acidadebranca:

mikasavela:

Portions of Plan Voisin. From Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeannere. Oeuvre complète Vol 1 (1910-29).

1925 | Le Corbusier | Studies for Plan Voisin for a modernisation of Paris 

Three new shirts in my TopatoCo.com online store! There’s Captain Picard’s Mean Pizza-Launchin’ Machine, a shirt about the terrifying menace that is Bane, and a new version of Metalhawk. Oh yeah, also I met Jeff Goldblum and he liked my book.

apothecaryads:

The Harden Star Hand Grenade Fire Extinguisher, advertised in Truth Weekly Journal, 15 April and 20 May 1886.

Source: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

museum-of-artifacts:

Helmet of a norse elite warrior. Vendel Period (pre-Viking Age), 550-790 AD

teadrunktailor:

Throwback Thursday. Laying a hit on our host at Lysts on the Lake International Tournament, May 2012, plus a bonus shot of my echranche when it was a bit less beat-up.

The Discovery Channel gig last Saturday went… okay. We got through it but there have been better runs. The 60 km/h wind didn’t particularly help. The camera chap seemed to think he got some decent footage so let’s hope the editing room will help us out a bit!

Coffee O’Clock

https://twitter.com/skullmandible/status/529854600602746882

https://twitter.com/skullmandible/status/529854685050830848

Original Source

The Phoenix Mercury star reportedly received a minor cut from random attacker.

Basketball star Brittney Griner and a Chinese teammate were reportedly the victim of a "random" attack by a man with a knife, per a report by Doug Feinberg of the Associated Press.

Griner was not seriously injured, suffering only a small cut on her elbow, according to her agent Lindsay Kagawa Colas. Griner's teammate with the Beijing Great Wall was also stabbed, but did not suffer any serious wounds. Neither player was taken to the hospital for further medical attention.

The man was later apprehended by authorities after chasing the players onto their bus. Griner is in her second season playing in China, and played the 2013 season with the Zhejiang Chouzhou Golden Bulls. Griner plays overseas during the WNBA offseason, when she's not suiting up for the Phoenix Mercury.

Further details on the attacker's identity or motive were not immediately available.

Griner helped the Mercury claim the WNBA championship over the Chicago Sky last year, and earned numerous accolades for her stellar career with the Baylor Bears, including a perfect season in 2011-12.

A-Rod has denied it in the past, but under oath, the government reportedly got a confession out of the Yankees' star.

Alex Rodriguez has denied that he had any association with Biogenesis or the performance-enhancing drugs the anti-aging clinic sold. He denied it during the investigation by Major League Baseball, and while suspended, even at one point suing both Baseball and the MLB Players Association for their handling of the case that he considered a witch hunt. Now, the Miami Herald reports that A-Rod admitted to PED use to the Drug Enforcement Administration back in January.

The Herald had access to a 15-page synopsis of A-Rod's meeting with the DEA, and from that they report that Rodriguez admitted to the use of "substances prohibited by Major League Baseball" between late 2010 and October 2012. Rodriguez also explained how Anthony Bosch, the man behind Biogenesis, explained to A-Rod how to beat Baseball's drug tests in order to get away with his use.

For this confession, Rodriguez reportedly received immunity. Obviously, he did not get it from Baseball, but losing a season is superior to having the government chasing after you.

But in a Drug Enforcement Administration conference room back in January, facing federal agents and prosecutors who granted him immunity, baseball's highest-paid player admitted everything:

Yes, he bought performance-enhancing drugs from Biogenesis of America, paying roughly $12,000 a month to Anthony Bosch, the fake doctor who owned the clinic. Yes, Bosch gave him pre-filled syringes for hormone injections into the ballplayer's stomach, and even drew blood from him in the men's room of a South Beach nightclub. And yes, the ballplayer's cousin, Yuri Sucart, was his steroid go-fer.

