I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

• “Protesting sexism, comic book artists pull out of running for Angoulême Grand Prix“–“Franck Bondoux, the Executive Officer of the festival, was quick to offer a non-explanation for the shortlist’s overwhelming maleness; they just couldn’t find any women!”
• “Twitter’s New Mental Health Policy Could Put Users at Risk“–“I use Twitter to talk with people and to make connections with people with similar issues and interests; having Twitter hover over me like a dystopian Big Brother monitoring and possibly responding to my every interaction with people — especially when it comes to these very personal, deep topics — will make me less willing to engage with people.”
• “Why President Obama’s Tears of Righteous Anger Matter“–“But that’s not what I picked up as a child, when I was a sensitive kid often moved to tears and relentlessly bullied and mocked for it by my peers. I learned then that crying was weakness, that it was unacceptable, that I deserved mockery and ostracism for it.”
• “I Confronted the Doctor Who Missed My Cancer“–“I didn’t question him when he prescribed antidepressants — rather than another MRI — after I confided I was sleep-deprived from constant knifing back pain. I convinced myself that his inability to fix me was my failure, not his.”
• “Women Are Learning About Herbal Abortion Online — Here’s Why That’s a Problem“–“Susun Weed, an author and authority on herbal medicine, told Mic she won’t advise a woman on herbal abortifacients unless the patient makes an appointment for a medication abortion or a surgical D&C first, because herbs simply don’t have the same level of efficacy.”
• “High-intensity interval training has great gains — and pain“–“And some psychologists question whether a workout that’s so uncomfortable should be promoted in public health campaigns. Will people work through the pain? Or will promotion of such difficult workouts just make people give up in frustration?”
• “‘Adulting’ is an Indictment of Society, Not of Millennials“–“If you think people who don’t want to adult are lazy, you haven’t been watching some of them pour hours and weeks and years into making and perfecting their arts. They’re not averse to work – they’re averse to meaningless work that makes the rich even richer.”
• “Oregon Residents Call For End Of Armed Militia Occupation“–“The occupiers were polite, kept the area clean, and didn’t seem to pose a threat, they said. Even so, it was time for them to go home, Rodney Johnson said.”
• “Thoughts from Chief Sjolander…“–“We are here to help, we won’t judge you, laugh at you, belittle you, or ask why you stayed as long as you did. We know each situation is unique, just as each of us is unique.”
• “Why I Almost Slapped a Fellow Theatre Patron, and What That Says About Our Theatres“–“Now I know some readers will think: They were just a little socially inept, maybe even crazy. Write it off as a random moment of one crazy person and let’s keep moving.”
• “Bats do it, so why shouldn’t you? The science of oral sex“–“No, evolutionary psychology is perhaps more akin to looking into a mirror and trying to describe your great-great-great-grandfather. And why, evolutionarily-speaking, he ate pussy like a demon.”
• “King County’s ‘Unprecedented’ Prostitution Sting Has Shut Down a Popular Vetting Tool for Sex Workers“–“Sex workers have also criticized the prosecuting attorney for failing to distinguish between trafficked victims and consensual sex providers; actions like shutting down TRB and potentially punishing its entire customer base, they argue, puts willing sex workers in danger.”
• “Gatekeepers: The Nerd/Jock False Division“–“Labels are the weapon of the gatekeeper, a way they try to keep out whatever does not fit their narrow views, a way they seek to exert control over that which is not theirs to own.”
• “‘Born this way’ beliefs may not be the key to reducing homophobia“–“Even among those who believed gay men are ‘born that way,’ those who also believed gay men are ‘all the same and act the same way’ were more likely to hold prejudicial attitudes toward gay men, Grzanka said.”
• “What to do when you’re not the hero any more“–“The way we tell stories is changing. The change is creeping slow and political as hell. Just look at the diverse stories we’ve had this year, none of them perfect, all of them groundbreaking in the simplest and most shocking of ways.”
• “UN urged to label Isis crimes against Yazidi community as genocide“–“The letter, published by the BBC, said there was ‘clear evidence of Isis assassinations of church leaders, mass murders, torture, kidnapping for ransom in the Christian communities of Iraq and Syria and the sexual enslavement and systematic rape of Christian girls and women’.”
• “How the Michigan state government poisoned the children of Flint“–“To save $36,500 a year or maybe a little more, the city failed to treat the Flint River water, leaving it corrosive and able to leach lead and copper from the aging pipes used to transport it.”

