42.409653
-71.857133
spring, sprang, sprung
Voting ends tonight!
[pssst…3/23 um…”update”…the polls are still up for a bit even though it’s technically past midnight in known timezones. But when was I ever one to be strict about a deadline? As long as you can see the polls, you are welcome to vote. They’ll probably be coming down later this evening…]
Don’t forget to vote for the Best of the 2009 Just Posts. Voting ends tonight: Monday, March 22nd. (We will be flexible about which time zone you choose to vote in–we want your votes, even if you want to pretend you’re in Hawaii!¹)
Please vote in as many categories as you can, but even if you only have time to read posts in one category, we still value your input.
If you have managed to vote in more than one category, please take a moment to consider which of all the posts you read stood out for you as the best of the best.
Thank you!²
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¹ Aloha!
² And mahalo to those of you voting in the Hawaiian time zone.
Theo’s World
Taken this summer, before Theo could walk.
Vote for the Best Just Posts of 2009
Holly and I pleased to announce the unveiling of the final finalist list for the best Just Posts of 2009. In this post, you can find both the list of finalists by category, and the polls to vote for your favorite posts within those categories. [March 23, 2010: voting is now closed! Thank you for your votes! You can still scroll down to see the list of finalists. ]
Please vote! And spread the word. Spread the word to others to vote, contribute, nominate, write, and read!
Thank you thank you thank you for your interest, support, and involvement in the Just Posts!
Voting and prizes:
To get right to the voting, scroll or jump down.
- Vote within as many categories as you like, but please vote only once in each category.
- There’s no need to vote in all categories at once–come back as often as you like before voting ends.
- We’ll have the polls up and open for one week.
At the end of the process, if you have voted in more than one category, we’d love to hear from you about which post you felt was the strongest of all you read. To vote on the “best of the best,” and to give additional feedback, you can go to this page.
At the end of Monday night, March 22nd, we will close the poll and start to tally the results. The top votes in each category will receive a hand-made tile from a New Orleans artisan with a few trinkets thrown in for good measure. Using your votes and any additional written input, we will recognize a post (or two, we’re not ruling out ties) as the Best of the Best Just Posts. We’ll do something extra special for this, we’re just not sure exactly what yet.
The process:
For those of you who are interested in the process, here’s a bit about our (imperfect) process of post and category selection.
Category selection:
Looking through our massive list of semifinalists, we (mostly Holly) created categories that reflected all of those 130+ posts. Then we went back to our readers’ comments and ratings and narrowed down the categories. We tried to represent a variety of voices, writers and experiences.
Here are the categories for the Best of the 2009 Just Posts. To see the posts for each category, and the polls for voting, scroll down, or click on a category name to jump right there:
- Posts related to FOOD AND NUTRITION
- Posts related to DISEASE AND ILLNESS
- Posts related to CHILD WELFARE
- Posts related to VULNERABLE POPULATIONS
- Posts related to EDUCATION
- Posts related to SOCIAL/SOCIETAL VALUES
SOCIAL JUSTICE as political/legal :
SOCIAL JUSTICE as health/wellness:
SOCIAL JUSTICE as socio-economic inequalities :
SOCIAL JUSTICE as advocacy/service :
SOCIAL JUSTICE…
- serious topics approached with HUMOR
(because a laugh is important, too!)
In no way is this list or these categories representative of the broad theme of “Social Justice.” It represents what we’ve been able to gather, write and have nominated. If you there are topics and categories you’d like to see better represented in the Just Posts moving forward, we welcome your input. You can let us know in the comments, or using the form on this page. We also encourage you to write and nominate posts on topics that have been under-represented!
Post selection:
As you might imagine, choosing the finalists was tough. There were many excellent posts that we had to leave out, especially in categories with many posts. We also limited the number of posts that could be included by any one author to 2. Our goal was to narrow down the number of posts in a category to 3, a manageable number to read. (As you can see, we ended up with 4 posts in several categories…)
Please vote for your favorite post in as many categories as you can!
SOCIAL JUSTICE as political/legal : Posts Related to GENDER EQUITY
- Antifeminist Spam by Meloukhia at This Ain’t Livin’
- forgiveness by Christine at by flutter
- Oh Oh, She’s Back on Her Soapbox Again by Chris at Formerly Fun
- Oprah and the secret lives of moms by Liz Dwyer at love is not enough
SOCIAL JUSTICE as political/legal : Posts related to RACE
- Attention White Folks by Stacie at If you want kin, you must plant kin…
- Ma: Little Bigot On the Prairie by Mary at The Eleventh
- Stuff black folks don’t do: Creating our own oppression by Tami at What Tami Said
- the great american melting pot (?) by Hispanic Fanatic at Hispanic Fanatic
SOCIAL JUSTICE as political/legal : Posts related to SEXUALITY
- Frozen by Meagan at A Certain Lack of Focus
- Maine. by Erika at Be gay about it.
- Uncensored II by Megan at Missing in Iraq
- Why the Prop 8 Decision Inhibits Equality by Zack Ford at Zack Ford Blogs
SOCIAL JUSTICE as health/wellness: Posts related to FOOD AND NUTRITION
- Pensioneering by Thordora at Spin Me I Pulsate
- The cost of a winter tomato by Rebecca at Flying Tomato Farms
- When is zero not really zero? When it describes your food. by Kimberly at The Gav Menagerie
SOCIAL JUSTICE as health/wellness : Posts related to DISEASE AND ILLNESS
- A Day with Fibromyalgia by Amy at Je Ne Regrette Rien
- A Voice from the Back of the Queue by Mary G. at Them’s My Sentiments
- In Health there is Freedom, Health is the First of all Liberties by thordora at Spin Me I Pulsate
SOCIAL JUSTICE as health/wellness : Posts related to CHILD WELFARE
- 250 Children Dead of Cold in Andes: Death Toll Keeps Climbing by Barbara Drake at An American in Lima
- Safety and Self Worth: $175 by Stacie at If you want kin, you must plant kin…
- The Speech, Remix Edition by Kyla at The Journey
SOCIAL JUSTICE as socio-economic inequalities : Posts related to VULNERABLE POPULATIONS
- Faces of Poverty by Ashley at The Dhaka Diaries
- guilty pleasure monday: millworker (james taylor) by wreke at wrekehavoc
- The Holy Land by Emily at Wheels on the Bus
- War Ends, Schools Begin by Shahrazaad at Shahrazaad
SOCIAL JUSTICE as socio-economic inequalities : Posts related to EDUCATION
- Creative Freedoms and the Not Now Book by Claudia at The Bottom of Heaven
- On Social Justice and Education by Brigitte Knudson at A Liberal Education
- school daze by jen at one plus two
SOCIAL JUSTICE as socio-economic inequalities : Posts related to SOCIAL/SOCIETAL VALUES
- American Me by jen at one plus two
- Free speech, free range by almostidealist at One Year to Change the World
- peace train by wreke at wrekehavoc
- Quote of the Day by Adrianne at The Bodhi Tree
SOCIAL JUSTICE as advocacy/service : Posts related to SERVICE AND ACTION
- The Afghanis by Antropologa at Antropologa
- B is for Backpack by Laura at Our Feet are the Same
- A mini home makeover by Quadelle at Quadelle
- No More Hall Passes by Emily at Wheels on the Bus
SOCIAL JUSTICE as advocacy/service : Posts related to INFORMATION AND ADVOCACY
- Archbishop of Cusco to Evict More Local Restaurants by Barbara Drake at An American in Lima
- Charity vs. Democracy by Magpie at Magpie Musing
- Marriott is a Disgrace by Ilina at Dirt and Noise
- When Allies Fail, Part One by Tami at What Tami Said
SOCIAL JUSTICE… serious topics approached with HUMOR (because a laugh is important, too!)
- All Things on Cable TV Considered, I wish my Hotel had Porn… by submom at The Absence of Alternatives
- Can we talk? by Country Girl at Country Girl/City Girl
- My, what a gayngled web we weave. by Erika at Be gay about it.
If you have a post in the lists above, we invite you to display a button:
For more information on the Just Posts, please visit the Just Posts information page.
disconnected thoughts
Things have been a bit crazy over the past few weeks, and it’s a little hard to know where to jump in to start blogging again. So I guess I’ll just offer my disconnected thoughts.
I see that it’s been almost 3 full weeks since I posted anything beyond Just Posts stuff.
3 weeks ago we had a full but fun weekend. Fun up to a point…
John was finally able to take a day off from work after many weeks of working long crazy hours 7 days a week. That Sunday, we spent a family day together, hitting the Boston Children’s Museum, and then dinner at a really great little restaurant in Cambridge with a play area for kids and really good food. At dinner, John and I enjoyed the food and conversation while Phoebe and Theo played happily a few feet away. Theo seemed not too interested in food, so I called him over to try to get him to eat. I pulled him on my lap and offered a bite of fruit. At which point he started throwing up.
