JJ

We’re here because we’re here…

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

jeez. sorry you didn't like it.

[quasi-normalcy]

I've reached the point where cynicism is a major turn-off for me. You're not smarter than idealists, and you're not helping.

[qillermeme]

[mshfar2a]

I don't like to admit it, but sometimes I actually miss John Green.

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

Sometimes I can almost hear him.

[wifegideonnav]

“bits to use in everyday conversations”

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

it is very interesting to see the language of contemporary book criticism co-opted by Christian Nationalists to remove books from classrooms and libraries.

One recent example: My novel Turtles All the Way Down was banned from being taught in English classes because one school board member claimed it "romanticizes mental illness."

(It does no such thing, of course. TAtWD makes mental illness seem really unpleasant and not at all either lowercase-r or capital-r romantic. To acknowledge something's existence is not to romanticize that thing. But part of co-opting this language is misusing it for the end of removing books thematically centered on mental illness, or physical illness, or sex, or anything else that might be deemed insufficiently inocuous for Educational Literature.)

But the question of when writing about something veers into romanticizing it IS actually a very important question for contemporary literary criticism, and one that's been explored a lot (sometimes with generosity and care, sometimes not) in book discourse online. So the Christian Nationalist Right is using the language of analysis that we are using in ways that are at best misguided and at worst disingenuous.

It's really discouraging--I mean, on a personal level obviously but also just as an American who believes teachers should be allowed to teach--to see such widespread book bans in American high schools and libraries. But it's not surprising, really. Books retain a lot of power--to deepen our empathy with those who are suffering, to connect us to ourselves and to others, and to see the full humanity of those who might be dehumanized or marginalized by the social order.

On that front, the Christian Nationalists are right to worry. Books can be a path into loving one's neighbor as one's self, and seeing the full light of the sacred in the experiences of the marginalized. God forbid.

[kyonite]

trying to create an ebay account to sell smthn and tell me why I can't use my REAL LEGAL LAST NAME because it includes "dick" which ebay considers offensive

BUT THEN IN THEIR MISREPRESENTATION POLICY THEY SAY YOU CAN'T COLLECT MONEY TO A BANK ACCOUNT THAT'S NOT IN YOUR BUSINESS OR LEGAL NAME. BUT MY LEGAL NAME INCLUDES DICK, WHICH YOU CONSIDER OFFENSIVE.

the sanitization of the internet is so fucking stupid we live in the stupidest time

[so-much-for-subtlety]

[tpwrtrmnky]

I do think "literally zero evidence indicates that gatekeeping medical transition does anything to prevent regret, but the harm done by gatekeeping is extensively documented" is a much stronger argument than "regret isn't real" cause there's always going to be some anecdote that puts you in a weak-looking rhetorical position for the latter, but the former is pretty unassailable.

[nogodsnokingsnomasters]

Kent State University

[tiredtransgal]

“The Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre)[3][4][5] were the shootings on May 4, 1970 of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio during a mass protest against the bombing of Cambodia by United States military forces. Twenty-eight guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.[6][7]”

“There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of 4 million students,[10] and the event further affected public opinion, at an already socially contentious time, over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.[11]”

Student strike of 4 million students! Let’s do that again lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

[solarpunkcast]

Don’t forget that basically half the country thought the students deserved it…

[captain-rez]

Another picture from Kent State.

But it was not just Kent State, eleven days later Mississippi Police fired 150 rounds into a dormitory at Jackson State College, killing 2 and wounding 15 black protesters.

[saurons-optometrist]

Btw half of the students killed at Kent State weren’t even protesting, they were just there

[bando--grand-scamyon]

What in the absolute fuck

[wuh2k]

When the Irish guy has known about this since he was like 8, but it’s suspiciously hard for Americans to learn about…

[risk-repeater]

this job market is a fucking nightmare

[afemalesebastian]

"Sewing is a gateway drug to thinking through complex problems. It seems really simple; culturally, we make it women's work. Let me tell you: real sewing at any kind of level of proficiency is a bloody magic trick. Sewing, like mold making, involves mental frames that require one to think inside out and backwards. It requires one to work on an order of operations that is often taking into account the reverse. It's a really, really important skill, and if you learn how to sew, you're mostly on your way to carpentry and welding and sheet metal work. I'm not kidding: these are planar forms meeting under rules and conditions. And if you can make a sleeve work, I swear to God, you could build a house."

--Adam Savage

[hotvampireadjacent]

[tenorgender]

i must not miss class. missing class is the mind-killer. missing class is the little-death that brings total obliteration. i will face my lecture. i will permit it to pass over me and through me. and when it has gone past i will turn the inner eye to see its path. where the class has gone there will be nothing. only i will remain.

[kcnsas]

"she holds the record for the most days spent in space by a woman!" this "she was part of the only all female space walk!" that, she's on the list of people who have spent the most time in space, period. she's spent more time in space than any of her crewmates - one of whom hasn't been into space at all. her time in space is only three days less than what all of her crewmates have combined. she has had as many spacewalks as all of her crewmates combined. she's not there because she's the best female nasa astronaut they could find and they wanted the diversity quota or whatever, she's there because she's part of the most qualified and experienced nasa personnel they could send up there

[sherdnerd]

Personally I think NASA should make the launch crawler make a loud reverse beep as it reverses back to the Vehicle Assembly building

[birbliophile]

made a thing.