giandujakiss | Reading

A bad combination, clearly! And so relevant to my interests. My mind is blown, even though I knew several of these facts separately.

A woman who has lived in the United States for 30 years and now hopes to become a naturalized citizen has run into a road block: her lack of religion.

Margaret Doughty, 65, of Palacios, Texas applied to become a citizen of the United States, but on her application she did not agree to bear arms in defense of the United States because she was morally opposed to killing. Naturalization applicants are required to swear such an an oath, but conscientious objectors can obtain an exemption...

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Houston responded to Doughty’s conscientious objector claim by asking her to provide an “official church stationery” showing she was “a member in good standing” of a church that opposed the bearing of arms. She has until Friday to provide such evidence of her church membership.

Two prominent atheist groups... have sent letters on behalf of Doughty. The letters warned the USCIS office in Houston that it would face legal action if it refused to acknowledge Doughty as a conscientious objector because she was not a member of a church.

Source: Immigration office tells atheist applicant to prove church membership
See also: Metafilter thread

ithiliana

Posted here

Great discussion by Stephanie Zvan on the positive aspects of the code found here.

fan_eunice

The thing I have discovered about learning to draw is this....everything you ever needed to know about drawing you already knew and were already doing when you were a little kid. For a lot of us, when we can't instinctively translate what we were doing right (and we were) to the next step of representation we absorb the message that we 'can't draw' or 'have no talent' and should give up our scribbles and stick figures. Return to childhood and embrace your stick figures. You had the most important steps of learning to draw mastered when you were four years old. No, really, you did. What you do with it is what makes art, not the how. I have no clue if I have that talent yet, the what not the how. I suppose I'll find out. But the how will never stop me from trying again, 'cause every child you know is already halfway there and so are you. Really. REALLY. Lemme break this down

( Everything I needed to know to learn how to draw I learned in kindergarten )

Crossposts: http://fan-eunice.livejournal.com/337964.html

omens posting in

fan_flashworks

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lanning

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Current Mood: amused
Current Location: work
Crossposts: http://lanning.livejournal.com/501341.html

frayadjacent

Because I missed some birthdays while in thesis land! Happy belated birthday to

such_heights,

lizbee,

twistedchick, and

kouredios! I hope you had wonderful days. Thanks to all of you for your lovely, squeeful, interesting posts on everything from politics to Doctor Who. (Not that Doctor Who isn't political!)

ithiliana

I volunteered to teach in Boise State University's first computers in the classroom initiative in the mid-1980s (85, 86, cannot recall). It was a classroom rows of tables, with desktops on each (and five inch floppy discs were the cutting edge).

I have been teaching web-enhanced classes since the 1990s, and went nearly full-time online in 2006. My current plan is to shift most if not all of my online undergraduate courses to web-enhanced, with dedicated face/face time because I think students will do better and learn more. I'm doing the same for some of my graduate courses as well.

I am ALL about the teaching with technology and online elements (this fall, I'll be opening up a Youtube Channel and using a private Facebook group for one of my classes), but I have been Dr. Grumpy Face about all the hoo-hah about MOOCS, and Dr. Let Me Say Oh HELL NO to the corporate partnerships.

So I was pretty darn glad to see this article about provosts at Big Name Universities questionining the corporatization of education via MOOCS

And these provosts from some of America’s top research universities have concluded that they – not corporate entrepreneurs and investors -- must drive online education efforts.

I am the radical who stands up and says that the TEACHERS should be driving online education efforts -- I know what happened when one of the deans here imposed online courses by fiat on his whole college one year. But yes, administrators do play a role (I'm just not sure that they get to drive -- especially those who have never.fracking.taught.online.) (My Dean, when he was department head, assigned himself an online course his first summer, to get the experience--my Dean is fantastic.)

Sands said the provosts’ talks have been primarily driven by a desire to improve education using technology. But there are also secondary concerns about partnerships with companies and what those deals mean for student data and for faculty intellectual property rights.

My Emphasis.

Standing and cheering here!

When I was starting to teach fulltime (adjunct for three years before I went back and got my Ph.D.), I heard from some of my senior colleagues (this was, again, mid-1980s) about how administrators really wanted to use the cutting edge new VHS technology to revolutionize teaching: they could just record all those ~~pesky high paid arrogant tenured~~ faculty, and the have the lectures to use.....into infinity and BEYOND!

