Dancing in the Center of the World

What is it that makes you so afraid of the Alliance?

Sat, 25 May 2013 15:23:27 -0700

What is it that makes you so afraid of the Alliance?

onlyyasmin: jerseyless: Star Wars Glowing Lightsaber Ice Pop...

Sat, 25 May 2013 14:28:42 -0700

onlyyasmin:

jerseyless:

Star Wars Glowing Lightsaber Ice Pop Maker

I need this

WANT.

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Sat, 25 May 2013 13:33:10 -0700

brucebananeronawillgrahamcracker: The Problem with ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ For months,...

Sat, 25 May 2013 12:37:23 -0700

brucebananeronawillgrahamcracker:

The Problem with ‘Boys Will Be Boys’

For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion.

No matter how many times he did it, his parents never swooped in BEFORE the morning’s live 3-D reenactment of “Invasion of AstroMonster.” This is what they’d say repeatedly:

“You know! Boys will be boys!”

“He’s just going through a phase!”

“He’s such a boy! He LOVES destroying things!”

“Oh my god! Girls and boys are SO different!”

“He. Just. Can’t. Help himself!”

I tried to teach my daughter how to stop this from happening. She asked him politely not to do it. We talked about some things she might do. She moved where she built. She stood in his way. She built a stronger foundation to the castle, so that, if he did get to it, she wouldn’t have to rebuild the whole thing. In the meantime, I imagine his parents thinking, “What red-blooded boy wouldn’t knock it down?”

She built a beautiful, glittery castle in a public space.

It was so tempting.

He just couldn’t control himself and, being a boy, had violent inclinations.

She had to keep her building safe.

Her consent didn’t matter. Besides, it’s not like she made a big fuss when he knocked it down. It wasn’t a “legitimate” knocking over if she didn’t throw a tantrum.

His desire — for power, destruction, control, whatever- - was understandable.

Maybe she “shouldn’t have gone to preschool” at all. OR, better if she just kept her building activities to home.

I know it’s a lurid metaphor, but I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don’t “get raped” and this child, Boy #1, did not learn the preschool equivalent of “don’t rape.”

Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning. How much of the boy’s behavior in coming years would be excused in these ways, be calibrated to meet these expectations and enforce the “rules” his parents kept repeating?

There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it his mother took him in hand, explained to him that it was not his to destroy, asked him how he thought my daughter felt after working so hard on her building and walked over with him so he could apologize. That probably wasn’t much fun for him, but he did not do it again.

There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy. You can’t make this stuff up.

Take each of these three boys and consider what he might do when he’s older, say, at college, drunk at a party, mad at an ex-girlfriend who rebuffs him and uses words that she expects will be meaningful and respecte, “No, I don’t want to. Stop. Leave.”

The “overarching attitudinal characteristic” of abusive men is entitlement.

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Sat, 25 May 2013 11:42:03 -0700

crow-z-crow: Snow Leopard Cub

Sat, 25 May 2013 10:46:37 -0700

crow-z-crow:

Snow Leopard Cub

cheaplies: Man Ray - Lee Miller And Friend, 1930

Sat, 25 May 2013 09:51:19 -0700

cheaplies:

Man Ray - Lee Miller And Friend, 1930

This really isn't that difficult to grasp.

Sat, 25 May 2013 08:56:11 -0700

tzikeh:

1) Benedict Cumberbatch gave a phenomenal performance as Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek: Into Darkness.

2) The casting of a white man as Khan Noonien Singh in 2013 is HIGHLY PROBLEMATIC.

3) Both of these things can be true at the same time.

4) No, really; they can.

picturesque-scene: they saw the chance they took the...

Fri, 24 May 2013 19:05:04 -0700

picturesque-scene:

they saw the chance

they took the chance

This is what people who write headlines for websites do to amuse themselves.

beinglazyfortherevolution: gadaboutgreen: sandandglass: Wayne...

Fri, 24 May 2013 18:27:16 -0700

beinglazyfortherevolution:

gadaboutgreen:

sandandglass:

Wayne Allyn Root - seriously, look his face in the last gif.

This makes me so sick.

these entitled, privileged bastards.

liberalsarecool: Do-nothing Republicanism strikes again.

Fri, 24 May 2013 18:23:41 -0700

liberalsarecool:

Do-nothing Republicanism strikes again.

"We [Fraction and his wife, Kelly Sue DeConnick] were pregnant at the time, and while I was out there..."

Fri, 24 May 2013 18:09:39 -0700

“

We [Fraction and his wife, Kelly Sue DeConnick] were pregnant at the time, and while I was out there I started to realize that if I had a daughter, there would come a day when I would have to apologize to her for my profession. I would have to apologize for the way it treats and speaks to women readers, and the way it treats its female characters.

I knew that if we had a daughter, because I know my wife and I know the kind of girl she wants to raise and I know the kind of girl I want to raise, she was going to look at what I did for a living and want to know how the fuck I could stomach it. How could I sell her out like that?” Fraction continued. “That conversation is still coming, and I’m bracing for it in the way that some dads brace for their daughter’s first date or boyfriend. I became acutely aware that I had sort of done that thing that lots of privileged hetero cisgendered white dudes do. ‘I’m cool with women, and that’s enough.’ It’s not enough. It’s embarrassing to say, because we somehow have attached shame to learning and evolving our opinions, culturally, but I became aware that there was a deficiency of and to women in my work, and all I could do at that moment was take care of my side of the street.

”

- Writer Matt Fraction on his role on expanding the profile of female characters in the Marvel Universe. (via goodmanw)

thebiochemedian: The most heartbreaking line in all of...

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:14:18 -0700

thebiochemedian:

The most heartbreaking line in all of science-fiction-musical fandom.

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Fri, 24 May 2013 16:19:09 -0700

Step 304: When there is a small, confined space that some humans are leaving and others are entering, the leaving happens first

Fri, 24 May 2013 15:23:35 -0700

adulting:

This is pretty simple but really seems to confound some folks.

If you wish to enter a subway car, an elevator, a bus, an alcove - whatever small but key space - let those who wish to leave that same space do it first.

You see, human beings have mass, and take up space in the universe. Therefore, this elevator/subway/whatever will be better able to hold you once there are less humans in it.

This step brought to you by my fellow MAX riders. It won’t leave without you! Just wait seven goddamn seconds!

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Fri, 24 May 2013 14:28:43 -0700

i finally started watching doctor who

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:32:55 -0700

doctorwho:

siriuswack:

so much of the internet makes more sense now.

Yeah, that’s kinda how it feels when you start.

shadowstep-of-bast: edgebug: I think that a lot of the reason...

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:37:31 -0700

shadowstep-of-bast:

edgebug:

I think that a lot of the reason Jarvis has become so human is because Tony treats him like he’s human. Tony talks to Jarvis in a very colloquial way. He says “you up?” when he knows damn well that Jarvis is operational. He says “throw a little hot-rod red in there” instead of “paint components x, y, and z with red paint #20.” Tony treats all his machinery like that—Dummy and You, especially—and Jarvis is no exception.

Jarvis has become much more human since Iron Man 1. He actually displayed emotions in Iron Man 3—specifically when he feared for Tony’s life, his voice sounded terribly frightened, and in instances like the second gif where he said “I need to sleep” and not “My battery is depleted.” Jarvis has grown and changed, as any self-aware creature does. He has become human because he is treated as such.

indypendent-thinking: 1924 wedding photo of Cornelia...

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:42:55 -0700

indypendent-thinking:

1924 wedding photo of Cornelia Vanderbilt

agentgraham: based on this post

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:46:43 -0700

agentgraham:

based on this post