Rodriguez has been reinstated by the Yankees and Major League Baseball after serving what turned out to be a 162-game suspension. The DEA is no longer after him if everything in this report is to believed, and Bud Selig is set to happily retire after making A-Rod the face of Biogenesis in 2013. This confession likely doesn't change anyone's viewpoint of A-Rod, but the fact it's out there might finally allow fans to move past what has seemed like a never-ending story for the 20-year veteran.

BUTT (own) GOAL!

OWN GOAL.

BUTT GOAL.

BUTT OWN GOAL.

HISTORY.

MAGIC.

HISTORIC BUTT OWN GOAL MAGIC.

BUTT.

HT Reddit

I’ll be turning up in Juneau, Alaska, with my remarkable wife/attorney (wifettorney?) Katie Lane this weekend! I’ll be presenting a First Friday gallery show at the Alaska Robotics Gallery, followed by a lecture at the Downtown Library, featuring my work in designing characters for comics in multiple styles, including Outfoxed, Family Man, Bite Me!, and Danse Macabre. This will include some sketches and development work that haven’t been seen by anybody beyond a five foot radius of my studio desk, so if you’re in the area, you don’t want to miss it! Later in the week Katie will be teaching her signature workshop on negotiation techniques for independent artists and creative entrepreneurs. 

 I’ll be teaching a workshop on character design vs. character development, including original exercises as well as some drawn from Ursula K. LeGuin, an obscure Swedish roleplaying game, and a theater professor I briefly met on a college tour. If you want to improve or enrich how you approach writing and drawing fictional characters, please attend! It will be held at the Douglas Library in Juneau from 1:30 to 3:30 pm this Saturday, Nov 8th. I’ll see you there!

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Poor Microsoft. The company just can't catch a break when it comes to its live-on-air, TV promotional campaigns for the Surface. First there was the widely-mocked giant Surfaces that showed up in a redesigned Fox News newsroom. Then we all had to hear NFL sportscasters describing the Surfaces being used on the field in cringeworthy fashion as "iPad-like tools." But perhaps the worst slight came last night when CNN commentators discussing the 2014 US mid-term elections were caught using their Surfaces as stands for completely different tablets (probably iPads). After all these marketing mishaps, maybe Microsoft should consider bringing back its Surface break dancers.

---

CNN commentators using Microsoft @surface tablets as iPad stand. Facepalm. pic.twitter.com/BPxWTf2zhI

— Adam (@adamUCF) November 5, 2014

Laurie Greasely, Illustrations.

I’m currently loving the illustration work of Laurie Greasely.  See more below:

Laurie Greasely: Tumblr

Oregon joins Washington and Colorado in permitting the sale and use of marijuana, an experiment that’s just 2 years old. The federal government still classifies pot as an illegal drug, but so far has largely allowed the states to experiment with legalization, which has brought in millions of dollars in taxed revenues. Pot shops crowd the streets of Denver, where “budtenders” legally sell marijuana-laced cookies and other treats.  In left-leaning Oregon, people will be allowed to grow and possess marijuana starting in July, giving the state eight months to devise regulations for the sale of it. In the nation’s capital, possession or cultivation of a small amount of pot will become legal in July, unless Congress tries to block the measure. The sale of pot would still remain illegal, however. The District of Columbia has had one of the highest levels of arrest rates for marijuana crimes.

Most people didn't realize the Sherlock star was even dating Hunter, who has appeared in the film Vanity Fair. That was until an old school engagement announcement ran in London's The Times today announcing that "Benedict, son of Wanda and Timothy Cumberbatch," was engaged to "Sophie, daughter of Katharine Hunter … and Charles Hunter."

hodad

#iir

TV Channel Globo, one of the largest television networks in Brazil, is broadcasting a series called “Sex and the Niggaz”. The series is an adaptation of Sex and the City, but this time with four Black actresses. The series has been written by the famous White actor, writer and producer Miguel Fallabella.

