How California makes its own citizens:
It started with in-state tuition. Then came driver’s licenses, new rules designed to limit deportations and state-funded healthcare for children. And on Monday, in a gesture heavy with symbolism, came a new law to erase the word “alien” from California’s labor code.
Together, these piecemeal measures have taken on a significance greater than their individual parts — a fundamental shift in the relationship between California and its residents who live in the country illegally. The various benefits, rights and protections add up to something experts liken to a kind of California citizenship.
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Oh, okay, Nate Silver has some numbers and says that Trump is not going to get the nomination just because he’s ahead in the polls, but I think we WANT him to get the nomination? Or maybe we don’t, bc people in this country are LOONS, I’m not an expert:
Twelve years ago, in August 2003, Joe Lieberman led in most polls of the Democratic primary. Eight years ago, in August 2007, Rudy Giuliani maintained a clear lead in polls of Republicans, while Hillary Clinton led in polls of the Democratic nomination contest. Four years ago, in August 2011, Mitt Romney began with the lead in polls of Republican voters, but he would be surpassed by the end of the month by Rick Perry, the first of four Republican rivals who would at some point overtake Romney in national polling averages.
Lieberman, Clinton, Giuliani and Perry, as you’ve probably gathered, are not the faces atop Mount Rushmore. Only Clinton came close to winning the nomination.
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This Mother Jones investigation of America’s ten worst prisons is a few years old, but new to me, and absolutely horrifying.
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Oh, man, let’s go lighter for a bit! I’m always down to talk about pink wine (I am pro.)
First stop: the 1980s. The culprit: white zin.
Poor white zinfandel. It sat in its box in your childhood fridge, completely unaware that it would be to blame for Americans’ repugnance towards dry rosé wine (as compared to the popular, celebratory rosé champagne, which we will ignore for this discussion, unless you want to pour us some). Grant Reynolds, the wine director at Charlie Bird, called white zin the “O.G. rosé in America.” The sweet, often blended-beyond-belief wine is now the embarrassing cousin we don’t want to admit was the very thing that got us into drinking wine in the first place. “Pink meant unsophisticated and sweet,” said Charles Bieler, the winemaker behind one of the country’s most popular rosés, Charles and Charles. “That’s a profile of white zin, which people like to piss on today—but let’s be honest—it was a gateway wine for so many Americans.”
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Why we need to get the Fantastic Four right:
But boy, it would be nice to have a good Reed Richards parable right now. On the day the abysmal reviews of Fantastic Four first appeared, Rolling Stone ran an article called ” The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here,” and as I stared at it on my laptop screen, my chest contracting with despair and anxiety, I couldn’t help but wish that we, as a moviegoing culture, would bother to dream of being Reed Richards, not Iron Man or Captain America or Batman. Why must our big-screen crusaders wait for terrorists and mental cases to headbutt and punch? Is that truly all our superhero movies are capable of? With all of their intelligence and resources, what are Batman or the Avengers doing when their city or world isn’t being threatened? Is it too much to hope for a story where the goal isn’t to merely defend normality but to, as Reed scrawls on his laboratory wall* in Hickman’s first FF story, “solve everything”?
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A Toronto Blue Jays guide for bandwagoners (by Friend of The Toast Stacey May Fowles):
Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat (sorry): there is absolutely nothing wrong with jumping on a sports fandom bandwagon and anyone who says otherwise hates joy.
The kind of people who look at new fans with disdain are nothing more than grown-up versions of the elementary schoolboys who wouldn’t let you into their cool-kid clubhouse. Gatekeeping is never a good look, and what defines a “real fan” could possibly be one of the most boring topics of conversation in the world after people explaining their dreams.
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My sister has made me some fighting cancer/Destiny’s Child-themed cheese straws. Beat THAT. pic.twitter.com/F0PWzjNV7n
— John (@JM_Underwood) August 11, 2015
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
That's what I got from the article too – white guy is angry about kids harshing his privilege because trying to empathize with someone else's painful life experience is beneath him. Ugh.
Have you read about the "the party decides" model of primaries? I found it…somewhat comforting in a weird way, because it convinced me that the Republican Party would never nominate Trump (or Santorum, for that matter, remember how in 2012 he kept doing alarmingly well but Romney was the one deemed electable enough even though no one seemed really enthusiastic about him?). But on the other hand, it's not comforting because if they did nominate Trump, that would help the Democrats, because Trump is too, well, out-there in various ways — he seems more interested in getting attention and stroking his ego than in making sure the next president is a Republican. It's not the heart-on-your-sleeve inflammatory conservatives who scare me the most; it's the subtle ones who know how to sound moderate and reasonable while actually being just as awful as the non-subtle ones, if you dig deeper.
