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Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
6:58 pm - Words Are All We Have--Samuel Beckett
Okay, maybe we also have a lot of old photographs kicking around in a plastic box with other miscellaneous junk. And my words of wisdom for today: Don't sort that box on the day your cousin dies.

The top ten most irritating phrases, according to Oxford University researchers. Doesn't say how they determined which phrases were most irritating, or to whom.

Someone gave artists a word to illustrate in a piece of art. The word is bipolar. The art is amazing ETA at first glance, but depression is more than shattering, and manic is not just a chair. OK, I jumped to conclusions on this one. But it does speak, to some extent, to how it feels to be in a profound, shattering depression, versus how it feels not to be in one.

The Words Meme

You know the drill. Respond to this post with WORDS!!! and I'll give you five words that remind me of you. You write a bit about them, post it in your journal, and repeat the cycle until the dictionary is empty.

[info]oursin gave me:

Reading )
Religion )
Passion )
Friendship )
Therapy )
from [info]frankie_ecap
Christianity )
Music )
Writing )
Activism )
Gratitude )

And an appropriate meme )

(8 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

10:30 am - A Poem for Today
Leave me a place underground, a labyrinth,
where I can go, when I wish to turn,
without eyes, without touch,
in the void, to dumb stone,
or the finger of shadow.

I know that you cannot, no one, no thing
can deliver up that place, or that path,
but what can I do with my pitiful passions,
if they are no use, on the surface
of everyday life,
if I cannot look to survive,
except by dying, going beyond, entering
into the state, metallic and slumbering,
of primeval flame?

- Pablo Neruda


current mood: sad

(2 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
4:25 pm - SF Area Peeps
Someone I know is looking for an apartment in SF:
-- centrally located
-- studio or 1 bedroom
-- decent kitchen
-- $1100 or less

Any leads? Craigslist is already covered, thanks.

(3 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Saturday, July 4th, 2009
5:55 pm - The Fifth Freedom: Turning Your Body into Art
Elf Ears. I love this. It's subtle, it's safe, it's cool.

Tattooed Zombie Boy This one is much more of a serious commitment -- he can't hide it with a change of hairstyle. I think this guy has guaranteed that he'll never get a job at McDonalds. Which is not necessarily an argument against it. Also, I would love to see what he's done to his dick.

Amazon Elder--breast cancer survivor. (Site is NSFW if your workplace is prejudiced against art nudes. Most are.) This one took even more commitment than the zombie tattoos. June Gladney lost a breast to cancer. This outfit is her costume for WorldCon in San Jose. (I remembered this as Wiscon -- my bad.) She turned her surgical scar into something magic and powerful.

Plus added extra goodies:

Additional thought about Bad Monkeys:spoilers for Bad Monkeys and The Throat )

Stephen Fry, geographile. Also comments on the good old USA.

(14 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
8:19 am - Public Service Announcement
Back from Vegas. I am far far behind on LJ/DW and everything else, and I do not expect to get caught up. So please let me know if anything interesting is happening in your life.

Still ruminating the insights granted by the time away, which were decidedly not of the sparkly rainbow variety.

Some notes:

1. I should probably not read Matt Ruff while on vacation. I found Bad Monkeys to be extremely disturbing -- which would be OK, in some ways, if I hadn't been fool enough to Google author interviews. spoilers for Bad Monkeys ) Fuck authorial intent.

2. James Ellroy's Black Dahlia is a compelling mess of a book. I never got the sense that the author was in control of his material -- in fact, it was a runaway train. It also has some weird commonalities with Bad Monkeys. spoilers for Black Dahlia and Bad Monkeys )

3. There are still ways in which I am willing to lie to myself. Not in good ways.

4. Major changes have to happen. Somehow. By which I mean, I need to change what I do and how I do it. My defenses against the very real dangers of my early life have *become* the dangers of my middle age.

5, Please tell me -- what do you define as success in life?

(18 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Friday, June 26th, 2009
6:20 pm - Ground Zero Theatre
Yes, that's actually what they call the small screening room (in a simulated bomb shelter) at the Atom Testing Museum in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada. (Just blocks from the Strip on one side and the Clark County Library on the other. The library has a vast ongoing book sale that makes it one of the best used bookstores in Las Vegas.)

The museum, an affiliate of the Smithsonian, is dedicated to the history of testing nuclear devices, from the days of the Manhattan Project up to the present. I thought the science was explained pretty well ([info]abostick59, the physicist, says it was adequate for lay people). I certainly will never forget the excerpt of Disney's Our Friend the Atom film. The excerpt skipped old Walt himself, but included a German scientist, hundreds of mousetraps armed with ping-pong balls, Atomic Energy as a Tom of Finland-style genie whom we can finally control, and a non-turning globe firmly focused on the Western hemisphere. Radioactivity was portrayed as a jitterbugging atom-headed creature in tie and tails, animated in every sense, leaping from one element to another. And there are rows of Geiger counters, inactive bomb cases, and vast drillheads to delight the techies.

The museum provides plenty of social context -- the Einstein letter, some newsreels, and a lot of snippets from television. The earlier ones I found utterly fascinating, because by God that was the world I was born into. There is a 1940s/1950s era office complete with--"Look, [info]abostick59, a *real* telephone!" And a non-electric typewriter, and various other objects that have faded into prehistory. The display of pop-culture atomic allusions was mostly amusing, but the cover of the old Life or Look magazine on the children of the atomic scientists was utterly chilling. Headline trumpeting that these kids have been through a score of nuclear tests. Mushroom cloud rising in the background; in the foreground, a dozen kids prone in their unnaturally clean play clothes. It didn't look like a test. It looked like a tidy massacre.

Nuclear testing is more than blowing up Bikini Atoll or the kind of underground nuclear testing that seems so routine today. They tested the relative effectiveness of aerial versus surface detonation. They tested the effects of radioactivity on various house materials. The museum even features a facsimile bomb shelter that was used in testing shelters, complete with its blond, blue-eyed mannequins: brave Dad on his feet looking about him in curiosity, seated Mom in a dark-blue wrap dress with her face turned toward Junior in his overalls. They didn't show that in fifteen years or so Junior would be a long-haired antiwar protester, Dad would be an alcoholic, and Mom would be coming out as a lesbian textile artist (after her time in the psychiatric hospital).

In addition to the testing itself, the museum gave a nod to the test sites: geology, history, and meaning to the indigenous peoples who found the arid land a sacred place of plenty. Looking at the tools they shaped, I had to ponder that they used the land with more love and more productivity than we did, and left it living for the next generation. Well, until we started exploding thermonuclear devices over, under, and on it. On the other hand, the Nevada Test Site is still used as a training ground for first responders from all over the US to learn to deal with radiation emergencies and hazardous waste.

We checked out the museum shop, looking for Ellen Klages' superb books on the kids at Los Alamos: The Green Glass Sea and White Sands, Red Menace. No dice. So I stopped at the cash register to mention them. Although the cashier seemed indifferent, the bookstore manager overheard and came out to get details. She'd been looking for books that would help kids understand it all. With the help of the iPhone, [info]abostick59 was even able to provide the ISBN numbers.

Then out again into the 109-degree heat and heavy traffic of Flamingo Road. On the next block we saw two women -- one in a bikini -- trying to cross against the light. Nobody stopped for them. Nobody even paused to look.

(11 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Thursday, June 25th, 2009
8:22 pm - News Update
"Why did he have to die now?" Gov. Sanford sobs. "If I'd only known he would die, I could have stayed away a few extra days."

(16 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
12:36 am - Thank you
To the writers of fantastic fiction who broadened my childhood world.

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, whose The Little Lame Prince gave me a traveling cloak and a world to see.

Rod Serling, whose brilliant Twilight Zone scripts were published as anthologies, and who promised me a chance at least of justice.

C. S. Lewis, who, on my seventh birthday, took me out of the silent planet and to Perelandra. I was 14 before I got the third book in the trilogy, which was just as well.

Edgar Allen Poe, who showed me I wasn't the only one with a demon in my view.

Bram Stoker, whose Dracula is still a masterpiece of form as well as terror, and whose "The Judge's House" is still terrifying.

The great Victorian and Edwardian supernatural writers: E. Nesbit, M.R. James, Henry James, Sheridan Le Fanu, Oliver Onions, F. Marion Crawford, Violet Hunt, E. F. Benson, Cynthia Asquith, Saki, William Hope Hodgson, Margaret Irwin, and so many more.

The editors--particularly Alfred Hitchcock, Seon Manley, and Gogo Lewis--who brought those stories from the dusty vaults of long-forgotten magazines into modern print.

Barbara Michaels, whose Ammie, Come Home said, "Father hurt" in a voice I needed to hear. It is one of the best modern ghost stories.

The great classic SF writers--Theodore Sturgeon foremost among them--who showed up in the early anthologies I found. (Groff Conklin's anthologies were great.) And Harlan Ellison, whose Again, Dangerous Visions introduced me to Ursula K. Le Guin and my all-time great love, Joanna Russ. Le Guin and Russ are the Empress and High Priestess of SF/F, the two great pillars of New Wave SF.

