aaru tuesday

true things about gender that you can learn from watching Avatar:

2010-04-12T03:08:00.002+01:00

(Some of you may have seen this before; it's a belated crosspost of something I said someplace else. To everyone else, hi again! I haven't forgotten you - just not in a bloggy mood atm).1. No matter how much more experienced, more intelligent and more educated a woman might be than a given guy, he is still going to get more honoured for his accomplishments than she is.2. If a guy repeatedly

a sorta-eco-urbanist reading of flOwer.

2009-05-27T17:19:00.007+01:00

[fitting that my first post here in a long while is batshit fannish insane, BUT HEY.]flOwer is an unusual videogame. It's a downloadable game for Sony's PS3, costs $10, and has a novel and touching style of gameplay, in which you direct an ever-growing cloud of petals around the game's landscapes, touching flowers on the ground to 'bloom' them and alter the environment. New colours and sounds

continue / exit

2008-12-23T18:17:00.005Z

Three quick gamer links here, because I hope to get my groove back (though, as followers of my deadjournal may have noticed, I am slightly obsessed with a certain videogame right now, so who knows?):a) From VorpalBunnyRanch, a great look at how the nature of violence in videogames is skewed by the protagonist's gender. In a brief follow-up it's noted how survival horror breaks the general rules

squees, lies, videogames.

2008-11-06T22:43:00.009Z

Erm, okay, I may have lied about no more election stuff. I was seduced into giving more election links by this amazing photo-series. Just keep hitting 'show more images', it's lovely. But I have gamer-girl stuff to share too, I promise!A little over eight months ago, Michelle Obama said to a crowd of her husband's supporters, "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my

a quick note before bedtime:

2008-11-05T08:30:00.003Z

CNN and other press agencies called Georgia for McCain at about 11pm; the Associated Press and Georgia's local press organs did not do so. Now we know why: roughly 600 000 early votes cast in the Atlanta area were not included in that initial count.Whether McCain really won GA or not doesn't matter so much, but this is likely to push Saxby Chambliss into a Senate runoff or even out of the Senate

For Every Five Tanks: an election link post

2008-10-23T18:24:00.006+01:00

[Or, as one FiveThirtyEight commenter said a couple of days ago, 'We are all Fake Virginians now.']I've been collecting shiny things to share with you all - expect another post soon, because this one is a special place for any and all election crap. I want this election over already; we already know who's won, so it's just another couple of weeks of unnecessary ugly.First, the obvious: do you

when he said 'rely on' he meant 'totally f*ing ignore'

2008-10-13T22:45:00.001+01:00

I want this election to be over. It seems like the far-right limbo bar is dropping by the day; how low can they go, I ask? Did they reach their limit yesterday? No, they did not! How much further? They have, what, another three weeks in which to remain in the hole and keep digging.So let me regale you with a quickly-buried weekend news incident, one which sank almost as fast as the

good news for geeks

2008-10-03T16:31:00.005+01:00

Jack Thompson has been permanently disbarred from practising law in the state of Florida, and I gather that means he'll have a hard time lawyering anywhere else either. To which the world says: about damn time. Thompson described himself in his most recent news release as "nationally and internationally known by virtue of his effective and successful opposition over the last 20 years to the

1s, 0s, Xs, Ys

2008-09-30T20:21:00.012+01:00

Drama tiem: truly epic internets delivered by the central clique of Wikipedia. If you want a cosier telling of the story, one of the chief victims of the associated flamewars tells their story here.Short version: 19 different Wikipedians, including several moderators and administrators at several different Wikipedia-related projects (Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikinfo, Wikipedia Review), turn out to

FMT: an intriguing new fail.

2008-09-26T01:17:00.004+01:00

As I've already said, at great length, I take great exception to the way male sf/f/h writers get so hung up on sex work. And if most or all of the women in their story are sex workers, that's a really bad sign. But this, this is interesting, I dare say not good, but at least original in the realms of failure.[Both the links in the next paragraph rate a warning for talk about rape/SA in abstract

Everything I Just Said, But Better

2008-09-25T00:18:00.000+01:00

...was put online by David Wong, like, the day after I posted my version. The complete title of Wong's piece is 6 Brainwashing Techniques They're Using On You Right Now [mildly NSFW] - here are the relevant bits.#4. Controlling What You Watch and Read:Studies show the brain is wired to get a quick high from reading things that agree with our point of view. The same studies proved that, strangely

the divided states.

