OMG.

Now I'm leaving to baby-sit and will continue watching there.

OMG.

More coherence when I can actually take everything in!

Fucking hell.

This is some brilliant television!

I've just been told by the BFF who downloaded the 3ed Season of Torchwood for me that it is burned onto a DVD and I should be getting it today.

I'm so freakin' nervous.

Torchwood, the show and the fandom, take up about the same kind of emotional and cerebral space that I thought would never be able to be shared with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and to a certain extent Harry Potter.

I've been very good about avoiding spoilers, though I watch various communities and blogs who are TW fandomy, I only got tiny details by osmosis and one big something that I hope doesn't mean what I think it means but I'm keeping my mind open to whatever happens in these five episodes.

I'll talk more at length about "Children of Earth" after I've actually viewed them, I'll even write (a) reaction post(s) before I read any other Meta and/or Fic, though I'm really, really tempted.

I think it's fairly clear that when it comes to which show I prefer, it is Torchwood and not Doctor who that stole my heart - though I love the Doctor and his Companions and will regale to anyone who will (or won't) listen about how fucking awesome New!Who is.

Torchwood however, is something else.

( Spoilers for lots of stuff (not including season 3 of TW as I have not seen it yet) )

I'm really looking forward to "Children on Earth", though I am very scared of what may happen.

I actually have a lot to write about.

However, the home environment is not conducive to writing.

I am distracted by trying to avoid Torchwood spoilers. Soon the "Children of Earth" episode 3 of the third season of TW will air in the UK.

I am trying so hard to avoid them as I plan to marathon the five eps of Saturday/Sunday and finally be able to participate in the discussions, read the fic and write my own bloody meta!

I'll write some for the radio plays as well when I'm over the overwhelming antici(say-it-master)pation... *sigh*.

Props to [Southern!Girl] and the rest of my BFF's for putting up with my huge Fangrrl!Monster.

Y'all know I'm bigger on the inside.

The first line of today's Torchwood radio play was Ianto's and he said:
"All right Jack, I'm in position".
My mind immedeatly went to "hehe, sex positions".

Not only do I have Slash goggles, I have Slash earphones.

I haven't written a fandom meta in a while, not just a review or a small comment. But full fledged talking about the affect of media has on us.

I mention my Slash love because yesterday there was a bit of bigotry in fandom: xtricks ( reports )

Now, homophobia is a bad thing. And really, fandom for me, is an escape from that. But of course that isn't really so. Fandom, like everything else, cannot be culturally removed.
I link to her a lot, but she's really brilliant; rm wrote an entry about this little bout of bigotry regarding the fact that Gay people are real, Slash is a genre... the two are connected: ( Quote )

Quite a bit if discussion are in those posts, but I have my own thoughts about.
Personal preference for me is Slash(1) of the male/male kind.
My current fandom favourite has a male homosexual couple as part of the canon.
I prefer to read stories in which sex and violence are explicit.

I've often tried to think about why I, a feminist, a queer woman; I prefer to read stories, get turned on by stories, share sexy man-on-man stories with my dyke GF who also enjoys 'em (I only send her the really good ones!) in which my subjectivity has to be shifted into that of a man.

What's the difference between that and girl-on-girl porn written by men? Or a "Mills and Boon" bodice ripper written by women?

Personally speaking, it just feels difference. That's gut feeling.

There are plenty of PWP (Plot? What Plot?/Porn Without Plot) stories out there, in which the only thing written is sex, explicit and very fun.

The gut feeling difference is that good stories, even PWP, is that the people written still feel like People.
Jack and Ianto remain them even when they're just fucking. They remain who they are, whether they are comforting each other, dominating one another or are hating each other to their marrows and the consent in dubious.

Mainstream porn (both written and visual) is about objectification and fetishism.

Slash... well, good slash, subverts that.
The fucking that we love to read is done by characters who are people. It's what I love about fandom, it uses a world that more often than not is pretty hole-filled and manages to construct an alternative narrative which manages to make a world that actually feels more real than the one originally created... even if it's just a bedroom.

Of course, the main thing I love about Slash is the fact that it is not Straight(2). Through fanfic and Slash in particular, this confused 13 year old girl learned what it is that people of the same sex can do together, because honestly, look around, we are only now seeing characters with desires that match our own that aren't accessories, comical tropes or tragic figures(3).
I like reading characters who revel in their sexuality without the mind numbing crushing shame - or actually see them deal with the shame that may or may not be thrust upon them and not die - or see that sexuality explored without apology.

As a queer woman who reads fiction that is more often than not written by other women (queer and not) about men who are sexual with each other... in a society that tells me that that is not so legitimate, I feel stronger.
It brings me comfort.
It enables me to consider sides of characters (humanity) I did not think about, because slash is a literary Meta on the world and characters written about.

And that's awesome.

However, as stated in the above quotes, queer people are real, homophobia touches us. The stories we read and write are not in a vacuum. The internet is a hot bed of hate and vitriol that surpasses the "real" world.
That some in fandom consider it disconnected from the very real power dynamics that affect us is at best silly and at worst exclusionary and violent.

And that, friends, is awful.

Yeah, I know, I ended it on a bit of a low note. Whatcha' gonna do...

Notes
(1) I love Het, Gen and Femmslash as well. But Slash is what I look for more than any other genre.
(2) Good Het or Gen isn't Straight either, imo.
(3) I hated "Brokeback Mountain".

As most of us Torchwood fans know, next week the 3rd season of Torchwood, a five part mini-series called Children of Earth will go on air, much to our delight, happiness and glory because Dude... there has not been new canon in a long, loooong time (I do not include the novels and audio books).

If you recall, the BBC produced a Torchwood Radio Play called Lost Souls to coincide with the day the Large Hadron Collider was switched on, on the 10th of September 2008.

The BBC are just that geeky.

Any way. Because of Lost Souls popularity, the BBC produced three more Torchwood Radio Plays - BBC Radio 4. They are going to be transmitted one day after the other - Today, Tomorrow and Friday.

Now, I can listen to them just fine, because BBC Radio is like any other online radio station. However... I cannot download the plays as I do not live in the UK.

So, I was wondering... if one of my frieds who lives in the UK would download it and then share the file in Megaupload or YouSendit or some other file share website.

I would be eternally grateful. If that doesn't happen, no worries, but I'd really, really appreciate it.

I downloaded it just fine! :D

Thanks you in advance for indulging this crazy, crazy person... I dunno how I'm going to be able to watch the actual mini-series as I do not in fact have any download capabilities and I don't trust myself with torrents.
Yeah, yeah, Luddite me, blah blah.

Today there is new Torchwood.
I'm happy.

And now, back to reading boring things.

Remember how yesterday I wrote how Pride went without incidence?

Well, if you read the comments, you'll see that it wasn't 100% without incident.

The night after the march there were parties over the city, including a Dress-Up Gender Blender. Four friends left the club, a bunch of thugs caught sight of them and didn't seem to be able to handle the fact that Transpeople and Lesbians were walking around unashamed.

They began to curse and swear at the Transwoman - shall remain nameless as I do not have her permission to put her name here - who tried to reason with them; they demanded that she "fight like a man".
Her friends came to help, and they were beaten up as well.

A bystander came to their help and got them across the street.

At this time no one is placing any charges with the police. Even if they did, it would be unlikely that any good would come of it.

The Transwoman told a friend of hers that this sort of thing is practically a daily occurrence. That this is nothing special.
I cannot begin to imagine living like that. To be targeted because you do not fit an inmage is a person's mind.
Because the idea of gender variance is such a danger to the patriarchal frame in which we live and so few actually question.

The frisking was far more malicious than I first thought. I heard they were very touchy feely with Transpeople, Butch Dykes and people who came cross-dressed.

I got off lightly. As is generally the case.