I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

• “The Year of the Imaginary College Student“–“But the alarm about offense-seeking college students may say more about the critics of political correctness than it does about the actual state of affairs.”
• “The Mystery of the Missing Boardgame“–“This made me very sad. I assumed that I must have left it at the convention, even though games very rarely end up missing at that particular con.”
• “Michael Shermer: Murdering the facts about Homo naledi?“–“The schoolkids understood right away that the idea of murder and sacrifice don’t match the evidence that we have so far. Shermer preferred to speculate without evidence and publish an essay without fact-checking.”
• “No, Anti-Feminists Didn’t Cost Star Wars Any Money“–“As ridiculous as that may be—and it is perhaps the stupidest thing yet said about the film—their recent claims about just how much of an impact their, ahem, ‘balanced, critical reporting’ has had on the film’s financial success are even more ludicrous.”
• “Contempt Culture“–“We don’t reinforce our communities with respect or a sense of achievement, but with shame and contempt and awfulness. We exclude people. I’ve excluded people. Directly, me.”
• “No Vaccination, No Camp. Finally.“–“During the flu epidemic of 2008–09, I watched as dozens of kids came down with a new flu strain, one for which a shot had not yet been developed. It was a frightening lesson in what can happen in unvaccinated populations.”
• “California Bans Use Of Grand Juries In Police Shooting Cases“–“‘The use of the criminal grand jury process, and the refusal to indict as occurred in Ferguson and other communities of color, has fostered an atmosphere of suspicion that threatens to compromise our justice system.'”
• “4 Common Lies You Should Stop Believing About Black Single Mothers Right Now“–“Tropes declaring Black women can’t properly raise children by themselves springboards from this legacy of deceit. And it’s from these fabrications that we see the responsibility for Black oppression, poverty, and criminalization placed at the feet of our women.”
• “Minneapolis NAACP calls for boycott of Mall of America over restraint of 14-year-old girl“–“As the teen attempted to make change for bus fare in the mall’s transit hub, four security guards restrained her face down on the floor as she screamed for them to get off her back.”
• “Timeline: Land Use and the ‘Patriots’“–“It also explores some of the antecedents to both the Bundy standoff and the Patriot movement, in particular such themes as the ‘county supremacy’ ideology embraced by Bundy and his many armed supporters in the militia groups.”
• “Why the Post Office Makes America Great“–“I bit my tongue and did not tell my already suspicious friends that the country was also dotted with libraries that provided books to all patrons free of charge. They wouldn’t believe me anyway since I hadn’t believed it myself.”
• “Read about the Worldcon supporting membership grant recipients, in their own words.“–“What I love best about this collection of paragraphs is that it really makes it clear that people who love SFF come from every walk of life. Liberals, Libertarians, moms, students, teachers… we all love this geeky stuff.”
• “The problem with science journalism: we’ve forgotten that reality matters most“–“Science journalists may write about science, but it’s also our job to look beyond wonders, hypotheses and data. It is to look at the people doing the science and whether they have conflicts of interest, or trace where their money is coming from. It is to look at power structures, to see who is included in the work and who is excluded or marginalized, whether because of gender or race or any other identity.”
• “Lumosity to Pay $2 Million to Settle FTC Deceptive Advertising Charges for its ‘Brain Training’ Program“–“‘Lumosity preyed on consumers’ fears about age-related cognitive decline, suggesting their games could stave off memory loss, dementia, and even Alzheimer’s disease,’ said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.”
• “Cosby Charged in Case of Temple U Employee“–“The resolution also condemned Patrick O’Connor, Temple’s board chair, for representing Cosby 10 years ago when he was sued by a woman. Faculty leaders said it was a conflict of interest for O’Connor to represent Cosby when both were on the board together, potentially making it unlikely that the board would rethink its ties to Cosby.”
• “Today’s gun culture is NOT American tradition.“–“In 1934, [the] NRA testified in support of 1st federal gun law which cracked down on machine guns.”

I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

• “Bookstore puts Trump, Carson in ‘Humor’ section“–“‘There are a lot of people, particularly on the other side, who really have a very different philosophy of America,’ Carson said during the interview.”
• “‘Shut Up, I’m Talking’: Why I Refuse To Educate Bigoted People“–“Here’s my experience: when someone I’ve called ignorant demands I educate them, they don’t want me to be patient—they want me to have infinite patience, to listen to them affably, without anger, however they behave, and to treat anything they say as valuable.”
• “What No One Said about Rey (Star Wars Spoilers!)“–“In the originals, Leia was competent and capable and became a role model for generations of girls, but all three films were filled with hot princess comments.”
• “A Sensitive Subject: On Family and Sincere Insensitivity“–“And there it is, her gift to me on my birthday. The candles are blown out, and the wish is made. Her wish, not mine.”
• “New Chrome App Helps Women Stop Saying ‘Just’ and ‘Sorry’ in Emails“–“Still, part of me always cringes when people tell women that the way they speak or write is wrong. One reason why women have adopted these kinds of speech and writing patterns is because, historically, they’ve gotten pushback for appearing too decisive and demanding (read: just as decisive and demanding as men).”
• “Lost Soles“–“Most were shocked to hear that it had even happened, even though they—like my husband, who didn’t realize I’d disappeared to the bathroom because I’d been horribly hurt, because I didn’t tell anyone, because no one was looking for it—were standing right next to me when it happened.”
• “The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl“–“I had talked to someone from the FreeBSD Foundation earlier on the phone about what was happening. During this same conversation, they actually said ‘maybe you should be nicer.'”
• “The Sudden But Well-Deserved Fall of Rahm Emanuel“–“For twenty years now, there have been those who say that this emperor never had any clothes on in the first place. Given the speed and intensity of his fall, perhaps it’s time to reconsider their case.”
• “A New Year’s Resolution For Science Advocates: Don’t Cry Wolfe“–“Wolfe draws in followers with cute, inspirational, and share-worthy graphics and posts, and then hits them with far less innocuous content.”
• “3 Keys to Progress the Secular Community Needs in 2016“–“We live in a white-oriented, male-centered, heteronormative culture. Make it a habit to remove yourself from the typical whitewashed, insular narratives you’ve grown accustomed to and immerse yourself in the plight and outlook of others foreign to your background and worldview.”
• “The En-Gendering Of Genius“–“And that is why, in responding to this year’s Edge Question, I first began to write about the icecaps. But perhaps the insignificant measure we assign to the under-estimation of the creative potential of more than half our population is itself a manifestation of the problem.”

