Outside the Ark

Alton Russell, Raleigh, NC This is where I post things. Recurring themes include Health, Humanitarianism, Sustainability, Travel, Quotes, and Politics. My Adventures: Semester at Sea Summer 2011 Central America and the Caribbean ThinkImpact Summer 2012 South Africa About me and this blog.

[sandandglass]

[returnthegayze]

They will ask you

Whether your project can inflict ‘harm’

And you will respond: “minor discomfort” to expedite the review process

Her name is Cym,

And the arc of her smile mirrors her painted eyebrows,

On Mondays she asks you what you did over the weekend.

You do not...

[outsidetheark]

You don't get paid for working hard or for being smart... you get paid for taking responsibility for people and decisions

Dr. Culbreth, my Quality Control professor at NC State's Industrial Engineering department.

[did-you-know]

Heineken designed a beer bottle that doubled as a brick to address housing and recycling challenges in the Caribbean.

Source

[theytellmetostop]

Coolest alcohol company.

[outsidetheark]

"Expand and retain membership. This is the First and Greatest commandment"

The General Commission on United Methodist Men recently released a statement that they have changed their minds from earlier remarks in support of the policy change being considered by the Boy Scouts of America. The letter offers but one reason for their rescission of support from the policy change:

This potential shift from BSA places GCUMM's primary goal, our core value- expansion and retention- at risk

I took the liberty of sending them some suggestions to help them achieve their primary goal and core value:

Dear Leadership of the General Commission on United Methodist Men,

I read a statement from the GCUMM executive committee explaining that "expansion and retention" constitute both your primary goal and core value.  I wish I had known this earlier! I had mistakenly believed your goal centered around helping men grow in Christ. However, given that your organization exists only for the sake of becoming as big as possible, I have some recommendations for you:

Lose this Jesus character. He's controversial, and his ideas about money will scare off wealthy donors who will surely help your organization expand and retain membership.

Sex sells. Have you seen the GoDaddy Superbowl commercials? The day after the superbowl this year was their greatest day of sales in history! Half-naked ladies are sure to keep men interested.

Blame the Jews. Or another minority group. Get people fired up and angry at a common enemy, like the Nazis did with the Jews, and you can build a huge movement. Actually, I just realized you're already on to a great scapegoat: gay youth!

I hope these suggestions help you accomplish your primary goal and core value!

The Reconciling Ministries Network has a great piece on their blog by Rev. Andy Oliver, where I first learned about GCUMM's letter.

[outsidetheark]

Empirical research does not suggest gay or bisexual men more likely to molest children.

Key points drawn from this review of research by Dr. Gregory Herek, Professor of Psychology at UCD:

Useful Background Info:

Pedophiles do not always commit child molestation, and child molesters are not always pedophiles. Some people experience a sexual preference for children but never act upon it, and some people will molest a child despite not being sexually attracted to the child.

Male-male molestation and male-female molestation are more appropriate terms than homosexual and heterosexual molestation because they do not make unwarranted assumptions about the sexual orientation of the offender.

Many child molesters cannot be meaningfully classified as hetero- or homosexual because age, not gender, is the primary basis of their sexual attraction, and they are attracted to neither men nor women.

The Research:

Groth and Birnbaum (1978) studied 175 adult males who were convicted in Massachusetts for sexual abuse of a child. Their findings: 47% of offenders were "fixated" (attracted only to children with no adult sexual orientation); 40% were heterosexual; 13% were bisexual; and 0% were homosexuals.

A review of 352 Denver medical charts found that the adult molester was gay or lesbian in fewer than 1% of cases in which they could be identified (Jenny et al., 1994).

A Canadian study that measured penis volume changes in response to images of prepubescent children coupled with audio describing an imaginary sexual encounter measured no difference in sexual arousal between heterosexual men presented with images of girls and homosexual men presented with images of boys (Freund et al., 1989).

THE TAKEAWAY: While male-male child molestations happen (albeit less than half as frequently than male-female child molestations), there is no evidence to suggest a homosexual men is more likely to be the molester. It is more likely that the offender is either heterosexual or has a sexual preference for children without regard to gender.

[outsidetheark]

Boy Scouts of America is considering a policy change that would allow troops to decide to include gay individuals. If you call BSA's National Service desk (972-580-2330), you will be asked, "Are you for or against the change in policy?" Please call and let them know you're FOR the policy change. It takes 10 seconds!

Call and reblog! Source

[chasewhiteside]

Worth remembering this classic:

Dear Abby: Two men who claim to be father and adopted son just bought an old mansion across the street and fixed it up. We notice a very suspicious mixture of company coming and going at all hours — blacks, whites, Orientals, women who look like men and men who look like women. This has always been considered one of the finest sections of San Francisco, and these weirdos are giving it a bad name. How can we improve the neighborhood? — Nob Hill Residents

Dear Residents: You could move.

[unconsumption]

[outsidetheark]

unconsumption:

As the potential output scenarios of 3D printing grow, our thoughts turn to input; while 3D printing replaces the need to use traditional, more costly resources like wood, the use of plastics isn’t the most eco-friendly. To help make the process more sustainable, Vermont Technical College student Tyler McNaney created The Filabot, a desktop machine that recycles common plastics into 3D printing filament.

More: Desktop Machine Recycles Plastic Into 3D Printing ‘Ink’ - PSFK

[catherinewillis]

Paul Watson is a giant.

