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Hey, DFTBA records! Pizzamas is coming... do you need a T-shirt design? I made this last year!

I’m sure it’s been done. I just felt that I had to contribute.

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My love affair w @tyleroakley in a nutshell. ((Source: Unknown))

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I am LEGITIMATELY EXCITED for Crash Course Copyright Law. This has bearings on my life!

(Also it has been so long that I had to look around for the “reblog” button because I had forgotten how to Tumblr.)

Things have been a bit crazy here, because A. Henry and Alice (our children) have been sick, and B. Sarah and I have both been traveling for work, and C. it was cold in Indianapolis for 12 years straight like a full-on Game of Thrones-style winter, which just drains the soul.

So here are some...

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may my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living whatever they sing is better than to know and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple and even if it’s sunday may i be wrong for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully and love yourself so more than truly there’s never been quite such a fool who could fail pulling all the sky over him with one smile

–ee cummings

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Hmm, I wonder...

I am pleased yet somewhat disappointed Fox News didn't play Humpy Hank to try and make you seem unprofessional.

Yes, it’s somewhat telling that we saw a lot of Glozell’s more ridiculous / silly videos being thrown around to discredit Obama, but mine were ignored. I wonder what that’s about?

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How babies are born in Canada. [via]

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I'm sure it's been done. I just felt that I had to contribute.

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John, your facial hair looks very... uh... willowy in this drawing. Like little sprouts growing out of your face. It's a little frightening.

In the magazine this week, Margaret Talbot profiles the novelist John Green, and looks at how he created a vibrant fan community long before the release of his best-selling book, “The Fault in Our Stars”: http://nyr.kr/1iMf1MN

Illustration by Bartosz Kosowski.

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Why We Are Talking About This (A Rant)

This evening on my facebook feed, a friend posted a TIME article which was a collection of some of the #YesAllWomen tweets. I found out about the hashtag yesterday and spent a couple of hours last night reading it. After I clicked, another TIME article popped up on FB as "recommended" - this one called "Misogyny Didn't Turn Elliot Rodger Into a Killer." I was curious, so I read it. I strongly felt I needed to write a rebuttal, but I told myself it was too much trouble and did easier things. Several hours later, I can't forget about it - so here goes.

1) First we have a paragraph where the author lists many of the societal inequalities that women face, with the general message that misogyny is bad - but this is followed up with: "It’s not difficult to understand why women would perceive the deck being culturally stacked against them." And that's when I scrolled up to the top of the page to check the gender of the author. Guess how surprised I was by what I found? Really, Mr. Ferguson, you made a list of actual facts about cultural misogyny and then called it all a perception? This is the voice of someone who has never experienced (or even thought very hard about, I would wager) the sort of discrimination he is describing.

2) "That misogyny can, and certain[ly] does, spill over into violence in the case of (one hopes) a small percentage of men whose anger toward women is beyond control."

While I have had a hard time finding any statistics that deal with the percentage of the male population of the United States that has engaged in violence toward women, I can find a shitload of facts about how many women have experienced violence from men. One in every 5 American women will experience a rape in her lifetime. Intimate partner violence made up 20% of all nonfatal violent crime experienced by women in 2001. These are overwhelmingly acts committed by men. Unfortunately, Mr. Ferguson, your hope of a vanishingly small percentage of men translating their misogyny into violent action does not seem to have affected reality any.

3) "Rodger appears to have indeed been a misogynist, but this misogyny appears to have raged from within, a product of his anger, sexual frustrations and despondency rather than anything “taught” to him by society."

Really. Really. Really?? You actually believe this? Okay, calming breaths. You think that this young man existed in a cultural vacuum where advertising, movies, and the attitudes of people he has known throughout his life could not possibly have affected his attitudes? He couldn't have absorbed the skewed beliefs that we are all exposed to, and then in his mental illness twisted them further? You are being disingenuous, sir.

4) Ferguson concludes by emphasizing that this "idiosyncratic element" should not be our main focus when we consider Rodger's actions; that his mental illness is much more important than his misogyny. This is what I have to say about that:

No, misogyny didn't turn Elliot Rodger into a killer. But I know that places exist on the internet like the subreddit "The Red Pill," where Men's Rights activists congregate to declare themselves superior, complain about the scourge of feminism, and wonder why the women who owe them sex won't give it to them. I know that the hashtag #YesAllWomen is constantly renewing with stories of casual, institutionalized sexism that never got a second thought from anybody but its victim. So - yes, I believe misogyny provided Rodger with a foundation and an echo chamber for his opinions on women. It gave him other people who validated his desire to perpetrate violence and his twisted reasons for doing so (the comments agreeing with his YouTube screeds are particularly vile). It gave him a culture to exist in where doing right by women, where truly having them be equally valuable people, is harder than simply seeing them as objects to be used.

Yes, this man was mentally ill. Yes, he murdered seven people - including 5 men - on a rampage, which is not typical behaviour. But he was not unusual in his misogynistic beliefs. And THAT is why we need to be talking about this.

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what

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Inky paw prints presumably left by a curious kitty on a 15th century manuscript.

From National Geographic.

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I literally just made an involuntary mewing sound at the second picture. That is nuclear-grade cuteness right there.

Photography by Jamie Baker

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I will always and forever think of this as "the episode of the baked-potato bra."

Angelique Pettyjohn and William Shatner - The Gamesters of Triskelion (1968)

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The best part of this scene is Riker’s reaction:

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Can someone put this caption on fanart of genderswapped Kirk? Though I suppose I could do it myself on a pic of Uhura. Hmm...

Some women want a relationship.

Some women want a starship.

Some women want both.

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I was in a position of some authority so felt comfortable speaking my mind, and in no way shy to educate them on a few points.

It is very rare for someone to get a job in their field directly out of university right now. This is why your children are moving back home.

Almost any job you find...

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Going oldschool Vlogbrothers for this design.

Inspired by this video from 2009.

'Oh wait, you probably meant, “How can I tell when my boyfriend's gonna propose?” Mm? See why spelling matters?’

John Green is just amazing.