links for 2009-12-04

  • "A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke. The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number." Hear that? That's Chuck D giving hell to the Washington Post.
  • "Buddy Chase and his Welcome-to-Gmail-Singers travel the country to welcome newly-minted Gmailers with a celebratory serenade." Complete with video.
    (tags: gmail music humor)
  • Every so often I think back fondly on the decade that I spent as a website developer for hire as a consultant, and wonder if I should get into that business again. From now on, when that thought crosses my mind, I'm going to read this comic. Matthew Inman captures perfectly the terrible pattern that most website development jobs fall into.
  • I thought I understood the Caster Semenya scandal. Then I read Ariel Levy's account of her trip to Limpopo to meet Semenya's coach, friends, and family, and her explanation of the apartheid-era census, in which people were assigned to a race that dictated where they could travel and what they could do for a living. And NOW I understand what's going on, in a way that no other coverage made possible. I also learned that, genetically and chemically, sex isn't dichotomous, but rather a spectrum with 90% of us occupying the edges. Recommended highly.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

2 replies on “links for 2009-12-04”

  1. “I also learned that, genetically and chemically, sex isn’t dichotomous, but rather a spectrum with 90% of us occupying the edges.”

    This is going to sound so patronizing, but I’m so glad you understand that. It’s really gratifying when the light goes on for someone that sex and gender aren’t the same thing, that both are a spectrum and the spectrum is more fluid than people think. It’s such a problem for transgendered individuals, which is obvious, but there are, I think, just as serious problems for people like Caster, who mosaic or simply some form of gender queer, since they don’t present as obvious problems as a transitioning transgendered individual does.

    If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend hitting up Google Scholar for anything written by Dean Spade. I think he does a fantastic job explaining the genetic, cultural and chemical components of sex and gender in a social and legal context, and he’s able to do it in a way that is easy for people who are just learning about this stuff to take in.

  2. It’s really gratifying when the light goes on for someone that sex and gender aren’t the same thing, that both are a spectrum and the spectrum is more fluid than people think.

    I’ve definitely known that sex and gender aren’t the same thing (the confusion of the words is a pet peeve of mine), and I’ve been clear on the idea that it’s sort of a spectrum, but I had no idea that it was such a rich, interesting, multi-variate, broad spectrum. It’s really something that I thought I understand, that I thought I got the complexity of, but there turns out to be so much more. That really was a great article.

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