All the people who carelessly left books where I could find them.

(7 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Monday, June 22nd, 2009
3:50 pm - Doing and Being
Not the doer, but the deed.
t's not about who you are, it's about what you did. Good, kind, well-intentioned people can do racist and sexist and ablist and ... things. Saying "X isn't a racist" tries to derail the conversation from behavior to character. You can win the character argument -- you have friends, you have people you've treated well, you have character witnesses. You can't win the argument about what you just did.


I've been trying to write about this for ages. I bet I have five different drafts kicking around my hard drive. [info]jonquil said it.


I want, when I say “Christian,” for people to think of the teachings of Jesus… how he healed the sick and welcomed those who society spit at… how he forgave the unforgivable and ate with those that most people of his day would not even look at. I’m tired of “Christian,” meaning pamphlets with hellfire and gay-bashing. I’m tired of it meaning Bush-supporter and anti-evolutionist. I want it to mean “follower of Jesus” again.
Link from [info]feral_journey. I don't agree with everything the author says, but I very strongly agree that Christianity is about a lot more than saving souls.


Missouri State Legislator Cynthia Davis asks, "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" Or rather, if those lazy five-year-olds had jobs instead of getting free government lunches, the American family would not be falling apart. Or something.

(9 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
7:00 am - Desert Yes, Solitaire No
Once again, I have gone deep into the desert for my annual writing retreat. I'll spend the next 16 days in a couple of rooms, writing, reading, listening to music, meditating. I'll cook myself simple meals in the galley kitchen. With a few necessary exceptions (obtaining food supplies and the like), I'll go out only in the cool predawn hours. Away from the distractions of my home, I'll be able to clarify my thinking and choose a productive direction for the year ahead.

Why yes, I'm in Las Vegas. And no, I am not alone. I'm sharing the hotel room with [info]abostick59, who is here to play poker, and I am sure that we will not limit our activities to poker (him) and writing (me).

But the rest is true, too. My forays into Sin City are generally a lot closer in spirit to the Desert Fathers than, say, late-stage Elvis. Assuming any Desert Father had a comfortable bed, something to read, and an iPod.

We started after midnight, in the early hours of Monday morning. The roads were nearly empty. Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark on the CD player, followed by the first couple discs of Citizen Steely Dan. Then Chris Squire in an album I hadn't heard before, and we talked about progressive rock.

We stopped for a meal at 3AM -- scrambled eggs and tea served in a ceramic pot that miraculously did not drip. I loathe those cheapjack aluminum teapots with the ill-fitting flat lids. The ones that spill half the tea on the table.

At a Denny's off I-5 near Coalinga: A small black-and-white truckstop cat is patrolling the strips of grass and shrubs, hunting the mice that feed on dropped munchies.

Despite the caffeine in the tea, I fell back to sleep as soon as I got in the car.

Heading east from Bakersfield toward Tehachapi. (Pronounced Teh-HATCH-a-pee.) Torn-paper hills and a sky paling toward sunrise. Quarter moon at zenith.

Me: I know Bakersfield is universally regarded as ugly, but these hills [oak-dotted, east of the town] are gorgeous.

The hawks were hunting in the pre-dawn stillness. I put on Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run and mentioned to [info]abostick59 that the title song had once been seriously nominated as the official anthem of New Jersey youth.

[info]abostick59: You mean by the state?

Me: Yeah. I guess they couldn't figure out what the lyrics meant.

Ridge after ridge of wind turbines. Alan says: Don Quixote, eat your heart out.

As we reached the high desert, the dawn bloomed brilliantly pink and clear. Mojave and Marvin Gaye's Number One Hits. Oh yes.

California towns that sound like Discworld troll gods: Monolith, Boron. Boron would be god of duty and etiquette. Or paperwork.

We passed the turnoff for Twenty-Mule Team Road in Boron, CA. Then we stopped for gas, and I took over the driving. The roads were relatively level here, mostly straight, still almost deserted. The only risk (other than falling asleep at the wheel from sheer boredom) was that there was so little close-in scenery -- so few landmarks to measure one's progress -- that even 80 mph felt slow. I eased back on the throttle whenever I noticed we were at 90.

Even at that speed, I kept an eye on geology. The Mojave, the high desert, is not much like the iconic deserts: the sand dunes and palms of the Sahara, or the wind-scoured rocky Garden of the Gods, familiar from a thousand Road Runner cartoons.