I'm so pissed off I am barely coherent.

When I spoke about to my sister, regarding the body search, she said it was to cover their asses. There is covering ones ass and there is assault - and yes, as was commented - that kind of groping and humiliation is assault.
But it is soft and for "our own safety", no one who was there to protect us would ever consider us fair game for some identity policing: "It may be fine for you to march, but your right to exist as human beings is still questioned".

I think that because [Southern!Girl] is the first girl I've dated long enough to introduce to the family as my GF and to be public about it without too many closet issues, it has really brought home all the issues I don't think I've ever had to deal with before.
I've been secure in my Bi identity for years, dating men, however, did make me blind to the politics of such an identity - and only when I began to be Queer - which happened after I was discharged from the IDF - did I also become more politically aware in general.

Getting back to my point.

I remember being asked; what is so special about being gay*?

*The mainstream umbrella term for anyone who is not straight. There is a bit of an issue getting LGBT into mainstream discourse... let's not even talk about the word Queer - that's a whole can of worms.

The assumption of heterosexuality is so strong and so destructive. Not only that, the assumption of what is the right kind of heterosexual, what is normative, creates categories so rigid and so suffocating that people literally die from it.

Homo-les-bi-transphobia is not just the violence that those people had to endure as I wrote above.
It is the double standard placed upon such an identity. The policing of when such an identity is approved of (only inside away from the public).

I was told that being Out as a Mother can also cause problems in the workplace.
Sexism is indeed a problem.
The Mother identity is very much a problematic one for women.
However, being a mother makes you automatically accepted as a (re)producer in society. Being a mother is not an illegitimate identity as an identity - the problem is with public expectations from Mothers.

Gay identity is perceived as a threat to the building blocks of society, because it automatically rejects the heteronormative roles forced upon us from fetushood.

Even by becoming parents, which in Israel helps a lot - because a child is a blessing in breeding centric society like mine - who you are still under threat: "you're a real woman now" to a woman, who may very well be in the middle of transitioning to a man.
Not to mention that the assumption still remains hetero, there must be a father somewhere and there must be a mother somewhere.
And of course... there must be Female Mothers and Male Fathers.

My point.
The point it.
There are places in which we can walk without fear, but only a small percentage of us. We are still stated at, gawked at, whispered about, "who is the man? who is the woman", "you just need a Real Man", "Are you sure?", "It's just a phase", "Must you advertise your sexuality".

All that. It's got to go. Not in a while. Not in a generation maybe two. Pronto.

A Butch
It's starts like a joke you'd tell in a Dyke bar, except it happened in my dad's Pharmacy.
( So this Butch walks into a shop... )

A Clueless Teen
OMG.
Seriously.
OMG.
What has become of Israel sex-ed program.
Dude.

The other day a kid, no older that 16 or 17 walked into the pharmacy and asked to by the Morning After Pill (which is sold over the counter, no need for a script and it's known as Postinor) and I in my mind I was going; Buy some condoms. ( Eventually... he did )

J-Lem Pride
It was, in fact, quite uneventful, thanks to the heat (probably).
On the way to the park in which we assembled I saw some Religious Nuts with signs that said things like: "Abomination" and "Go Straight, for Family's Sake", but they weren't allowed to come into the park.
And that was pretty much it.
( No, not really )
We've still got a long way to go.

nurint met up with us after, which was great fun, as she actually lives in J-Lem and took us to a great restaurant and showed us around the City Centre.
She then carted us to our respective places, which was so great of her.
Thank you my friend!

All in all.
Pretty good week, despite not spending enough time with [Southern!Girl].
But that we can rectify.

Notes
(1)This lecturer has often spoken about Butch identity and the fact that she's never felt as anything other than a Butch Lesbian Woman... so I felt confident is saying that to that asshole guy.

Mandatory Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett RIP mention.

Each in their own, and very different, ways, shaped pop-culture as we know it.

Thank you for the music and great characters.

Personally, Michael Jackson will always be the artist I associate with my childhood favourite movie "Free Willy" and much like other cultural phenomena of the time, helped shape my conciousness regarding global and environmental issues.

Personally, "Charlie's Angles" was one of the first live-action shows I watched on television and I thought I could be super hero like the rest of those girls, along with Mrs King, Cagney and Lacy and Remington Steel.

( Video under the cut - you may skip, it is cheesy )

I'm heading to Jerusalem tomorrow.

The main reason being Pride and the second reason being that my Eldest sister lives there with her family and she needs me for the evening/Friday morning.

It all worked out in the end (even though Exam season impinged on me being able to spend any significant time with [Southern!Girl] this week - which is her Birthday week, *curses*).
[Southern!Girl] and I will be marching with the everyone else.

Jerusalem Pride is different from Tel-Aviv Pride, or the tiny Pride in Haifa or even the one in Tourist Town Eilat.

Jerusalem, is not a united City.
It never was.
Nor, I fear, will it ever be.

But queers of every colour and creed live there.
The Jerusalem Open House is one of the few places in which Orthodox Jews, Muslims and Christians who are Queer can be out, attain information and actually feel the solidarity they so sorely lack in their "home" environments.

And this is contentious.

Because Jerusalem is a Holy City.

My sceptical brain thinks this is malarkey. My Jewish heritage says this is a part of my history. My Israeli mouth says "על הזין שלי" crudely "on my dick" which is an phrase loosely translated as "Fuck it".

I like it.

Yes, the march, is considered a provocation. Jerusalem Pride isn't a Parade. There are no floats, no advertisements, no scantily clad men and women revelling in their sexuality while people watch from the sidelines and will either join in or simply enjoy the scene.

Every time human rights are on the agenda it is provocative.

We are creating a scene.

Because the religions that make that City what it is are also a part of the power structure that demands that queers be quiet, be silent.
A silence that is so violent, it scars our bodies and our souls and has made this march so dangerous in the past (last year was the first time there wasn't any real violence committed upon the people walking), we can never forget that in 2005 three people were stabbed for "being queer and here".

It looks like it's going to be a quiet time this year as well.

It's the heat. June is not an easy month for day time events in Israel and Palestine. It's also being exposed to "immodest" people. Can't be contaminated by the "sex" we queers exude from just being in the same vicinity as straight people.
However, that is beyond the point. Religion and violence that is.

As Israel's Capital.
As a place in which LGBTQ people live.
We have a right to express the fact that there is still work to be done.
That we will not twiddle our thumbs while we are still considered "different" under the law.

That we protest the idea of normal.
There is no such thing as "normal".

There is only variety.

And in Jerusalem, ostensibly the most diverse city in Israel, we march for our human rights and with any luck, even have some fun doing so.

Good night. A Happy 40th Stonewall to us all! Yes, I know it's on the 28th... close enough!

Over the past two weeks I've been mainly following the situation in Iran because, well, everyone else is following it.

I have no qualms about the fact of being a part of the sheeple.

From my own little prism here, I can look at the Israeli and the feminist connection. Not much is being said about the former except with Israel itself which has been a notorious sabre rattler towards Iran for the past, I can't rightly say, but ever since 2006 and Benjamin Netanyahu's reference to Iran=Germany, Year=1938 and Ahmadenijad=Hitler, Iran has been a fairly regular Starman Boogie Man in my perception of current Israeli conciousness.

Israel has been used the same way in Ahmadenijad's rhetoric.

Peas in a pod.

I'll move on to what I actually want to talk about.

This very interesting article breaks down the dynamics of the mainstream media, what is covered, what isn't a why.

( Quotes )

Neda has become the Iranian woman who is ALL Iranian Women.

