Jack's House of Buggery

Delany reading and/or fannish gathering in NYC?

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:30:39 GMT

So Samuel R. Delany is doing a reading at the South Street Seaport Museum two weeks from now.

Here are the details...
Sponsor: The New York Review of Science Fiction
Location: Melville Gallery @ the South Street Seaport Museum
Address: 213 Water Street (Manhattan, not Brooklyn)
Date: Tuesday 2 October
Time: doors open @ 6:30, reading begins @ 7PM

thete1 and I are looking really hard at going. We like to take advantage of times we're going to be in the city to meet up with fanfolks anyway, but there's a complication due to how late the reading starts -- the last train up to our neck of CT leaves Grand Central just after 9PM. We do have the option of taking the train to New Haven (trains run there until almost 2AM) after the reading and staying with people we know there, but we're hoping somebody interested in the reading and/or meeting up before or after has couch space for us. We'll both be hobbling; I won't be bringing my powered wheelchair, though if we can get a manual one in a timely manner we may bring it, since manual chairs are relatively light, and easy to fold up and put in a taxi or carry up a flight of stairs. For those of you who are interested but haven't met us in person before, I really do mean *hobbling*... we both walk with a cane when we walk at all, and we can't go at a 'normal' walking pace, never mind Manhattan speed. (::winks at geekturnedvamp::) The subway will most likely be out of the question for us because of the long flights of stairs; we can handle a flight or more if we can take time to rest in between, but subway steps are steep, and between the steps and the platform are long walkways full of rushing people -- recipe for a fall -- so we'd be using either busses, taxis or NYC's paratransit disservice to go any distances longer than a few blocks.

Anybody still interested?

We'd be arriving at GCT at either 11:40AM or 2:43PM (there's also a train that would get us there at 5:46PM, but that would be cutting things pretty close), so there would be plenty of time for meeting up with people ~~at Woorijip~~ for lunch, or for an early dinner around the Seaport. And there's also the possibility of doing a lunch get-together Wednesday before we head home, if we wind up spending the night in the City, though we'll be tired by then and it would have to be someplace close to either where we were staying or to Grand Central.

Cross-posted to my IJ; comments go there so I can keep track. I've set anonymous comments to screen to keep your addresses, phone numbers, etc. from the phishing eyes of spambots (I believe OpenID logins count as anonymous comments for screening purposes) -- just remember to tell me who you are if you comment anonymously *without* an OpenID!

Geeky fun with maths (with extra comics-geekiness)

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:22:31 GMT

Why yes, another post! And I still haven't got round to posting my belated report on Friday's delightful adventure -- possibly I am constitutionally incapable of reporting on fangatherings until well after the fact.

So, ~~today's~~ September 10th's xkcd:

Gosh, I love reposting things that are under Creative Commons license.
Like pretty much all xkcd strips, it's awesomely, geektastically funny. But I'd like to draw your attention to the little visual aid in panel two which reads 'Standard Creepiness Rule: Don't date under (age/2 + 7)'.

This rule explains rather a lot about Batman/Robin and Superman/Robin pairings ...if you take into account the way many people have trouble remembering mathematical formulae correctly. (Don't believe me? What's the formula for the circumference of a circle?¹ How about for the area of a right triangle?²) Here's what I think happened.

In Bruce's head, it's 'Don't date under (age/7 + 2)'; so, if he's 35 -- and canonically, he's always 35 except when otherwise specified such as in Batman: Year One or 'The Lesson' -- this yields a don't-date-under age of seven years old. Perfect for Bruce, who in ever so many ways is still an eight-year-old boy in a man's body.

In Clark's head, the Standard Creepiness Rule is 'Don't date under (age/2 - 7)'; so, if his default canon age is 30 -- which, officially, it's either 29 or 30, but I don't want to clutter up this post with tedious remainders -- this yields a don't-date-under age of eight. Perfect for ...Clark's tendency to fixate on Robins from the moment he first lays eyes on them in uniform. Especially when one takes into consideration that, while modern canon has adjusted Dick Grayson's age at the time of his parents' death to thirteen, in the Golden Age Dick went to live with Bruce and fight crime in short pants before he was even ten years old (the number of birthday candles on the cake in this issue was frighteningly small, but unfortunately the internets failed to provide me with any scans showing the post-spanking panels).

See? It ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.
___
1. Hint: *not* πr².
2. Hint: *not* A²+B²=C².

ETA: Cross-posted to my my InsaneJournal here. Comments are enabled there. I sincerely apologise to anyone who finds IJ's theme offensive; I weighed this concern carefully against the need to have a journal host I felt I could trust not to arbitrarily delete my content. I hope to find a compromise which is more accomodating of both issues soon.

I'm pretty sure this is a better example of what you're referring to

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:14:18 GMT

I've seen but not been involved in the controversy in bandom over whether stagegay is good or bad -- not been involved in because bandom is not my fandom. Yes, some of those boys are pretty and look good on each other, yes I've heard the music and like some of it (and know what "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" means) ...I'm just not fannish about it. All of you who love it are welcome to it.

I haven't read all the posts; I haven't even read all the posts which showed up on my flist. In other words, it's nearly certain I'm missing a lot of the nuances of the arguments on each side.

That said,

...You want to talk about boys kissing and feeling each other up in public but refusing to state publicly that they're gay, queer, bi or what have you? Have a look here. Not the same rugby players who keep posing for those notoriously homoerotic and borderline-pornographic calendars (that's a French rugby team) but, well, rugby players do have something of an international reputation for this sort of thing. To the point where homoerotic rugby images have been used in tourism billboards.

Apparently someone also compared stagegay to blackface. I'm not going to comment on that beyond "Um, *NO*," but coincidentally, over the weekend katarik and I were discussing some actual blackface worn to this year's Dragon*con, which she attended and I ...found the website with the official costume-contest photos from. Those of you who plan to ever attend a comics and/or sci-fi and/or fantasy con in costume, take note:
This is okay.
This is *really NOT* okay.
(For the benefit of those who need to google who the geeks in those photos are meant to be dressed as, the former is probably Drizzt Do'Urden, a character from a series of tie-in novels for Dungeons & Dragons -- certainly he's a drow elf -- and the three in the latter are Zoe Reynolds, Hoban "Wash" Washburne, and Mal Reynolds from Firefly and later Serenity; in both the television series and the subsequent film, Zoe was played by Gina Torres.)

Here's a better-quality photo of two completely different people in drow costumes who apparently missed the official hallway contest. And, for contrast, here's one of several white women who managed to be recognisable in their Zoe costumes without blackface makeup; there were also several different women of colour dressed as Zoe. Mind you, when I say "recognisable" I'm speaking as someone who is not and never was a fan of Firefly/Serenity -- I watched one episode and parts of a few others to see if I could get into it, and I couldn't. (I am a Gina Torres fan, but that's beside the point.) And actually, I'm reasonably sure there were a number of women (and maybe even a man or three) in Zoe costumes at the con other than the handful I've seen, but I didn't look further than what came up in searches on Flickr, since I was already there viewing the "official" photos.

ETA: Cross-posted to my my InsaneJournal here. Comments are enabled there. I sincerely apologise to anyone who finds IJ's theme offensive; I weighed this concern carefully against the need to have a journal host I felt I could trust not to arbitrarily delete my content. I hope to find a compromise which is more accomodating of both issues soon.

several diversions, and a number of people named Jack

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:21:28 GMT

(Diversion in the sense of a pleasant entertainment, rather than the sense of shifting attention from one subject to another.)

First of all, last week petronelle came to visit me and Te. She is quite diverting on her own! Delectable foods were delected, fancuddles occurred, and I won at making fangirls squeal, hands down. (In fairness, I must admit most of the squealing was in response to my sandbagging them with puns or cracked-out ideas like 'what if Jason had been adopted by Ollie?')

Petra also ~~inflicted~~ introduced me to 5.75 wonderful and diverting things during her visit...

Paul Newman and Robert Redford eyefucking
Have you seen The Sting, the 1973 film whose synopsis can be summed up as 'Paul Newman and Robert Redford eyefucking each other while executing a brilliant con on a third crook'? You should. There are no words for how delightfully gay it is.

Paul Newman and Robert Redford eyefucking each other and also a chick
Have you seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the 1969 film whose synopsis can be summed up as 'Paul Newman and Robert Redford eyefucking each other, when they aren't holding up banks or trains, running from the law, or having (barely) offscreen guy/gal/guy threesome sex'? You should. Normally I am driven bugfuck by films based on historical facts which take so many liberties with those facts, but this one is just so much *fun* -- and, of course, gay.

Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor eyefucking each other and also a chick
(Have you noticed a theme?) Have you seen Singin' in the Rain, the 1952 film whose synopsis can be summed up as 'Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor eyefucking each other, in between making the transition from silent to talkie film stars, and eventually inviting a woman to join them in gay abandon and tap dancing'? You should, so long as you think you can handle the somewhat skanky (not bad for its time, but that's hardly saying much) gender issues, and also the fact that it's fairly unrelentingly a musical. (And I don't even like musicals, with no more than a half-dozen exceptions. Ten, tops.)

the Doctor
Okay, so of course I knew there was new Doctor Who, from any number of sources, some of which were even non-journal sources. I was familiar with the general concept of and history of the show, for all that I'd never watched it -- the natural consequence of broad-based sci-fi geekiness combined with access to Wikipedia. (And I had of course seen footage of the Captains Jack Harkness snogging, courtesy of YouTube and numerous friendslist links to same. Thanks, everyone!) Why had I never watched a single episode of Doctor Who before Petra showed up with a laptop full of ninth and tenth Doctor episodes?

NOBODY EVER TOLD ME IT WAS LIKE The Outer Limits WITH A CONTINUOUS NARRATIVE.

