Not Anonymous

"You can't touch me there"

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:19:26 GMT

Via rm I discovered the comm kinkfreezone and friends... for a fanfic comm that allows high ratings on the fics and includes Slash, Het and Gen; I have never in my whole on-line life seen a more sex-negative fic community.

Wanting to have a community and specific requirements on fic is fine, fun and dandy. Honestly, it is. Wanting to exclude certain criteria that you and others would rather not read, very fine, your prerogative.
That's not the issue.

The issue is with language and the so-called binary of Vanilla and Kink.

For a more lighthearted, yet not, commentary on the list of kinks NOT permitted you can read thingswithwings' entry here. The comments are hilarious.

But oh, where to start... hmm, possibly from the most offensive one:

Gender themes (gender confusion; sex changes; genderfucks; hermaphrodites; cross-dressing or other forms of genderbending; drag queens and transvestites; androgyny; forced feminization; butch/femme; tomboys).
Ya know, these are actual honest to god actual identities in the real world. The way this is worded, the explicit implication is that the very existence of these, ontologically speaking, in a fic is a kink. Rather than, for example, a person with a specific gender identity. Butch and Femme, are gender identities. Androgyny is also an identity. A sex change is something people do in order to live their lives.
You want to exclude "chicks with dicks" and "guys with pussies", that's fine. Don't start saying the actual identity is a fucking fetish.

Orientation issues (confusion; discovery and coming out; self-hatred; two-beer queers; homosexual panic).
Now how to you explain two people who are explicitly straight in canon falling for each other, I ask?
How the hell, is this a kink? I demand an explanation!

Situational homosexuality.
Bwahahahahahaha! I'm sorry, what? they have Homosocial Environments as well and I'm genuinely baffled by this. How is this a kink? This is a PLOT for a "Plot? What Plot" fic... it can even be, ya know, actual circumstances.

Power issues (inequities in beauty, rank, or class; power games; BDSM; power reversals; sheikhs, sultans, princes, and other royal figures; teacher/student pairings; magical powers; abuse of power; blackmail; romantic slavery; liege/lord pairings; issues of respect; sexual scenarios such as a dominant character giving his partner to others to use, or a character kneeling beneath a desk and blowing someone who's on the phone).
There goes every single fandom that has a team, ranks, people of different genders, race and nationalities.
*Thumbs up*

Religion (sin; faith and lack of faith; priests, monks, nuns, etc; shamans; biblical characters; angels and demons; gods and goddesses; saints; monastic or convent culture).
Because religious people do not include their lives into their sex lives.

Predator/prey pairings.
There goes Buffy fandom.

Striptease.
Don't look while I get naked under the covers! No peeking! That's oh-so kinky!

Voice fetishization (cracking or broken; husky, low, throaty; purring; accents; whispering close to someone's ear).
Fucking hell! Involuntary reaction is not a kink. No, really. This is possibly the most absurd (not offensive, I've listed things I found particularly offensive) criterion on this list.

That whole list needs a serious language editor, a workshop in sex-positivism and just a little shake-up when it comes to Vanilla/Kink binary - here's a secret... it's NOT!).

Enjoy mocking the whole thing.

Edited to Add: Amazing what going to bed will do.
My comment in now deleted, as are all the other critical comments made on the post - I restrained myself a lot and wanted to be respectful, I may have failed a tad.
Here's my comment for keeps:

This list has extremely problematic and prejudicial language.
Perhaps if you edited it, it would read differently, but as it stands, this is offensive to a whole slew of people who you included as a kink.
Some of these aren't even kinks but literary tropes!
Trope=/=Kink, please learn the difference.

Also, including involuntary bodily reactions? Please, get a clue - also the inclusion of "accents", "uncircumcised penises", "homosocial environmental", "nautical themes", "exoticism" and a big portion of "gender themes" just to name a few is downright, and here are heavy words, racist, xenophobic and over-all queerphobic in general.

Fetishising Vanilla is also a kink, you know.
As I said, get a clue.

I understand and respect the want of specific kind of fic, but that toes a line that isn't just about criteria... this is exclusionary in the extreme.

Here is the Mod's reply:

WOW am I getting sick of repeating myself. Had you actually READ the damn post you would see RIGHT AT THE TOP!!! that it is, in fact, a list of KINKS, TROPES AND CLICHES from fandom!

You can go GET A CLUE sweetheart and get the fuck out of my community.

For serious.
The post itself has been updated, because you know, instead of trying to make the comm a little more inclusive - let's just be all the more offensive and delete the things I dun like!
How dare people get offended and say something about it! Sheesh!

Stories Of Who We Are and Admire

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:13:55 GMT

Comic books came to me at a time in which I was searching for belief.

Between the ages of 13 to 15 I was going through a Wiccan/Pagan phase, sad but true, I lived the stereotype. I even have a paper diary in which I wrote down my teenage angst and rage at not being able to be polytheist, not realising I didn't actually believe in any god - because the gods are stories to me.

Mythology, the stories of why we are, who we are; that was what attracted me to the Bible stories, the cosmology of Life after Death in ancient Egypt and incestuous love affairs of ancient Greece.

I can't remember what motivated me to explore religions outside Judaism (I loved the myths before I understood that god was supposed to be more than just a character in a book), possibly because I found and still find, going to shul incredibly boring.
The liturgy can be lovely, but I can't stand the thought of being there just because of (cue the Fiddler) Tradition.

At around that time I was reading Terry Pratchett and found that the philosophy he espouses in Pyramids and Small Gods sat very well with me and my apathetic-yet-literary pursuits.
I also found Good Omens and wasn't that a delight for me, receiving validation in my dislike of religion and being critical of belief at the time¹.
I had no clue who Neil Gaiman was.
I found out.
Enter the Sandman.
It took me four years to collect all ten volumes, as a teen my funds were lacking, of course, so I begged for early birthday presents, loaned money from my brother, just to get my hands on the next Sandman books.
When I realised that Sandman operated in the same world (though a different plain) as DC comics - I began to read Batman again.
Batman, whose villains are so much like himself... he even "dates" them - costume fetish? You bet!

I can now see, looking back and thinking critically upon that very apathetic time of my life, that my need for religion, the search for something bigger than myself - was the search for stories that were bigger than my life... and there ain't nothing bigger than the Endless, the Justice League, the X-Men, V and even the all too fallible Watchmen - post-humanism... oh yes. Now that's transcendent.

I remember reading Season of Mists at 18 and feeling as though my ideas regarding all the gods, faith and world order, laid out in front of me... in vivid colour².

I read "Concerning Mammoths, and Falling Walls" again (the third chapter in Brief Lives) not long after the second Lebanon War and the line Death (our friend, our constant companion in Life) says to the very long-lived man who asks "...I did okay, didn't I?" concerning how long he lived, she says:
"You got a lifetime. No more. No less."