It would be so much cheaper, you see.

*is getting cynical the older I get*

eevilalice posting in

fancake

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oracne

My current reading is a book for anonymous review, which I am enjoying (hopefully, that is not a clue to its identity!). I'm also a bit further into A Cup of Smoke: stories and poems by Rachel Manija Brown.

Last week, I wrote several book previews and read a lot of fanfiction. A lot. Too much to tell you about all of it. These three stories were of particular note. Red, White and Blue, Blue, Blue by determamfidd is a lovely paean to Hank McCoy, AKA Beast, through the eyes of Steve Rogers. These two are both historicals, both slash: Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do by copperbadge recasts the Avengers characters in Prohibition-era Chicago, with Tony Stark as a gangster and Steve Rogers as a cop; and More Man than You by Mikey (mikes_grrl) combines 1930s teenage Steve Rogers with a lot of research into the gay culture of NYC at the same time.

I finished Untamed by Anna Cowan, which I liked a lot better once I was able to read it as its own thing rather than trying to cram it into a historical romance mold. It's sort of a meta-historical romance. There is lots of gender play, and I wish she had gone even farther with that. Maybe in her next book.

Aaaand I still haven't decided what to read next. Dayjob is in the most busy, stressful period of the year, well, one of the two busiest, most stressful times, so mostly I want to curl up alone in a hole in the riverbank when I am not at work. Which usually means reading fanfic or nonfiction. I'm still trying to decide which book from my speculative fiction TBR to read next, if I don't fall into a bunch of re-reading, which is also very appealing to me right now.

Plus I want to write up comments on Untamed and To Love and To Cherish by Patricia Gaffney for my blog. Feel free to encourage me to do so.

Crossposts: http://oracne.livejournal.com/1428762.html

colls posting in

vidding

Title: Anything You Can Do
Song: Anything You Can Do from the musical Annie Get Your Gun
Character/pairing: Sam & Dean
Notes/Warnings: FLASHVID made for the prompt 'acting skills' @

spnspringfling

here on LJ or here on DW

goodbyebird

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Current Mood: infuriated

naraht

Though I've been musing on the topic for a long time, this post was directly inspired by a comment by

thingswithwings in her recent post on noncon, dubcon and fannish standards:

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fancake

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fancake

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jekesta

(I have to stop referring to Kennedy as 'filthy kennedy' when I am with people who aren't understanding. It's a difficult thing to have to explain. Particularly to americans.)

Franklin and Bash is coming back in . . . some hours. Too many hours, but not whole days, it's kind of collapsed my insides and I have a headache which might be to do with [million and one things that were terrible yesterday] but might be because I can't breathe properly because there are so many good spoilers and so much beach but so many things that might just be horrifically horrible anyway and the man cave! And aksdhfoiwjefoisjdf. I'm so entirely totally prepared for more f&b on my television, but in a way that feels like it might just kill me. At least they're not deciding to live apart. Deciding to live apart is the worst thing they could ever ever ever do and I worry about it all the time even though they're fictional and moving to a beach house. I don't avoid spoilers for franklin and bash, I seek them out and worry over them instead. It's a stupid way to live. It's a stupid thing to be in love with. There's not enough of it, and people are really wrong about it, but also it's more beautiful than anything else in the world and having a happy pairing is bizarre but okay and they have to stay happy or I'll die. Separate offices! LKSHFOIJEsLKSH. It's only okay if they just MISS each other. And it's even more okay if it makes Jared's face do that thing it did last time. That would be super terrific okay.

There was an article the other day by a woman saying that she couldn't believe it hadn't been cancelled because the two leads have 'NO CHEMISTRY'. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. Did...has she just not ever seen even five minutes of it? Is that what? I HATE HER FOR BEING MORE WRONG THAN I CAN COPE WITH. She doesn't get to be in charge. Can I be in charge? I just want them to last forever, that's all I want. It's a little thing really.

I dreamed about Jared Padalecki again. It's a really strange thing my brain is doing, I think it might just get confused by the amount of fic I read with Jareds in it? We were in a canadian castle this time, with members of the senior british government who were smuggling octopuses to drink their blood and Jared Padalecki was really cross with them, but we were hiding from them, and then he ate a whispa.

