Sunday Snippets: It's been a week

Um. So this week. I got food poisoning, bruised myself shoveling snow, my car's hatch dropped on my head and I also gave myself a minor concusssion and dented a table, when I bent down to put my snow boots on.

Which goddess did I royally piss off?

An interesting concept

Horrible

A Moroccan man in France was brutally killed after being stabbed 17 times in front of his wife at his own home by a neighbour in what is described as a “horrible Islamophobic attack”.

Oh, kitties.

Powerful haiku

Sandy beach picture So calming

Welp, there it is

Peaceful woods picture

5 Black Trans Women Who Paved the Way

Well, this baby is hysterical

Horrifying (TW)

The media attention surrounding the Isla Vista shootings was a twofold gift for the group, driving new recruits to the movement and allowing A Voice for Men to present itself as the moderate middle. Some men tried to distance themselves from Rodger with a hashtag, #notallmen. Many more women—a million within days—responded with #yesallwomen, as in, yes, all women have experienced variations of the misogyny that led Rodger to his crimes. The manosphere did not like this. "Men are your benefactors, your protectors, and your providers," a writer at A Voice for Men explained. "So the next time you trend a hashtag about us, maybe you say 'thank you' instead."

On Patricia Arquette's speech

“The truth is: Even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America, right under the surface, there are huge issues that are applied that really do affect women,” Arquette reflected. “And it’s time for all the women in America and all the men that love women, and all the gay people, and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.”

*rubs eyes* BUh-what?! No, no, no, no. Has she never heard of intersectionality?!

I love Jay Smooth

Cats and hedgehogs

Whoa snow ocean

Happy Birthday Trayvon

OMG, I love cute tiny animals

Sunday Snippets: Oh, winter

Hello, winter. My old friend. That greets me in the morning with a car seat as cold as an Arctic penguin's ass.

And there it is

YES

Criminal injustice system

Grand Juror Sues McCulloch, Says He Mischaracterized The Wilson Case

The Kissing Case Holy shit, I've never heard of this.

Love this photo

Oh, cats

I would love to go for a hike here

Doggie feels

Another amazing photo

Adorable kid

Trans* Resources

YES THIS

Leelah Alcorn

Exactly

Beautiful

If you're able, this is a wonderful way to honor Leelah Alcorn

#RealLifeTransAdult

Yup, pretty much

In solidarity

Also known as people who know how to handle snow, unlike the East Coast

Really good to know. People deserve a chance to rebuild their lives.

Amazing

For those in need of a meal

LOL. Oh, British people.

The hero the world needs

Holy crap

Adorable comic

.....And now I want a panda for my birthday

I love cute animals

Sunday Snippets: Vacation!

I have a beach vacation coming up; the first vacation since my husband and I's very simple honeymoon more than four years ago. And I need it. Car broke down and we realized I'm going to need a new transmission by the end of the year. Ugh.

Welp, there you go & More on the Hobby Lobby mess & Counterprotests

If a store brags of their discount merchandise brought to you with this primary goal in mind:

Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles,

…it makes you wonder which Biblical principles they are referencing. You would think they would produce their goods in a state or country with the strictest adherence to “Biblical Principles.” This is far from the case. Most of their merchandise is imported from China: where female infanticide and forcedabortion is the highest in the world. China truly is the most egregious abuser of this form of population control.

Bless you, RBG

Have died from cuteness & Typing from...the grave

Great website for those across the pond Ten thousand percent agree, I can't begin to imagine how terrifying it would be to have an abusive caregiver as a disabled woman.

Well, damn. Someone had their Wheaties that morning.

Supremely cool

Beautiful way to think about thunderstorms

Fuck this, fuck that, NOPE

Boom. Done.

Because puppies

Wanderlust I love pictures of roads like this.

This needs to be known. He was a creepy ass motherfucker when I saw him on campus and his response is disgusting. #HumanityAgainstSexualAssault

In case you need to vomit today.... #jadacounterpose

Boost and donate if you can

The Eagle Bull- Oxendine family is being sued by their child’s school for defamation, because they asked the school to permanently change their offensive and culturally insensitive Thanksgiving curriculum and to honor a two-year scholarship taken from their daughter after they voiced their concern over Native appropriation there.

Some happy pictures of books I need some happy after this week.

Sunday Snippets: Summer Swampiness

Every summer I tell myself I'm going to move. I could bathe in the humidity this week. But avoiding the outdoors for the most part meant I got all the things done. So that's the good flipside.

