NEW! UPDATED! This week in The Slacktiverse, November 26/27 2011

Due to the disruptions and distractions of Thanksgiving Week(end) many people weren't able to send submissions at the regular time. Consequently that have been a number of additions made to the post originally published on Saturday night.

The Blogaround

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: The Tyranny of POV
Perhaps it’s easier to like Edward if only we can understand his point of view. And yet... what is his point of view? Is he the sum of his teenage hormones and brain chemistry, unable to grow beyond his biological limitations? Is he an eldritch creature, so far removed from humanity that he cannot possibly understand or comprehend Bella? Is he something else entirely? Help us explore the inside of his head

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Narnia: Endangering Girls For Fun And Profit!
Authors aren’t historians; they’re artists. Why does the author paint a helpless girl dangling above a ferocious wolf while his lion-god orders his followers not to help her? And can we reasonably be expected to worship this behavior?

Froborr writes: . I've got two of my five panels from AnimeUSA up on YouTube: Race, Redemption, and Revelation: Politics and Ethics in Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Judaism and Anime

The former conservative blogger reports: here's the highlights of last week: Thoughts on Black Friday, Preaching at Parades, part I, part II and a post about the "War on Christmas"

This week Kit Whitfield continued her deconstruction of famous first sentences with Watership Down by Richard Adams and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

Literata was focused on social and economic inequality this week: she asked why the commissary takes food stamps, and when she listened to the answers, she concluded that social change is so badly needed, it's time to party like it's 1929.

Laiima reports Nanowrimo: not what I expected, but still a good idea

This week MercuryBlue had thoughts on minimum wage, living wage, and maximum yearly income.

Yamikuronue writes: I managed to do two posts this week: On Homophobic Statements in which I discuss the potential nuances of the statement "I don't agree with homosexuality" (Trigger Warnings: discussions of homophobia, discussions of homosexuality. Probably NSFW.) and A Rant on Project Management in which I discuss the ways in which I feel the tech team behind NaNoWriMo have failed to live up to basic customer service expectations.

Ruby reports: With Soon: Chapter 24: The Big Date, I am taking a brief hiatus from Soon so that I can do a special Wintermas review of Jerry Jenkins' parable, 'Twas the Night Before. Our aptly-named hero is introduced in Twas the Night Before: Chapter 1: Tom Douten.

mmy writes: This week I posted about theories of disease that are in the Business of Blaming the Victim, in Batman and the case of the missing women I wonder whether early Batman comics would fail the Bechdel test, and in Re: Reading Atwood I mused on why some writers dislike their books to be categorized as science fiction. My reading of the newspapers of 100 years ago continued with Calling on San Francisco, Dying for Drugs, Protesters attempt to occupy the House of Commons, Questions of Personhood and What's in a Name?

Storiteller continued the agricultural metaphors this week to comment on the economy in What Tomatoes Can Teach Us About Occupy Wall Street. She also wrote about preparing her garden for next season and how she's become a true believer in permaculture techniques - Lasagna Gardening The Sequel - More Layers Than Ever.

On the topic of motherhood, semi-regular commenter Nenya's mother writes in Real or staged mess? at The Noisy Woods this week about a YouTube video of toddlers messing up a living room with a 5 lb bag of flour, and viewers' commentary on same. She writes, "She has a sense of humour, AND she keeps her temper in desperate circumstances. Modern technology aside, this is just the way many of the best of mothers have behaved through the ages. There is yet hope for the younger generation. You go, girl!" (Trigger Warning: discussions of child abuse and policing of motherhood )

Coleslaw writes: Last weekend, I went to the Louisiana Renaissance Festival, and took a few pictures. I wrote Part Four of "Foreign Exchange", my adventures with the young and the restless of four continents. And with Thanksgiving having been this week, I of course wrote about what I am Thankful for. I think I forgot to mention The Slacktiverse as one of the things I'm thankful for, so I will say it now.

