I wonder if the author of this post and the woman in this picture will ever meet, and if so - will they fall in love with each other as quickly as I just fell in love with them?
If I did this, I'd have shared what he said -
But this is beautiful, nonetheless
My letter to one and all this International Women's Day -
Dear Marci and all of you reading:
You asked for advice, so here goes. I hope this inspires you (all) to re-think a few statements you (may) have made and/or behaviors you (may) have practiced…
1. Being an open book is great and will only turn off those with whom you’re not compatible. Keep that up! Being self-deprecating is a turn off to many (with whom you may otherwise be compatible), and is often mis/interpreted as a behavior those lacking in self-esteem tend to practice. Stop that.
2. Being sensual on a first date means not much more than licking your own lips, making eye contact with and perhaps hugging or non-sexually touching your date. Being sexual on a first date means you’re screwing up your chances of forging a friendship-based relationship by screwing someone before befriending them.
3. Being comfortable is not the same thing as letting your apartment become uncomfortable for company. Clean the space because it’s healthy and you’re worth it, then be comfortable enjoying it with others to show them you’re healthy and think they’re worth it too.
4. Being tired is just like being bored; boring people are bored; tiring people are tired. Energy is sometimes like motivation, that’s when you need to fake it until you can make it yourself. Putting the onus squarely on your dates to provide you with the energy or motivation to go out is placing too much of a burden on other people. It’s not a very attractive excuse and it’s not even a good reason for people with auto-immune disorders. Keeping the balance between inertia and action is even more important for your health. Perhaps you’d enjoy hula hooping or some other form of playful exercise that doesn’t require such intense physical movement as more typical work outs.
5. Change the way you look at things, and change the way things look. You’re not looking outside of your type at all of the men around you, so you’re not finding lots of available men around you. Yes, people do that (date people they’re not instantly attracted to). Try it sometime! When you see beyond someone’s external shell to reveal their inner core they look a million times more attractive to you on the surface. It’s magical. Like most magic (being neutral and natural) the opposite is also true (gross insides make for ugly outsides on even the hottest folks).
6. What’s heavier than your body will ever be is the effect of low self-esteem on your psyche. That albatross around your neck is more overweight than you’ll ever be, and nowhere near as beautiful as you’ll always be (and perhaps never see without changing your perspective and behavior). Take off that necklace if you want to see what’s really in the mirror and feel what’s really in your heart. When you learn to love yourself, you’ll attract the same from others. Here’s an exercise to practice: look in the mirror daily and before you walk away, praise some part of yourself.
I wish (all of) you well in life, love and everything else. I hope my words are read with the love they have been written.
We’re!
Pollyanna
Rapists cause rape.
(via theriotmag)
by Amanda Fucking Palmer
WSJ piece argues that a $9 minimum wage already exists -
Unsurprisingly, a Wall Street Journal opinion writer thinks poor people don’t need a raise. He says that if you factor in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), *technically* poor people are already making $9 an hour.
Couple things:
- When you’re poor, you can’t pay the electric company by saying, “Well, in April of next year I’ll get a sweet tax return check!” When you are poor, you need money up front, in your bank account, every two weeks. The phrase “living paycheck to paycheck” comes to mind. When you’re not poor, it’s easy to wait a few months for the government to pay you back for the money they borrowed. A few thousand bucks at tax return time? Sweet. But poor people don’t have the luxury of waiting for a once-yearly bump to their income.
- Poor people do not necessarily have access to someone who can do their taxes. If you’re rich, you can pay a high-level tax professional to comb over your receipts and help you write off $77,000 in horse expenses (remember Mitt Romney, guys? He got $77k in tax breaks for his wife’s horse. True story). That tax person can also show you how to put your money into bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands so that you don’t have to pay taxes on it at all. America!
But these tax guys charge a lot. Last year, my boss’s sister (an accountant) did my taxes for me, and at the “family and friends” rate, I still paid over $100. Poor families cannot afford $100 to *possibly* find more tax breaks they’re entitled to. I’m going to have to plead ignorance on one point: I do not know if the 1040 EZ includes the EITC, or if you have to file differently to get it. Google is pulling up lots of documentation on taxes that I can barely comprehend. But the point still stands that many poor people miss out on tax breaks because they don’t know about them. That was the one - ONE - advantage of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan: it would have simplified the tax code. Right now, tax knowledge is a real ivory tower thing. Saying “But poor people already get a tax credit that increases their yearly salary” is ignorant of that fact.- Fuck you, buddy. Just fuck you. Fuck you and your “well technically poor people are already coddled with $9 an hour salaries!” bullshit. Fuck you and your tax code shit. People deserve $9 an hour. Maybe more than that. $9 an hour per paycheck, not per year. Fuck you.
4. When the minimum wage increases “poor” people lose their jobs.
Actually no.
An increase in the minimum wage has actually been shown to correlate with shorter periods of unemployment and a higher probability that unemployed people will find employment.
“The results… indicate that higher minimum wages are associated with shortened unemployment durations…
With state and year effects, a $0.50 increase in the minimum wage is associated with approximately a 35 percent increase in the hazard (or probability of becoming employed) for male recipients and a 50 percent increase for female recipients.”
But kudos for making shit up because it sounded right
A Berkeley study from 2010 found “no detectable employment losses” from increasing the minimum wage. So yeah no, increasing the minimum wage will not cause people to lose their jobs.
Also why the scare quotes around “poor”?
And this might put you off polynormativity -
Which would be a good thing
And if it doesn’t, it might get you pondering about all sorts of things…