This week in The Slacktiverse, April 21/22 2012

The Blogaround

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: The Chapter 7 Wrap-Up
I'm thoroughly amused by Bella's belief that Edward Cullen's behavior will be guided by any semblance of social expectations, politeness, tact, or basic decency. Because he has certainly been nothing but a model gentleman, what with all the moodiness, the violent and pointed avoidance, the gaslighting, the argumentativeness, the physical manhandling, the repeated trampling of her consent, and all the other delightful behavior he has demonstrated thus far.

Literata reflected on the landbase of her youth and on moving between multiple landbases. She also celebrated the latest success of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, (Trigger Warning: women's health and death) was angry about her life potentially being the cost of doing religion for someone else, and mildly bemoaned being caught in the allergen crossfire.

Biking with a friend, Storiteller explored D.C. this past weekend and got a little lost, as she describes in Ride Report: The Scenic Route. With Earth Day being celebrated on April 22, she contemplates her personal experiences with it, how destructive much of its messaging can be, and how we can better approach in Earth Day is Every Day (but is actually tomorrow).

yamikuronue reports: Last week I posted two deconstruction chapters: TPD visited a local arcade, while in Easily Amused we met Lola and her eccentric neighbors. I also posted another entry in My Story (Trigger Warning: Eating disorders, body image, racism) and two more RSS quickies: Table Manners and Wedding Invitations. There probably won't be a tea review this weekend.

J. Enigma writes: First up, my published novel, The Blue Pimpernel, is now available as an ebook for 2.99 US$. The novel, which is an superhero/hard science fiction/dystopian young adult story following the journey of American teenagers Renee Rhee and her friends, Ofelia Stratford and Cyan Brooklyn, from high school students to superheroes, should also be available through Barnes & Noble, Amazone, and the iBookstore in the near future. I'll keep everyone posted. If you're interested in superhero fiction, of you're a fan of hard science fiction, or you're tired of the typical run-of-the-mill dystopian world where nothing can be changed, you may want to check this book out.

I've been posting sporadically over the last couple of months, so the subject matter of the posts is all over the place. (Trigger Warning: Racism) First up, did you know that a group of Neo-Nazis have declared themselves civil rights activists for white people? The same neo-nazis that are stalking the streets in Florida following the Trayvon Martin shooting? "Civil rights" - I don't think it means what they think it means. But then, we all hate Illinois (or Floridian) Nazis. I took a look at a "bingo card" developed by feminist gamers with all of the different "responses" male (and some female) gamers will give when the issue of sexism in games is brought up; (Trigger Warning: Sexism, Misogyny, Homophobia; they like to travel in threes, don't they?) in Bingo, Bingo! In keeping with the sexism theme, I've also also taken a look at the ridiculousness of female superhero costumes (contrasting with the costumes I designed for my own characters; I am well aware of this trope), and the new Seven Dirty Words, courtesy of that infamous paleoconservative fascist, Pat Buchanan. (Trigger Warning: Language) I also took a look at the banality of evil presented by the MPAA; a new movie named Bully has been given an "R" rating due to usage of the word "fuck," prohibiting those who need to see the movie, and those who the movie is about, from seeing it (in theory); all in the name of working to promote decency in language.

The last few posts are scattered posts; one about the things I learned over the course of trying to self-publish The Blue Pimpernel, which may or may not be helpful to those looking to self-publish a book in the future (and jump through all of the loops, doing everything from the group up). The next was about creationists and the recent discovery of feathered dinosaur. And the last post is a grammar question - should the English language have a separate class for verbs called "proper verbs", with the advent of "Google", "Twitter" and "Facebook" as verbs? I'm of the mind it should, but I'm interested in what others things.

Coleslaw reports: How to get jelly stains out of white jeans is just one of the Things I Learned from the Evil Girl Scouts. When my husband and watched the Louisiana Senate Committee on Finance consider legislation to change the state's pension system, I naturally titled the ensuing blog post Watching Sausages Being Made. A trip to the races also gave us a chance to visit the Louisiana Orphan Train Museum. An email from church about the departure of a staff member seems to simultaneously give both too much and too little information. Now I'm Confused.

Michael Mock writes: This week at Mock Ramblings, the Mad Scientist received an interesting proposal from the neighbor's cloned-and-improved dog, Scruffy 2.0. Later, I considered the possible interpretations of a web search on Human Eating Daffodils. I also shared some memories about Life Before The Internet, and suggested that anyone with disposable income should consider donating to World Vision. Finally, on Friday, I considered a pair of dueling graphics on the topic of atheism - and then went back for an addendum about the likely source of the first two graphics.

victoria writes: I wrote a post (thank you, Sisters) in support of U.S. Catholic nuns and sisters who are undergoing another round of scrutiny from the all male Catholic hierarchy.

Slow Learner reports: only one post this week; with the appropriate title of "The reason for my absence", in which I discuss Udacity and other general awesomeness.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: Characterization Through Buzz-Words
The subject of Bella's paper -- whether or not Shakespeare's treatment of the female characters in Macbeth is misogynistic -- is her own topic. But it's a topic that does not fit her character as outlined, a topic dropped into the narrative for no purpose or addition to her character except to try to glom a buzzword onto Bella.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Deconstruction: Veils and Sweat Pants
I abhor cultures who force women to dress in ways that make some of them uncomfortable. I just don't think the best way to counter those cultures is to force women to dress in ways that make some of them uncomfortable.