That sentence has been resonating in me for the past three years. It comforts me when I think of my mortality, because we live as long as we do.
And that's it.

Having recently read Gaiman's rendition on the "death of Batman" in Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" that line echoed in my mind.
It echoes all the time.

Though slash fiction were my main source of understanding "alternative" sexuality and the fact that I, myself, was not straight, comics empowered me in being outwardly weird - I like the colours... in comics even black is bright.
The dynamics of gender in comics are far more complex that what people think - sure, it's busty women in skin tight (or barely there) costumes and it's muscled men in skin tight (there are bulges) costumes.
You can learn so much about what is idealised and why by reading these people who still hark from that time of pulp-fiction and illicit magazines.

I'm writing this whole spiel because Blognewsarama (my main comic oriented news site) plugged this website:

The A-Z LGBT Comic Book Character Superlist, which is freakin' awesome! This website Queersupe appears to be that much more extensive, in-depth and analytical.

Works for me! Go and explore.

And just to keep with the theme of this somewhat sombre entry; comic books (along with my search for faith through religion) enabled me to doubt, ask questions about the veracity of the stories we tell ourselves (all are real of course) and the ideals upon which they are supported... helped me learn about myself and the stories that make my world the way it is.

Footnotes
(1) I'd just like y'all to know that it took me a long time to come to the conclusion that agnosto-atheism was the best place for me, I really wanted to have some kind of faith that was bigger than me. But my identification with being Jewish is too strong, though historical, cultural and ethnic - religion is a composite in that, and despite being a complete heretic... I cannot remove it from me entirely.
Back to text.

(2)For a long time Bast and Anubis were my closest companions in my dreams and I even bought two little figurines of them... they sit along with the other statuettes in my room, that I collected over the years. I once used them in a ceremony with a bunch of friends - I was still trying to be of belief, faith and religion, but inwardly I was already gone. A hypocritical portion of my life, without a doubt.
Back to text.

Two Days Early

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:00:40 GMT

Today, at the weekly protest in the village on Nialin, demonstrators broke down a section of the wall:

All photos are credited to Active Still.

That is so amazing and encouraging, the significance of it being so close to the date of the fall of the Berlin wall is just... poetic.

Anecdote Regarding: God, The Universe and that Table

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:14:02 GMT

I was sitting at the bus station minding my own business.

A man of about 50-55 comes towards me and asks if it's all right if he smokes. I thought it was very (see, overly, for the society we live in) polite of him to ask and said "sure".

This was quite obviously a ploy.

He begins to tell me a story.

"I just couldn't sit at the other bus station. There was a girl there; dressed far too revealingly for me, her chest hanging out and short pants".

I'm staring at him as though he's grown an extra head. Instead his beard, peyot, kipah (yarmulke/skull cap) and tzitzit become glaringly obvious props for his forthcoming tale and story.

In my head, I'm screaming: "Why? Why is this man talking to me and regaling to me this bullshit story!?"

He continues (sans my loud thoughts that this man is a religious nut): "I ask [the aforementioned girl] do you believe in G-d?"

In my mind: "Mercy!"

He tells her words: "'Yes' she says and I ask you [that is, me and the universe in general most likely] if she's have said 'yes, but I sin', I could live with that... But dressed the way she is... how can she say that!?".

Meanwhile, I'm trying to understand why this woman (if she indeed exists outside this man's narrative) engaged with this man, seeing as I was doing my best to Not Engage with this person and his irrational tirade about how this woman's dress somehow marks her heretic - obviously I'm the best audience ever! What with my long jeans, trainers, long-sleeved shirt and high necked top underneath it.
If only we were telepathic, nay?

He goes: "She tells me her beliefs are simple. How can creation be simple?!"

How I wished I had a desk on which to bash my head and his continuously!

Throughout this entire time I'm dying for a bus, any bus to arrive to take one of us away! I'm also silent, grimacing from time to time and keeping away from him as much as possible while not leaving the bus stop - I really did not feel safe enough to tell to STFU... perhaps if there was another person there I would have told him to stop bothering me... but *Gah*, the situation just really did not encourage aggressive-aggression and I went for body-language instead.

"Creation can't be simple" this man says, "I tell her [still this very-well-could-be-fictional-girl] 'that table? You see it? Someone designed it, yes?' she replied 'yes'. So no tell me G-d doesn't exist!"

I was ready to throw up on him. I had been feeling queasy regardless, but I could have blown chunks over this.

He continued with this line of talk and thought for a good ten minutes, in addition going on to inform me that the Bible predicted Swine 'flu (o_O) and that according to Rabbi What-ever-the-fuck 14,5-and something are going to die because that's the Gimatric interpretation of the Hebrew letters of Swine 'flu (which are שפעת חזירים).

I actaully breathed a sigh of relief when his bus arrived and he was out of my life.

It was just too odd. I don't think I'd ever been proselytised to before. Obviously him asking me if he could smoke was a ploy to start engaging me in conversation.
Good tactic.

I now have a funny anecdote about Jewish fundamentalists... who are so different from all the other ones you encounter in the street (much to our annoyance)

Off Topic, but related to the fact that I'm home and talking about this.
I'm feeling queasy and at the last minute decided not to go the talk tonight, because I'd rather not be sick in front of people.
I'm disappointed, but hopefully I'll be able to catch the DAM people at a later date during their visit in the region.

"Remember..."

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:25:11 GMT

Hey folks,

Go blow shit up for justice!

Sincerely,

Your queer feminist anti-militarist anarcho-socialist grrl.

I believe in peace... Bitch!

Bless DAM

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:20:48 GMT

Dialogues Against Militarism have arrived to Be'er Shevah and tomorrow they're speaking at the Tel-Aviv infoshop, Salon Mazal.

I'm really really hoping I can make it and not drop dead from my freakishly long day at Uni tomorrow.

Uncle Sam's gotta wise up

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:32:48 GMT

Wow.

Maine.

Just another place in the US in which people get to decide who has civil rights, who has the right to humanity and who gets a say in people's lives.

It looks like it's down hill from there, because my friends that is not democracy. Democracy is not just "Majority Rules", it's also "Defense of the Minority".
The minority populations are supposed to be accorded with the same rights and obligations under the law as citizens.
If you require the same obligations, but not the rights accorded, then those are no longer rights.

They are privileges.

My heart goes out to my LGBTQ brothers, sisters and sibs in Maine and the US in general.

I can only hope things will get better and that those cowardly referendums and votes are repealed in some way and will no longer be able to affect your lives.

Same goes to Virginians and the people of New-Jersey - it would appear that the rhetoric of fear reigns strong in light of Obama.

