The Art of Knipling.

In a conversation, knipling came up, which is a type of lace making. I am, and always have been, in awe of people who can make lace, regardless of technique. It’s one of those skills which elude me. Charly was kind enough to send me a photo of one of his mother’s pieces, which is gorgeous! Definitely click for full size. Charly explains: My mother is skilled at knipling, but she was never that good at making non-abstract designs. I am the opposite – I can make realistic designs, but not abstract ones. So sometimes when she has an idea for something that should resemble reality, she employs my skill.  This knipled black swan design I drew for her a few years back from a picture she found on the internet. She then made the actual lace and framed it as a picture.

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A beautiful example of art collaboration.

Here’s a bit on knipling, and all I can think is what a mess of it I would make:

The Year of Knots.

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Amazing, wonderful work!

In January of 2016, artist Windy Chien devoted herself to learning a new knot every day for a year, tying a total of 366 by December 31st (2016 was a leap year). Although 366 knots might seem like a staggering number, it is nothing compared to the 3,900 included in Chien’s go-to knot manual—The Ashley Book of Knots, which took its author nearly 11 years to compile.

There is just so much to see! Via Wired. * Windy Chien’s Website. * Windy Chien’s Instagram.

Ayumi Shibata.

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Japanese artist Ayumi Shibata uses traditional methods of Japanese paper cutting to create miniature cities within vessels of glass. Her chosen materials reference the delicate relationship humans have with our environment and natural forces of our world, while also relating to the Japanese translation of “paper.” In Japanese, the word for “paper” is “Kami,” which can also mean “god,” “divinity,” or “spirit.” Kami are omnipresent in the Shinto religion, and reside in the sky, ground, trees, and rocks.

“Kami move freely beyond time, universe and places, appearing during events, as well as in our houses and our bodies,” said Shibata on her website. “These spirits also dwell in paper. In the religion of Shinto, white paper is considered a sacred material.”

Using this charged material, Shibata attempts to construct a sculptural dialogue about how we relate and respond to our natural world.

Beautiful and mindful work here. You can see and read more at Colossal.

Word Wednesday.

Obscurantism. Words1

Noun.

1. Opposition to the spread of knowledge: a policy of withholding knowledge from the general public.

2a. A style (as in literature or art) characterized by deliberate vagueness or abstruseness. b: an act or instance of obscurantism.

-obscurantist noun or adjective. (1834)

“Yes. Because once you get away from the original words, the purest of theories just become rumours. Then we don’t know anything. From one approximation to another inaccuracy, the truth unravels and obscurantism takes over.” – The Ghost Riders of Ordebec, Fred Vargas.

“3.49 ‘rounds down’ to three.”

This sixth grade student is held to a higher standard than the United States Department of Health and Human Services. CREDIT: AP Photo/Ty Wright.

This sixth grade student is held to a higher standard than the United States Department of Health and Human Services. CREDIT: AP Photo/Ty Wright.

The devil is in the details, so it’s said. There’s such a constant thower of thit, to quote Igor, that it’s very easy to miss the smaller things, the fine mitht of the thit thower, as Igor might say. First is the news that our current health regulators aren’t good at math. At all.

…Thus, for example, a fifth grade student is expected to understand that the number “3.49” is greater than the number “3.” The Trump administration, however, appears to be struggling with this concept.

Under the Affordable Care Act, “the premium rate charged by a health insurance issuer for health insurance coverage offered in the individual or small group market . . . shall not vary by more than 3 to 1 for adults” due to the age of the person seeking insurance. In other words, insurers may charge older consumers (who tend to have more health problems and thus are more expensive to cover) up to three times more than younger individuals, but no more than three times as much.

Nevertheless, according to the Huffington Post’s Jonathan Cohn, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) submitted a proposal which would permit insurers to charge older customers premiums that are “3.49 times as large as those for younger customers.” This proposal would be a federal rule, not a new law, so HHS apparently hopes to implement it without changing the law saying that insurers can only charge older customers 3 times as much, not 3.49 times as much.

According to Cohn, HHS would argue that this is okay because “3.49 ‘rounds down’ to three.”

