The Washington Post has a contest for Peep-based dioramas. This year’s best are now available online.
More on the prom that wasn’t. In order to keep a lesbian teen from coming to prom with her girlfriend, the entire school (admin included) gave her the wrong intel re: the prom’s location etc., and moved prom to a secret location. Then all the girls secretly made out... at the gay free prom… then, they made a Facebook page. But, hey, it’s a really friendly town… just not for LGBT-identified teens.
LKH_Lashouts is analyzing Ardeur, the essay collection analyzing the Anita Blake series. ISB is talking about the last issue of The Laughing Corpse.
Here’s some clippings talking about dating advice for single ladies in the 1930s. Seriously, take heed. All my dates go poorly once I pass out after giving the head waiter my number.
The myth of the mean girl is just a myth. WHO KNEW? Oh, WAIT, everybody did!! That’s why series like the Babysitters’ Club, which placed female friendship front and center, were so damn successful. (I don’t care what anybody says. I am a Mary Anne and I am proud of it! Somebody’s got to be the loyal nerd, and I am HONORED — honored I tell you!! — that I get to be that for my friends.)
From Legible Susan: More on the murder of Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar.
Have you ever thought about NOT calling the police? Hm.
The color/gender/sex correlation of Pern’s dragons explained. Sort of.
Capoeira helps kids across the world!
Anyways, men cheat because of their genes.
Demi Moore calls out Kim Kardashian for glorifying pimps. In the ensuing OMG TWO FEMALE STARS HATE EACH OTHER!!! shitstorm, there’s no analysis of Demi’s point. Of course. That’s silly. I think there’s ’bout to be a what? A GIRLFIGHT.
Once again, the Church FAILS its Native constituents. WTF WTF WTF WTF. In other news: this is Confederate History month. Yay… chattel slavery?
http://www.ted.com/talks/adora_svitak.html
Dude. He killed and ATE his 16 yr old girlfriend.
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Jenn, yeah, that’s the massive practical fail of it. Not only is it impossible to gauge someone’s income, it would also be easy to get someone in a lesser income bracket to take the rap for you in many instances. In an ideal world, fines would be set by the person’s daily/weekly/monthly income, but if we lived in an ideal world, we wouldn’t need this blog :p
From what little I understand of American history there’s also a strong mantra of ‘the communists are coming!’ that can be used whenever anyone tried to do something that means rich and poor get treated alike. ‘Cos, you know, you can’t have a strong welfare system AND a free market. Just ask, well, pretty much anyone in Europe:p
Scarlett(Quote) (Reply)
CharlesRB, those aren’t the studies our allegedly liberal media reports.
Interestingly, a British ex-pat here in the US once explained to me NHS was the reason he and so many other Brits smoked. If they had to pay for treatment, he seemed to think, they would think twice about smoking. This struck me as pretty absurd since there’s about fuck-all a doctor can do about the effects of smoking, no matter who’s paying for the treatment.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
They bloody are the studies OURS reports, pointing out “hey, look how low down the UK is!” whether I want to know or not. (Last time I saw it, we were slightly worse than the States)
I’ve not heard that one before. I think so many other Brits smoke just because they like smoking, and it was historically a popular hobby. The smoking bans in public places seem to have reduced the amount of smoking though, because who wants to go stand outside all the time?
Charles RB(Quote) (Reply)
Ah, so THAT’S why so many Australians under 40 have taken up smoking even though people have known for 30 years how dangerous it is to your health. It’s not because they picked up the habit when they were teenagers and too young and dumb to know better, it’s because they know that the public health scheme will take care of them :p
Scarlett(Quote) (Reply)
CharlesRB, I believe you. There is powerful manipulation of our supposedly free press in this country. Some good examples of carefully selected studies being misreported to suit a political agenda can be found in Susan Faludi’s “Backlash.” I read the BBC website as my primary news source on the US because it strikes me as the least biased reporting, then check sites like CNN to see how we’re distorting or picking and choosing the news over here.
Additionally, it’s just assumed that Americans are painfully stupid, therefore tabloid news and dramatic personal stories about some dude that did some thing always trump stories about politics and war and stuff. When I moved to L.A., I was stunned to find all the local news was pretty much “Celebrity did this celebrity did that celebrity’s husband said blah and there was a shooting in North Hollywood and what are celebrities wearing to the Oscars this year?” It’s not like we don’t have major crimes committed daily – it has to be, like a triple rape-homicide to make the news at all, let alone maybe beat out the latest on some celeb feud for the top spot.
