The Slacktiverse: Updated This week in The Slacktiverse, March 24/25 2012

The Blogaround

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: Hot! Google! Action!
This is the foundation on which we will rest the existence of the Cullens and yet it seems sort of fitting that the world-building in a book about lying liars who lie be based on a blatant misquote of Rousseau.

This week Literata wrote A Prayer to Justice in response to some conservative Christians who have decided to go on a prayer offensive about the upcoming Supreme Court hearing on the Affordable Care Act, and will do so again in hopes of trying to take away women’s freedoms.

MercuryBlue reports: I published a post in which I attempted to get everyone to devote a half hour to doing something for their chosen cause and post about an adventure in advancing the cause of atheism becomes an adventure in censorship. I shouldn't be surprised.

gleomstapa reports: On Tuesday, I got up for sunrise, went for a bike ride, and wrote about some things I saw, which included trees, light, and rocks (Note: picture-heavy).

Given the unique opportunity to eat in a fancy restaurant in a new city but having no one around that she knew, Storiteller this week learned The Art of Eating Alone. After returning home from Southern California, she participated in a community bike ride with an Internet-famous visitor to her own city, as she describes in A D.C. Ride with Bike Snob NYC.

Lunch Meat writes: One of my facebook friends (a senior in high school) posted this stupid picture about the 99%, captioning it with "This is what I aspire to be in 4 years." I decided to attempt a more gentle, pastoral/mentoring approach than I've done before, and wanted to share it to get people's thoughts.

Coleslaw reports: This year was a record: I was handed 4 religious tracts At the St. Patrick's Day Parade. I wrote about Trayvon Martin's murder in I Can't Breathe. I wrote a review of the book The Viral Storm (Viral). FInally, what should have been an ordinary walk in the park left me Scared.

Michael Mock writes: This week in Mock Ramblings I posted Some Music For St. Patrick's Day, then admired the math that goes into Copyright Lobbying. Monday was National Bring Your Hangover To Work Day, or it should have been, anyway. I added another character sketch, for an Ash Knight named Edrin. More random comments went up Wednesday morning, because I Need More Tea. A humorous video about The Phantom Menace prompted some thoughts on Lightsaber Battles and melee weapons in general. Friday was apparently my day to post on political topics and national news, with A Doctor On Transvaginal Ultrasounds,(reposted with permission from John Scalzi) Really, Geraldo Rivera?, and A Gun Owner on "Stand Your Ground".

Slow Learner writes: I've started a new blog about my attempt to write an app for Android phones; it's pitched at non-specialists who have some familiarity with computer programming, and though it's primarily a self-discipline thing (if I have to blog about it, I have to do the work first!) questions, comments and rotten tomatoes would be greatly appreciated.

The first post is here, as a brief introduction; I then go on to discuss the software I am using to help me, and discuss the outline of the app I want to write.

yamikuronue reports: There was a tea review last weekend: The Last of the Adagio Teas. It's safe to say I won't be ordering more samples from them.

Two deconstruction posts this week: The Suspense Builds and The saga Of Mary, both of which follow Hank and Mary's attempts to fend off various demons in the course of their daily lives.

Two personal posts as well: Stuff That Bugs Me: Music is like a mini-deconstruction of several songs on the radio recently. Hubris, on the other hand, is a look into the dark places in my mind where nothing is certain and I feel small and afraid all the time.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: Lying Liars Who Lie
In which Bella Swan is far, far more guilty of betrayal than anything Edmund Pevensie ever did.

In case you missed this

Literata writes: Please join me in celebrating the publication of Queen of the Sacred Way: A Devotional Anthology in Honor of Persephone edited by Melitta Benu. It contains essays, rituals, and poems, including my poem Seeking Persephone. Melitta has done an excellent job of gathering materials addressing the complexity of this goddess, rather than sticking solely to the simplistic narrative as told in elementary school mythology. Check it out!

Lunch Meat writes: Voiceless, the webzine about QUILTBAG issues posted by students at Abilene Christian University, is also doing blog posts a couple of times a week. They've been very thought-provoking and I encourage everyone to check them out and keep up with them.