That was the point at which the weekend stopped being fun.
We had a long drive home with a very sick Theo and a very disturbed Phoebe.
Theo was quite sick for a couple of days, and was barely able to keep anything down. I was getting worried we’d need to get medical intervention to keep him hydrated. I’m quite sure he lost a lot of weight. He was so miserable that I could barely put him down for about 48 hours. We didn’t want to leave him alone when he was sleeping because we were worried about him choking.
Phoebe got sick, too. Not quite as sick as Theo, but quite miserable, nonetheless. Especially on that Monday. Which was her 4th birthday.
It was a long week. John and I both got the virus to varying degrees. I lucked out by only having 48 hours of fever and mild nausea. (Though I guess that makes the 5th time I’ve been sick so far in 2010. The year is clearly off to a rollicking good start.)
Once everyone was more or less recovered, it was time to get the house ready for Phoebe’s birthday party. We’d been living in steadily increasing levels of chaos for the past year, and if we were going to have a party at home, we were going to need to relocate parts of the house that had long since become buried under piles of things. My mother came from California for week-long visit, and she helped a huge amount to get the house sorted out. Together, we found that we did, indeed, still have kitchen counters. They were approximately where I’d last remembered seeing them.
We had Phoebe’s party last Saturday. My mother left Tuesday. Her visit was lots of fun, but considering that we were working almost non-stop with cleaning, party prep, party, and post-party clean-up, it was pretty exhausting. She’s probably still recovering from her “vacation.”
The last couple of days I’ve just been feeling tired and pretty run down. It certainly doesn’t help that I’ve been eating leftover cupcakes and cookies daily.
I may manage to post something about the party. (Can anyone guess what theme Phoebe chose?)
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My feed reader is overflowing, and I’m strangely at peace with that. I’ve been reading posts here and there, in a haphazard way. Even when I have read posts, I’ve been really bad about commenting. Again.
There’s part of me that knows that in order to really move forward with my degree, I need to find more time. And really the only time I have to “spare” is the couple of hours each night that I tend to spend online. So it’s probably good to start disconnecting from that time sink.
But I just can’t bear to pull the plug on my blog.
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In other news, Holly and I are super close to getting the Best of 2009 Just Posts up for voting. We actually have all the finalists chosen, and had hoped to put up the post tonight. (Friday night, that is. I see it’s now technically Saturday.) Hopefully the final kinks in our voting procedures will get worked out tomorrow (or today, seeing as it’s after midnight).
The February 2010 Just Posts
Holly and I are roundly pleased to present the February Just Posts, the latest round of social justice posts that have been rounded up for our roundtable. Gather ’round!¹
We’re getting quite close to having the Best of 2009 JPs up and running for voting–I can say quite confidently that we will have this together by the end of 2010. And quite likely by the end of the week, even. In the meantime, please enjoy the February list.
Just Posts for a Just World, February 2010:
- Heather of finding atman with We can do better
- Emily at Wheels on the Bus with You Gotta Fight for the Right to Plie
- Tiffany Sellers of PR Musings of a Clemson Student with The Line Between Charity and Justice
- Eric at It’s the Question that Drives Us with Helping Haiti or Hurting Haiti
- girlgriot at If You Want Kin, You Must Plant Kin with Common Ground
- Country Girl at Country Girl/City Girl with That Slacker Blogger Thing
- Absence of Alternatives and Velva of Tomatoes on the Vine with The Price of Tomatoes
- Morganna of Lizbeth’s Garden with bombs
- Communication for Change with Todays’ Bad Word: Working Poor
- Oh the Joys with Enormity of Need
- Cecilieaux at Antipode with Piling on Muslims
- Barbara of An American in Lima with How to Prepare for an Earthquake in a Third World Country
- Flying Tomato Farm with Sounds Corny to Me and Stockholm Syndrome for Farmers
- Claudia at The Bottom of Heaven with Testing the Ice
- Ilina at Dirt and Noise with Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Initiative
Nominators:
¹I’ve been running around in circles lately, so clearly I’m feeling a bit loopy.
setting the machinery in motion
So, yeah. About that “deadline” we set for March 1st…didn’t quite make it.
