Author: elenloth

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Disability and the Bicycle Effect

https://www.instagram.com/p/DaBpswdkZhg/

This Instagram post about disability (by Elora and the One Room Schoolhouse) was really thought provoking. The gist is that more people with disabilities are surviving now, and we have more assistive tech (the Bicycle, in this metaphor), so disabled people are more visible than ever; but it’s important to not assume that the tech means they have no problems at all.

My take is that this is related to the medical/social model, a little bit. There’s this idea in the Social Model that “if society just adjusted enough, disability wouldn’t be disabling.” But that is simply not true. Someone with chronic pain would still be in pain, no matter how much paid sick leave they get.

(This is only the most extreme end of the Social Model, thankfully. It’s still a useful model for thinking about things; it’s just not sufficient by itself. Disability is both social and medical.)

Anyway. Just wanted to link to that Bicycle Effect post.

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A review of “Communion”

I haven’t read Communion, by JD Vance, and I probably won’t.

I did read Hillbilly Elegy, and my primary impression was that he had never heard the word “classism” or had an intelligent discussion with anybody who understood the concept of intersectionality. (If you’re local to me and want to borrow my copy, which I marked up with commentary, let me know.)

Anyway, in my place, I offer Elizabeth Spiers’s review.

https://www.elizabethspiers.com/j-d-vance-and-me/

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Utena?

Today I saw the “Revolutionary Girl Utena” movie for the first time, having never seen the show. I told my friends that I expected this *kind* of disorientation and confusion, but not this *degree* of it.

Fortunately, having seen some anime, I went into the movie not expecting to understand it.

I’m not, like, an instant super-fan? But apparently the show was based on the book Demian, by Herman Hesse, which is interesting. (It’s been 27 years since I read that and it changed my life. Maybe I should reread it.)

We watched a couple episodes of the show afterwards. I remain bemused.

It did occur to me, in among all this, that anime may have influenced the American queer aesthetic idea of “being nonbinary means you owe the world skinny androgyny.” (Because I couldn’t tell the gender of half those characters, and that’s REALLY INTERESTING.)

I also wondered how much Tamsyn Muir was influenced by the aesthetics of the movie/show in her Gideon the Ninth books, because the cavalier aesthetic is STRONG there. Plus the sword, the chest wound, everything. It’s SO. WEIRD.

This isn’t how it happens

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What is “cool,” anyway?

I am blatantly stealing this from a friend on the Internet.

This is maybe a hot take (or perhaps a deep dive? or philosophizing a little?) but I think sometimes, people use the word “cool” as shorthand for “knows and embraces fully who they are,” which I think is mostly true for all of us here, even as we continue down the endless journey of knowing ourselves. And that, for sure, can be intimidating for peeps who are still learning to accept themselves (flaws and all), etc.

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Homeownership and Communism

Today I watched this little YouTube short, and I think it’s pretty interesting!

https://youtube.com/shorts/Irgi6kR5d1o?si=cNS6kMMz1eaLnfwG

I haven’t checked the math myself. However, I do find it fascinating that the comments/the Discourse can’t agree on whether Encouraging Homeownership is pro or anti communist.

One of the things I hear a lot on the Internet (yeah, yeah, I know) is that everyone SHOULD be able to own their own home, because landlords are rent-seeking, etc.

Typically, the people who say this have never owned a home and in particular have never rented out a home to someone else. They have the mistaken assumption that rent is all for the personal enrichment of the landlord and not for things like maintenance or interest or anything.

Now. Are there bad landlords? Of course there are. Slumlords have always existed, and we should make sure that we have strong regulations to prevent landlords from abusing tenants by providing unliveable facilities.

I also think there should be more of the “missing middle” available (smaller, cheaper homes, for one step above renting). Amd I think there should be more ways to deal with the difficulty of getting a down payment, although I am not chock full of good ideas on how, at the moment. (Perhaps some kind of land trust? Co-ops?)

But: “Landlords are inherently evil, praise the revolution, home ownership for every proletarian” is sort of diametrically opposed to “home ownership is a tool of fighting Communism.”

My personal opinion falls on the side of the latter. I think that ownership does give you something to lose, gives you a stake in your country and your community. And I think that’s a good thing!

Now, I don’t think everyone wants or needs to own a house either. A lot of folks like the freedom and flexibility that leases give them. And again, I think we should protect those people with strong tenant rights laws.

And I also think that socially, we should decouple adulthood from home ownership. That’s not a great metric. (But that’s a whole nother complicated post.)

Anyway. Just wanted to share some thoughts!

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BBC article about Rogozov

Today someone linked to this BBC article about Rogozov, the guy who performed his own appendectomy in Antarctica.

His description here is 100% accurate for appendicitis:

It hurts like the devil! A snow storm whipping through my soul, wailing like 100 jackals.

Anyway, go check it out! A neat piece of medical history.

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Make the best choice possible

I wrote this down a little while ago and can’t remember what conversation it was from, but: still wanted to share it.

Don’t write alternate history fanfic about your life. Just keep moving forward and making the best choices you can with the information you have.

Or, “Do the Next Right Thing.”