This week, Jarred continued his discussion of Alisa Harris's book, "Raised Right," noting the link some conservative Christians make between Repentance and Patriotism. He also started a new book analysis, this one of "The Visitation" by Frank Peretti. He explained his rational for choosing the book and took a look at the short prologue. He also spent a couple posts exploring how his own moral understanding is based on a combination of religious advice, personal reasoning, and the importance of morality to a functional society.

J. Enigmawrites: First up, Human Black Box (Trigger Warning: Transhumanism, language, violence) I'm only going to link the archives because I've gotten behind on the updates, but quite a bit's happened, and I'm drafting up part 9 (I just need to post it).

Second of all, reaching back a bit, I took a look at two essays talking about the various signs of Fascism and Ur-Fascism; they make for interesting reads, and I examined a few points in relation to current United States policy, and keeping on the discussion of Fascism (Trigger Warning: Racism and bigotry) took a look at a small business owner and his friends who believe that "New company policy: not hiring until Obama is gone" isn't political or racistand (Trigger Warning: Extreme graphic violence, mutilation, and police brutality - and even this won't prepare you) posted a video about what was happening in Bahrain and what the "Arab spring" looks like in a country that the United States supports - and it's not pretty.

Reaching back, I took the time to discuss my atheism and what made me an atheist (Trigger Warning: Mental Illness, discussion of depression/mania and suicide), took a look at several misconceptions surrounding Christmas, including the misconception that 'Xmas' is 'x'ing Christ out of Christmas, discussed how the current political discourse is seeing words being redefined to silence the opposition by selecting three words (Trigger Warning: talk of Torture, Misogyny, and Racism), and lastly, went after people who think that it's somehow "cute" to joke on their Facebook feeds that they're never alone because "the voices in their head keep them company" (Trigger Warning: Discussion of psychosis)(TW: ).

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: I'm So Sad (by Crash and the Boys)
Come explore spiraling depression, liquid lunches, male privilege, and societal notions of “responsibility” in traditional relationships as Ana dips into the increasing, utter, crushing sadness that is the Twilight Lunchroom Beckoning Scene.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Deconstruction: False Accusations, Ruined Lives, and I Do Not Recognize Your Fictional Reality
It’s not that false accusations don’t happen, and that lives aren’t sometimes ruined in the process – they do, and that’s something we need to address as a society. It’s that when you base your novel around the assertion that false accusations are taken as serious Unvarnished Truth 100% of the time, I have to say that I don’t recognize the world you live in. Maybe that’s just me.

In case you missed this

(Trigger Warning: Rape )

This a very methodical breakdown of the Siri app on the iPhone, and how it won't provide information for birth control, pregnancy prevention, rape assistance, or abortion services.

What happens when class warriors ignore race -- why The Angry Black Woman expects Occupy to remain mostly white until Occupy starts fighting against racism as well as classism.

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum asks, "When Did the GOP Lose Touch with Reality?" It's a lengthy, several-page article, so readers pressed for time may prefer NPR's much shorter summary.

Seattle protester miscarries after being kicked, pepper sprayed--the headline says it all.

The NYPD pepper-sprayed a man who was having an asthma attack. He died. Prosecutors apparently plan to press homicide charges.

Things you can do

Things to do to support Occupy without actually occupying anywhere.

You can join the World Food Programme's fight against hunger all around the world.

--Co-authored by the Slacktiverse Community

---

The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)

Comments

[AnaMardoll]

With regards to the "things you can do to support Occupy" and the AWESOME YouTube video linked to from that post...

...are THESE wood shims the right size?

http://www.amazon.com/EZ-Shim-Inc-ETC-1A-Plastic-Shims/dp/B000KBGX3W/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1322365308&sr=8-2

I don't know the first thing about shims, but if I can have some shipped to my door, I'm in. These are apparently made from recycled material, but pre- or post- I couldn't tell. :/

[Ross]

Can't recall if this has been mentioned yet, but Rick Santorum literally wants children to suffer.

