Jun. 11th, 2016

silveradept: A librarian wearing a futuristic-looking visor with text squiggles on them. (Librarian Techno-Visor)
Let's start with a consequence of an increasingly swift technological pace - one must eventually deal with displaced persons.

When reading anything that claims SCIENCE! is on their side, subject it to rigorous analysis, keeping your and their biases in mind. And that includes whether the government is actively trying to censor the work of your scientists.

When considering philosophy, consider it fully, and in all its possible forms, before committing.

The Zika virus is being used as a convenient scapegoat to abandon women and children with disabilities. Because it's a fairly common social assumption that disability is the worst thing, even beyond death.

The function of public mourning, and those who can gather many to do so by having the stage.

With age comes wisdom, and the ability to be a better fan than you were when you were younger, from being able to afford the merch (Say hi, Hot Topic Star Wars line in many body sizes and Firefly-inspired dresses) and avoid the drama. Plus, you get to write definitions for new words in the dictionary based on your fannish expressions. And possibly have several very anxiety-inducing moments when the heroes you've been RPFing the whole time find out about you. (As it turns out, Wonder Woman's pretty cool with it.)

On the impossibility of becoming a polymath, which is one of those things that can trigger or exacerbate existential anxiety, if you're the kind of person whose worth was measured in how smart you were during your formative years.

The utility of mundanity in promoting spiritual and magical awareness and practice. Which is certainly not a new idea, by any standards, but is occasionally useful when existential anxiety intrudes. Coupled with how a working-class upbringing sometimes makes things easier on slicing through office politics, because I'm a big meanie like that, and somewhat of a comfort that I'm not the only person dealing with anxious thoughts and feelings.

The District of Columbia would probably function better if it were decoupled from the federal government that enjoys messing with it.

Texas Republicans need to proof their platform more, so as not to contradict themselves immediately. Or, for that matter, saying that most Texans are gay.

Another musician says Donald Trump can't use their music.

A story of using all the available options to fight off the brainweasels. A story of the body of intersectional issues surrounding bodies. Phrases that seem innocuous but are problematic regarding body size. Good behaviors of allies.

The many ways people without disabilities write and talk about people with disabilities that erases, advocates for eugenics, and otherwise ignores the disabled. And even more so for disabled people of color.

A story of disassociation and lost time, accompanied by the reality that trauma is not suffered solely on a battlefield.

It is entirely possible that persons thought to be without brain function based on behavior are still conscious and attempting to respond to the stimuli if their environment. Such people could potentially benefit from therapy and other interventions.

Writing characters as they are, instead of as mystical or completely strange, because people are fantastically diverse and different, and materials written for and by diverse people reveal new perspectives of looking at the world. Which means yes, Hermione can be black just as easily as anything else.

The experience of transitioning to being a man, and all of the changes in perception that accompany this, many having to do with having privilege work for you.

If sex education sucks, that puts people whose sexuality isn't covered in crap sex education at even greater risk. Then there's extra crap on top when pseudoscience claims to prove gender stereotypes.

A story of learning about another culture while still trying to make it okay for the child that's introducing you to it. A story of finding someone to kiss.

A story of learning language, and learning at least some of the worldview that backstops language.

Music geniuses snubbed by society because they're women. Or perhaps because they are part of the Cassandra tradition of telling truths that the society around them has no interest in hearing.

Oxycontin is dangerous, especially when the company that produces it insists it ships be taken one every twelve hours, when it seems to be effective only up to eight, which is a good way of getting someone addicted to the substance by telling them to have to wait through four hours of narcotic withdrawal.

The Rolling Stones have requested that Donald Trump not associate their music with his campaign. It seems like a basic thing - play musicians that might agree with you.

The need for yet more diversity, even as we acknowledge the strides made in opening up the narrative playbook. The uselessness of the phrase "damned if you do, damned if you don't" when taking about privilege and allyship. Then there's also major party candidates who don't mention intersectional issues, or who aren't clued-in enough to know how bad they have messed up.

If major party candidates sound like choosing between evil and stronger evil, you can thank neoliberalism's wholehearted adoption of a conservative capitalist platform for it, abandoning the actual liberal focus on protecting and expanding access to unions and government programs intended to buffer working people against the cruelties of The Market (all hail).

