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January 6th, 2009
07:49 pm - the fight continues
I went to see Milk today. It's very good, and very fair. Importantly, it isn't overly congratulatory and doesn't treat the fight for gay rights as a thing of the past. How much would I have loved to work with Milk and his compatriots; how much I should still be working for marriage equality. Honestly, Ursula, stop knitting and go volunteer.
In slightly related news, there's apparently been an uptick in anti-gay violence in 2008, maybe centered around the Proposition 8 campaign. A few weeks ago a woman in San Francisco was gang-raped because her car had a pride sticker on it. Closer to home, seven gay bars on Cap Hill have received letters threatening to dose their patrons with the nerve toxin ricin. There are awful, hateful people in the world, and those of us who care about equal rights have much, much more work to do.
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November 13th, 2008
01:37 pm - well that was quick.
The latest Bond movie once again features naked ladies in its title sequence. Thank god, because we were RUNNING OUT OF OBJECTIFICATION.
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November 4th, 2008
08:26 pm - happy election day
What is there to say? I hope, as many do, for a new era in American politics. But even if the Obama administration is only competent, it is something more: it is a door opened.
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November 3rd, 2008
October 3rd, 2008
06:02 pm - I know what you are!
Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. - Rich Lowry at The National Review Online
Emphasis mine. Guys, it's happened at last. Sarah Palin has been outed...
... as a vampire. No wonder she's so into hunting.
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September 28th, 2008
July 1st, 2008
03:50 pm - just like i told y'all
So, I've been maintaining a constant low-level chortle at the efforts of certain Ron Paul supporters to establish 'Paulville' in the West Texas Flats. Now, as I find out, they have (drum roll) a WEB SITE. The subtitle is 'Like minded people, coming together!'
What I want to know:
1.) So they're similar to people with minds?
2.) In what sense does a coop that holds land in the shareholders' stead qualify as a libertarian paradise? Sounds like some collectivist poppycock to me.
In other news, life continues apace. Nick, bless him, got me a hose for the garden and it's literally the best labor-saving device I've gotten in the last year and some. I always felt like a pioneer lugging the watering can up and down, up and down the hill to water the vegetable garden- but no longer! I've joined the (20th?) century at last!
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June 10th, 2008
11:20 am - history is with us
I just read this powerful post by Rick Perlstein about open housing in late '60s Chicago. The rhetoric used then, by whites who desperately argued for their right to remain free of black 'infiltration' of their neighborhoods, sounds all too familiar. Many mention an editorial by Barry Goldwater that stated, 'rights, and respect, are earned.'
Um, no. They're not. Read your Constitution and try again, please. There are many, many people who still argue this line, and they all deserve to be addressed the same way. Rights are not earned; rights inhere. We have those rights, not because of how we act, but because of who and what we are. Rights are not created by wealth; they are not mere reflections of societal norms.
Which, ironically enough, is why I'm so very down on libertarianism. Libertarianism invariably hews to a traditionalist view of rights that may no longer be relevant to our society; libertarians might recognize a right of companies to pollute groundwater, but not a right of residents to have water free of pollution; a right to discriminate racially, but not a right to be judged on the merits instead of on one's race. This recognition only of affirmative rights creates a sort of race to the bottom, a moral hazard by which she who behaves worst and creates the greatest externalities is rewarded economically, and ignored by the state, as long as she doesn't go around punching nuns in the face. Libertarians, especially the anarcho-capitalist variety, generally do not think to change societal norms or remake the social order, no matter how unjust it may be. They think of society in Econ 101 terms: equal distribution of resources and rational actors, and assume that society mirrors this understanding. As we know, it does not.
Anyway. Read the post, please. It's historical, not ideological (for the most part), and it puts the lie to anyone who argues that civil rights legislation was unnecessary because race relations would have naturalized eventually.
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June 5th, 2008
01:48 pm - so damn glad
Life is good. School is double-dutch-done. I'm working on really interesting things at my internship. There are tomatoes and squash and peas in the garden (well, the plants, anyway) and the little Carolina jasmine in the front yard is slowly winding its way up towards the sun.
Oh, and the Democratic primary is effectively over. Thank all possible deities. Everyone vote Obama, because the only thing older than John McCain is his agenda. I know there's a lot of noise being made about women voters taking their ball and going home or going to play with the Republicans instead, but I suspect that there'll be very few of those, at least among my friend group. To those that are considering it, please consider that yours is not the only agenda; a McCain presidency will be worse for many, many people who are not well-off white males. Think of the wars he'll start, the benefits he'll cut, the Supreme Court justices he'll appoint (and the rights that he'll thereby constrict) and every other disastrous policy position of his that you desperately disagree with. Obama is preferable to that in any number of ways.
We'll have our day, we women. We will. There will be a woman vice president, and a woman president, some day. In the meantime, everyone reading this remembers 2000, where a few thousand votes could have made all the difference. Don't be the person who has to apologize for their vote this time around. A year from now, don't be ashamed of the decision you made in November.
Current Music: FYR
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May 18th, 2008
10:27 pm - i am that shrill harpy
Just saw Iron Man. On one level, it was hilarious and fun.
On another level, it was so goddamn tired. Summer movies are this universe where men, hot men, schlubby men, smart men, stupid men, walk around surrounded by beautiful women in ludicrous heels who tumble into bed at a moment's notice; I mean, here's Gwyneth Paltrow, for god's sake, an actress in her own right, walking around in 5" ankle-strap heels and a skin-tight pencil skirt taking Robert Downey Jr.'s dictation.
Women are an afterthought in this world. They're a momentary distraction, something pleasant for the eyes to wander across between explosions. There will never be a summer movie about women who are leaders, women who are technical visionaries, women who make hard decisions and fight other women for the fate of the world. There will never be a female Iron Man.
And I hate to be shrill. Because god knows, no one ever listened to some shrill feminist harpy going on about summer blockbusters.
But there's still so much to do.
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