Girl Number 9

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:09:10 GMT

Episode 3

Fuck.
Me.

This is bloody brilliant!

Claude Lévi-Strauss dies aged 100

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:17:09 GMT

Dude.

That man, may he Rest In Peace.

I bet he'd have loved how the entire social studies, humanities and cultural studies world is going to go on and on about him over the next week.

I'm glad I've got my Anthro class tomorrow. And to think I was just trying to explain how he managed to structure humanity into Universals.

Death, now that's a universal.

Equality Under the Law

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:02:51 GMT

As most of you know, the States do not consider LGBTQ people to be equal citizens under the law and are treated like different/second class citizens.

In a few hours voters in the State of Maine will decide whether gays can be human enough for these rights everyone else seems to have without question.

I'm not American, but I can spread the word.

The word is here:

If you are out of state, you can still help get out the vote by doing phone banking. You can sign up online, or if you're really impatient like me, email Kelechi at kelechi AT protectmaineequality DOT org or Cody at cperkins AT oberlin DOT edu. Tell them you want an invite to the webex trainer for phonebanking. These two wonderful ladies will hook you up personally with a time to take the training on the online phone banking system, and then you can spend however long or short a time you want making calls to voters, reminding them to get to the polls tomorrow to vote NO ON QUESTION ONE.

If you are in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and can make a one day trip to help canvass and GOTV, please sign up for DRIVE FOR EQUALITY. Here's the message from those fine folks.

The "Drive for Equality" hotel in South Portland still has space available, and the staging locations still need volunteers.

(A) We are providing FREE HOTEL ROOM SPACE for anyone from out-of-state who can make a spur-of-the-moment decision to drive up here, and volunteer. We have actually managed to recruit a few people at the last minute, and I know we can do more if the word gets out.

(B) The hotel is in South Portland. We have a block of rooms for tonight and tomorrow night, so people can stay until Wednesday.

(C) We're down by 4 points in the last poll -- this election is coming down to the last day-and-a-half. We could very well lose, simply because we don't have enough troops on the ground. New Hamsphire and Boston folks can easily get here -- and we will put them up if need be.

(C) People who sign up at the website will get a call back within 15 minutes.

(D) Our phone number -- someone will always answer it -- is 415-935-4552.

For us non-USAians:

If you have friends in the States who are LGBT supportive, send them here. Send them the link to http://www.protectmaineequality.org. Convey the urgency of Get Out the Vote (GOTV). Please. We need people who can take one hour or two tomorrow, and make phone calls to voters reminding them to go to the polls tomorrow and vote NO ON QUESTION ONE.

This is especially crucial if you have friends in the state of Maine. If you have friends in Maine, email them. IM them. Remind them to vote NO ON QUESTION ONE. Polls close tomorrow night in Maine at 8 pm.

Volunteer and help get out the VOTE for No On 1. Call: York County - Kelechi (207) 347-0393; Cumberland County - Allie (207) 523-0061; Central - Jacob (440) 725-0014; North - Tex (207) 239-8494.

Rainy Days

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:26:17 GMT

It's been raining cats, dogs and frogs since Friday.

Today Mummy made Ginger short-bread biscuits for Libby my niece and I.

I had been in my room studying and the smell had been wafting about.

Not too long after Mummy called me and she started cutting the flat short-bread and I ate it.

Divine, I tell you. Divine!

Nothing like fresh baked anything on days in which the sky is falling.

When it Rains, it Pours

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:55:09 GMT

I'm so glad I don't need to go out and do things today.
It is miserable out there; thunder and lighting, all very very frightening.

Two things happened on yesterday's Israeli News circuit and I think it show cases the different treatment given to Jews and Palestinians.

The first thing I heard about is that Member of Knesset Mohammed Barakeh was going to be indited for assaulting a police officer during a demonstration in Bil'in.
I've been hearing about this possibility for three years now and I knew it would be just a matter of time.
I'm not keen on calling out unfair treatment, but the fact remains that witnesses have said that if Barakeh touched a police officer it was in defence, because friends... you do not want to get into it with Israeli police officers, especially not the Special Patrol Unit - basically the riot police - who have no qualms about picking people up and throwing them into a crowd - I speak as someone who cushioned someone's landing.

Point being, I've been trying to find more info about the story, because Dudes, inditing an MK for assault is no small thing.

The other News story is the arrest of one Yaakov "Jack" Teitel (an American Jew who immigrated to Israel and has been living in Shvut Rachel - a West Bank settelment - since 2000) who has been titled as The Jewish Terrorist, under his belt are, allegedly: the murder of two Palestinians (a Shepard and a taxi driver), rigging a package bomb that was aimed at and wounded a family of Messianic Jews, the attempted murder of Prof. Ze'ev Sternhell (prominent Left-Wing thinker) and for committing a series of warning attacks against the police at the times of the LGBTQ Pride Parades.

He has confessed to almost all the charges and said he came to Israel in 1997 to carry out attacks on Palestinians as revenge for the terrorist attacks and suicide bombings.

Yeah.

Obviously, the media was in a frenzy over this.

Yesha Council - the umbrella org that acts the West Bank Settlements spokespeople - has obviously condemned him and anyone who would commit such crimes.

He doesn't represent them - My nose isn't large enough for the huge derisive snort that statement deserves.

Nope, he doesn't represent them, just the destructive, racist and fascist ideology they base their actions upon.
And homophobic lest we forget - I'd heard that Teitel was a suspect for the shooting at the Gay Youth Centre back in August, those rumours were debunked, that doesn't stop his ideological peers from being suspects.

It's unsurprising that PM Bibiyahu has stated that these "'Minority' far-right wingers must be stopped" - I suppose Bibi doesn't actually realise that these people operate with a whole system backing them up, that they're represented in the Knesset and have had the freedom to spread hate about Arabs, Gays and Leftists without censor or sanction - as this op-ed asks: Would Israel arrest a Jewish terrorist with only Arab victims?;

It's reasonable to assume that if Yaakov (Jack) Teitel had focused only on attacking Palestinians, he would have encountered few problems with law-enforcement authorities. His big mistake, it seems, was targeting non-Arabs as well.

Experience - and statistics - show that Israeli law enforcement is remarkably lax when it comes to tackling violence against Palestinians.
[...]
The (justifiably) prevailing feeling among Palestinians in the West Bank is that their blood is of no consequence. It's hard to find a Palestinian today who will make an effort to approach the Israeli police about a settler assault, unless Israeli human-rights groups help him. The way Palestinians in the territories see it, Israeli law is enforced only if Jews are harmed, while incidents in which Palestinians are murdered, beaten or otherwise wounded are treated cursorily at best - and more often, are ignored entirely.
[...]
Investigations by Palestinian-rights advocacy group Yesh Din has found that 90 percent of police investigations of cases in which Israelis are suspected of committing offenses against Palestinians in the West Bank are left unsolved and are closed. In a 2006 case, four settlers were suspected of beating an elderly Palestinian man with a rifle, leaving him unconscious for three weeks - but police didn't check the alibis of two of the suspects, and a third wasn't even questioned.

