What they did not want you to ever find out is that your generation, the generation born between 1980-1995, actually outnumbers the Baby Boomers. They knew that if you ever turned your eye towards political reform, you could change the world. They tried to keep you sated on vapid television shows and vapid music. They cut off your education and fed you brain candy. They took away your music and gave you Top Ten pop stations. They cut off your art and replaced it with endless reality shows for you to plug into, hoping you would sit quietly by as they ran the world. We as a society are only as strong as our weakest link. Give ‘em hell, kids.
(Source: katedanley)
The problem that needs to be fixed is not kick all the girls out of YA, it’s teach boys that stories featuring female protagonists or written by female authors also apply to them. Boys fall in love. Boys want to be important. Boys have hopes and fears and dreams and ambitions. What boys also have is a sexist society in which they are belittled for “liking girl stuff.” Male is neutral, female is specific.
I heard someone mention that Sarah Rees Brennan’s THE DEMON’S LEXICON would be great for boys, but they’d never read it with that cover. Friends, then the problem is NOT with the book. It’s with the society that’s raising that boy. It’s with the community who inculcated that boy with the idea that he can’t read a book with an attractive guy on the cover.
Here’s how we solve the OMG SO MANY GIRLS IN YA problem: quit treating women like secondary appendages. Quit treating women’s art like it’s a niche, novelty creation only for girls. Quit teaching boys to fear the feminine, quit insisting that it’s a hardship for men to have to relate to anything that doesn’t specifically cater to them.
Because if I can watch Raiders of the Lost Ark and want to grow up to be an archaeologist, there’s no reason at all that a boy shouldn’t be able to read THE DEMON’S LEXICON with its cover on. My friends, sexism doesn’t just hurt women, and our young men’s abysmal rate of attraction to literacy is the proof of it.
If you want to fix the male literary crisis, here’s your solution:
Become a feminist.
Senior Citizens Owe Billions In Student Loan Debt
New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that Americans 60 and older still owe about $36 billion in student loans, providing a rare window into the dynamics of student debt. More than 10 percent of those loans are delinquent. As a result, consumer advocates say, it is not uncommon for Social Security checks to be garnished or for debt collectors to harass borrowers in their 80s over student loans that are decades old.
That even seniors remain saddled with student loans highlights what a growing chorus of lawmakers, economists and financial experts say has become a central conflict in the nation’s higher education system: The long-touted benefits of a college degree are being diluted by rising tuition rates and the longevity of debt.
Some of these older Americans are still grappling with their first wave of student loans, while others took on new debt when they returned to school later in life in hopes of becoming more competitive in the labor force. Many have co-signed for loans with their children or grandchildren to help them afford ballooning tuition.
The recent recession exacerbated this problem, making it harder for older Americans — or the youths they are supporting in school — to get good-paying jobs. And unlike other debts, student loans cannot be shed in bankruptcy. As a result, some older Americans have found that a college degree led not to a prosperous career but instead to a lifetime under the shadow of debt.
Ms. Talackova has been disqualified from the Miss Universe Canada contest solely for being transgender. This is discriminatory, unjust, and quite frankly disgusting. She is a woman and deserves to be treated as any other woman would be. What kind of genitals she was or was not born with (and even what kind of genitals she has today) is completely irrelevant. This petition is to get her reinstated as a contestant, since she was unfairly disqualified.
There are only
728 signatures. WE CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS!34! GO GO GO TUMBLR!
192! Now we’re talking :D
SIGN AND REBLOG, PLEASE!
22540 total signatures now…
22,627. DAMN.
RE-BLOGGED and SIGNAL BOOSTED!
Obama And ISP’s To Launch Largest Digital Spying Scheme In History (Must Read)
If you download potentially copyrighted software, videos or music, your Internet service provider (ISP) has been watching, and they’re coming for you.
Specifically, they’re coming for you on Thursday, July 1.
That’s the date when the nation’s largest ISPs will all voluntarily implement a new anti-piracy plan that will engage network operators in the largest digital spying scheme in history, and see some users’ bandwidth completely cut off until they sign an agreement saying they will not download copyrighted materials.
Word of the start date has been largely kept secret since ISPs announced their plans last June. The deal was brokered by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and coordinated by the Obama Administration. The same groups have weighed in heavily on controversial Internet policies around the world, with similar facilitation by the Obama’s Administration’s State Department.
The July 12 date was revealed by the RIAA’s CEO and top lobbyist, Cary Sherman, during a publishers’ conference on Wednesday in New York, according to technology publication CNet.
The content industries calls this scheme a “graduated response” plan, which will see
-Time Warner Cable
-Cablevision
-Comcast
-Verizon
-AT&T
and others spying on users’ Internet activities and watching for potential copyright infringement. Users who are “caught” infringing on a creator’s protected work can then be interrupted with a notice that piracy is forbidden by law and carries penalties of up to $150,000 per infringement, requiring the user to click through saying they understand the consequences before bandwidth is restored, and they could still be subject to copyright infringement lawsuits.
