Posts by B Jones
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Up Front: Lighting the Dark, in reply to Russell Brown,
--"My response, equally understandably, I think, was that here was yet another young man with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis going on a brutal rampage. "
I'm not sure he did have a diagnosis, given that family friend someone Astaire was reported as saying his family just suspected he was on the spectrum.
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Up Front: Lighting the Dark, in reply to Carol Stewart,
are gendered terms more helpful when they are positive, like girl power?
It's in-group/out-group thinking, which is a powerful motivator, but it's like sociological sugar - we need a little bit, but tend to take more than is good for us given the slightest opportunity. It always amazes me how resistent gender is to any attempts at breaking down stereotypes, and how invested people are in not challenging that. If I had a dollar for everyone who told me, about my kids in the 2010s, that girls are like this and boys are like that, I'd be a rich person.
I think this is why it's harder for some people to see this as overtly political as, say, Anders Breivik. The personal being political is an old feminist slogan, but it's as relevant as ever.
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Up Front: Lighting the Dark, in reply to Moz,
that means the people around you have to tell you when you get it wrong
There's the ticket. They need to tell you, and you need to listen. There are ways to tell people they're getting the social rules wrong, and bullying is an unhelpfully popular way of doing this. But if you've armoured yourself in an ironclad ego, even the kindest, most constructive criticism bounces off.
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The snip I could stand to read spoke to me of a person who had never engaged with other people in a real way. Who speaks of themselves as a supreme, beautiful gentleman? Someone whose self-perception had never integrated anyone else’s unbiased point of view. I think it’s easier to fall into the cultural trap of assuming women are less than human, if you’re already halfway to thinking nobody else is either. That’s an error of youth and isolation. It’s not the crying, it’s the despair that the world doesn’t see him as some priceless wonder that makes him seem young to me.
But the cultural trap is there, and many ordinary guys fall into it to a greater or lesser degree. Filling that cultural pothole will cut down on minor crashes as well as rarer ten car pile-ups.
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All we need now is some mysterious dresses with gold sewn into the seams, some opium, and some astrological tables.
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I like cooking for one, but I do tend to go for minimising dishes and cooking time when I get the chance, which is never with a couple of preschoolers in the house. Spaghetti and improvised sauce works well for small quantities. Last solo dinner I made was mussels and French bread with salad.
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This year they say it's mid-late June*: Tax 2014. That would be nice.
*I'm expecting and have in fact already spent my fairly decent tax refund this year, and have been stalking the IRD website to find out when it will show up.
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It's a big jump once you go over $48,000. 19.2% to 31.7%.
Jeez, it's hard to find, but here's the form to fix the problem: IR23BS
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There's some good info here about special tax codes: IRD website.
You do have to go looking for it, though.
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Getting a special tax code is a thing I discovered stepping in and out of the workforce to have kids. It's so much better getting the right money in your pocket on payday than settling up at the end of the tax year.