The truck has become an enduring symbol of rural life, but sometimes a truck is just a truck, no matter what conservatives think.
Notes from the urban/rural divide: Trucks
Tag: culture
They do gay differently over there
Ellen Page is being hailed for her travel series Gaycation, which purports to show a window into gay lives around the world. Really, though, it’s just another example of colonial attitudes.
If NPR can respect pronouns, so can the rest of the media, and you
Alex Gino is a fat genderqueer glitter liberationist who attracted considerable media attention earlier this year with the release of their chapter book George, about a transgender fourth grader. The book joins the growing canon of books expanding trans representation in media and pop culture, but it also hits a critical age range, as children’s books with trans […]
The common good matters more than your ‘values’
When I was first introduced to various schools of philosophy, there was one I was almost instantaneously and inevitably drawn to. It’s perhaps not a surprise to learn that it was utilitarianism, focusing on the greatest good for the greatest number of people and creating a society that operates at maximum efficiency. Some people seem […]
How Hipsters are Like Christopher Columbus
It might seem odd to compare a constantly-mocked social group with a 15th century ‘explorer,’ but the similarities are closer than you think: Both seemed to specialise in charging rampantly into territories they boldly claimed were unchartered, stumbling around in the woods a while when they hit land, and then declaring that they had discovered […]
How Dudes Get All the Credit for Work Done by Ladies
Few things irk me more than seeing a man receive accolades for saying or doing something that women have been saying and doing for years. Which basically means that I am irked all the time, because this happens continually — even in ‘progressive’ circles that should know better — and I’m thus endlessly frustrated. It’s […]
Stop Trashing Millennials as Though We Aren’t Accomplishing Things
We know. You love hating on millennials, that shiftless, whiny, useless generation overrunning the streets with their brunch and their black-rimmed glasses. We never had it as hard as you — oh, except for how many of us have endured war for over half our lives, along with multiple economic downturns, skyrocketing costs of living, […]
Why I Don’t Gender People
One thing that fascinates me about WisCon is a key difference between moderators that might seem subtle to someone who isn’t paying attention. During Q&As or audience commentaries, they handle picking people in two very different ways. Let’s say, theoretically, that a person with a red dress stands up or raises a hand to ask a […]
Where Do You Learn Your Cultural Traditions?
We’re at a wedding, doing toasts, and I don’t raise my glass with everyone else, although I do clap and smile warmly at the couple at the head of the tent. ‘Why aren’t you toasting,’ a friend asks, pointing at my glass. ‘I’m drinking water,’ I explain, an explanation sufficient enough to me, but she […]
Tattooing and Intimacy
I sometimes say that as a tattooed person, I am never truly naked. I bear ink on my skin that goes with me wherever and whenever I go; when I was in surgery recently, the people in the operating room commented on my chest piece, noting that it was quite a dramatic and interesting statement. […]