words I love

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vydri — Thu, 30 May 2013 09:19:12 -0400

The Problem with 'Boys Will Be Boys'

vydri — Thu, 23 May 2013 02:12:44 -0400

For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion.

No matter how many times he did it, his parents never swooped in BEFORE the morning’s live 3-D reenactment of “Invasion of AstroMonster.” This is what they’d say repeatedly:

“You know! Boys will be boys!”

“He’s just going through a phase!”

“He’s such a boy! He LOVES destroying things!”

“Oh my god! Girls and boys are SO different!”

“He. Just. Can’t. Help himself!”

I tried to teach my daughter how to stop this from happening. She asked him politely not to do it. We talked about some things she might do. She moved where she built. She stood in his way. She built a stronger foundation to the castle, so that, if he did get to it, she wouldn’t have to rebuild the whole thing. In the meantime, I imagine his parents thinking, “What red-blooded boy wouldn’t knock it down?”

She built a beautiful, glittery castle in a public space.

It was so tempting.

He just couldn’t control himself and, being a boy, had violent inclinations.

She had to keep her building safe.

Her consent didn’t matter. Besides, it’s not like she made a big fuss when he knocked it down. It wasn’t a “legitimate” knocking over if she didn’t throw a tantrum.

His desire — for power, destruction, control, whatever- - was understandable.

Maybe she “shouldn’t have gone to preschool” at all. OR, better if she just kept her building activities to home.

I know it’s a lurid metaphor, but I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don’t “get raped” and this child, Boy #1, did not learn the preschool equivalent of “don’t rape.”

Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning. How much of the boy’s behavior in coming years would be excused in these ways, be calibrated to meet these expectations and enforce the “rules” his parents kept repeating?

There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it his mother took him in hand, explained to him that it was not his to destroy, asked him how he thought my daughter felt after working so hard on her building and walked over with him so he could apologize. That probably wasn’t much fun for him, but he did not do it again.

There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy. You can’t make this stuff up.

Take each of these three boys and consider what he might do when he’s older, say, at college, drunk at a party, mad at an ex-girlfriend who rebuffs him and uses words that she expects will be meaningful and respected, “No, I don’t want to. Stop. Leave.”

The “overarching attitudinal characteristic” of abusive men is entitlement.

juicyjacqulyn: disruptedoriginal: macpye: thatpointlessidiot: ...

vydri — Tue, 21 May 2013 00:22:16 -0400

juicyjacqulyn:

disruptedoriginal:

macpye:

thatpointlessidiot:

mysteryegg:

veggiecoldcuts:

the-more-u-know:

The milkshake: This is not limited to fast food nor to milkshakes. That ‘concoction’ is the industry standard artificial strawberry flavoring found in everything strawberry flavored that isn’t naturally flavored.

Chicken nuggets: Total lies. My sister works at the Tyson plant that provides KFC and McDonalds their nuggets. There’s no ‘pink paste’ stage. ’Reflavoring’ is an injection of mostly salt into the meat in order to give it some taste because modern day chicken is nearly flavorless. If you want to disgust people, show them the conditions of the processing plants that dismantle the chickens.

The pubic hair one: You eat more of your family’s pubic hairs cooking in your own home. You think you don’t shed once you walk in your own door?

Peanut butter: This is a cold hard truth of food mass production. There will be insects. You can never get rid of them or take them out of the process. The FDA places limits on how much can be allowed into specific foods so that food manufactories don’t get lazy and just say ‘Well we can’t keep it out.’ The FDA limit helps immensely because it makes these places try to keep the insect population down through keeping things clean.

Shellac: Oh my god this is so stupid. ’Shellac’ is an INGREDIENT. It’s a NATURAL PRODUCT produced by INSECTS. It is then PROCESSED into food-grade glaze or colorants, OR into wood and furniture polish. They don’t just take wood polish and dump it on your jawbreakers. Grow up.

Bacteriophages: The ‘phages of which you speak are used to kill the listeria virus. Listeria is a bacteria that attacks the immune system and has a one in five mortality rate. Bacteriophages? They’ve been used as an alternative to antibiotic medications in Russia and France for 90 years. That’s really disgusting and dangerous!

Coke: This is total and complete bunk. It would have been far more effective to point out that colas and carbonated drinks have been linked to weakened bones in those who overconsume them, but this is complete lies here. Again.

Salads: I think you mean propylene glycol. And again, this is bullshit. PG only causes reactions in those allergic to it. It has a very low toxicity and can only negatively affect human health if very large amounts are ingested very quickly and over a very short period of time. By which I mean ‘Find a vat of it and start drinking it and nothing else.’ Again you go for the lie instead of pointing out that fast food salads are processed and contain as much fat and cholesterol as most of the other foods offered by a fast food place.

