Jordan April and Archer Shurtliff are high school students in Oswego, NY who took a brave stand against injustice despite the stunning moral failure of the adults tasked with educating them.

jumpingjacktrash:

audiencecat:

jumpingjacktrash:

kai-skai:

jumpingjacktrash:

thebibliosphere:

a-gay-nerds-blog:

futureblackpolitician:

nutmegpaprika:

animatedamerican:

girlactionfigure:

On February 15, 2017, Oswego County High School teacher Michael DeNobile gave his students an assignment he’s been giving for several years. He divided the class into two parts. One group of teens was assigned to oppose the Nazi genocide of the Jews, the other group was told to advocate for it.

The students assigned to defend the Holocaust were expected to back up their work with sources from Nazi propaganda and modern-day Internet hate sites.

Nobody had ever complained about the assignment before, but Jordan and Archer – neither of whom is Jewish – were deeply offended by the idea of making students justify the genocide of the Jews.

They complained to their teacher, Michael DeNobile, who brusquely dismissed their concerns and insisted they complete the assignment. Archer was supposed to argue for the Holocaust, and Jordan was supposed to argue against.

After DeNobile refused to retract the assignment, the kids approached other educators in their school, who also shut down their concerns.

Jordan and Archer took their complaint all the way to the NY State Commissioner of Education, MaryEllen Elia, who shockingly defended the assignment and told them the purpose was to “understand all sides of the issue.“

Jordan and Archer, only 15 and 17 years old, refused to let it go. Their strong sense of right and wrong would not allow them to participate in an assignment that reeked of dangerous moral relativism.

They contacted the Anti-Defamation League, where they finally encountered adults with a moral compass. The ADL issued a statement condemning the assignment for suggesting there are two equally valid sides to every issue, including genocide.

Even after the ADL’s strong statement against the assignment, Michael DeNobile and MaryEllen Elia continued to defend it, and refused to let the students complete an alternate assignment.

Only after media outlets heard about the story did the morally challenged high school teacher and Commissioner of Education back down.

Jordan and Archer were allowed to do an alternate assignment, which did not involve justifying hatred and violence. Jordan explored America’s response to the AIDS crisis, and Archer wrote about the internment of Japanese-Americans.

Both students’ parents supported them completely, but sadly, many of their classmates criticized them for speaking out. One student said that it was important to “become more sympathetic to everyone and to humanize the Nazis to see their side of the story.” This is the danger of teaching moral relativism to impressionable young people.

Teacher Michael DeNobile and Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia finally offered a weak apology, but they have suffered no penalty for their appalling lack of moral sense. Hopefully they will not give an assignment of this nature in the future.

Judaism teaches that we are to hate evil, not justify it.

For bravely pushing back against morally challenged educators, despite community ostracism, we honor Jordan April and Archer Shurtliff as this week’s Thursday Heroes at Accidental Talmudist.
Image courtesy of Syracuse dot com

I’ve seen this story going around, and it’s crucial to note one thing about the assignment as given: as a student in this class, whether you were told to argue for or against the genocide of the Jews, you were required to state your argument from the viewpoint of a Nazi officer.

This teacher should be fired, and almost certainly won’t be.

“One student said that it was important to ‘become more sympathetic to everyone and to humanize the Nazis to see their side of the story.’”
…
..
…..
Why are goyim like this.

“understand all sides of the issue.“

God this is absolutely sick what is wrong with some of y’all

@rainbowshooterunicornsummoner for later

*head in hands followed by emphatic gesturing* what the actual ungodly fuck

ok i can see where the outrage is coming from, and that is probably too fraught an issue to be used that way, but politics and debate classes have been assigning “write a piece arguing a position you don’t agree with” papers as long as there has been such a thing as formal logic.

the problem here was that the debate issue was poorly chosen due to real world nastiness, not the fact that kids are assigned to write from a morally wrong POV.

when i was in high school, i wrote a paper from the POV of a post-ww2 KGB officer justifying stalinism. i got an A. i did not conclude that a paranoid authoritarian state was a good thing. but i did learn a lot about how to counter the arguments for it.

i really don’t like this culture of moral purity where you can’t touch evil with a ten foot pole in order to learn to fight it, you have to cover your eyes and ears and cry for someone to rescue you from it. who’s going to rescue you from evil if no one can look at it?

finding a teenager who said something dumb about nazis isn’t much of a justification for refusing to learn why nazis exist. there’s always one.

I think you can look at and understand evil without emulating it, though.

