fracturedrefuge:

Okay.  Really important shit here.

Currently, in the United States, there are tens of thousands of people waiting for bone marrow.  Without it, many will die.

The good news?  You can sign up to be an marrow donor!  The process is painless - just some simple swabs from your cheek - and you will be put into a registry that helps match donors with people in need.  Unfortunately, it usually costs upwards of $100 to join this registry.

But this is where the cool part comes in.

For the month of January, American Express is helping to cover the cost of joining.

That’s right.  You can now join the registry at little to no cost to you.  I just signed up and it was free.  That’s right.  I just potentially saved a motherfucking life and it didn’t cost me a penny.  A life like this one. 

Isn’t that cool?

Yeah, I thought so, too.

So, if you are so inclined, mosey on over to marrow.org and sign your ass up.  Use promo code PIF070109.  According to the website, donors of the following backgrounds are especially needed:  Black or African American;  American Indian or Alaska Native;  Asian, including South Asian;  Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander;  Hispanic or Latino;  Multiple race.  Yes, there are restrictions, many of which are similar to those used for blood donation.  Check them out to see if any of them pertain to you.

REMEMBER.  THIS PROMO ONLY LASTS UNTIL THE END OF JANUARY.  SO, IF YOU CAN, SIGN UP NOW.

And, if you can’t, signal boost the hell out of this.

Let’s save some lives, people!

I am super, super bad with medical stuff, but will happily reblog to spread the word!

dytabytes:

yesbr0:

 what kind of a bitch WONT reblog? -_-

ME- wait. shit. 

(Source: livefree-livefree)

stfuconservatives:

supersoygrrrl:

sisterhoodispowerful:

[Trigger Warning for victim blaming]

This article was published in Umass Amherst’s student run newspaper. I am horrified, and furious. Much worse than the blatant misinformation about birth control etc, blaming feminism for everything, going on about women having “too much sex” (apparently with themselves or inanimate objects, because men are hardly mentioned), is some of the worst victim blaming I may have ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot.

Please feel free to comment on the article, circulate it widely, and help Umass Amherst students and others on campus formulate a plan to hold the paper responsible.

“Planned Parenthood, one of the largest health care clinics and the largest abortion provider in the United States, may loose its federal funding. It is a business. It is not, however, a charitable organization, as it is portrayed by its many supporters. Their services are not free, although they may be cheaper than regular hospitals.

According to the American Life League, Planned Parenthood performed 289,750 abortions in 2006. The number rose to 324,008 in 2008. However, the organization’s website misleads in reporting that abortions constitute only 3 percent of its services. In reality, it performs about 23 percent of all abortions performed each year in the U.S. The organization is also engaged in a number of morally questionable practices, such as opposing parental consent laws. They also support prescribing abortion pills without a doctor’s visit as well as the absence of ultrasound before abortion.

The problem, however, does not lie solely with Planned Parenthood or its practices. It lies within the values of contemporary American society where traditional values have widely been replaced with progressive thinking.

The notion that sex be regarded only within the institution of marriage has nearly disappeared in modern American culture. It has been replaced by an abundance of sexual activity. This was promoted by feminist movements as “female liberation” – women having the freedom to have sex with anyone, anywhere. Ignited by the media and supported by many young females willing to become “liberated,” the trend took off.”
(read the rest here: trigger warning for victim blaming and rape apologism)

(via ontd_feminism)

Why do people not understand by limiting my access to a fucking medical procedure you’re not forcing me into a marriage I may or may not want. And why would you fucking want to? Why do you fucking care about other peoples’ marriages? Oh and the rest of this? Totally utterly wrong.

I. Am. Horrified. Seriously, my jaw dropped while I was reading this. Also, I like their convenient twisting of statistics:

the organization’s website misleads in reporting that abortions constitute only 3 percent of its services. In reality, it performs about 23 percent of all abortions performed each year in the U.S.

Sooo… Planned Parenthood does stuff other than abortions. Yes, they provide a large percentage of abortions in the United States. But providing abortions only constitutes 3% of their total services. That is not “misleading” information. “Percentage of services provided” and “percentage of abortions performed in the U.S.” are two different statistics.

ETA: The editors of the Daily Collegian have issued an apology for the column.

This offends me both as a woman and as a journalist.

(Source: slutever--forever)

georgethecat:

sharpestrose:

gwenfrankenstien:

emmahouxbois:

heroics:

So this is a post about classism in Batman.  I feel like there’s someone else that could do it better.  Like, some of you guys can recite exact issues and everything!  Maybe someone’s already posted about it!  So I will keep this short and sweet.

The treatment of Jason Todd and Stephanie Brown’s backgrounds is really, really gross.  For those of you that don’t follow the Batman comics, Jason Todd and Stephanie Robin were the second and fourth Robins.  Jason Todd is a street kid that Batman took in after he found him stealing the tires off the Batmobile.  He was eventually killed by the Joker, but came back to life as the anti-hero/villain Red Hood.  His motivation as a anti-hero/villain is his (pretty justifiable) anger that Batman wouldn’t avenge his death.  Stephanie Brown is the daughter of a minor villain called the Cluemaster.  She originally became the hero Spoiler to “spoil” her father’s plans.   She eventually becomes Robin, “dies,” returns as Spoiler, and is now serving as Batgirl.  That’s confusing, I know, but bear with me.

The fact that Jason and Stephanie do not have squeaky clean backgrounds isbrought up all the time.  It doesn’t happen as often with Steph, and certainly not as often recently,but with Jason?  Even Alfred has made a comment Jason’s background, and it’s Alfred.  Jason being a “bad” Robin and ultimately becoming a villain is his fault and completely out of Bruce’s hands, because he was from the streets.  He was a bad kid, he was from a bad background, he was bad bad bad.  And Steph is someone Bruce “has to keep an eye on” because of her background, despite the fact that she has almost always been interested in doing the right thing.  Y’all, I used to hate Stephanie, but even I realized Bruce was treating her horribly.  (I have since learned the error of my ways, but word, I used to dislike her.)

Like, there is a lot more to it than that, and I am paraphrasing for people who do not follow Batman, but yeah.  I know Batman is everyone’s childhood hero (and you guys, I really love Batman), but trust, he can be horribly douchey in the comics.  IMO, classism is one issue where the Batman comics straight up fail. 

It sounds odd, but I don’t really agree that it’s presence is a failure of the comics. I think that a lot of it is a pretty genuine portrayal of how these characters would react to Jason and Steph given their privilege (special emphasis on Damian Wayne, of course). If there’s a failure, it’s in how that classism is framed in the individual narratives. Is the writer leading us in a direction that is validating those attitudes or are they showing it up as false? In the case of Stephanie and Wendy (Proxy) in Batgirl, I’m pretty comfortable in saying that Brian Q Miller handles it well and it’s there for a reason, but I can’t speak on the subject of Jason.

Okay, speaking on the subject of Jason:

It definitely is a colossal classist mess. We are supposed to believe all these things about Jay— “He was destined to be a bad guy, if Bruce hadn’t rescued him from his terrible existence he would have ended up working for the Joker!” He’s the “bad” Robin, the one who “failed.”

Later on the Drakes became comfortably upper-middle-class, but from his introduction Tim was from a very wealthy background, not Wayne-level rich, but not far off. He was set up to be the opposite to Jay from day one (because Everybody Hates Jason Todd), and a large part of Tim being the Best Robin Ever, the new Robin redefining what Robin means and making Robin cool again— Was that he was a rich kid, basically Batman jr.

I have some examples here comparing Jason’s post-crisis introduction to the relatively recent Nightwing: Year One retcon, if you want to look at the way DC’s treatment of Jason has shifted from him being this disadvantaged kid who Batman wanted to help to him being this juvenile delinquent that Batman tried to save.

Also linking Mary’s paper again because it is relevant and interesting and she has more Clever Thoughts on Robin than you can shake several sticks at

I love that I don’t even need to be awake and tumblring while these discussions are going on in order to participate; stuff I wrote in the past gets linked to as a relevant document instead! :D :D

I think the distinction between the “exoticised” childhood traumas of Cass and Damian — assassins, remarkable and terrible birthrights — and Jason and Steph’s much more “pedestrian” childhood horrors — drug addicted parents, parents in jail for armed robbery and suchlike, homelessness, the threat of sexual abuse by a neighbour — is worth remarking on too.

Non-white batkids (even Dick, who’s occasionally written as Rom, and who comes from the exotic background of the circus) are strange, different, remarkable in the upbringings, even when those upbringings are traumatic and lead to less-than-exemplary behaviour by the adolescent who emerges. They’re somehow special.

Lower-class “non-exotic” characters — ie, Steph and Jason — on the other hand, are not treated by the text as somehow special. They’re just bad apples.

Rascism* and classism are both at play in the problems with how the Batkids are written, and DC needs to shape the fuck up on both counts.

*edited to clarify that I do NOT mean racism against the “non-special” white characters here, good god no. I mean the way that anyone non-white is suddenly a mystical karate dragonlady instead of just another fucked-up kid.

Reblogging for everything, so many brilliant minds writing in this commentary here

^^^