The very title of the series is itself hugely problematic, not only because race is the primary signifier of the women, but also because the terms are full of racist and gendered connotations, such as the venacular Brazilian expression “I’m not your niggaz “. In racist discourses, Black women are those who work for sex, while the white woman is the woman who is worthy of romantic love, kindness and respect. These same dualities are repeated in “Sex and the Niggaz”, where the main character is a white woman who seeks love, while the black women live only for sex, which reminds us of another Brazilian expression which also has its roots in slavery and has remained practically unchanged – “White women are for marriage, mulatas are for fucking and black women are for work”.

In the series “Sex and the Niggaz”, the narrator is a white person. She is a voyeur; someone who is looking through a keyhole at the sexuality and the bodies of black women who can be raped and manipulated by structural whiteness, not only literally but also through cultural representation. Our existence is fetishised. We are on display for the white gaze. Moreover, even when the characters in “Sex and the Niggaz” are placed in situations of explicit racism and sexism, they do not react. The women remain silent or dissolve into strange giggles. These women do not represent us.

The black feminist critique has gone straight to the heart of the matter, denouncing stereotypes and the symbolic violence of these representations where black women are both hypersexualized and passive in the face of racism and sexism. At Blogueiras Negras (or Black Bloggers, a blog written only by black women), we have an alternative series on our youtube channel where we have been able to express our anger. We have also started a National Boycott Movement of the series, including exposing the companies that have sponsored it, namely TIM , VIVO , Avon , Pedigree, Sadia , Itaú , Dermodex , AmBev.

The author of the series says he is an ally; someone who has struggled to discuss issues of blackness. The same author released a statement on his facebook trying to silence us while mocking our criticism, comparing himself to Spike Lee and calling black women who did not accept his work “bush captains” – a name for slave hunters in Brazil. His response included, “Oh! niggaz … give me a break”. On another occasion, Fallabella suggesed that our reaction was down to a sheer lack of intelligence.

The following text is an open letter signed by individuals and collectives of black women. It reflects the views of Bloggers Negras both to the series and to Fallabella’s subsequent responses to our critique.

Open letter to Mr Miguel Falabella ‘Oh! White Man! Give me a break!’

You ask me if I am going to call you a racist? You tell me!

Racism is not about polemics, much less about rancor or a lack of humor. More than anyone else, as someone who believes himself to be a defender of race equality and so is an ally in the fight against racism, you should know this. You should also know that to defend yourself by enumerating your black friends as evidence of your anti-racist credentials is to live in a warped and simplified world of privilege. It is a world in which the voices of black women are reduced to minor controversies.

Oh! White man, you give me a break! You say it “hurts” you to see the struggles of your black colleagues, the slights and their continued undervaluing and invisibility. In the case of black women, it is worse. You certainly have an awareness of the terrible experience of Neuza Borges, one of the greatest actresses we have. Yet, as a black woman, Neuza Borges, cannot find a place in Brazilian television. She lives a hand-to-mouth existence because her next soap opera could still be a long way off and will depend on the “good will” of others, not on her talent.

You ask me if the problem is sex or “as nega”, wanting to disbelieve our fundamental critique of the media. We heard the news that even GLOBO’s enthusiasm for your project has waned. You argue that this is simply about prosody. You say that the title of the series came from a black woman. So, I ask myself did the same woman receive the credits and financial rewards for her collaboration? Or is she someone who doesn’t deserve a name, not even a surname?

Not a problem white man, I will blacken everything again.

As nega, I come back to explain, it is not a question of prosody. Such racialised terms transform the body of the black woman, offering her up to be consumed by a racist gaze. As “your nega” we are put in the position of secondhand goods. The expression is embedded not only in the language of slavery, but also of sexism, so that we feel these terms in the flesh. This is a double violence that reduces and commodifies women according to their skin color and sex, determining our value and place is society.

Still with the name of this series, I fear that many people do not know the difference between one racist adjective and a common adjective. At Bahia, “nego and nega” have different connotations from those in Recife, for example. And depending on the use of the phrase, tone and of who is using it; who sends the message and who receives it, you can offend or you can compliment. However, in a heinous context of 350 years of slavery, “I am not your nega” does not break free from its racist connotations. And if someone perpetuates a racist adjective, what name should we give this act? Oh! White man, you tell me!