Holly and I are still working out the kinks in the machinery of readying our 2009 Just Posts finalists for voting. The process is fairly laborious and complex. We’re sorting posts into categories, and fine-tuning our rankings based on reviewer scores and comments, plus our own scores and comments. We are then passing this data through a bayesian algorithm to map the data onto a multidimensional target, which we are modelling out of styrofoam, aluminum foil and chewing gum. Our elaborate system of gears, levers, pulleys and springs will then lob sporks and chopsticks at the target. We will analyze the configuration of utensils to determine the optimal set of posts. Unfortunately, we’ve run into a bit of a roadblock due to some disagreement over how best to use the trained gerbils.¹
So, it will be…a few more days.
While you wait, please study the following instructional video:
(It’s OKGO and their new video for This Too Shall Pass.)
¹ I’ll also be pretty busy with a few other things. My mother is arriving tonight for a week-long visit, for one thing.²
² I’m hoping that she can help carve some of the styrofoam and chew some of the gum. Or at least help us tally the sporks. (I’m afraid she won’t be much help as a gerbil handler.)
Best of the 2009 Just Posts: The Semifinalists
I would like to announce that finalists for the Best Just Posts of 2009 will be posted and ready for your voting by the end of January.
However, seeing as I have not yet successfully managed to manipulate the passage of time to suit my desires, I will have to settle for announcing that the finalists will be ready by a date in the near future. Our goal is for Monday, March 1st.
It may not shock you to know that this project grew larger than either Holly or I had anticipated. For one thing, we quickly realized that due to the subjective nature of responding to posts, it would be much fairer to make sure that each post was evaluated independently by more than person. Seeing as we had about 300 posts to evaluate, this meant 600 separate reviews.
We could not have even contemplated this task without vast amounts of help from friends and Just Post supporters, who read and evaluated batches of posts. Their ratings and comments have been extremely helpful to us. For their time and care, we send out sincere thanks and grateful hugs to the following beautiful people:
Amanda, Anne-Marie, antropologa, Barbara, blc, bon, bshep, Catherine, Charlotte, Chrissie, Christine, Christine, De, dee, defiantmuse, denguy, Donna, Elizabeth B, Eli, Emily, Erica, Erika , Heather, Janet, Jean, jen, Julie, KC, Kitty, laloca, Leslie, Lin, Mad, Magpie, Mary G., Meagan, Mme. Meow, Painted,
Robin, Sarah, Shokufeh, Stacie, submom, Susanne, Tabba, and wreke.
And extra big fat sloppy kisses go to De, denguy, Donna, Erika , Heather, Kitty, Leslie, Mad, Mary G., Sarah and Tabba for going above and beyond the call of duty, and coming back to help with more. (For that matter, I’m pretty sure I owe Heather my firstborn child (or at least my firstborn child’s weight in chocolate) for all of the additional reading she took on for us.)
We also greatly appreciate those of you who, while you were not able to actively participate in the project through reading and reviewing posts, expressed your interest and support in the endeavor. Thanks, friends!
In the meantime, our list of semifinalists may be of interest. These posts are those which at least one of two reviewers asserted should make our finalist list. Our final finalist list (I love writing that) will be selected from these semifinalists, based on reviews and comments and a few other considerations.
cuddly (PhotoHunt)
Just a few months ago, thanks to the wonders of digital networking, I re-established contact with a friend from high school. We hadn’t seen each other for about 20 years. We had both been living in France back then, so I was surprised to learn that she was now living in Canada. (We’re practically neighbors!)
My friend asked for our snail mail address so that she could send us a card at Christmas. In mid-December, the card arrived in a fat box guarded by some cute companions: a backpack with some unidentifiable creature, and a cuddly plush of some other unidentifiable creature. These mysterious cute companions were none other than two of the mascots of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, the city which my friend now calls home. The creature on the backpack turns out to be Quatchi, a sasquatch. The plush was Miga, a “sea bear,” some sort of bear/orca hybrid.¹
Phoebe and Theo were quite taken with them. As the older child, we let Phoebe pick which of the two gifts would be hers. She picked the backpack, as she loves packing things for trips, and said that Theo, who still has comparatively few toys of his own, could have the plush. Judging from her expression in the photos, she may have had some regrets about this state of affairs.
So it goes that when I tried to get photos of my children happily enjoying their gifts, thinking to send them to my friend by way of thanks, I ended up with a series of photos that would make Poster Children for Poster Children proud. Happy they may not be, but I defy you to tell me that they are not cuddly.²
¹ Merci, chère amie, pour les cadeaux fabuleux!
² This week’s Photo Hunt theme is “cuddly.”
collecting tokens 