at the third hour, darkness settled across the land...

[tielan]

Blogspot: Me-Made May - Sign Up
I'm trying to work out what to do for this - or if I do it at all. The challenge is usually to wear one thing you made every day of the month. I reckon it's easier when May is a month that's tending towards summer instead of one where everything is getting cold and rainy.

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Youtube: "Clarke and Dawe: Cyclone Malcolm. This is a Watch and Act Warning."
Unlikely any but Australians will get this. Laugh and cry and weep at the passing of a great comedian.

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The Guardian: The Destruction Of Hillary Clinton: Sexism, Sanders, and the Millenial Feminist Or: How To Burn Your Own Bridges While You're Standing On It Screaming That Someone In Politics Isn't Good Enough For Your Extremely Speshul Vote.

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Dreamwidth: Thoughts on racism, sexism, and fandom: How to Suck Less by beatrice_otter.
Thinky thoughts, or how not to get stuck at an intermediate step of sucking less in fandom.

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fic rec: Political Animal (Zazu/Triton, Human AU, Political AU)
From Yuletide, recced by someone else, it's both hilarious and hot!

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nngroup: Participation Inequality
How the voices we hear are not a majority of anything.

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And finally this Good Friday:

Common Grace: Siding With Jesus: The Real Cost

Following Jesus requires we love people in costly solidarity, and requires us to expose any ideology that pretends inequality is natural or ordained by God.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, not sure if they're coherent yet.

Comments

[heliopausa]

That Common Grace link leads to some interesting places.
John Clarke was not only a very incisive wit and political analyst; he also very clearly presented Australia with a vision of the beauty and desirability of simple goodness and generosity.

[tielan]

I agree with most of the Common Grace article, but I'm not sure the ending has the right tone for the rest of it. Still, it's a argument against the traditional view of Christians as political conservatives, which I think is very necessary right now - both for Christians and non-Christians.

[kore]

That Guardian piece looks really interesting. I'm also looking forward to The Furies by Rebecca Traister, which I think she's writing right now.

I liked the concrete suggestions in beatrice_otter's post -- it reminded me of when people did reading pledges for 50books_poc. Being mindful of my media consumption can lead to some interesting and fun discoveries. I made an effort last year (LOL that sounds like I was pumping iron instead of putting something on my pull list) to support more new diverse comics, and Occupy Avengers (David Walker), Hulk (Mariko Tamaki) and World of Wakanda (Roxane Gay) have been just a few favourites I might not have picked up otherwise. And the first issue of The Crew, the BP spinoff, just came out, and I was blown away -- Misty had a big part in it, and it looks like it's going to be amazing. But if I hadn't made that conscious mental note of "oh, there's a new BP spinoff that's going to be about the Crew, which I know about because I read that article a while back," I might have just forgotten about it.

So I really like the idea of reframing the issue as "here is something I might have otherwise totally overlooked, that I may really enjoy". Like, don't keep reading/watching/whatever if you don't like something! People recced Power Man and Iron Fist, and I like David Walker and love Luke Cage, but read (did not buy) a couple of issues and was all OMG, noooo, so not for me. But I know David Walker's going to be writing a new Luke Cage series after PMIF ends, so I'll definitely pick that up, and I expect to enjoy that a lot more. So trying to widen my choices so I'm aware there is new diverse stuff out there that I might like or love feels more like the point, just being more conscious about the choices I make to pick up or watch this or that. And there's a lot of rec lists all over the internet, too, so it's much easier to find even Big Two work that's really different. (Bombshells! OMG, BOMBSHELLS.)


....altho, 'of course,' the book in which Sam Wilson FUCKING FINALLY is solo Captain America is written by Nick Spencer and totally fucking sucks. //cries WHY, MARVEL, WHY YOU DO THIS. I WANTED TO BUY IT. I LOVE SAM SO MUCH. But DC is releasing Batwoman (Marguerite Bennett) # 2 on the SAME DAY Secret Empire kicks off, so I will relish buying that instead. Even if it's a tiny drop in the bucket.

ETA altho man, I wasn't intending to go all "look at ME how SUPER diverse I am", more like "it's not like this was a chore and I found a lot of stuff I really liked." But it did require that initial mindfulness on my part, of what I was taking in and what I wanted to take in. And I really do think trying to be more mindful in all parts of life is a basic good rule, anyway.

[monanotlisa]

Oh, thanks for surfacing that Beatrice Otter post! A Chrome crash had taken it off my to-read radar.