I’ve seen a couple of links to this Hyperbole and a Half comic, and I’ve been trying to come up with something worthwhile to say about it. The problem I’m having is that it feels like everything I could say is either clearly stated in the comic itself, or explored far more astutely than I could manage in this blog post.
So I guess all I really have to say with this post is “Go read those two links.”
And you really should. Everyone should. It’s tempting to say something trite like “everyone who has been touched by depression, either directly or indirectly, should read this” or “everyone who has feelings or knows someone with feelings should read this”, but really it’s just everyone. If you’re reading my blog and understanding my words, you should read those both.
My only fear is that a killer deathbot from an advanced, hostile civilization, possibly sent back in time from the future, will google “advice for killer deathbots” and read this post, thus gaining new insight into human stress responses and hastening the doom of humanity with some indirect help from me.
Damn, I never meant to betray humanity.
I keep wanting to pontificate on this, the way I do, but the second link up there is written by someone far better prepared than I to discuss this. I especially like her point that our stress responses are better suited to acute stresses than chronic ones, that struck a chord with me.
Everything else I can think to say is simply too personal for blogging. So I guess there’s nothing else to do here, go read the links.
Loving Oneself
It’s National Masturbation Month in May. That link is so comprehensive that it feels a little redundant to add more to this post, but I haven’t written in a while so I want to at least sum things up.
Masturbation Month was started by Good Vibrations after the firing of U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. Her career as Surgeon General was pretty controversial all the way through, but the final straw was her answer to a question about masturbation, specifically whether it would be appropriate to present masturbation to young people as an alternative to riskier forms of sex. Elders answered:
I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught.
…and thus ended her career as Surgeon General.
I don’t really understand the disapproval of masturbation. It’s the safest sex there is, yet it’s often treated as though it were terribly harmful somehow. Kellogg’s corn flakes were created specifically as an anti-masturbation measure, about the same time vibrators were being used as a treatment for “hysteria”.
People are weird.
I’d like to write more about this, but it’s time to get my weekend started now. I’ll try to get at least one more masturbation post up during the merry, merry month of May, but if not I’ll just have to write when time and inspiration coincide.
For now take care of yourself, love yourself, and may the fourth be with you.
Fun song, cheap joke.
So it’s the first of May, and I’m told that outdoor fucking starts today.
I’m skeptical, myself. That would imply that it stopped at some point.
I’m off to drink wine now. Happy Beltane!
“Equal protection”, but some are more equal than others…
Saw this today and I find myself wondering why John McCain wants so badly to live in a fascist dictatorship. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for his statements & actions the last few years, all of which seem to be along the lines of “give the executive branch all the power.”
rape culture
I’ve been thinking I should say something about the Steubenville verdict. Or rather the various reactions to it. It’s a difficult issue to discuss, and it seems like everything I could say has already been said better than I could. But that’s no excuse to hold my tongue.
Searching for a decent argument.
I was going to skip the search term post this month. There was nothing new, nothing we hadn’t seen before, so I didn’t see any point in parading it around.
Then I logged in to blog about something else this morning and saw that somebody had searched for the entire first argument presented by Peter Saunders in his list of ten reasons not to legalize same-sex marriage in Britain. It’s a marvelously weird morning when you log into your dashboard and see this in the recent search terms bar.
throughout history in virtually all cultures and faiths throughout the world, marriage has been held to be the union of one man and one woman. marriage existed thousands of years before our nation began and has been recognized in our laws as the ‘voluntary union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others for life’ (hyde v hyde 1866). the un declaration of human rights (article 16) recognizes that the family, headed by a man and a woman, ‘is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state’. it is not up to governments to redefine marriage – but simply to recognize it for what it is, and to promote and protect it as a unique institution.
Yes. I blogged about this last May, and seeing it again inspired me to take another look at it, not the whole list but just this one argument. Looking up his references makes me wonder if Peter Saunders has actually read the documents he is listing in support of his claims.
This is pretty much how they all sound to me
It just perfectly sums up pretty much every anti-marriage equality commercial I’ve seen.
Vague, pointless melodrama.
random act of kidney
In what sort of third-world hellhole does someone need to start a donation drive so they can afford to donate a kidney to a friend in need?
To be perfectly clear, the actual medical expenses are covered. It’s her living expenses & lost wages while she recovers that she needs. This isn’t trivial stuff, this is major surgery, and she needs to pay her bills.
For some batshit stupid reason people in the United States have decided that having systems in place to ensure that people’s basic needs are taken care of is somehow evil. This means that people can very quickly wind up in desperate straits.
I’ve seen people point to projects like this and say, in effect, “Look, they’ve got it taken care of, see? Public healthcare programs are unnecessary” which misses the point completely. Internet donation drives like this are symptoms of social problems, not solutions. They can’t ensure that people will have their basic needs covered, they can only provide a chance for those with the resources and savvy to start one.
