This is the world republicans envision. A return to the days before Roe v. Wade. They can’t make that happen directly just yet, so they edge around the corners with the explicit purpose of difficulty, harassment and humiliation. If they could pass a law requiring women seeking an abortion to leap through two purple…

Sigh.

Your not being able to understand assumes that the producers and others in charge of a show like this actually view those being subjected to these scenarios as human people and not just objects. I can almost definitely assure you they do not.

Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean his medical history shouldn’t be respected. What are all you trying to accomplish?

Damn. I am so tired of being robbed of our best and brightest musicians being killed by drugs. Thank you for your gifts, Prince.

The two might be related. Knowing that he was to see an addiction doctor the next day may have caused him to take an even greater dose than usual: the fear that arises when we believe that we are to be deprived of something that has become necessary to us.

What if you’re really photogenic but hideous IRL or on video? Can I create a mystique around my deceptively beautiful photos? Or should I really sell my trollish qualities because they’re all real and shit? My book rocks. I know it.

To pre-empt any greek atrocity apologists - just keep trying to brush off the vast epidemic of hazing deaths as “no big deal”.

People’s kids dying for no other reason than an institutionalized “legacy tradition” of torture. And it persists, while everyone looks the other way.

I vote for myself every election. One of these years, it’s going to pay off.

But, but...but: baseball. Actually, watching George Will yammer about baseball in the Ken Burns film made me like baseball less. You just know George has a shrine to Kenesaw Mountain Landis in an alcove just off his sex dungeon.

Personally I think it’s refreshing to be told that your vote doesn’t count for jack shit. I always suspected as much, but I appreciate the honesty.

republicans in 2002: EXPORT DEMOCRACY EVERYWHERE

“Everything can be projected upon them, it seems — everything but the powers and vulnerabilities of ordinary personhood.”

I think it’s important to understand that people are going to respond to trauma in different ways. I don’t think it’s going to be on a continuum of victim to survivor. Those terms feel limiting in how to express how people respond to things. I’m not sure how to best explain this idea I’m grappling with so bear with…

That essay is very good. I have long wished that we would collectively stop using the words “victim” and “survivor” as if they are antonyms, casting “victims” as weak and “survivors” as strong. Being a victim does not make me weak. It simply means other people chose to victimize me, and that says a hell of a lot about…

I was sexually assaulted but hate the word “survivor”. Two reasons: 1- It almost makes me feel like I did something good because I “survived” and didn’t get killed. The reality is that I didn’t have a choice . 2- I feel like it diminishes in some way other victim’s experiences. I never thought I was going to die…

It reminds me of “she’s battling cancer.” Is there another option? If anything you do is “surviving” “being brave” “battling” then those descriptors are meaningless and condescending. And they take away your agency all over again because you can’t opt out. It’s also similar, in my opinion, to “all women are…

they turn into words of condescension after a point.

Pretty much. Language changes quickly because people adapt it to whatever they want it to be. Thirty years ago, “Mentally Retarded” was considered a new, sensitive, modern term for people with intellectual disabilities. Now it’s considered a slur and is bleeped out when Bring it On airs on basic cable during the day.…

It’s a powerful essay, and makes me think a lot.