I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

• “In Defense of Finn/Poe“–“Online and off, good little queers don’t make any mention of same-sex romance or eroticism, and they certainly don’t hope out loud that two characters in a popular film turn out to be queer.”
• “Parents call the cops on teens distributing a banned book“–“When the police arrived they actually had no clue what they were doing there and decided to let the book distribution go as planned.”
• “Serotonin Neurotransmitter and Receptors, A Painting“–“As I mentioned in an earlier post, the role of serotonin in the treatment for depression is what has made this molecule famous, but it’s really only a fraction of the real story behind serotonin.”
• “The Art Of Being Okay“–“When your two basic emotional states are ‘at risk of self-harm’ and ‘not at risk’, fine is the best you can hope for. Fine is precious.”
• “FiveThirtyEight: The Number of Things Nate Silver Gets Wrong About Climate Change“–“That Nate would parrot Armstrong’s flawed arguments is a major disappointment, especially because there are some obvious red flags that even the most cursory research should have turned up.”
• “First Climate Article On Nate Silver’s Data Website Uses ‘Deeply Misleading’ Data, Top Climatologists Say“–“But just as Pielke’s article has been written before, so too it has been criticized before. Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth, a distinguished senior climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has criticized Pielke’s data for its simplistic nature.”
• “California Crisis Pregnancy Centers Dealt a Double Blow in Court“–“Operators of CPCs have said they’d rather close than comply with the state disclosure law.”
• “NYU Student Who Launched Accidental Anti-Rahm Rally Schedules a New One“–“Brown said she has no plans to stop making the joke Facebook posts, even though she said her parents are somewhat worried that their trash is going to stop getting picked up by the city.”
• “The Living Nightmare of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder“–“Her research found that the effects of chronic neglect, stress, and subjugation were creating an entire class of people—including survivors of sexual abuse and domestic abuse; persecuted racial, religious, and ethnic groups; and former hostages—whose trauma didn’t fit the profile for PTSD diagnoses because it had been sustained over time.”
• “Trans People Need Abortion Access, Too [Video w/ Transcription]“–“If I were to stop taking T at this point, I would be able to get pregnant again. I would be a trans person who might need access to abortion. My rights would be under attack just as much as those of cis women who are capable of getting pregnant.”
• “I Got Nothing, Y’all“–“All because our children, our black children, are never treated like children.”
• “Lies Grandma Told Us? Defending Our Oral Histories in the Age of Ancestry Testing“–“But it is more than aesthetic. It offers a sense of grounding and belonging to connect to a people who seem to have more history than us, even it is just one ancestor. That part of your heritage can be explained…supposedly.”
• “Meta-Stories“–“But of course, that’s true of all stories. The story of The Phantom Tollbooth is also the story of listening to my father read it aloud to me and my brother, and reveling in his pleasure in the story as much as my own. The story of The Godfather is also the story of my seventh-grade class passing it around to each other, whispering the page numbers of the dirty parts.”

I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

• “Will We Be The Heroes or the Villains? History, Ideals, and Anti-Muslim Violence in America“–“Right now is when we find out what kind of people we would have been. And it turns out that many Americans are exactly the people our history books tell us we should abhor.”
• “‘You’re in my prayers.’“–“I’m glad we seem to have all this empathy for socially awkward Christians who just want to comfort you the best way they know how, but how about some empathy for the person going through the fucking trauma? Maybe they’re not at their best when they’re burying their mother or lying in a hospital bed. Maybe that’s okay.”
• “Miss Universe 2015“–“Honduras, holding an accessory that’s technically not a staff, but she did not drag a sequined animal familiar AND the bones of her enemies out onto that stage to listen to us lecture her on what hand-held accessories officially constitute a staff, you know?”
• “Things We Saw Today: Daisy Ridley Hangs with a Little Rey“–“Literally the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen.”
• “Likable“–“Hillary Clinton is the impossible woman. The pressures she lives under, every moment of her life, are so numerous and so all-encompassing that she barely has room to breathe. She doesn’t have an inch of leeway, a single safe option; there is no version of Hillary Clinton that won’t receive visceral hatred, and loud, personal criticism.”
• “Support for Abortion Highest in Two Years“–“The poll was conducted after Robert Lewis Dear Jr. allegedly killed three people at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood facility. It showed that about 58 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, up from 51 percent at the beginning of the year.”
• “I’m Genderqueer — Please Stop Asking Me When I’m ‘Really’ Going To Transition“–“Over the past three years, people have gone from assuming I am ‘really gay’ to assuming I identify as a woman. Which, I guess, is part of why everyone has become so obsessed with my leg hair.”
• “Texas Gov. censors Bill of Rights; uses fake quotes and fraudulent history to claim atheists ‘promote ignorance and falsehood’“–“Abbott accused our exhibit of ‘promoting ignorance and falsehood’ then quoted, at length, erroneous history to support his position. The quote comes from a fabricated prayer journal, misattributed to Washington.”
• “Review-Journal editor steps down amid ‘makings of an adversarial relationship’“–“‘I think it would have been a long shot to think that I would have been able to continue on for very long in this role.'”
• “Domestic Violence Through a Child’s Eyes“–“In some sense, adults growing up in societies with certain ingrained values have no baseline too, but that is my mother’s story, not mine. I’m here to share mine.”
• “Designing A Visual Identity For Brute Reason“–“The whole thing felt too matte, too masculine, too witless: I couldn’t see her in it. Then it struck me that superheroes wore symbols.”
• “Several Arrested After Black Lives Matter Protest At Mall Of America, Airport“–“Law enforcement officers in riot gear also gathered outside of the mall.”
• “They mocked her ‘science fantasy’. Then Leigh Brackett wrote The Empire Strikes Back.“–“Of course, Brackett was a respected member of the L.A. science fiction writer community — and she was a mentor to Ray Bradbury, with whom she traded critiques and collaborated on some stories. But at the same time, her choice to write ‘science fantasy’ or ‘space opera’ wound up tarring her as a representative of a pulpy subgenre that many science fiction writers were embarrassed by, especially as science fiction tried to become more ‘mature’ and sophisticated in the 1950s.”
• “Why I quit my job as a reporter today“–“But here’s what I know: I can’t teach young people how to be ethical, upstanding reporters while working for a man like Michael Schroeder. I can’t take his money. I can’t do his bidding. I have to stand up for what is right even if the cost is so daunting that at this moment it scares the hell out of me.”
• “Photos: Black Lives Matter protesters disrupt Mall of America, airport“

