It was my dog cousin Charlie’s third birthday last week! This picture is from his SECOND birthday, obviously he’s a much more mature, confident animal now.
You can blame any content we have or do not have today on this fool here, direct your complaints accordingly:
IMMEDIATELY read this piece on Gallaudet University and DeafSpace and design in its entirety:
The vibratory doorbell long ago gave way to visual signalers that flash or dim the lights. But it’s an inspiration for the researchers involved in a design movement born at Gallaudet called DeafSpace. Now 10 years old, DeafSpace is an architectural approach that springs from the particular ways Deaf people perceive and inhabit space. It has grown from small workshops—in which participants expressed Deaf sensibilities that were well-known but had never been codified—into the key set of principles shaping new buildings and renovation projects on Gallaudet’s campus, helmed by a cross-disciplinary research institute. The principles have relevance beyond campus. About 3.5 percent of people in the U.S. have experienced significant hearing loss or deafness, but hearing problems are more common,affecting 13 percent of the population, according to the Gallaudet Research Institute. That share is likely to rise as tens of millions of Baby Boomers reach their seventies and eighties. Why should the places designed for them take hearing as a given?
This is a pretty solid read if you’re trying to figure out what the Gawker trial is all about (it seems like Gawker is going to lose, then potentially win on appeal, but would have to cough up the money BEFORE the appeal, which they may not have):
Regardless of their reading of the law, a jury might well want to use its power to reprimand Gawker. Bollea testified this week that the continued existence of the tape has affected his second marriage and caused him great embarrassment, and his emotional distress may trigger empathy from his hometown jury.
At the same time, Gawker’s management likely hasn’t endeared themselves to the jurors: in a videotaped deposition, Daulerio remarked that the only situation where a sex tape would not be newsworthy is if it included a child under the age of four. Gawker later said he was being flippant.
Daulerio also said he gave no thought to the emotional effects on Bollea (or, by extension, Clem) of publishing it. Other evidence showed that Gawker Media employees joked in various ways about the tape: one asked if Bollea’s penis was clad in his trademark head covering; another made a reference to one of his signature wrestling moves; and a senior employee posted a picture of a penis – not Bollea’s – into a group editorial chat in which employees were required to participate.
A car bomb explosion in the Turkish capital of Ankara has left at least 34 people dead and over 100 injured, according to Turkey’s health minister.
Today’s attack targeted civilians at a bus stop, Interior Minister Efkan Ala said.
Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said 30 victims died at the scene, while the other four died at hospitals.
Muezzinoglu also said 125 people were wounded, with 19 of them in serious condition.
A crash course in the history of black science fiction:
In 1909 Harvard’s president, Charles W. Eliot, issued a 51-volume anthology he claimed could provide its owners with a complete liberal arts education. In the same vein, I’ve pulled together an annotated list of 42 black science fiction works that are important to your understanding of its history. You’ve got the rest of 2016 to read them. That’s doable, isn’t it? Tackle them one per week…. Sure, some of the older titles are going to be full of archaic and unfamiliar turns of phrase; some of the anthologies are thick, and a couple of the novels I recommend are fairly long. But a few of my suggestions are short stories, a few are children’s books, and all of them are things I’ve enjoyed. And if you start now, you should have at least one week you can use to catch up if you fall behind, or to explore any titles find yourself distracted by as you make your way through this crash course. Plus, you may well have read some items on my list beforehand.
Just one caveat before you start ordering and downloading and diving into things: some of these works could be construed as fantasy rather than science fiction. The distinction between these two imaginative genres is often blurred, and it’s especially hard to make out their boundaries when exploring the writing of African-descended authors. Why? Because access to the scientific knowledge from which SF often derives has been denied to people of the African diaspora for much of history. And the classification of what is and is not scientific knowledge hasn’t been under our control — it’s frequently a matter of dispute. Also, it’s sometimes difficult to understand the history of black science fiction without reference to the history of black fantasy.
my plans for the evening:
Michelle Obama always looks amazing, but this may be my favourite dress of hers.
This story is a mess (I doubt that Richard Simmons’ housekeeper is using black magic to control his mind and body and Oliveira seems like a bit of a grifter) but now I AM really worried about Richard Simmons!
Richard Simmons has vanished from public view, and many who know him best say they haven’t had any contact in more than two years. All repeat the same message, some anonymously and some on the record: Simmons stopped returning calls and emails more than two years ago, behavior that is highly out of character, and his housekeeper is blocking access to him at home. Indeed, for a generous and intensely social public figure, one who taught classes at his Beverly Hills gym until a few years ago; has sold more than 20 million exercise videos, including the mega-popular “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” series; appeared many times on David Letterman’s shows, “General Hospital,” his own talk show and infomercials; and was a seemingly ubiquitous presence for decades, the silence is striking.
Metafilter’s master list of weeknight recipes is full of greatness, and I am bookmarking it for my future perusal.
Another sad element of the Zika crisis:
At the clinic in Campina Grande, 20-year-old Rogerio dos Santos is one of only two fathers present. Standing in the whitewashed corridor, he says he’s shocked by the tales of fathers abandoning their children but says it has been hard to get time off at the gas station where he works.
For fathers like dos Santos, the support network in Brazil is lacking. Whereas the clinic runs a support group for the mothers, there is no specific help offered for fathers.
“There is a certain amount of fatalism about fathers leaving, unfortunately,” said Gary Barker, who promotes gender equality though ProMundo, an organization he founded in Rio de Janeiro 19 years ago and which now works in four countries.
For Barker, the health sector needs to offer support specifically for men.
“There needs to be an understanding that a baby being born with microcephaly is an event that is going to increase the chance the father’s not going to stick around and he’s going to need some extra hand holding,” he said.
LINDY FOUND A SPIDER NEST IN HER SMOKE DETECTOR
Hillary’s swing to the right in anticipation of the general election has begun, so everyone should get excited to watch that happen, it’s not going to be depressing at ALL (her Reagan/AIDS remark seems less calculated to me, because the right doesn’t give a shit about the gay people Reagan didn’t care about):
Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton tweeted a statement about the chaos, saying “the divisive rhetoric we are seeing should be of grave concern to us all.” She also condemned violence.
“All of us, no matter what party we belong to or what views we hold, should not only say loudly and clearly that violence has no place in our politics, we should use our words and deeds to bring Americans together,” Clinton continued.
She then mentioned the South Carolina church shooting that left nine people dead in June, and called on people to emulate the victims’ families, who “came together and melted hearts in the statehouse.”
Speaking of the Chicago rally, this is great.
I’m having a bad week, so I’ve watched Justin Trudeau happily do Bhangra maybe eighty times, a gift I am now giving to you (I am having preliminary talks with my husband about moving back to Canada, because it’s been eleven years and I think the US is not on a particularly positive trajectory, but he’s only interested in moving to the pointy snowy parts, and my family is in the flat lake-y parts, so we’re currently at an impasse):
< https://youtu.be/CeMrX9QE1bE >
Gotta hear both sides:
