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Islamophobic Bus Ads In San Francisco Are Being Defaced With Kamala Khan. From the article: "Well, this is just brilliant. Racist adverts promoting hatred against Muslims are currently being run on buses in San Francisco - but someone has started covering them up with anti-hatred messages from Marvel's première Muslim superhero, Ms. Marvel."
comment posted at 5:15 AM on Jan-27-15

What Taking My Daughter to a Comic Book Store Taught Me “All their…” …and her voice dropped to a whisper… “boobies are hanging out, Dad."
comment posted at 6:35 AM on Jan-15-15

"We know that people may be genetically pre-disposed to depression and anxiety disorders. We also know that specific life events may trigger depressive episodes in those who have previously been the picture of mental health. But so far we've been unable to identify one single, definitive catalyst. However, new research suggests that, for some people, depression may be caused by something as simple as an allergic reaction – a reaction to inflammation; a product of the body, not the mind."
comment posted at 6:29 AM on Jan-10-15

Living Poets is a Durham University website with short guides to various ancient Greek and Latin authors, such as Homer, Orpheus, Anacreon, Catullus, Ovid, and Virgil. The guides focus on the extant sources and how the authors were received in their lifetime and by later generations, avoiding the "perils of autobiography."
comment posted at 6:49 AM on Jan-3-15

The European Parliament building regularly makes visitors and employees break down and cry. The disorienting effect probably wasn’t an accident. “Our buildings offer themselves to their inhabitants and to the city as ‘mysteries,’ or stories for which we provide ‘keys’ and signs so that they can be deciphered,” is how Architecture-Studio’s website describes its approach.
comment posted at 7:19 AM on Jan-1-15

Connecticut's Office of The Child Advocate Releases Report on Sandy Hook Shootings "Newtown shooter Adam Lanza was an isolated young man with deteriorating mental health and a fascination for mass violence whose problems were not ignored but misunderstood and mistreated, according to a report released Friday by a Connecticut state agency."
comment posted at 7:04 AM on Nov-24-14

This morning, the New York Times published "Wrought in Their Creator’s Image", an article talking about the new network series “How to Get Away With Murder", produced by Shonda Rimes and starring Viola Davis. The articles claims about the beauty and character of Black women have created a discussion, from Rimes herself and others about the stereotype of the "angry Black woman" and whether Ms. Davis is, as the Times suggests #lessclassicallybeautiful than other women because of the age and color of her skin.
comment posted at 1:33 PM on Sep-19-14

Welcome to the Internet crowdfunding, where the cutest, blondest, and most adorable victims of unverifiable woe seek to fund their health care via the largesse of outraged strangers. This isn't uncommon. We've seen the stories about mean things written on receipts, or even fingers in chili.
comment posted at 9:03 AM on Jun-26-14

Marion Zimmer Bradley, award-winning author (The Mists of Avalon, Darkover, amongst others) not only aided and abetted her husband in child abuse (Walter Breen, a man who was first convicted in 1954), she also took part in it, according to an email from her daughter published yesterday.
comment posted at 11:30 AM on Jun-11-14

Today, at noon (central daylight time) the Minnesota Senate will begin debate on a bill to legalize same sex marriages. The bill already passed the Minnesota House. As Reuters reports, the Senate will likely pass the bill, and Governor Mark Dayton has promised to sign it into law.
comment posted at 6:40 AM on May-13-13

Three missing women found a decade later blocks from where they disappeared: Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight disappeared on the near west side of Cleveland in 2003, 2004 and 2000. All were found alive, with children, in the home of a 52-year old man within minutes of the places they disappeared.
comment posted at 4:44 PM on May-7-13

Jason Collins, a veteran NBA center currently playing for the Washington Wizards, is now the first active player in major league American sports to openly declare he is gay.
comment posted at 6:33 AM on Apr-30-13

Against Me! frontwoman Laura Jane Grace talks about her first year as a woman since publically coming out as transgender last year. She'll address it further on Against Me!'s upcoming album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues. Laura Jane has already played the title track live, along with other songs from it like Osama bin Laden as the Crucified Christ. The album may have been delayed by the departure of their fourth drummer, Jay 'son of Max' Weinberg. Punknews has officially endorsed Mikey Erg as a replacement.
comment posted at 6:29 AM on Apr-10-13

