Deanna Zandt's Extra Helping

[insert literary reference]: Why Do Men Keep Putting Me in the Girlfriend-Zone?

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:04:50 -0400

[insert literary reference]: Why Do Men Keep Putting Me in the Girlfriend-Zone?:

You know how it is, right, ladies? You know a guy for a while. You hang out with him. You do fun things with him—play video games, watch movies, go hiking, go to concerts. You invite him to your parties. You listen to his problems. You do all this because you think he wants to be your friend.

But…

Libraries Changed My Life: Libraries fed my brain when nothing else could

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:58:52 -0400

Libraries Changed My Life: Libraries fed my brain when nothing else could:

librarieschangedmylife:

I was one of those kids that couldn’t get enough words. I mean, I was downright voracious—I tried to read everything around me at all times (signs, placards, menus, anything), and books were my constant companion as far back as I can remember, even before I could read. Our little town had (and…

"… I don’t see you arguing for an accurate portrayal of everything in your fiction all the..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 16:47:25 -0400

“… I don’t see you arguing for an accurate portrayal of everything in your fiction all the time. For example, most people seem fine without accurate portrayal of what personal hygiene was really like in 1300 CE in their medieval fantasy media. (Newsflash: realistically, Robb Stark and Jon Snow rarely bathed or brushed their teeth or hair). In real life, people have to go to the bathroom. In movies and books, they don’t show that very much, because it’s boring and gross. Well, guess what: bigotry is also boring and gross. But everyone is just dying to keep that in the script.”

- » How to be a fan of problematic things Social Justice League

hightowerlowdownaction: Yep, 2012 was the most expensive...

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:27:35 -0400

hightowerlowdownaction:

Yep, 2012 was the most expensive election ever! We’ve got all the dirty details right here in 2 new whopping editions of the Hightower Lowdown: Part 1, the straight-up donations to the parties: http://bit.ly/LowdownApril2013and Part 2, the “dark money” edition— SuperPACs and more: http://bit.ly/LowdownMay2013

hightowerlowdownaction: Want to know who’s bought America’s...

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:03:54 -0400

hightowerlowdownaction:

Want to know who’s bought America’s elections? We’ve got the answers right here in 2 new whopping editions of the Hightower Lowdown: Part 1, the straight-up donations to the parties: http://bit.ly/LowdownApril2013 and Part 2, the “dark money” edition— SuperPACs and more: http://bit.ly/LowdownMay2013

bobholman: Bring a memory, Make a Toast, share a poem,...

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:48:56 -0400

bobholman:

Bring a memory, Make a Toast, share a poem, coast-to-coast. Taylor Mead Day. TONIGHT, Monday May 13, 6-9pm, Bowery Poetry, 308 Bowery, NYC, USA, Earth, O! Taylor Come Home!

Anne Wizorek on her feminist roots

Fri, 10 May 2013 07:46:24 -0400

„Das geht uns alle an“

Sind Sie der westdeutschen Frauenbewegung der Siebziger und Achtziger eigentlich dankbar?
Auf jeden Fall. Aber ich bin ja in der DDR aufgewachsen. Ein gleichberechtigtes Leben hat für mich deshalb nicht mit der westdeutschen Frauenbewegung begonnen, sondern mit der Erfahrung, dass meine Mutter arbeiten gehen konnte und dennoch Zeit für die Familie hatte. Etwas, das mit dem Fall der Mauer dann nicht mehr selbstverständlich war.

Are you thankful for the West German women’s movements of the 70s and 80s?

Absolutely. But I grew up in East Germany (GDR). Equality therefore for me didn’t start with the West German women’s movements. Instead it was with having the experience, that my mother could go to work, and still have time for her family. That was something that after the Wall came down was no longer a given.

"After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, I heard the announcement: If anyone in the vicinity..."

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:24:34 -0400

“

After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.

Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.

I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?

The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—
She stopped crying.

She thought our flight had been canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,

Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.

Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.

Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—
Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.

And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,

With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.

They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.

Not everything is lost.

”

- Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal.” I think this poem may be making the rounds, this week, but that’s as it should be. (via awelltraveledwoman)

how giddy am I, making this Darwin GIF for my #tfii & #rp13...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:27:00 -0400

how giddy am I, making this Darwin GIF for my #tfii & #rp13 talks. (very)

Julie P.: My experiences in tech: Death by 1000 paper cuts

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:31:18 -0400

Julie P.: My experiences in tech: Death by 1000 paper cuts:

juliepagano:

In Once Upon an Internship, I learned early that sometimes being a software engineer means death by 1000 cuts because you don’t have the power to make it stop. Even the tiniest little things add up to something big – sometimes it’s really death by 1000 paper cuts.

The cuts started early. I’m discouraged and humiliated in math classes throughout my school years to the point where I still get anxious doing math in front of others despite being good at it in private. A high school teacher tells me that I shouldn’t go to college for engineering, but instead something nurturing (you know, what women are good for).