I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

• “Men Explain Lolita to Me”–“Saying this upset some men. Many among that curious gender are easy to upset, and when they are upset they don’t know it (see: privelobliviousness). They just think you’re wrong and sometimes also evil.”
• “How secular Americans are reshaping funeral rituals”–“To be sure, burial need not incorporate a religious ceremony. So why is it then that the nonreligious are increasingly drawn to cremation?”
• “Discussing Sam Harris and Transantagonism”–“Further, when his guest finally finished his verbal onslaught that declared having to recognize the humanity of those who don’t conform to gender norms and stereotypes as ‘a breakdown of our society,’ Harris had only one reply: ‘That’s hilarious.'”
• “Bellydancing Wookiee causes TV anchors to completely lose it. Live!”–“It’s a hilarious and fun performance, but… but you have to watch to the end when they cut back to the anchors.”
• “The Phrase I Dread Most as an Artist”–“Sometimes I don’t have the energy after a long day talking to the public to pretend to coo over your opinion and say how lovely and smart it is.”
• “A Social Justice Argument For Spoiler Warnings”–“I know you’re a mega-fan who got to see Long Awaited Movie on opening day, but I have to wait until payday.”
• “Florida Atlantic Wants to Fire a Professor Who Teaches About Conspiracy Theories and Is a Sandy Hook Truther”–“Tracy even sent us a certified letter demanding proof that Noah once lived, that we were his parents, and that we were the rightful owner of his photographic image.”
• “When Teachers Abuse Disabled Children”–“Neither fear nor pain can force a child to be less disabled or to suddenly become neurotypical. Unfortunately, in many school districts and institutions, the use of restraint, seclusion, and, too often, pain and trauma, have become the default response to disabled children who don’t perfectly obey commands.”
• “Restart search for Minneapolis schools superintendent”–“But just 48 hours after the announcement, a report by the Disability Law Center alleged that students in a Holyoke special education program were abused by school staff members while Paez was superintendent.”
• “12-Year-Old Sikh Boy Arrested After Classmate Falsely Accuses Him of Carrying a Bomb”–“Despite that fact, Armaan was detained for three days at a juvenile detention facility. Neither police nor the school informed Armaan’s parents where he was being held.”
• “The Notoriously Anti-Choice Media Outlet Co-Sponsoring the Next Democratic Debate”–“The removal of WMUR-TV from the agreement left just ABC News and the New Hampshire Union Leader as sponsors of the debate, raising the question: Why is the Democratic Party partnering with a notoriously anti-choice publication if it seeks to only work with media outlets whose principles are in line with the ‘key principle[s]’ of the party?”
• “Metro Transit admits massive racial disparities in fare enforcement”–“For first-time fare evasions, black people were 26 percent more likely to be cited than warned compared to whites, and Native Americans were 152 percent more likely to be ticketed.”
• “Al Jazeera Blocks Anti-Saudi Arabia Article”–“A few days after publication, Sethi’s Twitter feed was flooded with attacks from pro-Saudi accounts. David Johnson, senior opinion editor at Al Jazeera America, retweeted many of the attacks.”
• “Harvard Law Professors Put the Chill on Campus Sexual Assault Victims”–“But it gets worse. In an effort to defend their involvement in a flawed process and protect their reputation, the 19 professors continue to litigate the case in public, even going so far as assisting in building a very slick website for Brandon Winston, complete with his baby picture in an obvious ploy for sympathy.”
• “The Girl Who Was Assaulted By A Cop On Camera At Spring Valley High Is Now Facing Charges”–“Officer Ben Fields was fired. But the charges filed against Shakara and Niya Kenny, a classmate arrested for filming the incident, still stand.”
• “23 Easy Ways To Fix The Way Women Talk”–“If you feel a desire to talk over your female boss, imagine she has the power to fire you.”
• “Something Odd is Happening at the Las Vegas Review-Journal”–“If this wasn’t strange enough, the article lists as the author Edward Clarkin, who is basically a ghost.”
• “What was fake on the Internet this week: Why this is the final column”–“Paul Horner, the proprietor of Nbc.com.co and a string of other very profitable fake-news sites, once told me he specifically tries to invent stories that will provoke strong reactions in middle-aged conservatives. They share a lot on Facebook, he explained; they’re the ideal audience.”
• “A Different Kind of Courage”–“There is a twisted way in which our culture often associates courage with the kind of chest-thumping we saw on the Republican debate stage Tuesday night. But that dismisses the kind that it takes to look into the eyes of a mother/father/son/daughter/husband/wife who has lost a loved one to senseless violence and embrace their grief.”
• “Why Does Newsweek’s ‘Abortion Wars’ Cover Show a Cartoon Fetus Instead of a Woman?”–“By focusing exclusively on fetuses, and promoting the imagery of endangered, persecuted ‘babies’ in the womb, people who oppose abortion are able to totally avoid talking about the ways in which their positions endanger and persecute the actual people carrying those fetuses around.”
• “Luminous Beings Are We”–“Standing there, humiliated and hurting, I felt the acrid sting of tears along my lash line. Despite my self-advocacy, I had been completely forgotten – relegated to invisibility and not worth the effort of inclusion because of Cinema West’s lack of disability training and policy.”
• “Mother Teresa: anything but a saint…”–“As a result, the three researchers collected 502 documents on the life and work of Mother Teresa. After eliminating 195 duplicates, they consulted 287 documents to conduct their analysis, representing 96% of the literature on the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity (OMC).”
• “Polish military police raid Nato centre in Warsaw”–“The former Polish defence minister Tomasz Siemoniak told reporters: ‘Nothing like this has happened in the history of Nato, that a member state attacks a Nato facility.'”
• “Poles protest government moves to neutralize top court”–“The Law and Justice party, which took power last month, controls both houses of parliament and the presidency, leaving the constitutional court as the only effective check on its power.”

