Sunday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion

~ Clarissa

It seems like you need a hurricane to interest Americans in having sex.

A funny church service sign about dying atheists.

“Pro-Lifers Don’t Give A Damn About Fetuses. They Only Care About Coercing Women.”

I’m posting this link for the benefit of N. who does not believe me when I say that in this country brutalizing children is not only not considered a crime but is actually something people brag about.

How many animals per year does a vegetarian save?

Some idiot in IHE is arguing that most profs should be fired to lower education costs because. . . this is a strategy that works for IKEA. Apparently, he sees some value in comparing educating people with assembling crappy, ugly, low-quality tables. And this is a professional publication for academics, mind you.

A fascinating journey across Botswana. If you don’t have time to read, the pictures are definitely worth your time. Look at the funny bathroom sign!

Rutgers self-destructs.

“Take oral health, for example. Unless you have perfect genetics, you need intervention during early adolescence to assure long-term oral health. If you don’t get it, you’re doomed to a lifetime of poor oral health, which has consequences elsewhere — on your immune system, on the health of your heart, and can even cause arthritis.”

How can I complain that my students indulge in describing their emotions in minutest details instead of providing an intellectual analysis when my colleagues are similarly incapable of offering anything but a jumbled tale of their emotional travails? See this story of an academic who was denied tenure but fails to discuss what actually happens, delivering, instead, a list of vague references to karma, pain, suffering, and emotion.

David Futrelle is optimistic: “There’s no feminist alive who thinks women shouldn’t be responsible for any of their decisions.” I used to believe that, too. And then a drove of them descended on my blog. So yes, such people exist. Which doesn’t make MRAs any less stupid, of course.

Women aren’t a mystery. And if something possesses you to say we are, here is why you should stop making a fool of yourself.

There are healthy, normal men in the world: “I am not the best person to discuss the subject of abortion as I do not have a uterus or even one fallopian tube, but what I do know is that I have NO right to tell a woman what to do with their bodies.”

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Published by Clarissa

31 thoughts on “Sunday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion”

  1. Rutgers is a joke. Even New Jersey residents don’t think highly of their own school. It’s pathetic. Glad I didn’t waste any money on that overpriced cesspool.

    As an autistic yourself, do you have any sleep disorders or problems? I highly suspect that I might have delayed sleep phase disorder. Always been a night owl type and lately I’ve been waking up at EXACTLY 3 in the morning whenever I try to sleep at 11 or 12 at night and then when I sleep at around 3 or 4 in the morning, I usually sleep better. Weird, right?

    I thought it had been insomnia, but then I looked up the symptoms for DSPD and they seem to fit what’s happening much better.

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    1. I’ve always had extremely weird sleep patterns and always suffered from insomnia. This all changed dramatically once I got pregnant, but this is not a remedy I can recommend to you. 🙂

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  4. Actually, that atheist sign is a VERY old joke — but probably not as ancient as most verses that you see on church signs.

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  6. Re the one who didn’t get tenure, you totally melt down on a regular basis about much more minor things. The comments thread on that piece is full of tiresome pedantry “there should be criteria” … DUH.

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      1. Oui, toi!

        I didn’t think the link was bad as an initial emotional account on what unexpected (by most parties) tenure denial is like. I don’t think it was supposed to be anything else (like self-criticism for not building a better file).

        I also thought the link was worth it, if nothing else, for the comment on an over-zealous administrator who routinely denied almost all tenure on the basis of defending “quality”…

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      4. I think the point was

        1) to point out there’s no such thing as a sure thing in terms of tenure

        2) it’s good to have support structures in place when something like expected tenure doesn’t happen

        (nb. I’m still bitter that the two of the three best lecturers I ever had did not get expected tenure (for suspect and/or bogus reasons) while some roaring mediocrities did and the third of the three was restricted to adjunct status for reasons that made even less sense.)

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        1. “to point out there’s no such thing as a sure thing in terms of tenure”

          – Ah, I get it, this was one of those “let’s state the painfully obvious” articles. 🙂

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      5. “third of the three was restricted to adjunct status for reasons that made even less sense.”

        No, no, no, this is because this third adjuct is overqualified for this job. He should not have done his PHD!

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        1. The fact that universities irresponsibly admit way more people into their doctoral programs that can be reasonable placed in jobs is well-known. Everybody will benefit if PhD admissions become more competitive and admit less people who have no chance of ever succeeding.

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  7. For me, vegetarianism isn’t about not killing animals. I have ethical concerns about the way animals in the meat industry are treated. Not in the way they’re killed, but in the way they’re treated in the incidental part before death called “life”. I just don’t want to give my money to an industry that causes this much suffering.

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    1. I totally get the part about not wanting to be part of industries that turn animals into food (and the author of the link doesn’t seem to). I think that’s perfectly legitimate.

      But that same author is right that individual (or many) vegetarians don’t actually save any animals lives… and odd articles like the link at the link don’t actually serve any purpose besides making people feel good in a way that has nothing to do with the real world.

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      2. Clarissa —

        Is “femen” a Ukrainian word for “female” or “feminist,” or is it just a made-up term for these so-called activists?

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