You can read things nazis wrote, and understand them. You can write about them yourself. You can model things in a third-person view, examine which conclusions rest on which premises, think critically and extensively about when violence is justified against whom without taking the viewpoint yourself (even just in writing) and without leaving it uncommented and unrefuted.

But forcing people not just to look at evil, not just to look at its arguments and analyze them, but to make them? Without any choice to say No? Forcing them to write about how they consider it necessary and good to commit genocide?

Like…. I don’t even have much personal connection to the Holocaust, I’m not Jewish, but I’ve stood before a huge memorial wall covered in names of the dead, and looked at the half-burned doll of a murdered child, and listened to my best friend in high school telling me how her grandfather managed to flee and how she wouldn’t be alive otherwise and listened to actual survivors tell their stories. And you want to force me to write with my own hand that murdering all those people was good?

If forcing people to swear oaths on gods they don’t believe in is a violation of the freedom of religion even if everyone knows they don’t believe, how is this not a violation of the freedom of conscience?

would you refuse to play a villain in a movie?

edit: i’m sorry, that came out sounding really flippant.

it’s just, reiterating how horrible the holocaust was, as if i don’t understand that, is pretty insulting, and also doesn’t refute my point at all. being afraid to put yourself in the bad guy’s shoes long enough to write a debate paper is not going to reduce the amount of evil in the world. it’s only going to deprive you of tools you could use to combat it.

I think that it’s a good tool in teaching debate, but that students should not be forced to emulate a Nazi officer if they don’t want to. I may or may not be willing to play a villain in a movie, but I sure as hell wouldn’t let anyone force me into playing one.

yeah, i added another edit post your reblog saying kind of the same thing; if it’s too traumatic, they should be able to opt out. if the article had been phrased in those terms i’d be in full support. but it wasn’t. all this outrage about “how dare you make our precious babies put themselves in the bad guy’s shoes for a few hours” as if magical contagion will turn them into nazis… no, constructing those specious arguments is how you learn to take them apart. how is it a good thing for it to be a huge baffling surprise when you encounter them in the wild.

Yeah, kind of this; there’s nothing wrong with people playing movie villains (even in movies based on actual events), and if people do feel comfortable with writing that, fine. I’m also fine with atheists swearing religious oaths and stuff.

But nobody should be forced to, and if at all possible, it should be opt-in rather than opt-out or at least presented as one of multiple options. Even just a simple “you can write in first or third person” would help.

Because yeah, I’d refuse to play at least some movie villains.

I apologize for being insulting, I didn’t mean to. I tried and failed to express how close this all feels to me. And I can distance myself from these emotions for a really good cause if necessary, I can engage with some horrible arguments sometimes, but being forced to argue for it in the first person is too far, and not really because it’s traumatic (it’s not traumatic to me), but because not being forced to lie in ways that violate my own conscience is really really important to me, and to enough other people that it’s literally a human right. And not just for things that are literally traumatic, either. (Though the borders are admittedly fuzzy.)

(Edit: sorry, saw this version on my dash first and reblogged it before seeing the updated one.
Also huh, vocabulary error about “emulating”. Thought it meant something more like pretending, but apparently that’s only one of the possible translations and the others are much more like “trying to literally be this”.)

Jordan April and Archer Shurtliff are high school students in Oswego, NY who took a brave stand against injustice despite the stunning moral failure of the adults tasked with educating them.

jumpingjacktrash:

thebibliosphere:

a-gay-nerds-blog:

futureblackpolitician:

nutmegpaprika:

animatedamerican:

girlactionfigure:

On February 15, 2017, Oswego County High School teacher Michael DeNobile gave his students an assignment he’s been giving for several years. He divided the class into two parts. One group of teens was assigned to oppose the Nazi genocide of the Jews, the other group was told to advocate for it.

The students assigned to defend the Holocaust were expected to back up their work with sources from Nazi propaganda and modern-day Internet hate sites.

Nobody had ever complained about the assignment before, but Jordan and Archer – neither of whom is Jewish – were deeply offended by the idea of making students justify the genocide of the Jews.

They complained to their teacher, Michael DeNobile, who brusquely dismissed their concerns and insisted they complete the assignment. Archer was supposed to argue for the Holocaust, and Jordan was supposed to argue against.

After DeNobile refused to retract the assignment, the kids approached other educators in their school, who also shut down their concerns.

Jordan and Archer took their complaint all the way to the NY State Commissioner of Education, MaryEllen Elia, who shockingly defended the assignment and told them the purpose was to “understand all sides of the issue.“

Jordan and Archer, only 15 and 17 years old, refused to let it go. Their strong sense of right and wrong would not allow them to participate in an assignment that reeked of dangerous moral relativism.

