Interesting Links for 18-11-2020

[andrewducker]

Glasgow among areas placed into Scotland's toughest Level 4 coronavirus restrictions

(tags:Glasgow pandemic Scotland )

By the way, Donald Trump could still launch nuclear weapons at any time

(tags:USA nuclearweapons )

What is devolution and how does it work across the UK?

(tags:UK devolution Scotland Wales NorthernIreland )

Trans Educational Resources

(tags:LGBT transgender )

It's Been Exactly One Year Since the First Case of COVID Was Found in China

(tags:China pandemic time )

Shazam reveals most searched-for songs of all time

(tags:music )

David Cameron's austerity policies to blame for recession in UK, says Barack Obama

(tags:UK austerity recession davidcameron barackobama )

A fascinating discussion about how LGBT history, culture, and language has changed, and how it continues to do so

(tags:LGBT language transgender history )

Comparing the polls and predictive markets for the US election

(tags:polls predictions USA elections )

WAP/Devil Went Down To Georgia is a work of genius

(tags:music remix funny )

"Our plan for a moderate Labour party"

(tags:labour politics UK )

Dog! Plays! With! Balloon!

(tags:dogs video balloon )

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

That LGBT history/language thing is so interesting (I love wildeabandon's point there at the end!). It made me laugh because what the asterisk in "trans*" is claimed to mean there isn't what I understood it to mean at the time, which kinda illustrates this point.

I kinda wish, for all that "queer" is being lauded as an umbrella term for a lot of things that didn't have names at all or don't have consistent names, there had been someone there with the intergenerational knowledge to say that queer is also a word with a history and I know people still active in LGBT+ activism who get upset hearing it (even just hearing a Q added to that acronym) because they're old enough to associate it with, as one once said, "what the bullies called me as they were beating me up." Queer is probably perfect on Tumblr but I'm always aware of that wider reaction too.

By the way, Donald Trump could still launch nuclear weapons at any time

[jack]

Maybe we should have a pact amongst people dependent on DNA not to write that in headlines?

[andrewducker]

There's a big thing I've seen where Queer was a slur, then it was reclaimed, and now some people (mostly transphobes) are trying to get rid of it again, because if you push people to use individual descriptors then they can divide people off again.

But I'm nowhere near being on the inside of this stuff - and I'm sure that like the rest of it, it's very variable over both time and place.

Re: By the way, Donald Trump could still launch nuclear weapons at any time

[andrewducker]

If I thought that Donald Trump read my blog I'd certainly be tailoring my links more carefully!

Re: By the way, Donald Trump could still launch nuclear weapons at any time

[jack]

Hm. That's the kind of comment I need to phrase better. I think that might actually be important (for people writing major newspapers, not link roundups). But I have a tendency to be flippant at the same time. Musing on it.

Re: By the way, Donald Trump could still launch nuclear weapons at any time

[lsanderson]

Wot? I'm certain Herr Trump does not read, and only slightly less certain that he cannot read...

[cmcmck]

I'm a trans woman who has been around long enough (getting on for fifty years transitioned and forty plus years post surgery) to have seen so many labels come and go.

Many of those labels were no great loss........

Re: By the way, Donald Trump could still launch nuclear weapons at any time

[dewline]

Twitter atrocities against civilisation aside?

[minoanmiss]

Heh, actually Queer is HUGELY CONTROVERSIAL on Tumblr because some people took the quite extant perjorative connotation "what the bullies called me as they were beating me up" and went around yelling at people for using it at all even as a self-descriptor. I have seen the movement to be rid of 'queer' ascribed to TERFs who want to get rid of an umbrella term as part of getting rid of trans people -- I don't personally know if this is true. So in response a lot of people have become defensive of the term 'queer'. Like most Tumblr fights there's more heat than light and a general lack of nuance.

(rereading this -- I spend too much time on tumblr, hahah)

[melchar]

'Dog playing with balloon' should be mandatory viewing for everyone - JUST to remind us what happiness feels like.