Response: This is much worse than SOPA/PIPA and ACTA. It doesn’t necessarily censor the internet but it spys on everything you do. Your ENTIRE web history will be watched and recorded and might even assist the government. This was coordinated by Obama and his administration with the help of the MPAA and RIAA.
What is so dangerous about this is that this is not a law it is a policy adopted by several companies. That means this will not be debated in Congress and you will agree to be spied on by signing a contract with the company.
Internet censorship is becoming a reality and now the corporate elite will legally be able to spy on you. If we spread this and cause an uproar like what we did with SOPA, maybe they will back down. Either way people NEED to know about this.
So we’re all quite possibly screwed.
What every traditional, real American family should look like :)
COOL!!! Now let me add in some other examples of what a healthy, happy, traditional, real American family should BE ABLE to look like:
Black families
Mexican and South American families
Middle Eastern families
East Asian families
South Asian families
Native American families
European families
Interracial families of all colors
Jewish families
Muslim families
Buddhist families
Hindu families
Atheist or agnostic families
Single mother families
Single father families
Grandparents raising a family
Foster families
Adopted families
Transgender parent families
Families with special needs children
Families with disabled children
Families with disabled parents
Families with deaf/hard of hearing parents, deaf/hard of hearing children, or both
Childless couples
~~~
Awwww, aren’t they all adorable? :3
I know I probably left a lot of folks out, so feel free to add pictures of what a good, happy, true American family can be! Remember they come in all shapes, sizes, colors, ages, genders, religions, races, cultures, nationalities, sexualities, and appearances, so don’t leave anyone out! Especially when you VOTE. The only thing that defines what makes a family is love. <3
My, isn’t America wonderful~?
EDIT: And you know, I just wanted to add…you can send Rick Santorum and the rest of the country, even the rest of the world, the message that these families and other families that went unmentioned matter TOO, NOT just white, conservative, Christian, straight-parent, double-parent, rich, privileged families like his. Let him and the country know that ALL families have a say, ALL families are what define America, ALL families are what make this nation strong, ALL families matter, ALL families are important, and that ALL families deserve a CHANCE.
Let Rick Santorum know that OUR children deserve the chance to go to college, NOT just his.
Let Rick Santorum know that OUR children deserve to marry whoever they want, NOT just his.
Let Rick Santorum know that WE deserve to marry whoever we fall in love with, NOT just him and his wife Karen.
Let Rick Santorum know that OUR wives and girlfriends deserve to have life-saving abortions/miscarriages/whatever he chooses to call it, NOT just his.
Let Rick Santorum know that OUR special needs and disabled children deserve to have money that can help improve their lives, NOT just his daughter.
Let Rick Santorum know that threatening OUR families will NOT be tolerated, and that WE are the ones who believe in what America TRULY is, a place where ANY family can be free and happy.
Let Rick Santorum know that his family will NOT become the royal figureheads of a medieval theocracy where church and state are bound as one.
Let Rick Santorum know that marriage is as old as humanity and that HIS religion did NOT invent the concept and he can NOT force his definition of it on us.
Let Rick Santorum know that OUR women matter, OUR women should have a say over their own bodies, and that OUR women deserve to be LOVED in any way we see fit.
Let Rick Santorum know that OUR families deserve medical help, OUR parents deserve fair wages and fair pay, OUR parents deserve places in the work force, that OUR single mothers and single fathers and disabled parents are not to be shut out by greedy executives and CEOs who only seek to expand their own paycheck and give NOTHING back to their own employees or society at large.
Let Rick Santorum know that he is WRONG for excluding OUR families, that he is a BIGOT no matter how hard he tries to deny it, and that without OUR families working and toiling away beneath families like his, America would NOT be the rich and powerful country it is today.
Let Rick Santorum know that WE are America and that WE DON’T WANT HIM.
VOTE AGAINST SANTORUM AND OTHER HATEFUL MEN LIKE HIM.
A VOTE AGAINST THEM IS A VOTE FOR FAMILY IN ALL OF ITS FORMS.
A VOTE AGAINST THEM IS A VOTE FOR WHAT AMERICA REALLY IS: A LAND OF THE FREE, A LAND OF HARD-WORKING FAMILIES, A LAND OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITY, A LAND OF FAIR PLAY AND ASSISTING THOSE IN NEED, A LAND THAT DOES NOT SHUT OUT ITS POOR AND DENIES ITS CITIZENS THEIR RIGHTS, A LAND THAT DOES NOT LET BIGOTS LIKE RICK SANTORUM INTO THE WHITE HOUSE.
FAMILIES ARE PEOPLE, NOT CORPORATIONS.
FAMILIES ARE PEOPLE, NOT THEOCRACIES.
FAMILIES ARE PEOPLE, NOT RICK SANTORUM.
Oh my THIS is why I started following you. You are fucking AMAZING! In all truth I’d like it better if you ran for president more than any other candidate (even Obama, and I love Obama.)
This is a good post. Truth bombs all up in this place. I’d like to see one done for Australia because Australian does not equal white and it makes me so angry when I see people equating it with that.
i would like to apologize for the length of this post from my followers but please take the time to even just glance at all these families along with the text beneath
you won’t regret it, i promise