Beef additives: This has nothing to do with fast food. This is common in MOST meats in the US. This is because the US has become so obsessed with the fat content of meat and making it ‘healthy’ that we have literally bred almost all the flavor out of every food animal breed we currently use. Flavorants are almost ALWAYS injected during processing or most of our meat would be bland and tasteless. ‘Flavorants’ typically being concentrated broth and/or salt and seasoning.

Cheese: Lies again. Only those cheeses labelled as ‘Pasteurized process cheese food’ and ‘Pasteurized process cheese spread’ match these stats. Pasteurized process cheese is simply a blended cheese made to have a sharp taste and be easily melted. Your lie here is that the 47% is referring to the cheese’s fat content, not cheese content.

This image is full of lies and misrepresented half-truths and anyone spreading this as truthful should rethink their approach.

TL;DR: just because it’s in a pretty image, doesn’t mean it’s true.

Oh man, I saw the image scrolling down and was like ‘I sure hope there’s someone underneath this saying how bullshit this infographic is’ and there was

^for the last comment.. I thought the same thing

referenceforwriters: by Chuck Palahniuk 8 Words You Should...

vydri — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:04:57 -0400

referenceforwriters:

by Chuck Palahniuk

8 Words You Should Avoid When Writing

As always, Orwell’s final rule applies: “Break any of these rules before saying anything barbarous.” There are instances where each of these words fills a valuable role. However, especially among inexperienced writers, these words are frequently molested and almost always gum up the works.

1. “Suddenly”

“Sudden” means quickly and without warning, but using the word “suddenly” both slows down the action and warns your reader. Do you know what’s more effective for creating the sense of the sudden? Just saying what happens.

I pay attention to every motion, every movement, my eyes locked on them.
~~Suddenly,~~ The gun goes off.

When using “suddenly,” you communicate through the narrator that the action seemed sudden. By jumping directly into the action, you allow the reader to experience that suddenness first hand. “Suddenly” also suffers from being nondescript, failing to communicate the nature of the action itself; providing no sensory experience or concrete fact to hold on to. Just … suddenly.

Feel free to employ “suddenly” in situations where the suddenness is not apparent in the action itself. For example, in “Suddenly, I don’t hate you anymore,” the “suddenly” substantially changes the way we think about the shift in emotional calibration.

2. “Then”

Read More

Quietly Thinking Aloud: Brain teasers for egalitarians/equalists.

vydri — Sun, 19 May 2013 12:16:55 -0400

Quietly Thinking Aloud: Brain teasers for egalitarians/equalists.:

alexandraerin:

Say I’m 32 years old and you’re 22 years old.

In how many years will we be the same age?

…

Silly question, right? If you define aging as a process that stops at death, the only way we’ll ever be the same age is if I die first. If you don’t, then we’ll never be the same age. Every time you age a year, I also age a year. Since our ages increase at the same rate, you will never catch up to my head start. We have achieved a total equality of aging, but that does not change the permanent inequality of our age.

Okay, say I have a million dollars and you’re completely broke. If we both get a dollar a day, how long will it take you to catch up with me?

Now, this one’s even sillier, because if you have no other resources, your dollar a day is going to be eaten up by basic living expenses that it doesn’t quite meet, and I have an excess of money that can be spent on money-making opportunities that pay off far better than an additional $365 a year. I could literally burn the dollar I’m getting as part of our Totally Equal Income and still make more money in a year than you do just by sticking my money in the bank.

But still: both of us getting a dollar a day is totally equal, right? It means we’re being treated exactly the same.

And now, final problem:

If we have a world that contains structural inequalities, systemic imbalances, disproportionate danger faced by some, and unequal access to resources and opportunities, is “treating everyone the same” really going to result in equality?

Show your work.

About

vydri — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 01:17:54 -0400

fucknohealthism:

This is a blog by scientists about the anti-science of healthism.

This blog might be for you if you:

are aware of or interested in the history of health research, including its many grand claims later found to be utterly false (after having maimed/tortured/killed thousands of people)

agree that if what we know about health and human biology is the size of a frisbee, half of that frisbee would be under dispute, and what we don’t know about health and human biology would be the size of the planet

roll your eyes at local news ‘health’ headlines (which tend to contradict themselves week to week)

think Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil and Dr. Sharma have a lot more wrong with their currently held scientific opinions and presentation thereof than they have right

believe that shows like The Biggest Loser have nothing at all to do with actual health and positive outcomes of its contestants and viewers

agree that there is no obesity epidemic

agree that skepticism, not belief, should be the natural foundation of intellectual and scientific inquiry

agree that medical researchers and health care professionals are as prone to error and bias as any other human, regardless of how many years they spent getting their degrees

…or are just plain curious about healthism and why it’s bunkum!

