a few nifty things I've read recently
Jan. 21st, 2014 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cislyn- The Names They Gave Me. I related to much of this, though my own name doesn't carry the same kind of personal cultural weight for me.
- 60 words and a war without end. This is just a really good and interesting read all around. It's a look at the history of this sentence: "That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." And wow, what a history, and what history it's still making.
- Y'all have probably already seen Amanda Hess's Why Women Aren't Welcome On The Internet, but just in case you haven't, there you go. The most interesting part of this article to me is the discussion of law enforcement - the way things are right now, it's damned tricky to know how to get actual Officials involved when threats are made, and which people to call on is also a big question. We're going to have to figure this shit out, and I hope it'll be sooner rather than later. An interesting question which I found myself asking was "well, what can I, personally, do to fix this?" Like so many big problems (hi, energy and infrastructure!) I feel like there's a lot more room for institutional change here, and less on an individual scale. I mean, I can keep engaging openly as a woman on the internet - and I'm damned lucky to have had very few lousy interactions online, but I'm also shy and limit my audiences rather a lot, so I realize those are factors - but I can't do much about the confusion from law enforcement or the "just get off twitter" reactions or the hordes of threatening jerks. Especially since in my particular small corner of the internet things are generally good. Anyway, lots of thinky thoughts.
- 60 words and a war without end. This is just a really good and interesting read all around. It's a look at the history of this sentence: "That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." And wow, what a history, and what history it's still making.
- Y'all have probably already seen Amanda Hess's Why Women Aren't Welcome On The Internet, but just in case you haven't, there you go. The most interesting part of this article to me is the discussion of law enforcement - the way things are right now, it's damned tricky to know how to get actual Officials involved when threats are made, and which people to call on is also a big question. We're going to have to figure this shit out, and I hope it'll be sooner rather than later. An interesting question which I found myself asking was "well, what can I, personally, do to fix this?" Like so many big problems (hi, energy and infrastructure!) I feel like there's a lot more room for institutional change here, and less on an individual scale. I mean, I can keep engaging openly as a woman on the internet - and I'm damned lucky to have had very few lousy interactions online, but I'm also shy and limit my audiences rather a lot, so I realize those are factors - but I can't do much about the confusion from law enforcement or the "just get off twitter" reactions or the hordes of threatening jerks. Especially since in my particular small corner of the internet things are generally good. Anyway, lots of thinky thoughts.