Your work, with a view to making financial profit, does little to create the dignified visibility of black women. It does the opposite. As is common in literature and dramaturgy made by white people about black people, we are treated as exotic study cases; people to be manipulated and observed. Oh teach us professor Ligia Fonseca Ferreira! Your work amounts to “negrismo” – racist parody. It is not “negritude”, derived from the complexities of black cultures, the distinction made by the writer and journalist Oswaldo de Carvalho.

Yes, I am saying that we should be able to speak for ourselves. You can call that reverse racism if you wish. For us, this is about a counter-hegemonic visibility, with the power to transform the ways we are represented in the next soap opera, and the next mini-series. Without this transformation, nothing will change. The black woman will be nothing more than a stereotype to entertain.

When we first heard the news about the series, it was said that a white woman would be the principal actor. She, who behind a balcony, would observe us like animals in a zoo. She who would speak on our behalf. Our history, suffering and capacity to speak for ourselves were minor details. The narrators of our trauma and suffering, in this case a man, is someone absent from this suffering. It is not silliness, not even conservatism, not even the forces of politically correctness, as some will suggest. It is about critical care for our history and existence.

You argue that “a show that reflects a little of the hard life of these people, beyond employing and bring protagonism to more black actors” is desirable. And in reality, it would have been so. Since it could have been written, produced and protagonised by black people. In reality even the woman who named the series did not get her due recognition. This detail says a lot about the symbolic violence that this TV-series enacts and represents.

How is it possible to pretend that to dehumanize us is to enhance our visibility? Since when does treating us as the cheapest meat in the market, as Elza Soares sings, mean that you are our ally? Oh! White man, give me a break! Your words only serve to disclose your intentions. We will continue to denounce racism and sexism from those in positions of privilege who distill poison and commit such violences of representation against black women.

This is not about sex. It is about denouncing a perverse system that excludes black women and makes us less human. A system in which black men are the targets of police violence and of hypersexualization: the “man with the big penis” is a result of the brutal animalization of the body of the black man, always ready for sex. Where is the critique of this objectification in Brazilian TV? Well it is not on your TV series, even less so in what you say and how you have responded to us.

We repudiate your words because we were raped and brutalized in slavery and continue to be in the worlds of drama made by white people about us. And this is one of the mechanisms that racism uses to perpetuate itself: reducing the complexity of black women’s lives to a hypersexualisation. You speak about the hot mulata, delicious and spicy. We are more than this. We need to be shown in our full everyday complexities, as women who work, dance, party, and want sex yes, but we are not only this.

We are not here to overlook or deny that we are housekeepers, maids, hairdressers, domestic workers and carers. But in our achievements and our struggles, we are also directors, dancers, lawyers, marketing officers, writers, teachers and doctors. Where are these women in your TV series? Maybe they are living in Cordovil? Perhaps we are not living in the suburbs? I doubt it. We will NOT accept caricatures anymore! And so this critique goes beyond the problematic name of the series.

Oh! White man, give me a break! So you are now comparing yourself to Spike Lee to give credibility to your work? No, there is no comparison. And it is not only because Spike Lee is a black man. It is because we do not see any racial critique in “Sex and as nega” as we see it in “Do the Right Thing”. The ghetto is a landscape, but also a character. The author is not only observing and telling their version of a story: Spike Lee is in the ghetto; through the racialising gaze he is the ghetto.

Please, respect our history and take back your accusations. We are not persecuting the black actors in this series, much less the real women that are represented by your characters. Those who know something of our history know that there exists other versions beyond those in which we were enslaved. Don’t pretend you do not understand who created the bush captains.

To accuse someone of becoming a “bush captain” is something much more complex than terminology. It is to imply that we are our own torturers. This is a fallacy. Retract your words and think about what our boycott and critique means as a critique of a historically racist system in which the right to speak, to tell our own stories has always been restricted. I repeat: this is not a witch hunt. It is about gendered racism.