There are many more such incidents that indicate that the impression of Palestinians in the West Bank is rooted in reality. Maybe it's Arab terrorists simply interest the law-enforcement authorities more than Jewish terrorists.

Emphasis mine
No shit.

Prof. Strenhell - Teitel's famous would-be victim - has advocated that he be treated the same way as Arab terrorists are treated - I can see how locking him up in isolation for a few months, being denied regular and conjugal visits, denied a fair hearing and used as political capital would be utterly justifiable.

All those articles came out yesterday, most of them last night and this morning there was no more News regarding Teitel.
I wonder if he'll get a public trial.
I'm quite certain that this arrest will bring about far more contention than the current rape trial of former-President Katsav.
But who knows, maybe not...
Hopefully this vigilantism isn't given silent consent and Teitel isn't given the minimum - which he might, there is precedence after all.

"Israelis will never be free unless Palestinians are also free"

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:38:38 GMT

Below are the videos of what is now possibly considered the most controversial Daily Show interview to date (correct me if I'm wrong).
I'd seen them on my f-list over the past few days and hadn't had the time to watch or comment on them.
Today as I was going through my RSS Reader, someone shared the Mondoweiss post, the author of the post was actually in the audience that day.

I watched them and I found myself nodding a whole lot.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Exclusive - Anna Baltzer & Mustafa Barghouti Extended Interview Pt. 1

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily S

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Exclusive - Anna Baltzer & Mustafa Barghouti Extended Interview Pt. 2

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

There isn't much to add to Barghouti and Baltzer, I always find it encouraging when Jon Stewart pushes the non-mainstream News agenda on his show.
I've read in a few places that people were irritated by his own Hasbarah bias, that he brought in Iran and tried to equalise the Occupation into being just a Conflict.
I think by voicing the "average" opinion, Stewart exposes the propaganda pumped into our heads and both Barghouti and Baltzer really stayed on message - that of non-violence and finding peace on the grass roots level, which where the true power comes from (damn I need to get back to my Arabic!).

I find Baltzer very interesting, as I had not heard of her before, Barghouti is a "known entity" and I've had a lot of respect for him and his activism for a while now - I hope I manage to actually hear him speak in person someday soon. But her background, coming from an American-Jewish Zionist household... I can relate, as y'all know.

Last week I was speaking to a fellow student and friend, she told me her partner was studying German and that as soon as they had their finances straightened out she and he were out of here.
I nodded in understanding and pangs, because so many of my friends speak like this (I speak like this a lot as well).
And she asked me if I also plan on leaving.
I said I'd like to live in a different country for a while, to have perspective, experience, do what my sisters did.
She persisted: "But you'd come back here?"
"Yeah, most likely"
"I wouldn't" she said.
And I said, like someone commented a few months ago when I was ready to pretty much pack and leave (if I could) then and there: "But what's to become of here if all us Bleeding Hearts leave?"
"I don't have a false sense of patriotism" she said.
"It's not about patriotism... it's about humanity".

I considered that I was very well indoctrinated in the Zionist ethos. I still am. I'm quite sure that the reason I see myself living elsewhere, missing this hell-hole and coming back, is because I was taught that "there is no where else that is Home for us".
As I've mentioned, ideologically speaking, I'm no Zionist, I'm a Lefty-Humanist. But I was taught and lived Zionism and very likely I learned to love my country, land and people because I was immersed in that ideology since I was a baby.
Cracks in that ideal began when I was in high school and went to Poland with my class mates and mother to see where we were exterminated... the Nationalist zeal so many came back with seemed utterly strange to me.
My apathetic teenaged angst prevented me from making the logical leap, it would be years before I could unpack the what that trip to Poland did to me, my classmates and all the other classes that went on that trip.

I suppose it's fitting that I'm writing this the week of Yitzhak Rabin's anniversary of his assassination. I had forgotten all about it, until I saw the signs for memorial ceremonies... to me it'll always be November 4th and not the Hebrew date I never follow anyway.

Where was I? Oh yes, I learned Zionism and I'm unlearning it as well. Jews and Palestinians co-operate all the time, talking on the level with each other, person to person.
Governments...
Well... not to sound all Libertarian (seeing as I like having a modicum of a safety net under me as I meander aimlessly through life), but when it comes to treating people like human beings, they're pretty fucking redundant.

But what Barghouti said was very true, it resonated.
I made it the title of this entry.

My Persona Will Eat You!

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:41:53 GMT

I don't think my internet persona is that different from my RL persona.

The one-sidedness of blogging and not having to be considerate of interrupting someone or someone interrupting me makes me more eloquent online, it also stops me from being repetitive in the same paragraph - at times, during conversation, my mind can go blank and I struggle for a word which will either be in the other language I speak (the danger of bilingualism) or I'll lose both words because I'm trying to figure out which is more appropriate.

It's frustrating, and quite obviously I'm the only one who takes it badly because hiccups in conversation happen all the time! I'm not giving a presentation or reading a speech.
I'm not an orator.
Stuff happens.

That's not where I was going with this post.

Backing up. Ah, yes.
My persona.

People behave differently depending on the context and people in which they find themselves.

I can be very shy at times, which surprises people with whom I'm very gregarious.

I've been told my internet persona belies my niceness and charm. Because, yeah, I do try to be nice and pleasant and friendly. Even with people that I don't particularly like or get along with, if I'm in the vicinity I do my best so that everyone gets along.
Until I don't.
And as I know and been told:
"Mel, when you're mean, you're scary"
I am assertive and my voice can pitch in a way that can be grating and strident and makes people tell me to "tone it down" which makes me even more irritable and thus... well, you get the picture.

I suppose because the social niceties that I pull off so well and easily IRL aren't required for online interaction. I try to be respectful to any one I communicate with, there are exceptions of course, because when I people don't bother to keep their prejudices to themselves, I don't see why I should keep my opinions on said prejudices to myself as well.

I can be rude. I often am online. Assertion is read as aggression and you have to be clear in your writing because ambiguity is so easy to write unintentionally. Intentional writing will always carry a harder punch and more often than not, I don't pull the punches I write.

If you've met me IRL, you know I'm quite bubbly and babbly. That I'm bouncy and *squeeish* (something I manage to convey online at times, for sure) and that I'm loud and have no poker face.

