March 2011
“In short, I had a pretty happily active childhood, despite being the unathletic and slightly fat child of two decidedly unathletic and slightly fat parents. Until gym class became a “thing,” that is. A graded, micromanaged academic requirement, starting in junior high — unhappily coinciding with the absolute social, emotional, and physical nadir of human existence. Or at least of mine.
If you want to destroy all the inherent joy in something, slap a grade on it. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Put a grade on your bleary, early-morning coffee-making skills, or set a number of minutes of daily television-watching required to achieve aptitude, or hell, challenge yourself to finish peeing in record time, and watch as the fun (or even the absolute neutrality) of these things is eroded, little by little, until it becomes a chore to drink coffee, watch TV, or take a leak.
Then compare how well you do on those chores compared to your peers, and watch your self-respect begin to circle down that little, demoralizing drain shaped like a “C” — a statistically average mark — written in red ink.” —
If you want to destroy all the inherent joy in something, slap a grade on it. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Put a grade on your bleary, early-morning coffee-making skills, or set a number of minutes of daily television-watching required to achieve aptitude, or hell, challenge yourself to finish peeing in record time, and watch as the fun (or even the absolute neutrality) of these things is eroded, little by little, until it becomes a chore to drink coffee, watch TV, or take a leak.
Then compare how well you do on those chores compared to your peers, and watch your self-respect begin to circle down that little, demoralizing drain shaped like a “C” — a statistically average mark — written in red ink.” —
Gym class. | The Fat Nutritionist (via notemily)
Ugh yes. Why is gym class graded? We actually had TESTS in it, on the rules of football and basketball, and WHY.
(via ultraprison-)
Gym class was the bane of my pathetic fourteen-year-old existence.
“I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available because if you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.”
—
Charlie Sheen explains himself to ABC’s Andrea Canning. (via abcworldnews)
oh celebrities
(via axelrod)
February 2011
re: http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhav0vPHSU1qg2o01o1_500.gif
The .gif is from Another Country! Gay British schoolboys! Baby Colin Firth! I recommend it.
Thank you! I’ll definitely check it out.
In my professional opinion
GMail is about a hundred thousand times better than Outlook.
One of these days I’ll make the switch to GMail! I used Outlook until I opened a corrupted message or something and it stopped working. Now I just use Webmail (that’s right, my primary email is through Earthlink). >:(
“Forgive me. I must start by pointing out that three years after a horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail — and that’s wrong.”
—CHARLES FERGUSON, co-winner of the Best Documentary for the Wall Street expose Inside Job, accepting his award. (via inothernews)
The same people who find Anne Hathaway interesting or amusing are the same people who are fond of Zooey Deschanel, luke warm showers, the missionary position, backgammon, blowup dolls, etc.
Play
“In some ways I think you’re always the kid you were when puberty first destroyed your life. That sense of esteem you were searching for is always a part of you, no matter what happens.”
—Jon Stewart, as told to Marlo Thomas in Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny (via libraryland)
Walk for Choice & Rally Signs!
I need to do touch ups to smooth out the letters, but here they are!
“The website Joan of Snark (“Perhaps Correct, Definitely Exhausting”) was a spot-on parody of Jezebel.com, “this really cool feminist website where women talk about how far we’ve come and which celebrities have the worst beach bodies — Ruth Bader Ginsburg!” Joan’s post about The Girlie Show mimicked Irin Carmon’s critiques of The Daily Show, which looked skeptically at Jon Stewart’s lack of female writers and his decision to hire Olivia Munn. And the episode also seemed to respond to Sady Doyle’s essay about “Liz Lemonism”; ongoing conversations about Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman; Fey’s recent piece in The New Yorker; with Medium-level forethought, the recent kerfuffle about female comedians at SXSW; and, while it didn’t have anything to do directly with this Molly Lambert piece, it might as well have linked to it across time and space. The only thing missing was a Christopher Hitchens cameo.”
—Emily Nussbaum picks out every single reason why last night’s 30 Rock resonated/ blew my mind. (via judyxberman)
I have a feeling I'm going to get online tomorrow afternoon and find that none of my queued posts have published.
- I like Tumblr a lot
- but the search function sucks
- the servers and overall stability are shitty
- the queue feature sucks sometimes
- Pictures of Walk for Choice signs do not suck!!
What it was like before abortion →
greydown.net
There was no sexual revolution in South St. Louis, not for me or my friends — it was a sexual concentration camp. In the halls of our high school we stumbled around, crazed with sexual hunger, dying of lust. The stench of menstrual blood soaking through nonabsorbent pads, the boys’ and girls’ sweat and cheap cologne forming a cloud of misery, the rough clutching and pushing away of hands in the darkened auditorium — oh, it was terrible. You wanted each other so much, and spent hours, days, plotting a way to almost have sex without having sex, figuring out precisely how far you could go without getting pregnant.
(click through for the rest of the article)
Read it. It’s entirely worth it.
Play
THERE'S A WALK FOR CHOICE IN ASHEVILLE AND GREENSBORO
BUT NOT IN CHARLOTTE. FUCK.
booyahgrandmere replied to your quote: You two should be happy you’re as tall as you are,…
It is my dream to be 5’7”. Unfortunately I am gigantic.
No way, tall women are beautiful! You’re, like, the cream of the evolutionary crop!
