Sunday Reading

(Eternal present/in memoriam, by Jeremy Osner)

Me:

"being what i am, there is no other Troy for me to burn" - erica, inchoate on Riki Wilchins and the dangers of idealizing one experience as the "standard 'trans woman narrative.'"
Chivalry, Class, and Race - Bix on the problems of viewing chivalry through the "blinders of Victorian sentimentality."
Risk and Ethics in Public Scholarship - Tressie McMillan Cottom on the risks of speaking, and not speaking, for marginalized scholars in the academy.
Baltimore Feminists Prank Victoria’s Secret - savvy web parody sparks a conversation about sex and consent.
Women of Color Talk Back, challenging degrading images of women of color in the music industry
Sandy Hook and the Crisis of White Masculinity (relevant context: Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia, and Violence)
Serena Williams is Not a Costume (part 2, part 3, and some helpful context on eroticism and sexual grotesquerie in portrayals of black female athletes)
Default Narrative Settings are Not Apolitical: On narrative "realism" and the presence of people of color, women, and/or LGBTQ characters in speculative fiction.
Trans womanhood on trial in the case of Taylor Murphy, accused of assaulting his ex-girlfriend Claudia Charriez.
Beyond the pleasure quarters: Sex work, gender, and mobility in early modern Japan

Multiple Fatalities Reported in Shooting at Connecticut Elementary School.
28 dead, including 18 children.
One of those stories. Another.
Questions I ask myself about Connecticut School Shooting.
Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States.
Reminder: German police fired just 85 bullets in 2011.
39 deaths from guns in the UK in all of 2011.
Three Common-Sense Gun Bills That Can't Pass Congress.
The gun the shooter used.
More Guns, More Mass Shootings.
A Guide to Mass Shootings in America.
Deadliest U.S. shootings.
31 school shootings since Columbine.
Map of the worst mass shootings of the last 50 years (worldwide).
10, 728.
The victims of the Dunblane massacre would have turned 21 this year. The United Kingdom responded to this tragedy by banning private ownership of handguns. They now have one of the world's lowest rates of gun homicide.
So what have the Australian laws actually done for homicide and suicide rates? Howard cites a study by Andrew Leigh of Australian National University and Christine Neill of Wilfrid Laurier University finding that the firearm homicide rate fell by 59 percent, and the firearm suicide rate fell by 65 percent, in the decade after the law was introduced, without a parallel increase in non-firearm homicides and suicides. That provides strong circumstantial evidence for the law’s effectiveness.
In 2008, the U.S. had over 12 thousand firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11, fewer than were killed at the Aurora shooting alone. And that was a big year: 2006 saw an astounding two, and when that number jumped to 22 in 2007, it became a national scandal. By comparison, also in 2008, 587 Americans were killed just by guns that had discharged accidentally.
Nine kids dead from guns in 24 hours. From 2007.
@cyrusghahremani has been tweeting gun deaths since Friday.
Didn't know there was a bullet in the chamber.
Tactical Reality: the new gun culture.
The argument makes no sense at all, but people who use those lines aren’t making arguments. They are invoking the magic spell that licenses them to be able to kill.
From the reclaimuc archives: The police state in Europe vs. the police state in the US.
White House petition calling for gun control legislation has over 70,000 signatures in 24 hours.
Tax bullets.
Mandate insurance for gun ownership.
American Exceptionalism: The Shootings Will Go On.
Barring some seismic realignment in this country, the gun control debate is all but settled -- and your side won. The occasional horrific civilian massacre is just the price the rest of us have to pay.
Only Glenn Reynolds would start off an op-ed against gun control by quoting a guy who shot his wife while drunk.
Fuck Everything, Nation Reports.
How to talk to your kids about tragedy, from St. Rogers.

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers -- so many caring people in this world.

No words.

Frank Pasquale:

Shell Companies United.
Krugman vs. Katz/Goldin on the skills of the workforce & rise of capital/bots.
Susan Crawford explains why Wall Street doesn't want telcos investing in infrastructure; prefers artificial scarcity and black box network management.
Unsafe after any read: Boilerplate as tort (the progressive side of the "law as product" school); more fine print.
On "the most prominent anti-intellectual cadre of our day."
On Nicholas Carr: A "hyper-flexibilized, insecure, turbulent world offers little security to the purposefully structured, meditative mind."
Omniprambles: "where there is a pram there is a loan."
To observe or not to observe: Complementary pluralism in physics and economics
"Givers are kept around in case painful memories are necessary to help in decision making;" eternal sunshine for the rest of the minds.

Bint Battuta:

ReclaimUC:

Jacob Remes: