corleanae:

My mom’s eyesight isn’t great so when we go on road trips she has me read far away signs and it makes me feel like Legolas 

"Racism is not in your intent. Your intent is immaterial in how racist your actions are. This isn’t about you BEING a racist. It’s about you DOING A THING that is racist. Your intent doesn’t change it. Your ignorance of its meaning doesn’t change it. It’s got nothing to do with you as a person and everything to do with the meaning of your action in the context of sociocultural history."

moniquill (via lavenderlabia)

Why is this so hard to understand?

(Source: nemoomnianovit, via theshortestgirlonearth)

In general, the difficulty of engaging with “the president should lead” theory of American politics is, as Jonathan Chait writes, “it’s not quite coherent enough to rise to the level of wrong.” Or, more to the point, it’s not quite specific enough to rise to the level of answerable. →

wilwheaton:

Magnificent, thoughtful piece from Ezra Klein addressing the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency:

In these arguments, “presidential leadership” plays the role of the briefcase in “Pulp Fiction.” It drives the entire story, yet we never get to see what’s in it. Peggy Noonan saysof today’s dysfunctional politics, “if you’re a leader you can lead right past it.” How? Well, uh, look over there!

Maureen Dowdwritesthat the job of the president “is to somehow get this dunderheaded Congress, which is mind-bendingly awful, to do the stuff he wants them to do. It’s called leadership.” Actually, I think getting people who disagree with you to do what you want them to do is called “the Jedi mind trick,” but I digress.

It’s impossible to argue with these columns because they never actually say what they’re about. If Noonan or Dowd explained what the president should actually do, we could have a discussion. But they don’t, presumably because they can’t.

The National Journal’s Ron Fournier has also been a big proponent of “the president should lead” theory of American politics, but, to his credit, he has spent a lot of time generously engaging with his critics on the issue. So unlike with a Dowd or a Noonan, it’s possible to map the boundaries of his argument.

When asked what kind of presidential leadership could bridge the divisions in American politics, Fournier demurs: That’s why he’s glad he isn’t president, he says. But he’s certain that Obama can answer the question, or at least should have to answer the question. Hisoft-expressed view is that dismissing the power of presidential leadership to fix American politics is simply “giving Obama cover to fail.” It’s “raising the white flag.”

[…]

Fournier and other adherents of the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency are caught between a question they can’t answer and an answer they can’t abide. They don’t know exactly what Obama — or any other president — could do to overcome the structural polarization that’s cracking Congress. But the idea that there’s nothing the president can really do is too displeasing to entertain. It suggests that politics is broken, and it won’t be fixed, at least not anytime soon. And that’s an unacceptable answer, even if rejecting it leaves you with an unanswerable question.

There’s much more, and it’s very much worth taking the time to read it if you care about this sort of thing.

Hijacking feminism - Opinion - Al Jazeera English →

So what happened to social justice? 

This, unfortunately, is how the “truly liberated” woman of the 21st century is increasingly being construed. What is particularly troubling about this feminist moment - especially since both women espouse liberal ideals - is exactly how little emphasis either Slaughter or Sandberg ultimately places on equal rights, justice or emancipation as the end goals for feminism. 

How the everloving fuck did they manage to film this?!

(Source: pizzaforpresident, via deuscaincasual)

"

Why do we have an abortion rate 20% higher than France’s (and more than twice as high as Germany’s), especially considering most doctors here won’t perform them? The answer is any country that has universal health care, where contraception is free, where child care is free or inexpensive, where there is less poverty because people don’t become bankrupt over medical bills — those societies are simply going to have fewer unplanned and unwanted pregnancies.

And there the mask gets pulled off the Bart Stupaks and the “Christians.” If the statistics show that countries with government-provided universal health care and nearly-free abortions are, in fact, the countries with the fewest abortions, then why on earth wouldn’t the Right be the first in line to support universal health care?