FOR THOSE NOT IN THE KNOW, NIGHT WITCHES WERE RUSSIAN LADY...

vydri — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 01:08:23 -0400

FOR THOSE NOT IN THE KNOW, NIGHT WITCHES WERE RUSSIAN LADY BOMBERS WHO BOMBED THE SHIT OUT OF GERMAN LINES IN WW2. THING IS THOUGH, THEY HAD THE OLDEST, NOISIEST, CRAPPEST PLANES IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. THE ENGINES USED TO CONK OUT HALFWAY THROUGH THEIR MISSIONS, SO THEY HAD TO CLIMB OUT ON THE WINGS MID FLIGHT TO RESTART THE PROPS. THE PLANES WERE ALSO SO NOISY THAT TO STOP GERMANS FROM HEARING THEM COMBING AND STARTING UP THEIR ANTI AIRCRAFT GUNS, THEY’D CLIMB UP TO A CERTAIN HEIGHT, COAST DOWN TO GERMAN POSITIONS, DROP THEIR BOMBS, RESTART THEIR ENGINES IN MIDAIR, AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF DODGE.

THEIR LEADER FLEW OVER 200 MISSIONS AND WAS NEVER CAPTURED.

muura:

vydri — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:00:43 -0400

muura:

megadelicious:

vydri — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:40:13 -0400

megadelicious:

theheftyhideaway: He is so spot on. So many scary things...

vydri — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 23:19:26 -0400

theheftyhideaway:

He is so spot on. So many scary things happening lately, it is hard not to feel bombarded. I feel a lot of sadness for the people hurting tonight in Boston.

goodreasonnews: cheesecakeczar: bagginshires: The things I...

vydri — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 02:02:08 -0400

goodreasonnews:

cheesecakeczar:

bagginshires:

The things I find on Facebook. This picture doesn’t even make any sense. The fetuses of those three animals cannot even be compared to the fetus of a human because all of those animals are endangered. The human race is already past 7 billion. Aside from that, abortion is meant to be a states rights issue, not something that is protected or otherwise by federal law. I, for one, am all for abortion - I, as a male, am incapable of becoming pregnant, and I don’t feel as though I, or anyone else for that matter, should be able to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body. This picture, though, is pure ignorance.

They are also individual beings, able to breath and digest on their own.

Human fetuses are protected by law in the exact same way those other fetuses are. If the mother of Loggerhead Sea Turtle crushes one of her eggs, she is not arrested. If a third party comes along and crushes that egg, that person is arrested. If a mother human gets an abortion, she is not arrested. If a third party comes along and forces an abortion on her, that person is arrested. Flaw identified. You may now commence your apology. (is what you can tell whoever posted this)

strawberreli: agrand: youarenotyou: abellandapomegranate: grr...

vydri — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 17:19:20 -0400

strawberreli:

agrand:

youarenotyou:

abellandapomegranate:

grrspit:

theuppitynegras:

graphitetroll:

alienpornz:

missyankovic:

super-dike:

ricksantorum-2012:

whats-inside-a-girl:

ricksantorum-2012:

kaijisan:

Okay…

There is no way he believes this?

Nobody could possibly believe this…?

Prove me wrong. Do it.

i was not created by a white man.

Unless you were conceived in a bathtub full of kool-aid or something, modern day conception procedures come from Europe.

This is probably the most racist comment I’ve seen in a very long time

Firstly, I’m with the person right above me. That’s an incredibly racist comment. I would say you should be ashamed, but I know you won’t listen.

Now on to proving you wrong.

Chocolate chip cookies were invented by Ruth Wakefield (x).

Liquid paper was invented by Bette Nesmith Graham (x).

The square-bottomed paper bag was invented by Margaret Knight (x).

The dishwasher was invented by Josephine Cochrane (x).

The windshield wiper was invented by Mary Anderson (x).

Kevlar was invented by Stephanie Kwolek (x).

Potato chips were invented by George Crum (x).

The carbon-filament lightbulb, which was actually more practical than Edison’s paper-filament bulb, was invented by Lewis Latimer (x).

The blood bank was invented by Charles Richard Drew (x).

