Stewart hits the head on the proverbial nail.
Two brothers from Chechnya. That was the official word early morning on Friday April 19th, 2013 as to who were behind the Boston marathon bombings. “Chechens.”
So, naturally, who do some brilliant citizens of the United States of America blame? The CZECH REPUBLIC, of course!
Here are those…
It turns out procrastination is not typically a function of laziness, apathy or work ethic as it is often regarded to be. It’s a neurotic self-defense behavior that develops to protect a person’s sense of self-worth.
You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything.
But in real life, you can’t avoid doing things. We have to earn a living, do our taxes, have difficult conversations sometimes. Human life requires confronting uncertainty and risk, so pressure mounts. Procrastination gives a person a temporary hit of relief from this pressure of “having to do” things, which is a self-rewarding behavior. So it continues and becomes the normal way to respond to these pressures.
Particularly prone to serious procrastination problems are children who grew up with unusually high expectations placed on them. Their older siblings may have been high achievers, leaving big shoes to fill, or their parents may have had neurotic and inhuman expectations of their own, or else they exhibited exceptional talents early on, and thereafter “average” performances were met with concern and suspicion from parents and teachers.
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David Cain, “Procrastination Is Not Laziness” (via zaynzuko)
This fits me to a rather disturbing degree. |
A blog - in Swedish - about psychology made by a friend of mine from the university of Linköping. :-)
EXAMPLE OF ISCRIBBLE
Omg it’s true.
This again but with EVEN MORE TRUENESS.
My main example bein that chick that got offended or somefin when I made a remark how the question “WHAT IS THIS??” existed before Game Grumps .____________________.’
Ayup.
I’ve argued many times before that asexuality is not queer because it is not in and of itself a queer identity since it doesn’t require same sex attraction or pertain to gender identity. And as I have said before I invariably get someone who claims is LGBT saying I’m erasing them and even more…
It seems to me that this is an attempt to use asexuality as a scapegoat for a set of problems faced by some members of the queer community. This is a classic result of the impact cis heteronormative society has on minorities, where one minority turns against the other to fight for their place of validation amongst the social norm.
I understand queer as being anyone that does not identify with a heternormative identity. Some might say this definition is too broad or that it is trying to detract from the LGBT members of the community. I see this as a fear that acceptance and inclusion will somehow weaken the community, when if fact it strengthens it.
Remember when the LGBT community didn’t have the T? Trans people were considered a threat to the agenda of the gay and lesbian community. What about when the queer community shamed bisexuals? How many queer people first identify as bi before being fully comfortable or feeling safe with coming out as gay or lesbian? Does that mean bisexuality is invalid or bad for gays and lesbians? You cannot make your community’s baggage the fault of another minority. Put the blame where it lies; with the society that excluded you and pushed you into the closet in the first place.
Being repressed sexually has nothing to do with asexuality and it’s not fair or responsible to dump one orientation’s problems on someone else. This is a particularly dangerous accusation to make considering the ongoing battle that asexuality has with the mental health profession. Do you know who else is dealing with those same battles? Members of the transgender and gender queer communities. All of our identities our being erased and dismissed as being forms of sexual repression and gender confusion. Has the queer community honestly forgotten when gays and lesbians fought similar days against the mental health community?
To invalidate asexuality because it is inclusive and broad is to dismiss us because we don’t fit into a perfect presentable box. Who established this box in the first place? Heternormative society, and here is yet another example of using the tools taught to us by an oppressive society against another minority in order to fight for a place of acceptance amongst them.
Any issues LGBT people have with sexual expression are their issues and not the fault of asexuals. Asexuals do not discredit sexual people as making it difficult for us to be accepted in a sexual society. We do not try to invalidate sex positive movements because a majority of asexuals do not experience sexual attraction or want to engage in sex.
Another important fact this argument of asexuals being harmful to sexuality overlooks is the fact that there are plenty of asexuals who have and enjoy sex, or that express ourselves sexually in some way. In fact, that really puts an end to the whole thing.
Having read the original post, I feel very fortunate that the queer communities I have been a part of have always been very accepting, supporting, and inclusive of asexuality. In fact, I do not think this statement of asexuals being problematic is the sentiment that most liberal and progressive queer communities have towards asexuals. The communities I have been a part of were eager to learn and gave me a platform to share. I felt safe to identify as queer. Most importantly, we all provided each other with a place to be who we were. No one’s orientation held presidency over the other. It wasn’t some queer club where you had to earn your card. It was a community. You will find that in a true community people learn they have a lot more in common than against each other. We supported each other’s causes, and that included heteronormative members who had just as much to contribute.
Asexuality is not a “rigid stance” against sexual expression any more than homosexuality is a rigid stance against heterosexuality, or that being transgender is a stance against those whose genders align with the sex they were assigned at birth. The purpose of asexuality, or any orientation, is not to be helpful of beneficial to other orientations. Ones identity should not be grounded in the validation or compliment of others. An orientation is not a stance. Queer people do not wake up and decide to become queer to take a stance against something. Asexuality is our identity, and like any identity it is an understanding and acceptance of who we are.
This was a fantastic response by audaciousace.
The Problem With The Big Bang Theory…
I’ve been meaning to post something about The Big Bang Theory for a while now but it’s taken me ‘till now to really understand what it is about the show that makes me uncomfortable. I’m not exactly a believer in the whole “only write about the things you like, don’t trash the things you don’t” trend which seems to be plaguing comments sections in negative articles lately, but I wanted to be able to really examine why I don’t like TBBT rather than just slagging it off. My main questions being - Why don’t I like this anymore? Why do I feel uncomfortable watching it? And why do I get so annoyed when I see people sing its praises online? The thing which really sparked this post was seeing a raft of comments on Facebook, below the last round of voting in Television Without Pity’s Tubey Awards, claiming The Big Bang Theory to be “the best comedy on TV”. This made me angry so instead of posting an impulsive comment calling out their bad taste which I’d probably regret later, I decided to really analyse why seeing comments like that made me so mad when previously, although I didn’t really love the show, I’d never considered myself as disliking The Big Bang Theory.
Hell, I even have season one on dvd, it’s sitting right between Battlestar Galactica and Bored To Death in my alphabetised collection.
And here, I think, is where my problem with The Big Bang Theory lies…
I will give TBBT the credit of having not just white people as main characters. Having a few black, Latino, and LGBTQ+ minor characters wouldn’t hurt.
I agree with the blogger that the series do at least border on being homophobic, and I would add there is trans- and queerphobia as well - it’s one thing that there are characters who are homo-/transphobic, and characters who internalize homophobia, the problem is that the homophobia and transphobia is never (AFAIK) properly challenged. Nobody says that if Raj do dress in women’s clothing, it’s okay, or that it’s okay for Raj and Howard to bromance. Of course, being bi- or pansexual never seems to be an “option”.
There could be more done to make Sheldon more sympathetic, and since he’s clearly not neurotypical, his autism (or whatever he may be diagnosed with) should be taken with a modicum or seriousness.
The show in general isn’t all bad though, and if the writers are willing to explore more facets of geek culture, it still has potential.
