Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi
@rjelevi.bsky.social
Ethicist, half-assed text nerd. Sexual ethics & Jewish text. Queer. AuDHD. She/her. Current project: The Neurodivergent Talmud Book: When We Collide: Sex, Social Risk, and Jewish Ethics (IUP 2023) RJELevi.com
Not at all the point, but the self-contradictory construction of the first clause in the quote is going to drive me bananas.
Michael Hobbes@michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 6h agoI'm calling it: "Start smoking" is going to be mainstream MAHA / Republican health advice by 2028. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Between high-quality masks and the @cleanairkits.bsky.social purifiers in my home and office (and the portable ones!) I haven't gotten what used to be my annual (at best) miserable cold in years (and only, to my knowledge, gotten COVID once, thanks to this and vaccines).
Shepherd@neolithicsheep.bsky.social · 16h agoIn 1986, contracting HIV meant you were going to die, usually slowly, painfully, and alone. Now it's a chronic illness like hypertension. In 1986, gay and lesbian couples couldn't have their relationships legally recognized and had to adopt elaborate legal workarounds.
We have a goddamn vaccine for cervical cancer (and most anal and penilel, and many oropharyngeal ones).
Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 18h agoFood, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.
In 1986, fucking Reagan was president. He is now dead. bsky.app/profile/rach...
Rachel (loves LA, always will)@rachelpowers.myatproto.social · 16h agoThere is SO much that’s better now. My God. Those were Reagan years, for Christ’s sake. At 55 I feel like the wizened elder. Like I should be sitting under a gnarled tree in the center of the village with a staff. Just intoning weird shit.
In 1986 we had not yet addressed the thinning of the ozone layer by signing the Montreal Protocol. We did that in 1987. The ozone layer is expected to recover fully in another ~30 years.
In 1986, just getting prescribed hormones as a transgender person was a years long ordeal. Even in the most liberal mainstream workplaces, being gay and/or trans had to be a secret.
Our May power bill this year was $12 thanks to our new solar and battery installation.
Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 18h agoFood, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.
When I was in high school, in a super liberal college town, whether queer people should have basic rights was considered a legitimate matter for classroom debate, and "gay" was thrown around constantly as a casual insult.
Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 18h agoFood, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.
I haven't had a full-on period, complete with cramps, heavy bleeding, and excruciating breast pain, since 2014, and I've lowered my lifetime risk of ovarian and endometrial cancers in the process.
Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 18h agoFood, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.
Hepatitis C, which killed my dad in 2008, is now curable.
Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 18h agoFood, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.
My 12-year old cat gets long-term treatment, in the form of a flavored steroid liquid once a day and a chemo capsule twice a month, for the same cancer that killed my one of my previous cats within a month of diagnosis in 2012.
Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 18h agoFood, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.
In 1986, contracting HIV meant you were going to die, usually slowly, painfully, and alone. Now it's a chronic illness like hypertension. In 1986, gay and lesbian couples couldn't have their relationships legally recognized and had to adopt elaborate legal workarounds.
Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 18h agoFood, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.
So there's actually a very good book about a mother being prosecuted for nude analog photos of her daughter (that were meant to be kept private--the photo developer lab called the cops) in the town I grew up in.
Framing Innocence - The New Press
This nationally acclaimed book tells the shocking true story of how photographs taken by an amateur photographer and mother became the center of a disturbing legal battle that galvanized a community a...
thenewpress.org
post malone ergo propter malone@proptermalone.bsky.social · 22h agothis is kind of a hobbyhorse issue for me tbh- i haven't seen the image, i don't wanna see the image, but yeah like pics of your toddler playing in the sprinkler or whatever are private and you should keep them that way but characterizing them as CSAM seems to me to be serving no one here
Where would one buy art supplies online these days if one did not want to buy from a behemoth? I'm doing a more polished version of my map of Berakhot 30B-33A for #TheNeurodivergentTalmud, and it appears that all my drawing inks have dried up.
Chroma likes me to crumple up the wrappers of chewy fruit candies and throw them.
