An NPR interview with Kelly Link about stories, writing, and the characters of her latest, Get In Trouble.
An NPR interview with Neil Gaiman (noted here because I want to listed to it).
Tobias Buckell's All Her Children Fought as a short movie. Noted here because I want to watch this once I have a few minutes to myself.
While I love technology, most of what people think is fantastic I think is utter garbage and a version of the pet rock that can connect to the internet. But here's an artificial sky light this is actually pretty neat. And damn expensive. (Grokked from Tobias Buckell)
Trigger warning. "Symphysiotomy" What happens when you let a religion which has set itself opposite science dictate medicine. Good thing the Right-to-Life movement wants to take us back to the heyday when this medical procedure (splitting the pelvis and the public symphysis during childbirth, instead of performing a cesarian which was considered one step away from abortion) was considered humane. (Grokked from the Slactivist)
The other day I was scanning a woman who held dog tags in her fist. I asked if they were hers. Yes, she said. I asked her what branch. She was Army Airborne. I told here I was Air Force. And, she thanked me for my service. I said I didn't do anything that deserved thanks. I thanked her for hers. We shared a smile as the other tech prepared to set the line. We talked about how it's never easy to know what to say. She was Army Airborne. She was an electrician that worked on C-130s in Vietnam. I knew a lot of what that meant. I can't imagine what hell she went through there. The 60s, in theater, a woman, an electrician, and Airborne working on C-130s, what she must have gone through when she came home. I held her hand as the other tech set the IV, a little pinch, kept her focused on something thing other than her arm and the needle being threaded into her vein. And she had thanked me for my service, because that's what we do now.
"Developing wind power off the Atlantic Coast would create twice as many jobs and produce twice as much energy as opening the area to oil and gas drilling." But, hey, lets not do it. Because who wants to live in a better world where we aren't polluting and killing each other with that pollution. (Grokked from the Slactivist)
"If Texas state Rep. Dan Flynn (R) gets his way, teachers will have the right to use deadly force against students in Texas classrooms…" What the total fuck? "Such a bill could have disastrous consequences for students of color. A coalition… found that black and Latino students face much higher rates of disciplinary action in schools, which exacerbates the so-called school-to-prison pipeline. By extension… they could also become the targets of deadly force used by educators." What cold possibly go wrong? It's time to call it, yes, these bills about increasing access to guns and use of gun are racially motivated (not by all the proponents, but by the major instigators, the rest are just along for the ride). This shouldn't come as a surprise considering the 2nd Amendment was written to legitimatize slaver gangs and patrols. (Grokked from Janiece)
I haven't seen American Sniper, and I probably won't, but I guess there's this really bad analogy about what types of people there are in the world. Eric has a few thoughts of that.
"Chris Kyle is America’s new hero. The launch of the movie somewhat based upon his killings in the Middle East has propelled him front and center… some Christians have dared to question Kyle, and others have outright critiqued him, and the response hasn’t been pretty. I referred to him as a 'killer' and was told that folks were burning my book in response… and overall have seen some really nasty stuff being said toward anyone who does anything other than grovel at the story of America’s deadliest sniper." The stories we tell ourselves. Kyle is the hero we all look for, the sheriff of the West who killed more people than he brought to justice, Charles Bronson in Death Wish, the steely eyed character able to do what is necessary. He's the person the conservatives wished for when they talked about how all these soldiers being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving others, and how they were wussies and we should honor those who did the killing. You know, what they thought of as Real Heros™. Except he wasn't all that. There's only one kind of person who loves killing. He's Tom Berenger in Platoon, a psychopath. (Grokked from the Slactivist)
"The large majority of mortgage dollars originated between 2002 and 2006 are obtained by middle- and high-income borrowers (not the poor)…" The study they're citing also show the upper middle-class and rich are responsible for most of the default rates that supposedly brought our economy crashing down in 2007. But that doesn't fit the stories we tell ourselves, about how the poor spoil everything because they aren't able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. So it must be ignored by the media and politicians. (Grokked from the Slactivist)
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