They contacted the Anti-Defamation League, where they finally encountered adults with a moral compass. The ADL issued a statement condemning the assignment for suggesting there are two equally valid sides to every issue, including genocide.

Even after the ADL’s strong statement against the assignment, Michael DeNobile and MaryEllen Elia continued to defend it, and refused to let the students complete an alternate assignment.

Only after media outlets heard about the story did the morally challenged high school teacher and Commissioner of Education back down.

Jordan and Archer were allowed to do an alternate assignment, which did not involve justifying hatred and violence. Jordan explored America’s response to the AIDS crisis, and Archer wrote about the internment of Japanese-Americans.

Both students’ parents supported them completely, but sadly, many of their classmates criticized them for speaking out. One student said that it was important to “become more sympathetic to everyone and to humanize the Nazis to see their side of the story.” This is the danger of teaching moral relativism to impressionable young people.

Teacher Michael DeNobile and Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia finally offered a weak apology, but they have suffered no penalty for their appalling lack of moral sense. Hopefully they will not give an assignment of this nature in the future.

Judaism teaches that we are to hate evil, not justify it.

For bravely pushing back against morally challenged educators, despite community ostracism, we honor Jordan April and Archer Shurtliff as this week’s Thursday Heroes at Accidental Talmudist.
Image courtesy of Syracuse dot com

I’ve seen this story going around, and it’s crucial to note one thing about the assignment as given: as a student in this class, whether you were told to argue for or against the genocide of the Jews, you were required to state your argument from the viewpoint of a Nazi officer.

This teacher should be fired, and almost certainly won’t be.

“One student said that it was important to ‘become more sympathetic to everyone and to humanize the Nazis to see their side of the story.’”
…
..
…..
Why are goyim like this.

“understand all sides of the issue.“

God this is absolutely sick what is wrong with some of y’all

@rainbowshooterunicornsummoner for later

*head in hands followed by emphatic gesturing* what the actual ungodly fuck

ok i can see where the outrage is coming from, and that is probably too fraught an issue to be used that way, but politics and debate classes have been assigning “write a piece arguing a position you don’t agree with” papers as long as there has been such a thing as formal logic.

the problem here was that the debate issue was poorly chosen due to real world nastiness, not the fact that kids are assigned to write from a morally wrong POV.

when i was in high school, i wrote a paper from the POV of a post-ww2 KGB officer justifying stalinism. i got an A. i did not conclude that a paranoid authoritarian state was a good thing. but i did learn a lot about how to counter the arguments for it.

i really don’t like this culture of moral purity where you can’t touch evil with a ten foot pole in order to learn to fight it, you have to cover your eyes and ears and cry for someone to rescue you from it. who’s going to rescue you from evil if no one can look at it?

finding a teenager who said something dumb about nazis isn’t much of a justification for refusing to learn why nazis exist. there’s always one.

I think you can look at and understand evil without emulating it, though.

You can read things nazis wrote, and understand them. You can write about them yourself. You can model things in a third-person view, examine which conclusions rest on which premises, think critically and extensively about when violence is justified against whom without taking the viewpoint yourself (even just in writing) and without leaving it uncommented and unrefuted.

But forcing people not just to look at evil, not just to look at its arguments and analyze them, but to make them? Without any choice to say No? Forcing them to write about how they consider it necessary and good to commit genocide?

Like…. I don’t even have much personal connection to the Holocaust, I’m not Jewish, but I’ve stood before a huge memorial wall covered in names of the dead, and looked at the half-burned doll of a murdered child, and listened to my best friend in high school telling me how her grandfather managed to flee and how she wouldn’t be alive otherwise and listened to actual survivors tell their stories. And you want to force me to write with my own hand that murdering all those people was good?

If forcing people to swear oaths on gods they don’t believe in is a violation of the freedom of religion even if everyone knows they don’t believe, how is this not a violation of the freedom of conscience?

useless-austriafacts:

mapsontheweb:

Phonetic map of Austria

this is the worst thing ive seen in my life

more thoughts on the manipulation thing

fierceawakening:

kai-skai:

fierceawakening:

earthboundricochet:

fierceawakening:

earthboundricochet:

thinking back on yesterday’s convo with @fierceawakening I think a potential reason that might cause the gap of how we perceive an admission of manipulative tendencies is that in my case, I really strongly distrust people who say they absolutely don’t/won’t do certain things. I imagine that’s not the case for them, altho that might be a false assumption.

