Mangela Lansbury

The Haunted Mansion made me cry when I was 6 and I still insist on riding it every time I make it down to Disney. It's just such a cool ride.

I saw something about how Chris Poole had a conflict of interest in his disallowing GamerGate discussion on 4chan because he has some connection to a PR firm. moot has a conflict of interest in the way he runs a personal web site. It's like these people just say some concatenation of words that sounds vaguely incriminating without bothering to look up what exactly they're accusing people of.

I've only read a Thatcher biography by John Campbell and the Rivals by James Naughtie. The first was a good biography of Thatcher and the second was a decent book about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Lawrence in Arabia has some insight into British politics in the Middle East during World War 1, but it's not really focused on any particular player so much as that front of the conflict in general (and, obviously, Lawrence of Arabia's role in it). I think a Savage War of Peace has some information about the British attempt to seize the Suez canal in the 50s, but it's almost exclusively about France and Algeria doing their thing. The start of the Cairo Trilogy can give you some insight into British Egypt, but they're novels -- really good novels, but still novels. I've read a good history of the 1919 revolution there but I'd have to call the people I left my books with when I moved to get the title of it. Then there are all the WWII histories that, again, are more about the war in general than UK politics specifically... That broad a subject is really hard to cater recommendations to.

Cincinnati chili is so gross that people from Cincinnati have told me not to try it and I regret not following their advice.

In this vein, if Paul Dini is to be believed, Young Justice was cancelled because girls watched it and girls don't buy toys.

Everything I've seen from Shinkai has been really well animated and well written and just... good in general? They're all kind of similar, but I've watched them far enough apart and that's a thing that I like enough that I have a generally positive opinion of him. I've only seen 4 things from him, though. I think mostly it's just the gorgeous animation that maybe makes me more forgiving.

I don't really register having children as a mark of adulthood, but I came of age around a bunch of older gay couples who that just wasn't an option for (not even adoption) so I might be biased.

I played Clock Tower 3 once Don't play Clock Tower 3

Oh man, if there's a way to skip around and make Farscape season 1 at least borderline enjoyable, I need it in my life. I'm sure there's one somewhere on the internet...

I saw something similar about liberal journalists on Drudge Report recently, like talking to like-minded people who work in your field is something new or scandalous. I think that was also reported on Breitbart. Maybe someone should expose the nefarious dealings of Breitbart journalists, who I'm sure regularly get lunch together to scheme to wrest power from the hands of the Lizardmen.

Milo is an all around bad person. Jillian C York compared his views on trans people with old views of homosexuality and he immediately attacked her for calling his sexuality a disorder. https://twitter.com/Nero/status/512000921128427520 Some people are just gross.

I don't have the time to address the rest of that right now -- and the people who have already replied have said things better than I could -- but this is so tone deaf it hurts. Yes, if you let yourself see it, you're going to find sexist and racist content everywhere. That's because sexism and racism are everywhere. Yes, you are guilty of it. Yes, I am guilty of it. That doesn't necessarily mean we're bad, it just means we didn't know better. I mean, I'm gay and I catch myself doing/saying homophobic things sometimes. That's how deeply ingrained some of these prejudices are. You can find them everywhere because they are everywhere.

Allies sometimes try to speak for, not with, a group. I've been guilty of this myself and I've gotten mad at people for doing it to me. It's good to be an ally, but it's important to know that sometimes you should probably just shut up. Allies also sometimes try to impose their values on the group they say they're working with. The dequeerification of queer culture and subsequent sweeping under the rug of, for instance, higher rates of drug abuse in LGBT communities is one way you can see this and discussions of Femen's activities in the Middle East and South Asia are another. Again, it's good to be an ally, but do your best to accept and understand the group you're an ally of and work in their best interest.

Places like /r/kotakuinaction probably like it a lot because she takes their stance that girls are not gamers, and she gives them permission to be gatekeepers to an identity. She completely gets behind the idea that in order to be "a gamer" you have to be able to check off little boxes about how much you play games and what kind of games you play. In her eyes -- and the eyes of a lot of GamerGate people -- if you don't play enough games or you just play games like Bejeweled or Angry Birds, you are a filthy casual whose opinion and representation don't matter. I only watched about half the video before turning it off, but that's pretty much all I got out of it and it was enough.

There are YA classics. YA includes works like a Wrinkle in Time, Lord of the Flies, the Chronicles of Narnia, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and the Diary of Anne Frank. There are modern classics like the Book Thief to consider as well. The distinction that you're probably trying to make is pulp fiction and not pulp fiction. I agree with most of what you have to say, I just think that's a silly way to separate things.

I watch Hocus Pocus every year because I am a serious adult. I think I'm gonna do the Craft and 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo this year too, but I don't know what else. I've been wanting to replay some Silent Hill, so maybe I'll just take October as an excuse to do that?

Actually, speaking of atheists, Richard Dawkins went on a Twitter rant about rape today....

I know very well-educated people whose fiction intake is almost entirely YA, so the quality of education has nothing to do with whether you appreciate YA or not. I don't think reading YA is a big deal, especially if you look at some of the sci-fi and fantasy that people have no problem with adults reading. From what I've read, Harry Potter and the Hunger Games have more to say about the human condition than the Dresden Files, but no one says that people reading the Dresden Files are uneducated for reading it. Forgotten Realms books don't use symbolism nearly as well as His Dark Materials, but no reasonable person is going to say you're a moron for having read them. There are a ton of YA novels with writing of higher quality than Robert Jordan produced, but no one is going around saying that if you read the Wheel of Time series, it's because you weren't taught how to appreciate good writing in grade school. That kind of elitism doesn't do anyone any good. People just like what they like.

Sounds like it's about as rough as being a female journalist -- which is to say, as rough as being a woman who is alive in the world.

I stopped reading this at the pinkwashing. It's just disgusting when people try to say, "Look! We're totally cool! We love gay people! That's how progressive we are!" It's just tiring to see LGBT people (or LGBT activism) used to deflect accusations of maybe not being socially progressive.

I think trying to say "This is what adulthood looks like" is a bit thorny. Reinvention of self can happen any time in life (through necessity or choice) and autonomy is a weird consideration since there are kids that get thrown out of the house or just have absent parents/parents they have to take care of. I've met my share of teenagers who fit your adult qualities. They've reinvented themselves and are completely autonomous, but they're just homeless kids. Not adults. On the flip side, there are people who are incapable of reinventing themselves or being autonomous -- they might have a disease, mental or physical, that acts as a barrier to these things. That doesn't make them any less adult. Adulthood is like obscenity for me -- I'll know it when I see it.

Jeff Vandermeer calls his genre the New Weird. I don't really like the classification but I like a lot of the people who say they're in it, so...

The nefarious media elitists who demand that writing be engaging will be to blame. But, judging by the fact that sites like rpgfan still exist, they'll probably be around as long as there are people willing to write for them.

The leaders of the feminist cabal have obviously ordered a hit on the patriarchy, so I don't see how it's much of a stretch myself.

This is exactly where I am (with the added bonus of having a master's degree in a field that I have completely divorced myself from because I just can't take the stress of it). I'm stuck being told that I'm overqualified for entry level positions because of my education and unqualified for higher positions because I don't have the necessary experience. So, here's what I keep being told: It's not you that sucks. The situation sucks. The people not hiring you suck. The job market sucks. The options available to you, in general, suck. But you? You're awesome.