historicity-was-already-taken:

Hey everyone. Since most news sources seem obsessed with Tom and Katie’s divorce, drought in America, and Mitt Romney, I thought I’d put this out there in case any of you missed it. Northern Mali has been taken over by Fundamentalists. They are destroying ancient Sufi (a branch of Islam) tombs,…

cassket:

Alas, yet another sign that yet another era is ending. The New York Times is reporting that after 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print. While it’s easy to imagine that we’ll survive just fine without it—in this age of Wiki everything—we also know that life will never be the same. Now knowledge-starved children will be tasked with googling something to learn about it rather than turning to those beautiful, if obscenely heavy, bound volumes. (That gold lettering! The randomness of topics allowed by alphabetical entries!) Nevertheless, all is not lost. We will still have online access to the rock solid information once contained in the encyclopedias. Though until they find a way to recreate the experience of holding the weighty tome in one’s hand and inhaling the almost ancient smell of the Encyclopaedia Britannica through your electronic device, we can still rightly sulk about the death of these classic books.

I will miss you Encyclopaedia Britannica :( 

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gaywrites:

A high school student in Tennessee says his principal verbally and physically assaulted him for wearing a shirt in support of a gay-straight alliance at his school. 

Chris Sigler wore a homemade t-shirt to school supporting the new GSA. He was told to cover it up, but wore it again the next week. The Advocate’s summary of what happened next:

Principal Maurice Moser came to Sigler’s economic class in the middle of an exam, and demanded that all other students leave the room. Sigler’s sister Jessica refused to leave. Both siblings said Moser grabbed Chris’s arm, shoved him against a wall, and chest-bumped him several times, while asking, “Who’s the big man now?” The attack ended when Sigler’s mother arrived at the school to find Moser leaning over her son, shouting in his face. Moser eventually agreed not to formally suspend Chris, stipulating that the student leave the school grounds for the remainder of the day. 

I’m absolutely in shock. How can we possibly let this happen?

This shit is not acceptable. The principal should have been reprimanded to say the very least.

cassket:

TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE CULTURE

“Well, you just feel like you’re being raped somehow. Raped…It feels like a kind of weird — just weird, man.” — Johnny Depp tells Vanity Fair how much he hates photoshoots.

Dear Johnny,

Big fan over here. Your incredible acting skills and magnetic sex appeal made me fall in love with every single one of your characters–even that lovable, dirty scoundrel Captain Jack Sparrow. So kudos to you!

But, no. Being photographed is not like being raped. At all. I have not been professionally photographed or raped before, but I feel pretty sure about this one. As a general rule, you should just steer clear of rape metaphors. Comparing things that are not rape–such as taxes or health care reformor, um, being photographed–to rape trivializes a crime that is too-often ignored and is just pretty insensitive to the many people who have experienced the unique awfulness of actual rape.

Besides the obvious fact that being photographed is not, actually, a violent crime against your body, this is not even an accurate rape metaphor. Rape is about the lack of consent. If you don’t want to be in a photoshoot, you don’t have to. You’re thehighest-paid actor in Hollywood these days, Johnny! You could forgo the millions of dollars you get paid to do them and just stick to the quick snaps with adoring fans. Yes, many of those fans, like me, will miss the chance to pour over your sexy spreads, but we don’t want you to do something that feels so intrusive to you! Truly.

See, what I think you mean is that being photographed feels like you’re being objectified. Which, of course, you are. And I can see how that might feel “kind of weird” for you, because men aren’t objectified in our culture all that much–at least not to the extent that women are. Except for beautiful, famous movie stars, such as yourself. So I get it. I’ve heard that you’re a very private guy, so it must be totally strange to know that millions of people think you are the sexiest man alive.

I’m not famous, so I have no idea what it’s like to be objectified by millions of strangers. But being objectified by strangers? Definitely. I don’t think I know a woman who hasn’t experienced that–it kinda just comes with the territory. (In this way, it is rather similar to the fear of being raped actually.) The difference is that I don’t make millions off of my objectification; I just continue on with my day. That’s not to say that your feelings aren’t valid. They are! And I would love to discuss the differences and similarities between the ways we’ve both felt objectified over coffee sometime. That sounds like an interesting convo.

But let’s get this straight first: being objectified is not the same as being raped. So let’s just stick to that. Cool?

kthxbai!
Maya

Update: Johnny has issued a very nice apology

: “I am truly sorry for offending anyone in any way. I never meant to. It was a poor choice of words on my part in an effort to explain a feeling. I understand there is no comparison and I am very regretful. In an effort to correct my lack of judgment, please accept my heartfelt apology.”

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tooyoungforthelivingdead:

droppingthefbomb:

Oh Fuck of Metro. 

This is not a gender-confused boy going back to school

The headlines needs to be changed to:  Girl goes back to school recognised as who she is.

just goes to show the state of entrenchment of the gender-sex identification in our society that even when the mother uses “she” as a pronoun and the whole gender dysphoria part, they still describe her as a “boy” solely because of her body

education, y’all

Why the fuck have they put barbaric in quotation marks. Because, according to their views, she is a boy so any teasing was totally validated? Bull shit.

cassket:

James Kaliardos did the makeup for Diane Von Furstenberg’s spring 2012 collection and told the New York Times he was inspired by “an African face.” Say what now?

One of his inspirations, he said, was “an African face,” because “African women have found this way to look absolutely stunning no matter what the situation is.”

No matter what: Famine, rape, slavery, genital mutilation, diamond mining, oppression! The question is — since Africa is a vast continent — which face did Kaliardos have in mind? A Somalian face like Iman’s? A South African face like Charlize Theron’s? A Sudanese face like Alek Wek’s? The face of Chelsy Davy, who is of Zimbabwean nationality?

Full size

Since we’re unclear on what the hell he’s talking about, help us out: Take a look at these models from the runway show — which took place yesterday — and see if you can pinpoint what’s African about the makeup.

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