the cat & dragon rag

Saving for later: ED and body image therapy providers

2018-03-21T07:13:15Z

https://www.threebirdscounseling.com/single-post/2018/03/18/Diversity-Is-A-Good-Thing-80-Eating-Disorder-Body-Image-Providers-Activists

Clients' bodies come in ALL shapes and sizes (and colors and gender identities and body abilities and faith beliefs and country of origin and....).

So do providers' bodies.

Diversity (in all forms) is a good thing. The purpose of this list is to
•highlight and center eating disorder and body image providers and activists who have experienced being marginalized because of an aspect of their identity,
•showcase the rich diversity of providers and activists we have in the field of body liberation,
•serve as a resource for folks to access, both for potential clients and for individuals of marginalized identities to be inspired to enter the field.

Please note this list is a working draft and we hope this list will continue to grow. If you would like to be added, please send your info to maria@threebirdscounseling.com.

This entry was originally posted at https://firecat.dreamwidth.org/1490605.html, where there are comments.

No longer on OKCupid

2017-12-23T05:01:58Z

Deleted my OKCupid account because they are trying to get people to use their "real names," whatever those are. Apparently they aren't going to police the names the way FB does, but although I have reluctantly chosen to make an exception for FB, I'm done with social media sites that have policies requiring "real names".

More: https://beardedgenderqueer.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/an-open-letter-to-okcupid-about-the-proposed-real-name-policy/

This entry was originally posted at https://firecat.dreamwidth.org/1489815.html, where there are comments.

firecat @ 2017-04-10T18:57:00

2017-04-11T01:57:48Z

http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/1487784.html

Pulling back

2017-04-04T21:09:17Z

Confused about the new LJ TOS. I had to agree to it, but it says it does not apply to people with paid/permanent accounts, and I don't understand how that works.

There are a few people posting under f-lock on LJ whom I still want to follow, so I'm not planning to delete my account yet. But I don't think I'm going to be mirroring my DW posts here any more. I might post links to them if anyone is still following my increasingly neglected LJ account and would find that useful. (If so please comment.)

My DW account is also firecat.

TV series recs?

2017-02-13T01:37:11Z

If you have watched any of the following series, I would love your opinion.
Well written?
Fun?
Intelligent?
Cast/creator diversity?
Sexism/racism/other $fail?

The Colony
Humans
Into the Badlands
iZombie
Killjoys
Lucifer
Spartacus

Do you recommend any other TV series (prefer crime/mystery/sf) that are available on DVD and are fun, diverse, and not too $faily?

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/885308.html, where there are comments.

Media Consumption Wednesday

2017-01-19T00:10:30Z

Let's see if I can revive this habit.
There might be spoilers in the comments.

Books
Nisi Shawl, Everfair
Steampunk alternative history of the Congo Free State. The story is told through the eyes of a couple of dozen viewpoint characters. I'm glad I read this but I found it a bit dissatisfying. I was going to say simply that I felt unqualified to appreciate it (and I still think that's somewhat true, because I don't read much alternate history), but a few other reviews discussed the same issues, so I decided to review it after all. I loved reading a book based on the history of a part of Africa and something I had never studied or known about. I think it's a great contribution to the steampunk genre. I liked the diversity of the characters—not only ethnic diversity but also diversity in terms of the work they did (it's not a book where everyone is an aristocrat), their viewpoints, their religions, their relationships. I liked that it was not just a book about war and government but that the characters led their everyday lives and thought their everyday thoughts alongside the work they were doing to build a nation. But I think I would have liked the book better if it were twice as long (and therefore twice as detailed) or a series of books. Often I felt like I was reading a sketchy outline, or maybe more as if I were walking in and out of a room while a show was playing on TV and so I was seeing some scenes, enough to get the gist, but missing about half of it. I liked the steampunk inventions and the characters, but many of them didn't seem to get fully fleshed out. (Exceptions being King Mwenda, Josina, and Fwendi.) A character would crop up and I'd get a brief sense of what was in their head but then they'd disappear again. I felt the same way about the history that was being described. I've previously felt that Nisi Shawl was mostly a short story writer, and the sketchy style where you have to infer stuff works ok in a short story but I don't like it in a long novel.
Here are a few other reviews, which I encourage looking at if you're trying to decide whether to read the book.

"'Everfair' Looks Into Steampunk's Dark Heart by Amal El-Mohtar
https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/everfair/
This reviewer approves of the choice to keep the story to a single book: "Everfair, in love and war" by Paul Constant

Audiobooks
Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races
Well narrated by Steve West & Fiona Hardingham. (I don't like books with double narrators because it bothers me when the same character has two different voices, depending on who viewpoint character is. But they did a good job because I was only distracted by it a few times.) YA fantasy based on humans racing something like the Celtic mythical water horse (Capaill Uisce). I liked the protagonists and most of the relationships felt nuanced. The villains were somewhat cardboard but they did have motives. I thought the ending felt wrong but that didn't spoil the book for me.

Movies
None this week

TV
Agents of SHIELD was back with new episodes last week.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: Just finished Season 2 (the DVD has some great extras; the one about the costuming was my favorite). Season 3 is not available on DVD from Netflix yet, and the OH doesn't like watching things via streaming, so we bought the DVD set of the first three seasons from shopPBS.com.

Nikita: Series from 2010–2013 starring Maggie Q, a sequel of sorts to the movie La Femme Nikita. We've watched about 5 episodes so far. It has a problem I've noticed with a number of American TV shows where I find it hard to tell some of the younger characters apart because the actors and actresses look too much alike (young, pretty/handsome, toned/buff, white).

The OA: Watched 2 episodes of this not-sure-what-genre-it-is-yet. Liked that it addressed the problems of second-generation immigrant kids. Someone told me there was problematic stuff later in the season.

Person of Interest: We're watching season 3 and have gotten past [massive spoiler]. Love the ensemble cast of this show and how it keeps adding new recurring characters.

Games
Bridge to Another World: The Others: BigFishGames hidden object / puzzle story
The ABC Murders: Point-and-click-and-solve-puzzles game based on the Agatha Christie Poirot novel of the same name

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/885087.html, where there are comments.

