Updated This week in The Slacktiverse, April 7/8 2012

The Blogaround

Sarah reports: To kick off National Poetry Month, I posted Tennyson's "Ulysses," per Izzy's request and poems for Passover and Good Friday. I'm still taking poetry requests for the month.

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: Fevered Dreams
Apparently all this stuff just sort of happened in the time while Edward was aggressively ignoring Bella in the wake of the van incident. It all sounds very fascinating; I'm sorry we had to miss it in favor of all the googling

chris the cynic reports: This week I returned to .hack//Sign, finishing the second episode . I twice responded to something Scalia said. First giving a partial answer to his question of what the government can't do if it can impose a mandate to buy health insurance, and then responding to it in more general terms which also included an analogy to supervillainy. I took a picture of the various plants suspended in water on my windows. And my picture was on the front page of a local paper because I was in a meeting regarding some of the not-good things happening at my university.

victoria reports: I wrote a short post about how Holy Thursday affirms both my Christian faith and my anarchist politics: "share food, wash feet, change world".

yamikuronue writes: I didn't end up posting much at all this week, but if anyone out there's worried, I did post an update on my status on Monday. There will be a tea review this weekend and I expect to get deconstructions written as normal for next week.

Literata is catching up but still speechless about the assaults on women's health in the US; more coming next week. (Trigger Warning: Women's health concerns mentioned in abstract)

Coleslaw reports: An experience at a luncheon makes me realize that Dying of Embarrassment is possible under certain circumstances. I talk about some of the ways the internet has changed my life in Ah, Internet. When a friend posts an untrue urban legend on Facebook, I ponder To Snopes, or Not to Snopes? (Trigger Warning: brief mention of suicide and prison rape). And my husband took me to see 21 Jump Street. I didn't like it.

Slow Learner reports: I've made eleven new posts since my last mention in "This Week". As a result, rather than send the links to all eleven posts, I have made an index post of everything I've done so far. Any Slacktivites who want to follow my trials and travails with Android app development can go here, within which all but the first three are new posts.

All are welcome, but I would especially beg anyone with Android or Java experience who might be able to tell me where I'm being stupid to hop on over!

Laiima reports: I've been writing up a storm this week! I wrote about: eating better, meeting a neighbor, finishing my first (refashioned) garment project, writing, by the numbers and writing to heal, parts 1, 2 and writing to heal, part 3.

Storiteller decided to take on a challenge this month, signing up for #30DaysofBiking, where she'll log at least a mile or two every day in April, no matter what the circumstances. Bringing her husband along for the very first ride of the month, she reflects on how their relationship changes on and off the saddle in Love and Bicycling. After her husband attended a workshop later in the week on opening a restaurant, Storiteller got to thinking about local restaurants and how they interact with the greater community in Where Everyone Knows Your Name.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: In Which I Am Extremely Lost
Here is where precision could matter, a piece of foreshadowing dropped as Bella considers that that which is eternal can clearly still change and adapt... as the forest does. As the vampires do. As Bella may.

In case you missed this

(Trigger Warning: disturbing images [at top of article], suicidal ideation, seriously do not read the comments because there are not trigger warnings enough)

Austerity drives up suicide rate in debt-ridden Greece: Christoulas's death can be added to an increasing number of suicides in Greece, as more people feel hopeless amid the worst economic crisis in the country's recent history: according to the health ministry data, the suicide rate jumped about 40% in the first five months of 2011 compared with a year earlier. [cnn.com, April 6 2012]

An article at The Wild Hunt discussing Beth Winegarner's rules for journalism regarding minority faiths such as African Diasporic and Neopagan religions: (Follow Winegarner’s Rules When Reporting on Pagan and Minority Religions) and Winegarner's original piece.

Things you can do

MercuryBlue reports: In response to this 101 on voter suppression in the US, I've created this petition for mandatory balloting in the US. Distinction between mandatory balloting and mandatory voting being the distinction between having to hand in a ballot and having to hand in a ballot that's got the little bubbles filled in next to one and only one candidate per race.

"Hélène has lungs and we are so delighted." So said the parents of Hélène Campbell, the Canadian woman with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis who has been campaigning to raise awareness about organ donations as she herself waited for a desperately needed double lung transplant. Her father thanked the team at the hospital, led by chief of thoracic surgery Dr. Tom Waddell. A 10-member team, made up of three surgeons, three nurses, two anesthesiologists, a perfusionist in command of a heart-lung machine and one attendant, performed the procedure...“The biggest thanks and the most heartfelt thanks go to the family of the donor,” he said. “That gift of life is something we will honour and Hélène will honour.”, [Double lung transplant recipient Hélène Campbell recovering after successful surgery, [The Toronto Star April 6 2012].

Americans who wish to be put on the Organ and Tissue Donor registry can find links to their state's registry at the Department of Health and Human Services Donate the Gift of Life website.