Love old places

Ah, yup

(TW) Heartbreaking

Her aunt, Beatrice Loggins, spoke lovingly of Shancez, citing her uniqueness as a person. "Nobody deserves that. Straight, gay, purple, pink, white, black. Nobody...There will never be another T, you couldn't clone her, couldn't mold her."

*insert gif of Shut up and Take my Money*  Alternatively, why aren't we funding this? Oh, right, oil companies.

Yup, because cats I do this when I see dogs or cats out on the street.

Two Sides of Baltimore-GO read now.

My black friends call it Baldamore, Harm City or Bodymore Murderland. My white friends call it Balti-mo, Charm City or Smalltimore while falling in love with the quaint pubs, trendy cafés and distinctive little shops. I just call it home. 

Well, that's completely adorable

Fucking preach Especially important after this week

LOL

Because kitties & No matter their size, they all love to cuddle Gah. Want to pet.

People wonder why I'm terrified of deep water It's because if I saw this, I would bend over and kiss my own ass goodbye.

Very important. Words do matter.

AWESOME photo & Buh. What?!?

The hell? Not that I'm surprised or anything

Awesome idea. Props to these guys

Hells yes

When was the last time you put yourself out there? I have found the more you do it, the easier it is. Promise. Try it. It's secretly addicting!




Anthony Weiner being correct and relevant? Huh?

All aboard that Nope train to Fuck It Ville


Yup. Ruth Bader Ginsberg for the win

Sunday Snippets: Happy National Women's Day (the day after) Edition

And a beautiful one at that. I threw open all the windows in the house and I could almost smell spring.

Ugh. Double ugh. Of course she wrote a book.

It's sad that I'm not even surprised anymore. What the fuck? I feel like I should have that on a bumper sticker at this point.

Gah, love this tiny house!

Another fantastic discussion over at A Practical Wedding on my favorite subject I love reading stories about surnames.

LOL x 1000000 I may have to use these for our vow renewal.

Beautiful flowers

This is fantastic news

On Tuesday the Maryland Senate voted 32-15 to pass the long overdue Fairness For All Marylanders Act, which would expand Maryland's anti-discrimination laws to protect transgender people in employment, housing, access to credit and public accommodations.

Interesting spring cleaning idea (excusing the fact that I'm not Catholic aside) She includes a list of non-stuff to purge too.

A forty day period in the spring (coinciding with the 40 days of Lent) where you focus on cleaning one area per day. In this one area you challenge yourself to declutter, simplify, decrapify, and get rid of things you don’t need. The goal is one bag a day but you can have more or less.

More about purging/clothing issues & This guys owns 15 items. As in total.

According to the Six Items Challenge, the average American purchases nearly 70 pieces of new clothing per year. “This equates to 20 billion new garments bought in the USA alone, many of these are contributed to clothing that costs about as much as a newspaper or cup of coffee at Starbucks.

This poor beautiful ship On one hand, I love seeing abandoned places, but I see how beauty has rotted away and it's heartbreaking.

These are some crazy photos & These make me crap my pants

Book Review: Redefining Realness

Janet Mock's debut book, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love and So Much More is the memoir to read this year. I would almost hesitate to call this book a coming-of-age story because the former lumps Mock's words in with contrived messages and the latter doesn't convey the significance; it is not a story, it is Mock's truth, exquisitely written.

Mock opens the book with an eloquent introduction, where she states:

"I was reluctant to open up to the world for the same reasons I had been afraid to reveal myself as Janet to my mother and siblings at thirteen, to wear a dress through the halls of my high school, to tell the man I loved my truth: I didn't want to be 'othered,' reduced to just being trans."

But she realizes that given the harsh stigma, discrimination and violence that the trans community faces, "the reality was that I was one of these women" and
                   "we need stories of hope and possibility, stories that reflect the reality of our lived experiences...trans women, specifically those of color and those from low-income communities, who aim to reach  the not-so-extraordinary things I have grasped: living freely and without threat or notice as I am, making a safe, healthy living, and finding love. These things should not be out of reach."

As a reader you end up cheering for her, as she crosses Hawaii, California, Texas and finally to New York, meeting treasured friends along the way. Her family, while not always being the most supportive or understanding, never stops loving Mock and makes the journey, albeit a different one than Mock, with her.

Her journey is not to a perfect or idealized self; it is to her true self. One of the doctors she encounters tells her that it is a "blessing that I get to make people like you more happy." The scene is very touching as Mock realizes how true the statement is, that she has a very wonderful life, but knows that the appointment will help her "to more fully inhabit my most authentic self."

To call this book brave falls short. In fact, most words like courageous and strong, all fall short to fully describe this memoir. Mock lays everything on the table, including past sexual abuse, violence, family drug abuse, and her time in the sex work industry. Her determination is clearly shown on every single page of this book and it's a beautiful thing to witness.

