(no subject)
* I meant to link this two days ago. It's huge, so I'm not embedding. The King of Jordan was on the Daily Show and did a three part interview in which he talks about the various ways Arab Spring happened in his own and neighboring countries. It's vastly more nuanced than anything you will see on the evening news in the Us and as I think that this is a perspective people need to hear, so I urge people to take the time to watch it. I think it is proof of how degraded so much of our reporting is that a fake news person seems to be so much better at this than a majority of actual anchors on real news shows. (Yes, there are exceptions, but not many). The first part starts here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-september-23-2010/king-abdullah-ii-of-jordan
* Apparently, not content with harming veterans by blocking a veteran's job Core bill designed to help them start careers as things like fire fighters and police, a brave Republican has stood up for his belief that disabled combat veterans as the widows and orphans of dead soldiers should be denied Cost of Living increases. I do not understand how Republicans can go around claiming they support the troops when they hate them so much and want to deny them and their families the means to survive. Just saying.
* Senator Webb, an actual veteran, takes Republicans to task for abandoning veterans and their families and for Romney's contemptuous remarks about them for being part of the 47% he doesn't care about because he thinks they don't pay their share.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
After all, they only gave a limb, or spouse, or a parent, while Romney pays an average of 14% of his income in taxes in the two years we know about. In Romney's mind, his is the bigger sacrifice. In my mind, Romney's belief about who is sacrificing the most here makes him unfit for office.
* Massive Republican illegal Voter Fraud in Florida as part of systematic voter suppression:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
* The long history of the Republican effort to deny students and POC the right to vote in Ohio and the Tea Party vigilantes:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
* Mocking Sudden Wealth Syndrome:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook
* Stephen Colbert mock Congressman Gohmert's bizarre conspiracy theory about President Obama as a tool of the resurgent Ottoman Empire:
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
* "When The Election's In Doubt, GOP Goes Racist:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2012/09/when-elections-in-doubt-gop-goes-racist.html
* Samuel L. Jackson says, "Wake the Fuck Up!:"
* Today was hugely exhausting. I wanted to sleep, but I dragged myself out for what turned out to be a free ten minute car appointment. (It was a minor adjustment related to a previous repair, and my mechanics do that sort of thing free). As I was up and was already in the right section of town, I went to buy some stuff for two upcoming swaps. ( I need to do another run to a different part of town within the next week, and there's a third swap, I'll need to shop for in the near future). Despite the sleep deprivation, the swap shopping was kind of fun. One was a little like Halloween themed Secret Santa. They send you a questionnaire and the person running it assigns you a person with similar tastes to shop for. You need to buy or make stuff from five categories for $40.00 or less fitting their criteria. I had already picked out some ideal stuff I knew where and how to get that fulfilled multiple criteria at once. Of course two of the three were out of stock, so I ended up doing more improvising than I planned. I made it home and got several insufficient hours of sleep. Then there was sorting and packing the loot. (The Halloween thing is ready to go. The other set is being set aside to await the next shopping run). I also did a bunch of small annoying cleaning stuff. I'm reserving serious Inspection cleaning until tomorrow. Still, I feel very productive.
