The Trump-Bannon team is playing us with the President’s whole “the dishonest press isn’t reporting terrorist attacks” line and Spicer’s list. This is an attempt to push a narrative on the American people that our greatest existential threat comes from terror attacks by Islamic extremists. By responding to and covering the list, the media … [Read more…]
(Fred Korematsu was the subject of yesterday’s Google Doodle) All Americans should be scared about what’s going on right now, for non-partisan reasons: 1. The unprecedented concentration of power in Trump’s inner circle: They’ve been creating a “shadow cabinet” since day one, inserting senior staff members into federal agencies who report to and are accountable to … [Read more…]
I’m super excited to announce that my story, “Impossibility Crow” was posted to Escape Pod today! The narrator, Roberto Suarez, did a fantastic job and I want to buy him a beer and/or lunch the next time I’m in Portland. And oh! I can die happy now that I’ve heard Alasdair Stuart praising my story in … [Read more…]
2016 was the year I reclaimed my reading life: I read almost as many books in one year as I did in the previous three years combined. I credit some of this shift to GoodReads, which allowed me to keep reading as a priority, especially with social media and election news competing for my reading … [Read more…]
I felt sucker-punched by The Book of Mormon. I was expecting a clever if irreverent take down of Mormonism; I got that, but I had to choke it down with a big bucket of humor at the expense of blacks on stage and in the audience. For what it’s worth, I’m a Mormon who was … [Read more…]
I’m an adult. I’ve been adulting for ENTIRE DECADES. Being a data person, I wondered if there were numbers that might show how well I’ve been adulting all this time. Enter the United States Social Security Administration. [CUE SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC: DUN DUN DUN!] Every year or two, the helpful folks at Social Security send me … [Read more…]
For every gun shop in America, there are about one and a half K-12 schools. If you live in an average American community and count up about how many elementary, middle, and high schools there are around you, there should be two-thirds as many gun retailers. (This includes pawn shops licensed to sell firearms.) Of course, … [Read more…]
…Thou shalt always start thy bar chart at zero. This Fox News example is infamous–the internet backlash forced them to apologize and share a corrected version: But what do you do when it could be helpful to show only the top of the bars–for example, the several pound fluctuation every time you step on the scales? … [Read more…]
I ran into this headline today: “PEW POLL: 63 MILLION MUSLIMS SUPPORT ISIS IN ELEVEN COUNTRIES” I won’t link to the article, but you can probably find this site through a quick search. My first thought was that this number seemed small–I was pretty sure that there were over a billion Muslims in the world. Sure enough, … [Read more…]
Number of people killed in the U.S. since the 9/11 attacks by: Muslim extremists: 26 Right-Wing extremists: 51 #dailydatastory Source
As usual, I’m late, but as usual, I’m having a blast picking out Secret Santa gifties for someone I don’t know that I don’t actually have to give! Over at Shadow Manor, the Caretaker organizes an annual “gift swap” that involves unlimited budgets and lots of images but no actual exchange. It’s perfect. This year, … [Read more…]
With Mormon excommunication threats in the news again, I want to share links to my own experience of excommunication for apostasy. Five years ago, when I received a letter very similar to the ones that John Dehlin and Kate Kelly received, I wrote that: I feel compelled to document all of this, because I’m a … [Read more…]