The role and portrayal of women in Iran over the past 10 (now more) days has been covered extensively.
Because it took me a couple of days to join the online "amateur" media brouhaha the first article on the subject about the portrayal of Iranian women in the protests and demonstrations was the Racialicious article So You Think You Want A Revolution (In a Loose Headscarf - I think since Christiane Amanpour the West's perception of Iranian women has been that of modern women in a heinous situation - most likely before Amanpour, but she is certainly a huge figure and symbol of Westernised Iranian woman, which is obviously a plus.
Not to mention Marjane Satrapi, Azar Nafisi and of course Zahra Rahnavard, all of whom are inspirational and modern and less-than-overtly-traditional (some of them outright secular).

And that's what we like to see.

Beautiful women fighting for their right to be free from religious oppression and tyranny.

It's also a romanticism of the violence that is going on there.
Yes, they are taking the punches and they are fierce and they are equal to the men out there in the street.

But it feels like there's an exotification game going on here.
The deaths and violence are tragic and we, watching the News, view them as a form of entertainment.

These women are being looked at. Gazed upon.

Mousavi may be a Reformer, but back in the 80's he wasn't so progressive, could he have changed perhaps, but the Ayatollah regime persists and will probably not be taken down in the near future (though no one suspected the protests and riots to go on for this long).

The mainstream media's obsession with the images of women, I think, beyond making the whole damn thing romantic, makes it beautiful. The image of Neda bloody and bruised and so beautifully mourned and grieved over is the way we should view Iran itself: bloody and beautiful.
Exotic.

That isn't to say I don't admire the women who are going out there everyday, fighting tooth and nail to be heard over the mayhem of their situation.
I do.
I can only hope I have an ounce of their courage.

I'm just saying, be wary of how they are being seen.
Because there is something beyond the headscarf and the blood on Neda's face.

More articles on the subject:
CNN: Iranian women stand up in defiance.
Slate: Woman Power; Regimes that repress the civil and human rights of half their population are inherently unstable..
Feministing: The Women Protesting in Iran.

Via sabotabby:

Every now and then the police arrest somebody suspected of some terrible, violent crime, and as a piece of public relations they'll announce all of the horrible books, movies and/or CDs they found in the suspect's house, as if to prove that the suspect is obviously guilty and horrible and monstrous.

So here is my challenge to you. You can either do this from memory or take a moment to look through your book and music collections, and then answer this question:

Name ten books, CDs and/or movies that you own that the police would cite as evidence against you at their press conference.

Now, I don't actually have much "subversive" stuff in Hard Copy (I'm pretty screwed if the authorities get their hands on Ursula the Laptop and/or my Disk-on-Key), but here are the things I think may raise some suspicion if I'm deemed "anti-social":
( Under the Cut - Nothing by Marx! )

I have some Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, Bertrand Russel and the like, and of course, other books about sexuality (queer, BDSM) and various other feminist politics, but those are just for fun.
Of course.

( Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) vs Edward Cullen (Twilight) )

Buffy rocks.
Period.
"Twilight" can go suck on a stale bag of O Neg and perish quickly into the aether never to return.
Please.
Now-ish!

This is of course, memed everywhere.

This the text that accompanies this brilliant remix at the blip.tv link:

In this remixed narrative, Edward Cullen from the Twilight Series meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer at Sunnydale High. It's an example of transformative storytelling serving as a visual critique of Edward's character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy's eyes some of the more patriarchal gender roles and sexist Hollywood tropes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed in hilarious ways. --- This transformative work constitutes a fair-use of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law. The remix is licensed under a creative commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 license. -- Find me at www.rebelliouspixels.com

In the beginning of June cereta wrote a post titled: On Rape and Men (Oh yes, I'm going there), in which she basically lays out what it is that men can do to prevent rape.

Because make no mistake.
Rape is not something that happens.
It is a crime committed upon a victim who is will, almost every time, be a part of a group that is less powerful in the very unequal power dynamic in which we live; that is, women of almost every intersection, queer men, people who are gender variant, children, the elderly, prisoners, etc.

I qualify the above with "almost every time", because straight cis men are also raped and women can assault and molesters as well.

However, the epidemic of Rape as it stands now, makes that a small qualifier.