If you find yourself prone to shrugging over this, have a second think. 3 and 3.49 might not seem like a big deal, but when you’re going to be charged that difference financially, it’s a big difference. It’s a difference which could determine whether or not you can afford healthcare. Full story at Think Progress.

Prepaid cash and credit cards have been a gold rush for the financial industry — and not everyone in the business plays fair with customers. CREDIT: AP Photo/Swayne B. Hall, File.

Prepaid cash and credit cards have been a gold rush for the financial industry — and not everyone in the business plays fair with customers. CREDIT: AP Photo/Swayne B. Hall, File.

In a very quiet move, consumer protections are going to be removed from pre-paid debit cards, and this will disproportionately affect those who are poor. We all know how much the GOP cares about poor people.

…But prepaid debit card companies are suddenly holding a get-out-of-jail-free card, courtesy of Sen. David Perdue (R-GA). Perdue is pushing legislation to override and permanently derail the CFPB’s three-month-old rules package for the cards, reviving even the most deceptive practices over expert advice to the contrary.

Prepaid debit cards now account for tens of billions of dollars in financial activity each year, creating a giant profit opportunity for the financial companies that issue cards to consumers. One Federal Reserve report in 2014 found the average customer pays $15 to $17 in fees each month on the cards, and that fees skew higher for customers who are black, younger than 15, widowed, or living in areas with relatively high rates of violent crime.

[…]

Only one major provider of prepaid cards charges overdraft fees. NetSpend, which does most of its business by partnering with storefront payday lenders, is uniquely reliant on the most deceitful species of fee-for-service practices.

Again, CFPB’s rule doesn’t bar the overdraft charges; it just forces companies to be honest and forthright about them. NetSpend couldn’t stand that sunlight. NetSpend and its parent company, Georgia-based TSYS, say they would lose some $80 million a year if consumers were finally protected from its policies.

Perdue and his co-sponsors say their move to end consumer protections for prepaid cards is about preserving access for consumers. The fact that it is also an $80 million favor to an unsavory financial company based in his state—and a thumb in the eye of the millions of people who have turned to the cards as a substitute for traditional bank accounts — is apparently a coincidence.

This will have a devastating effect on way too many people, and it’s doubtful most people will even be aware of this, and won’t be able to employ more vigilance against those looking to rob the poor and mire them into never-ending debt. Think Progress has the full story.

Confirmed. Fuck.

Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos arrives before testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017, at her confirmation hearing. CREDIT: AP/Carolyn Kaster.

Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos arrives before testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017, at her confirmation hearing. CREDIT: AP/Carolyn Kaster.

Think Progress has the story. All the bad news is at Pharyngula, where I first saw this, and experienced that caved-in, sinking chest feeling, in spite of being heavily medicated.* All I can say right now is go read. Read, and renew your conviction and commitment to fight back. We are in situation dire as fuck.

*Dealing with extreme stress right now, PTSD shit. Likely to be on the erratic side for a bit, can’t focus right now. There will also probably be mass amounts of typos, please be kind in your corrections.

National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

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Get Educated. Get Tested. Get Involved. Get Treated.

The day was originally established in 1999 to call attention to the impact of HIV and AIDS in the black/African-American community, and 18 years later, it is a vital reminder that in Los Angeles County — and indeed across the country — the impact of HIV continues to be devastating. According to the 2017-2021 Comprehensive HIV Plan for Los Angeles County, for example, the HIV epidemic among the black/African-American community in our own backyard encompasses the following statistics:

  • Blacks/African-Americans are one of three racial/ethnic groups most impacted by HIV
  • Among men who have sex with men (MSM) blacks/African-Americans have the highest estimated HIV prevalence
  • Young (18-29) black/African American MSM are one of the fastest-rising groups contracting HIV
  • New HIV diagnoses  both adults/adolescent males and females is highest among blacks/African-Americans
  • Among females living with HIV, the majority are black/African-American

For a sobering perspective on the epidemic nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year reported that if current trends continue, one in two black/African-American MSM will contract HIV in their lifetime. Fifty percent. Even PrEP, the daily use of a pill that prevents HIV, approved four years ago, is not yet making major inroads in communities of color, due to lack of awareness, problems with access, and concerns about its cost as well as distrust of the medical establishment (the shameful legacy of Tuskegee still looms large).