Organ donation: What you need to know, [Canadian Living] gives a good summary of how Canadians can register to become organ and tissue donors with information about and links to relevant provincial websites.

Residents of the UK can go to the Have you joined the Organ Donation Register? page of the NHS website to register their willingness to donate. The NHS page Organ and tissue donation - your questions answered answers many of the questions that people have about organ donation.

European transplant organisations links to the organ and tissue donation organizations of a number of European countries.

Residents of Australia can find information about organ donation in their country on the Donate Life page.

Readers who know of links to the organ / tissue donation registries of countries not on this list are encouraged to email that information to TBAT so that it can be added to this list.

--Co-authored by the Slacktiverse Community

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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.

Comments

[Raj]

TW:

- Racist terminology (for the purpose of demonstrating the ugliness of racism).
- Violence

HAPPY EASTER, everybody! Please enjoy this year's Slacktiverse Easter Play:

Airport security type thinks to self: Oh, great; another turbanhead terrorist-type!

"Y'shua Ben-Yusuf, huh? Okay, Mr. Ben-Yusuf, we need you to come with us."

"But of course! Yea, verily I say unto thee, render unto Caesar the things which are ..."

"SHADDUP, SANDMAN! PUT YOUR HANDS UP WHERE I CAN SEE THEM! HEY! DON'T RAISE YOUR HANDS AT ME!"

"But you said ..."

"SHADDUP, RAGHEAD! STOP THREATENING ME!"

"Be not afraid! Perfect love casts out ..."

"SHADUUUUUUP!"

*BANG! BANG!*

[Nenya]

That is far, far too likely, isn't it, Raj?

My Easter has been somewhat derailed by girlfriend-who-I-planned-to-visit dislocating her shoulder and ending up in town with me instead. I love having her here, but hate that she's injured! Still, there are cuddles and chocolate and cute Easter dresses, so it could be worse.

Love to all. Happy spring!

[chris the cynic]

Happy spring!

I'm not sure it is spring. I went to a ski mountain on Easter. I swear it was winter. For much of the winter it was spring, but now that it actually is spring winter finally came. It was cold and snowing and generally wintery. I feel like there should be a resurrection metaphor. Something like: dead for three months, winter rose again on Easter.

(Mind you, as far as I know it went away again.)

Anyway, the seasons don't make sense anymore.

[MercuryBlue]

In response to this 101 on voter suppression in the US, I've created this petition for mandatory balloting in the US. Distinction between mandatory balloting and mandatory voting being the distinction between having to hand in a ballot and having to hand in a ballot that's got the little bubbles filled in next to one and only one candidate per race.

[The Board Administration Team]

@MercuryBlue: We just added your comment to the "Things You Can Do" section of the "Updated This Week" post.

[MercuryBlue]

:)

[Lonespark]

I would really like to think Raj's play would happen on Good Friday and some sort of miracle later. A lot of Bible stories never did much for me, but translated/modernized versions do.

[Lonespark]

In happy news I got to have lunch with Froborr and it was nifty. (But now I am afraid I've given him the Easter Bug that has struck every member of my household.)

[MercuryBlue]

Lonespark: have you encountered the Cotton Patch Bible?

[Lonespark]

Yes, I have, I think through Fred though possibly also through Habitat for Humanity. It's wonderful.

[Froborr]

@Lonespark: Nope, thus far I am fine! And lunch was indeed nifty!

[Mike Timonin]

TBAT - is MercuryBlue's post intentionally closed to comment, or is it just my computer acting up?

[The Board Administration Team]

@Mike Timonin: Fiddled with the code -- try it now.

[Nenya]

Oh, hooray for lunch between Froborr and Lonespark! It's always delightful when Slacktifolk meet up. \o/

[Froborr]

@MercuryBlue: I almost signed your petition, but then hesitated over one question: Does the President actually have the power to institute mandatory balloting? Wouldn't that require either a state-by-state effort or a constitutional amendment?

[Lurker]

I has a blog.

http://imfuckingdepressed.blogspot.com/2012/04/introduction.html

[Lonespark]

Damn, Lurker, that is painful and familiar. I like the way you draw the dog-thing.

[Lonespark]

I was trying to go through and add footnotes to my draft post, but I became terminally distracted by pictures of Prof. Zei kissing boys in the rain and with being obsessed about finding good images of Bajoran temples on the internet.

Also also I was having a protracted odd dream with lots of preschool-ish elements about shapes and colors but also a part where I was probably going to get to have sex, and then my dad yelled up the stairs that it was 6:10, and I never got to the good part.

[Lonespark]

Ok, perhaps that last comment should rather be on an open-ish thread. Oooops.

[MercuryBlue]

Froborr: I'm petitioning the House and Senate too. If it does need to be a constitutional amendment rather than simply passing a law, Congress can propose such. The President's name is on there because, even as obstructionist as Congress has been lately, laws the President wants tend to happen more often than laws the President doesn't want.