sundries

[rm]

So, I am thinking, a pair of eye-glasses to replace my snapped cat-eyes ones and a pair of square-ish wire-rims with those transitions lenses so I can have prescription sunglasses on the cruise. Y/Y?

From the Department of WTF BBC: Should homosexuals be executed? I'm having a hard time cogently responding to this, but the very short version: you just apologized to Alan Turing, who, btw, helped save your asses in WWII. Doesn't that tell you the damn answer?

keori gives us an amazingly detailed overview of the history of impact of DADT.

Fela's Women.

Have now seen all the abstracts for Bristol.

I was weirdly and freakishly charmed by Stephen Colbert rapping with Alicia Keys last night.

More reaction to and fallout from the Chartrand mess: here and here. This is about a lot more than pseudonyms; it's about how you get paid better if you talk about how much women suck and how women on the Internet literally pay the price for all that casual vitriol from men fictive and not.

Design the next NYC condom package.

In India a call has gone out for volunteers to marry sex-workers to get them out of the biz (via catdancerz). This one's complicated and interesting.

About being a marginalized person and the expectation that you be willing to educate others about it in a way that considers their feelings, often more than your own. via i_am_schizo

Offered without my internal commentary: Looking young may mean living longer. via 00goddess on Twitter

Okay, so who exactly on the flist is going to Gallifrey One this year? I've actually lost track. Why do I need to know? Inappropriate trinket planning, of course.

Tomorrow Patty leaves for Ohio. This is *frowny face*. I will work and write like mad to catch up on everything (hi, Werewolves; hi Virtual Season; hi, ConSweet), and then when she returns on Jan 1, we get ready for the cruise!

Okay, actually, my book is back-ordered EVERYWHERE. I'm expecting the major e-tailers to get it in in time for Christmas shipping, but at this point am just not sure. I do have a decent stock of books in my house though, so if you want one and you're in the US and you need if for the holidays $14 via Paypal (sorry kids, I'm more than Amazon, list is $14.95) and I'll pick up the shipping and packing. Email or PM if interested.

Comments

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think if someone had put that much thought into it, they could have also come up with a way to frame the question that didn't just invite hundreds of people to say "Yes!" It's like the internets equivalent of pinning up a sign on your arse saying KICK ME.

Re the legal situation, the law prohibits "inciting hatred" - certainly, albeit unwittingly, they've provided a platform for that (and violated their own TOS which forbids homophobic comments - wow, someone did not think this through). I'm sure it was down to naivety not malice, and I'm sure they'd argue it was a rhetorical question, but it wasn't framed as one, so I would say there's certainly a case for complaint if not conviction. They've reworded the header question now, and though they haven't removed "Should homosexuals be executed?", they've shifted it to make the context clearer, which improves it slightly. It's still highly unfortunately worded, though.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree that it's badly worded and the whole thing was handled about as badly as possible. But a lot of the reactions I'm seeing aren't distinguishing between "badly handled" and "malicious." And I still think that providing a forum in which people can speak safely is incredibly important. "Should gay people be executed?" is not a legitimate debate, but it's a real one that's really affecting people, and I think it's preferable that the BBC, as a news organization with unparalleled international reach, provide an open forum (even at the price of also providing a forum for homophobes) than wash its hands of the whole mess.