You got a lot o'splainin' to do, fandom. This is the sort of thing Wikipedia couldn't be expected to have told me. (On a sort-of related note, why didn't anyone mention Indira Varma's recurring character when squeeing about Torchwood? I know how many of you are fellow Rome fans!)

What did I watch? Well, *with* Petra, I watched 1.9 "The Empty Child" and 1.10 "The Doctor Dances" -- the two-part episode which introduced Jack Harkness, and which also made gas masks unspeakably creepy. I'm not sure how much of why we watched these two first had to do with my having told Petra she was welcome to pimp Torchwood episodes at me (she didn't have any with her, but I decided I was game for at least an episode or two of Who) as opposed to ...any other reason. I did also dig Rose's Union flag shirt, which made her remind me of an extra-curvaceous Jenny Sparks. (Did you notice a theme recurring just now?)

Then, just when I'd gotten to the point where I found Christopher Eccleston charming, we skipped ahead to 2.1 "New Earth" so that I could be charmed by David Tennant, too. (It worked, though I have a hard time remembering that he's meant to be as old as he is with that gawky frame and baby face. Another for the list of Things Which Make Me Feel Like a Dirty Old Jack.)

Since Petra had a pressing appointment to get Te started on a fresh new variety of World's (intergenerational) Finest fanfiction, she left her laptop with me in the room where Te's computer isn't, so that I could watch more episodes without interrupting the DC brainstorming.

I proceeded to watch 1.7 "The Long Game," 1.8 "Father's Day," 2.2 "Tooth and Claw," 2.3 "School Reunion," 2.4 "The Girl in the Fireplace," 2.5 "The Rise of the Cybermen," and 2.7 "The Idiot's Lantern," not remotely in that order. (Yes, I implied that the chronologically unfolding ongoing storyline was part of what attracted me to the show. It's even true. But can you blame me for being attracted to the idea of approaching the show as an opportunity to be something of a time traveller myself?) I stopped partly because Petra didn't have many other episodes with her, but mostly because it was time for her to go home.

Aziraphale and Crowley
I had heard of Good Omens, of course; long before Torchwood was a twinkle in anyone's eye, most likely. The main reason I hadn't already read it was mostly that there hadn't ever been a copy handy when I was in the mood to read some Gaiman (whose writing I adore) or to finally get round to reading something by that Terry Pratchett bloke everyone's so keen on ~~don't hurt me~~. Petra not only brought her lending copy along on her recent visit, but ensured my interest would be piqued by reading the "In the Beginning" bit which begins the book to me aloud.

I spent the rest of her visit reading especially funny bits aloud to her.

Consider this your cue to rec your favourite Aziraphale/Crowley stories to me.

Jacob's recaps without pity
(Counts as .5 of a wonderful and diverting thing mainly because my consumption began only after Petra had returned to Casa del Petra y Chico.) Attentive readers may have noticed that I mentioned watching Doctor Who episodes 2.5 "The Rise of the Cybermen" and 2.7 "The Idiot's Lantern" but not episode 2.6 "The Age of Steel" despite the latter being part two of a two-part episode. This is because Petra did not have a copy of that episode with her, and more importantly because I had no idea 2.6 wasn't self-contained when I watched it. Face, meet palm.

Having inadvertently painted myself into a cliffhanger (now there are two metaphors you don't see mixed every day), it occurred to me, when Petra pimped the Television Without Pity recaps of Doctor Who in a vague yet enigmatic way, that I might be able to save myself from my dangling predicament, depending on how in-depth the aforementioned recaps went.

They went so far beyond deep, one of them managed to talk about Zoroastrianism, Mithraism and Gnosticism in the context of the episode it was recapping. It was like doing my undergraduate coursework (degree in comnparative religion) all over again, only it was even more fun than the first time round. Jacob the recapper = WIN. Like Petra, 'I foresee Reading Them All in my future.' And so should you.

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Petra didn't actually pimp this, per se; she played the song "A Little Priest" for us, while we were here, and this was seemingly all the additional motivation Te needed, following some dedicated squee/pimpage from her friendslist, to acquire a copy of the theatre production as broadcast on television back in 1982. But she *did* play us the song, and that makes up the last .25 thing.

WARNING: THERE ARE NO DEMONS IN Sweeney Todd. NOT EVEN ONE. Just a lot of humans behaving abominably. I felt a touch cheated by the lack of even one little imp, but ~~possibly~~ I'm odd.

Aside from that, and the fact that it's (again!) a musical, I shan't spoil anything. There are some good twisty and other surprises in this story, and anyone who's going to watch it should get to do so unspoiled unless they prefer otherwise. This will become increasingly important, since a film version starring ~~Captain Jack Sparrow~~ Johnny Depp* is due out this winter.

Speaking of the film version... I remember reading somewhere recently (before watching the '82 version with Te) that Warner Bros. had wanted Tim Burton to 'tone down' the horror elements in it. Which I wish I could say surprised me, but, well, I was one of those Batman Beyond fans who was smack in the most-sought-after demographic which Warner Bros. decided they didn't care about if keeping us meant mothers wouldn't let their 8-13s watch.

The important thing, though, is that, having now seen Sweeney Todd in its stage incarnation, I think I want to do a parody synopsis of a hypothetical sanitised-to-WB-standards version. It could have a Hollywood ending, and a SciFi/Halmi-to-Le-Guin relationship to its source material, and the Signor Pirelli character could be replaced by a black character with 1/4 the lines and serve to both be a Token Black Character and play to the 'The Black Guy Dies First' trope -- a romantic comedy with just enough fights and explosions that the male audience won't have to be dragged to the theatre -- a horse designed by a focus group consisting entirely of producers and other Hollywood insiders.

Unrelated except chronologically: In between finishing Good Omens and reading anything else, I devoured the entire Canopus in Argos series by Doris Lessing. (Well, okay, I skimmed past large chunks of The Making of the Representative for Planet 8. Which, considering that it's only a ~120-page novella, and that I actually enjoy reading Herman Melville, should tell you something about how overly expository those long unbroken paragraphs are. It was an aberration, and should not detract from anyone's enjoyment of the four full-length novels in the series.) Um... we didn't have any other Gaiman I hadn't already read, or any Pratchett in printed-book form, and Te did have the omnibus edition. I don't know, it made sense at the time.

I don't even know where to start describing these books. I will say that they don't necessarily need to be read in order of publication, but that if you're starting with Shikasta (aka Re: Colonised Planet 5 Shikasta) you should NOT read Wiki articles, reviews or anything else, because there's an enormous spoiler which nearly every source mentions right off when talking about the book despite it not being revealed until hundreds of pages into the book itself. They're challenging books, both because Lessing doesn't explain some of the concepts she came up with for the series until long after they're first introduced (if at all) and because the main themes of the series are all advanced philosophical (and theosophical, and sociological, and cosmological) questions. They do, however (with the exception noted) manage to be page-turners as well, an impressive balance. So long as the punctuation of this sentence, which is indicative of Lessing's habitual punctuation -- doesn't make you want to punch things then you should be fine. (It makes me want to punch things, actually; but I still got through all five installments, didn't I?)

ETA: And today I shall be having my first root canal ever. Hopefully this will suck less than it might. Feel free to share tales of your own nightmarish root canal experiences, though -- forewarned is forearmed, and all that.

ETA2: Cross-posted to my my InsaneJournal here. Comments are enabled there. I sincerely apologise to anyone who finds IJ's theme offensive; I weighed this concern carefully against the need to have a journal host I felt I could trust not to arbitrarily delete my content. I hope to find a compromise which is more accomodating of both issues soon.

* We should all hope that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp never get round to actually having sex with each other; if it ever did happen, they might stop making films together.

Hold that 'yay' -- everything is NOT suddenly okay.

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 02:25:14 GMT

Yays, LiveJournal/SixApart are being reasonable again! -- or are they?

Let's have a look.

A single, easy to find policy document -- yay, right? Right...?
So, we're working on creating a single policy document that is linked from the bottom of every page in the LiveJournal application. To be completely honest, it's going to take us a little bit of time to get that done, since we want to work with everyone from our community as well as the usual folks like lawyers. We think it will be a few weeks, and we'll update on progress as that happens.
Two problems.

One, there's no indication that any aspect of this forthcoming policy document will be discussed with the userbase while it is in draft form; indeed, the biz post implies precisely the opposite, since the 'Process Change for Non-Photographic Images' policy has apparently gone into immediate effect, despite having serious language problems (see lumping together and banned without warning below). Apparently 'everyone from our community' doesn't actually include everyone who uses LiveJournal.

Two, we have yet to see a statement promising that users will never again be (and should never have been in the first place) suspended, banned, deleted or otherwise penalised for 'violating' a policy which had never been shared publicly with LJ's customers prior to the punitive action. This kind of ex post facto attack is at the very heart of why both fandom and non-fandom LJ users have been outraged by the ~~Strikethrough~~ and Boldend user suspensions.

Yay, they're not lumping together fandom and child pornographers anymore! They say they don't -- right...?
Today we're announcing a revision to the process of how we deal with reports of child pornography. (Please note: We *know* there's a difference between the vast majority of fan art and child porn. We're definitely not lumping these things together.)
Let's leave entirely aside their qualification that it's 'the vast majority of fan art' which isn't child porn. (In fairness, someone could, in fact, take a real photograph of a real child being sexually abused which was real child pornography, apply a couple of Photoshop or GIMP filters, and claim it's fanart.* They'd be sneered out of any fandom they tried that tactic in, and quite likely be reported by fandom users themselves, but that's neither here nor there.)