Yes! I know a guy who missed several weeks of school in high school because he came out as gay and his classmates responded by sending him death threats, so he stayed home out of genuine fear for his life. Being all "oh he needs RULES and CONSEQUENCES and DISCIPLINE" would…not have been effective, to say the least.
Abso-posi-lutely.
Huh, I just began intensive outpatient treatment for depression. It's so totally time. (And it's great, by the way.)
I could really have used it years ago, but it was hard to wrap my head around "needing that" to be "normal." The reeeeeally harsh self-judgment, I couldn't even fully face the option. Like my life might as well be over if I have to acknowledge my real experience in front of others, instead of being able to "fix it on my own," or, let's be honest, just hide it and try to come across as "good enough" until I'm one day released from consciousness.
That "coddling' narrative is coming from a terrible place. And one grounded, I think, in a larger viewpoint about (what I would call) pathological individualism and conditional human value that I am having a hard time stating succinctly right now.
I don't need to be "exposed" to the idea that I am a non-person; I see it every damn second of every damn day.
I wish I could quote this to infinity.
I dislike the culture of overprotection too! But there's an important difference between the overprotection mindset and trigger warning activism: overprotection is something people do to other people (such as their children), while the activists are protecting themselves.
This can be hard to spot, because activists often advocate on behalf of others (a person who's been raped can advocate for warnings against eating disorder stuff, while their ED friend handles the rape activism), but they still partake in a movement started by the actual affected people. In contrast, no child has ever asked their parents to make them shut-ins, no third world person asks for white people to show up and tell them they're running their lives wrong, no disabled person argues that able-bodied people should decide what's best for people with disabilities, and no woman tries to make her boyfriend take away her agency to "protect" her.
Overprotection is something you do to others, protection is something you do for yourself (or for others who actually want you to).
In fact, the trigger warning debate often turns into condescending overprotection when the TW haters concern-troll by arguing that TW activists really need "exposure" to triggers to "get over" their trauma, so "we" would do "them" a disfavour (is that a real word? My phone doesn't think so) if "we" do what they ask. Instead, everyone else should decide for the trigger activists that they don't get to be warned, for their own good. That's literally overprotection. Also: amateur CBT! What could POSSIBLY go wrong?? (And again this somehow only goes for rape and self-harm, not combat trauma)
Overprotection is something you do to others, protection is something you do for yourself (or for others who actually want you to).
I think is the point I've been trying to get to, there's a difference between requesting a TW (or similar warning) for yourself or on behalf of a specific person/group of people (who has requested that you do it on their behalf, therefore given you permission to do this), and requesting one, or implying that there should be one because there might be a person somewhere who has an issue with the material.
And I think my main issue (as alleged in the article) is that universities are catering to the second group out of fear of litigation/civil action/reputation damage from the first group. I mean it is a whole interconnected issue, organisations are afraid of being sued, so they take any and all complaints seriously, leading to a culture where no one can say or do anything without fear of being persecuted for it, and people who are offended feel that this automatically makes them right and justified in their actions.
Personally I think there should be a bit more objectivity, so instead of 'I'm hurt by this, someone should pay with their job/reputation', maybe a little bit of 'I'm hurt by this, and this person intentionally meant to hurt me with what they said, therefore they should pay'
I deal with microagressions daily, being and Irish person living in England, its not as overt as the stuff POC have to deal with, but its there and its a good bit more culturally acceptable; But I don't kick up a twitter-storm every time someone asks me if I like a drink (Or, like yesterday, I get asked if Ireland is communist, not joking.), sure I might tell them to fuck off, or that that isn't a nice thing to say, but I know that they're usually saying it out of ignorance/attempts at humor, not malice.
I'll shut up now, this whole topic is something that rattles around my head a lot, so I tend word vomit when it comes up
(thanks for this link!!! It a. helped me respond to someone who posted it on fb that i thought was better than this sort of trash but apparently not? without getting emotionally involved where I really didn't need to be AND b. i know the author a very little bit and had forgotten she'd moved to the mary sue and i enjoy her writing, especially this, so it was a DOUBLE treat when i noticed the byline.)
I assume you live in New York State, in which case I am very very sorry about all that nonsense. I was APPALLED when one of the cashiers told me a couple years ago that the NYC TJ's was the only one in the entire state that has wine, because of whatever deal they signed with whomever when they initially applied for their license. I know NYCers are generally self-absorbed, but I think if more people here knew that this was A Thing, there'd be a White House petition or something.
I applaud efforts to be a little more careful and thoughtful, but determining which topics need a warning and which don't is a potential minefield.