Scarlett, exactly! Clearly, if you have a national health service, IT HAS THE CURE TO LUNG CANCER and is simply withholding it from everyone who has to pay for their own healthcare. /eye-roll
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
The BBC is required by law to be objective and unbiased, and faces political shitstorms if it ever is perceived to not be. As a result, they’ve reached the point where Thatcher called them “unacceptably even-handed” during wartime!
So, what was the explanation for why people in the States like smoking?
Charles RB(Quote) (Reply)
After having my thoughts nearly constantly return to the catholic church and child abuse nearly all weekend, what gem does gmx link me to this morning? British atheists looking into a possibility of going to international court in Den Haag.
Original article in german, and the source in english. (If html hates me again, Jennifer, please fix it). Wonder, if they’ll actually follow through with it. And if it will be enough of a scandal to finally bring a change.
Elee(Quote) (Reply)
Hmm. It does hate me. Or else I forget some important tag, not required to it very often. Here are the links without tags:
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5419 http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/0,1518,688350,00.html
Elee(Quote) (Reply)
What I’d like to know, then, is what exactly is keeping blue and brown dragons (I suppose bronze would be too much to ask for ;p) from impressing masculine women, then? I mean, if the dragon hatchlings are going purely off of hormone/pheromone/whatever cues, would that not also include butch women as well as femme men? Meh. Inconsistencies in fantasy worlds are somewhat of a pet peeve for me. Because I’m an incurable nerd.
I loved the Pern series as a kid – around age 12ish, I think? Now I reflect on it as an adult and I’m quite disappointed. From a gender perspective, the Pern series isn’t exactly the most enlightened or egalitarian material. There’s even a lengthy entry with great comments at this feminist sci-fi blog, one of which includes quoted excerpts from the books about happy topics like rape and domestic abuse that make you go “BUH?!” with disbelief. Did she really write that?! Apparently she did… :O
Also troublesome is the alleged quote of McCaffrey’s infamous “tent peg theory” on homosexuality -
“It’s a proven fact that a single anal sex experience causes one to be homosexual. The hormones released by a sexual situation involving the anus being broached, are the same hormones found in large quantities in effeminate homosexual males. For example, when I was much younger I knew a young man who was for all intents and purposes, heterosexual. He was mugged, and involved in a rape situation involving a tent peg. This one event was enough to have him start on a road that eventually led to him becoming effeminate and gay.”
It’s still unclear whether McCaffrey actually said this and her family has subsequently made an attempt to squelch all evidence, or if it’s all just total bunk. I really want to believe the latter, but I’m not 100% certain… :/
Lindsay(Quote) (Reply)
The BBC is required by law to be objective and unbiased, and faces political shitstorms if it ever is perceived to not be.
So is ours, of course! Which means: IF the media presents one political agenda, they must pick the stupidest person they can find from the other side of the issue to represent it so that it looks ridiculous. However, when they’re reporting “studies”, they can pick and choose what they want to report, and they don’t have to report any contradictory studies.
A couple of years ago, Sweden did a study where they put young healthy people on fast food diets to see what happened. They anticipated the saturated fat would cause elevated bad cholesterol, weight gain and various internal organ issues. The internal organ issues turned out worse than expected – some people had to be removed from the study before liver damage could occur. But this turned out to be from the soda sugar, not the saturated fat. The fat actually elevated GOOD cholesterol, in contradiction of everything scientists have assumed for years. Other countries reported the study as needing additional data to reach firm conclusions, but certainly suggesting previous conclusions weren’t the full story.
But how did the US report it? No mention of sugar. Every report of this study was on how fat is bad, fat will kill you, fat causes everything from acne to spontaneous combustion. Check this out:
Studies have shown that a diet high in fat and calories — the magic recipe for delicious, greasy fast food — puts people at greater risk for obesity and type 2 diabetes, both of which can lead to cardiovascular diseases and heart failure.
This isn’t even factually accurate. SUGAR and refined carbs are the main factor in Type 2 diabetes – the fact that many people who consume lots of that also consume lots of fat and calories is correlation, not causation. But in the US, we’re on a mission to prove that fat – both what appears on one’s body and the fat we eat – is evil evil evil and if only we would eliminate fat COMPLETELY from the face of the earth everything would be fine and, by the way, you can blame FAT PEOPLE for everything that has ever gone wrong ever since life began.
We don’t want facts: we want an excuse to blame something for everything. That’s what underlies all our politics and all our stupor-inducing “entertainment” and everything else that marks American culture.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Lindsay, so when my OB-GYN sticks a finger up my ass to probe for whatever it is they’re probing for when they do that, if I experience a fleeting misfiring in the nether regions and kinda enjoy it, I will turn into a gay man? Good to know!