They say they know the difference. Yet they fail to distinguish between fanart and child pornography, twice, later in the very post in which they've made that claim:

(b) Our process for drawings, cartoons, animation and other non-photographic images is slightly different. An image of this type that obviously violates our policy will be treated the same as a photographic image of child pornography [emphasis mine] (see banned without warning and two-strikes below)

Many of you have asked about whether or not it is OK to link to outside content that falls into the category of child pornography, and the short answer is no, it's not OK. (see policy on links below)

And as usual, the conflation of child pornography and {non-photographic artwork depicting naked and/or sexually positioned persons under the age of eighteen, whether the subjects are real or fictional persons} is rampant in comments by LJ staff in comments on the post.

No more witch-hunts for objectionable material in fandom journals -- can we say yay yet...?
To start with, the ground rules: We accept all reports of potential child pornography that are reported to us, regardless of the source, but will only take action when that material violates our policies.That means we will accept reports even from people or groups that are annoying or have an axe to grind, but if content is not in violation of the policy, it won't have any effect.
This would be wonderful news, if it were reassuring to anyone other than a straw man.

Few if any LJ users believed that LJ representatives, either on the Abuse Prevention Team or otherwise, were themselves targeting fandom users or communities for investigation. Outside groups lumped fandom in with child predators first. The problem is that, the first time (i.e., Strikethrough), LJ took a few admitted bigots' word that everyone they reported was a real child pornographer or child predator, and the second time (i.e., Boldend), LJ representatives' personal biases were the sole basis of their decision to ban elaboration and ponderosa121.

We have received some assurance that there will not be a repeat of the first case, though the worth of those assurances depends on whether LJ's customers trust the company not to break its promises again.

There has been no assurance whatsoever that the second case could not happen to other users in the future, however. The two artists banned on or about 3 August 2007 allegedly had their content reviewed by at least two LJ representatives before they were banned; yet there still has not been an unequivocal or factually correct explanation of why those users were banned, only libellous assertions that the content they were banned for constituted child pornography under U.S. law (in some communications from LJ representatives regarding the suspensions) and the insulting suggestion that at least one artist's work met the Miller standard for obscenity because it 'does not contain serious artistic ... merit' and LiveJournal 'clearly did not see serious artistic value in' the artists' work.

These facts would be worrisome enough in a vacuum, but they are merely the most recent examples of LJ Abuse decisions which fly in the face of their own policies** (and policies have been tweaked after the fact to create a retroactive justification for a dubiously-based suspension at least once before).

LJ users are still just as vulnerable to witch-hunts initiated from outside the LJ community as we were before May's mass deletions, because the power to decide whether a complaint about a user's content is valid still rests entirely in the hands of people who have proven time and time again that they cannot make just or unbiased decisions.

Well, at least nobody is going to be banned without warning anymore... right? Yay...?
(b) Our process for drawings, cartoons, animation and other non-photographic images is slightly different. An image of this type that obviously violates our policy will be treated the same as a photographic image of child pornography, but in questionable cases involving a non-photographic image we will adopt a "two strikes" process. [emphasis mine]
Oh, the problems with this phrasing.

First, the section I've highlighted: This is akin to a list of rules which says, 'Any violation of the rules will be considered a violation of the rules'; if no other rules are listed, it's meaningless. What is being referred to with 'our policy' -- something in the forthcoming policy document which hasn't been written yet? It's a textbook example of circular reasoning.

The other problem with the highlighted section is that it says 'drawings, cartoons, animation and other non-photographic images ... will be treated the same as a photographic image'. Sure, there's a separate clause which adds that 'in questionable cases ... we will adopt a "two strikes" process'... but what are 'questionable cases'? Cases where it's difficult to determine whether the content is a photograph or not? Cases where it's difficult to determine whether a person depicted in the image is under eighteen years of age or not? Cases where it's difficult to determine whether the person depicted is a real minor (e.g., my neighbour's grandchild) or a fictional character (e.g., Charlie Brown of Peanuts fame)? Cases where a fictional child or teen is depicted but resembles a real minor who portrayed the character onscreen? Not addressing every possible example is reasonable, if only to avoid a policy document of infinite length, but failing to define terms renders any such document useless.

Right, well, a three-strikes rule would have been nicer, but two-strikes seems fair enough. Ya-- what now...?

(b) Our process for drawings, cartoons, animation and other non-photographic images is slightly different. An image of this type that obviously violates our policy will be treated the same as a photographic image of child pornography, but in questionable cases involving a non-photographic image we will adopt a "two strikes" process. [emphasis mine]
[...]
In the case of questionable links, we'll use the "two strikes" process.

(See above under banned without warning and below under links to content for further discussion of these two sections of the Process Change post.)

So, there will be one chance (in some cases; in other -- perhaps most -- cases, no second chance will apply) for a user to remove reported content which is found by [insert arcane and opaque LJ Abuse determination method here] to violate LJ's TOS or other forthcoming policy document. Once a user has had to take down content deemed inappropriate in their 'first chance' violation, any further report of inappropriate content by that user deemed by [insert arcane and opaque LJ Abuse determination method here] to have merit will result in the user being banned and their journal(s) deleted without further warning.

Let's see what would happen if LJ's users applied this sort of 'process' to LJ itself.
LiveJournal: Some of our users and communities may be making us look bad. There's nothing in our TOS or other policies which says that listing 'serial killers' or 'the holocaust' as an interest means the user approves of those things, but let's go ahead and kick them off the site and keep their money anyway. *~~Strikethrough~~*
LJ users: WTF? Hey! That's not fair! You violated our trust!
LiveJournal: Hmm, okay, we guess that was pretty offensive and uncalled-for. We didn't mean to violate your trust -- give us another chance, we'll never do that again!
LJ users: Okay, we'll give you another chance.
LiveJournal: Some of our users and communities may be making us look bad again. We'd better get rid of these people, even though what was reported to us as child pornography are clearly drawings and thus excluded from the legal definition of child pornography. Probably no one will notice so long as we do it quietly. And if anyone does notice, we can just pretend it really was child pornography, or violated the law in some other way -- that way no one can blame us. *Boldend*
LJ users: Well, we warned you! You did the same thing a second time. You lose us as customers, and you forfeit any money we paid you based on the terms you said you agreed to after you violated our trust the first time.

If a two-strikes policy were truly fair, LJ would be offering refunds, not circumlocutory platitudes, right now.

And they clarified their policy on links to content on other sites, and pretty soon after we asked! Yay, right...?
Many of you have asked about whether or not it is OK to link to outside content that falls into the category of child pornography, and the short answer is no, it's not OK. Think about it: If we said it was OK across the board to link to child pornography, then people would make communities just to do so.
There's a reason our online playground is called the Internet and the World Wide Web, and that reason is that different parts of it are hyperlinked together.

Think about it:

IF a user discovers a (non-livejournal) website which contains content objectionable to that user, and posts a link to it in order to encourage other LJ users who read their journal to join in making protests to the company which hosts the content, THEN they could be banned by LiveJournal.
IF a user posts a link to a site hosting photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe's (or another artist's) controversial -- yet ruled non-obscene in a court of law -- artwork, because they wish to discuss it but don't wish to display the content itself on their journal, THEN they could be banned by LiveJournal.
IF a user posts a link to a site hosted in a country where the legal definition of child pornography excludes images of some persons under the age of eighteen, for the purpose of alerting fellow parents whose children may be considering studying abroad in (or already visiting) such countries, THEN they could be banned by LiveJournal.
IF a user posts a link to their (or someone else's) MySpace page, and the page linked to is subsequently 'goatsed' with an objectionable image as a result of its owner hotlinking images from yet another server (which recently happened to thousands of MySpace users), THEN they could be banned by LiveJournal.
IF a user posts a link to a Google Image Search results page based on having searched, with SafeSearch on, for (for example) "andy is this asian jerk i work with" or "can't beat a twinkie" and anyone else follows their link to the results page but has SafeSearch turned off, THEN they could be banned by LiveJournal.
IF a user posts a link to a website which displays a photograph of Jon-Benet Ramsey wearing a two-piece bathing suit, even if the intent of that site is to mourn or investigate her murder, THEN they could be banned by LiveJournal.
IF a user posted a link in their journal weeks, months or years ago to a website whose domain registration has since expired and is being 'cybersquatted' by someone making it display child pornography or other objectionable content, THEN they could be banned by LiveJournal.
IF anyone had actually created a journal for the sole purpose of posting links to unambiguous child pornography, THEN this argument might have a shred of merit.

And that's leaving entirely aside the fact that no one asked whether users could post links to child pornography on other sites from their LJs; the question which was asked by numerous users was whether they would be treated as if they had posted content LiveJournal found objectionable on LJ if all they did was post a link to another website where 'questionable content' was located.

There's additionally the fact that, far from a 'clarification' of or even a 'slight change' to existing policy, the new definition of hyperlinks as potentially ban-worthy 'content' is in fact a complete reversal of previous policy. Here is the guideline for handling reports of off-site objectionable content by LJ users, from the document the Abuse Prevention team themselves (are supposed to) use:

Non-LiveJournal Requests
Last updated: November 29th, 2004

(HTML duplicated above in case of subsequent revision to source; link follows.) That last bit bears repeating: we can't address any content which resides off of LiveJournal as, quite frankly, it's none of our business what occurs off our servers. LiveJournal and SixApart are not and should not be in the business of policing the content of the entire Internet.

But haven't the suspensions been rescinded? Can't we at least celebrate the return of the two artists to their LJ community?
This new process might have changed the way that two members were recently permanently suspended without warning. In respect to their privacy, we aren't going to get into details of any individual suspensions. But you should know we are reaching out to these people
'[M]ight have changed'...? Oh, I give up.

Yes, both elaboration and ponderosa121 (both artists have the same usernames at insanejournal.com as they had previously used on livejournal.com) were given the opportunity to have their accounts restored -- elaboration is already back, and posted the contents of the email she received from LJ/6A rescinding her suspension. Pond is so fed up with LiveJournal's behaviour that she doesn't want to come back.