2008-09-20T21:01:00.009+01:00

So. A few months ago I found that my USian family thought it highly socially inappropriate to talk about atheism. There being variety in the family between the devout and the rest of us, one that was upsetting to one of the Catholic children, meant the best course was for the non-Catholics to not speak of it and to distract non-Catholic young'uns if they tried to bring up the subject right

a pile of things:

2008-09-13T23:15:00.006+01:00

So, Bridge Troll was fired by Cardone Industries UK Ltd for making a blog post that mentioned the company's religious workplace policies, and his atheistic response to same. He's put the whole story on Lj for the world to see, along with some thoughts about increasingly controlling relationships between employers and employees.Ben Goldacre is no longer being sued by Matthias Rath, an HIV

that campaign finance graph in full:

2008-09-12T20:04:00.008+01:00

The Beeb has all the numbers, but the key facts are:a) Obama has raised over twice as much as McCain; $401 million to $171 million. It's very rare for a campaign to lose with such a huge funding disparity, though it has happened - the UK election in 1997 is an example, but it's notable that the rich losers in that election were long-term incumbents.b) almost half of Obama's funds came in small

on privacy: a comment I made elsewhere.

2008-09-02T20:12:00.006+01:00

[Elsewhere being Alas, specifically. I'd wondered about making a post about the whole Palin circus, leaned towards 'no' simply because I believe that Bristol Palin, though she is breathing for two, is not a valid recipient of media oxygen other than when the McCain campaign decides to start lighting matches, which I am sure it will. But then Mandolin posted that roundup about privacy and its

more about the olympics

2008-08-16T20:29:00.004+01:00

I think what really got the goat this time was the story about the switch-up between the two girls for the opening ceremony. Supposedly Lin Miaoke was more attractive than Yan Peiyi, so Lin Miaoke mimed the song “ode to the motherland” for the opening ceremony whilst the real singing voice was recorded by Yang Peiyi.[...] What I think is truly despicable about the whole thing, regardless of how

on presentational devices at your precious non-politicised Olympic Games

2008-08-14T05:14:00.005+01:00

Feng Silu, another volunteer, says they have gone through rigid training to achieve perfection. During the training sessions, they have to stand in five to six-inch heels with their jaws tucked in while balancing a 16-page book on their head and keeping a sheet of paper between their knees, for at least an hour at a time. If either object fell or slipped from place, they would have to start the

Does Equality Pay Its Bills?

2008-08-09T17:18:00.000+01:00

Big question. When you pass by equality trainwrecks on the internets, you sometimes see a blind faith in the free market to solve all our problems. I mean, the free market (which exists, honest) being the bastion of efficiency it is, if a problem still exists it must be because there's an economic upside to it, right? If action films with female leads were profitable, there'd be tons of them,

a meme of linklove

2008-08-07T19:16:00.010+01:00

[something is up with my last post; I can choose between either having it appear on the front page twice (but with the same article address, and the same comments page, appearing both times), or having a comments page that fails to work at all. Sorries.]Daisy gave me a Brilliante Weblog badge. Here it is:Unfortunately it comes with RULES. Rules:1. Put the logo on your blog.2. Add a link to the

that one non-post about Wimbledon

2008-08-05T20:56:00.013+01:00

Sometimes when you're writing blog post drafts, you realise they're just burying other drafts. This one I abandoned due to pure derailment (more on that in a moment), but I think it deserves to live.Coverage of women's sport does, as with most coverage of women's anything, suck. Most often it's not there much at all, but then you get blessed lovely Wimbledon, in which it is there and is often

on dickwads:

2008-07-15T22:12:00.002+01:00

I'm a bit late on this one, but Ren and Belle are spreading word about Kyle Payne, who is a blogger - a man who both blogs and does IRL conference stuff against pornography - who has pleaded guilty to breaking into a woman's bedroom, assaulting her and taking nude photographs of her in her sleep. He is still merrily blogging away, and presumably will continue to do so until he gets put away.