I'm quite sure my online persona is just waaaaay more eloquent when it comes to talking about things that make me go *ARRRRGH* seeing as IRL, I tend to go *splurterscoughshriekBWUH!Eff-U Man!I-got-something-to-say!NO-I-WONT-BE-QUIET...* - this can also be what goes on in my head, because like many a family & friends gathering, many people say things that they believe are appropriate - like racial slurs (which I try smack down when I'm within earshot), sexist remarks (which are so pervasive in interaction as well) and homophobia laden comments (har har, oh yeah, you thought she was a man, that's fucking precious, har har) - and the situation calls for decorum, niceness and charm.

That bubble was bust a long time ago, but behaviour dies hard.

I come off strong.
I'm cool with that.

It makes me memorable.

"We are the eggmen! Woooo"

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:15:30 GMT

Last night I and a bunch of friends played the Beatles: Rock Band.
Which is possibly the best game ever!

I'm not a huge X-Box or Play Station person, I'm not a huge computer game person in general - although I'm quite a addicted to Plants vs Zombies, play it! You won't be able to stop until you've finished all the Adventures! - any way... I'd never played before and I immedaitly sat in front of the drum set and my BFF and I (as zie picked me up from home and the whole evening (night! we played until 3 am!) played while we waited for the others to arrive.

Zie and I are huge Beatles fans and we have songs that we love to, ahem, harmonise (I cannot sing, but I love karaoke... not fun for the audience, alas) so we sang Getting Better, I am the Walrus (personal fave!) Hard Day's Night, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Revolution and then other people arrived (you know who you are) and we sang some of the same songs again (I relinquished the drums... now my regular instrument I can tell) for the guitar/bass (there's only one at the moment) and for solo singing.

Imagine a bunch of Grrls Belting out Beatles!

We also played the regular Rock Band, but it was so tame and lacked any kind of emotional pull compared to the Beatles: Rock Band.

It was awesome and I'm now so hoarse I can barely talk.
I'm also listening to my Beatles on loop.

"What's your deal with the Beatles?"
"My deal? You mean the WORLD'S!"

I leave you to be amazed by the quality of this cinematic trailer:

"Invictus"

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:14:05 GMT

I think I'm an idiot sometimes, getting emotional over stories of this kind.

I really like Clint Eastwood as a director, his subject matter(s) and execution of all his films are epic, humane and historical in their own way.

Watching this trailer and having South African roots really struck a cord:

I'm interested in seeing the movie, because the trailer appears to give equal footing to Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, the poster (here) seems to give precedence to Damon making him front and centre, but enlarging Freeman.

Clint Eastwood is really good at portraying problematic racial dynamics... South Africa is an understatement when it comes to that.

Any way, it's going to be an Oscar film. And a Bechdel fail.

I'll report on it when I see it.

Long Days

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:53:06 GMT

I still haven't managed to find the balance of many hours spent at Uni and Life (Online and IRL).

I'll find the time to update.

Because I'm reading quite a few new blogs which I want to talk about, but feh, time! I need to sleep as well you know.

Lots of stuff has been happening, and yes I know it's not nice to tease, but I can't write about in this post... I may write about it later I may not, because I'll forget. Yeah, I'm that scattered at the mo'.

Tomorrow I have a class at 8:30, which means getting up at 6:00 am at the very latest, gah I hate when my regular mode of public transport is not working (the trains are under repair - woe!).

Hopefully I'll be able to blog about my life, my university and everything else (i.e. The News as it relates to me, you and all of Us).

G'night friends, readers and fellow busy people trying to balance life and 42 other things.

I'll be in my jimjams saving the world thanks.

Wow, I'm tired if I'm making Hitchhiker... and Doctor Who referencing the Hitchhiker... references... what am I doing here?!

Writer's Block: Yes, offense taken

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:17:52 GMT

If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?

View 1549 Answers

Okay, wow.
This is actually a good Writer's Block.

I've been staring at it for a good while now.

Because the answer is: sometimes.

I'm being honest here, sometimes, I'm just too tired to confront people and tell them they're "wrong", "off-base", "being disrespectful" etc. Why? Because it's all the freakin' time.
It's prevalent and invidious.
How do you tell someone that their assumptions are offensive?

Is that over-sensitivity? Perhaps, but I'm often been called over sensitive for calling on people who said something about Arabs being untrustworthy, or about Gays "flaunting" their (our) sexuality.
And I'm like: "Die, fucker, die!" in my mind, while trying to calmly say: "Excuse me, but do you have any idea how offensive what you said was?" and then discuss for half an hour how #1 I took it the wrong way #2 It's just an opinion and they're entitled to it and #3 going around in circles regarding the whole concept of treating other people as human.
It's not that hard, honestly.
A little dignity and respect that goes two ways.

But it's not that, of course.
It's much deeper than that, because dignity and respect are concepts to be put upon those you see as equals, right?
Racial inferiors and sexual deviants aren't worthy of the same dignity and respect, right?

Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human.
And that, plain as day and crystal clear, just doesn't effing fly.

And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.

Good night, y'all.

Hate-Crime Averted By Would-Be Victims

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:48:54 GMT

This is one of the best things I've read and seen in a while.
I generally don't trust the Daily Telegraph but the added footage is just too good.

Cross-dressing cage fighters turn tables on yobs
[...]
CCTV footage shows the pair approach one of the men – dressed in a pink wig, miniskirt and boob tube – before Gardener throws a punch at him.

But the fight is over in a matter of seconds as the other cage fighter, sporting a wig and a sparkling black dress, floors both the assailants with two lightning-quick punches.

One of the cross-dressers then casually picks up his bag before the pair strut off, leaving [the attackers] Gardener and Fender lying on the pavement.

The way they describe the incident along with the footage is just too hilarious.
Not the incident itself, because fuck those two idiots wanted to attack people because they didn't conform to arbitrary gender ideals... and then they kicked ass!
Just, fuck yeah man.
That sort of thing, I like knowing about it, that these homophobic and transphobic sacks of shit don't get to do what they feel they're entitled to do based on the fact that they have a penis and wear trousers.

Of course the Telegraph has to make sure that the cross-dressers do in fact gender conform:

The attackers are arrested by police as they stagger down the road. Officers later learned the cross-dressers were actually cage fighters on a fancy dress stag night out.

Add to that, that the two idiots who tried to assault them were stinking drunk and are thus excused for the behaviour and they were sentenced with curfew, electronic tagging and community service for four moths.

I'm wondering what would have happened if the would-be victims were trans and/or genderqueer people and not two men out for a lark (according to the article... it very well could be that the two cross-dresseres told the police that in order to make themselves appear "gender conforming" on a regular basis in order to avoid being interrogated themselves).

However, like was said at the Magistrate's court:

"You know it cannot have been a good night when you get into a fight with two cross-dressing men".

It really, really can't.

h/t mao4269

May Contain Antisemitic Nuts!