(Photo Credit: janetmock.com)

Sunday Snippets: I'm waving the official white flag edition

So very very tired of snow. Yes, it's pretty. But this winter jacked up my heating bill and I'm very tired of being cold, stepping in mucky puddles of melted snow and wearing seventeen different layers of clothing to stay even remotely warm.

Shit I definitely didn't learn in college Really wish I had learned more than just the surface in my women studies classes.

Lol Really and truly have no problem if you choose to practice any religion, be it Christianity or Islam or Wiccan, etc. But be truthful and honest.

OMG PUPPIES!!!!!!!!!!!!! If I had a bigger house, I'd have a Saint Bernard. I have always loved them, the adorable big giant slobber monsters.

Monkey's face is priceless

Recess = classic kid's show

I'm such a sap for small fuzzy critters Especially ones that make cute noises like this. And these kitties.

Really interesting way of looking at purchases I could not imagine having to catalog every purchase I made and I think that would be a good way of cutting down on misc spending.

AAAAAAAAnd new favorite person Preach Jesse Williams.

Exactly! I love my job to pieces but we don't have paid family leave. We get FMLA, which is something, but dammit, if we got paid leave, I could probably be that much closer to tiny overlords. Three months of leave is nice, but my bills still need to paid during those three months.

Sunday Snippets: Oh, hey, there's more snow Edition

Exactly Once again, focused on men/how we define ourselves around them. See also.

Brb, dying of laughter That last cat!!

Words fail me. (TW)

Altogether, 36 percent of all staff members were involved in some form of sexual abuse, creating a “toxic environment.” Of 223 letters from prisoners, 25 percent of them described sexual misconduct, and 55 percent mentioned “vile and degrading language directed at prisoners.” Nevertheless inmates are hesitant to report the systemic abuse because of backlash for filing complaints. In cases when women did speak up, they “were placed in segregation with limited or no access to a telephone, visitors, or programs for an extended time period,” forced to undergo polygraph tests to determine if they were lying, and “verbally harassed” by staff members.

Absolutely disgusting

Still angry from the 1978 confrontation with police, which resulted in 9 MOVE members being sentenced to 30 to 100 years in prison, they refused. The police then began throwing tear gas and opening fire at the house. The MOVE house had been built as a bunker and they began shooting back. After hours of shooting, the Police called for a helicopter and dropped a BOMB on the house. Yup, you read right. The cops dropped a bomb in the middle of a neighborhood in Philly. It’s Crazy how far America will go to subdue Black people. After the bomb dropped, 65 homes were destroyed and 11 people including 5 small children were killed.

Janet Mock is freaking awesome I watched the second interview she did with Piers Morgan and had to sit on my hands to keep from punching my computer monitor. That self righteous jackass, ugh!

On a lighter note, this actually exists. I'm not sure why I'm surprised, but I am.

Special Edition Snippets: What the hell day is it?

My day job follows federal holidays so I was off Monday. And then holy snow, Batman on Tuesday. (We got around 5 inches...that I was determined to measure in my pj pants last night.) And now working from home because the roads are still a mess.

A bright spot from Virginia

And as McAuliffe promised during his campaign, one of his first acts as the 72nd governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia was signing an executive order banning discrimination against state employees based on sexual orientation and for the first time ever, gender identity.

I need this to be a thing. Hell, I'll sit and eat whatever the hell I want anywhere.

Take all of my money Can we make this with kitties, hamsters, etc as well?

Yay CeCe! & CeCe McDonald on Melissa Harris-Perry

Argh, yes! This drives me batty.

Holy shit, this move is incredible.

Surya Bonaly was openly contemptuous of the figure skating judges, because they were a bunch of openly racist white men who always screwed her over by giving her lower scores than she deserved. That one-blade backflip was her ultimate FUCK YOU! to the Olympics judges, because she took an “illegal” backflip and made it legal by landing it on one blade. Pretty much DARING them to mark her down for being epic awesome and pulling a move that their precious coddled white girls didn’t have the guts to even think about.

More about tiny house/apt living from A Cup of Jo. And you can read more about Erin Boyle and her family's tiny living adventures here.

(image credit: http://themidnightblues.tumblr.com/post/74042659676/wellibelongtoyou-fact)

Sunday Snippets: Yes, I do believe it's finally winter edition

So will we get a white Christmas this year?

Sunsets/sunrises are my favorite How beautiful are these pictures? In a similar vein, it took me a second to realize what was being pictured here. How cool are those? Gah, I love this too!

