There is confusion for Christmas in the land of the Science Men, because somebody had to go into a cave in China and come out with a 14,000-year-old leg bone belonging to a form of sorta-human, one that was supposed to have died out eons before, but obviously didn't, and so now the human evolutionary tree is completely all buggered up, again
Esquire magazine has an article about a time long ago: 5 Transgender Americans on the Hardships of Transitioning, Then and Now.
Transgender men and women have lived openly for decades in America. Most of them transitioned before it was remotely acceptable to the wider culture—and so made possible the social transformation in gender identity that we are seeing today. The three women and two men on these pages lived much of their lives as one sex and then, along with thousands of others, have lived long, accomplished (and dangerous) lives as another. They are a comment on the abiding nature of the human impulse to change sexual identity (at a moment when it's almost regarded as a fad) and also emblematic of those who did so when it was so much harder.
Full disclosure: The author of this diary began transition 23 years ago.
This evening's music features jazz and blues banjo player Ikey Robinson. Enjoy!
Ikey Robinson - My Four Reasons
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Tuesday December 21, 1915
From the International Socialist Review: Nils Hanson on Organizing in the Wheat Fields
In the latest edition of the Review, Nils Hanson discusses working conditions, living conditions, and the great organizing drive, launched by the Agricultural Workers Organization, this past fall in the harvest fields of the mid-western states. He tells of following the wheat harvest from Kansas on up to North Dakota.
The A. W. O. of the Industrial Workers of the World, has become such a menace that the North Dakota farmers claim they will import Negroes as harvest hands next year. In response to that threat, the I. W. W. newspaper, Solidarity, recently gave "John Farmer" this warning:
The I. W. W. has some good Negro organizers, just itching for a chance of this kind. Thirty thousand Negroes will come and 30,000 I. W. W.'s will go bak. The red card is cherished as much and its objects understood as well by a black man as by a white one.
Happy Solstice! (December 21, at 20:48 PST)
There are only 10 days left in 2015
21 is 3 x 7 (uh huh)
21 is the sum of the first 6 natural numbers. 1+2+3+4+5+6 = 21
21 is a fibonnacci number 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21
There was no better example of Hillary's clueless hawkishness than this moment in the recent debate.
/snark
Heads up, troops !
Today's full page ad in the New York Times announcing the opening of #WhereToInvadeNext this Wednesday... pic.twitter.com/wuPjw24nSe
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Monday December 20, 1915
From The Labor World: The Inside Story of How Rockefeller Won the Miners' Vote for a Company Union
Good morning 99percenters!
Morning news dump and music by blues artist Karen Carroll
The United States is scarier than the Islamic State
Even our closest allies fear that we are a menace militarily and environmentally. The threat is lethal and real
Let's start with an obvious given- Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is the single worst Democratic National Committee Chairman ever. She is directly responsible for the devastating defeats of 2012 and 2014 (What? You say 2012 wasn't a defeat? Look down ticket dope.).
