Check out Lex's Kickstarter project, Kokeshi Doll Tsunami!

Listening to City and Colour "The Girl"

Law & Order & Food. I'm in.

Image: source.

How misdemeanors can have major consequences.

20th anniversary of the Vows column in the NYTimes. I remember my dad clipping it and mailing it to me each week when I was a kid (I think due to his appreciation of the journalistic challenge of presenting a short story about two real people (and the entertainment of the status symbol-laden blurbs), and not a desire to instill an interest in marriage in me, but I could be wrong. Dad?).

Days in the life of Rich Froning. Not a great video (some of the laziest face blurring I've ever seen, for starters...), but it's always interesting to see how incredible athletes live and train.

A Look At How Congress Has Dealt With Immigration Over The Last 25 Years

Yeah, get on it. 10 Feminist Poets You Should Know

I need to work on this: Whole9: Are you recovering, or are you just resting?

Elena’s Story - Why Immigrant Women Deserve Protection From Domestic Violence.

A must read: On Self-Defense & Women of Color

Image: Paper Paintings by Geoff Mcfetridge. Some wonderful pieces there.

Happy Birthday, Jonathan Richman!

Registration for the 2012 Oregon Summer Crossfit Games is open and I'm really torn. It's my first chance to compete publicly (the next would be the winter games), and I think it would be a real (mental and physical) challenge for me. But I'm pretty low on funds, and its $85 to register, plus splitting gas and a room with someone for the night in Bend (it's late August). It would be great to compete (so scary to do this stuff in front of a crowd), and also really great to be there to cheer on everyone else - I love what a supportive community CrossFit is, it makes such a difference. We will see, I guess...Maybe if I save enough money by bike commuting, I can make it work! (I recently realized I spend $5-10 a day on gas during the week. Outrageous....)

From Bitch: No Respect Paid: The New York Times' Anti-Trans Coverage (And Why There's Hope for the Future)

 “We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.” - Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House

Habitat for Humanity Tries Big-Scale Approach to Housing in Oregon

In 2011, NYPD Made More Stops Of Young Black Men Than The Total Number Of Young Black Men In New York. Yep.

Image: source.

Jon Hamm Gives Advice To Teenage Girls (VIDEO)

Today's CrossFit fix: Katie Hogan is a beast!

The awesome Chrissie Wellington takes a break, and remains as impressive as ever: NYTimes: Seeking a Life Beyond the Ironman Triathlon. It's especially nice to see a pro athlete acknowledge the toll that training and competing take, and to say it's ok (even important!) to focus on something else for a while.

'Wired To Run': Runner's High May Have Been Evolutionary Advantage

 Uh, what? Some fat posi talk from Cosmo? (Australian Cosmo, but still). “Aren't You Worried About Your Health?"

NPR: Jolie Holland: Tiny Desk Concert

New development in OR: Mexican IDs in Oregon: "Governor John Kitzhaber announced on May 1 that Oregon law enforcement will begin accepting IDs issued by the Mexican government during traffic stops and other situations where ID is required."

Image: Congrats Laura Jane, and thank you for your bravery: Tom Gabel of Against Me! Comes Out as Transgender

“Because anti-trans discrimination is steeped in traditional sexism, it is not simply enough for trans activists to challenge binary gender norms (i.e. oppositional sexism) - we must also challenge the idea that femininity is inferior to masculinity and that femaleness is inferior to maleness. In other words, by necessity, trans activism must be at its core a feminist movement.” - Julia Serano | Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

Stud & Amy Ray! <3

From the (excellent) LA Review of Books: I Gotta Be Able To Counterattack: Rap and the Los Angeles Riots by Jeff Chang

 Yes, we're queer: LGBTQ youth speak out

Image: total killjoy. Want it.

Classic: Liz Phair - Fuck & Run (Live 1995) 

Yep: Undocumented Immigrants Paid $11.2 Billion In Taxes While GE Paid Nothing

Dean Spade interviewed by PrettyQueer in the hours immediately after the announcement that CeCe McDonald’s trial had ended with a plea agreement.

From the NYTimes: The Winner of Our Contest on the Ethics of Eating Meat

"We give it up and just look directly with compassion and humor at who we are. Then loneliness is no threat and heartache, no punishment." - Pema Chödrön

Another good reminder that language about "real women" hurts more than it helps.

Very interesting: The Criminalization of Bad Mothers.

Image: source. Happy May Day!

Love it: Rejected and controversial New Yorker cover art.

Some great points: the antidote to consumerism isn’t minimalism, it’s art. "Our current problem didn’t arise because we put too much value on stuff. It arose because we don’t value stuff enough."