Note, however, that in the midst of all the apologies in the 'Process Change for Non-Photographic Images' post, there is neither apology nor retraction for any of the libellous statements about the two artists made by various LJ representatives over the past couple of weeks. No word yet as to whether Pond will get an apology for LJ representatives having lied to other users about her stance on having been banned, either.

And, at least in elaboration's case, LJ is counting her now-lifted suspension as 'strike one' -- so she can't afford to run afoul of Abuse's still vague, subjective and inconsistent process for deciding which journals' content is okay and which isn't even one more time before being banned again.

Yay, it's the end of the post! That was stressful. One last thing -- let's break down exactly what message LJ sent its users last night...

...I tried to do a numerical breakdown of how many sentences were actual policy/process statements, how many were apologetic, how many were appreciative, how many asserted the idea that 'we’re all ultimately on the same side', how many were statements of intent, and so on. I got about three paragraphs in and concluded I wasn't qualified to do that sort of analysis; maybe someone with a background in communications or psychology could give it a try. Heck, I may not even have been choosing the right categories; I didn't even differentiate 'we statements' from 'you statements', or single out sentences structured as statements of fact whose assertions are actually in dispute.

I remain convinced, however, that such an analysis would be illuminating, to say the least. I've picked at some of what theljstaff said, but there's still enough of a lingering bad taste in my mouth that I think we, as users, ought to look at how they chose to say it, too.

Notes
*For everyone who can't visualise what I'm talking about: Here is a 6A promotional photo of Barak Berkowitz. Smaller versions are all over SixApart sites, including the management bios page at SixApart.com and Barak's typepad blog. And here is a cropped version of the same photo, run through exactly three Photoshop filters (Accented Edges, Colored Pencil, and Poster Edges) and with a slapdash painterly background created with faded gradients and the same three filters: Look, I 'painted' this picture of Barak -- feedback plz! :3.

**See this example of a policy being used to penalise one user but not against the reporting user who violated both the same (no posting personal information about other users) and other (no inciting violence, no racist hate speech) policies; this example of LJ Abuse aiding and abetting the harassment of an LJ user by a notorious crackpot, in defiance of multiple court rulings; this example in which accounts were suspended on the basis of mistaken identity and other accounts were suspended on the basis of Abuse inferring meaning neither intended by the user nor implicit in her words; and Nipplegate -- note that this is not an exhaustive listing.

Acknowledgments:
Special thanks to akuma_river for this supremely useful collection of links to posts and comment threads related to these issues, and to the metafandom team for collecting links to many posts not on that list.

Cross-posted to my my InsaneJournal here. Comments are enabled there. I sincerely apologise to anyone who finds IJ's theme offensive; I weighed this concern carefully against the need to have a journal host I felt I could trust not to arbitrarily delete my content. I hope to find a compromise which is more accomodating of both issues soon.

To anyone who thinks...

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 04:22:46 GMT

...that the community moderators of daily_deviant have responded to the mess they've created for themselves in a reasonable way:

Here, for contrast, is an example of an *appropriate* response to make after discovering that you have behaved in a racist manner and thereby offended others.

When I came across the above-linked post, I knew it would eventually be useful for future situations where somebody in fandom acted like a big dumb racist and wasn't willing to own up to it. (I was hoping it would take *more than a week* for the next such occasion to happen.)

Other than that, I don't have much to contribute to the discussion; I was asleep when the excrement struck the ventilation device, so other people have already said most of what needs to be said, and probably better than I would've done anyway. As is often the case, liviapenn has compiled an excellent listing of links to other posts about the issue.

[Edited to add: Inspired by aubergineautumn's comments here, I have created a new macro. Feel free to take and use; credit is appreciated but not necessary, just don't let me catch anyone claiming it as their own.]

On transformative uses of copyrighted material

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 23:31:20 GMT

Political cartoon: Fandom and SixApart

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 22:28:19 GMT

Last night brown_betty, in between writing brilliant posts and comments about the "clarification" (I do not think that word means what they think it means) of LJ's permissible content policy, she came up with a brilliant idea for a political cartoon about the whole mess.

Alas, as she lamented to me, Betty cannot draw. (I'm not sure I entirely believe this, as I haven't yet come across anything else she can't do.) She described the cartoon she envisioned so well I thought I could almost see it too. So, I offered to try drawing it for her.

Peek shot: I learned that drawing goats is hard. (Sheep are, if anything, easier than when I was in grade school drawing them for some project or another.) But Betty says she's pleased with how it turned out, and since it's her artistic vision it was meant to illustrate, I succeeded at least that far.

The quotation is from Matthew, chapter 25 verse 32, which reads in full,
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; (KJV)

Media: #2 mechanical pencil on paper, coloured in Photoshop.
Disclaimer: Frank the Goat and the LiveJournal pencil logo are property of SixApart.

Who knew sheep could be such woobies?

Fanart: Teen Kilroy (rating to be determined after Abuse deletes my account)

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:45:52 GMT

Okay, LJ is claiming that not only text-only description, but any non-photographic depiction of someone under 18 (and photos, too, which I'd say everyone was on the same page about except that LJ has spectacularly failed to specify that only photographs of minors which include nudity and/or a sexual theme are obscene, so anybody who's posted fully-clothed photos of their babies, godkids, nieces, nephews etc. is distributing obscene material by the latest "clarified" definition) falls under the definition of "obscenity" in the United States and is therefore prohibited by LJ's Terms of Service.

The three standards a work has to meet to be considered obscene under US law are:

1) It has to appeal mainly to prurient interest, in the opinion of an average person (one with 2.3 children, one supposes? sounds like a paedophile serial killer to me) applying the standards of whatever "community" is relevant to the case at hand; and
2) It has to depict a sexual and/or excretory act which is "patently offensive" and also explicitly (HEH) listed in some state's criminal code; and
3) It has to be devoid of any "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

I'm going for the trifecta of visual (non-photographic) art involving a minor. Tell me how I did?

Here are the main areas I am seeking constructive criticism regarding:
Is his statement of age suffficient to establish that he's a minor?
Is it prurient, are you average enough to decide, and which community's standards did you choose?
Is the act depicted patently offensive, and if it's covered under a state statute, please indicate which one?
Is my hope of avoiding even political value defeated by the very circumstance under which the work was created?

Congratulations 6A! You lose at the Internet.

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:52:32 GMT

You've probably seen posts all over your friendslist about this announcement from SixApart (unless you're one of the many people on my flist who are avoiding their friends pages in fear of spoilers for the new Harry Potter book, and yes, the timing of the announcement right when so much of HP fandom is offline, not to mention right after permanent account sales closed, is too obnoxious to be entirely coincidental).

I'm going. Almost certainly I'm following Te wherever she goes -- see here.

There are already a huge number of comments on the lj_biz post, most of them falling into one of a handful of categories of redundancy. I like to think that I've saved you the trouble of adding to the riot of responses there... though, if shooting metaphorical fish in the barrel is something you enjoy, LiveJournal has provided an exquisitely ripe opportunity.

As I said in that comment, none of the content in buggery is going to be deleted, at least not by me. But in the very near future, new content will be posted elsewhere rather than here, and pre-existing content will be reposted at the new location. I'll keep you posted as to where my new internet home shall be.

Oh, and because I enjoy calling things before they happen:
Nobody seems to be asking for clarification, yet, of whether fanfiction's use of trademarked (or copyrighted, though that gets a big old [SIC]) characters, locations and concepts is going to fall under the new ban on content which allegedly violates US law. (I might've just missed it, as I did not read every single comment before my own.) My guess is that 6A will say, while everyone is up in arms about this current round of BS, that fanfiction which doesn't concern minors in sexual situations won't be affected... and that they'll go back on that before the year is out.

I have a paid account and extra icon slots, and have had them for years now. I'm going to quite enjoy taking my consumer dollars elsewhere, and helping finance some less-egregiously-mismanaged journaling site to make itself better as I did with LJ in the past.

Why don't we get comic-book film adaptations like this?

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:34:40 GMT

So, last night I had the most fascinating dream about a 'lost' Batman film from the 70s.

It was produced by, (or financed by or the brainchild of,) among others, John Lennon.

It starred an Asian actor as Batman -- though not as Bruce Wayne; the premise seemed to be that Bruce had only been the first, or at least only one, of the heroes behind the cowl.

It was entitled, Come. (You're twelve.) The title came from this Batman's catchphrase, which he used both in the 'bring it on' sense and to invite someone to join him, whether for a walk, a meal, or the Mission.

The actor playing Batman did not look entirely unlike Tony Jaa or Andy Lau, but neither would most people mistake him for Tony Jaa or Andy Lau.

As the film opened, Batman -- for the life of me I can't remember what his real name was, or even any of the aliases he used -- had just arrived in a moderate-sized Asian city (or possibly in a city with a moderate-sized Asian population? All I'm sure of is that it was neither in Japan nor Batman's hometown) to visit some old friends. They lived in a large old temple-like home (it could as well have been a converted church or fortress, imposing and fireproof, several stories high, and with entrances that would give beseigers pause, as well as its own spring-fed water supply) in something like an extended-family arrangement except that not all of them were related. I think one or more of the elder members of the household had had a hand in training him to be Batman, though not his hand-to-hand fighting skills. Possibly strategy, as we shall see.

Not everyone was home when he first arrived, as his visit was unexpected. (Apparently this Batman does a lot of just roaming and fighting injustice where he finds it.) After visiting with those who are at the house for awhile, he decided to go for a walk through the neighbourhood. He said hello to the owners of the business next door -- along the street to one side of his friends' home was a short string of commercial properties, a mix of shops, restaurants and services, some of which had changed hands and/or type since he was there last.

He decided to eat lunch at a restaurant in the middle of this strip, which served sushi (this was how I know the film wasn't set in Japan, as there was a definite sense of someone having tried a little too hard to evoke a Japanese atmosphere without having a native sense of what that would mean) and was somewhat dauntingly upscale for its neighbourhood. At first he was almost the only patron, which may have been meant to make the viewer wonder how such a restaurant stays in business, but he received polite and professional service despite his somewhat casual dress... IIRC, sunglasses, chinos, a tan windbreaker, and a polo or other non-dress-shirt in some colour darker than tan. (Overly distinctive 70s western 'fashion' was thankfully not in evidence. My dating of the film is based largely on Lennon's involvement.)

Then a large party in western-ish business dress came in, just as our hero was deciding where he wanted to sit, and he was invited to join them. They began their meal with an apparent tradition wherein once the first person was served, she or he would choose what they wanted from the serving tray, then insult the person next to them as they passed the serving tray on. The insults seemed to be all in good fun, and both the members of the party and the restaurant staff would laugh at particularly witty insults. Apparently-fortunately for our hero, the tray had started some three or four people away from him and proceeded in the opposite direction around the enormous table, and he had ample opportunity to observe the pattern the others were following. So, when the serving tray was passed to him (along with some good-natured ribbing about his appearance) he served himself, and then passed the tray to the man in the next seat, and insulted him, as seemed to be expected.

Nobody laughed. The entire restaurant fell quiet; the rattle of dishes from the kitchen even stopped.

The guy Batman had passed the tray to stood up and delivered a 'you dare to insult *me*? do you know who I *am*?'-type spiel, and his goons tossed our hero out of the restaurant. Of course it turned out Mr Full-of-Himself was a local organised crime boss, and there was a sub-plot that involved Batman busting up his operation. Either I didn't retain that part well once I was awake, or it was elided in the dream.

Another part of the plot involved Batman tangling with local law enforcement. I'm not sure whether this had to happen because they were corrupt (maybe in with the aforementioned organised crime element), took a hard line on vigilantism, or both... but, being Batman, he managed to infiltrate the investigation as an outside consultant, using a persona which was supposed to be blind. The investigation got hung up on some sort of bureaucratic or inter-agency issue, and seemed likely to stall on its own, but of course Batman made an appearance to kick a bunch of law-enforcement ass. His use of his blind-man sunglasses as a weapon, jabbing people in pressure points, was particularly impressive.

There was a nice surprise twist near the end. As Batman was making his way back to his friends' home, dark-garbed figures (definitely not ninja, but arguably ninja-esque) melted out of the night to confront him. Their message was along the lines of, 'we passed the mantle of the Batman on to you, we provided or financed all your training and equipment, and we've let you be Batman your own way, not even restricting you to operating in Gotham or the US, but now you need to be brought to heel.' Needless to say, Batman disagrees. (Incidentally, I was also left with a sense, though I'm not sure from where, that one of the secret identities of Batman between Bruce Wayne and this guy was Barbara Gordon, perhaps a la Thrillkiller.)

More and more of the secret-society people appear out of the gloom, and he kicks just enough butt to get back into the house (remember I said it was fortresslike? Suddenly that's germane). Even more of them show up, while Batman is climbing the stairs to the courtyard-like area of the roof -- seriously, it has gardens and and a seating area and even a spring-fed pool -- where he finds the household just lighting some huge bunches of giant incense sticks. He uses some of the incense to drive some of the besiegers back, using both the thick smoke and the burning embers, and everyone prepares for the coming battle... it's not clear exactly what kind of numbers the other guys have, or at least not more specifically than *lots* more.

During the lull between the incense attack and waiting for the main brunt of the siege, Batman takes a moment to share a clinch-y kiss with the woman he's been having chemistry with since the flashbacks to the first time he met her there. (A fairly impressive job was done of showing that she was *not* his only or even main love interest over the course of the film, though the details of that, too, were lost either to faulty recall or elision -- it was more a matter of, 'we've been making eyes at each other for years, let's get at least a smooch in before we're knee-deep in attackers.') And the film more or less ended there, with the siege imminent and Batman smooching the kick-ass woman whose home was being attacked; the credits started to roll.

But after a moment or two, the image behind the credits scroll started changing to moments Batman had had with other romantic interests, not all of whom were female or even human. I quite distinctly remember something like a merman and something like a female centaur, as well as at least two beings of intriguingly uncertain or complicated gender, among others -- I think there was a modest fantasy element present throughout the storyline, and some, but not all, of the other people Batman is remembering (or fantasising about; that was left deliberately unclear) macking on were in earlier scenes in the film, including some of the ...meta-humans? anyway, not-normal-humans.

It's a weird, almost unheard of way to end a Hollywood film, of course, but I think that, along with its general 'failure' to stick to one genre, mark it as at least having been strongly influenced by the Hong Kong style of cinema.

...I kind of wish this was a real movie. I'd totally love to watch it again.

Hurray for whatever makes dreams happen!

Linguistics porn!

Thu, 17 May 2007 13:30:00 GMT

Lest my icon mislead anyone, the linguistics porn in question in not DC-comics-related.¹

Do you remember those old-school text-based adventure games? (Or, given the median age of this fandom, do you remember hearing older fen talk about something called Zork?)² I've always been fond of them, partly because back when I first started playing computer games, text adventures were the best kind available.

It turns out people are still making text adventure games, though they're more likely to be called "interactive fiction" nowadays despite the way that term suggests a genre little better than a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story.³ Some of the more recent IF games even have graphics⁴ and/or sound, though their interfaces remain primarily text-based.

The urge to play some old-fashioned text adventures came over me the other day, so I went looking for ones that were available in emulation mode for modern computers. Most people (myself included) can only play Zork and Advent⁵ so many times. I could actually play Transylvania⁶ over many more times, but it's apparently not available in a ported or emulator version, probably due to copyright issues.

Once I stumbled across the frankly huge listing of text adventures available via the Beginner's Guide to Interactive Fiction, I hoped I'd be able to find at least one game that didn't drive me crazy with the sort of stupidly-crafted puzzle that can only be solved by flailing randomly into exactly the right word or phrase,⁷ rather than offering puzzles that can be solved logically.

I decided to try out Lucian Smith's "The Edifice" based on its small filesize and the brief description given, as well as the fact that it runs on Zcode.⁸ It's a much smaller game than classics like Zork, but this means its puzzles are more fun (or at least less frustrating) to find and figure out.

Edifice has three levels, or areas of gameplay (not including the introduction screen where the player must solve the extremely simple puzzle of accessing the Edifice). Each one has its own multi-part puzzle.

It's the Level Two puzzle that earned Edifice its several awards and lasting popularity among IF fans. Most of this puzzle involves meeting and interacting with another primitive human who speaks a language unknown to the player (the language was created by Lucian Smith for the game). It is possible to learn the mysterious language of this "Stranger" -- indeed understanding at least some of his language is necessary to completing the level.

The language itself is not terribly complex, due to both the need for players to be able to puzzle out words' meanings from context and usage, and the programmer's desire not to have to code in thousands of different phrases as well as behaviours for the game to follow when a player spoke each possible phrase in the strange language. But the language is complete enough for the player to eventually be able to hold a meaningful conversation with its native speaker.

This language puzzle is unique not only in the IF genre but, so far as I know, throughout the larger category of computer and even non-computer games. It's a fascinating and satisfying exercise in linguistics. Once you've played it, it's easy to see why The Edifice remains not just classic but popular.

Other game features of interest: It is not necessary to complete Level One before moving up to Level Two (nor must Level Two be completed to access Level Three) so if you're playing mainly for the language puzzle, you can skip nearly straight there. Also, there's another linguistics puzzle of a simpler sort in the prologue area -- examine your surroundings carefully and you should be able to find and decode it -- this is a nice bonus which doesn't affect your game progress directly and may not even affect your score, but it's fun, so who cares?

I highly recommend using the [Beginner's] Guide link above, but if you'd rather just get your downloads on and get on with it, here are direct links to the install file for (Windows) Frotz (Mac users will need to go through the guide to access an "interpreter" program to run the game on) and The Edifice game itself. The website of the game's creator, which includes reviews of and commentary (by Lucian Smith in the form of interviews) on the game, is here, but be warned that there are spoilers of various degrees⁹ behind most of those links.

Brief mention of two other games
For a completely different experience with alien linguistics, try "For a Change" (also in the listing linked above, or click here: 89KB) -- the game's dialogue bears nearly the same relationship to standard English as an e.e. cummings poem's language does. And for an almost entirely dialogue-based game (with bonus feminist overtones), talk with "Galatea" (the link at the Guide to IF site seems to be broken, but you can play Galatea online here).

1. There is, however, a strong possibility that a text adventure game set in the DCU may become available. Because I'm going to try to write one. Interactive slash fiction!
2. For background, check out the wikipedia entry for Colossal Cave Adventure, the original text adventure game, which has been ported to almost every subsequent OS and which a Flash version of can now be played online; and/or check out the entries for Zork; and follow the links top related content from there.
3. Another low-tech diversion from my youth which was shiny and new at the time.
4. This is not entirely a new phenomenon. My favourite IF game of all time is the mid-80s Transylvania, which I played on the Apple IIc. Here are some screenshots of what passed for graphics back then. Pretty good considering they were drawn by the high-school kid who programmed the game...
5. See note 2.
6. See note 4.
7. Sometimes referred to as guess-the-verb or guess-the-noun puzzles. This class can also include guess-the-direction; For example, in the original version of CCA, new players were often stumped just a few screens into the game, by a room which described the streambed they were following as continuing south, yet south was not a valid exit, and the player needed to "go down" instead.
8. A Zcode interpreter is a small application that runs IF games coded in Zcode. The Guide -- and I -- recommend Frotz for Windows users. Yes, the application is named Frotz. Also, Inform, the application I may soon be using to create some IF games (see note 1), produces games coded in Zcode. Games with other coding formats will not work with Frotz.*
9. Plenty of spoilers for the Level Two language puzzle, and some for Level One's puzzle, too, but annoyingly none for Level Three, where I have managed to get stuck.**
* I really enjoy saying Frotz.
** I have now solved Level Three. Watch out Level Four!

