The Reading List, 2/25/2016

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.

  • Antonin Scalia and the Ethics of ‘Celebrating Death’“–“Here someone often argues that Scalia’s family is in mourning and would be very upset at the things that some people are saying. That’s quite possible, although it seems highly unlikely that any of Scalia’s family members are spending this time browsing the social media feeds of random unknowns like my friends and me.”
  • Red Carpet Rundown: BAFTAs 2016“–“My favorite character arc of the red carpet season is Alicia Vikander’s slow realization that this Louis Vuitton partnership means she actually has to keep finding Louis Vuitton dresses to wear on the red carpet.”
  • Period pain can be ‘almost as bad as a heart attack.’ Why aren’t we researching how to treat it?“–“Around half a dozen friends told me that they’d had similarly frustrating experiences—that they’d been shoved on birth control indefinitely, been prescribed Prozac to deal with their monthly bouts of depression, suffered through migraines and even vomiting whenever they had their period. The symptoms were diverse, but these stories all had one key thing in common: No one seemed able to get clear answers from their doctors.”
  • Sometimes busting myths can backfire“–“Peter and her colleague Thomas Koch decided to find out how best to combat this backfire effect — our tendency to misremember myths as fact — when confronted with scientific information.”
  • Brazil’s First Dark Skin Globeleza Queen Was Stripped of Her Title For Being ‘Too Black’“–“Justino was called everything from a monkey to a darkie, and told she didn’t deserve to be the Globeleza because she was ‘too Black.’ What hurt most, though, were that many Black Brazilians also thought she was unfit for the title because of her dark skin.”
  • Colorado Planned Parenthood Clinic Reopens After Deadly Attack“–“Joseph Martone, 54, said he was a regular protester at the clinic and had returned just after the shooting. ‘People believe he’s part of us, but he’s not,’ he said, referring to Mr. Dear. Then, turning his attention to the clinic employees, he said, ‘They are harming women and killing babies.'”
  • De-platforming and free speech“–“But what if we took the free speech claim at face value, but we took it a bit father and looked at who we invite to speak and not just who we ask not to. If our goal is to use our platform to advance free speech, why not give speaking positions to people of color and trans people?”
  • Beware of the angry white male public intellectual“–“But we need to start acknowledging that men with real power and authority are fostering online harassment. Such public intellectuals are perhaps even more dangerous—both because they give online harassment a larger and more mainstream audience, and because they give those campaigns the stamp of moral or intellectual seriousness.”
  • The Anti-GMO Doctors Behind False Monsanto Microcephaly Link“–“The leader of Médicos de Pueblos Fumigados, Dr. Ávila Vazquez has come under fire for making giant albeit unfounded scientific leaps.”
  • Deadpool, Zoolander 2, sexy fighting, and transmisogyny“–“The female villain in Deadpool, Angel Dust, does eventually fight Negasonic Teenage Warhead, but her longest and most protracted action sequences is with Colossus, and there is nothing sexy about it.”
  • An Open Letter from Past CEA Chairs to Senator Sanders and Professor Gerald Friedman“–“We are former Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers for Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. For many years, we have worked to make the Democratic Party the party of evidence-based economic policy.”
  • Police say cop who told drivers to run over protesters has resigned“–“Rothecker apologized and the comment was deleted, but his remarks drew condemnation from Mayor Chris Coleman.”
  • The Consequences of Dissent: When Atheism Lands You In A Psych Ward“–“Eight months later, fearing Mubarak would negatively influence his other siblings by eating during Ramadan and not praying, his father baited him into seeing another doctor.”
  • I Am Not Ashamed of Identifying As Mentally Ill“–“Here’s the truth: accepting and paying attention to an important fact about myself is not negative or limiting. My mental illness has a big impact on my life.”
  • A Romance Manifesto“–“When I want comfort, I read romance to escape. I don’t understand why that is so difficult to grasp, given that the same folks that often rag on this practice may spend an awful lot of time in Middle Earth.”
  • Is this a KISSING book?“–“If you’re going to write an essay about romance and you’re not a regular romance reader, here are a few tips”
  • The Geek’s Guide to Disability“–” I’m hoping that if I walk through some of the more common misconceptions, I can move the needle a little–or at least save myself some time in the future, because I’ll be able to give people a link instead of explaining all this again.”
  • The Science of Star Wars: The Orbital Mechanics of Starkiller Base“–“But, like, it’s also orbiting the star. It’s not eating some star a long way away. In the movie, we see it destroy the star it’s orbiting. What’s up with that?”
  • A fetus can’t ‘hold hands’ with its twin“–“This story is already all over the anti-choice sites (I’m including Fox here) as well as many more sites as ‘proof’ of fetal emotions and purposeful movement (either explicitly stated or implied). However, ultrasound images of fetal movements are really just a Rorschach test.”
  • The remarkably different answers men and women give when asked who’s the smartest in the class“–“In other words, if Johnny and Susie both had A’s, they’d receive equal applause from female students — but Susie would register as a B student in the eyes of her male peers, and Johnny would look like a rock star.”
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The Reading List, 2/25/2016
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