Kate Beaton moved away from the city to work on comics, and has the extra bonus of finding more people and stories to tell that don't normally have comics made about them. I'm putting this next to the way that history tends to marginalize and disappear pioneering women in the arts and sciences, in case someone from a much later time is reading this and doesn't know who she is. Or, for that matter, about Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a Russian sniper with more than 300 kills to her name.

Encouragement from the independent booksellers is sometimes more meaningful than big sales, although the sales pay the bills.

Fandom is equally able to erase minorities as anyone else - but fandom should be a place that doesn't do this, because fandom is often supposed to be about minority viewpoints and characters that aren't getting enough in their source. Commenting on fannish history without having done cursory research, though, brings down the wrath of those who went through it - as insular as I am from fandom in general, I still saw Racefail happen, so I would expect it to be part of the timeline. Things like that, and other threats from corporate entities, founded places like the Archive (and, to some degree, Dreamwidth). Erasure of history does violence to the narrative, and to those who have invested in changing history and the narrative.

It also means not knowing how media and its archetypes react to collective cultural traumas.

School dress codes are used as methods of policing women's bodies.

Women should have more space to express their anger, rage, frustration, and other emotions that men believe women shouldn't have. Because men believe they shouldn't have them, unapologetically angry women in media are criticized more harshly than men, women who express anger lose their ability to influence others, and entire generations of women are one again socialized that anger is an unacceptable emotion for them, leading to many other problems down the road.

At least one bright spot, though - after giving a convicted rapist a six month sentence, a judge is finding it harder to get a jury pool for trials.

An overloaded child and a child demanding what they want may react similarly, but the way to defuse them is different.

For example,
tantrums at the lack of handwriting skill and practice are best handled by pointing out how much handwriting was already difficult to decipher, possibly.

Suggestions on how to achieve physical activity when brainweasels are running interference. Suggestions on finding a good therapist when you are part of a marginalized group.

Thirty years on, a new big size book about David Bowie in leather pants. Would that be were still here to see it.

Agent Carter in the Civil War movie was wasted, and not even a particularly good substitute for Agent Carter. Agent Carter is more than willing to come back to her show, if someone will greenlight another season.

Chris Evans is ready to be done with the Captain America role - it's been very big, but also hugely anxiety-making.

If you can get past the condescension and the punnery, the need for people who work in the industry related to death to find compatible dating partners actually highlights how taboo death still is as a subject in most of United States and United Kingdom society.

People likely to experience oppression have to make risk calculations all the time, calculations that are invisible to those less likely to have to make them. And to those steeped in the culture that prizes toxic masculinity and lack of respect for no, the privileged need to be explicitly called to task before they notice it. Because so many of the people in power and privilege don't have to deal with gestation or abortion. Or, for that matter, the systematic devaluation of any profession or institution that starts to become majority women. There may be space for an argument that suggests feminism is being co-opted by capitalism and marketing here, although I would conclude that it's not a failure of feminism, but a success of oppressive forces if feminism's edge is so thoroughly blunted. The other problem might be that our stories lack a full range of women in them, shorting our ability to conceive and empathize with women who don't fit a particular mold. Like Barbie and Skipper as overstressed hackers and programmers/a>.

By making John Joan and casting Lucy Liu, Elementary made a most excellent Watson.

Having captured the very thing the government wanted to suppress, a photographer's pictures of those forcibly relocated by the United States government in 1942 were censored and embargoed for nearly thirty years. This reflects a broader tend of insistence that those wronged by the past should forget about those wrongs.

Solitary confinement in prisons should be approached with the same mindset that one thinks about torture.

The are people building installations they hope will be seen as art - very far away and in the desert where few people go. There's probably a poem about looking upon someone's works that applies here. There will probably be more conversation about the artist that works in vulvas. Or about why repetitive music is enjoyable to brains. Or, for that matter, body painting people so that they look like animals.

The condemnation of hedging in language is mostly a device for older people to criticize younger people, which makes it one more thing used to decry the people than need encouragement.

Creative and learning endeavors eventually hit a point where there is no external validation to determine progress. That point is when creative endeavors become really hard, because at that point, you have to answer the question of what success looks like and nobody else.

Motherhood is not always positive, and some mothers regret what motherhood did to their lives. Even as they are bombarded with messages saying that women have only a limited time before children of their own bodies will be forever denied to them. Women don't get socialized to ask for what they want, and get punished for when they do, after all. And yet, there isn't a media furor over men whose sperm is collected or used after their death.