We need a vornado in here

2017-01-15T07:20:29Z

Some links about brain fog, via umadoshi

"Life Hacks for Brain Fog: Chronic Illness, Focus and The Professional Artist" and "Brain Fog Life Hacks: Out of Sight is Out of Mind" by Colleen Doran: These basically say (1) Keep your workspace organized and tidy, because disorganization adds stress; and (2) Make sure you can see anything that you need to remember about, because otherwise you'll forget about it. Of course, those are mutually contradictory... But anyway, I did like this clarification about brain fog:

It’s not that we can’t remember things, it’s that we have brain hiccups so we have to reinforce our memory, back it up like an engineer, and add sensation to the experience to make sure information sticks....Brain fog isn’t dementia, it’s misfire. Your deep memories are still there, but your working memory is shot....Organizing your studio so that you can have constant visual and tactile reinforcement for your memories and ideas will take the load off your working memory and give you more than one path in your head for what you need to remember.

And this one: "Brain Fog":

Brain fog isn’t just forgetfulness: it’s living in a bizarre twilight world where you are half in and half out of consciousness. Everything seems grey, and you don’t feel the passage of time. ( I could not remember the month, day or year it was.) You float through life, but it’s not a good feeling. You have an almost complete lack of awareness. You’re there, but you do not process what you’re experiencing. What memories you do manage to internalize seem as if they happened to someone else.

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/884557.html, where there are comments.

A couple of tasty links

2017-01-07T09:29:11Z

Recycling some Facebook posts...

I shared this first for the amazing art of the Buddha made out of pens and coins, and second because I think the article is very good.
It's too late for me to vow not to burn out. Having burned out in various ways, if I see a way to help that I am capable of, I am fairly often moved to do it.
"I Vow Not to Burn Out" by Mushim Patricia Ikeda

~

Wally's resemblance to most of the Doctors is slight, but hey, you can't go wrong with a costumed Welsh Corgi. And seeing him cosplay the 12th Doctor is worth the wait.
Corgis recreate Doctor Who by Mashable

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/883620.html, where there are comments.

Prescriptivist foreplay

2017-01-07T09:09:35Z

So there we were, lying in bed, discussing the plural of "octopus," as one does.
"I like 'oc-to-podes'."
"You pronounced that wrong. It's 'oc-to-po-des'."
"No it isn't. It's English, not Latin."
[side-eye] "I'm not taking THAT stinky bait."

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/883296.html, where there are comments.

Notable books and audiobooks consumed in 2016

2017-01-03T22:01:14Z

Comment if you want further thoughts on any of these. Some general descriptions of settings and characters, but no other spoilers.

Notable 2016 audiobooks

Rhys Bowen, Royal Spyness series: Narrated by Katherine Kellgren. Gave up on it after #4 because I didn't like the punching-down humor.
Fiona Buckley, Ursula Blanchard series: I listened to the first 4 and then switched to reading them. The audiobooks are narrated by Nadia May and Wanda McCaddon. Historical fiction about a woman who is sent on espionage missions by Queen Elizabeth I. It's well written and I really like the complex moral choices that the protagonists are faced with in each book. And relationships are also complex and well done, for the most part, although sometimes they go a little ways into "Oh, come ON" territory.
Andrea Camilleri, Inspector Montalbano series: Grover Gardner always does a great job of narrating these books. They are about the police in a small town in Sicely, and they are hilarious. I like the relationships among the regular characters, and there's also a lot of loving description of simple food. And usually something serious is addressed. But they are usually pretty sexist, so it's taken me about six years to read 13 of the 20+ books in the series.
Tina Connolly, Ironskin trilogy: Narrated by Rosalyn Landor. The first book in this series borrows a lot from the plot of Jane Eyre. They are set in a universe where humans and fey used to be economically tied but then went to war against each other. Each book in the trilogy has a different protagonist and she develops different characters well. Themes include racism, sexism, beauty, and control. Sometimes the villains are overdone. The third one, Silverblind, has a queer character and some interesting gender-bending.
Charles Dickens, Hard Times: Narrated by David Case. If you like Dickens or fiction about class issues, you'll like it.
Elizabeth Edmonson, A Man of Some Repute (Very English Mystery #1): Narrated by Michael Page. Historical fiction set just after WWII.
P.N. Elrod, ed. Hex Appeal: Short stories about witches, mostly set in worlds that appear in the authors' other series. Ilona Andrews, Jim Butcher, Rachel Caine, Simon R. Green, P.N. Elrod, Lori Handeland, Carole Nelson Douglas, Erica Hayes, Carrie Vaughn
Lyndsay Faye, Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson: Narrated by Simon Vance. Holmes/Watson "fanfic." Faye gets the Conan Doyle tone and language mostly right and I enjoyed it a lot. Faye's first novel, "has the blessing of Conan Doyle's heirs."
Jasper Fforde, Thursday Next series: Fforde has more weird, intriguing ideas per page than most authors. Also he has the knack of making puns that I actually enjoy. I think he's the only sentient entity in the universe who can do this.
Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey: Narrated by John Lee. Funny but also deeply dystopian. Any description beyond that would spoil it too much. Published in 2010 and was supposed to be part of a series but no other books in the series have been published. I loved how he dropped little surprises into it all the way through.
Ian Fleming, Moonraker: Narrated by Bill Nighy. If you have any interest in Ian Fleming's Bond or in Ian Fleming's talents as a writer, this is a good one to read, and if you like Nighy, it's a good listen. It's not as sexist as the movies. Bond doesn't get the girl. [oops, sorry for the spoiler.] And the "girl" is extremely competent. Fleming has great powers of description.
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest: Narrated By Richard Ferrone. Hammett's first novel. Features The Continental Op.
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God: Beautiful language. Ruby Dee is a stellar narrator, although some of the voices were hard to understand (but I expect the written dialect would be even harder to understand).
John McWhorter/Great Courses, The Story of Human Language: Huge survey course that discusses languages all over the world, the history of various language families, how sounds morph into other sounds and words change into other words over time, what happens when people who speak different languages have to interact a lot, spoken vs written language, why some languages are a lot more complex than others, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, why some concrete words turn into grammatical markers, how little is known about some aspects of even languages that are widely used, why languages die, etc etc etc. It's very loosely organized and McWhorter goes off on all sorts of tangents and frequently breaks into silly little stories; he makes a lot of minor mistakes (to my ear); he's super opinionated. I don't know what other linguists think of him but I really like his audiobooks and lectures a lot.
John Mortimer, Rumpole & the Golden Thread (Rumpole #7): Narrated by David Case/Frederick Davidson. The Rumpole stories are pretty sexist but otherwise enjoyably liberal.
Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King (Raven Cycle #4): Narrated by Will Patton, who is close to perfect. I liked this almost as well as the first three books of the series, but I thought it was a bit too long, and I also thought that Patton overacted sometimes.