The culture in which we live, which is that of under reporting of the crime and the derailment of the issue time and time again to:
#1 This is a women's issue you deal with it. (Despite it being done by men)
#2 What about those who are falsely accused of rape. (Despite the fact that it is a crime that is falsly reported no more or no less than any other crime, that is, a minuscule amount compares to the actual crime being committed).

Do not negate the fact that Rape happens.

All the time, every day, to - according to current statistics - 1 in 4 women and this is just what is reported.
As I said, this is a crime that is under reported.

One of the foci of cereta's post was the fact that we barely hear about the men who do not rape. That is, about the men who are in the presence of a woman who is in a vulnerable position and do not take advantage of this.
Those men, she says and I paraphrase, need to speak up and educate others and tell them that you do not invade another persons body, that drunken consent in not consent, that a woman walking around in a mini-skirt and a plunging neck line is not "asking for it".
That no woman is silently asking to be taken against her will.

Just as an aside: anybody who wants to mention Rape Fantasies will be smacked down. This is not what I'm talking about and has very very little do with the discussion at hand. Keep your thoughts and ideas about Rape Fantasy to an entry in which I discuss sex politics, not here, when I am talking about a crime that is too often relegated to the realm fantasy and disbelief.

The strategy that cereta suggests in her post and others in her comments is a bit of a double edged sword. And it suggests a reality which we don't really want to contemplate, because the majority of us (as in women, but people in general) do not want to consider Rape the norm and the avoidance of rape as something special.
Decent human behaviour should be the norm, mentioning how you (a guy in a position of power) were once in a position to violate a girl but didn't, in fact even did your best to make sure she wasn't harmed while she was in this state, shouldn't be an incident worth telling in ones honour.
It should be what every man in that situation would do.

Women have been told, time and time again, don't be a victim. Don't go out late at night. Don't drink too much. Don't accept rides from strangers. Don't do this, don't do that.
Basically, policing our living space in the name of our own protection.
But that's just another way of reducing our lives in general.
Boys should be told, from childhood, as girls are, don't be an aggressor, you do not have the right over someone else's body. Women's bodies are not something you are entitled to.

You get the picture.

I have a story of my own about being in a vulnerable position and was not assaulted. I no longer allow myself to be so intoxicated that I find myself waking up with hazy memories.
I don't feel the need to recount it here because this was over five years ago and it really isn't a story.
But you know, it kinds is, because I was very fortunate.
I may not be so lucky in the future.

This post is only one of many that have been inspired by cereta's post - in the comments (of which there are 22 pages) there is a thread with links to other posts on this subject.

It's awfully telling that while this is being spoken about in the feminist blogosphere a South African survey shows that 1 in 4 South African men admit to committing rape. These are just the men who admitted it.
This is very illuminating considering the fact that in March a report about the "corrective rape" of South African Lesbians was published in the Guardian.
Both these articles may be triggering.

Rape and violence are always compounded when it is committed within and upon a population is still recovering from a very long period of oppression, suppression and is basically backlashing against the history of it's own violence.

That's very academic, and is really of no consequence to the victims and survivors of the culture in which they have to live.
So moving on.

It would seem that despite feminism being around since the turn of the 20th century, not much good has been done for women who are still systematically put in the "weak" box.

But we are talking about this.
We are writing the stories and telling them.
We are owning them and trying to get the myths regarding them eradicated.

Once, the articles linked above wouldn't have been stories worth mentioning. They would have been part of that culture.
Once, anyone talking about the systemic culture of rape would have been labelled as crazy, now I think we may be slowly but surely getting somewhere.
So very slowly, but very surely.

That's all about this at this point.

Once again, the brilliant rm writes about the fact that "Eqaulity Isn't a Subject for Debate".

Here is the text, in its entirety:

I live in a country where it is illegal for me to have the same rights as a cisgendered person in a heterosexual relationship. That's what the Defense of Marriage Act and a host of other laws addressing the lives of GBLTQ people mean.