Naked ancient Greek men statues have small penises when the artist wants to depict the men as wise and rational. In Japan, Queen Himiko represents a time when women ruled and had equal authority as spiritual and temporal leaders. Misty Copeland enjoys success in ballet despite a recent prejudice for white and thin bodies in the art form. Badass punks taking school uniforms and making them into rebellious symbols. (Many punks eventually have to get straight gigs.)

All hail Morojo, cosplayer number one and founder of that particular fannish expression. See what your descendants have done.

The Puff Pant Prom, a women-only event where one was either attired in formal ladies evening wear or formal men's evening wear. That's excellent, and I'll bet everyone there looked great.

When engaging with sexuality and relationships, especially in visual media, there's always more to it than just putting bodies together. So much so that one can successfully argue against restrictive regulation that has been banning fetish expressions of sexuality.

Fixfic is not just for fandom. Canon authors get into the act, sometimes aided by fandom.

Writing science fiction as a woman is always frought with people telling you what you can and can't do. Perhaps for inspiration, or because you want a lot of good work in one book, two collections of Ursula K. LeGuin will be available this fall. While you wait, the Baen Free Library.

Also, a coffee table version of all the works of Hieronymus Bosch. For inspiration.

Being an editor is often a thankless and very misunderstood job.

A checklist of things to examine if you feel like you have writer block.

Tumeric juice in drinks is a new health thing. As with all new health things, claims routinely outpace what can be proven.

A revenge and intrigue thriller makes Cannes sit up and take notice.

The ways in which legal language changes with the times.

Not all donated clothing returns for resale - much of it is recycled into other things or sent to other countries.

Having asked the public to name a new polar exploration vessel, the government went with a name they felt wouldn't be embarrassing, despite its popularity.

Places to purchase digital manga for your readers and computers.

The New York Public Library has placed another large cache of images into the public domain, including a set of woodblock prints.

In technology, plant-based meats that look and cook like their animal counterparts, the likelihood that a program that caters to women's tastes is going to be more sharply downrated by men, combined with the problem that most narratives are one of three variations on the Straight White Man story, the evolution and expansion of a meme about equality and equity, using astronomy as a lead-in to a lesson on poetry, pictures of and from space, a reminder that armor with separate cups for each breast is armor that is working against its own purpose, the failure of a technology to indicate which options would be destructive, which may be the manifestation of an undetected bug, various free sites and services to help accomplish your tasks, passwords to the wireless services of various airport lounges, doing things that leak data without warning and interfere with user experience will generally alienate users, the history of the drink known as Coca-Cola, influential gadgets of the past one hundred years, alternative camera applications, things related to the creation of the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the woman who was a prime investigator for Houdini to expose charlatans posing as mediums and Spiritualists, dinosaur toys that reflect the current science, selection of appropriate typefaces, sizes, and use of ALLCAPS can be the difference between legible and lethal, deep-frying water, visualizing the way that airports are connected to each other, the possibility that phone conversations are distracting, regardless of the means of communication, attempts to create perfumes that smell of ink and paper, renderings of bicycles drawn from memory, cakes with high gloss finishes, and the reality that maintainers and infrastructure people are more important than innovators and entrepreneurs. Which, perhaps, is a hat tip to Hufflepuffs everywhere, doing the hard work of creating and maintaining without flashy recognition.

A discovery of a boneyard suggests that lions might drag corpses away to eat them, the process of training kittens to work on a movie set, a cat that plays and scratches a postal worker when they put the mail into a letter slot, an ongoing battle between squirrels and their proponents, tiger cubs meeting adult tigers, a hognosed snake faking its own demise, a tunnel to help leopards safely migrate by covering a highway through their habitat, the rapidly approaching reality that soon dinosaurs will be taught as feathered creatures and not scaly ones, pictures of cats with excellent timing, glowing squid, attempts at using snails as instantaneous transmission devices, a fish swallowed by a jellyfish, cabybaras on the loose, blue-glowing fireflies, crystalline creatures, snow leopards with their tails in their mouths, a giant squid kite, excellent egg sandwiches, and cephalopods are doing really well.


Last for tonight, unabashed joy in being able to enjoy something, contrasted with an enduring character whose trauma is built to seem relatable to our own.

Reacting to the cancelation of your show with grace and thievery.

And then, An interactive guide for helping with self-care.

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silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)
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