The Orlando Shooting: How You Can Help

A single man with an assault rifle and a handgun walked into a queer nightclub in Orlando, FL and killed at least 50 people and wounded at least 53 more. He deliberately targeted people for their sexuality: the fact that he struck on a night celebrating Latinx queerness means his victims were overwhelmingly people of color.

My Facebook feed is filled with pain and fear and sorrow and despair. But it’s also filled with wisdom. If you’re a hetero cis person, there are things you and I should be doing right now. Continue reading “The Orlando Shooting: How You Can Help”

The Orlando Shooting: How You Can Help
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(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education I: In Which First Impressions Are Made

Welcome to the first installment of our down-to-earth analysis of Christianist earth science textbooks*, in which we learn what good Christians™ are teaching the kids these days.

Let’s take a moment to acquaint ourselves with our three texts. Two are for Christian schools; the third is a secular control. At first glance, it’s quite easy to spot one of the Christianist books. Try for yourself! Continue reading “(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education I: In Which First Impressions Are Made”

(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education I: In Which First Impressions Are Made

(Tier 1) Adventures in ACE XX: Currently Nonsense

Now that our creationist duo is done making waves, the stars of ACE PACE 1087 hop over to currents. And I need to pause in eviscerating their terrible “science education” to admonish them for abusing dialogue tags. They’re horribly clunky. In two tiny paragraphs, we have “related Ace” and “replied Dad,” and that isn’t even the worst they’ve done. I know they can’t resist mangling science, but do they really have to be so brutal with writing style, too? Dialogue tags should be seen but not heard. They should be kept to a minimum, and when used due to dire necessity, they should be as simple as possible. Don’t get all fancy. A simple “said” or “asked” will suffice. This is one area where you should definitely put the thesaurus down. And the style these days is to generally put the tag after the speaker: “Ace said,” “Dad asked.” It sounds much less stilted that way, and therefore avoids drawing attention to the tags and away from the narrative.

Apologies for the digression. It’s just really bugging me.

My pain over their abuse of dialogue tags fades as Ace burbles about Commander Matthew Maury. Oh, how creationists love him! Oh, how foolish they look! Let me just say here what I’ve said before:

They cling desperately to Matthew Fontaine Maury, pious Confederate scientist and author of The Physical Geography of the Seas. They make out that Psalm 8:8 had more to do with his mapping ocean currents than his experience with sailing. They desperately need to believe that science depends on Christianity. Alas for them, he was an old earth man, and shared the attitude of his contemporaries that if science conflicted with the Bible, it was due to a failure to interpret one or the other correctly. They weren’t like today’s creationists, declaring that science has to fit a literal interpretation of the Bible, evidence be damned. But yes, he was a religious man: good show, creationists! There have indeed been a few Christians in science. Not that that means anything.

Silly people.

Ace’s dad ‘splains about currents, and it’s all very basic, and illustrated with the worst drawing of ocean currents I have ever seen: Continue reading “(Tier 1) Adventures in ACE XX: Currently Nonsense”

(Tier 1) Adventures in ACE XX: Currently Nonsense

Supernatural S1 E7 Analysis: When Sexual Repression Kills

Ah, good old repressed American culture. We’re so very obsessed with sex, but we’re terrified of it. Like many human cultures, we want to enjoy it, but we believe we have to carefully control it. And so we hedge it round with ridiculous rules. We demand women adhere to strict modesty standards in the vain hope we can keep the boys in line (while teaching the boys to ignore all the rules, of course, because having sex with girls is how they prove they’re men). We even come up with horror stories to teach the kiddies that if they give in to their hormonal urges, they’ll die.

That’s what the Hook Man’s for. He’s there to keep young people away from Lover’s Lane. At the beginning of this episode, we see a randy young man getting fresh with the virginal preacher’s daughter. We see him die for his immodesty – a nice departure from our cultural habit of punishing the woman for the man’s inability to heed the word “no.”