None of my parcels arrived.

I really enjoy Longmire, it's just one of those shows I have nothing to say about.

Crossposts: http://jekesta.livejournal.com/825329.html

dodificus

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torachan

1. Tomorrow is the return of Futurama! There are two new episodes and I'm pretty excited about that. :) There are some preview clips on the Comedy Central website.

2. As it turns out, I'm really enjoying Ace Attorney, so that free+ download was a good way to get me hooked. :) I'm really only playing it before I go to bed at night (though a bit more on my days off), so I'm only on the third case, but it's fun.

3. Today my snack buddy* was at work and he bought three new things, all of which were really good. (And all of which I will probably buy myself tomorrow when I get my mochi, since I'm planning to use one of my 10% off employee coupons anyway, so the more I buy the better. :p) The first is Tohato caramel corn in green tea flavor, which I'd been vaguely curious about before but never enough to buy it on my own, but it's so good! Then there was these mysterious sweets called "foil yaki" that came with the Chikara Mochi bakery delivery the other day. They are in foil packets so there's no indication of what they are like, except for the fact that they're something baked (yaki = baked, but also the feel was definitely baked as opposed to something made of mochi). No one was buying them due to the mysteriousness, but it turned out they're kind of like the hiyoko manju except not shaped like a bird (or anything in particular). Last of all was some new orange cookies from another bakery, which were super super good (not really surprising since I love orange stuff, but I just hadn't gotten around to trying them, since they were new).

*I have a coworker who shares my passion for snacks and trying new ones and due to family issues he has only been working two days a week lately, so it feels like I never see him anymore.

seperis

To make flights shorter or waiting at the airport fly by:

Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2, and Kitty Bennet's Diary by Anne Elliot

These are ultra-short, ultra-fast, ultra-light reads. If you like P&P fanfic, these are the published version and currently the first book is free! I will admit, the strength of these is in the Kitty Bennet; I can count on one hand the number of times there's a honestly sympathetic Kitty story, and two that were about her, one of which was a very short story in a P&P anthology.

Through a Glass Darkly, Now Face to Face, and Dark Angel by Kathleen Koen - here's the weird part; this is a freakishly depressing series, with the last book being the only book you don't feel a growing sense of ennui and despair with the world and human relationships, and only because its a prequel and you already know when you read it that it's the only one doesn't go tragically from various suicides and duels. Which means I think Koen depressed herself with the first two books.

The first and second I read in my teens, and I loved them for their tragedy and reading them as an adult added in the much more depressing mundane tragedies of life and living. They're very rich, sweeping epics, the first two covering the life of Barbra Alderly, the daughter of a Jacobite viscount and granddaughter of a war hero turned duke, and the third that of her grandmother. However, the first two are not, in any sense of the word, something you invest time in unless you're willing to go through a lot of both tragedy and grinding--and I do mean grinding--misery. I still can't read them in a sitting due to emotional exhaustion. The third is lighter on that--which considering the plotline is saying something--but it also has the advantage of the author being restricted on her own established later canon and can only do so much to her characters. She does try, though

Current Mood: awake
Crossposts: http://seperis.livejournal.com/976135.html

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omens in fan_flashworks - Supernatural: Fanart: Winchesters
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Page generated Jun. 19th, 2013 05:12 pm

What's the point of a revolution without general copulation?

"Demented and sad, but social."

Reading

Immigration/conscientious objection/atheism

ReaderCon's new COde of Conduct

(no subject)

Supernatural: Fanart: Winchesters

iz ded

Happy Birthday!

Teaching and Technology

BioShock: "Narcosis," by Wallwalker

Wednesday Reading

Supernatural vid: Anything You Can Do

UGH.

The literary work of tags

Community: No Children by xandra-ptv [Vid]

Legal Drug: Kicking Rehab by grit kitty

Ookiku Furikabutte: Disproportionate Retribution by longleggedgit

There are some spoilers in here for s3 of f&b.

Rec: Hannibal

Meta Links (13/06/13 - 19/06/13)

Daily Happiness

random reading for whatever mood

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June 2013

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