Mangela Lansbury

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About Mangela Lansbury

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  1. Dougie is not in a mental state where he is capable of consenting. Janey-E is also not capable of consenting because the man that she believes is her husband is actually someone else. Let's say Cooper regains his faculties and retains his memories from the time he was Dougie. It would be a reasonable reaction to look back on this with horror -- he (unintentionally) misled a woman in a way that ended in her having sex with him under the pretense that he's someone she knows and loves and trusts. He is not that person, the one who she would be consenting to have sex with. Let's say Janey-E comes to understand who Cooper is and why he isn't Dougie. It would be a reasonable reaction to look back on this with horror -- she had sex with someone who wasn't even remotely in control of their faculties and looks to be mentally developmentally comparable to a toddler at this point. He isn't capable of understanding what's happening, and while he understands that he feels good in the moment, he's unable to make judgments around the potential repercussions of what he's doing and consent to the implied responsibilities. This is an offense against both people involved. Neither of them know exactly what it is that they're doing or who they're doing it with. Justice for this wouldn't involve prison because prison is completely divorced from any concept of justice, but this is rape. People are harmed. It's a failure of imagination and empathy to not be able to see that.
  2. Life

    I've had a super fun responsibility added to my job: I get to review the reports about sentinel events in the hospital. Sentinel events are what we call preventable errors that cause immediate, serious harm to a patient -- not little things like leaving sponges in the mix when you re-pack someone's intestines, but big things like forgetting to remove the clip that keeps the aorta wide open while you work or rolling a kid off a table. This is a terrible and depressing thing to have to look at.
  3. Idle Weekend November 20, 2016: Electing Better

    We grew up in the same area, roughly! Though the county I grew up in went blue in 76 for Carter. I'll address some of this in bullet points too, mostly with follow-up questions. Outsider status has some understandable draw when our system of governance is so fundamentally broken, but I believe that some experience is necessary. I also believe that Trump's experience is largely a net negative, especially in matters of foreign policy. Having operated in a purely self-interested way for so long, Trump is accustomed to transactional relationships. You give someone this service or object, and you receive something you perceive as being greater or equal in value in return. I think this transactional basis for relationships with foreign governments is dangerous. For instance, we're training Afghani soldiers in an effort to bring stability to the region. We get very little from this effort -- in part because of our methods, and in part because that's just the nature of the relationship. It's not terribly transactional. We naturally don't get much out of it. We just do it. How do you believe that Trump's disruptive, outsider status-based transactional foreign relationship paradigm will benefit the nation? Put more broadly, how do you believe his business experience has prepared him for public service? Trump is poised to destroy labor unions, both through judicial appointments and through administrative and legislative means. The Rust Belt labor forces that he whipped into a torpor with rhetoric about NAFTA (justifiably, since that was when Democrats ceased to be the party that represented them) were in the best shape because of labor unions. How do you believe his anti-union stance will help workers? To further the calamity his economic plans have, we have his tax plans and his seeming willingness to default on American debt. His tax plans won't provide meaningful immediate benefit to most of America, instead favoring large tax cuts on the highest earners. How do you believe his tax plan will benefit the common worker in a way that past similar efforts at trickle-down economics have failed? Alternatively, how do you believe his tax plan is meaningfully different from trickle-down economics? How do you believe that a default on American debt, which would be the natural end to Trump's stated intentions of not paying back certain debtors under certain conditions, would be beneficial? Why is America the greatest country on Earth? What is the material benefit of disbelieving Trump's rhetoric? Georgia's economy relies on undocumented immigrants. In the early 2010s, Georgia adopted HB87, which created a hostile environment for undocumented immigrants resulting in an economic loss for the state of upwards of $100M (if I'm remembering right). In this way and through similar stories nationwide, undocumented immigrants have been shown to be vital to the operation of many industries and the continued functioning of essential infrastructure. Why do you consider undocumented immigration to be such a calamitous problem that must be addressed? Put another way, what net harm do you believe there is that outweighs the benefits of undocumented immigrants? What radical ideas do you fear spreading to Western society, and in what way do you expect those ideas to impact your life? This is perhaps a little probing, but I've tried to be thorough and precise in my questions so that I could potentially have something to follow up on in further discussion and better understand your point of view.
  4. Idle Weekend November 20, 2016: Electing Better

    Trump did not promise hope and change. He promised fear and anger. Thus far, he is delivering on those promises.
  5. The Next President