(Trigger Warning: anti-QUILTBAG rhetoric, apology/justification for the marginalization of people who are QUILTBAGS)

Nobel peace prize winner defends law criminalising homosexuality in Liberia (The Guardian, Monday 19 March 2012)
EXCERPT: In a joint interview with Tony Blair, who was left looking visibly uncomfortable by her remarks, Sirleaf told the Guardian: "We've got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve."

From Coleslaw: Don't Talk to Cops, Part 1

This talk gives many answers to the question of why an innocent person would refuse to talk without a lawyer present.

From J Enigma: I'm finally published. The book? It's a YA dystopia novel :P Really, it's a bit more than that. The protagonist is 16yo Renee Rhee, who lives in a dystopian future that, honestly, isn't very different from the one that we have now, only slightly worse. Which is a bad thing, as it's 2041 and parts of the country are still 2010, if not 1990s. The ruling government, the Party (of American Patriots), is really corrupt at the local level. They don't openly deal with the criminal Families that rose up after the Party started making things illegal (thereby creating a thriving black market), but they do so behind closed doors. After the corruption and violence took her family (the first time) and one of her best friends (the second time), Renee and her friends - Ofelia and Cyan - decide that they've had enough of this and it's gotta change. And they get their chance when Ofelia reveals that the guy who lived in the house before she and her family moved in was a paranoid right-wing uber-survivalist, who built a full-scale military-style bunker with stolen government and military technology stored in it under the garage of her home. Using some of the technology, Renee adopts the moniker "the Blue Pimpernel," and sets out to try and topple the Party by attacking the criminal Families that support it. Unlike the typical idea of superheros, they don't fight crime. They've targeted the people with power, the authority figures, and the politicians who turned the world into the mess that it is, and they're getting at them by using unconventional means. Being an origin story, I covered a lot of ground, but it's the first part in a series. I look forward to any feed back that I can get, so I can use it to make the rest of the novels better. You can find it here: I'm so excited! :)

Things you can do

SAVE THE NHS: SIGN THE PETITION
From 38Degrees

NHS: BAD NEWS

It's bad news. After more than a year of controversy and debate, the government has got its NHS plans through Parliament.

They didn't totally get their own way. But while there are glimmers of hope most medical experts still warn that these changes will do horrible damage to our health service.

Now, in this moment of disappointment, we need to decide what we do next. Shall we carry on our work to protect the NHS? Or is it time to move on and focus on other issues?

Please take one moment to vote YES or NO – are you up for continuing to campaign to protect the NHS?

Prosecute the killer of our son, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin
From Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton via Change.org:

On February 26, our son Trayvon Martin was shot and killed as he walked to a family member's home from a convenience store where he had just bought some candy. He was only 17 years-old.

Trayvon's killer, George Zimmerman, admitted to police that he shot Trayvon in the chest. Zimmerman, the community's self appointed "neighborhood watch leader," called the police to report a suspicious person when he saw Travyon, a young black man, walking from the store. But Zimmerman still hasn't been charged for murdering our son.

. . .

It's been nearly two weeks and the Sanford Police have refused to arrest George Zimmerman. In their public statements, they even go so far as to stand up for the killer - saying he's "a college grad" who took a class in criminal justice.

Please join us in calling on Norman Wolfinger, Florida's 18th District State's Attorney, to investigate my son's murder and prosecute George Zimmerman for the shooting and killing of Trayvon Martin.

The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

4 Comments

Hey. I have a friend. She's a pagan lesbian. She's in a committed relationship, and she and her partner are lucky enough to live in New York. Her partner has kids from a previous marriage, and her partner's ex-husband (who, my friend says, was abusive and isn't particularly interested in actually parenting the children) is being legally difficult about custody. For this and other reasons, they have decided not to get married, although they are happy that they can.

My friend has been offered and has accepted a really good job in Buffalo. Her partner has been offered and has accepted a really good internship in Buffalo. Ex-husband is using the courts to block the relocation of his kids. My friend has requested prayers and good thoughts of all varieties. She has given me permission to request those here, so I am doing so.

Posted by: Mike Timonin | Mar 25, 2012 at 08:33 PM