There are a lot of donation drives to help with medical issues on the internet, which makes me wonder how many more people are in similar situations but suffering in silence.
search term highlights
Been so busy I barely noticed that I missed my usual day. I thought about it once on the 15th and probably twice yesterday, but it’s only now that I have both time and presence of mind to do it. So here are the highlights for the last 30 days! As usual, search terms are bold while my comments are italic.
Will this be the argument presented to the Supreme Court?
This is the strangest argument against gay marriage that I’ve seen yet, I wish I could read it written out formally by the lawyers who said it. It’s bizarre and weak, and apparently the one that the Prop 8 crowd are taking before the Supreme Court.
Here’s the article by the LA Times, and here’s where you can read Greta Christina’s take on it, where I found the link.
“It is plainly reasonable for California to maintain a unique institution [referring to marriage] to address the unique challenges posed by the unique procreative potential of sexual relationships between men and women,” argued Washington attorney Charles J. Cooper, representing the defenders of Proposition 8. Same-sex couples need not be included in the definition of marriage, he said, because they “don’t present a threat of irresponsible procreation.”
Yeah. What puzzles me about this is that it’s by far the most demeaning description of marriage I’ve ever read. Every married couple should be offended by this, and it just gets worse the more I think about it!
Don’t wait for change, create it.
Have you ever had a song you liked, and then when you looked up the lyrics you didn’t like it so much anymore?
Since I’m sitting here at the keyboard thinking about it, and it is tangentially related to the holiday today, I may as well put this out there.
This is “Waiting on the World to Change”, by John Mayer. It got stuck in my head last Wednesday morning, so I tracked it down on the internet, listened to it a few times and eventually the lyrics sank in. It was this line that made me look up the complete lyrics:
It’s not that we don’t care,
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change
Young people, the fight’s never going to be fair. And if you wait, as the song suggests, until you’re the ones in charge, then you’ll have an even harder fight ahead of you, because your opposition is not going to rest and wait until they lose their advantage.
Today honors a man who knew that the fight was not and would not be fair, that changing things would require people willing to go to jail and even die. Not to guarantee victory, but merely to force a negotiation.
The world won’t change if we wait, we have to make it change.
Still Dreaming
My mother once told me that she’d been living in an apartment in downtown Fresno when Dr. King was murdered. She mentioned the news in passing to her landlord, and his response was “Just another dead nigger.”
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Barack Obama’s presidency, it’s that we aren’t nearly as far away from this as we should be. Whether or not a modern King would be jailed under the NDAA for his radicalism.
(Incidentally, that second link is very interesting and you should check it out.)
One quick search
Clearly I haven’t been posting enough lately, because my search terms this month were all pretty boring. Even depressing. So I’m just giving you my favorite this time, the one that made me smile and wasn’t pathetic.
strange thing with leo
My blog in four words. Have a good night everyone!
Greta Speaking in San Francisco Sunday 1/13 » Greta Christinas Blog
Greta Speaking in San Francisco Sunday 1/13 » Greta Christinas Blog.
I’m thinking of going to see Greta Christina speak tomorrow, partly because she’s generally awesome, partly because the subject is interesting to me, partly because it’s an excuse to get out into San Francisco, but mostly because I want to see the famous shoes which caused so much controversy.
Something that was said in the comments was interesting to me, the idea that if a man buys an expensive pair of dress shoes, it’s a valid investment in professional attire, while if a woman does this it’s a frivolous fashion expense.
I haven’t really encountered this attitude, but it does fit perfectly into the sort of casual sexism I see pretty much everywhere. The “can’t win” part fits, certainly. Consider: A woman who buys a well-made pair of shoes for work is criticized for spending so much on fashion, while a woman buying & wearing cheap shoes will be criticized for her unprofessional appearance.
The other things that come to mind are first that I should have given those boots at the vintage clothing store more of a chance, and that considering how much I walk (and the Sam Vimes “boots” theory of economic unfairness) it may well be worthwhile for me to save up and buy a $200-$300 pair of shoes. As long as I can find something that goes well with everything, of course.
2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,900 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 5 years to get that many views.
A Festering Holiday Song
(To the tune of “O Holy Night”)
O holy crap
A shambling horde of zombies!
The walking dead are now
coming for your brains.
How can they move?
Their bodies are decaying.
They should collapse,
into piles of dead remains!
We try to barricade
ourselves up safely
in hopes that we can
make it through the night
Aim for the head!
Or else, they’ll keep advancing!
Reload while you can,
and maybe, we’ll see the dawn!
And if
I get bit
Please don’t…
Don’t let me turn.