I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

• “The Problem With ‘Dress Professionally'”
• “The Story Behind A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens”–“Little did they know that Carol would create not only a gigantic Christmas book market, but change the popular understanding of Christmas forever.”
• “On Setting The ‘Universal Sex Difference’ Bar Way Too Low”–“Call us sticklers, but we don’t think you can declare human universals because the BBC did an internet survey, where only people who spoke English responded.”
• “Planting New Farmers for the Future of Food”–“We lost that knowledge transfer. Ninety percent of people in the room at this conference are growers—but 80 to 90 percent of them had no connection to farming before they started.”
• “Condescension Isn’t Kindness”–“Often, people think this is a kindness, that they know my heart and know that I would never give up my belief—when I didn’t give up anything in the first place.”
• “Growing Up Arab American in DC After 9/11”–“Like I said, I was always a little weird. Still, no amount of thick skin could prepare me for the type of bullying I faced after 9/11.”
• “Tennessee Woman Charged With Attempted Murder After Failed Self-Induced Abortion”–“‘Tennessee’s homicide law explicitly doesn’t apply to [Yocca],’ explained Farah Diaz-Tello, senior staff attorney at the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, ‘but this arrest tells women that if they try to seek emergency medical assistance, they may end up behind bars. That won’t stop women from having abortions, but it will stop them from getting help.'”
• “Fuck Imposter Syndrome.”–“I asked myself why I’m spending all my time worrying about what other people think of me, instead of focusing on what I feel. What I want. And just like that, this scary meeting transformed into something exciting.”
• “Trump and the Good Americans who want to be entertained”–“The best show in town. The fucking privilege to be able to imagine that Trump’s campaign is nothing more than a “spectacle” for your consumption—a terrific bit of entertainment to take in with your son, like a revival of Hair, perhaps.”
• “‘War’ Correspondence: Almost Half Of Americans Say They Prefer Secular Greetings Rather Than ‘Merry Christmas'”–“The poll found that 49 percent prefer retailers say ‘Happy Holidays’ or ‘Season’s Greetings’ to their customers, while 43 percent said they want businesses to wish them ‘Merry Christmas.’ In 2010, only 44 percent said they favored secular tidings while 49 percent wanted to be wished ‘Merry Christmas.'”
• “No, Trump’s Racist Anti-Muslim Proposal is Very American”–“But the true spirit of American values has always been demonization of the other in the name of ‘democracy.’ Homilies about the U.S. moral uprightness and vaunted democratic freedoms are belied by the staggering reality of epic racial wealth gaps, deepening racial segregation and state violence.”
• “101 Lies to Tell So You Can Stay Home and Read”–“I tasted vanilla extract and the fact that something that smells so good can taste so bad is making me question everything I know about the world.”
• “Study: Elite scientists can hold back science”–“All this suggest there’s a ‘goliath’s shadow’ effect. People are either prevented from or afraid of challenging a leading thinker in a field. That or scientific subfields are like grown-up versions of high school cafeteria tables.”
• “United Nations Working Group: Women in the United States, Texas Face Extreme Barriers to Basic Health Care”–“The Working Group—which visited Washington, D.C. and Texas interviewing various community leaders, elected officials, and individual women—announced their preliminary findings at a press conference in Washington, DC last Friday, noting that the U.S. in general ‘is allowing its women to lag behind international human rights standards.'”
• “About That Wine Experiment”–“There are two levels to the inaccuracy of the popular story. The first is that several of the details that have been routinely reported are simply incorrect, having been copied from one article to another. So let’s break them down.”
• “Why Women Don’t Apply For Jobs Unless They’re 100% Qualified”–“First, it’s likely that due to bias in some work environments, women do need to meet more of the qualifications to be hired than do their male counterparts. For instance, a McKinsey report found that men are often hired or promoted based on their potential, women for their experience and track record.”
• “An Unbelievable Story of Rape”–“In a report not previously made public, Sgt. Gregg Rinta, a sex crimes supervisor with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, wrote that what happened was ‘nothing short of the victim being coerced into admitting that she lied about the rape.'” (CN: While this article gets to something like justice, the story of injustice is delivered in such a neutral tone that I had some trouble with it.)
• “Secular Social Justice Conference 2016”–“SSJ focuses on the lived experiences, cultural context, shared struggle and social history of secular humanist people of color and their allies. The event will include panels on economic justice, feminism(s) of color, LGBTQ atheists of color, African American Humanist traditions in hip hop, racial politics and the crisis of New Atheism and much more.”
• “Online Harassment Insurance Is Useful, But It’s Another Tax On Women For Being Women”–“However, it also falls squarely into a bucket with an infinite array of services, applications, weapons, and products that women have to pay hard-earned money for in order to ‘stay safe.’ It is just one more way that we are expected, and encouraged, to pay for violence we are subject to because we are women.”
• “Sponsor withdraws Mizzou athlete strike proposal”–“Brattin’s decision to withdraw the legislation came as a surprise Wednesday to co-sponsor Rep. Kurt Bahr, R-O’Fallon. ‘Unfortunately, it’s going to be seen as a coup by those who opposed the bill,’ Bahr told the Post-Dispatch.”

