This slam poem is a beautiful explanation of why teachers are so important and why how much they are paid is irrelevant to what they make. Talor Mali rules.
It's an inspiring vid. Kudos to my Dad for sending it to me.
The Berkeley Humane Society's Emergency Medical Fund featured pet at the moment is a puppy named Uber. She was left in their drop box at 7 weeks old with a broken and infected jaw. They fixed that, but then discovered one of her legs is growing wrong and needs major surgery to fix. The surgery will cost $4000! So they're fundraising for that as well as trying to find her a home. If you can spare a couple dollars for her surgery it will make a big difference. And if you know anybody who'd be willing to take in a dog with some medical needs (her jaw and leg may need more medical attention as she ages), please put them in touch with the folks at Berkeley Humane Society.
My cousin is in training before being deployed to Afghanistan with his National Guard battalion and is doing a lot of reading in his downtime. Getting books through the base is not a terribly speedy process, so he's running low on reading material. If you've got any books you would like to donate to him and his fellow soldiers, you can give them to me and I'll send them along. I've already taken down the books I was listing through Frugal Reader and will be sending him a few at a time over the next several months.
In a piece from Hilary Clinton's Senate bid a while back, Sars lays out why she hates Clinton. Sars says now that she hates Clinton less than she used to, but still doesn't like her. I also don't like Clinton, and I think the piece sums up well what those of us who want to like her but just don't are talking about.
This is an awesome idea. Ganked from Graydancer. It has LJ-speak in it, but I think the basic message comes through: people are feeling down and bleah lately, so let's do something about it!
Wow - what is it in the air lately? Post after filtered post about how everyone is feeling alone, disconnected, unwanted. It's not like this is one or two people - it's like a rash all over my friends list the past few days. Male, female, betwixt, undecided, unconcerned...it seems to be an equal opportunity Brain Weasel.
Clearly, something needs to be done. I think we need to have a Brain Weasel Stomping Day.
The problem, as I've noted before, is "it's easier to see the Weasels when they're eating someone else's brain." So this is my call to my friends list, and to your friends list, and beyond. This Friday, make an effort to squish someone's Brain Weasel.
Have a crush on someone? Post a flirty comment in their journal. Admire someone's skills? Post a comment about it. Just think a person is nifty? This Friday is the time to tell them. Doesn't matter if the post your commenting to doesn't have much to do with your comment. Just post those good thoughts. Trust me. People will appreciate it.
Do this for everyone - not just those you suspect are feeling down (After all, you might not be on their Brain Weasel filter). Take a few minutes and help launch people into the weekend with a smile. And...who knows? Maybe sharing how others make you happy will make you a bit more cheerful in return.
What Is Snape?, by Orson Scott Card, is a fantastic essay, and a must-read for anybody who can't understand why I love Snape and alternately despise and dislike James Potter. (In fact, it reminded me of perfectly good reasons to despise and dislike Sirius Black.)
I'm pretty sure he's wrong about LotR being written as a sequel to The Hobbit, though. I am under the impression that LotR was in the works long before the Hobbit was written, and although it seems like a sequel because of when it was published and some story elements, it wasn't originally planned as one. But I could be wrong. I'm no Tolkien scholar.
Anyway: good stuff. And I agree completely that if Rowling has a big reveal and shows Snape to have been a bad guy all along it will lack artistic integrity in the extreme (or, as I usually say it, show that she really is a shitty writer after all). Good stuff.
I'm too busy/tired/scattered for a good update, but I have several things in my browser I've been meaning to blog about, so here you go.
Meet the Joneses is an interactive comedy. Fans can work on scripts and stuff, apparently. Crazy.
Does Being a Feminist Mean Voting for Hillary? - Courtney Martin lays out her indecision regarding the woman who may well be the first viable female presidential candidate. Personally, I think being a feminist means judging Hillary on her merits, not her gender, so I will not be voting for her in the primaries. I can't stand the woman anymore.
Dreams - an XKCD strip about thinking twice before posting on the intarwebs because a future employer might read it. Made me say "RIGHT ON!"