In the urban legend, the Hook Man is an escaped serial killer, a dangerous mental patient, or both. The girl who, upon hearing the news of the homicidal escapee, insists on fleeing rather than just locking the doors and having their fun, saves the day. It’s how the randy couple ends up with a hook on their door handle rather than in their tender flesh. In this episode of SPN, the Hook Man isn’t a corporeal being, but the spirit of an 1860s preacher who, enraged by all the immorality going on in the red light district, went on a spree and murdered thirteen prostitutes. And he’s hung around beyond death to fight against carnal sins. People can’t flee him because there’s no warning over the radio that he’s coming. The only way to survive is never to sin in the first place.

But he’s just a symptom now. Continue reading “Supernatural S1 E7 Analysis: When Sexual Repression Kills”

Supernatural S1 E7 Analysis: When Sexual Repression Kills

Ask Me Geology Questions!

I’ve got ambitions, people, and I must have your help with them. Don’t worry: this will ultimately benefit you!

I need to write a huge lot of stuff by the end of this month. My current plan is to get almost all of my blog posts written in advance for the summer, leaving me free to concentrate on Mount St. Helens stuff and fiction. And I want to write more about geology. Hence, I’d love for you to ask questions.

I’d especially love if a bunch of those questions had nothing to do with volcanoes. Don’t get me wrong: I loves me some volcanoes, too! But Rosetta Stones is meant to have a broader focus. There’s so much more to earth science than asplodey things. Continue reading “Ask Me Geology Questions!”

Ask Me Geology Questions!

SPN S1 E7 Analysis: Suspense and Horror

My Supernatural partner Zeroth has an excellent post up examining the horror tropes in the “Hook Man” episode. Check it out!

What I really enjoyed with this episode (check out the summary of it) is how effectively they used horror tropes to build and convey suspense. But at the same time, they subvert expectations and give us multiple red-herrings so everything is kept fresh and interesting.

So the cold-open, let’s look at the elements used in it. Continue reading “SPN S1 E7 Analysis: Suspense and Horror”

SPN S1 E7 Analysis: Suspense and Horror

Supernatural S1 E7 Summary: “Hook Man”

It’s Supernatural Thursday! Zeroth was kind enough to do the summary for this episode. Cross-posted from Social Justice Wizardry. Thank you, Zeroth!

We open up at a sorority house at Eastern Iowa University. A young white woman paces nervously and asks her black roommate for clothing suggestions. Her roommate suggests a red halter top. The roommate tells the nervous woman, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” and gets in friendly rejoinder, “There’s nothing you wouldn’t do.”

Black woman sits on a bed and reads, while her roommate, a white woman in a red halter top, leaves, saying "There's nothing you wouldn't do."
Joking…

We cut to the jeep stopping underneath a bridge, and it is dark and rainy outside. There is a quick glimpse of a cloaked figure with a hook for their hand. Continue reading “Supernatural S1 E7 Summary: “Hook Man””

Supernatural S1 E7 Summary: “Hook Man”

(Repost) “Scripture and Whip” – Escape Chapter 3: School Days

This is one of the worst chapters in Escape. Considering how much abuse we’ve seen already, and how bad it gets later on, that’s saying something. Needless to say:

Content Notice for severe child physical, sexual, verbal, and emotional abuse.

Carolyn starts the chapter with her excitement at finally being old enough to start school. She’s now six and a half. We learn that FLDS kids don’t attend kindergarten; supposedly home is better. But Carolyn’s home is one without books, without even fairy tales. I can’t even stand this. My mom filled my childhood with books. I started to read a bit on my own by age 3, and some of my best memories are of afternoon reading time with my mom. I became a writer because she’d told me every fairy tale she knew and run out of ideas for new ones by the time I was six, so she encouraged me to make up my own. My thirst to learn and imagine was never quenched – that would be impossible – but Mom gave me bottomless springs to drink from. Carolyn was just as thirsty, and was only given a few pitiful drops to drink.

There wasn’t even a public library, in a town of several thousand people, overflowing with children. That’s practically criminal. And no, I’m not being sarcastic.

Just before Carolyn starts school, they have one of those magnificent southwestern summer downpours that turns the desert into an instant wetland. Continue reading “(Repost) “Scripture and Whip” – Escape Chapter 3: School Days”

(Repost) “Scripture and Whip” – Escape Chapter 3: School Days