Wednesday Linkspam

[coraa]

Catching up all the way back to early December. Lots of links beneath the cut.



Smithsonian Magazine: Myths of the American Revolution
I'm not an Americanist (although I know a bit from my mother, whose specialty was British Empire), but I love this kind of reassessment, especially since—for the periods of history I do know—I know exactly how off 'common wisdom' is. Long, but interesting.

thefouthvine: Amok Time, The Trouble with Tribbles, and City on the Edge of Forever
Someone who had never watched Star Trek before watches and reviews TOS episodes!

We start off with McCoy being worried and a massive dick to Chapel and Kirk being not worried at all and, despite his reputation, not much of a dick.

Spock, you see, is Acting Weird. He's not eating! He's kind of cranky! It's just not right!

Then McCoy confronts Spock, and Spock says, "You will cease to pry into my personal matters, doctor, or I shall certainly break your neck." Perhaps he has noticed that McCoy is being a dick, or maybe he's just wanting to show off his ability to use will and shall correctly.

Topless Robot: Does This Make Them "The Solo-Team"?
(Video; worksafe.) Star Wars/A-Team mash-up.

calathea: My Cheap and Cheerful Guide to Exercise
I may use this. I need to get more exercise.

Sarah Haskins: Target Women: Wedding Shows
I laughed out loud. This is why I fear wedding planning!

swan_tower: Things to make you chew on the walls
About women and screenplays.

ann_leckie: Let's talk about ego defense.

Now, the thing is, we need ego defenses. Writers get rejected a lot, and if you didn't defend yourself somehow, you'd quit. I've got nothing against ego defense. Find one that works for you and use it!

But don’t use it in public, I beg you. Especially not on the web, where Google cache and the wayback machine and screenshots make any foolish move immortal and searchable.

Shapely Prose: You Won't Go To Hell Because It Tastes Good
(May be triggery.) This, so much.

This is what happens in a dieting culture. Orange juice is considered solely in terms of calories and sugar, not vitamins. (Or flavonoids. Am I seriously the only one who’s not surprised to learn that o.j. is good for you?) Carrot sticks are what you eat to get thin, not vegetables that have exactly the same nutritional value even if you dip them in ranch dressing or consume them alongside a plate of Buffalo wings. Apples are frightening to the anti-carb crowd. Fat and calories cancel out the "goodness" of fruits and vegetables — because that concept of goodness ultimately refers to your morals, not the food’s nutritional content.

This is bullshit, people.

Hark! A Vagrant: Every Lady Scientist Who Ever Did Anything (until recently)
If you're not reading beatonna, you should.

Jezebel: 3 Reasons Women Can't Be More Like Men
Despite the title (which is a reference to My Fair Lady), this is not about gender essentialism, it's about why 'women could get the advantages of men if they'd act more like men' is a fallacious argument. Something that's on my mind recently because I hear, "Well, women just need to learn to [x]" a lot, and it frustrates the heck out of me.

Fugitivus: Another Post About Rape.
(May be triggery.)

People wonder why women don’t “fight back,” but they don’t wonder about it when women back down in arguments, are interrupted, purposefully lower and modulate their voices to express less emotion, make obvious signals that they are uninterested in conversation or being in closer physical proximity and are ignored. They don’t wonder about all those daily social interactions in which women are quieter, ignored, or invisible, because those social interactions seem normal. They seem normal to women, and they seem normal to men, because we were all raised in the same cultural pond, drinking the same Kool-Aid.

Tiger Beatdown: The Edward Cullen Underpants Conundrum
Very interesting article, and one that reminds me of the discussion I had at Sirens about how Twilight-bashing trends uncomfortably close to policing female desires.

It’s part of the accepted context of straight male desire – it’s tacky as all hell, aesthetically, and that’s just how they do – and so criticizing it, in an aesthetic way, seems pointless. Congratulations, you went looking for art in a product intended to provide boners and came up empty. Surprise! But when girls do the exact same thing – when they prove themselves capable of the exact same sort of objectification, and the exact same goofiness or tackiness or unrealistic fantasy in the name of getting off – well, it freaks people out. It’s weird. Why are they acting like this? Don’t they know that Robert Pattinson is a person? Why are they treating him like a big chunk of meat? Why doesn’t Edward Cullen act like a real guy would? Etcetera!

In the Middle: On Celts and Celticness
On the ongoing debate as to whether there's any validity in considering 'the Celts' as a group, as opposed to distinct societies.

Tor.com: Gateway drugs: what books are good for introducing non-SF readers to SF?
I confess my response to this is, in brief, "I don't try." I don't look to my friends and family to convince me that legal thrillers, modern literary fiction, or suspense novels are my thing, and I don't try to convince them to read science fiction, fantasy, or romance. I just find an area of overlap that exists naturally, like cozy mysteries with my mom or historical nonfiction with my dad, and talk about that.

janni: Does anything depend on it?
Hallgerður, Gunnar, and women saying 'no.'

When I tell it (and one of the hazards of my having written worked on Thief Eyes is that I pretty much will talk about Hallgerður and the sagas to anyone who stands still too long), the men tend to sort of give a low whistle, or take a step back, or say words to the effect of "that's harsh," or in some other way express, pretty quickly and instinctively, that same sense that Hallgerður was a bitch.

But from the women I tell this story too? There's a wider range of reactions, but under them all, I'm beginning to understand that there's an undercurrent of admiration.

Jezebel: Crazy, Condom-Puncturing Control Freaks Are Often Men
This made me blink, because I (like, I suspect, most people) only hear about birth control sabotage in the context of the story of a woman using it to trap a man into marriage, but of course it works ("works") for anyone who wants to control their partner. I am surprised at myself that I was surprised.

dimethirwen: WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN
On Whole Foods' new policy of rewarding employees with low BMI, and why it is three or four kinds of stupid.

musesfool: it's all how you use it
On double standards for female characters.

