Category Archives: politics

Stall-ing Transgender Progress

glbt, politics, transgender Leave a comment

Arizona bill seeks to tie bathroom use to birth gender, restricting transgender rights (Vancouver Sun) A lot of talk is made of recent GLBT progress — witness the rapid growth in support for marriage equality in just the past few years here in America — but more often than not these measures of progress only affect transgender people tangentially, if at all. Certainly there have been causes for celebration in the past few years, such as President Obama adding protections for gender identity for federal…

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Why Derpy Still Matters

freespeech, politics, rhetoric, television Leave a comment

I have a tendency to argue myself into a stalemate when it comes to a number of difficult issues. I’d like to think that I’m being a good person by giving thoughtful consideration to the needs and opinions of others as I try to figure things out, but there’s a lot of evidence that sometimes I get so wrapped up in trying to work out an ideal solution that I never get anything done, and I’m not sure that’s much better than simply doing nothing…

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Erasing the Line

freespeech, politics, rhetoric, television Leave a comment

The Onion apologizes for offensive Quvenzhané Wallis tweet (AP via MSN) Seth MacFarlane’s Sexist Oscar Night: Why everyone is outraged (Yahoo! Shine) Why Seth MacFarlane’s Misogyny Matters (Vulture) Since a lot of the “entertainment” being produced in the 1980s wasn’t pleasing to my palate as I was growing up, I wound up spending a lot of time watching classic films and television shows. Watching reruns of the original Star Trek with my mother in the early 80s on our local independent station — back before there…

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An Open Letter to Lauren Faust

arts, business, internet, politics, television, writing Leave a comment

Dear Ms. Faust: My name is Sean Shannon. I’m an English teacher and aspiring author from Toledo, Ohio. More importantly, I’m a longtime fan of your work; I still carry around the same Powerpuff Girls purse I bought more than a decade ago during the height of the show’s popularity. and last year I finally found the time to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and quickly became hooked. Few television shows have had as profound an effect on my life, and I have made…

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Republican Government is the Problem

politics, rhetoric Leave a comment

Wonkbook: Can sequestration be stopped? (Washington Post) About a month ago I had car trouble, losing my car for a few days thanks to some lingering issues flaring up when the weather got incredibly cold. I was coming off of winter break, so I hadn’t been paid for a few weeks, and I wasn’t exactly flush with cash. We keep a reserve fund in the family for when unexpected things like this come up, so I was covered, but if I hadn’t had the money…

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