sundries

[rm]

Patty and I are both swamped. And next week she goes home to visit her family for about ten days. My kingdom for some uninterrupted us time, because she's awesome. Hey, at least England is coming up soon, and in the face of lots of work, we're actually being pretty good about staying sane and making time for each other. Oh spring.

Since I'm all about death things lately: A funeral is being held for IE6.

Controversy over POM Wonderful's assertion that drinking the stuff will give you more erections.

Hey, you thought the whole mess with New York State politics wasn't epic enough? Here's a random sidenote: Choking isn't even a felony here making it easier to minimize the domestic violence case at the current center of this mess.

DC Nightlife. Look, I lived there in the early 90s and couldn't understand why clubs let everyone in. I came from NYC. It confused me. Didn't you have to be good enough to get chosen?

An argument for taking gender out of the Oscars. For the record, I use the word "actor" for myself not because of gender queerness, but because I don't believe we need the word "actress" -- the article even notes (yay!) how the word is falling out of favor.

A Canadian politician says he didn't order chunks of information on LGBTQ rights deleted from a citizenship study guide, but the fact remains, if he didn't, someone else did.

Surprise, surprise. Anti-gay California politician arrested on DUI charges after leaving a gay bar with another man. Fuck you.

Gay marriage is now legal in DC. And you know what I'm noticing the most about the coverage? Acknowledgment of LGBTQ people of color of which there is waaaaaay too little of in general both from within the LGBTQ community and in the mainstream media.

Republican memo advises playing on "fear" of Obama.

Bigots: weirder than I thought. reannon links us to the AFA's post about how the killer whale that killed should be stoned to death.

Comments

Anti-gay California politician

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

It seems like this happens over and over... and I always wonder what anti-gay activists think of it, when their politicos get outed over and over.

N.

Re: Anti-gay California politician

[gement.livejournal.com]

I read an interesting article that suggested the response is, "If even our people are this corrupt, imagine what a cesspit the private lives of politicians with no moral standards must be!" When I model that in my head, I get a further tightening down, a fear that the entire world is about to tip into the pit. Sadly, it does not lead to a sense that maybe my system isn't working as well as the heathen libertine model.

The article was suggesting that what will be most effective in true sea change is showing success-as-they-define-it won in models other than theirs, on a personal level. Families with visible lasting loving relationships (married or not), healthy kids with good grades, that sort of thing. Showing them that everyone's a sinner just feeds into the existing model.

Re: Anti-gay California politician

[heron61.livejournal.com]

The article was suggesting that what will be most effective in true sea change is showing success-as-they-define-it won in models other than theirs, on a personal level. Families with visible lasting loving relationships (married or not), healthy kids with good grades, that sort of thing. Showing them that everyone's a sinner just feeds into the existing model.

*nods* that makes much sense. That's one of the reason that I'm looking forward to the end of DADT - I'm fairly anti-military, but conservatives usually respect soldiers, and having the occasional decorated soldier who is also openly queer, and possibly even married will cause some people to question their ideas.

[ferriludant.livejournal.com]

I am more and more coming to a position on anti-gay types which is best expressed by Dan Savage. Paraphrased, he says that there are only two types: self-hating closeted gay assholes (Roy Ashburn is probably one of these); and self-hating hypocritical assholes who are using gays as a target to deflect criticism from their own deeply flawed, usually adulterous and often fraudulent lives.

[drfardook.livejournal.com]

IE6 isn't dead yet. Too many corporations refuse to upgrade their systems (including our biggest clients) so I'm forced to cater to its confuckery.

The day IE6 drops from our supported browser list on our contracts is the day we're all getting savagely liquored up and will be dancing naked in the streets.

[newsbean.livejournal.com]

It's slow, but it's moving. When the major search engines drop it.... Oh it will be a day of naked dancing in the streets with the booze flowing.

[delle.livejournal.com]

I watched the Today show last week about the SeaWorld incident - the reporter kept saying "KILLER WHALE" over and over... I ended up yelling at the TV he's an ORCA whale you idiot, "killer" was used when it was observed that Orcas will eat dolphins and seals".

::headdesk::

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

Ask me how badly I wanted that California politico to be my Congressman, Dana Rohrbacher. Really, about that much.

The ONLY redeeming feature that man has is that he has kept "B-1" Bob Dornan out of office in my district.

[i-amthecosmos.livejournal.com]

My feelings about the California Senator and how his supporters might view this:

I was raised Southern Baptist, and their view on things is that everyone is tempted constantly by the devil. (Although I did have a pastor once say that in most cases, we were so weak that it was only minor demons working on us-we weren't even special enough to get the devil's attention.)

Anyway, a lot of born again Christians believe the world is a constant source of sin and temptation. They won't think in terms of "this guy is closeted" but "the devil tempted him with alcohol and sex with a man." And then they relate that to whatever they personally are tempted by, and forgive him. Because they're all being tempted. The vast majority of them don't believe that gayness is part of someone's identity, so it's only sin. And all sins are equal (or supposed to be).

So his religious base, for the most part, will forgive him, except for the few who realize they've been burned too many times.