Fireworks Above, Trouble Below - it never occurred to me that fireworks, which I love, might be a nasty environmental hazard. Man. Now I don't know what to do.
The Loudness War. Or, how CDs are being ruined by idiot music producers who think everything needs to be OMG LOUD!!!!! Short, to the point, and very well-done. (Requires sound)
Check out the post Christian Spanking Porn on Blowfish (may be NSFW since it's got mentions of teh pr0n, omg. Links from that page may also be NSFW. Surf at your own discretion). Boggles the mind, it does.
My verdict: creepy as all get out. Sure, it's nice to think that even fundies are kinky. It's nice to see by-women-for-women porn. But yanno, that doesn't outweigh the whole "this is all consensual, wink wink" stuff, or the fact that they wanna force their kink (and religion) on everyone because it's "God's will."
I've been working on cataloging my library on here on LibraryThing. I'm almost halfway done - I've got 437 books in the database. Rawk. Considering that for some reason my barcode scanner can't read about half the barcodes properly, I think I'm making good progress.
I'll be putting up a proper lending library page at some point, but I figured I'd announce it now: if you see a book in my LibraryThing catalog that you want to borrow, let me know! I'm willing to ship my books to you, even (Media Mail, so it takes a while, but it's cheap), provided you'll ship 'em back when you're done. You just have to promise to take good care of the book while it's in your hands and to ship it safely back to me if you're a shipping borrower.
See, I feel kinda bad about having so many books (over 1100!), since I'm so anti-consumerism in other areas of my life. But at the same time, I love my books and can't imagine getting rid of them. So I figure loaning them out is a good compromise.
I'm adding new books periodically, and will post here when they're all in the database, but head over now if you like and see what all I've got! (note: books I own but have not yet read are not in the database because they're not up for loan. It'll be too complicated if I start loaning out the ones I haven't read yet!)
His point, in short, is that folks bitching about Flickr "censoring" them should put their money where their mouth is and donate to organizations that fight REAL censorship (yanno, the kind where they throw you in jail or kill you for printing the wrong things). I think he has a great point and plan on donating my "one-off charity" budget for this month to one of the orgs he suggests. Mind you, that's not much (I only have a spare $5/mo for one-offs, and there's no rollover from past months at the moment, as it's a new budget). But still.
And I'm not even in the debate, which I think is kind of stupid!
So, if you're all upset about the whole situation, please go read Earthdog's post. I think he makes a good case for putting your money where your mouth is.
I think Washington was wrong when he said you can only trust someone's oath if they're religious (I know a number of atheists I trust a damn sight more than some religious folks I can think of), but everything else is spot on.
Graydancer hits the nail on the head by rephrasing a neat quote so it reads:
If you aren't satisfied with your life, change it. If you won't change it, put up with it. Whatever you do, if you're going to talk about it, at least do it in a way that will entertain us.
Quoth I, I can't put proper highway shields on the map for the wedding because I need scalable vectors to do that and I am not willing to make them myself.
Quoth he, How about these? And these? And these? Will they work?
I am posting links of interest to my del.icio.us nearly every day. If you're wondering what I'm reading, that's the place to check it out. I've even sorted stuff by tags and whatnot. Yay.
First, a disclaimer: I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR. IF YOU ARE BROKE OR LOOKING FOR INVESTMENT ADVICE, SEEK ADVICE FROM SOMEONE WHO IS, ETC ETC ETC!
Anyway.
Man. Money is a bitch. Seriously. But there is a certain sort of pride one gets from being on top of things which can't really be gotten any other way.
As some of my readers may know, I have a lot of debt. When I graduated college, I owed $80k and change to various financial institutions for paying my way. Goddamn private schools.
Well, I have recently lined all my debts up (car loan, credit cards, remaining student debt) and I am now only $70k and change in the hole. Not bad, considering that I finished school only 6 years ago and for all but the last year or so was living paycheck to paycheck.
I attribute this to a number of strategies, largely developed through long discussions with Antwon (who has hella financial acumen. Seriously. He was making wise money decisions when he was like six or something).