The granite hills were weathered into fantastic shapes: knifelike serrated ridges, curves, pillars, volutes, needles, as fanciful as chocolate meringue. (The occasional volcanic cinder cone blended right in.) The ridges rise randomly from drifts of weathered dry ravel, like icebergs in the sea. Fat round cushions of sagebrush are scattered over the level valley floor, and the spiky Joshua trees, which look like clustered bottle brushes.

Then I asked Alan to put on an Oliver Messiaen CD he'd brought. I like Messiaen a lot, but I hadn't heard his Quartet for the End of Time, written and first performed in a Nazi POW camp. The quartet instruments--piano, cello, violin, clarinet--were what the imprisoned musicians happened to play and the camp had available. Spare, complex, demanding, with moments of unexpected beauty. Rather like the high desert, in fact.

Last year we drove through Yosemite on the way down, plus a spontaneous sunrise excursion that landed me in Calico Canyon. This time we'll be here for the new moon, and I want very much to go out into the desert to look at the stars in true darkness.

I brought a stack of books and the entire Internet with me, and I've been stuffing my laptop with CDs. I also want and need to get a good bit of work done. I am also planning to stop by the Clark County Library book sale, where I bought a box and a half of books last year for an indecently low price. It's the best used bookstore in town.

I am planning to continue my record of never having wagered a cent in Las Vegas. I don't play poker anyway, Casinos have too much cigarette smoke and too many random perfumes for my allergic, asthmatic self, although I like the decorations -- Chihuly flower ceilings, giant aquaria, white tiger cats sporting in waterfalls, fountains pretending to be volcanoes, and duplicates of classical statues that I'll never get to Europe to see.

So. The adventure begins.

(8 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Friday, June 12th, 2009
8:48 pm - Don't Panic: An Actual Personal Update
It's been a rollercoaster day in a rollercoaster week.

At the moment I'm sitting in a Starbucks in Dublin (or possibly Pleasanton). I've got a good table -- corner, electrical outlet, facing the windows -- and am sipping something God-awful but caffeinated, which is all I ask. Soon [info]gramina will pick me up.

cars suck )

cancer sucks worse than cars )

My self-restraint highlight of the day week decade came when I took three bulging bags of books to Moe's, the legendary Berkeley used bookstore. Four floors of books! I swapped what I could for credit, donated the rest to a prison library organization (a cause dear to my heart), and left a free woman. Without having gone past the front desk. I did not look at a single shelf of books for sale.

Tomorrow I leave early to pick up my car, take it to a tire place, pick up mail, do all the other last-minute errands, and then: Pack. Pack for just over 2 weeks in Las Vegas, where [info]abostick59 will play poker and I will stay in the hotel room except at 3AM, the only hour in summer when I can bear to be outdoors. Last year the days were running steady at around 107 degrees, just slightly too toasty for one whose brain has the 84-degree melting point of chocolate.

I have a lot of ideas percolating, and I am working hard on a number of issues. Maybe in the desert solitudes of Las Vegas, I'll get things clear enough to post about them.

(23 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Thursday, June 11th, 2009
10:30 pm - Uncluttering My Brain
Have some links that straighten out various tangles.

Gay Marriage and Size Acceptance: More Related than You Might Think.

[info]yuki_onna's reviews of Star Trek: The Reboot and the latest Terminator movie.

Also, please check out [info]adoptingcat, because the author of those two hilarious reviews could use some community help.

Harvard Psychiatrist Explains Zombie Neurobiology.


A 14-year-old girl discovers new supernova.

If I had my life to live over, I would do it all again, but this time I would be nastier. - Jeannette Rankin, pacifist, first woman to serve in Congress.

Fascinating look at unconscious ("aversive") racism and how it affects institutionalized racism.
Because aversive racists consciously endorse egalitarian values and deny negative feelings about blacks, they will not discriminate directly and openly in ways that can be attributed to racism. However, because of their negative feelings they will, in fact, discriminate, often unintentionally, when their behavior can be justified on the basis of some factor other than race. Aversive racists may therefore regularly engage in discrimination while they maintain a nonprejudiced self-image. The term “aversive” in this form of racism thus refers to two aspects of this bias. It reflects the nature of the emotions associated with blacks, such as anxiety, that lead to avoidance and social awkwardness rather than to open antagonism. It also represents that, because of their conscious adherence to egalitarian principles, these whites would find any thought that they might be prejudiced to be aversive.

Thanks to [info]bcholmes for the link.

And a wonderful poem from [info]ozarque, who apparently has my house key and my brain key, too. Many thanks to [info]housepet for the link.

What's cluttering your brain today?

