you're barely alive

Photo

Thu, 02 May 2013 10:00:15 -0400

Photo

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:00:29 -0400

Photo

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:45:06 -0400

Five months ago I was bored out of my mind at work. Then I started a new position while taking on...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:04:56 -0400

Five months ago I was bored out of my mind at work. Then I started a new position while taking on a separate additional responsibility and maintaining another (street outreach, womp womp) and now I am busy all the time and never bored.

So that is mostly why this blog hasn’t been updated. The other reason is books.

Maybe this will change.

Maybe.

kateoplis: Stephen Wilkes

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:28:52 -0400

kateoplis:

Stephen Wilkes

kaajoo: World’s Most Beautiful Abandoned Places Italian product...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:28:01 -0400

kaajoo:

World’s Most Beautiful Abandoned Places

Italian product manager and web designer Francesco Mugnai recently added a collection of images to his blog touting some of the most beautiful images of abandoned spots and modern ruins that he’d ever seen. The images Mugnai has captured come from empty castles, shuttered power plants, and dilapidated churches around the world. From a sunken yacht in Antarctica to a forever-closed amusement park in Japan, these images all make up a sort of anti-phoenix; rather than rising as new from the ashes, these husks remain preserved in decomposition, forcing viewers to confront the strange beauty of ruination.

"Ohio really did go to President Obama last night. And he really did win. And he really was born in..."

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 11:56:35 -0500

“Ohio really did go to President Obama last night. And he really did win. And he really was born in Hawaii. And he really is, legitimately, President of the United States again. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month. And the Congressional Research Service really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy. And the polls were not skewed to over-sample Democrats. And Nate Silver was not making up fake predictions about the election to make conservatives feel bad. Nate Silver was doing math. And climate change is real. And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes. And evolution is a thing … And nobody’s taking away anyone’s guns. And taxes have not gone up. And the deficit is dropping, actually. And Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. And the moon landing was real. And FEMA is not building concentration camps. And UN election observers are not taking over Texas. And moderate reforms of regulations on the insurance industry and the financial services industry are not the same thing as Communism.”

- Rachel Maddow, saying what every Democrat has been trying to tell every Republican. (via bowsic)

Amen.

(via section9)

Rachel Maddow, another voice of reason.
(via jennyjennybobenny)

Wait, what?

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 11:25:20 -0500

Wait, what?

I want to thank the internet for commenter #4’s existence...

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 11:07:58 -0500

I want to thank the internet for commenter #4’s existence because that is what I wanted to say.

and a giant eye-roll for everything else

Pennsylvania is still spending taxpayer money on ads about a law that is not applicable to this...

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:29:42 -0400

Pennsylvania is still spending taxpayer money on ads about a law that is not applicable to this election. So, not a good use of money — something we can agree on regardless of political beliefs, right?

Commonwealth Court won’t stop state ads on voter ID (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

You can call Governor Corbett’s office at 717.787.2500 or leave him a note via his website

This one is such a stretch.

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 10:19:16 -0400

This one is such a stretch.

The most patient I’ve ever been in my whole life....

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 11:42:54 -0400

The most patient I’ve ever been in my whole life. Probably not saying much about me.

The National Women’s History Project has reprinted Bertha Boye’s beautiful “Votes for...

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:34:43 -0400

The National Women’s History Project has reprinted Bertha Boye’s beautiful “Votes for Women” poster to honor the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote in California. On October 10, 1911, California became the sixth state where women could vote equally with men, nine years before the 19th Amendment enfranchised women nationally.

Created by artist Bertha Margaret Boye for the 1911 California campaign, this is probably the most popular poster produced during the American suffrage movement. Boye’s design, featuring a draped western suffragist posed against the Golden Gate as the sun sets behind her, won first place in a contest sponsored by the College Equal Suffrage League in San Francisco. The image was later reproduced on cards, fliers and publicity stamps.