Off the Mommy Track - a great article by a childfree gal about her child-bearing friends. I have to say, I agree with what she's saying 110%.
I am deeply grateful that so far none of my friends have turned into scary Hyde-Mommy hybrids. Hell, only one of them has even started down the having-a-kid path (and she promises not to make me hold it or babysit it, so yay). But I often ponder what will happen when my best gal friends start breeding and it makes me fret a little. Heck, I'm a little nervous that when my favorite male cousin's baby arrives he will suddenly be unable to talk about anything but the kid. Yikes.
Anyway. This article rocks.
EDITED TO ADD: There's a very interesting discussion on this topic going on over here at Feministe. I'm actually one of the posters, which is fun, even though I disagree with the main point being made there at the moment, which is that "breeder" and "crotchdropping" and other similar CF vulgarities are by their nature misogynist. I'm finding it awesome having a discussion with people I disagree with that isn't getting nasty. It probably helps that the people arguing with me are folks I really respect and excellent writers.
I strongly suspect that neither I nor they will be persueded to alter our respective stances, but the discussion is really making me think, which I like.
An alarm clock which wakes you with birdsong and gentle messages voiced by Stephen Fry. Now if only they would make one for women... (this one addresses you as "sir.")
This video is awful UCLA security guys tasered a student a bunch of times while other students were yelling for them to stop and demanding their ID numbers. The student wasn't even fighting back (though he was mouthing off quite a bit). Someone recorded it with their cell phone's camera, which was smart. (Warning, the vid is pretty disturbing.)
There's an article about it here. The UCLA Chancellor has a statement about the incident which is pretty weak, imho. "Stand up or you'll get tased again" is pretty clearly excessive use of force. This guy was on the ground from the shock of being tased and either couldn't or wouldn't stand up, so they tased him repeatedly. There were half a dozen rentacops there, they could have carried him out, but they tased him over and over instead. In fact, one of the officers threatened to use the taser on a student who was demanding his badge number, saying they would "get tased too." Disgraceful.
UCLA's security and administration should be ashamed. Kudos to the students who protested and especially to the one who recorded it (though the camerawork is pretty bad the audio is clear and utterly frightening).
Check out Jonathan Coulton's music, which is geekariffic and awesome. I've been listening for about an hour now (I downloaded all his free songs, and shelled out a buck for Re: Your Brains, which is amply worth it).
I was chatting with a pal about podcasts yesterday. I have the 'casts I listen to linked in my blogroll, but nowhere do I talk about what I like about each of 'em. I also appear not to ever have blogged about the podcatcher I use, Juice.
Watch the video Dove | Evolution. Has sound but doesn't require it.
It's a time lapse movie of a billboard being produced, from the model's makeup and hair to the photo retouching. It's seriously unnerving. Reminds me of The Art of Retouching.
Knowledge vs. Belief: a brilliant piece of writing in one of the communities I read. I've copied it below for posterity, because I really don't want to lose it.
Tasting Notes Generator - at last, a quick and easy way to get a bunch of things to say when wine tasting. Memorize and bust out with something cool-sounding the next time you are offered a glass of wine.
The Random Cocktail Generator - Just input a few characteristics (what kind of cocktail you have in mind, how complex you want it, etc) and it gives you a recipe! Awesome.
Snapmania - an online photo editor/manager dingus. Pretty nifty, though I haven't looked into it much.
Stories from the Front Lines - an essay about what it was like for one woman in a conservative California town in the Central Valley to work as an escort at a health clinic which provided abortions. She quit when a "pro-lifer" picked her up off her feet and threw her into a brick wall -- while she was five months pregnant. Scary, sobering stuff.
“Maddy: Dad. I need to know the truth. Are you famous?
Me: No. Not really.
Maddy: But there are people who know who you are, aren't there?
Me: Well, yes.
Maddy: And they think you're famous?
Me: Some of them do, I suppose, yes. Why?
Maddy: Well, you see, I've been looking at people a lot recently. People in cars. And sometimes I think that maybe they're movie stars or people I've seen on the TV. And I thought to myself, "Don't be silly. People on the TV wouldn't just be driving about." But then I thought about you. I mean there are people who'd see you, and go "He wouldn't just be driving about" and you are. So I think probably they are movie stars after all.”
– Neil Gaiman [Quoting Maddy Gaiman] 09/20/02
That's absolutely brilliant, and fits in with something Nick Lea said to me when I met him at an X-Files convention.
Nick: So, how are you?
Me: Um, honestly, a bit nervous.
Nick: Why? We're just people.
Awesome. Famous people really are just people. I suppose some of them let the fame go to their head and become asshats, or get freaked out by the fame and hide, but the cool ones are just folks. Awesome.
Damn you, Emusic! I was doing so well getting on with my music sorting project, but now I've gone and downloaded nearly a hundred more songs from you! ARGH!!!! *headdesk*
Albums downloaded today:
PJ Harvy, Dry
Burning Brides, Leave No Ashes
Brain Donor, Brain Donor
Clannad, Dulaman
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Fetish
John Lee Hooker, Boom Boom
Mediaeval Baebes, The Rose
The Coup, Party Music
So now I have more music, yay, but at the same time I am a lot further from finishing the damn sorting project - which I really want to have done asap so I can have all the newly sorted music on my Neuros when I fly out for Annie's wedding next week (NEXT WEEK OMGWTF HOW DID IT GET TO BE THAT SOON AUGH!).
*sigh*
Oh, well. If all else fails, I'll use some half-assed hack to finish. Like labelling all the ones I haven't sorted yet as "uncategorized" or something. Yeah.
Here’s my answer. My reasoning for not having kids is due to the fact that I’m selfish. And if I ever change my mind and decide to have a family, my reasoning will be the same.
Perfect. He's honest without being a dick, and explains his reasoning without being condemning of parents. Good on him. I should start watching his show.
My pal Conrad is an attorney in Las Vegas. Check out this interview about his latest case (click the link under "Build your own Newscast"). He is the guy with the shaved head who's Dean's attorney. This case is getting a lot of publicity, and I hope it'll be good for him!
Yeowza. This sequence is why I love Frollo so much. Tony Jay, who voiced him, was amazing. Sadly, Jay has passed away. Blessings to him, wherever he is now. He was a talented man.
I think I should start a fanclub for 50-something (or older!) female bloggers who kick ass. So far I have found two:
Marn, who gardens on a scale that involves backhoes and bulldozers and lifts weights like there's no tomorrow (she can do chin-ups! By herself! And only a few years ago she was all out of shape! Holy crap!)
Liz, who bodybuilds, loves Zydeco, is amazingly culturally aware, and is currently working to kick the ass of Brenda, a nasty tumor that is partially blocking the vein that lets blood down out of her head and neck.
I admire both these women immensely for a zillion reasons, chief amongst which is that they blog so honestly and articulately about their lives. They are living proof that being a woman over the age of 30 is not a sentence to futility and fainting spells. They are ass-kickers! And yet they are human. They cry. They have moments of doubt. They are afraid of things. And they share that too! Which is really powerful, because it helps me believe that in spite of my own moments when I cry or doubt myself or am afraid, maybe I can kick ass as much as they do.
Many profound thanks, Marn and Liz! You gals rule.
You are entirely too full of awesomeness for me to blog properly. It's not fair. My "Stuff to blog" bookmarks folder is constantly overflowing, dammit.
You can read full entry, but this is the pertinent part:
"You used to do that too y'know, when you were a small child." my mother told me as we walked back to her place. "Yeah," I replied "But you told me to knock it off, strangers didn't have to do it for you. That's the difference between a parent and a breeder. "Parent" is a verb."
So true, so true. "Parent is a verb" is a slogan I'd love to see on bumperstickers everywhere.
The MsScribe Story is a fascinating (in a trainwreck sort of way) writeup of a huge kerfluffle in the Harry Potter fandom some time ago. It's amazing the lengths to which people will go sometimes.
If you haven't read The Credit Card Prank, you should - it's not only funny, but will make you call your credit card companies the instant you so much as think your card might be lost.