* In my bathroom, I keep a stack of periodicals and catalogs for casual perusal. Depending on a variety of factors, including my bath (reading) to shower (non-reading) ratio, I sometimes end up with a huge backlog, and sometimes I run low. The magazines I actually enjoy go first, obviously, and there's stuff that's been stacked there from two apartments ago that's for emergency only. In between lie the alumni publications that arrive periodically. It is a measure of my desperation that I tore through a year or so worth of alumni stuff in the last week. I don't so much read these as skim. For my pre-K-12 and my first college, I mostly just skim for things like deaths and retirements of people I actually care about. With the second two, the colleges were so big, the chances of anyone I know being referenced are tiny, but now and then there are articles of interest. Like I said, skimming. For some reason St. john's is only sending begging requests to my address, but all other correspondence to the old one, so their weren't any in this sample. Of the two EA ones, the only thing of even mild interest was that M., despite his virulent mysogeny and over all priggishness had not only managed to convince a woman to marry him (old news), but had somehow convinced her to stay with him all this time and mate with her often enough to produce a third child! (He was interned there for twelve out of my fourteen years in that place. Trust me, I have a long list of outstanding assholish things he said and did and my cattiness is justified). Keep in mind, this is the guy who's only hints of sexual interest in all that time were 1. an imaginary girlfriend. 2. A long running romantic "friendship" with another, much nicer boy. 3. A creepy as hell over the top mingled contempt with worship borderline stalking of my senior year. Seriously, his rough wooing made my skin crawl. He was the first of a list of misogynists who discovered themselves with an obsessive desire to get in my pants and pursued it through wildly inappropriate and occasionally insulting means. It happens. (M was part of why I was loathe to spend a whole year of college being stalked by a way older creepy misogynist professor. I did not want to play that out again only with a man with that much power over me. I knew how scary that shit could get first hand and could game it out to no chance of a good outcome.) Hint: I hate getting cornered against something by someone's who's ass I could and had previously kicked like M, let alone people out of my weight class with real power to fuck up my future if I say no or fight back. *shudder*
* There were actually a fairly good set of articles in the second and third college set. The one I wanted to talk about was from WWU, and was about the Outdoor Sculpture Collection. Don't worry, this isn't a "I hate Modern Art" rant. This is something more complex. Back when they put the first sculpture in, there were protests. I absolutely don't endorse vandalizing art work whether I like that artwork or not, but I do sympathize with those long ago protesters. Yes, the sculpture is heaped with acclaim, but it's huge, and I find it ugly. I find a lot of the sculpture collection ugly and back when I was having to walk a long way to school there five days a week in my damaged body, I resented several of the large ones for being the hell in my way and causing foot traffic bottle necks when I just wanted to get where I was going and sit down. I get that they were very expensive and the woman who chose them all loves them. I link some of them are beautiful and/or interesting, and I know a couple are popular for things like sunbathing in breaks from class, which counts as a service even though it never benefited me. Do I think my personal taste in art should dictate what pieces should be displayed? No. Do I think my taste should dictate what's considered art? No. This isn't that rant either. No, this is about the way we treat modern art in this culture. On the one side are the folks screaming, "That's not art!" On the other is all this pressure for people who are educated to pretend they love artwork they don't because there's all this expert opinion against them and the assumption is there is something wrong if they don't like it. I'm talking about all those children we bus in from area schools, march around campus to look at the things and then force to write essays about how clever the art it. No, not all teachers make the kids pretend they love the art, but a lot do, I suspect because they are also pretending to love the art and they don't feel safe admitting it. I'm not saying that all people into modern art impose this sort of pressure on people. I think the folks that really love it are more of a mind that good modern art provokes a deep emotional reaction and that all reactions are valid, including strongly negative ones. My issue here is that we don't convey that to children and those children grow up to be adults who smile and pretend they love "For Handel" when they don't. For the record, "For Handel," my least favorite, and "Mindseye," my favorite of the collection are by the same artist. Again, this isn't me hating on that specific artist. This not me hating on a whole genre of art. It's me saying that my personal emotional reaction to "For Handel" is a lukewarm feeling that it's kind of ugly, and that my emotional reaction to "Wright's Triangle" is that it's big, sort of ugly, and consistently in the way, and that the article's burbling enthusiasm about how beloved the pieces all are and the huge progress that represents feels to me like not helping, if you see what I mean. Yes, they quoted the Curator (with whom I have no problem) with that more nuanced idea that strong negative motions are to the point, but the rest of the article felt like more bludgeoning of people who don't love every single piece or any of them into pretending they do. It also ignores more interesting conversations about whether or not a couple of the pieces are appropriation, or the individual nature of taste or response to art, or even helping people connect better to the pieces. No one except the person who selected all the pieces is going to love every single piece in a collection like this. Pretending that they do does not only the people viewing and living with the art a disservice, but does a disservice to the art itself. My feeling is that public art like this is meant to be discussed and interacted with. Silencing people and leaving them to seethe with resentment they don't dare express means that the art isn't serving much of it's purpose. I think that's a problem.
* Criminal Minds: I think it's interesting that they have chosen to let Garcia express the sense of loss and dislike of change fans are liable to feel about the cast change. It's rather clever. I wonder if all the telegraphing and mourning last season and this use of Garcia to say in character what people are likely feeling out of character is informed by the way the loss of Gideon was received by a lot of people.
* I had this thought about New Who and the Five Stages of Grief, but then I realized the Doctor is doing it out of order. Consider the five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Now behold: Nine=Anger, Ten=Depression, Eleven=Denial How Time Lord of him, if you think about it.
* BPAL has done a whole second Halloween drop along with this month's lunacy. O.o
* Patrick Stewart impersonates John Oliver:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook
* Apparently, not content with harming veterans by blocking a veteran's job Core bill designed to help them start careers as things like fire fighters and police, a brave Republican has stood up for his belief that disabled combat veterans as the widows and orphans of dead soldiers should be denied Cost of Living increases. I do not understand how Republicans can go around claiming they support the troops when they hate them so much and want to deny them and their families the means to survive. Just saying.
* Senator Webb, an actual veteran, takes Republicans to task for abandoning veterans and their families and for Romney's contemptuous remarks about them for being part of the 47% he doesn't care about because he thinks they don't pay their share.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
After all, they only gave a limb, or spouse, or a parent, while Romney pays an average of 14% of his income in taxes in the two years we know about. In Romney's mind, his is the bigger sacrifice. In my mind, Romney's belief about who is sacrificing the most here makes him unfit for office.
* Massive Republican illegal Voter Fraud in Florida as part of systematic voter suppression:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
* The long history of the Republican effort to deny students and POC the right to vote in Ohio and the Tea Party vigilantes:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
* Mocking Sudden Wealth Syndrome:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook
* Stephen Colbert mock Congressman Gohmert's bizarre conspiracy theory about President Obama as a tool of the resurgent Ottoman Empire:
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
* "When The Election's In Doubt, GOP Goes Racist:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2012/09/when-elections-in-doubt-gop-goes-racist.html
* Samuel L. Jackson says, "Wake the Fuck Up!:"
* Today was hugely exhausting. I wanted to sleep, but I dragged myself out for what turned out to be a free ten minute car appointment. (It was a minor adjustment related to a previous repair, and my mechanics do that sort of thing free). As I was up and was already in the right section of town, I went to buy some stuff for two upcoming swaps. ( I need to do another run to a different part of town within the next week, and there's a third swap, I'll need to shop for in the near future). Despite the sleep deprivation, the swap shopping was kind of fun. One was a little like Halloween themed Secret Santa. They send you a questionnaire and the person running it assigns you a person with similar tastes to shop for. You need to buy or make stuff from five categories for $40.00 or less fitting their criteria. I had already picked out some ideal stuff I knew where and how to get that fulfilled multiple criteria at once. Of course two of the three were out of stock, so I ended up doing more improvising than I planned. I made it home and got several insufficient hours of sleep. Then there was sorting and packing the loot. (The Halloween thing is ready to go. The other set is being set aside to await the next shopping run). I also did a bunch of small annoying cleaning stuff. I'm reserving serious Inspection cleaning until tomorrow. Still, I feel very productive.
* In my bathroom, I keep a stack of periodicals and catalogs for casual perusal. Depending on a variety of factors, including my bath (reading) to shower (non-reading) ratio, I sometimes end up with a huge backlog, and sometimes I run low. The magazines I actually enjoy go first, obviously, and there's stuff that's been stacked there from two apartments ago that's for emergency only. In between lie the alumni publications that arrive periodically. It is a measure of my desperation that I tore through a year or so worth of alumni stuff in the last week. I don't so much read these as skim. For my pre-K-12 and my first college, I mostly just skim for things like deaths and retirements of people I actually care about. With the second two, the colleges were so big, the chances of anyone I know being referenced are tiny, but now and then there are articles of interest. Like I said, skimming. For some reason St. john's is only sending begging requests to my address, but all other correspondence to the old one, so their weren't any in this sample. Of the two EA ones, the only thing of even mild interest was that M., despite his virulent mysogeny and over all priggishness had not only managed to convince a woman to marry him (old news), but had somehow convinced her to stay with him all this time and mate with her often enough to produce a third child! (He was interned there for twelve out of my fourteen years in that place. Trust me, I have a long list of outstanding assholish things he said and did and my cattiness is justified). Keep in mind, this is the guy who's only hints of sexual interest in all that time were 1. an imaginary girlfriend. 2. A long running romantic "friendship" with another, much nicer boy. 3. A creepy as hell over the top mingled contempt with worship borderline stalking of my senior year. Seriously, his rough wooing made my skin crawl. He was the first of a list of misogynists who discovered themselves with an obsessive desire to get in my pants and pursued it through wildly inappropriate and occasionally insulting means. It happens. (M was part of why I was loathe to spend a whole year of college being stalked by a way older creepy misogynist professor. I did not want to play that out again only with a man with that much power over me. I knew how scary that shit could get first hand and could game it out to no chance of a good outcome.) Hint: I hate getting cornered against something by someone's who's ass I could and had previously kicked like M, let alone people out of my weight class with real power to fuck up my future if I say no or fight back. *shudder*
