sundries

[rm]

Wait, isn't this the plot of one of the Twilight books, but like, with sharks or something? via enegim.

I try, I really really try not to be anti-faith in general or specific around here. I'm not an atheist and I grew up with a lot of different faith traditions because of family wackiness. I have a huge variety of believers and non-believers of many different faiths on this friendslist and so-forth and so-on. Among other things, I have close LGBTQ friends who are also members of the Catholic Chruch and try to exist within and with their church is a way that reduces the harm some of the church's current doctrine causes. All of which means I generally don't post about anti-gay stuff from religious quarters -- it's not a surprise, and I don't really view it as my problem, until it injects itself into politics.

The D.C. Catholic Archdiocese has threatened to stop helping thousands of the needy in the nation's capital if the District's City Council approves a pending bill which states that marriage between 2 people in the District of Columbia shall not be denied or limited on the basis of gender, and which also ensure[s] that no minister of any religious society who is authorized to celebrate marriages shall be required to celebrate any marriage...or solemnization of a same-sex marriage.

This is not how we show compassion, ease suffering or let God do the judging.

Can I make a request? When we talk about models being too thin, or being photoshopped to look too thin (things we should be genuinely outraged/concerned about, I agree), can we stop saying they look like "concentration camp victims?" It makes me uncomfortable both as a Jewish and a queer person and as a person with a genetic disease that makes me very, very thin. If you think I look sickly, it's because I am sick.

So-and-so "needs a sandwich" talk sucks too. It's also worth remembering that eating disorders are illnesses, not personal moral failings (cultural culpability is another matter entirely); people with anorexia aren't bad people, they are people with anorexia.

So confronting skinny privilege/expectation? Good! Saying that a given level of skinniness looks sickly to you? Fine! Blithely making the Holocaust comparison or judging people who have various nutrient absorbtion diseases or eating disorders? Not cool.

Apparently there's going to be some weird Miracle Whip vs. Mayo thing on Stephen Colbert tonight? There were weird angry Miracle Whip ads about in the paper this morning. Patty hates mayo (and Miracle Whip) more than anything, but we'll be watching anyway.

Women with brain tumors more likely to wind up divorced. The numbers could mean a lot of different things, but few of them are good.

Malcolm X was bisexual? Seriously, I just got linked to this, I have no idea, I must sit and read. via i_amthecosmos. (Actually, the article is a bit crap in several ways, delineated in comments below).

Megan Fox and the construction of celebrity. I don't think she's that sly, but the topic is always of interest (celebrity construction, not Megan Fox).

In New York, we all look in each other's windows.

“He would sew in the dark every night, except for a small desk light. His hands would flutter up like a moth to the light,” she said. “I found the image so lonely and sad, but somehow soothing. Maybe because I was lonely, too. It gave me comfort.”

Look, I just pass this shit along. ALSO, WHO IN INDIA TOLD TONY HELLO FROM THE TORCHWOOD LESBIANS? FESS UP!

There's a word for one of the strange things ConSweet is playing with via Io Station! Defictionalization! I probably should have already known this. via tod_hollykim.

OMG, I just had this conversation with Sprint. I feel sorta bad about it:
Me: "I'm going abroad in a couple of days and want to know if my phone will work."
Them: "Will you be leaving the country?"
Me: "That's what abroad means."

Zurich progress:
- I've called my bank
- I've rented a mobile for there
- I'll do all cat-related errands tonight
- this just leaves currency exchange and packing tomorrow
- I also, unrelatedly, but hey important phone calls, played more phone tag with the headshot guy.

Comments

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Also, can we stop calling every conflict where people of different backgrounds are involved a Holocaust. And people we don't agree with are not automatically Nazis.

I've been very underweight (also due to a medical condition) as well as somewhat overweight and found the comments about weight were much worse when I was heavy. Just my experience.

[rm.livejournal.com]

found the comments about weight were much worse when I was heavy. Just my experience.

I think that's more often the case than not. Usually I only get cranky about hostility at skinny people when it overlaps into something else (like the Holocaust thing or "real" in terms of gender).

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Invoking Godwin is derailing and always counter-productive, not to mention that comparing everything to Nazis and the Holocaust diminishes both from the uniqueness of the conflict being addressed and the Holocaust itself.

So, yeah. What you said.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Also, aside, I know Godwin, so that's always super-weird.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

You personally know Godwin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Godwin)?!

I hope you don't mind if/when I'm back in New York I follow you around just to see the people you know!
;P

I hope that doesn't come off as stalkerish... I'm far too polite to actually do something like that. Someone dragged me to all the "behind the scenes" things when Neil Gaiman was in Israel. I really didn't want to bother him!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah. We don't hang out or anything anymore, but we used to cross paths _all the time_ when we were both much younger, and both of us probably have some pretty appalling stories about the other.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I'm really not trying to split hairs, nor defend people who are being idiots by Godwining, but instead discuss the subject....

There is a difference between "Holocaust" or "The Holocaust" , and holocaust ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Holocaust )

Is it possible that the word can not be used without it being taken for a reference to The Holocaust, even if that was not the intent? ( in the same way ghetto is most most often associated with African-Americans, when by definition it is generic to minorities / ethnic groups under socio-econimic hardship )

Also, with a few exceptions, usually most conflict is between people of different backgrounds. That's why they are fighting in the first place.

If a conflict between two groups with different backgrounds results in devastation, destruction, or massive loss of life it can be considered a holocaust. It should be taken to be incorrect to needlessly compare it to the Holocaust.

Thoughts?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I agree in principle. However, the very word Holocaust is so very charged - I mean, last year an Israeli minister used the Hebrew term for it Shoah and he got slammed for calling for genocide - and while what he said was politically problematic, he really wasn't calling for the genocide of anyone nor comparing anything to the Holocaust.

So, yeah.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Also : I agree with you 110% on comments being worse when you are heavy.

"You can never be too rich or too thin " - Marilyn Manson, "Transylvanian Concubine" ( Though the Rasputina Cover is much much better )