In case you missed this

From MercuryBlue: Two Federal Judges Suggest All Labor, Business or Wall Street Regulation Is Unconstitutional--because corporations are people and corporate rights trump natural persons' rights, apparently.

In a stinging rebuke, Citigroup shareholders rebuffed on Tuesday the bank’s $15 million pay package for its chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit, marking the first time that stock owners have united in opposition to outsized compensation at a financial giant. [Citigroup’s Chief Rebuffed on Pay by Shareholders , Dealb%k (New York Times), April 17 2012.]

see also

But Congress made “say on pay” part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law; and on Tuesday, 55 percent of Citigroup’s shareholders voted against a 2011 compensation plan that awarded CEO Vikram Pandit $14.9 million. Citigroup was the first big bank and the largest company, by market capitalization, to get a thumbs down. As such, the vote debunked some of our original worries and confirmed others. [Citigroup shareholders’ loud and clear message on ‘say on pay’, The Washington Post, April 19 2012]

Things you can do

MercuryBlue writes: the Calyx Institute will be a privacy-first USA Internet service provider, the only one of its kind, but like most things, it needs money to get off the ground.

(Trigger Warning: abortion, pregnancy malfunction)

Fundraising for Texas Planned Parenthood -- with a twist synecdochic read the article in the the Observer(Texas)"'We Have No Choice': One Woman's Ordeal with Texas' New Sonogram Law" about the Texas woman with a pregnancy physically incapable of success. When she reached the description of a nurse turning up the radio to drown out the doctor describing the woman's beautiful fetus she thought "Hey, we can fix this." So she started a fundraiser for iPod Nanos and noise-canceling headphones and music to be delivered to interested Planned Parenthoods in Texas, and encouraging people to donate directly to Planned Parenthood and other abortion-rights organizations. So far, synecdochic has raised more enough to more than meet the funds requested by Planned Parenthood directors who she has been in contact with. synecdochic will continue to contact individual directors and to provide links to organizations and clinics that use donations of money and/or mp3 players.

Stop Mining Company from ruining Finland's lakes

Talvivaara mining company is mining nickel and uranium in Finland. They are dumping toxic waste into the lakes. The levels of pollution are high enough to kill the fish and to cause changes in human chromosomes. Finland's equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency isn't doing anything to stop it because of corruption.

Here's a blog post in English about the issue with a link round up with more information.

There's a petition to sign as well. It's starts in Finnish but there's an English translation at the bottom:

And to help fill out the petition:

*Etunimi = First Name
*Sukunimi = Family Name
*Paikkakunta = Location / city / town
*Maa = Country (the names are in Finnish. If you don't see your country's name google will help you translate it to Finnish.)
*Sähköpostiosoite = e-mail address Näytetäänkö allekirjoituksesi kaikille? = show your name to everybody [at the website of this petition] Kyllä = yes Ei = no

NOTE: When you fill out the petition, you'll get one e-mail to confirm your signature. It'll be in Finnish, but if you click on the second link, the link after "VAHVISTA allekirjoituksesi tai POISTA allekirjoitus avaamalla seuraava sivu:" it'll work. (the first link just goes back to the petition you just signed)

--Co-authored by the Slacktiverse Community

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Comments

[MercuryBlue]

Dear 365 Tomorrows: ordinarily you are my happy place. Not today. (Do not read if you are easily enraged by men's rights activists. Or would be triggered by violence against women.) WHAT HAPPENED.

[Froborr]

The completely awesome story about buying iPods reminds me of when I was in high school biology, when we were about to start in on the theory of evolution. The teacher announces, "State law requires me to tell you that..." and proceeds to explain intelligent design and creationism in a way that, if you wrote down his words, would sound exactly like the IDers would want said, but his tone absolutely dripped with Rickman-like levels of dry contempt and sarcasm. It was wonderful, and since this was only a couple of months into 9th grade, a great introduction to how awesome the teacher, and the school, would be. Later in the year, talking about the discovery of DNA, he went off the official curriculum on a very weird tangent how much Franklin contributed to the discovery, and how little credit she got for it, and how this was an important example of... something. At the time I don't think anyone in the class understood what he was talking about; it was only in hindsight I realized he was trying to tell us about the kyriarchy but either didn't have or for some reason didn't use the vocabulary.

Oddly, I cannot remember this teacher's name. Well, actually, it's not that odd, I have a terrible memory, especially for names, but I can usually remember the names of teachers.

[cjmr, who will probably figure out her typepad logon eventually]

I suddenly realize how OLD the biology textbooks we used at our high school must have been, since they didn't even MENTION Watson and Crick discovering the structure for DNA, let alone Rosalind Franklin, who was a major hero of one of my college profs.

[Froborr]

Rosalind! Thank you! I knew Rosalyn and Rosamund were both wrong, but I could not for the life of me remember what Franklin's first name was...