I'm lucky enough to know some of the DREAMers who organized and are taking part in this action. To me, they are heroes. "Watch live today as Undocumented Youth "Come out of the Shadows" and risk arrest in front of the Immigration Office in downtown Portland, OR. TODAY AT 4:30pm PST/ 7:30PM EST"

Interesting post about thinking beyond "smart growth." Smart growth is a start. But it's not enough. "I’ve now come to the conclusion that smart growth is critical to a sustainable future, but it can only get us part way there. The truth is that much of what can make people habitat great cannot be quantified or put into identifiable categories. The process of creating a better, more sustainable world – anchored by better, more sustainable places - is as much art as science.Our communities of the future must not only reduce carbon emissions, save land, and encourage use of transit, walking and bicycling. They must also contain beauty, warmth, places of solitude and reflection. They must be significantly more dense than sprawl, but also sometimes forego additional increments of density in order to maintain light, limit noise, provide privacy, and respect a human scale. They must be conducive to engaging the intellect and the spirit."

Image: source.

Another new addition to the podcast line up (I need a lot now that I'm back to bike commuting and centuries - it's possibly the best part of riding. The only issue is having the self restraint to save up some good 'casts for the long rides....): Opinonated: The Feminist You Were Warned About.

So, I've been of two minds for a while about whether or not I wanted to train for another marathon (I did my first, and only, on May 1, 2011). I loved the experience of becoming a distance runner, and race day was one of the best days of my life. But it was a huge time commitment and definitely hard on my body. Anyways, when I saw that there was a Nike Women's Marathon in SF in October, I decided to enter the drawing and let fate decide. Well, apparently fate thinks I have another marathon in me! I found out today that I got in. I have lots to say about how I'll train differently this time around, my fears and hopes, etc so...stay tuned!

Recent addition to the podcast lineup: The /Filmcast. Sometimes I think I enjoy listening to people talk about movies and tv more than I even enjoy watching movies and tv. Is there a word for this? Is this a thing?

So proud of my CrossFit box, Rogue Valley CrossFit, which was voted favorite small/medium health club in the region. And of the owner, and my coach, Jake, who was voted best trainer! I can't think of a more deserving community - they work hard to create a supportive, encouraging, and challenging environment, it's really one of a kind.

It's time to stop putting mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement! Why Are Prisoners Committing Suicide in Pennsylvania?

Image: source.

Dear 40 year old me (from the IL Safe Schools Alliance). Yep, tears for sure. Amazing youth.

Fashion It So does it again.

I enjoyed this short first-person essay about being an out, trans athlete.

So powerful, and too true. "Dear daughter, You should know that you are hated."

Wow. 101 Spectacular Nonfiction Stories: "Conor Friedersdorf's annual collection of the very best that journalism has to offer."

Smithsonian: Where Agatha Christie Dreamed Up Murder: "The birthplace of Poirot and Marple welcomes visitors looking for clues to the best-selling novelist of all time."

Image: source.

Loved this article from the great blog Fit & Feminist (best tag line ever: "Because it takes strong women to smash the patriarchy.") , I am envious of women who “bulk up” easily. I admit that I still have moments of adjustment to no longer working towards being as small, as invisible as possible, and instead aim to be fit and strong, even if that means my thighs are, gasp, bigger. And from xoJane (I'm not a huge fan, generally...): Competitive Powerlifter Secrets: What The Diet Industry Doesn't Want You To Know Abou Weights. I’m wary (to put it lightly) of anything that’s just focused on weight loss (as opposed to general health, flexibility, strength, etc) but I appreciate popping that myth of “scary big” female body builders, etc.

Chrissie Wellington: I have got nothing to prove to anyone anymore. "Triathlete charts her troubled journey from the despair of eating disorders to becoming the unbeaten ironman world record holder." Chrissie is a hero of mine, not only hard working and incredibly gifted, but always has a smile on her face. And now she bravely comes out as an eating disorder survivor - thank you, Chrissie! "Sport has given me a different perception and respect for my body. I cannot judge its success by whether I can fit into a pair of skinny jeans. I look at other women and, yes, they're beautiful with stereotypically wonderful figures but I can think, 'Yeah, but you haven't won what I've won.' I might not be perfect but I can love my body now."

Horrible. Why I buy only local, organic, cage- and hormone- free eggs: "Is an Egg for Breakfast Worth This?"

Some of the other great movies I saw at the aiff: Detropia, Waiting Room, Austin Unbound, Paraiso, Vera Klement.

From Mother Jones: Prozac: What's Race Got to Do With It?

Image: source.

