“I liked white better”*

Are you a Tolkien fan? You should check out Sweating to Mordor, then. It’s a lot of fun following Eric’s exercise adventure and the Fellowship’s journey. Eric dives into all kinds of detail in Tolkien’s creation and illustrates his topics with photos taken with antique cameras. It is several levels of cool.

Weekly Linkroll

Summer has arrived in Vermont, at least for the weekend. Hot and muggy and time to clean the carpets? Yeah, don’t ask. But they’re mostly done, and I’m recuperating on the couch with a cold drink and links for you. Enjoy!

What Do We Really Know About Vampires?
From R.G. Emanuelle at Women & Words. House of cards, people.

Copyright and Using the Work of Others
A good reminder from Karen Gadient. Don’t be grabby and rude–a good philosophy to live by.

Hot pants, wobbly toning shoes, and the latest in skinny making fashion
Sam B. at Fit, Feminist, and (almost) Fifty on the scam of exercise fashion. Yoga pants and seaweed?

The Distress of the Privileged
The Weekly Sift dissects privilege and the folks who just want their dinner.

A Safer and More Caring Society
On the anniversary of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, we also mourn the death of Dr. Henry Morgenthaler, the man who succeeded in making abortion legal in Canada. The Belle Jar shares her thoughts in a beautiful essay.

25 Vintage Photos of Librarians Being Awesome
Hannah Meiklejohn shares a great collection of library pics that she reblogged from Flavorwire. Librarians rock.

Let me tell you a thing, about an amazing man named Patrick Stewart
LemonSweetie tells us about her meeting with Patrick Stewart. It’s gonna get dusty.

Casting Lord of the Rings, the gender swap and POC version
This is amazing. Sabrina Vourvoulias at Following the Lede recasts Lord of the Rings. My only question: where’s Gina Torres? She would make an awesome Aragorn, too. Or Boromir. Ooh, wouldn’t that be interesting?

A Transcript of Joss Whedon’s 2013 Wesleyan Commencement Speech
How could I not link to this? Joss Whedon’s commencement address at Wesleyan. Pretty cool. Although I learned that in Billie Jean King‘s commencement address at Williams College today, she played tennis with the audience. Wish I’d seen that!

 

Outsiders: What About The Women?

So, I’ve been pondering my intro outsider post. As you may have noticed, the only women in my list of favorite outsiders were all Whedon creations. Why is that? Why am I struggling so hard to find other outsider hero types who are women?