Day: August 7, 2017

your-reference-here:

zolnks:

thetrippytrip:

The government was too busy with Iraq war. The US Army Corps of Engineers failed to do their work well. Now Americans are fighting in Syria. Years go by, nonsense never dies.

“People should protect themselves” from a fucking hurricane????? And anyway what the fuck is the government there for if not to help its citizens?

Hi, meteorologist here. Let me add a little insight and history to this.

The 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season is still the leader for the most active season in history. In this season, we saw a number of economically damaging storms, including Hurricanes Dennis, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. The year before that we also had Hurricanes Charley and Ivan.

Two big seasons like this happening back to back was unprecedented. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and no one could ever have imagined these kinds of storms feasibly happening so near each other in time.

Case and point, there was a show around that time called “It Could Happen Tomorrow” on the Weather Channel that took hypothetically devastating weather events and had them strike prone areas. Essentially, it was a “worst case scenario” kind of show, and usually showed unthinkable amounts of destruction. A few months before Katrina happened, they had an episode in the works about a Category 5 hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast.

Wonder which city it was “imagined” to hit? New Orleans. You can guess why that episode never actually aired.

Point? This. Was. Unimaginable. Of course the government had no freaking clue how to handle this when it actually happened. Even today we’re still feeling the fallout of those two seasons. The National Flood Insurance Program, which anyone who lives on the Gulf Coast in a flood prone area is required to have coverage through as referenced in the thread above, is still dealing with massive amounts of debt. These seasons emptied the proverbial coffers back then, which, as you can imagine, is a big problem now for people still waiting for claims payments.

Does this excuse how late these claims are being settled? God no.

Does this explain part of why this is happening? I think so.

Do I wish this wasn’t happening at all and that these people were getting the money they expected years ago? You bet I do.

Over 45,000 vendors in Rajasthan refuse to rent out wedding supplies to protest child marriages

rapeculturerealities:

With an aim to help terminate the extensively prevalent issue of child marriage in the country, over 45,000 tent vendors from the state of Rajasthan have decided to turn their backs towards those who facilitate the social evil.

The vendors, who come under the umbrella of the Rajasthan Tent Dealers Kiraya Vyavsai Samiti, have taken it upon themselves to closely verify and scrutinise the birth documents of the bride and groom, each time they’re approached for wedding supplies.

But their role doesn’t just end there.

If there is a discrepancy in the birth certificates and they feel a child marriage is what is being planned, the association has also taken the responsibility of informing the nearest police station.

“If anyone comes to book us to supply the tent and do other decorations, we will ask for the birth certificate of the boy and girl to ensure it is not a child marriage. In case a person or group of persons gives us wrong information, we will immediately inform the police and other government officials for the required intervention,” Ravi Jindal, the president of the group Rajasthan Tent Dealers Kiraya Vyavsai Samiti told The Times of India.

As horrific as the act of child marriage itself is, its prominence in some Indian states–Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka in particular–is what makes the situation all the more alarming.

The Logical Indian reports, “India ranks sixth in the world in the number of child marriages that happen every year. According to the Census report of 2011, nearly 17 million Indian children between the ages of 10 and 19 are married. Of this number, 76%, or 12.7 million, are minor girls.”

Over 45,000 vendors in Rajasthan refuse to rent out wedding supplies to protest child marriages

fierceawakening:

gothschizo:

gothschizo:

i think people think the danger with men lies in stereotypical signifiers of masculinity and not with men themselves and the power they hold. like people’s image of dangerous men is always “big tough guy with hugs muscles who hates books and loves WWE and trucks” but like, those are all harmless things that happen to correlate with our culture’s concepts of masculinity.

the thing that makes men dangerous as a social class is the structural power they hold and their ability and willingness to harm women due to that structural power. that’s something that’s true about men regardless of how much they distance themselves from cultural masculinity.

this is the same type of thinking that lead to the whole “butch privilege” shitshow – people with a tacky liberal buzzfeed 101 grasp on gender politics think that male power is linked to cultural masculinity rather than maleness itself. by this line of thinking, anyone who wears muscle shirts REGARDLESS of if they’re a woman or not has some version of “make privilege”, which is fucking hysterically off the mark.

this type of thinking also leads to letting men off the hook, both in terms of their relationships with themselves and their relationship with others. they can tell themselves they aren’t dangerous because they’re sensitive and read poetry or whatever, and that belief will transfer into their interpersonal relationships because of this pervasive misconstrued idea of what the problem actually is.

it isn’t a stretch once you realize this to understand why so many male predators aren’t “the ones you would expect” – it’s the same reason people who rob banks don’t walk abound with AK-47s and ski masks on in their daily life. abusers will take advantage of anything that helps them get closer to their victims or appear nonthreatening, and that obviously extends to the way they present themselves to others.

