Blogaround

1. AO3 Comments and Why People Aren't Leaving More of Them (March 5) About comment culture on Tumblr and its influence on Archive Of Our Own.

And another one also from Coyote: Arguments Against Wikia/Fandom (March 3) About wiki sites hosted by Wikia/Fandom and how the whole system is kinda dysfunctional.

2. Here Is Our Registration To Blog In Florida, Mister Knucklef*ck Sh*thead State Senator, Sir (March 3) "You really thought that through! You don't mention whether the bloggers must be resident to the great state of Florida, one of those oversights that can happen when a bunch of [*******] idiots get elected to make 'laws.' We'll assume that it applies to everyone everywhere in the known universe, since you didn't say it ain't."

3. A Summary of Issues with Every Man's Battle (with Download) (February 22) [content note: quotes from "Every Man's Battle" describe women in disgusting oversexualized ways] I never read "Every Man's Battle" (or any of the related books) but I knew it was a well-regarded best-selling book in Christian circles. Umm, turns out the book is actually about how men are all disgusting pigs who want to objectify women constantly and masturbate about it- like, presenting this as perfectly normal behavior for men, this is what we should expect from all men, it would be unreasonable to hold men to a higher standard than that... and apparently the solution is men need to learn how to *only* objectify and use their wife, rather than every woman they happen to see. Eww.

Anyway, glad I never read that book. It would have messed me up even more than The Modesty Survey did.

In reality, it turns out that men are perfectly capable of respecting women. And in fact, the vast majority of men go about their lives treating women like normal people rather than sex objects. The church explicitly teaches that this is not possible.

(Also gotta love the asexual erasure right there in the title- "Every Man's Battle.")

And a follow-up post: You Don't Need to Objectify Women to Identify with Those Fighting Lust (February 27) "The descriptions of women’s and girls’ bodies are everywhere, and they are salacious. Fred Stoeker, in Every Young Man’s Battle, goes on and on about the specific type of porn he loved, describing it, and the girls’ bodies, in detail."

4. Why doesn’t EA divest from crypto? (March 7) "But perhaps these critiques lack specificity, so let’s add some in. Lack of internal diversity causes EA to be dominated by the viewpoints of techies who tend to be into crypto. Reliance on wealthy people such as SBF makes EA unwilling to fight the systems that created that wealth such as crypto. Earning to give practically encourages the most exploitative career paths such as when SBF was advised by EA leaders to follow his career path. It all points to crypto."

5. China’s First Deaf Lawyer Beat The Odds. Now, She’s Giving Back. (March 8) "The problem is further compounded by the fact that interpreters and the deaf community use different forms of sign language. While interpreters use Chinese Sign Language, the standardized form officially promoted since the 1990s, many of China’s deaf only use Natural Sign Language, which has different grammar and varies from region to region."

And another article also from Sixth Tone: Chinese Boss’ Call to Work Weekends Sparks Discussion on Overtime (March 10) "'When I was still in that company, many people envied me,' Chen told Sixth Tone. 'I was the example to follow for younger students. I gave up my break time for those pointless expectations.'"

6. Is the sun setting on solitary confinement? (March 8) "For instance, in day-to-day practice, solitary confinement is less a punishment for in-prison violence and more a 'catch-all' for anyone (seriously mentally ill, pregnant, gender non-conforming, litigious, juvenile) who cannot function within the existing rules of the prison system. And there is no evidence that solitary confinement reduces in-prison violence."

7. The Nonsense of Nonviolence (King Legacy Pt. 2) (February 8) "When you hear these principles, one thing ought to strike you: this seems like it would be impossible for someone if they aren’t a Christian. ... It requires a trust in a Savior who will win even if you lose. It requires trust in a God who will bring justice even if you die in the struggle. That takes courage indeed."

Also from the same blog: Slavery and Redemption in the New Testament (February 2) "How do we translate doulos in this passage? In the original context, it unquestionably meant 'slave,' but if we use the word today, then a modern reader will be so focused on that fact as to miss any other points in the story. We are  likely to to ask: how on earth can that man justify keeping a slave in the first place, and to treat him so roughly? So we say servant (or handmaiden), and miss the total subjection and constraint implied by slave. Quite likely, the word slave is now so tainted as to be (so to speak) beyond redemption. So what do we do? Any translation we offer will miss the cultural context."