As I've mentioned, this job transition at work has really helped me in a lot of ways. Until I get busy again (which I figure will happen in the autumn) I'm doing no overtime, which means I have energy for things like getting back on the bike - so much easier to plan now that I know I'll be home around the same time every evening! - and catching up on my reading. And yesterday I "finished the internet," as I call it - I'm all caught up on blog reading! I don't think that's happened in months and months. Now it's time to get rid of some lingering bookmarks. I have stuff going back over a year!
- So, so many from Melissa McEwan. I mean, Shakesville should be on your must-read list already, but if it isn't here are some highlights: an open letter to the Daily Show about what Paula Deen's actual problem was; the transcript of her speech last year to a photography class about body image (I'm so jealous, Leonard Nimoy was also there!); the now-famous Occam's Big Paisley Tie about privileged people suggesting to marginalized folks, "Are you sure this thing you experienced is actually bias because of your marginalized group rather than just about anything else?"; and what makes for a good job and what the government's role is there.
- Heidi MacDonald's The Beat is also a must-read, particularly when it comes to gender issues in the comics industry. Some of her best posts from the past year or so have included reporting on the Brian Wood incident, the public harassment of MariNaomi, the dearth of female critics at The Comics Journal, the HBO "naked women" mandate, and two more recent pieces on the way Marvel is now marketing toward female readers and words on David Goyer's She-Hulk comments (Val D'Orazio has a nice post about that subject as well). Heidi is well deserving of whatever Patreon money you want to throw her way.
- PZ Myers is my go-to atheist blogger, particularly when I get sick of the rampant sexism and crudeness of men like Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins. Besides, Dr. Myers is just wonderful to read. Here are some of my favorites of his from the past year - the wonderfully evocative Cherry Dream, an exhortation to the atheist community on the heels of the Bora Zivkovic (no longer on my blogroll either) matter, and one of the best Veterans Day posts ever and the follow-up in its aftermath, discussing the evil and absolute futility of war.
- Lance Mannion is another wonderful writer of whom I can't get enough. So many posts worth reading, and I particularly liked Both ways, in the snow tackling another stupid NYT op-ed about "kids today" from some privileged nitwit; an examination of how today's libertarians are actually right-wing corporatists; and a great post about his son Oliver's innate talent and chosen profession.
- A couple terrific posts by Wil Wheaton, a nice long one about living with depression and a short and sweet entry on feminism.
- Some language-related stuff for the linguistics major I once was - Maggie at BoingBoing on what we can learn from dialect maps, and a post from The Awl on how Shakespeare's English might actually have sounded, which reminded me of all my friends who thinks Robin talks so poshly when he's really got a working-class "scruffy boy" accent.
- Speaking of Robin, he found this cartoon by Matt Wuerker really frustrating. Has anyone told Wuerker that coincidence isn't causality? Frankly I think smartphones and tech in general have made us much more aware of world goings-on than we used to be. And speaking of idiots, Matt at io0 has a very thoughtful entry on why the movie Idiocracy is actually a pretty cruel film.
- Rounding up this batch (and clearing my bookmarks!) are a great post by Budgie about the futility of trying to write in silence (although I still can't write with music playing) and a heartbreaking tale from Mark Evanier on a late-night incident at his local supermarket.
0 comments:
Post a Comment