This is why “toxic masculinity” bothers me. Like, do we mean guys who lift and say bro, or do we mean Dixnald Tromp and his “I make deals through intimidation and think compromise is weak” way of moving through the world? I feel like even though the second thing IS toxic, we don’t make clear which thing we are even talking about, much less how we aim to put sand in the gears of its transmission.

I also think we do a big disservice to lots of good guys who didn’t do anything but have a gender expression when we say it like that.

aro-aceplace:

unpopular-ship-queen:

you know, there’s a lot of ace positivity posts about how you’re not broken or mentally ill if you’re asexual, and how it’s not a disorder.

and that’s true. and it’s great that people realize that it’s just the way some people are.

but i’ve yet to see any asexual positivity directed towards people who ARE asexual as a side effect of mental illness or trauma or even, as a friend of mine has told me he deals with, a result of dysphoria.

so here it is.

if you’re asexual because you have a mental illness that crushes sex drive and sexual attraction, you’re still ace. you’re still one of us.

if you’re asexual because you have a sensory processing disorder and the concept of sex is too overwhelming in a sensory manner, you’re still ace. you’re still one of us.

if you’re asexual because you have dealt with sexual trauma, you’re still ace. you’re still one of us.

if you’re asexual because of gender dysphoria, you’re still fucking ace.

it’s okay to be asexual no matter the reason behind it, and if you’re asexual, you’re a member of the aro/ace community.

and this goes for aromantics too.

It’s ok if you’re aromantic because you were abused and you can’t even trust people much less love them.

It’s ok if you’re aromantic because of abuse or trauma or mental illness and you can’t feel anything at all.

Your commentary really added nothing to that post that had not already been said. Also “try to design a better system”? We are. Look up prison abolition or even criminal rehabilitation.

elodieunderglass:

elodieunderglass:

I don’t think you will enjoy my tumblr much

So I wanted to discuss a topic in social justice, because I genuinely believe it’s something we all need to be better at, myself included. Long post warning, sorry.

The above anon message was sent to me after I contributed to a Tumblr post here. The discussion was about the decision by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to support a controversial right-wing blogger’s right to speak. (If you prefer to get your news from sources, you can read NPR coverage from February 2017 here.) Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU, said things like “What’s amazing about the First Amendment is it protects us, regardless of our viewpoints, regardless of the causes we hold dear.” (1)

As you can see from the first few comments on the Tumblr post, some people in the social justice community found this stance abhorrent. They explained that the ACLU is tainted by this decision, and that everyone who supports the ACLU (and all of the ACLU’s work) should feel bad. In the notes and discussion, people express their disappointment with the ACLU, adding that they have defended icky people in the past, as well. The message is clear: the ACLU has fucked up in their eyes by defending icky people and is now a Bad Organization, forever.

These people belong to the slash-and-burn school of social justice and online activism – where if an entity fucks up, that entity is tainted forever and can never be forgiven. Anything that the entity does for good is erased, forever, by That Time They Fucked Up. Under this school of thought, the massive amount of work that the ACLU does in defense of American civil rights – that important, life-saving, world-shaking work – is undermined because they have also defended the civil rights of icky people. This is the school of thought that recommends you discard all attachment to something if it has a problematic aspect. This line of thinking is interesting, and I believe it has good intentions somewhere, but I don’t subscribe to it. 

My post addition, and those of others before me, pointed out that a nation’s civil rights must necessarily extend to everyone in the nation. My post addition specifically said that in order for a justice system to work, it must provide equal representation and protection for the accused. The entities that defend the accused are not evil for doing so, even if the accused is literally Satan. They are part of the necessary machinery for ensuring justice. “Everyone deserves equal representation,” was my point. “Try to design a better system [than equal representation].”

Anon, as you can see above, did not like me doing that. Fair enough. 

They wrote “Also “try to design a better system”? We are. Look up prison abolition or even criminal rehabilitation.”

They meant to disarm me with these buzzwords, indicating that “they” – the Truest and Purest Social Justice Clerics – are more knowledgeable about criminals than conservative Elodie, who lives in a cave and supports rights for icky people.

