March 2012
27 posts
NEW PHOTOSHOP IS ACTUALLY GOING TO BE WORTH UPGRADING →
psd.tutsplus.com
CS6 fixes everything that needed to be fixed, including adding real vectors (a la Illustrator), text styles (a la InDesign), and you can even now make dotted lines easily (which should have been fucking easy but apparently it was too much of a damn hassle so I had to do them in Illustrator first). Basically, it’s the only Adobe program you really need anymore.
I’m not sure how I feel about this…
Sally Kohn: Trayvon Martin, Obama, and the persistence of bias →
blogs.reuters.com
In a column for Reuters, Sally Kohn — one of the rare leftish contributors to Fox News Channel — examines implicit racial bias and how it relates to the murder of Trayvon Martin … and the racist attacks on President Barack Obama:
Some who’ve listened to the tape of Zimmerman’s 911 call believe they heard him use an obscenity and a racial slur. But whether Zimmerman is an overt racist or not is largely beside the point. Focusing on relatively isolated instances of overt racism tends to obscure and excuse the very pernicious, very persistent reality of implicit racial bias that runs throughout our society — and very much shaped how the world saw Trayvon Martin and how the world sees President Obama still.
[bold emphasis is mine.]
Thoughts on State Sen. Wendy Davis' Office Being Firebombed and How We Talk About Anti-Abortion Violence
Tuesday afternoon, Democratic Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis’ Fort Worth office wasfirebombed with six Molotov cocktails. Sen. Davis is openly pro-choice and is a vocal supporter of Planned Parenthood. A homeless man, Cedric Steele, was arrested later last night in connection to the firebombing. Thankfully no one was killed or injured. Ryan Comier, who was working in the office at the time said that “It sounds to [him] like this individual [Steele] is probably battling some mental issues” due to Steele’s visits to Davis’ offices prior to the crime, in which he insisted that he needed to tell Sen. Davis about a new alien species of animal he discovered. Based on the rest of this news story, it does in fact sound like Steele may have mental health issues. However, I think it is problematic to attribute Steele’s behavior to his homelessness and possible neurodivergence.
megan rosalarian gedris: Writing Female Characters 101: The Difference Is Not Biological →
rosalarian.tumblr.com
From my friend The Ferrett:
Unfortunately, he made an error that I think a lot of male writers do. And that error arrived with this statement:
“Okay,” he said. “At this point, she’s been brought to a foreign land, and I need to raise the stakes so that she wants to stay here and fight for…
“Oh, you young people act like old men. You have no fun.”
—
Josephine Baker as she was trying to seduce a man decades younger than she, dying of a stroke later that night.
Today in the continuing marginalization chronicles
- Johnny Depp as Tonto in the newLone Ranger film.
- A producer said of the upcoming Whitney Houston biopic, “Does she have to be an African-American actress? Not necessarily.”
oh…oh no. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!
In honor of International Women's Day, please remember:
- not all women have vaginas
- not all people with vaginas are women
Obama Administration Announces Health Grants To Help Transgender Population →
thinkprogress.org
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has announced two new grant competitions focusing on connecting HIV-positive transgender women of color with health care services, including primary care and HIV-related care.
McChinless head explodes in 3…2…
SOBBING.
YES.
“
From Sachs to Kristof to Invisible Children to TED, the fastest growth industry in the US is the White Savior Industrial Complex.
The white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening.
The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.
Feverish worry over that awful African warlord. But close to 1.5 million Iraqis died from an American war of choice. Worry about that.
” —Teju Cole (via deantrippe)
All wars are wars of choice but yeah I’m with this.
(via standardreview)
“Except you can’t show a topless woman on TV - and you can’t defibrillate a woman in a bra. So victims of heart attacks on TV are *always* male. Did you know that a woman having a heart attack is more likely to have back or jaw pain than chest or left arm pain? I didn’t - because I’ve never seen a woman having a heart attack. I’ve been trained in CPR and Advanced First Aid by the Red Cross over 15 times in my life, the videos and booklets always have a guy and say the same thing about clutching his chest and/or bicep.
And people laugh when I tell them women are still invisible in this world.” —
And people laugh when I tell them women are still invisible in this world.” —
Things I did not know, but should.
(via elfgrove)
Things which I would, perhaps, have quite recently benefited from knowing. Thanks, tumblr!
(via halloem)
information!
(via annikaleigh)
Visible Children: We got trouble. →
visiblechildren.tumblr.com
For those asking what you can do to help, please link to visiblechildren.tumblr.com wherever you see KONY 2012 posts. And tweet a link to this page to famous people on Twitter who are talking about KONY 2012!
I do not doubt for a second that those involved in KONY 2012 have great intentions, nor…
“
I know enough German to have a word for how this entire Vida thing makes me feel: Seelengevögelt. Direct translation? Soul-fucked.
…
Take the Atlantic, for example. Their rates of publishing women were not as devastatingly horrible as, say, The New York Review of Books. (What the fuck, NYRB?) But the women they are perhaps best known for publishing are Caitlin Flanagan, who writes about how abortion is bad, sex is bad, staying at home with the kids is awesome, doing her husband’s laundry gives her purpose. Also Sandra Tsing Loh, who writes about her infidelity, the breakup of her marriage, being a bad mother. There is absolutely nothing about The Atlantic that screams out to me: We are totally respectful of women and their various viewpoints, and we’d be interested in publishing the work of a single, globetrotting, pro-choice feminist who does not under any circumstance want to write about her relationships, her femininity, or her sex life.
…
Because I’ve been knocked on my ass by overt sexism before. The editor of an internationally renowned literary magazine once accused me to my face of sleeping my way to the top. I had been recommended to him for a job, and apparently the fellow writer who recommended me did so vigorously, and defended me against the accusation of hack-work. “And the only reason I could think of that he would do so, was if you were really good in bed. You guys must be fucking like bunnies.” I have this burned on my brain, a bad night out in New York City. I had the job at that point. Did I then bust my ass on the job, thinking “I’ll show you, motherfucker,” and then gleefully take his money? No. I resigned almost immediately. And sometimes that night swarms up on me when I’m trying to get work done. Oh right, people think I’m a joke. And I’m not convinced that my story is totally unique, that women don’t go through shit like that all the time. The wear and tear begins to shred your ego at some point.
” —Jessa Crispin, talking about the 2010 Vida gender parity book reviews (still totally applicable for 2011, sadly).