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:49:16 GMT

I think Antisemitism is an issue that should not be taken lightly. I feel very strongly about the fact that the history of my people is that of persecution, internment, exile and extermination.
Growing up in a home in which Jewish identity is very connected to Zionism has made it very difficult for me to unpack the baggage of post-Holocaust trauma and the privilege of being a Jewish person, born and raised in Israel.
I have no choice but to be a Zionist¹, it's what brought my family here and it's what keeps them here and I wouldn't be who I am if it weren't for it.

Israel is an idea and an ideal and like most things which are idea and ideals they do not live up to the hype.
I've been over the hype for a while now and I'm not shy about busting people's happy shiny bubbles about the disaster that is Israeli policy both inside and outside it's ill-defined borders.

The Goldstone Report, the UN fact finding mission headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, a South-African Jewish man with a history of being good at what he does, has faced a barrage of undisguised Antisemitism for writing down, black on white, that Israel (and Hamas, as people conveniently forget) committed war crimes.

The mere fact that this accusation was brought about is enough for the reactionary monstrosity that is Israeli foreign propaganda known as Hasbara - literally meaning "explanation".

When I see stories like this: Finance Minister [Yuval Steinitz]: UN backing of Goldstone report is "anti-Semitic" it drives me 'round the fucking bend.
Because in the same paper you will see a story like this: Hungarian MP: Jews want to take over the world; and I have to wonder, have us Israeli Jews in fact forgotten what Antisemitism actually is and conflate with Zionism which is a National Ideology comparable to any other in it's myth building and telling of itself?

Last week I read an article called The Tropes of "Jewish Antisemitism", in which the author - Antony Lerman - expands on this method of silencing dissent, the idea of self-hating Jews, oddly enough, rears it's ugly head almost exclusively when discussing Israel.

Now it's quite obvious that calling someone a self-hating Jew in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict is intended as a demeaning political insult, a way of delegitimising the views of Jews with whom you violently disagree. But one of the reasons why the charge is so ubiquitous and is impervious to evidence and argument that proves it to be bogus is that it's not just used as an epithet. To some scholars and serious commentators, Jewish self-hatred is a proven psychopathological condition, an academically respectable category, and exponents of it can be found throughout history. Their testimony helps to underpin the accusation.
[...]
[T]he way all of the key historical figures from the late 19th and early 20th centuries who are used to prove the existence of Jewish self-hatred – Weininger, Sigmund Freud, Karl Kraus, Heinrich Heine – related to their Jewishness has been shown to be far too complex to allow the self-hating Jew label to be anything other than a crude mis-characterisation. Moreover, the perceived antisemitism in their writings was mirrored in the writings of Zionists, especially the founder of political Zionism Theodor Herzl. He painted the weak ghetto Jew, in his 1897 essay "Mauschel", as "a distortion of the human character, unspeakably mean and repellent", interested only in "mean profit". Far from being the antithesis of Jewish self-hatred, it is arguable that Zionism was actually a display of it.

The Jewish self-hatred accusation assumes that there is a correct manner and degree to which people should express their Jewish identities in public; and that there is a particular set of core values and institutions which one should favour. Neither of these assumptions is justifiable on the basis of Jewish teachings or Jewish history. The accusation also assumes that Jewishness "is or should be a primary identity", and therefore to reject it or criticise it is somehow unnatural and wrong.

The whole article is very good and I think you should all go read it.

Yep, the notion of Jewish self-hatred comes from Jews ourselves.
The indoctrination of this Jewish essence (which is indeed part of Jewish religious cosmology) is part of our history and part of our culture as the "Chosen People" - an idea I'm so very uncomfortable with, because it is a notion that is so easily turned around and used against us and it inculcates this notion that because we are chosen we have to suffer.
Also, it's a supernatural notion on the essence of what makes a person a human being and as someone whose humanity can be doubted by various factors of my identity and body, I don't think that's a good concept.

Israel is a divisive issue, because - as stated - it is an idea and an ideal and as such, people can easily remove themselves from "the facts on the ground" and discuss it's existence as this abstract democratic utopia in the making, all the while ignoring the large minority in Israel because they are not Jewish:

The cry of a persecuted minority
By Ali Haider

Yesterday [October 1st], Israel's Arab public marked the ninth anniversary of the "events of October 2000" [Link added by eumelia]. At that time, Arab citizens protested the state's policies with respect to Palestinians in the occupied territories - as well as the ongoing discrimination they themselves face - and when police opened fire on the crowd, 12 demonstrators and one resident of Gaza were killed.

No indictments were ever filed against any of the policemen involved, and all the cases were closed by the attorney general. Worse still, none of the recommendations of the official commission of inquiry, headed by then-Supreme Court justice Theodor Or, concerning ways to close the gaps between Jews and Arabs in many different realms in Israel, were ever implemented by the government.

Let's not forget the silencing of what is considered dissident voices because they do not sing the tune of National Unity:

A new report from Adalah [link added by eumelia] shows how the courts and police attempted to stamp out opposition to Operation Cast Lead. "This is a time of war, and every incident harms the people's morale."

This was not a sentence in a right-wing journal, but rather a statement by an Israel Police representative during Operation Cast Lead seeking to persuade the Tel Aviv District Court to block anti-war protesters from the city.

Around the same time, in a Haifa Magistrate's Court hearing on extending the remand of minors, Judge Moshe Gilad stated: "Anyone who enables remarks denouncing the state and backing its enemies, even as they rain missiles upon its citizens, must obey its laws, and certainly is prohibited from attacking police who come to impose order. It is similar to a person spitting in the well from which he drinks."

Here are some of the pearls in Adalah's new report: "Prohibited protest - how the law enforcement authorities limit the freedom of expression of opponents of the Gaza military attack."

The times I went to the anti-War protests and demos I was nearly assaulted by police and by regular counter-protesters who thought it was okay to grab me by the Kaffiyah around my neck and yell "traitor" at me.
C'est la vie.

Those are "the facts on the ground" and it's so easily ignored by the ideologues, both within and without, easily seen by op-eds such as these:
Sure, J Street is pro-peace - but is it pro-Israel?. As though this were a debate about the nature of Jewish identity of Israel - a small debate that you can read here: Should Palestinians accept Israel as a Jewish state? by Roi Ben-Yehuad and Aziz Abu-Sarah.

I'm wondering if it sounds as though I'm accusing Jews of being Antisemitic against themselves. I suppose I do. However, the point I'm trying to make is that Israel is a political entity, just like the Palestinians are a political entity and the Occupation is a political issue.
God has no place in the debate, but religion too is a political tool, especially in the hands of those who really believe.