Notable 2016 books

Agatha Christie, A Murder Is Announced (Miss Marple #5)

I love Miss Marple.

Charlaine Harris, Midnight, Texas series

This is a new series that includes various characters from previous series. Of Harris's previous series I only liked one (Harper Connelly), so I am not familiar with most of the characters in this. But I like it a whole lot. I love how Harris' writing can seem very sweet and then suddenly turn reeeally nasty.

Lois McMaster Bujold, Gentleman Jole & the Red Queen

I liked the relationships. I liked the competence porn. I liked that it showed successful people winding down their careers for new, more domestic adventures. But I didn't really *enjoy* it. Bujold has always included domestic/relationship stuff in her books, but in her earlier books there was a different ratio of adventure and high drama to domestic stuff, which I guess worked better for me. And for me, Bujold was one of the best adventure writers, with great pacing and plotting, and I miss that in this book. It kind of felt like 'fanfic' to me, where 'fanfic' means behind-the-scenes domestic stories of characters we have seen running around and having adventures in whatever their main stories were.

Faith Hunter, Jane Yellowrock series

Jane Yellowrock is a shapeshifting Cherokee human/mountain lion and a vampire hunter. I'm pretty sure there is inappropriate cultural appropriation going on here, although some effort has been made to be respectful. It's well written and hits a bunch of my urban-fantasy buttons (I love shapeshifters and vampires).

Laurie R. King, Justice Hall (Holmes & Russell #6)

This is a Holmes fanfic / historical fiction series where Holmes is partnered with a young Jewish woman, Mary Russell. King writes extremely well and also researches her history very well as far as I can tell (not much of a history person myself). This one particularly has great female characters.

Justine Larbalestier, How to Ditch Your Fairy

YA fantasy. I liked reading a story about a kid who likes being at a strict school and who likes sports, possibly because I was never the least bit like that, and I'm old enough to not resent it now.

Ann Leckie, Imperial Radch series

. This is a space opera series that features sentient warships. The second two books are not as mind blowing as Ancillary Justice but the new plot twists and ideas keep coming. The ending is quite satisfying.

Seanan McGuire, InCryptid series

This is a series about people whose job it is to research and manage cryptids (supernatural beings). Seanan is pretty brilliant at coming up with ideas for the various cryptids, and the protagonists are very highly trained and fairly competent, and this series doesn't rely much on extremely annoying paternalistic male villains (something I don't like about some of her other works). The October Daye series is a lot better, though.

Walter Mosley, Leonid McGill series

5-novel series about an African-American ex-gangster PI in modern-day New York City. Complex both in terms of the relationships the characters have with each other, and in terms of plot.

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

In the Jane Eyre universe, the woman who is called "Bertha" in Jane Eyre tells the story of how she ended up married to Rochester. She is Creole, so it's a story about imperialism and racism. I see why it's highly regarded but I didn't really like it that much.

Notable quotes:

"They are children - they wouldn't hurt a fly."
"Unhappily, children do hurt flies," said Aunt Cora
"I am not used to happiness," she said. "It makes me afraid."

Sofia Samatar, A Stranger in Olondria

Fantasy. Won all the awards. The writing is absolutely beautiful, like a long poem. She can write fluently in so many styles.

But...I didn't like it very much.

Themes:

Books/elitism vs illiteracy/working people
How childhood experiences and culture shape a person)
Illness, death, and madness
How people of one culture think about people of another culture
The experiences of all the senses
The kind of love that one has for a person one has lost
The experience of traveling to another place

Karl Schroeder, Virga series

Space opera set in a universe where there are artificial suns and ringworlds and such inside a huge bubble of air. Lots of great ideas and hard SF and swashbuckling and interesting characters. But overall the series felt kind of jumbled and confusing to me. Maybe that's because it took me so long to read the whole series I didn't remember what had happened in previous books.

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/883030.html, where there are comments.

LJ / Dreamwidth

2016-12-31T19:13:25Z

I gather there is an LJ > Dreamwidth migration afoot, and it has something to do with Russia and with some LJ users being banned, but I don't know the details. If there's a search term or a post somewhere explaining it, I'd like to know about it.

I consider my primary home to be Dreamwidth, but I'm going to continue crossposting to LJ for now.

If you have an opinion about that, I'd be interested to hear it. Comments are screened but I will unscreen your comment if you say it's OK to do so.

[ETA] Here is a non-LJ/DW link that has more info:
http://www.metafilter.com/164293/LiveJournal-represents-social-media-without-borders

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/882695.html, where there are comments.

Impressions of Rogue One (vague spoilers)

2016-12-22T06:50:45Z

Vague spoilers for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Might be additional spoilers in comments.

I was confused for the first 1/3 of the movie. Who are these people and what side are they on anyway and what's going on? But then I figured out what was going on and it was all good.

Appreciated the multi-ethnic cast with a female leader. The proto romantic relationship that developed felt natural, was not silly, and did not get in the way of the story.

Bonus Mads Mikkelsen. Bonus snarky robot (a cross between C-3PO and Marvin the Paranoid Android). Insufficient light-saber fu. Surprise cameo by Zatoichi. Great to hear James Earl Jones's Vader voice again.

Interesting to hear what the composer did with the John Williams themes. A lot of the music had a "too many notes" thing going on. OTOH, I suspect it would be very hard to work with John Williams themes without adding extraneous notes.

One of my friends said that they didn't like the "one woman, tons of guys" thing going on in all the fight scenes. I see their point, although I didn't notice it while I was watching the movie.

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/882673.html, where there are comments.

Saving a list of tech tips for the paranoid

2016-11-14T05:36:07Z

This list of "Tech tips to help stay safe in Trump’s America" is worth saving for future reference.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/11/tech-tips-to-help-stay-safe-in-trumps-america/

It should be "Tech tips to help stay safe in a world where the government engages in surveillance," because that goes on in other countries, was going on in the US before Trump was elected, and is likely to go on after Trump is in his grave.