The protective mailbox, the precursor to today’s public mail boxes, was invented by Philip B. Downing (x).

The gas mask was invented by Garrett Morgan (x).

The birth control pill was invented by Luis Miramontes and two other scientists (x).

The magnetic compass, porcelain, gunpowder, the mechanical clock, and paper money were all invented by the Chinese (x).

The condom, high heels, paper, and the pen were all invented by the Egyptians (x).

There. Done.

Oh, and re: “modern day conception procedures,” I believe the word you’re so clumsily dancing around is “sex.” (Don’t worry, typing it won’t hurt you.) I have to burst your bubble on that one, too. The first humanoid beings were Australopithecus, and they lived in Africa (x). (The map’s down a bit on the page.)

I think I’ve thoroughly proven you wrong enough by now. I’m going to get some sleep. Laterz.

YOU ARE MY HERO.^^^

LET ME BARE YOUR CHILDREN

BUT WAIT KIDS THERE MORE:

The traffic light

Peanut butter

Open heart surgery

Homo sapiens

The light switch

The real McCoy engine

Spoken word poetry

Rock n Roll

Hell pretty much every genre of American music since we got to this bitch

And that’s just the top of my head. TAKE IT AWAY NEXT REBLOGGER:

Agriculture. Writing. The fucking wheel. Fucking civilization.

The domesticated chicken in the sandwich I’m eating. The tea I’m drinking.

The concept of “zero”, as in the OP is a total fucking zero.

Ooh ooh!

Apples. Bred from a wild ancestor fruit in central Asia.

Bread. Also Egypt.

Beer and wine. Near East/Egyptian inventions.

Distilled alcohol. Arabs.

The triangular sail, which revolutionized navigation: also Arabs.

Beekeeping and therefore cultivated honey. Also Egypt.

Pet cats and dogs, meticulously domesticated in the Near East and Asia respectively. Also domestic cattle, Africa and South Asia.

Computer programming. Ada Lovelace.

Spread-spectrum and frequency-hopping communication technology, which is to say, the wifi my computer is using right now. Hedy Lamarr.

The novel. Japan! Unless you count Apuleius’ Metamorphoses/”The Golden Ass,” in which case, Africa.

Randomized controlled trial, completely essential to the basis of modern medicine: Ibn Sina.

Edible corn, potatoes, and nightshades, which form the bulk of at least most Americans’ diets: the brilliant breeding, cultivation, and agricultural experimentation practices of the Maya, Inca, and Aztec civilizations respectively.

Indoor plumbing. India.

Lenses. Assyria.

The written word. Oh, that’s right: Phoenicia, Africa, and, independently, China and Mesoamerica. Yes, yes, we know: runes and ogham. Very impressive, Norse and Irish, nicely done, welcome to the show.

Oh, and the printed word. China again.

Really, astronomy, chemistry, geography, physics, optics, botany, and surgery as we know them.

Oh—and that bathtub you want to fill with Kool-Aid. Brown folks invented that, too.

Oh, hell, do some homework:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_inventors_and_scientists

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_scientists,_inventors,_and_scholars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Puerto_Rican_scientists_and_inventors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_contributions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventions_in_medieval_Islam

Go do some Googling like a grownup.

haha. white people have never invented anything, they steal everything they can from POC and take the credit

I don’t know if these were mentioned and I’m missing them, but the people of Mesopotamia (according to google where modern Iraq is) were the first known people to use irrigation.

Also Ancient China in addition to a shitton of the awesome things above invented noodles/pasta, for which I am eternally grateful as it is the basis for a lot of Italian cuisine, food of my culture.

China also had the first automated clocks, I don’t know if that was mentioned.

You can also just do your own research at websites like these: http://www.black-inventor.com/Lonnie-G-Johnson.asp

There’s also this really informative series of posts that have been going around tumblr: http://hamburgerjack.tumblr.com/post/43237040943/pipercarter-black-history-month-fact-15-711

There’s also chocolate, one of the most awesome foods ever, it’s initial form was invented by Mesoamericans and actually used in their rituals before white people came and appropriated that up as a fancy people drink.

So, basically OP, we as white people owe essentially all the awesome shit around us to people of color.

In other words, the folks above are correct. far as I can tell the only thing we’ve invented was stealing other people’s shit and taking credit for it while making out that the creator of said good shit should be thankful to us for inventing this cool thing. We’ve also been pretty great at perpetuating systems of oppression based on this model.

But let’s be honest, we probably didn’t even invent stealing shit and taking the credit.

