September 12, 2008 – 4:35 pm
I just sent this to Women Against Sarah Palin:
If it was imperative for McCain to choose a woman as his running mate, there are certainly many more qualified Republican women available. I knew enough already about Palin’s record in Alaska when the announcement was made to know that she is a extremely bad choice for Vice President. As I learn more about her, that feeling just gets reinforced. Learning that rape victims were charged for the evidence kits needed to prosecute their attackers while she was mayor of Wasilla enrages me. Because the Alaskan legislature had to take action to outlaw this travesty of justice, I cannot believe that she was unaware of this policy while she was mayor. For McCain to assert that she is his best choice sends two messages, the first that justice is contingent on your ability to pay for it, and the second is that his own judgment is seriously lacking.
I was asked to write a guest post on Body Impolitic regarding the troll attacks at WisCon 32.
January 5, 2008 – 9:25 pm
There’s a new livejournal community called femsfaward open to discuss works of sf/fantasy written by women. Go forth and blog.
I said goodbye to one last night. No, she didn’t get the official designation from the Vatican, but Sister John Marie Samaha of the Sisters of the Holy Family was the closest thing I’ve seen to one to date. And, if there’s any such thing as a Catholic version of a bodhisattva, she’d probably fit the bill. I’ve got a whole lot of issues with the Church as an institution, but Sister John Marie embodied the very best ideals of Christian living.
Sister John Marie died last Wednesday at the age of 84, and she spent sixty-four years as a nun. I met her over twenty years ago when she became a pastoral associate at my home parish; she was a great comfort to my family when my maternal grandmother died in 1985. Besides her duties in the parish, she established a pantry where people, and particularly families, in need could get some extra supplies or a little help with the bills to get by when money got tight. It didn’t matter what religion you were or even if you were religious at all, if you were in need, she was willing to help. As the Pantry grew, it worked in close coordination with local agencies serving the poor and homeless. My late father worked with Sister on toy drives and at the local free dining rooms.
Sister John Marie approached her work with smiling enthusiasm; you couldn’t help but be willingly carried along with her. She became bedridden in these last few years, but she was always a presence behind the scenes, and the guiding principle would be “what would Sr. John Marie do?”. I figure this will remain the case now that she’s no longer here. May her work continue, and her memory remain forever unwithered.
Eternal rest grant her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her.
May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all sentient beings never be separated from the happiness that is free from suffering.
May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment and anger that holds some close and other distant.
(also posted to my lj)
First the exploding steam pipe in New York City, now a problem with electrical power in San Francisco that caused a transformer to explode under Mission Street. This latest power outage has taken out many websites, including LiveJournal.
Our urban infrastructure is crumbling around us, and nobody wants to pay for it. I’m also wondering why folks like SixApart don’t have some sort of backup plan for their colocation. What if the Goddess of Plate Tectonics decides to have a major hissy fit? You know She will, one day.
Melissa over at Shakesville posted an entry yesterday about a Brazilian yogurt ad that featured three larger women in sexy poses from movies (one was the famous Marilyn Monroe pose) but communicated the message that these women will never meet men’s preferences unless they eat that yogurt and get rid of that weight. Yes, it’s more of that heteronormative fatphobic stuff, and yes, even these models got airbrushed.
Lots of folks on my livejournal friends list pointed out that those women were damned attractive (yes, I thought they looked good too), and lots of the early commenters on the Shakesville entry were as appreciative. Unfortunately, as comment threads often do, you get some later folks that had to chime in with their chorus of fatphobic things to say (like concern trollish cries of “unhealthy!”).
I give Shakesville some mad props for adding Kate Harding of Shapely Prose to their cadre of bloggers, and I’ve also started following Junkfood Science. Body Impolitic is another must-read.
Just my US$0.02:
I figure anybody who tapes bacon to his cat as a work avoidance tactic and lives to blog about it has fannish nature. Let the Nippon2007 voters decide about the latest manifestation of fanwriting.
I’ve been thinking about the extreme harassment Kathy Sierra has gotten ever since Liz Henry brought it to my attention. It’s been burning up electrons on one of my mailing lists, and it’s made the technology blog of sfgate.com.
My response to trolls in the past was honed in the Usenet days; it was best to fail to provide the responses they craved by refusing to engage them. However, things seem to have devolved to new lows. Amanda of Pandagon and Melissa of Shakespeare’s Sister came in for a whole dogpile of vitriol from so-called Christians and they ended up severing their connections with the John Edwards campaign. Bill also gave some more examples of women bloggers who are constantly dodging the dung flung at them; I find the attacks on Ginmar (here’s a recent example) especially disturbing because she’s a combat veteran, and I’d bet that most of her trolls are part of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders safe at home. Now, we’ve got a highly visible woman techblogger having to curtail her activities and call in law enforcement.
This cannot stand. I note that some male bloggers are speaking up about harassment they’ve experienced, but the really virulent attacks reeking of violent misogyny are saved for women who dare to be visible. Refusal to engage these harassers is not enough. They need to be identified and made to own these attacks; anonymity is not our friend. In addition, we need to be mindful of the words we send out; there’s a gradient that leads from snark to this kind of evil dreck.
1) Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s musings on the root causes of our current economic and political problems. It’s a really good comment in a larger discussion, certainly worthy of exploration in more detail.
2) The current problems in the home lending industry coupled with insanely obscene housing prices in the SF Bay Area. I have no frakkin’ clue how anybody can afford to buy a house here on only one middle-class salary without relying on hitting the Lotto, and if they do manage to do that, without falling prey to the current crop of predatory lending practices. This feeds into the discussion of the opt out BS.