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/882140.html, where there are comments.

A rare LJ-only post...

2016-11-11T04:05:08Z

...because apparently LJ has implemented a "like" button and I want to click it.

A linkspam of mathematical yarncrafts

2016-09-20T20:21:43Z

Over on Facebook someone shared with me this video about the use of yarncrafts in mathematics:
https://www.facebook.com/mentalflossmagazine/videos/10154510337972365/

Here's the accompanying article:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/86016/6-math-concepts-explained-knitting-and-crochet

I've been collecting links about this subject for a while so I offered to do a linkspam.

Particularly rich sites to investigate:

Dr. Sarah-Marie Belcastro's mathematical knitting page.: http://www.toroidalsnark.net/mathknit.html
WoollyThoughts.com, the yarncraft home of mathematicians Pat Ashforth & Steve Plummer.: http://www.woollythoughts.com/; They also have a Ravelry group.; http://www.ravelry.com/groups/woolly-thoughts

In detail:

The original paper about crocheting and mounting the Lorenz manifold.: http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/files/2988096/2004r03.pdf; Crochet your own Lorenz manifold; http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lorenz-manifold
An interview with the people who designed and crocheted a hyperbolic plane.: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/16/crocheting.php
Mary Pat Campbell's fractal crochet: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/crochet-sierpinski-fractal-triangle; http://www.marypat.org/stuff/nylife/020325.html; Gallery of sierpinski crochet; http://www.crochetgeek.net/crochet/sierpinski/gallery/index.html
Random stripe generator: http://www.biscuitsandjam.com/stripe_maker.php
Tessellated fish: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/a-recipe-for-fish
A recipe for knitting a Klein bottle (which can be worn as a hat): http://www.toroidalsnark.net/mkkb.html#kbinst
The Crochet Coral Reef, a project of the Institute for Figuring: (this isn't strictly mathematical, but a lot of the creatures depicted grow in ways that can be depicted using hyperbolic plane crochet); http://crochetcoralreef.org/coral-reef-gallery.php; You can participate in this project. Some example patterns here:; http://guides.uflib.ufl.edu/crochetreef/crochetcoralreef/patterns
Cable knitting using random numbers: http://web.archive.org/web/20130707042959/http://www.fuzzygalore.biz/articles/probability.shtml
Knitting using cellular automata: http://www.knitting-and.com/knitting/tips/automaton.htm; Cellular Automaton pattern generator (uses Flash); http://www.unikatissima.de/e/?page_id=2148; Cellular automaton pattern examples; http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ElementaryCellularAutomaton.html

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/881576.html, where there are comments.

Reality check request

2016-08-29T03:00:55Z

A steering committee for a weekly event polled the membership asking whether it should make a policy change about who can attend the event. This was the result of the poll:

No, I do not want to change the policy - 30%
Yes, I would like to change the policy - 41%
Yes, I would like to change the policy, but only for one meeting a month - 18%
Yes, I would like to change the policy, but retain the current policy once a month - 27%

These poll results were described as "The community was fairly evenly split about this idea" and the decision of the committee was "For the time being we will not be making changes."

These figures add up to more than 100%, so it's hard to gauge, but it seems to me that the membership is not in fact "fairly evenly split" at all. What I see is that at least 70% of the votes are in favor of changing the policy.

However, I'm strongly in favor of changing the policy, so I am biased. What do you think?

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/880803.html, where there are comments.

firecat can't resist a book list, very large number in a series

2016-08-09T00:49:11Z

59 sff books by women and 1 by a man. Longish "back cover" descriptions of the books at the link, with spoilers, if you're a purist about spoilers (https://ladybusiness.dreamwidth.org/2016/08/08/60-essential-science-fiction-fantasy-reads.html)

bold means I read it
~~strikethru~~ means I didn't like it (but isn't a comment on the quality of the book in any objective sense. I dislike some classics).
!!! means I really liked it and recommend it

What do you recommend? What would you like to know about the ones I've read?

Grimspace by Ann Aguirre

Primary Inversion by Catherine Asaro
~~The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood~~
Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear
Flesh and Spirit by Carol Berg
Chime by Franny Billingsley
Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
Tithe by Holly Black
The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett
Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
~~War for the Oaks by Emma Bull~~
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Synners by Pat Cadigan
~~Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh~~
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Survival by Julie E. Czerneda
Tam Lin by Pamela Dean
King's Dragon by Kate Elliott
Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman
Slow River by Nicola Griffith
Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly
Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge
Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
~~The God Stalker Chronicles by P.C. Hodgell~~
Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
Valor's Choice by Tanya Huff
God's War by Kameron Hurley
!!! The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Daggerspell by Katharine Kerr
!!! The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress (I read the short story, not the novel)
~~Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz~~
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
!!! Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Ash by Malinda Lo
Warchild by Karin Lowachee
Legend by Marie Lu
Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey
Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre (!!! for the short story)
The Thief's Gamble by Juliet E. McKenna
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
Diving into the Wreck by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The Female Man by Joanna Russ
~~Old Man's War by John Scalzi~~
A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski
The Grass King's Concubine by Kari Sperring
!!! The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
City of Pearl by Karen Traviss
!!! Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree, Jr.
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
~~The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge~~
Farthing by Jo Walton
The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells
~~To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis~~

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/880138.html, where there are comments.

Talking back to anonymous anarchists

2016-07-30T22:36:49Z

I think several of Anonymous's criticisms are true and well said. Several other things on the list strike me as the childish complaints of people with privilege who can't get used to not having 100% control of the public discourse in radical political movements. So I shall ramble on about my opinions.

http://news.infoshop.org/opinion/things-anarchists-say "Things anarchists say to me in private but never repeat in public" by Anonymous 8/4/2015. (Taken from Reddit)

I do not identify as an anarchist, although I share some beliefs in common with some anarchists. So keep that in mind.

1) “Call-out culture was developed to allow activist groups to confront leaders who abused their privilege, but now it is being used to settle petty scores on the level of interpersonal politics. I now have a hard time believing some people when they make call-outs because I have seen too many that were based on nothing. Call-outs have become a way to acceptably inflict social violence and rarely are followed up in any way resembling transformative justice because people are not interested in doing the hard work of working with those who are called out.”