So yeah, you’re probably a troll at least I hope you are because that was straight up absurdly wrong. But in case you aren’t, I just wanted to contribute some inventions I didn’t see mentioned.

Arabs invented coffee, the pinhole camera, cheques, fucking physics, man.

My forever favourite is soap. Your white ass did not know how to BATHE until we showed you soap. You sat in yr own filth and thought water would KILL YOU.

If you're in the US and ever need help paying for an abortion

vydri — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:02:23 -0400

thegoddamazon:

darkjez:

fuckyeahfeminists:

Check out this list of abortion funds organized by state

Read More

lemme save this for later…. being back in the South I might need it

Same.

Good Reason News: Disgusting mother

vydri — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:53:41 -0500

Good Reason News: Disgusting mother:

seythani:

On the store this morning I heard a woman reprimanding her child. ” If you don’t stop complaining God will punish you. You are acting like a devil. God punishes little devils.”
I am disgusted by the indoctrination of religion in children. How sad they believe in hell and the…

insanitysartist: versatilequeen: sandetiger: politicsofmylund:...

vydri — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 01:26:22 -0500

insanitysartist:

versatilequeen:

sandetiger:

politicsofmylund:

theviraltruth:

The First Amendment does not protect you from:

Criticism: If you’re a comedian who makes a bad rape joke, people are allowed to point out that you’re not funny as well as an asshole.

Shame: If you tweet something racist about President Obama on your public Twitter account that’s connected to your first and last name, people are allowed to say that is bad.

The Right to Anonymity: If you take creepy photos of women without their consent and post them on Reddit, people are allowed to try and figure out who you are and post your information on the internet. No one is entitled to anonymity. It’s up to you whether to make it easy for people to find you.

Mockery: If you put yourself out there that means your peers (and news outlets) have the right to LOL and comment.

Consequences: If you publicly express yourself in a manner that is offensive, hurtful, or just plain dumb, strangers might contact your friends/family/school/employer and tell them what you did. That is not infringing on your right to free speech; it’s pointing out how you choose to exercise that right. Like the rest of the federal constitution, the First Amendment protects us from the government, not from private companies, which may be able to fire or otherwise punish you for stuff you say, even if it’s outside of work. The laws protecting the free speech of private employees vary from state to state, aside from specifically protected speech like labor organizing. Here are some guidelines for public employees and students.

via An Idiot’s Guide to Free Speech

THANK YOU OMG

Aka, don’t be an asshole.

Stashing this in my blog for later use.

THANK YOU, OMFG, CAN I MAKE THIS INTO A POSTER

OF COURSE IT’S A GOOD IDEA!

vydri — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 16:55:55 -0500

OF COURSE IT’S A GOOD IDEA!

eastafrodite: what reclamation of slurs are: - utilizing a word that’s been used to harm you,...

vydri — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 17:25:32 -0500

eastafrodite:

what reclamation of slurs are:
- utilizing a word that’s been used to harm you, choosing to strip it of its oppressive context and using it colloquially with those who share the same desire to take back what’s been used to hurt them

what reclamation of slurs aren’t:
- being part of a marginalized group (ie. being a woman), flippantly degrading people in your marginalized group (ie. other women) by using gendered slurs when you disagree with/dislike/are mad at them, especially when people in said marginalized group haven’t expressed a desire to use or have those slurs used on them

like please, can we not recontextualize what are supposed to be acts of empowerment for our own selfish agendas?

Photo

vydri — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 16:49:38 -0500

feminishblog: feministpizza: queerencia: kileyrae:thecheekylib...

vydri — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 22:32:41 -0500

feminishblog:

feministpizza:

queerencia:

kileyrae:thecheekylibertarian:

In 2001, “out of 760 dogs impounded, they killed 713, arranged for 19 to be adopted, and farmed out 36 to other shelters (not necessarily “no kill” ones). As for cats, they impounded 1,211, euthanized 1,198, transferred eight, and found homes for a grand total of five. PETA also took in 58 other companion animals —rabbits. It killed 54 of them.”

As well as their disgusting body shaming, their hyper sexualization and objectification of women’s bodies, their romanticizing of violence against women… HUMAN BEINGS AGAINST PETA.

Let’s not forget their blatant and excessive racism.

fuck yeah humans against peta
also kitty cats against peta

Reblogging in case there is anyone out there who reads my blog and still respects/supports PETA. I remember when I first started Feminish a little over a year ago, I wrote a commentary about the org, and to my surprise, a lot of folks had no idea they were waist deep in this kinda bullshit. (Good thing to bookmark for when folks ask for evidence later.)

Photo

vydri — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 22:09:40 -0500