It never fails to amaze me that we place female characters in such an awful catch-22. They can't be perfect, but they can't be flawed! They can't be seen as vulnerable, but they can't be too strong! If they're assertive and confident and good at what they do, they're Mary Sues at least and arrogant bitches at worst, but if they're soft-spoken and meek, they're either doormats or have some secret scheming agenda and only APPEAR to be sweet. They have to be pretty or they're too ugly to ship! But they can't be too pretty or they're threatening and "real women" "don't look like that!"...

Got Medieval: A Medieval Popup
A particularly cute piece of marginalia!

The Big Picture: Fire and Ice and Fiery European Festivals
The pictures are gorgeous, but I do worry a bit about the horses.

Damn Interesting: This Place is Not a Place of Honor
On the difficulty of making a clear warning about radioactive waste disposal sites... that will still be clear 10,000 years from now.

If you look at it just right, the universal radiation warning symbol looks a bit like an angel. The circle in the middle could indicate the head, the lower part might be the body, and the upper two arms of the trefoil could represent the wings. Looking at it another way, one might see it as a wheel, a triangular boomerang, a circular saw blade, or any number of relatively benign objects. Whatever a person’s first impression of it may be, someone unfamiliar with the symbol probably wouldn’t guess that it means "Danger! These rocks shoot death rays!"

Two pieces on Disney Princesses: The Nostalgia Chick and Target Women
(Video; worksafe-ish?) I loved Disney as a kid (especially Beauty and the Beast which, I confess, I still adore), but these are totally on target.

New York Magazine: Menu Mind Games.
A demonstration of the tricks used in a menu to guide you to and away from dishes the restaurant wants to sell (or doesn't want to sell).

Shaenon Garrity: The Trouble with Tribbles, by Edward Gorey
Loved this.

Recipes: Homemade Bouillon (vegetarian, vegan); Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter (vegetarian); Leek Soup with Peas and Sauerkraut (meat optional); Mushroom Bourguignon (meat optional); Single Serving Pie in a Jar (vegetarian); Lord of the Doughnut Rings (vegetarian)

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I saw that "This Place Is Not a Place of Honor" thing some time back, and thought it was very, very story inspiring--the prose of the message chilling and evocative. I also did find the image halfway down the page terrifying (as intended).

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I also found the image eerie and frightening—although, of course, part of the trick is that humans are often paradoxically attracted to places that are eerie and frightening. If there was a reliable way to make something appear to be the banal form of evil....

And yes, it's incredible story fodder!

[janni.livejournal.com]

because that concept of goodness ultimately refers to your morals, not the food’s nutritional content

Oh man, that.

I made the conscious decision, in my 20s, that eating a brownie wouldn't be a moral decision. I might eat it or not eat it, I might even decide this for health reasons, but if I decided to eat it, I was going to enjoy it and not think myself in any way an inferior or flawed person for it.

I regularly have to remind myself of this decision, too, in this culture that makes eating a moral act at every step, even when it claims it's talking about health or fitness or any number of other things.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I feel strongly about body image and food issues because I had several friends in college who had had serious eating disorders—I think most women know at least one person like that—who had, in their recovery, made a strong point of challenging language like, "I'm going to be bad and order the steak" or "I was naughty today, I had a cupcake" when it was spoken around them. (I've always had a pretty good body image/relationship with food, but this was helpful to me because I was, at the time, beginning to fall into the trap of food-related self-flagellation as a social bonding thing.)

I still have to remind myself many days that food is food, enjoying food is good, and things tasting good is not a bad thing, because the cultural attitude is so pervasive.

[rowr.livejournal.com]

I like running and also recommend it as a cheap and good exercise! it's fun and easy and feels really good after the initial few weeks of 'ow ow ow'! It is hard to do in rainy climes unless you like running in uncomfortable and cold weather... it's okay if it's just sprinkling though, then it feels good. I'm a big fan of exercise in general.. it's that pumping heart and pounding of the feet and then sun outside and the wind and everything else that help remind me that I'm ALIVE! and how that's awesome. Oh and also, it helps you to not get osteoporosis, which is good. so.. yes! ok enough babbling, back to work..

[ceph.livejournal.com]

Here is another link for your list. I'm not quite sure how to describe it without making it sound duller than it is. It involves algebra tests and interactive fiction.

[artemis-lizzie.livejournal.com]

I've been reading through the stuff on Fugitivus' blog for most of the day, and pondering many things (blog post maybe to come, maybe not). However, the best thing there is this quote from the "Stuff what Boys Can Do" page:

"he was invited to CMAG’s Manly Misogyny Picnic and he said “Your picnic is stupid.”"

And now I want to use that everywhere.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I just discovered Fugitivus! There's so much there that makes me think. (And that makes me realize how lucky I've been in my life, really.)

And yeah, that's great. :D I think "Your picnic is stupid" ought to be a general term for stupid things!

[artemis-lizzie.livejournal.com]

I have mixed feelings about the whole thing, for various reasons, which I may write about and may not, because for one, I guess I have been really lucky, and for two, I'm not sure if my feelings might actually be upsetting for people.

But yes, "your picnic is stupid" should just fall into general use at this point. :)

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I guess my experiences have taught me how common assault of women is; I've had three friends who were raped, one who was stalked, two more who were physically hurt by men they were involved with (or had been involved with), but not raped. It's enough to make me feel pretty lucky, yeah.

[artemis-lizzie.livejournal.com]

Okay, just wrote a bunch of stuff that did turn out to be an entry, so it's over there. I am interested in your input, but I don't want to hijack your journal.