June 2012
8 tags
My Reflections on Another Senseless Massacre
A shooting spree just occurred in Seattle, Washington, claiming the lives of five people, plus the perpetrator. As to be expected, the details are horrifying: the man walked into a café like any other client, then began opening fire at everyone inside. As he fled the scene, he shot and killed a woman at a nearby parking lot, hijacking her truck before driving off somewhere to kill himself.
As...
May 2012
5 tags
Sehnsucht: I Am a Feminist. →
introspectivestardust:
As long as women’s natural body hair is called disgusting and inappropriate while men’s isn’t, I am a feminist.
As long as I can’t watch an episode of a popular sitcom without having to sit through multiple sexist comments or “jokes”, I am a feminist.
As long as women have to face the rational…
Feminist and proud.
5 tags
“Maybe we expect too much from the opposite sex these days because we get too...”
– Laura Kipnis, The Female Thing.
It makes sense. We’re all so divided, we fail to see the bigger picture. There are clear issues between the sexes, ethnic groups, and other demographics that make up this country. But we’re too busy fighting and blaming each other to realize that we’re all being...
4 tags
The Jobless Generation →
The high youth unemployment numbers isn’t bad news for everyone. Employers are taking advantage of the fact that young workers must compete for scarce jobs, and they’re keeping wages low. Between 2000 and 2011, the real wages—adjusted for inflation—of young high school graduates declined by 11.1 percent. The real wages of young college graduates declined on average by 5.4...
4 tags
High School Honor Student Jailed For Absenteeism →
The Willis High School junior, who helps support two siblings, has both a full time and part-time job. She said that she’s often too tired to go to school.
“She goes from job to job from school,” Devin Hill, one of Tran’s classmates, told KHOU-11. “She stays up until 7:00 in the morning doing her homework.”
In an interview with KHOU-11, Tran said she takes...
3 tags
Spread the Love!
Here’s how this game works: say something nice about the person you reblog this post from. The idea is to simply create a chain of positive things about one another. We should never underestimate the value of a single compliment – it can really make a person’s day! So get to it!
5 tags
Ohio Set To Execute Severely Mentally Ill Inmate... →
On June 6, Ohio is scheduled to execute Abdul Awkal for the murder of his estranged wife and brother-in-law unless Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) grants a pending clemency petition, or a court steps in with a last minute order. Here’s the facts about the mental health of the man set to be executed next Wednesday:
Survived a Civil War: In 1975, when Abdul was sixteen years old, a civil war erupted in...
3 tags
The Countries With the Most College Graduates →
Granted, this doesn’t say anything about the quality of those degrees, but it’s still an interesting read. Most people didn’t see number one coming.
4 tags
Letters To My Country: 4 Year-Old Sings "Ain't No... →
letterstomycountry:
From Joe My God:
It’s apparently an actual song and not only did they teach it to a four year-old, they proudly brought him up to the pulpit to perform it, generating whoops and a standing ovation from the congregation.
A Sullivan reader writes:
The church is in Greensburg,…
6 tags
5 tags
I need feminism because
menstrual-poetry:
whoneedsfeminism:
THESE are ads that are being made, and liked? today.
This shit needs to stop.
It’s also a reminder that feminism is a global movement that must address every area of human activity, including commercial advertisements (which both reflect and influence cultural attitudes in general).
6 tags
“Is it mere coincidence that god approved slavery when man kept slaves and god...”
– Neal Jordan (taken from a post in The Atheist Truth)
4 tags
Afghanistan's Only Female Village Chief →
This woman is a hero and a wonderful example of a strong female for a country that sorely needs them.
7 tags
Around 2,000 People Found Wrongfully Convicted... →
5 tags
The Importance of Discussing, and Understanding,... →
Therefore, if you are on the receiving end of a question, suggestion, or rant about your white privilege, don’t get offended. Nobody’s accusing you of Klan membership, a biologically determined inability to fight injustice, or being The Man/Big Brother/Whitey/Hegemon. And nobody who’s pointing out the way privilege over-determines many of our ideas, opinions, and desires thinks that a...
5 tags
“…it is not the differences between us that tear us apart, destroying the...”
– Audre Lorde
Are Men Attracted to Psychologically Vulnerable... →
That’s the claim of at least one study mentioned in Gizmodo. I don’t usually put too much stock in the conclusion of a single study, but the finding is something to keep in mind, and we definitely need to do more research on the subject.
Based on my own anecdotal experiences, there does seem to be some measure of truth to this observation. I’ve seen many men express particular...
