After Two Long Nights, It’s Finally Finished

#giveloganastrike

… “Youtube has a strict set of rules that ALL members must follow.”

Ravelry Ban

Hey guys, I know a lot of you may not be crafty people, but please listen.

Ravelry, the largest online crafting community (of several million people), just banned all Trump support on it’s platform claiming that he is a white supremacist and all of his supporters must be the same.   Let’s start:  First off, Trump isn’t a white supremacist.  Thought I should get that out of the way.  

Secondly, you just banned the political opinion of HALF OF AMERICA.  You are saying that HALF OF THE COUNTRY are racist.  Even the ones that don’t happen to be white.  You are saying that anyone can say anything politically, except for the Trump supporters, who we say are second-class intellectual citizens based on a lie that they aren’t allowed to refute.

Thirdly, Oh Yeah!  If you complain about this, they will delete your comment.  You can’t protest, you can’t get mad, all disagreement is hate speech.  

Fourthly, Ravelry is a HUGE source of income to crafters!  It is where you buy and sell patterns, yarn, and other yarn crafting supplies.  Ravelry is also where crafting events are organized.  They are essentially saying that you can’t make income unless you agree with their false claim.  

Fifthly, this is a precedent for other sites.  After doing some research, ravelry followed in the footsteps of rpg.com, who did the same thing.  If we let Ravelry sweep people they disagree with to the side, and essentially gag a whole spectrum of viewpoints on a false claim, then where do they stop?  Other social media has tried to take down conservative viewpoints, and said the same vile things, calling people racist, bigoted, homophobic, and essentially sub-human, as if saying those things without evidence and shouting them louder when they are refuted makes you cozy and inclusive.  It’s a very us vs. them mentality, and I have to wonder if the people who make these rules are ever around people who disagree with them, or if they realized that people they knew did disagree with them would they turn them out in an instant or see common humanity? 

Again, I know this isn’t everyone’s thing, but if you could reblog or make your own post, I would be eternally grateful:  I am trying to use the hashtag notokayravelry to get things going.  Crazy knitter types can’t let injustice stand!

“It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: ‘Kings. What a good idea.’ Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.”

— Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

SITES FOR WRITERS

Fantasy name generator

Fighter’s block - try to defeat a monster by writing

Child’s Traits Calculator ; predict a child’s appearance 

Child’s Traits Calculator ; predict other traits

Fifty Plot Twist Ideas For Your Work-In-Progress!

Name generator (Character, Baby, Last name, etc.)

Plot generator ; Inspiration for your next novel, film or short story

Character generator ; Generate Rich Characters in Seconds

Writing Exercises ;  This site provides (completely free) writing prompts and exercises to help you get started with creative writing and break through writing blocks. 

Notebook ; create your characters, worlds, objects, places, etc. and save them

Festisite ; Create a fake license, marriage certificate, credit card, ticket and you can find other stuff as well.

The most common last names in the US

Lists of most common surnames

List of most popular given names

List of the least common surnames [last names] in America, rank 16,001-20,000

Fantasy name generator (again)

Random Name Generator (Choose origins, gender, etc.)

Said is dead (Remember that you can use said, don’t use it to less.)

How Much Blood Can The Human Body Lose? 

How Long Can Someone Go Without Breathing?

The 6 Types of Collars Every Man Should Know by Name 

18 Different Types of Sleeves Design Patterns

What are the most widely practiced religions of the world?

Differences Between a Short Story, Novelette, Novella, & a Novel

Hemingway editor ;  It grades your writing by its readability. 

Zen writer ; writing without distractions (Might not be free after a while)

33 Ways to Write Stronger Characters

75+ bad habits for your character

30 SCENE IDEAS FOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

10 Things Writers Don’t Know About The Woods

British and American terms

Free writing worksheets

Feel free to add more!

Seriously just a bit of pollen could make your cat sick within a matter of minutes. Stay far away from Easter lilies if you have kitties!

I feel like the best way to respond to someone you’re friends with making gross, racist, sexist etc. jokes isn’t to argue with them or call them out directly, but just to kind of wince at them like they just did something incredibly inappropriate and awkward and try to change the subject. Like, almost in an exaggerated way, like you’re just really disgusted and want to forget they said it. Arguing with them lets them 1) shoehorn you as a “SJW” and shut themselves off to you 2) defend their opinion or feel like they did and 3) lets you end up categorized as the person who did the inappropriate thing by making a “big deal” out of it. But acting like you would with any extremely gross and inappropriate thing makes it harder for them to mentally defend themselves and thus to avoid feeling weird and ashamed. It prevents them from getting in any way satisfied by your reaction or validated in their views. It makes them the person that broke a rule. And anyway, it is really gross and inappropriate to joke like that. It has to be a taboo, not just a viewpoint or a style of humor that some people don’t like. If you argue, it frames the issue as an opinion. If you just show disgust and displeasure and treat the offensive material like you would a pile of dog shit on a sidewalk you’re walking down, it’s not arguable. It’s an action, with nothing intellectual about it, and there’s nothing for them to defend against. 

Anyone have any thoughts? Has anybody tried this? 

For any people who could become pregnant in Georgia, know that the awful six-week abortion ban is NOT in effect yet. A lot of news outlets are failing to report this so I thought I would help spread the word. Don’t panic if you’re pregnant or might be pregnant and want an abortion. The ban won’t go into effect until January 1, 2020. And that’s only if it survives legal challenges.

However, with the courts and SCOTUS as they are now, it actually might survive. Get an IUD when you can, if you can. For others, if you were wanting a vasectomy, get that done soon.