Blogaround

Anakin and Padme meme. First panel: Anakin says "I'm going to prove 3 * sum from 1 to infinity of 1/(2^2n) = 1". Second panel: Padme says, "Algebraically, right?" Third panel: Anakin looks at her skeptically. Fourth panel: Where the fourth panel would be, it's just the entire image but shrunk down to 1/4 size, and in the 4th panel of the 4th panel, there's the whole image again shrunk down to that size, and so on forever. Image source: Facebook.

1. Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials (2003) "The relevance to parachute use is that individuals jumping from aircraft without the help of a parachute are likely to have a high prevalence of pre-existing psychiatric morbidity. Individuals who use parachutes are likely to have less psychiatric morbidity and may also differ in key demographic factors, such as income and cigarette use. It follows, therefore, that the apparent protective effect of parachutes may be merely an example of the 'healthy cohort' effect."

2. ‘They Aren’t Who You Think They Are’ (2021) [content note: child sexual abuse and coverup] "Nobody resigned as a result of the failure to stop a decade of abuse. There was no disciplinary action against any of Newman’s supervisors, and Joe White is still the head of the camp today."

3. ‘An Evangelical Childhood is a Total Mindfuck’ New Memoir Recounts the Anxiety and Thrills of Growing Up a Conservative Christian (June 18) "I mean, the white evangelical project is wracked by inner anxieties, but [for many] it feels that it would be somehow unholy or unseemly, if not even sinful, to interrogate those inner anxieties."

4. Care Tactics (July) "While Amazon and insurance companies report billions of dollars in revenue, and innovators fantasize about the augmented reality glasses that will 'fix' deafness, caregivers and disabled people are left to crowdsource improvised hacks to navigate a world indifferent—if not outright hostile—to their actual needs and desires."

5. Mary the Tower (July 22) "She went through the whole manuscript of John 11 and John 12, and lo and behold, that editor had gone in at every single place and changed every moment that you read Martha in English, it originally said, 'Mary.'" Wow. If this is true, it's huge.

6. Waste Expert Answers Garbage Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED (April 13) Wow this is really cool and informative! I always feel suspicious about how it's so easy to buy new things- won't all those new things end up being thrown out eventually? Shouldn't society be taking that into consideration and treating it as the responsibility of the manufacturers? Everyone is focused on the new things, but nobody is talking about the old things being thrown away- but in the long run, those two things will be equal, so it seems like something is wrong here...?

7. My Journey From Concerned Parent to LGBT Ally (August 3) Good article about a Chinese mom of a gay son. There are ways that queerness intersects with Chinese culture differently than how it intersects with western culture. For example, in every culture it's hard to come out to one's parents, but in China it's harder because of how much one's behavior/success/failures is seen as representative of the entire family. And because of the one-child policy, there's so much pressure for the kid to be everything that the parents want them to be, because the parents just have the 1 kid.

8. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lands in Taiwan amid threats of Chinese retaliation (August 2) Yeah this is worrisome.

9. World Breastfeeding Week. The theme for World Breastfeeding Week 2022 is "Step Up," meaning that society (governments, companies, etc) have to step up in support of breastfeeding. I love this, because usually when people talk about breastfeeding, it's seen as just an individual choice and then people argue about whether or not it indicates if you're a "good enough" mom or whatever. This is all kinds of wrong, because the systems aren't in place to provide new moms with the resources and education they need to actually be successful at breastfeeding. (And what's even more ridiculous is people who say "breastfeeding is free!" like omg, it is very much NOT free- you either have to quit your job, or buy a bunch of pumping equipment and hope you're lucky enough to have a job that provides break time and a a good private space with a table, chair, and outlet so you can pump, and also a fridge. Like what on earth is this nonsense about "breastfeeding is free"?) 

Society does NOT give moms the support they need, and then says "oh it's okay if you use formula, it doesn't mean you're a bad mom." That's not good enough.

(Btw I exclusively breastfed my son and I have Some Opinions about it.)

10. Stunning Kansas vote shows just how badly the Right has overplayed its hand (August 5) "It’s middle America Kansas, reliably red Kansas, that delivered a breathtaking rebuke to a ballot effort that would have allowed legislators to ban abortion in the state."

11. Carbon12 – The new reserve currency for Christians (August 4) Oh this is 100% a scam.

Blogaround

Two women in Taiwan who just got married now that Taiwan has legalized same-sex marriage. Image source.

1. Georgia: Embryos in a woman are legal persons; Embryos in a petri dish are not (posted May 23) "I find that highly, highly odd."

2. After years of fierce debate, Taiwan celebrates the first same-sex weddings in Asia (posted May 24)

3. How Hollywood Can Resist Georgia’s Abortion Ban Without Hurting Black And Brown People In The Process (posted May 23) "So if Hollywood eliminates $4.6 billion in wages, affecting not only production workers, but waitresses, Uber drivers, small business owners, etc., ask yourself, who takes the hit the hardest?"

4. LBCF, No. 234: ‘The logic of Hell’ (posted May 3) "I suppose you think keeping a clean personnel file and having people not awkwardly avoiding you all the time is somehow more important than that. Monster." Well AMEN to this entire post. (And I laughed so hard at "also known as the Reverse Philip," I think my husband is concerned about me.)

5. Kamala Harris wants public defenders to get paid as much as prosecutors (posted May 17) "'This is a good step to elevating the issue. The right to counsel is often on the back-burner when it comes to federal conversations about criminal justice reform,' [ACLU senior legislative counsel Kanya Bennett] says."

