Reading List June 26, 2013

Who needs those pesky worker protections anyway? There's little focus on this but it certainly makes work life that much harder now, especially in Right To Work states (HA!).

From the Better Late Than Never Department:
This is a huge load off of my mind. I was so worried about the sexual assault epidemic in the military but apparently, it's not so bad and it's easily explained.

This is the reality of the SCOTUS decision on voter registration. I first voted in 1992 in my college town of Rome, GA. Fast forward a decade (plus)  and this certainly would have been my story.

#IStandWithWendy What an amazing act of courage! And what an amazing display of asshattery for the Texas Legislature to try to sneak #SB5 through after midnight. Of course Texas has been trying to turn back the clock for years... to 1850.

And speaking of screwing American workers, let's look at Hostess to see how it's done.

• Unionized Hostess workers made major concessions, taking pay and benefits cuts. That money was supposed to be reinvested into the company. It wasn't.
• As the company was struggling, its CEO pay skyrocketed, and as it was going into bankruptcy, Hostess pushed to give $1.75 million in bonuses to top executives.
• Hostess claimed it had to close plants because workers went on strike, but in fact, the company was already planning to close nine bakeries and wasn't telling which ones.
• Hostess stole its workers' pension money to fund itself and still went bankrupt.
• And, as Media Matters points out, "while the AP story claims that "workers" are blaming the company's woes on mismanagement and a failure to adapt to evolving consumer tastes, this has actually been the opinion of informed and objective third parties."

Men, Women and Higher Education

Growing up, going to college was a given. There would be no such thing as a choice about whether or not to go (although there were a few battles over where to go). Both my parents have Bachelor's degrees and both went on to get Master's degrees, as have I. I had a liberal arts degree but I went on to work in IT.

I think everyone can agree IT is a male dominated industry,  I've been listening with interest to our interns and new hires talk about how a degree is unnecessary and then I read this: As court prepares affirmative-action decision, softer standards for men go unnoticed. It's interesting to me how the rate of women in higher education has increased while the rate of men has decreased but rather than hearing how the men need to step it up, higher education is being devalued instead. So what happens when women with higher education outnumber men? Will we get equal pay or will formal higher education become devalued entirely?

Fashion, Suicide and Women

Using a sensitive and painful topic to sell clothing is a new low: Vice re-creates female authors’ suicides for maximum trolling. And thankfully, Vice listened to criticism, apologized and pulled the online piece.

“Last Words” is a fashion spread featuring models reenacting the suicides of female authors who tragically ended their own lives. It is part of our 2013 Fiction Issue, one that is entirely dedicated to female writers, photographers, illustrators, painters, and other contributors.


 

The fashion spreads in VICE magazine are always unconventional and approached with an art-editorial point-of-view rather than a typical fashion photo-editorial one. Our main goal is to create artful images, with the fashion message following, rather than leading. 



“Last Words” was created in this tradition and focused on the demise of a set of writers whose lives we very much wish weren’t cut tragically short, especially at their own hands. We will no longer display “Last Words” on our website and apologize to anyone who was hurt or offended.

I appreciate that it was a real apology and not a fake we're-sorry-if-we-offended-anyone non-apology. I didn't see the images before the spread was pulled but I'm also not sure I'd want to:

In seven “artistic” photos, the models flaunt their clothes as they pose in the very act that claimed the writer in question — except in the case of Dorothy Parker, who died of natural causes, even though she had made suicide attempts several times. In addition to Parker, we see models dressed as Virginia Woolf, Iris Chang, Charlotte Perkins, Sylvia Plath, Sanmao and Elise Cowen. Their age at death, date of birth, city of birth, date of death, city they died in, and causes of death are listed under the photos.

All these women were great writers who suffered from crippling depression before taking their lives. I could see using them as a PSA to women to get help but to sell clothing? Not so much.

Reading List June 18, 2013

Connecting Things to the Internet Does Not an Internet of Things Make
We've come to a point where we have to re-define what the Internet actually means. He makes a good point about closed systems, Apple, Google and Microsoft all have similar mail, calendar and storage tools but none of them play well with each other, which means you're still limited in your ability to cross platforms.

Private Networks For Public Safety
I've been thinking of the same thing since I heard a story on NPR about DARPA's research into new ways of networking. A stable network that can be made mobile and executed in a location without existing capabilities has use for more than just the military.

LAX TSA officer shames my 15-year-old daughter for her outfit
I already loath the TSA for a useless operation, good for nothing more than security theatre. So now they're the morality police? And I'm sure the TSA agent has spent an equal amount of time telling young men to pull up their pants and to stop wearing those skinny jeans.

The Unspoken Stigma of Workplace Flexibility
Workplace flexibility will retain the stigma as "women only" until more men feel comfortable using it.:

For some women, it gives employers a reason to view them through the lens of motherhood, prompting the strongest form of gender discrimination. Mothers are seen as less competent and less committed to their work, she said,citing other studies. But more surprising is that men who seek work flexibility may be penalized more severely than women, because they’re viewed as more feminine, deviating from their traditional role of fully committed breadwinners.

Two things need to happen, more men need to willing to risk using something that has been traditionally defined as more feminine and positive value needs to be assigned to the roles women play.

Palin writing ‘legalese’ book to fight the ‘War on Christmas’
A legalese book with recipes. Can't wait. And tradition!

From the Department of Get the F**K Over It

OMG It's the END OF THE WORLD! There's yet another stupid chick in a Sci-Fi movie!

Evangeline Lily (Lost) is playing a new character, Tauriel, in the upcoming Hobbit movie and it's causing quite a stir on-line, cause she's  <gasp> A GIRL.