[98.livejournal.com]

I am sure you are right but have they no trouble with the notion of a (allegedly) straight guy being tempted by sex with a man? My naive understanding of temptation is that the devil should offer you something you should not do but want to. Tempting with something you do not want seems ineffective whether you should or should not do it.

[sethg]

The AFA is using a Biblical verse referring to an ox as proof for their argument regarding how SeaWorld should treat a killer whale? That doesn’t seem like a very literal reading of the Bible to me. And what about Paul’s assertion that the whole point of Jesus’ arrival was to free everyone from having to worry about all these pesky “Old Testament” regulations?

Christianity is a very confusing religion.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

The OT smitey God is very popular with fundies like the AFA. He's much closer to their personal style than that longhaired hippie dude who went about preaching love and forgiveness and hanging around with social outcasts.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

don't forget being an unemployed carpenter giving away free food and alcohol...

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

I always find the discussions about gendered nouns in the English language fascinating, because here feminism is doing the opposite thing—insist on and create female forms, since the original male forms aren't seen as gender neutral, but distinctly male, and coming from a time when these professions simply weren't open to women, so female forms are supposed to increase equality, awareness and visibility. There's even a semi-official new grammatical form for plural nouns. But of course German is a much more gendered language to begin with...

[abnormal-apathy.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Miami where only the REALLY beautiful are allowed into the upper echelon of clubs (think Mansion, Space, etc.) but even that is beginning to be relaxed. In a time where everybody needs to make money and fewer people are willing to spend it, I've definitely found club rules have relaxed. We went to DC a few months ago specifically for a club event, and frankly, I was shocked by the fact that there is a bigger electronic music scene there than in Boston (and that I had to drive like 6+ hours to be able to dance to any big name DJ).

[habiliments.livejournal.com]

That gender-neutral Oscars article makes me cringe for one reason: It imagines that we live in a non-sexist world. "Today, the number of female-run production companies, female directors and great roles for women continues to increase. Four of the five films represented in this year’s best actress category center on strong female characters." Well, that's great, but it's not going to make up for mountains' worth of ingrained sexism. The simple lack of female directing nominees in the award's history should make that clear.

All I see coming of that is the exact same arguments I saw for Publishers Weekly's all-male best books: What, you want a quota or something? All the best roles just happened to be performed by men!

It's a nice idea and all, but deeply unrealistic.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

I agree that the term "actor" should not be gendered, but I fear that if the Oscars stopped having seperate categories for women and men, then very few women would win -- because the most prominent roles in "serious" films go to men (and if a film is about women, it's often automatically designated as not-serious, and certainly not Oscar-worthy). And that would just play into the false narrative that people don't want to go to see movies about women.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly. I loved the idea of doing away with gender separations like this, but only if it wouldn't mean far fewer awards for women.

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

But are people taking the current awards for women seriously, or does the industry just think of them as minor league prizes even when women turn in performances that deserve to be recognized as the best of the year?

One specific reason that I'd appreciate a "Best Lead Performer" award from somebody is that, not being much a movie buff, I never know which Lead Actress nominations are actually from films that are about women. Frex, when Halle Berry won for her lead in Monster's Ball, did she really lead or is it a movie about men and she just made Billy Bob Thornton and the rest look extra shiny?

Re: same-sex marriage in DC

[amberite.livejournal.com]

The law survived Congressional attempts to block it, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Tuesday rejected a request from opponents of same-sex marriage to have the United States Supreme Court delay it.

*blink*

Okay, THAT'S surprising - unless there's something I don't quite understand about how these interactions go (which might easily be true.)

Digging turned up this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/02/AR2010030201811.html


So it sounds like there's a tradition of deferring to local government and he didn't want to go against it. Hmm.

Re: same-sex marriage in DC

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, state's rights are a big deal with the current crop of conservative Supremes. I wouldn't even fall out of my chair if they ruled that DOMA was unconstitutional if the question ever comes before them. Of course, a decision similar to Loving v Virginia would have to be several generations away for the same reason.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Anti-gay California politician arrested on DUI charges after leaving a gay bar with another man.

I'd love to see figures on the percentage of openly anti-LGBT politicians who have been found to be closet cases. I suspect that even just the stats on the % who have been caught would be fairly large.

the AFA's post about how the killer whale that killed should be stoned to death.

Wow, those people are not just vile, they are actually completely insane.

[gement.livejournal.com]

In fairness, they never actually advocated stoning the whale, and while they referenced the biblical statute for killing the owner, they did not call for the death penalty to be exercised against any human.

While I don't take scripture as a source for legal advice, what I got from the article was a relatively sane "If an animal you own kills someone, it's your responsibility to put it down." It's funnier to say they called for stoning a whale, but it's not actually what I read in the article.

[threewalls]

Have you seen this latest example of LJ hoodwinking their userbase (ad revenues/privacy concerns)? - http://caffeinepuppy.livejournal.com/214632.html

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I've shut it off on mine, and I've heard LJ has since fixed it? I can't quite collage all the useful links in a way that makes a coherent story to send around to epople -- I'm hoping osmeone else will do it by morning.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I wodner at these closeted homophobic politicians - how stupid are they? DO they think we won't find out? Do they think they won't be called on it? It's not just homophobia and hypocrisy - it's stupidity and homophobia and hypocrisy