Tumbl Tumbl: On PyCon

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:02:43 -0400

Tumbl Tumbl: On PyCon:

mattlemay:

For better or worse, the first thing I thought upon reading Adria Richards’ blog post about the now-notorious PyCon incident was, “wait a second, I thought a tech conference was exactly the place for dongle and fork jokes!” The off-color comments that compelled Richards to speak out remind…

(original source unknown)

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 10:23:16 -0400

(original source unknown)

every few years, almost on cue, i feel a social movement start...

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:50:38 -0500

every few years, almost on cue, i feel a social movement start eating itself, and i think, “shit, i gotta get out. i gotta make art.” maybe it’s like a forest fire—burns itself down to make room for new growth. maybe that’s the natural ecology of social movements.

"After KEEP CALM and CARRY ON Ltd applied for a trademark, Solid Gold Bomb founder Michael Fowler..."

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 14:47:45 -0500

“

After KEEP CALM and CARRY ON Ltd applied for a trademark, Solid Gold Bomb founder Michael Fowler decided to create a flood of parodies. He gathered up a list of words, threw them into a script and pressed ‘go’.
Fowler describes culling a list of ‘millions’ of generated phrases down to 700, and checking the phrases for graphical approximation to the original, apparently without noting the contents.
He claims to be surprised as the rest of us that an offensive combination ended up in the database. (In fact, several offensive combinations showed up, which is to be expected if you put words like ‘rape’ or ‘choke’ or ‘hit’ in your list of verbs.)

…

He suggests that the reason people got so upset was a lack of digital literacy. I suggest that the reason people got upset was that a company’s shoddy QA practices allowed a rape joke to go live.

…

Generative programs are force multipliers. Small initial decisions can have massive consequences. The greater your reach, the greater your responsibility to manage your output. When Facebook makes an error that affects 0.1% of users, it means 1 million people people got fucked up.
‘We didn’t cause a rape joke to happen, we allowed a rape joke to happen,’ is not a compelling excuse. It betrays a lack of digital literacy.

”

- Algorithmic Rape Jokes in the Library of Babel | Quiet Babylon

One of the little guys that lives in my head bravely offered to...

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 13:28:23 -0500

One of the little guys that lives in my head bravely offered to reenact the spill I took the other night so I could practice my animation skills.

I am in LOVE with this project. Go look at the rest at her...

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 09:41:33 -0500

I am in LOVE with this project. Go look at the rest at her tumblr.

sophiawallace:

Day 18, #CLITERACY

World's Most Famous Man: The Awful Gender Politics of "We Saw Your Boobs"

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 09:02:25 -0500

World's Most Famous Man: The Awful Gender Politics of "We Saw Your Boobs":

mostfamousman:

So let me just get two things out of the way before I get really, really deep in detail about one specific aspect of the Oscars intro last night:

1) it was super, super-long and self-indulgent. Even by Oscar standards. It was like half an hour before anybody got an award and I laughed maybe…

“The sexuality-as-contest-between-men-and-women thing is bubbling underneath so much that is awful: rape culture, workplace harassment, slut-shaming, abuse-themed porn, pick-up artist culture, etc., etc. It sets aside women as a separate thing from a person, and makes them into an object that is ‘ruined’ by sex or nudity.”

"Hear me, O afflicted dudes: If you truly do “get” feminism, you know that, like all oppressed..."

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 15:11:45 -0500

“Hear me, O afflicted dudes: If you truly do “get” feminism, you know that, like all oppressed classes, women, as a matter of survival, are intimate to the point of exhaustion with the drives, appetites, illnesses, angsts, yearnings, hopes, dreams, great works, and bodily functions of the oppressor. We grasp these things utterly and without omission because we do not live in a cave; they are the default subjects of all art, literature, music, science, film, blogs, dinner conversation, science fiction, advertising, journalism, legislation, TV, the Internet, religion, technology, sport, and miscellaneous culture both low and high. The minute some dude tells me something I don’t already know about dudeliness, I’ll eat a bonobo.”

- I Blame The Patriarchy
reminded of this quote today, sigh. at least it makes me giggle a little.

Thanks to Erin for the lead on YourFonts.com. It doesn’t...

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 09:27:22 -0500

Thanks to Erin for the lead on YourFonts.com. It doesn’t totally look like my handwriting (I’m one of those half-cursive writers, even in caps, so a font would be hard to nail exactly), but I think this would work for comics without looking too “I haz a computer!”

Exciting news, kiddos. Sonal and I haz a bizness. We’ve...

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 11:55:08 -0500

Exciting news, kiddos. Sonal and I haz a bizness. We’ve just launched; read about it on Forbes, or the more personal story here. Mwah, mwah.