Americans and their crazy social taboos

2008-07-10T00:37:00.003+01:00

I keep meaning to write about Everything That Is Clearly Wrong With This Strange Country, but not doing. I could say I don't know where to begin, but a lot of it dispirits as well as confuses me, and then I have to think of the things America does right instead of getting on the internets and typetty typetty type. (I'm only blogging now because I have some immigration paperwork due. Srsly).

Christmas IV [more videogame blogging] & some Christians

2008-07-08T18:08:00.005+01:00

So in a new MMO, Age of Conan, female characters are up to 35% less effective than male ones, and this is not mentioned anywhere in the character development process. Why?Short answer: the game designers did not intend this, it's not like they're misogynists or anything like that - they just decided that there would be attack animations and you could only select a new attack once an animation

Christmas The Third

2008-06-26T03:46:00.008+01:00

[For your recollection, the first two NWN/gender posts are at Always Christmas And and Still Always Christmas.]It was doing so well up til then.I've been loving the hell out of the NWN2 xpac. Like Hordes Of The Underdark was to the original Neverwinter Nights, I think it's the project the writers were working on while the tech team wrote the script for the base game. Somehow this one ended up

few things: urbanisation, politics linkies, and Metal Gear.

2008-06-13T22:15:00.009+01:00

Allison at Economic Woman is writing about this neato site called Walkscore. You give it your address, it checks its maps and it gives your local area points for how much cool stuff there is within walking distance. Both of the last two areas of the UK I lived in score in the 60s. My Georgia neighbourhood rates a 15, which is not the worst I've put up with; the Pennine hole I used to inhabit

My Pokemons, Let Me Show You Them.

2008-06-07T20:33:00.002+01:00

I have no idea who made this animation. Props to them, anyways!

Truth & consequences in the stories we tell.

2008-05-30T03:15:00.008+01:00

[Or, a meandering collection of links to stuff about stories, sandboxes, and power.]Quick, what's the one thing everyone knows about Grand Theft Auto? Keep hold of the answer - we'll be back for it in a moment.I was never sure how to order this post, or what exactly to include in it. So it's been festering in Dashboard for weeks now. Partly it was sparked off by reading criticisms of Iron Man,

the devil in the details

2008-05-22T00:03:00.004+01:00

From Churches unhappy over father figures: sadly the Beeb doesn't say exactly who or what they're quoting - I would have liked to know the name of this person, to better say that they're a moran.But the Church of England has reserved its greatest ire for the decision of MPs to allow single women and lesbian couples to seek IVF treatment without having to consider the need for a father for their

my feet in a strange land

2008-05-21T00:27:00.002+01:00

Taken an hour ago, right after the tornado siren had quieted down. I still can't believe the size of the hailstones around here. (If that skirt looks crappy it's because I made it myself).I was reading in the sunshine earlier, and left my coffee cup out. It caught about an inch and a half of rainwater. I think my evening plans are off now :/I have a big post about films and videogames cooking

i'm blogging this!!

2008-04-19T17:47:00.006+01:00

teraninse says:I mean, if your own wedding can't be a highly individualistic, idiosyncratic affair, I don't want to know what can be. teraninse says:that's not to say...break out the furries for bridesmaids....but..So, um, yes. The things that were said by, and to, Kyraninse/Seraninse/Teraninse (with occasional comments from Chris, who I gather was in the same room as her at the time), related

no furry bridesmaids here.

2008-04-17T23:13:00.002+01:00

This is one of the many great things Kyraninse said to me over the other day. I am putting it here while I am busy organising some of the others into a post of blogginess. (Meanwhile, go read her introspective post on race issues fatigue).There's a story about buddhism. Once, there was an old woman who gave a meal to a monk. Before the monk left, at the old lady's request, he told her a mantra

pokes head up

2008-04-12T05:15:00.003+01:00

Yep, I'm here, I have my blogging hat back on, I've just not blogged yet, though there's no shortage of things to be blogged at. Here are some of them:Isn't this fun? The Serious Fraud Office politely drop their enquiry into corruption in the arms trade between the UK and Saudi Arabia because of blackmail from the Saudis. The High Court now tells them that ending the enquiry was illegal, and

a pause.

2008-03-25T17:33:00.002Z

Trying to get some actual writing done for once. Will be back on April 8th [hit me], or shortly after, or rather sooner if I give up.

Fancults!