The poster’s vibrant colors and evocative imagery helped draw attention to the suffrage measure, which was one of 23 propositions on the ballot. For an entire week in August, stores in San Francisco featured the colorful poster in their windows, often accompanied by festive decorations in suffrage yellow, which supporters referred to as “the color of success.”

[A Brief History of the 1911 Campaign]

After waiting a REALLY long time, I finally had this poster tattooed on my inner arm. I love it. Jesse Buman of the Drawing Room in Lawrenceville is responsible for its awesomeness.

A sampling of Yinztagram photos. RELATED: What’s next...

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:16:26 -0400

A sampling of Yinztagram photos.

What’s next for Yinztagram? The Pittsburgh parking chair perhaps?

"“No one approached us about this,” said Mr. McMahon, whose agency makes regular rounds..."

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 15:23:28 -0400

“

“No one approached us about this,” said Mr. McMahon, whose agency makes regular rounds to check on the homeless. Staffers noticed about two weeks ago that the compartments had been cleared of personal belongings, except for a painting left on the wall of one.

“All they’re doing is pushing people from one place on the street to another,” he said. “There’s nothing proactive here to use this time, money or effort to help these people.”

”

- Dirt pile signals eviction for 16 homeless by Jon Schmitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

That’s my boss!

For the last 3.5 years that I have supervised our street outreach individuals have lived in these compartments (colloquially known as the apartments) - some have left them a mess, a few have cleaned them up in a way I thought was impossible but many have called them home.

As Pittsburgh continues to grow and succeed there comes the inevitable strains on the least influential and powerful and I’ve seen that happen repeatedly in the last few years - downtown, on the South Side, in East Liberty. I don’t begrudge whoever is finally filling in the apartments, its their property — its just amazing to know how much money is being spent on the project—$300,000—and what else that could pay for in terms of addressing the homelessness issue on the North Side.

"The mothers said that my vegetables were clearly not homegrown and organic and that they could taste..."

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:22:38 -0400

“The mothers said that my vegetables were clearly not homegrown and organic and that they could taste the pesticides and preservatives on them. They asked if I knew that ranch dip is high in cholesterol and saturated fat which leads to heart disease.”

- God, I love advice columns

Dan Savage vs. Brian Brown: The Dinner Table Debate Brian Brown,...

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:39:35 -0400

Dan Savage vs. Brian Brown: The Dinner Table Debate

Brian Brown, President of the National Organization for Marriage, and Dan Savage, writer of the Savage Love column, met at Savage’s home in Seattle for dinner and a debate over same-sex marriage and the Bible.

moderated by Mark Oppenheimer

It’s a little over an hour.

"If she has dementia, then what does it matter how long you take?" this from a social worker. how respectable.

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 13:54:53 -0400

I’m sorry, Anonymous, I missed this message in my inbox referencing this post.

I don’t understand why you, Anonymous, take issue with my thoughts. So I’ll say this: anyone can e-mail me at breannajay (at) gmail (dot) com if they would like to engage in a dialogue about social workers, ethics, values, whatever. I mean that.

Yours Truly,
Breanna, social worker

Doctors caught in the abortion wars

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 10:36:50 -0400

Doctors caught in the abortion wars:

The antiabortion movement is increasingly targeting doctors — and a few partisan physicians are lending it a hand

BY IRIN CARMON

Most such cases are complicated and uncertain. “How confident do you have to be that a woman is going to die?” says Greene. “What if there would be complete loss of renal function – does that not merit consideration? What if a woman is going to go blind if she remains pregnant? Those are the kind of nuances that are hard to make bumper stickers out of.”

Basically, nothing frightens me more than the idea that the government could have more say over my health and future than my doctor.

With Ryan's Ascent, A Few Thoughts On 'Entitlement'

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 13:50:58 -0400

With Ryan's Ascent, A Few Thoughts On 'Entitlement':

Some linguistic background on entitlements by Geoff Nunberg