6. China embraced gay ‘marriage’ long before Taiwan’s law. The West perverted history (posted May 26) Yepppp.

7. Epic Christian Fails: Arky Arky Awkwardness (posted May 28) Oh Answers in Genesis.

8. Noah did everything just as God commanded him (posted May 28) "But this is the Ark Encounter. The entire thing is built around the idea of a massive global flood. For the Ark Encounter to be built with so little thought to something like water erosion—recall how close this access road is to the Ark itself—feels highly ironic, to say the least."

9. And my 2019 Reader Survey is open until June 1~ If you haven't done it yet, go over and take it. I really appreciate everyone's feedback.

Blogaround

1. Taiwan gay marriage: Parliament legalises same-sex unions (posted May 17) Hooray!

2.  Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment (posted May 17) "The phrase ‘climate change’, for example, sounds rather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity."

3. The 2019 Reader Survey is still open~ Will be open until June 1~

Blogaround

Maia and Alex Shibutani performing ice dancing at the 2018 Olympics. Image source.

1. Perfect Number Watches VeggieTales "Larry Boy and the Rumor Weed" (posted February 17)

2. Full List: Evangelical Advisers on Trump’s Affair with Playboy Model (posted February 17)

3. Progressive Proof-Texting (posted February 12) "A progressive evangelical is what you get when a white evangelical starts treating the “biblical data” on money the same way they treat the “biblical data” on sex."

4. A ‘Mass Shooting Generation’ Cries Out for Change (posted February 16) "They were born into a world reshaped by the 1999 attack at Columbine High School in Colorado, and grew up practicing active shooter drills and huddling through lockdowns."

5. No, there haven’t been 18 school shootings in 2018. That number is flat wrong. (posted February 16) [content note: mention of suicide, descriptions of gun violence and accidents] "[Only] Five of Everytown’s 18 school shootings listed for 2018 happened during school hours and resulted in any physical injury."

6. In Australia, Staying Loyal to Taiwan Can Mean Losing a Job (posted February 18) "During her second week waitressing at a barbecue restaurant in Sydney, a customer asked Yating Yang if she was Chinese. “No, I’m Taiwanese,” she said."

7. Lack of Citations: The YEC Peer-Review System Goes Awry Again (posted 2017) "At times they appear to intentionally refuse to cite other YEC [young-earth creationist] authors. More than likely, it’s a combination of causes along with a general desire to present a unified voice to an audience that just wants a simple answer. But this isn’t they way that science proceeds."

8. Gus Kenworthy makes history at Winter Olympics with gay kiss on live TV (posted February 18) Hooray!

9. I Still Think There Is a “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind” and Here It Is: You’re Not Allowed to Use It "Knock yourself out with scholarship on the Pentateuch, but make sure at the end of it all you affirm that Moses basically wrote it."

10. Late-night hosts turn serious when talking about Florida teen activists (posted February 21)

11. Lambda Legal Sues HHS after Lesbian Couple Blocked from Serving as Foster Parents (posted February 20)

12. Pixar Theory: Why does the Guitar take Miguel to the Land of the Dead? (posted February 14) [content note: spoilers for "Coco"]

13. Voldemort's Failed Horcrux | Harry Potter Theory (posted February 13) [content note: spoilers for Harry Potter] 

14. Anti-gay evangelical preacher Billy Graham dies, aged 99 (posted February 21) I liked Billy Graham, but let's not forget his anti-queer ideology.

Blogaround

People in Taiwan celebrate after the highest court rules in favor of marriage equality. Image source.

1. Blogging Against Disablism Day 2017: Disability and “Can’t” (posted May 1) "It’s not even that my to-do list is that onerous; it’s more that I live in a perpetual state of believing that I cannot say “no.” If I have a free moment, I need to be Doing Something Productive."

2. Confederate Monuments and “Historical Vandalism” (posted May 16) "It wasn’t about remembering a historical moment. It was about a communal act of worship of a white supremacist racial ideology and historical memory."

3. I prosecuted drug offenders in the ’80s. It was a disaster. Why is Sessions taking us back? (posted May 18) "Drug prohibition has created a stigma that blocks public health solutions, and fosters an intense distrust for police and the criminal justice system."

4. At Wedding Market, Mothers of Gays and Lesbians Face Resistance (posted May 20) The kingdom of heaven is like Chinese mothers at the Shanghai People's Park marriage market, protesting for their gay and lesbian children's right to marry.

5. The Creation of adam (posted May 17) "Rosales’ painting is seen as making a theological (and political) statement in a way that Michelangelo’s original is not, even though it absolutely is."

6. Taiwan is closer to being 1st Asian country to allow same-sex marriage (posted May 24) "The country's Constitutional Court ruled Wednesday that current laws, which say that marriage is between a man and a woman, violate the Constitution." Hooray! LGBTQ people here are very excited about this.

7. Yes, You’re ‘Trans Enough’ to Be Transgender (posted 2016) "Transition doesn’t have to be a desperate last resort. You can transition simply because you want to. Transition isn’t a sacred act only for the worthy, it’s for anyone that wants it. I’ll let you in on a secret; only trans people want to transition."

8. How Government Support Saved Me (posted May 24) "But the truth is, we’re not really independent—nor have we fully known what it’s like to be poor in America—because we’ve always been surrounded by safety nets. Our great-grandparents were immigrants from countries that were deemed European enough to allow entry, and their legal status was transferred onto us. I attended private universities and lived rent-free at home for periods of time in order to reduce my school debt. When we were support-raising, my husband and I benefited from stable communities and churches that were able to donate money to us, allowing us the luxury of time to work towards church-planting. And we received a large loan for our house, which up until recent history was only afforded to white people."

9. And the wedding song of the week is "Sugar" by Maroon 5. I love this!