“You two should be happy you’re as tall as you are, because all my cousins are short and round. Aunt J said they look like little balls.”
—
Mom, the voice of reason
I’m 5’5” and my sister is 5’7”, for the record. I wouldn’t mind being a couple inches taller.
“More women than men discuss sexism, and it is not because we find the topic more fun, entertaining, or enjoyable than men. It is because sexism gets in the way of our freedom. I blog about sexism in geek culture not because it’s my passion, but because it gets in the way of my passions. My struggle against my marginalization is not my hobby.”
—
If tech discussion was really about tech, it wouldn’t be sexist. - Geek Feminism Blog (via splatterdick)
“My struggle against my marginalization is not my hobby” I literally do not have the vocal muscles to yell EXACTLY as loudly as I’d like to
(via synthezoid)
Iraq War Facts and Statistics →
thelibertyunderground.net
- About $900 billion of US taxpayers’ funds has been spent or approved for spending through November 2010. $9 billion of this money is lost or unaccounted for, as per ABC News.
- Congressional Research Service puts the cost of deploying one U.S. soldier for one year in Iraq as $390,000
- As of Nov 30, 2010, there were a total 47,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. All other Nations have withdrawn their troops.
- As per The Washington Post, there were more than 180,000 Private Contractors in Iraq in August 2007
- 4,439 US troops have died
- 32,033 troops have been wounded, 20% of which are serious brain or spinal injuries.
- 30% of US troops develop serious mental health problems within 3 to 4 months of returning home
- 147 Journalists have died in Iraq (14 of them by US Forces)
- 9,830 Iraqi soldiers and police officers have died
- A UN issued report dated Sept 20, 2006 stating that Iraqi civilian casualties have been significantly under-reported. Casualties are reported at 50,000 to over 100,000, but may be much higher. Some informed estimates place Iraqi civilian casualties at over 600,000.
- The unemployment rate in Iraq is between 27% to 60%
- In 2007, 28% of Iraqi Children were suffering from Chronic Malnutrition (as per CNN)
- Average Daily Hours Baghdad Homes Have Electricity - 5.6 in May 2007. Pre-War Daily Hours Baghdad Homes Have Electricity - 16 to 24
- 82% Iraqis are “strongly opposed” to presence of coalition troops
For more information on Iraq War statistics:The Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index
Oklahoma mother gets 10 years for $31 marijuana sale →
cbsnews.com
Hey, I have an idea for how we can cut the budget…
Finally, this criminal posing as a functioning, contributing member of society will be added to our permanent underclass. And to think, it will only cost the tax payer $162,020.
But wait a moment- what about her children? We can’t have a relative of the children raising them, they might have a shot at a decent life. Oh, nevermind, we arrested their grandmother as well:
Police say Spottedcrow and her 50-year-old mother Delita Starr sold $11 worth of pot to an undercover cop at her home in 2009 on New Year’s Eve, according to The Oklahoman. Two weeks later, the cop came back and bought $20 worth of marijuana.
Both women were arrested and charged with drug distribution. And since Spottedcrow’s children were present in the home during the drug deal, the pair was also charged with possession of a dangerous substance in the presence of a minor, according to the paper.
So, two children are without parents and the tax payer is out $324,040, plus the cost of raising the orphans we made. Sounds like our legal system works just fine to me!
Emphasis mine. I mean come the fuck on America…
Shaking my head, and smacking my face over shit like this. No wonder we are a joke of a country to the rest of the world. You know, on top of our blatant hypocrisy and empirical aspirations.
People can get away with rape and murder without getting 10 years but this lady can’t for selling marijuana? what the fuck…
Woman of color sells pot and it’s a felony offense. Fancy suburban White lady sells pot and it’s a highly-rated, multimillion dollar cable tv series.
On planned parenthood.
Can you write something about the House’s vote to pull funding from Planned Parenthood? As one of the millions of people in this country who have taken advantage of Planned Parenthood’s amazing services, I am outraged. Planned Parenthood spreads awareness across the nation and provides many with life-saving health care that they couldn’t access anywhere else. I, for one, don’t want an STD epidemic…or worse, a teen pregnancy epidemic that will put Gloucester High and MTV reality shows to shame. Hopefully your fantastically sassy self has some insight here.
Insight? Yeah, vote. While you’re at it, don’t ever vote Republican. It’s pretty obvious they’re all a bunch of anti-woman, anti-choice, anti-science assholes pandering to a base of semi-retarded Nascar fans.Better yet, openly shame your religious friends for their belief system’s intrusion into the political sphere. That malignant “the bible says” bullshit is the primary source of humanity’s willful ignorance on the topic of female reproductive health.
Yes, that’s right. This all comes back to religion. This is about abortion, people. This is about a bunch of delusional pro-lifers so blind in their faith that they can’t even properly interpret the artificial will of an imaginary lawmaker in the sky.
Here in America, only the creepy Jesus freaks think their religious doctrine supercedes a woman’s reproductive rights, and now that they can’t openly legislate their way into your uterus, they’re gonna find whatever bureaucratic back door they can to defund and dismantle the safe and legal family planning services that currently exist.
So I say again, don’t ever vote Republican, and if you really wanna do you civic duty, call up your congressman and make sure the bastard is on the right side of this. At the very least, sign this petition.