Let's show people not to use call-outs to inflict social violence by not doing it ourselves and by modeling better responses when folks say problematic things. Let's promote the idea of calling in (discussing privately with the person why they are being criticized for what they said, and/or pointing out gently and with reference to one's own personal feelings why what was said is problematic).

2) “As a white person, if I don't automatically agree with whichever person of color is directly in front of me, I run the risk of being labelled a racist. This is a result of good intentions where we want to center people of color and their experiences, but it makes no sense because people of color are not a monolithic block who all agree or share the same experiences. I am basically forced to perform a kind of double-think where I am expected to be able to agree with multiple conflicting viewpoints at the same time – or at least pretend to.”

As a white person, I don't always agree with what a person of color is saying, and I never feel obligated to "automatically agree." But I do usually prefer to shut up about my disagreement unless I'm invited to say something. White people get way more airtime in public discourse than people of color. Probably if I disagree with something a person of color is saying, other people of color also disagree, and I would rather shut up and let them say something, or promote what they said. I do not think that shutting up is the same as "pretending to agree."

3) “The line, 'it's not my responsibility to educate you, educate yourself' is being used too frequently. People should only say this when it would be seriously difficult to help educate someone. Otherwise as an anarchist it is your responsibility to help educate people who want to learn, or to help find someone who is willing to do it. Furthermore, refusing to explain yourself contributes to a form of classism in which people with less formal education and access to information are marginalized within anarchist communities. As well, this line assumes that there are 'correct' resources to be reading that are available, and that the person in question will be able to find them among thousands of conflicting resources.”

These statements don't draw a distinction between a person in a marginalized group being asked to educate privileged folks and a person not in a marginalized group being asked to. A marginalized person always gets to decide whether they have the time and energy to educate an oppressor about their marginalized status. Non-marginalized people do not get to define anarchy in a way that dictates to marginalized people what they are responsible to do around their marginalized status. If they decide not to educate, it is not classism, it's self-determination and self-care. As for "educate yourself"—if you have privilege around the issue in question, you are welcome to decide that it is your responsibility to help educate. And you are welcome, in consultation with the people who are marginalized, to develop education methods that work for all the people you are concerned to educate. "Educate yourself" does not assume there are "correct" resources, and does not assume that any reading is required. If you think so, you're the person with little understanding of how learning happens in the absence of formal education.

4) “Excluding straight/cis/male people makes sense in queer/trans/women's spaces, but often these people are informally excluded in anarchist spaces that are not any of these things. This hurts our ability to cultivate meaningful popular social power. It's also related to a dynamic where men of color, native men, immigrant men and other groups of marginalized men are severely underrepresented in anarchist spaces. It also assumes that straight/cis presenting people have the option of being 'more queer' or 'more trans', which is often not the case depending on their circumstances.”

I agree that excluding straight/cis/male people is wrong in anarchist or progressive spaces as a whole. I think people should be included on the basis of their self-defined political beliefs and on the basis of their ability to act in accordance with the behavior guidelines of the group, not on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identification and certainly not on the basis of what other people assume their orientation or gender is. (However, I don't agree that "cultivating meaningful popular social power" is the important reason to include straight/cis/male people.)

5) “Calling people out for using the wrong language, for example saying 'biological female' instead of 'person assigned female at birth', is harmful and makes no sense because not everyone has access to the same information, they'll never learn if they're excluded, and the 'correct' languages changes every couple of years anyway. People don't want to be associated with us because they see how punishing we are to each other and it turns them off.”

Language matters, and any human group will have terms it considers offensive. To belong to a group it's important to have some sense of how the group uses language. It's absolutely true that no one coming into a group for the first time should be expected to know the correct terms of the moment and corrections should not be shaming or violent. But it's reasonable to hold people accountable for learning over time to avoid terms that are seriously offensive, and it's reasonable to expect them not to turn every conversation into whining about how they can't be bothered to learn new vocabulary. If you can't learn what I like to be called, how can I trust you to remember what else I care about? Another thing that bothers me about this statement is that whenever I hear it, it is always and specifically gender terms being dismissed as unimportant, not terms relating to other marginalized groups. (Probably other groups' language also gets criticized, but I haven't come across it.)

6) “People use 'unsafe' when they mean 'uncomfortable' way too often and it diminishes the meaning of the word 'unsafe' to the point where it's not very meaningful anymore.”

Although I tend to agree, this is rather ironic coming right after point 5.

7) “People's obsession with identity politics means the only people who can say stuff like this out loud have to be able to identify themselves as multiply marginalized, and then everyone immediately agrees about how problematic it all is.”

To the extent that the first half of this sentence is true, I think it's pretty much OK, because people who are multiply marginalized have very little voice in most of society, where people who are not have a great deal of voice. Let the people who are multiply marginalized have one place where they can be louder than the rest of you, OK?

I have no idea what the second half of the sentence even means.

8) “Who cares about who you personally fuck when we're talking about a broad political movement? Get off the ego trip. What we want is health care, affordable housing, jobs, prison abolition, immigration rights, sex workers rights, and the end of capitalism. 'Queer' has become so fashionable that it's being confused with 'radical'.”

There are plenty of queer folks who are not radical. But also, learn your history. Queer folks have been at the forefront of many of these movements, as well as a number of equally important rights movements you left off of your list.

9) “People have no interest in actually changing things anymore. Talking about class and economics isn't fashionable, and in some cases it's downright dismissed and labelled as racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic. Anarchists don't want to build coalitions with working-class people because they don't want to be 'triggered' by having to explain their politics to people who disagree with them.”

Let me know when you've stopped shaking your stick and repeating "Kids these days" and I'll start listening to you again.

10) “We've completely failed to build frameworks for accountability and transformative justice, and instead rely on callouts and social exclusion that replicate the prison system without the benefit of having trials.”

Better frameworks would be awesome, but I'm not going to stick around waiting while you search for multiple examples of callouts and social exclusions that shot people multiple times in the back, left them to die of dehydration in a cell, left them chained to a bed while in labor, forced them to work for large corporations for cents per hour, routinely subjected them to rape, and so on.

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/879856.html, where there are comments.

