdfunding page or anything, because at the time I thought I could afford a large part of the cost myself.

Well, things have changed and I have less money now than I did, so I need to get more serious about fundraising to get there. The good news is that I got help with the lodging so that’s taken care of. In other words, I just need to raise enough money for airfare, ground transportation, and food.

The flight from Portland was super expensive (around $600), but it was way cheaper from Seattle so that’s how I’m going to travel. The roundtrip airfare is $362.20 (I’ve already purchased the ticket so it won’t go up, and my bank account is now dangerously close to overdrafting). For ground transportation I use ADA paratransit, which is $3 per ride in Chicago. I plan to go to a grocery store on the first day and stock up in my room to save money. So $400 total would probably work. I have received $40 from my previous facebook request, so my target is $360 which I think is possible.

Just so you know, the two presentations I’m doing are “Anti-Trafficking Policies and the Deputization of Social Service” and “Rejecting Victim/Survivor Dichotomy: From Individual Mandate to Collective Action.” In addition, I’m joining other women of color to do a workshop about critiquing media narratives about sex trade and sex trafficking.

I appreciate support from any of my friends, but I especially want white sex worker activists, anti-violence advocates, and scholars who use my work to support me now. I feel I’ve produced and gave away lots of materials for free that inform and benefit your work, and now is the time that you can help me connect and interact with other women and trans people of color so I can continue to do that.

I can accept Paypal (emi@eminism.org), Amazon gift card, or check (Emi Koyama, PO Box 40570, Portland OR 97240 – if you send a check, please email and let me know).

There are other ways to support me: you can also order my buttons and zines, or try to get me invited to your college or university if you are affiliated with any.

If I raise more money than I need for the trip, I will spend it on printing more zines and handouts to share at the conference, and/or give it forward to another woman of color who needs money to attend the conference.

Thank you for your help–and for reading the long version!

tastefullyoffensive:

Parenting in the future. (comic by Jeremy Kaye)

I missed this during the superb owl of which we must never speak again, but McDonald’s current marketing gimmick is indescribably monstrous; in a remotely just or sane world everyone who approved this madness would have been fired by now, and unable to find marketing work in the future. My first reaction was to call it another entry for my “extroverts don’t understand introverts” file, but that’s grossly unfair to even the most clueless extroverts. I’d happily add a couple zeros to the cost of a McMuffin to avoid this horror. I struggle to imagine that I share a species with people who think this is a good idea. One particularly disastrous result:

 They said all I had to do is call a family member and tell them “I love you”.

The start of the f*ck up is calling my mother who knows that I had a brief history with depression and suicidal thoughts from high school bullies, the second f*ck up is starting the call with I love you.

She immediately started to freak out (mostly because I’m over 1000 miles away from her and the closest family is about 300 miles away from me) and was pretty scared that I was about to commit suicide. Over the course of the next 15 minutes I was on the phone reassuring her that I indeed wasn’t about to kill myself and make sure that she wasn’t on the next plane to arrive and come to visit. (Afterwards she also mentioned that it had given her a small asthma attack, but nothing her inhaler couldn’t handle.)

It’s always fascinating when a company becomes possessed of the notion that it can fundamentally transform itself through marketing gimmicks. I know I’m not alone in that every time I eat at McDonald’s or a similar chain, I’m quite likely to be in a foul mood. Entering such a restaurant is a de facto admission of failure. If I’d had my shit together to get to the grocery store; if I hadn’t been too lazy to cook a bowl of oatmeal this morning; if I’d planned enough time to get something better that takes a few minutes longer; if I had just a modicum of willpower to resist the temptation to eat greasy processed crap; I wouldn’t be here. And virtually every time I enter such a restaurant, I get the distinct vibe that everyone else in the building is more or less in the same boat as I (the employees, of course, are miserable for different and far more serious reasons). I would be, frankly, taken aback and a little troubled if the cashier were to so much as ask me how my day was going (which has never happened). I suppose I can see how one might reach the conclusion that desperate measure are required; unfortunately, the particular desperate measures they opted for merely demonstrate how contemptuous they are of their employees and customers, whose underpaid miserable labor and poor choices, respectively, pay their salaries.

gordoananke:

ohhmelancholy:

misunderst00ds0ul:

joybeeeez:

guys never realize that. 

Why play games though? Just come out and say no, don’t seem to hard.

cause the word “no” is not in ya’ll vocabulary.

• A woman says no, I don’t want to go to prom with you, and gets stabbed to death.
  
• A woman says no, I will not sleep with you, and a man go on a shooting spree. 
  
• A woman says no, I will not give you my number, and is shot outside the club.
  
• A woman says no, I don’t want you to buy me a drink, and a man shattered a glass across her face. 
  
• A woman say no, I’m a lesbian, and a man shoots both her and her girlfriend while they slept in their home.
  
• A woman says no, I don’t want to be with you any more, and a man stabs her to death and murders her dog.
  
• A woman says no, stop harassing these teenagers, and a group of men beat her to death with stones and bats, smashing her skull on the pavement.
  
• A woman says no, we aren’t married any more, leave me alone, and a man shoots her to death.
  
• A woman says no, we work together but I’m not interested in you romantically, and a man shoots her to death whilst she’s working. 
  
• A woman says no, I don’t want to sleep with you, and a man rapes, murders and then hangs her from a tree.
  
• A woman says no, I’m not interested, and a man slashes her neck open.
  
• A woman says no, I never cheated on you, and a man beats her.
  
• A woman says no, I want a divorce, and a man cuts her neck open and stabs her multiple times.
  

You want us to start telling you no? You don’t want us to play games? Teach your fellow men to stop murdering us for it.

Last chance to get a Mac NAND Cheese shirt!