Cake frosting and White glue

Wed, 09 May 2007 01:27:44 GMT

There's an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent in which a character commits a particularly ingenious murder by "repairing" the leaks in a partly-rotted old boat with a mixture of cake frosting and white glue, knowing that when their intended victim took the boat out, the concoction would keep water out only long enough for the boat to get dangerously far from shore.

It appears that the US Army Corps of Engineers might as well have repaired New Orleans' levee, pump, floodwall and floodgate systems with cake frosting and white glue, according to this National Geographic article.

New Orleans' Rebuilt Levees "Riddled With Flaws"

Joel K. Bourne, Senior Editor–Environment, National Geographic Magazine
for National Geographic News
May 6, 2007

Hurricane Katrina

predicted to be a "very active" Atlantic hurricane season

National Geographic

interactive map of the weak spots

Louisiana

aerial video of "angel food cake" levees

video of Bea tasting the leaking canal water and addressing the issue of seepage

Doomed to Fail?

"A Massive Accomplishment"

The August 2007 issue of

magazine will include a full report on the challenges facing New Orleans.

(All links and brackets original to the article. Copyright by Joel Bourne and National Geographic. Full text reproduced here because URLs change; no claim of copyright is implied.)

I suppose it's good news that there's a class-action suit already under way... but it's hardly likely that it will be resolved before the "repaired" systems are put to the test by this year's hurricane season. Even if a judge were to rule in the plaintiffs' favour, *and* the Corps were to take immediate action to do the repairs right this time, it might still be impossible to shore up New Orleans' defences before the next big storm hits. Is it also a good thing that most former residents of the Lower Ninth Ward and St Bernard's Parish haven't returned to the city (and can't because those areas are still full of contaminated and condemned buildings with no utilities or other municipal services)? For crying out loud. If you have engineers from the *Netherlands* coming over to help you design and implement your *flood-control* systems, and they're *still* not working, then *you can't really be trying* to make them functional.

I don't even know what to say at this point -- other than, perhaps, You're doing a heckuva job, ~~Brownie~~ U.S. Army Corps of Engineers!

Let's pretend this is a blog: Freddie Mercury

Fri, 04 May 2007 15:25:19 GMT

So I've just seen a special produced last year about the life of Freddie Mercury, who would have turned 60 years old on 5 September 2006. (It's called Freddie Mercury: Magic Remixed, and it's currently re-airing on Logo network in the US -- good news for satellite subscribers, frustrating for most Americans stuck with cable. I've no idea whether it has or will air outside the US.*) Freddie was, of course, the lead singer and principal songwriter for Queen, who died of complications from AIDS in November 1991.

The special did a fine job of looking at most of the important aspects of Freddie Mercury's life, given that it's only an hour long, probably 43 minutes with the commercial breaks taken out. There's an impressive depth of detail about his early life, enhanced by interviews with his family and a former classmate from the boarding school he attended in India. Footage from Queen concerts and music videos brings Freddie's vivid stage persona back to life better than any interview could, though of course there are interviews with his Queen bandmates as well. And there's enough footage and recollections of Freddie's private life, both at his infamously extravagant parties and at home, to complete the picture.

What I found most striking and saddest, watching the documentary, were two things. The first was that a large part of the reason Freddie never officially came out publicly as a queer man was that there was overt pressure from the music industry for him not to do so. The other was that Freddie not only passed for white, he never went farther than saying he was Persian (his family are Parsees, ethnic-Persian Indians who practice Zoroastrianism, and he was born on the African island of Zanzibar and lived either there or in India until his family moved to England when Freddie -- Farrokh -- was seventeen) when discussing his ethnic ancestry in interviews, and a number of his close friends believe he felt more detail could hurt his career.

It's been just a shade over fifteen years since Freddie Mercury died at the age of 45. I hadn't realised things had changed that much, until I thought about how easy it would have been for Freddie to be out, both about his sexuality and about his ancestry, had he lived longer. As I said to Te while I was watching the part of the documentary where the music industry pressure was discussed, if Freddie came out today, reactions would have ranged from "Duh!" to "So what?" At least, that's how things would play on this side of the pond; it's tempting to suppose that British popular opinion would be more conservative... and yet not only have performers like Sir Elton John and Sir Ian McKellen come out without ruining their careers, they've both been knighted.

Likewise, his being arguably the West's first Asian rock star would today enhance his popularity, rather than harm it. The last decade and a half have seen an enormous increase in the number of musicians and actors of Asian (whether South Asian, East Asian, Asian-Pacific Islander, Middle-Eastern, or otherwise) ancestry in music, film and television... the number was vanishingly small before, and representation of Asians in popular culture has a long way to go yet, but there has nevertheless been a degree of change which would undoubtedly stun Freddie Mercury were he to step out of a time capsule today.

Today, Freddie Mercury would be celebrated for being a gay Asian performer nearly as much as for the talent of his performance. The fact that he missed out on seeing this time in history himself just makes his too-early death that much sharper a loss for us all.

*If anyone else has information about non-US airdates, please comment, and I'll add it to the post.

Holy given up for lost, Batman -- it's new fanfiction from the Jack!

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 03:59:11 GMT

So I realised recently that it's been over a year since I posted any fic here. Granted, I've been largely gafiated, and also mostly not writing (you didn't think I was writing and hoarding it all away to myself, I hope), but still. The main purpose of this LJ is ~~inflicting~~ sharing my fanfic with the world.

Somewhat more recently, it's occurred to me that 1 April is a fine day for posting humorous stories. (Not prank stories; I'm inclined to look on a tradition based on Christian disdain for pre-Christian traditions with a jaundiced eye.) It lets me get into the spirit of fun that's come to be associated with the day without feeling like I'm marginalising anyone.

And in that spirit, I present:

Auld Lang Syne

"Selina?"

She sighs, and doesn't so much turn as put her back to the wall. "I'd tell you you shouldn't sneak up on a gal like that..."

"--If you hadn't known exactly where and who I was?"

"You always were a bright kid."

"So, um..."

She folds her arms, and raises her eyebrows.

"Uh. Would it be okay if we" -- he gestures at the door -- "went inside?"

"Ah, so it isn't public-hallway conversation."

He opens his mouth, but she's already turned to unlock the door.

"Come on in, then," she says, tipping her fingers back over one shoulder to signal 'follow.'

Inside, he stuffs his hands in his pockets and paces a circuit through her living room. He isn't even looking at the decor; she pretends not to be affronted.

"Should I get you a drink? Or are you going to get around to what you came here for on your own?"

"No, thanks, I--" He breaks off and riffles a hand through his hair, then turns and walks up to her. "Selina, I... I want... Would you tie me up?"

She can't remember the last time she was actually at a complete loss for words.

"For old times' sake," he adds, earnest as ever.

She takes a deep breath. "Listen, Man Wonder, even if I thought that was a good idea -- which I am *not* saying -- I am definitely not the person to... help you. With that."

He starts to move closer. She stops him with the tips of her fingers on his chest.

She starts to think how all of them seem to always act as though her fingertips are actually clawed, and then forces that thought *away*.

"Please, Selina..."

"Honey. I understand that you've had an awfully hard year." The breath that escapes her isn't quite a laugh. "And that's *saying* something, for you." She considers letting her palm rest on his chest, then thinks better of it. "But. I am really, really not the right person to help you work out your... ah... *parent* issues."

"Oh, god." He takes a step back, clapping a hand to his face as hers falls away. "You and Bruce are back together again, aren't you!"

It's just not fair that he facepalmed first. She settles for pinching the bridge of her nose. "Yeah, because *that's* the whole reason I would say no..."

* * *

"Amy?"

[end]

*

Edited to add: Several people audienced this story for me, back before I nearly forgot to post it. I cannot remember who they are, because I suck, but if they remind me in comments, I will give credit where it's due.

It's only logical: Not all DCU fic by the Jack is humour
It's also logical: Not all Jack's fanfiction is DCU-based

Proof that the universe is fundamentally unfair:

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:46:05 GMT

Last night, I had a really nice dream in which Clark was making out with me. Laid out, making out, approaching the violation of marital vows area -- yes, he was married to Lois in the dream. I think I was also related to Lois in some way and Clark and I actually knew each other *through* her.

(The unfair part is that *Te* did not have this dream. It was her bed and everything.)

...I haven't decided whether I'm actually back. But I am around, for the moment at least. Hi, fandom!

it's like it was scripted

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 19:33:38 GMT

Over~~heard~~ (overseen? overviewed? ...can anybody spare a coin?) in a comics-fans' chatroom just now:

B•Angelheart: still couldnt read that...its all scrambled at my end...all I see is gibberish
C•A-Team: yeah, thats how we see kin's comments too
Salamander: Must be a "glitch".
C•kinbote: You're just not l33t enough for my political commentary.
B•Angelheart: what?
C•kinbote: It pwns you.
Salamander: what?
C•A-Team: PWNS
C•A-Team: you
Salamander: WHAT?
C•A-Team: you know, pwns
C•A-Team: you got pwns
C•A-Team: er pwned
Salamander: Oh. Why didn't you say so?
C•A-Team: lol
B•Angelheart: prawns?
C•A-Team: no not prons
C•A-Team: pwns
C•AbbaZabba: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L33t
Salamander: man, that's so 1337.

PS to any Americans who somehow forgot and didn't see all the other reminders -- vote today! I did.

caulk, delicious caulk

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 01:27:17 GMT

Te is currently cooking up a delicious omelet for us to eat for dinner. I thought now would be a fine time to share a new recipe we came up with last night. This would've been called "fried apple slices" or something, except it came out more like

Crustless Apple Pie

3 apples (we used some lovely organic Galas) sliced thinly -- about 1/4" or 1/2 cm
6 tablespoons butter*
ground cinnamon to taste, about 1/4 tsp
ground nutmeg to taste, about 1/4 tsp

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Sprinkle in spices, then add apple slices and stir to coat. Saute until apples are soft, about 15 minutes. Serves two people if they care enough about one another not to come to blows trying to scarf all the apples themselves.

Note that there is no sugar in this recipe! We were as surprised as you are, but this came out amazingly sweet without any added sugar. It's possible that a little might be necessary if you use, say, Granny Smiths, but then again, it might not.

The butter and spices, combined with the juice that cooks out of the apples, create a wonderful sauce very reminiscent of really good apple pie... making this an *awesome* craving-satisfier for those of you who can't have carbs and/or gluten.

*I usually use Fleischmann's margarine when baking for vegans, but I can't promise what the results would be in a recipe this simple. Also, margarine is really bad for you and you shouldn't be eating it *unless* you're vegan.

Dammit, Clark's penis is going in something.

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 10:25:54 GMT

As you probably already know, if you're reading this journal, the subject line of this post is thete1's latest journal title. (Following "Who's touching Tim today?" and "Always lead with crotch." and, most recently, "Kryp-tease.") I don't know about anybody else, but I have noticed some desperately inappropriately humourous juxtapositions of this new title with certain of Te's icons.

One was a lark. Two was a happy coincidence.

Three made me need to put together a Top Ten list.

Warning: Do not attempt to eat or drink while reading beyond this point.

TOP TEN MOST INAPPROPRIATE ICONS TO SEE JUXTAPOSED WITH TE'S JOURNAL TITLE
For maximum enjoyment, be sure to hover your mouse over each icon!

10. This one's really a gimme.

And not just because Clark/toon!Tim is a pairing Te's known for. Really hardly at all to do with that, honestly.

9. Te gives Clark just as many -- if not more -- opportunities to play with comics!Tim, of course.

Look, I didn't draw him like that, people.

8. "I learnt it by watching YOU!"

It's hard to blame Clark when the birdboys keep, er, positioning like that.

7. You knew Bruce had to show up sometime.

(Yes, that's Bruce. I *know*. But seriously, do you think circus acrobats would be hot for him if he *couldn't*?)

6. I almost want to put this higher up, since Clark/Diana is (sporadically) canonical.

This being a Te-specific list, however, two words are operative: titty fuck.

5. It's like a multiple-choice icon!

Clark loves, respects and pervs on women. Not to mention anyone in a Robin suit.

4. The faint of heart may wish to consider Clark's penis going in Barry's hand.

Come on, though, why do you suppose Clark really 'rescues' so *many* kitties from trees?

3. All the other Robins are here, it's only fair.

Clark has wet dreams about getting this answer to the question implicit in Te's journal title.

2. As the keyword text tells us, "Kon has a *super* ass." [emphasis mine]

This gets additional bonus points because Kon is conversing with Clark in the panel the icon was cropped from.

But, the winner really had to be...

1. All that *and*

Poor Tim. "Complicated" doesn't even begin to touch it, huh?

Refurbished laptop computer: $500 plus shipping
LiveJournal account: $19.95 per year
Having the perfect icon for a post: PRICELESS.

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 00:33:11 GMT

It's Te posting for Jack:

Jack's had a pretty miserable couple of days, health-wise, and so hasn't been up to coming online, much less responding to comments. Ze wants you to know that ze really appreciated the great response to T'Pura. Ze also thinks the challenge would be a great idea, but thinks someone else should be around to at least help run it/keep track of various entries.

Volunteers?

All slash leads to Star Trek

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 03:48:51 GMT

Or possibly I have that backwards?

So the other day, Te made a long, thinky post about why the treatment of characters of colour in both canon (primarily DC comics, but by no means exclusively) and fandom (same deal) creative works continues to be disappointing, and why that's not okay. Her post is part of a larger discussion going on in various parts of the internet about race and gender in fandom -- both what fans create and what we consume -- and generated its share of discussions and follow-up posts.

In one of the discussion threads on that post (begun by vassilissa here), discussing why the character of Teal'c on Stargate: SG-1 gets such short shrift, Te made a comparison between SG-1 and classic Trek when she raised the question,
"Really, what would slash fandom have looked like -- if anything -- if Leonard Nimoy had had darker skin?"

Like Te, and not a few others, I was stunned and inspired by Elena's response, "I'd like to imagine that maybe if they'd cast Nichelle Nichols as Spock (she wanted the role when she read the script)" -- I grew up in Trek fandom, but I've grown away from it as an adult, and I had never heard that story before.

It would, of course, have changed everything.

If Jim Kirk's Vulcan First Officer had been played by a black woman...

I kind of had to do this. The notion is so compelling... I may yet write fanfiction around this 'what if?' too. Rewrite some classic episodes, maybe ("Amok Time," "Mirror, Mirror," so many choices...) or put -- It's hard to say what to call her, isn't it? Spock was Spock in the script, and I don't think Vulcan naming conventions were set until later in series history, so that could just become a female-appropriate name; T'Pock is frankly awful, but T'Pura has a lovely ring to it, I think. -- First Officer T'Pura into an original story.

It was crazy fun making this manip. It's difficult to make a red as rich as TOS communications uniforms were into the decidedly pastel blue of science/medical (though if T'Pura is the First Officer, she should be in command yellow, unless she still is the science officer as well...). The ears, on the other hand, drove me nuts, and I can't even lay the blame on the fact that most of them ought to be a cheap late-60s television prosthetic, because the shading is all wrong. I did better smoothing out her expression, though that wasn't a complete success either -- it's *hard* to make Nichelle Nichols not smile! At least I can be unconflictedly pleased with how her eyebrows came out.

(Incidentally, I know the rank stripes on her uniform are wrong, designating her a lieutenant's rank, but I just haven't been up to tackling *creating* a meandering line of textured metallic braid, much less allowing for folds on the fabric.)

While I'm here nattering on about Star Trek... The internets and fandom have *both* failed me! How is it that I didn't find out until nearly a year after the fact that George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu in ST:TOS and most of the films that followed, came out to the news media as a gay man?! Ah well. In honour of my finally catching the clue, new icon.

No wonder I've always been so hot for Goerge Takei.

As an alternative to STABBY RAGE...

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 23:55:56 GMT

Yeah, I've seen all the same scans showing that WIZARD magazine can hire utter tools to talk about (and demonstrate) drawing female comics characters that the rest of LJ-based comics fandom is frothing about today. Not gonna rant, per se. Plenty of that going on, and I just don't have the energy for a rant today.

Instead, a somewhat more zen approach:

Big Beautiful Wonder Woman, the blog of a WW fan who believes Diana is a prime example of women looking better the less they look ...well, like Michael Turner's vision of Supergirl.

All the art at BBWW is by other artists, and the blogger accepts and displays any art of Wonder Woman drawn with more heft to her than she's allowed to have officially. This means, sadly unsurprisingly, both that some of the art poses Wonder Woman like a girly pinup, and that some of it is drawn by artists who can't conceive of a fat woman being anything but unattractive.

That said, the second image currently on display (by Pedro Caraca) is possibly the least representative of the dozens of pieces of artwork contributed to BBWW; and while I wish I could say the third image (by Colin McK) is equally unrepresentative, truthfully there is a fair amount of cheesecake here -- which remains exploitative even if the women are drawn with less-unrealistic bodies, or bodies unrealistic in ways other than the comics-industry standard.

For me, though, it's worth scrolling past that crap in order to appreciate art like the image currently at the top of the page, by Tom Burgos, or like the sixth image on the current page, by Juan 'JayTee' Tesorero, or even better, less-recently-posted art like this one from July by Mike Manley of Diana -- and Clark.

More somewhat-less insanely-image-heavy links for the dialup set...

23 Sep 06 (most recent) post with art by Tom Burgos****
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/09/sassypants-saturday-post-tom-burgos.html

21 Sep 06 post with art by Pedro Caraca,* Colin McK,* Vinicius Visentini,* & Fernando de Sousa Lima**
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/09/were-still-here.html

30 Aug 06 post with art by Juan Tesorero (JayTee),**** Gerson Witte,* & Andre Valvassori***
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/whole-world-is-waiting-for-you-monster.html

23 Aug 06 post with art by Adam Koford***
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/part-two-electric-boogaloo-adam-koford.html

22 Aug 06 post with art by Dave Curd,** Stephen Sakurai,*** Jason Loo,**** & Aaron Conley***
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/i-adore-mi-amore-bbww-roundup-part.html
(the image link for Loo's art appears to be broken, but can be found on his blog here:
http://astroloo.blogspot.com/2006/08/fat-wonder-woman.html )

19 Aug 06 post with art by Jason Yungbluth***
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/little-late-night-bite-jason-yungbluth.html

16 Aug 06 post with art by Adam Koford****
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/offset-old-school-and-oh-so-cool-adam.html

16 Aug 06 (separate) post with art by Mike Oeming***
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/little-in-middle-but-she-got-much-back.html

16 Aug 06 (separate) post with art by Bonaia Rosado**
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/cutest-wittle-wunner-wummin-bonaia.html

08 Aug 06 post with art by Bryan Lee O'Malley**
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/lady-in-red-bryan-lee-omalley.html

05 Aug 06 post with art by Nik Holmes*** ZOMBIE WARNING
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/dead-to-me-nik-holmes.html

02 Aug 06 post with art by Kelli Nelson****
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/woah-kelli-nelson.html

01 Aug 06 post with art by Andy Smith*
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/all-you-can-eat-andy-smith.html

01 Aug 06 (separate) post with art by Joel Carroll****
http://fatwonderwoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/big-bottomed-girls-joel-carroll.html

The asterisks (* to ****) beside each artist's name denote the number of stars I've rated the art by that artist in the referenced post, based on my own biased view of how offensive (*) or empowered (****) the depiction of Diana in the image is. Possibly this is of use even to those with spiffy fast connections, now that I think about it.