(4 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Monday, June 8th, 2009
11:19 am - THE BIG WHY: Reading / Writing
Why do I have so many books? )

Why do I write? )

What about you? Why do you have books? Why do you write?

(16 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Friday, June 5th, 2009
8:38 am - History: Poland
Russia has accused Poland of provoking the outbreak of the Second World War by refusing to accede to the "very modest" demands of Nazi Germany.... The lengthy diatribe, which is unlikely to be welcomed in Warsaw, also lashed out at Britain and France for giving the Poles "delusions of grandeur" by promising to intercede if the Nazis invaded.

Let's talk a little bit about Poland in World War II. Triggering. )

I have seen Nazi propaganda films about their intentions with regard to Poland. I have read the translated memos and speeches of Hans Frank. I spent two years researching Poland from 1920 to 1945. I know damned well what happened there.

And Poland didn't cause it. Not because Poland lost the war. But because they were minding their own business when two vast states invaded. The current Russian argument is the exact equivalent of a bully telling his victim, "You made me hit you." Or a rapist: "I wouldn't have raped you if you'd cooperated to give me sex."

Under planned legislation, backed by Mr Medvedev, any Russian or foreigner who claims that the Soviet Union occupied Poland or the Baltic States could face up to five years in prison.

This is a familiar chorus.

Nobody but the Nazis made the Nazis invade. Nobody but the Soviets was responsible for the Soviet invasion. Hitler and Stalin, Himmler and Beria. Blame them. Don't blame the Poles.

current mood: angry

(31 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Thursday, June 4th, 2009
11:52 pm - The Arts and Humanities. Also TV
The philosophy of Monty Python. Thanks to the ever-amazing Joe Barron, friend and writer extraordinaire,

Genesis, the comic book: Text by Moses, drawings by R. Crumb.

The perils of a big-screen TV.
A Double Edged Flat Screen
Electronics Store | Texas, USA

Customer: “You have to help me, I don’t know what to do!”

Me: “Calm down, ma’am. How can I help you?”

Customer: “My husband and I bought a big screen TV last week from this store.”

Me: “What’s the problem with it?”

Customer: “I want it out of my house! Is there anything you can do?”

Me: “Is it not functioning properly?”

Customer: “No. It works perfectly, that’s the problem. Every night, our house turns into a sports bar, all his friends come over to watch TV until 3 am and I can’t get any sleep! They eat all the food I cook, they broke my grandmother’s crystal vase and they spilled beer all over the rugs! I want my house back!”

Me: “Well, you know ma’am, you could always turn the tables.”

Customer: “What?”

Me: “You have girlfriends, right?”

(The woman’s face displays a grin of diabolical proportions.)

Customer: “You have DVDs here, right?”

Me: “Just over there…”

Customer: “Thank you very much for your help!”

(I took my break just after that and saw the woman carrying in her arms at least a dozen DVDs. Among them: the Sex and the City movie, Terms of Endearment, Sweet November, Steel Magnolias, Legally Blonde, Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood and even Gone with the Wind. Her husbands’ beer buddies never stood a chance.)

(tell me tell me tell me)

7:37 am - Sticks and Stones and Brutal Words
You've probably heard by now of talk radio's frenzied hatefest against gender-variant children on the May 28 Rob, Arnie, & Dawn in the Morning radio talk show (KXRQ in Sacramento--yes, in the capital of my own state of California). The show also plays in Reno, Nevada.

I'm not going to repeat the litany of threats, insults, misinformation, and hatred. You can click the links and read transcripts, or consult your own memory of schoolyard taunts. Yeah, these guys are getting paid to talk the way playground bullies do. An impressive level of intellectual discourse.

Unfortunately, such tactics can have the desired effect. Last year a 15-year-old boy was murdered in Oxnard, CA, for gender-variant behavior. Recently two pubescent boys committed suicide after enduring months of taunts and bullying over a perceived lack of manliness.

Parents of gender-variant children respond to the shock jocks at KRXQ.

Want to help? Looking for advice on raising a gender-variant child? Trans Youth Family Allies,

(2 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
9:25 am - Shame about Billy Joe
It was the third of June....



What do you think Billy Joe and the narrator were tossing off the bridge?

(18 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
12:58 am - Some Things Can't Be Said Directly
A leader cries out repeatedly, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"

And Thomas à Becket is murdered in Canterbury Cathedral.

How many people are responsible?

I am far too angry and too distressed to discuss this.

(tell me tell me tell me)

Thursday, May 28th, 2009
1:48 pm - Theories and Practicalities
Adopt a physics kitten in San Jose. They're adorable -- and named for subatomic particles.