[kateoplis]

“We sat there in our little inflatable boats in the midst of the Soviet whaling fleet with the bodies of a half dozen sperm whales lying lifeless in the swell. I watched the sun begin to set in the west and I remembered that the Russians were killing whales primarily for the valuable spermaceti oil.

Spermaceti oil is valued for its high resistance to heat, and thus it is used in machinery where there is excessive heat. One of the demands for this oil by the Soviets was for use in the production on intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Here they were slaughtering these magnificent, intelligent, socially complex, wondrous sentient beings for the purpose of making a weapon designed for the mass extermination of human beings.

And I thought to myself, are we really this insane?

It is that thought, that unanswered question, that has haunted me every day since.

It is from what I saw in the eye of that whale that has led me to devote my entire adult life to the defence of the whales and the other creatures of the sea, because I know that if we cannot save the whales, the turtles, the sharks, the tuna, and the complex marine biodiversity, that the oceans will not survive. If the life in our oceans is diminished, humanity is diminished and if the oceans die, humanity will die; for we cannot survive on this planet with a dead ocean.”

[npr]

“I know it’s not the most feminist idea to be a woman in a tower wanting to be rescued, but for a woman of color in this country, we’ve never been afforded that fairy tale because of how the black family was ripped apart [during slavery],” Washington said. “I really saw the value of having a story that empowers the African American man to do something chivalrous for the African American woman, because that hasn’t been an idea that has held women back in the culture — it’s something we’ve never been allowed to dream about.”

‘Django Unchained’ was more than a role for Kerry Washington - latimes.com (via npr)

[nachosauruz-deactivated20161224]

[outsidetheark]

A fuckload of classic literature:

1984 by George Orwell

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Aesop’s Fables by Aesop

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll

Andersen’s Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Dubliners by James Joyce

Emma by Jane Austen

Erewhon by Samuel Butler

For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Grimms Fairy Tales by the brothers Grimm

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard by Joseph Conrad

Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen

Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence

Swanns Way by Marcel Proust

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Great Gatsby

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Iliad by Homer

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

The Odyssey by Homer

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Tales of Mother Goose by Charles Perrault

The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Duma

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Ulysses by James Joyce

Utopia by Sir Thomas More

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Within A Budding Grove by Marcel Proust

Women In Love by D. H. Lawrence

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Click on the motherfucking Hypelinks bitches.

Here! Have a fuckload of modern literature, too!

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

A Study In Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith

An Abundance of Katherines - John Green

Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer

Bossypants - Tina Fey

Breakfast At Tiffany’s - Truman Capote

Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

City of Bones - Cassandra Clare

Clockwork Angel - Cassandra Clare

Damned - Chuck Palahniuk

Darkly Dreaming Dexter - Jeff Lindsay

Dead Until Dark - Charlaine Harris

Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card

Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk

Go The Fuck To Sleep - Adam Mansbach

I Am America (And So Can You!) - Stephen Colbert

I Am Number Four - Pittacus Lore

Inkheart - Cornelia Funke

It - Stephen King

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

Lolita - Vladmir Nabokov

Marked - Kristin Cast

Memoirs Of A Geisha - Arthur Golden

My Sister’s Keeper - Jodi Picoult

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

One Day - David Nicholls

Paper Towns - John Green

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief - Rick Riordan

Pretty Little Liars - Sara Shepard

Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

Snow White And The Huntsman - Lily Blake

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum

The Giver - Lois Lowry

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks

The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton

The Perks of Being A Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

The Princess Diaries - Meg Cabot

The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien

The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Tuesdays With Morrie - Mitch Albom

Uglies - Scott Westerfeld

Vampire Diaries: The Awakening - L.J. Smith

Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen

Wicked - Gregory Maguire

[outsidetheark]

Out-of-touch speech from NRA leaders suggests a larger problem with how our journalists and politicians assign credibility to organizations.  The NRA is considered the most credible voice of gun owners, despite its "history [as] a group more concerned with protecting the commercial viability of the gun industry than protecting the principle of the Second Amendment," as a piece in the Daily Caller, of all places, describes.

The NRA's close association with the gun industry has earned it a powerful voice (and is undoubtedly a motivator behind its calls for more guns in schools). What would it look like if our media and political system favored popular support, rather than ties to commercial interests, when assigning credibility to figures and organizations? 

[outsidetheark]

[politicalprof]

[outsidetheark]

-Political Prof

read more

[outsidetheark]

Tom Ricks to MSNBC: You’re just like Fox, only not as good at it

Tom Ricks, the guy who called FOX out on their own show, is more bipartisan than you might have thought. Check out this great piece by Melinda Henneberger for the Washington Post.

[T]hat an “Earth to Fox” message was calmly delivered by someone who also thinks MSNBC tells only half the story was extra enjoyable in my view, because seeking to please — the lobby, sources, TV producers, or anyone in a position of power — is the root of much wrong in this town. Politicians have a base, not journalists, and if you can’t go up against your “team” on either the right or left, you have ceased to be that.

[ghostlaced]

I went to Governor’s School with Jacob and he is seriously the absolute sweetest, funniest, most driven person I’ve ever met. This benefits the Ali Forney Center, a shelter and lifeline for homeless LGBT youth in New York City which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE consider donating. In the next 48 hours, an anonymous donor has offered a matching gift of up to $500 so your donation will be doubled!

[outsidetheark]

Ditto what Bri said. Donate here.