70s Porn Star Buddha says: Feed your soul, feed your body.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:10:09 GMT

Nothing in this post has anything to do with the subject line.

I have just finished eating a delicious sandwich for dinner, the contents of which I felt like sharing. (LJ still needs a Current food: notation on entries. I'm just saying.)

Sweet Muenster Sandwich

Two slices cinnamon-raisin (or other sweet bread with fruits and/or nuts, but not cake-like) bread
Spiced fruit spread (Apple butter is good, basingstoke's home-canned spiced blueberry jam is awesome, as no doubt her gingered-cider jelly would've been if I hadn't mixed all mine in yogurt; tonight I used a spiced pear jam from the local farmer's market that has butter *in* it)
1-3 slices Muenster cheese (depending on how thick yours is sliced and how gooey you like your sandwich)
butter (optional)
Cream cheese (optional)

(If you want to use butter, spread it on your bread first.) Smear your jam or other fruit spread on one side of each slice of bread, nice and thick. (If you want to use cream cheese, spread it on over the jam on one slice, also nice and thick.) Lay your Muenster on the bread and close up the sandwich.

The easiest way to finish your sandwich is if you have a Foreman grill or a panini maker. You can also use a toaster oven if you have one. Or, you can fry your sandwich in a skillet or bake it in the oven (around 200F/100C), but be sure you butter the outside of the sandwich too, and cover the pan before and after flipping it, or wrap the sandwich in foil if it's going in the oven.

In other random things that make me happy today, Te recently acquired a copy of King Missile's "Gay / Not Gay." I'm a long-time King Missile fan anyway, but this one is special. Lyrics here:

Gay / Not Gay by King Missile

I saw an episode of The Jerry Springer Show, and the topic was "Transvestites and the Men Who Love Them." And the guy was on with his "girlfriend," and he was saying "To me, this is a beautiful woman. She's got a perfect body, beautiful blonde hair, everything. I love her, and I love making love to her. Now I ask you, does that make me gay?" Most of the audience thought so, and so did I. But it got me thinking about what is and isn't gay.

Discussing sex with a guy is gay. Discussing sex with a women is straight. Even telling a woman "Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to suck a cock," is straight.

Sports are gay, especially contact sports, unless you're the only guy on both teams, in which case it's straight.

Gyms are always gay, because afterwards, in the locker room, you're showering with guys, and that is gay.

Watching pornography alone is neutral, like eating a sandwich. It is neither straight nor gay. Watching pornos with one or more other guys in the room, no matter how many other women are also in the room, is gay. Watching porn, even gay porn, with one or more other women only is staright.

Here's an interesting one: Kissing a gay guy on the cheek, or letting him kiss you on the cheek is neutral, as long as the guy is out of the closet. Hugging and/or kissing a straight guy is gay.

See, look, I know I'm homophobic, but not about gay guys. They don't bother me at all. It's straight guys who don't know they're gay... they fuck my shit right up.

Like a guy calls me up and says, "A bunch of us guys are gonna sit around in our underwear and watch the football game and drink beer and eat chips and, you know, maybe wrestle with each other, just us guys. You wanna come over?" And I'm like, "No."

Ok, you got a guy sucking your dick, even if he's dressed like a beautiful woman, even if he's got the best breast implants youv'e ever seen, even if you're saying to him "Suck it, bitch, I know you like it, you slut, you whore!" that's gay.

Conversely, if a woman straps on a dildo, and you're dressed like a woman, and you're sucking her cock, and she's saying, "You like it, don't you? You like sucking my dick you little fucking faggot," and then she rolls you over and fucks you in the ass and says "You love it you little pussy boy! You love getting fucked in the ass. I'll bet you wish I was a man! I'll bet you wish this was a real cock, you fucking faggot!" and you're getting off on this like you've never gotten off before, that's still straight.

But then, if you go off to the bar, and discuss this, or any other sexual experience with guys, that's gay.

Here's the most interesting one. Sucking a guy's cock can, under certain rare cirumstances, be staright. Let's say you've gotten into a betting game with a woman, and the bet is that whoever loses has to be the other's sex slave for an entire night... you know, the kind of stuff that happens in Penthouse Forum all the time. And you lose, and the woman makes you have sex with another guy. That's not gay. I don't know exactly why, but it isn't.

<333. Yarrr.

WHISKEY. TANGO. FOXTROT.

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 23:03:30 GMT

I know that political posts push some people's buttons like whoa, but this is just too important for me to put entirely behind a cut.

The United States Senate will be voting this week on whether to issue a PARDON to George W. Bush for illegal wiretapping of, and possibly other crimes committed against, American citizens.

MoveOn.org has a convenient email petition form set up, which will add your name to a list of electronic signatures to be presented to both the Senate and the House of Representatives denouncing the proposed pardon and asking members of Congress to vote against it.

I have already signed the petition via this form, and added the text behind the cut below to my message. Because faxed letters are given more weight by most Congresspeople than emails, phone calls or even snail-mailed letters, however, I will also be faxing each of my Senators individually tomorrow.

While I'm at it, I will gladly fax a letter to anyone else's Senators on their behalf. All I need is the text you would like in your letter (a personal note addressing each Senator's record and/or history is helpful but not necessary), the names and fax numbers of each of your Senators, and a graphic file with your signature -- you can do this right in a graphics program if you don't have access to a scanner, just be sure that it is either saved at 300 dpi or higher, or appears approximately three times the size of your normal signature on the screen.

What I added to the standard MoveOn.org petition text:

Upholding the laws of this country is an implicit part of Congressional legislators' duties, even as they create new laws, improve existing laws, or allow outdated laws to expire. It is not, I believe, coincidental that the oath of office sworn by United States presidents includes a promise to uphold our Constitution -- that duty should be implicit in the office of the presidency as well, but with the power of the executive branch concentrated so much more in the hands of one person than is the case in the legislative and judicial branches of federal government, it has always been considered more important to explicitly impress upon the men who have held that office that the highest office in the land is not higher than the law itself.

To pardon a sitting President for crimes committed against the citizens of this country, in violation of both the Bill of Rights and other sections of the Constitution, would be a tragic error. It would shatter the faith of American voters (and non-voters, and non-citizen residents) in the integrity of our country, more than any illegal actions by the executive branch under George W. Bush have done already. It would send a horrible message to the rest of the world, to our allies and our enemies alike, that American rhetoric about justice, freedom and democracy is nothing but hypocrisy, spin and outright lies. And it would rob American citizens already wronged by Mr. Bush's illegal actions of any opportunity for redress of their grievances -- another violation of their constitutional rights.

I urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to vote against issuing a pardon to George W. Bush, or any member of his cabinet or any other employee of the federal government appointed by him, for illegal actions he or they are alleged to have taken against citizens or other residents of this country. If you cannot step forward and demand that impeachment hearings begin, at least stand with your fellow Senators of conscience, and refuse to allow this shameful pardon proposal to proceed.

Using either the text of the MoveOn.org petition or what I wrote is better than not saying anything to your Senators, but correspondence whose text is identical to other senders' is granted less weight by politicians, so use your own words unless you really can't think of anything different to say.

Comments are screened by default, so that only I will see the real names, addresses and signatures of anyone who wants me to send a fax for them (feel free to post such comments anonymously if you prefer not to have your name associated with your LJ) but other comments will be un-screened unless you request otherwise.

Edited to add: Contact information for elected government officials at all levels for all states can be found here. That site also offers an "Extra Impact" service -- someone will hand-deliver your letter to a member of Congress to their offices in Washington, for about US$9 per letter, for those who have the extra money to throw at this outrage.

It's not a GIP if I brought enough to share with the whole class, right?

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 07:22:10 GMT

Recent trends in comics fandom (and elsewhere) have been provoking my feminist rage pretty frequently, and I've been increasingly aware of my need for an icon that can express my feeling of GRARRR at such times.

Then Te and I watched a Robot Chicken rerun -- the one with the Santa Claus murder mystery, and the digression, "You ever see a yeti with a dozen condoms of coke burst in his belly?" The ensuing rampage inspired me to say, "that! That's what I need for my growly rage icon..."

Happily, some other [adult swim] fan put the digression segment of the Claus sketch up on YouTube, meaning both that you can watch it here:

and that I was able to screencap the yeti wreaking havoc for iconnage purposes. Alt + PrntScrn is your friend and mine.

Let the yeti express your rage... in icon form!

(Shared icons marked in growlin' green, claimed icons in ragin' red. Please comment if you use one, and specify if you want exclusive dibs on your choice, as otherwise it will be marked shareable.)

1) 2) 3)

4a) and a blank version, 4b)

5) 6) 7)

8) 9) 10)

For those who might question the appropriateness of a yeti as spokesicon of *feminist* rage, I have three points to make: first, that the yeti in question clearly has breasts (#6 provides the best view); second, that drug mules around the world are predominantly female, and there's no reason to presume that trend would change north of the arctic circle, despite that elf's pronoun slip; third and finally, feminism (and by extension feminist rage) isn't just for women.