The Magnetic Fields, Live In Concert: SXSW 2012 and John K. Samson (of The Weakerthans) On World Cafe

9-Year-Old’s Homemade Arcade is Rad

“There are some good things to be said about walking . . . Walking takes longer, for example, than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed. I have a friend who's always in a hurry; he never gets anywhere. Walking makes the world much bigger and thus more interesting. You have time to observe the details. The utopian technologists foresee a future for us in which distance is annihilated . . . To be everywhere at once is to be nowhere forever, if you ask me.” - Edward Abbey

And tonight, Highest Pass.

The second doc I'll be watching today at the aiff, Invisible War.

The ashland independent film fest [aiff] starts today! Battle For Brooklyn is the first film I'm seeing.

"If we appear to seek the unattainable . . . we do so to avoid the unimaginable."

An Invitation to Create by Bill Ayers

Really interesting article about one man's experience with schizophrenia, and the way it is treated & understood, "Finding Purpose After Living With Delusion."

Image: from fuckyeahlisasimpson, of course.
An interview with Ashley Stinson about her images from Women’s Western Kentucky Correctional Facility in Fredonia, Kentucky.

"Good Fitspo Is Hard To Find" - SO true! I've unsubscribed to so many blogs/tumblrs/pins because of thinspo masquerading as fitspo (or just really boring shots of someone's every meal). (And yay for a CrossFit Babes shout out!) Here's my largely CrossFit themed "fitspo" (blech) board, if anyone's interested.

Happy Birthday, Dolores Huerta!

An interview with one female bus driver in Cuidad Juarez (one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and also where all Mexican citizens trying to emigrate to the United States must go to interview, sometimes having to stay for as long as a few years).

image: beautiful wind map

I won't lie - seeing these photos of a thin, beautiful young woman I thought, "What could she have to tell me about learning to love your body, to be healthy?" I was, of course, lame and wrong. Check out this great post (and lots more on her blog) about body image, the quest for perfection and control, and finding balance, peace, and acceptance.

Finally listened to the Fresh Air interview with Rachel Maddow. Really wonderful on multiple fronts, and I, along with many other people, appreciate her willingness to acknowledger her own struggle with depression. "Depression for me is you can’t distract your way out of it, and I think people can understand the difference, if you’ve never been depressed, you can still understand the difference between sadness and depression. It’s like the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. And the opposite of happiness isn’t necessarily sadness, it’s disconnection."

A short film from the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Solitary Confinement: Torture In Your Backyard. "Torture. It’s not just something that happened at Abu Ghraib or in secret prison sites tucked away in distant countries. It’s happening now. It’s happening in prisons on U.S. soil. Prolonged solitary confinement is torture in your backyard."

Interesting essay by a queer American living in South Korea.

“For a long time now, the legalization of our community has hinged on wrapping the flag of American nationalism around us and showing mainstream America that we are just like them, and in some cases, much better than them. “Dreamers” have been long portrayed as the model-minority of the undesirable undocumented population, as the lowest hanging fruits. Only recently have we started to agitate, celebrate our differences, and proudly state that our communities are diverse, our parents are not criminals, that most of us are not Valedictorians and star athletes, that some of us have had run-ins with the law, and that some of us think of home as dispersed among many hearts rather than being a geographical location in the USA. After all, we should not need to look and act the same in order to enjoy the same rights.” - Living the Dream Without the DREAM Act

Check out this trailer for an amazing (looking) documentary about Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison - a college program operating inside Sing Sing Maximum Security Correctional Facility. This is an issue close to my heart, and the type of program I believe in (my alma mater is home to the incredible Bard Prison Initiative).

Stunning portraits of former slaves photographed seventy years after the Emancipation Proclamation

Image: source.

A great post by Amy, at Just A Titch, about finding faith in yourself (and being proud of what you've worked for - loved that moment at the Eiffel Tower, Amy!)

R.I.P. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., killed 44 years ago today. (This short TAL segment gets me every time. Kids, man.)

I really liked this post, and I'm not even into Mad Men (spoiler alert if you're not up on MM or Dowton Abbey): Betty Draper Francis Needs Your… Ice Cream? A Few Notes on the Evil TV Ex-Wife: "These stories don’t exist in a void. They actually mimic — and reinforce — the stories we tell ourselves about male accountability in the real world. Men have more of an assumed right to recover from and forget their mistakes; this is true for things like abuse and unintended pregnancy, obviously, but it’s also true for the basic, petty moral failings of day-to-day life. I suspect that for every Psycho Ex-Girlfriend story, there’s a woman who’s been screwed over. (And behind every bizarre, nonsensically villainous ex-wife on an upscale soap opera, there’s a shitty straight dude working out his feelings about his ex. But I digress!) And she gets called names if she seems angry about that; she may never even express that anger clearly, because she feels too guilty about having it in the first place."