Yeah. The Party of God is advocating the same position as a villain in a saturday morning cartoon. What a frothing mix.

Mitt Romney, when he's not hiding his use of hair product, ran an ad quoting Obama as saying "If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose," to show how Obama knows he is a failure at the economy. Romney's ad leaves out what Obama said immediately before the quoted words: "Senator McCain's campaign actually said, and I quote,". I'm pretty sure that counts as a flat-out bald-faced lie. Has the commandment against bearing false witness been suspended?

(tw: rape, sexual assault of a child)
Since the news broke about the Penn State abuse cases, I've been considering that one of the many ugly sides to this scandal is that it escallated like it did in part because a university covering up the rape of male children is considered Very Seriously Wrong, while a university covering up the rape of female college-age students is Standard Operating Procedure, but this editorial takes a very different position, and hypothesizes that had the victims been female, McQueary would have intervened immediately and called the police, and that his failure to do this was caused in part by a knee-jerk refusal to believe the evidence of his senses -- not because they told him that Sandusky was committing rape, but because they told him Sandusky was gay (not an accurate assessment, but a plausible knee-jerk one), and that was so unthinkable that it made everyone involved from that point on more willing to believe that they'd somehow misinterpreted the evidence

[Ross]

@TBAT: Fwiw, there's some serious inconsistencies and problems with the Jennifer Fox story, which are noted at the bottom of this coverage of the incident. There seems to be no doubt about the "Police pepper-sprayed a pregnant woman" part(Though I am now finding some more sources which call into question whether she was in fact pregnant; it appears that there are other recorded incidents which conflict with the timeline), but the evidence that "And as a direct result, she later miscarried" is more tenuous, and there's a Seattle PI article which also mentions some other incidents that call her veracity into question.

If the story is discredited, you can bet that Fox News and their ilk will be very fast to use this as their Absolute Proof that all the stories of police brutality are fabricated.

[Froborr]

Missed the deadline by quite a lot, but thought I'd share. I've got two of my five panels from AnimeUSA up on YouTube:

Race, Redemption, and Revelation: Politics and Ethics in Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Judaism and Anime

[Formerconservative.wordpress.com]

Man, since it was a long weekend and I was totally out of my routinely, I completely forgot about the blogaround.

Anyway, here's the highlights of last week:

Thoughts on Black Friday

Preaching at Parades, part I part II

and a post about the "War on Christmas"

[Froborr]

Thanks for adding me in the update, TBAT!

[muteKi]

@Ross

That seems a bit more plausible to me; consent doesn't strike me as an ambiguous issue at all with children, whereas with an adult woman it can be.

At the very least, if I caught someone in the university having sex with a student it might be a breach of ethics but I wouldn't necessarily immediately think it was breaking the law the way that it would be if it was a child.

[Lorien]

Froborr! I have just finished watching/listening your two youtube sets and they were both amazingly interesting. The Judaism and Anime one was particularly of interest, because Eva is kind of a thing with my group of friends and I and we have all seen... Parts of it... Kind of. I'm refusing to watch the original series until after Rebuild is finished (Although I have to admit I have seen the first two episodes, the last six episodes and End of Eva, which is quite possibly the most confusing way of watching the show... Ever), but I also have some friends who have seen the original series, and you've given me a hell of a lot to enthusiastically talk to them about and I am going to have to rewatch Rebuild and I am now incredibly excited to watch the original series when Rebuild is done. (This is noteable because I was kind of dreading watching it ahahahaha so thanks for that!)

Also, your bit at the end where you talk about Gendo being an Abrahamic figure who *wants* Shinji and Rei to get close is VERY VERY VERY supported in Evangelion 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance (If I am remembering correctly). As in he pretty much explicitly says out loud that he wants it to happen and then (Rot13 in case someone somewhere cares about 2.22 spoilers) ng gur raq jura Fuvawv sernxf bhg naq fgnegf gur guveq vzcnpg rneyl orpnhfr UR JVYY UNIR ERV BHG BS GUR NATRY ZBAFGRE ABJ Traqb ybbxf ba jvgu... Uzzz. Cevqr? Qvssvphyg gb fnl. Naljnl V nyjnlf vagrecerggrq vg nf uvz orvat rkgerzryl cyrnfrq. Oh man, so much food for thought.

[Brin]

Hmm, Lorien has a link on their name. Let's poke it to see what it does. *poke*

...the second post down is a reblog from Tsu I've seen at least three times now, and the first blog on the "People I Follow" list is the Magnetons'. Okay then. Small Internet.

[Froborr]

@Lorien: Thanks! I wasn't actually thinking about Rebuild when I did the panel, because Rebuild's not over yet and I'm not sure where it's going. For that reason, I wouldn't be concerned about watching the series before Rebuild is done--Rebuild has gone so far off the original series' rails that I don't see how it could possibly end up anywhere near the same place. I don't think the series *can* spoil Rebuild or vice versa at this point.

[AnaMardoll]

Not sure if this is worth adding to the round-up, but this is very interesting.

[tw:rape]

http://amaditalks.tumblr.com/post/13513981784/siri

It's a very methodical breakdown of the Siri app on the iPhone, and how it won't provide information for birth control, pregnancy prevention, rape assistance, or abortion services.

[MercuryBlue]

I heard about that. I didn't know about the 'rape assistance' bit, but I saw someone say it wtfed at the concepts of birth control and abortion.

[chris the cynic]

I came across this story on the same topic via Randy Owens on facebook:

It points out that:

Searching for “abortion clinics near me” in D.C. yielded only two results — one “crisis pregnancy center” 24 miles away and another 74 miles away, in Pennsylvania. There are several clinics much closer that offer actual abortion services. [...]

As ThinkProgress has reported, CPC’s that claim to help women in need are actually established by anti-abortion activists with the sole objective of shaming women out of having abortions.

So it's worse than not just directing women to help, it will actively direct them to the opposite of help.

[Kish]

Yeah, even though that article says Amadi doesn't think it's worth boycotting Apple over, I think I just started boycotting Apple.

[The Board Administration Team]

Not sure if this is worth adding to the round-up, but this is very interesting. [tw:rape] http://amaditalks.tumblr.com/post/13513981784/siri It's a very methodical breakdown of the Siri app on the iPhone, and how it won't provide information for birth control, pregnancy prevention, rape assistance, or abortion services.

It's been added to the "In case you missed this" section.

[AnaMardoll]

Update on Siri, there are 2 Change.org petitions:

http://www.change.org/petitions/siri-why-wont-you-help-me-find-family-planning-services

http://www.change.org/petitions/teach-siri-how-to-help-women-find-the-information-they-need

[Steve Morrison]

So, I've read FC's blog entry on Black Friday. But – then I also read the comments. And now, for the first time, I have a request for discretion on a personally sensitive topic. (I'm putting it here where I hope more people will see it.)

Could people refrain from making jokes about lethal crowd surges? As someone pointed out in that comment section, such things actually do happen; and for my family, this topic is about as unfunny as anything gets. My younger sister Karen was killed in just such an accident many years ago.

[MercuryBlue]

Steve: I'm sorry for your loss.

[Sixwing]

Brin, we apparently have a moderate amount of shared internet. *blinks* *offers hi-five*

Yikes, Steve. D:
That sounds like an excellent topic for discretion. *hugs if wanted*

[Brin]

Sixwing: Brin, we apparently have a moderate amount of shared internet. *blinks* *offers hi-five*

So we do. *hi-fives back*

(You have to poke the link on my name three times to get to my Tumblr (TypePad --> Livejournal I only use for commenting and asking anyone who stops by why they're there instead of my --> Tumblr), but it's there.)

[Steve Morrison]

MercuryBlue, Sixwing: Thank you.