Evangeline Lilly as the elf warrior Tauriel in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug – a new character created by filmmakers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh.

Yes, we all know girls don't like Sci-Fi and have no place in something as important as Tolkien. I'm sure she'll completely ruin the movie.*

The mix of  fandom and the fake geek girl bullshit absolutely drives me insane. There is obviously no way to prove to the small but vocal group of men in fandom that the presence of women won't ruin their tiny, precious little world. I have a two part solution to the problem.

First, piss off you stupid wanker! Get the hell out of my face and out of my life so I can enjoy my fandom in peace and quite. I give precisely zero craps about why you think women are ruining your life and I suggest you get into your own kitchen and make your own damn sandwich.

Second, I know there are other men out there who don't think women are the ruin of fandom so I ask you guys to please speak up! Ignoring the trolls isn't working, it's time to shut them up and shut them down. Give them the message that they're the unwanted ones.

*Warning: extreme sarcasm in use. Either don protective gear or leave the room for your safey.

Tha Australians Are Doing It Right!

So when the hell will the United States get it in gear and actually do something meaningful to address the issue of sexual assault in the military?

Reading List June 6, 2013

Don’t Treat Consumers Like Criminals

Saxby Chambliss Did Not Blame Sexual Assault on Hormones
OK, now that Erick Erickson explains how it's all a horrible misunderstanding, that Senator Saxby Chambliss didn't imply hormones cause sexual assault, I feel a lot better. Erickson is obviously an expert on women stuff as shown by his nuanced response to women as head of household. I feel much better now.

MSNBC Video: Janson & Co Sexual Assault in the Military

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Beatriz Has The Right To Live- Updated

The facts of the case are simple. Beatriz is a 22 year old woman with lupus. She already has one child and was expecting her second when she found out the fetus was non-viable and would not live long past birth (even if it made it that far). Because of her lupus, carrying to term would put her at a high risk of death.

So we have:

1. a woman with a critical disease 
2. and who is a mother to a living child
3. a fetus with no hope of survival
4. and the high risk of death as her pregnancy continues

If she were an American (and lived in a state which allowed abortion or could afford to travel to said state), she would have the option of terminating her pregnancy. She would be allowed to go on with her life, to continue being a mother to her son. But she's not. She lives in El Salvador, a country that doesn't allow abortion for any reason. Not for the life of the mother, not due to rape or incest, none allowed at all. Because of Catholic doctrine.

Dying Salvadoran Woman Finally Ends Her Doomed Pregnancy With A C-Section Instead Of An ‘Abortion’

Granting a C-section rather than an abortion is nothing more then legal and religious word play. It was a gamble with a woman's life the government of El Salvador and the Catholic Church were willing to take. Waiting until the fetus was viable* put Beatriz's life at risk. It put the relationship between a woman and her husband at risk. It put the life between a mother and her son at risk. And this is what it means to be pro-life?


* I use viable only in the medical sense as it was made plain the fetus was deformed and would not survive long, if at all.

Update:
El Salvador abortion woman has C-section
5 hours.

That's how long the baby lived after being born via C-section. FIVE hours versus the weeks of suffering faced by the mother and her family. The life of a baby who was born without a brain, who would die shortly after birth is worth more than the life of the woman carrying that child. The life of a woman with a family. The life of a woman who has a son and a husband who desperately want her to live.

5 hours.

Reading List June 3, 2013

As two prominent GOP women fade, a question of how to woo female voters
I get a little sarcastic reading articles like this (nooo, really?!). I can't help but think this is another form of pink-washing (ie slap some pink paint on it can call it Made for Women). If they wanted to really woo female voters, how about addressing issues that women think are important? And while we're on that subject, women make up 50.8% of the United States population, at what point do things like healthcare and reproductive rights stop being Women's Issues and become Human Issues?

Where right meets left on freedom of the press.
YES! It is possible for the political left and right to agree.

House of Death
I lost my Aunt to cancer 14 years ago and I still remember the wonderful hospice nurses who took care of her - and us - at the end of her life. I would like to see hospice made available for more people and their families to use.

'Stand Your Ground' Laws To Be Scrutinized For Racial Bias By Civil Rights Commission
Good. Now can we do something about George Zimmerman's lawyers pissing in the jury pool?

Patrick Stewart Is My Hero

Violence against women is still a global crisis that effects us all (and for the record, I include transgender women) and there are days it doesn't seem like it will ever end. So when I saw the clip of Patrick Stewart's responding to a fan about domestic violence, it brought tears to my eyes. I was so incredibly moved.

Watch Patrick Stewart's Moving Response to a Fan About the Domestic Violence His Mother Endured, and Why He Works to Prevent It

There are several things I appreciate from Patrick Stewart's speech. I'm glad he acknowledges his father's PTSD resulting from his military service. PTSD is a very real thing and with modern warfare, something we will continue to see more and more. Closed head injuries are on the rise, which often result in emotional and behavioral changes. We need better methods of treatment in place to take care of our service-men and -women. That being the case, Stewart makes it extremely clear that violence is still never, ever the answer. It's just not. He said what cannot be said enough, there is nothing his mother did that made the abuse acceptable. The last thing, and something I'm only now starting to hear and I'm grateful for it, is the power to stop violence against women is not only in the hands of women. It's in the hands of the men who commit that act of violence and in the hands of men who can speak up, disavow acts of violence and change the culture. Women do not deserve violence at the hands of a partner or loved one. Men have the power to step up, come together and stop the cycle of violence. It's time to stop making violence against issue a Woman's Issue and make it a Human Issue.

Sir Patrick Stewart Calls On ‘One Million Men’ To End Violence Against Women