For Jews to accuse other Jews of fuelling Antisemitism because of their political views regarding Israel is historical narrow-mindedness and obliviousness in the extreme.
Having been designated by more than a few as a "Self-Hating Jew" and asked repeatedly why "I hate Israel?" I can only request that people refrain from hurling Antisemitic garbage at me.
Surprisingly this makes people get all defensive and completely derails the conversation into people defending themselves as Jews and how can they be Antisemitic.

Just goes to show, eh?

This is long, but also important and I'm wondering if I should cross post this in some other blog or anti-oppression website.

Footnotes
(1)Ideologically speaking, I'm not a Zionist. At all. But I have to acknowledge the fact that Zionism has privileged me and my family and I wouldn't be who I am without that ideological push and existence.
Back to text.

The Goldstone Report: "Spoken Like a True... Something Or Other..."

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:56:51 GMT

I've been trying to write about the Goldstone Report and what it's actually doing to the discourse regarding Israel internationally and domestically.
I suppose anyone who is a regular News reader known that the UN Human Rights Council has endorsed the report.

Obviously, Israel is crying "No Fair!".

Israel's reactionary response couldn't have been more predictable. Instead of co-operating and trying to own the story, Hasbarah has gone out of its way to convince the world that the report is "false, distorted and promotes terror".

Personally speaking, I think it's about time we took some responsibility for the fact that, indeed yes, we are not the Good Guys. That there are no Good Guys, and that crimes committed against people cannot be condoned.

I've had lots of arguments with people over the past few weeks, most of them deteriorated to the fact that 1) Justice Goldstone didn't have the full context in which he wrote the report, that is, he was limited to reporting about the three weeks of the operation itself and 2) That he should have excused himself from the assignment because of his relationship to Israel. Because he's Jewish.

Before I get into that, I think it's important to remember that in late September, when the report was published, both Israel and Hamas found themselves on the same side. Both rejected the report as being biased and lenient to the Other side.
The report shows that both Hamas and Israel committed war crimes (possibly even crimes against humanity).

There, I've disclaimed "both sides are to blame".

Accountability, however, is placed, and rightly so, on Israel. Mainly because as an Army, the IDF has a responsibility to defend civilians and non-combatants under The Geneva Conventions. The IDF violated this.
So did Hamas - then again, they're terrorists and they have not signed the Geneva Conventions... This got tossed at me a few times, I'm still not sure why the behaviour of "the enemy" has anything to do with the (so-called) moral standing of those who purport to be "Better".
The illegal use of White Phosphorous is documented.

Instead of owning up and trying to control these facts, Israel takes the course of utter denial, that these are lies, that the Antisemites are working against us, that Iran gives money to Hamas and Hizbullah, that we are Good and they are Evil.

Is it any surprise that Turkey feels they can show fictional IDF soldiers kill fictional Palestinian children?. In our denial of all our crimes, there is room for others to make up the stories of our brutality as they see fit.

I'm digressing.

What about Hamas? Should they not be held accountable? Absolutely they should, as leaders of the Palestinian people in Gaza they should be held accountable to the fact that they fire rockets on Israeli civilians. They should be held accountable for their use of Human shields; a procedure used by the IDF, known as the "neighbour procedure".

Damn, digressing again.

I was going to write about Antisemitism and it's use in Israeli Hasbarah as a way to delegitimise both Justice Goldstone's report and the "Shministim", the 12th graders who have chosen to be conscientious objectors due to the Occupation.

Stay tuned, I have plenty of tabs open.

Vampire: The Metaphor

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:21:41 GMT

Vampires have taken over our lives. They suck out time via books, television and film like no other supernatural beast ever could.

Why?

Because they look like people, like you and me, they can walk among us unknown and seduce us with their glamour, mystique and plain ole' attractiveness.
Vampires are always beautiful, those that ugly, do not need to be. We are attracted to the fact that they are excluded from daylight, that they are reflected only in the eyes of human (their prey) and to the fact that they are immortal.

They do not die.

We pass away and they pass on.

Vampires have reached a kind of peak of pop-culture popularity. Ten years ago when I was fourteen and obsessed with Buffy, I read Dracula, Interview with a Vampire and thought Bella Lugosi was the shit.
Vampires were awesome.

Now... they're poster boys for Abstinence.
Where have we gone wrong.

Neil Gaiman was interviewed a couple of weeks ago about Vampires, because of his Vampire character Silas in the Graveyard book (which is excellent by the way) and throughout the interview spoke of the different metaphors available in Vampire telling, from sexual depravity (see Dracula), AIDS (the various vampire movies of the 80's like Lost Boys), religion and just down right non-conformity.
All is very interesting, astute and literary.
He also mentioned that he feels that Vampires have reached their saturation point, soon they'll be gone and come back in 20-25 years.

I'd like to think this is so, because I'm really sick of reading articles like this; What's Really Going on With All These Vampires? - Vampires as Gay Men by Stephen Marche.

Just. No.
Stop with this at once.
Beyond contextualising gay men's sexuality as this dangerous, predatory and monstrous thing, the article goes on to explain that young girl's desires, fixating on Vampires is just like the young girl who wants to have a boyfriend but not sleep with him.
Hence the "gay" boyfriend.
Gay men as accessories.
Again.

Women (young girls, adolescent women) are scared of sex and their own desires and so the object of their desire are monsters?
Gay men are monsters?
Women don't know their own desires?
I do believe that's what being said here.
It's nice to have our sexuality denigrated.
Again.

True Blood is a cracktastic show, but books it is based on are also filled with scenarios that make you strain your suspense of disbelief of muscle, however, it makes the freaky nature of humanity apparent and physical.
Everyone is "special" and thus no one is.
The Vampires, in True Blood are going through their Civil Rights Movement¹.

If this what the latest bout of Vampire fiction is bringing out and telling us about society, perhaps we all need a break from.
But no, we need them depraved blood suckers don't we? We like the freaks that walk among us in the dark
You never know who it's going to be.

Vampires have always been an outlet to lust and desire that was viewed as obscene or just plain "not normal". Framing gay men as objects and women's desires and sexuality as negligible kind of goes against the grain when it comes to Vampires as a story.

Just my thought on the matter.

Over at Salon there's a pretty good response to this article: Buffy the gay man Slayer by Tracy Clark-Flory.

Footnotes
(1) Never mind that black and gay character is constantly abused by both humans and vampires. A series about gay rights... Alan Ball, this is a shout out, Do It Better!
Back to text

Here's a meme

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:34:27 GMT

There's a meme.
Every where's a meme-meme.

You are The High Priestess

Science, Wisdom, Knowledge, Education.