My cats are haunting my computer's calendar.

2016-07-04T20:05:47Z

My cats Angus & Biscuit passed away in 2012. But periodically I get an emailed reminder from my Mac's Calendar program: "Angus Biscuit flea med." I've searched for this event in the calendar and I can't find it. I think they're haunting my calendar to punish me for giving them flea medicine.

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/879576.html, where there are comments.

Third Annual Fat Activism Conference: Registration now open!

2016-06-22T07:44:27Z

I'm glad to be speaking at the Third Annual Fat Activism Conference. This is an online conference, so you can listen from wherever you are by phone or computer. The conference will take place September 23–25, 2016 and features a diverse group of speakers and topics.

The 48-hour Rush Registration has now launched. If you register before 12:01 Pacific Time on June 24th you'll get the lowest registration rates, and special bonuses. Check it out at http://www.facregister.com/?ap_id=firecat (that's my affiliate link) or http://fatactivismconference.com. All the registration options, including Pay-What-You-Can-Afford, are detailed on the registration page.

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/878903.html, where there are comments.

Your car's airbags could act like bombs

2016-06-14T18:24:49Z

I only just found out about this recall of cars with potentially dangerous airbags. If you have a car made in 2000 or later, especially if you have a used car (because recall notices might not reach you) please check whether your model is affected. If it is, please take it in to have the airbags replaced ASAP.

The defective airbags can explode AT ANY TIME (not just during a collision) with much more force than they are supposed to, and hurl shrapnel at you. Because of their chemistry, the air bags become less stable over time.

List of models affected:
http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/news/takata-airbag-recall-list-cars-article-1.2602999

You can look up whether your car is affected using its VIN here: https://vinrcl.safercar.gov/vin/vinLookup

Here's a long article that goes into the chemistry and the corporate hubris behind the whole thing. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-06-02/sixty-million-car-bombs-inside-takata-s-air-bag-crisis

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/878656.html, where there are comments.

Wiscon Panel: Code-switching

2016-06-10T06:05:35Z

[The Twitter hashtag #Codeswitching has GREAT notes about this panel. Other people also use the hashtag so scroll back or search for #Codeswitching and #Wiscon40 or #wc40.]

Code switching

A discussion of how, why, and when a person code-switches — i.e., changes their language, words, accents, and thoughts depending on their audience. As fans, activists, writers, family members, and friends, how do we use code-switching to communicate? Can code-switching be useful in communicating across cultures, or is it disrespectful?

[My notes definitely don't use the actual words of the panelists. I welcome corrections. My comments and additional links in square brackets.]

Panelists:
Nisi Shawl http://www.nisishawl.com
Andrea Hairston http://andreahairston.com
Amanda
Isabel Schecter @MsUppityness
Shareef Jackson http://shareefjackson.com/

[Arrived 5 mins late, missed some intros]

Nisi Shawl said that her specialty as a writing teacher is "conscious code switching." [Nisi and Tempest teach a class called Writing The Other. A description of the class is here, although this particular class is full: http://wtoweekend2016.brownpapertickets.com]

Andrea Hairston is a theater director and professor of theater. She said that in theater there is no standard language. "We are all always code switching."

Nisi said that code-switching isn't just about your words, accent, and thought, it's also about how you use your body.

"AND HOW LOUD YOU ARE," shouted Andrea.

Isabel Schecter, who is Puerto Rican, talked about Spanish, which has two forms of second person (tú and usted) pronoun depending on whether you're speaking to an intimate or an acquaintance or stranger. [T-V distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T–V_distinction] Isabel said there are multiple layers to this distinction—a person might use tú with a friend but usted with an acquaintance, someone in a position of authority, someone older, or someone to whom they wish to show respect.

Isabel also mentioned that there are regional variations in Spanish, and that can create complications even among people who all speak Spanish. She recently made a mistake at an event where a lot of people spoke Mexican Spanish. She used a word that means "take" in Puerto Rican Spanish but means "fuck" in Mexican Spanish. She also needs to change her accent when talking with Mexican Spanish speakers and consciously pronounce some words and sounds that aren't pronounced in Puerto Rican Spanish. She said this is hard work, but she doesn't judge people and think "They should speak Puerto Rican."

Shareef Jackson said that he works in corporate America and when he meets another POC it's a question whether they will interact as people who share a culture or as people who don't know each other.

Amanda talked about Yat [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_English]. She said that when you pass someone you are expected to say "how ya doing" and the standard reply is "how ya doing". If someone replies, for example, "I'm well," that is an unexpected response and can be confusing.

Isabel discussed the sitcom Black-ish, which includes an episode called "The Nod." The nod was what you used to do when you noticed another black person in a white environment, but it's not used as often now.

[See also The Nod: A Subtle Lowering of the Head You Give to Another Black Person in an Overwhelmingly White Place" by Musa Okwonga]

Andrea said that growing up in 50s, doing the nod was important because you wanted to know who was on your team — it could be life and death. By the 80s, no one was nodding, because the attitude in the 80s was "We're all in it for ourselves."

Andrea talked about her novel Mindscape, in which one character spoke black English and was a physics major. People criticized the character saying "she sounds stupid" — certain language can mark you as stupid. But most thoughts aren't in words. Thinking and language are separate. Nevertheless some people think nonstandard language is "stupid" even if they speak several languages.

Nisi said that you can have problems getting published if your characters speak nonstandard English. So she mostly hasn't written characters like that, but she is currently collaborating with Nalo Hopkinson on something.

Andrea mentioned Nalo Hopkinson's book Midnight Robber, which uses three different vernaculars.

Amanda talked about living in Boston, where her neighbor never spoke to her, except one time when the local team won the SuperBowl. Then her neighbor hugged her and they talked. They haven't spoken since.

She said she grew up in the 80s, when people believed in individualism and thought "we're post racism," and there was a move away from the nod, but now there is a shift back, depending on how much oppression you're aware of. She described herself as a "baby writer" and said that she hadn't written in black English, because she likes to keep that close to her heart, except when she writes about her feelings.

Nisi said that in her new novel, Everfair, which is "Belgian Congo steampunk," there are eleven viewpoint chars, and each chapter is in a different narrative style.

