Blogaround

A group of labrador puppies, sleeping in a row. Alternating between yellow and black puppies. Image source.

1. Do you remember your first time? (posted 2014) [content note: descriptions of assault by medical staff] "I remember the first time I was treated by force."

2. The Obamacare provision that saved thousands from bankruptcy (posted March 2) "This Obamacare provision took effect September 23, 2010. Timmy was born September 29. On December 17, he surpassed $1 million worth of bills in the neonatal intensive care unit. He didn’t leave the NICU until he was 6 months old."

3. Feeding the hungry is a Good Thing (posted March 16) "The disagreement is about something far simpler, far more basic and fundamental. Some people think that preserving the health, nutrition, and dignity of older Americans is an important Good Thing. And other people do not."

4. A Janitor Preserves the Seized Belongings of Migrants (posted March 12) "He’d always known, technically, about the C.B.P.’s strict confiscation policies, which were posted on bilingual signs and applied to all items classified as either “non-essential” or “potentially lethal.” But he hadn’t spent much time thinking about these policies, and he hadn’t realized how broadly they were applied, or just how many of the confiscated items—including cell phones and wallets, many still containing I.D.s, prepaid debit cards, and cash—were ending up in the trash, never to be returned."

5. The audacious claim that we are not shaped by history (posted March 21) "That claim is this: Hundreds of years of slavery and a century of Jim Crow oppression had no effect on the shape of American Christianity."

6. How University Professors React to Requests for Disability Accommodations (posted 2015) "Universities tend to work on a reporting system so if something goes wrong, students are put in the position of reporting the bad behaviour of people who have power over their academic success."

7. Why I’m Done Being A ‘Good’ Mentally Ill Person (posted March 27) "We see this kind of ableism most distinctly when we categorically divide up disabled people into “higher” and “lower” functioning — which can be a coded way of saying, 'These are the people that can conform to society’s expectations of what a ‘typical’ person should be, and these are the people who fail to do that.'"

8. 'Sightings' of extinct Tasmanian tiger prompt search in Queensland (posted March 27) Cool!

9. Science, reality and ‘persecuted Christians’ (posted March 27) "Dinosaurs are cool, but these poor folks aren’t able to fully enjoy the latest cool news about cool dinosaurs because they’ve convinced themselves that they’re obliged to hear every such bit of news as a kind of attack on their faith."

10. can you explain why "straight passing privilege" isnt a thing? (posted 2014) "regardless of your sexual orientation, the vast majority of people are going to assume you’re straight all the time unless you are doing something specifically coded as being romantic or sexual with someone of the same gender (or someone who is assumed to be the same gender) at that exact moment. still in the closet? straight. went out to grab dinner with someone of a different gender than you? straight. hanging out with your friends? straight. stepped out of the house to get milk? straight."