It’s time for more news and views that you can peruse! It’s another Weekly Reader! Read what you want, bookmark others for later, or binge read everything at once. It’s up to you. Got something you’d like to share? Drop a link in the comments!
Remembering Stan Lee, a Hero of Free Thought (from For Infernal Use Only via Patheos): “When you get right down to it, the work that Stan Lee brought into the world, morality tales about fantastical beings with superpowers, have become our modern mythology. Anyone who has ever been to a comic book convention knows, really knows, that even though they’re definitively imaginary that fans can come to blows over whether the Hulk could beat Wolverine, geeks the world over feel a kinship with Peter Parker’s struggle with having grown up a bumbling nerd who was suddenly gifted the power to change the world; everyone thinks Reed Richards is kind of a dick. These stories tell us things, they tell us our imaginary heroes are superpowered but fallible. In the end Stan Lee’s legacy is that he gave us heroes that are like us. They’re powerful, yes, but flawed and conflicted.”
Anti-vaxxers start “End Autism Now” campaign. It doesn’t go well. (from False Prophets): “One of his postings called his critics “certifiably insane” & “complete & utter idiots.” His post also included a video of a child with severe autism displaying self harm. Ironically he actually pointed out the obvious saying “it is a fragile thing to show a child with autism committing acts of self-injury.” But then he posted it anyway.
I’m assuming this video was taken without permission of the child.”
Our President Is an Asshole (from Mother Jones): “And for the record, this has nothing to do with poor fire management. It’s entirely due to drought, warm weather, easterly winds, and climate change.”
The Secret Weapons of the Far Right (from Topic): “White supremacists talk a lot about differences—they draw lines not just between racial groups, but also among their own. Racist internet trolls insist they’re not the same as the Ku Klux Klan because they don’t don hoods or burn crosses; clean-cut college kids who call themselves “identitarians” point out that, unlike skinheads, they’re not inked with swastika tattoos; Southerners who defend Confederate heritage say they have nothing in common with mass murderers like Dylann Roof; anti-Semitic nationalists dismiss anti-immigration activists who are Jewish. Whatever the shallow truth of such distinctions, they serve only to obscure what unites various far-right factions: a commitment to preserving the political power of whiteness. And central to that commitment are women.”
Church Discipline and Miscarriage Mismanagement at Catholic Hospitals (from Nursing Clio): “Quick — is your nearest hospital affiliated with the Catholic Church?
This is a question I would not have been able to answer during my two pregnancies. It never occurred to me that it was relevant. But in fact, for a woman who has a pregnancy complication that sends her to the emergency room, it can make the difference between timely, effective care and callous treatment that leaves her with permanent damage to her health and fertility.”
‘We now advise parents not to spank their children’: Pediatricians tighten stance on corporal punishment (from the Chicago Tribune): “The first study found that when parents spanked their children, the child’s misbehavior increased, sometimes repeating the bad activity within 10 minutes.
The second was a meta-analysis — a study that looks at other studies — that showed corporal punishment did not teach a child how to behave well long-term.”
What Is NPC, the Pro-Trump Internet’s New Favorite Insult? (from the New York Times): “Several months ago, users on 4chan and Reddit, the online message forums, started using the term NPC to refer to liberals. These people, they said, join the anti-Trump crowd not because they are led by independent thought or conscience to oppose President Trump’s policies, but because they’re brainwashed sheep who have been conditioned to parrot left-wing orthodoxy, in the manner of a scripted character.
As a Reddit user, BasedMedicalDoctor, explains in a thread about the appeal of the meme, NPCs are “completely dependent on their programming, and can’t do or think on their own.””
The Power in Giving Up (from Medium): “That’s how it’s always been in my family. I feel like the renegade, the unstable queer one, with big emotions and strange desires that alienate me from my family’s politics. I feel responsible for minimizing the conflict that my existence creates. I’m not supposed to express emotion, start fights, or remind anyone of the chasm that separates my life from their traditional, “family-oriented” values.”
Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor (from Free via Vice): “According to popular thinking, if you’re poor, it’s your fault and therefore your responsibility to fix things. It’s not your employer paying you less than a living wage. Or your local officials approving the building of luxury condos in your neighborhood. It’s not the skyrocketing cost of living. It’s not anti-union efforts across the country’s largest companies. No, dear sandwich maker. The reason you’re broke is because you decided to buy yourself a latte between 16-hour workdays. Shame on you.”
70 Years Ago, Native American Women Couldn’t Vote. Now, We’re Congresswomen. (from the Huffington Post): “For some Native Americans, our voting rights remain challenged to this day. In North Dakota, ID requirements that demand voters provide identification with a “provable street address” in order to cast a ballot meant many from the Lakota Nation and other tribes had to scramble in the eleventh hour to come up with proper ID before heading to the polls. This nation’s sordid history and current controversies when it comes to Native American rights makes the election victories of Davids and Haaland all the sweeter. Add to their wins those of down-ballot candidates such as Peggy Flanagan (White Earth Nation Band of Ojibwe, elected lieutenant governor of Minnesota) and Debra Lekanoff (Alaska Native, elected to Washington state’s House of Representatives), and we have even more cause for celebration.”
And that’s all for this week. Stop by again for more articles to work your brain muscles. Until then, happy reading!
Iacon East 