Bush Pilot is a video from a German comedy program that is just hilarious. It's like something off the Daily Show, but with subtitles.
Where the Hell is Matt? is a crazy site about this guy who travelled the world and videotaped himself dancing everywhere, then spliced the vids together. It's pretty cool. Weird, but cool.
Holy cow. I just watched Jon Stewart's response to the 9/11 attacks on YouTube. It's here. Blows me away. I didn't get back into the Daily Show until after this aired, so I missed it. I'm glad we have YouTube so I could see it now.
I looked through Glenn Feron's portfolio again today. Man, is it good for one's self-esteem. He lets you see glamor shots both before and after retouching. If you haven't seen it before, go look. And even if you have seen it before, it's worth another glance.
Like mashups (aka bootlegs; where you take two different songs and smash them together to make a new song)? Check out BootieSF
A new law for online discourse: Tubman's Law. Brilliant.
Reader's Prayer. I want to get this done in calligraphy to hang in my library.
The late, great Cancer, Baby takes on Mood Ooglers, those horrible people who will tell you things like "smile, it can't be that bad!" even though they don't know you or know why you have your current expression on your face. Read the comments as well for more good stories of harshing on Mood Ooglers.
For those who know both the theater scene and something about religious ritual, I present: The Theater Ritual. Brilliant stuff.
Take "Super Mario Bros." and cross it with the Burly Brawl from "The Matrix Reloaded" and you get.... Super Mario Reloaded. My brain hurts. But in a good way.
Gettin' political: Lt. Ehren Watada is refusing to deploy to Iraq, citing a soldier's duty to refuse to participate in a nillegal war of aggression. Rawk.
Check it out: San Jose Metaphysical Bookshop is having a concert! It's a fundraiser to help them with the expenses of moving out of their current location and into a new one.
I am mightily peeved I can't go - one of the owners called me last night to tell me there will be a ton of vendors and performers there and it sounds like a blast.
The one thing that almost makes up for it is that if enough people who buy tickets mention my name, I will get a bigass gift certificate to the shop. Rawk! So! Go on my behalf! Have a great time! But be sure to mention me by name when you buy the tix, either over the phone or on the online form. I want that gift certificate, darnit! Plus, they're a fantastic shop and a great community resource and they need this fundraiser to go well.
This entry over at OPL is really good. So good, in fact, that I have nothing to add except "Right on!" So thanks, Nate, for taking the words out of my mouth (off my keyboard?).
Although unlike Nate I don't have contest deadlines coming up because I am so friggin' busy I never write fiction anymore. I think about it constantly, of course - in fact, I had a recent epiphany about the novel I'm plotting which I think will make it both easier to write and more interesting. I love that. I should get my shit together and write more fiction, dammit.
This post found through Carnival of Feminists gave me some food for thought. Her main point: "feminists should believe in female beauty." The tricky bit, of course, (which she leaves out) is that it should be our beauty, not what mainstream culture considers beautiful. I think we feminist women should all work on looking good to ourselves. Nevermind the rest of the world. As I have read on several feminist blogs lately, it's none of my business what other people think of me. But it is my business what I think of me. Imagine if we feminists went to the effort to make ourselves look beautiful to ourselves, so that when we caught a glimpse of ourselves in the mirrored surface of a window it made us stand up straighter? Imagine the aura we would project. That's power.
It's hard, of course, to separate society's beauty standards from our own - that takes some real work. But taking care of our bodies, keeping them in good health and avoiding fashion mags like the plague is a good start. I know some women who do this already, which is very cool. But some of us (like me, for example) need a little work.
Feminist men can do something about this too: believe in female beauty, real female beauty - not the stick-thin, plastic crap the media is selling. Appreciate the beauty inherent in all women if you don't already. (Most of the guys I know are better at this than most women would give them credit for. But then, the guys I know are by and large awesome.)
This clip makes me wonder if I should start watching Boston Legal. It's the closing arguments from a recent ep, with a fantastic, impassioned speech by James Spader. Huzzah.
Here's a transcript, in case you can't listen to it at work.
After the prosecution's arguments, Spader's character gets up and says: