Linkee-poo nods to Jay Lake (mostly)

The Fantasy Novelist's Exam. Bwahahaha! (or what's known in SF circles as "cliche lists"). (grokked from Jay Lake).

Here's another article on just how weird our world is. With bacterial colonization and the revelation that our gut is home to over 40,000 species of bacteria. (grokked from Jay Lake).

An actual historian talking about the historical context of our founding documents and their supposed Biblical origins. Just checked again, nope, bicameral legislatures, executive and judicial branches still not supported by Bible (they were more of a monarchy model in biblical times). The Myths We Tell Ourselves™ takes another hit. (grokked from Jay Lake).

Some labor history in a letter from Wm. Frazier resigning form the Labor Relations Board (in the late 70s). Food for thought. (grokked from Jay Lake).

Slacktivist with an interesting take on the Tea Party's origins (started by an article on HuffPo, which, BTW, I don't read). The more I see and dig deeper, the more I see those social conservatives driving the Tea Party (from the back or the driver's seat is yet to be seen). Also part of why the TP explicitly avoids talking about social issues, but help nominate all very deeply social conservatives for office. (grokked from Jay Lake).


Hey, remember all those dire warning about voter fraud and "stealing" elections so popular in the weeks leading up to the election. Yeah, not so much with the reality. Of course, the "it only didn't happen because they knew we were watching" excuse making has already started. Here's an NPR story on it (hopefully they'll post the transcript so you can read about how one of the "watch" groups is asking for the list of voters in minority districts to "verify" their citizenship - sounds innocuous, but then so did making people pay a tax or take a test before voting, until, you know, most people realized it was just ingrained harassment).

I've talked a lot about the Myths We Tell Ourselves™, mostly on the political front (see above). Here's a blogpost about the social/sexual front (that article is about transgendered individuals and sexual identity and has some concepts that some people may find unsettling, the post is about exactly that). There's plenty of those myths about sexuality especially. Besides the effect of Trans Erasure (the societal process of sticking your fingers in your ears going "lalalala" when someone's physical sexuality doesn't match up to their sexual identity). Here's an NPR story on transgendered children and the pressure to identify with the dangly (or not) parts we have. There's a whole slew of articles I can point to showing how people who are trans are forced into our Myths because our society can't accept that there's more than 2 options. And that's without adding in the bisexuals in our society. But I wanted to point out some examples of how those MWTO are destructive to individuals and society. It's really a pernicious problem.

And it just doesn't pertain to sexuality. Growing up in the 70s with divorced parents wasn't fun (it wasn't the "norm" like it is now). So many questions about the morality of the parents (mostly my Mom), and the dire predictions of how my brother and I would be when we grew up. The only reason do don't hear (much of) that anymore is that many kids have parents who are divorced. Saying those things is no longer safe. And it's something you can't "force" people back to "normality" with the comments, because divorce is now the "normality."