Here’s the thing that I want to point out.

If you belong to the slash-and-burn school of social justice thought, in which you believe that one problematic thing (defending icky people) destroys the entity (ACLU) beyond redemption, so that the entity should no longer receive any good things (our support) ever, and anyone who questions that is an enemy (me), who must be punished (with anon complaints)…

YOU ARE NOT DESIGNING A BETTER SYSTEM,,

YOU ARE NOT A GOOD PERSON TO BE INVOLVED WITH CRIMINAL REHABILITATION.

YOU HAVE LITERALLY THE OPPOSITE MINDSET FOR THAT.

Because if you want to get involved with criminal rehabilitation, you stand a higher-than-ordinary chance of interacting with rightfully-convicted criminals who have done icky things – such as literal and genuine rapists. 

And you are supposed to take those icky people, who have done incredibly problematic things, and you are supposed to direct them towards redemption, and give them good things, and assure them that they can still be a positive member of society who deserves support. And you have to believe in this. 

Even if the criminals hate you, and are constantly lashing out in pain and fear and disgust for you, insulting you and abusing you and berating you. If you want to rehabilitate a criminal and abolish prisons, and build a society where equal representation is not needed because everything is PERFECT AND FAIR, here is what you have to do: if you want to take the people whose actions have placed them outside of society, and bring them back into society – you have to believe that One Bad Act does not define people. That people can learn from past mistakes. You have to stake your life and soul on the fact that people can make incredibly bad decisions, and hurt others irreversibly, and behave in incredibly icky ways – and that they can THEN do enough Good to erase that, or at least balance it. 

If you want to rehabilitate criminals, you have to take people who fuck up and fuck up and fuck up, and say “Well, you still have plenty of value as a human being, and you can absolutely move past this.”

If you want to rehabilitate criminals, you have to offer them the reward: “If you stop fucking up, and put some positive things into society, then you will earn support. You will no longer be an icky person who fucks up. You will be a better person who will deserve every good thing. You have this capacity, and I will help you get there.”

If you want to rehabilitate criminals, then you will be tired sometimes, because some of the people are horrible criminals, and some of them really aren’t, and some are wrongfully accused people, but others are deeply awful people who never had a chance to be anything else. People who abused because they were abused, and people who killed their abuser (a cool motive, but still murder). 

Believe me, criminal rehabilitation will be harder work than simply disliking someone on Tumblr. Things will be so complicated and so hard, and you will feel sympathy for the strangest people, in the most unexpected ways. You’ll be one of the people with dirty hands. And then people will accuse you of being icky because you defend rapists. 

So I think even at the bottom of it, we still need equal representation. And we haven’t escaped that truth, despite the Clever Use of Buzzwords.

But I think that in the social justice community, we could stand to reflect upon this. Does the slash-and-burn principle of eliminating problematic things… actually work? Can we reconcile that ideology with beautiful liberal ideas like criminal rehabilitation and prison reform? Can people be icky, and still deserve every good thing? Or should icky people only have limited access to good things? How should we limit that access, and why?

Can we be redeemed? 

Because I am a sinner, I have to believe we can.

===

(1) It’s worth noting that this is an American cause. Hate speech is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. There are no exclusions in the First Amendment for hate speech.

In the United Kingdom, hate speech is not protected speech, and it is defined more rigorously. Certain expressions of hate are indeed illegal and can be punished. The right-wing blogger’s speech and actions would not receive equal protection in the UK. 

That is one of those awkward things about laws. 

isabelknight:

birdiechain:

alchemyjones:

danaykroyd:

these are both still male dominated like……….this is wrong this is not more women than men look its plain and simple wtf

Men, despite dominating STEM fields, demonstrating that they do not even have a basic grasp on math.

Okay as depressing as this is, it’s really hilarious.

I think this is from here, and if so, the bit above continues beyond what was posted:

Not All STEM Fields Dominated By Men

Many people believe that all STEM jobs are dominated by men. While not all STEM fields have an equal mix of men and women, some have a higher percentage of women than you might assume. Others have more women than men.

  • Database administrators are 37 percent women.
  • Biological scientists are 46 percent women.
  • Accountants and auditors are 60 percent women.
  • Clinical laboratory technologists are 78 percent women.
  • Registered nurses are 91 percent women.

So….not that there isn’t an issue with sexism in STEM fields, but tumblr OP is an example of dishonest editing of quotes.