    Here's an emotional rant that I don't know where to put so I'm putting it in here because it's based on the next president, I guess: We're two weeks in now and y'all, I'm more scared now than I was on election night. It's not a disconnected, abstract fear that I know the shape of, something like what I learned to live with growing up in gay in the American south, but a visceral, deep fear. It's a fear that infests every part of my day, to the point where coworkers I barely interact with or store clerks that I have passing relationships with have looked me in the eye, furrowed their brow thoughtfully, and asked with concern, "Are you doing okay? Like, really -- are you okay?" I wake up every day to see this white nationalist tapped for a White House position, or that homophobe put in a position to impact national policy, and I'm scared for what it means for myself, for the people I care about, and for the people I try to help through my work and my activism. I'm a utopian, and for years I've lived each day trying to achieve this vision of the world that I had. I cope with my depression by trying to make the world a more bearable place to live in, and I've just lost the ability to picture that world anymore, much less devise a course of action to help bring it closer to reality. All I can make myself hope for now is to make it a week without someone yelling faggot at me out of their car while I'm waiting at a bus stop, and man, what a dark world that still is. I'm stuck helping people rush to prepare for a worse tomorrow -- helping my friend pay for their name and gender marker change, connecting people I know to communities that can offer a port of calm in the coming tempest. I'm not working for a better tomorrow anymore; I've had to shift into working for a tomorrow that we can just survive. I ask questions sometimes in the course of political discussion -- what do I do with this high grade fear and anxiety that now permeate every aspect of my existence? How do I try to make the world better when I can't even picture what that better world looks like? And I feel like I'm screaming them into the void anymore, that they get lost in the dispassionate discourse of politics where we have these numbers over here and those laws over there, disconnected from the real impact that politics have on all of us. But these are real, honest, vulnerable questions: What do we do now? How do we learn to live with these real regressive threats looming over our heads? I wake up every day and have to make decision that today I can do this. I can live with this fear and function in the world and try to make it better. But sometimes I can't make that decision. I'm just too fucking scared, and it's so exhausting. I never saw it coming to this, and I'm just so scared. What do I do about it?
  6. Idle Weekend November 20, 2016: Electing Better

    I was really intrigued by the Being Mad Online mechanic that they showcased for that, even if it was a little weird for a mechanic to be sponsored by Mountain Dew.
  7. Idle Weekend November 20, 2016: Electing Better

    We don't yet have a Nuclear Posture Review from the coming administration, so claiming to know that Trump won't drop a nuke anywhere and everywhere is a little presumptuous, especially considering his previous comments about proliferation in SEA, the importance of being unpredictable in nuclear warfare (which led to discussion among experts of the feasibility of expanding the nuclear triad), and his constant minimization of the effects of nuclear weapons and warfare on the world. His comments about keeping the option to nuke people open is in keeping with longstanding US policy to retain the threat of first strike capabilities so alone they wouldn't be too worrying, but taken in tandem with his other comments about nuclear strike capabilities, people are right to be worried. There's a reason that any major natsec community that you look at right now is having discussions about the ethics of serving under Trump and whether it's defensible to serve in his administration. And my problems with Putin go beyond that he's "not a big fan of the gays" -- which is a really florid way of saying that he's criminalized my body and core aspects of who I am, by the way. Not standing up to Putin opens up huge questions about the future of east Europe, South Asia, and the Middle East, especially with ongoing crises in Crimea and Syria. Thawing relations between Russia and America has some fringe benefits, but Russia is a legitimately dangerous global entity and America is one of the few superpowers with the historical context and power to stand up to them. With that threat potentially neutralized, Russia's role in the world can only expand and make the world more dangerous in the long run, especially for LGBT people who live in Russia's sphere of influence. Also, please do not use the word retard as a pejorative. That's pretty basic decorum. Anyway, this is just my attempt to engage the little fact and substance in your weird bit of word salad, so enjoy!
  8. Life

    Is anyone familiar with employment law? Because of my depression, I'm classified as disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act. My employer is requiring me to undergo a medical examination and provide them with a letter stating my health status, treatment, and what to expect, which I understand is forbidden by law. Anyone familiar with how I should approach this? My HR department is refusing to put me in contact with an ombudsman, either because we don't have one or because they don't want me in contact with them, and I'm not clear on what my next steps should be.
  9. Life

    If anyone is gonna do this, get in touch with me via slack or pm me so I can give you an update when I arrive/if i change venues.
  10. Life

    Aiight, y'all. I will be in Chicago the night of August 5th. I am going to spend that night at Berlin, at their International Sailor Moon Day celebration. I will be the dyed-with-roots-showing blonde guy with a shirt reading I'm The Fucking Moon Princess tee. Y'all Chicago thumbs all better be there or be square. If you can't make it that night, I'll be around all weekend. I'll be in the slack or you can reach me here. I'll make sure to chill with everyone.
  11. This forum is weird (Look a new topic!)

    Let's just keep going and let someone tell us when we overshoot the goal.
  12. Life

    Congratulations!!! Do we have any New Orleans thumbs? I will be there next week for my gay death.
  13. Life

    After months of trying, I finally got approval for a meaningful examination of the hospital I work at's intake forms to try and move to a more gender affirming format than male and female checkboxes. This is just the first hurdle, but it feels so good to see the man who was the gatekeeper go from "does that really matter?" to "this really matters" after months of wearing him down. The Lancet's recent series on transgender health really helped me get past this first hurdle. If you have access to it, I highly recommend reading through it. (And if you don't have access, I mean, I do.... so...)
  14. The Dancing Thumb (aka: music recommendations)

    Two of my favorite African groups, Baaba Maal and the Very Best, got together to make an album. I love this diptych from them. Also, just because it's my perennial summer jam, here is Warm Heart of Africa by the Very Best with Ezra Koenig.
  15. QUILTBAG Thread of Flagrant Homoeroticism

    http://muftah.org/queer-muslim-unwelcome-new-stonewall/#.V2FeNdIrKCg I've seen some queer people saying truly heinous things about Muslims these past few days. Please don't be that asshole, y'all.