5 tags
Criminalized Abortion: Coming to a State Near You →
5 tags
Anonymous asked: Can you promise me you'll try to talk it out if the urge ever comes?
5 tags
“The silence spreads. I talk and must talk. So I speak to him and say to him:...”
– Paul Bäumer, in WWI veteran Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front
5 tags
1 tag
Are TED Talks Not All Their Cracked Up to Be? →
strangledself asked: I can't remember exact details but I tired to strangle myself whilst sitting in the middle road waiting for a car to come, my dad drove out around the roads and found me. I was given alot of medication and went into a deep sleep. I'm quiet sure why I did it, everything I remember feels like a dream, like it wasn't me performing those actions. Dissociation just. But I'm fine....
8 tags
Humanism
Humanism and its Aspirations, also known as the Humanist Manifesto III, comes from the American Humanist Association, and represents the central tenets of most self-identifying humanists and humanist institutions.
Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the...
4 tags
Women and the Maths and Sciences →
Researcher Pascal Huguet of Aix-Marseille University in France found in 2009 that middle school girls did less well on a math test when told that boys generally did better in math than girls. Without the negative information, they score nearly as well as men. In fact, by middle school, the cause is already lost for many girls. Stereotype threat–that confidence-killing burden of anxiety–has...
4 tags
“A million dead Iraqis is collateral damage. A smashed window is terrorism. —...”
– Remi Kanazi, poet and human rights activist. (via dirtyrichpolitical)
6 tags
Study: The Objectification of Women Is a Real,... →
PROBLEM: Women’s bare bodies are on display in billboards, movie posters, and many other kinds of ads. Though plenty of studies have looked at the ramifications of this pervasive sexual objectification, it’s unclear if we see near-naked people as human beings or if we really do view them as mere objects.
METHODOLOGY: Researchers led by Philippe Bernard presented participants pictures of men and...
4 tags
“What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who...”
– Chuck Palahniuk (via silent—undoing)
4 tags
If I'm supposed to believe the system works, which...
3 tags
5 tags
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”
– Seneca
9 tags
Is Facebook - Or Other Social Media - Making Us... →
I personally think that Facebook, like almost everything else in life, is what you make of it, and that it may merely be amplifying pre-existing social and psychological problems. It’ll have different effects on different people, and I recall that many people rely on social media, especially Tumblr, as an remedy for their real-life problems (a place to escape, vent, seek advice, etc).
Of...
5 tags
“Every man is a suffering-machine and a happiness-machine combined. The two...”
– Satan, in Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger. In the story, he is only an angel of the Satan family, and not The Satan who famously has fallen from heavenhe is only an angel of the Satan family, and not The Satan who famously has fallen from heaven
6 tags
A Culture of Rape in the Military? →
Rape occurs in the military nearly twice as often as in the civilian world, and rates of sexual assault are even higher in war zones. According to Duke University law professor Madeline Morris’ landmark paper “By Force of Arms: Rape, War, and Military Culture,” soldiers are several times more likely to commit rape in war zones than during peacetime.
They’re not just attacking women in the...
5 tags
“A law in India set aside for women the elected post of head of the village...”
– The Economist, Hope Springs a Trap.
7 tags
4 tags
“The language of love letters is the same as suicide notes.”
– Courtney Love
5 tags
“The German philosopher Josef Pieper wrote a book in 1952 entitled “Leisure: The...”
– The Facebook Illusion - NYTimes.com (via wildcat2030)
Perhaps, but I think the internet is an ever-evolving phenomenon that is still too young to judge just yet. With the fast pace of social and technological change that defines our society, there’s no telling what internet culture will...
5 tags
“Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely...”
– Bertrand Russell (via roshanm)
4 tags
Birth Control - For Men! →
It’ll be a few years coming, but this is a pleasant development.
3 tags
“The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through...”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
8 tags
4 tags
“Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but they detest...”
– Lord Byron
I’ve noticed how it’s typically far easier to hate someone than to love them. For most people, it takes a lot to earn their trust and love, but far less to earn their contempt and suspicion. By my own experience at least, it seems far easier to hate someone you once loved, than love...
5 tags
Ten Recently Discovered Species →
From blue tarantulas to sneezing monkeys! Even with our technology and settlement of the world, Earth is still yielding amazing lifeforms. If only we’d take better car of it all…
4 tags
“There are some fairly old philosophical issues about what confers identity and...”
– Essentialism | Conversation | Edge (via wildcat2030)
The 5 Strangest Reasons We Have Sex →
At least according to some preliminary scientific research.