But, I feel the need to explain why I reason like I do, and why I even go as far as to consider being told someone would never do a thing to be a red flag. Particuarly when I know they have a history of doing the thing. Particularly if I also have a history of having the thing done to me and it has very negatively effected me.

But really, I will mistrust almost everyone on principle. Telling me “I never would do [X]” is a surefire way to make me suspect you will do exactly [X]. Or, if I want to be fair maybe not “will” as in “will do it for sure”, but as in “there are very good chances of it and I should not risk it”.

Keep reading

I don’t have time to write a lengthy reply and may not until mid next week depending on how book editing goes.

But I actually… half-agree with you about “I will never do x” being a red flag. I don’t think most of us CAN promise not to do various bad things.

And while there are things that i think some of us CAN promise never to do, it becomes suspicious when someone does. I’d run like hell from someone who assured me “don’t worry, I’ll never kill you,” but assume most humans I interact with on a daily basis are not considering whether or not to kill me.

But at the same time… all humans have flaws. And depending on what “I’m manipulative” means, it can be a very serious one. It can mean “at times I will trick you into doing what I want with no regard for your needs or consent.”

So if someone tells me that, I’m going to be wary of them. I have known people who tricked me in those ways, and interacting with them had lasting bad consequences for me.“

But people on here seem to say it in a weird way that comes off like “I’ve admitted my flaws, now like me. No one else does, so you have to.”

I’m not gonna deny some people do that, especially on tumblr. But also judging groups of people by their most vocal tumblr manifestation, well…

*looks at vocal!trans!tumblr and vocal!leftist!tumblr and shudders*

…might be not the best idea.

On the telling people thing, I would think, ok I don’t have to outright lie and say “I never will be manipulative ever I promise trust me dude”, but on the other hand if I am supposed to not say I’m potentially manipulative, wouldn’t that be hiding things? Isn’t that dodgy, especially in certain situations?

For example, I learned about my diagnosis while being together with someone who was severely hurt by someone else with another PD in the same cluster, which meant being told I was in the same category of people as the person who hurt him. 

So, what was I supposed to do? Not tell him that well, you are dating someone who shares tendencies with the person who fucked you up for years? Wouldn’t that in itself be manipulative? There was a chance he’d say “well shit sorry this is really not something I can be comfortable with. Nothing personal but I have to look out for myself”. Wouldn’t not give him the chance to decide whether that was a thing he wanted to do be, be in itself a manipulation, if not possibly a violation of consent, or at least bypassing it? 

I mean you could argue one is not bypassing consent if one has a physical illness that isn’t contagious and don’t tell their partner, because illnesses are a private matter, but having, say, diabetes doesn’t carry the same risk factor, even if your partner was harmed by another person who had diabetes. 

That’s also what I meant when I agreed with someone else that manipulation isn’t always clear. If it’s potentially manipulative to tell someone I have a predisposition for manipulation (they might take it to mean that I just want pity and a justification to be an asshole, or they might feel bad for cutting me off), but it’s also potentially manipulative to not tell them (they might not consent to be close to someone who has a higher risk factor of manipulation and not telling them means not giving them the chance of having informed consent), the only option I am left with is putting my hands in my hair and screaming into the void because there is no option that cannot be argued to be manipulative and I have no idea of what to do because there isn’t exactly a third option.

To make sure it’s clear:

I don’t think you shouldn’t tell people about your PD.

I do, however, continue to feel very uneasy when I see posts where people are like

“My daily life: is THIS manipulative? Is THAT manipulative?”

Because they seem to be about trying to figure out rules for behavior rather than “how do I treat this person in general? What does caring for them look like?”

It’s quite possibly just because it’s a small snippet of a larger picture, but it comes off disturbingly transactional to me.

I’ve been following this whole strain of dialogue(s) with interest and usually much too slow at thinking it through and forming a response to participate, but jumping in here with a small thought anyway:

I’m puzzled by the last part. Isn’t “how do I treat this person in general? What does caring for them look like?” just… the same question in reverse? If I tried to answer it, I’d try to look at my own behavior towards them, and try to determine whether this is what caring for them looks like, whether my behavior there is gentle, fair, kind, loving, etc. … and “manipulative” is just another category in there, so doing all of that would necessitate a working definition or at least the ability to recognize manipulative behavior, otherwise I could never realize that I’m treating them badly in manipulative ways.

Or are you arguing/thinking along the line of “well, if you manipulate them, but you’re treating them gently while you’re doing it and it looks like caring about them, that’s okay regardless of whether it is manipulative”?

Isn’t “how do I treat this person in general? What does caring for them look like?” just… the same question in reverse?

It wouldn’t be, to me. It would be questions like:

I know I need a lot of attention and reassurance. Am I reciprocating? Can this person come to me when they feel needy? If I can’t handle that bc illness, am I able to help them get support elsewhere?

I’m scared to be alone, but everyone needs alone time. Do I allow them that time, even if it scares me and means I need other help? Do they allow me any time I need? How do I ask for it?

How do I talk to them? Do I ask them what they want and take it into consideration or do I tell them what I need because I’m sick? Do I do things like “forget” to ask because I think I need more than they do?

Do I have a multiple person support system? Do I notice when Angie might need more space, even if Angie is my Preferred Person this week/year/life?

Those questions might not help you figure out “is asking Angie to go to dinner with me manipulative, given that I’m sad?” But they might help with “how can I not burden Angie?” in a way that doesn’t hyperfocus on THAT ONE DINNER AH AH OH GOD I MUST BE HITLER.

Hmmm. While those are different questions, and definitely more extensive, they all feel quite similar to me in that the answer to each and every one is very subjective – it will often be “well, yes, sometimes” or “I think so, but I’m not sure”, or I’ll find different answers depending on my own mood (if I’m already in a bad mood, it will be easier to find examples for times I’ve failed, if I’m not I’ll probably find examples where I’ve done well, even though the facts haven’t changed) or the most recent/most salient examples I can think of. It all seems fuzzy in the same way that “am I being manipulative?” does.

(I mean, I personally am probably too distant, if anything – I’m typically the person who needs space, not the person others need space from. But if that was less clear in my relationships, I don’t know how I’d ever find or draw the line where I am burdening people – I could only hope for them to draw it, and that obviously has its pitfalls.)

more thoughts on the manipulation thing

fierceawakening:

earthboundricochet:

fierceawakening:

earthboundricochet:

thinking back on yesterday’s convo with @fierceawakening I think a potential reason that might cause the gap of how we perceive an admission of manipulative tendencies is that in my case, I really strongly distrust people who say they absolutely don’t/won’t do certain things. I imagine that’s not the case for them, altho that might be a false assumption.

But, I feel the need to explain why I reason like I do, and why I even go as far as to consider being told someone would never do a thing to be a red flag. Particuarly when I know they have a history of doing the thing. Particularly if I also have a history of having the thing done to me and it has very negatively effected me.

But really, I will mistrust almost everyone on principle. Telling me “I never would do [X]” is a surefire way to make me suspect you will do exactly [X]. Or, if I want to be fair maybe not “will” as in “will do it for sure”, but as in “there are very good chances of it and I should not risk it”.

Keep reading

I don’t have time to write a lengthy reply and may not until mid next week depending on how book editing goes.

But I actually… half-agree with you about “I will never do x” being a red flag. I don’t think most of us CAN promise not to do various bad things.

And while there are things that i think some of us CAN promise never to do, it becomes suspicious when someone does. I’d run like hell from someone who assured me “don’t worry, I’ll never kill you,” but assume most humans I interact with on a daily basis are not considering whether or not to kill me.

But at the same time… all humans have flaws. And depending on what “I’m manipulative” means, it can be a very serious one. It can mean “at times I will trick you into doing what I want with no regard for your needs or consent.”

So if someone tells me that, I’m going to be wary of them. I have known people who tricked me in those ways, and interacting with them had lasting bad consequences for me.“

But people on here seem to say it in a weird way that comes off like “I’ve admitted my flaws, now like me. No one else does, so you have to.”

I’m not gonna deny some people do that, especially on tumblr. But also judging groups of people by their most vocal tumblr manifestation, well…

*looks at vocal!trans!tumblr and vocal!leftist!tumblr and shudders*

…might be not the best idea.

On the telling people thing, I would think, ok I don’t have to outright lie and say “I never will be manipulative ever I promise trust me dude”, but on the other hand if I am supposed to not say I’m potentially manipulative, wouldn’t that be hiding things? Isn’t that dodgy, especially in certain situations?

For example, I learned about my diagnosis while being together with someone who was severely hurt by someone else with another PD in the same cluster, which meant being told I was in the same category of people as the person who hurt him. 

So, what was I supposed to do? Not tell him that well, you are dating someone who shares tendencies with the person who fucked you up for years? Wouldn’t that in itself be manipulative? There was a chance he’d say “well shit sorry this is really not something I can be comfortable with. Nothing personal but I have to look out for myself”. Wouldn’t not give him the chance to decide whether that was a thing he wanted to do be, be in itself a manipulation, if not possibly a violation of consent, or at least bypassing it? 

