This week in The Slacktiverse, January 7/8 2012

The Blogaround

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: Doctors, Nurses, and Patients
The problem with this scene is that Edward is in his usual position of privilege and the women he is laughing at are marginalized. They can join him in privilege only if they join him in mocking the other marginalized woman. And that’s not humor, so much as it is cruelty.

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Deconstruction: No, You Probably Aren't (and other thoughts on the Zombie Apocalypse)
All the reasons why you dreaming about the Zombie Apocalypse doesn’t automatically mean you want me to die horribly.

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Narnia: The Resurrection of Aslan
The raison d'etre of "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe", at least as I see it, is the death and resurrection of Aslan. Everything else -- the Pevensie children and their evolution from frightened kids to confident monarchs, the war for the liberation of Narnia, the defeat of the ancient evil that has plagued the land for centuries -- these things are significantly less important than the life, death, and rebirth of Aslan.

This week Laiima writes: taking winter one day at a time

Kit Whitfield continues her deconstructions of famous first sentences. This week: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Sarah writes: This week, I posted the beginning of my 2012 book list and an entry on Epiphany.

Coleslaw reports: So I Have All This Stuff that used to be in the attic, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. If you read A Dark and Stormy Night and did not know the sources of all of the opening lines, here are the Answers. When it seemed as if medical advice given to pregnant women in the 1950's led to an obesity epidemic in the 1980's, our local headline writer decided http://iamcoleslaw.blogspot.com/2012/01/its-all-their-fault.html.(Warning - some discussion of pregnancy and weight) And I take stock of my Small Accomplishments from 2011.

By the way, I think I'm being punished for past posts making fun of Tim Tebow and Target. My shoelace came untied at least five times in the grocery store today. I need to look into those shoelace suggestions readers gave me.

Froborr writes: This week I actually posted to my blog for once! (Trigger Warning: Rape). The FBI finally updated their definition of rape this week, and the headlines I have been seeing really annoy me. One thing led to another, and I posted a list of rape prevention tips.

yamikuronue writes: This week I posted TPD pp 72-76, in which I begin my adoration of Pastor Young at the expense of callous, unfeeling Marshall. I also posted an open thread about the flavor of cities.

Michael Mock writes: Over at Mock Ramblings, I have added two more sections to They Are Legion (a Right Behind story), displayed my son's "What animal would you be?" artwork, and passed along a random joke (also from Firstborn). Finally, I wrote a piece of crossover fanfiction entitled Conan The Gozerian.

Literata reviewed Gerald Gardner's first work of fiction, concluding that this book is like a sausage. She also found a source of sustainable sandalwood oil and offers the information to others who are trying to live sustainably.

This week, continuing the theme of her post at The Slacktiverse, Storiteller wrote about the excellent Conservations with the Earth exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian. In Learning to Listen to Native Voices, she talks about how the exhibit does a terrific job amplifying the stories of Native peoples around the world in regards to climate change's effects and hurtful consequences of mitigation projects.

Chris the Cynic reports: This week I wrote about what's been going on in Hungary and not much else.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: When Fantasies Reinforce Toxic Societies
There’s a tension in my mind with Twilight. On the one hand, I don’t want to criticize fantasies. Fantasies are private, fantasies are helpful, fantasies are healthy. On the other hand, when a fantasy becomes saturated in the mainstream, do we have an echo-chamber where society can become worse as a result of people modeling the fantasy? And how does this translate into the process of writing? Come share in Ana’s existential confusion in a Very Special Twilight post.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Deconstruction: The Fantasy of Being Beautiful
I wonder if the fantasy of Twilight isn’t one of becoming beautiful so much as it is about becoming a completely different person – in the same way that Kate Harding’s Fantasy of Being Thin is not about weight loss but about personality transformation.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Open Thread: Characters You'd Like To See In Fiction
Open threads aren’t usually meant to be reblogged, but here’s one I’d love to see a variety of opinions on. What are you missing in your fiction lately? Reading suggestions also welcome!

In case you missed this

Brazil’s Insidious New Pregnancy Registration Law Violates the Privacy of Women

Special on Hungary

Articles about Doctors resignations, Rewrite of the constitution, Speculation that Hungary might be expelled from the EU (there's no legal precedent for this, but it's plausible they'll set one, with the way we're heading), Freefall currency, Hillary Clinton's recent letter to the Prime Minister of Hungary, on the name change, protests in Budapest, New York Times coverage of about the protests and further coverage of grassroots protests in Budapest throughout December.

Graph of HUF vs EUR over the past year (this site lets you compare with any currency and has graphs of as long as 10 years or as short as 1 day. For those not in the habit of comparing currencies regularly, comparing the forint with any given currency requires some knowledge of the political situation in both countries at a given time in history because a change can either mean one country is getting stronger or the other is getting weaker. For example, the forint gained a little with respect to the dollar over the summer because the dollar was weakening with respect to most currencies because of international concern with America's policy over something or other. But now it's the forint's turn to plunge.)

Fred Clark (the original Slacktivist) points out that what the republicans are clamouring for looks a lot like what's actually happening in Hungary in his post Upside-down religious liberty in Illinois and Hungary.

The Contrarian Hungarian has a good blog about current events in Hungary and The Contrarian Hungarian's facebook page always has tons of good links to news stories.

As this article in Deutsche Welle Hungary's parliament passes controversial new constitution explains the new constitution's preamble is laden with references to God, Christianity, the fatherland, the "Holy Crown of Hungary," and traditional family values, raising opposition fears about the future rights of Hungary's atheists, homosexuals and single-parent families. Many Jews are upset because the new constitution states that Hungary lost its independence during the Nazi occupation which subtly implies that Hungary wasn't to blame.

Further issues of concern include freedom of the press and gerrymandering and loss of independence of the central bank. State tv journalists went on a hunger strike. They've since been fired for "provoking" their employer, and for violating both the media law and the labor code by their illegal hunger strike. LMP (one of the opposing parties) resorted to civil disobedience and were arrested. In a crackdown on the arts, the government have given one of the most important theatres in Budapest over to new management allied with extreme right-wing parties and anti-Semitism and the mayor of Budapest is upset about the LGBTsportsfest because it discriminates against heterosexuals.

Things you can do

Help Preserve the Canadian Public Domain: Speak Out on the Trans Pacific Partnership Negotiations

Foodbanks are facing particularly difficult times as more people need help at the very moment when many supporters are less able to give. Community members are encouraged in email in additional Foodbank contacts:

Australia
Canada
America
United Kingdom

--Co-authored by the Slacktiverse Community

---

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

Comments

[Steve Morrison]

@Coleslaw: I don't know what shoelace suggestion you may have been given, but this site by Ian Fieggen does have suggestions for more secure shoelace knots!

[Brin]

Clickable version of Steve's link.

(It's very important when creating links to put in the http:// bit.)

[Timothy (TRiG)]

I've had problems with that recently, because I usually copy and paste from the address bar, and FF has been behaving oddly recently. It no longer shows the http:// in the address bar, but it still includes it when you copy from the address bar. Usually. But not always. It's left out occasionally, apparently at random. Very strange.

(The Ubuntu machine I use at home seems to be a bit better behaved than the Windows machine I use at work, but I've not actually done any structured testing of that.)

TRiG.

[Steve Morrison]

Thanks, Brin. In fact I copied the link from another browser, so I'm not sure how the scheme was suppressed; though I have lately noticed both Firefox and Opera displaying URLs without the scheme, as Timothy says.

[Ross]

@TRiG: That's the new trend, hiding the 'http://'. Google Chrome started it, claiming that the http part was "confusing and irrelevant" to non-geeks. Folks complained, and they said "Too damned bad, ya bunch of nerds", but did rig it so that it would show up when the url was copied.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Well, Tim Berners-Lee has said something similar, so they do have geeks on their side too. I don't mind the scheme being hidden, and I do like the way browsers nowadays highlight the domain name (I think IE started that trend, to prevent phishing), but it really should work when you copy and paste. I've not seen that problem in Chrome, but I certainly have in FF. I've not noticed it in Opera.

TRiG.

[Anonymous]

Longtime lurker (since the Fred days), first-time commenter...

If you have Firefox, you can make it show the "http://" by going to about:config (type that in the address bar), type " browser.urlbar.trimURLs " in the "Filter", and double-click the "true" to change it to "false". (If you want, you can also stop it from highlighting the domain name by doing the same thing with "browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled".) I'm not sure how to do this with other browsers, though.