Cats of Yore@catsofyore.bsky.social · 22h agoSomeone once told me that it's "classist" to advocate for people to have indoor cats because you need to buy them lots of expensive toys. Marcel has been playing with the discarded stem of a fresh green bean for 20 minutes. 🤷♀️
Anyway, tis the season for this classic GIF:
The Good Place Chidi Anagonye
Alt: Scene from The Good Place where moral philosopher Chidi Anagonye, a ripped Black man with short hair and glasses wearing a pink "Who, What, Where...Wine" baby t-shirt, melts down in front of his class and stirs candy into a pot of canned chili while chanting "You put the Peeps in the chili pot, and it makes it taste...bad"
static.klipy.com
Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi@rjelevi.bsky.social · yesterdayThis is a major reason I increasingly dread syllabus revision season, which is now upon us. I straight-up do not know how to deal with this effectively, not least because I simply do not have the energy or executive function or desire to be AI cop. That is not my damn job.
Also I am begging people to realize that: 1. Paper media actually does have its own value and probably does help you think in certain ways, 2. The GenAI slopification of higher ed is real, 3. Laptop bans in classrooms are STILL ableist are ALL true, and there isn't an easy answer.
I have written actual words in my book proposal; where is my prize?
Incidentally, I have learned that the adhesive on one brand of estradiol patches irritates my skin significantly less than the brand I'd been using, which is the kind of thing that is always awesome to discover in the midst of a months-long nationwide shortage of the damn things.
I am disproportionately frustrated about this, because I do NOT want to use Outlook, and I do NOT want to migrate my inboxes to a new client, and I especially do not want to have my personal email in Outlook, and I do NOT have the executive function to manage more than one mail app.
Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi@rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d agoThank you, IT services, for not approving the mail client I have used for six years and have a whole organization system around, this will definitely not cause me tzuris or make me use a mail client I probably hate.
Journal: here is a GLOWING review of your book Center for Teaching: will you come talk to this workshop about how you use Unessays? Jerkbrain: I am inches away from getting found out as the incompetent slacker I am Me, to Jerkbrain: WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS, LET ME HAVE NICE THINGS Jerkbrain: LOL🖕
Thank you, IT services, for not approving the mail client I have used for six years and have a whole organization system around, this will definitely not cause me tzuris or make me use a mail client I probably hate.
Basically if we were relying on the garden for survival we’d starve, but at least we wouldn’t get scurvy. And all the rosemary, thyme, sage, and mint could be used to keep us smelling okay.
Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi@rjelevi.bsky.social · 3d agoThe garden has mostly been a bust this year, but the fig tree and the raspberry patch have been trying to make up for that all on their own. This is what I picked today. (Actually a bit less; @sarahel1771.bsky.social used some of the figs to make a cake).
The garden has mostly been a bust this year, but the fig tree and the raspberry patch have been trying to make up for that all on their own. This is what I picked today. (Actually a bit less; @sarahel1771.bsky.social used some of the figs to make a cake).
I'm not going to be relitigating COVID lockdowns or mask mandates. Both were necessary measures that saved lives. If you cannot accept the curtailing of even the minor of freedoms in the name of public safety, you have demonstrated that you do not give a solitary fuck about the rest of us.
“Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.”
John Fugelsang@johnfugelsang.bsky.social · 5d agoPope Leo and Patti Smith
there are a lot of philosophical concepts that get egregiously misused out of the seminar room (and in the seminar room, to be fair). but in terms of sheer pernicious misuse "social construct" has gotta be top 5 somewhere and it's not number 5
Scott Bryan@scottygb.bsky.social · last wk.Channel 4 has announced documentary “The Great ADHD Myth?” It “seeks to determine whether ADHD is a genuine neurodevelopmental disorder, or a social construct.”
but people without ADHD never mean "ADHD is a social construct" in the sense that "perhaps we should remove some of the unnecessary moral judgments from society that lead neurodivergent people to be valued based on what they can't do rather than what they can" they mean "you don't need meds"
Okay, they're far from DONE or even truly revised (I still have reams of comments from last fall to integrate), but FOR THE PURPOSE OF SUBMITTING SAMPLE CHAPTERS I *think* I have two, and probably three, workable chapter drafts to send to presses.