Quickies
Skepchick Quickies 3.27
On March 27, 1915, Typhoid Mary was put into quarantine and she stayed there the rest of her life. Her story is pretty interesting, and here are some links to a NOVA special and a Radiolab show about her.
- Canadian Lawmaker Tells Girl She’ll ‘Make a Wonderful Wife for Somebody Someday’ – Oh, Canada.
- The Chemistry of Kibble – The science of pet food. I was actually riveted by this article, you should read it!
- Girl’s Kickstarter to go to RPG camp brings out the horrible, horrible trolls – From Donna.
- No Decent Woman or Girl is Ever Seen Wearing Trousers: 12 Conduct Rules for Women from Rural Spain – From Donna.
- Unfit for Work: The startling rise of disability in America – Check this out, especially if you didn’t listen to last weekend’s This American Life.
- Burning Bush – The science behind Moses’ alleged “miracle” plant.
- Jane Goodall’s Troubling, Error-Filled New Book, ‘Seeds of Hope’ – From Will.
- Unexpectedly Amazing Carbon-Based Energy Form: A lab “accident” may solve your annoying battery problems. – It’s not the kind of accident that left a scientist with super powers, but it’s still cool.
- The Internet ‘Narcissism Epidemic’
- Petition seeks to outfit members of House, Senate with NASCAR-style patches – I love this idea. They can wear it like they wear their stupid tiny American flag pins.
BONUS: I AM SOCIAL JUSTICE. (And a cookie followup.)
I’d like to note the parallel in the comment section about the little girl’s kickstarter program and the threats she and her mother have received and the comments being made about Adria Richards and the threats she has received. In both cases people (but mostly often men) are rushing to gloss over the horrific treatment the women involved were subjected to in order to scrutinize the behavior of those women. That’s sexism. It is so ugly and so obvious, yet the people doing it seem completely oblivious to it. To see people completely desensitized to women and girls being harassed, lied about and threatened while remaining hyper vigilant in policing the actions of the same women and girls causes my heart to sink. There is so much more cause for activism than I realized.
Mary
Unfortunately its not that surprising that the kickstarter RPG camp brought out the trolls. It seems that every time someone does something to fight bigotry, the bigots come out in full force, and that includes sexist pigs.
The pet food article was fascinating, but it grated on me that each time the author introduced a female scientist she found it necessary to include a description of her appearance and attire. Is there any value to this, in terms of making the story more human on some level, or is it just obnoxious?
“Rawson is dressed today in a long, floral-print skirt with low-heeled brown boots and a lightweight plum-colored sweater. She is tall and thin with wide, graceful cheek and jaw bones. She looks at once like someone who could have worked as a runway model and someone who would be mildly put off to hear that.”
Yeah, that was weird. She did pretty much the same thing with the male vice-president at the beginning of the article (“He has a small mouth with naturally deep-red lips and a pronounced Cupid’s bow”) – but it’s still pretty grating.
I am so for that petition to require members of the House and Senate to wear supporter patches. But why stop with them? There’s the President, all the state and local officials. It’s huge.
IdahoEv—I think we can rack it up to obnoxiousness.
Speaking of “last weekend’s This American Life” – that was mostly B.S.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/03/22/this-american-life-features-error-riddled-story/193215
The link for “Burning Bush” is buggy; tripped my antivirus. Thought you’d like to know!