The Social In(Queery) Blog presents a criticism of the "born this way" paradigm.
comment posted at 6:06 AM on Mar-20-13

"I hope you guys will forgive me but after I am done talking to you guys you guys will probably trespass me like 98% of schools and school districts did in Washington, Oregon, and Montana." Previously. A year later, he's still at it, and, as is usually the case, his backstory is sadder and more complicated than just a News Of The Weird guffaw.
comment posted at 10:04 AM on Mar-10-13

What It's Like to Be a Woman Who Plays Professional Poker is an Atlantic piece profiling Vanessa Selbst, an amazing poker player who just got engaged last weekend, as well as an examination of the challenges of being a professional poker player in an often hostile and sexist community.
comment posted at 6:52 AM on Jan-12-13

If you are in the 7 foot tall club in the US there is a 16% you play in NBA. Which is a good thing, as getting all your clothes custom made isn't cheap. Sports Illustrated takes a look at what life is like when you live in a world that was not designed for the very tall.
comment posted at 6:50 AM on Dec-7-12

A Halloween doodle from Google. Be sure to click around, and save the kitty for last.
comment posted at 6:10 AM on Oct-31-12

A Fat Mustachioed Orphan Finds a Home. (NYT, MLWP, video within*)
comment posted at 6:43 AM on Oct-21-12

Who is voting against MN's same sex marrage ban being enshrined in the MN constitution? Michael Brodkorb: Broadkorb, a former top strategist for the Minnesota Republican party before losing his job because of an affair with Senate Majority leader Amy Koch says he plans on voting against the amendment even though he helped craft it. The gag order in his case claiming wrongful termination was recently removed allowing him to "clear the air". perhaps the biggest charge that he lays so far is the amendments where strictly a ploy to drive voter turnout:

“The belief was, the United States senate race was not going to be close, and that Republicans needed and social conservatives needed a reason to get to the polls in November,

comment posted at 6:26 AM on Oct-17-12

"I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man, I will not. And the Government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever. The Leader of the Opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for high office. Well, I hope the Leader of the Opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation." - The Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, takes the Leader of the Opposition to task over his sexist views (link includes extracts and video of full fifteen minute speech)
comment posted at 6:21 AM on Oct-9-12

Just how gay is Seattle? Pretty gay.
comment posted at 2:14 PM on Oct-8-12

Tell me what you think of Kraft Dinner, and I will tell you who you are.
comment posted at 7:36 AM on Aug-31-12

'By most accounts, Bill Walton stands well over seven feet tall. But during his NBA career, Walton always insisted that he was 6'11" because he didn't want to be considered a freak. When I read that fun fact in David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game, it hit a chord. I've been doing the exact same thing as Walton for my entire adult life. I'm not as tall as Walton. I'm not even one of the less-than-70 seven-footers in my age bracket in the U.S. But I'm close. Another quarter-inch, and I'd pass the seven-foot barrier. But anytime anyone asks my height, I say that I'm 6'11". I don't mention the extra three quarters of an inch. People don't need to know about that. In any case, I'm still pretty fucking tall. And being pretty fucking tall is a weird thing to wrap your head around.'
comment posted at 9:38 AM on Aug-17-12

A gas-masked perpetrator entered an Aurora, CO movie theater during the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises, threw a smoke bomb and began shooting. Police in Aurora report that 14 are dead, and up to 50 others are injured. The lone gunman is believed to be in police custody.
comment posted at 7:09 AM on Jul-20-12

Know Canada. Happy Canada Day!
comment posted at 12:06 PM on Jul-1-12

When divorced mother Jean Hilliker was discovered murdered under lurid circumstances in 1958, it came as no surprise that her young son James grew up a bit disturbed. Sent to live with his alcoholic accountant father, a man with "a 12 (to 16) inch schvantz " who had purportedly once "poured the pork to Rita Hayworth", James Ellroy became obsessed with his mother's murder. Some of this obsession was transferred to police procedure, detective novels and especially the spectacularly grisly murder case of Elizabeth Short, also known as the Black Dahlia.
comment posted at 3:34 PM on Jun-17-12

But the reason I do this is because I love you, whoever you are, and I want to share my situation so that you can know further truth: I am gay. I am Mormon. I am married to a woman. I am happy every single day. My life is filled with joy. I have a wonderful sex life. And I’ve been married for ten years, and plan to be married for decades more to come to the woman of my dreams.
comment posted at 4:52 PM on Jun-9-12
comment posted at 11:54 AM on Jun-18-12

The most recent cover of Time magazine is causing a lot of controversy. The issue explores attachment parenting and its rise in popularity. Some see attachment parents as selfish, while others swear by it. Either way, attachment parenting and extreme breastfeeding are now part of the national conversation. 
comment posted at 4:03 PM on May-12-12

Foster Friess, the billionaire backer of Rick Santorum’s campaign, became an instant celebrity when he went on Andrea Mitchell’s MSNBC show and said,
comment posted at 7:51 AM on Feb-17-12

The Invention of the Heterosexual: In a new book, author Hanne Blank explains the surprisingly short history of the concepts of hetero- and homosexuality.
comment posted at 8:59 AM on Jan-31-12

"Over the years, Lego has had five strategic initiatives aimed at girls. Some failed because they misapprehended gender differences in how kids play. Others, while modestly profitable, didn’t integrate properly with Lego’s core products. Now, after four years of research, design, and exhaustive testing, Lego believes it has a breakthrough. On Dec. 26 in the U.K. and Jan. 1 in the U.S., Lego will roll out Lego Friends, aimed at girls 5 and up.... "The Lego Friends team is aware of the paradox at the heart of its work: To break down old stereotypes about how girls play, it risks reinforcing others. “If it takes color-coding or ponies and hairdressers to get girls playing with Lego, I’ll put up with it, at least for now, because it’s just so good for little girls’ brains,” says Lise Eliot." From Businessweek (print link, above; via BoingBoing), an interesting look at Lego's new girl-oriented initiative.
comment posted at 7:10 AM on Dec-15-11

Sidian3 is a middle aged woman who has Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.), formerly known as Multiple personality disorder. She makes video blogs about this and related subjects. Potential triggers and sensitive topics are in videos after the jump.
comment posted at 6:54 AM on Dec-6-11

150 years ago, a primitive Internet united the USA. "Long before there was an Internet or an iPad, before people were social networking and instant messaging, Americans had already gotten wired. Monday marks the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental telegraph. From sea to sea, it electronically knitted together a nation that was simultaneously tearing itself apart, North and South, in the Civil War. Americans soon saw that a breakthrough in the spread of technology could enhance national identity and, just as today, that it could vastly change lives."
comment posted at 6:38 AM on Oct-24-11

Pioneer and tireless activist for the LGBT civil rights movement, Frank Kameny was fired from his job as an astronomer for the US government in the late 1950s because he was gay. He co-organized the Mattachine Society of Washington, campaigned for equal treatment of gay employees in the Federal government, was the first openly gay candidate for Congress and worked to remove the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The Library of Congress holds his papers, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History includes in its collections Kameny's picket signs carried in front of the White House in 1965, his home has been made a DC Historic Landmark, and a street near Dupont Circle was declared Frank Kameny Way in 2010. In 2009, John Berry, Director of the Office of Personnel Management, formally apologized to Kameny on behalf of the United States government. Frank Kameny died on National Coming Out Day this October 11, 2011.
comment posted at 6:24 AM on Oct-13-11

A brief history of lyrics that aren't lyrics (1964-2008) SLYT
yeah, I'm kinda disappointed they didn't start at an earlier date, with all the potential doo-dahs, shooby-doos and weem-a-ways...
comment posted at 1:03 PM on Oct-2-11

President Obama Backs Down On Ozone Standards As two weeks of protests outside the White House against a proposed oil pipeline from Alberta's tar sands through the United States ended Friday with a total of 1,252 arrests, President Obama shocked the environmental community by requesting that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, after repeated delays since publication of new draft ozone standards in 2010 lowering permissible levels from 85 parts per billion (introduced during the Bush administration) to 60-70 parts per billion, postpone their implementation until at least 2013.
comment posted at 1:04 PM on Sep-5-11

University of Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt, the winningest coach in NCAA basketball history (men or women) has been diagnosed with early onset dementia. Regardless, she plans to continue coaching the Lady Vols for the 2011-12 season.
comment posted at 6:37 AM on Aug-24-11

There have always been regional labels equivalent to chav - skangers, spides, charvers, scallies and neds, respectively in Ireland, Northern Ireland, North East England, North West England and Scotland. But chav has somehow scaled regional barriers to become a national term of abuse.
comment posted at 12:26 PM on Jun-3-11

In the 1940s, he fought Nazis. In the 1950s, he fought the U.S. Civil Service. He's battled the Pentagon, the FBI, the medical establishment, the police, and so on. Generally, he wins. And when he's won, so has the entire gay community.... He coined the phrase ''Gay is Good'' in 1968, when the distance between homosexuality and shame was a very short trip.

He co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington in 1961, one of the nation’s earliest gay rights groups, picketed the White House, and became the first openly gay Congressional candidate when he ran for DC’s House seat in 1971.

Kameny finally got an apology from the government that fired him for being gay. But he didn't get his pension back. And now, "while his mind is sharp, he has difficulty managing his finances. To be brief, one of our greatest heroes needs help." So maybe you'd like to Buy Frank A Drink. (previously, previously)
comment posted at 6:09 AM on May-11-11

My Student, the 'Terrorist' If this were a movie, the story might end with a triumphal courtroom scene, or an intrepid Washington Post reporter breaking the story. It might have a sentimental ending, with a conservative Muslim family and community locking arms with Christians and Jews and atheists and turning the country back to its commitment to civil rights. The government, shamed, would reform its practices. But this is not a movie, and inhumane treatment is well protected in post-9/11 America.
comment posted at 2:34 PM on Apr-7-11

Amazon.com's state sales tax fight took a dramatic turn as plans were announced to close the online retailer's Irving, Texas distribution center by April 12. Amazon would not confirm the total number of employees who worked at the fulfillment center, but did announce plans to offer positions in other states to employees willing to relocate. Amazon blames the closure on Texas' "unfavorable regulatory climate."
comment posted at 5:44 AM on Feb-12-11

Rediscovering WWII's female "computers". While researching a documentary in Philadelphia, filmmaker LeAnn Erickson came across two women with a story she'd never heard before: thousands of women with advanced mathematical skills employed as "computers", working day and night during WWII to supply soldiers in the field with precise ballistics algorithms. Some of those women also went on to program ENIAC, the first general-purpose computer (previously). Erickson turned their stories into Top Secret Rosies, a documentary released to theaters last year and to DVD this month. One of those programmers, Betty Jean Jennings Bartik, spoke at length to the Computing History Museum in 2008. [youtube, 1:07:19] [via]
comment posted at 5:56 AM on Feb-9-11

Big Coach in the Little Gym Scott Lang was 41 years old when he died last month. He was not married. He had no children. He spent almost all of his adult life as the basketball coach at La Roche College, a tiny Division III school in the north hills just above Pittsburgh.
comment posted at 5:35 AM on Jan-28-11

Last week, UConn's women's basketball team beat Florida State to win an unprecedented 89 games in a row. Here's the halftime show from that game.
comment posted at 10:44 AM on Dec-28-10

The UConn Women's basketball team just won 89 games in a row. Doing this broke a 36 year old NCAA record.
comment posted at 5:27 AM on Dec-22-10

The attack on Pearl Harbor was neither the U.S.' first armed conflict leading to WW II, nor the last Axis attack on American soil.
comment posted at 9:30 AM on Dec-7-10

Going Dutch Considerations of gender (in)equality in the Dutch workplace.
comment posted at 5:58 AM on Nov-16-10

In his unedited, fifty-minute interview with Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart explains what's wrong with MSNBC, why you shouldn't say Bush is a war criminal even if it's "technically true," why the real political fight in the U.S. is not Republican vs. Democrat or left vs. right but corruption vs. non-corruption, and how the real point of the Rally to Restore Sanity (previously, previously) was to show that he has no actual influence, credibility, or power.
comment posted at 10:42 AM on Nov-12-10