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This poem came out of the June 6, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from ![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) librarygeek and Shirley Barrette. It has been sponsored by Anthony & Shirley Barrette. This poem belongs to the series Polychrome Heroic. Warning: This poem features an alternate-dimension version of a public figure, so if Real Person Fanfic squicks you, this may not be your thing. Also it doesn't directly mock an unpopular person, so if you're looking for rude political humor, that's in other poems. ( Read more...Collapse )Tags: cyberfunded creativity, ethnic studies, fantasy, fishbowl, gender studies, history, poem, poetry, politics, reading, weblit, writing
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This poem is spillover from the April 4, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from Anthony Barrette. It also fills the "Too Close" square in my 2-1-17 Love Songs card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by Anthony & Shirley Barrette. ( Read more...Collapse )Tags: cyberfunded creativity, economics, environment, fishbowl, life lessons, nature, poem, poetry, politics, reading, safety, weblit, writing
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Because refugees are usually forbidden to work, they are forcibly prevented from autonomous support, and kept dependent. Citizens see them as a drain on resources better spent elsewhere, but it's not because the refugees actually are mooches. It's because someone else decided they don't deserve to support themselves. It doesn't just victimize them and make them less able to survive if they ever escape the aid trap. It also encourages other people to hate and blame them. >_< A very efficient work of evil, that. The sensible way to handle refugees is with maximum throughput. Get them out of dangerous places into safe places as fast as possible. Figure out which people are currently too damaged to work and get them health care, so that hopefully some of those folks will recover. (They're refugees, though; some never will.) Get the able workers working. Put the kids in school. Identify any refugees who know more than their native language; employ them as interpreters. Refugees can efficiently meet many needs for each other when they share the same culture, which also reduces the burden on the host country. Conversely, provide opportunities for cultural fusion between refugees and hosts who wish to interact, so people can put down roots. Tags: economics, news, politics
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Here's a fascinating case where humans (dolls) and nonhumans (other toys) are taxed differently. The argument was that, since the X-men are canonically not humans, but rather mutants, their action figures should be taxed as toys. That worked, although the change was then applied to all Marvel action figures whether mutant or not. So let's compare ... Marvel action figures are now legally considered not human (toys) instead of human (dolls), which makes the tax cheaper. Another economic factor is dolls vs. action figures. For years it was all but impossible to market human representations to boys, because they were called dolls. Then some genius invented the term "action figures" and it became socially acceptable for boys to play with such toys. Calling them "dolls" could have made them unmarketable. Personhood is different; that's another category which may be considered both psychological and legal. Divergences between the two have ghastly results, as both Marvelverse and local history have indicated. Psychological personhood is sapience -- the presence of an intelligent mind, or soul if you prefer. It's often thought of as pigeonholes, but in practice, is more of a spectrum, which is very awkward. Legal personhood is supposed to match, but often does not. Slaves weren't legal persons, for example, despite being quintessentially the same as free humans. Marvel has very patchy standards regarding mutants; sometimes they are treated as legal persons, but very often they are not. The most salient character who consistently objects this is ... Magneto. Well, that's a bit embarrassing, isn't it? From an anthropological perspective, of course, the concept is much broader: a doll is any effigy of a creature, human or something else, played with or otherwise handled in a representational way. It doesn't have to look representational, though: if a child picks up a stick and declares it to be a baby, that counts as a doll. Tags: economics, entertainment, fantasy, news, politics
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