Andrea talked about how language helps certain thoughts; for example, you can't think the same ways in English and German; you name and order the world in different ways. She also mentioned how minstrel shows used fake "darkie dialect" language to signify stupidity. Some people confuse AAVE (African American Vernacular English) with darkie dialect.

Isabel talked about living in Barcelona and encountering someone who assumed Puerto Rican Spanish isn't Spanish. She also encountered colonialist attitudes about Spain being superior and its former colonies being corrupted. It often didn't occur to Spanish people that she could be from someplace other than Europe, so everyone thought she was from the Canary Islands. The dialect Puerto Ricans speak is similar to the dialect of the Canary Islands because that's where Columbus left from and a lot of his crew were from there.

Shareef talked about a project he did on "how hip hop can teach you to code", which included AAVE. Some people didn't understand his choice to use AAVE, but his target audience said it was helpful.

Amanda said that power/oppression lines determine whether vernacular is accepted or not. Vernacular is a form of resistance to oppression, but sometimes we're punched for resisting. And everyone has a right to create in-group safe space.

Andrea called for reclaiming language in public rather than leaving it inside safe space. She said we have to change what is safe, not just find space that is currently safe. AAVE has changed English. Language is of the people.

Nisi talked about doing a reading in which characters were speaking in black English, and people kept laughing even though the scene was not supposed to be funny. They had learned that dialect was for humor. She remembers how as a kid she would make fun of white standard speech, e.g., by singing "I can't get any satisfaction." She said that people who want to treat code switching respectfully should practice, listen, research, ask for feedback, and acknowledge their privilege.

Isabel said that she has light skin privilege and sometimes hears people making fun of dialect because they don't realize she is Latina. She used not to speak up about it, but now she does speak up; she uses her privilege to challenge them. She pointed out that language creates reality, and you create a world thru language. If you say it enough times it becomes true. So be the voice who says no.

Audience member from Texas commented that her vernacular is not her safe space because her politics are different from those of most of the people who share her vernacular.

Question asked: Is code switching a privilege?

Andrea talked about how code switching creates a cognitive load because you have to think more about what you're saying.

Isabel said that she used to try not to have an accent, and when I stopped doing that, it felt like a big burden was lifted.

Nisi said that everyone can code switch, but some forms are easier than others.

Andrea said that we are all capable of multiple languages, but there is additional cognitive load when some language is valued over others socially.

Shareef said that it's sometimes a privilege to be able to code switch, especially in business or professional work.

Question asked: [I didn't hear this question. On Twitter @sqiouyilu said it was "does the trend in the 80s of not head-nodding and code-switching have to do with integration?"]

Amanda said that in the 80s people believed that if we assimilate, we can achieve more, but that is a lie. Losing our language is not worth the sacrifice and it doesn't work.

Andrea said that language is one thing, but who you are perceived to be also matters. She brought up studies that show if a name that looks black or female is on a resume, that resume will get less interest. She said that we are a pluralistic society, not a "beige mush".
[Article about the study: "‘Whitening’ the Résumé" by Michael Luo]

Isabel said that there are different definitions of success. She was poor, and was the first person in her family to go to college. She now has privilege and success, but she can't cook her own culture's food, and said she considers herself "a failure as a Puerto Rican."

Someone said that we haven't figured out how to educate ourselves as a pluralistic society. We "keep trying to standardize away our differences".

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/878485.html, where there are comments.

What fat activist topic should I speak on?

2016-06-09T19:35:19Z

I'm going to be a speaker at the virtual Fat Activism Conference this year! Here is what it's about:

The Fat Activism Conference is "a virtual conference (so you can listen to the talks by phone and/or computer) for people of all sizes who are interested in creating a world that respects the diversity of body sizes, and who are interested in fighting the bullying, stigmatizing, shaming, and oppression faced by fat people, and want to do that work intersectionally."

I need to decide what topic to speak on! Please help me decide! I'm giving about a 30 minute talk with an opportunity for Q&A. Under the cut are some topic ideas, but feel free to suggest others (and/or suggest changes to the ones that are there.)

Fat and invisible: Do not want!: The fat activist movement, like society at large, insufficiently represents and accommodates many kinds of fat people - fat people of color, superfat people, fat people who are not cisgender, fat people who are disabled, older fat people, and so on. How can we make the fat activist movement a movement for all of us?
From sex positivity to sex inclusivity:: How can the fat activist movement honor and support asexual and less-sexual people as well as highly sexual people?
Disability in relationships:: Some fat people are disabled and some fat people are in relationships with disabled people. How do we help each other? How do we manage when our disabilities conflict?
Fat activist allies: How do thin and less-fat activists help the fat activism movement? How could they do better?
Fat and intersectional barriers to health care:: Quality health care is much harder to access for people of color and for fat, disabled, older, low-income, queer, and/or trans people. How does this affect our lives? How can we help each other?
Fat and trans/non-binary gender:: How does fatness affect our experience of gender and vice versa? How can the fat activist movement support people who are trans and/or nonbinary? And where can we get clooooothes?
Healthism in fat activism:: Healthism is the belief that health is a moral imperative for everyone and healthier people are morally superior to less healthy people. The fat activist community often reproduces societal notions about healthism. How does this affect our movement? How can we replace healthism with solidarity?

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/878110.html, where there are comments.

Wiscon Panel: Privilege in the Kitchen: Food Snobbery and Culinary Condescension

2016-06-06T01:21:04Z

[Check the Twitter hashtag #KitchenPrivilege for more notes about this panel.]

[I participated on this panel and didn't take thorough notes; I have paraphrased everything that was said and also probably included some things out of order.]

[Some very personal stories were told and I don't know if the panelists are comfortable having their names associated with what they said on a public post, so I did not associate panelist names with comments, and I used "they" pronouns for everyone. If anyone on the panel wants to be identified please comment here or send me a DM.]

Privilege in the Kitchen: Food Snobbery and Culinary Condescension

Foodieism is all the rage these days and while there's nothing wrong with making and enjoying good food, it seems to go hand in hand with a sense of condescension when it comes to cheap, simple fare; fattening foods (except for bacon, of course); and "poor food," the kind of thing prepared with a packet of this and a couple cans of that. Let us discuss economics, classism, racism, sizeism, and ableism in the ways we prepare, present, and talk about food.

