Modernrenaissancewoman-blog1 - Modern Renaissance Woman

Badass and still true to Stranger Things' 80's theme. \m/

(via “Stranger Things” Intro Theme (Metalized) - Artificial Fear - YouTube)

Excerpt from George Carlin: Life is Worth Losing (2005) "There's a reason education sucks, it's the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners, now. The real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying,­ lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers,­ people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club." -George Carlin

So many consequences for all of us. It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out, for better or for worse.

Mysterious underground rings built by Neandertals

New study reveals deep cave exploration, as well as the oldest evidence of Neandertal building

Deep within a French cave where no light penetrates are two curious structures: large rings of stalagmites, some broken and arranged like the rails of old-fashioned wooden fences. When discovered in the early 1990s, scientists didn’t know what to make of the formations, which appeared to be fire-scorched in places. Now, they may have an answer: The rings were built by Neandertals, who learned to explore caves extensively and engaged in complex building behaviors like arranging stones more than 175,000 years ago, much earlier than thought.

The ancient structures—more than 330 meters inside the current entrance to the cave—include a scattering of small, deliberately arranged heaps of stone along with two large rings, one about 2.2 meters across and the other nearly three times that size. The rings and piles are made of about 400 stalagmites of similar size, weighing a total of 2.2 tons.

Most of the forearm-sized fragments are roughly cylindrical and were intentionally broken to the proper length, says Sophie Verheyden, a geologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. That much is clear, she says, because the pieces are missing both their tips and their bases. “I’m a caver, and those structures are something like I’ve never seen before”…

A proclivity for science is embedded deeply within us, in all times, places and cultures. It has been the means for our survival. It is our birthright. When, through indifference, inattention, incompetence, or fear of skepticism, we discourage children from science, we are disenfranchising them, taking from them the tools needed to manage their future.

Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle In the Dark (via fuckyeahastrophysics)

Commentary

A Rallying Cry, A Dirty Word: People Around The World Talk About ‘Feminism’                        

Last week, we asked a question: What does it mean to be a “feminist” in your country? How do your belief systems and cultural traditions shape your view of how a woman should exercise her rights?

Goats and Soda received hundreds of replies with the hashtag #FeminismInMyCountry. Men and women from Portugal to Tanzania not only answered our question but offered their view of how girls and women still suffer from discrimination, prejudice and stereotyping.

The hashtag particularly struck a chord in South Korea, where citizens are reeling from two incidents concerning women: Last month, a woman was out of a job after wearing a T-shirt that said “Girls Do Not Need A Prince.” And in May, a woman was stabbed to death by a man who said he did it because he “hated women for belittling him.”

From the responses, it’s clear that the debate over the meaning of the word “feminism” is a global conversation. And that in many places, as NPR’s Greg Warner discovered in Rwanda, feminism is considered a dirty word.

One woman in South Korea said that people in her country think a “feminist” is an “antisocial, unattractive woman who’s unlovable by men.” And in Tanzania, a woman shared that although “feminist” means “empowerment” to her, the term is a mere “title” that carries little weight in society. Despite being an aircraft mechanic, she said men viewed her as a “weak, attractive being.”

Here’s a selection of responses from Instagram, Twitter, NPR.org and Facebook, edited for length and clarity. See more comments from more countries, here.

Tanzania: “Men still view me as a weak, attractive being”

I am an aircraft mechanic. Being a feminist means empowering women — but in my country, Tanzania, the term doesn’t have meaning to society. It’s merely a title. At work, men still view and treat me as a weak attractive being. So for me, my country has not really embraced the idea of feminism. -Hawa Nzota

United States: “This isn’t that hard”

This isn’t hard, people. Feminism means women have the same agency as men to body autonomy, to equal wages. It means men shouldn’t be called “weak” for expressing emotion. It means women are considered just as capable as men. It means men are allowed to nurture. This isn’t that hard. Why do we act like this is radical? -Jessica Tonn

United States: “I’m raising my sons to be feminists”

I’m from Oregon. Feminism is still a bad word in my country, as it is perceived to mean that we hate men. I’m raising my sons to be feminists, to help break the cycle. -Heather Novickis

United States: “Many stereotypes surround those who consider themselves feminists”

Illustration by Hanna Barczyk

If you’re excited about the juno news today, sink your teeth into a Crash Course episode that’s all about Jupiter! 🔭  https://youtu.be/Xwn8fQSW7-8

We are all one species. The idea of race is an illusion, one we continue to perpetuate. Why can't we accept that people have been treated poorly because of this false idea that the color of our skin makes us different? We have to accept it and try to mend our broken society. Now is the time to change how we treat each other. Now is the time for change.