But here's the thing -- and I assume this is preaching to the choir, but one never really knows who is going to stumble on my life journal -- actually all this DoMA and related stuff effects you, the cisgendered straight people too.

Really.

Because you never, ever know what your life is going to look like.

Now, I'm not saying you're going to turn gay all of a sudden, and we certainly don't recruit. (Have you looked at my journal? When would we have time to recruit?) But I think most of us -- that's us humans -- reach a point in our lives, where we look around and we go "wow, this isn't how I thought it was all going to turn out."

Because yeah, I fell in love with a girl when I was nineteen, but I also spent years of my twenties desperately in love with men and wanting baby after baby.

I never thought I would be anything but a journalist. I never thought I would have an abortion. I never thought I'd one day put on a suit that didn't have darts and have it fit me perfectly. I never thought I'd have pets. I never thought I'd live in Harlem. I never thought I'd get diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. I never thought I'd be an athlete. I never thought that my parents would adore my same-sex partner more than any boy I ever brought home.

I never thought.

Most of us don't.

My parents certainly never thought their kid would be gay.

So whoever you are reading this, if you haven't figured it out yet, your life is going to surprise you.

And until a whole bunch of laws change, one day (if it hasn't happened yet, if it doesn't happen all the time), you're going to be sitting in a bar or at brunch or in a friend's living room or in your parents' kitchem and you're going to realize that somehow, for some reason, you and someone else in that room aren't equals under the law. And, whether you come out ahead in that equation or not, if you really take a moment to understand what that means it's going to chill you to the bone.

I live in the United States of America. And it's illegal for me to be treated as equal to some of you.

Now, here's the other thing I want to address -- and that's what I'm doing, addressing this so I don't go into our living room and start ranting at my girl, AGAIN, about DoMA and Obama and how much we've fought for and how much we just haven't won yet, and how we can't wait because it's not fair that people can pass thrugh this world without even knowing the legal semblance of equality and its cultural connotation of respect - and that's that my equality as a human being isn't up for discussion.

Sure, the pundits can talk about it, the churches can preach. Obama can say the country has to move together to an understanding on this issue. I can be made abstract, and I can be told I am impatient or politically immature. Hell, my government can even issue legal arguments that imply I'm a dog-fucking pedophile.

But here's the thing. My equality? Not up for the discussion. Because I am as just as good as you. I am not lesser for my nature, nor simple for the rhetorical necessity of this focus on identity. I possess the same basic animating force as anyone else.

So y'all can debate about it all you want, from morals to timelines of acceptance.

But it doesn't change anything.

Doesn't change me.

Doesn't change the fucking ferocious dignity LGBTQ learn to live with from the moment they recognize they are somehow perceived as other, eventhough, you know, we're not.

We're just like you: mundane, over-worked and forgetting to pick up milk at the grocery store. We're just like you: awed at simple beauty and the various stupid and absurd poignancies of the human condition.


So yeah, debate it all you want. But it doesn't matter. Because it's not that you're wasting our time; it's that you're wasting yours.

So let's get over it and get this shit fixed.

The thing about stuff like DoMA is this: it's embarrassing.

It diminishes us.

And by us I don't mean LGBTQ people, I mean everyone. I mean it makes us look like a nation of frightened children.

And maybe we are.

We all are, sometimes, in the dark. But sometimes the only way to deal with fear is just... to pretend we're not scared and force ourselves to breathe until the morning comes.

We can do that, can't we? The myth of America extends that far, right? Sea to shining sea? Manifest destinay? All that bullshit? Maybe equality can be the new West. Sound like a plan?

Time to get on with it then, because the fear is so deeply unbecoming both our nation and our natures, and I for one expect better than that.

Not just of me. But of you.

I'm such a sheep.

I got a Twitter.

However, much like Facebook, it may not be around for long.