* There were actually a fairly good set of articles in the second and third college set. The one I wanted to talk about was from WWU, and was about the Outdoor Sculpture Collection. Don't worry, this isn't a "I hate Modern Art" rant. This is something more complex. Back when they put the first sculpture in, there were protests. I absolutely don't endorse vandalizing art work whether I like that artwork or not, but I do sympathize with those long ago protesters. Yes, the sculpture is heaped with acclaim, but it's huge, and I find it ugly. I find a lot of the sculpture collection ugly and back when I was having to walk a long way to school there five days a week in my damaged body, I resented several of the large ones for being the hell in my way and causing foot traffic bottle necks when I just wanted to get where I was going and sit down. I get that they were very expensive and the woman who chose them all loves them. I link some of them are beautiful and/or interesting, and I know a couple are popular for things like sunbathing in breaks from class, which counts as a service even though it never benefited me. Do I think my personal taste in art should dictate what pieces should be displayed? No. Do I think my taste should dictate what's considered art? No. This isn't that rant either. No, this is about the way we treat modern art in this culture. On the one side are the folks screaming, "That's not art!" On the other is all this pressure for people who are educated to pretend they love artwork they don't because there's all this expert opinion against them and the assumption is there is something wrong if they don't like it. I'm talking about all those children we bus in from area schools, march around campus to look at the things and then force to write essays about how clever the art it. No, not all teachers make the kids pretend they love the art, but a lot do, I suspect because they are also pretending to love the art and they don't feel safe admitting it. I'm not saying that all people into modern art impose this sort of pressure on people. I think the folks that really love it are more of a mind that good modern art provokes a deep emotional reaction and that all reactions are valid, including strongly negative ones. My issue here is that we don't convey that to children and those children grow up to be adults who smile and pretend they love "For Handel" when they don't. For the record, "For Handel," my least favorite, and "Mindseye," my favorite of the collection are by the same artist. Again, this isn't me hating on that specific artist. This not me hating on a whole genre of art. It's me saying that my personal emotional reaction to "For Handel" is a lukewarm feeling that it's kind of ugly, and that my emotional reaction to "Wright's Triangle" is that it's big, sort of ugly, and consistently in the way, and that the article's burbling enthusiasm about how beloved the pieces all are and the huge progress that represents feels to me like not helping, if you see what I mean. Yes, they quoted the Curator (with whom I have no problem) with that more nuanced idea that strong negative motions are to the point, but the rest of the article felt like more bludgeoning of people who don't love every single piece or any of them into pretending they do. It also ignores more interesting conversations about whether or not a couple of the pieces are appropriation, or the individual nature of taste or response to art, or even helping people connect better to the pieces. No one except the person who selected all the pieces is going to love every single piece in a collection like this. Pretending that they do does not only the people viewing and living with the art a disservice, but does a disservice to the art itself. My feeling is that public art like this is meant to be discussed and interacted with. Silencing people and leaving them to seethe with resentment they don't dare express means that the art isn't serving much of it's purpose. I think that's a problem.
* Criminal Minds: I think it's interesting that they have chosen to let Garcia express the sense of loss and dislike of change fans are liable to feel about the cast change. It's rather clever. I wonder if all the telegraphing and mourning last season and this use of Garcia to say in character what people are likely feeling out of character is informed by the way the loss of Gideon was received by a lot of people.
* I had this thought about New Who and the Five Stages of Grief, but then I realized the Doctor is doing it out of order. Consider the five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Now behold: Nine=Anger, Ten=Depression, Eleven=Denial How Time Lord of him, if you think about it.
* BPAL has done a whole second Halloween drop along with this month's lunacy. O.o
* Patrick Stewart impersonates John Oliver:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook