Science cool: the structure of glass

Wow.  Thanks to Neil and "I fucking love science" for pointing this one out :).
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/09/shattering-records-thinnest-glass-guinness-book

girl, dehumanized (Texas, July 2013)

So, I was out of the news cycle this summer because I was sans computer and tv, so I missed this sign by a 14-year-old girl in the Texas abortion debates: "Jesus isn't a dick, so keep him out of my vagina!"

Now, I am anti-abortion, so I appreciate this sign for its cleverness (I gotta give it up, that's a totally awesome sign :) ), although not for its point. (All of my pro-choice friends, which is probably almost all of my friends, can take a moment here to just get over this inconvenient truth about me.  I am reasonably sure life -- not just the biological individual life, which is scientifically undeniable but of questionable moral value to many people, but the personhood, the soul, the individual spiritual life, which is at least currently only anecdotally supportable but most people attach a heavier moral value to -- begins at conception, and from that basis abortion cannot be the right, or even the best, answer; it is morally equivalent to legislating a right to infanticide or other killing of dependent humans ... which is a set of answers to social and personal difficulties that different human societies have in fact explored at different times in different ways.  I am pretty sure we need to find other, better answers; if we are lucky or blessed or both, the right one(s).  I recognize that most of my world does not agree with most or all of what I just stated.  I also expect that most of my world can honor the moral necessity of my stance from the basis of my considered belief that the individual human begins at conception.)

Anyhow, and no surprise:  although she is (according to a cool and calm rebuttal article she penned after her sign went viral) a virgin and planning to stay a virgin for quite a while, many people were quite horrible and judged her to be a slut (and other such things) on basis of her sign (and supporting abortion rights).  I didn't bother to read those comments ... I've seen that vitriol before, and I don't want to give them my eyeball-time.

But some of the comments supporting the girl's father (who levied a calm and determined social media response campaign) were sharply right-on, no matter which side of the abortion question one is on, and they also tied in with some of the Mrs Hall slut-shaming posts going around right now.

(My browser shows the page from which I cut-n-pasted these as "http://jezebel.com/undefined" ... .)

ad infinitum > Macabre Cadabra
"It's telling how they define the word "slut." Having sex isn't actually necessary; all that's required is being female, existing, and having opinions they don't agree with."
7/17/13 7:06pm

goodwifebrown > Katie J.M. Baker
"Jesus loved it when people called women sluts. He was all "throw stones at those sluts!" I think that's how the story goes."
7/17/13 7:36pm

Ossifrage > Katie J.M. Baker
"Stay classy, religious right."
7/17/13 7:00pm

DangerTitsjenbug
"But she has lost the right to be a young girl in their eyes. She is a slut, that's different and means that it's ok to say and do things to her you would never do to a young girl."
7/17/13 7:06pm

This one made me laugh out loud:

staceytoob > Katie J.M. Baker

"Do you think they're mad because the girls uttered "dirty" words, or because they let the cat out of the bag about the mechanics of sex?

There goes a whole generation of abstinence training."
7/17/13 8:37pm

But this last thing is an important interesting, cogent, hidden, and, really, so intense point (my emphasis added) ... one of several comments/exchanges that made a similar point:

Nan Little > Katie J.M. Baker

" "I do not understand why you are calling my daughter a whore." BOOM! No sassy comeback. No name-calling. Just simple, plain old shining a light on jerkdom. That, folks, is how it's DONE."

7/17/13 7:29pm

 

ad infinitum > Nan Little

"You know what bothers me about that? I mean, not from the dad's POV—he's been awesome throughout. But in general.

That line only worked as "shining a light on jerkdom" because it was man talking about his female relative. If she had said, "I don't understand why you are calling me a whore," a hell of a lot of these people would have been more than happy to do it, in graphic terms. It's only thinking of her in terms of another man that lets them see her as human."
7/17/13 pm

OWWWWWWWCH.

*     *     *

The dad in question got high marks from commenters for his cool and calm responses to what is quite reasonably portrayed as a "shit storm" ... here is his long-form commentary for anyone who wants to read it: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/22/proud-daughter-anti-abortion-placard.

 

So even though I don't agree with the "right" to abort, GO DAD! for being super-awesome as a parent and a person (and, according to Dad in that article I just linked, also GO MOM! ... per last quote, just above, I think it's interesting and sad that the Dad seems to get all the press :P :( ... ) , and definitely GO KID! for engaging intelligently and determinedly with her world!

 

That is all good news for humanity :).

.

I am not whom you think I could be for you

 ... a very good friend surprised me a few days ago by propositioning me (honorably: he's not in a relationship and he was even proposing a potentially long-term thing with significant lead-time) ... as I dealt with my reactions to that (after the initial conversation), I discovered many things, and I think my response is worth posting publicly (with identifying information redacted, of course).

Because in having to put words to parts of this situation, I discovered some important things about how I live my life and why certain things are the way they are.  (And aren't the way they aren't.)

"Grace," as herein used, is a term from my faith tradition.  It means essentially a special gift of the infinite, from God.  Different people have different graces; some are more common than others.  Our conversation the other day hovered around the idea of grace a lot, although perhaps a slightly less hallowed connotation of the term.

To the three people who know who he is, and to the very few people who know him or I well enough to guess who he is: please refrain from identifying the man in question.  (Which I assume is an obvious piece of community care, but I know many people get on the internet when they are tired and mistake-prone, and hurt is something that you can't take back ... )

*     *     *     *     * 

heya.

Ok, so, having had a couple of days to think about it, pray about it, and generally react to it ... the answer is really actually No.

I am really sorry I didn't cozen to what was going on with you earlier, because being clueless probably made things more difficult. I truly had zero idea you had been thinking in that direction.

Perhaps if you saw more of my everyday relationships you would have realized that I am like this, hard-core-all-in, with many people in my life (including that a lot of people react very strongly to the graces I have been given). I make edits in what I converse with different friends about, for suspected or known trigger areas (for example, I guess I won't be sharing non-public info about my romantic life or lack thereof with you anymore, which is a common edit I make for a lot of people for a variety of reasons), but the depth of feeling is there pretty much across the board. There is nothing about this grace that is exclusive or even romantic. I think this is why sometimes even very gay men react to it ([the one I mentioned before] was certainly not the gayest, he just happened to be one you knew). It's more like a Virgin Mary thing.

Because of this set of interactions with you, I've also just consciously recognized that this grace is just about the last thing I would want someone to be romantically interested in me because of (and that this has been a major source of frustration for me since I was quite young). Because (1) it's not *me,* it's a grace I've been given to spread around, and (2) it will never be just for my partner or even primarily for my partner, so it does everyone involved a poor turn if my potential partner wants to bury into it and be held by it. It's a no-win situation.

And so many mundane things. We disagree on a lot, both practically and philosophically.

We have different preferences for how life should be (challenging/easy; essentially traditional/open to huge changes; "simple"/beautifully chaotic). We don't even agree, I think, on what being healthy looks like. I'm not sure that you understand, in practice, that contractual relationships are not the only option; whereas I will never enter into a functionally contractual relationship. And then all the feminist stuff, which you often not only dismiss, but dismiss in a denigrating/diminishing way.
 
There's no basis for a good romantic relationship, brief, temporary, or permanent, in all of that.

And, in the end: I generally dislike the whole professional sports thing. I suspect that is, on its own merit, a pretty good, and completely non-esoteric, flag for, "this is not the right woman for your life, ever."

I am sorry.

I think we have been pretty good friends.

-- K.

*     *     *    *     *

Postscript: In case anyone was not sure, of the listed dialectics, I fall on the [challenging], [open to huge changes], and [beautifully chaotic] sides ;).  Also, yes, the women in my life react to the graces I carry as well, but many fewer women than men react with an attempt at romance, and I was, by citing the gay men, trying to illustrate to this man that the attraction -- no matter how strongly he feels it -- is not innately a romantic one, even from men.
.

"hot as balls," an essay

This was FbShared yesterday by a friend:



As an unrelated aside to the quite reasonable feminist/humanist* assertion about dresses in the above link, I think we (as dress wearers, Americans, and/or people who have at some point had physical contact with balls) should either

1) change the phrase, therein illustratively utilized, to "hott as balls," slyly subverting, by use of a sexualized adjective normally applied to females/female body-parts, the odd and certainly non-universal association of male gonads with extreme physical heat -- at least creating an interesting reactive gender/sexism linguistic experiment -- or

2) choose a different, pertinent ;), object to illustrate extreme physical heat ;).

"Hot as balls" seems an unpleasant and uncomfortable metaphor, as it (by negative association with the clear preference "I want to avoid being too hot") implies an aversion to, but at the same time a fairly intimate knowledge of ;), balls.  Which, for a phrase in pretty common use by both males and females in our nation, implies all sorts of unhealthy things about sexual interactions (any gender) and/or self-image (males) ;P.

In sum, I think that if one chooses to use "balls" in a metaphor, it is probably better to be comfortable with one's own relationship to said "balls," unless the metaphor is strengthened by the connotative dissonance/additional connotative color.

'Just sayin ;).

* recognizing that this assertion, while clearly stated in the traditionally feminine, could be made by someone of any gender who happened to get ogled while they were wearing a dress for its superior ventilation properties and not for its sex appeal ;), and in fact, as an assertion rejecting presumptive objectification, this Pinterest post's basic messaging ought to be appreciated by all humans of all gender-affiliations.