BBC: Japan nuclear crisis: Pensioners seek work at Fukushima (3 min)

In this interview, which I can't embed because BBC doesn't allow that, Mr. Yamada Yasuteru explains that he and many other retired volunteers want to help out at the struggling Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to save younger people the risk of radiation accidents with lasting ( Read more... )

There's been so much squee about the Thor movie that I'll probably go see it, even though movie tickets in Japan cost an arm and a leg. In the meantime, the only thing I have an opinion about is the ridiculous casting imbroglio. Via Sociological Images, here's a video that explains clearly and in brief why casting a black actor to play a white ( Read more... )

This deserves to be said again and again.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story (19min)

Description from TED's website:

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about ( Read more... )

Via @tinkerbill on Twitter: an organization in Wisconsin is trying to remove a book about a gay teenager from a library and literally burn it, on the grounds that it is "explicitly vulgar, racial [sic] and anti-Christian". Impressive. These concerned citizens clearly have a great deal of experience at speaking out against the racialiminosity that ( Read more... )

Had two interesting discussions today, one extremely vexing exchange about depictions of women in the media and another far more constructive talk about race (on the ways in which white Japanese Studies researchers may be influenced by their white privilege while studying the Japanese people). Since I'm busy getting a much-needed education about ( Read more... )

Couldn't concentrate on work and ended up reading stuff on fandom_wank all day long. Now now, FW is very educational as well as amusing. Maybe I'd spend less time chewing on my own toes if I wondered "How would this look on FW?" every time I was gearing up to say/do something that might be vaguely significant.

I've spent a lot of time following the ( Read more... )