[…]

Get Educated
Everyone in our community has a responsibility to learn the facts about HIV as well as other sexually transmitted infections and talk with our friends, family, and sexual partners. This will go such a long way in ensuring that we are all informed. Additionally, it is important that we all know the truth about the ways to prevent HIV transmission (condoms, PrEP/PEP, HIV-positive individuals being in care and on medication). It is also important we support those who are HIV-positive. This reduces the stigma associated with living with HIV, which often prevents those who are HIV-positive from seeking the medical care they need or from talking to their loved ones.

In addition, if you have health insurance, talk to a medical provider about PrEP and other HIV prevention methods. If you don’t have insurance, find out if you qualify for a low-cost plan. In California, for example, Medi-Cal enrollment continues year-round, and PrEP is one of the benefits an enrollee can access for little or no cost. The Trump administration can’t take that away yet.

Get Tested
If you’re sexually active, get tested for HIV and STIs every three to six months. It’s easy to do, free even if you don’t have insurance, and confidential. Encourage your friends and partners to get tested and share their results too.

Get Involved
There are many wonderful HIV and health care organizations in our community that are committed to ending the epidemic. They need your support, whether through volunteering or financially. Reach out to them to see how you can help. In addition, lend your voice to the fight to keep Obamacare accessible for everyone. Access is a crucial component to fighting HIV and getting people in care.

Get Treated
If you are HIV-positive and not getting medical care, find out where you can get it. If you are in care, take your medication as prescribed. We know that when HIV-positive individuals are virally suppressed the likelihood of them transmitting HIV is almost zero.

We should never forget that we can help each other with each of these steps — that we are stronger working together. The future isn’t looking so bright out there at the moment, let’s be honest. But we can ensure we are doing everything possible with the resources above to stay healthy in body and mind. We can, and will, thrive despite those who would seek to strip care away from us.

Via The Advocate. * National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

“Obama Would Never Do That.”

Donald Trump, by Jason Mecier.

Donald Trump, by Jason Mecier.

“Obama would never do that.” Turns out that sentence is the magical key to manipulating Trump into doing whatever someone wants. Honestly, when it comes to manipulating the president of a country, I’d like it to be more difficult than that. That’s the sort of manipulation used on a wayward two year old.

The one way a White House staffer can get President Donald Trump to do what they want is by telling him that President Barack Obama would never have done it, a new report reveals.

According to the Independent, an anonymous staffer leaked that the way military leaders were able to urge Trump to act on the failed Yemen raid was by telling him Obama didn’t want to do it.

General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, were reportedly able to persuade Trump to move forward by claiming Obama would never have been so bold to actually go through with it.

Full story here.

Multi-Million Dollar Deals.

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In a lawsuit filed today, First Lady Melania Trump revealed her intention to leverage the presidency to ink new “licensing, branding, and endorsement” deals worth many millions of dollars. In the filing, Melania Trump’s lawyer described the position of First Lady as a “once-in-a-lifetime” money making opportunity. She told the court she intended to pursue deals in “apparel, accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care, and fragrance.”

These kind of endorsement deals would be especially lucrative while Melania Trump is First Lady and thus “one of the most photographed women in the world.”

So many Trumpoids just wouldn’t shut up about how nice it would be to have a “classy” (read: white) first lady. Yes, that’s class alright, nothing but a laser focus on how much the wallet could be fattened, and how often her face would be plastered all over. Used to be, that sort of behaviour would have been termed crass.

According to the lawsuit, because of the Daily Mail’s inaccurate reporting, these business opportunities will be less available to her while her husband is in the White House.

The strategy Melania Trump lays out in her lawsuit is similar to the one already being executed by President Trump.

Most people already know how Trump has refused to divest, how he has openly violated the constitution, and how he’s leveraging his position to make more money, but if you don’t, head over to Think Progress.