Giving Prisoners the Keys: It has become widespread practice in British prisons to give the incarcerees keys to safety locks on their cells. Focused on those men and women who are nearing release, the policy is meant to help inculcate responsibility for one’s own belongings and respect for others.
Ask Nezua: Why Learn About Other People?: GATHER ROUND, inquisitors of the Brown™, and peep the lingual Mexicon that I will now throw down. Brush off the seat, stretch out ya feet, and gobble los Googly lecciónes of Ask Nezua número three. [This post is not only mad smart, but mad funny.]
Orwell’s Roses: Both offense and boredom are informed by knowledge. An offensive thing may become less so with more knowledge on the part of the offended — the word “niggardly” comes to mind — or more so, as in the case of the ”Digger pine.” It may well be that the things I know allow me to enjoy Orwell’s roses anecdote more than Weinberger did. There are the commonalities between WWII-era Woolworths in the UK and 21st Century drugstore roses in the US. There’s the astonishing subtext concerning the prevalence of amateur horticulture in Britain during the war. 1944 in London and people were still planting roses! Each rose meant several square feet of prime Victory Garden space not producing food, as if ther planters were Mohammed’s advice: “bread feeds the body, but flowers feed the soul.”
More thoughts on the blogrolling controversy.
Reporting On Feminism And Health: Do you remember the big fuss the media made over the 1999 study by Kawachi and others which found that greater gender equality appeared to be correlated with better health for both sexes in the United States? How about the even bigger media fuss caused by the 2005 study by Chen and others which found that gender equality appeared to be correlated with better mental health for women? And surely you remember the excitement in the media last year when we all learned about the Swedish study which showed that both men and women have better health when roles are shared more equally at home? You don’t recall? Neither do I, because there was no such fuss at all. Studies with those findings are not mentioned in the popular media at all or only fleetingly. But when a Swedish study in 2007 suggests that greater gender equality leads to less health for both sexes, what happens? You guessed it. The media is on the study right away.
Undisclosed Locations, Unfinished Business
Remedial Feminism: Does Ivy want to castrate all men and tie their testicles to the bumper of her car and drive all through town laughing like she won the lottery? No. Does Ivy hate men and want to mock and belittle them at every turn? No. Ivy wants to be able to walk into McDonald’s and get for her daughter a toy without it turning into a lesson in how either 1. Boys get all the cool toys and girls have to learn how to put up with shit. Or 2. Because you’re a girl, you usually only deserve the girl toy, which sucks, but because someone has pointed out that you are “exceptional,” you might be able to get the boy toy.
Hello Kitty Hell, via Chaos Theory
Which is funnier: Fart or Turd?
“Death becomes you, young lady”: Fetishizing violence against women isn’t new to mainstream media. Here we have a broadcast network showing and glorifying images of women bruised, deathly pale, and bleeding. Now we can say that most of society doesn’t sexualize images of men as it does women for many reasons. But all those reasons are related, in some way, to heterosexuality. Whether “Men are more visual” or “Men objectify women” or “Men just like looking at a beautiful woman more than women like looking at beautiful men”, all of these explanations for the general absence of eroticization of men in mainstream media assume heterosexuality. So, by that logic, we should see fetishization of violence against men in mainstream gay media.
Married White Male Seeks Big Black D*ck — Apparently one new sex trend to look out for is white couples’ “Mandingo” parties.
Don’t Give a Damn About Your Bad Reputation?: In other words, you’ve plugged into your online reputation. Didn’t know you had one? Unfortunately, if you’ve ever applied for a job, been in the news, or had a doctor’s appointment you may be the last to know about your online reputation. You may also be surprised at what you find there. And, yes. I did say if you’ve ever gone to the doctor you may have an online reputation. Why? Because doctors are blogging and some doctors are blogging about their patients.
Men Who Hate Women on the Web, via Kristjan Wager
Sex Not Necessary For Evolving New Species
Appeasing anti-abortion activists won’t reduce abortion; it won’t even shut them up: Poland edition: In between the two extremes of “No abortions, ever!” and “Abortion on demand without apology” are the great masses of people who find the idea of abortion icky but aren’t quite comfortable with an outright ban. These people usually find a rung of the “exceptions for rape and/or incest and/or fetal deformities and/or the life and/or health of the mother” ladder to hang out on, where whenever the uncomfortable topic comes up, they can list all of their generous exceptions and feel progressive. There are many reasons why this isn’t really good enough. The major historical reason, however, is that when you grant a group of uninterested people power over if a woman “deserves” an abortion, they are most assuredly going to abuse this power. You can not have a right to something contingent on whether or not your doctor is going to be an asshole that day.
Delta Zeta Sues DePauw: The national leadership of Delta Zeta sorority has filed a lawsuit against DePauw University — less than three weeks after the university severed ties with the national organization following the sorority’s “membership review.” That review, you might recall, led to the eviction of almost two dozen sorority members, some of whom claimed selection was made based on appearance and popularity.
Nice to know that I still warrant a read :-)
The Orwell rose information is good to know. I wonder how the billion tree planting effort going on now will be remembered 70 years from now.