Comet PanSTARRS, Moon, And Venus : It Is The Object To The Left Of The Big Tree Thats Generating Much

Things that cannot screen for breast cancer and things that can.

And for those who are yelling about PP not doing mammograms, “screenings” are not just mammograms.  "Screenings" are also breast exams, which are the first line of defense. Those breast exams are done every time a woman has a pelvic exam, which she needs in order to get birth control or STI testing. Get it together. Semantics do not change the facts. 

For more information on supporting REAL pro-women organizations, check out this great article by Kaili Joy Gray.  

RE LAST POST 

#KnowYourHistory: #Stonewall

Image is Powerful: Cameron Russell at TEDxMidAtlantic 2012

The Best Auto-Reply

Via Elan Morgan:

When we give so much of our media space over to discussion about the irritation that is listening to women’s voices, we miss the underlying truth and strengthen an already powerful and ugly cultural bias. This ongoing, superficial public discussion about women’s speech habits is really about our resistance to listening to or featuring women in public discussion. It is not about how women need to be taught how to speak.

The bias against women in public dialog, from the complaints about the way they speak to our reticence to see them in positions of power, limits their participation in the culture and the politics that affect change not only in their own lives but also in their communities and the larger world. This imbalance has deep and broad social, political, and economic impacts for all of us, both women and men.

That is what we really need to be talking about.

Image: Screenshot of an auto-reply email created by Katie Mingle of the design — and design thinking — 99% Invisible podcast.

SER-EE-OUSLY!

I honestly don’t understand why there aren’t more people who, when given the platform to discuss minimum wage, don’t simply distill it to the simplest of facts:

A forty hour work week is considered full time.

It’s considered as such because it takes up the amount of time we as a society have agreed should be considered the maximum work schedule required of an employee. (this, of course, does not always bear out practically, but just follow me here)

A person working the maximum amount of time required should earn enough for that labor to be able to survive. Phrased this way, I doubt even most conservatives could effectively argue against it, and out of the mouth of someone verbally deft enough to dance around the pathos-based jabs conservative pundits like to use to avoid actually debating, it could actually get opps thinking.

Therefore, if an employee is being paid less than [number of dollars needed for the post-tax total to pay for the basic necessities in a given area divided by forty] per hour, they are being ripped off and essentially having their labor, productivity, and profit generation value stolen by their employer.

Wages are a business expense, and if a company cannot afford to pay for its labor, it is by definition a failing business. A company stealing labor to stay afloat (without even touching those that do so simply to increase profit margins and/or management/executive pay/bonuses) is no more ethical than a failing construction company breaking into a lumber yard and stealing wood.

Our goal as a society should be to protect each other, especially those that most need protection, not to subsidize failing businesses whose owners could quite well subsidize them on their own.

I was driving past a business here in the Houston Heights, when I glimpsed this painted on the side of the building. I recognized that iconic WWII poster before I realized it was not just any woman, but 14 year old Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who was attacked for wanting an education. The words next to her are her quote, ( “I don’t mind if I have to sit on the floor at school.) All I want is education. And I’m afraid of no one.”

Feminists don’t wanna live in a world without men, we want to live in a world without patriarchy and violent, toxic hyper-masculinity