the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"
just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible
No wonder “gender identity,” understood by well-meaning LGBTQ+ advocates as an abstract feeling, has done such a poor job of justifying sex change. If biological sex is part of a material structure of value, then society has a concrete interest in any potential gains or losses that may result, feelings be damned.
Gill-Peterson tells the story of Robert Stonestreet, a 10-year-old boy who was brought to the Johns Hopkins Hospital for a rare urethral defect in 1915. When the doctors informed his father that the boy had ovaries and should be reassigned as a girl, the man refused, explaining that he already had six girls at home and his son was a great help around the family farm. Of course, Stonestreet was prepubescent. Whatever biological advantage he had over his sisters was the natural spoils of working daily on a farm. The point is that his father’s social validation of his gender was the basically incidental result of an economic calculation about his sex. Twenty-one years later, Stonestreet asked the same doctors to certify him as male so he could wed his fiancée. They refused — one suspects because a marriage with no reproductive potential struck them as dead in the water, especially with the national birth rate at an all-time low. Three days later, Stonestreet committed suicide — the victim of a society that could not make up its mind on how best to make sense of his gender while also extracting value from his sex.
This is the larger historical reason why the anti-trans movement does not want transgender people to receive sex-altering care. It is not clear how, if at all, such people will fit into the division of sex in America.
"The Global North’s political economy relies on the oppression of the Global South in general and of Palestine in particular.
As academic and writer Patrick Higgins noted in late October: 'We’re seeing a blow against the US-led world system. Since, really post-World War II, but especially post-1970 or so, Israel has been the linchpin, the basket into which most of the American chips are put, in order to sustain broader control of West Asia.'
This historical reality places a profound obligation on those in the Global North who would seek to be in solidarity to seriously consider what strategies and tactics Palestinians are calling for in the struggle for liberation, sovereignty and safety.
Such calls to action do not include that we opine on Palestinians’ methods of resistance.
They do include that we understand the history and actuality of that resistance, do all we can to stop the ongoing provision of arms to the occupation, engage in boycott, divestment and sanctions, and fight back against the criminalization of those who support Palestine’s liberation from Zionist settler colonialism.
As Virginia Tech’s Bikrum Gill exhorted: 'Show no fear, no surrender, as you oppose those who support the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians. Bring your institutions to crisis if their functioning requires silence or complicity.'"
Reporting bots in the asexual tag is quickly turning into my favourite hobby
It's actually kinda nice of those bots to deliver a wide variety of content. Tiddies, nutrition supplements, travel, some arabic texts. I even had a crypto post just now!
And if you're not a bot, but wrongly use the tag on a post that has nothing to do with asexuality at all, you just get caught in the crossfire. Sorry not sorry.
was reading this article on ToughPigs about a trans puppeteer/performer and honestly shoutout both to Morgana Ignis for being brave enough to ask for her name to be changed and Brian Henson for insta-killing her deadname
“As Houthis vow to fight on, U.S. prepares for sustained campaign
[…] Officials say they don’t expect that the operation will stretch on for years like previous U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria. At the same time they acknowledge they can identify no end date or provide an estimate for when the Yemenis’ military capability will be adequately diminished. As part of the effort, U.S. naval forces also are working to intercept weapons shipments from Iran.
[…] Officials said that ideology, rather than economics, was a chief driver of Biden's decision to mount the current campaign.
While the attacks have so far taken a greater toll on Europe than the United States, which relies on Pacific trade routes more than those in the Middle East, the Houthi campaign is already beginning to reshape the global shipping map. Some firms have chosen to reroute ships around the Cape of Good Hope off southern Africa, while major oil companies including BP and Shell suspended shipments through the area.
The officials said Biden believed the United States had to act as what they described as the world's "indispensable nation," with a powerful military and an ability to organize diverse nations behind a single cause. Nations including Canada, Bahrain, Germany and Japan jointly issued a statement on Jan. 3 decrying the Houthi actions.
[…] While U.S. lawmakers have been broadly supportive of the strikes in Yemen, they said the administration has yet to outline a clear strategy or endgame, and suggested the strikes have not eliminated concerns about an escalating Middle East conflict. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters following a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in recent days that the administration's plan for addressing the threat appeared to be "evolving."
Legislators also voiced fears the operation could become costly and prolonged. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, noted that some of the missiles employed to date could cost $2 million apiece. "So you've got this issue that will be emerging of how long can we continue to fire expensive missiles," he said.
Coo, Lyndsay. “A Tale of Two Sisters: Studies in Sophocles’ Tereus.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 143, no. 2 (2013): 349–84.
Finglass, P. J. “A New Fragment of Sophocles’ ‘Tereus.’” Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 200 (2016): 61–85.
Foxhall, Lin. “Pandora Unbound: A Feminist Critique of Foucault’s History of Sexuality.” In Sex and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome, edited by Mark Golden and Peter Toohey, 167–82. Edinburgh University Press, 2003.
Garrison, Elise P. “Eurydice’s Final Exit to Suicide in the ‘Antigone.’” The Classical World 82, no. 6 (1989): 431–35.
Grethlein, Jonas. “Eine Anthropologie Des Essens: Der Essensstreit in Der ‘Ilias’ Und Die Erntemetapher in Il. 19, 221-224.” Hermes 133, no. 3 (2005): 257–79.
McClure, Laura. “Tokens of Identity: Gender and Recognition in Greek Tragedy.” Illinois Classical Studies 40, no. 2 (2015): 219–36.
Purves, Alex C. “Wind and Time in Homeric Epic.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 140, no. 2 (2010): 323–50.
Richlin, Amy. “Gender and Rhetoric: Producing Manhood in the Schools.” In Sex and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome, edited by Mark Golden and Peter Toohey, 202–20. Edinburgh University Press, 2003.
love how the position of hellish representative to london is consistently occupied by the biggest girlfailures hell can find. crowley, shax. two beings who, when it came time to choose a gender presentation, both unknowingly chose "girlfail" despite neither of them really being girls. crowley's like if an over-gelled mullet was a girl and shax is like if $10 airplane wine was a girl. and they're both autistic in different directions
SPAMTON IS [[salty]]! Finally got around to animating everybody's favorite number 1 rated salesman! 🕺 (watch with audio 🔊 or click "Keep Reading" to view transcript)
Spamton: NOW ACTUALLY I'VE NEVER BEEN COMFORTABLE WITH THE WHOLE [[adoring fan club]] THING. PERHAPS THAT'S WHY I FIND YOUR [[obvious disdain]] FOR ME SO [[refreshing]].
Noelle: ObViOus?!!? I was trying so hard to hide it...
So far, it's pretty good. I get an astonishing number of asks, and I feel bad that I cannot answer or address them all, but other than that, practically everyone has been lovely so far.
I have a bit of an odd relationship with fame. For much of my childhood, I idolised people who were famous, and dreamt of one day being famous, too. As I grew up, I met or interacted with more and more famous people, and later even got to know some very well. When you see it up close, it is often not desirable at all. It is in fact a huge strain on these people. And that's something I think we often forget; these are just people. Just apes wearing silly scraps of fabric and worrying about their families and their health, just like everyone else.
And so, I have no real interest in being famous, tumblr or otherwise. But I do enjoy having a wonderful, large, and continuously growing audience who revel in and enjoy the weird and wonderful creatures that I spend so much of my time thinking about, working on, and pursuing. I hope that it continues to grow! As I say, you have all been really lovely so far, and I could not find a better community on any other platform—of that I am sure! 🐸