TDOR thoughts from Janet Mock I can't wait to read her book.

Often when I see a trans woman of color in the media, she is being gawked at, misgendered and reduced to victimhood, a sort of martyr we hold up as a voiceless, inactive symbol of our collective oppression and pain, as if that oppression is distributed evenly throughout our communities. I’m struggling to come to grips with this, to find solutions, healing and action.

Truth If I had a dollar for everytime invisible illness weren't taken seriously....

Thin Privilege

If you’ve been a “normal” size your whole life, you may never have thought of the benefits of being thin. But sizeism is very prevalent, and it’s one of the acceptable “isms” in our society.

Nope, no need for feminism at all. Of course not.

Yet again, the justice system failing our citizens.

Back in June 2011 CeCe McDonald and her friends were minding their own business and headed to a nearby Target store in their south Minneapolis neighborhood. As they passed the Schooner Tavern they were subjected to racist and transphobic slurs and a fight instigated by Molly Shannon Flaherty that resulted in the death of neo-Nazi sympathizer Dean Schmitz.

Completely disgusting What. The Fuck.

Logan Beaschler and Collin Warren, both 18, and 19-year-old Joseph Bomgardner, have been charged with misdemeanor hate crime and battery, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Erin West said. The three men, who lived with the 17-year-old victim in a four-bedroom dormitory suite they shared with four other students, allegedly began harassing their black roommate starting at the beginning of the school year in August.

At first, the suspects nicknamed the victim "Three-fifths" and "Fraction," referring to the way the U.S. government once counted a slave as three-fifths of a free person, police said.

LOL Completely how I felt during college.

I would say Fucking Florida, but really this could happen and does everywhere in the country.

Why I would never hit my children. (TW for violence)

This is awesome!

I love this video.

Sparkles! I mean, honestly who doesn't love pictures of sparkles? Or videos of a kitten purring?

I need this as a card, that I can hand out to stupid people.

I also found some lovely quotes too:

Happiness, Raising Children, Self-love, Normal,

Around the Interwebz: Birthday Edition

It's my 27th birthday!


THE FLUFF

If you ever need cheering up, I recommend @cuteemergency on Twitter.

I'm a sucker for abandoned places

Who's chopping onions?

This never fails to make me laugh

Complete truth
ASK YOURSELF IF MILEY CYRUS OR ANY OTHER 20-YEAR-OLD WHITE GIRL WOULD BE PUT ON TRIAL POSTHUMOUSLY IF SOMEONE SHOT HER FOR WALKING AROUND IN A HOODIE. THAT IS THE DEFINITION OF WHITE PRIVILEGE.

Disgusting (TW)
What the fuck?

Abortion Barbies: Are they now available in Toys R Us?

Beautiful picture
That makes me itch for a road trip.

YES

Kitties! & Moar kitties

Erick Erickson just needs to go away.
Far, far, far, far away

*headdesk*
New drinking game: everytime Mommy Wars is said, take a shot.

Awesome people we should learn about in history class

Amazing new website

Disgusting waste of air on planet Earth (TW)
Ted Nugent, the 80’s rocker who has found a second career as right-wing flame thrower, appeared on a talk radio show in Maine on Saturday and said that Trayvon Martin, the unarmed 17 year old black Florida teen who was shot and killed last year, deserved his fate.

Awesome

More yes
I struggle with this so much.

Truth & More
Really good to see this.

Yes, this
We have five percent of the world’s population; we have 25 percent of the world’s known prison population.

Beautiful

Sexuality 101

*rubs eyes*

Wait, what?

One of the arguments made in support of Arizona’s 20-week abortion ban by Americans United for Life and anti-abortion doctors, for example, is that women need to be prevented from having later abortions for their own good, because “researchers have also found that women who undergo abortions at 13 weeks or beyond report ‘more disturbing dreams, more frequent reliving of the abortion, and more trouble falling asleep.”

Love this blog

"Because that's what you do when you grow up and get married," was the most common answer I heard after asking why they had children.

Heartbreaking

LOL

*cue & the & internets* again

Really? We're still doing this?

le sigh

Canadian Racial Profiling

Many Canadians have the ridiculous belief that Canada is somehow less racist than the U.S. They repeat the lie about how Canada is a tossed salad instead of a melting pot and how multi-culturalism in Canada leads to equality. What they fail to understand is that this does not take into account all of the little microaggressions that people of colour face every day.

Still awful.

Terribly disgusting

Love Cheryl Strand

Re-imaging Art

Laverne Cox from OITNB

I haven't seen the show, but I love this interview.

Fucking finally

If you haven't, read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.