Friday, October 14, 2016

Weekend Reading: The Early So I Can Rollerblade in the Sun Edition

Since last week's attempt to take a Friday rollerblading break didn't work so well (the rollerblading was awesome, but the coming back to work not so much), this week I'm going to try just finishing work early so I can go rollerblade. And that means you get your weekend reading early.

So without further ado, this week's links

I found this Matt Yglesias article about the book Democracy for Realists simultaneously fascinating and depressing.

Even more depressing: Mother Jones' investigation into how Trump took hate groups into the mainstream.

Josh Marshall has written quite a bit about this, too. Here is a recent post that is good, but scary.

John Scalzi's endorsement of Hillary Clinton is really thorough and well-thought out.

This Tenure, She Wrote post about the wider problem of harassment and misogyny reminded me of how often the guys in my classes "joked" that I'd slept my way to my good grades. I learned to laugh it off. I kept getting good grades. But these comments and the comments about how I won scholarships because I was a woman are definitely there in the imaginary trunk of horrible sexist crap I've put up with that I keep locked up in my head.

This horrible election has broken my imaginary trunk wide open. I suspect it has done the same for many, many women, which is why my timeline is full of women describing all the various ways men have assaulted them. I guess it is good that this is getting out there, but it really is emotionally exhausting. I am finding it hard to concentrate on my work or enjoy time with my kids. I've tried turning away, but the news leaks in. And it is too late, the trunk is open. And I keep looking at my 9.5 year old and thinking how soon all of this garbage is coming for her. I need to process the contents of that trunk so I can be ready for that. So, like I wrote yesterday, I'm trying to focus on the encouraging things I'm seeing, but it is hard. I have never wanted an election to be over so much.

I wanted to find some happier links to share. I don't have much.

Here's a story about some new cave drawings found in the Basque region of Spain. One of the bits of European language history that most fascinates me is Basque, which has no "relatives" in the language family tree. We can only speculate that at one point, before the Celts took over large swaths of Europe (and before they themselves were largely displaced by the Romans and the Germanic tribes), there were lots of people speaking a language related to Basque. And maybe they left us cave drawings! I think that is cool.

This is a nifty idea for a game.

I'm running my first ever giveaway on my Tungsten Hippo blog. It is for a novella the author calls "slapstick with B movie monsters." If that sounds fun, enter the giveaway.

This tweet about Bob Dylan's Nobel prize is perfect.




And some grace to end on, courtesy of Bad Mom, Good Mom, who sent me the link: beautiful and fascinating photos of the flight paths of birds.

Also, a giant wombat kept showing up in my Twitter feed, so I'll share it with you:




And now I'm off to rollerblade in the sunshine by the bay.  I wish I had more happy links this week. Feel free to add some in the comments if you have them!

3 comments:

  1. you're not the only one feeling bothered by the election!

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/10/13/people-are-so-stressed-by-this-election-that-the-american-psychological-association-has-coping-tips/?tid=pm_local_pop_b

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  2. Anonymous3:55 AM

    Here's a happy link - Turia Pitt (who was very badly burned in an ultra marathon in Australia) finished the Kona Ironman this week. She's had 200 operations- just amazing. http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/fitness/inspiration/turia-pitt-finishes-hawaiian-ironman/news-story/003d9cd3624e34494d41fb76dfd3c33b

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  3. Part of the problem is the election is like the glasses in Rowdy Roddy Piper's They Live - you can't unsee what you've seen. Lots of people want desperately to have control over their country and culture and and are willing to embrace much of what has made human history a bloodbath to do so, or at least to suspend an aircraft carrier's worth full of disbelief to do so. They will still be there and waiting for someone a little more cloaked and photogenic to make stupidity and evil look less like they are.

    On the other hand, it's going to be hard to deny exactly what's been lying at the bottom of the trunk, and who was happy to pick those things up when it looked like it might benefit them. It also makes crystal clear exactly what women face. Rarely has there been such a clear litmus test.

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