The High Priestess is the card of knowledge, instinctual, supernatural, secret knowledge. She holds scrolls of arcane information that she might, or might not reveal to you. The moon crown on her head as well as the crescent by her foot indicates her willingness to illuminate what you otherwise might not see, reveal the secrets you need to know. The High Priestess is also associated with the moon however and can also indicate change or fluxuation, particularily when it comes to your moods.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Ruining the Genre Since the age of 7 Years Old

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:25:51 GMT

When some one links to an article titled The War on Science Fiction and Marvin Minsky on a website called The Spearhead and the Author's nick is Pro-male/Anti-feminist Tech; you know you're in for some fun sci-fi critique!

My first thought after reading that diatribe of misogyny, homophobia and exclusionary nostalgia, was pretty uncharitable, petty and mean.
Not even the most "one of the boys/I'm not a feminist" female-geek wouldn be able to consider this person particularly tasteful.
Seeing as he's laying out misogyny and homophobia pretty fucking thick. Without any shame and certainly without any self-reflection.
But That's what cowards do.

I'm reminded of my entry into the comic book world, there are women there (readers that is) and I gravitated to the classics (Batman, Superman, Catwoman, Wonder Woman, the Justice League - yeah, I'm a DC grrl) and to horror-fantasy (DC's Vertigo line; Sandman, Hellblazer, Fables, Lucifer etc).
This is not an odd thing, most people like more than one kind of genre in they chosen form of medium, but I definitely felt the overwhelmed by the amount of boys in this medium and how my reading of the stories being feminist (even before I could articulate why it was feminist - I was 15 when I got into comics) made me iffy about getting into discussion with other Batman fans - many of them, somehow, ignoring the fetish gear he dons in order to fight crime and the only women he's ever been interested in sexually (he doesn't do romance) have been other criminals who wear costumes.
I digress.

The article linked above says this:

Science fiction is a very male form of fiction. Considerably more men than women are interested in reading and watching science fiction. This is no surprise. Science fiction traditionally is about men doing things, inventing new technologies, exploring new worlds, making new scientific discoveries, terraforming planets, etc. Many men working in the fields of science, engineering, and technology have cited science fiction (such as the original Star Trek) for inspiring them when they were boys to establish careers in these fields.

Emphasis mine.

This is the opening paragraph.
He may have missed the fact that some of this year's Nobel Laureates, in the sciences, were women.
They probably began their careers, what 30-40 years ago?
Sci-Fi is "traditionally" about men doing things because, 'Lo the things women did were/are not considered important or as important as the things men do, this includes writing sci-fi - which women have been doing for the same amount of time as men... it's called having a pseudonym.
One of the regular writers of Star Trek:TOS was D.C. Fontana (i.e. Dorothy Catherine Fontana), who neutralised her name and used the pseudonyms Michael Richards and J. Michael Bingham in order to get ahead in the field of teevee and sci-fi writing.
She wrote other well-loved "male" oriented programmes and shows we all grew up on.

How's them apples shit-bag? Feeling excluded? Feeling as though your wants and desires have been co-opted and changed in order to incorporate a vision that *gasp* doesn't 100% reflect you.
Welcome to the human condition.
Numerous books, movies and teevee programmes have been written about it, as I'm sure you know.

According to this dude, sci-fi has been ruined by its feminization.
And lest we forget them pesky Homoseckshuals!

Things are worse in Britain. A few years ago Doctor Who was brought back. The man who brought back Doctor Who was Russell T. Davies, a gay man who proceeded to add a recurring character called Captain Jack who comes from the 51st century that was ~~bisexual~~ omnisexual. Yes, omnisexual as in not only is this character bisexual, but he has no problem with having sex with non-humans too.

Don't worry bb, the Captain kisses people he actually likes, you he'd probably shoot and state he was thinking of humanity's future.
The author goes on to cite the BBC's leftist leaning and pro-woman agenda, so he's not surprised that shows like Torchwood get huge ratings and was the biggest sci-fi hit of the summer.
What? Action and inter-personal drama?! It actually works!?!?
News flash, it's what works in Hard Science Sci-Fi as well - Have you read Heinlein? Herbert? The buddy-films that are a huge portion of the sci-fi/action genre are about the relationship between the two men - but relationships are for women or something idiotic like that and so any chemistry between two men (and to a lesser extent two women) is us Slashers reading too much into it.
It's called subversive reading, it's what minorities do in order to actually enjoy shows, books, comics and other texts which show case us as blatant stereotypes, parodies or ya know simply Bechdel Fail.

Times they are a changing, and guess what, they've been "changing" and "changed" since the mid-60's, you, Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Tech failed to get on that boat and complaining about us women and queers taking over your genre and taking your jobs in science...
This is not a tree-house club and there are no more Wendy houses.
This is a sandbox - please stop peeing in it.

ETA: I couldn't stop myself. I commented, sans a link to this blog. I don't need to make easier for them to find me.

Things that make me go RAWR

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:38:18 GMT

Things I grew tired of hearing a long time ago:

#01 "You're aggressive" - You make me want to rip out your rib cage and wear it like a hat (h/t Spike/Willian the Bloody ~~terrible poet~~, he was a brilliant word-smith...).

#02 "You're provocative" - I make you uncomfortable, not my problem!

#03 Rape apologia - Even if a woman (or man) is walking around, naked, with a placard stating in neon "Will Fuck Anyone!", no one has the right to violate his/her/hir body. Ever. Rape is a crime, stop punishing and blaming the victims.

#04 The term "self-hating Jew" - the next time I hear this term I'm calling on that person and saying they are an "Antisemitic shit-bag". Jewish self-hatred assumes some kind of essential Jewish trait that us (yeah, I'm one of those people) self-haters reject because we're just that disgusting.
Antisemitic Shit-Baggery!

#05 "You've lost weight, you look great!" - I know I've lost weight. I know I comply with the fashionable female body type. I'd appreciate it if no one comments about my body, it's fucking irritating, I'm not livestock to be commented upon, my my rump, ribs and tits are not in public for your consumption! Unless you've been given permission to do so (you know who you are), do stop!

#06 "You look much better now that your hair in longer. The shaved head didn't look good on you".
DIAF.

#07 "Is this another feminist thing?" - Yeah it is, and you're gonna listen to me annoy the fucking hell out of you!

#08 "You're so sensitive" - Yeah, this is me crying over your dead body.

#09 "You're so loud, why do you have to shout everything. It's all about how you say things you know" - Yeah I do know, I also know a big STFU when I see one. Stop trying to control my fucking tone!

And #10 "Why do you care so much?" - because the world is an ugly, cynical and corrupted blemish in this universe. We have to live on it, it may as well be with a modicum of empathy and dignity.

Those are the Top 10 things this week that made me go *rawr*, *arrgh*, swear under my breath, glare, lose my temper and want to throw things at people's faces.

I cannot wait for the semester to start (which it does this Sunday).

Tell me friends, readers and maybe lurkers, what grinds your gears?