I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

• “My run-in with hate speech at a Minnesota Vikings game“–“In that moment, I was terrified. But what scared me the most was the silence surrounding me. As I looked around, I didn’t know who was an ally or an enemy. In those hushed whispers, I felt like I was alone, unsafe and surrounded.”
• “Mock mass shooting changes location after warnings from UT“–“‘It’s a fake mass shooting, and we’ll use fake blood,’ he said. He said gun noises will be blared from bullhorns. Other people will then play the role of rescuers, also armed with cardboard weapons.”
• “Who Are You Calling A Domestic Terrorist?“–“No, Islamic extremism isn’t the face of domestic terrorism. Despite whatever whitewashed ideas popularized by politicians, media, or those we choose to admire, numbers don’t lie. At least not when it comes to statistics involving mass shootings.”
• “Updated for 2015: Dana’s Super-Gargantuan Guide to Atheist Books Suitable for Gift-Giving“–“Here’s a wonderland of atheist books not previously listed in our Super-Gargantuan Guides!”
• “He Called Her a Slut. He Got Fired“–“By giving Ford power—and therefore responsibility—she does not have, justification for targeting her can easily be created and continue, regardless of reality. This is why targets are so frequently viewed as irrelevant but also powerful, by their harassers.”
• “Sam Harris’s Quantum Universe (or, How to Say One Thing While Meaning Another)“–“Note that these paragraphs are not complementary poles of a dialectical argument whose interaction can yield a Hegelian synthesis, a third term that pushes knowledge forward. They are flatly contradictory and incompatible.”
• “Cheap white eggs: Radiolab Dodges All Discussion of Race“–“That was the term that was used. Cheap white eggs. When Tal said this, my jaw dropped, but I held out hope that this incredibly racially charged issue would then be explored a little bit.”
• “Harassment Through Impersonation: The Creation of a Cyber Mob“–“The Photoshopped tweets should have been too ridiculous for anyone to believe. The coldness they displayed in response to Iwata’s death was so clearly designed specifically to make people angry, and the statements were sheer nonsense. (Also, the second tweet is actually 141 characters long.)”
• “Ada Lovelace and the impossible expectations we have of women in STEM“–“But this just highlights the pervasive double standard that places such import on women’s personalities while giving men—particularly high-achieving men—something of a free pass. Would you question if a man’s ‘character’ might prevent him from making a groundbreaking discovery?”
• “Defense of Clergy Pedophilia Persists“–“I wish I had known in advance about the audio guy’s attitude about sex abuse in the Church. What can I say? Live and learn. Luckily, I’ve found another studio for the book taping.”
• “Things we don’t write: K Anis Ahmed on the murdered writers of Bangladesh“–“I took the Rushdie affair as counsel to steer clear of the subject of religion. Apart from one early work, a novella (Forty Steps), I have rarely referred to any Islamic tenets in my fiction, and then too never in a critical manner. But to avoid the topic entirely is frankly impossible.”
• “Thoughts from a #BLACKandSTEM Academic regarding Scalia & Roberts remarks on Dec 9, 2015“–“Black collegians, faculty, and especially #BlackandSTEM shared how hauntingly familiar Roberts and Scalia comments are. Their comments sting so bad because we’ve all heard or been told this about ourselves, the quality of our work or scholarship, and/or our productivity REPEATEDLY since college, heck high school. And IT NEVER ENDS.”
• “Peaceful Savages“–“So we refrain. We act with peace. We may make a fuss, but we don’t go eye for an eye. We can’t go eye for an eye. And you need to understand what a further burden that is.”
• “On Not Taking ‘No’ For an Answer, and Why It Isn’t Jolly Good Fun“–“Resisting social pressure can be extremely difficult, and it’s almost always unpleasant. It puts people in the position of either letting their boundaries be trampled, or repeating their ‘No’ a dozen times and being treated like a party-pooping sourpuss.”
• “Bad Life Decisions: Mary Robinette Kowal Reads Theodore Beale. Sexily.“–“But wait! There’s more! Could this possibly be a DANCE REMIX? I dare say that this is as fine a piece of music as anything that Psychosonik ever released.”
• “Expert on Fascism Sees Telltale Signs Developing“–“Many people think of fascism as an oppressive government, as if some existing administration suddenly is led by a bad guy at the top. Fascism arises from below, from a segment of the populace that has become convinced that there is no hope for the future under the present set of institutions and laws.”
• “19 Baffling Vintage Holiday Cards“–“Because nothing says Christmas like… a boiled conker man startling an anthropomorphic bird woman.”
• “I am fat, actually.“–“So here’s how these two compliments are actually rooted in fatphobia. They equate fatness with badness.”
• “Details revealed after East Grand Forks man is charged with arson of Somali restaurant“–“Gust does not have a criminal record in Minnesota, but in 2012, he pleaded guilty to charges of terrorizing, simple assault and preventing arrest, all Class C felonies, in Grand Forks County District Court after he threatened staff at Romantix, an adult entertainment store in downtown Grand Forks, and assaulted a police officer in 2011.”
• “Planned Parenthood Clinic’s Windows Busted Out“–“Kogut says she’s thankful the woman responsible for the act did not hurt anyone and that the center was closed at the time, ‘This year has been one that’s been filled with a lot of hateful and vile rhetoric, and I think that’s creating a violent opposition to Planned Parenthood and to health care providers, and it needs to stop.'”
• “Flannery O’Connor: Friends Don’t Let Friends Read Ayn Rand“–“I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.”
• “What’s on your #scibucketlist?“–“I began to wonder: Am I the only one? Surely there are other science nerds out there who want to dissect a whale, nerd out on the Galapagos, see the Aurora Borealis, and get a bacterium named after themselves. So I asked Twitter. And invented a hashtag: #scibucketlist”
• “California Will Get ‘Bathroom Police’ If ‘Privacy’ Measure Passes, Critics Fear“–“What this would result in, essentially, is bathroom police. There’s a $4,000 bounty on catching someone, so it gives incentives to people to self-monitor bathrooms and accost people who are coming out and allows individuals to make subjective determinations about whether someone looks adequately masculine or feminine.”
• “Threats and Violent Attacks Against Muslims in the U.S., Just From This Week“–“This is just from the last week: it does not include the spate of similar and even worse attacks on Muslims and mosques in the U.S. prior to December 8, such the multiple gunshots fired at a Connecticut mosque in the wake of the November Paris attack, or the bullet-ridden Quran left outside an Islamic store in Anaheim in the wake of the San Bernardino shootings.”

