Tag: Link Round-Ups

CREATURE COMFORTS: We see a working dog at the grocery store about once a week that has really fascinated my son Ethan. The dog has shown up over the last few months with various folks who appear to be training or actively working with the dog in his harness to navigate the bazillion carts clogging the aisles and get his subject through checkout and back to the car.

Because it’s been such an interest for E, it was serendipitous that an article on the very subject showed up in the NYTimes this week about the apparent controversy over working animals. The controversy surrounds the definitions of “disability,” “working animal” and the “tasks” they perform, as well as the ability of the animals’ subjects’ ability to describe why the animals are necessary on outings to stores, restaurants, and on public transportation, even though their subjects may not be the most qualified to describe their needs and tasks in clinical terms. Dogs appear to be most socially acceptable to public officials, over other working animals such as miniature horses and primates, and are doing what they can to make dogs the only acceptable working animals.

My most pressing question after reading this excellent article is why an animal who is not a dog but is trained, disease-free, happy, and well-treated, should be prevented from helping an individual with a mental or physical disability gain better access to equal opportunity?

*** UPDATE: Evil Fizz points out in the comments that the author of the article, Rebecca Skloot, is also a blogger who is updating and answering questions about the article here and here. Of particular interest is an impressive video on the training of Panda, the working horse pictured above. ***

ALSO ON ANIMALS, but really about shitting on single moms (again), Dear Prudence rounds up her best and worst of 2008 and singles out young, single moms as irresponsible rubes that don’t understand their own impulses even as she’s being criticized for doing just that in the original article. If you read the original, the subject is “Pitbulls and Toddlers Make Me Nervous When They Hang Out Together,” but Prudence reads, “The Real Issue is That The Toddler’s Mom Gave Birth Before I Am Socially Comfortable With Single Parents, So Let’s Make The Dog Thing About That.”

The biggest lesson learned is not to write Dear Prudence if you’re a parent before the age of thirty.

WHAT WOMEN WANT: At Jack & Jill Politics, the results of a survey by YWCA on what women want from the Obama administration.

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE?: At Body Impolitic, thoughts on porn and the passing of Bettie Page.

WOMEN, AGING, AND WORK: Octogalore on Jennifer Aniston “feeling at ease with her age” when that means getting naked for a photo-shoot, and on women in positions of political power when they are placed there rather than being elected.

MENSTRUATION RULES MY SHOPPING HABITS: Marketing brown diamonds as “chocolate diamonds,” because women will buy anything chocolate.

A CLASS ABOVE: A college education may move out of reach for most of the U.S. Also, an international conversation on women, motherhood, and workplace mobility.

DO IT FOR THE KIDS: For nature-lovers and ecoists, this picture- and trivia-heavy blog may become one of your new favorites. My nine-year-old and I talk about the pictures and ideas featured on an almost nightly basis.

ONO, RACISM, AND SEXISM, OH MY!: And finally, if you haven’t been following Cara’s series on Yoko Ono, you really should be. Even though I’m not a die hard Beatles fan like Cara is, I’m absolutely fascinated by her analysis of Yoko Ono’s place in history and how easily Ono’s story narrates commonplace sexism and racism in action that ultimately colors Ono’s own legacy as well as that of John Lennon’s. [Intro, Part I, Part II, Part III, and more in queue.]

DO I HAVE TO PUT A RING ON IT?: A guest blogger at Post-Bourgie writes on Beyonce’s new song, “Single Ladies,” specifically noting that “in her songs, Beyonce celebrates the oppressive power dynamic that exists between men and women, while simultaneously trying to imply that women can utilize the subordinate position in a heterosexual romantic relationship to empower themselves.” Like The Rules for the MTV crowd.

AWESOMENESS: A couple of weeks ago when Cara said that Sociological Images was an awesome new blog, she wasn’t kidding. I find myself bookmarking more and more of their posts by the day to write about here, then finding little more that I can add to their already great commentary, for example, this recent post on Baltimore’s HonFest and representations of gender and class, this post on how The View is redefining the idea of “women’s issues” on daytime television, and gendered Motrin ads (because they “feel our gendered pain,” and not in the PMS-y, I’m-about-to-rip-out-my-cramping-uterus-OMFG way).