2008-03-21T20:54:00.008Z

As promised. And what better way to conflate religion with fandom than to look at religions that have come out of fandom?There's three honest-to-$deity religions which are sourced from sci-fi fandoms. Scientology is the most notorious; Gor is also pretty clear-cut, though it's not always referred to as a religion. Then there's the ParatheoAnametamystikhood Of Eris Esoteric Discordianism. It

fandom: it is all coming together in my head.

2008-03-20T20:50:00.007Z

Though I'm still only grasping at its corners.These are my thoughts on yaoi, and a few other things.Clear divides mess things up, so I'm trying to write this down without them, and leave it as the big tangle of story, sex and society which it is. See, I read comments like this from Henry Jenkins, about why he thinks fandom is the wonderful thing it is:I've had several people ask me about what I

five years.

2008-03-20T02:48:00.007Z

M is putting a supermarket loyalty card back in his wallet. He pulls his Gamespot trade-in card out and waves it at me. "Do you know what this is?""Hmm?""A third of a Wii." (We have recently traded a v. large pile of no-longer-wanted stuff)."That's good. I think we should measure all currency in game consoles now. Way better than dollars and cents.""Yeah. Right now the Wii is worth more

A few words about sex education.

2008-03-13T16:24:00.006Z

So a few days ago some cleverdick figured out that a quarter of American teenage girls has an STD. (Why did they only test girls? And how did they choose their participants, anyway?) The TV news prompted a lively household argument, with much differing opinion about what sex education actually was, never mind what it should be. (My housemates' experiences indicate that in the late 80s/early

hair today and gone tomorrow

2008-03-08T00:54:00.002Z

Everyone is hair blogging. The ultimatest hair post ever was written many moons ago by The Angry Black Woman - now Kiya and Plain(s)feminist are at it. I am going to chip in now because my hair, it is a thing of infamy.(I have read lots of great body-related posts in general lately; CassandraSays digging into femmeness, zombie z on extreme weight loss in the bodmod community; meanwhile,

Juxtapositianon.

2008-02-27T20:09:00.008Z

Tradition Eleven: "Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films." Tradition Twelve: "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities."From the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, first published 1946. I

what first amendment?

2008-02-21T20:35:00.002Z

Small realities of the State of Georgia, this. It's nothing much, just $50 here or there, but it is more than a little creepy:(a) In applying for a marriage license, a man and woman who certify on the application for a marriage license that they have successfully completed a qualifying premarital education program shall not be charged a fee for a marriage license. The premarital education shall

still always Christmas:

2008-02-16T21:25:00.003Z

[this post contains very small spoilers for Part II of Neverwinter Nights 2]Thinking about gendered space in game worlds is fiddly because each player brings their own gender with them. I'll do the gamer drag thing later, I guess, but for now I can only hazard guesses about how much more welcoming the NWN2 gameworld would look to a male PC. I am, as I am getting tired of being when it comes to

the best links ever:

2008-02-11T05:07:00.001Z

I have stuff cooking in my head about the whole moving-to-another-continent topic; til then, these are the best links ever.Proper srs links:Daisy is asking if we can support the troops without supporting the war, and where classism fits with that.Vii on interracial dating.Brad Hicks on lynching as an economic crime.The entire internets on those racist mid-Superbowl ads that put us right off our

Castor, Achilles, Euryalus, Aretaeus, Alexander, Dubreuil

2008-02-04T23:29:00.003Z

And Orestes. [Or, to get into the spirit of the thing: Orestes and.]I have a long memory - the kind where a good book can lodge for years, with me dropping by its cubbyhole every so often to continue our ongoing conversation. I've got broad tastes; encounters with the current mainstream are generally disastrous, and I tend to go home to sf/f eventually, but I wind up with a lot of isolated

Fat Pottery, or, Eternal Life At Any Size

2008-01-29T18:25:00.000Z

[the lack of regular updates may continue; I am moving my sekrit base of sekrit operations from London to Atlanta tomorrow morning. But I have fifty gazillion half-written blogsplurges about the place, and am determined to gather the wits and nerve to upload them, so you never know.]I finally saw the Terracotta Army yesterday, on my third attempt (I am, as previously observed, made of fail).