*pounding the desk laughing*
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
OMG PERN. I loved Renegades of Pern and then I kept re-reading it obsessively to try and make sense of why Aramina didn’t use her I HEAR DRAGONS power in a way that made any sense whatsoever. Why the shit does she depend on Jayge to save her? It’s like this vast anti-feminist metaphor, where Aramina’s personal abilities are keeping her from having the life she always wanted — a country life where she has a lot of babies and does hard physical labor like all the time.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Also: Can someone explain why Menolly wasn’t able to become Master Harper?
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
@Maria What? She wasn’t? I thought she was being set up to become Master Harper! This was before I broke up with Pern, mind you, which was years ago.
Ugh, so disillusioned now.
Havoc(Quote) (Reply)
No, her husband Sebell does… who’s so like their mutual mentor Robinton it’s creepy.
Gah. I’ve been debating reading the new books (Aramina pisses me off but for some reason I really identified with her, and I’m curious how she and her family is doing) but can’t quite handle that.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Okay, Sebell shouldn’t be Master Harper. Ugh, why?
This reminds me of all those 80s era science fiction novels where the men are the Awesomest Ever At What They Do, and their women love interests are invariably the Awesomest Ever Except For The Man They’re Paired With. And of course the confidence of the women is built up in spades by the very paternalistic discussions that they have with their loves, the Awesomest Man Ever. (I have a rant. It’s a very long, very vitriolic rant about how the women are never allowed to be more awesome than the men.)
But Anne McCaffrey wrote Sebell becoming Master Harper AFTER the 80s. I had hoped she’d learned better. I thought she had learned it was okay to write an awesome female character, what with Lessa in the first two books being so awesome.
Menolly was the more creative of the two of them. She certainly should have been able to earn the title of Master Harper.
I…have no idea who Aramina is. Sadly.
Havoc(Quote) (Reply)
Aramina is Lessa’s cousin, who like Lessa can hear all dragons and also hear dolphins. Unlike Lessa, Aramina doesn’t want to become a Weyrwoman. Instead, she wants to like, be Jayge’s wife or some shit? Anyways, he and his uncle rescue her when she gets kidnapped by the evil baddies who want to exploit her for her powers. Then her and Jayge flee to the South and start a hold there.
It’s funny — she’s a major plot point in Renegades, but is ultimately a pretty minor character, since she’s important for what she IS (the girl who can hear dragons!!) vs. what she DOES (escape and create her own life with her husband in a new land, which I think I really admired as a tween).
Also, speaking of the South… what a colonialist fantasy to have an entire continent empty of people where it turns out it was yours all along because you’d colonized it ages ago and just forgot.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Haha – exactly, Jennifer! For such a talented and – what I had thought, anyway – intelligent writer as she is, McCaffrey sure seems to possess some rather backwards and screwy views. It leaves me at a loss for words if the woman really did say that about gay men – and believes it, to boot! O_o
The female characters brought up in the comments gets me to thinkin’ again about the girls in the series – Menolly, Aramina, Mirrim, etc. – and it pains me to read of their eventual fates as characters within the overall chronicle. I remember Menolly being an especially exceptional musician… and yet her husband becomes the next Master Harper? What a ham-fisted patriarchal maneuver! *grumble* It also seems that the vast majority of women in the books, no matter how significant a character they were, dream of nothing more than domestic bliss in which they cook and clean for Teh Mens and have lots of Teh Behbehs… because that’s what every woman wants, right? e_e
I also think about the “bad” females in the books, who were coded as such by being fat or “slutty.” Even the most spotlit woman of the novels – Lessa – is often an hysterical shrew who has to be controlled by her Most Manliest of Men partner – someone she’s not exactly with by choice. I remember being irritated by her character even as a kid – wondering why she would be freaking out all the time, and such. And of course, female sexuality – symbolized by the queen dragons in heat, among other things – is a fearful and nigh uncontrollable thing to be mastered. *sigh*
I still have my old Pern books stored away in a box; I meant to read them through one more time before getting rid of them. Now I’m not sure I should even bother. :p
Lindsay(Quote) (Reply)
It’s not what every woman wants — it’s what every woman who’s been forced to be strong/independent wants. I think that’s the poisonous part of the message. Menolly cannot be happy having escaped an abusive household and impressing a bunch of fire lizards. No — the way she’s truly conquered her past is to spawn.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
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