Can you chip in a few bucks to help domestic violence survivors?

Where our information comes from.

Tips on book care, or, Why Symmetrical Book-Stacking Is Not Just a Joke from Ghostbusters.

[info]supergee explains The Case against Sonia Sotomayor.

How and where the cat became domesticated. Link courtesy [info]txtriffidranch.

funny pictures
moar funny pictures

(1 story | tell me tell me tell me)

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
1:51 am - The Horrors of Same-Sex Marriage
Thanks to [info]askesis: Why same-sex marriage will lead to the kinship apocalypse. No more "fathers with shotguns"! No more sexual double standard! No more "control" and "exploitation of female sexuality"! And the thrice-married author thinks these are *bad* things.
the whole amazing, appalling thing )

Mr. Schulman apparently doesn't understand the workings of the kinship web among those of us who are no longer welcome in our families of origin. He doesn't get the idea that we do indeed have relatives, in-laws, co-lovers, and often a strong bond with previous partners -- as well as the bond of friendship, which definitely operates differently among the friends of Dorothy.

I am sure his ex-wives are profoundly grateful they have escaped from the control of this Pleistocene charmer.

Now this would be fair.

And around the world.
Being gay is not supposed to be a crime in Russia. Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1993; six years later, the law that sent gays and lesbians to psychiatric wards was annulled. But Russia would still rather have its homosexual citizenry invisible — and silent. Nikolai Alexeyev knows that very well. He's just been released from jail for trying to organize a gay-rights demonstration in Moscow.


Repeal Prop. 8.

(21 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Monday, May 25th, 2009
9:35 am - What's Going on in There?
The Inner Worlds of Conspiracy Believers. OK, I'm imaginative and distrustful of authority. Why don't I believe (most) conspiracy theories? Maybe because I don't think the world can be *solved*. It's always more complicated.

Think California is the only state with serious seismic hazards? Think again.

Inside allergies: The eczema/asthma link is now pinpointed to a single molecule, at least in mice. And that molecule fucking hates me.

Young Democrats club banned by Liberty University. See comments for a good discussion of why any liberally inclined kid would attend a fundamentalist college in the first place.

[info]whipartist looks into Playboy.

[info]ysabetwordsmith found this site on Native American history.

Inside a fire with video journalist Tim Walton.

What's going on in you today?

(4 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009
4:50 pm - News from the Culture Wars
From the Department of White Privilege: White Convicts As Likely to Be Hired As Blacks Without Criminal Records.


From the Department of White Privilege, Historical Division: After the end of the Civil War, many former slavers tried to contact the black men and women they had once enslaved — even those who had escaped during the war and headed north — to try to convince them to return to the plantation and work the land as hands or tenant farmers. One of those freedmen, Jourdon Anderson, wrote a letter back to his former captor, explaining the terms on which would return.

The request alone would be worth a link. But the response deserves to be repeated in full, and it's not from any department of white privilege, but from the strength, pride, and intelligence of Black people who survived slavery.

And all without a single  )


More good news: Obama's New Appointee: A Strong, Muslim Woman.
President Obama has recently appointed Dalia Mogahed to the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Senior analyst and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, Mogahed has worked to dispel stereotypes and misconceptions about Muslims and Islam. She recently co-authored the book Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think with Islamic Studies professor John L. Esposito.



If it's not torture, try it yourself. A Rhode Island Democratic legislator says he'll donate $100 to charity for every second former president George W. Bush withstands waterboarding. State Rep. Rod Driver also included former vice-president Dick Cheney and ex-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in his offer.


But we're the good guys! A history of American torture by Noam Chomsky.


Iraq is using a horrible method to torture gay men. Yeah, this is the *new* Iraq. Not Saddam Hussein's, but the administration we helped set up.

A Coquille Indian Tribe law allowing same-sex marriage took effect this week, and two women plan to marry Sunday on the tribe's Coos Bay reservation. Link from [info]joedecker.

Why yes, teaching staff are still forcibly making First Nations students conform to white standards of appearance: "Regrettable incident" or assault with intent to commit cultural genocide?


And from the estimable [info]ysabetwordsmith:
If you want ideas on how YOU can make the world a better place, I recommend both Bloggers Unite and Change.org as good starting places.

(11 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

3:36 am - Saturday Randomosity
Most musicians are notable because they have feelings and a guitar.

Allan Ginsberg updated for the current generation:
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
pop culture, pampered hysterical paranoid,
calling 911 for getting the wrong burger, being stuck
in traffic, or being unable to get McNuggets,


Gender-reversed Star Trek 2009 cast.

Where self-important tweets go to be mercilessly mocked. Link courtesy [info]hitchhiker. I suspect that at least one of the twitterers so honored is doing some kind of performance art. OTOH, one of them is Guy Kawasaki.

(2 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Friday, May 22nd, 2009
6:52 am - Happy Birthday, Harvey Milk
Thirty years ago yesterday, San Francisco's queer community was waiting for the verdict in the murder trial of Dan White, accused of the execution-style murders of Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk.

Paul Krassner: Defense attorney Doug Schmidt didn't want pro-gay sentiment to pollute the verdict. He wasn't allowed to ask potential jurors if they were gay, but he would ask if they had ever supported controversial causes, like homosexual rights, for instance. There was one prospective juror who came from a family of cops -- ordinarily Schmidt would have craved his presence on this jury -- but then he said, perhaps gratuitously, "I live with a roommate and lover." Schmidt's next question: "Where does he or she work?" The man answered, "He" -- and the ball game was over -- "works at the Holiday Inn."

Kim Corsaro: It was a slam dunk case, but somehow, following the trial, it didn't feel like things were going the way they should.

Chris Carlsson: As we rode on the bus a young man, quite agitated, jumped on and blurted out "It's only manslaughter!"

Cleve Jones: We arrived there, we stormed the front of the building. One cop car was burned. The lesbian caucus of the newly-formed Harvey Milk Democratic Club broke into the basement and tried to set City Hall on fire. And then the cops, masked gladiator style, up on Polk Street had their shields and they were beating their clubs and the crowd panicked. And they shot the tear gas into us and everybody began to stampede down toward Market Street. That was the point where I got frightened, because I thought people were going to get hurt, get stampeded, and die. And by then, I don't know who had the bullhorn. There had been a sound system, but the cops knocked over the generator. We had no ability to communicate to the crowd, and I got together with Bill Krause and maybe Ron Huberman, but we just started shouting 'Slow down! Slow down!' And other people, my little monitor teens that had all been dispersed, got what we were trying to do and everybody started chanting, and it became 'S-l-o-w D-o-w-n... s-l-o-w d-o-w-n..." Then 'Don't run Don't run,' and other people would pick it up and it soon there were hundreds of people saying 'Don't run.' 'Turn Around! Turn Around!' 'Fight back! Fight back!' And that crowd, which was largely panicking and running and dispersing slowed down, stopped running, turned around, and threw themselves at the cops. And by then, their own line had dispersed, and we pushed them all the way back and we burned all their police cars.

Peter Plate: They were two huge riot-geared cops. i smiled at them and tugged the bricks out from under my jacket. through the glass doors divided us, we were no more than four feet apart from each other. i hurled the bricks with all my strength into their faces. the doors splintered and the cops fell back. i was covered with glass, screaming, "fuck you, fuck you. i've been living for this, you cowards, i would kill you if i could!"

Uncle Donald: A dozen police cars were torched. Car horns and sirens from the burning cars added a chaotic note to the smoky night air.

Deputy Police Chief Kevin Mullen: In the early morning hours of May 22, 1979—on my orders—police formations marched back-step up Castro Street from 18th to Market, followed by a crowd of jeering demonstrators.

Fred Rogers, owner of the Elephant Bar: A tactical squad had charged the doors, smashing news cameras attempting to record the raid. Once inside they made a sweep from the front of the 1,800-square-foot room all the way to - and over - the bar, swinging their clubs at anything that moved. Or didn't.

Leland Frances: Some, standing in front of what was then Star Pharmacy, realized it was after midnight and, therefore, technically, Harvey Milk's birthday.... They suddenly began to sing, "Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Harvey. Happy birthday, to you!" while shaking their fists at the police, blood running down their faces.

Maggie Jochild: We later found out that of the 60-something people injured by the cops that night, a huge majority of them were women and/or people of color.

Supervisor Harry Britt: “Harvey Milk’s people do not have anything to apologize for."

D.I.S.H. Don't Snitch Flyer, 1979: We may end up doing more time for our rage at the Civic Center than Dan White will do for killing Harvey.

Ruth Mahaney: "The verdict was so wrong it could not go unchallenged."

[info]joedecker explains that now we're waiting for another verdict.

[info]tenacious_snail asks: Can we have the legal right to marry? Or will it be like the old days, when lesbian couples had to pretend to be sisters?

[info]archanglrobriel: This is one of the things that folks tend to forget when we talk about marriage equality and these sorts of battles - it's about more than just who has the right to get married, it's about who has the right to be fully human and who's not. Fundamentally it's about who has the right to exist and who does NOT.

Harvey Milk: "I cannot prevent anyone from getting angry, or mad, or frustrated. I can only hope that they'll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive, so that two, three, four, five hundred will step forward, so the gay doctors will come out, the gay lawyers, the gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects ... I hope that every professional gay will say 'enough', come forward and tell everybody, wear a sign, let the world know. Maybe that will help."

Tonight I will celebrate Harvey Milk's birthday by watching Milk on DVD for the first time. (I saw it twice at the Castro.) And I'll keep on fighting the battle in the best way I can: researching, writing, testifying with my life. Refusing to live in a closet.

What are you going to do to celebrate?

(13 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Thursday, May 21st, 2009
2:34 am - YouTube Time Capsule: Humor
These were the star comedians of my childhood. I grew up on their albums and TV shows.

In 1962 Vaughn Meader made a smash hit with a comedy album called The First Family, a loving parody of Kennedy family life. The after-dinner press conference was one of my favorites.

Tom Lehrer on Werner von Braun. Everybody's favorite math professor does political satire.

Bob Newhart sketch with Dean Martin. He had a huge success with his routine and a couple of stand-up albums -- long before he played a psychiatrist or innkeeper on TV. This sketch is notable for a couple of Newhart ad-libs and Dean Martin's complete inability to keep a straight face.

Mike Nichols and Elaine May in the Operator sketch. Two of the great comic geniuses of the 20th century, from the days of ten-cent dial pay phones and free information service. Elaine May went on to be a brilliant playwright, screenwriter, and director. Mike Nichols focused on stage and screen directing, plus he married Diane Sawyer.

Lily Tomlin trying to collect an unpaid debt on behalf of Ma Bell. Still painfully topical. God, she is brilliant.

The Smothers Brothers with Mom Always Liked You Best I have never quite forgiven CBS for canceling their show.

Jonathan Winters at his loopy improvisational best.

Carol Burnett in a parody of Gone with the Wind. Screechy but hilarious. The overt racism makes the original movie unwatchable for me now. ETA> Best movie review of GWTW *ever*.

Am I forgetting anyone?

(35 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
5:24 pm - Because We Need a Laugh
From Antick Musings, publishing light-bulb jokes: A few samples:
Q. How many copyeditors does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. The last time this question was asked, it involved art directors. Is the difference intentional? Should one or the other instance be changed? It seems inconsistent.

Q. How many publishers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. Three. One to screw it in, two to hold down the author.




What are your favorite lightbulb jokes?

current music: Baby's Got Back -- Jonathan Coulton

(17 stories | tell me tell me tell me)

Monday, May 18th, 2009
4:57 am - Anniversary
He did love me—no one will ever love me so again.--Jane Eyre


Love is not enough.
Thursday, May 14th, 2009
10:28 pm - Personally, I Prefer Unicorns to Mammoths
Are you a unicorn?
If you identify as a POC/nonwhite person and you read or watch scifi or fantasy, give yourself a name check in this thread. I am particularly wanting shoutouts from people who do not live in the US and who have still managed to read genre fiction.

There are now more than 900 responses. Link courtesy [info]fightingwords.

It wasn't so long ago that only boyz were supposed to read SF, and most of the very few female characters were support systems or helpless victims. Maybe we're on the edge of the new New Wave, which, IMO, enormously improved the field of SF.

(tell me tell me tell me)

1:36 am - Gorgeous Pictures
[info]joedecker is having a 72-hour sale on nature photography.

Now, Joe is something of a cross between Ansel Adams and Galen Rowell. In other words, a hellaciously fine photographer of nature. And this sale includes many of his best pictures of glaciers, icebergs, moonrise, and the motion of light on water. Some are traditional landscapes. Others show the world almost as an abstraction, a texture, a pattern.

Also: I have a birthday coming up.

(1 story | tell me tell me tell me)

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
11:52 pm - Arts and (Air)Craft
The Unlikely Events of a Water Landing: New Photos From Flight 1549. Fascinating chronicle of the salvage effort by a photographer on the inside. It shows the whole process of pulling the plane out of the Hudson. Very, very cool.

Bay Area Coolness, Episode 43,279. They're building a rocket ship in Oakland. Yes, you will be able to visit it. And when I say "they," I do not mean NASA or even Pixar. I mean some independent artists. Link courtesy [info]rmjwell.

The air that I breathe, AKA Hazmat Crisis at AT&T. This article is being clipped or printed and posted in office kitchens all over the US.


Cut for astrology )

(3 stories | tell me tell me tell me)


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