I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

• “Tone poem for the ‘leave it there’ press“–“Every time you defaulted to ‘will it work?’ when the bigger question was ‘is it so?’ Every dutiful effort you made to ‘get the other side’ without asking if the number of sides was really two. Every time you asked each other ‘what’s the politics of this?’ so you could escape the tedium and complexity of public problem-solving.”
• “Being A Girl: A Brief Personal History of Violence“–“Mostly what I remember is the smile that spreads across Monsieur Pierre’s face whenever we call him a sexist. It is not the smile of someone who is ashamed; it is the smile of someone who finds us adorable in our outrage.”
• “For Kamala Khan“–“There are myriad reasons why I love Kamala, many of which I’ve detailed in my reviews. But one of the most important is this: Kamala’s story is her own story; she is the main character in her own life. This may not seem particularly revolutionary or different, but it is for a character from multiple marginalized demographics.”
• “5 Ways Mental Illness Labels Have Helped Me“–“It’s not like I had no labels before I started to use the label ‘depressed’ to describe myself. I did. The labels people used to describe me included words like ‘over-emotional,’ ‘over-dramatic,’ ‘crazy,’ ‘self-centered,’ ‘aloof,’ ‘bitchy,’ and a whole lot of others that are significantly less flattering than ‘depressed.’“
• “Toxic Workers” (pdf)–“Here, we find that though Self-regarding workers are no different in terms of productivity (i.e., the speed of their work), they are more likely to produce lower quality work: coeficient estimates are negative at the 10% level. Since these workers are also more likely to be terminated for toxic behavior, there is no apparent tradeoff when choosing not to hire Self-regarding workers.”
• “WI Community Takes Matters Into Their Own Hands After School District Cancels Reading Over Legal Threat“–“Although things looked grim, Liberty Counsel won’t have the last word about I Am Jazz. The Mount Horeb community has stood up and scheduled two separate reading events themselves, one at the Mount Horeb High School that will led by the school’s Straight and Gay Alliance and the other at the Mount Horeb Library to be hosted by parent Amy Lyle.”
• “Updated for 2015: Dana’s Super-Gargantuan Guide to Religion Books Suitable for Gift-Giving“–“Here’s a wonderland of atheist books not previously listed in our Super-Gargantuan Guides!”
• “‘How can I support you?’“–“At the same time, it’s also utterly unsurprising that people so rarely do this. For one thing, we have all these cultural scripts about how this stuff is supposed to go, and one of them is that if you’re really a good friend/partner/family member to the person who’s struggling, you will “just know” what they need and be able to offer it without needing to be told.”
• “Access“–“I do understand feeling defensive when you’re caught out in a mistake. Okay, feel defensive. Complain to your spouse and/or close friends in private, have some ice cream or a hot bath and some tea. And then go to whoever it is you’re working with at the facility for the next event and let them know that you’ll need to accommodate members with mobility issues, and what are the options and how will you make that work?”
• “Most needy don’t attend free online courses“–“Just because a class is free and on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s actually easier to access if you’re not wealthy and well-educated, Emanuel says. To take a MOOC, people need a computer and access to the Internet. Not everyone has that. What’s more, he adds, MOOCs won’t help people without the education to do work at the college level.”
• “Paul Ryan denounces Trump’s plan to ban Muslims… then says he’ll support Trump if he’s the nominee“
• “Fire at Grand Forks Somali restaurant follows apparent Nazi symbol vandalism“–“The graffiti included what appears to be an SS in the style of a symbol for Nazi Germany’s Gestapo above the painted words ‘go home.’ Authorities have not determined whether the incidents are related.'”
• “Catholic Hospital in Redding Denies Two Women Tubal Ligation“–“Redding’s Mercy Medical Center has refused — for the second time in four months — to allow doctors to perform sterilization on two pregnant women. The women requested the procedure be done immediately after they give birth next year. The hospital cited religious reasons.”
• “The story behind Jar’Edo Wens, the longest-running hoax in Wikipedia history“–“After more than two months, half of his hoaxes still had not been found — and those included errors on high-profile pages, like ‘Mediterranean climate’ and ‘inflammation.’ (By his estimate, more than 100,000 people have now seen the claim that volcanic rock produced by the human body causes inflammation pain.)”
• “Unsourced, unreliable, and in your face forever: Wikidata, the future of online nonsense“–“For five months in 2014, Wikidata said that Franklin D. Roosevelt was also known as “Adolf Hitler”. What, then, are the chances that more subtle falsehoods and manipulations will be detected before they spread to other sites?”
• “Donald Trump’s no leader — he’s just the voice that the ugliest Americans have been dying for“–“Trump is better understood not as the creator of a movement, but the expression of a popular will, a cipher through which huge numbers of Americans communicate what looks an awful lot like fascist sympathies. He is a symptom of a larger problem, not the cause of it.”
• “Guest Blog by Pamela Sargent“–“Occasionally I would get a sympathetic response from somebody who thought a women’s sf anthology was a splendid idea but basically unsalable, either because the audience for such a book wasn’t there or the editor wouldn’t be able to convince his or her publisher to buy the book.”
• “Trump’s Plan To Ban Muslims Is In Line With The Rest Of The GOP“–“But Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric didn’t come out of nowhere.Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, Republican candidates have sought to energize conservative voters and shore up their anti-terror credentials by denouncing Muslims.”
• “Drip…drip…drip“–“A coworker says in all seriousness ‘I’d vote for Donald Trump before I’d vote for Bernie Sanders and watch him tax hard working American businesses out of existence.'”
• “It’s Not Foot in Mouth Disease“–“Again, the problem is not that he misspoke. The problem is that the idea that women are not as good is so deeply embedded in the mind of so many people in positions of power, that it is not even recognized.”

