This afternoon my state of health has gone sharply south, so rather than writing a New Thing, I am posting two link s I strongly recommend you click:
1) Listen Up, Men: Here’s How Mitt Romney’s Views on Women Will Make Your Life More Difficult over at Jezebel. Apparently male voters are overwhelmingly tending toward Romney. This is mind-boggling to me. Erin Gloria Ryan provides “5 cold, hard truths that men will have to face if Mitt Romney is elected” that will possibly mind-boggle some of those men who might want to vote for him.
(Several of these cold, hard truths have to do with the impact of anti-female-health-rights politics on men’s sex lives, which are totally true. But I’d meekly raise my hand and offer the idea that most men who vote conservative are capable of the kind of double-think that enables those men to have affairs while at the same time imagining that all women who have affairs deserve to have to bear the child that may result, and that any woman who gets raped deserves to get raped and bear the fruit of that rape. It’s not a 100% thought-through position any more than it’s a tenable one. Discuss.)
2) Please don’t watch the video of Reddit troll extraordinaire Violentacrez on 360. Don’t support his fame. But do read this article: The war on 12-year-old girlsfrom Mary Elizabeth Williams over at Salon. It’s thought-provoking, sad, and inspiring all at once: “My dear daughter, I am so sorry these morons are out there, and that you and your friends are in their cross hairs. That they don’t see you as a person but a threat… But I hope they’re right. I hope you and your friends grow up to be everything that scares the crap out of these idiots. I hope you all stay loud and strong and refuse to be pushed around by dirty weirdos hiding in their basements, anonymously trying put you down, rewarding each other with encouragement and bobbleheads. I hope you change the world.”