There is such a ton of information pouring out of ontd_political regarding Iran I just can't keep up! The comments are a constant update for me because I'm not following Twitter - yeah, yeah, call me a Luddite.
My Facebook is a stealth one, I'm just not keen on that kind of information sharing, which is what's making this Iran uprising both effective and so bloody dangerous for the people actively twitting and facebooking etc.

The mainstream media is just failing.

I'm mainly following BBC, Al-Jazeera and Ha'aretz and my god, stop looking at this as though this is a game of "Risk" or "Diplomacy" - this ruthless game in which Nations are monoliths and the people who actually make up that society are relegated to spectacles of violence.

Robert Fisk of The Independent wrote a brilliant article Iran's Day of Destiny.

I can't look at the Youtube footage coming out of there, same as the last time I viewed a Youtube video of a demonstration against the Separation Wall I cried for an hour.
And I've been there.
Fuck.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm pretty sure that this isn't going going to harbour the great change for Iran, much as the Iranian people deserve. The regime is too stable and the Mullah's are ruthless as we all know.

Last night I read an article in Ha'aretz that irritated me, because the head of the Mossad - the Israeli Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations - Meir Dagan, basically came to the same conclusion as me - that this won't be the great change - but also added this lovely little tidbit about how the Iran Elections affect Israel:

"The reality in Iran is not going to change because of the elections. The world and we already know [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. If the reformist candidate [Mir Hossein] Mousavi had won, Israel would have had a more serious problem because it would need to explain to the world the danger of the Iranian threat, since Mousavi is perceived internationally arena as a moderate element...It is important to remember that he is the one who began Iran's nuclear program when he was prime minister."

'Cause never mind that Ahmadiniejad is a Dictator and that with Mousavi it would have been perhaps easier to actually talk to.
There would, conceivably, been a chance to actually attempt to establish an actual diplomatic relationship with Iran.
But no, their whole national agenda is to Nuke Israel.
Duh, how could I forget.
Oh and of course - their homophobia is worse than ours.

Something tangentially related - Netanayahu's speech of utter emptiness is still making headlines in these parts.
I'd say something constructive regarding him and his "reaching out" - which btw, WHAT?! - but I think my opinions about him, the ministers and the current government in general is widely known.
Basically, him uttering the combination of words "Palestinian", "State" and "Peace" are so devoid of any real meaning that I can say that if he represents the Israeli consensus, we are as empty headed and devoid of any kind of empathy that is rightfully human.
I'm not even going to bother linking to anything he said.
Seriously.

At least in Iran there is some movement.
Israel is stagnating under the perception of Democracy - which is far more complicated here that any other place I've ever heard about.

Keep resisting!

---

I suppose at some point I will reapply my "real" Facebook and get a Twitter.

I'm a follower.

I had been trying to find good links and have something to actually say about Iran and the elections which were so blatantly falsified I don't know where to begin about that.

ontd_political has a live update on the situation to which I am linking:


I can only say, keep yourself informed, read what you can and just know that change in possible.

On a more pessimistic note, I don't think this is going to be Iran's big change. So many have already died and what with the Revolutionary Guards brining in troops from other counties - in one of Andrew Sullivan's updates at The Daily Dish, he reports that Mousavi supporters heard their attackers speak Arabic and not Farsi.

Meanwhile, as the killing, fighting and violence goes on, the Ayatollah himself is calling for National Unity. I'm interested to see if his blatant religious rhetoric will actually fool the people who are pissed off at him and his posse.

The Israeli Person-On-The-Street doesn't particularly care about all this, because both the conservative and the progressive governments would have continued with their nuclear plans and very doubtful, that even if the Reformist Mousavi would have won that he would have decided that Israel was worth talking to.
As far as Israel is concerned, if you're not with us, you're against us.
I wish we'd get it into our minds that we are, in fact, teeny-tiny and pretty much not worth thinking about by bigger, richer nations in any kind of beneficial way.
Even the EU is postponing upgrading ties with Israel.

Whatever shit the world is in, it is certainly interesting.
Can understand why that's a curse, huh.