headdesk

2008-01-11T13:41:00.000Z

[source]This is, of course, the same Australia that banned incandescent lightbulbs! while remaining the per-capita most polluting nation on earth. Meanwhile the UK government has joined in with the lightbulb ban, while adding a third runway to Heathrow Airport and building our first new coal-fired power station in decades. Yay, governments care about climate change!

why I have the crazies

2008-01-09T15:02:00.001Z

Sometime last week, when the purple one was clinging to the blue one's legs in the hallway:he: Is it too early in the morning to get a restraining order?me: Darling, it's 2pm.I love these people. But I have been strangely tired and lacking in sleep cycle - I think we all were excepting her purpleness. I felt I was failing at joy because I hadn't the energy. We spent an inordinate amount of

How To Be A Postfeminist In 5 Easy Steps/many many links

2007-12-27T18:30:00.000Z

Some time ago now Verte began musing on 'postfeminism': I went back to that now because of the way the word is used in the introduction to this book which I am reading. It's a collection of women's Telegraph obits - fun, quirky read so far, but here's how the two editors (both women) used the word 'postfeminism' in the intro:As they explored new opportunities, some women went a little over the

circular firing squad: set lasers to 'snark'.

2007-12-21T21:14:00.000Z

Fact: all internets firing squads are circular. All real arguing tends to happen between people who basically follow the same principles. If you're going at someone you truly disagree with, you're not a firing squad, you're a crack team of snipers.With that said, this kinda pissed me off. The whole thing? About stereotype threats etc? Good to see explored and discussed out in bloglandia.

left, right, left, right, links, invite.

2007-12-17T21:43:00.000Z

I was watching the snooker on BBC2 with my sister on Sunday night (boring, but Saturday's was good) and because of some comment from the teevee ppl about right-handed and left-handed play, plus a bit of questioning of my super-righty sister, I realised something I'd never known before; I play pool left-handed. I can't imagine doing it the other way, with my right hand behind and my left hand on

Screw. You.

2007-12-15T20:50:00.000Z

[this is me thinking aloud about drinking, living, and Somebody Else's Problems.]I haven't drunk alcohol in around 17 years, but I do remember how it goes - and now it's just so much fun to watch Brits self-medicating. Especially at this very special time of year - holly, migraines, in-laws, that bloody partridge up a gum tree, spewing its ring. We work hideously long hours, our weather is

'Sacred', innit?

2007-12-12T16:03:00.000Z

Mandolin at Alas has brought my attention back to that precious right-wing handwringing that says 'human life is sacred!' (Not). Orson Scott Card's exact words on the subject are:Bush never backed down. He had compromised as far as he could, without bending his understanding of the principle of the sanctity of human life that civilization depends on.Stating the obvious yet again:a) Civilisation

where the heart.

2007-12-07T17:45:00.000Z

The ABC ladies are poking my head; Kyraninse on how comfort levels are for wet blankets: and V on faith, works, etc. The former reminds me that there is value in going over the things I'm finding hard to go over, harder still to articulate, even if it's only of use to myself; the latter - I could pretend she reminds me that there's no bloody point to writing anyway, but that's not true, the

Carnivals etc.

2007-12-04T15:46:00.000Z

Just SFnal links today.The 18th Carnival of Feminist Sci-Fi and Fantasy is up: Part I (Women, Gaming and You!); Part II (These Things We Love, And How We Interact With Them; Part III (Reviews, Reactions And Recommended Further Reading). It is a lovely carnival, in spite of the fact that I appear twice.Helen Keeble is making a Weird writeup, which is way better than my Weird writeup. Here is

From The Whoreses' Mouth

2007-12-03T12:14:00.000Z

[addendum: Helen Keeble has written some wonderful notes on the Weird Symposium, and I've collected the links here - my own, much inferior, notes are linked at the end of this post.]This would be further to '1958'. Because, as I mentioned on t'other blog, I went to The Weird symposium, and then the Weird symposium went to a bar, and China Miéville bought me a drink and talked with me about

[no title today]

2007-11-27T15:57:00.000Z

Creeping realisation: I've written a fair bit about things I care about here, but not nearly as much as I intended about things that really hit me deep-down. I realised how ingrained this was getting on the Trans Day Of Remembrance last week. The things I write here are usually polite-disagreement territory, give or take a swearword or two; transphobia is more like

the shipping forecast

2007-11-21T01:20:00.000Z

http://www.nomusicday.com/I'm being very excited about music lately, but I find myself wanting to do No Music Day anyway. I am cheating. I didn't read about it til it was gone midnight, and there's only so much you can do when you've just discovered DJ Shadow, so I'm drawing the line now, at 1.22 21/11/07.Drummond wrote this about No Music Day last year. I don't share his jadedness at all -

Two more tasers:

2007-11-15T16:50:00.000Z

First, a reminder from Canada that tasers kill.Second, the West Yorkshire Police helpfully explain why it's perfectly good and legal to taser someone, twice, if they 'look Egyptian', are carrying a rucksack, and are already in a diabetic coma.

Hypocrisy - specifically; mine.

2007-11-13T19:41:00.000Z

I did a bad thing here yesterday. A stupid, emotional thing that was contradictory and lame - not unusual, I'm perpetually full of it, but I want to own up to it this time.I linked to David Cameron bemoaning the low rates of sex crime convictions, and then I linked a successful terrorism conviction and got sceptical and paranoid about it. This is not only an inconsistent attitude towards

ye linkage

2007-11-12T10:53:00.000Z

David Cameron wants to fix our broken rape laws. Please, please, let this become the bipartisan effort it should be. Some of it - like the idea that sex ed should be absolutely compulsory and should include lessons on consent (and I'd hope they'd do some on the effects of abuse too) - might even work. Read this too - terrifying stories about women who were let down by the police and/or the

Seven Reasons Why The Campaign Against Climate Change Is Good For A Laugh

2007-11-09T17:13:00.000Z

[or, Selected Notes from a Mass Meeting, with Panel, held at Friends House on November 8th.]1. It made consumerism feel like a sort of black magic. At one point in the floor session, John Sauven's reply to a questioner included the words 'We mostly exceed our fair carbon ration even if we don't fly, and I won't embarrass you by asking if you do fly...' Total Heroes moment there, hand gesture

Feminist Art Criticism: When Not To Even Bother/links + an invite

2007-11-06T15:43:00.000Z

Ow, my brain.Also:Alis Dee has more about Frank Miller, with added BATMAN.V, who has begun a blog about art, mental health and race, yey!!1, is telling us why to hate The Poisonwood Bible (which I've never read) and Lost In Translation (which I never liked and was just gagging for a good reason to hate).And an invite to be a greenie leftie:Campaign against Climate Change - "How can we win the

The Rules

2007-10-21T12:43:00.000+01:00

Alas and Feminist SF (I got a minor Heroes spoiler on that thread, oh noez) are doing an excellent job of saying 'Nice, but not good enough' in JK Rowling's general direction. This comment had me running to the Indy archives, because I recalled that I've heard this conversation before.I first read this wonderful Hari piece in a newspaper I picked up on the Tube nearly two years ago, and it's

1958

2007-10-20T00:57:00.002+01:00

[NB: I originally wrote this to let of steam, but both this post and the FMT are now very slightly Internets Famous, and have thus been Criticised by Smart People. I'd therefore like to add C A Monteath-Carr's suggestion for an alternate FMT equation:If (# of Female Prostitutes) > (# of All Other Women), then [WTF?]I would like to propose a measure called The Frank Miller Test. It will test how

always christmas and:

2007-10-18T13:41:00.000+01:00

[in my next post, I will take the piss out of CS Lewis more directly, I promise.]Alis Dee: breaking my heart and winning the internets.A related aside; when replaying RPGs, it's really interesting to gen a character of the opposite gender to the one you took in your first trip. Firstly, I find it subtly changes the way you see social tone of the gameworld. (This is particularly so in BGII:

Human life isn't sacred.

2007-10-16T14:34:00.000+01:00

Somebody had to say it.I'm not speaking of religious tenets about the status of human life; what I'm talking about is policy. There are no leaders anywhere (well, except just maybe Bhutan) who put human life first when making the rules. Life wasn't sacred when we invaded Iraq. It wasn't sacred when we decided that it's worthwhile to have all these death machines on our streets, either - cars

Paydirt.

2007-10-14T15:09:00.001+01:00

Who said this?"The Armenians were subjected to a genocidal campaign that defies comprehension and commands all decent people to remember and acknowledge the facts and lessons of an awful crime in a century of bloody crimes against humanity. If elected President, I would ensure that our nation properly recognizes the tragic suffering of the Armenian people."I think you know who said that. In a

Kissin' trolls

2007-10-13T21:33:00.000+01:00

Just when you're thinking the world is a decent place, up pops an idiot CiFer reminiscing about the good old days when it was cool to rape your spouse. *le sigh* I've got a lot of cynical enjoyment out of leaving youthful, uninformed comments on that thread. I'm not quite there yet myself, so I'm free to see it as a bundle of things (religious/cultural rite + legal arrangement + domestic

Ten Things I Have Discovered About Rugby Union.

2007-10-12T17:22:00.000+01:00

[I made this up on the touchlines four and a half years ago. The brat is 18 now. And not scrawny, though still pretty short, and very mad about rugby union. I'm mostly putting it here because <3 Alas. My opinion of rugby has refined in the years since, and now includes far more slash.]1. There are either not many rules, or so many rules that it looks as if there are not many rules.2. It is

Piffle About Gender Identity

2007-10-09T14:32:00.000+01:00

I think I am in love with this blog. Mostly just for articulating this in a way I never could;A term coined by a good friend of mine is "Wendying", which is the process by which a masculine-identified person expects a femme (or a small group of femmes) to deal with hir problems and take care of hir without hir ever having to confront hir issues or actually acknowledge their roots. This ties in

Micah Is My Hero/a roundup of curiosities.

2007-10-03T22:41:00.000+01:00

I'm just keeping up with Heroes on BBC2 - ie, only halfway through season 1, not nearly far enough to do a complete Heroes/gender lambast, but I do want to say that oh dear god do I love Micah this evening. Because he won't let single-daddy off the hook. Micah is a small boy who used to live with single-mummy, Niki, and now lives with single-daddy, DL (which I am still disappointed is not spelt

point. laugh. try not to cry.

2007-10-01T19:00:00.000+01:00

It's Ann Coulter, so I guess those are the only possible options. This was linked on a comment thread at Bitchy's place because of her hate-comments about SMers and their bodies, so don't follow the link if that would ruin your day. The bit that ruined my day was this bit of omg-who's-to-BLAME-for-this-DEBAUCHERY;COULTER: Most of all the culture of children raised without two married

telephone calls from on high/rangoonery.

2007-09-28T21:40:00.000+01:00

I always answer the phone. It's usually either telemarketers, which she hates, or relatives, who aren't related to him (he's left for the frozen northern wastes now anyway), and some of whom stress her out, so I always try to get there first. I thought this was a telemarketer - there was that silence-then-fuzz thing, and I almost hung up halfway through the first sentence, but didn't. It was '

Democracy, represent.

2007-09-22T11:59:00.000+01:00

There seems to be a general agreement that democracy is good and ideally everyone should do it. In fact, a lot of people have died over this opinion recently.If this the-people-choose thing is so vital, why are we not moving towards direct democracy? We could. Representation began in an age of primitive communications and very low literacy - does it really still have the least purpose, or do

Regulation!

2007-09-20T15:11:00.000+01:00

Just a little true-life story about companies that suck:When I was a filthy student, I used to live in this lovely four-storey, six-bedroom house with a bunch of friends - four of us stayed for two years, another four for one year each. Most of the financial stuff was handled by one of the basement-dwellers, Pete, and I took care of the rest.He got in touch with me last week to tell me that

the eyes have it

2007-09-12T13:47:00.001+01:00

It's annoying, having your favourite sexual organ constantly underrated.I've been reading around the porn wars again (oh blah blah wank whatever wank about wanking blah) and it's irritating how often it comes back to the status of the female body. In particular there were two CiF pieces at the weekend about prostitution; you'd've read them a million times before, I'm sure, one idolising the

terminology creep:

2007-09-07T02:16:00.000+01:00

I have insomnia. If I didn't, I might not be bothering with this, but tea+biscuits+ranting on the internet is my way of dealing with 2.30am, and that pernicious terminology creep just sidled up over here.I don't much like pointing out these things, because it makes me feel like I am being Issues, and I'd kinda like to be a brain and a voice and stuff rather than just a wangsty backstory. It's

Tasers.

2007-09-06T11:49:00.000+01:00

Odd that this should pop up right when I'm digging into writing me some cyberpunk. Tasers are technology shaped like a dream-come-true - a terrible threat that does no real harm, power held with no consequences for the powerless. Except, of course, that we live in the real world, and the corpses are piling up and up.But that's alright, because they're only used in really tough situations where

Women who write about sex.

2007-08-17T13:20:00.000+01:00

Two links;Ponderosa (she of banned-from-Livejournal fame) on shame/harm/sex writing.Abby Lee (she of one-track-mind fame) on surviving being outed as a sex writer.I'd want to add some commentary, but it's really not necessary, is it?

I'll Be In My Bunk

2007-07-20T14:13:00.000+01:00

[this is too long and I vaguely wish I could elllljaaaycut it here, but I dunno how, so whatever. tl;dr at will]A lot of feminists like Joss Whedon. He's been honoured by Equality Now, which he calls his 'favourite charity'; he's spoken out against violence against women; and he really has done more to put women in the spotlight than any other male sci-fi filmmaker I could offhand name. He's a

dark dreamers.

2007-06-29T12:29:00.000+01:00

Forgive me for doing yet more recycling of yesterday's news, but; I think this guy sounds pretty normal. No, really. He would've fit in with my social circle just fine. Just look at the social violations he's accused of there; -CSI and TV crime dramas - doesn't everyone love those? (Well, except me, I don't watch TV, but that's by the by - everyone else likes them...) -Violent computer

alkomahol, yes, that stuff

2007-06-26T23:21:00.000+01:00

The smoking ban is soon upon us; this will be to my benefit, and will make many places I like to go seem more pleasant, but I was ambivalent to it in a sledgehammer-nut/civil liberties kinda way and now I read this; the ban includes shisha. This makes me sad, and I suspect that some small parts of the world as I know it may be at an end. I've never used shisha - I've never been part of a

more about dead people

2007-06-22T18:20:00.000+01:00

I wrote this in my Deadjournal a few days ago, locked it, and felt it would go nicely here too, because I don't want to lock all the stuff I want to say about dead people. ho di hum.-have been talking to my aunt (she's not really my aunt) about my mother. She says she feels guilty about drifting out of touch with us in the few years immediately after my mother died. I didn't know til now that

Sony vs Jesus

2007-06-10T16:00:00.000+01:00

Yeah, I am going to indulge myself by writing a list of reasons why this is hilarious.It was the TV news version that was particularly hilarious; my sister and I both laughed aloud at the soft-voiced bishops and the obligatory 'zomgz, you's offending meee!' wheelout - a woman whose son had been murdered in Manchester eight years ago. Yes, eight years ago. Sad, yes, but can you name a place

small outbreaks of sanity

2007-06-01T22:36:00.000+01:00

[I am sleep-deprived and waffling]Related to the whole Livejournal malarkey; The New Witch Hunt. My sister and I wound up talking about this while watching the news earlier; we suspected the negative tone of said news was fuelled by pure DailyMaleitis. (Oh, and this is months old, but god, PA, +PA news). I can't help but wonder who benefits from the witch-hunt, and who suffers. It seems like

In which I conflate two unrelated issues, yay!

2007-05-30T19:09:00.000+01:00

I've spent a lot of today reading about the 'LJ Strikethrough', with rapidly-rising disgust. The short version of the wank is thus; Livejournal has, seemingly due to complaints made by a (perhaps dubious) pressure group, been deleting journals that have unsavoury activities listed under 'interests' - regardless of whether the journal in question was a paedophile ring, an abuse survivor's journal

on surnames;

2007-05-29T03:25:00.000+01:00

This was originally an LJ comment; a friend had posted a poll on the matter of surnames, and much conversation ensued. My original rant (which seems more bitter than I had intended);I've been seriously thinking about this lately because I'm getting married sometime this autumn/winter. It's not a momentous occasion; we're very much in love, and as neither of us have much regard for marriage

Destroying The Family.

2007-05-26T03:26:00.000+01:00

The Mother's War, which I saw when it was MSTed by Punkass Blog.Now, I read this new PWOT about atheists and Christians a couple of days ago; being neither, it was more amusing than enlightening for me, but it made the very sensible point that focusing on negative examples makes you stupid. He was speaking of a considerably fouler extremist, Fred Phelps, but I think the point stands; Smearing