I mean you could argue one is not bypassing consent if one has a physical illness that isn’t contagious and don’t tell their partner, because illnesses are a private matter, but having, say, diabetes doesn’t carry the same risk factor, even if your partner was harmed by another person who had diabetes. 

That’s also what I meant when I agreed with someone else that manipulation isn’t always clear. If it’s potentially manipulative to tell someone I have a predisposition for manipulation (they might take it to mean that I just want pity and a justification to be an asshole, or they might feel bad for cutting me off), but it’s also potentially manipulative to not tell them (they might not consent to be close to someone who has a higher risk factor of manipulation and not telling them means not giving them the chance of having informed consent), the only option I am left with is putting my hands in my hair and screaming into the void because there is no option that cannot be argued to be manipulative and I have no idea of what to do because there isn’t exactly a third option.

To make sure it’s clear:

I don’t think you shouldn’t tell people about your PD.

I do, however, continue to feel very uneasy when I see posts where people are like

“My daily life: is THIS manipulative? Is THAT manipulative?”

Because they seem to be about trying to figure out rules for behavior rather than “how do I treat this person in general? What does caring for them look like?”

It’s quite possibly just because it’s a small snippet of a larger picture, but it comes off disturbingly transactional to me.

I’ve been following this whole strain of dialogue(s) with interest and usually much too slow at thinking it through and forming a response to participate, but jumping in here with a small thought anyway:

I’m puzzled by the last part. Isn’t “how do I treat this person in general? What does caring for them look like?” just… the same question in reverse? If I tried to answer it, I’d try to look at my own behavior towards them, and try to determine whether this is what caring for them looks like, whether my behavior there is gentle, fair, kind, loving, etc. … and “manipulative” is just another category in there, so doing all of that would necessitate a working definition or at least the ability to recognize manipulative behavior, otherwise I could never realize that I’m treating them badly in manipulative ways.

Or are you arguing/thinking along the line of “well, if you manipulate them, but you’re treating them gently while you’re doing it and it looks like caring about them, that’s okay regardless of whether it is manipulative”?

Does exercise help your depression? People keep telling me I should exercise regularly (and eat better) but like. I’m too depressed to do anything.

pearwaldorf:

sashayed:

haha! hahaha. ok. please believe that i hate telling you this and i wish it were not so, because it is INFURIATING when the garbagey unhelpful stuff everybody tells you turns out to be true. but the truth is that in my own, personal, not universal experience: physical exercise is the ONLY!!!! thing, medication included, that has reliably staved off episodes of severe depression. Or actually wait maybe “staved off” is the wrong term bc I don’t really understand causation/correlation. But the times when I was exercising regularly were the only times in my life when i have not fallen into pits of incapacitating blank sadness, and when i have been in those pits, the most reliable ladder OUT has been regularly forcing my body to move itself around. 

THE PROBLEM OF COURSE is that one of the first symptoms of The Ol Depresh is that it becomes very difficult to do ANYTHING, much less put on like EIGHT OR MORE different clothes (sports bra, sports undapants, shorts, shirt, TWO socks, TWO shoes at minimum; POSSIBLY ALSO depending on weather conditions some kind of torso covering and/or headwear??) and go make physical efforts (which i hate when i’m depressed) which cause discomfort (which i hate when i’m depressed) to my body (which i hate when i’m depressed). and then you have to shower, which i hate EVEN WHEN I’M NOT DEPRESSED!

so i recommend the terry crews method, which is, “just go,” if you can. put on the stupid clothes and get your body out of the door. i will be right next to you, complaining. 

A friend who suffers from depression has recommended the book Exercise for Mood and Anxiety: Proven Strategies for Overcoming Depression and Enhancing Well-Being. I have not used it, but I have found this article helpful. 

Possibly also helpful tips: remove some steps by finding exercises you can do at home (bodyweight training maybe, pilates, yoga, I don’t know – there are lots of tutorials on YouTube for such stuff), then you don’t have to worry about weather or people or even putting on any special clothes, and maybe do it on days where you shower anyway (which, uh, might be every day for people less gross than me) just before you’d shower anyway if possible.

buttonpoetry:

Button author Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib’s poem featured on the sign of Smoke Signals Barbecue in Toronto. Get your copy of Hanif’s incredible book here.

spockoandjimjim:

aledethanlast:

If you ever think history impressive or grand, here’s a story for you:

Right after ww2, Jews were freed, but basically had no citizenship to speak of, and the allied forces weren’t that!helpful. So a group called the TTG was formed to help emigrate (read: smuggle) Jews from Central Europe, to Mediterranean ports, where they would take boats to Israel.

The TTG did this by piling the Jewish refugees into trucks bearing British insignia, their operatives dressing up as British soldiers, and just openly driving to port cities.

If they were ever stopped by actual military forces, they would say they were a part of a covert supply missing, under special orders from Major Tuches. They would stress that the contents of the trucks was super secret and to not be disturbed under any circumstances. They saved over 300,000 Jews like this.

If that sounds reasonable to you, here’s the thing: TTG stands for Tilhas Teezee Gesheften, and the operatives named one Major Tuches as their commanding officer whenever they needed to.

Or, to translate that into English, the event that saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees was called Operation Kiss My Ass led by Major Asshole.

THIS IS LEGIT 

Gahhh, this is one of those situations where I feel like I probably just shouldn’t talk to anyone ever again. [Uncharitable ranting beneath the cut.]

Noticing typos and simple errors and omitted words and such when reading fics is something I do. It actually used to be a source of pride for me – it means I can proofread stuff for others really well, and that I rarely make such errors. In my personal early internet days, there was a time where I called myself a grammar nazi with defiant pride.
And I stopped doing that, but…. until now, I still intuitively categorized stories on fic sites (along with long, professional-sounding blog posts) as texts aiming to be free of typos and such errors, and therefore something where proofreading and pointing them out was an acceptable and even welcome thing to do by default.

Which means I have absolutely read fics and noted down typos and errors and left comments listing them, happy to be able to *help*.

That first comment? Yeah, okay, I wouldn’t have written “you messed up”, and I would have included at least a line or two about how I liked the fic, because “how to give good feedback” checklists mandate that, and if there’s one thing I’m decent at, it’s following checklists.
But it could have been me correcting a typo. And even giving tips on how to avoid it, because sometimes a tip that seems common knowledge to me isn’t to other people and ends up helping, and I suck at judging whether that is the case or not, and then isn’t it better to err on the side of being helpful? If it’s just a typo and the tip is not needed, there’s nothing lost, after all.
(And sometimes native speakers *do* have trouble with “simple” things – it’s not like there are no native speakers frequently messing up your/you’re, and I’m pretty sure many of the helpful tips about it I’ve seen were actually from native speakers.)

As for the rest of the exchange…. gahhhh.

I do see quite a few places where the anonymous commenter’s tone (choice of words, sentence structure) could be improved upon, and where I’d do better.

But the intense conflict nausea (is that a phrase that exists? it should be) I got from the first read didn’t come from the comments, but from the writer’s responses.

I don’t know if (or to what extent) this is because I identified more strongly with the commenter, or I’m just being hypersensitive (or a horrible person in general), but… they read worse than the actual comments?

“I’m a native speaker and a fairly competent writer”
This is beside the point. An error is an error and a typo is a typo (which, I think, is just a type of error anyway), and whether or not someone is a native speaker really doesn’t enter into it. Why point it out at all? Is that an attempt to impress or intimidate? Distract from the point?

“this was clearly just a typo”
Why on earth would that be “clear”? “fcuk” is clearly just a typo for “fuck”, but when a typo changes a word into another word rather than a meaningless string of letters, that’s never clear.

“be mindful of how your reviews come off”
This expression (an imperative to “be mindful of…” is something I flagged as possibly condescending in the comments on my second read-through, but she’s using the same. I don’t know if I’m just mistaken about what actually came across as condescending (and she doesn’t say, ever), or if she’s being condescending here as well.

“You are extremely condescending and I hope you realize that”
If the commenter realizes, they obviously don’t mind, and if they don’t, then this one sentence which includes zero information about how and what is actually condescending won’t help them avoid it. Maybe I’m overreacting here because this has happened to me in the past, but the only possible effect of this sentence I can think of is to make the listener feel guilty, possibly guilty enough to apologize and/or back off without any understanding of what they actually did wrong, and without any way to do better in the future (except for, y’know, never commenting on anything ever again). This feels like a manipulative power play more than anything else.

“it’s clear that you lack knowledge about what is considered good comment writing etiquette”
The way this is phrased posits the writer as reliable authority on this etiquette in a really, really, completely unnecessarily condescending way. How the fuck do you accuse someone else of being patronizing while writing this sentence.