We oppose your use of terminology and all those who pretend to understand the pain of those who suffer. This world where racism is entertainment to boost audience numbers, naturalizes and entrenches racism. We have had enough of your discourse, of your TV shows that use blackface; that transforms every black woman into a domestic worker or mulata globeleza¹ Our bodies are not spaces for your pleasure, fun, profit or enjoyment. We are black women with pens and keyboards, eager and competent writers of our own plots and life trajectories.

Oh! White man, give me a break! Those who try to silence us are racist, yes.

Visit the campaign’s  Facebook page and sign the petition

Notes

1. Mulata globeleza is a character created by the same TV channel during the carnival

___________________________________________________________

 At Blogueiras Negras (or Black Bloggers, a blog written only by black women. Find them on twitter @BlogNegras

This piece was translated and edited by Betty Martins and Yasmin Gunaratnam

Related articles

• Campus Racism in Brazil – the case of Stephanie Ribeiro (mediadiversified.org)
• A Conversation with a Kenyan Sex Worker  (mediadiversified.org)
• This Week In Whitesplaining (mediadiversified.org)

Original Source

Winona Ryder,    [in High School]
“I was wearing an old Salvation Army shop boy’s suit. As I went to the bathroom I heard people saying, ‘Hey, faggot’. They slammed my head into a locker. I fell to the ground and they started to kick the shit out of me. I had to have stitches. The school kicked me out, not the bullies.
Years later, I went to a coffee shop and I ran into one of the girls who’d kicked me, and she said, ‘Winona, Winona, can I have your autograph?’ And I said, ‘Do you remember me? Remember in seventh grade you beat up that kid?’ And she said, ‘Kind of’. And I said, ‘That was me. Go fuck yourself.’ ”

SmartBear Software, which makes tools for software developers, will move its headquarters from Beverly to occupy about 33,000 square feet of an office and retail building at the $1.5 billion development. SmartBear will be Assembly’s first tenant from the tech world.

It’s doubtful that the similarity is due to the physics of the birds’ vocal tract, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Rather, it seems male hermit thrushes choose to sing notes from these harmonic series. It may be that such notes are easier for the males to remember, or provide a ready yardstick for their chief critics—female hermit thrushes. The study adds to other research indicating that human music is not solely governed by cultural practices, but is also at least partially determined by biology.

It seems that with this decision, Camilla Parker-Bowles and Prince Charles will finally have what they have wanted all along, Queen Elizabeth's throne.

I miss Portland.

PSA: Ground Kontrol was founded as a place where people can have fun playing classic pinball and video games. We do not think #GamerGate is a fun issue, so it has no place at Ground Kontrol. Regardless of which side you support, we ask you to leave #GamerGate and all other political issues outside our door, so that everyone can have fun inside. Ground Kontrol should be a fun place for all. If someone is violating that trust by making you uncomfortable in any way, please bring it to the attention of our staff so we can deal with it on a case-by-case basis. Thanks to the hundreds of customers and thousands of fans out there that support our mission to preserve the classic arcade experience. Now go play games!

Drew Brees (Alabama, Lousiana, Mississippi, Vermont). Brees over Brady in the Green Mountain state? Upset. The top-selling female jersey overall? That of the Indianapolis Colts' Andrew Luck.

Addison, who worked as a small animal veterinarian at the Banfield Animal Hospital on Northeast 82nd Avenue in Portland before leaving to travel in 2013, turns 41 years old Wednesday. Her mom hoped she'd be back in Oregon by then. "I never expected her to be spending it in prison," Kero said. "We definitely want it to be resolved as quickly as possible and her to be able to come home."

A teacher at a Louisville, Kentucky, Catholic school has resigned rather than take paid leave after parents raised concerns about her trip to Kenya, half a continent away from the Ebola epidemic in western Africa, WDRB Channel 41 TV reported. Susan Sherman, a religious education teacher who is also a registered nurse, was recently on a mission in Kenya in eastern Africa. When she returned, St. Margaret Mary school requested she take a precautionary 21-day leave and produce a health note from her doctor, according to a statement from the Archdiocese of Louisville.