“MARRIAGE MATTERS TO US,” Terrance writes, “us” being black gays and lesbians:

Anti-gay marriage amendments and ballot initiatives like Proposition 8 only harm Black gay and lesbian famlies, many of whom are already economically disadvantaged. Cannick may think marriage equality is “secondary” to other issues, or can wait until others are addressed. But that also means that thousands of our families will continue to suffer injustice, economic and otherwise, indefinitely and without remedy.

For them, inequality is a daily burden added to the rest: making ends meet, putting food on the table, keeping a roof over their heads, and simply providing for their families.

For many of our families, equality is not a “luxury,” as Cannick calls it. It is justice.

IN OTHER NEWS, Bitch PhD discusses the passing of Prop 8 and future strategies for framing gay marriage as an equality issue.

CLASS MATTERS: Robert writes on visual class indicators, and how one colleague makes the case that gender and race are more obvious a marker than social class when it come to, say, a job interview. But is this so?

FIRST WIVES CLUB: Octogalore analyzes the public personas of Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain.

IRONICAL: This Christmas, highlight your faith with the American Family Association’s burning cross on your lawn! No, really.

JESUS HAD TWO DADDIES: Scenes from the nationwide protests here, here, and here.

SINCE I’M BROKE and the economy has been tanking I’ve been perusing a lot of economics blogs. One of my new favorites is Queer Cents, a blog that talks money management with a focus on and around the queer community. Pros: posts on topics such as how to buy dresses when you look like a man, ways to avoid medical bankruptcy, and how to write letters to fix your credit report. Cons: many of the writers assume you have money to throw around in the first place. Still, great advice and worthy of the blogroll.

FOR OTHER COOL economics blogs, see Feminist Finance and her posts on things such as saving your money on stuff like diamond engagement rings and how parents approach girls and boys on saving or spending their allowances.

ANOTHER ROLL-WORTHY BLOG that I’ve been salivating over is Post-Bourgie, a group blog that deals with politics and pop culture through the lens of, well, this: “suddenly [we were] smack dab in the middle class, surrounded by scores of self-congratulating Negroes who patted each other on the back because they were about something and self-congratulating white folks who patted themselves on the back because they had black friends. But damn it if we didn’t love the sushi!” Contributor Jamelle guest blogged at Feministe over the summer and in addition to keeping up his own blog, is writing good stuff about, say, black perspectives on gay marriage. Other excellent posts that I’ve been saving that I’ll never find time to write about include this one on why the ladies love Don Draper (of Mad Men) and why marriage is a flimsy cure for family poverty.

NEWS ON ABORTION: Lynn rounded up a huge list of news and blog posts on abortion and the law.

IT’S KIND OF tacky to link to a post on celebrities without makeup, but I think BitchPhD makes a good argument in favor of, in that, “it really is a lovely collection of candid pictures of women of all ages, women whose faces you know, looking like–well, looking like women you know. Many of them are beautiful, a couple are average-looking, most are above average (after all, these *are* women whose livings depend in part on their looks). It’s a nice reality check nonetheless: these are women whose *jobs* are to present images of extra-human beauty, and what we usually see when we see them is: them working. When they’re not working (at their job of looking amazing) they look like . . . real people.” And like she says, don’t read the captions or the comments unless you feel like trashing your computer and swearing off the internet.

I WANT TO make my conservative and/or racist family members watch this video, but I’m afraid the mention of the AFL-CIO will scare them off even more — even though it brought me to tears. Mostly I want to know how blue-collar, working folks’ unions became a scary feature of The Left.

JOHN COLE FOUND a picture of Todd Palin, first dude of Alaska, holding a sign at a McCain rally stating, “Charles Manson was a community organizer.” Also, it might be good for the McCain-Palin campaign if they could spell their national attack ads correctly. [UPDATE: The Todd Palin pic is disputed in the comments below.]

WHAT DO WOMEN want from the next president? Carmen of Racialicious breaks it down.

TERRENCE WRITES on how bullying affects children and how we should deal with bullying as parents and as activists.

THERE IS A serious cell phone bias in political polling which may not be accounting for the youth and/or technically savvy vote. Some are talking about the Bradley effect this election cycle, but with people dropping land lines like hotcakes I wonder if we won’t be talking about the cell phone effect in 2012.

DEAR WHITE VOTERS, this is what McCain thinks of you.

ORLY? Freakonomics author says that mixed-race children are “better-looking.” What exactly is the determinant for attractiveness? And what of the fact that very few of us meet/fail the one-drop rule? Ruling: study is annoying as hell, and the determinant for “annoying as hell” is “because I said so.”