The moderator ran the panel by asking the panelists questions; here are some of the questions and answers:

What is your food pet peeve?

More than one person mentioned physically inaccessible restaurants. (For example a number of restaurants in the Bay Area have mostly high tables and bar stools, which are inaccessible to me because I'm short and don't like to do tactical climbing before eating.)

Elevating food. E.g. when a favorite inexpensive restaurant changes hands and becomes a foodie restaurant, and now it charges $20 for a grilled cheese sandwich.

Cultural appropriation of food, which can drive up the price.

The "deconstructing" trend in food. Food is a sensory experience and blended flavors are matter. [Later on, an audience member defended deconstructed food because their family is autistic.]

One panelist is in coop housing where they cook for 20 people a couple of times a month. Other members of the coop have health food standards that intersect badly with their needing to make food that is easy, cheap, and tastes good to their children. They get negative judgements.

I said that I want to work in the food justice movement, but in my experience I can't because I run into too many people using "we have to stop the omgbeesity epidemic!" to promote it, and I refuse to work with groups that are trying to promote themselves by trying to get rid of fat people. [That said, there are some food justice groups that are grassroots and not run by concern trolls.]

From whom did you learn cooking?

I don't remember for sure whether the moderator said "from whom" instead of "where," but I remember feeling like my answer [from books] didn't mesh with question.

I said: My mother used to run a research lab and when she retired to raise me she ran her kitchen like a research lab and wasn't comfortable with my helping her in the kitchen. So I didn't learn much about cooking when I was growing up. When I went to college she gave me a copy of The Joy of Cooking. In some ways it is an excellent for learning cooking, but in other ways it's not so good. E.g. it suggested that one needed a copper bowl to whip egg whites. I started out by cooking eggs and being pretty amazed at what they do when you heat them. In my 20s I bought a Chinese cookbook and learned from that. I ended up impressing the OH on one of our first dates by making hot & sour soup out of the cookbook, but I have never made it again.

Another panelist said they had to learn because their mom quit cooking.

What is your best food memory?

One panelist talked about getting praised for their cooking.

One panelist talked about having two comfort foods, being unable to decide between them, and then realizing they could combine them.

One panelist talked about visiting India and being fed ritual fruit — in immigrant cultures especially, food is love.

One panelist complained about comments on online recipes, where people substitute ingredients and then complain the recipe is no good. Substituting applesauce for eggs was mentioned (this actually works in some recipes, but not ones that require baking). Here is an example of the sort of thing:
http://the-toast.net/2014/09/04/eighteen-kinds-people-comment-recipe-blog/

I talked about discovering buffalo wings in college, realizing that I liked some spicy food (I grew up in the US Midwest and didn't like spicy food), and then proceeding to cook myself a stir-fry with spicy chili oil.

What is the toughest intersection between food and the rest of your life?

One panelist talked about poor-shaming and not-particularly-frugally-minded restrictions on what kinds of food can be purchased with food stamps. [https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/publications/p4/p44578.pdf — I don't remember what the panelist called out specifically, but I see that no nuts are allowed, no tomato sauce, no bulk peanut butter, no canned albacore tuna].[CORRECTION: This link was to WIC, not SNAP. The SNAP link is here: http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items. You can buy most foods using SNAP benefits, except for alcohol. Wisconsin was considering a bill limiting what kinds of foods you could buy with Wisconsin's FoodShare program, but this has not been enacted. This is my error, not the panelist's.] They said they get much of their food from a food pantry and get tired of out-of-dated canned food and scrambled eggs, so they choose to use food stamps to buy comfort food. Then people judge what's in their cart and say "should you be buying that?" Being fat also contributes to this judging and concern trolling.

Another panelist talked about getting judged when they were poor and chose to eat at McDonald's sometimes.

Several panelists mentioned the conflict around wanting/choosing to eat for comfort and pleasure vs. the societal expectation that everyone should always eat only what's supposed to be good for their physical body. For example, another panelist and I talked about having diabetes and choosing not to restrict food as part of the treatment, but treating it via medications instead.

"Aspirational shopping" — buying ingredients to make a healthy, fresh meal and then not having enough energy to cook them.

I quoted from a post by The Fat Nutritionist:
http://www.fatnutritionist.com/index.php/i-ate-frozen-food-for-four-months-so-i-could-do-trauma-therapy/

food can be more or less helpful to your immediate functioning and long-term health, but the judgments I see people pile on themselves usually concern health only as a thin veneer over something much more troubling: self-loathing. ...

Let me tell you, being human is enough work for anyone. Being alive in a world where terrible and wonderful things happen at random to anyone and everyone at any moment, and the labour we put into mounting defenses against this reality, is a hard damn job. You don’t need to impress yourself or anyone with doing extraneous work just to get fed.

If it makes you happy, gives more than it takes, or adds brightness to your day, by all means, let yourself make that effort. If putting more effort into cooking is what nourishes you, do it and remember to thank your lucky stars. But if it doesn’t, if it adds one more vexing decision that must be made or one more hour of drudgery to your day, why not ask yourself who it’s really for? Because I promise it’s not you.

I also brought up Ellyn Satter's "Hierarchy of Food Needs" (http://ellynsatterinstitute.org/cms-assets/documents/99553-190597.hierarchy.pdf) and said that it seems that many people who have opinions about food overfocus on the "instrumental food" bit on top. [Satter defines "Instrumental food" thus: being able "to consider choosing food for instrumental reasons: to achieve a desired physical, cognitive, or spiritual outcome."]

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/878029.html, where there are comments.

No one studies the effort of managing one's health care

2016-06-04T21:52:36Z

This is yet another thing that people with medical conditions get blamed for—not managing their own care well enough, although according to this article NO ONE studies the efforts required to manage one's own health care.

(Content note: one use of the "O-word")

"But American medicine demands another scarce resource from patients, and that is their time. The time it takes to check in on the status of a prescription, to wait for a doctor, to take time away from work to sit on hold and hope that, at some point, someone will pick up the phone.
...
"There is a risk associated with not measuring patient work: namely, that patients will give up when life gets in the way. This is an especially acute worry for lower-income patients, who often work for hourly wages and have little space to change their schedules."

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/1/11712776/healthcare-footprint

This entry was originally posted at http://firecat.dreamwidth.org/877700.html, where there are comments.