“This isn’t a published manuscript here. It’s fanfic written for fun”
Okay but… lots of fanfic writers take their writing seriously enough to do extensive research, proofread, ask other people to proofread and edit, and also edit typos they notice or have pointed out to them later on. If you are not one of them, fine, but you can’t expect your readers to know that just from the fact that it’s a fanfic.

“clearly others don’t mind as much as you”
This feels like another power grab (“everyone thinks I’m right and you’re wrong”), but that might just be me overreacting.

And now excuse me while I go douse myself with gasoline and set myself on fire, because clearly I lack knowledge of comment writing etiquette and general fanfic etiquette and the Basics of Being a Human Being if I take issue with this and almost side with the people who are Wrong instead of the people who are Right.

jumpingjacktrash:

argumate:

coelasquid:

hungrylikethewolfie:

adragonwithbalanceissues:

I think my least favorite Hetero Trope is when the girl eats a burger or whatever and the dude is like “Wow, I like a girl who can eat” like what the fuck did your last girlfriend do, photosynthesis?

#also this isn’t news but what they mean is ‘I love a girl who can stay skinny but not annoy me with diet restrictions’  #men don’t actually love ‘girls who don’t go on diets’ or ‘girls who don’t wear makeup’ or ‘low-maintenance’ girls #what they DO love is women who can stay thin and flawless without ever having to reveal the effort behind it #it’s baffling to me! #like some Orwellian bullshit #you can’t knowingly demand women look a certain way and then complain when they go on diets lmao
(via @halffizzbin)

I was just thinking the other day about how they do a very similar thing with men in the media as well. It may not be as prevalent as with the female characters, but you almost always see superheroic male characters with extremely toned physiques in bars, drinking beer and eating pub food, portrayed as “man’s man” types who let their scrappy lives give them saran wrapped eight packs, when in reality the actors playing those guys are on extremely specialized diets coupled with intense workout programs. At the same time, “gym rat” characters who are actually shown doing the work a person would actually need to to maintain bodies like that are almost unilaterally made out to be stupid, vain, often meanspirited meatheads.

I remember watching the behind the scenes footage of a Jason Statham movie where he’s complaining about only being allowed to eat a plate of steamed veggies while the entire rest of the crew was having a party with cake or something. In the same movie his character is pretending to eat and drink things that real dude Jason Statham was not allowed anywhere near to maintain the idea that regular blue collar working class movie character got sweet abs by drinking beer and driving fast cars.

Then there’s the issue of these actors being harassed in real life when they don’t upkeep their intensely high-maintinence bodies between movies. Like, The illusion has been created that the jacked up bodybuilder physique is their effortless natural state of being, so any deviation from that must be caused by flawed behaviour and you see constant articles about how “[Popular Action movie guy] Really Let Himself Go” or people bombarding the actors’ personal accounts with fat jokes and accusation about their lifestyles

I guess the overarching issue is, people seem to be fed this idea that attractive qualities people may posses are only valid if they came naturally and effortlessly. The person with beautiful hair is desirable, the person who spends an hour making their hair beautiful is “self obsessed”, the person with the athletic body is hot, the person who goes to the gym every day and works on being more athletic is “a dumb jock”. It’s all appreciating the results while devaluing the effort it took to achieve them.

smart, but not nerdy

and working-class men who do hard labor are often portrayed as stupid and piggy because they’re thickset, even though guys who lift cargo for a living are more usually built like maui than batman. bodybuilders not only diet all the time – and dehydrate themselves before going on display – they work specific muscle groups disproportionately, for aesthetic effect.

my dad’s the kind who gets called ‘a gorilla’ and shown as a thick-headed thug in movies – middle height and barrel-chested, with some padding, big blunt hands, thick legs. he’s not only trained in judo and tae kwon do, he’s a genius engineer who designs lifesaving medical technology. but you would look at him and think he’s at best a plodding and unimaginitive Good Cop, and at worst the kind of guy the hero takes out with one choreographed punch. (also, asian features, so probably muscle for a triad; good-guy asians are all slim and fashionable, amirite?)

i inherited my dad’s build, though i’m more fat than muscle because i’m disabled and can’t exercise enough anymore. i’d like to see guys on the screen who are like i really am, gentle and funny and outdoorsy, fond of animals and good at science; maybe the guy who supplies the spy gadgets? or a favorite professor? but i only ever see jolly morons and greedy villains. if you see a fat man interacting with children on tv, he’s going to be a creep, not a helper.

women get it worse, i’m definitely not trying to deny that. just, we could use a more realistic view of men, too, and some more positive characters who aren’t body-sculpted supermen.