I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

• “Minneapolis Police Seek Help to Solve Death of 30-Year-Old American Indian Woman“–“Police say Anderson was beaten in the early morning hours of September 3, 2015. Police were summoned to East Lake Street and 12^th Avenue South where they discovered the badly beaten Anderson, who was unconscious when police arrived.”
• “Who Gives Peace to the Peacemakers?“–“This is the price of being a peacemaker: You end up sacrificing part of your life, while others can go on acting like they always have.“
• “Whimsical Gifts (for people you hate), 2015“–“All those inadvertant bad gifts are your camouflage. Adhere to a certain degree of subtlety, and no one needs to know that your goal here was to make your target unhappy with your Simple Sabotage Christmas largesse.”
• “Police cars belong to the public, not to God“–“We all must be able to trust that the police will respond to our needs the same regardless of our religious beliefs, and it’s more difficult to trust that this will happen when the police themselves take a religious position.”
• “Carrie Fisher on Her Return to ‘Star Wars’“–“Tell them that a giant slug captured me and forced me to wear that stupid outfit, and then I killed him because I didn’t like it. And then I took it off. Backstage.”
• “You’re not required to try to understand his issues. You’re not required to forgive him for harassing you because he feels insecure. You’re not required to invest time and energy in trying to make him feel better about himself. ” Read more.
• “Remain Calm: Kissing Bugs Are Not Invading the US“–“I also checked with several Insect Diagnostic Clinics around the US. Everyone agreed: There is no evidence that new infections of Chagas are increasing in the US, or that the insects that transmit the disease have increased or changed their range. The disease itself is extremely rare; fewer than 40 human infections have occurred in the US since 1955.”
• “Drug War’s Impact on Black Women Comes to the Fore in Daniel Holtzclaw Trial“–“By Tuesday evening, which marked day 16 of the trial and saw the 13 accusers taking the stand against Holtzclaw in the Oklahoma County courthouse, a pattern of alleged abuse had emerged that not only highlighted Black women’s vulnerability to police brutality, but also called into question the ways in which the ‘war on drugs’ has disproportionately impacted Black women.”
• “The Profound Emptiness of ‘Resilience’“–“But where ‘’resilience’’ can suggest new avenues for civic infrastructure — admitting that disaster can’t always be diverted and shifting the focus to survival strategies — it is indistinguishable from classic American bootstrap logic when it is applied to individuals, placing all the burden of success and failure on a person’s character.”
• “The Limitations of Teaching ‘Grit’ in the Classroom“–“Howard said that exposure to trauma has a profound impact on cognitive development and academic outcomes, and schools and teachers are woefully unprepared to contend with these realities. Children dealing with traumatic situations should not been seen as pathological, he argued. Instead, educators need to recognize the resilience they are showing already.”
• “Should Atheists Celebrate Christmas? The Social Justice Angle“–“Yes, different atheists have different ways of handling religion and its intrusions into everyday life. There are lots of reasons for that. But one of the big ones is: How much do they rely on a social support system that’s structured around religion?”
• “Why the assassination of Fred Hampton matters today“–“In the hallowed American tradition of going after youthful black power and excellence, and stopping them in their tracks, the FBI took out the Black Panthers. And they took out Fred Hampton.”
• “Why ‘Prayer Shaming’ Is a Red Herring“–“I hardly even know what to say to this. I’m not sure that it’s substantively different from the standard refrain of ‘Stop politicizing tragedies,’ but it goes even further: It attempts to blame people who are standing up and saying, ‘To hell with this, enough is enough,’ for the polarization that makes compromise difficult in places like Congress.”
• “Rejected Princesses: Stephanie St. Clair (1897-1969)“–“She attacked and destroyed the storefronts of any business that ran Schultz’s betting operations. She tipped the police off to Schultz’s operations – which led to them raiding his clearing house, arresting 14 employees, and seizing around $2 million. She then bragged about it in the press because she gave somewhere in the neighborhood of zero fucks.”
• “Missouri State Rep Files Bill to Put Gun Sales Under Exact Same Restrictions as Abortions“–“Gun buyers would also have to watch a 30-minute video ‘on fatal firearm injuries’ and verify in writing that he or she viewed the entire video ‘in the presence of a licensed firearm dealer.'”
• “Posner Eviscerates Scalia. Again.“–“‘But who knows? Maybe he’ll now cease voting to strike down statutes under any provision of the Constitution, as otherwise he might be thought of as one of those “unelected lawyers” who so threaten our democracy. Not only an unelected lawyer, but — a patrician.'”
• “HUGE NEWS! Science for the People Joins the Skepchick Fam“–“Now, you’ll get to know Rachelle as she officially joins Skepchick as a regular writer! She’ll be posting articles here along with each new episode of Science for the People (starting with today’s!), giving you a more in-depth look at that week’s topic.”
• “2nd Amendment Night Before Christmas“–“He ducked his broad head, so I aimed at his belly, but the bullets bounced off like marshmallows off jelly.”
• “End the Gun Epidemic in America“–“But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not. Worse, politicians abet would-be killers by creating gun markets for them, and voters allow those politicians to keep their jobs.”
• “Obama looks to use executive power to close gun loophole“–“In one of a series of near-party-line procedural votes, the Senate by 54 to 45 blocked a proposal by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would have stopped people on the government’s anti-terrorist ‘no fly’ list from buying guns. Republican opponents said that the no-fly list includes too many errors to be used for preventing gun sales.”
• “PayPal, Square and big banking’s war on the sex industry“–“What’s happening to female entrepreneurs in the sex business can no longer be written off as isolated incidents. Weblining’s targeted populations are porn performers, sex workers, independent retailers, erotic writers and the internet’s new generation of online pornographers: business sectors comprised of a disproportionately large number of women and LGBT people.”
• “Liberty University President: ‘If More Good People’ Had Concealed Guns, ‘We Could End Those Muslims’“–“‘I’ve never received more support or a more positive response from anything I have ever said in Convocation before,’ Falwell told Glenn Beck’s The Blaze.”
• “Bi Any Means Podcast #27: Islam, Racism, and Terrorism“–“My guest for today is Kiran Opal. She is one of the co-founders of the Ex-Muslims of North America, and she has written for several websites, including The Ex-Muslim and Ex-Communications. Today we’ll be chatting about her life, her work, and of course, Islam.”