True Crime Podcast But You Realize As You're Listening That The Host Is Just Describing Episodes Of Scooby-Doo

“It is a well-documented fact that by the age of 5 monolingual White children will have heard 30 million fewer words in languages other than English than bilingual children of color. In addition, they will have had a complete lack of exposure to the richness of non-standardized varieties of English that characterize the homes of many children of color. This language gap increases the longer these children are in school. The question is what causes this language gap and what can be done to address it? The major cause of this language gap is the failure of monolingual White communities to successfully assimilate into the multilingual and multidialectal mainstream. The continued existence of White ethnic enclaves persists despite concerted efforts to integrate White communities into the multiracial mainstream since the 1960s. In these linguistically isolated enclaves it is possible to go for days without interacting with anybody who does not speak Standardized American English providing little incentive for their inhabitants to adapt to the multilingual and multidialectal nature of US society. This linguistic isolation has a detrimental effect on the cognitive development of monolingual White children. This is because linguistically isolated households lack the rich translanguaging practices that are found in bilingual households and the elaborate style-shifting that occurs in bidialectal households. This leaves monolingual White children without a strong metalinguistic basis for language learning. As a result, many of these monolingual White children lack the school-readiness skills needed for foreign language learning and graduate from school having mastered nothing but Standardized American English leaving them ill-equipped to engage in intercultural communication.”

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What if we talked about monolingual White children the way we talk about low-income children of color?

Excerpt from a satirical blog post from The Educational Linguist that makes a good point about which language skills we value as a society and the problems with talking about a “language gap”. 

(via lingrix)

ignorance brings hate

i would rather help 100000 fakers than make life harder for a single disabled person

People make jokes about poorly made podcasts and how common it is now for people to try and make one but honestly I love a medium that any one can try. I love badly recorded audio. I love using a comforter or a closet as a sound booth. I love getting your friends together to make a low budget project. I love people being able to include more representation without having to go through the intensive process it might take to get characters and scenes approved in other mediums.

You Are Not Wasting Time; It Was Given To You As A Gift, Freely and Generously; Is Rain Wasted Because It Falls On Gardens, Grass, Disgruntled Birds, and Umbrellas All The Same?

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Not to sound like a fuckin hippie but please for the love of god start noticing and appreciating the natural world around you. You don’t have to go hike the entire Appalachian trail or anything and I get that not everyone has access to the outdoors for various reasons, but just fucking … look around you when you’re outside. Notice the sky and the sun and the birds and creatures. Start caring about them. I’m begging you.

in your 20s you must rediscover the joys of arts and crafts to stave off spiritual decay

With Three and the potential for more SecUnit characters, I think we are all excited for ones with very different quirks and interests than our Murderbot.

My thought: SecUnits don't have a digestive track, but they have a sense of smell, and it is unclear if they have taste buds. I would propose they likely do, because their mouths seems to be organic (although I have some questions about how that works in regards to saliva. I have many questions about how secunits work but I respect Martha Wells' decision not to tell us) and I can't think of a reason to reduce the ability to taste.

My idea: a SecUnit who is a foodie. It gets really into the TASTE of food. It either licks the food or chews it and spits it out. It gets really excited to try new restaurants with friends and never acknowledges the weirdness of how it interacts with food.

I just imagine the horror and amusement on the faces of its dining companions as it just excitedly licks a very nice steak or something.