Because it isn’t about “universal health care.” It’s about controlling women, period. It’s about sticking your nose in other people’s business. It’s about pushing your religious beliefs on everyone else because voices in your head tell you your Jesus is The One — even though your Jesus never said one single solitary word in any of the four gospels of the Bible about abortion or fertilized eggs being human. You’ve just gone and made it up about “life beginning at conception.” Jesus never said that. The little voice in your head said that, the same little voice that wants your grubby paws on women’s uteruses. You need help. Please get some help and leave the rest of us alone, Mr. Stupak and friends.

"

Michael Moore: My Congressman, Bart Stupak, Has Neither a Uterus Nor a Brain (via veruca-assault)

I wish I could reblog this 1,000 times.

(via evangotlib)

Boom, headshot.

(via wilwheaton)

I’m trying an experiment

Dad is snoozing through the same section of a tv show for the fourth time. I don’t particularly want to be able to recite this scene from Bones from memory. If I mute or pause it, he’ll wake up. I’ve been gradually turning the volume down to see if I can get away with it.

If you want to see a dollop of glass explode at 100,000 frames per second (!), click on this. This dude’s also has tons of other cool videos.

Mystery of the Prince Rupert’s Drop at 130,000 fps - Smarter Every Day 86 (by SmarterEveryDay)

When I’m wide open on the dump and get looked off

whatshouldultimatecallme:

(Submission: bgravenstede)

Explains better than I can why I hated (what I saw of) Seth MacFarlane’s Oscar hosting.

Seth MacFarlane made a whole bunch of sexist, reductive jokes at the Oscars last night. It’s frustrating enough to know that 77 percent of Academy voters are male. Or to watch 30 men and 9 women collect awards last night. But MacFarlane’s boob song, the needless sexualization of a little girl, and the relentless commentary about how women look reinforced, over and over, that women somehow don’t belong. They matter only insofar as they are beautiful or naked, or preferably both. This wasn’t an awards ceremony so much as a black-tie celebration of the straight white male gaze.

MacFarlane’s opening musical number, “We Saw Your Boobs,” might as well have been a siren blaring, “This isn’t for you.” Come on, everyone likes boobs, right? No. The answer is no. They’re not something I hate, and heck, I have a pair to call my own, and yet my takeaway from The Accused was not “Finally, I’ve seen Jodie Foster’s breasts.” My lasting memory of Boys Don’t Cry is not “Hey, free breasts!” At least there was that super timely and relevant reference to Kate Winslet’s many nude scenes.

Jeez, the song was a joke! Can’t you take a joke? Yes, I can take a joke. I can take a bunch! A thousand, 10,000, maybe even more! But after 30 or so years, this stuff doesn’t feel like joking. It’s dehumanizing and humiliating, and as if every single one of those jokes is an ostensibly gentler way of saying, “I don’t think you belong here.” All those little instances add up, grain of sand by grain of sand until I’m stranded in a desert of every “tits or GTFO” joke I’ve ever tried to ignore.

Then came the joke about actresses getting the flu to lose weight. “It paid off,” MacFarlane said. “Looking good.” Well, thank God, because what matters to all women is that we look good for Seth MacFarlane. How many women did he introduce over the course of the night by mentioning how they looked: “Please welcome the lovely ___ ,” “the beautiful ______”? How many men?

Uh, those are compliments! Now he can’t even give women compliments? Compliment away, friends. Let’s compliment the shit out of each other. But let’s be really cognizant of what we compliment each other on, and what that says about what we expect from each other, and what we consider valuable and worth mentioning. It doesn’t matter what Salma Hayek says, because she’s so pretty!

You just don’t like Seth MacFarlane’s sense of humor. What did you expect? Actually, I do like Seth MacFarlane’s sense of humor. (Sometimes. No one likes everything all the time!) I’ve been a loyal Family Guy viewer for almost fifteen years. I’ve been to — and adored — Family Guy: Live. If MacFarlane had sung “Shipoopi” all night, I’d be writing a really different story right now. Instead, there were jokes about how Rex Reed would probably call Adele fat — because that’s what’s important about her — and how someday Quvenzhané Wallis will be old enough to date George Clooney — because that’s what’s important about her — and how sometimes, gasp, a woman might have body hair — because that’s what’s important about them. Women are nags, and Jews run Hollywood! Thank you, Seth MacFarlane, for this cutting-edge humor. Like Mark Wahlberg said, the party’s at Jack Nicholson’s house. You remember, that place where Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl. Ha-ha, ha-ha, ha.

I dream of someday watching women win all the non-performance categories, of women making as many films as men do, of women and men being nominated for a comparable number of awards. There are a lot of reasons why that day is far, far in the future. But I’ll tell you what’s not helping: the biggest night in film being dedicated to alienating, excluding, and debasing women. Actual gender equality is a ways away, but I’d settle for one four-hour ceremony where women aren’t being actively degraded.

—

Why Seth MacFarlane’s misogyny matters

http://www.vulture.com/2013/02/why-seth-macfarlanes-misogyny-matters.html

P.S. He’s also a huge racist dickbag.

(Source: therearecertainshadesoflimelight, via corleanae)

liberalsarecool:

Joe Biden refreshes our memory about Republicans.

(via wilwheaton)

Mom’s woo-woo vs. science

My mom was convinced that TV rays were drying out her eyes, so she got some safety goggles at the dollar store and swears up and down they solved the problem. Really. I tried to explain to her that since she can, you know, see it, the TV light is visible light, which is kind of exactly what is supposed to go into your eyes. Nope. Eye-drying TV rays. Magic safety goggles. Sometimes I think I hatched from a pod.

thefrogman:

By Julio Cantu [tumblr]

(via wilwheaton)

Seriously, tho, fuck the police.

socialismartnature:

San Francisco’s thugs in blue

Clayton Plake reports on the angry response to a video, released online, of San Francisco police assaulting an African American college student.

SAN FRANCISCO police have sparked anger and outrage after officers were caught on videotape carrying out a vicious, unprovoked assault on Kevin Clark, a young African American man, in the city’s Mission district.

Footage of the attack on Clark was captured by what appears to be an anonymous bystander, using their cell phone camera. The video was posted to the Internet by activists from the Idriss Stelley Foundation—a leading organization in the struggle against police brutality in the Bay Area.

Over four minutes in duration, the video opens with an unidentified motorcycle cop riding his bike up onto the sidewalk near the 24th Street BART station and approaching a pedestrian now identified as 18-year-old Kevin Clark, a student at City College of San Francisco. The first cop was followed closely by another officer, also on a motorcycle. Neither cop appears to deliver a command for Clark—who was peacefully walking on the sidewalk—to stop walking or otherwise obey directions.

In the video, one cop uses his motorcycle—the front wheel pointed squarely at Clark’s body—and alternately accelerated and decelerates, seemingly to terrorize Clark. The terrified Clark yells, “Are you going to run me over?” Then the other officer, having stepped off his bike, grabs Clark from behind and throws him to the asphalt with staggering force, pushing him face first into a gutter.

Both cops then throw themselves on top of Clark. Each grabs one of Clark’s arms and pulls them up and back, and one cop digs his knee into Clark’s back. Clark’s screams of pain become interspersed with frantic pleas to be left alone. One cop, still keeping Clark’s arm in a locked position, starts to push the man’s face into a sewer grate.

In short order, a squad car arrives, as do a host of other police officers—no less than 10 officers were deployed to the scene, despite the fact that the victim appeared unarmed and was not resisting arrest. Comments from off-camera eyewitnesses reveal that this is the second African American man the police had stopped in the area in less than 10 minutes.

===

What you can do

A rally and march against police brutality has been planned for February 7 at 5 p.m. at 24th and Mission Streets. Visit the Facebook event page for information.

(via wilwheaton)

Evolution calls the leaf mimic katydid for a 100 million year check-in.